This week in TV Guide: April 1, 1961

Xoap opera fans have always been known as a loyal and hearty lot. It might be hard for many to appreciate today, with the soaps all but gone from television, but in those first decades of TV fans were consumed by the stories of their favorite series (reminding us once again that the word "fan" derives from "fanatic") with a level of passion perhaps rivaled only by European soccer fans, with stories of actors and actresses accosted on the street by fans furious over some misdeed they'd perpetrated in a recent story.

However, things reached a new high (or low) earlier in the year when CBS' The Edge of Night decided to kill off D.A. Mike Karr's faithful wife Sarah, by having her hit by a car while saving her small daughter from being run over. (Melodramatic, in the best tradition of soap operas.) Although it was actress Teal Ames' choice to leave the show in order to pursue work on Broadway, that didn't stop the show's devoted fans—over seven million each day, mostly housewives—from letting the network and the show's sponsors, including Pet-Ritz, know how they felt about it.

CBS received 2,500 letters the the first week, and the mail was still pouring in as this article was written. A "disillusioned" viewer from Columbus, Ohio wrote that she was finished with Edge, and with CBS. "I had baked a Pet-Ritz cherry pie, but I could hardly eat it last night for supper after that terrible episode.  No more Pet products for me." Meanwhile, a high school in Delco, North Carolina said that "Shakespeare himself did not create a more convincing cast of praiseworthy personalities," and wondered "what perversion of common decency prompted anyone to shatter such a team?" One writer suggested that "you have these sadistic writers locked up in a safe place."

Here's that complete episode, including the melodramatic conclusion that triggered so much angst in the faithful. It was, as TV Guide styled it, a "Death in the Afternoon."  

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  Sunday, April 2, is Easter, with appropriate programming for the day. On the religious side, CBS leads off at 9:00 a.m. with the special Songs of Triumph from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston; that's followed at 10:00 a.m. by a Protestant service live from Riverside Church in New York City, the former home of William Sloane Coffin.

Also at 10:00, NBC has a live broadcast of the Easter Sunday Mass, back at Holy Cross in Boston, presided over by Richard Cardinal Cushing. The live broadcast is only scheduled for an hour, which seems awfully short to me; I wonder if it was a low, rather than high, Mass. Locally, WTCN presents a live broadcast at 11:00 a.m. from the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Mark in downtown Minneapolis; I've been in that church, which is architecturally stunning.

Under the category of "holiday viewing for the whole family," The Shirley Temple Show (6:00 p.m., NBC) presents a rerun of "The Land of Oz," L. Frank Baum's sequel to The Wizard of Oz, with Agnes Moorehead as the evil Mombi the Witch (three years before she plays another witch on Bewitched); Jonathan Winters as the equally evil Lord Nikdik, who plots with Mombi to take over Oz; Shirley herself as Princess Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz; and comedian Ben Blue, as the Scarecrow. You can see it for yourself on YouTube.

Ed Sullivan's Easter program features Charlton Heston, reading selections from the Bible; opera star Leontyne Price; singer Anita Bryant; and the Bill Baird Marionettes. Later, on G.E. Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan, it's the iconic French short The Red Balloon (8:00 p.m., CBS), the charming story of a balloon that takes on a life of it's own. It's an unusual presentation for G.E. Theater, which usually shows original programming, but it won't be unprecedented for CBS; three years later, perhaps inspired by this showing, The Twilight Zone airs the French short feature An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which goes on to win the Best Short Subject award at the Oscars.And Roy Rogers and Dale Evans host a "down-home Easter party" on The Chevy Show (8:00 p.m., NBC), with guests Eddy Arnold, the Limeliters, Martin Milner and George Maharis, Cathie Taylor, and Cliff Arquette, probably as Charley Weaver.

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This week's cover story is on Roger Smith, suave and handsome co-star of ABC's 77 Sunset Strip, destined to become one of the luckiest men in Hollywood in a few years when he marries Ann-Margret. But for now, the focus is on Smith's (Ouch!) penchant for being accident-prone; an interesting penchant for a man who makes his living in a television show that "requires that he be slapped, socked, slugged, banged, bashed, bonked, creamed, cracked, and coshed."   

"I don't know why it is, but I always seem to be getting hurt," he tells author Richard Gehman that "I was sewed up 22 times before I was five," and since then was knocked out while playing football in college, has had nine car accidents, sprained his ankle doing a stunt for the show, and suffered a blot clot after bumping his head that was diagnosed only hours before it would have been fatal. As he and Gehman chat, walking down a studio street, Smith promptly trips over an electric cable. "They treat me like a child around here," he says. "They won't let me do anything, they're so afraid I'll get hurt." They would appear to be entirely justified in doing so.
Smith is a happy man, charming and engaging and, as Gehman puts it, spreading "effervescence and ebullience"; not cocky, but "full of himself," which seems to be the proper disposition for a man who's destined to marry Ann-Margret. He's also full of energy, from his incessant conversations (Gehman notes that he barely had to ask a question during three days of interviewing) to his exhausting work for charities, which "would make Jerry Lewis seem reserved." He's obsessed with working around the house, helping build the swimming pool in the backyard, and doing all the work on the garden. Oh, and he's also building an atomic-bomb shelter under the house, including a door that he got from an old Navy destroyer that he found in a junkyard. And did I mention that he's also written scripts for Sunset Strip? And that, as he's telling Gehman all this, he turns the corner and runs into an actress from Hawaiian Eye?
Yes, Roger Smith is a man who has everything going for him. "I never thought when I was a kid I'd have this much fun when I grew up." (And this is without Ann-Margret.) Here, he pauses to stumble over the threshold of the studio. "And you know what? It was all an accident." I can't imagine a more fitting way to put it.

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And now for the sports. On ABC's Fight of the Week (Saturday, 9:00 p.m.), Emile Griffith wins the world welterweight championship, knocking out champion Benny "Kid" Paret in the thirteenth round. The two would meet again in September, with Paret winning back the title. Just under a year later, on March 29, 1962, the two men would fight for a third time, and this time Griffith would deliver a twelfth round KO, putting Paret into a coma from which he would never recover; his death ten days later was the beginning of the end for regularly scheduled prime time boxing on TV.
 

The NBA playoffs continue this weekend on NBC, with games on both Saturday (1:00 p.m.) and Sunday (1:30 p.m.). Now, there's nothing particularly unusual about this, except for a couple of things. First, both games involve the St. Louis Hawks, and in today's era, where back-to-back games are kept to a minimum, the idea of a team playing playoff games on consecutive days is unthinkable. Second, Saturday's tilt is the seventh and deciding game of the Western Division finals, with the Hawks defeating the Los Angeles Lakers four games to three; for Sunday's game, the Hawks have to fly to Boston for game one of the finals, with no rest, against the two-time defending champion Celtics, who haven't played since March 26. Is it any wonder that the Celtics win that game, 129-95, en route to a third straight championship, defeating St. Louis four games to one.
Making sure we give all three networks some coverage, The Masters begins on April 6, with CBS covering the final two rounds next Saturday and Sunday. To prepare viewers on what to watch for, current PGA champion Jay Hebert* (pronounced AAY-bear) provides TV Guide readers with a look at the final four holes, where the championship will likely be one or lost, as has been the case in the last five years. These holes, writes Hebert—or, more likely, his ghostwriter—are among "the greatest finishing holes in golf," demanding everything a golfer has to offer. "[T]here are no let-up holes at Augusta," Hebert warns the players, and "if you fall asleep there, this course will get you." There was no let-up in the weather, either; rain forced the final round to be played on Monday, when Gary Player would win the first of his three green jackets, beating Arnold Palmer and amateur Charles Coe by one shot after Palmer double-bogeyed the final hole.

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The rest of the week's highlights, and there are many.

Saturday morning at 10:00 a,m., WTCN presents a perfectly awful movie called Granny Get Your Gun which, believe it or not (and I'd rather not) was based on Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason novel The Case of the Dangerous Dowager, only without Mason. It was said that Gardner wept when he saw it, which was one reason it was so hard to convince him to agree to a television series. Fortunately, he changed his mind. Better that we should stick to primetime, which includes Our American Heritage (8:30 p.m., NBC), hosted by news legend Lowell Thomas; tonight, Raymond Massey reprises his most famous role, that of Abraham Lincoln, in "Not in Vain," the story of the Gettysburg Address and how it was received at the time.

We've pretty much covered Sunday already, but let's add in the special Marineland Circus (7:00 p.m., NBC), from Marineland Park in Florida, hosted by Rosemary Clooney and featuring Sea Hunt's Lloyd Bridges and actor and former Olympic gold medal swimmer Buster Crabbe. If you remember those Ice Follies and Ice Capades shows we've talked about in the past, think of this as similar to that, but on water. And we shouldn't leave without mentioning The Jack Benny Program (8:30 p.m., CBS), with the aforementioned Ann-Margret, plus juggler Francis Brunn, and George Burns, who discovered Ann-Margret.

Why is it that whenever celebrities play thinly disguised versions of themselves on a show, those characters always shares the same first name as the person playing them? It happens again on Monday, when Paul Anka guests as young singer "Paul Pryor" on The Danny Thomas Show (8:00 p.m., CBS). He's auditioning for Danny, and he's grateful to "join the 'grand old entertainer' his grandfather told him about." What a burn! Later, on The DuPont Show with June Allyson (9:30 p.m., CBS), Lloyd Bridges reappears, this time in a one-character show in which he finds himself the sole person left on board a sinking ship during a hurricane. Even Mike Nelson might be challenged by this one. 

Tuesday, Buddy Hackett takes on a rare dramatic role in The Rifleman (7:00 p.m., WTCN), as Clarence Bibbs, a good ole boy janitor whose gun goes off accidentally, killing a gunfighter—and causing him to think he's now the fastest gun in the West. Among the guest stars is Lee Van Cleef, and since he doesn't play the gunman killed at the beginning of the story, I suspect he's the one who's going to call Clarence's bluff. I'm also betting that Lucas McCain's going to have to bail Clarence out before it's all over. Later, Nat King Cole is one of the guests on The Garry Moore Show (9:00 p.m., CBS); you'll also be able to catch Nat on Wednesday in his own syndicated hour-long special, with British comedian Dave King. (9:00 p.m., WCCO, preempting CBS's U.S. Steel Hour). 

Wednesday is the American premiere of British import Danger Man (7:30 p.m., CBS), starring Patrick McGoohan as globe-trotting NATO agent John Drake. This half-hour show will eventually morph into a one-hour series, renamed (in the United States) Secret Agent Man* which McGoohan would quit after three seasons to begin a new series: The Prisoner. Now, die-hard fans of the series (like me) will argue endlessly as to whether or not John Drake is also The Prisoner's Number 6. McGoohan did not have contractual rights to the name "John Drake," which  could explain why he always denied that Drake and Number 6 were one and the same; personally, having watched all 86 episodes of Danger Man/Secret Agent Man through to the 17 episodes of The Prisoner, I think there are too many similarities between the two—in manner, forms of speech, and the like—for there to be any doubt. But that's just my opinion.

*Using Johnny Rivers' hit single of the same name as the title theme, which contains the provocative lyric "They've given you a number/and taken away your name."

On Thursday, Ernie Kovacs is back with another episode of Silents Please (9:30 p.m., ABC), a program concept taking advantage of the resurgence of interest in silent movies that was then in vogue. Kovacs acted as host, a role not unlike that played by Robert Osborne or Bob Dorian in later years, introducing the movie and then discussing various aspects afterward. This is Kovacs the film aficionado, not Kovacs the satirist, and the affection he holds for these old films is evident. Tonight's classic is 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney in the title role. Coincidentally, Tennessee Ernie Ford's guest on The Ford Show (8:30 p.m., NBC) is Charles Laughton, who, of course, played Quasimodo in the 1939 version of Hunchback.

A couple of first-rate actors highlight Friday's lineup; Walter Matthau reminds us of what a fine dramatic actor he is, on a Route 66 episode in which he plays a gambler who heads to Reno holding the life savings from the citizens of the small town of Knee, Nevada. They want him to "invest" their savings in order to raise money to boost the town's tourist trade (7:30 p.m., CBS). Later, in a classic episode of The Twilight Zone, Cliff Robertson plays a wagon trailmaster who's also headed West, leading a group of settlers from the East, but he won't believe what's waiting for him "A Hundred Yards over the Rim." (8:30 p.m., CBS).

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Last, but most assuredly not least, the Teletype scoops us with some chatter on coming attractions, in this case two animated series, both among my favorites. First, Hanna-Barbera is auditioning voices for the six cats in the upcoming ABC series Top Cat. So far they've heard from Hack Oakie, Ken Murray, Stubby Kaye, Jesse White, Herschel Bernardi and the man who would, legendarily, eventually voice Top Cat himself, Arnold Stang. A better choice for the role I couldn't imagine.

There's also a note about CBS's upcoming Alvin and the Chipmunks, which would eventually air as The Alvin Show, based on Ross Bagdasarian's recording characters. Now, to emphasize, this is not the Alvin and the Chipmunks of the 21st century movies, the chipmunks with an attitude (left); neither is it the pseudo-children version of the 1980s revival (center); we're talking about the originals (right):

I know, I know, I'm showing my age again, living in the past, shouting at the sky. But the original chipmunks had attitude enough—ever hear Dave yell "Alllllllvinnnnn"? They weren't punks, they weren't the kind of kids you'd cross the street to avoid. They weren't kids at all—they were chipmunks. Oh well. Classic TV wouldn't be so distinctive were there not so much to contrast with contemporary life.

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Speaking of Easter as we were, my wishes for a peaceful and blessed Easter Sunday for those of you who celebrate—and I do mean celebrate—the story of the Good News. TV  

This week in TV Guide: March 2, 1963

One of the season's more interesting new shows, both conceptually and in practice, is The Eleventh Hour, NBC's drama dealing with the world of the mind. The Eleventh Hour—the title refers to those patients "on the verge of breakdown" and facing the last chance for treatment—is the product of executive producer Norman Felton, creator of the radio programs "Doctors Today" and "Today in Medicine" with the American Medical Association, and of the dramatic series Dr. Kildare for NBC television.* 

*Felton is perhaps best-known for a later show with absolutely nothing to do with medicine, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. 

Felton is determined to remove The Eleventh Hour from the traditional stereotypes of psychiatry; "What we're not doing is the story of Pen, Pad and Couch. Our forensic psychiatrist—Dr. Ted Bassett—is no analyst taking notes about patients' dreams. He's active, not passive. He's a therapist, a healer." The field of psychiatry has been relatively untouched by television, so Felton has established an advisory board comprised of 20 psychiatrists and four psychologists, plus psychiatrist Dr. Harold Arlen as technical advisor. In so doing, Felton and his staff have unearthed some potential concerns; after viewing the pilot episode, one psychiatrist wondered if viewers, after seeing various mental illnesses dramatized, might wonder if they themselves are suffering from the same illness. Felton reassured the doctors that while the show will deal with serious issues and how people can get help, "At the same time we want to entertain and hold an audience so that our program doesn't end up on the Sunday morning schedule." 

The lead characters of The Eleventh Hour are Wendell Corey as the aforementioned Dr. Theodore Bassett, a forensic psychiatrist and former lawyer, who is often called in to consult on cases involving an accused's sanity or state of mind; and Jack Ging as clinical psychologist Dr. Paul Graham*. Originally Ging was to be another psychiatrist sharing the office with Bassett, until it was pointed out that in real life, psychiatrists do not share offices. Changing Ging's status created another problem, this one with the American Psychological Association, which accused the show of portraying psychologists too often with "little resemblance to the realities of today's methods for care and treatment of the emotionally disturbed." (Graham, for instance, is the member of the duo most likely to enlist the use of such tropes as ink blot tests.) The network replied that "the psychologists were preoccupied with professional status." I had no idea that the behind-the-scenes story could be so dramatic!

*Unlike psychiatrists, psychologists are not medical doctors and, for example, cannot prescribe medication. Their title of "doctor" refers to their Ph.D. or Sc.D. degrees.

If you're a longtime reader, you'll know that I have a great admiration for The Eleventh Hour, and particularly for Wendell Corey's performance. Corey portrays Ted Bassett with great sensitivity and compassion; the opening of the first episode sets the tone for the series. A disturbed patient is running berserk through the hospital halls, trying desperately to escape. As he reaches the elevator, the doors open, revealing our first look at Dr. Bassett. The patient comes to a complete stop, as Bassett holds out his hands and offers him a small smile of reassurance. The patient, calming down, takes Bassett's hand, and then allows the orderlies to lead him away. Bassett watches after him, saying, almost to himself, "Poor damned soul." 

Wendell Corey and Barbara Rush

Some critics found that opening melodramatic, carrying overtones of the "great white father" school of medicine. On the contrary, I found Corey's gesture to be deeply moving, the kind of caring that I'd want from my doctor in a similar situation. Corey is, in fact, the fulcrum around which this show pivots; Jack Ging's character is very good, equally committed to helping his patients, but I so admire Corey's performance as Dr. Bassett; it's no easy feat to take a broken person and try to put him back together, to find out what's at the root of the problem and treat it; but Corey gives you confidence that it can be done.

(Corey leaves the series after the first season, and is replaced by a similar character, played by Ralph Bellamy, for the show's second and last season, which has not been made available on DVD; if anyone is aware of a—ahem—gray market dealer who has it, please let me know.) 

Mental illness is precisely that, an illness; it should be viewed without stigma or prejudice. Those who scoff at such diagnoses, who think of it as a weakness, or who view it as a crutch, are not just misinformed, they're ignorant. As such, I'm a great believer in psychiatry, though one has to be very careful about the psychiatrist as well as the technique involved. You might recall a similar series, Breaking Point, which will be premiering on ABC in the 1963-64 season. I liked that show as well, and thought that it dealt with the issue with sensitivity. These shows, for the most part, avoid easy answers in favor of hopeful ones; the illnesses from which these patients suffer will not go away magically. It will take work, it will take desire on the part of the patient to get better, but these doctors will be there to help him on the way. Sam Rolfe, the producer of The Eleventh Hour, says that "We want to let people know that when a man is boxed in, when it's a case of 'I've lost my job and my world is tumbling down'—there are doctors for that, too." Doctors like Ted Bassett, whose philosophy, Wendell Corey says, is "Never mind the past. Let's give the patient a future." In this cruel, cruel world we live in today, it's impossible not to be moved by it. 

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ABC's new fall season

Spring is just around the corner, at least according to the calendar, and it's oft been said that in springtime, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Unless, that is, he happens to be a young television executive, in which case springtime means his thoughts are focused, rather heavily, on the upcoming fall season. And, according to the Hollywood Teletype, there's quite a lot to think about. Titles for the new season are said to include The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, starring Dan O'Herlihy; Butterball Brown, with Mickey Shaughnessy; Ready for the People, starring Everett Sloane; Arrest and Trial, with Ben Gazzara and Chuck Connors in a 90-minute drama; Please Stand By, a sci-fi anthology; The Fugitive, with David Janssen; Breaking Point, starring Paul Richards; The Patty Duke Show; The Greatest Show on Earth, with Jack Palance; Mr. Kingston, with Peter Graves and Walter Pidgeon; Thunderhead, starring George Montgomery; The Young and the Bold; and Archie. In the New York Teletype, a separate item mentions the upcoming 90-minute Jerry Lewis Show.

Some of these probably ring a bell. Please Stand By made it to the tube as The Outer Limits, while The Young and the Bold wound up as Channing and lasted one season. The Fugitive and Patty Duke speak for themselves; Arrest and Trial was truly innovative, but it took until Law & Order to make it work; Jaimie McPheeters was also one season and out, as was Breaking Point (unjustly) and Greatest Show. And you probably know about the bomb that was The Jerry Lewis Show.  The others left less of an oil slick than Jerry, but disappeared beneath the waves nonetheless.

As for the shows that have to go to make room for future hits, they include The Jetsons (which had a longer half-life than all but a couple of the new shows), The Rifleman, Going My Way, Our Man Higgins, I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, The Gallant Men, Naked City (a true classic), My Three Sons (which moved to CBS and ran for another seven seasons), and 77 Sunset Strip (although that survived by moving to another timeslot; the reformatted Sunset Strip was a disaster). Fred Astaire's Premiere anthology probably won't be back, but even if it is, Fred's already decided to return to movies (a good idea). 

I always enjoy looking at these proposed new series—which ones succeed beyond our wildest dreams, and which fail miserably, which cancelled shows are totally forgotten (like last week's My Friend Tony), and which are remembered forever (the aforementioned Jetsons). The fact that the young television executive, given the choice between love and television, chooses television, perhaps explains why TV itself seldom fulfills our expectations.

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And this serves as a nice lead-in to our next story, an interview with Dr. Gary A. Steiner, a psychologist from the University of Chicago, who's done a comprehensive study of television viewers, the findings of which are summarized in his new book The People Look at Television. In the TV Guide interview, Dr. Steiner explains "what viewers say they want to see on television and what they actually watch," and this should be good.

First of all, says Dr. Steiner, "everyone—highbrows included—watches mostly light entertainment," which includes action, comedy, variety, light drama, and sports. That accounts for roughly two-thirds of the average viewing week. Another large chunk of viewing comes from newscasts, making up anywhere between 25 and 40 percent of viewing. However, "heavier fare—serious drama, classical music, heavy information such as public affairs presentations" makes up less than 10 percent of the average viewing diet.

Isn't it the case, though, that viewer choices are based on what's available? Well, no. Even when given the choice, viewers, including better-educated ones, turn overwhelmingly to light entertainment. "Four out of five times" the college-educated viewer will pick light entertainment even when public affairs broadcasts are available. Even those viewers who say they want more public affairs programming consistently choose light entertainment shows when they have a choice. "So there is little evidence in support of the argument that viewers watch so much trivia because trivia is all they are offered."

As far as that light entertainment goes, Dr. Steiner's survey found that about every genre of programming has as many supporters as it does critics, meaning that for every critic who claims there are, for example, too many Westerns on TV, you're likely to find a satisfied fan. There is, in other words, "no simple change in program composition that on balance would satisfy more people than it would dissatisfy." 

There is, however, some correlation between education and the choice of entertainment; college educated viewers will turn from light to heavy entertainment when it's available. The general public, in such cases, still prefers light entertainment, and public affairs programs run a distant third. As for the fact that viewers say there needs to be more public affairs programming, Steiner speculates that this could be similar to "speed limits or integration—they recognize the need for information as a need for the country in general," not specifically for themselves. 

In general, viewers think there's too much violence on television, and they're particularly concerned about the exposure children have to such shows—both on shows designed for adults and for children. "It is the eye-gouging, slapping, hitting over the head—not mowing down with machine guns—that causes the greatest concern." They understand the need for commercials, but find them too long and interrupt too frequently, and at crucial points during a broadcast; they like commercials for beer, food, and automobiles, and dislike those for bathroom products, cigarettes, and undergarments. (I wonder what they'd think of today's commercials for, among other things, vaginal deodorant?)

In conclusion, Dr. Steiner gives us an idea of what the "composite viewer" wants. "First and foremost, give me more programs that are fun and worthwhile programs that I find relaxing and entertaining but, at the same time, are in some way informative, uplifting, useful." Make programs that are "safe for children and attract and hold their attention." Don't give us commercials that insult our intelligence, and don't interrupt in the middle of a program to show them. Raise the average level of all programs, rather than offering a few outstanding shows each year. And, since it's hard to control the amount of television watched by both adults and children, help us out by making those hours a little more worthwhile. "Television could certainly stand improvement. But all things considered, you're doing a good job."

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A pair of legal dramas lead off the week: Sam Benedict (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., NBC) has a change-of-pace episode, in which star Edmond O'Brien plays a dual role: high-powered attorney Benedict, and ne'er do well Charlie Dunphie, who's guilty of having bilked 17 charities—in order to support the 17 orphans he tends to on the old showboat they call home. I don't think the story is up to the caliber of most of the show's episodes, but it gives O'Brien a chance to show off his acting chops, and that's always welcome. Later, on The Defenders (8:30 p.m., CBS) the Prestons take the case of Luke Jackson (Rubert Duvall), a convicted murderer who's spent the last seven years on death row, and now a model of rehabilitation—just in time to be strapped into the electric chair. 

Looks as if whoever owned this issue planned to watch it as well!

If you're looking for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I have just the thing for you. It's the NBC Opera Company world premiere production of Gian Carlo Menotti's made-for-TV opera "Labyrinth" (Sunday, 2:00 p.m. ET), and when I say that it was made for television, I'm not kidding; the special effects and trick photography involved make it almost impossible for the opera to ever be performed on a stage. You can see the broadcast here, and it's a good thing that the video exists, because the opera was never rebroadcast and, aside from a 2020 performance at Ventura College, it has never been staged anywhere else. It saves us from having to ask the question: if an opera is performed and no video of it exists, did it really happen?

Sunday evening, Ed Sullivan's headline guests are Kate Smith, Bob Newhart, Anita Bryant, Nancy Walker, and Charles Nelson Reilly. He's also got a British ventriloquist, a Spanish dance group, and a hand-balancing act, but I think his main lineup would have won the day, regardless of what show it might have been going against (8:00 p.m., CBS). And on an NBC News Special, John Chancellor takes a look at the European Common Market, progenitor to the European Union. (10:00 p.m.) I don't know that it was a good idea then, any more than it is today.

Future Oscar winner Beatrice Straight stars as Edith in Monday's Ben Casey, a drama filled with family tensions: her niece Greta (Diana Hyland) is being controlled by her domineering mother; and Edith is refusing to undergo critical surgery until Greta is given her freedom. I wonder how Casey's going to handle this one?

The luminous Diane Baker appears as a young blind woman who's the target of farmer Lloyd Bridges' affections in The Lloyd Bridges Show (Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., CBS). Efron presents a rather interesting profile of the man whom she describes as "an enormously frail personality—so gentle and shy that it takes an hour of conversation before one gets any definite impression of him at all." His friends paint a similar picture;  Aaron Spelling, producer of Lloyd's current anthology series, calls him an enigma, "full of sweetness, full of love," while his wife Dorothy notes how "children worship him, flock around him." Both add, however, that his desire to love and please everyone is a source of trouble for him; "poor judgement," says Spelling, while his wife feels others take advantage of his gentle disposition. Not everyone is a fan; one critic says he doesn't believe all the talk of love of life and people: "He's weak, unrealistic. He refuses to look life in the face." Bridges himself doesn't particularly like the description of himself as a "gentle muscleman," but admits to a lack of aggressiveness, which could be due to a lack of confidence in his own abilities. Even though his new series lags in the ratings, he's enthusiastic about the opportunity to show that he can act, that he's not just the adventure star of Sea Hunt; he calls it "the biggest opportunity of my life." In the end, the series does leave the air after a single season, but Lloyd Bridges seldom leaves the small screen; he'll be back in Rod Serling's existential Western, The Loner, and was a fixture in guest appearances and TV-movies (not to mention his memorable role in the movie Airplane!) until his death in 1998.

Pop singer Joanie Sommers is Wednesday night's star; she appears first as one of Perry Como's guests on the Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC), along with Gene Sheldon, Charlie Manna, and the Four Step Brothers; later, she shows up on The Steve Allen Show (11:15 p.m., syndicated), with jazzman Frank Rosolino and singer Dean Reed. James Stewart makes a rare appearance on series television on Thursday, portraying himself in his real-life capacity as a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserves, on My Three Sons (9:00 p.m., ABC) in an episode in which Robbie is competing to win a high school letter for science achievement. 

On Friday, Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert presents its last show of the season, "The Latin American Spirit," featuring his new symphonic arrangement of West Side Story, along with pieces by Aaron Copland, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Oscar Fernandez (7:30 p.m., CBS). Later, on The Jack Paar Program (10:00 p.m., NBC), former Vice President Richard Nixon makes his first network TV appearance since losing the election for governor of California last November. He's given Jack carte blanche on any question topics, and even takes time out to play a composition of his own on the piano. The audience reaction shows that even after his defeat, he remains a popular political figure.

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Ann Flood is frustrated. She's already an established star of daytime television as Nancy Pollock Karr, the fresh-scrubbed heroine of CBS's The Edge of Night. Before that, she was Liz Fraser Allen, the fresh-scrubbed heroine of From These Roots. And therein lies the rub: Flood, whom everyone describes as warm and sweet-hearted is feeling a little stifled. "I've been cast as the all-American-girl type, the sweetheart type, for years. For a change, I'd like to be the Other Woman." 

No matter what kind of character she plays, though, she's committed to the world of the soaps—which, for the most part, are still being done live. "I'm not pursuing a stellar career," she tells TV Guide. "My home is most important. I don't want my work to interfere." Earlier in her career, she was a fixture on just about every evening dramatic anthology, an experience she found "thrilling," but no longer. "Now it would interfere with my family."

So she doesn't get a chance to demonstrate a hard edge in her soap roles; maybe she makes up for that in her personal life. Her favorite show is The Untouchables; when she and her husband visited Chicago recently, the first thing she wanted to see was the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. And she's a ferocious debater in social gatherings—"If it's a theatrical crowd, she's arguing about Method acting. And if it's a non-theatrical crowd, it's politics. She's usually denouncing union corruption." Listening to her husband talk about her, she says with a twinkle, "Down deep, this all-American girl is really Eliot Ness."

Ann Flood is too experienced, too well-known, to be considered a startlet, but I enjoy these kinds of stories because you're inevitably drawn to find out what happened to the rest of her career. And in her case, the answer is formidable. She continues to play Nancy Pollack Karr until the series ends in 1984, during which time The Edge of Night transitions from live broadcast to tape, and from CBS to ABC. She remains married to Herbert Granath, from 1952 until his death in 2019. Ann Flood dies in 2022, at the age of 89, proof positive that nice girls don't always finish last.

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MST3K alert: Bride of the Monster (1955) An intrepid female reporter investigates a mad scientist who is attempting to harness atomic energy to turn people into superhuman monsters. Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Harvey B. Dunn, Dolores Fuller. (Thursday, 5:00 p.m., WFMJ in Youngstown) Two words: Ed Wood. Need I go any further? It may not be Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it doesn't have to be, does it? TV  

This week in TV Guide: March 15, 1969

It's only fair, after all: A few weeks ago, we saw a stirring defense of the soap opera from none other than James Lipton, who hypothesized that it might be the most realistic form of drama on television. I hesitate to call this week's essay by Marya Mannes a rebuttal, since it was written before Lipton's (maybe his article was the rebuttal), but we can at least say that it's a differing opinion.

Whereas Lipton maintains that soaps are domestic dramas for a domestic society, ones that tell stories of life and death, Mannes counters that the genre deals with "a world that simply does not exist, which is doubtless why the serials fascinate millions of women and sell millions of dollars worth of detergents, cake mixes, deodorants, tooth pastes, polishes and illusions." It is, she continues, a story of one kind of America: "the comfortable suburban life of white, middle-class Protestants, the homes always impeccably neat and ultraconservative, the men either lawyers, doctors, small-business men or newspaper types, the women always perfectly coiffed and smartly attired, the forces of good and the forces of evil neatly opposed, love finally triumphant over obstacles that would have mired Eros himself." The "major illusion" of the soap opera, one trumpeted by Lipton—realism—is, according to Mannes, is one "sustained by domestic situations familiar to most people and dialogue so simple and explicit that a dropout would understand it. It is also sustained by men and women who might be the people next door, only better-looking."

Mannes goes on to discuss the many ways in which soaps drift away from reality; "Some of these may seem trivial, some are serious." Aesthetically, "[R]eal women do not do their housework in  perfectly pressed little luncheon dresses, with street shoes and coiffures fresh from the dryer" but instead "are often in housedresses or slacks and flat slippers. Their hair is, at the least, inclined to casualness, with detached or errant strands, when it is not—at the worst—in curlers." More important is the life of the average American woman as portrayed in soaps: a "total limitation of their horizons. They are given no independence of mind, spirit or action, as individual human beings; the role assigned them as wife and mother is assumed to permit no extensions and no additions." It is, she says, "indefensible." They don't read, don't take home courses, don't serve as substitute teachers, don't watch the UN on TV.

As she indicates, some of these problems are more trivial than others. We should hardly lose our cool at the lack of clutter in the average soap opera home, unless it's some kind of shaming (as we'd call it today) of the bad housekeeper. But there's something deeper at work, something that she calls "the perpetuation of attitudes which are neither relevant to the changes and needs of present life nor a preparation for a perilous future." The Achilles heel of the American commercial television industry, the need for sponsorship, yields programming—not just soaps, she stresses—that is designed "to keep as many people as possible at home in a suspension of reality and a mood to buy." "Like 'enriched' bread, which is divested of its original nutrient, the soap opera contains just enough additives to make viewers feel it is keeping up with the times." She cites a similar thinking in the way the soaps portray the "new young breed of social and political activists, what of the young idealists and draft protesters who court contempt and prison for their passionate beliefs? They're nary to be seen; "That wouldn't sell goods in Ohio or Georgia or Texas, to name a few."

This is harsh stuff, and while it's enjoyable to read Mannes lay waste to various cliches of the genre, I'm not at all sure they're all fair. Again, you need to keep in mind the context we're in: the end of the Sixties, the growth of Women's Lib. Given this, one can sense a certain disregard for the life of the average housewife, a devaluation of the values of those women who (then as now) derive satisfaction and pleasure from maintaining the home for their husband and children. As we can see from the disasterous decades since, the collapse of the domestic family has played a large role in the subsuming of the structure on which American society was built. And part of the appeal of the soap opera was always in offering housewives the chance to escape their lives for those of their television counterparts, who frequently had it worse than their viewers. In appealing for a more realistic portrayal of the world of "city families living, or trying to live, through strike after strike, through hopeless traffic, through noise and pollution and crowds and the daily brutalities of life," she's essentially advocating a daytime version of East Side/West Side, and I don't know that anybody wants that.

And yet, it would be foolish to use a broad brush in dismissing her objectives. There is something insidious about the way sponsors use programming to push their products, or the way programs of all kinds use their storylines to reinforce certain attitudes and perspectives in the minds of their viewers. It all goes back to that thin line between advocating and reflecting, between showing the world as it is and showing the world the way you, the writer or producer or sponsor, want it to be. 

There's much to be said for, as Mannes puts it, placing "an unlimited succession of human woes, sins and follies" within the context of "living realities instead of manufactured crises." It's time, she concludes, to free the viewer "from the soap that leaves a blurring and distorting film." Perhaps James Lipton, a year later, was trying to reassure Mannes that the soap opera was on its way, headed in that direction even if it hadn't yet reached its destination. 

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

Sullivan: Tentatively scheduled guests: George Burns; rock singer Janis Joplin; Jacques d'Amboise of the New York City Ballet (with a ballet version of Irish folk dances); singer Ed Ames; comedian Scoey Mitchell; country stars Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer; saxophonist Boots Randolph; the USAF Strategic Air Command Band (playing “Strike Up the Band’); Honey Ltd.; and the Carols, novelty act. 

Palace: Sammy Davis Jr, takes the spotlight. Grooving with him are the James Brown Revue, Mod Squad’s Peggy Lipton (in her TV singing debut) and singer Charo (Mrs. Xavier Cugat). Providing comic touches: Nipsey Russell and Laugh-In’s Dave Madden, who comments on trite sayings. .

I swear, people watching Ed's show this week must have gotten some kind of cultural whiplash, being thrown from the old guard (George Burns) to Marya Mannes' "new young breed" (Janis Joplin) to the classical (Jacques d'Amroise) to country (Atkins and Cramer) to the establishment (the SAC Band). I get exhausted just typing it. But if you're in the business of entertaining the entire household, of delivering something for everyone, then this is the show for you. On the other hand, speaking of being exhausted, can you imagine a show with Sammy Davis Jr. and James Brown? I'm really too tired to come up with anything other than a Push for the week.

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

When was the last time we had a positive—I mean really positive—review from ol' Cleve? Well, get ready, because ABC's new variety series This Is Tom Jones is the real thing.

Displaying "one of the most infections grins ever to cross the Atlantic," Jones captivates from the very beginning of the very first show, a program "so sumptuously mounted and inventively shot that, compared to most American variety shows, it broke new ground in not only backgrounds, but in variety too." The camera in production numbers "literally seemed to dart in and out, giving us so many peek-a-boos that at times it almost seemed sublminal." And while Jones occasionally looked "like a sick fish" when he leaned on a rock number, he also displayed a smoothness with his guests and (all-girl) staff that "seemed as charming as Dean Martin." The guests were also, for the most part, very good, particularly "a young French singer, Mireille Mathieu. The only way to stop her from stealing a show would be to arrest her before the show starts." Now, we've read about her in TV Guide before, so we shouldn't be surprised by Cleve's captivation with her, nor that he refers to a later show featuring "a singer from the first show who was evidently out on parole. Can you guess who she was? Well, we'll give you a hint—her initials are M.M." 

Amory had wondered if this first show would be the exceptioin rather than the rule, if they would "still use all this high-test or go back to regular gas" but he needn't have worried; "This Is Tom Jones was high-test all the way," beginning with a performance of "Help Yourself" on a stage "with so much going on that it was just like watching a three-ring circus," before deftly and almost imperceptibly segueing into a soft and memorable rendition of "Green, Green Grass of Home." The show included two particularly memorable guest appearances from relative newcomers: a Welsh singer named Mary Hopkin and a comedian named Richard Pryor. Not bad.  Yes, there's more than Mireille to this show, and as long as Tom Jones brings it, he'll continue his "tremendous start."

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One of the tragedies of American education over the decades is the virtual disappearance of music appreciation courses. Numerous reasons have been given for this, reasons that rapidly become political and which we don't need to discuss here. But I have to wonder how much of a role was played by the cancellation of programs like Captain Kangaroo. The pictures on the left shows highlights from "Jazz Week," a special week beginning April 7, in which the Captain (Bob Keeshan) and Billy Taylor, the American jazz pianist, composer, and broadcaster (he's currently porgram director of New York's WLIB radio) are going to present a history of jazz, featuring special guest artists.

On the top left, we see the African musical group Babatunde Olatunji and Company; tenor saxophonist George Coleman is on bottom left; on on bottom right is ragtime/blues pianist Willie "the Lion" Smith, along with Keeshan and Taylor. Other musicians include Wilbur de Paris' Zeba, talking about improvisations, solos, and counterpoint; the Eddie Daniels Quintet, demonstrating swing and bop; and Taylor's own quintet, performing with the Eric Gales group to demonstrate the influence of jazz on rock. "Might make for some swinging kids," the article concludes.

I was critical, or at least ambivalent, when I wrote about the generation that grew up watching Captain Kangaroo, but at the same time I retain a great affection for the program. My love of reading started with the Captain (as it did for my wife), and it, along with Bugs Bunny cartoons, provided me with an introduction to music appreciation. Programs such as Sesame Street, for all the good they may do, seldom offer such long-form exploration of single topics like music; local children's shows, especially in large cities, often had guests from that city's performaning arts groups. And so, again, I wonder how much the disappearance of shows like these (and Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts) have had to do with the lack of music appreciation. 

The appreciation of the classics, including jazz and its related genres, may seem like a small part of a child's education, but it helps to create a well-rounded, civilized young person growing into adulthood, and I think we can certainly use more of that in today's culture.

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I'm aware that there are a lot of things that were amazing back in the day, but hardly attract any attention now; the fact that I was amazed by these things just reminds me of how old I am. For instance, it's hard to explain what a big deal the Houston Astrodome was when it was built. A domed stadium! Indoor football and baseball! Even a basketball game, with a record crowd! It seemed as if there was nothing the Astrodome couldn't do, and we get an example of this on Saturday's Wide World of Sports, with coverage of last week's Grand Prix Midget Auto Racing Championship for dirt track cars (5:00 p.m. PT, ABC). The idea of indoor auto racing—well, that just about takes the cake. And if you think dirt track rasing isn't the real thing, the drivers are Bobby Unser, Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, and other stars from Indycar racing. You can see highlights of that race weekend here. 

Sunday's Public Broadcasting Laboratory (8:00 p.m., NET) presents a cinema-verite profile of Johnny Cash, "an authentic folk hero, self-made from the crucible of the American experience during the Depression." The producers explain that Cash's reticence required them to rely on observation; there is no narration, and besides excerpts of Cash performing, we see him visiting his family, returning to an Arkansas shack in which he once lived, and a chance meeting between Cash and Bob Dylan. You can see this documentary on YouTube.

On Monday, a two-hour ABC News Special, "Three Young Americans In Search of Survival" (9:00 p.m.) tells the story of these three young people, working to better the world they live in. One is an environmentalist, the second works with blacks in the ghetto, and the third is fighting water pollution. One could do a similar documentary today, using the same title, to tell of three young people struggling with the prospect of finding work in the rust belt, poverty and illiteracy in the Applechians, and searching for meaning to life in a world rapidly stripping away all cultural norms; that's the kind of thing I think of when someone talks about searching for survival. But we deal here with what we're given; Paul Newman narrates the special. By the way, it's interesting how the definition of "young people" has changed over the years; these three are 26, 32, and 30, respectively; Greta Thunberg would probably accuse them of being part of the establishment.

Tuesday's Red Skelton Hour (8:30 p.m., CBS) features guest star Merv Griffin spoofing his own show, interviewing three of Red's most famous characters: Cauliflower McPugg, Boliver Shagnasty, and Willy Lump-Lump; Merv also sings his back-in-the-day hit, "I've Got a Loverly Bunch of Coconuts." I love hearkening back to those days when talk show hosts had to have some actual talent. After an interlude with The Doris Day Show, CBS continues with an episode of 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner (10:00 p.m.), which, as the listing reminds us, was then a bimonthly show. It's easy to forget that it wasn't until 1971 that 60 Minutes first aired on Sunday nights, and it was 1973 before it settled there for good.

Andy with Donovan. Dig the groovy shirt!

Speaking of Sunday, I always think of Glen Campbell's show as beng on Sunday, probably because he started out as the summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers, but here he is on Wednesday, leading off an interesting night of variety shows. (8:00 p.m., CBS) Glen's guests tonight are Jim Nabors and Bobbie Gentry, and there's a note at the end that Cleveland Amory will be reviewing the series next week. That's followed by a pair of specials on NBC: first, Bob Hope presents "an hour of comedy and song" with guests Jimmy Durante, Cyd Charisse, Ray Charles, and Nancy Sinatra. (9:00 p.m.) After that Andy Williams hosts a flower-power "Love Concert" (even the stage is covered with flowers) with Jose Feliciano, Donovan, the aforementioned Smothers Brothers, and the Ike and Tina Turner Soul Review. (10:00 p.m.) Hang on a minute while I get my Nehur jacket and beads.

I've mentioned this before, I'm sure, but I'm counting on most of you having forgotten about it. (At least I'm honest!) As you're reading this, we're in the midst of March Madness, with everyone and his great-aunt hosting some kind of bracket to make the NCAA basketball tournament worth watching. The tournament wasn't always such a big deal, though; on Saturday afternoon, NBC broadcast an "Elite Eight" doubleheader (it was just called the quarterfinals back then) featuring two of the four games being played—the Eastern and Central time zones got the East and Mideast finals, while the Mountain and Pacific time zones got the Midwest and West finals. Now, on Thursday, the winners of those four games meet in the Final Four in Louisville, and once again the game—yes, you only got to see one of the games—depends on where you live. The East and Central get the first game, the Mountain and Pacific get the second, which in this issue means Drake vs. defending champion UCLA. (7:30 p.m.) Dragnet and The Dean Martin Show follow the game. Once again, we're reminded how times have changed.

NBC finishes the week with a couple of interesting programs on Friday; first, The Name of the Game (8:30 p.m.) showcases a terrific lineup of British guest stars: Honor Blackman, Maurice Evans, Brian Bedford, and Murray Matheson among others. The story takes Glenn Howard (Gene Barry) to London to defend the company against a libel case being prosecuted by a crooked counselor (Blackman). Then, it's a Bell Telephone Hour special on the great Hollywood movies of David O. Selznick. Henry Fonda narrates; the special includes, for the first time on television, the burning of Atlanta scene from Gone with the Wind.

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Finally, the start of baseball season is just around the corner, and one of the most interesting former baseball players around is Joe Garagiola, one of the hosts on NBC's Today. Now, I'll admit that I've never been a particular fan of Garagiola—I always thought his mouth was a little too small for the number of words trying to get out, and I didn't find his humor that funny—but I'll also admit when I'm wrong, and in this case I've come away from Stanley Frank's article much more impressed than before.

Joe's been on Today for the last year and a half, and during that time the show's ratings have risen to an all-time high. After an eight-year career, spent mostly as a backup catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, he segued into broadcasting. He'd already become a popular after-dinner speaker because of his folksy, self-deprecating sense of humor, and an appearance with Jack Paar eventually led to his role on Today. You might have expected him to serve as the token jock on the show, reading the scores and narrating the highlights from last night's games, but you'd be wrong. "Joe has a marvelous quality of cutting through the malarkey from pundits and pretentious writers by asking the questions viewers want to hear," producer Al Morgan says, explanating why he expanded Garagiola's role beyond sports. "He’s a very bright. guy who does his homework. Besides, I could trust his taste and judgment implicitly." Adds Today host Hugh Downs, "I have a tendency to be stuffy and pedantic. Joe's direct, down-to-earth approach counterbalances that element in me and gives the show the vigor that keeps it moving. He knows how to bring out the truest in a guest. That's his great forte."

Garagiola shares his experiences interviewing people outside the sports beat. Of poet Marianne Moore, whom Garagiola had never heard of prior to researching her for the interview, he said, "She bowled me over with her charm. She had a violent crush on the old Brooklyn Dodgers and reminisced about them for 10 minutes. I finally got her to talk about poetry and I was given a better appreciation of it than I'd ever learned in school." During one interview, he contfronted cultural historian Lewis Mumford, who deplored living conditions in the cities and suburbs, but admitted that although he had an apartment in New York, he went to his house in the country when life in the city got to be too much. "Few people can afford to maintain two homes,” Garagiola replied. "People like you should be working on solutions for urban problems instead of writing off the whole thing as a hopeless mess." And when Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), complaining about discrimination in America, said, "I live here, but it's not really my country," Garagiola told him during a commercial break that "If you want to move, OK. But if you want to live here, you'd better go out there and square yourself with people who are sympathetic to your cause." After they returned, Alcindor said he hadn't really meant to repudiate his citizenship.

Garagiola puts in 12-hour days preparing for interviews. When talking to authors, "Downs admits he skims through 20 percent of a book; but Joe, lacking his colleague’s background, reads it all the way through." The foyer of his house is lined with 20-foot shelves of books; Garagiola has read most of them. He enjoys Today, but admits to an idea he toys with: "I'd like to do a Saturday morning show talking to two kids without patronizing or putting them down and see the world through their eyes." He also recalls talking with members of the hippie compound at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "When I asked what their beef was against society, they gave me a lot of tired cliches and ended every sentence with, 'You know what | mean?' Well, I didn’t know what they meant and they couldn't express it, clearly and simply. Maybe a guy like me could help them bridge the communications gap." That sounds like a home run idea to me; it's a pity people can't try something like that today.

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MST3k alert: The Deadly Mantis (1957) "A paleontologist suspects that a gigantic prehistoric mantis has returned to life. Craig Stevens, Alix Talton, William Hopper." (Saturday, 2:30 p.m., KHSL) 

You would think that a movie starring a couple of superstar detectives like Peter Gunn and Paul Drake would be better than this, right? But it's still good fun. TV