This is a weird "coincidence."
Let's see where do I begin?
Okay, on Fridays I watch Ghost Whisperer, but this past Friday (yesterday) I missed it. I wasn't even able to tape it. Boo hoo. Anyway, the episode title was "Save Our Souls."
Okay now rewind to 1988. (This is how I remember it.) My mom and I were on vaca in L.A. and we got tickets to see a taping of Murphy Brown. Not just any taping, this was the pilot. So there were a lot of "important" people in the audience, chatting before it started. We were seated next to Faye Dunaway (at least for a little while...she said something about better seats and then was gone). My mom and her were talking about the guy on the show who plays Frank. They commented that the actor has been in so many things, but they could not think of his name. They found out his name was Joe Regalbuto.
This guy has guest starred on sooooo many classic '80s TV series. Golden Girls, St. Elsewhere, Knotts Landing, Mork & Mindy, Barney Miller, Bosom Buddies, just to name a few. So from then on, my mom and I referred to any actor who has had a ton of small or guest roles but you have no clue what their name is, as "Joe Regalbuto." The legend was born. And ironically, he went on to star on Murphy Brown for the next 10 years and has barely been heard from since. As soon as we learned his name, he stopped being a Joe Regalbuto!
Okay now fast forward to the present. Well, 10 minutes ago. I was looking up the new movie What Just Happened 'cuz I have a pass to an advance screening. So I looked it up on the IMDB. Stanley Tucci is one of the stars. I thought to myself "hmm, he's one of those Joe Regalbutos who's been in so many good things but nothing I could really tell you off the top of my head." And then I thought "I wonder what Joe Regalbuto has been up to. Has he reclaimed his Joe Regalbuto status?" So I checked IMDB. He's only got about a dozen credits since 2000. The most recent credit?
Ghost Whisperer
-Save Our Souls
I swear I did not see previews for this episode or anything. I had NO idea.
Isn't that weird?????????
P.S. Okay maybe it wasn't a total coinky dink.
When I said "I wasn't even able to tape it" that wasn't entirely accurate. I got home around 8:30 and pressed record. So I got the second half on tape, but I hadn't watched it cuz you know, what's the point? I'm not sure, but most likely I turned the TV on to start the recording and then I turned it off or muted it and got on the computer. So I did see a literal glimpse of the episode. I just played the tape. It begins with Jennifer Love Hewitt and our boy Joe exchanging a couple of lines. So I must have seen his face. Even though I had no recollection of it 10 minutes ago, and I don't think I even acknowledged it at the time, my subconscious must have taken note. Once he was in my subconscious I was more likely to refer to the Joe Regalbuto phenomenon in my head and to get curious about his resume. It wasn't really out of the blue that I clicked on his IMDB after all. But I sure was convinced.
Just goes to show, what seems like a strange coincidence could just be an example of the quiet ways your subconscious influences everything you think, say, and do!
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2 comments:
Wow, what a wild coincidence.
Love the story :-) You and your Mom did lots of interesting stuff like that. How was she so well connected? I'm so jealous that you got to see the pilot of Murphy Brown!
My cousin (well, my mom's cousin) is an agent and I think Candice Bergen might have been her client. She was a Senior VP of the William Morris Agency at the time (woo woo!) and I think a lot of the cast and crew were represented by the agency. This was our first or second time in L.A., so my cousin got us tickets. (We also got tickets to a taping of Punky Brewster-my hero-that trip, but that's another story!)
And no you should not be jealous. We wound up attending a few more MB tapings over the years, and they were so long and boring! Most sitcoms have two taping sessions per episode. So at like 4pm, they will bring in an audience and go through the show one time. Then they will bring in a different audience at 7pm and do it again and maybe a couple extra re-dos. That way they are sure to get everything and the audience (laugh track) stays fresh. MB only used one audience. So they made sure to do every scene at LEAST twice. And for the pilot, these are people who haven't been working together for long, so they make more mistakes and re-dos. What I remember most about that pilot taping was the fun we had with the audience and the warm-up guy (the comedian who gets the crowd going and tells you when to laugh and stuff). Watching the actors do their scenes AGAIN was such a chore compared! But as far as watching the show on the small screen, I loved Murphy Brown!
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