This week in TV Guide: December 28, 1963

There's something about the cover of this issue I really like. It's colorful and cheerful and fun (the picture at left really doesn't do it justice), and perhaps after the grim last month, it was meant to suggest a bright and hopeful future.

But as we all know, looks can be deceiving. Take the young woman on the cover, 17-year-old Patty Duke, Academy Award winner and star of The Patty Duke Show, in which she plays twin cousins Patty and Cathy Lane. This show was a modest success, running for three seasons and producing a well-remembered theme song. The article itself (written by an unbylined author) wasn't particularly flattering, commenting on Duke's lack of personality; one might say, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, that there was no there there. The most common explanation comes from her "rags to riches" story, and some "unhappy" experiences "which have since been amply covered with sugar." In the words of "sophisticated" observers (who prefer to remain anonymous), she seems "just too surgary," the kind of girl "who just isn't there." Says one, "God knows, she's nice enough, but I always have trouble remembering what her face looks like." I wonder if, today, we'd recognize the face of the person who said that?

Duke's horrific childhood is vaguely alluded to in the story, which refers to her having been "abandoned by her father and partially relinquished by her mother," leaving her to a set of " 'make-believe' parents [John and Ethel Ross, her managers and guardians] who, despite their devotion ("They've built my whole life," Patty says, "in and out of acting." have "stressed her career." That "devotion," we now know, included sexual abuse, financial manipulation, changing her name, and plying her with alcohol and drugs while keeping her a virtual prisoner. Nor does it take into consideration her 1965 marriage to director Harry Falk (likely done to escape the Rosses), a marriage during which she "had repeated mood swings, drank heavily, became anorexic, and overdosed on pills a number of times." Given all this, plus a later diagnosis of bipolar disorder, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that she came across as little more than a programmed robot with no independent thoughts of her own. This really is one of those articles that becomes so much more interesting when you know the rest of the story.

Victimization has become something trendy over the years, but there seems to be little doubt that Patty Duke was a victim: of her parents, of her managers, of the industry, of many of the men in her life. I wonder how much of this information would have been available to an enterprising reporter back in 1963? I know we didn't like to talk about things like that back then, and perhaps there wasn't any particular source that could have shed light on all the goings-on in her personal life. And yet, it seems as if it would have been more productive to do a little more digging than to be free with the snide insinuations and comments that make up so much of this story.

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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. 

To round out Cleveland Amory's first year as TV Guide's critic, we take a look at a program that's been on—well, it seems as if it's been on forever, even though its star is younger than Cleve. Only 39, if you're to believe him, but then he was 39 as well when the show started, so believe what you want. But, to quote Fred Allen (as Cleve does), there are two kids of jokes: "funny jokes and Jack Benny jokes." And to criticize the Jack Benny jokes is almost as unkind as "criticizing old friends." Not just unkind, but wrong.

The best way to enjoy The Jack Benny Program, according to Amory, is to "guess the joke and, when you've got it, go along with it—the way you go along with a gag." And if you don't get it the first time around, you'll have another chance, because "nothing is ever thrown away." And why not? There's an old saying that an old joke is old because it's also a good joke. Whether we're talking about Jack's age, his stinginess, his vanity, it's all been built on a solid foundation of Benny's character development that has been honed over some 30 years. And, in fact, we don't even need jokes to make the point; his pause, his hurt stare at the audience, invariably accompanied by "Well!" would be meaningless without the viewer's familiarity with Jack's stage persona. And Benny himself says it couldn't have happened deliberately; "My show-business character developed into a person who is a sort of composite of all the faults of everybody. If my writers had set out to make me into that all at once, 30 years ago, I don't think I'd have lasted two months."

Besides the writers, with whom Jack was always generous in sharing credit, that "character" includes a team that's been with him almost as long as he's been on the air: announcer Don Wilson for 30 years, musical director Mahlon Merrick for 29 years, Rochester 26, and Dennis Day 24. And two of those writers, Sam Perrin and George Balzer, have served over 20 years. You don't have that kind of longetivity, that kind of success on both radio and television, without doing something right. And Jack Benny has more than just something going for him. He's been at it now for 180 times two months, and, as Amory concludes, "it seems fitting to say, if he will pardon the expression, Happy New Year, Jack."

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For college football fans, this is the week of weeks.  The appetizer is served on Saturday, with the Air Force Academy taking on North Carolina in the Gator Bowl (12:30 p.m. CT, CBS); we've also got one of the premier all-star games in football, the East-West Shrine Game from San Francisco (3:30 p.m., NBC), for those players whose schools didn't find their way into one of the year's nine bowl games—meaning there are a lot of good players in it.

The real deal comes Wednesday, with the New Year's Day quad-fecta (is that a word?), featuring the de facto de facto showdown for the national championship between Texas and Navy at the Cotton Bowl (12:45 p.m., CBS). Now, let me explain that peculiar description: in 1963, the final Associated Press and United Press International polls, which determined the unofficial national champion (there being no tournament back then to crown an official champion), were taken at the end of the regular season. The bowl games were seen as exhibitions, rewards to the players for a good season. They were put on by chambers of commerce, held in warm-weather locales where people could go to have fun, and watch a football game as part of a festival that often included a parade, a college basketball tournament, and other events. So entering New Year's Day, the season was over and the title race had already been decided. The de facto national champion was Texas, having finished the season undefeated at 10-0.

But there's a twist: their opponent, the Naval Academy, is the nation's #2 ranked team, with a record of 9-1, as well as the Heisman Trophy winner and most exciting player in the country, quarterback ◀ Roger Staubach.* Exhibition game or not, if Navy defeats Texas, there are going to be a lot of people looking at the Midshipmen as the true de facto national champions. So there you have it.  The game doesn't really count, but it does. The championship has already been decided, but it hasn't. Had Navy won, there would have been no little bit of controversy.

*Staubach was to be on Life's November 29, 1963 cover.  AfterFK's death, the magazine scrapped 300,000 already-printed copies.

And there were a lot of people rooting for Navy. Remember, the Naval Academy, alma mater of the late President Kennedy, is travelling to the city in which he was assassinated less than six weeks ago. Emotions are running high (as part of the trip, the Middies were taken to the sixth floor of the School Book Depository to see where the assassination happened), and Big D, suddenly the most hated city in the most hated state in America, is desperate to regain its self-esteem, which can only be helped by having its state university win the national title.

In any event, the whole thing is an anti-climax; Texas wins the game handily, 28-6.

In these times before prime-time football, the Cotton Bowl has to share the spotlight with the Orange Bowl in Miami, pitting #5 Auburn vs. #6 Nebraska (12:30 p.m., ABC) and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, between #9 Alabama and #7 Mississippi (12:45 p.m., NBC), all of which were joint opening acts for the Granddaddy of Them All, the Rose Bowl, from Pasadena, with #3 Illinois and unranked Washington (3:45 p.m., NBC) which ended the college football season. As an added bonus, both of NBC's games are broadcast in color! Good games, good times.

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But to get to New Year's Day, you have to go through New Year's Eve, which culminates with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. (Tuesday, 11:15 p.m., CBS, shown on a one-hour tape delay in Minneapolis to coincide with midnight in the Central time zone.) He's joined by Allen Ludden, Dorothy Collins, and the Willis Sisters. They're not in their traditional stomping grounds at the Waldorf Astoria, though—for the first time, they're broadcasting from Grand Central Station in New York City, as part of the Bell Ringer Ball for Mental Health. 

Plenty of New Year's cheer earlier in the night as well, with all the action coming at 9:00 p.m.: Garry Moore celebrates the Eve with a party featuring Chita Rivera, Roy Castle, and singer Melodye Condos. (CBS) Over on NBC, Andy Williams, for his last special of the year, welcomes Fred MacMurray and the Williams family. And on ABC, it's coverage of the King Orange Jamboree parade, taped earlier in the evening, with Jim McKay and Olympic champion figure skater Carol Heiss reporting; according to the Miami News, a half-million spectators lined the parade route for the festivities. 

Speaking of parades, if you want 'em on New Year's Day, you've got 'em. CBS kicks things off at 10:00 a.m. with the Cotton Bowl Parade from the State Fair grounds in Dallas (which is where the Cotton Bowl stadium is located), hosted by Chris Schenkel and Pat Summerall; Schenkel will be back later in the day to broadcast the game. At 10:45 a.m., the network switches to coverage of the 75th Rose Parade from Pasadena, where the Grand Marshal is former president Dwight Eisenhower; future president Ronald Reagan and Bess Myerson return as hosts. NBC's broadcast begins 15 minutes earlier, with Arthur Godfrey and Betty White doing the honors. ABC joins in the fun with coverage of the Mummers Parade from Philadelphia (11:00 a.m.), the first time ever on national TV for the legendary parade. Although ABC's broadcast runs for 90 minutes, that's only a small segment of the all-day parade, which lasts for most of the day before it's done. Parade coverage is in color on all three networks, and their coverage continues until the football starts.

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Saturday night, filling one-half of the time slot of the recently departed Jerry Lewis Show, it's the Hollywood Deb Star Ball 1964 (8:30 p.m., ABC), in which we meet "the lovely Deb [for debutante] Stars, slated for future stardom by major Hollywood studios." There are ten altogether; let's take a look at how well they did. There's Meredith MacRae, daughter of Gordon and Sheila MacRae, who just happened to be the hosts of the show; she did pretty well for herself. There's Katherine Crawford, daughter of Roy Huggins, creator of The Fugitive, The Invaders, and other TV hits, who is profiled elsewhere in this week's issue. There's Chris Noel (who had been profiled in the previous week's issue), whose remarkable life led her from a modest Hollywood career to her vocation as a radio host and entertainer stationed in Vietnam for the Armed Forces Network, travelling to locations considered too dangerous for Bob Hope and other celebrities. There's also Susan Seaforth, who as Susan Seaforth Hayes remains one of the queens of daytime dramas on Days of Our Lives. One of her Days co-stars, Brenda Benet, perhaps as well known for being Bill Bixby's ex-wife, is there as well. There's Linda Evans, future star of The Big Valley and Dynasty. And there's Claudia Martin, Deano's daughter, Shelly Ames (daughter of actor Leon Ames), Anna Capri, and Amadee Chabot, who all scored minor successes. See if you can match them with their pictures on the right!

On Sunday, it's the television premiere of the documentary The Making of the President 1960, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winner by Theodore H. White, with narration by Martin Gabel (7:30 p.m., ABC). The documentary was completed prior to Kennedy's death, and is being presented unchanged except for a brief prologue by White. Documentary versions of his 1964 and 1968 books were made as well, but not the 1972 edition, which itself ended the series.

We often see changes to the daytime television lineup around the start of the new year, and Monday sees one such debut: the venerable Let's Make a Deal (1:00 p.m., NBC), with Monty Hall hosting this series where "[c]ontestants can win prizes by answering questions or trading—with the chance that any prize may disguise something much more valuable." You'll notice that there's no mention of outrageous costumes, signs, or other flamboyant behavior from potential contestants; that evolved organically, as a way to increase one's chances of being chosen. As you can see from the original pilot, things started out quite differently. 
On Tuesday morning, author Richard Condon is the guest on Today (7:00 a.m., NBC). Condon is most famous, of course, for his novel The Manchurian Candidate, written in 1959. The movie version, which came out in 1962, was rumored to have been withdrawn from circulation following JFK's assassination, though that was an urban legend. Condon is likely promoting one of the two books he'll have published in 1964: either An Infinity of Mirrors or Any God Will Do.

With the football done for the day, CBS has a live news roundtable Wednesday evening called Years of Crisis (6:30 p.m.), in which CBS correspondents gather to discuss the events of the past year and their probable effect on the future. In case you were wondering, those events included the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the death of Pope John XXIII and election of Pope Paul VI, the overthrow of the Diem regime in South Vietnam and the escalation of American involvement in the war, the continuing Ecumenical Council in Rome (Vatican II), Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in the March on Washington, and more. Yes, 1963 was quite a year, and yes—it will have far-reaching effects on 1964 and beyond. Even to this day.

Victor Borge's annual "Comedy of Music" special (Thursday, 8:00 p.m., ABC) preempts Jimmy Dean this week; the Great Dane's guests are tenor Sergio Franchi and frequent Borge foil Leonid Hambro. It ought to be a fun show, and here's a clip from it. After that, Kraft Suspense Theatre (9:00 p.m, NBC) presents "The Deep End," the story of a woman who suspects the death of her twin sister was not an accident; Ellen McRae, Aldo Ray, Clu Gulager, and Tina Louise head a fine cast, and if you're wondering who Ellen McRae is that she'd get top billing (besides playing the dual role of the sisters), you might recognize her from the name she adopted later: Ellen Burstyn. 

Friday, you'll be drawn, as I was, to The Jack Paar Program (9:00 p.m., NBC), where Jack's guests include "the Beatles, Britain's top rock 'n' roll group" (clip here) along with Paul Lynde, Peggy Cass, and Jack Douglas and his wife Reiko. We're still a month away from the Fab Four's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and it was just the past November that they started to get significant airplay on United States radio. They're coming, though; we just haven't felt the blast yet.

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A couple of weeks ago, Richard Gehman had Jerry Lewis on the analyst's couch to look at why his series was a failure. This week, he's got an appointment with Joey Bishop, who has quickly earned a reputation as one of the most difficult people in Hollywood. His sitcom, The Joey Bishop Show, has started its third season, and the question being asked by most people is "Why is it on?"

Bishop has insisted from the start on doing things his own way; "I didn't come here to Hollywood to learn comedy. I came to expose mine," he says. His attitude has caused writers, actors, directors, and others to flee his show, and by insisting on running things, he has made more mistakes than people had expected. "His first season was a disaster, the second not much better. Thne fact that there is a third season mystifies many people in the industry." And yet—ratings are up, and after witnessing first-hand how a scene was changed at Bishop's insistence, Gehman admits that the retooled scene—done Bishop's way—was much funnier than it was before.

Problems persist. One actor told Gehman that "[t]he Bishop program was the most unpleasant experience of my life." During the first season alone, a director and four actors left, and in the second season a comedian and a writer-director departed the scene. Danny Thomas, the executive producer, reportedly threw up his hands in exasperation, unable to find anyone who would work with Bishop. What is it about him that rubs people the wrong way?

Gehman looks at the influence of Bishop's show-business idols, specifically Frank Sinatra, who discovered him, and Jack Paar, who gave him television exposure. "Some of their arrogance—the necessary cockiness of deep insecurity—has rubbed off on him," Gehman notes, using them as Freud might treat a patient's parents. He also looks at those who've worked successfully with Bishop; he stops short of calling them sycophants, but does not that they tend to be "those upon whom he can depend, meaning those who will do exactly as he says." Moody and sometimes misanthropic, he can sit for hours at a time, concentrating; "no one in television tries harder for perfection." People on the show seem to understand this a little better now.

Bishop comes across as a man who, for years, has learned to depend on himself more than anyone else. He has confidence in his own talent, and his ability to know the best way to utilize it. He is, by his own admission, a worrier by nature, and he's spent plenty of time worrying about the success of his show, and his career. He rightly points out that it's his neck on the line, after all. Is it the best way, how he handles people and conflicts and situations? Maybe not. But, as Bishop points out, "Is there anybody in this industry who does it any different?"

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MST3K alert: The Rebel Set (1959) The operator of a Hollywood coffee house hires three beatniks to assist him in a robbery. Gregg Palmer, Kathleen Crowley. (Thursday, midnight, WCCO) Missing from that sparse list of credits is the coffee house operator, played by none other than Edward Platt! Chief as a bad guy! You can't depend on anyone, I guess. It also features Don Sullivan, whom we last saw in The Giant Gila Monster. Anyway, it's also a bad movie, with some very funny riffs involving assassins, train robberies, Scott Baio, and Hercule Poirot. TV  

What's on TV? Monday, January 1, 1962

I debated whether or not to do New Year's Day as our first listing for 2024. After all, I've already given you the highlights of the day; what more could there be? But then I reconsidered. Unlike later New Year's, the bowl games are over by the beginning of the evening, meaning that the regular prime-time schedule is more or less unaffected. We have Johnny Carson, who later in the year will become the new host of The Tonight Show, as a panelist on To Tell the Truth; Brett Somers and John Larch as a husband and wife on Ben Casey; Alan Hale on The Andy Griffith Show; and Dick Van Dyke as a guest on I've Got a Secret. So there was more to add after all! The listings are from the Philadelphia edition; any references you might see to channels 15, 21, 27, and 43 are stations in Lebanon, York, and Harrisburg; only their network listings appear in TV Guide, and so they haven't been included here. Happy New Year!

This week in TV Guide: December 30, 1961

The new movie, Maestro, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper, tells the story—OK, a story—of Leonard Bernstein, the famed conductor and composer, one of the giants of the classical/pop culture crossover of the 20th Century. This week's feature article, by Edith Efron, also tells a story of Leonard Bernstein—specifically, the Young People's Concerts that began on CBS in 1958 and ran for 13 seasons and, I think, represent his most important and lasting contribution to classical music.

Efron joins Bernstein following his first telecast of the 1961-62 season, a study of impressionism that, lucidly and literately, explains the musical style to an audience of children who listen, transfixed, to Bernstein's talk—lecture would be far too stuffy a word to describe how he communicates the complexities of musical theory, in such a way that both children and adults can understand such concepts as how bitonality aids in creating the dreamy image that is impressionism. The whole of the interview takes place in Bernstein's cramped dressing room, where we're exposed to the full-on magnitude of the maestro's blinding rock-star celebrity. 

It's a chaotic scene, with Efron (the "girl reporter") crammed into a crouching position under the sink while Bernstein tries to shave without cutting himself. She's hard-pressed to get her questions in between interruptions: elegantly-dressed ladies praising Bernstein's performance; children asking for autographs; photographers asking him to pose standing up, sitting down, pretending to be conducting ("I can't fake conducting," Bernstein snaps at one); aides and press agents, all looking for a piece of the maestro. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have to wonder if it could possibly capture the kinetic energy of the scene.

In between it all, though, we do get some interesting perspectives on Bernstein's thoughts about music. Asked why children should be introduced to music, he replies, almost disbelievingly, "The purpose is pleasure. Pleasure—nothing else. Music makes life more enjoyable, more exalted, more berable." If it's true that many children consider listening to classical music a duty, it's "[b]ecause so many adults consider it as a duty." It becomes a challenge if the parent doesn't like classical music; "Children are sensitive to parents' likes and dislikes. On the other hand, music is there. A child can discover it independently." And there should be no limit to the kind of music that a child is exposed to; "Very few things are beyond a child's comprehension. Any good music will do. The only thing to watch out for is not to strain a child's attention span." 

We learn some other things about Bernstein's philosophy. While scrambling around for his shirt (it turns out he already has it on), he proffers the idea that there is no such thing as bad taste in music. "There is only good art and bad art," he says, extending the analogy, "good Beethoven and dull Beethoven, good rock 'n' roll and bad rock 'n' roll." The last catches Efron off-guard—the master of classical music praising rock music? "Elvis Presley," he goes on. "There's one, 'I'm All Shook Up'." I like it. Presley's performance is fantastic." 

Through all this, I think we get an insight into why Bernstein was such a good teacher. Because he gives children credit for being able to comprehend ideas and concepts, he doesn't talk down to them—instead, he breaks ideas down into more digestible bits and pieces, using references that are relevant to them. He doesn't tell them to be interested in classical music; instead, he demonstrates what makes it interesting, trusting that they'll accompany him on the journey. He conveys the passion, the love he has for music, confident that they'll catch the bug as he once did. 

I was a faithful viewer of the Young People's Concerts for the few years that I was of an age to understand them. I was fortunate to be introduced to classical music in school, by the Young People's Concerts that the Minneapolis Symphony staged. I had a mother who appreciated classical music, and was willing to invest in it on my behalf. Even though I've never played an instrument, it has, in Bernstein's words, provided pleasure.

It's true that public schools don't make that investment any more. Television doesn't either; it hasn't invested in anything particularly artistic in decades. The audience for the long-haired stuff is getting older all the time, and nobody quite seems to know how to attract younger audiences. That's an issue for another day. But if Maestro the movie does well, one can hope that, no matter how fleeting, classical music can be cool again. If that happens, then the maestro will have succeeded once again.

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New Year's Day, in 1962 as well as 2024, is Monday, and that means one thing: football. Well, actually it means more than that, but we'll get to the rest later. But, as Melvin Durslag writes, football fans are "up to their eyeballs" in bowl games, and the colleges are loving every minute of it. 

There are twelve bowl games scheduled for the end of the season (as contrasted to the 42 being played this year), and none of them are named after corporate advertisers. But, as any fan can tell you, there are only four that really matter, and all of them are being played on January 1: the Rose, Sugar, Cotton, and Orange Bowls. They are the games "in whose stadia loot is collected in the largest quantities and whose fame is enhanced each New Year's Day with national television before enormous audiences."

Despite the revenue and exposure generated by the games, there are critics in the educational realm who feel the games are unnecessary, creating an overemphasis on athletics. That the regular season usually ends in late November, with the national champion already chosen before the bowls are played, only strengthen the argument. It's one reason, in fact, why, Ohio State's faculty council declined the invitation to the 1962 Rose Bowl despite the Buckeyes winning the Big 10 championship, which would ordinarily have resulted in a trip to Pasadena. They hoped their decision would "vastly improv[e] the university's reputation as an academic institution fit for service in a Cold War political economy."* At any rate, as Durslag points out, money being thrown around by TV has boosted the overall budgets of the participating schools and their conferences to such an extent that any sentiment to the contrary is becoming a moot point.  

*I went into the behind-the-scenes drama of the 1962 bowl selection process in this 2012 article, which you can read here.

Which brings us to the big day itself, starting at 12:45 p.m. ET with ABC's coverage of the Orange Bowl, pitting #4 LSU against #7 Colorado, reported by Curt Gowdy, Paul Christman, and Jim Simpson. (LSU 25, Colorado 7) At 1:45 p.m., NBC kicks off the first of its New Year's Day doubleheader, with undefeated national champion Alabama taking on #9 Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl; Lindsey Nelson and Art Gleason are behind the mic. (Alabama 10, Arkansas 3) If that's not enough for you, CBS joins the fray at 2:15 p.m. with the Cotton Bowl, as Tom Harmon and Johnny Lujack covering the action between #5 Mississippi and #3 Texas. (Texas 12, Mississippi 7) Finally, it's the Granddaddy of them all, the Rose Bowl, beginning at 4:45 p.m. on NBC, with Mel Allen and Braven Dyer calling the game between #6 Minnesota, becoming the first Big 10 team to make consecutive appearances in the Rose Bowl, and unranked UCLA. (Minnesota 21, UCLA 3) 

These games were, practically speaking, exhibition games, originally meant to boost tourism in the host cities. They did not count in the standings, the national champion already having been selected; and they served as a reward for excellence, with players often expressing preferences based on the cities they'd like to travel to. (New Orleans was always a popular destination.) Perhaps it wasn't the best way to choose the best team, and Heaven knows there was plenty of corruption in college sports even then, but it seems like it was much simpler, maybe even more fun than it is today. I feel for those who never got a chance to experience it, even just as a fan.

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There's more to New Year's than football, though, hard as it may be to believe. I myself used to scoff, back in the day, at the idea that there could be anything more important than the bowl games. Not being a partier, my idea of a good time on New Year's Eve was sitting down with one of the lesser bowl games and then watching the ball drop in New York. The parties that we did go to were sedate ones with family or friends, always in someone's home. Lately, it's been New Year's Eve marathons with The Three Stooges, Thin Man or Matt Helm movies, and so on. If we make it to midnight, it's been a good day.

So I have to ask, is New Year's Eve still a thing? Do people go out, or did the virus finally kill all that off? It was a thing back in 1961; as kind of a pre-show, Gordon and Sheila MacRae host Highways of Melody (10:00 p.m., NBC), a musical hour sponsored by Cities Service (Citgo), which explains the "Highway" motif. Their guests include George Chakiris, Buddy Ebsen, Kathryn Grayson, Jack Jones, Rita Moreno, Jane Morgan, the Cities Service Singers and Dancers, and Paul Lavalle and the Band of America.

At 11:15 p.m. on NBC, the serious shows begin. Bandleader Xavier Cugat and his then-wife, singer Abby Lane, host a New Year's Eve party from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. (NBC). Just before midnight, the cameras switch to Times Square, where Ben Grauer covers the ball drop. Mr. New Year's Eve himself, Guy Lombardo, does the honors on CBS (11:15 p.m.), with newsman Robert Trout in Times Square.

That brings us to New Year's Day itself and the parades, and you'll notice the plural. It actually starts on Saturday night, with live coverage of the King Orange Jamboree Parade in Miami, with Jim McKay and George Fenneman describing the spectacular (7:30 p.m., ABC). This parade ceased after the national television contract ended (a misfortune that also befell the Cotton Bowl Parade), but it made the game itself feel more special, more than just a simple football game.

This being a Philadelphia edition, it's appropriate that Monday morning begins on multiple channels with the Mummers Parade (9:30 a.m., WFIL and WCAU in Philadelphia, plus stations in Lebanon, Harrisburg, and York), a marathon that runs nearly five hours, either non-stop or sandwiched between bowl games, depending on the station. At 11:30 a.m. on NBC, it's the Granddaddy of all parades, the Tournament of Roses, live and in color (except for the first 15 minutes). Former Tournament president John Davidson narrates the opening portion of the telecast, reviewing the history of the parade and what to expect today. He's then joined by Betty White and NBC newsman Roy Neal (a curious choice) for commentary. Among the stars appearing in the parade are actors John McIntire, Scott Miller, Frank McGrath, and Terry Wilson from Wagon Train; John Russell and Peter Brown from Lawman; and Grand Marshal Albert Rosellini, governor of Washington, who was probably chosen based on Seattle hosting the 1962 World's Fair.

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That seems like a pretty big start to the year, but there's more. Not content to turn the spotlight over completely to the college game, the NFL Championship is Sunday, with the New York Giants taking on the Green Bay Packers in the first championship game ever played in Green Bay (1:45 p.m., NBC). Lindsey Nelson, who heads to New Orleans after the game to cover Monday's Sugar Bowl, and Chris Schenkel are on the play-by-play. The Packers, who lost in heartbreaking fashion to the Philadelphia Eagles in last year's title tilt, rout the Giants 37-0, the start of a reign of terror over the rest of the league that will result in five championships over seven years (including three in a row), plus the first two Super Bowls. They remain the last team to win three consecutive league championships. It's the oldest NFL Championship game for which the original TV broadcast exists; you can see the game in its entirety here.

Also on Sunday is a curious program that attracted my attention for an even more curious reason. It's called Let Freedom Ring (3:00 p.m., CBS), featuring Richard Boone, Laraine Day, Howard Keel, and Dan O'Herlihy, and starring the group now known as the the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. It's an hour of patriotic music, interspersed with dramatic readings and performances by the four stars; Boone recites the Gettysburg Address, for example, and Day reads Lincoln's famous Letter to Mrs. Bixby; neither of these choices was coincidental, given that 1961 was the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's presidency. It is, in its way, a perfect example of a Sunday afternoon program, one that would have been at home on Omnibus. It's a bit static, very serious, and ultimately sounds a hopeful note for the nation as the new year approaches.

As for the curious reason why this stood out for me: the program was rebroadcast by CBS on Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, as part of the network's coverage of the aftermath of JFK's assassination. You might think this an odd choice, and if it were to be seen purely as an entertainment show, you'd be right. But the very nature of it being static, serious, and hopeful is why it was shown: it was a reminder to a shell-shocked nation about the greatness of America, reflected in part through the words of its first martyred president. Of the several memorial concerts broadcast over that weekend, I think this was the only one not specifically done for the occasion. But then, maybe this kind of thing only interests me. 

With the bowl games taking up Monday, there are several weekday programs making their debuts on Tuesday, including Your First Impression, a new game show hosted by Bill Leydon (noon, NBC). It's a variation on the mystery guest segment of What's My Line?, with a panel of celebrities trying to guess the identity of the guest based on clues given to them by Leydon; Dennis James is a regular panelist and fills in for Leydon on occasion. The show has a healthy run, lasting until June, 1964. Also premiering this day is Floyd Kalber's five-minute afternoon newscast (2:25 p.m., NBC), a staple for many years. By the way Kalber's nickname was "The Big Tuna"; has any newsman ever had a better one? Jane Wyman returns as host and occasional star of her eponymous dramatic anthology series (2:00 p.m., ABC), and NBC debuts the serial Our Five Daughters (3:30 p.m.), "the story of Helen and Jim Lee and their daughters." It had better be a short story; the series is gone nine months later, barely time for one of the daughters to have a baby.

There's a pictorial feature this week on how makeup artists prepare Sebastian Cabot's beard for the detective series Checkmate (among other tidbits, the reddish-brown hair is sprayed with glit paint, since it shows up as jet black on B&W), and his beard needs to be in good form in Wednesday's episode (8:30 p.m., CBS), as Jack Benny makes his TV dramatic debut playing a comedian who discovers someone has planted a bomb in his suitcase. Also on Wednesday, Bonanza stars Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker guest on Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC).

The end of the year is a great time for year-end reviews: poet John Ciardi hosts Accent on 1961 (Thursday, 9:00 p.m.), a special edition of his weekly CBS series, and his words accompany a picture montage of the major events of the past year. And what a year it was—Alan Shepard's space shot, Roger Maris's 61st home run, Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall, the Freedom Riders in the South, the JFK inauguration, and more. The flip side of a year-end review is a preview of the coming year, and that's what NBC has in store with Projection '62 (Friday, 9:30 p.m.), with Frank McGee hosting hosting the network's domestic and foreign correspondents in a look back at the year past, and predictions on what might be ahead. And it tells you something about how large news staffs used to be, with McGee talking to correspondents covering Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, Africa, South America, India and the Middle East, London, Paris, Southeast Asia, Cuba and the Caribbean, and the White House. Not for nothing was NBC the leading news source on television.

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On the cover this week is Cynthia Pepper, star of the new ABC sitcom Margie, set in the flapper era of 1926. Actually, Jim Henaghan's story is as much about her stage father Jack, a failed vaudevillian who reared Cynthia for the very purpose of stardom. Despite being called "one of [20th Century Fox's] most valuable properties," her career is of limited duration; Margie is her only starring role in a series, and she might be just as well-known for playing Midge in Elvis Presley's Kissin' Cousins. I wonder what Leonard Bernstein thought of the music in that? Still, as I always note in situations like this, her movie career lasted a lot longer than mine. 

There's also an interesting behind-the-scenes look at one of the most high-pressure quiz shows on television, and the exhaustive preparation required by the participants prior to appearing on it. No, it's not Jeopardy; that doesn't even premiere until 1964, and anyway, as far as intellectual wattage is concerned, it doesn't even begin to compare to the show in question, G-E College Bowl. I always considered it a moment of great pride to be able to correctly answer one question on that show; I'm not sure that the hardest question on today's Jeopardy would even make it to a practice round of College Bowl. At the time of this article, Allen Ludden is the host of College Bowl, but as his other show, Password, adds a nighttime edition to its weekly daytime version, he cedes the role to Robert Earle, the host whom I remember. I was always sorry about the show leaving the air; t the time, with violent dissent running wild on college campuses, General Electric decided it was bad optics to be associated with such radicals. It was revived for a couple of seasons in 2020 with Peyton Manning as host, but I'm sorry—after Ludden and Earle (and Art Fleming, who hosted an earlier revival), it's hard to take a show like College Bowl seriously with Peyton Manning as host. 

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And so we come to the end of another year of "This week in TV Guide," and for the first time in many, many years, we've had 52 new issues, with no repeats from previous years, something I'm very pleased about. Unlike many collectors, I don't own a full set of TV Guides covering multiple decades; in fact, I don't even have a complete set of issues from any single year. I've been fortunate enough to piece together this year thanks to a combination of issues I own, those loaned to me by others, those from the Internet Archive, and some from other online sources. Although I've got a couple of dozen lined up so far for next year, with more to come, I don't know if we'll ever see an entire year of new issues again. 

Nevertheless, it's been satisfying to pull it off, and I've got you to thank for helping me do it. I've done around 500 through the years, and if you have an issue you'd like to see me cover, feel free to email me about it. And when we come back on Monday for the listings, they'll be from a new year, 1962, and we'll be in a new year, 2024. Until then, have a safe and happy New Year. TV  

This week in TV Guide: December 31, 1955

As most of you probably know, every few years New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, and when that happens, the whole kit and kaboodle of what makes January 1 unique—the Rose Parade, the bowl games, even hockey's Winter Classic—gets moved to Monday. Everything but the New Year's hangover; I'm afraid you don't get a break there. 

I say "most of you," because the last time this happened, I found out there were some people who obviously didn't know this. It came to light when the company I worked for at the time published its schedule for the coming year, which indicated we'd be open that Monday. Now, it was no skin off my back; if we were open, I'd just take the day off. But you know me; I love to throw a spanner in the works. So I emailed the HR department and asked them if they were aware that Monday was a national holiday. No mail delivery, offices closed, that sort of thing. They'd be asking people to work while the parades and games were on, and you know, some people like to watch those. As it turned out, they weren't aware of this, even though it had only been five years since it had last happened. I can almost guarantee, I said, that those parades and games and things wouldn't be happening if they weren't confident people would be home. They thought about it for awhile, and decided to change the calendar. Sometimes you wonder how people like that get to be executives.

(Incidentally, some of you might wonder why this is. It has nothing to do with the NFL, as some people who ought to know better believe; in fact, it dates back to 1893, the first year since the parade's 1890 founding that January 1 fell on a Sunday. "Parade organizers were afraid that the parade would spook the horses located outside of churches along the parade route for Sunday services. The 'Never on a Sunday' exception has been observed ever since even though people no longer use horses to get around Pasadena (or anywhere obviously)." So that should satisfy any curiosity you have.)

I bring this up because January 1, 1956, falls on a Sunday, and so the parade and bowl games are all trooping over to Monday (you'll be able to see it for yourself in Monday's listings). For me, not being the reflective type, what New Year's mostly has meant is football, and there's plenty of it, beginning on Saturday with the Gator Bowl from Jacksonville (1:00 p.m., CBS) pitting Auburn and Vanderbilt. The Blue-Gray game (1:15 p.m., NBC) and East-West Shrine Game (3:45 p.m., NBC), a couple of all-star games for players whose teams didn't make it to bowl games (and there are plenty of them, since there are only seven bowl games this season), round out the day. 

The big games are on Monday, of course, and this season none are bigger than the Orange Bowl (1:00 p.m., CBS, with Tom Harmon calling the play-by-play) pitting undefeated national champion Oklahoma against undefeated, third-ranked Maryland. Keep in mind that back then, the champion was selected at the end of the regular season, so the bowls are really just exhibition games, rewards for outstanding seasons, but bragging rights can be just as important. Oklahoma wins 20-6, by the way, for their 30th consecutive victory of a still-record streak that will reach 47 before it ends in 1957. The next biggest game of the day is the Rose Bowl (3:45 p.m, NBC, with Mel Allen at the mic), with second-ranked Michigan State defeating #4 UCLA 17-14. The game's noteworthy because of a costly penalty called on UCLA for having a coach signal a play in from the sidelines; of course, that's part of the game today, but back then, quarterbacks were expected to call their own plays. Imagine that!

In the sign-of-the-times game, Pittsburgh takes on Georgia Tech in the Sugar Bowl (12:45 p.m., ABC, with Bill Stern and Ray Scott), with Pitt's Bobby Grier becoming the first black player in Sugar Bowl history. Georgia governor Marvin Griffin tried to keep Tech from playing an integrated team; in the past, a "gentleman's agreement" had usually resulted in any black players from northern teams being benched before playing southern teams. Tech's coach Bobby Dodd even polled his team to see if they had any objections to playing against a black player; the team voted unanimously to play. In the end, Grier's pass interference penalty leads to the only score, with Georgia Tech winning 7-0. In the Cotton Bowl (12:45 p.m., NBC, with Lindsey Nelson and Red Grange), a game featuring no controversy whatsoever, Mississippi defeated TCU 14-13. I don't know how people were able to keep up with all the games without a remote!

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I feel like I've spent too much time on the bowl games, so let's look at something else. Something like NBC's New Year's Eve special from Times Square in New York, hosted by Ben Grauer and Lee Meriweather. What a show—running all of 15 minutes, from 10:55 p.m. to 11:10 p.m. But then, just how much time does it take to ring in the new year—after the ball drops, what do you do for the remaining nine minutes? On the local front, the Lind brothers, Phil and Dale, host a special 90-minute version of their variety show (11:30 p.m., WBKB) scheduled to coincide with midnight in Chicago. 

Even though the festivities aren't until Monday, New Year's Day still has its highlights, beginning with Dave Garroway's Wide Wide World (3:00 p.m., NBC), as the Master Communicator plays tour guide for live shots from all over North America, including pianist Alec Templeton in New York; a fashion show in Palm Beach; bell ringers in Victoria, BC.; retired racehorses at Calumet Farms in Lexington; the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lakie City; swimmers testing the icy waters in Towas Bay, Michigan; and Dave's interviews with New Yorkers on what they did last night and what their plans are for the coming year.  

At 4:00 p.m. on CBS, Alastair Cooke's Omnibus presents a true variety of performances, including "The Best Year in the History of the Whole World," a one-act play by William Saroyan; a Kabuki dance group from Japan; a reading of Ogden Nash's parody of "The 12 Days of Christmas"; a performance by Olympics gymnastics champions; and the brief documentary film "A Day in the Life of a Cat." Then, at 6:30 p.m., NBC's Sunday Spectacular has its own New Year's variety, including world figure skating champions Barbara Ann Scott and Dick Button, George Gobel, Peggy Lee and Stan Kenton, Alan King, and a short "12 Days of Christmas" film. ABC's Famous Film Festival presents part two of the 1948 movie The Red Shoes (6:30 p.m.); you can round out the night with Ed Sullivan's first show of the new year, a parade of young and up-and-coming talent, the best-known of which is probably pianist Roger Williams (7:00 p.m., CBS). Happy New Year to you, too!

  What the parade looked like until
   we got a color set in the '70s.

We'll be looking at the Monday listings in a couple of days, but a few notes on the Tournament of Roses Parade. It's on two networks; ABC's two-hour coverage, in living black-and-white, begins at 10:45 a.m., and is hosted by actress Jeanette MacDonald and her husband, Gene Raymond. Over on NBC, the 90-minute broadcast is in color, and it's hosted by actor and radio announcer Bill Goodwin, and the one and only Betty White. The celebrities in the parade include Dinah Shore, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Guy Madison, and Andy Devine. And the parade's Grand Marshal is none other than: Charles E. Wilson. Who, you might ask? Well, he's the current Secretary of Defense, and his selection is a reminder once again of the dangerous times we live in. The previous year's Grand Marshal was Chief Justice of the United States (and former governor of California) Earl Warren, the year before that it was General William F. Dean, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the year before that it was Vice President-Elect (and California native) Richard M. Nixon. Times do change, don't they? 

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The $64,000 Question has been television's top show since its debut, and you can bet the networks have taken notice; this week's unbylined feature on the big "TV Giveaway" notes that "Sponsors, networks, producers have been frantically casting about for ways to shower down fortunes and capture the Nation's viewers." One show, The Big Surprise, has already had a contestant walk away with the $100,000 top prize; Truth or Consequences offered the same amount to a 19-year-old contestant if she could break a hypnotic spell; Stop the Music had as a grand prize "a two-week uranium prospecting tour," billed as a $1,000,000 hunt, with a secondary prize of a furnished four-room bungalow or a trip to Hollywood with a guaranteed screen test. Even The Lawrence Welk Show is getting in the act, with the winners of a Dodge safety slogan contest competing to win a new car each year for the rest of their lives.

Are there warning signs in this story? "Networks and sponsors, despite these telltale signs, insist they are not trying to 'buy' an audience for their shows at the expense of more creative and more literate programming. But most sponsors nonetheless are beating at the doors of their ad agencies and networks to 'find me a show like $64,000 Question.'" And one network VP, unnamed, says, "This whole idea of buying an audience is a sickness. I don't think TV will be discharging its obligation if it pursues that course." Then, there are the ratings, which show that even big prizes for Surprise and others have failed to get them the same ratings as Question. Says the network VP, "I doubt whether there's room for even one successful giveaway program on each of the three networks."

To answer my own question, these sure look like red flags to me. Networks and sponsors willing to "buy an audience," big ratings for The $64,000 Question, and not-so-big ratings for other shows. Perhaps, one might think, our contestants need to be more appealing, more attractive to viewers. But how to guarantee that the "right" contestants win? We don't have to give them the answers; we can just find out what they know and make sure the questions correspond to their areas of expertise, right? Yup, I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to know where this is headed. Even at the beginning of 1956.

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What does the best of the rest of the week have to offer? On Tuesday morning's Today (7:00 a.m., NBC), a two-way interview from Washington, D.C. with Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy, discussing his new book, Profiles in Courage. Next year it will win the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

  Emcee Jack Bailey crowns the latest queen for a day

On Tuesday afternoon, it's the TV premiere of Queen for a Day (3:30 p.m., NBC), which originally debuted on radio in 1945, and would run on television until 1964. The premise of the show is fairly simple: female contestants appear on the show, telling their stories of recent hardship and pathos. At the end of the program, the audience votes on which contestant's story is the most deserving (read: pathetic), and the loser, er, winner, receives a package of fabulous prizes. Does it raise the consciousness of viewers, or does it exploit human misery for fun and profit? You be the judge. By the way, the show was revived in syndication in 1969, but, according to the always-reliable Wikipedia, "Viewers turned away from the format when it was revealed that, unlike the radio and earlier television versions, the new show was rigged and the 'winners' were apparently paid actresses chosen to 'win' the prizes prior to the start of each taping." For further explanation, see our previous story.

Tuesday evening sees the debut of another quiz show, Do You Trust Your Wife? hosted by Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, et al (9:30 p.m., CBS). The show runs until March, and when it's revived in September on ABC, it's with a new host: Johnny Carson. This week, however, you can still see Johnny on his current variety program, The Johnny Carson Show (Thursday, 9:00 p.m., CBS). 

That four-legged friend on the cover helping us celebrate the New Year is Cleo, one of the "stars" of The People's Choice (Thursday, 8:00 p.m., NBC). Cleo's gimmick is that she "talks" back to the show's star, Jackie Cooper, thanks to the voiceover talents of actress Mary Jane Croft. Cleo is one of many dogs featuring in this season's shows, although the others may be far-better known to you: Rin Tin Tin, and Lassie, big enough stars that their shows are named after them, and Bullet, loyal companion to Roy Rogers. The People's Choice is no dog, though; it's ratings are good enough to keep it on the air for three seasons. And for those of you in the Chicagoland area, Cleo will be making a one-day personal appearance in Chicago on January 19, accompanied by her co-stars, Cooper and Patricia Breslin*. 

*Patricia Breslin, after her acting career, married Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns, who would eventually move the team to Baltimore and earn the enmity of the entire city of Cleveland, a hatred that lasts to this day. Coincidentally, the end-zone area containing the most rabid Browns fans was known as "The Dog Pound." Don't know if they were all basset hounds, though.

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MST3K alert: Cat-Women of the Moon (Wednesday, 10:00 p.m., WGN). 1953; Chicago TV Debut. "This story deals with a rocket ship that lands on the moon. The crew consists of four men and one woman. Sonny Tufts, Marie Windsor, Victor Jory." That description doesn't tell us much about this Rifftrax-worthy feature, so let's look at the Amazon description: "An expedition to the moon discovers a subterranean cavern of ferocious, love-starved cat-women who have not seen men in centuries." That's much better.

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Finally, if you're planning to be out tonight celebrating the New Year, have fun and be careful—we need as many readers as we can get here. TV