Around the dial

Take it from me: there are few things in life quite as satisfying as pulling off the perfect punch line. (In my case, I've probably had more lines that made people want to punch me.) We'll kick things off this week at Comfort TV, where David treats us to ten perfect classic TV punch lines. You may find several of these useful from time to time, so be sure and write them down.

The Broadcast Archives at the University of Maryland links to this interesting article that, I think, reinforces the old saying about being careful what you wish for. A lot of people thought that presidential debate the other night was awful—even boring. The quiz shows of the 1950s could be boring, too, until someone got a great idea: let's rig the shows! That worked out well, didn't it?

When I was a kid, we had one of those old Kermit Schafer blooper books; I don't remember which one, because he wrote several of them. There were also several LP collections of bloopers, which was even better because then you could actually hear them (or at least a recreation). At The Horn Section. Hal takes some time to review volumes 5 and 6, including which of the cuts are the real thing.

My wife went to the store yesterday, and as she was on her way out the door I asked her to get me a can of chili for the weekend. Had I known that at Garroway at Large, Jodie would be reprinting Pamela Garroway's chili recipe, a favorite of Dave's, I would have asked her to pick up the extra ingredients as well. Looks mighty good.

The latest subject of Television's New Frontier: the 1960s is the single-season western Frontier Circus, which wasted some big name guest stars on plots that were "downright awful" according to the article. I wonder if some of these faults are actually real, as opposed to simply viewing them through the distorted filter of modern woke sensibilities? Not having seen an episode, I'm just idly wondering.

We're commemorating the anniversaries of a number of iconic series this year (The Flintstones celebrated its 60th this week), and at A Shroud of Thoughts Terence takes a time out to remember The Partridge Family on the occasion of it's 50th. My wife and I got to meet Shirley Jones a few years ago at the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Convention; still classy after all these years.

I proudly admit an affection for the original version of Planet of the Apes, particularly Charlton Heston's iconic over-the-top performance. Rod Serling is credited with the screenplay for Apes (along with Michael Wilson), but the finished product differs in many ways from Serling's drafts. Shadow & Substance tells us that a graphic novel version of Serling's screenplay is now available, letting us see what might have been. TV  

Read the fine print

A while back, I was watching one of my favorite police shows of the 60s, The F.B.I. (Call me nostalgic; I enjoy remembering the days when federal officers were the good guys.) Now, when I'm watching a DVD, I generally don't like to use the rewind button if I can help it; even though most of the shows don't include the original commercials, I still like to see them in some approximation of how they were originally broadcast.* But in this particular episode of The F.B.I, I saw something so intriguing that I had to pause and rewind, just to make sure I'd seen what I thought I saw.

*That, and if I pause it for too long, I have trouble remembering what was happening when I start it up again.

The episode in question, "Hostage," was originally broadcast on February 19, 1967. As we join the story, the FBI has just put out a wanted poster on Dr. Marie-Luise Karn (Diana Hyland), part of a Communist team sent to kidnap an opposition leader in an attempt to force a prisoner exchange for a leading Red general. Fortunately for the FBI, a man working in the harbor (where the Reds plan to use a boat to facilitate their escape) sees the poster:

A few things become immediately apparent. First of all, the Eastern-bloc doctor is not six feet tall (earlier in the episode, we see a photo supposedly from the magazine Der Spiegel suggesting she's probably about 5'8", and Diana Hyland herself was 5'6"), is not an American (she's probably supposed to be East German), and therefore was not born in Stafford, Indiana. But you know who was born in Stafford?

That's right—Dr. Richard Kimble! Interestingly enough, he and Dr. Karn not only share the same birthplace, they were also born on the same date*, and are the same height and weight! And they both became doctors!

*David Janssen was also born on March 27, albeit in 1931. Coincidence?

Obviously what happened is that someone in the prop department pulled out one of the old Kimble posters, pasted Karn's picture over it, and used it in the episode. Both The Fugitive and The F.B.I. were Quinn Martin productions, so it makes sense. And in the days before high-def, big screen televisions with pause buttons on the DVD player, it's unlikely that anyone anticipated viewers would be able to even see the fine print, let alone notice the discrepancy.

It's all good fun, of course. One of the treats of watching old television shows on large-screen HD televisions is seeing things that were invisible when the show was originally aired; a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea fan noted that the remastered discs now allowed him to see the wires that pulled models along the floor. As the Wizard said, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Little details like this just add to my enjoyment of the shows, and affection for the simplicity of the era. TV  

Read the fine print

Sunday night I was watching one of my favorite police shows of the 60s, The F.B.I.  (Call me nostalgic; I enjoy remembering the days when federal officers were the good guys.)  Now, when I'm watching a DVD, I generally don't like to use the rewind button if I can help it; even though most of the shows don't include the original commercials, I still like to see them in some approximation of how they were originally broadcast.*  But in this last episode of The F.B.I, I saw something so intriguing that I had to pause and rewind, just to make sure I'd seen what I thought I saw.

*That, and if I pause it for too long, I have trouble remembering what was happening when I start it up again.

The episode in question, "Hostage," was originally broadcast on February 19, 1967.  As we join the story, the FBI has just put out a wanted poster on Dr. Marie-Luise Karn (Diana Hyland), part of a Communist team sent to kidnap an anti-Communist leader to try and force an exchange for a leading Red general being held in an American prison.  Fortunately for the FBI, a man working in the harbor, where the Commies are planning to rent a boat to facilitate their escape, sees the poster:

A few things become immediately apparent.  First of all, the Eastern-bloc doctor is not six feet tall (earlier in the episode, a photo supposedly from the magazine Der Spiegel suggests she's probably about 5'8"), is not an American (she's likely supposed to be East German), and therefore was not born in Stafford, Indiana.  But you know who was born in Stafford?

That's right - Dr. Richard Kimble.  Interestingly enough, he and Dr. Karn not only share the same birthplace, they were also born on the same date*, and are the same height and weight!  And they both became doctors!

*David Janssen was also born on March 27, albeit in 1931.  Coincidence?

Obviously what happened is that someone in the prop department pulled out one of the old Kimble posters, pasted Karn's picture over it, and used it in the episode.  Both The Fugitive and The F.B.I. were Quinn Martin productions, so it makes sense.  And in the days before high-def, big screen televisions with pause buttons on the DVD player, it's unlikely that anyone anticipated viewers would be able to even see the fine print, let alone notice the discrepancy.

It's all good fun, of course.  One of the treats of watching old television shows on large-screen HD televisions is seeing things that were invisible when the show was originally aired; a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea fan noted that the remastered discs now allowed him to see the wires that pulled models along the floor.  As the Wizard said, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.  Little details like this just add to my enjoyment of the shows, and affection for the simplicity of the era.