November 14, 2016

What's on TV? Friday, November 21, 1969

This week we travel to New York City for our pre-Thanksgiving listings. There were listings from a few other channels in New Jersey and Connecticut, but we're sticking with New York, New York. After all, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, right?

A note on the programs: by now, almost everything is in color, except for old movies and series from the '50s and '60s.  TV Guide, however, has yet to catch up with this, and its preferred methodology is still to let you know which programs are in color. That will be changed in the not-too-distant future but I'm not waiting until then, so if you happen to own an issue from this era, you'll see that I've decided to let you know only if a program is in B&W.

WCBS, Channel 2 (CBS)

Morning


06:30a
Sunrise Semester (Geology)

07:00a
CBS Morning News with Joseph Benti

08:00a
Captain Kangaroo (guests the Borjevas)

09:00a
Leave it to Beaver (B&W)

09:30a
Donna Reed (B&W)

10:00a
The Lucy Show

10:30a
The Beverly Hillbillies (B&W)

11:00a
Andy Griffith

11:30a
Love of Life

Afternoon


12:00p
Where the Heart Is

12:25p
CBS News (Douglas Edwards)

12:30p
Search for Tomorrow

01:00p
The Galloping Gourmet

01:30p
As the World Turns

02:00p
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing

02:30p
The Guiding Light

03:00p
The Secret Storm

03:30p
The Edge of Night

04:00p
Gomer Pyle, USMC

04:30p
Mike Douglas (co-host Shelley Berman, guests Sen. Howard Baker, the Serendipity Singers)

Evening


06:00p
News (Jim Jensen)

07:00p
CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite

07:30p
Get Smart

08:00p
The Good Guys

08:30p
Hogan’s Heroes

09:00p
CBS Friday Night Movies – “Fanny”

11:30p
News (Bob Young)

12:00a
Merv Griffin (guests Jennie’s Daughters)

01:30a
News (local)

01:40a
Movie – “Criss Cross” (B&W)

03:20a
Movie – “The Gift of Love”

Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, who guests on Mike Douglas' show, was the son-in-law of Everett Dirksen, the famed U.S. Senator from Illinois, who had been Senate Minority Leader until his death two months ago, in September. Baker barely lost the contest to replace Dirksen as Minority Leader to Hugh Scott, whom I mentioned on Saturday.


WNBC, Channel 4 (NBC)

Morning


06:30a
Education Exchange

07:00a
Today

09:00a
For Women Only

09:30a
PDQ (guests Ruta Lee, Scoey Mitchell, Bill Bixby)

10:00a
It Takes Two (guests Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Campanella, Mr. & Mrs. Greg Morris, Kaye Ballard and Roger C. Carmel)   

10:25a
NBC News (Nancy Dickerson)

10:30a
Concentration

11:00a
Sale of the Century

11:30a
The Hollywood Squares (guests Jim Backus, Sammy Davis Jr., Betty Grable, Lloyd Haynes, Ruta Lee, Alan Sues, Wally Cox, Abby Dalton, Charley Weaver)

Afternoon


12:00p
Jeopardy

12:30p
Name Droppers (guests Jim Backus, Polly Bergen, Robert Brown)

12:55p
NBC News (Floyd Kalber)

01:00p
It’s Your Bet

01:30p
You’re Putting Me On (guests Peggy Cass, Bill Cullen, Joan Fontaine, Corbett Monica, Alejandro Rey, Brenda Vaccaro)

02:00p
Days of Our Lives

02:30p
The Doctors

03:00p
Another World

03:30p
Bright Promise

04:00p
Letters to Laugh-In (guests Jack Carter, Teresa Graves, Jill St. John, Alan Sues)

04:25p
NBC News (Floyd Kalber)

04:30p
Movie – “Mary Mary” (part 2)

Evening


06:00p
News (Lew Wood)

07:00p
The Huntley-Brinkley Report

07:30p
The High Chaparral

10:00p
On Stage (special)

11:00p
News (Jim Hartz)

11:10p
Weather (Dr. Frank Field)

11:15p
News (Jim Hartz)

11:25p
Sports (Kyle Rote)

11:30p
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (guests Agnes Moorehead, Wayne Cochran, Jack Haley Jr.)

01:00a
News (Jim Collins)

01:15a
Movie – “The Snake Pit” (B&W)

I'm always impressed with the local talent on the New York network affiliates; so many of them are either future network stars, or already appear on the network. Look at WNBC's 11 p.m. news - Jim Hartz, who will succeed Frank McGee as host of Today, is the news anchor; Dr. Frank Field, who frequently appeared on Today as the network meteorologist, gives the weather; and former New York Giants great Kyle Rote, who also provides color on AFL games on Sunday, does the sports. Not bad.


WNEW, Channel 5 (Ind.)

Morning


07:15a
Glenn Swengros

07:30a
The Alvin Show

08:00a
Prince Planet (B&W)

08:30a
Marine Boy

09:00a
Pixanne

10:00a
Movie – “The Mad Doctor” (B&W)

Afternoon


12:00p
Movie – “Young Tom Edison” (B&W)

01:45p
Fran Lee

02:00p
The Naked Truth

02:30p
Pay Cards!

03:00p
Casper the Friendly Ghost

03:30p
The Flintstones

04:00p
Wonderama

05:00p
My Favorite Martian (B&W)

05:30p
McHale’s Navy (B&W)

Evening


06:00p
Lost in Space

07:00p
I Love Lucy

07:30p
Truth or Consequences

08:00p
To Tell the Truth (panelists Orson Bean, Peggy Cass, Bill Cullen, Betsy Palmer)

08:30p
David Frost (guests Harold Robbins, Dina Merrill, Julie Harris, Frank Gorshin)

10:00p
News (Bill Jorgensen)

11:00p
Peyton Place (B&W)

11:30p
Movie – “San Antonio”

01:40a
Reel Camp (B&W)

WNEW first went on the air in 1944 as WABD, the DuMont affiliate in New York. It remained WNEW until 1986, when it became a Fox affiliate and changed its call letters. It's a sister station to WOR - or, as it's known today, WWOR.


WABC, Channel 7 (ABC)

Morning


07:00a
News (Tom Dunn)  

07:05a
Ed Nelson

08:30a
Girl Talk (guests the Simon Sisters)

09:00a
Movie – “South of Tana River” (B&W)

11:00a
The Anniversary Game

11:30a
The Movie Game (celebrities Carol Lynley, Agnes Moorehead, Louis Nye, Rudy Vallee)

Afternoon


12:00p
Bewitched

12:30p
That Girl

01:00p
Dream House

01:30p
Let’s Make a Deal

02:00p
The Newlywed Game

02:30p
The Dating Game

03:00p
General Hospital

03:30p
One Life to Live

04:00p
Dark Shadows

04:30p
Movie – “The Pleasure Seekers”

Evening


06:00p
News (Roger Grimsby)

07:00p
ABC Evening News with Frank Reynolds and Howard K. Smith

07:30p
Let’s Make a Deal

08:00p
The Brady Bunch

08:30p
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

09:00p
Here Come the Brides

10:00p
Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters (guests Kate Smith, louis Nye, Rosey Grier)

11:00p
News (Roger Grimsby)   

11:25p
Weather (Tex Antoine)

11:30p
Joey Bishop (guest Cyril Ritchard)

01:00a
Movie – “Who Are You, Mr. Sorge?” (B&W)

Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters will move into the spot vacated by The Hollywood Palace when the latter is cancelled in February. The combination was not a good idea.


WOR, Channel 9 (Ind.)

Morning


07:25a
News and Weather (local)

07:30a
Daphne’s Castle

09:00a
Romper Room

10:30a
What’s My Line? (panelists Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, Anita Gillette, Soupy Sales)

11:00a
Journey to Adventure

11:30a
Movie – “The Enchanted Cottage” (B&W)

Afternoon


12:50p
Fashions in Sewing

01:00p
Stock Market

03:30p
Circus, Circus, Circus

04:30p
Movie – “The Blob”

Evening


06:00p
Gilligan’s Island

06:30p
Flipper

07:00p
Dick Van Dyke (B&W)

07:30p
Della Reese (guests Arthur Prysock, Molly Bee, Betty Walker)

08:30p
Joe Namath (guests Sugar Ray Robinson, Rocky Graziano)

09:00p
NBA Basketball – Knicks vs. 76ers (tape delay)

11:00p
Divorce Court

11:30p
Movie – “Vera Cruz”

01:30a
Joe Franklin

02:30a
News and Weather (local) (B&W)

I'm not entirely sure why the Knicks-Sixers game is being shown on a one-hour tape delay. I could understand it more if it were being played in New York, but it's in Philadelphia. Perhaps there was an ongoing relationship with the Knicks radio network, that because of sponsorship they got a one-hour head start. Oh well, it sounds convincing enough to me...


WPIX, Channel 11 (Ind.)

Morning


07:15a
News (Marc Howard)

07:30a
TV High School (B&W)

08:00a
The Little Rascals (B&W)

08:30a
Cartoons

09:00a
Krazy Kat

09:30a
Jack LaLanne

10:00a
David Wade

10:30a
Everywoman   

10:55a
News (local)

11:00a
The Millionaire (B&W)

11:30a
Gumby

Afternoon


12:00p
Underdog

12:30p
Rocky and His Friends

01:00p
The Little Rascals

01:30p
Continental Miniatures

02:00p
Steve Allen (guests Mort Sahl, John Gary, Jerry Shane)

03:00p
Speed Racer

03:30p
Superman

04:00p
The Addams Family (B&W)

04:30p
Skippy

05:00p
Abbott and Costello (B&W)

05:30p
The Munsters (B&W)

Evening


06:00p
Batman

06:30p
Star Trek

07:30p
Beat the Clock (guest Hugh O’Brian)

08:00p
He Said! She Said!

08:30p
Felony Squad

09:00p
Ben Casey (B&W)

10:00p
News (Lee Nelson)

11:00p
Here’s Barbara

11:30p
Perry Mason (B&W)

12:30a
Phil Donahue

01:00a
The Honeymooners (B&W)

I don't remember the original Beat the Clock in the '50s, but I do recall this version, which aired in syndication and featured a celebrity guest. I wouldn't have thought of Hugh O'Brian as one of the celebrities, though. I suppose needing work makes a man do strange things.


WNDT, Channel 13 (NET)

Morning


08:25a
Classroom (B&W)

11:30a
Sesame Street

Afternoon


12:30p
Classroom

04:30p
Sesame Street

05:30p
Misterogers

Evening


06:00p
What’s New (B&W)

06:30p
Astronomy (B&W)

07:00p
En Francais (B&W)

07:30p
New Jersey Speaks (B&W)

08:00p
Book Beat (guest George Thayer, “The War Business”

08:30p
NET Playhouse

10:00p
Newsfront (B&W)

The subject of NET Playhouse is the famed William Jennings Bryan, three-time nominee for the presidency (he lost all three times), giver of one of the most famous political speeches of all time, Secretary of State, and, at the end of his life, a major participant in the Scopes Monkey Trial. James Broderick plays Bryan in this play, with Roy Scheider as Clarence Darrow. I wonder how they chose to portray Bryan in this production - as a statesman, or as a fool?


WNYC, Channel 31 (Ind.)

Morning


10:00a
Staff Meeting

11:00a
Film

11:30a
Community Action

Afternoon


12:00p
Film

01:00p
Interlude

03:00p
All About TV

04:00p
Around the Clock

04:30p
Navy Film

05:00p
Films from France

05:30p
Health Education

Evening


06:00p
Staten Island Today

06:30p
News (Paul Manacher)  

06:45p
Film

07:00p
Dramatic Experience (B&W)

07:30p
Brooklyn College (B&W)

08:00p
American History (B&W)

09:00p
Sight and Sound

09:30p
News (Herbert Boland)   

09:45p
Film

10:00p
Your Right to Say It

10:30p
Astronomy

WNYC is not an educational station, but I have to say that its schedule certainly looks like one. TV  

16 comments:

  1. WNYC is a interesting station, owned by the NYC government but officially licensed as a commercial station. (Among other things, that meant it couldn't do pledge breaks to raise money). And it wasn't a NET/PBS affiliate, but specialized in locally produced programs.
    In case you're wondering who the "Simon Sisters" were on Girl Talk, that's Carly Simon and her sister a few years before Carly achieved solo stardom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, I did not know that about the Simon Sisters! I'm always grateful for my readers; I think I learn more from them than they do from me!

      Delete
  2. Last things first:

    - The Simon sisters weren't an act, as you seem to believe (or at least how your post is written).
    Joanna Simon, Carly's elder sister, was a star soprano with the Metropolitan Opera in NYC ( as you, of all people, should have known ...).

    - My recollection of Hugh O'Brian is that he was a shrewd businessman who managed his money better than many other performers. He reached a point where he didn't have to look for work, and only took appearances that he thought he'd enjoy.
    Thus, a week on Beat The Clock, which would count as strictly a fun gig for fast money and easy exposure; O'Brian probably spent some of the time promoting a stage appearance somewhere (as many of his contemporaries did - and still do).

    - It Takes Two was a husband-and-wife game hosted by Vin Scully.
    The interestng part of this week's shows was that there were two married couples (the Morrises and the Campanellas) and one couple who played a married couple - Kaye Ballard and Roger C. Carmel from The Mothers-In-Law.
    The interesting part of that is that after his death, it was revealed that Roger Carmel was gay - and everybody in the business knew it (see under don't ask, don't tell).

    Running dry for now; maybe back later.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Carmel only played Ballard's husband in the first season of MOTHERS-IN-LAW...when he refused to join the cast in forgoing a salary raise in return for sponsor Proctor & Gamble renewing for another year, and was replaced by Richard Deacon. Not to mention the show had been cancelled by the time this aired.

      Also, what is with PDQ? I understood it went out of production at the end of the 1968-69 season...rerun?

      Delete
    2. PDQ was a syndicated game show, so my guess it not enough stations took it. The format came back as a network show, Baffle, hosted by Dick Enberg (who also retired from baseball this year, along with Scully; Enberg had been the California Angels announcer before going full-time with NBC, when he left there, he finished out his career with San Diego).

      Delete
  3. I was going off this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simon_Sisters
    Lucy, not Joanna, was Carly's partner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oops.

      I'd forgotten about Lucy Simon.

      In my defense, so had everybody else ... :-)

      Delete
    2. I couldn't think of the name Lucy when reading this...but I knew it wasn't Joanne

      Delete
  4. While Dr. Frank Field may have sometimes done weather on "The Today Show", he's best recalled outside of New York for doing weather reports on NBC space coverage in the 1960's and 1970's, often telling anchorman Frank McGee (and viewers) weather conditions at Cape Canaveral for the launch and the splashdown area in either the Atlantic or Pacific where the spacecraft would come down.

    From 1965 through the Apollo lunar landings, NBC has a huge "Space Center" in studio 8-H which was big enough to hold full-sized lockups of fist, the Gemini two-man spacecraft, and later, the Apollo command and lunar modules.

    Dr. Field has a rather large (about 30 feet long) area on one of the backdrops in 8-H where the weather data for the Cape and splashdown areas would be posted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I meant to type that NBC's Studio 8-H in New York was "big enough to hold full-sized mockups of fist, the Gemini two-man spacecraft and later, the Apollo command and lunar modules".

      Delete
    2. Boy, I miss those days. That coverage was absolutely fascinating, and it was nice to see Dr. Field talking about something other than hurricanes! :)

      Delete
    3. I guess that you never saw Not For Women Only, a talk show that Dr. Field co-hosted with Barbara Walters, and then with Lynn Redgrave.
      The show was produced locally by WNBC-TV in New York, and syndicated to the other NBC owned-and-operated stations, including WMAQ in Chicago (for a time, NFWO sold decently to other stations across the country).
      Dr. Field worked well with Walters, and later with Redgrave, and covered many newsworthy topics - although I can't recall if the subject of weather ever came up on this show ...

      Delete
    4. On the contrary - I know quite a bit about it, since it was always on Channel 5 in Minneapolis prior to the start of the Today show. I just didn't watch it, because I'm not a fan of Barbara Walters.

      Delete
  5. The 8:30 PM listing (after HighChap) on WNBC-TV 4 is missing. It normally was Name Of The Game (8:30-10:00 ET).

    ReplyDelete
  6. Not long after this, Lew Wood was taken off the "Sixth Hour News" (which he'd anchored since 1967 after Robert MacNeil went elsewhere within the network) on WNBC and replaced by Frank McGee who handled this on top of his Sunday "Frank McGee Report" on NBC. Around the time he was tapped to alternate with David Brinkley and John Chancellor on "NBC Nightly News" after Chet Huntley retired, the "Sixth Hour News" was then anchored by John Palmer. Then by early 1971 Sander Vanocur was the anchor (and the station began its first iteration of "News 4 New York" which would be more successfully used from 1980 to 1992). Meanwhile, WNBC, once the top-rated news station at that hour, was beginning a long slide to ratings oblivion, aggravated not only by WCBS and its stable led by Jim Jensen, but also the upstart "Eyewitness News" on WABC - a slide only reversed, if temporarily, in the mid-1970's with the start of "NewsCenter4" (it wasn't until the 1980's that they truly became a contender again).

    Where WNBC had any luck in the news ratings race was 11 P.M. (which explains why Jim Hartz held that slot year after year after year). WABC, after "Eyewitness News' " startup, was a close second - and WCBS plunged to last place, leading to them, in 1973, coming up with the idea of having their 11 P.M. newscast emanate from their newsroom, with Rolland Smith and Dave Marash as anchors.

    "Stock Market" as listed by TV Guide was in fact a locally-produced version of the "Stock Market Observer" franchise, which format originally started up in 1964 on WCIU-TV in Chicago and ran there through the 1990's (and is seen as the precursor to the likes of CNBC). WOR's version had begun in February 1969, not long before their 'new york 9' logo, and lasted only until mid-1970. It, unlike WCIU's up to the mid-1970's, was in color.

    "Here's Barbara" was hosted by Barbara Coleman. And WPIX was the first New York home of Phil Donahue. Ironic that, from 1974 to 1982, his show was taped at WPIX's then-sister station in Chicago, WGN-TV 9.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for writing! Drive safely!