"Myths" answers questions you never asked

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Haven't you always wondered whether Ozzy Osbourne really bit the head off a bat or if Phyllis Diller is actually the mother of Susan Lucci? Me neither, but the new series "Myths and Legends" promises answers to these and other great and not-so-great Hollywood stories.

The premiere episode tackles the burning Osbourne and Lucci questions, as well as several others of equal import, or less.

For example, the series raises the curtain on the persistent story that the FBI, and specifically former director J. Edgar Hoover, investigated the 1965 Disney movie "That Darn Cat." At the risk of spoiling the surprise, I'll just say that sometimes the truth is so strange you just can't make it up.

You don't have to get too far into this seven-episode series to realize that, with rare exception, you've gone a lifetime without really being curious about these myths and legends. Or, as in the story of how toilet flushing during halftime of the Super Bowl could cause dangerously low water pressure, the answer is pretty obvious after decades of Super Bowls.

There is one mystery in the first episode that actually qualifies as a genuine mystery. Was the death of Marilyn Monroe 46 years ago, in fact, a suicide? Although that was the official ruling, there is at least a little room for doubt, given circumstances in her life at the time.

So, yes, a definitive answer to that question would make up for having to sit through questions about Lucci's parentage and Hoover's interest in felines. Unfortunately, this is where the show sputters and falters and, ultimately, refuses to take a stand.

Future episodes promise to blow the lid off whether Mr. Ed, the talking horse, was played by a zebra or if Dean Torrence of surf-music duo Jan & Dean was part of a conspiracy to kidnap Frank Sinatra Jr. Tune in and be the conversational center of every cocktail party.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter