TV Q-and-A: Actors unrelated despite rumor

Question: I would like to know if Jason Alexander of "Seinfeld" is Ben Stiller's brother. I read that he is his brother a few years ago. Is it true?

Answer: No. Stiller and Alexander aren't related in any way.

Question: I just saw some later episodes of "Gunsmoke," and in one of them they had Doc Adams leaving town to learn more about medicine. He was replaced by Pat Hingle as the new doc.

Did they write Milburn Stone, who played Doc, out of "Gunsmoke," or did he pass away? Also, are the actors who played Festus or Kitty still around?

Answer:Stone suffered a heart attack in mid-1971 and was written out of "Gunsmoke" for several episodes. He returned in late 1971 and played Doc until "Gunsmoke" ended its run in 1975, leaving himself and James Arness as the only two regulars who stayed with the show for its entire 20-season run. Stone died in 1980 at age 75.

Amanda Blake, who played Kitty Russell, left in 1974. She died in 1989 at age 60.

Ken Curtis, who played Festus, died in 1991 at age 74.

Question: Please tell me the name of the movie about the town that makes a bet that everyone can stop smoking for a period of time in order to win a large sum of money. Is it on video or DVD?

Answer: That's the 1971 film "Cold Turkey," which stars Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Pippa Scott and the comedy team Bob and Ray. It's on video.

Question: My brother and I used to love to watch a TV show from around 1981-82 called "So You Think You Got Troubles?" It had ventriloquist Jay Johnson and his dummy Bob. Bob would make fun of the guests. Sometimes Dr. Joyce Brothers was on it. Nobody else remembers it, and I know it existed because we watched it all the time!! Am I right?

Answer: "So You Think You Got Troubles?" did indeed exist, but just barely.

It was syndicated in the early 1980s, and very few stations carried it, which led to its cancellation after only a few months. Personally, I can't think of anything more entertaining than watching troubled people put down by a ventriloquist's dummy, but the vast viewing public, in its infinite wisdom, did not agree.

Question: We watched a movie on TV a few years ago that took place in Louisville. It was about some people who worked in a lab. They threw out some sort of liquid, which soaked into the ground near a cemetery and the corpses came back to life as zombies.