This week in TV Guide: July 24, 1965

It's one thing to know you're old, to be aware of the chronological truth. I freely admit it in my own case; longtime readers know I make no bones about it. It's another thing, though, to be reminded, by your own actions, that you're old. Take this week's issue of TV Guide. I've had this issue for at least three years, given that I purchased it back when I lived in Minnesota. I recognize its cover, I've read its articles, I'm familiar with its programs. It's highlighted on the very complicated spreadsheet that I use to track the issues I own. All this would suggest to me that I wrote it up at some time in the past 

And yet, I don't see it anywhere on the blog. I don't remember having made any pithy comment about it. I've searched the blog using various terms from articles I would have written, had I written them. In other words, I've owned this issue for at least three years, and whenever July would roll around, I skipped over it because I thought I'd already done it. I feel as if Perry Mason is convicting me with his stare. 

At this point, if I were really losing it, I'd probably figure I was done and end things right here. (Either that, or I'd run for office.) But, perhaps fortunately for you, I've retained enough of my wits to forge ahead, and there's no better place to begin than with the aforementioned Raymond Burr, about to embark on what will be the ninth and final season of Perry Mason. He speaks candidly about it with Dwight Whitney, admitting that he didn't expect to still be doing the series. "I wanted to do a show called The Power," he explains. "In it I played the governor of a state, and it had some of the same things going for it that Perry did. It was the best damn thing I ever read, the best new show presentation anybody in this business had ever seen." So what happened? Well, "the heads of CBS decided that with another year of Perry in the offing they didn't want to convert [to another series] at that point. I went along. I'm a paid actor. Once having signed a contract, I had a certain obligation. Last year I still felt it. So we made an eighth season of Perry Mason." And in the meantime another political drama, Slattery's People (starring Richard Crenna) came along. And there went The Power. As a consolation, however, Burr is paid "what may be the highest straight salary ever offered any TV actor."

Not that he didn't have concerns about Perry Mason, particularly the just-completed eighth season. "This year was a bad year," he tells Whitney. "Sometimes the plots got so involved even I couldn't understand them. But next year can be a great one." (Spoiler: it isn't.) That isn't the only reason he came back, though; "My actors were hurting," he says. "I couldn't let go. I was concerned." He had suddenly become, Whitney says, "God's gift to intransigent actors, tender to men's troubles, father of the world." 

Thanks to Mason, Burr has been one busy man: making regular trips abroad to entertain the troops (four to Vietnam alone), speaking to various bar associations (58 since the show started), and serving on the boards of various foundations and organizations. Next year, he says, he'll be visiting a dozen countries around the world, making speeches to universities. "I speak for world peace through law," he says. "I'm a kind of one-man lobby for the legal profession. I believe that the world will either destroy itself or learn how to settle things by law. So it becomes the world's most important profession." He's grateful for the non-monetary things the show has given him; "It's not very often that a person is given the opportunity to use his personal image to do so much good in the world. That's tough to give up regardless."

I've written about Raymond Burr many times in the past; he's appeared on the cover of TV Guide many times in the past. His secret life with its created backstory is always intriguing, but his public life as a mensch has always been impressive, and genuine. As he and Whitney part, the weary Burr—he leaves on another trip to Vietnam early the next morning—says that he does what he has to do. "What is right for me. What I have done may not have brought absolute happiness. But for me it has brought some measure of satisfaction. IF that makes me a fool, my friend, then that is what I am."

Rather than ending on that somewhat somber note, I prefer to think that I've saved the best for last. It comes from a paragraph earlier in the article, after Burr tells Whitney he wants Perry Mason to go out with a great year. "I could visualize Burr waiting for that 'great year' to go out on until Perry Mason was defending cases from a wheel chair." It sounds like a great role for Robert Ironside, doesn't it?

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

Sullivan: Ed welcomes Maurice Chevalier, the San Francisco Ballet, comic Soupy Sales, singer Felicia Sanders, rock ‘n’ rollers Gerry and the Pacemakers, middleweight boxing champion José Torres, comedian London Lee, Stephenson’s Dogs, and Jorgen and Conny, a perch act.

Palace: Host Tony Martin and his wife, actress-dancer Cyd Charisse, introduce comedian Jack E, Leonard; veteran song-and-dance man Ted Lewis; Johnny Puleo and his Harmonica Gang; a vocal-instrumental trio composed of Dean Martin Jr., Desi Arnaz IV and Billy Hinsche; ventriloquist Fred Roby; and the Half Brothers, jugglers.

There's no question that Cyd Charisse is always worth watching, whether she's with Fred Astaire or not. Now, having said that, I'm forced to add that Gerry and the Pacemakers have the edge over Deano, Desi, and Billy, and while Ted Lewis certainly had a legendary career, I have to give the nod to Maurice Chevalier. Meanwhile, there's no comparison for the San Francisco Ballet. Based on all this, I give the win to Sullivan by a José Torres knockout

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

It seems as if it was only two or three weeks ago that we were last talking about Jimmy Dean, and here he is again, this time as the subject of Cleveland Amory's review. We learned back then that the network suits were doing their very best to make Jimmy into something he wasn't, something that Cleve rightly judged to be "unwise," because the truth is that "if there’s one thing certain in this changing world, it is that you can’t make Jimmy Dean into anything but Jimmy Dean."

Is that a backhanded compliment? Maybe; it depends on what you think of Dean's style, his schtick, his brand of contemporary country music. But as Amory points out, credit where credit is due: "taken for what he is, and what the show is, Jimmy is good." Take, for instance, his interaction with his Muppet sidekick Rowlf, manned by the team of Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and voiced by Henson. Their bits, such as a recent one which involved a trained flea, "may not sound funny, but with Rowlf and Jimmy looking at an imaginary trained flea, it was a funny scene." Considering that many of their interactions are ad-libbed, it speaks to Dean's quickness with the comeback lines. His interactions with his guests are equally believable; whether it's Rex Allen, Molly Bee, Jack Jones, Eddy Arnold, or Roy Clark, he's fulsome with his praise, and deservedly so. "For country singing or folk singing—and even for city folks who like the country—this show has many virtues."

In fact, if the show has any flaws at all, it's from the constant plugs for his guests' latest albums. It's one thing, says Amory, for it to happen on a talk show, but on a variety show where the guests get paid— well, "Ah want you to know, Jimmy, whan you air a-doin' thet, we dang near burn up." But if that's the biggest complaint that Cleveland Amory has to offer about your show, you're doing all right, son.

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Raymond Burr isn't the only star getting the in-depth profile treatment this week, as Arnold Hano takes a look at the up-and-down life of Jackie Coogan, currently undergoing a career renaissance as Uncle Fester on ABC's The Addams Family. 

Once upon a time, Jackie Coogan was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. At the age of six, he appeared as The Kid in the Charlie Chaplin film of the same name. As a ten-year-old, he met the Pope, received an ovation from the delegates at the League of Nations, received the highest honor from the Greek government, and was mobbed by a crowd of 50,000 in Paris. He made $4 million in the movies, and another $4 million in outside earnings. And when he reached the age of 23, he found out that his mother and stepfather had squandered it all. He filed suit against them but was told he had no claim. He joined such distinguished company as Lou Gehrig in having a dubious namesake, in this case the Jackie Coogan Act, which required at least half of a child actor's earnings to be kept in a trust for him until he came of age. He married and divorced Betty Grable; "My success did not match hers," he comments. Two more marriages and divorces would follow, before the fourth one took.

He joined the Army (long before Pearl Harbor) and piloted a glider in Europe during World War II. "Nothing you've ever done before in life really counts," his commanding officer told the pilots the night before their mission. "Tonight you'll find out if you have a soul." Returning from the war, he discovered the acting roles were nowhere to be found. He took odd bits in nightclubs, parodying The Kid on his knees. 

The role that changed his life, he says, came on October 4, 1956. It was "Forbidden Area," the premiere episode of CBS's Playhouse 90, a tense Cold War drama written by Rod Serling, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Charlton Heston and Vincent Price. There was one comic role in the play, that of the Cook. Coogan was cast in the part, won critical acclaim, and was nominated for an Emmy. The offers came rolling in after that.

He was asked to audition for The Addams Family; ABC's Harve Bennett took one look at him in Fester's black robes and said, "He's perfect!" He enjoys his work on the show, but can't help looking at the child actors playing the two Addams children, Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax. "Kids can't get proper experience today," he says. "No vaudeville." He works on his autobiography (a book that seems not to have been published), and tells Hano, "I've never enjoyed life more than today." After The Addams Family ends, he continues to do guest appearances on television until his death in 1984. Maybe Hollywood can still produce happy endings, after all.

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Not much on the menu this week other than reruns, but in these pre-DVR days, there are certainly some of them you'll want to catch if you missed them the first time. 

One piece of original programming, however, leads off the week. It's the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant (Saturday, 9:00 p.m., CBS), live from Miami Beach. Jack Linkletter, Art's son, is the emcee, while John Daly and Sally Ann Howes are the commentators for the television audience. Meanwhile, Pat Boone presides over the crowning of the new Miss Universe, who happens to be Thailand's Apasra Hongsakula, the first Southeast Asian to win the crown.

The hour-long version of The Twilight Zone has always been considered something of a hit-or-miss season, as the format didn't really fit the tight stories that had become the hallmark of the show's first three seasons. (One of the few instances where the network executives knew best: Rod Serling had originally conceived TZ as an hour-long program, but was convinced by the suits to change it to 30 minutes. They were right.) Sunday's episode, however, is an exception: "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" (8:00 p.m, CBS), a touching story of a man trying to recapture his lost youth, with Pat Hingle outstanding in the title role. The story, written by Reginald Rose, originally appeared on Studio One ten years previously, with Art Carney; the story's downbeat ending was modified for TZ, and that was fine with Rose—as he pointed out, he'd already had it done his way the first time.

One of the week's most watchable repeats is Monday's The Winging World of Jonathan Winters (8:00 p.m, NBC), first shown in May. Winters is at his best in this "freewheeling" hour, which features Steve Allen, Leo Durocher, Stiller and Meara, and a taped tribute from Jack Paar (who featured Winters on his show many times). Alexander Scourby narrates the hour, produced and directed by Greg Garrison, who will go on to helm The Dean Martin Show.

On Tuesday, George Hamilton hosts Hullabaloo (9:00 p.m., NBC), with his musical guests Brenda Lee, Noel Harrision, Linda Bennett, the Hollies, the Impression, the Womenfolk, the Ronettes, and the Wayne—I mean, Wayne Fontana and the Mind Benders. (Sorry, got carried away there for a moment.) Hamilton, who'd starred in the Hank Williams biopic Your Cheatin Heart the previous year (probably when this episode was first shown), sings the song of the same name with Brenda; Harrison, who'd yet to record the Oscar-winning "The Windmills of Your Mind," sings the ballad "Barbara Allen." Perhaps the show's ratings would have been better had the host been George Harrison. 

You'll recall that last week I highlighted a couple of programs that were representations of a socio-culture that's long-since disappeared, and this week offers something of the same: Key to the City (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., NBC), a 1950 comedy set at a mayors' convention in San Francisco, starring Loretta Young as "a prim and serious lady mayor" who's mistaken for a night-club dancer; Clark Gable co-stars as the man who makes the initial misidentification; romance follows! Would we see something like that on network TV today? Somehow, I doubt it. (By the way, Raymond Burr appears as the heavy!)

Thursday night is highlighted by one of the best, and best-known, episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre, "The Jack is High" (9:00 p.m., NBC), a heist caper with a very, very gruesome twist at the end. Edd Byrnes, Henry Jones, William Bramley, and Larry Storch are the gang trying to pull off their getaway hidden inside a gasoline tank truck, while Pat O'Brien plays the dogged detective on their trail. Ralph Senensky directed; you can read his thoughts about it here. (For good measure, you can see the complete episode here.)

We started our look at the week with an original program, and we'll end it the same way, as Sally Ann Howes returns from Miami Beach to participate in a mini-Rat Pack reunion on The Tonight Show. (Friday, 10:30 p.m., NBC) Joey Bishop is the guest host (completing his second week subbing for Johnny!), and in addition to Sally, his guests are Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. I'd stay up late for that.

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Another Raymond Burr note, of sorts; Ray Collins, who played Lieutenant Arthur Tragg for so many seasons on Perry Mason, died of emphysema on July 11 at age 75. As "For the Record" reports, his career spanned 60 years on stage, in the movies, and on television; "If they've written it," he used to say, "I've played it." He'd been in failing health for some years, with his last appearance on Mason coming on January 16, 1964 (filmed in October of 1963). Raymond Burr, ever the mensch, insisted that Collins be kept in the show's credits until he died, not only to help keep his spirits up (he watched the show every week), but to allow him to continue to receive health coverage from the Screen Actors Guild.

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MST3K alert: Robot Monster (1953) Deadly robots descent upon the earth. Their mission: to destroy civilization with supersonic death rays. George Nader, Claudia Barrett. (Thursday, 10:30 a.m. as part of a double feature, WTCN) This description actually flatters a movie that is widely considered to be one of the worst ever made. The "robots" are dressed in gorilla suits, the premier special effect is a bubble machine, and the best thing about it, by a long shot, is the score, composed by the before-he-was-famous Elmer Bernstein. Fortunately, we have not one, but two episodes of Radar Men from the Moon to soften the blow. TV