This week in TV Guide: August 11, 1973

We lead off this week's lesson in television and sociology with Leonard Gross's meditation on why television has been reluctant to offer women in strong, heroic roles. The impetus for this discussion comes from an ABC Movie of the Week entitled The Bait, starring Donna Mills as a policewoman, which aired last January. It received positive reviews from the critics and terrific ratings. The Movie of the Week franchise itself was known as a proving ground for future series, such as The Night Stalker, Kung Fu, and The Six Million Dollar Man.

And yet, when it came to the new fall season, The Bait remained on the shelf, just one of many series featuring strong female leads that failed to make it to series status. As far as prime time is concerned, says Gross, "women continued to be portrayed as they had been through the years: at best as professional auxiliaries, at worst as self-denigrating, if amusing, idiots in the tradition of Lucille Ball." The closest thing we've seen to an "emancipated" woman may well be Mary Tyler Moore, and we never see her character in front of the camera on her series.

Lee Rich, producer of The Waltons, looks back at the history of strong women on television, actresses such as Barbara Stanwyck, Loretta Young, and Jane Wyman. "I think there are some fantastic actresses who could carry dramatic TV shows today," he says. "But the networks aren't buying women." He points to a proposal for a series that would have starred Stella Stevens as a nurse. "Who wants to see a prime-time series about a woman," he was told by a network official. A similar proposal for a legal drama starring Susan Hayward met a similar fate.

So what gives? Martin Antonowsky, director of research for ABC, says that males always score higher than females in the testing done by the network. And keep in mind, he says, that women outnumber men 52 percent to 48 (no additional genders in those days), which can only mean that women prefer seeing heroic men as well. In fact, he points out, although The Bait scored very high marks from test audiences, their response when asked if they'd like to see it as a series was only "marginally above average." "People tend to accept situations that they consider real," Antonowski says. "When people think of a doctor, lawyer, or detective, they don't tend to think of women. The change has to be a social phenomenon before you can accept it on television." 

Aaron Spelling, who made The Bait, and would go on to offer Charlie's Angels, in which women were unquestionable heroic figures (even though the program itself fell somewhat short on the prestige drama meter), speculates that "for me there's something threatening about watching women in lead roles." This is a viewpoint seconded by writer Fay Kanin: "You can be strong in a comedy show as long as you're funny, but when you're serious, it seems to disturb the men who make the decisions."

Ethel Winant, director for talent and casting at CBS, counters that this is a concern that women share as well as men, looking at the post-war period when women viewed themselves as "perfect mothers" and were inclined to view with resentment heroic female figures on television. "There was a whole period when we created this monster—and we resented the woman who didn't believe in all this. Women of this generation found women leads bossy, unfeminine and not concerned about the things that concerned them." Women, by nature and cultural custom, tend to project a certain vulnerability, something that falls flat with many viewers. "They want a hero who is invulnerable," Winant says. "When Jim Arness walks on in Gunsmoke, you know that all will be OK. The Marshal will always work it out. In daytime, women can relate to mistakes. I could look at my heroine and say, 'She's going through the same things I am.'"

This all makes for a fascinating discussion, particularly when viewed in retrospect. We've become accustomed to strong woman on the screen, taking on roles ranging from police enforcer to political schemer. Antonowski's point, that viewers see these things through a plausibility filter, makes for an interesting proposition, because it seems to run counter to today's view that television itself can—and, in many cases, should—act as an advocate in shaping societal convention. In other words, television could help society as a whole view women as strong figures in traditionally male-dominated positions.

This sounds very much like what Fay Kanin is getting at with her insistence that "You don't ask people questions about what they're going to like. You give them what you believe in. You can very often create your hit that way." It sounds, at least to me, as if she's also suggsting that you can create the environment in which your show not only becomes successful, but helps to change and shape a society in which this viewpoint will become more acceptable, more common.

The discussion strikes at the heart of the conundrum regarding television, which I've written about many times, as to whether it reflects society's attitudes or molds them. The answer is both, but I don't think you can dispute the fact that the pendulum has swung over the years, from a quasi-Lincolnesque attitude that television can't get too far ahead of what the viewer is willing to accept, to one based on advocacy, in which television forcefully demonstrates a particular viewpoint as to how things should be, and continues to beat the drum accordingly.

The reason we enjoy these kinds of discussions is because we've seen what has happened in the half-century that followed this article. Think about Angie Dickinson in Police Woman, Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, Susan Dey in L.A. Law, Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly in Cagney & Lacey, Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Robin Wright in House of Cards (and her counterpoint in the superior British version, Susannah Harker)—well, those just pop off the top of my head, but there are many, many more. In fact, one might argue that television today features more strong female characters than it does male.

Whether or not this is a good thing is not something I'm about to discuss right here, right now. However, I'd mention one character we haven't discussed here: Donna Reed in The Donna Reed Show. Her character managed a busy household, took on the primary responsibility for successfully raising her children, was an influential partner to her husband as well as a supportive one, and did it all while wearing dresses and pearls and looking glamorous. If that isn't heroic, I don't know what is. And considering the role that Reed played behind the scenes in the production and shaping of the show, I'd say that was pretty strong as well. Which, perhaps, means that strong and heroic female characters come in all kinds.

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Two of television's definitive rock music shows, NBC's The Midnight Special and ABC's In Concert, faced off on Friday nights in the early '70s. Whenever the two slug it out, we'll be on hand to see who's better, who's best.

Midnight: Comedian Richard Pryor (host), Cajun musician Doug Kershaw, blues singer Albert King, the Electric Light Orchestra, rock singer Joe Walsh, and pop singers Melissa Manchester and Joe Hicks. 

Concert: The gentle sounds of singer-songwriter John Sebastian, complimented by rock from Black Oak Arkansas, Lee Michaels, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the Electric Light Orchestra.

Ordinarily, I'd automatically give the edge to whichever show featured ELO, but unfortunately that isn't an option, as Jeff Lynne and company do double duty this week. So, we'll see how deep the benches are, and since I'm in the mood for something a little harder, I think I'll stay away from John Sebastian and his granny glasses, and throw my hat in the ring with Richard Pryor, et al. This week, the Special hits all the right notes.

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TV Guide's occasional feature, "The Way It Was," which we last saw in this March 1973 article by Robert Alan Aurthur, returns this week to commemorate the twenty-first anniversary of the premiere of Omnibus, one of the most fascinating and creative programs seen on American television, in an article written by the show's producer, Robert Saudek. The contents of that first program are indicitave of the variety displayed on the series: Rex Harrison and Lili Palmer as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; excerpts from a play by William Saroyan and the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado; x-rays demonstrating "human innards at work"; Haitian dancer Jean Leon Destine in a witch-doctor dance; and a slow motion look at a giant jack rabbit in mid flight. All in one 90-minute program, broadcast live on a Sunday afternoon.

I've made the point before, but it bears repeating: Omnibus, like NBC Opera Theatre and G-E College Bowl, was the kind of program networks used to show on Sunday afternoons before they became dominated by sports and infomercials. It was often referred to as the cultural graveyard, because Sunday afternoon was a time when networks could afford to air programs that attracted small, if loyal, audiences, but what these also offered was culture, entertainment, and programs that were interesting as well as educational. They were, as I mentioned on Wednesday while talking about Ayn Rand's appearance on The Tonight Show, the mark of middlebrow culture, something that has disappeared from the scene as surely as the middle-class has followed along.

Live television was its own breed of cat, as it were, and in the case of Omnibus, which proved particularly challenging considering its multiple segments, things could become especially dicey. Saudek recalls one particular occasion during a production of Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson" when, following an execution scene, the technicians and extras rushed to another corner of the studio for the next scene, leaving the actor playing the villain hanging from a harness that was intended to hold his weight while his head was in the noose. Soon enough, he felt the harness give way, and only the quick actions of a stagehand who happened to see the unfolding drama prevented some extra excitement in the studio.

Omnibus was a true variety show in every sense of the word. Leonard Bernstein made several apperances on the program, prefiguring his Young People's Concerts, including a never-before-seen look at various sketches of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony that the conductor had rejected, while Jack Benny reprised his role in a television version of his movie The Horn Blows at Midnight, (which I write about in Darkness in Primetime), and the then-husband and wife team of James and Pamela Mason read a series of letters between Napoleon and Josephine. A series of episodes portrayed various events in the life of Abraham Lincoln, dramatized by playwright James Agee. (Stanley Kubrick was one of the second-unit directors on that project.) Not every Omnibus was bent on culture; one episode, included in anoter DVD collection from the show, featured a behind-the-scenes look at a meeting of the editorial board of The New York Times, showing what goes into the preparation of the next day's edition; another show presented the young comedic couple of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, launching them to stardom in the process.

Omnibus, in Saudek's words, "served its drinks straight"—it was not "a TV reporter giving you secondhand samples of 'newsworthy' performances," but the performances themselves; "theater as theater; music as music; dance, history, literature, athletics as living ideas and shows and people. It left journalism to others, and pursued first-generation, 200-proof performance for its own sake." It remains one of the shining monuments of American television, and the fact that we have nothing to compare to it today says much—about the television networks, about the evolution of our culture, about us ourselves. Because those who make television and those who watch it all come from the same gene pool, so to speak: if the fault lies not with ourselves, then where?

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The final major golf tournament of the year, the PGA Championship, wraps up this weekend from the Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland, and ABC is on hand for coverage of the final two rounds, Saturday at 5:00 p.m., and Sunday at 4:30 p.m. The winner? Ohio's own Jack Nicklaus, who finishes at -7, for a four-stroke victory over Bruce Crampton. Also on Saturday is one of those pilots featuring strong women that was "left on the shelf": Partners in Crime (9:30 p.m., NBC), starring Lee Grant as a former judge-turned-private detective who's on the search for a cool $750,000 stolen in a robbery. Lou Antonio, Harry Guardino, Richard Jaeckel, and Bob Cummings (!) co-star.

Sunday night's treat is a delightful Columbo episode (8:30 p.m., NBC) featuring Martin Landau in a dual role, as twins suspected of murder. They've implemented an ingenious plan, but do you think it's going to fool the good lieutenant? Not a chance. That's followed by the final episode of Night Gallery (9:30 p.m., NBC) featuring Chuck Connors and Gary Lockwood in a story that bears a passing resemblance to The Twilight Zone's "A Game of Pool." At least, I think so. 

With the NFL season opener a month away, it may be too early for Monday Night Football, but that doesn't mean we're rid of Howard Cosell; Monday's late-night feature on ABC is Howard Cosell with the Miami Dolphins, a two-part look at the defending Super Bowl champions (11:30 p.m.; part two airs tomorrow night at the same time). Among the features are interviews with head coach Don Shula and members of his staff, plus key players and their wives. It'll have to be some preview to fill three hours over two nights.

Tuesday has a little something for everyone, beginning with a repeat of part one of the controversial two-part Maude in which the titular character deals with an unwanted pregnancy. (8:00 p.m., CBS) Opposite that is part one of John Wayne's sprawling Oscar-nominated The Alamo (8:00 p.m., NBC, with part two on Friday). Judith Crist, not surprisingly, isn't that impressed, although she does concede that Wayne makes for a better movie star than director, and "at most it builds to excitement in the last half of the second half." Marginally preferable, in her eyes, is the Rowan and Martin feature The Maltese Bippy (9:30 p.m., CBS), "intended for the pair's insatiable addicts," but highlighted by Mildred Natwick and Martin as Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart, which justifies "that tolerance, if not the drear in between." And PBS chimes in with a concert by Pink Floyd from the Fillmore East in San Francisco (9:00 p.m.) I must admit, however, that as a Floyd admirer, I've never heard them referred to as "Acid rock." 

I mentioned on Monday that we aren't to the beginning of the NFL season, but that doesn't mean we're without football: on Wednesday, we're treated to some north-of-the-border CFL action, as the Montreal Alouettes take on Joe Theismann and the Toronto Argonauts (8:00 p.m., WKBG in Boston). But the highlight of the night, if not the week, is the repeat of the acclaimed 1971 TV movie Duel (8:30 p.m., ABC), directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Dennis Weaver. Interestingly, Judith Crist isn't overwhelmed by it, saying that it "builds to moderately good suspense, enough to make up for the surplus of voice-over interior thinking." It's since gone on to be considered one of the greatest thrillers of the decade.

Marty Allen and Steve Rossi were one of the more successful comedy teams of the 1960s, but they were no Rowan and Martin, and their 1966 movie The Last of the Secret Agents? (Thursday, 9:00 p.m., CBS) proves it. The plot, such as it is, involves a plan to steal the Venus de Milo, and Crist allows as to how the duo aren't completely to blame for the fiasco; "one should note that they were given pure sow's ear to play with." Elsewhere, Chief Dan George stars in a topical episode of Kung Fu (9:00 p.m., ABC) involving Indian land rights, and any resemblance to contemporary issues of the 1970s is, I'm sure, purely intentional.

As CBS demonstrated with Tuesday's Maude repeat, the summer is a terrific time to bury those controversial programs that the network may be contractually obligated to repeat, and another example is David Rabe's Tony Award-winning play "Sticks and Bones" (Friday, 9:00 p.m., CBS). I wrote about this anti-Vietnam play here, so there's no point in going over it again; suffice it to say that a Friday night during the dog days of summer is a perfect place to hide it.  

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One of the most storied records in all of sports is Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs. The number itself is burned in the mind of the most casual baseball fan, and for generations, the record seemed so far out of reach that it was unthinkable it would ever be broken. But as we enter the final two months of the baseball season, it's not only thinkable, it's a virtual certainty that the record will fall, at the hands of Atlanta's Hank Aaron. And when it happens, as Marty Ralbovsky tells us, NBC will be there. 

NBC is, of course, the network of record for Major League Baseball, and Til Ferdenzi, sports publicity manager of NBC, says that the network will have crews following Aaron full-time once he reaches 710. "He's going to break the greatest record in sports," Ferdenzi says. "After 713, we might broadcast all Atlanta games live. . . We could pull in an audience of 50 million people for those games. Everybody wants to see history when it happens."

Well, not everybody; Ralbovsky does make mention of the hate mail which Aaron receives, the most threatening of which have been turned over to the Atlanta PD. An example: "You can hit all dem home runs over dem short fences but you can't take dat black off yo face." Fortunately, since the publc learned of the volume and viciousness of the mail, things have turned around; Carla Koplan, assigned by the Braves to serve as Aaron's personal secretary, reports that up to 99 percent of recent mail has been positive, particularly among young people.

At the beginning of the season, Aaron needed 42 home runs to break Ruth's record; after a season in which he finished with 40 home runs and a .301 batting average, he wound up, incredibly, one short of tying the Babe. When it comes time for the 1974 season to begin, a comedy of errors threatens to overshadow the chase; despite Aaron being tantalizingly close, and with the Braves hoping the historic moment can take place at home, the league inexplicably schedules them to begin the season on the road, in Cincinnati. Aaron promptly homers on Opening Day to tie the record, but with the team talking about keeping him on the bench until they return to Atlanta, commissioner Bowie Kuhn threatens the Braves with disciplinary action unless they agree to play Aaron. Fortunately for all concerned, he goes homerless in the remaining games in Cincy, and then breaks the record in the Braves home opener—carried on NBC. For some of us, he's still the all-time home run champion.

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MST3K alert: War of the Monsters, aka Gamera vs. Barugon (Japanese; 1966) Previously shot to Mars in a rocket, but now back for an encore, the monstrous reptile Gamera effects a fateful meeting with the horrible Barugon. Result: civic chaos. Kojiro Hongo. (Thursday, 11:00 p.m., WSBK in Boston) It's the long-awaited sequel to 1965's Gamera, the Giant Monster, and the 13th movie in the epic saga of the flying, flame-spewing turtle who started out as a monster determined to wreak havoc on Tokyo but morphed into "a protector of humanity especially children, nature, and the Earth from extraterrestrial races and other giant monsters." The lesson, I suppose, is to be good to giant monsters, and they'll be good to you. TV  

This week in TV Guide: June 2, 1973

Among the many pleasures of classic-era television, few bring about as many warm memories as those of the local children's shows that so many of us grew up watching. In my neck of the woods, those shows included Lunch with Casey, Clancy the Cop, Dave Lee and Pete, and Carmen the Nurse; slightly earlier, it would have been Axel and His Dog and T.N. Tatters. Just about everyone has similar memories of those shows, and the local personalities hosting them. Those days are long gone, of course, and as is the case with so many things, we're left wondering How things got this way. 

Recently, 40 of these hosts gathered in Key Biscayne, Florida, guests of the Muscular Dystrophy Association as part of their "backyard carnival" planning sessions, heavily promoted and supported on local programs. The stories they tell Neil Hickey are not pleasant ones, and together they paint a picture of an America that has long since vanished. 

It all began with the new addition to the Television Code by the National Association of Broadcasters, prohibiting children's shows from airing commercials during or adjacent to their programming "that might imply any endorsement whatsoever of the advertised products." The assumption behind the rule was that the hosts of said kiddie shows exert an "oversided influence" on their viewers, thus inducing them to pressure mom and dad for that special toy, candy, breakfast cereal, or other product. (I'm shocked, shocked, to find that commercials could influence shopping habits.) This, sensibly, led many of the sponsors to pull out of their local TV advertising, which in turn led many of those hosts to quit. "When the rule became effective last January 1," said Rex Trailer of WBZ, host of the syndicated Earth Lab, "they were like waiters who were told they couldn't take tips any more. So they just quit." 

Compounding the problem is lobbying by the villain of the piece, Action for Children's Television, which is pressuring the FCC to ban all commercial advertising on children's programs. The result, says Hickey, could "bring down the curtain on local, live children's programming, and undermine network kidvid as well." Says Chuck Zink of WTVJ in Miami, who has been playing "Skipper Chuck" in the market for 17 years, "I think they're out of their minds. They rave about Sesame Street, but nobody ever mentions that Sesame Street is fantastically well-funded. I'd love to have its budget. Give me nine million dollars and I'd show you what kind of shows I could do." 

"It's a dangerous Big Brother kind of thing," adds Bill McClain, "Brakeman Bill" on KTNT in Seattle-Tacoma, who thinks this kind of pressuring could extend to news programming as well. "Many pressure groups are unhappy with TV news, and this is one way of getting at it." He also points to the elephant in the room: "If you look at who the organizers are behind the pressure groups, you see that they're very heavily infused with public-TV people. They'd love to get a lot more Government money into children's programming. But then you have a dangerous concentration of Government power. First, they're teaching kids how to read and write, and then they're telling them how to vote."

As an example of the chilling effect the rule has already had, look no further than WSYR in Syracuse. "For years, WSYR had no fewer than 11 local, live children's programs a week: morning and afternoon shows each weekday, and a two-hour extravaganza on Saturdays. Now there is only one; Salty Sam is tucked away in a 7-8 A.M. Saturday slot, with minimal ratings and practically no budget." 

No matter how good national shows, whether from PBS or the commercial networks, may be, there's one thing they can't replicate from local hosts: personal appearances. Bill McLain makes a telling point about the loss of local kid shows: "One day the public will wake up and discover all the TV kid entertainers gone. Who's going to visit the hospitals, the schools, the shut-in children—Daffy Duck?"

Now, you can't lay the blame for this entirely on ACT, no matter how sanctimonious they were with their pseudo-altruistic rhetoric about the dangers of children's television. Over the decades the family home has changed completely; children don't come home for lunch, they're more active after school, they watch less TV and more video games, and the like. As I said, it's a lost world we're talking about, a way of life that no longer exists. But the demise of local children's programming certainly didn't help matters, and McLain's warnings about government involvement in children's programming are well-founded. And we haven't even begun to discuss the role that hyperactive programs such as Sesame Street may have played in shortening the attention span of children, which has shrunk to microscopic levels over the years. (True, nobody ever accused Howdy Doody of being sedate, but still.) Through the years, Fred Rogers was a welcome respite from such busyness, but now we don't have him. And we don't have those local hosts, either; more's the pity.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

As yet another television season comes to a close (most of this week's programs are reruns), Cleveland Amory takes his annual look at the second thoughts he might have had during the season. The four reviews that provoked the most comments from you, the readers, were his takes on M*A*S*H, The Little People (later to become The Brian Keith Show), UFO, and Banacek. To those who wrote in, he replies that he "found M*A*S*H a little better, The Little People a little worse, UFO a lot worse and Banacek better." As he adds, "see, we can admit we were wrong."

Going deeper into the season, he concedes that he's "grown to like" both McMillan & Wife and The Streets of San Francisco, both of which suffered from weak starts. And he thought he'd given a positive review to Kung Fu, but apparently it wasn't positive enough. He also wants to reassure the person who suggested that he was jealous of Kaine that he, Amory, has "lots more hair than he has." To those who felt he disliked Bridget Loves Bernie, he didn't dislike either of them; just the show. One writer clucked that Amory seemed to have a predisposition against the old jokes that appear in both The Little People and Banyon, to which Cleve replies that "We don't mind old jokes. As our readers know, we even love making up old jokes. We just mind when a whole show is an old joke."

He saves some praise for PBS's landmark documentary series An American Family, which I wrote about here. While he thought it "technically mediocre, pointlessly overlong and poorly edited," the fact was that "here was a dramatization of the decline and fall of the American dream. It was the most talked-about show of the year, and just exactly what public television should be doing and should not be cut off from doing." Comparing and contrasting it with his favorite show of the year, The Waltons, Amory concludes, "Look at both these series. A Depression family with nothing. An affluent family with everything. And then ask yourself: which one had nothing and which one had everything? Ask yourself, in other words, not what the country has gained in the past 40 years, but what we have lost."

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Two of television's definitive rock music shows, NBC's The Midnight Special and ABC's In Concert, faced off on Friday nights in the early '70s. Whenever the two slug it out, we'll be on hand to see who's better, who's best.

Midnight: Soul artist Curtis Mayfield hosts. Guests include Ravi Shankar, Jose Feliciano, Canned Heat, the soul singing Spinners, and pop duo Tufano and Giammarese. 

Concert: A lot of rock from groups T. Rex; Grass Roots; Beck, Bogert and Appice, and singer John Kay. Plus a little pop from Johnny Nash and the Sons of the Jungle.

I probably saw this week's Midnight Special; it would have been the only thing on television in the World's Worst Town™ on a Friday night, and when you're in high school, Friday and Saturday nights are a major occasion to be able to stay up late. (Oh, for the days when I could make it to midnight on any night of the week.) Anyway, I don't have a lot to go on as far as opinions, so for old times' sake, we'll give the edge to the Midnight Special.

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One of the treats of the week is Peter Ustinov's portrayal of King George III on the CBS News special "The Last King of America" (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m.), part of their American Revolution series leading up to the Bicentennial. If you're too young to remember, the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was a big deal in this country, even though it was somewhat stained by the aftertaste of Watergate; still, the leadup to 1976 was tremendous, and this series on the Revolution was just one of the ways CBS, and all the other networks, sought to join in. The premise gives us newsman Eric Sevareid interviewing Ustinov's George, who improvises his answers based on history and his knowledge of George's politics.

Accompanying the program is a TV Guide Background article written by James Thomas Flexner, who authored perhaps the definitive George Washington biography, which was itself turned into not one, but two TV miniseries (1984's George Washington and 1986's George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation), both of which starred Barry Bostwick as Washington. In his article, Flexner provides a genuine insight into George III, explaining his family background and how, at first, George was well-liked both in England and the colonies. There are, in fact, several parallels between the Revolution and the American war in Vietnam, including how support for the war was initially quite strong in England, and how George was laid low by increasing public damands for peace, which would haunt George for the rest of his life (he reigned for 37 years after the Revolution). Flexner doesn't make a point of emphasizing these similarities; he doesn't have a political axe to grind, he doesn't want to score points with any particular ideological group: he just leaves readers to see these similarities for themselves. 

It's a popular belief that George was insane; Flexner points out that he likely suffered from porphyria, "an error of metabolism," which he inherited from his ancestors, including Mary, Queen of Scots. It is true, however, that he often behaved in an erratic, if not insane, manner. It's a tragic story, in many ways. As Flexner says, "No king ever had better intentions than George III. It was his misfortune to have been misaimed by his peculiar childhood and then to have stumbled into the American Revolution, a world-shaking event far beyond his competence to control."

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How many of you remember watching an ABC miniseries called The Strauss Family? It goes without saying that I don't, given that I was stuck in the World's Worst Town™, but if you didn't suffer that handicap, it might ring a bell. It was a British Associated Television production, aired in 1972 over there, and in 1973 ABC carried it for eight weeks on Saturday nights at 9:00 p.m. PT. (I'm a bit surprised it didn't find its way to Masterpiece Theatre.) The Strausses wrote some lovely music, but I can't see the appeal that this series would have had in America, unless the thought was that we'd eat up anything British, and they might well have been correct. The biggest names in the series (not necessarily the stars) are probably Derek Jacobi and Jane Seymour, although many of the actors are probably well-known to Anglophile viewers. 

Sunday's highlight comes on The Wonderful World of Disney (7:30 p.m., NBC), a 50th-anniversary celebration. Included is the evolution of Mickey Mouse, highlights of past Disney TV shows and movies, and something I can guarantee you wouldn't see today: a clip from Uncle Remus singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" from Song of the South, which the company has shamefully tried to purge from its history. If they ever reran this show today, they'd probably make sure to clip that scene out. And does anyone out there recall Reverend Ike? If you'd seen him, you'd remember; anyway, tonight his show premieres on WMUR in Manchester at 11:30 p.m.

The must-see TV on Monday comes later on; you'll read about it at the very end. But in the meantime, you might check out a pair of local movies, which are about as different as you could ask for: The Band Wagon (9:00 p.m., WCBV), starring Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and a scene-stelling performance by Oscar Levant; or The Fountainhead (9:00 p.m., WKBG in Boston), a faithful adaptation of Ayn Rand's controversial novel (adapted by Rand herself), with Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey.

One of the lesser Peanuts cartoons leads off Tuesday: He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown (8:00 p.m., CBS), with Snoopy being sent off to obedience school. The series of strips on which this cartoon was based was funny enough, but let's face it: after A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, a lot of those cartoons really don't make much of an impression. Making a much greater impression is ABC's movie of the week, a repeat of That Certain Summer (8:30 p.m.), which discussed homosexuality in a far more frank way than television was accustomed to doing. Hal Holbrook, Martin Sheen, Hope Lange, and Scott Jacoby head an outstanding cast.

In addition to Peter Ustinov's bravura performance in "The Last King of America," Wednesday offers an ABC Theatre repeat of ◀ "If You Give a Dance You Gotta Pay the Band" (9:00 p.m.), a look at life in the black ghetto, produced by David Susskind, directed by Fred Coe, and written by ex-convict and former drug addict Stanley L. Gray, and stars Donna Bryan and a very, very young (11 years old) Laurence Fishburne. That's followed by an ABC News Special that stays on the mean streets: "The Methadone Connection" (10:30 p.m.), which investigates the growing use of the opiate to treat heroin addiction. 

On Thursday, we've got another one of those crossover episodes that tries to convince us that different series on the same network share the same universe: It's a special two-hour Ironside featuring the doctors from The Bold Ones, E.G. Marshall and David Hartman, treating a critically-injured Ed for a bullet wound that closely resembles the kind that paralyzed Ironside (8:00 p.m., NBC). I suspect this was originally one of those storylines that began on Ironside and ended on The Bold Ones.

The CBS Friday Night Movie is a three-hour epic, The Shoes of the Fisherman (8:00 p.m.), an overblown adaptation of Morris L. West's novel about the election of a new pope from the Soviet Union. Judith Crist calls it "mostly Hollywood with little true reverence," and, having both read the book and seen the movie, I'd agree with that, although the movie did take on added significance after the Church elected an actual pope from the Soviet bloc: John Paul II. Anthony Quinn does the honors; his Soviet adversary is Laurence Olivier.

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One of the provisos in this week's programming is that live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings could result in schedule changes or preemptions. In the early days of the hearings, all three networks carried the hearings live, with PBS showing taped replays in primetime for those unable to watch during the day So far, according to Richard K. Doan, the reviews have been mixed; in Chicago, ABC's affiliate WLS received just over 300 calls during the first two days of coverage supporting the coverage, while 450 were angered that their favorite soaps and game shows were gone. CBS says their feedback has been about 50/50, while NBC reports calls were running "more heavily to beefs." 

Networks are said to be losing about $1 million a day in revenue due to the coverage, and they're not sure how long they'll continue to provide it on a start-to-finish basis. As I recall, the nets wound up rotating coverage, which is what people have been calling for on major news coverage for years. Today, this would dominate the news channels, but I wonder how much of it would bleed over to over-the-air? In turn, would coverage that was exclusively cable-based have put as much pressure on President Nixon to resign? All speculative, of course, but one can't help but wonder, even as one marvels at how much things have changed over the years.

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MST3K alert: Girls Town (1959) Unconvincing story of a wayward girl (Mamie Van Doren) sent to a reform school run by nuns. Fred: Mel Torme. Dick: Ray Anthony. Jimmy: Paul Anka. Vida: Gloria Talbott. Mother Veronica: Maggie Hayes. Serafina: Gigi Perreau. Sister Grace: Sheilah Graham. Stan: Dick Contino. Mary: Elinor Donahue. (Monday, 11:00 p.m., WSBK in Boston) There's really not much more to add to this one; despite Mel Torme, Ray Anthony, and Paul Anka (who plays a thinly-disguised version of himself), this is about what you'd expect. Which is to say: a perfect movie for MST3K. TV  

This week in TV Guide: January 12, 1974

Looking back through the years, I have, more than once, used the terms "Super Bore" or "Stupor Bowl" to refer to the Super Bowl. The game is only a small part of what has grown to encompass special commercials made for the occasion, pregame and halftime concerts featuring superstar artists, and marathon analysis both before and after the game. (It doesn't hurt that there have actually been some pretty good games the last couple of decades, but face it—that's just a bonus.)

Back in the 1970s, though, the game was the thing, to paraphrase Shakespeare, and over the first seven editions, the "ultimate game" hadn't really delivered much. Several of them had been blowouts, the two games won by the AFL had been huge upsets but not all that interesting, and the closest game—Baltimore's 16-13 victory over Dallas three years ago—had been so full of mistakes by both teams pit was called the "Blunder Bowl."

Al Stump uses the "Super Bore" line in his preview of Sunday's Big Game between the defending champion Miami Dolphins and the NFC champion Minnesota Vikings, from Rice Stadium in Houston (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS). Even in its infancy, the game had a feeling approaching "near-lunacy," with the game being the last thing on anyone's mind; Washington defensive back Mike Bass recalls having to attend three team press conferences, photo events, program signing parties, team busses stalled in traffic jams (last year's game was played in Los Angeles), besides practicing for, you know, the game. "Things are so wild that you're distracted—to the point where you can't perform normally on the field. At the kickoff, those 22 cats out there are in trouble, man." Not surprisingly, the game itself was "dull and a letdown, with some spectators walking out before the Dolphins finally beat the skins 14-7."

Stump calls these past games "a bore, and, at times, a farce," where the teams "make an abundance of errors and do little scoring." Coaches, feeling the pressure and fearing defeat, run ultra-conservative game plans and use even tighter defenses than the regular season. There have been few spectacular plays in Super Bowls (only four times has a runner gained 20 or more yards on a single run), and no last-minute comebacks. And in those seven games, a total of only 12 touchdown passes have been thrown. (In fact, there have only been 25 touchdowns in total scored in the game's history.) 

That doesn't stop CBS from offering up today's contest as the "ultimate game," utilizing 14 color cameras and six miles of cable, and "[n]o fewer than 15 experts will be trotted out, or roughly one expert for every five players who'll see action." But, then, who says it's about the game? "The past seven Super Bowls have sold 543,852 tickets, taken in $25 million and paid $8.7 million to the athletes. NBC and CBS, investing $17,750,000 for telecast rights since 1967, now reach 28 milion homes and some 75 million people. A cool 10 million words have been filed from Super Bowl press boxes." That's what the Super Bowl is all about, Charlie Brown. 

As I mentioned at the outset, the Super Bowl has come a long way since these early days. The networks spend more and more money to broadcast the game to more and more viewers, while commercials sell for extraordinarily obscene amounts of money (in 1974, 30 seconds sold for $103,000, while last year, a half-minute commercial would cost you $7 million.) The game was played in the afternoon back in 1974 (preceded by an NBA game), and the pregame show was only 30 minutes long. The half-time entertainment was provided by the University of Texas Longhorn Band, with Miss Texas, Judy Mallett, playing the fiddle. Networks didn't bother to try and introduce a promising show in the coveted post-game timeslot; Super Bowl VIII was followed by the local news. 

As for Super Bowl VIII? Well, it fit the pattern to a T; the Dolphins dominated early and often with its ground game; Miami quarterback Bob Griese through only seven passes (completing six, for 63 yards total), while the Dolphins rushed for almost 200 yards on 53 attempts. No touchdown passes were thrown by either team. The final score was Miami 24, Minnesota 7, and it wasn't even that close.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

James Stewart's transition to television as star of his own series has not, Cleveland Amory says, been a smooth one. In his previous try, the "unlamented" Jimmy Stewart Show, he played a college professor "with all the authority of a nervous giraffe." Now, as a high-powered country lawyer in the 90-minute Hawkins, airing as part of CBS's new Tuesday Night Movies wheel series, he returns to "the kind of role that made him famous—the barefoot boy with chic." And while he has all the gestures down pat, it's the kind of character that has always had a limited range; "At its best, it makes you nostalgic for some of Mr. Stewart's old films. At its worst, it makes you wonder what you ever saw in them."

We could just stop right here, because this gives you the jist of Cleve's thoughts on Hawkins, but we continue because 1) he has more to say about why he feels this way, and 2) I have two more paragraphs to fill. The problem with a series like Hawkins, is that it plays to all the cliches we've come to expect from shows with a cornpone sense of things. Take Stewart's character, for instance, whose name is Billy Jim Hawinks. (He has a cousin, "R.J.," played by Strother Martin, and a nephew, "Jeremiah," in case we didn't get the point.) As the series is structured, Hawkins is often retained to travel to the big city to defend big shots, which gives it the fish-out-of-water trope of McCloud, plus the aw-shucks jurisprudence that Andy Griffith would put to more effective use in Matlock. Hawkins plays up this angle, which we know is false to start with because otherwise he wouldn't have such a reputation that the big shots hire him instead of, say, F. Lee Bailey. 

The plots don't help out. One involved one of Billy Jim's kinfolk who's killed in a Civil War recreation, and Hawkins not only has to defend the man accused of the crime (who happens to be thoroughly unlikable) but also has to prevent an old feud from flaring up. Even Lew Ayres, who played a Civil War historian, couldn't save this one. Neither could Julie Harris, in another episode that involves a rich old man who's murdered by his much younger wife; "there is," Amory observes, "one time when Billy Jim gets driven off the road," but as far as suspense goes, "that was it." It's all too bad, because James Stewart, throughout his career, gave ample evidence of being able to play a character with a very sharp, and vary dark, edge. Something like that might have helped Hawkins make it past one season, although Stewart himself asked that the show be cancelled becaue he didn't believe the scripts could measure up to the quality he'd been used to working with. It's another case, I fear, of what might have been.

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Two of television's definitive rock music shows, NBC's The Midnight Special and ABC's In Concert, faced off on Friday nights in the early '70s. Whenever the two slug it out, we'll be on hand to see who's better, who's best.

Midnight: Host Smoke Robinson welcomes blues group Paul Butterfield's Better Days, soul artists Eddie Kendricks, Johnny Taylor, Edwin Starr and Ann Peebles, and rock group Grin. Smokey sings "The Tracks of My Tears," "The Tears of a Clown," "Mickey's Monkey," "Show and Tell."

Concert: An all-oldioes show featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Del Shannon, Little Anthony, Freddie Cannon and Rufus Young. Songs include "Great Balls of Fire," "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'" (Lewis), "Runaway," "Handy Man" (Shannon), "Hurt So Bad" (Little Anthony).

The emphasis is on the oldies this week, and the winner depends in large part on what suits your taste. As for me, it'll be tough to beat Del Shannon and The Killer, so the summary is short and sweet: Concert has the fire this week.

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Having looked back at last Saturday's writeup, I think I fell short when it came to looking at what was actually on TV. That doesn't mean it was bad; I wouldn't have given it to you if I'd thought that. But let's see what's up besides the Super Bowl and our rock shows.

It's a big week on the movie front, dominated by a trio of John Wayne classics, foremost among them being with the second showing of The Duke's Oscar-winning turn in True Grit (Sunday, 7:30 p.m., ABC). Judith Crist finds it irrestible, "one of the rip-roaringest, snortingest (and belchingest) entertainments in a long time." It is, she says, "early John Wayne in spirit, the latter-day Wayne in the flesh." The previous night, on the same network, we're treated to the fourth telecast of The Sons of Katie Elder (Saturday, 8:30 p.m.), "still as good-natured and simple-minded as ever," with Wayne as the eldest of the Elder boys, and Dean Martin next in line, "and you can write the script yourself." The week wraps up with the third showing of The Undefeated (Friday, 8:30 p.m., CBS), with Rock Hudson sharing the bill. It's "spiced by brawls, massacres, murders and executions. Just a good clean all-American entertainment." Hey, it works for me. 

It's a tribute to John Wayne's star power that this triple-header relegates to second place the network television premiere of From Russia with Love, the second of the James Bond adventures (Monday, 9:00 p.m., ABC, and what a movie week they're having!), with Sean Connery as dynamic as ever as the superspy, Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya as the heavies, and Daniela Bianchi as "the major sexpot" (although I don't think that's how she appears in the credits. Crist calls it "vintage grown-up nonsense," which is a compliment coming from her. And as if it weren't already a big week for ABC, Wednesday night sees a repeat of 1972's The Night Stalker (8:00 p.m.), "that diverting tale of a vampire stalking Las Vegas," starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, and Carol Lynley in the first of two TV-movies leading to the much-loved Kolchak series. 

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And now for the rest of the week, and though I've mentioned this before, I'll say it again: Saturday night used to be a prime night for television, and on a week-to-week basis nothing surpasses the Murderer's Row CBS schedule, with All in the Family at 8:00 p.m., M*A*S*H T 8:30, Mary Tyler Moore at 9:00, The Bob Newhart Show at 9:30, and The Carol Burnett Show at 10:00; Carol's guests tonight are Eydie Gorme and Paul Sand. Add to that The Sons of Katie Elder on ABC and another Western, The Way West, with Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark on NBC 9:00 p.m.), and you can see why people used to stay home. Why that changed, I'm not sure.

Sunday features one of the most popular episodes of Columbo, "Publish or Perish"  (8:30 p.m., NBC), in which the consummate Columbo villain, Jack Cassidy, returns as a publisher who hires a hitman to bump off his his leading writer (Mickey Spillaine!), who's preparing to move over to another publishing house. Meanwhile, Watergate is going to play out in a big way in 1974, and on Firing Line (10:00 p.m., PBS), host William F. Buckley Jr. and presidential aide Patrick Buchanan discuss the subpoenaed White House tapes, plus media coverage of the scandal.

Avid readers (as well as fans of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry) will remember P.G. Wodehouse as the author of the wonderfully witty Jeeves and Wooster stories (35 short stories and 11 novels, written between 1915 and 1974). Despite their being set in a world that is long gone, however, Wodehouse is still alive and writing at age 92, and on Monday night he's the guest of Bob Cromie on Book Beat (10:30 p.m., PBS), where he reflects on the disappearance of humorous writing and recalls some of his contemporaries, including James Thurber and Dorothy Parker.

The Super Bowl isn't the only stare-studded sports event this week; Tuesday night sees the NBA All-Star Game, live from Seattle (9:30 p.m., CBS). The West Coast locale is, in part, responsible for the late hour of the game's start, but it's also true that the low-rated NBA is no substitute for CBS's regular prime-time lineup, and so the start time allows the network to fit in episodes of Maude and Hawaii Five-O. I doubt that most people remember the game (it was won by the West, 134-123), but they will remember the series that premieres that night on ABC as part of the network's second season: a 50's-inspired sitcom called Happy Days (8:00 p.m.). That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by yet another ABC TV-movie, Mrs. Sundance, a sequel to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Elizabeth Montgomery in the title role, with future husband Robert Foxworth as the man trying to track her down. 

We'll turn to late night for Wednesday's highlight, a 90-minute roast of Steve Allen on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment (11:30 p.m.). The occasion is Allen's 25th year on television, and many former co-stars from his various shows are on hand, including Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Jayne Meadows, Louis Nye, and Tim Conway; George Burns, Buddy Hackett, Rowan & Martin, Jack Carter, and Zsa Zsa Gabor are also on hand. Milton Berle is the roastmaster. I'm happy to report that you can catch it all here.

Thursday sees the debuts of two half-hour dramas on ABC; first, it's Chopper One (8:00 p.m.), with Jim McMullan and Dirk Benedict playing cops in helicopters, and Ted Hartley as their boss. It's a formula good for 13 weeks. That's followed by Firehouse (8:30 p.m.), a modification of that formula, starring James Drury, Richard Jaeckel, and Michael Delano as L.A. firefighters; think Emergency! without the paramedic bit. It's also primed for a 13-week run. Better, I think, to go local with WKBG's airing of the political thriller Seven Days in May (8:00 p.m.), starring Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frederic March, and Ava Gardner.

If you're looking for an alternative to The Duke on Friday night, you can return to ABC for the premiere of The Six Million Dollar Man as a weekly series (8:30 p.m.); formerly, it had been a rotating part of ABC's Movie of the Week, with three telemovies airing in 1973. And, speaking of roasts as we were a moment ago, the final season of Dean Martin's weekly variety series, now on Friday, is best known for the "Man of the Week" celebrity roast; this week, the honoree is baseball's Leo Durocher, with Maury Wills, Dizzy Dean, Bobby Riggs, Alex Karras, Gene Kelly, Chuck Connors, and Foster Brooks among the roasters (10:00 p.m., NBC). Gladys Knight and the Pips are the musical guests. Next season, the celebrity roasts will expand to a full hour and appear as occasional specials.

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The Woman's Lib movement is in full swing in 1974, and perhaps the most dramatic television example comes on Friday, when Boston's WBZ devotes the entire day—not just prime time, but 16 hours, from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., to a live special, Yes, We Can!, "entirely produced and staffed by women, with only women appearing on air, discussing women’s concerns." As you can see from the ad at the left, there's no topic off limits; it sounds much like the kinds of day-long seminars conducted nowadays, with main speakers, breakout sessions, vendors, demonstrations, and various activities from which attendees can pick and choose. A live variety show hosted by entertainment critic Pat Mitchell, featuring only female entertainers (including Helen Reddy and The Labelles) precedes the special at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday. 

It wasn't that long ago that we were marveling at ABC's Africa documentary that took up an entire prime-time in September, 1967, but that was only four hours, not an entire day. The only thing I can think of that compares to this is a telethon, but when you think of it, that's what this amounts to: a telethon raising not funds, but awareness. 

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Finally, to answer the question posed on the cover: why TV is having a crime wave. The answer, according to Paul Klein, is a simple one: it normally takes two years for a show to go from idea to treatment to script to sale. Two years ago, two of the big hits on television were Columbo and Cannon. Producers and networks took notice. And here we are today, with crime shows all over the place. There's more to it than that, of course, but why make things more complicated than they already are? 

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MST3K alert: The Human Duplicators (1964) Outer-space aliens pose as humans in their plan for conquest. George Nader, Barbara Nichols, George Macready, Richard Arlen, Huge Beaumont, Richard Kiel, Dolores Faith, Tommy Leonetti, Lonnie Satin. Good cast in a so-so sci-fi movie. (Saturday, 11:30 p.m., Channel 5) The description isn't exactly accurate; Richard Kiel plays an alien plotting to create android duplicates to use in the takeover of Earth. But the movie doesn't really matter; what you want to see is the second appearance of "Hugh Beaumont" (Michael J. Nelson), this time griping about how it's always "How's Beaver?" but never "How's Hugh." Worth the price of admission. TV  

This week in TV Guide: July 21, 1973

The year is 1967, and you're a Navy flier in Vietnam. While flying a mission on May 18 of that year, you're shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner. For nearly six years, until March 4, 1973, you're shuttled from prison to prison, including the infamous "Hanoi Hilton." During that time, you've missed Laugh-In, the Smothers Brothers, and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. You didn't see the end of The Fugitive, Peyton Place or The Ed Sullivan Show. You've never seen Monday Night Football or Big Bird. Even though it's only (!) been six years, you have, in essence, missed an entire generation of American pop culture. This is the world that Lt. Robert Naughton returned to when he was released from North Vietnam custody, and this week he tells Clifford Terry how television has changed during his time as a POW.

He never saw television during those six years, but he and his fellow prisoners talked about it. "I must give it credit for providing us with a lot of entertainment," he says. "We'd discuss the shows we had seen in order to pass the time and cheer each other up." In doing so, he says, "[T]hat's when I awakened to its lack of depth. If I tried to tell the guys the story of a certain episode, I'd realize there really wasn't any. Nor any message." As he thought of the shows he'd once considered his favorites, such as The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show, he came to the same conclusion. "My feeling now is that you can be entertained and at the same time have your intellect stimulated."

What might surprise you—or not, when you think about it—is that Naughton doesn't see much of any change in television now from how he remembered it. "only the names of the prime-time shows are different. I saw The Doris Day Show and Sanford and Son, and got a few laughs out of them, but I couldn't watch to the end." He'd always enjoyed Dean Martin, but after seeing a recent show, "I'm sorry to say it was a kind of nothing." As for the #1 show in America, All in the Family, "I thought it was funny, but someone who doesn't do any analyzing may think, 'Oh, everyone's laughing, that must be the way to live.' I couldn't see any subtlety to it. And kids might pick up some of the words, the bigotry."

He enjoys Alistair Cooke's America ("If that could represent the over-all quality, television would be above reproach"), and thinks shows such as Face the Nation and Meet the Press are great, but that it's "almost criminal" that they're stuck on Sunday mornings or afternoons. He's impressed with public television and its capacity to educate young people. As a matter of fact, television's ability to educate as well as enlighten is a big point with him; he points out how more and more people get their news not from newspapers but TV. "The communications media have a real obligation to the country—especially television, because of the fast pace of American life." He enjoys newsmen who present their opinions as well as the news, from Eric Sevareid and Harry Reasoner to Paul Harvey, and he stresses the need of news programs to subject politicians to public scrutiny. "Of course," he cautions, "if it ever should come to the point of slanting the news, then it should be stopped. I heard a lot of slanted news in North Vietnam in the last few years—propaganda that was directed to about the 6th- or 7th-grade level. No subtlety at all."

Naughton greeted by high-schoolers in the Philippines
following his release

Not surprisingly, the subject of Hogan's Heroes comes up. "I think they begin [the show] from the point where the prisoners already have been beaten up; they assume everyone knows that a POW is tortured—just by the fact that he is a POW. The program misrepresented what I went through, but the fact that a person is able to laugh at the situation is very true." As Reader's Digest always said, laughter is the best medicine; "A sense of humor got us through quite a bit. We called it 'sick prison humor'." He likes TV's new candidness, as long as it's "handled intelligently and not used as an excuse to make bawdy jokes" He appreciates talk shows such as Dick Cavett's, which isn't afraid to discuss issues frankly and honestly.

In terms of this discussion, one of the things he appreciates most of all is freedom,; radio programs in North Vietnam were broadcast over loudspeakers in the streets, "so you listen whether you want to or not. Here, you can always walk up and turn off the radio or TV. That's one of the freedoms I've come to appreciate: the right to quit." To have the freedom to watch TV or not; that is a great thing. One of the understandings that Robert Naughton came to in prison was the importance, the value, of time. "I thought a good deal about how much time I had watched television—unproductive programs. I more or less made a resolution that I wasn't going to become glued to the TV screen."

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TV's two definitive 70s-era rock music shows, NBC's The Midnight Special and ABC's In Concert, faced off on Friday nights.  Midnight Special was a weekly show, airing after Johnny Carson, while In Concert was an every-other week part of Wide World of Entertainment.  Whenever the two slug it out, we'll be there to give you the winner.

Funny thing about Channel 9, the then-ABC affiliate in MSP. Throughout the sixties and seventies, Channel 9 would show a movie in place of the network’s Friday late-night offering, showing the pre-empted program instead on Sunday after the late local news. Has to do with revenue from those commercials, I know, but it’s still an interesting quirk in KMSP’s programming.*

*They also frequently delayed the Monday through Thursday offering, particularly during the Les Crane and Joey Bishop eras, until after their 10:30 movie.

So even though there wasn’t a Midnight Special-In Concert clash scheduled for this week, we’ll have one anyway, using Channel 9’s Sunday night’s broadcast of last Friday’s episode. Talk about luck!

In Concert: The Guess Who, B.B. King and Melanie perform in this rock concert taped at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Produced by Dick Clark Teleshows, Inc.

Midnight Special: Hostess Dionne Warwicke, with Johnny Mathis, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, folk singer Leo Kottke, rock group Malo and pop singer Bud Brisbois.

Dionne Warwicke was in her “e” phase in 1973*, and was also making the talk show rounds. Just before this Midnight Special appearance, she’s appearing with guest host Jerry Lewis on the Tonight Show, and—at least on the Special—she’s going with what made her famous: the songs of Burt Bacharach, including 1968’s hit “I Say a Little Prayer.” Johnny Mathis follows with one of his hits, “Killing Me Softly with Her Song.” Throw in the pre-Gambler Kenny Rogers and singer Leo Kottke (later a frequent guest on radio’s Prairie Home Companion), and you have the kind of eclectic music mix that was a hallmark of top-40 radio, and is virtually non-existent nowadays.

*From the always-reliable Wikipedia: Warwick, for years an aficionado of psychic phenomena, was advised by astrologer Linda Goodman in 1971 to add a small "e" to her last name, making Warwick ‘WARWICKe’ for good luck and to recognize her married name and her spouse, actor and drummer William ‘Bill’ Elliott. Goodman convinced Warwick that the extra small ‘e’ would add a vibration needed to balance her last name and bring her even more good fortune in her marriage and her professional life. Unfortunately, Goodman proved to be mistaken about this. The extra ‘e,’ according to Dionne, "was the worst thing I could have done in retrospect, and in 1975 I finally got rid of that damn ‘’e” and became “Dionne Warwick“ again.’” You’d think she would have known that would happen, don’t you?

Meanwhile, In Concert features some hits of its own: The Guess Who’s “American Woman,” B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” and Melanie’s “What Have They Done to My Song, Ma?” So who’s the winner this week? I’m afraid I’m going to show my age here, but if you can’t share it with your friends, who can you share it with? Midnight Special, on style points alone.

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If it’s July, it must be football season, right? This Friday night the gridiron greats return with coverage of the College All-Star Game from Soldier Field in Chicago (8:30 p.m, CT, ABC), pitting the NFL champion Miami Dolphins (coming off their undefeated season) against a team featuring future pro stars Bert Jones, Otis Armstrong and John Matuszak. Melvin Durslag’s preview article discusses the history of the game, which started in 1934 as a benefit for the Chicago Tribune Charities.*

*The game was started by Tribune sports editor Arch Ward, who was also responsible for major league baseball’s All-Star Game.

One of the problems the game faces (which helped end the game in the mid '70s) is a growing reluctance of NFL teams to allow their newly drafted stars to participate, due to both a concern about injuries and the amount of training camp the rookies will miss. This helps explain why the game’s usually a rout, and this year’s edition is expected to be no different, but the All Stars, coached by USC’s legendary John McKay, give the Fins all they can handle, and more. In the fourth quarter, buoyed by a strong defense led by Matuszak, the Stars trail the Dolphins only by 7-3, before Miami running back Larry Csonka scores the clinching touchdown in a surprisingly tough 14-3 victory.

And speaking of baseball’s All-Star Game, that’s this week as well. Before the days of cable TV and regularly scheduled interleague play, the All-Star Game really was must-see TV. For many of us living in Minnesota, it was one of the rare times we got to see National League players, whom we’d otherwise only see on the Saturday game of the week.

This year’s game is Tuesday night in Kansas City (7:00 p.m., NBC), with the Nationals (the league, not the team, which won't be around for another thirty years or so) routing the Americans 7-1 for their 10th win in the last 11 years. They aren't kidding about this being an all-star game, either; the Nats featured nine future Hall of Famers, including Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, Joe Morgan, Ron Santo, Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, Billy Williams, Willie Mays and Willie Stargell—plus that pesky Pete Rose character. The Americans countered with nine of their own: Carlton Fisk, Rod Carew, Brooks Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Carl Yastrzemski, Nolan Ryan, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers and Bert Blyleven. I wonder—will this year’s game do as well?

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What with so many regular series in summer reruns, we’ve been focusing the last few weeks on summer replacement shows. Ready for some more? Saturday night, Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber star in The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour (8:00 p.m., ABC), in place of the cancelled Julie Andrews show, with guests Ed McMahon, Teresa Graves and the Muledeer and Moondogg Medicine Show. On Thursday night NBC has Helen Reddy sitting in for Flip Wilson at 8:00 p.m., with fellow feminist Gloria Steinem, B.B. King, the New Seekers, Albert Brooks and the Modern Jazz Quartet; that's followed at 9:00 p.m. by the premiere of Dean Martin Presents Music Country, this week starring Johnny Cash, Mac Davis, Loretta Lynn, Marty Robbins and a cast of thousands.

There are plenty of movies to choose from this week, including the summertime staple, failed pilots for series that never came to pass. Two such as I Love a Mystery, an unsold pilot from 1966 with Ida Lupino (Monday, 8:00 p.m., NBC) and Crime Club (Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., CBS), which is only a year old, starring Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Rush, Paul Burke, Cloris Leachman, Martin Sheen, Victor Buono and William Devane. Great cast; I wonder why it didn't sell.

SOURCE: HENNEPIN COUNTY LIBRARY

There is one kind of summer program not seen anymore, at least in Minneapolis: the twin Aquatennial parades. When I was a kid, the Minneapolis Aquatennial was the biggest summer festival around (it even featured as the backdrop for an episode of Route 66), and the two parades—the Grande Day Parade on Saturday and the Torchlight Parade on Wednesday—were major events. WCCO preempts its regular programming Saturday afternoon for the Grand Day parade starting at 2:30 p.m., featuring a pair of celebrity grand marshals, Larry Linville from M*A*S*H* and evangelist Billy Graham, and an appearance by Colonel Sanders. Keeping with the “Seas of Antiquity,” there are also a number of representatives from Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Greece.

*No coincidence that a CBS star would appear on a parade being televised by a CBS affiliate, right?

KSTP does the honors for the Torchlight parade, beginning at 8:30 p.m. (preempting Madigan and Search) with grand marshal Simcha Dimitz, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, along with the Israeli consul general, and another appearance by Colonel Sanders. Although the floats are the same ones from the Saturday parade (now with lights attached), I wonder if all of the Arab representatives still participated, considering the company they’d be keeping? After all, the Yom Kippur War is less than three months away.

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Since we’re talking about old TV, here’s something interesting—a program about TV shows that were already considered old in 1973. That’s not too meta for you, is it?

Eric Sevareid interviewing Rachel Carson

It’s CBS News Retrospective, airing Sunday afternoons at 5:00 p.m., in which the network dips into its vaults to rebroadcast some of its most acclaimed and influential CBS Reports documentaries from the fifties and sixties. This week it’s the 1963 documentary “The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson,” the landmark program that first shown the spotlight on ecology and the environment, specifically the uses of DDT and other pesticides, and the effects they had on birds, fish and the soil. Carson’s assertions were controversial then, and they remain controversial today.

Thanks to being in the Twin Cities for the summer (after the first of six years in the World's Worst Town™), I was able to see this limited-run series, which included several documentaries by Edward R. Murrow. This was advocacy television at its finest (in terms of quality, that is, not necessarily ideology), and these programs were great examples of a type of television journalism that’s pretty much nonexistent today. And I can’t help but wonder about the method behind CBS airing these shows at this particular time. Could it be that the Tiffany Network was reminding viewers of their great news tradition, in order to bolster the division’s credibility during the continuing coverage of the Watergate hearings? Or is that too cynical a thought?

Speaking of which, we’re reminded at the start of the programming section (as well as several times throughout the week) that regular programming stands to be preempted for those Senate Watergate hearings. The nation has just been stunned the previous week by former presidential aide Alexander Butterfield’s casual comment that there was tape recording going on in the Oval Office. On Monday, July 23, special prosecutor Archibald Cox will demand that the White House turn over transcripts of those taped conversations, which President Nixon will refuse to do, citing Executive Privilege.

What’s interesting is that even at this point, roughly a year before Nixon will be forced to resign, the public is still divided over the issue. While 50% believe former aide John Dean’s accusations that Nixon is covering up the affair, they’re also split evenly (38%-37%) as to whom they would believe if Nixon denies the charge. Ah, politics.

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We'll wrap things up with our cover story. Back in the days before the internet, Americans relied on television to give them the information they couldn’t get from their doctors. And what better “virtual” physicians to have than the kindly Marcus Welby and the dedicated Joe Gannon? Muriel Davidson’s cover story shares real-life incidents of lives being saved because of what viewers had seen on their favorite medical shows. A boy in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, administers mouth-to-mouth and heart massage on his asthmatic brother because he’d seen it done on Marcus Welby, M.D.; a man in Springfield, Missouri watching Welby self-diagnoses himself with a bleeding ulcer (he was right); a woman living in Los Angeles sees a man on Medical Center suffering from slurred speech, numb hands, and difficulty seeing – symptoms identical to hers. She tells her doctor she thinks she has M.S., because that’s what the character on Medical Center had. The skeptical doctor runs the tests, which confirm her suspicions. It’s not all WebMD-type diagnoses, though; another Welby episode tells the story of a brain-damaged boy who’s been labeled “slow”—the sensitivity and compassion of the episode produced thousands of letters of commendation.

Doctors caution people not to rely on fictional television stories in place of actual medical care, and point to patients having cancelled scheduled needed surgeries after seeing a Bold Ones episode about an unscrupulous doctor performing unnecessary surgery for profit. The producers of the shows say that their purpose is not to replace doctors, but to provide awareness education for viewers, pointing out potential health concerns or de-stigmatizing others, such as sexually-transmitted diseases.

Ultimately, the money line in the story points to the growing role of television in American society, and its power—at the time—to unify. Says a mother of a child suffering from a similar brain-damaged syndrome, who used the Welby episode to educate teachers and classmates on his condition, “It’s a miracle what can be done when people no longer are alone.” Words for thought, eh? TV