This week in TV Guide: September 18, 1971

IIn the era which we call B.C.—that is, Before Cable—movies on television were a Big Deal. A Very Big Deal, in fact. They were, and had been for years, a staple of local television, and in the late 1950s ABC had experimented with a couple of movie packages consisting of pre-1950 movies or movies from England, but when NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies debuted in 1961, it represented a masssive change. Now, for the first time, movies that had been in theaters after 1950 could be seen in the comfort of your very own living room. Some of them were even in color, and all of them were shown in a time slot of at least two hours, meaning they didn't have to be hacked to death first. I explain all this for those of your out there, primarily younger readers, who may not be able to imagine a time when people like me got excited about watching movies on TV that were interrupted at regular intervals for commercials and had often been edited for time or content (or both). What can I say? Thinks were simpler then.

This is all a lead-in to one of this week's cover stories, Al Morgan's look at the men who decide what movies we see on TV. Their names are Barry Diller, Larry White and Mike Marden. They work for the three networks, and as Morgan writes, "Far beyond the dreams of any statesman, they can unite the country: unite it in rooting home the hero in a chariot race or unite it breathing heavily in the Burton-Taylor boudoir."*

*Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. They were an item once.

They all agree that things have changed dramatically over the years. In television's early days, the networks would bid against each other for movies, with the price for a single movie jumping "from less than $200,000 to more than a million." With that kind of price war, something had to change; enter the "film package." Distributors would put together a package of as many as 40 movies; the catch was that in order to buy the really good ones, you also had to take the, let's say, less desirable ones. (Kind of like cable television packages, come to think of it.) For example, there's the one CBS bought several years ago. It included hits like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Night of the Iguana, The Sandpiper, North by Northwest, and an Elvis movie. It also included "gems" like Your Cheatin' Heart (George Hamilton as Hank Williams), Hold On! (starring Herman's Hermits), and The Alphabet Murders (Tony Randall trying to play Hercule Poirot). As Mike Marden says, "In those days, our rule of thumb was 'You got 'em, you play 'em.' Today the public won't sit still for a bad movie, a really bad movie." He adds that it's more of a buyer's market today, that the days "when the networks bought anything that moved and talked" are long since over. 

Everyone agrees that NBC has the largest film library; "We haven't bought a package in two years," Larry Wilson says, and when they do, "we look at them on an individual basis. They are offered to us. We buy or we don't buy." ABC's library isn't bad either; Diller says the inventory is big enough that the network could program until 1975 without buying anything more. Diller is especially proud of the network's recent deal for two playings of Cleopatra for more than $4 million. He's also pleased with his purchase of the John Wayne Western The Sons of Katie Elder. "Wayne is pure gold to us," he says. CBS describes it's situation as "comfortable"; Marden says, "I haven't even bought many individual pictures lately." His most recent gems: Ben-Hur and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Scheduling movies is a real chess game for these men. A well-timed movie can take the edge off of a series premiere or other special program. A two-part movie not only doubles the potential ratings bonanza (two nights instead of one!), it also justifies the expense of purchasing that movie (Cleopatra supposedly cost ABC $4 million). This very week, CBS is premiering Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? in the old Ed Sullivan timespot to try and retain Ed's loyal audience. Summer nights make the perfect time for dumping those dogs that you had to purchase in order to get the movies you really wanted. And a blockbuster can help improve ratings for local affiliates, thereby earning loyal and undying gratitude. 

Star power is a big part of making investments pay off. John Wayne is "pure gold" not only for ABC, but CBS as well, and you have to think NBC's feeling pretty good about this week's two-part running of The Alamo. But there's one thing the networks haven't gotten into yet: foreign films. Only ABC has taken a chance: having previously shown A Man and a Woman as a kind of test, Barry Diller went ahead this year and bought Z, Costa-Gavras's political thriller that was a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars. It's an important movie, Diller says; "I hope people will watch it, but it's a movie that should be seen." I guess if we really want foreign films, we'll just have to wait for TCM.

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

The subject of Cleveland Amory's column this week is not a show. Rather, one could say that his focus is on the show within the show. It's the phenomenon known as the VIV—the Very Important Voice—and it's the latest fad in the advertising genre known as the television commercial. It's become so big, in fact, that according to Cleve there's at least one agency in Hollywood that works on nothing but voice talent for commercials. "Last year," says agency owner Charles Stern, "performers on shows earned $35,000,000. Performers on commercials earned over $65,000,000." Well, he's got me convinced; where do you line up for this kind of gig?

Nowadays everyone's doing it: J.D. Cannon for Piels, Jose Ferrer for Schlitz, Lloyd Nolan for Ford, Greg Morris for Datsun, Jack Kelly for Contac, David Wayne for American Airlines, Orson Welles for Eastern Airlines. As a matter of fact, Amory says, when Orson Welles took over Eastern from Alexander Scourby, "it was almost as much of a cause célèbre as when Robert Lansing was replaced from Twelve O'clock High or when Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were replaced in Mission: Impossible." And while big names like Jim Backus, Chuck Connors and Vincent Price are easily recognizable voices, Amory pays particular attention to the voice of a man he calls "unknown": Paul Frees.

Paul Frees is in fact a relative unknown when it comes to his face, but as a voice talent he has become one of the most famous of all time, rivaled today perhaps only by Mel Blanc and Daws Butler. You probably know him for his cartoon voices: Boris Badenov on Rocky and Bullwinkle, Inspector Fenwick on Dudley Do-Right, Burgermeister Meisterburger in Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, and a host of other roles for Jay Ward, Rankin/Bass, and others. He's also done voiceover work on movies from The Manchurian Candidate to Patton, and often worked as a sound-alike for none other than Orson Welles. Amory says that he can do anybody—James Stewart, Jack Benny—better than they can. He regularly earnes over $250,000 a year. For that kind of money, I'd be only too glad to be an unknown, too.

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There's a lesson to be taken somewhere from ABC's Wednesday night schedule. At first glance, you can see why the network would be excited about it; the star-studded lineup features returning series with Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched), Bill Bixby (The Courtship of Eddie's Father), Henry Fonda (The Smith Family), and new shows starring Shirley MacLaine (Shirley's World) and Anthony Quinn (The Man and The City). As I said, a lot of star wattage. There's only one problem: by the end of the 1971-72 TV season, none of them will be left on the network's schedule. What happened?

In the case of Bewitched, it's a bit misleading; the show had been a hit for ABC for eight seasons, going back to 1964, and had Montgomery wanted, it probably could have continued for another season or two.* Eddie's Father was a success as well, if not as successful as Bewitched; it ran for three seasons, which today would qualify it as an unmitigated smash. But The Smith Family, the third of the returning shows, only produced 39 episodes over a season-and-a-half, and neither Shirley's World nor Man and The City managed a second season. Hardly what one might expect from a lineup featuring multiple Emmy and Oscar winners. As for what happened, I have a theory, although that's all it is. Briefly, it could be described thus: there are stars, and then there are stars.

*Elizabeth Montgomery was understandably tired of the role after such a long run; in addition, she and husband (and Bewitched producer William Asher) were in the process of divorcing.

Elizabeth Montgomery and Bill Bixby were estabalished TV stars, Montgomery through Bewitched and Bixby with My Favorite Martian and Eddie's Father; they also featured in several TV movies over the years. They'd built up a rapport with viewers, who'd become comfortable with welcoming them into their living rooms each week. Fonda, MacLaine and Quinn, on the other hand, had made their fame on the big screen. Only Fonda had helmed a TV series before, The Deputy (1959-61), and in that one he'd usually played a secondary role. MacLaine and Quinn, on the other hand, were part of an inflow of movie stars into television for the 1971 season, one that included Jimmy Stewart, Glenn Ford, and Yul Brynner. TV Guide, in surveying the damage the following year, will suggest that television executives may have been so concerned about attracting big stars that they neglected to give them strong vehicles for their talents. Only Glenn Ford, in the Western-cop show Cade's County, had a series that matched up well with the star's image, and it's probably no coincidence that Cade's County was perhaps the best one of the bunch.

In the intervening years, the crossover from movies to television and back has become more common, thanks mostly to prestige shows on cable outlets. Still, it's hard to imagine a network today trying to build a successful lineup around the star system. 

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It's the second (!) season opener for All in the Family (Saturday, 8:00 p.m. ET; and they said it would never last), with the Bunkers having to deal with the aftermath of deadbeat cousin Oscar, who comes to visit and—well, becomes just dead Oscar. That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by the debut of Funny Face, starring Sandy Duncan, who's this week's cover star. The network really believed in Sandy, really wanted this series to work, but after a few weeks, Duncan undergoes surgery for a tumor behind her left eye, and the show essentially goes on hiatus for the rest of the season. It will return next year, retooled as The Sandy Duncan Show, but the show itself is never as talented as she is. At 9:00 p.m., NBC Saturday Night at the Movies has one of those blockbusters we talked about earlier, part one of The Alamo, with John Wayne as producer and director, as well as playing Davy Crockett. We also get an all-star cast including Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie, Richard Boone as Sam Houston, Laurence Harvey as William Travis, and Chill Wills in an Oscar-nominated turn as Beekeeper. Part two airs Monday, same Batjac-time, same Batjac-channel.* And at 10:00 p.m. on ABC, it's the debut of the British-import series The Persuaders!, with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore wonderful as two multimillionaire playboys who become crimefighters in their spare time.

*Batjac being the name of John Wayne's production company.

As I alluded to earlier, The Ed Sullivan Show has taken its last bows, replaced by the new CBS Sunday Night Movie (7:30 p.m.), starting off with 1967's Best Picture nominee Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, Spencer Tracy's last movie, co-starring Oscar winner Katharine Hepburn and Sidney Poitier. Crist has mixed feelings about this one; the performances of the three leads "are lovely to behold," but as for the movie itself, its thesis that "interracial marriage among the rich and successful is permissible provided the couple leaves for Africa by midnight" is "nothing less than vomitous." There's also The Duke again, this time with Robert Mitchum in El Dorado (9:00 p.m., ABC), although Crist says that both the movie and its stars are "hobbling around on crutches." Maybe you're better off with the premiere of The Jimmy Stewart Show (8:30 p.m., NBC), the star's first television series; it's also the first and only time Stewart ever allowed himself to be billed as "Jimmy" rather than "James." He gets that billing for 24 episodes.

It's the season premiere of Monday Night Football this week, with Minnesota taking on Detroit (9:00 p.m., ABC). We'll have more about that in Monday's TV listing. Meanwhile, Billy DeWolfe returns as a guest star on The Doris Day Show (9:30 p.m., CBS), Charles Nelson Reilly joins the cast of Hershel Bernardi's sitcom Arnie (10:30 p.m., CBS), and Joan Rivers is the guest hostess on The Tonight Show (11:30 p.m., NBC). On Tuesday, it's the fifth-season opener for Ironside (7:30 p.m., NBC), with "an exciting new star," James Olson, playing a contract killer. Olson had actually been around for some time, doing a lot of television, as well as cheesy movies like Moon Zero Two, and very good movies like The Andromeda Strain and Rachel, Rachel. That's followed by the debut of Sarge (8:30 p.m, NBC), starring George Kennedy as a former policeman turned priest, who deals with a dying man (Jack Albertson) looking to even the score with a mobster. If you're looking for something a little less intense, Glen Campbell has a pretty good guest lineup (7:30 p.m., CBS), with Bob Hope, Dionne Warwicke, and the Smothers Brothers.

We've already looked at ABC's Wednesday lineup, but there's more to the evening's entertainment. For one thing, it's the second-season debut of McCloud on the NBC Mystery Movie (8:30 p.m.) Like you, I remember the Mystery Movie mostly from Sunday nights, but it actually started out on Wednesday. (And McCloud got its start as part of Four-In-One, where it rotated with San Francisco International Airport, Night Gallery, and The Psychiatrist.) Meanwhile, the program description claims that singer Steve Lawrence is making his TV dramatic debut as an ambitious surgeon in Medical Center (9:00 p.m., CBS), but we all know that his real TV dramatic debut was in Rod Serling's fantasy drama Carol for Another Christmas back in 1964. All they had to do was ask me; I would have told them. And at 10:00 p.m., it's none other than the aforementioned Night Gallery on NBC.

Thursday features a couple more new series on ABC, beginning at 9:00 p.m. with James Franciscus as the blind detective Longstreet, followed at 10:00 p.m. by Arthur Hill as Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law. And on WKBS, the independent station in Philadelphia, it's a delightful episode of It Takes a Thief (9:00 p.m.), with a guest appearance by Fred Astaire as Alexander Mundy's father Alister. ► I always enjoyed the episodes with him. Finally, on Friday, it's Group W's Norman Corwin Presents (10:30 p.m., KYW). Corwin, one of the great writers from the Golden Age of Radio, hosted this half-hour anthology series during the 1971-72 season; tonight's episode, which he also wrote, is "Odyssey in Progress," a musical fantasy about a boy searching through space for his dead dog.

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Let's see, what else have we got in the headlines? Richard K. Doan reports on the late-nite turmoil at CBS, where Merv Griffin wants out of his contract so he can return to syndication with Metromedia (where he'll be a daytime show in many markets). CBS will be happy to him go, but then who would replace him? There are rumors; Sonny and Cher (!) were a hit in their summer series, so they've been mentioned, as has Bill Cosby, but the suits don't think either of these choices would be the right one. As it turns out, they wound up replacing Merv with movies and reruns, and didn't dip their toes into the talk show wars until they gave Pat Sajak a shot in 1989. Just think, though, if either of those options had come to pass. I could see Cosby as a talk show host, but Sonny and Cher? Ah, for someone to write an alternative history on that.

The New York Teletype says that Burt Reynolds, who most recently appeared on the small screen in Dan August, is going to take a detour to star in the big-screen version of poet James Dickey's novel Deliverance, along with Jon Voight. I wonder how that'll turn out for Burt? In Hollywood, the talk is about ABC's upcoming telemovie ◄The Kolchak Tapes, currently filming in Las Vegas; it's a vampire epic starring Darren McGavin and Carol Lynley. I wonder if the network has any idea what a hit they'll have on their hands? There's also a report that Sterling Silliphant is working on a pilot for his old Route 66 star George Maharis. Needless to say. . .

Finally, Pat Morrow, this week's starlet, asked herself, following five years as Rita Jacks on Peyton Place, "What did I want to do with the rest of my life?" The answer, at least for the time being, go to law school. She's just finished her first year at Glendale College of Law; her goal is to "defend poor people—people who can't afford to pay the fees of lawyers like my father [a corporate lawyer]." Not like the law shows on television, though, because "these shows have very little reality and no resemblance to the truth about the law and how it operates—in or out of the courtroom." She's had it with acting—"Maybe for some women it would be a good life. Not for me. I'll never go back to television." Not, at least, until next year, when she reprises her role as Rita on Return to Peyton Place until 1974. She does graduate from Glendale, though. TV

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This week in TV Guide: September 13, 1980

It's time once again for the Fall Preview issue, and as I see it, there are three ways I can lay this out for you. I can, of course, try to cover everything, which would take a very long time, and if true, would mean that I am probably writing these words in July. I can concentrate on those shows that were huge successes, programs like Hill Street Blues that became a household name. Or I can do the opposite, look at the shows that failed miserably, which can be a lot of fun—especially if some of them were highly rated and had big names fronting them. 

I'll admit that each of these three options has something going for it. I'll be honest, though: since I'm not writing this in July, but on the day before you're reading it, you can assume I've decided not to go the comprehensive route. The only fair way to decide this, then, is the age-old solution of flipping a coin. Heads I go for the winners; tails and it's the losers. And you're here to keep an eye on things to make sure I'm honest, right? So here we go—wait. What do you mean it landed on its edge? Yes, I know what it means, but—no, of course I'm not suggesting you'd lie in front of all these people. Of course I trust you. All right then, I'll just have to compromise and do a little of each. Fair enough?

A proviso, though: as we're warned in TV Guide, there's an actors' strike in progress, and some of the shows listed in this issue may be postponed, or even cancelled, because of it. I'll try to point that out as I go along.

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I mentioned Hill Street Blues (NBC), which is certainly the most acclaimed of the new shows, although it will come perilously close to being cancelled before it catches on. It won't actually air until January 15 of next year, and it airs on three different nights during that first half-season (including Saturdays!) before it finally settles down to Thursdays at 10:00 p.m.

The most popular series of the new batch—and, I might argue, the best—is probably CBS's Magnum, P.I., and it's pretty hard to bet against Tom Sellick's charm and an exceptional supporting cast; the Hawaii scenery doesn't hurt either. It's up against Barney Miller on ABC and Thursday Night at the Movies on NBC. It does a little better than Hill Street Blues in terms of debuting—it hits the airwaves on December 11. It does better in the ratings as well, finishing the truncated season #14, as opposed to #87 for the Blues.

Three new series base their hopes on the popular movies they're adapted from, and—well, one out of three ain't bad. rate. Breaking Away (Saturdays, ABC), based on last year's Oscar-nominated movie, actually premieres in November, but while it's heavily publicized by the network and even brings some of the same cast members as the movie, only seven of its episodes are broadcast, and it's actually off the air before Hill Street Blues premieres. Freebie and the Bean (Saturdays, CBS), based on the 1974 buddy cop comedy, it fares no better; seven and out. Harper Valley, P.T.A. (Fridays, NBC), birthed by both a popular movie and song, actually survives for two seasons, and I'd suggest that a big reason for that success lies in its star, Barbara Eden.

Imitation is, they say, the sincerest form of flattery. In Hollywood, it's also the surest way to survival. What other way to explain the resurgance of the prime-time soap opera, spawned by the success of Dallas and Knotts Landing. NBC has Flamingo Road on Tuesdays, with a big-name cast including Morgan Fairchild, John Beck, Mark Harmon, Howard Duff, Barbara Rush, and Stella Stevens, and it lasts two seasons.* CBS hopes to continue its success with Saturday's Secrets of Midland Heights, but even though it's produced by Lorimar, maker of Dallas, and stars Lorenzo Lamas and the pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton, it remained a secret to audiences and disappeared after eight episodes. 

*It, too, was based on a successful movie, the 1949 hit starring Joan Crawford.

Closely related to the series based on a movie is the series spunoff from another series, and we've got a couple of those as well: Enos (Wednesdays, CBS), which takes Sonny Shroyer's character from The Dukes of Hazzard and puts him in his own series, actualy makes it through an entire truncated season of 18 episodes before Enos returns from whence he came. A spinoff of a different kind is Those Amazing Animals (Sundays, ABC), inspired by the same network's That's Incredible!, right down to having three hosts of its own: Burgess Meredith, Priscilla Presley and Jim Stafford. It's good for a full season.

Bosom Buddies (Thursdays, ABC) is almost a spin-off; its men-in-drag scenario is certainly reminiscent of Some Like it Hot, and while it lasts for four successful seasons, both of its stars went on to bigger and better things: Peter Scolari, and—especially—Tom Hanks. And there are two other ABC sitcoms that deserve some mention: Too Close For Comfort (Tuesdays), which, between its network and syndication runs for seven seasons, makes Ted Knight the second most-successful alum of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, right after Gavin MacLeod; and It's a Living (Thursdays), which played the same network/syndication parlay to six successful seasons. 

And finally a brief moment of silence while we recite the names of those series whose names are, if not known only to God, remain nonetheless relatively anonymous: Ladies' Man (Mondays, CBS. Episodes aired: 15) and I'm a Big Girl Now (Fridays, ABC; couldn't make it even with Diana Canova and Danny Thomas. Episodes aired: 19) I've heard of the latter, not the former, but I just can't think of anything else worth saying about them.

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One of the continuing trends is the star-studded, epic scale miniseries (even though many of them are nothng more than two-part movies, but of course that isn't sexy enough), and for all the talk of coming attractions (Masada, East of Eden, The Gangster Chronicles), the biggest one of the season kicks off on Monday: Shōgun, NBC's $20 million gamble, a 12-hour adaptation of James Clavell's massive (1,152 pages) best-seller starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune.

The 12 hours are spread out over five consecutive nights, with three-hour episodes on Monday and Friday, and two hours each on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It's interesting scheduling, especially having it conclude on Friday; nowadays, I think we've become accustomed to Sunday being the big television night of the week, with multipart events skipping a night or two so that they can begin and end on that date. Having it air on consecutive nights is far more sraightforward, almost like the binge programming of today.

Shōgun is a huge hit for NBC, with the network garnering its highest weekly rating in its history. It will be nominated for 14 Emmys, winning three, including best limited series; it also wins a Golden Globe and a Peabody. Almost makes the rest of the season an anticlimax, doesn't it?

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One of the most anticipated sections of the Fall Preview is Judith Crist's look at the big-screen movies coming to television for the first time. Even with VHS and cable on the horizon, most of us still rely on the networks for the movies we missed in the theaters, or want to see again. Last year, there were 111 theatrical premieres on network TV, and that doesn't include 13 that had been announced but won't make it until this season. With that to look forward to, what are some of the highlights?

NBC's list is headed by two prestige hits from the middle of the last decade, both purporting to be based on true stories but with more fiction than fact: 1976's All the President's Men, with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman; and 1977's Julia, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda. Other features include The Boys from Brazil, with Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck; Eyes of Laura Mars, starring Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones; New York, New York, with Liza Minnelli as the last person to sing the theme before Frank Sinatra appropriated it as his own; and the 1970 documentary Woodstock.

Over at CBS, the emphasis, says Crist, is on "froth rather than 'class'," including the "wonderfully witty" Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe; George Hamilton and Susan Saint James in Love at First Bite; Same Time, Next Year, with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn, and Foul Play, with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Their headliner is 1979's The Amityville Horror, which Crist calls "the most boring, illogical and inept horror movie to have made $35 million at the box office," which was quite a bit of money at the time; and The Champ, with Jon Voight, Faye Duanway, and Ricky Schroder.

Last but not least, ABC has a lot to offer, beginning with 1977's Saturday Night Fever, which made John Travolta a star; 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, which introduced us to the villain Jaws; Sally Field's 1979 Oscar turn in Norma Rae; Neil Simon's California Suite, and a doubleheader of Barbra Streisand: the "self-indulgent remake" of A Star is Born, and The Main Event. There's also Midnight Express, which details the horror of Turkish prison; and The Enforcer, Clint Eastwood's third turn as Dirty Harry Callahan. It's enough to make up for the "tedious, mindless" trucker movie Convoy.

All in all, says Crist, the season gives promise of being a good one for viewers. Even if you have to wait years, not weeks, for some of your favorites.

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In our hurry to look forward to the coming season, let's not forget that there are shows worth watching right now—depending on your tastes, of course. On Monday, it's the debut of Solid Gold (various stations throughout the week), with hostess Dionne Warwick welcoming Paul Anka, Irene Cara, and Johnny Lee. Hour Magazine, hosted by Gary Collins (and not to be confused with PM Magazine), debuts in syndication on Monday, while Alan Thicke premieres a weekday variety show; no, this isn't Thicke of the Night. Tuesday night gives two dubious changes: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson goes from its traditional 90 minutes to an hour, while Tom Snyder's Tomorrow expands to 90 minutes to fill in the gap. An hour has since become the standard for such shows; it's hard to call them "talk shows" anymore, since nobody ever sticks around to talk. It is, in my opinion, a great, great loss to television, as well as the art of conversation.

On Saturday night at 10:30 p.m., PBS broadcasts the world television premiere of the opera The Ocean Flight, by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The original title was Der Flug der Lindberghs, telling the story of Charles Lindbergh's historic transatlantic solo flight; Brecht, who would become disillusioned with what he saw as Lindbergh's wartime isolationism and Nazi sympathies, later changed the name and removed all references to Lindbergh from the text. 

I was curious as to what it was like. Perhaps you will be, too.

There are some excellent movies on this week, starting with the Oscar-winning A Man for All Seasons (Sunday, 11:30 p.m., KIRO); it took me many years to warm to this movie and watch it all the way through, but now that I have, it's one of my favorites. (You should watch it, too; we may be living this way sooner rather than later.) The Man in the White Suit (Sunday, 11:45 p.m., CBUT) is a very funny Alec Guinness satire on modern business.And I quite like the movie Badlands (Friday, 12:15 a.m., CHEK), based on the 1957-58 murder spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. 

Of course, we can't forget Casablanca (12:15 a.m., CBUT), can we? Otherwise, we'll never have Paris. TV

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This week in TV Guide: May 7, 1966

A host of substantive specials lead off the week, beginning with our cover story on President Johnson's tour of the Texas White House. 

Lyndon Johnson's Texas (Monday, 10:00 p.m. PT, NBC) is an intimate look at the LBJ Ranch and the surrounding hill country of Texas, of which the President is intensely proud. Johnson personally conducts NBC's White House correspondent, Ray Scherer, and a film crew on the tour. Central Texas, and Johnson City, is where LBJ was born, grew up, represented, and lived for most of his life, and to know the land is to know Johnson himself. 

He tells Scherer that "I believe that the land is our greatest source of wealth, and a man who understands it and appreciates it would better understand democracy itself, our system of government and the people who live here." He shows Scherer the house in which he was born ("I was born before the doctor could get here. I was delivered by my grandmother. That was fairly common in those days."), the family plot, and the Pedernales. Johnson remembers that as a young boy, "I rode from the main ranch house to Austin many times in a wagon. I remember my father would offer the child who would see the capitol first a nickel. And we watched for 60 long miles for that capitol. When we got within 10 or 15 miles of Austin, high on a hill, we would see the capitol and all of us would holler at the same time. Everyone got a nickel.” As the sun sets over the Peddernales, he remarks to Scherer, "Those are beautiful trees... so peaceful and quiet. I think that the water there in the river, the grass that is here on the bank, the implements that are there on the fence line, all working together, have meant sustenance for me and mine for more than a century along the banks of this river."

It strikes me that this is an extraordinarily personal look at a sitting president, the opposite of the interviews we've become accustomed to today. When Jackie Kennedy took Charles Collingwood on the tour of the White House in 1962, we saw the woman dedicated to restoring the grandeur of America's house; here, we have the president himself giving us a look at the grandeur of America, the land, and the stories of the people who made it. I'd love to see something like this again someday.

On Sunday, we see the flip side of the Johnson presidency in ABC's documentary series The Saga of Western Man (8:00 p.m.), and the episode, "I Am a Soldier." The soldier in question is Captain Theodore S. Danielsen, West Point 1960, a company commander in the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam. During the documentary, we see Danielsen and his men put through the paces of learning helicopter warfare, conducting a search-and-destroy mission, and attending a ceremony for the company's dead.

Whenever there's a program like this, the first thing I always do is search for the soldier's name to find out what happened to him. Did he make it through Vietnam intact, was he taken prisoner, did he die in action? And, if he made it home, what happened to him after the war? In Captain Danielson's case, we can happily report that he did, indeed, make it home. He retired from the military in 1987 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and died in 2011 in his own homeland, South Carolina. According to the West Point Association of Graduates, "His most memorable mission was to aid a sister unit that was heavily outnumbered and in great danger in the la Drang valley. [A battle portrayed in the documentary.] Ted’s company conducted the first nighttime heliborne Infantry assault into a hot LZ and saved many lives in the process." He won the Silver Star for that battle, as well as one of his three Bronze Stars with Valor. was admired and respected by his men, loved by his family, and received the gratitude of a grateful nation, though certainly not at with the intensity he deserved.

Somewhere between these two is the NBC News special The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Sunday, 6:30 p.m.) narrated by Lorne Greene, and produced and directed by NBC's acclaimed Ted Yates. In making the special, Yates and his camera crew retraced the route taken by Lewis and Clark in 1804, traveling from St. Louis to the high plains of Montana, where they reach the headwaters of the Missouri River, and then on to the Rockies and down the Columbia River to the Pacific. It's an epic journey, worthy of this special, and deserves to be studied more than it is.

What links all three of these documentaries is the way in which they portray different aspects of America: the land and how it's shaped the character of its people, the heroism required in the face of adversity, and, in so many ways, what it means to be an American. It's a dramatic reminder that, even more than a philosophy, America is a nation comprised of its heritage, its land, and the people who helped make it what it is through their blood and toils. People may fight for an idea, but they'll certainly fight for their homeland. We hope.

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During the 60s, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premier variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.

Sullivan: Scheduled guests: Gordon and Sheila MacRae, the singing McGuire Sisters, the Serendipity Singers, Harry James and his orchestra, comedienne Jean Carroll, puppet Topo Gigio, and comic John Byner. (The episode guide indicates that The Black Sheep and Henny Youngman were part of the lineup as well.)

Palace: Hostess Judy Garland welcomes Van Johnson; comic Jack Carter; rock singer Johnny Rivers; the Black Theatre of Prague, pantomimists, who offer “The Chair’; British comedy pantomimist Charlie Cairoli; and the Roselle Troupe, Colombian acrobats. Judy and Van present a clown routine—their first performance together since the 1949 movie “In the Good Old Summertime."

Don't misunderstand me; I've always liked Gorddodn MacRae, and Sheila was a sweetheart. And the McGuire Sisters aren't bad, both solo and with Harry James. Henny Youngman's addition is a definite plus. But let's be real: Judy Garland hosting the Palace, complete with a reunion with Van Johnson, and Johnny Rivers in addition. This is an easy one for me; it's the good old Palace for the win this week.

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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.

My Three Sons is, Cleveland Amory says, something of a television institution by now. It started on ABC in 1960, and made the move to CBS last year. You're probably familiar with the story: a widower with three sons, "and when the older son got too big and got married to boot, well, they just booted him right out and adopted a new young ’un from next door." A show with this premise, Cleve rightly points out, could go on forever. However—and you must have known this was coming—"We wish we could bring you better news—but the best we can offer is that NBC, so far, has no plans to carry it."

Lest you think Amory is being his usual curmudgeonly self here, I should point out that he does have some reasons for feeling this way, whether you agree with him or not. For one thing, the "single father with sons" genre has been done to death, Bonanza being probably the best-known (and most successful) example, given that The Brady Bunch hasn't come along yet, and is just a variation on the premise at that. (There are also, Amory notes, approximately 418 war shows that play off the same female-less premise.) "The idea is, of course, to show how impossibly difficult, heart-rendingly sad—and at the same time, of course, screamingly funny—it is for all the poor little just plain men to try to get along without the comfort and guidance of TV’s great big all-wise, all-wonderful women." It might be a pretty good idea, too, if it was shown in the morning, for just women. Maybe, Amory speculates, they could do a show about just women. And make them Amazons, so you could cover the war angle there, too.

As we all know, Fred MacMurray stars as Steve Douglas, and "if you recall Mr. MacMurray’s movie with Barbara Stanwyck called Double Indemnity, well, forget it. It’s just too sad that a man who could do that has to do this." Although, considering the sweetheart deal Fred had to work something like two weeks a year, it's at least understandable. He's aided in raising the boys by William Demarest's Uncle Charley, who replaced William Frawley upon the latter's death, and this character—"the everpresent side-kick, chief cook and bottle washer, father confessor and den mother—is regarded as the one essential ingredient in these shows." The role is as essential as that of the veteran M.D. mentoring the young doctor in Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby, and every other medical show you could think of. But I digress. Of Demarest's character, Cleve says, "he has so many ridiculous lines that he must long for the days of the silent pictures." And don't get him started on those commercials-in-character that include the same laugh track as the rest of the show. Maybe, he thinks, this does need a woman's touch at that; "it isn’t all-wise or allwonderful, but it sure deserves to be left all alone."

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Some footnotes from the TV Teletype: since McHale's Navy hasn't been renewed for another season, Tim Conway is looking for a new gig, and may have found one: he's made a pilot for a sitcom called Captain Nice. Now, if you're a fan of obscure shows, you'll know that Captain Nice does, in fact, make it to the fall schedule, but not with Conway: instead, William Daniels has the lead role. It plays out like a typical Conway-starring show: it's cancelled after 15 episodes.

Also leaving the airways this season is Perry Mason, and in "The Case of the Final Fade-Out," everyone gets into the act. Author Erle Stanley Gardner plays a judge, and many of the stagehands play versions of themselves in the story, which takes place behind the scenes of a successful TV series. One of the things that I really like about how the series ends is that writers have the right idea: at the fade-out, Perry, Paul, and Della are looking through the files preparing for a new case. Meaning that, unlike so many final episodes of long-running series, there is no real "end," just a sign that things keep going on--which, if you think about it, is a perfect way for a series to go into reruns.

Speaking of shows coming and going, The Ballad of Smokey the Bear is the latest Rankin/Bass holiday special, and it airs on Thanksgiving afternoon, with James Cagney as the star. Contrary to what the Teletype reports, though, Cagney is not voicing "the familiar furry fighter of forest fires," but is playing the storyteller, which is always the star role in a R/B special.  Barry Pearl, in fact, plays everyone's favorite bear. Meanwhile, singers Molly Bee and Rusty Draper are doing a pilot for Swinging Country, a music variety series that makes NBC's daytime schedule in the fall. It's Dick Clark's first sale to NBC. 

Also coming this fall is The Green Hornet, and Henry Harding reports that last week ABC announced that Van Williams, formerly of Bourbon Street Beat and SurfSide 6, will play Britt Reid, alias the masked crime fighter. This series, like Captain Nice, also has a single-season run, but it's a fun show to enjoy. It should have had a proper DVD release the same time as its stablemate, Batman.

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Saturday is the 92nd Run for the Roses, the Kentucky Derby (2:00 p.m., CBS), and from a field that was thought to be fairly uninspiring, the wonderfully-named Kauai King emerges triumphant, a feat he will repeat two weeks later at the Preakness, before finishing fourth in the Belmont Stakes. The legendary sportscaster Jack Whittaker hosts the broadcast; later on, he'll also host the debut of the game show The Face is Familiar (9:30 p.m, CBS), in which "celebrity guests join contestants in trying to guess the identities of famous personalities who are shown in scrambled photographs." I wonder which gig payed hm more?

Speaking of sports, if you're old enough (like me), you might remember the dismal days of the NBA in the 1980s, when CBS broadcast the finals on tape delay after the late local news, in order to avoid preempting their more popular programs. (How times have changed.) Well, here's something that would have been potentially even worse: a note that if the Stanley Cup final between the Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings went to seven games, NBC may show a tape of the game, which would have been played last night, at 2:30 p.m. As it happens, everyone's saved some casual embarrassment when Montreal defeats Detroit in overtime in the sixth game, winning the Cup four games to two.

Also on Sunday, a special that ties in to the theme we introduced in the lede. This is the darker side, though: the death of the American dream,  as seen through the weary eyes of a man seeing the end of his way of life. It's Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (9:00 p.m., CBS), with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock recreating their Broadway roles as Willy Loman, the titular salesman, and his wife, Linda. They're joined by George Segal and James Farentino, and a rare live-action appearance from June Foray. It's a relentless reminder of the price one often has to pay to achieve success, and what happens when it all comes to naught.

As we slide into a week dominated by reruns, we get an interesting meta premise on The Andy Griffith Show (Monday, 9:00 p.m., CBS), when a movie company pays Andy $1,000 for the film rights to his life story. What would really have been great would have been if the company's head had been Danny Thomas, playing himself (he did produce the Griffith show, which was introduced on an episode of The Danny Thomas Show), with a story that revolves around various real-life actors being considered to play Sheriff Andy. I wonder if television would have been ready for something like that back then.

On Tuesday, CBS Reports (10:00 p.m.) airs a provocative report on unidentified flying objects: "UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy." Among the guests are meterologists, government directors, authors, Col. Hector Quintinella, direct0r of Project Blue Book, the Air Force's investigation into UFOs, and an early appearance by Carl Sagan. And look at it: sixty years later, and we're still debating the issue. I wonder if the upcoming report (if it ever is released) will contain anything that wasn't discussed in this program. But if you want to stay in the mood, you can catch the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet afterward (10:00 p.m., KTVU), where you can see some real flying saucers.

Wednesday gives us a look at life before the internet, as private investigator Larry Craig joins Art Linkletter on House Party (1:30 p.m., CBS) to reveal the names of missing heirs. Craig (not to be confused with the radio show Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator) was an occasional guest on House Party, where he would enlist help from the viewers by publicizing these heirs to unclaimed estates, and update the results of previous searches. I don't know; you may prefer modern life, where we're all connected by no more than a click or two of a mouse, but I still have nostalgia for these days, when America seemed to be a bigger country, with more room to move—or hide, if you prefer. 

One of the great political thrillers of all time dominates Thursday's lineup: a repeat showing of John Frankenheimer's masterpiece The Manchurian Candidate (9:00 p.m., CBS), the Cold War chiller involving communist brainwashing and assassination, starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, James Gregory, and Janet Leigh. This holds the perennial top spot in my quadrennial list of favorite political movies; in a just world, this would have received more than just two Oscar nominations. It would be hard to find anything to compete with it, but the season's first rerun of The Dean Martin Show (10:00 p.m., NBC), does pretty well, with Louis Armstrong, Carol Lawrence, the Andrews Sisters, Rich Little, Gene Baylos, and Line Renaud.

On Friday, a Flintstones repeat features Hollyrock movie star Stoney Curtis visiting Bedrock. (7:30 p.m., ABC) Stoney looks suspiciously like Tony Curtis, who, not coincidentally, plays the voice of his animated counterpart. I was never the biggest fan of The Flintstones, but I always enjoyed these clever celebrity tie-ins, such as the one with Ann-Margret playing Ann-Margrock. And tonight's late-night movie pick is the terrific Western, The Magnificent Seven (11:20 p.m., KPIX), with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen leading a terrific cast. Oh, and Tony Curtis is back in the movie on KNTV, The Purple Mask (11:30 p.m.), raising money for the French Royalists in this adventure yarn. Dan O'Herlihy and Colleen Miller co-star.

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MST3K alert: The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960) "A scientist tries to bring his girl friend back to life. Jason Evers, Virginia Leith." (Friday, 11:30 p.m., KSBW in Salinas) That cartoon pretty much sums up this story of a mad doctor (are you surprised it's Jason Evers, at his smarmy best?) who keeps his fiancée's severed head alive while he tries to find a suitable body to graft the head onto. But then, what would Friday night be without a good mad doctor flick? Notably, this is also the first episode featuring Michael J. Nelson as the replacement for Joel Hodgson. The rest is history. TV

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This week in TV Guide: April 3, 1971

I'm going to make an assumption here, which may or may not be correct, that most of you already know what all the talk was about with cable TV. In fact, to show the speed at which technology evolves, this TV Guide—54 years old—is previewing something which has already come and gone. 

Whereas William J. Slattery's cover story offers various prophesies as to the present and future of cable, we already know how the story ends: cable shakes up the television landscape, becoming the dominant form of TV consumption, HBO becomes the home of prestige drama, various other cable networks get in on the act, and then—streaming. And the whole thing starts over again, with one exception: today, we're speculating on whether there is a future for television, whether the broadcast networks will even survive, and whether or not "television" will be good for anything other than coverage of live sports.

Now, I know there are a lot of people—millions, in fact—who still subscribe to cable TV. In fact, there's even been some speculation that, with streaming prices continuing to rise to offset the cost of program acquisition, cable packages might make a comeback. I don't think that will happen, but I don't think the complete demise of cable is going to happen in the next few weeks, either. The existence of this article, however, is proof of one thing: the surest way to either become a multimillionaire or go flat broke is to predict the future of television.

Therefore, I'm proposing we move beyond the cover story, and look at some other features, beginning with a look at Lee Meriwether's life after Miss America. As Rowland Barber says, she carries all the attributes of an average, ordinary housewife: happily married with two kids, whom she ferries to and from school; attractive, unprepossessive, has her mom babysit the kids at least once a week, somewhat scatterbrained, active in Scouting, bakes cookies, has an interesting hobby. It just so happens that her hobby is acting, and her former activity was beauty pageant queen. 

She's currently playing Andy Griffith's wife on The New Andy Griffith Show, between stints as a technician on The Time Tunnel and Barnaby Jones's daughter-in-law, with a side stint as Catwoman in the Batman movie, and a future run on All My Children. The "Miss America thing," she explains, was an accident; a friend entered her in the competition, and she didn't even know about it until one of the judges called to remind her that she was supposed to audition that day. She found it unbelievable when she went on to win Miss San Francisco, and knew she "didn't have a chance" in the Miss California pageant; her victory there propelled her to Atlantic City, where she would have been happy to finish in the top 10. (No Miss California had ever finished outside the top 10.) Her father died shortly before the pageant, and her mother convinced her to go ahead, that now it might be her only chance to afford college. The 1954pageant (for Miss America 1955) was the first to be televised (and the last, to that point, not hosted by Bert Parks), and to this day, she has no memory of having won "until a year later, when I saw a film of my night. I had been interviewed by Bess Myerson. I was hysterical. I said something about hoping my father somehow knew about this. Then I watched the emcee prodding me to take The Walk, and there I was, moving down the promenade, crying all the way." 

From there she went to a stint on The Today Show, followed by acting lessons (where she met her husband, actor Frank Aletter), and "that's been the story of my life ever since. My acting career has never been terribly important. It just happened." 

And then there's Anthony Quayle, currently starring in NBC's British import Strange Report, where he plays a former police detective who specializes in solving unusual crimes. He's a quiet man, reports Ross Drake—so unassuming, yet proud and comfortable within himself, that it's hard to believe he's an actor. He credits World War II for molding him into the man he is today; "I became violently aware that the theater and literature are of relatively little consequence. I became aware of another world of power and politics and death, of living and dying for what you believe in," he explains. That doesn't mean that his craft isn't important to him; on the contrary, he believes the theater has a purpose in this modern world, to be "a linking force, a shared heritage of that part of the world that speaks English." But "I no longer cared about those who were elegant and witty—I didn't give a damn for them. I came to care about a man I could stand beside and depend on with my life. It was rather a delayed manhood, but finally, I had become a man." He downplays his own accomplishments in the war; "I wasn't being brave then. I was sending other people to be brave." 

Faced with several prospects after excelling on stage, including an offer from MGM to come to America to be a producer, he instead chose the directorship of the Shakespeare Memorial Theater at Stratford-on-Avon. His success there gave him a "powerful sense of pride in both his country and his profession." It took him away from acting, though, and the likelihood that he might well have become "one of the commanding actors of the English stage." It did, however, allow him to build a family and a successful personal life with his second wife and their three children, to all of whom he's devoted. So acting has, sadly, taken something of a backseat. "I'm very aware that, in order to be a great actor, one has to be absolutely and selfishly dedicated to that end. The difference between a good actor and a great one is very small, but it's vital." He does not, he believes, fall into that "great" category, despite an Oscar nomination (for Anne of the Thousand Days), and his turn in the Broadway hit "Sleuth." 

He enjoys television; "I don't think anyone's yet realized how much televison affects people's lives. If one could get over certain values of sanity and humor, one might have an influence, which might lead to more." He concedes that his friend, Sir John Gielgud, is right that he has some regrets he didn't have the chance to become a great actor, but "While John's right that it's been a disappointment to me, and a sadness, it's been a very minor sadness, because there have been so many satisfying compensations." And while, Drake concludes, he could be rationalizing, "it's hard not to hope that he isn't." Says Quayle, "I wouldn't change it. I wouldnt' have it any other way—not at all."

Finally, there's the sports beat, and Melvin Durslag makes his fearless prognostications for baseball, 1971. In the days of four divisions and no wild cards, it doesn't take up much room. His picks for the National League are the Cubs (!) in the East and Cincinnati in the West; in the American League, he likes Baltimore in the East and Oakland in the West. And Mel gets three of the four right on the nose. The only one he misses is the NL East. It's not the Cubs, of course, but the Pittsburgh Pirates, who go on to edge Baltimore in a thrilling seven-game World Series to take it all.

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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.

This week, Cleveland Amory puts himself in the line of fire, with William F. Buckley Jr.'s Firing Line, and it should come as no surprise that a man as linguistically clever as our Cleve would be taken with the polysyllabic Buckley, who once defended his use of long words by saying that "they say what I mean to say." And when it comes to television, Buckley, after a tentative start, has come across like a man to the (TV) manor born, who, "when he added to his forensic foreplay an ability to pace his parries, he began to make mincemeat of such adversaries as David Susskind, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Norman Mailer," liberal icons all.

And that's one of the things, I found, about the young Buckley: whether or not you agreed with him (and I did, especially when he was younger), there was something about him that, as Amory says, is guaranteed to "continue to charm the few and madden the many—or, depending on how you look at him, vice versa. He also plays to win, plays for keeps, engages in conversation with both gloves off. When guest George Wallace once asked him, "Why are you talking so much? This is an interview show," Buckley dryly replied, "No, actually it's not." You're not invited on Firing Line to answer Buckley's questions; you're invited to exchange opinions with him, and the sharper his guest, the more entertaining the show. Unlike many hosts of similar programs, Buckley seems to delight in those guests who can keep up with his banter and repartee; as befits a man of confidence, he has no fear of being upstaged. When black activist Eldridge Cleaver appeared on the show, with his endless complaints about "pigs" [the police, for those of you not in the know], Cleaver at one point pointed out to the host, "Didn't you run for mayor in New York? What happened?" Buckley's unflappable response: "A lot of pigs beat me."

And that, I guess, is the point: if you're confident in yourself, if you have no fear of engaging in open conversation and debate on the issues of the day, then you should have no qualms about discussing them with people with whom you disagree. And you should be able to do so without resorting to personal attacks; just as you attract more flies with honey than vinegar, you often can soothe the savage beast more with wit and charm than invictive and boorishness. (Many of today's social icons could take note of this.) In discussing Arkansas's liberal senator, J. William Fulbright, Buckley said, "It is fashionable among the literati to say of the Vice President [Agnew] nowadays that he is merely a bad joke. By inference one reasons that William Fulbright is a good joke." As Cleve concludes, "A man who can turn a phrase like that can turn us on—and vice versa—any time.

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As the networks prepare their fall schedules, the axe has dropped on a variety of shows, mostly of the variety variety. Whereas there were sixteen at the beginning of the current season, there will be but five come this fall, and not a one of them will be new. Among the carnage are two that will go on to long and successful runs in syndication, Hee Haw and The Lawrence Welk Show; the remaining casualties include Johnny Cash and Pearl Bailey on ABC, Ed Sullivan, Jim Nabors, and the Jackie Gleason Honeymooners musicals, and Red Skelton, Andy Williams, Don Knotts, and the Kraft Music Hall on NBC. When all is said and done, the five remaining programs will be Flip Wilson, Dean Martin, and Laugh-In on NBC, and Glen Campbell and Carol Burnett on CBS; of those five, only Carol will have any real shelf life remaining. "There were just too many," according to one network source, who said, "The same talent was turning up everywhere." (This didn't include Hee Haw and Johnny Cash, obviously, since they pretty much had the corner on country stars.) I was going to add that this could spell quite a blow to Bob Hope, considering he never met a variety guest spot he didn't like, but I guess I don't have to. There will be something of a small comeback with Sonny and Cher and Donnie and Marie, but the revival doesn't extend to The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

I mentioned the dropping axe, and the variety shows weren't the only ones to feel the sting of the executioner's blade. In addition to getting rid of their supply of variety shows, ABC has sacked their trio of prime-time game shows: Let's Make a Deal, The Newlywed Game, and The Reel Game; they've also gotten rid of That Girl, Make Room for Granddaddy, and Dan August, making a total of ten to bite the dust. Their seven new series* include vehicles for Shirley MacLaine and Bobby Sherman; The Persuaders, starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis (a favorite in the Hadley household); Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, which the network hopes will do for Arthur Hill what Marcus Welby did for Robert Young, and James Franciscus as the blind detective, Longstreet. There's also an untitled drama for Anthony Quinn, which will wind up as The Man and the City. I think, though don't hold me to it, that only Owen Marshall made it past one season, although The Persuaders was a casualty of British labor (labour?) problems.

*Why seven new series to replace ten old ones? It's partly because of the new Prime Time Access rule, requiring the networks to cede a half hour of prime time back to the affiliates each night.

As far as specials for the new season, the most prestigious will likely be The Six Wives of Henry VIII, a BBC import that CBS plans to air over a six-week period. However, the Hollywood Teletype reports that ABC has plans to adapt Irwin Shaw's current bestseller, Rich Man, Poor Man. Interestingly, "what form the TV version will take is still undecided." And that form, when it is decided, will help to change the landscape of television, if only for a time: the miniseries.

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Why wait until the fall for specials, though, when we've got some on tap this week? 

On Saturday, WHDH, the CBS affiliate in Boston, presents a Peanuts special that was actually broadcast last week, when WHDH probably had something else on. It's "Play It Again, Charlie Brown" ((5:30 p.m.), one of the lesser-known Peanuts stories. Lesser known? I have to admit, I never missed these specials growing up, and yet I have absolutely no memory of this one at all: Schroeder is the featured character, with Lucy trying to win his attention by arranging for him to give a concert at a PTA meeting. Trouble is, they're expecting a rock concert, while Schroeder's planning an all-Beethoven schedule. It probably makes for a very funny storyline in the strip, but the animated specials really require Charlie Brown and/or Snoopy as the focal point to carry the interest.

April 4 is Palm Sunday, and ABC premieres Rankin/Bass's Easter special, Here Comes Peter Cottontail (7:00 p.m.), with Danny Kaye as the narrator and Wellington B. Bunny, Vincent Price as the evil Irontail (who wants to dye all Easter eggs black), and Casey Kasem as Peter Cottontail. And speaking of Ed Sullivan, as we were a moment ago, Sunday gives an Ed Sullivan "Special," Ed Sullivan Presents Movin' with Nancy on Stage (8:00 p.m., CBS), which certainly has to be one of the most cumbersome titles on television since Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters, and it makes just about as much sense. What this really is is Nancy Sinatra's Vegas nightclub act, with the Osmond Brothers and the Blossoms, being shown in the Sullivan timeslot. Maybe Ed introduces it, maybe he does something else, but it's pretty clear he doesn't do much beyond lending his name to the special, if that was even his idea.

The variety series may be dying, but when it comes to the musical special, things are alive and well. NBC kicks off the week with a doubleheader on Monday: Bob Hope's final special of his 21st season (9:00 p.m.), with Sammy Davis Jr., Lee Marvin, Shirley Jones, and Wally Cox; followed by Diahann Carroll's first special (10:00 p.m.), with Harry Belafonte, Tom Jones, and cameos from Bill Cosby and Donald Sutherland. 

A delightful CBS News Special (and there's a combination of words you don't read often) is the first in a series of "interviews" with key figures from America's war for independence (remember, the Bicentennial is only five years off). "The American Revolution Revisited" (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.) stars Peter Ustinov as Frederick Lord North, the Prime Minister under George III whose policies helped ignite the war. CBS newsman Eric Sevareid is the host; Ustinov, who "boned up on history and Lord North's writings" in preparation for the show, ad-libs answers to Sevareid's questions. Among his many opinions: John Hancock was nothing more than "A reprehensible character who made his money out of smuggling," and he justified the action of British troops during the Boston Massacre as being done "under provocation."  

On Wednesday, NBC presents A Royal Gala (9:00 p.m.), an all-star benefit for the World Wildlife Fund taped last November in London. Among the dignitaries in the audience are the Royal Family (including the Queen), Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, and future king Juan Carlos of Spain. And on stage, a blend of Americans and Brits, from Petula Clark and Rex Harrison to Glen Campbell and Bob Hope, who apparently won't have any trouble finding work after all. 

One of the biggest is a repeat of John Wayne's star-studded tribute to America, Swing Out, Sweet Land (Thursday, 8:30 p.m., NBC), featuring Jack Benny, Lorne Greene, Bob Hope, Ann-Margret, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Rowan and Martin, Red Skelton, Ed McMahon, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, and others. Did you notice how many of those names were also stars of series appearing on NBC? (There's also Lucille Ball, Celeste Holm, Greg Morris, and some other non-Peacock celebs.)

Good Friday features a couple of low-key Easter specials, with Mike Douglas narrating Love is the Answer (7:30 p.m., WBZ), the story of Boys Town in Rome, Italy. And for Frankie Avalon, Easter is the word, as he spends his Easter vacation hosting an easy hour of music from Southern California and Mexico with Nana Lorca, Jan Daley, the Burgundy Street Singers, Joey Forman, Laurindo Almeida, and the James Hibbard dancers. At least Frankie sings "Easter Parade," which I guess qualifies it as a seasonal special.

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By the way, we've also got some non-special (i.e., regularly scheduled) programs worth noting this week. Saturday afternoon gives us the finale of the pro bowling season, the Firestone Tournament of Champions (3:30 p.m., ABC), with the winner taking home a cool $25,000 (which was a very big prize back then, the equal of many professional golf tournaments). Last year, Don Johnson won the championship with one of 1970's most memorable sports broadcasts, rolling a 299 in the final. (Oh, that 10-pin!)

On Sunday, NBC's Experiment in TV (3:00 p.m.) presents a rerun of 1969's "The Cube," which I have to admit is the kind of story that sounds right up my alley. "Setting: a small, doorless and windowless chamber of translucent plastic in which a man seems trapped. Visitors enter through quickly appearing—and disappearing—doors, leading him in bizarre, often inane discussions, evidently to frustrate and confuse him. Are they—or the cube in which he's trapped—real?" Kind of like what life is like today, isn't it? It's produced and directed by Jim Henson,  one of several live-action films he did in the 1960s, before focusing entirely on The Muppets.

Monday's Gunsmoke (7:30 p.m., CBS) is a thriller, as a group of bounty hunters holds Matt's friends hostage while awaiting his return; seems they've got a score to settle with him. Is anyone at all surprised that one of the bad guys is Bruce Dern? But you might raise an eyebrow when seeing that another of them is Russell Johnson—the Professor! Oh, no!

Tuesday is baseball's Opening Day, as close to an undeclared national holiday as they came back in the day, and we'll kick things off from Fenway Park, as the Boston Red Sox take on their bitter archrivals, the New York Yankees. (1:30 p.m., WHDH in Boston, WPRI in Providence). At 2:00 p.m., New Haven's WNHC follows suit with the Montreal Expos taking on the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. Daytime baseball; does it get any better than that?

This isn't significant for anything other than my own personal amusement, but if you're looking for a movie that sounds like a mashup of two Humphrey Bogart movies (minus Bogie, alas), you'll find it on Wednesday with Treasure of the Petrified Forest (part one, 6:30 p.m., WSMW in Worcester). It's one of those Italian spaghetti adventure movies involving Medieval knights and warrior women. There's more substance to Book Beat (7:00 p.m, WEDN in Norwich), in which Bob Cromie's guest is Bennett Cerf, discussing The Sound of Laughter, a collection of his favorite jokes, stories, and puns.

I mentioned earlier that Make Room for Granddaddy was one of the shows on the chopping block, and Thursday's episode is, I think, an example of why: despite the fact that Danny, Marjorie Lord, Angela Cartwright, Sid Melton, and other members of the original cast have returned for the revival, we're introduced in this rerun to Roosevelt Grier, a new regular, who plays Danny's new accompanist Rosey Robbins. And while Rosey Grier was a passable actor and pleasant personality (not to mention a great football player), additions like this usually point to shows trying desperately to be relevant, and while Danny's trying to act casual, his wife works to put everyone at ease. So what are they so uptight about? Guesses, anyone?

On Friday, the aforementioned Anthony Quayle's Strange Report (10:00 p.m., NBC) focuses on the murder of a lonely hearts club director, and as we might expect, not everything here is what it seems. A trio of late-night movies round out the week, beginning with Audrey Hepburn's Oscar-nominated turn in The Nun's Story (11:25, WTIC), the story of a nun serving in the Congo; Barabbas (11:30 p.m., WPRI), with Anthony Quinn portraying the criminal who was released instead of Christ; and Jezebel (11:50 p.m., WHDH), with Bette Davis winning an Oscar for her performance as a "Dixie vixen," and Henry Fonda as one of her victims.

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We haven't looked at a recipe for awhile, and this week we're supposed to be looking at "delicious desserts" to top off a hearty Italian meal. Now, I have never, in my life, heard of serving lasagna as a dessert, have you? Maybe that's what they do in Italy, but I've always known it as a main dish. Regardless, here's a great recipe:

Gotta admit, it sounds great no matter when you eat it. 

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MST3K alert: Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1954) Viking women who have set sail in search of their men are caught in a vortex, washed ashore and captured. Abbie Dalton, Susan Cabot. (Friday, 1:15 a.m., WTEV in New Bedford) In a week that offers an embarrassment of riches, or perhaps just embarrassments (It Conquered the World, War of the Colossa Beast and its sequal, The Amazing Colossal Man, and The Eye Creatures), we'll look at this Roger Corman-directed movie starring Abbie Dalton, before she moved on to better things as Joey Bishop's TV wife and one of the original Hollywood Squares. Enjoy!  TV

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