Category Archives: Billiards TV

The Billiards TV category is about television episodes that prominently feature billiards or have plots centered around billiards.

“The Hustler” – The Brady Bunch

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In The Color of Money, “Fast” Eddie Felson, the original Hustler, says, “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”  Well, for Bobby Brady, youngest son of the famously surnamed TV sextet, it wasn’t money he won with his billiards skills, but 256 packs of chewing gum, a sweet feat that proves one’s never too young to successfully start hustling.  Since this is The Brady Bunch, a series that ran from 1969 to 1974, we can expect a healthy dosage of well-mannered high jinks, inoffensive banter, and squeaky-clean resolutions.  “The Hustler,” one of the last episodes to air in the final season of The Brady Bunch, does not disappoint.

Brady Bunch - The HustlerThis billiards television episode’s set-up is that Harry Matthews, the president of Mike Brady’s architectural firm, gives Mike an (unassembled!) pool table as a thank-you gift.  Bobby, who “always” plays pool at his friend’s house, demonstrates his prowess to his two older brothers, who dismiss his playing as dumb luck.  He later wagers he can beat them in nine-ball, with the loser having to shine the winner’s shoes for a whole month.  Of course, he wins, and soon he is playing all the time and retorting to his siblings, “Who cares about school?  I’m going to be the pool champ of the whole world.”

His constant play ultimately gets him into trouble with his dad, who gently reprimands him for staying up so late practicing when he has school work. But, he is redeemed when he is given a chance to play Mr. Matthews, who has come over for a dinner party.  Mr. Matthews, having beaten everyone else at the party and fancying himself a pool shark, agrees to play Bobby for a pack of chewing gum on every shot.  Bobby promptly thrashes Mr. Matthews, causing one of the other dinner guests to whisper to Mike, “If that was my son, I’d break his arm.”  Fortunately, this does not get Mike fired, but it (unfortunately) does somehow prove that the Brady household is no home for a pool table.  Well, at least Bobby won those 256 packs of chewing gum.

Brady Bunch - The HustlerThough “The Hustler” episode lacks any iconic one-liners such as, “Mom always said don’t play ball in the house” or “Pork chops and apple sauce,” it does have one of the more memorable and billiards television worthy dream sequences (shown below).  Dressed in a tuxedo and wearing a “Champ” sash across his chest, Bobby enters a symphony hall  with a single billiards table on stage to a standing ovation.  Taking his cue and chalk from his sister Cindy and cousin Oliver, he proceeds to make a series of multi-ball trick shots, including the well-known, six-ball “Butterfly” shot, before finishing with a shot made while blindfolded.  (Of course, Mike Lookinland, the actor who played Bobby, did not make these shots, and there is disturbingly no mention of a billiards technical advisor in the credits.)

The dream concludes with dollar bills raining onto Bobby like roses being thrown onstage at an opera, and Bobby repeating the phrase, “I’m rich, I’m rich.”  Now there’s an ironic ending…what’s the real dream here?  The fact that Bobby could make all these trick shots or the fact that someone could, in fact, get “rich” playing pool?

“The Hustler” billiards television episode of The Brady Bunch is available to watch in entirety on Paramount+.

“Pool Sharks” – Monsters (billiards TV episode)

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It’s Halloween!  So, once the little ghouls and ghosts are safely tucked in, once the party is over and the Walking Dead costume is back on the hanger, once the jack-o-lantern candles are blown out and the sugar-high has faded, why not cap off the evening with some horror-themed billiards TV, specifically the “Pool Sharks” episode of the cable show Monsters?

Pool Sharks - Billiards TVMonsters was a three-season horror anthology show that ran from 1988-1991 on the Sci-Fi Channel.   Similar to Tales of the Crypt, each 30-minute Monsters episode focused on a monster, ranging from animated mannequins to weapon-wielding lab rats, and often included elements of black comedy, twist endings, and a variety of special effects, some more convincing than others.

[SPOILER ALERT] The aptly-named Monsters episode “Pool Sharks” aired in December 1988 as part of the show’s first season.  The full episode is available below to watch. The episode focuses on  two bar patrons, who face off in a pool game.  Both have secrets; the fact they are both pool hustlers is but the least of those secrets.  One of the patrons is Gabe, an everyman, who enters the bar with his pool cue case in tow and an eye on the vamp at the billiards table.  That vamp is the buxom, pale-skinned, black-clad Natasha, who clearly has a taste for men, as evidenced when she later sucks Gabe’s bleeding finger wound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy2yIXdOAmU

After some brief flirtations and a lot of hustler subtext, Natasha and Gabe agree to a game of 50-point straight pool, in which the bet is the winner gets to do whatever s/he wants to the other person’s body. Now, the secrets start getting exposed, as Natasha reveals (to the camera) her fangs, and Gabe starts to probe Natasha’s awareness of a man (Gabe’s brother) who disappeared, having last been seen with a beautiful woman in a pool hall.

Pool Sharks - Billiards TVThe game continues, as each person makes a series of successful (albeit, somewhat easy) trick shots (including a four-balls-in-one-shot beauty), while also gradually pulling back their veils and revealing their true intentions.  (Gabe’s is to avenge his brother.  Natasha’s is to feast on Gabe before the sun rises.)  When the game gets tied 49-49, Natasha appears to win on the next shot, but is thwarted by Gabe (and the usual holy cross vampire trope), who goes on to sink the winning shot and then impales Natasha with his special, hidden-blade cue stick.

While the stakes are totally different, it’s clear “Pool Sharks” is borrowing liberally from the 1961 Twilight Zone episode, “A Game of Pool.”  In that billiards TV show, a local pool player bets his life against a famous, dead pool hustler.  (“Life or death.  You beat me, you live; you lose, you die.”)  The two episodes are also similarly shot in a black-and-white, dimly-lit noir style, with single-table bars in empty pool rooms, mood jazz playing in the background.

By the way, if you really want to make it a billiards Halloween, then I suggest that after watching “Pool Sharks,” you turn to Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, a 1987 British vampire musical that revolves around a snooker showdown.  One billiards horror movie I would skip, however, is The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II.  This low-budget 1988 film is about a macho vampire named Baisez, who slowly seduces the cast and crew of Blood Lover, a movie about a vampire pool hustler, is painfully hard-to-watch.

For a full plot synopsis of “Pool Sharks,” check out: http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.com/2009/07/monsters-pool-sharks-review-tv-episode.html

Community – “Physical Education”

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After having recently suffered through some pretty terrible billiards TV episodes, including “Pool Hall Blues” (Quantum Leap) and “Cheese, Cues, and Blood” (Married with Children), I promise you my excitement about billiards TV has not only been restored, but is now bubbling over, thanks to watching “Physical Education,” from the first season of Community on NBC.

Perhaps, I had been living under a rock, but I had never watched Community, prior to the “Physical Education” episode.  Based on a sample size of one, it’s genius. For the uninitiated, the series, which begins its fifth season in January, is about an idiosyncratic group of individuals of varying ages and backgrounds, who attend and comprise a study group at the fictitious Greendale Community College.

Community - Physical Education - Billiards TV“Physical Education,” which aired in March 2010, has two very loosely related, and equally hilarious, storylines. For this blog, the relevant storyline begins with Jeff Winger (played by Joel McHale), the narcissistic, self-anointed leader of the study group, dressed in leather jacket, skinny black jeans, and black boots, in an attempt to look cool for his first day of “The Art of Pool,” a billiards class taught through the Physical Education Department.

When he gets to class, he becomes first incredulous, and then disgusted, that he has to wear a uniform – specifically, (short) shorts – since this is a P.E. class.  Taunted by Coach Bogner (played by Blake Clark) for “dressing like a model instead of an athlete, sipping martinis and smoking instead of keeping your game on the table,” Jeff replies, “Nobody plays pool like that.  This class is the desecration of America’s coolest sport.”

The real belly-laughs come when Jeff has his epiphanic ‘moment of self-love’ and returns to class, in tight shorts and boots, to challenge the coach in a game of pool.  Dismissing the notion that he should be at Urban Outfitters, he retorts, “First, I have to hand someone their tightly swaddled polyester ass in pool…now do you want to talk about clothes like a girl or do you want use tapered stick to hit balls around a cushioned table like a man?”

Community - Billiards TVCue the music for the final showdown.  And not just any music, but in an awesomely absurd homage to The Color of Money, the music is Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” with Joel doing an over-the-top impersonation of Tom Cruise in his iconic scene when he unveils his Balabushka. Like Cruise’s Vincent Lauria, Joel slices, dices, and mock-rifle fires with his cue stick (as well as makes a few pretty nice shots).

To further prove the point the he is not just a shallow clothes-whore, Joel then goes three steps farther into crazyland, first removing his shorts and shirt, and then ultimately, his tighty-whities, to make the winning shot, bare-assed, perched on one leg, giving the audience of onlookers and oglers a bit too much to remember.  The scene ends with the Coach proudly accepting defeat, kissing Jeff, and telling him, “from now on, you play pool however you choose, you magnificent son of a bitch.”

Community - Billiards TVIn closing, this episode achieved several things at once.  First, it blazed up the Twittersphere with references to ‘shirtless Joel McHale.’  Second, it helped ensure Community’s second season, as most critics believed “Physical Education” was one of the show’s best.  But, third and most important, it made pool instantly accessible…while still proclaiming it the “coolest sport in America.”

The “Physical Education” episode is available on Hulu Plus or Amazon Instant Video.  For additional commentary on this episode, check out:

Big Break (snooker game show)

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Almost exactly 11 years ago, the final episode of Big Break, a British game show that paired ordinary contestants with professional snooker players to win cash and prizes, aired on BBC1.  It was not the first billiards game show (an honor that belongs to Ten-Twenty, which aired in the 1950s).  Nor was it the first billiards game show to feature “celebrity” pool players (check out Celebrity Billiards with Minnesota Fats from 1967).  And it was certainly not the last game show to incorporate billiards (the short-lived Ballbreakers aired in 2005). But, by any measure, it was the most popular billiards game show, with 222 episodes, plus 8 Christmas Specials and 8 Trick Shot Specials, airing between April 1991 and October 2002.

Big Break - billiards game showThe format of the show is well-detailed on Wikipedia, but I’ll summarize the main points, starting with the hosts.  Off-color comedian Jim Davidson was paired with former snooker player John Virgo, who served as the “straight man” for Davidson’s barrage of banter, mockery, and impersonations. (In later years, Davidson became the subject of much controversy for his offensive jokes about ethnic minorities, homosexuals, disabled people, and rape victims.  Some speculate, not surprisingly, that Big Break was ultimately canceled because of Davidson’s reputation.)

Each 30-minute episode paired three contestants with three professional snooker players.  Though in the US, billiards players sadly do not achieve celebrity status, such was not case across the ocean in the United Kingdom. Starting in the late 1960s, with the BBC’s decision to broadcast tournaments, snooker became increasingly popular, and by the mid-1980s, the sport was at its apex, when 18 million TV viewers watched the World Snooker Championship in 1985. This back-story explains why a game show with snooker players could become so popular.  In fact, many of the current and former stars of the sport at the time, including Dennis Taylor, Jimmy White, Alex Higgins, Willie Thorne, and Allison Fisher, appeared on Big Break.   The episode below from 1993 features snooker stars Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty and Terry Griffiths.

The first round of play was called Red Hot.  In this round, contestants would amass 10-second increments of time by answering questions correctly.  The snooker players then had to “pot” as many balls as possible in that rewarded time (maximum 40 seconds).

The contestant paired with the player who potted the fewest balls then had a chance to win a consolation prize (including a Big Break board game) in the mini-game Virgo’s Trick Shot. In this game, Virgo would make a trick shot, and then ask the contestant to make it.  If s/he were successful (and often the hosts would “help” get the balls in), the contestant won the prizes.

The two remaining contestants then competed in the next round of play called Pocket Money.  In this round, each snooker player had to play by traditional snooker rules for 90 seconds with the snooker balls being worth amounts of money.  When the player missed, the contestant would need to correctly answer a question for play to resume.  Whichever contestant won the most money moved on to the final round, Make or Break?

In the final round, contestants were given 90 seconds to answer five general knowledge questions. Each correct answer allowed the snooker player to remove one red ball from the table. After the questions were answered, the remaining time was given to the snooker player to clear the snooker table with the benefit of having had a certain number of the red balls removed.

It’s interesting to quickly compare the wild success of Big Break to the wild failure of its American step-cousin Ballbreakers, which aired in 2005 on the Game Show Network and lasted just one year.  On one hand, each was a product of its time and origin.  Though Big Break missed the snooker heyday era by at least five years, it still was birthed by a country that loved the sport and the professionals who played it.  In comparison, the US TV networks have never looked favorably at billiards, and as a result, the US players, with the exception of Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee are basically unknown to the larger American TV-watching audience.  In this sense, Big Break started in the penthouse; Ballbreakers launched from the basement.

But the other interesting point of comparison is that Big Break left the billiards to the professionals.  And they were exciting to watch, especially under the 30- to 90-second time pressure of the different rounds. Ballbreakers made the terrible decision to let the contestants play the pool.  This may sound very populist and cool, but it made for awful viewing.

All of this begs the question…could Big Break be remade in parts of Asia, where billiards players are already recognized as celebrities?  Could it be remade today as an American game show and a way to increase the popularity of billiards in the United States?

You can find episodes of Big Break, including the Christmas Specials (with celebrities) on YouTube. Other relevant blogs on Big Break worth reading:

Married With Children – “Cheese, Cues and Blood” (Billiards TV)

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During the 11 years that Married With Children was on the air, I never understood the appeal of the show or the humor in watching the dysfunctional Bundy family, with the deadbeat father (Al), the obnoxious wife (Peggy), the dim and promiscuous daughter (Kelly) and the girl-crazy, wiseass son (Bud). Watching and re-watching the billiards TV episode “Cheese, Cues and Blood,” which aired in September 1991 as part of the show’s sixth season, did nothing to make me feel I had missed out.  Its poorly-staged and imbecilic treatment of pool only furthered that discontentment.

Married With Children - Billiards TVThe premise of this particular billiards TV episode is that Kelly (played by Christina Applegate, who actually does have the comedic chops, as evidenced by her terrific role in Anchorman), needs “only $1,000” for a gown so she compete for the “coveted title of Miss Cheese.”  She can’t wear one of her other gowns because they “smell like pork and old men’s hands.” When Al won’t give her the money, she “gets a night job,” earns $1000 and buys the dress herself.  Al isn’t sure how his dim-witted daughter got the money, but he rules out his neighbor’s suggestion that it was from “spanking elderly gentlemen in a tight leather outfit.” Cue the laugh-track, as lo and behold, Kelly then leaves for the night in a lava-hot black leather outfit.  Still confused, Al finally suspects she’s whoring when he gets a call for Kelly and hears a guy “has the money and can’t wait to learn if she is as good as the guys say she is.”

http://youtu.be/FgSapuep_7M

It’s not the worst premise, but the show deteriorates when he realizes that, rather than prostituting, Kelly is “hustling pool.” At the pool hall, which looks more like a campus rec center, the patrons gaggle and ogle, watching Kelly hustle.  EXCEPT, it’s a total mystery to me what possible game she is playing or how she is hustling.  She’s shooting stripes into solids, there is no 8- or 9-ball on the table, and the game suddenly ends when she pockets the 5-ball, though both solids and stripes remain on the table.  It’s like my 7-year-old came up with the rules of the game.  Granted, I realize it’s a sitcom and therefore not best to over-analyze, but really…wasn’t there one person on the set who played pool and could have said, “Hey guys, this might work a tad better if we at least pretended to inject a dose of reality into the game?”

The laughs hit an all-time low when Kelly is challenged by Slick Stick Jackson, who enters proclaiming he’s got “$10,000 that says he can beat any girl in the house.”  (Doesn’t that happen all the time?) To back the bet, Al sells nine pints of his blood (i.e., the “blood” in the title “Cheese, Cues and Blood”), becomes delirious, hallucinates, and inadvertently sabotages the game.  All I can say is given how stale the jokes were and how badly the pool was represented, I’m glad the game was over.

The full episode is available to watch above on YouTube.

Quantum Leap – “Pool Hall Blues”

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Remember the NBC series Quantum Leap that featured the time-travelling Dr. Sam Beckett (played by Scott Bakula), forever body-hopping into history to “put right what once went wrong?” Well, whatever you thought of the show’s five-season run, make sure to steer clear of the 1990 Season 2 billiards TV episode, “Pool Hall Blues – September 4, 1954.” It is both an insult to billiards and a squandered opportunity to provide some real history on the game’s overlooked African-American greats.

The storyline is that Sam leaps into the body of Charlie “Black Magic” Walters, an African-American pool player and one of the greatest pool hustlers in America, who must try to help his granddaughter save her Chicago nightclub before it is seized by Eddie Davis, a criminal loan shark.  Unable to help his granddaughter get a loan, he acquiesces to playing the loan shark in a first-to-seven game of 9-ball, with the nightclub as the winner-takes-all stake.  The full Pool Hall Blues episode is available to purchase on YouTube.

Let’s start with the basics…if you’re going to make a billiards TV episode, get your facts chronically accurate.  It is impossible in 1954 for one of the patrons to liken Charlie to Minnesota Fats, when Walter Nevis didn’t create the fictional character until 1959, the movie The Hustler (with Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats) didn’t come out until 1961, and Rudolf Wanderone, Jr. didn’t adopt the name until sometime after the movie debuted.

Also, there are a frightening number of pool playing errors.  There is a scene when Eddie Davis breaks a 9-ball rack and we watch the 5-ball sink.   He then calls the 3-ball, a script gaffe, both because one doesn’t call shots in 9-ball, and unless he’s caroming the 1-ball into the 3-ball, this would be an illegal shot.  But then it gets preposterous.  Eddie next makes a shot in which he sinks the 5-ball (yep, the same one he already sunk) before the cue caroms into the 9-ball.   Apparently, this 5-ball has more lives than a cat, as it then re-appears on the table seconds later.  Let’s just say I’m aghast Pool Hall Blues won the 1990 Primetime Emmy Award for “Outstanding Cinematography for a Series.”

Mistakes aside, the real insult in this episode is the assumption that the mechanics of billiards – the grip, the stance, the stroke, the bridge – can be mastered overnight.  That’s the necessity since Dr. Beckett can’t shoot pool.  Fortunately, he is ludicrously assisted by Al (played by Dean Stockwell) and his Handheld, a super-computer that can show Dr. Beckett the precise angle to hit every shot.   And there you have it!  Apparently, billiards is nothing more than geometry, and that with a little help from a magic blue guide-line, one can ignore all the other mechanics and become a world-class billiards player in a day.  [SPOILER ALERT!] Even better, when the Handheld goes on the fritz, Dr. Beckett is still able to make a four-cushion rail shot to win the series.

My other disappointment with Pool Hall Blues is the squandered opportunity to educate viewers around African-American billiards players.  First, there is the character Charlie “Black Magic” Walters, who is personified (when Dr. Beckett sees his reflection in the mirror) by the very real Los Angeles pool hustler Robert “Rags” Woods.  Too bad we only see Rags in the mirror and never on the table.  Blown opportunity.

But if Charlie Walters is one of the greatest pool players ever, is he based on a real person?  We’re told he has played the greats and “beat (Willie) Mosconi in Detroit.”   But, to the best of my knowledge, Charlie Walters is both imaginary and not based on a real person.

History has not been kind to African-American billiards players.  Too few are well-known and so there are only a couple of notable candidates to contemplate.  Cisero Murphy is perhaps the most famous, as he was the first black player inducted into the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame.  Mosconi, in fact, played Murphy, but he would have been 17 in 1954…a little young for a granddaughter.   Another well-known player was Leonard “Chicago Bugs” Rucker, who was in fact from Chicago, where Pool Hall Blues is set.  But, he also would have been a teenager in 1954, and his game was one-pocket, not 9-ball.  Then there is James Evans, who Minnesota Fats deemed the “greatest Negro pool players who ever lived” in his book The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies.  While Evans certainly played in the 1950s, there is a lamentable dearth of information available about his life. There are a few others from that era that get occasionally mentioned, but their stories are poorly documented.

So, if Charlie Walters is based on a real player, it’s not clear to me who it was, making it certainly a missed educational opportunity.  But, then again, maybe that person wouldn’t want to be associated with this terrible episode anyway.

Sanford and Son – “A House is not a Poolroom”

There are no amazing billiards shots. There are no dark, musty barrooms.  There are no cameos from billiards professionals.  There is no mention of Brunswick or Olhausen or Viking, just a nameless fold-up pool table and four cues protruding from a milk crate.  But, “A House is not a Poolroom,” the November 1973 episode of Season 3 of the sitcom Sanford and Son is great billiards TV all the same.

Sanford and Son - Billiards TVThe premise of the episode is that after Lamont (Demond Wilson) gets his father Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) a pool table for his birthday, he neither can get his father away from the table to attend to his family responsibilities, nor can he get any peace and privacy in house, since his father’s gaggle of friends have now ‘moved in’ to use the table.

Of course, what makes this individual episode hilarious (available below in its entirety) is the same ingredient that worked so well for Sanford and Son during most of its 6-year run: the brilliant comedian Redd Foxx, who helped turn racial prejudices on their head through Fred Sanford’s in-your-face antics, quick-witted tongue, conniving personality, and over-the-top selfishness.

http://youtu.be/eHs_KJnOAF8

Billiards, a sport requiring incredible mental stamina, has always provided a great stage for taunts, boasts, jests, and, in general, any kind of oral one-upmanship. (For a refresher, check out how Jonathan Winters rattles Jack Klugman in the seminal billiards TV Twilight Zone episode “A Game of Pool.”)

In “A House is not a Poolroom,” Redd Foxx unleashes his acerbic wit on his friend Grady with one-liners such as, “I’ll whip you like I was your daddy”; “I can roll you big fat guys up into one big round ball, and use you for a cue stick and beat both of you”; and “Grady, I could beat you blind-folded, one arm tied behind me, and the other one in a cast wearing armored shoes in the hospital having an emergency appendectomy.”

The other wonderfully humorous thing about the episode is how it captures the lure of pool.  Once the table is in the house, Fred ignores all his other responsibilities, as well as his romantic interest Donna, to keep playing.  The table becomes Mecca for his friends.  In fact, the cruel irony is that Fred must ultimately get rid of the table, lest he have to keep putting out money to feed his friends.

Finally, it’s worth noting that “A House is not a Poolroom” was likely the first in a history of black sitcom episodes to prominently feature billiards.  Three years later, there was another Sanford and Son TV episode indirectly about billiards called “Carol.”  And then in the ‘90s, billiards was prominently featured both on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (“Bank Shots” (1991)) and twice on The Steve Harvey Show (“Pool Sharks Git Bit” (1996) and “What You Won’t Cue For Love” (1998)).  Were there others?  Let me know.

Pat & Mat – “Billiard” (billiards TV)

Ever since the stop-motion animated sequences of billiard balls jumping off the table and re-racking themselves in the 1915 short film Pool Sharks, billiards and animation have been recurrent bedfellows.  From the traditional animation of the Tom & Jerry episode “Cue Ball Cat” in 1950 to the anime of Death Billiards in 2013, billiards and animation have supported one another in their pursuit of motion.  After all, without movement, there is neither billiards nor animation.

Pat & MatSo, it’s a not a surprise that the highly popular Czech stop-motion animated television series, Pat & Mat includes a memorable and award-winning episode “Billiard” (or “Kulečník” in Czech). Created by Lubomír Beneš and Vladmír Jiránek in 1976, Pat & Mat features two handymen who encounter self-made problems and then hatch Rube Goldbergian solutions that then spiral into more problems.  Throughout a 7-9 minute episode, the two handymen never get discouraged and often their imaginative solutions are far more interesting than the original problem.

In the case of the 1994 episode “Billiard” (shown in its entirety below), the predicament begins when one of the legs on Pat and Mat’s new billiards table falls off.  Unable to reconnect it, they attempt to level the table with books under one corner.  When it’s still uneven, they proceed to elevate all sides with books, then elevate themselves with a crate, which then has the unintended effect of causing them to puncture holes in the ceiling, break the television, lose a ball down the toilet, and even explode a ball in the fireplace (apparently verifying the old urban legend about flammable cue balls). Unfazed by the self-imposed destruction to both their new table and their house, the episode culminates with them cheerily using the one remaining billiard ball to play a crude form of bowling outdoors.

 

Aside from an immensely humorous way to spend 8 minutes (note: the show was initially conceived for adults), the “Billiard” episode also provides a great lesson in billiards education.  In July, I guest wrote an article for About.com entitled “A Billiards Education in Movies.” The article’s main premise is that people could learn a lot about alternate forms of billiards, as opposed to the common pocket billiards games (e.g., 8-ball, 9-ball, straight pool) from watching specific billiards movies and TV episodes (e.g., the Italian carom billiards game goriziani from the movie The Pool Hustlers).

In “Billiard,” Pat and Mat purchase a pocketless table that includes only 4 balls (2 white, 1 red, and 1 blue).  As it turns out, they are preparing to play destíkový carambol, which is Czech for “tenfold carom,” a variation of the carom billiards game four-ball.  According to Wikipedia, in four-ball, “each player is assigned one of the white balls as his own cue ball. A point is scored when a shooter caroms on any two other balls. Two points are scored when the player caroms on each of the three other balls.”  But in the Czech version, “a hit off all three balls, however, scores 10 points, one point shot and 10 points shot is doubled by hitting a cushion before hitting any of the other balls for a total of 2 or 20 points in one shot.”

So, the next time you consider disapproving of a cartoon, just remember…there might be a billiards education waiting for you.

Ballbreakers (billiards TV game show)

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For a fleeting moment in July 2005, members of the billiards community were aroused by a new billiards TV show – specifically, a billiards game show featuring both amateur “pool sharks” and celebrities – that debuted on the Game Show Network.

Produced by Sokolobl Entertainment, the show Ballbreakers (originally titled No Limit 9 Ball) consisted of contestants competing in 9-ball for a chance to win $20,000.  Giving the show its billiards imprimatur was Ewa Mataya Laurance (“The Striking Viking”), who provided commentary on game play and expert advice on shots if asked by the players, as well as Mars Callahan, the director of Poolhall Junkies, who was the show’s co-executive producer.   Adding to the show’s popular appeal was Adrianne Curry, winner of the first season of America’s Top Model, who served as the series’ “Rack Girl.”

Billiards TV - BallbreakersWith its cover story in the July 2005 issue of Pool & Billiard Magazine, the show sparked a brief surge of debate about its merit and role in improving the popular image of pool.  Rob Lobl, one of the show’s creators, said, “Pool is coolest in the movies…and the lamest thing on TV.”  His partner, Sam Sokolow, added, “With the right set, the right format, we knew we could come up with the coolest pool show ever…the sky is the limit.”

But, among billiards players, the reactions were more polarizing, even before it premiered.  One person posting in the Billiards Digest Forum said, “This program will probably bring more interest to the game and more pool players.”  While another person countered by saying, “Great.  Another dumbass show to lower the bar…whatever happened to elegance and the beauty of this game to those who really can play.”

In hindsight, Ballbreakers had very little impact on billiards.  This was, in a large part, because the show wasn’t particularly good, and it was cancelled in 2006.   Why, you might ask?  Let’s start with the premise: watching amateur players compete in 9-ball is only interesting to watch on TV if the billiards-playing is decent.  But, the contestants never ran more than a few shots and often missed easy ones.  Similar to hearing bad jokes told at an amateur comedy show, some of the playing became downright cringe-worthy.

This “lousy pool” dynamic in turn made the Striking Viking’s job as commentator kind of a joke, too.  Laurance may be an ESPN commentator, a member of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame, and a winner of all the major events on the WPBA tour, but even she couldn’t breathe much excitement into average playing and positioning.

The addition of Sal Masekela (X Games) as host also did little to dial up the engagement factor, especially because he was asked to treat the contestants as caricatures (e.g., the gay player “Cupcake,” the big player “Beefcake, etc.).  I did, however, enjoy his catchphrase, “Good luck.  Break some balls.”

A group of b- and c-list celebrities, including Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World), Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba) and Noah Wyle (ER) also joined two episodes of the series to boost ratings, but had little long-term impact.  However, at least one of those celebrities – Dorian Harewood – gets an honorary shout-out from me, for he also appeared 6 years earlier in the pool movie Kiss Shot, the topic of a future blog post.

I’ve included above one full episode of Ballbreakers, divided into four segments.  Watch them all, but I encourage you to check out the most novel part of the episode, which was Laurance’s introduction of the game “Jawbreakers” (Segment 2, 7:38) to get table control in the 2nd round.  It’s an interesting game designed to test how fast the players can pocket the 6 balls arranged next to the 6 pockets on the table.  But, like the show itself, it quickly falls apart.

Twilight Zone: A Game of Pool (Billiards TV Remake)

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This post is in honor of the Canadian actor Maury Chaykin, who played James “Fats” Brown in this Twilight Zone episode.  On Saturday, it will have been 3 years since his passing.

A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed the original “A Game of Pool” episode from The Twilight Zone that aired in 1961. It is arguably one of the best billiards TV episodes ever.

In 1989, that episode was remade as part of CBS’ short-lived, three-season revival of The Twilight Zone.  The remake of “A Game of Pool,” now in color, casts Esai Morales as local pool shark Jesse Cardiff (originally played by Jack Klugman) and Maury Chaykin as the deceased James “Fats” Brown (originally played by Jonathan Winters).  For the most part, it’s the same story about a life/death bet to be the best pool player.  But, it can’t hold a candle to the original episode.

http://youtu.be/iXDT6O0hLr0

For starters, Morales and Chaykin were not well-cast.  Morales, an award-winning actor best known for his role on NYPD Blue, is too anxious and overblown in his portrayal of Cardiff.  And Chaykin, who fans fondly remember as the armchair detective Nero Wolfe, lacks the gentlemanly cool and confidence that Winters nailed.  Instead, he seems just pugnacious.

The switch from black-and-white to color also does not help.  The bar room atmosphere no longer feels so chilling and claustrophobic. Instead, it feels ordinary, like a TV studio set.  (Check out this great article on the visual treatment of the original Twilight Zone.)  Similarly, the addition of the jazz horn as background music fails to create tension and rather seems contrived.

The pool-playing is also notably different, and not for the better.  Both Morales and Chaykin look downright uncomfortable holding a cue.  It’s hard to imagine Cardiff being “the best” the way Morales holds and jerks the cue (see 10:39).  It’s also surprising that both players rely entirely on an open bridge, generally preferred by less experienced players.

Another subtle change in the pool-playing is the game of choice.  In the original, they opt to play 14.1 continuous pool (i.e., straight pool).  In the remake, they play rotation pool, a game largely popular in Asian countries.  The objective of rotation pool is to score the most points by pocketing higher-numbered balls than one’s opponent.  However, like 9-ball, the cue must always first strike the lowest-numbered ball on the table.

Finally, the major difference that most people note is the choice of ending.  While I won’t give it away entirely, let’s just say it’s not the same player who wins in the original.  Interestingly, the remake actually reflects the author George Clayton Johnson’s original script.  Is it a better ending?  That’s a coin toss to me.  Is it a better billiards TV episode?  Not even close.

For additional commentary, check out  Postcards from the Zone.