What I've been watching: June, 2025

Shows I’ve Watched:	Shows I’ve Added:
Adventures in Paradise New York: A Documentary Film Sherlock Holmes	Danger Man

If it seems a little lame to be writing about a series I'm watching for the second time, then I'm afraid I'll have to plead guilty. Thursday evenings have been problematic for a while, between finishing work on the book (Darkness in Primetime, for those of you scoring at home, or even if you're just watching) and keeping up with this here blog. What makes them more challenging is that the Friday "Around the Dial" feature can't really be finished until Thursday, to make sure I include as many blogs as possible. Additionally, if I've fallen behind on my weekend TV Guide essay, Thursday evening becomes an advantageous time to catch up. Therefore, it had become a kind of "To Be Announced" evening, one in which I might be viewing, or I might be typing. What better way to fill in a tentative gap than with a rerun of a beloved series that won't suffer if I happen to miss a week here and there?

This all brings us to Jeremy Brett's definitive portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the succession of adventures bearing the Holmes name. I won't take a lot of time to recap, because I've written about the show before, but suffice it to say that Brett, who played Holmes from 1984-94 is everything you'd want Holmes to be: quirky, quick-witted, self-assured, occasionally tortured, frequently arrogant, and virtually always right. He's also surprisingly nimble, of body as well as mind, and I bring that up because it points out how important the physical portrayal of Holmes can be. That physicality projects not only his determination, but the rapidity of his mind; and his body language establishes that, for the criminal, he truly is a dangerous man.

Holmes is aided in his sleuthing by his loyal comrade, Dr. Watson, played by David Burke in the first season and Edward Hardwicke in subsequent seasons. This is a Watson who is very smart indeed, a far cry from the bumbling Watson we see in Nigel Bruce's portrayal; he's not at the level of Holmes, of course, but he's learned well from his compatriot, and each episode contains a bit in which Watson demonstrates how he's picked up on the art of observation, often listing the very same clues that Holmes has seen. The difference, of course, is that Watson frequently fails to come to the same conclusion—that is, the correct conclusion—as Holmes, and the cutting retort from Holmes can sometimes be painful, to us as well as to the good doctor, who is the most loyal of friends. Holmes is always quick to temper his remarks, though, and there's no doubt that when he compliments Watson, it is no mere flattery. The chemistry between Brett and both of his Watsons is excellent; it makes them a truly compatible, and formidable, team. Throw in literate, even elegant, scripts (many by John Hawkesworth) and period details that create a perfect atmosphere, and you've got just the thing for those nights when you're looking for a break. Oh, and did I mention that since plugging the Holmes repeats into the schedule, I haven't had to spend even one evening working on the blog? No mere coincidence, I suspect.

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The second half of Thursday night's dynamic duo—and, if I'm being honest, the program most likely to get preempted if I do have work to catch up on—is Adventures in Paradise, or if we're going to be precise about it, James A. Michener's Adventures in Paradise, which ran on ABC for three seasons and 91 episodes between 1959 and 1962. The show has the look and feel of a Warner Bros. production, with an exotic location, and impressive list of guest stars, and a hunky hero who winds up being involved in solving mysteries. Not all the time, perhaps, but more often than you or I are probably called upon. (The last mystery I had to solve was tracking down where I'd left my missing brain.) 

It's not a WB show, however, but one from 20th Century Fox, and the man responsible for it as co-executive producer was Dominick Dunne, who, prior to reinventing himself as a true crime author and raconteur par excellence, was a television executive looking to cast the lead in his new series. As Dunne tells it, the studio had been screen-testing "all the best-looking young actors in Hollywood" for the part, and Ron Ely had the inside track. Then, along came Gardner McKay:

One day in a coffee shop, I saw, sitting at a nearby table in a languid pose, reading a book of poetry, a startlingly handsome young man with attitude, whom I later described to Martin Manulis, the head of television at Fox, as "a little Gary Cooper, a little Cary Grant, a little Ty Power and a lot of Errol Flynn." He was at the time, in the parlance of the town, nobody, absolutely nobody, but his attitude declared that he was somebody. I dropped my Fox business card on his table and said, "If you’re interested in discussing a television series, call me." He did, and we tested him. Gardner’s test was certainly not among the top three or four in the acting department, but as the production staff sat in the projection room, we’d keep going back to it, and one of us would say, "This guy’s got something." Finally, we gave him the part. 

That's exactly it, I think; it fits my perception of the series perfectly. Watching it, you come away with two things: McKay's not a great actor, by any stretch; and there's something about him, a presence that makes you certain of two qualities that all television heroes have to have: everything's going to turn out right in the end, and the villain of the piece is going to be sorry he tangled with him. He also comes across as a very interesting person—McKay, I mean, not the character he plays, Captain Adam Troy, although Troy is a pleasant-enough character. And indeed McKay was an interesting man: he wrote books and plays, was a newspaper drama critic, and taught a writing class. He didn't really like acting, although, as Dunne says, he liked being a star, and he was good at it.

The point is that, while Adventures in Paradise is not great television, it is fun television, another reason I make the comparison to the WB detective shows. Each week Captain Troy and his schooner Tiki III, sailing the South Pacific "looking for passengers and adventure" and finding it; else, where would the series be? I don't know if your life is going to be dramatically enhanced by watching the episodes available on YouTube, and you're not going to be taxed if you do something else while you're watching it, but I've never found it less than enjoyable, and sometimes you just aren't in the mood for hate-watching a series.

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In 1999, PBS premiered a documentary series called New York, which was about the history of the city so nice they named it twice. It was directed and co-written by Ric Burns (brother of Ken), and at the time of its premiere, it was far behind schedule and was shaping up to last far longer than its scheduled 10-hour duration. Finally, the decision was made to release the first five episodes (ten hours in all), covering the years 1609-1931, on five consecutive nights in November 1999; the concluding episode (which quickly ballooned to two episodes) would air at a later date. 

As fate would have it, those two episodes, dealing with the city from the Great Depression to the present, aired on September 30 and October 1, 2001: 19 days after the destruction of the World Trade Center. The final episode was quickly edited to include a reference to the terrorist attack, and then, in September, 2003, came yet another episode, a three-hour special that focused solely on the Twin Towers and their own history. In all, the series ran for eight episodes and 17½ hours. 

Watching it again for the first time since its original run, I'm struck by several things. First is how overwhelmingly unlikeable the city is, and how exaggerated in importance it is. Note that I said "importance" there, not "influence," because there's no question that New York City pulled the strings in this country for many years, for good and ill. What hits you, though, is how much ill there is to it: not only an obsession with democracy and diversity that even the series can't convince you has been successful; but the sheer arrogance of it all, the idea that the rest of the country really is "flyover" territory, good only for providing tourist dollars. (And wouldn't it be great if one could get the dollars without having to deal with the tourists!) For decades, people have looked at New York as not really being a part of the United States at all, but something separate, strange, alien. New York serves to reinforce that attitude two, three, four times over. When you see the famous "Ford to City: Drop Dead" headline from the 1970s, you want to stand up and cheer.

And yet.

New York: A Documentary Film is, without a doubt, one of the most fascinating, compelling documentary series I've ever seen. It comes by that honestly, with a cast of colorful characters that rivals any fictional series television ever came up with, from Al Smith to Fiorello La Guardia to Robert Moses; an architectural history that spans Central Park, the Empire State Building, and the aforementioned World Trade Center; a history that does seem to encompass the whole of American history; a remarkable place, all in all, with something that other places just seem to lack. Even the hatred one might have for the city has to acknowledge this.

And the series, for my money, is the equal of anything brother Ken ever produced. David Ogden Stiers's overall narration is superb, neither cloyingly emotional nor deadly dull; the voice talent, provided by well-known actors and personalities reading letters, newspaper articles, and speeches, is completely appropriate, letting the written words speak for themselves; the commentary, from noted historians and public figures, is both knowledgeable and articulate, and even if you disagree with what they're saying, you can't stop listening to them. The combination of paintings, still photographs, and video (some of it quite remarkable) is riveting, and the score, primarily that composed by Brian Keane, is heart-rendingly evocative.

The final three episodes, which cover New York's fall into disrepair and disgrace, its recovery and rejuvenation, and the horror and heartbreak of September 11, are the most outstanding parts of this series, but without the previous five episodes to set the stage, they wouldn't be nearly as good, which is one reason why the entire 17½ hours need to be consumed. And at the end—or is it? Another two episodes have, for some time, been said to be in the works, bringing the series up to date—a viewer comes away from it exhausted and exhilarated, inspired and disgusted, and understanding that great cities, like great people, can inspire both love and hatred at the same time. And why shouldn't that be the case? After all, a city remains, ultimately, a collection of people: good and bad, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, admirable and dissolute. In the case of New York, it just seems to have more of all of it than anyplace else. And perhaps that's just the way they'd have it. TV  

What's on TV? Thursday, January 27, 1955

We've looked at TV Guides from New York City before, but I don't think we've ever gone this far back in time, and it's a pleasure to look at all the familiar names on local broadcasts: news from Robert Trout and Ron Cochran, sports from Chris Schenkel and Jim McKay, Steve Allen with his local program prior to the start of the national Tonight Show broadcast, Dancetime with Allen Ludden. It's also nice to see DuMont as a living network; this marks the last season in which the network would broadcast seven nights a week, although many of its programs would be cancelled in the spring as the network crumbled. Good thing most of their affiliates have agreements with other networks!

This week in TV Guide: January 22, 1955

We might as well get it out of the way right now, because you're not going to be able to concentrate on anything until you know the answer to the question: what makes Ed Sullivan laugh?

It's a fair question: after all, for six years, Ed's hosted the biggest names in show business, including a good number of comedians. And yet, as this week's unbylined article puts it, "despite his success, Sullivan continued for many years to act as if freshly stunned." "I think I'm getting better," Ed says when asked about his on-stage persona. "At least I haven't been getting any more letters teling me to get off my own program." He acknowledges that the knocks he got from the critics hurt, and in response he determined that he'd put himself in the background, allowing the guests to be the focus of the show.

He also launched an effort to "humanize" himself with viewers; for instance, he stopped looking straight at the camera, advice he'd received before the show began. He followed that by turning himself into the target of barbs from his guests; he hired Pat Flick to heckle him from the audience, calling calling Ed "Mr. Soloman"; encouraged insults from the likes of Joe E. Lewis' ("Ed is the one man in the world who can beautify a room by leaving it.") and Jack Howard (Ed was once "a greeter at Forest Lawn cemetery."); and invited Frank Fontaine and Will Jordan to do their exaggerated impersonations of him. 

Off-camera, Sullivan is easygoing and relaxed, and while he feels he's made progress in his humanization project, he seems philosophical about the whole thing. "By this time," he says, "people would think there was something wrong if I suddenly began standing and moving like somebody else." 

So in answer to the question of what makes Ed Sullivan laugh, I guess the answer is: jokes about Ed Sullivan. And that's the mark of a secure man.

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Among the week's highlights is NBC Opera Theater's two-hour, English-language production of Tosca (Sunday, 2:00 p.m.), with Leontyne Price in the title role. The cast list and synopsis takes up an entire column, a long description even during a time in which TV Guide provided fairly extensive program narratives.

It is a landmark moment for Price, who, with this performance, becomes the first black singer in a leading role on Opera Theater. As critic Diane Brooks writes, NBC had, for several years been successfully practicing what they called "integration without identification"—that is, utilizing racially diverse casts without calling attention to it. Once Price had been cast in the role, however, the network "decided to make her ethnicity a central feature in order to project an international vision of America as a land of opportunity and inclusivity." It was not only a victory for Price and the nacent civil rights movement, it also served as a response to international Cold War criticism of America's racial policies.

The broadcast won great critical acclaim; Olin Downes, the music critic for The New York Times, called it "the most dramatic and convincing performance by this organization that this writer has seen." Not surprisingly, it also created controversy, as several Southern affiliates refused to carry the Tosca broadcast due to Price's apperance, while "white viewers’ letters of outrage and protest began to stream into NBC headquarters." The network responded with an official statement that ability—period—was "the only measure by which roles would be cast."

Price would go on to appear in three additional productions of NBC Opera Theater, and those performances helped transform her into a household name; she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1960, and by her retirement in 1985, she was acclaimed as one of the greatest opera singers of all time—not because she was black, any more than Maria Callas was acclaimed because she was white. No, it was because Leontyne Price was, quite simply, one of the greatest opera singers of all time.

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And now for a little industry gossip.

Sheilah Graham reports that Mary Martin has been offered a cool $400,000 (2021 equivalent: $3.88 million) to do her Broadway hit Peter Pan live and in color on NBC around Easter time. Bob Stahl adds that if the deal comes together, the show will probably be broadcast from the Winter Garden Theater on Broadway, where the play is currently running, because "no TV studio is rigged to permit Peter's flying scenes." NBC must have come up with the money; the show airs on March 7, 1955 on Producers' Showcase, attracting a then-record audience of 65 million viewers. I'd say that was a pretty good investment.

Staying with the Peacock, Dan Jenkins notes that NBC has paid the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences $1.3 million in order to televise the next six Academy Awards ceremonies. This could pose a problem, Sheilah Graham says, because Bing Crosby's "astronomical salary" for two broadcasts on CBS next year includes a rider that prevents him from guest shots on other networks. What happens, Graham puckishly asks, if Der Bingle wins an Oscar on NBC this year for The Country Girl? In the end, Crosby loses out in an upset to Marlon Brando for On the Waterfront, so I guess he gets to keep all the loot.

Jenkins also notes that Humphrey Bogart won't be appearing in The Petrified Forest on CBS after all. It's not that Bogart quit the production; after all, it was the role, first on Broadway and then in the movies, that made him a star. No, it's the production itself that quit—turns out that the television rights to the production are owned by NBC, so Bogie will have to do something else for CBS to earn his $25,000. Not to worry, though; since NBC already owns the rights, they decide they might as well have Bogart too; it airs on the ubiquitous Producers' Showcase later in 1955; Bogart's co-stjars are Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall. 

Wait a minute—I just thought of something. NBC thinks Mary Martin is worth $400,000 while CBS only pays Humphrey Bogart a measly 25 grand? Isn't there supposed to be a glass ceiling for that kind of thing?

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If you know me, first of all, you have my sympathy. Second, you probably know that, for a variety of reasons, Sunday night is my least favorite night of the week. However, this week, it's also one of the most interesting nights in the issue. Who couldn't relax with Mystery Night on WPIX? It starts at 7:30 p.m. with Dateline Europe, an espionage drama that ran for four seasons under the original title of Foreign Intrigue, and is notable for being the first American-made filmed series to be broadcast on Canadian television. There were three leads in the four seasons, and just as many alternate titles; Dateline Europe features Jerome Thor, while the third season, later known as Overseas Adventures, stars James Daly, and the final season (Cross Current) has Gerald Mohr. 

That's followed at 8:00 p.m. by Inspector Mark Saber, with Tom Conway as a British detective working in an American homicide unit—or, as it's also known, the reverse-McCloud gambit. The Mark Saber character offers some complications of its own, though perhaps not as convoluted as Dateline Europe. The orignial Saber series, with Conway, ran from 1951 to 1954. Then, in 1955, the producers of a mystery series called The Vise decided to reboot it, with Saber, now played as a one-armed private detective*, played by Donald Gray. (In case you're wondering, Gray was an amputee.) The series ran for two seasons on ABC before moving to NBC, where it was retitled Saber of London, and stayed there until 1960. In syndication, it was also known as Detective's Diary and Uncovered, and we have Brooks and Marsh to thank for keeping this all straight. 

*Wouldn't it have been funny if Richard Kimble had hired him to find his wife's killer? After all, who better to find a one-armed man than a one-armed detective?

The rest of the night is more straightforward. At 8:30 p.m. movie tough-guy stars as a police lieutenant in I'm the Law, followed by Follow that Man (aka Man Against Crime) with Ralph Bellamy at 9:00, and for the finale it's Rod Cameron in City Detective—and, as we saw last week, it's not the series that's complicated in this case, but the star's personal life.

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The local stations in New York City often had a lot of talent in the news department, and the neat thing about these NYC TV Guides is that you get a chance to see some of them before they hit the big time with the networks. On the left, for example, is Ron Cochran, and before he became the anchor of the ABC Evening Report, he was on News of the Night on WCBS. In between those two gigs, he spent a year as host of CBS's Armstrong Circle Theatre, 

Some assorted odds and ends for your consideration, starting Monday night, as Studio One takes a foray into science fiction with "It Might Happen Tomorrow," starring Barry Sullivan, Tony Franciosa, Bert Freed and Dana Wynter, and penned by Carey Wilber, the author of the sci-fi serial Captain Video (10:00 p.m., CBS). On Tuesday, it's "New York's top-rated TV program, WOR's Million Dollar Movie. Tonight's premiere is Let's Live a Little, with Hedy Lamarr and Bob Cummings; you can see it tonight and every night this week at 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. 

The week continues with Wednesday night's Disneyland (7:30 p.m., ABC), with starring Fess Parker in "Davy Crockett Goes to Congress," part two of the three-part look at the legendary frontiersman. Hopefully, Davy finds a better class of people in Washington than the crowd hanging out there now.  Thursday night is college basketball on WPIX (9:00 p.m.), but I don't think even ESPN+ could be talked into showing a game between the U.S Merchant Marine Academy and King's College, from King's Point, Pennsylvania.* Friday ends the week with the WATV late-night movie, Repeat Performance (11:00 p.m.); "A glamorous stage star murders her husband on New Year's Eve, then wishes she could relive the year just ended." It's a great idea for a movie about 2020, said nobody ever. 

*Honorable mention for Thursday night goes to Dragnet (9:00 p.m., NBC) and whoever wrote this droll description: "Sgt. Joe Friday and his well-fed partner, Frank Smith, are sent out to obtain evidence against the television repair racket."

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Who among us couldn't use some help deciding where to put our TV? Considering the size of today's screens, you might not have much choice: whichever wall it fits on. But what if you're thinking of upsizing your 10-inch set to 21, or even 27 inches? Talk about a tough decision! Thank the stars for interior decorator Mary Dorr, host of the At Home show on WFIL in Philadelphia, who's here to set us straight.

It's true, Mary writes, that "[i]n many homes, even now, housewives have not given sufficient thought to fitting the TV set into the decor of their rooms." That's why her first suggestion is also the most important one: no matter in which room you put your set, it "can and should be decorated around the set. Furniture should be arranged so that the room is completely in accord with its main purpose, 'living.'" At the same time, your furniture should be positioned to make conversation easy when the TV isn't on. And you shouldn't have to wind up having to turn down the lights or turning up the sound in order to enjoy your programs.

We all know that size matters, but how do you determine what size screen is right for you? A good rule of thumb, according to Dorr, is that "the distance between your chair and your TV set should be eight times the height of the TV screen. In other words, you'll need to sit about nine feet away from a 21-inch set, where the screen is about 13½ inches high; a 27-inch set requires about 12 feet. Now, our own television has a modest 40-inch screen, which means that as we speak, I should be sitting about 13 feet from the TV; but in reality, I'm really only about nine feet away, or as far away as I would have been sitting from a 21-inch set. And since the picture is in HD, I should probably be able to sit even farther away. Instead, I think about getting an even larger TV. Go figure.

Finally, Dorr cautions, your family and friends "cannot look up or down at a TV screen indefinitely in comfort." This is absolutely true; I can't tell you how unfomfortable it is sitting in front of the TV while simultaneously holding my head in my hands. TV  

What's on TV: Tuesday, December 28, 1971

Here we are, on the final Tuesday of 1971.  On Saturday, Cleveland Amory delivered his verdicts on several of the season's more disappointing series, and throughout this issue we can see evidence that some of these shows have already run out of time. Tonight, for instance, is the final episode of The Funny Side, and Sarge will air its final episode on January 11. James Garner as Nichols (yes, that's its full name) has until March, despite the unusual decision to kill off Garner's character in the final episode and replace him with—James Garner. Well, the clock is always ticking on failure, but there's also plenty to be seen in this listing from the New York City edition, such as an all-star week on The Mike Douglas Show, featuring Sammy Davis Jr. So don't despair; 1972 will be a better year. Right?

What's on TV? Tuesday, November 14, 1972

There's something particularly enjoyable about today's programming. It's not just the notables—for instance, Bonanza's ill-fated move to Tuesdays, which culminates in the show's cancellation after 14 seasons, or the premiere of America, which we discussed on Saturday, or the debut on WNET of Coronation Street, the beloved British soap that dates back to 1960, and is still on today. (I wonder at what point they picked it up?) But, let's face it, Saturday's articlFlorese was a little grim, wasn't it? So it's only proper that we try to find something fun in this issue. Take channel 3 at 6:20 a.m.—Making of a Jew. Well, when a male Jew loves a female Jew very much . . . On channel 4's Not for Women Only at 9:00 a.m., opera great Anna Moffo discusses acupuncture. At 7:30 p.m., channel 6 has Hess department store's annual Chrismas Toy Show, which has to be one of the first holiday specials of the season. And Dick Cavett's guests tonight include professors Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally, discussing the origins of Dracula. Might have been better to have on before Halloween, but better late than never, right?

What's on TV? Tuesday, October 16, 1973

In case you were tuning in early today to find out whether or not I've solved the Blogger problem, you can see for yourself the results. A little extra work, but we spare no expense here for our readers, even if it's only the precious gift of time. Anyway, I suppose tonight's World Series game is the highlight for sports fans, but as I mentioned on Saturday, you might find two movies worth your while: Kim Novak and Tony Curtis in The Third Girl on the Left, and Peter Ustinov in Viva Max! Still, I'm sure you'll be able to find your favorites; today's listings are from the Philadelphia-New York metro area.

What's on TV? Monday, September 20, 1971

Tonight's a landmark in the history of televised sports. No, it's not the inaugural season of Monday Night Football; that was last year. It's close, though: for the second season debut, Frank Gifford replaces Keith Jackson as play-by-play announcer, a move that has twin rammifications. In joining Howard Cosell and Don Meredith, Gifford helps form one of the most memorable broadcasting teams in television sports history, one that would earn the praise and ire of millions around the country. They helped turn Monday Night Football from a mere football game to an event, a colossal Roman circus that inspired such activities as barroom contests to throw bricks through televisions when the trio appeared on the screen. More sedate, but perhaps more significant, Jackson moved from the NFL to college football, in the process becoming one of the greatest big-game announces in television history. On such a historic night as this, everything else pales in comparison, right? This week's issue covers the Philadelphia-New York City area.

What's on TV? Thursday, May 20, 1971

One of the advantages to video tape over live television is that it allows for more information in the TV Guide listings than you might otherwise have. Take, for example, This Is Your Life (10:30 p.m., WABC). Because the show's taped, there's no need to keep secret that Shirley Jones is tonight's honoree. It does kind of lose the excitement of the old show, though, when you didn't know who was going to be the surprise guest. That's progress, I guess. This week's listings are from the Philadelphia—New York area; one thing to look for: the note that the departing Jim Nabors Hour will be replaced by reruns of Lancer. I wonder if that includes the episode with Rick Dalton?

What's on TV? Saturday, March 14, 1970

We're in the Big Apple again this week, and I enjoy these trips to New York, having never been there in person myself. You don't see the variety of local programming on Saturday that you see the rest of the week, but I always like to see what's on Saturdays, the best day of the week. You'll notice that Channel 8, WNHC, has a lot of high school basketball; it's the Connecticut state high school basketball tournament, with different regions based on the enrollment size. You'll also see that WNDT, the NET affiliate in NYC (now WNET, one of the larger and more influential PBS stations in the country) has college hockey on. If I'd had the opportunity, I might have watched that; I always have been a sucker for sports on educational television.

What's on TV? Thursday, March 7, 1974

What to look for this week? Notice the celebrities on the game and variety shows, a who's-who of names from the early '70s. Some are bigger stars than others, but all of them are at least known for being known. One of the reasons I chose today is because of some series that we don't talk about much here; ABC's Chopper One and Firehouse, for instance. And movies; a lot of movies running on local stations. Have any favorites there? The listings are from the New Jersey-Pennsylvania issue; as is my want, I've ignored New Jersey altogether (nothing personal!) but added New York City.

What's on TV? Sunday, February 11, 1973

February 12 is Abraham Lincoln's birthday, and in commemoration there are no fewer than five Lincoln specials on TV this week. On Tuesday, NBC celebrates with The Great Man's Whiskers, the story of how Lincoln came to grow his beard, with Dennis Weaver as Honest Abe. The rest are today: Lamp Unto My Feet's "No Lonely Mountain Peak" is a musical tribute, with Met Opera baritone Sherill Milnes performing the Gettysburg Address; WPIX has Abe Lincoln in Illinois, with Raymond Massey in his signature role; and NET Playhouse has D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln biopic. (Various PBS stations also carry A Look at Lincoln, with actor Dick Blake as the 16th president. It was a time for heroes, and speaking of which, who wants to miss Peter Cushing as Doctor Who in Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., starring the Daleks.

The week's issue is the New Jersey-Pennsylvania edition, with New York City thrown in for good measure.

What's on TV? Tuesday, January 23, 1973

We've had issues from Philadelphia before, and issues from New York City, but this may be the first time we've ever done one that has both. And for 15 cents; can you believe it? Let's find out if it's true that when you double your pleasure, you double your fun.

What's on TV? Sunday, December 25, 1960

Isn't that a delightful header? It comes from the days when TV Guide celebrated Christmas not only with a headline spread across two pages, but by labeling the day as such, rather than simply saying, in this case, "Sunday." That last part is a trait that they continued even after they stopped doing the header, by the way. By the end of TV Guide's days—at least the TV Guide that we all knew and loved—they'd ceased to recognize Christmas in any meaningful sense. It reminds me of one of our hometown newspapers, I can't remember which one—there's one on each side of the river. In any event, on Christmas morning, above the masthead, the person in charge of the layout had splashed, in big letters, "Happy Holidays!" It was the source of much ridicule in the days to come; one liberal commentator observed that, no matter how you felt about it, December 25 was undeniably Christmas Day, and the paper could hardly have gotten in trouble by stating a declarative fact. This is, however, the city that once banned red poinsettias in government buildings; you could have white ones, or pink I suppose, but red was "too" Christmasy. Might offend someone, you know. Me, I'll quote one of my favorite writers, that "Offend" should be my middle name.

Today's listings come from New York City, with a touch of Connecticut thrown in. And, as promised, there's plenty of Christmas commentary thrown in.

What's on TV? Tuesday, November 26, 1974

In the middle of a week of specials, today represents a relative oasis of calm and predictability. For example, on tonight's episode of Hawaii Five-O, "Murdering Steve McGarrett is the goal of a suave European gangster." Will he succeed? What do you think? On A.M. New York Thomas Eagleton continues his reputation rehabilitation tour. (I'm kidding—I don't know why he's on, although I wonder if they've stopped talking about him being dumped from the McGovern ticket yet.) Wide World Special kicks off the week-long concert jam that I referred to on Saturday; the movie "Death Stalk" continues the great tradition of TV movies with former series stars, B-listers, and great character actors. And John Steed himself makes Merv Griffin well worth watching. The listings come from the New York City edition, with a few other cities thrown in for good measure.

What's on TV? Thursday, June 25, 1964

It's always nice to be back in New York. This is a little earlier edition than we've looked at in the past, so we have fewer channels in the lineup. It's an entertaining day—but then, I've been known to find strange things entertaining. Let's see what we can find.

What's on TV? Thursday, May 22, 1969

I never cease to be fascinated by these New York City TV Guides, even when—as is the case today—there's nothing particularly important or distinctive being broadcast. For someone who grew up in the Midwest, far from the Center of the Universe, it's easy to be impressed by the names on the local news: Jim Hartz, who would succeed Frank McGee as host of Today; Dr. Frank Field, the meteorologist who always updated NBC's viewers on the latest hurricane; Kyle Rote, sports anchor and former star for the New York football Giants; Bob McAllister, who would go on to host Wonderama. And then there are variety shows, hosted by stars like Donald O'Connor and Allen Ludden, that we never got to see in the Twin Cities. Even today, looking at these listings, you get a feeling that you've reached the Big Time—something that you never quite felt here. Perhaps that's why Mary Tyler Moore meant so much to us.

What's on TV? Friday, November 29, 1968

Well, here we are, the day after Thanksgiving. (Kind of funny to write that, since Thanksgiving was actually four days ago, in real time. Ah, the perils of the digital world.) As I mentioned on Saturday, one of the highlights of the day is ABC's annual cartoon festival, four hours of cartoons from the Saturday morning lineup. I always enjoyed this greatly, even though I didn't usually watch it; it was part of the fun of seeing shows outside of when you were used to seeing them. You get to thinking that tomorrow's Sunday, because today feels like Saturday. Then you wake up tomorrow, and—it's only Saturday! What a deal! (TVParty! remembers those day-after-Thanksgiving cartoon festivals here.)

Today's listings are from New York City—have fun!

What's on TV? Wednesday, November 6, 1968

How many people, I wonder, stayed up all night watching the election returns, waiting to see who the next president was going to be—or if there was going to be a new president, at least without the House of Representatives becoming involved? Well, did you stay up all night in 2000 or 2004? I didn't even watch them, but I suspect I would have back in 1968, or at least if I didn't have to be in school that morning. I offer these listings from the Day After, with the proviso that election coverage probably continues. Our TV Guide covers New York City and the surrounding areas.

What's on TV? Sunday, August 30, 1970

What can we say about today's listings? I think William F. Buckley Jr.'s interview with Allen Ginsberg (WOR, 11:00 p.m.) is certainly worth watching, and if you'd like to find out, you can see it right here. Senator Charles Goodell is the guest on WNBC's Searchlight, and although I think I've mentioned it before, it's worth pointing out once again that Goodell, who was appointed to the seat held by the late Robert F. Kennedy, was defeated by Conservative Party candidate James Buckley, brother of Bill. Goodell is also the father of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and the NFL exhibition season comes to TV with a couple of primetime broadcasts tonight. Speaking of sports, I remember the tennis tournament on NET (WNDT here, KTCA in Minneapolis), as tennis was the first sport I ever saw on public television. Those were the days.

But enough of my memories—I'm sure you can look through this and find enough of your own.

What's on TV: Monday, November 2, 1970

We're back in New York this week, but I thought I'd change things up a bit, so I've included the listings for WTIC in Hartford and WATR in New Haven. Not a big change, but it does give us a little more variety. So see if you can find any of your favorites!