Around the dial

Our opening feature this week comes from bare-bones e-zine, where Jack's Hitchcock Project looks at the sixth-season episode "Self Defense" by John T. Kelley, starring George Nader, Audrey Totter, and Bob Paget, and including some interesting unanswered questions.

David brings Comfort TV to 1976, with his review of Sunday night programming. Some solid shows: 60 Minutes, Kojak, The Six Million Dollar Man, Disney, and the Sunday Mystery Movie. Some not so: The Big Event, Cos, Delvecchio. Another great look back.

Cult TV Blog continues the "Sylvia Coleridge Season," and this week John arrives at the 1986 BBC TV movie The Good Doctor Bodkin Adams, a drama about one of Britain's most notorious serial killers, with as many as 300 victims to his credit. If this is news to you, as it was to me, it's worth checking out.

You'll remember my traumatic years living in the World's Worst Town™, where I was held hostage in a town with one commercial TV channel; well, this week at Mavis Movie Madness, Paul looks at another of those movies I heard of but never got to see, the 1978 teleflick Deadman's Curve, the story of Jan and Dean.

At Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick shares seven things to know about Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The first season and a half, with its Cold War overtones, was consistently good; the last two and a half, which featured lots of monsters and weird things, not so much. But it's still one of my favorites for a fun evening. 

Two highlights from A Shroud of Thoughts: first, Terence remembers Denise Alexander, the soap opera legend who was also a frequent guest star on television in the 1960s and 70s; then, it's a celebration of the Muppets and their television debut, 70 years ago. Man, do I feel old.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger's latest turn on The A-Team is "Pros and Cons," which features a perfect example of the "Chekhov's gun" trope. Oh, by the way, it's also a pretty good episode, with some particularly violent scenes.

Finally, the latest episode of American TV with Mitchell Hadley is up, a fun episode in which Dan Schneider and I compare lists of the ten most significant moments in TV history. There was very little overlap, although many of them were complimentary, which makes it even more fun. TV  

Love That Bob: A 70th anniversary celebration

Today I'm pleased to welcome Hal Horn to "It's About TV" for a look at the 70th anniversary of Love That Bob, also known as The Bob Cummings Show. You'll recognize Hal from his blog The Horn Section, where he's demonstrated his status over the years as an expert on F Troop and Hondo, among other shows; this week we'll benefit from his expertise on Bob Cummings, one of the most popular television stars of the era, reflected in the success of Love That Bob, which ran for five seasons and 173 episodes. Take it away, Hal!  

by Hal Horn

Oargaret: He's an example of good, clean living!  Early to bed, early to rise—

Bob: —and your girl goes out with the other guys!

The year 2025 marks the 70th anniversary for a trio of genuine classics of the sitcom genre. The Honeymooners stayed in the public consciousness for decades despite only having 39 filmed installments available: testament to the brilliance of Jackie Gleason's vision and the timelessness of the Gleason/Carney comedy team, still one of the medium's very best. Nat Hiken's venerated Phil Silvers Show might not be as ubiquitous on the airwaves as it once was, but MeTV has aired it in recent years and the eight-time Emmy winner is (like The Honeymooners) available in its entirety on home video.  

Our third pioneering septuagenarian series has receded significantly from cable channels since its most recent memorable run on CBN during the 1980's, and has seen innumerable episodes lapse into the public domain since that time. With its 173 segments (nearly as many as the aforementioned shows combined) relegated to cheap PD DVD releases of the same (mostly late season) twenty-ish episodes over and over, it has never seen remastering nor even a complete season made available on VHS, DVD or Blu. As a result, one of the greatest situation comedies of TV's first decade and the first hit for the producer who would dominate its second is sadly far less available than it deserves to be: Love That Bob, also known as The Bob Cummings Show.

Love That Bob was TV's first sex comedy, about a man taking Hugh Hefner's playboy philosophy to heart and living it out while his married peers often lived vicariously through him. Set in Los Angeles, the show centered around the adventures of single ace photographer Bob Collins, surrounded by beautiful fashion models--among them Joi Lansing, Lisa Gaye, and Miss Sweden Ingrid Goude.  Squiring all of them around town every chance he got, Bob carefully tiptoed away every time the subject of marriage came up.

And it came up often, as he lived with his widowed sister Margaret (Rosemary DeCamp) and her son Chuck (Dwayne Hickman, aka Dobie Gillis). Margaret was always worried about the example being set for her son, who clearly emulated and envied Uncle Bob. Plots centered around Bob's active dating life and numerous attempts at romantic conquests, the efforts of several of his models to settle him down for good, and the attempts of his loyal, plain Jane assistant Schultzy (Ann B. Davis, The Brady Bunch) to win her boss' heart herself. (Davis won two Emmys for her work, the only ones the show would win, but Cummings and director Rod Amateau were among the others receiving well-deserved nominations) 

While marriage was a sacred institution in shows ranging from Father Knows Best to Leave It to Beaver, Love That Bob stood proudly in presenting an alternative view. Married life was represented by henpecked Harvey Helm (named after the Burns and Allen writer in one of the show's numerous in-jokes; Burns' McCadden Productions co-produced and co-owned this series). Helm's wife Ruth ruled the roost in his household, intimidating her Air Force vet hubby physically as well as mentally, despite her slight stature. Of course, as played by King Donovan, Harv seems even slighter than his 5'8" height by a good five inches. Harv lives in perpetual terror of Ruthie and completely harried by their two kids every time we see him. "Wolves" Bob and their Air Force buddy Paul Fonda (the omnipresent Lyle Talbot) sure seem to be having a lot more fun being single than Harv ever will.

Produced by Paul Henning (who as mentioned would later rule the 1960s with The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction), The Bob Cummings Show was wittily written by a crack staff headed by Henning for the entire five-season run. That staff at various times included Phil Shuken, Dick Wesson and Bill Manhoff, with Shirl Gordon providing a very welcome female perspective on the proceedings. The bulk of the episodes were directed by Rod Amateau (the first two seasons) and Bob Cummings himself (he took over from Norman Tokar halfway through the third season and guided each episode until the 1959 finale).  

Many of those who do comment on the show make fun of how unlikely a ladies' man Bob was, citing his overly theatrical mannerisms and cliched pickup lines. I think these reviewers miss the point. I mean, Hef didn't have all of those women around him because of his looks or cool either. Bob Collins was not only a financially successful single man, but he was also in a position to further a model's career as one of Hollywood's top shutterbugs. If he was objectifying the models, they were certainly objectifying him too. Tit for Tat—literally! 

Also, Bob's age (his late 40's offscreen, though Collins is probably pushing 40—both older then than they are now) is not ignored and hints are dropped regarding the coming youth revolution. He is reminded by his sister that "it's later than you think" and he clearly feels threatened on those rare occasions when a younger muscleman is around. "Bob Gets Out-Uncled" is a great example of the latter, guest starring Los Angeles Rams star Elroy Hirsch; another is "Bob Meets Miss Sweden" which saw him competing with Tarzan himself, Gordon Scott. While Bob is an Air Force reserve Colonel (distancing him considerably from pure Bon Vivant Hefner) and in good shape, he's no physical match for these younger he-men.

Love That Bob is downright educational, too—to see what passed for a sex comedy within the rigid rules of 1950's television, and it is startling at times to see how far BOB (and Bob) could go within those boundaries. Margaret was his sister, but she acted an awful lot like a wife in most episodes, and her son Chuck looked a lot like Bob. . . enough to pass for his son. Bob was constantly put in the position of having to hide his latest romance from Margaret for various reasons, often sneaking out the kitchen (back) door to avoid "getting caught". Viewed within this context some episodes operate as "how to cheat on your spouse" primers, a full decade before Guide for the Married Man and in an era far more noted for gentle family comedy along the lines of Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver.

In Love That Bob you also get to see Paul Henning laying the groundwork for his later series. as the Collins family traveled "back home" to Joplin, Missouri (both Henning and Cummings were natives) often. This allowed Cummings to whiten his hair, hunch over and play his own grandfather--an older and arguably hornier version of Bob, right down to the penchant for aviation and his own country photography studio where the old-timer could woo models too. Future "Miss Jane" Nancy Kulp plays a birdwatching expert in multiple episodes who, like Schultzy, pined for Bob but couldn't compete with the curvy models. And while Henning was credited with introducing multi-episode arcs to sitcoms on Hillbillies, he actually started doing it on Love That Bob. Among the more memorable ones: a "will he or won't he" with guest star Lola Albright almost getting Bob to the alter across six 1955 episodes; Chuck's four episode foray into singing; and a screamingly funny two-parter with Bob saving Harvey Helm's job by double dating with obnoxious furniture king Jesse White.

While Bilko and Ralph Kramden almost always failed in their get-rich-quick schemes, Bob Collins frequently succeeded in his romantic conquests despite the forces of conventionality lined up against him.  Yes, he crashed and burned often under his own hubris (two great examples: "Bob Batches It" and "Bob and Automation") but there's a startling number of times that Bob has either succeeded already ("Bob and the Ballerina") or it is clear that he's about to ("Bob Traps a Wolf," "The Dominant Sex") before we diplomatically fade to black. Bilko never got rich, but Bob certainly did get laid.  Offscreen, of course—we had boundaries seven decades ago. Rather strict ones, and in a decade with precious few subversives on the tube, you can make a strong case that Bob Collins out-rebeled Kingfish, Bilko and the Maverick brothers.  

Getting Love That Bob/The Bob Cummings Show the greater recognition and availability it deserves has been a cause celebre of The Horn Section for some time now. To that end, I'm 48 episodes into my episode guide for the show, and my YouTube channel has nine episodes that aren't among those twenty-ish in public domain Hell available for viewing. While two are from the disappointing final season, the other seven are from the show's prime years, its second through fourth seasons. I hope to have more on the way in the coming months. In closing, I'd like to thank Mitchell for inviting me to guest post on It's About TV. TV  

What's on TV? Friday, May 14, 1965

One of tonight's features is a rare late-night NBC News Special (as opposed to a late-breaking bulletin) on today's ceremony in Runnymeade, where Queen Elizabeth II dedicates a British memorial to President John F. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy will be present to unveil the stone bust of her late husband, on the historic site where the Magna Charta was signed; the late president's brothers, Robert and Edward, will be there as well. The program was taped earlier today, and is broadcast via the Early Bird satellite; it's actually the second of two NBC News Specials to air on the same night (the other being the special on the Soviet cosmonauts, which I discussed on Saturday. It's unusual enough today to have even one primetime news special, let alone two in one night. No wonder NBC was the leading news network throughout the 1960s. This issue, by the way, is the Northern California Edition.

This week in TV Guide: May 8, 1965

Xf there's one thing that drove me crazy back when I was watching the news (and I know what you're thinking—only one thing?), it was the ad nauseam intrusion of "Breaking News" headlines, which often were little more than intros to their next segment. (Fox News was an especially egregious offender in this regard.) It's bad enough that the industry moved away from the truly meaningful term "Bulletin" to the more amorphous "Special Report"; now they have to tease everyone with Breaking News just to let them know that the stock market's opening bell is sounding in fifteen minutes. 

As it happens, this isn't a particularly new phenomenon. In fact, back in 1965, the proliferation of bulletins was really starting to rub people the wrong way. Remember, we were just two or three years beyond some of the most disturbing of TV bulletins, those accompanying the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy, and viewers were conditioned, on seeing that BULLETIN slide, to expect either the end of the world, or some very dire news—not "President Johnson’s cold has improved slightly, his physicians reported a moment ago, and he is expected to leave Bethesda Naval Hospital and return to the White House within the next 12 hours."

Based on other anecdoctal evidence I've read over the years, this bulletin, from the lead article by Neil Hickey, is likely verbatim. President Johnson had, in fact, been hospitalized over a nasty case of the flu, and the networks were providing constant updates on his condition. Jim Hagerty, former press secretary to President Eisenhower and now VP at ABC, was dubious about it all: "Admittedly, the President is the most important person in the free world. But honestly, didn’t we all overdo it just a little?" In fact, these interruptions, along with similar bulletins regarding U.S. airstrikes in Vietnam, added to what Hickey calls a situation "which has been argued hotly both by viewers and TV news officials for a long time"—when it is appropriate to interrupt regular programming (and the viewers' regular heart rhythms) with news stories. The practice has been on the increase lately, a mark of the increasing competition between networks to be first with the news, even when it means not thoroughly checking out a story before going on the air. Such was the case last year when CBS went live with an unconfirmed report that Nikita Khruschev had died. If, Hickey says, there had been even a moderate delay to check out the report, they would have been spared the embarrassment of having had to later retract the story.

At least the Khruschev report was newsworthy, unlike the bulletin ABC would later broadcast that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had just been married in Montreal. "An ABC news official, watching at home, said later, 'I could have died a million deaths when I saw that one'," and he probably wasnt alone, although maybe things are different today—viewers might consider a story like that real news nowadays. This wasn't the only time ABC came under heat for this kind of decision; their local New York affiliate interrupted a performance of "Swan Lake" by the Bolshoi Ballet, ten minutes before the ballet ended, to report that Malcolm X had been murdered. Most critics agreed that, newsworthy though this may have been, it could easily have been held until the program concluded.

TV Guide recently reached out to network news honchos for their guidelines on when it's appropriate to break into regular programming for news bulletins. They all agreed that the most important thing is to rely on experience and judgment. "Is it a service that the people need at this moment, such as an alarm?" asks CBS news chief Fred Friendly. "Is the news of such great importance that the viewer would want to be interrupted? What program is in progress, and will the content of the bulletin fit tastefully into the context of the program?" Julian Goodman at NBC adds that the network has a process designed to find the best spot in a program to place a bulletin—except in the most dire of circumstances, you can't, for example, "announce the death of an important figure in the middle of a comedy, and then come back to laughter. If we have to wait 10 minutes in the interests of good taste, we do so." But, as ABC head Jesse Zousmer says, "But what's the alternative? Should we come on and say, ‘In a half hour we’re going to tell you something unpleasant’?" In the end, they agree, you can't satisfy everybody.

However, it appears the networks are becoming more sensitive to complaints; one network is preparing a "million-dollar piece of equipment" which will allow them to run updates on the bottom of the screen; although machines like this already exist, they don't have a quick-enough turnaround time to be used for bulletins. Another idea is holding all bu tthe most important bulletins to run over the closing credits of programs. 

And there's one more piece of news: all three agree as well that there is no conspiracy to refrain from interrupting commercials for bulletins, as some have cynically suggested. Money has nothing to do with it, they insist. It's all timing.

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

Sullivan: Ed’s scheduled guests are dancer Juliet Prowse; songstress Della Reese; singer Vaughn Monroe; the Three Stooges, comics; the Kim Sisters, singers; comedian Richard Pryor; Les Doubles Faces, pantomime artists; and comic Jackie Clark.

Palace: The host is singer Steve Lawrence, who introduces Mickey Rooney and Bobby Van in a spoof of the movie Bridge on the River Kwai; operatic soprano Jean Fenn; the Backporch Majority, folk singers; choreographer-dancer Jack Cole; comic Gene Baylos; plate spinners Alberto and Rosita; the Gimma Brothers, novelty act; and 4-year-old drummer Poogie Bell.

Since there are no indications of alterations to Ed's lineup, we'll go with it as listed, and it's a good one that includes a young Richard Prior, before many of us had heard of him. Over at the Palace, the leads are solid; you can be sure that Steve Lawrence, as host, is also going to get some performance time. However, it has neither the star power nor the entertainment value of Sullivan's show—the very fact that Ed has the Three Stooges (even without the sound effects) gives him an edge he won't lose. It's Sullivan this week, you knuckleheads.

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Earlier this week, we saw the ceremonies from England commemorating the 80th anniversary of V-E Day; fewer and fewer are alive to remember what that day was like. It was quite different in 1965, and on Saturday we see just how different, as General Dwight Eisenhower and British commander Field Marshal Montgomary gather via satellite to to look at "Victory in Europe, 20 Years After" (9:00 p.m. PT, CBS, taped from a live broadcast earlier in the day), a joint production between CBS and the BBC. Walter Cronkite and the BBC's Richard Dimbleby anchor the broadcast, which includes past and present images of some of the War's pivotal sites, including the Belsen concentration camp and the Italian monastery of Monte Cassino.

Speaking of the Tiffany Network, I don't know that many people recall that CBS once owned the New York Yankees, prior to their sale by a group led by George Steinbrenner. (The fact that their ownership coincides with one of the bleakest periods in Yankees history may have something to do with that.) We're reminded of it indirectly on Sunday, when CBS Sports Spectacular returns with coverage of the Harlem Globetrotters (1:00 p.m.). What does this have to do with the Yankees, you ask? Well, we're advised that Sports Spectacular will aire on "the seven Sundays when CBS is not covering New York Yankee home games." To this day, that seems like a match made in hell; can you imagine ESPN owning a pro sports franchise? Well, actually, it seems sometimes as if they own entire leagues, so maybe that's not the best comparison. 

The Winging World of Jonathan Winters (9:00 p.m., NBC) is Monday's highlight: a largely unscripted hour with improv from Winters and his guests, including Steve Allen, Leo Durocher, Stiller and Meara, and narrator Alexander Scourby. On a more lyrical note, a CBS News Special (10:00 p.m.) offers a tribute to the famous Finnish composer Jean Sibelius on the 100th anniversary of his birth, including performances of his compositions by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Late night, it's the premiere of Merv Griffin's Group W talk show, with sidekick Arthur Treacher. (11:20 p.m., KPIX) For Merv's first show, his guests are Carol Channing, Danny Meehan, Dom DeLuise, and puppeteer Larry Reeling. 

For music of a more popular sort, Hoagy Carmichael narrates a tribute to "Tin Pan Alley" on The Bell Telephone Hour (Tuesday, 10:00 p.m., NBC), with singers Gordon MacRae, Carol Lawrence, Leslie Uggams and Bill Hayes; pianist Peter Nero and dancer Matt Mattox. On a darker note, The Doctors and the Nurses (10:00 p.m., CBS), which began life simply as The Nurses, takes a look at drug abuse in this story of a doctor who's been requisitioning morphine over the last three weeks, even though none of his patients has need of it.

More historical recognition of V-E Day on Wednesday, as the syndicated documentary series Men in Crisis presents "Truman vs. Stalin: The Potsdam Encounter" (7:00 p.m., KRON), with the story of the discussions between Truman, Stalin, and Winston Churchill about the partition of postwar Europe. Not one of the great moments in history, I have to admit. Later on, it's The Swinging World of Sammy Davis Jr. (8:30 p.m., KGO), and for his first television special in the United States, Davis is joined by fellow Rat Packer Peter Lawford, and two of his co-stars from the Broadway musical "Golden Boy," Billy Daniels and Lola Falana. 

It may only be my opinion, but I think the most interesting program on Thursday—perhaps the entire week, for that matter—is going to require you get up early for it. It's the education program Our World (6:30 a.m., KRON), as Ayn Rand discusses what she terms "the current intellectual crisis in America." I'd have enjoyed watching that. For something a little less intellectually stimulating, although no less exciting, I'd suggest KRCA's 7:00 p.m. movie, Gang War, starring a young Charles Bronson as a high school teacher who witnesses a gangland killing. This was made in 1958; I'd have to think that, had it been made in the 1970s, it would have had an entirely different feel.

NBC continues its extensive coverage of manned spaceflight on Friday with an NBC News Special, "The Man Who Walked in Space" (8:30 p.m.), featuirng interviews with the two Soviet cosmonauts who flew on the historic mission of Voskhod II, Pavel Belyayev, and Alexei Leonov, the world's first spacewalker. That's followed by something decidedly lighter: The Jack Benny Program (9:30 p.m., NBC), in which Jack tries to offer James and Gloria Stewart advise on their latest movie. And if we're talking about movies, here's one I saw just a couple of weeks ago: Joe MacBeth (part of KGO's All-Night Movies, starting at 1:00 a.m.), a nifty noir version of Shakespeare's play, transposed to the gangster era. It stars Paul Douglas and Ruth Roman, and it's well worth watching.

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Henry Harding's "For the Record" notes the death of Edward R. Murrow last week at the age of 57, from cancer. "To the millions who hung on his every word nightly during World War II, Edward R. Murrow was as much a good friend as a famous war correspondent." A later generation knew him as the man who took on McCarthy and won; "Said Murrow later: 'The timing was ripe and the instrument powerful.'" President Johnson praised Murrow, calling him "a gallant fighter, a man who dedicated his life as a newsman and as a public official to an unrelenting search for truth." As Harding says, "Good Night, Good Luck." 

The George Foster Peabody Awards were also awarded last week, with some interesting recipients. (A previous recipients: Edward R. Murrow.) Burr Tillstrom, best known as the creator of Kukla and Ollie, received one "for his moving Berlin Wall depiction on That Was the Week That Was," while Mr. Joyce Hall, president of Hallmark, was recognized for the company's sponsorship of Hallmark Hall of Fame. (He must be spinning in his grave today, seeing what that show has become.) And don't forget everyone's favorite French Chef, Julia Child.

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And now for a word or two on this week's cover story, about the show that gets no respect, Gilligan's Island. Don't believe me? Its stars can tell you a thing or two: Natalie Schafer, who plays Lovey Howell, says, "When you open in a play and bad notices come out, you expect to fold on Saturday. And I expected to fold. I had moved to Hollywood, but I left most of my clothes in New York because I never was very sure about this being a great success. It never entered my head it would go on." Dawn Wells, everyone's Mary Ann, said of her acquaintances, "So many of them looked at the show and said: Gee, you look good, you look great, or you look cute, or the photography’s great. But that’s all they said."

The show that critics love to hate—New York Times critic Jack Gould called it "quite possibly the most preposterous situation comedy of the season," while syndicated columnist Hal Humphrey, who named it the worst comedy on the air, added that "Gilligan's Island is the kind of thing one might expect to find running for three nights at some neighborhood group playhouse, but hardly on a Coast-to-Coast TV network." However, the show has become the sleeper series of the year, muscling into third place in the weekly Nielsens, to the surprise of almost everyone. 

Sherwood Schwartz, executive producer, was not impressed by the show's negative reception among critics. "I was not disheartened by the reviews. Only a bit angry with the lack of understanding of what was being attempted." What that was, he tells Richard Warren Lewis, was something different. "Here are the same men who are forever saying: 'For heaven’s sake, won’t somebody give us something other than the wife and the husband and the two children?' he husband and the two children?’ So you bring something else to the tube and you read very good reviews about the husband and the wife and the two kids with the same old story lines—the wife dented the fender and the husband doesn’t know about it; she insulted the husband’s boss and didn’t know who he was; he forgot their anniversary. They're yelling and crying for a fresh approach. You give 'em a fresh approach, they kill you and praise the guy who’s doing the same old thing." Bob Denver, who plays Gilligan, was similarly sanguine. "I don’t think the critics were ready for broad, silly, physical comedy. You have to adjust to it. They’re entitled to their opinion. It’s silly to put them down. But you can’t expect seven actors to perform at their top, peak level in the first show. I didn’t have time to be upset or depressed with the reviews, I was working so hard at the time."

However, there's something interesting at play: says Lewis, "Many of the principals, despite the popularity of the show, have begun to have second thoughts abou ttheir overwhelming success and potentially lengthy commitment." Jim Backus, who plays millionaire Thurston Howell III, admits that "I would like to do something maybe a little more worth-while or artistically satisfying. Bu tI enjoy the money and I certainly enjoy the recognition." Denver points out that "I don’t think I’ve reached my potential yet as an actor. I did play Falstaff in college." Wells adds that "I've studied the classics. Shakespeare is my favorite. I’d rather do Shakespeare than anything." And Tina Louise, perhaps the most outspoken in her dissatisfaction, says, "I don’t feel fulfilled doing these shows. Most are not quite inventive." Schwartz bristles at such comments; "I would think she would be delighted. She’s an integral part of a major hit. What else does an actress want?" Gee, Sherwood, I dunno. Maybe a chance to actually act? I guess you can't please everyone.

Gilligan's Island does, of course, run three years (a fourth season was supposedly axed in favor of retaining Gunsmoke), and it's fondly remembered today by many boomers. I must admit that, despite my fondness for the cast, Gilligan's Island has never been one of my favorite programs, and probably never will be. That doesn't mean that there isn't room for silly, dumb, slapstick humor on TV; otherwise, I wouldn't be spending so much time watching the Three Stooges. Still, I don't think the critics were entirely wrong about the show. Put to the test, I'd by far prefer the Henningverse shows, especially The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. But the point, I guess, is that television ought to be big enough to encompass all these genres—comedy and drama, smart and stupid, high art and low. That television has manifestly failed in these endeavors is, I think, a topic for another day.

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MST3K alert: Bride of the Monster (1955) An intrepid female reporter investigates a mad scientist who is attempting to harness atomic energy to turn people into superhuman monsters. Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Loretta King. (Thursday, 1:00 a.m., as part of KGO's All-Nite Movie) Two words: Ed Wood. It may not be Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it doesn't have to be, does it? However, it's worth watching for Harvey B. Dunn and his bird, and I don't have to say any more than that, do it?  TV  

Around the dial

Well, where should we start this week? How about at The Twilight Zone Vortex, where Jordan's review of the fifth season of TZ progresses with "Ring-a-Ding Girl," starring Maggie McNamara as a woman with a most unusual ring. 

At Drunk TV, Paul's look at the NBC miniseries-series Best Sellers concludes with the final miniseries, "The Rhinemann Exchange," a "four-hour drag" starring Stephen Collins. What else can be said, other than to marvel at how far down the series went after "Captains and the Kings."

Martin Grams has a nice little piece on Jill Leporte's book The Secret History of Wonder Woman, which presents us with an equally interesting look at the famed superhero, the man who created her, and the actresses who played her.

At Cult TV Blog, John's "Sylvia Coleridge Season" continues with the episode "Mr. Nightingale" from the 1977 British anthology series Supernatural, in which our heroine plays one of the old ladies of the household facing a very nasty guest.

If you enjoy Jack's regular Hitchcock Project articles at bare-bones e-zine, here's something from the same site that I think you'll like: Lawrence Herman's piece on the writer Henry Slesar, who authored stories or adaptations for 47 episodes of Hitchcock. And more!

Terence gives tribute to the late Ruth Buzzi at A Shroud of Thoughts. We all knew her from Laugh-In, of course, but there was much more to a career that spanned seven decades on television and in the movies. She will be missed.

And at Comfort TV, David offers Ruth Buzzie's top TV moments. Some of them might come as surprises to you; did you know that she was the voice of Granny Goodwitch for the cartoon Linus the Lionhearted? Or that she made her TV debut on The Garry Moore Show? Check it out.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger turns his eye to The A-Team, and the ripped-from-the-headlines episode "Children of Jamestown," based on the infamous Jim Jones cult. Ah, if only it had turned out this way in real life. TV  

Remembering the Emergency Broadcast System

Today I'm pleased to welcome back Bill Griffiths, with another of his guest essays on television "back in the day." This week, in the first of a two-part series, he recalls something that used to unnerve the hell out of me when I was growing up: the weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Remember? 

by Bill Griffiths

One of the wonders of the Internet has been the ability to remember and relive pleasant memories of the past. In particular, shared experiences of what television programs and events we watched, and may continue to watch in reruns, has come alive through different websites, blogs, podcasts and video sharing platforms such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, TikTok and others. In our present day to day activities such diversions can offer moments of joy and comfort. Indeed it’s a reminder that no matter How events of the world may seem, life in general isn’t all too bad.

We all have fond memories of television in our youth. The shows, the personalities, the commercials and so much more. But for this guest essay and another to follow, I’ve gleefully chosen to turn negative and write about a couple of occurrences that decidedly do NOT inspire happy tv watching remembrances. One is the sudden interruption of a program for a news report. The other is the Emergency Broadcast System Test. The predecessor of today’s Emergency Alert System, EBS was in use between 1963 to 1997. It had replaced an earlier warning system called CONELRAD (1951-1963) that was designed to be activated specifically in the event of an enemy or nuclear attack. 

EBS was also designated for national and local civil defense emergencies, but additionally to communicate severe weather alerts. TV and radio stations were required to perform weekly on-air tests unless the system had been locally activated during the previous week. The tests were theoretically done at random times. But to this young Northern California viewer watching afternoon cartoons on KTVU Channel 2, they seemed to always be conducted during a program break. Thus the appearance of the Word TEST in big bold letters created brief unnecessary anxiety and a sudden urge to mute the set volume. However with maturity comes wisdom. Those EBS Tests were deliberately scheduled during the cartoon shows on Channel 2 so kids as myself knew what to expect “in the event of an emergency”. No doubt stations in other cities did the same thing.

The message generally went like this:

This is a test. For the next 60 seconds, this station will conduct a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test.

[loud shrill tone is heard]

This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with federal, state and local authorities, have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the attention signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions. This station serves the [insert name of your community] area. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

Then it was back to the cartoons and we were safe from the EBS Test for at least another week. That is, unless one turned over to another channel and who knew when any of them would perform their required weekly test?

Amazingly, I cannot recall one instance when the Emergency Broadcast System was actually used during my childhood. I don’t think it even occurred during the Loma Prieta Earthquake on October 17, 1989. Then again many stations were knocked off the air and when they came back on, it was straight to the developing news.

There was at least one instance when it was inadvertently activated and caused a brief panic. On the morning of Saturday, February 20, 1971 during what was at the time the standard weekly EBS test period, engineer Wayland S. Eberhardt in the National Emergency Warning Center at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado sent out the wrong message code to radio and television stations indicating that a real national emergency was taking place. It took some 40 minutes for a firm correction to be issued. Some stations went into actual EBS mode while others did not. For his part Eberhardt was mortified by the whole incident, telling The New York Times, “I can’t imagine how the  hell I did it.” An investigation revealed the codes were in close proximity to one another and he simply grabbed the wrong one. Tests soon became more randomized. A recording of how radio station WOWO-AM in Fort Wayne, Indiana managed the “emergency” is preserved in a 5-minute excerpt on YouTube, that starts with a lead-in

from DJ Bob Sievers to the then-new Partridge Family song “Doesn’t Somebody Want To Be Wanted”. It’s still unnerving to hear, but Sievers handles the situation professionally.

The announcements concerning the EBS Tests were fairly straight-forward. The wording could be customized to better reflect the area it was being broadcast. But in general, EBS was serious business and you couldn’t mess around with serious messaging. Those lines can’t be made into upbeat music, right? Ah, but it was and more than once. Around 1974 radio jingle company TM Productions created a rather entertaining song directly from the EBS Test script. A couple of other jingle organizations produced amusing variations on these announcements which can also be heard on YouTube. There is even one that even extends into the tone itself where it sounds like the rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” with a quacking duck at the end of the announcement—a subtle nod to the infamous “Duck and Cover” film of the 1950’s! These examples would certainly have made the ordeal of sitting through tests a lot more fun. However, the fine folks at the FCC were not amused and created a rule that mandated EBS Tests not be sung or joked about in any way. “The TM Rule” remains in effect to this day.

Regular test notifications of the Emergency Broadcast System much like the current Emergency Alert System are just part of the normal TV viewing experience. I’m sure many of you have EBS memories whether it be sitting through an angst-ridden test moment or an actual emergency where it was activated in your area.

For something more jarring, little else can beat a program being unexpectedly interrupted for breaking news. That will be the subject for an upcoming guest essay. In the meantime, I’ll conclude for now with three of the most dreaded words in television…

TO BE CONTINUED  TV  

What's on TV? Wednesday, May 6, 1964

This week's local note comes from WHDH and the Dateline Boston program, where the guest is the legendary Harry Ellis Dickson. Dickson was part of the first violin section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 49 years and also served as Associate Conductor of the Boston Pops orchestra, backing up Arthur Fiedler. His daughter, Kitty, was married to Michael Dukakis; when Dickson died in 2003 at the age of 94, Dukakis said that "No one on this planet could wish for a better father-in-law." As you might gather, we're looking at the Eastern New England Edition this week.

This week in TV Guide: May 2, 1964

Often lost in the shuffle of more famous bombs, such as The Jerry Lewis Show, is the failure of Judy Garland's much-heralded TV series debut. This week we'll rectify that oversight, thanks to Vernon Scott's in-depth look at Judy's side of the story.

"I don't blame people for watching Bonanza instead of The Judy Garland Show," she tells Scott. "It was a natural choice." She says it without rancor, without bitterness, because in doing the show, she felt that there was something more important than ratings. "I wasn't disappointed," she says of them. "I don't think we deserved [higher ratings]. The time slot was impossible. After four or five years of loyalty to Bonanza, I can understand why viewers did not switch to my show." What was more important, she insists, is what she demonstrated to the industry. "I did prove to everybody that I was reliable. They said I'd never answer the bell for the second round. But we turned out 26 shows. And some of them were damned good, too. Especially the last five we did."

She calls the experience of doing a weekly series "very enlightening—and funny." It was "instant disaster" from the beginning, and sometimes "instant success." Every week, one way or the other. Speaking of the last five shows, which were done in a concert format (something Judy had wanted from the outset), she says, "By the time we discovered where we were going it was too late." But the network had insisted on a variety series, that it would be impossible to do the equivalent of a special every week, and she went along because "I believed they did know what they were doing." 

They, meaning the network executives, didn't like how she touched her guests so much, that viewers would think she was drunk or that there were sexual impliations. She didn't like the turntable stage they installed on the set; not only was it too noisy, it gave her motion sickness. There were nine different formats during the 24 weeks the show aired, and oftentimes she couldn't hear the orchestra because they were off to one side; she finally succeeded in getting them put on stage behind her. She was never a part of the editing process, so her hairdo and wardrobe would change from scene to scene with no explanation. 

Everyone agrees she could be difficult to work with. She only rehearsed two days a week, Thursdays and Fridays, with taping done on Friday nights. Last minute changes would be made after dress rehearsals, throwing everyone into a panic. Sometimes, she says, she'd be learning the lyrics to new songs by singing them off idiot cards. Despite all this, nobody has a bad word for her. "She wears everybody out," says producer Gary Smith, who lasted the longest of anyone on the show (21 episodes). "But she is a magnificent performer and she adapted herself beautifully to the weekly TV format." Smith, like everyone else who worked on the show, was eventually fired, presumably by Judy. But he only says, "She's a great creative star and an awesome personality." 

It was, Scott says, more of a personal than a professional defeat for Garland, for whom being popular is very important. Yet she remains grateful for having done the series, which she feels introduced her to new fans who'll want to see her in person on concert tours. "All in all, the show was a good thing to have happened to me. I learned a great deal. But if I had known what I was in for, I would never have tried a weekly series. Not ever."

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

Sullivan: Guests include songstress Patti Page; comics Bill Dana and Vaughn Meader; Jerry and the Pacemakers, English rock 'n' rollers; the Claytons, whip and rope act; and rock 'n' roller Little Stevie Wonder. (Plus the cat of "America Be Seated," with Louis Gossett, May Barnes, and Bibby Oscarwall. Vaughn Meader was apparently a no-show.)

Palace: Host Louis Jourdan introduces Olympic gymnasts Muriel and Abe Grossfeld, Armando Vega and NCAA champion gymnast Ron Barak; songstress Anna Maria Alberghetti; the singing King Sisters; comedian Henny Youngman; tap dancer John Bubbles; ventriloquist Russ Lewis; comics Lewis and Christy; and juggler Johnny Broadway.

We have plusses and minuses on both shows this week; after Palace's brief excursion into Wide World of Sports territory, there are some recognizable names, if nothing to set the world on fire. Over on Sullivan, we can't be too surprised in Vaughn Meader didn't appear; his career all but ended after the death of Kennedy. Otherwise, we see Bill Dana and Jerry and the Pacemakers while they were still big, and Stevie Wonder while he was still little, and that's good enough to give Sullivan the gold medal for the week.

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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. 

There's folk music, as Cleveland Amory points out, and there's folk music. Gospel folk, country folk, city folk, Dixieland folk, and just plain folk folk. And just about all of it can be seen, from week to week, in ABC's music series Hootenanny. The show, hosted by Art Linkletter's son Jack, is broadcast from a different college each week, and features a wider range of talent than just about any other show on the air. Folk music, I should interject here, is just about my least favorite kind of music, and I'm someone with fairly eclectic tastes. Even I've heard of some of these acts, though—the Travelers Three, the Brothers Four, the Serendipity Singers, the New Christy Minstrels, even Johnny Cash, who I'd never considered a folk singer until now, but as Cleve says, just about everything is folk music today except for the Boston Symphony, and he isn't even sure about that.

It's all put together in an unpretentious manner by producer Richard Lewine and director Garth Dietrick, and that has to be a relief compared to some of the more overly produced variety shows on the air today. I doubt, for instance, that you'd see the same kind of staging as you do on NBC's Hullabaloo. "At its best," Amory says, "it's very little short of wonderful and even at its worst it's pretty fair TV fare. You name your favorite song and if you're patient, sooner or later someone will sing it." (I kind of doubt it in my case, but then, who knows?)

It's all music, except for one comedian featured on each show, something that seems to have been a trademark of music shows of the era. One of the best, Amory says, is a "diffident young man" named Jackie Vernon, whom we all know as the voice of Frosty the Snowman. "Everything about me used to be dull," he says in his trademark deadpan voice. "My favorite comedians were Bert Parks and Allen Ludden." He also tells a story about his grandfather, who had to leave the west because "he said a discouraging word." (It helps if you read the line in his voice.) Like so many things, Hootenanny eventually falls victim to the changing musical tastes that resulted from the British Invasion, but it was fun while it lasted. 

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The biggest sports event of the week comes to us from Louisville, Kentucky, where the great Northern Dancer wins the 90th running of the Kentucky Derby (5:00 p.m. ET, CBS). Nothern Dancer will go on to win the Preakness before finishing third in the Belmont Stakes; he will run one more race before pulling up lame and going to stud, having an equally successful career there.

However, the bigger sports news came not from any arena, but at the Hollywood Advertising Club, where ABC president Tom Moore sounded off on a few things, including some "radical changes" to sports in America. According to Henry Harding, these suggestions included replacing college football bowl games with an elimination tournament, determining champion golfers by a points system during the PGA tour, and shortening the major league baseball schedule to 60 games—two per weekend. The reaction from sportswriters was mostly negative, but let's take a step back and look at Moore's suggestions. The PGA has, indeed, gone to a points system, culminating in the FedEx Cup; whether or not that really determines the champion golfer of the year, it's a fact. Also a fact is the creation of the College Football Playoff, which has reduced the role of bowl games to filler on ESPN. It has many faults, but it's a reality. As for shortening the baseball season, it hasn't happened and probably never will, but the increase in playoff teams pushing the World Series into November and rendering much of the regular season meaningless, I think there are a lot of people who'd be on board to at least cut back. It'll probably happen when pigs fly, but who knows?

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Saturday night's late movie on Maine's WMTW is one that should bring a smile to any fan of the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker team: Zero Hour! (10:30 p.m.), the movie that served as the model for Airplane! Dana Andrews stars as Ted Stryker, the ex-fighter pilot haunted by guilt who's called on to land a passenger airlineer after the crew becomes sick from eating bad fish; Linda Darnell is his wife, who's preparing to leave him because of his inability to pull his life back together; and Sterling Hayden is Captain Treleaven, Stryker's old commanding officer, who's called in to help talk Stryker down. If all this sounds familiar, it should; ZAZ paid $2,500 for the rights to the screenplay in order to make sure they didn't run into a problem with copyright while working on Airplane! (See the comparisons here.) If you're looking for something a little more conventionally great, stick around until 11:40 p.m. for the John Wayne classic The Searchers (WJAR in Providence).

Nelson Rockefeller's brother Winthrop, currently running for governor of Arkansas, is the guest on Sunday's Meet the Press (6:00 p.m., NBC), notable because it originates from the World's Fair in New York. I've noticed that a number of programs are broadcast from the Fair during its two-year run; today, you might see Meet the Press broadcast from the site of the Super Bowl, but only if NBC's showing it, and only if the topic concerns sports on TV. Later, on Lassie (7:00 p.m., CBS), Timmy and Lassie bring an injured raccoon back to the farm after a tornado. No word on whether or not they found a dislodged building with a woman's legs protruding from underneath it.

On Monday, it's the debut of the daytime drama Another World (3:00 p.m., NBC), which will spawn a spinoff, Somerset, and will run on the network for 35 seasons and 8,891 episodes; as I recall, that was one of my mother's favorite soaps. In primetime, the echo of President Kennedy's assassination continues to reverberate on Sing Along With Mitch (10:00 p.m., NBC), a special segment of which is devoted to songs that were favorites of the late president, including "Beyond the BLue Horizon," "Too-ra Loo-ra Loo-ra," and "Greenland's Icy Mountains." I can't help but wonder if those really were JFK's favorites; the whole Camelot legend was predicated in part on stories that the soundtrack to the musical was one of his favorites, although I've read reports that, in fact, he had barely any interest in the show. But as we know, when the truth confronts the legend, print the legend.

Red Skelton's guests on Tuesday are a pair of child stars: Mickey Rooney and Jackie Coogan (8:00 p.m., CBS). Interesting paring, don't you think? And tonight's episode of The Jack Benny Program (9:30 p.m., CBS) is a classic of its type; Jack finds himself (in his dream) on trial for murder, with none othet than the great Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) defending him. You can see that episode, including the hilarious courtroom scene, on YouTube. And the Bell Telephone Hour (10:00 p.m., NBC) presents a truly eclectic hour of music, with Van Heflin narrating "Concord Bridge" to Morton Gould's "Declaration Suite" in honor of Armed Forces Day; Connie Francis singing a medley of popular songs, and opera stars Jon Vickers and Giulietta Simionato performing the judgment scene from Aida.

Speaking as we have been of classics, Wednesday's Dick Van Dyke Show (9:30 p.m., CBS) gives us one of the best: the episode "That's My Boy??," where Rob has doubts that the baby Laura brought home from the hospital is the right one, until he meets the parents of the other baby. You can see, and laugh along with, the episode here; stories persist that the joke from the end of the episode produced the longest laugh ever, much of which had to be edited out due to the length. You can read an interesting anticdote about that episode here. And The Danny Kaye Show (10:00 p.m., CBS) kicks off a series of reruns with its Christmas show, featuring the aforementioned Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, along with Mr. Christmas, Andy Williams.

On Thursday, the primetime edition of Password (7:30 p.m., CBS) features Lucille Ball and her husband, Gary Morton as the celebrity players. Dr. Kildare (8:30 pm., NBC) has a rare dramatic appearance by Cyril Ritchard as an eccentric writer who throws Blair General into a tizzy when he insists he'll be dead within a week. And on Kraft Suspense Theatre (10:00 p.m., NBC), Keenan Wynn portrays an innocent man charged with murder; when he finds that he enjoys the notoriety, he confesses to the crime.

The week's end kicks off with the day's beginning: the recently retired baseball great Stan "The Man" Musial is a guest on Today (Friday, 7:00 a.m., NBC). Sticking with NBC for primetime, David Frost makes a return appearance on That Was The Week That Was (9:30 p.m.), guesting for the first time since the early weeks of the show; he was, of course, one of the creators and stars of the British edition. And at 10:00 p.m., Jack Paar's guests include Richard Burton, currently starring in "Hamlet" on Broadway; you can see an excerpt from that appearance here. 

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And now the story behind a concept called Project 120, a movie called Johnny North, and the picture below, in which Ronald Reagan is beating the hell out of Angie Dickinson.

It all started with a deal between NBC and the production company MCA to produce a series of two-hour feature movies that would be made especially for television, and distributed later to movie houses. (In the pre-DVD era, this would make more sense that it does today.) The first of the planned features to emerge from Project 120 was called Johnny North, based on Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers." "But, as the poet said, there's many a slip 'twixt the conference table and the screen." The movie, which was budgeted at just under $250,000, came in instead at more than $900,000. Not only that (as if that wasn't enough to begin with), the powers that be judget that the finished product was both too sexy (witness a kissing scene between Dickinson and her race-car-driver boyfriend, John Cassavetes) and too violent (not only did Reagan rough up Angie, she also got belted around by both Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager). In order to recoup the costs, MCA has now decided that the movie will be released in theaters, renamed Ernest Hemingway's The Killers. NBC says Project 120 will continue (as, indeed, it does), only with less sex, less violence, and less cost.

As for that picture—well, The Killers was Ronald Reagan's last movie, one which he made against his better judgment. It was the only time he ever playedd the heavy, and he was said to be quite distraught over the scene in which he slaps Dickinson; it was the one role that Reagan most regretted playing. Of course, unbeknownste to all, he has a much bigger role ahead of him. 

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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, 11:30 p.m., WNAC in Boston) 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