This week in TV Guide: August 2, 1969

Until its reappearance as a guest-star vehicle for Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it was mostly only oldtimers like us who remembered Lancer, the western which ran on CBS for two seasons from 1969 to 1971. As is the case with so many Westerns, Lancer thrives on drama involving intertwined family trees; Bonanza's Ben Cartwright sired three sons with three different mothers, The Big Valley had an outsider who turned out to be the illegitimate son of the deceased Tom Barkley, The High Chapparal featured a second wife 30 years younger than John Cannon. (These family patriarchs sure did get around, didn't they?)

In the case of Lancer, our patriarch is one Murdoch Lancer, dealing with the tensions brought on by the relationship between his two estranged sons, each the product of a different marriage, who are now brought together to help the old man protect his ranch, also known as Lancer, from land pirates. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, and in fact even though the series only ran two seasons, it was well-regarded by many western fans, and boasted good scripts and fine guest stars. It also had the advantage of this week's cover star, Andrew Duggan, in the title role.

With his two "sons," James Stacy (left)
and Wayne Maunder.

Dugan is one of those actors who invariably makes any show better than it would be otherwise, and even comes through bad shows with his dignity intact. And "dignified" is a good way to describe the subject of Leslie Raddatz's article: standing 6-feet-5 and 205 pounds, with his prematurely gray hair (he's only 45, but "I have always looked old," he tells Raddatz), and smooth voice (product of several years on the stage), he knows how to command a stage. Not that he lords it over people; those who work with him describe him as "unpretentious," "a fine human being," and "a real man." Of his work in Lancer, he acknowledges that "It barely gets through the second layer of you," but he doesn't complain; as a professional actor who's never wanted to be anything else, "I do the next thing to come along."

Lancer is the second show in which Duggan has starred, following the Warners detective series Bourbon Street Beat, and although I've always enjoyed his work, it was his portrayal of detective Cal Calhoun in BSB that made me a fan. He was adept at playing both heroes and villains (and sometimes you were unsure until the final scene), though his turns on the dark side were often complex and three-dimensional, and usuallty featured his own brand of charm. You're likely to recognize him from his many movies (70, including the unlikely pairing of The Incredible Mr. Limpet, with Don Knotts, and Seven Days in May, with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster) and guest-starring appearances on television (more than 140). When he died of cancer in 1988, only 64, it was a loss. No matter what he was in, it was always worth a watch.

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The humorist S.J. Perelman was a frequent visitor to the pages of TV Guide in the day. I'm not sure how many of you remember Perelman, who died in 1979, and how many more of you know him only as a name. As has been the case with so many humorists of the time (Thurber, Parker, Levenson, Menken, Buchwald), Perelman's style of writing, which featured most prominently in The New Yorker, has fallen out of favor over the years* (as, indeed, has The New Yorker), and reading him today can be a struggle, even for those of us who consider ourselves reasonably well-read, although I'm perfectly willing to take the blame for it.

*Arguably, P.G. Wodehouse is the one humorist from that era who has remained reasonably popular, probably because of his beloved creations Jeeves and Wooster. I'd be willing to include Damon Runyon in that category, thanks to Guys and Dolls and his eccentric, "Runyonesque" characters.

Anyway, Perleman is writing this week about nudity on television, and if you think I was going to pass up that story, you're crazy. The origin of the story comes from a recent BBC documentary dealing with nudism. The whole thing bothers Perleman, not because the site of naked men and women offend him; after all, as he points out, "every schoolboy polled [in Britain] knew more about sex than his family obstetrician." No, what bothers our author is how the BBC wasted this nakedness on a documentary, eschewing "the juicy potential of skin as entertainment."

As an alternative, Perleman proposes a story based on the recent case of Miss Pamela Brewer, 18, who was found guilty of violating University of Florida rules for posing nude "on a bear rug" for a men's magazine. In Perleman's hands, Miss Brewer becomes Crystal Gondorf, a "demure but zottick freshman, with a brain rivaling Spinoza's encased in the body of a Lollobrigida." Having undeniably verified that the picture is, in fact, of Miss Gondorf, university president Butterfoss has no alternative but to expel her. Crystal claims her innocence, comparing her situation to that of Josef K. in Kafka's The Trial. Eventually, it turns out the picture was doctored, the culprit being one Babs Cheesewright, a classmate jealous of Crystal's (pre-nude) popularity.

Perleman has some other ideas as well, his story running for another two pages. It's humorous (as opposed to funny), but I couldn't help but think, and again I may be the one to blame here, that the story was a bit like the skits we see in classic variety shows, running just a little too long for its own good. I appreciate long-form writing as much as anyone, but I kept wondering how I was going to summarize this story without taking up the entirety of today's column. As you can see, I finally gave up. This isn't meant to serve as a recommendation against reading Perleman's pieces, unless your job is to condense them. It just seems as if nudity on television should be, well, a bit more exciting, don't you think?

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You'll forgive me for taking a moment to catch my breath after all that. 

(Pause) 

Well now, for something else that's out of this world, The Doan Report takes a look at how last month's flight of Apollo 11 went over with TV viewers. It was, to coin a phrase, a smash. A worldwide audience estimated at 700 million watched the epic journey of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins from the launch pad in Florida to the ghostly images live from the moon and the triumphant splashdown; just about the only parts of the world to miss the adventure were China, India, and most of Africa. But it was seen in Poland and Czechoslovakia, and even Moscow TV ran taped coverage of the moon walk three times in one day. Summing it all up was actress Gina Lollobrigida (she of the Perleman story above), who said, "Nothing in show business will ever top what I saw on television today." 

As for the coverage itself, the clear winner was CBS; Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra garnered about 45 percent of the total audience, and Doan had high praise for the commentary of the former astronaut, who reassured viewers with clearly-understood explanations of what was going on during tense moments. 

And in a little more space news, on Saturday, the unmaned Mariner 7 is scheduled to pass by the southern region of Mars, five days after the flyby of its twin, Mariner 6, beaming black-and-white pictures of the Martian surface back to earth. The networks may preempt regular programming for coverage, including the possibility that the planet could support life.

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It's about time we get to what's on TV this week, don't you think? 

Spread across the weekend is coverage of President Nixon's visit to Romania and London, and back then it really was a big deal for an American president to visit a country behind the Iron Curtain; as a result, NBC plans live coverage of Nixon's arrival in Bucharest Saturday at 6:00 a.m. ET, while CBS has a prime-time special scheduled at 7:30 p.m., preempting Jackie Gleason's show—for one night, he wasn't the Great One after all. I'd assume there was more coverage than what was scheduled, though.

Here's something that caught my eye: an episode of All Star Theater entitled "The Tryst." (1:30 p.m., WIBF) Is the story any good? I don't know, but the cast is, with William Lundigan, Edward Arnold, and two very young future stars: Anne Francis and Vera Miles. The night rounds out with NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies (9:00 p.m.), showing a rerun of the pilot for this fall's new series Then Came Bronson, starring Michael Parks. a kind of Route 66 on two wheels. Unlike Tod, Buz and Linc, Bronson's adventures only cycled for one season.

It's too bad we don't have Sullivan vs. the Palace this Sunday, but while The Hollywood Palace takes the summer off, Ed's back in reruns with a strong lineup: Johnny Mathis, singing a medley of songs by Henry Mancini (with Mancini conducting the orchestra); Diana Ross and the Supremes; dancer and chorergrapher Peter Gennaro; singer Shani Wallis; comedy from Burns and Schreiber and Rodner Dangerfield; and the balancing Rolan Brothers. (8:00 p.m., CBS) That's followed by a very good lineup on Hee Haw (9:00 p.m,. CBS), featuring Loretta Lynn and Waylon Jennings, along with Roy Clark and Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. For all of the ridicule Hee Haw takes for its cornpone humor, just about every big name country star appeared on that show over the years.

Monday's highlight is a rerun of the 1966 historical epic Khartoum (8:30 p.m., NBC), the story of the 1884–1885 Siege of Khartoum, in the Sudan. Judith Crist hails this "intelligent epic," especially Robert Ardeny's screenplay, and a star-studded cast led by the two antagonists: Charlton Heston's "very good portrait of the enigmatic General 'Chinese' Gordon," leader of the British forces defending the city of Khartoum, and Laurence Olivier's "simply superb portrait" of the Mahdi, leader of the Arab tribesmen besieging the city. It is, says Crist, "the rare spectacular that engrosses the mind as well as the eye." If you're in the late-night mood, check out the guest hosts on the chat shows: Flip Wilson on The Tonight Show (11:30 p.m., NBC) and Pat Butrram (!) on The Joey Bishop Show (11:30 p.m., ABC); Pat's guests, by the way, include Gene Autry and Xavier Cugat and Charo. That might be the show of the week.

If you haven't figured it out yet, this week's shows are heavy on the rerun side, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth watching; after all, it's when people used to catch up on the shows they'd missed in this pre-VCR era. For example, one of Tuesday's choices is "All Our Yesterdays," the much-loved episode of Star Trek that sends our heroes back in time: Kirk has to defend himself against charges of witchcraft, while Spock and McCoy are stranded in a prehistoric ice age with the woman who captures Spock's pre-Vulcan heart, Mariette Hartley.* Of course, if you're going to give this a watch, you'll have to pass up this week's episode of Lancer, with guest star Johnnie Whitaker. (7:30 p.m., CBS)

*Typo alert: in the TV Guide, she's listed as "Mariette Hart."

Mariette Hartley—this time with her name spelled correctly—is back on NBC Wednesday night, this time as a naive Missouri girl who hires David Ross to find her missing brother (Rick Jason) in Darren McGavin's cynical P.I. series The Outsider (10:00 p.m., NBC). One of these days, I'm going to have to dip into the grey market and get some episodes of that. Fortunately, I won't have to do that with "And When the Sky Was Opened," an excellent first-season episode of The Twilight Zone, starring Rod Taylor, Jim Hutton and Charles Aidman as the first three astronauts into space, who find upon returning to Earth that not all is as it seems. After all, I have the complete series. (6:30 p.m., WPHL)

Have you had the feeling, especially in the last few years, that you're just a piece on a chessboard, being moved at will by someone else? Find out what happens when this is literally the case, on a rerun of "Checkmate" on The Prisoner (Thursday, 8:00 p.m., CBS). As usual, the plot involves one of the favorite topics in The Village: conformity. As usual, Number 6 meets the challenge with his own favorite topic: escape. Otherwise, check out one of those movies I mentioned that features our cover star, Andrew Duggan. Yes, it's The Incredible Mr. Limpet (9:00 p.m., CBS), which Judith Crist describes as "a movie about a schnook who becomes a dolphin." I'm not sure who Duggan plays, but Don Knotts is the schnook. 

Friday boasts an interesting lineup of guest stars, beginning on The Wild Wild West (7:30 p.m., CBS), with opera star Patrice Munsel as—what else; a tempestuous opera star—who's run afoul of the sinister Order of Lucia. That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by The Name of the Game (NBC), a Robert Stack episode featuring Ricardo Montalban as a ghetto priest taking on the syndicate, led by—not Bruce Gordon, alas, but Edward Andrews. On NET Playhouse (8:30 p.m., NET), David Hemmings, who's since become famous in Antonioni's Blow-Up, stars in "Auto Stop," the story of a "callow youth" hitchhiking across continental Europe in hopes of becoming a man. The Saint (10:00 p.m, NBC) features one of Roger Moore's future co-stars, Lois "Moneypenny" Maxwell, as Simon Templar becomes involved in revenge, blackmail, and murder. Sounds as dangerous as anything Bond will come up against. 

A precaution, though: President Nixon is scheduled for an address to the Nation tonight, at which he'll reveal his new welfare initiative, the Family Assistance Plan. Typical of the time, the speech will be followed by analysis from network correspondents. Regular programming will be preempted, rescheduled, or delayed.

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An interesting Letter to the Editor this week, from Bill Cifton of Shelton, Washington, writing about a recent article on whether or not there's too much violence on television. (A recent poll indicated viewers felt excessive violence on TV was detrimental to society.) It's a little long, but I'm going to repeat it because I think it resonates with many of us out here:

My boss tells me what time to come to work, take my coffee break, eat lunch, get my paycheck, take my vacation and go home at night. Then my wife tells me to cut the grass, trim the hedge, take out the garbage, eat my dinner, not drink too much, and lastly what time to get up. The bank tells me when to make my house payment, car payment, TV payment and bring more money because my account is overdrawn. The only escape I have is watching TV—especially a nice violent show—because now somebody else is getting theirs. If I don't get any healthy violence to watch, I'm going to get even: I'm going to call the bank to come get the TV set. Then I'll send Nielsen his 50c and form back and tell him I just listen to radio.

I'd like to shake Mr Clifton's hand.

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Finally in this issue from Philadelphia, dueling news legends:

In this corner, one-half of the news lineup on WCAU, narrator par excellence of NFL Films, John "The Voice of God" Facenda!

And in this corner, present newsman of WLS and future star of NBC News, Tom "The Tomorrow Man" Snyder!

Who have ya got?

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OK, I lied. Here's the final thought. It comes from former U.S. senator Henry Clay, as quoted in a letter from Ira H. Schoen of Yonkers, N.Y., writing about that poll on TV violence. Said Clay, "Statistics are no substitute for judgment." Make of that what you will. TV

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Around the dial

Wt Cult TV Blog John leads off the week with a very interesting comparison between the 1967 Avengers episode "Never, Never Say Die" and the 1967 movie Night of the Big Heat, which was later released here with the evocative title Island of the Burning Damned.) Is he right or wrong? Check it out.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill is back with a look at three neo-noirs from the 1960s, all of which center around "a character duped by another character,' which is a specialty of the noir genre if ever there was one: Mississippi Mermaid, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, and Diabolically Yours. Highly recommended.

I don't know when we'll reach the end of The A-Team at The View from the Junkyard, but until that happens, we'll have Roger's review of the latest, which this week happens to have the unfortunate (for me, at least) title "The Road to Hope." And I have a feeling it's not Bob we're talking about. 

The feature film based on the 1960s version of Batman came out 60 years ago this week, which doesn't seem possible, but it is! And at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence has a fond look back at a very fun movie. He also has a fond remembrance of the lovely Antoinette Bower, who lit up the screen in every movie and television show she ever appeared in, who died earlier this year at the age of 93.

Finally, Martin Grams has another of those great tie-in products that were so in vogue in the 1950s, this one a children's coloring book featuring the one and only Hopalong Cassidy. Check it out while you can! TV

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What's on TV? Friday, July 24, 1953

Tere's not much to report today; I mentioned the addition of the Milwaukee listing for WTMJ on Saturday, and appropriately enough I've listed it after all the Chicago stations, just as it was in the issue. Besides, when you have the following, you don't need anything more. It's the description for Double Crossed Fool, the movie at 3:00 p.m. on WBKB: "Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito run into American sailors when they go to an island to make a treaty with the native chief."* According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, it's also known as That Natzy Nuisance, and it's a sequel to The Devil with Hitler. It's a comedy, in case you hadn't guessed, and while it sounds as if it should star the Three Stooges, it doesn't. I'll let you take it from there.

*"Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito walk into a bar. . ."

There's a note preceding the Milwaukee listings that they're in Central Standard Time. Now, we've discussed the checkered history of Daylight Saving Time before, and I don't pretend to know what things were like then in Chicago, but it might well be that Chicago is observing DST; hence, the mention that Milwaukee is not. But life is confusing enough as it is without having to figure this out as well.

This week in TV Guide: July 24, 1953

Well, look at who's on the cover. Groucho! And he's either pulling our leg, or he's undergone something of a change during the six years he's been doing You Bet Your Life on radio and television. Oh, he's still the wisecracking fast-talker we've come to know and love from all these years; what's changed is the way he looks at people, specifically the contestants on his show. "My estimation of people has risen in the past six years," he says. "There are a lot of wonderful people in the world, and this job has given me a chance to meet them." To critics who accuse him of making fun of those contestants to get laughs, Groucho bristles. "I don't insult the people on my show, I spoof them," he says indignantly. "Others who did insult contestants have failed. You Bet Your Life wouldn't be a hit, if I did. There's a big difference between kidding and ridicule." (I wonder what Groucho would make of today's P.C.-induced chill on comedy?) "I find that they enjoy the fun of the shows, whether they win or not, and they like a lot of spoofing."

Marx enjoys the second career that television has afforded him. "Next to robbing a bank, it's about the easiest of all," he says of hosting You Bet Your Life. "But this is the culmination of years of hard knocks, believe me. Maybe I've earned this kind of job." He still remembers his struggle to make it in show business, starting in 1906 when he was 11. It's been a nomadic life, working the vaudeville circuit before making it big in Hollywood. But now he lives comfortably in Beverly Hills, spends time with old friends and his children, and hosting his weekly show. And after 40 years, he's learned to be unflappable, even when confronted with his sometimes colorful contestants, including a woman with two husbands named Bodovnic (must be something in the water), triplet sisters from Russia, and an Irish janitor working in a synagogue. "I've never been stumped yet," he says. "I guess those years of trouping do something for you.

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What was that I said earlier about hidden gems? Try out this week's starlet, a young woman hoping to make her name someday as the famous daughter of a famous father, but "if she does, it won't be because she tied herself to her father's shirt-tales." The father is Robert Montgomery, film and television star; his daughter is 20-year-old Elizabeth.

Dad's given her some breaks, including signing her as a member of his stock company of actors for his Robert Montgomery Presents summer series. But as far as her career goes, "Any time she wants to discuss her career with me, I'm available. But the decisions are hers." He's given her the benefit of his long experience in the business, though, by helping her in such areas as choosing publicity photos; when he saw one that he deemed "unflattering," he insisted that "Liz rip up the copy and have the negative in the network publicity files destroyed." It's no wonder he acted as President Eisenhower's television advisor.

Liz got the itch to act from watching her father. "I grew up with Dad's acting, which probably raised my hopes of becoming an actress. But I think I'd have wanted that even if Dad had never acted." She's studied with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and her goal is to follow in his footsteps as a Hollywood star (meaning movies), but she's determined to establish her acting chops first on television and Broadway, and, like her father, prefers comedy. Aside from one appearance on Robert Montgomery Presents, she's done no TV to this point, but that will change this summer, of course. And the elder Montgomery will be on hand, producing the series. No favoritism, though; "She'll have to prove herself."

Well, of course, she does. The mention of her preferring comedy is a prophetic one, given her eight seasons in Bewitched, which was at the time the most successful show in ABC's history and remains one of TV's most beloved sitcoms. She did branch into drama, as we know, with some hard-hitting TV movies, including A Case of Rape, that were as far from the Samantha Stephens role as you can get. And let's not forget her title as "Queen of Password," bestowed on her by none other than Allen Ludden himself. So I think it's probably safe to say that for many people today, Robert Montgomery is remembered as the famous father of a famous daughter.

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Television is, at heart, a medium of illusion, filled with dreams that sometimes come true and sometimes. . . well, a case in point is Bob Hope's season opener, scheduled for October 20 on NBC. He'll be doing the show from the Ohio Sesquicentennial (that's 150 years for those of you in the World's Worst Town™), and according to Dan Jenkins at the Hollywood Teletype, he's "trying to get such guests as Tyrone Power, Doris Day, Ted Lewis—and even Clark Gable." Big names indeed. As it turns out, however, a quick Google tells us that he wound up with Gloria DeHaven, Phil Harris and Ohio Governor Frank J. Lausche. I guess it just goes to show that hope springs eternal, Hope doesn't always come true.

What has the week got to offer us? Well, we've had a format tweak in the listings since we last visited 1953. Now, the weekday morning programs—Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday—are listed collectively. We learn, for example, that on the Paul Fogarty exercise show (9:00 a.m., WGN), the week's schedule includes:

Fri: For a trim ankle and a firm arch.
Mon: Grace and balance hints.
Tues: The "Cleopatra" exercise, for bust and shoulders.
Wed: A smaller, firmer waistline.
Thurs: Thigh and calf exercises.

It's good to know these things; I hate surprises.

One thing I've never been able to get used to is a description of what's on tap in a soap opera. There's a serial on NBC called The Bennetts (10:15 a.m.), a 15-minute affair that, quite frankly, sounds gripping. Check out the plotlines for the next week, if you can stand all the excitement:

Fri: In order to save one friend, Wayne Bennett comes close to losing another.
Mon: The end of the trial indicates it might not be the end of the case.
Tues: An artist gets a commission and a lawyer gets a tip.
Wed: A loan turns out to be a down payment on trouble.
Thurs: Wayne Bennett doesn't like his son's new friend.

This kind of format could be found, in one form or another, into the early '60s, and made a comeback in the last days of TV Guide, when the grid system was dominant.

Something else new for this market: a completely separate program section for WTMJ in Milwaukee. Most of it is simply a repetition of listings from Chicagoland, but it helps keep the two markets separate; we wouldn't want to confuse people by showing them stations they didn't get. I guess early television was more complicated than we thought.

Ethnic comedy was very popular in the 1950s, when cities were more likely to have distinct enclaves where people of various nationalities lived. The Goldbergs (Friday, 7:00 p.m., NBC), which started live as a popular radio comedy, is a prominent example. It's reviewed as the "Program of the Week," and though it's been off the air for almost a year, it follows the same formula which has made the show so successful (with some cast changes, including Robert H. Harris in place of Philip Loeb, who was blacklisted after accusations of being a communist). Most of the credit to Gertrude Berg, who not only plays Molly, the matriarch of the family, but also produces and writes the series. The series has come under criticism from some quarters, "asserting that the show tends to perpetuate the stereotype of the people about whom Mrs. Berg writes." The same charge has been leveled against other shows, Amos 'n' Andy and Life with Luigi, for example; those shows were about, respectively, blacks and Italians, while The Goldbergs looks at the Jews. As is the case with other ethnic shows, The Goldbergs presents its humor within the context of a family trying to assimilate into American society without losing its cultural heritage. "Mrs. Berg treats the characters so sympathetically that the show actually should help, not hinder, the fight against bigotry and intolerance." It should, although I doubt it would be acceptable on television today. Frankly, I've never found ethnic humor all that funny, including The Goldbergs, but that's just me; I certainly don't see it as offensive.

Other things I noticed: The Saturday night fight on ABC (8:00 p.m.) is a welterweight bout between Carmen Basilio and Billy Graham (don't worry, it's not that Billy Graham; his show is on Sunday, natch), while the five-minute news break each morning on WBBM is anchored by one of my favorites, Frank Reynolds, on his way to stardom. Speaking of anchors, if you think it strange that John Daly did the evening news on ABC while hosting What's My Line? on CBS, we also have Douglas Edwards, CBS news anchor, hosting Masquerade Party (Monday, 8:30 p.m.). At least it's on the same network. And, of course, there's Mike Wallace hosting the panel show I'll Buy That, which comes on right after Frank Reynolds (10:05 a.m.), long before becoming television's most feared interviewer. Hey, wake me when Norah O'Donnell hosts Wheel of Fortune.

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Geez, everyone's a critic.

Finally, Merrill Panitt's "As We See It" has a story we quite liked, about a man named Richard Gaughan who lives in New York. Mr. Gaughan is apparently a somewhat excitable young man, and it seems that recently he broke into a CBS rehearsal, stabbed a cameraman, and broke a water pitcher over an actor's head. His reason: "He doesn't like television." Panitt doesn't mention for which show the personnel were rehearsing, which could, I suppose, be considered a mitigating circumstance; were I on the jury, I could been convinced to convict on a lesser charge or, even acquit altogether.

The reason we're reading about this is to contrast Gaughan's reaction with that of "the highly intellectual" Bernard DeVoto, who spent 24 hours watching television, and then wrote about his thoughts on the medium. "It turned out that the time was well invested," Panitt writes, "for he sold the story of his situation to Harper's and Reader's Digest." It turns out that DeVoto is just as unimpressed with television as the unfortunate Gaughan, "who at least wasn't capitalizing on his dislike of the medium" for profit. Of the 24 hours he deigned to watch, he liked Dinah Shore, Kate Smith, and a speech by Charles E. Wilson. As for the rest of it, "he belabored TV drama in general, mysteries in particular, and commercials of all types." Notes Panitt, "Like other stuffy critics, he feels TV owes him the best in programming but the companies that pay for them shouldn't bother him." DeVoto couldn't fairly judge the programming by sitting in front of a TV for 24 hours, and he had to be biased to even attempt such a "stunt." With an attitude like that, it's obvious the man was a communist.

Panitt saves his savaging best for last. While Gaughan was confined to a mental hospital for his physical brand of critiquing, "Bernard DeVoto continues to be locked in by his own reasoning and unreasonable approach to a dynamic, promising new medium. As for the commercials, even dreamy, ivory tower types should know that the man who pays the piper is entitled to call the tune." Come to think of it, even the communists understood TV better than DeVoto. TV

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Around the dial

Wt Cult TV Blog, John revisits the BBC 1980s-90s series Forty Minutes  (not to be confused with 60 Minutes), and the episode "Separate Tables," which takes us back stage at a residential hotel, and how they work.

David's moved to Tuesday nights in 1978 in his Comfort TV survey of 1970s TV. What should we remember from then? How about ABC's big-hitter lineup: Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, Taxi, and Starsky & Hutch. Not a bad lineup, huh?

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill looks at the late, great Sam Neill, and his "devilishly dapper" performance in Omen III: The Final Conflict. There's been quite the outpouring of praise and appreciation for Neill since his death, all of it well-deserved.

Someone once said that when you reach a certain age, every time you drive by a cemetery, you feel like you're looking at a "Lease with an Option to Die," which is a long way to go to set up this week's A-Team episode with Roger at The View from the Junkyard.

I mentioned that as part of my research for The Book of Revelations, I started listing to the '60s Gold channel on SiriusXM, which is where I became acquainted with Freddy Cannon, who died last week, age 89. Terence appreciates him at A Shroud of Thoughts.

Another obituary to report is Joanna Pettet, who died earlier this month at 83, and Shadow & Substance remembers her multiple contributions to Rod Serling's Night Gallery, part of her impressive television career.

And to end the week on a lighter note, here's Martin Grams with a look (including some wonderful illustrations) at 1958's The Lone Ranger Adventure Stories No. 2, a great little book with adaptations of the Ranger's radio and television stories.  TV

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