Around the dial

We've got a full slate of offerings for this day-after-Halloween, so let's get right to them.

I seem to recall a while back linking to an article lamenting the absense of TV theme songs, but since it happens to be true, I don't mind seeing it stated again, in this Chicago Tribute column by Nina Metz. Are we not as creative anymore, or is it that we can't stand to lose time that could be better sold to sponsors?

Perhaps I'm not as much of a classic TV historian as I thought I was, or maybe I just haven't paid as much attention to gossip as I should. In any event, I wasn't aware there was supposed to have been a feud between Barbara Eden and Elizabeth Montgomery, but I'm pleased to find that such rumors are false.

Seeing as how Burke's Law has been one of my favorites for many years, there's really no excuse for me not having seen one of the comic book adventures based on the series. Thanks to Captain Video, I've now been able to redress this egregious omission, with this succession of posts. #1, #2, and #3. 

At bare•bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project continues with the second season story "The Indestructible Mr. Weems," written by George F. Slavin, and utilizing the comic talents of some wonderful character actors, including Russell Collins, Joe Mantell, Robert Middleton, and Harry Bellaver. 

Some people are cake people, others prefer pie. Myself, since I've eliminated sweets from the diet, it's more like wistful thinking. But although I've tasted many fine pieces of pie (thank you, Agent Cooper), I've never been hit in the face by one. At Comfort TV, David looks back to those days when pies to the face were a staple of classic TV. Now I'm hungry.

I've enjoyed several of the British series that John's introduced me to at Cult TV Blog, thanks to YouTube and a region-free DVD player, and here's another I may have to check out: Inside No. 9, a "black comedy anthology" that just left the air after nine successful seasons. In time for Halloween, here's the 2018 Halloween special, "Dead Line."

Let's look next at another Halloween episode in the classic TV milleau, this one from Terence at A Shroud of Thoughts. It's "Catspaw," the only Star Trek episode devoted to a holiday; it aired on October 27, 1967, written by the great Robert Bloch, and has some wonderfully creepy moments for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

For some reason, one of the Twilight Zone episodes that made a great impression on my youthful self was "The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms," and I suppose the idea of a Sherman tank in the middle of the Little Big Horn is irresistible to a kid playing with G.I. Joes. But is the story any good. Read Brian's review at The Twilight Zone Vortex and find out.

How about a real-life horror story? At Drunk TV, Paul reviews the Director's Cut DVD of The Executioner's Song, an edited version of the original miniseries, starring Tommy Lee Jones in a dynamic performance as Gary Gilmore, the murderer who's 1977 execution by firing squad signaled the resumption of the death penalty in the United States.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger takes part in something I enjoy doing myself: looking at thematic links between different shows and/or movies. In his case, it's Doctor Who, and a connection I wouldn't have thought to make myself: the original version of The Blob, and why the movie feels so much like an episode of the classic series.

Travalanche visits The Love Boat, appropriate given Jack Jones' passing last week, and Lauren Tewes' birthday this week, and looks at some of the episodes featuring vintage stars from classic movies and TV. Some will bring back fond memories, while others are bittersweet (or, as in the case of Ginger Rogers performing "Love Will Keep Us Together"), painful. TV  

Burke's Law: the detective show that became Aaron Spelling's first TV hit

Aaron Spelling and Gene Barry: the duo reponsible for the success of Burke's Law
.

The following is part of the Aaron (Spellingverse) Blogathon, sponsored by Realweegiemidget Reviews. Be sure to check here for more great entries in the series, running August 19-21.

I've written about Burke's Law before—you can catch up here if you're not familiar with it—but until Gill invited me to participate in this year's Aaron Spelling Blogathon, I'd never really thought about the program in conjunction with him.

The TL;DR is that Burke's Law, which debuted on ABC in the fall of 1963, stars Gene Barry as Amos Burke, a suave, urbane millionaire crimefighter who lives in a mansion, rides in a chauffer-driven Rolls, and always seems to have a beautiful woman resting her hands on his tuxedo-clad arm. Unlike those other wealthy crimefighters, though—Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark or Lord Peter Wimsey, for example—Burke does this for a living, as captain of the Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Aided by his able assistants, Detective Sergeant Les Hart (Regis Toomey) and Detective Tim Tilson (Gary Conway), and with the lovely Sergeant Gloria Ames (Eileen O'Neill) always ready to provide a helping hand back in the office, Burke deals with a slew of eccentric suspects each week, sorting through leads and red herrings until he runs across that one clue that tips him off to the killer's identity.

With his inherited wealth (which has increased through his own shrewd investments), he obviously doesn't need to risk his life each week tracking down murderers, so why is he a cop? A witness asks that very question in the first episode of Burke's Law, to which a detective counters, "Why are you a construction worker?" "It's what I do best," the witness replies, and the detective says, "That's why he's a cop."  

All well and good, you may be thinking, but where does Aaron Spelling enter the picture? This isn't a Gene Barry Blogathon, after all. 

You've got a point there.

Spelling was, in fact, the producer of Burke's Law, and the man who, next to Barry, was probably the most responsible for the show's success. Barry had been looking for a comedy for his next project, he told an interviewer in a 1963 TV Guide profile. "I searched for the twinkle, the lift of an eyebrow [that] could change the tone of a serious sentence," he said. "I read Burke’s Law. I envisioned the twinkle in it." Spelling, in the same interview, describes Barry as a man "at home in [a tuxedo], secure in it." In other words, the perfect actor to play a millionaire police captain.

Burke's Law would be Spelling's first successful television project to that point, the first hit of a career that would span 40 years, and it displays many of the trademarks that would come to define an Aaron Spelling production, starting with the guest cast. One of the challenges inherent in crafting a successful mystery is keeping the audience guessing as to who the killer is. Often, since it's such a juicy part, the role goes to the most prominent guest star in the cast; identify that actor, and you've got your murderer. 

Spelling's answer to this was to populate each episode with as many as six or eight recognizable guest stars, from Hollywood veterans like Broderick Crawford, Mary Astor, and Ida Lupino to up-and-comers like Tina Louise and Barbara Eden, to fish-out-of-water appearances by the likes of Don Rickles, Paul Lynde, and the Smothers Brothers. You couldn't depend on the recognizable name being the guilty party; you recognized them all! (Does that remind anyone of, say, The Love Boat or Fantasy Island?) One reason Spelling was so successful in obtaining name guest stars was that they seldom appeared in more than a scene or two at the most; it was an easy payday for them. The female guest stars could also be counted on to display their most attractive . . .well, assets. As actress Corinne Calvet suggestively intimates to Burke in one episode, "I have life insurance, but I’m not as fully covered as I should be."

Like those shows, Burke's Law was a mix of comedy and drama; although the very premise suggests a show that doesn't take itself too seriously (and shouldn't be taken too seriously by viewers either), the mysteries themselves were generally played in a straightforward way, and, like the crew of the Pacific Princess, Burke and his detectives were always treated with respect, never as joke characters.

Each episode of Burke's Law followed a familiar and dependable formula (another Spelling trademark), beginning with the discovery of the dead body, followed by a call to Burke, invariably interrupting one of his romantic assignations, and leading to the opening credits, in which a breathy female voice coos "It's Burke's Law!" while Amos is driven to the scene of the crime by his loyal chauffer/valet, Henry (Leon Lontoc). During the course of the investigation, Burke, Les, and Tim are confronted with multiple suspects, all of whom display characteristics that fall somewhere between eccentric and sociopathic. Those of us actually trying to solve the crime are pulled in two or three different directions, as first one suspect, then another, comes to the fore. Finally, the lightbulb goes on over Burke's head, as a seemingly insignificant clue leads to the breakthrough that, in turn, leads Amos to the guilty party. With the case wrapped up, Amos is now free to resume his pursuit of yet another delictable beauty.

Obviously, all this suggests Burke's Law isn't going to be one of those dark, heavy dramas so typical of today's police procedurals. And yet there's one episode that stands out, precisely because it goes against the grain of the well-established formula, and it's worth singling it out for a moment.

"Who Killed My Girl?" is the 29th episode of the first season, and from the start it differs in that it is both more serious and more personal than usual. You see, this week's victim, beautiful heiress Diana Mercer (Barbara Michaels) was not only known to Burke—she was "his girl," beautiful, sophisticated, fun, with wealth of her own—the one woman who stood a chance to be "Mrs. Amos Burke" if Amos had been the marrying kind. He isn't, of course; although it's a cliche, he really is married to his job. Any time a female friend even suggests the possibility of marriage, Burke starts looking for the exits. 

But Diana was different; she had a hold on him like no other woman. He finally broke it off, knowing that it wouldn't work out, despite her protestations. That was in the past, but recently she'd reentered his life, asking if they could get together for old times' sake. It's obvious something's bothering her, but she won't tell him what it is. Unable to do anything for her, the evening ends. The next thing we know, there's a phone call. This time it catches Amos, not in the arms of another beautiful woman, but in bed, asleep. And the news from Tim is crushing: Diana is dead.

The easy way out for an episode like this would be to make Burke the prime suspect. He was, after all, the last person known to have seen her alive, witnesses saw him leaving her place. I call this kind of a plot "false jeopardy," because we know from the outset that Amos isn't the killer; putting him under some kind of suspicion is simply adding an unnecessary complication. And it's to the show's credit (the episode was penned by TV stalwart Tony Barrett) that it doesn't go there. 

It does, however, give us a side of Amos Burke that we haven't seen before. He's haunted by the possibility that he's somehow responsible for Diana's death, flipping through old pictures and buried memories, unable to shake the thought from his mind. If only he'd been able to get her to tell him what was wrong—even worse, if only he'd married her back in the day—then she'd still be alive. 

Out of that grows a determination, almost a personal vendetta, to track down Diana's killer. Tim, Les, and Gloria worry that he's too emotionally wrapped up in the case, too close to it to see what might be important. He refuses all offers of help, though. This is his case, and he's going to see it through to the end. His first surprise comes when he runs across Diana's little black book—he had no idea. And as he goes through the names, he discovers a darker side to her, one that he didn't know existed. Is it possible that he never really knew her at all, or were these secrets somehow a result of their breakup? It isn't until Burke is attacked in his home that he realizes he must be getting close to uncovering the killer. At this point, he finally acknowledges the need for help from his colleagues. 

Befitting an episode that's more serious than usual, Gene Barry demonstrates that there's more to Burke than a tuxedo; he can be tough, even ruthless, when the situation calls for it; the rest of the regular cast displays a similar sensitivity. As usual, there's a boatload of guest stars, including Richard Carlson, Jane Greer, Ruta Lee, Stephen McNally, Gene Raymond, Don Taylor. I'm not going to spoil the ending for you here; if you want to find out how the story ends, you can stream the series at Amazon Prime, or email me, and I'll tell you whodunnit. (That's a cruel thing to do, isn't it?) 

But the point here is that, in some way, the mystery isn't really what this episode is about. As things wrap up, with the killer in custody, Amos is left alone in his home, sitting at his desk, lost once again with his memories, as Henry brings him dinner. But then Les, Tim, and Gloria "just happen" to drop by, each one of them bringing an armload of food, enough for a party. Without forgetting the past completely, Amos realizes that it's time for him to return to the present, and to the friends who care about him. It's a putatively happy ending, but one gets the feeling that there's still a shadow there, one from which Amos Burke will never be entirely clear.

(L-R) Regis Toomey, Gary Conway,
and Gene Barry

Burke's Law ran for two moderately successful seasons, 1963-64 and 1964-65. For the 1965-66 season, ABC, over the vehement objections of Spelling and Barry, announced a change in format. Attempting to capitalize on the spy craze engendered by the James Bond movies and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. television series, the show's title was changed to Amos Burke, Secret Agent. Burke, no longer with the LAPD, was now an operative for an American spy organization, traveling the world to fight nefarious international plots against freedom. (He did get to keep his Rolls, although now he had to drive it himself.) The rest of the cast was jettisoned; the only regular in the new version was Carl Benton Reid as "The Man," Burke's spymaster, in charge of sending him on various assignments. The lightness of the original was toned down somewhat; tellingly, most of Burke's female operatives are killed in this version.

Amos Burke, Secret Agent was not a hit with viewers or critics, and only 17 episodes were aired before the show was cancelled in January, 1966. That wasn't the end of the line for Amos Burke, though, for apparently he grew tired of the secret agent business and returned to the LAPD. At least, that's where we was working when Burke's Law was revived for the 1994-95 season. Spelling Productions was once again driving the series, and Gene Barry was back, dapper as ever, as now-Deputy Chief Amos Burke. His new sidekick was his son Peter, himself a detective with LAPD, played by Peter Barton (during the intervening years Burke had married and was now a widower), and Henry was back behind the wheel of the Rolls (albeit with a different actor). The trademark humor, occasionally verging on camp, had returned, as did the big-name guest star lineup. It was a middling success, running for 24 episodes over two seasons. One of the highlights of the revived series was an appearance by Anne Francis, whose character, private detective Honey West, had first appeared in a 1965 episode of Burke's Law before being spun off into her own series, which ran for one season*. In the Burke revival, her character was called "Honey Best" for copyright reasons, but those in the know knew who she really was.

*Fun fact: Aaron Spelling's original first choice to play Honey West was Honor Blackman, who'd previously starred in The Avengers and the Bond film Goldfinger. Blackman turned Spelling down; I wonder if Honey West would have been more successful with her in the role?

Burke's Law was a delightful show, great fun to watch, with Barry masterful in the role, and the byplay between Burke, Les, and Tim was one of the highlights of the series. The first season of the show was released on DVD way back in 2008, but neither the second and third seasons have seen the light of day, relegated to reruns on MeTV. It's a pity, because it's deprived so many people from discovering the pleasures of Aaron Spelling's first hit. And who knows where this blogosphere would be today if we hadn't had Burke's Law? TV 

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The live Top Ten

Time flies. It was ten years ago that I prepared my Top Ten list that's been residing over there on the sidebar. Most of those shows had been part of my informal top ten, the one I kept in my head, for years, and given my disinclination to watch contemporary television, there was no particular reason to think those choices would be changing any time soon. 

Recently, though, I've been thinking. (Granted, that's often cause for alarm among you readers, but it's a habit I've had trouble breaking.) Ten years is a long time, and while it’s true the classic era of television (which encompasses most of the shows on that list) is long since over, that doesn’t mean I’m done discovering classics that are new to me; indeed, thanks to the wonders of YouTube and the Internet Archive, I probably have more access to unseen shows from the 1950s through the 1970s than ever before. And so it sees to me that it’s about time for a reappraisal—or perhaps, using today's industry lingo, I should call it a "reboot."

This first list is one made up of shows that have been my favorites over the last year or so. Think of it as a "live" list—in other words, (spoiler alert!) while The Prisoner will always be one of my all-timers, it's been a few years since I've watched it. Therefore, it wouldn't make a list of current favorites. Conversely, there are shows that I really enjoy right now, but when they're stacked up against the rest, they might fall just outside the top ten. That's not a knock on them; it just shows how tough it is to crack that list. Later on in the year, I'll be introducing an all-new all-time Top Ten. I wouldn't expect too many changes if I were you, but it will definitely have some additions, not to mention revised comments on some of the shows that remain. 

Having already gone on altogether too long, I'll now get to the point with two legal dramas that rise to the top of the list: Judd, for the Defense and Sam Benedict. I reviewed Sam Benedict just a couple of weeks ago, while I shared my feelings for Judd last year. Each of them represent a welcome break from the formulaic Perry Mason; while Mason is still a favorite, the Perry/Della/Paul triangle gets old after a time, while Hamilton Burger's incompetence remains beyond comprehension. Both Judd and Benedict give us what is probably a more realistic look at the high-octane life of a big-time trial lawyer. It's also quite a different view of the legal system, though; for example, in one case Sam gets his client acquitted, but we never find out who actually did commit the crime. That's not Sam's job, though; he was hired to ensure justice for his client, and that's what he did. 

Both men share a passion for that concept, justice, which causes them to occasionally take cases against their better judgment, representing unpopular causes or defending people they don't like—but, as Clinton Judd reminds us, everyone is entitled to a fair trial, even those with whom you might not agree, and what's popular is not always what's right. (By the way, it's also nice to see clients who behave like real people, with well thought-out backstories, rather than the cartoonish caricatures that too often comprise the Mason universe.) Our heroes aren't assured of winning, either; a couple of Judd's cases go to the jury without us ever finding out the verdict, while one of Benedict's clients turns out to be guilty, and another is only saved from a long prison term by a plea deal that Sam arranges for him. We may not be used to seeing that, but it's a fact of life, and in these stories the casees were just background; there was something much more fundamental at stake, which is what the stories were actually about. These shows have hard edges and deal with hard issues, and they've both earned top places on this list.  

Also on the list, and this won't come as any surprise to longtime readers, is Mystery Science Theater 3000. As many times as I've seen some of these movies, there's invariably a riff or two that I hadn't caught before, or one that just hits me the right way; along with the original British version of Top Gear, it's one of the few shows that actually makes me laugh out loud. I've gained a real appreciation for the various casts that appeared on the show over the years, particularly the dry wit of Mike Nelson, the voice talents of Trace Beaulieu, and the offbeat riffs from J. Elvis Weinstein, who started on the show when MST3K was just a local program in the Twin Cities, and stayed for the first year of its national run. (I remember seeing the very first MST3K, a double-feature that aired on a Thanksgiving evening, and was a fan from the start.) I also learned how a bad serial like Radar Men from the Moon can be that entertaining.

There are a couple of war dramas on the list as well. I took on Garrison's Gorillas here, and followed it up with the show that succeeded it on our schedule, Combat! Garrison's Gorillas is action-adventure at its finest, with a very good ensemble cast (as opposed to, say, The Rat Patrol) and entertaining stories; at the same time, it never forgets (nor lets you forget) that war is no game, and it's fought for the highest possible stakes. That's a message that's driven home relentlessly in Combat!, which is not only perhaps the best war drama ever seen on television, but one of its best dramas period. Its well-drawn characters and literate plots give us a graphic look at the horrors of war; it makes those of us who never fought profoundly grateful for our good fortune, and even more appreciative of those who have. If you're not anti-war after watching Combat!, you haven't been paying attention.

The British police series Maigret, starring Rupert Davies, got my treatment here, and my enjoyment of it continues to increase each week. Davies's portrayal of the famous French detective is spot-on, capturing the world-weariness and hard edge of the character perfectly, while also portraying his warmth and good humor, seen both with his wife and his colleagues. Maigret is shrewd, intuitative, and, in contrast to most American police dramas, demonstrates both respect and empathy for many of the accused that he investigates, including some that he arrests; "Some people criticize me for being too sympathetic," he comments in one episode. American detectives would probably accuse him of being soft; they fail to understand what humanity is all about, primarily because they've already lost their own.

The Twilight Zone is already on the Top Ten list, but it's been many years since I've given the series a proper look, and my new BluRay set has been the perfect excuse to start watching it again from the very beginning, with spotless and uncut episodes. It's provided me with a reminder of how brilliant the show's first season is; I wonder what people thought back in 1959 when they were seeing these episodes for the first time? We can look it up, of course; there's been a plethoria of material written about the show. Still, it's interesting to see how well those first season episodes reflect the tenor of the times: several early stories depicting military themes (how many men back then would have found these settings familiar; after all, it was what they'd experienced), while others involve man's quest for space, or just a general unease with the modern world. Add to that a layer of the unexplainable, and it's hard to top.

My relationship with Twin Peaks remains an ambiguous one, in light of a brilliant premiere episode, a solid first season, and a disastrous second one. I'm in the midst of watching Twin Peaks: The Return right now (six episodes in), and I'll write it up when it's over. But right now I'm at a point where each week's episode is highly anticipated, if for no other reason than to see if things begin to make sense. Bit by bit some pieces of the story come together each week, but there's a long way to go. Still, when you're dealing with David Lynch, you either trust him or you don't, and The Return has still paid off in a way that season two never quite managed. Besides, remember how I said this was a live list? Well, I look forward to it each week, and if that doesn't earn a show a spot on the list, what does? We'll see if it's still there the next time we try this little experiment.

Hawaiian Eye is probably the third-best of the WB detective dramas, behind 77 Sunset Strip and the underrated Bourbon Street Beat, and the quality of episodes varies wildly, but in a TV diet that, at the moment, is a very intense one, it's the kind of show that you can relax and watch, knowing you don't have to listen carefully for the smallest verbal clue, react to the injustice you see on the screen, or wince once again at man's inhumanity to man. You just watch it and accept it for what it is, and believe me, there's a lot to be said for that. I first wrote about it here, and since then Grant Williams has joined the cast; he doesn't really add anything to the show, but he doesn't hurt it either. Otherwise, the only changes I'd make to what I said then are that I've come to enjoy Anthony Eisley much more—I might have mischaracterized him as being stiff back then, and he's grown on me since; I'll miss him when he leaves the show for the final season—and Connie Stevens is starting to get on my nerves. Her Cricket Blake character keeps complaining that she's not treated like a grown-up, but for my money she doesn't give us any reason to think otherwise. Hopefully, as it is with so many immature people, it's just a phase.

Finally, I wrote about Burke's Law just recently; there's a reason why we're watching the series again from the very start. It's as charming now as it was the first time, and with the passage of time there's still some mystery as to whodunnit; what more can you ask for in an encore showing? It's the perfect Saturday-night compliment to a movie from the Criterion Channel that's often intensity ramped up to eleven on the dial. (Have you ever watched Japanese noir? Try it sometime.)

As I mentioned, I'll have a complete revised Top Ten later in the year, but looking at it in real time has been an interesting exercise. Maybe we'll do it again sometime. TV  

Burke's Law: the cop show with a heart—or at least wallet—of gold

A badly wanted to do comedy," Gene Barry said in a profile for the November 23, 1963 issue of TV Guide. "I searched the scripts for the inherent comedy that can be found in almost any drama. I searched for the twinkle, the lift of an eyebrow [that] could change the tone of a serious sentence. I read Burke’s Law. I envisioned the twinkle in it."

And so, after three seasons as the Western hero Bat Masterson, after having said he would never do another television series, Barry returned to the small screen to portray Amos Burke, millionaire captain of the LAPD homicide division (and eventual secret agent, but we’ll get to that later), in the whimsical mystery that ran on ABC, in two different formats, for a total of three seasons.

When you keep finding new-old programs to watch, you have to be careful not to forget the old-old programs you’ve already enjoyed. It's been close to a decade since we last watched Burke's Law, and so last month we reintroduced it into the Saturday night schedule. Sometimes when you revisit an old favorite, you find your ardor somewhat diminished, but it's not the case here; it's every bit as enjoyable now as it was back then. 

I never saw Burke’s Law when it was in first-run. My only recollection of it was from the reruns in syndication in the late-60s, and from that all I can remember is the Rolls Royce tooling down the road while a woman’s voice cooed, "It’s Burke’s Law!" To tell you the truth, that voice kind of scared me a bit. (Of course, I hadn’t yet learned the meaning of the world "sultry.")

Based on the premise alone, it would have been impossible to produce Burke’s Law without that twinkle Barry mentioned. Burke is indeed a millionaire (the source of his money is never definitely stated, though he refers to an inheritance from his father, and implies that he’s multiplied that fortune through shrewd investments*) who lives in a mansion, is often clad in a tuxedo and surrounded by beautiful women, and is chauffeured to crime scenes in a Rolls Royce by his driver/valet, Henry (Leon Lontoc).

*Gene Barry himself was no slouch when it came to investing. That same 1963 TV Guide article mentions Barry’s ownership of a 40-acre orange ranch, mines in Nevada, a half-share of a construction company, and prime land in Los Angeles on which he and his partners planned to put up office buildings and apartments. Substituting Burke for Berry does a pretty good job of filling in the gaps.

Which, of course, begs the question: why does a man who clearly doesn’t have to work for a living choose a profession that’s not only difficult, but dangerous, one that required him to work his way up the ladder from beat cop to captain of homicide and could claim his life at any moment? I don’t know if Barry was one of those actors who composed backstories for each of the characters he played, but he does drop hints as to his concept of Burke. He is "a carry-over of the Old World, but part of this world," cultured, mannered, sophisticated, worldly. "Police work is as important to Amos Burke as building a building is to me. Hell, he wouldn’t be happy sitting in a stock-exchange seat. He is alive, vital, now." Probably the best answer comes from fellow detective Tim Tilson, who in the premiere episode is asked by a bystander at a crime scene why a millionaire would bother being a cop. "Why are you a construction man?" Tilson counters. "That's what I do best," the man says, to which Tilson replies, "That's why he's a cop."

It's a premise that requires some selling, but Barry is just the man to do it. Producer Aaron Spelling describes him as a man "at home in [a tuxedo], secure in it," and his portrayal of Burke owes much to his previous turn as the Western dandy Masterson. In this updated environment Berry is still a crimefighter, albeit with a gun instead of a walking stick. And, as his colleagues are quick to remind others, a millionaire is what he is, but a policeman is who he is.

Given its various elements, Burke’s Law could have gone in several directions, but its success derives from the direction it chose. Neither traditional police drama nor comedy, each episode is centered on a spectacular murder (with the victim identified by the episode title Who Killed …) and a cast of flamboyantly eccentric (to put it lightly) suspects, mostly played by big-name guest stars (listed in alphabetical order in the opening credits, and frequently making little more than cameo appearances). Given that, one could hardly be blamed for expecting the investigating detectives to be just as zany, but far from it: Burke and his two cohorts, Sergeant Les Hart (veteran actor Regis Toomey) and Detective Tim Tilson (Gary Conway), could have been buffoons or broad caricatures, but instead they’re skilled cops who understand that murder is a deadly business and take their jobs seriously (if not always how they do them). They’re very smart, and very, very good.

L-R: Regis Toomey, Gary Conway,
and Gene Barry

The show’s premise also offers Burke an unusual advantage, never overtly stated but often implied, that as a millionaire he has the ability to deal with rich, powerful suspects on an even footing. Their money can’t intimidate him (he’s probably as wealthy as they are), nor can their influence scare him off. He’s beholden to nobody but the public, and he doesn’t scare easily.

The interplay between the three is one of the show’s delights. Hart is the veteran, wizened cop and mentor to the young Tilson, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of almost everything but lacks the experience and intuition to put the pieces together. Burke and Les obviously go back a long way (Les will on occasion drop the formality and refer to Burke as "Amos,"), and while Tim can sometimes be a bit of a showoff, it’s clear that Burke has a paternal affection for the young detective, often imparting a bit of his collected wisdom. ("Never ask a question unless you already know the answer—Burke’s Law.") The three men split up the investigative work, with Burke generally reserving for himself ("Your old Captain") the interrogation of the most interesting suspects. Those suspects are frequently also beautiful women, and their attraction to the handsome, dashing Burke may be genuine—or an attempt to throw him off the trail.

Indeed, Burke is seldom out of the company of an attractive female—the episode often begins with him in the embrace of some such lovely companion—but the moment the phone rings, with Les or Tim calling him to the scene of yet another murder, Burke is all business. The debonair playboy is gone, replaced by the determined homicide captain. There’s never an attempt to avoid his job, just a request to his female companion that she not go away.

And that, I think, is one of the main reasons I find this show so enjoyable. For all of the light touches— and the mix of comedy and drama works surprisingly well—Amos Burke is a policeman before all else, a damn good one who understands the importance of his job. His suspects may include glamorous women, but their beauty never blinds him to the possibility that behind their makeup may be the face of a killer. He’s not afraid to trade either punches or gunshots, and he’s not satisfied until the killer is apprehended.

Then there's that twinkle in the eye that Barry talked about, the priceless reactions when Burke meets yet another crazy suspect or has to listen to yet another ridiculous story. It’s when Burke lets us know that it’s a joke, and that we’re in on it. Throw in some great supporting players, such as Michael Fox as the droll medical examiner and Eileen O’Neill as a desk sergeant who doesn’t have to take second place to any of Burke’s beauties, and you’ve got the ingredients for a great show.*

*And by the way, speaking of beauties, did I mention that Anne Francis’ detective series Honey West was a direct spin-off from Burke? She was introduced in the second-season episode "Who Killed the Jackpot?" and would go on to a one-season run in 1965-66.

Which is why the third and final season is such a disappointment. Caught up in the spy hysteria of the early James Bond years, for 1965 the series changed format completely. Amos Burke was now a secret agent (hence the show’s new title: Amos Burke, Secret Agent), working for a spymaster known only as "The Man" (Carl Benton Reid). It had a flashy opening title and fun gadgets and even more beautiful women, if that was possible. It even had Burke’s Rolls. What it didn’t have was the chemistry of the original. No Les, no Tim, no Henry. It ran for 17 episodes, and by January 1966 it was over.

Apparently, Amos Burke tired of the secret agent business and returned to the LAPD, or at least that’s what had happened in the 1994-95 revival of Burke’s Law. Burke was now a chief, his sidekick was his son Peter (during the intervening years Burke had married and was now a widower), and Henry was back behind the wheel of his Rolls (albeit with a different actor). It was a middling success, running for 24 episodes over two seasons.

Burke’s Law could have been many things. It could have been a comedy, a la Barney Miller or Car 54. It could have been a police procedural, like any one of the cop shows on at the time. Instead, it was a one-of-a-kind, a comedy-mystery, a sophisticated whodunit. Most of all, Burke’s Law was fun. It wasn’t searing drama, it didn’t involve impossibly convoluted plots. It was easy to watch, and easy to enjoy. It has suffered from one of the most frustrating of DVD issues, with the first season coming out in 2008, and nothing since. Fortunately, it has aired on Me-TV in the past (which is where I caught it), and hopefully it will again. It's also available on YouTube—all three seasons, including Amos Burke, Secret Agent. And whether you're watching it for the first time or rekindling an old memory, you'll feel the same way.  TV      

Around the dial

Let's begin our look, as we often do, with bare-bones e-zine, where Jack's Hitchcock Project continues the look at the works of Halsted Welles. This time it's the seventh season episode "The Silk Petticoat," starring a couple of personal favorites, the always-satisfying Michael Rennie and the lovely Antoinette Bower. 

At Comfort TV, David's odyssey through the 1970s continues; this week, he's up to Tuesday night in 1972. Some iconic shows from that year: Maude, Hawaii Five-O, Adam-12, Banacek, Marcus Welby, M.D. and Search, among others. And then there was Temperatures Rising, . . 

The Broadcast Archives gives us a look at one of public broadcasting's early breakout stars, the ragtime pianist Max Morath, who made 26 half-hour programs for NET between 1959 and 1961. You can read more about him, and follow links to some of his videos, here.

John keeps on returning to American television at Cult TV Blog, and this week his focus is on the Get Smart episode "Rub-a-Dub-Dub. . . Three Spies in a Sub." Actually, as he mentions, the focus isn't on this episode, but that doesn't stop it from being entertaining—and, as usual, John makes some very salient points along the way.

Something that I don't dwell on, but that bothers me greatly, is the rise of AI. I don't dwell on it because it's a threat to so many things, including truth, that it becomes depressing. But as a writer, I resent the idea that artists can be replaced, or augmented, by it. JB has thoughts on this and more at The Hits Just Keep On Comin'.

If you're in the mood for a little old-time radio, how about The Green Hornet? As Martin Grams tells us, Radio Spirits has just released a batch of them, many not heard in decades. Best of all, Martin has written the liner notes for many of these sets! You can read more about it here. 

Route 66 was never the same once George Maharis left. Don't get me wrong; I think Glenn Corbett was fine, and I even came to prefer him to Marty Milner. But the original dynamic between Maharis and Milner was what made the show work, and at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence takes the opportunity of Maharis's death last week to look back on his long and successful career.

Burke's Law has become one of my favorite shows (although I seldom think of it when I'm counting off my favorites), and one of the most enjoyable parts of the show was the show's weekly list of cameo appearances by big-name guest stars. Those Were the Days provids a handy—and very impressive—list of those guest stars. What other show can compare to this?

Roger and Mike, the guys at The View from the Junkyard, do write about things other than The Avengers, but when their reviews are that enjoyable, why should we look any further? This week, the pair take a look at the fourth season episode "Too Many Christmas Trees," and—well, let's just say it's not your typical Christmas story. TV  

This week in TV Guide: October 5, 1963

It seems as if the subject of television's responsibility to the public is one that comes up here frequently. It's a quaint notion, I suppose; I don't know if anyone today seriously thinks that television has any responsibility to the public, or to anyone, in fact, besides the sponsors who cough up the money to make the programming possible. (And the ratings, of course, but they function as a measure of the value provided to the sponsors.)

This week's "As We See It" editorial takes on that very issue, in a look at growing public dissatisfaction with annoying commercials. The Television Code, that equally quaint document represented by the noble logo you see in the end credits of many programs from the era, has standards regarding things like commercials, but fewer than three-fourths of broadcasters have agreed to it.

Because of that, the FCC has suggested that perhaps those provisions in the Code perhaps ought to be made into FCC rules. The broadcasters don't like that, of course, because they think the commercials they run are nobody's business. Oddly enough, though, advertisers are largely for the Code. "They feel that the more commercials there are, the less effective each commercial is. And they're right." The viewers, whose dissatisfaction started all this, don't like commercials at all, but agree that they'd go along with longer breaks in order to have fewer of them.

What to do? Well, the president of the National Association of Broadcasters, the organization responsible for the development of the Television Code, thought it would be a good idea to get together a group of all the constituents: networks, ad agencies, advertisers, and broadcasters. He started with the three networks; all turned him down. "They saw no real need for such a thing." Merrill Panitt, the probable author of this editorial, thinks there is such a need, and makes no bones about it. "There must be steps taken to reduce the frequency of commercials and to control more carefully the content of commercials. If the broadcasters can't—or won't—do these things, the FCC can—in the public interest."

This represents a perfect example of the independence that TV Guide has over the years taken when it comes to the television industry. No longer are they beholden for interviews and subjects; the magazine's growing circulation, and its growing influence through its investigative reporting and hard-hitting interviews from writers such as Richard Gehman and Edith Efron, means that TV Guide now has the upper hand, The industry needs it more than it needs them. Need I mention again how different this is from the publication of today, one that acts more like a collection of press releases? But then, if the industry doesn't behave in a responsible manner, then why should the magazine that covers it?

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, 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. 

It always happens, when Cleveland Amory reviews a show that's one of my favorites, that I begin things with a mixture of anticipation and dread. The man, as I say, is superbly witty and acerbic—unless he's skewering a show I happen to like. It just goes to show that life poses its share of risks, even if you're just getting out of bed.

"If we have a millionaire President and a millionaire governor, why not a millionaire cop?" For you youths out there, the millionaires are, in order, John F. Kennedy, California governor Pat Brown, and Amos Burke, played delightfully and with delight by Gene Barry in ABC's comedy-mystery Burke's Law. The first good sign comes when Amory refers to the show as "ABC's new corpus delectable," and it's true: every show is packed to the gills with big-name stars in cameo roles, and occasionally lead roles as well. The premiere episode, "Who Killed Holly Howard?", features Suzy Parker, William Bendix, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Rod Cameron, Bruce Cabot, Will Rogers Jr., and ZaSu Pitts. The victims are, invariably, over-the-top versions of vaguely familiar personages; Howard Hughes here, Ernest Hemingway there. The emphasis is frequently on female beauty, with the beauties all having an eye for the suave, tuxedoed Burke, even when he's investigating them for murder. By the end of the episode, they'll wind up either with a date for dinner, or court.

Amory has praise for Burke's supporting cast: Gary Conway as the young detective thrown off balance by Burke's unorthodox style, and Regis Toomey as the veteran, who's worked with Burke for years and is one of the few who will chance to call him "Amos." And though Amory doesn't mention it (it probably hasn't become apparent yet), one of the best aspects of this very good show is that while there's charm and humor aplenty, Burke and his men are all business when it comes to the business of murder; they know that death is no laughing matter, and there's an honest seriousness behind the investigation and apprehending of the killer.

If there's one nit to pick, Cleve will find it; in this case, he does find it a bit tiring that Burke has to spend so much of each episode fighting off the glamour girls. Nevertheless, he concludes, "we do get a lot for our money in this show, and millions of millionaire viewers should enjoy it." Or non-millionaires, as the case may be.

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The real Ranger Smith and the impostor. Which is which?

You're hopefully familiar with Ranger Smith, the eternal nemesis/foil of Yogi Bear, the most famous resident of Jellystone National Park. But, as it happens, there really is a Ranger Smith, who just happens to work at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and he's the subject of a charming article this week by Jim Elder. As it happens, the real Smith—D.P. "Denny" Smith, by name—was blissfully unaware of the existence of his alter ego until, as Elder puts it, "an increasing number of young park visitors kept asking for Ranger Smith and in the same breath mentioning 'Yogi.'"

Updated on the situation, Smith jumped right into the role, answering questions about the fictional bear and signing his name to everything from stuffed bears to road maps to plaster casts. He takes it all in stride, and with good humor; "Yogi's fans are all pleasant people," he says. He also takes a ribbing from his fellow rangers (one assistant loved to add growling bear sounds to Smith's Ranger Smith portrayal), and when the park closes for the season in October, the ribbing continues to the sixth graders that Smith teaches back home in Kent, Washington. He adds that his own children (Kurt, 5, and Kathy, 2) are Yogi fans.

One thing that he particularly appreciates is that the Yogi phenomenon has given him the opportunity to remind campers that real bears are not as friendly as Yogi and Boo-Boo. "Yogi just plays funny tricks, but these bears don't know the difference between funny and ferocious!"

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The World Series started last week—October 2, to be exact—but you're not going to see much of it this week. The Series pits those old and bitter rivals, the Yankees and Dodgers, for the eighth time, and the first since the Dodgers' traumatic move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Ah, yes, how times change: in the first game, at Yankee Stadium, Sandy Koufax (right) broke the single-game World Series strikeout record, with 15,* and the Yankees crowd was cheering him! Now, you can argue that the game was already a lost cause so why not, but still, I can't believe they would have cheered for a Brooklyn pitcher.

*Later broken by Bob Gibson in 1968; you know, that Series where Feliciano sang the National Anthem.

Anyway, by the time we pick up the Series on Saturday afternoon (1:45 p.m. CT, NBC), the Dodgers already have a 2-0 lead, and Los Angeles goes up by three after a 1-0 victory, in which Don Drystale bests Jim Bouton. Koufax brings it all to an end on Sunday afternoon (same Bat time and channel) with a 2-1 triumph, giving the Dodgers only their second-ever Series victory over the Yanks, and the first time a Yankees team had ever been swept in four games. In the closing innings of the final game, Yankees announcer Mel Allen, an institution on NBC's World Series coverage loses his voice, and has to turn the mic over to Dodgers play-by-play man Vin Scully. The ugly rumor, with no basis in truth, is that Allen had become so broken up about the Yankees being swept by the Dodgers that he couldn't bring himself to announce those final innings. It would be his last appearance announcing the Series.

Oh, and by the way, that fourth game came in in a tidy one hour and fifty minutes. That wouldn't even get you through the third inning today.

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Some interesting things on this week; I'm glad we've got time for them. (Although it is my blog; I suppose I can make as much time as I want.)

Henry Harding reports that Jerry Lewis spent $40,000 of his own money on a party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to celebrate the premiere of his new ABC series. More than 800 showed up in evening dress to watch the broadcast on the big screen, followed by a lavish dinner and flaming cherries jubilee desert, brought in by 40 waiters marching in single file. Lewis arrived late to the party and stayed for about 20 minutes, perhaps already anticipating the roasting the show will get from the critics. This is all a lead-in to Saturday's third episode (ABC, 8:30 p.m.), with David Susskind, Count Basie and his orchestra, Mort Sahl, Kay Stevens and Jack Jones.

Two of the biggest stars in their respective industries headline Sunday's specials. At 9:00 p.m., CBS takes the headlines with Elizabeth Taylor in London, taking viewers on a tour of London "as Liz remembers it," even though she was only seven when her family moved to the United States. Taylor views all the must-see signts, from Parliament to Big Ben, Scotland Yard, the Tower, and the Globe Theater, where Liz does a reading from Hamlet. The script is co-written by humorist S.J. Perelman, which should make for very interesting viewing. But to see it, you'll have to pass up NBC's World Series tie-in, the documentary, "A Man Named Mays," a profile of the remarkable career of the San Francisco Giants' great, produced and directed by Lee Mendelson, who goes on to great fame with the Peanuts animated specials. Unfortunately for Mays, the Giants didn't make the Series this year; unfortunately for NBC and the ratings, the Series ended this afternoon.

The World Series is over by Monday, but of course that doesn't affect the primetime schedule at all, since the games were played in the afternoon. NBC's Monday Night at the Movies (6:30 p.m., and isn't it odd to see a network movie on that early in the evening, with another show to follow) has The Wreck of the Mary Deare, with a cast headed by Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, and Michael Redgrave. Opposite that, ABC has an episode of The Outer Limits featuring the fine British actor Donald Pleasence as a meek and mild-mannered college professor who has the power to destroy the world. I'll have to go back and watch this; I've seen it, but I don't remember how it ends. And at 7:30 p.m., ABC follows with Wagon Train, with Carol Lawrence playing Princess Mei Ling. There's a photoshoot story inside, showing Lawrence in Asian makeup (right), and that's something we likely wouldn't see nowadays.

PTSD—before we understood what it was—is the topic of Tuesday's Richard Boone Show (8:00 p.m., NBC), the bold (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt by the former Palladin to form a television repertory company. Tonight, Warren Stevens plays a Korean War vet "planning a 'Wall to Wall War'—in the insurance office where he works. He's holding his frightened co-workers at bay with a machine gun." An eerie precursor to modern times, don't you think? That's followed by a much more pleasant hour, as The Bell Telephone Hour kicks off its new season; Mr. Music Man Robert Preston hosts, with opera stars Richard Tucker and Anna Moffo, dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Svetlana Beriosova, pianist Grant Johannesen, and the folksinging Chad Mitchell Trio. (9:00 p.m., NBC)

Broderick Crawford, who's made a successful career out of both good guys and bad guys, is on the wrong side of the law Wednesday in The Virginian (6:30 p.m., NBC), playing a bounty hunter convinced that Trampas (Doug McClure) has a price on his head. And here's one to give you pause; one of Johnny Carson's guests on The Tonight Show (10:30 p.m., NBC) is attorney Melvin "King of Torts" Belli, who in just over a month will acquire his most famous client: Jack Ruby.

On Thursday, it's the debut of one of the better anthology series of the '60s, Kraft Suspense Theatre (9:00 p.m., NBC), with a two-part thriller, "The Case Against Paul Ryker." The all-star cast features Lee Marvin as Ryker, a GI on trial for his life after being accused of treason in Korea, Bradford Dillman and Peter Graves as officers in the JAG office, Vera Miles as Ryker's wife, and Lloyd Nolan, Murray Hamilton, and Walter Brooke. The episode also serves as the pilot for the 1966 series Court Martial, with Dillman and Graves reprising their roles as Captain David Young and Major Frank Whitaker, respectively.

But we've saved the best for last. On Friday. it's the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (8:30 p.m., CBS) with Shatner, the gremlin, and the plane's wing. You know it, you love it, you can't live without it—but for those reading this issue, it's just another episode of another series. Who would have imagined it?

Now that's the way to end a week. TV  

Around the dial

No plugs for the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this week, unless you want to start thinking about attending next year. If you're on the fence, you can read about our experience here, and Jodie Peeler of Garoway at Large shares her great adventure here. And now on to the rest of the week.

At The Bob Crane Show Reloaded, Eric and Carol have a powerful podcast on Bob Crane's mistrial in the court of public opinion, focusing (no pun intended) on the movie Auto Focus and the inaccuracies it's helped to perpetuate. I run into this so often myself when talking about Hogan's Heroes or Crane, and people only know what they've heard from the tabloid press. Talk about fake news.

I enjoyed this writeup at Fire-Breathing Dimetrodon Time on the Avengers episode "The Hour That Never Was." Besides being a sucker for titles like that, it's a tense hour of suspense and mystery - a little different for the series. It's nice to see that their son appreciated the story as well; I think kids love this kind of edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Once Upon a Screen has an affectionate shout-out to The Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves - and really, isn't he the one and only Superman? (With the possible exception of radio and cartoon voice Bud Collyer.) Yes, that opening sequence and the narration - I always enjoyed that as well.

The Twilight Zone Vortex has an interview with William F. Nolan, the famed author of Logan's Run and other sci-fi classics, who had a tight friendship with many of the legendary Southern California authors who made up the core group of Twilight Zone writers. Very neat stuff - and, again, how important it is to talk with these people while they're still around.

You may remember my fondness for Burke's Law, the early '60s cop show with Gene Barry (which helps explain my pleasure at seeing Gary Conway at MANC last week), but did you know that the original Amos Burke was none other than Dick Powell? The Land of Whatever has a look at the episode of The Dick Powell Show that introduced the suave detective.

Having lived in Dallas for four years, and studied the JFK assassination for years before that, I'm well-familiar with WFAA, so I enjoy seeing this old ad at the Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland announcing that the station is now the "most powerful TV station in all Texas," which in Texas talk means the most powerful station in the world. We're spoiled with cable and satellite TV; back then, a large transmitter tower and improved coverage was really a big deal.

At The Federalist (I told you once, I find interesting stories in unusual places), David Breitenbeck writes about how watching What's My Line? tells us something about how people back then thought of their world. And, incidentelly, it tells us about how we view our own world as well. I love these kinds of articles.

Finally, not a link to a blog, but our friend Mark Rathaus, whom I interviewed last year about the '70s series Movin' On. Says Mark, "DVDs are finally available. Fans may now buy remastered, high quality Season 1 and Season 2 sets for $39.95 each. Sorry, no telemovie, pilot, In Tandem yet. But the new DVDs are approved by the shows original Producers, Barry Weitz and Philip D’Antoni, and Restoration Producer, Mark Rathaus." Allied Vaughn is manufacturing the MOD DVDs and the Peter Rodgers Organization is the distributor. You can purchase Season 1 and Season 2 by clicking on the links.

Thanks for the update, Mark - and on that note, we'll see you tomorrow with another TV Guide. TV  

This week in TV Guide: June 26, 1965

Back when I first started my TV Guide collection, it wasn't to provide sociological analysis of '60s television and how it reflected American culture and vice versa.  Northing that deep or pretentious.  It was simply because I liked paging through them, finding shows I remembered, shows I was sorry I didn't remember, and shows that I thought never should have made it to the air.  It was a miniature time capsule for me, a chance to relive some days and experience others for the first time, and it remains a simple pleasure to do so.

Since we're in the midst of the summer rerun season and there isn't a lot of depth in these issues, I thought I'd go back to those former days and just see what jumps off the page of this issue.  Maybe there's some good stuff in here, maybe not.  Let's see.

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Here's something you wouldn't see on network TV nowadays.  At 8:45 am CT on ABC, it's the Irish Sweeps Derby horse race, live via Early Bird satellite from Dublin, with Jim McKay and Irish sports announcer Michael O'Hehir providing the call.  It wasn't that unusual for ABC, in particular, to provide Saturday morning sports coverage from overseas, as they did during Ford Motor's campaign to win the 24 Hours of LeMans.  The Early Bird, which was quite famous at the time, had only been up since April and live television coverage from Europe and Asia was a novelty at the time, leading me to suspect ABC covered the Derby not just because it was a big race, but simply because they could.  Lending credence to this theory is a mention in "For the Record" that Comsat is set to start collecting fees for the use of the Early Bird, ending the free run that had existed prior to then.

Here are highlights of the race, by the way, which was won by Meadow Court, partly owned by Bing Crosby.  I'm surprised a tape of the race wasn't found in his basement.

***

No Sullivan vs. The Palace this week, as Palace is preempted by the Coaches All-America college football game, live from Buffalo, New York.  This was one of the more unusual post-season all-star games, coming as it did more than five months after the end of the college football season.  For a football fan like me it was a real treat, a much-needed antidote to the endless stream of baseball throughout the summer*, and a signal that football season was just around the corner.  It was sort of a companion to July's College All-Star game, which pitted the NFL champions against an all-star team of seniors.  And besides, Chris Schenkel and Bud Wilkinson usually announced it, which meant it had to be a big game, right?

*This was long before I'd come to appreciate the subtleties and nuances of baseball, which in turn was long before the drug scandals and increasingly slow pace of the game drove me away again.

It's no surprise that all-star games like these don't exist anymore.  For one thing, the NFL would never permit their expensive new rookies to endanger themselves playing in meaningless college exhibition games when they could be playing in meaningless pro exhibition games.  And the whole all-star experience has waned across all leagues, given that the proliferation of televised sports has made household names out of almost everyone - it used to be, for example, that people who lived in American League cities only got to see National League players at the All Star Game, or on the occasional Game of the Week telecast.

Games like this may not be missed, but they're still missed, if you know what I mean.

***

I mentioned the single-season series The Rogues a couple of weeks ago.  It's on KCMT, Channel 7, at 10:30 Sunday night, rather than it's normal 9:00 Sunday timeslot.  Channel 7, an NBC affiliate that also carried various ABC shows, broadcast the previous day's Lawrence Welk at 9:00 instead.  Some people thought the failure of The Rogues, a clever and humorous show that starred Gig Young, David Niven and Charles Boyer, was because the show was too sophisticated for viewers.  In Channel 7's case, I can believe it.

Anyway, this week's episode is entitled "The Boston Money Party," and features Young's character (the three stars rotated turns as leads) "posing as the owner of a New England textile plant, to trap Paul Mannix, the 'wolf' of Wall Street."  An unscrupulous one, no doubt, as the rogues seldom scammed someone who didn't deserve it.  An attraction of this episode: it was written by William Link and Richard Levenson, the creators of Columbo and countless other clever shows.  Since I've talked about this show twice now, it's only fair I give you a glimpse of it to demonstrate why it's worth your while.  So here's the very episode we're talking about, "The Boston Money Party."


By the way, you'll (hopefully) remember that last week I brought up the practice in TV Guide of often crediting the writer of a particular episode, and you can see that in spades Sunday night.  Besides the mention of Levenson and Link, we also find out that this week's episode of Bonanza, "The Flapjack Contest," was written by Frank Cleaver, and that host Rod Serling penned this week's Twilight Zone, "The Bard."  Later in the week, we'll see that The Alfred Hitchcock Hour's "The Return of Verge Likens" (which was actually on MeTV a few weeks ago) was written by James Bridges, and the Kraft Suspense Theatre presentation of "Connery's Hands" was written by William Wood.  I still think it's a nice idea.

***

My mother watched soap operas when I was a kid, as I suspect did many mothers of many sons and daughters.  I'm fairly well-acquainted with many of them, but here's one that doesn't ring a bell - it's ABC's A Time For Us, a spin-off of the soap Flame in the Wind (which I hadn't heard of either), which has its debut this Monday.  It was only on for two years, if you count the two shows as one (as does the always-reliable Wikipedia), so I guess I'm not all that surprised.

Still, it's interesting - soap operas engendered such a passionate following among their loyal viewers, it's always interesting to run across the ones that didn't really catch on.  Still, if you're curious, here's an extended clip from an episode, sponsored by Dristan nasal mist, and Sleep-Eze, for a good night's sleep.


Speaking of soaps, here's the listing for Thursday's episode of General Hospital: "Steve hires a new staff member."  How could they stand the suspense?

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Wait just a minute, you say!  You just said there wasn't any Sullivan vs. The Palace this week!  Well, that's what you get for believing everything I write.

Actually, we're cheating a little here, since the Hollywood Palace episode we've got is last week's, as it appears on WKBT, Channel 8 in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, a CBS affiliate who also dabbles in that wacky cross-affiliate programming.  They air Palace on Tuesday night at 10:30, right after your late edition of the local news, but we don't care, do we?

Sullivan:  TVG doesn't call this a rerun, but it doesn't say it's live either.  At any rate, Ed's guests this week are Tony Bennett; puppet Topo Gigio; rock 'n' rollers Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas; comic Jackie Vernon; the singing Kim Sisters; magician Johnny Hart; the two Carmenas, acrobats*; and Africa's Djolimba song and drum ensemble.

*My wife, upon hearing this lineup, suggested that the two Carmenas would be followed by the two Buranas.  If you don't get it, look it up.

Palace:  Host David Janssen introduces vocalists Edie Adams and Vic Damone; comedians Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks; Les Surfs, a singing group from Madagascar; the Harlem Globetrotters; Tim Conway; the knife-throwing Zeros*; and the Princess Tajana trapeze act.

*Let's hope that refers to the number of errant throws they make.

I'd say that one Edie Adams and one Vic Damone equal one Tony Bennett, and Jackie Vernon and Tim Conway probably offset themselves, as to the the acrobats and the knife throwers.  But the reason the Palace wins this week is the supporting cast: Reiner and Brooks, who may not do their "2000 Year Old Man" routine but do have a very funny bit on filing income taxes, the 'Trotters, who were very funny in those days, and Janssen, who's probably not that at ease in a hosting role, especially when his team of "Hollywood Dribblers" take on the Globetrotters.  But why speculate on it?  Here, watch the show for yourself:

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Fred Astaire had essentially retired from Hollywood a few years ago, limiting his appearances to rare (and critically acclaimed) variety specials, but he and his current partner Barrie Chase are back this week in a comedy on NBC's Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre called "Think Pretty."  "Record company owners Fred Addams* [played by you-know-who] wants to win over female talent manager Tony Franklin - he's trying to sign one of her clients to a recording contract."  Fred and Barrie do a few dances, and Fred sings the title song.

*I wonder - since this was up directly against ABC's The Addams Family, did they perhaps spell Fred's character's last name that way on purpose?

And yes, here's a clip of one of their dances.  You knew that was coming, didn't you?


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Saturday night at 8pm, CBS carries Secret Agent, which in England (and on DVD) is known by its original name Danger Man*.  I've written in the past about this show, the precursor to Patrick McGoohan's magnificent The Prisoner, which had a pretty successful run of its own.  I wouldn't have noticed this series back in 1965 - particularly this week, I would have been watching the football game - but you can bet I notice it now.

*Admit it though, Johnny Rivers singing Secret Agent is way cooler than the theme that was used under the title Danger Man.

This week's episode, "Whatever Happened to George Foster?", doesn't play into the Prisoner theme in the way that some other episodes do, but it's a strong one in its own right.  And speaking of familiar faces in unfamiliar roles, isn't that Bernard Lee playing the heavy?  You know, "M" - as in the James Bond movies? Glad he finally turned away from his life of crime.

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Hawaii Five-0 isn't on yet, but we still have a double-dose of Jack Lord this week.  First, on a Dr. Kildare rerun (written by Harold Gast), Lord plays a doctor who fears rheumatoid arthritis may end his surgical career, just as it once ended his professional football career.  I'll bet we get Jack in full-on bitter mode here.  Question for any of you doctors out there, though: if his character had rheumatoid arthritis as a young man, bad enough that it stopped him from playing football, how was he ever able to become a surgeon in the first place?  I'm no doctor, I'm just wondering.

Later that week, Jack's back in an episode of his very good modern-day cowboy series Stoney Burke, which runs as a syndicated rerun at 10:15pm on Duluth's KDAL.  In this episode, a rodeo colleague of Stoney's is killed while riding a Brahma bull.  How does Stoney figure into it?  Let's find out:

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And that note on The Doctors and the Nurses  Well, in a TV Guide article earlier in June, the humorist Art Buchwald wrote about how the show could have survived being on opposite ABC's new hit series The Fugitive.  His suggestion, as you can see here, was that a man would be brought to the Doctors/Nurses emergency room, "and as one of the doctors took the sheet off him, the audience would discover he had one arm.  Just before he dies on the operating table he would gasp, "I am the one-armed man the Fugitive is looking for.  Richard Kimble is innocent and I killed his wife."

As it turns out, a very funny letter to the editor from Arthur Joel Katz, former producer of The Doctors and the Nurses, suggests (likely tongue-in-cheek)  that he proposed just such an idea.  "A one-armed man comes into the hospital, confesses to Zina [Bethune, one of the nurses] that he killed David Janssen's wife, and dies.  The policy broadcast the news, but Janssen suspects a trap and doesn't believe it.  Thereafter, Zina sets out in search of David, but at every town she gets off the back of the bus just as David gets on the front.  The only trouble with this story is that I couldn't sell it to the writers.  Thus The Fugitive continues his adventures in oblivion, while we just fade into it."

The Doctors and the Nurses was originally just called The Nurses when it debuted in 1962, before doctors were brought into the mix to increase the dramatic possibilities, and the show's name was changed accordingly. Here's a look at the original version:

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Well, how did we do this week?  I confess that when I started out, I had no intention of providing videos of almost every show I mentioned, but it just turned out this way.  Twenty years ago, or even ten, something like this - offering such a substantial amount of programming from a single TV Guide that was nearly fifty years old - would have been unthinkable.  And I suspect this only scratches the surface; how many other episodes that didn't catch my eye - like Wednesday's episode of CBS' Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, "Lucy Makes Room For Danny" - reside somewhere on YouTube or another streaming service?


As I say, this is just a wonder.  Who could possibly have imagined it was possible?  Certainly, when I picked up this issue to work on, I had no idea.  We'll have to try it again sometime, don't you think? TV