March 27, 2024

Darkness at noon




Unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere, you probably know there's a total solar eclipse coming up on April 8. As this article at Space.com details, it will be (weather permitting) one of the longest, darkest, and most spectacular solar eclipses in hundreds of years, as well as one of the longest and darkest. The eclipse will affect the entire United States to one extent or another, and because the path of totality passes through so many large cities from Texas to Maine (including Dallas-Fort Worth, Little Rock, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, and Montreal), it will be the most-watched ever in North America.   

The totality path runs right through Indiana—it'll be about 99.8 percent total where we live—and there's a tremendous amount of excitement around here; we've been getting all kinds of emails from places ranging from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to Santa Claus, Indiana, offering deals for people to plan their eclipse viewing.* Warby Parker is offering free solar eclipse viewing glasses from April 1 until the big day, stores are selling Total Eclipse t-shirts, and Delta has a special flight scheduled from Austin, Texas to Detroit, flying along the path of the moon's shadow. Even where the eclipse isn't total, people are excited; eclipses come and go every few years around the world, but this one does seem to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

*Remember, it's dangerous to look directly at a solar eclipse, yadda yadda.

There was a similar sensation back on March 7, 1970, when a total solar eclipse occurred through Mexico, the South and along the Eastern seaboard. That was called the "Great Eclipse," with a period of totality lasting up to three minutes and ten seconds—this one will be the longest in the United States since then. And because it happened on a Saturday, the networks offered live coverage as the eclipse made its way across the country. It would be the first time this kind of an event had been covered on live television (It was something of a bomb, since the weather along much of the path was cloudy; let's hope for better weather this time.)  

To see what it was like experiencing the Great Eclipse, here's the CBS broadcast from March 7, anchored by Charles Kuralt, with correspondents posted along the path of totality. (At the end of the recording is ABC's coverage of the October 16, 1978 total eclipse, which crossed from the Pacific Northwest down through Texas.) Even though the weather didn't cooperate, it's still an awesome sight; especially the speed with which the sky brightens after the totality passes. There's also a nice moment 43 minutes in, when the experts mention the date of "a very good one, a relative of this eclipse" that will be coming up in April of the year 2024; that must have seemed an awfully long time in the future, back then. 


If the upcoming eclipse is half as spectacular as we're being told, it should be unforgettable; hopefully, it might also serve to remind people that such wonders of the universe don't happen by chance. TV  

March 25, 2024

What's on TV? Monday, March 25, 1963




Something you see with a certain degree of frequency in issues from this era: shows interrupted by news updates. You'll note this tonight half an hour into the broadcast of The Steve Allen Show on WPIX; in other issues, you've probably noticed movies that also had news breaks in them, and these aren't just news headlines or one-minute updates; they usually run ten (in this case) or fifteen minutes. Do you think people have the attention span for something like this today, or would they get itchy fingers on the remote? (I'd probably fall into that latter category.) All this and more, in this week's New York City Edition.

March 23, 2024

This week in TV Guide: March 23, 1963




Let's start the week with some hoops, just for a change of pace. It is March Madness after all, even though nobody's thought to call it that yet, and the nation's two major college basketball tournaments have their championship games on Saturday—one of them rather routine, all things considered, while the other boasts a historical significance that reaches beyond the court. 

At Madison Square Garden in New York, the National Invitation Tournament, now seen as a consolation tournament but at one time the most prestigious competition in the country, comes to a conclusion as Providence defeats Canisius 81-66 (6:00 p.m. ET, WNBC, on a two-hour tape delay). Providence completes the season as the #13-ranked team in the country, but otherwise the game leaves little in the way of an imprint.

Later that same night, the championship game of the 25th NCAA Basketball Tournament tips off from Freedom Hall in Louisville, with Loyola (Chicago) taking on the two-time defending champions from the University of Cincinnati (9:30 p.m., syndicated by Sports Network Incorporated). Why is this significant? Well, remember that we're still in the era of segregated sports—there's even an unofficial rule of thumb in college basketball that no more that two of a team's five players on the court at any one time will be black. But when Loyola and Cincinnati line up for the tip-off, seven of the ten players starting the game are black—four for Loyola, three for Cincinnati; it's the first time time in championship game history in which a majority of the players are black. It is a memorable game all-around; Loyola rallies from a 15-point second-half deficit to send the game against Cincinnati into overtime, where Loyola eventually prevails with a last-second shot, 60-58 to win the NCAA championship. 

     Loyola's title-winning team.
Loyola had faced hostile conditions throughout the season due to their integrated lineup*, but perhaps the most dramatic moment came in their second round tournament game in East Lansing, Michigan against Mississippi State, which has come to be known as the "Game of Change." An unofficial state law at the time prohibited Mississippi teams from competing against black players, but Mississippi State university president Dean Colvard was determined that the team should play in tournament; in order to avoid an injunction from state, the team used decoy players and snuck out of the state on a charter plane. After a handshake between the captains of the two teams (with photographic flashbulbs popping everywhere, Loyola went on to win an uneventful game, 61-51. It's debatable as to how much actual "change" came about as a result of the "Game of Change," but regardless of its historical legacy, its historical moment in time is undeniable, as it is in the case of the Loyola-Cincinnati championship game. 

*When the team played Loyola of New Orleans the previous season, black and white players were forced to stay in separate hotels; during a game in Houston, fans shouted slurs and threw popcorn and ice at the players. 

Three years later, Texas Western, fielding an all-black starting lineup, would defeat the all-white University of Kentucky to win the championship, and that's the game most people remember as the landmark moment in desegregating college basketball. But it had to start somewhere, and there's no debating that when Loyola and Cincinnati took the court on Saturday night with seven black starters between them, it was a significant moment. I wonder how many people watching that night, either on the three stations in this issue carrying it (WNEW and WPIX in New York and WNHC in New Haven), or on stations around the country, were aware they were seeing history as it happened?

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Leading our look back at the week: a pair of documentaries on recently deceased legends, along with a pair of shows that look ahead to equally unpleasant times.

At 9:30 p.m. on Sunday (ABC), Mike Wallace hosts a half-hour retrospective on the life and career of the late Marilyn Monroe, only seven months after her untimely death. The special portrays her meteoric rise to stardom, "But while her fame grows and her public image is being formed, the seeds of her premature death have already taken root." I have always wondered how many of these "seeds" were seen at the time as predictive, and how many have been retrofitted to conform to the narrative that has grown since. I suspect Wallace got the narrating job for this documentary based on his work with the syndicated series Biography.


Gary Cooper died in May 1961, but had been a superstar long before then. NBC's documentary series Project 20 remembers "Gary Cooper—Tall American," narrated by Walter Brennan. (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.) Cooper was a two-time Oscar winner (plus an honorary Oscar in 1961, just a month before his death), and "in the eyes of the rest of the world, he became the image of the American frontiersman." He might not be nearly as enticing or mysterious today—I don't think Elton John ever wrote a song about him—but he was every bit the star Marilyn Monroe was, and left every bit as big a legacy.

Also on Tuesday is an ABC news special that looks to the future, even though we don't know it yet. "A Conversation with the Vice President" (10:30 p.m.) is a half-hour interview with the current holder of the office, Lyndon B. Johnson. During his term, Johnson has traveled throughout the world on behalf of the United States; in addition to his official duties as president of the Senate, he's also chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, and a member of the National Security Council. Johnson is very unconvincing when he tells ABC correspondents about how satisfying he finds the Vice Presidency; he comes across as a once-powerful man who knows his political career is all but finished. Portions of this interview are replayed on ABC the night of November 22. 

In that same vein, one of Andy Williams's guests on his NBC variety series (Thursday, 10:00 p.m.) is comedian Vaughn Meader, fresh off his success with his best-selling record The First Family, in which Meader and his supporting cast satirize President Kennedy and various family members. (Here's a clip of him from that show.) It was, at the time, the fastest-selling record in U.S. history, and would go on to win the 1963 Grammy as Album of the Year. His career would, essentially, be over by the end of the year.

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Speaking of Andy Williams, he's this week's cover story. He's been successful in nightclubs and on records, and he's done his time as a summer-replacement host, but this is his first shot at success with a show that belongs to him—or, perhaps more accurately, a show with his name on it, because it's pretty clear that the TV people don't know what in the world to do with him. You'd think this would require very little thought; take a young man with natural, easy-going charm and one of the best sets of pipes in the business, throw in a guest star or two each week, and let him do what he does best. But, as Dwight Whitney points out, that's not how it works in the TV business.

You see, in order to succeed, you have to have an image. And those TV people who know about such things don't know what Andy Williams' s image is. The goal, according to head writer Mort Green, is to develop him as a Bing Crosby-type, the kind of entertainer who would "go on forever." But he's an "unknown entity. There was nothing for him to talk about. Crosby’s writers could make hair jokes (Crosby wore a toupee), money jokes (Crosby was rich), kid jokes (Crosby had lots of kids), horse jokes (Crosby’s horses were notably slow), Bob Hope jokes, etc., all bouncing off commonly known facts about Crosby." Said one friend, "Mort just didn't know what to do with Andy, whether to make him into Mortimer Snerd or Noel Coward."  All he knew, the source says, was that "this troubadour should become the biggest thing since Corn Flakes." 

Ideas are tried and discarded: The New Christy Minstrels were added for a time, and that worked fine "until they began to be staged like the Bolshoi Ballet." A couple of "coffee-house types," Marion Mercer and R.G. Brown, were added for comic touches. It was all as appropriate as "ketchup on ice cream." Ratings floundered, and last month the network told Andy that for the coming season, his show would be cut back from weekly to a series of twelve one-hour specials. Even Williams admits that "there are times when I'm confused about what I am." 

That's not to say that everything has been a bust; the "most significant addition," according to Whitney, has been the addition of the Osmond Brothers, "whose youngest member, Jay, 7, bore a startling resemblance to Andy when he first began to wow them" (wait until they see Donny), and under producer Bob Finkel, the show has taken on a "folksy, all-purpose informality" including a ramp that brings Andy closer to the audience. But regardless of what happens on television, Dwight Whitney says not to worry about Andy's future; his natural milieu is the night club and, after all, "He is a singer, and as long as those pipes hold out, he'll find a market." Like Branson, say09.

With all of this, one is left to wonder0- just how it was that Andy Williams became one of the most popular stars on television? Well, despite all the confusion portrayed in Whitney's article, The Andy Williams Show winds up winning an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series in 1963, while Andy himself is nominated for Outstanding Performance. And then there are the Christmas specials, which include the Williams Brothers, mom and dad, wife Claudine, and an increasing number of children; those specials came to rival those of none other than Bing Crosby himself, enshrining Andy as Mr. Christmas to an entire generation of television viewers. You can even see clips from his non-Christmas programs on YouTube, and buy DVDs of them. People liked Andy Williams, and once they were allowed to see him, they watched him.

You'll remember that just last week we read about Tennessee Ernie Ford, another entertainer who knew more about what viewers wanted to see than the supposed TV experts did. A similar situation existed with Jimmy Dean, who knew—far better than the executives did—what his viewers would buy, as we saw in a piece from several years ago. "In the show's first season," I wrote then, "when the network had tried to pass him off as urbane and sophisticated, the show teetered on the edge of cancellation until Dean put his foot down. 'Lemme do it mah way,' he told the suits, and the ratings took off." These examples, and others (like trying to make Richard Pryor appropriate for TV) show that you can't always rely on the "experts" to know what's best. Sort of like economists, I guess, or those scientists at the CDC.

There's a saying, in fields as diverse as sports and politics, that goes, "Let [name of person] be [name of person]." In other words, stop fooling around with a particular way of packaging someone, and let that person be himself or herself, not someone else. It's a lesson that some people never learn, which is why so many ideas that look great on paper turn out to be failures. In the case of Andy Williams, I'd say they finally got it right. 

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As you can see from this two-page spread, Steve Allen is back on late-night TV. His new show, syndicated through Group W, premiered in June of last year, three months after Jack Paar's final Tonight, and a little less than four months before Johnny Carson's debut. (Note that the quotes compare Allen favorably to both Carson and Paar.) The timing was important; there was no certainty that Carson would succeed, let alone become a legend, and word is that Allen is positioning himself in the event that NBC deems the Carson experiment a failure. We all know how that turned out, don't we? 

The show is very much in the vein of Allen's previous shows, which is to say it wasn't a strictly traditional talk show; think of something more like David Letterman's early work. For instance, a show from the first season began with Steve perched, with his piano atop a 75-foot flagpole in the parking lot of the Hollywood Ranch Market; that show also featured an elephant tug-o-war. Allen was joined by a cast of regulars, including Don Knotts, Bill Dana, Tom Poston, and Steve's wife Jayne. 
 
You can find out more about The Steve Allen Westinghouse Show in this interview with Allen from the Emmy Legends YouTube channel; it's well worth watching. Allen would leave the show after a little less than two-and-a-half years following a dispute with Westinghouse over creative control, but not before putting on an episode that featured a roundtable discussion involving historical figures in costume, a demonstration episode for a new series Allen was proposing, which became his show Meeting of Minds.

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Some other highlights of the week: 
  • Zero Mostel and Julie Harris star in Magic Magic Magic (Sunday, 7:00 p.m., WOR), an "enchanting full-hour of entertainment," featuring magician Milbourne Christopher. It's the first in a series of hour-long specials for the whole family. 
  • Lucy visits the White House with Viv and their pack of Cub Scouts on The Lucy Show (Monday, 8:30 p.m., CBS); comedian Elliott Reid, known for his impression of John F. Kennedy, plays "The Voice." Could have been Vaughn Meader. . 
  • On Tuesday, Festival of Performing Arts (9:00 p.m., WNEW) showcases folk singer Miriam Makeba, who was "introduced to U.S. viewers four years ago on Steve Allen’s network show."
  • Also on Tuesday, Jack Benny (9:30 p.m., CBS) does an adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado," with Jack as Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner; Dennis Day as the Wandering Minstrel; and Don Wilson in the title role as the Mikado. 
  • Winthrop Rockefeller, brother of New York Governor Nelson and himself future governor of Arkansas, is Harry Reasoner's guest on Portrait (Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., CBS). 
  • Andy Williams' wife, Claudine Longet, is one of the guest stars on McHale's Navy (Thursday, 9:30 p.m., ABC). She plays a French beauty who invites Tim Conway's Ensign Parker to spend the weekend at her father's island plantation.
  • On Friday night, Dave Garroway's Exploring the Universe (8:00 p.m., WNDT) examines the possibility of life on other planets. Astronomy was one of the many interests of Garroway, a true Renaissance man. 

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Finally, it's time for the fourth annual TV Guide Awards, in which you, the readers, choose the winners! And while the deadline for sending in your ballot has long passed, I thought you might be interested in seeing the ballot with the nominees in the eight categories. What are your picks for the winners? We'll have the final results in a future issue.


TV  

March 22, 2024

Around the dial




We've got a full slate of action this week, so let's get right to it at Cult TV Blog, where John makes a trip to the 1950s with Shadow Squad, a private detective series from 1958, and the episode "The Missing Cheese." Of course, we all know that it's missing because the cheese always stands alone.

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project continues with the second story from Calvin Clements, the seventh-season episode "The Old Pro," starring a couple of old pros, Richard Conte and John Anderson, and directed by another one, Paul Henreid.

Cult TV Lounge reviews three episodes from season two of The Outer Limits: "The Invisible Enemy," "Wolf 359," and "I, Robot." Ignoring the lame special effects, all three stories offer typically (for the series) provocative questions that don't lend themselves to easy answers.

At Shadow & Substance, Paul looks at the climactic scene of the Twilight Zone episode "Long Distance Call," and the dramatic changes that the scene underwent between its original version and how it was rewritten (and performed).

Let's stay in the Zone for a minute more and visit The Twilight Zone Vortex, back after a long break with the fifth season episode "The Last Night of a Jockey," a one-man show with a bravura performance from Mickey Rooney, reminding us all just how good he was.

Steve Lawrence died earlier this month, aged 88; besides his singing fame with his wife Eydie Gormé, he was a very good dramatic actor, a frequent comic guest on Carol Burnett's show, and a regular on talk and game shows. Terence has an appreciation for his life and times this week at A Shroud of Thoughts.  

At Travalanche, it's a look back at the career of Edward Platt on the 50th anniversary of his death. He's known primarily for one role, that of The Chief in Get Smart!, but he had a long career in both movies and television, and he was a welcome presence in anything he appeared in.

Anyone who's watched British television will recognize Julian Glover, who played many a delightfully villainous character over the years. He's a main presence in "Split!", the Steed/Tara adventure that's the subject of this week's review of The Avengers at The View from the Junkyard.

I've mentioned several times how television is a lot older than we think it is, and Garry Berman shows us just how old, with a look at the first magazine devoted to television, appropriately called Television. It's first issue: March, 1928.

Martin Grams gives us a review of the latest offering from ClassicFlix, the short-lived 1959 series World of Giants, starring Marshall Thompson. I've reviewed two of their previous releases, The O. Henry Playhouse and 21 Beacon Street, and I'm looking forward to adding this to the list.

At The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew shares the 1951 St. Patrick's Day episode of Your Hit Parade, which features a performance by the dance team of Bob Fosse and his then-wife, Mary Ann Niles. It's always fun to see someone like Fosse in the days before his greatest fame. TV  

March 20, 2024

Television and the Id

DETAIL, THE ROMANS OF THE DECADENCE, 1847



It's quiz time once again boys and girls.  The quote below is a bit lengthy, but I'd hope you agree it's worth it. I've removed a couple of words that would help you to identify the writer and the context of the quote because I think that's one of the most interesting things about this excerpt. As you read it, consider what it says not only about our culture today, but also the world of entertainment, television in particular. As usual, I'll identify the speaker and the context at the end.

We live today in a world that is as deeply devoted to material things as was [theirs]. For example, [they] were obsessed by health, diet, and exercise.  They spent more time in baths and health clubs than in churches, temples, libraries, and law courts.  They were devoted to consumption. A man could make a reputation by spending more than his neighbor, even if he had to borrow the money to do it. And if he never paid back his creditors, he was honored for having made a noble attempt to cut a fine figure in the world.

They were excited by travel, news, and entertainment. The most important cultural productions [...], from books to extravaganzas in the theaters and circuses that occupied a central place in every [...] city or town, dealt with amusing fictions about faraway peoples and with a fantasy peace and happiness that did not exist in their real lives. They were fascinated by fame and did  not care how it was acquired. If you were famous enough, the fact that you might be a rascal or worse was ignored or forgiven.

[They] cared most about success, which they interpreted as being ahead for today, and let tomorrow take care of itself. They were proud, greedy, and vain.  In short, they were much like ourselves.

A pretty good description of the world today, don't you think?

The only difference is that it was written in 1991, and it was written about a people living in the fourth century—the Romans, near the end of the empire. The late Roman world, indeed, was quite like ours.

And the author? If you're a classic television fan, you'll probably recognize the name of the late Charles Van Doren. Yes, the same Charles Van Doren of the quiz show scandals in the late 1950s. Following his disgrace, Van Doren went into a self-imposed public exile, eventually returning to a life of writing (at first under a pseudonym) and becoming an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. He authored a number of philosophical and scholastic books (some with his friend Mortimer Adler), the best known of which is probably the one from which this excerpt came, A History of Knowledge.

The relationship of this to television? Well, I can't imagine a better description of the celebrity-infused culture of TMZ, the world of "reality" programming that has little relation to reality, knows almost no bounds, and seems to consist primarily of people who've become famous for being famous. Can you say "Kardashians"? "Real Housewives"? And if Van Doren's description of reality stars and viewers hits the mark, he's no less accurate in describing the world of consumption in which television dwells, not only in how advertising dominates the medium, but in how so much of the programming—not only reality but scripted—glorifies such consumption.

If there's anything optimistic to be taken from this, it's in how it shows that there is truly nothing new under the sun. Van Doren obviously felt that this series of paragraphs were fairly descriptive of the cultural world of the 1980s and '90s, even as it was written about a society that existed some 1500 years before that, and could doubtlessly be used similarly to describe countless societies and cultures in between.

On the other hand, we have to recall that the Roman Empire crumbled - not at the hands of a military enemy, but from internal decay. The historian Arnold Toynbee, himself a writer in the pages of TV Guide, posited that "the Roman Empire itself was a rotten system from its inception, and that the entire Imperial era was one of steady decay of institutions founded in Republican times." I'm afraid that if you're looking for reassuring sentiments in that statement, you're going to have to look elsewhere.

The id of Sigmund Freud has been described as the devil on the shoulder of the super-ego, an inflated sense of self-worth, "a mass of instinctive drives and impulses [that] needs immediate satisfaction." It is to the id that television thus appeals, in its ability to satisfy the insatiable desire for fame that consumes so many of its participants, and its ability to transmit that to viewers who consume it voraciously and live it vicariously. Something, in fact, that Charles Van Doren himself fell victim to at the pivotal moment in his life.

All this is not to lay the blame solely at the feet of television. As regular readers know, I've always felt that television as a medium is morally neutral—it's how you use the technology that counts—although I'll admit that I've been wavering in that belief over the last few years. (A subject for a future article, perhaps?) My fear is that the technology is not being used very well, nor has it been for some time, but even there one can suggest that it is at least as much of a reflection of out culture as it is the source of our dilemmas. And while it's true that television does satisfy that voracious appetite for what Van Doren called "amusing fictions about faraway peoples," but the people and the appetite had to exist in the first place - television merely exploited it and expanded it, but it has been a part of the human condition since Original Sin.  Sic semper erat, et sic semper erit: Thus has it always been, thus shall it ever be. TV  

March 18, 2024

What's on TV? Sunday, March 20, 1955




Some small but interesting tidbits in today's listings: singer Caterina Valente makes her American TV debut on the Colgate Comedy Hour; she's unknown enough that her first name is misspelled "Katerina." (She, along with Gordon MacRae and Kaye Ballard, make a formidable lineup, but I'd still give the edge to Ed Sullivan.) At 8:00 p.m., ABC carries a simulcast of Walter Winchell's 15-minute radio program; you might get a glimpse of him later at one of his favorite haunts, Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club, where tonight Billingsley welcomes Les Paul and Mary Ford. And if you're looking for a movie or two to watch, it's your day; there are no less than 18 of them on between the five stations in the Chicagoland Edition, and even though many of them are only an hour long, that should still fill the bill for fans of the flix.

March 16, 2024

This week in TV Guide: March 19, 1955




Sometimes you find the lede buried deep in the pages of TV Guide, calling no attention to itself, betraying no outward significance. Once I find that hook, that something-or-other that I can latch onto, it's clear sailing the rest of the way. That doesn't mean there has to be one, but it does tend to make things much easier. 

This week's lede almost slipped away from me; in fact, I was about three-quarters of the way through writing this before I found it. It comes on the final page of the listings for the final day of the week, and if you know the rest of the story, you'll find it almost audacious in its simplicity. It's the listing for Edward R. Murrow's interview show Person to Person (9:30 p.m. CT), in which we read that "Ed's off to the wide open spaces, where he stops at the Dallas, Tex., home of multimillionaire Clint Murchison." Clint Murchison is, in fact, one of the richest and most influential businessmen in the United States, and if that was all there was to it, you'd probably think that was all well and good, and then wonder what the late show is. And it's then that we begin, for Clint Murchison's story is as entertaining as anything we're apt to see in the dramatic anthologies that fill the nightly primetime schedule.

Murchison made his fortune in the oil fields of West Texas, and soon added natural gas to his portfolio. Having created one of the largest oil companies in the country, he began to diversify his interests, and soon he owned everything from the New York Central Railroad to Lionel Trains, plus publishing firms, insurance companies, banks, and industrial building materials suppliers. His business acumen made him hundreds of millions, and snagged him the cover of Time magazine.

It was the oil and gas business that remained his first love, though, and propelled his interest in politics, fighting to keep the government from regulating private industry. Not surprisingly, he also became an ardent anti-communist. He was a friend of J. Edgar Hoover (he was a stockholder in Henry Holt Publishing and used his influence to have them publish Hoover's book Masters of Deceit), the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (he hosted them at his ranch in Mexico), Dwight D. Eisenhower (he played a role in encouraging Ike to run for president), and Lyndon B. Johnson (he supported him for president in 1960). His patronage ensured the continuation of the oil depletion allowance, which saved him millions in taxes every year

What's more interesting, however, is Murchison's implication in several of the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy; supposedly, he hosted a party the night before Kennedy's death—a party at which Hoover, Johnson, Richard Nixon, and fellow billionaire H.L. Hunt were in attendance—after which Murchison is quoted as having said, "After tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That’s no threat. That’s a promise." This story has been debunked considerably, particularly Nixon's attendance; he was seen that same night with Joan Crawford at the at the Empire Room of the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Dallas. The singer they were watching backs up the story; he even pointed Nixon out to the audience. That singer? Robert Clary. The Hogan's Heroes Robert Clary! I tell you, you can't make these things up. (As far as I know, Murchison was not an acquaintance of Clay Shaw, but who knows?) When Murchison died, in 1969, his worth was estimated at a half-billion dollars.

And the Murchison story doesn't end there! His son, Clint Murchison Jr., was also a successful (and wealthy) businessman. His distinction? He founded the Dallas Cowboys football team, among other things*. It was his idea to build Texas Stadium, and to leave the famous opening in the roof so the field would still be exposed to the elements. It was also at his instigation that the Cowboys became the first team to utilize computers in scouting; Murchison had a masters from MIT. He's a member of both the Texas Business Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. Ironically, the Cowboys helped rebuild Dallas's image, which had been so tarnished—after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 

*Murchison's supposed co-conspirator in the JFK assassination, H.L. Hunt, was the father of Lamar Hunt, one of the founders of the American Football League, and the inventor of the name "Super Bowl." His AFL football team, the Kansas City Chiefs, started out life as the Dallas Texans, competing with Murchison Jr.'s NFL Cowboys team for supremacy in Dallas; Hunt agreed to move his team to Kansas City when it became apparent that two teams could not survive in Dallas. 

In retrospect, it's no wonder that the soap opera Dallas was so popular with viewers. It provided almost as many salacious details, and was a lot easier to follow than real life.

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One of the reasons it was so important to come up with a hook for this week is that there's nothing particularly exceptional about this issue. There are no spectaculars, no close-ups jumping off the page, and because the era of contemporary movies hasn't yet begun, most of the features are B-movies from the 1930s and '40s. What was I to latch onto?

Well, this is, after all, the Golden Age of Television, an exciting time of boundary-breaking broadcasts: live drama anthologies from New York featuring soon-to-be famous directors and actors; variety shows starring some of the biggest names in entertainment, original programs that captured the affections of the viewing public. And boxing: in 1955, there are no less than four primetime boxing broadcasts each week.

All these shows are presented in TV Guide, for the most part, with little to no fanfare. Those working behind the scenes in the television industry knew that they were part of something special, something  revolutionary, not to be duplicated. Were viewers aware they were part of the Golden Age, though? Once they got beyond the simple miracle of television itself, these were just the shows they watched every week, some better than others, but all in all, nothing out of the ordinary. Just open the pages, and there they are. Let's take a look at some of them.

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Normally, Saturday night's highlight is The Jackie Gleason Show, but this week it's Stage Show (7:00 p.m. CT, CBS), hosted by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and this week featuring special guest Nat King Cole. We're reassured that the Gleason show returns next week, but that didn't stop TV Guide from putting Art Carney on this week's cover. As Frank De Blois's accompanying story tells, Carney for years played a second banana for some of the biggest comics in show business: Fred Allen, Edgar Bergen, Morey Amsterdam, Milton Berle, and Henry Morgan among them.

Carney, Joyce Randolph, Gleason, and Audrey Meadows   
Carney's career started in junior high school, performing in front of the Elks Club in Mount Vernon, New York. After acting in a movie with James Stewart and playing on local radio in New York City, he first hit the big time with Morey Amsterdam in 1949, where his portrayal of Newton the Waiter evolved eventually into the Ed Norton character he plays today. By 1951, the Honeymooners skits were a regular part of Gleason's Cavalcade of Stars show, where the Norton character took full flight. He also found time for other roles; shows with Berle, Morgan, and Bert Lahr, and a turn as the Mad Hatter in a television adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. He has nothing but good things to say about those he's worked with, and credits Amsterdam for teaching him "plenty" about humor. "Morey’s a stand-up gagman. He’s not afraid to pass a gag along to another fellow. He’s not afraid you’re going to steal his act from him." Gleason's like that, too, he says; "The good ones aren't scared to let you have a laugh or two of your own."

Lately, as his fame has increased, he's started to branch out into dramatic roles, appearing on Studio One, Kraft Theatre, Suspense, and Climax. He's too busy, he says, for movies and Broadway. He lives modestly with his wife and three children, playing the part of, as De Blois says, "the most inconspicuous-looking $75,000-a year man in captivity." He could, in fact, be mistaken for "a fellow named Norton." 

As is typical for the time, nothing is mentioned of the alcoholism which Carney would battle for many years. And, as successful as Carney is at portraying Ed Norton (he would win multiple Emmys for the role), he would equal that success in the two forms that he said he was "too busy" for; he receives great acclaim as the original Felix Under in the Broadway version of The Odd Couple, and was nominated for a Tony for Lovers, while he wins a Best Actor Oscar in 1975 for the movie Harry and Tonto (during which he finally conquered his addictions), and later received the Best Actor award by the National Society of Film Critics for The Late Show. And every once in awhile, he'd show up as Norton in a revival of the Honeymooners. Not bad for someone who, in Carney's words, "started at the bottom in this business, and worked my way right into the sewer."

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A few weeks ago, I reviewed The Adams Chronicles, the PBS miniseries about America's illustrious Adams family. That series was based on the Adams family papers, which were donated by the family to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1954. As it turns out, that wasn't the first TV series based on the family papers; Sunday's Omnibus (4:00 p.m., CBS) presents another installment of newsman Allan Nevins's series on the family, "based strictly on the recently released Adams family papers." This week Nevins covers author and historian Henry, and his brother, railroad executive Charles Francis. The script is by Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian James T. Flexner, author of the definitive four-volume biography of George Washington; the series would later be awarded an honorable mention by the Peabody Awards.

Monday
 night features a quartet of programs that helped define CBS's success during the Golden Age,  starting with Burns & Allen at 7:00 p.m., followed by Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts at 7:30, I Love Lucy at 8:00, and December Bride at 8:30—talk about an early version of "Must See TV." December Bride is, arguably, the least-well-remembered of the four, and yet it ran for five successful seasons and 156 episodes, and spawned a successful spinoff, Pete and Gladys. Later, it's two of television's most respected drama anthologies; first, Charles Drake stars as a ruthless young actor climbing his way to the top on Robert Montgomery Presents (8:30 p.m., NBC), while Nina Foch, Glenda Farrell, and Edward Andrews headline "Miss Turner's Decision" on Studio One (9:00 p.m., CBS). And we can't forget Voice of Firestone (7;30 p.m., ABC), which began on radio in 1928 and would continue on TV, off and on, until 1962.

Tuesday features one of the great head-to-head matchups of all time: Milton Berle's variety show, currently called The Buick-Berle Show (7:00 p.m., NBC), vs. Bishop Fulton Sheen's Life is Worth Living (7:00 p.m., DuMont). It's a good-natured rivalry; Bishop Sheen once referred to himself as "Uncle Fultie," while Berle joked of Sheen that "He's got better writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." Two stalwarts of the 1950s follow: Make Room for Daddy (8:00 p.m., CBS), starring "one of America's great entertainers," the now all-but-forgotten Danny Thomas; followed by The Red Skelton Show (8:30 p.m., CBS), with Red's guest, singer-comedienne Mary McCarty.

Wednesday evening starts with one of the most important shows in the evolution of 1950s television: Disneyland (6:30 p.m., ABC). Not only did it stabilize a network in desperate need of a signature hit, its success signaled the arrival of the major movie studios into television production; it also, by the way, financed the construction of Disneyland. Tonight's episode is the Academy Award-winning short Seal Island, accompanied by a short that gives viewers a look at how the Disney team of naturalist photographers goes about gathering the footage for their nature films. Here's a video of the Seal Island show that was broadcast on November 10 of the previous year, but the description suggests that the show's content is much the same as it is tonight. Later in the evening, it's Kraft Television Theatre (8:00 p.m., NBC), the anthology series which began in 1947 and, when it left the air in 1958, was the longest-running show in television history. Tonight's episode, "The Story of Mary Surratt," stars Doreen Lang, Bruce Gordon, and Paul Mazursky. Oh, and there's more boxing.

Friday and Smith on the trail of "The Big Number"    
We start Thursday with another anthology, Climax (7:30 p.m., CBS), and "The Darkest Hour" starring Zachary Scott and Joanne Dru, directed by John Frankenheimer. Climax ran for four seasons; two of its most notable episodes were "The Long Goodbye," with Dick Powell reprising his role as private eye Philip Marlowe; and "Casino Royale," the first adaptation of a James Bond story, with American Barry Nelson playing the superspy. You can't celebrate the Golden Age without an episode of Dragnet, now, can you? Jack Webb's groundbreaking police drama is in its fourth season: tonight (8:00 p.m., NBC), Friday and his partner Frank Smith (Ben Alexander) track down a bank robber in "The Big Number." Another anthology rounds out the evening: Four Star Playhouse (8:30 p.m. CBS); the four stars, who co-own the production company and rotate as stars, are Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and the aforementioned Dick Powell.

Friday night has a host of familiar shows, beginning with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (7:00 p.m., ABC), in its third of 14 seasons. That's followed by Topper (7:30 p.m., CBS), which only ran for two seasons but remains a part of pop culture; Our Miss Brooks (8:30 p.m., CBS), the spinoff of the long-running radio series with Eve Arden; The Line-Up (9:00 p.m., CBS), a very good police drama which could be thought of as the San Francisco version of Dragnet and ran for six season, starring Warner Anderson and Tom Tully; and Edward R. Murrow's interview show Person to Person (9:30 p.m., CBS), which set the stage for celebrity interview shows, albeit with Murrow's gravitas thrown into the mix. 

And this doesn't include daytime shows, such as Today (7:00 a.m.), The Garry Moore Show (9:00 a.m., CBS), and Arthur Godfrey Time (9:30 a.m., CBS); The Tonight Show, in its second year with Steve Allen; the CBS soap operas Love of Life (11:15 a.m.), Search for Tomorrow (11:30 a.m.), and The Guiding Light (11:45 a.m.); and kids' shows like the nationally-franchised Romper Room (11:00 a.m., WGN) and Howdy Doody (4:30 p.m., NBC), which started in 1947 and continues as a daily show until next year, when it moves to Saturday mornings. 

Many of these programs have since become cherished institutions, part of television history. Others, while big at the time, are just footnotes today. And while some of them look dated to us today, some are as fresh as ever, stories that stand the test of time. 

You just have to know where to look. 

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Speaking of familiar faces, one of the most familiar faces of the era is Tennessee Ernie Ford, the country and gospel singer currently hosting a weekday variety show (11:00 a.m., NBC). That's one of the shows featured in this week's Program of the Week review. It's a pleasant-enough show, our critic reports, but there's nothing unique about it, nothing special. The fault lies not with Ernie himself—he's "an accomplished and versatile singer"—and his supporting cast, headed by 15-year-old Molly Bee, is personable enough, mixing well with Ford. No, what really drags down the show is Ernie's interviews with his guests; while he's "glib enough to make his interviews interesting" when he's got the right material, too often they simply "plod along." One wonders, perhaps, "that the 'real' Ernie isn't strong enough to carry a day-after-day show." 

One wonders, on the other hand, if perhaps they should simply have let Ernie be Ernie. Later in the year, he'll score his biggest-ever hit with "Sixteen Tons," which holds the number one position on the Billboard country chart for ten weeks, before crossing over to the Billboard pop chart where it's number one for an additional eight weeks, and next season, Ernie lands in primetime with The Ford Show, featuring the animated versions of the Peanuts gang in segments directed by Bill Melendez. The Ford Show runs for five successful seasons, and the "hillbilly characterizations" which seemed not to win the critic's favor in this issue seem not to be a liability here. 

Of course, Ford can also a polished and smooth personality when he so chooses—on The Ford Show he would famously do adaptations of The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan—but he would demonstrate that he knew, perhaps better than the experts, how to reach his audience. "Television's still in its infancy, as far as entertaining a live audience is concerned. There is a lack of knowledge on how to entertain in the home," he would tell TV Guide five years later. "People get kinda used to thinkin', 'Well, tonight's the night ol' Ernie will be here.'" As for the hymns that he sings to close his show, the executives were against it; "They told me I couldn't sing hymns because it 'brings people down.' That's ridiculous. I don't think the good Lord cares for a bunch of deadheads. I mean, you don't have to put on sackcloth and sit in a pile of ashes to sing a hymn. Some of the most beautiful music is in hymns. Well, sir, I won, and now the hymns are the biggest think we have on the show."

The second show being reviewed this week, The Star and the Story, falls at the other end of the familiarity spectrum. It's another dramatic anthology, with the "gimmick" that each week's star chooses their own play, i.e. playing to their own strengths. So far the series has offered excellent performances by Edmund O'Brien, Angela Lansbury, and Judith Anderson, among others, and they've demonstrated that they know "both the type of character they can best portray and what makes for good TV viewing." (Not unlike Ernie Ford, come to think of it.) The verdict on The Star and the Story is that "the stars and the stories, aided by fine production, [make] this a high-quality entry." Maybe so, but I dare say it doesn't have as long a shelf life as Tennessee Ernie Ford does.

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MST3K alert: Lost Continent (1951) A rescue mission discovers a "Lost Continent." Cesar Romero, Hillary Brooke. (Sunday, 9:00 a.m., WGN) This brief description hardly does the movie justice, and editing it down to fit a one-hour Sunday morning timeslot doesn't help things. But without the interstitial MST3K features, you don't have a movie anyway: Crypto-dad Hugh Beaumont as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rock climbing, and Cesar Romero—really, who could ask for anything more? TV  

March 15, 2024

Around the dial




We begin this week at Comfort TV, where David continues his night-by-night retrospective on 1970s television with Friday, 1973: a night that begins with the final season of The Brady Bunch, and continues with such favorites as Sanford and Son, The Odd Couple, Room 222, Love American Style, and The Dean Martin Show. Not bad at all.

At Cult TV Blog, John looks at an episode from the first season of The Avengers that no longer exists: "Dance with Death." Well, I mean, obviously it did exist, and it still does, in the form of a Big Finish audio version, but this post is based on the original TV script, and it is absolutely well worth reading. Both the script and John's review, that is.

Ready for another dose of The Avengers? You'll find it at A View from the Junkyard, where Roger and Mike compare notes on "You'll Catch Your Death," as Steed and Tara battle a nursing academy that's a front for a deadly organization peddling a allergen to which nobody is immune. I'd hate to think that this resembles any recent situation we might recognize.

Martin Grams dips into the crossover zone with the 1949 movie The Life of Riley, based on the popular radio comedy of the same name, starring William Bendix as Chester Riley, with most of the original radio cast. It was this movie that kept Bendix from reprising his role as Riley in the television version of the show, which instead cast Jackie Gleason in the lead.

Remember the 1960s sitcom Camp Runamuck? What's that? You don't? Well, it's a good thing for you that Television Obscurities does, and this week Robert takes us back to look at the episode "Say, You’re a Bleeder, Aren’t You? Asked Tom Cuttingly." Got to love a show that can work a Tom Swiftie like that into the title.

Albert Salmi: whether or not you recognize the name (and I'm betting a lot of you do), you'll certainly recognize the face of one of television's more recognizable character actors of the classic era. But do you know the tragedy of his real-life story? You can find out the grim details this week at TravalancheTV