What's on TV? Monday, September 20, 1971

Tonight represents a landmark in the history of televised sports. No, it's not the inaugural season of Monday Night Football; that was last year. It's close, though: for the second season debut, Frank Gifford replaces Keith Jackson as play-by-play announcer, a move that has twin ramifications. In joining Howard Cosell and Don Meredith, Gifford helps form one of the most memorable broadcasting teams in television sports history, one that would earn the praise and ire of millions around the country. They helped turn Monday Night Football from a mere football game to an event, a colossal Roman circus that inspired such activities as barroom contests to throw bricks through televisions when the trio appeared on the screen. More sedate, but perhaps more significant, Jackson moved from the NFL to college football, in the process becoming one of the greatest big-game announcers in television history. On such a historic night as this, everything else pales in comparison, right? This week's issue covers the Philadelphia-New York City area.

This week in TV Guide: September 18, 1971

IIn the era which we call B.C.—that is, Before Cable—movies on television were a Big Deal. A Very Big Deal, in fact. They were, and had been for years, a staple of local television, and in the late 1950s ABC had experimented with a couple of movie packages consisting of pre-1950 movies or movies from England, but when NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies debuted in 1961, it represented a masssive change. Now, for the first time, movies that had been in theaters after 1950 could be seen in the comfort of your very own living room. Some of them were even in color, and all of them were shown in a time slot of at least two hours, meaning they didn't have to be hacked to death first. I explain all this for those of your out there, primarily younger readers, who may not be able to imagine a time when people like me got excited about watching movies on TV that were interrupted at regular intervals for commercials and had often been edited for time or content (or both). What can I say? Thinks were simpler then.

This is all a lead-in to one of this week's cover stories, Al Morgan's look at the men who decide what movies we see on TV. Their names are Barry Diller, Larry White and Mike Marden. They work for the three networks, and as Morgan writes, "Far beyond the dreams of any statesman, they can unite the country: unite it in rooting home the hero in a chariot race or unite it breathing heavily in the Burton-Taylor boudoir."*

*Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. They were an item once.

They all agree that things have changed dramatically over the years. In television's early days, the networks would bid against each other for movies, with the price for a single movie jumping "from less than $200,000 to more than a million." With that kind of price war, something had to change; enter the "film package." Distributors would put together a package of as many as 40 movies; the catch was that in order to buy the really good ones, you also had to take the, let's say, less desirable ones. (Kind of like cable television packages, come to think of it.) For example, there's the one CBS bought several years ago. It included hits like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Night of the Iguana, The Sandpiper, North by Northwest, and an Elvis movie. It also included "gems" like Your Cheatin' Heart (George Hamilton as Hank Williams), Hold On! (starring Herman's Hermits), and The Alphabet Murders (Tony Randall trying to play Hercule Poirot). As Mike Marden says, "In those days, our rule of thumb was 'You got 'em, you play 'em.' Today the public won't sit still for a bad movie, a really bad movie." He adds that it's more of a buyer's market today, that the days "when the networks bought anything that moved and talked" are long since over. 

Everyone agrees that NBC has the largest film library; "We haven't bought a package in two years," Larry Wilson says, and when they do, "we look at them on an individual basis. They are offered to us. We buy or we don't buy." ABC's library isn't bad either; Diller says the inventory is big enough that the network could program until 1975 without buying anything more. Diller is especially proud of the network's recent deal for two playings of Cleopatra for more than $4 million. He's also pleased with his purchase of the John Wayne Western The Sons of Katie Elder. "Wayne is pure gold to us," he says. CBS describes it's situation as "comfortable"; Marden says, "I haven't even bought many individual pictures lately." His most recent gems: Ben-Hur and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Scheduling movies is a real chess game for these men. A well-timed movie can take the edge off of a series premiere or other special program. A two-part movie not only doubles the potential ratings bonanza (two nights instead of one!), it also justifies the expense of purchasing that movie (Cleopatra supposedly cost ABC $4 million). This very week, CBS is premiering Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? in the old Ed Sullivan timespot to try and retain Ed's loyal audience. Summer nights make the perfect time for dumping those dogs that you had to purchase in order to get the movies you really wanted. And a blockbuster can help improve ratings for local affiliates, thereby earning loyal and undying gratitude. 

Star power is a big part of making investments pay off. John Wayne is "pure gold" not only for ABC, but CBS as well, and you have to think NBC's feeling pretty good about this week's two-part running of The Alamo. But there's one thing the networks haven't gotten into yet: foreign films. Only ABC has taken a chance: having previously shown A Man and a Woman as a kind of test, Barry Diller went ahead this year and bought Z, Costa-Gavras's political thriller that was a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars. It's an important movie, Diller says; "I hope people will watch it, but it's a movie that should be seen." I guess if we really want foreign films, we'll just have to wait for TCM.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era.

The subject of Cleveland Amory's column this week is not a show. Rather, one could say that his focus is on the show within the show. It's the phenomenon known as the VIV—the Very Important Voice—and it's the latest fad in the advertising genre known as the television commercial. It's become so big, in fact, that according to Cleve there's at least one agency in Hollywood that works on nothing but voice talent for commercials. "Last year," says agency owner Charles Stern, "performers on shows earned $35,000,000. Performers on commercials earned over $65,000,000." Well, he's got me convinced; where do you line up for this kind of gig?

Nowadays everyone's doing it: J.D. Cannon for Piels, Jose Ferrer for Schlitz, Lloyd Nolan for Ford, Greg Morris for Datsun, Jack Kelly for Contac, David Wayne for American Airlines, Orson Welles for Eastern Airlines. As a matter of fact, Amory says, when Orson Welles took over Eastern from Alexander Scourby, "it was almost as much of a cause célèbre as when Robert Lansing was replaced from Twelve O'clock High or when Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were replaced in Mission: Impossible." And while big names like Jim Backus, Chuck Connors and Vincent Price are easily recognizable voices, Amory pays particular attention to the voice of a man he calls "unknown": Paul Frees.

Paul Frees is in fact a relative unknown when it comes to his face, but as a voice talent he has become one of the most famous of all time, rivaled today perhaps only by Mel Blanc and Daws Butler. You probably know him for his cartoon voices: Boris Badenov on Rocky and Bullwinkle, Inspector Fenwick on Dudley Do-Right, Burgermeister Meisterburger in Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, and a host of other roles for Jay Ward, Rankin/Bass, and others. He's also done voiceover work on movies from The Manchurian Candidate to Patton, and often worked as a sound-alike for none other than Orson Welles. Amory says that he can do anybody—James Stewart, Jack Benny—better than they can. He regularly earnes over $250,000 a year. For that kind of money, I'd be only too glad to be an unknown, too.

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There's a lesson to be taken somewhere from ABC's Wednesday night schedule. At first glance, you can see why the network would be excited about it; the star-studded lineup features returning series with Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched), Bill Bixby (The Courtship of Eddie's Father), Henry Fonda (The Smith Family), and new shows starring Shirley MacLaine (Shirley's World) and Anthony Quinn (The Man and The City). As I said, a lot of star wattage. There's only one problem: by the end of the 1971-72 TV season, none of them will be left on the network's schedule. What happened?

In the case of Bewitched, it's a bit misleading; the show had been a hit for ABC for eight seasons, going back to 1964, and had Montgomery wanted, it probably could have continued for another season or two.* Eddie's Father was a success as well, if not as successful as Bewitched; it ran for three seasons, which today would qualify it as an unmitigated smash. But The Smith Family, the third of the returning shows, only produced 39 episodes over a season-and-a-half, and neither Shirley's World nor Man and The City managed a second season. Hardly what one might expect from a lineup featuring multiple Emmy and Oscar winners. As for what happened, I have a theory, although that's all it is. Briefly, it could be described thus: there are stars, and then there are stars.

*Elizabeth Montgomery was understandably tired of the role after such a long run; in addition, she and husband (and Bewitched producer William Asher) were in the process of divorcing.

Elizabeth Montgomery and Bill Bixby were estabalished TV stars, Montgomery through Bewitched and Bixby with My Favorite Martian and Eddie's Father; they also featured in several TV movies over the years. They'd built up a rapport with viewers, who'd become comfortable with welcoming them into their living rooms each week. Fonda, MacLaine and Quinn, on the other hand, had made their fame on the big screen. Only Fonda had helmed a TV series before, The Deputy (1959-61), and in that one he'd usually played a secondary role. MacLaine and Quinn, on the other hand, were part of an inflow of movie stars into television for the 1971 season, one that included Jimmy Stewart, Glenn Ford, and Yul Brynner. TV Guide, in surveying the damage the following year, will suggest that television executives may have been so concerned about attracting big stars that they neglected to give them strong vehicles for their talents. Only Glenn Ford, in the Western-cop show Cade's County, had a series that matched up well with the star's image, and it's probably no coincidence that Cade's County was perhaps the best one of the bunch.

In the intervening years, the crossover from movies to television and back has become more common, thanks mostly to prestige shows on cable outlets. Still, it's hard to imagine a network today trying to build a successful lineup around the star system. 

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It's the second (!) season opener for All in the Family (Saturday, 8:00 p.m. ET; and they said it would never last), with the Bunkers having to deal with the aftermath of deadbeat cousin Oscar, who comes to visit and—well, becomes just dead Oscar. That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by the debut of Funny Face, starring Sandy Duncan, who's this week's cover star. The network really believed in Sandy, really wanted this series to work, but after a few weeks, Duncan undergoes surgery for a tumor behind her left eye, and the show essentially goes on hiatus for the rest of the season. It will return next year, retooled as The Sandy Duncan Show, but the show itself is never as talented as she is. At 9:00 p.m., NBC Saturday Night at the Movies has one of those blockbusters we talked about earlier, part one of The Alamo, with John Wayne as producer and director, as well as playing Davy Crockett. We also get an all-star cast including Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie, Richard Boone as Sam Houston, Laurence Harvey as William Travis, and Chill Wills in an Oscar-nominated turn as Beekeeper. Part two airs Monday, same Batjac-time, same Batjac-channel.* And at 10:00 p.m. on ABC, it's the debut of the British-import series The Persuaders!, with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore wonderful as two multimillionaire playboys who become crimefighters in their spare time.

*Batjac being the name of John Wayne's production company.

As I alluded to earlier, The Ed Sullivan Show has taken its last bows, replaced by the new CBS Sunday Night Movie (7:30 p.m.), starting off with 1967's Best Picture nominee Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, Spencer Tracy's last movie, co-starring Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn and Sidney Poitier. Crist has mixed feelings about this one; the performances of the three leads "are lovely to behold," but as for the movie itself, its thesis that "interracial marriage among the rich and successful is permissible provided the couple leaves for Africa by midnight" is "nothing less than vomitous." There's also The Duke again, this time with Robert Mitchum in El Dorado (9:00 p.m., ABC), although Crist says that both the movie and its stars are "hobbling around on crutches." Maybe you're better off with the premiere of The Jimmy Stewart Show (8:30 p.m., NBC), the star's first television series; it's also the first and only time Stewart ever allowed himself to be billed as "Jimmy" rather than "James." He gets that billing for 24 episodes.

It's the season premiere of Monday Night Football this week, with Minnesota taking on Detroit (9:00 p.m., ABC). We'll have more about that in Monday's TV listing. Meanwhile, Billy DeWolfe returns as a guest star on The Doris Day Show (9:30 p.m., CBS), Charles Nelson Reilly joins the cast of Hershel Bernardi's sitcom Arnie (10:30 p.m., CBS), and Joan Rivers is the guest hostess on The Tonight Show (11:30 p.m., NBC). On Tuesday, it's the fifth-season opener for Ironside (7:30 p.m., NBC), with "an exciting new star," James Olson, playing a contract killer. Olson had actually been around for some time, doing a lot of television, as well as cheesy movies like Moon Zero Two, and very good movies like The Andromeda Strain and Rachel, Rachel. That's followed by the debut of Sarge (8:30 p.m, NBC), starring George Kennedy as a former policeman turned priest, who deals with a dying man (Jack Albertson) looking to even the score with a mobster. If you're looking for something a little less intense, Glen Campbell has a pretty good guest lineup (7:30 p.m., CBS), with Bob Hope, Dionne Warwicke, and the Smothers Brothers.

We've already looked at ABC's Wednesday lineup, but there's more to the evening's entertainment. For one thing, it's the second-season debut of McCloud on the NBC Mystery Movie (8:30 p.m.) Like you, I remember the Mystery Movie mostly from Sunday nights, but it actually started out on Wednesday. (And McCloud got its start as part of Four-In-One, where it rotated with San Francisco International Airport, Night Gallery, and The Psychiatrist.) Meanwhile, the program description claims that singer Steve Lawrence is making his TV dramatic debut as an ambitious surgeon in Medical Center (9:00 p.m., CBS), but we all know that his real TV dramatic debut was in Rod Serling's fantasy drama Carol for Another Christmas back in 1964. All they had to do was ask me; I would have told them. And at 10:00 p.m., it's none other than the aforementioned Night Gallery on NBC.

Thursday features a couple more new series on ABC, beginning at 9:00 p.m. with James Franciscus as the blind detective Longstreet, followed at 10:00 p.m. by Arthur Hill as Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law. And on WKBS, the independent station in Philadelphia, it's a delightful episode of It Takes a Thief (9:00 p.m.), with a guest appearance by Fred Astaire as Alexander Mundy's father Alister. ► I always enjoyed the episodes with him. Finally, on Friday, it's Group W's Norman Corwin Presents (10:30 p.m., KYW). Corwin, one of the great writers from the Golden Age of Radio, hosted this half-hour anthology series during the 1971-72 season; tonight's episode, which he also wrote, is "Odyssey in Progress," a musical fantasy about a boy searching through space for his dead dog.

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Let's see, what else have we got in the headlines? Richard K. Doan reports on the late-nite turmoil at CBS, where Merv Griffin wants out of his contract so he can return to syndication with Metromedia (where he'll be a daytime show in many markets). CBS will be happy to him go, but then who would replace him? There are rumors; Sonny and Cher (!) were a hit in their summer series, so they've been mentioned, as has Bill Cosby, but the suits don't think either of these choices would be the right one. As it turns out, they wound up replacing Merv with movies and reruns, and didn't dip their toes into the talk show wars until they gave Pat Sajak a shot in 1989. Just think, though, if either of those options had come to pass. I could see Cosby as a talk show host, but Sonny and Cher? Ah, for someone to write an alternative history on that.

The New York Teletype says that Burt Reynolds, who most recently appeared on the small screen in Dan August, is going to take a detour to star in the big-screen version of poet James Dickey's novel Deliverance, along with Jon Voight. I wonder how that'll turn out for Burt? In Hollywood, the talk is about ABC's upcoming telemovie ◄The Kolchak Tapes, currently filming in Las Vegas; it's a vampire epic starring Darren McGavin and Carol Lynley. I wonder if the network has any idea what a hit they'll have on their hands? There's also a report that Sterling Silliphant is working on a pilot for his old Route 66 star George Maharis. Needless to say. . .

Finally, Pat Morrow, this week's starlet, asked herself, following five years as Rita Jacks on Peyton Place, "What did I want to do with the rest of my life?" The answer, at least for the time being, go to law school. She's just finished her first year at Glendale College of Law; her goal is to "defend poor people—people who can't afford to pay the fees of lawyers like my father [a corporate lawyer]." Not like the law shows on television, though, because "these shows have very little reality and no resemblance to the truth about the law and how it operates—in or out of the courtroom." She's had it with acting—"Maybe for some women it would be a good life. Not for me. I'll never go back to television." Not, at least, until next year, when she reprises her role as Rita on Return to Peyton Place until 1974. She does graduate from Glendale, though. TV

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Around the dial

We're into the "Patricia Hayes" season at Cult TV Blog, in which John assembles a season's worth of performances from an individual actor who's appeared in various shows he's watched. Hayes was a familiar face to British audiences for her various roles, none more so than her 1971 BAFTA-winning role as "Edna, the Inebriate Woman" in Play for Today.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill treats us to reviews of three movies featuring the late, great Tim Curry: the TV series The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange (2012-14), the horror movie The Shout (1978) and an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1993) in which he plays not one, not two, but three family members.

And speaking of Curry, at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence has a look back at the gloriously eclectic career of Curry, which stretches from Rocky Horror to Clue, and which featured turns with the Muppets, an outstanding career on stage, and more credits than you can shake a stick at, as people my age might say.

The trip through 1970s television continues apace at Comfort TV, and this week David brings us to Wednesday night, 1978: as he says, it's yet another night of primetime dominance by ABC, with Eight is Enough, Charlie's Angels, and Vega$, but there's more, including a show even worse than Supertrain!

At Cult TV Lounge, it's a look at a series I've watched in the past, Firefly, Joss Whedon's sci-fi Western, starring Nathan Fillion in a rare non-crime figher role, and a cast of characters headed by Ron Glass's insightful performance as a man of faith. It's an intriguing premise, but I agree with our fearless author that it doesn't grab me enough to watch again.

How is it that, in all the things I've remembered and forgotten in my long life, I still recall Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch!?  I don't think I ever saw a single episode of this animated series, but I sure remember the title. Fortunately, we have Paul at Drunk TV to remind us of this 1970s animated Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera series.

We've been reading a bit about Dick Tracy at Martin Grams's site, and this week he looks at the 1991 novel Dick Tracy Goes to War, one of three Warren Beatty-era Tracy novels to be written by Max Allen Collins. Considering the first book was an infinitely superior adaptation of the Tracy movie's screenplay, I think it safe to say we're in good hands.

After all this, there's no 0ther way to end the week than at The View from the Junkyard, and Roger's review of The A-Team. This week, the Team actually try to settle down in a house they own, but as the title might tell you, "There Goes the Neighborhood" has ideas of its own. TV

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What's on TV? Friday, July 27, 1973

There's not much to add here that I didn't discuss on Saturday. You see above the notice about the Watergate hearings; there were none scheduled for this Friday, and none were held, leaving the night open for the College All-Star Game at 8:30 p.m. What interests me is this movie at midnight on KMSP: War Hunt. "In Korea, Pvt. Raymond Endore wins the high regard of his captain for his one-man night patrols—killing silently with a stiletto—but the new man in the squad thinks Endore's killer instinct has grown to psychotic proportions." It sounds like a cross between Seven and The Manchurian Candidate, doesn't it? John Saxon is Endore, his captain is Charles Aidman, and Robert Redford plays the "new man." Additionally, the movie features Sydney Pollack, Gavin McLeod and Tom Skerritt, and, as a truck driver, Francis Ford Coppola. Better throw Apocalypse Now in that mix for good measure. The listings are from the Minnesota State Edition.

This week in TV Guide: July 21, 1973

The year is 1967, and you're a Navy flier in Vietnam. While flying a mission on May 18 of that year, you're shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner. For nearly six years, until March 4, 1973, you're shuttled from prison to prison, including the infamous "Hanoi Hilton." During that time, you've missed Laugh-In, the Smothers Brothers, and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. You didn't see the end of The Fugitive, Peyton Place or The Ed Sullivan Show. You've never seen Monday Night Football or Big Bird. Even though it's only (!) been six years, you have, in essence, missed an entire generation of American pop culture. This is the world that Lt. Robert Naughton returned to when he was released from North Vietnam custody, and this week he tells Clifford Terry how television has changed during his time as a POW.

He never saw television during those six years, but he and his fellow prisoners talked about it. "I must give it credit for providing us with a lot of entertainment," he says. "We'd discuss the shows we had seen in order to pass the time and cheer each other up." In doing so, he says, "[T]hat's when I awakened to its lack of depth. If I tried to tell the guys the story of a certain episode, I'd realize there really wasn't any. Nor any message." As he thought of the shows he'd once considered his favorites, such as The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show, he came to the same conclusion. "My feeling now is that you can be entertained and at the same time have your intellect stimulated."

What might surprise you—or not, when you think about it—is that Naughton doesn't see much of any change in television now from how he remembered it. "only the names of the prime-time shows are different. I saw The Doris Day Show and Sanford and Son, and got a few laughs out of them, but I couldn't watch to the end." He'd always enjoyed Dean Martin, but after seeing a recent show, "I'm sorry to say it was a kind of nothing." As for the #1 show in America, All in the Family, "I thought it was funny, but someone who doesn't do any analyzing may think, 'Oh, everyone's laughing, that must be the way to live.' I couldn't see any subtlety to it. And kids might pick up some of the words, the bigotry."

He enjoys Alistair Cooke's America ("If that could represent the over-all quality, television would be above reproach"), and thinks shows such as Face the Nation and Meet the Press are great, but that it's "almost criminal" that they're stuck on Sunday mornings or afternoons. He's impressed with public television and its capacity to educate young people. As a matter of fact, television's ability to educate as well as enlighten is a big point with him; he points out how more and more people get their news not from newspapers but TV. "The communications media have a real obligation to the country—especially television, because of the fast pace of American life." He enjoys newsmen who present their opinions as well as the news, from Eric Sevareid and Harry Reasoner to Paul Harvey, and he stresses the need of news programs to subject politicians to public scrutiny. "Of course," he cautions, "if it ever should come to the point of slanting the news, then it should be stopped. I heard a lot of slanted news in North Vietnam in the last few years—propaganda that was directed to about the 6th- or 7th-grade level. No subtlety at all."

Not surprisingly, the subject of Hogan's Heroes comes up. "I think they begin [the show] from the point where the prisoners already have been beaten up; they assume everyone knows that a POW is tortured—just by the fact that he is a POW. The program misrepresented what I went through, but the fact that a person is able to laugh at the situation is very true." As Reader's Digest always said, laughter is the best medicine; "A sense of humor got us through quite a bit. We called it 'sick prison humor'." He likes TV's new candidness, as long as it's "handled intelligently and not used as an excuse to make bawdy jokes" He appreciates talk shows such as Dick Cavett's, which isn't afraid to discuss issues frankly and honestly.

In terms of this discussion, one of the things he appreciates most of all is freedom,; radio programs in North Vietnam were broadcast over loudspeakers in the streets, "so you listen whether you want to or not. Here, you can always walk up and turn off the radio or TV. That's one of the freedoms I've come to appreciate: the right to quit." To have the freedom to watch TV or not; that is a great thing. One of the understandings that Robert Naughton came to in prison was the importance, the value, of time. "I thought a good deal about how much time I had watched television—unproductive programs. I more or less made a resolution that I wasn't going to become glued to the TV screen."

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Two of TV's definitive 70s-era rock music shows, NBC's The Midnight Special and ABC's In Concert, faced off on Friday nights. Midnight Special was a weekly show, airing after Johnny Carson, while In Concert was an every-other week part of Wide World of Entertainment.  Whenever the two slug it out, we'll be there to see who's better, who's best.

Funny thing about Channel 9, the then-ABC affiliate in MSP. Throughout the sixties and seventies, Channel 9 would show a movie in place of the network’s Friday late-night offering, showing the pre-empted program instead on Sunday after the late local news. Has to do with revenue from those commercials, I know, but it’s still an interesting quirk in KMSP’s programming.*

*They also frequently delayed the Monday through Thursday offering, particularly during the Les Crane and Joey Bishop eras, until after their 10:30 movie.

So even though there wasn’t a Midnight Special-In Concert clash scheduled for this week, we’ll have one anyway, using Channel 9’s Sunday night’s broadcast of last Friday’s episode. Talk about luck!

In Concert: The Guess Who, B.B. King and Melanie perform in this rock concert taped at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Produced by Dick Clark Teleshows, Inc.

Midnight Special: Hostess Dionne Warwicke, with Johnny Mathis, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, folk singer Leo Kottke, rock group Malo and pop singer Bud Brisbois.

Dionne Warwicke was in her “e” phase in 1973*, and was also making the talk show rounds. Just before this Midnight Special appearance, she’s appearing with guest host Jerry Lewis on the Tonight Show, and—at least on the Special—she’s going with what made her famous: the songs of Burt Bacharach, including 1968’s hit “I Say a Little Prayer.” Johnny Mathis follows with one of his hits, “Killing Me Softly with Her Song.” Throw in the pre-Gambler Kenny Rogers and singer Leo Kottke (later a frequent guest on radio’s Prairie Home Companion), and you have the kind of eclectic music mix that was a hallmark of top-40 radio, and is virtually non-existent nowadays.

*From the always-reliable Wikipedia: Warwick, for years an aficionado of psychic phenomena, was advised by astrologer Linda Goodman in 1971 to add a small "e" to her last name, making Warwick ‘WARWICKe’ for good luck and to recognize her married name and her spouse, actor and drummer William ‘Bill’ Elliott. Goodman convinced Warwick that the extra small ‘e’ would add a vibration needed to balance her last name and bring her even more good fortune in her marriage and her professional life. Unfortunately, Goodman proved to be mistaken about this. The extra ‘e,’ according to Dionne, "was the worst thing I could have done in retrospect, and in 1975 I finally got rid of that damn ‘’e” and became “Dionne Warwick“ again.’” You’d think she would have known that would happen, don’t you?

Meanwhile, In Concert features some hits of its own: The Guess Who’s “American Woman,” B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” and Melanie’s “What Have They Done to My Song, Ma?” So who’s the winner this week? I’m afraid I’m going to show my age here, but if you can’t share it with your friends, who can you share it with? Midnight Special, on style points alone.

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If it’s July, it must be football season, right? This Friday night the gridiron greats return with coverage of the College All-Star Game from Soldier Field in Chicago (8:30 p.m, CT, ABC), pitting the NFL champion Miami Dolphins (coming off their undefeated season) against a team featuring future pro stars Bert Jones, Otis Armstrong and John Matuszak. Melvin Durslag’s preview article discusses the history of the game, which started in 1934 as a benefit for the Chicago Tribune Charities.*

*The game was started by Tribune sports editor Arch Ward, who was also responsible for major league baseball’s All-Star Game.

One of the problems the game faces (which helped end the game in the mid '70s) is a growing reluctance of NFL teams to allow their newly drafted stars to participate, due to both a concern about injuries and the amount of training camp the rookies will miss. This helps explain why the game’s usually a rout, and this year’s edition is expected to be no different, but the All Stars, coached by USC’s legendary John McKay, give the Fins all they can handle, and more. In the fourth quarter, buoyed by a strong defense led by Matuszak, the Stars trail the Dolphins only by 7-3, before Miami running back Larry Csonka scores the clinching touchdown in a surprisingly tough 14-3 victory.

And speaking of baseball’s All-Star Game, that’s this week as well. Before the days of cable TV and regularly scheduled interleague play, the All-Star Game really was must-see TV. For many of us living in Minnesota, it was one of the rare times we got to see National League players, whom we’d otherwise only see on the Saturday game of the week.

This year’s game is Tuesday night in Kansas City (7:00 p.m., NBC), with the Nationals (the league, not the team, which won't be around for another thirty years or so) routing the Americans 7-1 for their 10th win in the last 11 years. They aren't kidding about this being an all-star game, either; the Nats featured nine future Hall of Famers, including Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Joe Morgan, Ron Santo, Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, Billy Williams, Willie Mays and Willie Stargell—plus that pesky Pete Rose character. The Americans countered with nine of their own: Carlton Fisk, Rod Carew, Brooks Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Carl Yastrzemski, Nolan Ryan, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers and Bert Blyleven. I wonder—will this year’s game do as well?

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What with so many regular series in summer reruns, we’ve been focusing the last few weeks on summer replacement shows. Ready for some more? Saturday night, Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber star in The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour (8:00 p.m., ABC), in place of the cancelled Julie Andrews show, with guests Ed McMahon, Teresa Graves and the Muledeer and Moondogg Medicine Show. On Thursday night NBC has Helen Reddy sitting in for Flip Wilson at 8:00 p.m., with fellow feminist Gloria Steinem, B.B. King, the New Seekers, Albert Brooks and the Modern Jazz Quartet; that's followed at 9:00 p.m. by the premiere of Dean Martin Presents Music Country, this week starring Johnny Cash, Mac Davis, Loretta Lynn, Marty Robbins and a cast of thousands.

There are plenty of movies to choose from this week, including the summertime staple, failed pilots for series that never came to pass. Two such are I Love a Mystery, an unsold pilot from 1966 with Ida Lupino (Monday, 8:00 p.m., NBC) and Crime Club (Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., CBS), which is only a year old, starring Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Rush, Paul Burke, Cloris Leachman, Martin Sheen, Victor Buono and William Devane. Great cast; I wonder why it didn't sell.

There is one kind of summer program not seen anymore, at least in Minneapolis: the twin Aquatennial parades. When I was a kid, the Minneapolis Aquatennial was the biggest summer festival around (it even featured as the backdrop for an episode of Route 66), and the two parades—the Grande Day Parade on Saturday and the Torchlight Parade on Wednesday—were major events. WCCO preempts its regular programming Saturday afternoon for the Grand Day parade starting at 2:30 p.m., featuring a pair of celebrity grand marshals, Larry Linville from M*A*S*H* and evangelist Billy Graham, and an appearance by Colonel Sanders. Keeping with the “Seas of Antiquity,” there are also a number of representatives from Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Greece.

*No coincidence that a CBS star would appear on a parade being televised by a CBS affiliate, right?

KSTP does the honors for the Torchlight parade, beginning at 8:30 p.m. (preempting Madigan and Search) with grand marshal Simcha Dimitz, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, along with the Israeli consul general, and another appearance by Colonel Sanders. Although the floats are the same ones from the Saturday parade (now with lights attached), I wonder if all of the Arab representatives still participated, considering the company they’d be keeping? After all, the Yom Kippur War is less than three months away.

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Since we’re talking about old TV, here’s something interesting—a program about TV shows that were already considered old in 1973. That’s not too meta for you, is it?

It’s CBS News Retrospective, airing Sunday afternoons at 5:00 p.m., in which the network dips into its vaults to rebroadcast some of its most acclaimed and influential CBS Reports documentaries from the fifties and sixties. This week it’s the 1963 documentary “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson,” the landmark program that first shown the spotlight on ecology and the environment, specifically the uses of DDT and other pesticides, and the effects they had on birds, fish and the soil. Carson’s assertions were controversial then, and they remain controversial today.

Thanks to being in the Twin Cities for the summer (after the first of six years in the World's Worst Town™), I was able to see this limited-run series, which included several documentaries by Edward R. Murrow. This was advocacy television at its finest (in terms of quality, that is, not necessarily ideology), and these programs were great examples of a type of television journalism that’s pretty much nonexistent today. And I can’t help but wonder about the method behind CBS airing these shows at this particular time. Could it be that the Tiffany Network was reminding viewers of their great news tradition, in order to bolster the division’s credibility during the continuing coverage of the Watergate hearings? Or is that too cynical a thought?

Speaking of which, we’re reminded at the start of the programming section (as well as several times throughout the week) that regular programming stands to be preempted for those Senate Watergate hearings. The nation has just been stunned the previous week by former presidential aide Alexander Butterfield’s casual comment that there was tape recording going on in the Oval Office. On Monday, July 23, special prosecutor Archibald Cox will demand that the White House turn over transcripts of those taped conversations, which President Nixon will refuse to do, citing Executive Privilege.

What’s interesting is that even at this point, roughly a year before Nixon will be forced to resign, the public is still divided over the issue. While 50% believe former aide John Dean’s accusations that Nixon is covering up the affair, they’re also split evenly (38%-37%) as to whom they would believe if Nixon denies the charge. Ah, politics.

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We'll wrap things up with our cover story. Back in the days before the internet, Americans relied on television to give them the information they couldn’t get from their doctors. And what better “virtual” physicians to have than the kindly Marcus Welby and the dedicated Joe Gannon? Muriel Davidson’s cover story shares real-life incidents of lives being saved because of what viewers had seen on their favorite medical shows. 

A boy in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, administers mouth-to-mouth and heart massage on his asthmatic brother because he’d seen it done on Marcus Welby, M.D.; a man in Springfield, Missouri watching Welby self-diagnoses himself with a bleeding ulcer (he was right); a woman living in Los Angeles sees a man on Medical Center suffering from slurred speech, numb hands, and difficulty seeing – symptoms identical to hers. She tells her doctor she thinks she has M.S., because that’s what the character on Medical Center had. The skeptical doctor runs the tests, which confirm her suspicions. It’s not all WebMD-type diagnoses, though; another Welby episode tells the story of a brain-damaged boy who’s been labeled “slow”—the sensitivity and compassion of the episode produced thousands of letters of commendation.

Doctors caution people not to rely on fictional television stories in place of actual medical care, and point to patients having cancelled scheduled needed surgeries after seeing a Bold Ones episode about an unscrupulous doctor performing unnecessary surgery for profit. The producers of the shows say that their purpose is not to replace doctors, but to provide awareness education for viewers, pointing out potential health concerns or de-stigmatizing others, such as sexually-transmitted diseases.

Ultimately, the money line in the story points to the growing role of television in American society, and its power—at the time—to unify. Says a mother of a child suffering from a similar brain-damaged syndrome, who used the Welby episode to educate teachers and classmates on his condition, “It’s a miracle what can be done when people no longer are alone.” Words for thought, eh? TV

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Around the dial

Let's get back to normal here and start off the week right. Since we could all use a good laugh, John at Cult TV Blog  has the answer: the Monty Python Science Fiction Sketch. I think it marks the first time I ever heard the word "blancmange," and life hasn't been the same since.

At Comfort TV, David continues his series on "Still Stuck in the 1970s,"which is as good a catalog as you're going to find explaining why so many of us of a certain age despair at what our culture has been. Be sure to go back and read part one here. Extremely thoughtful.

Jodie is back celebrating Dave Garroway's birthday, as well as marking the anniversary of Garroway at Large, and what better way to celebrate than with a throwback to Dave's radio DJ days, a series of records called "Dave Garroway’s 11:60 Club Favorites."

It's the return of Love That Bob at The Horn Section, and this week Hal is reviewing the 1955 episode "It's Later Than You Think." It's the third-ever episode of the show, so fans might recognize a few changes from what they're used to, and it's by all definitions a classic.

The latest star to enter the obituary roll for 2026 is the great Sam Neill, and not surprisingly we've got a pair of tributes to him, beginning at Classic Film and TV Corner, and continuing at A Shroud of Thoughts. At the latter, Terence also commemorates Hal Williams, Officer Smitty on Sanford and Son as well as many other TV roles.

Who knew that Sherlock Holmes was so popular in Russia? Well, now you do. At Cult TV Lounge, we read of The Treasures of Agra, one of a series of Holmes TV movies made between 1979 and 1986 that became quite the thing over there. Fortunately for all of us, the Russian DVD set includes English subtitles!

At Mavis Movie Madness, Paul takes a look at the first season of Bronco, which true classic television fans will remember as having started out as a "replacement" for Cheyenne when Clint Walker, worn out by the gruling schedule, walked off. It may not be as well remembered, but it holds its own.

And this week's A-Team episode at The View from the Junkyard asks the question, "Where is the Monster When You Need Him," a question which I've asked myself many times through my life. It's a show-within-a-show episode, among other things, and asd Roger mentions, it makes a point of who the real monsters are. TV

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What's on TV? Wednesday, July 14, 1971

In Saturday's article about Sesame Street, I mentioned how about 20% of the stations showing the program were commercial, not educational. We can see that in today's listings, where three commercial stations have it on; all three are CBS affiliates, and all three air Sesame Street immediately prior to Captain Kangaroo. That's seems like good scheduling to me; Children's Television Workshop urged stations to view the two shows as complimentary, rather than competitive. You can also tell, from the call letters and the common programming, the shared ownership of the KX family of stations: KXMD, KXMB, KXMC and KXJB. (There's also KXMA in Dickinson, which isn't in this issue.)  WDAY and WDAZ also have common ownership; not a surprise when you're talking about such a vast area as North Dakota, with a relatively small population. That's the edition we're looking at this week, in case you hadn't noticed.

This week in TV Guide: July 10, 1971

Indulge me for a moment in a personal reminiscence. It was the summer of 1971, the year before we moved to the World's Worst Town™, and we were on vacation at a lake resort in Alexandria, Minnesota. We were often in the area during the summer, considering Alex was only about an hour from the town of infamy, and while I have nothing against the place other than KCMT, that doesn't mean I'm in any hurry to go back. But I digress.

I was going through television withdrawal, since our cabin didn't have one, and I was particularly suffering since Tuesday night was the baseball All-Star Game, the Midsummer Classic, played that year in Detroit. (Tuesday, 7:00 p.m. CT, NBC) We were in the dining room of the resort, between dinner and dessert; I heard a shout from the lounge, where there was a TV tuned to the game, and rushed in to see what the fuss was about. (To this day I marvel at how patient my mother and grandparents were with me.)

"What happened?" I asked a man who was watching the game.

"Jackson just hit one off the light tower," he replied.

I'd missed Reggie Jackson's home run, but caught the replay. It was a titanic shot off the light standard on top of the roof of the right field stands at Tiger Stadium, traveling so high that the camera was unable to follow its flight all the way up. (It's been estimated the blast would have gone well over 500 feet had the tower not gotten in the way, and was reportedly still going up at the time.) It was instantly one of the most famous home runs in All-Star Game history, and remains so to this day.

It was an immensely entertaining game, with the American League ending a long losing streak by beating the National League 6-4, with all ten runs scored on home runs. The rosters of the two teams included 25 future Hall of Famers (including both managers), an astounding amount of talent

The only way it could have been any better would have been if I could have seen it all. And if that doesn't mark me as a true child of television, I don't know what does.

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There was, at least, one good thing to come out of my six years in the WWT: Sesame Street.

By the mid-1970s, I'd become so desperate to watch something—anything—besides the bilge on KCMT that I'd taken to watching the show in the afternoons after coming home from high school, courtesy of KWCM in Appleton, the only station other than KCMT that we could get without an antenna. I was, of course, much too old to be part of the show's target audience, so I watched in the detached way that adults did, enjoying the sly humor included for the benefit of parents forced to watch with their kids, jokes that preschoolers would never get.

*Sample: Ernie (to Bert's brother Bart): "I'm aghast!" Bart: "No, I'm aghast—you live here!" 

But all that is in the future; let us return to 1971, when the occasion for Cookie Monster's cover appearance is the second anniversary of Sesame Street's premiere, as Max Gunther takes a measure of the show's first two years. It's difficult to appreciate exactly how revolutionary Sesame Street has been since its premiere, but to fully understand, one has to go back to the state of American education in the years preceding its debut. "Sesame Street began," Gunther points out, "because many people in this country were worried about what happens to poor kids—the so-called 'culturally deprived'—when they start school." They lack the exposure to books and magazines that other children have; thus, "they come into kindergarten or first grade with an often cruel handicap." Letters and words are unfamiliar to them, they don't understand what the teacher's talking about, they fall further behind, and may give up in frustration, winding up on the mean streets of the ghetto. The Head Start program, which was meant to address the situation, fell short. The cost of various early education proposals was often prohibitive. It was then that Joan Cooney suggested television. After all, almost every kid has access to one, and TV has long been adept at selling products. Couldn't it also sell education?

The show has had its share of critics. A Cornell psychologist complains that Sesame Street is part of a dream world, with "no racial tensions; nobody ever gets mad; no sharp words are spoken." How, he wonders, does this prepare children for real life? A school principal says that the show "makes no demands on the kids. Real school and real life aren't like that. If a problem is troubling you, you can't just switch it off and walk away." The show has ten times as many fans, though, who point at dramatic increases in test scores among disadvantaged children who watch Sesame Street often. And Susan, one of the show's humans who was previously a housewife, is now a nurse; "Women's lib has a thing about housewives."

The producers envision Sesame Street as a show continuously evolving to better serve the needs of its young viewers. The research chief of Children's Television Workshop constantly tests kids' reactions, incorporating the findings into future shows; for instance, they've discovered that children are not, as one might suspect, bored by seeing the same thing several times in one broadcast; repetition, therefore, is a key aspect to successful learning. They also tend to remember things when they're able to say or sing it along with the performer on-screen. And fully 20% of the stations showing the program are commercial stations in areas that don't yet have educational television; although CTW won't allow advertising during the show, many station executives know that kids watching Sesame Street will probably leave the TV tuned to the same channel afterward, allowing them to charge a premium for that show. In other cases, corporations and civic groups have bought the time to air the show. And a second show, The Electric Company, is planned for this fall; its target will be 7- 10-year-olds.

Within all this good news, the cloud on the horizon, as always, is funding. Congress will do its best, and new licensing deals will help. "I think we've started something big," Cooney says; her Congressional ally, Sen. John Tunney, agrees. "People are only beginning to understand what early schooling can accomplish." And even I was able to learn something; thanks to Sesame Street, I can at least count to 20 in Spanish.

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You know that I try to be as positive as possible, but the truth is that we've got a case of the summer blahs this week. A couple of movies stand out, and we'll get to them, but between summer replacements and repeats, there's just not a lot to fly at the top of the flagpole. It doesn't mean we can't find a few highlights, though. For instance. . .

I had just started to get an appreciation for golf in 1971, so when I say that the All-Star Game was the big sporting event of the week, it's more a matter of personal opinion. Other eyes are looking toward England, where the 100th British Open, the world's oldest golf tournament, is being contested at Royal Birkdale, with ABC providing same-day coverage of the final round on Wide World of Sports (Saturday, 4:00 p.m.) Lee Trevino, in his greatest season, wins a thrilling duel with Lu Liang-Huan and Tony Jacklin to take his first of two consecutive British Opens; it's also his second consecutive major, having bested Jack Nicklaus in a playoff to win the U.S. Open the previous month. Later that night, NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies presents the touching movie A Patch of Blue (7:30 p.m.), starring Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Hartman, Shelley Winters (who won an Oscar) and Wallace Ford in what Judith Crist calls "a quartet of brilliant performances" that "make the sentimental melodrama memorable." Sunday belongs to PBS, first with the return of Evening at Pops (7:00 p.m.), tonight featuring an all-Tchaikovsky hour with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. That's followed at 8:00 by Masterpiece Theatre and part one of one of its most famous stories, The First Churchills, with John Neville and Susan Hampshire.

Sticking with PBS, Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon teach the difference between near and far on Monday's Sesame Street (4:30 p.m.). Turning to the networks, Dave Garroway returns to network television after a nine-year absence with CBS Newcomers (9:00 p.m.), a weekly talent show with professional entertainers from night clubs and theaters around the country. You can read more about that at Jodie's Dave Garroway blog here and here. If you're not in the mood for Tuesday's All-Star Game, ABC has a rare prime time network showing of a classic movie, with 1939's Made for Each Other, starring James Stewart and Carole Lombard. It's classic soap opera as well, Judith Crist says, but with Stewart and Lombard "at the height of their romantic appeal," the mush is "not only palatable but well worth savoring." If you think we've had it bad with the coronavirus, just look at the staff of Medical Center Wednesday (8:00 p.m., CBS)—they're looking for a missing radium implant that could contaminate the entire hospital. Over at NBC, the Kraft Music Hall (8:00 p.m.) has moved across the pond for the summer, with British comedian Des O'Connor and Connie Stevens doing the honors; this week, their special guest is Phyllis Diller.

Thursday, NBC Action Playhouse (6:30 p.m.) has a rerun from 1966 (see what I mean by a weak week?), Massacre at Fort Phil Kearny, a drama about the military inquest into the deaths of 81 U.S. soldiers massacred by Sioux warriors in 1866. It's got a good cast, though, with Richard Egan, Robert Fuller, Carroll O'Connor and Robert Pine. A Tom Jones special (6:30 p.m.) highlights ABC's night, with Nicol Williamson, Tom Paxton and Lulu. Future Oscar winner Joel Grey (he wins next year for Cabaret) plays a jockey suspected of throwing races on Ironside (7:30 p.m., NBC), with former Tarzan Ron Ely, future Paramount CEO Sherry Lansing, and Dana Elcar. Later, Johnny Cash is the honoree on This Is Your Life (9:30 p.m., KTHI). And we'll bring the week to an end with Friday's summer replacement series It Was a Very Good Year (8:30 p.m., ABC); the year is 1939, which was an extraordinary year: the German invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, Picasso's extraordinary antiwar painting "Guernica," the movies The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, the opening of the legendary New York World's Fair, and the retirement of Lou Gehrig.

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And speaking of Tom Jones. . .

It's not unusual to see Tom featuring in an ad like this, but it's also interesting to see the wide variety of names and styles that were big in 1971: Led Zeppelin; Dean Martin; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Glenn Miller; Mantovani; Loretta Lynn; Emerson, Lake & Palmer; the Bee Gees; Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and more. It's quite a slice of musical life—if you can't find anything there, I imagine you just don't like music. Ads like this were common in TV Guide; most of the time you could find them in the center section where the paper was stiffer, but this one was on the last two pages of the issue. And you can appreciate the latest in technology: records, cassettes, and 8-track!

June and Allan Jefferys' humorous article about being the first family on the block to have a VCR is about technology as well. Being able to show movies without commercial interruption makes the Jefferys a very popular family, and it isn't long before they're hosting movie nights for their friends, complete with popcorn and theater seating! It kind of predicts the home theater experience of today, albeit on a much smaller scale. 

It reminds me of something else though, of how technology used to bring people together in social situations. Having the first VCR on the block wasn't any different from having the first TV, or a radio that could bring in stations from other parts of the country—it became an occasion for having friends over, getting to know your neighbors, just like playing cards or having dessert on the porch. Bars installed TVs and saw their business explode. Nowadays the neighborhoods are virtual, and technology is accused of isolating people, of pushing them apart instead of bringing them together. But things could be a lot worse than our own virtual community here.

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And finally, a word from our friend gracing this week's cover, the Cookie Monster:

 Who says there's no class on TV anymore? TV

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