Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 128

This week in TV Guide: November 9, 1968

L ast week we dabbled in food, sharing a TV Guide recipe for minestrone. This week we go even farther, as Richard Gehman tells us how "You too can be a chef" by watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. You see, Carson makes a perfect companion for the hungry view (and Gehman finds himself, for some unknown reason, starved every time he watches Carson). Forthwith, Gehman's complete late-night supper, made during a recent episode of Tonight.

Start with the small potatoes, which can be prepared for boiling during Carson's commercial for a new spot remover. You can do the whole thing from your easy chair while Don Rickles comes on and insults everyone in sight. While Rickles continues, it's time for you to separate slices of chipped beef, which you've brought to your easy chair along with the spuds. As Ed McMahon shills for Alpo, take the separated beef to the kitchen, toss the potatoes in a pot for boiling, and while you're there put an eighth of a pound of butter in a frypan which has been preheated to 300°. Turn up the TV while Sergio Franchi is singing, so you can hear him while toasting two slices of bread and opening a can of peas. With the next commercial, you can drain the potatoes and toast a couple more slices of bread. The next guest, possibly George Jessel, allows you to chop a fresh green or red pepper.

When the show pauses for a station break, that's your chance to add two tablespoonfuls of sifted flour to the sizzling butter, stir with a whisk, and add a half teaspoonful of salt, a couple of pinches of dried parsley, a very small dash of oregano and some pepper, preferably fresh-ground. You can add a half-cup of water while the next singer (probably named Connie) warbles away. Add the chipped beef to the mixture when shills for a sewer-cleaning device, along with a half-cup of milk, stirring until the mixture bubbles, at which time you include the drained peas.

This whole thing should take you to within about ten minutes of the end of Carson's show. During the next-to-last commercial, add a tablespoonful of capped black pitted olives, and as Carson interviews his final guest (Mary Martin, Mary McCarthy, Mary Healy, or maybe Mary Queen of Scots), you can serve your creamed chipped beef, either on the toast or the potatoes you've put on the side. Turn off the set. Eat heartily.

I don't know. I don't think I can eat that heavy a meal right before bedtime.

t  t  t
During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..
Sullivan: Tentatively scheduled guests: singers Tom Jones, Vikki Carr and Jimmi Hendrix; comedians Wayne and Shuster, and Scoey Mitchell; the Chung Trio, instrumentalists; and Valente and Valente, balancing act.

Palace: Host Mike Douglas presents Polly Bergen, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, Donovan, comics Hendra and Ullett, juggler Rudy Schweitzer and the Solokhins, balancing acrobats from the Moscow State Circus.

Once again, KMSP, the Twin Cities ABC affiliate, has seen fit to tamper with the schedule of Hollywood Palace. The station had a frequent habit of pre-empting the network's prime-time fare for local programming (and the accompanying ad revenue)—in this case sixing ABC's Saturday night shows (after Lawrence Welk, of course) in favor of a movie (Back Street, with Susan Hayward)*, and airing Palace on Sunday afternoon (opposite NFL football).

*Full disclosure: looking at the picture of Susan Hayward in the movie ad, I think I would have preferred Back Street to the Palace myself.

Be that as it may, I love these examples of the variety show adapting to contemporary culture. Vikki Carr is a traditional songstress, Tom Jones epitomizes the power of sexual dynamism, and Hendrix—well, he's out there in an area code of his own, isn't he? Case closed—the verdict goes to Sullivan.

t  t  t
.Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the series of the era.

Every one in a while television tries something a little different. Not often, but occasionally. What's not different, though, is the result, which usually takes about thirteen weeks to play out, thirteen being an unlucky number, but the traditional number of episodes a series would run before getting cancelled. The history of television is littered with such noble failures (Cop Rock, anyone?) and this week Cleveland Amory takes a look at one of them: ABC's That's Life, a comedy-variety series with a regular cast and continuing story. It is, Amory says, more like "a long musical comedy—with each act lasting an hour and each intermission a week." 

That's Life stars Robert Morse (Tony winner for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) and E.J. Peaker as a young couple headed for marriage; Morse, Amory admits, "is not our favorite actor. But he is, bar none, our favorite re-actor—in fact, he is perhaps the best in the business." Peaker took a while to grow on Cleve, but by the fourth ekpisode "we were ready, if not for marriage, at least to go steady."

One of the highlights of each week's episode is the guest star, and Amory points out that the show is often written to take advantage of that guest, rather than the regulars. And with a cast of guests including George Burns, Jackie Vernon, and Tim Conway, the show succeeds more often than not. A particular highlight is the show in which Kay Medford and Shelly Berman appear as Peaker's mother and father, an episode that also features Robert Goulet and Alan King. "This was," Amory writes, "by all odds the best single episode of any series we have seen so far." That's Life could actually be considered a success as far as these "different" series go, running for 32 episodes. Cleve's much more bullish on the show, though: "When That's Life is good, it's very, very good—good enough to pay money for on Broadway. And even when it's bad, it's never, never horrid."

t  t  t
On the cover this week is Barbara Feldon in marryin' garb, and inside is a layout of Feldon in the year's smartest outfits. The hook is the upcoming wedding of her Get Smart character, Agent 99, to Don Adams' Maxwell Smart, but it's clear that there's more to Feldon than meets the eye—or the secret agent, as it were.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTIONt  t  t
Last week we also took a look at the story of PBL, the experimental new Sunday night program launched by NET. (I don't have anything to check on in this week's edition; KTCA, the Twin Cities' educational channel, is dark this Sunday.) This week we read of the network's plans to add a half-hour prime-time news program. James White, head of NET, hopes to have the newscast on by the fall of 1969. I don't know that it ever happens; if it did, I've not seen any evidence that it was shown in Minneapolis. It may well have been broadcast in one of the network's larger markets, such as New York, Washington D.C. or San Francisco. But a newscast delayed is not a newscast denied; following their coverage of the Watergate hearings, Robert McNeil and Jim Lehrer begin The McNeil/Lehrer Report, which quickly goes nationally and continues today as PBS NewsHour. White had said that he would seek "top-ranked commentators"—there's no arguing that's what they got.

And in one more follow-up from that piece, the Hawaiian Open golf tournament is back, and this time the broadcast really takes advantage of the time difference—Saturday coverage starts at 7:30 p.m. CT on Channel 11, with the final round airing Sunday at 7:00 p.m.

t  t  t
The week's football is kind of a meh, but Stanley Frank provides a fascinating look behind-the-scenes at what happens in the television control booth. The focus is on CBS' coverage of the season opener between the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers, where announcers Frank Gifford and Jack Whitaker go through the preparation for the week's game with the production team, producer Bill Creasy and director Chris Erskine. Gifford runs through each team's tendencies, gives insight on key players, and advises the team on what to look for.  (Bobby Walden, the Pittsburgh punter, has "been known to pass from kick formation.")

Covering football has changed dramatically over the years. There are five color cameras assigned to the game: three near the 50-yard line, one on the sidelines, one behind an end zone. (By contrast, the average game today uses at least twice as many, and NBC has 40 for its Sunday night broadcasts .) CBS gets off to a rough start; despite Gifford's warning that Steelers running back Dick Houk had the capability of throwing on the option play, the cameras miss his 62-yard pass on the game's first play. Later in the first half Erskine cuts to the field-level camera as Giants quarterback Fran Tarkenton unleashes an 84-yard pass to Homer Jones; the ground shot "projects the speed and power of the players but loses a panoramic view of the field," blowing the live shot. An instant replay showing the completed pass doesn't make up for Erskine's frustration at missing the original play.

The game continues through to a 34-20 victory by the Giants, a dull affair that, as Frank notes, proves the truism that "false excitement cannot be pumped into an event." Despite the early glitches, the broadcast goes well, and Gifford's tip about a fake punt means the cameras are in perfect position when Walden does in fact opt for the pass in the fourth quarter (which was dropped). It's particularly interesting to note how commercials were treated back in the day: under the current agreement, CBS can ask the officials for a commercial time-out "if there has been no natural break in the action during the first seven minutes of a quarter." The referee misses the network's initial fourth quarter signal, and Creasy nixes a commercial during a first-down measurement. ("We can't interrupt a drive.") The network is eventually bailed out by Giants kicker Pete Gogolak, who obligingly kicks two field goals to provide natural breaks for the spots.

Televising a game is tough work for everyone; as Creasy says after the game's end, "I feel as though my eyes are falling out of my head, and they pop out a little farther every week."

t  t  t
Us classic television fans remember Robert Young as the wise Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best, or the kindly family doctor Marcus Welby, M.D., but Young was a fine actor who wasn't above showing an edge in his work. We're reminded of that in Friday's episode of Name of the Game (7:30 p.m., NBC), as Young plays Herman Allison, "an ultraright fanatic who's building a private army" to guard against the growing race problem. Gene Barry, one of the three stars of Name of the Game, enters the scene while investigating the death of an investigative reporter, and runs into a cast of characters that includes an influence-peddling former senator, a washed-up actress, a restaurateur, and another murder.

It's just another indication of the sign of the times, as we can see in a Letter to the Editor from Doris Mathews of Checotah, Oklahoma. Miss Mathews writes in praise of a recent special called Soul, which could have been any one of a number of specials but was probably a public broadcasting series of the same name. In the letter, she says "The Negro 'Soul' special was fabulous. More shows like this should be aired so that the whites can see all the talent among the Negro people." Wince-inducing to modern ears perhaps, but this is a time not far removed from the infamous interracial kiss on Star Trek, which caused NBC so much trouble in the South.

Thomas J. O'Neal of New Orleans has a hilarious take on Howard Cosell, who's not quite the household name he'll become in two years thanks to Monday Night Football, but has become plenty familiar thanks to ABC's coverage of boxing—especially Muhammad Ali. In response to an October 19 article entitled "I'm Irreplaceable" (I'm assuming Humble Howard is speaking of himself here), O'Neal writes "In musing over the word 'saturnine,' which Howard Cosell believes everyone 'ought to learn,' it occurred to me that this Argus-eyed, stentorian Palladium of narcissism should pause on his commercial odyssey, pick up his aegis, take his Antaean virtues and his cornucopia of money—and paddle down the Stygian Way to Hades. [That's "go to hell," for the rest of us.] Cosell, you are a myth!" Couldn't have said that better myself.

I'll defer to the following as the Letter of the Week, though, as it checks a number of boxes that I've written about in the past months. Karen Fiedler, of Columbus, Ohio, has CBS' new Western series Lancer in mind in her letter. "Lancer is based on the fact that Murdoch Lancer [Andrew Duggan] was shot so badly he had to send for his boys, Scott [Wayne Maunder] and Johnny [James Stacy]. Scott gets shot int he first episode, Johnny gets shot in the second, and Scott gets shot again in the third by a family trying to avenge Johnny's killing of one of their brood. Johnny is forced to shoot one of them because they shot Scott. Luckily everyone recovers quickly except the bad guys. It is certainly a joy to view the new lack of violence." Got all that straight? TV  

Around the dial

This week, I'm back on the excellent Eventually Supertrain podcast, as Dan and I chat about the latest episode of Bourbon Street Beat. And by the way, Eventually Supertrain is excellent not because of me, but because some very interesting people talking about some wonderful short-lived series. But if you want to think that I'm also very interesting, it would be rude of me to attempt to correct you.

Burt Reynolds, Murray Hamilton, and Harry Dean Stanton are among the headliners in Bill S. Ballinger's suspenseful fifth-season " Escape to Sonoita ," Jack's latest entry in the Hitchcock Project at bare•bones e-zine.

At The Twilight Zone Vortex, Brian talks about the contributions of an unsung TZ writer, Jerry Sohl , who ghostwrote three episodes of the series for his friend and fellow writer, Charles Beaumont, when the latter began suffering from the dementia that would eventually claim his life.

David always comes up with interesting angles at Comfort TV, and this one is definitely not comfort TV: the Lou Grant episode "Unthinkable," dealing with a topic that truly is unthinkable, though all-too-possible: nuclear war.

Television's New Frontier: the 1960s covers a police drama that I quite liked when I watched it as a blind buy a few years ago: Brenner , featuring Edward Binns and James Broderick. I was never a fan of Binns before this, but he is very, very good in this, and Broderick ain't bad either.

"A Year in TV Guide" continues at Television Obscurities, and this week the issue is from November 4, 1989 , with a preview of the November sweeps programs, as well as coming video cassette releases (remember those?), and the week's highlights.

And at The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew shares a quote from Attica Locke that says a lot about how the reader interacts with the book they're reading. I'd like to think it gives some food for thought to us writers as well. TV  

The "It's About TV" Interview: Rob Precht, Ed Sullivan's grandson

A while back, I got a very nice email from a gentleman named Rob Precht, who complimented the website and mentioned that he happened to be Ed Sullivan's grandson. [As well as the son of Robert Precht, Ed's son-in-law and longtime producer of the Sullivan show.] My first reaction was to be flattered that someone who knew a fair deal about classic television was reading and liking the site; my second was we have to talk! I asked Rob if he was up to being the latest participant in the It's About TV! Interview, and, to our great fortune, he was only too happy to comply.

t  t  t
It's About TV: When did you first become aware that grandpa was actually someone pretty famous? 

Rob Precht: To me he’s always been grandpa. I sensed he was special when we would walk on the streets when I was around 6 and people would surround him asking for his autograph.

The show, which premiered as Talk of the Town in 1948, virtually at the outset of television history, runs all the way to 1971—23 years. And yet many see Ed Sullivan as the most unlikely person ever to host a television show. Impressionists loved to parody him (although I always suspected it was done more out of affection)—how did he manage to survive on TV for so long? 

Actually, he was a natural pick to host the show. Television was a brand-new industry in 1948. CBS executives were looking for someone to host a show. Ed had been a gossip columnist for many years and knew all the talents in New York. He could put them together in a show. Plus, he had done many live shows, the Harvest Moon Ball and Harlem Cavalcade among them. He was comfortable on stage. So, he was a natural pick. If one looks at the early kinescopes of the show one will see a man totally comfortable in this element. He didn’t feel he needed to impress people.

A lot of people look at Ed and wonder if he was really comfortable being on-screen, being so visible to the audience?

The better question is was he ever not comfortable being on-screen and the answer is no.

It also seems to me that I’ve read that he didn’t always think he was properly appreciated by CBS for his accomplishments as far as attracting viewers for the network and the sponsors.

The first two years of the show were high anxiety. Critics savaged Ed. At one point he learned CBS was shopping around the show to new sponsors “with or without Ed Sullivan.” That hurt him. But by 1950 or so the show was on a solid footing, and whatever resentments Ed may have had toward CBS dissipated.

Your dad, Bob Precht. produced the show for many years. How much of the responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the show, such as choosing the guests, was his, and how much of it was Ed’s?

Dad was an officer in the Navy when Ed recruited him to join the new industry of television, sort of like joining an internet startup in the 1990s.

He pulled all the elements together, but Ed was still in charge of choosing the guests. Dad also oversaw the show’s budget. He introduced more rehearsals to give the show a more polished look. But he presented all major decisions to Ed and Ed sometimes made changes.

Your mother, Betty, was the only child of Ed and Sylvia. What kind of a marriage did Ed and Sylvia have, with him being so involved in the entertainment world? 

Ed and Sylvia were devoted to each other. Ed had a racy night life as a columnist and liked to flirt with beautiful women, but my sense is their marriage was rock solid. Sylvia loved being the wife of Ed Sullivan.

One of Ed's better known feuds was with rival columnist Walter Winchell, who tried but failed to duplicate Ed's success on television. I know that in Michael Herr's novel about Winchell, he suggests that they made up late in life, but I don't know how based on fact that is.

Yes, he made up with Winchell and he introduced Winchell from the audience during one of the last shows. 

Do you remember hearing about any controversies as far as acts that they wanted to be on the show but couldn’t get, or conversely acts that maybe they weren’t crazy about, but felt some pressure to have on either because of network ties, or because they’d bring in a big audience?

No. Obviously, Ed did not like anything that was in bad taste, such as telling dirty jokes. When acts were “censored” such as the lyrics of the Rolling Stones and the Doors, the censorship originated with CBS network executives not Ed. Also, the old story of Bob Dylan walking off the show needs to be clarified: Ed was perfectly happy for Dylan to sing his song spoofing the John Birch Society. It was CBS that objected to the song and asked it to be replaced by another song. Dylan refused.

I don’t know how many people are aware of the impact that Ed had as far as bringing black entertainers on his show, and bringing them into the public consciousness. 

Since his earliest days as a columnist in the 1920s, Ed valued and promoted African American talent. He objected to sports segregation in 1929. Being a New Yorker who traveled to Harlem frequently, he came into contact with African American athletes, singers, dancers and Jazz Greats. He detested racism. Ed brought that sensibility to his television show. He presented a huge array of African American performers from the very start. He did so not to send a message or to be sanctimonious. He featured African Americans because he couldn’t imagine any kind of quality show without them.

Was that a hard sell for him? Did he have difficulty with his sponsors, or with the network when he insisted on these performers? 

There were  grumbles from some southern sponsors during the early 1950s, but they were sporadic. Also, after Ed started featuring African Americans in 1948, it made it easier for later shows to do the same such as Arthur Godfrey and Ted Mack.

It might be difficult for a lot of younger people to appreciate how different things were back in the age of three television networks, but your grandfather was basically America’s arbitrator of success. I mean, if you appeared on the Sullivan show, I don’t want to just say that you had it made, but you’d really accomplished something.

Yes, in a real sense Ed was the curator of culture for all of America. If a person or act appeared on the show it meant that here something you – the American people – should see and appreciate. Also, television was a much more communal experience than it is today. Families watched the show together, and friends and neighbors on Monday discussed who they had seen Sunday night. His show was a microcosm of a fully integrated society and I think it contributed to making the country more tolerant.

It really was a who's who: Elvis, the Beatles, the Supremes—the Supremes were a personal favorite of his, weren’t they?

He particularly liked Diana Ross and the Supremes. He liked the borsht belt comedians and old-time vaudeville stars like Sophie Tucker. I would not say the Beatles or Elvis were “favorites” of his. He knew they were hot, and he wanted him on the show, like a newspaperman scooping the competition.

Right. So there are these big pop stars, and the Muppets, and Bill Cosby, all kinds of people who went on to great fame. But he was also committed to what might have been called the middlebrow culture of the day: excerpts from the newest and biggest Broadway plays and musicals, fully staged scenes from operas being performed at the Metropolitan, and classical performers like Roberta Peters, who was I think a guest over 60 times. Why do you think it was so important for him to include these kinds of performances?

Because these performers were the best at what they did. They were champions in their fields. Ed respected champions and wanted others to see them.  He once devoted 15 minutes to a Met opera. The ratings took a dive, so when he presented opera the next time it was two songs at most. Also, he devoted a full hour to the Moisyiev Ballet from Moscow. Inconceivable today.

And yet it’s not only inconceivable that you’d see this on TV today, I can’t even begin to imagine what show they’d appear on. It would be hard to picture Placido Domingo on the Letterman show.

The late night shows are not venues for audiences composed of all age groups, the way the variety shows were in the 1950s.

Gerald Nachman, who wrote what I thought was an interesting but very flawed biography of your grandfather, nevertheless raised a particularly interesting point in suggesting that by welcoming the Beatles and their successors—the Stones, the Doors, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, etc.—Sullivan was in effect making a deal with the devil: he got the high ratings that he coveted and the relevancy he craved, but in doing so he also undermined the homogeneity of his audience, highlighting the growing generation gap and eventually rendering irrelevant the very acts that had served to carry him to such heights. Absent them, and with newer rock acts sniffing their noses at television, Sullivan’s show was doomed. As someone who is both an aficionado of classic television and one with intimate knowledge of the show, would you agree with that statement?

No, I don’t agree. Television was becoming more fragmented in ways that had nothing to do with Ed’s decisions. Households had more than one TV in the 1960s so the kids could tune into their own shows like Shindig. Cable brought more channels and choices too. Ed’s ratings were always high, but his viewership was getting older, and CBS wanted shows to appeal to younger people. That’s why his show was cancelled—it appealed to an older demographic. But this was the fate of many old-style television shows that were born in the early years of television. The country changed and so did television.

I suppose Johnny Carson would have been the successor to Ed in terms of being that kingmaker or queenmaker, and introducing those young entertainers.

No, Carson was not a successor since his show appeared late at night. Ed had no successor.

The show was finally cancelled in 1971, after debuting in 1948. Do you remember how Ed reacted to the cancellation, how he took it? After all, it wasn’t that it was a ratings failure, but that the network and sponsors had decided the audience was too old.

Of course, he was disappointed. But I think he realized he had had a great run.

I’m curious, because we’re both fans of classic TV—how do you view the state of television today? Does it compare to the era in which Ed’s show was on, is it better—some call it the Platinum Age, as opposed to the Golden Age—or is there something about today’s shows that is missing? Call it humanity, or tact, or restraint?

Television is no longer a communal experience, that’s the biggest change. Television shows are no longer produced live, like Ed’s show, so there is a lack of spontaneity and excitement. Consumers of media these days are siloed in their own worlds. As a consequence, people are not exposed to as much culture as they were in the days of Ed Sullivan when Rock and Roll stars, talented dogs, opera singers, Jazz Greats, ballerinas and scenes from the latest Broadway shows appeared on the same stage, live, and were viewed by millions of people at the same time.

Is it a fair question to wonder what Ed would think of the entertainment scene today, considering how immersed he was in the entertainment world, even excluding the show?

Grandpa was a newsman at heart. He presented what was new and happening.  If he were alive today, I think he’d still delight in getting the scoop, being the first to introduce new talents.

OK, so I have to ask this: what did Ed think of Topo Gigio, the little Italian mouse puppet who was kind of a semi-regular?

Ed liked Topo because it gave him a chance to express his tender side.

Well, I just want to say that I think Ed Sullivan is a very important figure not just in the history of television, but in the American culture of the time. I enjoy watching those old shows immensely, because they’re kind of a time capsule into who and what was popular, what was going on in America, at any given time. And I think that we have to keep alive this institutional memory of what television was like, how it got to be the way it is; we have to remember people like Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, Dave Garroway, Pat Weaver, Your Show of Shows, Dragnet, Gunsmoke—people both in front of and behind the cameras, and the shows that helped shape TV and America. Thanks for doing your part.

Thank you for asking me to contribute to your wonderful website.

t  t  t
No, Rob, thank you. I've been doing this website for a few years now, and these interviews never get old. My only concern is that I'm not a good enough interviewer to capture the stories that my guests have to share with you all. As I mentioned in my final question, it is so important to keep these memories alive, as more and more figures from the era pass away. Rob is one of the good guys, helping keep these alive. He's currently working on a book about his grandfather, and when that comes out I'll be waiting to get a copy for my bookshelf—and you'll read about it here.

If you're interested in more about The Ed Sullivan Show, a great resource is the wonderful Television Academy Interviews website (and YouTube page), which does so much to curate the oral history of television. Here is their Ed Sullivan page , featuring interviews with several of Ed's guests. TV  

What's on TV? Monday, November 6, 1967

Nothing big this week, but a lot of little things to notice. For example, look at the gust lineup on The Hollywood Squares. That's about as good a guide as there is to the celebrity universe in the late '60s and early '70s—not just the big stars, but the B-list celebrities and the faded stars as well. And the combination always worked. the Danny Thomas show that you see on NBC is not the old Make Room for Daddy-era series, but The Danny Thomas Hour, a weekly anthology not unlike Bob Hope's Chrysler Theatre; the episode this week just happens to be a sequel to the old show. And Bob Newhart's guest host appearance on The Tonight Show? It's not just one night, or even one week; he's in the second week of his guest hosting. Considering how talk shows have reruns instead of guest hosts nowadays, can you imagine a host secure enough to leave his show in the hands of a substitute for two weeks? We're in the Minnesota State Edition this week.

 2  KTCA (EDUC.)
Morning
    9:00 CLASSROOM—Education
  11:35 MODERN GEOMETRY
Afternoon
  12:00 OBSERVING EYE—Science
  12:30 CLASSROOM—Education
    3:00 EFFICIENT READING  COLOR 
    3:30 ART FOR TEACHERS
    4:00 EXPERIMENT—Science
    4:30 ANTIQUES—Education
    5:00 KINDERGARTEN—Marron
    5:30 4-H ACTION CLUB
Evening
    6:00 CAMERAS ON JAPAN  COLOR 
    6:30 MANAGERS IN ACTION
    7:00 TEACHING MUSIC
    8:00 SOVIET UNION  COLOR 
    8:30 TIME FOR RENEWAL
    9:00 AFTER SCHOOL, WHAT?
    9:30 FOLIO—Arnold Walker
  10:00 MONDAY FOR MEDICINE


 3  KDAL (DULUTH) (CBS)
Morning
    7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti  COLOR 
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children  COLOR 
    9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy
  10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy
  10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy
  11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial  COLOR 
  11:25 NEWS  COLOR 
  11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial  COLOR 
  11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 TOWN AND COUNTRY—Becker
  12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial  COLOR 
    1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING  COLOR 
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR 
    2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game  COLOR 
    2:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial  COLOR 
    3:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety  COLOR Guests: George Segal, Gail Martin, Roy Clark, Flip Wilson
    5:00 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 GUNSMOKE  COLOR 
    7:30 LUCILLE BALL  COLOR 
    8:00 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:30 FAMILY AFFAIR—Comedy  COLOR 
    9:00 CAROL BURNETT  COLOR Guests: Nanette Fabray, Sonny and Cher
  10:00 NEWS
  10:25 EDITOR’S CHOICE—Krueger
  10:30 ROGUES—Drama
  11:30 MOVIE—Adventure“The Traitors” (English; 1962)


 4  WCCO (CBS)
Morning
    6:00 SUNRISE SEMSETER—Education
    6:30 SIEGFRIED—Children
    7:00 CLANCY—Children  COLOR 
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children  COLOR 
    9:00 DR. YOUNGDAHL  COLOR 
    9:05 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety  COLOR Guests: Carl Yastrzemski, James Mason, Chester Morris, Peggy Cass
  10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy
  10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy
  11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial  COLOR 
  11:25 NEWS  COLOR 
  11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial  COLOR 
  11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  12:20 SOMETHING SPECIAL  COLOR 
  12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial  COLOR 
    1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING  COLOR 
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR 
    2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game  COLOR 
    2:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial  COLOR 
    3:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy
    4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety  COLOR Guests: Fred Clark, Anne Bater, Yousuf Karsh, Buddy Greco, Al Caiola, Gil Eagles
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 GUNSMOKE  COLOR 
    7:30 LUCILLE BALL  COLOR 
    8:00 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:30 FAMILY AFFAIR—Comedy  COLOR 
    9:00 CAROL BURNETT  COLOR Guests: Nanette Fabray, Sonny and Cher
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 MINNESOTA FOOTBALL  COLOR 
  11:30 MOVIE—Comedy “Watch the Birdie” (1950)


 5  KSTP (NBC)
Morning
    6:15 DAVID STONE—Music  COLOR 
    6:30 CITY AND COUNTRY  COLOR 
    6:55 DOCTOR’S HOUSE CALL—James Rogers Fox  COLOR 
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guest: Dorothy (Mrs. Richard ) Rodgers
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Carol Lawrence, Flip Wilson
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Ethel Merman, James Mason, Skitch Henderson, Zsa Zsa Gabor
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Players: Morey Amsterdam, Shelly Berman, Wally Cox, Barbara Eden, Noel Harrison, Rose Marie, Agnes Moorhead, William Shatner, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  12:15 DIALING FOR DOLLARS—Game  COLOR 
  12:30 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game  COLOR 
    1:00 DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial  COLOR 
    1:30 DOCTORS—Serial  COLOR 
    2:00 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game  COLOR Guests: June Lockhart, Brian Kelly
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Vivian Vance, Ed McMahon
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 DIALING FOR DOLLARS—Game  COLOR 
    4:30 OF LANDS AND SEAS  COLOR 
    5:25 NEWS—Gene Berry  COLOR 
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 MONKEES  COLOR 
    7:00 MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    8:00 DANNY THOMAS—Comedy  COLOR “Make More Room for Daddy”
    9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Music  SPECIAL    COLOR Guests: Erroll Garner, Henry Mancini, Claudine Longet
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 TONIGHT  COLOR Guest host: Bob Newhart. Guest: Rich Little
  12:00 MEN INTO SPACE—Adventure


 6  WDSM (DULUTH) (NBC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guest: Dorothy (Mrs. Richard ) Rodgers
    9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Ethel Merman, James Mason, Skitch Henderson, Zsa Zsa Gabor
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Players: Morey Amsterdam, Shelly Berman, Wally Cox, Barbara Eden, Noel Harrison, Rose Marie, Agnes Moorhead, William Shatner, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 VIRGINIA GRAHAM—Interviews
  12:30 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game  COLOR 
    1:00 DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial  COLOR 
    1:30 DOCTORS—Serial  COLOR 
    2:00 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game  COLOR Guests: June Lockhart, Brian Kelly
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Vivian Vance, Ed McMahon
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 SNAP JUDGMENT—Game  COLOR Guests: Carol Lawrence, Flip Wilson
    3:55 BOZO AND HIS PALS  COLOR 
    4:55 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—Game  COLOR 
    5:25 BUSINESS BOARD  COLOR 
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS, ROCKY TELLER  COLOR 
    6:30 MONKEES  COLOR 
    7:00 MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    8:00 DANNY THOMAS—Comedy  COLOR “Make More Room for Daddy”
    9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Music  SPECIAL    COLOR Guests: Erroll Garner, Henry Mancini, Claudine Longet
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 TONIGHT  COLOR Guest host: Bob Newhart. Guest: Rich Little
  12:00 DANGER IS MY BUSINESS—Documentary  COLOR 


 6  KAUS (AUSTIN) (ABC)
Morning
    9:30 DATELINE: HOLLYWOODGuests: Sandy Baron, Keir Dullea
    9:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Dr. Lendon Smith
  10:00 HONEYMOON RACE—Game  COLOR 
  10:30 FAMILY GAME
  11:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING—GameGuests: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Christopher George, Jan Murray
  11:30 DONNA REED—Comedy
Afternoon
  12:00 FUGITIVE—Drama
    1:00 NEWLYWED GAME  COLOR 
    1:30 DREAM GIRL  COLOR Guests: Ken Berry, Troy Donahue, Marty Ingels, Dana Wynter
    1:55 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 DATING GAME  COLOR 
    3:30 COMPASS—Travel
    4:00 CHEYENNE—Western
    5:00 NEWS—Jennings  COLOR 
    5:30 HAVE GUN—WILL TRAVEL
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 COWBOY IN AFRICA  COLOR 
    7:30 RAT PATROL  COLOR 
    8:00 FELONY SQUAD—Drama  COLOR 
    8:30 PEYTON PLACE—Serial  COLOR 
    9:00 BIG VALLEY  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 JOEY BISHOP—Variety  COLOR Guests: Fernando Lamas, Hank Thompson
  12:00 NEWS


 7  KCMT (ALEXANDRIA) (NBC, ABC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guest: Dorothy (Mrs. Richard ) Rodgers
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Carol Lawrence, Flip Wilson
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Ethel Merman, James Mason, Skitch Henderson, Zsa Zsa Gabor
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Players: Morey Amsterdam, Shelly Berman, Wally Cox, Barbara Eden, Noel Harrison, Rose Marie, Agnes Moorhead, William Shatner, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 NEWS
  12:20 TRADING POST—John Haaven
  12:30 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game  COLOR 
    1:00 DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial  COLOR 
    1:30 DOCTORS—Serial  COLOR 
    2:00 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game  COLOR Guests: June Lockhart, Brian Kelly
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Vivian Vance, Ed McMahon
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial
    4:00 WELCOME INN—Variety
    4:30 BEATLES—Cartoons
    5:00 FLYING NUN—Comedy
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 MONKEES  COLOR 
    7:00 MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    8:00 DANNY THOMAS—Comedy  COLOR “Make More Room for Daddy”
    9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Music  SPECIAL    COLOR Guests: Erroll Garner, Henry Mancini, Claudine Longet
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 TONIGHT  COLOR Guest host: Bob Newhart. Guest: Rich Little


 8  WDSE (DULUTH) (EDUC.)
Afternoon
    5:00 KINDERGARTEN—Marron
    5:30 4-H ACTION CLUB
Evening
    6:00 DUOLOGUE
    6:30 WHAT’S NEW—Children
    7:00 NET JOURNAL—Report
    8:00 MANAGERS IN ACTION
    8:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking
    9:00 SPREAD OF THE EAGLE
  10:00 MONDAY FOR MEDICINE


 9  KMSP (ABC)
Morning
    7:30 DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD
    8:00 GYPSY ROSE LEE  COLOR 
    8:30 MORNING SHOW  COLOR 
    9:00 ROMPER ROOM  COLOR 
    9:30 DOBIE GILLIS—Comedy
  10:00 HONEYMOON RACE—Game  COLOR 
  10:30 FAMILY GAME
  11:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING—GameGuests: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Christopher George, Jan Murray
  11:30 DONNA REED—Comedy
Afternoon
  12:00 FUGITIVE—Drama
    1:00 NEWLYWED GAME  COLOR 
    1:30 DREAM GIRL  COLOR Guests: Ken Berry, Troy Donahue, Marty Ingels, Dana Wynter
    1:55 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 DATING GAME  COLOR 
    3:30 MOVIE—Western“The Desperadoes Are in Town” (1956)
    4:55 NEWS—Jerry Smith  COLOR 
    5:00 NEWS—Jennings  COLOR 
    5:30 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy
Evening
    6:00 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy
    6:30 COWBOY IN AFRICA  COLOR 
    7:30 RAT PATROL  COLOR 
    8:00 FELONY SQUAD—Drama  COLOR 
    8:30 PEYTON PLACE—Serial  COLOR 
    9:00 BIG VALLEY  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Bachelor Party” (1957)
  12:20 JOEY BISHOP—Variety  COLOR Guests: Fernando Lamas, Hank Thompson


10 KROC (ROCHESTER) (NBC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guest: Dorothy (Mrs. Richard ) Rodgers
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Carol Lawrence, Flip Wilson
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Ethel Merman, James Mason, Skitch Henderson, Zsa Zsa Gabor
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Players: Morey Amsterdam, Shelly Berman, Wally Cox, Barbara Eden, Noel Harrison, Rose Marie, Agnes Moorhead, William Shatner, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 NEWS
  12:20 MEMOS FROM MARY BEA
  12:30 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game  COLOR 
    1:00 DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial  COLOR 
    1:30 DOCTORS—Serial  COLOR 
    2:00 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game  COLOR Guests: June Lockhart, Brian Kelly
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Vivian Vance, Ed McMahon
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 DOODLES THE CLOWN—Children
    4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety  COLOR Guests: Barrie Chase, Totie Fields, Allen Ludden, the Kirby Stone Four
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 MONKEES  COLOR 
    7:00 MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    8:00 DANNY THOMAS—Comedy  COLOR “Make More Room for Daddy”
    9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Music  SPECIAL    COLOR Guests: Erroll Garner, Henry Mancini, Claudine Longet
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 TONIGHT  COLOR Guest host: Bob Newhart. Guest: Rich Little


11 WTCN (IND.)
Morning
    8:30 NEWS—Gil Amundson
    9:00 CARTOON CARNIVAL  COLOR 
    9:30 ED ALLEN TIME  COLOR 
  10:00 MR. BLACKWELL—Variety  COLOR Guests: Peter Hurkos, Georgia Drake
  10:30 VIRGINIA GRAHAM—InterviewsGuests: Carmel Quinn, Rosemary Forsyth
  11:00 BRUNCH BUNCH—Women
  11:30 COOKING WITH HANK
  11:45 NEWS—Gil Amundson
Afternoon
  12:00 LUNCH WITH CASEY—Children
    1:00 MOVIE—Drama“Cell 2455, Death Row” (1955)
    2:30 WOODY WOODBURY—Variety  COLOR Guests: Durward Kirby, Linda Kaye, the Stone Country
    4:00 POPEYE AND PETE—Children
    4:30 CASEY AND ROUNDHOUSE
    5:30 FLINTSTONES  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 GILLIGAN’S ISLAND—Comedy  COLOR 
    6:30 PERRY MASON—Drama
    7:30 RACE TO RICHES  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama  COLOR “Pursuit of the Graf Spee” (English; 1955)
  10:10 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS
  10:40 MOVIE—Drama  COLOR “The Young Racers” (1963)


12 KEYC (MANKATO) (CBS)
Morning
    7:30 NEWS—Benti  COLOR 
    7:55 FILM SHORT
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children  COLOR 
    9:00 JACK LA LANNE  COLOR 
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy
  10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy
  10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy
  11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial  COLOR 
  11:25 NEWS  COLOR 
  11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial  COLOR 
  11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 NEWS
  12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial  COLOR 
    1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING  COLOR 
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR 
    2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game  COLOR 
    2:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial  COLOR 
    3:30 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy
    4:00 FOCUS AT FOUR—Pasek
    4:30 SERGEANT PRESTON
    5:00 4-H ACTION CLUB
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 GUNSMOKE  COLOR 
    7:30 LUCILLE BALL
    8:00 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:30 FAMILY AFFAIR—Comedy  COLOR 
    9:00 CAROL BURNETT  COLOR Guests: Nanette Fabray, Sonny and Cher
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 PRO FOOTBALL—Vikings  COLOR New York Giants at Minnesota Vikings
TV  

This week in TV Guide: November 4, 1967

Back in the day—“the day” in this case being before DVDs, before VHS, before even TCM—there were only two ways to catch classic movies. One was to see them in a revival or art house theater, the other came courtesy of The Late Late Show on local TV.

My personal guide to the classic movie was the Academy Awards Close-Up that appeared each year in TV Guide. As a studious lad in college, I’d spend the last half-hour or so of each day in the periodicals stacks of the library, going through bound issues of TV Guide from the past dozen or so years, developing the pop culture interests that have stayed with me to this day. The Oscar Close-Up would feature pictures of the nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress, plus a list of the nominees in Picture, Supporting Actor and Actress, Director, and Song, and as a top-line guide to movies, it wasn’t bad. I’d make mental lists of the movies I hadn’t heard of, less well-known movies that struck me as interesting or at least intriguing, and I’d keep an eye out for them when they ran on local TV. I saw a lot of very good movies that way—This Sporting Life (with nominees Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (Kim Stanley), Tom Jones (the movie, not the singer—Best Picture of 1963), Becket (Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole), among others. Some of them, like Becket, had been big hits in their time, but there were still new to me. Many of them were not what I expected at all, which increased my personal pleasure.

One of those little-known movies was a British film called The Mark, a bleak story of a man trying to rebuild his life after being released from prison for child molestation. It starred Stuart Whitman, an B-actor better known for television, who somehow wound up snagging a Best Actor nomination for for it. He didn't win—Maximilian Schell did, for Judgment at Nuremberg*), but The Mark was an obscure movie that was well worth watching.

*Fun fact: Maximilian Schell’s sister, Maria, was Whitman’s co-star in The Mark.

Stuart Whitman’s on the cover of TV Guide this week for what is probably his best-known role: Marshal Jim Crown in Cimarron Strip, CBS’ 90-minute answer to the mega-Westerns Wagon Train and The Virginian. Actually, Cimarron Strip bears more resemblance to another CBS oater, Gunsmoke; no surprise, since the series is helmed by that show’s former executive producer, Philip Leacock. Whitman hopes Cimarron Strip will be the start of a new stage in his career, which to date has consisted mostly of roles that had originally been intended for others: Darby’s Rangers (Charlton Heston), The Story of Ruth (Stephen Boyd), The Sound and the Fury (Robert Wagner), An American Dream (David Janssen). Even The Mark was inherited from Richard Burton, and despite the nomination, Whitman concedes, “I wasn’t sure I was in the right profession.” He feels that this role “is definitely going to hit me with an image. It’s the image that makes the star. I’m on the brink of the stardom that I’ve always sought and wanted. I wasn’t ready for it before.”

Whitman’s confidence in Cimarron Strip is misplaced—the show, perennially over-budget, will only run for one season—but his career will continue, never as the star he’d hoped to be, with a few more movie roles and plenty of guest appearances in series, not to mention a turn as Superman’s Earthly father in The Adventures of Superboy.

t  t  t
During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..
Sullivan: Tony Bennett; jazz clarinetist Woody Herman and his Swinging Herd; singer Shirley Bassey; comedians Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, Rodney Dangerfield and Totie Fields; accordionist Dick Contino; and the Jovers, comedy-acrobatic team.

Palace: Host Sid Caesar, with Marlo “That Girl” Thomas; singers Sergio Franchi and Fran Jeffries; and the pop-rocking Checkmates.

ABC, in its infinite wisdom, has moved Palace to Tuesdays to make room for Dale Robertson’s Western The Iron Horse. (That move doesn’t last long.) The show has a mensch with Caesar, a miss with Marlo, and “meh” with the rest. By contrast, Sullivan packs more star power, and in a rarity for these old TV Guides, several of them are still going strong, including Bennett and Bassey*. I never cared much for Allen and Rossi, but they were big stuff in 1968, and Dangerfield was getting plenty of respect as well. And Woody Herman? Well, he and his Swinging Herd could swing indeed; he was the halftime entertainment at Super Bowl VII. I assume there was no wardrobe malfunction involved. The verdict: Sullivan takes the prize.

*Not sure who Shirley Bassey is? Listen to the theme from Goldfinger.

Here's Woody Herman and his Swinging Herd from 1967—could well be from this very show.


t  t  t
.Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the series of the era. 

The Second Hundred Years, says Cleveland Amory, is a very cool idea for a television show. Cool, as in cold, as in a glacier that traps our hero, Luke Carpenter, for 67 years in what we would call a state of suspended animation. When Luke, portrayed by Monte Markham, is thawed out, his infant son is now old enough to be played by Arthur O'Connell, and his son, Ken, is now 33, which just happens to be the same age as Luke was when—well, you know. And just so we've got that all straight, Ken is also played by Monte Markham, and, naturally, looks exactly like his grandson. With me so far?

This is, obviously, what one might call a "gimmick" series, and it's no surprise, considering the executive producer is Harry Ackerman, responsible for The Flying Nun, another "gimmick." Speaking of gimmicks, The Second Hundred Years has two: the obvious one, the efforts of a hundred-year-old man, who is really just 33, having to adjust to the "modern" age; and second, that of a grandfather and grandson who happen to be the same age, and the confusion that entails. The problem, according to Amory, is that this is really one gimmick too many. It's fine when the show concentrates on "Luke's old-fashioned rugged individualism vis-à-vis today's welfare (or farewell) state," but when the series tries to ride the mistaken identity trope, which is, frankly, a mistake.

That's not to say there aren't good moments in this series, because there are. Markham is very good in the dual roles, making each one believable; he's especially funny in a scene where Luke turns on the television and sees a cowboy pulling a gun and saying, "Reach for the sky!" whereupon Luke shoots the tube out. "By golly," he says, "there's a midget in that box." The moments are too few, and the far-betweens too many; and when you only last 26 episodes, you need a little more than that.

t  t  t
This week’s cover promises something different, and that something is PBL.

The Public Broadcast Laboratory, premiering Sunday, November 5, is a first for the nation's fledgling public television system: the first time a show will be broadcast nationwide on the same day at the same time. It's intent, according to Richard K. Doan, is to "try just about everything its producers can think of that will demonstrate what Public Television ought to be."

The major domo of PBL is Fred Friendly, former head of CBS News, now the TV consultant to the Ford Foundation, which will be underwriting the venture. Bossing the project for him is Av Westin, formerly executive producer of CBS' election coverage. The host is Edward P. Morgan, ABC news anchorman, who is taking a two-year sabbatical from the network to helm the program.

Note the lit candle used as the "I" in the word
"Television" - possibly alluding to the flame in
the NET logo shown here.The challenge to PBL is the challenge that PBS has faced ever since, in microcosm: "They do not want to appear to strive for broad mass appeal, a la commercial TV, and must perforce adopt the stance that since they are not interested in ratings they can afford, if they so choose, sometimes to devote their attention to a subject palpably interesting to 50,000 people" rather than the audience of millions that tune into commercial broadcasts. At the same time, "it would be helpful to the cause of Public Television if they could create excitement at the very outset." Failing that, the program "could be quickly dismissed as a dud." It's this lack of identity, not to mention mission, that's plagued the network ever since.

Fish or fowl? Experimental programs or Britcoms? Classical opera or seniors-tour pop stars? PBS has never really made up its mind, with the result that increasingly the network doesn't seem capable of doing anything exactly right. It's hard enough when you try to be all things to all people, but as Doan points out, PBL has to "come on like Gangbusters and seem nonchalant about it."

Nowhere is this more evident than in the very structure of a typical PBL episode, which could include news, drama, satire, music, and discussion - all within one two-hour slot. Originally, according to Ford Foundation president McGeorge Bundy, the show's objective was to "pull together the intellectual and cultural resources of this country to speak directly, once a week, to the great issues of the day in every field of action." Westin, referring to the popular magazines of the day, vowed to present "everything from Harper's to Playboy—without the latter's centerfold." Ah, well. At the same time, Westin talked of live drama with a regular repertory company, commentary ranging from political pundit Walter Lippmann to Groucho Marx, an "in depth" examination of vital issues such as Vietnam and race relations, and even "consumer reports done with the slickness of TV commercials." The show might even go on the road from time to time, broadcasting from locations other than its New York studio.

PBL will run for two years, eventually giving way on Sunday nights to the British drama The Forsythe Saga, forerunner to Masterpiece Theatre. The show receives many critical plaudits and more than a few brickbats. It retrospect, it seems impossible that any program could hope to capture the ambitious variety of PBL, and in truth the network probably would have been better served to figure out what PBL could do best and stick to it. As it is, PBL remains at the same time both a tantalizing hint as to what Public Broadcasting could have been, and a reminder of how in so many ways it has failed totally.

Television Obscurities has a very good overview of PBL  here .

t  t  t
Anything interesting on the tube this week? Let's take a look.

Chet Huntley and David Brinkley make a rare joint prime-time appearance on Friday night (9:00 p.m. CT) with a first look at the upcoming Presidential race. The issues, it appears, have already been brought to a head: Vietnam and the inner cities.  (Of course, 1968 has even more horrors in store.) What's particularly interesting is the cast of candidates whose strengths and weaknesses are surveyed: President Johnson, at this point the presumptive Democratic nominee, is the lone Democrat profiled; on the Republican side are the four men who do, in fact, dominate much of the pre-election speculation: George Romney, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller.* And then there's the wildcard—Alabama Governor George Wallace, who will run on a third-party ticket in an effort to throw the electoral vote into the House of Representatives.

*Between the two parties, a veritable Murderer's Row of heavy-hitting politicians. Perhaps it's just me, but the larger-than-life persona of national figures seems to have shrunk dramatically over the decades.

While LBJ might seem the sure thing for the Democrats, I find it interesting that his first major rival, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, is a guest on the Mike Douglas show on Channel 4 Thursday afternoon (4:00 p.m.). McCarthy has been hinting for some time that he might challenge the President, and he's less than a month from making the formal announcement of his candidacy. Clean Gene's fellow guests include Anne Baxter and Booker T. and the MGs. Must have been an interesting show.

Bob Hope appears in an NBC special Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m., a kind of meta-concept show that nicely summarizes the state of television in the late 1960s. The variety show concept as presented by Hope is itself kind of hoary, increasingly out of touch with contemporary culture, and the premise of this one—a star-studded battle between Westerns and sitcoms* for control of NBC's schedule—illustrates the changing tides. "Cowboys have taken over TV, leaving the comedians up in arms and out of work. Hope's mission is to don a disguise, sneak into the Westerners' secret meeting—and arrange a shootin' showdown between the cowpunchers and the punch liners." As TV Guide points out, the irony is that all season long the sitcoms have dominated the Westerns in the ratings race (ask Stuart Whitman how well that worked out), meaning the show's premise, like the variety show itself, is already approaching obsolescence. Within a few years, Westerns will have virtually disappeared from the screen, and variety isn't far behind.

*Virtually all of the stars on both "sides" are featured in various NBC properties. Imagine that.

How about some prime-time golf? It's possible when your tournament is being played in Oahu. Syndicated coverage of the Hawaiian Open, which nowadays is called the Sony Open and is played in January, airs at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Actually, given the time difference, it could have been televised a lot later in the evening than that; tournaments from California had occasionally veered into prime time in the past, and more recently NBC's U.S. Open coverage from San Francisco ran until 10:00 p.m.

More conventional Sunday sports: football! With the Minnesota Vikings playing at home, and thus blacked out in the Twin Cities, local viewers instead get to see the Green Bay Packers take on the Colts in Baltimore (1:00 p.m., CBS), a far better game if you ask me. The Vikings take on the New York Giants in the second game of the doubleheader, but since we're not allowed to watch that, we're stuck with Gadabout Gaddis and Almanac Newsreel instead. Over on NBC, it's the Jets vs. the Chiefs from Kansas City (1:00 p.m.), and given that NBC's top crew of Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman are on the scene, I'm guessing this is probably the feature game of the day.

t  t  t
Finally, November is soup season, and what TV Guide would be complete without a recipe for something you can enjoy while seated in front of the tube. So let's close with this recipe for minestrone—serves 10-12, and goes great with a crusty piece of Italian bread!


Sauté onion, carrot, celery and garlic in olive oil until golden. Add chicken broth, water and tomato sauce. When soup begins to boil, add vegetables and macaroni. Cook until macaroni is tender. Add remaining ingredients and stir until well blended. Reheat. It may be necessary to add salt and pepper to taste.
- Helen Feingold, food consultant
If any of you out there try it, let us know how it turned out! TV  

Around the dial

As you may recall, we skipped this feature last week due to my secret out-of-town mission; the nice thing about that is that we always have plenty to look at when we come back, and this week is no exception. Let's get started!

At Classic Film and TV Café, Rick has an interview with television and movie star Constance Towers , who has some wonderful stories about working with Raymond Burr on Perry Mason, being directed by John Ford and Samuel Fuller, and more.

Jack's Hitchcock Project continues at bare•bones e-zine with part three of Bill S. Ballinger's contributions; this one is the fifth-season episode "The Hero," with Eric Portman and Oscar Homolka in a sinister story of a guilty conscience.

The Last Drive In features a look at Gary Gerani, who's written a number of classic horror movies (Pumpkinhead), but I remember him for having written the book Fantastic Television: A Pictorial History of Sci-Fi, the Unusual and Fantastic From Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond..., which I read around the time I was just getting into Doctor Who. Great fun!

Fire-Breathing Dimetrodon Time reviews "Bounty Hunters' Convention," an episode of the beloved Western comedy-fantasy The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., which I've mentioned before as a show that was perhaps ahead of its time. In today's age of smaller television audiences, I wonder if this series wouldn't have continued for a few years.

Apropos of Halloween, Inner Toob looks at the four actresses who've played Marilyn Munster, the black sheep of the Munster family. Is it possible this character has appeared in other series? I love the weird twists that that Inner Toob takes with questions like this.

Sticking with that theme, at Comfort TV, David talks about a Halloween Comfort TV classic: Ghost Story , the 1972 anthology series hosted by Sebastian Cabot (at least until it changed its title and format). I don't know why I remember this series, but I do; it may have something to do with it being on NBC, the only station we could get in the World's Worst Town™.

At Garroway at Large, Jodie plugs her new book, which is not about Dave Garroway; it's Ben Robertson: South Carolina Journalist and Author , and you ought to buy it. For that matter, so should I.

This week, Cult TV Blog is back in the world of Gideon's Way with the episode "The Nightlifers," and I have to admit becoming more curious about this series the more John talks about it. It's a show that really depicts the time in which it was made, which is one reason why I recommend watching shows from the time rather than modern shows that try to show it like it was. TV  

Pumpkin Bells

One might be tempted to suggest that it doesn't pay to go out of town for a week, because you have to spend that much more time catching up when you return. And there's a lot to be said for that, although in my case, having returned from a week in which I put in 39 hours of overtime (at time-and-a-half!), it actually did pay. the other part of the equation hold's true, though; suddenly, I find myself with a lot to do, and not much time in which to do it. For example, I have a terrific interview with Ed Sullivan's grandson lined up, but it has to wait until next week; you'll be glad you waited, though.

And then there's Halloween, and while it's been a long time since I've gone out for trick or treating, it's still fun seeing the little kids come to the door in their costumes, some of them barely old enough to do anything other than stick their hand out for a piece of candy. Good times, though, because I'm one of those who still believes that Halloween belongs to kids, not adults.

Speaking of which, if you're my age, you probably remember the costumes you wore when you were a kid, with the plastic mask and the smock you pulled over your shirt. A lot of these costumes were TV-related, giving you a chance to look like your favorite cartoon or real-life TV character. These were invariably a disappointment, in part because having the eyes cut out ruined any chance the mask had of looking like the character it was supposed to resemble. Of course, the alternative was to go staggering around and running into trees because you couldn't see where you were going, so there was that.


This costume of Casper the Friendly Ghost is actually pretty good, since he had black eyes to begin with, and it's too dark to see what's behind the holes. Just wait until you put it on, though; your eyes will ruin the whole thing. I think I wore this costume for a couple of years back in the 1960s, which is strange because I don't remember being a big Casper fan.


I don't know if I ever had a Top Cat costume, though I watched him every Saturday morning. The makers apparently weren't very confident that you'd recognize who it was supposed to be, since they felt compelled to put "Top Cat" on the hat, something that never happened on the show. (You can see just enough of the doily underneath to see how disconcerting those eyes were. and now I'll stop talking about that.)


I suspect everyone would recognize Fred Flintstone; that show's never really gone out of style, has it? I watched it growing up, because when you're a kid you'll pretty much watch whatever happens to be one, but it wasn't high on my list. I think I would have been hard up to wear this.


You can see why cartoon characters make good costumes, since it's a lot easier to reproduce the look of a cartoon than a human. I don't think it was necessary to put Yogi's name on the hat; you don't have to be smarter than the average bear to know who it is. For some reason I want to say I had this costume, but I can't be sure anymore. The mind is the first thing to go, you know.


See what I mean about the difficulty reproducing human characters? The description claims that this is Lurch from The Addams Family, and I'm in no position to argue the point. It seems like it would be wasted on someone under seven feet tall, though.


Evidently this, plus a red long-sleeved shirt, is all you need to go as Gilligan, although having the right hair would probably help.


Wearing this is supposed to make you look like Batgirl, but personally, I think having a figure like Yvonne Craig will probably be a whole lot more effective. With or without the mask.

What's on TV? Thursday, November 2, 1978

This week's issue takes us to Denver, and the Colorado State Edition (in addition to which we have three stations from Rapid City, South Dakota). Even as late as 1978, we can see how many stations still have multiple affiliations, and in doing so we get a hint of what the most popular shows are. The Waltons, for instance, which plays on KTVS, an ABC/CBS affiliate, and KREX in Grand Junction, which boasts all three networks. And I like how KREX handles the morning: the CBS Morning News, Today, and Good Morning America. Not taking any chances, are they?



 2  KWGN (Ind.)
MORNING
     6:35 FARM/RANCH REPORT
     6:40 NEWS
    7 AM UNDERDOG—Children
     7:30 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy BW 
    8 AM FLINTSTONES—Cartoon
     8:30 BLINKY’S FUN CLUB
    9 AM NEW ZOO REVUE
     9:30 NOT FOR WOMEN ONLY
  10 AM DENVER NOW—Beverly Martinez
   10:30 MOVIE—Drama BW “The Secret Partner” (English; 1961)
AFTERNOON
     12 N EVERYDAYGuests: James Mason, Melissa Sue Anderson, Jess Lair
    1 PM MIKE DOUGLASCo-hosts: the Captain and Tennile. Guests: Chris Evert, Ron Palillo, Robert and Rosemary Stack
     2:30 LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE
    3 PM FLINTSTONES—Cartoon
     3:30 GILLIGAN’S ISLAND
    4 PM FAMILY AFFAIR—Comedy
     4:30 THAT GIRL—Comedy
    5 PM I LOVE LUCY—Comedy BW 
     5:30 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy BW 
EVENING
    6 PM DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy BW 
     6:30 ODD COUPLE—Comedy
    7 PM DATING GAME
     7:30 MOVIE—Western“Law of the Lawless” (1964)
     9:30 NEWS
  10 PM LOVE EXPERTS—GamePanelists: Jo Anne Worley, David Letterman, Jo Ann Pflug, Soupy Sales
   10:30 GONG SHOW—GameJudges: Gary Muledeer, Elayne Boosler, Carl Ballantine
  11 PM MOVIE—Comedy BW “Here Comes the Sun” (English; 1946)
   12:55 NEWS


 3  KTVS (STERLING) (ABC, CBS)
MORNING
    6 AM CBS NEWS—Stahl/Threlkeld
    7 AM CAPTAIN KANGAROOGuest: Michael Vale
    8 AM ALL IN THE FAMILY
     8:30 MAGAZINESpecial Guest: Margo St. James
     9:30 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial
     9:55 CBS NEWS—Edwards
  10 AM YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS—Serial
   10:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial
  11 AM ALL MY CHILDREN—Serial
AFTERNOON
     12 N NEWS
   12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial
     1:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial
    2 PM DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial
     2:30 ONE LIFE TO LIVE
     3:30 M*A*S*H
    4 PM MATCH GAMEDavid Doyle, Elaine Joyce
     4:30 ABC NEWS
    5 PM CBS NEWS—Cronkite
     5:30 NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM MORK & MINDY—Comedy
     6:30 WHAT’S HAPPENING!!
    7 PM WALTONS
    8 PM CINDERELLA AT THE PALACE—VarietySpecial
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 M*A*S*H
   11:05 MOVIE—Mystery“The Carey Treatment” (1972)


 3  KOTA (RAPID CITY) (CBS, NBC)
MORNING
     5:30 COUNTRY DAY—Edstrom
    6 AM TODAY—Tom BrokawGuest: Charles Silberman
    8 AM PHIL DONAHUEGuest: Floyd Abrams
    9 AM HIGH ROLLERS—Game
     9:30 WHEEL OF FORTUNE—Game
  10 AM AMERICA ALIVE!
  11 AM HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—GameEve Plumb, Stephen Shortridge, Ed Bluestone, Ron Glass, George Gobel, Brianne Leary, Paul Lynde, Anthony Newley              11:30 JEOPARDY!—Game
AFTERNOON
     12 N PARTY LINE—Sheppard
   12:30 DOCTORS—Serial
    1 PM ANOTHER WORLD
    2 PM DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial
    3 PM CARD SHARKS—Game
     3:30 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon
    4 PM STAR TREK—Science Fiction
    5 PM NBC NEWS—Chancellor/Brinkley
     5:30 NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM WALTONS
    7 PM PROJECT U.F.O.
    8 PM QUINCY—Crime Drama
    9 PM DAVID CASSIDY—MAN UNDERCOVER—Crime DramaDebut
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 JOHNNY CARSONScheduled: Diahann Carroll, Bess Armstrong, Los Indios Trabajaras
    12 M TOMORROW—Tom SnyderGuests: Art Buchwald, Michael Murphy


 4  KOA (NBC)
MORNING
    6 AM PTL CLUB—Religion
    7 AM TODAY—Tom BrokawGuest: Charles Silberman
    9 AM PHIL DONAHUE
  10 AM AMERICA ALIVE!
  11 AM HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—GameEve Plumb, Stephen Shortridge, Ed Bluestone, Ron Glass, George Gobel, Brianne Leary, Paul Lynde, Anthony Newley              11:30 MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy
AFTERNOON
     12 N NOONDAY—Jones/Everett
    1 PM ANOTHER WORLD
    2 PM DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial
    3 PM BRADY BUNCH—Comedy
     3:30 LITTLE RASCALS—Comedy BW 
    4 PM STAR TREK—Science Fiction
    5 PM NEWS
     5:30 NBC NEWS—Chancellor/Brinkley
EVENING
    6 PM CROSS-WITS—GameJack Carter, Alice Ghostley, Rick Hurst, Shari Lewis
     6:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—GameAlex Cord, Britt Ekland, Erik Estrada, Susan Sullivan, Paul Lynde, Lauren Tewes, George Gobel, Loni Anderson, Dick Clark
    7 PM PROJECT U.F.O.
    8 PM QUINCY—Crime Drama
    9 PM DAVID CASSIDY—MAN UNDERCOVER—Crime DramaDebut
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 JOHNNY CARSONScheduled: Diahann Carroll, Bess Armstrong, Los Indios Trabajaras
    12 M TOMORROW—Tom SnyderGuests: Art Buchwald, Michael Murphy
    1 AM PTL CLUB—Religion
    2 AM NEWS


 5  KOAA (PUEBLO) (NBC)
MORNING
    6 AM PTL CLUB—Religion
    7 AM TODAY—Tom BrokawGuest: Charles Silberman
    9 AM PHIL DONAHUEGuest: John Davidson
  10 AM AMERICA ALIVE!
  11 AM HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—GameEve Plumb, Stephen Shortridge, Ed Bluestone, Ron Glass, George Gobel, Brianne Leary, Paul Lynde, Anthony Newley              11:30 WHEEL OF FORTUNE—Game
AFTERNOON
     12 N ODD COUPLE—Comedy
   12:30 DOCTORS—Serial
    1 PM ANOTHER WORLD
     1:30 M*A*S*H
    2 PM DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial
    3 PM SUPER SHOW—Bob Alan
    5 PM NBC NEWS—Chancellor/Brinkley
     5:30 NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN—Adventure
    7 PM PROJECT U.F.O.
    8 PM QUINCY—Crime Drama
    9 PM DAVID CASSIDY—MAN UNDERCOVER—Crime DramaDebut
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 JOHNNY CARSONScheduled: Diahann Carroll, Bess Armstrong, Los Indios Trabajaras
    12 M TOMORROW—Tom SnyderGuests: Art Buchwald, Michael Murphy
    1 AM NEWS


 2  KREX (GRAND JUNCTION) (ABC, CBS, NBC)
MORNING
    6 AM CBS NEWS—Stahl/Threlkeld
    7 AM TODAY—Tom Brokaw
    8 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICA
    9 AM CAPTAIN KANGAROOGuest: Michael Vale
  10 AM YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS—Serial
   10:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial
  11 AM LOVE OF LIFE—Serial
   11:25 CBS NEWS—Douglas Edwards              11:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS
AFTERNOON
   12:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial
     1:30 M*A*S*H
    2 PM MATCH GAMEDavid Doyle, Elaine Joyce
     2:30 ALL IN THE FAMILY
    3 PM MAGAZINE—ReportSpecial
    4 PM BAGGY PANTS—Cartoons
     4:30 KNOW YOUR SCHOOLS
    5 PM CBS NEWS—Cronkite
     5:30 NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM WALTONS
    7 PM CINDERELLA AT THE PALACE—VarietySpecial
    9 PM PROJECT U.F.O.
  10 PM NEWS
   10:35 M*A*S*H
   11:10 McMILLAN & WIFE—Crime Drama


 6  KRMA (PBS)
MORNING
     9:30 SESAME STREET—Children
   11:25 ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children
AFTERNOON
     12 N OVER EASY—Hugh Downs
   12:30 UPHOLSTERY—Instruction
     1:05 VEGETABLE SOUP—Children
     3:30 VILLA ALEGRE—Children
    4 PM SESAME STREET—Children
    5 PM MISTER ROGERS—Children
     5:30 STUDIO SEE—Children
EVENING
    6 PM ZOOM—Children
     6:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs
    7 PM ESTA SEMANA
     7:30 MacNEIL/LEHRER REPORT
    8 PM COLORADO WEEKLY
    9 PM ELECTIONS ’78: PRELUDE TO ’80—Report
     9:30 MOVIE—Documentary“Hollywood on Trial” (1976)
   11:30 ABC NEWSCaptioned for the hearing-impaired


 7  KMGH (CBS)
MORNING
     5:20 PASTORAL CALL
     5:30 SUNRISE SEMESTERAmerican Character: Cybernation
    6 AM CBS NEWS—Stahl/Threlkeld
    7 AM CAPTAIN KANGAROOGuest: Michael Vale
    8 AM NOELL AND ANDY—Children
     8:30 MAGAZINESpecial Guest: Margo St. James
     9:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW
  10 AM YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS—Serial
   10:30 M*A*S*H
  11 AM ALL IN THE FAMILY              11:30 MATCH GAMEJoyce Bulifant, Raymond Burr
AFTERNOON
     12 N NEWS
   12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial
     1:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial
     2:30 DINAH!Guests: Gerald Ford, Susan Ford, Danny Thomas, Glen Campbell
     3:30 MERV GRIFFINGuests: Wayne Newton, Bobby Goldsboro, major-league team rodeo
     4:30 CAROL BURNETT AND FRIENDS
    5 PM NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite
     6:30 MUPPET SHOW—Variety
    7 PM WALTONS
    8 PM CINDERELLA AT THE PALACE—VarietySpecial
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 M*A*S*H
   11:05 MOVIE—Mystery“The Carey Treatment” (1972)
     1:10 MARCUS WELBY, M.D.—Drama


 7  KEVN (RAPID CITY) (ABC, CBS)
MORNING
    5 AM PTL CLUB—Religion
    6 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICAGuests: Alan King, B.J. Thomas
    8 AM PRICE IS RIGHT—Game
    9 AM HAPPY DAYS
     9:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game
  10 AM $20,000 PYRAMIDFred Grandy, Didi Conn
   10:30 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial
  11 AM ALL MY CHILDREN—Serial
AFTERNOON
     12 N ONE LIFE TO LIVE
    1 PM GENERAL HOSPITAL
    2 PM EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial
     2:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial
     3:30 MATCH GAMEDavid Doyle, Elaine Joyce
    4 PM NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB
     4:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES BW 
    5 PM ABC NEWS
     5:30 NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM MORK & MINDY—Comedy
     6:30 WHAT’S HAPPENING!!
    7 PM BARNEY MILLER
     7:30 SOAP
    8 PM CINDERELLA AT THE PALACE—VarietySpecial
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 STARSKY & HUTCH—Crime Drama
   11:40 S.W.A.T.—Crime Drama


 8  KTSC (PUEBLO) (PBS)
MORNING
     8:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs
    9 AM ELECTRIC COMPANY
     9:30 INFINITY FACTORY—Children
  10 AM SESAME STREET—Children
AFTERNOON
     12 N GETTING’ OVER
    3 PM LILIAS, YOGA AND YOU
     3:30 VILLA ALEGRE—Children
    4 PM SESAME STREET—Children
    5 PM MISTER ROGERS—Children
     5:30 ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children
EVENING
    6 PM VEGETABLE SOUP—Children
     6:30 SPEAK FOR YOURSELF—Instruction
    7 PM MacNEIL/LEHRER REPORT
     7:30 STATE RACES
  10 PM NOVA
  11 PM MacNEIL/LEHRER REPORT
   11:30 ABC NEWSCaptioned for the hearing-impaired


 9  KBTV (ABC)
MORNING
    6 AM SERGEANT PRESTON
     6:30 NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB
    7 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICAGuests: Alan King, B.J. Thomas
    9 AM HAPPY DAYS
     9:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game
  10 AM $20,000 PYRAMIDFred Grandy, Didi Conn
   10:30 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial
  11 AM ALL MY CHILDREN—Serial
AFTERNOON
     12 N NEWS
   12:30 DORIS DAY—Comedy
    1 PM GENERAL HOSPITAL
    2 PM EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial
     2:30 ONE LIFE TO LIVE
     3:30 PARTRIDGE FAMILY—Comedy
    4 PM SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN—Adventure
    5 PM NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM ABC NEWS
     6:30 JOKER’S WILD—Game
    7 PM MORK & MINDY—Comedy
     7:30 WHAT’S HAPPENING!!
    8 PM BARNEY MILLER
     8:30 SOAP
    9 PM FAMILY
  10 PM NEWS
   10:35 TIC TAC DOUGH
   11:05 NEW NEWLYWED GAME
   11:35 STARSKY & HUTCH—Crime Drama
   12:45 S.W.A.T.—Crime Drama


 9  KOTA (RAPID CITY) (PBS)
MORNING
    8 AM SESAME STREET—Children
AFTERNOON
     12 N SESAME STREET—Children
     3:30 ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children
    4 PM MISTER ROGERS—Children
     4:30 SESAME STREET—Children
     5:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs
EVENING
    6 PM SEW SMART
     6:30 MacNEIL/LEHRER REPORT
    7 PM BIRTH WITHOUT VIOLENCE—Documentary BW 
     7:30 NOVA
     8:30 EVENING WITH CHUCK MANGOINE—Music Special
   10:30 CONTINUING PHARMACEUTICAL EDUCATION


11 KKTV (COLORADO SPRINGS) (CBS)
MORNING
     5:30 SUNRISE SEMESTERAmerican Character: Cybernation
    6 AM CBS NEWS—Stahl/Threlkeld
    7 AM CAPTAIN KANGAROOGuest: Michael Vale
    8 AM ROMPER ROOM
     8:30 MAGAZINESpecial Guest: Margo St. James
     9:30 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial
     9:55 CBS NEWS—Edwards
  10 AM YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS—Serial
   10:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial
  11 AM ALL IN THE FAMILY              11:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS
AFTERNOON
   12:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial
     1:30 PM 11
     2:30 M*A*S*H
    3 PM DINAH!Guests: Gerald Ford, Susan Ford, Danny Thomas, Glen Campbell
    4 PM MERV GRIFFINGuests: Wayne Newton, Bobby Goldsboro, major-league team rodeo
    5 PM NEWS
     5:30 CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite
EVENING
    6 PM HEE HAWGuests: Larry Gatlin, Ava Barber
    7 PM WALTONS
    8 PM CINDERELLA AT THE PALACE—VarietySpecial
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 M*A*S*H
   11:05 MOVIE—Mystery“The Carey Treatment” (1972)


13 KRDO (COLORADO SPRINGS) (ABC)
MORNING
    6 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICAGuests: Alan King, B.J. Thomas
    8 AM KIDS ARE PEOPLE TOO
     8:30 VILLA ALLEGRE—Children
    9 AM HAPPY DAYS
     9:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game
  10 AM $20,000 PYRAMIDFred Grandy, Didi Conn
   10:30 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial
  11 AM ALL MY CHILDREN—Serial
AFTERNOON
     12 N ONE LIFE TO LIVE
    1 PM GENERAL HOSPITAL
    2 PM MOVIE—Western“Charro!” (1969)
    4 PM FLINTSTONES—Cartoon
     4:30 LUCY SHOW
    5 PM NEWS
     5:30 ABC NEWS
EVENING
    6 PM DATING GAME
     6:30 NEWLYWED GAME
    7 PM MORK & MINDY—Comedy
     7:30 WHAT’S HAPPENING!!
    8 PM BARNEY MILLER
     8:30 SOAP
    9 PM FAMILY
  10 PM NEWS
   10:30 STARSKY & HUTCH—Crime Drama
   11:40 S.W.A.T.—Crime Drama TV  

This week in TV Guide: October 28, 1978

Ispend a good chunk of my free time watching television shows that, in one way or another, would not be possible without the existence of perhaps the greatest non-life-saving invention ever conjured up for home use. It's gone by various names through the years, and nowadays it even exists in a virtual realm, but in the end it all comes back to a machine that does "everything but sell popcorn": the video recorder.

As TV Guide's technology expert David Lachenbruch points out the second generation of VCRs can do amazing things: they "can be programmed for up to a week in advance to turn on and off and change channels," they can "let you watch an hour program in 30 minutes," they can replay in slow motion or over and over again, transfer slides to tape, and even play "thousands of pre-recorded movie cassettes for your home-cinema theater." Prices are down, too: RCA's new model (made by Matsushita), which can record in two speeds (up to four hours on a single tape!), will be retailing for under $1,000—a real bombshell, says Lachenbruch.

If you're my age and still have all your faculties, you probably remember the single most enduring image of the VCR: the flashing digital clock, which meant that the owner didn't know how to set the time. It was really a very simple thing to do; I used to travel to our friends' homes, one after another, and reset the clock, sometimes without them even being aware of it. (Although I never checked back to see what happened after daylight saving time started.) That's why I chuckle a bit at all this new-fangled tech: how are you going to program your VCR to record a show next Tuesday when you can't even set the time? Other people came to the same conclusion, which is how VCR Plus+ came about: a code, unique to a specific show, which could be entered into the VCR, allowing the machine to record the show automatically when it came on. Pretty slick, huh? Eventually, VCRs begat DVRs, and then TIVO came along, and now we're at a point where most of the time you don't record anything to a physical storage device at all; it simply goes into "The Cloud," and remains there for you to watch whenever you want. (Storage times vary by provider, of course.)

A large part of Lachenbruch's article is devoted to home recording, which back then was done not on your phone, but through something called a "camera," which you could then run through your television with the use of a "cord," thereby enabling you to even more easily bore your friends with home movies of your latest vacation. (The porn industry, naturally, would find a more profitable use for the video camera.)

My point in raising this is not to make fun of the period's technology, because it's truly staggering. When one considers that up until a few years ago there were local television stations that couldn't even have record a network feed in color (meaning that any show they recorded for showing at a later time would be seen in black-and-white), the idea that you could not only record a television show and watch it whenever you wanted, but make your own television show if you so desired, and in color, all with a machine that the average American could afford and could keep in their own home—well, that's nothing short of remarkable. Looking back at it from today, when we stream programs to our TVs with wireless technology, when virtually nothing (except for sports) is watched by everyone at the same time, when people can create videos with effects that would put those old television stations to shame, and then air them to the world on YouTube—and when we can watch all this on our phones—well, you would have been more likely to read about this in Popular Science than TV Guide.

Not only has all this changed the way we watch television, it's changed the way we live our lives, and it's changed the culture in which we live. And while not all of it can be traced in a linear line back to the VCR, it is with this machine that some people began to dream of what was possible. Those dreams merged with the dreams of others: the people who came up with the Internet, and laptop computers, and iPhones. Today they've all merged into something of a blur, the phone being the primary device through which everything runs, and there are people who might have predicted that as well. It is, as I said before, staggering. It's come with more than it's share of problems, and some of those problems are threatening to, as the phrase goes, tear apart the very fabric of society, but that's too dark a note to end on. Let's just take a moment to look at this article, from 1978, and not just marvel at how far we've come since then, but to appreciate what an advancement we'd already made.

t  t  t
And what were people using those VCRs to record back in 1978?

Made-for-TV movies, for one thing. Here's a typical one: KISS Meets the Phantom (Saturday, 7:00 p.m. MT, NBC), in which the iconic rock group tangles with a mad inventor obsessed with destroying the group. The mad inventor? None other than the smarmy Anthony Zerbe, who's a good bet to be playing the villain any time you see his name in the credits. Is this typical? I don't know; on the other hand, this is the same network that will bring you The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island, so, yes, I'd say that at least it's not atypical.

Here's another one, and the title is very typical of TV-movies: How to Pick Up Girls (Friday, 7:00 p.m., ABC), starring Desi Arnaz, Jr., Fred McCarren, Bess Armstrong, Richard Dawson, and Abe Vigoda. As if often the case with the ABC Movie of the Week, though, the movie isn't nearly as bad as the title would suggest; Judith Crist calls it "a charming romantic comedy that glows with the appeal of two attractive young performers [McCarren and Armstrong]" and provides "a bubbling and saucy broth." Crist isn't given to hyperbole with these kinds of movies, so even if it's not your cup of tea, it proves once again that you can't judge a book (or movie) by it's cover.

Crash (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., ABC) is another genre picture, one that never goes out of style: the true-life disaster flick. It's based on the very real December 29, 1972, crash of an Eastern Airlines jet in the Florida Everglades, killing 101 out of 176 passengers and crew. It's got an all-star TV-movie cast, including William Shatner Eddie Albert, Adrienne Barbeau, George Maharis, Ed Nelson, and Gerald S. O'Loughlin. It was the worst single-airplane crash in U.S. history to that time.

Wednesday's TV-flick, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery (8:00 p.m., NBC) isn't apparently salacious enough to get a big, brassy ad like some others; it stars Louise Fletcher as a woman having affairs with Wayne Rogers and Bert Convy because hubby Robert Reed is a paraplegic, and well, you know. I was going to make a joke about how Reed always gets the short end of something or other, but considering everything we know about him, I decided it would be in poor taste. Besides, I like Reed, an actor who seldom got roles that made the best use of his talent. This was supposed to be a projected series of movies on the Ten Commandments, but as far as we know the only other one that was ever made was Thou Shalt Not Kill. Odd that they didn't start with, for instance, Thou Shalt Not Keep The Sabbath Day Holy, but that might have been kind of a hard premise to sell.

(By the way, always go to Made for TV Mayhem for the 411 on made-for-TV movies. You'll be glad you did.)

t  t  t
You might have been recording sports, if you had to be away from the tube for awhile. Recording your favorite game is always something of a crapshoot, although, as we know, it was easier to avoid hearing the score back then than it is today.


Anyway, the World Series is over, having ended on October 17—people my age also remember back when the Series ended before Halloween—and so all eyes turn to America's favorite show: Soccer Made in Germany. Well, it's at least America's favorite soccer show in 1978 (certainly the best weekly sports series from PBS other than Bud Greenspan's The Olympiad), and it's still fondly remembered by many soccer fans today. Soccer Made in Germany is an hour of highlights from West Germany's top soccer league, the Bundesliga, focusing mostly on one big match of the week, with play-by-play by the legendary Toby Charles , who remains as beloved by American viewers today as the show. (Someone once remarked that he was so good, he could actually make soccer exciting.) The show airs at different times and on different days of the week, depending on the station; this week's match, Borussia Dortmund vs. FC Kaiserslautern, can be seen on five different stations and four different days. I loved this show, watched it every week; it was a glimmer of hope while living in the World's Worst Town™. What the heck, let's take a look at it and remember the good times!


OK, if soccer isn't America's favorite sport, it must be football—that is, American football, as opposed to the sport that the rest of the world calls football but we call soccer. I don't honestly remember how important the Sunday NFL games are (quickly Googles standings . . .) but I'd say that the day's most important game featured the Broncos and Seahawks (2:00 p.m.,NBC), or perhaps the Jets and Patriots (11:00 a.m., NBC). It would not have been the Redskins and 49ers (11:00 a.m., CBS), who between them will win ten games, eight of them by the Redskins. Monday night's game between the Rams and Falcons (7:00 p.m., ABC) will be a good one; both teams will finish the season with winning records. The college football on Saturday is, as often, TBD, which isn't much fun when you're trying to piece together the day 41 years later.

t  t  t
On weeks when we can, we'll match up two of the biggest rock shows of the '70s, NBC's The Midnight Special and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and see who's better, who's best.

Kirshner: Exile, The Trammps, Chris Rea, comedian Charlie Hill, Carole Bayer Sager (via video),  UFO (via video).

Special: An oldies show, first seen in 1973, with Jerry Lee Lewis (host), Chubby Checker, Lloyd Price, Del Shannon, Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Shirelles, Freddie Cannon, the Penguins, the Ronettes, the Del Vikings, and Bobby Day.

I imagine some of you might have recorded these shows, since they came on late at night. It's an interesting comparison; I wonder if the Special episode seemed dated, having aired five years before. I also wonder why NBC was showing a five-year-old episode, although the nice thing about an oldies show is that it's never dated, since it was old to begin with. From a historical standpoint there's no question that Special has the edge: virtually every song on the playlist is big. "Great Balls of Fire," "The Twist," "Runaway," "Soldier Boy," "Be My Baby," "Earth Angel." I don't particularly go for this era of music, and even I recognize them all. Kirshner's show is much more topical, with The Trammps doing their big hit, "Disco Inferno," and Chris Rea performing "Fool (If You Think It's Over)." Nonetheless, I don't think you'll blame me if I give Special the nod this week.

t  t  t
A few other things you might have had on your recorder:
At 11:00 p.m. on Saturday, KRMA in Denver has part three of Scenes from a Marriage, Ingmar Bergman's acclaimed 1974 television miniseries, starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. Throughout the week, the syndicated special Superstars on Stage at the Ohio State Fair features performances by Bob Hope, Donny and Marie, Pat and Debby Boone, Sha Na Na, Charley Pride, the Osmond Brothers, Kenny Rogers, Dottie West, Jimmy Osmond, Tavares, and Eddie Rabbit. Talk about a time capsule, hmm? Dan Rowan and Cheryl Tiegs host; even though I like Dick Martin, Cheryl Tiegs is probably an upgrade, and besides, she's from Minnesota.Since Tuesday is Halloween, it's appropriate that It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is on this Monday, at 7:00 p.m. on CBS. Next to A Charlie Brown Christmas, I've always thought this was the best of the Peanuts specials.On Halloween itself, Louis Jourdan stars as Dracula in Great Performances on PBS. (8:30 p.m.) If you think vampires are sexy today, you need to see Jourdan.CBS's Thursday night special, Cinderella at the Palace, is a variety special from Las Vegas, introducing Marlene Ricci as Cinderella. Not the Cinderella, but the talented young woman from a small town who makes good Cinderella. It's hosted by Gene Kelly, and features performances by Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Ann-Margret; Paul Anka, Andy Williams, and Sammy Davis, Jr. Ricci doesn't become a household name, but she's good enough to be Sinatra's opening act for 2½ years. 
t  t  t
Not on TV at all, but in the pages of TV Guide: an ad for the ubiquitous posters that adorn many a teen's bedroom wall. Ann-Margret, Cheryl Ladd (including a giant Ladd measuring 24" x 72"), the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, Richard Hatch, Raquel Welch, Ms. Lynda Carter, Ms. Suzanne Somers—and what's with this "Ms." business? It's not as if you need a clue as to what sex they are, is it?—and, of course, Farrah. Not the poster we all think of, the one in the red swimsuit, but this one, which I've thoughtfully reprinted in color for your edification.


As I say, those posters were definitely signs of the times.

t  t  t
Finally, one thing you'll definitely not be recording, in all likelihood, is network coverage of the 1978 midterm elections, but that won't prevent all three broadcast networks from preempting their entire primetime lineup to help us watch the vote-counting. According to TV Watch, ABC, home of the multicity World News Tonight, will have Frank Reynolds in New York as be the main anchor, with Lynn Sherr, Louis Harris, and Barbara Walters, while Max Robinson reports from Chicago, and Howard K. Smith in Washington, D.C. Over at NBC, John Chancellor and David Brinkley will man the main desk, as they did in 1976, with help from Tom Brokaw and Jessica Savitch. On CBS, it's Walter Cronkite, as you might expect, with a stellar lineup of correspondents including Harry Reasoner, Roger Mudd, Dan Rather, Lesley Stahl, Eric Sevareid, and Bruce Morton.

In Minnesota, the election was known as the " Minnesota Massacre ," with the Republicans roaring to an unprecedented sweep: both U.S. Senate seats (the second seat was up due to Hubert Humphrey's death), the governor's chair, and saw a 2:1 advantage in the State House evaporate completely. I mention this not out of any partisan motive, but for two reasons: first, it was my first time voting, which was tremendously exciting; and second, because this can be seen as a harbinger of things to come in 1980. If you're not sure, ask Jimmy Carter. TV  

TV Jibe: Don't forget!

Still out, although depending on when you read this, I may be on the way, or even home by now. That explains why there's no "Around the Dial" this week, which leaves that much more for next week! But in the meantime, I haven't forgotten to leave you with something. Now, don't you forget the important thing in life.


  TV