My turn: my little list of classic TV programs

Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko in "The Mikado," Bell Telephone Hour, 1960

The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you. 
But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list, 
For they'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed! 
(CHORUS)
You may put 'em on the list — you may put 'em on the list; 
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed!

- Groucho Marx (and others), The Mikado

You may recall that last Friday, I shared with you the results of the Classic TV Blog Association's list of the Top 25 Classic TV Programs of all time. (Classic being defined as anything which appeared in prime time and started before 1990.) It's generated comments, not only at our respective blogs, but in Twitter discussions as well. In passing along the list, I refrained from sharing my own thoughts, other than to say that some of my shows had made the final count, some had not. However, a number of you were quick to jump on this; you weren't going to let me get away so easy without putting my own choices on the line.

Fair enough, I thought; and then, like any writer, I figured I might as well get my money's worth, or at least get another post out of it. I really didn't plan this though, and I don't mean to make anything sound like second-guessing or criticizing. As I generally say, the fault in cases such as this is probably mine.

As many of you probably know, a list of my own Top 10 programs appears on the menu; but I could use this as a consideration only to a point. For one thing, some of the shows are post-1990 (so there! to any of you who think I only live in the past); for another, it's highly personal on my part—to the point, some of you might say, of eccentricity. I mean, no matter how much I might love The Alvin Show, I'm not going to put it on anyone else's list. Because of that, I threw out the rankings of the remaining shows altogether and decided to start from scratch.

A word on the methodology: each of us was first asked to submit a list of ten nominations, from which a list would be compiled. That would then be winnowed down in a final, ranked vote, to produce the final list of the top 25. As I mentioned, one proviso was that we could take the historical or artistic significance of programs into consideration; in other words, this wasn't necessarily a list of our favorite programs, but the programs we thought were the best. To this I'll add that I permitted a small conceit of my own, which was that I would not list a program that I didn't like. I was OK with voting for a show that wasn't a particular favorite, but I wouldn't compromise myself more than that. Well, I'm a TV historian, but I've never pretended to be completely objective.

Enough blabbering, I hear you saying—let's get on with this! And so we shall. I'll give you my lists first, followed by explanations where necessary. We'll start with my ten nominations; keep in mind that this is in no particular order:

1. Naked City
2. The Twilight Zone
3. Perry Mason
4. The Prisoner
5. What’s My Line?
6. The Fugitive
7. SCTV
8. Rocky & Bullwinkle
9. Police Squad
10. The Ed Sullivan Show

When the nominations had been whittled down, I submitted this as my final list, in order of preference:

1. Perry Mason
2. The Prisoner
3. Doctor Who
4. SCTV
5. The Fugitive
6. Dragnet
7. The Twilight Zone
8. The Ed Sullivan Show
9. Alfred Hitchcock Presents
10. The Defenders

For comparison, here are the top 10 of the list of 25 that the CTVA produced:

1. The Twilight Zone
2. I Love Lucy 
3. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
4. Columbo
5. All in the Family
6. Dragnet
7. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
8. Star Trek
9. The Prisoner
10. M*A*S*H

Having seen all these lists, I'm sure you have some questions:

I sure do. First of all, where's Lucy?

Fair enough. You remember how I said at the outset that I couldn't vote for a show that I didn't like? Well, at the risk of sacrificing any credibility as a TV historian, not only don't I love Lucy, I don't really like her. Not her, not the show. Something about her just grates on me, and it always has. But I don't begrudge people who do; this isn't a case of someone voting for, say, My Mother the Car as the greatest show ever. That one you'd have to defend, but not Lucy. Besides, I knew she'd be on the list anyway whether I voted for her or not.

Well, that's not a good reason, but at least it's a reason. But why don't you like The Twilight Zone? Have you got something against science fiction?

No! I've got it right there, at #7. As a matter of fact, I've also got Doctor Who on my list, as well as The Prisioner (but we'll talk about that later). At it's best, TZ is unquestionably one of the greatest. If we were to limit it to the show's first three seasons, I might have put it at #1 myself. But see, that's the thing. Rod Serling could be poetic, incisive, literate—even at his worst, he's most of those things. But he can also be didactic, strident, and lazy. Some of his scripts beat you over the head, again and again, to make a point. As I mentioned in my Top 10 review of TZ, "Those stories are painful enough when first viewed; they become almost impossible to watch again, and when you run into enough episodes like that, it can make it very difficult to enjoy and appreciate a series." The first couple of times through the series, I wasn't familiar enough with each episode to recognize the ones I liked as opposed to the ones I didn't like, so it was a voyage of discovery. Now, though, when I can pick and choose which ones to watch, I find that I'm skipping too many of them to make it #1 on a list of mine. Put another way: this is a series I liked a lot more when I was younger than I do today.

How do you justify Perry Mason as #1 on your list?

Well, that's a case where I've indulged my prerogative to combine "excellence" with "entertainment." Was Perry Mason great art? I don't know that I'd go that far, although I think it does say quite a bit about the American jurisprudence system, not to mention the integrity required from an officer of the law (I go into this more in The Electronic Mirror). As I've mentioned in the past, it's a series that takes quite seriously the concept of the single-combat warrior. But besides that, it's fun—even though I own the DVD set, I still watch the MeTV runs of the show whenever I don't have to get up early the next day. Unlike Twilight Zone, I don't get tired of them after repeated viewings.

Any shows you think were overlooked?

I think The Fugitive ought to have been in the top 10. It's perhaps the best-written drama series that's ever been on television, and David Janssen delivers one of the most compelling performances TV has ever seen. Not to mention the idea of the nation's most-famous convicted murderer becoming the nation's #1 most-wanted criminal. The Fugitive invented a whole genre of television.

I can't believe that Naked City didn't even make the final list, let alone the top 10. It's also one of the best-written programs ever, and it gives us a noble presentation of what a policeman's job really is, a reminder that they truly are public servants. (I suspect that were they real, they'd be appalled by how today's detectives look at the public with contempt.) At its best, which is often, it touches on existential questions that TV has rarely done, then or now.

And Rocky & Bullwinkle (or whichever title you prefer)—well, it's perhaps the most brilliant satire we've ever seen on TV (and that includes SCTV). The way cartoon characters are used to say things that humans could never get away with is pure genius.

Speaking of SCTV, that should have been in the top 10 as well. I can't tell you how many times I look at shows from the 1980s on, on those YouTube channels that show you the opening credits from programs of the past, and find myself wondering if this is real, or SCTV.

I nominated The Ed Sullivan Show not because Ed was a great talent, because he wasn't. He did have an eye for talent, though, or at least was willing to take a chance on something that he believed his audience might like. If you want a cross-section of America at any given time, just look at the guest lists on Sullivan.

What programs made the list that you really want to rip?

Steady, now. As I said, I'm not questioning anything here. None of the shows were, I thought, indefensible, but under the category of programs that I don't like, in addition to Lucy I'd have to add M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, and All in the Family. If I'm being honest, they ought to be on a list, although maybe not as high as they are here. But M*A*S*H is too dated and way too sanctimonious for me, and as far as All in the Family is concerned, if I want to see people screaming at each other, I'll watch Fox News. I should add that I have nothing against MTM; after all, she did bring Minneapolis into the big time. I'm just not that high on sitcoms per se, and of those that do work for me, I'm a much bigger fan of Hogan's Heroes or Police Squad!

Any do-overs that you'd like?

Well, I do like Columbo; I just didn't have the room. Same thing with Python, which is almost as absurd as SCTV. And as several people mentioned on Twitter, there should have been at least one Western on the list somewhere. Maverick came up several times, as did Gunsmoke, and I think either one of them would have been at home on the list—probably Gunsmoke, if I were to choose again. There probably ought to be a private detective series on there as well, at least if we're talking about television history. The Rockford Files, for example, can look dated because of the clothes and hair, but Jim Garner's performance is never dated.

I think lists like this are fun, and as I mentioned last week, I'd still take this list over those that are produced by "experts" that think any show that was on more than 10 minutes ago is passé. So now it's your turn to go after me—but please be gentle. TV  

Around the dial

I'm not really sure just how much stock to put in lists, and that includes—perhaps especially—my own. They're always fun to read, though, which is why the Classic TV Blog Association, to which I proudly belong, recently polled its members on the 25 Greatest Classic TV Series of all time.

Part of the challenge with contributing to a list like this lies in the guidelines. In this case, programs were limited to those that aired in prime time, and debuted prior to 1990. We were also asked to consider criteria such as enduring popularity, social impact, and influence on other TV series. In other words, this isn't simply a list of favorite television shows.

1. The Twilight Zone
2. I Love Lucy 
3. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
4. Columbo
5. All in the Family
6. Dragnet
7. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
8. Star Trek
9. The Prisoner
10. M*A*S*H
11. The Dick Van Dyke Show
12. The Fugitive
13. Dallas
14. Doctor Who
15. The Andy Griffith Show
16. The Defenders
17. The Golden Girls
18. Perry Mason
19. SCTV
20. The Honeymooners
21. Alfred Hitchcock Presents
22. Hill Street Blues
23. The Odd Couple
24. The Outer Limits
25. The Avengers

For the record, I believe two of my choices made the top 10, and there are perhaps a half-dozen in the top 25 that I definitely wouldn't have put on any list. A couple of them are shows that I didn't have, but heartily approve of; likewise, I grudgingly included two that I don't particularly like, but had to acknowledge their cultural and/or historical significance. Some of you might be taken aback by shows that I omitted, or equally surprised by those I included. (Being a coward at heart, I'm refraining from being any more specific than that.)

The Last Drive In, Comfort TV, and Classic Film and TV Café have particularly good takes on the results. Ultimately, though, television is, or at least was, something very personal to people—as I've written before, the most personal of all communications media. A particular program may bring back memories of where you were, what you were doing, or what was happening when you watched it, and something like that is impossible to quantify. If there's any program here that you've never seen before but are encouraged to check out because it's on the list, then we've done our job as curators of the past. What are your thoughts—where do you agree or disagree?

In other news...

It was 67 years ago this week that The Today Show premiered on NBC, and at Garroway at Large, Jodie gives us a look at what the critics had to say on the morning after. Hint: I doubt many of them thought we'd be having this conversation 67 years later.

The Hitchcock Project moves on to writer James P. Cavanagh, as Jack at bare-bones e-zine looks at the first season episode "The Hidden Thing." I'm afraid  I'll have to agree with Jack that what was most hidden in this episode was a satisfying resolution.

It's Bart Maverick's turn to lead on Maverick Mondays at The Horn Section, as Hal reviews the fifth-season episode "The Golden Fleecing." James Garner's long-since left Maverick, but Jack Kelly does his best in a good, but not quite great, evocation of the show's past.

At Cult TV, the emphasis is on the late '70s and the British police drama Target. As John points out, Target was a series known for its violence, and the episode "Blow Out" is perhaps one of the most violent, along with some suspect police methods.

The Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland links to this provocative article at Dazed on how Soul Train was "the most radical show on American television." Never watched it myself, so I appreciate this kind of serious analysis as to its cultural weight.

At Television Obscurities, Robert is once again taking on the task of documenting a year in TV Guide, from beginning to end. This time it's 1989, and since that's not a time period that I generally write about myself, I'm very much looking forward to these weekly recaps.  TV  

The cop you loved to hate

For those of you who aspire to such things, there are, as far as I'm concerned, three criteria necessary to make you a good television villain:

1. The viewers don't root for you;
2. The show's characters actively try to stop you from succeeding; and
3. You’re attacked in real life for what you do on the screen.

Based on those standards, Lieutenant Philip Gerard makes the perfect villain.

Gerard (brilliantly played by Barry Morse) is, as you all probably know, the police detective who serves as the nemesis of Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. You can’t really mention one without the other; they’re almost a team. In fact, we’re introduced to the two men at virtually the same time, sharing opposite ends of a pair of handcuffs while riding a train bound for the death house in Indiana. Kimble has been convicted (wrongly, we are assured) of murdering his wife; Gerard is the detective who investigated the case and is escorting Kimble to prison. When the train derails, Kimble escapes, leaving Gerard holding the bag, or the broken handcuffs, as it were. From that moment to the end of the series, Gerard has but one mission, which is his obsession: to recapture Kimble and bring him in so his death sentence can be carried out.

Now, I know what you're thinking: how can you call a policeman - an honest one at that! - a villain? In Gerard's case, it's easy. Reflecting on his most famous role of a distinguished career, Morse talked of how viewers reacted to him on the street. "Elderly ladies bashed me across the head with their handbags, or some hulking great man would come up to me in a bar and say: 'Don't you understand? The guy's innocent!' It was an enormous compliment -- and quite dangerous." Gerard, he he said, was a character that had been "carefully designed to be disliked. . . . I was the most hated man in America, and I loved it." Gerard might even have influenced Stephen King; “Lt. Gerard really scared me as a kid,” he wrote. “Kimble had made him crazy, and as The Fugitive went on you could see him heading further and further into freako land.”

Series creator Roy Huggins always said that Gerard was based on the character of Inspector Javert, the relentless antagonist in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. It was an obvious idea, really; every chase story requires a pursuer as well as a pursued, and in the intimate world of television, where familiarity means everything, it made far more sense for Kimble to have a semi-regular pursuer than to be on the run from an impersonal authority figure each week. It served to focus the threat in the person of a single man whose individuality provided the face for the long arm of the law.

In fact, Gerard only appears in 37 of the show’s 120 episodes, but it is the threat of Gerard (he's seen in the opening credits of every episode) that makes him so threatening. Even in those episodes where he doesn't appear, his presence hangs over Kimble like the Sword of Damocles; he's the bogeyman hiding under the bed, the monster in the closet, the mysterious something hiding in the shadows of those dark, rain-slick streets.

The three principals: (l to r) The One-Armed Man,
Dr Richard Kimble, Lt. Philip Gerard

By the time the series starts, Gerard is already obsessed with recapturing Kimble; the lieutenant holds himself responsible for Kimble's escape, the single blemish on his career, even though the accident was completely out of his control. No, Gerard had one job to do in order to close the case, and his failure to deliver Kimble to prison haunts him for the length of the series. "I've lost a lot of things these past four years," he says in part one of the series finale, “starting with a prisoner the state told me to guard." Over time, Kimble ceases to be merely an escaped prisoner, and his continued status as a fugitive goes beyond being a challenge to Gerard's integrity, or even perhaps his manhood. Richard Kimble is Philip Gerard's white whale, his Moby Dick.

Beginning with the very first episode broadcast, "Fear in a Desert City," Gerard finds out just how difficult recapturing Kimble is going to be. Appearing at the end of the episode and (as usual) just missing Kimble, he tries to convince Monica Welles (the luminous Vera Miles), a woman whom Kimble had befriended, to tell him where the fugitive had gone. "He's innocent!" Wells tells him. "The law says guilty," Gerard says. Welles' retort: "The law isn't perfect." Welles replies.*

*A sentiment similar to that of Earl Holliman's marshal in "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys," who remarks, "most of the people who make the laws aren't exactly perfect. So I figure that the laws can't be too perfect, and maybe every once in a while they deserve to get broken." That kind of attitude drives Gerard crazy.

Ah, yes - as Charles Dickens wrote, "If the law supposes that, the law is an ass." At this point, Gerard - as relentless as Schwarzenegger's Terminator - must have been receiving some kind of "Unable to Compute" error message. Time and time again over the four seasons of the series, he would be stymied by people whom he felt had been taken in by Kimble. Women attracted to him as if he were a lost kitten needing rescue, or drawn to his smoldering, subdued charisma; men returning favor for favor after witnessing Kimble's loyalty or benefiting from his help; children who saw in him a fellow lost soul, a grown-up who understood them in ways others didn't. (Kimble was, after all, a pediatrician.) It didn't help that Gerard often came off as prickly, self-righteous, or arrogant (which he often was) - in a competition for the hearts and minds of the public, there was never any doubt about who would come off second-best.

On occasion, as in episodes like "Corner of Hell" and "The Evil Men Do," Kimble's allies might even try to do Gerard harm in order to facilitate Kimble's escape, at which the good doctor himself would have to step in on Gerard's behalf. There are even separate episodes where Kimble befriends Gerard's wife and son. Do you think Gerard undergoes any kind of conversion, begins to have even the slightest doubts or second thoughts about continuing his chase of a supposedly guilty murderer who intervenes to save his pursuer's life? Even just to give him, say, a 30 minute head start? Of course not! "I suppose Gerard would say that personal relationships, as between himself and Kimble, are not affected by the accidental happenings which befall him," Morse said. "He would simply say, 'Whether or not this man saved my life doesn't affect my duty to deliver him to the legal system which employs me and which has convicted him. Whether he has been wrongly convicted or not is not my business." Maddening, yes, but in its own way quite admirable.*

*You wonder if Kimble subconsciously needs Gerard to believe in and accept his innocence in order to feel fully vindicated? If Gerard were not around - would it be quite as satisfying? 

The passage of time: Gerard now wears glasses.

Although Gerard continued to fulfill the role of villain throughout the run of the series, that's not to say the character didn't develop over time, coming to display a more nuanced view of his prey. While his determination to recapture Kimble never wavered, Gerard sometimes found himself in the position of defending Kimble against accusations made by other law enforcement officials. In "Stroke of Genius," Kimble, a stranger in town, becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a preacher. Gerard finds the idea ridiculous - Kimble has "never killed anybody while trying to escape, nor has he tried to," he tells the small-town sheriff. Certainly Gerard has motivation to clear Kimble of the crime in order that he can take him back to Indiana, but there's more to it than that. Gerard has come to know Kimble over the years in a way that few others can. While he might deny it, he knows that Kimble's crime, if he indeed did commit it, was one of passion, and likely the only murder he'd ever commit in his life. Other times, Gerard reacts with scorn to the greed of people trying to track down Kimble for the reward. Although Kimble, in Gerard's mind, is an escaped murderer, he's also deserving of some measure of dignity; in "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys," he describes Kimble as clever and resourceful - and also courageous.

Nonetheless, even these glimpses of humanity don't disguise the fact that Gerard can be, and often is, something of a jerk. In one of the greatest Fugitive episodes, the two-part "Landscape with Running Figure," his obsession with Kimble causes his wife (played by Barbara Rush) to leave him*; she poignantly remarks at one point, “Life without Kimble…what a pretty dream that used to be.” In "Nemesis," it's Gerard's son (Kurt Russell), hiding in a car which Kimble steals, who helps the fugitive make his escape. (Need I mention that Philip Gerard Jr. was along because he and his dad were supposed to be on a fishing trip?) In a memorable exchange, young Gerard refuses to tell his dad which way Kimble went. "He says he didn't do it!" Junior says, to which the lieutenant replies, "Of course he says that!" But then his son asks, point blank, "And if he's right? If he's right?" Gerard, after a long pause, can only say, "Well, it means that I'm wrong...doesn't it, Phil?"

*So obsessed with your job that you drive away Barbara Rush? How dumb is that?

In the end, Gerard has one job, to bring Kimble back to face his punishment. It's what makes Gerard's turn in the final episode that much more remarkable. If you've not seen it, I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that it can only be the knowledge of Kimble that Gerard had gained over the four years of the chase that allowed him to finally make the leap. And no matter how much he might try to explain it away by logic, it also means he had to admit to himself that he was wrong.

Actors often talk about how they enjoy playing villains; they're more interesting, there's more to the role. David Janssen was brilliant as Kimble, but without Barry Morse as Gerard, The Fugitive wouldn't be nearly as compelling as it is. It proves that every hero needs a villain, and Philip Gerard, "the most hated man in America," one of television's most complex and unlikely villains, was more than up to the job. TV  

The Classic TV Villain Blogathon is hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. Please check out the rest of the wonderful villains by clicking here.

Around the dial

First off, just a reminder that the Classic TV Blog Association's blogathon on TV villains starts Sunday and runs through Monday with, as usual, terrific articles on the characters you love to hate. You can read the lineup here; my own contribution, as you can see, runs on Monday, which means that the program listings will, for one week only, be bumped to Wednesday. And now for the rest of the news.

Sadly, another week - another obituary of a classic entertainment legend. This week it's Vic Damone, who died on Sunday at age 89. In addition to having his own summer replacement show, Damone was a frequent guest on all kinds of variety shows, as well as musical comedies such as The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood and The Stingiest Man in Town, to name just two. A Shroud of Thoughts has the look back. He also remembers John Gavin, the former actor and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, who died Friday at 86, who will be a familiar face to classic TV and movie fans. And lest we forget, Marty Allen, the "Hello dere" half of Allen and Rossi and the onetime "Darling of Daytime TV" died on Monday at the ripe old age of 95.

At Garroway at Large, our guest blogger Jodie returns to her usual haunts with an ad for Dave's Place, the unsuccessful 1975 radio comeback effort by Dave Garroway.

The Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland has a terrific-looking full-color copy of NBC's 1967 full-color schedule.

Cult TV Blog looks at the Doctor Who adventure "The Time Machine," starring the irrepressible Tom Baker. I remember, when last I saw this story some years ago, having an opinion not much different from that of John's, who said, "it is probably best avoided by people who may be overly critical of the quality of the TV they watch."

Eventually Supertrain is back, with episode 39! In this installment, Dan and the gang are back to look at The Green Hornet, Ellery Queen Mysteries, and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Be sure to give a listen to one of my favorite podcasts, and I don't say that just because I'll be on a future episode or two...

Another returnee is Television's New Frontier: the 1960s, and the new show on the block is the 1961 animated Dick Tracy Show, featuring a host of well-known voices. I remember this show growing up; I thought those two-way wrist radios were the coolest thing! Little could we imagine what the iPhone would be capable of.

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack brings us to part 13 of the latest Hitchcock Project on Francis and Marian Cockrell - season three's "Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty." It's another episode with a great punchline; let Jack explain why!

And at The Twilight Zone Vortex, part 7 of Jordan's review of The Twilight Zone Magazine includes pieces by Theodore Sturgeon, Gahan Wilson and George Clayton Johnson, among others.

Pretty good week, if you ask me. We'll have to do our best to keep up with it. Tomorrow we'll look at an unusual TV Guide - and remember, the Classic TV Villains piece is on Monday, so TV listings are moved to Wednesday for this week only.  TV  

Around the dial

We're a little light on links this week, but for a good reason - most of my colleagues can be found in the "Terror TV Blogathon" hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. I'm not enough of a horror buff to have participated in this one, but I promise you're going to enjoy reading their pieces - you won't miss me a bit! In other blogs:

At Christmas TV History, Joanna gives us a heads-up on her Christmas schedule, which includes not only great pieces from the past and present, but when your favorite Christmas show might be on. I always look forward to this time of year!

The Broadcast Archives at the University of Maryland has a terrific picture of the cover of a 1930 booklet entitled The Romance and Reality of Television. I don't know if I've ever heard a better description of the promise television held - question is, has it lived up to that promise?

Cult TV Blog has a very interesting article on the Troughton Doctor Who episode "The Invasion," including how this episode expresses the show's traditional caution towards technology. I'm fond of this DVD, because it's out of print and outrageously priced in the U.S., but the U.K. version became my first purchase for my new region-free DVD player.

If you're in the mood for a little old-time radio, Recap Retro has a great piece on "Night Beat," the 50s series set in Chicago, and starring Frank Lovejoy as newspaper reporter Randy Stone. I've heard this on Radio Spirits, and it's pretty good - you can find episodes online to check it out.

A reminder that our friend Ray Starman, author of The Sitcom Class Wars, will be appearing later this month on Ed Robertson's TV Confidential podcast - I'll have more details as we get closer.

And finally, a question for you all from reader Brian, who wants to know if anyone out there has a copy of the Merv Griffin-hosted game show Play Your Hunch from April 8, 1960. Merv's guest singer that day was Beverly Kenney. If so, please let me know via comment or email.

That's it for this week - see you back here tomorrow. TV  

Potpourri for $500

ART FLEMMING, PLAYING JEOPARDY! IN THE MOVIE AIRPLANE II THE SEQUEL

Remember the Jeopardy category "Potpourri"? It always fascinated me when I was a kid, because I didn't really recognize the word or know how to pronounce it - whenever Art Fleming said it, it would remind me of how he'd said it before, but it didn't stick - and I found it interesting that none of the questions seemed to relate to each other. Of course, later on I discovered that's that potpourri meant.*

*Speaking of Art Fleming's Jeopardy, did you know that the winner of the 1968 Tournament of Champions was Hutton Gibson, father of Mel?

Anyway, a little bit of this and that this week: announcements, questions, triv

• You might have noticed a few new additions to the sidebar this week, and if you haven't I'm going to call your attention to them now: British TV Detectives, from the creator of Classic Film and TV Cafe, among other blogs (and who also happens to be the organizer of the Classic TV Blog Association), takes a look at, well, the British TV detective. The Twilight Zone Vortex is another newby to the sidebar; as the title might suggest, this is a detailed look, episode by episode, of the great series. Both of these are terrific sites, deserving of inclusion in your regular blog reading.

• Another addition worthy of your attention is Movin' On, a site dedicated to the '70s classic of the same name, starring Claude Akins and Frank Converse. If you haven't thought about that show for awhile, this is a good time to brush up on it because next week I'll have an interview with Barry Weitz, one of the show's original producers. My thanks to Mark Rathaus for facilitating the interview, as well as answering some questions on his remastering of the series, now airing on Hulu and ProClassicTV.com.

• Here's a question from reader Sue Ann, who asks: "My father was a guest hobbyist on Charley Weaver’s Hobby Lobby in 1959, but there’s no reference anywhere to that episode. I got to skip school and go with him to NYC. They didn’t know what to do with me during the show, so they put me backstage with celebrity guest Gloria DeHaven who flipped out that she was made my babysitter. ( I was a very mature 12-year-old and didn’t need a babysitter.) Is there any way to find it?" I've done some basic research, so far to no avail. Any suggestions out there?

• A while back, reader Sheila Terrando asked about the mid-60s Saturday program on the Smithsonian. At her request, I'm trying to work on a story about it; does anyone have information they can share on that?

• Finally, David Von Pein, the excellent collector of "As It Happened" video concerning the television coverage of JFK's assassination, recently posted something I'd not seen before: the CBS Evening News for November 25, 1963. As Walter Cronkite comments at the outset of this expanded one-hour broadcast, there really was only one story that day, that of the President's funeral. Nonetheless, about 50 minutes into the program Cronkite does digress to some of the other stories of that day, and it's a fascinating look at the shadows hanging over the date. By that, I mean that if one were able to somehow photograph that moment in time, one might be able to see dim, blurry images in that picture that can't quite be made out, ghosts from the future casting their looming shadows on the present:
  
  At 50:00 into the broadcast, Cronkite spends a minute reporting on "the bloodiest fighting in almost a year" in Vietnam, including "massive Communist attacks" on strategic areas near Saigon. Vietnam was, of course, a big story even then, with U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge skipping the funeral to return to Vietnam after consulting with the new President, Lyndon Johnson. Nonetheless, it certainly wasn't foremost in the minds of most Americans, not like it would be in a few years. Included is Cambodia's announcement of an air agreement with Red China, a foreshadowing of the misery to come in that country. There's also a note about Communist rebels in Venezuela, and while it took them a little longer to assume control, that too would come to pass.
  
  At 51:15, Cronkite notes the discovery of a dead young woman (later identified as Joann Graff) in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the tenth victim in 17 months of "Boston's mystery strangler." Yes, the Boston Strangler. It had only been earlier that year that two Boston newspaper reporters, Jean Cole and Loretta McLaughlin, had first used that phrase to describe the killer. In 1964 Albert DeSalvo is charged and pleads guilty to the crimes. In 1968, Tony Curtis stars in the movie of the same name; as I recall, in the scene portraying Miss Graff's murder, the television set in the background is showing coverage of the Kennedy assassination. It's been a long time since I saw that movie, though - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

In “The Changing of the Guard,” The Twilight Zone explores the existential drama of Christmas

A LITERATURE TEACHER (DONALD PLEASENCE) FINDS HE IS NOW AN OBSOLETE MAN IN "THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD"     

At first glance “The Changing of the Guard,” the final episode from The Twilight Zone’s third season, would appear an odd choice to include in a Christmas blogathon. The episode only tangentially touches on the season, being set on Christmas Eve for no special reason other than its significance as the end of a school term. It wasn’t even aired during the Christmas season, but on June 1, and its author, Rod Serling, was a secular Jew. But that, as I say, is simply from a first glance. In fact, the underlying themes of the episode have a great deal to do with Christmas, particularly from the existential and spiritual sides.

A description of the episode is straightforward enough, so much so that the single-paragraph summary from the always-reliable Wikipedia will suffice:

Professor Ellis Fowler [brilliantly portrayed by Donald Pleasence] is an elderly English literature teacher at a boys' prep school in Vermont, who is forced into retirement after teaching for more than 50 years at the school. Looking through his old yearbooks and reminiscing about his former students, he becomes convinced that all of his lessons have been in vain and that he has accomplished nothing with his life. Deeply depressed, he prepares to kill himself on the night of Christmas Eve next to a statue of the famous educator Horace Mann. Before he can commit suicide, however, he is called back to his classroom by a phantom bell, where he is visited by ghosts of several boys who were his students, all of whom are dead, some of whom died heroically. The boys each tell him that he inspired them to become better men. Deeply moved, Fowler accepts his retirement, content that his life is fuller for having enriched the lives of the boys.

There’s a temptation to play a story such as this as a sentimental tear-jerker, something that would fit in perfectly on The Hallmark Channel, and I’m sure there are many who’ve indeed shed a tear or two during the episode’s undeniably emotional close, in which Fowler realizes just how much he’s mattered to his students over the years. He is the best kind of hero (taking the word in its loosest definition) – an unassuming one, totally unaware of his impact, increasing his heroism in much the same way as a woman unaware of her natural beauty becomes even more beautiful, in a way that can’t be faked.

Read in this way, “The Changing of the Guard” certainly could be seen as Christmas fodder for today, seeing as how so many contemporary seasonal programs substitute sentiment for any real gravitas. (All that’s missing is a love interest, but then we’d be talking about Goodbye, Mr. Chips, wouldn’t we?) And yet, in the more sober world of The Twilight Zone, this is little more than a ruse, a façade for the true meaning of the story, lying just under the surface. For The Twilight Zone was one of the few television series that could do existentialism reasonably well, and the real impact from the story is an existential one, dealing with one of the most central questions of all: the meaning of life. And it is only within this context that one understands why we're watching it early on Christmas morning.

Existentialism and religion are anything but incompatible. In fact, the old Baltimore Catechism makes this one of its first, and most essential, questions. Why did God create you? It’s an existential question of the first order, one at the heart of us all, never far from the surface, and consciously or subconsciously we use it as a measuring stick when looking back on our accomplishments, from any point in our lives. As I mentioned in an earlier post, life is essentially a drama, not the concocted drama of a soap opera but the very real drama of man’s constant struggle for meaning in life, for the differentiation between good and evil, and the fulfillment of a destiny that is at once both human and supernatural. Certainly this is the case with Professor Fowler, who has looked at his lifetime balance sheet and found the deposits to be woefully low.

But Fowler is a melancholy figure, typical of so many of Serling’s protagonists, and while the Christmas season tends to exacerbate those kinds of thoughts, it’s reasonable to infer that Fowler is merely bringing to the surface a suspicion which has dwelt within him for years. He is, therefore, the individual representation of the “weary world” with its “sad and lonely plains” described in the lyrics to the carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” With this consideration, we’re now getting somewhere, closer to the reason why the setting of the episode is significant. Look at the third stanza of the carol, and see if you don’t agree that the words can be applied to Fowler:

          O ye beneath life's crushing load,
          Whose forms are bending low,
          Who toil along the climbing way
          With painful steps and slow;
          Look now, for glad and golden hours
          Come swiftly on the wing;
          Oh rest beside the weary road
          And hear the angels sing.

The message is clear: it is the song of the angels that will pull man from the “crushing load” of life. And is this not in fact what happens with Fowler, in the form of the visitation by the spirits of his former students? Each one of them comes bearing a message, one implicit in the lines of the Angel who greets the shepherds in the fields:  “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” And what are the good tidings which the Angel brings? “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11)

A visit from the spirits of the dead?

Rather than a fantasy, therefore, it’s not unreasonable to see in Serling’s script – and, keep in mind, Serling was a man sensitive not only to the imagery of Judeo-Christianity but one with a deep moral appreciation of those traditions, and the roles they played in then-contemporary culture – an allegorical representation of the Nativity story, one in which Fowler, as the weary world which awaits the birth of the Savior, is greeted by the supernatural appearance of his deceased students, to deliver the angelic message of hope.

Should this be dismissed as a mere science-fiction trope, the introduction of the fantastic which doesn't even attempt a rational explanation? I don’t see why – as someone once said in response to the question of whether or not a mysterious appearance might have been that of an angel, “Why not? Angels can do anything.” Well, perhaps not anything, but they’ve been known to assume various human guises, and since God desires nothing less than the salvation of all men*, it is wholly reasonable to assume this might have been some type of angelic intervention, meant to save the despairing Fowler from the mortal sin of suicide. At any rate, I’m content with that explanation, whether or not anyone else is.

*Again, from the Baltimore Catechism, the answer to the question of why God made us: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.

Christmas is, though many seem to have forgotten or chosen not to remember, a Christian holiday, one denoting the birth of a Savior Who was destined to die and rise again in order to redeem mankind from its sins.* Theologically, “The Changing of the Guard” fits perfectly into this, with its supernatural concept - God humbling Himself to become man, one of the most existential aspects of the Bible - that drives the context, which is why the episode more than justifies its appearance in our Christmas blogathon.

*If you think that a bit too grim to impinge on what is essentially The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, take a quick listen to the "Et incarnatus est" from Bach’s B Minor Mass. Translated from the Latin, "Et incarnatus est" comprises the first three words of the passage in the Creed which states, "and [Jesus] was incarnate by the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary, and was made man,” It is, of course, a joyous statement - but Bach chooses to present this music from the point of view not of those who would be saved, but of their Savior, the newly-born Christ, Who even then knew He had been born not just to die, but to suffer a horrific death – over which He would ultimately triumph. It is a remarkable bit of theology which Bach has incorporated into this short section, demonstrating that the Cross hangs heavy even over the Manger. 

There are, I know, many who will this an inappropriate piece to offer in this blogathon. They'll suggest that I’m reading too much into this story, that Serling intended nothing more than a message of hope when the world seems to be getting you down. And, of course, you’re entitled to that opinion. But as I’ve often stated, at this blog and elsewhere, there are layers upon layers of meaning contained in every act and work of art, oftentimes without the awareness of the person responsible for it. I have no way of knowing what Rod Serling intended with “The Changing of the Guard,” nor does it ultimately matter. That Serling was intellectually capable of desiring such a meaning we do know, though ultimately that does not matter either. What does matter is that it is possible to derive such a meaning, one that neatly explains the story and renders it plausible above and beyond its existence as a fantasy, and explains exactly why the story had to occur at Christmas as opposed to any other time of the year. Amazing how that all tends to work out, isn’t it?

So let’s just leave it at that, and call it good. As in, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

MeTV will air "The Changing of the Guard" at 3:00am ET on Friday, December 25. This post is part of Me-TV's Very Merry Blogathon, hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. You can see the entire blog lineup here, and you can see MeTV's line-up of classic TV Christmas shows at its website. TV  

Christmas at Around the Dial - Charlie Brown, comedians, Kojak and more!

A reminder that this year's Classic TV Blog Association here, and while yours truly will not show up until Christmas Eve, there are some exceptional entries already, warm and nostalgic and reminding you of Christmases past. The Christmas blogathon continues up through the big day itself, and you can see the entire lineup here.

For example, The Last Drive-In reviews The Andy Griffith Show's 1960 Yule episode,  Meanwhile, Made For TV Mayhem writes up the Kojak Christmas entry. I agree that Kojak isn't the first show I think of at Christmastime, but this makes me want to see that episode. Two very different takes on the season from two very different police shows.

Some Polish American Guy provides a Q&A on the 1976 NBC series Gemini Man. I remember this series, vaguely; living in The World's Worst Town™, NBC was our only choice. Would I have seen it otherwise? Fortunately, it's a question I don't have to answer.

At The Horn Section, Hal takes a page out of my book  (with some very kind and generous words besides) and looks at the TV Guide from December 11, 1965, which featured the cast of F Troop on the cover. I love reading writeups like this; even though I do them myself, people seldom choose the same things to zero in on, and it always gives me a fresh perspective on things I looked over. (And often causes me to say, "Why didn't I notice that?")

I've never thought to compare Batman and The Avengers, for example, but that's just what Cult TV Blog is up to, and there are in fact some very interesting similarities, starting with the villains themselves. That blog never ceases to spur my own creative juices.

You may have noticed that many of the seasonal programs of the era revolved around music, and that seems an appropriate segue to Comfort TV's meditation on 10 favorite classic TV Christmas songs. What a great list! You'll have your own favorites, of course, but if you give me these as part of the proverbial desert island stay, I wouldn't complain.

Kliph Nesteroff has a new book out - The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy, and for those of you who haven't yet decided whether or not you want to find this under your tree, his Classic Television Showbiz has a handy guide to reviews, profiles, interviews, and other items that should help you make up your mind.

Over the last year or so, I've really become a fan of the OTR program Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. Given how many of the old radio shows made the transition to television, I've always wondered why Johnny Dollar never did, but Television Obscurities sheds some light on it all with a look at two pilots that were made in an attempt to sell the show to TV.

As always, my sidebar has these sites and more, and when I've got the time (an increasingly problematic situation), I like nothing better than leisurely browsing through them, and invariably learning something I didn't already know. Sometimes that comes from other than a regular source, such as this article that describes something I've never noticed, no matter how many times I've watched A Charlie Brown Christmas: the moment Linus drops his blanket. If you run across anything like that, or other sites that you think should be shared, just drop me an email and let me know. And in the meantime, I'll let you know that I'll be back tomorrow with our special Christmas edition! TV  

The best thirty minutes on television

"HOW, LIEUTENANT, CAN YOU BE SURE WHICH IS THE ACTUAL MURDER WEAPON?"

Now I know what you're thinking: how can I possibly have anything more to say about Perry Mason other than what I've already said?  And it's true; in addition to my essay on Mason as one of my Top 10 shows of all time, I've frequently alluded to the show in one way or another.  So what?  We all have our quirks, our pleasures, the shows we keep coming back to again and again.  Still, what else can I say?  Well, let's talk about the most entertaining thirty minutes of television anywhere, surely the most entertaining thirty minutes to be found in a sixty minute show.

Someone once wrote that the courtroom was the perfect theater, as it provided a stage for the entire range of human emotion, and this is certainly true of Perry Mason.  About half of each episode, more or less, is spent in the courtroom, and I sometimes think you could skip the entire first thirty minutes or so and still be enthralled by the drama of Perry once again taking on Hamilton Burger (or whichever poor soul winds up on the opposite side of the table)*.  After all, we already know that the defendant is innocent, we already know the killer is somewhere in the courtroom, and if we sit through enough testimony we're going to figure out the premise and get a chance to guess who the guilty party is.  We're guaranteed that nine times out of ten Perry is going to get someone on the stand and, under a withering battery of questions starting with, "Isn't it true...", that person is going to crumble, blurting out either "I didn't mean to do it!" or "I killed him, and I'm glad I killed him - he deserved to die!"  After the final commercial break, we'll see Perry, Della and Paul sitting around a table in a restaurant, or sitting around a desk in Perry's office, or sitting around a desk in Hamilton Burger's office, whereupon Perry will modestly explain how he'd uncovered the guilty party in the first place.  It's so predictable - and oh, so entertaining.

*I'm not suggesting, by the way, that you skip the first half hour of the show.  You'll miss a lot of great lines that way, such as Perry explaining to Paul why they can't be arrested for burglary when they''re breaking into a suspect's office after hours: first, they didn't break anything to get in, and second, you have to take something for it to be burglary, and Perry only wants to get a look at what's in those files.  Stick to sleuthing, Paul, and leave the law to Perry.

As I've said before, we don't really know much about Perry, Della and Paul.  We know that Perry lives alone, that he lives in an apartment, and that even when he's home he reads his law books.  We suspect that he and Della have a closer relationship than most employers and employees, but we never see them out socially unless they're taking a break from working on a case.  We figure Della doesn't have any other man in her life; who'd ever put up with the kind of hours she keeps at the office?  We know Paul has an eye for the trim ankle, from which we can infer he's not married either, and we know Perry's his biggest client, but beyond that?  Nothing.  For that matter, we don't know much about Hamilton Burger, either.  Is he married?  And if so, how does his wife cope with him losing every single case he tries against Mason?

We don't know these things, and we don't have to.  What we do know is that Perry is the best lawyer around, one who will use any legal tactic to get benefit his client, no matter how much he has to stretch the envelope.  We know that Della's devoted to Perry, and that she'll see he gets everything he needs.  And we know that Paul, despite whatever doubts he might have about the innocence of Perry's client, will do whatever Perry asks him to do.  It doesn't take long to establish something like that; in fact, considering the popularity of Erle Stanley Gardner's Mason books, it's likely many in the audience already knew this before the series even started.

In our serialized era of television, shows tend to get so wrapped up in the private lives of the lead characters, their backstories and their continuing dramas and their evolutionary processes, that they forget Shakespeare's maxim: the play's the thing.  And once the play begins, once the participants have entered the squared circle of the courtroom, that's when things start cooking, when the panoply of human drama plays out.  One witness after another lays out the case against the defendant, who looks desperately at Mason: "He's twisting my words," she might say, or "I never said that!" or "I know I should have told you before, but I was afraid you wouldn't take my case!"*

*Whenever his client pulls that one, you can almost see the adding machine clicking away in Perry's head, wondering how much that's going to add to the bill when all's said and done.  "Let's see, that's $10,000 for lying, $5,000 for failing to tell me about the other woman, $2,750 for Paul's expenses in traveling to Mexico to check out a false alibi. . . Looks as if Della's going to get that new fur for Christmas after all."

Things start to look bleak for Perry and his client, and you can see it in Burger's smug expression, the satisfied way he confers with Lieutenant Tragg to head off one of Mason's surprise moves.  At last, I'm going to beat him!  And then, with no warning, the tide begins to turn.  Maybe Paul's rushed in a last-minute piece of advice, or Perry's noticed something that a previous witness said; whatever, the lightbulb goes on over Perry's head, and suddenly he launches two, three, four questions at the witness, who begins to stammer and sweat.  Burger, seeing that certain victory starting to slip away, desperately launches objection after objection, most of which are shot down by the judge who seems as curious as we are to find out what Mason's up to.  (Occasionally, the judge takes a little dig at Burger while he's overruling his objection, which makes it even better.)

In one recent episode, the breakdown in courtroom decorum was so egregious that the judge told Perry he'd look favorably on a motion for a mistrial.  From off-screen comes Burger's anguished shout: "Mistrial??!!"  No matter how great it is seeing Burger's face contort in pain, nothing compares to that off-screen shriek.  Perhaps, as is the case with Fibber McGee's closet, imagination is better that seeing.  In any event, Perry smoothly thanks the judge but says he's willing to continue his questioning, because he believes a couple more questions could "clear everything up."  Of course, he's right.  Sometimes it's the person you thought it would be, sometimes it's a particularly smarmy suspect who finally gets her comeuppance, but in the end it's the sheer pleasure of watching Perry at work: puncturing an executive's pomposity, taking a gossipy crone to task, turning a wiley witness into a quivering bowl of Jell-O.  From that first "Isn't it true" you know where things are going.  And you love it.  "Here he goes!" you think, and you're right.

If I make this sound too simplistic, I don't mean to, because what Perry Mason does isn't simple at all.  To keep a formulaic program like this going for nine successful years, continuing to entertain audiences for week after week, takes a good staff of writers to come up with scripts, and an exceptional cast to execute them.  Raymond Burr so inhabited the role of Mason that he became a favorite speaker at law conventions and meetings of bar associations.  He infuses his character with an indefatigable desire for justice, and an unwavering belief in his client; even if he thinks that client has lied or withheld information, he's going to make damn sure that Burger, et al don't get a whiff of that doubt.  I've referred in the past to Mason as a single-combat warrior, a solitary figure standing in front of the bench, prepared to engage in a battle to the death in behalf of an innocent person.  In Mason's hands, or rather, in Raymond Burr's hands, the law becomes the most noble of professions, Mason the most distinguished of its practitioners.

It's quite a legacy to leave, not only the entertainment value of the series but the portrayal of the man in it, for Perry Mason is one of the most enjoyable programs on television in any era, and Perry Mason is one of the most heroic characters the medium has produced.  Forget the lack of development, the characters frozen in time year after year, unchanging from season to season.  Ignore the flaws and imperfections which never seem to manifest themselves in our heroes.  Concentrate instead on that courtroom scene, the thirty minutes that close out the episode, the most entertaining half hour on television.

This post is part of the the 2015 Summer of Me-TV Classic Television Blogathon. Click here to view the lineup of all the great posts in this blogathon. 

Around the dial - coming attractions and more!

Just a note to remind everyone that next week is the Classic TV Blog Association's annual Summer of Me-TV Blogathon.  Yours truly along with some of the finest classic TV bloggers around will be writing about some of the shows that make Me-TV one of the few networks worth watching.  You can read all about it here, but that's no substitute for reading about them all next week.

Outspoken and Freckled says goodbye to Mad Men, and I'll take this opportunity to admit once again that I've never seen a full episode of the series.  That doesn't mean I'm unaware of it though; I've read many a review at the A.V. Club, and I've got to admit that last week's last scene sounds pretty clever.  Now that I know how it ends, will that ruin it for me if I ever watch it?

Cult TV Blog introduces us to the world of Charley Says, and though I don't understand much about it, I really enjoyed reading it, as usual.  I think there are some very perceptive comments about the '70s as well; I, too, find it too easy to forget how fatalistic the 1970s were.  That doesn't mean things aren't bad today, but it seems as if we're always convinced that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.

Sorry to read that The Old Movie House is closing down, at least temporarily.  Get well soon, Tom!

Comfort TV introduces us to yet another exhibit in the Museum of Comfort TV: the Hoyt-Clagwell Tractor that Oliver and Lisa Douglas rode on Green Acres.  I know the Museum is all in the mind, but when it becomes a physical reality call me, David - I'll be glad to work there!

Television's New Frontier: the 1960s takes us back to one of the iconic shows of the '60s: My Three Sons.  I remember watching that show in my youth, though my memories are more of the show's later years, when I was too young to realize that Beverly Garland really was quite a babe at one time.

Television Obscurities will have another great TV Guide review up on Friday, but as of the time I'm writing this (late Thursday night) it isn't up yet.  So when you go over there, don't forget to read this piece on the wonderfully-named "new obscurities" of this television season.

Every single site on the sidebar has something worth reading, so just because I only gave you a handful here, take some time to look at the rest of these sites as well.  But make sure you remember to come back here tomorrow for another trip into the past of TV Guide. TV  

Get your classic detectives here!

Just want to take a minute to remind everyone of this week's Classic TV Detectives Blogathon sponsored by the Classic TV Blog Association.  I'd meant to write more on this today but was pressed for time due to the last-minute obituary for Leonard Nimoy, so I'll just direct everyone to this site, where you can read some delightful writing on television's classic detectives and crimefighters.  See you tomorrow for another TV Guide!

Peter Gunn - the smoothest P.I. on TV

This review is part of the Summer of MeTV Classic TV Blogathon hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. Click here to check out this blogathon's complete schedule.

***

Craig Stevens IS Peter Gunn

The first thing you remember, maybe the only thing you ever knew, is the theme. Driving, pulsing, jazzy with more than a hint or two of danger. The stingers as the opening credits end, like punches being delivered, or bullets being shot. The show does very well by Henry Mancini.

The name: Peter Gunn, Pete to his friends, Gunn to everyone else. Never Pete Gunn. Was there ever a better name for a TV detective? Not a (Richard) Diamond in the rough, not a (Johnny) Staccato music note. Maybe a (Thomas) Magnum, but that came much later, and doesn’t really take advantage of the wordplay. Peter Gunn packs a gun, and if things get too rough he’ll let you know it, too.

Peter Gunn was a half-hour drama that aired on NBC from 1958 to 1960, and spent a final season on ABC before going off the air in 1961. (But not out of the public consciousness, thanks to that theme.) It feels more like an ABC drama, to be honest, at least to me. Though it was produced by Blake Edwards*, long before the Pink Panther, it fits in well with the Warner Brothers shows that dominated the network in the late 50s and early 60s. It’s better than many of them, though. There’s a grit and an atmosphere to it that makes it one of the most noirish of TV series, with smoky saloons and foggy harbors and sultry girls with hints of danger, fists ready to fly and gunplay just waiting to break out.

*Whose first hit was none other than Richard Diamond.

The private eye patrolling this seedy beat was anything but: smooth, suave, urbane, suit tailored, tie knotted, pocket hanky carefully in place, with an ear for cool jazz and an eye for a hot woman. Craig Stevens, reminiscent of Cary Grant in his speech and his manner, but with an edge that lets you know he’s every bit as tough as his name suggests. His girl Edie, played by Lola Albright, singer at Mother’s, the joint that serves as Gunn’s office. Any suggestions that Gunn has the typical PI’s wandering eye are very few and far between – and why would you when you know you’ve got Edie waiting for you? His long-suffering contact at the department, Lieutenant Jacoby, Herschel Bernardi, a man who looks as if he wakes up world-weary. Their relationship is friendlier than most private/public cop pairings – Jacoby even gets to call him “Pete.”

Mancini's music was a smash

Jazz, pool halls, the Beats – they’re all part of the scene in Peter Gunn. Mother’s, the jazz club where Gunn hangs out, meets with clients, eyes Edie from a table; it has an air of dark sophistication, says Ray Starman in his analysis of TV noir, from a time "when respectable people walked down into basements and sat in smoky dark cabarets to hear music not written by Mozart or John Philip Sousa." The owner of the place, "Mother," played in the first season by Emmy nominee Hope Emerson, thereafter by Minerva Urecal - confidant, protector, someone who maintains a finger on the pulse of the seamier side of town and knows where at least a couple of the bodies are buried. A seemingly-limitless supply of sources whom Gunn taps for information – it’s not what you know, it’s who you know – from Babby the midget pool shark to Wilbur the Beat bard. And Gunn pays for the lowdown with cash – I’d like to see what his expense account looks like.

The tough guys are tough, but never tougher than Gunn. The girls are prettier, but never prettier than Edie. The heavies may be quick with the trigger, but not as quick as Jacoby, when he has to be. And you’re not going to get a lot of complications thrown in, not in a 30 minute show. Gunn’s got a job to do, and he’s going to do it, and you’d be wise not to get in his way. No loose ends, no wasted space. Got a problem with that?

So I know what you’re thinking: why should I care about a detective series that was on TV over 50 years ago? Good question. If the mood and the music aren't enough for you, there's Stevens’ portrayal of Gunn. In a genre that specializes in rumpled, hard-drinking, two-fisted playboys for heroes, Stevens is as smooth as a scotch on the rocks. He has the PI’s gift for glib, but friends and enemies both know he’s a man who’s not afraid to mess up his suit if he has to.

Pete & Edie (Lola Albright)

Another is Gunn’s relationship with Lola Albright’s Edie, two adults* secure in the positions they each have in the other’s life. Edie can take care of herself without being hard, but there’s a vulnerability that shows itself in the scenes played out between the two, such as when she asks Gunn if he likes kids. “Whose kids?”  he replies. “Anybody’s kids,” she says, and you know they both know what she means. She knows Pete’s life is not without risks, but it would be futile to try and change him. He is who he is, and that’s why she loves him – and why he’s not afraid to say he loves her. Albright provides her own smooth singing voice in Edie’s stage scenes, and you know Gunn’d have to be awfully dumb to play around on her. Does he look that dumb?

*Let me repeat that. Adults. In short supply on television nowadays.

Jacoby is one of the more likable policemen in the private detective arena. Sure he’s weary – he’s had his fill of disappointment and death, probably responsible for more than his share of it. He looks at Pete as a friend more than an adversary; he knows, even before the words are out of his mouth, that his warnings to stay out of police business are useless. And you know what? I don’t think he’d like Peter Gunn any other way either.

Jacoby (Herschel Bernardi) and Gunn 

Edwards later made a movie based on the series, called Gunn. It was OK. Craig Stevens was back, and Ed Asner was OK as Jacoby, but Laura Devon was all wrong for Edie. Watch it if you see it on TV, but don’t go out of your way for it. Peter Strauss played Gunn in a pilot that never went anywhere, which was too bad. He had the right stuff for the role, especially the way he looked in a tux. That would have been a series I would have watched. The word on the street is that they’re trying another remake, or at least thinking about it. I’d think about it very carefully if I was them; it’s a property you don’t want to mess up. Blow it, and I’ll drop it like a bad habit.

Half-hour dramas, once a staple on television, are deader than the dodo nowadays, which is a shame. You ought to check this show out, if you know what’s good for you. With its cast of colorful snitches, properly crooked hoods, and a dame or two that could be either a vamp or a vixen (or both), Peter Gunn is one show that’s going to give you the story, the whole story and nothing but the story. The bad guys get what’s coming to them, the hero gets the girl, and we all get to hear that cool music one more time. What more do you want? TV