PBS Presents Betty White: First Lady of Television on August 21st!

[Freddie2]

A documentary FIVE YEARS in the making is coming Tuesday, August 21st on PBS!

http://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news/betty-white-first-lady-of-television-premieres-tuesday-august-21-on-pbs/

"Granted exclusive access to Betty and her team, the producers were able to capture the magic of her performances at various venues, along with more personal moments at home and interacting with close friends — one of whom is a 900-pound grizzly bear. The film is packed with hilarious clips from her long career and comments from friends and co-stars, including Valerie Bertinelli, Georgia Engel, Tina Fey, Valerie Harper, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Gavin MacLeod, Carl Reiner, Ryan Reynolds, Tom Sullivan, Alex Trebek and many more."

[Brock]

Sounds great, but I think I might be more interested in them focusing on just the five years they’ve been following the Queen of Television rather than padding it out with clips we’ve seen before. 

[Neil]

How many "First Lady of Television"'s can there be?  Though I'm happy for 96 year old Betty that she's still getting attention.  When Betty joined the Mary Tyler Moore show, I wasn't even aware that she was an actress.  She'd spent the 60s and 70s as more of a TV personality doing game shows mostly.  I loved Betty as Sue Ann on Mary Tyler Moore.  Wasn't Betty's appearance just supposed to be a one-shot but she was such a hit, they developed her character?    I am in the minority in that I didn't care for Betty's character on Golden Girls, modeled after Gracie Allen.  The comparison shows just how great an actress Gracie was (IMO, of course). 

Speaking of TV "titles", Decades is running NBC's answer to I Love Lucy, I Married Joan.  The opening credits are truncated from the originals.  The "I Married Joan Starring Joan Davis" graphic stays up much longer as the announcer says "I Married Joan, The Joan Davis Show: America's favorite comedy show starring America's QUEEN OF COMEDY Joan Davis as Mrs. Joan Stevens." (if memory serves).  I'm enjoying I Married Joan and have developed an appreciation for Joan, even though the scripts and production values reveal the slipshot haste with which these episodes were assembled.  And the music track furnished solely by the "Roger Wagner Chorale" is a bit creepy.  You never hear a musical instrument on an I Married Joan soundtrack.  Even when the script calls for an orchestra (like when they're at a nightclub) , it's the acapella "Chorale"  (unsuccessfully) imitating the instruments. 

[Freddie2]

Betty graces the cover of this week’s Closer with the (upsetting) headline “Saying Goodbye: Betty White gives her final interview”, or something to that effect. It’s only about a half-page long and features a little information on the upcoming documentary- the rest being all rehash, including the usual quips about how active Betty is and how much she loves to work, so I’m assuming (hoping) this “Saying Goodbye” bit was just to catch people’s eyes at the newsstand.

[JoeySanJoaquin]

https://youtu.be/YKgHB4b-wiE

Looking forward to this very much, in part because there's been a notable lack of Betty lately on TV, at least on current talk shows etc. or word of her in any new projects. At 96 it's not surprising she's slowing down but...greedy as I am, I sure would love to see BW in something "new" if only a cameo as it's been much too long.

Here's a cute promo for the upcoming PBS doc:

https://youtu.be/YKgHB4b-wiE