Q. In the 1950s, I saw a black-and-white movie about a young boy, about 12, who was a Boy Scout. He and the scoutmaster were out hiking and a rainstorm came after they had gone to sleep. The scoutmaster was washed over a hill and caught in some brush while in his sleeping bag, and the boy had to go for help. That movie scene still haunts me.
A.That sounds like the climax of the 1953 film “Mister Scoutmaster,” with Clifton Webb, who was famous for playing Mr. Belvedere in several movies around the same time. He plays a Belvedere-like TV host of a children’s program who becomes a reluctant scoutmaster in order to get closer to real-life kids. The cast also includes Edmund Gwenn, Frances Dee and George “Foghorn” Winslow, a child actor of the era who had a freakishly deep voice.
You can relive the trauma — “Mister Scoutmaster” is on DVD. (Hint: It ends happily.)
Q. There used to be a game show in which contestants had to answer questions while hooked up to lie detectors. The more questions they answered honestly, the more money they won. But with more money, the questions got more personal and harder. If they answered one question wrong, they lost all the money. I have not seen this show for a long time. Did it get canceled?
A. The show you are referring to is “The Moment of Truth,” which ran on Fox from 2008-2009. Mark Wahlberg was the host. Before the show, each contestant was hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked 50 questions. The contestant did not know how he or she scored on them. Then on the show, the contestant was asked 21 of those questions. Answering all 21 correctly would result in a jackpot of $500,000, but during the show’s controversial run, no one reached that level.
Q. Some TV shows have up to eight types of producers, some of whom are actors on the show. What do all these people do?
A. Loosely speaking, a producer of a TV show has control over the show’s creative direction. Most producers are writers — they may write complete scripts, or just offer suggestions when scenes need help. Some producers are known as “show runners” — they are much more hands-on regarding the week-to-week production of the series. And, as you say, some stars are also listed as producers, such as Alec Baldwin on “30 Rock.” Usually, this is a way to feed a star’s ego and give them an extra piece of the show.
Q. I have been watching reruns of “The Sopranos” and I love the home they live in. Is this someone’s real-life home or just a set?
A. The house where Tony Soprano lived leads a double life. Its exterior is a real-life house located in North Caldwell, N.J. You can Google the exact street address — if I list it here, the millions of people who read this column will storm the place. The interiors, however, existed in a studio — the Silvercup Studios in Queens, N.Y., to be exact.
Q. I recently watched an episode of the 1960s TV show “The Green Hornet.” One of the actors looked an awful lot like Nicolas Cage. Could he have been his dad?
A. Nope. Cage’s dad was named August Coppola, and he was a literature professor. Show business does run in the family, however — August’s brother is director Francis Ford Coppola and their sister is actress Talia Shire, who played Connie in the “Godfather” movies and Adrian in the “Rocky” movies.
Q. I’m looking for the name of a movie I saw years ago. It included a song with the lyrics: “Yabba dabba do said the monkey to the chimp.”
A. Those lyrics are from a song called “Aba Dabba Honeymoon,” featured in a 1950 film called “Two Weeks with Love.” The stars of the movie were Jane Powell and Ricardo Montalban, but the song was performed by a couple of newcomers named Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter.
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