What's on TV? Wednesday, October 8, 1980

If you've paid attention to these Minnesota State Editions, you'll notice the ways they've changed over the years. A half-dozen or so channels have changed call letters since the statewide editions of the early 1960s, and WXOW in LaCrosse doesn't even come on the scene until 1970; meanwhile, in thenew  in the Twin Cities, three stations change their affiliations. There are also several PBS affiliates from around the state, but I didn't include them because their programming was mostly redundant. I did, however, share what you'd be seeing on Superstation WGN.

This week in TV Guide: October 4, 1980

Whis week, Ed Asner and Mason Adams, the stars of Lou Grant, are on the cover, and with a name like Lou Grant it has to be good, right?*

*Bonus points to anyone who gets that joke.  If you're not sure, here's a clue.

Seriously, I digress from this TV Guide for a moment to take a look at the issue of April 23, 1977. In the TV Teletype, we read a story about how Asner's going to be doing a new CBS series this fall about the newspaper business. Asner describes the show, to be set in Los Angeles, as a "modern epic," capturing "the ambiance of a newspaper." He admits he's a bit nervous, never having carried an hour-long series before: "I have yet to meet a happy hour-series star," but adds that the show will be about 30% comedy. The writer of the blurb notes that it will have seven recurring characters.

What's interesting here is that nowhere is the name of the series mentioned, nor that it will be spinning off Asner's character from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Did they even know it would be at this point? Was it something that was added later on, as if they decided the show needed an extra hook? Or were they shying away from it, fearful that viewers would be leery of a sitcom character being spun off into a drama? The always-reliable Wikipedia is no help here, although it does note that none of the main characters from MTM were ever seen or even referenced to in the series, and that the only crossover character to ever appear on both shows was Eileen Heckart as Mary's aunt Flo, a recurring bit in the former series who made a single appearance in the later. So, what's the scoop* here? Inquiring minds want to know.

*A little newspaper lingo there.

The article itself is about Adams, and mentions his famous Smuckers commercial among the extensive radio and commercial work that has distinguished his career. Amongst Lisa See's review of that career and the details of his life (voracious reader, consummate professional, adeptness at playing different voices during rehearsals), one statement stands out that tells us a lot about the life of an actor. Adams strikes me as being just about as well-adjusted as anyone in the business, and yet he's unable to escape that constant worry that unemployment is just around the corner: "I'm lucky. I've always worked. I've never had barren periods. But there's nothing you can count on. My reach has far exceeded my grasp. I guess pessimism is just my nature." Lest that sound like too much of a downer though, he adds, laughing, "Maybe it's just the fear of becoming smug."

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In many of these early October issues, I've gotten the chance to write about coverage of the World Series. But it's 1980 now, and we've got another layer of playoffs to deal with: the League Championship Series. It's quite a contrast to 1963, with the division winners in each league facing off in a best 3-of-5 series to determine who goes to the Series, but it seems positively simple if you compare it to today's setup, with three division winners and two wild card teams from each league, and an LCS that's expanded to 4-of-7. Sometimes the "Fall" Classic even ends in November, which means it's usually the month's first turkey.

At any rate, the regular season comes to an end on Sunday, with ABC's cameras on hand to cover the pivotal games in the pennant chase. Actually, I should say the season is supposed to end on Sunday, and would have if the Houston Astros had been able to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers in even one of the three games they play to end the season. They don't, however, and the Dodgers' win on Sunday forces a one-game playoff which ABC covers on Monday afternoon. I remember catching that game after coming home from class; pretty much everyone expects the Dodgers to keep rolling and take Houston, but the Astros score an upset win to take the division and go on to face the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS.

ABC has no trouble televising the League Championship Series games; the National League starts Tuesday night and continues Wednesday afternoon, while the American League starts on Wednesday night and follows up with a Thursday night game. Friday, the National League plays in the afternoon, the American League in the evening. Not so complicated, is it?  Ah, for those simpler days. And the games weren't bad, either: see for yourself, with Game 3 of the NLCS on Friday, October 10, between the Phillies and Astros in Houston.

Oh yeah, the NFL is on as well. In the Twin Cities the Vikings home game against Pittsburgh is blacked out; the rest of the state gets it on NBC, however. The late game, on CBS, has the 49ers playing the Rams in Los Angeles (or Anaheim, to be precise). The Monday night matchup on ABC has Tampa Bay taking on the Bears in Chicago. And that's it: no Sunday night game, no Thursday night game. As I said, simpler.

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Big week for movies, not surprisingly since we're still early in the fall season. On Monday, NBC features the Oscar-winning Julia, starring Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and Jason Robards. ABC's offering, on Sunday night, is a repeat of Jaws, which goes head-to-head with CBS's made-for-TV A Perfect Match, which draws its prestige from its teleplay, written by the great director/writer John Sayles. Down one rung from that is the third Sunday night movie, NBC's repeat of Burt Reynolds in The End. We won't discuss the Thursday night movie on NBC, The Castaways on Gilligan's Island, which Judith Crist describes as "tedious even with 24 of its 72 mediocre minutes cut."  At least it still has Dawn Wells as Mary Ann.

The finest show of the week is probably part two of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, airing on Monday night as part of Great Performances on PBS. If you're only familiar with the big-screen version that came out a few years ago, you really should invest the time in this; it's an exceptional six-part adaptation of John le Carré's spy thriller, starring the incomparable Alec Guinness as master spy George Smiley. It's really one of the finest shows of its type to appear on television—well, you can start here with episode one.

The prime complaint I've had through the years with le Carré's writing is the moral ambiguity of it all, as he attempts to draw some level of equivalency between the actions of the American and Soviet spies. It fits in perfectly with the times, however: in 1980, as today, the United States is a country struggling to find out what it really stands for.

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Speaking of the miniseries, in 1980 it remains a force to be reckoned with. TV Update tells us of NBC's massive success with Shōgun; the gamble to kick off the season with the 12-hour drama pays big dividends, the estimated 125 million viewers and 51% share making it the second-highest rated miniseries of all time, outdone only by the original Roots.

In other news from the update, a follow-up on the Reagan-Anderson presidential debate, which President Carter boycotted (he didn't think the independent candidate John Anderson should be included). ABC indeed stuck with Midnight Express because of President Carter's absence, but even with one major and one minor candidate and only two networks, the debate scored 42% of all viewers in New York, 44% in Chicago, and 44% in Los Angeles. Express, meanwhile, drew 42% and 39% in New York and Chicago; Priscilla Presley's Those Amazing Animals, which aired against the debate on the West Coast, scored a mere 24% in Los Angeles.

Finally, "ABC has agreed to grant Kaiser Aluminum air time to reply to a report on 20/20 that asserted that aluminum wiring for homes is unsafe."  All the two sides have to do now is decide how much time Kaiser will get, and when it will be broadcast.

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The cross-section of decades represented by these TV Guides gives testimony not only to the role of television within culture, but to the shape of the culture itself, as we can see from some of this week's articles.

In the 1950s, Howdy Doody stirred controversy by asking whether or not children should be watching the same kinds of shows as adults. Back then, it meant the manic comedy of a Milton Berle. This week, Marlo Thomas writes about the role television plays in presenting "the facts of life." It's a companion piece to Thomas' controversial Body Human special "The Facts for Girls," running Tuesday afternoon on CBS. Says Thomas, "Using television to bring accurate, straightforward information about sexual facts and feelings into the home can provide a starting point of shared feelings and information." Almost seems quaintly naive today, doesn't it?  It's a far cry from the '50s and '60s, when dramatists had so much trouble writing about adult themes, but it's also light years away from today's television, when even broadcast networks present decidedly adult topics with a frankness that might have made people in the '80s blush. Or maybe not; I don't know.

Speaking of which, there's also a very interesting article by Richard D. Heffner on what the movie ratings system really means. Heffner, who produces David Susskind's Open End* program and teaches communications and public policy at Rutgers, is also the chairman of the Classification and Rating Administration, which helps determine what a movie's rating is.

*Also known, by Susskind's detractors, as Open Mouth.

Among other things, Heffner points out that nothing is actually prohibited in today's movies: "Nothing is banned by our system, or refused a rating." And in answer to the question (posed by himself; Heffner the college professor interviews Heffner the CARA chairman) "Don't you ever want to refuse even your ultimate X rating to some of the awful things you see?" he replies, "Don't you think I share your sensibilities, your outrage, your disgust at some of what appears on the screen? Believe me, I do. . . But as an erstwhile American historian, I'm convinced that the price of film censorship in this country would be too great." The Production Code, which held sway until 1968, had gradually given way in the face of competition from television, and the movie audiences' increasing willingness to make box office smashes out of movies that didn't receive the code. (Some Like It Hot, for one.) Again, this article tells us much about how the times have changed, particularly in regards to sex and violence, and how they'll continue to morph.

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Last but not least, there's a full-page ad at the beginning of the programming section touting a new and revolutionary network that will change the way you consume news. Ta-da!

Take a look at that programming guide.  Gotta say, it looks a hell of a lot better than what CNN has on today.  Back when they had, you know, actual news. TV

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What's on TV? Sunday, September 14, 1980

This week's international issue reminds us that the United States and Canada aren't all that different, at least when it comes to television. Sunday features pro football, just as it is south of the border. And a good many American programs make the lineup on both CBC and CTV. No matter which way you look at it, it spells entertainment. This week's issue covers Washington and British Columbia, with Ted Turner's Superstation thrown in as part of the bargain.

This week in TV Guide: September 13, 1980

It's time once again for the Fall Preview issue, and as I see it, there are three ways I can lay this out for you. I can, of course, try to cover everything, which would take a very long time, and if true, would mean that I am probably writing these words in July. I can concentrate on those shows that were huge successes, programs like Hill Street Blues that became a household name. Or I can do the opposite, look at the shows that failed miserably, which can be a lot of fun—especially if some of them were highly rated and had big names fronting them. 

I'll admit that each of these three options has something going for it. I'll be honest, though: since I'm not writing this in July, but on the day before you're reading it, you can assume I've decided not to go the comprehensive route. The only fair way to decide this, then, is the age-old solution of flipping a coin. Heads I go for the winners; tails and it's the losers. And you're here to keep an eye on things to make sure I'm honest, right? So here we go—wait. What do you mean it landed on its edge? Yes, I know what it means, but—no, of course I'm not suggesting you'd lie in front of all these people. Of course I trust you. All right then, I'll just have to compromise and do a little of each. Fair enough?

A proviso, though: as we're warned in TV Guide, there's an actors' strike in progress, and some of the shows listed in this issue may be postponed, or even cancelled, because of it. I'll try to point that out as I go along.

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I mentioned Hill Street Blues (NBC), which is certainly the most acclaimed of the new shows, although it will come perilously close to being cancelled before it catches on. It won't actually air until January 15 of next year, and it airs on three different nights during that first half-season (including Saturdays!) before it finally settles down to Thursdays at 10:00 p.m.

The most popular series of the new batch—and, I might argue, the best—is probably CBS's Magnum, P.I., and it's pretty hard to bet against Tom Sellick's charm and an exceptional supporting cast; the Hawaii scenery doesn't hurt either. It's up against Barney Miller on ABC and Thursday Night at the Movies on NBC. It does a little better than Hill Street Blues in terms of debuting—it hits the airwaves on December 11. It does better in the ratings as well, finishing the truncated season #14, as opposed to #87 for the Blues.

Three new series base their hopes on the popular movies they're adapted from, and—well, one out of three ain't bad. rate. Breaking Away (Saturdays, ABC), based on last year's Oscar-nominated movie, actually premieres in November, but while it's heavily publicized by the network and even brings some of the same cast members as the movie, only seven of its episodes are broadcast, and it's actually off the air before Hill Street Blues premieres. Freebie and the Bean (Saturdays, CBS), based on the 1974 buddy cop comedy, it fares no better; seven and out. Harper Valley, P.T.A. (Fridays, NBC), birthed by both a popular movie and song, actually survives for two seasons, and I'd suggest that a big reason for that success lies in its star, Barbara Eden.

Imitation is, they say, the sincerest form of flattery. In Hollywood, it's also the surest way to survival. What other way to explain the resurgance of the prime-time soap opera, spawned by the success of Dallas and Knotts Landing. NBC has Flamingo Road on Tuesdays, with a big-name cast including Morgan Fairchild, John Beck, Mark Harmon, Howard Duff, Barbara Rush, and Stella Stevens, and it lasts two seasons.* CBS hopes to continue its success with Saturday's Secrets of Midland Heights, but even though it's produced by Lorimar, maker of Dallas, and stars Lorenzo Lamas and the pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton, it remained a secret to audiences and disappeared after eight episodes. 

*It, too, was based on a successful movie, the 1949 hit starring Joan Crawford.

Closely related to the series based on a movie is the series spunoff from another series, and we've got a couple of those as well: Enos (Wednesdays, CBS), which takes Sonny Shroyer's character from The Dukes of Hazzard and puts him in his own series, actualy makes it through an entire truncated season of 18 episodes before Enos returns from whence he came. A spinoff of a different kind is Those Amazing Animals (Sundays, ABC), inspired by the same network's That's Incredible!, right down to having three hosts of its own: Burgess Meredith, Priscilla Presley and Jim Stafford. It's good for a full season.

Bosom Buddies (Thursdays, ABC) is almost a spin-off; its men-in-drag scenario is certainly reminiscent of Some Like it Hot, and while it lasts for four successful seasons, both of its stars went on to bigger and better things: Peter Scolari, and—especially—Tom Hanks. And there are two other ABC sitcoms that deserve some mention: Too Close For Comfort (Tuesdays), which, between its network and syndication runs for seven seasons, makes Ted Knight the second most-successful alum of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, right after Gavin MacLeod; and It's a Living (Thursdays), which played the same network/syndication parlay to six successful seasons. 

And finally a brief moment of silence while we recite the names of those series whose names are, if not known only to God, remain nonetheless relatively anonymous: Ladies' Man (Mondays, CBS. Episodes aired: 15) and I'm a Big Girl Now (Fridays, ABC; couldn't make it even with Diana Canova and Danny Thomas. Episodes aired: 19) I've heard of the latter, not the former, but I just can't think of anything else worth saying about them.

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One of the continuing trends is the star-studded, epic scale miniseries (even though many of them are nothng more than two-part movies, but of course that isn't sexy enough), and for all the talk of coming attractions (Masada, East of Eden, The Gangster Chronicles), the biggest one of the season kicks off on Monday: Shōgun, NBC's $20 million gamble, a 12-hour adaptation of James Clavell's massive (1,152 pages) best-seller starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune.

The 12 hours are spread out over five consecutive nights, with three-hour episodes on Monday and Friday, and two hours each on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It's interesting scheduling, especially having it conclude on Friday; nowadays, I think we've become accustomed to Sunday being the big television night of the week, with multipart events skipping a night or two so that they can begin and end on that date. Having it air on consecutive nights is far more sraightforward, almost like the binge programming of today.

Shōgun is a huge hit for NBC, with the network garnering its highest weekly rating in its history. It will be nominated for 14 Emmys, winning three, including best limited series; it also wins a Golden Globe and a Peabody. Almost makes the rest of the season an anticlimax, doesn't it?

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One of the most anticipated sections of the Fall Preview is Judith Crist's look at the big-screen movies coming to television for the first time. Even with VHS and cable on the horizon, most of us still rely on the networks for the movies we missed in the theaters, or want to see again. Last year, there were 111 theatrical premieres on network TV, and that doesn't include 13 that had been announced but won't make it until this season. With that to look forward to, what are some of the highlights?

NBC's list is headed by two prestige hits from the middle of the last decade, both purporting to be based on true stories but with more fiction than fact: 1976's All the President's Men, with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman; and 1977's Julia, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda. Other features include The Boys from Brazil, with Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck; Eyes of Laura Mars, starring Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones; New York, New York, with Liza Minnelli as the last person to sing the theme before Frank Sinatra appropriated it as his own; and the 1970 documentary Woodstock.

Over at CBS, the emphasis, says Crist, is on "froth rather than 'class'," including the "wonderfully witty" Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe; George Hamilton and Susan Saint James in Love at First Bite; Same Time, Next Year, with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn, and Foul Play, with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Their headliner is 1979's The Amityville Horror, which Crist calls "the most boring, illogical and inept horror movie to have made $35 million at the box office," which was quite a bit of money at the time; and The Champ, with Jon Voight, Faye Duanway, and Ricky Schroder.

Last but not least, ABC has a lot to offer, beginning with 1977's Saturday Night Fever, which made John Travolta a star; 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, which introduced us to the villain Jaws; Sally Field's 1979 Oscar turn in Norma Rae; Neil Simon's California Suite, and a doubleheader of Barbra Streisand: the "self-indulgent remake" of A Star is Born, and The Main Event. There's also Midnight Express, which details the horror of Turkish prison; and The Enforcer, Clint Eastwood's third turn as Dirty Harry Callahan. It's enough to make up for the "tedious, mindless" trucker movie Convoy.

All in all, says Crist, the season gives promise of being a good one for viewers. Even if you have to wait years, not weeks, for some of your favorites.

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In our hurry to look forward to the coming season, let's not forget that there are shows worth watching right now—depending on your tastes, of course. On Monday, it's the debut of Solid Gold (various stations throughout the week), with hostess Dionne Warwick welcoming Paul Anka, Irene Cara, and Johnny Lee. Hour Magazine, hosted by Gary Collins (and not to be confused with PM Magazine), debuts in syndication on Monday, while Alan Thicke premieres a weekday variety show; no, this isn't Thicke of the Night. Tuesday night gives two dubious changes: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson goes from its traditional 90 minutes to an hour, while Tom Snyder's Tomorrow expands to 90 minutes to fill in the gap. An hour has since become the standard for such shows; it's hard to call them "talk shows" anymore, since nobody ever sticks around to talk. It is, in my opinion, a great, great loss to television, as well as the art of conversation.

On Saturday night at 10:30 p.m., PBS broadcasts the world television premiere of the opera The Ocean Flight, by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The original title was Der Flug der Lindberghs, telling the story of Charles Lindbergh's historic transatlantic solo flight; Brecht, who would become disillusioned with what he saw as Lindbergh's wartime isolationism and Nazi sympathies, later changed the name and removed all references to Lindbergh from the text. 

I was curious as to what it was like. Perhaps you will be, too.

There are some excellent movies on this week, starting with the Oscar-winning A Man for All Seasons (Sunday, 11:30 p.m., KIRO); it took me many years to warm to this movie and watch it all the way through, but now that I have, it's one of my favorites. (You should watch it, too; we may be living this way sooner rather than later.) The Man in the White Suit (Sunday, 11:45 p.m., CBUT) is a very funny Alec Guinness satire on modern business.And I quite like the movie Badlands (Friday, 12:15 a.m., CHEK), based on the 1957-58 murder spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. 

Of course, we can't forget Casablanca (12:15 a.m., CBUT), can we? Otherwise, we'll never have Paris. TV

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What's on TV? Thursday, September 4, 1980

We've talked about half-hour shows, hour shows, 90-minute shows, and even 45-minute shows, but here we see an example of the 70-minute show. What's that, you say? You don't remember 70-minute programs? Of course not, because there aren't any. In reality, they're nothing more than hour-long shows with ten extra minutes of commercials! As if some of these shows weren't already long enough, the late-night timeslot has become dominated by bonus commercials. Look at WCCO and KMSP, for example, or the ABC affiliates, in the 10:30 p.m. timeslot. All of a sudden, instead of programs starting on the hour or half-hour, they begin at 11:40 or 12:10. Yes, just what we need: more commercials. Well, never mind me; enjoy these listings from the Minnesota State Edition. Meanwhile, I have to tell some kids to get off my lawn.

This week in TV Guide: August 30, 1980

In May of 1980, the city of Miami was rocked by three days of rioting, described by Dan Rather as "the Nation's worst outbreak of urban disorder in a single city" since 1967 in Detroit and Newark. The riots broke out after the death of a black man in police custody. Fires burned out of control, looters ran in and out of destroyed stores, police patrolled the streets. Does the story sound familiar yet?

Media critic Edwin Diamond takes a close look at how the networks covered the violence, and concludes: "something was missing from the story." The carefully considered "riot coverage guidelines" used by the networks are necessary, perhaps, but "not sufficient for the reporting assignment at hand"—indeed, perhaps, they "may prevent television from finding the stories beyond the immediate breaking news."

The trigger for the Miami riots was the acquittal of four Dade County police officers in the death of a black salesman, Arthur McDuffie, in a struggle after a high-speed chase. At the height of the violence, Miami mayor Maurice Ferre talked of "two Americas," and was quoted by NBC that "There's no way that those of us who live in air-conditioned comfort with two cars outside and $30,000 boats in this community can live side by side with people who live 10 to a room. . . infested with rats." This was the exception, rather than the rule, to TV's coverage of Miami. Part of the problem was that the riots coincided with the eruption of Mount St. Helens, a story that dominated the news cycle. It was, in the words of ABC World News Tonight anchor Max Robinson ("probably the most prominent black newsman on television") a "safe disaster," one that Diamond describes as "much more confortable for whites to contemplate compared with the human volcano" of Miami. But then, as Diamond points out, network television can't be "too sociological" in its coverage.

Diamond reviews what he calls the "safe, neutral, [and] responsible" provisions of the "riot coverage guidelines." For instance:

• "Be restrained, neutral and non-committal in your comments and behavior."
• "Do not describe a disturbance as a 'riot' unless the police or some other respnsible agency or official so designates it. Do not call a disturbance 'racial' until it is officially so described."
• "Avoid reports about 'crowd gathering' following incidents involving police in known trouble areas and avoid pinpointing sites of growing tension and possible trouble in a city."
• "Regard with suspician any interviewing of participants during riots. It is questionable whether such interviews serve a valid purpose and they may incite rather than inform."

You get the point. The overall reporting from all three networks was typical, with talks of how white businesses and black consumers were most hurt by the destruction, promises of Federal investigations, and so on. But do they get to the bottom of the story? Says one black journalist, "[I]n all my years in television, I don't recall ever sitting down at a meeting to discuss the different overall perception blacs and whites have of the racial climate in America," while another says, "We need special reports holding up a mirror to white America, but do people want to see that?" Diamond's conclusion is that television desperately needs to engage in coverage which involves "a lot of us—black and white—more deeply in its stories, and allow us to find our reactions to the major continuing American story of our time." And we need to do it "before the fire next time."

Has coverage really changed over these 40 years? Look at this summer, for example.  There was scarcely a whisper visible of the old riot coverage guidelines; oftentimes, reporters not only didn't regard participant comments with suspicion, they took them at face value and became advocates for it. Was reporting "restrained, neutral and non-committal"? My perception is that we're hearing much of the same rhetoric as before, but this time it comes from the media, advocating rather than reporting on the issue, lecturing instead of encouraging open discussion—prohibiting open discussion in many instances. Of course, that's only one way of looking at it, and this is hardly the place to debate the underlying issues. It's just fascinating, as always, to see how seldom things really change—either in America or in television.

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So just how smart are these televisions of 1981, anyway? Well, for starters, they've got computers! And keypads have replaced dials! Now you can use your TV's remote to tune your cable stations! And some models even offer stereo sound! Is there no end to this technology?

Yes, this can only mean that it's time for David Lachenbruch and his annual look at the new model TVs. Most of the technological advances discussed in this issue have to do with refining color and adding inputs in the rear of the television for the discerning technophile's VCR or laserdisk. I shouldn't really make fun of this; I was around in these days, and I remember being as impressed as anyone by these advances. But what interests me most about this article is that there's no attempt at forecasting the future, envisioning television screens as large as walls, or anything like that. It would have been fun, as always, to see just how close they came to predicting the future.

In the end, though, it's true that all of these advances have been incorporated into today's televisions as a fundamental part what makes TV work, and without them we probably wouldn't have what we enjoy today.

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Herminio Traviesas tells us what it's like to be a network censor, or as the headline puts it, "the thankless task of cleaning up everyone else's act." Traviesas is the former vice president of Broadcast Standards for NBC, which means one of the shows under his purview is Saturday Night Live, enough to give anyone a headache.

It's interesting getting a look at the SNL skits that Traviesas vetoed—for example, the one that made fun of the plight of the Iran hostages, proposed shortly after the militants seized the U.S. Embassy. Or the skit in the wake of the Jim Jones massacre in Guyana, when the show wanted to use it as imagery to represent the large number of shows NBC had just cancelled. That one might make it through today, but I think the hostage bit probably would never have a chance—it's fine to use the historical event in a movie such as Argo, but for humor? Likely not, but who knows in this "nothing sacred" era?

Traviesas also tells of a line that he vetoed from the old Laugh-In show, belonging to Henry Gibson's meek pastor, who would have said, "I don't understand members of my flock who on Saturday sow their wild oats and on Sunday pray for crop failure." That one definitely would make it today; in fact, even if Gibson's pastor was a Catholic priest, they'd probably let it go.

Lest you think Traviesas' job was limited to the series that one might expect to be pushing the envelope of good taste, he throws this one in, from The Dean Martin Show. Seems that one year Dean's producer, Greg Garrison, wanted to open every show in a bar. Traviesas explained to him why this couldn't be done: "community standards, the feminist movement, the plight of alcoholics," and so on. That probably wouldn't be an issue today; you'd likely have to glamorize it in a setting other than that of a successful variety show headed by a man known for having a fondness for drink. At any rate, Garrison wasn't having any of it, either. "Last year," he told Traviesas, his voice rising, "you took away the broads. Now you want to take away the booze. What have I got left?"

The show that gave Traviesas the most problems? None other than Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Johnny would, on occasion, throw out a word that he knew wouldn't make it past the censor, but he used it to get a rise out of the studio audience. He was cool with it being bleeped out of the show. His guests, however, weren't as understanding, as in the case of one who used a word which, interpolating the context of the story Traviesas relates, I would guess was "ass." You hear a lot worse today on family shows, but this one got the boot. (Kind of nice, when you think about it.) Says Traviesas, tongue-in-cheek, "I just made another momentous policy decision for NBC."

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That really bad artist's depiction on the cover (not the art, but the colors are all wrong, especially on that Los Angeles Rams uniform) can mean only one thing: time for Melvin Durslag to pick this year's NFL winners. Over the course of the next few weeks, we'll probably run across several Letters to the Editor critiquing Durslag's picks, using the most colorful imagery available to a family magazine. However, we'll just have to make due with comparing his predictions to what really happens.

For instance, Durslag has as his three AFC division winners New England, Pittsburgh and San Diego. That actually sounds as if it would be a good bet today as well, doesn't it? In fact, however, of the three only the Chargers made it to the playoffs; both the Patriots and Steelers had winning records that would probably have gotten them into the playoffs nowadays, but back then there were only three divisions and two wild cards, so New England's 10-6 and Pittsburgh's 9-7 were just not good enough. Over in the NFC, Durslag faired no better. Of his division winners—Philadelphia, Chicago and New Orleans—only the Eagles came out on top (and they'll go all the way to the Super Bowl, before falling to the Oakland Raiders, whom Durslag had finishing third in the AFC West). The Saints, who Durslag saw as a team possibly on the rise, finished with a record of 1-15, the absolute worst in football. They didn't call them the 'Aints for nothing.

Of interest is Durslag's commentary on ABC's Monday Night Football. The franchise is still going strong, with Fran Tarkenton filling in for Don Meredith in nearly half the games. But there are possible cracks in the foundation, mostly pointing back to Howard Cosell. It's true that ad rates for MNF have risen from $65,000 a minute to $230,000 a minute in 1980.* But for the first time the ratings have slipped a little, and CBS Radio, also carrying the games, reported a record audience. Stories are that people watch the picture on ABC but turn down the sound to favor CBS. No such long-term worries, though: MNF (now seen on ESPN) and its progeny,  NBC's Sunday Night Football, continue to rule the ratings roost for their respective networks.

*All I can say is that it's a hell of a lot more today, by comparison.

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It's Labor Day Weekend, which back in the day meant only one thing: the Jerry Lewis Telethon. If I can digress for a moment and give a personal opinion, I'm still offended by the way in which the Muscular Dystrophy Association gave Lewis the heave-ho after so many decades of service, making a heretofore unknown disease into one of America's Charities (if that isn't too crass a way of putting it; it isn't meant to be). The MDA Telethon was an institution, and by the time it left the air altogether it had been reduced to little more than an infomercial with a few music videos thrown in. The failure of MDA to disclose the reasons for the change don't say much for the organization's definition of transparency either, enough so that we've stopped giving to them. For all the criticism Jerry Lewis took over the years, there was never a shred of evidence of any financial impropriety, a rarity for any charity nowadays, and given MDA's tight-lipped response, it would cause one to wonder how reputable the agency is in handling its donations with Lewis gone. The sad part of this is that it's the kids, as always, that suffer. I know they have a completely different fundraising model they follow now, and you still see many of the same community groups out their raising funds at this time of the year (firefighters asking you to fill the boot for MDA, etc.), know they're still taking in a lot of money (although I've heard that the conversation rates on pledges is much lower than previously; whether that's an urban myth or not I don't know), but they're not getting any of ours.

Be that as it may, there's no doubt that the show's quality declined over the years, which isn't surprising given the shift in entertainment, away from variety shows and mainstream Vegas entertainers and toward artists that no longer carry the cache in mainstream America. The 1980 lineup features some big names, including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Liza Minnelli, John and Patty Duke Astin, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, and more. Now, there was an actors strike that year, so it's possible not everyone appeared, but it's still a pretty good lineup. I'm pretty sure I watched the Telethon that year; it might have been one of the last times I decided to make a go of it and watch the whole 21+ hours without sleep. I could do that back in my younger days, you know. The haul that year was $31,103,787.

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I realize I've gotten this far, and I really haven't talked a bit about what's on television. Hmm.

Saturday: Not a program, but one of those "Vital Statistics" that TV Guide used to insert into the programming guide to fill space. According to the Screen Actor's Guild, "Although they are a full one-third of this Nation's population, people under the age of 19 make up only one-tenth of television's fictional population." I wonder if that's still true today; it sure seems as if there are more youngsters, or adults playing teens, than there used to be. At least as far as the IQ of today's shows, we can rest assured that teens are well-represented.

Sunday: Here's a program that has a reach far beyond its local roots: Three American Reporters (9:00 p.m., PBS/KAVT), which I suspect was produced by KTCA, the PBS affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul. It features, well, three American reporters with Minnesota roots: Harry Reasoner, co-host of 60 Minutes; Harrison Salisbury, the distinguished New York Times correspondent; and Eric Sevareid, CBS commentator. Sailsbury was born in Minneapolis; all three attended high school in the city and went to the University of Minnesota; Reasoner and Sevareid both wrote for Minneapolis newspapers; and Reasoner worked for the precursor to Minneapolis' KMSP, while Sevareid's brother Paul was a news anchor in the city. The program's host is Minneapolis Tribune editor Charles Bailey, who was co-author, with Fletcher Knebel, of the best-seller Seven Days in May. Quite a show, huh? For people who think of Ted Baxter when they hear about Minneapolis news anchors, nothing could be further from the truth; before CBS, Walter Cronkite was offered a job as anchor at WCCO, a station which also produced CBS correspondents Susan Spencer and Tom Fenton, and CNN correspondent Skip Loescher, among others. Cedric Adams was a nationally-known television and newspaper personality, Headline News veteran Don Harrison was previously at KMSP, and the Magers brothers, Ron and Paul, both went on to great success in Chicago and Los Angeles, respectively. The local news situation isn't much anymore, but back in the day Minneapolis-St. Paul produced as many network correspondents as anyone.

Also on Sunday, an episode of William F. Buckley Jr.'s Firing Line (4:00 p.m., PBS) features Buckley's tribute to liberal activist Allard Lowenstein, who'd been murdered five months earlier. I include this because it shows how much politics has changed since the '80s; Lowenstein and Buckley were about as far apart politically as could be. Buckley was the author of the nation's conservative movement, while Lowenstein was a former congressman and head of the radical Americans for Democratic Action. Yet he was also a frequent guest on Firing Line, and the two men maintained a mutual respect despite their political differences. According to Buckley, Lowenstein "spent a praiseworthy and highly unusual amount of time listening to his constituents' complaints and trying to redress their grievances and injustices one-to-one, face-to-face." That, Buckley said, was a reason why he endorsed Lowenstein's reelection effort. Buckley was one of the eulogists at Lowenstein's funeral; here's a clip from the episode of Firing Line in question.

I wonder how many on either the right or left are like Buckley and Lowenstein today?

Monday: It's Labor Day, which means regular programming is subject to change. The Telethon continues on many channels, both independent and network affiliate. The CBS stations are covering the start of the second week of the U.S. Open tennis championship, with the broadcast starting at 11:30 a.m. CT and continuing through to 5:30 p.m., although WCCO bails out at 3:00 p.m. to present The Joker's Wild, followed by The John Davidson Show (talk about an unforced error). Until I started rereading the early '80s issues, I'd completely forgotten that Davidson had taken over for Mike Douglas on the Group W stations. He had the whole format down, from the 90-minute timespot to the celebrity co-host. Davidson didn't have Mike's easy charm or appeal, though, and the show ended after two seasons. I never really liked John Davidson, by the way, either professionally or personally. But then, I'm sure he feels the same way about me.

Labor Day sports include a matinee between the Cubs and Braves, tying up both WGN and WTBS for the afternoon, and a live broadcast of the All American Futurity quarter horse race from Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico. It was billed as the richest event in horse racing, and was broadcast at 7:00 p.m. on KMSP. I always coupled the Futurity with the Telethon back in the day; I didn't consider my marathon TV watching complete unless I was able to make it through the race as well.*

*I was so disappointed the first time I saw the race; it was the first time I'd ever seen a quarter horse race, and I wasn't expecting the even shorter-than-usual event. I remember thinking, "All this for a million bucks?"

Tuesday: It occurs to me that I've neglected to give you the biggest television story of the week, the continuing actors strike, which has indefinitely postponed the start of the new television season. As such, we're stuck with reruns, bad television movies, and reruns of bad television movies. Tonight we get part 1 of the massive war epic Midway (8:00 p.m., NBC); the disease-of-the-week drama "Echoes of a Summer Night" (8:00 p.m., CBS), salvaged by a cast including Richard Harris, Lois Nettleton and Jodie Foster); and reruns of staples like Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo. And you wonder why I don't spend much time on television of the '80s?

Wednesday: A 90-minute NBC White Paper (8:30 p.m.) looks at the influence of Fidel Castro, "the spiritual godfather of every leftist revolution in Latin America." Back then, the U.S. still fought against Communist insurgents, particularly in this hemisphere. On the flip side, a coterie of stations present night two of telecasts from Billy Graham's crusade in Edmonton.

Thursday: PBS' afternoon talk-show lineup features a couple of episodes worth watching; the late, great Hugh Downs' interview with Peter Pan herself, Mary Martin, and her son, Dallas' own Larry Hagman (2:00 p.m., KTCA). Following that, Dick Cavett talks with the great opera baritone Sherrill Milnes, and there were few better than him.

Friday: The action's all on late-night this time: Bob Hope, Richard Chamberlain and David Bowie are among Johnny's guest on The Tonight Show (10:30 p.m., NBC), while CBS' late night features a classic Steed-Mrs. Peel episode of The Avengers (11:00 p.m.), followed by part 1 of the Charlton Heston-Sophia Loren epic El Cid (12:10 a.m.). And if that isn't enough for you, the classic sci-fi movie The Incredible Shrinking Man airs on WGN at (11;00 p.m.). In a week of reruns, it proves that the classics can still be the best thing on TV. TV

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This week in TV Guide: April 17, 1993

this week's TV Guide is a special, the 40th Anniversary edition. It's an interesting issue, and this is going to be an interesting look at it; we won't even dip into the programming until Monday. That's because this is the 40th Anniversary Issue, and as you can tell from the cover, we're going to be reading about TV Guide's choices as the All-Time Best TV.* Ratings like this are ultimately pointless (one man's trash is another man's treasure, after all, and as the Editors themselves point out, "most of the fun is in the argument"), but they're usually fun to look at. Let's see if that's the case this time as well.

*I can't imagine writing this phrase without using Capital Letters.

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The shows are separated into categories: sitcoms, family shows, cop shows, Westerns and the like, and winners are chosen for the decades of the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and overall. Some of the choices, which must have seemed so progressive at the time, are probably going to be quite dated now, while others are going to be a testimony to how cultures change over time. Let's start, as an example, with sitcoms. The best sitcom of the '50s is no surprise: I Love Lucy. Probably not much disagreement there. For the '60s, the winner is The Dick Van Dyke Show, the '70s is M*A*S*H, the '80s is Cheers, and the All-Time Best* is M*A*S*H. What does this mean?

*There are those Capital Letters again.

The justification for selecting M*A*S*H as the all-time best is that it did what only the greatest comedies do: "mix hilarity and tragedy, often in equal measure." I'm not sure I agree with this—the definition, I mean. Yes, many comedies introduce an element of drama from time to time, but I disagree strongly with the assertion that this is a requirement of classic comedy. The editors acknowledge that M*A*S*H's politics could occasionally be heavy-handed, but "never at the expense of laughter or character," and I'm not sure I agree with that either. The politics of M*A*S*H, while ostensibly referring to the Korean War, was often meant as an allegory for Vietnam—but by this time, much of it has become dated, not to mention simplistic, and its cast members seem even more sanctimonious and pushy than they did back then. Perhaps the editors could have created a category for Best Dramedy, where M*A*S*H could have competed against Thirtysomething and SportsNight.

Another characteristic of classic comedy is its timelessness, and that's something that one can genuinely question about M*A*S*H. Let's put it this way: if you were to introduce this show to an audience today, one that lies outside of the demographic most preoccupied with Vietnam, would they find it funny in the same way they do Lucy or Andy Griffith or Leave it to Beaver, or even Frazier and Seinfeld, if you want to project into the future? I'm not sure they would, because those other shows, although rooted in a specific time period, often draw their humor from situations that are timeless and jokes that are often funny regardless of their setting. Much of M*A*S*H's humor may fall into that category (after all, authority will always be the butt of the joke), but I don't think you can say the same for its politics, and for that reason M*A*S*H, like another contender from the era, All in the Family, is too much of its time to be considered timeless.

My own personal choice in this category, not surprisingly to regular readers, is Hogan's Heroes, which combines a modicum of slapstick with some very clever "caper" plotting that also happens to be very funny. There's a certain gravitas about the mission of the Heroes that doesn't exist on, for example, McHale's Navy, and from time to time you're reminded that their missions do, in fact, often involve killing. The complaints about bad taste fall on deaf ears in this household, and most of the situations that form the basis for the comedy do seem, to me at least, to be universal in a way that they aren't in M*A*S*H. This is just one man's opinion; however, remember that the one man happens to be the owner of this blog.

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Best Drama? Your winners by decade are Playhouse 90, The Fugitive, Upstairs, Downstairs, and St. Elsewhere, and even before I turned the page I knew St. Elsewhere would be the winner, because it came from the '80s, which at the time was considered another Golden Age, and it was the most recent in people's minds.

Here, my complaint revolves around methodology. Some people might consider Hill Street Blues, the winner of Best Cop Show, as the best dramatic series of all time. Ah, but Hill Street is a genre show, albeit one that transcends the normal lines that separate a genre series from a regular drama. Others might suggest that The Waltons, a nominee for Best Family Show, should be considered for this category. For that matter, St. Elsewhere could be considered a genre show itself, a medical drama. But wait—there isn't a category for best Medical Drama. Could it be because there aren't really any medical dramas on television at the time, before ER and Chicago Hope and House? Can we even say that St. Elsewhere would be the best medical drama if that category existed? After all, Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare took on some weighty issues for the time.

I think this is a terribly weak choice: of the shows listed, I'd probably go with The Fugitive, although Playhouse 90 is a strong contender. The problem with Playhouse 90, in my mind, is that it was an anthology; as such, without a regular cast, you don't have to consider things such as character development and continuing storyline. It probably should have gone in a category for Best Anthology, but said category does not exist. Meanwhile, The Fugitive could just as easily have been put in the cop show category since its protagonist spends his time trying to avoid capture by—you guessed it—a cop. Upstairs, Downstairs could just as easily be put in the Best Nighttime Soap category (not that there's anything wrong with that), but if you're going to consider it as among the best, then let's look at the series that was the best Masterpiece Theatre had to offer: I, Claudius. Or was that too much of a soap? And what about The Prisoner, one of the most provocative series of all time? It isn't even mentioned in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category. What about The Defenders or Judd for the Defense, shows of exceedingly high quality, or Perry Mason, a series with high entertainment value? What about Mission: Impossible, which doesn't seem to fit into any category?

The bottom line here is that the categories themselves are useless—unless there's something that makes a series unique (and I'd allow that science fiction can fall into that description, as well as the anthology series, and today's reality shows), a drama is a drama and a comedy is a comedy. To paraphrase the editors, a classic television series transcends simple classification; just as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe transcended genre fiction to be considered mainstream literature, the best series, regardless of the field in which they take place, are dramas (or comedies) first and foremost. Dragnet, one of the decade winners in the Best Cop category, is fine as a genre show, but it doesn't reach the level of another decade winner, Naked City, which is not a police drama at all, but a drama about men who happen to be policemen. See the difference?

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There are a few other bones to pick as well.

I mentioned Best Family Show above, but I'll say again that I think this kind of segregation cheapens the quality of these shows. The Waltons not a drama series? Leave it to Beaver and The Donna Reed Show classified as "family" shows and not sitcoms? It's almost as if the editors are embarrassed by them, giving them a special category rather than letting them compete with the "big boys." And speaking of embarrassment, I wonder how they'd feel about their all-time winner in this category, The Cosby Show? (Whoops!) They might like to forget it, but Cosby was the biggest hit of the day. Why isn't this a sitcom, unless you want to define them as containing jokes about sex and other bodily functions?

I also mentioned Hill Street Blues winning Best Cop Show, but how can you compare cops on the beat to homicide detective Columbo (winner of the '60s)? Dragnet is a worthy winner for the '50s, but if you want cops, why not choose the crew of Naked City, a much better show than Hill Street, at least in my opinion. Still, if this issue had come out today, the choices probably would have been one of the Law & Order versions, or one of the NCIS versions, or the Matlock reboot, so I suppose we have to be grateful for small favors.

Johnny Carson is named best Nighttime Talk Show host, defeating Steve Allen, Jack Paar and David Letterman. No surprise, and I don't think you can really argue with it. Paar is more my taste, but between Johnny's staying power and the memorable moments from interviews, comedy skits and impromptu bits (thrown any tomahawks lately?), it's hard to dispute him as the king. And to think so many from today's generation have no clue who he is.

The Ed Sullivan Show wins for Best Variety Show, beating out Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live and The Tracey Ullman Show, and I'll admit I'm kind of surprised by this. I'd have thought they might go with SNL, based on its "groundbreaking" reputation, but Sullivan's show offered, as the editors point out, "all-encompassing variety," a program "that offered everything from dramatic readings to dancing bears, from opera buffo to Topo Gigio, from The Doors to Dinah Shore." As I pointed out here, it was influential in ways Sullivan himself couldn't have anticipated.

Howard Cosell is named Best Sportscaster, but he wasn't really a sportscaster in the sense that Vin Scully or Keith Jackson or Brent Musberger are; he was a sports commentator, or even better a sports personality. Yes, he did boxing and was very good at it (although not better than Don Dunphy), and he is absolutely one of the most important figures in television. But he doesn't belong in the same category with Red Barber, the voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers, or Jim McKay, host of Wide World of Sports, or even the young Bob Costas (who actually did more than pontificate back then), the other three nominees. Here, a little bit more distinction in categories would actually have been useful.

The Simpsons is the winner for Best Cartoon (what we'd call Best Animated Series today), but I think that really belongs in the sitcom classification, where it would probably have beaten M*A*S*H. It beats out Gumby (which wasn't a cartoon at all), The Bullwinkle Show (which wasn't a kids' show at all), and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (which has suddenly become very awkward). I'm really quite surprised, considering its longevity and popularity, that The Flintstones doesn't make the list.

I'm even more surprised—make that appalled—that Captain Kangaroo doesn't make the list of Best Kids' Show. Yes to Howdy Doody for the '50s and Sesame Street for the '70s, but Walt Disney instead of the Captain for the '60s? Disney's appeal crossed over to adults as well as children, and when you're talking about a "kids' show," you can't possibly compare "The Love Bug" and "Davy Crockett" (popular though they were) to Mr. Green Jeans talking about nature, the Captain introducing kids to the wonders of books through reading, or the various animal guests. As for the show of the '80s, ABC's Afterschool Specials, again—it's not a weekly series. Isn't this just apples and oranges? By the way, Sesame Street wins—no surprise.

For best Sci-Fi Show, I would have chosen Doctor Who, but at the time the British import hadn't gone mainstream, though it still had an enormous cult following in this country. Star Trek: TOS is the winner here, over The Twilight Zone (again, I'm not sure they really fit in the same category), Mork & Mindy (?), and Star Trek: TNG.

The original version of Jeopardy!, with Art Fleming, takes the Best Game Show category, and I'm not going to disagree with that—it's much better, in my opinion, than the Alex Trebek-helmed version. What's My Line?, the '50s choice, would have been mine as well, but it's not really a game show in the same sense as Jeopardy! or the other winners, Password and Wheel of Fortune. It was considered a panel show, which is really a horse of a different color altogether.

Best News Show: 60 Minutes, over See It Now, The Huntley-Brinkley Report (which, I can't stress enough, was NBC's frigging evening news program, not in the same category at all) and Nightline. If you're talking about news magazines, sure, 60 Minutes—but if you're introducing Huntley-Brinkley, why not The MacNeil/Lehrer Report?

Best Morning Show: The Today Show, and I'm all right with that if you're talking about the '50s and '60s, as they do here. Good Morning America is the '70s choice, and CBS News Sunday Morning wins the '80s. It just goes to show how weak the entire weekday-morning lineup is.

Best Daytime Soap is General Hospital. Best Evening Soap is Dallas. I won't quarrel with either. Best Daytime Talk Show Host is Oprah Winfrey, and I think that choice, though regrettable, was inevitable. Arthur Godfrey's '50s show and Merv Griffin's '60s daytime show were in the mix, as well as Phil Donohue in the '70s; I prefer Merv's evening/late night show, for the same reasons they chose his '60s program—Merv as host was "a literate, intelligent one who didn't shrink from cerebral or controversial guests." And in that vein, don't forget that Dick Cavett started out as a daytime host as well, with ABC's This Morning.

Best Western Show: Gunsmoke, over Maverick ('50s) and Bonanza ('60s). Sure, although I think Gunsmoke is better placed in the '60s than '70s, but they had to have something for the '70s, since they couldn't come up with anything for the '80s (for the simple reason that there wasn't anything. For a genre that, at one time, dominated the TV airwaves, it's too bad TV Guide's format is so limiting; it leaves out a program such as Have Gun—Will Travel, a very complex program.

I'm not even bothering with the Best Actor and Actress categories, since I think the Best Show categories have created enough of a mess, but if you're curious the comedy awards went to Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball (but wait a minute! The Honeymooners wasn't even a choice for sitcoms, and The Jackie Gleason Show didn't make it for variety show!), and the drama award winners were James Garner (who's magnificent forte is really the lighthearted drama) and Tyne Daly (whose Cagney & Lacey doesn't have the staying power needed to be voted best anything, I'd submit). Best Newscaster is Walter Cronkite, and my favorite, the non-nominated David Brinkley, wouldn't have stood a chance.

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And there you have it. I'm sure I've probably slammed some of your favorite shows, and if I have, I hope you'll forgive me. This is, after all, One Man's Opinion, and even if - as I mentioned earlier—that man happens to run this site, my opinions should be taken for what they're worth.

On the other hand, I think my opinions are as valid as anyone else's, certainly as much so as the editors of TV Guide, compared to whom I think I've shown more discernment and taste, as well as a greater sense of historicity, and I won't back down from that assertion.

However, what I'd like as much as anything is to hear your opinions. Keep in mind that this was written in 1993, so some of your favorites (especially from the cable boom) weren't anticipated, but otherwise, have at it—with either TV Guide, or me, or both.  TV

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