Let's give thanks for Thanksgiving!

It's been said that in New York, people refer to it as the "Macy's Day Parade," such is the identification the parade has with Thanksgiving. There are other, and older, Thanksgiving parades; Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Houston come to mind. And, if you ask me, the telecast of the Macy's parade has suffered over the years; the floats and bands and balloons almost seem to take second place to the pop stars and dancers lip-synching their way through Herald Square. If I wanted to torture myself that way, I'd watch the Grammys. (I don't know if MTV has music anymore, but if it does. . .) I seldom flip over to the Macy's parade anymore; I rely on the streaming coverage of the parades in Detroit and Chicago, and p.

But I come here not to bury the Macy's parade, but to praise it. No matter how bad the coverage may be (and whether you watch it on NBC or CBS, it's equally bad), I still have to catch a few minutes of it while flipping back and forth between the other parades. And when you strip away all that's annoying, it's still magically colorful. (Probably the best way to see it is to go to New York and view it from a point where the pop stars aren't warbling.) Take a trip through the years with the ads below, most of which have a prominent mention of the television coverage.

There was no TV for the first parade, though. I wonder if anyone thought it would last.

No parade was held between 1942 and 1944 due to the war. I'm guessing this might have been from the first year without the parade; having the balloons enlist is a clever way to make the point that everyone needs to sacrifice for the war effort.

The 1946 parade was not only the first to be televised, it was also the parade that appears in the greatest Christmas movie of all time, Miracle on 34th Street. Edmund Gwynn, who plays Santa in the movie (and won an Academy Award for it), was in fact the Santa in the Macy's parade that year. 

This ad for the 1954 parade is just fun, don't you think? It sums up the magic of Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one. You can see that, since the 1946 broadcast, television has now become an integral part of the company's advertising strategy.

The 1963 parade went on as scheduled, even thought it was six days after the assassination of President Kennedy, and the day after Lyndon Johnson's speech to a somber joint session of Congress. The rationale was to try and keep the day as normal as possible for children. All of the floats were adorned with black mourning streamers.

McDonald's was a sponsor of the telecast in 1965; it looks kind of like kids were supposed to color this in, doesn't it? And take a look at the vintage version of the Golden Arches at the bottom. Remember when all McDonald's looked that way?

An ad for the 1968 parade, from WRGB-TV in Albany, New York.

The 1982 parade; Bullwinkle is in the parade for the 22nd time, despite the fact that Rocky and Bullwinkle haven't been on network TV since 1964. The years may change, but the characters stay the same.

Garfield the cat appeared for the first time in the 1984 parade, as did Raggedy Ann, at least this incarnation. As the small print says, be sure to "See it live or on NBC-TV.!

Here's the poster for the 2019 parade. It's filled with the iconic images from history; the Tom Turkey float (which from that angle inspires thoughts of the NBC Peacock—coincidence?), the elves, and, of course, Santa. And speaking of iconic, there's Snoopy in his space suit, throwing back to the famous image of him that became so popular around the 1969 moon landing. And notice the things you didn't see on the other posters: the web address and hashtag. 

Even though I complain about them, the parades are one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving. Thanks to those miracles of technology, you can see the Macy's parade, as well as those in other cities, via streaming video (in the case of Macy's, the cameras from other locations probably make for a better viewing experience). Whatever, wherever, and however you watch, I hope it lends to the pleasure of your day, and that you all have a peaceful and most thankful Thanksgiving Day! TV

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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  

Let's give thanks for Thanksgiving!

Some of you may know that we've been in the process of relocating, once again. During the lifespan of this blog, I've written from seven different homes, and this one makes it eight. There's an air of permanance about this one, and though I've said that before, this time I mean it. 

Anyway, everything's gone resoundingly well, for which we're quite thankful. And it's appropriate to feel that way, seeing as how tomorrow's Thanksgiving Day. It's one of my favorite holidays, second only to Christmas, filled with happy memories of parades, football, and food. Since last year's celebration was pretty much a fizzle (thanks to the virus and our politicians), there's a feeling that Thanksgiving is back this year, and given that we're not completely settled in yet, I hope you'll indulge me in a flashback to a couple of Thanksgivings ago

As we know, it's all too easy to take these kinds of things for granted; hopefully, you'll spend the day with family and friends, and take the meaning of the day to heart. 

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t's been said that in New York, people refer to it as the "Macy's Day Parade," such is the identification the parade has with Thanksgiving. There are other, and older, Thanksgiving parades; Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Houston come to mind. And, if you ask me, the telecast of the Macy's parade has suffered over the years; the floats and bands and balloons almost seem to take second place to the pop stars and dancers lip-synching their way through Herald Square. If I wanted to torture myself that way, I'd watch the Grammys. (I don't know if MTV has music anymore, but if it does. . .) And with the current crew from Today doing the announcing, the parade sometimes becomes unwatchable.

But I come here not to bury the Macy's parade, but to praise it. No matter how bad the coverage may be (and whether you watch it on NBC or CBS, it's equally bad), I still have to catch a few minutes of it while flipping back and forth between the other parades. And when you strip away all that's annoying, it's still magically colorful. (Probably the best way to see it is to go to New York and view it from a point where the pop stars aren't warbling.) Take a trip through the years with the ads below, most of which have a prominent mention of the television coverage.

There was no TV for the first parade, though. I wonder if anyone thought it would last.

No parade was held between 1942 and 1944 due to the war. I'm guessing this might have been from the first year without the parade; having the balloons enlist is a clever way to make the point that everyone needs to sacrifice for the war effort.

This ad for the 1954 parade is just fun, don't you think? It sums up the magic of Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one. Believe it or not, the parade was first televised in 1946; you can see that by 1954, it's become an integral part of a company's advertising strategy.

The 1963 parade went on as scheduled, even thought it was six days after the assassination of President Kennedy, and the day after Lyndon Johnson's speech to a somber joint session of Congress. The rationale was to try and keep the day as normal as possible for children. All of the floats were adorned with black mourning streamers.

McDonald's was a sponsor of the telecast in 1965; it looks kind of like kids were supposed to color this in, doesn't it? And take a look at the vintage version of the Golden Arches at the bottom. Remember when all McDonald's looked that way?

An ad for the 1968 parade, from WRGB-TV in Albany, New York.

The 1982 parade; Bullwinkle is in the parade for the 22nd time, despite the fact that Rocky and Bullwinkle haven't been on network TV since 1964. The years may change, but the characters stay the same.

Garfield the cat appeared for the first time in the 1984 parade, as did Raggedy Ann, at least this incarnation. As the small print says, be sure to "See it live or on NBC-TV.!

Here's the poster for tomorrow's parade. It's filled with the iconic images from history; the Tom Turkey float (which from that angle inspires thoughts of the NBC Peacock—coincidence?), the elves, and, of course, Santa. And speaking of iconic, there's Snoopy in his space suit, throwing back to the famous image of him that became so popular around the 1969 moon landing. And notice the things you didn't see on the other posters: the web address and hashtag. 

Even though I complain about them, the parades are one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving. Thanks to those miracles of technology, you can see the Macy's parade, as well as those in other cities, via streaming video (in the case of Macy's, the cameras from other locations probably make for a better viewing experience). Whatever, wherever, and however you watch, I hope it lends to the pleasure of your day, and that you all have a peaceful and most thankful Thanksgiving Day! TV  

This week in TV Guide: November 22, 1958

Xne of the things I've noted in the past regarding Thanksgiving is that because it doesn't have a fixed date, you're never entirely sure when it's going to show up in a late November TV Guide. Fortunately, this week happens to be one of those happy occurrences, and since you could be reading this at any time of the week, it should fit right in with whatever you're doing, from finishing off that pumpkin pie to hanging your Christmas decorations.

I've also commented on how Thanksgiving isn't quite what it used to be, but when one looks at how it was in 1958, you can really see the changes. Take the parades, for example: CBS used to show multiple parades prior to casting its lot exclusively with the Macy's parade, but in 1958 there are but two, neither of them in New York. The coverage starts at 9:15 a.m. CT (following an abbreviated 15-minute edition of For Love or Money) with Captain Kangaroo himself, Bob Keeshan, hosting a 45-minute telecast of the Hudson's Thanksgiving Day Children's Parade* in Detroit. Following that, it's Arthur Godfrey's half-hour morning show at 10:00 a.m., which the Old Redhead will interrupt periodically to look in on the Gimbles Toyland Parade in Philadelphia, where the grand marshal is Jimmy Dean and the TV Guide float is ridden by Orson Bean and Pat Carroll.

*I've never seen it referred to in that way, as the "Children's Parade," but a quick spin around the web shows several such references in this era. 

Over on NBC, where Macy's parade coverage has swollen to three hours in recent years, the 1958 broadcast runs but an hour, with Bert "Miss America" Parks and Frank Blair, newscaster on Today, as hosts. The big story in this year's parade is the workaround required to get the balloons aloft because of the nationwide helium shortage. For awhile there were concerns that the balloons might have to be abandoned, but ultimately they were saved with an ingenious solution: they were inflated with regular air and held aloft by cranes.*

*Helium is still in short supply, although there's been no serious threat to ditch the balloons. This article tells more about the growing demand for, and shortage of, helium.

Football coverage was different as well. This year features three NFL games* and a pair of college tilts, but in 1958 the number of games was two: the traditional game in Detroit featuring the Lions and the Green Bay Packers at 11:00 a.m. on CBS, and the annual college game between Texas and Texas A&M at 1:45 p.m. on NBC. The Lions and Packers don't play every Thanksgiving anymore, although they do play on Turkey Day more often than would be dictated by random choice. Texas and Texas A&M, bitter rivals for a century, don't play each other at all anymore, thanks to conference realignment. This will probably change in the next few years with more conference realignment, but for now it's yet another example of progress not necessarily constituting an improvement.

*Still falling short of the four that were telecast in the last year prior to the NFL/AFL merger: two in each league.

Before the Texas-A&M game, KMTV Channel 3, the NBC affiliate in Omaha, has an appropriate special on at 12:30 p.m.—The Mayflower Story, a color documentary on the ship Mayflower II, an exact replica of the original, which traveled across the Atlantic in 1957, docking in New York City on July 1 of that year, after which her captain and crew received a ticker-tape parade along the city's Canyon of Heroes. You can see a brief clip of the ship's 1958 arrival in Washington here.

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There aren't many other specifically Thanksgiving-oriented shows this week, although Red Skelton's Freddie the Freeloader looks for a free turkey dinner on Tuesday's program (8:30 p.m., CBS), and Lawrence Welk's Wednesday night show (he was on twice a week at this point) is his Thanksgiving special—but more about that on Wednesday. There may be others that were not described as such in the listings. And anyway, the holiday period has always been a prime one for specials, and this year is no different. For starters, I didn't know Dean Martin did a yearly series of NBC specials a year long before he started his weekly series, but on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m., Deano kicks off his first special of the season, with special guests Bing Crosby and Phil Harris.

On Monday, The Voice of Firestone (8:00 p.m., ABC) celebrates its 30th anniversary, having started on radio in 1928; from 1949, when the television version began, until 1956, when the radio version ended, the program was simulcast on both TV and radio. The program celebrates its anniversary with some of the biggest names in opera: Rosalind Elias, Anna Moffo, Cesare Valletti and Cesare Siepi (but no Maria Callas). The host is John Daly, taking time off his ABC newscasting duties and CBS What's My Line? hosting. Busy guy. Later that evening, CBS's Desilu Playhouse presents "The Time Element," the de facto pilot for The Twilight Zone, which I wrote about when it was rerun the following April. And the following night, NBC's Eddie Fisher Show is preempted for a special presentation of Shirley Temple's Storybook, the telling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes." Not a bad week's lineup.

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Sportswise, the college football season winds down with the season-ending game between Iowa, winner of the Big Ten Championship, and Notre Dame. It's a down year for the Fighting Irish, as is the case any time the university isn't contending for the national championship, although their reputation does secure for them the #17 national ranking. For Iowa, their 31-21 victory over Notre Dame, followed by a 38-12 defeat of California in the Rose Bowl, gives them an 8-1-1 record, good enough for the #2 ranking behind undefeated Sugar Bowl champ LSU.*

*Interestingly enough, 1958 was the first year to feature the two-point conversion, introduced to help enliven what was, in Michigan athletic director Fritz Crisler's description, "the dullest, most stupid play in the game." Nearly 60 years later, people still describe the point-after that way, which causes me to ask where the progress is.


If you're in the mood for some "ice hockey," CBS has it with its NHL Game of the Week Saturday afternoon, featuring the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins from Boston Garden. (I would love to see footage of that game.) If the NFL suits you better, there is a game aside from the Thanksgiving Day feature, with CBS carrying the Chicago Cardinals hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers. There's also some NBA action on Sunday, with the St. Louis Hawks and Cincinnati Royals playing on NBC.*

*Just to recap, the Chicago Cardinals moved to St. Louis and then Phoenix, where they're now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The St. Louis Hawks came from Milwaukee and would move on to Atlanta, while the Cincinnati Royals, once the Rochester (NY) Royals, later became the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, the Kansas City Kings, and now the Sacramento Kings. At least the Steelers stayed put.

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This week's starlet is Diana van der Vlis, who might be the next Grace Kelly, or Maria Schell, or Eva Marie Saint. But what she looks forward to is the day when someone might come up to her and say, "I've seen an actress who looks just like you." She's earned her acting chops, from Broadway to B movies to television guest roles in shows such as Kraft Television Theater and Naked City. She's done a pilot, but the show hasn't yet been picked up. (And in fact never will be.) Her greatest fame will come on the daytime circuit, most notably in the soaps Ryan's Hope and Where the Heart Is. One thing's for sure, though: when you've seen her once, you'll never miss seeing her again.

And a note from TV Teletype that Jennifer Lea has been signed to play Carl Reiner's wife in Reiner's new series Man of the House. The series never made it, but a few years later Reiner retooled and recast it, and it wound up as The Dick Van Dyke Show. Hmm—Jennifer Lea as Laura Petrie? Or Barbara Britton, as rumor had it? I think it would have been worth a look.

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And now to the cover story: Ronald Reagan and his actress-wife, Nancy Davis Reagan. The "athletically lanky and likable" Ronnie, now 47, has for the last four years been the host and occasional star of General Electric Theater on CBS, and he and Nancy will appear on the show Sunday night, in the ironically-named "A Turkey for the President." Reagan doesn't play the president—that would come 22 years later, in the role of his life—he plays the father of a boy who enters his personal turkey in a contest, only to find out the "winner" of the contest gets to serve as the president's Thanksgiving dinner.

It's not that Reagan's career is winding down, but he's at a point where he's less interested in what the critics think than what the sponsor and its employees think. He's acutely aware that part of his job is to keep GE happy, and he uses the feedback he receives from employees, which he gets regularly while touring GE plants nationwide, to help formulate his opinions about what television should be like. "People will accept art on TV," Reagan says perceptively. "They want art, not just amusement. They'll accept an unhappy ending. But they do want to know what happens after the story ended and they want to know why. They do not want to be left dangling in the air after a TV show." One other thing they want: "stars, stars, stars."

The unbylined article contains most of the biographical information we've come to know over the years: the beginning calling Cubs games on WHO radio, the trip to California, where he would star in movies, his marriages to Jane Wyman and Nancy, his time as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and his current role as corporate spokesman, in which he may make as many as 15 speeches a day—not only to GE employees, but to Rotary, Lions and Kiawinis clubs, churches and chambers of commerce. It will not only polish his public speaking, it will give him a unique opportunity to tour the country, speaking to ordinary persons, making connections and leaving impressions that will be remembered in years to come. The writer observes that Reagan appears to enjoy this part of the job most of all.

What's fascinating about this, at least to me, is that we're not reading about this in an after-the-fact biography, or listening to a political analyst talking about it in the past tense. We're seeing it as it happens. In fact, though few (including Reagan himself) would realize it at the time, we are watching, in real time, the embryonic stages of Ronald Reagan's campaign for the presidency. It is happening before our very eyes, and though we aren't even aware of it, we can suspect that more than one person from the 250,000 he meets during this time will come away from their encounter mightily impressed by the meeting, impressed by the man.

Nobody would have predicted what would come next,would have predicted that Ronald Reagan would not stop giving speeches when GE Theater went off the air in 1962, would not return to acting after his final picture, The Killers, would not return to Hollywood at all but would wind up in Sacramento as governor, in Washington, D.C. as the last larger-than-life president. But there it is, the future staring right at us in black-and-white. And we don't even know it. TV  

Thanksgiving memories

It's been said that in New York, people refer to it as the "Macy's Day Parade," such is the identification the parade has with Thanksgiving. There are other, and older, Thanksgiving parades; Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Houston come to mind. And, if you ask me, the telecast of the Macy's parade has suffered over the years; the floats and bands and balloons almost seem to take second place to the pop stars and dancers lip-synching their way through Herald Square. If I wanted to torture myself that way, I'd watch the Grammys. (I don't know if MTV has music anymore, but if it does. . .) And with the current crew from Today doing the announcing, the parade sometimes becomes unwatchable.

But I come here not to bury the Macy's parade, but to praise it. No matter how bad the coverage may be (and whether you watch it on NBC or CBS, it's equally bad), I still have to catch a few minutes of it while flipping back and forth between the other parades. And when you strip away all that's annoying, it's still magically colorful. (Probably the best way to see it is to go to New York and view it from a point where the pop stars aren't warbling.) Take a trip through the years with the ads below, most of which have a prominent mention of the television coverage.

There was no TV for the first parade, though. I wonder if anyone thought it would last.

No parade was held between 1942 and 1944 due to the war. I'm guessing this might have been from the first year without the parade; having the balloons enlist is a clever way to make the point that everyone needs to sacrifice for the war effort.

This ad for the 1954 parade is just fun, don't you think? It sums up the magic of Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one. Believe it or not, the parade was first televised in 1946; you can see that by 1954, it's become an integral part of a company's advertising strategy.

The 1963 parade went on as scheduled, even thought it was six days after the assassination of President Kennedy, and the day after Lyndon Johnson's speech to a somber joint session of Congress. The rationale was to try and keep the day as normal as possible for children. All of the floats were adorned with black mourning streamers.

McDonald's was a sponsor of the telecast in 1965; it looks kind of like kids were supposed to color this in, doesn't it? And take a look at the vintage version of the Golden Arches at the bottom. Remember when all McDonald's looked that way?

An ad for the 1968 parade, from WRGB-TV in Albany, New York.

The 1982 parade; Bullwinkle is in the parade for the 22nd time, despite the fact that Rocky and Bullwinkle haven't been on network TV since 1964. The years may change, but the characters stay the same.

Garfield the cat appeared for the first time in the 1984 parade, as did Raggedy Ann, at least this incarnation. As the small print says, be sure to "See it live or on NBC-TV.!

Here's the poster for tomorrow's parade. It's filled with the iconic images from history; the Tom Turkey float (which from that angle inspires thoughts of the NBC Peacock—coincidence?), the elves, and, of course, Santa. And speaking of iconic, there's Snoopy in his space suit, throwing back to the famous image of him that became so popular around the 1969 moon landing. And notice the things you didn't see on the other posters: the web address and hashtag. 

Even though I complain about them, the parades are one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving. Thanks to those miracles of technology, you can see the Macy's parade, as well as those in other cities, via streaming video (in the case of Macy's, the cameras from other locations probably make for a better viewing experience). Whatever, wherever, and however you watch, I hope it lends to the pleasure of your day, and that you all have a peaceful and most thankful Thanksgiving Day! TV  

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, November 26, 1959

For Thanksgiving Eve, let's take a look at this rare kinescope of the 1959 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as broadcast on NBC. The host is Bill Wendell, who was Ernie Kovacs' announcer on his NBC show, and went on to greater fame as the announcer for David Letterman's show, while Gene Rayburn provides the commentary from street level.

You'll notice it's only one hour; far shorter than today's bloated, performance-filled version. I love the parade, but I can't watch it without my thumb on the remote, ready at a moment's notice to switch over to Chicago or Detroit when the action lags. I've actually come to prefer the online streaming of America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit (you should be able to click on that link Thursday morning if you want to see it), which seems to have far more of the parade and far less of the singers lip-syncing to their latest hit. I wouldn't know what to do without them, though.


Regardless of how you feel about the parades (Mike Doran is not a fan, as I recall), please accept my best wishes for a very Happy Thanksgiving, one of the best days of the year! TV