Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 56
March 22, 2023
Television in its natural state
Although classic television is my primary beat, that doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to what’s going on in more contemporary TV news. And, as is usually the case, once I start digging around on a topic, one thing leads to another. In this case, I've been reading a pair of articles at Slate. (Who says I'm closed-minded?) The first, which came via a Google search that took me back to October 31, 2019, is called "
The Golden Age of TV Is Over
," by Sam Adams. The second, also by Adams, is from March 5 of this year, and it's entitled "
Peak TV Is Over. Welcome to Trough TV
." You might wonder about the difference between the "Golden Age" and "Peak TV," and although on first glance the two terms may seem similar, they really aren't. The Golden Age of Television, whichever one you think of (Adams thinks in terms of "the halcyon period that dates from the premiere of The Sopranos in January 1990) is steeped in quality, while "Peak TV" ("the halcyon days when streamers would throw money at established creators and new talents alike, and no idea was too strange to try for a season or three.") measures things in terms of quantity. During the Golden Age, streamers were flush with cash and therefore willing to try anything; the Peak era saw nearly 600 original series aired, hoping to overwhelm potential viewers with choices in hopes they wouldn't notice that the quality, with few exceptions, had dropped.
Now that we've got this out of the way, what does the end of Peak TV mean, and what does it have to do with our website? Well, Adams points out certain trends, from which I've extrapolated certain theories, which amount to the following:
Because streamers (HBO Max, Netflix, etc.) are looking to monitize their back catalog of programs, previous seasons of your favorite show may just up and disappear, stuck in limbo until they wind up on another streamer, probably ad-supported.
Solution: a return to physical media. You know, DVDs and such. Your physical media can't disappear without notice unless you've just been robbed and your DVD collection is the onlya thing of value you own, in which case you have my sympathies.
It can take up to two years for the next season of your favorite show to drop.
Solution: a return to a fixed seasonal structure. As far as I know, nobody ever waited two years for the next season of Friends or ER.
The freedom of not having a fixed episode length encourages showrunners to write stories that may run for as many as 20 minutes over what the typical episode length is. While proponants claim this prevents stories from being truncated in order to fit a set length, some critics note that these expanded running times often encourage self-indulgence at the expense of tight editing.
Solution: a return to a standard running time as the rule, not the exception. That "very special" cliffhanger? OK, let it run a few minutes over, but try a little discipline, people!
Some shows, even ones with an established fan base, might disappear without ever having a resolution.
Solution: a return to self-contained episodes as the norm, with storyarcs that run for several episodes, not several years. Not every television show has to have a final episode that wraps things up.
Too many new shows each season! Nobody can possibly watch them all, which means some will invariably get short-changed.
Solution: I don't know; maybe fewer new shows? Like when there were only three networks plus a healthy inventory of first-run syndicated series.
If you've been reading carefully, you might notice that almost every concern that's been raised by the end of "Peak TV" and the onset of "Trough TV" can be tackled by returning to more traditional methods of television broadcasting. True, Trough TV may be plagued by a lack of originality, copycat concepts, and appealing to the lowest common denominator. As Adams points out, "For the first time in recent memory, it feels possible to revive the complaint from the pre–on demand era that there’s nothing good on." And, surprise, surprise: "No wonder audiences and critics alike have thrown their arms around Abbott Elementary, an old-fashioned network sitcom that provides new laughs 22 weeks out of the year."
There's an old saying that it doesn't do any good to close the barn door after the horses have escaped, and there's a good reason why it's an old saying: it's true. Not that we were ever going to return to the old days of three (OK, four) commercial networks and a handful of cable networks dominating your viewing via an inflexible schedule of programs with set start- and stop-times; between cord-cutting and streamers, we're never returning to that era again. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe not; as someone who doesn't watch a lot of new television, I'm not really in a position to say.
Which brings us back to the somewhat obscure title of this piece. Perhaps there is what we might call a "natural state" for television. Maybe things were the way they were for a good reason, and that we're now finding out that the tried and true methods were the best ones after all. Maybe some of the challenges we're facing in this so-called Trough TV era exist because we strayed too far away from those methods. Maybe another old saying—what's old is new again—is right after all. Or maybe I'm just trying to fit all of this into some fantasy that things really were better back in the day. That could well be, and it wouldn't be the first time; I don't know.
But one thing is for certain—television is entering yet another period of change, and as long as that's the case, it might not be a bad idea to take a second look at the "old" way of doing things. Like your parents, maybe the people who came up with them actually knew what they were doing. TV
March 20, 2023
What's on TV? Saturday, March 15, 1969
It’s a smaller lineup than usual this week, thanks to the educational channels not broadcasting on the weekend. That doesn’t mean we have less to check out, though. For instance, there’s NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies presentation of The Vikings, with Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, and Janet Leigh. Judith Crist calls it “an idiot-level spectacular that passes off Ernest Borgnine as the viking daddy of Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, as incredible a pair of blood brothers as you’d encounter in a comic strip, which this is in essence.” Well, maybe not. My money is on the basketball doubleheader in the afternoon (I discussed this on Saturday), and Jackie Gleason in the evening, with a fine lineup of comedians. And unlike The Vikings, they’re being funny on purpose. This week’s listings are from Northern California. -2- KTVU (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (IND.) Morning 8:25 NEWS COLOR 8:30 EXISTENCE—Agriculture COLOR “Table Grapes” 9:00 MOVIE—Western “Last Stagecoach West” (1957) 10:30 MOVIE—Western “Quantrill’s Raiders” (1958) Afternoon 12:00 ROLLER DERBY COLOR Northwest Cardinals vs. Bay Bombers 1:00 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “Hercules in the Vale of Woe” (Italian; 1963) 3:00 JOE FOSS—Hunting COLOR 3:30 WORLD SERIES OF TENNIS DEBUT COLOR John Newcombe vs. Cliff Drysdale 4:30 CHAMPIONSHIP BOWLING COLOR 5:00 ALL-STAR WRESTLING Evening 6:00 DEATH VALLEY DAYS—Drama COLOR 6:30 GRAND OLE OPRY—Music Guests: Ernest Tubb, Charlie Louvin, Skeeter Davis, the Glaser Brothers, Jack Green 7:00 MOVIE—Drama “No Love for Johnnie” (English; 1963) 9:00 WAGON TRAIN—Western 10:30 JACK CARNEY—Variety COLOR Guest: Gail Fisher 12:00 AMOS BURKE—Mystery
-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) Morning 7:00 ACROSS THE FENCE COLOR 7:30 SUPER HEROES COLOR 8:00 MOVIE—Western COLOR “The Lion and the Horse” (1952) 9:30 NBC CHILDREN’S THEATRE SPECIAL COLOR “Stuart Little” Pre-empted: “The Banana Splits” 10:30 UNDERDOG COLOR 11:00 STORYBOOK SQUARES COLOR Players: Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Nanette Fabray, Stu Gilliam, Arte Johnson, Carolyn Jones, Soupy Sales, Charley Weaver, Paul Winchell 11:30 UNTAMED WORLD COLOR Afternoon 12:00 FLINTSTONES COLOR 12:30 AUTO RACING 1:00 NCAA BASKETBALL DOUBLEHEADER SPECIAL COLOR Regular programming is pre-empted 5:00 SECRET AGENT—Drama Evening 6:00 NEWS—Huntley/Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Vic Biondi COLOR 7:30 ADAM-12—Crime Drama COLOR 8:00 GET SMART—Comedy COLOR 8:30 GHOST AND MRS. MUIR COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “The Vikings” (1958) 11:30 NEWS COLOR 12:00 MOVIE—Fantasy “The Day the Earth Froze” (1964) 1:30 SECRET AGENT—Drama
-4- KRON (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (NBC) Morning 6:25 NEWS COLOR 6:30 ACROSS THE FENCE COLOR 7:00 MICHIGAN—Education COLOR 7:30 CARTOONS—Children COLOR 8:00 SUPER 6—Children COLOR 8:30 TOP CAT COLOR 9:00 FLINTSTONES COLOR 9:30 NBC CHILDREN’S THEATRE SPECIAL COLOR “Stuart Little” Pre-empted: “The Banana Splits” 10:30 UNDERDOG COLOR 11:00 STORYBOOK SQUARES COLOR Players: Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Nanette Fabray, Stu Gilliam, Arte Johnson, Carolyn Jones, Soupy Sales, Charley Weaver, Paul Winchell 11:30 UNTAMED WORLD COLOR Afternoon 12:00 SKIPPY—Adventure COLOR 12:30 JEAN-CLAUDE KILLY—Skiing 1:00 NCAA BASKETBALL DOUBLEHEADER SPECIAL COLOR Regular programming is pre-empted 5:00 LOST IN SPACE—Adventure Evening 6:00 NEWS—Wilson COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Huntley/Brinkley COLOR 7:00 WIDE WONDERFUL WORLD—Travel COLOR 7:30 ADAM-12—Crime Drama COLOR 8:00 GET SMART—Comedy COLOR 8:30 GHOST AND MRS. MUIR COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “The Vikings” (1958) 11:30 NEWS COLOR 12:00 SUSPENSE THEATRE—Drama COLOR “My Enemy, this Town” 1:00 HONEY WEST—Mystery 1:30 NEWS—Dave Valentine COLOR
-5- KPIX (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (CBS) Morning 6:00 AGRICULTURAL FILM COLOR 6:30 SUNRISE SEMESTER COLOR French Literature: “Tiger at the Gates” 7:00 MOBY DICK—Children COLOR 7:30 LONE RANGER—Children COLOR 8:00 GO-GO GOPHERS—Children COLOR 8:30 BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER—Children COLOR 9:30 WACKY RACES COLOR 10:00 ARCHIE—Children COLOR 10:30 BATMAN/SUPERMAN—Children COLOR 11:30 HERCULOIDS COLOR Afternoon 12:00 SHAZZAN! COLOR 12:30 JONNY QUEST COLOR 1:00 READ YOUR WAY UP 1:30 HAVE GUN—WILL TRAVEL 2:00 CBS GOLF CLASSIC COLOR Gene Littler and Roberto DeVicenzo vs. Lee Elder and Bruce Crampton 3:00 SKI BREED COLOR 3:30 PERRY MASON—Mystery 4:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Julie Budd, Xavier Cugat and Charo, John Payne, Mamie Van Doren, Ron Carey Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Roger Mudd COLOR 7:00 SAN FRANCISCO BEAT—Drama 7:30 JACKIE GLEASON COLOR Guests: Sid Caesar, George Jessel, Myron Cohen, Timmie Rogers 8:30 MY THREE SONS—Comedy COLOR 9:00 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety SPECIAL COLOR Guests: John Huston, Burl Ives, the Cancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, Elia Logan, Jimmy Joyce, McNiff Irish Dancers 10:00 MANNIX—Crime Drama COLOR 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Inherit the Wind” (1960) 1:55 MOVIE—Western “Badman’s Country” (1958)
-7- KGO (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (ABC) Morning 7:00 EXPEDITION CALIFORNIA 7:30 BROTHER BUZ COLOR 8:00 CASPER—Children COLOR 8:30 ADVENTURES OF GULLIVER—Children COLOR 9:00 SPIDER-MAN COLOR 9:30 FANTASTIC VOYAGE COLOR 10:00 JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH—Children COLOR 10:30 FANTASTIC FOUR COLOR 11:00 GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE—Children COLOR 11:30 AMERICAN BANDSTAND COLOR Guests: The 1910 Fruitgum Company, salute to Tom Jones Afternoon 12:30 HAPPENING—Variety COLOR Guests: Ross Martin, Tommy Roe, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Paul Revere, Mark Lindsay 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Bribe” (1949) 3:00 CELEBRITY BILLIARDS DEBUT COLOR Minnesota Fats vs. Red Buttons 3:30 PRO BOWLERS TOUR COLOR Buckeye Open 5:00 WORLD OF SPORTS COLOR 1. Midget Auto Racing 2. Sky Flying Championships 4. National Air Races Evening 6:30 CANDID CAMERA COLOR 7:00 ANNIVERSARY GAME COLOR 7:30 DATING GAME COLOR Guest: Irene Tsu. Host: Jim Lange 8:00 NEWLYWED GAME COLOR 8:30 LAWRENCE WELK COLOR Guest: Frank Yankovic 9:30 HOLLYWOOD PALACE COLOR Host: Sammy Davis Jr. Guests: James Brown Revue, Peggy Lipton, Charo, Nipsey Russell, Dave Madden 10:30 OH, MY WORD—Game COLOR 11:00 NEWS—Bob Marshall COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Come Fill the Cup” (1951) 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Voice in the Mirror” (1958)
7 KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) Morning 8:00 CASPER—Children COLOR 8:30 TOP CAT COLOR 9:00 FLINTSTONES COLOR 9:30 NBC CHILDREN’S THEATRE SPECIAL COLOR “Stuart Little” Pre-empted: “The Banana Splits” 10:30 DEATH VALLEY DAYS COLOR 11:00 STORYBOOK SQUARES COLOR Players: Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Nanette Fabray, Stu Gilliam, Arte Johnson, Carolyn Jones, Soupy Sales, Charley Weaver, Paul Winchell 11:30 UNTAMED WORLD COLOR Afternoon 12:00 PASSPORT TO TRAVEL COLOR 12:30 HAPPENING—Variety COLOR Guests: Ross Martin, Tommy Roe, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Paul Revere, Mark Lindsay 1:00 NCAA BASKETBALL DOUBLEHEADER SPECIAL COLOR Regular programming is pre-empted 5:00 WORLD OF SPORTS COLOR 1. Midget Auto Racing 2. Sky Flying Championships 4. National Air Races Evening 6:30 NEWS—Huntley/Brinkley COLOR 7:00 HERE COME THE BRIDES COLOR 8:00 NEWLYWED GAME COLOR 8:30 LAWRENCE WELK COLOR Guest: Frank Yankovic 9:30 HOLLYWOOD PALACE COLOR Host: Sammy Davis Jr. Guests: James Brown Revue, Peggy Lipton, Charo, Nipsey Russell, Dave Madden 10:30 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “The Cardinal” (1963) 2:00 NEWS
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) Morning 7:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER COLOR French Literature: “Tiger at the Gates” 7:30 KALEIDOSCOPE COLOR 8:00 GO-GO GOPHERS—Children COLOR 8:30 BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER—Children COLOR 9:30 WACKY RACES COLOR 10:00 ARCHIE—Children COLOR 10:30 BATMAN/SUPERMAN—Children COLOR 11:30 HERCULOIDS COLOR Afternoon 12:00 SHAZZAN! COLOR 12:30 JONNY QUEST COLOR 1:00 MOBY DICK—Children COLOR 1:30 LONE RANGER—Children COLOR 2:00 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy 2:30 RIFLEMAN—Western 3:00 GRAND OLE OPRY COLOR 4:00 MOVIE—Western COLOR “San Antonio” (1945) Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Roger Mudd COLOR 7:00 DEATH VALLEY DAYS—Drama COLOR 7:30 JACKIE GLEASON COLOR Guests: Sid Caesar, George Jessel, Myron Cohen, Timmie Rogers 8:30 MY THREE SONS—Comedy COLOR 9:00 HOGAN’S HEROES COLOR 9:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION COLOR 10:00 MANNIX—Crime Drama COLOR 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:15 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” (Italian-French; 1963) 1:25 JOAN RIVERS COLOR
12 KHSL (CHICO) (CBS) Morning 7:25 SOIL CONSERVATION 7:30 BIG PICTURE—Army COLOR 8:00 GO-GO GOPHERS—Children COLOR 8:30 BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER—Children COLOR 9:30 WACKY RACES COLOR 10:00 ARCHIE—Children COLOR 10:30 BATMAN/SUPERMAN—Children COLOR 11:30 HERCULOIDS COLOR Afternoon 12:00 SHAZZAN! COLOR 12:30 HAPPENING—Variety COLOR Guests: Ross Martin, Tommy Roe, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Paul Revere, Mark Lindsay 2:00 WELLS FARGO—Western 2:30 MOVIE—Science Fiction “The Deadly Mantis” (1957) 4:00 CBS GOLF CLASSIC COLOR Kermit Zarley and Tommy Aaron vs. Lee Elder and Bruce Crampton 5:00 JEAN-CLASUDE KILLY COLOR 5:30 GLEN CAMPBELL COLOR Guests: Leslie Uggams, Ken Berry, Merle Haggard, Smothers Brothers Evening 6:30 NEWS—Roger Mudd COLOR 7:00 ADAM-12—Crime Drama COLOR 7:30 JACKIE GLEASON COLOR Guests: Sid Caesar, George Jessel, Myron Cohen, Timmie Rogers 8:30 HENRY FONDA AND FAMILY 9:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION COLOR 10:00 MANNIX—Crime Drama COLOR 11:00 MOVIE—Drama “Cleopatra” (1934)
13 KOVR (SAC) (ABC) Morning 6:25 NEWS COLOR 6:30 VOICE OF AGRICULTURE—Farming COLOR 7:00 CAP’N DELTA—Children COLOR 7:45 ADVENTURES OF GULLIVER 8:15 CAP’N DELTA—Children COLOR 9:00 CREDIT COURSE—Davis COLOR 9:30 FOCUS ON EDUCATION COLOR 10:00 JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH—Children COLOR 10:30 FANTASTIC FOUR COLOR 11:00 GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE—Children COLOR 11:30 AMERICAN BANDSTAND COLOR Guests: The 1910 Fruitgum Company, salute to Tom Jones Afternoon 12:30 HAPPENING—Variety COLOR Guests: Ross Martin, Tommy Roe, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. Paul Revere, Mark Lindsay 1:00 DRESSING BY DESIGN COLOR 1:30 CISCO KID—Western COLOR 2:00 AMERICAN SPORTSMAN COLOR 3:00 OUTDOORSMAN—Lange COLOR 3:30 PRO BOWLERS TOUR COLOR Buckeye Open 5:00 WORLD OF SPORTS COLOR 1. Midget Auto Racing 2. Sky Flying Championships 4. National Air Races Evening 6:30 MOVIE—Drama “Seven Thieves” (1960) 8:30 LAWRENCE WELK COLOR Guest: Frank Yankovic 9:30 HOLLYWOOD PALACE COLOR Host: Sammy Davis Jr. Guests: James Brown Revue, Peggy Lipton, Charo, Nipsey Russell, Dave Madden 10:30 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “You’re a Big Boy Now” (1966) 12:30 MOVIE—Drama “As If It Were Raining” (French; 1963)
40 KTXL (SACRAMENTO) (IND.) Morning 10:30 MOVIE—Mystery “One Mysterious Night” (1944) Afternoon 12:00 MOVIE—Western “Ride a Violent Mile” (1957) 2:00 LITTLE RASCALS 3:00 UPBEAT—Variety COLOR 4:00 TOMBSTONE TERRITORY 4:30 BAT MASTERSON—Western 5:00 HORSE RACE—Santa Anita COLOR 5:30 RAT PATROL—Adventure COLOR Evening 6:00 WRESTLING COLOR 7:00 OUTER LIMITS—Science Fiction 8:00 LOS ANGELES BOXING COLOR Larry Cruz vs. Bobby Murray 9:30 SILENTS PLEASE—Movies 10:00 LES CRANE—Discussion COLOR Guests: Robert Culp, Rev. James Bevel 11:00 MOVIE—Drama “Port of Call” (Swedish; 1948)
TV
March 18, 2023
This week in TV Guide: March 15, 1969
It's only fair, after all:
A few weeks ago
, we saw a stirring defense of the soap opera from none other than James Lipton, who hypothesized that it might be the most realistic form of drama on television. I hesitate to call this week's essay by Marya Mannes a rebuttal, since it was written before Lipton's (maybe his article was the rebuttal), but we can at least say that it's a differing opinion.Whereas Lipton maintains that soaps are domestic dramas for a domestic society, ones that tell stories of life and death, Mannes counters that the genre deals with "a world that simply does not exist, which is doubtless why the serials fascinate millions of women and sell millions of dollars worth of detergents, cake mixes, deodorants, tooth pastes, polishes and illusions." It is, she continues, a story of one kind of America: "the comfortable suburban life of white, middle-class Protestants, the homes always impeccably neat and ultraconservative, the men either lawyers, doctors, small-business men or newspaper types, the women always perfectly coiffed and smartly attired, the forces of good and the forces of evil neatly opposed, love finally triumphant over obstacles that would have mired Eros himself." The "major illusion" of the soap opera, one trumpeted by Lipton—realism—is, according to Mannes, is one "sustained by domestic situations familiar to most people and dialogue so simple and explicit that a dropout would understand it. It is also sustained by men and women who might be the people next door, only better-looking."
Mannes goes on to discuss the many ways in which soaps drift away from reality; "Some of these may seem trivial, some are serious." Aesthetically, "[R]eal women do not do their housework in perfectly pressed little luncheon dresses, with street shoes and coiffures fresh from the dryer" but instead "are often in housedresses or slacks and flat slippers. Their hair is, at the least, inclined to casualness, with detached or errant strands, when it is not—at the worst—in curlers." More important is the life of the average American woman as portrayed in soaps: a "total limitation of their horizons. They are given no independence of mind, spirit or action, as individual human beings; the role assigned them as wife and mother is assumed to permit no extensions and no additions." It is, she says, "indefensible." They don't read, don't take home courses, don't serve as substitute teachers, don't watch the UN on TV.
As she indicates, some of these problems are more trivial than others. We should hardly lose our cool at the lack of clutter in the average soap opera home, unless it's some kind of shaming (as we'd call it today) of the bad housekeeper. But there's something deeper at work, something that she calls "the perpetuation of attitudes which are neither relevant to the changes and needs of present life nor a preparation for a perilous future." The Achilles heel of the American commercial television industry, the need for sponsorship, yields programming—not just soaps, she stresses—that is designed "to keep as many people as possible at home in a suspension of reality and a mood to buy." "Like 'enriched' bread, which is divested of its original nutrient, the soap opera contains just enough additives to make viewers feel it is keeping up with the times." She cites a similar thinking in the way the soaps portray the "new young breed of social and political activists, what of the young idealists and draft protesters who court contempt and prison for their passionate beliefs? They're nary to be seen; "That wouldn't sell goods in Ohio or Georgia or Texas, to name a few."
This is harsh stuff, and while it's enjoyable to read Mannes lay waste to various cliches of the genre, I'm not at all sure they're all fair. Again, you need to keep in mind the context we're in: the end of the Sixties, the growth of Women's Lib. Given this, one can sense a certain disregard for the life of the average housewife, a devaluation of the values of those women who (then as now) derive satisfaction and pleasure from maintaining the home for their husband and children. As we can see from the disasterous decades since, the collapse of the domestic family has played a large role in the subsuming of the structure on which American society was built. And part of the appeal of the soap opera was always in offering housewives the chance to escape their lives for those of their television counterparts, who frequently had it worse than their viewers. In appealing for a more realistic portrayal of the world of "city families living, or trying to live, through strike after strike, through hopeless traffic, through noise and pollution and crowds and the daily brutalities of life," she's essentially advocating a daytime version of East Side/West Side, and I don't know that anybody wants that.And yet, it would be foolish to use a broad brush in dismissing her objectives. There is something insidious about the way sponsors use programming to push their products, or the way programs of all kinds use their storylines to reinforce certain attitudes and perspectives in the minds of their viewers. It all goes back to that thin line between advocating and reflecting, between showing the world as it is and showing the world the way you, the writer or producer or sponsor, want it to be.
There's much to be said for, as Mannes puts it, placing "an unlimited succession of human woes, sins and follies" within the context of "living realities instead of manufactured crises." It's time, she concludes, to free the viewer "from the soap that leaves a blurring and distorting film." Perhaps James Lipton, a year later, was trying to reassure Mannes that the soap opera was on its way, headed in that direction even if it hadn't yet reached its destination.
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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: Tentatively scheduled guests: George Burns; rock singer Janis Joplin; Jacques d'Amboise of the New York City Ballet (with a ballet version of Irish folk dances); singer Ed Ames; comedian Scoey Mitchell; country stars Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer; saxophonist Boots Randolph; the USAF Strategic Air Command Band (playing “Strike Up the Band’); Honey Ltd.; and the Carols, novelty act.
Palace: Sammy Davis Jr, takes the spotlight. Grooving with him are the James Brown Revue, Mod Squad’s Peggy Lipton (in her TV singing debut) and singer Charo (Mrs. Xavier Cugat). Providing comic touches: Nipsey Russell and Laugh-In’s Dave Madden, who comments on trite sayings. .
I swear, people watching Ed's show this week must have gotten some kind of cultural whiplash, being thrown from the old guard (George Burns) to Marya Mannes' "new young breed" (Janis Joplin) to the classical (Jacques d'Amroise) to country (Atkins and Cramer) to the establishment (the SAC Band). I get exhausted just typing it. But if you're in the business of entertaining the entire household, of delivering something for everyone, then this is the show for you. On the other hand, speaking of being exhausted, can you imagine a show with Sammy Davis Jr. and James Brown? I'm really too tired to come up with anything other than a Push for the week.
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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. When was the last time we had a positive—I mean really positive—review from ol' Cleve? Well, get ready, because ABC's new variety series This Is Tom Jones is the real thing.
Displaying "one of the most infections grins ever to cross the Atlantic," Jones captivates from the very beginning of the very first show, a program "so sumptuously mounted and inventively shot that, compared to most American variety shows, it broke new ground in not only backgrounds, but in variety too." The camera in production numbers "literally seemed to dart in and out, giving us so many peek-a-boos that at times it almost seemed sublminal." And while Jones occasionally looked "like a sick fish" when he leaned on a rock number, he also displayed a smoothness with his guests and (all-girl) staff that "seemed as charming as Dean Martin." The guests were also, for the most part, very good, particularly "a young French singer, Mireille Mathieu. The only way to stop her from stealing a show would be to arrest her before the show starts." Now, we've read about her in TV Guide before, so we shouldn't be surprised by Cleve's captivation with her, nor that he refers to a later show featuring "a singer from the first show who was evidently out on parole. Can you guess who she was? Well, we'll give you a hint—her initials are M.M."
Amory had wondered if this first show would be the exceptioin rather than the rule, if they would "still use all this high-test or go back to regular gas" but he needn't have worried; "This Is Tom Jones was high-test all the way," beginning with a performance of "Help Yourself" on a stage "with so much going on that it was just like watching a three-ring circus," before deftly and almost imperceptibly segueing into a soft and memorable rendition of "Green, Green Grass of Home." The show included two particularly memorable guest appearances from relative newcomers: a Welsh singer named Mary Hopkin and a comedian named Richard Pryor. Not bad. Yes, there's more than Mireille to this show, and as long as Tom Jones brings it, he'll continue his "tremendous start."
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One of the tragedies of American education over the decades is the virtual disappearance of music appreciation courses. Numerous reasons have been given for this, reasons that rapidly become political and which we don't need to discuss here. But I have to wonder how much of a role was played by the cancellation of programs like Captain Kangaroo. The pictures on the left shows highlights from "Jazz Week," a special week beginning April 7, in which the Captain (Bob Keeshan) and Billy Taylor, the American jazz pianist, composer, and broadcaster (he's currently porgram director of New York's WLIB radio) are going to present a history of jazz, featuring special guest artists.On the top left, we see the African musical group Babatunde Olatunji and Company; tenor saxophonist George Coleman is on bottom left; on on bottom right is ragtime/blues pianist Willie "the Lion" Smith, along with Keeshan and Taylor. Other musicians include Wilbur de Paris' Zeba, talking about improvisations, solos, and counterpoint; the Eddie Daniels Quintet, demonstrating swing and bop; and Taylor's own quintet, performing with the Eric Gales group to demonstrate the influence of jazz on rock. "Might make for some swinging kids," the article concludes.
I was critical, or at least ambivalent, when I wrote about the generation that grew up watching Captain Kangaroo, but at the same time I retain a great affection for the program. My love of reading started with the Captain (as it did for my wife), and it, along with Bugs Bunny cartoons, provided me with an introduction to music appreciation. Programs such as Sesame Street, for all the good they may do, seldom offer such long-form exploration of single topics like music; local children's shows, especially in large cities, often had guests from that city's performaning arts groups. And so, again, I wonder how much the disappearance of shows like these (and Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts) have had to do with the lack of music appreciation.
The appreciation of the classics, including jazz and its related genres, may seem like a small part of a child's education, but it helps to create a well-rounded, civilized young person growing into adulthood, and I think we can certainly use more of that in today's culture.
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I'm aware that there are a lot of things that were amazing back in the day, but hardly attract any attention now; the fact that I was amazed by these things just reminds me of how old I am. For instance, it's hard to explain what a big deal the Houston Astrodome was when it was built. A domed stadium! Indoor football and baseball! Even a basketball game, with a record crowd! It seemed as if there was nothing the Astrodome couldn't do, and we get an example of this on Saturday's Wide World of Sports, with coverage of last week's Grand Prix Midget Auto Racing Championship for dirt track cars (5:00 p.m. PT, ABC). The idea of indoor auto racing—well, that just about takes the cake. And if you think dirt track rasing isn't the real thing, the drivers are Bobby Unser, Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, and other stars from Indycar racing. You can see highlights of that race weekend
here
. Sunday's Public Broadcasting Laboratory (8:00 p.m., NET) presents a cinema-verite profile of Johnny Cash, "an authentic folk hero, self-made from the crucible of the American experience during the Depression." The producers explain that Cash's reticence required them to rely on observation; there is no narration, and besides excerpts of Cash performing, we see him visiting his family, returning to an Arkansas shack in which he once lived, and a chance meeting between Cash and Bob Dylan. You can see this documentary on YouTube .
On Monday, a two-hour ABC News Special, "Three Young Americans In Search of Survival" (9:00 p.m.) tells the story of these three young people, working to better the world they live in. One is an environmentalist, the second works with blacks in the ghetto, and the third is fighting water pollution. One could do a similar documentary today, using the same title, to tell of three young people struggling with the prospect of finding work in the rust belt, poverty and illiteracy in the Applechians, and searching for meaning to life in a world rapidly stripping away all cultural norms; that's the kind of thing I think of when someone talks about searching for survival. But we deal here with what we're given; Paul Newman narrates the special. By the way, it's interesting how the definition of "young people" has changed over the years; these three are 26, 32, and 30, respectively; Greta Thunberg would probably accuse them of being part of the establishment.
Tuesday's Red Skelton Hour (8:30 p.m., CBS) features guest star Merv Griffin spoofing his own show, interviewing three of Red's most famous characters: Cauliflower McPugg, Boliver Shagnasty, and Willy Lump-Lump; Merv also sings his back-in-the-day hit, "I've Got a Loverly Bunch of Coconuts." I love hearkening back to those days when talk show hosts had to have some actual talent. After an interlude with The Doris Day Show, CBS continues with an episode of 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner (10:00 p.m.), which, as the listing reminds us, was then a bimonthly show. It's easy to forget that it wasn't until 1971 that 60 Minutes first aired on Sunday nights, and it was 1973 before it settled there for good.
Andy with Donovan. Dig the groovy shirt!Speaking of Sunday, I always think of Glen Campbell's show as beng on Sunday, probably because he started out as the summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers, but here he is on Wednesday, leading off an interesting night of variety shows. (8:00 p.m., CBS) Glen's guests tonight are Jim Nabors and Bobbie Gentry, and there's a note at the end that Cleveland Amory will be reviewing the series next week. That's followed by a pair of specials on NBC: first, Bob Hope presents "an hour of comedy and song" with guests Jimmy Durante, Cyd Charisse, Ray Charles, and Nancy Sinatra. (9:00 p.m.) After that Andy Williams hosts a flower-power "Love Concert" (even the stage is covered with flowers) with Jose Feliciano, Donovan, the aforementioned Smothers Brothers, and the Ike and Tina Turner Soul Review. (10:00 p.m.) Hang on a minute while I get my Nehur jacket and beads.I've mentioned this before, I'm sure, but I'm counting on most of you having forgotten about it. (At least I'm honest!) As you're reading this, we're in the midst of March Madness, with everyone and his great-aunt hosting some kind of bracket to make the NCAA basketball tournament worth watching. The tournament wasn't always such a big deal, though; on Saturday afternoon, NBC broadcast an "Elite Eight" doubleheader (it was just called the quarterfinals back then) featuring two of the four games being played—the Eastern and Central time zones got the East and Mideast finals, while the Mountain and Pacific time zones got the Midwest and West finals. Now, on Thursday, the winners of those four games meet in the Final Four in Louisville, and once again the game—yes, you only got to see one of the games—depends on where you live. The East and Central get the first game, the Mountain and Pacific get the second, which in this issue means Drake vs. defending champion UCLA. (7:30 p.m.) Dragnet and The Dean Martin Show follow the game. Once again, we're reminded how times have changed.
NBC finishes the week with a couple of interesting programs on Friday; first, The Name of the Game (8:30 p.m.) showcases a terrific lineup of British guest stars: Honor Blackman, Maurice Evans, Brian Bedford, and Murray Matheson among others. The story takes Glenn Howard (Gene Barry) to London to defend the company against a libel case being prosecuted by a crooked counselor (Blackman). Then, it's a Bell Telephone Hour special on the great Hollywood movies of David O. Selznick. Henry Fonda narrates; the special includes, for the first time on television, the burning of Atlanta scene from Gone with the Wind.
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Finally, the start of baseball season is just around the corner, and one of the most interesting former baseball players around is Joe Garagiola, one of the hosts on NBC's Today. Now, I'll admit that I've never been a particular fan of Garagiola—I always thought his mouth was a little too small for the number of words trying to get out, and I didn't find his humor that funny—but I'll also admit when I'm wrong, and in this case I've come away from Stanley Frank's article much more impressed than before.
Joe's been on Today for the last year and a half, and during that time the show's ratings have risen to an all-time high. After an eight-year career, spent mostly as a backup catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, he segued into broadcasting. He'd already become a popular after-dinner speaker because of his folksy, self-deprecating sense of humor, and an appearance with Jack Paar eventually led to his role on Today. You might have expected him to serve as the token jock on the show, reading the scores and narrating the highlights from last night's games, but you'd be wrong. "Joe has a marvelous quality of cutting through the malarkey from pundits and pretentious writers by asking the questions viewers want to hear," producer Al Morgan says, explanating why he expanded Garagiola's role beyond sports. "He’s a very bright. guy who does his homework. Besides, I could trust his taste and judgment implicitly." Adds Today host Hugh Downs, "I have a tendency to be stuffy and pedantic. Joe's direct, down-to-earth approach counterbalances that element in me and gives the show the vigor that keeps it moving. He knows how to bring out the truest in a guest. That's his great forte."Garagiola shares his experiences interviewing people outside the sports beat. Of poet Marianne Moore, whom Garagiola had never heard of prior to researching her for the interview, he said, "She bowled me over with her charm. She had a violent crush on the old Brooklyn Dodgers and reminisced about them for 10 minutes. I finally got her to talk about poetry and I was given a better appreciation of it than I'd ever learned in school." During one interview, he contfronted cultural historian Lewis Mumford, who deplored living conditions in the cities and suburbs, but admitted that although he had an apartment in New York, he went to his house in the country when life in the city got to be too much. "Few people can afford to maintain two homes,” Garagiola replied. "People like you should be working on solutions for urban problems instead of writing off the whole thing as a hopeless mess." And when Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), complaining about discrimination in America, said, "I live here, but it's not really my country," Garagiola told him during a commercial break that "If you want to move, OK. But if you want to live here, you'd better go out there and square yourself with people who are sympathetic to your cause." After they returned, Alcindor said he hadn't really meant to repudiate his citizenship.
Garagiola puts in 12-hour days preparing for interviews. When talking to authors, "Downs admits he skims through 20 percent of a book; but Joe, lacking his colleague’s background, reads it all the way through." The foyer of his house is lined with 20-foot shelves of books; Garagiola has read most of them. He enjoys Today, but admits to an idea he toys with: "I'd like to do a Saturday morning show talking to two kids without patronizing or putting them down and see the world through their eyes." He also recalls talking with members of the hippie compound at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "When I asked what their beef was against society, they gave me a lot of tired cliches and ended every sentence with, 'You know what | mean?' Well, I didn’t know what they meant and they couldn't express it, clearly and simply. Maybe a guy like me could help them bridge the communications gap." That sounds like a home run idea to me; it's a pity people can't try something like that today.
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MST3k alert: The Deadly Mantis (1957) "A paleontologist suspects that a gigantic prehistoric mantis has returned to life. Craig Stevens, Alix Talton, William Hopper." (Saturday, 2:30 p.m., KHSL) You would think that a movie starring a couple of superstar detectives like Peter Gunn and Paul Drake would be better than this, right? But it's still good fun. TV
March 17, 2023
Around the dial
This week begins with the return of
Love That Bob
to The Horn Section, and this time Bob's not the wolf preying on a lovely—he's actually trying to protect the lovely from another wolf: his friend Paul Fonda (Lyle Talbot). How does it work when the shoe's on the other foot, so to speak? Read what Hal has to say.Something unusual at Cult TV Blog; John looks at the never-aired pilot for Blackadder , Rowan Atkinson's wonderfully funny alt take on British history. The entire Blackadder series is one of my favorites, and its quite interesting to document the differences between the series as aired and this pilot; as John says, it's hard to disagree with the changes made between the pilot and the series.
At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence pays tribute to the career of producer and director Bert I. Gordon , who died last week, aged 100. Dedicated MST3K fans will recognize many of his movies, which tormented and delighted the show's fans: King Dinosaur, Beginning of the End, The Amazing Colossal Man, War of the Colossal Beast, Earth vs. the Spider, Tormented, Village of the Giants. Colossal!
Here's something you're not going to see in any store anytime soon, unless it deals in antiques: a television tube tester , courtesy of the Broadcasting Archives. I'm grateful, of course, for the new technology in TV, but there was something warm about those old sets, especially in the store, that I still remember. Wouldn't the tech who operated the tube tester have had a great line for What's My Line?
Episode 144 of Eventually Supertrain is up, and while we haven't gotten to Supertrain yet, Dan does have discussions of Lucan, Gemini Man, and something new, so be sure and check it out when you've got some time.
At Travelanche, a subject that, as he says, is sure to divide his audience: Jerry Lewis on television . I've always enjoyed him as a performer and humanitarian (I'm agnostic on his personal life), but there's no questioning that the man made a major impact on television history.
And if all this talk about classic television has got you in the mood for watching some, a reminder that one of the best places on the whole internet for viewing is Uncle Earl's Classic Television . This is one of my go-to sites, especially for shows that lack a proper DVD release. If you want to see for yourself what I keep talking about, go over there and visit the library. TV
March 15, 2023
The Descent into Hell: "The General" (1967)
indoctrinate (in·doc·tri·nate) verb. 1: to teach or inculcate a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a partisan or sectarian opinion or specific point of view.
In man's eternal quest for knowledge, it sounds like a panacea, manna from heaven: an online learning program that allows a student to take a three-year college-level course in history in just three minutes. It's the most egalitarian of education opportunities, available, free, to everyone. You don't even have to leave home for it: it's delivered right over your television screen. And if you think you're the kind of person who can't learn like that, just ask The Professor: "It can be done," he says. "Trust me." What could possibly go wrong?
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There was something about The Prisoner from the very beginning, something that set it apart from other programs on television, before or since. It might have been the vividness of the color, or the style of Ron Granier's arresting theme, or the near-surreality of Portmeirion, the Welsh tourist village that became The Village in the series. Most likely, though, it was the defiant statement made by the series' protagonist in the initial episode. When told that he is, from now on, to be known not by his name but simply as "Number 6," he replies, "I am not a number; I am a free man!
This proclamation of individuality was different from those we're most familiar with, which usually have to do with greed or licentiousness—free to do, free to be, etc., etc. No, this was different—it was not external, but internal; not about an act, but about a state of being. It was a radical statement, coming as it did in the chaos of the 1960s, and part of its radicality was that it was not only a separation from the establishment, but from the counterestablishment as well. It meant free will, yes, but also freedom from organizations, from ideologies, from movements. "I am my own man," the statement says, and when we try to reconcile that with Donne's reassurance that "No man is an island," we can only think that this man is not afraid to stand alone against those who seek to subsume him; he hopes, however, that in so doing he will set a standard to which others can rally. It may mean a life of loneliness, of ridicule, contempt, exclusion, even death; his triumph will eventually come in the end, however, even if he is not alive to witness it.
The Prisoner presumed to tell the story of this struggle over the course of 17 episodes, and while its conclusion—that we are in fact our own jailers, our own oppressors—shocked and outraged viewers everywhere, it also inspired those who believed that one man could make a difference, that integrity could win out, that resistance wasn't necessarily useless, as long as that resistance itself didn't become a means of conformity. Heady stuff, for a television series with a cumulative running time of less than 17 hours, not including commercials.
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The premise of The Prisoner is critical to understanding the series; at the same time, its role in the big picture of each episode is often insubstantial. The Prisoner began as a quasi-spin off of a 1960s British espionage series called Danger Man (broadcast in the United States as Secret Agent), which starred Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, an agent at war against England’s enemies and, at times, against his own bosses. Unlike James Bond, Drake (at McGoohan's insistence) resorted to violence only as a last resort, and eschewed any romantic interest in women. Despite this (or perhaps because of it?), the series ran for three full seasons (the first of which consisting of 30-minute episodes), and had started a fourth season (and the first in color) when McGoohan announced that he was leaving the series to begin The Prisoner.
The Prisoner can be said to pick up where Danger Man leaves off; the opening credits tell the story of a nameless man, a secret agent now retired, who while preparing to go on vacation is kidnapped and taken to a mysterious village (or, since it's a proper noun, The Village) where everyone’s name has been replaced by a number. Some of them are prisoners, some are agents of The Village. Who knows which is which?
The Village is run by—well, that's just one of the mysteries. It could be an Eastern bloc country—East Germany, perhaps, the loyal lackeys of the Soviets; or, per The Manchurian Candidate, Red China. It could be a nation outside of the major powers—a rogue country, we'd call it today; or even an individual; think Doctor No, or George Soros. Or it could be the West, organized by the Dulles-era CIA, suspicious of anyone trying to assert their independence; or the Brits, still stung by the betrayals of Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess, and obsessed with suspecting their own. In this world, nothing and no one is above suspicion. We know only that the supreme leader of chimera-like city-state, the Big Brother of The Village, is the unseen, unheard, Number 1.
Number 1’s major domo, the prime minister, as it were, is aptly called Number 2, and as an individual is completely interchangeable; we see a different Number 2 virtually every week. And while Number 2's responsibilities envelop the whole of The Village, he appears to have one overriding question of this new prisoner, whom he has dubbed Number 6: Why did you resign? It is a question which Number 6 stubbornly refuses to answer: My reasons, he says, are my own.
Subequent episodes feature the struggle of the Village overlords, under the direction of Number 2, to obtain the answer to their question "by hook or by crook," while Number 6 fights his twin battles: to escape from The Village, and to resist their questioning. All the while, one overriding question hangs over the series: who is Number 1?
As for The Village itself—well, that's perhaps the most perplexing of all. Unlike the other interrogation centers we've seen, The Village is not a grim underbelly, a vista dominated by Brutalist architecture swathed in a uniform grayness. It is, in fact, beautiful: the small flats in which Number 6 and his fellow inmates reside are neat and tidy—all the comforts of home, really. The architecture of the civic and social buildings is playful and imaginative, the grounds manicured and colorful. You might find it so pleasant that you would choose to stay there forever.
Which raises the question: is there such a thing as dystopia in paradise?
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"The General" was the sixth episode of The Prisoner, airing in the UK on November 3, 1967. In the United States, where The Prisoner was the summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS (the same network on which Danger Man/Secret Agent was shown), it aired on July 13, 1968. Not that the broadcast order necessarily matters; like so much about The Prisoner, it's somewhat enigmatic.The story opens with another typically bucolic scene in The Village, where it seems as if everyone is taking part in the latest offering for the betterment of residents: a three-part home course on history, presented by The Professor. Today's 15-second course is called "Europe Since Napoleon," which will be broadcast over The Village’s single television station. Number 6 reads a poster for the class, featuring a picture of "The Professor," the class instructor and proponent of "Speed Learn," the method used to teach the course. "It can be done," The Professor says encouragingly on the poster. "Trust me." There is also a quote from "The General," promising "One hundred per cent entry, one hundred per cent pass."
Number 6 becomes more curious after Number 12, another resident, suggests to him that he enroll. “You’ll find The Professor most interesting.” When Number 6 asks who he is, Number 12 replies “A cog. . . in the machine.”
On the way back to his cottage, Number 6 notices a crowd on the beach chasing someone apparently trying to escape; Number 6 is surprised to find out the man being chased is The Professor. While hurrying down to the beach himself, Number 6 stumbles over a tape recorder buried in the sand. On the tape he can hear The Professor’s voice: "This is The Professor speaking. I have an urgent message for you." Before he can listen further, he’s interrupted by men in an emergency buggy. Number 6 quickly hides the recorder as the men pull up in front of him and urge him to return home for the start of the class. "Hundred per cent entry, hundred per cent pass," one tells him. "You know what The General said." In his voice, it is more of a command than a suggestion.
Number 6 decides to watch the course; The Professor, who has been captured and returned, appears on-screen to introduce today’s lesson. As hypnotic music plays, the camera focuses on a picture of The Professor, zooming in on his left eye. After 15 seconds, everything returns to normal. Following the class, Number 2 and one of his assistants enters Number 6’s cottage, looking for the recorder, and suggesting that he might be open to a deal: the recorder in return for Number 6’s freedom. Number 6 evades his comments. Number 2 then begins quizzing Number 6 about the class, and Number 6 is surprised to discover that he knows by rote facts about European history, ranging from the date of the Treaty of Adrianople to when Greek independence occurred to who Bismarck's ally was in the Second Schleswig War vs. Denmark. Furthermore, everyone he talks to is able to recite the same facts, word for word.Later, returning to the beach, Number 6 finds Number 12 in possession of the recorder, which he gives to Number 6. Turning to leave, he asks Number 6 "What was the Treaty of Adrianople?" When Number 6 replies, "September, 1829," Number 12 tells him he asked "what," not "when" and adds,"You need some special coaching." Listening to the tape, Number 6 hears The Professor’s voice again, picking up where he left off: ". . . I have an urgent message for you. You are being tricked. Speed Learn is an abomination. It is slavery. If you wish to be free, there is only one way: destroy The General. Learn this and learn it well: the General must be destroyed!"
We next see Number 6 attending an art class—another of The Village's "voluntary" activities—which happens to be taught by The Professor’s wife. (A particularly instructive moment occurs when Number 6 witnesses a man tearing pages out of a book and asks The Professor's wife what he's doing: "He's creating a fresh concept. Construction arises out of the ashes of destruction.") Number 2 shows her a drawing he's done of her dressed as a general, which seems to irritate her; later, searching their home, Number 6 comes across busts she's sculpted, including both Number 2 and Number 6. When she finds him and demands that he leave, he asks her if she's done a bust of The General as well.
In talking with her, Number 6 comes to understand that while The Professor and his wife came to The Village voluntary (or so she claims) and have been treated as VIPs with certain privileges, The Professor is now trying to break away, and his wife, out of concern for him (or is it just ambition on own part?) is trying to pretend as if nothing is wrong. In the meantime, The Professor is being tended to by a doctor, ostensibly due to exhaustion from preparing all the lessons for his classes; in all likelihood, the treatments are designed to keep him from rebelling—to keep him functioning as a tool of The Village. The Professor’s wife confides to Number 2 that Number 6 seems obsessed with The General. Number 2 tells her not to worry; "I have an obsession about him."
The next day Number 12 arrives at Number 6’s cottage on the pretense of supervising repair work on an electrical short. He asks Number 6 if he’d like to see The Professor’s words on the tape recorder go out in place of the next class. Number 6, concerned that Speed Learn is a tool of mind control or indoctrination, agrees, whereupon Number 12 gives him a security pass disc that will get Number 6 into the Administration building, and tells him to be there the following morning.
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Isn't Speed Learn an interesting concept? "A three-year course indelibly impressed upon the mind in three minutes." Imprinted—downloaded, if you will—right onto your brain while you're hypnotized by what's on screen; I wonder if that's what the Chinese used in The Manchurian Candidate? And the machine that facilitates it is called the Sublimator—a nice touch. You remember how subliminal images of food and drink used to be inserted into movies to make people in the theater hungry and get them to buy popcorn and soda, all without them being aware? We didn’t like it then, so why should we tolerate it anywhere else? Even the word sublimator has a sinister connotation, as if you’re trying to get away with something you shouldn’t be doing. It's a very effective tool for indoctrination.
Indoctrination, of course, isn’t limited to education (or movie makers); in fact, there are many educators who would steadfastly denounce it. But there’s more than one way to “educate” people. Take, for instance, the media. It doesn’t matter what kind of media we’re talking about; it all has to do with presenting the news in such a way as to mold your reaction to it—to ensure that your opinion conforms. They control access to the facts they choose to present, the video they choose to show, the people who face their cameras and write on their pages; you could say that they control access to the access. You notice how, after taking the course, everyone answers the questions by rote, right down to the use of the same words? Their answers don't vary, even by a comma. Haven’t you ever gotten curious when newscasters do the same thing, report a story right down to using virtually the same words, the same phrases, on every network? Almost as if they’re all working from the same script, isn’t it?
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In the end, Number 6's plan to substitute The Professor's warning in place of the regular lecture fails, as it must. He is recognized by Number 2 and brought into the boardroom, where he is interrogated by Number 2 and Number 12 (who must maintain his cover). Once again, they demand answers from Number 6; instead of "Why did you resign?" however, this time the question is "Who’s the head of the organization" behind the 'conspiracy.'
Number 2 ridicules Number 6 over his insignificant attempts to replace The Professor’s lecture with "This reactionary drivel that you were on the point of sending out to our conscientious students: 'the freedom to learn,' 'the liberty to make mistakes,' old-fashioned slogans. You are an odd fellow, Number 6, full of surprises." He goes on to explain why the conspiracy must be crushed: "I'm sure that a man of your caliber will appreciate that rebels... that rebels must be kept under the closest possible surveillance with a view to their extinction if the rebellion is absolute."
Realizing that Number 6 will not break, Number 2 changes tactics and, with Number 12, takes him down a series of corridors to a large room where The Professor is typing out his latest lecture. "Allow me to introduce—'The General.' " He pulls back a pair of curtains to reveal—surprise—a room-size supercomputer, The Professor’s invention. "He gave birth to it and loves it with a passionate love; probably hates it even more." "That mass of circuits," Number 2 continues, "is as revolutionary as nuclear fission. No more wastage in schools, no more tedious learning by rote: a brilliantly devised course, delivered by a leading teacher, subliminally learned, checked and corrected by an infallible authority." When Number 2 observes that the result will be "a row of cabbages," Number 2 corrects him: "Knowledgeable cabbages."Having failed to extract the information from Number 6, Number 2 has decided he will simply feed the information into The General, which will deliver its infallible answer. Motioning to The Professor, he begins to dictate the salient points: a traitor in The Village, Number 6 in possession of a security pass disc, distribution of which comes only through Administration—Number 12’s department. But before the information can be fed into The General, Number 6 bates Number 2 by issuing a challenge of his own: ask The General a question that cannot be answered.
Unwilling to back down in the face of Number 6’s dare, Number 2 allows him to ask the question. Number 6 walks to the terminal, presses four keys, takes the tape generated by the terminal, and feeds it into The General. Immediately, dials begin fluctuating wildly, and the machine starts to smoke and spark while The Professor frantically tries to turn it off. As Number 12 rushes to assist, the computer explodes, killing both The Professor and Number 12.
"What was the question?" the stunned and broken Number 2 asks. "It's insoluble, for man or machine," Number 6 replies. Number 2 asks again, and Number 6 tells him: "W. H. Y. Question mark." "Why?" Number 2 repeats. "Why?" Number 6 says. Number 2 is left repeating, " ... Why?" as Number 6 leaves the room.
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It’s interesting that Thesaurus.com presents both instruction and training as synonyms for indoctrination, as if it could somehow infuse the word with a kind of value-free meaning. Indoctrination deservedly carries with it a negative connotation, because it’s not education so much as it is reeducation, a way of presenting information to ensure conformity—Groupthink—as a natural way of thinking. Or, to be more precise, to eliminate the need for thinking altogether, for Groupthink encourages infantilism: Here, let me do that for you, you don’t want to hurt yourself by thinking too hard.
We encountered the danger of rote learning back in “The Children’s Story,” when James Clavell used his daughter’s inability to explain what the Pledge of Allegiance actually meant as the basis for his subversive take on education. There are facts that are important to know, but one also has to have the ability to understand, to put things in context and thereby draw conclusions from them, and teaching this type of critical thinking is often absent.
This is nowhere more apparent than in the discovery of the secret behind The General. Even in 1967, the idea of a computer pulling all the strings was becoming something of a cliché; science fiction programs like Doctor Who and Star Trek had dealt with it many times. However, even though the visual concept of a giant supercomputer dates the series, the logic behind it remains sound. And what does it mean that these electronic brains, seen by the writers as threats to our freedom, have evolved into items of convenience for modern living? One would have to be a fool to deny how willingly we’ve allowed these programmed algorithms and artificial intelligence bots to make our decisions for us; in doing so, we seem to be getting ever farther away from thinking for ourselves.
When Number 6 challenges the computer, he does so not as Captain Kirk might, by using its own logical against it, but by posting the most human of questions: Why? And think about it: why is one of the first questions that we learn as infants. We’re always asking our parents why this and why that, and the answer we get is always the same: Because. There’s no need to go any further, to justify the answer, because they’re adults and we’re not; they know more than we do. And that’s fine when one is five years old; it’s another thing when it happens to adults. Let me repeat: Groupthink encourages infantilism.
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The Prisoner is a series comprised of questions, and "The General" is no exception: Who is Number 1? Why did you resign? Who is The General? Who is the head of the conspiracy? It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the most devastating moment of the episode is also sparked by a question: "Why?"
It’s precisely that type of questions that The General proposes to render irrelevant. If you simply give people everything you want them to know, then there’ll be no reason for questions. Whereas The General implies knowledge, questions suggest a lack of knowledge, and if you don’t know what you don’t know—well, then, there’s nothing to ask, is there?
Anyone even slightly familiar with The Prisoner probably knows the great reveal of the series’ final episode, that [SPOILER ALERT] Number 6 turns out to be Number 1. While there’s a school of thought that takes this to be literal—that Number 6, as Number 1, allowed himself to be embedded in The Village as a fellow prisoner, presumably to root out security threats—the consensus remains that that the ending—indeed, the entire series—is allegorical, that McGoohan seeks to suggest that we are all our own jailers, imprisoned in the cells we create for ourselves. The Professor is as much of a prisoner as everyone else in The Village. His greatest creation, The General, is also is warder; Number 2 shows a great deal of perception in identifying the computer as both The Professor’s greatest love and his greatest hate.
Each episode of The Prisoner concludes with an image of prison bars superimposed over Number 6's face. There are many kinds of prisons, however; fear, as we’ve seen in past installments of this series, is one of them. FDR said as much when he called fear the only thing to be afraid of. And if those in power seek to keep everyone else imprisoned, whether literally or through such things as ignorance, it is because they are imprisoned by their own fear—the loss of power. Number 2, the all-powerful figure of The Village, is a prisoner himself, subject to the whims of Number 1. The fact that there is a new Number 2 each week only emphasizes how Number 2 really deals not from power, but from fear.In order to hold on to their power, the powerful become the architects of fear. Not that they’ll show it to your face; as Number 2 says of The Professor, “People love him, they'll take anything from him. It's the image, you see, that's important: the kindly image.” They’ll cite their confidence in things like science in support of what they say. And when they warn of the calamities that await unless--, they may describe cataclysmic events such as pandemics, ecological disasters, revolutions, and the dangers of knowledge. They may substitute paranoia for caution and censorship for discussion. They will give you no alternative. And, if they’re lucky, all this will happen without you even being aware of it.
The powerful thrive on fear, which is why it must be resisted; otherwise, we wind up imprisoning ourselves. After all, it’s hardly a coincidence that the one phrase appearing in the Bible more often than any other is fear not. Just as well, the prophet Isaiah promises that Lord’s Anointed One will “proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.” Even the most powerful are going to have a hard time defeating that. TV
OTHER ENTRIES IN THIS SERIES: 1984 Darkness at Noon Dialogues of the Carmelites The Obsolete Man Murder in the Cathedral Number 12 Looks Just Like You The Children's Story. . . but not just for children Moloch A Taste of Armageddon The Architects of Fear The Brotherhood of the Bell
March 13, 2023
What's on TV? Tuesday, March 15, 1966
As we saw on Saturday, the Gemini VIII launch was pushed back from Tuesday to Wednesday, so so we don’t have to worry about any pre-emptions to today’s schedule. So what do we have? Johnny Carson and the gang are doing The Tonight Show from Hollywood for the next two weeks, as they occasionally did prior to their permanent move in 1972. No word on guests, but I’m sure they’ll be some of Tinseltown’s finest. That CBS Reports "IOU $315 Billion" isn’t about the Ukraine war (yet), but instead it’s a look at the growing world of consumer personal debt. There’s a problem we don’t have to worry about anymore, right? And the F Troop episode, in which the troops find they aren’t legally bound to remain in the Army and leave Captain Parmenter as the only defender of Fort Courage, is one that
Hal told us about
at The Horn Section a few of weeks ago. All this and more is from the Northern California edition.-2- KTVU (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (IND.) Morning 9:50 RELIGION TODAY—Catholic 10:00 NEWS—Walt Harris 10:30 JACK LA LANNE COLOR 11:00 ROMPER ROOM—Children Afternoon 12:00 STAR PERFORMANCE—Drama 12:30 NEWS 12:35 I WANT TO KNOW—Mel Venter 1:00 DIVORCE COURT—Drama 2:00 MOVIE—Drama “Malaya” (1949) 3:25 NEWS 3:30 CAPTAIN SATELLITE—Children 4:30 SUPERCAR—Children 5:00 SUPERMAN—Adventure 5:30 THREE STOOGES—Comedy Evening 6:00 ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS 6:30 TOPPER—Comedy 7:00 TRUE ADVENTURE—Documentary COLOR 7:30 IT’S A WONDERFUL WORLD COLOR 8:00 BOLD JOURNEY—Travel 8:30 STORY OF A FOOTBALL PRO 9:00 EAST SIDE/WEST SIDE—Drama 10:00 NEWS—Helmso, Cordell, Mann 10:30 WONDERS OF THE WORLD COLOR 11:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Decks Ran Red” (1958)
-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) Morning 5:55 FARM NEWS 6:00 RHYME AND REASON 7:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled: Gemini VIII progress, Dr. Frederick W. Goodrich, Prof. Henry Foster, Sidney Siller. Hugh Downs, Jack Lescoulie 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: David Burns, Gordon Parks, Jim and Henny Backus, Della Reese 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD—Serial 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game Panelists: Pat Carroll, Monty Hall. Host: Tom Kennedy 2:30 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “Johnny Dark” (1954) 4:00 MOVIE—Drama Time approximate. “State Secret” (English; 1950) 5:30 TRAVENTURE THEATRE COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS 7:30 MY MOTHER, THE CAR COLOR 8:00 PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES—Comedy COLOR 8:30 DR. KILDARE—Drama COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “In Love and War” (1958) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR Johnny, Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson continue their two-week visit to Hollywood 1:00 NEWS
-4- KRON (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (NBC) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 PROFILE—San Diego State 7:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled: Gemini VIII progress, Dr. Frederick W. Goodrich, Prof. Henry Foster, Sidney Siller. Hugh Downs, Jack Lescoulie 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 Panelists: Pat Carroll, Monty Hall. Host: Tom Kennedy 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Celebrities: Robert Q. Lewis, Phyllis Newman 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 NATIONAL VELVET—Drama 7:30 MY MOTHER, THE CAR COLOR 8:00 PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES—Comedy COLOR 8:30 DR. KILDARE—Drama COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR Tuesday Night at the Movies: “Two Loves” (1961) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR Johnny, Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson continue their two-week visit to Hollywood 1:00 NEWS
-5- KPIX (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (CBS) Morning 6:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER “Cigoli and Other Italian Painters” 6:30 MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE 7:00 NEWS—Jim Anderson 7:30 NEWS—Mike Wallace 7:55 FILM SHORT 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 I LOVE LUCY 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 Celebrities: Ray Bolger, Lee Remick. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Panel 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: Gig Young. Guests: Maria Cole, Conrad Nagel 5:30 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 M SQUAD—Police 7:30 DAKTARI—Adventure COLOR 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guest: Petula Clark 9:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION—Comedy COLOR 10:00 CBS REPORTS—Documentary “IOU $315,000,000,000” 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety Guests: David Burns, Gordon Parks, Jim and Henny Backus, Della Reese 12:50 MOVIE—Comedy “Three Married Men” (1936)
-6- KVIE (SACRAMENTO) (EDUC.) Morning 9:45 CLASSROOM—Education Science, language arts, Spanish 11:30 TIME FOR LIVING—Discussion DEBUT Afternoon 12:00 SING HI—SING LO—Music 12:15 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children 12:30 WHAT’S NEW—Children 1:10 CLASSROOM—Education Health education 5:30 SING HI—SING LO—Music 5:45 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children Evening 6:00 MENTAL HEALTH—Interview 6:30 STOCK MARKET REPORT 6:35 MUSICAL PORTRAITS 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 DESEGREGATION—Education 8:00 GREAT DECISIONS—1966 8:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking 9:00 CHALLENGES—Sacramento 10:00 OPEN MIND—Discussion
-7- KGO (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (ABC) Morning 5:45 LET’S TALK REAL ESTATE 6:15 CARTOON FACTORY 6:30 A.M.—Dunbar, Fleming, Bentley 8:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel 9:00 GIRL TALK—Panel Guests: Caroline Richter, Sylvia Miles, Kaye Ballard 10:00 LUAU—Bill Gordon 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 DONNA REED—Comedy 12:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 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 Performers: the Bobby Fuller Four, Brook Benton, Steve Alaimo 5:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “Johnny Dark” (1954) Evening 6:25 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy 6:55 SPORTS 7:00 NEWS—Roger Grimsby 7:15 NEWS—Peter Jennings 7:30 COMBAT!—Drama 8:30 McHALE’S NAVY 9:00 F TROOP—Comedy 10:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Fantasy COLOR “The Private Lives of Adam and Eve” (1960) Bay Area TV Debut 1:20 MOVIE—All Night 1. “Mill of the Stone Women” (French-Italian; 1960) 2. “Stakeout” (1962) 3. Cheyenne
7 KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) Morning 7:55 AGRICULTURE REPORT 8:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled: Gemini VIII progress, Dr. Frederick W. Goodrich, Prof. Henry Foster, Sidney Siller. Hugh Downs, Jack Lescoulie 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 Performers: the Bobby Fuller Four, Brook Benton, Steve Alaimo 5:00 PORKY PIG—Cartoons 5:30 BUGS BUNNY—Cartoons Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 GIDGET—Comedy 7:30 COMBAT!—Drama 8:30 McHALE’S NAVY 9:00 F TROOP—Comedy 9:30 MOVIE—Western COLOR “Bend of the River” (1952) 11:15 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR Johnny, Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson continue their two-week visit to Hollywood
-8- KSBW (SALINAS) (CBS, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Scheduled: Gemini VIII progress, Dr. Frederick W. Goodrich, Prof. Henry Foster, Sidney Siller. Hugh Downs, Jack Lescoulie 9:00 I LOVE LUCY 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 Celebrities: Ray Bolger, Lee Remick. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Panel 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Adventure “Phantom of the Jungle” (1955) 5:00 WEBSTER WEBFOOT—Children 5:30 SUPERMAN—Adventure Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy 7:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES—Comedy 8:00 GREEN ACRES—Comedy 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guest: Petula Clark 9:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION—Comedy COLOR 10:00 GUNSMOKE—Western 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR Johnny, Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson continue their two-week visit to Hollywood
-9- KQED (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (EDUC.) Morning 9:20 CLASSROOM—Education Geography, social studies, French, language arts, science, music Afternoon 12:00 SING HI—SING LO—Music 12:15 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children 12:30 MUSEUM OPEN HOUSE—Art 1:00 CLASSROOM—Education Mathematics, French, Spanish 4:00 AMERICA’S CIRSES SPECIAL 5:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 5:30 SING HI—SING LO—Music 5:45 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children Evening 6:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 6:30 PORTRAIT IN MUSIC 7:00 ESKIMO ART AND LEGEND SPECIAL 7:30 OPENING NIGHT—Discussion 8:00 CONCERT—San Francisco 9:00 OPEN END—David Susskind 10:00 U.S.A.—Poetry 10:30 MARKETING ON THE MOVE
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 SUNRISE SEMESTER “Cigoli and Other Italian Painters” 7:00 WEATHER—Bob Douglas 7:05 NEWS—Mike Wallace 7:30 DIVER DAN—Cartoons 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 I LOVE LUCY 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 Celebrities: Ray Bolger, Lee Remick. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Panel 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel Guests: Pat Carroll, Else Tyroler 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety Co-host: Gig Young. Guests: Maria Cole, Conrad Nagel 5:30 NEWS Evening 6:00 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 6:30 LAWMAN—Western 7:00 RIFLEMAN—Western 7:30 DAKTARI—Adventure COLOR 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guest: Petula Clark 9:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION—Comedy COLOR 10:00 CBS REPORTS—Documentary “IOU $315,000,000,000” 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Western COLOR “Dallas” (1950)
11 KNTV (SAN JOSE) (ABC) Morning 8:00 BIBLE ANSWERS—Religion 8:30 BEANY AND CECIL—Cartoons 9:00 HOCUS POCUS—Children 9:15 BUCKAROO 500—Buck Weaver 9:30 HOCUS POCUS—Children 10:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy 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 Performers: the Bobby Fuller Four, Brook Benton, Steve Alaimo 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 COMBAT!—Drama 8:30 McHALE’S NAVY 9:00 F TROOP—Comedy 10:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 10:30 WHAT’S MY LINE?—Panel 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Steel Fist” (1952)
12 KHSL (CHICO) (CBS) Morning 7:05 FILM SHORTS COLOR 7:35 NEWS—Mike Wallace 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 I LOVE LUCY 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 Celebrities: Ray Bolger, Lee Remick. Host: Allen Ludden 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH—Panel 2:25 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “Against All Flags” (1952) 5:00 POPEYE—Cartoons COLOR 5:30 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 SMOTHERS BROTHERS—Comedy 7:30 DAKTARI—Adventure COLOR 8:30 RED SKELTON COLOR Guest: Petula Clark 9:30 PETTICOAT JUNCTION—Comedy COLOR 10:00 JESSE JAMES—Western 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Queen Bee” (1955)
13 KOVR (SAC) (ABC) Morning 6:55 NEWS 7:00 CARTOONLAND—Children 7:45 PETER POTAMUS—Cartoon 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 12:15 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 YOGI BEAR—Cartoons COLOR 5:30 CISCO KID—Western COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings 6:45 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 7:00 DEATH VALLEY DAYS—Drama COLOR 7:30 COMBAT!—Drama 8:30 McHALE’S NAVY 9:00 F TROOP—Comedy 10:00 FUGITIVE—Drama 11:00 NEWS 11:30 DETECTIVES—Police
TV
March 11, 2023
This week in TV Guide: March 12, 1966
My goodness, but we see a lot of articles about The Beverly Hillbillies in this job. There was a cover story on the female stars just
a couple of weeks ago
, and now the gang is back again. The British seem to have a particular fascination with the show; you'll recall Malcolm Muggeridge wrote a feature just the previous year that was probably more serious than it appears on first glance, and this week it's Ronald Searle, the British artist and cartoonist currently living in Paris (his illustrations accompany the article). It's not just the Hillbillies that fascinates, of course; the entire concept of America seems to cast a spell on Europeans, as if they're encountering some form of alien life. (And, in the case of Meghan Markle, they probably are.) The American West holds a particular interest for them; as Searle says, "The American Western is considered one of the fine arts. A dress shop, with appropriate decor, may be called "Ranch," a bar may be hung with saddles and pistols, and the jeunesse wouldn’t be seen dead in anything but "louees"—Levi’s, to you." The "West" is also, according to Searle, an approximation—"Somewhere beyond New Jersey," he says.
Searle's particular fascination with The Beverly Hillibillies has to do with the show's success. "By normal standards their rustic program should have been strangled at birth. And yet they have achieved the thing for which many an alchemist sold his soul to the devil: the transmutation of base metal into gold. Golden corn to be specific." And it's not just American captivated by these corn-shucking millionaires; "The adjective 'corn' has been tossed at the Beverly Hillbillies in many languages the world over," he notes, but "the Clampetts are still running way up top on Tokyo TV and, no doubt, in Hong Kong and Hanover. You name it, they probably have it in their rustic bucket."
Why the popularity? Searle isn't sure; "Braver men than I have tried to fathom the success of this comic strip from the backwoods." That isn't important, though. What is important, and undeniable, is that "in every nook and cranny in the United States where men and women are assembled together, millions of dreams are realized through the Clampetts. Week after week harmless citizens wish themselves into the boots of Granny and Jed and Elly May and Jethro."
Granny rules the roostThat's where Searle's article ends, but the question is a lasting one. The Beverly Hillbillies has long served as the poster child for the decline of American television—its dumbing down, if you will. Not because of any particular animus toward the show or its cast, I think; Searle noted that "a nicer bunch you couldn't wish to meet." Undoubtedly critics latched onto the Hillbillies because of the show's massive popularity; it was the number one series in the ratings for the 1962-63 and 1963-64 seasons, the first sitcom to hold that position since I Love Lucy in 1956-57. It broke up the domination of Westerns in the top spot; between 1957 and 1967, it was the only top-rated program not named Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, or Bonanza. In the 1963-64 season, Hillbillies had a 39.1 rating; the 2018-19 top-rated series, NBC's Sunday Night Football, had a rating of 10.9. The most-watched episode of Hillbillies, 1964's "The Giant Jackrabbit," was the most watched telecast up to the time of its airing, and remains the most-watched half-hour episode of a sitcom.**One critic speculated that it could have been helped by having followed LBJ's State of the Union address, but I'm not sure that holds water, given that the first primetime State of the Union wasn't until 1965.
Yes, I know things have changed a lot over the years, but that remains a hell of a lot of people watching that show, and enjoying it. Muggeridge, in his article, speculated that it might have had something to do with the show's innocense in a cynical age: "We, too, yearn after wealth which does not corrupt; after an innocence which triumphantly survives the possession of riches." Jed may have hit the jackpot with that oil strike, but it hadn’t fundamentally changed either him or his family, and there's something tremendously appealing about that. He felt that the reason for the show's worldwide popularity was also clear: "Backward or undeveloped nations are shown by means of television the way of life toward which they so ardently aspire." And if we skip ahead to August of 1966, we'll see a review of Hillbillies by Judith Crist that points to the same thing, that "what makes the show both durable and endurable," is its "utter lack of pretension." Whatever the reason, and whatever you think about it, The Beverly Hillbillies remains one of the most popular weekly shows in the history of television. Given its success in a turbulent time, could it achieve a similar success today? Well, not to that extent; no show, save the Super Bowl, attracts that kind of audience anymore. And you'd have to have a unique cast, one that radiated warmth and likeability rather than stupidity and snarkiness. Still, you have to wonder: wouldn't it be nice to see a show about a family unspoiled by wealth, untouched by the corruptions of modern society?
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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.Sullivan: Scheduled guests for this St. Patrick’s Day salute include Pearl Bailey; comics Wayne and Shuster; the Irish folk-singing Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem; puppet Topo Gigio; comic Jackie Vernon; the Three Kims, Swedish acrobats; magician Johnny Hart; the Emerald Society Police Pipe Band of the New York City Police Department; and the McNiff Dancers.
Palace: Host Fred Astaire welcomes singers Ethel Merman and Jack Jones; Marcel Marceau, who pantomimes "Bip the Lion Tamer" and "The Butterfly Collector"; comedian Pat Morita; the Roggé Sisters, French balancing act; and the Hardy Family, tumbling acrobats. Fred dances to "Bugle Call Rag" and learns how to belt out a song in the Merman manner.
Some weeks are easier than others, and this is one of them. The Palace has one of the greatest dancers of all time hosting, one of the greatest mimes of all time as a guest, and one of the great belters of all time. With Fred Astaire, Marcel Marceau, and Ethel Merman, the show hardly needs one of the smoothest singers of the time, Jack Jones, but why not? Ed's big gun is Pearl Bailey, no slouch to be sure, but on mesasure this really isn't a contest: Palace wins in a song.
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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. One of the revealing aspects of the TV Guide collection is finding out how some of today's best-loved shows were, on first glance, not that big a deal. You might recall that Cleve was no great fan of Carol Burnett when her show first premiered, but it wound up outlasting his column. The same can't be said for I Dream of Jeannie; it only runs for five seasons, but it's been in reruns ever since, and remains one of the most popular of the classic TV sitcoms. To be fair, Our Critic doesn't hate the show, which he calls "the NBC answer to ABC's Bewitched (an unfair comparison, I'd say); in fact, he says that Jeannie, "which is only moderately well acted and directed, has at least three redeeming features."
Not surprisingly, first and foremost on that list (as it is with you, I'm sure) is Barbara Eden. Not only is she "a very good-looking girl," she's also capable of all the special-effects magic that Bewitched and other shows produce. And third, the show occasionally veers into actual satire; witness how Tony (Larry Hagman) can make Jeannie go back into her bottle any time he doesn't want her around. That would, Cleve points out, "make her the ideal wife." That's what Tony's friend Roger (Bill Daily) thinks, anyway, but Tony warns him not to go there. "Your friends will turn on you. Their wives will hate you. Do you think they’re going to watch her treat you with kindness and understanding and compassion? Do you think they’ll let her destroy everything they stand for?" Ouch.
Amory enjoys the fact that Jeannie, being a very jealous genie, which allows the writers to have a field day, as in the episode where Jeannie threatens to turn one of Tony's old girlfriends into a pillar of salt, whereupon Tony replies by threatening to pour ink in her bottle. She desperately wants to marry Tony; after being single for 2500 years, "I don't want to be an old maid." There's also a streak of michievousness in her, which can make things miserable for Tony, Roger, and Dr. Bellows (Hayden Rourke), and this, he says, "makes I Dream of Jeannie bearable for the rest of us." Now I grant you, this is the show's first season, so we don't know if Cleve modified his views as the series progresses. One would hope so; otherwise, Jeannie might just make one particular critic disappear.
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The latest effort of the American space program, the launch of Gemini VIII, is scheduled for Tuesday, March 15; it actually comes off the following day, following the successful launch of the Atlas-Agena target vehicle with which the Gemini capsule is scheduled to perform various docking manuevers. Network coverage begins with the twin launches on Wednesday morning, and continuesentire with the planned docking in the late afternoon. The networks also warn that programs "may be pre-empted" for coverage of the spaceflight, and if you know anything about Gemini VIII, you know that this promise was more than fulfilled.The two first-time astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott, successfully dock with the Agena (the first such docking in history), but shortly after passing out of communications range, the coupled spacecrafts began to rotate along all three axes at a high rate of speed. Concerned that the rate of roll could cause the Agena to explode, Scott uncoupled the Gemini, whereupon the tumbling increased violently, along roll, pitch, and yaw, at a rate of 60 revolutions per minute. Charts and checklists flew around the cabin, and the unfiltered sunlight came through the windows with the effect of a strobe. With the astronauts close to blacking out, Armstrong decided to use the craft's reentry thrusters to stop the spinning. It was a bold, but necessary gamble; Scott later said of Armstrong, "The guy was brilliant. He knew the system so well. He found the solution, he activated the solution, under extreme circumstances ... it was my lucky day to be flying with him." Once the re-entry controls had been activated, mission rules required that the flight be aborted, and Gemini VIII prepared for an emergency landing.
Much like the Apollo 13 mission just over four years later, the networks interrupted regular programming—The Virginian on NBC, Batman on ABC, and, ironically, Lost in Space on CBS. Reentering over China, the craft landed safely in the Pacific; although it was still daytime at the splashdown site, it was the first to take place at night in the continental United States. The crisis itself had lasted for about 30 minutes; the entire flight, which had been planned for three days, ended after around ten hours.
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The Open Mind, hosted by Richard Heffner, debuted on public television in 1956, dedicated to "thoughtful excursion into the world of ideas." It reminds me of David Susskind's Open End, in that it tackles topics that you don't always see on programs like, say, Meet the Press. On Saturday night (8:00 p.m., KQED), we've got one that wouldn't be out of place today: "Are Flying Saucers Only Science Fic- tion?" And in fact, the program could still take up the topic (and include foreign balloons in the bargain!) since The Open Mind is still on the air, the 13th longest-running television program in American history, about to enter its 67th season and hosted by Richard Heffner's grandson, Alexander.
One other note about Saturday: NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies presents the American TV debut of A Place in the Sun (9:00 p.m.), based on Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy, and starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters. Saturday Night at the Movies expands to two and-a-half hours for this movie, and a note at the end of the listing explains why: "The Los Angeles Superior Court recently ruled that this film could not be televised if its artistic qualities were harmed. NBC is presenting it without cuts." That would have been quite something, considering the editing of movies due to length or content was a common, and controversial, practice back then.Spring is in the air, and with it the promise of baseball; KTVU gets things started with a spring training game between the San Francisco Giants and Cleveland Indians, live from Phoenix (Sunday, 12 noon). Sunday evening, The Bell Telelphone Hour (6:30 p.m., NBC) presents an hour of music from American movies, hosted by Ray Bolger, and starring Robert Merrill, André Previn, and musical-comedy performers Ann Miller, Gloria De Haven, Peter Marshall, Constance Towers and Judi Rolin. The Telephone Hour remains one of the 1960s last weekly programs to be done live on a regular basis.
A very funny parody of The Untouchables is the highlight on The Lucy Show (Monday, 8:30 p.m., CBS), with Robert Stack as an FBI agent who recruits Lucy to pose as the girlfriend of a soon-to-be-released-from-prison gangster, played by Bruce Gordon. Steve London, who played one of Eliot Ness's men on The Untouchables, is Stack's assistant, and the narration is provided, as it was then, by Walter Winchell. They even use the same theme music—but then, since Desilu produced The Untouchables, they shouldn't have had any trouble getting the rights. Stack and Gordon were good friends; Gordon never shied away from his casting as gangster Frank Nitti, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had a great time filming this. You can watch it all
here
.Tuesday's 11:30 p.m. movie on KGO (not to be confused with the All-Night Movie, which doesn't start until 1:20 a.m.) is The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, which I would swear I'd seen on a program guide for an adult movie channel, but apparently not, since it's making its Bay Area TV debut. It's co-directed by Mickey Rooney, and it tells the allegorical story of a group of people seeking refuge from a storm in a country church. Rooney stars as Nick, aka the Devil, while who else could possibly play Eve but Mamie Van Doren? Need I include the fact that it's a comedy?
We don't know for sure what actually aired on Wednesday, what with the coverage of the Gemini VIII emergency, but the Bob Hope Comedy Special (9:00 p.m., NBC) sounds as if it would have been a good bet; skits include Phyllis Diller in "Pagoda Place" as a woman who's remarried, only to find out her first husband is still alive; an Academy Awards spoof with Jonathan Winters as Rock Surly, an actor accused of bumping off his fellow nominees; and Lee Marvin, one of those real-life nominees, as Slim Premise, a sissified gunfighter, and Bob as El Crummo, a bandit chief.
Part one of this week's Batman adventure was interrupted by last night's bulletins (at least twice, according to oral histories), but that won't stop ABC from airing part two on Thursday (7:30 p.m., ABC). It's called, unironically, "Better Luck Next Time," and it wraps up the first appearance of the one and only Catwoman (Julie Newmar). That's on up against The Munsters (7:30 p.m., CBS), which presents a rare look at the show's backstory, as Herman is visited by Dr. Frankenstein IV, decendant of the man who assembled him, and an evil Herman lookalike named Johann. Now that's scary!
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Friday night's episode of Camp Runamuck (7:30 p.m., NBC) features Spiffy (David Ketchum) falling under an oriental philosophy that causes him to make a truce with the ladies of Camp Divine. And that leads us to this week's starlet, Nina Wayne, who plays the "curvaceous counsellor" of the girls' camp, Caprice Yeudleman—also known as "the tall show girl with the tiny voice."She didn't start out for a career in show business. Believe it or not, and there's no reason not to believe it, she and her sister Carol were afflicted with weak ankles and skinny legs—oh, and they were also pigeon-toed. Their uncle, a doctor, suggested they try ice skating, and they would up good enough at it that they joined the Ice Capades when Nina was 15. The Wayne Sisters toured with the Capades for two years, finally hanging up the skates when Carol fell and injured her knee.
From there, Nina moved first to Vegas and then Chicago, where she became "a model by day and a dancer by night"; her mother's only comment was that "Daddy and I would prefer that you wear a few more beads." She started working with Van Johnson in his nightclub act, which led to an appearance on The Tonight Show, where Johnny was charmed by her "kind of coo-coo way of speaking," and a comedy style that he described as "early idiot." (When Carson asked her, "How does it feel to work without any clothes on?" Nina answered, "Naked." David Swift, putting together a cast for a new sitcom, happened to see that appearance ("She has the voice of a grape comng out of a banana"), and two day slater she was doing the pilot for Camp Runamuck.
She wants to be a "big star," but her acting coaches are under instructions not to tamper with that voice; Swift says, "She has almost an armor of naiveté, translated directly without being filtered." And while Camp Runamuck, scheduled opposite The Wild Wild West and The Flintstones, won't be around much longer, she's hoping to be heard from again. In fact, her career continues until the mid-'70s, including the movie The Night Strangler and a career on the stage. She marries, and divorces, John Drew Barrymore, the father of Drew Barrymore. And, in case you hadn't figured it out from all the clues in the article—a curvaceous figure, a little voice, a last name of Wayne, and a sister named Carol—that sister is, indeed, Carol Wayne, the Tea Time Movie sidekick to Carson's Art Fern. Small world, so to speak.
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MST3K alert: The Indestructible Man (1956). "A death row inmate double-crossed by his lawyer gets a chance for revenge when a bizarre experiment brings him back to life. Lon Chaney, Casey Adams." (Friday, part of KGO's All Night Movie) Look for a small but pivotal role played by Joe Flynn, who's probably glad he's better-known for McHale's Navy. TV
March 10, 2023
Around the dial
At Comfort TV, David leads off the week with an intriguing question: whatever happened to "
America's Sweetheart
"? It's a title that's been dispensed on many luminaries over the years: Annette Funicello, Karen Valentine, Sally Field, and Mary Tyler Moore, to name but a few. Can you think of anyone who'd fit the bill today?Jack's Hitchcock Project continues at bare-bones e-zine with Oscar Millard's second and final teleplay for the show, " One of the Family ," with Jeremy Slate and Kathryn Hays as a young couple worried that their baby's new nurse (Lila Skala) may be a child killer.
I've said this before, but then there's a real knack to coming up with just the right title, and there's no way I'm not going to write about any show with an episode called " I Was Hitler's Bookie ." The show is The Steam Video Company, a British comedy show with a bit of SCTV about it, and John has all the details at Cult TV Blog.
At Television's New Frontier: the 1960s, it's the 1962 episodes of Have Gun—Will Travel , starring Richard Boone as the man in black, Palladin. The episodes comprise the first half of the show's sixth and final season—find out how the stories stand up to the rest of the series.
In one of the more surprising developments, Robert at Television Obscurities reports that the 1957 sitcom Blondie , starring Arthur Lake and Pamela Britton, is coming to Blu-ray. I'm always delighted to see vintage shows being upgraded, but I'm also wishing they might get to some of the ones on my list!
More Blu-ray news: Martin Grams says the Rankin-Bass classic Mad Monster Party is headed that way this May, with some special features and collectibles included. If you're interested in it, you can pre-order right now!
At Vintage Leisure, Gary Wells takes a look at the book The Untouchables , written by Eliot Ness himself, with Oscar Fraley. It is, of course, the basis for the TV series of the same name, and you may remember a few years ago we looked at a TV Guide with a feature article by Ness's widow . Sounds like a fun book.
Cult TV Lounge features four early episodes of The Avengers featuring Honor Blackman's Cathy Gale . I always think it's important to point these out, because American viewers didn't get to see them when they were originally on, and Mrs. Gale is such a wonderful character. It is, as noted, a "startling" difference compared to the Emma Peel era. TV
March 8, 2023
Tales of the unexpected
For the television historian, one of the great pleasures in reading back issuse of TV Guide is coming across the unexpected. And in this case, I'm not referring to something that I didn't expect; no, I'm talking about something that the author of the story didn't expect, something that he had no reason to expect would happen; when you combine that with the need to write for a deadline—well, see for yourself. In reviewing some old issues the other day, I came across the issue of March 16, 1968. Now, I reviewed this issue before , but somehow or other I missed this little gem that led off the Doan Report, written as always by Richard K. Doan. Headed "Networks Yawn Over Primaries," the lede tells you all you need to know: "The primaries are going to get the most fleeting attention from TV in the medium's history unless they develop more heat than New Hampshire did." The operative word is did, because the New Hampshire primary was held on Tuesday, March 12—two or three days before this issue of TV Guide would have hit the newsstands. The focus of the primaries has been on the Republican side, and with the sudden and—here's that word again, unexpected—withdrawal of Michigan Governor George Romney, the GOP race has been left wide open for former vice president Richard Nixon. "The networks, convinced this left little doubt about the outcome in N.H., immediately canceled plans for prime-time primary-night specials in favor of bulletins and brief late-evening vote summaries." And, in fact, Nixon did win decisively, racking up 77.6% of the vote, compared to (then) non-candidate Nelson Rockefeller, with 10.8%. In fact, Doan says that TV time for the remaining primaries "depends on how strongly, if at all, Governor Rockefeller comes on against Nixon."
Now, there were, of course, two presidential primaries held in New Hampshire on March 12; one for the Republicans, and one for the Democrats, where President Lyndon Johnson was, like Nixon, expectec to win easily. And it's true that nobody paid much attention to Nixon's win—because of the shocking Democratic result, where maverick anti-war challenger Eugene McCarthy won 42% of the vote, compared to Johnson's 49%. Politics being one of those few areas in which a loss can be spun as a win, the media immediately proclaimed this a disastrous outcome for Johnson, as indeed it was. He may have won the primary, but to have done so poorly against a relatively unheralded candidate was nothing short of a catastrophe. Four days later, on March 16—the date of this issue—Robert F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for the nomination. With two such challengers, Johnson was now anything but a sure winner; polling in Wisconsin, site of the next primary on April 2, showed McCarthy beating Johnson badly. A little over two weeks later, on March 31, LBJ shocked everyone by announcing that he would not be a candidate for reelection. (He had, in fact, never formally announced his candidacy; it was something that people simply assumed.)* You'd better believe the networks were plenty interested in the Democratic primary by now. *Later in the week, Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated. Talk about unexpected.
Now, none of this is a reflection on Richard Doan; as was the case throughout much of the 1968 campaign, nobody could possibly have forseen what was to happen—or, thanks to the vagueries of publishing deadlines, what had already happened. What this shows is how capricious history can be when she wants, and that year she wanted very much indeed. And that's one of the reasons why we study history, history of any kind; as Mark Twain once said, "History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme."
As for the remainder of the primary season, Nelson Rockefeller, after months of denials, announced on April 30 that he would, indeed, be a candidate. Ronald Reagan later announced his own candidacy, and a host of favorite-son candidates tried (unsuccessfully) to hold the balance of power in the delegate count. The GOP race doesn't quite have the drama of the Democratic battle; Vice President Hubert Humphrey throws his hat in the ring on April 27, and becomes the establishment candidate, counting on the support of unions and party regulars. He's too late to get into the primaries, but remember, there are only a dozen or so of them back in 1968; the rest of the delegates would be chosen either by caucus or at the party's state convention. And so the experts expected the battle would continue well past the final primary—June 4 in California, where the unexpected continues. TV
March 6, 2023
What's on TV? Wednesday, March 8, 1967
Interesting thing about the All-Night Movie on KGO; theoretically it's a triple feature, but each night's third feature is an episode of a TV show. Tonight, it's Hawaiian Eye; Tuesday nights are Naked City, and Thursday it's Peter Gunn. Well, it's interesting to me, anyway. What else? ABC has the TV premiere of the big-screen Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which spawned the series of the same name. Walter Pidgeon is Admiral Nelson (don't tell
Gypsy
!), and Robert Sterling as Captain Crane. (I would have cast Charlton Heston, but then he would have been star of the movie.) But hey! the Seaview is still the same. You're looking at the Northern California edition.-2- KTVU (OAKLAND) (IND.) Morning 8:45 RELIGION TODAY—Lutheran 9:00 POPEYE—Cartoons COLOR 9:15 KING AND ODIE—Cartoons 9:30 ROMPER ROOM—Children 10:30 JACK LA LANNE COLOR 11:00 MEL VENTER—Interview 11:30 NEWS—Claud Mann Afternoon 12:00 CHARLEY AND HUMPHREY 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Tension at Table Rock” (1956) 2:25 NEWS 2:30 PDQ—Game COLOR Guests: Larry Hagman, Ruta Lee, Dick Patterson 3:00 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—Game COLOR 3:30 CAPTAIN SATELLITE—Children 4:30 CARTOON CUTUPS COLOR 5:00 SUPERMAN—Adventure COLOR 5:30 DENNIS THE MENACE—Comedy Evening 6:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER—Comedy 6:30 McHALE’S NAVY—Comedy 7:00 TIMMY AND LASSIE—Drama 7:30 LOWELL THOMAS—Travel COLOR 8:00 SECRET AGENT—Adventure 9:00 WEDNESDAY SHOWCASE COLOR 10:00 NEWS—Atkinson, Alberts, Helmso 10:30 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama 11:00 MOVIE—Mystery “The Green Glove” (1952)
-3- KCRA (SACRAMENTO) (NBC) Morning 5:55 FARM NEWS COLOR 6:00 RHYME AND REASON 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Judith Crist, Dick Schaap 9:00 REACH FOR THE STARS—Game COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PAT BOONE—Variety COLOR Guest: Don Rickles 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES COLOR Celebrities: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Cesar Romero, Robert Clary, Jan Murray, Della Reese, Chad Everett. Regulars: Abby Dalton, Wally Cox, Charley Weaver. Host: Peter Marshall 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS COLOR Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:00 DOCTORS—Serial COLOR 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “The Rains of Ranchipur” (1955) 4:00 MOVIE—Drama Time approximate. “Target Unknown” (1951) 5:20 TRAVENTURE TEHATRE COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Brown, Jensen, Hart 5:55 SKIING TIPS COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS COLOR 7:30 VIRGINIAN—Western COLOR 9:00 BOB HOPE—Comedy COLOR “The Reason Nobody Hardly Ever Seen a Fat Outlaw in the Old West Is as Follows” 10:00 I SPY—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Johnny chats with celebrities in Hollywood 1:00 NEWS COLOR
-4- KRON (SAN FRANCISCO) (NBC) Morning 6:25 FARM NEWS 6:30 PROFILE—San Diego State 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Judith Crist, Dick Schaap 9:00 REACH FOR THE STARS—Game COLOR 9:25 NEWS—Sander Vanocur COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PAT BOONE—Variety COLOR Guest: Don Rickles 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES COLOR Celebrities: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Cesar Romero, Robert Clary, Jan Murray, Della Reese, Chad Everett. Regulars: Abby Dalton, Wally Cox, Charley Weaver. Host: Peter Marshall 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS COLOR Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS COLOR 12:30 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:00 DOCTORS—Serial COLOR 1:30 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:00 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Guests: Ruta Lee, Jackie Coogan 2:30 MATCH GAME COLOR Celebrities: Jane Withers, Henry Morgan 2:55 NEWS COLOR 3:00 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 3:30 ROBIN HOOD—Adventure 4:00 BACHELOR FATHER—Comedy 4:30 RAWHIDE—Western 5:30 NEWS—Brown, Jensen, Hart Evening 6:00 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 6:30 NEWS—Brown, Jensen, Hart 7:00 HONEY WEST—Mystery 7:30 VIRGINIAN—Western COLOR 9:00 BOB HOPE—Comedy COLOR “The Reason Nobody Hardly Ever Seen a Fat Outlaw in the Old West Is as Follows” 10:00 I SPY—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Johnny chats with celebrities in Hollywood 1:00 NEWS
-5- KPIX (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (CBS) Morning 6:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER Man and Society 6:30 CHINA—History 7:00 KPIX EDITORIAL—Louis Simon 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 NEWS—Jim Anderson 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS C 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 NEWS—Weston, Ramey 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Leslie Uggams, Soupy Sales 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guests: Lassie and Rudd Weatherwax, Vic Dana 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR Guest panelist: Larry Blyden 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Co-host: Van Johnson. Guests: Bill Bailey, Mary Ann Mobley, Skitch Henderson, the Aqua-Mates 5:00 PERRY MASON—Mystery Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 MARSHAL DILLON—Western 7:30 LOST IN SPACE—Adventure COLOR 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 DANNY KAYE—Variety COLOR 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety Guests: Totie Fields, Dave Garroway, Sandler and Young 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Alimony” (1949)
-6- KVIE (SACRAMENTO) (EDUC.) Morning 9:05 CLASSROOM—Education Health, social science, Spanish language arts and music 11:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Egg dishes Afternoon 12:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 12:30 AWARD SERIES 1:00 MUSICAL PORTRAITS 1:15 CLASSROOM—Education Music, science, physical education, Spanish 5:15 WHAT’S NEW—Children 5:45 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children Evening 6:00 DISCOVERYH—Science 6:30 YOUR INCOME TAX 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 CREATIVE PERSON 8:00 NEWS CONFERENCE—Jesse Unruh, Hugh Burns 8:30 SCIENCE REPORTER 9:00 WORLD PRESS—Panel 10:00 NEWS IN PERSPECTIVE
-7- KGO (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (ABC) Morning ALL-NIGHT MOVIE—Continued 5:30 FIRST AID AND YOU 6:00 A.M.—Dunbar, Lindstrom, Bentley 8:00 VIRGINIA GRAHAM—Interviews Guests: January Jones, Sylvia Syms, Nai Bonet 8:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Drama Bill Gordon’s Prize Movie: “Wicked As They Come” (English; 1957) 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING 12:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 DREAM GIRL Celebrities: Anne Jefreys, Gig Young, Buddy Greco, Steve Harmon 2:55 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Performers: Buffalo Springfield, Bobby Rydell 5:00 NEWS—Grimsby, Foster COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings COLOR Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Comedy COLOR “Bachelor Flat” (1961) 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest Villain: Victor Buono (King Tut) 8:00 MONROES—Western COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Adventure “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961) 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Shrike” (1955) 1:10 MOVIE—All Night 1. “The Glass Wall” (Drama; 1953) 2. “Gunslinger” (Western; 1956) 3. Hawaiian Eye
7 KRCR (REDDING) (ABC, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Judith Crist, Dick Schaap 9:00 JACK LA LANNE—Exercise COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 PAT BOONE—Variety COLOR Guest: Don Rickles 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES COLOR Celebrities: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Cesar Romero, Robert Clary, Jan Murray, Della Reese, Chad Everett. Regulars: Abby Dalton, Wally Cox, Charley Weaver. Host: Peter Marshall 11:00 JEOPARDY COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS COLOR Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS COLOR 12:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 DREAM GIRL Celebrities: Anne Jefreys, Gig Young, Buddy Greco, Steve Harmon 2:55 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Performers: Buffalo Springfield, Bobby Rydell 5:00 MILTON THE MONSTER 5:30 ZORRO—Adventure Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Chet Huntley, David Brinkley COLOR 7:00 THAT GIRL—Comedy COLOR 7:30 VIRGINIAN—Western COLOR 9:00 BOB HOPE—Comedy COLOR “The Reason Nobody Hardly Ever Seen a Fat Outlaw in the Old West Is as Follows” 10:00 I SPY—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Johnny chats with celebrities in Hollywood
-8- KSBW (SALINAS) (CBS, NBC) Morning 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Judith Crist, Dick Schaap 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 CONCENTRATION—Game COLOR 10:00 LIFE OF RILEY—Comedy 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Bud Walling Afternoon 12:00 LET’S MAKE A DEAL—Game COLOR 12:25 NEWS—Bud Walling 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Leslie Uggams, Soupy Sales 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guests: Lassie and Rudd Weatherwax, Vic Dana 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR Guest panelist: Larry Blyden 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Adventure “Thunder over Sangoland” (1955) 5:30 MISTER ED—Comedy Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 BRANDED—Western COLOR 7:30 VIRGINIAN—Western 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 I SPY—Adventure COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 JOHNNY CARSON COLOR Johnny chats with celebrities in Hollywood
-9- KQED (SAN FRANCISCO-OAKLAND) (EDUC.) Morning 8:15 CLASSROOM—Education Linguistics, space science, chemistry, Spanish, social studies, music, art, newspaper study Afternoon 12:00 TV KINDERGARTEN 12:30 ANTIQUES—Art 1:05 CLASSROOM—Education Social studies, music, linguistics, newspaper study, Spanish 4:00 SPECTRUM—Interview 4:30 MISTEROGERS—Children Guest: John Reardon 5:00 TV KINDERGARTEN 5:30 FRIENDLY GIANT—Children 5:45 TIME FOR MUSIC Evening 6:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 6:30 PORTRAIT IN MUSIC 7:00 NEWS IN PERSPECTIVE 8:00 COME UP THE YARS 8:30 KQED REPORT—James Day 8:45 FRENCH LESSONS 9:00 WORLD PRESS—Panel 10:00 OPEN MIND—Discussion
9 KXIE (REDDING) (EDUC.) Morning 8:40 CLASSROOM—Education Spanish, health, social studies, mathematics, music 11:30 FRENCH CHEF—Cooking Egg dishes Afternoon 12:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 12:30 AWARD SERIES 1:05 CLASSROOM—Education Spanish, science, physical education Evening 6:00 DISCOVERYH—Science 6:30 YOUR INCOME TAX 7:00 WHAT’S NEW—Children 7:30 CREATIVE PERSON 8:00 NEWS CONFERENCE—Jesse Unruh, Hugh Burns 8:30 SCIENCE REPORTER 9:00 WORLD PRESS—Panel 10:00 NEWS IN PERSPECTIVE
10 KXTV (SACRAMENTO) (CBS) Morning 6:00 FOCUS ON FARMING 6:30 SUNRISE SEMESTER Man and Society 7:00 FOCUS ON FARMING COLOR 7:05 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 7:30 WINCHELL-MAHONEY—Children 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Leslie Uggams, Soupy Sales 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guests: Lassie and Rudd Weatherwax, Vic Dana 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR Guest panelist: Larry Blyden 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 GYPSY ROSE LEE—Panel COLOR Guests: Ketty Lester, Joe Flynn, Paul Mayer 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Co-host: Van Johnson. Guests: Bill Bailey, Mary Ann Mobley, Skitch Henderson, the Aqua-Mates 5:30 NEWS—Wilson, Gray COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 6:30 RIFLEMAN—Western 7:00 TWILIGHT ZONE—Drama 7:30 LOST IN SPACE—Adventure COLOR 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 CENTER STAGE—Music SPECIAL COLOR Duke Ellington, Barbara McNair 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “Scaramouche” (1952)
11 KNTV (SAN JOSE) (ABC) Morning 8:00 LADIES DAY 8:30 BULLWINKLE—Cartoons 9:00 HOCUS POCUS—Children 9:15 BUCKAROO 500—Buck Weaver 9:30 HOCUS POCUS—Children 10:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING 12:30 DONNA REED—Comedy 1:00 PERRY MASON—Mystery 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 DREAM GIRL Celebrities: Anne Jeffreys, Gig Young, Buddy Greco, Steve Harmon 2:30 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 4:30 WHERE THE ACTION IS Performers: Buffalo Springfield, Bobby Rydell 5:00 TRUE ADVENTURE—Documentary COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings COLOR Evening 6:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety Co-host: Roberta Peters. Guests: Edgar Buchanan, the De John Sisters, Marvin J. Gersh, Ken Corday, Collins and Elizabeth 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest Villain: Victor Buono (King Tut) 8:00 MONROES—Western COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Adventure “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961) 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Comedy “The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker” (1959)
12 KHSL (CHICO) (CBS) Morning 7:05 EXISTENCE—UC, Davis COLOR 7:35 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 9:00 CANDID CAMERA 9:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE 11:25 NEWS COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial Afternoon 12:00 PEOPLE IN CONFLICT—Drama 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 PASSWORD—Game COLOR Celebrities: Leslie Uggams, Soupy Sales 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guests: Lassie and Rudd Weatherwax, Vic Dana 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR Guest panelist: Larry Blyden 2:25 NEWS COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT 3:00 SECRET STORM 3:30 MOVIE—Drama “This Angry Age” (1958) 5:30 MARSHAL DILLON—Western Evening 6:00 NEWS 6:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR 7:00 PERRY MASON—Mystery 8:00 DATING GAME 8:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 9:00 GREEN ACRES COLOR 9:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC COLOR 10:00 DANNY KAYE—Variety COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:30 MOVIE—Satire “Beat the Devil” (English; 1953)
13 KOVR (SACRAMENTO) (ABC) Morning 6:55 NEWS 7:00 CARTOONLAND COLOR 7:45 PETER POTAMUS COLOR 8:15 CARTOONLAND COLOR 8:30 JACK LA LANNE COLOR 9:00 DIVORCE COURT—Drama 10:00 EVERYBODY’S TALKING 10:30 DARK SHADOWS—Serial 11:00 MARKET SWEEP—Game 11:30 DATING GAME Afternoon 12:00 LORETTA YOUNG—Drama 12:30 NEWS COLOR 12:45 TODAY IN AGRICULTURE COLOR 1:00 BEN CASEY—Drama 2:00 NEWLYWED GAME 2:30 DREAM GIRL Celebrities: Anne Jefreys, Gig Young, Buddy Greco, Steve Harmon 2:55 NEWS 3:00 GENERAL HOSPITAL 3:30 NURSES—Serial 4:00 CAP’N DELTA—Cartoons COLOR 4:30 ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS—Cartoons COLOR 5:00 NEWS—Warren Rashleigh COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Peter Jennings COLOR Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Comedy “Father of the Bride” (1950) 7:30 BATMAN—Adventure COLOR Guest Villain: Victor Buono (King Tut) 8:00 MONROES—Western COLOR 9:00 MOVIE—Adventure “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961) 11:00 NEWS COLOR 11:30 MARSHAL DILLON—Western 12:00 WESTERNERS—Drama 12:30 NEWS
19 KLOC (MODESTO) (IND.) Afternoon 4:00 BUCKAROO 500—Children 4:30 CARTOON FUN HOUSE Evening 6:15 DENNIS THE MENACE—Comedy 6:45 NEWS—Charles McEwen 7:00 MIDWESTERN HAYRIDE 7:30 MOVIE—Drama “The Secret Garden” (1949) 9:30 SPORTS FILM
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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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