What's on TV? Thursday, September 30, 1965

This is one of those days that demonstrates the accuracy of NBC's claim to be "The Full Color Network." CBS boasts of only two prime time colorcasts (My Three Sons and Gilligan's Island), while ABC's curious choice is O.K. Crackerby, co-creator Cleveland Amory's failed sitcom (17 episodes), starring Burl Ives. Who knows why—it would take someone like Dick Tracy to find out, and hopefully that's a big-enough hint to you regarding something contained in today's listings, which, as you might have figured, are from the Minnesota State Edition. And be warned: there's a bonus article on today's listings coming on Wednesday, so don't miss it!

This week in TV Guide: September 25, 1965

There's a good reason Jackie Gleason is known as The Great One; like him, everything he does is  larger than life, flamboyant. But, as Thomas B. Morgan writes in this week's cover story, there's something misleading about the application of the word, the hint that Gleason is "a man who almost gets away with it."

The occasion for this medidation is "The Great Gleason Express," a 14-car "party train" carrying Gleason and his cast, including Steve Lawrence, the June Taylor Dancers, a Dixieland jazz band, a film crew, and 20 newspaper reporters and columnists, on a junket from New York City to Miami Beach, where the Gleason show is done.

The adventure starts Saturday with a celebratory brunch at Gleason's favorite watering hole, Toots Shor's. Gleason, resplendent in a gray suit, a florid purple vest, ruby cufflinks, and a red carnation in his lapel. A crowd of about 200 feasts on a buffet including lamp shops, scrambled eggs, and shrimp salad, topped off by champagne (the tab for the brunch plus the ensuing train runs CBS $23,500), while Gleason holds court, accompanied by Miss Miami Beach. From there the troup troops to Penn Station, where Gleason is cheered by onlookers as he and his merry band board "The Great Gleason Express." 

As the train rolls merrily on the way to Miami, the band plays "Sweet Georgia Brown," June Taylor and Steve Lawrence dance in the aisles, and copious amounts of alcohol are consumed. (Lawrence figures prominently in the trip, promoting his own variety show this fall on, you guessed it, CBS, acting as Gleason's straight man.) Later, after Gleason takes an opportunity to quietly retire to his compartment for a break, he reemerges in a green sweater, "looking almost fresh," talking about how he was going to be starring in an upcoming movie with Frank Sinatra called The Odd Couple. (He couldn't be referring to the movie that eventually starred Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, could he?) There's more singing and dancing, card tricks, Dixieland, amd drinking. As Saturday turns to Sunday, the train passes through Savannah, Georgia, and by noon it's in Auburndale, Florida. The train's arrival in Miami Beach is marked by a 36-piece brass band, a marching string band, and a Beatleesque pop group, while Gleason strolls off with the mayor of Miami Beach, Elliott Roosevelt. (Yes, that Roosevelt.) Later that night, there's a banquet at the Doral Beach Hotel, where everyone celebrates the estimated $9,000,000-a-year in free publicity that the show brings to the city.

And away we go!

Throughout the trip, Morgan toys with the idea that the Gleason greatness is a facade, a show for the benefit of others. At one point, catching Gleason looking out the window at the Pennsylvania countryside, he asks The Great One "if he ever felt as though he were living in the middle of a movie." Gleason shakes his head; "'No,' he says wearily, 'this is for real. I enjoy it.'" Meanwhile, further back, a publicist wonders out loud if they're "pressing Gleason too hard." "We have to get all we can while we can," the other replies. Late in the trip, the sudden appearance of a terrier running up the aisle causes Gleason to really laugh "for perhaps the first time in 24 hours." The weekend ends with Gleason and Lawrence and a round of golf; as the accumulated events of the weekend catch up with him, Gleason tires, "and he played the last three holes without smiling."

I get the impression that Morgan doesn't like Steve Lawrence, is skeptical about Gleason, and in short is somewhat cynical about the whole thing. Maybe it just isn't important enough for him; having previously been a press aide to Adlai Stevenson, he goes on to work for Eugene McCarthy and John Lindsay, served as editor of The Village Voice, and works for the United Nations Association. Quite a career—too bad he doesn't get more out of his travels with The Great One.

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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: On the second show from Hollywood, Ed’s scheduled guests are Dinah Shore; comic Jack Carter; rock ‘n’ roller Trini Lopez; actress Gertrude Berg; singer Leslie Uggams; the University of California (Berkeley) Band, and Komazuru Tsukushi, a top-spinner. (According to the episode guide, Dinah is merely "scheduled to appear), while Sonny & Cher are the headliners, and the additional guests were Turk Murphy & his Band and the Incredible Martys acrobatic group.)

Palace: Host Bing Crosby introduces jazzman Louis Armstrong; comedian Phill Harris; the 36 singing Young Americans, led by Milton Anderson; comic magician Carl Ballantine, a regular on “McHale’s Navy”; Pat Woodell, formerly of TV’s Petticoat Junction, who makes her TV singing debut; Danish trapeze artist La Norma; French ventriloquist Fred Roby; and Simms’ performing ponies.

Well, this week is pretty easy, whether you have the episode guide or not; but if Sonny & Cher are headlining, up against Bing effing Crosby and Louis effing Armstrong, and throwing in Phil Harris and Carl Ballantine for good measure--well, what do you expect me to do? This week, Palace hits the high notes.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era.

It's Cleveland Amory's first review of the new season, and his advice is to do as the title of this show suggests: run for your life. And, let's face it, it's a potential source of trouble when one of the kindest things a critic can say about a show is that "the color is magnificent", although it should be added that in this day when shooting a series in color was a real selling point, this praise isn't perhaps as faint as it would seem.

At any rate, Run for Your Life is, according to Amory, "an obvious switcheroo on The Fugitive," which is perhaps no surprise since Roy Huggins, creator of Run for Your Life, also created The Fugitive. (Will wonders never cease?) The difference here is that while Dr. Richard Kimble ran to avoid death at the indirect hands of Lieutenant Girard, Paul Bryan runs to avoid death from the Grim Reaper himself, a fatal disease that gives him one, perhaps two years, to survive, but will leave him relatively symptom-free until near the very end. Bryan decides, in his words, "to squeee 30 years' living" into that period. You can't blame him for this, Cleve concedes, but "if the show runs longer than two years, he's going to have to start re-running."

In addition to the color, Amory praises Gazarra for giving his all, acting as if he really believed the far-fetched premise he'd been given. (Gazarra, a classically trained stage actor, often felt frustration himself with what he saw as the superficiality of the role.  In many ways it was a paycheck job for him.) At this early point in the series' history—Amory bases his review on the first two episodes—the writers are clearly struggling with how to tell the story without lapsing into cliché and heavy-handedness, and to Amory's ears they seem overly intrigued with Gazarra's health, turning him into something of a noble mystic spouting such mysterious lines as "I have played [the game of life and death]—and I lost." 

He also finds lacking many of the people Gazarra runs into in his adventures; speaking of Katharine Ross' performance in the premiere episode, Amory says that "we couldn't tell whether she was that shallow or her part was—but no matter, we wanted no part of her." We do learn something, though: in the episode "The Girl Next Door Is a Spy," Amory says, we find out that the swans located in a particular city park live a hundred years. Predictably, Gazarra replies, "Those miserable swans." To which Amory might have appended, "Those miserable viewers."

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Even though we're past the Fall Preview issue, and the official kickoff to the new season, we're still seeing the pages of TV Guide are filled with ads for new network lineups, such as these two, for ◄ Sunday and Friday nights, respectively. NBC is particularly aggressive about this; they have ads for each night of the week, and they're making a big deal out of how many of their shows are in color. And in case the artwork looks familiar, it should: it was done by Mad Magazine's Jack Davis, who did many, many TV Guide covers over the years. The Fall Preview issue from a couple of weeks back featured a multi-page "mural" by Davis, covering NBC's entire 65-66 schedule, elements of which are used in the ads for these individual nights. NBC's Sunday night lineup has some clear hits; Friday night, well, not so much. But at least they're in color!*

*Except for I Dream of Jeannie, the first season of which was in B&W, and Convoy, a World War II drama that was forced to take the B&W route since it was heavily dependence on old war footage. Because of that, many NBC affiliates refused to clear the show, and it was gone before the end of the year.  Not that the rest of them (excluding U.N.C.L.E. did much better.)

Next are a couple of ads for ABC. The ad on the left is a fairly standard ad, promoting the network's "Sunday best," a lineup that's actually pretty successful—headlined by The FBI. That's the focus of the ad on the right as well, with one exception: that one isn't from ABC, but from one of The FBI's sponsors, Alcoa. That kind of advertising isn't unusual in this issue; we're at a time when there's still a close identification between shows and their sponsors. Chrysler, for example, has a promo for Bob Hope's Wednesday night special, hardly a surprise given the car maker's long relationship with Hope. Likewise, The Andy Williams Show is now presented by Kraft, a point emphasized by the company in their ad. I don't know if any sponsors are tied to shows anymore; whenever pressure groups call for boycotts of companies advertising on various controversial programs, it often turns out that the sponsors don't even know what shows they're sponsoring. The spots are all placed by ad brokers or the network.

CBS alone foregoes advertising the entire night's programming.  I'm not sure why; perhaps I missed it from a previous issue, or maybe I'll run across it next week.  I've seen them in the past, though.  As a matter of fact, they have precious little advertising of any kind in this issue, but they do manage to sneak in a sole ad for the Thursday Night Movie.

After a year's absense when its spot was taken by Mr. Mayor, Captain Kangaroo returns to the Saturday morning lineup this week (7:00 a.m., CBS). Terence has more on the single-season history of Mr. Mayor. It's one of a number of changes here or coming to the Saturday morning lineup; among the cartoons debuting this week are Heckle and Jeckle (8:00 a.m., CBS), The Beatles (9:30 a.m., ABC) and Tom and Jerry (10:00 a.m., CBS), while next week Atom Ant replaces Hector Heathcote (8:30 a.m., NBC), and Secret Squirrel moves into the lineup, while Fireball XL-5 moves out. Stubby Kaye also returns with his half-hour game show for children, Shenanigans (9:00 a.m., ABC). Take it from me; it's a good time to be a kid. On the sports side, CBS broadcasts its last regular-season Game of the Week, with the Chicago White Sox taking on the Yankees in New York (11:45 a.m., CBS); next season, the Game of the Week moves to NBC. Speaking of, the Peacock Network college football is the rule of the day, with Iowa visiting Oregon State at 2:00 p.m. Next season, you'll be seeing your weekly games on ABC.

There's plenty of pro action on Sunday, with games depending on where you live. Most channels in the Minnesota State Edition get the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Diego Chargers (2:30 p.m., NBC), but for some reason if you live in Duluth you're treated to Joe Namath and the New York Jets taking on the defending AFL champion Buffalo Bills at 1:00 p.m. Those lucky folks in Duluth also get to see the Minnesota Vikings playing at home against the Detroit Lions (2:15 p.m., CBS); due to the blackout, the rest of the CBS affiliates in this week's issue are SOL, except for the affiliate in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where the home state Green Bay Packers clash with the Baltimore Colts, in a preview of the tiebreaking playoff game between the two teams at the end of the season (a controversial game the Packers will win, but that's another story). Not a sports fan? Don't give up; NBC saves you with G-E College Bowl at 1:30 p.m., and The Bell Telephone Hour at 5:30 p.m. This week's episode, by the way, is a tribute to “The Music of Jerome Kern,” with Ginger Rogers, Ella Fitzgerald, Metropolitan Opera soprano Roberta Peters, musical-comedy performers Earl Wrightson, John Davidson and Nancy Dussault, and pianists Ferrante and Teicher.

Monday night features dueling variety hours from two of America's easiest and most popular singers, starting with Andy Williams (8:00 p.m., NBC), doing his best for his new sponsor with Phil Harris, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and the vocal group the Jubilee Four. That's followed—on another network, as they used to say—by Steve Lawrence's new series (9:00 p.m., CBS), this week with Diahann Carroll, Joey Heatherton, and Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones. The network gives Steve a great lead-in, with The Andy Griffith Show and Hazel, and he consistently has a solid guest lineup, so I'm not sure why this series didn't do better. It could be because he's up against the aforementioned Run for Your Life on NBC (which turns out to be more popular with viewers than with Cleve) and Ben Casey on ABC. Or it could be just that viewers preferred seeing Steve and Eydie together.

Tuesday's local highlight is live coverage of the Miss Teen-age Twin Cities contest, from the Calhoun Beach Manor in Minneapolis. (8:00 p.m., WTCN) The winner heads off to Dallas for the Miss Teen-age America contest. Sounds exciting, but will it take viewers away from the riviting suspence that is Peyton Place (8:30 p.m., ABC), especially since Rodney (Ryan O'Neal) is charged with murder?

It's Bob Hope's first variety show of the new season on Wednesday (8:00 p.m., NBC), as Bob welcomes Bea Lillie, Douglas Fairbanks, Dinah Shore and Andy Williams. The sketches include a parody of Cat Ballou with Hope playing a cowardly, metal-nosed sheriff up against Bea's "Tiger Ballou." That's followed at 9:00 p.m. by the third episode of I Spy, and the globetrotting has already begun as Kelly and Scotty find themselves in Hong Kong, making a deal to get a million-dollar back tax payment from a shady dealer.

The Dave Clark Five, Leslie Gore, Major Lance, Donovan, the Hollies, and the Turtles are the stars on Thursday's Shindig (6:30 p.m., ABC), and ◄ Nehemiah Persoff is an exiled Latin American dictator who encounters the castaways on a classic episode of Gilligan's Island (7:00 p.m., CBS). And if you haven't had enough of the Dave Clark Five, they're back later this evening on the third episode of The Dean Martin Show (9:00 p.m., NBC), along with Eddie Fisher, Abbe Lane, Phyllis Diller, John Bubbles, and Yonely.

Johnny Carson's taken The Tonight Show to Hollywood for the next two weeks, and on Friday he celebrates his third anniversary as host (10:15 p.m., NBC); could anyone have imagined there were, what, 27 more of these to go?  It's not a clipfest as we would become accustomed to in years to come, just a regular show with Jerry Lewis and George Burns as guests to help him celebrate. It caps off an all-new night for the Peacock network, with Camp Runamuck, Hank, Convoy and Mr. Roberts. The only returning series on the night is The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and that's now in color.

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And finally, the jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi is the subject of the NET documentary Anatomy of a Hit (Wednesday, 9:00 p.m.), profiling the recording sessions for his new album, Black Orpheus, including the Grammy-winning hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind." 

Guaraldi was a wonderfully talented musician - if the name doesn't sound familiar, perhaps this, his biggest hit, does.  You might have heard it a time or two.

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Around the dial

This week's opening salvo comes from Cult TV Blog, where John's review of the actress Patricia Hayes continues with some of her comedic work from the 1960s and 1970s, which gives us a great look at the versatility of her roles.

Earlier this week, you hopefully read my interview with David Hofstede regarding the second edition of his wonderful book, When Television Brought Us Together. At Comfort TV, David continues with his behind-the-scenes look at how, and why, this updated version came to be. Consider it a cautionary but ultimately victorious tale. 

At Cult TV Lounge, dfordoom reviews David McDaniel's novel Who is Number 2, the second original novel based on the series The Prisoner. I happen to own this book myself and, in fact, was looking at it earlier this week. It's a lot of fun, and I'll leave it to you as to whether or not it should be considered part of the canon.

Time now for a quick trip to the radio side of the dial, where Martin Grams looks at the lost radio adventures of Renfrew of the Mounted, the 1939-40 radio adventure program. Sadly, fewer than a half-dozen of these episodes are known to exist, so Martin shares some of the plot summaries from those missing episodes.

The actress Anjanette Comer died in May of this year, at age 86. We're only now finding out about that, and at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence catches up with an appreciation of the many television and movie credits of this talented and lovely actress during her long and varied career.

Here's a neat reminder of something I used to see all the time when I was growing up: a product sweepstakes tied to a television series. In this case, it's a 1966 ad for Gleem Toothpaste's Batman Sweepstakes that appeared in TV Guide. First prize: a cool $50,000, and I wonder what that would be today?

And to close things out, this week "Wheel of Fortune" refers to our latest episode of The A-Team at The View from the Junkyard, one in which one of our heroes, Murdock, appears on an episode of the game show: Wheel of Fortune. Don't you just love it when television goes meta? TV

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The "It's About TV" Interview: David Hofstede, author of When Television Brought Us Together

It's been awhile since I've put someone in the spotlight for the It's About TV Interview, a process so terrifying that it's been known to send people fleeing in abject horror. But enough about the readers... (And, by the way, they love the subjects; it's the interviewer himself that they can do without.)

However, David Hofstede, author of the Comfort TV website, has bravely stepped into the breech to talk about the upcoming second edition of his book,When Television Brought Us Together: Celebrating the Shows and Values That Shaped America's First Television Viewing Generations. That's a hell of a title for a hell of a good book, and David was most gracious and generous with his time in agreeing to sit in the hot seat for our latest interview.

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It's About TV: I love your idea of "Comfort TV," which plays such a big part as a concept in When Television Brought Us Together. How did that idea come about, and how would you define it to the ordinary person today who probably doesn't even know television existed before twenty minutes ago?

David Hofstede: The idea originated with my blog, which I started back in 2012 when the market for classic TV books had dwindled because of the internet. I needed a new outlet to share my thoughts about the era of television that I love, and that seemed like the best option.

As for what “comfort TV’ is – I think for most of us it’s the shows we grew up with, shows we shared with our family and friends. A connection is forged with them, so we enjoy revisiting them as adults not only for the joy they first brought us, but for the happy memories we associate with them. And as we’ve watched the country and the culture undergo profound changes since they first aired, they also provide a sanctuary when current events become too disillusioning.

How would you define the era of "comfort TV"? Is it chronological, for example the 1950s through the 1970s, or is it by genre? In other words, are there programs from the recent past that you would say belong in the Comfort Era?  

For me it’s the 1950s through the ‘70s, and into the ‘80s as well. I think for a series to generate the kind of warm nostalgic feelings associated with Comfort TV there has to be a familiarity that only grows with the passage of time. For those younger than us I see that happening with a terrific show like Gilmore Girls, which ran from 2000-2007 and is now a favorite series to revisit for those in their 40s.

Now, enter When Television Brought Us Together. Obviously, it's an outgrowth of the blog, but what specifically caused you to take a book-length approach to the topic?

It certainly started with the blog, but it also grew out of an effort to take a macro view of the three-network era of television - what were its defining characteristics, and why did it resonate so deeply with the generations that grew up with its shows? It certainly had its critics back in the day, as evidenced by TV Guide essays penned by egghead intellectuals who looked down on much of its product. But looking back, I think we were fortunate to have the guard rails put in place by the Code of Practice for Television Broadcasters; to have writers like Roswell Rogers and Rod Serling and Carl Reiner and Sterling Silliphant delivering smart scripts on tight deadlines, and to embrace characters across every genre providing examples of responsibility and integrity. We learned good things from those shows, even if we didn't realize it at the time. 

When Television Brought Us Together implies several things, chief among them that it no longer performs this function. Am I reading something into that, or do you feel this way as well, that it either can't bring us together, or that it actively tries to drive us apart? 

It can’t bring us together anymore – not with hundreds of channels and streaming services showing thousands of programs. Widow’s Bay, the Apple TV series that just swept the Emmy Awards, is watched by an average of 2.5 million people. That’s about 0.72% of the country. Only the Super Bowl still attracts the level of viewership numbers that would qualify television as a mass medium.

You make some wonderful observations in the book about how classic-era television shows present values that seem almost quaint today, such as your rhetorical question as to why Bewitched's Darrin doesn't simply let Samantha wiggle her nose and take care of everything herself. Presumably, between Sam and (I Dream of) Jeannie, Darrin and Tony were set for life. They'd won the lottery, and married beautiful women besides. Yet it doesn't seem to have occurred to either one of them to take financial advantage of that. What does that same about them--or, perhaps more pointed, what does it say about our values today?

What is says about them is that they were products of mid-20th century America, when there was perceived nobility in an honest day’s work that extended from the custodial staff to the executive suite, and maxims like “You don’t get something for nothing” were universally understood. What does it say about us now? It’s hard not to wonder whether the bedrock values that sustained us through centuries are now at risk from a systematic dismantling of Western culture.  I know that’s pretty heavy stuff when we’re talking about I Dream of Jeannie. But ask yourself how men competing in women’s sports would have been perceived in the Comfort TV era. Or the Lindsay Clancy trial, or the growing favorable view of socialism. As I posit in the chapter on Dragnet, what would Sgt. Joe Friday think of L.A. as a sanctuary city?

God forbid, those elected officials would be in line for one of Joe's famous "Listen, mister" lectures!  

(Laughs.)

You have sections in the book on "How times have changed," where you take certain aspects of modern life and show how these changes have affected television shows and the tropes that used to be pretty common back in the day. Tell us a little about that, and if you think there's anything that's replaced them as an effective trope?

I wanted this to be more than a book about TV – I wanted to reflect on the times when these shows were new – what life in America was like back then, and how much of how we live and work and play in 2026 is different. What we’ve gained, and more so what we’ve lost, and how that is illuminated in the sitcoms and dramas from that time.

One of the reasons these shows have such enduring appeal is the opportunity they provide to revisit the world they inhabited. As an example, there is a “How times have changed” essay in the book about photography. Back then snapshots of a child’s birthday or a family vacation were treasured things, to be stored in an album and revisited through the years. Now we have cameras in our phones that instantly deliver thousands of images, and people take selfies of every routine activity. It’s easier, certainly more convenient, but there’s nothing special about it anymore.

One of the impressions that one gets from social media is that younger generations are, well, let’s say ignorant of the past. Not just television, but life in general. If you were going to choose, say, a half-dozen shows as examples of what the would used to be like, what would they be? 

One of my guilty pleasures is watching reactor channels on YouTube, and smiling as 20-somethings discover the Beatles and Casablanca and The Twilight Zone. Some of those videos get hundreds of thousands of views, and I find it reassuring that at least some of the iconic artistic achievements from the past are being rediscovered. My hope is that the shows celebrated in the book will also continue to find an audience and not get lost amidst a TV landscape with infinite choices. Will anyone still care about The Brady Bunch, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and I Love Lucy in 25 years? I don’t know. But I think they’d like them if they tried them.

Are we just old, or is television really worse than it used to be? I’ve asked this before, but why? And did this have to happen, or was there a turning point, an event that really altered our cultural perspective on television?

I can’t assess the current state of television because I gave up on it more than a decade ago. My viewing these days is limited to news, sports and General Hospital. I’m sure there are new scripted shows that are great. If there’s a difference between then and now it’s in how success for a series is measured, which also touches on how the economics of the medium have changed. In the three-network era creators strived to appeal to the widest possible audience, in a way that would not risk offending viewers and advertisers because, with few exceptions, ratings were the sole arbiter of success or failure. Now those guard rails are gone, and more provocative shows can target a 12-episode season to a niche audience.

For those who think this book sounds familiar, this is actually an updated version of the original edition from a few years back. For those of us who have and enjoyed the original, what's new in this edition?

About 20 new chapters, updates and revisions to previous chapters, and lots of photos.

We've both been accused in the past of being on the conservative side of the political aisle. Is there anything ideological in what we're talking about, or is the idea that we're political reactionaries just a lot of hot air?

It’s apparent to me that views considered mainstream in the Comfort TV era are now branded as conservative or even far-right. I can’t change that, nor do I think a different label negates their validity. Readers will find those views upheld in “How times have changed” essays on healthcare and schools and journalism. Anyone watching how Dr. Alex Stone treats patients and parents on The Donna Reed Show, or the classroom scenes from any vintage family situation comedy, or observing in Lou Grant how Lou demanded accuracy and objectivity from his reporters, may wonder why those values have fallen out of favor.

It's not all doom-and-gloom, though, and I hope I haven't given readers an inaccurate picture of When Television Brought Us Together. It's delightful, charming, nostalgic, and fun, and not just for us relics from the Comfort TV era. Anyone with any affection for the classic era of television is going to like this book. 

We’ve touched on some serious topics, but I don’t want people to think the book is some scholarly treatise. It’s fun, and often funny (I hope!) and crafted to generate happy memories. Any book that celebrates the music of Kaptain Kool and the Kongs can’t be all that stuffy.

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Mitchell here. Thanks again, David, for taking some time with the infamous It's About TV Interview. I don't think it's a secret for readers that I'm a friend of David's, and a big fan of his writing. Therefore, you might expect that, well, of course I'm going to give a positive reading to the book. But you've got to take me seriously here, folks, because this really is a terrific book, and it accomplishes the task of being both lighthearted and humorous on one hand, and serious and insightful on the other. That's not an easy thing to do, and David does it so well here.

If you've got the first edition of When Television Brought Us Together, you're going to want this updated edition for many reasons, not the least of which being the new content that David mentioned. And if you didn't get it back then, now's the time to rectify that mistake! TV

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What's on TV? Monday, September 20, 1971

Tonight represents a landmark in the history of televised sports. No, it's not the inaugural season of Monday Night Football; that was last year. It's close, though: for the second season debut, Frank Gifford replaces Keith Jackson as play-by-play announcer, a move that has twin ramifications. In joining Howard Cosell and Don Meredith, Gifford helps form one of the most memorable broadcasting teams in television sports history, one that would earn the praise and ire of millions around the country. They helped turn Monday Night Football from a mere football game to an event, a colossal Roman circus that inspired such activities as barroom contests to throw bricks through televisions when the trio appeared on the screen. More sedate, but perhaps more significant, Jackson moved from the NFL to college football, in the process becoming one of the greatest big-game announcers in television history. On such a historic night as this, everything else pales in comparison, right? This week's issue covers the Philadelphia-New York City area.