This week in TV Guide: December 10, 1966

We're only a couple of weeks out from Christmas, and though the airwaves aren't dominated yet by Yuletide programs, we're seeing more and more specials to put us in the mood.

On Sunday evening CBS presents the second airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, already well on its way to becoming a television classic*.

*Curious thing - the ad for the broadcast reads "On the first day of Christmas, my true love said to me, watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas."  In the first place, it doesn't rhyme - they should have added "on TV" to make it work.  Also, what are the twelve days?  If Sunday is the first day, the twelfth day would be December 22.  And anyway, the first day of Christmas is Christmas Day itself.  Do they mean to suggest this is the first day of Christmas specials?  Or that the season doesn't really begin until Charlie Brown is aired?  You'd think they would have thought this through more.  Or perhaps I'm thinking too much?

Later on Sunday, Danny Thomas presents his annual "Wonderful World of Burlesque."  As I've mentioned before, the season produces specials, but not all of them are holiday-themed, and this is one of them.  Still, look at the guest cast - Carol Channing, Mickey Rooney, Wayne Newton, Dean Martin, Robert Culp, Bill Cosby - that is special!

Bob Hope also has a special this week, on Wednesday - but we know this isn't his Christmas show, since 1) he's not in Vietnam, and 2) he's in Acapulco, and nobody's doing Christmas bits.  A big name cast anyway, including Glenn Ford, Elke Sommer, Michael Caine, and Jayne Mansfield.

There's a more thoughtful special on Sunday morning, when NBC airs the Hanukkah special I Never Saw Another Butterfly, the story of a woman returning to Czechoslovakia to recall her youth in a Nazi concentration camp.  Not a particularly upbeat show, to be sure, but with the script having been based on "drawings and poems by children in the camp," I'm sure it struck a solemn note.

And on a local note, KCMT, Channel 7 in Alexandria (my home channel in the mid-70s) has its annual variety show telethon to raise money for food baskets for the underprivileged.  It's a very good cause, but I can vouch that those shows were not the best of entertainment.  Then again, unless you live in Hollywood or a block off of Broadway, what local variety show is?

***

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: singer Diahann Carroll, Edward Villella and Patricia McBride of the New York City Ballet, comedians Morey Amsterdam and Joan Rivers, trumpeter Harry James and his orchestra, the Obernkirchen Children's Choir from Germany and foot-juggler Uto Garrido.

Palace:  Host Jimmy Durante introduces Peter Lawford, who offers a song-and-dance routine; the rock 'n' rolling Turtles; Mrs. Elva Miller, the singing grandmother; comedian George Carlin; singer-dancer Elaine Dunn; comic dancer George Carl; and the Polack Brothers' elephant act.

If I'm not mistaken, several of the acts on this week's Sullivan show can be seen in the Ed Sullivan Christmas DVD that came out a few years ago and has been a staple on Public Broadcasting stations.  Unfortunately, none of them appear to be online, so we can't share in them here.  Suffice it to say that some are better than others.  I'm not a fan of Diahann Carroll; on the other hand, Morey Amsterdam is usually very funny.

I am, however, a big fan of Jimmy Durante.  I'm not sure about Peter Lawford as a song-and-dance man, though.  Elva Miller, always billed as "Mrs. Miller," was something of a phenomenon of the 60s, appearing on many of the talk shows with her "unique" song interpretations.  I remember her - or more properly, her songs - from the Twin Cities kids' show Lunch With Casey, when Casey and Roundhouse would pantomime to her singing.  Here she is with Durante in what may well be a clip from this week's show:


It's pretty hard to take sides with these lineups.  Neither of them are completely terrible, but neither do they get me very excited.  This week, I'm going with a push.

Looking for something more exciting?  Andy Williams has Jack Jones, Barbara Eden and Noel Harrison, while Dean Martin greets Sid Caesar, George Kirby, Vic Damone, Caterina Valente and Don Cherry*. And then there's Milton Berle, with Abbe Lane, Bill Dana, harmonica player Stan Fisher and magician De La Vega.  But more about him later.

*The singer, not the hockey coach-turned-pundit.

***

I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before, the vast difference in the college football bowl season between the 60s and today.  There are only nine bowls in 1966*, and none of them count toward the national championship, which is decided by the final polls after the end of the regular season.  The top two teams in the nation, Notre Dame and Michigan State, who played their epic 10-10 tie the month before, aren't even bowling - ND had a no-bowling policy at the time, and Michigan State, having played in the Rose Bowl the season before, were prohibited from a return trip.

*By contrast, there are 35 this season.

Miami and Virginia Tech had each played their final regular-season games two weeks before, when they meet in the Liberty Bowl on Saturday, December 10 on ABC.  It is the second time in Memphis for the game, which had made previous stops in Philadelphia (hence the game's name) and Atlantic City (where it became the first-ever indoor bowl game).  Miami comes out on top, winning 14-7.

With the next bowl game a week away, there has to be something left to fill up the day, and the NFL is happy to step up, as the league starts its end-of-season slate of Saturday games with the Packers, en route to winning their second consecutive title, taking on the Colts in Baltimore.  I probably watched the Canadian Football game on Channel 11 at 10:00am, advertised as Ottawa vs. Hamilton.  Since the Grey Cup championship had already been played, I'm guessing that this was a delayed broadcast of the first game* of the Eastern Finals, which had been played on November 13, won by Ottawa 30-1.

*Back then, the Eastern Finals was a two-game, total-points series.  Ottawa won the second game 42-16, taking the cumulative series 72-17, before losing the Grey Cup to Saskatchewan on November 26, 29-14.

***

At the end of November, NBC premiered a made-for-TV movie called Fame is the Name of the Game, starring Tony Franciosa as investigative journalist Jeff Dillon, Susan St. Sames as research assistant Peggy Chan, and George Macready as his boss, publisher Glenn Howard.  TV Guide calls the movie "a Grade-B murder melodrama souped up with sex and brutality."  But there's something else they call it: a success.

Fame is the Name of the Game isn't the first made-for-TV movie, but the publicity machine for it is unique, and trendsetting.  NBC puts it in its powerhouse Saturday Night at the Movies spot, the home of its big-name theatrical presentations, and bills it as a "World Premiere" of a "major motion picture."  Given the treatment usually reserved for the television debut of a big-screen blockbuster, Fame scores a 23 rating and a 40 share - equal to some of the best theatrical movie showings.

NBC's success is all the more satisfying given the scorn CBS had shown for "quickies," as they call these TV flicks.  CBS and ABC are much more inclined toward studio-taped presentations of plays (Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie) and movies (Laura, Dial M for Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank), that hearken back to the feel of Golden Age live dramas.  But it's hard to argue with success: by the end of the decade the TV telefilm (or "non-movie," as one critic calls them) are all over television, and the term "World Premiere" even becomes the title of an ABC movie series.

The "Name of the Game" cast (L-R):
Robert Stack, Gene Barry, Tony Franciosa

As for Fame is the Name of the Game, it also becomes the name of the series.  In 1968 NBC premieres The Name of the Game, one of the last of the 90-minute series.  It features Franciosa, reprising his role as Jeff Dillon, joined on a rotating basis by Gene Barry, replacing Macready as Glenn Howard, and Robert Stack as Dan Farrell, editor of another of Barry's publications.  It's not been seen as frequently in syndication as many old series of the era, although it's running on Cozi right now.  It's not Golden Age television, and suffers from the dated fashions that plague so many series of the 70s but neither is it quite as bad as that "Grade-B" label that TV Guide stuck it with.  And any series with Gene Barry in it has to have something going for it.

***

Speaking of movies, one of the things I miss is the horror double-feature that so many local stations used to have.  I'm looking at this one on WTCN, Channel 11, starting Thursday night at 10pm.  First up is Attack of the Crab Monsters - "An expedition led by Dr. Karl Weigand arrives on a Pacific island to study the effects of H-bomb fallout."  It's followed by The Cyclops, in which "Susan Winter and a search party head for an unexplored area of Mexico - the place where her fiance mysteriously disappeared three years ago."  At least it has Lon Chaney Jr. going for it.  Channel 12, KEYC in Mankato, joins in the fun with Tobor the Great, where "A scientist builds a robot which is designed to serve as a metal guinea pig."  Tobor, of course, is robot spelled backward.  And then Channel 4, WCCO, has Attack of the Mushroom People, which tells the story of "A yachting party, cast ashore on an uncharted island*, encounters a horrifying fungus which begins to take possession of their bodies."  It does make you wonder where the silhouettes are, doesn't it?

*The castaways of Gilligan's Island?

And this doesn't begin to cover the whole range - there's The Undead and Curse of the Undead (on two different stations - unrelated movies, as far as I can tell), The Amazing Transparent Man, Man Without a Body - oddly enough, the only one that isn't labeled a "melodrama" is the one that's arguably the most disturbing one of all - Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur's classic Cat People. I mean, if a movie about a woman afraid that she turns into a cat when she's aroused isn't a horror film, what is?

***

Earlier, I mentioned Milton Berle.  "Mr. Television," as he was known in the 50s, had last been seen on series television as host of Jackpot Bowling in the early '60s.


But now, after years as little more than a reminder of television's early days, Uncle Miltie is trying a comeback. He's bought himself out of a 30-year contract with NBC, and Dick Hobson relates Berle's barnstorming campaign in support of his new variety show on ABC.  Flying from city to city in a Lear jet, he shakes the hand of the governor of Kansas during a stop in Wichita, wears an Indian headdress in Oklahoma City, rides in parades in Detroit and Baltimore.  He visits injured Vietnam vets at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.  He's honored at a party hosted by the mayor of Houston, and appears at halftime of the Syracuse-Baylor football game in Waco.  To those who proclaim that "Uncle Miltie's back," Berle responds, "I've never been away."

Travelling with Berle can be exhausting; the comedian's always on.  To a reporter's question about how he feels going up against NBC's The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Berle quips "I'm the real uncle!"  He tapes commercials urging people to watch him on "ABC, the American Berlecasting Company!"  When asked what he thinks of television today, he steals Fred Allen's famous line that "TV is like a steak.  It's a medium that's rarely well done."  An Oklahoma City host says he doesn't look as old in person as he does on TV; Berle tells her "I think you have an old TV set."

Throughtout the trip, Berle is accompanied by a retinue that includes singer Bobby Rydell, a 60s teen idol whom producers hope will attract the youth audience who aren't awed by Berle's reputation.  But despite the "Berlewind Tour," it will be the viewers, not Berle's energy, determining how successful his comeback attempt will be.  And when they speak, it's not a pretty sound.  His yukking and gladhandling and insistence that the King has returned to claim the throne have fallen on deaf ears; the October Nielsens put the show at a disastrous 84th out of 92 shows.  Berle's name has no cache with younger viewers, and Berle's spectacular failure truly demonstrates, if any further proof is needed, that television has fully entered a new era, with perhaps only Ed Sullivan truly reminding us of the early days.  On October 25 Variety reports that ABC has canceled the show, although Berle has to wait two additional days before he hears it personally from someone at the network. The final show will air on January 6.  Berle says there are no hard feelings, no sour grapes.  "I'm just going to take a rest."

***

This week's cover promises the story of "The Town That Is TV's Secret Laboratory."  We'll have more on that in the future - stay tuned.

Why is it we love Rudolph again?

Well, it may only be December 5 (or later, depending on when you read this), but Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has already aired.  What with Thanksgiving being as late as it can be this year, CBS was apparently unable to restrain itself for even a couple more days, and the first Christmas cartoon of the year aired before the turkey had even been cooked.  Which is OK with me; I've got it on DVD anyway*, so I can watch it whenever I want.

*Two versions, actually: the standard DVD release, which has been remastered in brilliant color and contains much that had been edited out over the years; and the original televised version, which I bought a few years ago from the Rankin-Bass historian, which includes the original ending (Santa's trip to pick up the Misfits isn't shown) and closing credits.  

I don't know if I've written much about Rudolph in the past - wait, let me look it up.  Yes, I did, right here.* The point is, the magic of Rudolph is, I think, specific to having seen it as a kid.  Any adult who would watch it today does so either because he has kids of his own, or he's like me and the annual viewing brings back childhood memories.  Because, to be perfectly honest, for adults Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is prime fodder for a MST3K treatment.

*And here and here as well, going back to the old Our Word days.

In my opinion, nobody points this out better than James Lileks, and so I'm simply going to defer to his analysis of Rudolph, from a few years ago.  (Don't worry; nothing has changed since then.)   He's going through the annual viewing with his daughter Natalie, aka Gnat:

She was curled on the floor by the tree, watching the living room TV, her stomach aching. She enjoyed the Seasonal Viewing, but we picked it apart together. Santa, as many have noted, is a jerk. The elves show up to sing a song that essentially celebrates their unquestioned servitude, and he’s checking his watch the whole time. The Reindeer Dad is overbearing; Clarisse is quite forward, and good for her, but one does question the ease with which she forges an alliance with Mother to find the errant Rudolph. Let me find him so I can take him away from you, withered sexless deer-crone! They’re gone for months, yet Rudolph shows up at the EXACT MOMENT they’re about to be eaten? Uh huh. Yukon falls over a cliff, and even though the bottom can be clearly ascertained by the naked eye, everyone assumes he’s dead? I mean, if Bumbles bounce, surely some Bumble-bouncing would have happened right away and reassured everyone. Oh! Evolution has produced a spongy subcutaneous layer that prevented damage to the Bumble’s internal organs. Let’s throw him a rope and rescue him. But no: He’s GONE! HE’S GONE! And that’s the end of it.

No one seems to mourn the dogs who went over the edge with Yukon, do they.

Of all the characters, Gnat liked Yukon the best. She thought Moonracer the Winged Lion was cool, but seriously, what the hell: is this a hereditary monarchy? How did a lion with wings end up ruling a small island of damaged playthings, instead of swooping around Manhattan shouting HEED ME MORTALS. Charley-in-the-box tells us “he’s holding court right now,” but “holding court” consists of Moonracer perched on a throne, or maybe a commode, in an empty hall. Did he spend all day sitting there, thinking, well, here I am, holding court, yes indeed. Or – more likely – was this an elaborate scheme to gather unusual toys and hold them under their collector-value soared? We’re supposed to believe that Santa didn’t know about the Island of Misfit Toys. Right. Like a guy who runs a toy-construction industry based on aerial distribution would be COMPLETELY UNAWARE of a lion who flew around picking up toys. It all stinks, I tell you. The fix was in.

Is this not true?  I told you; couldn't have put it better myself. My wife, after rereading this, points out that it's becoming harder and harder each year to watch Rudolph with a straight face; if you can get by all of the above, there's still the question of jerk Santa having the gall to ask Rudolph, after everything he's done, to bail him out just because there's a little fog on Christmas Eve.  Personally, I would have said something along the lines of, "Oh, so now you need my help, huh?  Well, fat man, you can take that and stick it in your pipe!" I asked my wife if I'd just become a cynical adult, to which she replied, "No, I think even kids would probably say that nowadays."

Oh well.  We kid because we care, right?

Around the dial

Well, it's hard to believe, but it's already December!  Where has the time gone?  Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  Now let's see if we can keep the momentum going through the end of the year!

First off, the disappointing news that RadioDiscussions.com, home of one of the best classic TV discussion boards, abruptly shut down today.  I'm sorry to see that; I must have put up one of the last posts on it this morning, when I linked to Saturday's TV Guide piece - it was a great place to talk about old program listings and shows of the past.  For those of our regular readers who've been regulars on RadioDiscussions, any suggestions as to where we can continue our discussions?

Joanna at Christmas TV History* is really in her element this month!  Today she's got a great piece on one of my favorite Christmas shows of the past, the Judy Garland Christmas Show.  Sure, there were some campy elements to it, but there was a kind of meta-self-awareness about how everyone seemed to know they were part of a television show.  One of the reasons I like this program is that it gives us an idealized Christmas - perhaps things weren't that way in 1962 (if they'd ever been that way), but the point is that the audience would have understood that this was an accepted presentation of Christmas, realistic or not.

*And by the way, Joanna, if you're reading this - yes, I know I owe you a piece on Amahl - this weekend, I promise!

Comfort TV delves into a topic that's always been of some interest to me - actors and actresses who've starred in more than one television series.  There have been a few, but whenever this has come up for discussion, I've always thought first of Robert Young - such a big hit with Father Knows Best, and then to follow it up with Marcus Welby, M.D. - not bad.

I really like the idea of TV When I Was Born - it reminds me of why I have such an attraction to the TV Guides of my youth.   There's a kind of connection you make (or at least I do) with the shows of that era, whatever era it might be.  And Dixon sounds to be about my age, which means his look back at TV when he was born is roughly the same as mine.  His latest is a look at TV's first great prime-time animated sitcom, The Flintstones.

It probably goes without saying that the blogs I mention in this space each week are among my favorites - otherwise, how would I know what they were writing about?  So I won't say that Television Obscurities is one of my favs, even though it is.  Here's a wrap-up of a great feature that ran throughout November - a month of local Connecticut TV commercials.  I can appreciate how much work that must have been.  I doubt I'd be able to find my favorite Twin Cities commercials - they all date back to TV when I was born...

Alert readers will notice I switched things up - Around the Dial usually appears on Thursday, but this week you're getting it a couple of days early.  That gives me time to come up with something to write about for the rest of the week - but I'll make it!

This week in TV Guide - December 3, 1960

The holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year has always been a big time for television, with all kinds of specials and events making the rounds.

This week the big production is the TV revival of Peter Pan, with Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard reprising their famed roles from the last TV airing five years ago. (It was also done in 1955.) Those previous shows were live, but this one is not only on tape, but in color, and it’s this version that has been broadcast ever since. I recorded it off TV some time in 1989 or 90, the last time it was on broadcast TV (in a somewhat edited version, to make more room for commercials, don’t you know)* and it’s that version you see below.

*This version is available on DVD as well. The 1955 and 56 productions have not been commercially released, but are available on the grey market. Far be it from me to say where you can find it **cough-cough-iOffer-cough** but take my word for it, it’s out there.


A companion article discusses how for the last four weeks Mary Martin has been commuting between Broadway, where she does eight performances a week of The Sound of Music, the Helen Hayes Theater, which NBC has rented for Peter Pan rehearsals, and the NBC studios in Brooklyn, where most of the program is taped. The network is hoping to make an annual Christmas presentation of Peter Pan, which Martin enthusiastically endorses. She was reluctant at first to take on yet another televised staging – “Not while playing ‘The Sound of Music,’ which by itself is a full-time job.” But the public demand has been so great – “So many children have grown up since we did it last” – that Martin was unable to resist. “When NBC came along and said it had a sponsor and a time and everything else all set, I just couldn’t say no. Now I’m glad I didn’t,” she says. “I seem to get more energy from it than I had when I was just doing eight ‘Sound of Music’ performances a week.”

***
Sports shorts: NBC’s Saturday afternoon NBA game features the New York Knickerbockers and the Syracuse Nationals from Syracuse*. The Knicks are in the second of a seven-season playoff drought, which isn’t easy when three of the four teams in each conference make the playoffs. The Nats, who make the playoffs despite finishing three games under .500 (but still 17 games ahead of the Knicks), are in their third-from-last season in Syracuse, after which they flee the small-market city for Philadelphia, where they become the 76ers.

*I was going to add that I was sure it was a fine game, but now I check the records and see that the Nats won, 130-113. Not sure how exciting that turned out to be.

On ABC, it’s the final regular-season college football game, as Duke (still on the fumes of being a significant factor in college football) travels to Los Angeles to take on UCLA. It is in fact a good season for the Blue Devils; although they drop this game to the Bruins 27-6, they finish at 7-3, good enough for a Cotton Bowl invitation (a 7-6 victory over Arkansas) and a #10 national ranking. UCLA’s also pretty good, as they wind up with a 7-2-1 record, though thanks to the conference’s Rose Bowl-only policy, they stay home for the post season. It’s all academic anyway, as Minnesota wins the national championship in a vote conducted (as was the custom then) prior to the bowl games.

Saturday night, ABC also has Gene Fullmer defending his middleweight crown against Sugar Ray Robinson from Los Angeles. Fullmer, who is fighting Robinson for the third time (out of four), retains the title in a 15-round draw.

I haven’t forgotten about pro football! There’s a real hodge-podge on Sunday; as the NFL has yet to sing an exclusive national television agreement, teams have made their own deals with the networks. Therefore, CBS presents the Packers and Bears from Chicago, while NBC has the Lions and Colts in Baltimore. Meanwhile, the AFL continues its inaugural season with a match between the Houston Oilers and Dallas Texans (the future Kansas City Chiefs) from the Cotton Bowl. The Oilers lose to their rivals 24-0, but they’ll go on to become the AFL’s first champions, defeating the Los Angeles (nee San Diego) Chargers 24-16 on New Year’s Day.

***

TV Teletype notes that Rod Serling is putting the finishing touches on a new Western called The Loner, starring Bob Cummings. The Loner does in fact make the schedule as a series, but it’s with Lloyd Bridges in the title role. It is not a success.

It’s also rumored that the Academy Awards may be vacating its longtime home at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater in favor of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. While the news leaves “the industry’s sentimentalists up in arms,” the move takes place anyway. Within the decade it moves again, to the more glamorous Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.

And in New York, ABC announces plans for a January 29 debut of its new Sunday afternoon series, The American Professor, “designed to improve the public’s understanding of the teacher’s role in our society.” Notwithstanding how televised sports have come to dominate weekends since then, it’s still hard to imagine a national network making a weekly series out of that kind of concept, no?

***
Cindy Adams has another article this week, this time on the life of the television gag writer. It’s centered in the office of Goodman Ace, one of the best of TV’s early humor writers, who’d made his name (and much of his success) in radio. He’s joined by his cohorts, Selma Diamond (the best-known female writer, who many of you might recognize from being in front of the camera on Night Court), Jay Burton, who’s written jokes for many of Hollywood’s best, and a couple of Canadian comics, Frank Peppiatt and John Aylesworth. Their output will be seen on camera in an upcoming Perry Como show.

The scene, as presented by Adams, doesn’t look all that different from what one sees later on the Dick Van Dyke show: Ace working from behind the desk, Diamond sprawled in a chair, and the other three in various stages of repose on the couch. They’re in the midst of trying to come up with something for Perry and his guest star, Jack Paar. The jokes are, put mildly, terrible. (“Tomorrow Shirley Temple’s doing ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ but because she’s running a little late it’ll only be ‘Snow White and the Five Dwarfs.’”)

The group plows through scenario after scenario, none of them catching fire. Finally, there’s a gag about Paar interviewing a woman with a Southern accent who’s making her first trip to New York. She’s seen Grant’s Tomb, the Battery, the Statue of Liberty. Paar asks her where she’s from. “Brooklyn,” she says. From a distance of over 50 years, I have to admit that the joke doesn’t do much for me, but it sets them off, and they come up with a series of jokes featuring Brooklyn as the punch line.

The article seems to me pointless, although perhaps we’ve become too sophisticated for this kind of schlock. What’s perhaps more interesting is, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt had many credits, including Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra, but it was as producers that they achieved their biggest fame. The show they created? Hee Haw.

***

From time to time I like to look at these mini-profiles of young actors, mostly female, invariably suggested as The Next Big Thing, and see if they ever caught on. This week there’s a two-page spread on a very attractive actress named June Blair. The magazine says she’s 24, although the always-reliable Wikipedia would put her age at 27. She’s got a number of TV credits under her slim-wasted belt so far, including Sea Hunt, Bat Masterson, M Squad, and Lock Up, as well as a credit the article doesn’t mention – Playboy’s Playmate of the Month for January 1957. Her career seems to have tailed off after the 60s, with her biggest role – in real-life as well as show business – being David Nelson’s on- and off-screen wife in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

***
Christmas always seems to bring out the best in food, and My-T-Fine pudding reminds us that it’s never too early to start preparing for those holiday parties with the little touch that makes things extra-special. Sadly, the term “go gay for the holiday” would have a completely different meaning nowadays.

Watches make excellent gifts - would you argue with Tab Hunter?

How about another recipe? With the holidays upon us, it’s never too early to start preparing the menu for those parties with your friends, and what could be better than some Festive Glazed Ham?

Heat a canned, cooked, boneless ham of appropriate size according to directions. When almost completely heated, pour over it one jar of melted cherry preserves – or cherry jelly – blended with ¼ cup of brandy. Baste several times. Serve hot or chilled with smooth curried mustard cream.

Curried Mustard Cream ½ tsp. curry powder 1 tsp. prepared mustard 1 cup whipped cream Salt and pepper

Mix mustard, curry powder, salt and pepper. Add to whipped cream, stirring until well-blended. Hollowed-out lemons make attractive serving cups.

It’s About TV – your one-stop Christmas entertainment address!

Classic Playback: Happy Thanksgiving!

I've offered a few bonus pieces over the last week, so I think I'm entitled to an easy week. Below is a Thanksgiving piece from two years ago, in the first year of the blog. It's a nice cross-section of Thanksgiving programming from the 60s, and it's as good a way as I know to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Back on Saturday with a brand-new TV Guide review!

Thanksgiving often seems like an underappreciated holiday, serving as little more than a warmup act for Christmas, and people seem eagar to get it out of the way so they can invade the stores in the dawn hours of Black Friday.  (Those stores that aren't actually open on Thanksgiving, that is.) . Back in the day, however, Turkey Day used to get a little more love.  And so this seemed to be a good reason (or at least a good excuse) to dip into the TV Guide archives for a look at Thanksgiving through the early 60s, as seen on TV.

This first picture below above is from Thanksgiving 1962.  Then, as now, the Thanksgiving Day Parade was a mainstay of both CBS and NBC.  As now, NBC was the network of the Macy's Parade, with longtime hosts Betty White and Lorne Greene.  CBS had the Macy's Parade too, but they also specialized in parades from around the country - the Gimbels' parade in Philadelphia (wonder why TVG gives this big press?  It's because their headquarters were in Pennsylvania) and the Hudson's parade in Detroit.  The department stores aren't around anymore, but both Philly and Detroit continue to celebrate the day with big parades. 

I always preferred the CBS coverage - Macy's was OK, but getting to see Detroit and Philadelphia (and later on Toronto's Santa Claus parade) made the day even bigger.  Back in the 60s Captain Kangaroo hosted the overall coverage from New York (William "Cannon" Conrad would perform the same function through much of the 70s), with CBS newsmen and celebrities alternating as hosts in the various cities.  Besides, seeing the Detroit parade would be an early tipoff to the weather for that morning's football game.

The next picture, also from 1962, is for the Pat Boone Thansgiving special.  Pretty good cast, although Peter, Paul & Mary seem a bit out of place.  Or perhaps Pat wasn't as much of a square as people thought. Notice the start time: 4:30 pm (Central time).  Doesn't seem likely any more that a network show would come on at that hour, not with the news saturation that local stations have today.

Here's another late afternoon special from 1961, with Al Hirt and a cast of thousands, or at least the popular singer Gordon MacRae, the opera star Patrice Munsel, and dancer Carol Haney.  "Home for the Holidays" - then, as now, Thanksgiving was the start of the Christmas season.  Notice that these ads prominently boast that the specials are "In Color!"

The holidays are always a time to bring back stars who haven't had regular series for several years.  Bonne was one, and the Old Redhead, Arthur Godfrey was another.  His 1963 Thanksgiving night special promises "a post-turkey pot of tea."  I imagine things were a bit muted that year, since JFK had been buried just three days previous.

Perry Como no longer had a weekly series in 1962, but his Kraft Music Hall appeared several times a year.  Since the show was always on Wednesday nights, his November special was always on Thanksgiving Eve.  (And that's exactly how it was described - putting Thanksgiving Eve on a par with Christmas Eve.)

Of course, you can't have Thanksgiving without football.  Look at how CBS advertises its game between the Colts and Lions in 1965:

I actually remember watching that game (I won't say how old I am now, but I was five back then).  The Colts and Lions battled to a 24-24 tie that pleased nobody.  Nowadays, I imagine the Lions would be pretty happy with that result.  And remember those Seagram's ads that used to appear with every major sporting event?  There were three games played that day; in addition to the Colts and Lions, the AFL game on NBC featured the Buffalo Bills and the San Diego Chargers, and ABC's college action was the traditional battle between Oklahoma and Nebraska.

It wasn't just television shows that advertised for Thansgiving - take a look at this ad for General Electric. I wonder how many families took advantage of the free heat 'n' serve baby dish for every baby born on November 28, 1963.  (Just think - that baby would be 50 today.)

Thanksgiving wasn't only a day, though - traditionally, it was one of the biggest television weeks of the season.  Check out the sidebar on the 1965 cover - from football to the Hallmark Hall of Fame, tributes to recently deceased Stan Laurel and Cole Porter, specials starring Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., a White House tour with Mrs. LBJ, and a James Bond documentary.  And this was before VCRs.
 

 
And this is just scratching the surface - for example, in 1962 the Bell Telephone Hour had special guest Carl Sandburg, the American poet and Lincoln biographer.  It seems to me that there truly was a sense that Thanksgiving was a time for the family to get together, and with a little of something for everyone there was no better way for quality family time than to sit in front of the television.

This week in TV Guide: November 23, 1963

This week begins as last week ended, with all programming being cancelled in the wake of John Kennedy's assassination.

Minnesota was scheduled to take on Wisconsin on CBS' college football game of the week on Saturday; instead, TV viewers saw dignitaries arriving at the White House to view the President's body laying in repose in the East Room.  As they arrived, their shoes splashed in the water from the torrential downpour that soaked Washington that day.  The game was postponed to Thanksgiving Day, though it was not televised.

Instead of Glenn Ford and Red Buttons starring in Imitation General on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies, NBC broadcast the latest news from Washington and Dallas, including reports that a receipt had been found for the mail order rifle used to kill Kennedy.  In the meantime, future Vice President Hubert Humphrey talked of Kennedy's legacy and Johnson's challenges, and replays of Johnson's work day were shown late into the night.

On Sunday, the American Football League cancelled its entire slate of games, while the National Football League carried on as scheduled, without TV coverage.  KMBC, the ABC affiliate, was supposed to show the game between the home town Chiefs and the New York Jets from the Polo Grounds, while just a few miles away the New York Giants were hosting the St. Louis Cardinals at Yankee Stadium, a game that would have been on CBS' affiliate.  NBC, without sports on Sunday afternoon, had scheduled a repeat of Gian Carlo Menotti's opera Labrynth, the story of a bride and groom searching for the key to life, on NBC Opera Theatre.  Nothing could have compared to what viewers actually saw: the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas City Jail, the solemn procession of the President's body from the White House to the U.S. Capitol, where it would lay in state in the Rotunda, the images of people filing past the casket while funereal music played in the background.  On CBS, rather than seeing a Grammy salute to "The Best on Record" with Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Henry Mancini and Bing Crosby*, viewers listened to Dan Rather, in Dallas, talking about the man who killed the man who killed Kennedy, Jack Ruby.

*And Vaughn Meader, whose JFK impression made the album The First Family an award-winning smash.  His career evaporated after that.  I don't know if "The Best on Record" was ever broadcast, but if so I would assume Meader's section was cut out.

On ABC, Edward P. Morgan is heard to comment to Howard K. Smith, "You keep thinking, Howard, that this is a dream from which you will awake - but you won't."  NBC aired a commemorative episode of the British satire program That Was The Week That Was, a tribute to Kennedy.


NBC continued to broadcast throughout the night, carrying the ghostly images to a nation unable to sleep. The pictures spoke for themselves; Hollis Wright, providing the overnight coverage, interrupted perhaps a dozen times in seven hours.

Monday there were no soaps; viewers of As the World Turns were left hanging from Friday's inadvertent cliffhanger.  The news was the funeral, the procession to Arlington National Cemetery, the burial, the diplomatic reception.  A memorial concert and recap of the weekend replaced Singin' in the Rain on NBC.  When it was all over, Walter Cronkite tried to sum up how "the way it was" would be different from here on.

"It is said that the human mind has a greater capacity for remembering the pleasant than the unpleasant. But today was a day that will live in memory and in grief. Only history can write the importance of this day: Were these dark days the harbingers of even blacker ones to come, or like the black before the dawn shall they lead to some still as yet indiscernible sunrise of understanding among men, that violent words, no matter what their origin or motivation, can lead only to violent deeds? This is the larger question that will be answered, in part, in the manner that a shaken civilization seeks the answers to the immediate question: Who, and most importantly what, was Lee Harvey Oswald? The world’s doubts must be put to rest. Tonight there will be few Americans who will go to bed without carrying with them the sense that somehow they have failed. If in the search of our conscience we find a new dedication to the American concepts that brook no political, sectional, religious or racial divisions, then maybe it may yet be possible to say that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not die in vain. That’s the way it is, Monday, November 25, 1963."

I dare say that there are few who lived through those times, and the times that followed, who would not suggest that those four days were harbingers of blacker ones to come indeed.

***

After almost three years, Gene Barry is back on weekly television as Amos Burke, the millionaire captain of detectives in ABC's charming Burke's Law.  (Which I wrote about here.)  "I badly wanted to do comedy," Barry tells TV Guide's Arnold Hano.  "Drama is easy.  Heavy emotion is easy...I searched the scripts for the inherent comedy that can be found in almost any drama.  I searched for the twinkle. I knew that a look, a take, an ad lib, the lift of an eyebrow could change the tone of a serious sentence.  I read Burke's Law.  I envisioned the twinkle in it."

It's a great look at Barry*, but Hano's article also typifies the worst of a certain kind of passive-aggressive hatchet job that pops up in TV Guide during this period.  Hano describes Barry as a man with ego problems, one who worries about what people say and what they write.  Hano cites a scene where, while talking with Burke co-star Gary Conway, Barry "poked his head into the room and said: 'What is he saying about me?'" In another instance, while talking about the night club act he pursued while on hiatus from series television, Hano quotes Barry as saying, "I hate night clubs," followed by, "Maybe I shouldn't say that.  I work in night clubs."  And he has his detractors, such as an unnamed magazine writer who calls him "a supreme egotist," and an unnamed musician who describes him as an "egomaniac."

Gene Barry and Eileen O'Neill

*Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention Eileen O'Neill, who played Sgt. Gloria Ames, the most attractive desk sergeant in the Los Angeles police force - or any police force anywhere, I'd wager. Burke's Law was known for its "bevy of beauties," the big-name guest stars who appeared in each episode.  Eileen O'Neill doesn't have to take a backseat to any of them.  We'll rectify such an egregious oversight with this gratuitous picture of her with Gene Barry.

And that's the point: with the exception of writer Joan Crosby, none of the people speaking ill of Barry apparently have names.  They remind me of the anonymous actors who appear at the end of a long roll of movie credits, identified as "Tough Guy #2" or "Housewife."  While I can understand that people may sometimes want to speak off the record for various professional or personal reasons, the idea of smearing someone through anonymous innuendo has a smell about it, and it isn't good.

The same thing appears in Richard Gehman's attack piece on David Susskind, although at least Gehman is up front enough to admit that he's crossed paths, and swords, with Susskind in the past.  And Gehman, more than Hano, does name names, at least once in a while: Fred Coe, for example, talks with Gehman about Philco Playhouse.  According to "one man" - apparently, another of those nameless people who populate Hollywood and New York - "If you don't listen to David carefully, you get the idea he created Philco Playhouse.  But on the other hand, it's tough to listen to David carefully because he talks so much." However, Coe - who actually created the show - said that in fact he had suggested Susskind produce the show because Coe wanted to take some time off, and adds that he does not feel Susskind appropriated creative credit.

And so it goes.  A "lady who knows him" says he's sensitive about his height.  "Some that know him" think of him as a clown.  "Others" speak of his wordiness; "says one," Susskind "elongates" the language.  Someone whom Gehman describes as an "enemy" remarks about Susskind's comments that he is a voracious reader with the quote "I never saw him open a book."

Gehman describes his experience (as "a regretful participant") on Susskind's Open End program as perhaps among "the five worst panel shows ever seen."  He labels Susskind's interview with Nikita Khrushchev as "triumph of egotism."  And, to be sure, some of - perhaps most of - these criticisms are valid.  But if Gehman wants to do a hit piece on Susskind, or if Hano was turned off by Gene Barry, have the guts to say so up front.  I would expect this quality of writing from the present TV Guide, which has degenerated into little more than a glossy fan mag; from the TV Guide of the 1960s, which featured such incisive writers as Edith Efron, Malcolm Muggerage and Richard Doan, I would hope for better.

***

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

It is, hard to believe, Thanksgiving week.  Despite all that had happened during the long, bleak week, the day came off pretty much as planned.  The parades went on, motivated in part by the desire to provide children with some fun and a sense of normalcy.  The Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers played to a 13-13 tie in their last annual Turkey Day contest.*  In the AFL, the Oakland Raiders defeated the Denver Broncos 26-10, while Texas, on their way to the national championship, edged Texas A&M 15-13.  Arthur Godfrey rounded out the Thanksgiving night with a special featuring Tony Bennett, Carol Lawrence, Shari Lewis and Liza Minelli.

*Though the two teams still play each other frequently on Thanksgiving, as they will this year.  It was said that after the previous year's game, in which the Lions had routed the previously undefeated Packers 26-14, Vince Lombardi was determined to end the Thanksgiving tradition, which dated back to 1951.

***

This issue is from Kansas City, and as was the case with last week's Southern California issue, we get to see some different things (besides channel numbers that don't quite match up to what a Minnesotan would expect) and unique images we don't ordinarily run across in Twin Cities editions

There's this ad for Blue Valley Federal Savings and Loan, for example, promising free snowman salt and pepper shakers for joining their Christmas Club.  Sadly, Blue Valley closed up shop in the 1990s, although I'll bet you might be able to find a pair of these shakers in an antique store somewhere.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

The Kansas City Chiefs are the home team, one of the strongest in the fledgling AFL, and in their first season in KC after relocating from Dallas (where they'd won the championship the previous year, before finding out that the city wasn't big enough for both them and the Cowboys), and KCMO proudly carries the Hank Stram show every Saturday, with highlights from last week's game and a preview of the upcoming matchup.

KFEQ, in St. Joseph, MO has this ad for Operation Santa Claus, in which Santa appears in "live remotes" from the North Pole.  They were scheduled for November 25-27; I wonder if they were shown?

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

And then there are these great ads for RCA Victor color TVs.  ("RCA Victor IS color TV!")  In this era before big box stores, you could pick up a nice color TV at Sam's Bargain Town on Truman Road in Kansas City; there's an identical ad later in the issue for Tri-County Appliance in North Kansas City.  I don't think either one of them is around any more, although Sam's memory lives on - again, at an antique store.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

***

A couple of incidental notes: among the many shows that were rescheduled was Friday's Route 66 episode entitled "I'm Here to Kill a King,"   Stephen Bowie ably covers how the assassination wreaked havoc on schedules, and explains why that particular episode of Route 66 was perhaps not the best one to air.  (Hint: it has to do with an assassination.)  There are other things about this issue, items that don't have any particular significance but just seem to stand out a little in retrospect, such as a documentary on the plot to kill Hitler on The Twentieth Century (Sunday afternoon, not shown), or a Pearl Harbor special entitled "Day of Infamy," coming on the heels of a brand new day of infamy.  A movie called The Last Woman on Earth appears with an ad picturing the mushroom cloud explosion of an atomic bomb.

It was a strange week indeed, which makes it a challenging one to write about.  So many things changed in those few days.