What's on TV? Tuesday, October 16, 1973

I suppose tonight's World Series game is the highlight for sports fans, but as I mentioned on Saturday, you might find two movies worth your while: Kim Novak and Tony Curtis in The Third Girl on the Left, and Peter Ustinov in Viva Max! Still, I'm sure you'll be able to find your favorites; today's listings are from the Philadelphia-New York metro area.

This week in TV Guide: October 13, 1973

When we ask the question "Does TV Go Too Far," keep in mind that we're looking at this from the perspective of 1973, Today, society has become so libertine that I'm not sure you can go too far on TV (or anywhere else for that matter), but despite Watergate, Vietnam, inflation, drugs, and disco, the 1970s are a more innocent time, and so we ask the question. 

The poll, commissioned by TV Guide and conducted by Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, NJ and documented by Neil Hickey, tells us that Americans have definite opinions regarding what is called the "new permissiveness" on television. Among the conclusions suggested by the poll:

• Almost 40 percent think TV is "a lot more open and frank than it should be."
• Forty-one percent think there's too much sex, while nearly two-thirds think there's too much violence.
• More than half are in favor of a review board "to screen TV shows for the purpose of keeping programs of 'questionable taste' off the air." 

Not surprisingly, as we've seen with similar TV Guide polls, the Northeast is more liberal than other parts of the country. People 60 and older were the most conservative on questions of sex, while 73 percent of those 18-29 saw no problem with it. Protestants were more concerned about it than Catholics, as were rural Americans vs. those in the city. Despite the fact that television nudity in the 1970s is pretty tame compared to today (when you can see actual nudity), 60 percent agree with the proposition that there's too much of it. A popular refrain you hear is that if you don't like what you see on TV, just turn it off; 40 percent said they'd done just that at one time or another, due to violence (35%), sex (27%), bad language (22%), offensive ethnic jokes (15%), or nudity (11%). 

The most troubling news for television executives, Hickey says, is 51 percent favor creation of a review board to keep certain programs off the air. (Now there's a propositon made for mischief if ever there was one.) Lest one think television is being singled out, a majority believe that such a board "ought to apply equally to newspapers, movies, books, radio and magazines." Frankly, this is troubling news period. There's no word here as to who they think should comprise this board, who selects the members, how long they serve, who decides what constitutes "questionable taste," or anything else. And if you don't think this could cause problems, ask yourself what's going on with Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media today.

The biggest takeway from this, aside from the apparent quaintness of American society back then, is that the divide everyone talks about today has pretty much always existed: urban vs rural, young vs. old, white-collar vs. blue-collar, and so on. And as we've seen during other times of high dudgeon, such as the revulsion against violence following the King and Kennedy assassinations, things don't seem to change much in the long term; if anything, they simply seem to continue their inexorable advancement. Perhaps the question isn't, after all, where one should draw the line. The real question is this: can one even be drawn?

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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.

On first reading this week's review of the NBC sitcom Lotsa Luck, it's hard to tell what Cleveland Amory thinks of it. After repeated viewings, I've come to the conclusion that Amory likes it in spite of himself, or at least more than he'd want to admit. 

Lotsa Luck stars Dom DeLuise as Stanley Belmont, who works in the lost-and-found department at the bus depot and lives at home with his sister Olive, brother-in-law Arthur, and mother. As the latest Britcom to make the leap across the ocean (in the footsteps of All in the Family and Sanford & Son), Lotsa Luck, executive produced by Bill Persky and Sam Denhoff (whose other credits include the original Dick Van Dyke Show and That Girl) is, writes Cleve, long on humor but "short on taste. Any time they can work in deodorant humor or unattractive sex jokes, they will." Amory somewhat quaintly refers to this as "blue" humor*, and if you want an idea of what blue humor looks like in 1973, there's this storyline involving Olive that is "one long toilet joke" when Olive gets her foot stuck in the flush tank of the family toilet. (I don't want to even speculate on that.) 

*I wonder if the editors saved this review for this particular issue? 

It gets better, though, and Amory means this sincerely. By the time we get to an episode in which Stanley's mother tries to fix him up with a single librarian, the show is generating genuine laughs (despite some tastless jokes about death at the start of the episode). Dom DeLuise, says Amory, "can be hysterically funny, and without always being hysterical, either." (As anyone who's seen him on old Dean Martin shows can attest.) Despite this, Lotsa Luck pulls out of the depot after only 22 episodes, never to be seen again (until DVD). Perhaps, says Cleve, the producers [need] to get themselves a new taster."

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On special occasions, we get to take a simultaneous look at three of the great rock music shows of the pre-MTV era: NBC's The Midnight Special, ABC's In Concert, and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Let's look at this week's listings and see who's better, who's best.

Kirshner: The Allman Brothers Band joins Wet Willie, the Marshall Tucker Band and Martin Mull.

Special: Rock music from War (hosts), Mott the Hoople, the New York Dolls, the Climax Blues Band and the Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and pop singer Danny O'Keefe.

In Concert: Rock, blues and a little bit of soul with Blood, Sweat & Tears, the Persuasions, Savoy Brown, Roy Buchanan and Bobby Womack.

Perhaps Special would have been even more special if Eric Burdon had been with War, but such is not the case, which means we're basically talking about a showdown between the Allman Brothers and Blood, Sweat & Tears. And in that case, we'll have to go with the Allmans, which means Kirshner rocks this week's lineup.

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The sporting highlight of the week has to be the World Series, which starts Saturday at 3:45 p.m. on NBC, as the defending champion Oakland A's take on the Cinderella New York Mets. The Mets barely finished over .500 during the regular season, but upset Cincinnati in a tempestuous National League Championship Series. It's the final World Series appearance by the great Willie Mays, and one of the most memorable images, not to mention one of the saddest, is that of the aging Say Hey Kid, one of the most graceful outfielders ever to play the game, tripping and falling in the outfield while trying to track down a fly ball by Deron Johnson in the ninth inning of Game Two. I could have pulled up a picture of that, but I don't have the heart; I'd much rather remember Willie for his 1954 catch of that line drive by Vic Wertz. Oh, by the way, the A's win the Series in seven games.

The Series may be the biggest event of the week, but it's by no means the only one. The annual showdown between Oklahoma and Texas, played at the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair of Texas, is ABC's college football game of the week (Saturday, 12:45 p.m.). This game usually has implications for the national championship, and this season is no exception. Oklahoma, undefeated and ranked #6, destroys #13 Texas 52-13 en route to a 10-0-1 record and a share of the national title. There's also the usual assortment of professional football on Sunday afternoon and Monday night.

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With the demise of Jerry Lewis's Labor Day telethon, the once-ubiquitous television fundraiser has pretty much been reduced to the occasional two- or three-hour special, usually following some kind of natural disaster. It wasn't always that way, though, and this week we see an example I wasn't aware of, for an organization I've never heard of. It's a New York City organization called the Association for the Help of Retarded Children (still existing today under the acronym AHRC), and their 1973 telethon, a star-studded affair airing on WOR in New York, runs for 19 hours, from 10:00 p.m. ET Saturday to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. Your hosts are Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, and in addition to numerous appearances by Broadway stars, you'll see TV talent such as William Conrad, Buddy Ebsen, Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher and more. 

Slotted against the start of the telethon is Griff (Saturday, 10:00 p.m., ABC), Lorne Greene's new dramatic vehicle, in whch he plays a former police officer turned private detective. Apparently viewers preferred that Greene do his travelling on horseback, as Griff lasts only 13 weeks, illustrating the difficulty a star faces when trying a change-of-pace after a long-running success. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the series, at least for me, is that the pilot didn't air until June of 1975, a year-and-a-half after the series itself was cancelled. (I wonder what they would have done had the movie been a hit?) According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, the pilot, which involves Griff going after criminals who killed his son, a plot identical to that of the Barnaby Jones pilot. Oh well; as Cleveland Amory could tell us (and has, frequently), a surplus of originality is not something one normally sees in the television business.

On Sunday, ABC's centerpiece movie is John and Mary (8:30 p.m.), a 1969 movie which Judith Crist calls an attempt "to cash in on Dustin Hoffman's hit in Midnight Cowboy and Mia Farrow's in Rosemary's Baby, and looks it." It's directed by Peter Yates, who was coming off his big hit in Bullitt. Would that the results were even partially as successful as any of those three movies; says Crist, it's so earnest in its attempt to connect with the "now" generation, it comes off as square. Enjoy the scenery and Hoffman's charm, and you might be able to make it all the way through. You might be better off taking a nap and staying up late for the debut of The Burt Reynolds Late Show (NBC, Saturday or Sunday following your late local news). the first of six scheduled late-night shows taking the place of the weekend Johnny Carson reruns. For the premiere episode, Burt goes to Leavenworth Penitentiary to bring some entertainment to the mostly forgotten men who inhabit a prison that makes Alcatraz look like "a seaside resort." In addition to a guest lineup that includes Dinah Shore, Jonathan Winters and Merle Haggard (himself a former resident of San Quenten), 33 of the prisoners will be chosen to perform on the program. (You can read more about Reynolds' show in this article at Television Obscurities.)

Monday has a little something for everyone, beginning at 8:00 p.m. on CBS with a cartoon doubleheader. First it's a newish Peanuts cartoon, You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, which sees Linus running for student body president. Perfect fodder for this time of year, as it was when it debuted nine days before last year's presidential election. Like so many of the newer Peanuts cartoons, though, it never becomes an institution. That's followed by a brand-new Dr. Seuss cartoon, Dr. Seuss on the Loose, three rhyming stories introduced by the Cat in the Hat. At 10:00 p.m., it's the Country Music Association Awards, also on CBS, live from Nashville and hosted by Johnny Cash. Imagine that: an awards show lasting only one hour. And at 1:00 a.m. on NBC, it's the debut of what TV Guide calls "a new-style talk show" called Tomorrow, hosted by Los Angeles newsman Tom Snyder. It's a show that truly wants to be different: "no monologue, no band, no studio audience, no big names for the most part," according to producer Rudy Tellez. I only got to see Tomorrow during the summer when I could stay up late; it's a pity we don't have any talk shows like this today.

Kim Novak makes her television debut Tuesday in the made-for-TV movie The Third Girl From the Left (8:30 p.m, ABC), co-starring Tony Curtis. That's up against the CBS movie Viva Max! (9:30 p.m, CBS), a very funny farce with Peter Ustinov as a modern-day Mexican general trying to retake the Alamo and being opposed by Jonathan Winters, Keenan Wynn and Harry Morgan. Wednesday features a rerun of Burt Reynolds' short-lived detective series Dan August (10:00 p.m., CBS), which originally ran in the 1970-71 season, before Reynolds shot to fame in Deliverance. The network's been running reruns this summer, capitalizing on his higher profile, as they will again in 1975, but for now this is the end of the rerun line; next week is the debut of a new cop series, Kojak. At the same time on ABC, Eric Braeden plays a man accused of the rape and murder of his fiancee's daughter, and only Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law can save him. His fiancee: Vera Miles. And a lackluster Thursday presents only one cant-miss show: Celebrity Bowling (Midnight, WTAF). Who could possibly pass up Dan Rowan and Michele Lee vs. John Astin and Ruth Buzzi?

On Friday night it's a special hour-long episode of Adam's Rib (9:00 p.m., ABC), the sitcom based on the 1949 movie starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, with Ken Howard and Blythe Danner taking over the roles. This could well have been the most memorable episode of the series: it's the same case that was tried in the 1949 movie. Meanwhile, Dean Martin's Comedy Hour (10:00 p.m, NBC) roasts Bette Davis as the celebrity of the week, with a cast of roasters including Henry Fonda, Howard Cosell, Vincent Price, Nipsey Russell and Tom T. Hall. 

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One of these days, we really ought to take all these TV Guide reviews and run them in chronological order, where we could put events in context and let them build up naturally, rather than just dealing with them at random. Take Watergate, for example. We've read debates about whether or not an impeachment trial should be televised, we've seen how the hearings have disrupted daytime viewing, and now we've worked our way backward to the infamous White House tapes, and whether or not President Nixon should release them. That's the topic on this week's episode of PBS's The Advocates (Sunday, 6:00 p.m.). Of course, we know how it turns out, because we've already skipped ahead to the end of the book, as it were. The same could be said for the coming of cable television, the evolution of technology, and the growth of sports. Yeah, maybe I'll get around to that someday after I run out of issues, since we know that by definition we're dealing with a finite supply. I've always sort of counted on running out of time (or interest) before that happens, though. In the meantime, I'll count on you to flip back and forth; after all, you're under no obligation to read them in the order I write them. The links are all there—just think of it as on-demand reading.  TV

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Around the dial

Wt Cult TV Blog, John introduces us to the 1960s science fiction series Undermind, with the unfortunately familiar premise of technology "being used to get inside people and undermine society. What's old is new again.

Let's stay with the British flavor here, as the delightful Gill at RealWeegieMidget interviews Ian Ogilvy, star of The Return of the Saint, and with a list of credit so long that, well, it's best to just let Gill take over. 

Has there ever been a scifi series that didn't do dinosaurs? And do it well? Captain Video takes us to Star Trek, or at least the comic book version, as the post-Star Trek the Motion Picture crew arrive on "Dinosaur Planet."

Keeping in the spirit of things, Silver Scenes looks at a series of board games put out in the 1960s by Hasbro, based on the Universal monsters! Care for The Mummy Mystery Game or The Creature from the Black Lagoon Game? Those were the days.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger's review of The A-Team takes us to "Members Only," and it's not the jacket, but it does have to do with golf (in which case it would have had to be a green jacket, right?) as Face joins a country club.

Television Obscurities is back to the world of "A Year in TV Guide," and we're continuing the 60th anniversary celebration of the 1966-67 season, with the issue of October 8, 1966. I'm looking forward to getting back to these myself.

I've left it to Terence at A Shroud of Thoughts to look back at the career of the legendary Eva Marie Saint, who died this week at the age of 102. What a resume she had, and what a shame they don't make stars like her anymore.

When you mention Gene Barry to me, I'll always think first of Burke's Law, but before that there was the Western series Bat Masterson, and Martin Grams has a fascinating look at some archival letters and telegrams that give us a behind-the-scenes look.

Finally, I want to thank those of you who reached out in one way or another in response to my Wednesday essay. I haven't replied to all of you yet but I have read them all, and I promise I will respond. However, it's your love and support that keep things going here, and I don't ever forget it. 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!

Getting personal

W've made no secret of the fact that I don't like talking about myself. That's a bad trait to have when you're an author, not just because we'res upposed to have enormous egos, but because the accepted practice seems to be to share everything you can about yourself, including what you had for breakfast, where you do your shopping, what you're wearing, and what you happen to be doing at this very second. Apparently, writing the book isn't enough anymore; the author's personal life has to be part of the entertainment now as well.

This isn't a new complaint of mine. I've written about it before, most recently in an essay here. You'll notice that I didn't like the idea then. I haven't changed my mind; I'm just more serious about it this time.

In the past, I’ve dealt with this by creating a thinly disguised fictional version of myself, also named “Mitchell Hadley,” also married to a woman named Judith, and also an author of books. It’s very thinly disguised; I don’t digitally enhance my photos (you should thank God for that), and I don’t make myself anything other than I am.

Understand that I don’t criticize those authors who do make their lives an open book. Personally, I think it can cross the TMI line if you’re not careful, but hey, whatever floats your boat. It just isn’t for me. And it’s something I’d never consider doing myself: until now.

Today, however, I’m dropping all that and giving you the intimate access to my life that so many authors seem so eager and willing to do. You want to know what I’m really like? Fine. Then you’re going to hear about my thirty-year battle with depression, and the toll it’s taken, not just on me, but on those close to me.

At least I think it’s depression; thirty years ago a doctor noted that I seemed kind of down about things, which I was, and he suggested a medication he thought might help, a very mild one. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t really help, either. It did, however, enable me to get stronger, more powerful medications, all by simply telling the doctor that a previous doctor had said I was depressed. Fairly easy, when you think about it.

And to be honest, I do think it’s depression. Nothing that’s ever required hospitalization, and I’ve never contemplated suicide or harming myself in other ways. But there have been times, as one of my characters in my next book says, when “I didn’t particularly care whether or not I woke up in the morning.”

Now, my struggles with depression predate my life as an author, and there are some who might think that I call myself depressed when in reality I’m just sore about my book sales (true), the effort I have to put into things like promotions and social media (also true), and the difficulty in finding the funding for the projects I want to take on (true doesn’t begin to cover it). Some people I thought were friends showed no interest in supporting me or what I was doing, and in the process showed me that perhaps they were never the friends I thought they were.

And then there are all the helpful people who will tell you what being a writer is supposed to mean. Don’t worry about making money; you should be doing it for the love of writing. Spend whatever it takes on editing, production, promotion, advertising, appearances, whatever else might give the book a chance, without worrying too much about whether you’ll ever see that money again. If profit enters into your thinking, perhaps you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Writing is a calling, you see. Apparently the people you pay are allowed to make money from your writing. You’re the one who isn’t supposed to care about it.

Implicit in the diagnoses of these armchair psychiatrists is the suggestion that if I just got stronger, if I quit kidding myself about being the next best-selling author, if I just sucked it up and realized that most people have it a lot worse than I do, I wouldn’t have anything to complain about. Grow up, in other words.

If only it was that easy.

Over the past few months, this depression has not only driven me to second-guess my career as a writer, the value of my writing, and whether or not it’s even worth it to keep at it; it’s challenged me to audit the sixty-six years of my life in such a way that I’ve experienced sadness and grief, and mourned decisions I’ve made or haven’t made, until I’ve had a sense of loss that I can only say rivals that of having had a loved one die.

During these times, I’ve considered trashing my books, withdrawing them from circulation, and never writing anything again. And considering that I don’t really have anything else I want to do with the remaining years of my life, the idea of giving up writing is, in itself, pretty damn depressing. When you’re already depressed, it doesn’t leave you with much to look forward to.

The fact that I continue to promote my books with personal appearances and social media campaigns, and that I’ve even completed a first draft of a new book, doesn’t mean that my depression has gone away, merely that for the time being it’s become more manageable, and I can continue to function at a relatively normal level without letting it show. Until it does. Until something changes. Until something happens that causes me to worry that I’m not doing enough, or working hard enough, or doing it the way it’s supposed to be done. It means I’m a fake, a fraud, an imposter, someone who doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. And then I’m right back to square one, trying to figure out how to make it through the next obstacle.

That’s a useful thing to remember before deciding that someone is merely whining because things aren’t going his way. You don’t necessarily see this part. You see the book. You see the author appearance. You see the social media post announcing some piece of good news. You don’t see what happened before it, or what happens after the computer is turned off. But by all means, tell me to suck it up.

As I’ve said, it’s very depressing to be depressed. It can paralyze my ability to make decisions, cause me to doubt my actions, lash out at my wife, and mourn everything I’ve ever done in my life. It can make me turn against the choices I’ve made, and regard everything I’ve ever accomplished as so much bullshit. Throw in a little anxiety, and the possibility of adult-onset ADHD, and I’ve got it made.

And one of the very worst aspects about depression is how it eats away at your very humanity. You begin to turn inward so much that you lose compassion for others. You tire of listening to their "complaints," which are clearly so unimportant compared to your own. You want to shout out, "What about me?" at the same time that a billion other people are shouting the same thing. You know it isn't fair, it isn't right, it isn't true. And in the end that doesn't mean a damn thing. 

But if there’s anything more depressing than being depressed, it’s not being able to get any treatment for it. My previous primary care physician seemed to treat it as routine, and offered to write a referral to an organization where I could get some “counseling.” Not with a psychiatrist, not with a psychologist, but maybe a licensed counselor, or perhaps a social worker. A friend of mine who happens to be a psychiatrist (but isn’t licensed in Indiana) told me these choices were inadequate, that often these people didn’t have the depth or breadth of experience to diagnose what I was really suffering from and make suggestions on medical and/or psychological treatment.

Now, try and find a psychiatrist in this day and age. If you’re suicidal, you can go to the ER. If you’re willing to wait six months to get an appointment with a psychiatrist, you might be able to stand it. But if you’re simply depressed and want to know what to do to make life a little easier, forget it, my friend. Your insurance company won’t help you. Your clinic won’t help you. Your friends and loved ones won’t know how to help you. Some people will actually try to kick you when you’re down, and only afterward say that they didn’t understand. You’re on your own. And it’s not fun.

As I sit here typing this and reflecting on it all, the overwhelming feeling I have is one of sorrow and grief. My new primary care physician, who has been nothing short of wonderful, has reminded me that the key is to stop thinking that I only have a few years left; instead, think that I’m only 66; I still have many years left. That has helped me significantly, at least during those times when the idea of living for many more years can be understood as good news. It helps put depression in a kind of remissive state.

But it doesn’t get rid of it, and we both know it.

We’re trying to find some medical options, and working on some pharmaceutical ones, but in the meantime, depression does not go away. It merely goes into hiding until it springs out again, the moment that you have a setback, the instant something doesn’t go the way you want it to, whenever you encounter a difficult situation, when someone says the wrong thing to you, whether out of an innocent mistake or because they meant to. Situations that normally anyone should be able to handle—if not easily, at least with a certain sense of routine—appear to be insurmountable. If, that is, you even decide surmounting them is worth it. There is no easy answer, then.

So this is where things are right now. I’m back in one of my furrows, fighting to get back to where I was even a week or two ago. Many days I feel like crying, and there are times, when writing or reading or watching television, I’ll suddenly find tears streaming down my cheeks for no reason. Scenes that I’m writing—scenes that even a few years ago would have left me unaffected—will suddenly fill me with sadness, pain, and grief. And you can use that “my allergies are acting up” excuse only so many times before it begins to lose its usefulness.

I’m just angry enough, and determined enough, to believe that I’ll fight back, and keep doing so as many times as I have to. I’m trying to improve my spiritual health as well as my mental health, which is such a big piece of the puzzle; I honestly don’t know how I could hope to survive something like this without a belief in God. So I’m confident enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to think I’ll overcome it again. I dearly wish, however, that I could figure out a way to do more than just tread water.

Mental Illness Awareness Week comes in October, and that’s one reason I’ve chosen now to write this. Your mental health is as precious as your physical health, and you should resist anyone who urges you to just work through it. And know that no matter how functional, how funny, how normal I may appear here, or wherever else you might encounter me, there are always things going on behind the scenes, struggles that provide a constant challenge, and that it seems sometimes as if nothing will take them away.

And if your reaction to all this is that I’m feeling sorry for myself, so be it. If you think I ought to be tougher, more grateful for what I have, less concerned about whether my books sell, or willing to keep pouring money into them indefinitely because a “real writer” shouldn’t care about making any of it back, you’re entitled to think that, too. Just don’t mistake the ease with which you can say it for the ease of actually living it. And don’t assume that just because you might be able to make it work that way, others can do it as well.

I want to reassure you of one thing, in case what I’ve written here has caused you any concern: I am not, and never will be, suicidal. My faith is too strong for that. And I’m not going to hurt myself. I worry far more about the damage my words might do to people who love and care about me. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone physically. And, quite frankly, the person I’m most likely to turn against is myself.

So that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To confide in you, to make you one of my buddies, to open up and share things with you. Well, I’ve revealed myself in a way that I find both embarrassing and profoundly discomforting. I hope I don’t have to do it again. Is this personal enough for you, out there? You wanted access. This is what access actually looks like. Was this what you meant?

Are you fucking satisfied now?  TV

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What's on TV? Wednesday, October 8, 1980

If you've paid attention to these Minnesota State Editions, you'll notice the ways they've changed over the years. A half-dozen or so channels have changed call letters since the statewide editions of the early 1960s, and WXOW in LaCrosse doesn't even come on the scene until 1970; meanwhile, in thenew  in the Twin Cities, three stations change their affiliations. There are also several PBS affiliates from around the state, but I didn't include them because their programming was mostly redundant. I did, however, share what you'd be seeing on Superstation WGN.