It begins on Saturday, with a three-hour Musical Christmas (12:30 p.m. PT, KOVR in Sacramento), including local musical groups along with the United States Air Force Christmas Show. At 7:30 p.m., we're treated to the annual Christmas shows of both Andy Williams (NBC) and Jackie Gleason (CBS); Andy's joined by the Williams Brothers and the Osmond Brothers, while Jackie presents the fourth airing of "The Poor Soul in Christmas-Land." ABC joines in with a doubleheader starting at 8:30 p.m. with Lawrence Welk's annual Christmas treat, followed by Perry Como hosting The Hollywood Palace (which you'll read about below).
Sunday morning, Margaret Truman Daniel hosts an hour of Christmas carols from Europe, originally telecast in 1961 (8:00 p.m., CBS). At 10:30 a.m. KCRA in Sacramento begins a block of Yuletide cheer with the Sandler & Young Christmas special; they're joined by the U.S. Air Force Symphony and the Airmen of Note. That's followed by holiday music from the Yuba City High School at 11:00 a.m., the half-hour drama Unto Us a Child is Born at 11:30 a.m., and The Sounds of Christmas at noon, featuring Carmen Dragon and the Glendale Symphony Orchestra. At 12:30 p.m., Jonathan Winters hosts a Christmas part for children from Navy families. The festive programs continue following AFL football, with Christmas Our Way (4:05 p.m.), featuring Skitch Henderson and Marilyn Maye, and the Saga of Western Man documentary "Christ is Born" at 4:35 p.m.
The prime-time highlight is a rerun of the all-time great How the Grinch Stole Christmas (7:30 p.m., CBS), narrated by Boris Karloff. That's preceded by a Christmas episode of Lassie (7:00 p.m.), and followed later by The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (9:00 p.m.), which includes a generous portion of Christmas music. In the meantime, the Wonderful World of Disney presents part one of "Babes in Toyland" (7:30 p.m., NBC), with Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands, and Annette Funicello. The NET debate program The Advocates (7:00 p.m.) asks whether or not Christmas has become too commercial. I'll give you a hint: the answer is "yes." Less cynically, The Ray Coniff Christmas Show gives us a pleasant hour of Christmas music; he's joined by Mr. Ed's Alan Young (6:30 p.m., KRCR in Redding).
On Tuesday, CBS offers an abridged version of The Nutcracker (7:30 p.m.), hosted by Eddie Albert and starring dancers Edward Villella, Patricia McBride, and Melissa Hayden. At 8:30 p.m., NBC's Tuesday Night at the Movies presents the classic White Christmas, with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen, while The Red Skelton Hour repeats 1967's "A Christmas Urchin," a charming, hour-long Freddie the Freeloader story with guests Howard Keel (in a rare, mostly non-singing role), Joan Freeman, Linda Sue Risk, and Jullana. And at 10:30, the Oral Roberts Christmas Special (KXTV in Sacramento) includes singer Anita Bryant and U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield.
And with Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin both having the night off, both NBC and CBS have Christmas programs leading up to midnight: Skitch Henderson conducts the NBC Orchestra in a program of holiday music, joined by the Robert Shaw Chorale (11:30 p.m., NBC), while CBS has the Tucson Boys Choir performing at a 17th century Spanish mission near Tucson. (In case you're wondering, Regis Philbin hosts the Bishop show tonight, in the dying days before Dick Cavett takes over.) At midnight, NBC broadcasts the Midnight Mass from St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City; CBS carries a rerun of Berlioz's magnificent oratorio "L'Enfance du Christ," with Metropolitan Opera stars Giorgio Tozzi, Helen Vanni, and Sherill Milnes, first shown in 1964. Quite a way to usher in Christmas.
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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 reviews the decade in entertainment. At press time, the taped segments (many from Ed’s shows) were to include The Beatles, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Judy Garland, Sophie Tucker, Tony Bennett, Tiny Tim, David Frost (looking at the decade in film), Petula Clark (the British Invasion), Robert Goulet (highlights from Broadway), Peter Gennaro (a look at dances), Herb Alpert, and Louis Armstrong.
Palace: Perry Como celebrates yuletide with Diahann Carroll, Edward Villella of the New York City Ballet, comic Shecky Greene, and puppeteer Burr Tilistrom’s lovable Kukia and Ollie. Perry sings "Home for the Holidays," "Love in a Home," "Christmas Eve," "The First Noel," "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing," "Christ Is Born," "Carol of the Bells," and "Holy Night," and duets with Diahann on "Silver Bells".
Special episodes this week! We've gotten used to Bing Crosby doing his annual Christmas clambake on Palace, but after four years, he's taken the show to NBC; Perry Como more than adequately fills in on Palace's final Christmas edition (which you can see here), with a fine supporting cast, although Shecky Greene does seem to be a little out of place. Ed, meanwhile, offers a retrospective of the "Swinging, Soulful Sixties" through a barage of clips that pretty much summarizes the entire decade, and how the Sullivan show was responsible for bringing it to us. These episodes weren't made to compete, and this week they don't. We'll just sum it up with a Merry Christmas!
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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. To Rome with Love, Cleveland Amory assures us at the outset, is no Forsythe Saga. But let's get past that groaner and on to the show itself. Like John Forsythe's previous success, Bachelor Father, it involves Forsythe playing a single dad (a widower, this time, bringing up not one, but three precocious daughters), a college professor who left his home in Iowa for a new position in Rome after his wife's death. (Many people have left Iowa for far less.) He and his family are followed by his sister, Harriet (Kay Medford), who tries to convince them to come back to Iowa.
By far, says Clevel the best thing about Rome is Forsythe. who "has an almost unbelievable ability to be both believably funny and believably touching at the same time, even when the script is beyond belief." And Susan Neher, as middle daughter Penny, is "really extraordinary." The supporting cast also includes Vito Scotti, who's good in almost everything he's in, and Peggy Mondo. Kay Medford and her comedic talents, however, are totally misused here—or is it nonused?
The series is nearly done in, however, by the writing. Oh, many of the ideas are fine, but the endings, though often clever, don't ring true. And the fact is, oftentimes, there doesn't seem to be anything going on. As Penny remarks, "Isn't there something better than going through the same old routine day after day?" In the world of sitcoms, that's certainly the case, and when nothing happens on-screen, you can be assured something will happen off-screen soon enough; Kay Medford will be replaced by Walter Brennan in the second season, but to no avail, and To Rome with Love doesn't receive enough love from viewers to make it past two seasons.
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Chuck Berry and Gordon Lightfoot are among the headliners in ABC's short-lived 45-minute music show The Music Scene (Monday, 7:30 p.m.). Meanwhile, Tiny Tim is the guest on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (8:00 p.m., NBC), doing "a vocal tribute to the past." And since we're looking at interesting casting tonight, the syndicated game show He Said! She Said!, a forerunner to Tattletales, has an interesting lineup: in addition to New York Mets star Ron Swoboda and his wife Cecilia, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, we have NBC reporter Nancy Dickerson and her husband, industrialist C. Wyatt Dickerson. I can see her on What's My Line, but somehow I wouldn't have expected her on this.
On a night dominated by Christmas programming, the late Earl Holliman appears as a tormented priest in Marcus Welby, M.D. (Tuesday, 10:00 p.m., ABC), suffering from asthma attacks that Dr. Welby suspects are psychosomatic, due to his agitation over dealing with the problems of disaffected youth in his parish. For a change of pace, you might be interested in the movie version of Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera The Medium (11:30 p.m., KXTV), starring Marie Powers (who originated the role) and Anna Maria Alberghetti.
Those who think that politicians are marketed like products (with advertising to match) can look back to Joe McGinniss's classic The Selling of the President 1968 (reviewed here) to chronicle just how this came about; McGinniss is the guest tonight on Bob Cromie's Book Beat (Wednesday, 8:30 p.m., NET), which unfortunately comes too late for anyone to purchase the book as a Christmas present, but it's worthwhile nonetheless. If politics isn't your thing, you might want to catch The Beverly Hillbillies (8:30 p.m., CBS), with Soupy Sales as Air Force ace Jetstream Bradford, Mr. Drysdale's nephew.
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Robert de Roos profiles Lloyd Nolan, also known as "the unforgettable man from many forgettable movies." It's not a knock on Nolan, an actor's actor with the reputation for making anything he's in a little better; rather, it stems from a charming anecdote with which de Roos leads his story, of the time when Nolan and his wife were watching television "and a picture came on—starring me. It was the strangest thing. I couldn't remember ever having heard of the film before. I don't really believe I was in it—but there I was on the tube."
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| Lloyd and Mell Nolan |
But, as de Roos correctly points out, even bad movies—or, at least, mediocre ones—couldn't stop Nolan from becoming a star. His most famous role came on Broadway in 1953, as Captain Philip Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial," a role he reprised on a live broadcast of Ford Star Jubilee in 1955, for which he'd win an Emmy. His co-star, Barry Sullivan, remembers that "We both were nominated for the Emmy, and I voted for him. I'll bet Lloyd was a unanimous choice." Sullivan, who also appeared in the play on Broadway, is one of many actors who pay tribute to Nolan's talent; "I thought I knew a lot about acting, but Lloyd's so enormously good you can't help absorbing something from his work. He turned in one of the two or three greatest performances of the American theater."
Today, Nolan plies his trade on the sitcom Julia, which he took on the understanding that "the job was challenging and not too much work, and the pay enough." Says star Diahann Carroll, "Aside from teh fact that Lloyd is a nice human being to spend time with on a film set, I love the sense of professionalism he contributes to the atmosphere here. All of us consider ourselves lucky to have him around." His agent, Bill Robinson, says that "He never tries to impress you but he can always get what he wants without fanfare." In fact, there are times when he'll actually suggest eliminating some of his lines; "I can say the same thing with a gesture or a look."
Nolan is gearing up for an expanded role in this season's episodes; in addition to playing Dr. Morton Chegley, Julia's boss, he's also taking on oocasional appearances as his 92-year-old uncle, Norton. "For the first time since he's been on the show, he asked to see all the dailies and he sat there chuckling all the way through," says producer Hal Kanter. "He told me, 'This is the first time I can remember laughing at myself on the screen.' "
His success on television hasn't changed him much, except that he's recognized by more fans than ever. "It makes me feel good," he says. "When someone says, 'Thank you for all the pleasure you've given me over the years'—that's an extra dividend."
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Richard K. Doan says that Merv Griffin's late-night show may or may not be in trouble. The brass at CBS aren't pleased with the ratings, which may be one reason why Merv's out on the West Coast right now, the thinking being that Hollywood stars mean higher ratings. (He'll eventually move the show out there permanently.) On the other hand, commercial time is sold out, and the show's reported to be "highly profitable." One person who's not happy with the show is Merv himself; tired of the network's meddling in guest selection and the like, he'll negotiate his way out of his contract by the end of 1971, and go back to his highly-successful syndicated program.
And I've mentioned before that Richard Nixon, though he may not have been the most comfortable politician on television, was certainly one of the savviest. If you need more proof, his advisers scheduled his December 8 news conference in a time slot immediately following Laugh-In and Here's Lucy. The resulting audience, which NBC estimated at 65 million, was probably larger than that afforded in any other time slot. And it's not just that; the president ended the conference precisely a half-hour later, limiting any post-conference analysis by networks eager to return to scheduled programming.
Finally, one of those head-to-head confrontations between big-time specials that used to drive viewers crazy in the pre-VCR days. It happened on Sunday, November 30, with Olympic champion Peggy Fleming and the Ice Follies on NBC, up against Simon and Garfunkel on CBS, in the network's old Smothers Brothers spot. The results: Fleming and company finished #2 in the ratings for the week, behind only the "virtually untopable Bob Hope," while S&G were met with the sound of silence, finishing #64.
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