"The Morgue" is what daily newspapers used to call the place where they stored and filed old clippings, taken from their own publication, as reference tools for subsequent stories. This is back when stories were filed on hard copy, not electronically. It's also back when newspapers cared about history, even their own, and saved things. Here are some of the journalistic bodies that are buried in David Bianculli's personal morgue - presented partly for perspective, but mostly just for the fun of it.
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STAND-UP COMEDY ATTEMPT
Fort Lauderdale News / Sun-Sentinel
March 30, 1980

In 1980, for the first time, comedy clubs began to spring up around the country, in both national franchises and local operations. When The Comic Strip opened in Fort Lauderdale, our paper's unfairly persuasive and attractive features editor, Kris Montee, assigned me to work up a first-person feature on what it was like to perform during the club's amateur night. The piece would have been funnier had I bombed, but I actually did okay - my admittedly hazy memory of the night has one of the evening's "real" comics, a tall young man named Bob Saget, encouraging me afterward to give the comedy circuit a try. Instead, I considered it beginner's luck, and never, ever gave it a second try. (Read story)

Sidebar: Ray Recchi review of stand-up act

When I got to the Fort Lauderdale News in 1977, I knew Ray Recchi only as the older brother of Sal Recchi, a fellow classmate at Nova High School in Fort Lauderdale. When I left, three years later, Ray was not only my former boss, and a very close friend, but an incomparable role model as both a columnist and a family man. He actually jumped off the management fast track, intentionally, to pursue instead what he saw as a more enjoyable path, writing about raising a family. Ray was a very funny guy who wrote brilliantly original stuff, and with enviable ease. He touched so many readers, over the years, that the line of mourners at his memorial service literally went around the block. To have him in the audience that night, reviewing my stand-up act, seemed at the time to be one more level of torture. Now, looking back, it's more like an honor. (Read story)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, THE MOVIE
New York Daily News
May 29, 1996

Before the words "spoilers" and "spoiler alerts" entered the common lexicon, I tried to explain why I was so furious that the 1996 Mission: Impossible movie made the TV show's hero, Jim Phelps, the surprise villain of the film - without revealing that surprise. Mission accomplished: afterward, I got a letter from Peter Graves, who played Phelps in the CBS series, thanking me and agreeing with me - but not for attribution. Once a clandestine agent, always a clandestine agent... (Read more).

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
Gainesville Sun
Jan. 17, 1976

The University of Florida used to have an Applied Journalism program in which seniors in the journalism program would report to the local paper, The Gainesville Sun, and work as instant interns in various departments, under the direction of UF journalism teachers. One day that fall, Diane Chun of the features department graciously accepted my pitch to write a review of a brand-new TV show aimed at college kids, since I was a college kid and Gainesville was a college town. The review of the fall 1975 premiere never ran in the paper - but shortly thereafter, I was asked to update the review by also discussing the handful of other episodes that had aired, and this is the result. When it ran, the Sun's editor, Ed Johnson, called me into his office and asked me to do more TV reviews, at $5 a pop. By the time I got my Masters, I had two years as a TV critic under my belt, and enough clips to land a full-time job in the capacity. A third of a century later, Saturday Night Live is still going strong. Must have been my positive review. (Read more.)

NBC EXECUTIVE GRANT TINKER
Philadelphia Inquirer
Aug. 2, 1985

In more than 30 years of covering the TV industry, I've known maybe a handful of TV executives who have left the medium better than they found it, and actively sought programs and talent that were exceptional as well as popular - and also, as a bonus, are nice human beings. Brandon Stoddard, who ran the movies and miniseries division during ABC's glory years, was one. Brandon Tartikoff, a natural TV programmer who helped nurture NBC's 1980s reputation for quality, was another. As executive show runners, Lindsay Law (then of PBS's American Playhouse), Bruce Paltrow (The White Shadow, St. Elsewhere), and Peter Lassally (associated with Johnny Carson, David Letterman and, currently, Craig Ferguson of The Late Late Show) are others. Grant Tinker spent time on both sides of the fence - running MTM Productions when it was the best production company in the business, then running NBC and making it similarly enviable. If tasteful creative people like Grant Tinker still ran the broadcast networks, we'd have a lot fewer shows like The Biggest Loser and Cavemen. (Read more.)

ST. ELSEWHERE
Akron Beacon Journal
Oct. 26, 1982

One of Grant Tinker's sons, Mark, was a writer-producer-director on this superb NBC series, and gave me and another enthusiastic TV critic at the time, Tom Brinkmoeller of Cincinnati, a valued scoop by slipping us a handful of the show's scripts before it even premiered. Mark has remained a great source, and a good friend, ever since - and St. Elsewhere, to this day, is one of the best and most audaciously inventive TV drama series ever produced. (Read more.)

THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD
New York Post
April 17, 1989

Someday, if there is justice in the world, this brilliant Jay Tarses series will be a) released on DVD, and b) widely recognized as the true classic that it was. Molly Dodd was the missing link between The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Ally McBeal, and was every bit as good. And Blair Brown... in this show, she made me sigh. (Read more.)