July 29, 2022

Around the dial




Xs you know if you've been reading this column for any length of time (and if you haven't, why haven't you? Not that I'm not grateful you're reading it now, but still), you know that Comfort TV's David has been working his way through TV of the 1970s, determined to watch at least one episode of every prime time television series that aired in the decade. This week, it's Thursdays in 1970. How many of these shows do you remember?

You're probably also aware of the Hitchcock Project, which appears every couple of weeks at bare-bones e-zine. Jack's latest entry is Victor Wolfson's third-season episode "Malice Domestic." a satisfyingly nasty little story starring Ralph Meeker and Phyllis Thaxter. As always, I appreciate how Jack takes us through from the original short story to the finished teleplay.

We might as well include Cult TV Blog here as well, because Jack, as you should know (but let's not go through all that again), has been looking at shows that feature his hometown, Birmingham. This week's focus is on the sitcom Citizen Khan, "about a ridiculous British Pakistani Moslem man who lives in Sparkhill and fancies himself as a community leader."

And I almost forgot that it's still Christmas in July, which means that at Christmas TV History, Joanna is continuing her month-long look at TV inspired by It's a Wonderful Life. For your consideration, the latest link is to a February, 1991 episode of Night Court. Yes, it's not a Christmas story, but it does have Mel TormĂ©, showing Harry what life without him would be like. 

If you're a regular reader (not that again), you know that we spent the last weekend at Liberty Aviation Museum, where Carol was giving her Bob Crane presentation. While we were there, we learned about the passing of Jim Senich, Bob Crane's cousin and a source of invaluable information for Carol's book. Carol's co-author Linda Groundwater remembers him at Bob Crane: Life & Legacy. 

There was some confusion this week over the death of Tony Dow, but it finally was confirmed. If he'd never acted in another role, he'd still be beloved as Wally from Leave It to Beaver, and rightly so. But there was more to his career than that, as Terence points out at A Shroud of Thoughts

Finally, at Classic Film & TV CafĂ©, Rick has a great interview with Will Hutchins, star of the Warner Bros. Western Sugarfoot, not to mention Blondie, Hey Landlord, and a host of other television shows and movies. I have to think he's one of the few stars remaining from that era (although I know I'll get a hundred emails naming other stars still around, so we'll drop it right there), and you'll enjoy it. TV  

2 comments:

  1. Thanks, Mitchell. The Tony Dow death saga reminded me of "I'm not dead yet" from Monty Python.

    ReplyDelete

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