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Aug 22, 2007 10:57 PM ET
- by Ken Fox
It's really really hard for me to even fake the slightest bit of interest in High School Musical 2 and its unprecedented success. As TV Guide Channel's Nikki Boyer put it so succinctly the other night on Watch This!, if the record-breaking numbers prove anything, it's simply that kids love crap. But like a lot of people, I was struck by the recent cover of Rolling Stone and the magazine's positioning of HSM2's squeaky-clean "hunk" Zac Efron as "America's Latest Heart Throb." I realize a lot has changed over the years, and Rolling Stone is hardly the countercultural force it was in the early '70s, but the Efron cover — and the toothless interview within — immediately brought to my mind the staggeringly popular teen idol David Cassidy's appearance on the cover of the same magazine back in 1972.Already a huge star thanks to the runaway success of The Partridge Family — and the grueling, nonstop touring schedule he endured over his weekends away from the set — Cassid...
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus will host Saturday Night Live on March 17. Snow Patrol is musical guest.... A David Cassidy memoir in which the Partridge Family heartthrob recalls his drug use and wild romps and discusses his "oft-complimented endowment" will only be released in Britian, says the New York Daily News, as it doesn’t have a U.S. publisher.... ABC's World News with Charles Gibson was the top-rated evening newscast last week.... Naomi Watts and longtime beau Liev Schreiber are expecting their first child together. Yawn.... Sawyer smoochin' Kate? Alex macking on Addison? Cast your vote for TV's sexiest kiss in the new TVGuide.com poll.
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Question: I was talking about this with my girlfriend and could swear I read somewhere that Family Ties was originally supposed to be about the parents but ended up being about the kids when they become popular. Truth or urban legend? Thanks, and keep up the good work.
Answer: Not only is it true, Peter, it was foreshadowed by Michael Gross, who played man of the house Steven Keaton, though he probably didn't know it at the time. In 1982, while shooting an episode of the series in which Keaton kids Alex (Michael J. Fox), Mallory (Justine Bateman) and Jennifer (Tina Yothers) run amok when Steven and wife Elyse (Meredith Baxter Birney) are away, the actor engaged in a bit of unintentional soothsaying. "Maybe after several episodes, Meredith and I will die, and then the series could really take off," he joked to TV Guide. "We could be kille
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At the height of his fame, David Cassidy — who tops TV Guide's 25 Greatest Teen Idols list — was the world's highest-paid entertainer, with a bigger fan club than Elvis or the Beatles.
"My experience was very similar to what John, Paul, George and Ringo went through, only it was intensified by television," says Cassidy, 54. Every Friday night in the early '70s, nearly all teens watching television tuned in to The Partridge Family. Just a few months after the show first aired in 1970,, his most famous song, "I Think I Love You," already hit No. 1 on the pop charts.
Although Cassidy's popularity spawned a merchandising empire — which included books, games, Colorforms and miniature guitars — he himself saw little profit. "I got a huge shock when I saw David Cassidy girls' underwear," he says. "In those days, they never ran anything by me."
At one time, he possessed only six
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