Mitchell Hadley's Blog: It's About TV!, page 98
April 5, 2021
What's on TV? Sunday, April 9, 1967
If you want to appreciate how sports has changed over the years, this would be a good example. ABC is in Boston for Game 4 of the Eastern Division finals; in 2019, Game 4 of the Eastern finals was played on May 20. CBS's broadcast of the final round of the Masters ran for 90 minutes and covered the last five holes; in case of a tie, the final holes of an 18-hole playoff would be shown Monday afternoon. Final round coverage in 2019 included 18-hole coverage running five hours, with a sudden-death playoff in case of a tie. Not only that, CBS then shows Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour (brought to you by Geritol) after the Masters. (It probably had more viewers than the golf, too.) But stick around for some great primetime programs: The Wonderful World of Color, The FBI, Bonanza, The Andy Williams Show, What's My Line? They don't make Sundays like that anymore. Enjoy the rest of the listings from the Minnesota State Edition.
-3- KDAL (DULUTH) (CBS) Morning 9:00 MORMON CONFERENCE SPECIAL 11:00 CHURCH SERVICE—Presbyterian Afternoon 12:00 MOVIE—Western “Tennessee’s Partner” (1955) 1:30 CBS SPORTS SPECTACULAR COLOR 1966 Formula 1, boxing, Harlem Globetrotters, soccer 3:00 MASTERS TOURNAMENT—Golf SPECIAL COLOR 4:30 AMATEUR HOUR—Variety COLOR 5:00 21st CENTURY COLOR 5:30 DEATH VALLEY DAYS COLOR Evening 6:00 LASSIE COLOR 6:30 IT’S ABOUNT TIME COLOR 7:00 ED SULLIVAN COLOR Guests: Peter Gennaro, Ed Ames, Shirley Verrett, Lana Cantrell, Richard Pryor, Davis and Reese, Douglas and Haig, Dick Contino 8:00 SMOTHRES BROTHERS—Variety COLOR Guests: Lana Turner, Robert Morse, the Association 9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy COLOR 9:30 WHAT’S MY LINE?—Game COLOR 10:00 NEWS 10:15 NEWS COLOR 10:30 ALFRED HITCHCOCK—Drama 11:30 MOVIE—Melodrama “The Devil’s Hand” (1962)
3 KGLO (MASON CITY) (CBS) Morning 9:00 MORMON CONFERENCE SPECIAL 11:00 CHRISTOPHER PROGRAM—Religion COLOR 11:30 FACE THE NATION—Interview COLOR Afternoon 12:00 FILM FEATURE COLOR 12:30 CBS GOLF CLASSIC COLOR Dudley Wysong and Kermit Zarley vs. Dave Marr and Tommy Jacobs 1:30 CBS SPORTS SPECTACULAR COLOR 1966 Formula 1, boxing, Harlem Globetrotters, soccer 3:00 MASTERS TOURNAMENT—Golf SPECIAL COLOR 4:30 AMATEUR HOUR—Variety COLOR 5:00 21st CENTURY COLOR 5:30 FILM FEATURE Evening 6:00 LASSIE COLOR 6:30 IT’S ABOUNT TIME COLOR 7:00 ED SULLIVAN COLOR Guests: Peter Gennaro, Ed Ames, Shirley Verrett, Lana Cantrell, Richard Pryor, Davis and Reese, Douglas and Haig, Dick Contino 8:00 SMOTHRES BROTHERS—Variety COLOR Guests: Lana Turner, Robert Morse, the Association 9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy COLOR 9:30 WHAT’S MY LINE?—Game COLOR 10:00 NEWS 10:15 NEWS COLOR 10:30 MOVIE—Comedy “Apartment for Peggy” (1948)
-4- WCCO (CBS) Morning 7:45 SACRED HEART—Religion 8:00 THE STORY—Religion COLOR 8:30 CHRISTOPHER PROGRAM—Religion COLOR 9:00 MORMON CONFERENCE SPECIAL 11:00 POPEYE AND FRIENDS COLOR 11:30 LET’S GO TRAVELNG COLOR 11:45 WORLD OF AVIATION COLOR Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:15 BOWLERAMA—Don Dahl 1:30 CBS SPORTS SPECTACULAR COLOR 1966 Formula 1, boxing, Harlem Globetrotters, soccer 3:00 MASTERS TOURNAMENT—Golf SPECIAL COLOR 4:30 AMATEUR HOUR—Variety COLOR 5:00 21st CENTURY COLOR 5:30 NEWS COLOR Evening 6:00 LASSIE COLOR 6:30 IT’S ABOUNT TIME COLOR 7:00 ED SULLIVAN COLOR Guests: Peter Gennaro, Ed Ames, Shirley Verrett, Lana Cantrell, Richard Pryor, Davis and Reese, Douglas and Haig, Dick Contino 8:00 SMOTHRES BROTHERS—Variety COLOR Guests: Lana Turner, Robert Morse, the Association 9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy COLOR 9:30 WHAT’S MY LINE?—Game COLOR 10:00 NEWS COLOR 10:30 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Guests: Abbe Lane, Dom De Luise, Ruth Buzzi, Dr. Joyce Brothers, E Thiats
-5- KSTP (NBC) Morning 7:45 LIGHT TIME—Religion 8:00 BIBLE STORY TIME COLOR 8:30 HYMN TIME—Stone COLOR 9:00 DO YOU BELIEVE? COLOR 9:30 FAITH FOR TODAY COLOR 10:00 FRONTIERS OF FAITH COLOR 10:30 THIS IS THE LIFE COLOR 11:00 FOREST RANGERS COLOR 11:30 VICTORY AT SEA Afternoon 12:00 NEWS COLOR 12:15 DIALING FOR DOLLARS—Game COLOR 12:30 HENRY WOLF—Discussion COLOR Guests: Mark Lane, John Flager, Mairin O’Sullivan 1:30 MEET THE PRESS COLOR Guest: Sol M. Linowitz, U.S. representative to the OAS 2:00 Cheyenne—Western 3:00 NBC EXPERIMENT IN TELEVISION—Drama SPECIAL COLOR “The Questions” 4:00 WILD KINGDOM COLOR 4:30 G-E COLLEGE BOWL—Quiz COLOR Boston College vs. LSU 5:00 NBC NEWS SPECIAL SPECIAL COLOR Guest: Secretary of State Dean Rusk Evening 6:00 NEWS COLOR 6:30 WALT DISNEY COLOR “Joker, the Amiable Ocelot” 7:30 HEY LANDLORD!—Comedy COLOR 8:00 BONANZA COLOR 9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Variety COLOR Guests: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, the Kingston Trio, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin 10:00 NEWS COLOR 10:30 JOE PYNE—Discussion COLOR 12:00 MOVIE—Adventure COLOR “Viva Revolution” (Mexican; 1955)
-6- WDSM (DULUTH) (NBC) Morning 8:15 LIGHT TIME—Religion 8:30 REVIVAL HOUR—Religion 9:00 FILM FEATURE 10:00 SACRED HEART—Religion 10:15 KNOW THE TRUTH—Religion 10:30 FAITH FOR TODAY—Religion 11:00 THIS IS THE LIFE—Religion 11:30 FILM FEATURE Afternoon 12:00 MEET THE PRESS COLOR Guest: Sol M. Linowitz, U.S. representative to the OAS 12:30 FRONTIERS OF FAITH COLOR 1:00 FILM FEATURE 2:00 TO BE ANNOUNCED 3:00 NBC EXPERIMENT IN TELEVISION—Drama SPECIAL COLOR “The Questions” 4:00 WILD KINGDOM COLOR 4:30 G-E COLLEGE BOWL—Quiz COLOR Boston College vs. LSU 5:00 FRANK McGEE REPORT—News Analysis COLOR 5:30 BELL TELEPHONE HOUR SPECIAL COLOR “The Sounds and Sights of New Orleans” Evening 6:30 WALT DISNEY COLOR “Joker, the Amiable Ocelot” 7:30 HEY LANDLORD!—Comedy COLOR 8:00 BONANZA COLOR 9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Variety COLOR Guests: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, the Kingston Trio, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin 10:00 NEWS COLOR 10:30 JOHNNY CARSON—Variety COLOR Guest: Henry Morgan, Moe Koffman, Pierre Berton
6 KMMT (AUSTIN) (ABC) Morning 8:30 BEANY AND CECIL—Cartoons COLOR 9:00 LINUS COLOR 9:30 PETER POTAMUS—Cartoons COLOR 10:00 BULLWINKLE—Cartoons COLOR 10:30 DISCOVERY ’67 COLOR 11:00 SERGEANT PRESTON 11:30 THIS IS THE LIFE—Religion Afternoon 12:00 SPORTS REPORT 12:30 FAMILY HOUR—Religion 1:00 PRO BASKETBALL—76ers vs. Celtics SPECIAL COLOR Philadelphia vs Boston, Eastern finals Game 4 3:00 HALL OF KINGS SPECIAL COLOR 4:00 OUTER LIMITS—Science Fiction 5:00 MONROES—Western Evening 6:00 VOYAGE—Adventure COLOR 7:00 FBI—Drama COLOR 8:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “The V.I.Ps” (English; 1963) 10:15 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 10:45 FOCAL POINT—Austin 11:15 NEWS
-7- KCMT (ALEXANDRIA) (NBC, ABC) Morning 8:00 SOUL’S HARBOR—Religion 8:30 BEANY AND CECIL—Cartoons COLOR 9:00 CHALLENGE OF TRUTH 9:15 SOCIAL SECURITY IN ACTION 9:30 PETER POTAMUS—Cartoons COLOR 10:00 BULLWINKLE—Cartoons COLOR 10:30 THIS IS THE LIFE—Religion 11:00 CHURCH SERVICE—Catholic Afternoon 12:00 MEET THE PRESS CANDRIA Guest: Sol M. Linowitz, U.S. representative to the OAS 12:30 FRONTIERS OF FAITH COLOR 1:00 MIDWEST FARM REPORT 1:30 ECHOES FROM CALVARY 2:00 DISCOVERY ’67—Children 2:30 FILM SHORT 2:45 NURSING STUDENT WEEK 3:00 NBC EXPERIMENT IN TELEVISION—Drama SPECIAL COLOR “The Questions” 4:00 WILD KINGDOM COLOR 4:30 G-E COLLEGE BOWL—Quiz COLOR Boston College vs. LSU 5:00 FRANK McGEE REPORT—News Analysis COLOR 5:30 VOYAGE—Adventure Evening 6:30 WALT DISNEY COLOR “Joker, the Amiable Ocelot” 7:30 HEY LANDLORD!—Comedy COLOR 8:00 BONANZA COLOR 9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Variety COLOR Guests: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, the Kingston Trio, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin 10:00 NEWS 10:30 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “The V.I.Ps” (English; 1963)
8 WKBT (LA CROSSE) (CBS) Morning 9:00 LAMP UNTO MY FEET—Religion 9:30 LOOK UP AND LIVE—Religion 10:00 CAMERA THREE—Religion 10:30 THIS IS THE LIFE—Religion 11:00 DISCOVERY ’67—Children 11:30 FACE THE NATION—Interview COLOR Afternoon 12:00 MIDWEST JAMBOREE 12:30 1966 AUTO RACING SPECIAL 1:30 CBS SPORTS SPECTACULAR COLOR 1966 Formula 1, boxing, Harlem Globetrotters, soccer 3:00 MASTERS TOURNAMENT—Golf SPECIAL COLOR 4:30 AMATEUR HOUR—Variety COLOR 5:00 STAGE 67—Musical “On the FLIP Side” Evening 6:00 LASSIE COLOR 6:30 RANGO—Comedy COLOR 7:00 ED SULLIVAN COLOR Guests: Peter Gennaro, Ed Ames, Shirley Verrett, Lana Cantrell, Richard Pryor, Davis and Reese, Douglas and Haig, Dick Contino 8:00 SMOTHRES BROTHERS—Variety COLOR Guests: Lana Turner, Robert Morse, the Association 9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy COLOR 9:30 GIDGET—Comedy 10:00 NEWS 10:25 FILM SHORT 10:30 MOVIE—Adventure “Sodom and Gomorrah” (Italian-French; 1962)
-9- KMSP (ABC) Morning 8:00 INSIGHT—Religion 8:30 SOUL’S HARBOR—Religion 9:00 ORAL ROBERTS—Religion 9:30 PETER POTAMUS—Cartoons COLOR 10:00 BULLWINKLE—Cartoons COLOR 10:30 DISCOVERY ’67 COLOR 11:00 BEANY AND CECIL COLOR 11:30 GRANDPA KEN—Children Afternoon 12:00 ABC SCOPE—Vietnam Report COLOR 12:30 FILM FEATURE COLOR 1:00 PRO BASKETBALL—76ers vs. Celtics SPECIAL COLOR Philadelphia vs Boston, Eastern finals Game 4 3:00 HALL OF KINGS SPECIAL COLOR 4:00 MAVERICK—Western 5:00 GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH COLOR Evening 6:00 VOYAGE—Adventure COLOR 7:00 FBI—Drama COLOR 8:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “The V.I.Ps” (English; 1963) 10:15 NEWS COLOR 10:45 MOVIE—Drama “The Great Jewel Robber” (1950) 12:30 NEWS AND SPORTS COLOR
10 WDIO (DULUTH) (ABC) Morning 8:00 CHRISTOPHER PROGRAM COLOR 8:30 BEANY AND CECIL—Cartoons COLOR 9:00 LINUS COLOR 9:30 PETER POTAMUS—Cartoons COLOR 10:00 BULLWINKLE—Cartoons COLOR 10:30 DISCOVERY ’67 COLOR 11:00 FILM FEATURE 11:30 ABC SCOPE—Vietnam Report COLOR Postponed from an earlier date. Afternoon 12:00 DIRECTIONS—Religion Guest: Elie Wiesel 12:30 ISSUES AND ANSWERS COLOR Guest: Dr. Martin Luther King 1:00 PRO BASKETBALL—76ers vs. Celtics SPECIAL COLOR Philadelphia vs Boston, Eastern finals Game 4 3:00 HALL OF KINGS SPECIAL COLOR 4:00 MOVIE—Biography “The Spirit of St. Louis” Evening 6:00 VOYAGE—Adventure COLOR 7:00 FBI—Drama COLOR 8:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “The V.I.Ps” (English; 1963) 10:15 NEWS AND SPORTS COLOR 10:45 MOVIE—Drama “The Frightened City” (English; 1962)
10 KROC (ROCHESTER) (NBC) Morning 10:00 FRONTIERS OF FAITH COLOR 10:30 FAITH FOR TODAY—Religion 11:00 THIS IS THE LIFE COLOR 11:30 HOMESTEAD, U.S.A. COLOR Afternoon 12:00 MEET THE PRESS COLOR Guest: Sol M. Linowitz, U.S. representative to the OAS 12:30 GARDEN ALMANAC 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “All the Young Men” (1960) 2:30 PARRISH BROTHERS—Music 3:00 NBC EXPERIMENT IN TELEVISION—Drama SPECIAL COLOR “The Questions” 4:00 WILD KINGDOM COLOR 4:30 G-E COLLEGE BOWL—Quiz COLOR Boston College vs. LSU 5:00 FRANK McGEE REPORT—News Analysis COLOR 5:30 BELL TELEPHONE HOUR SPECIAL COLOR “The Sounds and Sights of New Orleans” Evening 6:30 WALT DISNEY COLOR “Joker, the Amiable Ocelot” 7:30 HEY LANDLORD!—Comedy COLOR 8:00 BONANZA COLOR 9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Variety COLOR Guests: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, the Kingston Trio, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin 10:00 NEWS 10:20 MOVIE—Drama “Jet over the Atlantic” (1959)
11 WTCN (IND.) Morning 9:00 GOD IS THE ANSWER 10:00 BROTHER BUZZ COLOR 10:30 SUNDAY STORYBOK 11:00 CHURCH SERVICE—Presbyterian Afternoon 12:00 WORLD OF YOUTH—Religion 12:30 SUNDAY REPORT 1:00 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 1:30 ECHOES FROM CALVARY 2:00 WANTED—DEAD OR ALIVE 2:30 BOWLING TOURNAMENT 3:00 DICK POWELL THEATRE 4:00 LARAMIE—Western COLOR 5:00 ROCKY AN DFRIENDS COLOR 5:30 ADDAMSFAMILY—Comedy Evening 6:00 MOVIE—Adventure “Thunder over Sangoland” (1955) 7:30 MOVIE—Comedy “Footlight Glamor” (1943) 9:00 BISHOP SHEEN—Religion 9:30 NEWS, WEATHER, SPORTS 10:00 MOVIE—Musical COLOR “Three Sailors and a Girl” (1953)
12 KEYC (MANKATO) (CBS) Morning 9:00 MORMON CONFERENCE SPECIAL 11:00 CHRISTOPHER PROGRAM—Religion COLOR 11:30 FACE THE NATION—Interview COLOR Afternoon 12:00 FILM FEATURE COLOR 12:30 CBS GOLF CLASSIC COLOR Dudley Wysong and Kermit Zarley vs. Dave Marr and Tommy Jacobs 1:30 CBS SPORTS SPECTACULAR COLOR 1966 Formula 1, boxing, Harlem Globetrotters, soccer 3:00 MASTERS TOURNAMENT—Golf SPECIAL COLOR 4:30 AMATEUR HOUR—Variety COLOR 5:00 21st CENTURY COLOR 5:30 THIS BUSINESS OF FARMING Evening 6:00 LASSIE COLOR 6:30 IT’S ABOUNT TIME COLOR 7:00 ED SULLIVAN COLOR Guests: Peter Gennaro, Ed Ames, Shirley Verrett, Lana Cantrell, Richard Pryor, Davis and Reese, Douglas and Haig, Dick Contino 8:00 SMOTHRES BROTHERS—Variety COLOR Guests: Lana Turner, Robert Morse, the Association 9:00 CANDID CAMERA—Comedy COLOR 9:30 WHAT’S MY LINE?—Game COLOR 10:00 NEWS 10:15 NEWS COLOR 10:30 MOVIE—Comedy “Apartment for Peggy” (1948)
13 KEAU (EAU CLAIRE) (NBC) Morning 7:30 8:00 FAITH FOR TODAY COLOR 8:30 THIS IS THE ANSWER—Religion 9:00 LINUS COLOR 9:30 PETER POTAMUS—Cartoons COLOR 10:00 BIG PICTURE—Army 10:30 THIS IS THE LIFE COLOR 11:00 INSIGHT—Religion 11:30 HERALD OF TRUTH COLOR Afternoon 12:00 MIDWEST JAMBOREE 12:30 HOUR OF DELIVERANCE—Cox 1:00 PRO BASKETBALL—76ers vs. Celtics SPECIAL COLOR Philadelphia vs Boston, Eastern finals Game 4 3:00 MIDWEST FARM REPORT 3:30 FILM FEATURE COLOR 4:00 WILD KINGDOM COLOR 4:30 G-E COLLEGE BOWL—Quiz COLOR Boston College vs. LSU 5:00 HALL OF KINGS—Documentary COLOR Evening 6:00 CAMPUS COMMENT—Haas 6:15 SPORTS, WEATHER, NEWS 6:30 WALT DISNEY COLOR “Joker, the Amiable Ocelot” 7:30 HEY LANDLORD!—Comedy COLOR 8:00 BONANZA COLOR 9:00 ANDY WILLIAMS—Variety COLOR Guests: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, the Kingston Trio, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin 10:00 NEWS 10:30 AVENGERS—Adventure 11:30 MOVIE—Drama “Spy Ship” (1942)
TV
April 3, 2021
This week in TV Guide: April 8, 1967
As hard as it may be to believe, at one time the Academy Awards was appointment television. I wrote about the Oscars
at length here
, but even though I haven't watched the show in years, I'm still a sucker for the old shows, as much for what they tell us about the movies as for the movies they tell us about. The 1967 broadcast, celebrating the best of the 1966 movies, is hosted for the 13th time by Bob Hope, and one look at the nominees tells us that the British invasion continues in full swing. Only two of the five Best Actor nominees—Alan Arkin and Steve McQueen—are American; on the Best Actress side, it's even more pronounced, with only Elizabeth Taylor representing the USA (even though she was born in England).* As Bob Hope says, "There'll always be an England—even if it is in Hollywood." Or the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, as happens to be the case this year.
*Anouk Aimée is French, Ida Kaminska Polish, which just goes to show that Oscar was becoming more international even back then.
One of the challenges facing this year's producer, Joe Pasternak, is getting the nominees to show up in the first place. You wouldn't think that would be so difficult, especially when an awards show gives the winner free airtime to pontificate on whatever political cause turns them on, but in the '60s and '70s, it was actually somewhat fashionable to not appear. Stars have various reasons, of course; Sophia Loren supposedly told the Academy that she'd only show up if she knew she was going to win. "Eef I am, I'll come." They wouldn't tell her, she didn't come, and she won anyway. "Last year," Pasternak says, "Julie Christie was reluctant to come. She felt she'd be too embarrassed if she lost." She came anyway, and she won.
As C. Robert Jennings says in his backstage look at the Oscars, it's not all glamor and glitter. The pressure to win is imnense. "There's a tendency to get too tense about it now," Marlon Brando says, "and lose sight of the real purpose of the award." And that, says Jennings, is money. One producer estimates that winning an Oscar is worth about $5 milllion, and it's no wonder: "There are 50 million people who are old enough to go out to the movies but don't—thanks to TV," one movie exhibitor says. "We only see them once a year—when the Academy Award pictures are available." In that sense, I guess things haven't changed that much; TV still damages the box office, but it's not commercial television—it's streaming and on-demand.
Jennings notes that Oscar season is no longer the "political free-for-all or lugubrious, in-fought popularity contest it once was," and the Academy has tried to curb the "vulgar solicitation for votes," but still the campaigns continue. Two of the biggest spenders this year were Milton Berle and Stella Stevens, who tried unsuccessfully to parlay their supporting roles in The Oscar and The Silencers, respectively, into nominations. However, as one look at Harvey Weinstein's track record—no, not that record—reminds us, it's still possible to purchase an Oscar, and don't think Netflix isn't right there trying to get the big one for Mank. And as for popularity, I suppose you could say that it no longer depends on how many friends you have; it's how woke you are.So as the stars begin to gather—well, not this year, perhaps, but maybe next year if they let us out of our cages—for their big night on the town, they may do well to ponder why the Oscars aren't what they used to be. There's been a trend the past few years toward nominating small pictures that few moviegoers have seen, and the move toward streaming isn't entirely to blame; one recent headline notes that "On the Netflix Chart, It’s Like the Oscar Nominations Never Happened." Remember Norma Desmond's line about how it was the pictures that got small? I think that's true today, and that can be extended to cover movie stars as well.
Perhaps, and this is just a guess, but perhaps people don't like to be preached to or ridiculed based on their political or religious beliefs, either. I know I don't, and that's one reason why I quit watching the show years ago. Samuel Goldwyn, who knew a thing or two about making movies, also knew how to deliver a quote. "If you want to send a message," he said, "call Western Union." Today's celebrities probably don't even know what Western Union was. They also don't know good advice when they hear it. t t t
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: dancer-chorergrapher Peter Gennaro; singers Ed Ames, Shirley Verrett and Lana Cantrell; comics Richard Pryor, Davis and Reese, and Douglas and Haig; and accordianist Dick Contino.
Palace: Tony Martin and his wife Cyd Charisse introduce comedians Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, who satirize advertising; the singing Kim Sisters; the folk-rocking Buffalo Springfield; comic Jackie Clark; high-pole acrobat Danny Sailor; and comic illusionists Milo and Roger.
Looking back at these lineups reminds me of how big comedy teams used to be: two of them on each show. Some of them had a longer shelf life than others; Davis and Reese were TV staples during the 1950s and '60s, and of course Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks were unforgettable, both individually and as a team. On the other hand, I have no memories of either Douglas and Haig or Milo and Roger. Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse are probably the most talented duo, and they're not even a team except in their personal life. Nevertheless, Ed Ames, opera star Shirley Verrett and Richard Pryor are enough to strike the right note. This week's verdict: Sullivan.
t t t
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. This week, Cleve takes a look at Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom; TV Guide doesn't give it the full title, but c'mon—who doesn't remember those great segues to commerical that Marlin Perkins used to do from the safety of the studio, while Jim Fowler was engaging in bare-armed wrestling with an alligator? "While Jim fights to keep death at arm's length, you won't have to fight to keep debt at arm's length with insurance from Mutual of Omaha."
To be fair, Amory does mention the commercial tie-ins, although he doesn't happen to mention the sponsor's name (which ruins half the fun), but we shouldn't be surprised that as an animal lover, he's much more at ease with Wild Kingdom than he is with, for example, The American Sportsman. Watching Wild Kingdom, you can find yourself, against all expectations, completely engrossed in the story of Adélie penguins in Anarctica, thanks to the show's excellent photography and Perkins' in-depth information. The fact is that Perkins, as a host, "is so stiff he is actually fascinating, and he delivers his lines as if he had just been told that, if he didn't, he would be severly punished," which makes the show's ability to reach out and squeeze you ("Pythons can squeeze with alarming power, but illness won't put the squeeze on you with Mutual of Omaha.") all the more impressive.
At the outset, Amory shares a story of the time when a lion cub bit Perkins on camera. What did he do? "I did," he says, "what his mother would have done. I bit him back." And, on camera. Unfortunately, as it turns out, Wild Kingdom's record on staging events for dramatic purposes wasn't all that good, and when a CBC interviewer questiond him about it in the 1980s, Perkins first demanded that he turn off his camera; when the reporter refused, Perkins punched him in the face. On camera. But then, Perkins hosted Wild Kingdom for 22 years; it was, in a sense, his baby. He just did what a mother would have done.
t t t
Baseball season begins on Monday, and to celebrate the event, CBS offers the second showing of Charlie Brown's All-Stars, one of the oldest and least-remembered of the Peanuts cartoons—it's second only to A Charlie Brown Christmas in terms of air date, but it only aired through 1971. Why? Maybe because it isn't attached to a holiday (despite how baseball fans feel about Opening Day), maybe because the gang's criticism of Charlie Brown is harsh even when compared to other Peanuts cartoons. (And the strip always had a bit more of an edge to it than the TV shows.) Even though it was heavily merchandised (I still have a cap somewhere), it still never caught on in the same way.
Charlie Brown isn't the only celebration of the national pastime, though. On Saturday, NBC airs an adaptation of the marvelous musical comedy Damn Yankees (8:00 p.m., preempting Saturday Night at the Movies), with Phil Silvers as Applegate, aka the Devil; Jerry Lanning as Joe Hardy, the man who sells his soul in order that his beloved Washington Senators might finally beat those damn New York Yankees; and Lee Remick as Lola, the silky temptress who gets whatever she wants. The whole thing's introduced by Today sportscaster Joe Garagiola. If you're curious, you can see this version at YouTube . Hmm—maybe Opening Day is a holiday after all. Baseball has become a mostly regional sport since then, and I have no interest in the modern game, but I'll watch these old games from the 1960s any day.
As I've mentioned in the past , the 1967 baseball season sees one of the great pennant races of all time, with the Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox battling for the American League pennant down to the final weekend before the Cinderella Red Sox come out on top. That's all in the future, though, which gives us a chance to look at Melvin Durslag's pre-season predictions with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Durslag was half-right in thinking that the Tigers and Twins would be in the thick of it, but he had the defending champion Baltimore Orioles taking the flag. He had the Red Sox tabbed for ninth in the ten-team league, but we can't really hold that against him; nobody thought Boston had a chance. As for the National League, he sees the Philadelphia Phillies, who came so close in 1964, finally winning; the St. Louis Cardinals, who won the pennant and then defeated the Red Sox in a seven-game World Series, are picked for seventh. Ouch. A footnote: we also get the 50-game TV schedule for the Twins, all games (except for national broadcasts) are shown on WTCN. The schedule doesn't include the final weekend series against the Red Sox that decides the title; those games were added on the fly. Again, hindsight is—well, you know the rest.
t t t
The Oscars and the major leaguers aren't the only big specials on this week; there's plenty to be seen, no matter what you might be looking for. On Tuesday, Dick Van Dyke makes his return to television with a singing, dancing, comedy special (7:30 p.m. CT, CBS) in which, as Joseph Finnigan points out in his cover story, he spends 56 minutes on camera. There's a good reason for that, Van Dyke explains: whereas most shows get their guest stars and then write around them, he and his writers decided to write the show first, and then get the guests to match. It's not quite a one-man show; he's joined by Phil Erickson, his old nightclub partner, and Ann Morgan Guilbert, who played Millie Helper on the Van Dyke show. Asked why he didn't go for movies like most other TV stars do when their series comes to an end, his answer is simple and satisfying: "If you want to entertain people, go to television. That's the place you can do things you can't do in movies."
Meanwhile, my old nemesis, KCMT in Alexandria, presesnts a Sid Caesar special—or, to be more precise, The Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris Special—that was originally shown on April 5 on CBS, but airs tonight at 6:30 p.m., preempting The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. It's a glorious reunion of the cast from Your Show of Shows, and if you were to watch that as a lead-on to Dick Van Dyke, you'd have a pretty good night of television. As a matter of fact, while I can't do anything for you with Van Dyke, here's the Caesear show for your viewing pleasure.Danny Thomas is another old favorite back this week; his Wednesday night special (8:00 p.m,. NBC) features "guests representative of America's melting-pot heritage," including Jimmy Durante, Sammy Davis Jr., Vic Damone, Ricardo Montalban, Lawrence Welk and Myron Floren, Jane Powell, and Dennis Day. The Peacock Network strikes a far different note on Friday, though, with their 90-minute adaptation of Peter Miller's Broadway play "The Investigation," a stark and brittle drama that tells the story of Nazi death-camp inmates in their own words.
All of this, mind you, is subject to change, as networks may preempt regular programming to cover President Johnson's trip to Latin America.
t t t
Finally, we haven't had a fashion spread for awhile, and I can't think of anyone better to do the honors than The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.'s April Dancer herself, Stefanie Powers. KCMT may not have have time for Stefanie on Tuesday, but we'll always make the time.
The clothes are from California designer Joanna's Spring collection, and they really swing, don't they? Even THRUSH won't be able to keep up. The most expensive item, the red-and-beige checked linen pants suit, runs about $155 in 1967 dollars, which would be about $1200 today. Not knowing much about women's clothes, I still doubt it would be that expensive today. I'd hate to see what Mr. Waverly said about that expense account, though. TV
April 2, 2021
Studio One, "Pontius Pilate" (1952)
It's become kind of an occasional tradition here to share something seasonal on Good Friday. We've looked at a few Good Friday programs by Bishop Sheen, and one year it was a 1961 Hallmark Hall of Fame story "Give Us Barabbas," starring James Daly in the title role.
This year's presentation, from the CBS anthology Studio One, was originally broadcast on April 7, 1952, and concerns one of the most important yet enigmatic figures in the Bible. To say that Pontius Pilate plays a pivotal role in the story of Christ's Passion is an understatement; he is, after all, the one who pronounced the sentence of death. As a historial figure, his record is well-documented.
And yet, from the very beginning, there has been speculation as to the actual role Pilate played; some prefer to transfer blame from him to the Jews, portraying Pilate as something of a bureaucrat stuck in a no-win situation. Others speculate that, prior to his death, Pilate experienced a conversion and became a Christian. In all likelihood, the story is probably just what it seems to be: a ruthless, politically-minded governor who sought to curry favor with Rome, made a grievous error in judgement, lost control of the territory over which he ruled, and was eventually recalled in disgrace.
Here, however, we have a provocative piece of speculation, portraying Pilate as a man who was forever haunted by the decision he made and the effect it had, not only on him but on his wife. The program stars Cyril Ritchard as Pilate and Geraldine Fitzgerald as Claudia. Here is "Pontius Pilate," presented without commercial interruption.
TV
March 31, 2021
The Descent into Hell: Dialogues of the Carmelites (1957)
It is true that music can reveal truth in a way unlike that of any other form of communication, which is why we so often find ourselves turning to the masters—the “Dead White Europeans.” to coin a phrase—when we seek to understand something at its deepest, most intimate level. Bach, for instance, often called the “Fifth Evangelist”; Haydn, most especially in “Messiah”; Mozart through his Requiem, which, even if he didn’t write it all himself, could only have been the work of genius. Music has the ability to strike a sympathetic chord within our natural biorhythms, to convey emotion—as opposed to emotionalism—in such a way as to allow the listener to transcend the corporeal world and exist, even for a short time, on a higher plain.In January 1957, the first performance of Dialogues des Carmélites, French composer Francis Poulenc's opera about the Martyrs of Compiègne during the French Revolution, had its world premiere at La Scala in Italy. The opera, performed in English as Dialogues of the Carmelites, made its American debut that September in San Francisco, and on Sunday afternoon, December 8 (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception), Dialogues of the Carmelites opened the 1957-58 season of the NBC Opera Company. That the network chose to broadcast such a new opera was a bold move (reserved generally, though not exclusively, for commissioned works), and was a testament to the power of Poulanc's work, and that of the true story it told.
*It was Poulanc's wish that Dialogues be performed in the language of the local audience, and American performances have generally been done in English. NBC's policy was to perform English translations regardless of the opera's original language, so no changes had to be made for TV other than for length.
The French Revolution (1789-99) was hardly the time of enlightenment that its supporters have made it out to be, particularly the Satanic two-year period known as "The Reign of Terror." It came by its nickname honestly; writing its legacy with rivers of blood from the guillotines used in the wholesale slaughter of political opponents, and in particular the persecution of the Catholic Church. By Easter 1794, few of France's forty thousand churches remained open; many had been closed, sold, destroyed, or converted to other uses. Christianity had been denounced as "superstition" and replaced by the Cult of the Supreme Being. Approximately 30,000 French priests were forced to flee the country.
And what did this horror, described by historian William Bush as "sheer butchery," accomplish? The rise to power of Napoleon, and a war that swept the continent. It is, in its way, so typically French.
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Religious life had been outlawed by the Revolution in 1790, as part of a concerted policy to dechristianize France. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, passed in 1789, theoretically guaranteed freedom of religion in the sense that, according to Article X, "No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law." (Emphasis added.) The devil was, if not in the details, at least in the italics: since the Church was, by definition, seen as "a counter-revolutionary force," anyone who professed religious belief could be seen to be troubling "the public order," It was, one might say, an early example of attempting to bar religion from the public square.
The Martyrs of Compiègne were a community of sixteen Carmelite nuns, lay sisters and novices, living in northern France. They'd been on the radar of revolutionary authorities since 1790, when the State outlawed religious life. Beginning that year, the sisters were subjected to interrogations and threats by government officials, being forced to choose between breaking their vows of "obedience [to God], chastity, and poverty" or facing further punishment. The sisters refused, and led by their prioress, Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, determined that they would allow themselves to be executed as a sacrifice for France and the French Church rather than renounce their beliefs. Their convent was closed by government order in 1792, following the sacking of Catholic churches (on Easter Sunday, no less), and the sisters forced to reenter the outside world. Despite warnings to the contrary, the sisters continued to gather together to pray communally. In 1794 the sisters were arrested as part of The Terror, charged with treason for "religious fanaticism," "demonstrating hostility to the revolution," and being "criminals and annihilators of public freedom." On July 17, 1794, having been convicted and sentenced to death, they were taken on an open cart through the streets of Paris, where onlookers hurled insults at them and pelted them with objects. Arriving at the site of their execution, the sisters sang hymns and forgave their executioners. As they were led to the guillotine, each one approached Mother Teresa, kissed a small statue of the Virgin Mary, and asked the prioress for her "permission to die." "Permission granted," she replied. Kneeling before the blade, they chanted Psalm 117, Laudate Dominum: O praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people. / For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. / Praise ye the Lord.
The chant was cut short in each case by the falling of the blade. Mother Teresa, having granted each of her charges permission to die, was the last to be executed. The crowd, raucous only a few minutes earlier, fell silent.
It has been said that the shocking brutality of the execution of the Martyrs of Compiègne, along with the serenity and faith with which they accepted their fate, was a turning point in the Revolution. The leader of the revolutinaries, Robespierre, was himself executed ten days later, leading to the end of The Terror. The sisters were collectively beatified in 1906. t t t
Music has the ability to move people to action, to change the way in which they see and understand the world around them. In modern parlance, music can make a statement. It's no surprise, then, that Poulenc would be drawn to the story; he had returned to the Catholicism of his youth following the death of a friend in a car accident, and the horror of World War II caused him to look withing himself more deeply, and to focus his musical efforts on religious compositions. Poulenc based his libretto on an unpublished screenplay by the French writer Georges Bernanos, who had intended his work as an allegorical comparison between the Revolution and the twin contemporary threats of Fascism and Communism.
Rosemark Kuhlmann (L)and Patricia Neway Dialogues of the Carmelites tells the fictional story of Blanche de la Force, a young woman from an aristocratic family who, as her brother says, is fearful of everything including fear itself. She seeks escape from the world as a member of the Carmelites, despite the warnings of the dying Mother Superior that "the Carmelite Order is not a refuge." She becomes a friend of another young nun, Constance, who tells her of a vision she has had that the two of them will die young, and on the same day.
When the threat from the Revolution grows and her brother urges her to flee while she still has time, Blanche confesses that while she is afraid of what might happen to her in the convent, she's even more afraid to leave. Eventually, as a climate of fear grips the nation, the darkness of the Terror envelopes the sisters. A pivotal scene in the opera occurs when an officer of the State arrives with the announcement that the convent has been closed and the nuns are to rejoin the public world. In response to the officer's boast that "The people have no need of servants," Marie replies, "No, but they have a great need for martyrs," "In times like these," the officer scoffs, "death is nothing," "Life is nothing," Marie answers, "when it is so debased."
After the sisters take a vow of martyrdom, Blanche flees the chapel and returns to her home, where she is forced to work as a servant. She is rescued by Marie, who seeks to bring her back to the other sisters, but on their way they learn that the nuns have been arrested and sentenced to death. Marie, who has been determined to give her life, seeks to join them, but she is reminded that "only God decides" martyrdom, and that she has been preserved to resurrect the Order.
Meanwhile, as the rest of the nuns are led to the guillotine, they sing the Salve Regina, stopping only when the blade falls. Constance, the last of the nuns to approach the scaffold, sees Blanche emerge from the crowd, having finally conquered her fear, to take take up the chant as she walks to her own death, offering her life to God.
The opera's concluding scene, from the 1987 production by the Metropolitan Opera NBC's color production might have more accuratly been titled "Scenes from Dialogues of the Carmelites," as the nearly three-hour opera was edited to just under an hour for broadcast. Despite that, the broadcast was praised by critics; Charles A. Matz, writing in Opera News, pointed out how the television broadcast allowed viewers to transcend the experience afforded by seeing the opera in a conventional theater setting, as director Kurt Browning's close-ups "permitted vivid affinity with the torments of the protagonists and startling delight in the savor of their triumphs over the flesh.” The cast was hailed as well, with Leontyne Price as the Prioress, Madame Lidoine; Patricia Neway as the former Prioress, Madame de Croissy; Rosemary Kuhlmann as Mother Marie; Judith Raskin as Constance; and Elaine Malbin as Blanche. Peter Herman Adler, the Music and Artistic Director of the NBC Opera Company, was the conductor.
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The Martyrs of Compiègne were not the only martyrs of the Revolution. A group of 191 Catholics executed at the Carmes Prison in the "September Massacres" of 1792 are collectively known as the Holy September Martyers, and were beatified in October 1926.
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The story of Dialogues of the Carmelites is set in 1792, but religious persecution didn't end with the French Revolution, just as it didn't end with the Puritans or the Know-Nothings or the Ku Klux Klan or the election of a "Catholic" president. No, it's not over, not by a long shot.
Not when the dominant political party in this country actively pursues a policy that says, in effect, that you're free to believe whatever you want, as long as you don't try to actually put your beliefs into action. Not when religious organizations are forced to hire people who don't share their beliefs, provide medical benefits that violate their core principles, deny the teachings they profess every Sunday under fear of government investigation. Not when a prominent politician, who may or may not be the current speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, boasts that "I do my religion on Sundays." The buck may stop there, but not the Cross.
Not when a leglislator in North Dakota introduced a bill requiring priests to violate the Seal of Confession (a seal they are bound to protect to the death) if told by a penitent of sexual abuse. Or in Houston, where the city council attempted to pass a law requiring a group of pastors to "turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor." Not when a U.S. senator criticizes a judicial nominee by saying, "When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you," and another asks, "If confirmed, will you recuse yourself from all cases in which the Knights of Columbus has taken a position?"
The people have no need of servants, but they have a great need for martyrs.
Once you've decided religion no longer has a place in the public square, how long before you decide it has no place at all? Will the day come when churches are taxed out of existence because of their beliefs, or charged with hate crimes because a pastor reads from the Bible, or closed altogether because of laws seeking to "protect" the public from things like the Wuhan virus? When Christians must deny what their religion teaches in order to show "solidarity" with the State? Justice Alito, in his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges, wrote, "I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools."The anti-clericalism which drove the Reign of Terror may have started as a reaction to the relationship between the aristocrat class and the Church, but it sure as hell didn't end there, whipped up into a frenzy by Robespierre until it wound up even consuming him. "Are there no men left to come to the aid of the country?" Constance asks at one point. Replies Madame Lidoine, "When priests are lacking, martyrs are superabundant." Will Americans one day be required to choose between renouncing their beliefs and facing martyrdom? Only God decides who will be a martyr.
We die not for ourselves alone, Constance tells Blanche early in the opera, but for each other. The triumph of the Martyrs of Compiègne is the crowning glory of Dialogues of the Carmelites. Although the opera doesn't have a classic "happy ending," its effect on the viewer is one not of sadness, but of joy: the joy of Blanche conquering her fears and finding the meaning of her life with her death; the triumph of life over death is the victory of Wordsworth in "The Obsolete Man." The overall impact is moving, stirring, and ultimately heroic.
Music has the ability to move people to action, to change the way in which they see and understand the world around them.
Sometimes, the courage to do the right thing is more important than to simply go on living. "Life is nothing," said Mother Marie, "when it is so debased." On this Holy Week, the questions hang in the air. How much more debasement will it take? How far will the descent into Hell continue? TV
March 29, 2021
What's on TV? Wednesday, April 2, 1958
Once again, we're in New England, with our programming coming to you mostly from Boston, Portland, and Providence. I enjoy these issues from the late 1950s and early '60s partly because you have so many local stations with split affiliations, which means you get a good idea of what programs were considered "must see" in a particular area. Lawrence Welk often turns up in these situations; I wonder how many stations had secondary ABC affiliations primarily to make sure Welk was on the schedule? Same thing with soap operas and sporting events. I can tell you from my experience with KCMT, the examples would include Welk, Marcus Welby M.D., and General Hospital. If you're an aspiring Ph.D out there, you might consider writing your thesis on the correlation between split affiliation programming choices and the demographics of the viewing area, particularly those of race, age, and economic status. I'm sure it would contain some very interesting results.
-2- WGBH (EDUC.) AFTERNOON 5:30 UNCLE WONDER—Science 5:45 ART ADVENTURES—Bonsall EVENING 6:00 SUBJECT IS JAZZ—Selders 6:30 NEWS—Louis M. Lyons 6.50 BACKGROUNDS—Lyons 7:05 SPORTS, WEATHER—White 7:15 MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 7:45 LET’S LEARN TO TYPE 8:00 MUSIC AND RENAISSANCE 8:30 SCIENCE REPORTER—Torrey 9:00 AGRICULATURAL POLICY 9:30 I’VE BEEN READING—Duhamel “Masters of Deceit,” by J. Edgar Hoover 10:00 IMAGES—Impressions 10:30 NEWS—William Pierce
-4- WBZ (CBS) MORNING 6:30 HORIZONS—Documentary 6:45 DAILY ALMANAC—Chase, Kent 7:00 TODAY—Garroway 8:55 NEWS, WEATHER 9:00 CASH ON THE LINE—Williams 10:00 DOUGH RE MI—Quiz 10:30 TREASURE HUNT—Quiz 11:00 PRICE IS RIGHT 11:30 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—Stunts AFTERNOON 12:00 NEWS—Jack Chase 12:10 WEATHER—Don Kent 12:15 BIG BROTHER—Bob Emery 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Cain and Mabel” (1936) 2:25 NEWS—Streeter Stuart 2:30 KITTY FOYLE—Serial 3:00 MATINEE THEATER COLOR “The Inspector General" 4:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY 4:30 MOVIE—Drama “Manpower” (1941) EVENING 6.45 NEWS—Arch Macdonald 6:55 WEATHER—Don Kent 7:00 GRAY GHOST—Adventure 7:30 WAGON TRAIN 8:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST 9:00 KRAFT THEATRE COLOR “The Man in Authority” 10:00 THIS IS YOUR LIFE 10:30 TO BE ANNOUNCED 11:00 NEWS 11:15 MOVIE—Drama “The Rich Are Always with Us” (1932)
-5- WHDH (ABC, CBS, NBC) MORNING 11:05 NEWS 11:15 WE BELIEVE—Religion COLOR 11:30 FOR WOMEN ONLY COLOR 11:45 FARM AND FOOD COLOR AFTERNOON 12:00 TIC TAC DOUGH—Quiz 12:30 IT COULD BE YOU 1:00 ROMPER ROOM—Kids COLOR 1:30 BEULAH—Comedy 2:00 TROUBLE WITH FATHER 2:30 RAY DORSEY—Variety COLOR 3:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND 3:30 DO YOU TRUST YOUR WIFE?—Quiz 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND—Music 4:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial 5:00 WILD BILL HICKOK 5:30 CAPTAIN BOB—Cartoons COLOR EVENING 6:00 DATELINE BOSTON—Smith COLOR 6:30 TOWN AND COUNTRY TIME COLOR 6.45 NEWS—Huntley, Brinkley 7:00 NEWS—John Day COLOR 7:05 WEATHER—Cole 7:10 SPORTS—Curt Gowdy COLOR 7:15 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 7:30 DISNEYLAND 8:30 TOMBSTONE TERRITORY 9:00 OZZIE AND HARRIET—Comedy 9:30 BETTY WHITE—Comedy 10:00 BOXING—Louisville, Ky Yolande Pompey vs. Rory Calhoun 10:50 GADDABOUT GADDIS COLOR 11:00 NEWS 11:15 JACK PAAR—Variety
-6- WCSH (Portland) (NBC) MORNING 6:55 FARM MARKET FATS 7:00 TODAY—Garroway 8:55 NEWS, WEATHER 9:00 LIFE WITH ELIZABETH 9:30 ROMPER ROOM—Kids 10:00 DOUGH RE MI—Quiz 10:30 TREASURE HUNT—Quiz 11:00 PRICE IS RIGHT 11:30 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—Stunts AFTERNOON 12:00 TIC TAC DOUGH—Quiz 12:30 IT COULD BE YOU 1:00 DOWNEAST DATELINES 1:30 SUSIE—Comedy 2:00 HOMEMAKING—Agnes Gibbs 2:30 KITTY FOYLE—Serial 3:00 MATINEE THEATER COLOR “The Inspector General" 4:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY 4:30 MODERN ROMANCES 5:00 I MARRIED JOAN—Comedy 5:30 FUN HOUSE—Kids EVENING 6:00 RIN TIN TIN—Adventure 6:30 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 6.45 NEWS—Huntley, Brinkley 7:00 TELEPHONE TIME—Drama 7:30 WAGON TRAIN 8:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST 9:00 KRAFT THEATRE COLOR “The Man in Authority” 10:00 THIS IS YOUR LIFE 10:30 BADGE 714—Jack Webb 11:00 NEWS 11:15 JACK PAAR—Variety
-7- WNAC (CBS) MORNING 7:00 LAUREL AND HARDY—Comedy 7:45 FILM SHORT 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 8:45 STAR TIME—Variety 10:00 GARRY MOORE 10:30 OUR MISS BROOKS—Comedy 11:00 ARTHUR GODFREY 11:30 DOTTO—Quiz AFTERNOON 12:00 HOTE COSMOPOLITAN—Serial 12:15 LOVE OF LIFE 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 12:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 1:00 LOUISE MORGAN—Women 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS 2:00 MR. AND MRS. NORTH 2:30 HOUSE PARTY 3:00 BIG PAYOFF—Quiz 3:30 VERDICT IS YOURS 4:00 BRIGHTER DAY—Serial 4:15 SECRET STORM—Serial 4:30 MY LITTLE MARGIE—Comedy 5:00 AMOS ‘N’ ANDY—Comedy 5:30 MICKEY MOUSE CLUB EVENING 6:00 SKY KING—Adventure 6:30 COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO 7:00 NEWS—Vin Maloney 7:10 WEATHER 7:15 PATTI PAGE—Songs 7:30 SAN FRANCISCO BEAT—Police 8:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER 8:30 BIG RECORD—Music Guests: Liberace, Sally Ann Howes, Johnny Mathis. Host: Patti Page 9:00 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 9:30 I’VE GOT A SECRET—Panel 10:00 CIRCLE THEATER “The Trusted Thief” 11:00 NEWS 11:15 MOVIE—Double Feature 1. “Try and Get Me” (1951) 2. “Saturday’s Hero” (1951)
-8- WMTW (Poland Spring, ME) (ABC, CBS) AFTERNOON 12:00 HOTE COSMOPOLITAN—Serial 12:15 LOVE OF LIFE 12:30 NEWS—Bob Joyce 12:35 BUILDING AMERICA 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Headline Shooter” (1933) 2:00 BEAT THE CLOCK 2:30 HOUSE PARTY 3:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND 3:30 DO YOU TRUST YOUR WIFE?—Quiz 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND—Music 4:30 COMMODORE BOB—Kids 5:00 WILD BILL HICKOK 5:30 MICKEY MOUSE CLUB EVENING 6:00 NEWS, WEATHER 6:30 MOVIE—Musical Comedy “Swing Time” (1936), part 2 7:15 NEWS—John Daly 7:30 DISNEYLAND 8:30 TOMBSTONE TERRITORY 9:00 OH! SUSANNA—Comedy 9:30 I’VE GOT A SECRET—Panel 10:00 BOXING—Louisville, Ky Yolande Pompey vs. Rory Calhoun 10:45 FAMOUS FIGHTS—Boxing 11:00 NEWS 11:15 FILM DRAMA
-9- WMUR (Manchester, NH) (ABC, CBS) AFTERNOON 2:00 SACRED HEART—Religion 2:30 MOVIE—Drama “Profile” (1954) 4:00 AMERICAN BANDSTAND—Music 4:30 GERRY KEARNEY—Variety 5:30 DUFFY’S TAVERN—Comedy EVENING 6:00 LONE STAR RANCH BOYS 6:15 FABIAN OF SCOTLAND YARD 6.45 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 7:00 BINGO AT HOME—Game 7:30 DISNEYLAND 8:30 LET’S MAKE A SONG 9:00 STAR PERFORMANCE—Drama “Shadowed” 9:30 BETTY WHITE—Comedy 10:00 TOP TUNES—Lawrence Welk 11:00 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 11:15 MOVIE—Comedy “He Stayed for Breakfast” (1940)
10 WJAR (Providence) (ABC, NBC) MORNING 6:35 RELIGIOUS PROGRAM 6:50 FARM AND FACTORY 6:55 NEWS, WEATHER 7:00 TODAY—Garroway 9:00 WORLD AROUND US—Adams 9:30 HIPPITY HOP—Cartoons 9:45 MOVIE—Drama “Canadian Pacific” (1949) 11:00 PRICE IS RIGHT 11:30 TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES—Stunts AFTERNOON 12:00 TIC TAC DOUGH—Quiz 12:30 IT COULD BE YOU 1:00 MOVIE—Drama “Lifeboat” (1944) 2:30 KITTY FOYLE—Serial 3:00 MATINEE THEATER COLOR “The Inspector General" 4:00 QUEEN FOR A DAY 4:30 MODERN ROMANCES 5:00 MOVIE—Drama “The Rookie Cop” (1939) EVENING 6:15 NEWS, WEATHER 6:30 JIM BOWIE—Adventure 7:00 SILENT SERVICE—Drama 7:30 WAGON TRAIN 8:30 FATHER KNOWS BEST 9:00 KRAFT THEATRE COLOR “The Man in Authority” 10:00 THIS IS YOUR LIFE 10:30 FRANK SINATRA—Variety 11:00 NEWS 11:15 MOVIE—Comedy “The Bachelor and the Bobby-soxer” (1947)
12 WPRO (Providence) (CBS) MORNING 7:00 WEATHER 7:15 STORYTIME—Beth Chollar 7:45 NEWS—Dave Mohr 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 8:45 ROMPER ROOM—Kids 9:45 NEWS—Virginia Stuart 10:00 GARRY MOORE 10:30 HOW DO YOU RATE? 11:00 ARTHUR GODFREY 11:30 DOTTO—Quiz AFTERNOON 12:00 HOTE COSMOPOLITAN—Serial 12:15 LOVE OF LIFE 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 12:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 1:00 MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS 2:00 BEAT THE CLOCK 2:30 HOUSE PARTY 3:00 BIG PAYOFF—Quiz 3:30 VERDICT IS YOURS 4:00 BRIGHTER DAY—Serial 4:15 SECRET STORM—Serial 4:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial 5:00 WILD BILL HICKOK 5:30 MICKEY MOUSE CLUB EVENING 6:00 SALTY BRINE’S SHACK—Western 6:30 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 6.45 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 7:00 TELEPHONE TIME—Drama 7:30 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy 8:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER 8:30 BIG RECORD—Music Guests: Liberace, Sally Ann Howes, Johnny Mathis. Host: Patti Page 9:00 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 9:30 I’VE GOT A SECRET—Panel 10:00 CIRCLE THEATER “The Trusted Thief” 11:00 NEWS 11:15 MOVIE—Drama “Babbitt” (1934)
13 WGAN (Portland) (CBS) MORNING 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO 8:45 NEWS—Richard Hottlet 9:00 ALONG MAINE STREET 9:30 AMOS ‘N’ ANDY 10:00 GARRY MOORE 10:30 HOW DO YOU RATE? 11:00 ARTHUR GODFREY 11:30 DOTTO—Quiz AFTERNOON 12:00 HOTE COSMOPOLITAN—Serial 12:15 LOVE OF LIFE 12:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial 12:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial 1:00 LIBERACE—Music 1:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS 2:00 BEAT THE CLOCK 2:30 HOUSE PARTY 3:00 BIG PAYOFF—Quiz 3:30 VERDICT IS YOURS 4:00 BRIGHTER DAY—Serial 4:15 SECRET STORM—Serial 4:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial 5:00 RED RIDER—Serial 5:30 PHANTASIES AND FABLES EVENING 6:30 NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER 6.45 NEWS—Douglas Edwards 7:00 GRAY GHOST—Adventure 7:30 I LOVE LUCY—Comedy 8:00 LEAVE IT TO BEAVER 8:30 BIG RECORD—Music Guests: Liberace, Sally Ann Howes, Johnny Mathis. Host: Patti Page 9:00 MILLIONAIRE—Drama 9:30 I’VE GOT A SECRET—Panel 10:00 CIRCLE THEATER “The Trusted Thief” 11:00 NEWS 11:15 MOVIE—Comedy “The Luck of the Irish” (1948)
TV
March 27, 2021
This week in TV Guide: March 29, 1958
You know that feeling you get when you're watching a movie or TV show and the hero or heroine is just standing there, enjoying life, when a monster or masher or thug approaches them from behind? And you can see the terror coming, but our hero can't, and you want to just shout at the screen, "Look out!" "Turn around!" Sometimes they do, but most of the time you're left saying to yourself, "They never saw it coming."I was reminded of this sensation while looking through this week's issue, which features several big-money quiz shows—Twenty-One, Name That Tune, Tic-Tac-Dough, The $64,000 Question and The $64,000 Challenge—and the premieres of two new ones: Top Dollar, based on the kids' game "Ghost" and boasting a top prize of $5,000, debuts Saturday night on CBS, while Wingo, with a first prize of $250,000, takes its bow on the same network Tuesday night. NBC, meanwhile, has announced that Rosemary Clooney's variety show will be replaced for the summer by, you guessed it—a quiz show.* And our lead story profiles that master emcee of the quizzes, Jack Barry. Yep, despite all the whispers circulating since last year, they just don't see it coming, do they?
*Actually, they wound up just moving The Price is Right into the time spot. In retrospect, that worked out pretty well.
Barry praises the star of his greatest creation, Twenty-One. "[Charles Van Doren] was the greatest personality we've had," Barry says. Before Van Doren, Barry and his partner, Dan Enright, had to "comb the sidewalks in front of their studio" to find people to fill the audience; now, they turn fans away. When asked if he thinks his quiz shows have served any purpose other than "mere entertainment," Barry bristles. "Mere entertainment? Well, there's nothing wrong wiith mere entertainment. Entertainment's the heart of TV."
It's five months from now, on August 15, that the quiz show Dotto is cancelled after accusations of match fixing. From there, the dominoes fall, one by one: The $64,000 Challenge (cancelled September 7), Twenty-One (October 16), The $64,000 Question (November 2), Tic-Tac-Dough (December 29). In October 1959, the quiz show hero Charles Van Doren appears before a Congressional committee and loses his job. CBS then cancels their remaining quiz shows, including Name That Tune and Top Dollar. Barry and Enright would be blacklisted from television; it would be 1972 before Barry finally returned to national television prominence, with one of his biggest hits, The Joker's Wild.* *Debuting on the same day as the revival of The Price Is Right.
All this is in the future, of course, but there's one quote from the profile of Barry that stands out. Defending the quiz show, he says, "I do think all our shows have stimulated the desire to become better informed. If I didn't think that—. Well, I wouldn't want to think that we didn't do something useful." Unfortunately, it was when the wrong people became better informed that Barry's problems began.
Yes, it's a terrible time to be premiering a new quiz show, isn't it? t t t
Starting in 1954, Steve Allen helmed his own NBC variety show which, at the beginning, aired opposite that of Ed Sullivan. It didn't run as long as Ed's, of course, but then Allen said his goal was never to conquer Ed, just to coexist with him, which he did for several seasons. Let's see who gets the best of the contest this week.
Sullivan: Ed's guests tonight are comedian Sam Levenson; singers Jane Morgan, Georges Guetray, Della Reese and Frankie Vaughan; Anton Dolin and his London Festival Ballet; pianists George Shearing, Roger Williams and Dorothy Donegan; the O'Brady Puppets; and The Three Bragazzis, a comedy act.
Allen: Joining Steve tonight are Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy; movie actress Marie McDonald; boxer Carmen Basilio; the Step Brothers, dance team; and All-American high school and college basketball stars. Regulars: Don Knotts, Joyce Jameson, Tom Poston.
We have stars on both sides of the divide this week, but ultimately one show is destined to win out. And while Ed's got a solid lineup, it's hard to overestimate what big stars Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were during the OTR era. I mean, you have to be special to pull off a ventriloquist act on the radio, right? And Carmen Basilio, in addition to being a boxing champion, helped blow the whistle on the mob's control of the boxing business. With that one-two punch, it's no surprise that Allen takes the honors this week.
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There's a different kind of March Madness afoot this week—no, not the NCAA basketball tournament; that finished up last weekend. This Saturday, it's the first game* of the NBA finals, pitting the defending champion Boston Celtics against the team they vanquished last year, the St. Louis Hawks. (2:30 p.m., NBC) The Hawks, led by all-star Bob Pettit, take the title in six games, and it will be the last time anyone not named the Boston Celtics wins the NBA championship until 1966, one of the greatest runs of dominance in the history of professional sports.*In case you were wondering, the 2019 NBA finals, the last one to be played in the pre-virus era, started on May 30—61 days later than the start of the 1958 finals.
And speaking of the NCAA basketball championship, it wasn't on national television—we've talked about that before. But Saturday afternoon on CBS, the NCAA swimming and diving championships are. Go figure.
Speaking of sports, you might be forgiven for looking twice at ABC's Wednesday Night Fights (10:00 p.m.), this week featuring light heavyweight Yolande Pompey against middleweight Rory Calhoun, and asking yourself if that's the Rory Calhoun, who, prior to his acting career, was, among other things, a mechanic, a logger in California's redwoods, a hard-rock miner in Nevada, a cowboy in Arizona, a fisherman, a truck driver, a crane operator, and a forest firefighter. One thing he was not, however, was a professional boxer (though he did go to jail once for slugging a cop). That honor goes to Herman "Rory" Calhoun, who at one time was the #3 ranked middleweight contender in the world, and whose manager changed his name to Rory because of the actor. Rory the boxer wins tonight's fight in a sixth-round TKO; Rory the actor will star in the series The Texan, debuting in the fall. I wonder if the two of them were ever on TV opposite each other?
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Ever have that feeling that your TV viewing choices are horrible? For many local movie fans, that's a good thing, as horror movie shows—and their hosts—have become television's latest craze. It was three years ago that long-haired, sharp-nailed Vampira (the "Ghoul of the Golden West") became a sensation on KABC in Los Angeles, and it ramped up last fall when Shock Theater, a syndicated package of Universal classic monster flicks premiered. With titles like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man, Shock Theater became a veritable Garden of Eden for a "spooktacular collection of leering, smirking, black-clad other-world characters" that often wound up garnering more fans than the movies themselves.
Philadelphia has Roland, a "monster of ceremonies" who's proved so popular that an event held at the station blocked traffic for hours. Miss Tarantula Ghoul and her sidekick, Heathcliff the rattlesnake, do the honors at KPTV in Portland, Oregon. Terry Bennett, Marvin the Near-Sighted Madman, livens things up at WBKB in Chicago, ripping the fingernails off of women to light his cigarettes. WBAL in Baltimore has Dr. Lucifer, while Youngstown, Ohio has David Allen, whose head floats in the mist while he serves up his lines. And the list goes on and on. I'm sure most of you out there have examples of favorite hosts you watched while you were growing up.
(l-r) Roland, Marvin, Miss TarantulaThe tradition has continued to the present day: think Elvira and Svengoolie as more colorful examples, while Joe Bob Briggs does the honors on the Shudder channel; there's MST3K if you're looking for a more interactive version. Joe Bob points out why movie hosts are important, particularly in these days when society has become so atomized. “There’s something in our DNA that says you need to watch a movie with other people," he said last year. "It’s a social thing. If you watch a movie on your phone, on your laptop, by yourself and it’s a great movie what happens when it’s over? You feel extremely lonely,”
I've said before that I miss the days of movies on local television (even though they were often edited and had commercials), and the absense of local movies means the absense of local movie hosts. As Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson says, "Unless you’re on a network that has a lot of money and access to a lot of films, you can’t get the films yourself." Even though hosts like Briggs and the cast of MST3K make movie watching a more social occasion, the local movie host created a sense of community that just isn't the same on a larger scale. Technology may have made the world smaller, but in some ways it's larger than ever.
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One of the most entertaining half-hours of the week is Saturday night, when Mike Wallace sits down to interview actor, playwright, director, and all-around raconteur Peter Ustinov. (10:00 p.m., ABC) Ustinov, currently starring in Romanoff and Juliet on Broadway, talks to Wallace about, among other things, "why he believes that humorists should be prepared to go to jail for their convictions, and why he contents that the best kind of humor is 'subversive.'" Fortunately for all of us, that episode exists thanks to Wallace himself, who donated The Mike Wallace Interview Collection to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and you can watch it here .
Sunday afternoon offers a preview of things to come; first, Senator John F. Kennedy is the guest on Face the Nation (4:30 p.m., CBS). That's followed at 5:00 by a special 90-minute edition of See It Now, as Edward R. Murrow investigates the possible dangers of radioactive fallout from atomic tests. And at 6:30, Walter Cronkite's Twentieth Century gives us a look at what it's like to live in a comminist satellite state in "Riot in East Berlin." Better get used to it while we have time.
Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday, and Monday Voice of Firestone (9:00 p.m,. ABC) presents its annual Easter program, with soprano Nadine Connor singing the music of Faure, Adam and Grainier, telling the dramatic story leading up to the events of Good Friday and the Crucifixion. The idea that commercial television would even notice Holy Week, let alone commemorate it, is something I actually find rather moving, especially nowadays.Tuesday, Ed Sullivan makes a cameo appearance as himself on the Howard Duff-Ida Lupino sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve (8:00 p.m., CBS), hiring the Adams's to write a guest column for his newspaper syndicate. And on Telephone Time (9:30 p.m., ABC), the actor version of Rory Calhoun appears in "Trail Blazer," a tale of post-Civil War cattlemen.* And at 10:30 p.m. on Providence's WPRO, the Peloquin Choral Group continues a series of Holy Week music
*Just think, one more night and he could have been the lead-in to his namesake's fight.
On Wednesday, NBC's Matinee Theater (3:00 p.m.) presents a colorcast remake of Danny Kaye's classic The Inspector General, with Wally Cox essaying Kaye's role. Disneyland (7:30 p.m., ABC) looks at the history of flight in "Man in Flight," a combination of cartoons and historical footage. And Kraft Theatre, the oldest program still on television (it debuted in 1947, and will leave the air at the end of this year), tells the story of "The Man in Authority," a Scotland Yard inspector investigating a murder that he committed.
Thursday, bridge authority Charles Goren , who literally wrote the book on the game, is one of Groucho Marx's guests on You Bet Your Life (8:00 p.m., NBC), after which Friday and Smith hunt down someone passing bad checks on Dragnet (8:30 p.m., NBC). and George Gobel visits Tennessee Ernie Ford on The Ford Show. (9:30 p.m, NBC)
Holy Week reaches its passion on Good Friday, first with Providence Bishop Russell McVinney leading the devotion known as the Stations of the Cross (8:00 p.m., Channel 10) and concluding with Providence radio voice Leo R. LaPorte narrating the story of The Passion (10:00 p.m., WPRO). Elsewhere, Frank Sinatra welcomes Spike Jones and his band, with Spike's wife and vocalist Helen Grayco (9:00 p.m., ABC), and Lee Marvin is on the trail of a Lonelyhearts killer who meets and then murders his female victims in M Squad. (9:00 p.m., NBC) And at 11:15 p.m. on Channel 7, it's that all-time Easter favorite It's a Wonderful Life. Yes, it's the same one you're thinking of, and I'm not entirely sure when it became a Christmas tradition (maybe when it fell into the public domain?), but I remember the first time I saw it was in the summer. For the second time, go figure.t t t
Finally, here's something you don't see very often: not an apology, per se, but an explanation, from Remington Rand, sponsor of Leave It to Beaver, regarding the show's recent time change from 7:30 Eastern to 8:00—a change instigated by the sponsor.
To put this in some context, you have to remember that we're still in a time when sponsors, not networks, exercise control over program scheduling. In other words, Remington Rand purchases the timeslot, and then fills that slot with a program they sponsor. Networks hate this, becuase a low-rated show can ruin an entire night's schedule; the aforementioned Voice of Firestone the centerpiece of a massive controversy when NBC (which aired the program at the time) and Firestone battled over the show's timeslot. And to tie this into our lede, it was sponsor pressure that played a central role in the Quiz Show Scandals. (Who says there isn't synergy in television history?) Eventually, networks will exert more control over series production; that, combined with diversifying show sponsorship, effectively ends the domination of sponsors.
Returning to the present, this ad from Remington Rand is a fascinating example of sponsor sensitivity to viewing habits, trying to turn a perceived minus into a plus. Yes, they say, they understand that some of the program's "good friends" might be unhappy (and it's an interesting choice of words, "friends" rather than the more sterile "viewers," underlying once again the intimate nature of television). However, in the view of the sponsor (and here the copy slips into advertising mode), Beaver "is not so much a children's program as it is a family program suitable for young children to watch," and it deserves to be seen by a wider audience, one that includes older children and parents. "Believe it or not, only about half the people turn on their television sets as early as 7:30 Friday—while just a half hour later, but earlier in the week, two out of three homes have turned their sets on." This means that a later timeslot on Wednesday means "hundreds of thousands of extra families" have the chance to watch Beaver—and, not coincidentally, the commercials that "demonstrate the values of owning a Remington© Portable Typewriter." In short, while some friends will have to make difficult choices, "we hope that at your house the young in age and the young in heart will somehow find a way to keep on watching 'the best new program of the year.'" It's signed "Hopefully yours." Things work out pretty well for Beaver; it lasts five more seasons, finally leaving the air for rerun immortality in 1963. But after this inaugural season on NBC, it moves to ABC for the 1958-59 season—back at 7:30 p.m. TV
March 25, 2021
Around the dial
At the arts and intellectual journal The New Criterion , Michael Taube takes a fond look back at the beloved puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and how it attracted an audience of adults (many of them influential) as well as children to its often-sophisticated humor.
Over at The Ringer, meanwhile, Alison Herman remembers Jessica Walter , who died yesterday at the age of 80, and her long and successful career, which stretched over six decades, and ran the gamut from Grand Prix and Play Misty for Me to Archer and Arrested Development, and won fans at every stop.
It's the Hitchcock Project at bare-bones e-zine, and Jack cntinues his look at the work of William Fay with the fourth-season episode " Your Witness ," a mystery with a nasty little twist at the end, starring Brian Keith and Leora Dana. You'll want to check it out.
At The Horn Section, Hal dips back into the run of Love That Bob! with " Bob and Automation ," with a brunette Angie Dickinson as Bob's main attraction, while the household struggles with Bob's austerity plan; they're skimping so he can automate his business, but he's using the computer for dates!
The Broadcast Archives at the University of Maryland links to this piece at The Atlantic which describes how television was never the same after All in the Family . I'm probably not a good one to ask since I was never a fan of the show (but I am old enough to have watched it in its original run), but unquestionably it changed television, especially the sitcom. For good or for bad?
At Classic Film & TV Cafe, it's another of Rick's "seven things to know" features, this week about Julie Newmar , the real Catwoman of Batman (as well as nemesis of Bob Cummings during the making of My Living Doll), who has a lot more worth knowing about.
A book tells many stories, only some of which appear between the covers; the rest of them make it to places like Garroway at Large, where Jodie tells her tale of woe: being outbid on eBay for a December, 1952 episode of Your Show of Shows guest-hosted by none other than Dave Garoway .
It's been awhile since we visited The Twilight Zone Vortex, but the wait was worth it, as Jordan begins his final journey: the bittersweat trip through the Zone's fifth and final season , when, for a variety of reasons, the best episodes served primarily to remind us of the show's past glories. At Cult TV Blog, John dips back into The Avengers (the real ones, Steed and Mrs. Peel, not the superheroes), with the wonderful episode "The Living Dead." A ghost story? You're going to have to watch it and find out.
Finally, at Television Obscurities, it's the March look at some very neat YouTube finds , including a promo film for the 1963 ABC fall season hosted by Edie Adams, an episode of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. and a kinescope of a 1949 episode of—you guessed it, Kukla, Fran and Ollie. TV
March 24, 2021
March 20, 2021
This week in TV Guide: March 23, 1968
It turns out that today's moviemakers didn't invent the superhero universe after all. Fifty years before Marvel and DC came to dominate the big screen (and increasingly the small one as well), their animated counterparts were involved in taking over Saturday morning kids' shows. here’s something new in the world of Saturday morning kids’ shows. With the exception of a few standards, such as The Flintstones, we are left with, in the words of Robert Higgins, the "Weirdo Superheroes." As Higgins notes in one of this week's cover stories, "three-quarters of the cartoons being aired on all three networks fall into the Weirdo Superhero category." But where did the "Weirdo Superhero" come from? To a great extent, from where you’d expect it to come: comic books in general, and Marvel in particular. Says Stan Lee, who helped create (among others) Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and Iron Man), "Superheroes had been around for a million years. We revitalized them." The "revitalized" superhero includes character traits that kids can identify with—"hang-ups," as Lee calls them, such as acne, sinus trouble, and dating girls, problems that even their superpowers couldn’t overcome. Within the superhero genre is a sub-category—the “ugly hero,” such as The Thing. "People can identify with someone who’s not beautiful," Lee says by way of explanation. "You say, 'That guy could be me.' But you still feel superior to him." I wonder of Christopher Nolan watched these before he made his Batman trilogy?
The angst-ridden superhero is designed to appeal to the growing awareness and sophistication of modern kids. "Children today are highly sophisticated," says Ed Vane, head of ABC’s daytime programming. "They don’t suspend that sophistication on Saturday morning." The superhero is then grafted onto a format that has been a staple of children’s programming since the days of the Saturday matinee serial: the action-adventure genre.
This doesn’t come without drawbacks, though. Dr. Fredric Wertham contends that "Television—and its display of violence—comes to the child with adult approval," and that it’s foolish to think this doesn’t have an impact on the child. This is television’s eternal conundrum, with what might be TV’s version of Schrödinger's Cat: is it plausible to posit that viewers can be influenced by commercial content and not by the content of the program itself?I’d interject here that there’s violence, and there’s violence. Violence has always been relative – NBC’s Larry White points out that “when we were kids, our parents had no idea what we were seeing in the movies on Saturdays.” I would strongly resist the idea that watching Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner or Tom and Jerry makes children more violent. That is, literally, “cartoon” violence, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to agree with Dr. Schramm here that any child who’d look to drop an anvil on his playmate because he saw it happen to Wile E. Coyote probably has a screw loose somewhere anyway.
But if the “Weirdo Superhero” is supposed to relate to children in a different, more relevant, more realistic (or “sophisticated,” if you prefer) way, does it then stand to reason that the child sees this violence in a different, perhaps more malignant light? And isn’t it interesting to note how much this argument parallels the argument about video games? Does the violence in the stunning realism of today’s video games somehow influence the effect it has on children, inuring them to the impact of the violence?
For all this, there’s only a brief mention of what struck me from the very outset when I looked at that Saturday schedule. I call it "creative poverty," and Higgins gives a specific description of what’s lacking: comedy. There’s no comedy in these cartoons. The Flintstones, which continues to run on ABC, is of course based on a sitcom, and Bullwinkle creator Jay Ward’s George of the Jungle (also on ABC) probably comes the closest to a new cartoon that’s simply funny. The Three Stooges, violent though it may be, is slapstick comedy. Take away the comedy, and you’re left with The Sopranos. Ward acknowledges the dearth of comical cartoons but acknowledges that "They’re [Weirdo Superheroes] getting the ratings and that’s all the networks care about."
Children's television could be so much better, you and I both know that. But if there's one virtue to be found in these shows, it's to remember the Golden Rule: whoever has the gold rules. These cartoons make money for the networks. and that's what counts. Still, ABC's Vane looks wistfully at what television's capable of: "We'd love to give the kids Reading Room or A Day at the Planetarium. We'd be applauded by many—and watched by absolutely no one." The pity is, he's probably right. t t t
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: singers Jimmy Dean, Nancy Sinatra, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Spanky and Our Gang; comedians George Carlin, and Lewis and Christy; magician Dominique; and Charlie Cairoli, clown act.
Palace: Host Phil Harris introduces Bill Dana as Olympic skier José Jiménez; England's Hendra and Ullett; Sid Miller and Rose Marie; comic magician Jacques Ary; singers Abby Lane, Philip Crosby, and the rocking Hollies.
This is from the short-lived, ill-advised period when ABC moved Hollywood Palace from Saturday to Thursday night. In the new timeslot, it found itself up against Dean Martin, which is probably why it didn't last there very long. As for the matchup, there's not a lot to differentiate this week's matchup. Ed offers Jimmy Dean, the Supremes, and George Carlin; meanwhile, the very funny Phil Harris hosts "Comedy at the Palace," and while it might not be politically correct today, I always liked Dana's José Jiménez character. Not the best week, not the worst. This week's verdict: Push.
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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. Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, says Cleveland Amory, is everything that That Was the Week That Was wasn't. Whereas the former was "too cute and smug, and often too labored as well," Laugh-In is "a genuine, ingenuous breath of fresh fare."
Laugh-In is one of the sensations of the season, and let Cleve count the ways. It is faced-paced, with fresh features as well as faces; the music is excellent; and the technical mix of the various segments is seamless. The cast—and if you need a reminder at this point, it includes Judy Carne, Eileen Brennan, Goldie Hawn, Henry Gibson, Gary Owens, Jack Riley, Roddy Maude-Roxby and Jo Anne Worley—is uniformely good, with Worley outstanding among them. And their fresh approach has a way of making even old jokes funny.
This is not to say that Laugh-In is a perfect hour. For one thing, an hour is, Amory thinks, a half-hour too long; humor is a very difficult thing to sustain over 60 minutes. "[T]he same jokes which in the first half-hour might have turned us on, in the second all too often turn us, and the set, off." Thirty minutes seems to be about right. The second drawback, oddly enough, lay with the hosts themselves. Dan Rowan's put-downs wear well, but Dick Martin's put-ons "are, more often than not, a bit much with which to put up." I can understand that; Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine is one of the funniest comic bits of all time, but to hear a variant of it, week after week, could get, well, weak. Still, Cleve gives it a strong grade: "A for effort, B for performance and C for—see it."
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One of the great controversies of the 1950s involved Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's sister, and her romance with the divorced Group Captain Peter Townsend. A marriage between the two was vetoed by the Church of England, which at the time forbade divorce and remarriage (head of the church: Queen Elizabeth), and in 1960 she married the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, who upon marriage became the Earl of Snowdon. Tuesday night at 9:00 p.m. CT, CBS Reports presents "Don't Count the Candles," a photographic essay by Lord Snowdon on aging. (It ought to be mentioned in fairness to all concerned that Lord Snowdon was an excellent and perceptive photographer, particularly with portraits.) In addition to pictures depicting ordinary people dealing with various aspects of getting older, there are interviews with people at both ends of the aging spectrum, from Twiggy to Noel Coward to Field Marshal Montgomery. BBC interviewer Derek Hart is the host; the show will go on to win two Emmys.For her part, Margaret turned out to be the black sheep of the royal family—well, until Harry, that is— having scandalous love affairs, saying outrageous things, and in general embarrassing the rest of the family at every opportunity. My mother always thought Margaret did those things on purpose, and while I don't know whether or not there's any empirical data proving this, it doesn't require an advanced degree in psychology to suggest that Maggie was getting back at Liz for what happened with Townsend. The only thing that could have made this story better was if the stymied Group Captain went on to become a rebellious rock musician , but such was not the case.
Eventually, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon will divorce (a droll line from the always-reliable Wikipedia notes that their marriage was "accompanied by drugs, alcohol, and bizarre behaviour by both parties such as Snowdon's leaving lists between the pages of books the princess read for her to find, of 'things I hate about you'"); Snowden goes on to marry (and divorce) the former wife of film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, while Margaret never remarries, but carries on, shall we say, a colorful life.
As was the case with the Ingrid Bergman story we looked at a couple of years ago , the saga of Princess Margaret illustrates once again of how perspectives on marriage have changed over the years. It was one thing for Margaret, not even the heir to the throne, to scandalize Church and Country by marrying a divorced man; it is, apparently, something else that the current heir is, in fact, married to a divorced woman with whom he apparently conducted an affair while married to his former wife. Again, no judgement here, merely observation.
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Here's a look at the highlights of the week:
Saturday: If you need further evidence as to how sports expands to fill the available space (even if it isn't really available), Saturday gives you additional proof. In 2021, this Saturday marks the beginning of the NCAA basketball tournament; this Saturday in 1968 marks the end, as Sports Network Incorporated presents the championship game between UCLA and North Carolina, telecast live from Los Angeles. (9:00 p.m.) Unlike the rival NIT tournament (aka the runner-up tournament), which airs Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. on CBS (Dayton defeats Kansas 61-48), the NCAA tournament has yet to make it to network TV, and so a syndicated lineup of stations carries the UCLA-North Carolina final, which UCLA wins 78-55 for its second consecutive title and fourth in the last five years. Viewers around the country are impressed by the Lew Alcindor-led Bruins—unless you live in the Twin Cities, because the game isn't shown here. WTCN, the independent station in the Twin Cities, normally carries syndicated specials like this, but tonight Channel 11 has the final of the Minnesota State High School Basketball Tournament, one of the biggest sporting events in Minnesota; the third-place game begins at 7:00 p.m., and the championship game around 8:30 p.m.* *Edina High School wins its their third consecutive championship; they'd also won two consecutive hockey championships. I hated Edina; everyone hated Edina. It was an affluent suburb of Minneapolis; everyone called them cake-eaters.
Sunday: For many years NBC has featured a variety special built around one of the big touring ice shows, the Ice Follies. Not only does it give Shipstads & Johnson the opportunity to induce us to marvel at large spectaculars staged on ice*, it also gives the network a chance to show off some of its own talent in the role of host. Last year, for example, Ed Ames, costar of NBC's Daniel Boone, hosted and sang two of his hit songs, "My Cup Runneth Over" and "Try to Remember." This year (8:00 p.m.), it's the turn of the aforementioned Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, probably doing the shtick that Cleveland Amory finds so endearing.
Monday: Armstrong Circle Theatre was a staple of television history through the Golden Age and into the early 1960s. Alternating with the U.S. Steel Hour, Circle Theatre transitioned from a straight anthology to a series specializing in docudramas of historical events, many relevant to the time. When it was resurrected by ABC in the late 1960s, it was as a prestige vehicle for musical theater productions made for TV. Tonight (8:30 p.m.), it's Cole Porter's delightful Kiss Me, Kate, the musical version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," starring the then- real-life husband-and-wife team of Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence as the battling lovers Fred and Lilli. Notwithstanding the live musicals that NBC and Fox have produced the last few holiday seasons, musical comedy is yet another genre all but gone from television.
Tuesday: If Lord Snowden's "Don't Count the Candles" is a meditation on the twilight of life, ABC's documentary "How Life Begins" (6:30 p.m.) takes viewers back to the very beginning. Executive Producer Jules Power predicts that his program will be controversial: "I expect some people to severely criticize this program." The show focuses on the science of human reproduction, from "the fertilization of the egg, cell division, embryonic development and the delivery of a child." I'd imagine there was some controversy about the show, complaints that television was dealing graphically with a subject matter best left to parents, and so on. I also suspect, as Power goes on to say, that there will be many "approving letters from parents, teachers and community leaders who will say it's about time TV dealt candidly with this subject."Wednesday: The Avengers (6:30 p.m., ABC) presents the new companion to John Steed, Tara King, played by the shapely Linda Thorson. In tonight's story, Steed and King investigate the Alpha Academy, "where a fanatical headmaster is training youths for the domination of space." But to do so, they're going to have to deal with the hero of Friday night's WTCN movie—see more below.
Thursday: It's the premiere of the 1958 big-screen A Night to Remember, the definitive telling of the sinking of the Titanic, on the CBS Thursday Night Movie (8:00 p.m.). Based on the best-seller by Walter Lord, the movie stars Kenneth More as Second Officer Lightoller, one of the officers who performed nobly that night. Judith Crist called this a "not to miss" movie, a "thrilling document of the 1912 disaster at sea" with Kenneth More leading a supurb cast that "artfully permits the drama of life to supersede that of art." As any reader knows, I've been fascinated by the Titanic almost all of my life—I absolutely know that I watched this movie that night. It's one of the few times I can be that sure about something I watched that long ago.
Friday: At 6:30 p.m., WTCN leads things off with the sports documentary Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin, Bud Greenspan's masterpiece about the American Olympian's return to the site of his greatest triumph: the four gold medals he won at the politically charged 1936 Berlin Olympics. As well as being educational, it's a stirring, even moving, portrait of the dignified Owens, and a reminder of when athletes let their accomplishments in the arena speak for themselves. You can see it at YouTube , of course. Easter is April 7, so it's no surprise that tonight's Hallmark Hall of Fame (8:30 p.m., NBC) has a Biblical theme. It's James Daly and Kim Hunter in a repeat showing of Henry Denker's acclaimed 1961 drama "Give Us Barabbas." (That's on YouTube as well .) And that Channel 11 movie I mentioned earlier? It's I Aim at the Stars (9:00 p.m.), the biography of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (played by Curt Jurgens), mastermind of Germany's V-2 rocket who later became one of the brains behind the American space program. According to Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff (and other sources as well), the bitter joke in England was that the movie should have been called, I Aim at the Stars but Sometimes Hit London. TV
March 19, 2021
What's on TV? Friday, March 29, 1968
It's true that if you look hard enough, you casn almost always find something to write about. Today, for example, the daytime run of ABC's The Fugitive comes to an end with, fittingly enough, the final episode. The Fugitive ran in daytime for 12 months, from April 1967 to March 1968, long enough for each of the 120 episodes to air twice. When that final episode aired last August, it scored a 72 share of all viewers. I don't suspect as many people saw it this time. As you might expect, we're in the Twin Cities this week.
-2- KTCA (EDUC.) Morning 9:00 CLASSROOM—Education 11:30 YOUR DOLLAR’S WORTH Afternoon 12:30 CLASSROOM—Education 2:00 FILM SHORT 2:15 CLASSROOM—Education 3:00 EFFICIENT READING COLOR 3:30 TEACHING ENGLISH—Education 4:00 YOUR RIGHT TO SAY IT 4:30 PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW 5:00 KINDERGARTEN—Education 5:30 BIG EASEL—Drawing Evening 6:00 SPECTRUM—Science 6:30 MANAGERS IN ACTION—Lecture 7:00 THIS WEEK ON WALL STREET—Don Dahl COLOR 7:30 CONTINENTAL COMMENT 8:00 YOUR WORLD THIS WEEK 8:30 FOCUS ON THE FRENCH 9:00 EMERITUS—Interview 9:30 THE WRITTEN WORD 10:00 NET PLAYHOUSE—Drama “A Passage to India”
Two shows you're not likely to see on PBS today: Your Right to Say It, because you don't have that right, and People Want to Know, because they don't.
-4- WCCO (CBS) Morning 6:00 SUNRISE SEMESTER COLOR 6:30 SIEGFRIED—Children COLOR 7:00 CLANCY & CARMEN COLOR 7:40 CLANCY & WILLIE COLOR 8:00 CAPTAIN KANGAROO COLOR 9:00 LIVE TODAY COLOR 9:30 MERV GRIFFIN—Variety COLOR Guests: Pierre Salinger, Marty Allen, Neil Diamond, Lillian Briggs 10:00 ANDY GRIFFITH—Comedy COLOR 10:30 DICK VAN DYKE—Comedy COLOR 11:00 LOVE OF LIFE—Serial COLOR 11:25 NEWS—Joseph Benti COLOR 11:30 SEARCH FOR TOMORROW—Serial COLOR 11:45 GUIDING LIGHT—Serial COLOR Afternoon 12:00 NEWS—Montgomery COLOR 12:20 SOMETHING SPECIAL COLOR 12:30 AS THE WORLD TURNS—Serial COLOR 1:00 LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING—Serial COLOR 1:30 HOUSE PARTY COLOR Guest: Mike Connors 2:00 TO TELL THE TRUTH COLOR 2:25 NEWS—Edwards COLOR 2:30 EDGE OF NIGHT—Serial COLOR 3:00 SECRET STORM—Serial COLOR 3:30 BEVERLY HILLBILLIES COLOR 4:00 MIKE DOUGLAS—Variety COLOR Co-host: Anna Moffo. Guests: Skitch Henderson, Henny Youngman, Jack O’Brien, the Irish Rovers 5:30 NEWS—Walter Cronkite COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Dave Moore COLOR 6:15 WEATHER—Bud Kraehling COLOR 6:20 SPORTS—Hal Scott COLOR 6:30 HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS SPECIAL COLOR Globetrotters vs. Washington Generals “Wild Wild West” will not be seen. 7:30 GOMER PYLE, USMC—Comedy COLOR 8:00 MOVIE—Drama COLOR “The Hellions” (English; 1961) 10:00 NEWS SCENE COLOR 10:45 MOVIE—Western COLOR “The Last Wagon” (1956) 12:30 EAST SIDE/WEST SIDE
I really do wonder who won that game between the Globetrotters and the Generals.
-5- KSTP (NBC) Morning 6:15 DAVID STONE—Music COLOR 6:30 CITY AND COUNTRY COLOR 6:55 DOCTOR’S HOUSE CALL—James Rogers Fox COLOR 7:00 TODAY COLOR Guests: Dennis King, Dorothy Tutin, Warren Pomeroy 9:00 SNAP JUDGMENT—Game COLOR Guests: Johnny Carson, Patricia Harty 9:25 NEWS—Nancy Dickerson COLOR 9:30 CONCENTRATION COLOR 10:00 PERSONALITY—Game COLOR Celebrities: Peter Lawford, Soupy Sales, Diana Sands, George Hamilton 10:30 HOLLYWOOD SQUARES—Game COLOR Celebrities: Eve Arden, Shelley Berman, Nanette Fabray, Noel Harrison, Della Reese, Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Charley Weaver 11:00 JEOPARDY—Game COLOR 11:30 EYE GUESS—Game COLOR 11:55 NEWS—Edwin Newman COLOR Afternoon 12:00 NEWS—Gene Berry COLOR 12:00 WEATHER—Morris COLOR 12:15 DIALING FOR DOLLARS—Game COLOR 12:30 LET’S MAKE A DEAL COLOR 1:00 DAYS OF OUR LIVES COLOR 1:30 DOCTORS—Serial COLOR 2:00 ANOTHER WORLD COLOR 2:30 YOU DON’T SAY!—Game COLOR Celebrities: Leonard Nimoy, Pat Carroll 3:00 MATCH GAME COLOR Guests: George Hamilton, Bess Myerson 3:25 NEWS—Floyd Kalber COLOR 3:30 DIALING FOR DOLLARS—Game COLOR 4:30 OF LANDS AND SEAS—Travel COLOR 5:00 NEWS—Gene Berry COLOR 5:30 NEWS—Huntley, Brinkley COLOR Evening 6:00 NEWS—Bob Ryan COLOR 6:15 WEATHER—Morris COLOR 6:20 SPORTS—Al Tighe COLOR 6:30 TARZAN—Adventure COLOR 7:30 STAR TREK—Drama COLOR 8:30 HALLMARK HALL OF FAME SPECIAL COLOR “Give Us Barabbas” 10:00 NEWS—MacDougall COLOR 10:15 WEATHER—Morris COLOR 10:20 SPORTS—Al Tighe COLOR 10:30 TONIGHT—Variety COLOR Guest host: Sammy Davis, Jr. 12:00 ALAN BURKE—Discussion COLOR Guest: Rev. William Rausher
Sammy Davis, Jr. is wrapping up a week as guest host on The Tonight Show. According to the episode guide, his guests included Keir Dullea, and I'll bet he was plugging 2001.
Having seen as many daytime lineups as I have over the years, it occurs to me that ABC was missing an all-time lineup: The Dating Game, followed by Wedding Party, The Newlywed Game, Dream House, The Baby Game, and Divorce Court. Kind of sums up the era in a nutshell, doesn't it?
Earlier in the week, Jesse Owens was one of Sammy's guests on Tonight, which probably had something to do with promoting tonight's documentary. You really ought to check that out from the link I included on Saturday, if you haven't alread done so. He was a class act.
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