What's on TV? Friday, January 18, 1974

We're back looking at the Eastern New England edition this week, and among this week's offerings is the 1973 made-for-TV movie Genesis II, airing at 11:30 p.m. on WPRI in Providence. Whenever you see this mentioned nowadays, it's almost always because it was a failed pilot developed by Gene Roddenberry, so I was somewhat surprised to see it here with no mention of Roddenberry as a hook. Of course, times were different then; Star Trek hadn't become the behemoth franchise it is today, so this might not have been anything more than just another plot that didn't make it any further. But you can go further, just be scrolling down. 

This week in TV Guide: January 12, 1974

Looking back through the years, I have, more than once, used the terms "Super Bore" or "Stupor Bowl" to refer to the Super Bowl. The game is only a small part of what has grown to encompass special commercials made for the occasion, pregame and halftime concerts featuring superstar artists, and marathon analysis both before and after the game. (It doesn't hurt that there have actually been some pretty good games the last couple of decades, but face it—that's just a bonus.)

Back in the 1970s, though, the game was the thing, to paraphrase Shakespeare, and over the first seven editions, the "ultimate game" hadn't really delivered much. Several of them had been blowouts, the two games won by the AFL had been huge upsets but not all that interesting, and the closest game—Baltimore's 16-13 victory over Dallas three years ago—had been so full of mistakes by both teams pit was called the "Blunder Bowl."

Al Stump uses the "Super Bore" line in his preview of Sunday's Big Game between the defending champion Miami Dolphins and the NFC champion Minnesota Vikings, from Rice Stadium in Houston (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS). Even in its infancy, the game had a feeling approaching "near-lunacy," with the game being the last thing on anyone's mind; Washington defensive back Mike Bass recalls having to attend three team press conferences, photo events, program signing parties, team busses stalled in traffic jams (last year's game was played in Los Angeles), besides practicing for, you know, the game. "Things are so wild that you're distracted—to the point where you can't perform normally on the field. At the kickoff, those 22 cats out there are in trouble, man." Not surprisingly, the game itself was "dull and a letdown, with some spectators walking out before the Dolphins finally beat the skins 14-7."

Stump calls these past games "a bore, and, at times, a farce," where the teams "make an abundance of errors and do little scoring." Coaches, feeling the pressure and fearing defeat, run ultra-conservative game plans and use even tighter defenses than the regular season. There have been few spectacular plays in Super Bowls (only four times has a runner gained 20 or more yards on a single run), and no last-minute comebacks. And in those seven games, a total of only 12 touchdown passes have been thrown. (In fact, there have only been 25 touchdowns in total scored in the game's history.) 

That doesn't stop CBS from offering up today's contest as the "ultimate game," utilizing 14 color cameras and six miles of cable, and "[n]o fewer than 15 experts will be trotted out, or roughly one expert for every five players who'll see action." But, then, who says it's about the game? "The past seven Super Bowls have sold 543,852 tickets, taken in $25 million and paid $8.7 million to the athletes. NBC and CBS, investing $17,750,000 for telecast rights since 1967, now reach 28 milion homes and some 75 million people. A cool 10 million words have been filed from Super Bowl press boxes." That's what the Super Bowl is all about, Charlie Brown. 

As I mentioned at the outset, the Super Bowl has come a long way since these early days. The networks spend more and more money to broadcast the game to more and more viewers, while commercials sell for extraordinarily obscene amounts of money (in 1974, 30 seconds sold for $103,000, while last year, a half-minute commercial would cost you $7 million.) The game was played in the afternoon back in 1974 (preceded by an NBA game), and the pregame show was only 30 minutes long. The half-time entertainment was provided by the University of Texas Longhorn Band, with Miss Texas, Judy Mallett, playing the fiddle. Networks didn't bother to try and introduce a promising show in the coveted post-game timeslot; Super Bowl VIII was followed by the local news. 

As for Super Bowl VIII? Well, it fit the pattern to a T; the Dolphins dominated early and often with its ground game; Miami quarterback Bob Griese through only seven passes (completing six, for 63 yards total), while the Dolphins rushed for almost 200 yards on 53 attempts. No touchdown passes were thrown by either team. The final score was Miami 24, Minnesota 7, and it wasn't even that close.

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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. 

James Stewart's transition to television as star of his own series has not, Cleveland Amory says, been a smooth one. In his previous try, the "unlamented" Jimmy Stewart Show, he played a college professor "with all the authority of a nervous giraffe." Now, as a high-powered country lawyer in the 90-minute Hawkins, airing as part of CBS's new Tuesday Night Movies wheel series, he returns to "the kind of role that made him famous—the barefoot boy with chic." And while he has all the gestures down pat, it's the kind of character that has always had a limited range; "At its best, it makes you nostalgic for some of Mr. Stewart's old films. At its worst, it makes you wonder what you ever saw in them."

We could just stop right here, because this gives you the jist of Cleve's thoughts on Hawkins, but we continue because 1) he has more to say about why he feels this way, and 2) I have two more paragraphs to fill. The problem with a series like Hawkins, is that it plays to all the cliches we've come to expect from shows with a cornpone sense of things. Take Stewart's character, for instance, whose name is Billy Jim Hawinks. (He has a cousin, "R.J.," played by Strother Martin, and a nephew, "Jeremiah," in case we didn't get the point.) As the series is structured, Hawkins is often retained to travel to the big city to defend big shots, which gives it the fish-out-of-water trope of McCloud, plus the aw-shucks jurisprudence that Andy Griffith would put to more effective use in Matlock. Hawkins plays up this angle, which we know is false to start with because otherwise he wouldn't have such a reputation that the big shots hire him instead of, say, F. Lee Bailey. 

The plots don't help out. One involved one of Billy Jim's kinfolk who's killed in a Civil War recreation, and Hawkins not only has to defend the man accused of the crime (who happens to be thoroughly unlikable) but also has to prevent an old feud from flaring up. Even Lew Ayres, who played a Civil War historian, couldn't save this one. Neither could Julie Harris, in another episode that involves a rich old man who's murdered by his much younger wife; "there is," Amory observes, "one time when Billy Jim gets driven off the road," but as far as suspense goes, "that was it." It's all too bad, because James Stewart, throughout his career, gave ample evidence of being able to play a character with a very sharp, and vary dark, edge. Something like that might have helped Hawkins make it past one season, although Stewart himself asked that the show be cancelled becaue he didn't believe the scripts could measure up to the quality he'd been used to working with. It's another case, I fear, of what might have been.

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Two of television's definitive rock music shows, NBC's The Midnight Special and ABC's In Concert, faced off on Friday nights in the early '70s. Whenever the two slug it out, we'll be on hand to see who's better, who's best.

Midnight: Host Smoke Robinson welcomes blues group Paul Butterfield's Better Days, soul artists Eddie Kendricks, Johnny Taylor, Edwin Starr and Ann Peebles, and rock group Grin. Smokey sings "The Tracks of My Tears," "The Tears of a Clown," "Mickey's Monkey," "Show and Tell."

Concert: An all-oldioes show featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Del Shannon, Little Anthony, Freddie Cannon and Rufus Young. Songs include "Great Balls of Fire," "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'" (Lewis), "Runaway," "Handy Man" (Shannon), "Hurt So Bad" (Little Anthony).

The emphasis is on the oldies this week, and the winner depends in large part on what suits your taste. As for me, it'll be tough to beat Del Shannon and The Killer, so the summary is short and sweet: Concert has the fire this week.

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Having looked back at last Saturday's writeup, I think I fell short when it came to looking at what was actually on TV. That doesn't mean it was bad; I wouldn't have given it to you if I'd thought that. But let's see what's up besides the Super Bowl and our rock shows.

It's a big week on the movie front, dominated by a trio of John Wayne classics, foremost among them being with the second showing of The Duke's Oscar-winning turn in True Grit (Sunday, 7:30 p.m., ABC). Judith Crist finds it irrestible, "one of the rip-roaringest, snortingest (and belchingest) entertainments in a long time." It is, she says, "early John Wayne in spirit, the latter-day Wayne in the flesh." The previous night, on the same network, we're treated to the fourth telecast of The Sons of Katie Elder (Saturday, 8:30 p.m.), "still as good-natured and simple-minded as ever," with Wayne as the eldest of the Elder boys, and Dean Martin next in line, "and you can write the script yourself." The week wraps up with the third showing of The Undefeated (Friday, 8:30 p.m., CBS), with Rock Hudson sharing the bill. It's "spiced by brawls, massacres, murders and executions. Just a good clean all-American entertainment." Hey, it works for me. 

It's a tribute to John Wayne's star power that this triple-header relegates to second place the network television premiere of From Russia with Love, the second of the James Bond adventures (Monday, 9:00 p.m., ABC, and what a movie week they're having!), with Sean Connery as dynamic as ever as the superspy, Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya as the heavies, and Daniela Bianchi as "the major sexpot" (although I don't think that's how she appears in the credits. Crist calls it "vintage grown-up nonsense," which is a compliment coming from her. And as if it weren't already a big week for ABC, Wednesday night sees a repeat of 1972's The Night Stalker (8:00 p.m.), "that diverting tale of a vampire stalking Las Vegas," starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, and Carol Lynley in the first of two TV-movies leading to the much-loved Kolchak series. 

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And now for the rest of the week, and though I've mentioned this before, I'll say it again: Saturday night used to be a prime night for television, and on a week-to-week basis nothing surpasses the Murderer's Row CBS schedule, with All in the Family at 8:00 p.m., M*A*S*H T 8:30, Mary Tyler Moore at 9:00, The Bob Newhart Show at 9:30, and The Carol Burnett Show at 10:00; Carol's guests tonight are Eydie Gorme and Paul Sand. Add to that The Sons of Katie Elder on ABC and another Western, The Way West, with Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark on NBC 9:00 p.m.), and you can see why people used to stay home. Why that changed, I'm not sure.

Sunday features one of the most popular episodes of Columbo, "Publish or Perish"  (8:30 p.m., NBC), in which the consummate Columbo villain, Jack Cassidy, returns as a publisher who hires a hitman to bump off his his leading writer (Mickey Spillaine!), who's preparing to move over to another publishing house. Meanwhile, Watergate is going to play out in a big way in 1974, and on Firing Line (10:00 p.m., PBS), host William F. Buckley Jr. and presidential aide Patrick Buchanan discuss the subpoenaed White House tapes, plus media coverage of the scandal.

Avid readers (as well as fans of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry) will remember P.G. Wodehouse as the author of the wonderfully witty Jeeves and Wooster stories (35 short stories and 11 novels, written between 1915 and 1974). Despite their being set in a world that is long gone, however, Wodehouse is still alive and writing at age 92, and on Monday night he's the guest of Bob Cromie on Book Beat (10:30 p.m., PBS), where he reflects on the disappearance of humorous writing and recalls some of his contemporaries, including James Thurber and Dorothy Parker.

The Super Bowl isn't the only stare-studded sports event this week; Tuesday night sees the NBA All-Star Game, live from Seattle (9:30 p.m., CBS). The West Coast locale is, in part, responsible for the late hour of the game's start, but it's also true that the low-rated NBA is no substitute for CBS's regular prime-time lineup, and so the start time allows the network to fit in episodes of Maude and Hawaii Five-O. I doubt that most people remember the game (it was won by the West, 134-123), but they will remember the series that premieres that night on ABC as part of the network's second season: a 50's-inspired sitcom called Happy Days (8:00 p.m.). That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by yet another ABC TV-movie, Mrs. Sundance, a sequel to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Elizabeth Montgomery in the title role, with future husband Robert Foxworth as the man trying to track her down. 

We'll turn to late night for Wednesday's highlight, a 90-minute roast of Steve Allen on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment (11:30 p.m.). The occasion is Allen's 25th year on television, and many former co-stars from his various shows are on hand, including Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Jayne Meadows, Louis Nye, and Tim Conway; George Burns, Buddy Hackett, Rowan & Martin, Jack Carter, and Zsa Zsa Gabor are also on hand. Milton Berle is the roastmaster. I'm happy to report that you can catch it all here.

Thursday sees the debuts of two half-hour dramas on ABC; first, it's Chopper One (8:00 p.m.), with Jim McMullan and Dirk Benedict playing cops in helicopters, and Ted Hartley as their boss. It's a formula good for 13 weeks. That's followed by Firehouse (8:30 p.m.), a modification of that formula, starring James Drury, Richard Jaeckel, and Michael Delano as L.A. firefighters; think Emergency! without the paramedic bit. It's also primed for a 13-week run. Better, I think, to go local with WKBG's airing of the political thriller Seven Days in May (8:00 p.m.), starring Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frederic March, and Ava Gardner.

If you're looking for an alternative to The Duke on Friday night, you can return to ABC for the premiere of The Six Million Dollar Man as a weekly series (8:30 p.m.); formerly, it had been a rotating part of ABC's Movie of the Week, with three telemovies airing in 1973. And, speaking of roasts as we were a moment ago, the final season of Dean Martin's weekly variety series, now on Friday, is best known for the "Man of the Week" celebrity roast; this week, the honoree is baseball's Leo Durocher, with Maury Wills, Dizzy Dean, Bobby Riggs, Alex Karras, Gene Kelly, Chuck Connors, and Foster Brooks among the roasters (10:00 p.m., NBC). Gladys Knight and the Pips are the musical guests. Next season, the celebrity roasts will expand to a full hour and appear as occasional specials.

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The Woman's Lib movement is in full swing in 1974, and perhaps the most dramatic television example comes on Friday, when Boston's WBZ devotes the entire day—not just prime time, but 16 hours, from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., to a live special, Yes, We Can!, "entirely produced and staffed by women, with only women appearing on air, discussing women’s concerns." As you can see from the ad at the left, there's no topic off limits; it sounds much like the kinds of day-long seminars conducted nowadays, with main speakers, breakout sessions, vendors, demonstrations, and various activities from which attendees can pick and choose. A live variety show hosted by entertainment critic Pat Mitchell, featuring only female entertainers (including Helen Reddy and The Labelles) precedes the special at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday. 

It wasn't that long ago that we were marveling at ABC's Africa documentary that took up an entire prime-time in September, 1967, but that was only four hours, not an entire day. The only thing I can think of that compares to this is a telethon, but when you think of it, that's what this amounts to: a telethon raising not funds, but awareness. 

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Finally, to answer the question posed on the cover: why TV is having a crime wave. The answer, according to Paul Klein, is a simple one: it normally takes two years for a show to go from idea to treatment to script to sale. Two years ago, two of the big hits on television were Columbo and Cannon. Producers and networks took notice. And here we are today, with crime shows all over teh place. There's more to it than that, of course, but why make things more complicated than they already are? 

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MST3K alert: The Human Duplicators (1964) Outer-space aliens pose as humans in their plan for conquest. George Nader, Barbara Nichols, George Macready, Richard Arlen, Huge Beaumont, Richard Kiel, Dolores Faith, Tommy Leonetti, Lonnie Satin. Good cast in a so-so sci-fi movie. (Saturday, 11:30 p.m., Channel 5) The description isn't exactly accurate; Richard Kiel plays an alien plotting to create android duplicates to use in the takeover of Earth. But the movie doesn't really matter; what you want to see is the second appearance of "Hugh Beaumont" (Michael J. Nelson), this time griping about how it's always "How's Beaver?" but never "How's Hugh." Worth the price of admission. TV  

Around the dial

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack's first Hitchcock Project of the new year is "Make My Death Bed," a sixth-season episode by "Henry A. Cogge," dealing with a nasty suburban triangle that invariably involves murder.

The "Ann Way Season" continues apace at Cult TV Blog, and this week John visits the British detective series Shoestring and the episode "The Farmer Had a Wife," which features Ann as an informant who triggers a murder investigation.

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence takes note of the 70th anniversary of The Bob Cummings Show, which we know from Hal Horn as Love That Bob. You'll pardon me if I still have difficulty accepting that some of my favorite shows are that old, because it means I'm getting close to being that old myself.

Those Were the Days takes a look back at the career of character actor Hal Smith, whom we probably know best as Otis, the town drunk on The Andy Griffith Show. It shouldn't surprise us that his body of work encompassed many more roles in television, the movies, and voice work.

It's quite possible that you only remember Betty Furness as the commercial spokeswoman for Westinghouse on Studio One, but as Travalanche reminds us, she had a very successful career in movies and television, and did a stint as LBJ's Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger takes on "House of Cards," the second episode of The New Avengers, in which we find Steed in a precarious position, with Purdy needing to stay one step ahead in order to save him.

Finally, it's impossible not to think about the fires currently ravaging the Los Angeles area. I don't know how many of our readers are affected by them, but it warrents a moment or two of consideration. The losses suffered by these poor people is unimaginable—and yes, while it's true that many of them are wealthy, many of them aren't, and most of them have lost everything they have; in a few cases, even their lives. There's every reason to believe that certain officials and their policies bear a responsibility for what is happening, but there's not much most of us can do about that. What we can do, and should do, is pray for the safety of all concerned, and that the fires will be brought under control. It might also be a good idea for us all to take a moment and be grateful for our blessings, for the fact that our lives, regardless of whatever challenges we face, might not be so bad after all. TV  

TV Jibe: The average streaming experience

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What's on TV? Monday, January 8, 1962

Our cover star for the week, Vincent Edwards, stars in tonight's episode of Ben Casey, in which our hero tries to rehab a skid row wineo (Franchot Tone) by putting him to work in the hospital's lab, only to have him make an accident on a lab test that could cost a patient his life. Casey, as Saturday's article pointed out, was not one to tolerate any kind of mistake, so I wonder how he reacts here? Frankly, I'm surprised he'd even take a chance like that. Anyway, I'd recommend keeping with NBC's excellent police drama 87th Precinct, based on the Ed McBain series of books, starring Robert Lansing, or ABC's WB detective mystery Surfside 6, which wasn't great television but was fun to watch. Fortunately, neither of them are on against Casey, so you can have it all from this Eastern New England edition.

This week in TV Guide: January 6, 1962

t's t's once again the start of a new year: 2025 if you're reading this today, 1962 if you were reading it in real time. I like to think of these TV Guide articles as cultural snapshots, giving us a look at what things were like at a given point in time, and if you want to know what was hot at the beginning of 1962, here it is: the Twist. 

The Twist is something of a scandal in the world of dance, as indicated by the headline of this unbylined article, in which Dick Clark and Chubby Checker are referred to as the "culprits" responsible for the Twist's popularity, "and, worse, they seem happy about it all." It was nearly two years ago that the dance, described as a "spine-torturing, dervishlike tribal rite," first began to appear on Clark's American Bandstand, piquing the curiosity of the host. "I'm always watching for new things," Clark explains, "and I asked [the kids] what it was. 'The Twist,' they said. So I looked it up and found Hank Ballard had a record out called 'The Twist.' " Clark decided to import it from Ballard's nightclub act, and recruited a young singer named Chubby Checker to cut a remake of it. It caught on, in Clark's words, "like blue jeans and chino pants," and soon was being danced everywhere from high schools to country clubs, even bar mitzvahs. 

And, with the help of Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun, who introduced a few of his society friends to the dance, it soon spread to the adult set. Next thing anyone knew, there was a "Twist Party" at the posh Manhattan nightspot Four Seasons, and everyone from the Duke and Duchess of Bedford to Elsa Maxwell, Merle Oberon, and Greta Garbo, have been twisting away. "I could pontificate around like the brain boys who've been taking pen in hand over this thing," says Clark, "talk about inhibitions, release of cold-war tensions and all that jazz. But I think it's mostly that adults are beginning to find out how much fun the kids are having." 

Despite its looks, it's actually not a particularly difficult dance to perform, as you can see in the pictures of Chubby (like Fats Domino, "only not so fat") demonstrating the moves, "a twisting of the hips to a rock 'n' roll beat." Notwithstanding that, I'd wind up in traction if I tried to do it, but then sitting at a keyboard doesn't call for much in the way of twisting. As for where it all ends, Clark says that it actually peaked about a year ago, and now is actually staging a revival in the wake of the Bop, the Slop, the Chop, the Mashed Potatoes, and other dances that sound like it came from your local Golden Corral. The always-astute Clark, however, thinks it may have a longer lifespan than usual. "The kids discard such dance fads quickly, but I'm inclined to think the adults won't." 

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One of Cleveland Amorys most anticipated columns of the year was the one in which the reader had his say, praising—or, as is more often the case, excoriating—the critic's opinions throughout the past year. Although we don't have Cleve to kick around yet, we do have Gilbert Seldes, and this week he opens up the mailbag to see what you, the viewer, thought of his views. 

Most of the letters he receives begin by asking him to "shut up" and conclude with "We like the show and we don't care what you think!" These, Seldes says, are the letters he most appreciates. One of America's greatest attributes is that it's a free country, "and the editors of TV Guide have made use of their freedom to give me the freedom to say what I think." This, he acknowledges, may have been a mistake, and he's the first to admit that he's commited a mistake or two (or three) himself. But what is beyond any doubt is that he's free to make such mistakes. What is also beyond doubt is that, no matter what he says about whatever program he may be reviewing, he'll get ten letters from people who disagree with him. But when it comes to being a critic, there's one simple fact: "No matter what program you like, there are two or three times as many peole who like something else better." Furthermore, "[t]here are probably 40 million people, not professional critics, who don't particularly like the program you are crazy about." And their letters "give me exactly the same kind of pain I give the readers of this page at times." 

But before we turn this into some kind of Barneyesque "I don't like you, you don't like me" moment, Seldes gets to the point: "one of the most agreeable aspects of our freedom comes in the letters readers write to me, telling me to keep my trap shut." After all, if he's free to tell us what he thinks, it's only fair that we have the same opportunity. One of the problems we face in America these days is that we're really not free to disagree with each other anymore, because our disagreements get so disagreeable. We don't take them as an opportunity to teach each other, or to learn from each other. We view disagreement as chance to prove our superiority versus someone else's inferiority. And let's be honest: where's the fun in that? There isn't any, which is part of what makes modern culture just as disagreeable as our own disagreements. That is what Gilbert Seldes is really writing about here, from a past that was far more open to discussion than ours is. Whereas we are, today, too prone to think that opinions other than ours should be silenced, Seldes thinks just the opposite. To those who say he should keep his "trap shut," his response is a simple one: "I won't." But, he adds, "I'm glad they don't."

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And now, here's something I think we can all agree on: that Suzanne Pleshette, according to Troy Donahue, sets "bells ringing." Not only is she a dark-haired beauty of smoldering good looks, she's a very talented actress who throws herself into her work with enthusiasm, and gets nervous when she isn't working. "Luckily I've had only 10 days off since I started four years ago."

She's worked with the likes of old-time stars Victor Jory, Mary Astor, and Mildred Dunnock on anthologies such as Playhouse 90. ("I've never done a TV show I didn't like.") She's worked with Roddy McDowall, Eli Wallach and Tom Poston on Broadway. And she's now making her way into movies, having appeared in The Geisha Boy with Jerry Lewis, and Rome Adventure with Angie Dickinson and the aforementioned Troy Donahue (whom she'll marry and divorce in 1964). As if that weren't enough, she's working on writing a novel; I don't know if it was ever published, although she did write several screenplays under a pseudonym. No wonder she's considered a "non-conformist" and "secret thinker" in Hollywood.

I would have included this brief feature on her regardless, but considering what we previously noted in Gil Seldes' review, I think this quote from a 2006 interview Pleshette gave with the Television Academy is quite prescient: "We're losing manners. We're losing style. We're losing kindness. A lot of it is happening as a result of the television we're doing and the characters we're willing to play that reflect a piece of human nature. But it's done over and over because it gets laughs or because it's dramatically interesting. What's the actor's obligation to make the world a better place?" What, indeed?

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The NFL season ended last weekend, with the Green Bay Packers defeating the New York Giants on New Year's Eve, but that doesn't quite mean that we're done with football. On Saturday, we have one of the most pointless, unimportant games ever thought up by the NFL: the Play Off Bowl (1:45 p.m., CBS), pitting the second-place teams from the East and West. Granted, the purpose of the game was to raise money for the players' pension fund, so it served a charitable purpose, but what football player wants to put his health on the line in a game that was originally called the Runner-Up Bowl? At that, the game was played for ten years, from 1961 to 1970, at the Orange Bowl in Miami. Today's contestants are the Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lions, with the Lions winning 38-10. They hold the dubious record of having won the first three Play Off Bowls, meaning they were always a bridesmaid, never a bride. On Sunday, the AFL engages in a similarly meaningless game, the inaugural All-Star Game, live from San Diego (3:30 p.m., ABC), with the West All-Stars coming out on top of the East, 47-27.

We've also got a couple of college all-star games on-hand, games that were more important back in the days before specialized scouting and ad nauseam bowl games, because they provided an opportunity for college players to display their talents to viewers and scouts alike. On Saturday, North and South stars face-off in the Senior Bowl from Mobile, Alabama (3:00 p.m., NBC). For the players participating, it's their first "professional" game, as the winners receive $600 each, the losers $500. Of course, that isn't even meal money for these guys today, more credit to them. Sunday sees a game that even I'd never heard of, played (to the best of my knowledge) only once: the U.S. Bowl (2:00 p.m., NBC), with the players drafted by East Division NFL teams playing against those drafted by West Division NFL teams. Yes, back then the draft was held right at the end of the season, rather than being held over until April the way it is today. 

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There's a strong whiff of nostalgia in this week's issue, and not just because we're looking back at it from the perspective of 63 years. On Sunday night, the DuPont Show of the Month presents "Hollywood—My Home Town" (10:00 p.m., NBC), a one-hour documentary based on the famous 16mm home movie collection taken by vaudeville comedian Ken Murray, who in 1927 began documenting his Hollywood experiences, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that virtually everyone who was anyone showed up in Murray's movies, often in candid moments, including W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Leslie Howard, Carole Lombard, Jack Lemmon, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Mary Pickford, Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Elizabeth Taylor, Bob Hope, Glenn Ford, and others. If Hollywood had a scrapbook, this would be it.

That's followed on Friday by "The Good Years" (8:30 p.m., CBS), a 90-minute Westinghouse Presents variety special based on the very good book by historian Walter Lord, author of the definitive Titanic book A Night to Remember. Covering the years 1900-1914, the show, produced by Leland Hayward and directed by Franklin Schaffner, features Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, and Mort Sahl using skits, songs, recreations, photograps, and cartoons to review the major events of the day. And there were plenty of significant events over those 14 years, from the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk to Teddy Roosevelt becoming president, with figures such as Einstein, Freud, and Lenin thrown in. (As you can see, one of the events that occurred was the adoption of the income tax, which just proves that the word "Good" can be relative.) As remarkable as these two programs are, what might be even more remarkable is that both of them still exist, and can be viewed at those YouTube links. Interesting that while the shows presented a nostalgic look-back in 1962, they themselves are nostalgia for us today.

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Contrasting articles on two of television's stars, Vincent Edwards and Michael Landon. At age 25, Landon, according to our unbylined profile, has what one producer called "the most highly intuitive set of natural acting responses I've seen in a young actor." He's seen laughing and joking on the Bonanza set, seemingly unconcerned about an upcoming, highly-charged death scene, only to transform himself as the camera rolls, becoming so involved in the scene that genuine tears roll down his cheeks, and leaving his co-stars too shaken to speak. After a moment to regain his composure, he's off again, with a reference to the deceased character's love life that was "so irreverent, so hilarious (and so unprintable) that they are still talking about it around Paramount studios."

On the other hand we have Vince Edwards, star of ABC's first-year medical series Ben Casey, described by Bobby Darin as "a combination of Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster." He's a man who, in Robert de Roos's cover story, is absolutely "dedicated" to his work. "I couldn't have stuck to it for 12 years unless I had the same sort of fanaticism Ben Casey has for medicine." Unlike Landon, who seems to be able to turn it on whenever required, Edwards often mirrors the intense, almost surly demeanor of his character. Says co-star Nick Dennis of the similarities between actor and role, "They're both educated peasants, Casey and Vince Edwards. That's the most dangerous kind."

Away from work, Landon raises tropical fish, loves DIY projects, and adores his family. "Acting?" he says. "Sure. I can still get hold of those emotions when I need 'em. But I also like the financial security. Just say I have the family I always loved and wanted." Edwards is a "nut" about many things, from flying ("I used to fly my own plane" but gave it up because of his responsibilities on the show) to sports, working out, and "any kind of excitement," but rarely has time due to the intense filming schedule of Casey; unlike Landon, who is just one member of an ensemble cast, Edwrds is in every scene, every day. "It's a grind, but I've waited for it and I like it." 

It's so interesting looking at the two men in retrospect. There were other things that Edwards was a "nut" about, including his addiction to gambling, which caused him to gain a reputation as "one of the most difficult stars now working on television." leading co-star Sam Jaffe to leave the series, fed up with Edwards' distractions. He makes another attempt at series television after Casey ends, but Matt Lincoln fails to make it past its first season.

And Landon, the dedicated family man, will divorce his wife Dodie later in 1962, and marries twice more before his death in 1991. He, too, gains a reputation for being strong-willed, both on- and off-set. However, unlike Edwards, Landon's television career seems to go from one hit to another: Bonanza to Little House on the Prairie to Highway to Heaven.

All of this is in the future, however. For now, Vincent Edwards and Michael Landon remain two young stars of tremendous talent, with varying reputations that somewhat belie their real lives. But after all, Hollywood is a place of dreams, where reality often takes a back seat. And as someone once said, if sin showed on a man's face, there would be no mirrors. TV  

Around the dial

We start off the new year by looking back 50 years, to 1975, as David continues his Comfort TV voyage through television of the 1970s andTuesday nights in 1975. It's the beginning of ABC's dominance in the ratings, and with shows like Happy Days and Welcome Back Kotter, it's not hard to see why. But don't ignore Police Story and Good Times.

The "Ann Way Season" continues at Cult TV Blog, and this week, John looks at The Dick Emery Show, which ran on British TV from 1963 to 1981, and Ann's appearance in the episode "The Daily Grind." If you like Benny Hill, it sounds as if Dick Emery might be your kind of show.

Cult TV Lounge returns to the world of TV tie-in novels, in this case Michael Avallone's novel The Blazing Affair, based on The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. It tells a tale of baddies trying to revive the Third Reich, and has a somewhat more serious tone than the TV series itself.

At Drunk TV, Jason reviews the 2020 telemovie A Ring for Christmas, one of those wretched Christmas movies that pollute our TV screens; this one presents one of those absurd plots that, taken in limited doses, can make for good fun. Not for me, perhaps, but not everyone's like me!

The View from the Junkyard wrapped up The Avengers a while ago, but not to fear: they've moved on to The New Avengers! Its first episode, "The Eagle's Nest," introduces Steed's new sidekicks, and it's a nice continuation in tone from the old series.

Travalanche celebrates "Science Fiction Day" (January 2) with a look at TV's kid-oriented sci-fi shows of the late '40s and early '50s. As was the case with TV Westerns, the sci-fi genre would eventually become more adult-oriented, but here are eight that are still fun.

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence pays tribute to the late Linda Lavin, who died last week at 87. Although she's most-known for her starring role in Alice, she had a long career on Broadway and television, and Terence looks at some of the many highlights.

Cliff Norton was one of those character actors you might not recognize by name, but you may recall him when you see one of his many TV appearances. Those Were the Days gives us a capsule look at some of his roles, on shows from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Green Acres.

There was something magic about doing live television, and at The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew gives us an excerpt from a 1963 essay in which Norman Mailer writes about how the end of live TV meant the loss of a particular connection with viewers. Something to think about. TV  

Childhood memories: The Wallace and Ladmo Show, a guest article by Lon Davis

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm delighted to start the new year off with a guest article by my friend Lon Davis. You may recognize his name from my review of his delightful book Stumbling into Film History; today he's here to share his memories of the legendary Phoenix children's show, The Wallace and Ladmo Show, which aired in Phoenix from 1954 to 1989. I'll now get out of the way and hand the controls over to Lon—take it away!

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One of the advantages of being a kid in Phoenix, Arizona, from the fifties through the eighties, was a daily children’s television program called The Wallace and Ladmo Show. Airing live at four o’clock on station KPHO, Channel 5, it began with a nonsensical theme song, the title and lyrics of which are "Ho Ho, Ha Ha, Hee Hee, Ha Ha," by Mike Condello. The series, I later discovered, began its long reign in January 1954 as It’s Wallace?, a cartoon show hosted by Bill Thompson, a somewhat nondescript-looking twenty-three-year-old former New Yorker in a loud Hawaiian shirt. Shortly thereafter he was joined onscreen by Ladimir Kwiatkowski, one of the station’s cameramen. Ohio-born Ladimir was a gifted baseball player, gifted enough to be scouted by the Cleveland Indians. Thankfully, he chose entertainment over professional sports. Now established as Wallace’s onscreen sidekick, he was identified by his nickname, Ladmo. When in character, he wore a top hat and a long black coat, and printed on his white T-shirt was a drawing of a psychedelic necktie. Although Ladmo was then in his early thirties, he acted more like a kid than most kids. He had a love of life that was infectious, and a wide grin to match it. Wallace, the more serious of the two, eventually settled on a bowler hat and a sport coat, with an actual necktie.

Although essentially the show’s resident straight man, Wallace occasionally parodied the station manager as the curmudgeonly Mr. Grudgemeyer, with whom Ladmo had an antagonistic relationship. The pantomime skits they performed were reminiscent of Laurel & Hardy’s slapstick "tit-for-tat" routine. The austere setting was that of a park, with a vaudeville-style painted backdrop and a park bench in the foreground. Enter Mr. Grudgemeyer, a strange-looking man with a curly black wig, googly eyes, a walrus mustache, a striped jacket, and wearing a boater hat. He appears exhausted as he carries a bag of groceries and plops down on the bench. Desiring a snack, he reaches into the bag and removes a single-layer cake, which he gingerly places beside him. Ladmo appears, tips his hat in greeting, and sits down uninvited, inadvertently squashing the cake. Mr. Grudgemeyer retaliates by emptying the bag completely, blowing it up like a balloon, and popping it loudly in Ladmo’s ear. It all unfolds in a wildly exaggerated manner, culminating in a chaotic battle of reciprocal destruction. Portraying the station manager as an odious cretin must have been cathartic for Thompson. When asked years later if there was a down side to doing the show, he answered, "Yeah, the money. Those cheapskates at Channel Five!"  

More dramatic conflict arrived in 1960 with a new cast member, the villainous Gerald. This was former Kansan Pat McMahon, a twenty-five-year-old disc jockey who had played a supporting role in his parents’ vaudeville dance act. As for Gerald, he was a somewhat androgenous spoiled rich kid (and reputedly the station manager’s nephew), who wore oversized eyeglass frames and a blond page-boy wig. Designed to elicit outright disdain from the show’s youthful viewers, Gerald was a sociopath whose unholy purpose was to get rid of Wallace and Ladmo and take over the show. This example of the Theatre of the Absurd—a grown man acting like a bratty school-aged child who wears a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit—brings to mind Joe Besser’s "Stinky" character on The Abbott and Costello Show. 

It was hardly the only unspoken reference to that comedy team. Remember the "moving candle bit" in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein? Lou, the short fat one, sees the candle slide atop Dracula’s coffin, indicating that the lid is slowly opening. Bud, the tall skinny one, doesn’t see it, and he rebukes his partner for insisting that the candle moved. In their version of this nightmarish dynamic, Wallace and Ladmo might be sitting next to each other, possibly reading a newspaper. Unbeknownst to Wallace, Gerald sneaks up behind him with a blunt object and conks him on the head, followed by his quick exit. With no one else in sight, Wallace, the clueless authority figure, automatically blames Ladmo for the sudden assault. This bit was done with innumerable variations over the years and it never ceased to provoke the horde of kids in the studio audience. In a sincere attempt to alert Wallace to this ongoing injustice, I sent in a drawing I made of a menacing Gerald holding a bat over an oblivious Wallace’s head. Wallace showed the picture on the air, commenting incredulously about the scene it depicted. At one point, he accidentally dropped the piece of paper and, when he bent to retrieve it, Gerald made a face and shook his fist directly at the camera—directly at me. This was interactive television at its best! In my naïveté, however, I was disappointed that my drawing hadn’t convinced Wallace of Ladmo’s innocence or of Gerald’s treachery. Clearly, it was too surefire a bit to drop from the act.

 

The hour-long program wasn’t made up entirely of such routines; it also featured a host of cartoons, from Bugs Bunny and Popeye to the more recent Roger Ramjet, voiced by my future good friend Gary Owens. Another sizeable chunk of the show was devoted to commercials, usually for kid-friendly food items, with Ladmo as pitchman. He was highly effective, as I recall, so much so that my younger brother Chris and I insisted our mother specifically buy Cudahy Bar-S brand hot dogs, Shasta soda pop, and snack cakes called Zingers, featuring the mega-popular Peanuts characters on the wrappers. And then there was the Holy Grail, the coveted Ladmo Bag. This was basically a small brown paper sack filled with chips, cans of soda, candy, and coupons for area businesses. Beginning in the mid-sixties, scads of Ladmo Bags were handed out to those kids whose names were picked at random in daily drawings and as contest prizes. Chris and I actually prayed the Rosary before bedtime in the hopes of winning one. (Today, empty, original Ladmo Bags sell on eBay for hundreds of dollars. "Nostalgia," as a friend of mine recently said, "ain’t cheap.")

In addition to his vivid portrayal of Gerald, the versatile Pat McMahon played secondary characters such as Captain Super. Explained McMahon: "A superhero on The Wallace and Ladmo Show need only be two things: not super in any way, nor a hero." His tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the vain, terribly insecure Captain Super, who wore football-player’s shoulder pads under his jersey to replicate muscles, was awfully funny. So were Marshall Good, a washed-up B-Western actor, and Boffo, a depressed, down-and-out clown. His old-lady character Aunt Maude was an imitation of Johnny Carson’s Aunt Blabby, which was itself an imitation of Jonathan Winters’s Maude Frickert.

While little kids accepted these characters at face value, teens and adults appreciated them for their subversive humor. Rock star Alice Cooper and Steven Spielberg, both residents of Phoenix, were dedicated viewers. As Spielberg said in an interview, “The show was Saturday Night Live before Saturday Night Live and Second City before Second City." Even Orson Welles, the legendary filmmaker responsible for Citizen Kane, was a fan, particularly of Pat McMahon’s work. Welles, who was stationed for a time in the Phoenix area while making The Other Side of the Wind, even gave the television actor a one-line cameo in his film-in-progress. McMahon, a dedicated cineaste who idolized Welles, was thrilled. He moonlighted one summer by hosting a television movie program, introducing such timeless classics as Lost Horizon, Arsenic and Old Lace, Key Largo, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and White Heat. No one else in my age group seemed to be watching, which made me feel like a lone adventurer, digging in the studio vaults to rediscover these diamonds of cinematic art.

Wallace and his partners-in-comedy were clearly dedicated to their fan base. In addition to creating five hour-long episodes per week, they made personal appearances on weekends at such local venues as charity events, children’s hospitals, the Legend City theme park and the Christown movie theatre. The latter was a Saturday matinee aimed at kids, with door prizes, a stage show, a feature film, popcorn and a Coke, and all for fifty cents. Chris and I always showed up early to locate adjoining seats in the packed movie theater. The films we saw in that free-wheeling environment remain favorites to this day, including The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. They also occasionally showed Robert Youngson’s wonderful silent film compilations, such as The Golden Age of Comedy, featuring hilarious scenes from the brilliant two-reel shorts produced in the 1920s by Mack Sennett and Hal Roach. It may have been educational, but we were laughing too hard to notice.

 

The show’s three leads had the talent to move to a national market, but they realized that what they had in Phoenix was unique. They actually looked forward to going to work each day, putting on those familiar costumes and exciting their audience, both on the air and in the studio. Long after I stopped watching the show in the early seventies, they were entertaining a new generation of kids, and they continued doing so until the program’s final taping, on December 29, 1989. A devastated Gerald appeared alone on the set to say goodbye. He tearfully admitted that Wallace and Ladmo were his friends, his only friends in fact, a statement that must surely have dampened the eyes of thousands of longtime viewers. 

Ladimir "Ladmo" Kwiatkowski, a married man with five children, died of cancer at the age of sixty-five in 1994. Also a family man, Bill "Wallace" Thompson died of undisclosed causes in 2014; he was eighty-two. As of this writing, Pat McMahon ► is still with us at eighty-nine, hosting a television talk show on AZTV. He has stated proudly that he, Bill, and Ladmo never had a single argument in all their years of working together; there was only mutual respect and much shared laughter. The Wallace and Ladmo Show has gone down in history as the longest-lasting, and the most beloved, local children’s television show in American broadcasting. It won numerous awards, including nine regional Emmys, and some of the ten thousand episodes are still rerun on Phoenix television. Individual clips from the show have been posted on YouTube. 

When looking back to that simpler time, I am grateful for the fond memories and for the love those three gentlemen showed their fans, both young and old alike.

Lon Davis is a film historian, author, editor, documentarian, and lecturer. Originally from Upstate New York, he and his family were residents of Phoenix between 1969–1974. He and Debra LaCoe, his wife and co-author of more than forty-years, currently reside in the Pacific Northwest. Lon’s brother Chris, an RN, and his wife Jennifer live in Southern California; they have three grown sons.

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Thanks again, Lon; hopefully we'll see more from you in the future. Do any of you out there remember Wallace and Ladmo? If so, or if you have memories of the kids' shows you grew up with, share them in the comments! TV