Around the dial

Let's start this week's review at Comfort TV, where David offers a tribute to Bob Newhart that's both a personal reflection and a historical appraisal of why Newhart is one of television's greatest actors, and how his brand of humor will always be timeless. 

Inner Toob has his own tribute to Newhart, and as a bonus we get his celebration of the 100th birthday of Don Knotts by looking at his many appearances outside of The Andy Griffith Show. At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence has his own memories of Don Knotts and Bob Newhart, and I recommend checking these out as well. When we have the opportunity to celebrate our classic TV icons, we should take every chance we get.

At bare•bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project continues with the grimly humorous "Six People, No Music," the only Hitchcock episode written by Richard Berg, featuring a masterful performance by John McGiver as an undertaker seeking to bury the truth along with a body.

Jack continues his review of the nasty dystopian political thriller The Guardians at Cult TV Blog. "Head of State" is a lesson in politics, power, and political power, creating all kinds of interesting conversation points that would fit in well with my recent series on thoughtful television.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger realizes something I've been saying for years: it's impossible to watch classic television with the mindset of a contemporary viewer, and those who do are doomed to failure. It's a truth discovered while watching this week's Avengers, "Take Me to Your Leader." TV  

Ethics in America

Fred Friendly with Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani on the set of Ethics in America

During the 1988-89 television season, PBS presented a ten-part series of seminars that proved to be one of the most thought-provoking, provocative programs ever shown on television. In doing so, the network provided a blueprint for how to engage viewers with stimulating ideas that, in turn, forced them to deal with tough, real-life questions that had no easy answers. 

Ethics in America was the brainchild of Fred Friendly, former president of CBS News and a leading critic of what he saw as the superficiality of news coverage on network and local television. After leaving network television for the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Friendly continued to concentrate on ways in which broadcast journalism could both serve the public interest and engage the public in the vital issues of the day. Beginning in 1974, Friendly inaugurated a series of seminars on media, law and public policy, involving professionals from disparate fields. Eventually, these evolved into the Fred Friendly Seminars, which debuted on PBS in 1981. Prior to Ethics in America, various series looked at questions ranging from the Constitution to medical care and personal choice.

The format for Ethics in America, like the other series, begain with a panel of professionals being presented with a hypothetical scenario, in this case revolving around the ethical implications raised during the course of the discussion. The scenarios themselves covered such issues as politics, the media, medicine, and the law. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) The scenario would appear quite simple at first, but as a number of factors and variables were introduced, the ethics involved became more and more complex, the questions more and more difficult to answer. That there wasn't always an obvious "right" or "wrong" answer, or that sometimes it was a case of the lesser of evils, made the situations doubly challenging. Frequently a panelist, challenged by the moderator to tell what he or she would do in a given situation, would sit silently for several seconds, visibly engaged in an internal struggle to answer the question. 

Lest you think the panels were comprised of obscure academics, most of the panelists were either well-known or soon-to-be so, including Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace, Warren Buffet, Antonin Scalia, Newt Gingrich (before he became Speaker of the House), Rudy Giulaini (before he became mayor of New York), former Vietnam commander William Westmoreland, columnist Ellen Goodman, and others. The thoughtfulness of their answers (and sometimes questions of other panelists) and the depth with which they immersed themselves in these hypothetical scenarios indicated how seriously they took the questions, and their own responsibilities as panelists.

What I want to do here is focus on two episodes in particular that I found—and I'm not exaggerating here, either—thrilling. Yes, you may be thinking, but you would be interested in something like this, being a nerd and a news junkie. And you'd be right about that, at least in part. But, watching this series again over the past few weeks, I can honestly say that it would never occur to me that a viewer wouldn't be interested in these questions. If they aren't, then they either have no curiosity, no desire to think, or no willingness to confront issues that might make them feel the teensiest bit uncomfortable. 

The two episodes are actually parts one and two of an extended discussion on ethics in the military, subtitled "Under Orders, Under Fire." The two hours present a vast array of uncomfortable questions covering a variety of situations, including whether the use of torture to extract information from prisoners is ever justified, how and when an unjust order from a superior must be disobeyed, whether journalists owe their first allegiance to their country or their profession, the morality of killing enemy soldiers who've surrendered when circumstances make it impossible to take them prisoner, the confidentiality of a soldier's confession to a chaplain, and more. 

If you think any of these questions are easily answered, you won't think so after the struggles of the participants. There are sharp disagreements among members of the panel, and probing questions pass between them. Peter Jennings changes his mind twice in trying to answer a question about whether or not he'd warn allied troops if he was imbedded in an enemy unit, and Mike Wallace admits he doesn't know what he'd do.

In one of the most powerful exchanges, a former army lieutenant says frankly that he'd torture a prisoner to get information that could save the lives of some of his men, and that he'd even kill the prisoner if he thought it would "send a message" to other prisoners; his statement is met with revulsion from clergymen and generals alike, who not only condemn the lieutenant, but stress that any such order to kill a prisoner must be disobeyed on moral and ethical grounds. 

General Westmoreland himself goes on to remind the panel that the United States is a signatore to the Geneva Convention, and that such violations make us no better than the enemy we fight. But, the moderator asks another officer, are you saying that you'd sacrifice some of your own men rather than torture an enemy prisoner. After an uncomfortable pause, he replies that he hopes he'd have the courage to do it, to make the right decision, but in the heat of the moment, who can be sure?

All this reminds me of a quote from Joyce Carol Oates in her novel The Assassins (a provocative book in its own right):

Does a demon beckon?

Do you follow?

Do you turn aside, mashing your fists into your eyes?

You won't know until it beckons. To you. So long as it temps others you can judge—can sneer—can express shock, disgust, outrage, and prim disdain—the usual emotions of punitive people. But you won't know. I didn't.

And that's it in a nutshell, not only regarding this particular question, but the questions posed by every scenario in the series. You may know what you'd like to do, but until you're faced with it, in the heat of the moment, you don't know.

That's what makes Ethics in America such a stimulating series: the confrontation that invariably goes on within each individual—both participants and viewers—not only about what should be done in a given situation, but whether or not they would be able to do it. What does "ethics" involve? Are ethics constant or situational? If it's hard for these panelists, all distinguished within their own professions, to answer these questions, imagine how difficult it is for the viewer. And yet life doesn't give you a free pass on these kinds of things; you might not be confronted with these issues, but, believe me, there will be others. As Leon Trotsky said, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." You may not care about the affairs of the world, but the world doesn't much care whether you're interested or not.

If you read last week's article "To Think or Not to Think," you must have figured out by now why I'm focusing on this series. Ethics in America doesn't give the viewer a choice; it forces you to think. And while the intensity of this ten-hour series might be too much for some people, it doesn't have to take ten hours for viewers to be presented with a variety of Hobson's choices: the best one-hour dramas have been doing that for years. Such programs could be used to form the basis of ongoing discussion groups, much like book clubs have been doing for years. More on that next week. TV  

What's on TV? Wednesday, July 28, 1965

I don't know if The Today Show employess guest hosts anymore; if they do, they're probably one of the last shows to do so. But back in 1965, when Hugh Downs was the host, they did, and this week's guest hosts are most unusual: puppeteer Burr Tillstrom and the Kuklapolitan Players, featuring Kukla and Ollie. It's an inspired choice, given the popularity of the characters with adults as well as children. This isn't the first time we've seen puppets on one of the morning programs, either; remember Bil and Cora Baird's marionettes with Walter Cronkite on CBS's The Morning Show back in the 1950s. So the next time you think your newscasters are all puppets, you just might be right. This week's listings are from the Minneapolis-St. Paul edition.

This week in TV Guide: July 24, 1965

It's one thing to know you're old, to be aware of the chronological truth. I freely admit it in my own case; longtime readers know I make no bones about it. It's another thing, though, to be reminded, by your own actions, that you're old. Take this week's issue of TV Guide. I've had this issue for at least three years, given that I purchased it back when I lived in Minnesota. I recognize its cover, I've read its articles, I'm familiar with its programs. It's highlighted on the very complicated spreadsheet that I use to track the issues I own. All this would suggest to me that I wrote it up at some time in the past 

And yet, I don't see it anywhere on the blog. I don't remember having made any pithy comment about it. I've searched the blog using various terms from articles I would have written, had I written them. In other words, I've owned this issue for at least three years, and whenever July would roll around, I skipped over it because I thought I'd already done it. I feel as if Perry Mason is convicting me with his stare. 

At this point, if I were really losing it, I'd probably figure I was done and end things right here. (Either that, or I'd run for office.) But, perhaps fortunately for you, I've retained enough of my wits to forge ahead, and there's no better place to begin than with the aforementioned Raymond Burr, about to embark on what will be the ninth and final season of Perry Mason. He speaks candidly about it with Dwight Whitney, admitting that he didn't expect to still be doing the series. "I wanted to do a show called The Power," he explains. "In it I played the governor of a state, and it had some of the same things going for it that Perry did. It was the best damn thing I ever read, the best new show presentation anybody in this business had ever seen." So what happened? Well, "the heads of CBS decided that with another year of Perry in the offing they didn't want to convert [to another series] at that point. I went along. I'm a paid actor. Once having signed a contract, I had a certain obligation. Last year I still felt it. So we made an eighth season of Perry Mason." And in the meantime another political drama, Slattery's People (starring Richard Crenna) came along. And there went The Power. As a consolation, however, Burr is paid "what may be the highest straight salary ever offered any TV actor."

Not that he didn't have concerns about Perry Mason, particularly the just-completed eighth season. "This year was a bad year," he tells Whitney. "Sometimes the plots got so involved even I couldn't understand them. But next year can be a great one." (Spoiler: it isn't.) That isn't the only reason he came back, though; "My actors were hurting," he says. "I couldn't let go. I was concerned." He had suddenly become, Whitney says, "God's gift to intransigent actors, tender to men's troubles, father of the world." 

Thanks to Mason, Burr has been one busy man: making regular trips abroad to entertain the troops (four to Vietnam alone), speaking to various bar associations (58 since the show started), and serving on the boards of various foundations and organizations. Next year, he says, he'll be visiting a dozen countries around the world, making speeches to universities. "I speak for world peace through law," he says. "I'm a kind of one-man lobby for the legal profession. I believe that the world will either destroy itself or learn how to settle things by law. So it becomes the world's most important profession." He's grateful for the non-monetary things the show has given him; "It's not very often that a person is given the opportunity to use his personal image to do so much good in the world. That's tough to give up regardless."

I've written about Raymond Burr many times in the past; he's appeared on the cover of TV Guide many times in the past. His secret life with its created backstory is always intriguing, but his public life as a mensch has always been impressive, and genuine. As he and Whitney part, the weary Burr—he leaves on another trip to Vietnam early the next morning—says that he does what he has to do. "What is right for me. What I have done may not have brought absolute happiness. But for me it has brought some measure of satisfaction. IF that makes me a fool, my friend, then that is what I am."

Rather than ending on that somewhat somber note, I prefer to think that I've saved the best for last. It comes from a paragraph earlier in the article, after Burr tells Whitney he wants Perry Mason to go out with a great year. "I could visualize Burr waiting for that 'great year' to go out on until Perry Mason was defending cases from a wheel chair." It sounds like a great role for Robert Ironside, doesn't it?

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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: Ed welcomes Maurice Chevalier, the San Francisco Ballet, comic Soupy Sales, singer Felicia Sanders, rock ‘n’ rollers Gerry and the Pacemakers, middleweight boxing champion José Torres, comedian London Lee, Stephenson’s Dogs, and Jorgen and Conny, a perch act.

Palace: Host Tony Martin and his wife, actress-dancer Cyd Charisse, introduce comedian Jack E, Leonard; veteran song-and-dance man Ted Lewis; Johnny Puleo and his Harmonica Gang; a vocal-instrumental trio composed of Dean Martin Jr., Desi Arnaz IV and Billy Hinsche; ventriloquist Fred Roby; and the Half Brothers, jugglers.

There's no question that Cyd Charisse is always worth watching, whether she's with Fred Astaire or not. Now, having said that, I'm forced to add that Gerry and the Pacemakers have the edge over Deano, Desi, and Billy, and while Ted Lewis certainly had a legendary career, I have to give the nod to Maurice Chevalier. Meanwhile, there's no comparison for the San Francisco Ballet. Based on all this, I give the win to Sullivan by a José Torres knockout

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

It seems as if it was only two or three weeks ago that we were last talking about Jimmy Dean, and here he is again, this time as the subject of Cleveland Amory's review. We learned back then that the network suits were doing their very best to make Jimmy into something he wasn't, something that Cleve rightly judged to be "unwise," because the truth is that "if there’s one thing certain in this changing world, it is that you can’t make Jimmy Dean into anything but Jimmy Dean."

Is that a backhanded compliment? Maybe; it depends on what you think of Dean's style, his schtick, his brand of contemporary country music. But as Amory points out, credit where credit is due: "taken for what he is, and what the show is, Jimmy is good." Take, for instance, his interaction with his Muppet sidekick Rowlf, manned by the team of Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and voiced by Henson. Their bits, such as a recent one which involved a trained flea, "may not sound funny, but with Rowlf and Jimmy looking at an imaginary trained flea, it was a funny scene." Considering that many of their interactions are ad-libbed, it speaks to Dean's quickness with the comeback lines. His interactions with his guests are equally believable; whether it's Rex Allen, Molly Bee, Jack Jones, Eddy Arnold, or Roy Clark, he's fulsome with his praise, and deservedly so. "For country singing or folk singing—and even for city folks who like the country—this show has many virtues."

In fact, if the show has any flaws at all, it's from the constant plugs for his guests' latest albums. It's one thing, says Amory, for it to happen on a talk show, but on a variety show where the guests get paid— well, "Ah want you to know, Jimmy, whan you air a-doin' thet, we dang near burn up." But if that's the biggest complaint that Cleveland Amory has to offer about your show, you're doing all right, son.

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Raymond Burr isn't the only star getting the in-depth profile treatment this week, as Arnold Hano takes a look at the up-and-down life of Jackie Coogan, currently undergoing a career renaissance as Uncle Fester on ABC's The Addams Family. 

Once upon a time, Jackie Coogan was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. At the age of six, he appeared as The Kid in the Charlie Chaplin film of the same name. As a ten-year-old, he met the Pope, received an ovation from the delegates at the League of Nations, received the highest honor from the Greek government, and was mobbed by a crowd of 50,000 in Paris. He made $4 million in the movies, and another $4 million in outside earnings. And when he reached the age of 23, he found out that his mother and stepfather had squandered it all. He filed suit against them but was told he had no claim. He joined such distinguished company as Lou Gehrig in having a dubious namesake, in this case the Jackie Coogan Act, which required at least half of a child actor's earnings to be kept in a trust for him until he came of age. He married and divorced Betty Grable; "My success did not match hers," he comments. Two more marriages and divorces would follow, before the fourth one took.

He joined the Army (long before Pearl Harbor) and piloted a glider in Europe during World War II. "Nothing you've ever done before in life really counts," his commanding officer told the pilots the night before their mission. "Tonight you'll find out if you have a soul." Returning from the war, he discovered the acting roles were nowhere to be found. He took odd bits in nightclubs, parodying The Kid on his knees. 

The role that changed his life, he says, came on October 4, 1956. It was "Forbidden Area," the premiere episode of CBS's Playhouse 90, a tense Cold War drama written by Rod Serling, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Charlton Heston and Vincent Price. There was one comic role in the play, that of the Cook. Coogan was cast in the part, won critical acclaim, and was nominated for an Emmy. The offers came rolling in after that.

He was asked to audition for The Addams Family; ABC's Harve Bennett took one look at him in Fester's black robes and said, "He's perfect!" He enjoys his work on the show, but can't help looking at the child actors playing the two Addams children, Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax. "Kids can't get proper experience today," he says. "No vaudeville." He works on his autobiography (a book that seems not to have been published), and tells Hano, "I've never enjoyed life more than today." After The Addams Family ends, he continues to do guest appearances on television until his death in 1984. Maybe Hollywood can still produce happy endings, after all.

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Not much on the menu this week other than reruns, but in these pre-DVR days, there are certainly some of them you'll want to catch if you missed them the first time. 

One piece of original programming, however, leads off the week. It's the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant (Saturday, 9:00 p.m., CBS), live from Miami Beach. Jack Linkletter, Art's son, is the emcee, while John Daly and Sally Ann Howes are the commentators for the television audience. Meanwhile, Pat Boone presides over the crowning of the new Miss Universe, who happens to be Thailand's Apasra Hongsakula, the first Southeast Asian to win the crown.

The hour-long version of The Twilight Zone has always been considered something of a hit-or-miss season, as the format didn't really fit the tight stories that had become the hallmark of the show's first three seasons. (One of the few instances where the network executives knew best: Rod Serling had originally conceived TZ as an hour-long program, but was convinced by the suits to change it to 30 minutes. They were right.) Sunday's episode, however, is an exception: "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" (8:00 p.m, CBS), a touching story of a man trying to recapture his lost youth, with Pat Hingle outstanding in the title role. The story, written by Reginald Rose, originally appeared on Studio One ten years previously, with Art Carney; the story's downbeat ending was modified for TZ, and that was fine with Rose—as he pointed out, he'd already had it done his way the first time.

One of the week's most watchable repeats is Monday's The Winging World of Jonathan Winters (8:00 p.m, NBC), first shown in May. Winters is at his best in this "freewheeling" hour, which features Steve Allen, Leo Durocher, Stiller and Meara, and a taped tribute from Jack Paar (who featured Winters on his show many times). Alexander Scourby narrates the hour, produced and directed by Greg Garrison, who will go on to helm The Dean Martin Show.

On Tuesday, George Hamilton hosts Hullabaloo (9:00 p.m., NBC), with his musical guests Brenda Lee, Noel Harrision, Linda Bennett, the Hollies, the Impression, the Womenfolk, the Ronettes, and the Wayne—I mean, Wayne Fontana and the Mind Benders. (Sorry, got carried away there for a moment.) Hamilton, who'd starred in the Hank Williams biopic Your Cheatin Heart the previous year (probably when this episode was first shown), sings the song of the same name with Brenda; Harrison, who'd yet to record the Oscar-winning "The Windmills of Your Mind," sings the ballad "Barbara Allen." Perhaps the show's ratings would have been better had the host been George Harrison. 

You'll recall that last week I highlighted a couple of programs that were representations of a socio-culture that's long-since disappeared, and this week offers something of the same: Key to the City (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., NBC), a 1950 comedy set at a mayors' convention in San Francisco, starring Loretta Young as "a prim and serious lady mayor" who's mistaken for a night-club dancer; Clark Gable co-stars as the man who makes the initial misidentification; romance follows! Would we see something like that on network TV today? Somehow, I doubt it. (By the way, Raymond Burr appears as the heavy!)

Thursday night is highlighted by one of the best, and best-known, episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre, "The Jack is High" (9:00 p.m., NBC), a heist caper with a very, very gruesome twist at the end. Edd Byrnes, Henry Jones, William Bramley, and Larry Storch are the gang trying to pull off their getaway hidden inside a gasoline tank truck, while Pat O'Brien plays the dogged detective on their trail. Ralph Senensky directed; you can read his thoughts about it here. (For good measure, you can see the complete episode here.)

We started our look at the week with an original program, and we'll end it the same way, as Sally Ann Howes returns from Miami Beach to participate in a mini-Rat Pack reunion on The Tonight Show. (Friday, 10:30 p.m., NBC) Joey Bishop is the guest host (completing his second week subbing for Johnny!), and in addition to Sally, his guests are Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. I'd stay up late for that.

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Another Raymond Burr note, of sorts; Ray Collins, who played Lieutenant Arthur Tragg for so many seasons on Perry Mason, died of emphysema on July 11 at age 75. As "For the Record" reports, his career spanned 60 years on stage, in the movies, and on television; "If they've written it," he used to say, "I've played it." He'd been in failing health for some years, with his last appearance on Mason coming on January 16, 1964 (filmed in October of 1963). Raymond Burr, ever the mensch, insisted that Collins be kept in the show's credits until he died, not only to help keep his spirits up (he watched the show every week), but to allow him to continue to receive health coverage from the Screen Actors Guild.

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MST3K alert: Robot Monster (1953) Deadly robots descent upon the earth. Their mission: to destroy civilization with supersonic death rays. George Nader, Claudia Barrett. (Thursday, 10:30 a.m. as part of a double feature, WTCN) This description actually flatters a movie that is widely considered to be one of the worst ever made. The "robots" are dressed in gorilla suits, the premier special effect is a bubble machine, and the best thing about it, by a long shot, is the score, composed by the before-he-was-famous Elmer Bernstein. Fortunately, we have not one, but two episodes of Radar Men from the Moon to soften the blow. TV  

Around the dial

The picture above is of Sinatra Sr. watching Sinatra Jr. on television. Whether it's staged or not, it's still a pretty candid shot. Interesting, isn't it?

My latest appearance on Dan Schneider's Video Interview is up; this month, Dan and I discuss some of the notable (as well as some of the lesser-known) legal dramas on television, and their place within the larger cultural zeitgeist. I also tried to touch on some of the larger socio-political issues raised through these programs, such as the correlation between the law-and-order movement of the late 1960s and the decline of popularity in shows featuring defense attorneys; that alone is worth a show from someone. Anyway, take a listen if you've got a couple of hours.

It's been an appalling week or so for deaths in the world of classic television and movies, and the most recent—such as Bob Newhart—will probably be covered in-depth next week. However, Terence at A Shroud of Thoughts keeps up with this remembrance of Hill Street Blues veteran James B. Sikking, who passed last week at the age of 90, and Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed actress Shannen Doherty, who died at the far-too-young age of 53. Travalanche remembers the deaths of Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Richard Simmons, who also died this week. 

At Comfort TV, David has one of those think pieces I'm so fond of: how dead shopping malls serve as an allegory the state of television today. Both malls and TV rose in the 1950s, offered something for everyone, and now have audiences that are a fraction of what they once were. There's much more to his essay; I urge you all to take a moment to read it.  

Jordan returns at The Twilight Zone Vortex with an in-depth look at volume 3, number 5 of The Twilight Zone Magazine, from November/December 1983. There's coverage of the premiere of The Twilight Zone: The Movie, filming Stephen King's Dead Zone, an interview with David Cronenberg, a retrospective on The Outer Limits, and more. 

At Cult TV Blog, John reviews "The State of England," an episode of teh 1971 series The Guardians, which presents an alternative history of England in which the country is ruled by a fascist dictatorship. As you know, I'm partial to these kinds of stories, which—as John points out—almost always rely on a heavy dose of fear. A nasty piece of work.

At Garroway at Large, Jodie celebrates the birthday of the blog, as well as that of the master communicator himself, Dave Garroway. It's an update along with a couple of pictures that continue to give us insight into the early years of Today, and the progression of time on Garroway.

An additional post from Travalanche reminds us that looks can be deceiving, asT he offers a retrospective on the voiceover career of Dallas McKennon, veteran character actor (and Denver Pyle-lookalike) from Westerns like Daniel Boone, Wagon Train, and Bonanza, and voice artist of, among others, Gumby!

And one more from A Shroud of Thoughts that I wanted to touch on: a reminder of the three books that Terence has written, along with information on where to get them. Remember to support your bloggers in all their efforts! TV  

To think or not to think

One of the (many) phrases that rubs me the wrong way is someone saying, most likely in an accuseatory manner, "You're overthinking things." It doesn't even have to be aimed at me; it raises my hackles whenever I hear it said or see it written. It carries imbedded within it, in some subtle yet insidious way, the idea that the process of thinking is, in and of itself, something that is to be discouraged.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and it's true that people can sometimes overanalyze things, that they can research something to the point that they enter into a kind of decision paralysis, unable to make up their minds because they're they're drowning in information. But when one is accused of "overthinking," it most often implies that you're devoting your mental energies to something that has been adjudged not worthy of expending your little grey cells. That, in and of itself, displays a kind of arrogance, suggesting that you're a better judge of what's important than they are.

The other day, at one of the Hogan's Heroes message boards I frequent, someone (not me) was speculating about one of the many implausibilities implicit in the show's concept. He was, of course, promptly accused of overthinking things. And while there are times when one has to suspend their own disbelief, not only with Hogan but with many other programs, the thought occurred to me: what, exactly, is wrong with thinking about various aspects of a television show? As long as you're not allowing it to intrude on the pleasure you derive from watching the show, why should you be scolded for "overthinking" it? Isn't it just part of the creative process wired into some people's minds?

Think of it this way: would you ever accuse someone of overthinking War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov? Would you suggest to a film student that she's overthinking Citizen Kane or 2001? Would you stride into the Louvre and tell someone studying the Mona Lisa that they're overthinking the smile, or try to convince worshippers in the Sistine Chapel that they're overthinking Michelangelo's Last Judgment? They'd probably look at you like you ought to be locked up for such thoughts, and they'd be right. I'm not even sure you can overthink Jackson Pollock. (On the other hand, I might grant you Mark Rothko.)

What I'm trying to say here is that it's absurd to suggest that one can overthink art, whether it's in the form of literature, cinema, painting, sculpture, dance, and the like. Why should we exclude television from that list? Granted, I'm not trying to suggest that a show like Hogan's Heroes belongs in the same classification as, say, East of Eden (there is such a thing as perspective, after all), but it's also foolish to deny that there is an element of art present in the creation of any television program. What that show says, what it signifies, what (if any) messege it intends for the viewer: these are all topics worthy of thought—and, possibly, overthought.

You might recall that a few years ago I wrote about a conversation I had with a Catholic ethicist regarding the treatment of the Just War doctrine in Hogan's Heroes. Now, some of you might consider this a classic example of overthought; it's only a sitcom, after all, a form of entertainment (and a low one, at that). But how many of us accept the things we see on television—not just on Hogan's Heroes, but on any program—without even giving them a second thought? Assassination, lying, physical intimidation, robbery, blackmail: it's all good if it's done in a good cause, right? We don't think about it at all, and over time we can become lazy about it, inured to it, just like the video game players who become so used to their killing games that the sacredness of life itself begins to lose its meaning. I'm not suggesting that television, whether drama or sitcom, should be relied upon to give you a moral education—far from it! But what do we accomplish with our leisure time if we spend it doing things that produce absolutely no thought on our part? Even the most "mindless" entertainment should spur at least a little activity up there, whether it's on the left or right side of your brain. To do otherwise—well, that's just a foreign concept to me. 

Over the years, my thoughts, my philosophies, my beliefs: all of them have been influenced, to one degree or another, by programs I've seen on television. Sometimes the impact is minor, no more significant than learning the importance of laughing at yourself; other times, I find myself being challenged to defend long-held opinions after seeing them in a quasi-real world environment, rather than the vacuum of the intellectural laboratory, with the result that I'm either strengthened in that opinion, or open to other ways of thinking about it. Seeing the plight of an innocent man being persecuted on a police procedural or the agonies of soldiers in a war drama should cause you to at least give some thought about these things, even if it's just to ask "what would I do?" in a similar situation. 

Again, I'm not advocating that you form your opinions on important issues around what you see on TV, where the dice are often loaded and the issues slanted, but having an awareness of these things, an awareness that perhaps you didn't have before, should at least enter into the equation when you consider them more deeply. Remember the old public service messages on CBS that would run after some dramas or movies, where they provided a list of books in case you wanted to "Read More About It?" That's what I'm talking about.

Of course, some of this is dependant on the willingness of programmers to provide programs containing even the barest of thought-provoking content, and, quite frankly, we should be demanding more from them in terms of how we spend our leisure time. But if that's the case, we should also be demanding more from ourselves. "There’s grace in wrestling with thoughts," a Catholic priest once wrote, and the ancient Greeks believed that leisure was "an active state of mind," a time that included not only sports and physical activities, but "learning music theory, debating qualified peers and doing philosophy. Leisure was not easy, but it was supposed to be gratifying." And as we've seen, even a sitcom like Hogan's Heroes can be the source of a thought-provoking gratification.

Speaking of thoughts, next week I'm going to continue on this train of thought, by looking at one of the most challenging and thought-provoking programs that television has produced, and how it can serve as a model for the way in which we use the programs we watch to stimulate our own thinking, both individually and in a group. TV  

What's on TV? Monday, July 17, 1961

We came very close, it would appear, to having a different lede altogether for today, one not nearly as light-hearted; as it is, however, it's business as usual, at least looking at the week's TV listings. And a good thing it is, because today we have one of those wonderful juxtapositions in programming that I'm so fond of, the kind that almost makes you wonder if the local stations conspired to create the effect for TV Guide readers. At 11:25 p.mn., WHIO in Dayton is showing the movie The Devil is a Woman, with May Britt. Meanwhile, at 11:30 p.m., WCPO in Cincinnati has Brigette Bardot in That Naughty Girl. So who do you go with? When it comes to misbehaving, you've got to go with Bardot, right? This unintended humor, as well as the rest of the listings, comes from the Southern Ohio edition.

This week in TV Guide: July 15, 1961

The brooding visage on the cover of this week's TV Guide is not that of Dave Garroway, although you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was, given how it seems to be a perfect match for the sidebar teaser on the left. No, on the cover you see Gardner McKay, star of Adventures in Paradise. More about him later. First, here's Garroway.

David Cunningham Garroway, the subject of Richard Gehman's multi-part profile, is one of the pioneers of television, a man of immeasurable influence insofar as on-camera persona is concerned. He is a very complex man as well, a troubled man, and for once the psychoanalytical angle that Gehman so likes to use comes in handy.

Garroway is the star of NBC's Today Show, or to be more precise, The Dave Garroway Today Show, as it is currently known. His friendly demeanor, inquisitive mind and engaging personality all combine to make him one of the first big stars in the new medium. Today reflects that personality perfectly. Would that today's Today (a cumbersome handle, to be sure) had as much variety and innovation as Garroway's did.

And yet the Dave Garroway that millions see every weekday morning is a far cry from the offscreen Garroway. It's sometimes said that when TV viewers see a personality on their sets often enough, they come to feel as if they actually know that person. In Garroway's case, those viewers probably know as much about him as his friends and coworkers do. Garroway is almost painfully shy, far preferring the company of his cars and telescopes to human interaction. He used to disguise himself before leaving the house, and he has a bomb shelter in his Manhattan townhouse, along with a bottle of Secanol in case of nuclear war. He tells Gehman that his anxieties actually make him better on TV, where "he can be himself" in the unblinking eye of the camera lens.

I described Garroway above as the host of Today; actually, that will be true only for another two days. Come Monday morning, John Chancellor will take over as host of the new, hard-news version of Today. Garroway had made the announcement in May, a month after his wife had committed suicide by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills, that he would be leaving the show in October, or earlier if possible. He cites the need to recharge his batteries, to get away from the entertainment business for awhile. The article promises that part two will tell why Garroway really left Today; unfortunately, I don't have that issue. (But if you think I should have it, in order to finish the story, I'll gladly give you my PayPal address.)

I've frequently picked on Richard Gehman's writing style as being unnecessarily sarcastic and snarky, making his own cleverness too much a part of the story. And yet, perhaps this time, as I suggested earlier, the subject is a perfect match for the writer. His opening paragraph is certainly as good as anything you'll read in classic TV Guide*: "In these troubled and abandoned days, some of the more troubled and abandoned among us celebrate the birth of Christ by behaving much like the very Romans who crucified Him. A bacchanalian Christmas party given three years ago by the staff of the Today show would have delighted a contemporary Edward Gibbon."

*When I mentioned this to my wife, she asked if today's TV Guide even has any writing; she thought maybe all they did was compose captions to pictures.\

Gehman goes on to discuss Garroway's obvious boredom and discomfort in these surroundings, taking it for as long as he could before getting up and disappearing. He continues, comparing Garroway to Tod Hackett, the protagonist of Nathaneal West's novel The Day of the Locust: "He was really a very complicated young man with a whole set of personalities, one inside the other like a nest of Chinese boxes." Garroway, a "very complicated 48," knows this better than anyone. "For 14 years, off and on, he has been seeing a psychiatrist in an effort to learn what is inside those boxes. And what he has learned is that there are more boxes." 

What I particularly like about those paragraphs is that Gehman assumes his readers will recognize the name Edward Gibbon, that they will know who Nathaneal West was and perhaps might even have read one of his books. It doesn't strike me that he's forcing these references; he's simply respecting his audience. TV Guide always prided itself on being more than a fan magazine, with readers who were a far cry from those who read the other rags; writing such as this tends to confirm that assumption.

Dave Garroway's story is a sad one, and it's not just because one of the pioneers of television is virtually unknown today. He appeared on various media off and on through the years, hosting a science show on NET, several radio programs on both coasts, and occasional guest appearances in various series, including on Today show anniversaries. He was married three times; the first ended in divorce, the second (as we saw above) with the suicide of his wife in 1961; his third to an astronomer, not surprising given his interest in that field. He underwent heart surgery in 1982 and, suffering from complications as well as his continuing battle with depression, killed himself with a single blast from a shotgun later that year. He was only 69 years old. 

Here's a clip from the first episode of Today in January, 1952. And here is a clip from Garroway's last television appearance, on the 30th anniversary show, where he's reunited with his old Today partners, Jack Lescoulie and Frank Blair. And to learn more about him, I highly recommend Jodie Peeler's wonderful biography of Garroway, Peace.

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And now on to Gardner McKay. He was discovered by Dominick Dunne, who was at the time a producer at 20th Century Fox, and hired to star in a new series Dunne was co-producing, Adventures in Paradise. Standing an imposing 6'5", he cuts a figure that leads Life magazine, in a cover story, to dub him "the new Apollo." McKay considers himself to still be a rookie when it comes to acting—"I'm no real actor," he tells the unnamed interviewer; "Show me a two-page speech from 'Antigone' and I'd get sick."—but Dunne, who first spotted McKay reading a book of poetry in a coffee shop, says that though he was a nobody in Hollywood terms, "his attitude declared that he was somebody." Despite the criticism of his acting, McKay is unquestionably a star, receiving up to 3,000 pieces of fan mail a week, and is well-liked by the crew that services his series.

Adventures in Paradise is now in its third and final season, but McKay remains untouched by his celebrity; he still drives the same 1958 Chevy convertible he had before Paradise, and he has no press agent, no business manager. On his weekly salary of over $1,500, he has "a few blue chip stocks and a bank account." In 1961, "the future burns brightly" for Gardner McKay. 

Like Dave Garroway after Today, Gardner McKay's life will travel a different route after Adventures in Paradise ends, but unlike Garroway's, it has a happy ending. After the series ends, McKay declines to renew his contract with Fox and turns down a chance to co-star in a movie with Marilyn Monroe, who personally lobbied him to take the part. Giving up acting completely, McKay works in the Amazon for two years and spends time in France and Egypt before returning to Hawaii, where he finds new success as a writer*, publishing several novels, an autobiography, and numerous short stories, as well as writing plays (winning a Drama Critics Circle Award for "Sea Marks"). In addition, he serves for five years as the drama critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and teaches a writing class at UCLA.

*I remember once seeing an interview with him, perhaps on Today; he was plugging his latest book, possibly The Kinsman, and mentioned how at first people didn't believe he'd written it himself, until they realized the depth of detail with which he wrote about sailing.

A friend said that he always considered himself a writer rather than an actor, and added that "He hated the fact that he was known for that television series. It was not the professional or private path he wanted to take." Gardner McKay was 69, the same age as Dave Garroway, when he died of cancer, a man who by all appearances was able to write himself a happy ending.

And if you're interested, you can see the episode of Adventures in Paradise that played in this episode: a rerun of "The Big Surf."

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If you're of an age where you only remember Julie London as nurse Dixie McCall on Emergency, you don't know what you've been missing.

London, who's already had a successful career as a singer but looks to add acting to her repertoire, complains of her lack of roles in Hollywood: "Sometimes I think they tend to measure an actress's talents by her—uh—measurements. If the measurements go beyond a certain point, they figure she can't possibly act." London's measurements, the unnamed writer helpfully points out, are 5'3", 37-23-36.

London was formerly married to Jack Webb*; the marriage was a good one until the success of Dragnet, with which he became obsessed. (Don't get me wrong; I love Jack Webb, but what do you say about a man who's married to Julie London and becomes obsessed with a television show?) They divorce in 1953, and in 1959 she marries jazz musician Bobby Troup, who also starred in Emergency but is probably best known (as he should be) for writing the song "Route 66," which made a lot of money for both him and Nat King Cole, among others.

*Of course, the irony here is that Webb, who remained on good terms with London, would hire both her and Troup for Emergency. When it came to television, Webb apparently only cared about getting the right people.

Today, though she continues singing, she still waits for the right role. "All I really want," she says, "is what every other girl in this town wants—a really good script."

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Saturday starts with golf, ends with murder, and features beauty in-between. The golf comes from the Royal Birkdale Golf Course in Southport, England, where Wide World of Sports expands to two hours for the final round of the British Open, taped earlier in the day. (5:00 p.m. ET, ABC) Arnold Palmer is scheduled to join Jim Simpson for commentary on the final three holes, but he'll have to work hard to fit it in; Arnie's busy winning his second Open Championship (and first of two in a row), defeating Welch golfer Dai Rees by one shot. The beauty can be found in Miami Beach, where Germany's Marlene Schmidt* is crowned Miss Universe. (10:00 p.m., CBS). Johnny Carson is the emcee at the Miami Beach Convention Center, while the broadcast hosts are John Daly and Jayne Meadows. And the murder comes from the 1946 movie The Killers, one of the great film noirs of all time, starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, and Edmund O'Brien.

*Fun fact: Marlene Schmidt was the third of eight wives of Bronco star Ty Hardin.

Sunday's episode of Dennis the Menace (7:30 p.m., CBS) presents the long-suffering Mr. Wilson (Joseph Kearns) with yet another headache: a washed-out bridge leaves him trapped at a mountain campsite with Dennis and five other young boys. A profile of Kearns shows us another side of the actor, who was once a child actor himself. Now, however, he's a veteran character actor, worried that "the 24 inmates of a nursery school will find out that Mr. Wilson lives right across the street." And the house he lives in? It's a 2½ story soundproof home he designed and built around a 26-rank Wurlitzer pipe organ that was originally designed for Warner Brothers back in 1926 and which he delights in playing for guests.  

On Monday, the aforementioned Ty Harden appears with Clint Walker and Will Hutchins in a rare Cheyenne episode featuring all three of its stars (7:30 p.m., ABC), as they battle someone who doesn't want Cheyenne's cattle drive to reach its destination. Later, the irrepressible Spike Jones and his wife, singer Helen Grayco, return for a second season of hosting a summer replacement series, this time for Danny Thomas. Their guests for this first show are Bill Dana and Jack Jones. 

Stagecoach West (Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., ABC) is the first of a trio of obscure series that we're looking at this week; it's the first primetime starring role for Wayne Rogers, who, along with Robert Bray, operates a stagecoach in the Wyoming Territory. Tonight's episode features guest stars Pippa Scott and Warren Oats, along with Robert Vaughn, whose character has the perfectly Robert Vaughn-ish name Beaumont Butler Buell. Wonderfully smarmy, don't you think?

Remember Father Dowling Mysteries, the series starring Tom Bosley as a priest who solved murders in his spare time? (A priest told me once that he only wished he had that kind of free time; some days he barely had a chance to eat.) The series was based on the novels by Catholic author Ralph McInerny, but he wasn't the literary world's first crime-fighting prelate; before him, there was Father Brown*, the hero of G.K. Chesterton's short stories that mixed mystery and theology. Wednesday, we see an example of it in the 1954 movie The Detective (11:30 p.m., WCPO in Columbus), with Alec Guinness essaying the priestly role, and Peter Finch as the archcriminal Flambeau. 

*The current Father Brown series on BBC, starring Mark Williams, strays considerably from the moral theology with which Chesterton invested his stories.

Outlaws is a two-season Western, running between 1960 and 1962, starring Barton MacLane, Don Collier, and Wynn Pearce as U.S. Marshals patrolling the Oklahoma Territory in the latter part of the 19th Century. Despite the fact that the series focused on the lives of the outlaws rather than the lawmen, Thursday's episode (7:30 p.m., NBC) remains unusual in that none of the regular cast appear in it; this story of a cowhand-turned-outlaw is carried entirely by the guest cast, including Joe Maross as the badman. I must admit this is one of the many series with which I haven't previously been familiar until now.

Don Wilson, Jack Benny's longtime announcer, makes a rare straight acting appearance as an oil tycoon in Harrigan and Son (Friday, 8:00 p.m., ABC), a sitcom starring Pat O'Brien and Roger Perry as father-and-son attorneys. You'll be forgiven if you haven't heard on this one, either; it had a single-season run. Far more stimulating is the late movie on Dayton's WHIO, the 1949 adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper as Howard Roarke, the uncompromising architect, and Patricia Neal as the woman who loves him.

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Finally, a couple of programs that epitomize the notion of television as a time capsule, and point out the importance of television preservation as an original document of cultural history.

The cover of George Lefferts'
collection of scripts from the show

We begin with NBC's series of occasional afternoon programs, Special For Woman, which returns on Tuesday for a six-week primetime run (10:00 p.m.). "Each taped drama," according to the program description, "deals with a problem faced by women in America," and concludes with a brief discussion led by NBC news reporter Pauline Frederick.* This week's episode, entitled "The Single Woman," presents the dilemma of Elisabeth Greenway (Barbara Baxley), who "has reached an age where she knows she ought to get married." She has a beau (Michael Tolan) ready and willing to tie the knot, but "Elisabeth just can't see her way clear to committing herself to him—or any man—for life." Although it's not mentioned in the description, she's also being wooed by a married man, played by Patrick O'Neal. Following the play, Frederick interviews psychiatrist Louis English.

*An example of the "women's stories" that Frederick complained about, prior to becoming NBC's U.N. correspondent. 

Here's a great reminder of the culture of the early 1960s, when marriage and a family is still considered the norm for women, and the stigma that's attached to being an unmarried woman—even the idea that she's not quite respectable. I wager that the phrase "old maid" isn't used nearly as much today as it was back then; now, we might think such an unmarried woman is just coming into her own today. As for her choices, does she choose boyfriend Michael Tolan, or is she content to be the "other woman" with Patrick O'Neal? And what role does the psychiatrist play in the discussion? Is he there to reassure women that the desire to remain single is not abnormal—or does he encourage them to confront their fear of commitment?*

*I cheated a bit, and skipped to the end of George Lefferts' collection of scripts from the show, which you can find at the Internet Archive; she chooses Michael Tolan. "I don't know when I'll be ready to marry you, Mike—maybe not for a long while. I need some time to think and maybe grow up a little more. But if you have the patience—" Says Dr. English in the summary, "Finding the right man is a by-product of doing the things that you yourself enjoy." Go to page 89 for more.     

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This week's other blast from the past comes courtesy of CBS' Sunday morning religious series Look Up and Live (10:00 a.m.) that, with few adaptations, could be presented today. "The Police," based on the play by Polish writer Slawomir Mrozek, tells the story of a prison rapidly losing its reason for being. "All the other prisoners, convinced that they were living under 'the best system in the world,' have confessed their crimes against the state, received their pardons and gone home. Now there's only one prisoner left, and he too wants to confess. The Commissioner receives this news with a certain amount of regret."

Mrozek, often compared to the Absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco, is a fascinating character himself. He was once an ardent Communist, praising Polish authorities for their persecution of religious leaders, and took part in demonstrations defaming Catholic priests. Following his defection from Poland in 1963, he became a harsh critic of Communism. The always-reliable Wikipedia offers this quote from him, explaining the change: "Being twenty years old, I was ready to accept any ideological proposition without looking a gift-horse in the mouth—as long as it was revolutionary. [. . .] I was lucky not to be born German say in 1913. I would have been a Hitlerite because the recruitment method was the same." "The Police" was published in 1958, bearing the marks of his growing skepticism of totalitarianism. I wonder what he'd think about the world of today? TV