The Blind Date
"Friendly Fred" the used car dealer
Baseball for the United Brethren
Notes:
By Jay Sharbutt
The Associated Press
October 1978
"Jean Shepherd-once told of a kid who got his first job in a steel mill and
learned to dream the American dream -- of the beautiful future, the glorious
past, and the crummy now."
That was in "Phantom of the Open Hearth," the wryly funny PBS television
drama he wrote and narrated. Aired in 1976, it hailed blue-collar life in
"the great inverted bowl of darkness" -- the Midwest.
Now the Chicago-born maestro of Americana is at it again with a new version
of "Phantom" he's making at 20th Century-Fox Television as a movie for ABC.
It could become a weekly series."
Thanks to John Shepherd (No Relation)
Cast:
The only people
from the original PBS production are Barbara Bolton as "Mom", William
Lampley as "Flick" and Leigh Brown who switched roles from "Lovely
Arlita" to "Mrs. Kissel"
