Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 2
October 1, 2025
TV Jibe: Wednesday Night at the Movies
TV
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September 29, 2025
What's on TV? Wednesday, October 5, 1955
I may be mistaken here, but I think this is the first time we've looked an issue from Portland, Oregon, and—unlike the Northern California issues from a decade later—there are some significant differences we can see, due primarily to the time difference. For instance, the final game of the World Series at nine in the morning? Garry Moore and Arthur Godfrey as afterschool entertainment? (No wonder he stayed popular for so long!) Still, there are some things that never seem to change, including the Yankees and Dodgers in that World Series, soap operas in the morning, and a Bob Hope special in the evening. Television is television, after all, no matter the era.-6- KOIN (CBS) MORNING 8:00 Valiant Lady—Serial 8:15 Love of Life—Serial 8:30 Search for Tomorrow 8:45 Guiding Light—Serial 9:00 It’s Fun to Reduce 9:15 NEWS and WEATHER 9:30 Welcome Travelers 10:00 Robert Q. Lewis—Variety 10:30 Linkletter’s House Party 11:00 Capt. Hartz and Pets 11:05 Visitin’ Time—Variety 11:30 Bob Crosby Show—Music AFTERNOON 12:00 Brighter Day—Serial 12:15 Secret Storm—Serial 12:30 On Your Account—Quiz 1:00 Komedy Klassics—Kids 1:30 Armchair Theater—Drama 2:00 KOIN Kitchen—Betty Davis 2:30 Strike It Rich—Quiz 3:00 Garry Moore—Variety 3:30 Arthur Godfrey—Variety 4:30 Mr. Moon—Kids 4:45 Cartoon Time—Kids 5:00 Red Dunning Show EVENING 6:00 SPORTS, NEWS, WEATHER 6:15 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 6:30 Name That Tune—Quiz 7:00 CORLISS ARCHER—Comedy 7:30 MY FAVORITE HUSBAND RETURN 8:00 NAVY LOG—Adventure 8:30 PHIL SILVERS—Comedy 9:00 THE WHISTLER—Drama “Three Horse Parlay” 9:30 RED SKELTON Guest: Jackie Gleason 10:00 $64,000 QUESTION 10:30 BIG TOWN 11:00 MOVIE—Drama “Heritage of the Plains”
12 KLOR (ABC) AFTERNOON 2:45 Telecomics & TImothy 3:00 The Ruggles—Comedy 3:30 Lady of the House 4:00 Mr. and Mrs. North 4:30 Ron Myron Show—Variety 5:00 Mickey Mouse Club—Kids EVENING 6:00 Eddie Ricci Show DEBUT 6:30 Top Secret 6:45 NEWS and WEATHER 7:00 WESTERN MARSHALL 7:30 WARNER BROS. PRESENTS “King’s Row” 8:30 WYATT EARP—Western 9:00 DANNY THOMAS—Comedy 9:30 CAVALCADE THEATER “Toward Tomorrow” 10:00 PARIS PRECINCT 10:30 BASEBALL SCOREBOARD 10:35 MOVIE—Drama “Behind Prison Walls”
13 KVAL (Eugene) (NBC) MORNING 8:45 WORLD SERIES Brooklyn Dodgers at New York Yankees, Game 7 AFTERNOON 2:55 MOVIE—Drama 3:15 MOVIE—Mystery 4:00 Four o’Clock Date 4:30 Big Roundup—Reynolds 5:00 Pinky Lee Show—Kids 5:30 Paul Killiam 5:45 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER EVENING 6:00 For Your Information 6:15 The Little Rascals 6:30 Industry on Parade 6:45 Patti Page—Songs 7:00 CURTAIN CALL 7:30 THE FALCON—Mystery 8:00 BOB HOPE SHOW RETURN Guests: Jane Russell, Janis Paige 9:00 FIRESIDE THEATER “The Sport” 9:30 STAR AND THE STORY “Arab Duel” 10:00 PARIS PRECINCT 10:30 EUGENE SCENE 10:40 FAMOUS PLAYHOUSE
27 KPTV (NBC) MORNING 8:00 Today—Dave Garroway 8:45 WORLD SERIES Brooklyn Dodgers at New York Yankees, Game 7 AFTERNOON 12:00 Tennessee Ernie Ford 12:30 Feather Your Next—Quiz 1:00 MOVIE—Drama 2:30 What’s Cooking—Angell 3:00 Ted Mack—Variety 3:30 It Pays to Be Married 4:00 Way of the World 4:15 First Love—Serial 4:30 Heck Harper’s Corral 5:00 Pinky Lee Show—Kids 5:30 Howdy Doody—Kids EVENING 6:00 See Hear—Variety 6:20 NEWS—Ivan Smith 6:30 Favorite Story—Drama 7:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED 7:30 DINAH SHORE—Songs 7:45 NEWS—John Cameron Swayze 8:00 BOB HOPE SHOW RETURN Guests: Jane Russell, Janis Paige 9:00 FIRESIDE THEATER “The Sport” 9:30 PLAYWRIGHT HOUR—Drama DEBUT “The Answer” 10:30 BIG TEN HIGHLIGHTS 11:00 NEWS—Bulletins 11:05 MOVIE—Drama “Perilous Waters” (1948)
TV
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September 27, 2025
This week in TV Guide: October 1, 1955
It's a week of firsts in this week's issue, with a number of premieres that will go on to play a large role in the history of television, so let's get right to it, with Saturday's debut of The Honeymooners (8:30 p.m. PT, CBS) as a stand-alone series. The lives of Ralph and Alice Kramden and their neighbors, Ed and Trixie Norton, have long been familiar to viewers of The Jackie Gleason Show, but this season they'll be on their own with a series of half-hour episodes that will come to be known as the "Classic 39" and will live on in syndication—well, forever, I should think.Frank De Blois takes the opportunity of this momentous occasion to examine just what it is about the enduring popularity of The Honeymooners. Just what is it that attracts people to "the big, fat, bug-eyed fellow" who perpetually threatens to send his wife "to the moon." And what does it say about us, that we seem to revel in the story? According to a Mrs. Ruth Wassell, the chief psychiatric social worker at the University Settlement House, New York Psychiatric Clinic (who counts herself among Gleason's many fans), it's "a classic example of an expression of animal impulses to which many of us sometimes regress. These impulses are rarely carried out, but they are present nevertheless." She cites the very young child, who, "to assert himself in an adult’s terrifying world, hits, bites and scratches those he loves most dearly and yet expects continued acceptance and love in spite of this behavior."
A "prominent" (but unnamed) psychiatrist believes that these impulses are deeply embedded in the consciousness, reflecting "the idea that wives are all-powerful and that husbands are mere pawns. Men subconsciously resent this state of affairs and, quite naturally, are delighted when Ralph Kramden threatens to release the pent-up hostility of his sex. Wives, on the other hand, are secretly delighted at what they interpret as visual proof of their superiority in the age-old war between men and women." That battle of the sexes, of course, stretches back to the days of Samson and Delilah, Othello and Desdemona, Petruchio and Katharine, and Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. (Who says these TV Guide articles aren't classy?)
Before anyone gets too excited about this expression of animalistic passion, the doctor stresses that in a well-adjusted male, such aggressive reactions are "symbolic rather than actual. No decent fellow really wants to hit his wife—he is indeed horrified by the thought—but in the average male heart is the desire to be supreme in the family circle." He speculates that the popularity of The Honeymooners would unlikely follow the show if it were exported to countries such as France, Germany, Italy, or in the Baltics and Scandinavia, "where the man already is the undisputed boss of the home." "[T]he American male has a feeling he is being submerged by his mate and that he recognizes his own submersion in Ralph Kramden’s comic exasperation."
It's an analysis with which Gleason himself essentially agrees; he suspects that many husbands react to similar situations in the same way as Ralph. "It’s an evidence of the simple frustrations and suppressions we all have. And it’s funny because, knowing Ralph’s character, we realize Ralph really won’t hit her at all." What's more important, I think, is that Alice knows this as well; she gives as good as she gets, and any sensible person wouldn't stick her head in the lion's mouth like that unless she knew that the lion was toothless.**Indeed, when Sheila MacRae took over the role of Alice for the Honeymooners revival in the late 1960s, one of the complaints regarding her performance was that she wasn't "mean" enough to Ralph.
This analysis actually fits in quite well with how other sitcoms of the 1950s tended to view the domesticated male. One of the unique aspects of Father Knows Best, as we saw a few weeks ago, was its portrayal of the patriarch as something other than "a dim-wit." As Robert Young said in that story, "We didn’t want a father who was always blowing his top, or a mother who dominated her husband, or kids who were so smart that they made their folks look like morons. And we particularly didn’t want Pop to fall off a ladder or down a flight of stairs every week."
This is, one might notice, quite at odds with today's talk of "toxic masculinity" and the perception, driven by tracts such as The Handmaid's Tale, that portray America as a patriarchy that is oppressive, aggressive, abusive, and dismissive of women as little more than baby-making tools to be kept in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Indeed, there are those who would suggest that the women's equality movement has stripped women of the dominant role they once held, "that wives are all-powerful and that husbands are mere pawns." Now, I'll leave further discussion of all this to the social scientists; I've probably already made more trouble for myself than I want. Certainly, nobody is pretending that domestic violence hasn't always been present—indeed, taken for granted and accepted—for generations. I've known too many women myself who've been victims of such behavior. And I'm not above the idea that this discussion could well be more a reflection of distorted times than an accurate assessment of psychological drivers.
But if it's true that classic television, as I've long asserted, portrays a more accurate picture of mid-century American life than many believe, then one can't rule out the possibility that such is the case here as well: that, as De Blois concludes, "Ralph and Alice Kramden, it appears, are just doing what comes naturally."
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The Honeymooners isn't the only cultural icon making its introductory bow this week, as one might glean from this week's cover. On Monday, it's the debut of The Mickey Mouse Club (weekdays, 5:00 p.m.) on ABC, and if the show did nothing other than give us Annette Funicello, it would have justified itself a hundred times over. There's a lot more to that, of course. It gave many of us our first glimpses of some of the studio's most famous animated shorts, including those featuring Mickey (who appeared in every episode, voiced by Walt Disney himself). And Annette wasn't the only famous Mousketeer; Bobby Burgess, who appeared in the entire run of the show, would go on to The Lawrence Welk Show (which was already a regular part of ABC's schedule when this issue came out), Johnny Crawford (who'd go on to The Rifleman), Don Agrati (who, as Don Grady, would be one of the stars of My Three Sons), and others. The Head Mousketeer and host of the show was Jimmie Dodd, who displayed a deft touch working with the youngsters, and his "Doddisms" emphasized strong moral values—you know, the kinds of things that kids don't hear much anymore on television, or anywhere else for that matter.
Revivals of The Mickey Mouse Club have been, to put it kindly, a bit of a letdown from the original. The 1989-94 edition, in particular, produced its share of stars, including Keri Russell, Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake, but, my goodness, some of them have gone on to troubled lives, haven't they? As for the message contained in the show, it's far from the uplifting and inspiring tone of the fifties version; one could say the same thing about Disney as a whole. My friend Ed McCray has written extensively about contemporary Disney's campaign to erase the history of the company, eliminating anything that even hints at traditional or faith-based values. It's painful to consider what it's become, even as it's a joy to revisit what it was. But then, if you're a regular reader here, you know you're not hearing anything new from me.
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Is that it for the week's notable premieres? By no means! Saturday also sees the debut of the long-running syndicated series Highway Patrol (9:00 p.m., KPTV), starring Oscar winner Broderick Crawford as Dan Mathews, the head of the unnamed state's highway patrol. No desk jockey he, Mathews was often in the thick of investigations that ran the gamut from kidnapping and robbery to murders and missing children. We won't kid ourselves that it's at the level of, say, Dragnet, but it is great fun to watch, as is Crawford's "tough-as-nails" performance. (He can probably be credited with popularizing the phrase "10-4," with which he signed off two-way communication with his officers or the office. The show, which Brooks and Marsh called "one of the most popular syndicated series in television history," ran for four seasons and 156 episodes (and if you're counting, yes, that adds up to 39 episodes per season); when asked why the show eventually ended, Crawford famously said, "We ran out of crimes."On Sunday, it's the debut of one of the greatest mystery series in television history, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (9:30 p.m., CBS). Although Hitch was already a well-known director (his three movies prior to the debut of the series were Dial M. for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief), his droll appearances before and after each story transformed him into a celebrity, one whose weekly vignettes became as highly anticipated as the dramas themselves. Who, among those of us who've seen the series, can forget its theme, "Funeral March of a Marionette" by Gounod? In fact, I'll bet even people who haven't seen the series probably recognize it, along with the famous profile caricature of Hitchcock, who's silhouette would walk into it at the beginning of each episode. Although Hitch only directed 17 episodes, almost every one reflects the tenor and sensibility of a Hitchcock movie. By the time the series ended in 1965, it had run for ten seasons (the last three with a run time of an hour) and 361 total episodes; it was, at the time, the longest-running anthology series in television history. And, as most of you probably know, Hitchcock used the crew from his show to film Psycho, which they accomplished for under a million dollars. These people knew their stuff.
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What an action-packed issue, and we're not done yet! Saturday we get the season premiere of Max Liebman Presents (5:00 p.m., NBC), which kicks things off with a musical presentation of "Heidi," starring Jeannie Carson, Wally Cox, Elsa Lanchester, Richard Eastham, Natalie Wood, Robert Clary, and Pinky Lee. It's shown in both color and black and white, though unfortunately, only a few clips exist on YouTube. Its odd starting time is due, I think, to it being a live broadcast on the East Coast. There's no word as to whether or not this caused the last few minutes of the college football game of the week between Ohio State and Stanford to be preempted. Just as there are notable beginnings this week, there are also endings, and Sunday gives us the final episode of the storied Philco Television Playhouse (9:00 p.m., NBC), one of the truly great anthology series of the Golden Age; the farewell episode is Robert Allan Aurthur's "A Man is Ten Feet Tall," starring Don Murray and Sidney Poitier. I wrote extensively about the controversies surrounding this production a few months ago (as a reminder, you can see the broadcast here ), and it has to be one of the satisfying aspects of the story that the many Southerners who threatened to never watch the show were out of luck; given that it was the final show of the series, their threats were so much sound and fury, signifying nothing. It must have been terribly disappointing for them to have nothing to boycott.
Monday sees the return of three popular CBS sitcoms, Burns & Allen (8:00 p.m.), I Love Lucy (9:00 p.m.) and December Bride (9:30 p.m.). Meanwhile, Robert Montgomery Presents (9:30 p.m., NBC) has what could well serve as the pilot for the 1960s series My World and Welcome to It. It's the James Thurber story "Mr. and Mrs. Monroe," starring Edward Andrews as the meek husband, Mr. Monroe, and Augusta Dabney as his "skeptical" wife. John Monroe is, as you probably know, the name of the character that William Windom will so memorably play in that underrated 1969-70 series.
We should notice Tuesday's episode of Warner Bros. Presents (7:30 p.m., ABC) if for no other reason than it's the series that first brought Warner Bros. into television production. It's what would come to be known as a wheel show, with three rotating series: Kings Row, based on the 1942 movie that featured one of Ronald Reagan's best-known roles (his agonized line "Where's the rest of me?" would serve as the title of his first autobiography), which is tonight's attraction; Casablanca, based on—well, I think you know what movie that's based on, although it's missing Bogart and Bergman; and the third element, the only one that would survive on its own after the series is cancelled, Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker. Cheyenne is known not only for being a success in its own right, but for being the first hour-long television drama, featuring a regular cast, to be renewed for a second season. Up until then, hour-long dramas had primarily been the province of anthologies, one of which is Pontiac Playwright Hour (9:30 p.m., NBC), a brand-new series which will alternate in this timeslot with the better-known Armstrong Circle Theatre. Tonight's story is " The Answer ," starring Paul Douglas and Nina Foch, an unsettling story about an Army general who discovers that an angel has been shot down and mortally wounded during the Army's latest nuclear bomb experiments. Boy, I'd like to track down this one.
Another studio enters the television game on Wednesday, as The 20th Century-Fox Hour (7:00 p.m., CBS) premieres with Noel Coward's play "Cavalcade," starring Merle Oberon and Michael Wilding, and hosted by Joseph Cotton. It's an adaptation of the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1933, and I think it's notable that the script is adapted by Alistair Cooke and Peter Packer. We all know Cooke, of course, and many of you probably know that Packer was the author of, among other things, 25 episodes of Lost in Space. The series runs for two seasons, and may be familiar to you from its syndicated title, Hour of Stars, which we see often in the pages of TV Guide.
Shower of Stars returns for a new season on CBS Thursday night (8:30 p.m.), with a colorcast of Jack Benny starring in "
Time Out for Ginger
," with Gary Crosby, Edward Everett Horton, and Ruth Hussey. It's the story of a conservative banker (Benny) who believes it's time for a return to femininity, beginning with the abolition of mandatory gym classes for girls. What happens when his rebellious daughter tries out for the school's football team? Hilarity, of course. Fun fact: in the Broadway version of "Time Out for Ginger," the role of Ginger, the daughter, was played by Nancy Malone, whom we all know and love as Paul Burke's girlfriend in Naked City.We'll wrap up the week with a couple of additional returning favorites: the sitcom Mama (8:00 p.m., CBS), which ran for eight seasons with Peggy Wood as the titular character, and a very young Dick Van Patten as eldest son Nels. That's followed by Our Miss Brooks (8:30 p.m., CBS), with Eve Arden as everyone's favorite English teacher, the sardonic Connie Brooks, and Gale Gordon as her nemesis, Principal Conklin. It's also the premiere of a series some of you may have seen in syndicated reruns, Crossroads (8:30 p.m., ABC), the religious anthology series that ran for a couple of seasons, and, like so many religious programs of the day, consistently featured appearances by well-known (or soon to be well-known) actors. Heaven forbid they would show up today.
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And now, possibly the most important "new" programming of the season, certainly the most important in this issue, which happens to be the 1955 World Series, pitting the longtime rivals, the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers, and broadcast for the first time in color on NBC. Because both teams are located in New York, there are no travel days in the Series, which means that the seven games are played over the course of seven days, with the final four showing up in this issue. Mel Allen and Vin Scully call the play-by-play of those four games, the first two (Saturday and Sunday) in Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, the last two (six and seven) in Yankee Stadium. What I find interesting about these games, from a television perspective, is their starting time. The weekend games from Brooklyn started at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday and 9:45 a.m. on Sunday, while the two New York games each began at 8:45 a.m. Given that we're in the Pacific Time Zone, that still seems awfully early to start the World Series; it suggests that the games began at noon or 1:00 p.m., depending on the date, when in fact a look at the record books finds that the weekend games actually started at 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. Eastern time, while the Monday-Tuesday contests began at 1:00 p.m. This makes for a five-hour time discrepancy, not the four hours we'd expect. What accounts for the one-hour difference? Well, I was curious about that; did TV Guide get the start times wrong? (Horrors!) As it turns out, while we can't be certain, it appears that Portland (the home of this week's issue) returned to Standard Time on September 25, before the start of the Series, while New York City didn't switch back until October 30.* Hence, since Portland had already "fallen back," the five-hour difference. Aren't you glad you know that?
*The administration of Daylight Saving Time was something of a Wild West situation back then, with each state—and often even individual jurisdictions within states—having their own rules for when DST started and stopped, if it was observed at all.
The 1955 Series is popularly known as the one in which "next year" finally came; the teams had met in four previous Series over the course of the past eight years, with the Yankees winning each time, often in dramatic fashion; after each defeat, the Dodgers and their fans would cry, "Wait Until Next Year!" They almost had to reprise the motto this year; in the bottom of the sixth inning, with the Yankees trailing 2-0 but having runners on first and second and one out, Yankees catcher Yogi Berra slugged a fly ball down the left field line, which was caught by Sandy Amoros (one of the most famous catches in World Series history), who then started a double play to end the inning. The Dodgers held on to that 2-0 lead to take the Series, four games to three—their only World Series championship while in Brooklyn. However, as we know from last year, it would not be the last time the Dodgers would defeat the Yankees in the Fall Classic. TV
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September 26, 2025
Around the dial
At Comfort TV, David's journey through 1970s prime-time TV brings him (and us) to
Friday nights, 1976
. For a schoolkid, Friday nights were the best nights of the week, and in a night with movies on two of the three networks, NBC offers three shows you're sure to remember.Jodie returns at Garroway at Large with a Today Show feature on the Whirlpool Space Kitchen that comes very late in Garroway's run on the show. It's an archival treasure not just for what it tells us about Dave after so many years on the show, but a delightfully optimistic take on what the future could do for us.
At Cult TV Blog, John looks at the 1973-74 Walter Mittyesque sitcom Billy Liar, based on the movie of the same name, and the episode "Billy and the Scales of Justice." Is ths show as much fun to watch as it must have been to make? Well, that's up for debate; see what John thinks.
Garry Berman hearkens back to a time when a talk show host had a run-in with his network and left the air, albeit temporarily. We all know who that was, right? Jack Paar . Take a look back at one of the most memorable, and infamous, moments in TV history.
At Mavis Movie Madness, Paul uses the 70th anniversary of James Dean's death to look back at the 1981 East of Eden miniseries , featuring an all-star cast led by the star-making performance of Jane Seymour. How did it measure up to its storied film predecessor? You might be surprised.
A pair from Terence at A Shroud of Thoughts: the 40th birthday of The Golden Girls , a show of which I have never seen a single episode, although I readily concede its small place in television history; and a tribute to the legendary Robert Redford , who appeared in many a drama in TV's early days.
To be honest, I wasn't sure TV Guide still did a Fall Preview issue; it's been so long since I watched network TV that I wasn't even sure there was still a Fall season. But Robert bailed us out at Television Obscurities with his thoughts on this year's edition.
At The View from the Junkyard, Roger's tour of The A-Team comes to " Water, Water Everywhere ," and some perspective comments on our four heroes are really misfits who've come together to form a Team. And how great that is when it happens.
Finally, in this week's round of self-promotion, you'll want to check out my terrific interview with Tommy Kovac on his "Splat from the Past" podcast, which touches on details that I haven't had a chance to discuss on other programs. And my latest " Two Minute Author " video is also up, in which I discuss the tantalizing British telemovie The Year of the Sex Olympics. Enjoy! TV
If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!
September 24, 2025
I'll take Potpourri for $1,000, Alex
It would have been too easy to write about Jimmy Kimmel this week, and I’ll admit I was tempted. Ultimately, though, I just didn’t have the time. The issue isn’t really a political one—not for me, anyway. Rather, it’s a question of the rights and obligations of a television network, its affiliates, the FCC, and the use of the public airwaves. (And isn’t that a quaint phrase nowadays? "The public airwaves." It makes television sound like a public service instead of the noxious plague it so often seems to be.)But I digress. To take a real dive into the ontological and existential aspects of that story would require more time than I care to spend right now. Having just returned from the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, I’ve got better and far more enjoyable things waiting for my attention.
This year’s MANC was another triumph. We came away with movies, autographs, merchandise, and a heap of good memories. We had dinner with friends we hadn’t seen in over a decade, caught up with fellow nostalgia buffs we meet only once a year, attended excellent talks, and even had our pictures taken with Hailey and Juliet Mills. I don’t know how you top a weekend like that—short of winning the lottery, and even then, I’m not sure it would.
Meanwhile, the latest "American TV with Mitchell Hadley" doubleheader features Dan Schneider and me talking about two television pioneers who deserve more attention than they get: Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen. You can see them at this link .
Yesterday I also had a terrific conversation with Tommy Kovac's on his podcast "Splat from the Past," where we discussed—what else?—Darkness in Primetime. Since Tommy’s had me on before, he knows the right questions to ask, and that led us into more detail on individual episodes than I’ve gone into elsewhere. The show runs under an hour, and since it isn’t a video, you’re spared the ordeal of looking at me the whole time.
If, however, you’re a glutton for punishment, check out " The Two-Minute Author " series on my YouTube channel. In each short video I talk about the programs highlighted in Darkness in Primetime. If you don’t yet have the book (and why not?), the videos might nudge you into it. If you do, think of them as a companion piece that adds to the experience. I will eventually run out of things to say about Darkness, which is why, in the coming weeks, you’ll also hear more about my other projects: writing postmodern fiction, the writers who influenced me, book recommendations, and more. My interests extend beyond classic television, and this is where you’ll see that.
Speaking of which, have you subscribed to my monthly newsletter, "In Other Words"? It’s where I share updates on podcasts, new projects, book recommendations, and the occasional detour into something completely outside the writing world. It’s also where I talk more about my new novel in progress. Sign up for free here. The Two-Minute Author is a complement, not a duplicate, to what you’ll find there.
Finally, if you’ve read Darkness in Primetime—or any of my books—please consider leaving a review on Amazon or wherever you purchased it. Reviews matter hugely to independent authors. They help algorithms put our books in front of new readers, and they serve as the word-of-mouth every author relies on. On behalf of indie writers everywhere, thank you.
So yes, things are going very well here at Chez Hadley. With all of that good news, who really needs Jimmy Kimmel? TV
If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!
September 22, 2025
What's on TV? Wednesday, September 28, 1966
Admittedly, it's pretty hard to pass up an interview with someone billed as a topless snake-dancer, even though the best you're likely to get is a look at the snake and very little of the topless. Nonetheless, it appears that Gil Hile’s guest on his KGO all-night movie show is, in fact, Tara, the topless snake-dancer (also known as Judy Mamou), who performed at the infamous Condor Club in San Francisco, the nation's first fully topless nightclub, and the performing home of Carol Doda, perhaps the most famous topless dancer of the time. It goes without saying that we won't get the full impact of Tara's performance, but maybe we'll get to see her ? This week's edition is, unsurprisingly, from Northern California.-2- KTVU (BAY AREA) (IND.) Morning 9:45 RELIGION TODAY—Catholic 10:00 NEWS—Walt Harris 10:30 JACK LA LANNE COLOR 11:00 ROMPER ROOM—Children Afternoon 12:00 I WANT TO KNOW—Mel Venter 12:25 NEWS—Walt Harris 12:30 DIVORCE COURT—Drama 1:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (1947) 2:55 NEWS 3:00 CAPTAIN SATELLITE—Children 4:00 SUPERCAR—Children 4:30 ABBOTT AND COSTELLO 5:00 SUPERMAN—Adventure 5:30 THREE STOOGES—Comedy Evening 6:00 UNCLE WALDO COLOR 6:30 WOODY WOODPECKER COLOR 7:00 LITTLEST HOBO—Adventure 7:30 SURVIVAL!—Documentary 8:00 NEW BREED—Police 9:00 WEDNESDAY SHOWCASE SPECIAL COLOR 10:00 NEWS 10:30 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama 11:00 MOVIE—Drama “Blowing Wild” (1953)
-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) Morning 5:55 FARM NEWS COLOR 6:00 RHYME AND REASON 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Burr Tillstrom and the Kuklapolitans, William M. Stephens 9:00 EYE GUESS COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION 10:00 CHAIN LETTER—Game COLOR Celebrities: Dennis James, Ruta Lee. Host: Jan Murray 10:30 SHOWDOWN COLOR 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 SWINGIN’ COUNTRY COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:25 NEWS COLOR 12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:00 DOCTORS—Serial 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Celebrities: Marjorie Lord, Hal March. Host: Tom Kennedy 2:30 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “Hilda Crane” (1956) 4:00 MOVIE—Comedy Time approximate: “When Willie Comes Marching Home” (1950) 5:30 TRAVENTURE THEATRE SPECIAL COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS COLOR 7:30 VIRGINIAN—Western COLOR 9:00 BOB HOPE—Comedy SPECIAL COLOR Guests: Lucille Ball, Madeleine Carroll, Joan Caulfield, Joan Collins, Arlene Dahl, Phyllis Diller, Anita Ekberg, Rhonda Fleming, Joan Fontaine, Signe Hasso, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Marilyn Maxwell, Virginia Mayo, Dina Merrill, Vera Miles, Janis Paige, Jane Russell, Paul Lynde, Jerry Colonna, Ken Murray, Peter Leeds 10:00 I SPY—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS—Duke, Branch COLOR 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR From Hollywood: George Burns 1:00 NEWS COLOR
-4- KRON (BAY AREA) (NBC) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 PROFILE—San Diego State 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Burr Tillstrom and the Kuklapolitans, William M. Stephens 9:00 EYE GUESS COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION 10:00 CHAIN LETTER—Game COLOR Celebrities: Dennis James, Ruta Lee. Host: Jan Murray 10:30 SHOWDOWN COLOR 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 SWINGIN’ COUNTRY COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS COLOR 12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:00 DOCTORS—Serial 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Celebrities: Marjorie Lord, Hal March. Host: Tom Kennedy 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Celebrities: Les Crane, Anita Gillette. Host: Gene Rayburn 2:55 NEWS 3:00 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 3:30 MAYOR ART—Children 4:00 BACHELOR FATHER—Comedy 4:30 RAWHIDE—Western 5:30 NEWS Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Brown, Jensen 7:00 HONEY WEST—Mystery 7:30 VIRGINIAN—Western COLOR 9:00 BOB HOPE—Comedy SPECIAL COLOR Guests: Lucille Ball, Madeleine Carroll, Joan Caulfield, Joan Collins, Arlene Dahl, Phyllis Diller, Anita Ekberg, Rhonda Fleming, Joan Fontaine, Signe Hasso, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Marilyn Maxwell, Virginia Mayo, Dina Merrill, Vera Miles, Janis Paige, Jane Russell, Paul Lynde, Jerry Colonna, Ken Murray, Peter Leeds 10:00 I SPY—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR From Hollywood: George Burns 1:00 NEWS
-5- KPIX (BAY AREA) (CBS) Morning 6:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER Studies in Style: “The Human Speaking Instrument” 6:30 CHINA—History Part 4, Han dynasty 7:00 KPIX EDITORIAL—Louis Simon 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 NEWS—Jim Anderson 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 NEWS 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Danny Kaye, June Lockhart. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Edith Head 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 JOHN BARTHOLOMEW TUCKER—Variety Guest: Sharon Carnes 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety Co-host: Woody Woodbury 5:30 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 MARSHAL DILLON—Western 7:30 LOST IN SPACE COLOR 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 DANNY KAYE—Variety COLOR Guests: Frankie Randall, the Peanuts Sisters 11:00 NEWS 11:20 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety Guests: Tony Martin, Aliza Kashi 12:50 MOVIE—Drama “Crime Without Passion” (1934)
-6- KVIE (SACRAMENTO) (EDUC.) Morning 8:20 COLLEGE ENGLISH—Lessons Afternoon 5:00 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Sweetbreads and brains 5:30 DISCOVERY—Science Evening 6:00 LOST APPLE—Documentary SPECIAL 6:30 COLLEGE ENGLISH—Lessons 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 NINE ON JAPAN 8:00 REGIONAL REPORT SPECIAL 9:00 PLAY OF THE WEEK—Drama “Henry IV, Part I”
-7- KGO (BAY AREA) (ABC) Morning ALL NIGHT MOVIE—Continued Bronco 7:30 A.M.—Dunbar, Lindstrom, Bentley 8:00 GIRL TALK—Panel Guests: Sheilah Graham, Elsa Lanchester, Raquel Welch 8:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel Guests: Pat Carroll, Gloria Tracy, JoJo Marengo 9:00 MOVIE—Comedy “Love Is Better than Ever” (1952) 10:30 LUAU—Bill Gordon 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 DONNA REED—Comedy 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 TIME FOR US—Serial 2:55 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Perfomers: Ian Whitcomb, Tommy James and the Shondells 5:00 NEWS Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Comedy “Ma and Pa Kettle at Home” (1954) 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest villain: Victor Buono (King Tut) 8:00 MONROES—Western COLOR 9:00 MAN WHO NEVER WAS COLOR 9:30 PEYTON PLACE COLOR 10:00 ABC STAGE 67 COLOR “OLympus 7-0000” 11:00 NEWS 11:30 POLITICAL TALK—Republican Ronald Reagan, candidate for governor of California 11:35 MOVIE—Drama “Never Let Go” (English; 1962) 1:25 MOVIE—All Night 1. “Machine Gun Kelly” (1958) 2. “Santa Fe” (1951) 3. Hawaiian Eye Gil Hile’s scheduled guest is topless snake-dancer Tara
-7- KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Burr Tillstrom and the Kuklapolitans, William M. Stephens 9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise 9:30 CONCENTRATION 10:00 CHAIN LETTER—Game COLOR Celebrities: Dennis James, Ruta Lee. Host: Jan Murray 10:30 SHOWDOWN COLOR 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 SWINGIN’ COUNTRY COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 TIME FOR US—Serial 2:55 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Perfomers: Ian Whitcomb, Tommy James and the Shondells 5:00 MILTON THE MONSTER 5:30 ZORRO—Adventure Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 THAT GIRL—Comedy COLOR 7:30 VIRGINIAN—Western COLOR 9:00 BOB HOPE—Comedy SPECIAL COLOR Guests: Lucille Ball, Madeleine Carroll, Joan Caulfield, Joan Collins, Arlene Dahl, Phyllis Diller, Anita Ekberg, Rhonda Fleming, Joan Fontaine, Signe Hasso, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Marilyn Maxwell, Virginia Mayo, Dina Merrill, Vera Miles, Janis Paige, Jane Russell, Paul Lynde, Jerry Colonna, Ken Murray, Peter Leeds 10:00 ABC STAGE 67 COLOR “OLympus 7-0000” 11:00 NEWS 11:15 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR From Hollywood: George Burns
-8- KSBW (SALINAS) (CBS, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Burr Tillstrom and the Kuklapolitans, William M. Stephens 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 CONCENTRATION 10:00 LIFE OF RILEY—Comedy 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:30 SWINGIN’ COUNTRY COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Danny Kaye, June Lockhart. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Edith Head 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Drama “Trouble in the Glen” (1954) 5:30 MISTER ED—Comedy 5:45 MERLIN THE MAGICIAN Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 WHATT EARP—Western 7:30 LOST IN SPACE COLOR 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 I SPY—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR From Hollywood: George Burns
-9- KQED (BAY AREA) (EDUC.) Afternoon 4:00 EXPERIMENT—Science 5:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 5:30 5:45 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children MERLIN THE MAGICIAN Evening 6:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 6:30 PORTRAIT IN MUSIC 7:00 FRENCH LESSONS 7:15 FRENCH TRAVELOG 7:30 REGIONAL REPORT SPECIAL 8:30 PLAY OF THE WEEK—Drama “The Iceman Cometh” 10:20 KQED REPORT—James Day 10:30 EXPERIMENT—Science
-9- KIXE (REDDING) (EDUC.) Morning 8:20 COLLEGE ENGLISH—Lessons Afternoon 5:00 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Sweetbreads and brains 5:30 DISCOVERY—Science Evening 6:30 COLLEGE ENGLISH—Lessons 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 NINE ON JAPAN 8:00 REGIONAL REPORT SPECIAL 9:00 PLAY OF THE WEEK—Drama “Henry IV, Part I”
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) Morning 6:00 FOCUS ON FARMING 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 SUNRISE SEMESTER Studies in Style: “The Human Speaking Instrument” 7:00 FOCUS ON FARMING COLOR 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 WINCHELL-MAHONEY—Children 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 NEWS 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Danny Kaye, June Lockhart. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Edith Head 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel Guests: Pia Lindstrom, Joe Hyams 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety Co-host: Woody Woodbury 5:30 NEWS Evening 6:00 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 6:30 RIFLEMAN—Western 7:00 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama 7:30 LOST IN SPACE COLOR 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 DANNY KAYE—Variety COLOR Guests: Frankie Randall, the Peanuts Sisters 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “The System” (1953) 1:15 WEATHER—Russell COLOR
11 KNTV (SAN JOSE) (ABC) Morning 8:00 EN FRANCE—Language 8:30 BULLWINKLE—Cartoons 9:00 HOCUS POCUS—Children 9:15 BUCKAROO 500—Buck Weaver 9:30 HOCUS POCUS--Children 10:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 DONNA REED—Comedy 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 TIME FOR US—Serial 2:55 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Perfomers: Ian Whitcomb, Tommy James and the Shondells 5:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 5:30 NEWS 5:45 NEWS—Peter Jennings Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 LARAMIE—Western 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest villain: Victor Buono (King Tut) 8:00 MONROES—Western COLOR 9:00 MAN WHO NEVER WAS COLOR 9:30 PEYTON PLACE COLOR 10:00 ABC STAGE 67 COLOR “OLympus 7-0000” 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Western “The Violent Men” (1954)
12 KHSL (CHICO) (ABC, CBS) Morning 7:05 EXISTENCE—UC, Davis 7:35 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 PEOPLE ARE FUNNY—Art Linkletter 12:15 TODAY IN AGRICULTURE 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Danny Kaye, June Lockhart. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Edith Head 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Western “Comanche Station” (1960) Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 BATMAN—Adventure Guest villain: Van Johnson (The Minstral) 7:30 LOST IN SPACE COLOR 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 DANNY KAYE—Variety COLOR Guests: Frankie Randall, the Peanuts Sisters 11:00 NEWS 11:30 CALL MR. D.—Mystery
13 KOVR (SACRAMENTO) (ABC) Morning 6:55 NEWS 7:00 CARTOONLAND COLOR 7:45 SERGEANT PRESTON—Adventure 8:15 CARTOONLAND COLOR 8:30 JACK LA LANNE COLOR 9:00 DIVORCE COURT—Drama 10:00 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 10:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 NEWS 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 TIME FOR US—Serial 2:55 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 CAP’N DELTA—Children COLOR 4:30 ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS—Cartoons COLOR 5:00 NEWS 5:45 NEWS—Peter Jennings Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Comedy “The Naughty Nineties” (1945) 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest villain: Victor Buono (King Tut) 8:00 MONROES—Western COLOR 9:00 MAN WHO NEVER WAS COLOR 9:30 PEYTON PLACE COLOR 10:00 ABC STAGE 67 COLOR “OLympus 7-0000” 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MATT DILLON—Western 12:00 WELLS FARGO—Western
19 KLOC (MODESTO) (IND.) Afternoon 4:00 ROMPER ROOM—Children 5:00 MARSHAL WARD—Children 5:30 BUCKAROO 500—Children Evening 6:00 DENNIS THE MENACE—Comedy 6:30 WILBURN BROTHERS—Music 7:00 NEWS—Charles McEwen 7:05 ZANE GREY—Western 7:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Houston Story” (1956) 9:30 NAKED CITY—Drama 10:00 NEWS 10:15 QUEST FOR ADVENTURE
32 KSAN (BAY AREA) (IND.) Afternoon 4:30 CARTOONS 5:30 WILD BILL HICKOK—Western Evening 6:00 SOUPY SALES—Comedy 6:30 TREASURE—Documentary 7:00 BILL ANDERSON—Music 7:30 MOVIE—Drama “Eagle Squadron” (1942) 9:30 MOVIE—Adventure “The Bandit of Sherwood Forest” (1946)
42 KCFT (BAY AREA) (IND.) Afternoon 5:00 LET’S IMAGINE—Children 5:30 FILM FEATURE Evening 6:00 FILM FEATURE 6:30 NEWS—Jim Manfrina 6:45 SPORTS—Ed Hart 7:00 PARTY LINE—Jerry Bassett 7:30 SPOTLITE ON SPEED COLOR 10:00 NEWS
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September 20, 2025
This week in TV Guide: September 24, 1966
It doesn't seem right that we'd pass up the opportunity to talk about Barbara Eden when she's on the cover of TV Guide, does it?Unfortunately, we don't get nearly enough of Jeannie in this feature, which is about the show's transition from last season's black and white episodes to this year, in which she appears in living color. (On the other hand, Jeannie in color has to be good news no matter how one looks at it.) But it's an interesting story, because it presents a situation that we don't think about all that often: the series that started out in B&W and then made the switch to color. For some longer-running shows, this was kind of a downgrade; I don't think anyone would argue that The Fugitive and Combat! were better in color; monochrome was particularly effective in transmitting the grittiness and darkness in these shows, not to mention that "exterior" scenes shot in a studio are usually a little easier to disguise in black and white. There are some who would even make the case that a show like The Wild Wild West benefitted from black and white; it toned down the surreality of the steampunk devices utilized throughout the show's history, and made the show a little more grounded.
On the other hand, I don't know that there's any particular disadvantage to a show such as I Dream of Jeannie being shot in color, particularly since the show's designers really knew how to take advantage of it. This week's story details how the show's special effects man, Dick Albain, along with his five assistants, "spent weeks inventing a process to create a cloudy effect which would seemingly waft the beautiful Barbara across TV screens." The effect was eventually achieved through a combination of dry ice, steam, mirrors, and a system of colored lights. "We manufactured different colors of smoke, all traveling as in a Frankenstein marsh scene," Albain explains. "The idea was to show the viewers that Jeannie is going from one scene to another."
These kinds of detail are, I suppose, things that one doesn't ordinarily consider when looking at the effort required to transition a show to color. Of course, even in those monochrome days, the colors used in sets and costumes was an important consideration, given that certain colors transmit off a different look or in black and white. (Case in point: the pink interior of the Addams Family living room.) And when you consider the vividness of the potential color in a Jeannie episode, it's easy to understand how both the "All Color Network" and the show's producers would want to exploit it to its utmost.
Eden says that shooting with the new effects is "like being in a beautiful fairyland, among the mirrors, smoke and lights. The smoke is my traveling music." That's not to say that it's all good news on the set, though. She also concedes that it gets pretty hot after a couple of hours with those colored lights. "Not only that, but my expensive silk-chiffon pants shrank." Oh dear.
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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: Scheduled guests: Ethel Merman; the rock ‘n’ rolling Supremes; Frank Fontaine; Allen Funt, who shows films of Ed’s appearance in “Candid Camera’; pianist Peter Nero; comics Nipsey Russell and Steve Rossi; dancer Peter Gennaro; the comic Uncalled for Three; and baseball greats Rube Marquard, Lefty O’Doul and Fred Snodgrass. (The Sullivan online listings omit Funt, Gennaro, and the baseball greats.)
Palace: Phil Silvers, making his debut as a Palace host, introduces singers Polly Bergen, Sergio Franchi and the folk-rocking Lovin’ Spoonful; and the comedy team of Carl Reiner and "2000-year-old man" Mel Brooks. Also on the bill: sword-swallower Tagora, and Mr. and Mrs. Bob Top, who roller-skate on a 60-foot-high platform.
This week's choice really depends on what you're looking for. If comedy's your thing, then Silvers, Reiner and Brooks are very, very hard to beat. On the other hand, if it's music, then you might lean toward the Supremes, Peter Nero, and the Merm as your pick. As befits an early-season matchup, they're both strong lineups, and consequently, you shouldn't be surprised that I'm begging off on taking a stand. This week is a Push.
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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. Every once in a while, Our Man Cleve punts on reviewing a specific program in favor of taking on an entire genre. This is one of those weeks, as Cleve shares with us a few thoughts on sports before taking up the new season's shows.
As Amory perceptively observes, "Many people originally started their TViewing with sports." Think about it: what are your early television memories? Mine are almost exclusively sports, and it's not just because it's easier to identfy such events by titles, such as an all-star game, World Series, or Super Bowl. And, in fact, there has never been a time in the medium's history when sports hasn't been a main part of the draw: wrestling, boxing, even, as Amory points out, roller derby. They were easy to cover, operating in essentially a self-contained studio, and they had a ready-made audience. However, nowadays sports has become such a big part of TV that "the chief danger now is that TV’s going to take over sports altogether—and even change our sports seasons." Have truer words ever been spoken?
By and large, television has done right by its expanded coverage, particularly when it comes to golf, "a sport you would hardly consider a spectator one to begin with." The recent introduction of instant replay and stop-action tapes has been "outstanding"; "Miserable as they may be for umpires, they are terrific for viewers, particularly on such a fine show as the weekly Major League Baseball." However, there's one trend that Cleve is apprehensive about, and that's that announcers for local games are hired "with the approval of the major-league teams and paid by the teams or the TV sponsors." Regardless of how these announcers go about their jobs (and, Amory notes, the vast majority "lean over backwards to be fair to their team's opponents"), it is the appearance that matters, and here the look is not a good one; announcers should be free from the suspicion such controls create; better yet, they "should be free of such control."
I wonder what Amory would think about today's televised sports, where entire networks (looking at you, ESPN) are owned or about to be owned in part by one of the leagues whose games it covers. It raises concerns about the objectivity of those in the business, whether they're announcing the games or, in the case of a network like ESPN, the network itself presumes to style itself as a news-reporting outlet. In so doing, it creates a situation which even a forward-looking critic such as Cleveland Amory might have had trouble anticipating. And, as is so often the case, it creates a situation where nobody knows how it ends. That's not the kind of drama we look for from sports on television.
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Let's stay with this sports motif a moment longer, because, as Henry Harding writes in his For the Record column, "The weekend of Sept. 10 and 11 probably broke some sports record or other, at least where TV is concerned." "Never before," Harding says, "had so much muscle been strained before so many frenetic fans." The entertainment included an NFL game on September 10 between the Baltimore Colts and Green Bay Packers*, a heavyweight title bout between Cassius Clay and Karl Mildenberger, the baseball Game of the Week between the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, and the first major college football game of the season pitting Syracuse and Baylor. Viewers were also treated to the finals of the U.S. Tennis Championships at Forest Hills, and the final two rounds of the World Series of Golf. *What's perhaps most surprising about this to modern eyes is that the NFL was trounced in the ratings by NBC's coverage of the Miss America Pageant. Today, that pageant barely exists as an entity, let alone a TV behemoth, while the NFL just purchased 10 percent of ESPN, and even owns a share of CBS.
For contrast—and admit it, you knew this was coming—let's take a look at sports on television for the weekend of September 6 and 7 of this year. As was the case back in 1966, the offerings included the men's and women's finals of U.S. Open tennis, and there's baseball and football. Specifically, there's a lot of football; setting aside for the moment the myriad options offered by streaming services and league-operated networks, the average viewer could choose from a single college football game on CBS and NBC each, two on Fox, three each on ABC and the CW, and literally dozens more on cable. There was also time for Saturday night baseball on Fox, plus soccer (both professional and college, volleyball, and other marginal sports. Sunday was, not surprisingly, dominated by pro football, with at least three NFL games to choose from on Sunday afternoon between Fox and CBS, plus one on NBC Sunday night (and an additional game on Monday night on ABC, for those counting). There was also NASCAR and Formula 1 auto racing, men's and women's soccer, along with regional baseball for those with local teams.
In other words, if one were to include streaming sports from around the world, a viewer could literally go from the NFL game on Friday on YouTube clear through to late Sunday night watching nothing but sports. Even with those having nothing other than an antenna (the most like-for-like comparison with 1966), one could easily go from noon to midnight both Saturday and Sunday with sports as a constant presence. With the amount of money networks spend for the rights to telecast sports—an amount in the billions of dollars—one has to ask if sports have taken over television, or if television has taken over sports. It is, to be sure, a mutually agreeable situation for both, and not a bad deal for the fans, either.
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The first month or so of a new season is often rife with big names, specials, and blockbusters of one kind or another, and this week is no exception. The highlights begin, appropriately enough, on Saturday, with the first of ten original musicals on The Jackie Gleason Show (7:30 p.m., CBS). Tonight's presentation, "The Politician," stars Gleason as Big Jim Finley, a machine politician running for re-election as mayor against an opponent, Frank Meriweather who is everything Finney isn't: astronaut, veteran, and movie star. Elliot Reid is Meriweather, and Art Carney, the indispensable man, plays Finley's advisor. I think many of us are familiar with Gleason's later Honeymooners musicals, but this is something I wasn't familiar with. Later, on David Susskind's Play of the Week (9:00 p.m., KQED), it's "A Cool Wind Over the Living," with Diana Hyland and James Patterson as two young people pondering their lives while attempting to gas themselves to death—even though they haven't paid their bill and the gas company has shut off the service. Not quite the network fare you'd see today.
Amongst all the football on Sunday, we've got some gems. On KNTV in San Jose, it's the Oscar-winning movie All the King's Men (4:30 p.m.), a political drama-cum-gothic horror story, with Broderick Crawford outstanding as Willie Stark, a man for our times. On the Bell Telephone Hour (6:30 p.m., NBC), it's an up-close-and-personal at Gian Carlo Menotti's festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. Appearing with the composer of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" and "The Saint of Bleecker Street" are conductor Thomas Schippers, pianist Sviatoslav Richter, and soprano Shirley Verrett. And perhaps the week's highlight, the television premiere of The Bridge on the River Kwai, the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1957, starring Alec Guinness. Unlike most epics of the time, Kwai is broadcast uncut and on a single night; it will draw an audience of 72 million viewers, at the time the largest ever to view a movie broadcast, and a 61 percent share. You think a network wouldn't kill for something like that today?On Monday, the great Stan Freberg makes a rare television appearance on The Monkees (7:30 p.m., NBC), in an episode where the boys try to get regular jobs in order to pay the rent, but Peter has to deal with a computer aptitude test. In local movies, the sinking of the Titanic, which had faded in memory after two World Wars, first returned to the public consciousness in the movie of the same name (9:30 p.m., KSBW in Salinas), with Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Wagner. Don't mistake this for the more recent Titanic movie, which might be more spectacular, but this fictional story of the great ship's foundering, which was my introduction to a lifelong interest in the Titanic, tells a pretty good story on its own. And Johnny Carson welcomes a couple of heavyweight guests to The Tonight Show (11:15 p.m., NBC) in Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Bob Hope.
Boris Karloff makes a delightful appearance on The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., NBC), dressed for the role of "Mother Muffin" a kindly old woman who also runs an assassination academy. Bruce Gordon, whom we all know and love as Frank Nitti on The Untouchables, guest stars as gangster Vito Pomade, and don't even begin to ask how he fits into the story. The night's rounded off by a couple of serious-minded programs: a CBS Reports look at "Black Power—White Backlash" (10:00 p.m.), documenting the mounting white concern about the rise of the civil rights movement in the North. On NET, Open Mind (10:00 p.m.) features an interview with the provocative media critic Marshall McLuhan, who discusses some of his theories on the effect of media on man’s consciousness.
I can't think of a better way to get Wednesday started than with The Today Show (7:00 a.m., NBC), with Burr Tillstrom and his Kuklapolitan Players. In primetime, Bob Hope hosts his first special of the new season (9:00 p.m., NBC), in which he announces that his "favorite leading lady" will be starring with him in a musical version of Gone with the Wind. Just who is that "favorite" lady? Among the competitors are Lucille Ball, Madeleine Carroll, Joan Caulfield, Joan Collins, Arlene Dahl, Phyllis Diller, Anita Ekberg, Rhonda Fleming, Joan Fontaine, Signe Hasso, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Marilyn Maxwell, Virginia Mayo, Dina Merrill, Vera Miles, Janis Paige and Jane Russell. No wonder Bob's developed a nervous twitch. On Thursday, it's the fourth and final episode of The Tammy Grimes Show (8:30 p.m., ABC), so if you've been thinking about checking out this much-maligned show (and I don't know why you would), here's your last chance. At the time, it was almost unheard-of for a series to be cancelled this quickly; obviously, things have changed a bit since then. An eponymous show of a slightly more successful bent is The Dean Martin Show (10:00 p.m., NBC), and Deano's got a star-studded lineup tonight, with Duke Ellington and his rhythm section, the Andrews Sisters, Frank Gorshin, Tim Conway, and Lainie Kazan.
Friday night, it's a rare NFL weeknight matchup, with the San Francisco 49ers taking on the Los Angeles Rams from the Los Angeles Coliseum (8:00 p.m., KTVU); due to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 , the game is limited to coverage by local stations. As I recall, the scheduling was due to a stadium conflict with USC, but I could be mistaken on that. And on the short-lived—although not as short-lived as Tammy Grimes—Milton Berle Show (9:00 p.m., ABC), Uncle Miltie welcomes Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, and Ken Berry from the network's F Troop, plus singer Donna Loren and Johnny Puleo and the Harmonica Rascals. Oh, and I almost forgot: Bob Hope, too. Remember how a week or two ago I said something about Bob Hope never meeting a show he wasn't willing to appear on? I swear, he must have had a standing agreement that any program needing a guest star had to give him first dibs. There was a reason why Hope was a big star, though.
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MST3K alert: The Black Scorpion (1957). The Mexican Army is called out to battle a horde of man-eating scorpions, but one of the creatures escapes and heads for Mexico City. Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas. (Sunday, 2:30 p.m., KXRA in Sacramento) Richard Denning, after solving mysteries with his wife on Mr. and Mrs. North, but before being elected governor of Hawaii (even though we all know Steve McGarrett really ran the state), had time to hunt down giant scorpions. If you've seen the MST3K take, you'll agree with me that they should have left Juanito down in that cavern. TV
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September 19, 2025
Around the dial
Good morning from Towson, Maryland, where I'm coming to you live today from the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, our annual pilgrimage where we can talk about old TV and movies without sounding hopelessly out of touch with the rest of the world. Although considering the state of the world today, being out of touch isn't such a bad thing. After all, around here, when people talk about late night television, it's usually either Johnny Carson or a test pattern. And
speaking as I was the other day about "old,"
it's not such a bad thing. Anyway, let's get to it.At Comfort TV, David gives me the chance to link to someone else promoting me, with his very kind review of Darkness in Primetime . And by the way, have you purchased your copy yet? You do want to be part of the cool crowd, don't you?
John is back in documentary mode at Cult TV Blog with this look at the infamous " Nine O'Clock Service " experiment in the Church of England; it's a double-header post, because John also tells us about an admirable book that serves as a perfect compliment to the documentary. It makes for disgusting reading; afterward, I felt as if I had to take another shower.
I'm breaking from Roger's A-Team reviews at A View from the Junkyard for his look at " The Computer Wore Menace Shoes ," an all-time Simpsons classic featuring Patrick McGoohan's final television performance as the redoubtable Number 6. I'll tell you no more about it; read it for yourself.
At Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddie celebrates an anniversary of a show that both she and I count as a favorite: The Wild Wild West , which premiered 60 years ago. Besides Robert Conrad and Ross Martin, the show was blessed with terrific guest stars, especially Michael Dunn; it also had going for it something increasingly rare on television: an original idea.
In my TV Guide pieces, I've occasionally mentioned Startime, one of the shows from the end of the Golden Age that truly lived up to its name as a home for star-studded spectaculars; at Drunk TV, Paul looks at the 1959 broadcast of " The Jazz Singer ," starring Jerry Lewis in a then-rare dramatic role. It's an opportunity to look at a color broadcast from the late 1950s, and worth checking out.
Garry Berman is back with ten great sitcom episodes that seldom get talked about, and it's particularly interesting considering how many of these episodes are from series that we're quite familiar with. Being a completist at heart, it's always nice to go into those deep cuts and see what you come up with.
What's that, you say? Assorted trivia from TV Guide ? Well, I'm not going to pass this up, thanks to Martin Grams. I will always say that TV Guide is one of the best time capsules you can find. And speaking of MANC as we were, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you of the presentation I gave here a few years ago on the very subject of TV Guide as a time capsule! TV
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September 17, 2025
How old is "old"?
I've long since become accustomed to the idea that nothing of much value comes from the BBC, including the letters "B" and "C." I'm not here, though, to rag on the BBC. Instead, I'm going to rag on an article I bookmarked from the BBC website about four years ago.The article, by David Renshaw, asks the question: Is Watching Old TV Good For the Soul? For those of us who hang out here, the answer is obviously yes. It is, in the words of my friend David Hofstede, Comfort TV . It's something of an existential question, getting to the heart not only of what old television purports to be, but how it intersects with the increasingly fluid values displayed in today's pop culture. I suppose you could describe it as the basis for everything this website is about, and in fact I did describe it that way in the first chapter of The Electronic Mirror , which is pretty much all about the question of what classic television is. The only question that concerns me right now, however, is how you define the word old.
I've used the words old and classic more or less interchangeably in that paragraph, because that's how I've always thought of it myself. Maybe I've been wrong about that, though. Someone once suggested using the word "vintage" instead of "classic," since classic implies a certain quality that doesn't necessarily depend on age; hence the otherwise oxymoronic term "instant classic." (I suppose one could say that "instant classic" is as oxymoronic as "instant coffee," but since I don't drink coffee, I don't have a horse in that race.) Anyway, it was a good suggestion, but I was already too far down the road I've taken to change, and so the term remains "classic television."*
*Or, as I call it in Darkness in Primetime, "Classic-Era Television."
But this Renshaw article redefines old in a way that isn't familiar to me. Some of the "old" television programs mentioned in the article include:The SopranosThe OfficeSeinfeldThe West WingDepending on what you think of them, these shows (and others from their era) could, I suppose, be considered classic, but would you consider them old? I don't; to me, "old" means the 1950s and 1960s, perhaps the 1970s. I suppose, though, today's viewers would consider them not old, but ancient. Maybe that's what bothers me about this article; after all, if shows from less than 30 years ago can be considered old, what does that make me, in the early years of my seventh decade? Am I ancient too? Hell, I'm not even eligible for Medicare yet.
It gets worse. Renshaw quotes Daniel D'Addario, Variety's head TV critic: "'The sea-change I'm really expecting is that there will come a point where we're so far past Friends and The Office that future generations cannot relate to them,' he says, pointing to I Love Lucy as an example of a classic TV show that no longer chimes with modern audiences."
It's true that I've never been much of a fan of Lucy, but I'm going to take a stand on her behalf here. Yes, the world populated by Lucy and Ricky Ricardo is one that might appear foreign to modern audiences, unless they grew up watching Mad Men (another "old" program). And yet, I have to ask why Lucy wouldn't chime with them? The show's humor, much of it rooted in the human condition, is timeless, and often laugh-out-loud funny. Love, friendship, misunderstandings, couples getting mad and making up—these are things that have tickled the funny bones of people for generations. And as for slapstick, someone once said that nothing was funnier than a man slipping on a banana peel, because the anticipation was half of the fun. Isn't that how we feel when Lucy and Ethel are trying to keep up with the chocolates on the assembly line in the candy factory? And I'm not just talking about comedy; is there any who can really say, with a straight face, that a show like The Twilight Zone doesn't have something to say to us today?No, you know what kinds of shows I think future generations won't be able to relate to? Shows that traffic in political proselytizing in the guise of entertainment. These shows don't even attempt to be timeless; they're geared to appeal to others of similar beliefs, a kind of secret handshake that welcomes like-minded viewers into an exclusive club, from which they can laugh at and ridicule those outside their clubhouse walls. I suppose these shows, like so many other things in our modern economy, are designed to be disposable; considering the number of programs viewers can choose from (532 original scripted television series were created last year), maybe they don't need to have any shelf life at all. We watch them, and when we're done with them, we just throw them away. Maybe it's just me, but I doubt that in twenty years, very many people are going to be laughing at jokes about presidents with orange hair.
The best part of this article, by far, is D'Addario's explanation of why people turn to old shows, and it's as David Hofstede says: for comfort. "[T]here is the comfort of familiarity. The things people are binging are not deeply experimental, you know the rhythms of these shows very well. It's about knowing what you're getting and letting it wash over you." And for people who feel alienated from today's world that seems to say that right is wrong, left is right, up is down—well, for them (and there are a lot of them), that familiarity is not going to be found exclusively in the shows of the last thirty years; they're going to find it in shows like Leave it to Beaver, Andy Griffith, and, yes, I Love Lucy.
It is, I think, alarming that we've come to the point that we consider something from thirty years ago as old. It really doesn't have anything to do with television at all, you know. It's a disregard for experience, for history, for tradition; it's a scorn for values that were accepted and lived out for centuries, if not millennia. It's the mark of a society that thinks only the now is important and that values are transitory, that crucifies people for the sin of having been products of their time, that views the past and those from it as being as disposable as, well, those TV shows I was talking about.
So that brings us back to the question I posed at the beginning: how old is old? It's a question we all struggle to answer; we keep coming up with trite phrases like "60 is the new 40"* and then plaster them on wooden plaques we hang on our walls to make ourselves feel better as the birthdays ramp up; we keep talking and dressing and living as if we're still twenty years younger than we are. We don't want to grow up, let alone grow old.*Being half a decade past 60, I can assure you that I do not feel 40. In many ways, my life is much better; nevertheless, my body says otherwise.
There are those who say that seeking comfort in nostalgia is an attempt to escape the world of today, but maybe it's also a way of acknowledging that we're all growing older, at the rate of 60 minutes per hour, and that we've come to terms with it. Watching television from the 1950s and 1960s isn't a way of trying to recapture our youth—it's admitting that, like these shows, we are old, and we accept it. As Harry Reasoner (a really old TV guy, and therefore of no importance) once said, no matter how a man tries to avoid risk or grasp for youth, "he may get one day extra or none; he never gets eternity." Not in this world, anyway. TV
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September 15, 2025
What's on TV? Wednesday, September 20, 1978
Today we have examples of two programs on commercial television that we're more accustomed to seeing on public broadcasting: Doctor Who and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Doctor Who's history in the United States began in the 1970s with the half-hour episodes appearing in syndication via Time-Life Television, and while it's always been identified with PBS, it would occasionally pop up on a commercial station, often in the late afternoon timeslot, as we see here on WTEV. Monty Python sightings on independent stations, in this case WKBG, are also unusual (if more common than Doctor Who), but at least it's being shown in a timeslot that its fans would recognize from PBS airings: 11:00 p.m. A couple of interesting rarities, courtesy of this week's Eastern New England issue.-2- WGBH (BOSTON) (PBS) MORNING 9:00 IT’S EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS AFTERNOON 2:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs Guest: Robert Stack 3:00 EVENING AT POPS Guest: Noel Parenti 3:30 BEWITCHED—Comedy BW 4:00 SESAME STREET—Children 5:00 MISTER ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD—Children 5:30 SESAME STREET—Children EVENING 6:30 SOMETHING’S HAPPENING—Report 7:00 ZOOM—Children 7:30 PHOTO SHOW—Instruction 8:00 ECHOES OF SILVER—Profile 8:30 LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER Special: Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, Rudolf Serkin 10:30 NEWS 11:00 MacNEIL/LEHRER REPORT 11:30 DICK CAVETT Guest: Ed Emswhiller
-3- WFSB (HARTFORD) (CBS) MORNING 6:00 NOBODY EVER ASKED ME! 7:00 CBS NEWS—Leslie Stahl/Richard Threlkeld 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 GONG SHOW—Game 9:30 MATCH GAME Fannie Flagg, Marilu Henner 10:00 MIKE DOUGLAS Co-host: Cheryl Ladd. Guests: Steve Kanaly, Charlene Tilton, Kip Addotta, Tuxedo Junction 11:00 ALL IN THE FAMILY 11:30 YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS—Serial AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS DAY—Baughns/Sahl 1:00 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 2:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 4:00 DINAH! Guests: Dick Clark, George Carlin, Sarah Vaughan, Carole Bayer Sager, Merle Ellis, Dar Robinson 5:30 MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy EVENING 6:00 NEWS 7:00 CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7:30 PM MAGAZINE 8:00 JEFFERSONS 8:30 IN THE BEGINNING—Comedy Debut 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “Are You in the House Alone?” (Made-for-TV; 1978) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 HAWAII FIVE-O—Crime Drama 12:40 KOJAK—Crime Drama
-4- WBZ (BOTSON) (NBC) MORNING 6:15 SIGN ON SEMINAR: WORLD AROUND THE REVOLUTION “Books and Literacy" 6:45 NEWS 7:00 TODAY—Tom Brokau Guests: Zubin Mehta, Mario Andretti 9:00 YOU DON’T SAY—Game 9:30 FOR RICHER, FOR POORER 10:00 CARD SHARKS—Game 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game 11:00 HIGH ROLLERS—Game 11:30 WHEEL OF FORTUNE—Game AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:30 WOMAN ’78—Sharon King 1:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial 2:30 DOCTORS—Serial 3:00 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS Co-host: Cheryl Ladd. Guests: Steve Kanaly, Charlene Tilton, Kip Addotta, Tuxedo Junction, Dennis Kucinich, Liz Smith 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6:00 NEWS 7:00 NBC NEWS—John Chancellor/David Brinkley 7:30 EVENING MAGAZINE 8:00 DICK CLARK—Variety Debut: Guests: Diana Ross, Rick Nelson, Kristy and Jimmy McNichol, Los Angeles Rams cheerleaders, Dar Robinson, Doc Severinsen, Paul Williams, Frankie Avalon, Bo Diddley, Seals & Crofts, Chuck Berry, Billy Preston, Johnny Rivers, Junior Walker, Marvin Hamlish, Jim Stafford, Eddie Money, Rick Danko 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “Airport ‘77” (1977), conclusion 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON Scheduled: Joe Namath 1:00 TOMORROW—Tom Snyder 2:00 NEWS
-5- WCVB (BOSTON) (ABC) MORNING 6:00 NEWS 6:25 NEWS FOR THE DEAF 6:30 NEWS 6:50 NEWS FOR THE DEAF 7:00 GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman 9:00 GOOD DAY! 10:30 PHIL DONAHUE Guest: Dick Clark 11:30 HAPPY DAYS AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:30 RYAN’S HOPE 1:00 ALL MY CHILDREN 2:00 ONE LIFE TO LIVE 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial 4:00 CONCENTRATION 4:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game 5:00 GONG SHOW—Game Judges: Arte Johnson, Eva Gabor, Peter Lawford 5:30 CAROL BURNETT AND FRIENDS Guest: Rock Hudson EVENING 6:00 NEWS 7:00 ABC NEWS 7:30 IN SEARCH OF 8:00 EIGHT IS ENOUGH 9:00 CHARLIE’S ANGELS—Crime Drama 10:00 VEGA$—Crime Drama Debut 11:00 NEWS 11:30 POLICE WOMAN—Crime Drama 12:40 S.W.A.T.—Crime Drama 1:50 NEWS 2:00 MOVIE—Comedy BW “Postman’s Knock” (English; 1961) 3:45 FIVE ALL NIGHT 4:00 BRIEFING SESSION—Discussion 4:30 GOOD DAY!
-6- WTEV (NEW BEDFORD) (CBS) MORNING 5:45 ENGLISH FOR THE PORTUGUESE 6:00 NEWS 6:25 JOB OPPORTUNITIES 6:30 COMMUNITY—Discussion 6:55 NEWS 7:00 FRED FLINTSTONE & FRIENDS—Cartoon 7:30 NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB 7:55 NEWS 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 THAT GIRL—Comedy 9:30 MATCH GAME Charles Nelson Reilly, Brett Somers 10:00 ALL IN THE FAMILY 10:30 PRICE IS RIGHT—Game 11:30 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial 11:55 CBS NEWS—Douglas Edwards AFTERNOON 12:00 YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS—Serial 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 1:00 FAMILY AFFAIR—Comedy 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 2:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 3:30 M*A*S*H 4:00 WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME—Cartoon 4:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy BW 5:00 DOCTOR WHO—Science Fiction “Genesis of the Daleks,” Episode 3 5:30 BRADY BUNCH—Comedy EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:30 CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7:00 JOKER’S WILD—Game 7:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game 8:00 JEFFERSONS 8:30 IN THE BEGINNING—Comedy Debut 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “Are You in the House Alone?” (Made-for-TV; 1978) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 HAWAII FIVE-O—Crime Drama 12:40 KOJAK—Crime Drama 1:50 NEWS
-7- WNAC (BOSTON) (CBS) MORNING 5:45 SUNRISE SEMESTER English Language Arts: Communicating an idea 6:20 PEOPLESCOPE 6:50 LAS NOTICIAS DE HOY 7:00 CBS NEWS—Leslie Stahl/Richard Threlkeld 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 DINAH! Guests: Don Meredith, Frank Gifford, Wayne Rogers, Seals & Crofts, Debbie Austin 10:30 PRICE IS RIGHT—Game 11:30 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial 11:55 CBS NEWS—Douglas Edwards AFTERNOON 12:00 DATING GAME 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 1:00 YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 2:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 3:30 MERV GRIFFIN Guests: K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Dick Shawn, Susan Anton 4:30 STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6:30 CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7:00 CANDLEPINS FOR CASH—Game 7:30 BIG MONEY—Lottery Drawing 8:00 JEFFERSONS 8:30 MASS. REACTION—Discussion 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “Are You in the House Alone?” (Made-for-TV; 1978) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 HAWAII FIVE-O—Crime Drama 12:40 KOJAK—Crime Drama 1:50 ASIAN FOCUS 2:05 NEWS
-8- WTNH (NEW HAVEN) (ABC) MORNING 6:00 MAKE IT REAL—Discussion 6:30 LITTLE RASCALS—Comedy BW 7:00 GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman 9:00 PHIL DONAHUE Guest: Dick Clark 10:00 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial 10:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial 11:00 HAPPY DAYS 11:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game AFTERNOON 12:00 12 O’CLOCK LIVE!—Interview 1:00 ALL MY CHILDREN 2:00 ONE LIFE TO LIVE 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial 4:00 BRADY BUNCH—Comedy 4:30 BATTLE OF THE PLANETS 5:00 SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN EVENING 6:00 NEWS 7:00 ABC NEWS 7:30 $1.98 BEAUTY CONTEST—Game 8:00 EIGHT IS ENOUGH 9:00 CHARLIE’S ANGELS—Crime Drama 10:00 VEGA$--Crime Drama Debut 11:00 NEWS 11:30 POLICE WOMAN—Crime Drama 12:40 S.W.A.T.—Crime Drama
-9- WMUR (MANCHESTER) (ABC) MORNING 6:00 PTL CLUB—Religion 7:00 UNCLE GUS—Children 8:00 GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman 9:00 PTL CLUB—Religion 10:00 PHIL DONAHUE 11:00 HAPPY DAYS 11:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game AFTERNOON 12:00 $20,000 PYRAMID Martin Mull, Didi Conn 12:30 RYAN’S HOPE 1:00 ALL MY CHILDREN 2:00 ONE LIFE TO LIVE 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial 4:00 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial 4:30 BONANZA—Western 5:30 FLIPPER—Drama EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:30 ABC NEWS 7:00 GILLIGAN’S ISLAND 7:30 MUPPET SHOW—Variety Guest: Helen Reddy 8:00 EIGHT IS ENOUGH 9:00 CHARLIE’S ANGELS—Crime Drama 10:00 VEGA$--Crime Drama Debut 11:00 NEWS 11:30 POLICE WOMAN—Crime Drama 12:40 S.W.A.T.—Crime Drama
10 WJAR (PROVIDENCE) (NBC) MORNING 6:30 PERSPECTIVE 7:00 TODAY—Tom Brokau Guests: Zubin Mehta, Mario Andretti 9:00 PHIL DONAHUE Guest: Dick Clark 10:00 CARD SHARKS—Game 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game 11:00 HIGH ROLLERS—Game 11:30 WHEEL OF FORTUNE—Game AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:30 AMERICA ALIVE!—Jack Linkletter 1:00 FOR RICHER, FOR POORER—Serial 1:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES—Serial 2:30 DOCTORS—Serial 3:00 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial 4:00 BATTLE OF THE PLANETS—Cartoon 4:30 CAROL BURNETT AND FRIENDS Guest: Rock Hudson 5:00 MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy 5:30 ODD COUPLE—Comedy EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NBC NEWS—John Chancellor/David Brinkley 7:00 TIC TAC DOUGH—Game 7:30 NEXT STEP BEYOND—Drama 8:00 DICK CLARK—Variety Debut: Guests: Diana Ross, Rick Nelson, Kristy and Jimmy McNichol, Los Angeles Rams cheerleaders, Dar Robinson, Doc Severinsen, Paul Williams, Frankie Avalon, Bo Diddley, Seals & Crofts, Chuck Berry, Billy Preston, Johnny Rivers, Junior Walker, Marvin Hamlish, Jim Stafford, Eddie Money, Rick Danko 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “Airport ‘77” (1977), conclusion 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON Scheduled: Joe Namath 1:00 TOMORROW—Tom Snyder 2:00 NEWS
12 WPRI (PROVIDENCE) (ABC) MORNING 6:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED 7:00 GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman 9:00 DINAH! Guests: Don Meredith, Frank Gifford, Wayne Rogers, Seals & Crofts, Debbie Austin 10:00 $20,000 PYRAMID—Game 10:30 LIARS CLUB—Game Buddy Hackett, James Darren, Dody Goodman, Larry Hovis 11:00 HAPPY DAYS 11:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:30 RYAN’S HOPE 1:00 ALL MY CHILDREN 2:00 ONE LIFE TO LIVE 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial 4:00 MERV GRIFFIN Guests: K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Dick Shawn, Susan Anton, Deney Terrio, Bobby Kosser 5:30 GONG SHOW—Game Judges: Chuck Woolery, Jamie Farr, Jaye P. Morgan EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:30 ABC NEWS 7:00 NEWLYWED GAME 7:30 CROSS-WITS—Game Jack Jones, Jo Anne Worley, David Doyle, Misty Rowe 8:00 EIGHT IS ENOUGH 9:00 CHARLIE’S ANGELS—Crime Drama 10:00 VEGA$--Crime Drama Debut 11:00 NEWS 11:30 POLICE WOMAN—Crime Drama 12:40 S.W.A.T.—Crime Drama
25 WXNE (BOSTON) (Ind.) MORNING 6:00 ROSS BAGLEY—Religion 7:00 LINUS THE LIONHEARTED—Cartoon 7:30 ROCKET ROBINHOOD—Cartoon 8:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER BW 8:30 LASSIE—Drama 9:00 BIG VALLEY—Western 10:00 700 CLUB—Religion 11:30 ROSS BAGLEY—Religion AFTERNOON 12:30 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy 1:00 FATHER KNOWS BEST BW 1:30 ROOM 222 2:00 OZZIE AND HARRIET BW 2:30 CARTOONS 3:00 SUPERMAN—Adventure 3:30 SPIDERMAN/SUPERHEROES—Cartoon 4:30 VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA—Adventure 5:30 DORIS DAY—Comedy EVENING 6:00 GET SMART—Comedy 6:30 MOVIE—Drama “Lure of the Wilderness” (1952) 8:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC 9:00 700 CLUB—Religion 10:30 THE ROCK—Religion 11:00 RAT PATROL—Adventure 11:30 DRAGNET—Crime Drama
27 WSMW (WORCESTER) (Ind.) MORNING 9:00 DIRECTORS PLAYHOUSE BW “McGarey and Friend” 9:30 COOKING WITH BERNARD Chicken roulade AFTERNOON 12:00 CHURCH SERVICE—Catholic 12:30 MOVIE—Western BW “The Kansan” (1943) 2:30 BUGS BUNNY & PORKY PIG—Cartoon 3:30 LONE RANGER—Western BW 4:00 FBI—Crime Drama 5:00 SUPERMAN—Adventure 5:30 SPACE: 1999—Science Fiction EVENING 6:30 CANDID CAMERA 7:00 $25,000 PYRAMID—Game Lynn Redgrave, Jack Klugman 7:30 ABBOTT AND COSTELLO BW 8:00 MOVIE—Western BW “Thunder over the Plains” (1953) 9:30 MERIDIANS—Travel 10:00 NEWS 10:30 BIG MONEY—Lottery Drawing 11:00 LOVE EXPERTS—Game Paneists: Jo Anne Worley, Geoff Edwards, Elaine Joyce, Soupy Sales. Host: Bill Cullen 11:30 MOVIE—Biography BW “So This Is Love” (1953) 1:00 NEWS
36 WSBE (PROVIDENCE) (PBS) AFTERNOON 4:00 SESAME STREET—Children 5:00 MISTER ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD—Children 5:30 ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children EVENING 6:00 ZOOM—Children 6:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs Guest: Gisele MacKenzie 7:00 PUBLIC CONNECTION—Newsmagazine 8:30 LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER Special: Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, Rudolf Serkin 10:30 PALLISTERS—Drama Part 16 11:30 ABC NEWS Captioned for the hearing-impaired
38 WSBK (BOSTON) (Ind.) MORNING 7:00 SUPERHEROES—Cartoon 7:30 ARCHIES—Cartoon 8:00 THREE STOOGES—Cartoon 8:30 ABBOTT AND COSTELLO 9:00 TOM LARSON 9:50 NEWS 10:00 ALL IN THE FAMILY 10:30 M*A*S*H 11:00 MARCUS WELBY, M.D.—Drama AFTERNOON 12:00 MOVIE—Adventure “Hell Below Zero” (English; 1954) 1:55 SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE 2:00 ROMPER ROOM—Children 2:30 NEW MICKEY MOUSE CLUB 3:00 POPEYE—Cartoons 3:30 HECKLE & JECKLE/DEPUTY DAWG—Cartoon 4:00 PORKY PIG AND FRIENDS—Cartoon 4:30 LAND OF THE GIANTS—Adventure 5:30 HOGAN’S HEROES—Comedy EVENING 6:00 MY THREE SONS—Comedy 6:30 ADAM-12—Crime Drama 7:00 ODD COUPLE—Comedy 7:30 CHICO AND THE MAN—Comedy 8:00 BASEBALL Boston Red Sox at Detroit Tigers 10:30 RED SOX WRAP-UP 11:00 HOGAN’S HEROES—Comedy 11:30 IRONSIDE—Crime Drama
44 WGBX (BOSTON) (PBS) AFTERNOON 5:00 HODGEPODGE LODGE—Children 5:30 VILLA ALEGRE—Children EVENING 6:00 MAGGIE AND THE BEAUTIFUL MACHINE—Exercise 6:30 IT’S EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS 7:00 LOWELL THOMAS REMEMBERS—Documentary 8:00 CLUB 44—Variety 8:30 DICK CAVETT Guest: Joseph L. Mankiewicz 9:00 GREAT PERFORMANCES--Ballet 10:00 NEWS 10:30 DICK CAVETT Guest: Joseph L. Mankiewicz 11:00 ABC NEWS Captioned for the hearing-impaired
53 WEDN (NORWICH) (PBS) AFTERNOON 3:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs Guest: Robert Stack 4:00 SESAME STREET—Children 5:00 MISTER ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD—Children 5:30 ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children EVENING 6:00 PERSONAL FINANCE AND MONEY MANAGEMENT—Instruction 6:30 ANTIQUES 7:00 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs Guest: Robert Stack 8:00 SOMETHING’S HAPPENING—Report 8:30 LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER Special: Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, Rudolf Serkin 10:30 PALLISTERS—Drama Part 16 11:30 ABC NEWS Captioned for the hearing-impaired
56 WKBG (BOSTON) (Ind.) MORNING 7:00 TOM AND JERRY—Cartoon 7:30 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon 8:00 GILLIGAN’S ISLAND BW 8:30 FRED FLINTSTONE & FRIENDS—Cartoon 9:00 NEW ZOO REVUE 9:30 BOZO’S BIG TOP—Children 10:00 THAT GIRL—Comedy 10:30 HIGH HOPES—Serial 11:00 NOT FOR WOMEN ONLY 11:30 NEW ENGLAND TODAY AFTERNOON 12:00 AMERICA ALIVE!—Jack Linkletter 1:00 PARTRIDGE FAMILY—Comedy 1:30 BANANA SPLITS—Children 2:00 YOGI BEAR—Cartoon 2:30 CASPER—Cartoon 3:00 MIGHTY MOUSE—Cartoon 3:30 WOODY WOODPECKER 4:00 TOM AND JERRY—Cartoon 4:30 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon 5:00 BATTLE OF THE PLANETS—Cartoon 5:30 BRADY BUNCH—Comedy EVENING 6:00 SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN—Adventure 7:00 MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy 7:30 MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy 8:00 MOVIE—Drama “Elmer Gantry” (1960) 11:00 MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS 11:30 LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE
TV
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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.
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