Forgotten Television
Forgotten Television
The White Shadow Revisited
Forgotten Television
Forgotten Television Episode 3
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Flashback Focus: The White Shadow's Forgotten Gems
Carlos and Joe open with a recap of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ playoff exit, attributing it to being worn down, tough matchup issues (including Wembanyama), limited Edwards, and a sharp drop in paint attempts, then discuss offseason uncertainty around Julius Randle, Jaden McDaniels, Naz Reid, and how to better surround Anthony Edwards. They transition to their The White Shadow rewatch, starting season one with trivia that the show never states Carver High’s team nickname (sometimes dubbed “The Peanuts” online). They review episode 2 (“Here’s Mud in Your Eye”) as an After School Special–style alcoholism story involving Jackson, Coach Reeves speaking with Jackson’s minister father, and an elaborate locker-room confrontation, plus note annoying 1970s-style plot previews, a “lid of marijuana” reference, and that the actor still works. They discuss episode 3’s romance with a TV sports personality, Reeves’ $250/week salary, the “ghetto” language, Gomez’s hibachi shoplifting and probation setup, a Casablanca homage, and decide to research episode 4 (“Bonus Baby”) for next week.
00:00 Welcome Back Catch Up
00:19 Wolves Season Postmortem
01:13 Offseason Roster Questions
02:33 Back To White Shadow
02:45 Carver High Trivia
03:42 Episode Two Drinking Story
05:10 Annoying Episode Previews
06:59 Coach And Jacksons Dad
08:42 Free Throw Locker Room Ruse
11:13 Seventies Gym And Lid Slang
13:13 Episode Three Babe Of Week
14:56 Gomez Call And Ghetto Talk
18:27 Baretta Memories And Cast
20:57 Christmas Airdate Casablanca Nod
22:30 Saving Episode Four For Research
23:47 Sports Talk Pickleball Tease
24:44 Wrap Up And Next Week
Hey, great to see you. Joe Riley, how you doing? I'm good, Carlos. Welcome. It's glad to be back here since a week ago, and I'm proud to say all four episodes have now been watched, and nostalgia had a need has been filled.
SPEAKER_00There's so many things that I want to talk about that just you see them, just little things, and it's just it's so anachronistic. But before we get started on the White Shadow, we gotta talk about I'll say our wolves. I'm not a I'm not a basketball guy, but I've adopted the wolves along with your love for them. And sadly their season's over, so give me uh a non-basketball fan a rundown of what happened, and now what do they do? Season's over. What's the plan?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think from two things, it seems like they got worn down. They ran out of gas. The having to play against somebody like Wembenyama really affected a lot of players and how they could play, how they could shoot. Randall did not have a very good series, particularly, and Edwards obviously was limited because of his injuries, but we just didn't have the get up and go. So I think I think I saw heard a stat last night was in the Denvers series, 40% of our shots were in the paint. In the San Antonio series, it was 20%.
SPEAKER_00So d so do does that mean that next year the Wolves are gonna have to do a better job of load management, if that is still the euphemism for giving guys days off?
SPEAKER_01We'll see about that. I'm more wondering who's gonna be on the team next year. So is Julius Randall still around, is a question. And then who knows? I don't think Jaden McDaniels is untouchable, I think. And then Nas Reed. I don't know. It's gonna be an interesting offseason. I think it's all gonna be predicated too on who can we surround Ant with to make him better. I don't know, for Rudy, Rudy hit plays really well. He didn't match up well against the Spurs, apparently. So I'd be curious to see what happens this offseason, but I'm a fan, and usually I like to go to one away game each year. So I didn't go this year because I went to Germany, but I think I'll see where we'll see how they do this here offseason, what the next year holds. But San Antonio deserved it. They played well, and so they're one and two seed Oklahoma City versus San Antonio.
SPEAKER_00For basketball fans, that's gotta be the one people have had penciled on their calendar for since the playoffs began, probably.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, so that's good. But no, it's I pay I don't have to watch Sunday now. That's the only good thing.
SPEAKER_00There you go, exactly. Exactly. We can lock in a podcasting time that is not subject to the bit the vagaries of the NBA schedule.
SPEAKER_01There we go.
SPEAKER_00You and I, we've done two episodes already. We talked about our series, The White Shadow, we talked about the pilot, and now we're gonna go into season one, if that's cool with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very good.
SPEAKER_00But before we get started there, I want to hit you with some white shadow trivia.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00All right, everybody knows that it is Carver High, and also they'll let us know it is Washington Carver High School. What is their nickname?
SPEAKER_01Ooh, I should know this. Washington Carver Sentinels? No, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00You know what? They never say the team nickname. So online communities have dubbed them the peanuts, given that they're Washington Carver High. But every single piece of clothing and uniform just says Carver on it. It does not say it does not say, you know.
SPEAKER_01The trick trivia question, but I like it.
SPEAKER_00Trick trivia question. I feel like at what point do you ask it? Because even then you'd be like, I should know this. At a certain point in time, you've watched enough shows, you're like, oh, wait a minute, maybe they don't have a name. Yep, very good. All right. Episode two is very timely. Back when you and I were uh young folks, they were these things that they would feed us children in the afternoon called the ABC After School Special.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
SPEAKER_00Remember there was an after school special about drinking.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00It felt like episode two of season one with our man Jackson, episode titled Here's Mud in Your Eye. Felt like an afterschool special about drinking.
SPEAKER_01It did. Jackson reluctant to kind of get involved onto the team. And I thought the the way that they handled his drinking problem was pretty curious and pretty personal, right? So they got some sort of they got an act, they had somebody come in from the outside to talk to him one-on-one, which in today's world that would be a big deal if something like that would happen.
SPEAKER_00But you know what? In today's world, we are all culturally aware of 12-stepping and alcoholics anonymous and stuff. I think back in the 70s, it was still uh alcoholism, still was we were barely out of the madman era.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And drinking was a natural part. I I I started my career, my very first non-restaurant adult job as an intern was working for lobbyists. And many of the law firms I worked at, there definitely was a bottle in the bottom drawer of the partner's desk, and it would come out. In a certain sense, like I said, so I I I try to give the show grace from a timing standpoint. I thought that was well done, but I did notice, and I want to back up here real quick, something that they do on these episodes, which bugs me.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00When when people could first start buying DVDs or then streaming, they figured out that people really don't want to see the credits, you know, and you skip credits and this and that. One thing I didn't, I guess I just didn't remember that they did was the preview before the show. They do that on the episodes that I'm watching, where you're basically getting 45-second synopsis of the entire show at the top. Hey, I'll lay out the whole plot. And I just thought, well, I don't know if that was unique to White Shadow, or but I find it very annoying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I know this. I think that was a lot of those shows in the 70s, they would do that. Like McMillan and Wife, I remember that kind of a thing, which was another kind of forgotten television there, too. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00That one actually might be you know, we'll have to look because there was a uh McMillan and wife was a rotating series with other shows. It had a time spot. Oh like with Barnaby Jones or something. There was one who was related to the McMillan and wife and was part of the one where they this week it'll be McMillan and wife. Uh the other one was, oh God, what was his name? McLeod. McLeod. And you know, he'd be on his horse in the middle of Manhattan.
SPEAKER_01Yep, remember that very well. Weaver, right? Dennis Weaver.
SPEAKER_00We will put polls for our fans that don't yet know, they're huge fans of our podcast. Polls up to see what shows, but I think those are both very good shows, very obscure shows that maybe you and I and a couple people we know may remember, which makes it perfect for us.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. But no, and I thought that the Jackson when the coach went to Jackson's dad who was a minister.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I thought that was a very true and very real discussion about what a dad, yeah, his relationship was with his kid, not setting aside the context, but just in general, even in that time, that era.
SPEAKER_00It yeah, that's awfully hard, right? Not I'm not a parent, so I always, whenever I venture across that line, I say that, but it must be very hard line to cross between defending my child. Yeah, is this person coming and attacking my child? Or are they coming with wanting to help my child and accepting it as help was the healthy way that the dad took it as opposed to now you'd be afraid of lawsuits or whatever, this or that. But I think that's one of the things that we talked about, and maybe we're reading way too much into it, and probably we probably spent way too much money on expensive education, both of us combined, that we get into this analysis. But Ken Reeves kind of had a special relationship when he was a unique character, and he would not go to the counselor this or that. He's like, Oh, this kid looks like he has a problem. Let's talk to his dad. Yep. Which is the way a normal non-teacher person, non-person that's been coached by district lawyers and stuff would handle the situation. I would argue the healthy way to handle it, but it was good. So he went to the dad, although then the dad was no longer involved. Didn't know the kid has a drinking problem, but getting him therapy and stuff. Let's leave that up to the basketball coach.
SPEAKER_01Yep, and then dad was like, we don't really have that great of a relationship. He's gone his own way, and you know, so you can see kind of that a little bit in the in there. But it was, I found that particular episode there was the philosophy of the free throw.
SPEAKER_00There was all part of a all part of an elaborate, I call it almost Scooby-Doo Askaroos. All confronted him and they all come out from somewhere in the dark locker room.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00So I think it's you know, as no one's defending you. It's free.
SPEAKER_01That was a sort of a great television lost and forgotten soliloquy by a basketball, fake basketball coach. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now he did something at the very beginning of the episode, the very first practice. He does something I never had a basketball coach. You probably had. I think I had a gym teacher that did it that would start everything by unleashing the bag of basketballs all over the place. But he does it and then does an introduction that all of us from our era had coaches start the practice with. Hello, ladies. Yep. Yep. And I remember a football coach way back where we were ladies until the day before game day, and I called you gentlemen today, because you guys had a good week of practice of gentlemen. And this is how we're gonna play. I would hope that is not what is handled nowadays.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I recall ladies, I he was referred to them as animals. Animals, yeah, a few times. Yeah, he said he did.
SPEAKER_00He called them an animal, yeah, he did, and I just kind of said, in the context, it's okay, because it in the context of his relationship with the players, he really is developing. Obviously, you don't know how much time has passed, but there there is a bond that's developing, and we see that thinking back of a bunch of kids are gonna work with the coach to help with their where they're like, oh Nice doesn't have a problem, because I've had I've had people in my life who've had problems with chemical dependency, and I was fully aware of it the whole time. And I've had acquaintances where unless I had heard, I would never have known. Yeah, they're functional enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it seems like we that episode kind of ends, and it's and there's no conclusion he's going to counseling with that lady. We never see her, at least in the next two episodes, we haven't.
SPEAKER_00And then you pointed out, the captain of the Voyager, Kate Maum Roon.
SPEAKER_01Is it I th I think it is? I might have to double check that. It looks like her.
SPEAKER_00Almost positive. It looks like her, but yeah, she was much older when she was a captain. So I think it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we'll have to double check the butt. Yeah, it was it was that was an interesting episode and one that sort of ends, and he seems fine after, but then we'll have to see where we at on episode five or wherever we're at.
SPEAKER_00So uh a couple other little tiny things I noticed in that episode one. I just kind of got a kick out of the fact that in the corner of the gym, right in the corner along the sidelines, there's a pommel horse. Oh I just found that just to be good touched by the staging department or whatever they call the folks that have to put that in there. And then they mentioned something that I remember hearing in my youth, probably on Chichin Chung videos, but I've never experienced in real life. At some point in the episode, someone mentions a quote unquote lid of marijuana.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_00I've heard that in cultural references, the drug unit called a lid.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I couldn't tell you either.
SPEAKER_00But I do not know how much that is, if that's a lot, or if that's a little, and I was someone that was involved in experimentation when I was a youth, but never at the lid level. Maybe that was an LA thing.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Maybe that was for your bigger users or something, but I did notice that and think I still to this day don't know what a lid is. If only there was a way in 2026 for me to find out what that means.
SPEAKER_01There you go. All right.
SPEAKER_00Anything else on uh There's Mud in Your Eye?
SPEAKER_01So just that the actor who plays Jackson, he is still acting. As of 2024, he has a credit. He was in Dolomite. My name is Dolomite, the Eddie uh.
SPEAKER_00I have not seen that. And I've heard a lot of the backstory, but have not seen it.
SPEAKER_01So he is he's in that and he splits his time between, according to this according to IMDB, between Hollywood and St. Louis. So still alive, still acting. I didn't catch an age, but uh so that's one for the plus column of the uh who's been there a lot.
SPEAKER_00That actually I will have to spend more time on it, but I think that maybe the cast was older, but they did not have kind of the horrific backstories that many casts carry with them of young people.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, but that's about episode two, and that moves to episode three, which is quite the intriguing episode.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is. I also am wondering, and I am going to use this phrase because we're talking about a 70s show, but after the doctor and then the sports producer on this one, I'm wondering if somebody, Bruce Paltrow or somebody running the show said, Hey, we need a babe of the week.
SPEAKER_01This is true.
SPEAKER_00There uh it was uh and by the way, I don't know what the local sports shows, but she's driving a Lotus Turbo Esprit, which in the 70s is like the James Bond car. So she's doing well for herself.
SPEAKER_01It was a very interesting episode where we learn how much Ken makes, which is $250 a week or $1,000 a month or $12,000 a year. And then so I thought that was quite interesting. Obviously, we'd never really kind of hear what she is making. No, but I thought that their relationship really because obviously it's an hour show, all sped up into that they were a couple in that particular episode. But I think that is it believable that he would stay at the school uh and coach, but and the only thing I thought was that and they're having dinner together, and when he talks about coaching, he did a very good job and kind of showing how powerful coaching was versus a commentary. So I thought that was pretty good. I liked his TV commentary that he predicted correctly.
SPEAKER_00I like we've already discussed kind of thing on the first episode, you gotta suspend belief a little bit to say NBA player to high school basketball coach, and and not elite prep school graduate, you know, uh five-star candidates, but inner city LA. You gotta suspend belief on that. Once you do, he does bond. I nobody feels worse for him for uh ghosting Gomez in the episode. One of the things that happens is he's he's being pursued, he's being seduced into a potentially lucrative or definitely much more lucrative sports announcing slash personality, career. And in doing that, he's in a time crunch and he misses a call from Gomez. And what he doesn't realize, he's I can't deal with this now, and it was Gomez's one phone call.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yep.
SPEAKER_00As rizzed out as Gomez was with their fancy new uniforms that they got for Reeves agreeing to be on the Where Are They Now segment. Yep, yeah, he ends up, and like I said, I think that Reeves is just devastated by that.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, and that was kind of a poignant thing. And the one thing I always thought about this episode, and it had been referenced before, but they kept saying the word ghetto.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Ghetto high school, yeah, ghetto, they live in the ghetto, this is the ghetto, and it and it was and it was jarring for somebody from 2026 where maybe it wasn't would be so jarring in 2018.
SPEAKER_00Well, and it would have been a little jarring too because did we have a ghetto? Where it's like going, I do you remember a guy who was the Minneapolis police chief in the 80s by the name of Tony Boza? I remember the guy who came from New York. Yeah, he came from New York. I got to know him pretty well, and he got to know my parents just through he was a speaker at a dinner and he sat down with my parents and was talking this and that. But his favorite thing was in the 80s, there's crack and there was money to be made, and there were gang wars and this and that, and him coming from New York, he would laugh. He said, This does not have a gang problem. You know, you guys do not. So it's if I asked Tony Boza in 1986 or 1970s, is does Minneapolis have a ghetto? He would say no. But it is, have you ever heard one of my favorite road trip things to do is to do sing-alongs with my significant other. And uh Elvis is always really fun for that. That's the same thing. You pick up like an Elvis number ones or number twos album and you get in the ghetto.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00And it's very jarring. You're right. It is jarring to hear that word, but it's referred to as that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a very poignant song. The circle in a bad way of life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. But ghetto to me seems because as I was getting older, my dad would always say, get a haircut, you look like a hippie. I'm like, Dad, nobody uses that word anymore. It's like, ghetto. It's that word even used by anyone anymore.
SPEAKER_01That's a good point. It's a good point. And yeah, and it was your, as you called it. This is your favorite. Gomez was in jail because of your his famous hibachi. Was one of the items. I was struck that only cost 13 bucks.
SPEAKER_00And the hibachi stove is like a little tiny square grill.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a grill. He tried to shoplift a grill.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And the total was the price was $13 that he stole his probation officer read off. Oh my god. But that was pretty good. And then Reeves kind of saying I'll be in charge of him. It's not really defined. There's no paper signed. There's he's not living with him. So I just thought that was interesting. And then the guy I liked that I was kept looking at on the screen, kind of like we talked about Kate.
SPEAKER_00Where do I know him from is a lot of what you're playing on this show.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so Edward Grover, who played the agent or the producer guy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He was in his biggest show that I remember, and I was like, where do I know this guy from? So I had to look it up. He was Lieutenant Brewbaker in Beretta.
SPEAKER_00Oh my God, yes!
SPEAKER_01Oh, 35 episodes. He played Lieutenant Brewbaker. And I just vague, I I couldn't tell you exactly what the interaction was in between and Beretta, but it was it was quite that remember that show distinctly from back then.
SPEAKER_00Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, Joe. I mean That's right. Truer words were never spoken on network TV.
SPEAKER_01And that was one of the greatest theme songs.
SPEAKER_00It was, it was, and having a cockatoo. But it was having an exotic pet was a big thing in the 70s from Greg Evigan riding around with a monkey. Actually, Clint Eastwood riding around with a monkey.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Beretta had his bird.
SPEAKER_01Yep, that was cool. I remember watching that Beretta and saying, ooh, I want to see the bird. I want to see the bird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. But it was good.
SPEAKER_01And then he was also in probably another show that I have not thought about since it aired. It was he was he only did one episode, but it was a show called I Shide, which was a cop show from New York starring Joe Don Baker.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I remember Joe Don Baker, sure.
SPEAKER_01But Eyeshide, I disremember the name. I can't remember anything about it, but it was that's another law.
SPEAKER_00You know where my brain went is uh in that era, late 70s, the Minnesota Vikings had a punter by the name of Mike Eichide.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, that's right. Maybe that's what I'm which maybe that's what I'm kind of confusing it with. Wait a minute. Was this guy the former punter, the Viking?
SPEAKER_00That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01But I just remember, wow, I kind of remember that, but maybe I'm confusing it with the punter. That's a good point, Carlos. Never thought about that.
SPEAKER_00That is one of those I'm fascinated by memory and how brains work. I've done a lot of research since my dad with his illness and just how the brain works is fascinating to me. And the fact that I have a little a synapse somewhere in this big noggin that remembers the name of an obscure punter of the Vikings is like going. That's great. There isn't no evolutionary advantage to having that piece of information. Unless you're doing a White Shadow podcast, in which case it's a handy anecdote.
SPEAKER_01This particular episode three, another thing I noted was it was Christmas Day it aired.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which I thought was kind of weird, and then they threw it back to his I think it was Kevin Hooks. I forget the character. Oh no, I'm blanking on his character that he plays. But they were walking down the street and they did a little homage to uh Casablanca.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes, that was some assistant producer who got to direct on that side since she said, you know what? Yep, that was that I thought that same thing, but I forgot to include it in my notes.
SPEAKER_01I bet you in 1978 that would have gone right over my head.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. Yep.
SPEAKER_01And when I saw that, I was like, oh wow, I didn't get this in 1978. But I really enjoyed that episode, and I obviously Reeves has to uh stay. Uh we know he's gonna stay, but I I think they made it fairly suspension of belief, but it's fairly believable. He's really we there's really another stake in the ground that is bonding with the kids.
SPEAKER_00This is a this is a credit to Ken Howe. I really believe that the character they created. No, I've seen more of it, right? So I don't know how much of it is built in and how much of it is early on, but he really does have a relationship. It's like you guys are a bunch of goofballs, but you're my damn goofballs, right? You know what I mean? Where it's like he really I feel like the way the show is done, I really believe that character cares about his players.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I agree. I agree. And then is there anything else in episode three? Because I always found episode four kind of fascinating.
SPEAKER_00Episode four is fascinating. And I think that we hold that one off because I want to do a little research.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00I think that there was a market for that in the 70s, but I'd like to do a little research before we come back to that. We're we're pretty close once we add in the music to our kind of our goal is to make each episode about a car ride.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_00We want this to be a fun little diversion and not we'll hold off and we'll start next week with episode four, bonus baby. We'll get to see Warren Coolidge's head get bigger and bigger, which I think is a theme throughout the the series that we'll see again.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep. And and he, as all of the actors on screen, other than Howard, has the biggest presence and the most and I I think him he as an actor in that role was great, and we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he was good. He I I remember seeing him in so many different things, but the other series I remember seeing him, he was the dad of Jill Hennessy, where the one where Jill Hennessy was uh coroner in Boston. Oh, yeah. Anyways, her fo her father was played by Ken Howard in that show. I cannot remember the name of it, but real quick. You're still an NBA fan, so you'll still be watching the playoffs with not a card attached to it.
SPEAKER_01I will watch the games tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00And you're a baseball fan, so you're not in a total sports abyss.
SPEAKER_01No, and I the twins have won two out of three, two out of three. I don't know how they did last night.
SPEAKER_00Ryan was pitching two, I think. I don't remember. Yeah, but yeah, so you're not in the total sports abyss. I just didn't know if one of the things that we were gonna eventually get to here is if we can't do one of these and you can we can record Carlos's first pickleball experience.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anytime on the court for the first time and see if I can pick up pickleball. That would be fun.
SPEAKER_01I would that'd be great. Yeah, I just I played this morning, so that's why I'm so casual. Good thing this is radio, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00I have a face for radio, so that's why this will be an audio-only podcast until the budget goes way up.
SPEAKER_01There we go.
SPEAKER_00All right, Joe, on that note, it's been fun. Another week here talking about television that the world has forgotten, and one of our favorite shows, the White Shadow.
SPEAKER_01There we go. Yep. Good to you. We'll go at it next week. All right, sounds good, Joe. We'll talk to you soon. Bye now.
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