What's on TV? Tuesday, May 14, 1968

You'll notice plenty of coverage of the Nebraska Primary tonight; NBC plans updates during the movie, and all three networks have specials scheduled following the late local news. Bobby Kennedy, fresh off his win in Indiana, needed a victory to continue his momentum. Eugene McCarthy, the glow fading from his challenge to LBJ, mobilized hundreds of volunteers to help in the cause. Meanwhile Hubert Humphrey, electing to pass up the primaries, lurked in the shadows. Kennedy scores a decisive 52-31 victory over Clean Gene, setting up a confrontation in Oregon, followed by June's winner-take-all primary in California. But that's another story. The listings are from Northern California. 

This week in TV Guide: May 11, 1968

Let's start the week with a couple of related articles on what we can expect to see on the tube this summer, and what we may or may not be seeing this fall.

There is a general sense out there that this summer may well have some television goodies in store, including a surprising number of new shows. The biggest, however, "the Most Gigantic Spectacular Three-Ring Show on Earth," is one that comes along every four years: the campaign for the Presidency of the United States—or, as it's known these days, the Baatan Death March. That wasn't always the case, though; if people weren't exactly looking forward to the presidential campaign, they did concede that it was a colorful, exciting, and often dramatic time, from the primaries through the nominating conventions to the home stretch, ending on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This year promises to have more uncertainty than usual, although I don't think anyone was prepared for the amount and kind of uncertainty that we wound up with.

British cloak-and-dagger adventure stories are on hand, including Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner, which replaces Jackie Gleason on CBS, plus Man in a Suitcase on ABC and The Champions on NBC. Red Skelton's CBS variety show will be replaced for the summer by Showtime, a revue show out of London, while NET Playhouse will offer Thirteen Against Fate, a 13-week series of British dramas based on novels by George Simenon. We'll have American-made shows as well, with Dom DeLuise filling in for Jonathan Winters and Glen Campbell taking the place of the Smothers Brothers, and the Golddiggers getting an hour-long show of their own to replace their mentor, Dean Martin. 

If you're more in the mood for fun and games, all three of ABC's prime-time game shows, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and Dream House will have first-run episodes. ABC's also cornered the market on major golf tournaments, with the U.S. Open in June, the British Open and the PGA Championship in July, and the U.S. Amateur in August. You can also get your fill of summer football, with the Coaches' All-America Game in June, and the College All-Stars taking on the Green Bay Packers in August. On a more serious note, documentaries will be in short supply, according to the editors, although we'd be overwhelmed by the numbers that the article cites, including ABC's look at Christian missionaries, CBS's three-part series on "The Cities," and a seven-part prime-time series called On Black America. NBC follows up with a Huntley-Brinkley special on "Whatever Happened to the British Empire," plus reports on the Catholic Church and the art world. 

One thing you won't be seeing more of, reports Richard K. Doan, is original drama, to the regret of CBS. To great acclaim, the network introduced an irregular presentation of taped original dramas under the umbrella title of CBS Playhouse, which I continue to consider a reboot of Playhouse 90. The four dramas presented so far have met with mostly promising reviews, and respectable if not sensational ratings; the season's final installment, Tad Mosel's "Secrets," will be aired this Wednesday at 9:30 p.m., with Arthur Hill and Barbara Bel Geddes. The network promises at least four more next season. 

Unfortunately, this hasn't caused a rush of copycat programs. NBC, of course, has its venerable Hallmark Hall of Fame (which in those days really was good), but most of their presentations are "warmed-over classics," though we might see one original this year. The network also boasts the upcoming On Stage series, sponsored by Prudential, which promises five specials, varying between an hour and 90 minutes in length. "They will be based on original scripts with contemporary themes; only time will tell whether they have more serious theatrical intent than, say 'Fame Is the Name of the Game.'" And that, as they say, is it. 

If Shakespeare wrote for TV, would people watch?

Why the lack of such prestige drama? Well, for one thing, the public doesn't seem to be interested in it; "Hundreds of CBS Playhouse viewers have cried 'More! More!' But they are not an overpowering voice. (Far greater numbers, for example, cried 'More!' for Star Trek.) With the increase in made-for-television movies, the original dramatic play doesn't stand out the way it once would have; many viewers, in fact, don't even notice the difference between the two and are perfectly content to view "Death of a Salesman" and "Dial 'M' for Murder" as movies. 

Good scripts are also hard to come by; CBS's chief programmer Mike Dann complains that sponsors haven't been able to find good scripts for proposed dramas. This, however, is not a universally accepted argument; some of the great playwrights of the Golden Age, such as Reginald Rose, Ernest Kinoy and Paddy Chayefsky, argue that "if the medium provided again the kind of wide-open market it once did for teleplays, the writers would produce them." Chayefsky complains that the networks shy away from anything that has the whiff of controversy, but Barbara Schultz, who oversees Playhouse for the network, says they'd jump at something controversial, "if it's a play." 

These shows aren't exactly cheap to air, either. GT&E paid $525,000 for the Playhouse presentation "Dear Friends"; that air time is normally worth $160,000 per hour, but after the production costs, the net for the network was a mere $75,000. The dramas also tend to be on the dark side; while Dann says that he'd "love" something from Buck Henry or Neil Simon, most of the best writers are looking to make a serious statement with their work. (Those intense dramas don't always pay off, though, as is show in this reap of NBC's "Flesh and Blood" from earlier in 1968.)

So what are we left with? Well, there will be a CBS Playhouse this coming season, and Dann insists it will continue even if it doesn't introduce a new Golden Age. But, as Doan reminds us all, "These are no days in TV for shows that don’t pay their way."

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era.

It's "Second Thoughts" week, where your favorite critic and mine takes another look at reviews and comments from earlier in the year. And leading off is his Unaward of the Year, "familiarly known as the Enemy," which goes to NBC for its cancellation of I Spy, with an honorable mention to the network for halting Ben Gazzara's Run for Your Life. Of I Spy, he says, "Not only has this show been—in acting, in dialog and in scenery—the best one on the air for three years, it is still, for literally millions of people, their No. 1 favorite show." And while Run for Your Life "wasn't always great, it was usually at least good." 

He heaps praise on CBS's aforementioned revival of Playhouse, minus the "90" that used to accompany it. All three of its presentations, especially "My Father and My Mother" with Gene Hackman, were "television landmarks." It was, and should continue to be, "great television." He also has high praise for ABC's evening-long documentary Africa, and the special "How Life Begins." And then there was "The Now Generation," which was nothing more than an interview with Mia Farrow, conducted by her Peyton Place costar, Ryan O'Neal. It was "on the surface charmingly natural and light but underneath made a forceful statement for all of today's youth." He particularly recalls one memorable exchange when O'Neal asks Farrow, "Are you excited about now?" She replies, "Sure, all those things that you wanted to do as a child—living as you please, doing what you please, liking whom you please, loving whom you please—it’s all accepted now." It is, indeed, as good a summary of the Sixties as you can get, for better and worse. 

Lest one think that Amory's got a thing for ABC, though, he saves his greatest vitriol, as always, for The American Sportsman. This show has been a perennial thorn it the side of the animal-rights activist Amory, and he speaks dismissively of the irony of Governor John Connally of Texas, survivor of the Kennedy assassination, talking about the hunting merits of "the eye shot" or "the brain shot." As well, there are the weekly appearances of "endless celebrity has-beens attempting to prove his virility." Cleve concludes the column, and his reviews for the year, by urging readers to continue to write letters of protest to the network. Their responses "are as offensive as ever—but now they are also defensive."

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Speaking of Run for Your Life as we were above, Richard K. Doan says that the network's decision to cancel the series after three seasons was not without some controversy. We, and by that I mean those of us living in today's world, have become so accustomed to "final episodes" of even marginal series, that it might seem unthinkable that Run for Your Life would end without resolving terminally ill Paul Bryan's situation. Bryan, the character portrayed by Ben Gazzara, was, you'll remember, presented to us as a man with an incurable disease, who had only a couple of years to live. And NBC wanted, very much, to have Universal Studios, the production company, wrap up the series with a two-hour climax in which Bryan would either be cured of his illness, or die. 

The studio, however, declined, "insisting this would hurt syndication of the series." Now, this was an argument that unfolded in reverse with The Fugitive, where the same arguments were made—that resolving Dr. Richard Kimble's own run for his life would hurt the show in syndicated reruns—but the final episode pressed on anyway, with record-breaking ratings. NBC made that very point with Universal, to no avail.

Now, this is an interesting argument, this idea that viewers are incapable of watching a series if they know how the premise concludes--essentially, that they can't appreciate a given episode without regarding it as anything more than a piece of the whole. Let's run with that for a minute (pardon the pun). Would you lose interest in watching an episode of Cheers because you already know Sam won't wind up with Diane? If you were a fan of Newhart, is your pleasure of seeing Larry, Darryl and Darryl diminished because they all turned out to be part of a dream? Somehow, I have a hard time believing fans would feel that way. 

On the flip side, there are series like Dexter, How I Met Your Mother, and St. Elsewhere, where the final episodes were considered by many to be less than satisfactory. If you're one of the viewers left with a sour taste in your mouth by how things wrapped up, did it keep you from wanting to revisit your favorite episodes? Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Maybe the real answer is that if the producers nail the ending, they won't have to worry about whether or not the viewers will lose interest. A radical thought, to be sure, but worth considering all the same.

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On Tuesday, NBC preempts The Jerry Lewis Show for a World of Amimals special, "Big Cats, Little Cats." (8:00 p.m.), "A far-ranging look at the feline world, from the American alley cat to Africa's lord of the jungle," narrated by Lorne Greene. Among the cats portrayed in tonight's special is Room 8, "a feline who 'adopted' a group of sixth-graders in 1952 and has since attended classes daily." In fact, Room 8 was more than this brief description might indicate. He was about five years old when he popped in through a window at Elysian Heights Elementary School in Echo Park, California, settling down in Room 8. He'd disappear during the summer, but would always return on the first day of school in the fall, popping up when the bell rang; newspapers and television stations from around the area would show up every year on that day to watch him make his appearance.

In addition to appearing on "Big Cats, Little Cats" (you can see that segment here), Room 8 was featured in an article in Look magazine, was the subject of a piece by guitarist Leo Kottke, and had several books written about him, including the children's book A Cat Called Room 8. He would lay on desks during the day, sleeping, and enjoyed children reading to him. He died on August 13, 1968, at the age of 21; his obituary in the Los Angeles Times ran for three columns and included a photograph, and was picked up by newspapers throughout the country. Students raised money to purchase a gravestone for Room 8 at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park, where his grave is the most visited to this day, and a foundation named after him helps fund cat shelters. He was a little animal, but he made a big impact, and there's a lesson somewhere in there.

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Saturday begins with the fourth (and final) game of the Stanley Cup Final, with the Montreal Canadiens taking on the St. Louis Blues (Noon, CBS). Although the Canadiens sweep the expansion Blues in four games, don't be deceived: all four of the games were decided by one goal, and two of the four went into overtime. In primetime, "The Singers," an ABC News Special (preempting The Hollywood Palace!) profiles two female singers on opposite sides of the success scale: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, and up-and-coming pop singer Gloria Loring. (9:30 p.m.) You're probably familiar with Franklin's career, and you might know about Loring as well; in addition to a singing career that continues to this day, she acted on Days of Our Lives for six years, was married to Alan Thicke, and had a number of hits, including "Friends and Lovers," which made it to #2 in 1986.

ABC's Sunday Night Movie is 1963's The Leopard, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and while the version on ABC is the butchered, edited, and dubbed English version that was widely panned by critics, the release of the longer, classic version in 1983 established it as a classic; it's now considered one of the all-time greats. The historical epic stars Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, and Alain Delon, and was directed by Luchino Visconti, whom Lancaster considered the finest director he ever worked for. Judith Crist isn't all that impressed with it, calling it "beautifully photographed and badly dubbed," and finds it "ultimately stultifying." I'm sure she must have seen the original at one time; I wonder if it just left her cold, or if she's basing her comments on the edited edition?

A local note on Monday, but one that's not insignificant for TV news buffs: Ray Tannehill is the new anchor of KGO's 6:00 p.m. news, taking over for Roger Grimsby, who's moved to WABC in New York, where he starts a legendary run on the ABC affiliate, co-anchoring with Bill Beutel until 1986 (a news team that included Howard Cosell on sports, and Tex Antoine with the weather). Grimsby is also responsible for beginning the newscast, "I'm Roger Grimsby, here now the news," which SNL fans will recognize as the intro to Weekend Update used by Jane Curtin in honor of Grimsby. So what do you think: was he saying "here now the news" or "hear now the news"? And speaking of all-time great movies, as we were, KEMO has one at 9:00 p.m.: Ingmar Bergman's Oscar-winning Through a Glass Darkly, starring Max von Sydow and Harriet Andersson. If you're a fan of Bergman's, I need say no more.

Tuesday night the Nebraska Presidential Primary takes center stage on the national news scene, but you'll read more about that on Monday. In the meantime, The David Susskind Show (9:00 p.m., KQED) has one of those shows I'd love to have seen. Three segments: segment one features writers Rex Reed, Guy Talise, and Liz Smith discussing show-biz personalities; segment two has culinary experts James Beard and Craig Claiborne talking about food; and segment three has French Canadian politician Rene Levesque on the move for Quebec independence. I don't know how big separatism is anymore, but De Gaulle did quite a bit of rabble-rousing when he was president of France, and I remember watching the returns from a referendum in the 1980s (I think) in which the question very narrowly lost. It seems as if the Canadians have had a lot of problems holding their country together, doesn't it?

Wednesday marks the return of Emma Peel to The Avengers, but before anyone gets too excited, it's only in the form of reruns. (7:30 p.m., ABC) And besides, I think Linda Thorson, as Tara King, was a more than adequate replacement for Diana Rigg (no offense intended). On a musical note (get it?), Kraft Music Hall continues its run of "County Fair" episodes, with host Eddy Albert welcoming Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, Dana Valery, Chris and Beter Allen, and John Byner. (9:00 p.m., NBC)

Maybe the summer preview was right; there won't be as many documentaries on the air as usual. You couldn't prove it by this week, though; in addition to Saturday's ABC News Special on "The Singers" and NBC's special on cats, we've got four crammed into the final two days of this week, proving that the networks still have a "dedication to serving the public interest." And over the last couple of years, no area has been as trendy for documentaries as Africa. Hence, Thursday's NBC News Special "Man, Beast and the Land " (7:30 p.m.). It's bille as "an introduction to the importance and function of the balance of nature," and takes a close look at the Serengeti-Mara region, on the border between Kenya and Tanzania. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. narrates. The documentary preempts this week's cover stars from Daniel Boone, but don't worry; Dwight Whitney's article is mostly about Fess Parker's real estate holdings, and how he's quickly building up one of the most impressive (and most valuable) portfolios around. 

And guess what? On Friday night Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is on another documentary, this time on a different network. It's ABC's Saga of Western Man presentation "Robert Scott and the Race for the South Pole" (7:30 p.m.), narrated by John Secondari, and Fairbanks is on hand to read passages from Scott's journals. At 10:00 p.m., it's another NBC News Special, "Discover America with Jose Jimenez," in which Bill Dana plays his famous (and now-forbidden character) as he takes a whirlwind tour of America, from the Pennsylvania Amish country to forests of Northern California, and a little of everything in-between. You can see it, in segments, here.

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MST3K alert: Teen-Age Crime Wave (1955). Three dangerous juvenile delinquents take refuge in the home of a farmer and his family. Tommy Cook, Mollie McCart, Sue England. (Tuesday, 1:00 a.m. KGO in San Francisco) Let's see, so far we've had Teen-Age Caveman, Teen-Age Strangler, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and Teenagers From Outer Space, so I suppose this would be the natural succession. Our three stars are the three teens holding the family hostage, but of course one of them has to be the weak link, allowing the plot to fail. Well, what did you expect—In Cold Blood? And if those actors are teenagers, then I'm Truman Capote.  TV

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Around the dial

Let's begin the week at The Twilight Zone Vortex, where Jordan watches the comedy episode "From Agnes–With Love" so we don't have to. It's prime, and sad, evidence of the show's dramatic decline in its final season.

John is up to episode three of The Omega Factor at Cult TV Blog, "Night Games," which shows the thickening plot as Crane discovers Department 7's involvement in government-conducted mind control experiments. 

David's journey through 1970s TV continues at Comfort TV, with a look at Saturday nights, 1977. It's the last season of CBS's Saturday powerhouse with Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett, plus ABC's The Love Boat, NBC's The Bionic Woman, and more.

At Drunk TV, Paul looks at the second season of The Patty Duke Show, and the season's 36 (!) episodes show that even if the ratings had started to slide, the stories themselves remain fresh and entertaining.

Roger reports a change of pace in this week's A-Team at The View from the Junkyard, as the Team moves to Kenya for the episode "Skins," with a slightly more serious topic: the illegal poaching of elephants in Africa. 

It used to be that we had a proper understanding of how to use the word "great," meaning large, significant, but not necessarily good. In that sense, it can certainly be said that Ted Turner was a great figure in television history. And there's no denying that his broadcasts of Atlanta Braves on the Superstation was a good thing for baseball, especially in American League cities that were seldom exposed to National League teams. Likewise, his creation of Turner Classic Movies was a very good thing, even though the quality of the channel has diminished in the last few years; someone had to keep these old movies alive. (We'll overlook, for the time being, his involvement in colorization.) 

And then, there's CNN, and I really don't know how to feel about that. The original Cable News Network was substantive, far more non-partisan than today's networks, and did much to keep America better informed on what was going on. Headline News was, in a sense, even better, cutting out the fluff in favor of a concise, 30-minute recap of the news on a constantly updating basis. However, it also pointed out the difficulties inherent in maintaining a 24-hour news cycle, and the consequent need to elevate certain stories to occupy a greater need for programming. And it brought us gavel-to-gavel coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial. And it spawned Fox News, MSNow, and all the other constant news sources, which quickly evolved into a video version of English newspapers, simply recycling the same stories over and over through their own ideological slant. Someday, we may actually be able to understand just how much damage this has done to society. 

So, it would seem appropriate to say that Ted Turner's legacy, as is so often the case with great men, is a mixed one. And that figures, because, as any baseball fan would tell you, the only batters who never swing and miss are those who never step up to the plate. Turner did, and the fact that all of his media properties have suffered since he relinquished control of them, says much about exactly how great his impact was. TV

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What I've been watching: April, 2026

Shows I've Watched:

War and Peace

The Ellery Queen Mysteries

Danger Man

I mentioned, one of the last times that this feature appeared, that we hadn't introduced very many new shows into our viewing lineup, and that trend has continued through early spring. It's going to change, though, and in the next few months, you can expect to see new, and more, titles popping up: shows like The Gallant Men, The Time Tunnel, Cade's County, Car 54, and even The Monkees. Until then, you—and us—continue to work our ways through the last few episodes of some shows that have been on the schedule for awhile.

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All right, I admit it; I'm a cretin. The 1972 British version of War and Peace is considered one of the finest miniseries of all time. And how could it not be? Consisting of 20 episodes, running for a total of 15 hours, epic in scope, daring to plumb the depths of human emotion, based on one of the great books in all literature and boasting a cast headed by Anthony Hopkins, this ought to be a must for anyone who, like me, consistently beats the drum for finer television. My friend Paul Mavis wrote that "It positively luxuriates in its expansive format, giving the viewer a remarkable chance to fully experience the various nuances of character and the myriad permutations of shifting relationships," and gave it four stars.

And yet I was bored stiff through most of it. I found it dragging to the point that I asked my wife, who's read the book, if this was supposed to be the Thousand Years' War. So it's got to be me, and I'm fine with that. There are some genres that just don't appeal to me, and this apparently is one of them. Perhaps it's the portrayal of the Russian upper class that grated on me; I've never been able to understand or appreciate the dynamics of the aristocracy in British costume dramas, and at least War and Peace confirmed that my dislike isn't confined to Anglos. I'm about as anti-communist as they come, and yet, even though it would have been a historical anachronism, I kept hoping against hope that the Bolsheviks would show up and put them out of our misery. (It does give me a finer appreciation of the nuances of the Russian Revolution, however, but that's another story.) 

I consider myself an honorable man, for the most part, but the mores and manners of the upper crust aristocracy is as impenetrable to me as the most obscure foreign language. For some reason, I kept coming back to that Monty Python skit about the about the Upper Class Twit of the Year competition. Let me tell you, most of these characters would have been high in the standings. And you think there's drama in social media? That's nothing compared to the "everything's a disaster and my life is in total ruins!" whining that accompanies virtually everything that happens here. No wonder Anna Karenina threw herself under a train.

It didn't help that it took me a half dozen episodes to keep track of who's who. All those Russian names, the Nicolais and Andreis and Vasilis, are hard enough to keep straight in the best of times, but I had to keep asking my wife, "Now, which one is he?" until I finally skipped to the Wikipedia synopsis of the book and read the whole story. Even though I knew how the story ended, I can't say I was sorry that I did it. (At least Hopkins's character is named Pierre; it only took me two episodes to remember that.) It also doesn't work to the show's advantage that all the women sounded like shrill, privileged fishwives, especially the insufferable Morag Hood, who as Natasha is supposed to be a beguiler of men, but I kept wanting to shout at the screen, "Shut up, you stupid cow!" I have, at least, been confirmed in my suspicions that her casting was considered the weak link in the whole series.

Maybe part of the problem stems from the "war" part of War and Peace. Frankly, I was never sure who I should be rooting for. Maybe it's that British penchant for not having actors attempt to simulate foreign accents (which usually works quite well), but if it weren't for the generals and aides repeatedly calling some short guy "Napoleon," I'm not sure I would have been able to tell the French from the Russians in the first place. Still, I was puzzled; I mean, I'm no Francophile, I have a fairly strong contempt for the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. And yet was I supposed to be hoping that they would win, or were the Russians the ones I should be casting my lot with? And doesn't siding with Russia mean that I'm actively hoping for the defeat of Ukraine? Whoops, wrong war. Well, you can forgive me; it only seems as if that war lasted this long.  

What I can say about War and Peace is that, amidst a cast of largely unlikable characters, Anthony Hopkins is magnificent. Every time he appeared on screen, he made me put down whatever I was doing and watch. He projects a gravitas that is totally appropriate to the source material, and if someone, back in 1972, were to have told me that he'd someday win two Academy Awards, I'd have had no trouble believing it. The only other character with whom I could really identify was Rupert Davies as Count Rostov, who sounds from the name as if he should be working with Boris Badenov, but in reality was someone's husband and someone else's father, I'm not quite sure whose. I loved Davies as the French police detective Maigret, so I was more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here; still, he did seem to be one of the few characters who projected a natural humanity and warmth that I could identify with.

As I say, this isn't meant as an indictment of War and Peace. Perhaps if I read the book, or saw the Russian version of the story, I'd feel quite different about it. It didn't work for me, and that's probably my fault. And on balance, television is probably better off having a series like this than not. So sue me.

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There have been a number of attempts to bring Ellery Queen's epynomous mystery writer/sleuth to the small screen, but in my opinion none of them worked quite as well as the 1975-76 edition that starred Jim Hutton as the absent-minded Ellery and David Wayne as his often-exasperated father, Inspector Richard Queen. The series only ran for 22 episodes plus the pilot, which is a real shame; it has, however, been out for quite some time on DVD, which not only is not a shame but gives us the kind of television we could really use right now: thoughtful, intelligent, well-cast, with mysteries that are challenging but not impossible to solve, and stories that won't make your brain hurt after a long and trying day.

The concept of the amateur detective (often called a "cozy" in literary terms) is not one of my favorite tropes, but in the case of the Ellery Queen novels, it's always worked quite well. For one thing, Ellery's not really an amateur; with a shelf full of mysteries to his credit, he knows a thing or two about crime, making him a little more like, say, Jessica Fletcher. But whereas Jessica always and inexplicably seems to be at the right place at the right time (if one wants to become involved in a murder case), Ellery always has a good reason for being where he is: his dad is a high-ranking homicide inspector, who often coaxes his son into accompanying him on the more intriguing cases. (It also helps that the series is set in New York City rather than Cabot Cove, which makes the death toll much more plausible.)

Oftentimes, a series stands or falls on the casting of its main characters, and here Ellery Queen excels. Both Hutton and Wayne are real pros, and the chemistry between the two, as father and son, is both warm and believable. The elder Queen combines both parental affection and perennial exasperation at his son's absent-mindedness (an exaggeration from the Ellery character in the books) in a way that's very easy to buy, and he has a keen appreciation for the way Ellery's mind works. He may occasionally indulge him, but more often he has a real respect for Ellery's abilities, and isn't so stubborn or set in his ways that he won't let Ellery's deductions change his mind. Watching the two of them on screen together is a real pleasure. They're aided by Tom Reese's fine performance as Sergeant Velie, who is presented as a hard-working and dependable detective, not an eccentric sidekick or someone who exists only to serve as the surrogate for the audience when explaining the solution to the crime. It's also fun to see the all-star casts that populate each episode, as was the case in the early days of Murder, She Wrote. Never mind that many of the stars are either B-list actors and actresses, stars who've seen their time come and go, or character actors whose names you can never quite recall. Their presence just adds to the fun.

The early episodes of Ellery Queen were, I thought, overly dependent on a trope that can get tiresome: the dying man's clue. It seems that almost all of these victims were either puzzle aficionados or enjoyers of word play, because their dying clues, meant to point to the identity of their murderer, are often incredibly obscure, frequently too clever by half, and generally require much more of a leap of plausibility than the crimes themselves. I don't know about you, but if I'm about to die, I'm probably either overcome by pain or too focused on pleading for God's mercy to spend my dying breaths concocting a clue in hopes that someone as clever as Ellery Queen will come along to figure it out. 

That's a small quibble, though, and it is more than made up for by Ellery's breaking of the fourth wall in the last moments of each episode to address the viewers directly, asking them if they've figured out who dunnit. It's a conceit taken directly from the early Queen books, and it was an inspired choice to bring the concept to television. As Ellery points out, the clues are all there; nothing has been withheld from the viewers, who know as much about the crime as he does. 

I wonder, though, if there might be room someday for what I'd call a "straight" version of Ellery Queen, without the absent-mindedness and the comic relief, without the fourth wall-breaking, and without the proverbial New York City that always has a parking spot open right in front of the building where everyone goes. Some of the Queen mysteries are quite dark, not to say disturbing, such as one that ends with Ellery handing the suspect a gun with the suggestion that he knows what he needs to do with it, followed by Ellery leaving the room and, a few moments later, hearing a single gunshot. Would that have ever flown in early-Seventies television? Probably not, but it would today, and although Ellery Queen isn't the household name that, say, Perry Mason is, maybe a revival is worth a look.

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The only other series we're finishing up with is a repeat viewing of the hour-long episodes of Danger Man, which will flow right into The Prisoner, and it probably makes sense to cover them at the same time, given that—as we all know—John Drake is Number 6. Right? Right. TV

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What's on TV: Wednesday, May 11, 1966

Tonight's Dick Van Dyke episode was originally scheduled to air on March 16, but was preempted by CBS News's coverage of the emergency splashdown of Gemini VIII. (In case you don't know all the details about the emergency that caused the early splashdown, you can read about it at the always-reliable Wikipedia.) It wasn't just a case of playing it safe; I remember watching this live, and there was a real question as to whether or not the astronauts would be OK. Predictably enough, there were complaints from viewers that the special coverage had caused them to miss their favorite programs; even though you might not have had any particular interest in the space program, you'd think that people could grant that this was an event worth broadcasting. I don't know if any of those viewers were fans of Dick Van Dyke, but if so, you'll getting your program tonight. The listings come to us from the Northern California edition.

This week in TV Guide: May 7, 1966

A host of substantive specials lead off the week, beginning with our cover story on President Johnson's tour of the Texas White House. 

Lyndon Johnson's Texas (Monday, 10:00 p.m. PT, NBC) is an intimate look at the LBJ Ranch and the surrounding hill country of Texas, of which the President is intensely proud. Johnson personally conducts NBC's White House correspondent, Ray Scherer, and a film crew on the tour. Central Texas, and Johnson City, is where LBJ was born, grew up, represented, and lived for most of his life, and to know the land is to know Johnson himself. 

He tells Scherer that "I believe that the land is our greatest source of wealth, and a man who understands it and appreciates it would better understand democracy itself, our system of government and the people who live here." He shows Scherer the house in which he was born ("I was born before the doctor could get here. I was delivered by my grandmother. That was fairly common in those days."), the family plot, and the Pedernales. Johnson remembers that as a young boy, "I rode from the main ranch house to Austin many times in a wagon. I remember my father would offer the child who would see the capitol first a nickel. And we watched for 60 long miles for that capitol. When we got within 10 or 15 miles of Austin, high on a hill, we would see the capitol and all of us would holler at the same time. Everyone got a nickel.” As the sun sets over the Peddernales, he remarks to Scherer, "Those are beautiful trees... so peaceful and quiet. I think that the water there in the river, the grass that is here on the bank, the implements that are there on the fence line, all working together, have meant sustenance for me and mine for more than a century along the banks of this river."

It strikes me that this is an extraordinarily personal look at a sitting president, the opposite of the interviews we've become accustomed to today. When Jackie Kennedy took Charles Collingwood on the tour of the White House in 1962, we saw the woman dedicated to restoring the grandeur of America's house; here, we have the president himself giving us a look at the grandeur of America, the land, and the stories of the people who made it. I'd love to see something like this again someday.

On Sunday, we see the flip side of the Johnson presidency in ABC's documentary series The Saga of Western Man (8:00 p.m.), and the episode, "I Am a Soldier." The soldier in question is Captain Theodore S. Danielsen, West Point 1960, a company commander in the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam. During the documentary, we see Danielsen and his men put through the paces of learning helicopter warfare, conducting a search-and-destroy mission, and attending a ceremony for the company's dead.

Whenever there's a program like this, the first thing I always do is search for the soldier's name to find out what happened to him. Did he make it through Vietnam intact, was he taken prisoner, did he die in action? And, if he made it home, what happened to him after the war? In Captain Danielson's case, we can happily report that he did, indeed, make it home. He retired from the military in 1987 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and died in 2011 in his own homeland, South Carolina. According to the West Point Association of Graduates, "His most memorable mission was to aid a sister unit that was heavily outnumbered and in great danger in the la Drang valley. [A battle portrayed in the documentary.] Ted’s company conducted the first nighttime heliborne Infantry assault into a hot LZ and saved many lives in the process." He won the Silver Star for that battle, as well as one of his three Bronze Stars with Valor. was admired and respected by his men, loved by his family, and received the gratitude of a grateful nation, though certainly not at with the intensity he deserved.

Somewhere between these two is the NBC News special The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Sunday, 6:30 p.m.) narrated by Lorne Greene, and produced and directed by NBC's acclaimed Ted Yates. In making the special, Yates and his camera crew retraced the route taken by Lewis and Clark in 1804, traveling from St. Louis to the high plains of Montana, where they reach the headwaters of the Missouri River, and then on to the Rockies and down the Columbia River to the Pacific. It's an epic journey, worthy of this special, and deserves to be studied more than it is.

What links all three of these documentaries is the way in which they portray different aspects of America: the land and how it's shaped the character of its people, the heroism required in the face of adversity, and, in so many ways, what it means to be an American. It's a dramatic reminder that, even more than a philosophy, America is a nation comprised of its heritage, its land, and the people who helped make it what it is through their blood and toils. People may fight for an idea, but they'll certainly fight for their homeland. We hope.

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

Sullivan: Scheduled guests: Gordon and Sheila MacRae, the singing McGuire Sisters, the Serendipity Singers, Harry James and his orchestra, comedienne Jean Carroll, puppet Topo Gigio, and comic John Byner. (The episode guide indicates that The Black Sheep and Henny Youngman were part of the lineup as well.)

Palace: Hostess Judy Garland welcomes Van Johnson; comic Jack Carter; rock singer Johnny Rivers; the Black Theatre of Prague, pantomimists, who offer “The Chair’; British comedy pantomimist Charlie Cairoli; and the Roselle Troupe, Colombian acrobats. Judy and Van present a clown routine—their first performance together since the 1949 movie “In the Good Old Summertime."

Don't misunderstand me; I've always liked Gorddodn MacRae, and Sheila was a sweetheart. And the McGuire Sisters aren't bad, both solo and with Harry James. Henny Youngman's addition is a definite plus. But let's be real: Judy Garland hosting the Palace, complete with a reunion with Van Johnson, and Johnny Rivers in addition. This is an easy one for me; it's the good old Palace for the win this 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.

My Three Sons is, Cleveland Amory says, something of a television institution by now. It started on ABC in 1960, and made the move to CBS last year. You're probably familiar with the story: a widower with three sons, "and when the older son got too big and got married to boot, well, they just booted him right out and adopted a new young ’un from next door." A show with this premise, Cleve rightly points out, could go on forever. However—and you must have known this was coming—"We wish we could bring you better news—but the best we can offer is that NBC, so far, has no plans to carry it."

Lest you think Amory is being his usual curmudgeonly self here, I should point out that he does have some reasons for feeling this way, whether you agree with him or not. For one thing, the "single father with sons" genre has been done to death, Bonanza being probably the best-known (and most successful) example, given that The Brady Bunch hasn't come along yet, and is just a variation on the premise at that. (There are also, Amory notes, approximately 418 war shows that play off the same female-less premise.) "The idea is, of course, to show how impossibly difficult, heart-rendingly sad—and at the same time, of course, screamingly funny—it is for all the poor little just plain men to try to get along without the comfort and guidance of TV’s great big all-wise, all-wonderful women." It might be a pretty good idea, too, if it was shown in the morning, for just women. Maybe, Amory speculates, they could do a show about just women. And make them Amazons, so you could cover the war angle there, too.

As we all know, Fred MacMurray stars as Steve Douglas, and "if you recall Mr. MacMurray’s movie with Barbara Stanwyck called Double Indemnity, well, forget it. It’s just too sad that a man who could do that has to do this." Although, considering the sweetheart deal Fred had to work something like two weeks a year, it's at least understandable. He's aided in raising the boys by William Demarest's Uncle Charley, who replaced William Frawley upon the latter's death, and this character—"the everpresent side-kick, chief cook and bottle washer, father confessor and den mother—is regarded as the one essential ingredient in these shows." The role is as essential as that of the veteran M.D. mentoring the young doctor in Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby, and every other medical show you could think of. But I digress. Of Demarest's character, Cleve says, "he has so many ridiculous lines that he must long for the days of the silent pictures." And don't get him started on those commercials-in-character that include the same laugh track as the rest of the show. Maybe, he thinks, this does need a woman's touch at that; "it isn’t all-wise or allwonderful, but it sure deserves to be left all alone."

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Some footnotes from the TV Teletype: since McHale's Navy hasn't been renewed for another season, Tim Conway is looking for a new gig, and may have found one: he's made a pilot for a sitcom called Captain Nice. Now, if you're a fan of obscure shows, you'll know that Captain Nice does, in fact, make it to the fall schedule, but not with Conway: instead, William Daniels has the lead role. It plays out like a typical Conway-starring show: it's cancelled after 15 episodes.

Also leaving the airways this season is Perry Mason, and in "The Case of the Final Fade-Out," everyone gets into the act. Author Erle Stanley Gardner plays a judge, and many of the stagehands play versions of themselves in the story, which takes place behind the scenes of a successful TV series. One of the things that I really like about how the series ends is that writers have the right idea: at the fade-out, Perry, Paul, and Della are looking through the files preparing for a new case. Meaning that, unlike so many final episodes of long-running series, there is no real "end," just a sign that things keep going on--which, if you think about it, is a perfect way for a series to go into reruns.

Speaking of shows coming and going, The Ballad of Smokey the Bear is the latest Rankin/Bass holiday special, and it airs on Thanksgiving afternoon, with James Cagney as the star. Contrary to what the Teletype reports, though, Cagney is not voicing "the familiar furry fighter of forest fires," but is playing the storyteller, which is always the star role in a R/B special.  Barry Pearl, in fact, plays everyone's favorite bear. Meanwhile, singers Molly Bee and Rusty Draper are doing a pilot for Swinging Country, a music variety series that makes NBC's daytime schedule in the fall. It's Dick Clark's first sale to NBC. 

Also coming this fall is The Green Hornet, and Henry Harding reports that last week ABC announced that Van Williams, formerly of Bourbon Street Beat and SurfSide 6, will play Britt Reid, alias the masked crime fighter. This series, like Captain Nice, also has a single-season run, but it's a fun show to enjoy. It should have had a proper DVD release the same time as its stablemate, Batman.

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Saturday is the 92nd Run for the Roses, the Kentucky Derby (2:00 p.m., CBS), and from a field that was thought to be fairly uninspiring, the wonderfully-named Kauai King emerges triumphant, a feat he will repeat two weeks later at the Preakness, before finishing fourth in the Belmont Stakes. The legendary sportscaster Jack Whittaker hosts the broadcast; later on, he'll also host the debut of the game show The Face is Familiar (9:30 p.m, CBS), in which "celebrity guests join contestants in trying to guess the identities of famous personalities who are shown in scrambled photographs." I wonder which gig payed hm more?

Speaking of sports, if you're old enough (like me), you might remember the dismal days of the NBA in the 1980s, when CBS broadcast the finals on tape delay after the late local news, in order to avoid preempting their more popular programs. (How times have changed.) Well, here's something that would have been potentially even worse: a note that if the Stanley Cup final between the Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings went to seven games, NBC may show a tape of the game, which would have been played last night, at 2:30 p.m. As it happens, everyone's saved some casual embarrassment when Montreal defeats Detroit in overtime in the sixth game, winning the Cup four games to two.

Also on Sunday, a special that ties in to the theme we introduced in the lede. This is the darker side, though: the death of the American dream,  as seen through the weary eyes of a man seeing the end of his way of life. It's Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (9:00 p.m., CBS), with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock recreating their Broadway roles as Willy Loman, the titular salesman, and his wife, Linda. They're joined by George Segal and James Farentino, and a rare live-action appearance from June Foray. It's a relentless reminder of the price one often has to pay to achieve success, and what happens when it all comes to naught.

As we slide into a week dominated by reruns, we get an interesting meta premise on The Andy Griffith Show (Monday, 9:00 p.m., CBS), when a movie company pays Andy $1,000 for the film rights to his life story. What would really have been great would have been if the company's head had been Danny Thomas, playing himself (he did produce the Griffith show, which was introduced on an episode of The Danny Thomas Show), with a story that revolves around various real-life actors being considered to play Sheriff Andy. I wonder if television would have been ready for something like that back then.

On Tuesday, CBS Reports (10:00 p.m.) airs a provocative report on unidentified flying objects: "UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy." Among the guests are meterologists, government directors, authors, Col. Hector Quintinella, direct0r of Project Blue Book, the Air Force's investigation into UFOs, and an early appearance by Carl Sagan. And look at it: sixty years later, and we're still debating the issue. I wonder if the upcoming report (if it ever is released) will contain anything that wasn't discussed in this program. But if you want to stay in the mood, you can catch the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet afterward (10:00 p.m., KTVU), where you can see some real flying saucers.

Wednesday gives us a look at life before the internet, as private investigator Larry Craig joins Art Linkletter on House Party (1:30 p.m., CBS) to reveal the names of missing heirs. Craig (not to be confused with the radio show Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator) was an occasional guest on House Party, where he would enlist help from the viewers by publicizing these heirs to unclaimed estates, and update the results of previous searches. I don't know; you may prefer modern life, where we're all connected by no more than a click or two of a mouse, but I still have nostalgia for these days, when America seemed to be a bigger country, with more room to move—or hide, if you prefer. 

One of the great political thrillers of all time dominates Thursday's lineup: a repeat showing of John Frankenheimer's masterpiece The Manchurian Candidate (9:00 p.m., CBS), the Cold War chiller involving communist brainwashing and assassination, starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, James Gregory, and Janet Leigh. This holds the perennial top spot in my quadrennial list of favorite political movies; in a just world, this would have received more than just two Oscar nominations. It would be hard to find anything to compete with it, but the season's first rerun of The Dean Martin Show (10:00 p.m., NBC), does pretty well, with Louis Armstrong, Carol Lawrence, the Andrews Sisters, Rich Little, Gene Baylos, and Line Renaud.

On Friday, a Flintstones repeat features Hollyrock movie star Stoney Curtis visiting Bedrock. (7:30 p.m., ABC) Stoney looks suspiciously like Tony Curtis, who, not coincidentally, plays the voice of his animated counterpart. I was never the biggest fan of The Flintstones, but I always enjoyed these clever celebrity tie-ins, such as the one with Ann-Margret playing Ann-Margrock. And tonight's late-night movie pick is the terrific Western, The Magnificent Seven (11:20 p.m., KPIX), with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen leading a terrific cast. Oh, and Tony Curtis is back in the movie on KNTV, The Purple Mask (11:30 p.m.), raising money for the French Royalists in this adventure yarn. Dan O'Herlihy and Colleen Miller co-star.

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MST3K alert: The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960) "A scientist tries to bring his girl friend back to life. Jason Evers, Virginia Leith." (Friday, 11:30 p.m., KSBW in Salinas) That cartoon pretty much sums up this story of a mad doctor (are you surprised it's Jason Evers, at his smarmy best?) who keeps his fiancée's severed head alive while he tries to find a suitable body to graft the head onto. But then, what would Friday night be without a good mad doctor flick? Notably, this is also the first episode featuring Michael J. Nelson as the replacement for Joel Hodgson. The rest is history. TV

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