This week in TV Guide: April 7, 1956

With tensions between the United States and Canada running high at the moment, it seems appropriate to lead off this week with an article from Gordon Sinclair, the legendary Canadian journalist who in 1973 will become famous south of the border for his editorial on behalf of America at a time when the rest of the world is taking potshots at her. He's writing on the state of Canadian television, which he describes as "green," as it was in America a few years before; "there's no doubt that the future is just as bright" but at this moment, don't expect to see "the same slick technique you get in the States." Indeed, TV in Canada is still a little rough around the edges: "Our scripts are pedestrian, our crews are inexperienced and our directors seem hesitant to direct. Or even to suggest to performers older than themselves how to play a scene better."

Canadians produce 38 hours of network television each week, ranking third behind Hollywood and New York. Canadians have produced stars of American television, including Lorne Greene, Gisele MacKenzie and Barry Morse. (But no William Shatner?) Canadian shows have their share of curvy females, including Joan Fairfax and Shirley Harmer. But American television is still more popular than many home-grown shows; one of those native shows, Cross Canada Hit Parade (similar to Your Hit Parade in the States) is a twice-weekly musical showcase. A guest star ("usually American") is invited to sing a top record; MacKenzie, Canada's "most glittering expert in the field of song," has never appeared on the show. She was offered as much as $2,000 for a one-shot, but "showed no interest." And Fairfax, who was once voted "Miss Canadian Television" (because of her picture tubes?) has a Monday variety hour she co-hosts with Denny Vaughan, but it's beaten in the ratings by Robert Montgomery Presents; "You see, American programs are highly popular north of the border."

One of Canadian television's sitcoms, the French-Canadian Plouffe Family, is unique in that "it must be the only dramatic show on earth bradcast in two languages by the same cast playing the identical parts." A nice trick if you can pull it off. And there's the comic team of Johnny Wayne and Frank SHuster, "who are vulgar or delightful, depending on how you feel about such stuff." (Ed Sullivan was one who obviously expressed the latter; he had the two on his show 58 times.) On the Jackie Rae Show, he says, Canadians occasionally get the unexpected—along with imported guests. There are even what Sinclair describes as "fleeting glimpses of high comedy," which means Canada's Jackie doesn't really measure up to America's Jackie (Gleason, that is). Don't despair, thoughf: Sinclair suggests Canadian television will one day thrive. After all, even the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the government-run entity that "frowns on press agentry and commercial exploitation" hasn't been able to completely subdue the spirit of Canadian TV.

Where, I wonder, is today's Gordon Sinclair? We could certainly use him, on both sides of the border.

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Let's make sure we take care of the cover stories. The cover picture of Garry Moore, host of the quiz show I've Got a Secret, along with the show's two female panelists of the time, Jayne Meadows and Faye Emerson (much better looking than the male panelists, Bill Cullen and Henry Morgan) doesn't really have anything to do with the inside story. That's about the "secret" files of I've Got a Secret, which aren't really that secret. What is a secret, or at least something many of you might not have known, is that IGAS was created by Allan Sherman, the singer-comedian who was Weird Al before Weird Al, best-known for the hit single "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." This week Sherman talks about some of the up to 4,000 secrets he receives each week—people with 12 toes or 13 fingers or no eyebrows, but also people with relatives who came to America on the Mayflower or shook hands with Abraham Lincoln, a man who went over Niagara Falls in a rubber ball and lived to tell about it, the first man to cash a Social Security check, or the woman who won the first Miss America pageant. By the way, Sherman says, if you have 40 toes he'll take you, but if it's only 12, don't bother.

After that, we go down south to Nashville, and visit the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry is already an American institution, having started in 1925, and what's surprising about its transition to television is not that it's happened, but that it took this long. The 1955-56 fall season brought about the premiere of the Opry on ABC, where once a month it substitutes for Ozark Jubilee, another Country-Western program, and in rural areas (which, remember, make up a much larger part of America in 1956 than they do today), it is absolutely slaughtering the competition, Perry Como and Jackie Gleason.

This week's article takes a kind of quaint approach to the whole thing, pointing out that these Country stars are just as business-savvy as anyone—hardly surprising considering how successful the Grand Ole Opry has been over the years; and when you think of how big Country music has become as a business, I think it shows these "hayseeds" have always been pretty shrewd business people.

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Two new soap operas premiered last week on CBS, and they're unusual in that they run for 30 minutes, rather than the traditional 15-minute format (a carryover from radio; you notice a lot of shows fit into that category). You might have heard of them: As the World Turns and The Edge of Night. Incidentally, The Edge of Night started out as "the daytime version of Perry Mason," with Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner writing it, but the notoriously temperamental Gardner pulls out due to "creative differences,"* and the character of the heroic lawyer is changed from Mason to Mike Karr, played by John Larkin, who played Mason on the radio.

*According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, those differences include Mason having a regular girlfriend, which throws into question that intriguing relationship with his secretary, Della Street. That's something Gardner, who jealously guarded Mason's image, would never agree to.

Speaking of the great lawyer, there's an interesting item in this week's Hollywood Teletype: "If everybody can agree on the contracts, Fred MacMurray will wind up as lawyer Perry Mason in the new CBS hour-long detective series." Discussions had gotten to the point that a Gardner memo states, "Apparently Fred MacMurray is the person who will probably be selected." It's an intriguing thought; like Burr, MacMurray had played many the heavy in movies up to that time (and would continue to do so; check him out in The Apartment), and there are many who think that Burr brought, from those roles as a heavy, an underlying sense of menace that gave his Mason, especially in the early seasons, a real edge of danger. Could MacMurray have done the same? He was certainly talented enough, but when Burr finally had the chance to audition for the role (he'd previously been tried as Hamilton Burger), he is said to have so impressed Gardner that he told Bur, "In twenty minutes, you captured Perry Mason better than I did in twenty years." That, presumably, was the end of that.

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Baseball is back! Well, kind of; it's still Spring Training, but on Saturday the New York Giants take on the Cleveland Indians in a pre-season game live from Dallas, home of this week's TV Guide. (1:25 p.m. CT, CBS). Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner call the action. It's not the big sports story of the weekend, though; that would be the final round of the Masters Golf Tournament, live from Augusta, Georgia. (Sunday, 4:00 p.m., CBS) It's the first time for the Masters on television (and the start of the tournament's long association with CBS), and the first major championship for Jack Burke Jr.,  who came from eight shots behind to defeat amateur Ken Venturi by one stroke. It remains the last time no golfer broke par for the tournament. 

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There's some real star power in this week's shows. On Saturday night's Ford Star Jubilee (9:30 p.m., CBS), Orson Welles and Betty Grable make rare television appearances in the comedy "Twentieth Century," written by the famed Broadway duo of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Welles would come to do a lot of television in the last couple of decades of his life—remember those cheesy appearances on the Dean Martin roasts and the commercials for Paul Masson wine? ("We will sell no wine before its time.")—but in 1956 he was still a star, known for The War of the Worlds and Citizen Kane and The Third Man, and still two years away from his noir classic Touch of Evil. Ah, one has to pay the bills, however, and Welles was always looking for money for his latest projects, many of which sadly never came to fruition. As he once famously said, "I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts."*

*By the way, if you're interested in absorbing article on Welles, check out this New Yorker piece by Alex Ross from ten years ago, celebrating the Welles centennial. It truly seems as if Orson Welles could only have been a character concocted in an Orson Welles movie.

On Sunday afternoon the American composer Norman Dello Joio premieres his opera "The Trial at Rouen" on NBC Opera Theatre (3:00 p.m.). It's Dello Joio's second crack at rendering an operatic version of the story of Joan of Arc. His first, "The Triumph of St. Joan," premiered in 1950, but Dello Joio was never happy with it, and eventually reworked the story (but neither the music nor the libretto) into the 75-minute opera (plus commercials) that you'd be seeing on television. There's yet a third version to come, however, as Dello Joio will add some of the music from the 1950 version to the 1956 version while creating some new scenes and expanding on others, resulting in the 1959 version, also called "The Triumph of St. Joan." Many of the critics of the time will consider it to be the best of the three versions of the story.

That night, G.E. Theater (8:00 p.m., CBS) presents Judy Garland in an informal one-woman show, performing a half-hour of songs she's never before done in public, and backed by pianist Leonard Pennario and choreographer Peter Gennaro (who did Annie, West Side Story and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, among other Broadway hits). It's introduced by host Ronald Reagan.

If you happen to own the boxed set of Studio One episodes that came out a few years ago, you'll have seen the Rod Serling political drama "The Arena," airing Monday night (9:00 p.m., CBS), with Wendell Corey as an ambitious young senator dealing with the legacy (and feuds) of his father. (If not, you can watch it here.) You might have thought, watching it, that it was substandard Serling, one of the episodes that helped drive him to create The Twilight Zone. The problem, as he writes in his 1957 collection of television plays Patterns: Four Television Plays With The Author’s Personal Commentaries, is not a new one: interference from the network and sponsors. His reaction, however, shows us the direction he is already considering going:

I was not permitted to have my Senators discuss any current or pressing problem. To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited. So on television in April 1956, several million viewers got a definitive picture of television’s concept of politics and the way government is run. They were treated to an incredible display on the floor of The United States Senate of groups of Senators shouting, gesticulating and talking in hieroglyphics about make-believe issues, using invented terminology, in a kind of prolonged, unbelievable double-talk… In retrospect, I probably would have had a much more adult play had I made it science fiction, put it in the year 2057, and peopled the Senate with robots. This would probably have been more reasonable and no less dramatically incisive.

I suspect this episode was included in the DVD collection because 1) it was Serling, and 2) it was in fairly good condition. There are likely better episodes that could have been chosen. "The Arena" isn't bad, mind you, but far from peak Serling.

Dinah Shore currently hosts a twice-weekly 15-minute show (Tuesday and Thursday evenings on NBC, filling the remainder of the half hour occupied by John Cameron Swayzee's News Caravan), but she's talking about dumping that in favor of an hour-long Tuesday night show; another idea is to keep the current show, while adding a number of hour-long specials. The latter gets a tryout tonight (7:00 p.m., NBC), with Dinah welcoming Dean Martin and Marge and Gower Champion. As it turns out, nothing could be finah than to catch an hour of Dinah: The Dinah Shore Chevy Show starts up this October, and runs until 1963. (Her 15-minute show, which airs at 6:15 p.m. tonight, is guest-hosted by Gordon MacRae.) And, in the "you might be interested" category, a note on The 64,000 Question (9:00 p.m, CBS) tells us that, "As of the 43rd show, emcee Hal March has given out $544,608 and nine luxury automobiles." 

On Wednesday, M-G-M Parade (7:30 p.m., ABC) presents "The Greatness of Garbo," the conclusion of a two-part tribute to the legendary star. (Presumably, Garbo speaks.) Parade is the subject of Robert Sanders' review this week, which isn't a positive one; last month, Walter Pidgeon had been introduced as the new host, and the format of the show had been altered to present serialized versions of movies along with clips from the M-G-M vault. The problem, Sanders says, is that this doesn't produce any new material for television; the studio execs seem to "presumptously believe that viewers will be eager to watch their old hit movies and promotional plugs for new movies." And when movies are chopped up into two or three parts, "viewers cannot help but lose interest." Anyway, it only has another month to run. One story you'll get to see all at once is "The Funny Heart," tonight's presentation on The U.S. Steel Hour (9:00 p.m., CBS), with Imogene Coca, the female side of the team that made Your Show of Shows such a success, making her dramatic television debut. 

Thursday we see another of those shows that we likely won't see today, The All-American Homemaker of Tomorrow (7:00 p.m., ABC), sponsored by Betty Crocker, with the aforementioned Hal March on hand to crown the winner (or whatever is was they did). The competition, which was comprised of high school students who'd won similar competitions at the local level, began in 1955, and ran through 1977. You might be interested to know that one of the future contestants will be now-Senator Elizabeth Warren, competiting in 1966 as the representative from Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. Meantime, Shower of Stars (7:30 p.m., CBS) presents a review of current musical trends, with Frankie Lane and Joe E. Brown sharing the hosting duties. 

On Friday, John Newland, who we'll come to know better as the host of One Step Beyond, stars in "The Bitter Land" on Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (8:00 p.m., CBS), as a father heading West to revenge the death of his son during a bank robbery. Later, Edward R. Murrow interviews pollster George Gallup on Person to Person (9:30 p.m., CBS), discussing the exotic art of measuring public opinion. It was probably just as accurate then as it is today.

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Finally, there's a small ad on the bottom of Wednesday's listings referring to the social event of the year, perhaps the television event of the year, with the provocative question: "How much will you see?"

That event is the marriage of the Academy Award-winning actress Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco, and everybody who's anybody will be heading over there to cover it. At the end of this week's What's My Line?, John Daly mentions that both Dorothy Kilgallen and Arlene Francis will be in Monaco to cover the wedding (Dorothy for the New York Journal American, Arlene for her Home show on NBC), and a worldwide audience estimated at 30 million tunes in for the formal ceremony on April 19.

It's an interesting mix of attendees; with Rainier as a head of state, a vast assemblage of diplomats and other heads of state are present, while Grace's status as Hollywood royalty attracts such luminaries as Cary Grant (who costarred with her in the Monaco-based To Catch a Thief), David Niven, Gloria Swanson, Ava Gardner and Aristotle Onassis, and her iconic wedding dress is designed by MGM's Helen Rose.* In essence, this is Charles and Di before Charles and Di.

*According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, this dress was the inspiration for that worn by Kate Middleton for her wedding to Prince William.

There are actually two marriage ceremonies; the first, a civil ceremony required by law, was held on April 18, while the Catholic Nuptial Mass, the televised event, was held the following day at St. Nicholas Cathedral. I'm not sure of the answer to TV Guide's question of how much viewers will see, but here's a brief look at what all the shouting was about. TV  

If I ran the network, part 3

Recently I kicked off a new feature, "If I Ran the Network," a series of TV concepts that would never have made it to the small screen without network executives screwing them up. If you have similar ideas, please share them in the comments section; if I get enough, I'll use them to put together a complete prime-time lineup for the fictional HBC Network!

The idea for The Phil Collins Show was born from the success of The Tracey Ullman Show, which ran on Fox for four seasons from 1987 to 1990, and is now primarily known for having introduced The Simpsons. The Ullman show was a brilliant concept, combining sketch comedy, musical acts, and cartoon shorts, such as the Simpsons feature. In order to make this kind of concept work, you need one of two things: Dean Martin, or an exceptionally talented host. While Deano wasn't available, the fantastically talented Tracey Ullman was, and the show became the biggest success to date on the fledgling Fox network.

Phil Collins seemed like a good choice to host this kind of variety show. He was at the tail end of the greatest years of his career; his group, Genesis, was a bland shadow of its former self, having transitioned from progressive rock to pop, and Collins was sounding more and more like a white Lionel Richie*; it seemed to me that it would have been a good time to transition into television.  

*No offense to Richie here; I use that example specifically because Phil Collins once said, in a Playboy interview, that he didn't want to wind up sounding "like a white Lionel Richie." Of course, I only read the interview.

The show's format would have been similar to that of Ullman's, a half-hour program which would include Phil singing his latest hit, a performance by a musical or comedy guest (the show would probably be shot in London, meaning many of the guests would have been British), a sketch involving said guest star (with Phil playing a fictionalized version of himself, not unlike the premise of The Jack Benny Program), and a duet featuring Phil and his guest. Its casual attitude would have been reminiscent of The Dean Martin Show, and while I don't suggest that it would have been as successful, I think it could have built a solid audience.

One of the things which I would have hoped would attract viewers would have been the idea of guests that one didn't usually see on television, performing comedy routines that they might or might not have been totally suited for. Imagine, for example, Phil and Pete Townshend doing a version of the Dead Parrot Sketch from Monty Python. My favorite episode idea, though, was this one:

Frankly, I think Collins could have extended his career by years with this show. It's not as if he couldn't have pulled it off; he was a child actor, so he shouldn't have had any problems with the comedy, and he certainly had enough hits to carry the show. And with the half-hour format, the series could easily have been done in-between various tours, whether solo or with Genesis. Network executives probably would have been worried about all the foreign accents on the show, though, not to mention that Phil hardly looked like the star of his own variety series. You can't talk me out of the idea, though.

A network does not live by drama alone, and with the heavy shows I introduced in the first two segments of this feature, I think it was important to introduce something lighter, while remaining creative. I wonder what's next on the schedule? TV   

When real life intrudes

This seems to be as good a time as any to remind you that, although the It's About TV channel on YouTube doesn't have a lot of content, it does have a playlist devoted to the Christmas programs that comprise such a part of the holiday memories you and I share. These shows, along with a healthy number of movies, animated specials, and variety shows, will make up the bulk of our television viewing for the next month. I first made this available last year, and since then I've been able to add several new programs, which I hope you'll enjoy as much as we do.

But let's take a time out from our Yuletide festivities to look back a couple of weeks at Thanksgiving. It does sometimes seem as if Thanksgiving gets short shrift, a metaphorical speed bump on the way to Christmas, although the recent trend away from having stores open on Thanksgiving seems to have scaled back. But back in the day, when variety shows were common, it was also common to have Thanksgiving-themed shows on or near the holiday, and today we'll take In a look at couple of these shows, ones that have a time capsule significance apart from their entertainment value. 

I've written about time capsule moments before, those moments that provide us a glimpse into what the world was like when these shows were aired. They're more subtle than surface appearances like hair and clothing styles, or the kinds of music being played; oftentimes they're left unsaid, requiring the viewer to read between the lines, and if you're not able to put the show into the context of when it was aired, it you might miss it altogether.

One such moment occurred on the Thanksgiving episode of The Jimmy Dean Show, which, appropriately enough, aired on Thanksgiving night, November 28, 1963. It's a fun episode, with the McGuire Sisters, the Jubliee Four, Don Adams, the Crum Brothers, and Rowlf, the Muppet dog who was a regular on the show. Adams contributes a very funny bit where he plays a defense attorney, and a charming scene in which Jimmy and Rowlf talk about what there is to be thankful for. 

The moment comes near the very end of the show, and you have to listen for it. The entire cast has just finished singing "Home for the Holidays," and the spotlight falls on Jimmy. Against a dark background, he sings the Gospel song "How Long Has It Been?" and then, after a breath and with some evident emotion, he says, "It's been a trying week, on the entire world. Sometimes, things look very black. But may we all remember that we still have a great deal to be thankful for." The cast then reunites to sing, "Bless This House."  

That could be taken as nothing more than a normal, if somewhat darker than usual, reflection on the state of the world, and the need to be thankful for what you have. But it has a much more significant meaning when you place it in historical context. It had indeed been a trying week; the last time the show had aired, on November 21, John F. Kennedy was president of the United States, and spending the weekend in Texas. Since then, Kennedy had been assassinated, his accused assassin had been murdered, and Kennedy had been laid to rest. The funeral and burial took place on Monday, November 25; the new president, Lyndon Johnson, delivered a speech to the nation two days later, on Wednesday, November 27. It's now Thanksgiving Day, but it was a somber one for most people, who very well might have wondered what there was to be thankful for. Yeah, that was a hell of a trying week.

I don't know when this show was taped, and I'd love to find that out. It could be that it had been taped days in advance, and Dean had returned to the studio to record his comments, after which the scene faded to merge with the ending as originally recorded. It's also possible that the show had been done that very week, a day or two before Thanksgiving. Either way, it seems obvious to me that Dean felt it imperative to address the situation, and that he did so in a heartfelt manner, with a couple of sentences that didn't require any other explanation—everyone back then would have known to what he was referring. Regardless, it's a very powerful moment, an intrusion of the real world into the world of entertainment.

The second example comes from an Alan King Thanksgiving special that aired on Tuesday, November 25, 1980, two days before Thanksgiving. Its subtitle is, "What Have We Got to be Thankful For?" and it plays into the acerbic, "kidding-but-not-really-kidding" humor that King was known for. Watching it this year, I have to admit I'd forgotten about some of the events King references, including the infamous Abscam investigation that caught several members of Congress trying to sell their influence in return for large amounts of cash. No wonder King suggests in his opening monologue that there has been "a breakdown of moral fiber."

King goes on to take shots at the economy (bad), the recent actors' strike and the fall TV schedule (bad), and a growing sense that Americans are becoming apathetic to it all. There are several references to the election of the new president, Ronald Reagan, which gets sustained applause from the studio audience. There's also an extended, and very funny, bit in which King attempts to explain the madness of the Middle East in 1980, including the war between Iran and Iraq, the growing involvement of the Soviet Union (including in Afghanistan!), and other complications that remind us how the Middle East has always been a tinderbox and a mess. And that leads to our second moment.

In a show filled with topical humor, it can be hard to identify a moment that can be said to travel under the radar, but it comes, again, at the end of the show, as King concludes with a prayer for the nation, for  both the incoming and outgoing presidents (itself something you probably wouldn't see nowadays), and for the viewers, he adds, "If I can ask for an old favor that you granted us once before, see if you can get the Ayatollah [Khomeini] to let our people go."

That's right—the hostage crisis! It's easy to forget that the hostages hadn't yet been freed; that wouldn't come until January 20 of the following year, after Reagan had been sworn in as president. And remember that, although we all know how things turned out, nobody knew that back in November, 1980. I don't recall whether or not King had explicitly mentioned the hostages prior to that moment; I kind of doubt it; it isn't the kind of thing you'd joke about. No, this is a subtle, but knowing, reference to an event that was, again, hanging over everything. It's also heartfelt, as opposed to a bid for cheap applause; bipartisan, rather than attempting to score points. I don't know if entertainers would handle it that way today.

Maybe I make too much of moments like these, but I think there's value to them. They remind us that television is a part of history—our shared history—and that, like anything else in history, it doesn't occur in a vacuum. Television, like other forms of entertainment, often seems to come from the world of make-believe (and there definitely isn't anything real about reality television), but every once in a while, the real world shows itself, and when that happens, it's worth remembering. 

These shows can be found on the Christmas playlist as well, and I'll be adding more as the opportunity arises. TV  

This week in TV Guide: November 14, 1970

Christopher George is one intense cat, and Arnold Hano means that literally; when you're around him, you're reminded of jungle images, and George "paces like a jungle cat, just out of camera range," as he waits for a scene to be shot. That intensity comes through, "[n]o matter how inane the role." Witness a shaving-cream commercial he made in 1962; he played a man shaving just before his honeymoon night. When his bride admires his smooth skin, he purrs, "It's all for you." "I put everything into that 'all for you'," George remembers. Not only did the ad win an award, viewers reacted. "Girls chased me down 57th Street in New York. I had to jump into a cab to get away. The mail was unreal." He made more than $30,000 for that commercial. For shaving cream.

Chris George, late of The Rat Patrol and currently star of The Immortal ("out of Superman by way of The Fugitive"), brings that same intensity to his real life. He complains constantly about the quality of Immortal scripts. "You want to replace me?" he growls at a producer. "Who is this man I'm supposed to be playing?" To Hano, he confides, "Some of the scripts are rotten. In one they've got me playing an introspective character who practically sucks his thumb. In the next I'm a finger-snapping, gum-chewing wise guy. The scriptwriters don't know what they're doing." It might be why The Immortal will be cancelled in January after 15 episodes (plus a pilot), without the show's key premise—a man whose rare blood makes him immortal, being pursued by a billionaire who wants the blood so he can be immortal—is never resolved.

George sees himself as a man who came "too late" to acting, in a time when the industry is ruled not by creative people but bookkeepers and accountants, and when profitability rules over all. But he's been in the business for nine years, and he's a survivor. He survived The Rat Patrol, through the internecine warfare at the upper levels of production, at having to live "in garbage cans," of a series that ran for two years and ended $1.8 million in the red. And that bit about "survival" should be taken literally as well; during the run of the series he twice dislocated his left should, three times dislocated his right, broke a hand, sprained a knee, suffered multiple brain concussions, broke his back in a jeep accident, and contracted dysentery. (Those injuries could have contributed to his death in 1983 at age 52.)

And yet, for all this, Chris George loves acting, unlike his wife, Lynda ("who if she isn't the most beautiful blonde in Hollywood is surely in the top 3), who doesn't much enjoy it. Yes, despite all these complaints, he loves acting. Comparing himself to a lion in the jungle who turns down the chance for a cushy life in a zoo, "I've got to do my own thing. Even if it kills me."

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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. 

The Odd Couple, ABC's new sitcom based on the hit Neil Simon play and movie, was, according to Cleveland Amory, made to order for television. It presents the viewer with not one, but two "poor, dumb" bachelors, trying to make a go of life on their own. And the two are as different as night and day, "broad and slapsticky and so different you don't need a program to tell them apart." Felix (Tony Randall) is a photographer, "neat and tidy and fussy and prissy. He likes opera and squash and hangs his socks on a hanger." Oscar (Jack Klugman) is a sportswriter, "crass and brassy and a girl chaser. He is messy and sloppy and even slobby." On Broadway they were played by Art Carney and Walter Matthau; in the movies they were Jack Lemmon and Matthau.

And this, Amory says, is a key to appreciating The Odd Couple: "Given television's boundaries, Klugman and Randall are actually better than their predecessors." Even through their broad characters, the actors give them point—"Klugman something besides vulgarity, Randall something besides neurosis. And, at the same time, they never forget that the main point is to be funny." After a failed evening with the Pigeon sisters, Oscar lays it on Felix. "Your idea of a fun evening is defrosting the icebox. You've ruined another evening with your tidying and your cleaning and your fussing." But Felix doesn't take it lying down. Referring to Oscar's bedroom, he plays the part of the responsible one. "There are things growing down there. Lawrence of Arabia couldn't get through that dust." In another episode, after Felix has ruined yet another of Oscar's plans, he asks him if there's something he'd like to do now. "Yeah," replies Oscar, "but I've got to make it look like an accident." 

It is funny, and Klugman and Randall make it funnier. True, Cleve opines, it may well disappoint those who saw the play on Broadway or the movie. And anyone who objects to "slightly blue lines" is going to be annoyed. But, in a way, that's the point of the whole thing; what made the play and movie funny was that roughness, and the producers have succeeded in transferring that to television, "again, given television's boundaries." So if you haven't seen the most recent episode, don't miss the next one. "It may not be as funny," Amory says, "but the chances are it'll be funnier than any other situation comedy on your screen this season." And that about says it; during its five seasons, The Odd Couple was never a ratings smash, but it was, and remains, a show much loved by the many who remember it.

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We don't have Sullivan vs. The Palace anymore. Oh, Ed's still around for another season, but The Hollywood Palace made its final curtain call at the beginning of the year. That doesn't mean we don't have a variety of variety shows to look at, though—in fact, there's one for every night of the week. And, as always, variety shows are a great indicator of who's star is shining at any given time.

Things get started on Saturday with the syndicated Vikki Carr Show (3:30 p.m., KMOX in St. Louis), with Bobby Vee and the New Christy Minstrels as Vikki's guests. As we move into primetime, it's the latest incarnation of The Andy Williams Show (6:30 p.m. CT) featuring guest stars Leslie Uggams, Ken Berry, and Claudine Longet, i.e. Mrs. Williams. That goes up against KPLR and their syndicated lineup of Country shows, including Country Carnival at 4:30 p.m., Country Place at 5:00, That Good Ole Nashville Music, with Roy Acuff, at 5:30, The Wilburn Brothers at 6:00, Porter Wagoner at 6:30, Stan Hitchcock at 7:00, Buck Owens at 7:30, Bill Anderson at 8:00, and Nashville Now at 8:30. Not my kind of music, but that's quite a lineup. And to round the evening off, Hugh Hefner's show (12:30 a.m., KSD) features Milton Berle, Barrie Chase, Jo Anne Worley, and Tony Joe White; it's probably the best lineup of the night. 

On Sunday, the aforementioned Sullivan show features ballerina Natalia Makarova, who recently defected from the Soviet Union (remember when events like that were a big deal?) and will be dancing with the American Ballet Theatre's Ted Kivitt; comedians Dick Gregory and Jeremy Vernon; British musical-comedy star Norman Wisdom; singers Abbe Lane, Tommy Roe, Billy Joe Royal and Joe South; and racing drivers Stirling Moss, Dan Gurney, Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill, competing in a miniature-car race—I'd give Ed the edge over anyone else based on them alone. (7:00 p.m., CBS) Up against that is The Klowns, an hour-long circus show hosted by Sammy Davis Jr., with Jerry Lewis, Juliet Prowse, Charlie Callas, Don Rickles, the Smothers Brothers, and three acts from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. (7:00 p.m., ABC) Sullivan's show is part of a three-hour block of variety shows; it's followed at 8:00 by The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, with Dean Martin, Anne Murray, and John Byner; then at 9:00, it's The Tim Conway Comedy Hour, with Carol Burnett and Steve Lawrence.

Monday is a night of big names on NBC, starting with The Red Skelton Show (6:30 p.m.), with guest Godfrey Cambridge as football star Joe Broadway, managed by San Fernando Red. That's followed by Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (7:00 p.m.), featuring Bob Newhart playing an NBC prop man. At 8:00 p.m., it's a Bob Hope special, with Bob's third annual vaudeville show; special guests are Lucille Ball, George Burns, Tom Jones, and Danny Thomas. The night winds up with another special celebrating Jack Benny's 20th TV Anniversary, featuring highlights from 20 years of Jack's shows, and including guests Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Lucille Ball, Dean Martin, Red Skelton, and Jack's wife Mary Livingston. Sounds like a lot of the same people we've been reading about already, doesn't it? CBS counters with The Carol Burnett Show (9:00 p.m.), with Ross Martin and Martha Raye.

Have you noticed how big Country music shows are in 1970? And I'm not talking about the Countrified pop crap that you see so much today, but the real thing. In addition to that strip of twangy shows that KPLR had on Saturday, Tuesday has Hee Haw (still on its network run) with special guest Charley Price. (7:30 p.m., CBS), and on Wednesday it's The Johnny Cash Show, with guests Kris Kristofferson, Cass Elliot, and Lorne Greene (8:00 p.m., ABC). After all that, I was so hoping Eddy Arnold was hosting one of the Country-flavored editions of Kraft Music Hall (8:00 p.m., NBC); alas, it's "Don Adams Investigates The Detectives," a musical-comedy satire on famous sleuths (no offense meant to Don, of course), with Raymond Burr, Will Jordan, Elisha Cook, and David Janssen. And I'll bet they've got some Thanksgiving recipes on the commercials.

The fun continues on Thursday with The Flip Wilson Show (6:30 p.m.), and Flip's guests, Marcel Marceau, Arte Johnson, Moms Mabley, and Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw. (I knew we'd keep that Country theme going.) And at 7:00 p.m., The Jim Nabors Hour (CBS) has Don Rickles and singer Karen Wyman, in a salute to the English music hall. Finally (for tonight, anyway), The Dean Martin Show (9:00 p.m., NBC) welcomes Vikki Carr, the Temptations, and English comic Billy Baxter.

Sammy Davis Jr. is back on Friday, but it's not in a variety show; instead, he's a guest on part one of a two-part Name of the Game (7:30 p.m., NBC), playing soul singer superstar Billy Baker; Ray Charles, Tony Martin, Marilyn Michaels, Jack Carter, Norm Crosby, and Redd Foxx also appear in an episode that might as well be a variety special, don't you think? And wrapping up the week, Tom Jones has his first London special of the season, with Jack Jones, Joey Heatherton, and Jerry Reed. (9:00 p.m., ABC) And they said the variety show was dead; I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted just typing all this. Did I miss anyone?

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A couple of additional programs to report on this week: On Tuesday, the Hallmark Hall of Fame opens its 20th season with "Hamlet," starring Richard Chamberlain, (8:00 p.m., NBC) You might not think of Dr. Kildare as your first choice to play the role, but Chamberlain won raves in Britain last year when he became the first American Hamlet since John Barrymore. He's backed by a heavyweight supporting cast, including Michael Redgrave as Polonius, Margaret Leighton as Gertrude, John Gielgud as the Ghost, and Martin Shaw as Horatio. As you can see here, it's a handsome production, set in Europe of the 1800s, as opposed to the bleak and minimal versions that one often sees nowadays.

Also on Tuesday, it's one of the ABC Movie of the Week presentations that many will remember fondly: The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again (7:30 p.m.), a sequel to last year's Over-the-Hill Gang movie. It's your run-of-the-mill movie, with the highlight definitely being a cast that includes Fred Astaire, Walter Brennan, Edgar Buchanan, Andy Devine, Chill Wills, and Parley Baer; Paul Richards and Lana Wood are on hand as younger faces. Says Judith Crist, it's "designed for Golden Agers and movie buffs who get a bang out of seeing familiar faces."

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ABC's rotating cast of news anchors has taken another turn, reports Richard K. Doan, as the network turns to CBS veteran Harry Reasoner in its search for ratings success. Reasoner, who's been the long-time second anchor on the evening news (filling in for Walter Cronkite when necessary), will replace Frank Reynolds as Howard K. Smith's co-anchor beginning December 7. Reynolds has come under increasing fire for his outspoken liberal commentaries, recently calling for a total ban on TV advertising, but Elmer W. Lower, president of ABC News, insists that this had nothing to do with Reynolds' replacement. "Reasoner is 'simply a bigger box-office star,'" Lower says. "He has great independence of mind, too, and will do commentaries twice a week." Reynolds, meanwhile, is being reassigned to special segments.

As longtime readers know, I'm an admirer of both Reasoner and Reynolds (and Smith too, for that matter); when I was in my formative years, the Smith-Reasoner evening news was my preferred news broadcast—when I could see them, that is, given that I spent many of those years living in the World's Worst Town™. And while Reynolds' politics diverged from mine, I always found him a straightforward, dignified, and likeable presence. Of course, that rotating cast will continue to turn; eventually Howard K. Smith will be replaced by Barbara Walters (a terrible move), and partly as a result of that, Reasoner winds up going back to CBS. And when Roone Arledge comes in as head of ABC News and creates World News Tonight, he brings back former anchor Peter Jennings as London correspondent, and as the main anchor, he turns to—Frank Reynolds. A good move.

In other news from The Doan Report, CBS's second-season plans are coming into focus. In addition to cancelling The Tim Conway Comedy Hour, the network is planning on dropping either The Governor and J.J. or To Rome with Love in favor of "a satirical venture tentatively titled All in the Family." The new show is an Americanized version of the former British hit, Till Death Us Do Part, a show "which managed to insult all minorities." CBS president Robert Wood is said to be determined to "hang his hat on this one," seeing the new sitcom as analogous to NBC's Laugh-In in its ability to "enliven TV." Time will tell, I suppose. 

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MST3K alert: The Eye Creatures (1945) The strange inhabitants from a flying saucer terrify a lovers' lane. John Ashley, Cynthia Hull, Warren Hammack, Chet Davis, Bill Peck. (Saturday, 8:00 p.m., KDNL) As you can see from the picture at the left, the original title was rendered in a stylized logo. When the movie was re-released as Attack of the Eye Creatures, whoever was in charge of graphic embellishments inexplicably added "Attack of the" to the title, meaning that it reads literally as, well, Attack of the The Eye Creatures. No fan of MST3K would ever refer to it any other way. And I think that tells you just about everything you need to know about this movie. TV  

Around the dial

Automobiles have long been a major part of American culture, and with them, the service station. We think of them as gas stations now because we serve ourselves, but back in the day, "service" meant something, and David looks back at those days at Comfort TV, and the role service stations have played on television.

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I've made mention before of how local movie shows used to have titles, such as The Late Show or, as we see here at the Broadcast Archives, Armchair Theater. They also used to have hosts, and as this ad reminds us, it's important to create a good title and have a good, personable emcee. "TV, after all, is a very intimate medium."

At Cult TV Blog, John continues his series on Seventies television with the 1972 series Villains, a show which faced the then-challenging premise of creating a series about a group of antiheroes: thieves who rob a bank, are imprisoned, and escape. Nowadays we're accustomed to antiheroes; we might even be conditioned to expect them. But back then, I don't think it was so easy.

It's time to return to The Avengers at The View from the Junkyard, as Roger and Mike review "Never, Never Say Die," a Steed/Mrs. Peel episode made memorable by an electrifying performance from the great Christopher Lee. I reviewed this episode myself a couple of years ago; see what our erstwhile critics say here, and compare notes. 

Travalanche has three posts on shows from the classic era, and they're all worth reading: the many shows sponsored by Chevrolet, including but not limited to Dinah Shore; The Patti Page Oldsmobile Show, starring (surprise!) singer Patti Page; and, in a break from the automotive business, The Ed Wynn Show, starring the Perfect Fool himself.

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence pays tribute to a handful of figures who've passed on in the last few weeks, and doesn't it seem as if we've been saying that a lot this year? He remembers the work of Richard Moll here, and a trio of familiar faces here, including Matthew Perry of Friends. I must confess that I've never, ever seen a moment of Friends, and while I don't feel as if I've missed anything, I'm well aware of Matthew Perry's talent, and the outpouring of emotion in the wake of his death testifies to the impact he made on viewers throughout his career. TV  

Around the dial

At The View from the Junkyard, Mike continues his examination of Star Trek: The Animated Series with "The Infinite Vulcan," an episode written by Walter Koenig. Does this episode live up to expectations? Well, you'll have to read it and find out, but, like it or not, it's undeniably Star Trek.

Ready for some seasonal fare? At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence takes a look at "The Haunted House," a fourth-season episode of The Andy Griffith Show. It's considered the only Halloween episode of the series, though it's not specifically referred to as such. But when you've got a haunted house to play with, who's going to complain?

Speaking of Halloween, just about any episode of Night Gallery could qualify as a story worthy of the season, but at Shadow & Substance, Paul uses the episode "Dr. Stringfellow's Rejuvenator" as background for how Rod Serling loved using roving pitchmen as a plot device. I suppose pitchmen still exist today in a city like New York, but I've only seen them at state fairs.

At Cult TV Blog, John continues his series on the Seventies with a look at two British game shows that are very much of the time: The Indoor League, which ran from 1973 to 77 and involves people playing pubroom games (darts, foosball, etc.); and The Joker's Wild (1969-74), which bears no resemblance to the American game show of the same name.

David has a new Comfort TV piece that should be seen to be appreciated, as it deals mostly with pictures of famous television pairings (Lucy & Ethel, Matt & Miss Kitty, Ozzie & Harriet, etc.), through which you can essentially trace the history of classic television. See if this doesn't bring back some fond memories for you!

Finally, my latest appearance on Dan Schneider's Video Interview is available for your viewing pleasure; in this episode, Dan and I discuss the history of television variety shows. It's an interesting topic, to which I hopefully did some justice, so when you have some time, check it out!  TV  

Around the dial

Well, we're back this week after last week's special report from—where was I again? Oh yeah, the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. (By the way, I'll have a final entry on that next Wednesday.) As is always the case when this feature takes a week off, we've got a full batch of links, so let's get right to it!

We'll start off with my latest appearance on the Dan Schneider Video Interview. This week, we look at the history of special event news coverage, from the death of Stalin to the Gulf War. There's a lot more to this than you might think, and I'd be interested to see what you all think. You can see the entire episode here.

John takes another break from his excellent series at Cult TV Blog on The X-Files and the American Dream for a look at The Avengers, and the early episode "Box of Tricks," a rare Steed-Venus Smith story. I like it not only because he mentions yours truly (thanks, John!) but because he goes deeper into an episode which has received valid criticism but still entertains. 

At Classic Film & TV Café, Rick reviews the 1964 version of Ernest Hemingway's short story The Killers, starring Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager. Most of you probably know it was originally slated to be the first TV movie, but wound up in the theaters due to its violence; like Rick, I quite like this movie. He also reviews Tenebrae, Dario Argent's 1982 giallo thriller, which might be worth a look.

The latest entry in the Hitchcock Project is Allan Gordon's "The Man Who Found the Money," from Hitchcock season six. Jack takes a deep look at this very nasty episode, starring Arthur Hill and Rod Cameron, at bare-bones e-zine.

Much of the appeal to classic television lies in its uncanny ability to revive happy memories of the past, and David demonstrates this at Comfort TV with his fond review of the superb PBS children's show The Electric Company, featuring Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman, and Irene Cara. It's proof that educational television doesn't have to be boring at the same time.

Cult TV Lounge pulls up a blast from the past—an episode of the 1950-51 Dick Tracy TV series, included as a bonus in the box set of Dick Tracy serials. It's an excellent look at the challenges involved in doing a half-hour drama series, and how the writers have to really know what they're doing.

Collider has an interesting article on how the excellent neo-noir movie Experiment in Terror may have influenced David Lynch, especially in the making of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. Now, the article doesn't actually quote Lynch as acknowledging this, though I wouldn't doubt it; still, I'm in a kind of prove-it mindset. Nevertheless, it seems hard to refute! 

Not long ago, I posted a review of the 1970s miniseries Captains and the Kings, looking primarily at the striking coincidences between the story's Armagh family and the real-life Kennedys, and author Taylor Caldwell's political message. If you're interested in the ins and outs of the series itself, Paul has an excellent extended look at Drunk TV. 

At Travalanche, it's a nostalgic look back at the Labor Day tradition that was the Jerry Lewis Telethon, an annual tradition for so many of us around here. Labor Day just isn't the same anymore, sad to say, but that doesn't make it unique.

A View from the Junkyard takes a look at what must be one of the most famous non-cartoonish animated shows, Star Trek: The Animated Series. It really was quite something at the time: a cancelled primetime show making a comback as a Saturday-morning show, feauring the voices of the original cast members; as Mike says, it's essentially season four of the series.

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence dips way back into the memory files for NBC Follies, the network's 1973 attempt to revive the variety show genre. The fact that NBC Follies is, as Terence says, "largely forgotten except by television historians and fans of Sammy Davis Jr. and Mickey Rooney," tells you what you need to know about its success. Of course, since he's describing me, I had to link to it. TV  

This week in TV Guide: June 21, 1980

Some things never change, it seems. If you've watched a DVD any time in the last—well, however long it's been that DVDs have been around—you've seen that warning from the Federal Bureal of Investigation that piracy is a crime. I'm not sure that it's much of a deterrent, but it's there. Before there were DVDs, there were video tapes, and while there are many differences between the two, there's one thing they've always had in common: piracy. And if you don't believe me, believe Neil Hickey, who opens his article with a story of 400 FBI agents descending "like Visigoths" on 30 businesses in ten states last February 14. (And Happy Valentine's Day to you, too!) It was the result of two and a half years of undercover work penetrating organized crime's entrance into the piracy business. (I wonder if they ever pirated copies of The Untouchables?)

The fact that the Mob is now formally involved in the video business shows how lucrative video piracy has become, and how much of a threat it is to the movie business. The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that "hundreds of millions of dollars a year" are siphoned off from movie companies by video pirates, whether crime kingpins or small-time freelancers. At one New York City location, "lawmen found 22 video-tape machines grinding out copies of Kramer vs. Kramer around the clock." Well, no accounting for taste. But other bootlegging hits include Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Star Wars, Superman, Pincchio, and Bambi. Anyone with a VCR can copy and duplicate movies that run uncut on networks such as HBO. Investigations into video piracy have now involved more than 80 countries, with the FBI, Interpol, and Scotland Yard all playing their roles. Perhaps most galling of all, no less than Fidel Castro boasts that he sees pirated tapes "at the same time they open in U.S. theaters." Saudi Arabia, where movie theaters are banned by law, is a particularly fertile ground for pirate-video sales.

So then, as now, video piracy is a problem. It often involves several crimes, in fact, from copyright law to mail fraud, falsifying export documents, income-tax evasion, and interstate transportation of stolen property. But people are willing to engage in it because they have the means to do it, and the demand from consumers provides them with the motive.It costs plenty to prosecute, but the industry is willing to do it because of its "tremendous concern" about piracy cutting into its profits. The solution, if it truly exists, is a drastic one: releasing all future movies to the home-video market at the same time they're released to theaters. "It would mean that new movies would be available for home use, legally and at reasonable prices, the same day they hit the movie houses." It might well succeed in driving the Mob out of the piracy business, but it would also overturn "the whole economic base on which the movie business was founded more than 75 years ago—namely, that movies are for exhibition to audiences, not for sale to individuals."  20th Century-Fox says that in the next couple of years, it plans to do exactly that. 

Well, as far as I know, that didn't happen (except for the virus period when Warner Bros. released their movies simultaneously on HBO Max).  But now that the time between movie release and home appearance (whether on physical media or streaming) is so short, one wonders about the motives of today's pirates. Part of it is availability: movies and television series that haven't been commercially released or are out of print force those who seek them to the underground gray market, where copyright is freely violated. For some, it's probably fun, a game of "beat the man." And there's a complex relationship between piracy and the industry; the Harvard Business Review reports that piracy "can actually boost sales of some digital products by increasing word-of-mouth and overall market awareness." The biggest reason, though, is probably cost; priates may sell their product at reduced prices, or, in some cases, release it for free. And at that, we shouldn't be surprised. We're so reluctant to sacrifice for anything, to pay the price—why should this be any different?

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

Kirshner: Performers include Jimmy Messina, the Spinners, Michael Nesmith and comedy act the Rick & Ruby Show. Musical selections include “You Need a Man," “Do You Want to Dance?” "Nobody but You.”

Special: Ambrosia (hosts), Peter Townshend, Rocky Burnette, and film clips of Paul McCartney, the Pretenders and Gerry Rafferty. Also featured: the top-10 countdown. Highlights include "Biggest Part of Me" (Ambrosia), "Rough Boys" (Peter), "Tired of Toein' the Line" (Rocky), "Coming Up" (Paul).

Well, this week is interesting. Rather than who's better, who's best, maybe we should be looking at who's left: Pete Townshend without The Who, Jim Messina without Kenny Loggins, Mike Nesmith without The Monkees, and Paul McCartney without Wings. But even without The Who, I think any program featuring Townshend is going to automatically start with an advantage, and even though McCartney, the Pretenders, and Rafferty are on film, I think they're more than enough to edge out Kirshner. This week, Special takes the price.

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In last Saturday's issue (June 18, 1966), I highlighted a couple of specials that were, in my opinion, really specials—one-woman shows by Peggy Lee and Lena Horne. There was nothing fancy about them, just an hour of hits each, by two great singers showcasing their talents. This Monday, we have a special that demonstrates everything that's wrong about the genre in the 1970s and 1980s, and why the descriptions sound as if they were parodies from SCTV. It's Debby Boone in, of course, her "very first knock-'em-out variety special," The Same Old Brand New Me (9:00 p.m., NBC), with special guest stars Bob Hope, Gene Kelly, Greg Evigan, and Jose Ferrer. The first problem is that it is a "variety" show, which means you're going to have those painful comedy sketches that really aren't very funny. Also, there's no synergy in the guest lineup; it's all paint-by-numbers casting—Greg Evigan as the obligatory NBC star appearing on an NBC show, Jose Ferrer because Debby's his daughter-in-law; and Bob Hope because, well, he'll appear on anything these days. (I haven't quite figured out where Gene Kelly fits in.) But do the pieces really mesh? 

Understand that this isn't meant to be a slam on Debby Boone, who might be the nicest person in God's creation. But at this point she's had one hit, 1977's "You Light Up My Life," and by this time she's moved to the country music genre. It's quite conceivable that she just doesn't have a body of work strong enough to support a one-hour special. And if that's the case, then this isn't really all that special, is it? It's more like an opportunity for a few celebrities to pick up some extra cash and get a little screen time. And when your show sounds like an SCTV bit but isn't, then you're in trouble. (By the way, I've got Andrea Martin as Debby, Dave Thomas as Hope, John Candy as Ferrer, Rick Moranis as Evigan, and Joe Flaherty as Kelly. But there has to be a cameo somewhere by Bobby Bittman.)

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Ah, it's always good to air out the spleen a little, isn't it? But here's something else that's on NBC this Monday, one that's likely to be remembered a little longer than Debby Boone's first special. It's the debut of everyone's favorite gap-toothed comedian, David Letterman, and his late, lamented morning show. (Monday-Friday, 10:00 a.m., NBC) Being that it premiered during the summer, I was able to watch the first few months while I was off from college; it was a very funny, very creative program, not at all comparable to today's daytime chatfests. (I especially enjoyed Edwin Newman's news updates!) It was, more than anything, a throwback to Dick Cavett's late-1960s morning program on ABC, with some of Ernie Kovacs's morning show in television's earlier days. 

And like those outings, it was probably too different, too innovative, for a daytime audience; it only lasted four months before leaving the schedule. At that point, I thought NBC's best move would be to move SCTV to a regular Friday night slot (in place of The Midnight Special), and turn Saturday late night into Saturday Night Live with David Letterman; it would have been a massive upgrade over the disaster SNL had become. I still think it would have been a good idea; Letterman could have remade that show, which I haven't watched in decades, into something special. The stars that SNL has produced over those years would easily have fit in as part of Letterman's regular cast. But then, as has often been proven the case, what do I know? 

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Your reminder that this is an election year comes on Saturday, with "It's a Great Night, America" (10:30 p.m., CBS), sponsored by the Republican National Committee, with Pat Boone (father of the aforementioned Debby) and Tanya Tucker, and featuring appearances by Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Howard Baker. At this point, with the GOP convention next month, Reagan has long had the nomination wrapped up, so in essence this is a vice-presidential audition for two of the leading contenders, Bush and Baker. And since we were talking about Saturday Night Live just a moment ago, this week's episode is a rerun from January, with Teri Garr as an Iowa housewife being wooed by presidential candidates. The B-52's are the musical guest.

Sunday, it's the network television debut of 1968's Romeo and Juliet (9:00 p.m., ABC), with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey starring, and Franco Zeffirelli directing. The movie, which was nominated for Best Picture, was in the headlines earlier this year for the wrong reasons, is a reminder that movies didn't always debut a couple of weeks after they left the theaters; in this case, it was twelve years from big screen to small.

If I've discouraged you from watching the Debby Boone special on Monday, just hang on for an hour, because it's followed by Tom Snyder's Celebrity Spotlight (10:00 p.m., NBC), and while I don't usually pay much attention to these celebrity interviews, this one could be more interesting: in addition to standard stars like Carroll O'Connor, Erik Estrada, and Priscilla Presley, Tom sits down to talk with James Cagney and his upcoming role in Ragtime—his first movie in 19 years.

One of my favorite shows is Police Squad!, so it should come as no surprise to you that one of my favorite movies is Airplane, the disaster spoof made by the same crew—Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker. On Tuesday, Merv Griffin devotes his show to actors from the movie, including Robert Hays, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (9:00 p.m., WXIX, Cincinnati) I hope Leslie Nielsen was with them!

Wednesday, it's the drama Wilson's Reward, adapted from the short story by W. Somerset Maugham, starring Sandy Dennis, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, and Fred Morsell, and directed by Patrick O'Neal. (10:00 p.m., syndicated) Ted Morgan, author of the recently published biography Maugham, authors this week's "Background" story, providing a brief but frank look at the remarkable career of the man who became "the most popular English writer since Dickens." I really enjoyed those Background articles; they gave a program like this the context that made it that much more enjoyable, and encouraged you to read more about it, to coin a phrase.

On Thursday, the best choice remains Barney Miller (9:00 p.m., ABC), which features the case of a woman who claims that her husband has been replaced by a clone. What do you want to bet that Steve Landesberg's Dietrich gets assigned to that one? That's followed by Nobody's Perfect (8:30 p.m., ABC), in which Ron Moody plays a Scotland Yard inspector attached to the San Francisco Police Department. Ron Moody is a fine actor; he received a Best Actor nomination for Oliver! in 1968 (the same year as Romeo and Juliet!), but don't you think this "fish-out-of-water" police schtick was already old by 1980? 

Friday's recommendation is the late night movie In Cold Blood (3:15 a.m., WAVE, Louisville), based on the gripping true story (well, sort-of true) by Truman Capote. The movie features stark black-and-white cinematography, much of which was shot on location in Holcomb, Kansas (including the murder home); intense performances by the young Robert Blake and Scott Wilson; and an outstanding job by Richard Brooks, who was justifiably nominated both for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. I will admit, however, that this may not be the best movie to watch if you're susceptible to hearing sounds in your house, and I mean that as a compliment. 

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MST3K alert: Revenge of the Creature (1955) "In this first sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the amphibious 'gill man' wreaks havoc in Florida. Clete: John Agar. Helen: Lori Nelson. Joe: John Bromfield." (Saturday, 8:00 p.m., WDRB, Louisville). One of MST3K's favorite whipping boys, John Agar (aka Mr. Shirley Temple) is out-acted by the great Ricou Browning, and Lori Nelson takes the place of Julie Adams. There's a reason why this movie, and not the original, is on MST3K. On the other hand, we're introduced to Professor Bobo and The Nanites, so how bad can it be? Or is that just a rhetorical question?

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Finally, this week's variation on the old "if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it" question: if you're a member of an Olympics team and you don't go to the Olympics, does it really count?

As everyone knew by now, the United States had determined to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, over the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. (Ironic, isn't it, how history keeps coming around to bite you in the behind? Ironic also that we've never bothered to boycott the Olympics in China.) So, even though our athletic heroes won't be getting the chance to compete for the gold, they're being given the full exposure this weekend with live primetime coverage of the U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials from Atlanta (Saturday, 8:00 p.m., NBC), and the track and field, yachting, road cycling, canoeing and kayaking, and pentathlon trials on Sunday afternoon (3:00 p.m,. NBC). Then, on Monday, the U.S. Olympic basketball team takes on a group of NBA stars from Indianapolis (9:00 p.m., syndicated). The U.S. hoopsters include Mark Aguirre, Sam Bowie and Isiah Thomas, while the NBA team is led by Artis Gilmore, Magic Johnson, and Bob Lanier. (The U.S. team won, by the way, 82-76.)

The ad above is almost a parody of itself. "They Trained Four Years! Now This Is Their Moment!" Their moment for, what exactly? What is the glory of being selected for an Olympic Team that isn't going to compete in the Olympics? How do you represent your country in what essentially becomes an intramural competition? I've come to have mixed feelings about this, as I have so many things in the past few years; just as I supported American involvement in Vietnam for years after the fact, I supported the Olympic boycott at the time. But did the Olympic boycott serve any real purpose; did it hurt anyone other than the athletes themselves? And talk about irony; just as we took the place of the French in Indochina, we wound up taking the place of the Soviets in Afghanistan. 

Now I find myself, in both cases, wondering what the hell good any of it did. And I'm afraid that's a question a mere television historian can't answer. TV