Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 16
February 5, 2025
What I've been watching: Winter edition
Shows I’ve Watched: Shows I’ve Added: The LonerPoirotVoyage to the Bottom of the Sea F TroopNicholsWorld War I
It occurs to me that I haven't done one of these for awhile, mostly because our viewing lineup has been pretty stable. That's in the process of changing, though, as some of our longer-running series come to an end, and I embark on a search for various programming options to fill the gap. The result as been a mélange of things, some of which I'll be recounting below.One series that wrapped up recently is Rod Serling's The Loner , the 1965-66 Western starring Lloyd Bridges as William Colton, a Civil War veteran traveling through the West in search of a meaningful life. The series ran for 26 episodes (most of which were written by Serling), and bear all the trademarks of typical Serling stories: provocative ideas based on a strong moral sense, with messages that frequently hammer us over the head with their lack of subtlety.
That's not necessarily meant to be a criticism, by the way; there's only so much character development that can be accomplished within the structure of a half-hour drama (minus commercials), and by definition we should expect things to unfold at a more rapid pace than if the running time is longer. The stories are, without exception, presented in a literate and thoughtful way, and Bridges delivers his lines with a firmness and conviction. As a result, The Loner is rarely less than good and occasionally better than that, and the storylines are almost always worthy of thought afterwards, even when they fall short of their potential. We know that Serling was disappointed in the final result, believing that network interference compromised his vision of a "realistic, adult Western" in favor of more "traditional" Western action. And in truth, there are episodes that present an undeniable tension between Serling's desire to lean on the philosophical and the constructs of the Western genre, resulting in endings that can be somewhat less than satisfying. Merely preventing the man in the black hat from acting on his homicidal impulses does not necessarily mean that said black hat won't resume being a threat once Colton has departed the scene; in other words, you can't always shame a bully into reforming himself in the Old West. Sometimes you have to eliminate that threat permanently, if you catch my drift. Don't take that caution as a deterrant, though; your investment in The Loner will likely be a satisfying one.
One show that's been a delight to revisit is Poirot , with David Suchet providing the definitive interpretation of Agatha Christie's iconic Belgian detective and his "little grey cells." Our last viewing of Poirot came when the series was in its original run, which makes it almost as good as new. In addition, since some of the later episodes were exclusive to Acorn (including the series finale, "Curtain"), those episodes will be new.
I referred to Suchet as the "definitive" version of Poirot, not only in his brilliance, but his mannerisms, fussy eccentricities (Suchet fought to portray Poirot down to the last "obsessive-compulsive" gesture), and relentless determination to discover the truth. His dedication to justice, occasionally tempered by mercy, makes him a very dangerous adversary, and for all the good humor that is built into the character (frequently causing his opponents to take him lightly), Suchet does an excellent job of projecting that danger. I would not want to cross swords with him, regardless of the circumstances.
Aiding Suchet in making the show so watchable is a brilliant supporting cast, including Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings, Poirot's loyal, if occasionally dim, associate. As is the case with Doctor Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories, Hastings frequently serves as a surrogate for the viewer, giving Poirot someone to whom he can explain how he got from point A to point B; also like Watson, Hastings makes up for a lack of imagination with an intelligence that, more often than not, provides an asset to Poirot. Philip Jackson, as Inspector Japp, provides a perfect foil for Poirot's brilliance; his confidence in his ability to solve the case is frequently undermined by Poirot's discovery of the pivotal clue (with Poirot often graciously allowing Japp to think he did it without Poirot's help), but make no mistake: he values both Poirot's intelligence and his friendship, and he'll be the first one to defend the detective against skeptics. And as Poirot's secretary Miss Lemon, Pauline Moran not only keeps the office running efficiently, she occasionally provides a needle to Poirot's non-insignificant ego. Just as in Perry Mason, Poirot functions as an ensemble, but with Suchet always the first among equals. The music and period detail—especially the breath-taking art deco accents—are a fundamental part of Poirot's appeal. Later stories, considerably darker in tone and frequently taking place on location, are still quite entertaining, but I have to admit that they lose some of their fun of the early seasons. Is that a quibble? I don't intend it to be, merely an observation; if those early seasons had never existed, the series would still stand on its own as one of the best British imports. Poirot very nearly made it on my Top Ten list, and when the next update comes around, I wouldn't be surprised to find it there.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea has neither the existential depth of The Loner nor the art deco elegance of Poirot. What it does have is a very cool atomic-powered submarine, a raft of special effects, some cheesy-looking monsters, and a surfeit of fun. It's based on Irwin Allen's 1961 movie of the same name about a fantastic submarine of the future called Seaview, starring Walter Pidgeon*, and Robert Sterling; and in adapting the movie for the small screen, Allen was able to utilize a ready-made treasure trove of quality, big-budget sets and ship miniatures that gave the series a big-screen look from the get-go.
*But we won't tell Gypsy.
The first season, shot in black-and-white, is arguably the best of the four. It leans heavily into Cold War and espionage themes; given that the Seaview is frequently utilized for secret missions by the U.S. government, and that it's the most advanced ship of its kind in the world, it's entirely plausible that it would be the target of both foreign governments (i.e. the Commies) and meglamaniacs bent on world domination. As the series progresses, that realism becomes less and less common (and plausible), replaced (at the network's request) by stories that are more overtly science fiction and often populated by sea monsters, ghosts, aliens, and other kinds of flotsam and jetsam that one doesn't usually encounter in the ocean's depths—but then, since the Seaview is able to submerge to deeper depths than any other ship, who knows what they might find down there?
Several factors combine to prevent Voyage from completely descending (so to speak) into kitschy sci-fi, the first and unquestionably most important being Richard Basehart as Admiral Harriman Nelson, the visionary scientist and designer of Seaview. Basehart brings a gravitas and depth to the role that instantly provides the character—and the series—with a credibility it might otherwise lack. He's authoritative, incisive, suspicious, and dedicated to both science and the nation's security. Nelson's number two is Lee Crane, played by David Hedison. Crane is actually the captain of the Seaview, the COO to Nelson's CEO, and proves himself more than up to the task. Regardless of the ship's mission, whether scientific or military, Crane's first priority is always the safety of the Seaview and her crew. Hedison portrays Crane as cool and confident, not afraid to butt heads with Nelson when he feels his men are in jeopardy, but never suggesting that he chafes under the weight of having the boss always around to look over his shoulder (and it's a mark of Nelson's confidence in Crane that he pretty much leaves the operation of Seaview up to him). He's ably assisted by the ship's Executive Officer, Chip Morton, played with competence and trustworthiness by Bob Dowdell, an actor who seldom gives a bad performance. And while the show's move to color in the second season coincided with a shift to more fantastical stories, it also bathed the episodes in a wonderful color palette that looks terrific.
What I like about Voyage—and I enjoy it tremendously; as I mentioned with Combat!, I set aside whatever else I'm doing when it's on—is that there's just enough to it that it's possible to tolerate the more ridiculous storylines. Basehart is, as I said, never less than terrific in the role, and while the scripts often require a mighty suspension of disbelief, for the most part they don't insult my intelligence. It's dumb fun without being dumb, television viewing just for the pleasure of it. If you want your adventure straight-up, with a minium of pontificating and existential angst, a voyage on the Seaview is well worth taking. TV
February 3, 2025
What's on TV? Wednesday, February 1, 1984
If you're not a fan of college basketball, I'm afraid you're out of luck tonight, friend. Not only is the Purdue-Northwestern game on WFBT, it's also on WGN and ESPN, albeit tape-delayed on the latter. In fact, you've got three other games on tonight, all of which are appearing on multiple channels, either live or on tape. (And that doesn't include the two games from last night that ESPN's replaying during the day.) It harkens back to the days when USA used to show a lot of sports in prime time; as the United States home of the NHL, there's plenty of hockey on throughout the season (the NHL All-Star Game was last night), and come September, the U.S. Open tennis championships are on. As I say, a lot of sports, and yet when you compare it to today, where you can see pretty much every college basketball game being played, it's far from saturated. I'm sure I watched that Purder-Northwestern game, although I can't tell you who won. But those were the days. The listings are from the Minneapolis-St. Paul edition.-2- KTCA (PBS) MORNING 5:45 A.M. WEATHER 6 AM COLLEGE FOR WORKING ADULTS 6:30 NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT 7 AM UNDERSTANDING AND WORKING WITH ADOLESCENTS 7:30 MISTER ROGERS—Children 8 AM SESAME STREET (CC)—Children 9 AM ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children 9:30 3-2-1 CONTACT (CC)—Children 10 AM SPACES (CC)—Children 10:30 QUILTING—Instruction 11 AM WOODWRIGHT’S SHOP—Instruction 11:30 SESAME STREET (CC)—Children AFTERNOON 12:30 MISTER ROGERS—Children 1 PM MOVIE—Crime Drama BW "The Green Glove" (1952) 2:30 SNEAK PREVIEWS—Movie Reviews 3 PM OVER EASY (CC) Guest: Margaret Whiting 3:30 MISTER ROGERS—Children 4 PM SESAME STREET (CC)—Children 5 PM 3-2-1 CONTACT (CC)—Children 5:30 NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT EVENING 6 PM MacNEIL, LEHRER NEWSHOUR 7 PM LIVE FROM THE MET—Opera “Don Carlo” [Simulcast on KSJN-FM (91.1).] 11 PM MASTERPIECE THEATRE (CC) “The Irish R.M.” Episode 1 Mid. LATENIGHT AMERICA—Dennis Wholey
-4- WCCO (CBS) MORNING 5:30 CBS NEWS—Bill Kurtis/Diane Sawyer 8 AM PHIL DONAHUE Guests: William F. Buckley Jr., Tom Wicker 9 AM HOUR MAGAZINE Guests: Jimmy Carter, Brian Patrick Clarke 10 AM PRICE IS RIGHT—Game 11 AM YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS—Serial AFTERNOON Noon NOON REPORT 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:30 CAPITOL—Serial 2 PM GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 3 PM TATTLETALES—Game Scheduled: McLean Stevenson, Vidal Sassoon, Nathan Cook 3:30 WHEEL OF FORTUNE--Game 4 PM BREAKAWAY—Magazine Guest: Desi Arnaz Jr. 5 PM NEWS 5:30 CBS NEWS—Dan Rather EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 PM MAGAZINE Included: Charlene Tilton, Ana Alicia, Donna Mills 7 PM DOMESTIC LIFE—Comedy 7:30 EMPIRE—Comedy 8 PM MOVIE—Thirller “The Final Conflict” (1981) 10 PM NEWS 10:30 JEFFERSONS (CC)—Comedy 11 PM POLICE STORY—Crime Drama 12:10 MOVIE—Comedy “Magnificent Magical Magnet of Santa Mesa” (Made for TV; 1977) 1:30 CBS NEWS
-5- KSTP (ABC)
MORNING 5 AM ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT 5:30 HEALTH FIELD 6 AM NEWS 7 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman/Joan Lunden Guest: Robert Wagner 9 AM FAMILY—Drama 10 AM BENSON 10:30 LOVING—Serial 11 AM FAMILY FEUD—Game 11:30 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial AFTERNOON Noon ALL MY CHILDREN—Serial 1 PM ONE LIFE TO LIVE—Serial 2 PM GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial 3 PM GOOD COMPANY—Magazine 4 PM EIGHT IS ENOUGH 5 PM NEWS 5:30 ABC NEWS (CC)—Peter Jennings EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT Scheduled: David Letterman 7 PM FALL GUY 8 PM DYNASTY (CC) 9 PM HOTEL (CC)—Drama 10 PM NEWS 10:30 NIGHTLINE—Ted Koppel 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Jock Peterson” (Australian; 1974) 1:25 MOVIE—Drama BW “Station Six—Sahara” (English; 1963) 3:30 MOVIE—Drama BW “Daughter of the Tong” (1939) 4:30 FILM
11 WTCN (NBC) MORNING 5 AM COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER—Comedy/Drama 5:30 MY THREE SONS—Comedy 6 AM AG DAY 6:30 NBC NEWS—John Dancy 7 AM TODAY—Bryant Gumbel/Connie Chung Guest: Eleanor Smeal 9 AM FACTS OF LIFE 9:30 SALE OF THE CENTURY—Game 10 AM WHEEL OF FORTUNE 10:30 DREAM HOUSE—Game 11 AM MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial AFTERNOON Noon DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial 1 PM ANOTHER WORLD—Serial 2 PM MATCH GAME-HOLLYWOOD SQUARES Scheduled: Larry Manetti, Nipsey Russell, Alan Thicke 3 PM BOB NEWHART—Comedy 3:30 ALICE—Comedy 4 PM ONE DAY AT A TIME—Comedy 4:30 THREE’S COMPANY—Comedy 5 PM NEWSCOPE—Bachman/Burns-Wolfe 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6 PM NBC NEWS—Tom Brokaw 6:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game 7 PM REAL PEOPLE 8 PM FACTS OF LIFE (CC) 8:30 NIGHT COURT—Comedy 9 PM ST. ELSEWHERE 10 PM NEWS 10:35 M*A*S*H 11:05 TONIGHT Scheduled: Tom Jones, Byron Janis, Bobby Kelton 12:05 LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN Scheduled: Edwin Newman 1:05 NEWS 1:40 CELEBRITY CRUSADE FOR LIFE 2:40 MOVIE—Drama “The Deadly Trap” (French; 1971) 4:30 MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy
17 KTCI (PBS) AFTERNOON 5 PM SESAME STREET (CC)—Children EVENING 6 PM NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT 6:30 OVER EASY (CC) 7 PM MINNESOTA ISSUES 7:30 PEOPLE AND CAUSES 8 PM MacNEIL, LEHRER NEWSHOUR 9 PM LIVE FROM THE MET—Opera “Don Carlo”
29 WFBT (Ind.) MORNING 6 AM JIM BAKKER—Religion 7 AM BREAKFAST WITH CASEY JONES 8:30 D. JAMES KENNEDY—Religion 9 AM 700 CLUB—Religion 10:30 JIMMY SWAGGART—Religion 11 AM JIM BAKKER—Religion AFTERNOON Noon REJOICE—Danny Koker 12:30 ANOTHER LIFE—Serial 1 PM THAT GIRL—Comedy 1:30 ETHIOPIA REPORT: OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING 2:30 TREASURE HUNT—Game 3 PM FAMILY AFFAIR—Comedy 3:30 INSPECTOR GADGET—Cartoon 4 PM LONE RANGER—Western 4:30 F TROOP—Comedy BW 5 PM GET SMART—Comedy 5:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy BW EVENING 6 PM ADAM-12—Crime Drama 6:30 700 CLUB—Religion 8 PM JIM BAKKER—Religion 9 PM IN TOUCH—Religion 10 PM REJOICE—Danny Koker 10:30 CHILDREN BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH—Report 11:30 MOVIE—Drama BW “World Gone Mad” (1933)
41 KXLI (St. Cloud) (Ind.) MORNING 6 AM BIZNET NEWS 8 AM CARTOON CARNIVAL 8:30 MUPPET SHOW—Variety 9 AM DANIEL BOONE—Adventure 10 AM STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO—Crime Drama 11 AM HAWAII FIVE-O—Crime Drama AFTERNOON Noon FNN FINANCIAL NEWS 1 PM MILLIONAIRE—Drama BW 1:30 BURNS AND ALLEN BW 2 PM OUR MISS BROOKS—Comedy BW 2:30 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy BW 3 PM MY FAVORITE MARTIAN—Comedy 3:30 HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE—Cartoon 4 PM INSPECTOR GADGET—Cartoon 4:30 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama BW 5 PM LEAVE IT TO BEAVER BW 5:30 ONE DAY AT A TIME—Comedy EVENING 6 PM M*A*S*H 6:30 WKRP IN CINCINNATI--Comedy 7 PM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Purdue at Northwestern 9 PM FAMILY—Drama 10 PM JEFFERSONS (CC)—Comedy 10:30 ROCKFORD FILES—Crime Drama 11:30 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama BW Mid. FNN FINANCIAL NEWS
ESN MORNING 5 AM BUSINESS TIMES 7 AM SPORTSCENTER 7:15 THIS WEEK IN THE NBA 7:45 SPORTSCENTER 8 AM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Connecticut at Boston College, taped yesterday 10 AM SPORTSWOMAN—Discussion Tracy Dodds 10:30 NATIONAL CHEERLEADING CHAMPIONSHIP 11:30 DESPERATE DREAMS—Sports AFTERNOON 12:30 SIDELINES—Magazine 1 PM THIS WEEK IN THE NBA 1:30 COLLEGE BASKETBALL Maryland at Virginia, taped yesterday 3:30 SPORTSWOMAN—Discussion Tamara McKinney 4 PM VIC’S VACANT LOT—Children 4:30 PLAY YOUR BEST GOLF 5 PM FISHIN’ HOLE 5:30 HORSE RACING WEEKLY EVENING 6 PM SPORTSCENTER 6:30 INSIDE THE PGA TOUR 7 PM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Fordham at Notre Dame 9 PM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Purdue at Northwestern, taped earlier tonight 11 PM SPORTSCENTER 11:15 COLLEGE BASKETBALL Fordham at Notre Dame, taped earlier tonight 1:15 SPORTSCENTER 1:30 HORSE RACING WEEKLY 2:00 COLLEGE BASKETBALL Purdue at Northwestern, taped earlier tonight 4:00 SPORTSWOMAN—Discussion Tamara McKinney 4:30 INSIDE THE PGA TOUR
HBO MORNING 5 AM MOVIE—Crime Drama “Forced Vengeance” (1982) (from 3:50) 5:30 ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOODNIK—Cartoon 6:30 FRAGGLE ROCK—Children 7 AM MOVIE—Adventure “The Beastmaster” (1982) 9 AM MOVIE—Comedy “Stroker Ace” (1983) 11 AM EVERLY BROTHERS—Music AFTERNOON Noon MOVIE—Musical “Annie” (1982) 2:30 VIDEO JUKEBOX 3 PM FRAGGLE ROCK—Children 3:30 CAT IN THE HAT—Cartoon 4 PM EVERLY BROTHERS—Music 5 PM MOVIE—Adventure “The Beastmaster” (1982) EVENING 7 PM MOVIE—Comedy “Stroker Ace” (1983) 9 PM MOVIE—Musical “Annie” (1982) 11:15 EVERLY BROTHERS—Music 12:15 MOVIE—Drama “Billy Jack” 2:15 MOVIE—Adventure “The Beastmaster” (1982)
TBS MORNING 5 AM CNN NEWS 6 AM FUNTIME—Children 6:35 I DREAM OF JEANNIE—Comedy 7:05 BEWITCHED—Comedy 7:35 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy BW 8:05 MOVIE—Drama “Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story” (Made for TV; 1979) 9:35 WOMANWATCH—Magazine 10:05 CATLINS—Serial 10:35 TEXAS—Serial 11:05 PERRY MASON BW AFTERNOON 12:05 MOVIE—Drama “Mister Cory” (1957) 2:05 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon 2:35 BATTLE OF THE PLANETS—Cartoon 3:05 MUNSTERS—Comedy BW 3:35 BRADY BUNCH—Comedy 4:05 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER BW 4:35 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 5:05 LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE EVENING 6:05 CAROL BURNETT AND FRIENDS 6:35 HOGAN’S HEROES—Comedy 7:05 MOVIE—Drama “Oklahoma Crude” (1973) 9:15 NEWS 10:05 ALL IN THE FAMILY 10:35 CATLINS—Serial 11:05 MOVIE—Drama “The Chapman Report” (1962) 1:50 MOVIE BW “Tiger Shark” (1932) 3:30 OPEN UP—Discussion 4:30 JIMMY SWAGGART—Religion
USA MORNING 5 AM WRESTLING 6 AM CARTOON EXPRESS 7 AM CALLIOPE—Children 8 AM ALIVE AND WELL! Linda Purl, Carla Ferrigno 10 AM DESIGNS FOR LIVING—Magazine 10:30 GREAT AMERICAN HOMEMAKER 11 AM MOVIE—Drama BW “The Angel with the Trumpet” (English; 1950) AFTERNOON 1 PM SONYA—Discussion 2 PM ALIVE AND WELL! Linda Purl, Carla Ferrigno 4 PM HOT SPOTS—Music 5 PM CARTOON EXPRESS EVENING 6 PM RADIO 1990—Lisa Robinson 6:30 DRAGNET—Crime Drama 7 PM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Villanova at St. John’s 9 PM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Tulane at Louisville, taped earlier tonight 11 PM 1984 OLYMPIC GAMES PREVIEW 11:30 PICK THE PROS Mid. COLLEGE BASKETBALL Villanova at St. John’s, taped earlier tonight 2:00 COLLEGE BASKETBALL Tulane at Louisville, taped earlier tonight 4:00 MOVIE—Comedy BW “Billy Liar” (1963)
WGN MORNING 5 AM CHICO AND THE MAN—Comedy 5:30 FAITH 20—Religion 6 AM TOP O’ THE MORNING 6:30 MUPPET SHOW—Variety 7 AM BOZO—Children 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 9 AM MOVIE—Biography “So This is Love” (1953) 11 AM FAMILY—Drama AFTERNOON Noon NEWS 1 PM RHODA—Comedy 1:30 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy BW 2 PM I DREAM OF JEANNIE—Comedy 2:30 ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS—Cartoon 3 PM SUPERFRIENDS—Cartoon 3:30 SCOOBY DOO—Cartoon 4 PM CHARLIE’S ANGELS—Crime Drama 5 PM ONE DAY AT A TIME—Comedy 5:30 WKRP IN CINCINNATI—Comedy EVENING 6 PM BARNEY MILLER—Comedy 6:30 JEFFERSONS (CC)—Comedy 7 PM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Purdue at Northwestern 9 PM NEWS 9:30 INN NEWS—Bosh/Harper 10 PM COLLEGE BASKETBALL Fordham at Notre Dame, taped earlier tonight Mid. MOVIE—Drama BW “Five Graves to Cairo” (1943) 2:00 INN NEWS—Bosh/Harper 2:30 ROWAN & MARTIN’S LAUGH-IN 3:00 MOVIE—Mystery “Winter Kill” (Made for TV; 1974)
TV
February 1, 2025
This week in TV Guide: January 28, 1984
All right, Cybill Shepherd, we’ll say it. You’re sexy. Satisfied now? Sheesh.Cybill Shepherd, current star of NBC’s The Yellow Rose, future star of ABC’s Moonlighting, is this week’s cover story. We’ll be back later to find out if there’s anything else worth discussing, but in the meantime here’s the rest of the issue.
l l l
One of the constant features of dyspeptic, apocalyptic police state stories has been the ability of governments to spy on their citizens through the television, looking out at you as you look at it. Stories of early television viewers worried that the characters on the tube could actually see them are legion, although you’d like to think most of them are urban legends. Still, the thought of moving pictures actually appearing in your living room, some of them being broadcast live as they happened, had to have been a pretty radical concept. Seen from today’s perspective, when we watch television on the same phones with which we have video chats with friends, maybe it wasn’t so far out after all.
This week, in another of the cautionary stories that marked this era of TV Guide, James Morrow commemorates the first month of 1984 by looking at just how close we are to the world of George Orwell’s book, and it turns out we’re pretty close—just not the way you might think.
For example, Morrow points out that to Orwell, "language is the blood of the mind. To abuse language is to abuse the human spirit." What better example of the power to abuse language, he says, than the television commercial? Consider the use of the word "natural." "It seems pretty straightforward, until you hear someone say, " 'Change your hair color. It’s the 'natural' thing to do.' " Orwell called this trait "doublethink," as in "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery." Television does this kind of thing all the time.
American television, writes Morrow, may have developed a "dominion over human consciousness" similar to that existing in Winston Smith’s world. Viewers turn to fictional TV doctors for medical advice, they accept without question documentaries that portray American society as far riskier and dangerous than it really is. Some people might substitute Dr. Phil for Dr. Marcus Welby, while others would see either global warming (on the right) or Donald Trump (on the left) as evidence of American television viewers' willingness to be taken in by The Big Hoax.
And yet, a question remains: "[I]s the right to be stupid not one of the most fundamental freedoms afforded by a nontotalitarian government?" It reminds me of a comment by CBS news chief Richard Salant that the job of TV news was to provide "what people ought to know, rather than what people want to hear." As Morrow notes, nobody forces you to watch television. You don’t have to "abandon" your children to it or use it as your only source of knowledge. To do so, to suggest that the truth, or anything else worth knowing, comes from TV and only TV, "is to lower one’s guard against the day when somebody decides to chisel away your set’s on-off switch or to install a spy-camera adjacent to the picture tube, or to attempt some other truly Orwellian innovation."For all of American television’s faults, Morrow thinks that Orwell might well have liked it, or at least parts of it. Orwell, says Morrow, "believed in the common sense of common humanity" and might well have seen TV’s "populist nature" as protection against the all-encompassing state. Orwell believed that "it was among the intellectuals, not among the working classes, that you found society’s villains": he probably would have loved Cheers.
So how close are we to the nightmare telescreen world of 1984. We’re not there, at least not yet. But, as Morrow concludes, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t listen to those who seem to be crying wolf about TV's power and influence. "The boy who cried wolf was wrong—and the townspeople who ultimately ignored him were also wrong. Theirs was the sin of complacency."
l l l
Cleveland Amory’s successor as TV Guide’s critic was Robert MacKenzie, and in a week where we’re looking for worthy information to assess, his review is probably as good a place as any. This week’s show is ABC’s Hardcastle and McCormick, a buddy comedy-adventure starring Brian Keith and Daniel Hugh-Kelly as, respectively, a retired judge hunting down scoundrels who escaped his justice via technicalities, and a young rascal paroled to Hardcastle’s custody because the judge "saw good in the lad."It’s a preposterous premise, on many levels. Neither of them work, for example, yet they pay their bills every month. There are a lot of car chases and crashes, and McCormick drives so fast and so well that in real life he’d probably be a professional racing driver, thus solving the problem of where the two find the money to pay bills. Keith is fine as Hardcastle; MacKenzie believes he "can do better work, and has, but he likes steady employment." Hugh-Kelly is "cute" and has great hair, which puts him in competition with NBC's Knight Rider, which features David Hasselhoff, "who also drives fast and has even more hair."
Sometimes, after a long day of work, you just want to turn on the television and relax instead of thinking about the world’s troubles or having some talking head shout at you all evening long. The problem, as Orwell might have put it, is that this can lead to complacency, or at least laziness. Like so much of television in 1984, Hardcastle and McCormick "seems designed for workingmen who dream about hot cars but can’t afford them, who can flake out in from of a TV world in which the good guys have the fastest cars and the hardest fists." It’s a nice world to visit from time to time, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
l l l
We’re now on to sports, and this is the early stages of the cable era, that unregulated free-for-all before sports governing boards figured out the power of collective negotiating, when leagues and conferences signed contracts with just about any cable network that would have them. This week there are no less than 26 college basketball games on, for example, and that’s only counting NBC, CBS, ESPN, WGN, and USA. There's still the impression of scarcity, though—we're just emerging from that time when we were lucky to get more than two or three games over the weekend—which makes them all feel a little more important, a little more exciting, than they otherwise would be. The atmosphere also hasn't been polluted by what I'd call the ESPNification of sports, meaning that the players were still more interested in playing the game than in winding up on a highlight reel posterizing their opponents.
On the professional side, the stars are out this week, with basketball, football, and hockey all playing their all-star games, and in a sign of the times, the NBA All-Star Game, from Denver. (Sunday, 1:00 p.m. CT, CBS) That's right: it’s not on cable, it’s not on in prime time, there are no slam dunk or 3-point contests. All we get is a bunch of pretty good players playing basketball: Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, Kevin McHale, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Gervin. Not bad, I’d say. The NFL counters with the NFC-AFC Pro Bowl from Honolulu (3:00 p.m., ABC), which also manages to find some pretty good players to take part: Dan Fouts, Earl Campbell Joe Theismann, Eric Dickerson. The NHL version is on USA Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. from East Rutherford, New Jersey. No indication as to the players taking part, although a quick spin through the league stats tells us there were a few Hall-of-Famers on hand, names like Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Ray Bourque, Grant Fuhr, Steve Yzerman, and Gilbert Perrault. Back in the days before fans could see just about any game they wanted just about any time they wanted, these contests were rare treats, the one time you could see some of the game’s greats in action. I do miss those times.And speaking of ESPN as we were, it looks much different in 1984 than it does today. For instance, I had completely forgotten that it used to carry business programming in the early morning hours, but before it became a lifestyle network, it had to have something to show during the week at 5:00 a.m., and that was Business Times, which ran until 7:00 a.m. Frankly, I think it was an improvement over what it carries now. (No Stephen A. Smith, for one thing.) And the network had a children's program on Wednesday afternoons, if you can believe it: Vic's Vacant Lot, in which famed tennis instructor Vic Braden (whose students included two-time U.S. Open champion Tracy Austin*) worked with groups of children showing them how to organize competitive sports on a vacant lot. It ran for two seasons; who knew? In 1984, ESPN covered sports such as Australian Rules Football and the Canadian Football League, while still having time for serious interview shows and weekly fishing programs. I miss those times as well.
*Fun fact: Tracy Austin's sister-in-law is fitness author Denise Austin, who also had a show on ESPN.
l l l
Coming to your TV screens Saturday night on NBC—it’s World War III! Or, to be more accurate, World War III! (8:00 p.m.) It’s actually a rerun from 1982, when this kind of speculation, in the Ronald Reagan-Evil Empire era, was all-too-real for some. It boasts an all-star cast including Rock Hudson as the American President, Brian Keith as the Soviet Leader, David Soul as "an American colonel trying to hold off a war,” and Cathy Lee Crosby as “an intelligence officer craving one last moment of love," among others. It runs both tonight and Sunday night, and since Judith Crist calls it a "dandy," I’m inclined to give it a pass instead of saying something even snarkier. You might prefer heading over to CBS, where two new series debut tonight: Airwolf (8:00 p.m.), with Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine; and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (9:00 p.m.), starring Stacy Keach as the legendary private detective whose gun is quick and whose fists are even quicker.
Sunday night at 6:00 p.m., NBC Reports presents a profile of a man very much in the American bloodstream: Lee Iacocca. The man who saved Chrysler (among other things) and became a ubiquitous television pitchman and best-selling author visits with Tom Brokaw, who finds him "an emotional, sensitive and religious family man, who talks on the phone with his grown daughters at least twice a day." There’s no greater American success story in the early '80s than Iacocca, whose name is occasionally bandied about as a possible presidential candidate, though the idea of a successful businessman with no political experience running for office seems ridiculous…On Monday (8:00 p.m.), NBC airs a live special from Hawaii as the aforementioned David Hasselhoff and Jayne Kennedy invite viewers to vote for The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, chosen from "21 international beauties." Entertainment comes from Air Supply and Engelbert Humperdinck. Opposite that, it’s the ABC Monday Night Movie “When She Says No,” examining the case of a woman who claims she was raped, and the men who insist she led them on. Crist calls it a “cogent and sensitive” movie, free from the leering exploitation that one often sees in such fare.
The Hallmark Hall of Fame has made its complete transition to movie format, but it hasn’t yet descended to saccharine Oprah-style greeting cards expanded to feature length. On Tuesday it presents a rip-roaring adventure, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Master of Ballantrae (8:00 p.m., CBS), starring Michael York and Richard Thomas, and Crist views it as “first-class romantic adventure despite the final sugarcoat” which gives it a happy ending
Live From the Met headlines the PBS schedule on Wednesday, with the remarkable Plácido Domingo headlining an all-star cast in Verdi’s masterpiece Don Carlo. I’m not shy in using the word "remarkable" to describe Domingo, still wowing audiences 40 years later; and it’s not a case of him having been a young unknown back then, either; he was already a star, and has remained one since. It's a four-hour investment of time that opera fans won't regret.
This Thursday we get a look at one of CBS’s most successful programming nights of the 80s, starting at 7:00 p.m. with Magnum, P.I.: it’s the episode where he gets trapped in a bank vault with Carol Burnett. At 8:00 p.m. the detective-brothers Simon & Simon look after a flashdancer (a trendy thing back then) who’s a target for an assassin. Rounding off the evening, more suds with Knotts Landing, the venerable nighttime soap. Now, I ought to note that WCCO, the Twin Cities CBS affiliate, isn’t showing Simon at all this week due to a University of Minnesota basketball game, and they’re tape-delaying Knotts to 10:30 p.m., after the late local news, so if basketball isn’t your thing, you might instead watch Hill Street Blues (9:00 p.m., NBC), the most celebrated drama of the time, which tonight deals with the death of the much-loved actor Michael Conrad, who played Sgt. Esterhaus. ("Let’s be careful out there!") Or you could just forget it all and watch Grease on ABC.Friday night has a cast of familiar programs, unless you’re last-place NBC—The Dukes of Hazzard, Dallas, and Falcon Crest on CBS, Benson, Webster, and Matt Houston on ABC, even Washington Week in Review and Wall $treet Week on PBS. Stick with KTCA, the PBS affiliate, for the best of the night: Monty Python's Flying Circus, including "The Attila the Hun Show" (10:00 p.m.) and Doctor Who, with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana II in "The Creature from the Pit." (10:30 p.m.)
l l l
With co-star Sam ElliottLet’s get back now to Cybill Shepherd. We mentioned that she was one of the stars of NBC’s The Yellow Rose, in which she plays a young widow who, with her two stepsons (not much older than she is) tries to hold on to the family ranch against, one supposes, a recurring cast of unsavory interlopers. Former co-executive producer Michael Zinberg says Shepherd was chosen for the role because they wanted "a very hot, attractive woman, and she was always our first choice." Oh, and she’s Southern too, so that helps.Along the way we learn about her start in The Last Picture Show, her romance with the movie’s director Peter Bogdanovich, who viewed her in the same category as Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. Although her acting ability is often overshadowed by her looks, she’s learned the craft over the last few years, taking acting classes from Stella Adler; says John Wilder "We’ve put some real demands on her dramatically in the first couple of weeks, and she’s really come through."
She’s also learned more about herself, that marriage is "a male invention to control women," but that she still loves it; that childbirth is the most incredible experience, one that men envy because "women create life"; that even through adversity "we can’t be afraid of making mistakes." The Yellow Rose only lasts for 22 episodes, but it leads next to Moonlighting, which can hardly be said to be a mistake.
Longtime readers of the blog will recognize that in another era of TV Guide, her declaration of being sexy would probably have been seen by Richard Gehman as expressing a basic insecurity in both her physical appearance and her limited acting ability, resulting in an aggressive assertion of self as an attempt to legitimize her value as an actress and convince herself that she is, in fact, sexy. Am I not right?
l l l
MST3K alert: The Master (1984) Max and the Master hel a woman trying to unionize a cannery in a small town where troblemakers tend to disappear. Lee Van Cleef, Timothy Van Patten, Crystal Bernard. (Friday, 8:00 p.m., NBC) The Master was a 13-week series that appeared on NBC, starring Van Cleef (who certainly deserved better) as a ninja master, with Van Patten as his annoying sidekick. This episode, "State of the Union," was one of two episodes stitched together to form the movie Master Ninja II. In this case, double the bad is still bad. TV
January 31, 2025
Around the dial
We'll begin the week with couple of blog updates. First, if you read
Wednesday
's article on Combat!, you'll notice that I've added the series to my Top Ten favorites. With this, the revised Top Ten is now complete; you can view the list
here
, or through the link on the sidebar.Speaking of updates, I've also updated the links to my podcast appearances, which you can find on the " Video and Podcasts " tab on the top; they're also available on the It's About TV YouTube playlists page. I'm hoping to add more material to that in the future, by the way.
Finally, I've been pleased to publish several excellent guest essays here over the nearly fourteen years, of this blog. If you have something you'd like to share, please email me, and we'll talk. As I get closer to completing my latest book, your contribution not only entertains our readers, it helps me devote more time to the book.
Now, on to something more interesting, beginning with the latest look at private detective series from John at Cult TV Blog. The series is The View from Daniel Pike (a series that sounds like it's right up my alley), and the episode is " The Manufactured Clue ." Try it; I think you'll like it.
At The Horn Section, Hal is back on the F Troop route, with " The West Goes Ghost ," Am I giving anything away by saying that it involves another scheme courtesy of O'Rourke Enterprises? And that said scheme is doomed to failure? Probably not.
A week or two ago I mentioned the passing of baseball "legend" Bob Uecker; this week, Inner Toob takes a look at some of the Ueck's more memorable TV appearances , both as himself and as an actor. I'm not sure there was much of a difference; what you see is what you get, and it's always funny.
Roger is back at A View from the Junkyard with another in his continuing series of reviews of The New Avengers, and this time it's " Cat Amongst the Pigeons ," which plays very much like an episode from the Emma Peel era, but done in the style of the new series.
At The Hits Just Keep On Comin', JB has a nice remembrance of the famed NBC radio program Monitor ; if you're not familiar with it, I urge you to check out the links JB provided, or to read my review of the definitive book on the program, Dennis Hart's Monitor.
At Television's New Frontier: The 1960s, it's the 1960 episodes from the single-season sitcom Angel , with Marshall Thompson and Annie Fargé. It comes off somewhat as an imitation of I Love Lucy, but with somewhat less success. However, thanks to Classic Flix, it's out on DVD; take advantage of it. TV
January 29, 2025
The New Top Ten, #7: Combat!
You have to understand something about the way I watch television to fully appreciate why Combat! makes it onto my Top Ten list, besides the fact that it's a consistently superior program.Just because we spend our evenings watching television, it doesn't mean that's the only thing we're doing. For instance, I'm frequently working on this blog with the television on; for all you know, I may be writing these very words while Mannix is suffering yet another concussion. There are some shows that lend themselves to multitasking more than others; it's not a criticism, just a fact.
On the other hand, some shows absolutely demand your attention—they engage all your senses, and don't let go until the episode is over. Combat! is one of those; I look forward to watching it each week, and it has my undivided attention for the full hour. That's a measure of how good it is: the dialogue, the cinematography, the framing of each shot, the music: it all becomes a sensory experience, an essential part of experiencing the show. Combat!, in its intensity, its storytelling, its performances, in the way it makes you think, is such a series; it engages, and it doesn't let go. That doesn't make it unique among the shows in our collection; it does make it good.
Combat!, properly understood, is not a war drama; rather, it's a drama about men during war. Without being strident or sanctimonious, as was often the case with a show like M*A*S*H, it manages to be both a forceful antiwar statement and a reminder of why war is sometimes necessary. It's also a tribute to the bravery of those men who put their lives on the line, often in situations that seem to make no sense, in defense of their country.Oddly enough, I don't have any specific memories of having watched Combat! while I was growing up, unlike other shows that were set in World War II, Twelve O'clock High, The Rat Patrol, Hogan's Heroes, and McHale's Navy. And yet I must have been familiar with it; I recognized the ads for it in the old TV Guides, and when Vic Morrow was killed while filiming the Twilight Zone movie, I immediately associated him with Combat!. It wasn't until the show was featured on the late, lamented KXLI, which branded itself as " TV Heaven ." Combat! was a part of the regular schedule, as well as the subject of occasional weekend marathons, and that's where I became reacquainted with it. Still, it took until I bought the box set for it to make the final impression that puts it on the list.
Combat! tells the story of an American unit, beginning with its D-Day landing on the beaches of France and continuing as they make their way toward occupied Paris, and it has to be one of the grimmest, grittiest programs to air on television during the 1960s. It surrounds you with war: when the shells fall, you feel yourself flinching; when the soldiers are covered with muck and grime, you want to scrub it all off your face and hands and feet, if you can even remove the boots that you feel like you've lived in for half your life.* Most of all, it puts you in the middle of a line of American soldiers running toward German lines, running straight at guns that are shooting at you. It makes you wonder what you'd do. It makes you wonder how they did it, day after day, living in a kind of boring anxiety where you have to fight off hours of routine knowing that a bomb or a mine or a sniper could appear literally at any second. How do they relax, you wonder. How do they live their lives with such a heightened sense of danger constantly hanging over them? Why would you wish this on anyone?
*One of my favorite stories, according to the always-reliable Wikipedia: "During the battle of Hue during the Vietnam war US troops trying to retake the city, not having been trained in urban combat, resorted to using tactics for assaulting buildings and clearing rooms they learned from watching Combat!, reportedly to great effect."
At the same time that Combat! takes you into the horrors of war, it also takes you into the lives of these men, men who've learned how to do all the things I mentioned because, in James Burnham's words, "When there's no alternative, there's no problem." You learn to do what you have to do, and if you don't exactly become used to it, you do come to terms with it. These are the kind of characters that make it easy for viewers to root for them, to become vested in their welfare, perhaps even to identify with them. And that's before you even get to know them. The alternate leads in Combat! are Rick Jason, who plays the leader of the platoon, Lieutenant Hanley; and Vic Morrow, who plays the veteran Sergeant Saunders. The episodes starring Morrow generally focus on the missions of him and his men, checking out seemingly deserted towns or doing reconnaissance work to sniff out German troop locations; Jason's episodes deal with the challenges of being in command or leading special missions. Each will occasionally appear in the other's episodes, although in a more incidental role, and many of the stories are built around guest stars and their own stories; it's a mark of the excellence of the writing and acting that the stories of rear echelon replacements, played by character actors, can be as engrossing as that of a tank commander, played by Jeffrey Hunter, who before the war was a failed priest. It's often the case with a superior show that one episode typifies its sustained excellence, and in the case of Combat!, that episode comes from the very first season, the Robert Altman-directed " I Swear by Apollo ," which finds the squad holed up in a French convent with a gravely injured member of the Resistance. Their mission is to get him to French intelligence so he can give them vital information. Without a doctor of their own, they are forced to kidnap a Nazi doctor to perform life-saving surgery. Virtually the entire final act is conducted in silence—no music, no dialog, only the sound of the Frenchman’s labored breathing. Altman’s hand is evident in the way the story cuts between scenes of the surgery, the soldiers watching as burning candles drip wax, the contemplative nuns silently praying in their chapel, the sweat on the brow of the doctor (Sanders has threatened to kill him if he allows the Frenchman to die) and a large Crucifix mounted on the wall, with the crucified Christ looking down on the makeshift operating room; the blood He sheds may well be the blood of the gravely-injured Frenchman.
The episode "I Swear by Apollo"It’s gripping television; there is no guarantee that the patient will survive the operation, and the confidence that viewers have when watching a regular cast member in the same situation is nowhere present here. In the end, the Frenchman lives—and as the doctor prepares to leave (it would have been against the rules of engagement to take a non-combatant prisoner), he asks Saunders whether he would have cared about the Frenchman so much if he didn’t have military information; Saunders, in turn, asks him if he would have worked as hard to save the Frenchman's life without Saunders' threat of death. The war takes its toll on the living as well as the dead, a message that comes through in virtually every episode of the series.Combat! runs for five seasons—longer, as more than one person has pointed out, than the actual campaign that took the troops from D-Day to Paris. For the final season, the show transitions from black-and-white to color, and I don't think the series is served well by that change—warfare, like pool halls, is more fitting when it's done in B&W, not to mention color makes it a bit easier to tell when they're shooting on a backlot. Regardless, there's a weight to the battle scenes and the drama that still comes through, that still makes Combat! television's definitive drama about men in war. And that's enough to earn a spot on anyone's Top Ten. TV
January 27, 2025
What's on TV? Saturday, January 24, 1970
We've been looking at Northern California editions for some time now, and this week we see a major change, with the Bay Area channels now having their own edition. As a result, Sacramento becomes the major market in the Northern California edition, with Redding, Chico, and Modesto included as outlying areas. (The non-network programming for Bay Area channels continue to be listed in a separate "Cable TV" section of the issue.) On the one hand, it significantly reduces the number of program options for us to look at; on the other, it significantly reduces the amount of work for me. The overall result is a
push
—wait, that's a different bit of mine, isn't it?-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) MORNING 6:30 ACROSS THE FENCE -C- 7:00 HECKLE AND JECKLE -C- 8:00 HERE COMES THE GRUMP—Children -C- 8:30 PINK PANTHER -C- 9:00 H.R. PUFNSTUF -C- 9:30 BANANA SPLITS -C- 10:30 FLINTSTONES—Children -C- 11:00 JAMBO—Children -C- 11:30 UNDERDOG—Children -C- AFTERNOON 12:00 TRAVENTURE THEATRE -C- “Maxi Niedermayer” 12:30 COLLEGE BASKETBALL -C- Nevada vs. Nevada Sothern 2:30 WILD KINGDOM -C- 3:00 GOLF TOURNAMENT -C- Special: Bing Crosby Pro-Am, third round [Pre-empts regular programming] 4:00 MOVIE—Adventure -C- “Conspiracy of the Borgias” (Italian; 1964) 5:55 FILM -C- EVENING 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley/David Brinkley -C- 6:30 NEWS—Whitten/Martin -C- 7:30 ANDY WILLIAMS -C- Guests: Tiny Tim, Jimmie Rodgers, Chrlie Callas, the Lettermen, Deanna Lund 8:30 ADAM-12—Crime Drama -C- 9:00 MOVIE—Adventure -C- “The Last Safari” (1957) 11:15 NEWS—Adams/Gerould -C- 11:45 MOVIE—Mystery “The Mad Executioners” (West German; 1965)
-7- KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) MORNING 7:00 HECKLE AND JECKLE -C- 8:00 HERE COMES THE GRUMP—Children -C- 8:30 PINK PANTHER -C- 9:00 H.R. PUFNSTUF -C- 9:30 BANANA SPLITS -C- 10:30 FLINTSTONES—Children -C- 11:00 JAMBO—Children -C- 11:30 AMERICAN BANDSTAND -C- Guests: Joe South, Biff Rose, Rhetta Hughes AFTERNOON 12:30 VOICE OF AGRICULTURE 1:00 FILM FARE 1:30 FILM 2:00 WORLD OF GOLF -C- Miller Barber, Bob Murphy, Dan Sikes 3:00 COLLEGE BOWL—Quiz -C- Vanderbilt vs. Connecticut 3:30 PRO BOWLERS TOUR -C- Showboat Invitational 5:00 WORLD OF SPORTS -C- Tentatively scheduled: ski racing, Tournament of Thrills Auto Daredevil Championships EVENING 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley/David Brinkley -C- 7:00 ADAM-12—Crime Drama -C- 7:30 ANDY WILLIAMS -C- Guests: Tiny Tim, Jimmie Rodgers, Chrlie Callas, the Lettermen, Deanna Lund 8:30 MY THREE SONS -C- 9:00 MOVIE—Adventure -C- “The Last Safari” (1957) 11:15 MOVIE—Drama “A Hatful of Rain” (1957)
-9- KIXE (REDDING) (NET) MORNING 9:00 SESAME STREET—Children 10:00 SESAME STREET—Children 11:00 SESAME STREET—Children Guest: James Earl Jones AFTERNOON 12:00 SESAME STREET—Children Guest: Jackie Robinson 1:00 SESAME STREET—Children Guest: Burt Lancaster
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) MORNING 7:30 KALEIDOSCOPE -C- 8:00 JETSONS—Children -C- 8:30 BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER—Children -C- 9:30 DASTARDLY & MUTLEY -C- 10:00 PENELOPE PITSTOP -C- 10:30 SCOOBY-DOO—Children -C- 11:00 ABA ALL-STAR GAME -C- Special From Indianapolis [Pre-empts regular programming] AFTERNOON 1:00 CBS CHILDREN’S HOUR -C- Special: Time approximate. “Summer is Forever” [“Wacky Races” and “Superman” will not be seen today] 2:00 CLASSROOM 70 -C- “American River College” 2:30 COLLEGE BASKETBALL -C- Oregon State at Oregon 4:30 BILL ANDERSON—Music -C- Guest: Charlie Luman 5:00 WILBURN BROTHERS—Music -C- Guest: Sonny Wright 5:30 PORTER WAGONER—Music -C- Guests include Jerry Reed EVENING 6:00 NEWS—Roger Mudd -C- 6:30 NEWS -C- 7:00 DEATH VALLEY DAYS -C- 7:30 HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS—Basketball -C- [Pre-empted: Jackie Gleason] 8:30 MY THREE SONS -C- 9:00 GREEN ACRES—Comedy -C- 9:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION -C- 10:00 MANNIX—Crime Drama -C- 11:00 NEWS -C- 11:15 MOVIE—Western “San Antonio” (1945) 1:15 RIFLEMAN—Western
12 KHSL (CHICO) (ABC, CBS) MORNING 7:25 SOIL CONSERVATION 7:30 BIG PICTURE—Army 8:00 JETSONS—Children -C- 8:30 BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER—Children -C- 9:30 DASTARDLY & MUTLEY -C- 10:00 PENELOPE PITSTOP -C- 10:30 SCOOBY-DOO—Children -C- 11:00 ABA ALL-STAR GAME -C- Special From Indianapolis [Pre-empts regular programming] AFTERNOON 1:00 CBS CHILDREN’S HOUR -C- Special: Time approximate. “Summer is Forever” [“Wacky Races” and “Superman” will not be seen today] 2:00 PRIZE PARTY—Children -C- 2:30 COLLEGE BASKETBALL -C- Oregon State at Oregon 4:30 LAND OF THE GIANTS -C- 5:30 HERE COME THE BRIDES -C- EVENING 6:30 NEWS—Roger Mudd -C- 7:00 FAMILY AFFAIR—Comedy -C- 7:30 HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS—Basketball -C- [Pre-empted: Jackie Gleason] 8:30 LAWRENCE WELK -C- 9:30 TO BE ANNOUNCED 11:00 MOVIE—Musical -C- “The Big Beat” (1958)
13 KOVR (SACRAMENTO) (ABC) MORNING 6:25 NEWS -C- 6:30 VOICE OF AGRICULTURE -C- 7:00 ART—Instruction -C- 7:30 SMOKEY BEAR—Children -C- 8:00 CAP’N DELTA—Children -C- 9:00 HOT WHEELS—Children -C- 9:30 HARDY BOYS—Children -C- 10:00 SKY HAWKS—Children -C- 10:30 GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE -C- 11:00 FOCUS ON EDUCATION -C- 11:30 AMERICAN BANDSTAND -C- Guests: Joe South, Biff Rose, Rhetta Hughes AFTERNOON 12:30 SKIPPY—Adventure -C- 1:00 WAGON TRAIN—Drama -C- 2:30 OUTDOORSMAN—Bel Lange -C- 3:00 MODERN GOLF—Dave Hill -C- 3:30 PRO BOWLERS TOUR -C- Showboat Invitational 5:00 WORLD OF SPORTS -C- Tentatively scheduled: ski racing, Tournament of Thrills Auto Daredevil Championships EVENING 6:30 PERRY MASON—Mystery 7:30 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game -C- 8:00 NEWLYWED GAME -C- 8:30 LAWRENCE WELK -C- 9:30 HOLLYWOOD PALACE -C- Hosts: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Guests: Sid Ceasar and Imogene Coca, Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans 10:30 HERE COME THE BRIDES -C- 11:30 MOVIE—Adventure “The Dirty Game” (French-German-Italian-British; 1965) 1:30 NEWS—Frank Reynolds/Howard K. Smith 1:45 NEWS -C-
19 KLOC (MODESTO) (Ind.) MORNING 7:00 NEWS 7:05 MIKE STEWART—Variety AFTERNOON 1:00 NEWS 1:05 KEN BELLVILLE—Variety EVENING 6:00 NEWS
40 KTXL (SACRAMENTO) (Ind.) MORNING 10:30 FARM SCENE 11:30 COMPASS—Travel -C- 11:55 TRIM TIME—Exercise -C- AFTERNOON 12:00 BAT MASTERSON—Western 12:30 MOVIE—Adventure “Pacific Adventure: (1947) 2:00 SCENE SEVENTY -C- Guests: Bobby Goldsboro, Johnny Nash, Melanie, the Ohio Express, the Illusions 2:30 UPBEAT—Variety -C- 3:30 SCENE 70 4:30 HORSE RACE—Hialeah Royal Palm Handicap 5:00 ROLLER DERBY -C- Bay Bombers vs. Midwest PIoneers EVENING 6:00 WRESTLING—Sacramento -C- 7:00 BUCK OWENS—Music -C- 7:30 HANK WILLIAMS JR. -C- 8:00 MOVIE—Melodrama “Son of Dracula” (1943) 9:30 LAS VEGAS BOXING -C- 11:30 MOVIE—Comedy “Love and Marriage” (Italian; 1964) 1:40 MOVIE—Western -C- “The Untamed Breed” (1948)
TV
January 25, 2025
This week in TV Guide: January 24, 1970
Ricardo Montalban is, by any measure, a successful man. He's appeared in more than 40 movies in the United States and Mexico, and starred opposite Lena Horne on Broadway. He's become well-known for playing a myriad of roles on television, from the old days of Playhouse 90 to the role which will help define him, that of the brillian but murderous Khan on Star Trek. And his telefilm on the life of the legendary early California outlaw Joaquin Murietta came very close to becoming a weekly series, which would have made it the first series to star a Mexican in the lead.And there we touch the sore spot. Montalban has never spoken out on the the plight of the Mexican actor in Hollywood, simply because "he has never been asked." But now, relaxing in a Hollywood restaurant with the writer of this unbylined profile, he lets loose with his opinions "with a quiet anger just short of bitterness." The word Mexican, he says, has an image that is less "palatable," the image of the Mexican in the big sombrero, sleeping beside the cactus, or the image of the Mexican bandit, both perpetrated by Hollywood." While he's played Mexican bandits, he's proud that he has never "portrayed a Mexican that was a caricature, a disgrace to my people."
He continues. "In TV, in films, any time they have wanted me to portray a man of wealth and dignity, the character is always specified as an Argentinean or a Chilean or a Peruvian—almost never a Mexican." And when he does play a Mexican, "he is most likely to be a social worker in East LA." But the Mexican presented on television is never cultured or cultivated, just "the Mexican bandit with the bullets across his chest and the fat wife who complains that he's lazy and the fiery-eyed senorita with hands on hips and a rose between her teeth and all of them speaking with horrible accents you would never hear anywhere from Tijuana down to Tehuantepec."
"I won't accuse Hollywood of prejudice," he adds, "nor even of malice—I charge only ignorance, old-fashioned thinking, myopia." Hollywood assumes "a Latin—actually any foreigner—won't be accepted by the American public as a TV series star, unless he is Desi Arnaz and it is played for comedy." And remember, Lucy had to fight like hell to get CBS to accept Desi. "Once a producer wanted me to do a series and he said to me, 'Ricardo, baby, we'll solve the problem this way. We’ll have you costar with a blond, blue-eyed American boy!'"
What bothers Montalban even more is the paucity of Latin actors playing Latin roles on television. Alejandro Rey on The Flying Nun, Linda Cristal on High Chaparral, but there should be more. "Glance through a week of program listings and see who’s playing the roles with Spanish surnames. You see 'Gomez' played by Ray Danton, 'Senorita Garcia' played by Ina Balin and so forth." Not that he believes only Mexicans should play Mexican roles; that, he says, would be absurd. "I ask only that they be allowed to qualify, to read for a part. I ask only that the Mexican actors here not be ignored."Few men in Hollywood are more popular than Montalban, who is known as friendly, unpretentious, thoroughly professional. "Only as a performer do I create some illusion of flamboyance. I have a temper, but I usually control it. I’m a Catholic and what I used to accept emotionally from my religion I now acknowledge intellectually as well. Altogether, I am a happy actor." He does wonder, though, when he'll get that one big role that makes him a superstar. "Television has been good to me, but people can never quite remember, with a guest star on TV, where they saw you—was it in a Star Trek, a Name of the Game, an I Spy? They're never sure." He is sure, however, that the best is yet to come—and he's right. He reprises his role as Khan in the big-screen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and he stars for seven seasons as suave, mysterious Mr. Roarke in Fantasy Island. It's virtually impossible to envision anyone else in either of those roles (witness the revival that went nowhere), and that's a testament any actor would be proud of. Not to mention that rich Corinthian leather.*
*Fun fact: Ricardo Montalban was a political conservative, and a subscriber to National Review, the magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr.—who, as you can see from the cover, has an article in this week's issue.l l l
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: Patti Page; New York City Ballet dancer Jacques d’Amboise; Sly and the Family Stone; comics Robert Klein and Norm Crosby; singer B.J. Thomas; and the Jovers, novelty act. (The actual lineup included Little Anthony and the Imperials, while Jacques d’Amboise did not appear.)
Palace: The focus is on coupies as Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme welcome Sid Ceasar & Imogene Coca, Steve Allen & Jayne Meadows, and Roy Rogers & Dale Evans. Sketches: the Allens take a second honeymoon; three suburban marrieds take sides, the men vs. the women.
I appreciate all of the guests on Hollywood Palace, but the "battle of the sexes" schtick has never been my cup of tea. On the other hand, Ed has a solid lineup; I was never a big fan of B.J. Thomas, but we've got Patti Page, Robert Klein, Norm Crosby, and a surprise appearance—at least if you're depending on the listings in TV Guide—by Little Anthony. Taking all this into consideration, you can hardly be surprised to find that Sullivan takes the prize this week.
l l l
From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. The Andy Williams Show was not a continuous thing; the first iteration—the one many of us may be familiar with—ran from 1962 to 1967. Andy then decided to take some time off, appearing only in occasional specials, before returning to the weekly grind in 1969, with a show that placed a greater emphasis on comedy. It is this version that Cleveland Amory is reviewing, and it is this version to which Cleve refers when, quoting Prof. Irwin Corey, he asks, "What is this mess?"
Not that it's all a mess, but "it is, generally, messy." The problem lies with that comedy bit. "Way back," he explains, "someone evidently got the idea that it would be screamingly funny to have Andy sing in the foreground very seriously, and then in the background, have something screamingly funny going on—at which Andy would first stare glassy-eyed, then. bravely attempt to carry on, then finally break up." All this was tolerable at first, when Marty Pasetta was the director, because you could be reasonably sure there'd be stretches where "there would be no funny business." But since Art Fisher took over as director, there are no such assurances. For instance, there are "a whole host of so-called 'Williams’ weirdos'—which include, as we glassily recall, a basketball player, a midget German general, a plaster-of-Paris man and a large bird—and now you aren’t even safe watching the show, let alone being in it." In one recent show, featuring Ken Berry, Peggy Lipton and the Temptations, "Mr. Berry, who tried to be funny, wasn't; Miss Lipton, who tried to sing, couldn't; and as for the Temptations, they weren't." Don't blame them, though; blame the weirdos. And that doesn't even include the Cookie Bear.
It's too bad, because Andy Williams is not only one of the most likeable personalities on television, he's a "first-rate city singer— one of the very few who has the ability to take other people's songs and sing them so well they seem to belong to him." The blame belongs to the producers, one of whom is an ex-Laugh-In writer, but now "he's just an ex-laugh." How many times have we seen this, though, where the people running the show don't know how to utilize the talent they have? Too many times. As Cleve concludes, Andy is "no mean hand at humor—real humor, that is. But from this show you'd never know it."
l l l
I've come to the conclusion, after reading this week's Doan Report, that there's no time when ratings are not a concern for network executives, and now they're faced with the prospect of cancelling their favorite shows. At a recent industry luncheon, each of the program chiefs was asked to name the new series he's "proudest of," and the results weren't promising. NBC’s Mort Werner chose My World and Welcome to It, CBS's Mike Dann picked Medical Center, and ABC’s Marty Starger opted for Room 222; Doan notes that according to the latest Nielsens, the three programs rank 46th, 52nd and 61st, respectively, among more than 80 primetime series. All is not lost, however; while My World does, indeed, get the ax after 26 episodes, Room 222 rallies to wind up 35th for the season, and lasts five seasons in all, and Medical Center comes out the big winner, running for seven season, with a high Nielson ranking of #8 in its second season. Speaking of ratings, Sesame Street has now become so popular in its first season that it's outdoing CBS's daytime reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies in Chicago. There's no demographic breakdown in the story, but one would have to assume that there are a few adults included in that viewing audience—perhaps even some without children. I regularly watched Sesame Street after school during my last couple of years residence in the World's Worst Town™, even though I was a junior in high school, so dismal were the choices on the one commercial station we received, the NBC affiliate. (I didn't even have younger siblings I could use as an excuse.) It was a fair trade-off; I learned how to count to 20 in Spanish, and I became a lifelong fan of the Muppets, much more so than from having watched The Muppet Show. It's true for television viewing, just as it is for the rest of life, that desperate men do desperate things.
And speaking of children's programming, it certainly couldn't be due to Sesame Street's popularity that all three commercial networks suddenly and simultaneously announced top executives dedicated exclusively to children's shows. NBC president Julian Goodman warned that the supposedly dismal state of kiddie shows won't change overnight; "Good children's programming takes time," he said.
l l l
The American Basketball Association, upstart competitor to the established National Basketball Association, makes its network television debut on Saturday, as CBS covers the third annual ABA All-Star Game from Indianapolis. (11:00 a.m. PT) It's the first sign of progress on the TV front since Jack Dolph, former director of CBS Sports, became the league's commissioner last year in an express bid to land a national television contract for the league. The fact that the ABA never succeeded in achieving the same kind of TV exposure as the NBA isn't entirely Dolph's fault, given that the NBA's own TV deal didn't eactly set the world on fire (remember how the NBA finals were shown on tape delay in the 1980s?), but it does cause one to wonder what might have been had the sports television landscape been different. Witness the Harlem Globetrotters, making their annual appearance on CBS in prime time on Saturday night (7:30 p.m.), in a documentary-style look at the Trotters' tour through Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and Mexico. I'm sure the ABA would have done anything to get a prime time slot of their own.On Sunday, CBS debuts the Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News with Roger Mudd (6:00 or 6:30 p.m., depending on the market), acknowledging the fact that the news doesn't stop just because it's the weekend. Teevision has always treated weekend newscasts differently from weekday ones; only the Huntley-Brinkley Report ever made an incursion into the weekend, with a Saturday evening edition featuring Chet and David alternating as sole anchors. In fact, many local stations either produced abbreviated newscasts or skipped the weekend altogether. If you'd brought up the idea that in the future there would be networks devoted to nothing but news 24/7, they'd probably have laughed at you.
Bette Davis makes a rare television appearance on Monday, appearing as the one-time "queen of lady thieves" on It Takes a Thief (7:30 p.m., ABC); that's followed by the 1959 shocker Suddenly, Last Summer (8:30 p.m., ABC), starring Elizabeth Taylor, katharine Hepburn, and Montgomery Clift. Compared to the rest of the movie week, Judith Crist finds its "perversion, psychosis and cannibalism" relatively restful to watch. Well, it is by Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal, after all. Better to look elsewhere, such as The Carol Burnett Show (10:00 p.m., CBS), which features an appearance by California governor Ronald Reagan; or The Tonight Show (11:45 p.m., NBC), which includes among its guests Jack Valenti, former aide to LBJ and currently president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
I Dream of Jeannie and The Debbie Reynolds Show are preempted on Tuesday so that NBC can present the annual highlights show of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, celebrating its 100th year. (7:30 p.m.) Dale Robertson hosts the performance, held in St. Petersburg, Florida. The hour-long broadcast leaves plenty of time to catch NET Festival and its profile of composer David Amram, one of my favorite composers (9:00 p.m., NET). In addition to composing the music for movies such as The Manchurian Candidate, Amram has written music for televison, theater, and the concert hall, including "Three Songs for America," which blends music to the words of JFK, RFK, and MLK, and "A Year in Our Land," a cantata with words from American writers including James Baldwin and Walt Whitman; he's also performed with musicians from Pete Seeger and Lionel Hampton to Steve Martin and Thelonious Monk. David Amram is still alive, by the way, at age 94.There's something for everyone on Wednesday, depending on your likes. If you're into country music, Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard guest on Hee Haw (7:30 p.m., CBS); Eddy Arnold hosts Kraft Music Hall, with an eclectic lineup featuring Florence Henderson, Sid Caesar, and Sacha Distel (9:00 p.m., NBC); and The Johnny Cash Show welcomes Glen Campbell, Nancy Ames, and Marty Robbins. For those looking for laughs, Danny Thomas hosts an all-star musical-comedy look at "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," with Juliet Prowse, Carol Channing, Tim Conway, Dionne Warwick, Marjorie Lord and Angela Cartwright from Make Room for Daddy, and the inevitable appearance by Bob Hope (9:00 p.m., CBS). For drama, Then Came Bronson visits Amish country, where Michael Parks and his motorcycle promise to shake things up (10:00 p.m., NBC). And for intellectual pursuits, it's back to The Tonight Show, with scheduled guests William F. Buckley Jr. and David Susskind (11:30 p.m., NBC).
It's all about stars on Thursday; Angie Dickinson is the guest on Pat Paulson's Half a Comedy Hour (7:30 p.m., ABC), Bob Cummings stars as a priest on The Flying Nun (8:00 p.m., ABC), Lucille Ball and Tom Wolfe are among the guests on The David Frost Show (8:00 p.m., KTXL in Sacramento), Paul Anka and Joni Mitchell are on This Is Tom Jones (9:00 p.m., ABC), and Michael Landon, Pat Crowley, Shecky Greene, and Charles Nelson Reilly join Dean on The Dean Martin Show (10:00 p.m., NBC).
On Friday, former McHale's Navy stars Tim Conway and Joe Flynn debut The Tim Conway Show (8:00 p.m., CBS), a sitcom about two men trying to make ends meet with a struggling one-plane airline. (It airs for the requisite 13 weeks.) On The Name of the Game, Robert Stack is the week's star, as he tries to expose a fradulant psychiatrist played by Richard Kiley (8:30 p.m., NBC). And the winner of the ironic casting of the week award goes to Love, American Style, as one of its sketches features Paul Lynde "as an executive cracking under the strain of working with an ultrasexy secretary" played by Carol Wayne. At least they got her part right. (10:00 p.m., ABC)l l l
MST3K alert: The Phantom Planet (1961) An astronaut encounters a mysterious society on a distant asteroid. Dean Fredericks, Coleen Gray, Anthony Dexter, Richard Kiel. (Friday/Saturday, 1:00 a.m., KGSC in San Jose) This one plays like a bad episode of Star Trek, with the requisite problems about giants and gravity thrown in, but on the other hand, this is at least the third Richard Kiel movie we've seen on MST3K. After all that, do we really have the right to expect anything more? TV
January 24, 2025
Around the dial
In case you missed it, I appeared in back-to-back episodes of "American TV" with Dan Schneider, both featuring staples of 1960s and '70s Saturday morning television; the first is about
Sid and Marty Krofft
, the second looks at the work of
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
. Fun to do and, I hope, fun to watch. At Bob Crane: Life and Legacy, the authors provide evidence to refute some of the many false claims about Bob's life, particularly his marriage to Patricia Olson (Sigrid Valdis); it's all part of their continuing efforts to tell the true story.
Jack's Hitchcock Project at bare-bones e-zine continues with " The Motive ," a third-season story written by Rose Simon Kohn, featuring Skip Homeier, William Redfield, Carl Betz, Carmen Phillips, and an extremely effectve ending.
At Cult TV Blog, John's private detective "season" continues as well, and for once it's a show I've actually watched! It's the gritty series Public Eye, with Alfred Burke outstanding as a Rockford-type P.I. just trying to make a living; this week, it's the excellent episode " The Bankrupt ."
David's countdown of his 50 favorite classic TV characters proceeds at Comfort TV, and this week he turns his attention to Maxwell Smart , played so memorably by Don Adams; could you even imagine anyone else plausibly in this role?
Jordan's in-depth review of The Twilight Zone Magazine returns at The Twilight Zone Vortex, with Volume 3, Number 6, from January/February 1984 . Included is an interview with Stephen King, a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, looks at TZ and The Outer Limits, and more!
At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence looks back at the sitcom The Jeffersons on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the show's debut . After an 11-season run on CBS, it's maintained a comfortable home in syndication, and remains one of television's groundbreaking sitcoms.
Travalanche commemorates the birthday of Ernie Kovacs with something I certainly wasn't aware of, not that I'm any kind of Kovacs scholar. It's about the time Ernie and Buster Keaton formed a comedy team , and it's well worth checking out.
Roger's review of The New Avengers continues apace at The View from the Junkyard, with the third episode of the series, " The Midas Touch ," which has to do with a contagious disease threatening society, and features another outstanding performance by Joanna Lumley as Purdy. TV
January 22, 2025
The golden age of religious television
Over the last 50 or so years, we've become used to seeing, periodically, reports of a religious "revival" on television, and here I'm not talking about the televangelists who've carved out their own piece of the television pie. (That's a topic for another day, and, quite possibly, another forum.) No, what I'm talking about are movies, miniseries or series that, in one way or another, are actually about religion.This talk starts whenever a series with a vaguely "spiritual" theme becomes successful—it's seldom prompted by an unsuccessful series.* And it's true that there have been a number of series over the decades that have succeeded in crossing over from the niche religious audience to wider ratings success, from Jesus of Nazareth to The Chosen, Highway to Heaven, Touched by an Angel, Seventh Heaven, Joan of Arcadia, and the like. Some of them are more traditionally religious than others, and some could probably be more properly categorized as "family-friendly" rather than religious.
*Think McLean Stevenson's sitcom In the Beginning, or Nothing Sacred, a bomb about a progressive Catholic priest.
But whenver one of these "revivals" happens, the cover of TV Guide trumpets the news that God is back on television. You'd be forgiven if you didn't remember these occasions, coming as they did sandwiched between pictures of ever-more-scantily dressed starlets displaying their décolletage while promoting their latest hot series or movie.
Admit it—which one of these covers are you more likely to have noticed?But in the 1950s and '60s, actual religious programming—not spiritual, not religious-themed, but Bible-type religion—was a far-more frequent occurrance on television, something as ordinary as a sitcom or police drama. You probably know about heavy-hitters such as Bishop Fulton Sheen and Billy Graham, fixtures on network and syndicated television throughout television's mid-century era; many episodes of Bishop Sheen's Life is Worth Living are available on YouTube, and historic Billy Graham crusades can be found on TBN , as well as on YouTube .
But one site I want to bring to your attention today is Gospel Film Library (also available on Roku ), where you can now acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with many of the religious programs that were mainstream staples of television's early decade. Their website describes Gospel Films Archive as "a repository of films that chronicle how the Bible, faith and Christianity was presented to 20th century audiences through the medium of film and television. Our mission is to track down, digitize, and restore hundreds of Christian films that have renewed relevance in the modern era."
What I appreciate about GFL, in addition to the content, is the role it plays in preserving an underappreciated part of television history, one that reflects how American culture has shifted over the decades. Whereas so many of today's "God" programs are primarily based either on an appeal to emotions or a religion-free discussion of ethics, the programs included in the Gospel Film Library "reflect Biblical history and Christian ideology, while addressing topics that remain relevant to contemporary audiences. Many of these rare, neglected, historic films were crafted by talented Hollywood filmmakers expressly for Christian organizations. Other films with strong spiritual themes were produced by traditional studios for mainstream theatrical and television audiences."
The film library includes many 30-minute programs that were seen frequently on local stations throughout the '50s and '60s, especially at Christmas or Easter, and are going to be familiar to anyone acquainted with TV Guides of the time. There are also three series that ran either on network television or in syndication: Crossroads, a multidenominational program that dramatized the experiences encountered by clergymen; This is the Life, produced by the Lutheran Church, which ran in syndication from 1952 to 1988; and The Christopher Program, created by Catholic priest Fr. James Keller. Episodes of these shows were run and rerun in syndication for years, and attracted loyal and appreciative audiences. Thanks to GSL, you can now see episodes of these programs, which featured both familiar faces and up-and-coming actors, including a very young James Dean.
Graphic courtesy Gospel Film LibraryThere have been other religious programs on network television throughout the years. Perhaps the best-known, as well as the longest-running, was Fr. Elwood Kieser 's creative and dynamic Insight , which aired in syndication from 1960 to 1985, and featured top talent from Hollywood actors, writers, and directors, many of whom donated their time and talent to work on the program. (Thanks to my friend Tony Pizza for the reminder!) There were also the Sunday morning programs Look Up and Live and Lamp Unto My Feet , both of which ran on CBS until 1979; For Our Times, a combination of the two programs that continued until 1988; and Directions, which aired on ABC from 1960 to 1984 and featured cultural presentations as well as dramas and documentaries.
Today, there are a plethora of cable stations devoted to religion (EWTN and TBN), as well as syndicated televangelist programs that still dominate Sunday mornings in some markets. But as for the types of programs that you can see on Gospel Film Library—well, good luck finding anything like that on network television.
What happened? Well as early as 1954, Leonard Goldenson, head president of ABC (the network most heavily invested in religious programming) decided that "a television network was not the place for religious programs," and cancelled both Billy Graham's Hour of Decision and This is the Life. While Goldenson cited low ratings "hurting the 'flow' of ABC's entertainment programs," that argument doesn't really hold water, given that Hour of Decision was the last program on ABC's Sunday night lineup; according to one historian, Goldenson "simply felt uncomfortable about organized religion." (It also didn't stop ABC from picking up Bishop Sheen's Life is Worth Living from DuMont.) The times were also a-changing as the '50s gave way to the '60s; I probably don't need to go any further on that. There's a very good article about the history of religious programming on TV during this era, which discusses the rise and fall of religion on network television, which I would happily recommend.
I'd also happily recommend Gospel Film Library to those of you interested in finding out more about some of these programs, and to see yet another aspect of television's often-ignored heritage. If groups like GFL don't preserve this history, nobody else will. TV
The golden age of religion on TV
Over the last 50 or so years, we've become used to seeing, periodically, reports of a religious "revival" on television, and here I'm not talking about the televangelists who've carved out their own piece of the television pie. (That's a topic for another day, and, quite possibly, another forum.) No, what I'm talking about are movies, miniseries or series that, in one way or another, are actually about religion.This talk starts whenever a series with a vaguely "spiritual" theme becomes successful—it's seldom prompted by an unsuccessful series.* And it's true that there have been a number of series over the decades that have succeeded in crossing over from the niche religious audience to wider ratings success, from Jesus of Nazareth to The Chosen, Highway to Heaven, Touched by an Angel, Seventh Heaven, Joan of Arcadia, and the like. Some of them are more traditionally religious than others, and some could probably be more properly categorized as "family-friendly" rather than religious.
*Think McLean Stevenson's sitcom In the Beginning, or Nothing Sacred, a bomb about a progressive Catholic priest.
But whenver one of these "revivals" happens, the cover of TV Guide trumpets the news that God is back on television. You'd be forgiven if you didn't remember these occasions, coming as they did sandwiched between pictures of ever-more-scantily dressed starlets displaying their décolletage while promoting their latest hot series or movie.
Admit it—which one of these covers are you more likely to have noticed?But in the 1950s and '60s, actual religious programming—not spiritual, not religious-themed, but Bible-type religion—was a far-more frequent occurrance on television, something as ordinary as a sitcom or police drama. You probably know about heavy-hitters such as Bishop Fulton Sheen and Billy Graham, fixtures on network and syndicated television throughout television's mid-century era; many episodes of Bishop Sheen's Life is Worth Living are available on YouTube, and historic Billy Graham crusades can be found on TBN , as well as on YouTube .
But one site I want to bring to your attention today is Gospel Film Library (also available on Roku ), where you can now acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with many of the religious programs that were mainstream staples of television's early decade. Their website describes Gospel Films Archive as "a repository of films that chronicle how the Bible, faith and Christianity was presented to 20th century audiences through the medium of film and television. Our mission is to track down, digitize, and restore hundreds of Christian films that have renewed relevance in the modern era."
What I appreciate about GFL, in addition to the content, is the role it plays in preserving an underappreciated part of television history, one that reflects how American culture has shifted over the decades. Whereas so many of today's "God" programs are primarily based either on an appeal to emotions or a religion-free discussion of ethics, the programs included in the Gospel Film Library "reflect Biblical history and Christian ideology, while addressing topics that remain relevant to contemporary audiences. Many of these rare, neglected, historic films were crafted by talented Hollywood filmmakers expressly for Christian organizations. Other films with strong spiritual themes were produced by traditional studios for mainstream theatrical and television audiences."
The film library includes many 30-minute programs that were seen frequently on local stations throughout the '50s and '60s, especially at Christmas or Easter, and are going to be familiar to anyone acquainted with TV Guides of the time. There are also three series that ran either on network television or in syndication: Crossroads, a multidenominational program that dramatized the experiences encountered by clergymen; This is the Life, produced by the Lutheran Church, which ran in syndication from 1952 to 1988; and The Christopher Program, created by Catholic priest Fr. James Keller. Episodes of these shows were run and rerun in syndication for years, and attracted loyal and appreciative audiences. Thanks to GSL, you can now see episodes of these programs, which featured both familiar faces and up-and-coming actors, including a very young James Dean.
Graphic courtesy Gospel Film LibraryThere have been other religious programs on network television throughout the years, notably the programs Look Up and Live and Lamp Unto My Feet , both of which ran on CBS Sunday mornings until 1979, and For Our Times, a combination of the two programs that continued until 1988. And there are a plethora of cable stations devoted to religion (EWTN and TBN), as well as syndicated televangelist programs that still dominate Sunday mornings in some markets. But as for the types of programs that you can see on Gospel Film Library—well, good luck finding anything like that on network television.
What happened? Well as early as 1954, Leonard Goldenson, head president of ABC (the network most heavily invested in religious programming) decided that "a television network was not the place for religious programs," and cancelled both Billy Graham's Hour of Decision and This is the Life. While Goldenson cited low ratings "hurting the 'flow' of ABC's entertainment programs," that argument doesn't really hold water, given that Hour of Decision was the last program on ABC's Sunday night lineup; according to one historian, Goldenson "simply felt uncomfortable about organized religion." (It also didn't stop ABC from picking up Bishop Sheen's Life is Worth Living from DuMont.) The times were also a-changing as the '50s gave way to the '60s; I probably don't need to go any further on that. There's a very good article about the history of religious programming on TV during this era, which discusses the rise and fall of religion on network television, which I would happily recommend.
I'd also happily recommend Gospel Film Library to those of you interested in finding out more about some of these programs, and to see yet another aspect of television's often-ignored heritage. If groups like GFL don't preserve this history, nobody else will. TV
It's About TV!
Insightful commentary on how classic TV shows mirrored and influenced American society, tracing the impact of iconic series on national identity, cultural change, and the challenges we face today.
- Mitchell Hadley's profile
- 5 followers
