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I'm not going to ask if you're planning to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas this year, only if you've already watched it. Whether or not you have, you might find this Smithsonian article interesting on the flop that wasn't. 

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack introduces us to the third Jerry Sohl script to air on Hitchcock, "The Doubtful Doctor," a suggestion of what you get when you cross It's a Wonderful Life with The Twilight Zone, with Dick York and Gena Rowlands. It doesn't happen at Christmas, but this is a good time to read about it.

One of the Christmas episodes we watched recently was from Window on Main Street, the single-season series that starred Robert Young in his follow-up to Father Knows Best. It gives you a chance to really appreciate how fine an actor he was, and at Comfort TV, David goes a step further and highlights the elegant prose and poetry read by Young and others during the run of Father Knows Best. They don't write 'em like that anymore.

Gill has been at it again at RealWeegieMidget, with her latest co-host blogathon being on the great Christopher Plummer. Here's the final installment, but you'll want to check out her other entries to see what everyone's had to say. I got to see him perform in person once, doing a reading of Henry V to music by William Walton, performed by the Minnesota Orchestra. Those were the days.

At Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick rates the Dirty Harry movies of Clint Eastwood from best to worst. I'm including this for three reasons: I like Rick's website, I like Dirty Harry, and I saw all of these movies on television rather than in the theater.

Speaking of watching movies on TV (and Christmas as well), most of you have probably seen both Holiday Inn and White Christmas on television; this week Herbie Pilato compares the two classics. Head over there to see which one comes out on top. 

At Cult TV Blog, John travels back to the 1970 British series Tales of Unease (gotta like that name, right?), which presented supernatural tales of horror—but then, are there any other kind? This week is the episode "The Old Banger," about a discarded car that just won't stay away.

Let's stay with the Brits for a sec more: Classic Film and TV Corner reviews the terrific spy drama Callan, which aired from 1967 to 1972 and starred Edward Woodward in what was probably his best-ever role. If you haven't seen an episode yet, it's worth checking out. 

That should do it for this week—get well soon, Terence! TV  

Around the dial

Ever heard of an episode of Father Knows Best called “Twenty-Four Hours in Tyrantland”? Neither had I, until it wound up on David's list of "The Unshakeables" at Comfort TV. I mentioned on Wednesday how much have changed—this would be right there. Wish I'd included this in my book.

The first time I ever saw the Twilight Zone episode "Miniature," it was as a colorized presentation, and the big news was that this was the first time the episode had been seen on TV since the original broadcast, due to legal technicalities. It's a masterpiece, as Jordan shows at The Twilight Zone Vortex.

What I like about our classic TV blog community is that it is a community, with new friends and heretofore unknown treasures just around the corner. That's why I take a moment to share Carol's story about the passing of her friend (and former colleague of Bob Crane) Morgan Kaolian over at Bob Crane: Life & Legacy. Sounds like he was quite a guy, Carol.

One of my favorite television books of all time—but why narrow it to that? a favorite book period—is The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew Lee Fielding's warm and wise memoir of his mother's time in television, particularly on Your Hit Parade. Good news from The Lucky Strike Papers: a revised edition is coming out! You really should have this book in your library.

At Garroway at Large, Jodie points to another reason why Garroway deserves to be remembered, and not just by historians. As we can see in "Lost Garroway," Dave was truly the face of NBC, both TV and radio. It's beyond foolish to even consider anyone with that kind of stature in television today, and to think that someone who was as much a part of the American consciousness as Garroway is now all but forgotten—well, I just don't get it.

Oh, I used to love watching the Oscars. Of course, this is back when the show only ran a couple of hours, meaning I could stay up at least that late, even though I had to go to school the next day. Today, you'd have to pay me. But it's a good excuse to look at Classic Film and TV Cafe's "Snubbed by Oscars" poll. Vote for your favorites; it's not as if the Oscars got it right every time.

TV Guide promises a Hot February! in the issue of February 4, 1989, the latest in Television Obscurities' look at 30 years back. Among other things, there's a story welcoming the return of Columbo, and an on-location report on the heralded miniseries Lonesome Dove. TV  

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A
t the political-industry site The Hill, Jack Lule blames television news for our increasing hatred of politics, and cites Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (which, contra Lule, is not a novel, by the way) in it's excoriation of television news as entertainment. Obviously, coming from an era when Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, and Smith/Reynolds were the dominant anchors, I've got a bias that the "classic TV" era featured harder, more journalistic news than today. Questions for the house: 1) Are Lule/Postman right in their critique? 2) Was the news more incisive back in the day, given its narrower television footprint?

The Ringer's Miles Surrey savages NBC's new medical drama New Amsterdam, with 24 pressing questions that come to mind after watching just two episodes. This is one of the things about today's television shows that annoys the hell out of me: critics of classic TV often point out that we no longer live in simplistic times; if that's so, we should not tolerate contemporary programs that provide only simplistic answers to today's complex world. This serves as a dramatic illustration of why it can be so annoying to watch TV with me. There are only two differences: 1) I probably would have come up with twice as many questions as Surrey did, except that 2) I never would have made it through the first episode, let alone two. This is also why you should have great sympathy for my wife

One of the jobs of a historian is to make history come alive—to paint a picture, so to speak, to pull people into the story and let them see what things were like. At Garroway at Large, Jodie provides a graphic demonstration of this with an example of the difference it can make when you have access to the original picture rather than a poor photocopy. And, by the way, not only does this help history to come alive for readers, it helps it come alive for the historian as well.

Television's New Frontier: the 1960s looks at another of Rod Cameron's syndicated series of the era, the crime drama Coronado 9. I don't think our reviewer is particularly impressed, although I'll plead the Fifth because I haven't seen it. Incidentally, Rod Cameron made it a point to always work in syndication in order to maximize his residuals. Smart businessman.

I may have mentioned this before, but James Lileks once wrote something to the extent that watching a favorite television show should never become a chore, a grind. And I think that's a point that David makes at Comfort TV this week in writing about a completely remarkable, completely unremarkable episode of Father Knows Best, "Bud the Philanthropist." It's "smart and perceptive and entertaining" while at the same time it's just an everyday, average episode. One could say that it carries none of the baggage that weighs down a series like, say, New Amsterdam. Jim's perceptive comments on the existential aspect of doing a good dead show that, indeed, father does know best. I also want to take this opportunity to thank David for the very kind words in his review of The Electronic Mirror. I'm grateful, and also humbled.

Joanna's back at Christmas TV History with a very interesting answer to a very interesting question in her latest ask me anything column.

Finally, I leave you with this picture from the Broadcast Archives at the University of Maryland. Need I say any more? TV