A day in the week

I thought I'd do something different for this week's Tuesday essay.  Those of you who come from the Radio Discussions.com board know that every week I post a link to the newest "This Week in TV Guide" piece, along with a random day of TV listings from that week.  Today we're going to try an expanded version of this for those of you who don't frequent Radio Discussions (and, by the way, why don't you?), with an additional day's worth of listings from Saturday's issue, along with some added personal commentary that might help put things in perspective.

Ready?  Let's give this a try, with the listings for Minneapolis-St. Paul for Wednesday, April 8, 1970.  This is an issue that, for some long-forgotten reason, was part of my personal collection (as opposed to one I acquired later on), which means that my nine-year-old self looked through these listings compulsively.  And remember, stations reserve the right to make last-minute changes.

KTCA, Channel 2 (NET)
08:30a	Classroom (until 3:00p)
03:00p	Management: A Joint Venture
03:30p	TBA
03:45p	Teaching Spanish
04:00p	Profiles of Progress
04:15p	The Friendly Giant
04:30p	Sesame Street
05:30p	Misterogers' Neighborhood
06:00p	Irish Diary
06:30p	Supervisory Practices
07:00p	Minnesota Meets the Challenge
08:00p	Law Night
08:30p	Urban Partners in the ‘70s
09:00p	Students Search for Religion
10:00p	NET Festival

Throughout the 60s, KTCA's affiliation had been shown only as "Educational," but by 1970 they were part of NET (National Educational Television), forerunner of today's PBS.  And you'll notice that their programming is, for the most part, purely educational, with some even broadcast from city classrooms.  Two of NET/PBS' earliest mainstays can be seen here - Sesame Street and Misterogers' Neighborhood.  In fact, one of the few places you can see the old NET logo is on very old repeats of Misterogers, during the end credits.  Later, of course, you'd know the show by its more familiar name: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  At the time I was a bit old for both of these shows, and besides I'd already cast my lot with Captain Kangaroo.

Channel 4, WCCO (CBS)
06:00a	Sunrise Semester – Iranian Culture
06:30a	Siegfried and his Flying Saucer
07:00a	Clancy and Carmen
07:30a	Clancy and Willie
08:00a	Captain Kangaroo
09:00a	‘Morning
09:30a	The Beverly Hillbillies
10:00a	Andy Griffith
10:30a	Love of Life
11:00a	Where the Heart Is
11:25a	Live Today
11:30a	Search for Tomorrow
12:00p	News (local)
12:30p	As the World Turns
01:00p	Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
01:30p	Guiding Light
02:00p	The Secret Storm
02:30p	The Edge of Night
03:00p	Gomer Pyle, USMC
03:30p	Lucille Ball
04:00p	Mike Douglas
05:30p	CBS News (Walter Cronkite)
06:00p	News (local)
06:30p	Hee Haw
07:30p	The Beverly Hillbillies
08:00p	Medical Center
09:00p	Hawaii Five-O
10:00p	News (local)
10:45p	Merv Griffin
12:15a	News (local)
12:25a	Movie – “The Frightened City”

Siegfried wasn't a character from a Wagner opera, but he was the "host" of an early morning cartoon show.  Actually, host is generous - he was nothing more than a non-animated line drawing, exiting from and entering a flying saucer.  Hey, kids are easily entertained!  The feature I remember most from Siegfried was a character called "Wallace the Weather Bear," another non-animated cartoon character, who would appear on slides giving the forecast for the day. The "Hi" and "Lo" were standard viewing for grade school kids who might be called on in class to repeat them.  (Weather was a big part of growing up in Minnesota.)

In fact, with the exception of Sunrise Semester, all the programming up to 9am is for kids.  It used to be that after-school TV was for kids as well, but by this time that's been replaced by series reruns and Mike Douglas.  That kind of change is one of the more noticeable things one sees as the 60s transition to the 70s.

You can see, with both Hee Haw and The Beverly Hillbillies in the lineup, it isn't quite time for CBS' rural purge. The presence of a show like Hawaii Five-O, however, would suggest that the purge isn't long in coming.

KSTP, Channel 5 (NBC)
06:30a	Minnesota Today
07:00a	Today
09:00a	It Takes Two
09:25a	NBC News (Nancy Dickerson)
09:30a	Concentration
10:00a	Sale of the Century
10:30a	Hollywood Squares
11:00a	Jeopardy
11:30a	Who, What or Where Game
11:55a	NBC News (Floyd Kalbur)
12:00p	Dial 5
12:30p	Life With Linkletter
01:00p	Days of Our Lives
01:30p	The Doctors
02:00p	Another World/Bay City
02:30p	Bright Promise
03:00p	Another World/Somerset
03:30p	Movie – “The Jackpot”
05:30p	NBC News (Huntley/ Brinkley)
06:00p	News (local)
06:30p	The Virginian
08:00p	Kraft Music Hall
09:00p	Then Came Bronson
10:00p	News (local)
10:30p	Johnny Carson
12:00a	David Frost

Dial 5, with Jim Hutton and Jane Johnston, was a staple of local programming on Channel 5.  Jim Hutton (not that Jim) also hosted Dialing for Dollars when that was a stand-alone show.  I'm not sure, but it's likely it was still around as a feature on this show.  Nobody from there ever called our home, at least as far as I'm aware.  Of course, whenever I hear Dialing for Dollars, I think of this:


Life With Linkletter starred tArt and his son Jack.  I don't know if this was an NBC or a syndicated series; perhaps one of our readers can enlighten us.  Art had, of course, been a longtime staple of CBS' daytime schedule.  Another World was, as I've mentioned elsewhere, one of my mother's favorite soaps.  It wasn't until rereading this issue that I remembered the time when NBC split it into two separate, but connected, shows. 

KMSP, Channel 9 (ABC)
07:30a	News and Views
08:00a	Dennis the Menace
08:30a	Grandpa Ken
09:00a	Romper Room (Miss Karen)
09:30a	McHale’s Navy
10:00a	Bewitched
10:30a	That Girl
11:00a	Best of Everything
11:30a	World Apart
12:00p	All My Children
12:30p	Let’s Make a Deal
01:00p	Newlywed Game
01:30p	Dating Game
02:00p	General Hospital
02:30p	One Life to Live
03:00p	Dark Shadows
03:30p	Peyton Place
04:00p	Steve Allen
05:00p	ABC News (Reynolds/Smith)
05:30p	To Tell the Trugh
06:00p	Truth or Consequences
06:30p	Nanny and the Professor
07:00p	The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
07:30p	Room 222
08:00p	Johnny Cash
09:00p	Engelbert Humperdinck
10:00p	News (local)
10:30p	Dick Cavett
12:00a	Movie – “The Light Touch”

I'm always struck by how TV was before it became 24/7.  Channel 9 doesn't come on until 7:30; nowadays, by that time I've already eaten, caught a half-hour of sports, and headed for work.  I mentioned in Saturday's post that ABC was really into the variety show format, and you can see here that they even try to make a TV star out of Engelbert Humperdinck.  It didn't really work, though.

ABC News went through a lot of anchor combinations prior to World News Tonight.  This was, I thought, one of the better ones, with Frank Reynolds and Howard K. Smith.  Reynolds caught some flack from the Nixon White House for his liberal leanings; he was eventually replaced by Harry Reasoner when he jumped from CBS.  When World News Tonight started, though, Reynolds was back in the anchor chair.  Interesting fact - Reynolds covered Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1976, and from what I understand the families became quite close.  When Reynolds died, the Reagans attended the funeral.  Perhaps Reynolds had moderated in his politics, or maybe the two men just liked each other.  Too bad that doesn't happen more in politics today.

WTCN, Channel 11 (Ind.)
06:55a	News (local)
07:00a	Casey and Roundhouse
08:00a	Dave Lee
08:30a	Hobo Kelly
09:00a	News (local)
09:30a	Jack LaLanne
10:00a	Debbie Drake
10:30a	Joan Rivers
11:00a	Girl Talk
11:30a	The Galloping Gourmet
12:00p	Lunch With Casey
01:00p	Movie – “A Life in the Balance”
02:50p	Fashions in Sewing
03:00p	He Said! She Said!
03:30p	Beat the Clock
04:00p	The Addams Family
04:30p	The Flintstones
05:00p	Gilligan’s Island
05:30p	Star Trek
06:30p	Perry Mason
07:30p	Alfred Hitchcock Presents
08:00p	The Alcoa Hour – “Cowboy”
09:00p	Tightrope
09:30p	News (local)
10:00p	Felony Squad
10:30p	Movie – “Voice in the Mirror”
12:30a	News (local)

Casey Jones (Roger Awsumb) was an icon on Twin Cities' kids television, and here he has two shows with his sidekick, Roundhouse Rodney (Lynn Dwyer).  Follow that link to the Lunch With Casey site; you can learn a lot cooler stuff than I have room for here.

Channel 11 is a pretty traditional independent station of the time, with a mix of syndicated programming, reruns and movies, and a lot of sports during the appropriate seasons (it was the station of Twins baseball, North Stars hockey, University of Minnesota hockey and basketball, plus the high school tournaments).  Boy, I remember a lot of these shows - besides Casey, I watched Graham Kerr's Galloping Gourmet, Virginia Graham on Girl Talk, even Jack LaLanne.  I don't remember seeing Debbie Drake, however; I've been told that if I had seen her, I would have remembered.  Maybe I was just too young...


The 1pm movie would have been hosted by Mel Jass, another local legend.  I never liked him when I was watching him back then; I do miss him, though.

KTCI, Channel 17 (NET)
09:00a	Sesame Street
11:15a	Classroom (until 3:30p)
07:00p	Conversations With James Day
07:30p	Book Beat
08:00p	International Magazine
09:00p	Soul!

Channel 17, the second educational channel, was started in 1965.  KTCA and KTCI were sister stations, run by the same organization - Twin Cities Public Television.  It's never really succeeded in having its own identity, alternating between playing repeats of Channel 2 programming (for those who missed it the first time) and being an outlet for local or alternative PBS shows.  I'm not quite sure which category it fits into right now.

In case you're interested in why you'd want to watch a conversation with James Day, he was at the time president of NET.  Book Beat, with Chicago Tribune books editor Bob Cromie, was a long-running show on NET/PBS, much remembered by my wife. 

***

And now a final word about kids' TV shows, because I've mentioned a few today.  I never saw the granddaddy of them all, the Mickey Mouse Club, when it was in first-run, but I saw it in reruns, and I had the requisite share of memorabilia - the ears, the watch, the Transogram game.  And again, I must have been too young at the time, because I'm fairly sure I would have remembered seeing Annette.  I was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago a couple of months ago, and as part of one of their exhibits they were running clips from the show.  Just by looking at the shirts, I was able to pick her out, even if I hadn't been able to read the name on the shirt.  (Think about it for a minute; you'll get it.)  I doubt you'd have found too many people who would have been surprised if you'd told them that Annette Funicello would wind up a star - she had talent, personality, and a likeability that woudn't stop.  And if that weren't enough, by all accounts she was a very nice person as well. You can't really beat that combination, can you?  R.I.P., Annette.