Welcome to The Kids From Fame Media Blog

I'm Mark & I've been a Fame fan since the beginning of the TV Series in 1982. This blog is dedicated to the incredibly talented cast of the show who have brought so much comfort and pleasure to my life over the last 40 odd years.

Every week day we post and our Archive can be found on the Kids from Fame Media TV Series Archive Website.
Including Interviews, Episode Information and Videos, Scripts, Merchandise, MP3 Downloads, Reunions, Fan Fiction, Cast and Crew Information.

I hope you have a great time Remembering "Fame"!

To Contact Me Please Send Emails to: mark1814uk@googlemail.com


Any problems downloading Please read:
Instructions To Download MP3s & Videos

Episodes can be watched on the TV Series Archive Website.
and on our Facebook Fame Episode Group.

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Thursday 25 February 2016

All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing Part 4 - Episode of the Month


All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing from Season 6 is the 2nd episode of the Month. The Video comes in 5 parts. This is Part 4.

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Michael Cerveris - Tips to Avoid Winter Colds


While 9-to-5ers can simply call in sick if they’re feeling under the weather, taking time off is much more complicated for Broadway stars. Understudies must be prepped, and devoted fans who shell out more than $100 for a ticket get upset hearing their favorite performers are out. And with marquee names, there’s even a risk of tickets being refunded altogether.

So how do dedicated actors keep singing out and kicking high eight times a week? Here, a few of Broadway’s brightest stars reveal to The Post their secrets for staying well.

The cure: Hot water, cider vinegar and steam

                                  

“I haven’t missed a show due to sickness since 2004, maybe,” says Michael Cerveris, the Tony Award-winning star of the musical “Fun Home.”

The actor relies on his trusty humidifier, which he cranks up every night during the winter when New York apartments are driest.
In the morning, “my first step is to get in the shower and surround myself [with] the steam,” he says. Then he heads to his pantry. “Apple cider vinegar is always on my shelf,” he adds. “It helps your body fight infection.” He stirs a tablespoon into hot water and drinks.
Cerveris shows up even if he isn’t feeling 100 percent. “Maybe it’s a fear that I have really good understudies and I don’t want people to know how good they are.”

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Picture of the Week

 
Lori Singer with the cast of Footloose 1984




All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing Part 3 - Episode of the Month


All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing from Season 6 is the 2nd episode of the Month. The Video comes in 5 parts. This is Part 3.

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Janet Jackson - Unbreakable Confessions


Producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis discuss when they first met Janet Jackson and the making of the "Control" album.


Friday 19 February 2016

42nd Street - Elisa Heinsohn


42nd Street comes from the season 6 episode "All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing". Written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin it is performed by Elisa Heinsohn.

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Ebay Item of the Week


This week a Fame (Fama)  Collectable Bubble Gum Wrapper from Spain.

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Thursday 18 February 2016

Nia Peeples Fame Annual 1986



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Carrie Hamilton & Michael Cerveris It's Love I'm After


 "It's Love I'm After" comes from the season 6 episode "All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing". Written by Allan Roy Scott it is performed by Michael Cerveris and Carrie Hamilton.

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Tuesday 16 February 2016

Jesse Borrego Fame Annual 1986


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Someone To Watch Over Me - Nia Peeples


"Someone To Watch Over Me" comes from the season 6 episode "All Talking, All Singing , All Dancing". Written by Ira and George Gershwin it is performed by Nia Peeples.

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Fame Reunion Diaries Part 11 The Future!


After a couple of days of feeling a little lost, I knew I had to shake myself out of this low. I was watching the videos taken at the reunion concert and seeing all the photos everyone was sharing on Facebook and I began to feel inspired once again. I started to think of the future. We all need something to look forward to. 

So many people had missed out on the Reunion concert. A couple of people in the U.K. had tried to start a campaign to try and get a Reunion show in the U.K. Erica Gimpel and Nia Peeples had both mentioned the possibility of the cast doing more together.

We all need more Fame and I needed a new Dream.

So that new dream is a U.K. concert and Fame convention in London. I have no experience of this kind of thing and no contacts in the entertainment business but some how I want to make this happen.

I'm not setting a timescale because it will take as long as it takes. Ideally it would be in time for the 35th Anniversary next year but something like this could take a longer time to organise.

I don't have the money to finance it myself so there will need to be a lot of fundraising and we'll need a promoter and an organising team. That's where you guys come in.

Want to help make the Fame dream become a reality? Does Anyone have any experience in organising a concert or convention or fundraising on a large scale? Does Anyone have contacts with promoters, backers or people in the media that could help? If so I want to hear from you! Even if the answer is no to those questions but you want to help then I want to hear from you! 

Together we are strong and we can achieve our dreams.

I appreciate some people will want this to be in America but I don't live there so it would be impossible for me to organise it there but any American fan or fans who wants to take responsibility for an American Concert and wants to join forces to fund raise and promote the show and try to bring the dream to America then also please contact me.

Here's to the next Fame Reunion. See You There!


Monday 15 February 2016

Broadway Melody - Elisa Heinsohn


"Broadway Melody" comes from the season 6 episode "All Talking, All Singing, All Dancing". Written by  Arthur Freed, Nacio Herb Brown and Charles King, it is performed by Elisa Heinsohn.

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Thursday 11 February 2016

Another Night - Nia Peeples


"Another Night" comes from the season 5 episode "Contacts". Written by Roy Freeland and Beppe Cantorelli it is performed by Nia Peeples.

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Monday 8 February 2016

Janet Jackson Remembering Control - Billboard Article 2016 - Megamix


Remembering 'Control' 30 Years Later: How Janet Jackson's Third Album Cemented Her Icon Status. By Julian Kimble

Be it a regrettable tattoo or choosing a college, your first “adult” decision is momentous. It’s a declaration of independence; a here-and-now expression of your identity, but more importantly, an assertion of who you want to be moving forward. For Janet Jackson, this moment came 30 years ago with the release of her third album Control.
In hindsight, Control is both evolutionary and revolutionary. As Jackson’s first album to land atop the Billboard 200, it marked professional and personal breakthroughs. Distancing herself from the immense Jackson family shadow, she created one of the most influential projects across contemporary R&B and pop music. And not only was Jackson’s maiden voyage with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis at the forefront of R&B, pop and hip-hop’s intersection, it birthed a novel sound in the process. Above all, Control represented Jackson becoming a star by embracing and announcing her womanhood.

Despite being her third album, Control was the beginning of Janet Jackson, the icon. Prior to that, she was best known for portraying other people on sitcoms Good Times and Diff’rent Strokes, and the television adaptation of musical drama, Fame. Her foray into music was done at the behest of imperious stage father Joe Jackson. “I didn't want to do [the first record, Janet Jackson],” she told The Boston Globe in 1997. “I wanted to go to college. But I did it for my father.” And her father ensured that Jackson made the type of music that he wanted her to make. 1982’s Janet Jackson and 1984’s Dream Street were juvenile and largely forgettable because they lacked any discernable identity. Safe and nondescript, the albums were what a domineering patriarch would feel comfortable hearing from his teenage daughter. But with Jackson on the verge of adulthood, she was forced to seek independence -- musical and otherwise -- outside of the family.

Some artist-producer tandems collaborate on sublime levels; Michael Jackson’s work with the legendary Quincy Jones, for example. It’s with Control that Janet Jackson began her pioneering relationship with Jam and Lewis. After Prince discharged the duo from the Morris Day-led outfit The Time, they began perfecting the “Minneapolis sound” -- a funky integration of rock, pop, and new wave that’s accented by extraterrestrial synths. Control presented the chance to establish something original for Jackson because her previous albums provided such a flimsy frame of reference.

“With Control, we got an opportunity to make a whole album with her, without scrutiny, because no one was saying, ‘I can't wait for the new Janet record,’” Jam told The Chicago Tribune last fall. This allowed both sides to start with a clean slate. Jackson moved to Minneapolis to work on the album, absorbing Jam and Lewis’ sound at their Flyte Tyme Studios. Assuming a larger creative role than ever before, she split co-writer and producer credits with the pair, helping to dictate arrangements and instrumentation all while branding Control with a personality the world was previously unaware existed.

Jackson was somewhat of a curated enigma at the time. Her identity was largely shaped by her family’s image, a situation she sought to correct at Control’s onset. The album is front-loaded with more assertive songs by design -- Jackson wanted to reintroduce herself as a confident, capable young woman. “It’s all about control, and I’ve got lots of it,” she proclaims just before Jam and Lewis’ glitzy slide arrives on the title track. After demanding a beat, she confronts street harassment on the melodically industrial New Jack Swing primer “Nasty.” Lead single “What Have You Done for Me Lately” is a thinly-veiled kiss off to ex-husband James DeBarge, whom Jackson married on impulse and swiftly divorced the year before. Even seminal dance record “Pleasure Principle” is about her grabbing personal matters by the horns and steering them to beneficial outcomes.

Yet because Jackson was just three months shy of 20, there’s still an exuberance to Control. “When I Think of You” is all Saturday morning eagerness; “He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive” all bashful sparkle. The latter marks a progression from crushes names being scribbled affectionately in notebooks to the innocence of “Let’s Wait Awhile” (which, despite the difference in tone, is just as feminist as “Nasty”) before ending with Jackson’s moans amidst the quiet storm sensuality of “Funny How Time Flies (When You’re Having Fun).” This was the full spectrum of thoughts and feelings consuming a young woman as she matured.

If Jackson’s marriage to DeBarge is viewed as a post-high school act of rebellion, Control and the years immediately following its release were her collegiate experience. The album itself was the inception of her adulthood; a college-age Jackson choosing a major. Growing up is a process, and Control was the beginning of a natural one that aligned with Jackson’s ascent up the ranks of greatness. All of the transcendent pop stars, Jackson included, have maintained their longevity by reinventing themselves through the years. They’re vampires. Control was the first time she did this, and, as with everyone, Jackson’s identity was modified over time. Every version of Janet Jackson, especially from Control to 2001’s All for You, has been vastly different. She now exerts enough power to disappear for years, then tour and release new music like last year’s Unbreakable upon returning. It’s no coincidence that Unbreakable was her strongest output it in years: it was her reunion with Jam and Lewis, who she hadn’t worked with since 2006’s 20 Y.O., a celebration of her career arc since Control’s debut.


On one hand, Control’s impact can be measured through accolades. It’s sold upwards of 14 million records; seven of its nine songs infiltrated airwaves; six were top 20 hits and five cracked the top five. It even earned Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis a Grammy for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. But on the other, influence best quantifies its importance. Beyoncé similarly fired her father, Mathew Knowles, as her manager ahead of releasing her best work, and newer artists like Tinashe have co-opted elements of Control -- from the music to Jackson’s aura during that era. Tinashe, like Ciara before her, is a stylistic disciple of Jackson, and Control opened the door for both Beyoncé and Rihanna to amass and wield the authority they hold.
To this day, Control is about liberation. It’s the moment Janet Jackson stopped being Michael’s little sister and began the path to a catalog rivaling his. It’s when she established her own legacy as opposed to living up to her family’s.



Janet Jackson Control 30 Megamix


Contacts Part 4 - Episode of the Month


"Contacts" from Season 5 is the first episode of the Month. The Video comes in 5 parts. This is part 4.


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Janet Jackson - Fame Annual 1986


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Friday 5 February 2016

Debbie Allen Discusses Freeze Frame

 
Debbie Allen discusses her new show "Freeze Frame" will run Feb. 5-7 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on CBS2 News.

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Clips from Freeze Frame

Contacts Part 3 - Episode of the Month


"Contacts" from Season 5 is the first episode of the Month. The Video comes in 5 parts. This is part 3.


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Ebay Item of the Week



This week The Muppets Magazine issue 2 from 1983 featuring the Muppets visit to the Fame Set.

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Thursday 4 February 2016

Debbie Allen Fox 11 Interview on Freeze Frame


FREE LIVESTREAM!!! There will be a FREE Livestream of the"Freeze Frame" Gala Performance and "Architects of Change" Conversation moderated by Maria Sh...river today at 6:30pm PST! Register TODAY at www.TheWallis.org/Live-FF and tweet along using ‪#‎ArchitectsofChange‬.




Janet Jackson Control Album 1986

 
Control is the third album from Janet Jackson.  Released on 4th February 1986 on A&M Records. It was produced by John McClain, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Janet Jackson. The album reached No. 8 on the British charts, and peaked at No. 1 in the US charts.

Listen to the Full album:
 


 
Track Listing:
 
1. Control
2. Nasty
3. What Have You Done For Me Lately
4. You Can Be Mine
5. The Pleasure Principle
6. When I Think of You
7. He Doesn't Know I'm Alive
8. Let's Wait Awhile
9. Funny How Time Flies (When You're Having Fun)
 
Smash Hits Review


Star Hits  Review

Billboard Review