This week in TV Guide: May 22, 1965

From time to time, TV Guide has presented an occasional series of articles called "If I had a network, in which prominent personages from various walks of life are asked the simple question, "What would you do if you were in complete charge of a network?" This week, the respondent is one of the magazine's most distinguished occasional essayists, British humorist and critic Malcolm Muggeridge. Now, that name should be familiar to you as a regular reader of this website, because I almost always feature Muggeridge's pieces when they appear. They're invariably shrewd, erudite, and witty, not to mention extremely perceptive. So what does Mr. M have to say about running an American television network?

For starters, his first step would be "a furious, sustained and lethally well-documented assault on Nielsen ratings, with a view to undermining their acceptance," to be replaced by what he calls a "system of enquiry into viewing, both qualitative and quantitative, undertaken by, say, the sociology department of Columbia University." Such a study would, he believes, provide a far more accurate analysis of American viewing habits, although it would meet with stiff opposition from advertising agencies, "who naturally prefer existing arrangements, in the same sort of way that African witch doctors prefer toads and newts to logarithms." 

Thus empowered, what would he have appear on our screens? Surprisingly enough, he says, "the word 'culture' would play no part in my plans." A television network, he goes on to say, "should be thought of not in terms of a theater or music hall; not, certainly, of a lecture hall or classroom, but of what was known, in the lower-middle-class homes I frequented when I was young, as an evening 'social,'" consisting of games, discussions, an analysis of the news, perhaps a reading—a salon of sorts, you might say. 

Part of that would be comedy; in the first half-century of cinema, "only in the genre of comedy was anything of enduring interest achieved." And it would be comedy of a higher sort than one often sees on the home screens today; rather than old, warmed-over jokes from tired gag writers, he would feature "warm, rich, authentic comedy, derived from life rather than from the dreary standard techniques of entertainment." He then goes on to make a remarkable statement, one that rings richly true today, and serves as a sad indictment of our modern culture: "It is to me always an extraordinary circumstance that Americans, who in their private capacity love to laugh more perhaps than any other people, in their public capacity so easily become preternaturally solemn." For suggestions, advice, and (hopefully) performances, he would instruct his secretary to immediately reach out to the one and only Zero Mostel, and would aim for comedy that comes from the fortunes and misfortunes of daily life, its joys and delights, in much the same way he did in Fiddler on the Roof or the way it's done on the British sitcom Steptoe and Son (which, indeed, did work in this country, as Sanford and Son). 

Next, he'd take Fred Friendly and put him in complete and total charge of the news and public affairs department, with the lure that all his programs would be shown in prime time. He would have only two directives: "firstly, to go for comment, the harder and the more vehement the better; and, secondly, to leave news stories as such to the news agencies, as sensible newspapers do, devoting all available camera resources to elucidating the meaning or significance of what is happening in the world." In other words, don't go for the stories all the other networks are covering; go where they aren't. As he says, "After 40 years of journalism I propound this truth—the news is never where it is but always where it isn’t."

As far as the commentary that he mentioned, here he makes another prescient observation that applies one hundred percent to our time: "do Americans, I often wonder, realize how completely their television reflects (to use the latest jargon-word) a consensus rather than the tangle of individual, rasping, conflicting views which characterize a truly free and open society?" What television is particularly good at is presenting what he calls "the false sense of unanimity," whereas he wants to see a diversity of opinion—not the free-for-all shoutfest that news networks give us today, but different voices, with different opinions. Wouldn't that be nice?

Finally, "I should try to make my network intensely American." He knows this sounds funny coming from a foreigner, but he also notes that in all the years he's come and gone to America, "I have been haunted by a sense that in the public presentation of the people, and the country, both at home and abroad, something quite delightful, and to me intensely sympathetic, gets left out." It is, he writes, "Something joyous, innocent, humorous; exactly contrary to the gangster violence, the sick sex obsessions, the portentous moralizing, which so often, alas, pass for being American." For example, why not serialize Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer, rather than Peyton Place? The American culture, he seems to say, the American persona, is a unique thing that deserves to be celebrated, not ignored. 

To this, I should think, we could all say, "Amen." 

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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 comes out on top.

Sullivan:  Scheduled guests: Pernell Roberts of Bonanza; Liza Minnelli, currently starring in Broadway’s "Flora the Red Menace"; Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians; singer Kathy Kirby; comedian Bob King; juggler Eric Badicton; comics Stiller and Meara; the Bachelors, Irish folk singers; and the Feredianis, acrobats. (According to the episode guide, ballet stars Rudolf Nureyev & Margot Fonteyn appeared as well.)

Palace:  Host Tennessee Ernie Ford introduces singer/dancer Ann Miller, who dances on stage with a partner for the first time (Dante de Paulo); songstress Edie Adams; comedian Jack Carter; Santos, Portuguese acrobat who performs somersaults on the low wire; the O'Keefe comedy divers from England, one of whom dives 90 feet into six and one-half feet of water; and the Gus Augspurg Monkeys.

To be perfectly honest, this is a bit of a struggle. I'm not really all that into listening to Pernell Roberts sing cowboy ballads, and both shows have their share of acrobats. Ed has Stiller and Meara, the Palace has Jack Carter. Ed has Liza, Z or not; the Palace has Edie Adams. But there's Tennessee Ernie and Ann Miller, a powerhouse duo, and based on that, I'm giving a slight edge to the Palace.

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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.

This week, Cleveland Amory ventures into the world of the celebrity game show with a show entitled, appropriately enough, The Celebrity Game. It is, someone once wrote, a kind of precursor to The Hollywood Squares, in that we have a panel of celebrities, and three contestants who try to predict how the celebrities answered various questions. The answers are, of course, simply excuses for various comic riffs and punchlines: for example, "Do you agree that the first thing most men notice about women is their eyes? When women talk, do men really listen? Does a woman worry more about being single than a man? Is it possible to predict what kind of wife a woman will make? Is it wise for a man to try to win every argument with his wife?" If, Cleve opines, "for some unaccountable reason you want to know the answers to the above questions and furthermore want to have humorous answers delivered by celebrities," then this is your cup of tea—or, perhaps, something a little stronger, which you'll need just to sit down and watch. 

Host of The Celebrity Game is Carl Reiner, who says that it's a challenge to get many of these celebrities, many of whom "are really shy and retiring by nature," to open up and participate. Were this truly so, Amory observes, "either Mr. Reiner has entirely confined himself to the outgoing type or he is the greatest master of ceremonies since Louis XIV. If his celebrities participated any more, there would be no need for Mr. Reiner at all." The celebrities run the typical gamut, with George Jessel, Della Reese, Phyllis Diller, Morey Amsterdam, Frankie Avalon, and "several Gabors." Whether the celebrities are giving spontaneous answers to these questions or are depending on their writers, Amory doesn't venture an opinion. However, it remains true that the humor is uneven at best, and sometimes downright unfunny. 

Speaking of those questions, you'll notice that most of them have to do with the war between the sexes, which was already tiresome long before 1965. However, given that Dr. Joyce Brothers is billed as a consultant, you can also count on questions of a medical nature, such as "Are we becoming a nation of hypochondriacs by watching too many hospital shows on television?" (The 2026 version of this question would undoubtedly substitute pharmaceutical commercials for doctor shows.) The best answer he can remember, Cleve says, was also the most appropriate, coming from Tommy Sands, who prefaced his answer with "I’m not going to try to be cute or funny, because I’m not cute or funny." And that, Amory says, is that.

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To be perfectly honest, I've never thought of Max Baer as the next Angry Young Man, but according to this unbylined profile, there's "a lot of hostility" that's built up inside him, and that comes out on the set occasionally. Not aimed at others, it should be noted; Baer is far too self-aware to consider himself a big enough star to be temperamental. His demands for perfection are aimed mostly at himself, and his frustrations at being trapped in a role that clearly doesn't align with who Max Baer—son of the former world heavyweight boxing champion, well-read graduate of the University of Santa Clara (major in commerce, minor in philosophy), who enjoys discussing Kant and Spinoza and Schopenhauer—really is.

 "What really bugs me is I'm out in public and some guy looks me over and says, 'So you're Jethro, huh? Well, you’re not so big.' They’re the same kind of people who used to say, 'So you’re Max Baer’s kid, huh? Well, you don’t look so tough.' I'm playing a caricature—a mental midget—and I’m no more like Jethro than the man in the moon." 

Ah, the price of fame.

Acting came naturally to Baer; his father had wanted to be an actor, but was pushed into the fight game by his father, who had wanted to be a boxer himself. "I wanted to be an engineer or lawyer and got sidetracked," Max Jr, says. "But, as I tell my mother, someday I'll make good in the work that Dad really wanted to do." And though he may bristle about playing Jethro, he's also refreshingly realistic. "I’m not complaining. Sure, Hillbillies isn’t my type of humor, personally. I’d like to move on to bigger things. But I go for this good Hollywood life. The money’s good, the dames are good, even if all the older dames in town want to mother me." And he can be seen taking a real interest in the behind-the-scenes side of Hollywood, studying directors, taking notes, watching the editors in the process of cutting the film. And he hasn't given up on moving on to more challenging work, plays such as "A Streetcar Named Desire." Maybe in another four or five years, he says. Richard Whorf, who directed the first two seasons of Hillbillies, is a believer. "This is a boy who improved 900 percent in two years—and he’s all unschooled, natural ability. Don’t be surprised if Max turns into a very big star."

In fact, that kind of stardom eludes Baer. Unsurprisingly, the many seasons as Jethro left him typecast, and he moved into the production side that he'd taken such an interest in earlier, producing and directing the movies Macon County Line and Ode to Billy Joe, before retiring from the business in 1979. Still and all, Max Baer Jr. lives on as the last surviving member of one of the most successful sitcoms of all time, one for which he'll always be remembered, and there are worse things in life than that.

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In looking through the week's movies, we land immediately on KTVU's Unchained (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.), which stars former football star Elroy Hirsch and current Della Street Barbara Hale in the story of Chino State Prison, the "prison without walls." But you don't care about any of that, and you might only be tangentially interested that jazz great Dexter Gordon has an uncredited role in the movie as a saxophone player in the prison jazz band—he was at the time serving a sentence for heroin possession. No, what you're interested in, and what Unchained is primarily known for, is "Unchained Melody," written by Alex North and Hy Zaret, made famous by the Righteous Brothers, and one of the rare B-movie themes to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Song. (It lost to "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing," which later spawned a soap opera of the same name, but that's another story.)

A couple of Western-themed programs highlight Sunday, beginning with The Saga of Western Man's "Custer to the Little Big Horn" (4:00 p.m., ABC), and the title pretty much tells it all in this story of one of the most controversial figures in American history. I don't know for sure at this point in time if we still considered Custer a hero or a villain, and that's a question that probably never will get a definitive answer. Later that night, it's director John Huston's modern-day Western, The Misfits (9:00 p.m.), with Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe each making their last film appearances, and Monroe's then-husband, playwright Arthur Miller, writing his only screenplay. 

Hugh Downs and the Today crew are in Greece this week (Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m., NBC), with a look at the ancient and mysterious country; on today's show, they're joined by art and architecture correspondent Ailne Saarinen in looking at the "Golden Age," with a focus on the Acropolis, Parthenon, and Theatre of Dionysus. I wonder if they'll find the version of The Odyssey that Christopher Nolan should have used while they're there. Later, CBS premieres the first of their famous "test" programs, the "National Drivers Test." (10:00 p.m.) It's a timely broadcast, coming four days before Memorial Day; Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace quiz viewers and respondents in four categories: Judgment, Knowledge, Perception, and Special Situations.

On Tuesday, "Boy Under Glass," a repeat episode of Mr. Novak, spotlights an issue that isn't so much of an issue anymore: the school's star pitcher has a chance to show off for major league scouts in a playoff game, but first the has to remain academically eligible. (7:30 p.m., NBC) You remember academics, don't you? Before lawsuits and image-and-likeness payments and pro days for the cream of the crop, there was actually this quaint notion that young people were students first, and athletes second. Leo Durocher has a cameo appearance as himself. It would be interesting to look at this episode through today's sensibilities and ask a test audience if they actually understood the principles involved.

A Group W Special, Paintings in the White House: A Close-Up (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., KPIX), highlights the history of art in the White House, including the famous paintings that currently reside in the Mansion. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson introduces the program, which is narrated by Fredric March and Florence Eldridge, and will spawn a companion coffee-table volume. It preempts My Living Doll with Julie Newmar, and you can decide for yourself whether or not that's a good thing. And there's a nice casting touch in The Virginian (7:30 p.m., NBC), a flashback story that explains how Trampas came to the Shiloh Ranch after his father was killed by Judge Garth in self-defense: Sonny Tufts, who played Doug McClure's character in the 1946 movie of the same name, plays his father in this episode.

Back in the day, which in this case is 61 years ago, Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30, no matter what day of the week that happened to fall on. And the Indianapolis 500 was run on Memorial Day, no matter what day of the week it was. On Thursday night, announcer Sid Collins ("The Voice of the 500") narrates The Greatest Spectacle (10:00 p.m., Channel 10), an hour-long documentary tracing the history of the great race, including interviews with Ray Harroun, the first winner of the 500; legendary war hero Eddie Rickenbacker, who once owned the Speedway; and current president Tony Hulman, known as the man who saved the 500.

"Controlled Experiment," a Friday repeat of The Outer Limits (7:30 p.m., KTVY) is the series' only comedy episode, featuring Barry Morse and Carroll O'Connor as two Martians come to earth to investigate our "quaint custom of murder." As if they wouldn't do the same thing; ask Roddy McDowall in "People Are Alike All Over"! Later, the KXTV movie at 10:00 p.m. is David and Goliath, an Italian movie from 1960 starring Orson Welles, in one of those films I suspect he made for the money to finance a project of his. No truth to the rumor that he plays both title roles.  

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MST3K alert: The Sword and the Dragon (Russian; 1960) Bay Area TV Debut. With a magic sword a legendary Russian hero sets out to rescue his wife from barbarians. Boris Andreyev, Andrei Abrikosov, Natalia Medvedeva. (Monday, 5:00 p.m., KGO in San Francisco) The movie itself is nothing to write home about, but the interstitials include what is probably the greatest-ever Ingmar Bergman joke. Granted, that may not be a huge category, but even so, it's a classic. TV

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