Around the dial

We'll start the week at Cult TV Blog, where John continues his review of The Omega Factor with what he calls his favorite episode, "Powers of Darkness." This series continues to intrigue me. 

The announcement of NBC's reboot of The Rockford Files prompted David to look at one of television's most iconic characters in this week's Comfort TV: the original Jim Rockford, played by the inimitable James Garner. 

In this week's A-Team review at The View from the Junkyard, Roger reviews "Road Games," which strikes me as being a little like Mission: Impossible, with the bulk of the episode given over to "the execution of an extremely clever and intricate plan."

Speaking of Mr. T, as we are indirectly, Terence has a look at the very short-lived sitcom Mr. T and Tina, which starred Pat Morita and ran for five episodes in the fall of 1976. I do remember this series, though I never saw it, being captive in the World's Worst Town.

There's a UFO craze right now, which I have absolutely no interest in; one world is weird enough for me. It does, however, make this a perfect time for Paul at Mavis Movie Madness to look back at 1975's The U.F.O. Incident, the "real life" Betty and Barney Hill story. 

It's a double dose of Paul this week; over at Drunk TV, he discusses the fifth and final season of The Odd Couple, one of the great sitcoms of the decade, or even longer than that. It's a throwback to an era of adult, sophisticated, and farcical humor, which I miss. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider leaving a tip 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 17, 1993

this week's TV Guide is a special, the 40th Anniversary edition. It's an interesting issue, and this is going to be an interesting look at it; we won't even dip into the programming until Monday. That's because this is the 40th Anniversary Issue, and as you can tell from the cover, we're going to be reading about TV Guide's choices as the All-Time Best TV.* Ratings like this are ultimately pointless (one man's trash is another man's treasure, after all, and as the Editors themselves point out, "most of the fun is in the argument"), but they're usually fun to look at. Let's see if that's the case this time as well.

*I can't imagine writing this phrase without using Capital Letters.

l  l  l

The shows are separated into categories: sitcoms, family shows, cop shows, Westerns and the like, and winners are chosen for the decades of the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and overall. Some of the choices, which must have seemed so progressive at the time, are probably going to be quite dated now, while others are going to be a testimony to how cultures change over time. Let's start, as an example, with sitcoms. The best sitcom of the '50s is no surprise: I Love Lucy. Probably not much disagreement there. For the '60s, the winner is The Dick Van Dyke Show, the '70s is M*A*S*H, the '80s is Cheers, and the All-Time Best* is M*A*S*H. What does this mean?

*There are those Capital Letters again.

The justification for selecting M*A*S*H as the all-time best is that it did what only the greatest comedies do: "mix hilarity and tragedy, often in equal measure." I'm not sure I agree with this—the definition, I mean. Yes, many comedies introduce an element of drama from time to time, but I disagree strongly with the assertion that this is a requirement of classic comedy. The editors acknowledge that M*A*S*H's politics could occasionally be heavy-handed, but "never at the expense of laughter or character," and I'm not sure I agree with that either. The politics of M*A*S*H, while ostensibly referring to the Korean War, was often meant as an allegory for Vietnam—but by this time, much of it has become dated, not to mention simplistic, and its cast members seem even more sanctimonious and pushy than they did back then. Perhaps the editors could have created a category for Best Dramedy, where M*A*S*H could have competed against Thirtysomething and SportsNight.

Another characteristic of classic comedy is its timelessness, and that's something that one can genuinely question about M*A*S*H. Let's put it this way: if you were to introduce this show to an audience today, one that lies outside of the demographic most preoccupied with Vietnam, would they find it funny in the same way they do Lucy or Andy Griffith or Leave it to Beaver, or even Frazier and Seinfeld, if you want to project into the future? I'm not sure they would, because those other shows, although rooted in a specific time period, often draw their humor from situations that are timeless and jokes that are often funny regardless of their setting. Much of M*A*S*H's humor may fall into that category (after all, authority will always be the butt of the joke), but I don't think you can say the same for its politics, and for that reason M*A*S*H, like another contender from the era, All in the Family, is too much of its time to be considered timeless.

My own personal choice in this category, not surprisingly to regular readers, is Hogan's Heroes, which combines a modicum of slapstick with some very clever "caper" plotting that also happens to be very funny. There's a certain gravitas about the mission of the Heroes that doesn't exist on, for example, McHale's Navy, and from time to time you're reminded that their missions do, in fact, often involve killing. The complaints about bad taste fall on deaf ears in this household, and most of the situations that form the basis for the comedy do seem, to me at least, to be universal in a way that they aren't in M*A*S*H. This is just one man's opinion; however, remember that the one man happens to be the owner of this blog.

l  l  l

Best Drama? Your winners by decade are Playhouse 90, The Fugitive, Upstairs, Downstairs, and St. Elsewhere, and even before I turned the page I knew St. Elsewhere would be the winner, because it came from the '80s, which at the time was considered another Golden Age, and it was the most recent in people's minds.

Here, my complaint revolves around methodology. Some people might consider Hill Street Blues, the winner of Best Cop Show, as the best dramatic series of all time. Ah, but Hill Street is a genre show, albeit one that transcends the normal lines that separate a genre series from a regular drama. Others might suggest that The Waltons, a nominee for Best Family Show, should be considered for this category. For that matter, St. Elsewhere could be considered a genre show itself, a medical drama. But wait—there isn't a category for best Medical Drama. Could it be because there aren't really any medical dramas on television at the time, before ER and Chicago Hope and House? Can we even say that St. Elsewhere would be the best medical drama if that category existed? After all, Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare took on some weighty issues for the time.

I think this is a terribly weak choice: of the shows listed, I'd probably go with The Fugitive, although Playhouse 90 is a strong contender. The problem with Playhouse 90, in my mind, is that it was an anthology; as such, without a regular cast, you don't have to consider things such as character development and continuing storyline. It probably should have gone in a category for Best Anthology, but said category does not exist. Meanwhile, The Fugitive could just as easily have been put in the cop show category since its protagonist spends his time trying to avoid capture by—you guessed it—a cop. Upstairs, Downstairs could just as easily be put in the Best Nighttime Soap category (not that there's anything wrong with that), but if you're going to consider it as among the best, then let's look at the series that was the best Masterpiece Theatre had to offer: I, Claudius. Or was that too much of a soap? And what about The Prisoner, one of the most provocative series of all time? It isn't even mentioned in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category. What about The Defenders or Judd for the Defense, shows of exceedingly high quality, or Perry Mason, a series with high entertainment value? What about Mission: Impossible, which doesn't seem to fit into any category?

The bottom line here is that the categories themselves are useless—unless there's something that makes a series unique (and I'd allow that science fiction can fall into that description, as well as the anthology series, and today's reality shows), a drama is a drama and a comedy is a comedy. To paraphrase the editors, a classic television series transcends simple classification; just as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe transcended genre fiction to be considered mainstream literature, the best series, regardless of the field in which they take place, are dramas (or comedies) first and foremost. Dragnet, one of the decade winners in the Best Cop category, is fine as a genre show, but it doesn't reach the level of another decade winner, Naked City, which is not a police drama at all, but a drama about men who happen to be policemen. See the difference?

l  l  l

There are a few other bones to pick as well.

I mentioned Best Family Show above, but I'll say again that I think this kind of segregation cheapens the quality of these shows. The Waltons not a drama series? Leave it to Beaver and The Donna Reed Show classified as "family" shows and not sitcoms? It's almost as if the editors are embarrassed by them, giving them a special category rather than letting them compete with the "big boys." And speaking of embarrassment, I wonder how they'd feel about their all-time winner in this category, The Cosby Show? (Whoops!) They might like to forget it, but Cosby was the biggest hit of the day. Why isn't this a sitcom, unless you want to define them as containing jokes about sex and other bodily functions?

I also mentioned Hill Street Blues winning Best Cop Show, but how can you compare cops on the beat to homicide detective Columbo (winner of the '60s)? Dragnet is a worthy winner for the '50s, but if you want cops, why not choose the crew of Naked City, a much better show than Hill Street, at least in my opinion. Still, if this issue had come out today, the choices probably would have been one of the Law & Order versions, or one of the NCIS versions, or the Matlock reboot, so I suppose we have to be grateful for small favors.

Johnny Carson is named best Nighttime Talk Show host, defeating Steve Allen, Jack Paar and David Letterman. No surprise, and I don't think you can really argue with it. Paar is more my taste, but between Johnny's staying power and the memorable moments from interviews, comedy skits and impromptu bits (thrown any tomahawks lately?), it's hard to dispute him as the king. And to think so many from today's generation have no clue who he is.

The Ed Sullivan Show wins for Best Variety Show, beating out Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live and The Tracey Ullman Show, and I'll admit I'm kind of surprised by this. I'd have thought they might go with SNL, based on its "groundbreaking" reputation, but Sullivan's show offered, as the editors point out, "all-encompassing variety," a program "that offered everything from dramatic readings to dancing bears, from opera buffo to Topo Gigio, from The Doors to Dinah Shore." As I pointed out here, it was influential in ways Sullivan himself couldn't have anticipated.

Howard Cosell is named Best Sportscaster, but he wasn't really a sportscaster in the sense that Vin Scully or Keith Jackson or Brent Musberger are; he was a sports commentator, or even better a sports personality. Yes, he did boxing and was very good at it (although not better than Don Dunphy), and he is absolutely one of the most important figures in television. But he doesn't belong in the same category with Red Barber, the voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers, or Jim McKay, host of Wide World of Sports, or even the young Bob Costas (who actually did more than pontificate back then), the other three nominees. Here, a little bit more distinction in categories would actually have been useful.

The Simpsons is the winner for Best Cartoon (what we'd call Best Animated Series today), but I think that really belongs in the sitcom classification, where it would probably have beaten M*A*S*H. It beats out Gumby (which wasn't a cartoon at all), The Bullwinkle Show (which wasn't a kids' show at all), and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (which has suddenly become very awkward). I'm really quite surprised, considering its longevity and popularity, that The Flintstones doesn't make the list.

I'm even more surprised—make that appalled—that Captain Kangaroo doesn't make the list of Best Kids' Show. Yes to Howdy Doody for the '50s and Sesame Street for the '70s, but Walt Disney instead of the Captain for the '60s? Disney's appeal crossed over to adults as well as children, and when you're talking about a "kids' show," you can't possibly compare "The Love Bug" and "Davy Crockett" (popular though they were) to Mr. Green Jeans talking about nature, the Captain introducing kids to the wonders of books through reading, or the various animal guests. As for the show of the '80s, ABC's Afterschool Specials, again—it's not a weekly series. Isn't this just apples and oranges? By the way, Sesame Street wins—no surprise.

For best Sci-Fi Show, I would have chosen Doctor Who, but at the time the British import hadn't gone mainstream, though it still had an enormous cult following in this country. Star Trek: TOS is the winner here, over The Twilight Zone (again, I'm not sure they really fit in the same category), Mork & Mindy (?), and Star Trek: TNG.

The original version of Jeopardy!, with Art Fleming, takes the Best Game Show category, and I'm not going to disagree with that—it's much better, in my opinion, than the Alex Trebek-helmed version. What's My Line?, the '50s choice, would have been mine as well, but it's not really a game show in the same sense as Jeopardy! or the other winners, Password and Wheel of Fortune. It was considered a panel show, which is really a horse of a different color altogether.

Best News Show: 60 Minutes, over See It Now, The Huntley-Brinkley Report (which, I can't stress enough, was NBC's frigging evening news program, not in the same category at all) and Nightline. If you're talking about news magazines, sure, 60 Minutes—but if you're introducing Huntley-Brinkley, why not The MacNeil/Lehrer Report?

Best Morning Show: The Today Show, and I'm all right with that if you're talking about the '50s and '60s, as they do here. Good Morning America is the '70s choice, and CBS News Sunday Morning wins the '80s. It just goes to show how weak the entire weekday-morning lineup is.

Best Daytime Soap is General Hospital. Best Evening Soap is Dallas. I won't quarrel with either. Best Daytime Talk Show Host is Oprah Winfrey, and I think that choice, though regrettable, was inevitable. Arthur Godfrey's '50s show and Merv Griffin's '60s daytime show were in the mix, as well as Phil Donohue in the '70s; I prefer Merv's evening/late night show, for the same reasons they chose his '60s program—Merv as host was "a literate, intelligent one who didn't shrink from cerebral or controversial guests." And in that vein, don't forget that Dick Cavett started out as a daytime host as well, with ABC's This Morning.

Best Western Show: Gunsmoke, over Maverick ('50s) and Bonanza ('60s). Sure, although I think Gunsmoke is better placed in the '60s than '70s, but they had to have something for the '70s, since they couldn't come up with anything for the '80s (for the simple reason that there wasn't anything. For a genre that, at one time, dominated the TV airwaves, it's too bad TV Guide's format is so limiting; it leaves out a program such as Have Gun—Will Travel, a very complex program.

I'm not even bothering with the Best Actor and Actress categories, since I think the Best Show categories have created enough of a mess, but if you're curious the comedy awards went to Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball (but wait a minute! The Honeymooners wasn't even a choice for sitcoms, and The Jackie Gleason Show didn't make it for variety show!), and the drama award winners were James Garner (who's magnificent forte is really the lighthearted drama) and Tyne Daly (whose Cagney & Lacey doesn't have the staying power needed to be voted best anything, I'd submit). Best Newscaster is Walter Cronkite, and my favorite, the non-nominated David Brinkley, wouldn't have stood a chance.

l  l  l

And there you have it. I'm sure I've probably slammed some of your favorite shows, and if I have, I hope you'll forgive me. This is, after all, One Man's Opinion, and even if - as I mentioned earlier—that man happens to run this site, my opinions should be taken for what they're worth.

On the other hand, I think my opinions are as valid as anyone else's, certainly as much so as the editors of TV Guide, compared to whom I think I've shown more discernment and taste, as well as a greater sense of historicity, and I won't back down from that assertion.

However, what I'd like as much as anything is to hear your opinions. Keep in mind that this was written in 1993, so some of your favorites (especially from the cable boom) weren't anticipated, but otherwise, have at it—with either TV Guide, or me, or both.  TV

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

Around the dial

The above is not me, alas, although it does feature three of my favorite things: Christmas, television, and cats. And while there are no cat posts below, we do have plenty of the first two that we can look at on this Boxing Day, which I've always thought ought to be a national holiday. Of course, when you're retired, every day is a holiday it its own way. Anyhow. . .

At Cult TV Blog, John brings to a conclusion his series on The Prisoner and how it may (or may not) mirror Soviet Russia. We come to the final two episodes, "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out," plus his overall conclusions from this fascinating exploration.

I love Paul's review of A Very Brady Christmas at Drunk TV. Granted, it might not be the most charitable review of the Bradys, but it's all done with affection toward the original series, and makes the excellent point that "we don’t want these classic properties helpfully 'updated' for the times." Amen, brother.

Comet over Hollywood interviews Jeremy Arnold, film historian and author of Christmas in the Movies: 35 Classics to Celebrate the Season on—what else?—the history of Christmas movies, with some very insightful historical, cultural, and sociological notes on the evolution of the genre. 

Speaking of which, at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence has a look at five Christmas TV movies from when Hallmark was good. I don't know if there's much for me to add to what I've already written about Hallmark movies in the past, but if you haven't read it yet, my annual Christmas humor essay does the heavy lifting.

Martin Grams dips into the Christmas season with this review of "Cold Death," a 1937 episode of The Shadow, starring 22-year-old Orson Welles in the title role, and telling a story that bears more than a passing resemblance to one of our favorite Christmas stories, proving just how adaptable it is.

At The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew shares two different versions of "The Christmas Song," sung by Rosemary Clooney and Nat King Cole, on their respective television series. What a fun look back at one of the great songs of all time. In fact, I'm listening to Nat as I write this, with total enjoyment.

Garry Berman is back with a story on the resurgence of the network sitcom, one of the oldest and most loved of television genres, and his report is that the sitcom is alive and well. Hard to imagine television without it; whether it's your favorite genre or not, it shows people can always use a good smile. 

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, that you're enjoying this Boxing Day, and that the rest of your Christmas season is a peaceful one. See you back here tomorrow! 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!

Around the dial

Good morning from Towson, Maryland, where I'm coming to you live today from the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Convention, our annual pilgrimage where we can talk about old TV and movies without sounding hopelessly out of touch with the rest of the world. Although considering the state of the world today, being out of touch isn't such a bad thing. After all, around here, when people talk about late night television, it's usually either Johnny Carson or a test pattern. And speaking as I was the other day about "old," it's not such a bad thing. Anyway, let's get to it.

At Comfort TV, David gives me the chance to link to someone else promoting me, with his very kind review of Darkness in Primetime. And by the way, have you purchased your copy yet? You do want to be part of the cool crowd, don't you? 

John is back in documentary mode at Cult TV Blog with this look at the infamous "Nine O'Clock Service" experiment in the Church of England; it's a double-header post, because John also tells us about an admirable book that serves as a perfect compliment to the documentary. It makes for disgusting reading; afterward, I felt as if I had to take another shower.

I'm breaking from Roger's A-Team reviews at A View from the Junkyard for his look at "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes," an all-time Simpsons classic featuring Patrick McGoohan's final television performance as the redoubtable Number 6. I'll tell you no more about it; read it for yourself.

At Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddie celebrates an anniversary of a show that both she and I count as a favorite: The Wild Wild West, which premiered 60 years ago. Besides Robert Conrad and Ross Martin, the show was blessed with terrific guest stars, especially Michael Dunn; it also had going for it something increasingly rare on television: an original idea.

In my TV Guide pieces, I've occasionally mentioned Startime, one of the shows from the end of the Golden Age that truly lived up to its name as a home for star-studded spectaculars; at Drunk TV, Paul looks at the 1959 broadcast of "The Jazz Singer," starring Jerry Lewis in a then-rare dramatic role. It's an opportunity to look at a color broadcast from the late 1950s, and worth checking out.

Garry Berman is back with ten great sitcom episodes that seldom get talked about, and it's particularly interesting considering how many of these episodes are from series that we're quite familiar with. Being a completist at heart, it's always nice to go into those deep cuts and see what you come up with.

What's that, you say? Assorted trivia from TV Guide? Well, I'm not going to pass this up, thanks to Martin Grams. I will always say that TV Guide is one of the best time capsules you can find. And speaking of MANC as we were, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you of the presentation I gave here a few years ago on the very subject of TV Guide as a time capsule!  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!

Around the dial

On Wednesday, you saw my contribution to the Aaron Spellingverse Blogathon hosted by Gill at Realweegiemidget; well, now that it's all done, head over there to see all of the entries, including those by blogs I'd ordinarily be mentioning here, such as The Last Drive In. By the end, you'll know more about Aaron Spelling than you ever thought possible!

Last week I mentioned the death of Peter Marshall, and that we'd likely be reading about him in this space this week. As promised, Terence has a look at the great man's career at A Shroud of Thoughts. Continue reading, and you'll also read his fine appreciation of the late Phil Donahue, who died earlier this week.

This week, Jack's Hitchcock Project at bare-bones e-zine shines the spotlight on one Evan Hunter, who under that name wrote Blackboard Jungle, while under the pen name Ed McBain he wrote the long series of 87th Precinct novels, several of which are on my bookshelf. Here, we're concerned with his only Hitchcock contribution, "Appointment at Eleven," a terrific adaptation of Robert Turner's short story.

At Cult TV Blog, John has spent the past few weeks reviewing the dystopian series The Guardians, and this week he comes to the conclusing episode, after which he offers some of his own conclusions as to the provocative series. Thanks to you, John, I've had to add this series to the lengthy list of programs I have to watch if I live long enough.

Guess what came from Amazon last week? The complete series of F Troop! We'd always enjoyed this series when it was originally on, but I'd be lying if I didn't give some of the credit for my renewed interest to Hal at The Horn Section and his F Troop Fridays. This week, he returns with a look at "Reunion for O'Rourke," celebrating the Sergeant's 25th anniversary in the service.

At Comfort TV, David muses on what he calls his "least favorite sitcom plot," as seen in the Doris Day Show episode "The Matchmakers," and how an annoying cliche can nonetheless teach a valuable life lesson for those open to it. I probably ought to take a page or two from these episodes myself.

Next to the annual Christmas catalogs from Sears and Penneys, one of the most exciting days of the year, for me at least, was when the TV Guide Fall Preview issue came out. Somewhat to my surprise, they still publish one, although I've not paid any attention to broadcast television for years. At Television Obscurities, reliable Robert reminds us that it's out there, if you can find it.

I'm not sure that a week goes by when I don't see character actor Jay Novello appearing in one classic TV episode or another; sometimes I might see him twice in one night. Travalanche looks back at Novello's long career, and even if you don't recognize the name, he'll tell you what to watch so you can recognize the face. TV  

This week in TV Guide: December 4, 1982

I thought we'd try a little experiment this week. Last week, I pointed out in passing that TV's Christmas season seemed to start earlier and earlier every year; today, it pushes right up against Thanksgiving. (Excluding Christmas movies; I'm pretty sure some FAST network is already showing next year's movies, while this year's movies started somewhere around Halloween—or was it Labor Day?) 

Now, where was I? Oh yes; in order to prove this hypothesis, we'll take a look at two other issues of TV Guide in addition to this week's issue from 1982. They're from similar points in the month: one from December 4, 1953, the other from December 3, 1966. Is there a difference in how television programmed Christmas back then, or is it all just my imagination? Let's see just what each issue tells us.

We'll start with 1953, and the tale of the tape is pretty easy: there is no Christmas programming this week. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't anything Christmassy on, but most of what you see concerns cooking or decorating ideas for the holidays—how to make a Christmas mobile, for instance, or a table centerpiece with a Christmas motif. The singers on Bob Crosby's daytime variety show (2:30 p.m. CT, CBS) offer a Christmas tune or two, and Omnibus (Sunday, 4:00 p.m., CBS) gives viewers a look at the Christmas windows in NYC's Lord and Taylor department store. Otherwise, that's it. 

There's a logical explanation for some of this; as of 1953, there are no animated Christmas specials, and most of the weekly variety shows will air their special episodes closer to Christmas itself. We know that the shopping season is in full swing; there's an article about how toys based on television characters are a hot thing this year, and there's a note in the Teletype that RCA-Victor is putting out a record of Dragnet's complete Christmas episode ("The Big Little Jesus"), which I'm sure would make a fine gift for those who want to relive the moving story over and over. So my bet is that there are plenty of Christmas commercials on the the air, but nothing yet as far as specials.

Fast-forward thirteen years to 1966, and we can see right away that times have changed. On Sunday (5:30 p.m. PT, NBC), it's the second showing of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, with all kinds of commercials featuring General Electric's suggestions as to what would make good gifts. ABC's special The Saga of Western Man (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m.) has a show with an explicitly Christmas theme: "Christ Is Born," a recreation of The Nativity and the history surrounding it. It's sponsored by B.F. Goodrich; I'll bet at least one commercial will be for Goodrich's "For a Musical Merry Christmas," the third volume in their annual Christmas series. On Friday, CBS reruns Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" (7:30 p.m.), narrated by Eddie Albert, with Edward Villella, Patricia McBride, and Melissa Hayden. 

There are also specials that are non-Christmas but function as outstanding vehicles for Christmas advertising: Wednesday's Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of "Blithe Spirit" will  have a slew of commercials for Christmas cards—Hallmark always coordinates its shows to align with major card-sending holidays, and after all, it wouldn't do any good to advertise them once it became too late to mail them, would it? There's also a Frank Sinatra special Wednesday on CBS, and that same network's "The Glass Menagerie," with Shirley Booth, Hal Holbrook, and Barbara Loden, on Thursday. But in total we have only three holiday specials and, once again, there are no variety specials. 

Now look at how things are in 1982. We start on Saturday, with the acerbically funny movie The Man Who Came to Dinner (7:00 p.m., WGBH in Boston), and A Disney Christmas Gift, scenes with holiday themes from Disney cartoons and animated features. (8:00 p.m., CBS) Monday evening, with a CBS doubleheader: A Charlie Brown Christmas at 8:00 p.m. ET, followed by Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales at 8:30; opposite them, it's Rudolph's Shiny New Year (8:00 p.m., ABC) On Tuesday, it's another CBS doubleheader, and now we're seeing the variety specials: Johnny Cash's Merry Memphis Christmas, with June Carter Cash, Rosanne Cash (no relation), Crystal Gayle, and Eddie Rabbitt (9:00 p.m.), followed by Andy Williams' Early New England Christmas, with Dorothy Hamill, Aileen Quinn, James Galway, and Dick Van Patten. (10:00 p.m.) 

On Thursday, we've got a pair of movies: White Christmas (8:00 p.m., WLVI in Boston), and It's a Wonderful Life. (9:05 p.m., WENH in Durham, NH, repeated Friday on WMEB in Orono, ME) But that's not all; HBO is running Laurel and Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers and Rich Little: A Christmas Carol throughout the month, including this week; the same goes for Hans Christen Andersen's The Snow Queen, seen several times this week on various PBS stations. Inexplicably, Cinemax also has an Easter movie, Quo Vadis, throughout the week. Quite a difference from years past, don't you think? And in case you're wondering, Rudolph was already on last week; December 1, solidifying its standing as the first Christmas special of the year. 

Obviously, one of the reasons for the plethora of programs we're seeing here is simply that there are more of them than in years past, and that's even taking into consideration that the first animated special, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, went into syndication in 1970, while the first program of any kind to become an annual Christmas special, Gian Carlo Menotti's opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, hadn't appeared on TV since the late 1970s. In addition, any variety specials are going to come early in the season (for the convenience of advertisers) since there aren't any weekly variety shows anymore.

Now, before we go too far with this, let me stress that I'm not against Christmas programs; from December 1 on, that's pretty much all we watch in the evenings, unless there's something else going on. I say the more programs, the merrier. And I don't mind Christmas commercials, either—who doesn't get a warm feeling remembering the Norelco Santa, or Ed Herlihy talking about Kraft recipes. (And that's not to mention the General Electric elves in the original commercials that ran during Rudolph.) For those of an age, those memories are as much a part of the Christmas season as the programs themselves.

What I don't like is showing all your holiday inventory in the first two weeks of the season, as if the only reason for them to exist at all is as a vehicle for commerce. I particularly don't like the cartoons that don't tell any story at all, but are around as a tie-in to the product they're trying to sell. (The Santa Bear animated special, for instance.) Leave at least a little something for Christmas week itself, even if everyone's already done their shopping. (Remember, they have to spend those gift cards they receive!)

Fortunately, thanks to the plethora of viewing options out there, from FAST stations to on-demand services to the good old-fashioned cable stations, there are options right up to Christmas Day and beyond (I mean, look at them!), and while a lot of them aren't particularly to my taste, beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, we've got our DVDs to keep us warm. 

l  l  l

I don't want you to think that it's all about Christmas this week; far from it. One of the feature programs of the week is the Hallmark Hall of Fame's presentation of "Witness for the Prosecution" (Saturday, 9:00 p.m., CBS), a remake of the classic Agatha Christie courtroom drama, one of the greatest ever made, starring Sir Ralph Richardson as barrister Sir Wilfred Robarts (played in the movie by Charles Laughton), Beau Bridges as Leonard Vole, the defendant (formerly Tyrone Power), Diana Rigg as Vole's wife (Marlene Dietrich), and Deborah Kerr as Sir Wilfred's nurse (Elsa Lanchester). Judith Crist praises the remake and the performances (while finding Bridges a bit lacking), even though she questions the need for such a remake in the first place. It would be a pity if it was because audiences won't watch a black-and-white movie, whether in 1982 or today.

Sunday is a night of specials on CBS, starting at 8:00 p.m. with An All Star Party for Carol Burnett. CBS took more than a little criticism a while back when they didn't take a flyer on the 90th birthday celebration for Carol (it wound up on NBC instead); it's nice to see them honoring her here. Among the guests are Steve Lawrence, Jimmy Stewart, Vicki Lawrence, Tim Conway, Tom Sellick, and Beverly Sills; there are also tributes from Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Monty Hall, Glenda Jackson, Jim Nabors, Jack Paar, and Burt Reynolds. I mention them all here to show that in this instance, "All Star" wasn't just hyperbole. There are also a few stars on hand for the seventh annual Circus of the Stars (9:00 p.m., CBS), although there are a few more examples of "stars" in this case. Mickey Rooney is the ringmaster, assisted by Scott Baio, Morgan Fairchild, Vincent Price, Martha Raye, Debbie Reynolds, and Isabel Sanford; among the performers the bigger names include Robert Culp, Roddy McDowall, Bob Newhart, Jean Marsh, and Brooke Shields.

NBC's blockbuster movie for the week is the made-for-TV Remembrance of Love (Monday, 9:00 p.m.), a somber reflection on the Holocaust (as timely now as it was back then, alas), with Kirk Douglas as a survivor of Auschwitz, traveling to Tel Aviv for the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors—and to search for the girl he loved and lost during the war. Pam Dawber co-stars as Douglas's daughter, and Robert Clary appears as himself. Judith Crist gives it a guarded recommendation, saying that the recreation of the Holocaust Survivors event "overpowers the contrived plotting." 

Now here's a series I have absolutely no memory of. It's called Gavilan (Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., NBC), and perhaps I don't remember it because it's just another one of the many series that Robert Urich starred in; only 10 of the 13 episodes that were made were ever aired before it left the air in March. If I had seen it, it likely would only have been because of the presence of Patrick Macnee as one of Gavilan's sidekicks. I never saw Bruce Boxleitner's Bring 'Em Back Alive (8:00 p.m., CBS) either, but at least I'd heard of it; it's based on the life of big-game hunter Frank Buck. Well, I guess I can't remember everything.

Speaking of shows that weren't, shall we say, memorable, there are a couple more on Wednesday; Tales of the Gold Monkey (8:00 p.m., ABC), starring Stephen Collins, is, like Bring 'Em Back Alive, an obvious attempt to cash in on the excitement generated by Raiders of the Lost Ark; like Bring 'Em Back, it doesn't last very long; 17 episodes for the former, and 22 for the latter. This reminds me of the fad that started in the wake of Animal House; there were three shows based on that, and none of them did very well either. The other little-known series on Wednesday is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (8:00 p.m., CBS), based "loosely" on the movie of the same name, and starring Richard Dean Anderson. It, too, lasts for 22 episodes, but Richard Dean Anderson will make out just fine. I tell you, though, these series made no impression on me; frankly, I was surprised to find out they lasted as long as they did.

After all that, it was a relief to come to Thursday's listings and see some familiar names: Magnum, P.I., Simon & Simon, and Knots Landing on CBS; Fame, Cheers, Taxi, and Hill Street Blues on NBC; and Joanie Loves Chachi, Star of the Family, Too Close for Comfort, It Takes Two, and 20/20 on ABC. Okay, Star of the Family (10 episodes) and It Takes Two (22 episodes) weren't smash hits; still, you can see what a blockbuster night of television it was on all three networks. 

One of the things I miss about television today is that it's so hard to go over the top nowadays. Take Friday's episode of Dallas (9:00 p.m., CBS), in which "J.R. and Sue Ellen's wedding party is interrupted by a brawl between Cliff and the Ewing brothers." Now that was exciting television back then, but today it's just another episode of Real Housewives or one of those other reality shows. Back then you could watch Dallas and enjoy it guilt-free; today, you just shake your head at what the world has come to—a real-life comic book. 

l  l  l

It's been awhile since a regular-season college basketball game drew much attention. After all, even the best teams usually wind up losing several games a year, and they're all getting into the post-season tournament anyway, so the stakes aren't very impressive. It wasn't always that way, though, as we see in William Gildea's article about how Ted Turner's cable superstation, WTBS, outbid the networks for coverage of next Saturday night's highly-anticipated game between Ralph Sampson's Virginia Cavaliers and Patrick Ewing's Georgetown Hoyas. "The game," Gildea says, "has stirred the imagination of fans across the country like no other since 1968, when [Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar's UCLA Bruins took on the Elvin Hayes-led University of Houston in the Astrodome." That game, college basketball's Game of the Century, drew a then-crowd of more than 52,000, and was the first regular season college basketball game ever broadcast nationwide in prime time, on the syndicated TVS network. 

The game isn't quite a cable exclusive; with only 34 percent of homes nationwide having access to basic cable, and with the demand for the game far outstripping the supply so to speak, WTBS winds up brokering agreements with local stations in major markets to show the game on broadcast TV. Nevertheless, WTBS's victory represents not only a landmark for television—the first time a cable network has outbid the legacy networks for a major sporting event other than boxing—it's a harbinger of things to come. TBS and its sister station, TNT, will eventually add the NBA, the NHL, the NFL (for a time), and the Final Four to its stable of programming, while more and more major games—not just "niche" sports like tennis and golf—move to cable stations such as ESPN and USA. Today, finding a big game on regular television seems to be the exception rather than the rule; except for the NFL, which might explain why it continues to be the top sport on television, and in every other way of life.

As for the game in question (which you can see here), it's a good-but-not-great game, won by Virginia 68-63.

l  l  l

Speaking of which, Jefferson Graham says that "the hot new approach in pay-TV is charging a fee for special events," known as pay-per-view, and he asks if "Paying to see the Super Bowl" is what's next. Graham discusses the recent history of PPV events, such as a recent special airing of Star Wars that earned $2.43 million without even appearing in the theater, thanks to 324,000 people who paid an average of $7.50 to watch it on television. The Rolling Stones broadcast the final concert of last year's American tour to about 25 percent of the total PPV audience, earning $3.7 million, and The Who's "farewell" concert (yeah, right) from Toronto in a couple of weeks will be looking to do the same. And a special showing of the Broadway show The Pirates of Penzance, with Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith, and Kevin Kline, will be debuting in theaters and PPV the same day.

Studios admit to being worried about the competition, and there are whispers that some might boycott some releases in protest of PPV. Meanwhile, the networks are taking the long view, but concede that competition from pay-cable, and particularly PPV, will hurt them. John Severino, president of ABC, worries that there will be less of an audience for theatrical films by the time they show up on free TV. On the flip side, the studios are enthusiastic, to say the least. "There is no question in my mind," says MGM/UA chairman Frank Rothman, "that the ultimate release pattern is PPV as the first source before theatrical." And so on and so on.

Well, just what did wind up happening here? It's kind of hard to say; PPV on TV has, for the most part, been confined to sports, particularly wrestling, boxing, and MMA; plays, musicals, and other special events have wound up in the theaters, thanks to Fathom Events and similar services. And as for the movie industry, during the virus scare there was a moment where it appeared on-demand streaming would take the place of the theater experience completely, with Warner Bros. and Universal releasing movies in theaters and streaming simultaneously, but by 2022 it was already proclaimed a "dead" practice. Still, the amount of time movies spend in the theater shrinks by the day, with some of them making only a cursory appearance in your neighborhood metroplex. As is so often the case, we know what doesn't work anymore, but we have yet to find out for sure what does. We just know that the Super Bowl isn't headed for PPV—at least, not yet.

l  l  l

You know that I consider myself second to none when it comes to admiring classic television. At that, I don't think it's ever occurred to me to compare television's sitcoms to the classic French farces of Victorien Sardou and other artists of the Gilded Age. And yet that's precisely the question being asked by Sam Toperoff, professor of art at Hofstra University. Sardou, a master of the comédie de boulevard, or boulevard comedy, in which "all the characters would have a chance to display just about every frailty and foible known to man." Dialogue is crisp and witty, with fast-paced action, misunderstandings, and Toperoff calls it "a beautifully crafted piece of machinery." 

Which brings us to 1980s sitcoms, as Toperoff wonders if we have anything like boulevard comedy today. He concedes that "[a]t first glance, the comparison may seem absurd," but then begins to build his case. Like boulevard comedy, today's sitcoms feature ordinary people—"waitresses, cops, entrepreneurs, taxi drivers, maids, schoolteachers, secretaries and soldiers." Like good theater, the best sitcoms are built around a standard set, be it the home living room or the workplace office. Dramatic tension exists, in the conflict between, for example, Judd Hirsh and Danny DeVito's characters in Taxi. Characterizations of human weaknesses abound, but not too much exaggeration, lest the character become a caricature, "not really worth caring about as a human being." Toperoff cites Archie Bunker as an example of this "delicate balance," through which "we learn something about inadequacy in the process—Archie's and our own." 

"Just read any of the plot lines to the dozens of situation comedies listed each week," Toperoff says, "and you'll discover the heart of the old boulevard play." "George Jefferson discovers that Louise has taken a job at his competitor's cleaning establishment." On 9 to 5, "Judy is fired and throws the office into a buzz by posing as a man to regain her job." Laverne & Shirley is a "beautiful" example of the boulevard play staple: "a pair of friends—one wise, the other dissolute—[who] set about trying for a day or two to be something they are not." On the other hand, there's Bosom Buddies. "It wasn't unusual, in a Sardou farce, for a young man to spend the latter part of the evening in drag—that was often the comic peak. In Bosom Buddies, it was the comic premise, and a remarkably narrow one. So the show became a predictable, one-note exercise."

I'm not sure how I feel about Toperoff's analysis, whether he's reading too much into all this, or if I've underestimated some of the shows he mentions. And he worries that some of the best examples, shows like Barney Miller and WKRP in Cincinnati, have gone off the air recently, while broader caricatures such Too Close for Comfort and Three's Company, continue on. But then he tunes into an old episode of The Honeymooners, a classic comedy theater done "not for 600 ladies and gentlemen on a glittering Parisian stage once a season, but for the masses every week." It is with that realization that, "maligned as the sitcom may have been over the years, if is, at its best, a superb piece of work. It not only tickles the funny bone; it can touch the heart." And maybe that's what we all need nowadays, n'est-ce pas? TV  

Around the dial

Whenever we'd go to Chicago, we'd always include in our stops a trip to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, one of my favorite museums. The Broadcast Archives has the story of how the MBC has been forced out of its home; hopefully, this won't be the end of the line for them.  

At Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick shares seven things to know about The Jimmy Stewart Show, the 1971-72 comedy that marked the star's first foray into series television. As was the case with so many 1970s series fronted by major movie stars, the show lasted a single season, so here's your chance to learn more about it.

The Hitchcock Project continues at bare-bones e-zine, with Jack beginning his look at the teleplays of Halsted Welles. This week's episode, from the show's fourth season, is "The Dusty Drawer," a revenge story starring Dick York and Philip Coolidge. Not one of my favorites, but Jack's writeup, as always, is spot-on.

Keeping with the Hitchcockian theme, The Last Drive In series on the leading ladies of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour returns with some fine work by Betty Field, Teresa Wright, Kim Hunter, Margaret Leighton, and Juanita Moore. Stand by for extensive episode descriptions and pictures galore!

At The Horn Section, Hal is back in F Troop land with the season one episode "A Fort's Best Friend is Not a Mother," and the mother in question is Captain Parmenter's own. How do O'Rourke and Agarn get the Captain out of this jam and preserve the good thing they've got going with O'Rourke Enterprises? Don't worry; they're up for the challenge.

Hammer House of Horror is always good for a chill or two, and at Realweegiemidget, Gill takes us through the chilling "Children of the New Moon," with a terrific performance by British film star Diana Dors as the "far too helpful and friendly" woman we always know we should be wary of.

One of the things I always appreciated about Columbo was that the show didn't skimp on big stars in supporting parts—not just the killer, but smaller roles as well. This week, at Once Upon a Screen, Aurora focuses on those murderers, with five movie stars turned Columbo killers. Not that they actually killed Columbo—you get the point.

Cult TV Blog makes a rare trip across the Atlantic as John reviews the Kojak episode "The Chinatown Murders," a terrific two-hour episode in which Theo Kojak has to deal with a Mafia war in Chinatown, including plenty of twists and turns. 

One of the more interesting aspects of domestic sitcoms is the architecture of the family home. While most of them were similar in construction, Terence looks at a couple of exceptions at A Shroud of Thoughts: the homes seen in The Real McCoys and Dobie Gillis. Find out what makes these homes unusual.

Speaking of Dobie Gillis, at Travalanche, Trav looks at the many shows of its star, Dwayne Hickman. Thanks to the aforementioned Horn Section, we know Dwayne from Love That Bob as well as Dobie, but you'll be able to see a long list of credits here.

And where would we be without a look at The Avengers, a show which is about to reappear on our personal weekly viewing schedule. At The View from the Junkyard, Roger and Mike take turns on the sci-fi flavored "Man-Eater of Surrey Green," with Steed and Mrs. Peel battling man-eating plants.

There—that should give you all something to chew on, so to speak. TV  

This week in TV Guide: May 31, 1980

True story: back when I was hosting a political talk show on public access television back in the 1990s, I had this great idea to try and measure how many people were watching the show. It wasn't a very good show, sandwiched as it was between two other political shows on Monday nights, all of which ran for 30 minutes (I used to joke that the time period ought to be called the "Narcolepsy 90," on the grounds that nobody would be awake by the time the third show had ended), but we did have our moments, and this surely would have been one of them.

The idea, and I'm not sure why we never did it, was that the show would open with our usual opening credits, but that instead of our regular, public domain theme, we'd play the extended version of Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," which runs 17 minutes, while the title slide remained up the entire time. When the song finally ended, nearly 20 minutes into the show, the picture would fade to me, whereupon I would introduce my guest as if nothing had happened, and then promptly apologize that we had run out of time, tell the audience that we'd see them again next week, and roll the closing credits.* My thought was that, five or so minutes into this, people might start to wonder what was going on, and by the 15-minute mark, they might be convinced that something was seriously wrong, and would call the station to find out what was going on. Since nobody bothered to measure ratings for shows like ours, it might at least give us a vague idea of how many viewers we had, or at least how many were invested in the show as more than background noise for their pets while they were out.

*The idea progressed enough that I actually considered whether to let the guest in on the joke, or to spring it on him unawares, and then explain everything afterward. 

Even though that show never came off, it wouldn't have been out of place in the wacky world of public access television, as this week's article by Don Kowet points out. Take, for example, Dick Roffman's show on public access Channel J in New York City. On Dick Roffman & Friends, "a roomful of preening vanity-press authors and tin-eared Carusos spring through 15-seconds-of-glory TV spots. The oblivious Roffman shuffles some papers on his desk. He reads a magazine. One night a poet tried to recite more than his one allotted stanza. Outraged, Roffman leaped up and shoved the babbling bard off the stage." Now that's my kind of guy.

Some of the shows are borderline pornographic; "performers on all three public channels are allowed to commit almost any sexual act, and they often do. They can utter anything except outright criminal libel." Some are, arguably, even more disgusting; one show broadcast, on Christmas Day, a loop of "an 'artist' walking up to a little dog and actually shooting it dead in cold blood." Some preach their own version of the Gospel; one invented "a trinity in which she, New York TV-nostalgia-king Joe Franklin and the Mafia competed for control of her soul." 

But most are simply eccentric. On Mondo Bozo, star Kathy O'Connell tries to enroll viewers in her write-in campaign to become Queen of Holland. Her qualifications? "I saw both versions of 'Hans Brinker, Or, The Silver Skates'.") On The Grube Tube, Steve Grub talks to telephone callers while his phone number flashes on the screen, accompanied by the message, "Steve needs a woman now!" Adrian Stokes, host of New York Live, Jim Chladek, a former ABC programming executive, says there are eight different reasons why people want to host a public-access show: "Some do it for vanity, some for instant ego gratification. How many reasons is that? Only one? I'll have to call you later with the other seven." 

Some access shows have higher goals than that; Nick Yanni's Tomorrow's Television Tonight hopes to, in the host's words, "prove that you don't need such glossy production values to create a show." Yanni, a TV critic for the New York Post, gives a weekly review of what's happening in the city's TV, art and theater. His guest list—Joan Fontaine, Steve Allen, Hugh Downs and Stockard Channing among them—pays testimony to the respect with which Yanni's show is held.

I never had a guest list like that, but I think that by the time my show went off the air, we had developed a certain élan in the way we spoofed local and national politics. (E.g.: "We show how the soundtrack to Hogan's Heroes matches up exactly with the picture on C-SPAN.") Perhaps, if we'd stuck with it another twenty years or so, we might even have made it to cable.

l  l  l

Whenever when we can, we'll match up two of the biggest rock shows of the era, NBC's The Midnight Special and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and see who's better, who's best.

Kirshner: Music by Rufus and Chaka Khan, Squeeze, Tanya Tucker and Rupert Holmes; comedy by Jimmie Walker and Dick Lord.

Special: Hostess Dolly Parton welcomes Paul McCartney & Wings, Crystal Gayle, Alice Cooper, Rita Coolidge, Frankie Valli, Chuck Mangione, Yvonne Elliman and a salute to Queen. 

It's possible that some of you might find the real winner of the week to be ABC's sketch comedy show Fridays, which has Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as musical guests (minority report: Randy Newman on Saturday Night Live), but in the world of big-name talent, this week's Special is special, boasting five Rock Hall of Fame enshrinees. How can you go against that? Special wins the week.

l  l  l

I appreciate Joseph Finnigan's turn of phrase in this week's TV Update, in which he describes NBC as having a "death grip" on third place in the ratings. But as we all know, when you've got nothing left in the bank, you go double or nothing, and that's what network president Fred Silverman has done with his decision to open the season with the 12-part Shogun, broadcast over six consecutive nights. Of course, if everyone had known what a ratings blockbuster Shogun would be—it gives NBC its highest weekly Nielsen ratings ever, and the average rating for the miniseries is the second highest in TV history (following Roots, of course)—Silverman probably would have been given no credit at all. The question, however, is this: will Shogun save the network? Well, at the end of the season, NBC has but six of the nation's 30 highest rated shows, and its top series (Little House on the Prairie) comes in tenth. By the following year, the man with the golden touch is gone.

The new season will also see The Tonight Show cut from 90 minutes to an hour, at Johnny Carson's request, and plans to fill the gap by expanding Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show to 90 minutes. This move is, I think, a mistake for both shows: cutting Tonight effectively changes the character of the show from one in which guests sit on the couch and chat with each other, to a series of one-on-one interviews (most of which sound rehearsed) and no interaction whatsoever. For Tomorrow, the addition of Rona Barrett as co-host is an unmitigated disaster, and instead of Snyder's often incisive interviews, Tomorrow becomes a bloated shadow of its former self.

The fall season will be affected by an actors strike that runs three months and results in a boycott of the Emmy awards, but that's not the strike that TV Guide's talking about this week. No, the program listings carry the warning that a baseball strike could result in the preemption of regularly scheduled games, to be replaced by baseball-themed programming. In fact, the strike ran from April 1 to 8, and while it cancelled the end of spring training, it didn't affect the regular season at all, so I'm not quite sure why it's popping up in TV Guide nearly two months later. Each of these events is a kind of shape of things to come, though; the Writers Guild of America goes on strike for three months in 1981, forcing a delay in the fall season; while baseball suffers through yet another strike, this one running from June 12 to August 9, resulting in a split-season that sees the two teams with the best records in the National League, the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals, out of the expanded playoffs altogether.

l  l  l

Jeff Greenfield, who's better-known as a political commentator, weighs in on the future of the sitcom in part two of a series asking the question "Are Sitcoms Getting Better or Worse?" According to Greenfield, the sitcom is at a crossroads: "It has been liberated from the frozen stereotypes of bumbling fathers, scatterbrained wives, and the unrelenting sugarcoated cheeriness of a fantasy world where the most serious problems are what Mom will do with the burned roast, now that the boss is coming over for dinner, and whether Sis will get Chuck to take her to the prom if she's still wearing her braces." 

Notwithstanding that these were real questions for many real families in America, it's clear that the sitcom has moved into a new world. But, according to Greenfield, "the no-holds-barred spirit of the early '70s, exemplified by Norman Lear's All in the Family and Maude has faded." While characters have matured beyond the one-dimensional stereotype of the 1950s and '60s, they have "less curiosity about the world around them." Rather than race, poverty and war, characters now deal with more personal issues: marriage and divorce, for example, or dealing with handicaps. 

Another trend that Greenfield sees is the "dramedy," seen in shows from United States (which I looked at here) and Eight is Enough to Trapper John, M.D. However, Grant Tinker of MTM doesn't see this as a winning formula for primetime. "I don't think of drama with comedy as serious—there's nothing encouraging." Echos Gene Reynolds of Lou Grant, a show which arguably began as a comedy-drama before moving solidly into the drama arena, "The ratings are good, but I think it's a terrible hybrid. Comedy just doesn't stretch easily into an hour, because you have to get too heavy for the story and that fights the comedy." 

Greenfield discusses other factors that could play a role. Network scheduling, for instance. "You have to look at needs and timeslots," former ABC VP Bridget Potter tells him. "If ABC needs more new 8 o'clock shows, for example, that means appealing more to kinds and teen-agers—and they like strong, broad, physical comedy. If you're looking to later times, that means more 'adult' themes and characters." And then there's the growing competition posed by cable (both basic and pay) and home entertainment systems. "At the least, the uncensored language and material now available to more than six million pay-cable subscribers will almost certainly make networks a little less cautious about what can be done in broadcasting." 

It is, Greenfield concludes, up to a variety of factors. Will audiences stick with "the cheap laugh and the tight-T-shirt-and-shorts humor," or will they opt for something more subtle. And will the networks allow shows the time to develop, especially ones with "more complicated characters and ideas" that viewers have to get used to? The future contains no special "kind" of comedy, he says, "just a lot of it."

How do you think that trend has played out 42 years later? Streaming programs and video games are indeed competition, and prestige cable overwhelms programming on the networks. Many of the most prestigious programs contain major elements of both comedy and drama. And sitcoms tackle both social issues and taboo topics, although one could argue that there's nothing taboo anymore. Have they changed for the better, or the worse?

l  l  l

Coming attractions:

I think Jeff Greenfield's appeared on there a time or two.

l  l  l

The rerun season is in full swing, and one of this week's highlights is Goldie & Liza Together (Saturday, 7:00 p.m. CT, CBS), a stylish variety hour, produced by George Schlatter, that includes both production numbers and a dramatic sketch that allows the two Oscar winners to show off their acting chops. 

On Sunday, it's time for yet another failed Andy Griffith attempt to recapture his previous magic: The Yeagers (6:00 p.m., ABC), in which Griffith plays the owner of a mining-and-lumber company in the Pacific Northwest. Not only do I not remember this series, I'm not at all sure that I ever heard of it. No wonder; as I check on it, it ran for exactly two episodes. Matlock can't come too soon for him.

Phyl and Mikhy (Monday, 7:30 p.m., CBS) proves that NBC isn't the only network hurt by the Olympic boycott. The show's premise is that a 19-year-old American track star (Murphy Cross) falls in love with a 22-year-old Russian decathlete (Rick Lohman), and of course part of the comedy is supposed to come from the opposites-attract nature of their relationship, played out against the backdrop of the Moscow Olympics. Unfortunately, by the time the series debuts, the U.S. has already announced they're not going to Moscow, which renders the whole concept kind of hollow. Six episodes and out; Soviet characters aren't selling any sitcom in 1980.

One of the reasons NBC continues to have that "death grip" on last place might be shows like The Big Show (Tuesday, 8:00 p.m.), which tries to revive the big-name variety show, years after the genre started to slide. The show has a 90-minute timeslot, and this week's episode features Flip Wilson and Sarah Purcell as hosts, with Diahann Caroll, champion skaters Peggy Fleming and Robin Cousins, Peaches and Herb, flamenco dancer Jose Molina, Barbi Benton, comedian Ronnie Corbett, song impressionists Roger and Roger, the West Point Glee Club, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and puppeteer Bruce Schwartz. It's an admirable effort, but what is it they say about putting good wine in bad wineskins? The June 3 broadcast is the show's eleventh and last. If you're interested in politics, it's also Super Tuesday, the final primaries of the election season. Doesn't change a thing; Reagan and Carter are still the ones.

The Daytime Emmy Awards are, appropriately, being broadcast in daytime (Wednesday, 1:30 p.m., NBC), with Ed McMahon, Susan Seaforth Hayes and Beverlee McKinsey doing the honors from New York. In case you're wondering, the big winners are Guiding Light, Hollywood Squares, The $20,000 Pyramid, Sesame Street, Douglass Watson and Judith Light for Best Actor and Actress, and Peter Marshall for best game show host. In primetime, CBS shows that they haven't quite got the superhero thing down, or maybe it's just ahead of its time, with part one of the two-part Captain America (7:00 p.m.), starring Reb Brown as the good Captain. MST3K fans might well remember him as the hero of the Space Mutiny, as Dave Ryder, or Slab Bulkhead, "Bolt Vanderhuge, Hack Blowfist, or whatever name you might want to choose. Judith Crist calls it "strictly for kiddies and motorcycle freaks," and calls Brown "a wooden hero."

Thursday features a rerun of a touching tribute to the late Jack Soo on Barney Miller (8:00 p.m., ABC). Later on, a Dallas rerun (9:00 p.m., CBS) provides a look at things to come (at least when it was originally aired), as Val and Gary Ewing remarry and move to the Southern California town of Knots Landing. Knots debuted at the end of last year, and ran to 1993—but, of course, that's another story. 

Finally, it's TGIF, and here's a look at what I might well have watched on a Friday night: 7:00 p.m., Washington Week in Review; 7:30 p.m., Wall $treet Week; 8:00 p.m., Free to Choose (all PBS); and 9:00 p.m., an NBC Reports look at whether there's a better way for political parties to choose their presidential nominees. And you wonder why I wound up on public access. TV