Sunday, September 20, 2009

Random TV Title: The White Shadow

In honor of Ken Howard winning an Emmy tonight for GREY GARDENS, here's the opening titles to his brilliant CBS drama series of the late 1970s. THE WHITE SHADOW ran three not-so-highly rated seasons and starred a toupeed Howard as Ken Reeves, a former Chicago Bull who left the NBA after suffering a knee injury and moved to Los Angeles to coach basketball at an inner-city high school. The series dealt with serious issues, such as racism, alcoholism, teen pregnancy, and gun violence, but there was also a bit of humor and a lot of warmth and realism to its characters. In many ways, THE WHITE SHADOW was quite similar to LOU GRANT, another MTM production airing on CBS at the same time.



The first two seasons are on DVD, and I urge you to track them down and give THE WHITE SHADOW a shot. Hopefully, its third and final (and weakest) season will get a release soon.

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