Danny Thomas

Question: Help me out here. I'm a big fan of The Jeffersons and I always thought the first actor who played Lionel left because of a swelled head, then came back when his solo career didn't take off. But my brother insists it was so that his brother could take over. Who's right?

Answer: Why, you are, Brenda, assuming you mean Mike Evans, who played young Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family and then on its Jeffersons spin-off. He left because of an inflated sense of self rather than a bump on the noggin. However, it's probably nicer to say he suffered from the inexperience of youth rather than to tar him with the ego brush. Of course, the actor himself took it a step further in 1980 and told TV Guide he was dar read more

Question: I remember a show from the '80s called Throb. It was about a mother who goes to work for a record company. I don't remember the star of the show, but I do recall a young Jane Leeves as a character called Blue. Am I nuts or was this a show? It may have been syndicated. Thanks.

Answer: It was indeed syndicated, Melissa. Throb, 48 episodes of which were produced from 1986-88, starred Diana Canova, veteran of Soap and I'm a Big Girl Now (a short-lived sitcom in which she played Danny Thomas' daughter).

The sitcom, the title of which sounds more like the setup for a South Park episode than an actual series, revolved around Canova's single-mom character Sandy, who took a new job at Manhattan-based Throb Records as the series began. Her boss was the libidinous Zach (J read more