Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 23
October 12, 2024
This week in TV Guide: October 15, 1960
We begin this week with the Letters section, filled with discussion regarding television's coverage of the Kennedy-Nixon "Great Debates." The third debated between the two has just occurred (October 13), but this issue would have gone to press prior to that; the tenor of the letters seems to suggest that most responses have been to the initial debate, which was held on September 26 in Chicago. It's been considered a landmark in American politics, as well as a turning point in the race between the two candidates, but TV Guide readers have mixed opinions on the whole thing. Mrs. R. H. Damon of Alton, Illinois offers the networks congratulations for their sponsorship of the debates, writing that "It was the most stimulating hour our family has ever spent before the television set," and Dawn Merek of Modesto, California adds that "This was one of the finest, most informative, public services presentations the networks have ever given their viewers."**Hard imagining anyone writing this about this year's debate.
Not everyone agrees with that assessment, however. Wetherby Boorman of San Bruno, California suggests that "the 'great debate' was more a great bore. It needed a theme song: 'Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better'," and R. M. Hooper of Boston (echoing comments many might make about today's debate formats) "did not care for a combination of so-called debate and panel show. Let's have one or the other."
It's difficult to appreciate what a sensation the four presidential debates of 1960 were at the time. About 70 million watched that first debate, at the time the most-watched television program ever. It was made possible only because Congress had agreed to suspend the equal-time provision that would otherwise have required the networks to include all fringe candidates in the debates. And, given the closeness of the final outcome, it's not hard to imagine the debates (especially the first one) playing a part in Kennedy's victory.* Though the 1960 debates were widely applauded, a combination of uncompetitive races (1964 and 1972) and Nixon's own reticence (1968) meant it would be 1976 before candidates would face off again, when a desperate incumbent (Gerald Ford) and an ambitious challenger (Jimmy Carter) agreed to reengage what has since become a ritual of American politics.
*Although it might just as likely have been the way votes were counted in Illinois and Texas.
Most people today are aware the polls showing that people who listened to that first debate on the radio tabbed Nixon as the winner while those watching on TV thought Kennedy had the advantage, and the potential of television to affect the outcome of an election bothered some observers even in 1960. As early as 1962, Edward Rogers' novel Face to Face explored the potential for backstage machinations to influence the outcome of a debate, and today's campaigns argue about everything from the moderator to the height of the rostrum, and whether or not the microphones are muted when the candidate is not speaking. Regardless, the televised presidential debate—for better or worse—seems to be with us to stay.
The last word on the subject, at least for this year, comes on the last night of the week: the final debate between Nixon and Kennedy, scheduled for 9:00 p.m. (CT) Friday night in New York, with the two candidates scheduled to square off on foreign policy. (A side note: the Theater Owners of America have begged the political parties to please, not schedule any more debates on Friday nights; they're putting a sizeable dent in the weekend theater business.) If you look closely at the graphic above, you'll notice both Nixon and Kennedy wearing bowties. They're probably clad in tuxedos, which means this drawing was quite likely based off of a picture from the Al Smith dinner held in New York earlier that month. Just a little detail for your reading pleasure.
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There's some additional material in the Letters section, and it too sheds light on the state of the American mind in 1960.
The final three letters are all concerning an ABC documentary entitled Cast the First Stone, which apparently dealt with the issue of race in America, particularly when it came to school desegregation. A letter writer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who wishes to remain anonymous demonstrates the skepticism and defensiveness with which the South views both the North and Federal authority. Says the writer, "If Chicago has more segregated schools than Little Rock [a point that must have been made in the program], why don't our powerful Supreme Courts take action? Does the so-called law of the land apply only to the dear Southland?" George Compton, of Brooklyn, New York, echos a point many made (including FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover) at the time, suggesting that the civil rights movement has been infiltrated and taken over by the Communists. Mr. Compton singles out ABC news chief John Charles Daly and his associates for "practically confirming the statements of the past week of Khrushchev-Castro. . . He couldn't have picked a better time nor a better subject (discrimination here in America) . . . I am sure Khrushchev thanks him, Castro thanks him, and most of all, the Party thanks him!"
Another anonymous writer, from Toms River, New Jersey, looks at the Red angle differently, praising ABC for presenting "A real eye-opener. We should start acting like real Americans toward one another instead of giving Mr. K and his friend the bearded windbag additional reason to criticize."
It's a fascinating snapshot of how strong emotions ran at the time, and how layered it really was. The final two letters both look at the impact of discrimination in terms of how the rest of the world views America, but while the Compton letter accuses ABC of playing into the Communists' propaganda, the writer in Toms River suggests just the opposite, that it's America's willingness to take an honest look at itself that will disarm the Soviet message.
The letter from Baton Rouge, suggesting that the North take a look at itself before getting too self-righteous, will be brought home in the next decade, when the North first felt the full brunt of violence over school busing. The rioting and demonstrations in Boston gave many Americans a real look at behavior usually associated with the South, and demonstrated that race isn't always a geographical issue. I wonder if this wasn't one of the points of the documentary in the first place?
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For the first time in the television era, viewers have dueling football leagues to choose from. It's the first season for the American Football League, the league that goes toe-to-toe with the NFL until the two leagues eventually merge in 1970 (although the actual arrangements occurred much earlier).
It's a jumbled television arrangement for the leagues in 1960; while the AFL has an exclusive league-wide contract with ABC, the NFL hasn't yet leveraged its collective selling power to sign a similar agreement. Most teams are contracted with CBS, but the Baltimore Colts remain one of the teams to broadcast home games on NBC. And to complicate things further, Dallas-Ft. Worth is blacked out from the NFL entirely on those Sundays when the brand-new Dallas Cowboys play at home.
Therefore, if you live in Dallas on October 16, 1960, the only game you're getting is the AFL matchup between the Dallas Texas and their cross-state rivals, the Houston Oilers. (2:30 p.m., ABC) If you want the Cowboys, you'd best head for Wichita Falls, where KSYD has their game against the Cleveland Browns. (1:30 p.m., CBS) And those folks living in Wichita Falls, as well as Sherman, are in luck: they can also see the Colts playing against the Los Angeles Rams. (noon, NBC)
You're probably thinking that for such a convoluted situation, there has to be some kind of "rest of the story," and if you did, you'd be right. The Dallas Texans, uncertain that they'd be able to compete with the Cowboys, wind up moving to Kansas City and becoming the Chiefs. The Oilers, unable to get a new stadium in the 90s, move to Nashville, Tennessee (where another new stadium is currently under construction). The Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams, whose owners traded teams in the '70s, wind up on the move as well; when the new owner of the Rams, Carroll Rosenbloom, dies in a swimming accident, his widow* inherits the team, and eventually moves it to St. Louis. The Colts, with their new owner, move to Indianapolis under cover of darkness. And the Browns (who actually took the place of the Cleveland Rams when they moved to Los Angeles) head to Baltimore, to replace the Colts. Houston and Cleveland do get expansion teams in time, but the Houston Texans (not to be confused with the Dallas Texans) come about only because a franchise granted to another city is forfeited when that city can't put together an ownership team in time. That city? Los Angeles. Of the six teams playing on television that day, only the Cowboys remain in the same place today.*Rosenbloom's widow, Georgia, later remarries. Her new husband is Dominic Frontiere, whom you know as one of the great composers of music for television shows, including The Outer Limits.
Lest you think this movement is limited to football, however, there's an NBA basketball game for us to analyze as well, NBC's Saturday matinee between the St. Louis Hawks and Cincinnati Royals, a preseason game played in Indianapolis. The Royals, who started out in Rochester before moving to Cincinnati, will eventually head from Cincy to Kansas City (where, the name Royals having already been taken, became the Kansas City Kings), before making their way west to become the Sacramento Kings, and in the last few years coming thisclose to being the new Seattle SuperSonics (before extorting a new arena out of the taxpayers of Sacramento). The Hawks, recently of Milwaukee, have some glory years in St. Louis, but at press time make their home in Atlanta.
What does all this tell us, other than that professional sports is a fickle business? Well, it tells us a lot about the importance of demographics and television markets, as well as the leverage that sports franchises hold when it comes to public funding of stadiums and arenas. Franchise moves into the Sun Belt (Atlanta, Nashville) show us the shift in population out of the Rust Belt, making these new markets increasingly valuable when negotiating television contracts. Teams such as the original Browns and Oilers headed for greener pastures, where new stadiums were forthcoming. The expansion Browns, as well as the Texans and the Baltimore Ravens, came into being because cities that had been burned by having previous teams leave were more willing to shell out public financing. And the NBA, which has always been willing to head for smaller markets, remains a league where gate receipts play a big role in a team's financial success.
Another brief lesson in economics courtesy of TV Guide.
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And a look at what else is on television this week.
Last week in this space, we saw the proliferation of Warner Bros. cookie-cutter detective dramas, and Saturday marks the debut of a variation on the theme, The Roaring 20's (6:30 p.m., ABC), with Rex Reason and Donald May alternating as the leads, Scott Norris and Pat Garrison, newspapermen dedicated to searching out crime in New York City, and the luminous Dorothy Provine stealing the show as flapper Pinky Pinkham. And since our stars are P.I.'s in all but name, they have to have a foil on the force, in the person of detective lieutenant Joe Switolski, played by Mike Road. On Sunday, Ed Sullivan take his show on the road for the first in a series of monthly "See America with Ed Sullivan" specials, featuring stars from the city in question. This month, Ed visits San Francisco (7:00 p.m., CBS), with guests Johnny Mathis, Peggy Lee, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Mort Sahl and Dorothy Kirsten. Later, Art Linkletter hosts a special Chevy Show entitled "Love is Funny" (8:00 p.m., NBC), a play on his "People are Funny" bit, with Chuck Connors, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Alan Young, Betty Garrett, and Jimmie Rodgers. And Jack Benny kicks off his 11th season with a very funny episode: "Worried about facing the weekly grind, Jack solves the problem by falling asleep. But, horror of horrors, he's facing interviewer Mike Wallace." Given my recent podcast about Wallace, I couldn't help but be amused by this. You can see the episode here .
Monday evening, CBS presents the third episode of The Andy Griffith Show. (8:30 p.m.) The show immediately follows The Danny Thomas Show, which makes sense since a) Thomas produces the Griffith show, and b) Griffith made his first appearance as Sheriff Andy Taylor in a Thomas episode the previous season. This week, "Guitar player Jim Lindsey (James Best) is thrown in the clink. And who should be in the adjoining cell but a full dance band that's been arrested for illegal parking." Of course, that kind of thing happened all the time in the World's Worst Town™.
Tuesday's episode of Thriller (8:00 p.m., NBC) stars character actors Everett Sloane, Frank Silvera, and Jay C. Flippen in "The Guilty Men," a story of gangsters trying to disentangle themselves from a narcotics racket, and finding out it isn't all that easy. Oftentimes, the most interesting thing about Thriller is its host, Boris Karloff, and as he nears 73, he reflects on his many years of acting, and how he's been able to, for the most part, get away from the reputation as king of horror films. "I just happened to be standing on the right corner when the right person happened along last spring," he says by explanation of how he got his new gig. "Unfortunately, I appear as myself, which is a frightful thing to do to an audience." Karloff "struck oil" with Frankenstein 29 years ago, but he feels he never really came into his own until his appearance on Broadway in Arsenic and Old Lace, which ran a little over two years. He was back on Broadway ten years ago playing Captain Hook and Mr. Darling opposite Jean Arthur in Peter Pan, which gave him a great deal of satisfaction. "The audience was always full of children seeing their very first drama. You couldn't, of course, imagine a more delightful or enchanting play than Peter Pan for one's first visit to the theater." It will be in that spirit that he takes on one of his greatest roles, that of the Grinch in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and that alone will ensure that Karloff will remain known forever.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Steel Hour (9:00 p.m., CBS) celebrates America's love affair with the automobile in the musical salute "Step on the Gas," starring Jackie Cooper, Shirley Jones, Hans Conried, Pat Carroll, Share Lewis, and the dance team of Rod Alexander and Carmen G, and it's produced by Max Liebman, who knows a thing or two about putting on television spectaculars. Opposite that, it's Peter Loves Mary (9:00 p.m., NBC), starring the real-life married couple of Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy. Stay tuned for a very funny (and very insightful) article by Peter Lind Hayes, one of the dryest wits on television.
Thursday: Before Steven Hill was in Law & Order, before he was in Mission: Impossible, he was Steve Hill, and tonight Steve Hill is the notorious mobster Legs Diamond in The Untouchables (8:30 p.m., ABC). By the way, there's a note in this week's issue that "A psychiatrist discusses this series in next week's TV Guide." I wonder what the diagnosis is. . . Elsewhere, Raymond Burr is one of the guests on Person to Person (9:00 p.m., CBS), now hosted by Charles Collingwood; Burr is being interviewed from his Pacific Pallisades home with his houseguests, Governor and Mrs. Mark Hatfield of Oregon. Friday: The Nixon-Kennedy debate (9:00 p.m., all networks) is probably the biggest show of the night, but in a program that may or may not be related, Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney host All Star Circus (8:00 p.m., NBC), featuring Copenhagen's Cirkus Schumann. Just goes to show that you don't always need politicians to have a circus. There's also an intriguing drama about a moment in history that I've never heard of before. It's "Not Without Honor," an episode of Our American Heritage (6:30 p.m., NBC), starring Ralph Bellamy and Arthur Kennedy. The story: "Some months before the Presidential election of 1800, Alexander Hamilton pays George Washington a visit. His purpose: to persuade Washington to run on the Federalist ticket—against Thomas Jefferson." That ad shows two men with pistols standing back-to-back, and since Aaron Burr appears in the cast, I can only guess that this is where this story ends up. Fortunately, by 1960 our political opponents only debate each other.
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And now that article by Peter Lind Hayes that I promised you. He and Mary Healy have been married for nearly 20 years now, and have worked together since they were paired up by their respective studios for a vaudeville junket. (Peter was, in fact, the only one in the troupe with any vaudeville experience.) By the end of the tour, he was in love; he proposed to her over the phone from a clube in Washington after he'd won $26 in quarters from a slot machine. "She kept saying I must be crazy but when I told her I was out of quarters she gave in." Twenty years later she still laughs at his jokes, "and they're not that funny any more."
Since anyone in show business whose marriage has lasted more than six months is considered an expert on the topic, Hayes has been asked by TV Guide to provide his advice on how to have a happy marriage, a command he's only too happy to comply with. For the Hayeses, "the family that plays together stays together"—since their marriage, they've made it a policy to only accept engagements that they could play together. Not everyone can be that fortunate, though; "Not every doctor's wife can be his nurse." So how does a couple navigate the pitfalls inherent in marriage? Some of his suggestions are said with a shade of whimsy, such as #9, "There is a sure cure for the mate who snores: a bullet," but many of them are built around a core of common sense—a commodity that's in short supply these days For example, Hayes stresses in several of his tips that a husband and wife need to have their own lives as well as participating in the one life formed by marriage. Whether it's having some time alone (#1), making sure that the spouse who's not the breadwinner still remains active (#5), or having individual hobbies and pastimes (#10), it's important not to simply live life through your spouse's. He also stresses that parents should not be "pals" to their kids (#3): "I love my kids, but I'm not their pal—I'm their father, and they like it that way. My home is nice for them to live in, but I am bigger than they are and so long as they live in it they're going to obey me, the 'lovable old tyrant'." Today, by contrast, too many parents are still trying to live their own childhood for them to be parents to their kids.
In-laws are always a potential problem, as well as a useful trope for sitcoms; Peter suggests that you "Treat them with a sense of humor and life will be easier." (#4) He's made his mother-in-law the butt of many of his jokes ("I haven't seen Mary's mother for months—she's been away teaching the Marines to fight dirty.") but if he lets up on her, she feels ignored. Too many couples are apt to forget #6, "Save your arguing for important matters. Don't waste it on picayune things." If your wife says the South won the Civil War, let it pass; "I'd rather be married to Mary than prove myself right." There's #2, "Too much meddling can kill a marriage," #7, "Too many husbands take their wives for granted," and, perhaps most important, #8: "Don't play bridge or golf with your spouse." Talk about a no-win situation.
Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy were married for 57 years, until his death in 1998. If you want to know why, it can all be summed up in the closing sentence of this article: "The title of our television series, Peter Loves Mary, is correct but incomplete. It should be Peter Loves Mary. . . More Each Year. I know just what he means. TV
October 11, 2024
Around the dial
At Comfort TV, David alludes to something I've often wondered about: why is it that we can watch classic TV commercials—even enjoy them—but get so annoyed by the ones on today? Two reasons:
less noise, normal people
.John wraps up his Cult TV Blog look at actor Denis Shaw's TV roles with " Are You Going to Be More Permanent? " from Danger Man, and comes to some conclusions about concentrating on an actor and his roles, rather than the plots of the shows themselves.
At Cult TV Lounge (no relation), it's a look back at the 1983 miniseries V . I remember when this first aired; there was something allegorical about the idea of following resistance members fighting against a world takeover, and their use of the "V" as a symbol of their resistance.
Remember the 1976 series Popi ? Based on the 1969 movie of the same name, it starred Héctor Elizondo as a widower living with his two sons in New York; although it ran for only 11 episodes, it does occupy a small place in TV history; Terence recalls its significance at A Shroud of Thoughts.
Remember Rona Barrett ? Travanche does, and so do I. She was one of the great gossip columnists of the 1970s and '80s, and if you wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes in Hollywood, you read her column or watched her on TV. This week, she turned 88!
How about some podcasts? At Eventually Supertrain, it's episode #177 , and our experts discuss three blasts from the past: Bronk, the police drama starring Jack Palance; Chopper One, a police drama with a helicopter; and Misfits of Science, with young superheroes galore!
At Random Access Television, Zach and Joe turn to T.J. Hooker , with William Shatner as a superhero police sergeant, plus Heather Locklear, Adrian Zmed, and the late, great James Darren. Was this the last series Shatner was in where he wasn't a parody of himself, or was he over the top here too?
At TV Confidential, Ed has a great collection of guests , including Walter Koenig, Louise Sorel, and Dean Butler; there are also segments on Theo Bikel, Sergio Mendes, and more. Also, don't miss where you can hear this week's show, featuring an encore of his interview with Barbara Feldon.
Finally, there's Your 45's Are 50!, where Hugh's weekly recaps are not to be missed. By the time you read this, he'll have this week's episode up, but don't miss the archives; the September 28th, 1974 episode includes a link to my review of that week's TV Guide—thanks again, Hugh! TV
October 9, 2024
The British Invasion of Television
Most of the time, when we hear the phrase "British Invasion," we think of The Beatles. That was not, however, the only British invasion that America has experienced. (Best not to even think about the War of 1812.) In fact, even before the Brits took over pop culture, there was a British invasion of television. That's the subject of my latest appearance on Dan Schneider's Video Interview. When did this British Invasion begin? Some people will think of classic mysteries like Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, and Inspector Morse. Others will go further back to Masterpiece Theatre, and the lavish miniseries such as Upstairs, Downstairs, I, Claudius, and Poldark. The older ones among us will recall The Avengers, Secret Agent, The Prisoner, and The Saint. But in fact, it actually begins in 1952, with the appearance of Alistair Cooke as host on the arts and culture program Omnibus. Although Cooke wasn't a performer himself, his suave urbanity and wit prepared Americans for the concept of British quality on American TV. This era is what I think of as the First British Invasion.
The first British series to be imported for an American television network was 1955's The Adventures of Robin Hood, which ran for three seasons on CBS. After that, there were similar adventure programs—The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, The Buccaneers, and more. The early 1960s saw the influence of James Bond spread to the small screen, with imports like Danger Man (aka Secret Agent), The Avengers, The Saint, and The Prisoner. Those were followed by series looking to specifically target the American market by casting American actors in the lead roles: The Baron, starring Steve Forrest, Court-Martial, with Bradford Dillman and Peter Graves, Man in a Suitcase, starring Richard Bradford, and The Champions, starring Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo, and William Gaunt.
By the end of the decade, a fortuituous combination of circumstances let to public broadcasting's import of the British series The Forsyte Saga. Its singular success would, in turn, lead to what I call the Second British Invasion, the one most of us are probably more familiar with, the centerpiece being Masterpiece Theatre, hosted by none other than—Alistair Cooke.
It's at this point, for the most part, that our program ends; Dan and I get into some of the programs that follow Masterpiece Theatre, but in this episode I really wanted to concentrate on the initial British incursion into American television. It's a big topic, and there were areas we didn't have time to explore in the kind of detail I'd prefer, but that's why we have follow-up podcasts.
I think you'll enjoy it—it's a topic I look forward to expanding on at some point in the future! TV
October 7, 2024
What's on TV? Tuesday, October 6, 1959
Today's listings show us what would have been on NBC's afternoon schedule were it not for the World Series, but as fate (and the delayed start to the Series) would have it, the Dodgers and White Sox are facing off in Game 5 this afternoon from Los Angeles. 2:30 -5- -6- 8 10 13 WORLD SERIES WARMUP SPECIAL COLOR 2:45 -5- -6- 8 10 13 WORLD SERIES SPECIAL COLOR
The game took a cool 2:28 to play (Chicago 1, Los Angeles 0, which means Game 6 on Wednesday), so regular programming should have resumed by 5:30 p.m. Not bad, hmm? This game, as well as the rest of the day's listings, is brought to you by the Minnesota edition.
-2- KTCA (EDUC.) MORNING 8:00 SCIENCE—Grade 7 8:30 SCIENCE—Grade 7 9:30 SCIENCE—Grade 7 10:00 ASTRONOMY FOR YOU 10:30 SCIENCE—Grade 7 11:00 DESIGN WORKSHOP—Pearson 11:30 SCIENCE—Grade 7 AFTERNOON 1:00 SCIENCE—Grade 7 1:30 YOUR MINNESOTA 2:00 SCIENCE—Grade 7 2:30 SCIENCE—Grade 1 3:00 A NUMBER OF THINGS 3:15 AS TEACHERS TEACH EVENING 6:30 ALMANAC—Charles W. Schwartz DEBUT 6:45 UN IN REVIEW—Documentary 7:00 THE GREAT CHALLENGE 8:00 STUDY OF THE FAR EAST 8:30 SACRED SCRIPTURE—Religion 9:00 SOCIOLOGY III—Johnson 9:30 TWIN CITIES PROFILE 10:00 SURVIVAL IN THE SEA 10:30 SPOTLIGHT ON OPERA
-3- KDAL (DULUTH) (CBS) MORNING 8:00 NEWS—Richard C. Hottelet 8:15 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 ON THE GO—Jack Linkletter 9:30 DECEMBER BRIDE 10:00 I LOVE LUCY 10:30 TOP DOLLAR—Quiz 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 12:05 TOWN AND COUNTRY—Becker 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 FOR BETTER OR WORSE—Dr. James Peterson 1:30 HOUSE PARTY 2:00 BIG PAYOFF—Quiz 2:30 VERDICT IS YOURS 3:00 BRIGHTER DAY 3:15 SECRET STORM 3:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 4:00 LIFE OF RILEY—Comedy 4:30 MY LITTLE MARGIE—Comedy 5:00 BANDSTAND—Rassbach 5:30 FRONTIER—Western EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:15 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 6:30 WOODY WOODPECKER—Cartoons 7:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED 7:30 DOBIE GILLIS 8:00 TIGHTROPE!—Police 8:30 RED SKELTON—Comedy Guest: Jayne Mansfield 9:00 GARRY MOORE Guests: Carol Burnett, Cliff Arquette, Johnny Desmond 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:15 MOVIE—Drama “Stromboli” (Italian; 1950)
3 KGLO (MASON CITY) (CBS) MORNING 8:00 NEWS—Richard C. Hottelet 8:15 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 ELEMENTARY SPANISH 9:30 DECEMBER BRIDE 10:00 I LOVE LUCY 10:30 TOP DOLLAR—Quiz 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 FOR BETTER OR WORSE—Dr. James Peterson 1:30 HOUSE PARTY 2:00 BIG PAYOFF—Quiz 2:30 VERDICT IS YOURS 3:00 BRIGHTER DAY 3:15 SECRET STORM 3:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 4:00 BOB CAVANAUGH—Variety 5:00 BART’S CLUBHOUSE—Kids 5:40 TV TALK—Glen Haydon 5:45 NEWS, MARKETS, WEATHER EVENING 6:15 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 6:30 WHIRLYBIRDS—Adventure 7:00 DENNIS O’KEEFE—Comedy 7:30 DOBIE GILLIS 8:00 TIGHTROPE!—Police 8:30 RED SKELTON—Comedy Guest: Jayne Mansfield 9:00 GARRY MOORE Guests: Carol Burnett, Cliff Arquette, Johnny Desmond 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:30 MOVIE—Drama “Life Begins at Forty” (1939)
-4- WCCO (CBS) MORNING 7:00 CARTOONS—Siegfried 8:00 NEWS—Richard C. Hottelet 8:15 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 REUBEN K. YOUNGDAHL 9:15 NEWS—WHAT’S NEW? 10:00 I LOVE LUCY 10:30 TOP DOLLAR—Quiz 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:15 TAKE FIVE—Cedric Adams 12:20 WEATHER—Bud Kraehling 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 FOR BETTER OR WORSE—Dr. James Peterson 1:30 HOUSE PARTY 2:00 RANDY MERRIMAN—Variety 2:30 VERDICT IS YOURS 3:00 BRIGHTER DAY 3:15 SECRET STORM 3:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 4:00 AROUND THE TOWN—Arle Haberle 4:30 S.S. POPEYE—Kids 4:50 BOZO THE CLOWN—Kids 5:00 AXEL AND DOG—Clellan Card 5:30 THREE STOOGES AND CLANCY 5:55 SPORTS, NEWS, WEATHER EVENING 6:15 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 6:30 HUCKLEBERRY HOUND 7:00 NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL 7:30 DOBIE GILLIS 8:00 TIGHTROPE!—Police 8:30 RED SKELTON—Comedy Guest: Jayne Mansfield 9:00 GARRY MOORE Guests: Carol Burnett, Cliff Arquette, Johnny Desmond 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:30 NIGHT COURT—Drama 11:00 DIVORCE COURT—Drama 12:30 NIGHT COURT—Drama
-5- KSTP (NBC) MORNING 5:30 DAVID STONE—Variety 6:00 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Physics “Experiment on Accelerated Motion” 6:30 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Chemistry “The Weights of Atoms” 7:00 TODAY—Garroway Guests: Maj. Gen. Malvin Mass, Dr. George Bond Local news at 7:25 and 8:25 A.M. 9:00 DOUGH RE MI 9:30 DECEMBER BRIDE 10:00 PRICE IS RIGHT 10:30 CONCENTRATION 11:00 TIC TAC DOUGH 11:30 IT COULD BE YOU—Bill Leyden COLOR AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:20 TREASURE QUEST—Quiz 1:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY 1:30 THIN MAN 2:00 YOUNG DR. MALONE 2:30 FROM THESE ROOTS 3:00 HOUSE ON HIGH STREET—Drama 3:30 SPLIT PERSONALITY—Tom Poston 4:00 PEOPLE’S CHOICE—Comedy 4:30 MY LITTLE MARGIE—Comedy 5:00 SHERWOOD FOREST—Adventure 5:45 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:20 YOU SHOULD KNOW—Quiz 6:30 LARAMIE—Western 7:30 FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY—Comedy 8:00 ARTHURY MURRAY COLOR Guests: Gisele MacKenzie, Thelma Ritter, Patty MacCormack, Jerry Bergen 8:30 STARTIME—Variety DEBUT COLOR “The Wonderful World of Entertainment” 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:30 HARBOR COMMAND—Police 11:00 JACK PAAR—Variety Guest host: Hugh Downs. Guests: Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Judy Lynn 12:30 NEWS—Roger Krupp
-6- WDSM (DULUTH) (NBC) MORNING 6:00 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Physics “Experiment on Accelerated Motion” 6:30 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Chemistry “The Weights of Atoms” 7:00 TODAY—Garroway Guests: Maj. Gen. Malvin Mass, Dr. George Bond Local news at 7:25 and 8:25 A.M. 9:00 DOUGH RE MI 9:30 TREASURE HUNT 10:00 PRICE IS RIGHT 10:30 CONCENTRATION 11:00 TIC TAC DOUGH 11:30 IT COULD BE YOU—Bill Leyden COLOR AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:05 MOVIE—Drama “The Merry Frinks” (1934) 1:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY 1:30 THIN MAN 2:00 YOUNG DR. MALONE 2:30 FROM THESE ROOTS 3:00 HOUSE ON HIGH STREET—Drama 3:30 SPLIT PERSONALITY—Tom Poston 4:00 CAPTAIN Q. AND POPEYE—Kids EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:15 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley 6:30 LARAMIE—Western 7:30 FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY—Comedy 8:00 ARTHURY MURRAY COLOR Guests: Gisele MacKenzie, Thelma Ritter, Patty MacCormack, Jerry Bergen 8:30 STARTIME—Variety DEBUT COLOR “The Wonderful World of Entertainment” 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:15 MACKENZIE’S RAIDERS 10:45 SPORTS 11:00 JACK PAAR—Variety Guest host: Hugh Downs. Guests: Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Judy Lynn
6 KMMT (AUSTIN) (ABC) MORNING 11:00 THIS IS THE LIFE—Religion 11:30 CARTOON CARNIVAL—Kids AFTERNOON 12:00 ACROSS THE BOARD—Game 12:30 PANTOMIME QUIZ—Mike Stokey 1:00 MUSIC BINGO—Quiz 1:30 NEWS, WEATHER 1:40 MATINEE WITH MARGE 2:00 DAY IN COURT 2:30 GALE STORM—Comedy 3:00 BEAT THE CLOCK—Games 3:30 WHO DO YOU TRUST?—Quiz 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND 5:30 RIN TIN TIN EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:15 NEWS—John Daly 6:30 BRONCO—Western 7:30 WYATT EARP—Western 8:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 8:30 PHILIP MARLOWE—Mystery DEBUT 9:00 ALCOA PRESENTS—Drama “Brainwave” 9:30 KEEP TALKING—Panel 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:30 SHERLOCK HOLMES—Mystery 11:00 PARIS PRECINCT—Police 11:30 NEWS BRIEFS 11:45 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER
8 WKBT (LA CROSSE) (CBS) MORNING 10:00 I LOVE LUCY 10:30 TOP DOLLAR—Quiz 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 12:05 FILM FEATURE 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 FOR BETTER OR WORSE—Dr. James Peterson 1:30 HOUSE PARTY 2:00 BIG PAYOFF—Quiz 2:30 VERDICT IS YOURS 3:00 BRIGHTER DAY 3:15 SECRET STORM 3:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 4:00 MOVIE—Western “Red River Valley” (1941) 5:00 FLIGHT—Drama 5:30 RIN TIN TIN EVENING 6:00 FARM DIGEST 6:05 SPORTS, NEWS, WEATHER 6:15 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 6:30 HIGH ADVENTURE—Drama 7:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 7:30 WYATT EARP—Western 8:00 PETER GUNN—Mystery 8:30 RED SKELTON—Comedy Guest: Jayne Mansfield 9:00 GARRY MOORE Guests: Carol Burnett, Cliff Arquette, Johnny Desmond 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:20 SPORTS ALBUM 10:30 MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY 11:00 MOVIE—War Drama “Battle Taxi” (1955)
-9- KMSP (Ind.) MORNING 10:25 CHAPEL OF THE AIR 10:30 DING DONG SCHOOL—Kids 11:00 MOVIE—Western “Racketeers of the Range” (1939) 11:40 MARK STEVENS 11:45 NEWS, WEATHER AFTERNOON 12:00 KARTOONTIME—Pegge and Dave 12:30 CHUCK CARSON—Variety 1:00 COMBAT SERGEANT—Drama 1:30 MR. AND MRS. NORTH—Mystery 2:00 MOVIE—Drama “Treasure of Monte Cristo” (1949) 4:00 IT’S A GREAT LIFE—Comedy 4:30 I MARRIED JOAN—Comedy 5:00 SUSIE—Comedy 5:30 OUR MISS BROOKS—Comedy EVENING 6:00 LOONEY TUNERS CLUB—Dave Lee 6:30 COWBOY G-MEN—Western 7:00 BENGAL LANCERS—Adventure 7:30 BISHOP SHEEN 8:00 WRESTLING—Minneapolis 9:00 HONEYMOONERS—Gleason 9:30 KEEP TALKING—Panel 10:00 MOVIE—Drama “Corvette K-225” (1943) 11:45 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 12:00 MOVIE—Western
10 KROC (ROCHESTER) (NBC) MORNING 6:00 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Physics “Experiment on Accelerated Motion” 6:30 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Chemistry “The Weights of Atoms” 7:00 TODAY—Garroway Guests: Maj. Gen. Malvin Mass, Dr. George Bond Local news at 7:25 and 8:25 A.M. 9:00 DOUGH RE MI 9:30 TREASURE HUNT 10:00 PRICE IS RIGHT 10:30 CONCENTRATION 11:00 TIC TAC DOUGH 11:30 IT COULD BE YOU—Bill Leyden COLOR AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS 12:15 CHANNEL 10 CALLING 12:30 CHRISTOPHERS—Religion 1:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY 1:30 THIN MAN 2:00 YOUNG DR. MALONE 2:30 FROM THESE ROOTS 3:00 HOUSE ON HIGH STREET—Drama 3:30 SPLIT PERSONALITY—Tom Poston 4:00 WHAT’S THIS?—Don Perry 4:30 FILM FEATURE 5:00 THREE STOOGES—Clubhouse 5:30 WOODY WOODPECKER—Cartoons EVENING 6:00 NEWS 6:15 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley 6:30 LARAMIE—Western 7:30 FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY—Comedy 8:00 ARTHURY MURRAY COLOR Guests: Gisele MacKenzie, Thelma Ritter, Patty MacCormack, Jerry Bergen 8:30 STARTIME—Variety DEBUT COLOR “The Wonderful World of Entertainment” 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:30 JACK PAAR—Variety Guest host: Hugh Downs. Guests: Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Judy Lynn
11 WTCN (ABC) MORNING 8:30 FILM FEATURE 9:00 ROMPER ROOM—Miss June 10:00 MOVIE—Comedy “A Slight Case of Murder” (1938) AFTERNOON 12:00 ACROSS THE BOARD—Game 12:30 PANTOMIME QUIZ—Mike Stokey 1:00 MUSIC BINGO—Quiz 1:30 MARK STEVENS 1:35 BURNS AND ALLEN—Comedy 2:00 DAY IN COURT 2:30 GALE STORM—Comedy 3:00 BEAT THE CLOCK—Games 3:30 WHO DO YOU TRUST?—Quiz 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND 5:00 CASEY JONES—Kids 5:30 RIN TIN TIN EVENING 6:00 UNION PACIFIC—Adventure 6:30 BRONCO—Western 7:30 WYATT EARP—Western 8:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 8:30 PHILIP MARLOWE—Mystery DEBUT 9:00 ALCOA PRESENTS—Drama “Brainwave” 9:30 DENNIS O’KEEFE—Comedy 10:00 NEWS, WEATHER 10:20 MOVIE—Drama “Break to Freedom” (English; 1955) 11:20 MARK STEVENS 11:25 FINAL NEWS ROUNDUP 11:30 I LED THREE LIVES—Carlson Time approximate
13 WEAU (EAU CLAIRE) (NBC) MORNING 6:00 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Physics “Experiment on Accelerated Motion” 6:30 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Chemistry “The Weights of Atoms” 7:00 TODAY—Garroway Guests: Maj. Gen. Malvin Mass, Dr. George Bond Local news at 7:25 and 8:25 A.M. 9:00 DOUGH RE MI 9:30 TREASURE HUNT 10:00 PRICE IS RIGHT 10:30 CONCENTRATION 11:00 TIC TAC DOUGH 11:30 IT COULD BE YOU—Bill Leyden COLOR AFTERNOON 12:00 FILM FEATURE 12:30 NEWS, MARKETS 12:45 FILM SHORT 1:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY 1:30 THIN MAN 2:00 YOUNG DR. MALONE 2:30 FROM THESE ROOTS 3:00 HOUSE ON HIGH STREET—Drama 3:30 SPLIT PERSONALITY—Tom Poston 4:00 SERIAL THEATER—Kids 4:30 CARTOONS—Kids 5:00 FILM FEATURE 5:45 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley EVENING 6:00 OUR LAND, OUR LIVING 6:10 NEWS, WEATHER 6:30 MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY 7:00 ERNIE RECK SHOW 7:30 REAL McCOYS—Comedy 8:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 8:30 STARTIME—Variety DEBUT COLOR “The Wonderful World of Entertainment” 10:00 NEWS, SPORTS 10:30 HOBBY LOBBY—Charley Weaver DEBUT 11:00 MOVIE—Mystery “Crime Doctor’s Strangest Case” (1943)
TV
October 5, 2024
This week in TV Guide: October 3, 1959
Lee Marvin is one angry man. Not the Last Angry Man; that was Paul Muni, and anyway, this issue is 65 years old and there have been a lot of angry men since then. Angry women, too, for that matter. But Lee Marvin is, in fact, angry, although it's hard to say what, exactly, he's angry about. Or perhaps it's better to ask: what isn't he angry about?Bob Johnson catches up with Marvin on the set of M Squad, now beginning its second season. The ensuing article—well, I can't really call it an interview, since aside from the first and last paragraphs, there's no evidence that Marvin actually answered any questions from Johnson. Instead, he conducted a very entertaining two-page stream-of-consciousness monologue. The following excerpts are, I can assure you, exact quotes.
The article begins with Marvin leaving the set for the lunch break. "'It's moving,' he said, stomping and muttering through smaller billows of the claylike material he was brushing out of his crew cut with both hands. 'If it's moving, baby, I say grab it. Look at this filthy mess. Let's go.'"
The topic turns to M Squad.
"Who knows? You tell me. It's a cop series, what else? The guy's a cop. Who wants the truth? It's like an artist. He's got this painting. He says, 'But don't you see, it's yah-foo-lah-lah-lah. You notice how that yellow shines?
"I dunno, it's moving. Lieutenant Ballinger—who knows—he's a cop. You tell me. We took Chicago. It was all that was left. I know Chicago cops. Rough. They have to be. The whole city would explode. It's like a bomb, Chicago. I know. Look at the setup."
After spending some time on Chicago police politics, he continues:
"We shoot locations, twice a year. No permit, no co-operation. They don't want any part of us. We're going next week again. Shoot and run. It finally came down to: 'Okay, any public building, but nothing else, no stopping traffic.' I stay back, out of sight. Hat pulled down. Director says okay, walks through what I do, says, 'Like that, Lee.' I do it, we shoot it and blow. Kids come along, see the crowd, it's always the same thing in Chicago. Right away, 'Who got killed?' That's what a crowd means to most Chicago kids.
"One time we're up on a roof. On the edge over the sidewalk. Me and this actor, struggling over a gun. I thought I'd hoke it up a little. We can't carry sound equipment, have to move too fast. Dub it later. I saw these two gals walking along. Right under us. I yelled, 'Gimme that gun, I'll kill you!' They looked up, yah, hoo, whu, hmm? Two men on a roof, killing each other. And these girls went right on. They didn't even break stride."Lieutenant Friday, Dragnet, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Lineup. What's their problem? No problem. It's routine. It's static. But not Chicago. They stop it before it happens. They have to.
"Chicago'd go like a bomb, the whole place. I know. I spent a year there, going to secretarial school. After the war, out of the Marines, wacked up, shot near the spine, whoo lah, hero. I couldn't do anything. Nothing. I didn't know ho. High school, no training. Navy ROTC school in New Jersey, 14 years old and they pulled rank on me. This old admiral, 61, still in uniform, and a kid 14 years old. I cut out and sold my uniform.
"Yeah, typing, shorthand, I didn't know. And then back to New York, digging ditches. Septic tanks. A guy digging ditches or a plumber wiping a joint, you know? It solves problems. Says, 'Dig this hole, so wide, so long, so deep,' you dig it. That's it. You climb out and say, 'Boy, I don't know what it was, and loo-foo-fah-foo, but I solved it today.' Good therapy for my back. Plumber in New York, fixed pipe up in Woodstock. They were doing a play, who knows? Said why didn't I give it a try. So? I tried it. One line, walk on, walk off, deep voice, big shoulders, and back the next night. And so on.
"It's like M Squad. The M doesn't stand for anything. It's any dirty job. Let's face it, we're the Storm Troops. A lone cop, Chicago, what else? M Squad. I liked The Loop. That's what somebody wanted to call it. I wanted to do a lot of things. I talk to myself, driving along, who doesn't? You come out of a conference, you sit there at a stop light, say, 'Yeah, fah-loo-dee-doo, BUT, you say."
There's more to the article, but you get the idea. You wonder if Bob Johnson had to do anything other than take notes. After starting Marvin off, he doesn't return again until the final paragraphs, when the two men return to the set ("Three steak sandwiches later."), Marvin talking all the way. As they part, he says, "If it's moving, baby, grab it."
M Squad, which runs for three seasons, will be Marvin's only television series (other than appearing as narrator in the 1963-64 true crime series Lawbreaker). In an interview later in his career, he refers to doing the series as something akin to a box he had to tick off before he'd be allowed to progress to bigger roles in movies. And they do get bigger, culminating in his Oscar-winning performance in Cat Ballou, and his acclaimed role in the neo-noir classic Point Blank. But, as good as those performances are, could they have been any more entertaining than his "interview" with Bob Johnson?
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The World Series continues this week, though we don't really know when or where. The National League pennant had not been settled at press time, and so the specifics depend on which of three teams came out on top. If the Milwaukee Braves won the National League pennant, Saturday's Game 4 will begin at 12:45 p.m. CT on NBC, in black-and-white. On the other hand, if the pennant went to either the Los Angeles Dodgers or San Francisco Giants (and how strange those names must have seemed in 1959!), the first pitch will be at 2:30 p.m., and in color. What we do know for certain is that the opponent will be the American League champion Chicago White Sox, playing in their first World Series since the Black Sox scandal of 1919. The Series continues Sunday with Game 5 (if necessary; same time, same channel), before returning to the Windy City* for the final two games (noon, in color). *I wonder if they saw Lee Marvin while they were there?
At least that's what TV Guide says. In fact, there was no game on Saturday; the Dodgers and Braves finished in a tie for first place, and the resulting three-game playoff (won by the Dodgers two games to none) delayed the start of the Series to Thursday. The Dodgers and Sox split the two games in Chicago, and after using Saturday as a travel day, the Dodgers won two out of three in Los Angeles and closed out the Series with a 9-3 victory in Game 6 in Chicago.
If you have your heart set on sports on Saturday, you'll have to make due with the college football game of the week, pitting the California Golden Bears and Texas Longhorns from Austin (3:15 p.m., NBC), or the NFL's Saturday night tilt between the Chicago Bears and Baltimore Colts from Baltimore (9:30 p.m., ABC, tape-delayed).
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Last season saw the premiere of the Warner Bros. detective series 77 Sunset Strip, starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes; the show's success spawns a succession of similar "assembly line"-style detective shows from Warner, all employing exotic locations, handsome young stars rotating as the leads, and a variety of guest stars from the WB stable of talent*. First up is Bourbon Street Beat (Monday, 7:30 p.m, ABC), starring Richard Long, Andrew Duggan, Van Williams, and Arlene Howell. Although it only runs for one season, it's perhaps the best of the Sunset Strip clones; Richard Long's character will wind up on Sunset Strip after Bourbon Street Beat's cancellation, while the character played by Van Williams will be spun off into yet another series, Surfside 6, which will debut next season. *Classic TV fans will recognize this technique from the WB stable of Westerns, including Maverick, Cheyenne, Bronco, and Sugarfoot. You'll see it again next season, when, in addition to Surfside 6, the studio introduces the period drama The Roaring 20s, with Rex Reason, Donald May, and Dorothy Provine.
And that's not the only WB detective series to debut this week; on Wednesday night, it's Hawaiian Eye (8:30 p.m., ABC), starring Anthony Eisley, Robert Conrad, Connie Stevens, and Poncie Ponce. Hawaiian Eye is, next to Sunset Strip, the most successful of the WB detective shows, running for four seasons (Sunset Strip goes for six), although there's a notable drop in quality after Anthony Eisley leaves following the third season. The plots in all of these series are more or less interchangable, but that makes them no less entertaining. The characters are interchangable as well, sometimes literally; they all exist in the same universe, with each of the detective teams making at least one appearance on at least one of the other series. After all, why mess with success?
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Although we're now into October, we're still seeing the debuts of new series, as well as the return of old standbys. Let's take a look a some of each.
This week Dan Jenkins reviews Dick Clark's weekly output, and I put it that way because the man seems to be on TV all the time. In fact, says Jenkins, we haven't seen anyone like Clark since the heyday of Arthur Godfrey: "an appealing personality, the 'soft-sell' commercial approach, and a back-breaking eight and a half hours a week on network TV." For starters, there's American Bandstand, which airs from Philadelphia, at 90 minutes a day, five afternoons a week. On Saturday night, he hosts The Dick Clark Show (6:30 p.m., ABC) from New York. And just last Sunday, his third series, World of Talent, debuted at 9:30 p.m., again on ABC. Clark sets a good example for the youth of America: "he dresses conservatively and neatly, is unfailingly polite, speaks quietly with an excellent command of English and has poise not often associated with is clamorous following." If Jenkins could add one thing, it would be to raise the music-appreciation level of his audience by throwing in a classical piece once or twice a week, "exposing the younger generation to music that is not a mixture of odd lyrics and monotonous chords." I think he's serious about that, by the way. And after all, if you can't get down and boogie to Wolfie Mozart, you just aren't rad, man.Sunday presents us with a trio of new programs, all of which are available on DVD: Dennis the Menace (6:30 p.m., CBS), based on the popular comic strip, starring Jay North as Dennis; The Rebel (8:00 p.m., ABC), the post-Civil War Western with Nick Adams as Johnny Yuma, a Southern army vet looking for the meaning to his life following the war; and The Alaskans (8:30 p.m., ABC), yet another WB adventure series, starring Roger Moore, Jeff York, and Dorothy Provine in tales of the Alaskan gold rush of 1898. Interesting note: all three of these series are available on DVD. They join some returning favorites: Lawman (7:30 p.m., ABC), The Dinah Shore Show (8:00 p.m., NBC), and The Jack Benny Program (9:00 p.m., CBS).
The rollout of new series continues on Monday with James A. Michener's Adventures in Paradise (8:00 p.m., ABC), starring Gardner McKay. Michener's creditentials for creating a series based in the Pacific are impeccable; a decade ago, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Tales of the South Pacific, which was made into the musical South Pacific; in an article written by Michener for this week's issue, he talks about having spent years on proposals for such a series (including, although he doesn't mention it, a weekly series based on South Pacific), but it's only now that all the pieces have fallen into place. He credits producer Martin Manulis for converting his ideas into reality, and heaps praise on leading man McKay: "He not only looks the part of a South Seas skipper. He is one. . . rugged, ready for a fight, yet reserved and marked for considerable self-control." Michener adds, "There is a bigness about all he does. He is small neither in size nor manner, and to serve as master of a schooner in the waters I know best requires a certain bigness of spirit." We've read McKay's views on his experience doing the show, so we'll let Michener have the last word on the prospects for his series: "A man and his boat have, since the beginning of history, been symbols of high adventure, and we want to keep it that way."
Tuesday sees the premiere of Ford Startime (8:30 p.m., NBC), a big-name weekly anthology series that includes, comedy, drama, and variety presentations. For tonight's debut, Rosalind Russell hosts "The Wonderful World of Entertainment," a musical revue featuring Polly Bergen, Maurice Chevalier,Eddie Foy Jr., Eddie Hodges, Ernie Kovacs, Arthur O'Connell, Jack Paar, and Kate Smith. Startime was billed as "TV's finest hour," and its history is worth spending another minute or so; Alfred Hitchcock directed the drama "Incident at a Corner," Ingrid Bergman starred in an adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw," Dean Martin hosted a couple of variety hours, Jerry Lewis starred in "The Jazz Singer" (available
on DVD
), and Mitch Miller hosted "The Mitch Miller Variety Show," which, of course, became Sing Along With Mitch the following season. Unfortunately, the ratings for Startime didn't quite live up to the billing (it was up against, among other programs, The Red Skelton Show), and Ford pulled the plug on its very expensive investment after a single season. Another single-season series starts tonight: Phillip Marlowe (8:30 p.m., ABC), based on Raymond Chandler's famous private detective, starring Philip Carey. This series seems as if should have been a natural; Marlowe is one of the great characters in detective fiction, and Carey is a capable actor. Marlowe's a unique character, though, and it takes an actor like Dick Powell* to fully realize it. It was probably too generic in its delivery, wasting its potential.*Whose wife, June Allyson, appears on the cover of this week's issue.
Although Men in Space (Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., CBS) is classified as "Adventure," it's one of the first series to deal with manned spaceflight in a serious manner, as opposed to shows such as Rocky Jones, Buck Rogers, and Captain Video; think of it as Wyatt Earp ushering in the era of adult Westerns from shows like Roy Rogers.* The series stars William Lundigan as Col. Edward McCauley, America's most distinguished astronaut, and as the series begins (it debuted last week), he's preparing to lead the first manned flight to the moon. But complications arise, as a senator questions the expense of the flight.
*In Britain, on the other hand, the show was marketed as a children's series; the timeslot it occupied was later filled by Doctor Who.
The Big Party debuts Thursday (8:30 p.m., CBS), and in this case, when they say "Big" they mean it: a 90-minute variety show (a tough sell; ask Jerry Lewis how well those work), alternating every other week with Playhouse 90. I've seen it described as "a perfect melange of the television variety show genre and high camp": each week, a celebrity guest host invites various celebrities to their penthouse or hotel suite for a party, where everyone is supposed to act completely natural until they break into song. (Imagine that alternating with a show that once brought you the likes of "Requiem for a Heavyweight.") Tonight, Rock Hudson decides to throw a party and calls his friend Tallulah Bankhead to "get on the phone and invite some friends." The "friends" include Sammy Davis Jr., Matt Dennis, Lisa Kirk, Carlos Montoya, Mort Sahl, and Esther Williams. (You can see it
here
.) It sounds kinda similar to the scenario employed by Hugh Heffner's Playboy's Penthouse, and if it's anything like that, my advise is to ignore the camp for 90 minutes and just enjoy the performances. And you'd better hurry; although it's supposed to be on for a full season, it ends with the New Year's Eve party. It's a good week for Red Skelton; not only does he appear in his regular Tuesday night slot, you can also see him on Friday's Red Skelton Chevy Special (8:00 p.m., CBS), an hour-long colorcast celebrating Red's 30th anniversary in show business. He's joined by Gunsmoke's James Arness, Burl Ives, Rhonda Fleming, Tommy Sands, and Lionel Hampton—and, of course, some of Red's most famous characters, including Clem Kadiddlehopper and Freddie the Freeloader. Afterwards, flip over to NBC for the premiere of The Bell Telephone Hour (9:00 p.m.), making its transition from a radio series that had started in 1940. Tonight's opener is headlined by musical-comedy stars Alfred Drake and Sally Ann Howes, the Kingston Trio, violinist Zino Francescatti, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Red Nichols and His Five Pennies jazz combo, and siner Connie Boswell. The Telephone Hour remains a mainstay on TV until 1968.l l l
Finally, since we've spent a fair amount of time writing about Warner Bros. this week, it seems appropriate that we wrap things up with Adele Mara: WB contract actress, wife of WB producer Roy Huggins—and barber. "It's true," she says gleefully. "I cut Roy's hair, and I like it." Adele started out as a dancer with Xavier Cugat's band, before signing her fierst movie contract in the 1940s. She starred in 30 movies for Republic, and set a studio record by posing for 4,000 publicity photos, for all of which she wore only a bathing suit (see right). She and Huggins have been married for six years; they'll remain married until his death in 2002. While Huggins was producing Maverick, he fielded a complaint from a viewer about "a half-dressed woman I saw dancing on the bar." Replied Huggins, "That was no half-dressed woman. That was my wife." TV
October 4, 2024
Around the dial
We'll begin this week's review at bare•bones e-zine, where Jack's Hitchcock Project looks at the second season story "
Kill by Kindness
" by A.J. Russell, based on a teleplay he'd previously written for The Clock (not uncommon in the early years of TV), and starring Hume Cronyn, Carmen Matthews, and James Gleason. As frequently happens, the ending is both surprising and satisfying.John's examination of the television works of British actor Denis Shaw continues at Cult TV Blog, and this week we see Shaw's performance in an American television series, The Vise, and the episode " The Very Silent Traveler ." As John mentions, there are a couple of different versions of The Vise, one that includes detective Mark Saber, but this isn't one of those episodes, even though it does contain crime and punishment.
A pair of interesting observations from Travalanche; the first is a brief look at William S. Paley and the birth of CBS . Paley, of course, is one of the major figures in the history of television; even though he didn't appear in front of the camera, he had a lot to do with who did. Next, it's 70 years of The Tonight Show , and you can certainly see how that institution has changed over the years.
Likewise, TV Obscurities entertains with a couple of interesting bits on the 1969 series The New People, one of television's rare attempts at a 45-minute series. The first is a five-page proposal for the series , with some significant changes from the finished product; the secnd is a promotional spot designed to explain the premise to viewers.
It's another week of obituaries at A Shroud of Thoughts; first, observations on the death of Kris Kristofferson at 88. Although he was primarily a singer, he was also a very effective actor, with several television credits to his name. Then, it's John Amos , who actually died in August; his death wasn't made public until earlier this week. He was 84, with an impressive pedigree, including Roots, Good Times, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Television's New Frontier: The 1960s covers 1962 and the end of the third season and start of the fourth season of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis , The quality is erratic, but you'll always enjoy Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver, and how can you completely hate a series that gave us Tuesday Weld and includes a couple of apperances by Yvonne Craig?
At The Hits Just Keep On Comin', jb passes final judgment on Barnaby Jones , the detective series starring Buddy Ebsen. The quality of the show came and went, but I know of many, many people who have very fond memories of it; as jb says, "It's not good, exactly, but the rhythms and tropes of 70s TV are comfort food, and in a world such as this one, we need that." Amen to all that.
Paul returns to the world of the TV-movie at Drunk TV with the 1972 thriller The Norliss Tapes , which bore more than a passing resemblance to The Night Stalker—well, it was made by Dan Curtis. The good news: there's Angie Dickinson, although she's wasted. The bad news: there's also Roy Thinnes, who happens to be the star. The worst news: unlike The Night Stalker, there's no real sense of humor. And that's no laughing matter. TV
October 2, 2024
The politics of commercials
If you're like me, you've spent the last couple of months watching television with the remote close by your side, all the better to mute those interminable political commercials polluting the airwaves. It's not just that they're negative and ham-fisted; they lack style, panache, whatever that je ne sais quoi is that makes a moment memorable. . .(Pauses to mute television.)
Sorry about that; I can't even get away from them long enough to write this. Of course, if we're being honest, most commercials are like that nowadays. But, like other forms of advertising, it wasn't always this way. If political commercials weren't necessarily memorable, they were at least watchable, even to people who don't agree with the candidate in question. A few years ago I did a more extensive rundown of such commercials, but I thought I'd look back at some of my favorites, the ones that I admire for the way they were done. Whether or not I go along with them, or support the candidate, is not the point. In fact, I hope you'll appreciate that I'm not trying to be political here at all. . .
(Pauses to mute television, more angrily this time.)
Now, where was I? Oh yes—watchable political commercials. As I said, this is a non-partisan issue, so much so that I'm not insuring both parties are represented equally. In fact, let's start off with one of the most innocuous commercials of all, a 1960 ad for John F. Kennedy. It's upbeat, just like the candidate.
Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, ran this ad in 1964. It's not so upbeat; in fact, it's perhaps one of the most devastating commercials of any kind ever shown. As far as being influential, it's right up there with the "1984" commercial by Apple , and like that one, it was only shown once. It is, of course, the "Daisy" commercial.
Richard Nixon's commercials in 1968 utilized voiceovers from his 1968 convention speech combined with an artful montage of images designed to drive home the point. They conclude with a brilliant slogan, "This time vote like your whole world depended on it." It not only conveys the importance of the election, it's a subtle reminder of 1960—and a chance to make amends.
Jimmy Carter (who celebrated his 100th birthday yesterday; happy birthday, Mr. President!) was a virtual unknown prior to his 1976 campaign, even stumping the panel as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? It was important for him not only to build name recognition, but to convince voters that his Democratic party wouldn't be like George McGovern's, and his leadership wouldn't be like Gerald Ford's.
The 1984 reelection campaign of Ronald Reagan had two of the most famous—and most effective—commercials: "The Bear in the Woods" and "Morning in America." Both present a convincing case for reelecting the man who'd brought America back, and kept America safe.
I'll end with what may be—no, why pussyfoot around—what is my favorite political commercial of all time. It's from the Israeli elections of a few years ago, featuring PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Now this is a commercial. It doesn't matter what you think of Bibi Netanyahu or his politics. It's original, it humanizes him, it has the potential to make undecided voters smile. Why in the world American candidates don't try something like this I'll never know.
(Pauses to mute television, very irritated.)
One of the most annoying things about today's political commercials is that so many of them are sponsored by third-party special interest groups, and almost all of those are negative ads, attacking one of the candidates without ever mentioning the name of the other candidate. (As an example, even though we live in Indiana, we get ads for the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, in which Sherrod Brown is the incumbent. Based on these commercials, I still have no idea who Brown's opponent is; I actually had to look it up.) Even when you do get a commercial from one of the candidates, it's almost always a negative ad. Of course, we know why negative ads are run: it's because polls indicate they work. And that's on us.
As politics becomes ever more virtual and politicians ever more remote, it would behoove candidates today to create commercials that try to connect with voters in a human way. Of course, with politics also becoming ever more polarized, the odds of that may be somewhat remote. Which leaves our campaigns nasty and brutish, but, unfortunately, not short enough.
(Starts to mute television, then decides "The hell with it" and turns it off.) TV
September 30, 2024
What's on TV? Tuesday, September 26, 1967
Back on September 10, ABC preempted its entire Sunday prime-time lineup for Africa, a four-hour documentary that combined a look at the many new countries born from the end of colonialism with segments on African history and culture, featuring music by Alex North and performances from Miriam Makeba. The documentary was not only a critical success, going on to win a Peabody award, it was also a surprise ratings success, with "at least a look-in from close to 50 percent of the TV audience." At the time, the network announced an innovative plan to repeat the program in four one-hour segments, shown on four consecutive Tuesdays as part of its daytime schedule, for housewives and others who might not have been able to see the entire special when it was originally shown; today at 9:30 a.m. we see the second of the four parts. This is one of the few attempts I can recall to air serious programming during daytime (I'm assuming we all agree that The View doesn't fall into that category), and a rare example of an encore broadcast scheduled to take advantage of the publicity generated from the original airing. This and more comes from the Northern California edition.-2- KTVU (BAY AREA) (IND.) Morning 8:45 RELIGION TODAY—Protestant 9:00 POPEYE—Cartoons COLOR 9:30 ROMPER ROOM—Children 10:30 CARLTON FREDERICKS COLOR Guest: Fred J. Cook 11:00 NEWS—Claud Mann COLOR 11:30 CHARLEY AND HUMPHREY—Children COLOR Afternoon 12:30 LAUREL AND HARDY—Comedy 1:00 MOVIE—Mystery Dialing for Dollars: “Double Bunk” (English; 1960) 3:00 PDQ—Game 3:30 CAPTAIN SATELLITE COLOR 4:30 UNCLE WALDO COLOR 5:00 SUPERMAN—Adventure COLOR 5:30 DENNIS THE MENACE—Comedy Evening 6:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy 6:30 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy 7:00 TRUE ADVENTURE—Documentary COLOR 7:30 WORLD ADVENTURE—Travel COLOR 8:00 BURKE’S LAW—Mystery 9:00 COLLEGE FOOTBALL—Cal COLOR California vs. Notre Dame 9:30 COLLEGE FOOTBALL—Stanford COLOR Stanford vs. Kansas 10:00 NEWS—Atkinson, Park, Alberts 10:30 MOVIE—Drama “Johnny Apollo” (1940)
-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) Morning 5:55 FARM NEWS COLOR 6:00 RHYME AND REASON 7:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled guests: Walt Kelly, the Serendipity Singers, Fr. Sebastian Englart. Hugh Downs, Aline Saarinen, Frank Blair. (Taped from this morning’s live telecast.) 9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT COLOR Guests: Kaye Ballard, Tony Randall 9:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY COLOR Celebrities: Totie Fields, Joan Fontaine, George Maharis. On-film: George Raft 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, Polly Bergen, Wally Cox, Fabian, Dick Gautier, Rose Marie, Buddy Hackett, Roddy McDowall, Charley Weaver 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman COLOR Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Scheduled guests: Peter Ustinov, Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, Stanley Myron Handleman, Dana Valeri, Teddy Neely 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Guests: Polly Bergen, Peter Breck 2:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Model and the Marriage Broker” (1952) 5:00 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon COLOR 5:30 TRAVENTURE THEATRE COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Bob Whitten COLOR 7:30 I DREAM OF JEANNIE COLOR 8:00 JERRY LEWIS—Variety COLOR Guests: Nanette Fabray, Al Hirt 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “State Secret” (English; 1950) 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Don Adams, the 5th Dimension
-4- KRON (BAY AREA) (NBC) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 SEMINAR IV—Education “Toward Conclusions,” Part 2 7:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled guests: Walt Kelly, the Serendipity Singers, Fr. Sebastian Englart. Hugh Downs, Aline Saarinen, Frank Blair. (Taped from this morning’s live telecast.) 9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT COLOR Guests: Kaye Ballard, Tony Randall 9:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY COLOR Celebrities: Totie Fields, Joan Fontaine, George Maharis. On-film: George Raft 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, Polly Bergen, Wally Cox, Fabian, Dick Gautier, Rose Marie, Buddy Hackett, Roddy McDowall, Charley Weaver 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman COLOR Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS—Nancy Dickerson COLOR 12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:00 DOCTORS—Serial COLOR 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Guests: Polly Bergen, Peter Breck 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Guests: Sheldon Leonard, Betty White 2:55 NEWS COLOR 3:00 BACHELOR FATHER—Comedy 3:30 DIVORCE COURT—Drama 4:00 PANORAMA—Interviews 4:30 PICK A SHOW—Game 5:00 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon COLOR 5:30 ADDAMS FAMILY—Comedy Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 WIDE WONDERFUL WORLD COLOR 7:30 I DREAM OF JEANNIE COLOR 8:00 JERRY LEWIS—Variety COLOR Guests: Nanette Fabray, Al Hirt 9:00 MOVIE—Comedy “The Errand Boy” (1962) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Don Adams, the 5th Dimension
-5- KPIX (BAY AREA) (CBS) Morning 6:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER—Education RETURN COLOR “Russian Literature” 6:30 ARCHEOLOGY—Education 7:00 KPIX EDITORIAL 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 NEWS—Jim Anderson 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO COLOR 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial COLOR 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT COLOR Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING—Serial COLOR 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial COLOR 3:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Co-host: George Kirby. Scheduled guests: Adam Keefe, Damita Jo 5:00 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Scheduled guests: Sonny Tufts, Jack Sheldon, Tammy Grimes, Peaches and Herb, London Lee, Dayton Allen Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama 7:30 DAKTARI—Adventure COLOR 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guests: Godfrey Cambridge, Janis Paige 9:30 GOOD MORNING WORLD—Comedy COLOR 10:00 CBS NEWS SPECIAL SPECIAL COLOR “Portrait of the German People” May be pre-empted by a late-news show 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Story of Esther Costello” (1957)
-6- KVIE (SACRAMENTO) (IND.) Afternoon 5:45 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children Evening 6:00 PATTERNS OF LIFE—Science 6:30 KINDERGARTEN—Education 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 FOLK GUITAR—Music 8:00 CREATIVE PERSON 8:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Croissants 9:00 ALCOHOLICS ARE PEOPLE 9:30 NET JOURNAL—Documentary “The Vanishing Newspaper” 10:30 PATTERNS OF LIFE—Science
-7- KGO (BAY AREA) (ABC) Morning 6:00 A.M.—Jim Dunbar, Dick Carlson 8:00 VIRGINIA GRAHAM—Interviews COLOR Guests: Marjorie Palmer, Lynn Davis 8:30 MOVIE—Comedy Pat Montandon’s Prize Movie: “Love in the Afternoon” (1957) Part 1 9:30 AFRICA—Report SPECIAL COLOR Host: Gregory Peck. Commentary: Howard K. Smith 10:30 DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD Guest: Carol Burnett 10:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Advice COLOR 11:00 HONEYMOON RACE—Game COLOR 11:30 FAMILY GAME Afternoon 12:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING Celebrities: Hans Conried, Patty Duke, Leonard Nimoy 12:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME—Bob Eubanks COLOR 2:30 DREAM GIRL COLOR Celebrities: Polly Bergen, Ted Bessell, Ron Harper, Rich Little 2:55 NEWS COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 DATING GAME COLOR 4:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Interviews COLOR Guests: Glynis Johns, Mary Lapachet 5:00 NEWS COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings COLOR Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Wild One” (1954) 7:30 GARRISON’S GORILLAS—Drama COLOR 8:30 INVADERS—Drama COLOR 9:30 N.Y.P.D.—Drama COLOR 10:00 HOLLYWOOD PALACE—Variety COLOR Host: Sammy Davis Jr. Guests: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Burns and Schreiber, Raquel Welch, Baby Lawrence 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOEY BISHOP COLOR Scheduled guests: Gloria Swanson, Tony Martin. (Taped from tonight’s live telecast)
7 KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled guests: Walt Kelly, the Serendipity Singers, Fr. Sebastian Englart. Hugh Downs, Aline Saarinen, Frank Blair. (Taped from this morning’s live telecast.) 9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise 9:30 AFRICA—Report SPECIAL COLOR Host: Gregory Peck. Commentary: Howard K. Smith 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, Polly Bergen, Wally Cox, Fabian, Dick Gautier, Rose Marie, Buddy Hackett, Roddy McDowall, Charley Weaver 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman COLOR Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS—Nancy Dickerson COLOR 12:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME—Bob Eubanks COLOR 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Guests: Sheldon Leonard, Betty White 2:55 NEWS COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 DATING GAME COLOR 4:30 FAMILY GAME 5:00 BEAGLES—Cartoons 5:30 BULLWINKLE—Cartoons Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 FLYING NUN—Comedy COLOR 7:30 GARRISON’S GORILLAS—Drama COLOR 8:30 BEWITCHED—Comedy COLOR 9:00 HIGH CHAPARRAL—Western COLOR 10:00 HOLLYWOOD PALACE—Variety COLOR Host: Sammy Davis Jr. Guests: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Burns and Schreiber, Raquel Welch, Baby Lawrence 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Don Adams, the 5th Dimension
-8- KSBW (SALINAS) (CBS, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled guests: Walt Kelly, the Serendipity Singers, Fr. Sebastian Englart. Hugh Downs, Aline Saarinen, Frank Blair. (Taped from this morning’s live telecast.) 9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT COLOR Guests: Kaye Ballard, Tony Randall 9:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY COLOR Celebrities: Totie Fields, Joan Fontaine, George Maharis. On-film: George Raft 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, Polly Bergen, Wally Cox, Fabian, Dick Gautier, Rose Marie, Buddy Hackett, Roddy McDowall, Charley Weaver 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Bud Walling COLOR Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:15 NEWS—Bud Walling COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING—Serial COLOR 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial COLOR 3:30 MOVIE—Drama “Thunder over Hawaii” (1960) 4:55 DRESSING BY DESIGN 5:30 MISTER ED—Comedy Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 LOWELL THOMAS—Travel 7:30 DAKTARI—Adventure COLOR 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guests: Godfrey Cambridge, Janis Paige 9:30 GOOD MORNING WORLD—Comedy COLOR 10:00 STAR TREK—Drama COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Don Adams, the 5th Dimension
-9- KQED (BAY AREA) (EDUC.) Afternoon 5:00 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Chicken in white wine 5:30 EXPERIMENT—Science COLOR Evening 6:00 PORTRAIT IN MUSIC 6:15 FRIENDLY GIANT 6:30 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:00 PLAYING THE GUITAR 7:30 TO BE ANNOUNCED 8:00 RAINBOW QUEST—Music Guest: Len Chandler. Host: Pete Seeger 9:00 WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. Guest: Francis Plimpton 10:00 KQED REPORT—James Day 10:15 LOCAL ISSUE—Report 10:45 LITERARY THEME
9 KIXE (REDDING) (IND.) Afternoon 5:30 LOCAL ISSUE—Report Evening 6:00 PATTERNS OF LIFE—Science 6:30 KINDERGARTEN—Education 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 FOLK GUITAR—Music 8:00 CREATIVE PERSON 8:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Croissants 9:00 ALCOHOLICS ARE PEOPLE 9:30 NET JOURNAL—Documentary “The Vanishing Newspaper” 10:30 PATTERNS OF LIFE—Science
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) Morning 6:00 BIG PICTURE—Army 6:15 FILM FEATURE 6:30 SUNRISE SEMESTER—Education RETURN COLOR “Russian Literature” 7:00 FOCUS ON FARMING COLOR 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 NEWS—Monsees, Bales COLOR 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO COLOR 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial COLOR 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT COLOR Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING—Serial COLOR 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial COLOR 3:30 PDQ—Game COLOR Guests: Stubby Kaye, Bill Bixby, Donna Loren 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Co-host: George Kirby. Scheduled guests: Adam Keefe, Damita Jo 5:30 NEWS—Gray, Rowe COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 6:30 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy 7:00 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama 7:30 DAKTARI—Adventure COLOR 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guests: Godfrey Cambridge, Janis Paige 9:30 GOOD MORNING WORLD—Comedy COLOR 10:00 CBS NEWS SPECIAL SPECIAL COLOR “Portrait of the German People” May be pre-empted by a late-news show 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “Viva Juanito” (Mexican; 1965)
11 KNTV (SAN JOSE) (ABC) Morning 7:55 SAN JOSE STATE 8:30 HOCUS POCUS—Cartoons COLOR 9:00 HOCUS POCUS CLUBHOUSE 9:30 AFRICA—Report SPECIAL COLOR Host: Gregory Peck. Commentary: Howard K. Smith 10:30 DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD Guest: Carol Burnett 10:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Advice COLOR 11:00 HONEYMOON RACE—Game COLOR 11:30 FAMILY GAME Afternoon 12:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING Celebrities: Hans Conried, Patty Duke, Leonard Nimoy 12:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME—Bob Eubanks COLOR 2:30 DREAM GIRL COLOR Celebrities: Polly Bergen, Ted Bessell, Ron Harper, Rich Little 2:55 NEWS COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 DATING GAME COLOR 4:30 PERRY MASON—Mystery 5:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings COLOR Evening 6:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Co-host: George Kirby. Scheduled guests: Adam Keefe, Damita Jo 7:30 GARRISON’S GORILLAS—Drama COLOR 8:30 INVADERS—Drama COLOR 9:30 N.Y.P.D.—Drama COLOR 10:00 HOLLYWOOD PALACE—Variety COLOR Host: Sammy Davis Jr. Guests: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Burns and Schreiber, Raquel Welch, Baby Lawrence 11:00 NEWS 11:30 OUTDOOR WORLD COLOR 11:35 MOVIE—Drama “I Died a Thousand Times” (1955)
12 KHSL (CHICO) (ABC, CBS) Morning 7:05 CHRISTOPHER PROGRAM—Religion COLOR 7:35 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO COLOR 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial COLOR 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT COLOR Afternoon 12:00 DIVORCE COURT—Drama COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING—Serial COLOR 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial COLOR 3:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Co-host: George Kirby. Scheduled guests: Adam Keefe, Damita Jo 5:00 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Scheduled guests: Sonny Tufts, Jack Sheldon, Tammy Grimes, Peaches and Herb, London Lee, Dayton Allen Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 FELONY SQUAD—Drama COLOR 7:30 DAKTARI—Adventure COLOR 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guests: Godfrey Cambridge, Janis Paige 9:30 GOOD MORNING WORLD—Comedy COLOR 10:00 CBS NEWS SPECIAL SPECIAL COLOR “Portrait of the German People” May be pre-empted by a late-news show 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOEY BISHOP COLOR Scheduled guests: Gloria Swanson, Tony Martin. (Taped from tonight’s live telecast)
13 KOVR (SACRAMENTO) (ABC) Morning 6:25 NEWS COLOR 6:30 ED ALLEN—Exercise COLOR 7:00 CARTOONLAND COLOR 7:15 KING KONG—Cartoons 7:45 MILTON THE MONSTER 8:15 CARTOONLAND COLOR 9:00 DATING GAME 9:30 AFRICA—Report SPECIAL COLOR Host: Gregory Peck. Commentary: Howard K. Smith 10:30 DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD Guest: Carol Burnett 10:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Advice COLOR 11:00 HONEYMOON RACE—Game COLOR 11:30 FAMILY GAME Afternoon 12:00 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES COLOR 12:30 NEWS—Bob Russell COLOR 12:45 AGRICULTURE TODAY COLOR 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME—Bob Eubanks COLOR 2:30 DREAM GIRL COLOR Celebrities: Polly Bergen, Ted Bessell, Ron Harper, Rich Little 2:55 NEWS COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 CAP’N DELTA—Cartoons COLOR 4:30 YOGI BEAR—Cartoons COLOR 5:00 NEWS COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings COLOR Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Drama “Glory Alley” (1952) 7:25 OUTDOORSMAN—Lange COLOR 7:30 GARRISON’S GORILLAS—Drama COLOR 8:30 INVADERS—Drama COLOR 9:30 N.Y.P.D.—Drama COLOR 10:00 HOLLYWOOD PALACE—Variety COLOR Host: Sammy Davis Jr. Guests: Diana Ross and the Supremes, Burns and Schreiber, Raquel Welch, Baby Lawrence 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOEY BISHOP COLOR Scheduled guests: Gloria Swanson, Tony Martin. (Taped from tonight’s live telecast)
19 KLOC (MODESTO) (IND.) Afternoon 5:00 FILM FEATURE “Where the Jota Is Danced” 5:30 CARTOON FUN HOUSE Evening 7:00 CARAVAN—Country Music 7:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Tijuana Story” (1957) 9:30 WRESTLING—Chicago
TV
September 28, 2024
This week in TV Guide: September 23, 1967
That's a great cover, isn't it? So vivid and alive with color. Television loved color in the 1960s, in a way it doesn't today. It's natural, considering how the networks were transitioning to full color in the late 60s, but programs exploited it, made the screens burst it a technicolor swirl that automatically anchors those shows in the decade. But we're not here to talk about the cover—it's the group on the cover that counts, that group being The Monkees; and this week Dwight Whitney takes us behind the scenes to document the Prefab Four's battle with the Powers That Be over control of their own music, their careers, their lives. For as Whitney points out, "the marvelous alchemy of TV converted them into the hottest new act in show business—an accomplishment rendered all the more remarkable by the fact that the boys could not play their instruments well enough to record the hit tunes that made them famous. Someone else did it for them."
That is, of course, the story, Not as scandalous as the Milli Vanilli lip-synch scam would be, because it would be an open secret that The Monkees didn't do their own playing. And it wasn't as if the boys themselves were trying to pull one over; they were the ones pushing to do their own thing. As Whitney points out, "what they really craved was that good old-fashioned 'straight' attribute—acceptance." They were successful, to a point: they were producing hit records, they were making money for everyone concerned: the studio, record producer Don Kirshner, series creators Bert Schneider and Robert Rafelson, the network. Even the boys themselves—"corporate pawns," as one record producer describes them—make money, a whole $500 a week. And at first, they were content. But as they looked at their peers, groups like The Beatles, The Byrds, The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and The Mamas and the Papas, groups that were admired by the musical world, they felt like clowns.
An incident in late June, 1966, demonstrates the challenges the series faced even before it hit the airwaves. It was an NBC affiliate gathering held at Hollywood's famed Chasen's restaurant. The head writers had written a sketch for them to perform before the executives, but the boys, whom Whitney describes as "Young, frightened, confused, [and] entirely unschooled in the nuances of handling a big success," decide to do something else entirely. Dolenz finds the restaurant's switch box and turns off all the lights. They horsed around with the microphone. They didn't sing, since they didn't have any instruments—"we were afraid to let 'em try to play," explains a behind-the-scenes participant. The affilates, already in a bad mood because things were running late, weren't impressed by "a bunch of smart-aleck kids." One executive was overheard to say on the way out, "That's The Monkees? Forget it." As a result, Whitney says, at least five key stations failed to pick up the show, with a resulting impact on the ratings.
That was only one of their problems. Kirshner relates his thoughts on first hearing the gang's sound. "They were loud. It was not the right sound, Not a young, happy, driving, pulsating sound of today. I wanted a musical sex image. Something you’d recognize next time you heard it." Davy, he felt, was good "for musical comedy," while Mike was the weakest singer of the four. On "Last Train to Clarksville," the music was performed by songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and a handpicked group of professional musicians. Micky did the lead vocals, while Davy and Peter sang some background, Mike wasn't on it at all. When they tried Mike on the lead for "I'm a Believer," Kirschner remembers, "We had to take him off."
By September, "Last Train to Clarksville" was at the top of the charts, while the series itself was near the bottom of the Nielsens. Tension was palpable at the studio, where Schneider had succeeded in alienating employees and reporters alike with his autocratic attitude. The New York Times was about to write a story on the boys' "musical ineptitude." Kirshner was, in Whitney's describes as "[apparently unwilling] to treat them as anything but overgrown children," and was making a ton of money off of them in the process. And the boys themselves were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the whole thing. They were tired of being called "corporate pawns," tired of being taunted by musician friends and ridiculed by the press as "the rock ’n’ roll group that didn’t rock and didn’t roll." They had four Gold Records to their credit, each one representing a record that had sold a million copies, but, as Nesmith complained, "The music on our records has nothing to do with us. It’s totally dishonest. We don’t record our own music. Tell the world we’re synthetic because, dammit, we are! We want to play our own."
A showdown was inevitable. By January 1967, the boys had made their demands: from now on, they wanted to play their own music and choose their own songs, reducing Kirshner's role to than of an overseer. Kirshner tried to tell them the facts of the business, but Mike retorted with his own facts: "Donny, we could sing 'Happy Birthday' with a beat and it would sell a million records. [Your argument] is no longer valid because we are The Monkees and we have that incredible TV exposure." Absent this, he threatened to "pack up my gear, go to Mexico or Tahiti, eat coconuts and let everybody sue me." The other three fell in line behind him; as they left, Nesmith smashed his fist through the wall of Kirshner's bungalow. Later, he would say, "[I]t's horrible to be No. 1 group in the country and not be allowed to play your own records."
The "ever-realistic" Kirshner didn't believe the group's threats. But Schneider did. The studio did as well. And less than a month later, Kirshner was out, albeit with a $35 million lawsuit to show for his estimation of how much he was worth to them. They returned from vacation to a sound-recording stage, where their new album, "Headquarters," would be, "for better or worse, all theirs." And, sure enough, it's right there at the top of the charts, one notch below The Beatles. For Nesmith, the moment came when he heard "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" on the car radio. He honked the horn for his wife and friends to come out. "Hey," he yelled, "want to sit in on a moment in history?"
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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: Ed's scheduled guests: the Mamas and the Papas, comedians Jack Carter and John Byner, singers Florence Henderson and Ed Ames, balancers Jorgen and Conny, balancing act Jean Claude, and puppet Topo Gigio.
Palace: Host Sammy Davis Jr. presents Diana Ross and the Supremes, comedians Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, actress Raquel Welch and jazz dancer Baby Lawrence. Sammy engages in a tap-dancing duel with Baby Lawrence, whom Sammy appeared with in the Forties at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater. Jack and Avery do a take-off on TV talk shows,
As most of you probably know, The Ed Sullivan Show was generally shown live (except for reruns), which means that the guest lineups are subject to change right up to the time of broadcast. Despite knowing this, I've simply copied the listings from TV Guide into this feature. Well, after all, this is about TV Guide, so what would you expect. But no more! Starting this week, I'm deferring to the online episode guide to provide you with the official Ed Sullivan lineup, and a more accurate matchup against the prerecorded Hollywood Palace. Why, you may ask, am I changing my ways after nearly 15 years? To tell you the truth, I don't know. Maybe I'm just bored. As it is, there was only one major change to this week's lineup, with Ed Ames appearing instead of Jerry Vale, and the additions of balancer Jean Claude and Topo Gigio. It's not enough to catch up to Sammy Davis Jr., the Supremes, Raquel Welch and Baby Lawrence, though. This week, Palace dances away with the prize.
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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. Based on what we know of Cleveland Amory's likes and dislikes, you might have expected him to have some harsh words about ABC's new sitcom, The Flying Nun. And if you'd expected that, you would have been wrong, because Cleve finds it to be "an altogether delightful fantasy," thanks to the best maker of television comedies around, Harry Ackerman (Bewitched, Occasional Wife, and Love of a Rooftop to name three).
The Flying Nun is a difficult program to assess in retrospect. It is very much of its time, said time being a very dark one for the Catholic Church. Sally Field's flying Sister Bertrille is, as Amory describes her, a "new nun," one who has already been arrested for joining in various protests; that new nun and her focus on social justice rather than spirituality exemplifies the near-total collapse in religious vocations worldwide since the close of the Second Vatican Council. (There were more than 180,000 nuns in the United States alone in 1965, the approximate time during which Sr. Bertrille would have begun her discernment; today, there are fewer than 42,000.) We're not here to discuss theology, though; that's for another time and another place; it is, however, interesting to catch a series that so utterly captures a moment in history. Except, that is, for flying nuns; I'm not sure even the most liberal orders were able to accomplish that, especiallyt after they got rid of their good habits and picked up some bad ones.
But I digress, as I am often wont to do. The success of The Flying Nun rests in large part on Field, who plays her role "cunningly, if sometimes too cutely," and she's aided by Madeleine Sherwood as the crisp Mother Superior, Marge Redmond as Sister Jacqueline, and Sister Sixto, played by Shelley Morrison. And we can't forget about Carlos, the island's playboy, who is "extremely well portrayed" by Alejandro Rey. The production values are top-flight (I couldn't resist that), the stories are charming and played relatively straight, and Field has added a fine singing voice to her other talents. The only flaw Amory can find: the pilot was a full hour, whereas regular episodes are 30 minutes, "which, in our judgment, in a show as good as this, is too short." You can take the premise or leave it, but it you take it, The Flying Nun will give you quite a ride; as Cleve says, "This has lift and thrust, and it never drags."
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Speaking of flying nuns and other oddities, the first returns on the new season are in. Networks don't put a lot of stock in these overnights, given that many viewers are still sampling the new shows; one network researcher called them "just garbage." Ad agencies, dealing with millions in clients' money, are inclined to wait a month or so to start pronouncing winners and losers; nonetheless, the Doan Report delivers the initial takes on the newcomers, delivered off-the-record from one savvy ad exec. Like Cleveland Amory, he sees The Flying Nun as "one of the sure hits," along with the "extremely well-done" Ironside, Garrison's Gorillas ("thanks to the movie The Dirty Dozen"), and N.Y.P.D. On the down side, The Carol Burnett Show "Hasn't got a prayer," nor does Dundee and the Culhane, Off to See the Wizard, and The Jerry Lewis Show ("A bomb, despite a good rating.") The influential BBD&O ad agency, using computerized data, concurs on Gorillas and Ironside as likely hits, and adds The High Chaparral, Good Morning World, and He & She. The misses include Carol and Jerry, Dundee, The Second Hundred Years, The Mothers-in-Law, and Hondo.
It's always easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to make fun of these pundits. The Carol Burnett Show turned out to be one of television's all-time variety hits, revered to this day, but it's good to remember that Cleveland Amory wasn't all that sold on it when it premiered either. A lot of critics praised He & She, but viewers didn't; today, it's considered to have been a show ahead of its time. Garrison's Gorillas only ran for one season, one of the series hurt by the backlash against television violence, while The Jerry Lewis Show and The Mothers-in-Law at least made it to two seasons. Of the shows mentioned, the biggest hits turned out to be Ironside, which ran for eight seasons, and The High Chaparral, which survived for four. The Flying Nun? Well, that flew along for three seasons, even though it never made it into the Nielsen top 30.
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Another hallmark of the new season is the rollout of big-money theatrical movies, for which the networks shelled out plenty of dough, and there's plenty of evidenc of that this week, starting with NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies, which premieres the debut of Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther (9:00 p.m.) Clouseau isn't the focal point of this initial offering, which features a big-name cast including David Niven, Robert Wagner, Claudia Cardinale, and Capucine; it's Sellers who makes the impact, though, with Judith Crist calling him "a comic genius" who plays "one of the most ingratiating and funny fools to have come our way." He enlivens "an otherwise faltering film" in which "everything seems wrong" whenever he's not on screen.The 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, with a three-and-a-half hour running time, is too big to fit into ABC's regular Sunday Night Movie slot, so it's been labeled as a "special", with a starting time that's an hour earlier than normal. (8:00 p.m.) The problem with this troubled production, says Crist, is the performance of Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian—"uneven, foppish, hitting dramatic high spots too seldom"—but you'll be impressed by Trevor Howard's Captain Bligh, with "a bite and brutishness beyond Laughton’s pudgy sadism" of the original.
CBS, not to be outdone, rolls out a pair of relative "oldies" making their television debuts: 1958's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Thursday, 9:00 p.m.), featuring intense performances by Paul Newman and Elizbeth Taylor, and a dominating performance by Burl Ives as Big Daddy; Ives missed out on a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Cat only because he was too busy winning Best Supporting Actor that same year for The Big Country. The network's second premiere, the following night, is of Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 masterpiece, North by Northwest (9:00 p.m.), starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Mount Rushmore, and a very nasty crop duster. And don't forget Martin Landau as the very nasty bad guy trying to knock Cary off Honest Abe.
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There's more than just movies to the week, starting Saturday with The Jackie Gleason Show (7:30 p.m., CBS) and an hour-long "Honeymooners" musical that sees the gang in trouble after Ralph helps catch a wanted criminal. Sheila MacRae, who plays Alice, tells Edith Efron that it hasn't been easy taking over from the legendary Audrey Meadows: "I just couldn’t get Alice Kramden at first. Does she have nothing to do all day but yell at Ralph?" she says. "It’s the antagonistic quality against men I can’t get. I'm a worshipper of men. Audrey could look Ralph in the eye and give him hell. I can’t do that. To me, the male image is not to be torn down. I have a hard time saying some of those lines." She's been criticized for being "over-sweet" in the role, but Jackie himself is pleased; "The very fact that I’ve rehired her means that I like her very much. She can continue to play Alice as long as she wants to."
Sunday, G-E College Bowl returns for its 10th season, as the University of Wisconsin takes on Valpariso University; Robert Earle brings you all the live action (5:30 p.m., NBC). Later, as a warm-up to Mutiny, JonathanWinters hosts Holiday on Ice (7:00 p.m., ABC), the touring ice show; you'll be familiar with this kind of show if you remember those Ice Capades shows that NBC used to present. Whether or not you consider Winters to be the highlight of the show depends on how big a fan you are of ice skating.
On Monday, Danny Thomas's drama anthology series (which our anonymous ad exec pronounced "Very disappointing") presents "The Scene" (9:00 p.m., NBC), with Robert Stack as a successful businessman who takes an opportunity to return to his first love, art, and finds himself immersed in the "now" world of hippies and bohemians at an art colony. Geraldine Chaplin, Charlie's daughter, plays the single mother he befriends, while Michael J. Pollard and everybody's favorite beatnik, Victor Buono, co-star. It's hard to know whether or not the show's portrayal of "the scene" is as wince-inducing as is usually the case in shows like this, but I wouldn't be surprised. If that concerns you, don't hesitate to skip it in favor of tonight's episode of The Big Valley (9:00 p.m., ABC), which features guest star Milton Berle.Berle's back on Tuesday in an I Dream of Jeannie filmed in Hawaii (7:30 p.m., NBC), where he plays a conman trying to bilk Jeannie out of her scarab pin that was a gift from King Tut. Meanwhile, it's an all-Jerry Lewis night on NBC; first up is the comedian's eponymous variety show (8:00 p.m.), with guests Nanette Fabray and Al Hirt; that's followed by Jerry in The Errand Boy (9:00 p.m.), a movie which he directed and co-wrote in addition to being the star. Judith Crist, never a Lewis fan, says it "gets off to a funny start and then settles into the sort of self-indulgence that made Lewis the darling director of the French critics." Don't agree with her assessment of Jerry, but I love the slam on the French.
We're out of Milton Berle appearanes on Wednesday, which means we'll have to settle for Joan Collins as "The Lady From Wichita" in The Virginian (7:30 p.m., NBC); actually, she's one of two ladies, the other being played by Rose Marie. Doug McClure's Trampas stars in this episode, which sounds appropriate for its whimsical tone. That's followed at 9:00 by Kraft Music Hall's tribute to the Hollywood musical, hosted by Rock Hudson, with Connie Stevens, Bobby Van, and Michele Lee; you can see a clip of it here .
Ready for more Joan Collins? Besides The Virginian, she's also on Thursday's Batman (7:30 p.m., ABC) as The Siren, who's hypnotized millionaire Bruce Wayne; Batgirl and Robin try to break the spell. And thus we can crown Adam West as the luckiest man of the week, having Joan Collins and Yvonne Craig fighting over him. Later, we get a chance to see Jack Lord commiting crimes instead of fighting them; a year before Hawaii Five-O, he plays a crime czar (or is that tsar?) in Ironside (8:30 p.m., NBC) And on F. Lee Bailey's short-lived interview show Good Company (10:00 p.m., ABC), the lawyer interviews Sean Connery. In case you were hoping to see someone else double-dipping this week besides Milton Berle and Joan Collins, you're in luck: on Friday, Ironside's Don Mitchell guest stars on Tarzan (7:30 p.m., NBC) in a tale of two escaped convicts out to kill Tarzan and a native chief; George Kennedy and Yaphet Kotto round out a pretty impressive guest cast. And if you've got the stamina to stay up late, the second half of KRON's late-night double feature (1:00 a.m.) is Zero Hour!, the war drama that served as the basis for the all-time comedy classic Airplane!, with Dana Andrews as Lieutenant Ted Stryker.
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MST3K alert: The Thing That Couldn't Die
(1958) The severed head of an Elizabethan sailor is found in a centuries-old chest—still alive and exercising an evil power. Andra Martin, William Reynolds, Carolyn Kearney. (Saturday, 1:10 a.m., KXTV in Sacramento) I won't deny it; you're in for a long, hard road with this one. Fortunately, William Reynolds, who plays our hero, goes on to a long and successful career with Efrem ZImbalist Jr. in The FBI. It just goes to show that good things come to those who wait, and bad things can die—just not quickly enough. TV
September 27, 2024
Around the dial
Now there's a young entrepreneur hard at work honing his craft. "Check out the 16-inch screen on this beauty. Just use that dial to adjust the sound, and you're all set!" But what would they watch?Possibly The Twilight Zone, and the fifth-season episode " Probe 7, Over and Out ," starring Richard Basehart and Antoinette Bower. It's the subject of Jordon's latest at The Twilight Zone Vortex; while Rod Serling's script seems to suffer from writer's fatigue, the performances and dialogue make the episode worth checking out.
As good as that television set might be, it's unlikely it would still be in use on Friday nights in 1974 , which is where Comfort TV is, with David's continuing inventory of 1970s prime time television. The Six Million Dollar Man, Kolchak, Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, Rockford, Police Woman; back then, Fridays had television worth watching.
If you've been reading along at Cult TV Blog, then you'll know how John is currently looking at shows in which actor Denis Shaw appeared. We're now up to the 1968-70 series Tom Grattan's War , the adventures of a teen boy spending World War I on a Yorkshire farm. Check out a pair of episodes that speak well of the series as a whole.
Sticking with television on the other side of the ocean, The View from the Junkyard reviews " Get-a-Way! ", a locked-room mystery from the final season of The Avengers. Roger and Mike don't always agree on their assessments of the series, so see for yourself what they think here.
At The Last Drive In, it's part two of Monstergirl's in-depth look at the career of Adrienne Barbeau , including an interview with Adrienne herself. Both the career retrospective and interview provide a fascinating look at the life and times of the popular actress.
Up for a quiz? If so, then head to Classic Film & TV Cafe, where Rick has the second edition of the "" game. I think you'll enjoy the challenge, and, possibly, the memories it brings back. No peaking at the comments section, though.
I've been seeing a lot of notices on social media about anniversaries of various series debuts, which isn't surprising since most of them used to premiere around this time of year, and at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence notes the 60th anniversary of The Munsters . And while you're there, be sure to read his obituary of Kathryn Crosby , widow of Bing, who died last week at age 90.
Speaking of anniversaries, Television Obscurities has a couple of more, well, obscure ones for you to consider: the 55th anniversary of The New People , and the 60th of The Baileys of Balboa . Neither of these are among the most famous of programs; do you have any memories of them?
Finally, how about some reading material? At Travalanche, you can learn about Sam and Friends , "the definitive book about early Jim Henson." It's a great look at Henson's first television show, and gives you a chance to see the evolution of some of Henson's great Muppets. TV
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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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