July 14, 2018

This week in TV Guide: July 11, 1970

This is one of those issues that is a pleasure to go through - not a lot of research required, just a chance to do some serious typing on some really cool things.

We'll start with a brief mention of Ray Ameijide cover depicting The Beverly Hillbillies. You might notice an addition to the familiar cast in the Clampetts' car - it's none other than their banker, Mr. Drysdale! That's because the cover story is on Raymond Bailey, who started out in hobo camps as a young man before becoming an actor and appearing in a lot of shows besides Hillbillies. He was a perfect foil, wasn't hie?

Richard K. Doan has the other half of the cover, with his story on the phenomenal success of Sesame Street, now a year old. What does he think? It's all summed up in the headline, "Kindergarten may never be the same again." While acknowledging the criticism the show has received in some quarters ("rote education," "spoiling them for actual schooling," and the one critique that has probably stuck with the show the longest, that it is "assaulting" the senses of its little viewers with its "frenetic pace" and "psyched-up music." All in all, though, Doan praises Joan Ganz Cooney's vision for a show that's going to force kindergarten and first grade teachers into offering a more challenging curriculum for students - her hope is that they will "start teaching reading right away." He also approves of the show's integrated cast, which helps foster an atmosphere of racial understanding. TV Guide's opinion of Sesame Street won't always be so positive (I don't think Edith Efron was a fan), but for now, all systems are go.

We even have some notables in the Teletype - a small bit on David Janssen's upcoming series Treasury Agent, which eventually comes to the screen as O'Hara, U.S. Treasury. David Wolper is working on a documentary about the Lincoln assassination called The 20 Days of Lincoln, which winds up being called They've Killed President Lincoln. I remember that show; around that time there was something of a mystique about the Lincoln assassination, which may have coincided with the reopening (after more than 100 years) of Ford's Theatre. And Leonard Bernstein will be leading the Vienna Philharmonic in a 90-minute CBS special marking the Beethoven Bicentennial. They're doing Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, in what must be an abridged version - trust me, even without commercials, you're not going to get that opera done in 90 minutes.

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Sports plays a bigger role than usual in this week's programming. On Saturday it's the final round of the Open Championship, or the British Open as we called it back then, from the birthplace of golf, St. Andrews in Scotland. This year's total purse is $96,000, so we know players aren't there for the money; in fact, many of the Americans will lose money on the proposition, between the costs of travel and lodging.* In those days, the Open concluded on Saturday, unless a tie forced an 18-hole playoff, which would come on Sunday. ABC's Wide World of Sports is there to cover the excitement at 4:30 p.m. CT, and what excitement there is!

*By contrast, the purse for this year's Open is $10.5 million, with the winner's share coming in at $1,890,000.

Doug Sanders, one of the most stylish, swingingist golfers on tour (alas, his talent never did quite come up to the level of his sartorial splendor) comes to the 18th hole on Saturday with a one-shot lead over Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus won the Open in 1966, but he's never come out on top at St. Andrews, and he knows a player has to win here in order to solidify his legacy in the sport. (Adopts golf voice) And now Sanders stands over the ball on the 18th green, needing only to make this short putt to win the world's most prestigious title.


Of course, the caption on the BBC video gives it away. It's one of the more heartbreaking misses in major golf history, and it's all to Sanders' credit that he hangs in there against Nicklaus in the Sunday playoff, cutting the Bear's lead down to one sinister stroke on 18 before Jack sinks the putt that gives him his second Open championship.

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Then, on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., NBC presents the 41st Major League Baseball All-Star Game, telecast from brand-spanking-new Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati - in fact, the stadium is so new (the Reds just moved into it on June 30) that workers are still putting some of the finishing touches on it prior to game time.

I think we've gotten very jaundiced, not to say bored, with all-star games in general, and few of them have suffered as much as baseball's game. True, it's the only one of the four major sports where the game bears any resemblance to an actual baseball game (unlike the scoring feasts of basketball, the 3-on-3 of hockey, and the "don't touch me" of football), but back in 1970 this was a real game. There was no interleague play other than here and at the World Series; there was only one national telecast each week and most local teams only broadcast about 50 games; and both leagues looked at this as a test of superiority. The National League is in the midst of a long winning streak in the game, and nothing epitomizes the desire to win this game than Pete Rose's famous run for the plate in the 12th inning. Jim Simpson has the radio call for NBC.


This kind of play wouldn't be allowed today, and certainly one can argue as to whether or not it was necessary for Rose to plough into Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse. (Fosse himself was never quite the same after the play.) The point, though, is that Rose knew only one way to play - to win, whether in the World Series or an exhibition like the All-Star Game. Even if home plate collisions were allowed today, though, I doubt you'd ever see something like this again. Why endanger your earnings potential in a game that doesn't count?

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Isn't there anything on besides sports this week? Of course!

Some fun casting on Monday night begins with It Takes a Thief (6:30 p.m., ABC), as Robert Wagner is joined by his future Hart to Hart co-star Stefanie Powers and Broderick Crawford in a mystery involving Al Mundy (Wagner) trying to recover his memory. Both Wagner and Powers will be at this year's Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, as will be yours truly. At 7:30 p.m. on CBS, it's Here's Lucy - or should it be Here's Lucy and Viv? as Lucy's old sidekick Vivian Vance returns for some fun in a show with a healthy component of flashbacks to the antics of the two in I Love Lucy. And at 9:00 p.m., in the time slot usually occupied by Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman appears in a (more-or-less straight role as a "scheming foreign diplomat" on The Wild Wild West.

If you aren't in the mood for baseball on Tuesday, there's a reminder of what 1970 is like with CBS's soon-to-be acclaimed, Peabody-winning, documentary The World of Charlie Company. (9:00 p.m.) This show created such a sensation that it was run twice during the month (presumably for those who were watching the game the first time around.

On Wednesday, ABC has its pair of summer variety shows: The Everly Brothers star in the appropriately named Johnny Cash Presents The Everly Brothers at 8:00 p.m., keeping the country theme of their benefactor with a guest lineup including Arlo Guthrie, Marty Robbins, and Jackie DeShannon. That's followed at 9:00 p.m. by the resurrection of The Smothers Brothers Show, a somewhat toned-down version of their CBS series, as a summer replacement for Engelbert Humperdinck. Pat Paulsen is back with the Brothers, along with this week's guests Peter Lawford, Mac Davis, and Sunday's Child. Meanwhile, on KSTP (the NBC affiliate), Then Came Bronson is preempted for The Trini Lopez Hour (9:00 p.m.), with Georgia Brown and Frank Gorshin. And in the something-for-everyone category, David Frost's late-night show continues to have some of the most interesting lineups; tonight (midnight, KSTP) his guests are Noel Coward, Joseph E. Levine (producer of, among other movies, The Graduate), Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, and singer Ronnie Dyson.

Thursday's episode of Ironside (7:30 p.m., NBC) caught my eye if for no other reason than a great cast of guest stars better known for other roles: DeForest Kelley, Dabbs Greer, and Michael Conrad. At 9:00 p.m., "Those Girls Are Back" - those girls being the Golddiggers, in their third season as Dean Martin's summer replacement. It's almost a theater of the absurd cast of regulars: besides the Girls, we have Charles Nelson Reilly, Marty Feldman, and Tommy Tune. In the late-night wars, Enzo Stuarti manages to appear with both Frost and Merv Griffin. Nice job!

Bill Dana is not José Jiménez - instead, he's a scientiest trying to freeze the world in Friday's Get Smart (6:30 p.m., CBS). At 9:00 p.m. on ABC, Love, American Style has a segment that wouldn't be funny today, just ironic: it's about a computer dating error that pairs up Marion Feinstein (Herb Edeman) and Francis Adams (Broderick Crawford). I guess it's the names. And as for the late-night wars...

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Well, just one more sports note. Guess who's guest-hosting The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on Friday night? None other than golfing great Arnold Palmer! What a curious choice to host the show. I mean, Arnold's pretty smooth, but somehow I just don't see him sitting in that chair behind the desk, with Ed McMahon there off to the side. Joe Dey, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, is one of Arnie's guests, and I'm sure that's to help make things a little easier, but then there's also singer Vic Damone. Who knows, maybe he and Arnie were pretty tight; it wouldn't surprise me a bit. Although I had to go to IMDb to find out, his other guests included actress Suzanne Charny and tennis great Rod Laver, and this picture includes Vice President Spiro Agnew!


(That's a great look Ed has, by the way, with that red cardigan golf sweater!)

Very interesting, don't you think?  TV  

9 comments:

  1. There was an IRONSIDE episode from later in the series, "Programmed for Panic", which had an even wider group of guest stars better known for other roles: Russell Johnson, James Gregory, John S. Ragin, Katherine MacGregor, and Ed Begley, Jr.

    That's a nice picture of Arnold Palmer on THE TONIGHT SHOW set. That set made its debut in 1969, prior to Tiny Tim's wedding, and it was used for the rest of this show's time in NYC, at least Carson's version of the show.

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    1. Although for the fall of 1971 the circle pattern design was replaced with a painting of the New York skyline. After Carson moved to Burbank, he initially made two "road trips" back to New York - each a three-week stay, in November 1972 and May 1973 - but after the last of them (the last-ever New York show in the Carson incarnation being May 25), he never again ventured out of Burbank.

      Wasn't it about this time that NBC finally replaced their TK-41 class cameras with TK-44A's?

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  2. An issue I don't have … but oddly enough I do recall the story about Raymond Bailey, for reasons of my own.

    You'll note that the accompanying photo of Ray Bailey shows him wearing his "Drysdale" toupee - but in the interview he indicates that he doesn't like it at all: "I'm bald as a bat - why hide it?"
    Why indeed - just ask Jack Seabrook about all those Hitchcock shows where Ray Bailey is proudly bald, not to mention all those other TV shows and movies he did pre-Hillbillies.
    Then we all might ask why Bailey's career came to a halt after Hillbillies was cancelled - nobody wanted to hire the batty banker (they'd forgotten all the other characters Ray Bailey had done before).

    Still on toupees: I pulled that Ironside segment from the Old DVD Wall, and couldn't help but note the Festival of Hair Replacements: mainly Michael Conrad and Dabbs Greer, but Guest Star Stephen McNally - who for once isn't wearing a rug.
    As for Special Guest Star DeForest Kelley, that's his real hair, but his part is so small here (Red Herring Time) that you wonder why he even bothered.
    *Side Note: I'm still wondering about why Star Trek counts so heavily in anyone's career, regardless of how little a part it played in the whole scene.
    Yesterday I read of the passing of Roger Perry, who'd be recognized by most readers here for dozens of different roles in different shows and movies (nearly a hundred all told), and what gets top mention in the obit?
    One single appearance on Star Trek.
    Like he was born the day before and died the day after.
    Star Trek the Show, I don't mind.
    The Fans - Trekkies, Trekkers, Trekkeurs - these guys have driven me up several walls for half a century (starting with my older brother - but that's another story …).*

    I also looked up that Wild Wild West rerun from Monday.
    WWW, which had been cancelled the previous season, was pressed into service by CBS as Carol Burnett's summer replacement (they must have run out of variety shows that summer).
    Harvey Korman's appearance here was really an extended cameo - he wasn't even the chief villain here (that would be favorite movie Nazi Martin Kosleck). Mostly it was tricks and gimmicks tonight.

    As to The Golddiggers: this was the season that Greg Garrison moved the production to London to reduce the budget.
    One of the budget-cutters was to rent some BBC skits starring Marty Feldman, who was totally unknown in the USA at this point.
    Because The Golddiggers usually inherited Dean Martin's large audience even in summer, this proved to be Feldman's American breakthrough - much to the chagrin of Charles Nelson Reilly, who'd thought that he would be The Star Of The Show (another story).
    The main thing I remember about this troupe of Golddiggers was a tall (just under six feet) brunette named Paula Cinko, who was engaged primarily to provide a dance partner for 6'5" Tommy Tune; she handled that task quite well indeed (my opinion).

    On Get Smart, Bill Dana isn't Jose Jimenez, but he's not the mad scientist either.
    Dana, who was Don Adams's closest friend (back in the Steve Allen days the were comedy writing partners), was called into service to take Adams's place as a CIA agent in this episode (exactly why Adams missed this episode is unclear). Bernie Kopell as Siegfried is the villain this week.
    Thanks again to the Old DVD Wall for its assistance here.

    Settling back now to listen to you and Mr. Budnic at Eventually Supertrain as you work on Bourbon Street Beat (and with 37 episodes to deal with, you're in for a long haul indeed).
    I would call your particular attention to Episodes 9 ("Mrs. Viner Vanishes") and 13 ("Inside Man"). No spoilers here; you should be able to figure these out for yourselves.
    And when are you going to put up the complete theme song?
    Just askin' …

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    1. I need to correct something in that last paragraph:
      It seems that my c2c DVD of BSB is INC.
      So much for cuteness.
      What I mean here is that I'm missing two episodes from my set of Bourbon Street Beat; according to IMDb, the 13th and 14th of the series.
      Thus, "Inside Man", which I IDed as #13, is in fact #15.
      Problem here is that I don't know how complete your set is.
      Anyhow, "Inside Man" is the episode I'm waiting for you guys to get to.
      All cleared up now?

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    2. I'm late commenting, but Mike, you asked so I'll try to answer: The biggest reason Star Trek figures so heavily in commentary regarding actors' careers is its memorability. After cancellation, it immediately began airing in syndication around the dinner hour when kids could watch it; from that time onward over the ensuing 20-plus years, Star Trek was virtually never off the air. Many viewers picking up stations from multiple markets could see Star Trek two or three times a day in the 1970's and 80's. This constant availability, with multiple viewings of every episode, cemented actors' appearances on the show in viewers' minds in a way that didn't happen on most shows. Thus, such guest roles may have been minor instances in any given actor's long and varied career, but repeated viewing--and the fact that guest roles were very significant to Star Trek's stories--gave those roles a memorable impact they would not otherwise have had.

      And Roger Perry's appearance on Star Trek was one of the finest ever, by the way. It was an interesting role made significant in the teleplay, Perry and William Shatner had honest-to-God onscreen chemistry, and the time-travel story elevated the episode itself in the pantheon of Star Trek episodes generally.

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  3. In regards to Raymond Bailey's post-HILLBILLIES career: I believe he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's not long after the series ended, one reason he was limited to two Disney film roles afterward.

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  4. Thanx and a hat tip to Hal Horn for the Raymond Bailey update.

    (By this time of my life I ought to know better than to believe tabloids …)

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  5. You're very welcome. I've always been a big fan of Mr. Bailey, the show's secret weapon IMO. Ironically, the quintessential TV banker passed away on Tax Day in 1980.

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  6. I mentioned above that I didn't have this issue - but by chance, I do have the one immediately following: July 18-24, 1970, The Golddiggers on the cover.

    Just for phunne, here's a one-week-later look at things:

    - It Takes A Thief has an episode that features The Fifth Dimension in its group 'dramatic debut'.
    This was at the peak of their record success; it was becoming clear that Marilyn McCoo was becoming the major star of the group, and the episode was written around her character.
    Joseph Cotten was back in his recurring part as the Big Boss Spy, and I recall a cameo by Ralph Williams, the famous/notorious LA car dealer whom Johnny Carson gave a kind of backhanded fame in those days.
    Meanwhile, a couple of channels over, Gunsmoke had Jack Elam as his usual scruffy character, who this time found himself with two cute kids and three nuns (wanna guess who won the timeslot?).

    - On Wednesday, The Virginain, which was undergoing an internal reboot for fall, reached back to its first season (1962) for an episode showing how Trampas (Doug McClure) tried to quit the Shiloh Ranch, with results he hadn't figured on.
    The main Guest Star was Steve Cochran (the Mickey Rourke of an earlier time), who had himself died in 1965. (Insert your own pithy observation here.)

    - Here in Chicago, David Frost's "late-night" show aired at 3:30 pm on Channel 5, the NBC station.

    This week, Frost took the week off, giving space to guest hosts: the Monday show was hosted by Otto Preminger, whose guests were Dick Gregory, Pete Seeger, and James Coco. I guess that this one turned up in Minn-StP about a week afterwards …

    - The Ironside rerun on Thursday is a sort-of romcom, with Eve getting "involved" with a mittel-European prince (Brad Dillman in an unusually nice-guy part). Change-of-pace, you know …

    - Just as a note of the times, these were the three stories on Love, American Style that Friday night:
    (1) Don Grady and Karen Valentine find themselves assigned ato share a college dorm room.
    (2) Two jilted lovers decide to commit suicide together (JoAnne Worley is the lady).
    (3) Clint Howard flunks a sex-ed class; his dad (Orson Bean), who paints nudes, decides to complain to the pretty teacher (Bridget Hanley); hilarity ensues.
    Care to take it from there?

    - I just went back to check Monday's Wild Wild West rerun: it's "The Night Of The Kraken", which is a gigantic sea monster - or at least it's supposed to be.
    No spoiler here, but the main villain became quite a bit better known in the fall of '70, in a very different capacity.

    I have no idea which issue you've got for next time, but if it's this one, you could do a lot worse …

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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!