Six Degrees of Separation: The Guys from Freaks and Geeks

It only lasted for 18 episodes as compared to "Beverly Hills 90210," the longest running tv show about high school in broadcasting history which ran from 1990-2000 (?!) and lasted 292 episodes.

But, it seems like "Freaks and Geeks," a dramedy about high school outcasts, has now surpassed the show about popular kids, in terms of pop culture popularity. The show, which came on the air in 1999, is frequently aired on IFC.

Amazingly enough, three of the show's male leads, James Franco (pictured top), Seth Rogen and Jason Segel have become A-list actors. None of them have actually been in a movie with Kevin Bacon that distinction does belong to the show's female star Linda Cardellini  was in the film "Super" (2010), a superhero parody with Bacon.

Franco is two degrees removed from Bacon as he starred in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011) which also featured Sanjo Bennett who was in the Atom Egoyan-directed film "Where the Truth Lies" (2005) with Bacon.

John Francis Daley, who was played Sam, the youngest main character on the show, was in "View from the Top" (2008) with Mark Ruffalo who was in the steamy film "In the Cut" (2008) where Meg Ryan bared all; that films also featured Bacon.

Joe Flaherty (pictured bottom), who is now surprisingly 72 years old, was a star on the Canadian skit show "SCTV" in the 1980s, played Sam's father on "Freaks and Geeks." He was in Nothing Personal (1980) with Maury Chaykin who was also in "Where the Truth Lies."

Lastly, Rogen was in "You, Me and Dupree" (2006) with Matt Dillon who was in "Loverboy" (2005) with Bacon.


SIDEBAR: We were shocked and saddened to hear that Joe Bankhead (1941-2007), a Salt Lake City, artist, writer and chess enthusiast died only a few months after we met him at the Coffee Garden by the Tower Theater on 9th Street. Tragically, Bankhead died while he was blogging as his trailer , unbeknownst to him, was leaking carbon monoxide. Bankhead was the subject of a blog entry here way back on May 30, 2007.

http://politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com/2007/05/salt-lake-city-discoveryjoe-bankhead.html

http://www.ifc.com

http://www.oracleofbacon.org

http://www.bacontoday.com

http://www.ilovebacon.com

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: The Stars of "9 to 5"

Tonight, we thought we'd go back to the days when we blogged about the degrees of separation given stars were from Kevin Bacon through the web site The Oracle of Bacon, devised by computer scince at the University of Virginia a decade and a half ago.

With that in mind, we focus on the three female leads for "9 to 5" (1980), which was turned into a tv sitcom and a Broadway musical. The film starred Jane Fonda (pictured top), Dolly Parton (pictured bottom) in her film debut and Lily Tomlin.

None of the women have actually been in a film with Bacon, and each of them are two degrees removed from his.

Fonda was in "Stanley and Iris" (1989) with Robert DeNiro and he was in turn in "Sleepers" (1995) with Bacon.

Parton was in "Miss Congeniality 2" which I reluctantly saw at a movie theatre in Guatemala City, Guatemala, with Stephen Tobolowsky who was in  "Murder in the First" (1995) with Bacon.

Tomlin was in the Woody Allen film "Shadows and Fog" (1991) which co-starred Peter McRobbie who was in "Sleepers" with Bacon.

Parton will be performing in Portland, Ore., on June 8th for Dolly Parton Hoot Night (we are not making this up!).

Amazingly enough, Bacon is also only two degrees removed from early film star Lillian Gish and Shirley Temple, who hasn't made films since she was a child star. But, he is a full three degrees from Mary Pickford, a star in the 1920s, and Turkish actress Turkan Soray, who is known as the queen of Turkish cinema.

http://www.oracleofbacon.org

http://www.dollyparton.com

http://www.portlandlive.com

Six Degrees of Separation- Alex English

We are actually concluding one of our long-running blog series with this entry dedicated to former NBA star Alex English (pictured here) who gave a rather good performance in the 1987 sleeper film "Amazing Grace and Chuck."

In this series, we look at how many degrees of separation a given actor is removed from Kevin Bacon with the help of The Oracle of Bacon web site.

We choose English_ well, because it is basketball season! But, to my mind, his performance in "Amazing Grace and Chuck" may be the best performance by a basketball player/actor with the exception of Ray Allen, who was in the Spike Lee film "He Got Game."

English primarily played for the Denver Nuggets and he lead the NBA in scoring in 1983. The Nugget star was still an active player when he starred in the respectable independent film. He also played for the University of South Carolina from 1972-76.

English was in the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle "Eddie" (1996) with Frank Langella who played Richard Nixon in "Frost/Nixon" (2008) which also co-starred Kevin Bacon. Thus, English is two degrees removed from Bacon.

Well, we never got around to seeing how many degrees of separation Kevin Bacon was from my friend Charles Cullen, a cult actor/filmmaker from Roanoke, Va. But, I will mention that one of his films is actually entitled "The Day the Whole F--k--g World Blew Up."

To my knowledge, he has never been in a film with Kevin Bacon.

Six Degrees of Separation (Anna Magnani, entry 10 of 11)

If she were alive today, the amazing Italian actress Anna Magnani who Oscared for "The Rose Tattoo" (1955) would be 101 as she was born on March 7, 1908.

In her honor, we have selected her as our choice for the Six Degrees of Separation today. There is only one more entry left in this series, and then we will move on to other things.

Magnani is three degrees removed from Kevin Bacon. She was in "The Fugitive Kind" (1960) with Maureen Stapleton who was in "Cocoon" (1985) with Rance Howard who was with Bacon in "Frost/Nixon" (2008).

Bacon is currently starring in HBO's film "Taking Chance."

"Frost/Nixon" can be seen at the Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg, Va. It is my current choice for film of the year.

Six Degrees of Separation (8 of 11) Turhan Bey

I was delighted to discover while researching this entry that Turhan Bey (born in 1922 in Austria) is still with us! For some reason, I thought he died many years ago like our last subject Rin Tin Tin.

But, Turhan Bey (not his real name) was the first actor of Turkish heritage to become famous in Hollywood. His father was a Turkish diplomat, and his mom was a czech industrialist.

His first film was "Shadows in the Stairs" in 1941 and his last was "Prisoners of the Casbah" in 1953.

Turhan Bey was also in "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "The Amazing Mr.X."

Unbegonest to me, he was also in two episodes of "Babylon 5."

Turhan Bey, who usually played exotic roles, has only two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

The Turkish-Czech actor was in "Prisoners of the Casbah" (1953) with Leonard P. Geer who was in "Hero at Large" (1980) with Bacon.

If anyone has ideas for future entries, feel free to email me at tango74@aol.com

Six Degrees of Separation- Rin Tin Tin (Entry 7 of 11)

Today, we check out how many degrees of separation actor Kevin Bacon is from a golden star of the silent film era Rin Tin Tin, who is pictured above. This is the first time we have linked the star of "Footloose" and "A Few Good Men" to a dog!

Rin Tin Tin was in "The Show of Shows" with Ann Sothern in 1929. She was in "Crazy Mama" with Cloris Leachman in 1975 and she was "New York, I Love You" with Bacon in 2008.

Therefore, Rin Tin Tin is three degrees removed from Bacon.

During the research of this piece, we learned there is a modern-day Rin Tin Tin dog (www.rintintin.com) who does things like visit school children in Tulsa!

Six Degrees of Separation_ Imogene Coca (6 of 11)

Today, we continue our series which looks at how many degrees of separation a given movie star is from actor Kevin Bacon.

Since we looked at the late comedian/actor Rodney Dangerfield the last time around, we thought we'd go with another late star who acted in a movie with Chevy Chase, who was entry number four in this series (Chase is reportedly still alive.)

Imogene Coca (1908-2001) was a television star who appeared with Chase in the 1983 comedy hit "National Lampoon's Vacation." Dangerfield co-starred with Chase in "Caddyshack" (1980).

Here are the degrees of separation between Coca and Bacon.

Coca was in "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983) with Dana Barron who was in "Saving Angelo" (2007) with Bacon.

They are thus two degrees apart.......!


Ooooops! This series was on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" which is a zillion times more popular.........check it out on our links section!