#Robert Downey Sr.

[davidhudson]

Robert Downey Sr., June 24, 1936 – July 7, 2021.

[clemsfilmdiary]

Putney Swope (1969, Robert Downey Sr.)

4/7/23

[sesiondemadrugada]

Sr. (Chris Smith, 2022).

[twilightzonecloseup]

1.03b Children’s Zoo

Director: Robert Downey

Writer: Chris Hubbell & Gerrit Graham

Cinematographer: Bradford May

Summary:

A little girl (Jaclyn Bernstein) purposefully tidies her room to the soundtrack of her parents (Lorna Luft & Steven Keats) having a shouting match elsewhere in the house. She removes a scroll from her dresser drawer—it’s a very exclusive invitation to the Children’s Zoo. She takes the scroll and her favorite teddy bear in hand and makes one last appraisal of her room. Above her dresser is a banner with “Welcome” written in large capital letters.

She enters the kitchen where her parents continue to argue crudely about seemingly anything and everything. She interrupts them and hands her mother the invitation. As one might expect, they now argue about the invitation and its stipulation that both parents must accompany the child.

They load into their station wagon and arrive at a brightly-colored facade—the exhibits are all indoors. The girl enters through a child-sized door on her own, meanwhile the parents do not cease their quarreling at any moment. The woman running the zoo herds the parents to their special Parents’ “waiting room.”

The girl heads down a darkened hallway toward the first exhibit. Behind a large, circular glass window is a haggard looking man and woman. They beg the girl desperately to free them.

At the next exhibit, she finds a couple anxiously trying to find an escape from their room. When the girl activates the intercom, the man (Wes Craven) spouts off threats at her.

The next is a couple sleeping. This is followed by a couple ready to bargain with her like used-car salesmen desperate to drop a lemon. They promise her all the cookies and ice cream and delayed bedtimes her heart desires. She moves on.

Finally, the girl reaches an exhibit with a couple that speak to her calmly and explain that they’ve learned their lesson and speak with regret of their seven-year-old son who dropped them off there. The girl has made her choice.

The girl leaves the zoo with her new parents, as her discarded parents look on in dismay and shout for her to come back.

✨Support✨

More about Children’s Zoo:

Children’s Zoo was written by the team of Chris Hubbell and Gerrit Graham. For both writers, TZ ‘85 is their first screenwriting credit.

Yes, this Gerrit Graham.

They would go on to write two more stories for TZ ‘85 and also do some work for Disney films later. Hubbell also did some writing for children’s television in the 1990s. 

Here’s the thing: Children’s Zoo is the best segment of the three scripted by Hubbell and Graham. One, Opening Day (1.10c), is easily one of the worst segments from TZ ‘85 and the other, Still Life (1.14a) is also pretty rough. Not a great track record, but I’ll talk about the other stories more as I work through the series chronologically. For this episode, I don’t have much behind-the-scenes material to report on, so I can’t say for certain why this story was bought or commissioned. 

It’s not an especially strong script or story, but Children’s Zoo has two saving graces: it’s a shorter segment and it’s directed by Robert Downey. 

Downey clearly envisioned an appropriate level of absurdity for the concept and had the skill as a director to execute it with enough style to make Children’s Zoo just over the top enough and still be coherent. While it isn’t as humorous as it might be, the soundtrack of arguing was very effective, and I think Luft and Keats do a good job of crafting cartoonishly bad parent characters in a very short span of time.

As for the short runtime, this is another instance of the final presentation of a story benefitting from the flexibility the showrunners had in regard to length of segments. 

(As a refresher, the team was able to produce all of the segments for this season and then arrange the segments to fill an hour time slot, before the show went to air. It’s very uncommon to be given this much time in TV production btw.) 

The short runtime may have helped Children’s Zoo as a standalone story, it doesn’t really jive with the other stories in this episode in any meaningful way. I’m speaking in comparison to the previous episode’s short, Dreams for Sale (1.02b), which created a nice thematic and tonal bridge between the two longer segments. Children’s Zoo however feels more like the non-sequitur-esque shorts of Night Gallery (1969). Even though I personally enjoy some of the humorous padding segments in Night Gallery, that’s not a compliment here. 

Something that concerned me—both when watching this series for the first time but also when researching the production—was that it seemed too informed by Night Gallery. Not only is it a very different show than the TZ ‘59, it also wasn’t nearly as well-received. Additionally, Rod Serling did not have much creative control over Night Gallery, and he disliked the shorts, but didn’t have the authority to nix them. All that is to say that Night Gallery is not a particularly smart place to pull inspiration from for a revival of The Twilight Zone. Additionally, Night Gallery had been canceled for low ratings only ten years before TZ ‘85’s initial production was launched. I suppose network executives have short memories. 

Considering Night Gallery’s influence on this show, it’s strange that Philip DeGuere, the showrunner for the first season of TZ ‘85, gave as a reason for the show’s failure (in the ratings) that people weren’t attuned to anthology shows anymore and didn’t get the format. Again, Night Gallery went off the air in ‘73. Also, the very successful Tales from the Darkside premiered in 1983 (although with a more economical budget/production model) and that was created in the wake of the popularity of Creepshow (1982), which was an anthology film. In short, that’s a cockamamie reason for TZ ‘85 not performing to expectations. 

Apologies for the slight tangent! The most obvious original TZ episode that comes to mind to pair with Children’s Zoo is The Bewitchin’ Pool (5.36). Of course, there’s a dash of I Sing the Body Electric (3.35) in there too. [If Children’s Zoo had a stronger script it might have been great to include the emotional resonance of either of those TZ ‘59 stories. But, I stand by the fact that Downey’s absurdist take was likely the right call for the script he was working from.]

[schlock-luster-video]

On May 14, 2010, Putney Swope and Greaser's Palace were screened as a double-feature on TCM Underground.

[rickchung]

“Sr.” (dir. Chris Smith).

A film about Hollywood superstar Robert Downey Jr.’s influential underground filmmaker father, Robert Downey Sr., who was nearing the end of his life as he reflected on his family and career makes for an inherently tantalizing topic. Netflix’s black-and-white biographical documentary is both a relatively honest and touching look back at Downey’s legacy as a director and father.

[suchananewsblog]

‘Sr.’ Netflix documentary review: A deeply personal eulogy from Robert Downey Jr.

‘Sr.’ Netflix documentary review: A deeply personal eulogy from Robert Downey Jr.

In 1970, Robert Downey Jr. made his onscreen debut at the age of five in his father’s film called Pound. Now, nearly more than five decades later, the father-son duo embark on a final cinematic venture in Netflix’s latest documentary, Sr. Filmed over the last three years of his father’s life, Sr. is titled the way it is because Robert Downey Jr. shares the same name as his father. Through the…

[gatutor]

Wendell Brown-Barbara Bach "Viva la academia" (Up the academy) 1980, de Robert Downey Sr.

[perfettamentechic]

7 aprile … ricordiamo …

7 aprile … ricordiamo … #semprevivineiricordi #nomidaricordare #personaggiimportanti #perfettamentechic

2021: Dilip Kumar, pseudonimo di Mohammed Yusuf Khan, attore indiano. Si sposò con Saira Banu nel 1966. (n. 1922) 2021: James Hampton, James Wade Hampton, attore statunitense. Sposò l’attrice Mary Deese. (n. 1936) 2021: Robert Downey Sr., nato Robert John Elias, attore, sceneggiatore e regista statunitense. Padre di Robert Downey Jr. Figlio di Elizabeth McLauchlen, modella e Robert Elias Sr.,…

[sneakydragon]

Sneaky Dragon Episode 632

Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to the podcast that made that internet question its own existence! This week: remote control; snow trouble; in the bleak mid-winter; grump credentials; house music; Koy to the world; writers in the storm; Taylor’s version; the mother of all mothers; cast offs; adulte terrible; it’s a low-down dirty shame; a fowl radio play; funny pages; Mad man; dog ends; clones of…

[divagandosempre-blog]

Confira esta postagem… "Robert Downey Sr. - Divagando Sempre ".

[davidhudson]

Robert Downey Sr., June 24, 1936 – July 7, 2021.

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

They. Held. Hands!? That's crazy!

[a7estrellas]

ROBERT DOWNEY JR. ⌙ ‘SR.’ - Q & A | NYFF60

[duckbuttt]

Just Robert Downey Jr. being his lovely, charming self in "Sr."

[schlock-luster-video]

On October 13, 1964 Babo 73 debuted in New York City.