This week in TV Guide: November 29, 1975

Ahe objective of the 'scandalous revelations' filling the airwaves and news columns ought to be reform, but ‘thus far have brought little but cynicism and disillusion.'"

Talking about Fox, perhaps, or maybe MSNBC or CNN (or late night talk show hosts)? Think again. It’s Pat Buchanan, quoting U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, in November 1975. In this week's issue, we have two stories that tell us much about the evolution of the media’s role in news coverage, and reminds us that nothing really is new.

The first is Pat Buchanan’s News Watch column, the source of the initial quote. Buchanan is talking about the change in media coverage since Watergate, a change that has brought on an "excessively mistrustful and even hostile" atmosphere. This isn't a referendum on Watergate, which remains shrouded in mystery more than fifty years later (Corrupt politicans? A psyop operation by the Deep State?), but it is a searching look at something more, at the natural evolution of such an atmosphere, asking "what will be the ultimate impact upon the democratic system, which itself guarantees freedom of the press?"

The problem, according to Buchanan, is that the media now has a vested interest in scandal: for ratings, for dollars, for prestige. (Little-remembered fact: NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report was once presented without commercial interruption, in order to eliminate potential conflicts of interest and signify that the news division was not driven by profit margin.) What happens when that self-interest conflicts with a larger interest—the national interest, for example? Granting that the exact nature of the national interest is often a subject up for debate, Buchanan nevertheless points to the "declining confidence in leaders and institutions" and speculates on the ultimate consequence this will have for the nation.

Buchanan again quotes Fulbright (a Democrat, by the way, and never a natural ally of Pat's), who had recently authored the article "Fulbright on the Press" in the Columbia Journalism Review: "That Puritian self-righteousness which is never far below the surface of American life has broken through the frail barriers of civility and restraint, and the press has been in the vanguard of the new aggressiveness."

What has changed is not the nature nor the inclination of those in the media to go after their subjects with every weapon at their disposal. What is new now is the very definition of media, which in this sense has come to include every blog, every web page, every podcast, every social media account on X, Facebook, and Instagram; in short, everyone with an opinion, which is just about everyone. As new types of media and new modes of communication have come about, this instinct of which Fulbright speaks has become more invasive, more insidious. Indeed, isn’t this what some here have spoken about, the increasing incivility of the internet? Well, looking at this issue is like seeing the seeds of that harvest being planted.

A lot of people fall back on the "freedom of speech" argument, defending their right to say what they want, whenever they want. And this is not an argument that should be taken lightly, because it's a slippery slope at best. But Fulbright contends that the social contract requires "a measure of voluntary restraint, an implicit agreement among the major groups and interests in our society that none will apply their powers to the fullest." A measure of responsibility, in other words, which is a commodity that is in short supply nowadays.

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Now, I mention this not merely because of Pat Buchanan’s words, but because of the echo which the subject matter receives in another article from this issue, Edwin Newman’s "People are Generally Skeptical of Us…and Indeed They Should Be." Newman shares the concern with the increasing intrusiveness of the media. Asked what was wrong with endless investigation and revelation of public figures by the media, Newman replied, "It degrades public life. If purity tests are to become an accepted part of American life before anybody can go into politics, politics is going to be intolerable. It’s very nearly intolerable now.”

Remember, he said this fifty years ago.

As for "advocacy journalism," which was very much in vogue following Watergate (and remains so today—how many young people get into journalism to "make a difference"?), Newman remains wary: "Advocacy journalism, so-called, cheats the public, which is entitled to make up its own mind." In other words, as Fox News used to say (but no longer does, if they ever did), "We report, you decide." Whether you think they've ever been accurate with that promise, you have to appreciate the perceptiveness of the marketing gurus who developed that slogan.

Newman adds, "Anybody in our business should avoid taking on false importance. We should certainly not pretend to be infallible." Now that’s a novel idea today.

Newman also sounds a cautionary note on something which Buchanan alludes to, the amount of faith (or lack thereof) that people put in their leaders. Buchanan quotes Fulbright: "Bitter disillusionment with our leaders is the other side of the coin of worshiping them." Picking up on that thread (although the two articles are not connected), Newman says that such idolatry "leads to all kinds of lunatic expectations about what can be accomplished by politicians and so leads to irrational and disproportionate disappointment…it misleads Presidents about Presidents, so that they are tempted to do foolish things. And I think the press contributes to this for reasons of its own."

This is a warning we should carefully consider. There’s a pronounced tendency nowadays to put an inordinate amount of faith in human institutions, or perhaps I should say the humans who occupy such institutions—government, medical, legal, religious, scientific, educational—which always seems to wind up badly. We create institutions, we tear them down, we rebuild them again. It keeps everyone busy, I suppose.

In many ways, the sins of the Sixties culture were starting to be felt in the Seventies, and would continue to be felt in subsequent decades. So one can see, as far back as 1975, a growing concern with cynicism in society, a disregard for institutions, and a press displaying an “anything for a story” attitude. Again, there’s nothing new here, as it was not new then. But as communication expanded beyond the newspaper to radio, beyond radio to television, and beyond broadcast television to cable and satellite; as letters gave way to email and the internet, and as information once taking hours or days to transmit is now given instant analysis and parsing through social media, so also the consequences of such concerns are magnified, enlarged, and become even more troublesome.

There really isn’t anything new out there, only new ways of expressing it. And, it seems, new ways of ignoring old truths and concerns.

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On weeks when we can, we'll match up two of the biggest rock shows of the era, NBC's The Midnight Special and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and see who's better, who's best.

Kirshner: Melissa Manchester, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and Hoyt Axton are the performers. Don Kirshner is the host of the series.

Special: Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, soul-pop singer Natalie Cole (the late Nat King Cole's daughter) and country singer Mickey Gilley are the guests. Also: a salute to Rod Stewart. Neil Diamond's "I Am...I Said" is the spotlighted hit. 

Now, I figure you all know who Natalie Cole is, but I left that reference in because, in 1975, she wasn't the established name she is today. Back then, she was just Nat King Cole's daughter. I've never been a particular fan of hers; I don't want to accuse her of being a nepo baby, but I do wonder, if her name was Natalie Smith, how big a career she might have had. Nonetheless, she's part of the winning side this week, as the salute to Rod Stewart breaks a tie between a lackluster matchup. So let's give the nod to Special, but don't exert any more energy than that.

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And now for something more lighthearted, an article about our longtime favorite, game show standard Kitty Carlisle, written by Peter Funt, son of the legendary TV host Allen Funt. (If you're old enough to remember Candid Camera, you'll know who we mean.) "The only way to see Kitty Carlisle in the same dress twice," the article proclaims, "is to watch reruns of To Tell the Truth." Funt's story is a charming portrait of an entertainer who takes her job seriously, as well as her responsibility to her fans, and radiates class all the way. "She is one actress who still refuses to appear in public without beautiful clothes, ornate jewelry and a carefully styled coiffure." Particularly humorous is her description of her "pit crew," the wardrobe people responsible for helping her change in the ten minutes between shows (the five-a-week show was taped in a single afternoon). "Every once in a while, I feel like I'm a car in the pits at Indianapolis. Somebody changes the oil, kicks the tires—you know, pats the hair and shoves me back out on the stage."

She was a fun, classy lady, and an intelligent game player.

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On Saturday, NBC preempts Saturday Night Live for college basketball, and we're not talking about any old game, but one of the biggest regular-season games in many years, as defending national champion UCLA takes on undefeated, top-ranked Indiana at the supposedly neutral site of St. Louis (which in reality is swarming with Hoosier fans cheering their team on). Note the starting time of 11:30 p.m. ET, totally out of prime time. At this point, television hadn't quite figured out primetime sports yet, and although everyone realized how big this game was, they still thought it might be a drag on ratings, which is why it has such a strange time spot. (The game is live, of course, which means tip-off is 10:30 p.m. local time in St. Louis.) The game of the season winds up being no contest at all; Indiana crushes UCLA 84-64, and it wasn't even that close; it's a big win for the Hoosiers on the way to an undefeated season and the national championship; they are, to date, the last undefeated national champion, and unquestionably one of the greatest teams of all time.

Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, who's challenging President Ford for the Republican presidential nomination, is the guest on Issues and Answers (Sunday, 1:30 p.m., ABC). The politicos still aren't quite sure what to make of Reagan's candidacy, and whether he poses a serious threat to Ford; they'll find out the answer soon enough. That night, the Sunday Mystery Movie presents  Tony Curtis as McCoy. (9:00 p.m., NBC). Does anyone out there still recall that series, McCoy?  It was part of NBC's Sunday Mystery Movie series, alternating with McCloud, McMillan & Wife, and Columbo, and people had a lot of fun with three Macs in the series. I thought it was kind of fun, myself, as Curtis plays a con man/Robin Hood-type, not dissimilar to the early '60s series The Rogues, but it only lasted for a few episodes before falling away.  NBC never was able to fill that fourth spot; I suppose Quincy would be considered the most successful, since it was spun off into its own weekly series. Richard Boone's Hec Ramsey actually ran for two seasons in the Sunday spot, which wasn't too bad.

There's a big shake-up in the soap opera world this week, as the venerable As the World Turns expands to an hour (1:30 p.m., CBS), and All in the Family becomes part of the network's daytime lineup, with repeat episodes (beginning today with the series premiere) running Monday through Friday at 3:00 p.m. Meanwhile, ABC welcomes The Edge of Night to its schedule after a 19-year run on CBS with a special 90-minute episode (3:00 p.m.); the serial returns to its regular 30-minute format tomorrow. We've got dueling evangelists on Monday night; Billy Graham's third program from Lubbock, Texas airs at 8:00 p.m. on WSBK in Boston; then, at 10:00 p.m. on WPRI in Providence, Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, and Rex Humbard join forces for a special Bicentennial salute to America, with Pat Boone, Connie Smith, and Senator Mark Hatfield.

On Tuesday, we're treated to the first of two primetime appearances by Richard Basehart, tonight on Joe Forrester (10:00 p.m., NBC), the short-lived cop drama starring Lloyd Bridges as the world's oldest beat cop. (Or maybe I should say "one of the oldest," given that I haven't seen them all.) I'm not sure who "Al Morgan," Basehart's character in the drama, is, but take your pick: he's either a slippery drug pusher, a persistent drunk, or a particularly menacing shakedown artist. And you know what? He could probably play any of them credibly.

Wednesday, Hallmark Hall of Fame returns with "Valley Forge," Maxwell Anderson's dramatization of the cruel winter of 1777-78 spent by George Washington and his troops at their Pennsylvania encampment. (8:00 p.m,. NBC) Cold, without sufficient food or water, and facing the formidable British forces of General William Howe, Washington must struggle to hold his "shambles of an army" against almost insurmountable odds. This time, Richard Basehart stars as Washington, and it's a testament to the power and brilliance of his performance that the 5'9" Basehart is able to present such a convincing portrait of the 6'3" Washington, but as you watch it, you will believe that he is the Commander in Chief. (Insert obligatory slam at today's Hallmark movies here.)

Thursday sees the debut of a pair of new sitcoms on NBC, beginning at 8:00 p.m. with Grady, the Sanford & Son spinoff, with Whitman Mayo reprising his role as Fred's goodhearted buddy, now living in Santa Monica with his daughter, son-in-law, and two grandkids. That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by The Cop and the Kid, a formulaic comedy with Charles Durning as a single, middle-aged white cop who somehow gains the custody of a streetwise black orphan. You might remember Grady, given that its lead character was familiar from a previous show, and it's been released on DVD. The Cop and the Kid, however, is more of a challenge, and rightly so; that's one of those shows where you truly wonder about how it got the green light. It did run for 13 episodes, though, so there's that.

And in the oldie-but-goody category, there's a repeat showing of Sean Connery's debut as James Bond in Dr. No (Friday, 9:00 p.m., ABC). Besides the fact that it co-stars Ursula Andress and features an entirely credible titular villain, played by Joseph Wiseman, it has a savage edge to it that most of the later movies lack. It's not exactly seasonal fare, but then is Bond ever really out of season? Judith Crist calls it "strictly a popcorn-and-Coke Saturday-afternoon-serial entertainment," which isn't really as bad as it sounds, and Connery, "the unsurpassable Bondsman, is elegant and high-living and dashing." However, if you've already seen it, you might be more inclined to the three-hour presentation of Tora, Tora, Tora (8:00 p.m., CBS), the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Crist says it recounts, "in boring fashion how lazy, dumb Americans practically brought Pearl Harbor down on their own heads despite the best efforts of those brilliant gentlemen from Japan." Ouch, that stings!

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I couldn't ignore this oddity from the week's movie listings, one of those things that maybe (probably) interests only me. On Thursday, WFSB in Hartford presents The Quiller Memorandum (9:00 p.m.), the 1966 spy thriller based on the novel by Adam Hall (pen name of Elleston Trevor), starring George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow, and Senta Berger. It's a pretty good movie, as these movies go, and Segal turns in a fairly convincing performance as a cynical American intelligence agent investigating a group of neo-Nazis. 

All right, you say, it may be a pretty good movie, but so what? Well, it so happens that some time later, in 1975, a series based on the Quiller character—called, logically enough, Quiller—hit the British airwaves, starring the very good Michael Jayston* as Quiller, who has now become a British agent. A movie, comprised of episodes from the series, was released in the same year, called Quiller: Price of Violence. And, of course, this movie happens to air this week as well, on Wednesday (12:30 a.m., ABC) 

*Jayston would later co-star with Guinness in the brilliant miniseries Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a spy series set in a similar era, based on the novel by John le Carré. I guess it's a small spy world after all.

I don't know how unusual something like this is; there's obvious coordination between stations in showing these on consecutive nights. But I always enjoy running across these kinds of coincidences in TV Guide.

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Now that Thanksgiving is beyond us, we are, of course, in the thick of the Christmas programming season (as it was still called back then), and the season explodes into view on Wednesday, with CBS's double feature of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (8:00 p.m.) and Bing Crosby's annual Yuletide clambake, Merry Christmas, Fred, From the Crosbys (9:00 p.m.), reuniting Bing with his old Holiday Inn co-star, Fred Astaire. And if you want a second helping of Bing, don't miss White Christmas, with Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen, Thursday at 9:00 p.m. on WJAR in Providence. Finally, on Friday, ABC has a double feature of its own, an animated twin bill beginning with Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus (8:00 p.m.), narrated by Jim Backus, and A Very Merry Cricket (8:30 p.m.), written and directed by Chuck Jones.

I'm a little surprised that there aren't even more on this week; nowadays, the Hallmark movies start, I don't know, a little after the Fourth of July, and Rudolph usually airs in November. And after all, Friday's already December 5, so time's slipping away! You can bet they've been running the commercials, though—those likely started before Halloween... TV

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This week in TV Guide: November 1, 1969

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it here again: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"—the more things change, the more they stay the same. Case in point: this week's cover star, Lloyd Haynes. star of ABC's successful new series Room 222.

Since Haynes plays a history teacher on television, it's natural that he has some ideas of his own about history, and some of it doesn't sound all that different from what one might read today. For example, he calls George Washington a bigot (where have I heard that before?), and is frustrated by the lack of visibility when it comes to the role of blacks in American history. South Bend, Indiana, his hometown, was run by the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia when he was growing up.

He hit his stride during a stint in the Marines, which funded his education at City College and San Jose State, and then it was on to Heater-Quigley, where he worked his way up from office boy to production assistant, with the goal of eventually breaking into acting. After a series of successful guest spots in various series, he now has one of his own, and he's making the most of it.

And now, for some of you youngsters out there, if you ever want to understand what the 1960s were really like, I'm about to tell you. You see, Lloyd Haynes is "an enthusiastic aficionado of marathon encounter groups where people try to allieviate their Uptightness [sic] by spending several sleepless days and nights together screaming, touching, huging, nestling in 'human sandwiches,' and pouring out their most intimate feelings in continuous emotional and physical involvement." Not surprisingly, Haynes thinks "they're a gas," although they would be more likely to give me gas.

Haynes goes on to recount the time he was the only black in an encounter group. "A lady looked over at me and said, 'I hate you.' I asked why and she said, 'Because you're black.' She lived at Newport Beach or somewhere like that, you know, lily white. She figured if she could attack me, it would keep the others from finding out what was really wrong with her."

I mean, I don't want to insult any of you out there who may have taken part in groups like this (they're still out there, you know), but I don't see how anyone can read what I've just written without breaking out into hysterical laughter. It's just so, so.  (If you ever want to see a great parody of these new age group therapy sessions, check out Semi-Tough, the movie based on Dan Jenkins' wonderful novel.  I'd like to think we've come a long way from that white woman from Newport Beach, though I know we haven't come far enough. I'd also like to think we've come a long way from those ridiculous encounter sessions; I know that isn't true, either.

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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: Ed's guests: Pearl Bailey, Petula Clark, comic impressionist David Frye, country singer Buck Owens, the country-rock sound of The Band, comic Rodney Dangerfield and the Feux Follets, French-Canadian folk dancers. (The quasi-official guest list also includes Lucho Navarro, voice impressionist doing sound effects, and Trio Rennos, humorous acrobats.)

Palace: Host Sammy Davis Jr. headlines a lively hour with Mama Cass Elliot, jazz great Lionel Hampton, pal Peter Lawford, singer Dana Valery, actor-singer Rosey Grier, and the Dells, classical-soul quintet.

It's a big week on TV for Sammy Davis Jr., as we'll see later on, and while Ed may have more stars—Pearl Bailey, Petula Clark, David Frye, Rodney Dangerfield—the star on Palace can do virtually everything they can do individually. (All right, there's no way he looks as good as Pet Clark, I'll give you that.) And that's just Sammy by himself; Sammy and Lionel Hampton are a great combo, Sammy and Peter Lawford make up almost half of the Rat Pack, and add Cass Elliot, by far the most talented of  The Mamas and the Papas, and you have a show that literally jumps off the screen. This week, Palace tap dances to the win. And as a bonus, here's Lionel Hampton and Sammy: five minutes that clinch the victory.

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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. 

Cleveland Amory likes Marcus Welby, M.D. I say that because he spends the entire first paragraph explaining to us what a General Practitioner is, as well as something called a "house call." Certainly, it helps, for you whipperstappers out there who don't remember these things, but it also takes up a full 25% of the column, leaving that much less room for him to launch one of his attacks.

Which is a good thing, because Cleveland doesn't really have anything bad to say about this show. Both Robert Young, as the good Dr. Welby, and James Brolin, as his young assistant Dr. Kiley, are "very good," and the guest on the initial episode, Susan Clark, playing a young schoolteacher who's going to die, was "magnificent." It was, Amory writes, "the finest first episode of a show we have ever seen." Various scenes are played out with a delicate mixture of humor and drama, particularly in a scene where she tries to explain her impending death to her schoolchildren, and in another when Welby gives Kiley a lesson in bedside manner: "For most of us, death comes alone, in a hospital, in the middle of the night. There may be a nurse but it very much depends on whether she has compassion or whether even she is there. Miss Adams is alone—in the middle of the night."

The second episode, in which Welby is persistent in his attempts to break through to an autistic boy, was, says Amory, "almost equally good." And at the end of this review, Amory engages in what I think is a rare moment of self-reflection, a nod to the style for which he is so well-known. He refers to an exchange between Kiley and Welby, when the young doctor, in exasperation, says to Welby, "Who are you? Sigmund Freud or Annie Sullivan?" Replies Welby, "You're too old for whimsy and too young for sarcasm." And, concluding this unusually straightforward review, Amory notes, "For a show as good as this one, aren't we all?"

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I mentioned earlier that this is a big week for Sammy Davis Jr. While he's hosting The Hollywood Palace with his old friend Peter Lawford on ABC, he's also appearing opposite himself with Lawford and their old friend Frank Sinatra in Sergeants 3, (Saturday, 9:00 p.m., NBC) Then, on Tuesday, Davis stars in the made-for-TV suspense thriller The Pigeon (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC), in which he plays a private detective trying to protect a young woman who doesn't want protecting. He's joined by a very good cast: Ricardo Montalban, Dorothy Malone, and Pat Boone in his TV dramatic debut.

But in fact, you could cover almost all of the week just with the Rat Pack. The Chairman returns for his fifth television special on Wednesday (9:00 p.m., CBS), a one-man show in which Frank belts out some of his biggest hits, including "All the Way," "The Tender Trap," "My Way," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Please Be Kind," and "My Kind of Town." Responding to the changing times, he also takes a crack at more contemporary tunes such as "Little Green Apples," "A Man Alone," and "Goin' Out of My Head." With, I might add, slightly less success.

And Frank is back on Thursday night, starring with Dean Martin in the western 4 For Texas (9:00 p.m., CBS) with Anita Ekberg and Ursula Andress making up the four.* Charles Bronson is there as well, and Arthur Godfrey and the Three Stooges appear in cameos. The last half of 4 For Texas overlaps with Dean's own show (10:00 p.m., NBC), with another terrific lineup of stars: Bing Crosby, Eva Gabor, Jack Gilford and Dom DeLuise. 

*Along with Frank and Dean, of course. What did you think I meant?

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There's more to the week than the Rat Pack, though, believe it or not. (And don't tell Frank.) On Monday night at 8:30 p.m, President Nixon is scheduled to address the nation on Vietnam (the "Vietnamization" speech), and this presents an unusual challenge to the networks, since the speech comes smack-dab in the middle of the evening's entertainment. CBS lucks out; they have a block of half-hour sitcoms from 7:30 to 9:00, and so The Doris Day Show gets an unexpected night off. It's not so easy for NBC and ABC, however: NBC's movie Frankie and Johnny (starring frend-of-the-president Elvis) starts at 8:00 p.m. and gets a half-hour before being interrupted for the speech, before resuming at 9:00 (time approximate). ABC's solution is even more interesting: the hour-long Love, American Style, which also begins at 8:00 p.m., is interrupted not only for the president's speech, but for an ABC News analysis at 9:00, with Love, American Style returning at 9:30. Kind of ingenious, actually; it's made up of three separate stories, so they might be able to split the show in two without cutting into any of the stories.

ABC has some pretty adult movies on this week—adult not necessarily being a synonym for good, mind you—beginning on Sunday night with The Carpetbaggers (8:00 p.m.), starring George Peppard and Carroll Baker. Judith Crist, in what may be her Review of the Year, describes it as an "incoherent, vulgar and tedious 1964 screen version of Harold Robbins' smutty best-seller. By today's smut standards, though, it's pretty tame stuff. Heavens, Carroll Baker, as always exuding about as much sex appeal as a whole-wheat muffin, doesn't even get to strip!" It's challenged by Wednesday's presentation of Claude Lelouch's 1966 French art-house smash  it's A Man and a Woman, which copped a Best Actress nomination for Anouk Aimee. The "banal romance", Crist notes, is wrapped with "so many cinematic tricks and effects that Lalouch almost manages to obscure the vapidity of performance and superficialty of the content." It is, however, quite lovely to look at, so that "even thinking folk can indulge themselves in its simple-minded sentimentality." 

Also on Wednesday (10:00 p.m.), NET presents "The Heartmakers," a Science Apecial that examines the development of the artificial heart, featuring interviews with two of the most renowned heart surgeons of the day, Drs. Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey. And on Thursday, for us early risers, Today (7:00 a.m.) has an interview with the three Apollo 11 astronauts, returning from their world tour. The moon must have been the only place that Bob Hope didn't go to entertain Americans in uniform, but Thursday evening, he stars in a 90-minute change of pace special (8:30 p.m., NBC). Rather than his usual mixture of skits, musical guests, and jokes, it's a full-fledged presentation of "Roberta," the musical comedy that made him a Broadway star in 1933. John Davidson, Janis Page, and Michele Lee costar in the show, taped at the Bob Hope Theatre on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. And not to be left out, ABC offers This is Tom Jones (9:00 p.m.) with Connie Stevens, Matt Munro, the Moody Blues, and Shecky Greene, followed at 10:00 p.m. by It Takes a Thief, with Fred Astaire guesting in his second appearance as Alistair Mundy, Al's (Robert Wagner) master thief father.

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Not so fast, my friend! The Doan Report takes a look at the early ratings race, now that we've had a couple of months to digest the new shows. The most successful among the rookies are Marcus Welby, M.D., The Jim Nabors Hour, Room 222, and The Bill Cosby Show, and old favorites like Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Jackie Glason Show, Mayberry, R.F.D., The Glen Campbell Goodtime Show, and Family Affair are, in the report's words, "looking strong."

On the other hand, there are those that aren't looking so hot, and most of them won't surprise you. ABC's experiment with 45-minute programming, The Music Scene and The New People, are said to be in "deep trouble," along with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the movie spinoff starring Monte Markham in the role made famous by Gary Cooper, and Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters. You might, however, be surprised to see The Brady Bunch on the list of endangered shows, though after a slow start, the sitcom manages to "hang on" for five seasons, plus countless spin-offs and an enduring place in the hearts of many television fans to this day. Mission: Impossible, too, is said to be in trouble, and while there's little doubt that the series isn't the same without Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, it will continue until 1973. Not every series is so lucky, though; I Dream of Jeannie, one of NBC's "worries," will go off at the end of this season, as will newcomer Bracken's World and The Leslie Uggams Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show will continue for just one more season.

Of course, as one series leaves the air, another is set to take its place. With an eye toward some of its weak links, ABC is said to be lining up variety shows for Johnny Cash, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Pat Paulson. (Dick Cavett is also said to be on this list, but he unexpectedly winds up in Joey Bishop's timeslot after the latter quits his show.) They're also rumored to be preparing a version of The Odd Couple, with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. CBS's summer hit Hee Haw is being primed for a return, and NBC's working on a hour-long show for Flip Wilson. Surprisingly, all of these make it on the air (with varying degrees of success, it should be added); however, there's no record of an Arte Johnson show ever hiting the small screen, and a pop show version of Harper Valley, PTA does make it—in 1980, with the former star of Jeannie, Barbara Eden.

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Edith Efron is back this week with the fourth in a series of articles on the relationship between television and children, this one asking the simple question: "What is TV doing to them?" Unfortunately, for such a simple question, there's no simple answer; instead, what Efron mostly gets is a series of contradictions.

For example, everyone agrees that parents could use some guidance in helping them determine what their children watch. The PTA has such an advisory group; so does the National Association for Better Broadcasting, a television watchdog. The two groups agree on virtually nothing; while the NABB says that Heckle and Jeckle is "a cartoon series of excellent quality," the PTA calls it "just a heap of rubbish." Likewise, NAAB says that American Bandstand "lacks grace and gaiety," while according to the PTA, it has "gentle manners, good taste and friendly gaiety."

Likewise, the American Council for Better Broadcasts has formed its own advisory group of critics to provide aid and comfort for parents; their recommendations are similarly contradictory. Their opinions on Gunsmoke run from "Too gory and violent" to "Suitable for family viewing," and when it comes to Lost in Space, it's either "Marked by violence, greed, selfishness, trickery and disregard for accepted values" or "imaginative, with good moral concepts." Thanks a whole hell of a lot, right?

Efron asks several pointed questions about the relationship between children and TV: What picture of Man is TV teaching our children? What picture of personal relationships is TV teaching our children? Moral conflicts? Sociopolitical problems? In almost every case, these and other questions can be answered "Take your choice." Writes Efron, "[C]ritics dedicated to child welfare are in belligerant disaccord about whether or not any given show is Ethical, True or Beautiful." Furthermore, "The quarrels range through every kind of programming that children see—everything except late-night fare." They can't even agree on the problems, so is it any surprise that they can't agree on the solutions?" Should television be realistic or soothing? Is a specific drama educational or pathological? It all depends on who you ask.

At the risk of engaging in amateur psychology, I think the rise of this question, which, in one form or another, has been around since the beginning of television, can be related directly to the state of the family in the changing times of the '60s. Increasingly, television is looked upon as a babysitter, and teens are becoming more autonomous in their viewing selections. Parents are less available to directly oversee the programs that their young children watch, and the generation gap makes it less likely that teens and their parents are even in the same room, let alone watching the same programs. (Ed Sullivan discovered this to his dismay; by introducing rock acts to the show, he actually highlighted the gap and wound up undermining the homogeneity of his audience.) Experts debated the effect of shows like Howdy Doody on children, but it's likely the discussion took place in an environment much changed by 1969.

And so, in the end, it's appropriate that we end this week the way we started. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Or, if you prefer, sic semper erat, et sic semper erit: "Thus has it always been, thus it shall ever be." If we've anything at all from the last six years of TV Guide, it's been that. N'est-ce pas?

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MST3K alert: Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) Milwaukee TV Debut. A Florida game warden investigates mysterious deaths in the Everglades. Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepherd, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey, Bruno Ve Sota, Gene Roth. (Friday, 1:00 p.m., WTEV in New Bedford) This time, it isn't just the movie that sucks! We've got a hero who's a jerk, a sheriff who's an idiot, a cheap hussey, a fat guy, and monsters that suck the lifeblood out of their victims. I ask you, what more could anyone look for in a movie? TV

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Around the dial

It's been awhile, but at Cult TV Blog, John returns to the world of The Prisoner with his continuing series in which he looks at various interpretations of the series. This week, it's a very interesting look at The Prisoner as an allegory of the Soviet Union.

Captain Video continues his own series, in which we look at various comic adaptations of the pilot for Space: 1999. Compare and contrast with last week's edition, which did a much more complete job with the same episode.

Speaking of comic book adaptations, at bare•bones e-zine, Jack and Peter continue their survey of DC's 1960s Batman comics. You can certainly see the resemblance between the TV series and the comics from the late 60s, and don't worry: Batgirl is there too!

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence pays tribute to Dame Patricia Routledge, who died last week at 96; best-known for the British classic Keeping Up Appearances, she had a long and varied career in both television and movies, including To Sir, With Love and If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium.

At Classic Film & TV Corner, Maddie revisits one of Kurosawa's great films, Stray Dogs, starring the incomparable Toshiro Minfue and Takashi Shimura; I mention this as a happy reminder of when we subscribed to the Criterion Channel, and got to discover the gems in Japanese noir.

The View from the Junkyard takes on politics in The A-Team episode "The White Ballot," and as Roger points out, the episode gives us some insight into political corruption; I particularly like the idea of returning to the days of tar and feathers, myself.

At The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew has some thoughts on recent interviews with Rob Reiner, as it relates to early television. In particular, he talked about how his family bought their first set so they could see father Carl on Saturday night's Your Show of Shows. What a radical change TV was.

Finally at Television Obscurities, Robert has a brief clip from CBS from an undetermined date, at a time when they were promoting themselves as "America’s No. 1 Network for 17 Years In A Row." I wonder where today's top shows, whatever they are, would fit in those rankings; probably right at the top. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

This week in TV Guide: September 24, 1966

It doesn't seem right that we'd pass up the opportunity to talk about Barbara Eden when she's on the cover of TV Guide, does it?

Unfortunately, we don't get nearly enough of Jeannie in this feature, which is about the show's transition from last season's black and white episodes to this year, in which she appears in living color. (On the other hand, Jeannie in color has to be good news no matter how one looks at it.) But it's an interesting story, because it presents a situation that we don't think about all that often: the series that started out in B&W and then made the switch to color. For some longer-running shows, this was kind of a downgrade; I don't think anyone would argue that The Fugitive and Combat! were better in color; monochrome was particularly effective in transmitting the grittiness and darkness in these shows, not to mention that "exterior" scenes shot in a studio are usually a little easier to disguise in black and white. There are some who would even make the case that a show like The Wild Wild West benefitted from black and white; it toned down the surreality of the steampunk devices utilized throughout the show's history, and made the show a little more grounded.

On the other hand, I don't know that there's any particular disadvantage to a show such as I Dream of Jeannie being shot in color, particularly since the show's designers really knew how to take advantage of it. This week's story details how the show's special effects man, Dick Albain, along with his five assistants, "spent weeks inventing a process to create a cloudy effect which would seemingly waft the beautiful Barbara across TV screens." The effect was eventually achieved through a combination of dry ice, steam, mirrors, and a system of colored lights. "We manufactured different colors of smoke, all traveling as in a Frankenstein marsh scene," Albain explains. "The idea was to show the viewers that Jeannie is going from one scene to another."

These kinds of detail are, I suppose, things that one doesn't ordinarily consider when looking at the effort required to transition a show to color. Of course, even in those monochrome days, the colors used in sets and costumes was an important consideration, given that certain colors transmit off a different look or in black and white. (Case in point: the pink interior of the Addams Family living room.) And when you consider the vividness of the potential color in a Jeannie episode, it's easy to understand how both the "All Color Network" and the show's producers would want to exploit it to its utmost. 

Eden says that shooting with the new effects is "like being in a beautiful fairyland, among the mirrors, smoke and lights. The smoke is my traveling music." That's not to say that it's all good news on the set, though. She also concedes that it gets pretty hot after a couple of hours with those colored lights. "Not only that, but my expensive silk-chiffon pants shrank." Oh dear.

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere 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: Ethel Merman; the rock ‘n’ rolling Supremes; Frank Fontaine; Allen Funt, who shows films of Ed’s appearance in “Candid Camera’; pianist Peter Nero; comics Nipsey Russell and Steve Rossi; dancer Peter Gennaro; the comic Uncalled for Three; and baseball greats Rube Marquard, Lefty O’Doul and Fred Snodgrass. (The Sullivan online listings omit Funt, Gennaro, and the baseball greats.)

Palace: Phil Silvers, making his debut as a Palace host, introduces singers Polly Bergen, Sergio Franchi and the folk-rocking Lovin’ Spoonful; and the comedy team of Carl Reiner and "2000-year-old man" Mel Brooks. Also on the bill: sword-swallower Tagora, and Mr. and Mrs. Bob Top, who roller-skate on a 60-foot-high platform.   

This week's choice really depends on what you're looking for. If comedy's your thing, then Silvers, Reiner and Brooks are very, very hard to beat. On the other hand, if it's music, then you might lean toward the Supremes, Peter Nero, and the Merm as your pick. As befits an early-season matchup, they're both strong lineups, and consequently, you shouldn't be surprised that I'm begging off on taking a stand. This week is a Push.

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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. 

Every once in a while, Our Man Cleve punts on reviewing a specific program in favor of taking on an entire genre. This is one of those weeks, as Cleve shares with us a few thoughts on sports before taking up the new season's shows.

As Amory perceptively observes, "Many people originally started their TViewing with sports." Think about it: what are your early television memories? Mine are almost exclusively sports, and it's not just because it's easier to identfy such events by titles, such as an all-star game, World Series, or Super Bowl. And, in fact, there has never been a time in the medium's history when sports hasn't been a main part of the draw: wrestling, boxing, even, as Amory points out, roller derby. They were easy to cover, operating in essentially a self-contained studio, and they had a ready-made audience. However, nowadays sports has become such a big part of TV that "the chief danger now is that TV’s going to take over sports altogether—and even change our sports seasons." Have truer words ever been spoken?

By and large, television has done right by its expanded coverage, particularly when it comes to golf, "a sport you would hardly consider a spectator one to begin with." The recent introduction of instant replay and stop-action tapes has been "outstanding"; "Miserable as they may be for umpires, they are terrific for viewers, particularly on such a fine show as the weekly Major League Baseball." However, there's one trend that Cleve is apprehensive about, and that's that announcers for local games are hired "with the approval of the major-league teams and paid by the teams or the TV sponsors." Regardless of how these announcers go about their jobs (and, Amory notes, the vast majority "lean over backwards to be fair to their team's opponents"), it is the appearance that matters, and here the look is not a good one; announcers should be free from the suspicion such controls create; better yet, they "should be free of such control." 

I wonder what Amory would think about today's televised sports, where entire networks (looking at you, ESPN) are owned or about to be owned in part by one of the leagues whose games it covers. It raises concerns about the objectivity of those in the business, whether they're announcing the games or, in the case of a network like ESPN, the network itself presumes to style itself as a news-reporting outlet. In so doing, it creates a situation which even a forward-looking critic such as Cleveland Amory might have had trouble anticipating. And, as is so often the case, it creates a situation where nobody knows how it ends. That's not the kind of drama we look for from sports on television.

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Let's stay with this sports motif a moment longer, because, as Henry Harding writes in his For the Record column, "The weekend of Sept. 10 and 11 probably broke some sports record or other, at least where TV is concerned." "Never before," Harding says, "had so much muscle been strained before so many frenetic fans." The entertainment included an NFL game on September 10 between the Baltimore Colts and Green Bay Packers*, a heavyweight title bout between Cassius Clay and Karl Mildenberger, the baseball Game of the Week between the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, and the first major college football game of the season pitting Syracuse and Baylor. Viewers were also treated to the finals of the U.S. Tennis Championships at Forest Hills, and the final two rounds of the World Series of Golf. 

*What's perhaps most surprising about this to modern eyes is that the NFL was trounced in the ratings by NBC's coverage of the Miss America Pageant. Today, that pageant barely exists as an entity, let alone a TV behemoth, while the NFL just purchased 10 percent of ESPN, and even owns a share of CBS. 

For contrast—and admit it, you knew this was coming—let's take a look at sports on television for the weekend of September 6 and 7 of this year. As was the case back in 1966, the offerings included the men's and women's finals of U.S. Open tennis, and there's baseball and football. Specifically, there's a lot of football; setting aside for the moment the myriad options offered by streaming services and league-operated networks, the average viewer could choose from a single college football game on CBS and NBC each, two on Fox, three each on ABC and the CW, and literally dozens more on cable. There was also time for Saturday night baseball on Fox, plus soccer (both professional and college, volleyball, and other marginal sports. Sunday was, not surprisingly, dominated by pro football, with at least three NFL games to choose from on Sunday afternoon between Fox and CBS, plus one on NBC Sunday night (and an additional game on Monday night on ABC, for those counting). There was also NASCAR and Formula 1 auto racing, men's and women's soccer, along with regional baseball for those with local teams. 

In other words, if one were to include streaming sports from around the world, a viewer could literally go from the NFL game on Friday on YouTube clear through to late Sunday night watching nothing but sports. Even with those having nothing other than an antenna (the most like-for-like comparison with 1966), one could easily go from noon to midnight both Saturday and Sunday with sports as a constant presence. With the amount of money networks spend for the rights to telecast sports—an amount in the billions of dollars—one has to ask if sports have taken over television, or if television has taken over sports. It is, to be sure, a mutually agreeable situation for both, and not a bad deal for the fans, either.

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The first month or so of a new season is often rife with big names, specials, and blockbusters of one kind or another, and this week is no exception. The highlights begin, appropriately enough, on Saturday, with the first of ten original musicals on The Jackie Gleason Show (7:30 p.m., CBS). Tonight's presentation, "The Politician," stars Gleason as Big Jim Finley, a machine politician running for re-election as mayor against an opponent, Frank Meriweather who is everything Finney isn't: astronaut, veteran, and movie star. Elliot Reid is Meriweather, and Art Carney, the indispensable man, plays Finley's advisor. I think many of us are familiar with Gleason's later Honeymooners musicals, but this is something I wasn't familiar with. Later, on David Susskind's Play of the Week (9:00 p.m., KQED), it's "A Cool Wind Over the Living," with Diana Hyland and James Patterson as two young people pondering their lives while attempting to gas themselves to death—even though they haven't paid their bill and the gas company has shut off the service. Not quite the network fare you'd see today.

Amongst all the football on Sunday, we've got some gems. On KNTV in San Jose, it's the Oscar-winning movie All the King's Men (4:30 p.m.), a political drama-cum-gothic horror story, with Broderick Crawford outstanding as Willie Stark, a man for our times. On the Bell Telephone Hour (6:30 p.m., NBC), it's an up-close-and-personal at Gian Carlo Menotti's festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. Appearing with the composer of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" and "The Saint of Bleecker Street" are conductor Thomas Schippers, pianist Sviatoslav Richter, and soprano Shirley Verrett. And perhaps the week's highlight, the television premiere of The Bridge on the River Kwai, the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1957, starring Alec Guinness. Unlike most epics of the time, Kwai is broadcast uncut and on a single night; it will draw an audience of 72 million viewers, at the time the largest ever to view a movie broadcast, and a 61 percent share. You think a network wouldn't kill for something like that today?

On Monday, the great Stan Freberg makes a rare television appearance on The Monkees (7:30 p.m., NBC), in an episode where the boys try to get regular jobs in order to pay the rent, but Peter has to deal with a computer aptitude test. In local movies, the sinking of the Titanic, which had faded in memory after two World Wars, first returned to the public consciousness in the movie of the same name (9:30 p.m., KSBW in Salinas), with Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Wagner. Don't mistake this for the more recent Titanic movie, which might be more spectacular, but this fictional story of the great ship's foundering, which was my introduction to a lifelong interest in the Titanic, tells a pretty good story on its own. And Johnny Carson welcomes a couple of heavyweight guests to The Tonight Show (11:15 p.m., NBC) in Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Bob Hope.

Boris Karloff makes a delightful appearance on The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., NBC), dressed for the role of "Mother Muffin" a kindly old woman who also runs an assassination academy. Bruce Gordon, whom we all know and love as Frank Nitti on The Untouchables, guest stars as gangster Vito Pomade, and don't even begin to ask how he fits into the story. The night's rounded off by a couple of serious-minded programs: a CBS Reports look at "Black Power—White Backlash" (10:00 p.m.), documenting the mounting white concern about the rise of the civil rights movement in the North. On NET, Open Mind (10:00 p.m.) features an interview with the provocative media critic Marshall McLuhan, who discusses some of his theories on the effect of media on man’s consciousness. 

I can't think of a better way to get Wednesday started than with The Today Show (7:00 a.m., NBC), with Burr Tillstrom and his Kuklapolitan Players. In primetime, Bob Hope hosts his first special of the new season (9:00 p.m., NBC), in which he announces that his "favorite leading lady" will be starring with him in a musical version of Gone with the Wind. Just who is that "favorite" lady? Among the competitors are Lucille Ball, Madeleine Carroll, Joan Caulfield, Joan Collins, Arlene Dahl, Phyllis Diller, Anita Ekberg, Rhonda Fleming, Joan Fontaine, Signe Hasso, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Marilyn Maxwell, Virginia Mayo, Dina Merrill, Vera Miles, Janis Paige and Jane Russell. No wonder Bob's developed a nervous twitch. 

On Thursday, it's the fourth and final episode of The Tammy Grimes Show (8:30 p.m., ABC), so if you've been thinking about checking out this much-maligned show (and I don't know why you would), here's your last chance. At the time, it was almost unheard-of for a series to be cancelled this quickly; obviously, things have changed a bit since then. An eponymous show of a slightly more successful bent is The Dean Martin Show (10:00 p.m., NBC), and Deano's got a star-studded lineup tonight, with Duke Ellington and his rhythm section, the Andrews Sisters, Frank Gorshin, Tim Conway, and Lainie Kazan.

Friday night, it's a rare NFL weeknight matchup, with the San Francisco 49ers taking on the Los Angeles Rams from the Los Angeles Coliseum (8:00 p.m., KTVU); due to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, the game is limited to coverage by local stations. As I recall, the scheduling was due to a stadium conflict with USC, but I could be mistaken on that. And on the short-lived—although not as short-lived as Tammy Grimes—Milton Berle Show (9:00 p.m., ABC), Uncle Miltie welcomes Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, and Ken Berry from the network's F Troop, plus singer Donna Loren and Johnny Puleo and the Harmonica Rascals. Oh, and I almost forgot: Bob Hope, too. Remember how a week or two ago I said something about Bob Hope never meeting a show he wasn't willing to appear on? I swear, he must have had a standing agreement that any program needing a guest star had to give him first dibs. There was a reason why Hope was a big star, though.

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MST3K alert: The Black Scorpion (1957). The Mexican Army is called out to battle a horde of man-eating scorpions, but one of the creatures escapes and heads for Mexico City. Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas. (Sunday, 2:30 p.m., KXRA in Sacramento) Richard Denning, after solving mysteries with his wife on Mr. and Mrs. North, but before being elected governor of Hawaii (even though we all know Steve McGarrett really ran the state), had time to hunt down giant scorpions. If you've seen the MST3K take, you'll agree with me that they should have left Juanito down in that cavern. TV  

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!