Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 35
March 18, 2024
What's on TV? Sunday, March 20, 1955
Some small but interesting tidbits in today's listings: singer
Caterina Valente
makes her American TV debut on the Colgate Comedy Hour; she's unknown enough that her first name is misspelled "Katerina." (She, along with Gordon MacRae and Kaye Ballard, make a formidable lineup, but I'd still give the edge to Ed Sullivan.) At 8:00 p.m., ABC carries a simulcast of Walter Winchell's 15-minute radio program; you might get a glimpse of him later at one of his favorite haunts, Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club, where tonight Billingsley welcomes Les Paul and Mary Ford. And if you're looking for a movie or two to watch, it's your day; there are no less than 18 of them on between the five stations in the Chicagoland Edition, and even though many of them are only an hour long, that should still fill the bill for fans of the flix.-2- WBBM (CBS) MORNING 8:30 What in the World?—Quiz 9:00 Lamp unto My Feet “No Pets Allowed” 9:30 Look up and Live—Religion 10:00 This Way Up—Religion 10:30 MOVIE—Mystery “Secrets of Scotland Yard” (1944) 11:30 Contest Carnival—Kids AFTERNOON 12:00 Range Rider—Western 12:30 Cinema Playhouse “The Fugitives” 1:00 The Search—Documentary 1:30 Face the Nation—Panel 2:00 Farmtown, U.S.A. 2:30 Adventure—Education 3:00 The American Week 3:30 This Is the Midwest 4:00 Omnibus—Alistair Cooke 5:30 You Are There—Drama “The Hatfield-McCoy Feud” EVENING 6:00 Lassie—Drama 6:30 Jack Benny—Comedy 7:00 TOAST OF THE TOWN Guests: Sarah Vaughan, Sam Levenson, Xavier Cugat and Abbe Lane, Tony and Sally DeMarco, the Dartmouth College Glee Club, The Wlades Doves 8:00 G.E. THEATER—Drama “The Bitter Choice” 8:30 STAGE 7—Drama “Press Conference” 9:00 FATHER KNOWS BEST 9:30 WHAT’S MY LINE?—Panel 10:00 NEWS SPECIAL 10:15 MAHALIA JACKSON SHOW 10:45 NEWS—Frank Reynolds 11:00 MOVIE—Drama “Leathernecks Have Landed (1936)
-4- WTMJ (MILWAUKEE) (NBC) MORNING 9:00 This Is the Life—Religion “The Bribe” 9:30 Church Services—Religion 10:30 Sunday Comics—Kids 11:00 House for You—Audience 11:30 Handy Workshop—Crafts AFTERNOON 12:00 Vacsation Tours—Travel 12:15 Fame—History 12:30 Princeton ’55—Education 1:00 Norby—Comedy COLOR 1:30 Wisconsin House Party 2:30 Roy Rogers—Western 3:00 Juvenile Jury—Panel 3:30 Zoo Parade—Perkins 4:00 Hall of Fame—Drama “Soldier’s Bride” 4:30 Capt. Gallant—Crabbe 5:00 Meet the Press 5:30 Triangle Theater—Drama EVENING 6:00 Neighbor Theater—Drama “The Thin Line” 6:30 Mr. Peepers—Comedy 7:00 COMEDY HOUR Host: Gordon MacRae. Guests: Katerina Valente, Kaye Ballard 8:00 TV PLAYHOUSE “Shadow of the Champ” 9:00 LORETTA YOUNG “Inga” 9:30 NEWS—Kelly and Clark 10:00 RAY MILLAND—Comedy 10:30 BIG TOWN—Drama 11:00 Bob Cummings Show 11:30 News Bulletins 11:35 MOVIE—Drama “Sky High” (1951)
-5- WNBQ (NBC) MORNING 9:00 Sunday Funnies—Kids 9:30 Bible Time—Stories 9:45 The Pulpit—Religion 10:00 Live and Learn—Discussion “Government and Human Nature” 10:30 The Christophers—Religion 11:00 Pet Show—Ned Locke 11:15 Industry on Parade 11:30 MOVIE—Western “Son of Billy the Kid” (1949) AFTERNOON 12:30 Frontiers of Faith—Religion 1:00 John Ott—Gardening 1:30 Mr. Wizard—Science 2:00 City Desk—Discussion 2:30 American Forum 3:00 Juvenile Jury—Panel 3:30 Zoo Parade—Perkins 4:00 Hall of Fame—Drama “Soldier’s Bride” 4:30 Capt. Gallant—Crabbe 5:00 Meet the Press 5:30 Roy Rogers—Western EVENING 6:00 People Are Funny 6:30 Mr. Peepers—Comedy 7:00 COMEDY HOUR Host: Gordon MacRae. Guests: Katerina Valente, Kaye Ballard 8:00 TV PLAYHOUSE “Shadow of the Champ” 9:00 LORETTA YOUNG “Inga” 9:30 BOB CUMMINGS SHOW 10:00 WEATHER—Clint Youle 10:10 DORSEY CONNORS—Ideas 10:15 NEWS—Alex Dreier 10:30 CALL THE PLAY—Mel Allen 10:45 SPORTS—Norm Barry 11:00 MOVIE—Mystery “Some Call It Murder”
-7- WBKB (ABC) MORNING 9:00 The Christophers—Religion 9:30 King Size Ranch—Western “Phantom of the Desert” 10:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Great John L” (1945) 11:30 Faith for Today—Religion AFTERNOON 12:00 Ramar of the Jungle 12:30 Amateur Hour—Talent 1:30 Wild Bill Hickok—Western 2:00 Annie Oakley—Western 2:30 Hans Christian Andersen “Traveling Companion” 3:00 Rin Tin Tin—Adventure 3:30 Hank McCune Show 4:00 Super Circus 5:00 Cisco Kid—Western 5:30 Life with Elizabeth EVENING 6:00 You Asked for It—Requests 6:30 Playhouse—Polly Bergen “A Husband Disappears” 7:00 MAIN EVENT WRESTLING Sockeye MacDonald vs. Baron Leone 8:00 WALTER WINCHELL—Talk 8:15 SPORTS FOR THE FAMILY 8:30 THE STORK CLUB Guests: Mary Ford and Les Paul. Host: Sherman Billingsley 9:00 BREAK THE BANK—Quiz 9:30 MOVIE—To Be Announced 10:30 COUNTERPOINT—Drama 11:00 Studs Terkel’s Briefcase 11:30 Film Shorts 11:45 MOVIE—Drama “Duke of West Point” (1938)
-9- WGN (Du Mont) MORNING 8:45 The Christophers—Religion 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “Lost Continent” (1951) 10:00 MOVIE—Western “Rangeland” (1949) 11:00 MOVIE—Mystery “Black Dragons” (1942) AFTERNOON 12:00 MOVIE—Western “Texas Desperados” 1:00 MOVIE—Mystery “Fingerprints Don’t Lie” (1951) 2:00 MOVIE—Drama “Two Lost Worlds” (1950) 3:00 Fulton Lewis, Jr. 3:15 Commercial 3:30 Times Square Playhouse “House of Shadows” 4:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Crooked Way” (1949) 5:00 MOVIE—Drama “Broadway Limited” (1941) EVENING 6:00 MOVIE—Drama “Pick a Star” (1937) 7:00 CAMERACADE—Film Shorts 7:15 YOUR SENATORS’ REPORT 7:30 FAITH OF OUR FATHERS 8:00 IT’S TIME FOR MERRIAM 8:30 LIFE BEGINS AT 80—Panel 9:00 FLORIAN ZABACH—Music 9:30 TALES OF TOMORROW “Ice from Space” 10:00 MOVIE—Drama “Caught” (1949) 11:30 News—Les Nichols 11:45 Weather—Carl Greyson
TV
March 16, 2024
This week in TV Guide: March 19, 1955
Xometimes you find the lede buried deep in the pages of TV Guide, calling no attention to itself, betraying no outward significance. Once I find that hook, that something-or-other that I can latch onto, it's clear sailing the rest of the way. That doesn't mean there has to be one, but it does tend to make things much easier. This week's lede almost slipped away from me; in fact, I was about three-quarters of the way through writing this before I found it. It comes on the final page of the listings for the final day of the week, and if you know the rest of the story, you'll find it almost audacious in its simplicity. It's the listing for Edward R. Murrow's interview show Person to Person (9:30 p.m. CT), in which we read that "Ed's off to the wide open spaces, where he stops at the Dallas, Tex., home of multimillionaire Clint Murchison." Clint Murchison is, in fact, one of the richest and most influential businessmen in the United States, and if that was all there was to it, you'd probably think that was all well and good, and then wonder what the late show is. And it's then that we begin, for Clint Murchison's story is as entertaining as anything we're apt to see in the dramatic anthologies that fill the nightly primetime schedule.
Murchison made his fortune in the oil fields of West Texas, and soon added natural gas to his portfolio. Having created one of the largest oil companies in the country, he began to diversify his interests, and soon he owned everything from the New York Central Railroad to Lionel Trains, plus publishing firms, insurance companies, banks, and industrial building materials suppliers. His business acumen made him hundreds of millions, and snagged him the cover of Time magazine.
It was the oil and gas business that remained his first love, though, and propelled his interest in politics, fighting to keep the government from regulating private industry. Not surprisingly, he also became an ardent anti-communist. He was a friend of J. Edgar Hoover (he was a stockholder in Henry Holt Publishing and used his influence to have them publish Hoover's book Masters of Deceit), the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (he hosted them at his ranch in Mexico), Dwight D. Eisenhower (he played a role in encouraging Ike to run for president), and Lyndon B. Johnson (he supported him for president in 1960). His patronage ensured the continuation of the oil depletion allowance, which saved him millions in taxes every year
What's more interesting, however, is Murchison's implication in several of the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy; supposedly, he hosted a party the night before Kennedy's death—a party at which Hoover, Johnson, Richard Nixon, and fellow billionaire H.L. Hunt were in attendance—after which Murchison is quoted as having said, "After tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That’s no threat. That’s a promise." This story has been debunked considerably, particularly Nixon's attendance; he was seen that same night with Joan Crawford at the at the Empire Room of the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Dallas. The singer they were watching backs up the story; he even pointed Nixon out to the audience. That singer? Robert Clary. The Hogan's Heroes Robert Clary! I tell you, you can't make these things up. (As far as I know, Murchison was not an acquaintance of Clay Shaw, but who knows?) When Murchison died, in 1969, his worth was estimated at a half-billion dollars.And the Murchison story doesn't end there! His son, Clint Murchison Jr., was also a successful (and wealthy) businessman. His distinction? He founded the Dallas Cowboys football team, among other things*. It was his idea to build Texas Stadium, and to leave the famous opening in the roof so the field would still be exposed to the elements. It was also at his instigation that the Cowboys became the first team to utilize computers in scouting; Murchison had a masters from MIT. He's a member of both the Texas Business Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. Ironically, the Cowboys helped rebuild Dallas's image, which had been so tarnished—after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
*Murchison's supposed co-conspirator in the JFK assassination, H.L. Hunt, was the father of Lamar Hunt, one of the founders of the American Football League, and the inventor of the name "Super Bowl." His AFL football team, the Kansas City Chiefs, started out life as the Dallas Texans, competing with Murchison Jr.'s NFL Cowboys team for supremacy in Dallas; Hunt agreed to move his team to Kansas City when it became apparent that two teams could not survive in Dallas.
In retrospect, it's no wonder that the soap opera Dallas was so popular with viewers. It provided almost as many salacious details, and was a lot easier to follow than real life.
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One of the reasons it was so important to come up with a hook for this week is that there's nothing particularly exceptional about this issue. There are no spectaculars, no close-ups jumping off the page, and because the era of contemporary movies hasn't yet begun, most of the features are B-movies from the 1930s and '40s. What was I to latch onto?
Well, this is, after all, the Golden Age of Television, an exciting time of boundary-breaking broadcasts: live drama anthologies from New York featuring soon-to-be famous directors and actors; variety shows starring some of the biggest names in entertainment, original programs that captured the affections of the viewing public. And boxing: in 1955, there are no less than four primetime boxing broadcasts each week.
All these shows are presented in TV Guide, for the most part, with little to no fanfare. Those working behind the scenes in the television industry knew that they were part of something special, something revolutionary, not to be duplicated. Were viewers aware they were part of the Golden Age, though? Once they got beyond the simple miracle of television itself, these were just the shows they watched every week, some better than others, but all in all, nothing out of the ordinary. Just open the pages, and there they are. Let's take a look at some of them.
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Normally, Saturday night's highlight is The Jackie Gleason Show, but this week it's Stage Show (7:00 p.m. CT, CBS), hosted by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and this week featuring special guest Nat King Cole. We're reassured that the Gleason show returns next week, but that didn't stop TV Guide from putting Art Carney on this week's cover. As Frank De Blois's accompanying story tells, Carney for years played a second banana for some of the biggest comics in show business: Fred Allen, Edgar Bergen, Morey Amsterdam, Milton Berle, and Henry Morgan among them.
Carney, Joyce Randolph, Gleason, and Audrey Meadows Carney's career started in junior high school, performing in front of the Elks Club in Mount Vernon, New York. After acting in a movie with James Stewart and playing on local radio in New York City, he first hit the big time with Morey Amsterdam in 1949, where his portrayal of Newton the Waiter evolved eventually into the Ed Norton character he plays today. By 1951, the Honeymooners skits were a regular part of Gleason's Cavalcade of Stars show, where the Norton character took full flight. He also found time for other roles; shows with Berle, Morgan, and Bert Lahr, and a turn as the Mad Hatter in a television adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. He has nothing but good things to say about those he's worked with, and credits Amsterdam for teaching him "plenty" about humor. "Morey’s a stand-up gagman. He’s not afraid to pass a gag along to another fellow. He’s not afraid you’re going to steal his act from him." Gleason's like that, too, he says; "The good ones aren't scared to let you have a laugh or two of your own."Lately, as his fame has increased, he's started to branch out into dramatic roles, appearing on Studio One, Kraft Theatre, Suspense, and Climax. He's too busy, he says, for movies and Broadway. He lives modestly with his wife and three children, playing the part of, as De Blois says, "the most inconspicuous-looking $75,000-a year man in captivity." He could, in fact, be mistaken for "a fellow named Norton."
As is typical for the time, nothing is mentioned of the alcoholism which Carney would battle for many years. And, as successful as Carney is at portraying Ed Norton (he would win multiple Emmys for the role), he would equal that success in the two forms that he said he was "too busy" for; he receives great acclaim as the original Felix Under in the Broadway version of The Odd Couple, and was nominated for a Tony for Lovers, while he wins a Best Actor Oscar in 1975 for the movie Harry and Tonto (during which he finally conquered his addictions), and later received the Best Actor award by the National Society of Film Critics for The Late Show. And every once in awhile, he'd show up as Norton in a revival of the Honeymooners. Not bad for someone who, in Carney's words, "started at the bottom in this business, and worked my way right into the sewer."
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A few weeks ago, I reviewed The Adams Chronicles , the PBS miniseries about America's illustrious Adams family. That series was based on the Adams family papers, which were donated by the family to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1954. As it turns out, that wasn't the first TV series based on the family papers; Sunday's Omnibus (4:00 p.m., CBS) presents another installment of newsman Allan Nevins's series on the family, "based strictly on the recently released Adams family papers." This week Nevins covers author and historian Henry, and his brother, railroad executive Charles Francis. The script is by Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian James T. Flexner, author of the definitive four-volume biography of George Washington; the series would later be awarded an honorable mention by the Peabody Awards.
Monday night features a quartet of programs that helped define CBS's success during the Golden Age, starting with Burns & Allen at 7:00 p.m., followed by Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts at 7:30, I Love Lucy at 8:00, and December Bride at 8:30—talk about an early version of "Must See TV." December Bride is, arguably, the least-well-remembered of the four, and yet it ran for five successful seasons and 156 episodes, and spawned a successful spinoff, Pete and Gladys. Later, it's two of television's most respected drama anthologies; first, Charles Drake stars as a ruthless young actor climbing his way to the top on Robert Montgomery Presents (8:30 p.m., NBC), while Nina Foch, Glenda Farrell, and Edward Andrews headline "Miss Turner's Decision" on Studio One (9:00 p.m., CBS). And we can't forget Voice of Firestone (7;30 p.m., ABC), which began on radio in 1928 and would continue on TV, off and on, until 1962.
Tuesday features one of the great head-to-head matchups of all time: Milton Berle's variety show, currently called The Buick-Berle Show (7:00 p.m., NBC), vs. Bishop Fulton Sheen's Life is Worth Living (7:00 p.m., DuMont). It's a good-natured rivalry; Bishop Sheen once referred to himself as "Uncle Fultie," while Berle joked of Sheen that "He's got better writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." Two stalwarts of the 1950s follow: Make Room for Daddy (8:00 p.m., CBS), starring "one of America's great entertainers," the now all-but-forgotten Danny Thomas; followed by The Red Skelton Show (8:30 p.m., CBS), with Red's guest, singer-comedienne Mary McCarty.
Wednesday evening starts with one of the most important shows in the evolution of 1950s television: Disneyland (6:30 p.m., ABC). Not only did it stabilize a network in desperate need of a signature hit, its success signaled the arrival of the major movie studios into television production; it also, by the way, financed the construction of Disneyland. Tonight's episode is the Academy Award-winning short Seal Island, accompanied by a short that gives viewers a look at how the Disney team of naturalist photographers goes about gathering the footage for their nature films. Here's a video of the Seal Island show that was broadcast on November 10 of the previous year, but the description suggests that the show's content is much the same as it is tonight. Later in the evening, it's Kraft Television Theatre (8:00 p.m., NBC), the anthology series which began in 1947 and, when it left the air in 1958, was the longest-running show in television history. Tonight's episode, "The Story of Mary Surratt," stars Doreen Lang, Bruce Gordon, and Paul Mazursky. Oh, and there's more boxing.
Friday and Smith on the trail of "The Big Number" We start Thursday with another anthology, Climax (7:30 p.m., CBS), and "The Darkest Hour" starring Zachary Scott and Joanne Dru, directed by John Frankenheimer. Climax ran for four seasons; two of its most notable episodes were "The Long Goodbye," with Dick Powell reprising his role as private eye Philip Marlowe; and "Casino Royale," the first adaptation of a James Bond story, with American Barry Nelson playing the superspy. You can't celebrate the Golden Age without an episode of Dragnet, now, can you? Jack Webb's groundbreaking police drama is in its fourth season: tonight (8:00 p.m., NBC), Friday and his partner Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) track down a bank robber in "
The Big Number
." Another anthology rounds out the evening: Four Star Playhouse (8:30 p.m. CBS); the four stars, who co-own the production company and rotate as stars, are Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and the aforementioned Dick Powell.Friday night has a host of familiar shows, beginning with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (7:00 p.m., ABC), in its third of 14 seasons. That's followed by Topper (7:30 p.m., CBS), which only ran for two seasons but remains a part of pop culture; Our Miss Brooks (8:30 p.m., CBS), the spinoff of the long-running radio series with Eve Arden; The Line-Up (9:00 p.m., CBS), a very good police drama which could be thought of as the San Francisco version of Dragnet and ran for six season, starring Warner Anderson and Tom Tully; and Edward R. Murrow's interview show Person to Person (9:30 p.m., CBS), which set the stage for celebrity interview shows, albeit with Murrow's gravitas thrown into the mix.
And this doesn't include daytime shows, such as Today (7:00 a.m.), The Garry Moore Show (9:00 a.m., CBS), and Arthur Godfrey Time (9:30 a.m., CBS); The Tonight Show, in its second year with Steve Allen; the CBS soap operas Love of Life (11:15 a.m.), Search for Tomorrow (11:30 a.m.), and The Guiding Light (11:45 a.m.); and kids' shows like the nationally-franchised Romper Room (11:00 a.m., WGN) and Howdy Doody (4:30 p.m., NBC), which started in 1947 and continues as a daily show until next year, when it moves to Saturday mornings.
Many of these programs have since become cherished institutions, part of television history. Others, while big at the time, are just footnotes today. And while some of them look dated to us today, some are as fresh as ever, stories that stand the test of time.
You just have to know where to look.
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Speaking of familiar faces, one of the most familiar faces of the era is Tennessee Ernie Ford, the country and gospel singer currently hosting a weekday variety show (11:00 a.m., NBC). That's one of the shows featured in this week's Program of the Week review. It's a pleasant-enough show, our critic reports, but there's nothing unique about it, nothing special. The fault lies not with Ernie himself—he's "an accomplished and versatile singer"—and his supporting cast, headed by 15-year-old Molly Bee, is personable enough, mixing well with Ford. No, what really drags down the show is Ernie's interviews with his guests; while he's "glib enough to make his interviews interesting" when he's got the right material, too often they simply "plod along." One wonders, perhaps, "that the 'real' Ernie isn't strong enough to carry a day-after-day show." One wonders, on the other hand, if perhaps they should simply have let Ernie be Ernie. Later in the year, he'll score his biggest-ever hit with "Sixteen Tons," which holds the number one position on the Billboard country chart for ten weeks, before crossing over to the Billboard pop chart where it's number one for an additional eight weeks, and next season, Ernie lands in primetime with The Ford Show, featuring the animated versions of the Peanuts gang in segments directed by Bill Melendez. The Ford Show runs for five successful seasons, and the "hillbilly characterizations" which seemed not to win the critic's favor in this issue seem not to be a liability here.
Of course, Ford can also a polished and smooth personality when he so chooses—on The Ford Show he would famously do adaptations of The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan—but he would demonstrate that he knew, perhaps better than the experts, how to reach his audience. "Television's still in its infancy, as far as entertaining a live audience is concerned. There is a lack of knowledge on how to entertain in the home," he would tell TV Guide five years later. "People get kinda used to thinkin', 'Well, tonight's the night ol' Ernie will be here.'" As for the hymns that he sings to close his show, the executives were against it; "They told me I couldn't sing hymns because it 'brings people down.' That's ridiculous. I don't think the good Lord cares for a bunch of deadheads. I mean, you don't have to put on sackcloth and sit in a pile of ashes to sing a hymn. Some of the most beautiful music is in hymns. Well, sir, I won, and now the hymns are the biggest think we have on the show."
The second show being reviewed this week, The Star and the Story, falls at the other end of the familiarity spectrum. It's another dramatic anthology, with the "gimmick" that each week's star chooses their own play, i.e. playing to their own strengths. So far the series has offered excellent performances by Edmund O'Brien, Angela Lansbury, and Judith Anderson, among others, and they've demonstrated that they know "both the type of character they can best portray and what makes for good TV viewing." (Not unlike Ernie Ford, come to think of it.) The verdict on The Star and the Story is that "the stars and the stories, aided by fine production, [make] this a high-quality entry." Maybe so, but I dare say it doesn't have as long a shelf life as Tennessee Ernie Ford does.
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MST3K alert: Lost Continent (1951) A rescue mission discovers a "Lost Continent." Cesar Romero, Hillary Brooke. (Sunday, 9:00 a.m., WGN) This brief description hardly does the movie justice, and editing it down to fit a one-hour Sunday morning timeslot doesn't help things. But without the interstitial MST3K features, you don't have a movie anyway: Crypto-dad Hugh Beaumont as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rock climbing, and Cesar Romero—really, who could ask for anything more? TV
March 15, 2024
Around the dial
We begin this week at Comfort TV, where David continues his night-by-night retrospective on 1970s television with
Friday, 1973
: a night that begins with the final season of The Brady Bunch, and continues with such favorites as Sanford and Son, The Odd Couple, Room 222, Love American Style, and The Dean Martin Show. Not bad at all.At Cult TV Blog, John looks at an episode from the first season of The Avengers that no longer exists: " Dance with Death ." Well, I mean, obviously it did exist, and it still does, in the form of a Big Finish audio version, but this post is based on the original TV script, and it is absolutely well worth reading. Both the script and John's review, that is.
Ready for another dose of The Avengers? You'll find it at A View from the Junkyard, where Roger and Mike compare notes on " You'll Catch Your Death ," as Steed and Tara battle a nursing academy that's a front for a deadly organization peddling a allergen to which nobody is immune. I'd hate to think that this resembles any recent situation we might recognize.
Martin Grams dips into the crossover zone with the 1949 movie The Life of Riley , based on the popular radio comedy of the same name, starring William Bendix as Chester Riley, with most of the original radio cast. It was this movie that kept Bendix from reprising his role as Riley in the television version of the show, which instead cast Jackie Gleason in the lead.
Remember the 1960s sitcom Camp Runamuck? What's that? You don't? Well, it's a good thing for you that Television Obscurities does, and this week Robert takes us back to look at the episode " Say, You’re a Bleeder, Aren’t You? Asked Tom Cuttingly ." Got to love a show that can work a Tom Swiftie like that into the title.
Albert Salmi : whether or not you recognize the name (and I'm betting a lot of you do), you'll certainly recognize the face of one of television's more recognizable character actors of the classic era. But do you know the tragedy of his real-life story? You can find out the grim details this week at Travalanche. TV
March 13, 2024
Keeping you on the edge of your seat
I had a mildly interesting experience the other night; call it a kind of epiphany, if that isn't too heavy a word to use. We were watching Jericho, the 1966-67 World War II espionage series that ran for 16 episodes on CBS*, and could be combined as a kind of cross between Mission: Impossible and Hogan's Heroes. In this particular episode, the team—code name Jericho, hence the title—is attempting to retrieve an SS safe that contains the names of leaders of the French Resistance. *One of the reasons you might not be familiar with it is that it ran opposite Batman on ABC and Daniel Boone on NBC.
For reasons that aren't important right now (and might not have been that important to begin with), conventional safecracking methods aren't an option. Fortunately, however, the resistance just happens to have a duplicate safe, one which they procured during a previous mission. And so, if you can't break into a safe, our heroes decide to do the next best thing: steal it, and replace it with the duplicate. This involves hauling the duplicate safe to the top of a building across the street from where the safe with the list is located, transporting it across the street via a pully, lowering down to where it can be brought in through an open window (well, at least it was open after one of the Jericho members was done with it), and switching it with the safe belonging to the SS, which is then removed from the building and brought back to resistance headquarters via the same procedure in reverse. (Where are Barney and Willy when you need them?) Got all that?
Now, the men of Jericho have to be careful in pulling off a safe transfer of the safes (so to speak); they can't afford to make any noise, so as not to alert the SS officer in the other room. (The Rat Patrol's Hans Gudegast, whom I swear must have played a Nazi officer in every World War II TV drama that's ever been made before he changed his name to Eric Braedon and became a soap opera idol.) But it turns out that the wheels on the bottom of the safe squeak, which means it has to be placed on its side on an Oriental rug and dragged across the floor to the window, and then the duplicate safe dragged back in its place.
It's a surprisingly tense scene, even though we know that Jericho, by virtue of being the good guys, is contractually bound to succeed. At one point, as the safe is being pushed into place, it bumps against the wall—and Gudegast's reaction tells you he hears it and almost decides to investigate, but dismisses the noise. And as I watched, I found myself unusually caught up in the drama. I was leaning forward on the couch, my muscles tensed; I might have even been holding my breath.
But why should I have felt that way? The outcome of this audacious move wasn't really in any doubt. Had the scene come earlier in the episode, when there was a time for a backup plan to be attempted in case this one failed, there might have been cause for concern. But for an experienced television viewer who knows about things like running times and four-act structures, there was no reason to be worried; there wasn't really enough time to try anything else. Oh, it could have ended in a wild shootout, I suppose, but that isn't really how Jericho operates, and it would have been kind of a letdown.
I found myself pondering this after the episode had concluded—and, I should stress, the scene was suspenseful enough that this thought didn't interrupt me as I was watching. But as I considered the reason, I thought back to a concept I've written about before: that of false jeopardy , the idea of putting one or more of the main characters in a situation, the outcome of which is predetermined by their status as a series regular. If the show's namesake, for example, is on trial for murder, suffers from a potentially fatal illness, or is being held hostage, you know everything's going to turn out all right in the end, unless you've got reason to believe there are some nasty contract negotiations going on behind the scenes. The only valid suspense involves how the situation is going to resolve itself. It's an awful premise around which to shape an episode.
Will the men of Jericho get out of this safe-ly?However, false jeopardy can work in a limited sense. In this case, where a genuinely suspenseful situation exists—will the safe swap succeed without Gudegast finding out about it?—a viewer can get caught up in the tension of how the scene unfolds. I mean, you knew that the Mission: Impossible team was going to pull off their incredibly intricate capers each week; the magic was in seeing them actually do it. But then, Mission: Impossible was an exceptionally well-written and acted series, with plots that were intricately detailed down to the nth degree and that revealed themselves only a bit at a time, so that while you knew the mission would succeed, you weren't at all sure just how it would happen. Most series aren't like that; Jericho, for instance. It had the potential to be entertaining, and the best episodes were legitimately exciting. However, it had neither the consistency nor the talent (on either side of the camera) to reassure the viewer that each week's adventure could succeed on its own merits, without suffering one of those "Oh, come on!" moments that requires said viewer to suspend disbelief beyond a certain point.
Which brings us back to Jericho. In thinking about it, I realized that, for me at least, the tension arising from the scene was not so much about the outcome; rather, what was keeping me in suspense was whether or not the scene would pivot around something stupid happening, something so wildly implausible and illogical that I'd have to believe either the Nazi officers involved were among the most inept any military had ever seen—men who would put Sergeant Shultz to shame—or that the agents of Jericho were luckier than anyone who'd ever gotten rich playing the slots in Vegas. I think you know the kind of thing I'm talking about here; it's something that's so distracting, so beyond the realm, that it brings the entire scene to a standstill, and causes you to wonder it, perhaps, you might have a future in scriptwriting if this is the best that Hollywood has to offer.
The good news is that this episode of Jericho passed the test. Oh, the boundaries were pushed a little; the reason Gudegast doesn't go to investigate the noise he hears is that his secretary (a Belgian national who's actually a member of the resistance, with her name on that list inside the safe, and is working with Jericho) is supposed to be in the room putting on some jewelry that Gudegast has given her in an attempt at seduction, so of course a gentleman wouldn't go barging in on her at a time like that. A little weak, perhaps, but we'll give it it a pass since this part of the storyline was introduced organically and had been present from the beginning, as opposed to being dumped on us all of a sudden.
(I did wonder why none of the German soldiers guarding the building noticed a safe being pulled back-and-forth on a rope over their heads, but this was all happening at night, and I suppose it isn't exactly the kind of thing you steel yourself to be on the lookout for when you go on duty that night. Besides, you'd expect this part of the plan to be implausible, and you'd be right.)
My question to you is this: how many times have you experienced something similar, during a show you were enjoying, when you discovered that the only reason you were holding your breath was not because of the innate tension of the scene, but because you were worried that the writers or the director might ruin the moment with something stupid? Now that I think about it, it's happened to me more than a few times, and it's always a disappointment. Maybe I'm too demanding when it comes to plausibility (Maybe? you say), but this issue of false jeopardy, or whatever you want to call it, is something real, something that can diminish the quality of a episode or cheapen the suspense it's trying to generate. In this case, Jericho was able to pull it off. I wish I could say that more often about more programs. TV
March 11, 2024
What's on TV? Thursday, March 14, 1968
By now, I've done probably close to 30 TV Guides from Northern California, and never before have I remembered seeing a listing for a program called Assignment: San Francisco (10:00 p.m., KGO). In fact, I paid scant attention to it this week (after all, KGO is in San Francisco, so it could be some kind of public affairs program) until I noticed that it's hosted by Jake Ehrlich, the famed attorney who was the basis for the legal drama Sam Benedict. That made me stop and read the program description, and what do you know: it is an episode of Sam Benedict, just under a different title! I Googled "Assignment: San Francisco" and wasn't able to find anything—admittedly, I didn't look too hard for it—so I'm assuming it might have been a local version, especially considering Ehrlich's presence. Can you recall any other examples of syndicated shows being hosted by the real-life person who inspired the lead character?-2- KTVU (BAY AREA) (IND.) Morning 8:45 RELIGION TODAY—Evangelist 9:00 POPEYE—Cartoons COLOR 9:30 ROMPER ROOM—Children 10:30 JACK LA LANNE COLOR 11:00 LAW AND MR. JONES—Drama 11:30 STAR PERFORMANCE—Drama Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:30 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Betty White, Frank Gifford. Host: Allen Ludden 1:00 MOVIE—Comedy “Double Bunk” (English; 1960) 3:00 PDQ—Game COLOR Celebrities: Mickey Manners, Michael Landon, Bill Bixby 3:30 CAPTAIN SATELLITE COLOR 4:30 CARTOON CUTUPS COLOR 5:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy 5:30 DENNIS THE MENACE—Comedy Evening 6:00 PATTY DUKE—Comedy 6:30 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy 7:00 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy 7:30 WONDERS OF THE WORLD COLOR 8:00 AMERICA!—Travel COLOR 8:30 PROFILES—Discussion COLOR Guest: Eddie Rickenbacker 9:00 DR. KILDARE—Drama 10:00 NEWS—Atkinson, Park COLOR 10:30 HILLY ROSE—Discussion COLOR 11:00 MOVIE—Drama “Arch of Triumph” (1948)
-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) Morning 5:55 FARM NEWS COLOR 6:00 RHYME AND REASON 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Hollis Alpert, John Williams 9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT COLOR Guests: Jane Powell, Tom Kennedy 9:25 NEWS—Nancy Dickerson COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY COLOR Celebrities: Van Johnson, Peter Lawford, Betsy Palmer. On film: Eve Arden 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen, Jack Carter, Paul Lynde, Jayne Meadows, Don Rickles, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Rose Marie, 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 Guests: Don Franks, Ethel Griffies, Geneviéve, Rodney Dangerfield, the Happenings 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR From Florida. Celebrities: Mike Connors, Rose Marie 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Guests: Morey Amsterdam, Phyllis Newman 2:55 NEWS—Floyd Kalber COLOR 3:00 MOVIE—Drama “Deadline, U.S.A.” (1952) 5:00 FLINTSTONES COLOR 5:30 TRAVENTURE THEATRE COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Whitten, Jervis COLOR 7:30 DANIEL BOONE COLOR 8:30 IRONSIDE—Drama COLOR 9:30 DRAGNET—Drama COLOR 10:00 DEAN MARTIN COLOR Guests: Liberace, George Jessel, Caterina Valente, Pat Buttram, Pat Henry 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Gore Vidal
-4- KRON (BAY AREA) (NBC) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 MICHIGAN—Education 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Hollis Alpert, John Williams 9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT COLOR Guests: Jane Powell, Tom Kennedy 9:25 NEWS—Nancy Dickerson COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY COLOR Celebrities: Van Johnson, Peter Lawford, Betsy Palmer. On film: Eve Arden 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen, Jack Carter, Paul Lynde, Jayne Meadows, Don Rickles, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Rose Marie, 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 12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:00 DOCTORS—Serial COLOR 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR From Florida. Celebrities: Mike Connors, Rose Marie 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Guests: Morey Amsterdam, Phyllis Newman 2:55 NEWS—Floyd Kalber COLOR 3:00 DIVORCE COURT—Drama COLOR 3:30 DATELINE: FASHION COLOR 3:35 MOVIE—Drama “Man from Frisco” (1944) 5:00 FLINTSTONES COLOR 5:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 WIDE WONDERFUL WORLD COLOR 7:30 DANIEL BOONE COLOR 8:30 IRONSIDE—Drama COLOR 9:30 DRAGNET—Drama COLOR 10:00 DEAN MARTIN COLOR Guests: Liberace, George Jessel, Caterina Valente, Pat Buttram, Pat Henry 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Gore Vidal 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Girl with a Suitcase” (Italian; 1960)
-5- KPIX (BAY AREA) (CBS) Morning 6:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER—Education COLOR Russian Literature: “Chekhov and the Russian Drama” 6:30 CITIES IN CONFLICT—Discussion Intergroup Conflict: “Interracial Conflict—the Spanish Community” 7:00 NEWS—Jim Anderson 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 NEWS—Jim Anderson 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO COLOR 9:00 HOTLINE—Discussion COLOR 10:00 SECRET STORM COLOR 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS—Joseph Benti 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 Guests: Mickey Spillane, Maurice Eazel 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game COLOR 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Guests: Polly Bergen, Lovelace Watkins 4:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Don Franks, Ethel Griffies, Geneviéve, Rodney Dangerfield, the Happenings Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 BRANDED—Western COLOR 7:30 CIMARRON STRIP COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Thin Red Line” (1964) 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Spoilers" (1942) 1:05 SILENTS PLEASE “Headless Horseman” (1922)
-6- KVIE (SACREMENTO) (EDUC.) Morning 9:05 CLASSROOM—Education Recess: 11:25 A.M.-1 P.M. Afternoon 1:00 CLASSROOM—Education 5:15 MISTEROGERS—Children 5:45 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children Evening 6:00 MISTEROGERS—Children 6:30 KINDERGARTEN—Education 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 BETWEEN THE COVERS 8:00 PORTRAIT OF A PROGRAM 8:30 SKIING 9:00 DAVID SUSSKIND—Discussion
-7- KGO (BAY AREA) (ABC) Morning 6:00 A.M.—Jim Dunbar COLOR 8:00 VIRGINIA GRAHAM—Interviews COLOR 8:30 MOVIE—Comedy “When Lovers Meet” (1946) 10:30 THIS MORNING—Variety COLOR Guests: Robert Ryan, Alan Burke, Frank Buxton Afternoon 12:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy 12:30 TREASURE ISLE COLOR 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME COLOR 2:30 BABY GAME COLOR 2:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Dr. Lendon Smith COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 DATING GAME COLOR 4:30 MOVIE—Comedy COLOR “The Happy Years” (1950) Evening 6:30 NEWS—Bob Young COLOR 7:00 NEWS—Grimsby, Foster COLOR 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest villain: Zsa Zsa Gabor (Minerva) Last show of the series, Batfans. Next week, “Second Hundred Years” takes over this time spot. 8:00 FLYING NUN—Comedy COLOR 8:30 BEWITCHED—Comedy COLOR 9:00 THAT GIRL—Comedy COLOR 9:30 PEYTON PLACE—Serial COLOR 10:00 ASSIGNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOEY BISHOP—Variety COLOR Scheduled: Count Basie, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jerry Lanning 1:00 MOVIE—Melodrama “Shakedown” (1950) 2:30 MOVIE—Comedy “The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s” (English; 1960) 1:55 MOVIE—Drama “Serpent of the Nile” (1953)
-9- KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Hollis Alpert, John Williams 9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY COLOR Celebrities: Van Johnson, Peter Lawford, Betsy Palmer. On film: Eve Arden 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen, Jack Carter, Paul Lynde, Jayne Meadows, Don Rickles, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Rose Marie, 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 12:30 TREASURE ISLE COLOR 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME COLOR 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Guests: Morey Amsterdam, Phyllis Newman 2:55 NEWS—Floyd Kalber COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 DATING GAME COLOR 4:30 BEWITCHED—Comedy 5:00 OPERATION: ENTERTAINMENT Host: Tim Conway. Guests: the Mills Brothers, Lainie Kazan, Jackie Wilson, David Frye, the Clinger Singers Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 RAT PATROL—Drama COLOR 7:30 DANIEL BOONE COLOR 8:30 IRONSIDE—Drama COLOR 9:30 DRAGNET—Drama COLOR 10:00 DEAN MARTIN COLOR Guests: Liberace, George Jessel, Caterina Valente, Pat Buttram, Pat Henry 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Gore Vidal
-8- KSBW (SALINAS) (CBS, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Hollis Alpert, John Williams 9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT COLOR Guests: Jane Powell, Tom Kennedy 9:25 NEWS—Nancy Dickerson COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY COLOR Celebrities: Van Johnson, Peter Lawford, Betsy Palmer. On film: Eve Arden 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Guests: Steve Allen, Jack Carter, Paul Lynde, Jayne Meadows, Don Rickles, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Rose Marie, Charley Weaver 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Bud Walling COLOR Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING—Serial COLOR 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guests: Mickey Spillane, Maurice Eazel 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game COLOR 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM COLOR 3:30 MOVIE—Science Fiction COLOR “Conqueror of Atlantis” (Italian; 1964) 5:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy Evening 6:00 NEWS—Frank Tracy 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 IT’S A SMALL WORLD—Travel COLOR 7:30 DANIEL BOONE COLOR 8:30 IRONSIDE—Drama COLOR 9:30 HOGAN’S HEROES—Comedy COLOR 10:00 DEAN MARTIN COLOR Guests: Liberace, George Jessel, Caterina Valente, Pat Buttram, Pat Henry 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Scheduled: Gore Vidal
-9- KQED (BAY AREA) (EDUC.) Morning 9:05 CLASSROOM—Education Recess: 11:25 A.M.-1 P.M. Afternoon 12:00 KINDERGARTEN—Education 12:30 SCOTH GARDENER COLOR 1:00 CLASSROOM—Education 4:30 ANTIQUES 5:00 MISTEROGERS—Children 5:30 WHAT’S NEW—Children Evening 6:00 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children 6:15 FRANCE PANORAMA—Report 6:30 PORTRAIT IN MUSIC 7:00 SACRAMENTO FILE—Lee Nichols 7:30 PETE SEEGER—Music 8:00 FILM FEATURE 8:30 TO BE ANNOUNCED 9:00 PROFILE: BAY AREA 10:00 NET PLAYHOUSE—Drama “Olive Latimer’s Husband”
-9- KIXE (REDDING) (EDUC.) Afternoon 1:00 CLASSROOM—Education Evening 6:00 MISTEROGERS—Children 6:30 KINDERGARTEN—Education 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 BETWEEN THE COVERS 8:30 SKIING 9:00 DAVID SUSSKIND—Discussion
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) Morning 6:30 SUNRISE SEMESTER—Education COLOR Russian Literature: “Chekhov and the Russian Drama” 7:00 FOCUS ON FARMING COLOR 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:55 NEWS—Norm Bates COLOR 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO COLOR 9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS—Bill Windsor 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 Guests: Mickey Spillane, Maurice Eazel 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game COLOR 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM COLOR 3:30 PAT BOONE—Variety COLOR Guests: Robert Culp, France Nuyen, Nina Simone, Don Rickles, Desmond Morris 4:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Guests: Polly Bergen, Lovelace Watkins Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 7:00 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:30 CIMARRON STRIP COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Thin Red Line” (1964) 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Musical COLOR “The Dolly Sisters” (1945)
11 KNTV (SAN JOSE) (ABC) Morning 7:45 TV CREDIT COURSE—History “Federalists vs. Republicans” 8:00 CLASSROOM—Education Recess: 11:20 A.M. to 12 Noon 8:30 HOCUS POCUS—Cartoons COLOR 9:00 HOCUS POCUS CLUBHOUSE 9:30 BUGS BUNNY—Cartoons 10:00 JACK LA LANNE COLOR 10:30 THIS MORNING—Variety COLOR Guests: Robert Ryan, Alan Burke, Frank Buxton Afternoon 12:00 LU RYDEN—Variety 12:30 TREASURE ISLE COLOR 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME COLOR 2:30 BABY GAME COLOR 2:55 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR—Dr. Lendon Smith COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 DATING GAME COLOR 4:30 SEVEN SEAS—Travel COLOR 5:00 PERRY MASON—Mystery Evening 6:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Guests: Polly Bergen, Lovelace Watkins 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest villain: Zsa Zsa Gabor (Minerva) Last show of the series, Batfans. Next week, “Second Hundred Years” takes over this time spot. 8:00 FLYING NUN—Comedy COLOR 8:30 BEWITCHED—Comedy COLOR 9:00 THAT GIRL—Comedy COLOR 9:30 PEYTON PLACE—Serial COLOR 10:00 RAT PATROL—Drama COLOR 10:30 SEVEN SEAS—Travel COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 OUTDOOR WORLD COLOR 11:35 MOVIE—Drama “Gideon of Scotland Yard” (English; 1958)
12 KHSL (CHICO) (ABC, CBS) Morning 6:55 SOIL CONSERVATION 7:00 NAVY FILM—Report COLOR 7:30 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:55 SPORTS REPORT COLOR 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO COLOR 9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS—Joseph Benti 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 Guests: Mickey Spillane, Maurice Eazel 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game COLOR 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM COLOR 3:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Guests: Polly Bergen, Lovelace Watkins 5:00 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Don Franks, Ethel Griffies, Geneviéve, Rodney Dangerfield, the Happenings Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama 7:30 CIMARRON STRIP COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Thin Red Line” (1964) 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOEY BISHOP—Variety COLOR Scheduled: Count Basie, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jerry Lanning
13 KOVR (SACRAMENTO) (ABC) Morning 6:25 NEWS COLOR 6:30 ED ALLEN TIME 7:00 CARTOONLAND COLOR 8:20 FANTASTIC FOUR—Cartoons 8:50 CARTOONLAND COLOR 9:00 DATING GAME 9:30 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—Game COLOR 10:00 BABY GAME 10:25 CHILDREN’S DOCTOR 10:30 THIS MORNING—Variety COLOR Guests: Robert Ryan, Alan Burke, Frank Buxton Afternoon 12:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy 12:30 NEWS—Rashelgh COLOR 12:45 AGRICULTURE TODAY COLOR 1:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME COLOR 2:30 DIVORCE COURT—Drama COLOR 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial COLOR 3:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial COLOR 4:00 CAP’N DELTA—Cartoons COLOR 5:00 NEWS—Rasheigh COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Bob Young COLOR Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Western “Rage at Dawn” (1955) 7:25 OUTDOORSMAN—Lange COLOR 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest villain: Zsa Zsa Gabor (Minerva) Last show of the series, Batfans. Next week, “Second Hundred Years” takes over this time spot. 8:00 FLYING NUN—Comedy COLOR 8:30 BEWITCHED—Comedy COLOR 9:00 THAT GIRL—Comedy COLOR 9:30 PEYTON PLACE—Serial COLOR 10:00 PERRY MASON—Drama 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOEY BISHOP—Variety COLOR Scheduled: Count Basie, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jerry Lanning
19 KLOC (MODESTO) (IND.) Afternoon 5:00 FILM FEATURE 5:30 CAROON FUN HOUSE Evening 6:30 TONY CHAVEZ—Variety 6:55 NEWS—Charles McEwen 7:00 BILL ANDERSON—Variety 7:30 MOVIE—Adventure “The Steel Lady” (1953)
36 KGSC (SAN JOSE) (IND.) Afternoon 3:00 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Interviews COLOR Guests: Ronnie Schell, Willie Restum 3:30 WORLD OF WOMEN—Adel Hall 4:00 COSMO’S CASTLE—Children 5:00 CISCO KID—Western COLOR 5:30 WELLS FARGO—Western Evening 6:00 YOU ASKED FOR IT—Jack Smith 6:30 MUSIC CITY U.S.A. COLOR Guests: Roy Clark, Jimmy Velvet 7:00 MOVIE—Musical “Champagne Waltz” (1937) 8:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Jack Carter, Don Francks, Reva Rose, Stanley Myron Handleman, the Five Stairsteps, Cubie, Louise Rohner 10:00 SPORTS HIGHLIGHTS COLOR 11:00 SPOTLIGHT ON SPEED COLOR 11:30 SPOTLITE ON THE RACERS 11:45 EBB TIDE—Poetry COLOR
44 KBHK (BAY AREA) (IND.) Afternoon 3:00 MY FRIEND FLICKA—Drama COLOR 3:30 CAPT. SAN FRANCISCO COLOR 3:35 HUCKLEBERRY HOUND COLOR 3:45 POPEYE—Cartoon COLOR 4:00 YOGI BEAR—Cartoon COLOR 4:15 BUGS BUNNY—Cartoon COLOR 4:30 MARINE BOY—Cartoon COLOR 5:00 THREE STOOGES—Comedy 5:30 ASTROBOY—Cartoon Evening 6:00 LITTLE RASCALS—Comedy 6:30 MISTER ED—Comedy 7:00 DOBIE GILLIS—Comedy 7:30 HONEYMOONERS—Comedy 8:00 HAZEL—Shirley Booth COLOR 8:30 PAT BOONE—Variety COLOR Guests: Robert Culp, France Nuyen, Nina Simone, Don Rickles, Desmond Morris 10:00 NEWS—Don Sherwood, Carter Blakemore Smith DEBUT COLOR 10:30 JOE DOLAN!—Discussion COLOR 11:15 MOVIE—Melodrama “So Young, So Bad” (1950)
TV
March 9, 2024
This week in TV Guide: March 9, 1968
It's an election year, 1968 is, in case you hadn't noticed. And things kick off this Tuesday with the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary, one of the most fateful editions in the Granite State's history. The Republican side is pretty much cut-and-dried; after Michigan Governor George Romney dropped out of the race two weeks ago, the way has been left open for Richard Nixon, who wins a decisive victory en route to the Republican nomination. However, the Democratic race is anything but cut-and-dried, and it is Senator Eugene McCarthy's surprise showing against President Johnson (although he finished second behind LBJ, his 42 percent vote total was a deadly blow to the president) that is the story of the night.The networks have plans in place for coverage of the primary results; both CBS and ABC plan hour-long reports beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET*; NBC's coverage runs a half-hour, from 11:30 p.m. to midnight, although they plan a ten-minute update during Tuesday Night at the Movies (Invitation to a Gunfighter, in case you're keeping score). In fact, you can see the CBS broadcast here, which includes coverage of the day's other big news event: the appearance of Secretary of State Dean Rusk before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ("Networks may pre-empt regular programming to cover the hearings," we're advised.) As far as things go, it's all Vietnam, all the time.
*Richard K. Doan, in an article that was already dated when it appeared in the following week's issue, mentioned that the networks had "canceled plans for prime-time primary-night specials in favor of bulletins and brief late-evening vote summaries." Had they reassessed those plans in light of a McCarthy rise in the polls, or was the decision made after this edition went to press? We may never know.
Last month, Walter Cronkite had delivered his verdict on Vietnam ("To say we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. . . Negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could."), and now, as we see in The Doan Report, the media gloves are off. Cronkite's CBS colleague Eric Sevareid says LBJ is trapped in a situation "largely of his own making," and that a bombing pause could "pretty certainly save thousands of lives." On NBC Radio, David Brinkley argues that U.S. policy is achieving nothing, that "It is destroying Vietnam in the process of saving it." ABC's Bob Young "couldn't agree with Brinkley more," and says that the threat touted by the Administration "is yet to be proved out." Of the regular nighttime newsman, Doan says, only Howard K. Smith and Chet Huntley could be said to be supporting LBJ's war policy; Huntley calls a potential bombing pause "extremely hazardous," and says that more troops "are the only route open to us so far." All the newsmen hasten to add that these are their views, not their network's.
I mention all this not just because it's here, but to demonstrate how much Vietnam dominates everything right now. Even the civil rights movement has become entangled with it, with figures from Martin Luther King Jr. to Muhammad Ali speaking out on it. This is the beginning of a hectic few months in the news business, and we'll be witness to it all: Johnson drops out, Kennedy drops in, King and Kennedy are both assassinated in a matter of weeks, and then there's the Chicago convention. And, although we won't know about it for awhile, the same day that Kennedy announces his candidacy, there's a massacre in My Lai. Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy ride. And, as we'll see next, we're not the only ones wondering about how television presents it.
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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. It's not often that Cleveland Amory steps away from the world of entertainment to review a news program; even less often does he step away from prime time altogether to critique a Sunday morning show. That's the case this week, though, as Cleve takes on the venerable NBC press conference of the air, Meet the Press. And what happens when the press meets Cleveland Amory?
Meet the Press is, Amory stresses, an important show. It is one of the few live programs still broadcast on television, which makes it "a sort of last best hope for the kind of public figure who, before he reaches your screen, is so often carefully cut, edited and fitted in to the politics of the news show involved." There are, however, some "very strange things" about the show, things that make one think that the show could do better. One is the statement, repeated on every program, that "The questions asked do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the panelists." Does this, Amory wonders, mean that "the line of questioning for the panelists is planned in advance"? If so that really renders them as little more than mouthpieces, playing roles in a predetermined story that follows a script written by someone else. Another is the producer and regular panelist, Lawrence E. Spivak, whom most people think of as the face of Meet the Press. "Either Mr. Spivak is one of the country’s rudest men or he feels that, for the good of his show, he should appear to be ruder than he is. We prefer to believe the latter—in any case, he regularly chooses extraordinarily rude panels." Again, if this is true, it means that the show is more interested in providing entertainment than simply presenting the facts. It kind of reminds you of the shows on the so-called "news" channels today, doesn't it?
There is, of course, another possibility. In a recenpartt show, featuring three well-known anti-war activists: Senator J. William Fulbright, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and Rev. William Sloane Coffin, the guests "were subjected to a grilling that would have embarrassed Joe Pyne," the controversial conservative talk-show host. By contrast, a program featuring General William Westmoreland and Ellsworth Bunker, ambassador to South Vietnam—"two guests whose pompous complacency fairly cried out for at least one reasonably puncturing question"—featured such deference that it "made you feel that the Messrs. Spivak and his associates were either already employees of President Johnson or confidently hoped, by their performances, to become so." Yet another program saw the scheduled guests bumped in favor of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, at the request of the White House; once again, "the fact remained that here again the panelists fairly oozed unctuous subservience." Especially in an election year, this is a bad look for a program that purports to represent the best in television journalism. Meet the Press, Amory insists, can do better than that. "Otherwise it may find that it may not, like so many programs, just go off the air—it may be the first to be actually voted off." It's still on the air, 56 years later, but is it doing any better?
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The Hollywood Palace is pre-empted Saturday night for "Götterdämmerung," the conclusion of ABC's epic three-night adaptation of William Shirer's best-seller The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. (9:30 p.m.) Parts one and two aired last Wednesday and Friday nights; the documentary, from David L. Wolper's production company, is narrated by Richard Basehart and boasts a score by Lalo Schifrin, parts of which were later used, virtually intact, on Mission: Impossible. Now what, I ask you, are the odds of this? Sunday afternoon at 5:30 p.m., KGSC in San Jose has the movie Blondie's Secret, part of the long-running film series (28 movies!) with Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake as the famed comic strip characters Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead. At exactly the same time, Bay Area station KBHK is showing Blondie's Hero, part of the same series, featuring the same stars. Can you believe it? And as if that enough, Sacramento's KOVR, again at the same time, is showing Li'l Abner, yet another movie with comic strip roots. Well, maybe it's something to watch while you're reading the Sunday funnies.
Let's get a little more serious about movies, with ABC's Sunday movie presentation of The Bridge on the River Kwai, David Lean's 1957 Oscar winner starring Alec Guinness, which won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. (8:00 p.m.) As Judith Crist points out, the significance of its first airing on September 25, 1966 is part of television history: the movie, with a running time of three hours and 47 minutes, was presented uncut, in one night (rather than being split into two parts), and, with a record audience of 72 million (a 61 percent audience share), "programmers were convinced that feature films were the method of drawing an audience." That the figures are now equally high for "cheap-Jack tailored-for-television melodramas and far lesser motion pictures" is, she adds, "a comment on viewers rather than on Bridge."
Here's an interesting preview of things to come: on Monday night's Andy Griffith Show (9:00 p.m., CBS), it's the first of three episodes featuring Ken Berry as farmer Sam Jones, whom Andy and friends persuade to run for city council, even though Emmett has his eye on the same office. These episodes, coming near the end of the show's final season, set the stage for its successor, Mayberry R.F.D., which stars Berry in the lead role. That has to be one of the better transitions in spin-off history.
Speaking of history, Tuesday's history comes later in the evening, but in the meantime, KOVR, the one station that apparently wasn't showing Blondie movies on Sunday, makes up for it with Blondie's Anniversary (6:00 p.m.), meaning we only have 25 movies in the series to go. Later, The Red Skelton Hour gives us an interesting pairing of guests: Mannix star Mike Connors and singer Tom Jones (8:30 p.m., CBS), while Don Rickles has a double appearance, first on The Jerry Lewis Show (8:00 p.m., NBC) with Michele Lee, and later on Pat Boone in Hollywood (8:30 p.m., syndicated), with Frank Sinatra Jr., Cesar Romero, and Judy Carne.
Ed McMahon is the host on Wednesday's Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC), in a salute to "Vaudeville '68," with Shelley Berman, Joan Rivers, Ed Ames, Sonny and Cher and the Young Rascals. It's along way from Perry Como, isn't it? After that, it's The Jonathan Winters Show (10:00 p.m., CBS), which I remember having enjoyed back in the day—but then, how can you not like Jonathan Winters? Anyway, his guests are Robert Morse, Vikki Carr, and the Young Saints (not to be confused with the Young Rascals, one supposes). Thursday, it's the final episode of Batman (7:30 p.m., ABC), which isn't a final episode at all, befitting the times. It's actually a little disappointing, in fact; for all the great signature villains appearing through the show's three seasons—Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, and either Julie Newmar or Eartha Kitt—the show says farewell with one of the gimmicky celebrity appearances that happened more and more in the final season: Zsa Zsa Gabor as Minerva. One wonders what might have been had the series actually moved to NBC for the fourth season, but, alas, the sets had already been dismantled by the time NBC made its move. I do like TV Guide's programming note mentioning the last show int the series, though; you'll have to see if you can find it in this coming Monday's piece. We're nowhere near the final episode of Ironside, but tonight's script is noteworthy in that it was co-written by mystery novelists Brett Halliday, the creator of detective Michael Shayne, and Bill S. Ballinger. Tonight, the burly chief investigates the connection between a plane bombing and an infant abandoned in his van. (9:00 p.m., NBC)
Friday features a trio of varied programs that we'll look at to close out the week: first, The Actor (8:30 p.m., ABC) takes a psychological look at the occupation of stage actor, as prominent actors and actresses from the British stage give their impressions of the actor and his work; Alec Guinness narrates from a script written by critic Kenneth Tynan. On the nighttime version of The Hollywood Squares (9:30 p.m., NBC), Adam West is among the players, plugging his now-deceased show. Holy cancellation, Batman! And that's followed by the Junior Miss Pageant, live (or, in this Northern California edition, live-on-tape) from Mobile, Alabama (10:00 p.m,, NBC). Lorne Greene and Joanie Sommers are the co-hosts, and if you look it up, you'll find that the winner is Miss Oklahoma, Debi Faubion. l l l
Once upon a time there was a woman named Candy Howard. "A cute little blonde," as Leslie Raddatz describes her. On December 20, 1965, she appeared on the inaugural broadcast of The Dating Game. A year later, she was a contestant on Dream Girl of '67, a program designed to identify "the most marriageable girl in America." Candy Howard did well on this program, but had to drop out because she married a young man she met on The Dating Game. Together, she and her new husband went on to appear on The Newlywed Game. Had it lasted longer, it's reasonable to assume she and her family might have made it to The Family Game as well. These four shows, last season, accounted for eleven hours per week on ABC, and they all come from "the current genius of the TV industry," Chuck Barris. Ah, only in America.
For some psychiatrists, the success of the Barris shows is indicative of something deeper in society. Dr. Martin Grotjahn, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California, compares them to group therapy and sees in them "the need to confess, the need for release everyone seeks in the horrible isolation in which we all live." And Dr. Steven Topel, another L.A.-based psychiatrist, adds, that "The people who play these games on television do so because they want to communicate. But if someone said, 'You have just revealed yourself—this is the way it is'-—they would say, 'Oh, no, we were just playing a game.' There are so many forces barring communication today that people find it difficult to communicate unless they think they are playing a game." I wonder how closely this correlates to the confessional state we see in social media—I mean, do people think that, somehow, baring their souls (and, in some cases, a lot more!) on X or Instagram doesn't really count, that they were, as Dr. Topel says, "just playing a game"? Boy, are they in for a surprise.
Ask Barris about the success of his shows, and he offers a more earthy answer. "I don’t know what contribution we’re making to science or literature—the shows have to be fun," Barris tells Raddatz. Candy Howard Bell, an aspiring actress, "went on for the exposure," but adds, "Most of the people go on to meet someone." And a contestant on Family Game had another explanation: "Greed—if it weren’t for the money, most of them would never do it."Five couples who met on The Dating Game have since married, and one of those marriages has already broken up. (I wonder how that compares with, say, The Bachelor?) One actress ditched her date after a couple of days in Italy and went by herself to Denmark, leaving the date and their chaperone on their own. The article doesn't say who she was; I wonder if anyone knows, or if that's just one of those urban legends? And by the way, the chaperones? "They are usually the young, mini-skirted members of Barris’s staff of 100-odd," Raddatz notes, with the only requirement that they be over 21. And, one supposes, authorized to perform hits on behalf of the CIA.
What about the people who watch these shows? Says Dr. Topel, "People who watch these shows do so because they enjoy seeing people communicate." The most popular form of communication, not surprisingly, is the double-entendre, which tends to be more prevalent on daytime shows than those airing in primetime. While contestants are wanted not to "talk dirty," the briefings they are given are often "laced with Borscht Belt jokes that become so vulgar that one woman contestant on The Family Game said, 'My husband was ready to tell that guy he didn’t allow language like that in front of his wife.'" Barris says the purpose is to "enliven the atmosphere" and make things fun, but as one staffer says, "You never know the results until they spit it out." I'm sure that most of us who've seen these shows can insert our favorite examples here, otherwise, you can probably find them on YouTube.
Not that long ago, Chuck Barris was working at ABC, in charge of daytime programming in Hollywood. He then started his own company, and shortly thereafter sold The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game to the network. His big break, he says, came courtesy of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. You see, the day The Newlywed Game premiered, CBS preempted Password to carry a speech by McNamara. (Vietnam, you know.) People not in the mood for current events switched to ABC, giving the show a much bigger audience than it otherwise would have had. Many of them stayed as time went on. Eventually, CBS cancelled Password. And the rest—including, or perhaps especially, Chuck Barris—is history.
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A little behind-the-scenes news: NBC's changed its mind about The Saint after sponsor feedback; instead, the network's decided to renew I Dream of Jeannie and add a new sitcom, Julia, starring Diahann Carroll. (The Saint does make it on the schedule, though, as a summer replacement for Star Trek.) The network failed in its efforts to sign Tennessee Ernie Ford, so in his place they're planning a variety hour with Phyllis Diller. (Good luck with that.)
In other news, ◀ Burl Ives will be playing Gepetto, replacing Art Carney, in the Christmas Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of "Pinocchio," with Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits playing the wooden marionette. Carney, meanwhile, is said to be heading to London to costar with the aforementioned Phyllis Diller in the movie, The Adding Machine. He doesn't appear in that either, though; I wonder if his noted problems with alcohol played any part in either of these.Barbara Rush and Tippy Walker are "all set" to join the cast of Peyton Place as mother and daughter, which they do. Steve Allen's coming back with a new talk-variety show, which will be available to local stations in both 60- and 90-minute versions. Political humorist Art Buchwald has been signed by CBS to be a "very special commentator" on their coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions; will people remember him as much as they do William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal over at ABC?
And in case you're wondering about the question on the cover—Is Television Really Keeping Us Informed?—the answer, at least according to Neil Hickey, is No. Television news, currently, is "a medium of headlines and short feature stories, and has neither the time nor the capacity to describe a day’s worth of world and local events in the fullness of their detail and meaning," with the result that "many Americans are now thinking and voting their prejudices—and even shaping their lives— based on television’s skeletal version of what’s really going on in an increasingly complex and incomprehensible world." How very like today, don't you think? TV
March 8, 2024
Around the dial
We meet a new writer this week at bare•bones e-zine, as Jack introduces us to the first of two Calvin Clements scripts in the Hitchcock Project: season seven's "
Beta Delta Gamma
," a creepy episode that I remember well from years past, with Burt Brickerhoff, Joel Crothers, and Duke Howard.At Cult TV Blog, John reviews The XYZ Man, a 1976-77 British series with an intriguing, if totally discredited premise, that of a man genetically predisposed to crime. Despite the bad reputation the series has had from critics, it's worth checking out if for nothing more than its depiction of the Seventies, and as you know, we're big here on how television accurately presents a period in time.
We've linked to Bobby Ellerbee's fantastic site Eyes of a Generation many times in the past, but never before has Bobby been part of another story we're linking to—until now. Check out Garroway at Large, where Jodie tells us how some of Bobby's prized camera collection is now part of Jodie's prized camera collection!
At Inner Toob, it's a tribute to Jerry Springer, now part of Inner Toob's " Television Crossover Hall of Fame " for the many times he played different versions of himself on other television shows. I've mentioned before that Springer was a character in the first book I ever wrote (but didn't publish; maybe someday), so I'm always up for scenarios like this.
Martin Grams reviews a quartet of books this week, biographies of four varied stars whom you'll surely recognize from their work on television, in the movies, or both: actors Ray Danton, Robert Horton, and Herbert Marshall; and film director Arthur Penn. Each of them has a fascinating life story to tell, and any of these books would be valuable adds to your library.
Speaking of books, at Pop Matters, Peter Thomas Webb has a review of a book on a very interesting topic: Eleanor Patterson’s Bootlegging the Airwaves , a history of radio and television as seen through the eyes of bootlegging communities from the pre-digital era. Regardless of your thoughts on copyright law, groups like these are responsible for keeping alive much of media history.
Terence pays tribute to comedian Richard Lewis at A Shroud of Thoughts. Lewis, who died last week, aged 76, was a much-loved mainstay of the Carson-Letterman shows, as well as co-star of the sitcom Anything But Love and regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm. But, as Terence points out, that barely scratches the surface of his six-decade career.
I usually cover the Avengers reviews at The View from the Junkyard, so I thought I'd remind you that you also get regular summaries of episodes from Land of the Lost , the Seventies Saturday morning series whose theme will stay with you for days once you start to think of it. This week, Mike looks at the episode "A Nice Day," which is what I hope you're having this Friday. TV
March 6, 2024
The New Top Ten: Maigret
The first time I saw Maigret on television, I was young and impressionable and didn't know the ways of the world. It was 1993, and Maigret was running on Mystery!, the anthology series on PBS. Michael Gambon was playing Maigret, and I suppose I was attracted to the series because I'd seen and liked Gambon in The Singing Detective a few years before; I'd never heard of the character Jules Maigret, the famous French detective created by Georges Simenon. (I'd never heard of Simenon either, for that matter.) The first thing that puzzled me was that Maigret and all the actors were speaking British English, with no French accent, and I found this tremendously disorienting. As I say, I was a naif when it came to things like this; I was used to American television, and wasn't familiar with the British practice of having actors speak naturally, without trying to put on phony accents, French or not. I kept checking to make sure this was set in France, and that they hadn't moved the action to England or something like that, and frankly it distracted me from following the stories. I can't even remember if I saw all of the episodes. Did I mention that I was also stupid back then?
The years passed, and while I didn't pursue Maigret any further—either the series or the books on which it was based—I didn't forget about it, either. When Rowan Atkinson took his turn as Maigret in 2016, I was intrigued—The Black Adder, you know; it seems as if I was always coming to Maigret through some other series the lead actor had appeared in—and recorded it with the intention of watching it later. Well, you know what they say about intentions; by the time we could have gotten to it, we'd moved, and I lost all the episodes that were on the DVR because we changed cable companies. Oh well; c'est la vie, as Maigret would have said.But for some reason unknown to me, either then or now, I started looking into Maigret more seriously. I even caught an adaptation of a Maigret story that was produced on Studio One back in the early 1950s; "Stan, the Killer," it was. The actor playing Maigret (Romney Brent) didn't leave that much of an impression on me, which was understandable, I suppose, since Eli Wallach was the star. But—and here's what remains a mystery to me—I started researching various versions of Maigret, trying to find which version critics considered the definitive one, if such a thing existed.
And that's how I stumbled onto Rupert Davies. Maigret had been played by many actors both in the movies and on television; even Charles Laughton took his turn, as the first English-language Maigret. Bruno Cremer played him in the 1990s into the early 2000s and those were well-reviewed, but the versions online didn't have subtitles, and since they were all in French, they were useless to me. But the Davies version—almost everyone with an opinion thought his was the best, or one of the best. Georges Simenon himself said, "At last, I have found the perfect Maigret!" Well, that was good enough for me. Davies had played Maigret on the BBC for four seasons, from 1960 to 1963, and, remarkably for the Beeb, all 52 episodes still existed. And eventually, as so often happens if you're willing to be patient and keep your eyes open, the series popped up on YouTube and the Internet Archives. (It's also on DVD, but it ain't cheap.)
By this time I'd gotten to know the character a little better. I still hadn't read any of Simenon's books—that would come later—but I was familiar enough with him to know that Maigret was no knuckle-dragging savage, of which no better example exists than Law & Order: SVU's Elliot Stabler; or a smart-ass know-it-all, as in every investigator who's ever appeared on NCIS. He's a shrewd judge of character, puffing on his ever-present pipe with a world-weariness offset by wry good humor, and a blunt, direct style of questioning; he's able to sense when things don't add up, skeptical when the pieces fall into place too easily, and not easily fooled. He's also experienced in the human condition, with an ability to look beyond the surface, and an unwillingness to condemn people based on imperfections in their past lives.
Indeed, the impression that Davies-as-Maigret gives off is an overwhelming sense of humanity; he displays a particular ability to put himself in place of the victim and see where it leads him, which imbues in him an extraordinary sensitivity toward those he investigates. Even the satisfaction of solving a case comes with a particular cloud, for he knows that when he wins, someone loses his liberty, or his life. People complain that I'm too soft on criminals, he notes in one episode, but unlike the magistrates and prosecutors—bureaucrats, Maigret dismissively views them—he lives in the world of crime, and understands the human drama that plays out within. In her essay, " Maigret's Law ," sociologist Susan S. Silbey notes that "Maigret is a believer in sociological justice [who] works to repair the torn fabric of social relations to recompose the troubled lives that end in murder." Oftentimes, "he arranges outcomes in which the guilty person feels the need to confess, or to execute their own punishment." While the bureaucrats are eager to categorize and name everything as soon as they come across it, Maigret "simply lets it register; the sorting, the understanding comes later." But then, to the bureaucrats, crime is a form waiting to be filled out, "'satisfied that [they] had done [their] duty' if they named the rules and issued notices, willing to let others do the work." For Maigret, the human element is never far from the surface; perhaps it remains there all the time, in plain sight for those like Maigret who understand it. Is this what is so often missing from American police stories? Perhaps. . .
If all this sounds terribly dense, as if one needs an advanced degree of some kind to enjoy it, forget it. The 52 episodes, all taken from the Simenon's fantastic oeuvre—he wrote 75 Maigret novels, and 28 short stories—do an impressive job of condensing the often-complex narratives into 50-minute timeslots. The cases are always interesting and the outcomes not always predictable, but the pleasure is in watching Maigret solve them—and it is a real pleasure.
What else? The location shots, all done in France, the music, and the use of colloquial French terms throughout—Maigret is always referred to by his subordinates as patron, or chief—establish the setting admirably; no concerns here that the actors don't speak with French accents! The supporting cast is led by Ewen Solon as Maigret's loyal number two, Lucas, a man with the unique ability to combine cynicism and good humor; Neville Jason as young Lapointe and Victor Lucas as muscular Torrence round out Maigret's closest associates. Helen Shingler plays Maigret's devoted wife Louise, who understands him all-too-well; as a couple, they compliment each other perfectly, and Maigret himself knows he would be an incomplete man without her.
In the end, it was very easy to come to the conclusion that Maigret should be part of the new Top Ten. I was sold on it from the first episode. There was a warmth I felt toward him—toward both the character and the actor, really; that warmth being a reciprocation of the warmth which emanates from Rupert Davies himself as he projects Maigret's inner humanity and desire for justice. Indeed, as I look through this, I find that I might have used the word "justice" many more times than I have, since justice is the unifying aspect that joins Maigret to so many of my favorite characters on television: the justice that Judd seeks for his clients, the justice that Dr. Baxter searches for in the diagnoses of his patients, the justice that is (seemingly) unattainable for Dr. Richard Kimble, the justice that is an overriding concern for the Doctor as he travels in his Tardis. And why not; the dictionary tells us that "justice" comes from the Old French justitia, which in its Latin root meant "righteousness and equity." It's a companion to the Latin justus, meaning "upright and just." The well-drawn character can demonstrate such justice, but it requires the actor to bring it out, to project it on the screen.
There had to be a reason, after all, why Simenon considered Rupert Davies the "perfect" Maigret. And while there are other Maigret stories to be told, other actors to play him and other series to watch, he'll always be Maigret to me. TV
March 4, 2024
What's on TV? Thursday, March 7, 1963
You'll recall that a couple of weeks ago in this space, I took issue with a CBS News article that referred to Carol Burnett as the first female host of a television variety show; readers, led by James McGrail, rushed to point out the many female hosts to precede Carol. I'm fairly confident we won't see a repeat this week with the claim that Dorothy Fuldheim was the first woman in the United States to anchor a television news broadcast as well to host her own television show. Dorothy Fuldheim was one of the grand dames of American journalism and a Cleveland institution: she was a fixture on WEWS (6;30 p.m.) from 1947 to 1984, and, before that, local and network radio from 1929; she also wrote for the Cleveland Press. She was outspoken and controversial and wasn't afraid to express her opinions; watch this video of her
with left-wing activist Jerry Rubin
. They don't make local journalists (or personalities) like her any more, do they? You can see her on WEWS at 6:30 p.m. tonight and every weeknight in this Cleveland edition.-3- KYW (CLEVELAND) (NBC) MORNING 5:50 NEWS 5:55 FARM FARE—Agriculture 6:00 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Education Atomic Age Physics: “Electron Optics” 6:30 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Education COLOR American Government: “The Federal System and the Centralization of Power” 7:00 TODAY—Hugh Downs 9:00 WOODROW—Clay Conroy 9:30 FELIX—Cartoons 9:45 TOMORROW’S LEARNING TODAY—Education 10:00 BEST OF GROUCHO—Comedy 10:15 TV CLASSROOM—Music 10:30 PLAY YOUR HUNCH COLOR 11:00 PRICE IS RIGHT—Bill Cullen COLOR 11:30 CONCENTRATION AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 12:30 MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW 2:00 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Sam Levenson, Adala Rogers St. Johns, Karen Morrow 3:00 SPECIAL FOR WOMEN SPECIAL “Loretta Young” and “Young Dr. Malone” will not be seen today 4:00 MATCH GAME—Rayburn Guests: Peggy Cass, Bennett Cerf 4:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur 4:30 BARNABY, POPEYE AND FRIENDS—Linn Sheldon 5:05 MOVIE—Western “Seminole Uprising” (1955) EVENING 6:30 NEWS—Bill Jorgensen 6:40 WEATHER—Dick Goddard 6:45 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley 7:00 YOGI BEAR—Cartoons 7:30 WIDE COUNTRY—Drama 8:30 DR. KILDARE—Drama 9:30 HAZEL—Comedy COLOR 10:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Variety COLOR Guests: Jonathan Winters, Martha Raye 11:00 NEWS—Bill Jorgensen 11:10 WEATHER—Dick Goddard 11:15 STEVE ALLEN—Variety Guest: Shelley Berman 12:45 MOVIE—Musical Comedy “Two Tickets to Broadway” (1951)
-5- WEWS (CLEVELAND) (ABC) MORNING 8:55 NEWS 9:00 WRU TELECOURSE—French 9:30 ROMPER ROOM—Children 10:00 PAIGE PALMER 10:45 TV CLASSROOM 11:00 JANE WYMAN 11:30 YOURS FOR A SONG—Bert Parks AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS—Randy Culver 12:10 NOON SHOW—Children 12:15 KING LEONARDO—Cartoon 12:30 NOON SHOW—Children 1:00 ONE O’CLOCK CLUB—Variety 2:30 SEVEN KEYS 3:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY—Jack Bailey 3:30 WHO DO YOU TRUST?—Woody Woodbury 4:00 LOVE THAT BOB—Comedy 4:30 DISCOVERY ‘63 4:55 AMERICAN NEWSSTAND—Bill Lord 5:00 FIVE O’CLOCK SHOW 5:15 ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS 5:30 FIVE O’CLOCK SHOW EVENING 6:30 DOROTHY FULDHEIM 6:45 NEWS—Tom Field 6:55 WEATHER—Carolyn Johnson 7:00 ENSIGN O’TOOLE—Comedy 7:30 OZZIE AND HARRIET 8:00 DONNA REED 8:30 BEAVER—Comedy 9:00 MY THREE SONS—Comedy 9:30 McHALE’S NAVY 10:00 CLOSE-UP! SPECIAL “The Irreplacables” “Premiere” will not be seen tonight 11:00 NEWS—Tom Field, Joel Daly 11:15 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR 1:00 NEWS
-8- WJW (CLEVELAND) (CBS) MORNING 6:50 MEDITATION—Religion 6:55 NEWS 7:00 COLLEGE OF THE AIR 7:30 REX HUMBARD—Religion 7:45 CLUTCH CARGO—Cartoon 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children 9:00 B’WANA DON—Children 9:30 JACK LA LANNE—Exercises 10:00 AS THE WORLD TURNS 10:30 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy 11:00 DALE YOUNG TIME—Variety AFTERNOON 12:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial 12:25 NEWS—Harry Reasoner 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 12:45 GUIDING LIGHT 1:00 ADVENTURES IN PARADISE 2:00 PASSWORD—Ludden Guests: Artie Shaw, Tammy Grimes 2:30 HOUSE PARTY Guest: Jack Kelly 3:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Jack Clark Panelists: Skitch Henderson, Orson Bean, Joyce Davidson, Phyllis Newman. Jack Clark guest hosts 3:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 3:30 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 4:00 SECRET STORM 4:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 5:00 MICKEY MOUSE CLUB 5:30 ADVENTURE ROAD—Jim Doney EVENING 6:40 WEATHER—Howard Hoffmann 6:45 NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7:00 NEWS—Adair, Fitzgerald, Wagy 7:30 MISTER ED 8:00 PERRY MASON 9:00 TWILIGHT ZONE 10:00 ADVENTURES IN PARADISE 11:00 NEWS—Warren Guthrie 11:10 CITY REPORT—Doug Adair 11:15 TV EDITORIAL—Norman Wagy 11:18 SPORTS—John Fitzgerald 11:20 MOVIE—Drama “Deep Valley” (1947) 1:20 MOVIE—Adventure “Rangers of Fortune” (1940)
11 WTOL (TOLEDO) (CBS-NBC) MORNING 6:00 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Education Atomic Age Physics: “Electron Optics” 6:30 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Education COLOR American Government: “The Federal System and the Centralization of Power” 7:00 COLLEGE OF THE AIR 7:30 OPERATION ALPHABET 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children 9:00 ROMPER ROOM 9:30 KING AND ODIE—Cartoons 9:45 CARTOON CLASSROOM 10:00 BURNS AND ALLEN 10:30 PLAY YOUR HUNCH COLOR 11:00 PRICE IS RIGHT—Bill Cullen COLOR 11:30 CONCENTRATION AFTERNOON 12:00 MAN ABOUT TOWN 12:15 R.F.D. TOLEDO—Glen Gendron 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 12:45 GUIDING LIGHT 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Crisis” (1950) 2:30 HOUSE PARTY Guest: Jack Kelly 3:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Jack Clark Panelists: Skitch Henderson, Orson Bean, Joyce Davidson, Phyllis Newman. Jack Clark guest hosts 3:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 3:30 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 4:00 SECRET STORM 4:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 5:00 MOVIE—Comedy “Elmer the Great” (1933) EVENING 6:25 QUICK DRAW McGRAW 7:00 NEWS—Gordon Ward 7:15 NEWS—John Saunders 7:30 MISTER ED 8:00 PERRY MASON 9:00 REAL McCOYS—Comedy 9:30 HAZEL—Comedy COLOR 10:00 DR. KILDARE—Drama 11:00 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Spoilers” (1942)
12 WICU (ERIE) (ABC-NBC) MORNING 7:30 NEWS—Erie 8:00 NEWS—Erie 8:15 SCOPE—Erie 8:30 YOGA FOR HEALTH 9:00 TV ENRICHES LEARNING 9:30 MOVIE—Comedy “Guest Wife” 1945) 11:00 JANE WYMAN 11:30 YOURS FOR A SONG—Bert Parks AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS—Ned McGrath 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST 1:00 ERNIE FORD—Variety 1:30 BEST OF GROUCHO—Comedy 2:00 DAY IN COURT 2:25 NEWS—Alex Dreier 2:30 SEVEN KEYS 3:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY—Jack Bailey 3:30 WHO DO YOU TRUST?—Woody Woodbury 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND—Dick Clark 4:30 DISCOVERY ‘63 4:55 AMERICAN NEWSSTAND—Bill Lord 5:00 PAPPY AND HIS FRIENDS 5:15 ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS 5:30 PAPPY AND HIS FRIENDS EVENING 6:00 HUCKLEBERRY HOUND 6:30 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 6:45 NEWS—Ron Cochran 7:00 OZZIE AND HARRIET—Comedy 7:30 HENNESEY—Comedy 8:00 DONNA REED 8:30 BEAVER—Comedy 9:00 MY THREE SONS—Comedy 9:30 McHALE’S NAVY 10:00 CLOSE-UP! SPECIAL “The Irreplacables” “Premiere” will not be seen tonight 11:00 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 11:20 MOVIE—Comedy “Magic Town” (1947)
13 WSPD (AKRON) (ABC-NBC) MORNING 7:20 PRAYER FOR TODAY—Religion 7:25 FARM REPORT—Talk 7:30 TODAY—Hugh Downs 9:00 FATHER KNOWS BEST 9:30 MOVIE—Drama “Whiplash” (1948) 11:00 JANE WYMAN 11:30 YOURS FOR A SONG—Bert Parks AFTERNOON 12:00 ERNIE FORD 12:30 MOVIE—Comedy “Love and Learn” (1947) 2:00 DAY IN COURT 2:25 NEWS—Alex Dreier 2:30 SEVEN KEYS 3:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY—Jack Bailey 3:30 WHO DO YOU TRUST?—Woody Woodbury 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND—Dick Clark 4:30 DISCOVERY ‘63 4:50 ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS 5:00 BRONCO—Western EVENING 6:00 DEADLINE—Toledo 6:45 NEWS—Ron Cochran 7:00 WANTED—DEAD OR ALIVE 7:30 OZZIE AND HARRIET 8:00 DONNA REED 8:30 BEAVER—Comedy 9:00 MY THREE SONS—Comedy 9:30 ZANE GREY—Western 10:00 CLOSE-UP! SPECIAL “The Irreplacables” “Premiere” will not be seen tonight 11:00 NEWS—Warren Guthrie 11:10 NEWS—Toledo 11:15 WEATHER 11:20 TV EDITORIAL—David Drury 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR 1:00 PRAYER FOR TODAY
21 WTMJ (YOUNGSTOWN) (NBC) MORNING 6:00 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Education Atomic Age Physics: “Electron Optics” 6:30 CONTINENTAL CLASSROOM—Education COLOR American Government: “The Federal System and the Centralization of Power” 7:00 TODAY—Hugh Downs 9:00 ANN SOTHERN—Comedy 9:30 LEAVE IT TO THE GIRLS 10:00 SAY WHEN—Art James 10:25 NEWS—Edwin Newman 10:30 PLAY YOUR HUNCH COLOR 11:00 PRICE IS RIGHT—Bill Cullen COLOR 11:30 CONCENTRATION AFTERNOON 12:00 YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION COLOR Panelists: Dennis James, Mike Jackson, Inger Stevens 12:30 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES 12:55 NEWS—Ray Scherer 1:00 NEWS—Youngtown 1:15 KITCHEN CORNER—Mariner 2:00 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Sam Levenson, Adala Rogers St. Johns, Karen Morrow 3:00 SPECIAL FOR WOMEN SPECIAL “Loretta Young” and “Young Dr. Malone” will not be seen today 4:00 MATCH GAME—Rayburn Guests: Peggy Cass, Bennett Cerf 4:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur 4:30 MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY 5:00 MOVIE—Melodrama “Bride of the Monster” (1955) EVENING 6:15 CENTURY MILESTONES 6:20 WEATHER 6:30 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 6:45 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley 7:00 DEPUTY—Western 7:30 WIDE COUNTRY—Drama 8:30 DR. KILDARE—Drama 9:30 HAZEL—Comedy COLOR 10:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Variety COLOR Guests: Jonathan Winters, Martha Raye 11:00 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR
27 WKBN (YOUNGSTOWN) (CBS) MORNING 7:25 COLLEGE OF THE AIR “Policy Problems: What About Strikes?” 7:55 NEWS 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 ROMPER ROOM 9:30 CLUB 27—David Allen 10:00 CALENDAR—Reasoner 11:00 McCOYS—Comedy 11:30 PETE AND GLADYS AFTERNOON 12:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial 12:25 NEWS—Harry Reasoner 12:30 NEWS—Alan De Petro 12:35 MOVIE—Comedy “The Four Poster” (1952) 2:00 PASSWORD—Ludden Guests: Artie Shaw, Tammy Grimes 2:30 HOUSE PARTY Guest: Jack Kelly 3:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Jack Clark Panelists: Skitch Henderson, Orson Bean, Joyce Davidson, Lphyllis Newman. Jack Clark guest hosts 3:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 3:30 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 4:00 SECRET STORM 4:30 MOVIE—Drama “Slattery’s Hurricane” (1949) EVENING 6:00 HUCKLEBERRY HOUND 6:30 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 6:45 NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7:00 SAN FRANCISCO BEAT—Police 7:30 MISTER ED 8:00 PERRY MASON 9:00 TWILIGHT ZONE 10:00 NURSES—Drama 11:00 NEWS—Warren Guthrie 11:10 NEWS—Ken Thomas 11:15 SPORTS—Don Gardner 11:25 MOVIE—Drama “Highway Dragnet” (1954)
33 WKST (YOUNGSTOWN) (ABC) MORNING 9:00 KARTOON SHOWTIME 10:30 YOGA FOR HEALTH 11:00 JANE WYMAN 11:30 YOURS FOR A SONG—Bert Parks AFTERNOON 12:00 ERNIE FORD 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST 1:00 AWARD THEATER—Drama 1:30 NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL 2:00 DAY IN COURT 2:25 NEWS—Alex Dreier 2:30 SEVEN KEYS 3:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY—Jack Bailey 3:30 WHO DO YOU TRUST?—Woody Woodbury 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND—Dick Clark 4:30 DISCOVERY ‘63 4:55 BARNEY BEAN SHOW 5:45 LONE RANGER—Western EVENING 6:15 SUPPERTIME—Humbards 6:30 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 6:45 NEWS—Ron Cochran 7:00 BEST OF GROUCHO—Comedy 7:30 OZZIE AND HARRIET 8:00 DONNA REED 8:30 BEAVER—Comedy 9:00 MY THREE SONS—Comedy 9:30 McHALE’S NAVY 10:00 CLOSE-UP! SPECIAL “The Irreplacables” “Premiere” will not be seen tonight 11:00 NEWS—Murphy Martin 11:10 NEWS—Don Parcher 11:15 STEVE ALLEN—Variety Guest: Shelley Berman
35 WSEE (ERIE) (CBS-NBC) MORNING 7:30 COLLEGE OF THE AIR “Private Approaches to Security” 8:00 TODAY—Hugh Downs 9:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO—Children 10:00 CALENDAR—Reasoner 11:00 McCOYS—Comedy 11:30 PETE AND GLADYS AFTERNOON 12:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial 12:25 NEWS—Harry Reasoner 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 12:45 GUIDING LIGHT 1:00 HOME SHOWCASE—Carnes 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS 2:00 PASSWORD—Ludden Guests: Artie Shaw, Tammy Grimes 2:30 HOUSE PARTY Guest: Jack Kelly 3:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Jack Clark Panelists: Skitch Henderson, Orson Bean, Joyce Davidson, Lphyllis Newman. Jack Clark guest hosts 3:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 3:30 PUBLIC SERVICE FILM 4:00 SECRET STORM 4:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 5:00 MICKEY MOUSE CLUB EVENING 6:30 LIVESTOCK REPORT 6:35 TODAY’S GOLF TIPS 6:40 NEWS—Jim Dewart 6:45 NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7:00 BROKEN ARROW—Western 7:30 MISTER ED 8:00 PERRY MASON 9:00 TWILIGHT ZONE 10:00 NURSES—Drama 11:00 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 11:15 MAGIC MOMENTS IN SPORTS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR
49 WAKR (AKRON) (ABC) MORNING 10:55 NEWS 11:00 JANE WYMAN 11:30 YOURS FOR A SONG—Bert Parks AFTERNOON 12:00 ERNIE FORD 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST 1:00 KARTOON KARNIVAL 2:00 DAY IN COURT 2:25 NEWS—Alex Dreier 2:30 SEVEN KEYS 3:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY—Jack Bailey 3:30 WHO DO YOU TRUST?—Woody Woodbury 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND—Dick Clark 4:30 DISCOVERY ‘63 4:55 AMERICAN NEWSSTAND—Bill Lord 5:00 TV HOUR OF STARS—Drama “No Man’s Land” 5:50 FOLLOWING THE ZIPS EVENING 6:00 PROF. JACK—Children 6:55 SPORTS—Bob Wylie 7:00 NEWS—Jack Fitzgibbons 7:10 WEATHER—Bill McKay 7:15 NEWS—Ron Cochran 7:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Wicked Lady” (1945) 9:30 TELESPORTS DIGEST 10:00 CLOSE-UP! SPECIAL “The Irreplacables” “Premiere” will not be seen tonight 11:00 NEWS—Murphy Martin 11:10 NEWS—Akron 11:15 TV HOURS OF STARS—Drama “Wedding Gift”
TV
March 2, 2024
This week in TV Guide: March 2, 1963
One of the season's more interesting new shows, both conceptually and in practice, is The Eleventh Hour, NBC's drama dealing with the world of the mind. The Eleventh Hour—the title refers to those patients "on the verge of breakdown" and facing the last chance for treatment—is the product of executive producer Norman Felton, creator of the radio programs "Doctors Today" and "Today in Medicine" with the American Medical Association, and of the dramatic series Dr. Kildare for NBC television.* *Felton is perhaps best-known for a later show with absolutely nothing to do with medicine, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Felton is determined to remove The Eleventh Hour from the traditional stereotypes of psychiatry; "What we're not doing is the story of Pen, Pad and Couch. Our forensic psychiatrist—Dr. Ted Bassett—is no analyst taking notes about patients' dreams. He's active, not passive. He's a therapist, a healer." The field of psychiatry has been relatively untouched by television, so Felton has established an advisory board comprised of 20 psychiatrists and four psychologists, plus psychiatrist Dr. Harold Arlen as technical advisor. In so doing, Felton and his staff have unearthed some potential concerns; after viewing the pilot episode, one psychiatrist wondered if viewers, after seeing various mental illnesses dramatized, might wonder if they themselves are suffering from the same illness. Felton reassured the doctors that while the show will deal with serious issues and how people can get help, "At the same time we want to entertain and hold an audience so that our program doesn't end up on the Sunday morning schedule."
The lead characters of The Eleventh Hour are Wendell Corey as the aforementioned Dr. Theodore Bassett, a forensic psychologist and former lawyer, who is often called in to consult on cases involving an accused's sanity or state of mind; and Jack Ging as clinical psychologist Dr. Paul Graham*. Originally Ging was to be another psychiatrist sharing the office with Bassett, until it was pointed out that in real life, psychiatrists do not share offices. Changing Ging's status created another problem, this one with the American Psychological Association, which accused the show of portraying psychologists too often with "little resemblance to the realities of today's methods for care and treatment of the emotionally disturbed." (Graham, for instance, is the member of the duo most likely to enlist the use of such tropes as ink blot tests.) The network replied that "the psychologists were preoccupied with professional status." I had no idea that the behind-the-scenes story could be so dramatic!
*Unlike psychiatrists, psychologists are not medical doctors and, for example, cannot prescribe medication. Their title of "doctor" refers to their Ph.D. or Sc.D. degrees.
If you're a longtime reader, you'll know that I have a great admiration for The Eleventh Hour, and particularly for Wendell Corey's performance. Corey portrays Ted Bassett with great sensitivity and compassion; the opening of the first episode sets the tone for the series. A disturbed patient is running berserk through the hospital halls, trying desperately to escape. As he reaches the elevator, the doors open, revealing our first look at Dr. Bassett. The patient comes to a complete stop, as Bassett holds out his hands and offers him a small smile of reassurance. The patient, calming down, takes Bassett's hand, and then allows the orderlies to lead him away. Bassett watches after him, saying, almost to himself, "Poor damned soul."
Wendell Corey and Barbara RushSome critics found that opening melodramatic, carrying overtones of the "great white father" school of medicine. On the contrary, I found Corey's gesture to be deeply moving, the kind of caring that I'd want from my doctor in a similar situation. Corey is, in fact, the fulcrum around which this show pivots; Jack Ging's character is very good, equally committed to helping his patients, but I so admire Corey's performance as Dr. Bassett; it's no easy feat to take a broken person and try to put him back together, to find out what's at the root of the problem and treat it; but Corey gives you confidence that it can be done.(Corey leaves the series after the first season, and is replaced by a similar character, played by Ralph Bellamy, for the show's second and last season, which has not been made available on DVD; if anyone is aware of a—ahem—gray market dealer who has it, please let me know.)
Mental illness is precisely that, an illness; it should be viewed without stigma or prejudice. Those who scoff at such diagnoses, who think of it as a weakness, or who view it as a crutch, are not just misinformed, they're ignorant. As such, I'm a great believer in psychiatry, though one has to be very careful about the psychiatrist as well as the technique involved. You might recall a similar series, Breaking Point, which will be premiering on ABC in the 1963-64 season. I liked that show as well , and thought that it dealt with the issue with sensitivity. These shows, for the most part, avoid easy answers in favor of hopeful ones; the illnesses from which these patients suffer will not go away magically. It will take work, it will take desire on the part of the patient to get better, but these doctors will be there to help him on the way. Sam Rolfe, the producer of The Eleventh Hour, says that "We want to let people know that when a man is boxed in, when it's a case of 'I've lost my job and my world is tumbling down'—there are doctors for that, too." Doctors like Ted Bassett, whose philosophy, Wendell Corey says, is "Never mind the past. Let's give the patient a future." In this cruel, cruel world we live in today, it's impossible not to be moved by it.
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ABC's new fall seasonSpring is just around the corner, at least according to the calendar, and it's oft been said that in springtime, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Unless, that is, he happens to be a young television executive, in which case springtime means his thoughts are focused, rather heavily, on the upcoming fall season. And, according to the Hollywood Teletype, there's quite a lot to think about. Titles for the new season are said to include The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, starring Dan O'Herlihy; Butterball Brown, with Mickey Shaughnessy; Ready for the People, starring Everett Sloane; Arrest and Trial, with Ben Gazzara and Chuck Connors in a 90-minute drama; Please Stand By, a sci-fi anthology; The Fugitive, with David Janssen; Breaking Point, starring Paul Richards; The Patty Duke Show; The Greatest Show on Earth, with Jack Palance; Mr. Kingston, with Peter Graves and Walter Pidgeon; Thunderhead, starring George Montgomery; The Young and the Bold; and Archie. In the New York Teletype, a separate item mentions the upcoming 90-minute Jerry Lewis Show.Some of these probably ring a bell. Please Stand By made it to the tube as The Outer Limits, while The Young and the Bold wound up as Channing and lasted one season. The Fugitive and Patty Duke speak for themselves; Arrest and Trial was truly innovative, but it took until Law & Order to make it work; Jaimie McPheeters was also one season and out, as was Breaking Point (unjustly) and Greatest Show. And you probably know about the bomb that was The Jerry Lewis Show. The others left less of an oil slick than Jerry, but disappeared beneath the waves nonetheless.
As for the shows that have to go to make room for future hits, they include The Jetsons (which had a longer half-life than all but a couple of the new shows), The Rifleman, Going My Way, Our Man Higgins, I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, The Gallant Men, Naked City (a true classic), My Three Sons (which moved to CBS and ran for another seven seasons), and 77 Sunset Strip (although that survived by moving to another timeslot; the reformatted Sunset Strip was a disaster). Fred Astaire's Premiere anthology probably won't be back, but even if it is, Fred's already decided to return to movies (a good idea).
I always enjoy looking at these proposed new series—which ones succeed beyond our wildest dreams, and which fail miserably, which cancelled shows are totally forgotten (like last week's My Friend Tony), and which are remembered forever (the aforementioned Jetsons). The fact that the young television executive, given the choice between love and television, chooses television, perhaps explains why TV itself seldom fulfills our expectations.
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And this serves as a nice lead-in to our next story, an interview with Dr. Gary A. Steiner, a psychologist from the University of Chicago, who's done a comprehensive study of television viewers, the findings of which are summarized in his new book The People Look at Television. In the TV Guide interview, Dr. Steiner explains "what viewers say they want to see on television and what they actually watch," and this should be good.
First of all, says Dr. Steiner, "everyone—highbrows included—watches mostly light entertainment," which includes action, comedy, variety, light drama, and sports. That accounts for roughly two-thirds of the average viewing week. Another large chunk of viewing comes from newscasts, making up anywhere between 25 and 40 percent of viewing. However, "heavier fare—serious drama, classical music, heavy information such as public affairs presentations" makes up less than 10 percent of the average viewing diet.
Isn't it the case, though, that viewer choices are based on what's available? Well, no. Even when given the choice, viewers, including better-educated ones, turn overwhelmingly to light entertainment. "Four out of five times" the college-educated viewer will pick light entertainment even when public affairs broadcasts are available. Even those viewers who say they want more public affairs programming consistently choose light entertainment shows when they have a choice. "So there is little evidence in support of the argument that viewers watch so much trivia because trivia is all they are offered."As far as that light entertainment goes, Dr. Steiner's survey found that about every genre of programming has as many supporters as it does critics, meaning that for every critic who claims there are, for example, too many Westerns on TV, you're likely to find a satisfied fan. There is, in other words, "no simple change in program composition that on balance would satisfy more people than it would dissatisfy."
There is, however, some correlation between education and the choice of entertainment; college educated viewers will turn from light to heavy entertainment when it's available. The general public, in such cases, still prefers light entertainment, and public affairs programs run a distant third. As for the fact that viewers say there needs to be more public affairs programming, Steiner speculates that this could be similar to "speed limits or integration—they recognize the need for information as a need for the country in general," not specifically for themselves.
In general, viewers think there's too much violence on television, and they're particularly concerned about the exposure children have to such shows—both on shows designed for adults and for children. "It is the eye-gouging, slapping, hitting over the head—not mowing down with machine guns—that causes the greatest concern." They understand the need for commercials, but find them too long and interrupt too frequently, and at crucial points during a broadcast; they like commercials for beer, food, and automobiles, and dislike those for bathroom products, cigarettes, and undergarments. (I wonder what they'd think of today's commercials for, among other things, vaginal deodorant?)
In conclusion, Dr. Steiner gives us an idea of what the "composite viewer" wants. "First and foremost, give me more programs that are fun and worthwhile programs that I find relaxing and entertaining but, at the same time, are in some way informative, uplifting, useful." Make programs that are "safe for children and attract and hold their attention." Don't give us commercials that insult our intelligence, and don't interrupt in the middle of a program to show them. Raise the average level of all programs, rather than offering a few outstanding shows each year. And, since it's hard to control the amount of television watched by both adults and children, help us out by making those hours a little more worthwhile. "Television could certainly stand improvement. But all things considered, you're doing a good job."
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A pair of legal dramas lead off the week: Sam Benedict (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., NBC) has a change-of-pace episode, in which star Edmond O'Brien plays a dual role: high-powered attorney Benedict, and ne'er do well Charlie Dunphie, who's guilty of having bilked 17 charities—in order to support the 17 orphans he tends to on the old showboat they call home. I don't think the story is up to the caliber of most of the show's episodes, but it gives O'Brien a chance to show off his acting chops, and that's always welcome. Later, on The Defenders (8:30 p.m., CBS) the Prestons take the case of Luke Jackson (Rubert Duvall), a convicted murderer who's spent the last seven years on death row, and now a model of rehabilitation—just in time to be strapped into the electric chair.
Looks as if whoever owned this issue planned to watch it as well!If you're looking for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I have just the thing for you. It's the NBC Opera Company world premiere production of Gian Carlo Menotti's made-for-TV opera "Labyrinth" (Sunday, 2:00 p.m. ET), and when I say that it was made for television, I'm not kidding; the special effects and trick photography involved make it almost impossible for the opera to ever be performed on a stage. You can see the broadcast
here
, and it's a good thing that the video exists, because the opera was never rebroadcast and, aside from a 2020 performance at Ventura College, it has never been staged anywhere else. It saves us from having to ask the question: if an opera is performed and no video of it exists, did it really happen?Sunday evening, Ed Sullivan's headline guests are Kate Smith, Bob Newhart, Anita Bryant, Nancy Walker, and Charles Nelson Reilly. He's also got a British ventriloquist, a Spanish dance group, and a hand-balancing act, but I think his main lineup would have won the day, regardless of what show it might have been going against (8:00 p.m., CBS). And on an NBC News Special, John Chancellor takes a look at the European Common Market, progenitor to the European Union. (10:00 p.m.) I don't know that it was a good idea then, any more than it is today.
Future Oscar winner Beatrice Straight stars as Edith in Monday's Ben Casey, a drama filled with family tensions: her niece Greta (Diana Hyland) is being controlled by her domineering mother; and Edith is refusing to undergo critical surgery until Greta is given her freedom. I wonder how Casey's going to handle this one?
The luminous Diane Baker appears as a young blind woman who's the target of farmer Lloyd Bridges' affections in The Lloyd Bridges Show (Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., CBS). Efron presents a rather interesting profile of the man whom she describes as "an enormously frail personality—so gentle and shy that it takes an hour of conversation before one gets any definite impression of him at all." His friends paint a similar picture; Aaron Spelling, producer of Lloyd's current anthology series, calls him an enigma, "full of sweetness, full of love," while his wife Dorothy notes how "children worship him, flock around him." Both add, however, that his desire to love and please everyone is a source of trouble for him; "poor judgement," says Spelling, while his wife feels others take advantage of his gentle disposition. Not everyone is a fan; one critic says he doesn't believe all the talk of love of life and people: "He's weak, unrealistic. He refuses to look life in the face." Bridges himself doesn't particularly like the description of himself as a "gentle muscleman," but admits to a lack of aggressiveness, which could be due to a lack of confidence in his own abilities. Even though his new series lags in the ratings, he's enthusiastic about the opportunity to show that he can act, that he's not just the adventure star of Sea Hunt; he calls it "the biggest opportunity of my life." In the end, the series does leave the air after a single season, but Lloyd Bridges seldom leaves the small screen; he'll be back in Rod Serling's existential Western, The Loner, and was a fixture in guest appearances and TV-movies (not to mention his memorable role in the movie Airplane!) until his death in 1998.Pop singer Joanie Sommers is Wednesday night's star; she appears first as one of Perry Como's guests on the Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC), along with Gene Sheldon, Charlie Manna, and the Four Step Brothers; later, she shows up on The Steve Allen Show (11:15 p.m., syndicated), with jazzman Frank Rosolino and singer Dean Reed. James Stewart makes a rare appearance on series television on Thursday, portraying himself in his real-life capacity as a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserves, on My Three Sons (9:00 p.m., ABC) in an episode in which Robbie is competing to win a high school letter for science achievement.
On Friday, Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert presents its last show of the season, "The Latin American Spirit," featuring his new symphonic arrangement of West Side Story, along with pieces by Aaron Copland, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Oscar Fernandez (7:30 p.m., CBS). Later, on The Jack Paar Program (10:00 p.m., NBC), former Vice President Richard Nixon makes his first network TV appearance since losing the election for governor of California last November. He's given Jack carte blanche on any question topics, and even takes time out to play a composition of his own on the piano. The audience reaction shows that even after his defeat, he remains a popular political figure.
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Ann Flood is frustrated. She's already an established star of daytime television as Nancy Pollock Karr, the fresh-scrubbed heroine of CBS's The Edge of Night. Before that, she was Liz Fraser Allen, the fresh-scrubbed heroine of From These Roots. And therein lies the rub: Flood, whom everyone describes as warm and sweet-hearted is feeling a little stifled. "I've been cast as the all-American-girl type, the sweetheart type, for years. For a change, I'd like to be the Other Woman." No matter what kind of character she plays, though, she's committed to the world of the soaps—which, for the most part, are still being done live. "I'm not pursuing a stellar career," she tells TV Guide. "My home is most important. I don't want my work to interfere." Earlier in her career, she was a fixture on just about every evening dramatic anthology, an experience she found "thrilling," but no longer. "Now it would interfere with my family."
So she doesn't get a chance to demonstrate a hard edge in her soap roles; maybe she makes up for that in her personal life. Her favorite show is The Untouchables; when she and her husband visited Chicago recently, the first thing she wanted to see was the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. And she's a ferocious debater in social gatherings—"If it's a theatrical crowd, she's arguing about Method acting. And if it's a non-theatrical crowd, it's politics. She's usually denouncing union corruption." Listening to her husband talk about her, she says with a twinkle, "Down deep, this all-American girl is really Eliot Ness."
Ann Flood is too experienced, too well-known, to be considered a startlet, but I enjoy these kinds of stories because you're inevitably drawn to find out what happened to the rest of her career. And in her case, the answer is formidable. She continues to play Nancy Pollack Karr until the series ends in 1984, during which time The Edge of Night transitions from live broadcast to tape, and from CBS to ABC. She remains married to Herbert Granath, from 1952 until his death in 2019. Ann Flood dies in 2022, at the age of 89, proof positive that nice girls don't always finish last.
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MST3K alert: Bride of the Monster (1955) An intrepid female reporter investigates a mad scientist who is attempting to harness atomic energy to turn people into superhuman monsters. Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Harvey B. Dunn, Dolores Fuller. (Thursday, 5:00 p.m., WFMJ in Youngstown) Two words: Ed Wood. Need I go any further? It may not be Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it doesn't have to be, does it? 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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