Odds & ends

Since I don't have anything big to write about this week. it seems like a good time to go through some miscellaneous items that you might find interesting.

The Daytime Delilahs. Commenting on last Saturday's TV Guide (December 26, 1964), MemotoSelf asks, "Who are they? And why do 'they make housewives' blood boil'?" 

The Daytime Delilahs in question are, from left to right, Lee Lawson (who plays Barbara Sterling on Love of Life), Haila Stoddard (Pauline Rysdale on The Secret Storm), Ludi Claire (Elizabeth McGrath from The Edge of Night), and Audra Lindley (Liz Mathews on Another World). (Joan Anderson, aka Nora Hansen on The Doctors, is not pictured. They are the vixens of video, the harlots and harridans who exist to lure your favorite male heroes from home and hearth and ensnare them in their deadly webs of sin, and female viewers love to hate them. All five of the featured vixens report having been accosted in the street by fans, and the mail they receive is often so venomous that the networks won't let them see it. (One anonymous woman, reports Lawson, writes regularly "telling me that I am wicked and that I must die.") People like that haven't disappeared, by the way; they've just moved to social media.

Name That Episode! From that same issue, I mentioned that quite a few of the programs from Sunday's listing are available on DVD or streaming, but that I didn't have time to list the episodes. Well, I'm not sure I have any more time now than I did then, so maybe I was just lazy. But here's a sample for you. In addition, since shows like Bullwinkle are out as complete series, we know this week's episode is available even if we don't have its name.

The Roaring 20's: "So's Your Old Man"

Surfside 6: "Spring Training"

87th Precinct: "Man in a Jam"

Profiles in Courage: "John Adams"

Harbor Command: "Illegal Entry"

My Little Margie: "Margie, the Writer"

Car 54, Where Are You?: "The Biggest Day of the Year"

My Favorite Martian: "Won't You Come Home, Uncle Martin, Won't You Come Home?"

West Point: "Start Running"

Bonanza: "The Saga of Squaw Charlie"

The Rogues: "The Real Russian Caviar"

Men of Annapolis: "Blinding Light"

What's My Line?: Season 16, Episode 17

The Ed Sullivan Show: several individual acts on YouTube

Pretty much all of the movies from that day are available as well:

Going My Way

Slattery's Hurricane

The Thing

The Ride Back

Never Wave at a WAC

Blue Murder at St. Trinian's

The Dummy Talks

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Jackpot

If you ever wanted to try and recreate a day of television, this might be a place to start. 

And Now For Something Completely Different. Finally, speaking of Ed Sullivan, we've often talked about how jarring it can be seeing rock acts performing alongside pop singers, Broadway actors, ventriloquists, animal acts, and Topo Gigio. Here's a great example: a terrific rendition of "Keep Me Hangin' On" by Vanilla Fudge from January 14, 1968. This isn't your grandfather's really big shew.

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