Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 37
February 14, 2024
February 12, 2024
What's on TV? Sunday, February 8, 1970
The Democratic "Political Talk" which all three networks are offering Sunday morning is the party's official response to President Nixon's State of the Union speech from a couple of weeks ago. Each network has its own approach; NBC has delegated one hour, and ABC 55 minutes (allowing for the intro to its NBA Game of the Week), but CBS has given the Democrats 45 minutes—the same length of time which Nixon's speech ran—with the remaining 15 minutes given over to analysis of the presentation. Sunday morning seems, at first glance, to be an odd time for a rebuttal—as if the networks were sticking it into a "dead air" time. However, Sunday morning is, after all, the time when political discussion programs are usually aired, so it probably draws the appropriate audience. Also, the SOTU was given in the afternoon; had it been a primetime address, I suspect the response would have been as well. Nowadays, the response is prepared in advance and given immediately following the speech, as if it had nothing to do with the contents of the speech itself. That's progress, I guess. We're looking this week at the slimmed-down Northern California listings.-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) MORNING 7:00 ACROSS THE FENCE -C- 7:30 SACRED HEART—Religion -C- 7:45 CHRISTOPHER PROGRAM -C- 8:00 THIS IS THE LIFE—Drama -C- 8:30 MOVIE—Mystery “Pursuit to Algiers” (1945) 10:00 TELL IT LIKE IT IS -C- 11:00 CHILDREN BY CHOICE -C- 11:30 POLITICAL TALK—Democrat -C- [Pre-empts regular programming] AFTERNOON 12:30 CAPITOL AND THE CLERGY -C- 1:00 MEET THE PRESS -C- Guests: Treasury Secretary David Kennedy, Economic Adviser Paul McCracken, Budget Director Robert Mayo 1:30 GOLF TOURNAMENT -C- Special: Bob Hope Desert Classic, final round 3:00 WORLD OF GOLF -C- Players: Frank Beard, Julius Boros, Lee Trevino 4:00 FILM -C- 4:05 TRAVENTURE THEATRE -C- 4:30 BRIDAL FASHIONS -C- 5:30 MOVIE—Comedy -C- “Cry for Happy” (1960) EVENING 7:30 WORLD OF DISNEY -C- “Smoke” conclusion 8:30 BILL COSBY—Comedy -C- 9:00 BONANZA C 10:00 BOLD ONES—Drama -C- The Doctors 11:00 11:25 NEWS -C- FILM -C- 11:30 SKIING—Val Gardena, Italy -C- Special: FIS World Championships [Pre-empts regular programming]
-6- KVIE (SACRAMENTO) (NET) AFTERNOON 3:00 LET’S LIPREAD—Lessons 3:30 NET JOURNAL—DOCUMENTARY “Hospital” 5:00 KUKLA, FRAN, AND OLLIE Debut 5:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking EVENING 6:00 NEWS IN PERSPECTIVE Special 7:00 THE ADVOCATES -C- 8:00 FORSYTE SAGA—Drama Chapter 19 9:00 THE SHOW—Variety -C- Guests: The Rare Earth, James J. Kilpatrick, Bryan Carney 10:00 NET FESTIVAL
-7- KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) MORNING 8:00 FAITH FOR TODAY -C- 8:30 DUDLEY DO-RIGHT—Children -C- 9:00 CATHEDRAL OF TOMORROW—Rex Humbard -C- 10:00 POLITICAL TALK—Democrat -C- [Pre-empted: “Issues and Answers” and “Directions” 10:55 NBA BASKETBALL -C- Milwaukee Bucks at Baltimore Bullets AFTERNOON 1:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED 1:30 GOLF TOURNAMENT -C- Special: Bob Hope Desert Classic, final round 3:00 INSIGHT—Religion 3:30 DEATH VALLEY DAYS -C- 4:00 AMERICAN SPORTSMAN -C- 5:00 PASSPORT TO TRAVEL -C- 5:30 MOVIE—Western -C- “The Battle at Apache Pass” (1952) EVENING 7:00 WILD KINGDOM -C- 7:30 WORLD OF DISNEY -C- “Smoke” conclusion 8:30 BILL COSBY—Comedy -C- 9:00 BONANZA -C- 10:00 BOLD ONES—Drama -C- The Doctors 11:00 GALLANT MEN—Drama 12:00 NEWS—Frank Reynolds/Howard K. Smith -C-
-9- KIXE (REDDING) (NET) AFTERNOON 3:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking 4:00 NET JOURNAL—Documentary “Hospital” 5:30 KXIE REPORTS EVENING 6:00 YOUNG MUSICAL ARTISTS 6:30 FOLK GUITAR PLUS—Lessons 7:00 THE ADVOCATES 8:00 FORSYTE SAGA—Drama Chapter 19 9:00 THE SHOW—Variety Guests: The Rare Earth, James J. Kilpatrick, Bryan Carney 10:00 NET FESTIVAL
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) MORNING 6:30 HERALD OF TRUTH -C- 7:00 THE ANSWER—Religion -C- 7:30 SACRED HEART—Religion -C- 7:45 LIFT EVERY VOICE -C- 8:00 RELIGIOUS SPECIAL—Report -C- Special: “Concern, Confrontation and Crisis” 9:00 ORAL ROBERTS—Religion -C- 9:30 KATHRYN KUHLMAN -C- 10:00 POLITICAL TALK—Democrat -C- [Pre-empts regular programming] 11:00 NHL HOCKEY -C- Philadelphia Flyers at Detroit Red Wings AFTERNOON 1:30 OUTDOORS -C- 2:00 KILLY CHALLENGE—Skiing -C- Return 2:30 CBS GOLF CLASSIC -C- George Archer and Bob Lunn vs. Deane Beman and Bunky Henry 3:30 RIFLEMAN—Western 4:00 MOVIE—Drama -C- “Kathy O” (1958) EVENING 6:00 NEWS—Roger Mudd -C- 6:30 NEWS -C- 7:00 LASSIE -C- 7:30 TO ROME WITH LOVE -C- 8:00 ED SULLIVAN -C- Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, David Frye, Connie Stevens, Richard Pryor, Sam and Sammy 9:00 GLEN CAMPBEL -C- Guests: Tony Randall, Lulu, Jerry Reed 10:00 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -C- 11:00 NEWS -C- 11:15 NEWS—Harry Reasoner -C- 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Encore” (English; 1952)
12 KHSL (CHICO) (ABC, CBS) MORNING 8:00 ORAL ROBERTS—Religion -C- 8:30 TURNING POINT -C- 9:00 HERALD OF TRUTH -C- 9:30 REVIVAL FIRES—Religion -C- 10:00 47 HAPPINESS WAY -C- 10:30 BATMAN—Children -C- 11:00 NHL HOCKEY -C- Philadelphia Flyers at Detroit Red Wings AFTERNOON 1:30 WRESTLING 2:30 ZANE GREY—Western 3:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 3:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Female Animal” (1957) 5:00 AMATEUR HOUR -C- 5:30 IT TAKES A THIEF -C- EVENING 6:30 NEWS—Roger Mudd -C- 7:00 LASSIE -C- 7:30 TO ROME WITH LOVE -C- 8:00 ED SULLIVAN -C- Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, David Frye, Connie Stevens, Richard Pryor, Sam and Sammy 9:00 GLEN CAMPBEL -C- Guests: Tony Randall, Lulu, Jerry Reed 10:00 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -C- 11:00 NEWS—Harry Reasoner -C- 11:30 ZANE GREY—Western
13 KOVR (SACRAMENTO) (ABC) MORNING 6:40 NEWS -C- 6:45 SACRED HEART—Religion -C- 7:00 FAITH FOR TODAY -C- 7:30 THIS IS THE LIFE—Drama -C- 8:00 CAP’N DELTA—Children -C- 8:30 MISS PAT’S PLAYROOM -C- 9:00 MOVIE—Drama -C- “Spoilers of the Forest” (1957) 10:55 NBA BASKETBALL -C- Milwaukee Bucks at Baltimore Bullets AFTERNOON 1:00 CESAR’S WORLD—Travel -C- 1:30 STATE CAPITOL -C- 2:00 THIS IS STOCKTON -C- 2:30 PASSPORT TO TRAVEL -C- 3:00 GALLOPING GOURMET -C- Red snapper and fruit 3:30 COLLEGE TALENT -C- Judges: Glenn Ford, John Forsythe, David Janssen 4:00 BRADY BUNCH—Comedy -C- 4:30 GHOST AND MRS. MUIR -C- 5:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Young Doctors” (1961) EVENING 7:00 JACQUES COUSTEAU -C- Special: “The Return of the Sea Elephants” [Pre-empts “Land of the Giants”] 8:00 FBI -C- 9:00 MOVIE—Western -C- “The Night of the Grizzly” (1966) 11:00 NEWS—Frank Reynolds/Howard K. Smith -C- 11:15 DICK CAVETT -C- 12:45 NEWS -C-
19 KLOC (MODESTO) (Ind.) AFTERNOON 12:15 SOCIAL SECURITY 12:30 CHURCH SERVICE—Baptist 1:30 GOSPEL MUSIC—Religion 2:30 KATHRYN KUHLMAN 3:00 CHURCH OF CHRIST—Hughson 3:30 FILM 4:00 THE ANSWER—Religion 4:30 REVIVAL FIRES—Religion 5:00 CATHEDRAL OF TOMORROW EVENING 6:00 ASSEMBLIES OF GOD—Religion 6:30 QUEST FOR LIFE—Religion 7:00 CHRISTADELPHIANS
40 KTXL (SACRAMENTO) (Ind.) MORNING 8:45 DAVEY AND GOLIATH -C- 9:00 TOM & JERRY—Children -C- 9:30 BATMAN—Children -C- 10:00 THREE STOOGES—Children 10:30 MOVIE—Adventure “Pirate Ship” (1949) 11:55 TRIM TIME—Exercise -C- AFTERNOON 12:00 McKEEVER—Comedy 12:30 OUR GANG—Children 1:00 MOVIE—Drama -C- “Tunes of Glory” (English; 1960) 3:00 ROLLER DERBY -C- Bay Bombers vs. Northwest Cardinals 4:00 GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E. -C- 5:00 RAT PATROL—Adventure -C- 5:30 AMATEUR HOUR -C- EVENING 6:00 HERE COME THE STARS -C- Guests: Glenn Ford, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gisele MacKenzie, Jan Daley, Jim Backus, Edgar Buchanan, Pat McCormick, Rich Little. Host: George Jessel 7:00 MOVIE—Drama -C- “The Last Time I Saw Paris” (1954) 9:15 MOVIE—Drama “The Lusty Men” (1952) 11:00 GENE NELSON—Variety -C-
TV
February 10, 2024
This week in TV Guide: February 7, 1970
No, I didn't inhale. Never even had the desire. But then, I always was a square, even though the edges have been worn off over the years. Now that we have that joke out of the way, we can get on to Dick Hobson's report on Marijuana use in Hollywood. I suppose there's a tendency to think of this as being part of the "good old days," as opposed to today's talk about fentanyl or other opioids. But "The use of marijuana is one of the most vigorously debated subjects in America today," and Hollywood is a community, just like any other, with adults trying to figure out how to cope with this latest aspect of the Generation Gap. Some try to supervise the drug's use by their children; some, like Meredith MacRae, take a benign attitude towards it. "I have friends who smoke it and some who don't," she says. "So long as they're not hurting anyone else, why not?" Others, like Buddy Ebsen, will have no part of it. He says that "Parents who do that are soft-headed pseudo-intellectuals!"
Everyone has an opinion on this, and most of them are pretty predictable: Peter Fonda is for it, Dick Clark says its use is "rampant" in Hollywood and elsewhere, Eddie Albert sees it as the "in-thing" for swingers, and an act of rebellion by kids. Steve McQueen thinks it should be allowed, but the "bad drugs" should be banned. Jack Webb doesn't buy the distinction; "I am a very narrow-minded person on this subject." MacRae acknowledges that if she were to be caught with it, it would ruin her career; her contract with Petticoat Junction includes the standard morals clause, which would "probably not be invoked until bad publicity began to hurt the show."
For our purposes, what I find interesting is how television is handling this ticklish subject. Art Linkletter, whose daughter died after taking LSD, complains that many top 40 songs contain "secret messages" on drugs, and Hobson notes that "most" variety shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show, feature "head music." Ernest Chambers, producer of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Leslie Uggams Show, says that "CBS censors are going crazy," citing an example from the Smothers Brothers show in which Leigh French was prevented from calling herself "Mary Wanna" but okayed the name "Goldie O'Keefe," only to wonder later if "'Goldie' referred to Acapulco Gold, high-grade Mexican marijuana, and 'Keefe' to kef, a high-grade variety from Morocco." "They were always coming to us with 'Does this mean something? Does that mean anything?' Chambers says. "They think the young are putting something over on them."
What all this tells me is that the line is always being drawn somewhere, and the same issues keep coming back time and again, under different guises. Take sex, for example; it has, at various times, been about married couples in separate beds, use of the word "pregnant," Elvis Presley's swiveling hips, pre-marital sex, nudity, homosexuality, and transsexuality. It all boils down to the same thing, one way or another; it's just the scale that keeps sliding. Violence, language, "Me Too," drug use—it's all the same. Half of the concern is about what's being shown on-screen, the other half is about what's being done off-screen by those responsible for what's being seen on-screen. TV Guide was always at the forefront of asking these questions, back in the day. The magazine, such as it is, doesn't cover these issues anymore, at least not in any serious way, and that's too bad, because it would be interesting to see what it would say about the times we live in today.
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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.Sullivan: Ed's scheduled guests include country music’s Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer and Boots Randolph; comic-impressionist David Frye; Connie Stevens; comic Richard Pryor; and Sam and Sammy, balancing act.
Palace: Bing Crosby, who hosted opening night at the Palace on Jan. 4, 1964, rings down the curtain with a large sampling of highlights from the past six years.
If we were traversing these TV Guides in chronological order, we would be coming to the end of this feature today, as The Hollywood Palace bows out after a six-year run. Fortunately (or not, depending on how you look at things), that's not how it goes around here, so you still have many more episodes of Sullivan vs The Palace to look forward to. We're not playing by the regular rules this week, though: who can argue with a highlights package that ranges from Nat King Cole and Fred Astaire to James Brown and Sammy Davis Jr., and stops along the way to pick up Ed Wynn, Bert Lahr, Buster Keaton, Milton Berle, Buddy Rich, Tiny Tim, Kate Smith, Don Rickles, Petula Clark, Burns and Schreiber, Perry Como, David Janssen, and so many others we've read about through the years. And who better to guide us through this history than Bing Crosby, who hosted Palace more than anyone else. I'm not even going to bother looking at Ed's lineup (or whether or not it has any head songs), because this week The Hollywood Palace takes the prize for old times' sake. l l l
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. If there's one thing—OK, make that two things—we've seen in abundance over the last couple of seasons, it's been sitcoms featuring widows and sitcoms featuring widowers. To break the mold, says Cleveland Amory, The Brady Bunch gives us something new and different: a sitcom about a widow who marries a widower. Not only that, but there are children, too—the widow has three, who all happen to be girls, and the widower has three, who—"you'll never guess this"—all happen to be boys. And there's a dog, too! As for the "all-knowing housekeeper," don't worry. "The all-wise people who run this show have her, all right." This show seems to have everything—except a point.
"There's nothing really wrong with The Brady Bunch," Amory acknowledges. "But nothing is really right, either. Everything is so contrived that you don't believe what goes on any more than you believe sketches in a variety show." In one episode, for instance, Alice the housekeeper begins to feel unneeded, and tells the family she has to leave to tend to a sick relative in Seattle. "Don't you," asks Cindy, "like us better than Attle?" ("Honestly, that's what she said—we wrote it down.") "Seattle's a place," one of the boys replies, "like Mississippi." "Mrs. who?" asks the girl. "We tell you," Cleve says, "kids not only say the darnedest things, they also have the damnedest writers." Another episode features Bobby, the youngest boy, wanting to run away from home because, after seeing Cinderella on television, he thinks his stepmom, Carol, doesn't love him. Amory's theory is that "he didn't really want to run away from home—just the show."
I paid scant attention to The Brady Bunch when I was growing up, and I've never had the urge to revisit it in later years. Lately, we've been watching The Defenders, that great legal drama from the early 1960s, and every week I wonder how Robert Reed, the junior half of that father-and-son law partnership, ever wound up on a show like The Brady Bunch. There is a temptation to suggest that Reed's agent may have urged him to take the role as a career move, stressing how it would be good for the public image of a man who was, in fact, a closeted homosexual. I'm not sure, but I think Amory may have furnished another possibility. "There are millions of stepchildren nowadays," he notes, "and surely their problems, and those of their parents, deserve, even in a comedy series, something more than this mish-mush." Perhaps that possibility was something that appealed to Reed's serious side as an actor, when he signed up to play Mike Brady. Unfortunately, for both him and us, Sherwood Schwartz had other ideas.
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A couple of weeks ago, we were looking at an issue from this same year, 1970. In that issue , we read about "Married Alive," a comedy starring Diana Rigg and Robert Culp that seemed to promise some light entertainment. I wasn't familiar with it, nor was one of our commentators, who was sure he must have seen it but didn't have any recollection of it. Now, thanks to a fairly pointless feature called "Second Look" by Scott MacDonough, we can get some idea of what it was all about.
I call this feature pointless not necessarily because of MacDonough's writing, nor his judgment, but because the purpose of "Second Look" is, for the most part, to look back at what's just been on TV*. That makes sense today, but back in 1970, with no VCRs, no video-on-demand, no way to see a show again unless it's shown during the summer rerun season, what service does it perform to let us know about a show that's already aired, especially a one-off special? I can understand how a single episode from a given series might tell us something about the quality of episodes to come—that's Cleveland Amory's gig. And Judith Crist's movie reviews can help us decide whether or not to invest a couple of hours of our time on the CBS Thursday Night Movie. But unless there's some in-depth analysis to be found in the review, I don't see where it does us any good. If the show's going to be repeated later in the year, that's the time I can use a reminder of how good (or how bad) it was, not in the immediate aftermath, when I'm likely to have forgotten about it by the time it's shown again. And as I've said, it's not as if I've recorded it for playback later; that technology doesn't exist yet for you and me.
*As if to prove me a liar, MacDonough also has a (very good) preview of an upcoming program, but in this recurring feature that's generally the exception, rather than the rule.
As for "Married Alive," MacDonough wasn't impressed. While he liked Rigg and Culp (farceurs supreme, he calls them), the story itself was a piece of "flapdoodle." "When a playwright has nothing to say and nowhere to go," he writes, "a fashionable way of padding is to bring on the food and drink. During "Married Alive," Mr. Culp (by our tally) consumed four lightly boiled eggs, two pots of tea, two slices of whole-wheat toast, four Scotch and sodas, and a half-bottle of ketchup. Draw your own conclusions." MacDonough says he mentions this "primarily for the benefit of trend-spotters," so I suppose we should automatically be suspicious of any future shows that feature people eating and drinking, which doesn't bode well for the next airing of
the movie Tom Jones
, I guess. But will I remember it by the time "Married Alive" rolls around again? Your guess is as good as mine. l l l
Some highlights from a quiet week:
Saturday's Wide World of Sports (5:00 p.m., ABC) comes from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we get tape-delay coverage of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, with Jim McKay and Dick Button on hand to describe the finals in men's, women's, and pairs competition. I suppose it ages me that, as is with the case in most other sports, I recognize all these names—Tim Wood, John Misha Petkevich, Janet Lynn, and Julie Lynn Holmes—while I couldn't name the current champions if you offered me a million dollars. I also recognize the names on a colorful Andy Williams Show (7:30 p.m., NBC), as Andy welcomes Sid Caesar, Dusty Springfield, and Jo Anne Worley in a something-for-everyone show.
Sunday morning offers a possible example as to why religious belief has steadily been falling in the united states over the last few decades. It comes in a CBS religious special, "Concern, Confrontation and Crisis" (8:00 a.m.), hosted by Hughes Rudd, and discusses the two challenges facing the National Council of Churches: "how to embrace more Christians (including Catholics) and recruit additional black leaders." Notice there's nothing there about things like, you know, spreading Christianity and preaching the Gospel. I suppose they know best. In more pleasant news, we greet some old friends once again, as Kukla, Fran and Ollie return for a five-episode run on NET (5:00 p.m.). On tonight's episode, Ollie attempts to engage the Supremes and the Beatles for a variety show—gratis. Good luck, Ollie! The Shape of Things to Come, part two: Last week , it was NBC's special "The Voice of the Dragon"; this week, it's "In the Company of Men," a report on NET Journal (Monday, 9:00 p.m., NET). From the description: "A sensitivity-training session becomes a battleground for thrashing out the hostilities between whites and blacks. At a Southern auto factory, films show psychiatrists’ work with white foremen and blacks who have been termed ‘hard-core unemployed.” On camera: preparatory sessions with the foremen; roleplaying sessions where blacks and whites exchange jobs; and a candid discussion about the ambitions of both foremen and workers." Reminds me more than a little bit of Jane Elliott's "blue-eyes-brown-eyes" experiment from the same era, don't you agree?
That favorable preview by Scott MacDonough that I mentioned above was for "The Day Before Sunday" (Tuesday, 9:30 p.m., CBS), an original drama written for CBS Playhouse, starring Uta Hagen and Martin Balsam as two middle-aged people who meet on a flight Hagen is taking to her niece's prep school graduation, and the obstacles that stand in the way of a possible relationship. It's an examination of the rapidly changing mores of a culture that, with its turbulent shifts, seems to be tearing itself apart, The "free-swinging hedonism and forthright honesty of the 'younger generation'" is presented as both appealing and appalling, resulting in a ending that is "inconclusive, or, if you prefer, [a] cop-out." Best to tune out ten minutes before the end, to appreciate Hagen's powerful performance, as well as strong supporting portrayals by Michael Anderson Jr. and Dianne Hull. I should note here that not all contemporary critics were as kind to the play as MacDonough, so perhaps there's hope for "Married Alive" after all.
On Wednesday, Lorne Greene and Bobbie Gentry host highlights from the 30th edition of the Ice Capades (9:00 p.m., NBC), an annual television special. It's part of an evening's entertainment that's heavy on music on all three networks; CBS offers Hee Haw, with the gang welcoming Lynn Anderson and George Jones (7:30 p.m.), while ABC counters with The Johnny Cash Show, featuring Ray Charles, Neil Diamond, and Tammy Wynette (9:00 p.m.), followed at 10:00 p.m. by The Engelbert Humperdinck Show, with Lena Horne, Joel Grey, Trisha Noble, and Vanity Fare.Thursday is Lincoln's Birthday, which in 1970 was a holiday in 24 states and the District of Columbia, and to commemorate the 161st anniversary of his birth, Daniel Boone tells the story of the stormy courtship of Lincoln's parents, Tom Lincoln and Nancy Hanks (7;30 p.m., NBC). The Boones' efforts to bring the couple together are hampered by Tom's practicality, which clashes with Nancy's conviction that she will have a "boy baby who will sit in high places." William Wright's script is based on characterizations from Carl Sandberg's The Prairie Years.
The Name of the Game is another one of those wheel series that revolves around a central concept, in this case, a publishing company. There were three rotating leads; Gene Barry was the publisher, while Tony Franciosa and Robert Stack played, respectively, a reporter and an editor of other publications. Susan Saint James, in her pre-McMillan and Wife days, was the only constant appearing with all three leads. The episodes starring Barry could, at times, be quite offbeat or surreal, as we see on Friday in "Tarot" (8:30 p.m., NBC), which stars Jose Ferrer in a rare television appearance involving the occult and an alleged suicide. William Shatner, David Carradine, and Bethel Leslie costar.
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Robert Musel takes a look at what British television has had to offer this season, and among the notes we read about "Monty Python’s Flying Circus—the name means nothing—a late-night comedy show which is the end product of giving five young. actor-writers complete artistic freedom and an adequate budget. It is a strident, biting, sometimes cruel mélange of sketches and animation that some of its small, fanatically loyal audience might describe as satire, although the cast dreads the word." No word on whether or not this show will ever be seen in the United States.
Staying with the subject of possible British imports, The Doan Report speculates that "A TV-user tax similar to Great Britain’s is being quietly discussed in Washington now as the prime means for generating millions of dollars yearly for U.S. public television." According to the proposal (which, thankfully, never comes to pass, the plan would mean something like "a levy of $2 or $3 on each TV set in the home, paid annually with income taxes." It might work, says one cynical insider, "because the taxpayer has no lobby to fight it."
And Carolyn See profiles Dick Sargent, the new Darrin on Bewitched, who comes across as a wry, modest fellow who's extremely proud of the work he's done renovating his house, particularly the garden. ("Oh, actors have a lot of time on their hands, you know, ha ha.") Among other things, we learn that he was actually suggested to play Darrin when the series first started, but at the time he was committed to Broadside, a spinoff of McHale's Navy that ran for the 1964-65 season. Did he regret how things turned out? "No, I couldn’t tell then which series was going to make it. I don’t think anybody really knows what's going to happen, although they generally make enough remarks one way or the other to cover themselves either way." In the entertainment business, as in politics, that's the name of the game, isn't it?
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MST3K alert:
Gorgo
(English; 1961) It might not have been a good idea to bring that live prehistoric monster to London— it has a parent that’s coming after it. Bill Travers, William Sylvester, Vincent Winter, Bruce Seton, Martin Benson. (Friday, 6:30 p.m., KTXL in Sacramento) Leonard Maltin's memorable cameo as himself, trying to come up with the world's worst movie in order to torture Mike and the Bots, is one of the great bits in the show's history. Asked if this movie was going to "hurt" them, he replies, "Well, that's a matter of opinion, Mike. Now I actually like Gorgo, but when we reviewed it for my number one best-selling Movie and Video Guide, it put two of my assistant editors into intensive care. So who knows?" Need we say more? TV
February 9, 2024
Around the dial
We'll begin this week's review at Comfort TV, where David's journey through 1970s TV takes him (and us) to
Thursday, 1973
: The Waltons, Kung-Fu, Ironside, The Streets of San Francisco and more. A very interesting night of TV.At the Broadcast Archives, a two-page layout for an NBC promotional piece (probably NBC Star Time or one of those magazines they used to put out for the new season) bills NBC in 1962 as "A pageant of the past, the promise of the future." Isn't that a great tag line?
The Hitchcock Project continues apace at bare•bones e-zine, with Jack dissecting the Irving Elman-penned episode " Murder Me Twice ," a fourth-season story with a twist ending on the twist ending that appeared in the original short story (and which I preferred, to be honest). See what you think!
One of the stranger, i.e. more illogical, episodes of The Prisoner is " It's Your Funeral ," but that doesn't stop John from applying to it the continuing theory that Number 6 is a plant, in his latest installment at Cult TV Blog. It reminds me I have to rewatch Danger Man soon, as a warmup to The Prisoner.
At Realweegiemidget, Gill announces the latest blogathon, the " Mismatched Couples Blogathon ," in which we look at movies and TV shows featuring odd couples that have been paired together. This one sounds like fun, and I'll have to think it over. Any suggestions, readers?
Linda Cristal will be well-remembered by anyone who watched The High Chaparral back in the day, and in his latest " Seven Things to Know " feature at Classic Film & TV Café, Rick gives us a deeper look at the life and times of this vivacious star.
At Drunk TV, Paul gives us a pleasing alternative to the Super Bowl: the 1981 telemovie, The Oklahoma City Dolls , perhaps one of the greatest women-playing-football movies around. I don't know how large that genre is, but this still has to be at the top of the list.
Terence remembers Don Murray , who died last week at age 94, at A Shroud of Thoughts. He had a long and varied career, and is probably best-remembered for the movie Bus Stop and the TV series Knots Landing, but I'm very glad he was still around to feature in Twin Peaks: The Return.
The View from the Junkyard focuses on The Avengers episode " Murdersville ," an episode that, writes Roger, shows us "beauty and horror" hidden in a sleepy village. Frankly, I've yet to see many small towns on television that weren't oozing with some kind of evil lurking in the shadows!
It's the 60th anniversary of The Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show; can it really be that long ago? Garry Berman is flashing back to that moment this week with a trio of articles on the subject; part one, the Beatles on NYC radio, can be found here .
Finally, I don't often step outside the bounds of television here, and I hardly ever do so with this feature, but indulge me for a moment. Those of you who used to read In Other Words, the culture blog that I used to run (and may revive someday if I need something else to do) might remember the feature "This Just In," an outrageous news satire reminiscent of the things you read at The Onion and The Babylon Bee. Many of those pieces were the brainchild of Steve Harris , aka Hadleyblogger Steve, who not only has a keen and bizarre sense of humor but is also a gifted writer. He has a new book available for pre-order, Dads Like Us: A Survival Guide for Fathers Raising a Child with Disabilities —a topic with which Steve has first-hand experience. If you're living in this kind of situation, or know someone who is, I recommend you get this book. I promise you, you'll be glad you did. TV
February 7, 2024
What I've been watching: Winter edition
Shows I’ve Watched:Shows I've Added:The Adams ChroniclesThe DefendersQuillerHarbor CommandThe ProtectorsDeadlineJericho
You're probably wondering what I've been watching lately. Or maybe not; I'd like to think that some of you have more interesting things to do than that. But let's face it; you've been coming here for years, and there's no mystery what this site is all about, so you've had fair warning. The Adams Chronicles—the story of the Adams political family over a 150-year span—was PBS's bicentennial birthday present to America, and if one gets something of a melancholy feeling while watching it, it's not merely because we seem so far away from what the Founding Fathers had envisioned—in fact, one could suggest that the times we live in today are, in a sense, the culmination of that vision for America. But more about that later.
No, for all the hoopla that accompanied the 200th anniversary of the nation's founding, those of us who were around at the time recall that these were not necessarily the best of times in 1976. We were only a couple of years removed from Watergate; the country remained divided over Vietnam, even though our participation in the war had ended; and we were in the process of finding out a lot of things about America that we didn't know—or perhaps didn't want to know.
And so, when The Adams Chronicles debuted in January of 1976, it attempted to present not only a history lesson, telling the story of our nation's first 150 years through the eyes of one of America's greatest political families, it also sought to remind us of the fragility of our political system, from those early days to the present. It will be up to the people, it overtly tells us, to ensure that this great experiment will not only survive but thrive in the generations to come—but only if we are vigilant, holding not only our leaders accountable, but ourselves. Given the times, there's no doubt what the producers had in mind.
The story begins with young John Adams (George Grizzard, in the role of his lifetime), a struggling Boston lawyer whose twin passions for politics and his wife Abagail are the driving force behind the first half of the miniseries' twelve episodes. We see Adams in all his defining and conflicting roles: a seeker of justice who defends the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre on a matter of principle; a patriot dedicated to the independence cause when the Crown leaves him with no alternative; a most undiplomatic diplomat, parlaying with European nations to fund the war effort without selling out the nation's freedom; a devoted family man, professing a desire for the simplicity of the farm yet unwilling to turn away from his duty to the country, which causes him to spend years away from home at Philadelphia and then the capitals of Europe.
He is at once principled and vain, refusing to seek office but only too eager to make himself available when opportunity comes calling. His unshakable belief in his nation and in himself leads him first to the vice presidency (under George Washington), and then, after Washington declines a third term, to the presidency itself—an office he which he holds for only four years before being defeated by Thomas Jefferson, once a close friend but now a bitter rival. Jefferson doesn't come across very well in this rendition of history, appearing as an opportunist, a man for whom the political is personal, with a vision of America that clashes violently with that of Adams.*
*Nor does Benjamin Franklin, who comes across as shifty and untrustworthy, often putting his own vanity—which was even greater than Adams's—ahead of the interests of his country
Adams's legacy, both personal and political, dominates the series, even after the old man's death, as his descendants try to live up not only to his standards as an Adams, but his legacy of service to America. The closest to approach that legacy was perhaps his eldest son John Quincy (William Daniels, who played John Adams in the movie 1776), who follows in his father's footsteps both as Minister to Great Britain and, eventually, the presidency, although whereas John Adams helped author the Declaration of Independence, John Quincy had to be satisfied as the architect of the Monroe Doctrine while serving as Monroe's Secretary of State. Like his father, he is destined to serve only one term; unlike the elder Adams, who contented himself (if any Adams could ever be said to be content) in the role of elder statesman, Quincy returned to politics after his defeat, with a long career in the U.S. House of Representatives, and an increasingly visible role in the anti-slavery movement.The scene then shifts to Quincy's youngest son, Charles Francis (Thomas Stewart), who continues the family tradition of diplomatic service as Minister to Great Britain, where he helps to keep European nations out of involvement in the American Civil War. He, too, might have become president, had he been willing to seek it out, but he refused to do so, believing that an active campaign for the presidency would be demeaning to the office and to himself. He becomes the patriarch of the family upon Quincy's death, overseeing the growth of his two sons, Henry (Peter Brandon) and Charles Francis II (Charles Siebert). Both sons eschew elective politics; Henry becomes a historian and author, posthumously winning the Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, and authoring the best-selling novel Democracy, although he wasn't revealed as the author until after his death. Francis, in the meantime, makes his mark in the world of business, becoming president of the Union Pacific railroad, an endeavor in which he ultimately failed; he watches in dismay the growth of populism, and laments the loss of power and influence by landowners. (Well, nobody's perfect.)
As the miniseries concludes, Henry and Charles stand together, looking at a portrait of the great patriarch of the family, John Adams, and wondering what he would have thought of them; although they often felt they had failed in living up to his legacy, they conclude that maybe they'd done all right after all. And so there, in four paragraphs and twelve one-hour episodes, we have the story of the first century-and-a-half of the United States of America.
Any story of the Adams family would be incomplete, however, without the Adams women, most notably Abigail (played by Kathryn Walker as a younger woman and Leora Dana in her later years), who was the perfect mate for John, and one of the great women in all of American history. Of all the Adams women, it is she who understands not only what it means to be an Adams, but an American; only a woman with that knowledge, self-confidence, and power of mind could possibly have put up with the often insufferable John for so many years. (She stands in marked contrast to, for example, Henry's wife Minnie (Patricia Elliott), who suffered from mental illness and eventually took her own life after the death of her beloved father.) Their love story is a marvel in and of itself.
About the miniseries itself, since presumably you haven't come here solely for a history lesson: it was nominated for 20 Emmys and won four, including Lead Actress for Kathryn Walker. Watching it is a strange and somewhat dated experience, though. There is very little incidental music other than that heard at diplomatic receptions, and during the opening and closing credits, which may enhance the feeling that one is watching a stage production, but can leave a somewhat sterile taste in the mouth. It was shot entirely on videotape, which echoes the feel of the old Hallmark Hall of Fame, but extending the use of tape to the exterior scenes diminishes the impact; such scenes can feel too much as if they were shot against a green screen. They wasn't, of course, but that's the way it often is with video: what works well in the studio often fails in the wide-open spaces. British television had, at the time, made a habit of using film for exterior shooting while retaining tape for studio shots, but I can see how that transition, which (to be honest) was always a little disturbing to me in shows like Doctor Who, was probably not favored for American television audiences. Filming the whole thing was probably cost-prohibitive for PBS.
And about that: The Adams Chronicles should not be considered as merely an adjunct to Masterpiece Theatre*. Although it has the look and the scope of a British limited series, it is—fittingly, in my opinion—an all-American project, made by PBS, with American actors. There is no host, a la Alistair Cooke; instead, the stage-setting is done in voiceover by actor Michael Tolan.
*In fact, when public television began the practice of importing British series (which resulted eventually in Masterpiece Theatre), they were criticized by some, including many NET affiliates, for stunting the growth of American-made drama. You'll note that PBS has done very few American projects of this scope since; most of their drama programming is done as a co-production with the BBC or other British networks.
So if one were to make an epic of the great American family without resorting to fiction (Captains and the Kings, for instance), one need only turn to the Adams family, without whom there may well not have been an America. And that brings me to that point I brought up at the start: Was America destined to wind up this way?
It seems unthinkable at first, and it's difficult to really know for sure, but in setting out to establish a republic, the Founders—men of the Enlightenment, though they rejected a monarchy and embraced republicanism—were treading on some very slippery ground; look at revolutionary France, for instance, and remember that Jefferson was a supporter of the French Revolution, if not the extremity of the subsequent Terror. The Founders were quite resolved that America should be a republic, rather than a democracy; the attitude of Charles Francis II toward the prospect of power transitioning from old-line families to "the people" testifies to that. In establishing the constitutional duties of the presidency, Adams was well aware that it had been shaped to fit George Washington, and worried about how it could be abused by a president lacking Washington's integrity. And then, of course, there was Franklin's pronouncement, when asked by Elizabeth Willing Powel what kind of a country the Constitutional Convention had created, replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."
So where does that leave us? Well, the Roman Republic fell, eventually; a historian as learned as Henry Adams was well aware of that. The Founders themselves considered the United States to be the great American Experiment, and not every experiment succeeds. There's no doubt that if John Adams and his immediate descendants could see what the country has become today, they'd be appalled. Would they consider that it had, in some way, been inevitable?
I don't know if that question can be answered. I do know, however, that if we, as a nation, continue to behave more like the Addams Family than the Adams Family, we won't have long to find out. TV
February 5, 2024
What's on TV? Thursday, February 10, 1966
What can you say about today's programming? Looking back at Saturday's discussion about color programming, you can see that most of tonight's shows are in color, although not Bewitched; that won't happen until next season. One show that is in color is The Dean Martin Show, and that has one of the best lineups of any show this week, with Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Kate Smith, Rowan and Martin, and Big Tiny Little. And tonight is the tenth episode of Batman; though there's no description in the listings, the episode is "A Death Worse Than Fate," with guest villain Anne Baxter as Zelda. Not one of the most famous villains on the show, perhaps, but still worth watching. And in vivid color! These listings are brought to you by the Northern California edition.-2- KTVU (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (IND.) Morning 9:50 RELIGION TODAY—Catholic 10:00 NEWS—Sydney Chatton 10:30 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise COLOR 11:00 ROMPER ROOM—Children Afternoon 12:00 STAR PERFORAMNCE—Drama 12:30 NEWS 12:35 I WANT TO KNOW—Mel Venter 1:00 DIVORCE COURT—Drama 2:00 MOVIE—Drama “Moontide” (1942) 3:25 NEWS 3:30 CAPTAIN SATELLITE—Children 4:30 FIREBALL XL-5—Children 5:00 SUPERMAN—Adventure 5:30 THREE STOOGES—Comedy Evening 6:00 STINGRAY—Children COLOR 6:30 WOODY WOODPECKER COLOR 7:00 WONDERS OF THE WORLD COLOR 7:30 AMERICA!—Travel COLOR 8:00 SEVEN SEAS—Travel 8:30 SKI SCENE—Warren Miller COLOR 9:00 DANGER MAN—Mystery 9:30 RICHARD DIAMOND—Mystery 10:00 NEWS—Helmso, Cordell, Mann 10:30 ADVENTURE CALLS COLOR 11:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “Lucy Gallant” (1955)
-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) Morning 5:55 FARM NEWS 6:00 RHYME AND REASON 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Chet Huntley, Jason Robards Jr. 9:00 EYE GUESS COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Edwin Newman 9:30 CONCENTRATION 10:00 MORNING STAR—Serial COLOR 10:30 PARADISE BAY—Serial COLOR 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 LET’S PLAY POST OFFICE—Game COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Frank McGee Afternoon 12:00 NEWS 12:25 NEWS 12:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety Guests: Louis Untermeyer, Tom Lehrer, Minnie Pearl, Dom De Luise, Steve Perry, Rita Dimitri 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Celebrities: Abby Dalton, Mickey Manners 2:30 MOVIE—Mystery “Lady on a Train” (1945) 4:00 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR Time approximate. “Flight of the Lost Balloon” (1961) 5:30 TRAVENTURE THEATRE COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS 7:30 DANIEL BOONE COLOR 8:30 LAREDO—Western COLOR 9:30 MONA McCLUSKEY COLOR 10:00 DEAN MARTIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Kate Smith, Rowan and Martin, Big Tiny Little and his band 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR 1:00 NEWS
-4- KRON (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (NBC) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 OPERATION ALPHABET 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Chet Huntley, Jason Robards Jr. 9:00 EYE GUESS COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Edwin Newman 9:30 CONCENTRATION 10:00 MORNING STAR—Serial COLOR 10:30 PARADISE BAY—Serial COLOR 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 LET’S PLAY POST OFFICE—Game COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Frank McGee Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS 12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:00 DOCTORS—Serial 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Celebrities: Abby Dalton, Mickey Manners 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Celebrities: Rod Serling, Selma Diamond 2:55 NEWS 3:00 ELEVENTH HOUR—Drama 4:00 DECEMBER BRIDE—Comedy 4:30 MAYOR ART—Children 5:30 SEA HUNT—Adventure Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS 6:55 SPORTS 7:00 DETECTIVES—Police 7:30 DANIEL BOONE COLOR 8:30 LAREDO—Western COLOR 9:30 MONA McCLUSKEY COLOR 10:00 DEAN MARTIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Kate Smith, Rowan and Martin, Big Tiny Little and his band 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR 1:00 INTERNATIONAL DETECTIVE 1:30 NEWS
-5- KPIX (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (CBS) Morning 6:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER Age of Rubens: “Rubens’ Departure for Italy” 6:30 MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE 7:00 NEWS—Jim Anderson 7:30 NEWS—Mike Wallace 7:55 KPIX EDITORIAL—Louis Simon 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy 9:30 McCOYS—Comedy 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 NEWS 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game Contestants: Carol Burnett, Barry Nelson. Allen Ludden is the host. 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Jeri Lynn 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 WELLS FARGO—Western 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety Co-host: Betsy Palmer. Guests include Danny Meehan 5:30 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 ONE STEP BEYOND—Drama 7:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy 8:00 GILLIGN’S ISLAND COLOR 8:30 MY THREE SONS COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama Thursday Night Movie: “A Fever in the Blood” (1960) 11:00 NEWS 11:20 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety Guests: Louis Untermeyer, Tom Lehrer, Minnie Pearl, Dom De Luise, Steve Perry, Rita Dimitri 12:50 MOVIE—Drama “Lucky Devils” (1933)
-6- KVIE (SACREMENTO) (EDUC.) Morning 8:55 CLASSROOM—Education In-school programming: language arts, science, music 11:30 SURVIVAL IN THE SEA Afternoon 12:00 TIME FOR MUSIC—Lessons 12:15 BETTY B—Music 12:30 WHAT’S NEW—Children 1:00 CLASSROOM—Education In-school programming: science, language arts 5:30 TIME FOR MUSIC—Education 5:45 BETTY B—Music Evening 6:00 STATE OF THE CAPITAL RETURN 6:30 STOCK MARKET REPORT 6:35 MUSICAL PORTRAITS 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 NEW COMERS—Discussion 8:00 PROBE—Dr. Albert E. Burke 8:30 STATE OF THE CAPITAL 9:00 OPEN END—David Susskind 10:00 CONCERT—San Francisco
-7- KGO (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (ABC) Morning ALL NIGHT MOVIE—Continued 5:45 COMPUTER PROGRAMMING 6:15 CARTOON FACTORY 6:30 A.M.—Dunbar, Fleming, Bentley 8:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel 9:00 GIRL TALK—Panel Guests: Joan Castle, Ivie Hayes, Jane Wyatt, Marion Javits 10:00 LUAU—Bill Gordon Guests: Sue Raney, Chuck Weckler 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 DONNA REED—Comedy 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NURSES—Serial 2:30 TIME FOR US 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 YOUNG MARRIEDS 4:00 NEVER TOO YOUNG 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Guests: Ray Peterson, Len Barry 5:00 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “The Invincible Brothers Machiste” (Italian; 1964) Bay Area TV Debut Evening 6:25 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER 6:55 SPORTS 7:00 NEWS—Roger Grimsby 7:15 NEWS—Peter Jennings 7:30 BATMAN COLOR 8:00 GIDGET—Comedy COLOR 8:30 DOUBLE LIFE COLOR 9:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy 9:30 PEYTON PLACE 10:00 THE BARON—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Comedy COLOR “Bell, Book and Candle” (1959) 1:35 MOVIE—All Night 1. “The Cool and the Crazy” (1958) 2. “Shake, Rattle and Rock” (1956) 3. Cheyenne
7W KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) Morning 7:55 AGRICULTURAL REPORT 8:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Chet Huntley, Jason Robards Jr. Picked up in progress 9:00 EYE GUESS COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Edwin Newman 9:30 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise 10:00 MORNING STAR—Serial COLOR 10:30 PARADISE BAY—Serial COLOR 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 LET’S PLAY POST OFFICE—Game COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Frank McGee Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NURSES—Serial 2:30 TIME FOR US 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 YOUNG MARRIEDS 4:00 NEVER TOO YOUNG 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Guests: Ray Peterson, Len Barry 5:00 HOPPITY HOOPER—Cartoons 5:30 HUCKLEBERRY HOUND Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 ADDAMS FAMILY—Comedy 7:30 DANIEL BOONE COLOR 8:30 DOUBLE LIFE COLOR 9:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy 9:30 GET SMART—Comedy 10:00 BIG VALLEY—Western 11:00 NEWS 11:15 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR
-8- KSBW (SALINAS) (CBS, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Chet Huntley, Jason Robards Jr. 9:00 EYE GUESS COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Edwin Newman 9:30 CONCENTRATION 10:00 MORNING STAR—Serial COLOR 10:30 PARADISE BAY—Serial COLOR 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS 11:30 LET’S PLAY POST OFFICE—Game COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Frank McGee Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game Contestants: Carol Burnett, Barry Nelson. Allen Ludden is the host. 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Jeri Lynn 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Musical Biography “In Old Vienna” (1956) 5:00 WEBSTER WEBFOOT—Children 5:30 HUCKLEBERRY HOUND Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 DETECTIVES—Police 7:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy 8:00 GILLIGN’S ISLAND COLOR 8:30 MY THREE SONS COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama Thursday Night Movie: “A Fever in the Blood” (1960) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR
-9- KQED (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (EDUC.) Morning 8:00 CLASSROOM—Education In-school programming: Spanish, language arts, science, French, social studies Afternoon 12:00 ONCE UPON A DAY—Children 12:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Charlotte aux pommes 1:00 CLASSROOM—Education In-school programming: science, language arts, French, geography 4:00 U.S.A.—Novel 4:30 LET’S LIPREAD—Education 5:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 5:30 ONCE UPON A DAY—Children Evening 6:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 6:30 PORTRAIT IN MUSIC 7:00 LET’S LIPREAD—Education 7:30 NEW COMERS—Discussion 8:00 U.S.A.—Art Education 8:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Charlotte aux pommes 9:00 PROFILE: BAY AREA 10:30 MUSEUM OPEN HOUSE—Art 11:00 OPINION IN THE CAPITOL
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 SUNRISE SEMESTER Age of Rubens: “Rubens’ Departure for Italy” 7:00 WEATHER—Bob Douglas 7:05 NEWS—Mike Wallace 7:30 DIVER DAN—Cartoons 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy 9:30 McCOYS—Comedy 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 NEWS 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game Contestants: Carol Burnett, Barry Nelson. Allen Ludden is the host. 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Jeri Lynn 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel Guests: Frances Faye, Burns & Schreiber 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety Co-host: Betsy Palmer. Guests include Danny Meehan 5:30 NEWS Evening 6:00 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 6:30 LAWMAN—Western 7:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 7:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy 8:00 GILLIGN’S ISLAND COLOR 8:30 MY THREE SONS COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama Thursday Night Movie: “A Fever in the Blood” (1960) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “Mister Cory” (1957)
11 KNTV (SAN JOSE) (ABC) Morning 8:00 BIBLE ANSWERS—Drama 8:30 PETER POTAMUS—Cartoon 9:00 HOCUS POCUS—Children 9:30 BUCKAROO 500—Buck Weaver 9:45 HOCUS POCUS—Children 10:00 GIRL TALK—Panel Guests include Ruta Lee 10:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 BINGO—Game 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NURSES—Serial 2:30 TIME FOR US 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 YOUNG MARRIEDS 4:00 NEVER TOO YOUNG 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Guests: Ray Peterson, Len Barry 5:00 MARSHAL DILLON—Western 5:30 NEWS 5:45 NEWS—Peter Jennings Evening 6:00 HAVE GUN—WILL TRAVEL 6:30 CHEYENNE—Western 7:30 BATMAN COLOR 8:00 GIDGET—Comedy COLOR 8:30 DOUBLE LIFE COLOR 9:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy 9:30 PEYTON PLACE 10:00 THE BARON—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Adventure “The Seven Revenges” (Italian; 1963)
12 KHSL (CHICO) (ABC, CBS) Morning 7:05 COMPASS—Travel COLOR 7:35 NEWS—Mike Wallace 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy 9:30 McCOYS—Comedy 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 PEOPLE ARE FUNNY—Linkletter 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial 1:00 PASSWORD—Game Contestants: Carol Burnett, Barry Nelson. Allen Ludden is the host. 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Jeri Lynn 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Game 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Melodrama “Curse of the Undead” (1959) 5:00 POPEYE—Cartoons COLOR 5:30 DONNA REED—Comedy Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama 7:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy 8:00 GILLIGN’S ISLAND COLOR 8:30 MY THREE SONS COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama Thursday Night Movie: “A Fever in the Blood” (1960) 11:00 NEWS 11:15 SKI SCENE—Warren Miller COLOR 11:40 MOVIE—Comedy “This Angry Age” (1958)
13 KOVR (SACRAMENTO) (ABC) Morning 6:55 NEWS 7:00 CARTOONLAND—Children 8:15 KING AND ODIE—Cartoons 8:30 WELLS FARGO—Western 9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise 9:30 TELEVIEW 13—Joseph Tomes 10:00 DONNA REED—Comedy 10:30 NEVER TOO YOUNG—Serial 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 NEWS 12:05 TODAY IN AGRICULTURE 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NURSES—Serial 2:30 TIME FOR US 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 YOUNG MARRIEDS 4:00 CAP’N DELTA—Children COLOR 5:00 WOODY WOODPECKER COLOR 5:30 CISCO KID—Western COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings 6:45 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 7:00 MARSHAL DILLON—Western 7:30 BATMAN COLOR 8:00 GIDGET—Comedy COLOR 8:30 DOUBLE LIFE COLOR 9:00 BEWITCHED—Comedy 9:30 PEYTON PLACE 10:00 THE BARON—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “The New World” (Mexican; 1960) N. Cal. TV Debut
TV
February 3, 2024
This week in TV Guide: February 5, 1966
I remember the first time I saw a demonstration of High-Definition television. It was in the KSTP booth at the Minnesota State Fair, and the presenter told us this was the future of television. It was impressive, all right; the clarity of the picture was astounding, and that was just while it was showing images of trees and plants. When it switched over to something one might actually watch—like football—it was even more impressive. A few years later, we got our first HD television, which remains our living room TV to this day; the first program we saw was a match from the 2010 World Cup, and the fact that we could see the footprints left on the grass by the players was truly amazing.
I bring all this up not to sing the praises of HDTV, which has absolutely nothing to do with this week's issue, but as an intro to the wonder of television technology, circa 1966: color TV. Now, there had been color broadcasts on TV since the 1950s, but it wouldn't be until the fall of 1966 that the three networks were broadcasting exclusively in color for prime time, and it wasn't until 1972 that more than 50 percent of American homes had a color set. So in February 1966, "Color TV" is still something pretty sexy, not to be taken for granted. You can see this in the way color programming is featured in advertising. Take KTVU, the independent station in San Francisco-Oakland, where Tuesday nights are a "Cavalcade of Color."Notice the programs they're broadcasting in color—they involve travel to exotic lands with colorful scenes; think about the kind of pictures you saw in National Geographic. Perfect shows to take advantage of the color palette. And look at the way "Color" is emphasized in the ad; even when limited to black and gray, it still manages to convey the sense of multicolored images. It makes you want to go out there and get a color set if you don't already have one; and if you have to choose between a show broadcast in color and one being shown in black-and-white, is there any doubt which one you're going to choose? It's precisely the sensation the ad is designed to produce.
KTVU isn't the only station emphasizing color programming, of course. San Francisco's KGO and KOVR in Sacramento both highlight movies that were shot in color, and KCRA (also in Sacramento) even makes it part of their logo. There's something about these ads that identify their stations with progress, modernity, technology, broadcasting shows that jump right out—things that might put them a step ahead of the competition. And after all, we all want to stick with a winner, right? In February, 1966, according to Broadcasting magazine, about 70 percent of the combined prime time programming from the three networks was in color (almost all of NBC's schedule was in color, while CBS and ABC were at roughly 50 percent). By the fall of '66, all three networks will be broadcasting their primetime shows 100 percent in color. And TV Guide, which had always indicated which shows were being broadcast in color, changes that policy in 1971 or so; since color programs are now the rule, rather than the exception, they only show when a program is in black-and-white.
All these changes were extremely exciting; I remember what it was like when we visited friends with a color set, and it was even more exciting when we got a color set of our own in the 1970s. Younger people won't understand this; for them, color is the way it's always been, so much so that the black-and-white label almost carries a stigma with it. I'm sure that many of them don't even recall the pre-HD days, probably can't imagine that there was a time when the picture didn't fill up the entire screen.
Is there any kind of technology today that can provide the kind of thrill we got with the color experience, or the amazement we felt the first time we saw a show in high-def? I suppose nowadays it's like getting the latest iPhone, but I feel sorry in a ay for people who don't know what it was like having your socks knocked off by something like color television. It may seem simple today; it was anything but simple, back then.
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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.Sullivan: Ed's scheduled guests: comedian Alan King; singer Rosemary Clooney, rock 'in' rollers Simon and Garfunkel, dancer Peter Gennaro and the rock 'n' rolling Animals.
Palace: Host Vincent "Ben Casey" Edwards presents an all-female guest lineup: actress Bette Davis, giving a reading; singer Liza Minnelli; comedienne Joan Rivers; dancer Liliane Montevecchi; the acrobatic Rogge Sisters; performing elephants Bertha and Tina; and Miss Elizabeth, trapeze artist.
As you know, these reviews are purely subjective on my part; your mileage may vary. So when I downgrade Ed's lineup because I don't like Simon and Garfunkel, that's just my opinion. And because I do like the Animals, I can say that the two offset each other. On the other hand, Ed has Rosemary Clooney and Alan King. I'm not a big fan of either Vince Edwards or Joan Rivers, and I don't think Bette Davis and Liza are quite enough to make up for it, not even with a pair of performing elephants thrown into the mix. This week, Sullivan takes the crown.
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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. So, is Lost in Space a children's program or not? Well, according to Cleveland Amory, that depends. Like most shows designed primarily for children, it seems to be written by them as well. It was created by Irwin Allen, "whom you may forget—if not forgive —for having given us Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." (Hey, I like that show!) And it has what Cleve calls "an irritating backyard quality, complete with boy-next-planet, girl-next-star, etc." that extends to the casting, with the typical parents, the family friend, one blonde daughter, one brunette daughter, and a freckle-faced boy. It's all straight out of Central Casting.
But don't let this discourage you from watching Lost in Space, for it has two qualities which define it as something out of the ordinary. The first is the robot, without which there would be no show. "He knows his lines. He’s appealing to both boys and girls, and he’s even neat and well-mannered enough for the old folks to stand him." And whenever something happens, no matter what, he's the one the Robinsons turn to, that "when the chips are down, he’ll do his duty, even if it means a hopeless charge against the alien space ship’s 'force field.' Like the brave TV executives upstairs, his not to reason why, his but to program and die."
Added to that is perhaps the best villain television has to offer, Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris). "He is responsible almost every week for lousing up outer space with his innate rottenness, and you’ve got to love him for it." As a counterpoint to the too-perfect Robinsons, he gives the show the spark and dimension it needs. And while Robinson and West would probably just as soon pitch him into space and lose him, the women and children always seem to get in the way; "Why they continue, week after week, to trust Dr. Smith beats us." But let's hope they always do, because without him, Lost in Space might be lost in the ratings.
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Let's see what the week has to offer. There's always something, even if it is in black-and-white.
The worlds of sports and entertainment collide yet again this weekend, with coverage of the fourth and fifth rounds of the Bob Hope Desert Classic (Saturday, 1:00 p.m.; Sunday, 12:30 p.m., NBC). The five-day, 90-hole tournament (longest on the pro circuit) delivers some of the biggest names on the pro golf tour: defending champion Billy Casper, Arnold Palmer, Tony Lema, Julius Boros, Gene Littler, Doug Sanders and Tommy Aaron. Celebrities are plentiful as well, with Kirk Douglas, Joe DiMaggio, James Garner, Phil Harris and Ray Bolger among the stars competing on the amateur side. They're all on-hand to see Sanders take the victory on Sunday, in a playoff over Palmer.
Sunday has a serious side, as well. I'm not going to say anything else about this, except that, looking at it from today's perspective, it seems to cut a little too close to the bone for me. I'll add this, though: they were entirely upfront about what they were going to do and how they were going to do it (Sunday, 6:30 p.m., NBC):
On Tuesday, the CBS News Special "16 in Webster Groves" (10:00 p.m.) looks to find out "what 16-year-olds think of love, war, cheating, and parents." Webster Groves, Missouri, is a suburb of St. Louis, and in 1966 the population was probably around 29,000 (it's a little over 24,000 today). The special's producer, Arthur Barron, calls it a representative suburb, and that it "may well be like this in other American suburbs." Interviews with host Charles Kuralt "point up the teenagers’ desire for social acceptance—to be 'in' rather than 'out'—and cameras show the youngsters during confrontations with their parents, and at class, the local drag strip, a traditional football rally and a night club for teens only." In many ways, teens back in 1966 are much like teens are today; I'd wager, though, that the things they do when they're acting out, the ways in which they seek to be "in," their hopes and fears—those might be a little different today. Do they think the world will be a better place when they're adults? Do they think their children will have a better quality of life than they do? Do they even think there will be a future? I wonder. But on the very next page of this week's issue, there's an add for the latest volume from Time-Life Books, and that might give us the answer:
Meanwhile, all Richard Kimble has to worry about on The Fugitive (Tuesday, 10:00 p.m., ABC) is whether or not his new female friend's uncle, a retired detective, is on to him. Just a little thing, right?
Here's a kind of Whitman's sampler of some of the more popular programs on Wednesday: On the aforementioned Lost in Space (7:30 p.m,. CBS), "Will insists on repairing the rusted robot he found, despite a warning from the Robinsons’ own robot that the device is actually a robotoid—capable of free choice." Danger, Will Robinson! You can't say that Cleveland Amory didn't warn us about what happens when the Robinsons ignore the robot's recommendations. On The Beverly Hillbillies (8:30 p.m., CBS), "Sonny Drysdale [Louis Nye], who's been attending college for 19 years, is summoned home by his stepfather. The elder Drysdale wants Sonny to try working for a change—and he'd also like to see him get married to Elly May." You know what? I don't think so. And on The Big Valley (9:00 p.m., ABC), "Jarrod wants to help Keno Nash, who has been released from prison after serving nine years for a crime he didn’t commit. Jarrod, as prosecuting attorney, helped put Nash behind bars." Considering that Nash is played by the always-disagreeable Albert Salmi, I don't think it's going to be as easy as all that.
On Friday, Sammy Davis Jr. returns as host of The Sammy Davis Jr. Show (8:30 p.m., NBC), and if you're wondering why this is such a big deal, let's flash back to
this article
, which recounts the troubled history of the show, particularly the contractual problem that Sammy found himself in as a result of an ABC special called "Sammy and His Friends," which had aired the previous week and prohibited Davis from appearing on any other network for the three weeks immediately preceding the show. (Both Davis and NBC had hoped that ABC would either air the special earlier, or waive the provision in the contract, but the network was unwilling to budge on either.) So while this week's episode is the fifth to air, it's only the second one to feature Sammy as the host of his own show. (Johnny Carson, Sean Connery, and Jerry Lewis filled in as hosts while Davis was sidelined.) Unfortunately, the show only runs for 15 weeks, but that's another story. Oh well; Sammy's guests tonight are Trini Lopez, Corbett Monica, Paula Wayne, and dancer Johnny Brown, who performs as part of a production number with the cast of "Golden Boy," the musical in which Davis stars on Broadway. l l l
Later on Friday, it's The Smothers Brothers Show (9:30 p.m, CBS), and the story behind this odd series is covered in a feature article by Leslie Raddatz. Unlike their controversial variety show, this version of The Smothers Brothers Show is a sitcom, featuring Dick as a junior executive at a publishing company, and Tom as his deceased brother, who has returned as an apprentice angel trying to earn his wings. (And if that isn't a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is.) What is the same, however, is the controversy behind the scenes, with the Brothers providing more than a little stubborn when it comes to putting the show on the air.
Everything was smooth going, Raddatz recounts, until the Brothers read the first script. They hated it—"It was too gimmicky and full of old jokes."—and they refused to shoot the script until it was rewritten. The delay cost the studio, Four Star Television, a reported $15,000. Tom and Dick insist that they tried to be cooperative, but as they watched the dailies, they could tell the show wasn't working. "We didn't know what we wanted, but we knew what we didn't want," Tom says. As one source reports, "the attitude on the set was murder." Phil Sharp, then the show's producer, says that he didn't think the Brothers understood how the humor of a sitcom works, and felt their complaints were hiding the fact they were afraid. When Thomas McDermott, president of Four Star, suggested that if everyone couldn't get along, they should just call it quits, the Brothers rose in unison, said, "Fine!" and got up to leave. They were almost out the door before McDermott caught them. The upshot was that Phil Sharp was out as producer, replaced by Fred de Cordova, and the quality of the show—and the Brothers' satisfaction—gradually improved. Raddatz concludes that, "as Messrs. Sharp and McDermott discovered, you don’t tamper with the Smothers Brothers."
Now, I've never been a fan of the Smothers Brothers, and I can easily believe how difficult they may have been to work with in this case. But I have to feel some sympathy with them here, being asked to do something that is clearly not a good fit. The variety show, whether one thought it was funny or not, was a format that was perfect for them; trying to shoehorn them into a sitcom premise like this doesn't strike me as the best use of the very talent that brought them to the public eye in the first place. But, then, what do I know?I do know this about the picture there and the headline that accompanies it: This must have been the only time the Smothers Brothers ever tilted to the right.
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MST3K alert: Untamed Youth (1957) Two sisters are arrested for vagrancy. Mamie Van Doren, Lori Nelson, John Russell, Don Burnett. (Wednesday, 11:30 p.m., KNTV in San Jose). As far as let's-put-on-a-show musicals goes, this one is actually a cut above normal. Could it be because of John Russell's performance as the evil work-farm overlord, or Lurene Tuttle in her patented weak-needy-woman role as the judge who unwittingly provides Russell with free labor because she's secretly married to him? No, everyone knows that, besides the musical numbers, there are two reasons this movie stands out: Mamie Van Doren. As Dr. Erhardt says, the Mad Scientists should keep her movies for themselves. TV February 2, 2024
Around the dial
What shows do you watch on a rainy (or snowy) day? For me, it's a mix between, YouTube videos and Mystery Science Theater 3000, but everyone has their go-to shows to brighten up a gloomy day, and at Comfort TV, David has
his own list
, and it's hard to see how these shows wouldn't make your day better.Speaking of lists, at Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddy has her list of six essential series from the 1960s . Again, you may have your own ideas, but I defy anyone out there to find fault with any of these six shows, which have to rank among the most literate, most provocative, and/or most enjoyable series of all time.
One of those shows, The Avengers, is the subject of the latest at Cult TV Lounge, with the episode, " Stay Tuned ," which is a very good title for an episode of a TV show. It's also a very good story, in which Steed is suffering from a three-week memory gap, and it's up to Tara King to get to the bottom of things.
At Cult TV Blog, John draws some conclusions from his series on The Prisoner , in which he looks at the possibility that Number 6, contrary to being a prisoner himself, is actually investigating the Village. It's a mark of the show's brilliance and ambiguity that even its very premise is subject to discussion; how many other shows can say that?
Back in the day, it wasn't unusual to find a album in the music aisle that featured covers of popular TV themes , often performed by orchestras like the 101 Strings Orchestra. That's just what the Metzingers have come across at Silver Scenes, however, and while I prefer the original versions, something like this is still great fun, don't you think?
We're all familiar, or should be, with CBS's infamous "Rural Purge," in which the network jettisoned some of its most popular shows, simply because their audiences were too old, too rural, or both. But there was an outlier to theses shows: The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence looks at how Glen kept his head (and that hair!) off the chopping block .
If you're a fan of classic shows (and if you're not, what are you doing here?), you'll recognize the name John Doucette , or at least his face. If he wasn't on every television show of the time, he was on most of them, and Those Were the Days runs through some of the credits of this hard-working character actor.
Can you imagine Tammy Grimes as Samantha Stevens on Bewitched? Apparently, it could have been, had Grimes accepted the role. That's just one of the many facts I learned at Travalanche, where we get to see the vast range that Grimes displayed during her career on stage, screen, television, albums, and voice work.
Was Star Trek's Dr. McCoy actually a good doctor? I'll wait until the shouting dies down to point out that this is not my question; it comes from Mike at The View from the Junkyard, and while he's just kidding, there are some things, after watching the animated episode "Albatross," that do make you wonder. . .
And by the way, happy Groundhog Day, but don't think you'll see this same column up tomorrow. TV
January 31, 2024
The history of game shows in one easy lesson
X couple of weeks ago, I appeared on Dan Schneider's American TV history series to discuss the history of game shows. It was a lot of fun, and I hope you'll
check it out here
. My primary reference source for the show was the book Game Shows FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Pioneers, the Scandals, the Hosts and the Jackpots , by Adam Nedeff. It's a book I've had for a few years, and while I did mention it at the end of the program, I realize I've been remiss in not writing about it sooner, because it's an indispensable resource as well as one of the best television history books of recent years.
As you might gather from the title, this is no dry recitation of the history of television game shows. Neither, however, is it a series of headlines that read like internet clickbait. As the Amazon description reads (and why bother trying to reinvent something that says exactly what needs to be said?), "this book examines the most relevant game shows of every decade, exploring how the genre changed and the reasons behind its evolution." And it does so in a totally readable way.
Game Shows FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Pioneers, the Scandals, the Hosts and the Jackpotsby Adam NedeffApplause, 388 pages, $19.99
My rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★)
Did you know, for example, that the first recorded game quiz on radio was in 1923, on radio station WNYC in New York, that it was called "Brooklyn Eagle Quiz on Current Events," and that the host the host was H.V. Kaltenborn , who would go on to become a respected newscaster and commentator? Or that "Uncle Jim’s Question Bee" was the first quiz show on television in 1941, when it appeared on WNBT in New York in a special made for the first day of official broadcasting? You would if you read Game Show FAQ. You'd also know how and why old game shows become new game shows, how Merv Griffin and Chuck Barris each brought their own unique (and very different!) way of thinking to the genre, why many doubted the choice of Alex Trebek as the host of the revived Jeopardy!, how ABC ruined its biggest cash cow, and more.
Game shows have changed dramatically from those days of the "Brooklyn Eagle Quiz on Current Events," when high school students stood on stage and competed until only one contestant remained. Daytime shows depended on knowledge of practical facts, such as how much household items might cost (The Price is Right), facts that might appeal to a predominantly female audience. Evening shows, seeking to make a bigger splash (and higher ratings) became big-money super-shows (Twenty-One, The $64,000 Question) based on high-level knowledge of specialized subjects ranging from mathematics to movies and boxing. Those shows produced their own superstars—and their own problems, as Nedeff details in his chapter on the Quiz Show Scandal.
Following the scandal, a new generation of game show came to the front: panel shows driven by celebrities (What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret, To Tell the Truth), tests of a contestant's wits (Jeopardy!, Password, Concentration), and shows where the competition sometimes seemed to take a backseat to comedy (The Hollywood Squares, Match Game, Let's Make a Deal). The stakes were demonstrably lower, and eventually the genre began to die off, only to make a resurgence with a new generation of shows, from Family Feud to Wheel of Fortune, culminating in the prime-time sensations Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and The Weakest Link. What about shows like American Idol and Survivor? Nedeff covers them as well.
Sometimes books on television history can seem, well, more fan-based than historical; other times, the prose is so dry and scholarly that the shows described barely resemble the ones we remember having watched. Fortunately, this doesn't describe Game Show FAQ; Through nearly 400 pages, Nedeff goes through the history of game shows—from those unknown programs of early radio days to the shows that we all remember from those days when we were sick and couldn't go to school—in a style that's both breezy and informative, and exceptionally well-written. The man knows his topic (he's written other books on game shows), and more important he knows how to write about it: not only the historical facts, but the backstage information as well: feuds, misplaced jokes, network interference, hosts that didn't pan out, you name it.
If you have a fondness for game shows—either those from childhood or today's shows populating the many game show-specific subchannels and streamers—you're going to find it in this book. Even if you're not a game show fanatic but enjoy the history of television, you'll learn about the role these shows have had and continue to have in the medium. For that, we have Adam Nedeff to thank, and Game Show FAQ deserves its place in the television library for that alone. That it's a great read just adds to the enjoyment. TV
January 29, 2024
What's on TV? Tuesday, January 29, 1980
If you're a fan of M*A*S*H and you have a sharp eye, you've probably been able to figure out the episode that's on WKYT, Channel 27, at 7:30 p.m. Since it's listed in black-and-white, it has to be "The Interview," the final episode of the fourth season and the only one to be shot in B&W, and features TV journalist Clete Roberts essentially playing himself as a war correspondent interviewing members of the 4077th. For my money, the pick of the night is 1964's Seven Days in May, on of the great political thrillers of all time, with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster and a brewing military coup in the U.S. As timely as ever, don't you think? The listings are from the Kentucky edition.-3- WAVE (LOUISVILLE) (NBC) MORNING 6:30 TODAY IN WAVE COUNTRY 7 AM TODAY—Tom Brokaw Guest: Bob Fosse 9 AM MORNING SHOW 9:30 DOCTORS—Serial 10 AM CARD SHARKS--Game 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game George Gobel, Sydney Goldsmith, Michele Lee, Roddy McDowall, Kelly Monteith, Vincent Price, Debbie Reynolds, Wayland & Madame. Peter Marshall is the program host. 11 AM HIGH ROLLERS—Game 11:30 WHEEL OF FORTUNE—Game AFTERNOON Noon MIDDAY 12:30 MIKE DOUGLAS Co-host: Anne Murray. Guests: Jacqueline Bisset, Erma Bombeck, Larry Gatlin 1:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES 2:30 ANOTHER WORLD 4 PM MOVIE—Thriller “The Strange and Deadly Occurrence” (Made-for-TV; 1974) 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 NBC NEWS—John Chancellor/David Brinkley 7 PM PLAY THE PERCENTAGES—Games 7:30 COUNTRY ROADS—Music 8 PM MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO 9 PM MARTIAN CHRONICLES—Science Fiction Conclusion 11 PM NEWS 11:30 TONIGHT Angie Dickinson, Bobby Kelton, Marilyn Horne, David Horowitz. 1 AM TOMORROW—Tom Snyder
-5- WLWT (CINCINNATI) (NBC) MORNING 5:30 50 GOOD MORNING 6 AM PTL CLUB—Religion 7 AM TODAY—Tom Brokaw Guest: Bob Fosse 9 AM PHIL DONAHUE 10 AM CARD SHARKS--Game 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game George Gobel, Sydney Goldsmith, Michele Lee, Roddy McDowall, Kelly Monteith, Vincent Price, Debbie Reynolds, Wayland & Madame. Peter Marshall is the program host. 11 AM DOCTORS—Serial 11:30 MIDDAY AFTERNOON Noon BOB BRAUN—Variety 1:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES 2:30 ANOTHER WORLD 4 PM STARSKY & HUTCH 5 PM STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 NBC NEWS—John Chancellor/David Brinkley 7 PM HOLLYWOOD SQUARES--Game Bernie Kopell, Barbi Benton, Scott Baio, Shelley Smith, John Byner, Joanna Cassidy, George Gobel, Leslie Uggams, Robert Walden 7:30 MUPPET SHOW—Variety Guest: Milton Berle 8 PM MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO 9 PM MARTIAN CHRONICLES—Science Fiction Conclusion 11 PM NEWS 11:30 TONIGHT Angie Dickinson, Bobby Kelton, Marilyn Horne, David Horowitz. 1 AM TOMORROW—Tom Snyder
-9- WCPO (CINCINNATI) (CBS) MORNING 5:30 CHRISTOPHER CLOSEUP 5:45 FARM NEWS 6 AM SUNRISE SEMESTER Learning to Write/Writing to Learn 6:30 ED ALLEN—Exercise 7 AM TUESDAY MORNING 8 AM CAPTAIN KANGAROO Guests: Millicent Martin, Dick Latessa 9 AM UNCLE AL 10 AM YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS 10:30 WHEW!—Game Richard Paul, Roxie Roker 10:55 CBS NEWS—Douglas Edwards 11 AM PRICE IS RIGHT—Game AFTERNOON Noon NOON REPORT 1 PM CINCINNATI: THE WHO AM I YEARS 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS 2:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 3:30 ONE DAY AT A TIME 4 PM MOVIE—Adventure “River of No Return” (1954) EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7 PM 7 O’CLOCK REPORT 7:30 JOKER’S WILD—Game 8 PM WHITE SHADOW 9 PM MOVIE—Drama BW “Seven Days in May” (1964) 11 PM NEWS 11:30 CBS NEWS SPECIAL Special: American Foreign Policy, Part 2 Mid. BARNABY JONES 1:10 MOVIE—Crime Drama “The Imposter” (Made-for-TV; 1975) 2:50 BIBLE ANSWERS 3:20 NEWS
11 WHAS (LOUISVILLE) (CBS) MORNING 6 AM ED ALLEN—Exercise 6:30 LOUISVILLE TONIGHT 7 AM TUESDAY MORNING 8 AM CAPTAIN KANGAROO Guests: Millicent Martin, Dick Latessa 9 AM SEARCH FOR TOMORROW 9:30 YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS 10 AM OMELET—Metz/Lyles 10:30 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial 11 AM PRICE IS RIGHT—Game AFTERNOON Noon NEWS 12:30 BOB BRAUN—Variety 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS 2:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 3:30 ONE DAY AT A TIME 4 PM CAROL BURNETT AND FRIENDS—Comedy 4:30 BRADY BUNCH—Comedy 5 PM ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy BW 5:30 M*A*S*H EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7 PM LOUISVILLE TONIGHT 7:30 RUNAWAY ROBOTS—ROMIE-O AND ULIE-8—Cartoon 8 PM WHITE SHADOW 9 PM MOVIE—Thriller “Carrie” (1976) 11 PM NEWS 11:30 CBS NEWS SPECIAL Special: American Foreign Policy, Part 2 Mid. BARNABY JONES 1:10 MOVIE—Crime Drama “The Imposter” (Made-for-TV; 1975) 2:50 NEWS
12 WKRC (CINCINNATI) (ABC) MORNING 6 AM HEALTH FIELD 6:30 CONSULTATION—Medicine 7 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman Guest: Giancarlo Giannini 9 AM EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial 9:30 $20,000 PYRAMID—Game Gina Hecht, Richard Dean Anderson. Dick Clark is the host. 10 AM MIKE DOUGLAS Co-host: Robby Benson. Guests: Buddy Ebsen, Danielle Brisebois, Magic Johnson 11 AM LAVERNE & SHIRLEY 11:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game AFTERNOON Noon EXTRA! 12:30 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial 1 PM ALL MY CHILDREN 2 PM ONE LIFE TO LIVE 3 PM GENERAL HOSPITAL 4 PM DINAH! AND FRIENDS Co-host: Fernando Lamas. Guests: Ron Howard, Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Beck, Chuck Cissel 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6:30 ABC NEWS—Frank Reynolds 7 PM TIC TAC DOUGH—Game 7:30 PM MAGAZINE 8 PM HAPPY DAYS 8:30 GOODTIME GIRLS—Comedy 9 PM THREE’S COMPANY 9:30 TAXI 10 PM HART TO HART—Crime Drama 11 PM NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Survive!” (Mexican; 1976)
15 WKPC (LOUISVILLE) (PBS) MORNING 7:15 A.M. WEATHER 7:30 SESAME STREET—Children 8:30 ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children AFTERNOON Noon SESAME STREET—Children 3 PM FOOTSTEPS—Children 3:30 HODGEPODGE LODGE 4 PM SESAME STREET—Children 5 PM MISTER ROGERS—Children 5:30 ELECTRIC COMPANY—ChIldren EVENING 6 PM 3-2-1 CONTACT—Children 6:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs Mitch Miller 7 PM MacNEIL/LEHRER REPORT 7:30 DICK CAVETT Richard Mitchell 8 PM NOVA “Black Tide” 9 PM WORLD—Documentary [Last show of the season. “Mystery!” a 15-week anthology of British crime dramas, begins here next week.] 10 PM SOUNDSTAGE Tom Johnston 11 PM DICK CAVETT Guest: Richard Mitchell 11:30 ABC CAPTIONED NEWS
18 WLEX (LEXINGTON) (NBC) MORNING 6 AM PTL CLUB—Religion 7 AM TODAY—Tom Brokaw Guest: Bob Fosse 9 AM PHIL DONAHUE 10 AM CARD SHARKS--Game 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game George Gobel, Sydney Goldsmith, Michele Lee, Roddy McDowall, Kelly Monteith, Vincent Price, Debbie Reynolds, Wayland & Madame. Peter Marshall is the program host. 11 AM HIGH ROLLERS—Game 11:30 DOCTORS—Serial AFTERNOON Noon NEWS 12:30 BOB BRAUN—Variety 1:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES 2:30 ANOTHER WORLD 4 PM SUPERMAN—Adventure 4:30 MUNSTERS—Comedy BW 5 PM BEVERLY HILLBILLIES BW 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 NBC NEWS—John Chancellor/David Brinkley 7 PM SANFORD AND SON—Comedy 7:30 CAROL BURNETT AND FRIENDS Guests: Jean Stapleton, Phil Silvers 8 PM MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO 9 PM MARTIAN CHRONICLES—Science Fiction Conclusion 11 PM NEWS 11:30 TONIGHT Angie Dickinson, Bobby Kelton, Marilyn Horne, David Horowitz. 1 AM TOMORROW—Tom Snyder
19 WXIX (CINCINNATI) (Ind.) MORNING 6:15 PERSPECTIVE 7 AM ROMPER ROOM—Children 7:30 BUGS AND PORKY—Cartoons 8 AM WOODY WOODPECKER 8:30 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon 9 AM TOM & JERRY—Cartoons 9:30 STAR BLAZERS—Cartoon 10 AM DENNIS THE MENACE BW 10:30 BEWITCHED—Comedy 11 AM MY THREE SONS—Comedy 11:30 COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER AFTERNOON Noon MEDICAL CENTER—Drama 1 PM MOVIE—Western “Red Sundown” (1956) 3 PM POPEYE—Cartoons 3:30 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon 4 PM TOM & JERRY—Cartoons 4:30 GILLIGAN’S ISLAND 5 PM BRADY BUNCH—Comedy 5:30 MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy EVENING 6 PM CAROL BURNETT AND FRIENDS—Comedy 6:30 HAPPY DAYS AGAIN 7 PM M*A*S*H 7:30 ALL IN THE FAMILY 8 PM GUNSMOKE—Western 9 PM MERV GRIFFIN Guests: Rupert Holmes; Keith, David, John, and Robert Carradine; Paul Dooley 10:30 CROSS-WITS—Game Guests: Orson Bean, Gretchen Wyler, Terry Carter, Lee Meriwether 11 PM LIFE AND TIMES OF EDDIE ROBERTS—Serial 11:30 M*A*S*H Mid. MEDICAL CENTER—Drama
27 WKYT (LEXINGTON) (CBS) MORNING 7 AM TUESDAY MORNING 8 AM CAPTAIN KANGAROO Guests: Millicent Martin, Dick Latessa 9 AM BUGS BUNNY AND FRIENDS 9:30 FLINTSTONES—Cartoon 10 AM BEAT THE CLOCK—Game John McCook, Guy and Raina Hovis 10:30 WHEW!—Game Richard Paul, Roxie Roker 10:55 CBS NEWS—Douglas Edwards 11 AM PRICE IS RIGHT—Game AFTERNOON Noon LOVE OF LIFE—Serial 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW 1 PM YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS 2:30 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 3:30 ONE DAY AT A TIME 4 PM GOMER PYLE, USMC 4:30 MY THREE SONS—Comedy 5 PM ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy BW 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6 PM NEWS 6:30 CBS NEWS—Walter Cronkite 7 PM PM MAGAZINE 7:30 M*A*S*H BW 8 PM WHITE SHADOW 9 PM TOP OF THE HILL—Drama Special: Part one [Pre-empts regular programming.] 11 PM NEWS 11:30 CBS NEWS SPECIAL Special: American Foreign Policy, Part 2 Mid. BARNABY JONES 1:10 MOVIE—Crime Drama “The Imposter” (Made-for-TV; 1975)
32 WLKY (LOUISVILLE) (ABC) MORNING 6:30 ROMPER ROOM—Children 7 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman Guest: Giancarlo Giannini 9 AM PHIL DONAHUE 10 AM GREEN ACRES—Comedy 10:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial 11 AM LAVERNE & SHIRLEY 11:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game AFTERNOON Noon $20,000 PYRAMID—Game Gina Hecht, Richard Dean Anderson. Dick Clark is the host. 12:30 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial 1 PM ALL MY CHILDREN 2 PM ONE LIFE TO LIVE 3 PM GENERAL HOSPITAL 4 PM STARSKY & HUTCH—Crime Drama 5 PM HAPPY DAYS AGAIN—Comedy 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6 PM ABC NEWS—Frank Reynolds 6:30 TIC TAC DOUGH—Game 7 PM JOKER’S WILD—Game 7:30 SHA NA NA—Variety 8 PM HAPPY DAYS 8:30 GOODTIME GIRLS—Comedy 9 PM THREE’S COMPANY 9:30 TAXI 10 PM HART TO HART—Crime Drama 11 PM NEWS 11:30 MAKE ME LAUGH—Game Mid. MOVIE—Drama “Survive!” (Mexican; 1976)
41 WDRB (LOUISVILLE) (Ind.) MORNING 7:45 NEWS 8 AM NEW ZOO REVUE 8:30 BUGS BUNNY—Cartoon 9 AM PTL CLUB—Religion 11 AM NEWS/INTROSPECT 11:30 HEALTH FIELD AFTERNOON Noon 700 CLUB—Religion 1:30 ROSS BAGLEY—Religion 2 PM PARTRIDGE FAMILY—Comedy 2:30 BULLWINKLE—Cartoon 3 PM PRESTO AND FRIENDS 4:30 GILLIGAN’S ISLAND 5 PM BEWITCHED—Comedy 5:30 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy BW EVENING 6 PM BIONIC WOMAN—Adventure 7 PM GOOD TIMES—Comedy 7:30 SANFORD AND SON—Comedy 8 PM JIM ROCKFORD, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR—Crime Drama 9 PM MERV GRIFFIN Los Angeles Film Critics Awards. Guests: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Sally Field, Michael Douglas 10:30 ODD COUPLE—Comedy 11 PM BENNY HILL—Comedy 11:30 MOVIE—Drama BW “The Petrified Forest” (1936)
62 WTVQ (LEXINGTON) (ABC) MORNING 5:30 700 CLUB—Religion 7 AM GOOD MORNING AMERICA—David Hartman Guest: Giancarlo Giannini 9 AM GENERAL HOSPITAL—Serial 10 AM IRONSIDE—Crime Drama 11 AM LAVERNE & SHIRLEY 11:30 FAMILY FEUD—Game AFTERNOON Noon $20,000 PYRAMID—Game Gina Hecht, Richard Dean Anderson. Dick Clark is the host. 12:30 RYAN’S HOPE—Serial 1 PM ALL MY CHILDREN 2 PM ONE LIFE TO LIVE 3 PM MARY TYLER MOORE—Comedy 3:30 TOM & JERRY—Cartoons 4 PM SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN 5 PM TIC TAC DOUGH—Music 5:30 NEWS EVENING 6 PM ABC NEWS—Frank Reynolds 6:30 HAPPY DAYS AGAIN—Comedy 7 PM GOOD TIMES—Comedy 7:30 NEWLYWED GAME 8 PM HAPPY DAYS 8:30 GOODTIME GIRLS—Comedy 9 PM THREE’S COMPANY 9:30 TAXI 10 PM HART T HART—Crime Drama 11 PM NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Survive!” (Mexican; 1976)
-E- Kentucky Educational Network MORNING 8:15 A.M. WEATHER AFTERNOON 3:30 OVER EASY—Hugh Downs John Collum 4 PM SESAME STREET—Children 5 PM MISTER ROGERS—Children 5:30 ELECTRIC COMPANY—Children EVENING 6 PM 3-2-1 CONTACT—Children 6:30 GED SERIES 7 PM MacNEIL/LEHRER REPORT 7:30 1980 KENTUCKY GENERAL ASSEMBLY 8:30 DICK CAVETT Richard Mitchell 9 PM NOVA “Black Tide” 10 PM WORLD—Documentary
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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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