I remember some stunt guesting from my youth. On an episode of the old "Tarzan" series with Ron Ely (mid-'60s), Diana Ross and the Supremes appeared as three nuns from America who show up to do missionary work in Africa. I honestly don't remember if they sang in the episode or not. It was Diana Ross's first acting job.

I also remember boxing champ Floyd Patterson attempting an acting career in two shows: "The Wild Wild West" and "Daniel Boone," but that was it. As I recall, he wasn't bad at all, but for some reason it didn't take. (Patterson was the one who refused to call Muhammad Ali by his new name and when Ali was punching him and asking "What's my name?," Patterson, getting the crap beaten out of him, kept answering, "Cassius Clay." A brave man he was.)

Sugar Ray Robinson, another great boxer, tried an acting career also and guest-starred on a few shows.

Mike Tyson played himself on a couple of sitcoms ("Webster" and "Who's the Boss") and that would qualify as stunt guesting.

Thanks for the answers. I have never heard the term "Stunt guest star" before. I guess you learn something new every day! I can think of a few off the bat, now to keep my eyes open as I don't plan on watching those few!

I wonder if the best used would be South Park and George Clooney? *grins*

I've updated the Challenge Guidelines. I've made the language a little more specific on a couple of points and I've added an FAQ section. I hope these are helpful going forward! Let me know what else ought to be added.

Yes. It's the continuity that matters. The Lion King spawned Timon and Pumbaa so The Lion King counts for this challenge (something to consider during the Academy Awards overlap period).

This is one of the FAQs I've added to the revised Challenge Guidelines post, but to save you the trouble, such content doesn't officially count but is encouraged anyway as part of the celebration of the DVD format.

Although, now that I think about it, since there's no standardized counting method, I'm not sure what difference it would make since we're not concerned about anyone "padding" their stats. Thoughts?

Mister Peepers created the checklist, so in these matters I'll defer to him to clarify the original intent. That said, if I might take a whack at them...

Complete the series during the challenge. Otherwise, one could technically watch a series finale and argue they've "finished a series".

Someone big enough that they would have advertised that person's appearance as a big deal.

Remind me in December.

Also referred to as "stunt casting," but in this case is just someone who drops in.

Or more fun when it's a surprise! I always remember the Cosby episode when Dick Vitale and Jim Valvano appeared, but then that show had a lot of guest cameos. Stevie Wonder was another memorable one.

Finishing a season/series was meant starting and finishing during the challenge.

Stunt guest star, which has already been answered, it a show hiring someone well known for a small part. So basically the exact opposite of what The Simpsons does with it's celebrity episodes. George Clooney doing the voice of a dog in an episode of South Park is a decent example of what we're looking for.

Cooking sounds like a fine addition and I'll let our fabulous host make changes like that. I didn't even remember making the checklist/hosting this last year until I saw it mentioned.

Surprise guest appearances...there must have been dozens of these in my youth. That happened a lot on "I Love Lucy" where big stars popped up playing themselves. George Reeves as himself playing Superman was one, although I don't know if it was a surprise or not. Lucy dresses as Harpo Marx in another and the real Harpo shows up and she does the whole "mirror" gag with him. But was it a "surprise" or not? I wasn't around when those shows first aired, only when they ran in reruns and the promotional value of those stars insured that they were listed in TV Guide, even if they were originally meant to be surprises. But I can't think of any from first-run shows I saw as a youth, even though I can recall the experience of seeing shows where a surprise guest suddenly appeared and it was a genuine surprise. I'd hate to have to look this up. I'd prefer to remember it...

Sports stars and politicians used to pop up as themselves in sitcoms and the like. Members of the New York Yankees used to do this. I just looked up Yogi Berra and he was on "The Phil Silvers Show" (aka "Sergeant Bilko") as himself once. Was it a surprise? I wouldn't know.

Being Human (UK) is a lot better than it looks... so far...

Started this challenge by revisiting Gilmore Girls and Stargate SG-1. I realized that I had all of the seasons of both shows but haven't every watched my copies. I'm hoping to finish both this year is possible. However, that is a lot of Stargate, and if I remember correctly, it showcases both the best and worst science fiction has to offer.

Video/audio quality of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea S4 continues to be very high and episodes continue to be rather poor, or maybe I should say juvenile/silly. So far there've been only a couple I'd call "good". "Terror" is one of the best so far and is a spin on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers motif. A plant from outer space is taking over the crew and wanting to take over the world. It reminded me a bit of the Star Trek: TOS episode "This Side of Paradise" with the plant that sprays a spore into someone's face to take them over. This time it's a beam of light but the effect is similar. BUT, both lifted the general premis from a Outer Limits episode from S1 called "Specimen: Unknown". The visual effects and plot feels like it could have come from Star Trek S3 than VTTBOTS. But overall S4 has more in common with the somewhat silly plots of Lost in Space S3 than the more down to earth plot lines of VTTBOTS S1. As I watch this season I occasionaly wonder if many of these stories were intended for LIS but rejected for various reasons. As I continue with the season I'm trying to put myself in a mindset of a 9-12 year old boy as this seems to be the group the writers/producers are after. That's the age I was during the initial run and I recall really liking the episodes I was able to see back then. I've also watched a few with my 9 year old grandson who thinks these are great so... I guess I need to turn off my critical adult sensibilities and viewpoints and just enjoy the ride!

Oh yes that it true about Stargate. I just finished S1 yesterday and I've already seen some of the worse sci-fi has to offer.

Started Homeland last night (1st 2 ep.), everyone was right, this is GOOD.

I watched my first mini-series of the challenge: Tin Man (2007). When it first aired on SyFy, the student workers at the library where I worked raved about it. After finding it really cheap on BD, I was excited to watch it and was... underwhelmed. While some of the ideas were interesting, it was an odd mishmash of styles and plot points that didn't ever quite come together. I'm a big fan of Oz and its mythos and perhaps my expectations were too high. However, it just stayed entertaining enough to keep watching but not enough to be invested.

VTTBOTS S4 continues to amaze with the lack of polish/quality of the scripts. It's episode after episode of stock and recycled footage from prior episodes with a total disregard for science and physics. I watched one tonight that contains a "fair" script but is marred by the severe use of stock and other footage from past episodes. Had it not relied on what feels like 50% of the show being stock footage it would have received a higher rating from me. But it's a partially recycled script with just about every stock shot of the Flying Sub and Seaview that's ever been used in the series (as much as the Seaview "rocks" side to side this season the crew should have been turned to jelly long ago) along with a reuse of one of the monster-of-the-week creatures from S2 (and it was very lame in that episode) and a ray gun (where did *that* come from?) used a episode or two ago by aliens.

While it remains somewhat true to its apparently intended 9-12 year old male demographic I'm ready for it to be over. I'd always thought S3 of Lost in Space to have been a waste of the franchise with its monster-of-the-week, cheesy scripts, etc. but I'd not seen S4 of VTTBOTS. Move over, LIS S3, there's a new "bad" king and it's using your alien/monster suits! Richard Basehart seems to have lost all interest in the series at this point and is fairly wooden most of the time (he gets less and less screen time as the series continues and his reaction to the aliens/monsters is mostly non-existent - a "oh... *you* again or less) but I have to give kudos to David Hedison who gives it his all every week no matter how ridiculous the scripts/dialog. In fact the rest of the supporting cast who's allowed to speak does a mostly good job with the lines they are given. I have to believe they all saw the end coming and just decided to have fun no matter what.

I've had the ESPN mini-series, The Bronx Is Burning on DVD for a while now. I remember snagging it from a $5 assortment at Walmart a few years ago and I've been meaning to watch it ever since. Yesterday was a rough health day for me, so I wound up holing up on the couch and watched the entire series throughout the night.

The casting was terrific, particularly the three top-billed actors: John Turturro as Billy Martin, Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner and Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson. They evoke their real-life counterparts without resorting to mimicry, and they all three play well against one another. They did a great job recreating the aesthetics of 1977, and I'm sure the attention to detail reflects the research of the source material author, Jonathan Mahler.

There are two glaring problems with this mini-series, though.

The integration of actual footage doesn't work. It's so grainy that cutting from that footage to the newly produced footage is distracting. It's like watching the early Superman serial, where instead of even trying to fake Kirk Alyn flying as Superman, they showed an animated Superman and then cut back to Alyn "landing". Not only that, but the shots of the actors "playing" in a game are so obviously shot on a green screen set that it's laughable. The lighting isn't even remotely convincing.

To have been made more than a decade after Forrest Gump, it's embarrassing even on a TV network budget that there wasn't a better integration between original and produced footage. I understand it was their best budget-saving option and that the technological restrictions were pretty rough but the storytelling suffers all the same.

However bad all that is, I can forgive some of it just due to the logistics of what they were trying to accomplish. That leniency doesn't extend to the actual structure of the narrative. The Son of Sam investigation begins as a parallel story, but is never really connected at all to what's going on with the Yankees save a quick remark of Steinbrenner fretting that it would affect attendance. In theory, we're meant to get a sense of the atmosphere in New York City that summer, and there's plenty of archival news coverage and interviews to that effect, but without an actual point-of-view character, it just feels like filler material. With the killer apprehended in episode 5, "CAUGHT!", that entire plot comes to an abrupt end and we don't see any of those people again throughout the final three episodes.

I love baseball. It's the only sport that I enjoy. I tend to shy away from baseball-themed fiction, though, because it's generally fairly lame unless it's got Kevin Costner. There are a lot of things done right in The Bronx Is Burning, but there are also a lot of things that don't really work. I can't tell if it should have gone longer or been cut down, but clearly eight episodes was the wrong duration for this narrative.

I've had the ESPN mini-series, The Bronx Is Burning on DVD for a while now. I remember snagging it from a $5 assortment at Walmart a few years ago and I've been meaning to watch it ever since. Yesterday was a rough health day for me, so I wound up holing up on the couch and watched the entire series throughout the night.

The casting was terrific, particularly the three top-billed actors: John Turturro as Billy Martin, Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner and Daniel Sunjata as Reggie Jackson. They evoke their real-life counterparts without resorting to mimicry, and they all three play well against one another. They did a great job recreating the aesthetics of 1977, and I'm sure the attention to detail reflects the research of the source material author, Jonathan Mahler.

There are two glaring problems with this mini-series, though.

The integration of actual footage doesn't work. It's so grainy that cutting from that footage to the newly produced footage is distracting. It's like watching the early Superman serial, where instead of even trying to fake Kirk Alyn flying as Superman, they showed an animated Superman and then cut back to Alyn "landing". Not only that, but the shots of the actors "playing" in a game are so obviously shot on a green screen set that it's laughable. The lighting isn't even remotely convincing.

To have been made more than a decade after Forrest Gump, it's embarrassing even on a TV network budget that there wasn't a better integration between original and produced footage. I understand it was their best budget-saving option and that the technological restrictions were pretty rough but the storytelling suffers all the same.

However bad all that is, I can forgive some of it just due to the logistics of what they were trying to accomplish. That leniency doesn't extend to the actual structure of the narrative. The Son of Sam investigation begins as a parallel story, but is never really connected at all to what's going on with the Yankees save a quick remark of Steinbrenner fretting that it would affect attendance. In theory, we're meant to get a sense of the atmosphere in New York City that summer, and there's plenty of archival news coverage and interviews to that effect, but without an actual point-of-view character, it just feels like filler material. With the killer apprehended in episode 5, "CAUGHT!", that entire plot comes to an abrupt end and we don't see any of those people again throughout the final three episodes.

I love baseball. It's the only sport that I enjoy. I tend to shy away from baseball-themed fiction, though, because it's generally fairly lame unless it's got Kevin Costner. There are a lot of things done right in The Bronx Is Burning, but there are also a lot of things that don't really work. I can't tell if it should have gone longer or been cut down, but clearly eight episodes was the wrong duration for this narrative.

Didn't watch much yesterday as I had a dentist appt in the morning along with blood work, so was a busy morning, and I didnt get home till afternoon. But I did manage to watch an episode of David Attenborough's Wildlife Specials on Netflix when I got home, and caught some Looney Tuneslater that evening. And before I went to bed topped off the evening with an ep of Diner's, Drive Ins and Dives. I made up for yesterday by starting early this morning though. Watched an ep of Witchblade. Though I found out as I was looking at my Horror Challenge list, it was an episode I had watched for the Horror Challenge. Oh well, at least it was the last episode I watched for that challenge.

Hey everybody, look what I found!

ABC Movie of the Week Channel on YouTube. Here's a link to the playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?anno...id=0-RS1SN8-zE

88 complete TV movies made from 1969-1976.
The two Kolchak movies with Darren McGavin that preceded the TV series are there: "Night Stalker" and "Night Strangler." Also, "Trilogy of Terror" with Karen Black.

I saw quite a few of them when they first aired.

Fortunately you can space some of it out and still get "credit" in the action and sci-fi challenges.

Y'know, I saw you list that title and I couldn't remember what it was. This refreshes my memory of when it was new and I was thinking about watching it. Not sure if I ever will but who knows.

My Buffy quest continues! I'm approaching the end of season 2 and just watched episode 17, "Passion." I also decided to start filling out the checklist for the first time in a few challenges because I think I'll have a chance at enough volume to make a dent in it. But I figured there were a few entries I wouldn't be able to achieve.

Thank you so much for posting this link, I think I will be making some use out of this, as I look everywhere for things to watch for these challenge. DVDs, Crackle, Hulu, netflix, Youtube, as well as just plain Dish network on tv. Found some Looney Tunes on Youtube as well. Classic, New and Baby Looney Tunes as well.

Finished Mildred Pierce this morning. What a great mini-series and more proof of how great an actress Kate Winslet is.

I've had this in my shopping cart for forever but it was always at $25. Recently I went to my cart and was notified that the item had just risen from $17.99 to $25.

Was Victory At Sea originally aired on tv? I own it and I get the feeling it was a documentary tv show aired back in the 60s from the feel of it, but can't prove it, so can anyone answer this for sure?

I have two quick questions on completing the checklist. First, for a tv series from the 30's I was going to watch a popeye short as he was featured in a couple of tv series. Is this acceptable? Also, I assume that an episode of Moonlighting would cover the "will they or won't they", is this correct?

Yes, it was originally a TV series and ran for 26 weeks on NBC from 1952-53.

When in doubt, go to IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046658/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1