This week in TV Guide: September 23, 1967

That's a great cover, isn't it? So vivid and alive with color. Television loved color in the 1960s, in a way it doesn't today. It's natural, considering how the networks were transitioning to full color in the late 60s, but programs exploited it, made the screens burst it a technicolor swirl that automatically anchors those shows in the decade. 

But we're not here to talk about the cover—it's the group on the cover that counts, that group being The Monkees; and this week Dwight Whitney takes us behind the scenes to document the Prefab Four's battle with the Powers That Be over control of their own music, their careers, their lives. For as Whitney points out, "the marvelous alchemy of TV converted them into the hottest new act in show business—an accomplishment rendered all the more remarkable by the fact that the boys could not play their instruments well enough to record the hit tunes that made them famous. Someone else did it for them." 

That is, of course, the story, Not as scandalous as the Milli Vanilli lip-synch scam would be, because it would be an open secret that The Monkees didn't do their own playing. And it wasn't as if the boys themselves were trying to pull one over; they were the ones pushing to do their own thing. As Whitney points out, "what they really craved was that good old-fashioned 'straight' attribute—acceptance." They were successful, to a point: they were producing hit records, they were making money for everyone concerned: the studio, record producer Don Kirshner, series creators Bert Schneider and Robert Rafelson, the network. Even the boys themselves—"corporate pawns," as one record producer describes them—make money, a whole $500 a week. And at first, they were content. But as they looked at their peers, groups like The Beatles, The Byrds, The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, and The Mamas and the Papas, groups that were admired by the musical world, they felt like clowns.

An incident in late June, 1966, demonstrates the challenges the series faced even before it hit the airwaves. It was an NBC affiliate gathering held at Hollywood's famed Chasen's restaurant. The head writers had written a sketch for them to perform before the executives, but the boys, whom Whitney describes as "Young, frightened, confused, [and] entirely unschooled in the nuances of handling a big success," decide to do something else entirely. Dolenz finds the restaurant's switch box and turns off all the lights. They horsed around with the microphone. They didn't sing, since they didn't have any instruments—"we were afraid to let 'em try to play," explains a behind-the-scenes participant. The affilates, already in a bad mood because things were running late, weren't impressed by "a bunch of smart-aleck kids." One executive was overheard to say on the way out, "That's The Monkees? Forget it." As a result, Whitney says, at least five key stations failed to pick up the show, with a resulting impact on the ratings.

That was only one of their problems. Kirshner relates his thoughts on first hearing the gang's sound. "They were loud. It was not the right sound, Not a young, happy, driving, pulsating sound of today. I wanted a musical sex image. Something you’d recognize next time you heard it." Davy, he felt, was good "for musical comedy," while Mike was the weakest singer of the four. On "Last Train to Clarksville," the music was performed by songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and a handpicked group of professional musicians. Micky did the lead vocals, while Davy and Peter sang some background, Mike wasn't on it at all. When they tried Mike on the lead for "I'm a Believer," Kirschner remembers, "We had to take him off." 

By September, "Last Train to Clarksville" was at the top of the charts, while the series itself was near the bottom of the Nielsens. Tension was palpable at the studio, where Schneider had succeeded in alienating employees and reporters alike with his autocratic attitude. The New York Times was about to write a story on the boys' "musical ineptitude." Kirshner was, in Whitney's describes as "[apparently unwilling] to treat them as anything but overgrown children," and was making a ton of money off of them in the process. 

And the boys themselves were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the whole thing. They were tired of being called "corporate pawns," tired of being taunted by musician friends and ridiculed by the press as "the rock ’n’ roll group that didn’t rock and didn’t roll." They had four Gold Records to their credit, each one representing a record that had sold a million copies, but, as Nesmith complained, "The music on our records has nothing to do with us. It’s totally dishonest. We don’t record our own music. Tell the world we’re synthetic because, dammit, we are! We want to play our own."

A showdown was inevitable. By January 1967, the boys had made their demands: from now on, they wanted to play their own music and choose their own songs, reducing Kirshner's role to than of an overseer. Kirshner tried to tell them the facts of the business, but Mike retorted with his own facts: "Donny, we could sing 'Happy Birthday' with a beat and it would sell a million records. [Your argument] is no longer valid because we are The Monkees and we have that incredible TV exposure." Absent this, he threatened to "pack up my gear, go to Mexico or Tahiti, eat coconuts and let everybody sue me." The other three fell in line behind him; as they left, Nesmith smashed his fist through the wall of Kirshner's bungalow. Later, he would say, "[I]t's horrible to be No. 1 group in the country and not be allowed to play your own records." 

The "ever-realistic" Kirshner didn't believe the group's threats. But Schneider did. The studio did as well. And less than a month later, Kirshner was out, albeit with a $35 million lawsuit to show for his estimation of how much he was worth to them. They returned from vacation to a sound-recording stage, where their new album, "Headquarters," would be, "for better or worse, all theirs." And, sure enough, it's right there at the top of the charts, one notch below The Beatles. For Nesmith, the moment came when he heard "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" on the car radio. He honked the horn for his wife and friends to come out. "Hey," he yelled, "want to sit in on a moment in history?"

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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: Ed's scheduled guests: the Mamas and the Papas, comedians Jack Carter and John Byner, singers Florence Henderson and Ed Ames, balancers Jorgen and Conny, balancing act Jean Claude, and puppet Topo Gigio.

Palace: Host Sammy Davis Jr. presents Diana Ross and the Supremes, comedians Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, actress Raquel Welch and jazz dancer Baby Lawrence. Sammy engages in a tap-dancing duel with Baby Lawrence, whom Sammy appeared with in the Forties at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater. Jack and Avery do a take-off on TV talk shows,

As most of you probably know, The Ed Sullivan Show was generally shown live (except for reruns), which means that the guest lineups are subject to change right up to the time of broadcast. Despite knowing this, I've simply copied the listings from TV Guide into this feature. Well, after all, this is about TV Guide, so what would you expect. But no more! Starting this week, I'm deferring to the online episode guide to provide you with the official Ed Sullivan lineup, and a more accurate matchup against the prerecorded Hollywood Palace. Why, you may ask, am I changing my ways after nearly 15 years? To tell you the truth, I don't know. Maybe I'm just bored. As it is, there was only one major change to this week's lineup, with Ed Ames appearing instead of Jerry Vale, and the additions of balancer Jean Claude and Topo Gigio. It's not enough to catch up to Sammy Davis Jr., the Supremes, Raquel Welch and Baby Lawrence, though. This week, Palace dances away with the prize.

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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. 

Based on what we know of Cleveland Amory's likes and dislikes, you might have expected him to have some harsh words about ABC's new sitcom, The Flying Nun. And if you'd expected that, you would have been wrong, because Cleve finds it to be "an altogether delightful fantasy," thanks to the best maker of television comedies around, Harry Ackerman (Bewitched, Occasional Wife, and Love of a Rooftop to name three).

The Flying Nun is a difficult program to assess in retrospect. It is very much of its time, said time being a very dark one for the Catholic Church. Sally Field's flying Sister Bertrille is, as Amory describes her, a "new nun," one who has already been arrested for joining in various protests; that new nun and her focus on social justice rather than spirituality exemplifies the near-total collapse in religious vocations worldwide since the close of the Second Vatican Council. (There were more than 180,000 nuns in the United States alone in 1965, the approximate time during which Sr. Bertrille would have begun her discernment; today, there are fewer than 42,000.) We're not here to discuss theology, though; that's for another time and another place; it is, however, interesting to catch a series that so utterly captures a moment in history. Except, that is, for flying nuns; I'm not sure even the most liberal orders were able to accomplish that, especiallyt after they got rid of their good habits and picked up some bad ones.

But I digress, as I am often wont to do. The success of The Flying Nun rests in large part on Field, who plays her role "cunningly, if sometimes too cutely," and she's aided by Madeleine Sherwood as the crisp Mother Superior, Marge Redmond as Sister Jacqueline, and Sister Sixto, played by Shelley Morrison. And we can't forget about Carlos, the island's playboy, who is "extremely well portrayed" by Alejandro Rey. The production values are top-flight (I couldn't resist that), the stories are charming and played relatively straight, and Field has added a fine singing voice to her other talents. The only flaw Amory can find: the pilot was a full hour, whereas regular episodes are 30 minutes, "which, in our judgment, in a show as good as this, is too short." You can take the premise or leave it, but it you take it, The Flying Nun will give you quite a ride; as Cleve says, "This has lift and thrust, and it never drags."

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Speaking of flying nuns and other oddities, the first returns on the new season are in. Networks don't put a lot of stock in these overnights, given that many viewers are still sampling the new shows; one network researcher called them "just garbage." Ad agencies, dealing with millions in clients' money, are inclined to wait a month or so to start pronouncing winners and losers; nonetheless, the Doan Report delivers the initial takes on the newcomers, delivered off-the-record from one savvy ad exec. Like Cleveland Amory, he sees The Flying Nun as "one of the sure hits," along with the "extremely well-done" Ironside, Garrison's Gorillas ("thanks to the movie The Dirty Dozen"), and N.Y.P.D. On the down side, The Carol Burnett Show "Hasn't got a prayer," nor does Dundee and the Culhane, Off to See the Wizard, and The Jerry Lewis Show ("A bomb, despite a good rating.") The influential BBD&O ad agency, using computerized data, concurs on Gorillas and Ironside as likely hits, and adds The High Chaparral, Good Morning World, and He & She. The misses include Carol and Jerry, Dundee, The Second Hundred Years, The Mothers-in-Law, and Hondo. 

It's always easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to make fun of these pundits. The Carol Burnett Show turned out to be one of television's all-time variety hits, revered to this day, but it's good to remember that Cleveland Amory wasn't all that sold on it when it premiered either. A lot of critics praised He & She, but viewers didn't; today, it's considered to have been a show ahead of its time. Garrison's Gorillas only ran for one season, one of the series hurt by the backlash against television violence, while The Jerry Lewis Show and The Mothers-in-Law at least made it to two seasons. Of the shows mentioned, the biggest hits turned out to be Ironside, which ran for eight seasons, and The High Chaparral, which survived for four. The Flying Nun? Well, that flew along for three seasons, even though it never made it into the Nielsen top 30.

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Another hallmark of the new season is the rollout of big-money theatrical movies, for which the networks shelled out plenty of dough, and there's plenty of evidenc of that this week, starting with NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies, which premieres the debut of Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther (9:00 p.m.) Clouseau isn't the focal point of this initial offering, which features a big-name cast including David Niven, Robert Wagner, Claudia Cardinale, and Capucine; it's Sellers who makes the impact, though, with Judith Crist calling him "a comic genius" who plays "one of the most ingratiating and funny fools to have come our way." He enlivens "an otherwise faltering film" in which "everything seems wrong" whenever he's not on screen.

The 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, with a three-and-a-half hour running time, is too big to fit into ABC's regular Sunday Night Movie slot, so it's been labeled as a "special", with a starting time that's an hour earlier than normal. (8:00 p.m.) The problem with this troubled production, says Crist, is the performance of Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian—"uneven, foppish, hitting dramatic high spots too seldom"—but you'll be impressed by Trevor Howard's Captain Bligh, with "a bite and brutishness beyond Laughton’s pudgy sadism" of the original.

CBS, not to be outdone, rolls out a pair of relative "oldies" making their television debuts: 1958's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Thursday, 9:00 p.m.), featuring intense performances by Paul Newman and Elizbeth Taylor, and a dominating performance by Burl Ives as Big Daddy; Ives missed out on a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Cat only because he was too busy winning Best Supporting Actor that same year for The Big Country. The network's second premiere, the following night, is of Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 masterpiece, North by Northwest (9:00 p.m.), starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Mount Rushmore, and a very nasty crop duster. And don't forget Martin Landau as the very nasty bad guy trying to knock Cary off Honest Abe.

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There's more than just movies to the week, starting Saturday with The Jackie Gleason Show (7:30 p.m., CBS) and an hour-long "Honeymooners" musical that sees the gang in trouble after Ralph helps catch a wanted criminal. Sheila MacRae, who plays Alice, tells Edith Efron that it hasn't been easy taking over from the legendary Audrey Meadows: "I just couldn’t get Alice Kramden at first. Does she have nothing to do all day but yell at Ralph?" she says. "It’s the antagonistic quality against men I can’t get. I'm a worshipper of men. Audrey could look Ralph in the eye and give him hell. I can’t do that. To me, the male image is not to be torn down. I have a hard time saying some of those lines." She's been criticized for being "over-sweet" in the role, but Jackie himself is pleased; "The very fact that I’ve rehired her means that I like her very much. She can continue to play Alice as long as she wants to."

Sunday, G-E College Bowl returns for its 10th season, as the University of Wisconsin takes on Valpariso University; Robert Earle brings you all the live action (5:30 p.m., NBC). Later, as a warm-up to Mutiny, JonathanWinters hosts Holiday on Ice (7:00 p.m., ABC), the touring ice show; you'll be familiar with this kind of show if you remember those Ice Capades shows that NBC used to present. Whether or not you consider Winters to be the highlight of the show depends on how big a fan you are of ice skating.   

On Monday, Danny Thomas's drama anthology series (which our anonymous ad exec pronounced "Very disappointing") presents "The Scene" (9:00 p.m., NBC), with Robert Stack as a successful businessman who takes an opportunity to return to his first love, art, and finds himself immersed in the "now" world of hippies and bohemians at an art colony. Geraldine Chaplin, Charlie's daughter, plays the single mother he befriends, while Michael J. Pollard and everybody's favorite beatnik, Victor Buono, co-star. It's hard to know whether or not the show's portrayal of "the scene" is as wince-inducing as is usually the case in shows like this, but I wouldn't be surprised. If that concerns you, don't hesitate to skip it in favor of tonight's episode of The Big Valley (9:00 p.m., ABC), which features guest star Milton Berle.

Berle's back on Tuesday in an I Dream of Jeannie filmed in Hawaii (7:30 p.m., NBC), where he plays a conman trying to bilk Jeannie out of her scarab pin that was a gift from King Tut. Meanwhile, it's an all-Jerry Lewis night on NBC; first up is the comedian's eponymous variety show (8:00 p.m.), with guests Nanette Fabray and Al Hirt; that's followed by Jerry in The Errand Boy (9:00 p.m.), a movie which he directed and co-wrote in addition to being the star. Judith Crist, never a Lewis fan, says it "gets off to a funny start and then settles into the sort of self-indulgence that made Lewis the darling director of the French critics." Don't agree with her assessment of Jerry, but I love the slam on the French.

We're out of Milton Berle appearanes on Wednesday, which means we'll have to settle for Joan Collins as "The Lady From Wichita" in The Virginian (7:30 p.m., NBC); actually, she's one of two ladies, the other being played by Rose Marie. Doug McClure's Trampas stars in this episode, which sounds appropriate for its whimsical tone. That's followed at 9:00 by Kraft Music Hall's tribute to the Hollywood musical, hosted by Rock Hudson, with Connie Stevens, Bobby Van, and Michele Lee; you can see a clip of it here.

Ready for more Joan Collins? Besides The Virginian, she's also on Thursday's Batman (7:30 p.m., ABC) as The Siren, who's hypnotized millionaire Bruce Wayne; Batgirl and Robin try to break the spell. And thus we can crown Adam West as the luckiest man of the week, having Joan Collins and Yvonne Craig fighting over him. Later, we get a chance to see Jack Lord commiting crimes instead of fighting them; a year before Hawaii Five-O, he plays a crime czar (or is that tsar?) in Ironside (8:30 p.m., NBC) And on F. Lee Bailey's short-lived interview show Good Company (10:00 p.m., ABC), the lawyer interviews Sean Connery. 

In case you were hoping to see someone else double-dipping this week besides Milton Berle and Joan Collins, you're in luck: on Friday, Ironside's Don Mitchell guest stars on Tarzan (7:30 p.m., NBC) in a tale of two escaped convicts out to kill Tarzan and a native chief; George Kennedy and Yaphet Kotto round out a pretty impressive guest cast. And if you've got the stamina to stay up late, the second half of KRON's late-night double feature (1:00 a.m.) is Zero Hour!, the war drama that served as the basis for the all-time comedy classic Airplane!, with Dana Andrews as Lieutenant Ted Stryker.

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MST3K alert: The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958) The severed head of an Elizabethan sailor is found in a centuries-old chest—still alive and exercising an evil power. Andra Martin, William Reynolds, Carolyn Kearney. (Saturday, 1:10 a.m., KXTV in Sacramento) I won't deny it; you're in for a long, hard road with this one. Fortunately, William Reynolds, who plays our hero, goes on to a long and successful career with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in The FBI. It just goes to show that good things come to those who wait, and bad things can die—just not quickly enough. TV  

This week in TV Guide: January 28, 1967

Sometimes—perhaps most times—even when you're able to watch a program from 50 or 60 years ago it can be difficult to recapture the impact that show must have had on viewers at the time. After all, times change, people change. 

Take, for instance, Sunday's episode of CBS Playhouse, the network's successor to the fabled Playhouse 90*. Set in 1963, "The Final War of Olly Winters" stars Ivan Dixon as an Army sergeant serving as a United States military adviser in South Vietnam at a time before American soldiers had been committed to combat.

*Unlike the original, CBS Playhouse aired on an occasional basis (only twelve were shown over the three years that the show ran; it was dropped for lack of sponsorship).  

A couple of points about this: first, it's a neat trick to set the story in 1963, before Vietnam had become so polarizing. By the late 1960s, war protestors were vilifying American soldiers as war criminals, baby murderers, and the like. By doing this, I wonder if Ronald Ribman, the author of the play, wasn't trying to create some distance in order to make it easier for Winters to be accepted as a protagonist by the audience. I'm not attempting to psychoanalyze Ribman or his motives, but it does seem logical that making it a period piece by only four years would make sense. 

What I was really thinking about, though, was the casting of Ivan Dixon as Winter. Dixon was far from being unknown (he'd appeared in many movies and television shows, including a memorable appearance on The Twilight Zone in "The Big Tall Wish." At this point, however, he's been on Hogan's Heroes for nearly two full seasons, playing Staff Sergeant Kinchloe; Olly Winter is also a staff sergeant. Same rank, same uniform, same mustache. Surely viewers (and there were 30 million of them) would have been alerted by the TV Guide description that they were going to see something far different from Hogan. Still, look at him in that picture. Consider that he's been a soldier for 20 years—since 1943. Sure, Kinch would have been promoted for his heroic service in Stalag 13, but in some way you might have thought of Winter as Kinch, but in a very, very different story. I don't want to make too fine a point there, but you have to admit that it's kind of unnerving to see an actor playing a role that, on the exterior, looks so similar to the role in which we know and love him. And don't forget that he's playing Kinch at the time; as a matter of fact, you could have seen him on Hogan's Heroes just 48 hours earlier, Friday night at 8:30 p.m. 

In addition to Dixon, who will be nominated for an Emmy for Best Actor for his brilliant performance, "Olly Winter" boasts top credentials; Paul Bogart, the director, had already won an Emmy for The Defenders and he'll get a nomination for Best Director for this as well. (He was also nominated for directing sitcoms like All in the Family and The Golden Girls; hell, he could have directed an episode of Hogan's Heroes!) Fred Coe, the producer, had also done Playhouse 90. And the music was by Aaron Copland. "The Final War of Olly Winter" is a critical as well as popular success; I wish this had led to even more dramas of this type.

CBS would make one final effort in the early 1970s to bring back the dramatic anthology concept, this time resurrecting the Playhouse 90 title in its entirety (as well as the opening music and graphics); CBS Playhouse 90 would air a number of quality plays, including Ingmar Bergman's "The Lie" and Brian Moore's "Catholics." "The Final War of Olly Winter" isn't available commercially or online, but it can be seen at the Paley Center in New York or the UCLA Film & Television Archive in L.A. It's probably the thousandth show I have on my list to watch at places I'll likely never get to.

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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 you think of The Jackie Gleason Show, what comes to your mind first? Is it The Honeymooners, the classic sitcom? Is it the 1950s variety show, on which the Honeymooners sketches first appeared? Is it The American Scene Magazine, Gleason's 1962 return to weekly television? Or is it the show that Cleveland Amory reviews this week, which originates from "The Sun and Fun Capital of the World," Miami Beach and brings The Honeymooners back as a regular feature? If you're like me (and, once again, I hope you aren't), this is the version you're most familiar with. And it's a good thing, Cleve says, because this show, which has for too long been too average, is now "not only as bright comedy as is available anywhere on your dial, but it is also, at its best each week, a full-scale musical comedy."

Key to the show's evolution has been the reunion of Gleason with his Honeymooners on a regular basis—not just the great Art Carney, who makes The Great One "a great deal Greater," but the additions of Sheila MacRae as Alice (who, in her first continuing TV role, shows herself "not only a fine actress but a terrific reactress") and Jane Kean as Trixie ("both singer and swinger"), to make what Amory calls "a winsome foresome and then some." The idea of making The Honeymooners into a musical comedy (which, I'll admit, would not have occurred to me) has been transformational; the songs by Lyn Duddy and Jerry Bresler "are, if not Broadway caliber, so close to it that, when you consider they are turning them out week after week, even more remarkable than Broadway."

The show isn't perfect; Amory finds that the characters of Ralph and Norton are still "unnecessarily crude," a critique that many will agree with today; and, he says, "too many of the routines are routine," although my personal opinion always was that by (for example) sending the Kramdens and Nortons on adventures around the world, they were straying too far from the skit's original concept. But I suppose the tenements of New York don't lend themselves to all that many musical storylines, unless you're making West Side Story. All in all, Cleve concludes, "when you see wonderful episodes like Ralph being blackmailed by a senorita or being duped into becoming a Santa Claus bookie, somehow you like the show the way it is—warts and all."

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Now that the inaugural Super Bowl (and yes, that's what TV Guide has called it) is over, Stanley Frank is here to answer the big question: no, not which league is best, but which network won the TV game—CBS, with their broadcasting team of Ray Scott, Jack Whittaker, and Frank Gifford, or NBC's long-running announce booth of Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman.

As you probably know, both networks televised the game, with an agreement that they would alternate coverage of future games. With the largest U.S. audience ever to watch a sporting event on the line, the stakes were high. During the regular season, CBS outdrew NBC by two to one, which isn't surprising considering the NFL is not only the more established league but has the larger television markets; it was thought that CBS needed to win by about five ratings points in order to show it had retained its core audience, while NBC needed to keep things close or else they'd have trouble selling the AFL to advertisers next season.

As is typical when ratings are involved, there was good news for everyone. According to the Arbitron overnight figures, CBS scored a "smashing" victory, drawing 59 percent of the football audience and besting NBC by more than seven points; NBC countered with Nielsen figures that showed them trailing CBS by only 1.2 points in the critical New York City market. (The final ratings: CBS won the Nielsens 22.6 to 18.5, and the market share 43-36.)

How did the announcers do? Frank's analysis is that NBC's Gowdy betrayed his rooting interest in the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs, "flout[ing] the objectivity a reporter is supposed to observe," but he did inject excitement into the game while the score was still close. (I don't find that unexpected, considering that Ray Scott, who did the first half of the game for CBS, is known for his minimalist, "just the facts" style of play-by-play.) The NFL's Green Bay Packers made Gowdy look bad several times; after proclaiming that "Green Bay's famed ground game has been stopped!" Gowdy watched as Green Bay's Jim Taylor rolled 14 yards on the ground for a touchdown. He was, Frank says, "a prophet without honor and a partisan without a winner." Better was Gowdy's color analyst, Paul Christman, and it's too bad that more aren't familiar with his work today. He was the first announcer with the ability to, in Frank's words, "explain what was happening clearly and concisely, with a minimum of technical gobbledygook." He shrewdly anticipated plays and wasn't afraid to lay it on the line; with the Packers leading 7-0 and the Chiefs threatening, he called the next play the pivotal moment of the game, saying, "Kansas CIty will have to prove itself and score to have a chance to win."

CBS, in general, displayed a more impartial voice; Gifford "almost dislocated a vertebra bending over backward to laud the Chiefs and make character for his firm with AFL owners," no doubt hoping it would improve the network's chances of getting the whole TV package after the leagues merge. The inexperienced Gifford, a rookie announcer, struggled working the first half with the bare-bones Scott, but he became more comfortable as the game progressed, and worked well with second-half play-by-play man Jack Whittaker. Although he didn't have the analytical acumen of Christman, and he sometimes seemed surprised that the Chiefs were, in fact, an accomplished professional football team ("The Chiefs came to play football," he remarked "lamely" after they'd tied the game), he was particularly good at explaining the emotional aspects of the game; Frank feels that "his human-interest touches brightened what had become a dull contest" by the fourth quarter. Perhaps he knew what Kansas City players were feeling, Frank concludes; after all, in 1961 "Gifford's Giants met the Packers for the NFL title and were clobbered, 37-0."

Why did I spend so much time on this? Well, 29 of the top 30 most-watched television broadcasts of all time have been Super Bowls. The cost of a 30-second commercial in 1967 was $42,000; last year, it was between $6.5 and $7 million.

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I missed the point of The Monkees when they debuted in 1966. Sure, I watched the show from time to time, but since I wasn't a fan of The Beatles, the comparisons were lost on me. And since I wasn't a teenage girl, the "cute" factor was a non-issue as well. In fact, now that I think of it, I probably saw the show more often on Saturday mornings than I did in the original airing. I was never a fan, but neither did I dismiss them out of hand.

Leslie Raddatz's article rehashes everything we know about the group: the Daily Variety ad ("MADNESS!! Auditions—Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers—Running parts for 4 insane boys, age 17-21.") and the descriptions of our four heroes (Davy, "the little one"; Mike, "the one with the hat"; Mickey, "who was Circus Boy when he and TV were both young"; and Peter, "the shy one with the dimples."), and we're not surprised to find that the four not only are referred to as "kids" by everyone, "they act like kids, and that's the way they seem to think of themselves." But as Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, the co-producers, point out, their goal was not to find four actors to play The Monkees, but to be The Monkees.

Each one of them has his own story; Davy was a jockey in England as well as an actor; under contract to Columbia, he's the only one of the four who wasn't cast from the Daily Variety ad. Peter flunked out of college and worked as a kitchen boy while he sang in coffee houses; he originally didn't want to audition, "but I had let my hair grow in the Village, so I was ready for the part." Mickey was part of an acting family and starred in Circus Boy when he was 10; Raddatz describes him as "the only one who seems to be acting, rather than just being himself." Even at this early stage in their history, Mike is seen as different from the other three; he has "a brooding quality," and is the only one of the four who is "reluctant to talk about himself." He's worn his hat for five years, but "Now that I've got to wear it, I'm gettin' tired of it."

The Monkees cut quite a swath through pop culture in the 1960s, even though the series only runs for two seasons, with a total of 58 episodes. The show makes a comeback in 1986, thanks to a marathon on MTV, and it never really dropped off the map after that, with the group, in various incarnations, touring around the country. And yet, I don't know if anyone truly appreciated the impact it made until Davy Jones's unexpected death in 2012, and the overwhelming outpouring of grief and memories across social media. Sure, the Monkees had been popular, and Davy's death was a shock, but I think very few people were prepared for the tidal wave of warmth and affection that resulted. There were those, I know, who didn't understand, maybe couldn't understand, how a silly TV show could mean so much to so many people. And yet there it was. We saw it again in 2019 with Peter Tork's death, and in 2021 when Mike Nesmith died, leaving only Mickey Dolenz. 

And if that seems impossible to believe, well, Mickey's 77 now, and while he should have many years to go, eventually that time will come, and then The Monkees will be just a memory, four young men frozen in time on video. Even the thought of that seems impossible, but there it is. And then all of us will look back then, back to the days when we, too, were young.

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All right, let's look at what's on this week, and see if they interest anyone besides me.

Words mean things and they tell stories, and on Saturday's Lawrence Welk Show (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC), the story is told herein in the description of tonight's show, "A tribute to the late Walt Disney." Disney died the previous December 15, six weeks past, and the phrase "the late Walt Disney" must still have looked very strange (and very sad) to a public that had become so used to him and fond of him. 

You may have notice that there's no "Sullivan vs. Palace" this week; The Hollywood Palace is preempted tonight by the "Deb Star Ball," telecast live from the Hollywood Palladium and hosted by Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows. It's kind of hard to describe just what this event is; think of it as something like a beauty pageant with actresses. Donna Loren describes it like this: "Each year, ten of Hollywood’s most promising young actresses were dubbed Deb Stars by the Hollywood Makeup Artists and Hair Stylists Guild and were presented with the coveted 'Debbie' at the Guild’s annual ball." Past debs include Yvette Mimieux, Mary Ann Mobley, Yvonne Craig, Raquel Welch, Sally Field, and, of course, Donna Loren. This year's debs include Linda Kay Henning (Petticoat Junction), Debbie Watson (Tammy), Celeste Yarnall (The Nutty Professor), and E.J. Peaker (next season she'll be in That's Life). Not a bad lineup. We won't ignore Ed, though; his guests on Sunday's show (8:00 p.m., CBS) include the comic Smothers Brothers; the folk rocking Mamas and Papas, who sing "Words of Love"; singers Enzo Stuarti and Gale Martin (Dean's daughter); comedians Nipsy Russell and George Carlin; and Your Father's Mustache, banjo-playing singers. Frankly, I would have liked the Palace's chances. 

Also on Sunday, we see the transition of CBS's long-running 20th Century to the forward-looking 21st Century (6:00 p.m.). Still hosted by Walter Cronkite, tonight's debut episode is "The Communications Explosion," looking at the radical innovation of fiberoptics, which will allow "100 million phone calls on a single beam of light." 

I got to thinking about Monday's episode of Run for Your Life (10:00 p.m., NBC), in which Paul (Ben Gazzara) is defending an ex-cop charged with murder. (Remember, Paul Bryan is a lawyer by profession.) In the series, Paul has only one to two years to live due to his disease. Today, the average time it takes for an accused murderer to go to trial can take one to two years. Knowing that, would you want to hire Paul as your attorney? Mind you, I'm not criticizing the author of this script; 55 years ago, this probably wouldn't have been an issue. After all, Perry Mason gets his clients off in a matter of weeks. 

On the other hand, here, I think, is an example of why The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. failed: "April and Mark join a rock 'n' roll combo to protect Prince Efrem, the swinging heir apparent to a Tyrolean throne. The rockin' Daily Flash do 'My Bulgarian Baby. ' " (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., NBC) This sounds to me more like a skit on a Bob Hope special, with Bob playing Prince Efrem. Help me out on this; would this ever have been hip? At least Vito Scotti is one of the guest stars; that helps. Occasional Wife, which airs a half-hour later on NBC, has a far more plausible plot: the man whose female friend agrees to pose as his wife in order for him to advance in the corporation.

Speaking of Hope, Wednesday's episode of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre is notable in that the director of "The Lady Is My Wife," is Sam Peckinpah. Not surprisingly, the story is a Western, with Bradford Dillman, Jean Simmons, and Alex Cord. Peckinpah actually did quite a lot of television early in his career, including The Rifleman; he created the Brian Keith Western The Westerner in 1960, and had a major success in 1966 with "Noon Wine" on ABC Stage 67. but at the time of this Hope episode, he's also started to make a mark on the big screen, with both Ride the High Country and Major Dundee. 

     An ad from the 1964 airing.

Thursday begins with yet another quality drama on the Hallmark Hall of Fame: "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (9:30 p.m., NBC), a 1964 rerun starring Jason Robards as Honest Abe, with Kate Reid as Mary Todd. Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer winning play begins in 1830 with young Lincoln establishing his law practice, and ends in 1860 with him bidding farewell as he departs by train for Washington, D.C., to be sworn in as President of the United States. Thursday ends with "David Frost's Night Out in London" on the aforementioned ABC Stage 67 (10:00 p.m.), with David "heading where the action is" in "the most 'In' town in the world," and running into Sir Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney, and Peter Sellers. 

On Friday night, NET Playhouse presents Roman Polanski's feature film debut, 1962's Knife in the Water (8:00 p.m., NET), a psychological thriller about two men fighting for the same woman. Ah, an eternal story, but not the way Polanski does it. After that, you can get The Avengers' take on The Invisible Man, as Steed and Mrs. Peel check out the case of two Slavic (i.e. Soviet) agents who've obtained an invisibility formula (10:00 p.m., ABC). You won't be able to see through that plot.

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MST3K alert: Gunslinger (1953). "The female owner of the town saloon imports a killer to slay the town's female marshal. John Ireland, Beverly Garland, Allison Hayes." (Thursday, 6:00 p.m. WEMT) The saloonkeeper is Allison Hayes; the gunman is John Ireland; the marshal is Beverly Garland, the producer/director is Roger Corman. Need we say any more? TV  

Around the dial.

I think we'll start this week with something we see far too little of these days, longform journalism, and a kind of remarkable piece by Andy Greene at Rolling Stone. He'd come to know the late Michael Nesmith fairly well over the last few years, and in A Final Visit With Michael Nesmith, he sheds some light on the former Monkee, his relationship with his costars, and some surprising insights as to how he really felt about his most famous role.

At Comfort TV, David reviews one of the classic sitcom tropes: two dates on the same night. In a comedy, it can be a cause of charming discomfort; in a drama, it usually results in a double homicide.

Cult TV Blog returns with another entry in the "orphaned episodes" series, in which John looks at shows from the past with only a handful of surviving episodes. As he points out, the pleasure of finding these assorted fragments is somewhat offset by "a genuine sense of sadness at how much no longer exists."

The always-interesting Inner Toob is back with a trip through the three miniseries in which Hal Holbrook portrayed President Abraham Lincoln. Appropriate for February, don't you think? 

At Drunk TV, Paul reviews the first season of I Dream of Jeannie, a series that never failed to please its fans. He also has a well-placed word or two about those who might love to "cancel" a show that's so obviously oppressive to women. Well played, Paul!

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence leads the way with remembering the career of Howard Hesseman, who died last week, the latest in an apparent non-stop passing of classic TV icons. And from someone in the business, JB offers his own tribute to Johnny Fever at The Hits Just Keep on Comin'.

Finally, Television's New Frontier: the 1960s goes in-depth on calendar year 1962 for Bonanza, television's top-rated program, with reviews, guest stars, and a recounting of how physically demanding the show was for its stars. Glad I chose a more sedate occupation. TV  

Around the dial

Another family gathered around the TV watching C-SPAN

Whenever I see an article about how classic shows of the past weren't really that good, my Spidey sense starts to in, and I immediately prepare for some kind of knee-jerk reaction—you know, something along the lines of how this author doesn't really know what he (or she) is talking about, blah, blah, blah. And when I saw this Atlantic article by Tom Nichols on how most Christmas specials are terrible, I was prepared to do the same. After all, his focus is entirely on animated specials, leaving out some of the most significant Christmas shows in television history. But in this case, I'm not going to jerk my knee, because as it happens, this is something I like a lot; I feel as if I could have written it myself.

The idea that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is, well, kind of stupid, is not one foreign to this site. Its charm, and its classic status, comes almost entirely from the stop-action animation, the songs, and its connection to our childhood. But let's admit it: Rudolph's Santa is a jerk; if I'd been Rudy, with Santa asking for my help after everything I'd gone through, my answer would have been short and sweet: "Bite me, Santa!" (But then, I suppose Rudolph is a more forgiving soul than I am.) And then there's the idea that King Moonracer, who's apparently able to fly around the world gathering up misfit toys, can't fly to the North Pole himself and ask Santa's help. For that matter, why doesn't the king just fly over to Amazon and let them deliver the toys? Anyway, the point is that, unlike A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the two specials Nichols singles out for praise, Rudolph's story really isn't very good.

There is one thing regarding the Rankin-Bass specials, though, that I ought to point out—and I really am fond of them; I own most of them, including some that aren't commercially available—and that is that they work splendidly, if perhaps unintendedly, as allegories for our modern times. As I've pointed out before, Frosty the Snowman can be seen as a retelling of Christ's Resurrection, while Santa Claus is Comin' to Town works best as an allegory of the fall of Communism, with Sombertown serving as a stand-in for East Berlin. In fact, it seems to me that these readings are the only way either special makes sense. But then, that's just me.

Meanwhile, let's see what else is on tap this week:

At The Guardian, Anne Billson has binged on Christmas romcoms and she's here to see what they're all about. The Hallmark (and now Netflix) Christmas movies have been in my bullseye for a long time, but after reading this article I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom. Fantasy is one thing, but these movies not only dishonor Christmas (although they especially do that), they dishonor moviemaking itself. Remember when the Hallmark Hall of Fame produced class entertainment? One of the things that makes A Christmas Carol timeless is Scrooge's realization that life is not all about "having it all," but about sharing it all, especially yourself, and that you can never undo the past—you can only redeem the present and the future. On the other hand, if this kind of escapism is what people really want, no wonder we have so much trouble confronting the issues we face today.

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack wraps up the Hitchcock Project look at Joel Murcott's contributions to the show with the ninth-season episode "The Dividing Wall," an uneven but nasty little piece of work featuring a nuclear cannister. It isn't quite Kiss Me Deadly, and not nearly vintage Hitchcock.

I've decided this week to use the full name of John's blog, That Blog Where The Bloke With No Shirt Blogs About TV and Tries to Stay on the Subject, as he covers a disastrous rendition of A Christmas Carol as seen on The Play That Goes Wrong, a bizarre series that you really need to see to believe.

And though Christmas is just around the corner, it's not too early to look forward to New Year's, and at Shadow & Substance, Paul lets us in on the episodes that SyFy's chosen for this year's Twilight Zone New Year's Marathon. 

Another icon of 60s television passed this week with the death of Mike Nesmith, and at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence shares an affectionate remembrance of Wool Hat. And don't miss several other articles that Terence has on his favorite Monkees songs.

At Drunk TV, Paul is back with another look at Hanna-Barbera animated specials; this time, it's the 1972 A Christmas Story. No, not the movie, but a sparkling special with an all-star lineup of cartoon voices. 

Finally, since I started this off by talking a lot about myself, I'll end the same way, with a link to episode 118 of Eventually Supertrain, in which Dan and I revisit Search, Dan and Tim talk about Kolchak, and Dan and Chris take on Battlestar Galactica. Don't miss it! TV  

Around the dial

At Cult TV Blog, John takes a very interesting look at the early '70s British series Doomwatch and the episode "The Human Time Bomb"—a sociological look, one might say, focusing on high rise living, which was, as he says, "the sort of development which was in it's hay day while Our Sort of Television was being broadcast." A wonderful way to entrench an episode in a given period of time.

The Hitchcock Project continues at bare-bones e-zine, and this week Jack looks at "One More Mile to Go," the second season episode that provides the latest in the work of James P. Cavanagh. A great episode, with a wonderful performance by David Wayne as the murderer you might find yourself rooting for.

At Comfort TV, David provides a very nice coda in remembrance of the late Peter Tork via "The Monkees on Tour," the final episode of season one, a documentary which allows the audience backstage in a sense, giving us a look at the four leads not as characters, but actual flesh-and-blood people living out an incredible ride.

Remember when you'd tune in to Today and see Barbara Walters hawking a subscription to The National Observer or watch Ed McMahon peddling Alpo on The Tonight Show? Call me weird, but I kind of miss those days, but Jodie brings them back at The Garroway Project with a look at Dave Garroway (one of the all-time great pitchmen) doing a commercial for Watkins Products.

Hal returns to "F Troop Fridays" with the season one episode "Iron Horse Go Home" at The Horn Section. What happens when Our Heroes try to set themselves up as latter-day Peter Minuets? As F Troop hits its stride, we get an episode that provides, as Hal says, some wild moments as well as some guilty pleasures.

Episode #64 of Eventually Supertrain is here, and among the features in this episode, Dan and yours truly look at another fun episode of Bourbon Street Beat, a program that we've both gotten a big charge out of. If you've never seen an episode listen in to one of our podcasts—you may want to check it out. (Psst - it's available on the grey market.)

At The Ringer, Alison Herman asks a question that follows up nicely to one that David asked at Comfort TV last week: is a TV show good if no one talks about it? I admit I don't know how you answer that; after all, a major part of TV is entertainment, and if a show doesn't entertain because people don't see it, does it matter how good it is? A case of Schrödinger's TV, I'd say. TV  

Around the Dial!

My apologies that I haven't done this for a couple of weeks.  I don't know why, because it doesn't take very long and it's simply linking to pieces I've enjoyed over the course of the week.  Actually, I do too know why - I've been busy on a project you'll hopefully find out one of these days.  In the meantime, enough about me - let's see what others have to say.

This is the culmination of a set of posts on the great Stan Freberg, which you can see at the Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland.  I was listening to an episode of his radio series the other day; that man was very, very funny.

I really enjoy the Hitchcock recaps at bare-bones e-zine, because I like Hitchcock and there's always a pretty good chance I haven't seen the episode in question.  This week's story is one I have seen, and I can highly recommend Jack's writeup on it.

Did you read Joanna's Christmas TV Party posts at Christmas TV History?  If not, here's a recap here.  I know, shame on me for not being part of it this year, but maybe next time.  In the meantime, these bring back a lot of memories.

If you pay attention to the TV Guide archives as I do, you'll notice that sports broadcasters used to be anything but specialists.  Chris Schenkel, for example, called everything from pro and college football to boxing to bowling to the Olympics, and Pat Summerall did just about everything for CBS.  Classic TV Sports looks at Mets broadcaster Bob Murphy doing college football over 30 years ago.

"What if there is nothing good left to be discovered?"  That's the question at Cult TV Blog, examining the fear of the vintage TV fan.  I'm never surprised to read a fascinating article at that blog, and this one is no exception.  It's always unnerving to see yourself described by someone who's never met you!

My wife tells me she once skipped a long family weekend in order to stay home and catch an episode of The Monkees.  Now, I'll admit I saw the show growing up, but I don't think you could consider me a fan.  (We're happily married nonetheless.)  At Comfort TV, David looks at the 20 best Monkees songs, as well as the five worst.  And you know, some of those songs were very good.

As you might have noticed from my latest TV Guide stories, I've been getting more interested about the old ads for news broadcasts (there's another one coming up tomorrow), and Faded Signals, which has many old radio station ads, has one with a really great illustration today.

Television Obscurities has another TV Guide review, this time the week of August 7, with Gene Barry on the cover.  I've got this issue as well; a terrific writeup on Burke as well as the rest of the comings and goings of the day. I don't comment at that blog the way I should, but this has been a great series.

That's it for this week, though as always I'll urge you to look at the sidebar for more.  And I'll see you back here tomorrow for more TV Guide fun. TV