This week in TV Guide: March 18, 1961

Perhaps no star demonstrates the change in popular culture over the last 60 or so years more than Ingrid Bergman.

In 1950 there were fewer stars bigger than Bergman, who had appeared in a string of hits including Intermezzo, Casablanca, Joan of Arc and The Bells of St. Mary's, and had won an Academy Award as Best Actress for Gaslight.  She then became involved in a scandal - an affair with director Roberto Rossellini (they were both married to other people at the time) which left her pregnant, and her reputation in tatters.  Her adultery got her denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate (as "a horrible example of womanhood") and disinvited from The Ed Sullivan Show, and she remained in something of an exile even after winning her second Oscar in 1958 for Anastasia.  It wasn't until 1958, when she made a triumphant appearance as a presenter at the Oscarcast, that she returned to the American spotlight, and even then the lengthy ovation she received from the audience was controversial - some felt it amounted to a tacit endorsement of her past behavior.

This week, Bergman prepares for a rare television appearance, in the drama Twenty-Four Hours in a Woman's Life* on CBS Monday night.  Gilbert Millstein's profile only alludes to that scandal, remarking that "in the last two decades, she has been successively praised, blamed, boycotted, picked over, analyzed, adjured, sympathized with, litigated over and clasped once more to the public breast without any noticeable erosion." Bergman herself says that "Everybody feels that you belong to them.  I would have liked to have my own problems in peace, but it was not to be and I could not change any of it."  Having played a nun in The Bells of St. Mary's and a saint in Joan of Arc led people to view her not as a woman, but through the prism of the roles she played.

*Written by John Mortimer, better known as the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

And that is just one of the ways in which we see the massive cultural changes over these years.  It's hard to imagine, for example, that the public, cynical as they now are, would feel so betrayed by an actress' personal life.  For that matter, adultery itself doesn't have the cache it used to, Tiger Woods notwithstanding.  The old saying, "there's no such thing as bad publicity" seems to be more true now than ever. Hugh Grant's indiscretion a few years ago was played mostly for laughs, and probably helped Jay Leno's career more than anything else.  With the advent of reality television to go along with the fanmags, embarrassment and public ostracism are things of the past.

The fallout over Ingrid Bergman's scandal was probably excessive (didn't the Senate have anything better to do?) but it came from a period in time when there was a common moral code, a sense of right and wrong that was generally accepted by a majority of the public.  If people lacked charity in their reaction, it could be said that their hearts might have been in the right place.

Ultimately, though, it's time to live and let live.  Ingrid Bergman, her elegance and her talent, are back - and we're the more fortunate for it.

***

Preempted by the Bergman special on Monday is The Danny Thomas Show, and here we have another example of how things have changed, albeit a smaller, less monumental one.  It has to do with our cover girl, Marjorie Lord, co-star of the Thomas show, and its origin goes all the way back to 1956.

In that year, Jean Hagen quit the Thomas show, then known as Make Room for Daddy.  For the show's first three seasons Hagen had played Margaret Williams, wife of Thomas' character Danny Williams.  But Hagen had tired of the role, and of Thomas*, and took a hike.  She was written out as having died, and the show's fourth season concerned Danny's search for a new wife.  Enter Lord, who as nurse Kathy O'Hara quickly captured the hearts of Danny and his kids.  At the end of that fourth season, the two were engaged.

*Rumor has it that so great was the antipathy between the two, Thomas (who also produced the show) refused to put the Hagen episodes into syndication once the series had accumulated enough to comprise a successful package.

Typically, this would have set up an episode surrounding the wedding, perhaps to kick off the new season - a sure-fire ratings winner that would have been heralded as the television "event of the year," or some such nonsense.  Shows from The Farmer's Daughter to Get Smart to Andy Griffith to Rhoda and beyond* have played that chestnut.  But not in this case.  No, as the fifth season started, Danny and Kathy were already married, and looking for a bigger place to live.

*Not to mention Luke and Laura.

I don't know why that decision was made (perhaps some of you out there do), but I approve wholeheartedly.  I've never liked the cloying sentimentality that accompanies those "very special episodes"; when I was a kid (just to prove to you how warped my childhood was), I used to envision Andy Griffith's marriage to Helen being broken up by some kind of air raid by a foreign power.  Why the Soviets would choose to invade some hick town in North Carolina is beside the point; what matters (besides the fact that I had the Legos and the model airplane bombers to play it all out) is that I derived great satisfaction from seeing everyone's plans laid to waste.

Anyway, we read that the ratings for the Thomas show skyrocketed following the introduction of Lord as his wife, so perhaps he figured the show didn't need to resort to the gimmick of a wedding episode.  Whatever the reason, the idea of a program passing up that kind of a ratings bonanza is something we're not likely to see happen in television today.

***

Let's stick with Monday for a moment more, because if you plan on watching Bergman, you're going to have to pass up two other programs that, in our pre-DVR era, you might never see again.  The first one, a novelty more than anything else, is The Play of the Week's presentation of "archy and mehitabel," starring Eddie Bracken and Tammy Grimes.  archy and mehitabel (lower case intentional*) were the creation of Don Marquis, a columnist for the New York Evening Sun, and charmed readers from the beginning.  archy is "a cockroach with the soul of a poet," or as TV Guide puts it, "a flair for free verse," and his sidekick mehitabel is an ally cat "with a penchant for free love."  Together, the two of them have charmed readers ever since with their light poetry and whimsical stories.  Carol Channing costarred with Bracken in the original musical production, and a Broadway version, Shinbone Alley, featured Eartha Kitt as mehitabel (no doubt an audition for her later appearance as Catwoman), with dialogue written by Mel Brooks.

*archy would "type" the stories of their adventures, leaping from key to key on a typewriter.  Since he was unable to operate the shift key, everything appeared in lower case.

If you'd rather wait to get your singing cats from, well, Cats, then you might prefer Bing Crosby's latest special at 8:30pm CT on ABC.  Der Bingle is in France, and his guests include Maurice Chevalier (naturally), tenor Aldo Monaco, and singer-dancer Carol Lawrence.  It's sometimes odd to think of Crosby on television in anything other than a Christmas special, but of course he did a lot of specials throughout the season, and Christmas, as we know, comes but once a year.

Don't see anything to watch yet?  Then try The Barbara Stanwyck Show at 9pm on NBC.  This is a single-season anthology series hosted by Stanwyck, who also starred in almost every episode.  It was released on DVD a few years ago, and while it's not a great show, it's pretty good, and Stanwyck wins a Best Actress Emmy for it.  Tonight's episode is "Adventure on Happiness Street," with Stanwyck as the only recurring character in the series, import-export tycoon Josephine Little.  It is said that the Little character, who appeared in three of the series' 36 episodes, is intended to star in a spin-off series that never comes to pass.  It is a typical Stanwyck character - tough, intelligent, strong, not in the mood to take much guff, but with a sensitive side underneath all that.  Although Stanwyck doesn't get a chance to develop Josephine Little into a series, she will return in a few years with another tough character: Victoria Barkley in The Big Valley.

Finally, CBS follows the Bergman special with its 30-minute anthology series of its own, The June Allison Show.  (And when was the last time a network scheduled a half-hour program in the 9:30 time slot?)  Tonight's feature, "The Secret Life of James Thurber" starring Orson Bean as cartoonist John Monroe (a stand-in for Thurber), is notable in that a few years later the Monroe character returns, played by William Windom, in NBC's My World and Welcome to It.  I've always had a fondness for that title, acting as it was as the inspiration for the title of the motherblog.

***

Enough of Monday, you say.  Wasn't there anything else going on the rest of the week?  Well, let's see.

Ever heard of a series called Follow That Man?  It ran on several networks from 1949 through 1956, and starred Ralph Bellamy as private eye Mike Barnett.*  I've seen some episodes on DVD; it's pretty good.  Not great, but not a waste of time either - Bellamy's almost always worth watching.  Anyway, it pops up in syndication frequently in the TV Guides of this era, usually on a Monday-Friday weekday strip.  In this case, it's on weekdays at 1pm on independent Channel 9.

*One of his sidekicks in the early years was Robert Preston.  Professor Harold Hill himself!

As is the show preceding it, the sitcom Willy.  (Not to be confused with Free Willy, according to Wikipedia.  As if.)  It stars June Havoc as a lady lawyer from New Hampshire now living and working in NYC.  It only ran for one season; I confess I've not heard of it before, and I imagine part of the hook of the show must have been the female attorney angle.

With a name like Hadley, he just has to be good

And then, just to round out Channel 9's pre-matinee movie block, there's Racket Squad, starring Reed (no relation) Hadley as a San Francisco detective busting crime rackets.  (And you thought it was about tennis, right?)  It also ran for a few years in the early 50s; I've seen a couple of episodes of it, too, but as much as I wanted to like it I just couldn't get into it.

Follow That Man and Racket Squad come as part of Mill Creek's Best of TV Detectives set, and if you can find it for less than $10, it's worth picking up.  Most of the shows are fairly forgettable, but there are a number of small treasures in there, including a number of 50s Dragnet episodes, David Janssen as Richard Diamond, and Beverly Garland in Decoy.  (Which was not that great, but when you've got the young Beverly Garland, what else do you want?)  As a sampler package, you're going to find that one or two episodes will give you your fill of most of these series.

One series that did leave me wanting more was, surprisingly, Michael Shayne, which aired on NBC Friday nights at 9pm.  It starred Richard Denning, who had been in Mr. and Mrs. North and would go on to play the governor in Hawaii Five-O, as a tough but suave private detective in Miami.  I wrote about Michael Shayne, and Denning in general, a couple of years ago, and I had occasion to see another of the few available episodes a week or two back.  Perhaps it was because I had low expectations that I enjoyed Shayne; it certainly isn't the greatest PI show ever made, but Denning is winning and the whole thing is fun.  There are more episodes out there on the grey market, but not, alas the complete single season that it ran.

***

A quick sports note: on Saturday afternoon NBC presents an opening-round game in the NIT basketball tournament, from Madison Square Garden in New York.  There was a time when the NIT was a very big deal; in the early days of college basketball it was more prestigious than the NCAA tournament, and even after the latter became the undisputed crowner of the national champion, the NIT remained a significant title well into the 60s.

One of the main reasons for the NIT's status was that that, in those days, the NCAA tournament was not the massive 68-team event it is today.  In 1961 the NCAA field was probably 22 or 24 teams, all of them either conference champions or independent at-large teams, which meant there were a lot of very good sides left out.  Hence, the NIT.  In 1961, twelve teams made up the field for the tournament, which was played out over a week or so at the Garden, an attraction in and of itself.  The two teams playing in this first-round game, Providence (20-5)* and DePaul (17-7), likely would both make the NCAAs today with those kinds of records.  But when the big tournament is more selective, the smaller tournament prospers.  After all, when the humans are eating filet mignon, the scraps fed to the dogs are still going to be pretty good.

*Providence, in fact, goes on to win the tournament, defeating Saint Louis in the final 62-59.

***

And finally, the U.S. Steel Hour features Oscar winner Shirley Booth in what was then a rare television appearance, in the play "Welcome Home."  The plot line:

Charles and Laura Austin have been planning a trip through Europe for a long time.  But they'll have to sell the house to raise the money.  And if the house goes, so does Jenny Libbott (Shirley Booth), their maid-cook-governess and companion for 25 years.

Don't worry, Shirley.  If the Austins dump you, I know the Baxters will be only too happy to take you on.

US-USSR hockey, 1960 Winter Olympics

A little late with this perhaps, but I just ran across this footage today: CBS' coverage of the first period of the US - USSR hockey game at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, CA, with - I believe - Bud Palmer at the mic for the play-by-play.  (There are several versions available; this one appears to be the complete game.)

A few observations: first, Bud Palmer isn't exactly an unbiased announcer, is he?  But I always enjoyed listening to his work.

As was the case with the 1980 Miracle on Ice, this isn't the gold medal game; the medals were decided based on the overall record of the teams in the medal round.  The US finished with a perfect 5-0 record in that round, followed by Canada at 4-1, and the Soviet Union at 2-2-1.  The US actually clinched the gold with their 9-4 victory over Czechoslovakia the next day.  (By the way, the corners on the ice surface are really deep, aren't they?  It makes the rink look almost rectangular.)

And did you notice the sunshine streaming across parts of the ice and the crowd?  Olympic regulations of the time required all events to be held outside (or, more precisely, they couldn't be held "under a roof"); thus, Blyth Arena  was constructed with one complete side open (the one facing the camera).  The Olympic rings were attached via cables, and ropes were hung down in an effort to cut down on the sun's glare on the ice.  I don't know how you all feel about it, but I think it's kind of neat.  And with the success of the NHL's Winter Classic, why not have all the skating events outside?  The arena in Cortina for the 1956 games did this to great effect.*

*Not to mention it's appearance in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only.


Al Michaels, eat your heart out!


Cross-posted to Our Word and Welcome to It.

Lucky Us

The Lucky Strike Papers: Journeys Through My Mother's Television Past
by Andrew Lee Fielding
(BearManor Media, 264 pages, $22.58 paperback)

When it comes to books about the world of classic television, readers can be forgiven for feeling they're walking into a minefield.  Some books are little more than glorified fanzines that capably demonstrate the author's enthusiasm for his subject but can be painful to read; others are dry scholarly tombs that give readers all the facts (and I do mean all), but little of the fun behind them; there are episode guides that offer little insight into what makes a television series special; and there are those that somehow manage to completely remove an era from its cultural context.

Happily, The Lucky Strike Papers is none of these.

What it is is a charming, affectionate survey of a particular time in the history of both America and television, with Andrew Lee Fielding as our tour guide.  It's partly a biography of the author's mother, singer Sue Bennett, who appeared on several television series during the 50s and 60s, but it's much more than that.  By taking Ms. Bennett's career as his starting point, Andrew Fielding takes us through post-war America, and gives us a colorful look at the nascent television industry and some of its milestone characters and programs.

In case you haven't noticed yet, I liked this book.  A lot.

Remember those pitfalls I mentioned at the beginning?  Well, the reason The Lucky Strike Papers doesn't fall into any of them is because Fielding is a writer who knows how to tell a compelling story, bringing to life people as varied as bandleader Kay Kyser, who brought his Kollege of Musical Knowledge to radio and television before becoming a Christian Science practitioner; future talk-show hosts Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas, who performed with Sue Bennett and remembered her fondly; Snooky Lanson and Russell Arms, with whom Bennett sang on Your Hit Parade, the legendary program sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes (hence the book's title), and many more.

In doing so, Fielding avoids the mistake that so many writers make when they're too close to their subject - he's given us not a rote recitation of his mother's career in every detail, nor a loving hagiography, but an adventure through a stunningly exciting time in the history of media, with Bennett's television career as the impetus that guides us through various milestones while giving us a real look at the context in which these adventures take place.  We make stops in cramped television studios, vast theaters converted for use by the new medium, the early technical wizardry of location shooting, and even the use of the famed ocean liner United States as a floating set for Hit Parade.  And this tells us so much more about the world of the 50s, when popular music told stories, when transatlantic travel was the epitome of glamour, and when Americans learned about the miracle that allowed flashing images to enter their living rooms.

In other words, this is right up my alley.

I find it interesting that reading books about television can often be more informative than watching television itself.  Programs on the history of TV sometimes devolve into a kind of home movie - and people of my age still remember the stab in the pits of our stomachs when the next-door neighbors invite us over to see the movies from their recent vacation.  Books, on the other hand, can only capture still photos, snapshots of a specific moment frozen in time, and they have to rely on words to fill in the rest.

And Fielding does this with a style that I found very enjoyable to read.  It's not only well-written, but Fielding has a distinctive approach, using a narrative voice that's almost quasi-documentary in tone.  It's very effective, giving the reader the sense of flipping through the pages of a scrapbook and reading the captions written on the backs of pictures.  In doing so, he generates a warmth not only for the age, but for the people participating in it.  He makes it come alive, which is one of my tests as to how good a book is.

Another is whether it makes me want to learn more, to know the people whose stories it tells.  And Fielding does just that.  By the end, I wanted to know Sue Bennett, to be able to talk with her and ask her about those times and her particular place in television history.  That's not possible now, but in Andrew Lee Fielding's book, we meet her through her son, and his love not only for his mother but for her life in television, and television itself, is the next best thing.

***

Now, a moment of full disclosure - I link to Andrew's blog, The Lucky Strike Papers, and I've linked to several pieces he's posted.  One day I got a very nice email from him, asking if I'd be interested in a copy of his book.  Well, I wrote back, it just so happens that I've already got your book.  Unfortunately, it's packed away in one of forty or so boxes, waiting to be transported from North Carolina to Texas.  But I'm really looking forward to reading it, since I enjoy the blog.

We've corresponded several times since then (Andrew is nothing if not a gentlemen, and he's been gracious in thanks when I've linked to him.  In fact, I should be thanking him for providing me with such interesting things to read.) and The Lucky Strike Papers has always been the number two book on my stack of upcoming reading material.  But then there was the whole JFK anniversary, and Christmas, and something always seemed to be coming up.

Finally, I'd had enough.  I put aside a book that I was in the middle of (I haven't finished it yet), and pulled Andrew's to the top of the list.  I didn't have many doubts that I'd like it, but what if?  Could I be honest and objective about a book if it wasn't any good?

I think you know the answer to that.  I don't go out of my way to offend, but I've never pulled any punches on this blog either.  And when I say I can highly recommend The Lucky Strike Papers, you know that I've not been compromised in any way.

This book is good.  Buy it.  Read it.  Read the blog.  Enjoy them - I'm pretty sure if you're reading this now, you will.

This week in TV Guide: March 4, 1961

Raymond Burr was on the cover of TV Guide at least a dozen times, between Perry Mason and Ironside, not to mention his turn as Pope John XXIII.  There's very little new to be written about him, and we know that much of what we've already read will turn out not to be true.  There are a couple of things that remain consistent through all these stories, however: that Ray Burr is a very private man, and that he's a mensch to work with.

Richard Gehman's profile of Burr this week alludes to his life as "one long series of heartbreaking tragedies," most of which didn't actually happen, but there's a significant line in this section, in which Gehman remarks that "few of Burr's friends know anything about him."  It's likely that, in retrospect, what they did know of him might not have been so.  Lest you think I'm hammering Burr, I'm not, or at least I don't mean to.  It is, however, impossible to write about him without picking up these small pieces, which appear in so many articles about him, and contrast them with what we've since learned about him.

Raymond Burr is one of my favorite actors, just as Perry Mason remains one of my favorite series.  And the comments from Burr's colleagues on Mason demonstrate why he was so well-liked on the set.  He's a practical joker, for one thing, his favorite victim being Barbara Hale, who plays Mason's devoted secretary Della Street.  He's good to the crew, with "a desire for everybody to be happy, to be wanted and to belong," leading one person to refer to the Mason set as "the happiest company in Hollywood."

He's also loyal, and not afraid to fight for what he believes in.  When William Talman, who plays Mason's nemesis Hamilton Burger, was suspended from the show following a morals charge (later dismissed), Burr was outraged and fought CBS constantly until Talman was reinstated.  And Ray Collins, who plays Lt. Arthur Tragg, remained listed on the opening credits even after his health prevented him from appearing on the show.  This was, of course, also at Burr's "request."

This article is the first of a three-part series on Burr's life; subsequent parts will go into detail on the more dubious assertions about Burr's past.  In later years, articles will elaborate on these events, but they'll also discuss Burr's devotion to visiting American troops in battle areas, and his continuing commitment to his colleagues.  A mensch indeed.

***

Here's an interesting little slice of life, airing live on Sunday afternoon on Channel 11 - the championship game of the State Catholic High School Basketball Tournament.*  Yes, back in the day (and maybe still, in some areas) parochial high schools competed in their own tournaments, separate from that of the public schools.

*Although, given the program's five-hour running time, I have to think Channel 11 was showing more than than one game.

The reasons for this are numerous, and obvious, in 1961: private schools are able to attract students from a larger geographic area than the average high school*, giving them a "recruiting" advantage; Catholic schools are part of a culture that is, in general, less assimilated into the mainstream, etc.  The differences between the Catholic tournament and the "real" tournament, played later in March, are there as well:  the public school tournament is held in Williams Arena, home of the Minnesota Gophers and shrine of basketball in the state, before crowds that would rival those of contemporary NBA teams, with a Saturday night championship game viewed on statewide television; the Catholic tournament is held in the smaller St. Paul Auditorium and finishes on Sunday afternoon.

*Nowadays, in many areas, students are free to enroll wherever they choose, which cuts down on the "recruiting" advantage.   

It's a small but telling example of how distinct the Catholic subculture was in 1961.  I've read stories of dances at Catholic schools where teachers checked students for their baptismal certificates before letting them in, and Protestants who were warned they'd go straight to Hell if they stepped into a Catholic church.  One of the major goals of the Second Vatican Council was to encourage ecumenism between faiths and assimilate Catholics into the greater culture; in other circumstances, this could be the jumping-off point for an entire discussion on the effects of the Vatican II vis-à-vis the current state of Catholic culture and practice (or lack thereof).  I think we'll just let this speak for itself, though.

***

I've mentioned before that I'm a big fan of Ernie Kovacs, and this Wednesday Kovacs, along with his wife Edie Adams and a cast of nutty sidekicks including Hans Conried, Pat Carroll and Peter Hanley, appear on CBS' U.S. Steel Hour in the crime drama spoof "Private Eye, Private Eye."  Given the description of the show (see below), I would have anticipated a very funny hour; however, a contemporary review labels it "pleasant but bland," a show that "tries very hard to be funnier than it is."

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

It's true that Kovacs is an acquired taste, one that many people (critics included) often failed to get, but at the same time I can totally understand how the show might have underachieved.  The reviewer comments that the most entertaining part of the show, in his opinion, is Kovacs' "attitude of perpetual boredom," which might well have been an indicator that he knew it wasn't working.  On the other hand, it also could have been his acknowledgement of the absurdity of the situations he was portraying, such as a bit about a sponsor trying to bring some culture to his detective series.  Oh well.

***

The Play of the Week is one of David Susskind's projects, an attempt to recapture the magic of Golden Age television drama.  It isn't a network drama, appearing instead on a syndicated lineup of 100 or so stations nationwide, from 1959 to 1961.  (In the Twin Cities it's on independent Channel 9 on Wednesday at 8:30pm.)  The quality of programming on Play of the Week is significant, and telling in comparison to that seen on TV today; the premiere episode was Euripides' "Medea" (with a translation by the poet Robinson Jeffers), and later productions were of works by authors as varied as Steinbeck, Sartre and Chekhov.

This week's drama, "Legend of Lovers," is by playwright Jean Anouilh, whose play "Becket" will later be adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole.  "Legend of Lovers" is an adaptation of the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, in this case updated to France in the 1930s, and stars Robert Loggia and Piper Laurie.  Again, this is something I'd have a hard time imagining making it to television screens today.  Its competition is The Barbara Stanwyck Show on NBC (followed by our favorite Jackpot Bowling Starring Milton Berle), and Peter Gunn on ABC.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

Continuing in the cultural vein, NBC's Omnibus on Sunday afternoon features another famous playwright, Pulitzer and Oscar winner William Saroyan*.  Saroyan is on Omnibus to discuss the trend in theater toward the avant-garde, starting with an analysis of his own play "The Time of Your Life," both in its original version and in the avant-garde style, followed by performances from plays by Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee.  With playwrights like that, I'd assume this show isn't a laugh riot.  Probably not even as funny as "Private Eye, Private Eye."

*Fun fact: William Saroyan's cousin is Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., whose stage name was David Seville.  As in "Alvin and the Chipmunks" David Seville.

And here's something you don't see often: a drama special on a weekday afternoon.  It's "Mother and Daughter," an NBC Special For Women airing at 3:00pm CT on Thursday afternoon.  It tells the story of a mother worried about her 16-year-daughter's growing independence, and the daughter's belief that her parents "wouldn't understand."  It's got a heavy-hitting cast, with Patricia Neal and Arthur Hill as the parents, and Lynn Loring as the daughter.  Just to show that this isn't a typical soap-opera story, NBC newswoman Pauline Frederick appears after the drama, interviewing New York City health commissioner Leona Baumgartner.

***

Wait, we haven't covered the rest of the sports scene yet!  Saturday's sports is pretty modest - no Wide World of Sports, no CBS Sports Spectacular, no PGA golf tournament.  Channel 11, which has shown Missouri Valley Conference basketball all season, has Saint Louis taking on Bradley.  NBC's NBA coverage continues with Syracuse vs. Philadelphia*, and CBS has an hour-long replay of an NFL game between Baltimore and Chicago from last season.  Channel 4 follows that football up with a tape of last night's college hockey between North Dakota and Minnesota, bitter rivals then as now, and finishes up with the Big 10 basketball game of the week between Purdue and Illinois.

*For those of you too young to remember, these are the Philadelphia Warriors, who at the end of the next season will move to San Francisco, leaving in Philadelphia a vacuum that will be filled the following season by the new 76ers, who used to be - the Syracuse Nationals.

One of the things I enjoy about these early 60s games is the modesty of the arenas and stadiums in which the games take place, in the days before the arenas had become palaces.  That Purdue-Illinois game, for example, is played at George Huff Gym on the Illinois campus.  In checking, it turns out that Huff Gym was a formidable place for visiting teams to play in.  The Illini have won 81% of the games they played at Huff, which they'll vacate in two years in favor of Assembly Hall, an arena that's newer, cleaner, bigger, and less charming.  Huff held less than 7,000, which of course is the main reason it had to go, but the atmosphere in these small arenas, packed with students and filled with college spirit, is impossible to replicate.  There are a few of the old buildings still around, but even one of the best, Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota, has been renovated to provide the modern conveniences, and while we should be grateful it's still around, it's still kind of sad to think of those that weren't, and the atmosphere that disappeared with them.

***

Finally, the odd show of the week is on Friday evening at 7pm on KTCA, Channel 2, the educational station. There's no description of it, just the title: United World Federalists.  Is anyone really surprised that a program like this would be on public television?

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar*

I've written before about the Academy Awards on television, about how I used to look forward to it with great anticipation but now scarcely pay any attention to it.  This isn't going to be another hit piece on the Oscars, but with the ceremony coming up this weekend, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some footage of Oscar ceremonies past.

The Academy has assembled a truly wonderful YouTube channel, in which they've deposited a massive quantity of clips from previous telecasts - not only the winners of the major awards, but more recently they've added opening monologues from many years.

Here's a vintage clip - the very first televised Oscar ceremony, held on March 19, 1953.  The host, of course, was Bob Hope.  (The running time of that show, by the way?  an hour and 32 minutes.)


One of the interesting things about classic television is watching the transition from the black-and-white era to color, and the Oscarcast is no different.  Oscar first came to us in color in 1966.  (As Hope said in a promo, now you can see the losers turn green in living color.)  Isn't it great hearing the notice at the beginning of the broadcasts of how regular programming is being preempted to present the special broadcast?


You can draw a few conclusions from endless hours watching these clips, hours that could have been spent doing productive things - like work.  (Channeling Hope there, I guess.)  Really, the opening monologue serves as a snapshot of the times - Hope's 1970 opening can't be embedded, but check it out here. (Just after the 11:00 mark if you don't want to watch it all.) His discussion of everything from nudity in movies to Ronald Reagan to drugs captures perfectly an America in transition and turmoil.

As always when waxing nostalgic, you have to be careful - the jokes from previous years were not necessarily funnier than they are today.  And by that I mean that Hope's monologues often contain a lot of material that's either dated or inside baseball, and thus likely to go over the heads of any viewer not of that specific era.  Having said that, they're still often very good, as was that one from 1966.  I'd go on to add that Bob Hope is still the best Oscar MC outside of Johnny Carson.


Speaking of Carson, at first blush it seems strange for him to have hosted the show.  He wasn't from Hollywood, wasn't part of the movie community, and the TV show that had made him famous was on a different network from that which was telecasting the Oscars.  But there was more to it than that.  He had experience, having previously hosted the Emmys several times, and more important, he was one of the most feared men in the entertainment business.  He was able to speak from authority; even though he wasn't in the movie business, everyone sitting out there in the Oscar audience knew how powerful he was, and how important it was for them to remain on good terms with him in order to promote their latest movie. Though this clip isn't from the Oscar YouTube channel, it's a great look at Carson the unparalleled monologist:


And do you notice how Oscarcasts have changed over the years?  I covered that in my previous piece, but in watching the clips from the 50s and 60s, it becomes apparent how the show has evolved from an event being covered by television to a television event.  Look at that first clip from the 1969 broadcast (of the 1968 awards) - you can see the big, lumbering cameras, and the overture makes for very static television.

But for all that, I don't think that evolution has been particularly beneficial for the show.  In gearing things toward the viewer at home rather than those in the live audience, the show has often become tedious and repetitive.  There's just too much - too much glitz and flash, too much of the artsy camera angels, too much of the endless montage of film clips that too often remind you how much better movies used to be.

Back in the day, when the Miss America pageant was still big TV, there were two sets of hosts: Bert Parks, who emceed'd the live event in Convention Hall, and another host (Bess Myerson, for example) who, stationed somewhere else in the auditorium, would provide the television audience with the segways into and out of commerical breaks.  In doing so, the producers were making a clear distinction between the event that was going on in Convention Hall, and the television broadcast that was bringing that show to the viewers.

As television took over the Oscar show, those awful production numbers became impossible to capture on the small screen, and so it made sense to reduce the scale so things didn't get lost to the home viewer.  But in doing so, in concentrating solely on the entertainment of that viewer, I think something has been lost.  At the start of the 1970 program, Gregory Peck refers to the Oscars as a "news event," not a television program.  Perhaps if the Academy still felt that way, we wouldn't be having four-hour shows.

Well, a guy can dream, can't he?

*Bonus points to anyone who can identify the show from which the post title comes.

Dead affiliates walking - February 28, 1979

It's that time again - time to look at a day in the week of our most recent TV Guide.  (Loyal readers know this probably means I don't have anything else ready to post today, but that doesn't mean it isn't still fun.)

Today's listing is from Wednesday, February 28, 1979.  It's a strange time in Minneapolis-St. Paul television - the Great Affiliate Switch is right around the corner, in which longtime NBC affiliate KSTP moves to the suddenly-dominate ABC, while independent (and one-time ABC affiliate) WTCN takes the now-homeless NBC, and former ABC affiliate (and previous independent) KMSP once again goes it alone. Got all that?  This ad gives us a flavor of the coming confusion:

KTCA, Channel 2 (PBS) 
Morning
07:00a Japan: Living Tradition
07:30a Vegetable Soup
07:45a A.M. Weather
08:00a Sesame Street
09:00a The Electric Company
09:30a American Indian Artists
10:00a The Naturalists
10:30a Consumer Survival Kit
11:00a Studio See
11:30a Sesame Street
Afternoon
12:30p Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
01:00p The Electric Company
01:30p Julia Child & Company
02:00p Over Easy (guest Jack Carter)
02:30p Dick Cavett
03:00p Country Matters
04:00p Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
04:30p Sesame Street
05:30p The Electric Company
Evening
06:00p Studio See
06:30p MacNeil/Lehrer Report
07:00p Dick Cavett (guest Neil Simon)
07:30p Wyld Rice
08:00p Shakespeare Plays – “As You Like It”
10:30p Cousteau Odyssey (special)
11:30p Cousteau Odyssey (special)
12:30a Crosstalk (guest Stan Kenton)

KTCA doesn't have much inventory, does it?  A lot of these shows, such as The Electric Company, run two or three times a day.  (As you can see, the station has pretty much abandoned the classroom programming that was a mainstay of its early years.)

I don't know if you remember Not For Women Only, the show hosted by Barbara Walters that was, in fact, mostly for women.  Her old Today show partner Hugh Downs has his own show, Over Easy, which tries to tell us it isn't mostly for seniors, which it is.  But pretty soon the two are going to reunite on ABC's 20/20.  Dick Cavett has found a home on PBS as well, with his half-hour, one-guest version of his ABC program.  Someone recently wrote that Cavett was the last remnant of a time when good conversation was accepted as entertainment, and although I frequently found Cavett tiresome, I would have to agree with that.

WCCO, Channel 4 (CBS)
Morning
06:00a Wednesday Morning
07:00a Allan’s Window
07:30a Captain Kangaroo
08:00a Phil Donahue (Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame)
09:00a All in the Family
09:30a The Price is Right
10:30a Love of Life
10:55a CBS News
11:00a The Young and the Restless
11:30a Search for Tomorrow
Afternoon
12:00p Midday
12:30p As the World Turns
01:30p Guiding Light
02:30p M*A*S*H
03:00p Match Game ’79 (panelists Bart Braverman, Fannie Flagg, Dick Martin, Charles Nelson Reily, Barbara Rhoades, Brett Somers)
03:30p Mike Douglas (guests Lou Rawls, Andy Williams, Lennon Sisters, Shecky Greene, Loretta Lynn)
05:00p News (local)
05:30p CBS News (Walter Cronkite)
Evening
06:00p News (local)
06:30p $25,000 Pyramid (celebrity contestants Anita Gillette, Tony Randall)
07:00p Married: The First Year (debut)
08:00p One Day at a Time
08:30p The Jeffersons
09:00p Kaz
10:00p News (local)
10:30p Marcus Welby, M.D.
11:30p Bonanza
12:30a News (local)
01:00a Phil Donahue (replay)
02:00a News (local)
04:00a News (local)

Aside from the educational stations, WCCO is the only affiliate staying put, and their lineup shows that consistency .  The 6am program, Wednesday Morning, was part of Charles Kuralt's morning series of which only Sunday Morning remains.  It was actually a pretty good morning program, the predecessor to what I think was CBS' best morning news program, hosted by Bill Kurtis and Diane Sawyer.  From then on, it's been all downhill.

In the TV Guides of the 60s, soap operas run for 30 minutes, and CBS even has a couple that remain in the 15 minute format.  No longer.  Now one hour is the rule, and 30 minutes the exception.  After the local noontime news, that old warhorse As the World Turns continues in the same timeslot it filled, it seems, forever.

Notice how bland 'CCO's late-night programming is?  Ah, back in the days before the late-night chatfests.

KSTP, Channel 5
Morning
05:00a To Be Announced
06:00a News (local)
06:20a Country Day
07:00a Today (Charles Grodin, Albert Brooks)
09:00a Twin Cities Today (Dr. Joyce Brothers)
10:00a High Rollers
10:30a Wheel of Fortune
11:00a Jeopardy!
11:30a Password (Elizabeth Montgomery, Bert Convy)
Afternoon
12:00p Princess Knight, Princess Knight
12:30p Days of Our Lives
01:30p The Doctors
02:00p Another World
03:00p Movie – “Never Say Goodbye” (B&W)
05:00p Hogan’s Heroes
05:30p NBC News (Chancellor/Brinkley)
Evening
06:00p News (local)
06:30p The Gong Show (panelists Pat McCormick, Jaye P. Morgan, George Lindsey)
07:00p Eight is Enough
08:00p From Here to Eternity (miniseries version)
10:00p News (local)
10:30p Johnny Carson (guests Robert Blake, Kelly Monteith, Rand)
12:00a Flak on Five
12:30a News (local)
01:00a Laird Brooks Schmidt

KSTP is already transitioning to ABC, airing Eight is Enough at 7pm (more about that below).  From Here to Eternity is not the Oscar-winning movie with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, nor is it the 1980 series with William Devane and Kim Basinger.  Instead, it's what could be thought of as the pilot for that series, which instead of Basinger starred Natalie Wood.  Who, at the time, was a much bigger star than Kim.

Tomorrow has vacated KSTP for future home WTCN; in its place are two local programs, Flak on Five and Laird Brooks Schmidt.  I'm not positive, but "Flak" might have been Gary Flakne, former Hennepin County prosecutor turned talk show host.  ( I'm sure someone can fill us in if that's not right.)  Schmidt, on the other hand, was a wonderful personality, a host of late-night movies and a great talker. And speaking of local programming, Twin Cities Today was one of the legendary local programs of the 70s and 80s, starring "Steve and Sharon" - Steve Edelman and Sharon Anderson, who married during the show's long run.  They later went into the production business - Edelman Productions being a major domo for decorating shows on HGTV.

KMSP, Channel 9
Morning
06:00a 700 Club
07:00a Good Morning, America
09:00a Dinah! (guests Dennis Weaver, Robert Wagner, Betty White, Jacques Cousteau, Graham Nash)
10:00a Happy Days
10:30a Family Feud
11:00a $20,000 Pyramid (guests Jo Anne Worley, David Letterman)
11:30a Ryan’s Hope
Afternoon
12:00p All My Children
01:00p One Life to Live
02:00p General Hospital
03:00p Medical Center
04:00p Streets of San Francisco
05:00p ABC News (Frank Reynolds)
05:30p Sanford and Son
Evening
06:00p News (local)
06:30p The Muppet Show (guest Sylvester Stallone)
07:00p Edward the King
08:00p Charlie’s Angels
09:00p Vega$
10:00p News (local)
10:30p The Rockford Files
11:40p Kojak
12:50a News (local)

Edward the King, which I covered on Saturday, is bringing in big ratings for Channel 9, bumping Eight is Enough to future home KSTP.  After all, KMSP doesn't give a damn about ABC programming, right?  Edward is in one sense an example of Masterpiece Theatre moved to commercial television, but I always thought of it as a kind of throwback program - the kind that David Susskind might have produced for a network back in the 60s.

Although TV Guide only lists Frank Reynolds as anchor for the ABC News, this is actually Roone Arlidge's World News Tonight, which featured Reynolds as lead anchor, along with Max Robinson in Chicago, Peter Jennings in London, and Barbara Walters in New York.  I remember that newscast, and Reynolds, fondly.

WTCN, Channel 11 (Ind.)
Morning
05:30a What’s New?
06:00a PTL Club
07:00a The Flintstones
07:30a Popeye and Porky
08:30a Groovie Goolies and Friends
09:00a Fred Flintstone and Friends
09:30a Bewitched
10:00a Family Affair
10:30a Mayberry R.F.D.
11:00a Love American Style
11:30a What’s New?
Afternoon
12:30p Andy Griffith
01:00p Movie – “The Big Heat” (B&W)
03:00p Spiderman
03:30p Tom and Jerry
04:30p Leave it to Beaver (B&W)
05:00p I Love Lucy (B&W)
05:30p My Three Sons
Evening
06:00p Carol Burnett and Friends (guests Joel Grey, Cass Elliot)
06:30p The Newlywed Game
07:00p Supertrain
08:00p Merv Griffin (guests Neil Sedaka, Milton Berle, Eartha Kitt, Robert Urich, Barclay Shaw, Charlie Hill, Irv Benson)
09:30p News (local)
10:00p Mary Tyler Moore
10:30p Bob Newhart
11:00p The Odd Couple
11:30p The Gong Show (Jamie Farr, Jaye P. Morgan, Pat McCormiick)
12:00a Tomorrow (guest Irving Mansfield)
01:00a The FBI
02:00a Alfred Hitchcock Presents (B&W)
02:30a Alfred Hitchcock Presents (B&W)

KSTP isn't interested in carrying Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show anymore, so it pops up in its future home, Channel 11.  The guest, Irving Mansfield, is the widower of Valley of the Dolls author Jacqueline Susann.  And as I already mentioned, Eight is Enough and Supertrain have traded places, which makes for some very strange advertising:

A great night, sure - if you're willing to
watch two stations to catch it.

What's New?, which airs at 11:30 am (with a repeat the following morning at 5:30), is that almost-extinct species: the local variety show.  Almost extinct, because this kind of show now masquerades as a late-morning or early-afternoon news program.

KTCI, Channel 17
Afternoon
05:30p Villa Alegre
Evening
06:00p Japan: Living Tradition
06:30p MacNeil/Lehrer Report
07:00p Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
07:30p The Electric Company
08:00p MacNeil/Lehrer Report
08:30p Over Easy (guests Marlin and Carol Perkins)
09:00p Bill Moyers’ Journal
09:30p Mark Russell
10:00p Dick Cavett (guest Neil Simon)
10:30p ABC News (Frank Reynolds) (closed-captioned)

KTCI is the secondary PBS affiliate.  At this point in time it carries mostly reruns of big brother KTCA's shows.  Later, the station honchos will try to develop a full, mostly original, schedule for KTCI.  Then it seems to go back mostly to re-airing shows from KTCA.  

When I was politically active, I used to love watching Mark Russell, the Capitol Hill comedian responsible for some of the funniest, most clever satires of Washington life.  I always thought him a fair, equal-opportunity satirist. See if this rings a bill for any of you:

*** Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I've been slow to warm to TV Guides of the 70s and 80s, but the issues from this particular era have a soft spot in my heart, for reasons that have nothing to do with specific programming.  You see, in the spring of 1978 I graduated from high school in the world's worst town, and in the fall of that year we moved back to the Twin Cities as I started college.  My personal collection of TV Guides from then on, therefore, revert to the Minneapolis-St. Paul edition, rather than the Minnesota State Edition that I got during the Dark Ages.  Just looking at the simpler, more familiar program listings from these issues reminds me of how happy I was to return to civilization, and to this day it brings a smile to my face.