In watching "The Puppetmaster" again, I noticed (for the FIRST time...I didn't catch it the first time) that when Brian is up on the catwalk, playing "puppeteer" and acting like he's operating strings, he starts singing "The Lonely Goatherd" from "The Sound Of Music"!

This COMPLETELY cracked me up, and reminded me of that other episode where Joe opens the blinds in his office, catches Brian spying on Joe and Helen with that mirror-pole, and Brian starts rambling off lines from "The Wizard Of Oz".

These "old movie" references and ramblings made by Brian are VERY funny, but you really have to listen closely to hear them...most of the time they're being drowned out by the studio audience's laughter...and at times it almost seems like they're being ad-libbed by Steven Weber (although I don't know if that's the case).

Anyway, it pays to pay close attention to the antics and comments of Brian, especially in the early episodes....there's a lot of funny stuff there that almost gets lost in the audience laughter!

Pilotguy, I noticed that, too!! That's especially since The Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music are 2 of my very favorite movies. I love when Wings makes pop culture references, like when they're standing around the lunch counter talking about well-known people(Fred & Ethel Mertz, Lyle Lovett & Julia Roberts, Tom Petty). Somebody else also mentioned on another board that after Brian did his Wizard of Oz bit, he then was checking his teeth in the mirror as if he were a dentist, and I wonder if that was ad-libbed, too. I read Robin Williams used to ad-lib ALL THE TIME on Mork & Mindy, although that's really no surprise.

Has anybody seen a movie called "The Dreamer of Oz"? It was a TV-movie in 1990 and John Ritter played L.Frank Baum. It was basically a biography on Baum and how Baum came up with the idea to write The Wizard of Oz. I thought it was a really good movie and was interesting to see how he came up with his characters. Does anybody know how he came up with the name OZ? He was in his office typing his story and he looked over at his filing cabinet and the front of the drawers read A-N & O-Z. Oh, and David Schramm is in the movie, too, but when I saw it, I didn't know who he was at the time.

Originally posted by phoebe7165
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Has anybody seen a movie called "The Dreamer of Oz"? It was a TV-movie in 1990 and John Ritter played L.Frank Baum.
Oh, and David Schramm is in the movie, too, but when I saw it, I didn't know who he was at the time.

Imagine David Schramm playing "The Wizard" in "The Wizard of Oz"....as ROY:

He'd be working the controls and saying, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, you IDIOTS!"....

The he'd break into that wheezy laugh of his and say, "Oh MAN, I just LOVE jerkin' them around!" :D

Originally posted by pilotguy
In watching "The Puppetmaster" again, I noticed (for the FIRST time...I didn't catch it the first time) that when Brian is up on the catwalk, playing "puppeteer" and acting like he's operating strings, he starts singing "The Lonely Goatherd" from "The Sound Of Music"!



yeah, I did notice that, and I thought it was sooo funny! :lol:

I often wondered if Steven Weber ad-libs stuff. Especially in the earlier episodes. It really seems like it sometimes.

~Krista