This week in TV Guide: June 2, 1973

Among the many pleasures of classic-era television, few bring about as many warm memories as those of the local children's shows that so many of us grew up watching. In my neck of the woods, those shows included Lunch with Casey, Clancy the Cop, Dave Lee and Pete, and Carmen the Nurse; slightly earlier, it would have been Axel and His Dog and T.N. Tatters. Just about everyone has similar memories of those shows, and the local personalities hosting them. Those days are long gone, of course, and as is the case with so many things, we're left wondering How things got this way. 

Recently, 40 of these hosts gathered in Key Biscayne, Florida, guests of the Muscular Dystrophy Association as part of their "backyard carnival" planning sessions, heavily promoted and supported on local programs. The stories they tell Neil Hickey are not pleasant ones, and together they paint a picture of an America that has long since vanished. 

It all began with the new addition to the Television Code by the National Association of Broadcasters, prohibiting children's shows from airing commercials during or adjacent to their programming "that might imply any endorsement whatsoever of the advertised products." The assumption behind the rule was that the hosts of said kiddie shows exert an "oversided influence" on their viewers, thus inducing them to pressure mom and dad for that special toy, candy, breakfast cereal, or other product. (I'm shocked, shocked, to find that commercials could influence shopping habits.) This, sensibly, led many of the sponsors to pull out of their local TV advertising, which in turn led many of those hosts to quit. "When the rule became effective last January 1," said Rex Trailer of WBZ, host of the syndicated Earth Lab, "they were like waiters who were told they couldn't take tips any more. So they just quit." 

Compounding the problem is lobbying by the villain of the piece, Action for Children's Television, which is pressuring the FCC to ban all commercial advertising on children's programs. The result, says Hickey, could "bring down the curtain on local, live children's programming, and undermine network kidvid as well." Says Chuck Zink of WTVJ in Miami, who has been playing "Skipper Chuck" in the market for 17 years, "I think they're out of their minds. They rave about Sesame Street, but nobody ever mentions that Sesame Street is fantastically well-funded. I'd love to have its budget. Give me nine million dollars and I'd show you what kind of shows I could do." 

"It's a dangerous Big Brother kind of thing," adds Bill McClain, "Brakeman Bill" on KTNT in Seattle-Tacoma, who thinks this kind of pressuring could extend to news programming as well. "Many pressure groups are unhappy with TV news, and this is one way of getting at it." He also points to the elephant in the room: "If you look at who the organizers are behind the pressure groups, you see that they're very heavily infused with public-TV people. They'd love to get a lot more Government money into children's programming. But then you have a dangerous concentration of Government power. First, they're teaching kids how to read and write, and then they're telling them how to vote."

As an example of the chilling effect the rule has already had, look no further than WSYR in Syracuse. "For years, WSYR had no fewer than 11 local, live children's programs a week: morning and afternoon shows each weekday, and a two-hour extravaganza on Saturdays. Now there is only one; Salty Sam is tucked away in a 7-8 A.M. Saturday slot, with minimal ratings and practically no budget." 

No matter how good national shows, whether from PBS or the commercial networks, may be, there's one thing they can't replicate from local hosts: personal appearances. Bill McLain makes a telling point about the loss of local kid shows: "One day the public will wake up and discover all the TV kid entertainers gone. Who's going to visit the hospitals, the schools, the shut-in children—Daffy Duck?"

Now, you can't lay the blame for this entirely on ACT, no matter how sanctimonious they were with their pseudo-altruistic rhetoric about the dangers of children's television. Over the decades the family home has changed completely; children don't come home for lunch, they're more active after school, they watch less TV and more video games, and the like. As I said, it's a lost world we're talking about, a way of life that no longer exists. But the demise of local children's programming certainly didn't help matters, and McLain's warnings about government involvement in children's programming are well-founded. And we haven't even begun to discuss the role that hyperactive programs such as Sesame Street may have played in shortening the attention span of children, which has shrunk to microscopic levels over the years. (True, nobody ever accused Howdy Doody of being sedate, but still.) Through the years, Fred Rogers was a welcome respite from such busyness, but now we don't have him. And we don't have those local hosts, either; more's the pity.

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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. 

As yet another television season comes to a close (most of this week's programs are reruns), Cleveland Amory takes his annual look at the second thoughts he might have had during the season. The four reviews that provoked the most comments from you, the readers, were his takes on M*A*S*H, The Little People (later to become The Brian Keith Show), UFO, and Banacek. To those who wrote in, he replies that he "found M*A*S*H a little better, The Little People a little worse, UFO a lot worse and Banacek better." As he adds, "see, we can admit we were wrong."

Going deeper into the season, he concedes that he's "grown to like" both McMillan & Wife and The Streets of San Francisco, both of which suffered from weak starts. And he thought he'd given a positive review to Kung Fu, but apparently it wasn't positive enough. He also wants to reassure the person who suggested that he was jealous of Kaine that he, Amory, has "lots more hair than he has." To those who felt he disliked Bridget Loves Bernie, he didn't dislike either of them; just the show. One writer clucked that Amory seemed to have a predisposition against the old jokes that appear in both The Little People and Banyon, to which Cleve replies that "We don't mind old jokes. As our readers know, we even love making up old jokes. We just mind when a whole show is an old joke."

He saves some praise for PBS's landmark documentary series An American Family, which I wrote about here. While he thought it "technically mediocre, pointlessly overlong and poorly edited," the fact was that "here was a dramatization of the decline and fall of the American dream. It was the most talked-about show of the year, and just exactly what public television should be doing and should not be cut off from doing." Comparing and contrasting it with his favorite show of the year, The Waltons, Amory concludes, "Look at both these series. A Depression family with nothing. An affluent family with everything. And then ask yourself: which one had nothing and which one had everything? Ask yourself, in other words, not what the country has gained in the past 40 years, but what we have lost."

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Two of television's definitive rock music shows, NBC's The Midnight Special and ABC's In Concert, faced off on Friday nights in the early '70s. Whenever the two slug it out, we'll be on hand to see who's better, who's best.

Midnight: Soul artist Curtis Mayfield hosts. Guests include Ravi Shankar, Jose Feliciano, Canned Heat, the soul singing Spinners, and pop duo Tufano and Giammarese. 

Concert: A lot of rock from groups T. Rex; Grass Roots; Beck, Bogert and Appice, and singer John Kay. Plus a little pop from Johnny Nash and the Sons of the Jungle.

I probably saw this week's Midnight Special; it would have been the only thing on television in the World's Worst Town™ on a Friday night, and when you're in high school, Friday and Saturday nights are a major occasion to be able to stay up late. (Oh, for the days when I could make it to midnight on any night of the week.) Anyway, I don't have a lot to go on as far as opinions, so for old times' sake, we'll give the edge to the Midnight Special.

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One of the treats of the week is Peter Ustinov's portrayal of King George III on the CBS News special "The Last King of America" (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m.), part of their American Revolution series leading up to the Bicentennial. If you're too young to remember, the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was a big deal in this country, even though it was somewhat stained by the aftertaste of Watergate; still, the leadup to 1976 was tremendous, and this series on the Revolution was just one of the ways CBS, and all the other networks, sought to join in. The premise gives us newsman Eric Sevareid interviewing Ustinov's George, who improvises his answers based on history and his knowledge of George's politics.

Accompanying the program is a TV Guide Background article written by James Thomas Flexner, who authored perhaps the definitive George Washington biography, which was itself turned into not one, but two TV miniseries (1984's George Washington and 1986's George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation), both of which starred Barry Bostwick as Washington. In his article, Flexner provides a genuine insight into George III, explaining his family background and how, at first, George was well-liked both in England and the colonies. There are, in fact, several parallels between the Revolution and the American war in Vietnam, including how support for the war was initially quite strong in England, and how George was laid low by increasing public damands for peace, which would haunt George for the rest of his life (he reigned for 37 years after the Revolution). Flexner doesn't make a point of emphasizing these similarities; he doesn't have a political axe to grind, he doesn't want to score points with any particular ideological group: he just leaves readers to see these similarities for themselves. 

It's a popular belief that George was insane; Flexner points out that he likely suffered from porphyria, "an error of metabolism," which he inherited from his ancestors, including Mary, Queen of Scots. It is true, however, that he often behaved in an erratic, if not insane, manner. It's a tragic story, in many ways. As Flexner says, "No king ever had better intentions than George III. It was his misfortune to have been misaimed by his peculiar childhood and then to have stumbled into the American Revolution, a world-shaking event far beyond his competence to control."

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How many of you remember watching an ABC miniseries called The Strauss Family? It goes without saying that I don't, given that I was stuck in the World's Worst Town™, but if you didn't suffer that handicap, it might ring a bell. It was a British Associated Television production, aired in 1972 over there, and in 1973 ABC carried it for eight weeks on Saturday nights at 9:00 p.m. PT. (I'm a bit surprised it didn't find its way to Masterpiece Theatre.) The Strausses wrote some lovely music, but I can't see the appeal that this series would have had in America, unless the thought was that we'd eat up anything British, and they might well have been correct. The biggest names in the series (not necessarily the stars) are probably Derek Jacobi and Jane Seymour, although many of the actors are probably well-known to Anglophile viewers. 

Sunday's highlight comes on The Wonderful World of Disney (7:30 p.m., NBC), a 50th-anniversary celebration. Included is the evolution of Mickey Mouse, highlights of past Disney TV shows and movies, and something I can guarantee you wouldn't see today: a clip from Uncle Remus singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" from Song of the South, which the company has shamefully tried to purge from its history. If they ever reran this show today, they'd probably make sure to clip that scene out. And does anyone out there recall Reverend Ike? If you'd seen him, you'd remember; anyway, tonight his show premieres on WMUR in Manchester at 11:30 p.m.

The must-see TV on Monday comes later on; you'll read about it at the very end. But in the meantime, you might check out a pair of local movies, which are about as different as you could ask for: The Band Wagon (9:00 p.m., WCBV), starring Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and a scene-stelling performance by Oscar Levant; or The Fountainhead (9:00 p.m., WKBG in Boston), a faithful adaptation of Ayn Rand's controversial novel (adapted by Rand herself), with Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey.

One of the lesser Peanuts cartoons leads off Tuesday: He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown (8:00 p.m., CBS), with Snoopy being sent off to obedience school. The series of strips on which this cartoon was based was funny enough, but let's face it: after A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, a lot of those cartoons really don't make much of an impression. Making a much greater impression is ABC's movie of the week, a repeat of That Certain Summer (8:30 p.m.), which discussed homosexuality in a far more frank way than television was accustomed to doing. Hal Holbrook, Martin Sheen, Hope Lange, and Scott Jacoby head an outstanding cast.

In addition to Peter Ustinov's bravura performance in "The Last King of America," Wednesday offers an ABC Theatre repeat of ◀ "If You Give a Dance You Gotta Pay the Band" (9:00 p.m.), a look at life in the black ghetto, produced by David Susskind, directed by Fred Coe, and written by ex-convict and former drug addict Stanley L. Gray, and stars Donna Bryan and a very, very young (11 years old) Laurence Fishburne. That's followed by an ABC News Special that stays on the mean streets: "The Methadone Connection" (10:30 p.m.), which investigates the growing use of the opiate to treat heroin addiction. 

On Thursday, we've got another one of those crossover episodes that tries to convince us that different series on the same network share the same universe: It's a special two-hour Ironside featuring the doctors from The Bold Ones, E.G. Marshall and David Hartman, treating a critically-injured Ed for a bullet wound that closely resembles the kind that paralyzed Ironside (8:00 p.m., NBC). I suspect this was originally one of those storylines that began on Ironside and ended on The Bold Ones.

The CBS Friday Night Movie is a three-hour epic, The Shoes of the Fisherman (8:00 p.m.), an overblown adaptation of Morris L. West's novel about the election of a new pope from the Soviet Union. Judith Crist calls it "mostly Hollywood with little true reverence," and, having both read the book and seen the movie, I'd agree with that, although the movie did take on added significance after the Church elected an actual pope from the Soviet bloc: John Paul II. Anthony Quinn does the honors; his Soviet adversary is Laurence Olivier.

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One of the provisos in this week's programming is that live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings could result in schedule changes or preemptions. In the early days of the hearings, all three networks carried the hearings live, with PBS showing taped replays in primetime for those unable to watch during the day So far, according to Richard K. Doan, the reviews have been mixed; in Chicago, ABC's affiliate WLS received just over 300 calls during the first two days of coverage supporting the coverage, while 450 were angered that their favorite soaps and game shows were gone. CBS says their feedback has been about 50/50, while NBC reports calls were running "more heavily to beefs." 

Networks are said to be losing about $1 million a day in revenue due to the coverage, and they're not sure how long they'll continue to provide it on a start-to-finish basis. As I recall, the nets wound up rotating coverage, which is what people have been calling for on major news coverage for years. Today, this would dominate the news channels, but I wonder how much of it would bleed over to over-the-air? In turn, would coverage that was exclusively cable-based have put as much pressure on President Nixon to resign? All speculative, of course, but one can't help but wonder, even as one marvels at how much things have changed over the years.

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MST3K alert: Girls Town (1959) Unconvincing story of a wayward girl (Mamie Van Doren) sent to a reform school run by nuns. Fred: Mel Torme. Dick: Ray Anthony. Jimmy: Paul Anka. Vida: Gloria Talbott. Mother Veronica: Maggie Hayes. Serafina: Gigi Perreau. Sister Grace: Sheilah Graham. Stan: Dick Contino. Mary: Elinor Donahue. (Monday, 11:00 p.m., WSBK in Boston) There's really not much more to add to this one; despite Mel Torme, Ray Anthony, and Paul Anka (who plays a thinly-disguised version of himself), this is about what you'd expect. Which is to say: a perfect movie for MST3K. TV  

Around the dial

We'll begin once again this week at bare-bones e-zine, where Jack's Hitchcock Project takes us to the ninth-season "Night Caller," a very creepy story featuring Felicia Farr (Mrs. Jack Lemmon), David White, and Bruce Dern.

At Cult TV Blog, John combines two of our favorite topics here: the "Sylvia Coleridge Season" and The Avengers; it's Sylvia's appearance in the camp classic "The Girl from Auntie," which has a little something for everyone, including murder via knitting needle.

Speaking of The Avengers, let's take a trip to the world of The New Avengers over at The View from the Junkyard, where Roger reviews "Complex," which recovers from a very slow start to become, as Roger puts it, "worth waiting for."

We've all got favorites that fall into the category of "terrible show I like," right? At Comfort TV, David looks at one of his: The Charmings, the Snow White spoof from 1987 (can it be that long?) that proves to be a nice antidote to the disastrous Disney remake from earlier this year. 

At Reelweegiemidget, Gill revisits a Twilight Zone episode we rewatched a couple of months ago, "Once Upon a Time," which features a delightful performance from Buster Keaton. With "The Girl from Auntie," this makes two episodes this week that I've seen in the last two months.

Paul looks back at the recent Blu-ray release of the Hanna-Barbera animated sitcom Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, which I've not seen (thanks, World's Worst Town™) but Paul does a great job putting this it its cultural context of the time.

Paul's also at Mavis Movie Madness, where his Memorial Day entertainment consisted not only of recovering from being at death's door, but watching the TV-friendly movie Hell Boats, starring James Franciscus. I can easily see this as a made-for-TV flick!

Lastly, at The Hits Just Keep On Comin', JB travels back in time to the year 1980, with plenty of period details leading up to the Memorial Day weekend, including the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back, the season finale of Saturday Night Live (hosted by Buck Henry), and more. TV  

TV Jibe: Just one of those days

TV  

What's on TV? Monday, May 26, 1969

It's a banner week for Shani Wallis, the British musical actress. She's still basking in the acclaim of the Oscar-winning movie Oliver (after which she turned down an opportunity to star in The Brady Bunch), and now she's appearing in not just one but two game shows for the entire week: ABC's Funny You Should Ask at 12:30 p.m., and NBC's The Match Game at 2:30 p.m. I always enjoy it when that happens; I was hoping we could catch her in a variety show as well, but no such luck. Maybe next week. In the meantime, the listings are from the Northern California edition.

This week in TV Guide: May 24, 1969

You might well recognize the name of U.S. Senator John Pastore, "the tart-tongued Democrat from Rhode Island," who for years has been the bane of the television industry with his campaign against what he sees as excessive sex and violence on the networks. This week, he explains the motivation behind his campaign to "clean up" television; not surprisingly, it begins with his constituents. 

The networks often point out that they don't really get all that many complaints about the content of their programming, Pastore says, but that's misleading. "People don't write to stations and networks like they write to congressmen, you see, and I have heard from many people," he explains. "I go to church on Sunday, and I’m stopped by half a dozen people who make a complaint about it. Or I have people visit with me or I go to a social affair or I go to a civic club, and it's continuous. It's continuous. I've been swamped with complaints." Pastore doesn't believe that everything on television is junk; in fact, he says about 90 percent of television is good. But that other ten percent; ah, there's the rub. 

"There isn’t a man I’ve met in the broadcasting industry who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong, who doesn’t know when a joke has gone too far, when a gesture has gone too far, when a dress is cut too low, when the feminine body is too much exposed, when a joke begins to lose its subtlety and becomes a vulgarity—and that has happened!" Pastore says. The networks claim that we live in a more permissive era, and they point to today's motion pictures as evidence of how it's reflected in the entertainment industry. "But the fact remains that television was invented to service the family in the home," Pastore counters. "It's an entirely different medium than a moving-picture theater. With a moving picture, you can read a review. If you feel it's going to be a picture that's a little out of bounds, you don't buy a ticket and you don't go." 

It's different when it comes to television, though. "When you turn on that knob, that knob, and you hear from a licensee of the Government, you expect something decent. And you have a right to expect something decent." Which leads to one idea that Pastore's been advocating for years: pre-screening of shows by the National Association of Broadcasters. Pastore claims that many of the problems resulting from controversial shows such as ABC's Turn-On could have been avoided if such programs were simply screened in advance, the content adjusted when appropriate, and changes made if necessary, not unlike what will be done with the motion picture rating code. Not every program would need to be prescreened; "Take My Three Sons. Who has to prescreen that? The Doris Day Show, do you have to prescreen that?. . . there are so many shows they know beforehand are all right." But, in the case of Turn-On, "there was a reluctance to say exactly why it was taken off the air and finally I butted in and asked, 'Wasn’t it taken off because it was too risque?' and the fellow [Elton Rule, president of ABC-TV] said, "Yes." Said Pastore triumphantly, "That's it!"

Pastore scoffs at those who deny that there's a link between on-screen violence and its real-life counterpart. Relating his conversations with network heads, he urges them to take responsibility for what they show in their programs. "All I'm saying is, look, you're sensible people. You're men of the world. You're fathers of families. You know the difference between right and wrong. There’s so much about this you can do on your own! Then, when you get to the marginal cases, maybe you need a Surgeon General's opinion." 

The last thing he wants, Pastore says, is censorship. "I'm opposed to Government regulation, because I think they can do this job on their own. Not only that, I tell you very frankly, we don’t want to do anything here that will impinge on the basic constitutional rights of freedom of speech. I’m very strong on that." But it's up to the networks, and particularly the judgment of the NAB Code Authority. When Pastore says he's against government regulation, he pointedly adds, "For the time being, of course not."  It's an argument that the editors of TV Guide have made many times themselves, that if the industry doesn't police itself, someone else is going to. Of course, what we may find naïve today is the very idea that television can be cleaned up. And a larger question: does anyone out there even care anymore? 

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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: Tentatively scheduled guests: Theodore Bikel; Beatles’ protege Mary Hopkin (singing "Good-By"); comic Louis Nye; and soul singers Sam and Dave. Also on hand: comic Ron Carey, the singing Primo Family and juggler Ernest Montego. (This appears to be the actual lineup on the show.)

Palace: In a repeat, Van Johnson presents the Beatles (in a film clip from Liverpool); Mickey Rooney (in a baseball sketch); Liza Minnelli; actress Chris Noel (with films of her visit to Vietnam); comic George Carlin; the acrobatic Palace Duo; and comic illusionists Milo and Roger.   

I think when you're able to lead with the Beatles, you've already got a leg up on the competition. Mickey Rooney, Liza Minnelli, and George Carlin give the Palace the bench strength it needs, and even though Ed's lineup is not weak, common sense says this week's nod goes 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. 

With television's regular season turning to an endless cycle of repeats, Cleveland Amory has the opportunity to look at those programs that the average viewer might not be familiar with, and this week he turns his attention to the Sunday morning ghetto of religious programming, and NBC's Frontiers of Faith.

As was the case with so many religious programs of the time, Frontiers of Faith, which debuted on the network in 1951, has evolved over the years, from being a more or less televised religious service, to one that explores music, dance, and drama, using both documentary and interview formats. Since it's not a commercially-sponsored program (its sponsor is the National Council of Churches), it has the added advantage of not having to deal with sponsor controversies, which means it's free to tackle controversial topics and guests, "from the Archbishop of Canterbury to James Baldwin." Two programs from a couple of years ago, both featuring Dr. Lycurgus M. Starkey Jr., pastor of the College Avenue Methodist Church of Muncie, Indiana, serve to illustrate the point: one was called "The Manly Art of Seduction," while the other explored James Bond movies and sadistic paperbacks, called "The Violent Ones."

Amory singles out a particularly notable series of episodes aired earlier this year. Called "Challenge of a Closer Moon," it was a timely examination of U.S. foreign aid to underdeveloped countries—the "closer moon" of the title—and what we were, and were not, getting from it. Said moderator Donald Barnhouse, "It is said about aid to developing countries that it is a kind of Operation Rathole." He then interviewed guests from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Agriculture Development Council to demonstrate, as Amory says, "that it is not." 

Programs like this are important, even though this isn't particularly my style of religion, but as Amory points out, "the people who wanted preaching and singing went to their church or synagogue; that, if they didn’t, they didn’t want it; and that, even if they did, they didn’t necessarily want it again." What I do want out of television is something challenging, provocative, and willing to take chances with creative formats. You can't accuse Frontiers of Faith of failing in any of those areas.

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Until 1971, Memorial Day was celebrated on May 30. Until 1971, the Indianapolis 500 was run on Memorial Day, whether it fell at the beginning, middle, or end of the week.* That means that this year's race is scheduled for this Friday, with a good number of special programs, all on KXTV, leading up to the self-proclaimed Greatest Spectacle in Racing. On Saturday Track Talk (11:45 a.m.) presents a 15-minute update on qualifying and preparations for the great race, including interviews with some of the drivers. Sunday, it's Rookie (7:30 p.m.), which tells the story of rookie drivers trying to make the field of 33 for the race. It's not an easy task; in 1967, only one first-year driver (not including those with experience in Formula 1) qualified for the 500. Tuesday (7:00 p.m.), it's a half-hour of qualifying highlights, including the pole-winning run of A.J. Foyt. And on the day of the race itself, it's the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade (1:30 p.m.), held two days ago, and hosted by Steve Allen. The race itself isn't yet shown live on home television; to watch it live, you have to head down to your local movie theater carrying the closed-circuit broadcast, or wait until the following Saturday for the highlights on Wide World of Sports. Otherwise, you can do as I did for many years, and listen to the live radio broadcast. The 1969 race is won by Mario Andretti, the first and only 500 victory for the great racing family.

*When Memorial Day fell on Sunday, the race was transferred to Monday, May 31. Ironically, the race is permanently scheduled on Sunday nowadays, with the actual Monday holiday being the back-up date. 

There's another program note that runs through the week: the debut of Dick Cavett's new thrice-weekly primetime show (10:00 p.m., ABC). It's the latest landing spot for Cavett, whose 90-minute Monday-Friday daytime show ended in January after a little less than a year; it was always problematic that a show with Cavett's relatively intellectual heft would make a go of it as a morning series. The series kicks off on Monday at 10:00 p.m. PT, with Truman Capote, Liza Minnelli, James Coburn, and Candice Bergen; in later weeks, it will air on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, running throughout the summer. I think there was always a thought on the part of the network that Cavett would serve as a backup in case Joey Bishop's show failed, but as it happened, Cavett was thrust into the late-night spot earlier than expected, when Bishop quit in a contract dispute; he slides into the role at the end of 1969.

And the Apollo 10 flight comes to an end this week with the splashdown scheduled for Monday; all three networks plan live updates throughout the weekend and on Monday; NBC's Today expands to three hours for the event, including an appearance by "Harvard medical student Michael Chrichton [sic], discussing health problems that could be created by interplanetary travel." It's too bad that Apollo 10 tends to get overshadowed by the flights of Apollo 7 (first successful Apollo flight), Apollo 8 (first trip around the moon), and Apollo 11 (first moon landing), because its successful test of the lunar module in lunar orbit was essential in making the moon landing possible. And think about this: that Apollo 11 flight took place only two months later. Amazing to think all those missions could take place in such rapid succession, doesn't it?

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What else? Saturday leads off the week with The World of Charlie Brown and Charles Schulz (8:30 p.m., CBS), a look at how Schulz's comic strip Peanuts has become an industry unto itself, from serving as mascot for the Apollo space missions to movies, musicals, books, and more. I've always enjoyed Peanuts, although I'll freely admit that once Calvin and Hobbes came along, that became my favorite, a position it continues to hold today; I always admired Bill Watterson for not selling out his characters for every commercial purpose around, unlike—well, frankly, unlike Charles Schulz. Later that night, CBS is on hand in the sun and fun capital of the world, Miami Beach, for the Miss USA Beauty Pageant (10:00 p.m.), hosted by Bob Barker, with singer John Gary as special guest star. The winner: Miss Virginia, Wendy Dascomb.

In looking through Sunday's features, I came across this description for the 1934 King Kong with Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray: "Bizarre retelling of the “beauty and the beast’ legend." Now, I've heard King Kong called many things, usually variations of "epic," but I've never seen it called "bizarre." Oh well, it's on at 2:00 p.m. on KTXL. Later, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic spend on hour on what Lenny calles "the first psychedelic symphony," the Symphonie Fantastique of Hector Berlioz, on Young People's Concert (4:30 p.m., CBS). In primetime, NBC Children's Theatre presents a children's ballet based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (6:30 p.m., NBC). Think about these last two shows for a minute: the presumption that children, or "young people," would be interested in two one-hour programs dealing with classical music and ballet. 

On Monday, Arthur Godfrey is on hand to host an hour of highlights of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (8:00 p.m., NBC). The Old Redhead also finds the time for a dressage exhibition on his horse Goldie, and sings "Mr. Clown." If that's just not for you, you might be interested in "The World of Carl Sandberg" (8:00 p.m., NET), an adaptation of the 1961 Broadway show starring Fritz Weaver and Uta Hagen, plus period folk songs from the Tarriers and Carolyn Hester. You can see a clip of this fascinating program here; Sandburg, had only died two years previously at the time of this airing.

Tuesday sees a repeat of A Hard Day's Night (9:00 p.m., NBC), the Beatles' film debut, which Judith Crist calls a "mad mixture of sophisticated satire and glorious silliness." It's the movie's third run on the network, in what Crist hopes will become an annual tradition. One of the most enduring, and endearing, aspects of the original NBC broadcast was the first (only?) appearance of the "NBC Penguin," taking the place of the Peacock to introduce this movie in "lively black and white." 

On Wednesday, that great thespian, William Shatner, stars with Elizabeth Ashley in the Prudential: On Stage presentation of ". . . The Skirts of Happy Chance. . . " (9:00 p.m., NBC), a comedy-drama about the members of an anti-poverty program in a small city. On Stage is the program launched by NBC following the disastrous "Flesh and Blood," called "the worst disaster of the TV season," the previous year; as I noted at the time, the plan was for "five original 'upbeat' dramas" in the coming season—dramas that will be 'exciting, hopeful and affirmative.'" It's produced by David Susskind, and written by Albert Ruben and directed by David Pressman, both veterans of Susskind's N.Y.P.D., which was very good but wasn't exactly what I'd call "upbeat" and "hopeful." But maybe I'm wrong.

Thursday night, it's a repeat of "Arrival," the stunning premiere episode of Patrick McGoohan's surrealistic allegorical drama The Prisoner (8:00 p.m., CBS). Last season, it aired as a summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show; this season, it takes the place of the cancelled Jonathan Winters Show. I've found that the best way to prepare for the series is by watching Danger Man, the secret agent series starring McGoohan as John Drake, who bears a stunning similarity to Number 6. Later, the late John F. Kennedy's 52nd birthday is commemorated with a repeat of the 1964 documentary The Life and Times of John F. Kennedy (9:00 p.m., KTVU), narrated by Cliff Robertson, who played JFK in PT-109. 

Other than Michael Crichton, the most interesting guest on Today this week (Friday, 7:00 a.m., NBC) may be author Edward Luttwak, promoting his book Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, which TV Guide dryly describes as a handbook "on how to take over a nation." It's important, Luttwak notes, to understand the difference between a coup and a revolution; the former consists of "the rapid takeover of governmental mechanisms by insurgents without destroying them, thereby enabling a swift transition of power." Luttwak points out that not every country is suitable for a coup, and that the key to success lies in flexibility and "maximum speed in the transitional phase, and the need to fully neutralize the opposition both before and immediately after the coup." Not surprisingly, it's actually been used as a guide in several coup attempts staged around the world; Luttwak wrote an updated version in 2016, which includes technological advances made since the original version. I'm not sure why this isn't on my bookshelf.

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According to the Teletype, Steve Douglas, the character played by Fred MacMurray on the long-running My Three Sons, is getting married during the new season. No word on who the lucky lady is, but she'll have a seven-year-old daughter in tow. Historian and former JFK assistant Arthur Schlesinger Jr. is writing the script for "The Unfinished Journey of Robert F. Kennedy," the David L. Wolper documentary that will be the only non-fiction film ever shown on ABC's Movie of the Week. And Chad Everett, star of the upcoming CBS drama U.M.C. (it hasn't yet been renamed Medical Center) will be doing a guest appearance on Liberace's summer show for the same network.

Speaking of CBS, Richard W. Jenks, the new president of the CBS Broadcast Group, addressed the many rumors regarding the network's cancellation of the Smothers Brothers. Richard K. Doan reports that Jenks "flatly denied" that the Brothers were dropped due to declining ratings, nor was it done to protect the aforementioned Senator John Pastore from criticism on the show. And it's "simply wrong" to claim that CBS has given up on topical satire. In fact, says Jenks, the decision was made based on the network's responsibility to both viewers and the industry. In strong words, Jenks said that "someone has to be the judge of the difference between entertainment and propaganda," and that the network does not subscribe to the theory that "free speech not only permits, but compels, the dissemination of antisocial material." Voicing an idea that would strike contemporary viewers as being somewhat quaint, Jenks said that those appearing on the network have to be "as interested as we are in avoiding unnecessary offense to the pious, the immature and the innocent." There is, I think, a lot to that. 

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MST3K alert: Invaders from Mars (1953) A boy awakens in the middle of the night to see a spaceship disappearing underground. Helen Carter, Arthur Franz. It's another presentation from the MST3K quasi-spinoff Rifftrax, spotlighting something that we've always known: the surest way for space aliens to conquer the Earth is to take over the back yard of one particular family in one sleepy little town in America. Makes perfect sense to me; maybe they got the idea from reading Edward Luttwak? TV  

Around the dial

Ah, but it seems as if we lead with the obituaries this week, beginning at A Shroud of Thoughts, where Terence salutes the late, great George Wendt, who died Tuesday at the age of 76, on the 32nd anniversary of the series finale of Cheers. We can double up on the farewell to Norm with this typically offbeat piece at Inner Toob.

Terence also notes the passing of Joe Don Baker, known for everything from Walking Tall to a pair of James Bond movies to a couple of appearances on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which, of course, are the important credits; he was 89. There's also a nice tribute to Baker from Paul at Mavis Movie Madness!

We next move on to RealWeegieMidget, where Gill offers up a tribute to Priscilla Pointer, the former soap actress who played Pam Ewing's mother on Dallas, but also did much more; she died last month, aged 100. We should always balance our sadness at such departures with a sense of gratitude for the great memories they left behind in their bodies of work; that helps keep it all in perspective, I think.

It is, however, nice to turn to something a little lighter, such as Garry Berman's tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Return of the Pink Panther, which certainly has to be one of the funniest movies ever made. It's the third entry in the Pink Panther series, and features some extraordinarly fine work by Herbert Lom as Clouseau's beleaguered boss, Chief Inspector Dreyfus.

At Television Obscurities, Robert passes along the news that NBC is planning a 100th anniversary tribute next year. Back in the day, Orson Welles hosted a 50th anniversary show that was quite good; why is it that I don't have similiar high hopes for this one?

Let's return to The New Avengers at A View from the Junkyard, where Roger reviews "K is for Kill," which is a great title (although I don't suppose you'll see it in those preschool alphabet tutorials), but does it make for a great episode? Well, you'll just have to find out.

Staying across the pond, John is staying with the Sylvia Coleridge Season at Cult TV Blog, and this week he offers "Silver Threads," an episode from the series Village Hall, an anthology in which each episode takes place in, well, a village hall. A quirky episode of an interesting series. TV  

We Interrupt This Program. . .

Today, Bill Griffiths is back for the second part of his two-part retrospective on those television moments that scared the hell out of us when we were little (and can still be unnerving today). Two weeks ago it was the weekly test of the Emergency Broadcast System; today, it's the interruption nobody ever wanted to see: the news bulletin. Take it away, Bill! 

by Bill Griffiths

When news breaks, we fix it!"—Promo for The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn, 1996

Previously I had written about the unpleasant childhood experience of sitting through tests of the old Emergency Broadcast System. Those tests were weekly requirements and by that knowledge were to be expected. What was never anticipated were interruptions for urgent news stories. Today the viewer gets something of an advance warning thanks (?) to flashy CGI graphics, dramatic music and in some instances a visual countdown that is designed to communicate that something important is about to be passed along. Sometimes that is actually true. Other times, well… I’ll have thoughts about that later in this essay.

When I was a kid, such disruptions were abrupt. You’re watching your favorite program and suddenly a slide/telop appears with words in big bold type such as 

NEWS BULLETIN or SPECIAL REPORT

This could be truly frightening. Sometimes the report was a simple voiceover with the accompanying graphic, or the appearance of a reporter in the channel’s newsroom or on location. Very few are of a positive nature such as on July 11,1985 when ABC’s Peter Jennings apparently broke into General Hospital announcing the return of Coca-Cola’s original formula following the launch earlier that year of "New Coke" (this also lead that evening’s World News Tonight). At other times rather than actually interrupting a show, there would be a crawl at the bottom of the screen. I actually remember one of these from 1979. I was 7, watching a CBS daytime repeat of M*A*S*H. It was the opening scene of the season three episode "Officer of the Day" where Private Igor accidentally aims a cannon at Radar’s bugle and shoots it out of his hand during the morning assembly. It’s a funny moment, but was ruined when a crawl from KPIX Channel 5 Eyewitness News streamed across the screen warning viewers that local utility PG&E may initiate rolling blackouts due to that year’s energy crisis. Scary stuff to a kid. Now I don’t recall the power going out that afternoon, but this random moment has strangely stuck in my memory.

For downbeat experiences, YouTube comes through again with a variety of national and local bulletins/special reports of years past preserved for our viewing displeasure when we want to put a damper on our day. Even decades later, it’s somewhat depressing to watch—more accurately hear as no in-studio camera was ready—Walter Cronkite interrupt the live November 22, 1963 telecast of As The World Turns with the first CBS News Bulletin that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas (west coast affiliates were being fed the sitcom Pete and Gladys). It’s actually remarkable this was recorded as the tragedy unfolded, most likely because CBS engineers were taping the popular daytime drama for later playback in other time zones. As such, it has become commonplace to see those initial bulletins used in various JFK retrospectives. One could be mistaken that most of America learned of Kennedy’s assassination from Cronkite where in actuality they likely heard the news from radio, a friend or neighbor, or at work or school. Cynical as it may seem, CBS News has no doubt made lots of money from licensing their coverage. As a footnote, the As The World Turns cast were unaware of the shooting until they concluded their (largely unseen) performances but the crew definitely knew what was happening as the show proceeded.

While that occurred before my time, just as mind numbing to rewatch were the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Vividly, I can remember delaying going into work as the first images were aired. Reporters and anchors speculated that it could have been a terrorist incident or an accident. As soon as I saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center, there was no doubt. Subsequent reports from the Pentagon and Pennsylvania only confirmed that this would be a long, horrific day. There is a benefit of having such live “as it happened” news available on YouTube. History classes can use these clips to enhance the instruction of those events. As an example, last year on September 11, my daughter’s History class learned in detail about the significance of that date and watched some of the real-time news footage. Upon picking her up from school, she talked to me about what she saw and was quite disturbed. All of her classmates found it unsettling. But she and I could have a thoughtful discussion with her seeing it from the passage of time and me having seen it occur live on television. Both of us

concluded that we should never forget what took place… and hope it won’t happen again.

The general objective of interrupting a program is to inform viewers of a very important news event that has just happened or is currently in progress, and the reporting cannot wait until the next scheduled news update or newscast which could be hours away. In the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, the networks became too eager to break into programming even if the story could have waited until more facts were available or the event itself simply did not warrant a show intrusion. This compulsion to interrupt programs became a source of irritation for viewers and led to a TV Guide investigation on the practice by Neil Hickey in its May 8, 1965, edition. It is worth reading because 60 years later with the proliferation of cable news as well as expanded local and regional news on broadcast stations, the problem has gone far beyond what any network executive back then could have imagined. Pick any national channel— CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NewsNation, Newsmax, etc., or a local broadcast. Stick around to see how long it will take to have the Swoosh-sounds, intense music and words that shout

BREAKING NEWS, DEVELOPING STORY, NEWS ALERT, JUST IN, PANIC TIME* appear. (*okay, I made that last one up— please don’t get any ideas if you’re a TV executive). It probably won’t be for more than a handful of minutes if not already happening when you tune in. Often this is accompanied by headline-style information in the lower thirds of the screen which became a regular feature of news broadcasting following the 9/11 attacks. How important is the information to warrant immediate increased attention? That is debatable. Supposedly in the past few years some stations have tampered down the use of such urgent wording in their reporting, yet I have seen little to no evidence of that being the case.

For many years there has been a need among news departments to be First and Fast with information. Note that I did not add “Accurate” to the equation. But is it asking too much to handle critical information with a degree of deliberation? Case in point from personal experience: some 33 years ago, I had aspirations of pursuing a career in journalism (given how reporting has evolved or de-volved, there is little regret that the profession did not pan out for me). I did spend time before heading off to the University of Oregon—GO DUCKS!—as an intern and later part-time reporter at my hometown radio stations KVON-AM/KVYN-FM in Napa, California. One truly dark and stormy night, I was the only person in the building preparing a report on flooding concerns for the next morning’s newscasts. Both stations were automated to satellite programming during the evening hours. Just after 9:00, all phone lines started constantly ringing with accounts that the west side of the city was without electricity. With little to go on, I made the decision to interrupt KVON’s airing of The Larry King Show with a brief live Bulletin acknowledging the power outage and that more details would be forthcoming momentarily. After contacting PG&E and City of Napa emergency officials, I went on the air again at 9:30 with a Special Report providing listeners with updated information of when the lights might go back on and assurance that there would no major flooding concerns the rest of the evening. The phone calls then stopped. Urgent news reporting can and does have a powerful impact, positive or negative. No reporter or anchor should take that responsibility lightly.

It may be on purpose that words such as Bulletin or Flash rarely, if ever, appear now in U.S. media, perhaps seen as antiquated terms. It is not difficult to see how we have become de-sensitized to breaking news reports and the often breathless displays of endless recapping and supposition. The era of the 24-hour news cycle is frankly exhausting. Yet, I and millions more continue to routinely follow the day’s happenings. Sometimes too much. It takes willpower to turn off the news and watch a classic rerun, a current favorite series, a sporting event, pick up a book or just take a needed walk outside. Otherwise, we can all be a little guilty of Information Overload.

WE NOW RESUME OUR REGULARY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING. TV  

What's on TV? Tuesday, May 23, 1961

One of the night's more interesting half-hours is CBS's Red Skelton Show, which features an all-Western guest lineup of Don "Andy Griffith" Knotts and Amanda "Gunsmoke" Blake, who star with San Ferdando Red in a skit. Considering the rest of the night's lineup, it's obvious that Red's show had to have a Western theme; ambitious viewers could make it all the way to 9:00 p.m. tonight watching nothing but Westerns: Laramie at 6:30, Wyatt Earp at 7:30, and Stagecoach West at 8:00, with as The Rifleman available as a backup. Your rootin'-tootin' lineup comes from the Minneapolis-St. Paul edition.