Category Archives: Billiards TV

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

Next Time, Don’t Skip Science: The Physics of Billiards

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As the 1959 animated short film Donald in Mathmagic Land taught us, billiards is a game of mathematics, specifically of angles.  Remembering that the angles of incidence and reflection are the same, or understanding the table’s diamond system, benefits a player greatly.

Every bit as important as the mathematics, however, is the science. The physics of billiards is critical to the game, as the sport is all about transferring energy from the cue ball to an object ball.  A player’s ability to leverage the two forces at work – linear momentum and angular momentum – separates the top athletes from the rest of the pack.

Think such wonkish topics don’t make for compelling entertainment? Think again. At least three different documentary television series have delved into the science to bring these concepts to life. Those series are Time Warp, Discover Science, and Outrageous Acts of Science.  Let’s dive in.

Time Warp

Time Warp, the oldest of the three series, first aired on the Discovery Chanel in the United States in March 2008.  The series features MIT scientist Jeff Lieberman and cameraman Matt Kearney using high-speed cameras to capture and slow down everyday events for the purpose of understanding the physics.

The first-season “Samurai Sword Master” episode (November, 2008) examines the physics behind various cue strokes made by billiards professional Liz Ford. (At the time, Ms. Ford was a top-ranked pro on the Women’s Professional Billiard Association tour. She has since retired from competitive pool to run the Green Mountain APA Pool League, as well as write articles for PoolDawg, a sponsor of my blog.)

The first shot is the break, examined at 170x slower than normal speed.  This is followed by her stop spin and massé shots.  The highlight is watching her backspin shot, “time-warped at 2000 frames/second,” which enables the viewer to see the cue ball rotate five times before finally retracing its path backwards. Even Ms. Ford seems impressed.  The full episode is available to watch here.

Discover Science

Discover Science is a DVD series from 2012 that focuses on “spectacular experiments to sharpen your sense of science.” Starting with the first episode that sought to explain how 500 eggs could support the weight of a 1700 pound camel, the series utilized a team of “Experiment Rangers” to lead the experiments through trial and error and ultimately demonstrate the physical laws of nature.

“Let’s Play Long Billiards,” the 11th episode in the series, seeks to answer the question “how long does force travel?” by shooting a cue ball into an ever-increasing number of billiards balls. Professional billiards player Hideaki Arita (currently ranked #52 in Japanese Professional Billiards Association) joins the experiment as the expert cue ball stroker.

The episode begins with the experiment of shooting a cue ball into 16-foot long consecutive line of 90 balls to see if the 90th ball moves. (Yes, it does, easily.) Subsequent experiments increase the ball count eventually to 630 balls (114 feet), with the final ball still successfully moving. While the episode is clearly aimed at a young demographic, “Let’s Play Long Billiards” does a great job of revealing how the slightest imperfections (e.g., two balls not completely touching) can cause problems with accuracy and the transfer of forward momentum.

Outrageous Acts of Science

The final series is Outrageous Acts of Science, a Science Channel program in the US that features professional scientists, mathematicians and engineers reviewing and explaining internet videos of homemade science experiment and stunts, often accompanied by warnings of “don’t try this at home.” Now in its tenth season, the series first aired in April 2013.

In January 2015, the third season kicked off with the episode “Fact of Fake?” that includes a jaw-dropping billiards trick shot in which the cue ball, starting at the left back corner pocket makes a near-parabolic path around a straight line of approximately 40 balls bisecting the table to then pocket a ball in the right back corner pocket. The episode can be watched here.[1]

While the shot stuns some of the series’ experts, billiards enthusiasts will instantly identify the shot as real because the shot-maker is none other than Florian “Venom” Kohler, perhaps the world’s top trick shot artist and the (current) owner of six Guinness world records related to billiards.  As Venom modestly says, “Why would I fake it when I can do it?”

But, even if we know it’s real, we appreciate the explanations from the episode’s experts, physicists Helen Arney and Saad Sarwana, who contrast how “us mortals just hit a ball straight, giving the ball forward linear momentum…but, Florian is giving it linear momentum and [a lot of] angular momentum, where he strikes the ball off-center to make it spin very fast.”

So the next time you start tuning out when the conversation turns to science, just remember in billiards it’s all about the physics (and the math).

[1]      A huge thank you to my professional colleague, Metis Chief Data Scientist Deborah Berebichez, who is one of the experts on Outrageous Acts of Science, for informing me about this episode.

Supernatural – “The Gamblers”

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I’m frequently troubled by the lack of respect for billiards in pop culture.  I’m not talking about the cheap fascination with pool hustlers, the overuse of ridiculous trick shots, or the inevitable pool hall brawl.  All of these tropes reveal a certain lack of imagination or wanton trafficking in caricatures, but not inherently disrespect.  No, my lament has to do with the regular disregard for, and misrepresentation, of the rules of the game and the skill it involves, as if accuracy and verisimilitude have no role in a billiards movie or television episode.  The latest malefactor: “The Gamblers” episode of Supernatural.

Supernatural - "The Gamblers"Maybe if this were some third-rate, bargain basement series on late-night cable, I might be more forgiving.  But, Supernatural, a dark fantasy television series that launched in 2005, is now the longest-running American live-action fantasy TV series. Supernatural follows two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings. Currently airing its fifteenth and final season, the series averages more than one million weekly viewers; has spawned 17 novels, several comic book series, and multiple TV and anime spinoffs; and has received 45 awards and 151 nominations.  To put it bluntly, this is a show that can afford to get it right.

Supernatural - "The Gamblers"“The Gamblers” episode, which aired on January 30, 2020, finds Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) and his brother Dean (Jensen Ackles) at an Alaskan bar named Lurlene’s, where people bet their luck in games of pool.[1] As one cashier describes it, “If you win, you come back lucky. But, no one ever does…it’s a pool hall that makes you lucky or might kill you.” As it turns out, the pool hall is run by Atrox Fortuna, aka the Roman goddess of luck, who explains that her kind were created by God to take the blame from mankind when things go wrong, so this bar is her form of payback.

The plot didn’t make much sense to me, but it’s the billiards, not the storyline, which is my gripe.  Let’s start with the first match of 8-ball between Dean and Fortuna, who responds favorably to Dean’s cringe-inducing hustler strategy, “If the fish aren’t biting, throw them a little chum.” The match is hardly nail-biting, with Dean clearing the table quickly.  His game-winning 8-ball shot involves banking the cue off the rail to sink the eight in the corner pocket closest to him. And while he does sink the ball, it’s only after an uncalled double-kiss that by standard bar pool rules would constitute a foul and therefore a loss of game.[2] But, in “The Gamblers” there is no acknowledgement of this faux pas.  It’s as if the rules didn’t matter.

The second transgression is far more egregious. Dean, having decided that the brothers “have to minimize risk, maximize profit…it’s like a Fast Eddie…from Dad’s favorite…Paul Newman, The Hustler,” decides that he will play one more match to up his luck and sets out to find his “Jackie Gleason.”[3] A cowboy named Joey 6 agrees to play Dean.  As the game gets down to the final balls, it appears Joey 6 has immobilized Dean behind an opposing ball such that he can’t pocket the 8-ball.  Making it double-or-nothing, Dean beats Joey 6 by performing a jump shot to win the game.  EXCEPT, it’s an illegal scoop jump shot, a blatant billiards violation that is ignored by the players, actors, script-writers and director. It’s the equivalent of scoring a touchdown and disregarding the pass interference, or overlooking goaltending, or allowing a batted puck to count as goal.  The net effect of this blind eye to official rules is that Joey 6 runs out of luck and effectively dies from lung cancer.  Imagine if the rules had been followed.

There is an early moment in “The Gamblers” when Dean says to Sam, “Pool…the game of champions, kings, my game, hell, our game…how many great memories do we have hustling pool?”  That prompted me to search the Supernatural archives, and sure enough, this was the third episode to feature the brothers playing billiards.  The first was in Season 4 (“I Know What You Did Last Sumer”) and the more recent was in Season 10 (“Inside Man”).

Supernatural - "The Gamblers"And, lest you think “The Gamblers” was a fluke, this disregard for the actual rules of pool was on display in the earlier seasons, too.  In this clip from “Inside Man,” Dean is again in full-hustle mode, this time to teach a lesson to some overconfident college kids.  But, as he prepares the table for 8-ball, he racks the balls incorrectly, putting two stripes in the corners.

While I may not be the target demographic for this series, my review comes down to a few superlatives: Supernatural is super disappointing and super inauthentic.

[1]      Fun fact: Lurlene is derived from Lurlei, and altered to Lorelei. In Germanic legend, Lorelei was a beautiful siren who sat upon a rock in the Rhine River and lured sailors to shipwreck and death.

[2]      I understand if they are playing APA rules then Dean’s shot would be permitted.  But, who’s kidding who? This is Lulerne’s in Alaska, not the 8-Ball World Championship.

[3]      This horribly forced reference to The Hustler makes no sense, given Fast Eddie loses to Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) in their initial matchup.

Love, American Style – “Love and the Hustler”

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Since the Golden Age of Television in the 1950s, anthology series, which presents a different story and a different set of characters in each episode, segment and/or season, have been a mainstay. Wikipedia lists more than 200 such series. Some of these (e.g., Masterpiece Theater; Tales from the Crypt) have had a memorable impact on popular culture; most have not, disappearing after only a couple of seasons.

In my pursuit to discover every billiards television episode, it’s not surprising that I’ve uncovered more than a few episodes from anthology series. Those episodes have ranged from the spectacular (e.g., Twilight Zone – “Game of Pool”) to the craptacular (e.g., Friday the 13th – “Wedding Bell Blues”).

Love and the HustlerRecently, I learned of Love, American Style, a romantically-tinged comedy series that aired between 1969 and 1974.  Today, the series is probably best known for having a segment titled “Love and the Television Set” that ultimately led to the creation of the popular ABC show Happy Days.  But, for this reviewer, the only episode that matters is “Love and the Hustler,” which was the series premiere on September 29, 1969.

“Love and the Hustler,” which was one of three segments in the series premiere, focuses on Big Red (Flip Wilson), a boisterous yet charming pool player who is ultimately hustled by his romantic interest Mercy (Gail Fisher), a new player with more than beginner’s luck.

Love and the HustlerSpecifically, Big Red has been stakehorsed to play against a mystery opponent as part of a $500 wager.  While Big Red waits for his opponent, he entertains himself by showing off to Mercy, such as making the classic six ball “butterfly trick shot” in exchange for six kisses.  Big Red (and presumably, the viewers) believes the opponent is a no-show, but as is slowly revealed, his opponent is Mercy, who goes on to win fifty straight points.  Though he loses the match, he walks away with Mercy, still intent on claiming his six kisses.

From a technical billiards perspective, “Love and the Hustler” is pretty unimaginative. There are a couple of difficult shots shown from a birds-eye view, but most of the point-scoring is on fast cuts of easy shots and balls slamming into pockets.

However, from a cultural billiards perspective, there is more of interest.  Big Red does not lose to just any opponent. He loses to a woman – in fact, the reason the hustle works is because no one would suspect a woman of playing pool well.  Though there is little historical mention of female pool hustlers until Lori Shampo in the 1970s, “Love and the Hustler” aired in late 1969, right when the women’s liberation movement is emerging, so this idea would have had real cultural resonance.[1]

Love and the HustlerThe other aspect that is highly noteworthy is “Love and the Hustler” features an all-black cast.  Only a few years earlier, there were barely any shows on the air that could make this claim, aside from the immensely popular I Spy that ran from 1965-1968. But, with the Black Power (“Black is Beautiful”) movement impacting music, art, film, and dance, it of course started to permeate television, and by the “second half of the 1960s, there were more than two dozen programs featuring black actors as leading characters, or in prominent, regular supporting roles”…though many of those shows were quickly cancelled.[2]

I don’t know if Love, American Style regularly featured all-black casts.  But, “Love and the Hustler” certainly deserves honorable mention for launching the career of Flip Wilson (Big Red), who subsequently hosted his own weekly variety show, The Flip Wilson Show, which earned Wilson a Golden Globe and two Emmy Awards, and at one point was the second highest rated show on network television.

For Gail Fisher (Mercy), “Love and the Hustler” was another opportunity to increase her visibility. She was already on the path to breaking cultural milestones as the secretary Peggy Fair on the television detective series Mannix, a role for which she won two Golden Globes and an Emmy, thereby making her the first black woman to win either award.

“Love and the Hustler” is currently viewable on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/-PS7vH_6HUI

[1]      “Love and the Hustler” was not the first billiards episode to feature a female pool hustler.  That honor goes to the 1966 “Charley, the Pigeon” episode of My Three Sons.

[2]    “The Golden Age of Blacks in Television: The Late 1960s,” by J. Fred MacDonald

The Lucy Show – “Lucy and the Pool Hustler”

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December, 1967.  Jean Balukas, who would become known as one of the greatest billiards players in the world, was just eight year old.  “The Duchess of Doom” Allison Fisher was still in her mama’s belly. The Women’s Professional Billiards Association (WPBA) would not be conceived for another nine years. Similarly, the inaugural World Ladies Snooker Championship would also have to wait almost a decade.

Though billiards was not yet a women’s professional sport, and most of today’s female legends were too young to play or not yet born, the game’s demographics were changing. The late ‘60s were a period of cultural tumult and women’s liberation, and as billiards expanded beyond the pool parlors, more and more women started to pick up their cues.

This is the chronological backdrop for The Lucy Show episode “Lucy and the Pool Hustler” which aired in December 1967 as part of the series’ sixth season. The Lucy Show, starring Lucile Ball as Lucy Carmichael, was the follow-up to the immensely enjoyable sitcom I Love Lucy.

“Lucy and the Pool Hustler” acknowledges this gender shift right from the episode’s get-go. Harry Norton (Stanley Adams), a customer of the bank where Lucy works, is the proprietor of Norton’s Ball and Cue Salon. Formerly known as Norton’s Pool Room, with its “sexy calendars,” the rebranded salon has been cleaned up to entice women to frequent his establishment.  In fact, “since the dames took over, business has been terrific… [The women] aren’t here to play pool…now they play pocket billiards.” As for the red-felted tables?  “So what, now that I got green in the cash register,” exclaims Mr. Norton.

While Lucy learned how to play pool as a child, she’s not a fan of the game, until she learns that there is a Ladies Pocket Billiard Tournament, sponsored by the (fictitious) Pacific Billiard Supply Co., with a $1,000 cash first prize. Remarking that with $1000, she could “buy a new car, and a new color TV, and a new wardrobe, and redo [her] apartment…a $1000 makes a lot of down payments,” she enrolls in the tournament.

Lucy’s main competition is Laura Winthrop, who the audience knows is really the cigar-smoking, fast-talking, pool-hustling army veteran Ace Winthrop (Dick Shawn) in drag.  Behind in his payments to Mr. Norton, Ace agrees to enter the tournament, masquerading as a woman, as the fastest path to paying off his debt.

The little billiards that occurs in the episode is pretty uninspiring. Most of the comedy is devoted to lagging for the break, with Ace doing a behind-the-back lag matched by Lucy lagging with the bumper of her cue.  When Lucy makes even the most basic shot, the onlookers go wild, presumably awed by her ability to pocket any ball, which may be a cultural indicator that the mainstream still found it hard to believe a woman could shoot pool.

(Ironically, Lucille Ball was allegedly an avid pool player.  In 1972, she even loaned her name and image to a table top pool game by Milton Bradley called Pivot Pool, which was a tiny, plastic version of billiards for families.[1])

Winthrop, in turn, quickly starts running the table. When he’s one shot away from winning the purse, he concedes that Lucy is a “cute trick,” so he will at least make the match interesting by calling his final shot, “2-ball off the side cushion off the [second] side cushion off the front cushion off [another] side cushion into the side pocket.” His get-the-money/get-the-girl plan falls flat, however, when his wig gets stuck on some of the salon sculpture. With his dame-game scheme exposed, Lucy becomes the winner.

While Ms. Ball was a true pioneer in comedy, it’s hard to argue she did much to advance billiards for women in the “Lucy and the Pool Hustler” episode. Fortunately, help was around the corner, as women like Dorothy “Cool Hand” Wise and Palmer Byrd, put billiards on a national stage, and young prodigies, such as Jean Balukas, Allison Fisher and Loree Jon Hasson began showing the world that the “big lie about billiards being man’s game” was no more.[2]

[1]   Pivot Pool was one of five games in the 1970s that Lucille Ball released with Milton Bradley. The others were Pivot Golf, Solotaire, Cross Up, and Body Language.

[2]   Quote attributed to Dorothy Wise. (Source: “Cool Hand Dorothy is Women’s Champion,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 10/27/71.)

In a Man’s World – “Emily”

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At least since Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis disguised themselves as women to escape the police and mafia and join Sweet Sue and her all-female band the Society Syncopators in Some Like It Hot (1959), audiences have generally guffawed at men acting in drag. Tom Hanks jumpstarted his acting career by turning Kip into Buffy in Bosom Buddies. Dustin Hoffman got an Oscar nomination playing Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie. The Wayans brothers in White Chicks. Martin Lawrence in Big Momma’s House. Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire. The list goes on and on.

For women, the on-screen gender metamorphosis has not only been less common, but also is more often done for nobler purposes, specifically fighting societal stereotypes (e.g., Just One of the Guys; She’s the Man; Mulan; The Ballad of Little Jo).

With the new Bravo series In a Man’s World, executive producer (and Triple Crown of Acting winner) Viola Davis sought to dig deeper into the sexism women encounter every day by shifting the focus from fighting stereotypes to exposing the sexism head-on through real-life, temporary gender transformation. With this kind of social experiment, In a Man’s World can be seen as a cultural successor to John Howard Griffin’s autobiographical account Black Like Me, Norah Vincent’s memoir Self-Made Man, and even the reality franchise series Undercover Boss.

With four episodes having aired thus far, In a Man’s World documents the experiences of women who tackle gender issues and explore what it’s like to experience the world as a man. Aided by Oscar-winning makeup artist Dave Elsey and his wife Lou, vocal coach Tom Burke, and movement coach Esco Jouléy, the women ‘become’ men and interact in front of hidden cameras with the same people – specifically the same men – who have historically harassed them as women.

In a Man’s World premiered on October 1 this year with “Emily,” named after the episode’s protagonist, Emily “The Billiards Bombshell” Duddy.  Currently ranked #14 in the Women’s Professional Billiards Association, Ms. Duddy is no stranger to the pool-watching couch-potato crowd, as she was a cast member of the 2015 TruTV show The Hustlers.

Ms. Duddy is also a notable choice because, by her own admission, she has relied on her looks and femininity to stand out in a male-dominated business where she’s constantly subjected to demeaning comments that focus on her sex, not her ability.

It’s not a total surprise that the producers of In a Man’s World opted to make billiards the milieu for the inaugural episode.  Like many sports, competitive billiards operates with considerable pay inequality between genders. Top ranked men earn $84,222 compared to women who earn $15,600. But, even away from the tournaments, the palpable sexism that many women have encountered, or currently encounter, playing pool is both disgusting and debilitating.

Emily becomes Alex

The “Emily” episode crystalizes this point.  In a hidden-camera match against William “The Godfather” Finnegan at Amsterdam Billiards, she is verbally mocked and insulted 28 times, with comments such as “Gimme a good rack, like the rack you got” and “You’re in a man’s game in a man’s world.”  While some might argue this is the standard jeering and one-upmanship in a sport heavy on braggadocio, pomposity, and intimidation, it is glaringly telling that when Ms. Duddy returns in makeup and prosthetics as a “rugged, sexy cowboy” named Alex, s/he receives none of the same mockeries.

The emphasis on Mr. Finnegan as a Neanderthal nemesis, clinging to a chauvinistic era where it’s time for “women to go in the kitchen and cook [him] some food,” allows the episode to score easy points with its viewers. It’s impossible not to watch and sympathize with Ms. Duddy, her billiards buds Jennifer Barretta and Jackie, and the other estimated 8.8 million women who play pool.[1] On what planet is Mr. Finnegan’s pronouncement tolerable that in the pool games he organizes, “Only men can play. I don’t let women play. Don’t want ’em to play. They’re too slow. Most men don’t want to lose to the women. When I lost to a woman, I really don’t feel good. It’s the male ego: we feel that we’re more dominant.”?

But, ironically, Mr. Finnegan comes across as such a caricature that, as Andy Dehnart wrote in his review on Reality Blurred, “[Finnegan] becomes the problem: not institutionalized sexism in professional billiards, but one guy who acts like an ass.”

Furthermore, the physical, emotional and psychological changes that Ms. Duddy had to endure to transform from Emily to Alex are watered-down by the episode’s highly incredible ending. After losing a match to Mr. Finnegan, Ms. Duddy does her grand reveal and shows that Emily and Alex are the same person. Mr. Finnegan is awestruck! Amazed! Flabbergasted!

The Hustlers

Cast of The Hustlers, including Finnegan (3rd from left) and Duddy (6th from left).

Without the makeup and prosthetics, Mr. Finnegan too transforms, from a caveman to Mr. Woke Progressive. After watching the video footage, he proclaims, “She proved to us how we look at women, which now it shows to me that we’re wrong,” said Finnegan. “Women can compete in the man’s world of pool and now I understand. My tournaments that like I said I only invite men, as of today, will change.”

Maybe it’s all genuine.  Shit, I hope it is.  But, Mr. Finnegan is no stranger to television, having also acted with Ms. Duddy on The Hustlers.

Hashtag progress? Or hashtag realityTV?  Only time will tell.

[1] National Sporting Goods Association (2012).

The Honeymooners – “Opportunity Knocks But”

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Watching the movie The Maltese Falcon, I first appreciated the use of a MacGuffin. Popularized by film director Alfred Hitchcock, a MacGuffin is an “object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.”1 In the case of the 1941 noir classic, the eponymous avian black figurine drives the story, but is itself peripheral and inconsequential.

To be clear, the “Opportunity Knocks But” episode of The Honeymooners is no Maltese Falcon. But, in many ways, the game of billiards is the ultimate MacGuffin.

For those too young or ignorant to remember the Golden Age of Television, The Honeymooners was an American sitcom following the day-to-day life of bus driver Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason), his wife Alice (Audrey Meadows), and his best friend Ed Norton (Art Carney).

“Opportunity Knocks But,” which aired in May 1956, was one of the last of the “Classic 39 Episodes.” In the episode, Mr. Marshall, Ralph’s boss at the bus company, receives a new pool table as an anniversary present from his wife. Told Ralph is “the best pool player in the bus company,” Mr. Marshall asks Ralph to stop by his Park Avenue apartment that night to teach him the “fundamentals” of the game.

Ralph, of course, jumps at the opportunity, telling Norton, “this is how you get places, socializing with the higher-ups.” Norton ends up joining Ralph, and the two of them agree that “no matter what Mr. Marshall does tonight, every shot he takes, compliment him…encourage him.”

This pre-planned sycophancy reaches its humorous apex when Ralph comments on Mr. Marshall’s chalking (“Say, look at how well he did that, Norton! Oh! He was a good chalker for the first time.”) or his missing the ball on the break (“Yeah, but you came so close… if anybody had told me that you was a pool hustler when I met you this afternoon, I would have laughed right in their face.”)

But, here’s the rub: they don’t actually ever play pool. Aside from selecting and chalking a cue, the game never begins. Mr. Marshall keeps getting interrupted by Norton’s ideas for improving the work environment for the bus drivers. Though Ralph keeps trying to redirect the conversation back to the game, Norton makes such an impression on Marshall that he offers him the Bus Driver Supervisor position so coveted by Ralph. For Ralph, this ignominy squelches any further chance of playing.

So, while billiards drove the episode’s plot and provided the perfect milieu for showcasing talent and exchanging ideas, the actual game is irrelevant, thereby becoming the ultimate MacGuffin.
The irony, of course, as most billiards cineastes know, is that Jackie Gleason, like the character he portrayed, truly was a billiards expert. Honeymooners fans got a glimpse of this just five episodes later in “The Bensonhurst Bomber.” But, the real treat came five years later when Gleason portrayed pool hustler Minnesota Fats in the masterpiece The Hustler. Let’s just say it was worth the wait.

  1. Wikipedia

Big Trouble at Barney’s

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I have to congratulate the data scientists at Amazon.  Somehow, amidst the 17,461 movies and nearly 2,000 TV shows on Prime[1], their algorithms were able to sift past the Ostern, Bollywood Horror, and Bruceploitation sub-genre films and recommend to me Big Trouble at Barney’s, a heretofore unheard of entrant in my favorite sub-genre, billiards movies and TV shows.

This television series debuted on Amazon Prime in November 2018 with three episodes.  Produced by New Zealand Son Films, which has no immediately clear Kiwi connection, Big Trouble at Barney’s, like the name suggests, focuses on the big trouble two estranged siblings, Jake (Ken Breese) and Caroline (Megan Nager), incur when they inherit their father’s failing pool hall Barney’s.

That trouble only gets worse when Jake and Jessica (Zoe Sidney), an escort with financial struggles, concoct a plan to run an exclusive “dating” service out of Barney’s.  Essentially, ten guys pay to come to the bar and meet ten women, all whom are professional escorts. My favorites are the Swallow Twins. (No, really.) After a quick round of comical speed-dating, they pair as partners, playing pool and then, hopefully, going home for some action.  Barney’s gets the bar tab, and a percent of anything the women earn post-pool.

It’s a promising concept, good for on occasional laugh (“Three words to describe you: ‘pretty, attractive, and I’ve also heard beautiful.’”). But, the first-time actors are so amateur that it’s hard to enjoy, never mind impossible to believe. Fortunately, Jake and Caroline’s dialogue is a little more imaginative and is buoyed by the actors’ comedic chops.

The roly-poly Ken Breese brings an endearing innocence to his otherwise cornball and scuzzy plans, such as having Naked Poetry night at Barney’s.  To one unsuspecting woman, he says, “Our research has shown that if you perform your poetry without the confines of your clothing than the audiences will be bigger and we can charge more.”

And Megan Nager, who could be Kat Dennings’ doppelgänger, brings the sass, as well as delivers the best line of the first three episodes.  To her slug boss that is firing her for not being a team player when she is mourning her father’s death, she says, “Listen you skinny dick fuck. I was ‘all in’ for 3 years, so you’re severance package better be epic…I want a severance plan emailed to me or I’m going to go all in [with a competitor] balls deep.”

Unfortunately, no number of one-line zingers and obscure sexual vulgarisms (“wet dog in a tub”? oh my…) can distract me from the inescapable and inexcusable fact that there is very little billiards played at Barney’s and thus featured in this show.  The occasional shots are true groaners, with an audience of onlookers applauding the most rudimentary of shots.  It’s the equivalent of cheering for a golf putt three inches from hole. And that perhaps is the biggest trouble at Barney’s.

[1]       The number of movies is as of January 20, 2019 (source: Streaming Observer). The number of TV shows is as of March, 2016 (source: Barclays, quoted in Variety).

Snookered

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SnookeredIn the sport of snooker, getting “snookered” means that one has been put in a position where s/he does not have the ability to use the cue ball to make a direct, linear shot on the object ball.  It is a perfectly valid and highly technical form of defense.

In modern parlance and away from the table, “snookered” is a slang verb that means to “deceive, cheat, or dupe,” according to Dictionary.com.  That definition has provoked considerable criticism across the Ocean from linguists who counter by referencing the Oxford English Dictionary: to snooker is to place in an impossible position; to balk, stymie. Ergo, to be snookered would imply that one is in a difficult situation, but nothing duplicitous has occurred.

Now, all of this lexical debate could be routinely dismissed and relegated to the online nattering of etymologists on the English Language & Usage Stack Exchange, except “snookered” improbably shows up as the single most common title of billiards movies and television episodes. By my count, “Snookered” is the title of four billiards televisions episodes and three billiards short films, not to mention a billiards-themed play, two billiards-themed books, and the b-side of Chas & Dave’s famous anthem, “Snooker Loopy.”  So, without further delay, let’s get “Snookered.” 

Terry and June – “Snookered”

From 1979 to 1987, the BBC ran the sitcom Terry and June, which starred Terry Scott and June Whitfield as a middle-aged, middle-class suburban couple. In the January 1982 “Snookered” episode, Terry has purchased a six-foot snooker table, with grand fantasies of becoming a champion. But, the acid-tongued June is less certain, telling Terry, “You’re about as good at snooker as the captain of the Titanic was at spotting icebergs.” 

Admitting to his shortcomings, Terry begrudgingly sells his table for 30 pounds by advertising it in the newspaper. However, immediately after selling the table, he starts getting inundated with inquiries from prospective buyers, who are willing to pay more than 100 pounds.  Realizing the table is worth far more than he thought, he buys it back for 70 pounds. Then, he begins a rather comical – and ultimately expensive — journey to determine why there is such demand for the table, even when antique dealers tell him it is “rubbish.” I won’t spoil the ending but don’t get your hopes up that Joe Davis has any relation to the legendary Steve of the same surname. The full episode is available to watch here.

https://youtu.be/FiYLo8qh8Nw

Mortimer’s Patch – “Snookered” [WANTED!]

Unfortunately, most of the other “Snookered” television episodes I was not able to find online, including the June 1984 episode from the New Zealand police drama Mortimer’s Patch.  If you can help me locate any of these episodes, please contact me directly.  All I could learn was that the series, which lasted only three seasons, featured detective and police work in the fictional town of Cobham. In the “Snookered” episode, a pool hustler comes to town in order to blackmail.

Roy – “Snookered” [WANTED!]

Roy O’Brien, the 11-year old cartoon-animated son of a live-action family in Dublin, is at the center of this eponymous Irish children’s television series. In the February 2014 “Snookered” episode, Roy’s dad, Bill, discovers that his son is a snooker prodigy.  When his dad bumps into his old snooker-playing rival, Clive “The Tornado” Butler, Bill forces Roy to compete in a grudge match.  For Roy, it’s a big fuss about “a silly game of snooker,” but for Bill, it’s an opportunity for “claiming glory on the field of battle” and for his son to “be a world champion by the time he’s 16…have [his] own line of merchandising, maybe a video…and then in 25 or 30 years, retire as the greatest player to ever pick up a snooker cue.”

Though I could not watch the “Snookered” episode online, I got some mild enjoyment from this transcript of the episode.

Harry’s Mad – “Snookered” [WANTED!]

Still another children’s television series that seized on the name “Snookered” is Harry’s Mad, a British show that ran from 1993 to 1996.  Based on the book by Dick King-Smith, the series focused on 10-year-old Harry Holdsworth, who inherits a super intelligent talking macaw named Madison (aka Mad).  Harry and his family have lots of adventures, but the bird also attracts the attention of the villainous Terry Crumm.  There’s a dearth of information about the “Snookered” episode, except that it featured snooker world champion Steve Davis.

Snookered (short film, 2005)

This nine-minute film written and directed by Hammish Scadding saw a larger audience than it deserved because it was a part of Virgin Media Shorts, the UK’s biggest short film competition at that time. (The competition ended in 2014.)

The movie focuses on two ‘friends,’ one of whom has always been more popular and successful than the other. The narrator, always undermined by his friend, views the pool table as “the most important place. Two sides fighting for supremacy on that bright green battlefield.” Presumably, he’s never won a game against the friend until – spoiler alert – tonight. And, with that victory, “every winner loses, while every loser joins a winner’s table.” Really? Someone actually wrote that?  The film is available to watch here.

Snookered (short film, 2014)

Almost three years ago, I wrote a blog post about Azeem Mustafa’s 2015 billiards-martial arts short film The Break. At the time, I was unaware of that film’s predecessor, the five-minute film Snookered, which, naturally, also mixes billiards and martial arts over a funky soundtrack.

The ‘martial arts criminal comedy’ focuses on two gangsters who opt to play a game of snooker to determine who shall walk away with a valuable briefcase. The five-hour game fails to determine a winner, so the two men follow up with a one-hour martial arts battle (that has some pretty decent fight sequences for a self-made short film). The film is available to watch here.

Snookered (short film, 2018)

Rounding out the septet of Snookered-named films is this seven-minute film from Scotland that won the 48 Hour Film Project.  Like the name suggests, the movie was written, shot, and edited in just 48 hours for entry into this cinematic competition. The plot centers on a mysterious, dangerous box that must be couriered to a local snooker hall.  When it is delivered to and opened by the recipient, we learn it contains toxic cue chalk that kills the user when he blows on the cue. Created by Team Dropshack, Snookered won Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.  

So, to all the film auteurs still contemplating the name of their next billiard masterpiece, please heed my advice and leave alone the title “Snookered.” I promise I’m not trying to deceive or cheat you, or put you in a difficult situation.  I just don’t want anyone to be snookered again.

Alcoa Theatre – “Goodbye Johnny”

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It is easy to overlook the “Goodbye Johnny” billiards episode of the NBC anthology series Alcoa Theatre. Almost 60 years old, the series was not particularly notable or groundbreaking, save for the Mickey Rooney episode “Eddie,” which picked up handful of Emmy wins and nominations.  And, “Goodbye Johnny” has a pretty unimaginative plot in which a man, Johnny Keegan, tries to hustle a local mobster in a game of pool in order to win enough money to support his sick wife.  (Spoiler alert: the hustle backfires.) You can watch the full episode here.

Goodbye Johnny But, don’t let those banalities dissuade you. “Goodbye Johnny” is, in fact, one of the best billiards television episodes ever, which is pretty amazing given it’s also one of the first known episodes, having aired in February, 1959, during the series’ second season.  (As a reminder, that’s still more than two years before The Hustler shined a spotlight on the art of hustling and led to a nationwide revival of billiards.) Below are my 7 reasons (in no particular order) why “Goodbye Johnny” ranks as a top billiards television episode.

  1. The billiards. All too often, billiards episodes resort to showing a series of trick shots as a proxy for skilled playing. But, as any real player knows, such shots never appear in actual games. “Goodbye Johnny” gets the pool right. A series of montages highlights the well-executed banks, rail shots, breaks, and subtle spin shots. The camera focuses on the lead – which is what really matters – rather than standard, TV-friendly multi-ball shots that suffocate the genre.
  2. Pop’s praise of Keegan. In the first billiards sequence, Johnny Keegan is practicing his game, preparing for his future hustle. It’s a marathon practice session that catches the eye of the proprietor, Pop.  At the end, Pop comes over and fawns over Keegan’s game: “Beautiful shooting. Beautiful. I never seen such shot-making. Banks, combinations, longs, shorts, cuts, breaks. You own every shot in the book. Beautiful.” It’s a beautiful rhapsody, indeed.
  3. Goodbye Johnny“Bird dog”. In my years of watching billiards movies, I’ve heard a lot of hustler lingo, but “bird dog,” as in “I’ll bird dog for you, boy, but I want 25%,” is a first…and I love it! The dictionary defines it as “to watch closely,” but it has a more urban meaning, “to locate special items or people,” such as marks for Keegan’s hustle. Someone page Will Shortz: this word is New York Times crossword-ready.
  4. Tony Busso’s manicure. The first time we meet mobster Busso, he is…getting his nails trimmed. This is big boss Busso? In fact, many real mafiosos were known for their impeccable attire and grooming (cf., John Gotti Jr. and hitman had nails done after murder). As with the billiards, the emphasis on the manicure speaks to the subtle tone and imagery of the episode.
  5. Goodbye JohnyOpening the cue case. Having recently re-watched Raider of the Lost Ark, Keegan’s initial unveiling and opening of his cue case reminded me of Belloq’s opening of the ark. We don’t see the cue, but know something magical resides within the case, and that once opened, there is no turning back.
  6. Discarding the cue case. Once Busso learns that he’s “the fish” who has been hustled, we know Keegan’s days are numbered. We don’t need to see him get beaten or killed, which would be inconsistent with the show’s nuanced tone. Instead, a couple of Busso’s gorillas put Keegan into a car and toss his cue case into the street, symbolically heralding his violent demise.
  7. Uncle Ben. Take a good look at Keegan. That’s Uncle Ben Parker!  Actually, it’s actor Cliff Robertson, 43 years before his famous role as Spider-Man’s uncle (R.I.P.), as well as 10 years before his Oscar-winning Best Actor performance in Charly.

Unfortunately, Johnny’s exit was just the first good-bye. Fourteen months after “Goodbye Johnny” aired it was good-bye Aloca Theatre, as the series was eclipsed by Aloca Presents: One Step Beyond, and then by Aloca Premiere, which ran until July 1963.

Mr. Lucky – “That Stands for Pool”

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Mr. LuckyFollow the money.  First, there is the $100,000 bet between Mr. Lucky and the gambling thug Nick Popolous.  Then, confident Mr. Lucky will throw him the game, Nick convinces the high-roller Mark Langdon to also bet $100,000 on Mr. Lucky.  Knowing Mr. Lucky will have to lose $100,000, his good friend Andamo creates a hedge, convincing J.B., another high-roller, to bet him $100,000 against Mr. Lucky.  This series of bets, summing to more than $2.5 million in today’s dollars, forms the plot of the 1959 Mr. Lucky episode “That Stands for Pool.” 

If you blinked in 1959, you may have missed the short-lived CBS television series Mr. Lucky. Created by Blake Edwards, who had much more success with The Pink Panther series, Peter Gunn, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Mr. Lucky ran for just one season. The show starred John Vivyan as Mr. Lucky, an honest professional gambler, who operated a legal, floating casino aboard the ship Fortuna. He is assisted by his close friend Andamo (Ross Martin). Each episode focused on Mr. Lucky playing host to various millionaires, playboys, rogues, and roughnecks, typically engaging in some kind of betting activity.

In the episode “That Stands for Pool,” available to watch here, Mr. Lucky is forced to accept the aforementioned $100,000 bet, having been assured, in the typical hooligan vernacular, that if he chooses to win, welch, or decline the wager, he will lose his life. As subsequent sidebets and hedges are lain, the episode builds to the culminating match of straight pool, which initially is for 100 points, but becomes a 500-point game to avoid any lucky streaks.

Mr. LuckyThe match itself, like the overall episode, is pretty unremarkable, marked by an absurd number of unrealistic thrown shots and standard trick shots. The match’s onlookers also seem to have an over appreciation for even the most basic shots.  And, Mr. Lucky’s inability to stay awake to finish a 500-point game is unbelievable, even for cheap laughs. (After all, it was only 5 years before the airing of this episode when billiards legend Willie Mosconi ran 526 balls in straight pool in just one turn.)

The circle of bets, however, is mildly interesting, as it got me thinking about betting and the legality of gambling in billiards. While ample celluloid has been dedicated to hustling in pool, less has been devoted to betting.  The irony, of course, is that the very word “pool” has its origins in betting. Whereas today a “poolroom” means a place where pool is played, in the 19th century a poolroom was a betting parlor (for horse racing, no less.  The pool tables were added so patrons had something to do between races.).

Even after having done some research, the legality of gambling on billiards seems a bit murky to me, and can depend heavily on state law, but the best I can discern is:

  1. Lucky’s initial bet with Nick would be legal in most places because it’s legal to bet on yourself in a game of skill when you’re playing the game. (Of course, threatening to kill someone is not exactly legal.)[1]
  2. Nick’s initial bet with Mark Langdon would be illegal, at least in some places, because Nick is betting with someone not playing the game on the outcome of the game.
  3. Andamo’s bet with J.B. would be illegal, pretty much everywhere, because neither person is playing the game.

Ultimately, a bunch of people are threatened, some guns are waved, some goons do some chasing, a face is right-hooked (Mr. Lucky’s, no less by his inamorata Maggie) and yet somehow, all debts are settled, followed by Mark Langdon’s parting words of warning, “don’t you ever try to pull another fast one on me…if Lucky didn’t win that game, you’d both be dead.”

All this makes for a rather happy Mr. Lucky.  Unfortunately, Mr. Lucky was not as fortunate. After just 34 episodes, the series was cancelled. According to Mr. Vivyan, “[the series] had good ratings, but Jack Benny’s production company had another show it wanted for our time slot. It wasn’t much of a contest, and CBS dropped us.”[2]

[1]      Fun #billiardsmovies fact: Stanley Adams, who plays Nick Popolous, later played Sure-Shot Wilson, another chain smoking pool hustler, in “The Hustler” episode of The Odd Couple from 1973.

[2]      Interview given by John Vivyan to Vernon Scott at United Press International in 1960. (Source: Television Obscurities.)