Question: Can you tell me the name of this movie? We saw it sometime in the '90s, but think it is set in the '50s. It's about about a boy and a spinning top, and his loud, obnoxious neighbors have an outhouse or a toilet in their yard.
Answer: You're looking for It Runs in the Family (1994), based on radio personality Jean Shepherd's novels In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters. Family is a less successful sequel to A Christmas Story (1993), which is also based on In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, one of Shepherd's bittersweet (and often very funny) evocations of growing up in the Midwest in the '50s.
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Question: Hello. My father and I disagree: I thought Kristy McNichol was just in movies until Empty Nest, but he seems to think she was in a television series prior to that. Is that true? If so, what was the name? Thank you for your help.
Answer: Sorry, Holly, but the homily holds true in this case: Father knows best. Teen superstar Kristy McNichol made her first splash as a nationally known celeb playing 13-year-old Letitia "Buddy" Lawrence on ABC's groundbreaking Family in March 1976. And her story resembles that of other child stars: Fame without a real-life perspective is a tough way to grow up.
"Everybody wants a piece of you," the actress — who did commercial work at 8, Love, American Style at 9 and was a Family regular at 13 — told TV Guide
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Question: I read recently that J.J. and Co. have decided to incorporate Jennifer Garner's pregnancy into the story line of the upcoming season of Alias. Do you think this will be Alias' "shark jump"? It seems to me that a show about a covert ops branch of the CIA would not be quite the same with a baby cooing in the corner. What do you think of the chances are of Alias continuing past Season 5?
Answer: Pretty slim, I'm afraid. But I've learned with shows like this not to jump to critical conclusions. Jennifer's and Syd's pregnancies certainly will put a crimp in the show's style, but this, after all, is a show about a spy family, and who knows how this baby will affect the show's many complicated emotional dynamics. (Grandpa Jack, for starters.) In talking briefly with J.J. Abrams while in Los Angeles, I got the impression that there is an endgame in sight for this show, and if we're lucky, the show's creative team will be able to end its on their own terms and not because of sharks in
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