For example, there was a recent report on "how cereal manufacturers are increasing the amount of nutrients in their products," which included a clip of a production line showing vitamins added to the cereal mixture. This report was seen by an estimated 11 million people on 100 stations nationwide. And, oh-by-the-way, it was sponsored by the Cereal Institute, the trade group of cereal manufacturers. And then there was the feature on the Plymouth National Trouble-shooting Contest, held in Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas. The competition "pits teams of high school auto mechanics against one another to see which can find and fix an auto-repair problem most quickly." Millions of viewers saw this film which was sponsored by Chrysler, manufacturer of Plymouth cars. And so on.
These one-minute segments, which spring up in big- and small-market stations alike, from independents to network O&O stations, "capitalize on the objective news around them to plug, plead or simply image-build for the clients who pay for them." In some cases, a station will run a caption on the film identifying the source or identifying the source verbally; other times, a station will run the footage with no attribution whatsoever. The Federal Communications Commission, much in the news lately, has a rule against such things (which is why you see those "valuable consideration" messages at the end of game shows), but it's never been applied specifically to newscasts, except in the cases of information provided by politicians or other groups "promoting controversial causes."
Kiester stresses that it's not easy getting such planted items into newcasts; news directors are wary of items they can't verify (imagine that!), and many stay away from them altogether. However, it's also true that directors often get bombarded with these kinds of clips, and there's often too little time to vet each one. As Dean Reeter, news director of KRCR in Redding, California, says, "I don't philosophically say no to unsolicited material. I'd be foolish not to look at another source of material." There's no agreement on whether or not use of such clips is increasing or decreasing, although as news budgets shrink, anything that "diminishes the necessity of putting on more personnel is a help." Most directors say the real rule of thumb they use is "whether they'd have filmed the event for themselves had they been able to send their own crew."
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.
On special occasions, we get to take a simultaneous look at three of the great rock music shows of the pre-MTV era: NBC's The Midnight Special, ABC's In Concert, and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Let's look at this week's listings and see who's better, who's best.
Kirshner: Rory Gallagher, Electric Flag, Steeleye Span, and comic Robert Klein are the guests. Selections include "Million Miles Away," "Who's That Comin'," "Every Now and Then."
Sunday's centerpiece is the television premiere of The Last Picture Show (9:00 p.m., ABC), Peter Bogdanovich's adaptation of the Larry McMurtry best seller (who also co-wrote the screenplay), which transcends what Judith Crist calls "The Winter of '52" type of storytelling to become a movie that exhibits "sensitivity, taste, intellectual honesty and intelligence [that] distinguish[s] their work from then warmed-over nostalgic schmaltz that has become the commerce of recent years." Its story combines coming-of-age elements with a time of societal decadence, using as a metaphor the closing of a small town movie house. The cast includes Oscar winners Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman, along with Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Eileen Brennan, Cybill Shepherd, and Ellyn Burstyn, who combine to produce "an outstanding American film by one of our top young talents." For my money, it should have won Best Picture over The French Connection, but what do I know? On the other hand, you might just decide to check out after watching The Sonny Comedy Revue (8:00 p.m., ABC), with Sonny's guests Barbara Eden, James Brolin, and the Temptations. YMMV.
ABC's Tuesday Movie of the Week (8:30 p.m.) is, well, impossible to pass up. I mean, look at the ad; would you not take a chance on Yvette Mimieux as a Hit Lady? She's Angela Villard, "a successful artist who works part time as a ruthless syndicate assassin." And she never misses. Hell of a part-time job, isn't it? I wonder if she ever ran into Chuck Barris during her assignments? (By the way, Mimeaux also wrote the script.) And speaking of professional hits, an explosive Hawaii Five-O (9:00 p.m., CBS) features William Windom as a senator who's the victim of a bomb threat—a threat that was apparently made by the senator himself. The fool, to think that he could pull the wool over Steve McGarrett's eyes.
Speaking of sports as we were earlier, Thursday sees the second episode of one of the best and most delightful series PBS has ever had to offer: The Way it Was (8:00 p.m.), with sportscasting great Curt Gowdy hosting a look back at great moments in sports history. Tonight's show (view it here) recalls the famous 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants, the first sudden-death playoff game in history; it's often called "the greatest football game ever played," and was unquestionably one of the games that put professional football on the map. Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore, Frank Gifford, Kyle Rote, and Charlie Conerly are the legends who join Gowdy*. Back in the days before the internet, when it was near impossible to see clips from old sporting events, The Way it Was was one of the few places where one could revisit these classic contests. I loved this series; I don't think I ever missed an episode.
MST3K alert: Last of the Wild Horses (1948). Strong Oregon scenics and a punchy finale brawl help this standard tale of a ranchers' war. James Ellison. (Saturday, 2:30 p.m., WSBK in Boston) A rare incursion into the Western genre for MST3K, it's probably better remembered for an outrageous host segment parody of the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror," in which Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank are forced to riff the movie while Tom Servo and Gypsy try to rescue Mike and Crow from the alternate universe. Considering the movie that awaits them, I'm not sure they really want to return. TV
Kiester points out that there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to improve one's public image; as well, many of the items discussed in these "commercials" are legitimately of interest to the public. It's also often the case that local stations face obstacles to acquiring such footage themselves; in the case of a recent natural gas fire in California, only specially equipped film crews from PG&E were able to get close enough to film it. And need we mention that it offers a terrific return on investment? "For as little as $3500, a businessman can get his message in the hands of 200 of the Nation's 934 TV stations and, according to most industry estimates, can expect 50-60 per cent of them to use it." Most of these clips are more interested in building a positive image, rather than getting involved in a controversial issue or plugging a particular product.
If all this sounds a little familiar, as if you'd been aware of it even without reading this article, it's probably because it's still going on. Back a few years ago, Sinclair Broadcast Group was fined $13.3 million by the FCC "for running over 1,700 commercials designed to look like news broadcasts over a six-month period without properly identifying them as paid content." In addition, Sinclair has been known for producing scripted news segments that are then labeled "must-run" on news broadcasts at the stations owned by the broadcast giant. Unlike some of the plants discussed above, many, if not most, of these scripted stories do contain a hard political message, one that leans to the right. (There was a wonderful compilation video showing dozens of news anchors, all reading verbatim the same story.) And then, who among us hasn't seen an infomercial or two that's been tricked up to look like a news story. (Considering the falling trustworthiness of television news, though, that may not be such an asset anymore.)
You can make of this what you will. Money talks, and nowadays it seems as if everything and everyone is up for sale, so I'll go back to the follow-the-money mantra. And, as we always say around here, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
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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. Cleveland Amory is back on the soap opera beat this week with the NBC sudser How to Survive a Marriage, and given that the series ran a little over 15 months, I think we can safely say that many, many marriages survived for a longer stretch. Considering that it aims, in Amory's words, to "be different" (aimed at "the young marrieds and divorcees, people in their early 30s—you know, the old folks."), it could perhaps more accurately have been called How to Survive a Bad Idea the Viewers Didn't Want.
We could see the difference in the very first episode, a 90-minute gargantuan edition that, in Cleve's words, "seemed to reach for a new high in the new low, or anything goes, trend." A sample: "Chris gives a birthday party for her husband Larry, and in waltzes, or rather frugs, Sandra from the 'curculation' department in Larry's office. In the living room, Larry catches Sandra's pass, and Chris intercepts. After the party, there is a scene. Larry goes to Sandra's and immediately gets very sleepy. There is a bed scene that is not only explicit, but also, by TV standards, bare." But there's more, including a later scene in which "Larry gets sleep again, and this time he goes to bed with Chris. (You remember—his wife.)" This attempt at reconciliation falls flat, though (so to speak); "They can't, he tells her, communicate. Our theory is that they can't take the dialogue lying down." Larry eventually leaves Chris for Sandra, but even here, says Amory, storm clouds are on the horizon: "For one thing, he thinks she is washing his shirts, while in reality she sends them to the cleaners." (If that doesn't scream "new generation," I don't know what does.) Furthermore, she wants a serious relationship with Larry, and a friend advisers her to talk to him and see if "what you have is worth salvaging." Amory's observation: Chris would be better off to "hire a deep-sea diver."*
*There's also an article this week by Steve Elmore, the original Peter Willis before he was replaced; Elmore's article gives us a behind-the-scenes view of a program in shambles: drawing the wrong audience (teens instead of divorced women), cast and personnel changes, and fading morale. Frankly, I'm surprised the show made it for even 15 months.
This brief review barely scratches the surface of How to Survive a Marriage, though, and it's fortunate for all concerned that the star of the show is psychiatrist Julie Franklin, played by soap opera veteran Rosemary Prinz. And it's a good thing, too, Amory affirms, for his show really needs a psychiatrist. "Not for the characters, but for the writers." It's all a bit too much for Amory, and for the viewers too, it would appear; while some of the women are "fairly interesting," the men are almost uniformly grumpy. "Maybe they should try another profession, like say, becoming critics. You know, where you're supposed to be grumpy."
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Kirshner: Rory Gallagher, Electric Flag, Steeleye Span, and comic Robert Klein are the guests. Selections include "Million Miles Away," "Who's That Comin'," "Every Now and Then."
Concert: Anne Murray (hostess), rock-and-roll singer Suzi Quatro, and the Spnners and Ohio Players soul groups are the guests. Songs include "Just One Look," "You Won't See Me," "Son of a Rotten Gambler" (Anne); "48 Crash," "All Shook Up" (Suzi); "Mighty Love," "I'm Coming Home," "Love Don't Love Nobody" (Spinners).
Special: Jose Feliciano (host), Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jesse Colin Young, the rock group Hot Tuna, and Main Ingredient soul artists. Songs: "My Sweet Lord," "Golden Lady," "Love's Theme," "Chico and the Man," TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" (Jose); "I Can't Take it No More," That's the Way You Fall in Love" (Buffy).
For only the third time that we've been doing these TV Guide reviews, we have all three music shows on hand, so if you can't find anything here to your liking, you've no one to blame but yourself. Of course, I blame myself for things quite frequently, so it's anyone's guess how this is going to turn out. One way to distract myself from this decision is to look at the lineup on Soul Train (Friday, 10:00 p.m., WSBK), which features Marvin Gaye, Al Green, the Jackson 5, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Johnny Mathis, the O'Jays, Smokey Robinson, Sly and the Family Stone, the Staple Singers, and Tower of Power. An easy winner, right? This, however, is not an option, since Soul Train is neither Kirshner, In Concert, or Midnight Special. Given this choice, therefore, while each program has its advantages, I'll give the nod to Jose and the Special, even though it may be just kind of special.
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Saturday sees the beginning of Major League Baseball's League Championship Series. For those of you too young to remember, there was a time when only four teams qualified for the baseball postseason: the two division winners from each league. It made the playoffs kind of special, a concept (one among many) that baseball seems to have forgotten about over the years. At any rate, Oakland and Baltimore are the combatants in the American League, while Los Angeles faces off with Pittsburgh in the National. (I know, some of those teams seem strange to see in the postseason, too.) The action begins at 1:00 p.m. ET on NBC with the National League opener, live from Pittsburgh, followed at 4:00 p.m. by the American League curtain-raiser from Oakland. At this rate, the World Series will easily conclude before Thanksgiving!
Half of the Rat Pack—Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford—star in Salt and Pepper on NBC's Monday Night at the Movies (9:00 p.m.) The duo (Davis plays Salt and Lawford is Pepper, and we're supposed to laugh because, you know, we'd expect the black guy to be named after the black condiment and the white guy—well, you get the joke. Ha ha.) play a pair of gamblers trying to crack a murder committed at their club. Don't let that lame premise fool you, though; it's actually a pretty good movie, with a crisp script by Michael Pertwee* and entertaining performances by the two stars; even Judith Crist likes it, and that says a lot.
*Brother of Doctor Who star Jon Pertwee.
Wednesday's highlight is a Bing Crosby special that's not Christmas-oriented, even though Der Bingle does sing "White Christmas." It's Bing Crosby and His Friends (9:00 p.m., CBS), and his friends include Bob Hope, Pearl Bailey and Sandy Duncan. Notwithstanding Crosby's long association with Hope, it's further proof (as if we needed it) that there was no such thing as a variety special that Bob Hope wouldn't do. And while we've already got our MST3K feature for the week (see below), here's one that should have been on the show: the 1974 TV movie Locusts, which includes "a swarm of grasshoppers threatening to destroy an entire town's harvest; and a local boy who needs to prove he's a man, not a coward." (8:30 p.m., ABC) It just goes to show you what you get when you cross Svengoolie with an Afterschool Special.
*Unitas, Berry, Moore, and Gifford are all today in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and Gowdy is in the American Sportscasters Hall of Fame. What a collection of talent.
And it's hard to find a better way to bring down the curtain on our broadcasting week than with a repeat presentation of John Wayne's Oscar-winning performance in True Grit (8:30 p.m., ABC). Kim Darby and Glen Campbell co-star, and of course I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that the Cohn brothers' remake of True Grit won an Oscar for none other than one of the stars of The Last Picture Show, Jeff Bridges. Funny how those things work, isn't it? Later on, Police Woman (10:00 p.m., NBC) investigates two crimes that may or may not be related: "the rape of a socialite, and the murder—and possible rape—of a trollop." (Trollop: don't you just love that word? You seldom see as part of the modern vocabulary, and more's the pity. Here's a challenge: try and work it into a part of your normal conversation today.) What do you want to bet Pepper has to go undercover in this one?
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We've talked before about how syndicated reruns of series often went by different names if the original series was still in first-run on a network. Two of the more innocuous were Happy Days Again and Laverne & Shirley & Company, while The Rockford Files went by Jim Rockford, Private Investigator, Marcus Welby, M.D. was known as Robert Young, Family Doctor, and Ward Bond's Wagon Train episodes were called Major Adams, Trailmaster.
With Ironside still wheeling along on NBC, the syndicated episodes were shown under the title The Raymond Burr Show, which, to my way of thinking, was slightly off; after all, everyone knows that the real Raymond Burr show was Perry Mason. Be that as it may, I think WTEV in New Bedford handles it all pretty well, don't you? Notice how it draws the eye to the name of the character, rather than the show itself. Bloody genius, as our friends from across the pond might say.
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