Around the dial

I'm dating myself again, I know, but I can remember when Space: 1999 was supposed to be the next big thing, the first "adult" science-fiction series since Star Trek. It didn't quite turn out that way, but Captain Video dives into the comic collection to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the series. Fifty years; wow.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill combines movies and television in one neat package with a look at the 1980 telemovie The Scarlett O'Hara War, the story of David O. Selznick's search for the actress to play the aforementioned leading lady (as well as other backstage tales) in his upcoming epic, Gone with the Wind.  

And now, a trio of posts that have a tangential tie-in to my new book, Darkness in Primetime. First, at Comfort TV, David makes a gracious note of the book in his essay on "When is Classic TV important?" What makes one program more important than another? We all have our answers, but this is a good place to begin the discussion.

At The Twilight Zone Vortex, Brian takes a look at the memorable fifth-season TZ episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You," a frightening story of enforced conformity and loss of individuality; this episode is covered in Chapter 5 of Darkness in Primetime.

At Cult TV Blog, John reviews the mid-1970s series Survivors, a post-apocalyptic drama that explores the aftermath of a deadly global pandemic. John first viewed this series in 2020, in the midst of COVID Theater, which coincidentally was a major factor driving the genesis of Darkness in Primetime. There: self-promotion done.

We're not finished with British TV, though; at Silver Scenes, the Metzinger Sisters tease us with a preview of How, a children's series that ran for 17 seasons between 1966 and 1981. They'll have more on this in the coming weeks, but for now take a look at this clip and see what you think.

One more from across the pond? Why not! At Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddie looks at five British period dramas from the 1970s that more people should watch. Perhaps you've heard of them, perhaps not, but they're all dramas worth checking out.;

At A View from the Junkyard, Roger returns to The A-Team and the episode "Steel," a straightforward and uncompromising look at organized crime in the United States. It's no documentary, but neither does it seek to romanticize the mob, as so many shows continue to do. Let's just say that our fearless heroes aren't going to back down in the face of a formidable foe.

We were touching on trios earlier on, and here's a trio of posts from Television Obscurities: one on the 70th anniversary of The Honeymooners as a stand-alone series; a second on other series, well-known and otherwise, commemorating anniversaries this month; and a third, an audio clip from the opening of CBS's 1969 presentation of Mark Twain Tonight!, sponsored by Xerox, and starring Hal Holbrook.

Terence also has a piece on The Honeymooners over at A Shroud of Thoughts, as well as recognition of yet another series celebrating a 70th anniversary, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. What a great time for television, as we saw in my TV Guide review last Saturday.

And let's keep going with that TV Guide theme, as Martin Grams has more TV Guide trivia from 1959, including pitches for upcoming series (imagine Beetle Bailey starring Mort Sahl!), and a proposal for a big-screen version of Peter Lawford's The Thin Man, which itself was based on a big-screen version of Dashiell Hammett's famous novel.

Finally, if you're fortunate to have multiple sub-channels where you live, Remind Magazine tells you that you might be in luck, as Weigel Broadcasting (MeTV, etc.) has a new classic channel: WEST, featuring all Westerns, all day, every day. You can do worse; much worse. TV

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Around the dial

I chose the image above more for what it represents - an ideal - than anything else. As we speak, being able to sit back in the easy chair and watch television is a distant dream, what with boxes all over the place. Never fear; things will soon be back to normal, or at least what passes for it around here, but in order to make sure we don't miss a beat at It's About TV, I've started compiling this week's best-of well in advance, so that you might be able to benefit from the wisdom of others.

For example, at Comfort TV, David reflects on when Nick at Night was still done right. Looking at how that resource was wasted by the executives at the network reminds me of Franklin's words about the revolution, how "Never was such a valuable possession so stupidly and recklessly managed."

It's funny that Classic Film and TV Cafe is writing about the lone color episode of the original Perry Mason - we just saw that very episode a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps if the entire series had been filmed that way - but seeing Perry and Della and Hamilton Burger in color just didn't work for me. It was as if it had been colorized after the fact.

At Cult TV, John ponders the same question I've asked myself several times, an answer to which I'm still working on: why classic TV? John speaks of special effects when he says this, but I think he could be speaking of the characters as well, when he writes that "Perhaps we who watch old TV want to see things really happening to people who really existed?"

I did not know that yet another version of Agatha Christie's classic The Witness for the Prosecution had been done, but thanks to British TV Detectives I know it now. Unfortunately, it sounds very much as if this version - based not on the movie but on the original play - ultimately falls short. But then, when you have the original, why bother to improve on it?

What with the recent passing of Mary Tyler Moore, it seems a good time to look back beyond The Mary Tyler Moore Show to her first memorable appearance, which Once Upon a Screen covers in this look back at The Dick Van Dyke Show. 

At The Horn Section, Hal is back in the saddle with another episode of Hondo, this time the 1967 episode "Hondo and the War Hawks." It's a hard call considering I haven't seen Hondo, but I can't imagine the series is any more entertaining than Hal's writeups!

Another obituary in the television world, with the death this week of Professor Irwin Corey. The comedian was never my cup of tea, but then many people could say the same about my favorites. Classic Television Showbiz honors Corey with this clip from his 1983 appearance with David Letterman.

That's all I've got time for right now, but if I don't get a chance to update this before Friday, I hope I don't miss anyone. Just to be sure, you'd better check out all the classic TV blogs, as seen on the sidebar. TV  

Once "Around the Dial," Maestro

The title for this week's entry comes from our first story, a very interesting link from Terry Teachout on Leonard Bernstein's Young Peoples Concerts on CBS, and why they had such prominence when they were aired. In this Saturday's TV Guide review I take some time to look at a typical Sunday afternoon of programming back in the early '60s, also known as the timeslot where cultural shows went to die. It's quite interesting to note that half of Bernstein's concerts appeared not in this Sunday afternoon slot, but in prime time. How things change.

Speaking of Teachout, you'll recall that last year I wrote about Bob Hope, and how Teachout had identified him as a man largely forgotten today. I had my doubts, which have increased since then, and that's why this piece from the AV Club on the lasting influence of the Crosby-Hope "Road" movies interested me. Forgotten by individuals, perhaps, but still present in what we watch.

At Comfort TV, David delivers a timely message, one with which I agree wholeheartedly: Do not leave this world without tracking down The Fugitive. Message received?  By the way, for those of you who like to mix genres, my obituary of Andy Griffith included my surmise of what might have happened if Dr. Richard Kimble had strayed into Mayberry. It's not played for yukks, either.

I've always had something of an affinity for losers, having been one (big time) when I ran for political office in a previous life.* Naturally, therefore, I was attracted to Cult TV's article on the obscure British show The Losers, starring Reginald Perrin's Leonard Rossiter.

*So much so that I used to joke our campaign theme ought to have been Beck's "Loser."

Television Obscurities has a piece on the state of classic TV on television, which gives us a rundown on the increasing number of classic TV channels, and what you can expect on each of them. In our apartment building, thanks to ATT Uverse, all we can get is MeTV, which means an HD antenna may well be in our future.

Those Were the Days has some great images in their collection, and this one is a terrific TV Guide cover from 1956 with Janis Page. The colors on that are so vivid; they leap off the page so much more than the covers today. (Check out the green logo!) And of course Janis isn't bad either.

And speaking of images, Faded Signals has some great ones from the good old days when Dallas was on the air. That's my adopted hometown you're talking about now, and although some of the sites (like Texas Stadium) have since disappeared, there's still a lot of the skyline to see.

Many thanks to you who wished me well last week while I recovered from my brief bout of something or other, from which I've mostly recovered thanks to the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals. Let's celebrate with a new issue of TV Guide tomorrow!  What's that, you say I do that every Saturday anyway? Well, we'll still take a look at it! TV