Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 135

Around the dial

We'll kick off the week with David's observation at Comfort TV on five classic TV series that should have had a Christmas episode. I really like the idea of a Hogan's Heroes episode, and I love David's idea for The Fugitive—a cliche? No, just the right story.

When I lived in The World's Worst Town™, television was pretty much a wasteland. Circle of Fear was one of the shows we got, and while it might not have been the greatest, it was a badly-needed diversion—so I'm glad to link to RealWeegieMidget's look at it.

Television Obscurities continues the look back at TV Guide 20 years ago, and in the July 8, 1989 issue we have the best and worst of TV . Sadly, when I look at the highlights from the listings, I see a lot of the worst and not much of the best. . .

Too many figures from classic television are passing on, but we'll look at just one: Rip Torn, who's remembered for many reasons, but could be remembered for many more, including some very fine TV work in the 1950s and '60s.  Terence covers it at A Shroud of Thoughts.

There's more, I'm sure, but it's late and I've got a headache, and I need to save some of these little grey cells for another TV Guide on Saturday. TV  

For your summer reading pleasure!

Just because the Fourth of July has passed, don't think summer is over—as a matter of fact, it's just getting started! And there's no better way to spend those sunny days than with a good beach read—unless it's three of them!

All three of my books are available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you like to get your books.


The Electronic Mirror What Classic TV Tells Us About Who We Were and Who We Are (And Everything In-Between!) 
A delightful, thought-provoking collection of essays that looks at TV during its formative years and examines how this most personal form of mass communication reflects the culture of its time, how it has fulfilled (or failed to fulfill) its initial promise, and how TV has—intentionally as well as unintentionally—predicted the future, with sometimes disturbing results. It is a sometimes humorous, occasionally ironic, but always interesting story of how classic television indeed is an “electronic mirror” that explains our past, our present, and everything in-between.

The Car
It begins with the car. But for Winter, an ordinary man living an ordinary life, it will not end until he learns what has happened to the car’s owner and why the car has been left abandoned and ignored on a city street. As Winter’s curiosity turns to obsession, his search for the missing owner intensifies and he finds the car taking him on a journey that he never expected, one of dreams and reality in which nothing–and no one–is what it seems. Not even him.

The Collaborator
In a provocative story that reflects today’s headlines, the Catholic Church is at a crossroads, beset by scandal, controversy and shrinking congregations. A wildly popular new Pontiff promises reforms designed to focus on inclusion, social justice and modernization. He is opposed by the powerful Prefect, a Cardinal dedicated to preserving the traditional teaching of the Church, who fears the Pontiff’s plans will destroy the Church. Their inevitable confrontation is brought to a head by a Journalist’s investigation that uncovers a story of ambition, loss, deceit and more. This disturbing story takes readers from the backstage politics of the Vatican to the world of dictators and rebels, and is sure to stir controversy on both sides of the debate.


Follow the link here to order from Amazon; if you're shopping another site, entering my name and/or the name of the book should take you there. Enjoy! TV  

What's on TV? Friday, July 12, 1968

Here's something I haven't done for a long time: every channel from the Minnesota State Edition. Usually I'll edit it down because of the sheer number of stations; it takes too long, or takes up too much space. I don't usually include the stations from Iowa and Wisconsin unless we're looking at a very old issue, before KCMT and WDIO and some of the others. But this is a holiday weekend, so I figured—why not?

Now that I've given you too much information about what happens behind the scenes, let's just get right to it, because there's plenty to look at.

 2  KTCA (Educ.)
Evening
    6:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED
    6:30 MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES
    7:00 WALL STREET  COLOR 
    7:30 HOUSES AND HISTORY—Roger Kennedy  COLOR 
    8:00 YOUR WORLD THIS WEEK—News Review  COLOR 
    8:30 ANTIQUES—Education
    9:00 SOCIAL UNREST
  10:00 NET PLAYHOUSE  COLOR 


 3  KDAL (DULUTH) (CBS)
Morning
    7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti  COLOR 
    7:55 NEWS
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO  COLOR 
    9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy  COLOR 
  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  COLOR 
  12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial  COLOR 
    1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING  COLOR 
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR Guest: Loriene Chase
    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: Howard Duff, Ida Lupino, Eartha Kitt, D’Aldo Romano, Fannie Flagg
    5:00 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy  
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 WILD WILD WEST—Western  COLOR 
    7:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama“I Want to Live!” (1958)
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:25 EDITOR’S CHOICE  COLOR 
  10:30 UNTOUCHABLES—Drama
  11:30 MOVIE—Melodrama“Atomic Age Vampire” (Italian; 1961)


 3  KGLO (MASON CITY) (CBS)
Morning
    7:30 NEWS  COLOR 
    7:55 NEWS
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO  COLOR 
    9:00 JACK LA LANNE  COLOR 
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy  COLOR 
  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 
  12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial  COLOR 
    1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING  COLOR 
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR Guest: Loriene Chase
    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 DRIVING LESSONS  COLOR 
    4:00 BART’S CLUBHOUSE
    5:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 WILD WILD WEST—Western  COLOR 
    7:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama“I Want to Live!” (1958)
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:45 MOVIE—Drama“The Victors” (1961)
    1:15 NEWS


 4  WCCO (CBS)
Morning
    6:00 SUMMER SEMESTER  COLOR 
    6:30 SIEGFRIED—Children  COLOR 
    7:00 CLANCY—Children  COLOR 
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO  COLOR 
    9:00 LIVE TODAY—Religion  COLOR 
    9:05 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety  COLOR Guests: John Lindsay, Richard Rodgers, Mobs Mabley, Jimmy Boyd, Emily Yancy
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy  COLOR 
  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 Guest: Loriene Chase
    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  COLOR 
    4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety  COLOR Guests: Noel Harrison, Norm Crosby, Sheila MacRae, Kane Triplets, Don Bragg
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 WILD WILD WEST—Western  COLOR 
    7:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama“I Want to Live!” (1958)
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 MOVIE—Drama  COLOR “Anastasia” (1956)
  12:45 MOVIE—Comedy“Pardon Us” (1931)


 5  KSTP (NBC)
Morning
    6:30 CITY AND COUNTRY  COLOR 
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests: Leon Bibb , Archie Moore , Joe Bernard
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Chris Cary, Meredith MacRae
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Steve Lawrence, Marty Allen, Totie Fields, Eydie Gorme
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Will Hutchins, Eartha Kitt, Robert Morse, Vincent Price, Connie Stevens, Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Rose Marie, 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: Nancy Kulp, Peter Marshall
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Soupy Sales, Dina Merrill
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 DIALING FOR DOLLARS—Game  COLOR 
    4:30 OF LANDS AND SEAS—Travel  COLOR 
    5:25 NEWS—Gene Berry  COLOR 
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 TARZAN  COLOR 
    7:30 STAR TREK  COLOR 
    8:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Marty Allen, Kaye Ballard, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Eva Gabor, Paul Lynde, Steve Rossi, Charley Weaver, Adam WestPostponed from an earlier date.
    9:00 SUSPENSE THEATRE—Drama  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR Guests: Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller
  12:00 ALAN BURKE—Discussion  COLOR Guest: Omar Garrision


 6  WDSM (DULUTH) (NBC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests:  Leon Bibb ,  Archie Moore , Joe Bernard
    9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Steve Lawrence, Marty Allen, Totie Fields, Eydie Gorme
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Will Hutchins, Eartha Kitt, Robert Morse, Vincent Price, Connie Stevens, Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 VIRGINIA GRAHAM  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: Nancy Kulp, Peter Marshall
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Soupy Sales, Dina Merrill
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Chris Cary, Meredith MacRae
    3:55 BOZO AND HIS PALS  COLOR 
    4:55 SEASPRAY—Adventure  COLOR 
    5:00 BUSINESS BOARD  COLOR 
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS, ROCKY TELLER  COLOR 
    6:30 TARZAN  COLOR 
    7:30 STAR TREK  COLOR 
    8:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Marty Allen, Kaye Ballard, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Eva Gabor, Paul Lynde, Steve Rossi, Charley Weaver, Adam WestPostponed from an earlier date.
    9:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR Guests: Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller


 6  KAUS (AUSTIN) (ABC)
Morning
    9:00 AGRICULTURE SERVICE
    9:30 DICK CAVETT  COLOR 
  11:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy
  11:30 TREASURE ISLE—Game  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 DREAM HOUSE—Game  COLOR 
  12:30 WEDDING PARTY—Game  COLOR Last show of the series. Next week at this time: the debut of “It’s Happening,” a new variety series.
    1:00 NEWLYWED GAME  COLOR 
    1:30 BABY GAME  COLOR Last show of the series. Next week, “Dating Game” takes over this time slot.
    1:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Dr. Lendon Smith  COLOR 
    2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 DATING GAME  COLOR 
    3:30 MOVIE—Drama“The Wayward Bus” (1957)
    5:00 NEWS—Reynolds  COLOR 
    5:30 HAVE GUN—WILL TRAVEL
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 WIZARD  COLOR Movie: “Zebra in the Kitchen” (1965), conclusion
    7:30 MAN IN A SUITCASE  COLOR 
    8:30 WILL SONNETT  COLOR 
    9:00 JUDD—Drama  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 JOEY BISHOP—Variety  COLOR Guests: Jack Soo, Manuela, Charlie Callas
  12:00 NEWS  COLOR 


 7  KCMT (ALEXANDRIA) (NBC, ABC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests:  Leon Bibb ,  Archie Moore , Joe Bernard
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Chris Cory, Meredith MacRae
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Steve Lawrence, Marty Allen, Totie Fields, Eydie Gorme
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Will Hutchins, Eartha Kitt, Robert Morse, Vincent Price, Connie Stevens, Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 NEWS
  12:15 WEEKLY LIVESTOCK REPORT
  12:20 EXTENSION NEWS, VIEWS
  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: Nancy Kulp, Peter Marshall
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Soupy Sales, Dina Merrill
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial
    4:00 WELCOME INN—Variety
    4:30 GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE
    5:00 SECOND HUNDRED YEARS
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 TARZAN  COLOR 
    7:30 STAR TREK  COLOR 
    8:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Marty Allen, Kaye Ballard, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Eva Gabor, Paul Lynde, Steve Rossi, Charley Weaver, Adam WestPostponed from an earlier date.
    9:00 LAWRENCE WELK—Music
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR Guests: Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller
  12:00 MOVIE—Melodrama“Night Key” (1937)


 8  WDSE (DULUTH) (Educ.)
Afternoon
    5:30 MISTEROGERS—Children
Evening
    6:00 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking
    6:30 WHAT’S NEW—Children
    7:00 WALL STREET  COLOR 
    7:30 MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES
    8:00 YOUR WORLD THIS WEEK—News Review  COLOR 
    8:30 ANTIQUES—Education
    9:00 FILM FEATURE  COLOR 
    9:30 NET PLAYHOUSE—Drama“The Traveler”
  10:30 FILM FEATURE


 8  WKBT (LA CROSSE) (CBS)
Morning
    7:30 NEWS  COLOR 
    7:55 NEWS
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO  COLOR 
    9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy  COLOR 
  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 Guest: Loriene Chase
    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 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial
    4:00 NEWLYWED GAME
    4:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety  COLOR Guests: Robert Merrill, Jackie Mason, Lillian Briggs
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 WILD WILD WEST—Western  COLOR 
    7:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama“I Want to Live!” (1958)
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 MAN IN A SUITCASE—Adventure
  11:30 DEATH VALLEY DAYS  COLOR 


 9  KMSP (ABC)
Morning
    7:30 TIMMY AND LASSIE—Drama
    8:00 DENNIS THE MENACE—Comedy
    8:30 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy
    9:00 ROMPER ROOM  COLOR 
    9:30 DICK CAVETT  COLOR 
  11:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy
  11:30 TREASURE ISLE—Game  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 DREAM HOUSE—Game  COLOR 
  12:30 WEDDING PARTY—Game  COLOR Last show of the series. Next week at this time: the debut of “It’s Happening,” a new variety series.
    1:00 NEWLYWED GAME  COLOR 
    1:30 BABY GAME  COLOR Last show of the series. Next week, “Dating Game” takes over this time slot.
    1:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Dr. Lendon Smith  COLOR 
    2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 DATING GAME  COLOR 
    3:30 MOVIE—Drama“Prisoner of War” (1954)
    4:55 NEWS—Jerry Smith  COLOR 
    5:00 NEWS—Reynolds  COLOR 
    5:30 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy
Evening
    6:00 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES  COLOR 
    6:30 WIZARD  COLOR Movie: “Zebra in the Kitchen” (1965), conclusion
    7:30 MAN IN A SUITCASE  COLOR 
    8:30 WILL SONNETT  COLOR 
    9:00 JUDD—Drama  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 MOVIE—Drama“The Big Carnival” (1951)


10 WDIO (DULUTH) (ABC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests:  Leon Bibb ,  Archie Moore , Joe Bernard
    9:30 DICK CAVETT  COLOR 
  11:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy
  11:30 TREASURE ISLE—Game  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 DREAM HOUSE—Game  COLOR 
  12:30 WEDDING PARTY—Game  COLOR Last show of the series. Next week at this time: the debut of “It’s Happening,” a new variety series.
    1:00 NEWLYWED GAME  COLOR 
    1:30 BABY GAME  COLOR Last show of the series. Next week, “Dating Game” takes over this time slot.
    1:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Dr. Lendon Smith  COLOR 
    2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial  COLOR 
    3:00 DATING GAME  COLOR 
    3:30 CHALLENGE OF SPACE  COLOR 
    4:00 MOVIE—Adventure“Bomba, the Jungle Boy”
    5:30 NEWS—Frank Reynolds  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 WIZARD  COLOR Movie: “Zebra in the Kitchen” (1965), conclusion
    7:30 MAN IN A SUITCASE  COLOR 
    8:30 WILL SONNETT  COLOR 
    9:00 JUDD—Drama  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR Guests: Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller


10 KROC (ROCHESTER) (NBC)
Morning
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Chris Cory, Meredith MacRae
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Steve Lawrence, Marty Allen, Totie Fields, Eydie Gorme
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Will Hutchins, Eartha Kitt, Robert Morse, Vincent Price, Connie Stevens, Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  12:15 ACCENT ON ACTION  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: Nancy Kulp, Peter Marshall
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Soupy Sales, Dina Merrill
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 DOODLES THE CLOWN  COLOR 
    4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety  COLOR Guests: Duke Ellington, Jimmy Dean, the Muppets, Will Rogers Jr.
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 TARZAN  COLOR 
    7:30 STAR TREK  COLOR 
    8:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Marty Allen, Kaye Ballard, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Eva Gabor, Paul Lynde, Steve Rossi, Charley Weaver, Adam WestPostponed from an earlier date.
    9:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 MOVIE—Comedy  COLOR “Son of Paleface” (1952)


11 WTCN (IND.)
Morning
    8:55 NEWS—Gil Amundson
    9:00 SEA HUNT—Adventure
    9:30 VAGABOND—Travel
  10:00 WOODY WOODBURY—Variety  COLOR Guests: Hugh O’Brian, Greg Morris, Cho Cho Collins, Johnnie Whitaker, Jonathan Moore
  10:30 FAMOUS PLAYHOUSE—Drama
  11:00 BAT MASTERSON—Western
  11:30 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS
Afternoon
  12:00 LUNCH WITH CASEY—Children
    1:00 MOVIE—Melodrama“The Man Who Turned to Stone” (1957)
    2:30 MEL’S NOTEBOOK—Interviews
    3:00 VIRGINIA GRAHAM—Interviews  COLOR  Guests: Georgia Gibbs, Phyllis Kirk
    3:30 PATTY DUKE—Comedy
    4:00 POPEYE AND PETE—Children
    4:30 CASEY AND ROUNDHOUSE
    5:00 FLINTSTONES  COLOR 
    5:30 RIFLEMAN—Western
Evening
    6:00 DEATH VALLEY DAYS—Drama
    6:30 BURKE’S LAW—Mystery
    7:30 PERRY MASON—Drama
    8:30 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama
    9:00 MOVIE—Comedy“Bell, Book and Candle” (1958)
  11:00 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS
  11:30 WOODY WOODBURY—Variety  COLOR Conclusion


12 KEYC (MANKATO) (CBS)
Morning
    7:30 NEWS  COLOR 
    7:55 FILM SHORT
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO  COLOR 
    9:00 JACK LA LANNE  COLOR 
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy  COLOR 
  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 Guest: Loriene Chase
    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 FILM FEATURE
    4:00 PERSPECTIVE—Documentary
    4:15 BART’S CLUBHOUSE  COLOR 
    5:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 WILD WILD WEST—Western  COLOR 
    7:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC—Comedy  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama“I Want to Live!” (1958)
  10:00 NEWS
  10:45 MOVIE—Drama“The Victors” (1961)


13 WEAU (EAU CLAIRE) (NBC)
Morning
    6:30 INSIGHT—Religion
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests:  Leon Bibb ,  Archie Moore , Joe Bernard
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Chris Cory, Meredith MacRae
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PERSONALITY  COLOR Celebrities: Steve Lawrence, Marty Allen, Totie Fields, Eydie Gorme
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Will Hutchins, Eartha Kitt, Robert Morse, Vincent Price, Connie Stevens, Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver
  11:00 JEOPARDY—Game  COLOR 
  11:30 EYE GUESS—Game  COLOR 
  11:55 NEWS
Afternoon
  12:00 FARM AND HOME—Variety
  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: Nancy Kulp, Peter Marshall
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Soupy Sales, Dina Merrill
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 DATING GAME
    4:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy
    4:30 HAPPENING ’68--Variety
    5:00 FLYING NUN—Comedy
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 TARZAN  COLOR 
    7:30 STAR TREK  COLOR 
    8:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Marty Allen, Kaye Ballard, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Eva Gabor, Paul Lynde, Steve Rossi, Charley Weaver, Adam WestPostponed from an earlier date.
    9:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR Guests: Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller
  12:00 MOVIE—Drama“Campbell’s Kingdom” (English; 1957)
TV  

This week in TV Guide: July 6, 1968

I think if you were to look up the word "vivacious" in the dictionary, you might find a picture something like this week's cover. Barbara Eden just jumps off the page, doesn't she? I can imagine someone opening up their mailbox on Thursday or Friday, seeing this, and saying to themselves, "well, hello there!" It's a compliment to two things: Gene Howard's photograph (and the excellent color choreography), and Barbara Eden's personality. I was never a big fan of Jeannie myself, but I don't know anyone who didn't—and doesn't—find her charming.

Inside, Dwight Whitney's story touches on the famous "navel" controversy (executive producer Sidney Sheldon says, "I'm not playing navels. I'm playing boy-meets-girl. What makes Jeannie sexy is that she doesn't play sex."); points out that Jeannie is the only TV show "in which an attractive unmarried girl has the free run of a bachelor's apartment"; looks at the subtly masochistic undercurrent of Tony and Jeannie's "master-slave" relationship (it "seems better suited to the Marquis de Sade"); and presents Eden as "an extraordinary combination of glamorpot and lady," a sex symbol "packaged in propriety" Her self-doubt of her own talent is pure, says Whitney, which helps make the whole scenario acceptable to conservative viewers.

Eden's journey to Jeannie has taken her through bad movies and bad television shows to the stardom that is well-earned. She helped save Larry Hagman's job after he clashed with producers early on in the series' run, and her good-natured humor keeps everything together. She's been married for ten years to fellow actor Michael Ansara, who is proud of his wife's success while at the same time wishing he had a series of his own (he was formerly on Broken Arrow). Ansara is portrayed as very much of a traditionalist when it comes to the family (Eden believes the man should be the dominant figure), and you have to wonder if that inequality plays a role in their divorce in 1974.

And what does she think about all this fuss over her navel? "No reason to fight with anybody. What's to fight about? Argue with a genie in a bottle?"

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: Guests: Yul Brynner, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, the rocking Doors, comedians Flip Wilson and Rodney Dangerfield, singers Alice and Ellen Kessler, and the Skating Bredos.

Palace: Phyllis Diller is hostess for a beach party at the Palace. Guests: comedian Phil Harris; Frankie Avalon and actress Annette Funicello, who have appeared in beach-party movies; the rocking 5th Dimension; the Herculeans, balancing act; and a seal act.

A pair of reruns this week, and pretty good lineups at that. The difference comes down to head-to-head performance: the Doors perform "Light My Fire" and "People Are Strange," while the 5th Dimension counters with "Up, Up and Away" and "California, My Way." Advantage: Sullivan. Yul Brynner vs. Phyllis Diller? Advantage: Sullivan. Steve and Eydie or Frankie and Annette? Advantage: Push. Rodney Dangerfield and Flip Wilson, or Phil Harris? Advantage: Palace. (If it was just Dangerfield, it would be a push.) The Kessler Twins and the Skating Bredos or the Herculeans and a seal? Advantage: Sullivan. Tale of the tape: Sullivan wins the decision.

t  t  t
When A Hard Day's Night originally aired on NBC in October 1967, the network ran this opening in place of the Peacock:


The movie, which presents the Beatles in what Judith Crist calls "their freshest, zaniest and most charming," is rerun on Saturday Night at the Movies (8:00 p.m. CT). It's part of a very British night of television, starting with dueling spy dramas at 6:30 p.m.: NBC's The Saint finds Simon Templar in Geneva, investigating the "mysterious disappearance" of a Russian scientist who was trying to defect to the West." Meanwhile, over on CBS, it's one of the most chilling episodes of The Prisoner: "Number Six is drugged and physically transformed. He awakens to find that he has a new appearance and a new identity. Only his mind tells him who he really is—and there is an exact double of his former self to refute that idea at every turn." It's a terrific episode.

Sunday, an NBC news special, "The New American Catholic" (3:30 p.m.), examines the post-Vatican II Church, updated to "make it relevant to 20th-century man." Features include a parish without a church building that spends its funds on programs for slum dwellers; an order of nuns that's given up the convent to work outside the church; and priests involved in civil rights, liturgical changes, and democratization of the Church. Considering how Mass attendance has plummeted since then, we know just how successful these programs were in making the Church more relevant, right? Right?

Among the summer reruns on Monday, there's some originality, starting with the British import The Champions (7:00 p.m., NBC), the cult sci-fi spy thriller starring Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo, and William Gaunt, and featuring many familiar faces to fans of British TV. Following that, at 8:00 p.m. NBC has one of those anthology series comprised of failed pilots; this one, Comedy Playhouse, is hosted by Monty Hall. Another one, CBS's Premiere (9:00 p.m.), has Burt Reynolds as a crusading undercover magazine writer.

In baseball, 1968 was known as "The Year of the Pitcher," with record low ERAs for hurlers, and record low batting averages for hitters; nothing demonstrates this better, or with more deadly effect, than the 39th All-Star Game (7:00 p.m. Tuesday, NBC). This is the first All-Star game ever played indoors, at the Houston Astrodome; it's also the first nighttime All-Star game since 1944. Willie Mays come home from third base on a double play in the first inning to put the Nationals ahead, 1-0—and, well, that's it. It's the first 1-0 game in All-Star history; I'm not sure how many people managed to stay awake until the end.

On Wednesday, The Avengers (6:30 p.m., ABC) features a Steed-Mrs. Peel repeat, which gives me a chance to criticize the tasteless letter to the editor praising the reruns as a chance to "get back the Peel instead of the lemon." Granted, Linda Thorson's Tara King takes a bit of getting used-to after the vivacious (there's that word again!) performance of Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, but that's no excuse for a lemon of a letter. Later, Johnny Mathis headlines the Kraft Music Hall (8:00 p.m., NBC), hosted by Ed McMahon, with Jackie Vernon, Harpers Bizarre, Eddie Hazell, and Jackie & Roy.

Thursday is another example of how capricious affiliates can be when it comes to carrying network programming. (It also says something about the relative strength of a preempted show's ratings.) At 6:30 p.m., WCCO takes a pass on CBS's Cimarron Strip in favor of The Iron Man—not with Robert Downey Jr., but the 1951 movie starring Jeff Chandler, Evelyn Keyes, Stephen McNally, and Joyce Holden, in the story of a coal miner who becomes a boxer "and discovers that he has the instincts of a killer."  Meanwhile, KAUS in Austin wipes out a whole swath of ABC programming—The Second Hundred Years, The Flying Nun, Bewitched, and That Girl—to show the musical The Best Things in Life Are Free (6:30 p.m.), with Gordon MacRae, Dan Dailey, and Ernest Borgnine. At 9:00 p.m., KMSP zaps an ABC program of their own, the Time For Americans special "Bias and the Media," in which a panel of white media representatives responds to the charge of racial bias in their reporting, in favor of The Hollywood Palace, which they'd preempted Saturday to show A Certain Smile. I suspect these were better choices for viewers than reruns.

Friday rounds out the week with "The Apple," the Star Trek hippie episode featuring David Soul as one of the hippies (7:30 p.m., NBC). At 8:00 p.m. on CBS's Friday Night Movies, it's Susan Hayward in her Oscar-winning role in 1958's I Want to Live! Late night has Johnny Carson ending the first of a two-week stint in Hollywood, with guests Don Rickles and Phyllis Diller. (10:30 p.m., NBC) KMSP's 10:30 movie (which bumps Joey Bishop's show to Sunday night) is The Big Carnival, better known as Ace in the Hole, Billy Wilder's withering take on the way the press covers—and manufactures—the news, starring Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling.

t  t  t
Elsewhere, TV Teletype reports that Joan Rivers' new syndicated talk show should be premiering this fall ( it did ), and that Don Knotts will be returning to Mayberry, R.F.D. this fall as the best man for the wedding of Andy Taylor and Helen Crump (Aneta Corsaut, Andy Griffith's real-life inamorata).

The networks are scrambling to prepare for Pope Paul VI's trip to Colombia, says The Doan Report. The visit is scheduled for August, between the Republican convention in Miami Beach and the Democratic convention in Chicago. Thank heaven for small miracles; the first manned Apollo flight (Apollo 7), originally scheduled for August, has been rescheduled to September. If it hadn't been, says one network staffer, "I think we'd have jumped out the window."

And finally, we haven't featured a recipe for awhile, so since Hollywood Palace had a clambake this week, let's look at TV Guide's sure-fire formula for a clambake at the beach:

Dig a hole in the sand and line it with rocks. Build a kindling fire to heat the rocks to red hot. When hot, cover with wet piece of canvas and top with a layer of wet seaweed. Add scrubbed clams, allowing a dozen per person. Pull back husks on corn to remove silk, replace husks and dip corn in sea water. Allow 1 to 2 ears per person. Push corn incl clams. Cover with a thick layer of seaweed. cover closely with another piece of canvas. Hold down the edge of the canvas with rocks to seal tightly. Steam 30 to 35 minutes or until clams open (the time varies with size and quantity of clams). Mix melted butter with lemon juice, ¼ cup lemon juice to each cup butter. When ready to serve, remove top canvas and seaweed. Give each person a portion of clams, an ear of corn, melted butter and lemon juice, a chunk of crusty French or Italian bread, and beer that has been cooled in a net in the ocean or a picnic cooler.

Top things off with icy slices of watermelon, cool bunches of green crapes, ripe peaches and plums. Toast marshmallows or slices of pound cake in the embers of the fire, and serve hot or iced coffee or tea.

As always, if anyone tries it out, let us know how it goes. TV  

Around the dial

Inner Toob kicks off the week with a fun piece that links three performances by Carl Betz: on Felony Squad, where he plays defense attorney Clinton Judd in part one of a two-part story, which concludes on his own show, Judd for the Defense, and a third role, that of an "unhinged" prosecutor in—Pat Paulson's Half a Comedy Hour.

The second Alfred Hitchcock script by Arthur A. Ross is the ninth-season story, "The Evil of Adelaide Winters," an episode I haven't seen yet. But Jack has, and he tells us all about it at bare-bones e-zine.

At The Horn Section, Hal's onto " Bullet from the Grave ," the wonderfully-named episode of Get Christie Love! with Eric Braeden (who's moved on from Hans Gudegast by this point), who's always good as the bad guy.

I never collected Megos myself—didn't get past G.I. Joe and Major Matt Mason—but David does, and he shares the ten best classic TV Megos at Comfort TV.

Television Obscurities continues the "Year in TV Guide" project with this week's look at the issue of July 1, 1989 . I'm always amused by the prices for movies listed in the Video Cassette Report: $89.99 for The Last Temptation of Christ??

Arte Johnson died earlier this week at the age of 90; at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence remembers the career of the Laugh-In star , who should be known for much more.

Enjoy the long holiday weekend; back tomorrow with another entertaining TV Guide. TV  

The CBS Evening News with Arnold Zenker

Back in 2013, when I was writing about the TV Guide issue of April 15, 1967 , I tried very hard to find a picture or video or something showing Arnold Zenker anchoring The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough, or maybe there really wasn't anything out there yet; at any rate, last week I stumbled across this while I was looking for something else, and even though it's a couple of years old, I'm not about to pass up the opportunity now that I have it.

Arnold Zenker, for the uninitiated, was the 28-year-old CBS executive who, with no television experience, was forced into temporary duty as the substitute for Walter Cronkite during the AFTRA strike in April of 1967. While Chet Huntley (who famously said he was "a newsman, not a performer"), Frank McGee and Ray Scherer, continued to work at NBC, and producers Daryl Griffin and William Sheehan carried the load at ABC, there was something about Zenker that captured the public's fancy. He became something of a cult hit during the 13 days of the strike, getting more than 3,000 fan letters from the public. He even became the answer to a Jeopardy! question. Scott Pelley interviewed Zenker on the 50th anniversary of his famous stint as an anchor; you can read about it, and see Zenker in action, here .

No wonder the execs worried!As soon as the strike was over, of course, back behind the camera he went. (Cronkite's opening line upon his return: "This is Walter Cronkite substituting for Arnold Zenker. It's good to be back.") "They laughed and they said 'you're not a journalist, you're a fraud who sat in front of the camera,' and that's when I decided to go to Boston and do the news," he said. Of course, I have my own theory about that; I think that the success of someone like Zenker was a threat to the establishment—it suggested that anyone who was young and reasonably good-looking and could put a couple of sentences together could, with a little training, read the nightly news. That couldn't be allowed, of course. Of course, considering the amount of turnover on the CBS Evening News since Dan Rather left, there might be something to that. What with Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Scott Pelley, Anthony Mason, Jeff Glor, and now Norah O'Donnell, they might just as well have called Arnold Zenker. After all, he already has experience. TV  

What's on TV? Tuesday, June 27, 1967

Here we are, with spring turning to summer, and it's another day in television land. (As opposed to TV Land™) With the summer schedule, we won't see as much notable television as usual, since the bulk of the broadcast schedule is comprised of reruns and summer tryouts. There are noteworthy things on today, CBS's inquiry into the Warren Report being foremost among them, but even here I'm sure you can find your favorites from days past.



 2  KTCA (Educ.)
Evening
    6:00 PROFILE—Discussion
    6:30 THIS WORLD OF WATER
    7:00 HAMLINE UNIVERSITY
    7:30 IT’S A DOG’S LIFE
    8:00 CONVERSATION—Interview
    8:30 STITCH WITH STYLE—Sewing
    9:00 GOLF—Roy Tutt
    9:30 U.S. PAN-AMERICAN GAMES—Trials
  10:00 NOW SEE THIS
  10:30 DUOLOGUE
The Pan American Games have always been held the year preceding the Summer Olympics, and as the final big tuneup for the Games, they've always gotten a certain amount of publicity, although I don't think they're as big now as they used to be. I'm somewhat surprised that they'd be covered on public television, even if it's only the trials.

 3  KDAL (DULUTH) (CBS)
Morning
    7:50 FARM AND HOME
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children
    9:00 CANDID CAMERA
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy
  10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH
  10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy
  11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial  COLOR 
  11:25 NEWS
  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 PASSWORD  COLOR Guests: Joan Fontaine, Jack Jones
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR Guest: Walter Lantz
    2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game  COLOR 
    2:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial
    3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial
    3:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety  COLOR Guests: Dom DeLuise, Sandy Baron, Julius La Rosa, Vikki Carr
    5:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 DAKTARI  COLOR 
    7:30 RED SKELTON  COLOR Guest: Polly Bergen
    8:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION—Comedy  COLOR 
    9:00 WARREN REPORT  SPECIAL   COLOR Part 3
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30

   MOVIE—Musical
“Bedtime Story” (1941)

Walter Lantz, Art Linkletter's guest on House Party, is, of course, the creator of Woody Woodpecker, as well as many other cartoon characters.

 4  WCCO (CBS)
Morning
    6:00 SUMMER SEMESTER—Education
    6:30 SIEGFRIED—Children
    7:00 CLANCY & COMPANY  COLOR 
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children
    9:00 DR. YOUNGDAHL  COLOR 
    9:30 MERV GRIFFIN—VarietyGuests: Melina Mercouri, David Susskind, Helen Gurley Brown
  10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH
  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 PASSWORD  COLOR Guests: Joan Fontaine, Jack Jones
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR Guest: Walter Lantz
    2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game  COLOR 
    2:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial
    3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial
    3:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES-Comedy
    4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety  COLOR Guests: Rosemary Clooney, Earl Wrightson and Lois Hunt, Morty Gunty, Stan Freeman
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 DAKTARI  COLOR 
    7:30 RED SKELTON  COLOR Guest: Polly Bergen
    8:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION—Comedy  COLOR 
    9:00 WARREN REPORT  SPECIAL   COLOR Part 3
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 MARSHAL DILLON—Western
  11:00 MOVIE—Melodrama“The Tingler” (1959)
  12:35 MOVIE—MysteryTime approximate. “Charlie Chan in London” (1934)
I was never a big fan of Mike Douglas, but I have to admit he's got a great show today, with Rosemary Clooney and Earl Wrightson and Lois Hunt. That's really a show worthy of a network variety special. 

 5  KSTP (NBC)
Morning
    6:15 DAVID STONE—Music  COLOR 
    6:30 CITY AND COUNTRY  COLOR 
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests: Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Robert Jastrow
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Hugh O’Brian, Sue Ane Langdon
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PAT BOONE  COLOR Guest: Pat Collins
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Bill Bixby, Wally Cox, Glenn Ford, Sue Ane Langdon, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rose Marie, Vincent Price, Roger Smith, 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 
  12:55 NEWS  COLOR 
    1:00 DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial
    1:30 DOCTORS—Serial  COLOR 
    2:00 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial  COLOR 
    2:30 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game  COLOR Guests: Barbara Hale, Jan Murray
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Mickey Mantle, Joe Pepitone
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 DIALING FOR DOLLARS—Game  COLOR 
    4:30 OF LANDS AND SEAS  COLOR 
    5:25 DOCTOR’S HOUSE CALL—James Rogers Fox  COLOR 
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS  COLOR 
    6:30 GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    7:30 OCCASIONAL WIFE  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama  COLOR “The Borgia Stick” (Made for NBC; 1967)
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR 
  12:00 NEWS AND SPORTS  COLOR 
  12:15 M SQUAD—Police
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are appearing together on Today; since their last collaboration, The Fortune Cookie, came out in October 1966, I have to think they might be discussing their next movie, The Odd Couple, which came out in 1968; they're probably working on it now. 

 6  WDSM (DULUTH) (NBC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY C  COLOR Guests: Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Robert Jastrow
    9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PAT BOONE  COLOR Guest: Pat Collins
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Bill Bixby, Wally Cox, Glenn Ford, Sue Ane Langdon, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rose Marie, Vincent Price, Roger Smith, 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 
  12:55 NEWS  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: Barbara Hale, Jan Murray
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Mickey Mantle, Joe Pepitone
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 SNAP JUDGMENT—GameGuests: Hugh O’Brian, Sue Ane Langdon
    3:55 BOZO AND HIS PALS  COLOR 
    5:00 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—Game  COLOR 
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS, ROCKY TELLER  COLOR 
    6:30 GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    7:30 OCCASIONAL WIFE  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama  COLOR “The Borgia Stick” (Made for NBC; 1967)
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR 
The New York Yankees are well-represented on The Match Game; I don't have to tell you about Mickey Mantle, but Joe Pepitone was a very good player for the Yanks, even if he never reached superstar status. Jim Bouton has some very funny stories about Pepitone and his toupees in his book Ball Four. 

 6  KMMT (AUSTIN) (ABC)
Morning
    9:30 DATELINE: HOLLYWOODGuests: George Montgomery, Susan Strasberg
    9:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Advice  COLOR 
  10:00 SUPERMARKET SWEEP—Game  COLOR 
  10:30 FAMILY GAME
  11:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING—GameGuests: James Darren, Nanette Fabray, Della Reese
  11:30 DONNA REED—Comedy
Afternoon
  12:00 FUGITIVE—Drama
    1:00 NEWLYWED GAME  COLOR 
    1:30 DREAM GIRL—Contest  COLOR Celebrities: Tony Bill, Mel Carter, Kaye Stevens, Jean Paul Vignon
    1:55 NEWS
    2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL
    2:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial
    3:00 DATING GAME  COLOR 
    3:30 COMPASS—Travel
    4:00 ROY ROGERS
    5:00 NEWS—Jennings  COLOR 
    5:30 RIFLEMAN—Western
Evening
    6:00 YOU ASKED FOR IT—Smith
    6:30 COMBAT!—Drama  COLOR 
    7:30 INVADERS—Adventure  COLOR 
    8:30 PEYTON PLACE—Serial  COLOR 
    9:00 FUGITIVE—Drama  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 JOEY BISHOP—Variety  COLOR 
  12:00 NEWS
Nothing in TV Guide about Joey Bishop's guests (they were Redd Foxx, singer John Gary, actress Chris Noel, Dick Claire & Jenna McMahon and Dr. Murray Banks, by the way). but at least KMMT is carrying it "live," as opposed to other stations we (cough—KMSP—cough).


 7  KCMT (ALEXANDRIA) (NBC, ABC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests: Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Robert Jastrow
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Hugh O’Brian, Sue Ane Langdon
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PAT BOONE  COLOR Guest: Pat Collins
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Bill Bixby, Wally Cox, Glenn Ford, Sue Ane Langdon, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rose Marie, Vincent Price, Roger Smith, 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 
  12:55 NEWS  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: Barbara Hale, Jan Murray
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Mickey Mantle, Joe Pepitone
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial
    4:00 EXTENSION NEWS, VIEWS
    4:15 CARTOONS—Children
    4:30 CASPER—Cartoons
    5:00 GREEN HORNET—Adventure
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    7:30 IT’S A SMALL WORLD  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama  COLOR “The Borgia Stick” (Made for NBC; 1967)
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR 
Although in 1967 we had yet to move to the World's Worst Town™, the afternoon schedule is very much like what I would see when I lived there: the time from 4:00 or so to 5:30 consists of ABC programming from earlier in the week, mostly cartoons. The Green Hornet and Batman (Friday afternoon) are two exceptions, although you could make the case for them being "live-action cartoons."

 8  WDSE (DULUTH) (Educ.)
Evening
    6:00 FILM FEATURE  COLOR 
    6:30 WHAT’S NEW—Children
    7:00 CREATIVE PERSON—Trigere
    7:30 AGE OF KINGS—Shakespeare
    9:00 GOLF—Roy Tutt
    9:30 STRUGGLE FOR PEACE
  10:00 NET JOURNAL—Documentary
An Age of Kings is a terrific BBC production from 1960 that presents Shakespeare's eight historical plays (Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, and Richard III) in order. It's frequently seen on public television throughout the '60s, and it's available on DVD today.


 9  KMSP (ABC)
Morning
    7:30 MORNING SHOW—Smith  COLOR 
    8:00 DATELINE: HOLLYWOODGuests: William Shatner, Sally Field
    8:25 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Advice
    8:30 ROMPER ROOM  COLOR 
    9:30 JACK LA LANNE  COLOR 
Afternoon
  12:00 FUGITIVE—Drama
    1:00 NEWLYWED GAME  COLOR 
    1:30 DREAM GIRL—Contest  COLOR Celebrities: Tony Bill, Mel Carter, Kaye Stevens, Jean Paul Vignon
    1:55 NEWS
    2:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL
    2:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial
    3:00 DATING GAME  COLOR 
    3:30 MOVIE—Adventure“The White Warrior” (1961)
    5:00 NEWS—Jennings  COLOR 
    5:30 TIMMY AND LASSIE—Drama
Evening
    6:00 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy
    6:30 COMBAT!—Drama  COLOR 
    7:30 INVADERS—Adventure  COLOR 
    8:30 PEYTON PLACE—Serial  COLOR 
    9:00 FUGITIVE—Drama  COLOR 
  10:00 NEWS  COLOR 
  10:30 MOVIE—Drama “Fourteen Hours” (1951)
  12:20 JOEY BISHOP—Variety  COLOR Time approximate
Stray thought about Dateline: Hollywood at 8:00 a.m.—who would have imagined that, 52 years later, both Sally Field and William Shatner would still be active? Nice.


10 KROC (Rochester) (NBC)
Morning
    7:00 TODAY  COLOR Guests: Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Robert Jastrow
    9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT  COLOR Guests: Hugh O’Brian, Sue Ane Langdon
    9:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game  COLOR 
  10:00 PAT BOONE  COLOR Guest: Pat Collins
  10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game  COLOR Celebrities: Bill Bixby, Wally Cox, Glenn Ford, Sue Ane Langdon, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rose Marie, Vincent Price, Roger Smith, 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 
  12:55 NEWS  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: Barbara Hale, Jan Murray
    3:00 MATCH GAME  COLOR Guests: Mickey Mantle, Joe Pepitone
    3:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    3:30 MISTER ED—Comedy
    4:00 DOODLES THE CLOWN—Children
    4:30 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy
    5:00 CISCO KID—Western  COLOR 
    5:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E.—Adventure  COLOR 
    8:00 MOVIE—Drama  COLOR “The Borgia Stick” (Made for NBC; 1967)
  10:00 NEWS
  10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety  COLOR 
The Borgia Stick is credited as the first made-for-TV movie, although it would probably be more accurate to say that it was the first made-for-TV movie to be aired on television, given that The Killers, with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, and Ronald Reagan, was made for television but released to the theaters instead, being deemed too violent for TV. 


11 WTCN (ABC)
Morning
    8:55 NEWS—Gil Amundson
    9:00 CARTON CARNIVAL  COLOR 
    9:30 GLORIA—Exercise  COLOR 
  10:00 ABBOTT AND COSTELLO
  10:30 WHIRLYBIRDS—Adventure
  11:00 PDQ—Game  COLOR Guests: Robert Clary, Bill Bixby, Ruta Lee
  11:30 COOKING WITH HANK
  11:45 NEWS—Gil Amundson
Afternoon
  12:00 LUNCH WITH CASEY—Children
    1:00 MOVIE—Science Fiction“Target Earth” (1954)
    2:45 MEL’S NOTEBOOK—Interview
    3:00 VIRGINIA GRAHAM—InterviewsGuests: Florence Henderson, Amanda Howard, Victoria Wagner
    3:30 BAT MASTERSON—Western
    4:00 POPEYE AND PETE—Children
    4:30 CASEY AND ROUNDHOUSE
    5:30 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 MUNSTERS—Comedy
    6:30 LARAMIE—Western
    7:30 PERRY MASON—Drama
    8:30 POLKA VARIETIES—Music
    9:30 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS
  10:00 MOVIE—Drama“Harriet Craig” (1950)
Target Earth, with Richard Denning, Kathleen Crowley, Whit Bissell, and Virginia Grey, wasn't on MST3K, but it sounds like it should have. It looks like it should have, too.


12 KEYC (MANKATO) (CBS)
Morning
    7:30 NEWS—Benti  COLOR 
    7:55 FILM SHORT
    8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children
    9:00 CANDID CAMERA
    9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy
  10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH
  10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy
  11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial  COLOR 
  11:25 NEWS
  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 PASSWORD  COLOR Guests: Joan Fontaine, Jack Jones
    1:30 HOUSE PARTY  COLOR Guest: Walter Lantz
    2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game  COLOR 
    2:25 NEWS  COLOR 
    2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial
    3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial
    3:30 FILM FEATURE  COLOR “Pacific Frontier”
    4:00 BART’S CLUBHOUSE
    5:00 SUMMER SEMESTER—Education
    5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite  COLOR 
Evening
    6:00 NEWS
    6:30 DAKTARI  COLOR 
    7:30 RED SKELTON  COLOR Guest: Polly Bergen
    8:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION—Comedy  COLOR 
    9:00 WARREN REPORT  SPECIAL   COLOR Part 3
  10:00 NEWS
  10:40 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama
This is the last show of the season for Red Skelton; starting next week, while he's on vacation, the variety show Spotlight takes over. It's an import from British TV; Benny Hill and Tom Jones were two of the hosts. TV  

This week in TV Guide: June 24, 1967

When a show comes advertised as "A new chapter in television history," you tend to sit up and take notice. Such is Our World, a special airing on NET Sunday afternoon (2:00 p.m. CT). (And when was the last time we led off with a show on public television?)

Our World is billed as "the first live, around-the-world telecast" with participants from five continents taking part. The program is being aired to 30 countries worldwide, thanks to three American and one Soviet satellites. What is it about? Our world's "problems, achievements and prospects for the future." Segments include "This Moment's World," a brief look at the world at the hour of broadcast, "The Hungry World," "The Crowded World," "Aspiration to Excellence," and "The World Beyond." Paul Niven, NET's lead Washington correspondent, is the narrator; less than three years later, he'll die from head injuries after jumping out of a window to escape from a fire that sweeps through his Georgetown townhouse.

The program's best segment is probably "Aspiration to Excellence," which includes a performance by The Beatles, who perform "All You Need is Love" for the first time (with a chorus of "friends," including members of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon and Graham Nash), as well as Maria Callas, Pablo Picasso, Van Cliburn and Leonard Bernstein, and others.

There's an interesting Wikipedia article about this program. The Soviet Union pulled out of production at the last moment, probably in protest over the West's support of Israel in the recent Six-Day War; the missing Soviet satellite was replaced by one from NASA. Despite the Eastern bloc nations pulling out, the show's still transmitted to 24 countries, with an estimated audience of between 400 and 700 million people. The program actually runs a half-hour over it's scheduled running time of two hours.

Below are highlights from the broadcast, which don't include the performance from The Beatles; you'll have to check the video below for that.



*The Beatles performance, as was the rest of the broadcast, was originally in black-and-white; for its use in the 1995 TV special The Beatles Anthology, the Beatles' performance was colorized, We eschew colorized clips, though; we're like TCM that way.

t  t  t

While The Hollywood Palace is on summer break, ABC filled the Saturday night time slog with Piccadilly Palace, a London-based variety show starring the iconic British comedy duo of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, We'll stop in from time to time during the summer months to see who has the best lineup..
Sullivan: Scheduled guests are singers Connie Francis, Ronnie Dove and the Swingle Singers; comedians Henny Youngman, Flip Wilson, and the comedy team of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara; Joaquin Robles' flamenco dancers, who are accompanied by Los Rebeldes, a mariachi band; and Augsberg's Jungle Wonders, a chimpanzee act.

Piccadilly: Guests are singers Bobby Vinton and Georgie Fame. Hosts Morecambe and Wise do a zany impression of an Arabian sheik newly arrived in England, and join the show's writers for a slapstick parody of a pop singing group. Regular: Millicent Martin.

I have to admit neither of this week's lineups do much for me, but you don't come here to see me equivocate, do you? Very well: Piccadilly Palace is not really Hollywood Palace with a British accent; it's more like The Morecambe & Wise Show, so more of the program is built around them. That doesn't give us much to go on. While not all of Ed's guests are to my taste, it's a more substantial lineup, and so I'm giving Sullivan the decision on points.

t  t  t
Piccadilly Palace isn't the only summer replacement on the air this week. There seem to be three basic categories into which summer series fall: they're either trying out for a spot in the fall lineup, keeping the seat warm until the star returns from vacation (usually a variety show), or allowing the network to gather an assortment of failed concepts into an anthology series like Summer Playhouse, thus giving failure a veneer of respectability.

Is this an idea or what?The possibilities for fun with this concept are endless. For example: suppose the producers of Gunsmoke, in an attempt to placate star James Arness during the latest round of contract negotiations, decide to give him an extra few weeks off next season? We could be treated to Festus and Doc, where two of Dodge City's most beloved characters get to take over while Marshal Dillon is in the capital or on vacation or sleeping late.

Or take Ed Sullivan. Ed doesn't usually mingle with his guests unless they're someone special. So if you want to give a young comic a trial to see how well they'd do with their own show, why not take performances from various shows during the season and splice in a new host? He or she gets to do their own shtick, maybe a monologue and a skit or something, and then let them introduce the Supremes, or George Carlin, or Bobby Darin. You're guaranteed good performances (because you, as producer and editor, picked them yourself), plus a brand-new host that actually shows some life. I know, probably union rules prohibit it.

I could go on, but you get the point. In the real world, Away We Go (Saturday, 6:30 p.m. CBS) is the replacement for, as you might have guessed, Jackie Gleason. George Carlin is the host, Buddy Greco and buddy Rich are regulars, and Richard Pryor, Taro Delphi, and the Teddy Neeley Five vocal group are the guests. On Thursday, CBS has reruns of the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (6:30 p.m.), Vic Damone substitutes for Dean Martin (9:00 p.m., NBC), with Cliff Arquette, Donna Jean Young, and Victor Julian and his dogs as guests, and Carol Lawrence and Gail Martin on the cast. ABC uses the same timeslot to introduce a series called Summer Focus, taking over for Stage '67, with a rerun of "1776," a look at the early years of the Revolution, narrated by Fredric March. The episode was originally seen on Saga of Western Man in 1963.

Although it's preempted this week by CBS's series on the Warren Report (see below), the series Coronet Blue has already debuted to moderate success; next week, the network premieres the variety show Spotlight as a fill-in for Red Skelton, and introduces the proverbial series of failed comedy pilots. There will be more to come, but while some summer series succeed, and others fail, will any of them be as interesting as Festus & Doc?

t  t  t
It's a mixed sports bag this week; NBC's Game of the Week (Saturday, 1:00 p.m.) the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins, two teams who will spend the season battling for first place in the American League, along with the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox. Because the Twins are involved, the NBC affiliate, KSTP, gets the backup game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets, neither of whom will be battling for the National League pennant. On Wednesday night, the aforementioned Twins and Red Sox square off at Metropolitan Stadium in a rare televised home game (WTCN, 8:00 p.m.) The Cleveland Open is the golf tournament of the week, airing Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. on ABC.

Sunday afternoon, the Chicago Spurs take on the Philadelphia Spartans in a match of the National Professional Soccer League. (1:30 p.m., CBS) Never heard of the NPSL? Back in 1967 there were, if you can believe it, not one but two pro soccer leagues in this country, the other being the United Soccer League. After this season they would merge to form the North American Soccer League (NASL), which will stick around until 1984. Without the Spurs and Spartans, though.

Two other programs of note; Sunday, NBC's Smithsonian (5:30 p.m.) presents "The Flight of the Spirit of St. Louis and the Friendship 7," a look at two men who took solo flights into the future. Glenn appears with NBC newsman Bill Ryan; while Lindbergh is still alive, he does not appear, but his words are voiced by Fredric March. We didn't get this program in the Twin Cities, at least not on this particular date, although it could have been shown at another time. Instead, we're shown a rerun of an episode from NBC's acclaimed Project 20 series, "The Law and the Prophets."

On Thursday night, My Three Sons (7:30 p.m., CBS) presents a witty, lighthearted look at TV's influence on the family, with "Charley imposing a one-week ban on viewing, Steve getting hooked on the late-late show, and Robbie and a cynical coed producing at TV drama dissecting family life." As long as you don't tell me that the drama was called An American Family , we should be just fine.

t  t  t
We haven't looked at one of Hollywood's starlets lately, and so this week Leslie Raddatz turns his gaze upon Sara Lane, currently playing Elizabeth Grainger on NBC's The Virginian. She's not like the average starlet though, Raddatz assures us. For one thing, her shirts actually cover her knees! (Sometimes, at least.) She lives at home with her parents instead of in some swinging apartment, she doesn't have a name like most starlets, "Melody" or "Karen" or "Jill." And she doesn't date other Hollywood stars. Heck, she doesn't even know how to drive.

So how does a girl like this get into showbiz? Thank her father, Rusty Lane, the veteran character actor, and her mother, actress Sara Anderson. She would travel with her parents as they appeared in road company productions of plays like The Desperate Hours. Movie producer William Castle noticed her in a Miss Teen-Age pageant, and gave her a role in I Saw What You Did with Joan Crawford. And, well, the next thing you knew, she was on The Virginian.

I didn't watch The Virginian growing up, so the fact that I hadn't heard of Sara Lane before didn't particularly mean anything to me. She remained on the show until 1970, appearing in over 100 episodes. She did several episodes of The Hollywood Squares in 1969. and a pair of Billy Jack movies in the 1970s, before retiring to run a vineyard with her husband (who, true to form, was not a Hollywood actor). Today, she works with troubled children, and that makes her a star in my book.

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Finally, the major news story this week is  CBS's four-part series on the Warren Report , which runs Sunday through Wednesday night. By 1967, there was considerable doubt about the validity of the Warren Commission, which had concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy; several books, most prominently attorney Mark Lane's  Rush to Judgement , had been written challenging the findings, while in late 1966, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison had begun the investigation that would result in the indictment of businessman Clay Shaw for conspiracy in the assassination. (Shaw was acquitted, obviously, which was the right verdict.) On top of that, Life Magazine had published color photographs of the famed Zapruder film, with the headline  “Did Oswald Act Alone? A Matter of Reasonable Doubt.”  The editors questioned the Commission’s conclusions and called for a new investigation.

With this as backdrop, CBS presents its four-hour inquiry into the Report. (Apparently the program was originally scheduled to run for three nights; according to The Doan Report, CBS has uncovered so much "significant" material that they're adding an extra night.) Part one, on Sunday, presents a recreation of the assassination (remember, the actual Zapruder film won't be shown on TV for another few years), to test how quickly and how accurately Mannlicher-Carcano rifles can be fired, and addresses other questions about the investigation. (Did Oswald actually own the murder weapon? What did witnesses to the assassination see?). Parts two and three discuss various conspiracy theories, and the conclusion examines why people doubt the findings. It's a comprehensive look at the Warren Report, which answers a lot of questions (provided, of course, that you're open to being convinced). Alas, I don't know how much it did for those who'd already fallen into the clutch of conspiracy buffs.

I don't know why I was attracted to all this; perhaps I had a vague memory of the assassination, or maybe I was just interested in true crime. My mother had bought several of the Kennedy books as they came out, knowing that I would be interested in them when I was older, and she'd saved the newspapers from that weekend, as well as  the TV Guide from the following January that looked at how TV had covered it . Little would I know, as I read through those pages in the years to come, that some day I'd be able to see almost all of it on YouTube. Clearly, for me it was the shape of things to come. TV  

Around the dial

As you know, I try to stay away from politics here at the blog (with varying degrees of success), but one plank I'm proud to endorse is The Comfort TV Healthcare Plan , courtesy of David at Comfort TV. I think you'll be for it, too.

The Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland links to an article at Undark on how Sesame Street was designed " as a radical therapeutic tool for helping minority preschoolers ." Submitted without comment.

At The Twilight Zone Vortex, Jordan looks at " No Time Like the Past ," a middling TZ time-travel drama hat's enlivened by standout performances from Dana Andrews and Patricia Breslin. Time travel is always hard to get right, especially when it comes to historical events, don't you think?

Classic Film and TV Café returns with another "Seven things to know..." installment, this time on Andy Griffith . The very first item, Griffith's record "What It Was, Was Football," heard when I was in grade school when a teacher played it for us, is the first memory I have of him—even before TV.

It's update time at Garroway at Large, and Jodie provides the latest in the Garroway bio (I'll tell you, I'm really looking forward to that book), along with other things she's been up to. I say this not at all because she's a good friend, but she has to be one of the most engaging writers I've encountered.

And speaking of friends and engaging writers, the news at Bob Crane: Life & Legacy is that Carol and her partners, Linda Groundwater, and Dee Young, return with a new podcast, Flipside: the True Story of Bob Crane. I'm looking forward to this as well.

Naked City is one of my favorite series (I have to revise my Top 10 one of these days), and it's the latest show to be reviewed at Television's New Frontier: the 1960s. I've read the Gilbert Seldes review that Beestguy mentions, and agree with him that it's a rare misfire from Seldes, who really didn't get what the show was really all about. Route 66 may have been more successful, but I don't think it worked as well as Naked City.

Finally, Television Obscurities continues "A Year in TV Guide" with the June 24, 1989 issue . I sometimes look at these issues from the 1980s and think to myself, "I can't find a thing interesting in this issue." So what does Robert have to say about this? "I had a tough time finding anything of interest in this week’s issue." I hear you, brother. TV  

Television opera: from the end of "NBC Opera Theatre" to "The MET in HD"

LAST OF 4 PARTS

One of the promised marvels of educational television, according to the futurists of the day, was that it would be able to serve audiences for niche programming without being subjected to the ratings pressures that had propelled such shows to the Sunday afternoon ghetto, or off the air entirely. And indeed, for the first few years after the death of NBC Opera Theatre, NET and its successor, PBS, did continue to broadcast opera, albeit irregularly.

One of the network’s most notable telecasts was Jack Beeson’s Lizzie Borden, which had premiered at the New York City Opera in 1965 and was transferred, using the NYCO’s cast and sets, to NET Opera Theater in 1967. The network, under the leadership of former NBC Opera Theatre producer Peter Herman Adler, even commissioned several operas for television, including Beeson’s My Heart's in the Highlands in 1970, Thomas Pasatieri’s The Trial of Mary Lincoln in 1972, and John Eaton’s Myshkin in 1973.* Kirk Browning, who had done such a fine job directing many of NBC’s productions, served a similar role for NET/PBS.

*CBS, in fact, commissioned a trio of operas of their own in the late 1960s: Menotti’s Martin’s Lie in 1965 (after Menotti had broken with NBC over the new production of Amahl), Ezra Laderman’s The Trials of Galileo in 1967, and Benjamin Lees’s Medea in Corinth in 1974. Laderman also composed an "ópera-cantata," And David Wept, for the network in 1971.

Increasingly, PBS’s opera broadcasting moved away from studio-bound productions in favor of broadcasts of performances being staged live (or on tape) in opera houses. The Metropolitan Opera quickly became a staple of such performances, on PBS’s Great Performances series, although productions from other companies, such as the New York City Opera and the Minnesota Opera, appeared on occasion. What all these broadcasts had in common was that the network, rather than staging the opera as they would a television show, simply moved their cameras into the opera house, as if they were televising a football game.

By “simply,” I don’t mean to minimize the effort required to broadcast these operas, nor do I suggest that doing so was a simple proposition—it wasn’t. Nevertheless, the result differs in many ways from that seen in the early televised operas. For one thing, the director no longer had the latitude to move cameras and sets around to give viewers perspectives not available to the live audience in the theater. In watching the broadcast of Lizzie Borden, for example, one notices the way in which the camera is able to move through the sets and treat the opera more like a television drama. Crane shots, moving through rooms and around walls; it’s all a strikingly different, even intimate, experience. If the camera is indeed the eyes of the viewer, then the viewer has unprecedented access to the opera. I’m not using this as an argument for returning to live television, by the way; if anything, the quick cuts, changes in perspective, and the dramatic tension that results is made far easier by the use of videotape. (If you need more evidence, check out the BBC’s production of Billy Budd in 1966, where the production crew constructed a scaled-down replica of the ship—something that would have been impossible in an opera house.) But even a casual glance at the live broadcast of Amahl in 1951 shows effects and camera angles that could not have been witnessed by the live audience. Not for nothing is television known as the most intimate of media.

There was also the use of the close-up. Initially, directors in studio-based productions had been reluctant to use close-ups of the singers, feeling it to be a liability rather than an asset; Jennifer Barnes reminds us that, “The last thing you need as ‘Celeste Aida’ approaches its final high B-flat is the sight of the tenor’s trembling jowls, crossed eyes, and other alarming but typical symptoms of the strain towards achieving the note.” Menotti alone seemed to master the art of the close-up, mainly by using them primarily with young performers; Lois Hunt in CBS’s The Medium, and Chet Allen in Amahl. In so doing, and by blocking the scenes so that the singers would turn toward the person to whom they were singing, rather than looking directly looking into the camera, he emphasized not the “singer,” but the “character,” drawing the viewer into a more sympathetic response than if the singer had been an adult. However, advances in television technique, as well as technology*, especially with the coming of the HD era, made their use increasingly prevalent.

*The concept of the close-up had also changed from the early days of television, when picture quality and size often spurred directors to use shots in which the actor’s face filled the entire screen. 

Finally, there was also the factor of deciding what to show the home viewer; whereas the action in early television opera was staged with the dimensions of the television screen specifically in mind, the staging of a production in the opera house had a far greater scale, with numerous bits of action happening simultaneously in different parts of the stage. Focusing on the singer(s) necessarily meant cutting off a portion of that action from the television viewer, while focusing on incidental subtleties meant excluding the singers from the shot. It was a small thing for most viewers, but it meant that the television director was acting in effect as the eyes of the viewers at home, choosing what they would or would not see.* In the hands of an experienced director such as Browning, such a challenge was easily overcome; nevertheless, the peripheral movement behind the singer can easily become distracting, especially when competing with the subtitles that had become the norm with televised opera.

*I do think, however, that such productions benefit greatly by being shot on videotape rather than film. While the studio experience allows for greater latitude than the theater stage, it’s important to keep in mind that we’re still watching the musical equivalent of a play, not a movie. The sense of immediacy obtained through videotape lends to the viewer’s ability to conceive of the opera as a live event. I’ve seen operas shot on film; invariably, they lack that same immediacy.

All this might not have been an issue had the early promise of cable television been fulfilled. Almost without exception, visions of cable TV included at least one channel devoted to cultural programming, where live theater and concerts could thrive. And, as was the case with educational television, there were cable channels that followed this example: CBS ARTS, A&E, Bravo, Ovation. Had even one of these channels continued with their commitment to cultural programming, we might have seen the continuation, if not the growth, of operas made for television. As it is—well, you get the story.

A major change in the televised opera came in the early 2000s, when the Met introduced its “Live in HD” series, consisting of 10 or so operas that would be broadcast live in movie theaters (for paying audiences), and then rebroadcast on PBS at a later date. As the Met got into the swing of the big screen broadcasts, a number of things became apparent, most notably the tendency of directors and set designers to stage their productions with movie viewers, rather than the live audience at the Met, in mind. For example, a production of Britten’s Peter Grimes that came across as intimate and powerful on the screen was seen as lost and overwhelmed on the Met’s enormous stage. Singers often came across as employing gestures and movements that were suitable for theater viewers but failed to make an equivalent impact to those in the house. (The Times has a good article here on how the HD broadcasts have changed opera.)

Even the look of the performer became an issue, as casting directors were accused of choosing singers based on their physical attributes more than their vocal talents. A singer with a stout physique might look fine to someone in the ninth row of the second balcony in the Lyric Opera House in Chicago, but not to home viewers accustomed to more, shall we say, telegenic performers. And while someone like Anna Netrebko has justly earned her reputation as a great singer, her good looks certainly don’t hurt.

It’s all about compromise, of course. In a way, it’s no different from how viewers of NBC Opera Theatre had to resign themselves to abridged versions of their favorites, accompanied by commercial interludes. It’s the price one has to pay to have opera on television at all. You’d like to think that there would be one channel out there that could take something like opera as a loss leader; Jennifer Barnes points out in Television Opera that from the end of NBC Opera Theatre to 2002, the BBC, and Channel 4 commissioned 19 television operas, while American networks commissioned 10, and none after 1974. It’s possible that the Brits are simply more cultured than we are; it’s also the case that it’s a lot easier to program cultural television when you’re being subsidized by the government.

We frequently hear, however, about how American schools have abdicated music appreciation classes, often driven by economic reasons. One of the positives of the “Live in HD” series is that the Met has sought to engage schools in these broadcasts, bringing a form of music education to children. Television could do a lot more of that, and foundations could do more to make it economically feasible. Millennials, however, who seem so dedicated to direct involvement with social issues, never consider the redemptive power of music. We’re told that television is just another market-driven medium, that if opera was more popular, it would show up more often. The flip side to that, of course, is that it might be more popular if it showed up more often.

When I think of the Golden Age of Television, I’m usually drawn to the idea of live drama (which, as I’ve pointed out before, is a genre of its own, separate from filmed or taped drama), and that includes higher cultural fare such as opera. While today’s age of prestige television might be technically superior, might have stronger dramatic power, might be more able to address topical issues, it doesn’t mean that these shows provide us with all that we need to become more well-rounded individuals. It was a given, in the early days of television, that this was one of the medium’s societal responsibilities; it was a fear, in the eyes of many, that such a responsibility would eventually be abdicated. To the extent that it has, television will always be a flawed medium, one that never reached its potential—one that, in the words of Bruce Springsteen, gave us 57 channels and nothing on. That number has now doubled, or even tripled, but has anything really changed?  TV