Making a case for C.A.P.E.R.: A diligent "Kids" show devotee delves deep to uncover artifacts from, interviews about and fan love for a long- lost '70s Saturday morning live-action series

By Linda Kay
Retroality.TV Guest Shot columnist

There’s no doubt that the most impressionable time of our lives comes during our youth. Our real-life experiences may shape who we are, but our media exposure creates many of our memories. How else can you explain those of us in our mid-40s who can still recite the Preamble of the Constitution (but only if we sing it in the Schoolhouse Rock style?)

The ‘70s were a wonderful time for Saturday morning television; the worlds presented to us through the boob tube were colorful and crazy, outrageous but moralistic, twisted yet innocent. Even those who did not grow up during that era of getting up early on the first day of the weekend, sitting down with a bowl of sugary cereal in front of the set and indulging in hours of extreme bizarreness are familiar with such animated fare as Scooby-Doo and live-action wonders like H.R. Pufnstuf. Indeed, many of the shows from that time are well-ingrained in our current culture. Syndication and programs which thrive on cultural references, such as The Simpsons and Family Guy, definitely help perpetuate those nostalgic gems.

But there are those shows which somehow slip through the nostalgia net of mass culture and fall by the wayside, sometimes almost immediately. When I was twelve I loved a live-action show that premiered in the fall of 1976 on NBC at twelve noon (late for Saturday morning!). It was called The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. and it was a zany, bizarre program much in the style of The Monkees (which had also run in syndication on the networks’ Saturday mornings for a number of years!). Oddly enough, I knew very few people who watched the show then, let alone even heard of it. Apparently most of my friends were outside playing by the noon hour. It didn’t help that the program disappeared from NBC’s schedule mid-season, only to turn up again in 1977 for a while before being cancelled permanently.

With only 13 episodes, C.A.P.E.R. was never rerun on American television.  Over the years, I would have pangs of nostalgia for the show, but any mention of it to those in my age group usually brought confused looks. I was not prone to buying teen magazines, but I did buy one issue which had an article on C.A.P.E.R. and though I discarded the rest of the magazine pretty quickly (not having much interest in the Bay City Rollers or Leif Garrett) I held on to that one C.A.P.E.R. article, clinging to what felt like my only proof that the show actually existed.

The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. followed the antics of four teenaged police interns who battle bad guys and, of course, sing (C.A.P.E.R. was an acronym which stood for The Civilian Authority for the Protection of Everybody, Regardless . . . think along the lines of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to understand the title).  It was an interesting mix of the super hero (the Kids each possessed a special ability: Bugs had super strength, P.T. could smell out clues, Doomsday could talk to animals and Doc had a computer-like brain), comedy, musical and crime genres; all the most popular elements of Saturday morning television rolled into one. The Kids drove a delivery van with a hot dog on top called, not surprisingly, The Big Bologna, and got their directions from a radar-sensing shark named Mr. Featherstone (you can begin to understand the confused looks when trying to explain this to people who’ve never seen it!).

Many years later and along comes the Internet. Soon I realize I’m not alone. There are actually other fans of the show out there, but we’re few and far between. A number of dedicated fans who were much more diligent about collecting on the show back in the day have set up web pages for the show. A Yahoo! group (called The C.A.P.E.R. Room) (http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/thecaperroom/) gives us a place to talk about the series.  And yet the episodes are nowhere to be found, not even circulating amongst fans (although we hear stories about 16 mm prints of at least two episodes lurking about somewhere).

At last someone posts a couple of clips on YouTube: the show’s memorable theme song (which many of us can still remember by heart despite not having seen or heard it since we were kids) and one song from the first episode. Not a lot, but for C.A.P.E.R. fans it was like an exhibit of artifacts from King Tut’s tomb. Every few years something compels me to look around online and see if anything else has turned up. In 2009 I realize someone has finally posted one episode of C.A.P.E.R. on YouTube.  I spend some time sitting in front of the computer and re-familiarizing myself with an old friend from my past. It’s so bizarre, so unique and so strange. Not just from a nostalgic viewpoint but from a modern point of view. And a spark is lit.



I want to know more about the show. Not just the names of the episodes and when it aired but how it came to be . . . from whose minds came this wonderfully wacky series? I knew it had been produced by Don Kirshner, the music mogul whose reputation has become somewhat besmirched by his ultimately volatile working relationship with The Monkees (which I’ve come to believe has been grossly over-exaggerated against Kirshner over time). But who else was involved? What became of those who worked on the series? And why was the show really canceled?

The few C.A.P.E.R. sites which existed and the Yahoo! group provided some answers, but none of them delved as deeply into the history of the show as I wished to learn. After much soul-searching and debating I finally decided the only way to really learn the answers was to set up a website of my own, and so The C.A.P.E.R. Project was born. I wanted it to be a catch-all site of information for fans, as well as a means to let those who might be able to get the show released on DVD know that there is definitely an interest for it out there!



My biggest concern was starting a site for something I really didn’t know very much about. Sure I was a fan, but I had no collectibles and no inside information to share. I had never set out to create a website on a subject I was so unfamiliar with!  So I started collecting, and eBay came to my rescue. After several months I had amassed a nice collection of teen magazines from 1976 and 1977 and realized pretty quickly that C.A.P.E.R. wasn’t as unknown as I’d thought . . . there was actually quite a following for it! Laufer Publications (whose Tiger Beat magazine still provides fantasy fodder for the walls of lovesick teeny-boppers to this day) featured the “Kids” often. There were far more articles about the show published than I ever could have imagined (and I was able to finally join the ranks of teen magazine buyers some 33 years late!).

I drew inspiration from the wonderful book Love to Love You Bradys, written by Ted Nichelson, Susan Olsen and Lisa Sutton.  Covering the incredibly bizarre story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (which was exactly in the same time period as C.A.P.E.R.), the book showed that while that program has garnered the reputation of being one of the worst television shows ever made, the story behind it is nonetheless fascinating. The book acknowledged the fact that the unique variety series was not altogether successful but that the people who worked on it were dedicated and deserving of respect. The same could be said of C.A.P.E.R. . . . the elements were all there for a successful show but somehow they never quite gelled.  Given a second season the show probably would have become much tighter and more successful, but it was never given that chance.

After much research online, I managed to put together a picture of many of the people who worked on the series, and I was continually impressed with the caliber of talent which went into the show. This intrigued me even more!  On the television side there was producer Alan Landsburg, whose programs such as In Search Of . . . and That’s Incredible! lead many to refer to him as the creator of reality television, as well as director Stanley Z. Cherry, who directed such classic sitcoms as Dobie Gillis, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Addams Family and Gilligan’s Island. The show was created by Romeo Muller, whose name may not be familiar but whose work certainly is . . . he was the creative genius behind a vast majority of the Rankin / Bass animated Christmas specials we’ve all grown up with, including Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.

On the music side was Kirshner, who had previously performed the same musical magic he’d done for The Monkees for the animated band The Archies and who was attempting the same level of success with C.A.P.E.R. The songs, while fairly being categorized as bubblegum music, are solid tunes. Kirshner brought into play his incredible stable of songwriters for the project, including Ron Dante (lead singer of The Archies), Jake Holmes (who penned the C.A.P.E.R. theme song with Ron Dante), Jay Siegel (whose amazing voice you hear on The Tokens’ song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”), Rob Hegel & Carol George, Neil Sedaka & Howard Greenfield, Gene Allan & Gary Knight and Phil & Mitch Margo (also from The Tokens). The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. album was arranged by none other than late-night swingin’ cat and Letterman sidekick Paul Shaffer!

Unlike the cast of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, the on-screen talent in C.A.P.E.R. was well-prepared for their roles as both musical and television stars. Each of the principles came from solid entertainment backgrounds: John Lansing (Doc) had been acting on stage for years, most notably playing the lead role of Danny Zuko in the Broadway production of Grease (you may also remember him as Laverne’s cousin Anthony in the two-part Laverne & Shirley episode “The Festival”).  Cosie Costa (Bugs) was both a singer and actor who also appeared with the national touring company of Grease (for a time with John Lansing) and was trained at the Pasadena Playhouse. Steve Bonino (P.T.) had studied both acting and music and was already an accomplished musician and songwriter. Biff Warren (Doomsday) was probably newest to the industry but had studied acting in college and had already made appearances on television series such as The Waltons and The Streets of San Francisco.





It was a common practice in the ’70s to use veteran actors alongside young performers in children’s programming, and C.A.P.E.R. was no exception. Added to the cast were Robert Emhardt, whose list of movie and television credits is both impressive and extensive (he had a notable part in the classic western 3:10 to Yuma), as well as Robert Lussier, who epitomizes the “I know his face but what is his name?” character actor syndrome.

These were all people I could really respect and which I felt should be acknowledged.  I was able to put together biographies of those in front of and behind the cameras for the site. And I pieced together the history of the show as best as I could from the information available both online and in the magazines I’d amassed. Finally the website was launched in March of 2010 to great fanfare . . . well . . . okay . . . actually, to more of a hushed, warm reception from die-hard fans.

But already The C.A.P.E.R. Project has been successful in uncovering information and materials related to the show. Fans have come out of the woodwork, sharing wonderful stories, photos and articles, as well as memories and acquired information they've possessed for years. The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming was pivotal in providing us with information about the NBC Saturday Morning Preview special featuring the Kids introducing all the new Saturday morning shows from 1976 with co-host Freddie Prinze (a mere five months before his tragic suicide) as well as clips from the rare first two episodes of the series. And we have been able to post clips from many of the "Kids"’ other movie and television appearances on our YouTube Channel, as well as two complete episodes of The Kids from C.A.P.E.R. provided generously by C.A.P.E.R. Kid Steve Bonino himself (who now performs with The Trip, one of the most successful cover bands in the U.S.!). We were also thrilled to interview Steve Bonino, as well as singer / songwriter Rob Hegel, who provided us with fascinating insight into the making of both the show and the album.



But the launch of The C.A.P.E.R. Project is only the beginning.  There are still have so many questions we would like to have answered. We still don’t know exactly why NBC abruptly cancelled the series mid-season. We would like to know where C.A.P.E.R. Kid Cosie Costa currently is (John Lansing has just co-executive produced the series Scoundrels for ABC Television and sadly Biff Warren passed away in 1993). We would love to interview more of the people who worked on the series and learn their stories.  And of course we hold out hope that the lost episodes of C.A.P.E.R. will somehow be found and that the show will eventually be released on DVD.

Unraveling the show’s history is proving to be a complex mystery indeed.  But rest assured, C.A.P.E.R.’s loyal fans will remain hot on the trail until it is solved!

Exclusive! Wendie Malick spills on "Cleveland," Betty White and "Just Shoot Me!"'s loveable lush Nina Van Horn

Where would Just Shoot Me!'s boozing floozie supermodel-turned-fashion editor Nina Van Horn be today? Well, after intensive rehab, it looks like she's landed in Cleveland. Her portrayer, the always-delicious Wendie Malick, is calling on Nina's self-absorbed soul as inspiration for the actress's new character, fallen soap diva Victoria Chase, in TV Land's buzzworthy original sitcom Hot in Cleveland.

Malick's new, less vacuous character finds herself at home in the cable network's ensemble comedy about three L.A. transplants (Malick, Valerie Bertinelli and Jane Leeves) rediscovering their sexual prowess and youthful verve in Ohio's bustling blue-collar metropolis. Rounding out the cast as caretaker of the ladies' new house: Saucy sitcom stalwart and SNL hottie Betty White.

Hot premiered to record ratings for TV Land--about 5 million people watched the June 16 premiere--while garnering inevitable comparisons to Sex and the City and White's 1985-92 TV classic The Golden Girls. But those parallels are fine by Malick. The still-sexy actress, 59, has enjoyed lengthy success in a host of ensemble sitcoms, including HBO's Dream On and NBC's Frasier. Here, the actress-turned-animal activist and environmentalist recalls her road to Cleveland while analyzing TV's multidimensional impact.

Looking for Jeannie's bottle? Erik Estrada's beefcake uniform? Elton John's Bob Mackie ode to a futuristic Mrs. Roper? Have we got an auction for you

Hollywood on the block: Film, TV memorabilia up for bids this week in Calabasas auction » Ventura County Star

Profiles in History, the world’s largest auctioneer of Hollywood memorabilia, is excited to present Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” pink satin gown—the most important film dress to ever come to auction—at their June 10-12 summer auction, which features over 1,500 lots of film, television, music and historical memorabilia.

Hurry, the auction begins today and ends Saturday, June 12. Worldwide bidding begins at noon Pacific Time each day. Bids can be placed in person, via mail, phone, fax or live on the Internet by visiting http://profilesinhistory.com or http://liveauctioneers.com.

Here are a few retro-funky highlights:

Elton John stage costume by Bob Mackie. $3,000 - $5,000

Wayland Flowers’ “Madame” puppet with fainting couch and Flowers’ performance vest. $25,000-$30,000

Erik Estrada "CHiPs" Uniform from CHiPs. $3,000 - $5,000

Original Barbara Eden signature first season “Jeannie” bottle from I Dream of Jeannie (NBC-TV, 1965-70) $15,000-$20,000

Clayton Moore’s trademark “Lone Ranger” mask with gloves from The Lone Ranger $12,000-15,000

Original “Balok” Puppet Head from Star Trek: The Original Series        (NBC-TV, 1966-69) $20,000-$30,000

Fess Parker signature “Daniel Boone” coonskin hat from Daniel Boone (NBC-TV, 1964-1970) $10,000-$12,000

TV's top-rated tabloid twosome--CBS Corp.'s "The Insider" and "ET"--all but ignore CBS star Charlie Sheen's domestic violence arrest, guilty plea after "The Insider" attacks tragic Gary Coleman about same in his final TV interview

 The Globe magazine will soon publish Gary Coleman’s “death photos,” but it isn’t the first tabloid to exploit the late actor’s dying images.

Coleman’s ex-wife, Shannon Price—called “cold, cunning and creepy” for her questionable conduct during and after the actor’s dying days—this week defends herself “only,” as its promo proudly blares, “on The Insider!” (as well as its sister show, Entertainment Tonight).

Here’s hoping Price holds a mirror up to The Insider's producers and panelists, who, after hosting Coleman’s disturbing TV swan song in February, should know by now that tabloid TV exposure is a two-way street.

If anything good can come from the diminutive Diff’rent Strokes star’s tragic death from a brain hemorrhage at 42, it will be the beyond-timely demise of the attack-style television “interview” and throw-’em-under-a-bus “coverage” that helped write his troubled life’s final act.

Namely: the well-deserved mercy killing of a brand-defining chunk of the CBS Corp.’s once-benign (read: pre-Anna Nicole) ET and its more transparent, gossipy, mob-scene offspring—the show whose aggressive badgering and exploitation could have sent the infamously quick-to-anger Coleman to an even earlier grave in February—The Insider.

via The Insider  

Varying levels of tabloid toxicity sadly unite TV’s most influential block of half-bloodthirsty, half-obsequious entertainment news shows. The target of these schizophrenic series’ dark sides? Rarely, if ever, a CBS headliner, film giant or a celebrity who otherwise has current bankability, high-placed PR and legal teams and the collective power to shut down these infotainment series.

To wit: CBS’s Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen planned to plead guilty this week in an Aspen, Colo., courtroom to a misdemeanor third-degree assault charge stemming from his felony menacing arrest on charges he threatened his wife at knifepoint on Christmas day. But, aside from brief, vague reports (mostly on their web sites), both ET and The Insider have all but ignored this story for months—though they chirpily trumpeted his recent press release revelation that he’d signed for two more seasons of his series “after two-and-one-half months of a whirlwind of speculation” (and for upwards of $2 million per episode).


via The Insider--the show's web site (and not the series itself) last "covered" Sheen's troubles via this interesting analysis

No, today’s prey are yesteryear’s luminaries clearly on their way down, out and potentially six feet under—or at least those former stars struggling to re-spark or resuscitate their image and livelihoods by coming to the (A-list-)celeb-friendly series that often unapologetically deliver the final blow.

In his last TV interview, the often-agitated and visibly weakened Coleman—fresh from his own domestic violence arrest and plea deal, a seizure and head injury in January and pneumonia and heart surgery last fall—suffered one of his problem-plagued life’s final indignities during his visit as an in-studio "guest" at The Insider on Feb. 17.

The show's celebrity attorney panelist flesh-chewing interrogator, “CBS legal correspondent Lisa Bloom,” relentlessly pounded the actor with the same aggressive question—Did you abuse your wife?!—despite the fact that he'd already answered her. Her button-pushing "cross examination" of the embattled, embittered and explosive former sitcom star was a rude and ruthless spectacle that The Insider was all too happy to spin and exploit ad nauseum across the next several days of February sweeps.


via The Insider

(Coleman, long strapped for cash and ever-desirous to set the record straight—like any public figure—on his terms, would return to the studio he fled to confront Bloom’s co-panelists on Feb. 26. That appearance was apparently so taxing that the actor suffered a seizure while on set. Fortunately, an infinitely more empathetic Dr. Drew Pinsky was sitting in Bloom’s chair and administered life-saving procedures on Coleman during his still-unseen swan song. Tellingly, Pinsky has interviewed for the syndicated TV newsmagazine Extra—not ET or The Insider—about Coleman in the days following the actor’s death on May 28.)


Bloom—who now represents Michael Lohan (!)—soon chimed in on Joy Behar's Headline News show. "I'm an attorney," Bloom stressed after Behar played an abbreviated clip of the on-air debacle. "I've represented a lot of women and children in abuse cases. I know how to talk to batterers. I know how they respond. They generally only go after their own family members. And Gary Coleman has pleaded guilty to a domestic violence incident against his wife, but it was pleaded down to a misdemeanor and he only had to pay a $500 fine—no jail time."

She was referencing Coleman's arrest on Jan. 24 for failing to appear in court on previously-unpublicized charges of domestic violence against his wife, 24-year-old Shannon Price, during an incident at their home in Santaquin, Utah on April 18, 2009. An Associated Press report said details of that incident were not outlined in court documents but qualified Coleman's defense attorney, Randy Kester, as characterizing the event as an "argument that got out of hand." "No one was injured and no ambulances were called," Kester said. "It was just a disagreement."

It wasn't the couple's first quarrel—or their last. Price was arrested in July 2009 and charged with domestic violence after a furniture-toppling row with Coleman. Bloom failed to mention Price's arrest. To be fair, the celebrattorney also didn’t bring up Coleman’s arrest and conviction for punching a female autograph-seeker who the 4’8” actor said taunted and intimidated him in 1998. Nor did Bloom remind us he also was accused in 2008 of trying to run down a male fan who snapped his photo at a Utah bowling alley. That fracas resulted in no arrests and was settled this January for an undisclosed sum.

A week prior to his Insider outburst, Coleman pleaded guilty to a class B misdemeanor charge of domestic violence/criminal mischief stemming from the still-murky April 2009 incident. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped a domestic violence/assault charge and the judge ordered the actor to pay a $595 fine and attend classes on avoiding domestic violence.


via The Insider

The judge also should've sentenced Coleman to stay away from ravenously provocative infotainment shows. Especially on the days that Gloria Allred's legal eagle daughter sweeps in for the kill.

"I think in this country," Bloom continued to Behar at the height of the TV’s Tiger Woods hate-a-thon, "we're really tired of seeing celebrities get away with bad acts against their own family, drug use, whatever it is. They're never held accountable. Nobody ever asks them the hard questions. They get a pass on all of the shows. So I was there to see if he was going to answer the questions." (Coleman's initial response to Bloom—“There is no abuse that goes on at my house”—apparently was not precise enough for the attorney.)


 Bloom's argument sounds pretty reasonable. Until you remember that Entertainment Tonight and The Insider are anything but journalistic enterprises with reputations for calling out Hollywood BS.

In fact, ET has had its lips suctioned to so much corporate-synergized celebrity butt for so long that Mary Hart can't smile without giving Tom Cruise or an NCIS star a wedgie. So, yeah, Ms. Bloom, we'd all love to see one of your entertainment news co-horts ask your network’s cash cow Charlie Sheen a hard-hitting question about, say, his drug use or alleged domestic violence, instead of parroting his attorneys’ and publicists’ carefully-crafted media statements.  But guess what? It ain’t gonna happen.

Because Sheen, like NCIS star Mark Harmon and former Paramount Pictures golden child Cruise, is a current celebcommodity (let alone one on the company payroll) whose access, success and/or influence both shows need to survive. Likewise, we’ll never see these shows even gently press the sometimes-controversial Cruise about Scientology in favor of asking him insipid, sycophantic questions about why his daughter is or isn’t wearing shoes in a paparazzi photo.

But God forbid Cruise or anyone else now in ET/The Insider’s favor falls on hard times and no longer proves lucrative and/or legally threatening to the industry. To see that terrible fate, we need look no further than Gary Coleman, Dana Plato, Lindsay Lohan, Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and any retro star "caught" looking fat, old, disoriented, intoxicated, tired or frail. Or, as in the case of Farrah Fawcett in a wheelchair—her long-dreaded "final photo"—trying to live their final days in dignity with an ET-paid pap invading what little privacy they have left by shoving a camera lens in their face.

America already knew Gary Coleman was a troubled and angry and sick “former child star.” We didn’t need The Insider to put him--and now, postmortem, his ex-wife--on camera and incessantly poke him with a stick to remind us how cruel Hollywood can be.

1986's Sitcom Provocateurs: Christopher Hewett, "Still the Beaver," "Me and Mrs. C" and "Snatch"

We know what you're thinking. "They said, 'Christopher He Wet.' Huh-huh, huh-huh, huh-huh ..."

Yes, we did. But primetime TV said it first--a full decade before MTV's Beavis and Butt-head "Did" America, and nearly a quarter century before FOX's The Cleveland Show spoofed a ballsy reference to the Urban-dictionary-entry-inspiring Mr. Belvedere himself.



You can thank the socially and sexually provocative mid- to late-1980s, America. Although Three's Company went to the big double entendre in the sky in 1984, its legacy of libido-charged innuendos changed the TV laughscape forever. And the zany farce's naughty humor, well, got a whole lot naughtier while climaxing (!) shortly after the we-know-what-that-title's-really-referencing Still the Beaver and Me and Mrs. C became ratings semi-sensations for the Disney Channel in 1985-86 and NBC in summer 1986, respectively. (Come to think of it, Happy Days--which also died in '84--was pretty smutty, too: "Sit on it, Mrs. C!" Helloooo!)



Okay, Me and Mrs. C was really a short-lived sitcom about (quoting the Associated Press) "a 62-year-old white widow who takes in a 22-year-old black boarder." And Still the Beaver (renamed The New Leave it to Beaver for its 1986-89 TBS run) was really about a 62-year-old white kiddo who after 22 seasons of syndication still had no idea his nickname had a vulgar connotation. But still. Their double-entendriffic titles alone paved the way for TV's biggest smutcom.

Enter Snatch!

"What's Snatch!?" you ask. Well, according to its official Facebook page, ''Snatch!''--not to be confused with Vicki! or Cleghorne!--"is an American television sitcom that originally ran from 1986 to 1990."

"Hmmm," you're thinking. "Must've been one of those syndicated classics from the Emmy-winning writer-producers of She's the Sheriff and (The All-New) We Got it Maid."

To be honest, our memories, like Snatch!'s  eponymous lead character, are a little fuzzy. Perhaps we should again quote the show's official Facebook bio: "The show was centered around a Mary Tyler Moore-esque character named Sally Fenway working her way through life and love in New York City. She also happened to have a wise-cracking, hairy, eel-like creature living in her vagina named Snatch."

"Oh, yeah," you're saying to yourself. "The Small Wonder spin-off."

Yeah. That one.

Again quoting Snatch! literature (because, this way, if you're offended, we can just be all, "We're just sayin'"): "The series starred Geneva Carr as Sally Fenway, Fred Berman as Sally's neighbor Ruben Maricasa, Jason O'Connell as her boss Nigel Flavinworth, Billy Warlock as co-worker Robert Marcus, and Sally Struther as Sally's mom, Roberta Fenway. The character of Snatch was portrayed by a live-vagina/hand puppet operated primarily by Jason Favale."


Phew. Glad that's over. Anywho, Snatch! somehow flew under the radar with its behind-the-bikini line humor. Maybe because the Terry Rakoltas of the world were too busy linking FOX's Married ... with Children with impending Armageddon to notice that Sally Fenway's crotch-puppet wasn't popping up just to chomp cookies or sass "Mr. Snuffleupagus" while teaching kids the alphabet.

Snatch! creator Berman is especially funny in this filthy Fragglerock. His nosey neighbor Ruben is a cross between Three's Company's Mr. Furley and Felipe Gomez as channeled through Will and Grace's Jack McFarland on crack. (Yes, the drug crack.) And Geneva Carr--famous for her hilarious spots as the grimacing, finger-waving mom in the AT&T Family Talk commercials--handles the lead role with aplomb. Or is that Eve's Plumb? Either way, she handles it. And she handles it well.



Also serving as a series producer (along with Now Lookee Here Productions' Jason Chaet and Jason O'Connell) is Ethan Duff, writer/director/producer of the acclaimed comedic short film Was Monroe Raped? That darkly comic project--also starring the fascinatingly versatile Berman--focuses on a scarcely-seen episode of the '80s sitcom Too Close for Comfort in which Jim J. Bullock's character claims to have been kidnapped and sexually accosted by two large women in a van.

No word yet if one of these women was a surly, gravelly-voiced crotch-puppet.