This week in TV Guide: September 10, 1966

For this year's Fall Preview, I thought I'd treat you to what many of you feel is a very special issue: a look at the 1966-67 season.

Over the years, I've written about a number of these Fall Previews, and they're always a bit of a challenge. I mean, there's so much content, where do you even begin? They're also gteat fun to read (again), with the result that it's hard to decide what to leave in and what to take out. Some years, I've tried to write about everything; other years, I've concentrated on more specific areas: the new shows, the hits, the bombs. 

This year, the focus is on lists. Very long lists. And not just of new shows, but returning ones as well. And from these lists of new and old favorites, we have what many critics have called the greatest single season in the history of television. (If you don't believe me, ask Thom Shubilla—he wrote an entire book about that single season, and there aren't many seasons that can make that boast.) Let's make our way through, and at the end we'll see what we think.

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The first show out of the gate in the "New Series" sectdion is Mission: Impossible, and that's a good sign, a portent of some very familiar titles that have warmed people for years: The Monkees, Family Affair, The Rat Patrol, That Girl, The Time Tunnel. There's also one of the most legendary debuts we've seen, that of Star Trek. We're only considering it a legend retroactively, of course; at the time, it built a loyal cult following, but in its three seasons it was never the ratings blockbuster you might have thought from all the hubbub that followed. Tarzan, with Ron Ely in the starring role, makes it to two seasons but isn't exactly a hit 

There are shows that have their following, but didn't make it for a second season; The Green Hornet, which never could decide if it was going to be a spoof like Batman or if it would play it more straight, and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., which discovered too late that the U.N.C.L.E. camp phenomenon was already starting to die out. Hawk, Burt Reynolds' first solo starring role in a television series, only ran for seventeen episodes on ABC, but it was resuscitated by NBC in 1976 to capitalize on Reynolds' growing popularity. Love on a Rooftop and Occasional Wife both have their fans, but they didn't have enough of them to come back for a second season. Pistols 'n' Petticoats, a half-hour Western starring Ann Sheridan as a gun-tottin' mamma, was cut short after Sheridan died of cancer. Jericho, the code name of a WWII commando unit, was a lot of fun to watch, but not fun enough to make it to a second go-round. 

There are series that somebody believed in enough to give them midseason retools in hopes they'd be revived: The Pruitts of Southampton became The Phyllis Diller Show, but people didn't watch it under either title. It's About Time actually resolved its original premise, rescuing its astronaut heroes after they were thrown back to the stone age, but the new format, in which they made it back to their own time, along with a couple of stowaways, didn't cut it either. It is available on DVD, though.

Some series just disappeared into the ether. The Man Who Never Was, a spy drama with Robert Lansing and Dana Wynter, was good, but not as good as it should have been (or needed to be). The Rounders and Shane both proved that sequels to classic movies ought not to be encouraged (however, David Carradine was much more successful in his next Western, Kung Fu). The Road West and The Monroes had great Western vistas, but, like the previous two, didn't signal a revival of the Western genre. The Hero was a funny idea with a good cast, including Richard Mulligan and Mariette Hartley; perhaps it was jsut a little ahead of its time. Hey Landlord! was Garry Marshall's first go at a sitcom; it wouldn't be his last. The Roger Miller Show wasted a singer at his peak, who didn't really want to star in his own series. 

And that's not all; you'll read about some of the rest in the paragraphs to come. And you can see them all in this terrific YouTube video from one of my favorite channels, RwDt09; he has other great videos from that season, and many others, as well.

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The real magic, though, lies in the list of returning series, a list of favorites that's as familiar as any television has ever seen. CBS alone boasts Andy Griffith and Gomer Pyle; The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction; Daktari; Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, and Danny Kaye; Gilligan's Island; What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret, and To Tell the Truth; The Lucy Show, Gunsmoke; Hogan's Heroes; Lassie; Lost in Space; My Three Sons; The Wild Wild West; and the Thursday night movie

Over at NBC, the lineup is similiarly stellar: Andy Williams and Dean Martin; The Kraft Music Hall; Bonanza; Daniel Boone; Flipper; I Dream of Jeannie; I Spy; The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; Run for Your Life; The Virginian; Walt Disney's Wonderful World; Get Smart; Bob Hope's Chrysler Theatre; The Bell Telephone Hour; Laredo; and the Saturday and Tuesday night movies.

Even ABC, long the back-marker, has series that today are considered classics at best, and at least fondly remembered: 12 O'clock High; The Avengers; Batman; Bewitched; The Big Valley; The Dating Game; Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; Peyton Place; The Fugitive; The FBI; Combat!; F Troop; The Hollywood Palace, Lawrence Welk, and The King Family; and the Sunday night movie.

That's an astonishing list of series, the boomer equivalent of a television hall of fame. More than thirty of them have been released on DVD; even many of the variety shows have best-of compilations, and many others are on YouTube or floating around in the grey market. (And that doesn't include the new series, at least a dozen of which have their own DVD releases!) 

Fall 1967 also marked the first time that all three networks would be broadcasting their weekly prime time lineups in color; from now on, only movies, daytime programs, and location news specials would be in black-and-white. While this is no problem for new series, there are several existing series that make the transition to color, including The Wild Wild West, Twelve O'clock High, I Dream of Jeannie, Combat!, The Fugitive, and Bewitched. Some of them thrive in the new environment; Jeannie and The Wild Wild West are more vivid, more fantastic, with great use of the color pallet. On the other hand, I don't think many can argue that the noirish Fugitive and the gritty Combat! both suffer from the change, particularly the backlot sets that are much harder to disguise in color. It's also the final season for each, and while this can't be directly attributed to the change (David Janssen was exhausted from then strain of carrying The Fugitive, and it's hard to see how the network could have squeezed another season out of World War II), it certainly didn't help.

Danger is his business

And I don't want to overlook the Saturday morning lineup, either. New to NBC is Super 6, Space Kidettes, and Cool McCool, joining Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, and The Jetsons. CBS adds Frankenstein Jr., Space Ghost, The Road Runner, The Beagles, and animated versions of Superman and The Lone Ranger to a lineup with Captain Kangaroo, Underdog, Mighty Mouse, and Tom & Jerry. The only new toon on ABC is King Kong, but he joins a lineup with The Beatles, Magilla Gorilla, Bugs Bunny, Milton the Monster, Hoppity Hooper, and (The New) Amerian Bandstand. I'd be surprised if you didn't recognize some of them.

Taken as a whole, this combination of new classics and established favorites certainly demonstrates why the 1966-67 season stands out. In fact, if you were to have the time, the money, and the resources, you'd probably be able to recreate entire days, if not weeks, of prime time programming, including many of the movies. I daresay it would be a lot more satisfying than what you'll be seeing with this season's shows.

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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: Beginning his 19th season, Ed welcomes Red Skelton, who pantomimes a father giving his son castor oil and offers a monolog on Texas; singer Robert Goulet; comedienne Joan Rivers; and the rockin' Rolling Stones. Also: highlights of "Holiday on Ice."

Palace: Host Fred Astaire welcomes Ethel Merman and Jack Jones; Marcel Marceau, who pantomimes "Bip the Lion Tamer" and "The Butterfly Collector"; comedian Pat Morita; the Roggé Sisters, balancing act; and the Hardy Family, tumbling acrobats. Fred dances to "Bugle Call Rag" and learns how to belt out a song in the Merman manner.

You didn't think, just because of the emphasis on the new, that we'd forget about our old friends, did you? Nonsense! Now, on the face of it this wouldn't seem to be an apples-to-apples comparison, given that it's the season premiere for Ed and you'd expect him to pull out all the stops. And you certainly can't argue with Red Skelton, Robert Goulet, Joan Rivers and the Stones, right? (The online episode guide also includes Louis Armstong.) But look at the Palace lineup: Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Jack Jones, Pat Morita, and Marcel Marceau! With all that talent on display, I don't see how you can be fair other than to call it a Push. 

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The NFL kicks off its regular season with a rare Saturday night contest pitting the defending champion Green Bay Packers against their archrivals, the Baltimore Colts, from County Stadium in Milwaukee (9:30 p.m., CBS). It's a rematch of last year's dramatic tie-breaker playoff for the Western Division championship, which the Packers won in sudden-death overtime, 13-10. Despite the Saturday opening, the NFL doesn't rule television yet; I suspect the game was scheduled as counterprogramming against the Miss America pageant, which CBS lost to NBC. You'll be reading about that momentarily, but in our Nothern California edition, there is no conflict: Miss America is on live, but the Packers-Colts game is being shown on a three-hour delay for West Coast viewers, so as not to upset the regular CBS schedule. You wouldn't see that happen today! (By the way, the Packers win, 24-3.) Not to worry, though; your favorite teams will be back in action Sunday, live and in color. 

There's more than just football on the sports calendar, though. Earlier on Saturday, Cassius Clay defends his world heavyweight champtionship against West German Karl Mildenberger live from Frankfurt, West Germany, on ABC's Wide World of Sports. (11:30 a.m.) It's his sixth title defense, and the fourth on a"world tour," that started after he refused military induction and was denied permission to fight in Illinois. The tour has taken him so far to fights in Toronto (March) and London (May and August), and this is his second title defense in five weeks. Incidentelly, he's already changed his name to Muhammad Ali, but many publications and media sources, including TV Guide, continue to refer to him as Clay. He'll return to the U.S. to fight in November.

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The start of the fall season was always something to look forward to, not only because of new hits and returning favorites, but also because of the big events that networks typically unleash. We'll see plenty of those in this issue, starting right away!

As we noted earlier, the Miss America Pageant takes place Saturday night in Atlantic City, carried for the first time on NBC; it's also the first time the pageant has been broadcast in color (7:00 p.m.), with Bert Parks as the emcee and former Miss America Bess Myerson doing the TV honors. Bert has the honor singing "Here She Comes" to Miss Oklahoma, Jane Anne Jayroe. NBC also has a variety special, Class of '67, which serves as a lead-in to Miss America in most of the country, but on the West Coast is seen following the pageant, at 9:00 p.m. George Hamilton is the host of this "song-and-dance review of the American college scene," with Don Adams, Nancy Sinatra, Peter Nero, Burns and Schreiber, singer Trudy Desmond, dancer Lada Edmund Jr., and the Doodletown Pipers. Despite my frequent protestations of being old, I was nowhere near college age in 1966, so I'm curious as to just how reflective of the college scene this really was in 1966. 

More sports on Sunday, including that of the political kind; in a special edition of Meet the Press, California Governor Pat Brown faces off against his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan. (3:30 p.m., NBC; taped from a live broadcast) With two months to go before the election, polls show Reagan with a three-point lead; he'll go on to defeat Brown by 15 points. As for conventional sports, there's the men's final of the U.S. Tennis Championships, from Forest Hills, New York (noon, ABC); you'd recognize it now as the U.S. Open, but back in 1966 the field was limited to amateurs; unseeded Fred Stolle defeats John Newcombe to take the title. At 2:00 p.m. on NBC, it's the final round of the made-for-TV World Series of Golf, a 36-hole tournament that pits the winners of the year's four major tournaments; Gene Littler takes home the whopping first price of $50,000. 

In prime-time, NBC debuts the sitcom Hey Landlord! (8:30 p.m.), with Will Hutchins as the titular character, and Sandy Baron as his sidekick, followed by the season premieres of Bonanza (9:00 p.m.) and The Andy Williams Show (10:00 p.m.) Garry Moore revives his old variety series for CBS but finds that you can't go home again (9:00 p.m.); and ABC's Sunday Night Movie is a big one: a rerun of the Oscar-winning The Hustler (9:00 p.m.), with Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, and George C. Scott. 

NBC shows it's not just monkeying around on Monday nights with the premiere of The Monkees (7:30 p.m.), and according to TV Guide, "it’s a series which, at least, is different." Freely adapted from the Beatles' movies, The Monkees was never a huge ratings hit, but it developed a devoted audience, and today it remains a much-loved show, along with its stars. (And, as someone who grew up with the show, it's impossible to believe that Mickey is the only one left.) 

It's a big night for debuts, in fact; NBC also premieres The Roger Miller Show (8:30 p.m.) and The Road West (9:00 p.m.), an "all-family adventure series" set in 1860s Kansas starring Barry Sullivan, Andrew Prine, and Glenn Corbett. Not to be outdone, ABC presents Iron Horse (7:30 p.m.), Dale Robertson's return to series television as a gambler who wins a railroad in a poker game; The Rat Patrol (8:30 p.m.), with Christopher George leading a team of jeep-riding desert commandos against Nazis; and The Felony Squad (9:00 p.m.), a very good police drama (it ran for three seasons) starring Howard Duff, Dennis Cole, and Ben Alexander as big-city detectives. Meanwhile, CBS unveils Run, Buddy, Run (8:00 p.m.), a comedy "that's part Fugitive, part Untouchables, part Mack Sennett — and all spoof," with Jack Sheldon as a meek accountant on the run from the underworld boss Devere (Bruce Gordon, spoofing his own role as Frank Nitti from The Untouchables); Family Affair (9:30 p.m.), another much-loved series of the time, with Brian Keith as a bachelor who suddenly finds himself father to three orphans; and The Jean Arthur Show (10:00 p.m.), described as a sort-of comic version of The Defenders, with Arthur as a high-octane lawyer and Ron Harper as her son and partner in the firm. 

Tuesday night, the CBS news special Young Mr. Eisenhower (10:00 p.m.) takes us on a trip down memory lane as the former president talks with Harry Reasoner about his early years, first at the former family home in Abilene, Kansas, and then to West Point, New York, where the two talk about Ike's years as a cadet and how it helped shape his character. Throughout, the general talks about "his small-town upbringing and how it helped foster the values he holds important: industriousness, self-control, acceptance of responsibility and love of country." Perhaps the disappearance of small-town America has something to do with the problems we're in today. 

Wednesday sees the debut of ABC Stage 67 (10:00 p.m.), what the network calls "one of the most exciting and challenging programs ever presented by a national television network." It's a showcase for original dramas, comedies, musicals, variety shows and documentaries—in other words, programs that might ordinarily have been shown as specials, but instead will be seen as regular, weekly productions. The best-known of the 26 episodes that were aired were probably Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" and "A Time For Laughter: A Look at Negro Humor in America"; tonight's premiere is "The Love Song of Barney Kempinski," starring Alan Arkin, Lee Grant, John Gielgud, and Alan King. One of its problems: it's up against NBC's I Spy and CBS's The Danny Kaye Show; when it's moved to Thursdays, it finds itself opposite The Dean Martin Show.

Thursday, CBS kicks off its new movie season with the television premiere of The Music Man (9:00 p.m.), with Robert Preston unforgettable as Professor Harold Hill, the conman who winds up getting his foot caught in Shirley Jones's door. Buddy Hackett, Pert Kelton, Paul Ford, Hermione Gingold, and Ronny Howard also star; the two-part presentation, which concludes Friday at the same time, is one of the finest adaptations of a stage musical to film. It's on up against the second season premiere of The Dean Martin Show (10:00 p.m., NBC), with Peggy Lee, the aforementioned Buddy Hackett, Guy Marks, Dorothy Provine, and Rowan and Martin. Whatevet else you do, though, make sure you catch episode number two of The Tammy Grimes Show (8:30 p.m., ABC), because after this, you'll only have two more chances before the show becomes one of the quickest cancellations in TV history; I wrote about the disaster a few years ago.

"Wherever Tony and Doug are, at least they're
not with Britt and Kato"

I've mentioned before that one of television's saddest sights was Milton Berle hosting Jackpot Bowling back at the start of the decade; this time, Uncle Miltie is back for one last hurrah with The Milton Berle Show. (Friday, 9:00 p.m., ABC) It comes from the people who brought you The Hollywood Palace, and in fact, it plays like an episode of Palace with Berle hosting. It reminds me of an aging athlete past his prime who insists he can still deliver in the big game, even when it's obvious to everyone else that he ought to just hang it up. Even a lineup like tonight's, with Phyllis Diller, Adam West, Van Williams and Bruce Lee, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Donna Loren, and Joe Pyne, can't help; he'll be off the air just after the new year begins, replaced by Tim Conway's Rango. Another single-season show that deserved a better fate is T.H.E. Cat (9:30 p.m., NBC), with Robbert Logga as a smooth, dangerous cat burgler turned bodyguard. Fortunately, you'll have time to watch The Green Hornet (7:30 p.m.) and The Time Tunnel (8:00 p.m.) first. 

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ABC wants to know what you think! Throughout this issue, ads for ABC's new shows have invited readers to "be a television critic," and now comes the payoff. In a four-page color ad that appears at the end of the programming section, the network asks for your "your honest, candid opinion of our shows," both new and returning. After you've had a chance to check them all out during the "Seven Nights to Remember," fill in the attached entry form and send it in.

But, you may be asking yourself, why should I act as an unpaid TV critic for your network?" That's where ABC sweetens the pot: "By way of encouragement and thanks, we’re offering 25 General Electric 19-inch color television sets and 2,000 General Electric transistor radios as prizes." They promise that your chances of winning won't be affected by giving negative reviews; "We just want to know what you honestly think." What could be more fair?

For what )it's worth, ABC did not do well in the 1966-67 ratings. The network placed only two shows in the top 20, Bewitched and The Lawrence Welk Show. The hightest rated new show was The Rat Patrol, which finished tied for 23rd (with Petticoat Junction!), and eleven of the network's seventeen fall offerings were cancelled after a single season. (The survivors were Felony Squad, Iron Horse, The Newlywed Game, The Rat Patrol, That Girl, and The Wednesday Night Movie.) Several of the network's returning shows also bit the dust, including 12 O'Clock High, Combat!, F Troop and The Fugitive.

I wonder how many replies the network received? More important, and perhaps more interesting, I wonder what the results of the poll were? Did they have any influence on the network's programming decisions? And were the results ever shared with the public? I'll admit I haven't done an exhaustive search, but I haven't been able to find any press releases or stories that suggest it was publicized. Considering what the ratings indicated, though, perhaps the public's opinions were better left unsaid. TV