This week in TV Guide: August 21, 1965

How many times has this happened: you've just finished watching a half-hour comedy that didn't make you laugh once, or you've laughed your way through what was supposed to be a searing drama, and after the credits have rolled and the screen has faded to black, you sit back and think to yourself—or maybe say out loud—"how in the world did that wind up on TV?" Admit it; it's probably more times than you'd like to admit. 

This week, Neil Hickey and Joseph FInnigan begin a look at "The Selling Season," that period running from January through April when producers pitch networks, and networks pitch sponsors, on potential series for the new season. It's a process that, they explain, is "sometimes grim, often screamingly funny," For an example of the latter, look no further than ABC's attempts to sell a potential sponsor on the World War II drama 12 O'clock High. The network was showing the pilot to executives from the Doyle, Dane, Bernbach advertising agency, and their very important client, Volkswagen. (I'll give you a minute to think about that and see if you can figure out what's coming.)

In an exciting scene about halfway through, Robert Lansing led his bomber group in a raid on a German city, which went up in a barage of flames and smoke. "A heavily accented German voice in the screening room was heard to say: 'There goes our factory.'" Volkswagen did not buy Twelve O'clock High.

Another example: in the early 1950s, an agency vice president sat stonily through a sitcom pilot. As the closing credits rolled, the ad exec fumed. "Well, it’s terrible! I’ve never seen anything so ludicrous. No advertiser in his right mind is going to spend a cent on a clunker like that. Do you think a family in Dubuque is going to watch the misadventures of a washed-up exmodel and her illiterate Mexican husband?" Aside from the fact that Desi Arnaz was Cuban and not Mexican, the executive totally misjudged how the public would react to I Love Lucy. If there's any justice in the world, he would have lost his job over that.  

And then there was the time John Mitchell of Screen Gems labored hard to sell ABC president liver Treyz on a sitcom called Our Man Higgins. Despite Treyz's repeated assertions that he wasn't interested, Mitchell continued to press the show on him. Finally, Treyz told him that he didn't have time to talk about it any further, that he was in a hurry to catch a train for Washington, and hung up. (Trains being a form of transportation that people used to use to get from one point to another.) Undaunted, Mitchell had his secretary check the time for the next train from New York to Washington, bought a ticket and managed to get on board, and walked from car to car, looking for Treyz. To his delight, he found not only Treyz, but ABC boss Leonard Goldenson and VP Tom Moore. Creeping up behind them, he snapped to attention, clicked his heels, saluted, and said, "Higgings reporting, sir!" Laughing, the trio invited Mitchell to give them his pitch, and closed the deal then and there. Of course, Higgins only lasted one season, but that's almost beside the point.

Not every pitch is this melodramatic. ABC pitched O.K. Crackerby! to Bud Barry of Young & Rubicam advertising, who was watching the pilot with an executive from one of Barry's biggest clients, Bristol-Meyers. After ten minutes, Barry slipped a note to the Bristol-Meyers exec. "Buy it," he said. And that was that. On the other hand, a dog food company once turned down a pilot because of a ferocious watchdog that attacked someone trying to break into a house. He may have been a good watchdog, the dog food man said, but it was "Bad for the product. No good for dog food."

The most important quality, though, is flexibility. Bud Austin of Goodson-Todman remembers trying to sell a new Western to a nameless network, only to be told by an executive that it was "miserable, amateurish, nonsensical, badly produced, foolishly written, inept and inane hogwash." Nonetheless, Austin went on to screen the pilot for an executive at Young & Rubicam, who not only liked it, but sold it to a major client the next day. Austin went back to the network executive, who began to light into the show once again (it was "banal, dimwitted, numb-skulled" this time), when Austin interrupted him to say, "I've found a buyer for it." After a beat, the exec leaned forward, smiled, and said, "Bud, that show is one of the finest, truest, most heart-warming and ennobling Western series I’ve seen in a long... long... time."  

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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's guests are singer Jack Jones; actor Laurence Harvey; comics Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara; dancer Peg Leg Bates; comedian London Lee; the singing Kim Sisters; English comic Charlie Drake; the Rolling Stones, rock ‘n’ roll group; Los Flamencos, dancers; and the Berosinis, foot-balancing act.

Palace: Host Tony Randall does a sketch about an all-night disc jockey, and introduces Allan Sherman, who parodies the hit recording "Downtown"; singers Nelson Eddy and Gale Sherwood; songstress Vikki Carr; the Supremes, vocal trio; Japanese comic Pat Morita; the Marthys, tumbling acrobats; Mendez’ high-wire act; and a wrestling match between the Hangman and Victor the Great—a bear. 

It's never a surprise to see the Supremes in this matchup, but they should be with Ed Sullivan; it almost seems as if they're being disloyal to Ed, even though Palace was never on against him. Anyway, Ed still has favorites Stiller and Meara, the very smooth Jack Jones, and the Stones. By contrast, the Palace has Nelson Eddy and his partner, Gale Sherwood, and while Eddy was a very popular singer and musical theater star, active and successful until his death in 1967, I can't help thinking of him as the star of those 1930s and 1940s movies with Jeanette MacDonald. In that sense, we see the past and the future of music passing like two ships in the night. On that basis, I'm going for Sullivan for the win.

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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. 

Cleveland Amory recalls the words of Jules Power, the executive producer of ABC's chldren's show Discovery: there was to be no "talking down" to its youthful viewers—instead, he aims for "the child's involvement." He aims the show at "children from 5 to 13, parents from 17 to 35 and grandparents of any age who, it is said, 'want to be able to talk to their grandchildren on their level.'" That's quite a range; Cleve notes that it leaves out only children between 0 and 4, those between 14 and 16, and parents over 36 who aren't grandparents. But, more often than not, the show hits its mark.

True, our man has some quibbles; adults will consider some of the scripted dialogue between hosts Frank Buxton and Virgnia Gibson to be hokey, but once one gets beyond this, it's "basically a fine show." He found particularly praiseworthy an episode called "Discovery Goes to the Republican Convention," in which a group of children asked questions of former President Eisenhower; the interaction was both genuine and charming. A show on "The Day Life Begins," with film of rabbits, turtles, and sea horses being born (sea horses are born not from the mother, but from the father—did you know that?); other episodes include "Reaching for the Moon," "Digging Up a Dinosaur," and when "Mommy and Daddy Were Young."

"The World of Mark Twain," however, proved to be problematic—or, at least, "average," with the depiction of Twain's life "talky and dull," and the sole moving picture of Twain was overshadoweed by "uninteresting prose." "Hal Holbrook, as Mark Twain, was clearly needed, as were some quotes from the Master himself." (Doing a program about one of the most quotable men in history should require the use of at least some of his quotes.) But even when Discovery is being average, Cleve says, it's still tops among children's shows, and that's high praise indeed.

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Gemini V, with astronauts Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad aboard, was originally scheduled for launch last Thursday, and this week's TV Guide reflects that in its schedule for continuing coverage of the mission. However, a computer problem, plus deteriorating weather, forced postponment of the launch to this Saturday, at 6:00 a.m. PT. We have to assume that launch coverage is similar, with the networks providing continuing coverage of the flight's early orbits, followed by regular updates throughout the mission. ABC and NBC will provide one-minute reports during the day, while CBS will use stremers along the bottom of the screen. When the spacecraft splashes down next Sunday (one day earlier than planned due to Hurricane Betsy), the United States will, for the first time, hold the world record for the longest space flight in duration.

In other Saturday news, we're at that point in the year where various sports begin to overlap. Professional football pre-season games feature in the morning, with an AFL game between the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets from Rutgers Stadium in New Brunswick, New Jersey (11:00 a.m., NBC), while the NFL game, on at the same time, pits the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers from Milwaukee (CBS). Follwing that game, CBS continues with third round coverage of the Carling World Open, the world's richest golf tournament (with a $35,000 first prize!), from Sutton, Massachusetts. (2:00 p.m.) The tournament concludes tomorrow, also on CBS, with 1964 British Open champion Tony Lema* defeating Arnold Palmer by two strokes. And don't forget baseball; it is still summer, after all. ABC's game of the week, shown on tape delay due to the time difference, has the Milwaukee Braves taking on the Pirates in Pittsburgh. (2:00 p.m.)

*Fun fact: according to the always-reliable Wikipedia, the young Lema had often struggled in his early years on the tour, due to his "raucous" lifestyle, until he was taken under the wing of television producer Danny Arnold, who helped him with his compsure and confidence. That's the same Danny Arnold who would go on to create Barney Miller. Small world, isn't it?

We get two views of the continuing war in Vietnam this week, first in the CBS News Special "Vietnam: Winning the Peace" (Monday, 10:00 p.m.), the third of four programs reporting on American diplomatic and military initiatives. This week, its a look at the Johnson Administration's attempts to settle the conflict, including offers of economic aid to Southeast Asia. ABC presents a more downbeat assessment on Wednesday, in The Agony of Vietnam (8:30 p.m.), hosted by Edward P. Morgan and Bob Young. Explains producer Stephen Fleischman, "The people of Vietnam are in an agony, and what we're trying to do is a background hour on what this war is all about." Nearly 60 years later, it's a question that we're still trying to answer, often unsuccessfully.

We get a look at a lost art in television today: the locally-produced drama. Two on the Aisle, the long-running theater program on San Francisco's KRON, presents Oscar Wilde's comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest" (Monday, 10:00 p.m.), adapted for television by series host Rachmael ben Avran, who also directed the production, which was taped in the KRON studios. I don't know how long Two on the Aisle would run as a series of occasional specials, but I can find references to it that go back as far as 1955, along with this reference from a 1956 issue of Billboard, in which it is referred to as "the top-rated Sunday afternoon program" in the market, with a 14.5 rating and a 50% share of the audience. (See, people were able to figure out what to watch on Sundays when they weren't being force-fed sports and infomercials all day.) Producing your own series of drama specials is an incredibly ambitious venture for a local station, even back in those days; can you imagine a local station doing anything so ambitious nowadays? Are you kidding? They can barely afford to even do local news anymore.

And Beatlemania is alive and well, with a half-hour Beatles special this week, a syndicated import of a British show called Big Night Out, which was originally broadcast on ITV back on February 29, 1964. In just 30 minutes, the band manages to work in four songs ("All My Loving," "I Want to Be Your Man," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and "Till There Was You"), plus a skit with the show's hosts. Of course, songs were a lot shorter back then, but it doesn't sound as if there was a lot of wasted time on this show. (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., KPIX in San Francisco; Thursday, 7:00 p.m., KCRA in Sacramento; Friday, 9:00 p.m., KNTV in San Jose.) 

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It's been said that men don't really want to know what's on TV, they want to know what else is on TV. Speaking in my capacity as a male, as well as the holder of the remote, I can attest to the truth of this statement. Therefore, it shouldn't be a surprise that, even though we're concerned with what's on TV this week, some of the local stations are already looking forward to the new season. 

KXTV, the CBS affiliate in Sacramento, has some changes in store next week. The newcomer to the daily schedule is The Rifleman, and its 168 episodes; the 6:00 p.m. local news will now be seen at 5:30. Meanwhile, The Lloyd Thaxton Show moves up an hour, from 5:30 to 4:30 p.m., and The Mike Douglas Show, cut back from 90 minutes to an hour, will now air at 3:30 p.m., bumping Dobie Gillis. Ah, Dobie, good thing you've got so many loves to fall back on.

Even more than specific shows, though, the big change in the air is COLOR. KPIX, San Francisco's CBS affiliate, cashes in on the spy craze with the kickoff of the new season on September 12, the first season in which a majority of CBS programs—including Andy Griffith, Red Skelton, Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Gilligan's Island—are broadcast in color. 

But that's nothing compared to Sacramento's KCRA; as befits an NBC affiliate, the station boasts that it's the total color station this fall, including the local news. (The only black-and-white programs on NBC's primetime lineup are Convoy and the first season of I Dream of Jeanine.) Just as the networks didn't all go to color at the same time, neither did local stations; even as late as 1968, by which time the networks have totally transitioned to colorcasts, you'll find stations that still broadcast their local programming in B&W. 

I know I've mentioned this before, but for many people, there's never been anything other than color television; some very short-sighted saps out there refuse to even watch anything in black-and-white. And yet it was such a big deal when the color revolution came, and color television became such a selling point. Google some pictures of old motels from the 1970s and 1980s, and you'll see them loudly promoting the fact they have color TV, the same way they'd proclaim cable TV in later decades. It seems simple to us today, which just goes to show that sometimes it's the simple things that bring the most pleasure. Are we even capable of finding that kind of pleasure in anything today, or do we just take everything for granted? If that's the case, then without that sense of wonder, we've probably lost even more than we've gained.

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MST3K alert: The Amazing Transparent Man (1959) A crazed master spy hopes to build an army of invisible men. Marguerite Chapman, Douglas Kennedy, James Griffith, Ivan Triesault, Red Morgan. (Saturday, 6:00 p.m., KSBW in Salinas) Do you remember the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats? Came out a few years ago, told the true story of the U.S. military trying to employ psychic powers as a weapon. Given that, I can totally believe that the military would invest in something like this, a plan to create an invisible army. You wonder how many generals and CIA men might have hoped that this was an instruction manual instead of a sci-fi movie? Warning: it doesn't end well. TV