So a coupla updates: First, our personal nightmare with image sharing is over; second, our site was completely down overnight yesterday but has now been restored. Yay us. Better late than never, so they say.
And if you happen to have a reaaaally good memory or simply couldn’t help clicking on the above link you might remember we used that phrase intentionally because it titled a musing from a few days back where we heaped praise on a book written by a professional colleague when I was momentarily mistaken that the one I originally wanted to focus on that was actually published this year was not yet available on Kindle. It indeed is, and I will tell you upfront it’s a way better story and authored by someone who checks out a lot better with his colleagues than the one I mused about Sunday does. And unlike the other one, we’re certain he’s alive and actually draws universal praise. Again, adjective chosen carefully.
Terrence McDonnell, or if you’re fortunate enough to be his friend he will allow you to reference him as Terry, is as accomplished and experienced as anyone I’ve ever crossed paths with. By the time I first him roughly two decades ago he had settled into a career as a much sought after game show question writer with an encyclopedic knowledge about just about any subject you could throw at him. Terry knows what he knows and will make sure you know he does–not condescendingly unless provokd, but convincingly in any circumstance. We share those qualities, so when I see them in others being manifested to great personal benefit I’m both immediately respectful and even a little envious. Since he has five more Emmy awards and one more George Peabody award than I do, those reactions are intensified.
But as it turns out Terry was merely on the third of three acts–to date–of a remarkable career that has spanned more than a half-century and actually began to take off when he and his late writing partner Jim Carlson were authoring some of Universal Television’s more well-remembered and epic series from the 1970s–most prominently THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and its spinoff THE BIONIC WOMAN as well as one of the most financially ambitious and underperforming gambits of the era, the original BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA. If you’re neither seasoned nor geeky enough to be familiar with these titles, at least know that to this day there are plenty of people that are–and thanks to the multigenerational presence of uberfans in the sci-fi realm they know McConnell and Carlson as prolific contributor to this worlds, serving as story editors and authors of dozens of episodes at a time when teenagers’ bedrooms were adorned with Lee Majors or Lindsay Wagner’s (depending upon which way you rolled) toned physiques in supposed cyborg glory or the stoic presence of Lorne Greene as the original Captain Adama leading the GALACTICA crew. The reboots to the series that were showrun by my old Sony colleague Ron Moore that dominated cable TV in later decades lasted longer and are much more familiar to younger generations but even Moore has confessed his enduring love for the prematurely cancelled OG B:G–a victim of being one of the first broadcast network series to have a $1M-per-hour series budget and an $8M budget for a pilot that never quite got fully amortized. It was expected to be the successor to STAR TREK and the companion to STAR WARS in terms of global cultural zeitgeist. Instead, it’s remembered by even its staunchest supporters as perhaps miscasting someone still best known at that time for his days on the Ponderosa in BONANZA–ubiquituous in daily reruns–as a pale imitation of Captain Kirk and/or Han Solo. 
But 47 years removed from that debacle the warmer memories endure, and McDonnell relies upon his copious notes, treasure trove of physical memorabilia and that eidetic memory that has served his so well to retell that part of his life, which as the book jacket enumerates encompasses more than a dozen more prime time series that also includes titles as diverse as THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS to THE LOVE BOAT. Plenty of those shows were eventually sold by the Universal sales team that Shelly Schwab once headed. Although I’m now much more inclined to believed that Terry might not have loved the deals that Shelly’s folks carved out for him. And as I’ve come to learn from others I reached out about whether Schwab was indeed alive, let’s merely say that any additional potential animosity toward him is, well, a bit more universal than I may have been firsy inclined to believe.
McDonnell also does a superior and exceptionally detailed-oriented recounting of how he even got to Hollywood in the first place. As the Amazon blurb offers, he’s a virtual Zelig on those merits:
TERRENCE MCDONNELL distinctly remembers the first TV set his parents ever bought… he takes you from the innocent small-town streets of Ohio (where he battled Martians as a boy) to the indifferent boulevards of Tinseltown (where he wrote science fiction as an adult), and from his discouraging years of struggling to a rewarding lifelong career. 
Memoirs of a Hollywood Unknown Book One is a passionate love letter to the entertainment industry, full of Hollywood history, hilarious backstage shenanigans, celebrity encounters (including Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Hatch, Dustin Hoffman, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Robert Wagner, the evil censors at ABC, Wolfman Jack, Alan (sic) Funt, and many others), and unexpected anecdotes told here for the first time.
You read that right, Book One. Because Terry has already had a storied second act working on dozens of children’s programs and he never did quite leave fully behind the game show world which he first entered even before his assignment on those Universal hours–working on the original version of THE JOKER’S WILD game show produced by the guy who served as an emcee for a very short-lived prime time movie trivia game show the previous summer called THE REEL GAME which McDonnell won enough spare cash on to tide himself over for a few more weeks in pursuit of those writing gigs. Incidentally, the executive who hired him and Carlson for that original SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN gig was also an alumnus of those very early JOKER’S WILD days. Proof positive that it’s indeed who you know and you need to be prepared to be on your best game any time you’re in an office, on a set or even on a bus potentially rubbing shoulders with someone who could be in the business.
Terry assures that Book Two–the kids’ section–will be out in January and Book Three–the game show edition–will be forthcoming next August. I’ve already started saving for them and I’m also setting a little aside in reserve. With McDonnell, who knows if by then a fourth act with eyes on a fourth book won’t have already started?
Until next time…