What's on TV: Friday, November 19, 1965

On Saturday, we took a look at Slattery's People, the highly-praised but little-watched political drama that CBS canceled earlier in the season. As you can see, it's still on, playing out the string of completed episodes, and this week's listing includes a plug for for Dwight Witney's story with the cutting remark, "'Slattery’s People' have failed to reelect him. See Page 12." And who, indeed, can be surprised? For while The Man from U.N.C.L.E. sees Napoleon and Illya in Japan searching for THRUSH's Eastern headquarters (along with France Nuyen!), Slattery is involved in a disupte about the railroad's plans to discontinue a line that has low ridership. Well, which one would you watch? Happily, we can see them both, or at least the listings for them, in this week's Northern California edition.

This week in TV Guide: November 13, 1965

Television is a lot like the weather, don't you think? We're always complaining about it, but never do anything about it. And when someone does try to change it—by improving its quality, for example—people don't watch it, and then go back to complaining. (Which makes it a lot like social media too, come to think of it.) And such is the case, as we find out this week from Dwight Whitney, with a program called, Slattery's People.

Slattery's People, starring Richard Crenna, was one of CBS's prestige dramas, created by James Moser, the man responsible for Medic and Ben Casey. Moser approached the network and its then-president, James Aubrey, with the idea of a show about "a young, Kennedy-like politician, along the lines of Casey, with the capitol dome substituting for the operating room." It had been turned down by ABC, "on the grounds that political shows were never really successful." This apparently acted as something of an aphrodisiac for Aubury, who wanted to show that he "knew better." He bit on Moser's idea. 

 

The problems came early and often, beginning with Aubrey's insistence that the lead role go to Crenna, who until then had been known primarily for two long-running series: Our Miss Brooks, in which he portrayed perennial teenager Walter Denton, and The Real McCoys, in which he played the good-natured Luke McCoy to Walter Brennan's patriarch Amos. Crenna himself had once said that he couldn't "compete with those good-looking former gas-station attendants who become stars overnight," and alarm bells sounded for Moser and the team at Bing Crosby Productions, who preferred someone stronger, more charismatic—someone, in fact, like Vince Edwards, star of Casey. But, as Moser points out, "When the head man wants it that bad—well, you are hardly in a position to argue." 

Almost as soon as the pilot for Slattery was shot, Aubrey began second-guessing himself. He thought the pilot was "great," and liked the idea of a serious dramatic program to counteract the accusations that he was lowering the Tiffany Network's standards, but he also wanted the show to "get out from under the capitol dome more." Says one insider, "It was that well-known Aubrey ambivalence. He wanted it but he didn’t. We didn’t know which side of Aubrey we were fighting, the literary Jim Aubrey or the merely commercial one." Moser, more blunt about it, said "What he was really saying was: Let’s make this into a political adventure show." 

Slattery debuted that fall to critical praise, but ratings disaster, as it was slaughtered by its opposition: Ben Casey, irony of ironies. There was talk of replacing Crenna with someone stronger; the actor complained that "Everybody was looking for a whipping boy to salve their injured egos. I was a natural selection. I wasn’t ready to buy that." Aubury decided the show needed more women in the supporting cast to make it more "popular," and that Crenna's character needed to be "humanized." It was, according to Whitney, "a kind of Terry and the Politicians." Aubury also moved the show from Mondays to Fridays, where it would go up against The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Everyone, Crenna included, assumed it would be canceled at the end of the season, and it was. A week after that, Aubury was himself canceled by William Paley, and Slattery found itself with a second life, thanks to Michael Dann, the network's VP in charge of programming. Dann put the show back on the fall schedule, declaring to the media that "Although the series has never been in the Top 10, we believe this hour.of meaningful drama has a place on our schedule next fall."

"Back at the studio," Moser had already started a new project. A new producer, Irving Elman, was called in. Slattery began to loosen his tie, both literally and figuratively. He was referred to, for the first time on camera, by his first hame. A love interest was introduced. And, after the second episode of the shows's second season, it was canceled again. The show's ratings were worse than ever (if two episods can be considered statistically significant; "Slattery was not even getting a sampling," and as someone pointed out, if you can't get people to sample a show, you're in big trouble. Slattery's People would be replaced in the timeslot by another struggling drama, Trials of O'Brien, which would meet a similar fate before too long. 

Although praising the show, Dann points out, not unreasonably, that "there are certain minimum requirements. This year Slattery was our lowest-rated drama." "I know what the rules are," Crenna said, looking back at it from the perspective of a man who's been around the business. "During the years we were doing The Real McCoys, we knocked off 19 shows, among them Playhouse 90." That doesn't mean he has to like it, though, or that he thinks it's right. "I don’t ask for any miracles. The real shame is that the medium can’t make room for a Playhouse 90. Just the same I am going to miss Slattery’s People." It is, it would seem, the eternal conundrum: people complain about the lack of quality television, but when you give it to them, they don't watch.

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premier 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 scheduled guests are comics Woody Allen and Bert Lahr; the rock 'n' rolling Dave Clark Five; singer Jerry Vale; the singing Barry Sisters; and the winners of the Harvest Moon Ball dance contest. (Other sources confirm this lineup as listed.)

Palace: The hostess is Judy Garland, who dons her tramp costume for two numbers and recalls songs made famous by singers at the original Palace on Broadway. Also on the bill: singer Vic Damone, dancer Chita Rivera, comedian Gene Baylos, the comedy team of Avery Schreiber and Jack Burns, the acrobatic Lyons Family and the Three Bragazzi, musical clowns from Italy.

There's nothing wrong with Ed's lineup this week; Woody Allen could be very funny as a standup, the Dave Clark Five are at their peak, and Jerry Vale is as smooth as ever. On the other hand, though, you've got Judy Garland hosting the Palace, and she proves she can still put on quite a show when she gets a venue such as this. Chita Rivera is as exciting a dancer as there is around, and there's nothing wrong with Vic Damone's voice, either. This week, Garland takes the Palace over the rainbow for the win.

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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. 

It's difficult to think of Steve Lawrence without also thinking of his wife, Eydie Gorme: they started out together on Steve Allen's Tonight, and "Steve and Eydie" is how we think of them, even though whenever they appeared with Johnny Carson, for example, they famously appeared on separate nights, so that one of them would always be home with their children. And Steve Lawrence did, in fact, build up a considerable list of solo credits, including many appearances on The Carol Burnett Show. You might have forgotten that, for a short time, he was even host of his own weekly variety show, The Steve Lawrence Show, and if you have forgotten such fact, according to Cleveland Amory, it's your loss.

The Lawrence show (at the time, he was considered a protege of Jackie Gleason, whose company produced Lawrence's effort) is by no means perfect. It falls victim to so many of the cliches and unimaginative tropes of so many variety shows of the day: the congratulatory "telegrams" from celebrities that turn out to be extended jokes ("You sang better than I ever did’ and it’s signed ‘Dean .. . and Mrs. Rusk"), the grand entrances of guests such as Lucille Ball (who complained that Lawrence introduced her as "the first lady of TV"; "I’m not. The first lady of television was Milton Berle."), and so on. Cleve cites an example from the show's premiere, when Steve and Lucy rode through Shubert Alley atop an elephant, which at one point chose to dump the pair into the startled arms of spectators. When highlights of the procession made it on air, it was sans such unplanned mishap, "which illustrates not only how little imagination producers of a taped show have when, once in a blue moon, something happens which actually would be interesting, but also how you are being shortchanged by the 'miracle' of tape."

If this sounds harsh, it's only because the show is capable of so much more. Notes Amory, "Mr. Lawrence himself has some strong pluses, not only as a singer but also a host. He doesn’t, like so many other hosts, come on as if he thought he was the greatest man since Adam and he doesn’t try to hit you over the head with (a) his charm (b) his wit or (c) his voice." When he quietly sings songs such as "You'll Never Know" or "I Really Don't Want to Know," "he can be extraordinarily ingratiating." One show, a country-music salute to Nashville, was, as Amory put it, "excellent." It helps make up for the time when Bobby Darin sang "Get Me to the Church on Time" "as if he had just misplaced the tune and lost the address of the lyricist." In all, it seems as if Lawrence, like so many past stars (see: Garland, Judy) was done wrong by his producers and directors; when the show does conclude its run, after 13 weeks, it's with Eydie joining him on stage, and I'll wager the two of them singing was all the show ever needed.

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When it was released in 1958, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo was considered fun and exciting, but "too long and slow" to ever be considered among the master's best. Today, it's not only ranked as his best, it's considered by most critics to be one of the greatest movies of all time. Personally, I think that's a little much; I mean, it's good, but I never did quite see what all the shouting was about. Nonetheless, it makes its network television debut on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies (9:00 p.m.), earning the coveted "time extension" slot that permits it to run a half-hour longer than the average Saturday night movie, concluding at 11:30 p.m. And, whether you think it's great or mearly good, it's a pretty nice way to spend a Saturday evening.

On Sunday, Danger Man's John Drake, Patrick McGoohan, stars in part one of a three-part presentation of Walt Disney's charming 1963 story of a girl and her cat, The Three Lives of Thomasina, on The Wonderful World of Color (7:30 p.m., NBC). And for something slightly different, I recommend staying up late to see KHSL's late movie, The Killers (11:15 p.m.), a terrific adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story, starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, and Edmund O'Brien. As you probably know, it was remade in 1964, starring Lee Marvin, Ronald Reagan (his last film role), and Angie Dickinson; I actually prefer the remake, but the original is pretty damn good.

False jeopardy notice: on Monday's episode of Run for Your Life (10:00 p.m., NBC), "Motor trouble forces Paul to stop in Pine Grove, where he gets into a fight with town boss Loomis’s son Neddie—who is later found murdered." As you know, this is one of the TV tropes I absolutely despise, and there are actually two for the price of one in this story: not only is Paul (Ben Gazzara) put in false jeopardy—I mean, you and I both know the star of the show isn't going to be written out by being convicted of murder, so everything that follows depends on how well the search for the real killer goes—it also happens in an unhospitable small town run by a tyrannical local citizen, which, as we all know, is the only kind of small town that exists. You're better off turning to the aforementioned Steve Lawrence Show (10:00 p.m., CBS), with Steve's guests, Trini Lopez, Caterina Valente, and Judi Rolin.

I think Tuesday's episode of Combat! (7:30 p.m., ABC) raises some interesting points we don't often think about in World War II dramas: Saunders' squad replacements include three privates nearing 40: one is homesick for his family, another is a limping veteran, and the third a former politician looking for a resume padder. Saunders is exasperated, as are the other members of the squad, and here's my point: as troops continue to fall and are replaced, there must have come a time when the GIs started to wonder just how many men were left back in the States, and whether or not they might actually be running out of them. It's seen even more strongly a few episodes later, when they encounter German soldiers who are little more than schoolchildren; they are, in fact, all the Germans have left to offer. The whole thing is frightening when you stop to consider it.

Later on Tuesday, a CBS News Special (10:00 p.m.) takes a backstage look at Frank Sinatra, in a special that's created controversy before it's even aired. As Henry Harding reports, Sinatra was displeased with questions about his personal life asked by host Walter Cronkite, questions which Sinatra "politely, but firmly," refused to answer. Shortly thereafter, CBS News received a letter from Sinatra's lawyer "withdrawing permission to use film footage in which he appeared." Says one of his press agents, "Consent was originally granted when Sinatra was led to believe that the program would be a commentary on his career as an entertainer in the same manner in which the network did news specials on the careers of Pablo Casals, Isaac Stern and Marian Anderson." CBS counters that the special is a news presentation, not an entertainment special, and doesn't require any permission to air the footage. The documentary does air, and apparently the aftereffects aren't too lasting; his Emmy-nominated 1969 special runs on CBS. Andy Rooney, by the way, wrote the script for tonight's show.

Bob Hope plays a thinly disguised version of himself in the Chrysler Theatre presentation "Russian Roulette" (Wednesday, 9:00 p.m., NBC). It seems that comedian Les Haines (Hope), on his way to Russia as part of a cultural exchange group, gets mixed up with espionage and a glamorous secret agent, played by Jill St. John. Don Rickles, Victor Buono, Harold J. Stone, and Leon Askin round out a terrific supporting cast; Bing Crosby, alas, is nowhere to be seen. Hope co-authored the story on which the script is based. If you want your totalitarian stories without comedy, tune in for KSHL's late movie (boy, they've got a good lineup this week), the 1956 British adaptation of 1984, starring Michael Redgrave and Edmond O'Brien. (11:30 p.m.)

The circus is coming to town on Thursday, as Ed Wynn and his three granddaughters host a rare performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, taped in Seattle. (7:30 p.m., NBC) At 9:00 p.m., it's the excellent crime thriller Experiment in Terror (CBS), starring Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, and Stefanie Powers in the story of a woman being forced by a criminal to embezzle from her bank employer. If she doesn't agree, her sister dies. And in the night's highlight, the Hallmark Hall of Fame is back with Melvyn Douglas and Ed Begley in "Inherit the Wind" (9:30 p.m., NBC) the dramatization of the Scopes monkey trial of 1925. You can insert my obligatory complaint about the diminished quality of Hallmark television presentations here. 

Friday night, it's the return of the marvelous Michael Dunn as Dr. Loveless on The Wild Wild West (7:30 p.m., CBS), and this time he's accompanied by Richard Kiel as Voltaire. It doesn't get much better than that, does it? There's some primetime sports on tap, as KTVU has San Francisco Warriors basketball; tonight, the Warriors, let by Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond, take on Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and the Los Angeles Lakers, live from Los Angeles. (8:30 p.m.) And much later, on the unfortunate final season of The Farmer's Daughter (9:30 p.m., ABC), Glen and Kate find trouble on their honeymoon when their hotel is besieged by a rock star trying to escape his fans; Judy Carne is among the costars. 

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Now, you didn't think we'd forget that Joey Heatherton is on the cover of this week's issue, did you? Of course not; don't be ridiculous. In fact, we'd be rather shirking our duties as a cultural archaeologist to overlook the inside spread, in which we get not only a look at the progress of Joey's career, but at some of the threads she's modeling, courtesy of such designers as Carl, Golo, and Capezio.

Twenty-one-year-old Davenie Johanna Heatherton, the article tells us, is "the archetypal 'pop culture' chickie, and that’s all there is to it: lithe, white-blonde, kinetic, shapely and young—permanently young." As far as being the arbiter of cultural style, "If there’s a rhythm and flavor to these particular years in the United States, she’s in touch with it." She's acted in various television series—Mr. Novak, The Virginian, The Nurses, Breaking Point—but it's the dancing, whether she's doing the Frug, the Watusi, the Jerk, the Chicken, the Pony, the Boston, the Monkey, the Philadelphia—that's what stays in the imagination, long after the other young, blonde actresses have come and gone. "It’s an outlet," she says of pop rock dance. "We’re working out our problems. You get a bad mark in school, you come home, turn on the radio, and let it out."

She was a sensation last summer, when she joined Bob Hope's company touring the Dominican Republic entertaining the troops, and she'll be going with him this December to Vietnam. She still remembers the reaction from those young soldiers: "I just walked out on the stage and they went ape. I wore, you know, a leotard and boots. They were all so googly-eyed. I sang the lines, ‘Im just a little girl who’s looking for a little boy,’ and some of them started running up on the stage. The MP’s had to head them off." Expect a similar reaction in Vietnam.

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MST3K alert: It Conquered the World (1956) Scientists discover that an outer-space monster has arrived from Venus to destroy Earth. Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland. (Saturday, 5:30 p.m., KCRA) "He learned almost too late that man is a feeling creature. . . and, because of it, the greatest in the universe. He learned too late for himself that men have to find their own way, to make their own mistakes. There can't be any gift of perfection from outside ourselves. And when men seek such perfection. . . they find only death. . . fire. . . loss. . . disillusionment. . .  the end of everything that's gone forward. Men have always sought an end to the toil and misery, but it can't be given, it has to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to come from inside—from man himself." TV

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Around the dial

It's a short recap this week, but that doesn't mean it's without quality, as we find out from the very beginning, with John's continuing series at Cult TV Blog on The Prisoner and comparisons to Soviet Russia. This week, he's looking at "Many Happy Returns" and "Dance of the Dead." How does the allegory hold up? Read on and find out.

Martin Grams has more book reviews on hand, including Aubrey Malone's examination of The Misfits, Robert Stroim, biography of actress-singer Virginia O'Brien, Steven Vagg's biography of the great Aussie actor Rod Taylor, James Sheldon's story on his vast career as a radio and television director, and Scott Gallinghouse's biography of horror actor Rondo Hatton. 

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, at Mavis Movie Madness Paul looks back at a pair of episodes from The Waltons: "The Thanksgiving Story" (appropriate to the season!), and the episode for which it was something of a sequel, "The Love Story."

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence bids farewell to actress Sally Kirkland, who died earlier this week at age 84; she was a frequent guest star on television, had a recurring role in Days of Our Lives and The Agency, and, most notably, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for the movie Anna. 

I mentioned last week that Ralph Senensky died on November 1 at the prodigious age of 102, and at Television Obscurities, Robert has a very appropriate appreciation of everything that Senensky accomplished in a glorious career, about which he wrote with great wit and verve.

At A View from the Junkyard, Roger continues his review of The A-Team with "Say it with Bullets" (always an effective way of communicating, it seems), and offers a sage piece of advice for us all: "the key to success and happiness in life might be knowing when to be silly and knowing when to get serious." TV

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Retitled TV Shows, or A Show by Any Other Name

This week, I'm pleased to welcome back Bill Griffiths, who's graced our website several times in the past, with another fascinating essay. It's a look at something that I've been interested in ever since I was a little tyke and wondered why Dragnet was sometimes called Badge 714: the abondoned custom of giving a successful TV series an alternate title when it went into syndication. See how many of these you can remember! 

by Bill Griffiths

Remember the exciting detective series The Raymond Burr Show? Or that riveting medical drama Robert Young, Family Doctor? Chances are you have seen them by their real names: Ironside and Marcus Welby, M.D. Yet for a brief period in the 1970’s while still in production, these classics were presented under the aforementioned alternate titles. It was once a common practice to rename programs that entered off-network syndication while new episodes were still being aired each week. Perhaps the earliest example came in 1953 when Jack Webb and the NBC Film Division sold the initial 48 episodes of Dragnet to individual stations as Badge 714. This was a logical move for a couple of reasons: Dragnet was still highly rated each week in its respective NBC radio and television versions. In addition, the reruns were generally scheduled weekly in prime time slots. Thus, viewers would not be confused between what was new and what was an encore showing. Even after Dragnet ended its first television run in 1959, the Badge 714 name would continue to turn up on rerun prints. Even now, some episodes that have fallen into the public domain still retain that title. 

Based on the success of Dragnet/Badge 714, other shows entering rerun syndication would have their names changed. Another radio classic with a TV counterpart Gang Busters became Captured. The Millionaire was known in repeats for a time as If You Had a Million. Ann Sothern’s Private Secretary was Susie (her character’s name Susan "Susie" McNamara). Lassie became Jeff’s Collie, with later episodes separately syndicated as Timmy and Lassie. Just to name a few. 

The process of renaming shows also extended to the networks. On NBC, selected episodes of Groucho Marx’s quiz show You Bet Your Life were shown in the summer months under the secondary title The Best of Groucho. Both names would turn up in the opening sequence after the series was sold into syndication in 1961. That same year, CBS’s Gunsmoke (another radio favorite) expanded to one hour. Given the increased budget to film episodes—and the success of the new length uncertain—the network would continue to rerun the 1955-61 episodes as Marshal Dillon each week for a few more years. Up until fairly recently, those 30-minute shows would still turn up under the altered title. Notably, even the theme music was changed, a method used occasionally when other shows had their names changed for repeats. 

Then there were numerous episodes from filmed anthology programs being re-aired under completely "new" names (and theme songs), both in network prime time or on local stations. One excellent example was the 1963-67 series Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre. After concluding its highly-rated run, NBC repeated episodes between 1968 and 1972 during the summer months under Hope-less titles such as NBC Comedy Playhouse, NBC Adventure Theatre, and NBC Action Playhouse. Hope’s introductions were replaced by other hosts depending on the genre: Ed McMahon, Peter Marshall, Art Fleming, Monty Hall, and Jack Kelly. Later in syndication, the generic names Universal Star Time and Theatre of the Stars were used, although it was also likely these episodes were scheduled as individual "movies." Another long-running series that followed a similar trajectory was the first-run syndicated western anthology Death Valley Days (1952-70), which had previously enjoyed success on radio from 1930 to 1945. Originally hosted on television by actor Stanley Andrews as "The Old Ranger," later hosts as themselves included Robert Taylor, Dale Robertson, and Ronald Reagan, who left the series to pursue his greatest career success in politics—first as California’s Governor from 1967 to 1975, and then President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Again, while the series was still producing new stories, re-broadcasts of earlier episodes were released under several different names, including Trails West hosted by Ray Milland, Western Star Theater with Rory Calhoun, Call of the West introduced by John Payne, The Pioneers with Will Rogers Jr, and even Dale Robertson, who filmed updated host segments for Frontier Adventure. 

One of the most successful and beloved comedies in TV history enjoyed encore network airings under different names. While still airing new episodes on Monday nights in 1955, CBS scheduled reruns of I Love Lucy (1951-57) as The Sunday Lucy Show. When that version moved to Saturdays, the name changed to simply The Lucy Show (which, of course, was the title of Lucille Ball’s hit 1962-68 sitcom). Yet another package of I Love Lucy reruns appeared on that network as The Top Ten Lucy Shows… which apparently ran for 13 weeks. In 1960, the Connecticut-based episodes appeared as Lucy in Connecticut. Finally, the hour-long special adventures (1957-60) of Lucy & Ricky and Fred & Ethel enjoyed summer evening runs between 1962 and 1967 as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, which is still used to this day. 

Rerunning current or recently concluded sitcoms and dramas during the daylight hours became an effective programming strategy for the networks from the mid-1950s through the early 1990s. One of the earliest hits in this regard was The Bob Cummings Show being re-aired on ABC as Love That Bob between 1959 and 1961. But also in 1959, CBS added repeats of I Love Lucy under its actual name following two years of nighttime encores. This would become a five-day-a-week morning favorite through 1966, with additional airings on Saturdays or Sundays from time to time. At that point, CBS finally sold the series to local stations, but there would be a brief return of I Love Lucy to CBS middays during the April 1967 strike of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which sidelined live and taped programming. As the 1960s progressed, more reruns of popular series were added to network daytime schedules, complementing and competing against the fare of game shows, soap operas, and talk shows. Sometimes the real titles were retained even if new shows were still being made. Others went by different names. How creative the branding was varied widely. There was Make Room For Daddy (the original name for The Danny Thomas Show), Trailmaster/ Major Adams, Trailmaster (Wagon Train), The Loretta Young Theater (The Loretta Young Show), Andy of Mayberry (The Andy Griffith Show), The McCoys (The Real McCoys), Mornin’ Beverly Hillbillies, The Dick Van Dyke Daytime Show, The Jack Benny Daytime Show and Sunday with Jack Benny (The Jack Benny Program). If only to add to viewer confusion, TV Guide issues of the era had the rerun listings as "Andy Griffith", "Lucille Ball", "Jack Benny", "Dick Van Dyke", etc. 

Eventually, network daytime reruns of hit shows went almost entirely by their actual names. Favorites such as Father Knows Best, Ben Casey, The Fugitive, The Donna Reed Show, Bewitched, That Girl, Love, American Style, The Brady Bunch, All In The Family—cleverly promoted as "daytime editions" when CBS began afternoon reruns in 1975—Sanford and Son, M*A*S*H, The Jeffersons, The Love Boat, Three’s Company, Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, Family Ties, The Golden Girls, Full House and others (whew!) never went by changed names. Eventually, the process of keeping the real titles intact crept into syndication as well, no matter if a series was still being produced or not. Most producers and distributors came to the revelation that audiences could tell the difference between a repeat every day and what was new weekly in prime time. But it did continue to happen on occasion into the 1980s. Viewers got to see Ponderosa (Bonanza), Emergency One (Emergency!), Carol Burnett and Friends (30 minute re-edits of 1972-77 Carol Burnett Show episodes), Jim Rockford, Private Investigator (The Rockford Files), McGarrett (season 12 airings of Hawaii Five-O on The CBS Late Movie), More Real People (Real People, of course, and another case of a half-hour show being edited from one-hour shows), Carson’s Comedy Classics (segments culled from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) and CHiPs Patrol, which when you know that CHP stands for California Highway Patrol turns out to be redundantly redundant. More incredibly, this modification occurred in September 1982, days after NBC ended afternoon showings of the series as… CHiPs. A similar example happened a few years earlier. Although ABC aired daytime reruns of Happy Days from 1975 to 1979 and Laverne & Shirley from 1979 to 1980, they were initially changed in syndication to Happy Days Again in 1979 and Laverne & Shirley and Company in 1981. 

Perhaps the most notorious case of name alteration both in network and syndication was the Valerie Harper sitcom Valerie (NBC 1986-90, CBS 1990-91). When Harper was fired from her own series after season two, the show became Valerie’s Family: The Hogans. After another year, there was one more name change to The Hogan Family, which kept that title in reruns. 

Naturally, I can’t provide examples of every TV series that had its title changed for reruns, let alone even tweaked during first-run showings, although it seems I’ve named a lot in the course of this essay! Besides, I know you can think of some more that have not been mentioned here. So I look forward to reading your remembrances in the Comments section. Thank you again to Mitchell for allowing me to contribute to It’s About TV and focus on another of the fascinating nuggets of television history. TV

Thanks again to Bill for another great look back at the good old days. (And let's all wish him a speedy recovery from his recent surgery; his rehab time included working on this piece!) It's funny how some shows are great no matter what they're called, while others don't even work under one title. Perhaps it has less to do with the title and more to do with the content. You think?

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What's on TV? Tuesday, November 12, 1968

I've mentioned this before, but you might not be aware that not only was 60 Minutes not always on Sunday evening, it wasn't always a weekly program. When it started, earlier in 1968, it was on bi-weekly, and aired on various nights of the week even after it became an every-week series. Fortunately, the highlight of the day doesn't conflict with the CBS show; it's the KCRA matinee movie, All the King's Men, which is not only one of the greatest political movies ever made, it's a timeless meditation on the ability of power to corrupt even the most well-intentioned people. If you haven't seen the original (don't bother with the Sean Penn remake from a few years ago), I strongly urge you to do so. And thank this week's Northern California edition for bringing it to your attention.

This week in TV Guide: November 9, 1968

As the nation recovers from the tumult of last week's presidential election, something comforting is definitely in order, and what could be better that starting off with two of life's simpler pleasures: comfort food and Johnny Carson, combined in Richard Gehman's article on how "You too can be a chef" by watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. You see, Carson makes a perfect companion for the hungry view (and Gehman finds himself, for some unknown reason, starved every time he watches Carson). Forthwith, Gehman's complete late-night supper, made during a recent episode of Tonight.

Start with the small potatoes, which can be prepared for boiling during Carson's commercial for a new spot remover. You can do the whole thing from your easy chair while Don Rickles comes on and insults everyone in sight. While Rickles continues, it's time for you to separate slices of chipped beef, which you've brought to your easy chair along with the spuds. As Ed McMahon shills for Alpo, take the separated beef to the kitchen, toss the potatoes in a pot for boiling, and while you're there put an eighth of a pound of butter in a frypan which has been preheated to 300°. Turn up the TV while Sergio Franchi is singing, so you can hear him while toasting two slices of bread and opening a can of peas. With the next commercial, you can drain the potatoes and toast a couple more slices of bread. The next guest, possibly George Jessel, allows you to chop a fresh green or red pepper.

When the show pauses for a station break, that's your chance to add two tablespoonfuls of sifted flour to the sizzling butter, stir with a whisk, and add a half teaspoonful of salt, a couple of pinches of dried parsley, a very small dash of oregano and some pepper, preferably fresh-ground. You can add a half-cup of water while the next singer (probably named Connie) warbles away. Add the chipped beef to the mixture when shills for a sewer-cleaning device, along with a half-cup of milk, stirring until the mixture bubbles, at which time you include the drained peas.

This whole thing should take you to within about ten minutes of the end of Carson's show. During the next-to-last commercial, add a tablespoonful of capped black pitted olives, and as Carson interviews his final guest (Mary Martin, Mary McCarthy, Mary Healy, or maybe Mary Queen of Scots), you can serve your creamed chipped beef, either on the toast or the potatoes you've put on the side. Turn off the set. Eat heartily.

I don't know. I don't think I can eat that heavy a meal right before bedtime.

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

Sullivan: Tentatively scheduled guests: singers Tom Jones, Vikki Carr and Jimi Hendrix; comedians Wayne and Shuster, and Scoey Mitchell; the Chung Trio, instrumentalists; and Valente and Valente, balancing act.

Palace: Host Mike Douglas presents Polly Bergen, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, Donovan, comics Hendra and Ullett, juggler Rudy Schweitzer and the Solokhins, balancing acrobats from the Moscow State Circus.

This week's summary is going to take a little explaining (as Desi might say to Lucy), and the explanation itself could make for a feature article. What you see above is, in fact, what was scheduled for the November 10 show. However, a strike by the American Federation of Musicians, which eventually lasted 28 days*, forced the cancelation of the episode, to be replaced by a repeat of the September 29 show, which featured performances by Jefferson Airplane, Diana Ross and the Supremes,  Red Skelton, actors Sergio Franchi and Virna Lisi (interviewed on location in Italy during filming of The Secret of Santa Vittoria, a movie in which Ed played a cameo role), and The Berosinis, Czechoslovakian balancing act. (Some sources also suggest that a clip from the Beatles' movie Yellow Submarine was shown.)

*Ed returned with a live show on November 24, which featured pre-recorded music.

Now, if that wasn't enough, let's go back again to that scheduled lineup—which, you'll notice, included the Jimi Hendrix Experience. As it turns out, even had the show aired as scheduled, Hendrix wouldn't have been on it, for reasons explained in this article from the Jimi Hendrix website, which offers a tantalizing look at what might have been—and what certainly would have been one of the great all-time moments of the Sullivan show:

An appearance by The Experience on the Ed Sullivan Show was proposed by Sullivan’s son-in-law, Bob Precht; unfortunately, the event was snubbed before ever making it off the ground. In John McDermott’s Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight, [Hendrix's manager] Bob Levine recalls, "Sullivan Productions really wanted to have Jimi on. Ed Sullivan had to get him one way or another, so Sullivan, [Bob] Precht [Sullivan's producer and son-in-law], [Michael] Jeffrey [Hendrix's UK manager] and I sat down to talk. Sullivan wanted to have the Vienna Ballet dance to his music, with Hendrix in front of a big orchestra, done on location in Europe. Jeffrey figured out the money he would need and agreed to the concept verbally. He left the meeting to speak to somebody—I don’t know who—and when, a day or so later, I told him he was supposed to follow up with Bob Precht her replied, ‘We aren’t going to do it.’ I asked if he had spoken to Jimi and he said, ‘No, I am not going to let Hendrix do that. I’ve got my reasons.’ Jimi would have loved to have done it."

After all that, I'm not sure I even want to look at what The Hollywood Palace offered, but I suppose we must. And you know what? It's a very pleasant show and all, but I think I'm going with Sullivan this week, no matter what show aired.

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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. 

Every once in a while, television tries something a little different. Not often, but occasionally. What's not different, though, is the result, which usually takes about thirteen weeks to play out, thirteen being an unlucky number, but the traditional number of episodes a series would run before getting canceled. The history of television is littered with such noble failures (Cop Rock, anyone?), and this week, Cleveland Amory takes a look at one of them: ABC's That's Life, a comedy-variety series with a regular cast and continuing story. It is, Amory says, more like "a long musical comedy—with each act lasting an hour and each intermission a week." 

That's Life stars Robert Morse (Tony winner for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) and E.J. Peaker as a young couple headed for marriage; Morse, Amory admits, "is not our favorite actor. But he is, bar none, our favorite re-actor—in fact, he is perhaps the best in the business," even though he sometimes tries a little too hard. Peaker took a while to grow on Cleve ("ABC is supposed to have interviewed over 3000 girls before deciding on her, and our feeling was, after the first time we saw her, they should have seen a couple more."), but by the fourth episode, "we were ready, if not for marriage, at least to go steady." It's always nice to see Our Critic fess up to his mistakes.

One of the highlights of each week's episode is the guest star, and Amory points out that the show is often written to take advantage of the guest, rather than the regulars. And with a cast of guests including George Burns, Jackie Vernon, and Tim Conway, the show succeeds more often than not. A particular highlight is the show in which Kay Medford and Shelly Berman appear as Peaker's mother and father, an episode that also features Robert Goulet and Alan King. "This was," Amory writes, "by all odds the best single episode of any series we have seen so far." That's Life could actually be considered a success as far as these "different" series go, running for 32 episodes. Cleve's much more bullish on the show, though: "When That's Life is good, it's very, very good—good enough to pay money for on Broadway. And even when it's bad, it's never, never horrid."

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Returning to something of a sense of normalcy, Saturday's highlight is the network television premiere of To Kill a Mockingbird (9:00 p.m., NBC), which won Oscars for Gregory Peck (Best Actor) and Horton Foote (Best Adapted Screenplay). Alone among most, I've never been particularly impressed by Peck's performance; Peter O'Toole was far more deserving of an Oscar for Lawrence of Arabia. But there's no questioning the status of this movie as one of the most powerful of the 1960s; Judith Crist praises not only Peck but Mary Badham and Phillip Alford as Peck's children, who steal the scenes at every opportunity. "The story may seem slightly sentimental today," she concludes, "but its stature and lasting substance stem from the beautifully portrayed relationship between father and children and from the youngsters’ perceptions of the world around them." And we could certainly use more movies like that today, and perhaps fewer superhero fantasies. Also on Saturday, NET Journal (9:30 p.m., KQED) presents "Politics '68—An Artist's View," a thoughtful, and occasionally poignant, review of the presidential campaign that showcases artist-reporter Franklin McMahon's drawings, sketches, and paintings of Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney; Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon and George Wallace, accompanied by audio segments from the campaign, and McMahon's commentary.

On Sunday, the Apollo 7 astronauts, Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham, Meet the Press (5:30 p.m., NBC), discussing last month's critical flight, and the prospects of the American moon program. It's easy to overlook the importance of Apollo 7 sometimes, given that it was soon followed by the famed Apollo 8 flight around the moon, but Apollo 7 was the first manned mission following the disaster of Apollo 1, at which point the success of the entire space program was thrown into doubt. Had this mission not been a success, the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade may well have gone unreached. In prime time, our heroes of The FBI (8:00 p.m., ABC) take chase after an embezler on the run with the loot. The embezzler's name is "Frank Converse," which is also, of course, the name of the star of Coronet Blue, N.Y.P.D., and Movin' On. In tonight's episode, Frank Converse is played by William Windom, adding to the confusion. No word as to whether or not Frank Converse ever played a character named William Windom.

Monday's episode of The Avengers (8:00 p.m., ABC) serves as a showcase for Patrick Macnee, who plays five parts in this story of a plot to bomb an international peace conference by using plastic surgery to turn an assassin into Steed's double. Will Tara King be able to identify the real Steed? What do you think? Ian Ogilvy, who will go on to succeed Roger Moore as The Saint, guest stars. And speaking of multiple roles, NBC's "World Premiere" telemovie Now You See It, Now You Don't (9:00 p.m.) stars Jonathan Winters in some of his best-known roles, including an Air Force general, a farmer, and a cranky old man. Tune in for Winters, stay for Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows, and the luscious Luciana Paluzzi. And in an unintentionally ironic episode of Firing Line (8:00 p.m., NET), William F. Buckley Jr.'s guest is New York Senator Charles Goodell, who was appointed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller to serve the remaining term of the late Robert F. Kennedy. Two years hence, Goodell will lose his reelection bid to WFB's brother, Conservative candidate James Buckley.

Judith Crist singles out the Tuesday night movie The Jokers (9:00 p.m., NBC) for special notice. The crime drama stars Oliver Reed and Michael Crawford (yes, the future Phantom of the Opera) as British brothers planning the crime of the century "just to show how smart they are." It is, says Crist, "not only a brilliantly satiric plot but also a shrewd comment on today’s young affluents." You can prepare yourself for it with Merv Griffin's primetime special, Sidewalks of New England (7:30 p.m., KPIX), a "musical tour of New England," with Aretha Franklin, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and singer Jimmy Helm. Conversely, you can opt for The Jerry Lewis Show (7:30 p.m., NBC), with Jerry and his guests Jane Powell, Judy Carne, and the Osmond Brothers. And on the aforementioned That's Life (10:00 p.m., ABC), the guests are Alan King, Morey Amsterdam, Peggy Cass, and Hines, Hines & Dad—one of the Hines's being, of course, the fabulous Gregory Hines.

One of the things we've lost in our modern world, I think, is a sense of wonder. How many times do we really look around at the natural marvels that surround us, instead of looking down at our phones and further engaging in our own dehumanization? The special The Sense of Wonder (Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., ABC), narrated by Helen Hayes, takes an hour to slow down and look at "nature's bounty," from the cold coast of Maine to the giant redwoods of California, to the insects that serenade us on summer evenings and the birds making their outposts in high-rise cities. It's based on the books of naturalist Rachel Carson, and includes interviews with photographer Ansel Adams and Dorothy Freeman. Can't we have something like this on television today? Or better yet, just get your eyes away from electronic devices and discover them for yourself. And on The Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC), Steve Allen looks at life in the year 2001, with Julie Harris, Shelley Berman, Bill Dana, and singer Lynn Kellogg. I wonder how many of Steverino's predictions came true?

On Thursday, everyone's in for a surprise on That Girl (9:00 p.m., ABC), when Don goes in drag top research a story on police units who hunt muggers in Central Park. Guess who he runs into: Ann's father Lew! Someone's got some explaining to do. . . oh, wait, I already used that line this week, didn't I? On the anthology series Journey to the Unknown (9:30 p.m., ABC), David Hedison trades his submarine command for the ink-stained fingers of journalism, as a man convinced he sees the same group of bystanders at the site of various accidents and natural disasters. According to his psychiatrist, "of course they exist . . . the question is, do they exist in reality or only in your mind?" And The Dean Martin Show (10:00 p.m., NBC) rounds out the evening, with Dean's guests David Janssen, Minnie Pearl, Lainie Kazan and comics Stu Gilliam and Stanley Myron Handelman. An unlikely gathering, to be sure, as witnessed in a sketch in which "Dean and David become the objects of Minnie's country-style courting." Being a fugitive has its advantages, right?

The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau returns Friday night (7:30 p.m., ABC), with a study of the whale, narrated by Rod Serling and always worth a look. And while we remember Robert Young as the wise Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best, or the kindly family doctor Marcus Welby, M.D., we're reminded this week that Young is a fine actor not above showing an edge in his work. On The Name of the Game (7:30 p.m., NBC), he plays Herman Allison, "an ultraright fanatic who's building a private army" to guard against the growing race problem. Glen Howard (Gene Barry) enters the scene while investigating the death of an investigative reporter, and runs into a cast of characters that includes an influence-peddling former senator, a washed-up actress, a restaurateur, and another murder.

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The week's football is kind of a meh, but Stanley Frank provides a fascinating look behind the scenes at what happens in the television control booth. The focus is on CBS's coverage of the season opener between the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers, where announcers Frank Gifford and Jack Whitaker go through the preparation for the week's game with the production team, producer Bill Creasy and director Chris Erskine. Gifford runs through each team's tendencies, gives insight on key players, and advises the team on what to look for.  (Bobby Walden, the Pittsburgh punter, has "been known to pass from kick formation.")

Covering football has changed dramatically over the years. There are five color cameras assigned to the game: three near the 50-yard line, one on the sidelines, one behind an end zone. (By contrast, the average game today uses at least twice as many, and NBC has 40 for its Sunday night broadcasts.) CBS gets off to a rough start; despite Gifford's warning that Steelers running back Dick Houk had the capability of throwing on the option play, the cameras miss his 62-yard pass on the game's first play. Later in the first half, Erskine cuts to the field-level camera as Giants quarterback Fran Tarkenton unleashes an 84-yard pass to Homer Jones; the ground shot "projects the speed and power of the players but loses a panoramic view of the field," blowing the live shot. An instant replay showing the completed pass doesn't make up for Erskine's frustration at missing the original play.

The game continues through to a 34-20 victory by the Giants, a dull affair that, as Frank notes, proves the truism that "false excitement cannot be pumped into an event." Despite the early glitches, the broadcast goes well, and Gifford's tip about a fake punt means the cameras are in perfect position when Walden does, in fact, opt for the pass in the fourth quarter (which was dropped). It's particularly interesting to note how commercials were treated back in the day: under the current agreement, CBS can ask the officials for a commercial time-out "if there has been no natural break in the action during the first seven minutes of a quarter." The referee misses the network's initial fourth quarter signal, and Creasy nixes a commercial during a first-down measurement. ("We can't interrupt a drive.") The network is eventually bailed out by Giants kicker Pete Gogolak, who obligingly kicks two field goals to provide natural breaks for the spots.

Televising a game is tough work for everyone; as Creasy says after the game's end, "I feel as though my eyes are falling out of my head, and they pop out a little farther every week."

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And speaking of popping, on the cover this week is Barbara Feldon in marryin' garb, and inside is a layout of Feldon in the year's smartest outfits. The hook is the upcoming wedding of her Get Smart character, Agent 99, to Don Adams' Maxwell Smart, but it's clear that there's more to Feldon than meets the eye—or the secret agent, as it were.

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Finally, it's just another indication of the sign of the times, as we can see in a Letter to the Editor from Doris Mathews of Checotah, Oklahoma. Miss Mathews writes in praise of a recent special called Soul, which could have been any one of a number of specials but was probably a public broadcasting series of the same name. In the letter, she says "The Negro 'Soul' special was fabulous. More shows like this should be aired so that the whites can see all the talent among the Negro people." Wince-inducing to modern ears perhaps, but this is a time not far removed from the infamous interracial kiss on Star Trek, which caused NBC so much trouble in the South.

Thomas J. O'Neal of New Orleans has a hilarious take on Howard Cosell, who's not quite the household name he'll become in two years, thanks to Monday Night Football, but has become plenty familiar thanks to ABC's coverage of boxing—especially Muhammad Ali. In response to an October 19 article entitled "I'm Irreplaceable" (I'm assuming Humble Howard is speaking of himself here), O'Neal writes "In musing over the word 'saturnine,' which Howard Cosell believes everyone 'ought to learn,' it occurred to me that this Argus-eyed, stentorian Palladium of narcissism should pause on his commercial odyssey, pick up his aegis, take his Antaean virtues and his cornucopia of money—and paddle down the Stygian Way to Hades. [That's "go to hell," for the rest of us.] Cosell, you are a myth!" Couldn't have said that better myself.

I'll defer to the following as the Letter of the Week, though, as it checks a number of boxes that I've written about in the past months. Karen Fiedler, of Columbus, Ohio, has CBS' new Western series Lancer in mind in her letter. "Lancer is based on the fact that Murdoch Lancer [Andrew Duggan] was shot so badly he had to send for his boys, Scott [Wayne Maunder] and Johnny [James Stacy]. Scott gets shot int he first episode, Johnny gets shot in the second, and Scott gets shot again in the third by a family trying to avenge Johnny's killing of one of their brood. Johnny is forced to shoot one of them because they shot Scott. Luckily everyone recovers quickly except the bad guys. It is certainly a joy to view the new lack of violence." Got all that straight?

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MST3K alert: The Indestructible Man (1956) On his way to the gas chamber, "The Butcher" vowed he'd return from the grave and get the three men who doublecrossed him. Lon Chaney, Casey Adams. (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., KBHK in San Francisco) When combined with the short that preceded it, part two of "Undersea Kingdom," Lon Chaney became the first and only actor to appear in both segments of a single MST3K episode. Look for a short, fatal, turn from future McHale's Navy star Joe Flynn. Your pleasure, I promise, will not be indestructible. TV

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Around the dial

Photo by Stockcake.com

Let's start this week at Comfort TV, where David takes three classics and three wasted trips into Season 3 of The Twilight Zone. No arguments from me on either list, especially when it comes to Rod Serling's disastrous track record on comedies. But, then, we can't all be geniuses in multiple genres, can we?

Let's now keep that TZ vibe going, as Jordan at The Twilight Zone Vortex asks what kind of stories would have made great episodes for an imagined sixth season of the series. This really is a great question, given the disappointment many fans have with the final season. Some of these suggestions are quite intriguing, and all of them would make great episodes of a future anthology series, if anyone out there is reading this.

Looking at the latest entry at Cult TV Blog gives me a chance to once again thank John for his terrific piece that ran on Wednesday (read it here if you haven't already), and his series on similarities between The Prisoner and Soviet Russia continues this week with "The Schizoid Man" and "The General," and you should check it out.

Staying across the pond, at Classic Film & TV Cafe Rick gives us seven things to know about The Avengers, another of my favorite imports. If you consider yourself a fan of the series, here's your chance to prove it: how many of these seven things did you know?

More from British TV: Prunella Scales, one of the stars of the all-time classic comedy Fawlty Towers, tied last week, age 93. Her career covers far more than that one program, of course, and Terence has the highlights in this tribute at A Shroud of Thoughts.

This must be my lucky week: Cult TV Lounge focuses on yet another favorite of mine, Naked City, which makes the list not only as one of the best police dramas on televisison, but one of the best drama series, period. What sets it apart? This look at season two (the first in its hour-long format) gives you a good idea.

Martin Grams gives us another book review of a classic radio moment: John Gosling's Waging the War of the Worlds: A History of the 1938 Radio Broadcast and Resulting Panic. Orson Welles' immortal, much-misunderstood, always fascinating broadcast. No matter what you know about this, it isn't enough.

Remember Mike the skunk? He's the newest member of the A-Team, and at The View from the Junkyard, Roger looks at his debut in the episode "The Battle of Bel Air." Actually, that's not quite right: this episode also introduces Tawnia, the replacemenbt for Amy. 

Finally, the classic TV director Ralph Senensky died this week, age 102. His credits are too numerous to mention, and one of the few things that can compare to his resume is his ability to write about his experiences, which you can read about at his webite. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!