TV questions and answers

By David Inman

The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

Published: Tuesday, Dec. 13 2011 5:37 p.m. MST

Question: I'm trying to find the music in a TV commercial for the Toyota Prius car. It's a female voice singing a catchy tune with lyrics like "...come along with me." Is it a new tune or an old novelty tune? Can you give me the lowdown?

Answer: The song is "Come Along" by Fabienne Delsol. It's contemporary, but orchestrated to sound like something from the 1960s.

Q: Did James Stewart ever play a bad guy in one of his movies?

A: Stewart played a murderer in 1936's "After the Thin Man," one of his earlier movies.

Q: I read somewhere that Regis Philbin had two children by his first wife. Is this true? You never hear much about them.

A: Philbin did indeed have two children with his first wife, Catherine, to whom he was married from 1955-68. (He married his current wife, Joy, in 1970.) His children from his first marriage are a daughter, Amy, 50, and a son, Daniel, 44. Amy chooses to keep her life private; Daniel was born with muscle and vertebrae problems and he is in a wheelchair. In 2008 the National Enquirer reported he was destitute; reportedly after the story appeared Regis helped him out financially.

Q: Please help me find the name of a movie. The story line goes like this: A certain room in a hotel is supposedly haunted and a newspaper reporter or some guy like that plans to prove the supernatural story wrong by spending a night in the room against the objections of hotel management. Over the course of time in the room he wants OUT of the room as he goes in and out from what he cannot distinguish as reality and dream. Can you help?

A: Could it be the 2007 film "1408"? With John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson and Mary McCormack? Directed by Mikael Hafstrom? Hmmmm?

Q: As a kid in the 1970s I watched a live-action show on Saturday morning about Dracula, Frankenstein and a werewolf becoming crime fighters. Any background on this one?

A: That was "Monster Squad," which ran Saturday mornings on NBC from 1976-77. Fred Grandy, later Gopher on "The Love Boat" (and even later, U.S. Rep. Gopher from Iowa), played Walt, a guy who worked in a wax museum and had found a way to bring the statues to life. They were Dracula (Henry Polic II), Bruce W. Wolf (Buck Kartalian) and Frank N. Stein (Michael Lane). They traveled around in a "monster van," fought monster criminals and enforced monster justice, all on monstrously low budgets.

Q: I have a vague memory of a TV show I probably saw in the 1960s. It seems like it was set in the English countryside. There was a costume party and a young lady came dressed as a butterfly. Later that night there was a terrible fire at the estate. The next day the lady awoke to find that the home had burned down many years before. I know this is very sketchy. Could this have been an episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour?"

A: You're close.

It was an episode of the ABC anthology series "Journey to the Unknown," which ran from 1968-69. This episode, "Poor Butterfly," originally aired on Jan. 9, 1969. The stars were Chad Everett, Bernard Lee, Fay Compton and Susan Brodrick as the girl in the butterfly costume.

You can view the entire episode on

Q: You probably don't remember this, but there was a famous commercial with the catchphrase "Try it, you'll like it" about 40 years ago. Apparently my wife doesn't remember it either, because she says I'm full of malarkey. Please set her straight!

A: You're right as rain.

"Try it, you'll like it" was a catchphrase used in a 1971 Alka-Seltzer commercial set in a restaurant. It was spoken by a man straight to the camera: "Came to this little place. Waiter says, 'Try this, you'll like it.' What's this? 'Try it, you'll like it.' But what is it? 'Try it, you'll like it.' So I tried it. Thought I was going to die. Took two Alka-Seltzer. Alka-Seltzer works. Try it, you'll like it."

Write David Inman in care of The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, 525 W. Broadway, P.O. Box 740031, Louisville, Ky. 40201-7431; or email him at incredibleinman(AT) Questions of general interest will be answered; personal replies are not possible.

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