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A Day In The Life of Tony Danza’s Agent

16 Nov

from December 6, 2008

Tony Danza. The only actor who must play a character named Tony:

TONY DANZA’S AGENT: Hey, Tony baby, I got some news for you. A real meaty script just came your way.
TONY DANZA: Huh, yeah?
AGENT: It is set in the early 1980’s. Cold War stuff. You play a former Soviet spy being pursued across the Iron Curtain because you have the key to the West German defense plans and you are going to sell them to the highest bidder.
DANZA: Oh wow.
AGENT: Here’s a copy of the script. I’ll read with you. I’ll be Piotr, your former superior. I’m calling you on the phone to try to get you to give up. You are Vladimir, the spy. Ready?
DANZA: This is so cool.
AGENT: Here we go. “Vladimir, you must give yourself up. Come in on your own and I promise you that your wife and children will come to no harm. Vladimir, you must do this.”
DANZA:
AGENT: I said “Vladimir, you must do this.”
DANZA:
AGENT: Tony, you OK?
DANZA: Yeah, how you doing?
AGENT: I’m waiting for your line.
DANZA: What line?
AGENT: Your line in the script.
DANZA: You started that?
AGENT: Yeah, I cued you twice.
DANZA: You were talking to me?
AGENT: Tony, there’s no one else in the room.
DANZA: I thought you were on the phone.
AGENT: I’m not on the phone.
DANZA: You were talking to some guy named Victor.
AGENT: Vladimir.
DANZA: How’s he doing?
AGENT: How’s who doing?
DANZA: Vladimir.
AGENT: You’re Vladimir.
DANZA: Nah, nah, I’m Tony. Tony Danza. From Taxi.
AGENT: I know, I’m your agent, I got you that job.
DANZA: Cool, when do I start?
AGENT: You already started!
DANZA: I”m late! I better get to the set. (Get’s up to leave)
AGENT: The job’s over! Sit down!
DANZA: Hey, when do I get my check?
AGENT: You got it years ago. Look, Tony-
DANZA: Aw geez, I got it years ago and I didn’t keep any receipts. What about my taxes?
AGENT: Tony, Tony, look, there’s this script.
DANZA: Cool! Who do I play?
AGENT: (Deep breath.) You play a spy. Named Vladimir. You. Are. Vladimir.
DANZA: I’m Vladimir?
AGENT: Right. Now here’s your cue. Do you have the script?
DANZA: That’s my cue?
AGENT: NO! I mean no, I just want to make sure you have the script.
DANZA: Yeah, right here in my pocket.
AGENT: Take it out. Here we go. “”Vladimir, you must give yourself up. Come in on your own and I promise you that your wife and children will come to no harm. Vladimir, you must do this.”
DANZA:
AGENT: TONY!
DANZA: You off the phone now? How’s Victor?
AGENT: You are Victor! I mean Vladimir! You are Vladimir!
DANZA: No, I’m Tony. From Taxi. I sing too and I cook and I used to box.
AGENT: I know! I know!
DANZA: So what about this new script you said came in? I can’t wait to read it.
AGENT: I’ll mail it to you.
DANZA: OK, thanks for stopping by.
AGENT: This is my office!
DANZA: Oh, I thought maybe I changed the furniture.

So what started this? This started this: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2008/12/03/2008-12-03_former_club_boxer_tony_danza_does_a_bout.html

Scroll to the end and you find this nugget: “I’m always looking for a job, just like everyone else in this country, this industry is tough,” he added, saying he’d like to do a remake of “Columbo.”Over my dead body. If you don’t know me, know that my man-love of Columbo is legendary. I love Columbo. Best. Show. Ever. He took down both Patrick McGoohan and Johnny Cash. (And George Wendt but the less said about that the better.) What other cop can boast that?

Tony Danza as Columbo would be the ultimate in miscasting. But what else would rank up there? Here are a few “suggestions.”

Vince McMahon as Sam Malone on Cheers.
Star Jones and Kirstie Alley in Sex and The City.
Gary Coleman as Magnum PI.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State (Am I bitter much???)
William Shatner in 24.
Carrot Top as Londo in Babylon 5.
John Lithgow in 3rd Rock From the Sun
Anyone on any Bravo reality show.

Any other ideas? Send me your own. Like I have anything better to do than sit around and read emails at work. Whatever you do, don’t bother sending anything to Tony Danza’s agent unless the part calls for a punchy semi-actor named Tony who has trouble remembering lines. And phone numbers. And his birthday. Tony Danza would be perfect for the part.

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My Review of Life on Mars

16 Nov

from November 14, 2008

Life on Mars is the new ABC documentary about NASA’s attempts to discover microbial life trapped in the ice on the Red Planet. To do this, NASA has sent astronaut Sam Tyler back in time to 1973. How this is supposed to find interstellar life is unclear, but it raises two interesting points: First, what are they smoking at NASA, and second, where the hell did they get a time machine? I know the government is full of black budgets and secret agendas, but if there really was a working American time machine I think maybe the fall of Saigon might have gone a bit differently.

Astronaut Tyler wound up in NYC with nothing but a spacesuit and a picture of President Nixon. New York was a very different place back then. The Mayor was short and effeminate and Washington Square was full of hippies. Oh, sorry, I mean it was the same. After trying to break through a sewer main to take a core sample, Tyler was arrested and taken to a typical 1973 NYC police precinct. The captain was John Shaft, the detectives were Superfly and Foxy Brown, and the night shift commander was Blacula.

Mistaking his spacesuit for a new crime scene outfit, Sam Tyler was made a detective on the force. Unbeknownst to him, his partner, Superfly, was not Superfly but really Sam Beckett, who had quantum leaped back in order to send Tyler home to 2008. He didn’t know it, however, because Al was busy running algorithms through Ziggy to determine in which week of 1973 he would see the shortest miniskirts.

Also unknown to Astronaut Tyler is the fact that his mother, Rose, would soon be taking off in the TARDIS and his real father was not the lowlife gambler Sam always thought he was but actually a sentient green pimento from Zaklon Seven. He’d be prouder of the gambler.

Every week, Sam Tyler faces different stereotypical 1973 problems, like rotary phones, Spiro Agnew, and hairy female armpits. While Tyler has never stopped searching for life on the planet Mars, he is becoming increasingly frustrated by the distance between Mars and his apartment on 118th street. In episode seven he tried to build a giant ladder but failed when he discovered that his roof faced Saturn.

ABC has promised that future episodes would focus on Tyler’s attempts to fit in and lead a normal 1973 life, despite his language being peppered with unusual 2008 lingo like “OJ Simpson verdict,” “pathetic Soprano’s finale,” and “Barack.”

Life on Mars will have a good future on The Discovery Channel, where documentaries need only pull in small ratings to be successful.

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