This week in TV Guide: April 23, 1977

As you know, this site is all about looking back at the past. And, of course, from the perspective of 2026, 1977 is the past—nearly fifty years, or just as many years as this issue was from 1928, one year before the start of the Great Depression.

Ellen Torgerson has an interesting article this week, the kind that Edith Efron would have written once upon a time, on teen viewing habits. It's interesting not because of what those habits are, but because of how they highlight the changes that have taken place over the past fifty years. If one were to ask the question "what teen-agers watch and why" today, the answer would be swift and decisive, and boiled down to two words: not television. Not when there's a world of TikTok and YouTube and social media out there, not when there's a world of "reality" programming that's streaming, not when their five-minute attention spans are spent, not on the current big thing, but what the next big thing might be. 

However, back in 1977, they did watch television, and in fact they have a "viewer fidelity" that is surprising to experts who condemn teens for their "faddishness and faithlessness" (as I just did above). In fact, one can see that from year to year, their favorites remain remarkably consistent: The Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels, The Six Million Dollar Man, One Day at a Time, Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days. Occasionally a show will slide down the list a bit, or rise up, but for the most part things stay pretty much the same. And, in this sense at least, it makes perfect sense: heroes that are always in charge and never lose control; curvy women for boys to lust after and girls to aspire to become.

There's more to it than that, though, according to Dr. William Glasser, an authority on teen behavior (if anyone could be said to be an authority on them). Teens aren't all that different from everyone else, Glasser says; they "don't like complications. Like the rest of us, they tend to like television programs with unilateral motivation and uncomplex characters." And here we come to the portion that shows how, for all that we've changed in the intervening fifty years, human nature basically remains the same: "TV is an anxiety reducer; teen-agers have to deal with an increasing sense of powerlessness. They become frustrated and look for simple solutions. On TV, nobody is accountable. Sharsky and Hutch are never called before the captain to explain their actions. TV presents the world as simple, even though it's not. If a teen-ager sees himself as powerless, he can watch Baretta or Police Story (two other perennial favorites), any detective show, and feel powerful along with the characters on the show."

Mind you, this interpretation is far from universally accepted, even by teens, who tend to see this kind of analysis as both overly complicated and over-explained. Several said they liked Starsky and Hutch simply because "they'd just like to be able to drive their cars the way" the two protagonists do. A girl added that, "I like the way the two men are friends and take care of each other." Others said that they get satisfaction from how the younger sister on Happy Days pulls one over on her older brother, just like how they feel that way in real life. 

The Fonz is another popular character to them, not because he's particularly realistic of the era, but because he's what they want to be: "He has all the answers and exhibits antiadult behavior. He's a wise guy; his sarcasm is polished. Teen-agers admire that. They'd like to be like him if they dared." Girls find their equivalent in shows like Laverne & Shirley, where simple problems are provided with simple solutions that fit like a math problem. Says Annette Baran, a licensed clinical social worker, "kids will look at anything that either makes fun of authority or engages their sense of fantasy." 

Teens are like adults in another way, according to Baran; they're not unlike the average working man who plunks down in his favorite chair and turns on the tube. "They turn it on to anything. TV fills empty buckets. It's an antidote to loneliness and the boredom of not having anything to do The teen-ager doesn't want to talk to anyone in his family anyway. They'll only hassle him. TV doesn't talk back or make demands. And it can be a relief from doing homework or worrying about the terrible present or the impossible future."

I'll remind you again that this was written nearly fifty years ago. And yet, read that last sentence again, especially the part about the "terrible present or the impossible future." We tend to think of the past as being somehow better than the present, or at least not quite as bad. But how many young people (and older ones, for that matter) have those same anxieties today? Fears that they'll never get out of debt, that they're destined to have a life that's worse than that of their parents, that the world could be swept up in a global war. Instead of turning on the TV, they go online, where social media tends to feed those anxieties, to make them feel worse, not better. And if they do watch television, they're fed dark, brooding dramas or propaganda programs that try to instill in them an even greater sense of insecurity about who and what they are. 

Is this simply a case of life as it's always been, or is there more to it? Was television a soothing balm back then, or did it, in fact, distract people from those things that could provide them with more satisfaction, a sense of meaning, a calmness that the external world lacks? In heading for the latest screen, whether it be television or phone, are we simply turning our backs on the internal life, on the things in ourselves that we may be afraid to confront, and therefore try to drown out with louder and louder voices, until nothing makes sense anymore? I think we all know the answer to that, even if we don't want to admit it.

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On weeks when we can, we'll match up two of the biggest rock shows of the '70s, NBC's The Midnight Special and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and see who's better, who's best. 

Kirshner: The Average White Band, Ray Barretto, David Soul, comic Tom Dressen, and the Mime Company.

Special: British rock is the theme of a show featuring Elton John, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, Electric Light Orchestra, and Queen.

Do you even have to ask? The only reason I'd even hesitate is that for so many years, Tom Dressen opened for Frank Sinatra, and you don't want to disappoint The Chairman. But let's face it: this week there's no comparison, which makes it a special night for The Special: winner by a landslide.

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Despite that grim start to this week's issue, the past isn't always a source of angst, as we see in the two-hour CBS News Special "When Television Was Young" (Thursday, 9:00 p.m. ET). And the nice thing about this program is that, unlike many of today's shows about "pioneers of television," this one stays firmly rooted in the 1950's, when the medium really was young. It's hosted by Charles Kuralt, the perfect choice for a retrospective that combines history and nostalgia, looking at an imperfect era with an often romantic hue. We see the great triumphs of early television: series like I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and Ed Sullivan, landmark anthology dramas from "Requiem for a Heavyweight" to "Twelve Angry Men," stars such as Paul Newman, Jack Lemmon, Grace Kelly and James Dean, and memorable moments from a time when baseball really was the National Pastime.

However—and you know there has to be one of those—there are also the dark times: the blacklist, the Army-McCarthy hearings, the Korean War, and the Quiz Show Scandal. Although the decade is remembered for serious, intense dramas, there's also a fair share of interference from advertisers and network executives, who often demand changes in the scripts: minor ones, such as a coffee sponsor objecting to characters drinking tea, and major ones, dealing with significant social issues such as race and sex. Some will seem silly, while others—Southern stations refusing to air programs with black entertainers—are appalling.

Ultimately, it is what it is, and that's what history's all about. It's critical that television remembers its own roots, even if many of today's viewers have no idea about it, or the people who created it. But then, if TV doesn't care, why should anyone else? Fortunately, this show exists in its entirety on YouTube; someone had the foresight to recognize its value and record it.

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Continuing with music, some interesting variety specials this week, a genre you don't see much anymore; you can still see concerts with stars like Adele and Lady Gaga, especially (but not exclusively) on HBO or Showtime, but not shows with the traditional Bob Hope-type format. On ABC Saturday night, Paul Lynde gets an hour of his own (8:00 p.m.), a traditional set up with musical guests and comedy skits. Paul's guests are Cloris Leachman, Tony Randall, LeVar Burton, and K.C. and the Sunshine Band, and Paul does a comic monologue about an encounter with an unfriendly alien... Meanwhile, there's the one last big network show, belonging to Carol Burnett (10:00 p.m., CBS), and her guest is a pretty big star himself, in stature if not size: Sammy Davis., Jr.

Variety shows aren't the only variety in this week's schedule; thanks in large part to the local stations, we have a top-notch slate of movies in this pre-movie channel era. Not so with the ABC Sunday Night Movie, alas, at least according to Judith Crist. That movie, For a Few Dollars More (9:00 p.m.), the second of the "Man With No Name" trilogy, represents, in Crist's words, "the sadism of allegedly adult adventure," not to mention "the kind of fun you can find at your neighborhood abattoir." That's more than a bit harsh when describing what's become a modern classic, but then, as I remember, she never did like Clint. Or Charles Bronson, for that matter. Oh well, we all have our blind spots.

It's back to music on Monday night, as Paul Anka hosts an hour special (10:00 p.m, ABC), with Natalie Cole and Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band, plus cameos from Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Ann-Margaret, Dean Martin, Don Rickles, and others (singing special lyrics to "My Way."). It's mostly Anka singing his hits from through the years, and he's got plenty of them.

NBC follows up with back-to-back country-flavored specials on Tuesday; the first, at 9:00 p.m., starring the aforementioned Ann-Margret... Rhinestone Cowgirl. While you let that image sink in for a minute, I'll mention that the special, taped at the Grand Ole Opry, includes appearances by Bob Hope (of course!), Perry Como, Chet Atkins, and Minnie Pearl. That's followed at 10:00 p.m. by an hour with Mac Davis, and his special guests Tom Jones, Dolly Parton, and Donna Summer, and 84-year-old Memphis guitarist Furry Lewis. I'm not quite sure how Bob Hope didn't wind up on this; perhaps it was just a conflict in schedules.

On Wednesday, it's more grist for Judith Crist's mill, as Jim Brown, Lee Van Cleef (fresh from For a Few Dollars More), and Patrick O'Neal star in El Condor (9:00 p.m., CBS). It's the first time on TV for this movie that models "the stupidities of sex and violence," although if you've seen in in the theaters, you might be disappointed to learn that Mariana Hill's nude scene has been cut. It is, Crist says, the Spanish equivalent of the spaghetti Western, an example of which we saw on Sunday. 

Elsewhere, George Burns co-stars with Abbe Lane in a 1975 special originally shown on the BBC (Thursday, 10:00 p.m., WXIA ). One of the things for which I'm grateful to classic television is the chance to see Burns in his prime, because by this time he's in what I'd call his "Dirty Old Man" phase, with Brooke Shields or some other comely young thing on his arm while he does a little singing and a little more leering. Quite frankly, I didn't much like that George Burns; the Burns of Burns and Allen, on the other hand, is a lot more fun.*

*Although from the stories we read, Burns had a wandering eye (and hand) as well.

The week rounds out with a pair of movies at opposite ends of the spectrum. For the kid in all of us, there's A Boy Named Charlie Brown, the 1969 feature-length Peanuts film (Friday, 8:00 p.m., CBS). The famous opening cloud-watching scene is "absolutely irresistible," but, Crist warns, "adults of any age will find the Rod McKuen songs as awful as his croaking of the title song." (Proving, once again, that McKuen is unsafe at any speed, or age. Oh, for the days of Vince Guaraldi.) It's on up against ABC's Friday night effort, "a silly rather than slanderous view" of cruise ships: The Love Boat (9:00 p.m.), in which a cast of good actors find themselves "trapped in tired little playlets." No suggestion that it's destined for long-run success.

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Baseball season is now in full swing, but the year’s biggest play didn’t happen on the diamond, or even a front office. It occurred, instead, in a board room, where on December 23, 1975, arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in favor of players Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally in a case challenging baseball’s reserve clause, the provision in the standard contract that allowed teams to “reserve” the rights to players even after their contracts had expired. After the appeals process had played itself out, with the owners finally conceding defeat after losing in the federal courts, Major League Baseball and the Players Association sat down and negotiated the terms of free agency, with the result that many players chose to play the 1976 season without a contract, preferring to test the free agency waters after the season.

The 1977 season will be the first contested in this new environment, and the effect this will have on the game, both short- and long-term, is the subject of Tuesday's CBS Reports special, "The Baseball Business" (10:00 p.m.) Fans aren't so naïve as to think baseball isn't a business, of course, not with the strike from a few seasons ago; nonetheless, "free agents, player agents, million-dollar bonuses and long-term contracts" are guaranteed to change the way the game is played, and the way fans, players and owners see it. For this report, correspondent Bill Moyers travels to spring training to look at the team "many have singled out as the most flagrant practitioner of checkbook baseball"—and if you think that team is any other than the New York Yankees, you've got another think coming. Substitute the Los Angeles Dodgers for the Yankees, and you're right up-to-date.

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Staying in the sports arena, so to speak, here's a real collector's item: an article about Bruce Jenner in which the phrase "sex change" is nowhere to be found. The only transformation to be found is the one Jenner's making from track and field to the broadcasting booth with ABC, a challenge Jenner approaches the same way he did when he was in competition: "It may be a good idea," he tells Melvin Durslag. "But I first have to believe it myself, and that's what I'm trying to do."

The son of a tree surgeon, Jenner was an excellent all-around athlete in school, but he didn't try track until he was 20, and didn't get into the decathlon until 1970. Six years later, he won the gold medal at the Montreal Olympics, setting a world record in the process. He admits that his dedication to preparing for the Games put a strain on his marriage, but he hopes that giving up the competitive world of sports will make a new man out of him, and heal the divisions—for the time being, at least. (They divorce in 1981.) Now that he's made himself over, Jenner hopes to start an acting career as well, and as this article is being written, he's won a small part in a movie called SST—Death Flight.

ABC is bullish on Jenner's future, but as Durslag notes, the athletes most successful at making the transition from the playing field to the broadcast booth—Frank Gifford, Pat Summerall—did so only after long hours of preparation and worth, and the ability to win over their non-athlete colleagues. Concludes Durslag, "[Jenner] has an incredible personality. This will carry him for a while. But how far he goes from there will be up to him." One thing's for sure: as is the case with any former jock, a new life awaits Bruce Jenner.

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One more sports note, and one has to wonder if we won't see something like this come to pass in these days when the sports dollar controls so much of television: Sally Bedell reports that ABC is investigating, and may consider cancelling, the United States Boxing Championships tournament it's been broadcasting, in an attempt to return big-time boxing to the small screen. It was launched in the wake of the Rocky phenomenon, complete with the theme, and for awhile things seemed to be looking good. 

Of course, the first indication of trouble should have been obvious when Don King was announced as the producer of the tournament. With nine of the sixteen shows still unseen, a Federal grand jury has opened an investigation into alleged fight-fixing and kickbacks. One unnamed fighter from Texas (later identified as Kenny Weldon) testified that he had to pay $2,500 to enter the tournament, while fighters signed to personal contracts by King were rumored to have been awarded dubious decisions over non-King fighters. 

Jim Spence, VP at ABC Sports, acknowledges that the series is in trouble, and that "One of our options is to discontinue the tournament. If we find additional incidents we could well end up canceling. If we don't we will probably continue." Despite the allegations, Spence sees a bright future for boxing on television, although he concedes that the sport requires "more careful supervision than other events televised by the network." 

In the end, an investigation spearheaded by Alex Wallau of ABC and New York journalist Malcolm Gordon uncovered further irregularities, including evidence that rankings for some of the boxers had been artificially inflated by the prestigeous Ring magazine (the "bible of boxing), "publishing results of fights that never took place for those boxers and then updating those boxers' fight records to reflect such non-existent bouts in order for them to be accepted into the tournament by ABC." By the time this issue of TV Guide went to press, the network had already KO'ed the series. 

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Finally, a touch of irony: on Sunday night, part 15 of Upstairs, Downstairs (9:00 p.m., PBS) takes us to the Great Depression of 1929, when James and Rose are both wiped out by the stock market crash. Remember what I said at the beginning of this piece, about 2026 being as far from 1977 as 1977 was from 1928? That really makes Upstairs, Downstairs a period piece, doesn't it? 

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MST3K alert: Marooned (1969) Oscar-winning special effects enhance the tension as mission control races against time and a threatening hurricane to retrieve three astronauts trapped in space. Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Lee Grant, Gene Hackman, Nancy Kovack. (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., W0SB in Atlanta) Marooned is the only film featured on MST3K to win an Oscar, and so it's appropriate that when it was shown, it was under the name Space Travelers, having been redistributed byFilm Ventures International, "an ultra-low-budget production company that prepared quickie television and video releases of films that were in the public domain or could be purchased inexpensively." I like to think that this (and the terrible new opening and closing credits which they pasted on it) is what makes it MST3K-worthy. TV

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