What's on TV: Friday, March 25, 1960

Ahe highlight of today's programming, as we saw on Saturday, is the TV Guide Awards show at 7:30 p.m., but there are other things of interest as well. For example, let's take a look at CBS this afternoon, with For Better or Worse at 1:00 p.m., followed by Art Linkletter's House Party at 1:30, where Art's guest is marriage counselor Dr. James A. Peterson—the host of For Better or Worse. I tell you, if there's an award for self -promotion, that takes the prize. The listings are, as you probably already know, from the Minnesota State Edition.

This week in TV Guide: March 19, 1960

As you'll learn at the end of this week's piece, one of the most popular series on television is the legal drama Perry Mason*, and this week, we're going to take a look at some of the inside keys to the show's success.

* Interestingly, Perry Mason was always categorized in TV Guide as a "Mystery" rather than drama, as is usually the case with legal procedurals. I think that's fair; Mason's really as much a detective as he is an attorney. It's probably best classified as a hybrid detective/legal series.

One of the secrets to the success of Mason, according to this unbylined article, is its strong supporting cast, each of whom brings something special to his or her role. Take Bill Talman, for example, who plays Perry's nemesis Hamilton Burger. According to Talman, Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner didn't think much of the D.A. "Erle detested Berger," Talman says, "and drew him as the prototype of the loud, blustering sorehead, like the one who used to plague him as a young lawyer." Talman has worked to flesh out the character, to reduce the temptation by viewers to see him as a heavy. "Otherwise, it would be no credit to Perry to set him down every week."

Ray Collins, the honest (if quick to judge) detective lieutenant Arthur Tragg, is an old pro, one who "can sense other actors' needs and throw the scene their way." For instance, if a young actor, perhaps one playing his first big role, is struggling with his lines, Collins will start fumbling his to take the pressure off—if, that is, Talman or Raymond Burr don't beat him to it.* But, as Collins adds, "we are professionals. Therefore, no matter how fond we are of one another, we all try to protect ourselves. If Willie Talman can get better lighting than I can, well, I assure you I'll try to change that." Barbara Hale, Perry's loyal secretary Della Street, says "It's like the competition in a family."

*I wonder about this. Collins was, by all accounts, a generous colleague, but it's been said that as his health began to fail (he died in 1965), he began to have more trouble memorizing and delivering his lines. It could be that Talman and Burr, almost certainly the sources of this anecdote, were in fact using it to cover for Collins. It's the kind of thing mensches would do.

William Hopper, son of the famed columnist Hedda, has learned his share of tricks of the trade, thanks both to his mother and veteran actors. He, too, has become a pro over the years; "If all you know is tricks, you're dead."

It's a tight cast, even if they do compete for better lighting and close-ups. Says Talman, who has shared a dressing room with Hopper for three years, "Can you think of rooming with a guy for three years and never having a quarrel or argument? I can't. But that has happened with Bill and me." Collins adds that "There's something else—call it a great affection, like a legit show on the road. When it closes you may never see each other again. Sometimes we think of that. And so we still speak to each other." "And laugh at each other's jokes," Talman adds.

At the center of it all is Raymond Burr, and Collins accurately sums up the man and his impact on the cast. "Take Raymond, a man doing 39 hour-long shows a year, appearing in almost every scene, knowing his lines letter-perfect, and who still devotes himself to making it better for other people." He and Talman are inveterate practical jokers, both on each other and on other members of the cast; Hale, who's a favorite target for Burr, once found everything in her dressing room—sink, flower pots, everything—filled with green gelatin.

Judging by the lack of jealousy among the cast, that must be the only thing that's green.

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Starting in 1954, Steve Allen helmed his own NBC variety show which, at the beginning, aired opposite that of Ed Sullivan. It didn't run as long as Ed's, of course, but then Allen said his goal was never to conquer Ed, but to coexist with him, which he did for four seasons. Let's see who gets the best of the contest this week.

Sullivan: Ed presents circus stars from all over the world. In London: Popov, famed Soviet clown; the Boxing Russian Bears. In New York: Emmett Kelly, celebrated American clown; the De Donge Chimps; Linon, high-wire clown; and the Three Murkies.

Allen: Steve's guests are actress Ann Blyth, Nick "The Rebel" Adams, comedian Jan Murray and the Nikolais dancers.

No contest here; unless you're a big fan of circuses, the only name you may recognize from Ed's lineup is Emmett Kelly, although I'll admit to having a soft spot for boxing bears. On the other hand, Steve has an actual lineup of stars, and while it may not be the strongest hand, it's the best one this week. The verdict: Allen takes the week.

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"For the Record" reviews one of the bigger television stories in recent history: the return of Jack Paar, after his celebrated walkout, on the March 7 Tonight Show. His sidekick, Hugh Downs, counted down the seconds, and then, "Here's Jack!" and out stepped"the lachrymose comedian with the porcupine-quill wit," to complete what the column calls "the most emotional, if not dramatic, re-entry in TV history." Paar's average nightly audience more than doubled, with a multi-city Arbitron rating of 25.5 tuned in to see him, "obviously laboring under great stress" as he resumed the late-night chores. Eyes of a Generation has an excellent recap of one of television's most controversial episodes, including a clip of his triumphant return.

That's not all the Hugh Downs news for this week; according to the TV Teletype, Downs will be appearing in a straight dramatic role in an upcoming episode of Riverboat, starring Darrin McGavin and Burt Reynolds. (If any further evidence is needed, that's him over there, to the left of McGavin.) And, speaking of Perry Mason as we were in the lede, CBS has confirmed that the show has been renewed for a fourth season. 

There's also a note that Reginald Rose has completed work on what Bob Stahl says may be "the most controversial TV play of the season," "The Sacco-Vanzetti Story," planned as a two-part Sunday Showcase presentation in May on NBC. Rose says that his "intensive research" shows that the anarchists, who were executed after being convicted of robbery and murder in South Braintree, Massachusetts, were framed due to their political beliefs. Martin Balsam and Steven Hill are scheduled to portray Sacco and Vanzetti; Sidney Lumet will direct. In the end, the production, which actually airs in June, wins critical acclaim from most critics (with New York Daily News columnist Ben Gross calling it "a blasting indictment of Massachusetts justice," and criticism from Boston Globe legal editor Joseph Harvey, who accused it of being unfair and unbalanced, albeit "absorbing" drama. It goes on to garner four Emmy nominations.

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To coin a phrase, we've got some really big stars in specials and regular fare alike, and that dominates our look at the week.

On Saturday Jack Benny gets a full hour special (9:00 p.m. CT) in addition to his regular weekly series, and he fills it up with Phil Silvers and Polly Bergen. Among the highlights, Jack interviews a "typical" TV Western viewer, gives his opinion on television commercials, and wonders about the runner taking the Olympic torch from Squaw Valley to Rome for the Summer Games.

Sunday brings us the return of Dr. Frank Baxter, whom we've enjoyed here before, in another Bell Telephone Science Special, "The Alphabet Conspiracy." (5:00 p.m., NBC) Dr. Baxter plays Dr. Linguistics, who's out to "prevent three plotters who are determined to do away with the alphabet and thus destroy all languages." Who knew they'd go on to invent emojis instead? Hans Conried plays The Mad Hatter, who for all I know may or may not be one of the plotters. If you missed this when it was first on 14 months ago, you may opt for this week's roundtable discussion on Small World (5:00, CBS), featuring Pablo Casals, Isaac Stern and Ernest Ansermet discussing the musician's political and social responsibilities. CBS follows that up at 5:30 with The Twentieth Century, as Walter Cronkite profiles "Patton and the Third Army."

Sunday evening brings a pair of specials; first, Our American Heritage (7:00 p.m., NBC) tells the story of "Autocrat and Son," also known as Oliver Wendell Holms Sr. and Jr. Sr. is played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Jr. by Christopher Plummer, and the whole thing was written by Ernest Kinoy, who wrote great teleplays into the 1990s, everything from The Defenders to the TV-movies Victory at Entebbe and Skokie. Then, at 8:30 p.m. on CBS, the General Mills Special Tonight series presents "The Valley of Decision" with Lloyd Bridges and Nancy Wickwire.

Compared to Sunday's lineup, Monday is pretty tame, but it does have its benefits, with Arlene Francis as Jack Paar's Tonight guest-host for the week (NBC, 10:30 p.m.), while Jack's in England taping next week's shows. (Speaking of Jack, as we were earlier.) Was Arlene the first woman to host Tonight? I think so, but don't hold me to it; I'm not sure at this point in history who else in might have been.

Tuesday starts off with Playhouse 90's chilling adaptation of Robert Shaw's novel "The Hiding Place" (7:00 p.m., CBS) starring James Mason as a Nazi holding two British flyers (Richard Basehart, Trevor Howard) prisoner in his cellar. They've spent years chained up in there, with Mason as their only contact to the outside world. What he doesn't tell them is that the war has been over for seven years. If that's too dark for you, you can check out a rare television appearance by Rex Harrison in Startime's "Dear Arthur" (7:30 p.m., NBC), co-starring Sarah Marshall and Hermoine Badderly, with Gore Vidal adapting the play by P.G. Wodehouse.

I like the sound of Perry Como's show on Wednesday (8:00 p.m., NBC), with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, and Don Adams. (Might be the best variety show of the week, for that matter.) You can also check out Richard Boone, taking time out from Have Gun—Will Travel to star in "The Charlie and the Kid" on The U.S. Steel Hour (9:00 p.m., CBS), with Geraldine Brooks.

The big event on Thursday is a local one, the start of the Minnesota State High School Basketball Tournament. (For boys, of course; it is 1960, after all.) I think most people think of hockey when they think sports in Minnesota, but in the years before professional sports came to town, the basketball tournament was very, very big stuff. The tournament ran for three days, with eight teams battling for the title, ending on Saturday night when nearly 20,000 would pack Williams Arena, home of the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, to watch the final. If they're lucky, it would be a David-vs-Goliath story, with an unsung small school out of nowhere taking on the big city schools.

In 1960 that's exactly what happened, as Minnesota staged its very own version of Hoosiers, starring the team from tiny Edgerton, Minnesota (population 961). Edgerton, led by coach Rich Olson (so young that security guards demanded to see his identification before letting him into Williams Arena), had finished the regular season undefeated, then knocked off several large schools before making it into the tournament, where the standing-room only crowds adopted the tiny school as its own, cheering them on as they upset top-ranked Richfield in the semifinals before defeating Austin in the final. Edgerton was the smallest school ever to win the state championship, and to this day the tournament remains one of the most storied moments in Minnesota sports history.

On Friday, Robert Ryan and Ann Todd star in a live adaptation of Hemingway's story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (7:30 p.m., CBS), which must have been quite an accomplishment considering our hero leads a life of adventure all over the world. At least they have the right man at the helm, with John Frankenheimer directing. Pretty good supporting cast as well, with Janice Rule, Jean Hagen, Mary Astor and James Gregory.

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There's often a healthy dose of irony contained in TV Guide headlines from this era, and this week's example is the header on the cover, "How Bob Cummings Stays So Young." The short answer, contained in the story, is "advanced thinking on the subject of diet." The longer, and more interesting, answer is only partially found in the article; the rest of it can be tracked down in various articles about Cummings's problems later in life.

Cummings is a big believer in supplements, mostly in tablets and pills. "They're just vitamin, mineral and amino acid pills, but they're organic in origin, not synthetic," he tells the unidentified interview. It's not unusual for him to "gulp down as many as two dozen of these," and he downs "anywhere from 30 to 300 a day." When asked how to get on a supplemental diet, he says simply, "See your doctor and do what he says"

Well, Cummings's doctor was Max Jacobson, the infamous "Dr. Feelgood," who was doctor to many Hollywood celebrities, and once treated President Kennedy with a mixture of steroids and amphetamines. According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, "While Jacobson insisted that his injections contained only "vitamins, sheep sperm, and monkey gonads", they actually contained a substantial dose of methamphetamine." Cummings eventually became an addict, and after Jacobson was stripped of his medical license, Cummings was forced to find his own connections for the drugs. He wound up broke, living in various homes for indigent actors.

Now, I hasten to add that I don't know whether or not Cummings was seeing Jacobson at the time of this article; his quotes only refer to "pills," and Jacobson apparently trafficked in injections. However, Cummings was thought to have become addicted to meth by the mid-1950s, an addiction that continued to the end of his life. It's a sad footnote to a talented and very likable actor.

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And the winner is: Finally, the TV Guide Awards are presented live and in color on Friday night (7:30 p.m., NBC); before the Emmys attained their current level of credibility, the TV Guide Awards, along with other awards shows from magazines such as Look, were considered industry standard presentations. The categories are, obviously, much broader than one would see from the Emmys, but no less important, given that readers of TV Guide voted for the winners.

Robert Young, Nanette Fabray, and Fred MacMurray not only host, they perform in some pre-recorded skits, while the awards themselves are presented in both New York and Hollywood, depending on where the winner is. The show's producer is Bud Yorkin, and it's directed by Norman Lear.

Anyway, may I have the envelope please?

Favorite Series of One Hour or Longer: Perry Mason

Favorite Half-Hour Series: Father Knows Best

Best Single Musical or Variety Program: Another Evening with Fred Astaire

Most Popular Male Personality: Raymond Burr (Perry Mason)

Most Popular Female Personality: Loretta Young (The Loretta Young Show)

Best News or Information Program: The Huntley-Brinkley Report

Best Single Dramatic Program: "The Turn of the Screw" (Startime)

TV

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Around the dial

A few personal notes lead off this week, beginning with my latest appearance with Dan Schneider to discuss American TV History. This month, we look at two overlooked stars of the past, one who was once known as "one of America's great entertainers," and the other a talented actor and teen idol of the 1970s: Danny Thomas and Lance Kerwin.

Also, from a few weeks ago, Herbie J Pilato did a very nice profile of me on his Substack. I'm very grateful to Herbie for his kindness and generosity, and I'm also going to trademark the description "One-Man Literati Delivers a Media Mosaic"! Thanks again, Herbie.

Finally, just a reminder that my novel, The Book of Revelations, comes out in June. You can get exclusive features on that, plus advance word on coming projects of mine, by subscribing to my monthly newsletter. Please take a moment to do so, won't you?

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill takes a look at the 1979 telemovie The Return of the Saint, with Ian Ogilvy eschewing the role of Simon Templar, aided and abetted by Britt Ekland, Helmut Berger, and other international stars. Ah, but is he Roger Moore?

John is investigating the iconic police procedural Z-Cars at Cult TV Blog. The show ran on British TV from 1962 to 1978, and in the episode "Waste," we get to see the first television role for Lewis Collins, who would later go on to star in The Professionals.

I'm one of those who's always dropping names and lines from classic shows, much to the confusion of my friends (which tells me I need new friends). David takes a look at the classic TV name drop at Comfort TV, and wonders if anyone gets these references anymore. 

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger's weekly look at The A-Team takes us to "Sheriffs of Rivertown," which, as you may have guessed, involves our heroes assuming the roles of police officers in a town plagued by official corruption.

Judy Pace, one of the early black pioneers in television, and best known for her appearances on Peyton Place and The Young Lawyers (remember that show?), died this month at the age of 83, and at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence remembers her career. 

Paul's back at Mavis Movie Madness!, which is good news for all of us, and he's back with the real good news, as he reviews volume two of the NBC series Greatest Heroes of the Bible, which includes plenty of entertainment, both intentionally and unintentionally. (Oops!)

No specific tie-in, but at Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddie has some wonderful photos from the classic film and television era, both candid and publicity. It works as a great pallet cleanser to round out the week.  TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

The sociology of soap opera sex

Soap operas have both their fans and their detractors, and we've run across them both over the years in the pages of TV Guide. On Saturday, I mentioned that Edith Efron's essay on sex in the soaps ("anything but 99 44/100 percent pure.") was so long and complex that I decided to give it its own space. It's one of the more critical looks at the genre that you're apt to find, and it presents us with an extremely complicated dissection of contemporary societal mores, with an occasionally convoluted root system of interrelated values that tells us a great deal about values past and present. It is an excellent example of how television can inform us of that past world, and show us the stirrings of our present one.

With no pun intended, the issue of sex in the daytime has become one of the hot issues of the day, as the content of the daily dramas has come under intense criticism. In fact, one critic accuses them of "peddling sex," another declaims the increasing examples of adultery being portrayed in the series, and Variety, the industry newspaper, says there is now a daytime "race to dredge up the most lurid incidents in sex-based human wretchedness."

Now, you might wonder why this was such a big deal at the time. After all, soap operas have had their R-rated reputation for a long time. It wasn't always this way, though; as Efron points out, the daytime drama "is not what it used to be in the old days, when the brave housewife, with husband in wheel chair, struggled helplessly against adversity." As Secret Storm producer Roy Winsor  The soaps have shifted drastically on their axes; the fundamental theme today is, as Roy Winsor, producer of The Secret Storm, puts it, "the male-female relationship." Efron finds that "the theme of nine of the 10 daytime shows on the air when this study was launched is the mating-marital-reproductive cycle set against a domestic background." This is not to say that the outside world of hospitals, offices, and courtrooms is not present, but "the external events tend to be a foil for the more fundamental drama, which is rooted in the biological life cycle. Almost all dramatic tension and moral conflict emerge from three basic sources: mating, marriage and babies." 

This complicated cycle plays out in several ways. Citing storylines from several of the current soaps, Efron identifies three key "values" that exist in the soap-opera universe: "mating, marriage and babies."

The first, and most important of the three—for it serves as the cornerstone upon which the other two are built—is mating, the search for the ideal partner, and it is not only the cornerstone, it is the dominant obsession of daytime characters. "Vacuous teen-age girls have no thought whatever in their heads except hunting for a man. Older women wander about, projecting their intense longing to link themselves to unattached males. Heavily made-up villainous “career women” prowl, relentlessly seeking and nabbing their prey: the married man. Sad, lonely divorcées hunt for new mates." In the complex ecosystem of good and bad that exists in the soap world, this is a definite good. What determines how it's spun within the story is how the search for the perfect mate is conducted. "Good" people's sex is described as "passive, diffident and apologetic," and the key is "coyness, not chastity."

On the other hand, when "bad" people have sex, "One gets the impression that villains, both male and female, have read a lot of Ian Fleming, through several layers of cheesecloth." It's often played over the top, with lines such as "I play hard and seriously—but not necessarily for keeps." Bad characters also leer, ogle, and speak in double entredees, always delivered with husky voices—when they're not already gasping, that is.

The second of these values is marriage. The dominant view is that marriage consists of two ingredients: love and homemaking.* About love, Efron describes it, as portrayed in the soaps, as "a kind of hospitalization insurance, usually provided by females to male emotional cripples." The greatest love, it would seem, is the love of dependence; a typical declaration of said love, on Search for Tomorrow, consists of the reformed alcoholic pleading to his wife, "I need you," with the wife's response, "That's all I want." That's the psychic representation of love; its symbolic representation comes in the form of homemaking. Food is discussed almost as often as sex, and plays a critical role in romance and marriage. 

* As Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen could tell you, love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage; today, however, we live in the horseless carriage world.

The absence of said domesticity is a "serious evil," as seen in a recent storyline in The Secret Storm, in which "a husband’s arrival from work was greeted by a violent outburst by his wife, who handed him a list of jobs he had not done around the house. His neglect of the curtain rods was a sure sign that he was in love with a temptress who works in his office. Conversely, if a wife neglects her house, the marriage is rocky." 

This brings us to the third and final crucial values: reproduction. Having a baby is "the ultimate goal toward which almost all 'good' people strive. And 'The Baby' is the household god." "Good" wives are either fighting to become pregnant, worried that they aren't pregnant, actually becoming pregnant, or trying desperately not to "lose the baby." "Good" men are not only sympathetic, they're also "fascinated by every detail of it," discussing it in intimate detail with their friends. And what of those babies whose conception comes out of wedlock? Well, that's a little more complicated. On the one hand, "The girl is viewed as a helpless victim of male villainy," of loving her man too much. At the same time, however, the same woman "has acquired the baby 'the wrong way' and must—and does—suffer endlessly because of it." However, all ends well, because she goes through with the birth despite all this (abortion being verboten on television), and thus "receives an enormous amount of sympathy, guidance and help from 'good' people." 

Only "bad" people are anti-baby, and the worst of them are "career women," who "actually enjoy some activity other than reproducing the species." With rare exceptions, when it comes to married woman, "even the feeblest flicker of a desire for a career is a symptom of villainy in a woman who has a man to support her." And even when female characters achieve their ideal, it doesn't guarantee happiness. "A man to support them, an empty house to sit in, no mentally demanding work to do and an endless vista of future pregnancies do not seem to satisfy the younger soap-opera ladies. They are chronically bored and hysterical." They also live in constant threat of losing their working husbands to those wicked career women. The males suffer as well; "They, too, have a remarkable amount of trouble reconciling their 'needs as men' with their 'needs as fathers.'" They're either sick with jealousy, tortured by the jealousy of their wieves, or both. They also have to worry about curtain rods. 

The result, Efron finds, is a world epitomized by "a lot of drinking, epidemic infidelity, and countless cases of acute neurosis, criminality, psychotic breakdowns and postmaternal psychosis."

What we have as a result of all this, Efron says, is not the lurid, suggestive headlines we saw at the beginning of this article, but instead 'a soggy, dreary spectacle of human misery'" that begs the question: "where did this depressing view of the male-female relationship come from?" The industry experts have excuses ready and at hand; Secret Storm's Roy Winsor puts a finger on it, identifying television's role as reflector, rather than driver, of societal change: "The moral fiber has been shattered in this Nation, and nothing has replaced it..."Some of the contemporary sickness has rubbed off onto TV." Frank Dodge, producer of Search for Tomorrow, puts it even plainer: "These shows are a recognition of existing emotions and problems. It’s not collusion, but a logical coincidence that adultery, illegitimate children and abortions are appearing on many shows. If you read the papers about what’s going on in the suburbs—well, it’s more startling than what’s shown on the air."

Dr. Harold Greenwald, training analyst of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis and supervising psychologist of the Community Guidance Service in New York, agrees with this assessment. "I think they’re more realistic than many of the evening shows. They’re reflecting the changes taking place in our society. There are fewer taboos. The age of sexual activity in the middle classes has dropped and it has increased in frequency. There is more infidelity. These plays reflect these problems." Dr. William Menaker, professor of clinical psychology at NYU, adds, "The theater, the novel, and the film have always reflected people's concern with the sexual life; and in this sense, what’s on the air reflects these realities of life. Increasing frankness in dealing with these problems isn’t a symptom of moral decay but rather reflects the confused values of a transitional period of sociosexual change."

Unfortunately, adds Dr. Menaker, the issue, as portrayed on television, "is mechanical and adolescent, immature. The 'love' seems equally childish; it is interacting dependency, rather than a mutual relating between two autonomous adults.* As for anti-intellectualism of these shows, it is actually antifeminine. It shows the resistance of both writers and audience to the development of the total feminine personality." Feminist writer Betty Friedan (naturally) echoes this outlook: "The women are childish and dependent; the men are degraded because they relate to women who are childish and dependent; and the view of sex that emerges is sick."

*One could say this about the Love Generation of the Sixties in general.

Interestingly enough, one could say that amidst all this debauchery, you can actually see the makings of the core morality that used to be the bedrock of modern society. For it wasn't all that long ago, in the great scheme of things, that having a family was the ultimate goal of marriage, and couples without children were almost always portrayed as having suffered as a result of a miscarriage, infertility, or some other circumstance that was invariably considered unfortunate. Again, a sign of the times—both times, if you want to be specific.

Efron's conclusions are twofold: first, "one can certainly conclude that all this 'sex-based human wretchedness' is on the air because it exists in society. And the producers’ claims that this is dramatic 'realism' appear to have some validity." However, "does the fact that a phenomenon exists justify its incessant exploration by the daytime dramas?" In other words, does the claim that "this is the way it is" really excuse its portrayal on television? The doctors Efron consulted "actively" refrained from making such moral judgements, but Betty Friedan thinks otherwise. "The fact that immature, sick, dependent women exist in our society is no justification for these plays," she says. "The soap operas are playing to this sickness. They are feeding it. They are helping to keep women in this helpless, dependent state." Playing the victim card—or telling it like it is?  TV

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What's on TV? Tuesday, March 16, 1965

I've mentioned this before, I'm sure, but in all the talk about "must-see TV" over the years, I think we sometimes lose sight of the outstanding Tuesday night schedule that ABC had in the mid-60s. It's diminished somewhere here by the sitcom The Tycoon, which didn't do well in the ratings, but the show it replaced, My Three Sons (which wound up on CBS) was part of a lineup that included Combat!, McHale's Navy, Peyton Place, and The Fugitive. All iconic series, wouldn't you agree? And you can find them in this week's Northern California edition.