This week in TV Guide: March 19, 1966

WeIn some casting news, the Teletype reports that Stefanie Powers will be replacing Mary Ann Mobley in the upcoming The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.; Mobley played April Dancer in the back-door pilot that aired on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (Mobley's co-star in the pilot, Norman Fell, will also be replaced in the role of Mark Slate with Noel Harrison.) And with that, we're into this week's cover story by Leslie Raddatz, and the beginning of the closest thing we've ever had here to a theme issue. You'll see what I mean as we go through the issue; just look for the bold-face names.

 "Nothing quite like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. has ever happened to television," he says, "not only in program content, which has spawned a host of imitators, but in the fact that U.N.C.L.E. almost didn’t make it at all." The show faltered at the outset, which producer Norman Felton says is because it took viewers a while to catch on to the show's blend of conventional adventure richly invested with humor, and it almost got the axe in January. But now, in its second (and best) season, it's become a phenomenon, garnering fan letters from people around the country "who had nothing much in common except they were U.N.C.L.E. nuts," including one from a CBS producer who told Felton that his four children had become "wild Man from U.N.C.L.E. addicts" who beg me continually, constantly, to get them U.N.C.L.E. cards, THRUSH cards, photos of Robt. Vaughn, the blond kid (Illya?), ete. Do you have kits available for fellow producers who must nightly compete with your superheroes or be branded weaklings in the eyes of their offspring?"

Felton, who sends out between 50 and 60 thousand U.N.C.L.E. cards every month in response to the same number of letters from fans, had a previous reputation for serious, prestige drama, with a portfolio including Studio One, Robert Montgomery Presents, The U.S. Stell Hour, Mr. Novak, and The Eleventh Hour; he says that he's delighted with the success of U.N.C.L.E., but admits "I would rather have one Novak on the air than six U.N.C.L.E.'s." The idea for the show came three years ago, when Felton decided he wanted to do a series that was "just fun," and thus came the concept of a show featuring "a mysterious man who would become involved with ordinary people in adventures with humorous overtones." He held back on the more humorous episodes at first, given that NBC had bought U.N.C.L.E. as a straight adventure series, and there are still viewers who look at it that way, "which is all right with us." 

Of David McCallum, Felton says, "I never had any idea he would become the hit he has. His part in the pilot film was only a few lines, and he was just one of many actors we considered. We picked him because he looked different." But the blond, 32-year-old Scot has, indeed, become the breakout star of the show, a man who embraces the mystery of his character in his personal life as well. "He has little of the actor’s vanity, pretension or self-delusion," and in a recent appearance of the network's Hullabaloo, he was never once referred to by his own name, but that of his character, an idea that came from him. He's uncomfortable with the attention from fan magazines, especially when they call him "cute" ("That’s an American word I hate. A litter of mongrel puppies is cute."), and he refuses any photo layouts including his wife Jill Ireland and their three sons. 

Considering that Robert Vaughn was supposed to be the Man from U.N.C.L.E., he'd seem to have every right to resent having to share the spotlight with McCallum, but such is not the case. "When it was pointed out that many actors would be unhappy in such a situation, Vaughn said, 'Maybe a lot of actors aren’t as secure as I am.' " Unlike McCallum, he's enjoying fame and its fringe benefits; "I'm surprised at the reaction—I never anticipated anything like this," he says, but he was always confident the show would be a hit. "I thought so from the beginning and told everybody so. Of course, I began looking red in the face that first January when they were going to cancel us." During the summer hiatus, he played "Hamlet" gratis at the Pasadena Playhouse, and continues to work at USC on his Ph.D. in the philosophy of communications.

Throughout the article, Raddatz scatters examples of letters the show's fans have written. (Letters—you remember what those were, don't you?) In one of them, a West Coast college student writes, "I feel that your program offers an escape from our problems. The cast has its problems, but they’re mostly of a child’s dream world of spies and counterspies." A student at the Bronx High School of Science wonders if there's anyone working for the show that they can talk to about patenting some of their own gadgets. And a couple traveling in the same plan as Robert Vaughn took a moment to scribble a note on the back of an air sickness bag and have the stewardess hand it to him: "May I invade your privacy to say thanks for being so gracious in giving your autograph the other night. It will be the most exciting thing we are taking back to our 18-year-old daughter." Perhaps that's what television needed, in 1966. Perhaps that's what we need more of today.

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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: Scheduled guests: singers Abbe Lane and Brenda Lee; ventriloquist Senor Wences; singer Jimmy Roselli; comedienne Jean Carroll; dancer Peter Gennaro; the rock ‘n’ rolling Young Rascals; and English comics Des O'Connor and Jack Douglas. (The actual guests included Walter Cronkite, the cast from "Wait A Minim" (South African dancers); The Magid Triplets, tap dancers; and The Olympiades, body builders. Jimmy Roselli did not appear.) 

Palace: Host Robert Goulet, star of Blue Light, introduces singer-dancer Chita Rivera; singer Nancy Sinatra; comic Jan Murray; the Muppets, puppets; comedy pantomimist Cully Richards; and the Nerveless Nocks, Sway-pole acrobats.  

Robert Goulet takes a break from his dramatic, non-singing role in the World War II spy series Blue Light to return to his strong suit, music. I've always liked him, especially his penchant for self-effacing humor (remember Bob Goulet's Cajun Christmas from the movie Scrooged, or his appearances on ESPN commercials as "Mr. G"?) Throw in Jan Murray, Chita Rivera, and the Muppets, and that's good enough to overcome a strong lineup from Ed. Once again, Mr. G delivers the goods, and a win for Palace.

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

By now, regular readers are pretty familiar with the debacle that was The Sammy Davis Jr. Show, which was covered here and here. Cleveland Amory is certainly aware of it; as this review went to press, NBC has already announced the show's cancellation. And while that's understandable, it's also unfortunate, because after a rough start that you'd never wish on your worst network enemy, The Sammy Davis Jr. Show has not only become good, it's started to fulfill its potential to become something approaching the BIGGEST THING EVER.

The problems with the show went beyond those we read about, especially the bizarre conflict that forced Davis to be absent from his own show for the episodes immediately following the premiere (which was, itself, a lame affair with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor). Building an hour-long show around one of the most dynamic performers in the business was, it seemed, a good idea at the time. To hear NBC talk about it, it would be, as Cleve suggested a moment ago, the BIGGEST SHOW EVER. But these kinds of things never pan out, primarly because (1) no one star can be that much bigger than everyone else (as Jerry Lewis, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland discovered with their own series; (2) nobody can be interesting enough to dominate a solid hour every single week (see, again, the examples in (1)); and (3) not every star can also produce a show. Add to that a subsequent lineup of guests from Milton Berle, to Frank Sinatra Jr. ("who is a poised and charming young man but no threat even to Sammy, let alone Sinatra Sr, as a singer."), and a group called "The Copasetics" ("about whom you couldn’t tell whether they were meant to be just funny or good. If the former, they weren’t funny enough—if the latter, they were too funny.") In this sense, the show was set up to fail. 

And that, Amory, is unfortunate, because "the plain fact is, though there were many things wrong with this show, there are many more things right with it—and it is getting better every week." He cites a recent dance routine that Davis did to Robert Preston's voiceover of "Trouble," or the "127th Street" number from Golden Boy that he did with Johnny Brown. In those cases, we got to see Sammy as he truly is, "as he should have been from the beginning—Mr. Wonderful." Unfortunate, indeed.

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In Henry Harding's For the Record, the A.C. Nielsen Company now admits that 55 of its sample homes were involved in a plot to increase the ratings of an unnamed show which aired on February 18. The plot involved questionnaries that had been mailed to Nielsen sample homes in "the populous 'east-central area' of the nation. The questionnaire asked for comments on certain commercials that would air on a particular show. "If the commercials were watched, the ratings of that show, of course, would go up." The company is not naming any suspects yet, but believe they're "reasonably well-directed," according to one of their lawyers. They also admit confusion as to how anyone could get ahold of the confidential list of Nielsen homes. It's all, they said, very mysterious.

Of course, you have to know that this wouldn't be good enough for me, and thanks to the internet, I can share with you the rest of the story. The suspect in question was Richard Sparger, a former reporter and former state legislature in Oklahoma, who'd once publicly claimed that he "could make a hit of a show that was a failure." The show in question was CBS's special, An Evening with Carol Channing.* Sparger had mailed the questionnaires, along with $3, to the 58 households, asking questions about the commercials that would appear on the Channing special. If viewers completed and returned the questionnaire, they'd receive another $5. Nielsen filed suit against Sparger for $1,500,000, charging "impairment of confidence in the accuracy of the measurement service and the security of the sample." He was also accused of having used privileged information gathered when he was serving as a congressional investigator of the ratings industry in 1963.

*One of the special's guests: David McCallum.

But the plot thickens. It turns out that Sparger had exchanged at least 40 phone calls with one Charles F. Lowe, who just happens to be the husband, manager, and occasional producer for—wait for it—Carol Channing. This little fact was uncovered by private detectives hired by Nielsen (why didn't we ever see a story like this on Mannix?) who also found out that a teller at Oklahoma City's Liberty National Bank had cashed a $4,000 check from Lowe to Sparger, and that, just before Nielsen filed suit against Sparger, he had called Lowe, saying "something like 'Santa Claus will take care of you' " for "clamming up" with investigators.

It didn't help that Lowe had previously denied having done business with Sparger; he also claimed that it was "ridiculous and incredible to believe that Carol Channing should need any help" in the ratings, and that even if he did have anything to do with such a plot, it was also ridiculous (although apparently not incredible) for him to have made the payoff by check. Sparger and Lowe turned down a plea deal from Nielsen that would have involved the company dropping the charges in return for Sparger admitting his guilt and Lowe paying $100 grand to offset the legal expenses; Sparger countered that Nielsen was harrassing his friends and neighbors, had forced the phone company to give them his private number, and was threatening to including his wife and a friend in the indictment 

In the end, Nielsen dropped the suit against Sparger in September after he conceded having approached Lowe with the idea, and admitted that he'd attempted the activity "for purposes of obtaining financial enrichment," that being including the results in a planned book entitled How to Rig the Ratings for Fun and Profit. (He also revealed that he had gotten the names by finding out the identities of contractors who serviced the meters placed on television sets, then following them as they called on the sample homes.) And people continued to suspect the ratings anyway.

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Here's a small item that would have been guaranteed to make readers feel just a little older: after eight seasons and 275 episodes, Donna Reed is saying goodbye to her eponymous sitcom, and even though she'd vowed she wouldn't cry when things had wrapped up, the moment got the better of her. Her husband, producer Tony Owen; Screen Gems VP Steve Blauner; and cast and crew gathered to pay tribute to Donna and wish she and Tony the best in the future. Her plans? "Oh, rest, travel—fun, fun, fun!" (Although I don't think her plans included a trip to Dallas.)

I include this because The Donna Reed Show, along with Ozzie & Harriet, are among the handful of shows to span two distinct cultural periods, starting in the black-and-white nuclear family era (that some say never really existed), and ending at the dawn of the technicolor times (although her show never made the transition to color) of assassinations, Vietnam, civil rights, sex and drugs, and just about everything else anthetical to what The Donna Reed Show epitomized. Ah, the times, they were a changin', weren't they?

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Basketball is the lead story on Saturday, with Texas Western taking on Kentucky for the 1966 NCAA Championship, live from College Park, Maryland. (7:00 p.m. PT, syndicated; the full game is available here.) It's one of the most significant games ever played in college basketball, as Texas Western becomes the first team ever to win the championship with an all-black starting lineup, defeating top-ranked (and all-white) Kentucky 72-65.* Kentucky's presence in the final makes the moment even more significant; their legendary head coach, Adolph Rupp, was also a staunch segregationist who resisted efforts by the university's president to integrate the team; Kentucky wouldn't dress a black player until 1970. Don Haskins, the coach at Texas Western (today called the University of Texas at El Paso), didn't care what color his players were as long as they could play; his assistant coach said "he'd have played five kids from Mars if they were his best five players." He was immensely proud of his players, and took personal offense at any racial attacks on them; of Rupp, he would say, "I had been listening to all this damn crap out of him, and it's a wonder I didn't say something to him about it. But I didn't." I think it's safe to say that sports has never been the same since.

*It was, in fact, the first time any major American sports championship had ever been contested between a team with an all-black starting lineup and a team that was all-white.  

Zero Mostel, whom we'll see again later in the week, stars in Sunday's Play of the Week presentation of "Waiting for Godot." (8:30 p.m., KVIE). Burgess Meredith and Kurt Kasznar co-star in this production, which originally aired in 1961, and which many consider to be the definitive version of Samuel Beckett's Theatre of the Absurd play. And you know what: you can see it here and decide for yourself. Considering television's spotty history of preserving its own history, I'm always excited to find out that a broadcast like this actually survives. In fact, though, there are several such examples in the shows that follow.

The classic medical series Ben Casey wraps up its five-season run on Monday. (10:00 p.m., ABC) A couple of notes on this episode: first, as you might know, Ben Casey was produced by Bing Crosby Productions, and—perhaps coincidentally—one of the night's guest stars is none other than Kathryn Crosby, playing a patient showing symptoms of brain damage. Second is that of the show taking over in this time slot next week: The Avengers, "a British comedy-adventure series." Also on Monday is the movie The Young Philadelphians (11:30 p.m., KXTV), a mediocre courtroom drama starring Paul Newman and Barbara Rush. I mention this because it also features our future man from U.N.C.L.E., Robert Vaughn, who steals the movie as an alcoholic murder defendant, for which he earns a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Tuesday night features Carol + 2 (8:30 p.m., CBS), one of Carol Burnett's periodic specials prior to her epononymous variety show (which starts in 1967); the "plus 2" are the aforementioned Zero Mostel and one of Carol's champions, Lucille Ball. (See part 1 here; links to the rest.) I don't remember that show, but I do remember the show that followed it later, a CBS News Special called "One of Our H-Bombs Is Missing" (10:00 p.m.), a report on the area in Spain where a B-52 crashed in January, and the U.S. Navy's search for the missing bomb. I wasn't yet six years old when this aired, and I have no particular idea as to why it would have interested me, other than that that I was interested in war stories, and I might have vaguely connected this somehow with the space program. It didn't scare me, I do know that. (The bomb was evenutally recovered in the Mediterranean in April.)

On Wednesday, Julie Andrews stars in a repeat of her special from last November, with special guests Gene Kelly and the New Christy Minstrels, and you can see it here. (9:00 p.m., NBC) After that, you can choose between a Something Special episode with Julie London and her husband, Bobby Troup, the Hi-Lo's, and bandleader Jerry Fielding (10:00 p.m., KXTV in Sacramento); or ABC's excellent documentary series Saga of Western Man presents "Beethoven: Ordeal and Triumph" (10:00 p.m.), written and narrated by John Secondari, with the voice of Beethoven provided by our other man from U.N.C.L.E., David McCallum. And just wait, it keeps geting better!

For Thursday, Burgess Meredith, whom we saw with Zero Mostel on "Waiting for Godot," is back in the conclusion of a Batman adventure that started last night. (7:30 p.m. both nights, ABC) This time, the Penguin insists that he's gone straight, and to prove it, he has his henchmen staging crimes so he can break them up. Will the frequently-gullible citizens of Gotham fall for this obvious scam? Sometimes, it seems as though they just don't deserve the Caped Crusaders. Later, Dean Martin hosts a stellar lineup of guests (10:00 p.m., NBC), including Imogene Coca, Jane Morgan, the Supremes, Jackie Mason, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and the tap dancing Step Brothers. (Here's a clip from Dean and the Supremes.) I think he's giving both Ed and the Palace a run for their money here.

There couldn't be any other choice for Friday than The Man from U.N.C.L.E. itself now, could there? (10:00 p.m., NBC) Tonight, it's "The Round-Table Affair," in which our heroes try to save the Duchy of Ingolstein from Prince Frederick, who's allowing the country to become a home to the Mafia. Valora Noland is the Grand Duchess, whom Solo tries to enlist; Reginald Gardiner is the Prince; and in a wonderful bit of casting, Bruce Gordon is Lucho Nostra, the head criminal.

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Agnes Scott College is a small, all-women's liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia, and on Sunday afternoon, March 6, 1966, they scored what Slate called "The Greatest Upset in Quiz Show History" when they defeated Princeton University in, literally, the last second to win what was probably the most famous episode ever of G-E College Bowl. Television being what it is, College Bowl was running on a two-week delay on KVIE, the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, where it was shown at at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 20. Regional issues of TV Guide being what they are, you could flip ahead a couple of pages to 5:30 p.m., where the NBC affiliates in San Francisco were showing today's College Bowl match between Parsons College, Fairfield, Iowa, and "the winner of last week’s match between Marietta (Ohio) College and Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Ga."—meaning, of course, that Agnes Scott would be defeating Princeton. So much for suspense, I guess, although I'd like to think that by this time, anyone living in Sacramento who really wanted to watch College Bowl would know by now not to get too many pages ahead.

*Agnes Scott's victory was a big-enough detail that it actually made The New York Times the next day.

But even though it's old news by this time, I wanted to mention this, not only because it's one of the great stories in TV history, but because it also provides a nice little bookend to that Texas Western story above. Agnes Scott, like Texas Western, was a little-known school taking on a prestigeous opponent that considered itself a class above the rest; carrying the analogy a step further, Princeton was, in 1966, still an all-male institution, and one couldn't miss noticing the similarities between the two schools, Princeton and Kentucky, neither one appearing to have yet adapted to the changing times. There had been David vs. Goliath upsets on College Bowl in the past, but none, before or after, seemed to capture the imagination of people quite the way this one did. Reading the Slate story, you'll be charmed, I think by the accounts of the four women competing for Agnes Scott, particularly the remarkable story of Karen Gearreald, Agnes Scott's first blind student, and her recounting of how the winning answer came to her in a millisecond.

There's one other similarity between that College Bowl broadcast and the NCAA Championship: the broadcasts of both still exist, and you can see that College Bowl broadcast here and find out how many answers you can come up with? I wonder how well the current Jeopardy champions would do?

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MST3K alert: Teenage Cave Man (1958). A young cave dweller in a primitive society questions the laws that govern his people. Robert Vaughn, Leslie Bradley, Darrah Marshall. (Saturday, 1:20 a.m., as part of KGO's All-Night Movie) Well, what would you expect after a cover story on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a Teletype item on The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Young Philadelphians, and Beethoven? Sure, Robert Vaughn considers it the worst movie ever made, but that didn't stop him from cashing the check, right? And anyway, it made him the man for MST3K, and who could ask for anything more? TV  

Around the dial

Saturday Night Life was a show that wasn't shown on the NBC affiliate back when I lived in the World's Worst Town™. This was back when the show debuted, so I was never sure whether the station thought it was too controversial, or simply wanted the revenue from showing old movies instead. At any rate, that was about 45 years ago, or around the same time that Garry Berman stopped watching it altogether. This week, he tells us why.

For years, we've been inundated with more television than anyone could possibly watch, thanks to the increase in streaming. But now, according to Mary Kate Carr at The A.V. Club, the end of Peak TV also means a decline in new television shows, by as much as 25%, if you can notice it. What does the future hold? It's a question we ask often, but nobody really knows the answer.

Kat Lively's latest episode of her podcast Calling Old Hollywood is now available, as she interviews screenwriter Neal Gumpel about Hollywood and the entertainment industry, films, AI, existentialism, the evolution (and censorship) of comedy, and other wide-ranging topics. You can see that episode here, along with past episodes, articles, and more. 

At Realweegiemidget, Gill looks at one of her favorites among the "retro television reunion film" genre, 1983's The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E., starring our heroes Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, with Patrick Macnee stepping in for the late Leo G. Carroll. It's one of the earliest of the reunion movies, and one of the most enjoyable; too bad it didn't result in a few more.

The Hitchcock Project continues unabated at bare•bones e-zine, with Jack reviewing the second and last contribution of Richard Fielder, 1963's "To Catch a Butterfly," starring Bradford Dillman, Diana Hyland, and Ed Asner. It's not just a gripping mystery, it is, as Jack says, "a fascinating look at parenting styles in America in the 1950s and 1960s," the kind of thing TV does so well.

The Broadcast Archives has a number of fascinating posts this week, including a 1949 Science Illustrated article (not written by AI, as Sports Illustrated might have done) on "What Every Family Wants to Know About Television," but I'm also recommending this look at Dave Garroway's pre-Today series Garroway at Large, an excellent example of the "Chicago Style" of television.

At Cult TV Blog, John continues his series of articles wondering if Patrick McGoohan's Number 6 was a plant, not a Prisoner, with the episode "Many Happy Returns." It's one of the series' more bizarre episodes, and looking at it from John's perspective makes it even more bizarre, but does it prove that Number 6 is a plant? You'll have to see for yourself.

Television Obscurities looks at a recent list from the Television Academy (the people who put on the Emmys) on the Top 75 Most Impactful Television Moments. Aside from my refusal to recognize "impactful" as a real word, I agree with Robert that it's nice to see a list that's not loaded with the recency bias that we see in so many of these lists. As always, YMMV.

Norman Jewison, the director whose works include the movies In the Heat of the Night, Rollerball, Fiddler on the Roof, and many more, died this week, aged 97. As Terence points out at A Shroud of Thoughts, Jewison also did a lot of television earlier in his career, particularly variety shows and specials. Quite a career, any way you measure it.

It seems like just yesterday that we were reading about Paul's journey through Season 1 of Bonanza, and already we're on to Season 2, as he recounts at Drunk TV. The legendary Western is hitting is its stride, and this season's episodes develops and expands on themes and characters introduced in the first season. It's already clear that Bonanza is not the average TV horse opera.

At The View from the Junkyard, Mike digs into "The Practical Joker," from the second season of Star Trek: The Animated Series. Romulans, gas clouds, practical jokes, and our first look at what is obviously The Next Generation's holodeck—what more, really, could anyone hope for from a 23-minute animated show? 

And finally, my friend Rodney Marshall has edited a new book, New Waves: 1980s TV In Britain, a collection of essays on the decade in British television drama. If that isn't enough, Maddy at Classic Film and TV Corner is one of the contributors, as she looks at The Gentle Touch, the first British series to feature a female police officer as the lead. Be sure to check it out. TV  

Around the dial

The great David McCallum died this week, aged 90. Although he had a long and successful run on the show NCIS, for many, he'll always be remembered as Illya Kuryakin on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the man given the seemingly impossible task of humanizing Robert Vaughn—and succeeding. He was, indeed, "ultra-cool," as Terence says in this fond appreciation of his career at A Shroud of Thoughts. 

In the "same church, different pew" category, we skip to Cult TV Lounge and the much-maligned The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., starring Stefanie Powers and Noel Harrison. In truth, the series had enough highlights that it wasn't a total waste, but it unfortunately arrived on the scene when its partner series was at its nadir, and the franchise build experiment ended after one season.

From spies to cowboys—at Television's New Frontier: the 1960s, we arrive at Gunsmoke in 1962, a year which sees the Western continue to evolve in a one-hour format, adds Burt Reynolds to the cast, and introduces another character that wouldn't become a regular for another year: Festus Haggen, played by Ken Curtis. 

From the definitive Western, we go to the definitive animated space opera, as Mike continues his look at the animated Star Trek with the episode "One of Our Planets is Missing" at The View from the Junkyard. I always did enjoy how it displays such continuity with the original series, and Mike rightly sees it as a continuation of TOS.

I write often about how prominent movies were during the fundamental days of classic television, and what would those days be without the science fiction and fantasy classics helmed by George Pal? Martin Grams reviews a new biography of Pal, George Pal: Man of Tomorrow, writen by Justin Humphreys; if you're a fan of his work, this book is for you.

At Drunk TV, Paul explores the third season of Dennis the Menace, which includes the sudden death of Joseph Kearns, the actor who played Mr. Wilson. What did it mean for the series to lose a character so important to the story? And how does Gale Gordon fare as Mr. Wilson's brother, in what looks to be a test for his future role as Lucille Ball's exasperated foil? Read all about it.

We've spent today mostly in the 1960s, so let's skip ahead a few years, as David continues his Comfort TV journey through 1970s TV with a stop at Saturday nights, 1972. It wasn't always sports and reruns on Saturday, as we see from a list that includes classics such as All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Mission: Impossible (all on CBS!), plus Emergency! and The Streets of San Francisco.

Cult TV Blog keeps us in the 1970s, as John kicks off his look at the decade with the corporate-intrigue drama The Organization,  and while you probably haven't heard of it, it was winner of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Television Drama Series in 1973. And by the way, John has a new address for the blog; be sure to make a note of it.

Finally, an interesting piece at the religion site Aleteia on how G.K. Chesterton explains why "prestige television" is boring. Agree or disagree, there are some provocative points to consider here, and some that you've read in comments here in the past. We know that not all classic TV is classic, but today's writers could do a lot worse that to look to the past to see what works. TV  

Around the dial

Most of today's commercials are—what would you say? Odes to crass materialism? Of course, that's always been a part of advertising. But sometimes a commercial can evokes an era long left behind, and at Comfort TV, David looks at one such commercial: the 1977 "Here's to good friends" commercial for Löwenbräu. I think you'll know just what David is talking about.

Christmas has produced more than its share of good times, at least for me, and at Christmas TV History Joanna continues her month-long look at some of those memories created by various adaptations of A Christmas Carol. Next up: Ebenezer, a 1998 Western-themed remake with Jack Palance as a terrific Scrooge.

At bare•bones e-zine, Jack continues the Hitchcock Project with the second of Charlotte Armstrong's scripts for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Sybilla," a domestic drama with a very big twist, starring Alexander Scorby and Barbara Bel Geddes.

John takes a break from his American Dream and The X-Files series at Cult TV Blog to watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the second-season episode "The Birds and the Bees Affair," an "insane" story about bees being used as killer weapons. Some of the ideas could have come right out of the CIA handbook. . .

We haven't heard from The Horn Section for awhile, so this week Hal makes up for it with a two-parter from Love That Bob's final season in 1959: "Bob Helps Martha," and "Bob Helps Von Zell." The great Rose Marie plays Martha in the first episode, while Harry Von Zell appears as himself in the second, as does George Burns. 

At Cult TV Lounge, we're up to a fine Tara King episode that I quite enjoyed: "The Interrogators," with Christopher Lee in terrific form as a sinister British office who may or may not be what he seems. Of course, any episode in which Steed gets to use his armored bowler hat is a guarantee.

Martin Grams has some book reviews for you in you're in the mood for some nice reading material. The five books in question are career bios of Betty White, Carol Lynley, Jeanne Eagels, Barbara Nichols, and Sylvia Sidney. A star and an era for just about anyone, I'd say.

Here's something from last week that I'm catching up on: at Television Obscurities, Robert celebrats "Lost TV Day" with a look at the programming shown on ABC on Thursday, January 12, 1961. This inclusive article shows just how difficult it can be to accurately research American television. It also shows how such a valuable archive was treated with so little care.

At  The View from the Junkyard, Roger reviews the Columbo episode "Murder in Malibu," one of the "new" Columbo episodes, and a rarity: a truly bad episode, featuring bad acting from almost everyone, a weak twist, and a case against the killer that's "falling apart at the seams, inside-out, back-to-front, and the label is showing." Ouch!

Travlanche celebrates the 110th birthday of Dave Garroway, and talks about his legacy in television history, especially Today. And if there's anyone who can tell you what that legacy is all about, it's my friend Jodie at Garroway at Large, who wrote the book on Dave. Her book, Peace, is a winner for anyone who wants to know more about both Dave Garroway and television history, and you can buy it here.

Finally, a link to my latest appearance on The Dan Schneider Video Interview. It's a real treat this week, as the aforementioned Martin Grams joins us to talk about The Twilight Zone, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to do so. You can view it here. By the way, things have been a bit busy here, so if you've left a comment on the blog and haven't seen a reply yet, I'll be doing those today. TV  

Robert Vaughn, R.I.P.

Robert Vaughn was made to play villains, so much so that even his good guys were smarmy. I mean, look at Napoleon Solo. When The Man from U.N.C.L.E. first debuted, Vaughn was clearly the star of the show - remember, it's original title was to be Solo - and there was something indelibly smug and superior about him. Yes, one could say that Sean Connery's James Bond had the same aura of superiority about him, but in Connery's case it was leavened by a certain self-awareness, the knowledge - even when the Bond movies were more serious than they became - that you couldn't really take it all that seriously. U.N.C.L.E., though, was always about the fantastic (even when it was more serious than it became), but you couldn't really tell it by looking at Napoleon Solo.* But then something happened: the Russian agent, Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum), who was intended to be little more than a bit part, struck a nerve with the TV audience - especially the young female segment - who thought Illya deserved a much bigger role. That may well have been the best thing to happen to Napoleon Solo.

*A fact of which you're probably all aware: the name Napoleon Solo came from the Bond story Goldfinger, and was gifted to the show by Ian Fleming, who was originally to have played a role in the development of the series. It was one of his two contributions, the other being the name "April Dancer" - which, of course, became Stefanie Powers' character in The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.

It is something of a testament to the entire U.N.C.L.E. crew - Vaughn, McCallum, the producers, directors and writers - that they rode with the changes brought by making McCallum's character a co-equal, and in so doing made The Man from U.N.C.L.E. a far better show, and Solo a far better character. The addition of Kuryakin brought another side to Solo, the humor that rounded the edges of his smug character, in time even producing a self-deprecating side that would never have been apparent otherwise. Perhaps it was the writing, perhaps it was the way McCallum and Vaughn seemed to click from the beginning, but from this came the Napoleon Solo that we all know and love. And yet -

You remember the smarmy, politically ambitious Walter Chalmers from Bullitt, for example. Frank Flaherty in Washington: Behind Closed Doors. His appearances in Columbo. That kind of character seems to fit Vaughn to a tee. Even in The Protectors, where as Harry Rule he again plays a good guy, there's still something smarmy and smug about him.*

*A quality he displayed off-screen as well, according to at least one source working on the series.

But Vaughn could turn that to his advantage as well, whether parodying his image, as he would many times (one could argue that his occasional appearances with Conan O'Brian were just that), or as in The Magnificent Seven, where his character Lee isn't particularly likable, but becomes suddenly vulnerable - and accessible - when his secret fear is exposed, working to his (and our) advantage. In his Oscar-nominated role as Chet Gwynn in The Young Philadelphians, he's on trial for murder, a jam from which only Paul Newman can rescue him. And when the smugness was in the background, then you could admire the urbanity and charm that was so often on display, and for which he was so well known. Most of all, no matter what role he was playing, he was seldom ever out of work - an extremely valuable knack when you're an actor.

Off-screen, he could display the same tendencies. He comes off as incredibly pretentious and self-important in a TV Guide profile where he talks about his close friendship with Robert Kennedy - adopting similar mannerisms to "Bobby" and decorating his office in the same style. I'll say this for him though; he was a true believer, one who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty in the political realm. He never would have been satisfied with making grandiose proclamations on Twitter. (I wonder how he felt after this election?) Other stories talk about him being difficult to work with, although Hollywood is one of those towns where everyone has an ax to grind.

If this all sounds somewhat negative, I don't mean it to be, because you can't be the star of a TV series I like a lot without earning some goodwill. And the truth of the matter is that I liked Robert Vaughn. It was easy enough when he played a character with likable tendencies, but even when he didn't, I could admire his considerable skill as an actor. I can't miss his living presence, because I didn't know him; I can't be too sorry that he won't appear in any new work, although he was still busy in this decade. But I can be grateful that so much of his work is preserved, such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - where he was never better than when he wasn't flying solo.

Don't mess with the Men from U.N.C.L.E., and other Friday night fun

As some of you might recall, last summer I started what I thought would be a nice little project to fill some time - sharing with you the classic TV lineups we watch in the evening. Unlike many, we don't binge-watch shows, nor do we tend to watch the same shows every night. No, being the anal person I am, we have a set lineup for the three or four nights a week when we just relax from the pressures of daily life and settle down to an evening of retro TV.

Well, you can see how well that worked. I finished Saturday and Sunday, and even then I'd abandoned the idea of profiling each show, instead doing the Sunday night lineup in one fell swoop. And then the whole thing just kind of went away, as I found other things more pressing - or should I say interesting? - to write about. In time, I forgot the idea altogether.

But, lo and behold, I find myself today with nothing particular to write about, and - lo and behold - the idea came to me. Why not just finish what you've started for once? I couldn't really argue with that logic, so here's another look into our viewing habits - this time for Fridays.


The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
During one of my frequent times of underemployment, when I was temping while between permanent jobs, I got an email from Deep Discount announcing their Deal of the Day. It was a boxed set of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., complete in the fake attaché case, for something like forty bucks. Well, even though we were really trying to avoid big expenditures while we were were living under a reduced income, that seemed too good to pass up. Other people apparently thought so as well, because when I clicked on the button, the set was already on back order. It did come eventually, and found a place leading off the Friday night lineup.

I never much watched U.N.C.L.E. when it was originally on, and I'm not sure why. I remember once being grumpy about there being nothing on TV, and my mother suggesting I watch that. I did, but I don't think I got much out of it. I was aware of it, of course, what with the books and games and comics and other tie-ins, but it didn't have a whole lot of appeal to me. Of course, by the time I picked it up, I was ready for it - it was firmly entrenched in the classic TV oeuvre, and right about in the middle of the timeframe to which I increasingly found myself attracted. I knew all about the disastrous third season, when the show ratcheted the camp level up to 11 or 12 to compete with Batman, but while there were a lot of stinkers in that season, it was still fun.

I've never been a big Robert Vaughn fan; to me, he epitomizes the word "smarmy," but he turns out to be perfect for Napoleon Solo - once the producers realized the appeal of David McCallum's Illya Kuryakin, that is. McCallum's serious nature and ruthless edge balanced Vaughn's oily charm well, so that even when they were stuck in the most ridiculous situations (think "The My Friend the Gorilla Affair"), they were a winning team. By the shortened fourth season, when the show was finally cancelled, the turn to more serious storylines was an effective one, and it's too bad it wasn't tried earlier; we might at least have gotten a complete season out of it.

In short, it's a great show to kick off a Friday night.


The Saint

Vincent Price played him on the radio, and George Sanders and (more recently) Val Kilmer (!) played him on the big screen, but for my money, there's only one Simon Templar, and that's Roger Moore.

It's tempting, and fun, to look at this as Moore's tryout for James Bond, but this is a show that should be enjoyed on its own merits. Simon Templar, professional thief turned Good Samaritan (and occasional Avenging Angel) is a fascinating character, particularly in the black-and-white episodes, when he comes across as a good deal more ruthless than most TV heroes of the time. He seldom gets ambushed from behind, he rarely ever gets taken in by a femme fatale, and whenever the plot takes a twist you didn't see coming, he already seems to have been two or three steps ahead.

A word about that ruthless streak: looking back to the original source material for the series, the novels by Leslie Charteris, we see that Templar is often cast as someone trying to right a past wrong, and that he's not above killing those he refers to as the "ungodly" in his pursuit of justice. That side of The Saint is toned down a bit in the color episodes, when the show starts to take on a more Bondian feel, but it's definitely there in the early episodes.

Personally, I can't think of anyone other than Roger Moore in this role. He's smooth and suave, dryly humorous, confident in the extreme (if I could bottle a tenth of that confidence and use it myself, I'd be home free), and always surrounded by beautiful women. He'd be a charming dinner companion, and definitely a man to have on your side, but would you want to cross him in a dark alley when you'd been up to something you shouldn't have been? Not on your life.


The Untouchables

I'm convinced the writers on this series must have loved writing for Frank Nitti, the character played so well by Bruce Gordon. Whenever Nitti makes one of his occasional appearances as Eliot Ness' nemesis, Al Capone's enforcer while Scarface is in prison, he threatens to overshadow the entire cast. He always gets the best lines (impatiently watching Telly Savalas' scheme to transport illegal booze by running it through an underground piping system, Nitti snarles, "If there ain't booze coming out of them three holes, Pete's gonna put three holes in each of you."), and often has the air about him of a put-upon executive having to deal with underlings who just don't have the smarts to get the job done. It's a magnificent job of nibbling around the edges of the scenery while preserving a sense of real menace.

Of course, you have to have a protagonist for a show like this to work, and Robert Stack's redoubtable Ness is perfect. Yes, he's wooden in the role, but that's the way Ness should be played. As is typical of the era, you seldom see Ness at home; aside from the fact that he's married and has a child (shown in the two-part pilot), you never know anything about his personal life. He's mostly humorless, but has inspired great loyalty among his team of Untouchables because of his personal dedication and honesty.

Who am I kidding, though. The main appeal of The Untouchables, at least for the first couple of seasons, is the unbridled violence. Almost every episode ends in a huge shootout with the bad guys being filled full of lead before flamboyantly pirouetting to their deaths, often with their own machine guns still blaring. Virtually every car chase ends in an explosion, preferably crashing into a vat full of booze, which in turn produces another explosion. People were horrified at the time, which is one reason why it was such a big hit. Today, the violence looks tepid compared to what we've grown accustomed to, but for the time, it was sensational. Because of pressure from Congress and public interest groups, it gets toned down, much to the show's detriment.

The Untouchables won't receive any history awards, and it may not be included in any Golden Age of Television. It's just fun.


Route 66
I've mentioned before that this is the first series that I've ever dropped from our regular rotation. I've revived it in the last month, partly because we're still in the third (of four) seasons and already have the discs, and partly because thanks to Shout! Factory, we'll be able to watch the final season without having to buy them.

Route 66 was always preachy, thanks in no small part to Sterling Silliphant (who, nonetheless, could still uncork a doozy of a script on occasion), and this story of two young men (Martin Milner and George Maharis) driving a Corvette around the country in search of adventure and the meaning of life, provides what James Lileks would call an "inadvertent documentary" on America in the late '50s and early '60s. It's a time when America was still a nation that produced things, when ethnic neighborhoods still existed in most large cities, when someone could still make a living using their hands, when college degrees weren't used as a gatekeeper for even the most minor job. It's a wonderful look at the architecture of the time, at how America was still, for the most part, a regional nation full of dialects and quirks and everything we think of when we talk about a "melting pot."

Milner and Maharis, as Tod Stiles and Buz Murdoch, make for a great team of opposites. Tod's the idealist, the college educated young man with a penchant for thinking he can save the world one person at a time; Buz's education came from the streets, the school of hard knocks. He grew up in an orphanage, has seen the other side of life, knows that there aren't always easy answers. Of the two, he's the more likable, the one it's easier to identify with. When he leaves the series midway through the third season, he's replaced by Vietnam vet Linc Case, whose quiet, often thoughtful demeanor is too much like Tod's to provide the contrast required.

In fact, Tod really got on my nerves after awhile, which is why I wound up putting the show on hiatus for a couple of years. Every episode became a crusade of sorts, trying to change someone (especially a lovely female), increasingly settling things with his fists, falling in love too quickly, sticking around and becoming involved while you're shouting at the screen, "run, run away fast, these people are crazy!" I know they're looking for adventure, but sometimes enough is enough. And that's too bad, because I think Martin Milner was by far the most likable person in the cast; Tod just rubs me the wrong way. Linc's started to grow on me a bit since resuming the series; still, I won't deny that I'll be glad to see them reach the end of the road.

Waiting in the wings: Naked City (replacing The Saint), The Eleventh Hour (replacing The Untouchables)

Recently concluded: The Avengers


Next up: Thursday, if I remember to get around to it!

Around the dial

For our 100th edition of Around the Dial, let's start off with a couple of science fiction notes.

At Cult TV Blog this week, there's a typically good review, this time of the early Doctor Who episodes as seen through the Lost in Time box set, which I happen to have.  The story of the scrapping of early Who is legendary, and the Lost in Time set contains the surviving scraps from incomplete shows.  It's recommended "to the Whovian or sixties TV fanatic only", and since I qualify on both counts, I heartily endorse it!

Continuing the sci-fi theme, for those of you who've suspected I overthink some of these shows, try this on for size: Timothy Sandefur's article in The Claremont Review of Books on "The Politics of Star Trek."  Not surprisingly, I love articles like this, whether I agree with them or not.  If I could, I'd probably write a whole book like this, unless one of you good readers out there stopped me.

I'm very jealous that Amanda of Made for TV Mayhem has a new podcast series.  It's something I've thought about from time to time, and might even implement at some point since my verbal rants are often as entertaining as my writing (well, to me at least), but for now I'm afraid I'll have to stick to other people's works.  (And I love that Movie of the Week music!)

David at Comfort TV has some kind words about yours truly, so I'm happy to return the favor with his tribute to Yvonne Craig, whom I wrote about following her death.  David just has a way of summing things up with a very few words, and his description of her "magical magnetism" just about says it all.

One of the series that I didn't really pay much attention to in its day was The Man from U.N.C.L.E.   I remember seeing it when I was a kid, but not really watching it, if you know what I mean.  Now, if you've been reading me for awhile, you probably know that it's part of my weekly viewing, and so I figure better late than never.  Secret Sanctum of Captain Video has part 3 of a very good series on the movies made from the series - all of which are probably better than the current screen version (with no insult to Guy Ritchie intended.)

The "Year in TV Guide" series at Television Obscurities is winding down, but not before we visit the issue of September 4, 1965.  It's an issue I'd really like to have myself, since it's from North Texas, and I'm eager to add more of my new hometown's issues to those of my old hometown.  And what could be better than to have Bonanza on the cover?  Be sure you read these recaps; they are brilliant!

As always, I seem to be apologizing for the brevity of these roundups, and it's been a couple of weeks since I've done one at that.  I'll try to do better in the future, but for now check out these and all the blogs I have listed on the sidebar.  See you tomorrow! TV  

Around the dial

I'd been hoping for more from the new Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie, although I don't know why; very few of the TV-to-movie translations have done justice to their small-screen brethren.  Based on the commercials and the early reviews, I'd already decided to give it a pass, and my opinion was confirmed based on this insightful AV Club piece by Sarah Kurchak, which not only explains what the movie gets wrong, but also gives us some perspective on why David McCallum will always be Illya Kuryakin, no matter how many years NCIS runs.  For U.N.C.L.E. fans, it's a reminder of (or a lesson on) just how provocative, how groundbreaking, Kuryakin's character really was.

Cult TV Blog has another typically good article, this one returning to a favorite stomping grounds (for us both), The Prisoner, and how various episodes - in this case, A, B and C - give us echos of South African apartheid.  There's a particularly good line here - "it seems that it is possible to see almost anything referred to in The Prisoner is you try hard enough" - that, for me, sums up both the greatness of The Prisoner, and the pleasure I get in writing about television and culture.  Because things like cultural indicators do show up when you look for them, and the excitement is often in seeing how the thread plays out.

David Hofstede has a wonderfully wry piece at Comfort TV on The Lawrence Welk Show, both echoing my own memories of the show ("I grew up with the series, but like many in my generation it was against my will."), and providing an intriguing explanation for why the show has always been popular, and why, no matter when it was on, it always seemed to be old-fashioned.  The money quote:

From my current perspective the 1970s seem like a kinder, gentler time. But many seniors back then were convinced the world was going to hell. The popular music of the day was like a foreign language to them, and the nightly news brought stories of Vietnam War protests and Watergate and gas shortages and American hostages held in Iran, while a feckless government had no answer for what Ted Koppel called “terrorism in the Middle East.”

That's the definition of Comfort TV.  What series from today would you choose to fit that bill?

Classic television fans will remember Will Jordan from his many variety show appearances.  He was a terrific impressionist, especially of Ed Sullivan, and he's also a very interesting interview subject.  Kliph Nesteroff has been giving us excerpts of his interviews with Jordan for some time over at Classic Television Showbiz, and the latest installment is no exception.  I particularly enjoyed reading Jordan's perceptive perspectives (try saying that five times fast!) on other stars from the era.  I hope you'll read this one, and then go back to look at previous segments.

This week's Classic TV Guide at Television Obscurities is from August 21, 1965, and I'll really miss this series when it's concluded.  It's been a great way to follow an entire television season, and it does such a good job of demonstrating TV Guide's look and feel.  I love the story about Volkswagen executives listening to a pitch to advertise on the WWII drama Twelve O'Clock High, just at the moment when our heroes bomb a German factory.

Perhaps shorter than usual, but the long-form articles should give you more than enough to read until tomorrow, when I'll be back when a TV Guide of my own. TV  

Around the dial, from A to Z

Happy Friday, and happy reading, as we take a quick look around at some of the more interesting articles at the television blogosphere.  And by the way, if you either have a TV site or know of one that isn't included in the sidebar list, please send me an email or mention it in the comments section - I'm always on the lookout for good stuff.

At Christmas TV History, Joanna reviews a fun Christmas episode from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  Friday night is U.N.C.L.E. night on Hadleyvision, and it's been fun even though we're now in the dreadful third season.  By chance, we saw this Christmas episode at Christmastime last year (although I think I might have had to manipulate the order by an episode or two to pull it off), and Joanna is spot on.  The clips of the Macy's parade alone make the episode worth it - all the references to shows of the time!

Amanda at Made for TV Mayhem is starting a podcast, co-hosted by Dan R. Budnik, co-author of Bleeding Skull: A 1980s Horror-Trash Odyssey,   Sounds like fun listening, something to add to your podcast links.

A nice reminiscence of Jule Huffman, host of the kids show Mr. Cartoon in Huntington, West Virginia, at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  I'm not familiar with the show myself, of course, but in Ivan's lookback I can see all the local kids shows of my own youth, and the hosts who made them so special.  A lost part of television, to be sure, but a lost part of the childhood experience as well.  You can read more about these shows in Tim Hollis' great Hi There Boys and Girls!

In my Monday listings, I often talk about local TV stations that were split affiliates, offering programs from two (or more!) networks.  The Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland has an add for one of them, WAPI in Birmingham.  Interesting that from '63 to '65, Huntley-Brinkley was the only national news broadcast seen in Birmingham.

I haven't watched Saturday Night Live for decades, but All Things Kevyn has a very good list of every SNL cast member from the beginning, ranked from worst to best.

Speaking of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. as we were earlier, this week's TV Guide review at Television Obscurities features the show's stars, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, on the cover.  As seems to be so often the case, although the picture is of the two of them, the article only profiles one - in this case, McCallum (my favorite of the two), who's certainly had a long and successful career in television.

And The TV Guide Historian has an example of two ads that disappeared from the magazine sometime, I'd guess, in the late '60s or early '70s -  a movie playing at a local theater, and a local restaurant.  By the '70s, the ads were solely for TV shows, although I think the stray astrologer ad still featured.  They introduced a classified section sometime not long before I cancelled my subscription. TV