Odds & ends

Since I don't have anything big to write about this week. it seems like a good time to go through some miscellaneous items that you might find interesting.

The Daytime Delilahs. Commenting on last Saturday's TV Guide (December 26, 1964), MemotoSelf asks, "Who are they? And why do 'they make housewives' blood boil'?" 

The Daytime Delilahs in question are, from left to right, Lee Lawson (who plays Barbara Sterling on Love of Life), Haila Stoddard (Pauline Rysdale on The Secret Storm), Ludi Claire (Elizabeth McGrath from The Edge of Night), and Audra Lindley (Liz Mathews on Another World). (Joan Anderson, aka Nora Hansen on The Doctors, is not pictured. They are the vixens of video, the harlots and harridans who exist to lure your favorite male heroes from home and hearth and ensnare them in their deadly webs of sin, and female viewers love to hate them. All five of the featured vixens report having been accosted in the street by fans, and the mail they receive is often so venomous that the networks won't let them see it. (One anonymous woman, reports Lawson, writes regularly "telling me that I am wicked and that I must die.") People like that haven't disappeared, by the way; they've just moved to social media.

Name That Episode! From that same issue, I mentioned that quite a few of the programs from Sunday's listing are available on DVD or streaming, but that I didn't have time to list the episodes. Well, I'm not sure I have any more time now than I did then, so maybe I was just lazy. But here's a sample for you. In addition, since shows like Bullwinkle are out as complete series, we know this week's episode is available even if we don't have its name.

The Roaring 20's: "So's Your Old Man"

Surfside 6: "Spring Training"

87th Precinct: "Man in a Jam"

Profiles in Courage: "John Adams"

Harbor Command: "Illegal Entry"

My Little Margie: "Margie, the Writer"

Car 54, Where Are You?: "The Biggest Day of the Year"

My Favorite Martian: "Won't You Come Home, Uncle Martin, Won't You Come Home?"

West Point: "Start Running"

Bonanza: "The Saga of Squaw Charlie"

The Rogues: "The Real Russian Caviar"

Men of Annapolis: "Blinding Light"

What's My Line?: Season 16, Episode 17

The Ed Sullivan Show: several individual acts on YouTube

Pretty much all of the movies from that day are available as well:

Going My Way

Slattery's Hurricane

The Thing

The Ride Back

Never Wave at a WAC

Blue Murder at St. Trinian's

The Dummy Talks

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Jackpot

If you ever wanted to try and recreate a day of television, this might be a place to start. 

And Now For Something Completely Different. Finally, speaking of Ed Sullivan, we've often talked about how jarring it can be seeing rock acts performing alongside pop singers, Broadway actors, ventriloquists, animal acts, and Topo Gigio. Here's a great example: a terrific rendition of "Keep Me Hangin' On" by Vanilla Fudge from January 14, 1968. This isn't your grandfather's really big shew.

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Odds and ends for a Friday morning

One of the drawbacks to returning from vacation, especially a working vacation as was just the case, is that things are kind of a mess when you get back.

As you know if you read Wednesday's "diary," we're back from Hunt Valley, Maryland, where we were attending the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. Welcome, by the way, to the many nice people who stopped by our table during the three days of MANC and either bought a copy of The Electronic Mirror or took one of my cards. It was a pleasure meeting and talking with all of you, and I hope you enjoy both the book and It's About TV. Remember, it all exists for your pleasure as well as mine.

As I said on Wednesday, it was, as usual, a great time, and it was also interesting viewing the convention from the other side of the table, so to speak. There remains, however, the return home—and while I'll never again complain about coming back to Minnesota, it was, as usual, a rude awakening seeing everything waiting for your attention. That would be the case even if I didn't have a "real" job during the daytime, which just adds to the stockpile. There are emails waiting to be acknowledged, comments requiring a response, questions asking to be answered, new material demanding to be written. Trust me, if you fall into one of these categories, be patient—I'm working on it.

In the meantime, while you're waiting, might I suggest a trip to Amazon.com or BN.com to buy a copy of The Electronic Mirror? Carol Ford, who was gracious enough to write a blurb for the cover, says that after reading The Electronic Mirror, "You won't watch TV the same way again!" With no false modesty on my part, it really is a good read—a serious look at the relationship between television and American culture, that manages to be both fun and informative as well. And while you're at it, feel free to check out my other books: The Car, my newest novel, and The Collaborator, which seems more prophetic now than ever. These were a popular item at MANC, going for a special price if bought with The Electronic Mirror, and while that deal has expired, you can't go wrong picking these up! And for any of my books, if you'd like a personal inscription, drop me an email with your name and address, as well as how you'd like me to sign it, and I'll send you a sticker to go in the front of your book.

And now, a solicitation for help from one of our readers, who stopped by after my talk with a couple of questions that I'm confident you can assist with. If I remember correctly (and if I don't, I hope she'll chime in with a correction in the comments), her two questions are as follows:

1. Is there a site out there that provides historical data on weekly series ratings? We all know that several sources provide year-end ratings for each TV season, and I've seen occasional top-10 weekly ratings, but does anyone know where one could find weekly data for every regularly-scheduled program, going back indefinitely? Television Obscurities doesn't have the info, and if that site doesn't, I can't think of another site that does, but if anyone can answer this question, I know one of you out there can.
2. There used to be a blog out there called, I believe, the TV Guide Historian. The blog's no longer being kept current; does anyone out there know what happened?

Again, my apologies if I don't have the questions quite right, but I trust you all to provide the information that I'm lacking.

Then there are the emails. I mentioned earlier, there are emails that you good readers have sent me over the past two or three months, when I was tied up with edits and rewrites to The Electronic Mirror, and I'm shamefully behind in answering these emails. Please understand that it's nothing personal; I read and appreciate every bit of correspondence I get, and it was only my workload, combined with a tight publishing deadline, that has kept me from being responsive. That will change over the next couple of weeks; I will dedicate myself to cleaning out the inbox and getting back you you posthaste, before I've alienated you forever.

Finally: there is an audio version of my presentation, although I'm not yet sure about the quality. If it's sufficiently listenable and I can figure out how to do it, I'll put it up on the website for your enjoyment. And if I really luck out and can synchronize the audio with the actual PowerPoint, I'll do that as well. Keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway, it's good to be back, and hopefully by next week we'll be back to a normal schedule as well. One think you can depend on, though, and that's a TV Guide review tomorrow! TV  

Odds and ends

Back in the day, TV networks used to fill their summer schedules with anthologies bearing such names as Summer Playhouse.  What they were was not a return to the days of Golden Age dramas; instead, they were a clearinghouse for networks to air unsold pilots.  Few of the episodes provided anything more than light entertainment, and most provided ample evidence of why they hadn't been picked up by anyone.

Today's column is a bit of a thrown-together collection of odds and ends, but that's where its similarity to Summer Playhouse ends - after all, we're talking about quality here!

First off, reader John, who asked a question about The Untouchables a few weeks ago, adds this wonderful footnote:

Gotta tell ya this story. In  Utica N. Y. in the early 70's there were two TV stations, WKTV 2  (NBC) & WUTR 20 (ABC). WKTV totally dominated the market, you know, a V vs a U. WUTR bought the Untouchables for $20 an episode - as opposed to nowdays 5 -8  Thousand $ an episode for Wheel of Fortune or Jepordy. For the first time WUTR beat WKTV in the ratings but only for the first half hour.  Still # 1 in the 2nd  half hour but took a sizable drop. Utica had a  heavily Italian population at the time. One of the local radio talk show host said it was because in the first half hour the Italians were winning!

Love that story!

And now a question from reader Erika, who writes:

I have a recording of my father-in-law Brian Reade talking about Aubrey Beardsley  on NBC TV. It's date is 1967 and it also features Vyvyan Holland, son of Oscar Wilde. It was given to Brian Reade by Tony Janak.

I am proposing to make an illustrated recording of this with some family and collected images.  Since you seem to know 'all about TV' I wonder if you foresee any legal problems with circulating this?

My first thought was that as long as it was being shared privately and not being produced for public sale, she was probably OK.  However, aside from a pre-law minor, I’m no expert in this area – anyone with some better ideas?  Please let me know either in the comments or via email.

And now for some quick hits:

Be sure and check out Comfort TV's article on "The Subversive Genius of Rocky and Bullwinkle," one of my favorite cartoons.  David is always well worth reading, and this is no exception.

Cult TV Blog has an interesting look at another of those 60s British series, Police Surgeon.  No, not the awful 70s syndicated version from Canada that was the plague of many a local station - this is the one that is widely seen as precursor to the fabulous Avengers.

Gotta run for now - back later this week!

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