What's on TV? Wednesday, June 24, 1970

ome very interesting things on the schedule for today. For instance, Merv Griffin's lineup is a classic of the time: Phil Silvers, Shecky Greene, Red Buttons and Charo. That had to be out of control before it even started. And then there's poet James Dickey appearing on Bob Cromie's Book Beat, discussing his first novel. You might have heard of it—Deliverance. And even though I've seen it many times in these old issues, I'm always somewhat taken aback when Mister Rogers' name appears as one word: Misterogers. Makes him sound sort of like a superhero, doesn't it? Well, there's plenty more for you to see down there; this week's listings are from Philadelphia.

What's on TV? Friday, June 18, 1965

Wou know that summer is on the way when you see notices for programs like Vacation Playhouse, which will be filling in for Gomer Pyle starting next week. Reruns dominate the rest of the night, except for that special on gambling that I mentioned on Friday. But I think the Minnesota Twins game on WTCN looks very attractive, especially since this is the year the Twins go to the World Series. At least that's what I was probably watching, since this TV Guide is from the Twin Cities. Y

What's on TV? Tuesday, June 9, 1970

If you're of an age where most of the programs in these TV Guides feel more like old friends than anything else, you'll remember Dialing for Dollars. Almost every market had some form of it, where if you knew "the count and the amount" when the station called, you could win a nice chunk of changes, 1960s style. As you can see this week, it still runs on WLAC in Nashville, appearing periodically throughout the day. But if you look carefully, you'll also see something called "Gilligan's Giveaways" during the afternoon showing of Gilligan's Island. "Gilligan's Giveaways"? Don't you wonder what that might have been? Something kid-oriented, considering the show's airtime and audience? Might have to look into that sometime, but in the meantime, the shows you're seeing this time are from the Nashville edition.

What's on TV? Wednesday, June 5, 1974

WIe're back in Northern California this week, but unlike most trips to the Bay Area, where we're in the 1960s, this time we're in the '70s, and so you'll get a slightly different look at channels as well as programs. One thing I did want to single out, tho0ugh, and that's KSHL in Chico, which features both the ABC news with Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner, and the CBS news with Walter Cronkite. Talk about fair and balanced, hmm?

What's on TV? Thursday, May 27, 1965

The matinee movie on KRON is one that should bring a smile to any fan of the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker team: Zero Hour!, the movie that served as the model for Airplane! Dana Andrews stars as Ted Stryker, the ex-fighter pilot haunted by guilt who's called on to land a passenger airlineer after the crew becomes sick from eating bad fish; Linda Darnell is his wife, who's preparing to leave him because of his inability to pull his life back together; and Sterling Hayden is Captain Treleaven, Stryker's old commanding officer, who's called in to help talk Stryker down. If all this sounds familiar, it should; ZAZ paid $2,500 for the rights to the screenplay in order to make sure they didn't run into a problem with copyright while working on Airplane! (See the comparisons here.) Today's listings come from the Northern California edition.

What's on TV? Tuesday, May 17, 1955

I mentioned Milton Berle in passing on Saturday, and on tonight's show one of Uncle Miltie's guests is singer and future soap opera legend Bill Hayes, performing his biggest hit, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," which was number one for five weeks. It was the most popular of three versions of the song that charted in 1955; the other two were by Tennessee Ernie Ford and Davy Crockett himself, Fess Parker, so Hayes's feat was no mean achievement. That and much more, in this week's Chicago edition, which also includes a couple of Indiana stations.

What's on TV? Tuesday, May 14, 1968

You'll notice plenty of coverage of the Nebraska Primary tonight; NBC plans updates during the movie, and all three networks have specials scheduled following the late local news. Bobby Kennedy, fresh off his win in Indiana, needed a victory to continue his momentum. Eugene McCarthy, the glow fading from his challenge to LBJ, mobilized hundreds of volunteers to help in the cause. Meanwhile Hubert Humphrey, electing to pass up the primaries, lurked in the shadows. Kennedy scores a decisive 52-31 victory over Clean Gene, setting up a confrontation in Oregon, followed by June's winner-take-all primary in California. But that's another story. The listings are from Northern California. 

What's on TV: Wednesday, May 11, 1966

Tonight's Dick Van Dyke episode was originally scheduled to air on March 16, but was preempted by CBS News's coverage of the emergency splashdown of Gemini VIII. (In case you don't know all the details about the emergency that caused the early splashdown, you can read about it at the always-reliable Wikipedia.) It wasn't just a case of playing it safe; I remember watching this live, and there was a real question as to whether or not the astronauts would be OK. Predictably enough, there were complaints from viewers that the special coverage had caused them to miss their favorite programs; even though you might not have had any particular interest in the space program, you'd think that people could grant that this was an event worth broadcasting. I don't know if any of those viewers were fans of Dick Van Dyke, but if so, you'll getting your program tonight. The listings come to us from the Northern California edition.

What's on TV? Wednesday, April 27, 1977

An appropriate story for this week's issue: you'll recall that on Saturday, I highlighted a story about the changing face of baseball with the coming of free agency, and how Andy Messersmith, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, won his arbitration case to become the first free agent. Messersmith signed with the Atlanta Braves, then owned by Ted Turner, who also owned WTCG. Not long after that, Turner announced a gimmick where the players would wear their nicknames on their jerseys, instead of their full last names.  Messersmith, who wor number 17, insisted that his nickname was "Channel," thus the back of his jersey read "Channel 17." Now, check the listing below and find WTCG on the dial. Get it? The commissioner soon ordered Messersmith to change his "nickname" (he changed it to "Bluto"); eventually, WTCG was relabled WTBS, as in Superstation TBS. This epic story comes to you courtesy of the North Georgia edition. 

What's on TV? Tuesday, April 20, 1993

Oprah Winfrey's guest today is Corazon Atienza, who is described as having "evaded a 1966 mass murder by hiding under a bed." That's a pretty ordinary description, but there was still something in that "hiding under a bed" bit that rang a bell, and as it turns out, that description really undersells the story. In 1966, Corazon Atienza was a student nurse in Chicago, and the "mass murder" that the listing so blandly refers to was, in fact, the gruesome murder of eight student nurses by Richard Speck, at the time called one of the "Crimes of the Century"; to this day it remains one of the most infamous crimes in American history. Although Atienza later returned to the Philippines, the connection to Winfrey's show is no surprise, given that she did her show in Chicago. In 1993, Speck's name would still have been familiar to most Americans, who would have remembered the murders; unfortunately, the listing in this week's New York City Metro edition fails to provide any historical perspective whatsoever. Oh well, I suppose by this time if you've seen one mass murder, you've seen them all

What's on TV? Thursday, April 17, 1969

In addition to the specials I mentioned on Saturday, CBS tonight presents a repeat of the 1965 production of Cinderella, with Lesley Ann Warren, Ginger Rogers, Celeste Holm and Stuart Damon. It didn't quite match up to the original, which starred Julie Andrews and was, at the time of its original airing in 1957, the highest-rated television show of all time; however, it did well enough that it was the highest-rated non-sports special on CBS until 2009. Unlike that original, which was live, this version was on tape, and according to TV Guide, CBS had tried to get Andrews to reprise her role for color videotape. Still, this worked out pretty well. This week's listings are from the Northern California edition.

What's on TV? Saturday, April 3, 1971

In the early days of Sesame Street, the listings included the episode number as well as the names of the celebrities appearing in cameos. (They also included the number on-screen at the beginning of the episode, as I recall.) I'm assuming that WGBH is showing the five episodes that aired during the past week, given that they're numbers 231-235. Now, this factoid may not be particularly notable, but it's the best I can do today, for this Eastern New England edition.

What's on TV? Monday, April 1, 1968

It's a day of firsts here in the Northern California Edition. ABC rolls out a pair of new daytime shows, Dream House and Wedding Party. Dream House had actually premiered last week in primetime, where it will run until September; the daytime edition lasts until January, 1970. Wedding Party, which only ran until July, was kind of a variant of The Newlywed Game. It's also the debut of an entire station, KEMO, which signs on at 3 p.m., and continues (with a brief absense in 1971-72) to this day as KOFY, still an independent station.

What's on TV: Friday, March 25, 1960

Ahe highlight of today's programming, as we saw on Saturday, is the TV Guide Awards show at 7:30 p.m., but there are other things of interest as well. For example, let's take a look at CBS this afternoon, with For Better or Worse at 1:00 p.m., followed by Art Linkletter's House Party at 1:30, where Art's guest is marriage counselor Dr. James A. Peterson—the host of For Better or Worse. I tell you, if there's an award for self -promotion, that takes the prize. The listings are, as you probably already know, from the Minnesota State Edition.

What's on TV? Tuesday, March 16, 1965

I've mentioned this before, I'm sure, but in all the talk about "must-see TV" over the years, I think we sometimes lose sight of the outstanding Tuesday night schedule that ABC had in the mid-60s. It's diminished somewhere here by the sitcom The Tycoon, which didn't do well in the ratings, but the show it replaced, My Three Sons (which wound up on CBS) was part of a lineup that included Combat!, McHale's Navy, Peyton Place, and The Fugitive. All iconic series, wouldn't you agree? And you can find them in this week's Northern California edition.

What's on TV? Friday, March 13, 1970

It's a night of documentaries on TV, and perhaps the most interesting is Charles Kuralt's look at the beginning of Expo '70, the World's Fair in Osaka, Japan. I suppose it was inevitable that these fairs would fade in importance given how small the world has become, and how "global" everything is these days. Still, I miss the sense of wonder that used to accompany things like world's fairs. Or anything, for that matter. Oh well; there's no reason to wonder about this week's programming; it comes to us courtesy of the Eastern New England edition.

What's on TV? Monday, February 28, 1966

Following Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall special with Judy Garland and Bill Cosby, NBC presents its version of CBS's successful "National Test" series (National Driving Test, National Citizenship Test, etc.), called Testing: How Quick is Your Eye? It's the second of four such planned programs, hosted by Frank McGee, with reports by Robert MacNeil, and TV Guide inlcludes a scoresheet for viewers to play along. Among the questions into which the program delves is the reliability of eyewitness testimony in trials. The show hopes to demonstrate "some of the factors that influence and even distort our visual perception." I see, and you can see it as well, in this week's Northern California edition.

What's on TV? Wednesday, February 22, 1967

The 11:00 p.m. movie on KTVU is The Frightened City, a 1961 filmin which "An accountant organizes a protection racket in London." It stars a pre-James Bond Sean Connery, and a pre-Pink Panther Herbert Lom, and while it's always fun to see actors in roles other than those that made them famous (for instance, I enjoy Lom immensely in the psychiatrist drama The Human Jungle), it's a little disconcerting to see both men going over to the dark side. Oh well, it's only a movie, right? You can find this and more in the Northern California edition.

What's on TV? Tuesday, February 15, 1966

Pre-empting The Fugitive this week is The Anatomy of Pop: The Music Explosion, a  look at the roots of popular music, with an all-star lineup of performances and interviews including the Supremes, the Temptations, the Dave Clark Five, Marty Robbins, Tex Ritter, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, Billy Taylor, Richard Rodgers, and Tony Bennett; the narrator is ABC News anchorman Bob Young. Since it survives on YouTube, it's well worth an hour of your time. That, and more goodies, are in today's listings from the Northern California edition.

What's on TV? Sunday, January 31, 1960

I mentioned last week ago how WGBH, the educational channel in Boston, acted almost as a secondary NBC affiliate, broadcasting The Huntley-Brinkley Report because WBZ had a grudge against the network. Well, this week, we see that WGBH is taking on some programming from CBS as well, including Camera Three and CBS Television Workshop, the last five minutes of which include Harry Reasoner's news update. Then, they turn back to NBC at the end of the afternoon for Meet the Press and Chet Huntley Reporting. I suppose WBZ figured nobody would recognize Huntley on their channel! As you can tell, this is the Eastern New England edition.