Around the dial

One of the pleasures of this weekly feature is that there's almost always one kind of linkage or another going on, and this week is no exception. For instance, at Cult TV Blog, John continues his look at Hammer House of Horror with the 1980 episode "Children of the Full Moon," featuring a terrific performance by Diana Dors.

By remarkable coincidence, Rick's latest edition of "The Alternate Movie Title Game" at Classic Film & TV Café focuses on Hammer films. (See what I mean about linkage?) Be sure not to read the comments until you've made your own guesses.

At Comfort TV, David concentrates on the actors who also wrote for the TV shows in which they appeared. Some are more familiar than others; Robert Culp and Alan Alda wrote several episodes each of I Spy and M*A*S*H, respectively, but Peter Falk also wrote an episode of Columbo.

One of the several programs hosted by Dave Garroway was the Sunday afternoon show Wide Wide World (not to be confused with Wide World of Sports, although wouldn't that have been interesting? "I'm Dave Garroway with great moments in Olympic history!") At Garroway at Large, Jodie is back with Bob and Ray's hilarious parody, Big Big Earth. (And don't miss that video, which predates Today and has a surprise visitor.)

At Television's New Frontier: the 1960s, we turn to Rawhide circa 1962. As noted before, by this time the show is closer to the end than the beginning, and the quality of the stories is wildly uneven, but even so there are a few episodes that look to be well worth watching, one of which was written by star Eric Fleming.

I think it was last week that Terence noted the 60th anniversary of Combat!, and this week at A shroud of Thoughts he takes up the 60th anniversary of another iconic series: McHale's Navy. I know I've made this point before, and some of you may have commented on it, but it's quite interesting how many of these iconic shows of the time were ABC products; in addition to these, you've got The Fugitive, The Addams Family, Ozzie and Harriet, Bewitched, Donna Reed, Peyton Place, Patty Duke, and more. And yet we also know how long it took the network to finally rise to the top.

And of course, last but not least, one has to take time to remember the great Angela Lansbury, who died this week aged 96. Stage, screen and television, comedy, drama and musicals—it seems as though there was nothing she couldn't do, and she remained beloved throughout her magnificent career. Terence is always my go-to for such remembrances, and he provides a fitting tribute here.

By the way, my continuing apologies for not responding more quickly to your comments and inquiries (or, in some cases, not responding at all). I believe I'll be back on track quite shortly, at which time you probably won't be able to shut me up. TV