May 4, 2015

What's on TV? Thursday, May 9, 1968

This week we're in the Twin Cities to take a look at the listings from 1968.  This is a good issue to look at; while there's nothing particularly remarkable about it, we're not yet into the summer rerun season, so our old dependables are still with us.  This includes The Hollywood Palace, which ABC foolishly moved from its regular Saturday night timeslot to this one on Thursday.  Fortunately, they would recognize their mistake and move it back to Saturday, although Channel 9, the ABC affiliate, would still preempt it for local movies (and the additional ad revenue they brought in) while moving Palace to Sunday afternoons. Oh well.


KTCA, Channel 2 (Educ.)

Morning

08:55a
Classroom

11:40a
Film

Afternoon

12:00p
Classroom

03:00p
Conversational Spanish

03:30p
Teaching English

04:00p
NET Journal

05:00p
Kindergarten

05:30p
International Magazine

Evening

06:30p
Making Decisions

07:00p
St. Paul School News

07:30p
The French Chef

08:00p
Town Meeting (color)

08:30p
Private College Concerts

09:00p
University of Minnesota Presidential Inauguration

10:00p
Flower Gardening

10:30p
Profile

A typically workmanlike, dry day of broadcasting at Channel 2.  Those highlights of the inauguration of the University of Minnesota president - that would have been for Malcolm Moos, who came to the U after having been a member of the Eisenhower administration.  (Imagine many colleges with Republican presidents nowadays.)  Moos was the first graduate of the University of Minnesota to become its president.


WCCO, Channel 4 (CBS)

Morning

06:00a
Sunrise Semester (color)

06:30a
Siegfried and His Flying Saucer (color)

07:00a
Clancy and Carmen (color)

07:30a
Clancy and Willie (color)

08:00a
Captain Kangaroo (color)

09:00a
Live Today (color)

09:05a
Merv Griffin (guests Terence Stamp, Jack and Reiko Douglas, Jerry Shane, Fleury D’Antonakis, Gloria Loring) (color)

10:00a
Andy Griffith

10:30a
Dick Van Dyke

11:00a
Love of Life (color)

11:25a
CBS News (Joseph Benti) (color)

11:30a
Search for Tomorrow (color)

11:45a
The Guiding Light (color)

Afternoon

12:00p
News (Dean Montgomery) (color)

12:20p
Something Special (color)

12:30p
As the World Turns (color)

01:00p
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (color)

01:30p
House Party (guest Dave Barry) (color)

02:00p
To Tell the Truth (color)

02:25p
CBS News (Douglas Edwards) (color)

02:30p
The Edge of Night (color)

03:00p
The Secret Storm (color)

03:30p
The Beverly Hillbillies

04:00p
Mike Douglas (guests Connie Francis, the Temptations, Joey Villa, the Amazing Kreskin, Scott Jacoby) (color)

05:30p
CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (color)

Evening

06:00p
News (Dave Moore) (color)

06:15p
Weather (Bud Kraehling) (color)

06:20p
Sports (Hal Scott) (color)

06:30p
Mothers’ Day with the King Family (special) (color)

07:30p
Marshal Dillon

08:00p
Movie – “Woman of Straw” (color)

10:00p
The Scene Tonight (color)

10:45p
Movie – “The True Story of Jesse James” (color)

12:45a
East Side/West Side

Mothers' Day* with the King Family was a syndicated special, preempting CBS' Cimarron Strip, starring Academy Award nominee Stuart Whitman.  As Strip was a 90-minute show, the remaining 30 minutes were filled with Marshal Dillon, the syndicated version of the half-hour Gunsmoke, which was a staple on WCCO throughout the '60s.  

*Or Mother's Day, if you prefer.  It appears both ways in the advertising and program listing.

A couple other notes: 1) It's very unusual to see East Side/West Side pop up in syndication. Saw a few episodes when it was on Trio years ago, and while it's topically preachy and very dark, it was a quality show as well.  I wish it were out on DVD today.  2) I've probably mentioned it, but bears repeating: The Scene Tonight was Channel 4's 10pm news, and was the first in the Twin Cities to present the anchors on one set, in a unified broadcast, rather than having the separate news/weather/sports programs (often with separate sponsors) that dominated local news throughout the years.


KSTP, Channel 5 (NBC)

Morning

06:15a
David Stone (color)

06:30a
City and Country (color)

07:00a
Today (guests Bob and Ray, lady bullfighter Conchita Cintron, author Jose Yglesias) (color)

09:00a
Snap Judgment (panelists Gig Young, Carol Lawrence) (color)

09:25a
NBC News (Nancy Dickerson) (color)

09:30a
Concentration (color)

10:00a
Personality (panelists Selma Diamond, John Forsythe, Van Johnson, June Allyson) (color)

10:30a
The Hollywood Squares (guests Hermoine Gingold, Michael Landon, Jan Murray, Soupy Sales, Connie Stevens, Morey Amsterdam, Wally Cox, Charley Weaver, Abby Dalton) (color)

11:00a
Jeopardy (color)

11:30a
Eye Guess (color) 

11:55a
NBC News (Edwin Newman)

Afternoon

12:00p
News (Gene Berry)

12:10p
Weather (Pete Evensen)

12:15p
Dialing for Dollars (color)

12:30p
Let’s Make a Deal (color)

01:00p
Days of Our Lives (color)

01:30p
The Doctors (color)

02:00p
Another World (color)

02:30p
You Don’t Say! (panelists Suzy Parker, Paul Winchell) (color)

03:00p
The Match Game (panelists Soupy Sales, Sheila MacRae) (color)

03:25p
NBC News (Floyd Kalbur) (color)

03:30p
Dialing for Dollars (color)

04:30p
Of Lands and Seas (color)

05:25p
News (Gene Berry)

05:30p
Huntley-Brinkley Report (color)

Evening

06:00p
News (Bob Ryan) (color)

06:15p
Weather (Johnny Morris) (color)

06:20p
Sports (Al Tighe) (color)

06:30p
Daniel Boone (color)

07:30p
Ironside (color)

08:30p
Dragnet (color)

09:00p
Dean Martin (guests Petula Clark, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Don Rickles, Flip Wilson) (color)

10:00p
News (John MacDougall) (color)

10:15p
Weather (Johnny Morris) (color)

10:20p
Sports (Al Tighe) (color)

10:30p
Tonight (guest Host Steve Lawrence, guests Gig Young, Sam Levenson, Godfrey Cambridge, Johnny Mercer, Bobby Goldsboro) (color)

12:00a
Science Fiction Theater (color)

I don't often associate Ironside with the rest of the shows on NBC's schedule; for some reason I've always considered that more of a '70s show like, say, The Mod Squad.  But there it is, alongside Daniel Boone.  I wish I could come up with a clip of Dialing for Dollars, since that was such a long-running program on KSTP, but I do have this clip for Bowling for Dollars.

By the way, the news anchor Gene Berry is not to be confused with the actor Gene Barry, who's appearing in both Bat Masterson and Burke's Law on Channel 11.  Idle thought: is this one of the few occasions in which one star appears in two syndicated programs being shown on the same channel in the same timeframe?  Does anyone remember one of their local stations showing both Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby, M.D. in the same timeframe?


KMSP, Channel 9 (ABC)

Morning

07:30a
77 Sunset Strip

08:30a
Wedding Party (color)

09:00a
Romper Room (color)

09:30a
Dick Cavett (guest Angeline Butler) (color)

11:00a
Bewitched

11:30a
Treasure Isle (color)

Afternoon

12:00p
Dream House (color)

12:30p
News (Jerry Smith)

01:00p
The Newlywed Game (color)

01:30p
The Baby Game (color)

01:55p
Children’s Doctor (color)

02:00p
General Hospital (color)

02:30p
Dark Shadows (color)

03:00p
The Dating Game (color)

03:30p
Movie – “The Desperadoes Are in Town”

04:55p
News (Jerry Smith) (color)

05:00p
ABC Evening News (Bob Young) (color)

05:30p
McHale’s Navy

Evening

06:00p
Truth or Consequences (color)

06:30p
The Second Hundred Years (color)

07:00p
The Flying Nun (color)

07:30p
Bewitched (color)

08:00p
That Girl (color)

08:30p
Peyton Place (color)

09:00p
The Hollywood Palace (host Sammy Davis Jr., Diana Ross and the Supremes, Burns and Schreiber, Raquel Welch, Baby Lawrence, Joey Bishop) (color)

10:00p
News (Fahan/Steer) (color)

10:25p
Sports (Tony Parker) (color)

10:30p
Joey Bishop (color)

12:00a
Naked City

I usually think of Dick Cavett in terms of his late-night show or perhaps one of his PBS versions, but of course he got his network start with This Morning, which ran from March of 1968 to January 1969, before moving to prime-time and then to late-night.  

As was usually the case while KMSP was an ABC affiliate (and even before then, to when they were the Twin Cities' independent channel the first time), the station did not present a 6:00pm newscast, and usually aired the network news at 5:00.  (Although as I recall, when ABC's evening news was still a 15-minute program, they did fill the remainder of the half hour with local news.) They may well have won the 6pm ratings with their sitcom reruns.  


WTCN, Channel 11 (Ind.)

Morning

08:40a
News (Gil Amundson)

08:45a
The King and Odie

09:00a
Sea Hunt

09:30a
The Rifleman

10:00a
Woody Woodbury (guests Victor Buono, Bobby Rydell, Grace Markay, George McKelvey, Polly Rose Gottlieb) (color)

11:30a
News (Gil Amundson/Warren Martin)

Afternoon

12:00p
Lunch With Casey

01:00p
Movie – “Goliath Against the Giants”

02:30p
Mel’s Notebook

03:00p
Virginia Graham (guests Anne Jackson, Jeanne Sinkford)

03:30p
Patty Duke

04:00p
Popeye and Pete

04:30p
Casey and Roundhouse

05:00p
The Flintstones (color)

05:30p
Gilligan’s Island

Evening

06:00p
The Twilight Zone

06:30p
Burke’s Law

07:30p
Perry Mason

08:30p
Alfred Hitchcock Presents

09:00p
Movie – “Flame of Barbary Coast”

11:00p
News (Stuart A. Lindman)

11:15p
Weather (Rodger Kent)

11:20p
Sports (Frank Buetel)

11:30p
Bat Masterson


Channel 11 often eschewed a 10pm newscast, preferring to go with one that followed its 9 pm movie.  Later, in the 70s, the station would introduce a 9:30 pm newscast, which it touted as being for those who couldn't stay up until 10.  One of their best anchors was Don Harrison, who would later go on to considerable recognition on Headline News, back when that station actually offered, you know, news.  As I recall, he was very popular in the Twin Cities - I know I liked him. TV  

6 comments:

  1. I believe I may have mentioned this in an earlier comment:

    In the fall of '67, ABC moved Hollywood Palace to Tuesday night at 10/9 central.
    That went badly, and ABC moved HP back to Saturday in January '68, replacing Iron Horse, which disappeared. The Invaders took HP's Tuesday slot.
    Apparently, KMSP was carrying HP as a delayed broadcast on Thursdays, in place of Good Company, which was F. Lee Bailey's failed attempt to revive Person To Person.
    Following that cancellation, ABC gave the Thursday slot back to the local stations, so KMSP , which had likely established its own Saturday movie, decided to keep the status quo.
    The Hollywood Palace referenced here would have aired on the ABC network the previous Saturday night.

    Apparently, KMSP did quite a bit of local revisions to the ABC network schedule, day and night.
    I note that ch 9 has a half-hour newscast at 12:30 pm.
    The network offering in that timeslot was Wedding Party, which ch 9 bumped to early morning on another delay. This was a semi-game show in which married couples would tell embarrassing stories about each other, then play a simple game for prizes.
    I remember this one mainly as the introduction to US TV of a popular Canadian personality named Alan Hamel (who had just become Mr. Suzanne Somers in real life; this is long before her fame days)..

    Was this the period when one of WCCO's news anchors was Ron Magers?
    When he moved to Chicago, I remember reading that he'd been the most popular anchor in MinnStP at that time. In fact at least two Chicago stations were in a horse race to get him to move here: ch5 (NBC) beat out ch2 (CBS) and Magers was top anchor at 5 for a number of years, before jumping to ch7 (ABC), where he remains today.

    East Side/West Side in syndication:
    I may have mentioned a few thousand times before that syndie rules were different in the olden tymes (the '60s). Five-a-week stripping of shows had not yet taken hold, and any off-network series could - and often did - have a local-station afterlife.
    Here in Chicago, ES/WS had a decent off-net run for at least a couple of seasons.

    I'm not keeping a character count, and so I'll stand down for now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So Mike, do you know when "stripping" became common?

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    2. Al Leos:

      In order to "strip" a series, you needed a large number of episodes - 100 films became the standard.
      It was 1971 when the FCC put in the Prime Time Access Rule, which gave network stations back one half-hour a night. This was supposed to stimulate new programming across the board; instead, stations found it was easier to run one show five days a week instead of five different shows each day.
      This thinking soon spread to independent stations, which learned that it was easier to sell five-a-week as opposed to all different shows each night. Perry Mason was one of the first long-running shows to be sold this way.
      By the mid-'70s, the changeover was complete; series that had had short runs (one season or less) were crowded out of the marketplace (except for cult items like Green Hornet and Star Trek), and here we are today.
      Of course, all this was before cable, home video, and the emergence of binge-watching - and that, as Mr. Kipling said, is another story ...

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    3. Mike,

      You're right - KMSP was very bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) at preempting network programming. They loved their local movies (and the revenue they brought), and often bumped Joey Bishop to a later time in order to run one. (At times like that, they'd also preempt him altogether on Friday night, running that episode on Sunday night.)

      Re Ron Magers, he was actually at KSTP Channel 5, the NBC affiliate, but he didn't start there until 1974. It was under his run that Channel 5 first began to challenge WCCO Channel 4 for news supremacy. He and Paul are still fondly remembered by many back in the Twin Cities. His co-anchor for much of that time was Cyndy Brucato, who made a comeback on Channel 5 a few years ago - as I recall, even did a stint as the sole anchor for the 6pm news, which you don't see very often anymore.

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  2. Don Harrison anchored over at WTCN? When was this? I remember him working at KMSP only, back in the mid-1970's.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!