L-R: Tom Feran, Rich Heldenfels, Mark Dawidziak, Dave Glasier

Later, BJ to PD ‘trade’ for Rich from Schenectady

Current PD and former BJ television critic Mark Dawidziak came up with this photo from the past.

Mark explains:

"Four kids on the corner trying to bring you up . . . " A Throwback Thursday shot of four TV critics at press tour (I think 1990) when NBC turned the top of a Century City parking garage into a drive-in: Tom Feran, Rich Heldenfels, yours truly and David Glasier. Tom, Dave and I were representing Northeast Ohio newspapers. Rich soon would be.

“It was the NBC press tour party. Brandon Tartikoff (one of his last tours for NBC, he left in 1991) showed up in a specially designed varsity jacket.”

Rich, who once used R.D. Heldenfels as his byline, came from Schenectady the BJ to succeed Mark, who followed David Bianculli, who came from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1980 to be Channels' first TV critic wth me as the Channels midwife along with Jim Nolan (in Nolanese, that would be Jm Nln because his memos eschewed vowels).

At my request, Mark expanded on the details:

“John,

“Glad you're away from Ohio January and near a Florida golf course.

“Rich was the TV critic at the Schenectady paper when this picture was taken. I think he got to the Beacon in '93 or '94. We overlapped at the Beacon for a few years before I left for the PD in '99.

“I got to the Beacon in October 1983, when Bianculli left for the Philadelphia Inquirer, then the New York Post, then the New York Daily News, then Rowan University. 

"In a few months, I'll have been at the Plain Dealer the same number of years as I was at the Beacon: 16.

“All best,

“Mark”  

Rich clarified it even better: 

"I joined the Beacon Journal in 1994 as TV critic; Mark then became the critic at large."