This week in TV Guide: October 4, 1980

Whis week, Ed Asner and Mason Adams, the stars of Lou Grant, are on the cover, and with a name like Lou Grant it has to be good, right?*

*Bonus points to anyone who gets that joke.  If you're not sure, here's a clue.

Seriously, I digress from this TV Guide for a moment to take a look at the issue of April 23, 1977. In the TV Teletype, we read a story about how Asner's going to be doing a new CBS series this fall about the newspaper business. Asner describes the show, to be set in Los Angeles, as a "modern epic," capturing "the ambiance of a newspaper." He admits he's a bit nervous, never having carried an hour-long series before: "I have yet to meet a happy hour-series star," but adds that the show will be about 30% comedy. The writer of the blurb notes that it will have seven recurring characters.

What's interesting here is that nowhere is the name of the series mentioned, nor that it will be spinning off Asner's character from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Did they even know it would be at this point? Was it something that was added later on, as if they decided the show needed an extra hook? Or were they shying away from it, fearful that viewers would be leery of a sitcom character being spun off into a drama? The always-reliable Wikipedia is no help here, although it does note that none of the main characters from MTM were ever seen or even referenced to in the series, and that the only crossover character to ever appear on both shows was Eileen Heckart as Mary's aunt Flo, a recurring bit in the former series who made a single appearance in the later. So, what's the scoop* here? Inquiring minds want to know.

*A little newspaper lingo there.

The article itself is about Adams, and mentions his famous Smuckers commercial among the extensive radio and commercial work that has distinguished his career. Amongst Lisa See's review of that career and the details of his life (voracious reader, consummate professional, adeptness at playing different voices during rehearsals), one statement stands out that tells us a lot about the life of an actor. Adams strikes me as being just about as well-adjusted as anyone in the business, and yet he's unable to escape that constant worry that unemployment is just around the corner: "I'm lucky. I've always worked. I've never had barren periods. But there's nothing you can count on. My reach has far exceeded my grasp. I guess pessimism is just my nature." Lest that sound like too much of a downer though, he adds, laughing, "Maybe it's just the fear of becoming smug."

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In many of these early October issues, I've gotten the chance to write about coverage of the World Series. But it's 1980 now, and we've got another layer of playoffs to deal with: the League Championship Series. It's quite a contrast to 1963, with the division winners in each league facing off in a best 3-of-5 series to determine who goes to the Series, but it seems positively simple if you compare it to today's setup, with three division winners and two wild card teams from each league, and an LCS that's expanded to 4-of-7. Sometimes the "Fall" Classic even ends in November, which means it's usually the month's first turkey.

At any rate, the regular season comes to an end on Sunday, with ABC's cameras on hand to cover the pivotal games in the pennant chase. Actually, I should say the season is supposed to end on Sunday, and would have if the Houston Astros had been able to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers in even one of the three games they play to end the season. They don't, however, and the Dodgers' win on Sunday forces a one-game playoff which ABC covers on Monday afternoon. I remember catching that game after coming home from class; pretty much everyone expects the Dodgers to keep rolling and take Houston, but the Astros score an upset win to take the division and go on to face the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS.

ABC has no trouble televising the League Championship Series games; the National League starts Tuesday night and continues Wednesday afternoon, while the American League starts on Wednesday night and follows up with a Thursday night game. Friday, the National League plays in the afternoon, the American League in the evening. Not so complicated, is it?  Ah, for those simpler days. And the games weren't bad, either: see for yourself, with Game 3 of the NLCS on Friday, October 10, between the Phillies and Astros in Houston.

Oh yeah, the NFL is on as well. In the Twin Cities the Vikings home game against Pittsburgh is blacked out; the rest of the state gets it on NBC, however. The late game, on CBS, has the 49ers playing the Rams in Los Angeles (or Anaheim, to be precise). The Monday night matchup on ABC has Tampa Bay taking on the Bears in Chicago. And that's it: no Sunday night game, no Thursday night game. As I said, simpler.

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Big week for movies, not surprisingly since we're still early in the fall season. On Monday, NBC features the Oscar-winning Julia, starring Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and Jason Robards. ABC's offering, on Sunday night, is a repeat of Jaws, which goes head-to-head with CBS's made-for-TV A Perfect Match, which draws its prestige from its teleplay, written by the great director/writer John Sayles. Down one rung from that is the third Sunday night movie, NBC's repeat of Burt Reynolds in The End. We won't discuss the Thursday night movie on NBC, The Castaways on Gilligan's Island, which Judith Crist describes as "tedious even with 24 of its 72 mediocre minutes cut."  At least it still has Dawn Wells as Mary Ann.

The finest show of the week is probably part two of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, airing on Monday night as part of Great Performances on PBS. If you're only familiar with the big-screen version that came out a few years ago, you really should invest the time in this; it's an exceptional six-part adaptation of John le Carré's spy thriller, starring the incomparable Alec Guinness as master spy George Smiley. It's really one of the finest shows of its type to appear on television—well, you can start here with episode one.

The prime complaint I've had through the years with le Carré's writing is the moral ambiguity of it all, as he attempts to draw some level of equivalency between the actions of the American and Soviet spies. It fits in perfectly with the times, however: in 1980, as today, the United States is a country struggling to find out what it really stands for.

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Speaking of the miniseries, in 1980 it remains a force to be reckoned with. TV Update tells us of NBC's massive success with Shōgun; the gamble to kick off the season with the 12-hour drama pays big dividends, the estimated 125 million viewers and 51% share making it the second-highest rated miniseries of all time, outdone only by the original Roots.

In other news from the update, a follow-up on the Reagan-Anderson presidential debate, which President Carter boycotted (he didn't think the independent candidate John Anderson should be included). ABC indeed stuck with Midnight Express because of President Carter's absence, but even with one major and one minor candidate and only two networks, the debate scored 42% of all viewers in New York, 44% in Chicago, and 44% in Los Angeles. Express, meanwhile, drew 42% and 39% in New York and Chicago; Priscilla Presley's Those Amazing Animals, which aired against the debate on the West Coast, scored a mere 24% in Los Angeles.

Finally, "ABC has agreed to grant Kaiser Aluminum air time to reply to a report on 20/20 that asserted that aluminum wiring for homes is unsafe."  All the two sides have to do now is decide how much time Kaiser will get, and when it will be broadcast.

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The cross-section of decades represented by these TV Guides gives testimony not only to the role of television within culture, but to the shape of the culture itself, as we can see from some of this week's articles.

In the 1950s, Howdy Doody stirred controversy by asking whether or not children should be watching the same kinds of shows as adults. Back then, it meant the manic comedy of a Milton Berle. This week, Marlo Thomas writes about the role television plays in presenting "the facts of life." It's a companion piece to Thomas' controversial Body Human special "The Facts for Girls," running Tuesday afternoon on CBS. Says Thomas, "Using television to bring accurate, straightforward information about sexual facts and feelings into the home can provide a starting point of shared feelings and information." Almost seems quaintly naive today, doesn't it?  It's a far cry from the '50s and '60s, when dramatists had so much trouble writing about adult themes, but it's also light years away from today's television, when even broadcast networks present decidedly adult topics with a frankness that might have made people in the '80s blush. Or maybe not; I don't know.

Speaking of which, there's also a very interesting article by Richard D. Heffner on what the movie ratings system really means. Heffner, who produces David Susskind's Open End* program and teaches communications and public policy at Rutgers, is also the chairman of the Classification and Rating Administration, which helps determine what a movie's rating is.

*Also known, by Susskind's detractors, as Open Mouth.

Among other things, Heffner points out that nothing is actually prohibited in today's movies: "Nothing is banned by our system, or refused a rating." And in answer to the question (posed by himself; Heffner the college professor interviews Heffner the CARA chairman) "Don't you ever want to refuse even your ultimate X rating to some of the awful things you see?" he replies, "Don't you think I share your sensibilities, your outrage, your disgust at some of what appears on the screen? Believe me, I do. . . But as an erstwhile American historian, I'm convinced that the price of film censorship in this country would be too great." The Production Code, which held sway until 1968, had gradually given way in the face of competition from television, and the movie audiences' increasing willingness to make box office smashes out of movies that didn't receive the code. (Some Like It Hot, for one.) Again, this article tells us much about how the times have changed, particularly in regards to sex and violence, and how they'll continue to morph.

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Last but not least, there's a full-page ad at the beginning of the programming section touting a new and revolutionary network that will change the way you consume news. Ta-da!

Take a look at that programming guide.  Gotta say, it looks a hell of a lot better than what CNN has on today.  Back when they had, you know, actual news. TV

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Around the dial

The fall of 1978 is an interesting time for me. It was when I started college, and stopped paying so much attention to TV. And at Comfort TV, David's up to primetime Thursdays in 1978. What do I remember most? Those shows starting C.B.S.

John's series of Patricia Hayes appearances wraps up in this week's Cult TV Blog with her performance in "You Talk Too Much," a play in the Centre Play anthology series, and his review of this series of essays.

Patrick McGoohan's always worth watching in anything, and that includes the movie that Rick reviews this week at Classic Film & TV Cafe: All Night Long, a jazz version of Othello, with our man Pat as the Iago character. Definitely a TV watch!

Time for Murder: well, is there ever a bad time for murder? Boy, that's a dangerous attitude to have, isn't it? However, it's also the title of the TV chiller that Paul reviews at Drunk TV: six British tales of mystery and suspence. And, I'm betting, murder!

And more Mavis Movie Madness: this time it's season two of Bronco, which is actually its first season as a stand-alone series, after Bronco Layne (Ty Hardin) was basically a stand-in on Cheyenne during Clint Walker's contract dispute.

Hey, it's something new at Shadow & Substance, which is always a cause for cheer. This week, it's a quick look at the teaser for the sesaon five Twilight Zone opener "In Praise of Pip," one of TV's first mentions of Vietnam. Ah, if only the rest of the season were this good.

I don't know why The View from the Junkyard always seems to be bringing up the end  of these weekly wrap ups, but maybe it's a case of saving the best for last. It's The A-Team at the ballet! Well, sort it out for yourself as Roger looks at "The A-Team Is Coming..."  TV

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The reel story

There's a great addendum to Monday's listings that was brought to my attention by one of our readers, and for a moment I'd considered using it as the little coda to the listings, but upon further reflection I decided this might deserve a piece of its own. (It's also true that I didn't have anything else planned for the day, but we'll overlook that for now.)

It concerns the 1962 movie The Notorious Landlady, which was shown on the CBS Thursday Night Movie. It's not a particularly controversial movie, not one that sparked a huge uproar or anything like that. (In case you're curious, you can read a decent summary of the movie here.) Nor was the movie interrupted by a breaking news story, or anything like that. No, what happened here was, for lack of a better description, a very special something: the film reels were run in the wrong sequence.

You read that right. Back in the day, movies on television were shown the same way they were in theaters: by playing them on reels. And while various accounts differ somewhat on the precise mechanics, the basic event is consistent: CBS jumped ahead in the story, eventually realized what had happened, stopped the movie, had an announcer apologize*, and then replayed enough of the film to restore the proper sequence.The mistake stretched what was supposed to be a 2¼-hour broadcast to roughly three hours.

*The reader who brought this to my attention, who happened to have seen the broadcast himself, reported that "They stopped the film and after a short break the announcer did a voiceover: 'we were out of sequence. We now return in sequence'." He noted that the announcement was "not the most well-written," but then, I suspect they don't have a specific entry in the book covering "movie shown out of order." 

Now, all of this is a great story in itself, and it happens in this very issue. Needless to say, it garnered a fair amount of attention at the time; Time called it "a classic goof," and who doesn't enjoy one of those every once in a while. But, as is so often the case, the "rest of the story" is where you find the most telling details. In that same Time article, the magazine noted that "Twenty-one million people watched the show, but the network got only a peep of protest." Which tells us one of two things: either the incident caught the viewers in an unusually tolerant and understanding mood, or—and this is the interpretation I prefer—the audience was so indifferent to what they were watching, or so lulled to sleep by it, that nobody noticed. In other words, the fact that a part of the movie was shown in the wrong order didn't, apparently, make any difference to those watching it.

Now, over the years, I've seen my share of movies and television programs that didn't seem to make much sense. There might even have been times when I was tempted to think that the story was being told out of sequence. But, to the best of my knowledge, I've never actually experienced it for real. (Or reel, if you prefer.)

Were this the case, that people were simply numbed to the experience, it would be the perfect example of television having arrived at the pinnacle of its existence. There's actually a theory used to explain such an event, called the Hypodermic Needle Theory, which dates back to the 1930s. According to this article on the "Myth of the Zombie Viewer," "This model suggested that media messages are injected directly into a passive audience, shaping thoughts and behaviours with little resistance. Under this framework, viewers had no agency—they were empty vessels waiting to be filled with whatever the broadcaster chose to transmit." As Time noted, Marshall McLuhan would have loved it.

What about you? Does any of this strike a bell as having been something you saw or remembered? TV

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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.

 TV

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