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Weekend Flop Viewing: FRANK’S PLACE

I mentioned earlier this week that the ’80s uber-cult flop Frank’s Place may come to DVD with its music chopped out. Here’s one episode, a wacky farce about a dead body (this show was famous for doing a different kind of episode every week, from serious crime drama to nostalgia to farce). The music ranges from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor to Lionel Hampton’s “Hey Ba Ba Re Bop.”

Creator/writer/director Hugh Wilson gives himself a guest role as the health inspector, who inevitably shows up at the restaurant on the day that there’s a dead body in the freezer. This brings up the question: what are some other TV episodes where the creator and/or executive producer of the show has given himself (or herself) an actual guest part, as opposed to an Aaron Sorkin “man at bar” type of cameo?

(I should note that this episode was done a couple of years before Weekend at Bernie’s, though the guy playing the dead body doesn’t have quite that Terry Kiser élan.)

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_SnqmYp4sQ

Part 2:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUmsIcB7l2U

Part 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb_YTPr8UzE

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