This week in TV Guide: January 30, 1960

Ahat are we to make of this week's cover story, "Can Ratings Be Fixed?" Does it imply that the ratings system is broken, that networks and advertisers pay far too much attention to them, sacrificing admirable but low-rated programs at the altar of profitability and popularity? Or do we understand "fixed" to have the same meaning as "rigged," that the integrity of the ratings system has intentionally been breached so the  figures reflect something other than the truth, all to profit an unknown someone in position to tamper with the numbers? Oh, the uncertainty of it all.

As it turns out, according to Bob Stahl, it's a little bit of everything. In addition to those choices above, the overriding question, one on everyone's mind, is: "How can electronic gadgets in only 1050 homes measure accurately what 112,000 viewers are watching?" A Senate investigating committee is looking into it (yes, they don't have anything better to do than that), for as Oklahoma Senator Mike Monroney says, "[t]he struggle for rating supremacy led to rigging of TV quiz programs." Put that way, compared to the constant threat of nuclear war, I guess it is an important question.

The fact is, as is the case with alcohol, guns, technology, and, well, television, the ratings are neither good nor bad, but neutral. "They serve a useful and necessary purpose in the business," Stahl points out. "The fault lies in the way ratings are constantly misused." Max Banzhaf, advertising director of the Armstrong Cork Co. (sponsors of Armstrong Circle Theater), says that ratings are "designed to serve only as a guide in making program judgments," but that "too often [they're] used as a substitute for judgment. ABC President Oliver Treyz says ratings are "only one factor in any program decision." Answering critics who claim networks are too eager to jump on the bandwagon and copycat successful shows, NBC Vice President Hugh M. Beville Jr. replies, "Is it wrong to give the people what they say they want?"

Counters historian Arthur Schlessinger, "The television industry must see its job, not as that of catering to the worst or even the average taste of its audiences, but in part as that of elevating taste." And Marion B. Harper Jr., president of the imposing McCann-Erickson ad agency, says that networks "must telecast more shows of quality than the ratings indicate the public wants to see." (We touched on this question of who decides what quality is in an earlier edition.)

Garry Moore, who's been on TV long enough to know a thing or two about ratings, raises this question: "Is a comedian any funnier when he gets a 30 [rating] than when he gets a 20?" As an example, "[s]uppose the comedian gets a 20 when he has a really good show. His audience will talk up the show to friends; more people will tune in the following week. So he may get a 30 rating that second week and not have as good a show. Wouldn't that mean he was funnier with a 20 rating than with a 30?" Yes, the ratings are necessary, but they "don't show whether viewers buy the sponsor's product." As to the question of whether or not the ratings are rigged, Sen. Monroney says they aren't. "[W]e concluded that rating samples are inadequate, that ratings receive far too much emphasis in the industry, [but] we never charged that ratings were rigged." It's possible that television could see something akin to the payola scandals that rocked the radio world, but unlikely.

Unsurprisingly, reports Stahl, "There is no clear-cut answer to all of this." Broadcasters and advertisers need to be taught how to use the ratings correctly, and, says Beville, since the press aren't experts enough to write about them, "ratings should have no place in the press." Dr. Frank Stanton, president of CBS, offers the final word: beyond ratings, the networks need to know something more: what people want to look at. "We need constantly to know what the audience things we ought to be doing." To that end, they're conducting their own public-opinion polls, but I'm not sure that's necessary, because we all know what the audience thinks the networks should be doing: putting on better shows.

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If you think we're done with Garry Moore because of that little quote above, you've got another think coming. He's looking pretty satisfied on the cover, and for good reason: his Tuesday night variety show has more than held its own against NBC's heavily promoted Startime specials despite the latter's massive budget advantage ($250,000 per show, as opposed to Moore's $100,000), and I've Got a Secret, the panel show he's emceed all these years, is doing "quite all right" against NBC's Perry Como Show. (You'll notice ABC's not even in the discussion, which is par for the course in these days.)

"You can't run scared," Moore says of the doomsayers predicting disaster for both of his prime-time shows at the hands of well-funded competitors. Of his Tuesday night show, he says that "we expected very rough competition and we were prepared for it." It's true that Startime got off to a good start, but Moore credited the loyalty of his viewers for his show's success. "People were familiar with our show from last year and I guess a lot of them liked it." It doesn't hurt either that the supporting cast includes Durward Kirby, Allen Funt and his Candid Camera, and Carol Burnett. "I guess the most important thing is to have faith in what you've all learned over the years and not start running around scared when the ratings slip a point or two."

Regarding that $100,000 per show budget, Moore provides an example of how that money doesn't really go very far. "Nine years ago if we wanted a smoke effect for some kind of a skit, somebody would borrow a bucket from the janitor and get 40 cents' worth of dry ice from the drugstore. Today you've got to have three special-effects men and a hand-forged bucket and the tab is $40. That's the way it goes." Multiply that by thousands, and now we know why simple things cost so much nowadays.

Moore closes with a great take on the quiz show scandals. Asked if they were embarrassed, he says, "Of course we were embarrassed. Embarrassed because no one bothered to investigate us." Apparently giving away $80 per show doesn't attract much attention. But Moore wouldn't have it any other way. "I turned down a job as host on a big-money quiz show because I figured that, on it, I wouldn't be a host at all. I'd be a croupier."

Of course, if you'd like to hear more about the great Garry Moore, I'd point you in the direction of the video I did with Dan Schneider last week.

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Invariably, one of the programming victims of the ratings game is the cultural/educational genre. These shows haven't disappeared from TV completely, but with few exceptions they've been relegated to the Sunday cultural ghetto. This week is a good example, beginning with CBS's famed trio of Sunday morning religious and cultural shows. At 10:00 a.m. ET, Lamp Unto My Feet presents "For God and Country," a documentary on the role of religion and the Scriptures in American politics during the Revolutionary War. At 10:30 a.m., it's Look Up and Live, with "The Betrayal," the final episode in the five-part series "Images of the Bible." Finally, at 11:00 a.m., Camera Three has scenes from Colette's novelette The Vagabond, interpreted in dramatic and dance sequences. 

Speaking of, the culture continues at 3:15 p.m. on NBC (following the NBA game of the week between Detroit and Boston), with NBC Opera Theatre's live, color special of Mascagni's one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana. The title might not be familiar to you, but this might be: the Intermezzo, one of the lovliest and most famous orchestral pieces in opera, used in all kinds of movies, including Raging Bull.

Following the opera, it's back to CBS at 4:30 p.m., with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, on Ford's Sunday Musical Showcase (you can see the entire program here). In this program, "The Creative Performer," guest Igor Stravinsky conducts the Philharmonic, with pianist Glenn Gould (making his United States television debut) and Met soprano Eileen Farrell. And after that, it's NBC, with G-E College Bowl at 5:30 p.m. (Case Western Reserve University of Cleveland vs. Purdue; the Boilermakers win, 260-15).

Bernstein is just fortunate that in Ford, he has a big sponsor supporting his show. Hallmark is another big sponsor, which is why Hallmark Hall of Fame airs in color on NBC Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. It's not one of those saccharine pieces of drivel you see on the Hallmark Channel, either; it's Shakespeare's The Tempest, starring Maurice Evans, Richard Burton, Lee Remick, Roddy McDowall, and Tom Poston. (Watch it here.) Don't worry; I promise I'm not going to go off on one of my celebrated rants about the quality of Hallmark programming. It's just too easy nowadays, like catching fish in a barrel.

The point is none of these shows—none—would be on television today, save some niche streaming service that I'm not aware of. In fact, the best you can do is to seek them out on YouTube, which is not a bad alternative. After all, did you notice how many of these shows are there?

  

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What else? Well, there is sports on Saturday, though not at the volume we have today. Hockey takes center stage with the NHL game of the week, featuring the Detroit Red Wings vs. the Bruins at Boston Garden (2:00 p.m., CBS), while the NBA counters with a matchup between the Philadelphia Warriors (before they moved to San Francisco) and New York Knicks from Madison Square Garden. (2:15 p.m., NBC)

Sunday night, CBS presents a two-hour retrospective on "The Fabulous Fifties," hosted by Henry Fonda, with an all-star cast including Jackie Gleason, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Betty Comdon and Adolph Green, and news highlights with Arthur Godfrey, Roger Bannister (the first sub-four-minute mile), Navy Captain William Anderson (who sailed his submarine, the Nautilus, under the polar ice cap), and Edmund Hillary (conqueror of Mount Everest). Eric Sevareid provides commentary. (YouTube has it here.)

We didn't have a "Sullivan vs. Allen" face-off this week, as Ed was preempted by that "Fabulous Fifties" special; anyway, Steverion has moved to Monday nights, and this week his guest is singer Steve Lawrence (10:00 p.m., NBC). Later on, The Du Pont Show with June Allyson (got to get the full name in, right?) features June starring in "So Dim the Light," playing a movie star who discovers she will be totally blind due to injuries from an auto accident. Robert Taylor plays himself in a brief cameo appearance. (10:30 p.m., CBS)

On Tuesday, the aforementioned Startime presents Ed Wynn, Bert Lahr, and Nancy Olson in "The Greatest Man Alive" (8:30 p.m., NBC), a comedy about a man who, deeming his life to have been a failure, prepares to hang himself, when fate intervenes. Garry Moore, who more than holds his own against Startime, welcomes Andy Griffith and Carol Lawrence as his guests (10:00 p.m., CBS). And in the late night movie slot, a feature destined to become a thriller classic: The Night of the Hunter (11:15 p.m., Channel 4), the only movie directed by Charles Laughton, starring Robert Mitchum as a serial killer looking to murder a widow (Shelley Winters) for her money. The movie was deemed a failure in its time; Laughton never directed another film. Today, it's considered one of the greatest movies ever made. I'm always curious as to what leads to these kinds of reassessments. What was it the critics of the time didn't see?

Wednesday, Armstrong Circle Theatre presents "Ghost Bomber: The Lady Be Good" (10:00 p.m., CBS), a docudrama on one of the most enduring mysteries of World War II: the disappearance, without a trace, of an American bomber on a mission to Italy. Last May, the wreckage of the plane was discovered in the Libyan Desert, with no trace of the crew. You may remember a Twilight Zone episode from around this same time, "King Nine Will Not Return," starring Bob Cummings as the pilot of the mystery plane. Among the stars is a very young George Segal. The program is hosted by CBS newman Douglas Edwards

On Thursday night, the great French star Maurice Chevalier stars in a one-man show on CBS (10:00 p.m.), performing all his favorites, including "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," which he sings to some special members of the audience, including the daughters of Joan Crawford and Jack Paar. And in the late movie slot, Fredric March and Betty Field are in for a shock when they find out the German boy they adopted was raised as a Nazi in the 1944 movie Tomorrow the World! (11:15 p.m., Channel 13).

Friday, it's a one-man performance of another kind, as Art Carney stars in three one-act plays: Sean O'Casey's "A Pound on Demand," "Where the Cross is Made" by Eugene O'Neill, and "Red Peppers" by Noel Coward. (8:00 p.m., NBC, and in color, of course.) Elaine Stritch guest stars in "Red Peppers," doing a couple of song-and-dance numbers with Carney. Carney's singled out for praise in one of our Letters to the Editor as well, for his recent performance in "Cal Me Back." Anyone who thinks he's just Ed Norton has another think coming. Also on Friday, Robert Conrad makes a brief cross-over appearance as Hawaiian Eye's Tom Lopaka in "Who Killed Cock Robin?" on 77 Sunset Strip (9:00 p.m., ABC). Warner Bros. is always good that way.

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Interesting note in Burt Boyer's column about how Robert Young wants this to be the last year for Father Knows Best. When you figure that Young started out on the show in 1949 when it was on radio (he was the only member of the cast to make the transition to television), he's already been Jim Anderson for 11 years. Not only does Young want to do something different, his TV daughter, Elinor Donahue, is getting other offers herself. It's said that Young is looking for $11 million to sell a network the show's inventory of close to 250 episodes. As it turns out, this is Young's final season, and while I don't know how much he wound up getting, Father Knows Best ran for another three years in prime time; two seasons on NBC, and a final season on ABC. Think about that: three years of reruns in prime time, and additional years as part of ABC's daytime schedule.* The only similar example I can think of is Marshal Dillon, the name for the half-hour episodes that CBS ran on Tuesdays from 1961 to 1964 (while Gunsmoke was still in first-run), and then in syndication.

*It was an episode of Father Knows Best that was running on ABC affiliates in the Mountain and Pacific time zones at 1:30 p.m. ET on November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated. The ABC footage on YouTube shows a follow-up voiceover bulletin interrupting the next to last scene of the episode, "Man About Town," before returning for some commercials and the wrap-up. Knowing what we do now about what the post-JFK years are like, it's actually kind of poignant. I do wonder what happened with Bud and the illusionist, though. 

Then, there's Dwight Whitney's note on Edd Byrnes, one of the stars of 77 Sunset Strip. Byrnes has joined the impressive ranks of Warner Bros. talent, past and present, who've been engaged in contract disputes with the studio, and consequently he's on suspension. In the meantime, he's taken a job as a greeter at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. He's making $400 a week, which equals what he made playing Kookie. (No wonder he's upset with his contract!) Says Byrnes of his temporary career change, "The bills were piling up. I need the money."

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"Introducing Pat Crowley" in
the role of the Kookie.

Finally, this week's starlet is Pat Crowley, who, aside from her good looks, is known as someone who doesn't pine for her own TV series. She likes being a free-lancer, she explains; comparing it to a gym, she says it allows her to "work out on a different kind of bar bell every week." She's already been a success on the Great White Way, selected as "one of Broadway's most promising new personalities," and after a brief stint with movies ("The timing wasn't good," she explains. "Kookies weren't fashionable.*), she tried her hand at the small screen, and with appearances on Wanted—Dead or Alive, 77 Sunset Strip, and Maverick, she hasn't looked back.

*Except, as we've seen, on Sunset Strip.

She can afford to be choosy, since she's married to a Los Angeles attorney named Gregory Hookstratten. He's better known as Ed "The Hook" Hookstratten, and as one of the biggest legal names in Hollywood, he boasted of clients including Johnny Carson, Elvis Presley, Vin Scully, Joey Bishop, Bryant Gumbel, Tom Snyder, and Dick Enberg. He was general counsel for the Los Angeles Rams, fixed a DUI for Fred Silverman without it getting in the papers, and negotiated contracts for many a celebrity. All that, and Pat Crowley too (even though they wound up getting divorced). Quite an adventure, wouldn't you say? TV

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This week in TV Guide: November 1, 1969

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

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

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

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

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

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

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premier variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

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

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

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

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This week in TV Guide: September 3, 1955

Long before Star Trek was a twinkle in the sky, or in the eye of anyone with the possible exception of Gene Roddenberry, there was a letter-writing campaign in support of a show that was scheduled to go off the air. It was a show praised for its "honest and appealing" portrayals, for stories that weren't afraid to break the mould of prevailing fare, for its likeable characters. It had a loyal and devoted following of viewers, but not, unfortunately, enough to warrant the sponsor's interest in a second season. And when news of its cancellation was made public, the network was inundated with complaints from literally "thousands of irate viewers." In the face of such a public outcry, the show was revived, on a different network and with a different sponsor, for another season. Welcome to the world of Father Knows Best.

It may be hard to believe that such a fate once awaited a series that has since gone on to attain iconic status within the classic TV world, but when Father aired on CBS during the 1954-55 season, it averaged a 20.5 rating, as opposed to the show whose timeslot it will be assuming this season, NBC's My Little Margie, which came in at 27.3. The new sponsor, unnamed in the article but in reality the Scott Paper Company, is said to have been aware that it was trading a more popular show for a less popular one, but was heavily influenced by the viewer response, as well as a feeling that CBS had scheduled the program in a bad timeslot.

  Jane Wyatt and Robert Young read some letters

And what were some of those letters? A Cincinnati housewife wrote, "If the sponsors cannot tell when they have a good show, why should I believe they know what they are talking about when it comes to their products?" Zing! From a woman in Chicago: "Perhaps you do not realize the pleasure this intriguing show brings to people who remember their own youthful family life with nostalgia. Please keep it." And this from John Crosby, one of the nation's preeminent television critics: "Unless somebody does something about it. Father Knows Best will be dropped off the air . . . This would be a crying scandal because Father Knows Best is one of the most honest and appealing and thoroughly delightful situation comedies on TV."  

Well, a lot of someones did do something about it, which led in turn to someone else, a sponsor, doing something else about it, and as a result, this counter-cultural program is returning for a second season. Wait; what's that about counter-cultural? Well, ask star Robert Young what makes Father different from other family sitcoms: "We didn’t want a father who was always blowing his top, or a mother who dominated her husband, or kids who were so smart that they made their folks look like morons. And we particularly didn’t want Pop to fall off a ladder or down a flight of stairs every week. How many fathers do you know—living, I mean—who could stand that, week after week?" It's an attitude echoed by the many viewers who saw the show as "one of TV’s few situation comedies that don’t cast Pop as a dim-wit.," that "represents American family life as it really is and not as some TV scriptwriter thinks it is—or should be." It's fashionable to look at the sitcoms of the 1950s and '60s and scoff at them as portraying families that were too good to be true, living in an America that never was. Perhaps they'd feel differently if they looked back at those very families that watched Father Knows Best, recognized in it the world they lived in, and thought it was a show worth saving.

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On the cover this week is 29-year-old comedian Johnny Carson, seen with Jody, the first of his four wives. He's called the "young man with a grin," and undoubtedly, he's hoping that his career will have more longevity than his marriages. And interestingly, the comedian to whom he draws the most comparisons is George Gobel, for more reasons than the fact that Carson is the first comedian since Gobel to host his variety show from Hollywood. "We’re both low-pressure; we both underplay. Gobel is the hottest thing in the field right now, so naturally, anyone coming along with even an approximation of his style is going to be compared to him." 

One of Johnny's greatest champions has been Jack Benny, who was impressed with Carson from the first moment that Johnny firmly stepped into the spotlight to substitute for an ailing Red Skelton. ("All the way into the studio,” Carson says, “I kept trying to remember sure-fire gags. It was all so fast, I really didn’t have time to get into a nervous tizzy.") After the show, Benny insisted to anyone who would listen to him that "The kid is great," and urged CBS to find a format for him. "No wonder they can’t sell him," Benny complained, "he’s too good, too intelligent—they’re all looking for pie throwers." Finally, the network, with two sponsors in hand, launched Carson with his own variety show on June 30. 

The keys to Carson's future success seem clearly seen in retrospect. The unidentified author of the profile cites Carson's flair for "the quieter kind of comedy," and describes him as "both a listener and a worker," two of the characteristics that would serve Carson so well later on when hosting The Tonight Show. "Besides shouldering the burden of being a young comedian tossed into the network whirlpool, he plays an important part in the writing and casting of the show, chores which are generally full-time jobs in themselves." He uses wife Jody on the show on "an irregularly regular basis" (much like his marital history); she was, in fact, the only female member of the cast with any staying power until singer Jill Corey was booked for an eight-week run. 

Hosting his own variety show from Hollywood is a long way from Nebraska, where Carson was born and raised. After moving to Hollywood in 1950, he spent a year as a staff announcer at KNXT, the CBS affiliate, and hosted a local show, Carson's Cellar, which was "reasonably successful." He moved from there to a summer show, Earn Your Vacation, and started writing monologues for Red Skelton. When Skelton was injured during a rehearsal (smacking his head against a non-breakaway wall an hour before airtime for his live show), he "hollered for Carson, and Carson came running." Although The Johnny Carson Show lasts only one season, it's enough to attract the attention of ABC, which makes him the host of Who Do You Trust?, with sidekick Ed McMahon. It's there that Johnny really displays the quick wit and interview skills that will put him in such good standing when NBC calls for Tonight. And the rest—well, you know how that goes.

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It's always nice to read about the stars before they became stars, isn't it? Likewise, it's fun to capture iconic programs, like Father Knows Best, before they became legends. Let's see what we can run across in this week's batch.

On Saturday night, The Jimmy Durante Show (8:30 p.m. CT, NBC) presents what could be called an ironic storyline: Jimmy, having discovered that the bank is about to repossess his nightclub because he's behind on the payments, "acquires the answers to be used on a quiz show and contrives to be a contestant in order to raise some money." They're not suggesting, by any chance, that those quiz shows might be rigged, are they? How else would he get the answers ahead of time?

Miss America 1955, Lee Ann Meriwether relinquishes her crown next Saturday, but in the meantime, she's been preparing for life after the beauty-contest circuit. Last December, she made her TV acting debut on the anthology series TV Playhouse, and this Sunday she stars on that series' "The Miss America Story" (8:00 p.m., NBC). It's neither biographical nor a documentary, just a drama about "the experiences of a beauty-contest winner" being portrayed by a fledgling actress who just happens to be the reigning Miss America. During the past year, Meriwether has earned $60,000 from TV commercials and providing commentary on fashion shows, and she plans to continue her career in television after she's no longer "Miss America." "Dave Garroway has been dangling a Today job in front of her," which she thinks would be great, "But golly, how would I get my Master's degree?" She must figure it out, because she goes on to that two-year stint as one of the Today Girls, followed by an acting career that lasts until 2000 and includes, well, just about everything. A worthy Miss America indeed.

On Monday, which also happens to be Labor Day, former president Harry Truman addresses the AFL-CIO Labor Day celebration at Cadillac Square in Detroit. (1:00 p.m., CBS and NBC). It's also nearing the end of Arthur Godfrey's summer vacation; in the meantime, Peter Lind Hayes fills for Godfrey on Arthur Godfrey Time (9:30 a.m., CBS), while Jack Paar pinch-hits for the Old Redhead on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts (7:30 p.m., CBS). Garry Moore also has the day off, with Walter O'Keefe filling in on The Garry Moore Show (9:00 a.m., CBS), and Ernie Kovacs begins his second week substituting for Steve Allen on The Tonight Show (11;00 p.m., NBC). Tony Martin has no such luck; his evening Tony Martin Show returns for another season (6:30 p.m., NBC), taking up the first 15 minutes of the half-hour block that includes NBC's evening news. 

Tuesday leads off with The World at Home (9:45 a.m., NBC), with Arlene Francis and Hugh Downs interviewing the most decorated soldier of World War II, actor Audie Murphy.* In prinetime, it's the debut of television's first "adult" Western, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (7:30 p.m., ABC), starring Hugh O'Brian as the legendary lawman. In one of the early examples of linear storytelling on television, the series opens with "Mr. Earp Becomes a Marshal," as Earp launches his storied career by becoming marshal in Ellsworth, Kansas. 

*The program, which airs for 15 minutes prior to the start of Arlene's Home series, has some interesting guests this week; on Wednesday, it's NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, who was the attorney in the Brown v. Board case that ended school segregation, and would go on to become a justice of the Supreme Court.

Wednesday's Disneyland (6:30 p.m., ABC) takes a trip to Tomorrowland, where Wernher von Braun is one of the scientists discussing the challenges ahead for putting a "Man in Space," and what man's first spaceflight will look like. That's followed by Pall Mall Playhouse (7:30 p.m., ABC), with John Newland—whom we'll know better from hosting One Step Beyond—starring as a tenderfoot finding out that life in the West isn't what he expected. And at 8:30 p.m., I've Got a Secret (CBS) gives us a second look this week at Audie Murphy, who has a secret for the panel. Don McNeill sits in for Garry Moore, who returns to IGAS as well as his own show next week. 

Thursday afternoon's Early Show presents "Tomorrow's Man" (4:00 p.m., CBS), with Pat O'Brien as a football coach* who must decide whether to win a game, or teach his son (John Derek) a lesson. I've got an idea: why not teach him how to win? Problem solved! Later, it's a rare comedy on Climax! (7:30 p.m., CBS), but for good reason: the star of "Public Pigeon No. 1" is Red Skelton, who plays a sucker hired by conmen to sell stock in a phony uranium company. That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by Four Star Playhouse, and this week the star is Charles Boyer as a mysterious stranger who arrives at the front door of a young woman whose husband has just escaped from prison; Beverly Garland co-stars. 

*Not Knute Rockne, presumably.

On Friday the dramatic anthology series Star Stage premieres with "The Toy Lady" (8:30 p.m., NBC), starring Silvia Sidney and Lorne Greene (I wonder whatever happened to him?). Later, on Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person, Ed's guests are Ethel Merman, appearing with her husband and two children from their home in Denver. Later on, it's the deferred premiere on WTMJ of Science Fiction Theater (10:30 p.m.). The syndicated series actually debuted in April, but it's debuting here as part of WTMJ's fall schedule. (And by the way, it's actually spelled Theatre.

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Curious as to what's popular on TV in Chicagoland? Well, wonder no more; American Research Bureau, which used to provide the ratings for the networks, is out with their Top Ten list for July, and, to nobody's surprise, The $64,000 Question sits on top of the heap, well ahead of Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town. CBS and NBC dominate the ratings, with ABC's U.S. Steel Hour the highest-rated show on the lowest-rated network. 

The $64,000 Question is also the nation's number one show, based on the Trendex ratings, followed by I've Got a Secret, Toast of the Town, Two for the Money, and G.E. Theater. By the way, according to the Teletype, Toast of the Town has a change upcoming; starting with the new season, it will henceforth be called The Ed Sullivan Show. Elsewhere, if you're wondering why Audie Murphy's been so active on TV this week, it's probably because he's promoting his new movie, To Hell and Back. And Jim Backus is on the lookout for one of those sound-proof booths like the kind you see on Question, "For my mother-in-law."

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Tom D'Andrea and Hal March: discharged

This week, Bob Stahl reviews a sitcom I hadn't previously been aware of (not that there aren't a lot of those), The Soldiers, starring Tom D'Andrea and Hal March. In much the same way as Saturday Night Live spun off long-running skits like "Wayne's World" and "The Coneheads" into big-screen movies, The Soldiers is a spin-off from a routine that D'Andrea and March used to do on The Colgate Comedy Hour. And just to show you that tart commentary didn't begin with our hero, Cleveland Amory, this is how Stahl describes the transition to television: "Apparently encouraged by an overwhelming lack of critical acclaim, they have expanded the idea into a half-hour series that NBC gambled on this summer as a Saturday night replacement." 

The pair play peacetime GI sad-sacks who are perpetually getting into trouble with the brass, as well as anyone else who comes near. As Stahl points out, there's nothing inherently wrong with Army comedy; "No Time for Sergeants," with Andy Griffith, was a big hit on Broadway, television, and the movies; and Phil Silvers will do pretty well, starting this fall, with Bilko. However, that's where the comparison ends, as "D’Andrea and March play such stupid dolts that there’s little humor left." Well, not everyone gets everything right; although the series bites the dust after just ten episodes, Tom D'Andrea will continue with his movie and television career, while Hal March will make an honest living as host of The $64,000 Question.

Stahl's second review is of another summer replacement series, Windows, a half-hour anthology that subs for Person to Person. The premise involves the camera peering through a window, setting the stage for the story of the people seen through that window. This is another of those series with which I wasn't previously familiar, and it gives off more than a little bit of the Twilight Zone vibe, beginning with the initial episode, in which all the children of a neighborhood disappear at the same time. That one, according to Stahl, came up a cropper after a terrific premise, but a later story "of a girl locked in an apartment from which there was no escape, this being her estranged husband’s way of driving her out of her mind," hit the sweet spot. It also took a crack at a pair of Ray Bradbury stories, "The World Out There" and "Arcade." It was, Stahl says, "an excellent example of how TV can dress up an otherwise routine series of dramatic shows with a single gimmick."

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MST3K alert: Jungle Goddess (1948) Two pilots go into the depths of the African jungle to search for a missing heiress. George Reeves, Ralph Byrd, Wanda McKay. (Wednesday, midnight, WNBQ in Chicago) Even the Man of Steel can't save this one, in which two ugly Americans travel to darkest Africa with the motto, "If it moves, shoot it." It's saved on MST3K, however (if that's the word), by part one of the Bela Lugosi serial, "The Phantom Creeps." TV

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

This week in TV Guide: April 24, 1971

If you're like me, you probably gave up watching the news years ago. I mean, I already take medication to keep from getting depressed; the last thing I need is to go out there and intentionally find something that makes me even more depressed. But, you say, what if there was a happy news program out there, one that made you smile even through the worst of the news? Well, if that's what you're looking for, than New York's WABC has the answer.

Don't believe me? Here's a letter from a couple in White Plains, New York: "Here we are watching our favorite comedy program: Eyewitness News really knows how to make the news bearable. We're crying on the inside and laughing on the outside. Right on!" It's not, as Richard K. Doan points out, that the station ignores the bad news; they still cover "the rape, riot and revolution" of the day. They take what they do seriously; it's how they do it that brings smiles to viewers. Eyewitness News co-anchors Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel lead the way; one night, Grimsby, having reported that striking cab drivers believed he had treated the news of their strike "too lightly," dryly remarked, "I'm not going to step off the curb when I hail a cab." And then there was the time when reporter Melba Tolliver signed off from a story from McSorley's Bar, as the camera panned to an outside view of a painting of "a voluptuous nude hanging on the wall." Cracked Beutel, "Didn't look much like Melba." And then there was the time that sports reporter Howard Cosell was introduced as the president of the Howard Cosell Fan Club.

Granted, from our perspective it may be pretty easy to keep a straight face in response to this banter, but there's no question that this does signal a shift from the traditional stern-faced, all-business news anchors we all know and love. As Doan points out, while there's no shortage of bad news on Eyewitness News, the fact of the matter is that most of the news is not about the war, inflation, drugs, hippies, and other ulcer-inducing stories; instead, the station bears down on "old-fashioned" bad news: robberies, muggings, stabbings, fires, and the like. It's tabloid news for a tabloid city, and it's helped catapult WABC into first place in New York City's ratings race. And the newscasters at Channel 7 are just one happy family, engaging in harmless kidding around between themselves. 

And that might be another reason why we don't see anything so remarkable in this today: we're used to it. Probably every news market in America runs commercials showing their personalities parading around the city in staged group shots, while they act like the best of workplace friends in front of the camera. At least in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where I grew up, the news, weather, and sports anchors didn't even share the same desk until the late 1960s; typically, when the news finished there'd be a commercial break, after which you'd return to see the sports anchor occupying the desk, and likewise with the weather. In most of our 1960s TV Guides, the three segments of the broadcast are listed as three separate programs. If this was your typical view of the news, even the concept of having everyone together would be a development; the byplay between them would add to the family atmosphere. 

But is this jocularity good for the news? Not everyone likes this approach; Time called the Eyewitness News crew "a happy-go-lucky bunch of banana men," and Marvin Kitman of Newsday described the broadcast as having "the flavor of a cocktail party a stranger has just wandered into. It is not good journalism." On the other hand, Kitman also suggested they should probably "win a prize for honesty," and Columbia University's William Wood suggested that this approach was a vast improvement over "the funeral, almost pompous" way people were accustomed to receiving the news. WABC's general manager, Kenneth MacQueen, isn't complaining about the station's increase in revenues, and defends the approach: "I don't think 'happy news' describes it. It's just humanistic," and Richard O'Leary, president of ABC's O&O stations, has expanded the approach to its stations in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. "People want somebody to reassure them," O'Leary says in explanation of the format's success, "so they can take their fingernails out of their palms and go to sleep at night." 

Naturally, success breeds imitation, and it won't be long before some form of this, whatever you want to call it, is the rule rather than the exception for local news. I'd go so far as to suggest that this is just the way news is nowadays everywhere, including networks and cablecasts. I'm not against it in principle; what I think we need more of in the industry today is actual journalistic reporting by people with at least a modicum of talent, and comedy is no replacement for gravitas. Just give me the damn news, and once you've established that you can handle it, then if you want to kid around a bit, you can. But remember, this isn't an evening at the improv. People didn't watch Cronkite because he acted like their best friend or empathized with them; they watched him because they trusted him. That's what we need more of today.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

If you were left in any doubt as to what Cleveland Amory thinks of CBS's daytime drama Love is a Many Splendored Thing, then his conclusion should remove any question. To the tune of the song of the same name: 

     Once on a high and windy hill

     In the morning mist

     Two lovers kissed

     And the plot stood still

Well, I suppose you could say that about any soap opera, but it seems particularly appropriate in this case, for as Cleve says, nothing ever really happens on this show. "One day, for example, there was some really wild action—a phone call. Of course it didn't happen right away. Nothing ever happens right away on a show like this." He goes on to recount how they talked about the call on Monday. On Tuesday, they discussed the arguments for and against making the call. He skipped Wednesday, but he didn't miss anything, for on Thursday they finally made the call. And on Friday, they talked about why they made it. Fortunately, the weekend came along, and a break from watching. Which was a good thing, because "There is no man living who could do it every day. It is, for a mere male, too emotionally exciting."

Lest you think this is the only thing from which this show suffers, there's more. The series, Amory says, takes place around a hospital and a research foundation. "Which, we guess, is supposed to give it all a kind of nobility. One thing is certain—the characters don't. They are as shoddy a bunch as you would care to come across in this show or the next." There's so much misery, deceit, infertility, infidelity, and other things that it should be called a mope opera. And what else can one do should you find yourself in a situation like this but talk about. And talk. "All the characters, apparently on the theory they are just on radio, do nothing but talk." And, of course, fall in and out of that splendored thing called love. What amazes me is that Love is a Many Splendored Thing had already been on the air for four years at this point, and it has another couple to go before it's done. But if you're anything like Cleveland Amory, you're probably already done much sooner than that.

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After something like that, you have to admit, what's called for is something to cleanse the palette. To accomplish this goal, we turn to Dick Hobson's look at the success of The Beverly Hillbillies, and the man behind it all, Paul Henning. 

We've written admiringly about Hillbillies before in this space, particularly Malcolm Muggeridge's insightful article about what the series really represents ("an innocence which triumphantly survives the possession of riches."), but I didn't realize until this moment that it has also played a role in "sanitizing sociocultural stereotypes." Yet, according to Al Simon, Columbia University English major turned situation-comedy entrepreneur, that's just what the show has accomplished. "Before The Beverly Hillbillies went on the air nine years ago, the word 'hillbillies' brought to mind the picture of dirty, unkempt people wearing long beards, inhabiting dilapidated shacks with outhosues out back. As a result of our show, the word has a new meaning all over America. Now, it denotes charming, delightful, wonderful, clean, wholesome people." 

All this is something of a mystery to Henning, who was merely looking to produce a show that made people laugh. According to his colleague and collaborator, Dick Wesson, "Paul writes the show to be thigh-slapping funny. So many half-hour shows have those little warm moments of domestic heart-tug and homespun sentimentality. Paul doesn't do that. He writes the how to make you laugh, to really get to your belly." 

One proof of the show's success is a $15 million suit filed by a CBS cameraman who claimed that Hillbillies pirated the concept of his presentation for a show, "Country Cousin," featuring a rustic farmer who visits his city-slicker New York relatives. The trial ended in a hung jury, and a new trial has been ordered, but the experience shook Henning up. "It was like walking down the street with your 4-year-old child by the hand and a stranger comes along and says, 'Hey, that's my child!' " Indeed, Hillbillies is Henning's baby through and through: parts of Granny's character come from his mother, while Elly May was based on daughter Linda. Henning himself has written or co-written 247 of thr 274 episodes made to date. And Henning supervises "every detail of production down to the last titter and snort on the laugh track." 

Henning with Granny (Irene Ryan)

It only took five weeks for Hillbillies to reach #1 in the ratings, and the list of shows who've tried and failed to go against it is an impressive one: The Perry Como Show, Going My Way, Ben Casey, Espionage, Shindig, Gidget, Blue Light, and The Second Hundred Years. It's given credit for saving The Dick Van Dyke Show from cancelation; during its second season, Van Dyke was moved to a time slot immediately following Hillbillies and "inherited enough of an audience to prosper." 

This shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone familiar with Henning's track record in sitcoms; prior to Hillbillies, he'd had a five-season success with The Bob Cummings Show. He's what is known as a "pressure writer," with the deadline bringing out the best in him. He also suffers through every line. "You apply yourself and work hard," he says. "It's simply a weekly grind." He derives great pleasure from Hillbillies, especially when he and Hobson put things in the script that they know won't get past the censors, such as a reducing farm with the motto "Leave your fat behind in Phoenix." The censor, surprisingly, didn't have a problem with that joke other than a request to change the locale to avoid sounding like a commercial for the Elizabeth Arden reducing farm in Phoenix. Even so, they didn't use the joke. "We never had any intention of using it because it just might have offended somebody. We're not writing deathless prose. It's just a line. It's something you grind out like sausage." Although, as Hobson concludes, "no sausage machine takes home $45,000 a week."

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Repeats are plentiful this week; we're advised that some of these episodes are among the best of the season, and we're in no position to disagree. We get started. however, with a first-run special debuting Saturday morning, NBC Children's Theatre's "The Sounds of Children" (9:00 a.m.), which was taped last December at the White House Conference on Children. The hour-long special is performed entirely by children, and includes song, dance, and musical performances, hosted by the Ritts Puppets, and featuring an appearance by First Daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower. Finishing off Saturday morning, Dick Clark returns to Philadelphia for an American Bandstand reunion with some of the show's former dancers; Chuck Berry is among the musical guests (Noon, ABC).

Sunday features reruns of the full-hour Honeymooners episodes from The Jackie Gleason Show (9:00 p.m., CBS), and this week sees Ralph (Gleason) obsessed with entering contests after his in-laws won a free trip around the world. That's up against a "Lawyers" segment of The Bold Ones (9:00 p.m., NBC) that sees Walt Nichols (Burl Ives) defending a Vietnam vet-turned-hippie who's accused of having killed his best friend.

Plimpton and The Duke

On Monday, George Plimpton—"America's professional amateur," as he's billed—makes his movie debut in "Plimpton! Shoot-Out at Rio Lobo" (8:00 p.m., ABC), a behind-the-scenes look at his experience playing a crooked deputy in the John Wayne movie Rio Lobo. Plimpton is probably most famous for Paper Lion, his exploits in a training camp with the Detroit Lions, but he did a series of specials like this one, and they're all pretty entertaining, although none of them compare to seeing him try to impersonate a professional quarterback. If you like George here, you'll probably want to switch over to Book Beat (9:00 p.m., PBS), where he discusses his book American Journey—The Times of Robert Kennedy with host Bob Cromie. But that's only if you've already seen the original run of tonight's Carol Burnett Show (9:00 p.m., CBS), with Carol and her special guest, Rita Hayworth. 

Tuesday gives us a couple of reruns worth watching; unfortunately, they're on at the same time, so hopefully you saw one of them previously. The aforementioned Beverly Hillbillies run into con man Shifty Shafer, played by Phil Silvers, in tonight's episode from Washington, D.C. (6:30 p.m., CBS), while Peter Ustinov stars in Hallmark Hall of Fame's "A Storm in Summer" (6:30 p.m., NBC), written by Rod Serling, and co-starring Ivan Dixon's son N'Gai as an urban youth spending his summer in upstate New York. Both Ustinov and Serling won Emmys.

Wednesday's episode of The Men From Shiloh, which you and I know and love as The Virginian (6:30 p.m., NBC), features James Drury's Virginian, accused of murder, in a hunt for the real killer. The real attraction here is the guest cast, which is exceptional even for a 90-minute series: Joseph Cotten, Brandon deWilde, Monte Markham, Sallie Shockley, Anne Francis, Rod Cameron, Agnes Moorehead, Neville Brand, and John Smith. As if that isn't enough star wattage, hang around for Kraft Music Hall (8:00 p.m., NBC), with host Alan King, who's joined by guests Lena Horne, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Stiller and Meara. 

Thursday is a night for variety shows, with Flip Wilson leading things off at 6:30 p.m. (NBC), featuring Roger Miller, the Temptations, Lily Tomlin, and Redd Foxx. At 7:00 p.m., it's The Jim Nabors Hour (CBS), with guest Barbara McNair in a spoof of Cinderella that sees Jim playing a traveling shoe salesman who's mistaken for Prince Charming. And to round out the evening, it's The Dean Martin Show (9:00 p.m., NBC), with guests Engelbert Humperdinck, Dom DeLuise, Jackie Vernon, and Pat Crowley. For variety of a different sort, the late movie tonight is the controversial Lolita (10:30 p.m., KTVI), with James Mason, Shelley Winters, and Sue Lyon.

You'll have to stay up late for Friday's best, but it'll be worth it: a rerun of Dick Cavett's 90-minute interview with Fred Astaire (12:15 a.m., ABC). The show includes clips from some of Astaire's most famous movies, Fred discussing his dancing partners, and the highlight, in which Dick cajoles Fred into doing a little dancing right there. I've long complained about the quality of today's late night shows, but I don't think anyone will disagree with me that there's nobody in television today who'd be capable of doing 90 minutes with a single guest; Cavett was terrific at it.

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Since we began with a story from Richard K. Doan, we'll conclude with The Doan Report, and it was probably inevitable that the ratings race would get to the point where programs were in trouble before they even debuted. Programming consultant Herb Jacobs, looking at factors from star appeal to scheduling, is predicting that Shirley's World, starring Shirley MacLaine in a sitcom about a globetrotting photographer, and The Man and the City, with Anthony Quinn as a big-city mayor, will both bomb, while The Funny Side and The Chicago Teddy Bears are a "disaster area." As it happens, he's right about all four of them; what he gets wrong are the shows he predicts as hits, including Sandy Duncan's Funny Face, James Garner's Nichols, and Jimmy Stewart's Family Plan, which actually aired as The Jimmy Stewart Show; none of them see the promise of a second season, although in the case of Funny Face it was due mostly to Duncan's surgery for a brain tumor. Now, if they could only get to the point where some of these shows are cancelled before anyone even thinks of them. . . TV