This week in TV Guide: August 8, 1959

This week Donna Reed graces the cover of TV Guide. The former Academy Award winner has, over the course of the last few months, helped steer her eponymous ABC sitcom from a "sort of Mother Knows Best" up against some rough competition (The Millionaire on CBS, Milton Berle's Kraft Music Hall on NBC), through the early days of dismal ratings (15.1 on Nielsen, which would qualify it as a smash hit today), to where it is today: an established hit (ratings up to 21.2) in a family-friendly time (Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ET), all without changing writers, cast or format. How did she do it?

"We just stood firm," she says - the "we" referring to she and her husband/business partner Tony Owen. "The only think I can say is that we were a little late about persuading the sponsor (Campbell's Soup) to let us lose our tempers on the show." What does that mean? Making it more true to life, for one thing - showing her and her TV husband Carl Betz disciplining the children ("They need the security of knowing you mean what you say."). "There is no such thing as a family where arguments don't occur. Keep it goody-goody and you lose the effectiveness."

Her talk about showing how things are - or should be - in real life is interesting, given how by the time The Donna Reed Show came to the end of its eight-season run, it had become ridiculed as the epitome of "the 1950s nuclear family structure and idyllic suburban setting." Is that a fair criticism? Certainly the show's look can seem dated today, although I'd add that the values espoused in the program are still sound, if mostly ignored in today's day and age. Imagine families eating together! Having discussions! Mother staying at home to keep the household running! Expecting good grades and behavior from the kids! (The subject of this week's show, by the way.) As Marlon Brando would say, "The horror, the horror."

Seriously, this makes a point I've mentioned frequently - that while many programs of the '50s and '60s presented an idealized world, it was also a world with which viewers were familiar, and to which they could aspire even if they never succeeded in duplicating it. It's easy to see how, with race riots, the Vietnam War, and campus demonstrations all raging through the land, The Donna Reed Show might seem out of touch in 1966 America. I can't say whether or not it was in any way an accurate reflection of what times were like then - my own home life was hardly what you'd call "normal" - but the larger question remains whether or not it exemplified values which ought to have been admired. Children respecting their parents and teachers, parents remaining faithful to each other and their families, working to give their kids what they need to face the world - I don't really think those are grounds for ridicule, do you? You may think of this as living in the past, but if history teaches us anything at all, it demonstrates that some very good things are unchangeable now and always, and we ought to strive to hold on to them.

Yes, there were far darker problems to worry about in 1966 than those that typically affected the Stone family. But were those problems , and the situations which caused them, actually better? Given where we are today, were sex, drugs and rock 'n roll really an improvement?

No, I didn't think so.

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In sports, CBS has a special treat this week: as a prelude to the Saturday afternoon Game of the Week between the Kansas City Athletics and New York Yankees, viewers who tune in at 11:00 a.m. (CT) will get to see the fabled Yankees' Old Timers Game, the greatest of all such games played in any sport. But then, what else would you expect, with the Yanks bringing out the pennants from championship seasons past, and hosting names such as Joe DiMaggio, Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby, Lefty Gomez, Carl Erskine and the like. This was a highlight any time it was carried as part of the Game of the Week.

Meanwhile, at 11:45 a.m., NBC has its own version of the Game of the Week, when the Detroit Tigers meet the Red Sox at Boston. Now, you may be asking why there were two games, shown at the same time on two different networks. Back then, there was no single contract covering national telecasts of Major League Baseball; both CBS and NBC (through their various sponsors) were free to make arrangements with individual teams - or, more specifically, with individual stadiums. For example, in 1959 CBS had the rights to broadcast games only from Philadelphia, New York, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago (both Cubs and White Sox), Cleveland, and Cincinnati. I agree that this is no way to run a railroad, but that's how it was.

Unlike today, Texas is without Major League Baseball in 1959, but Channel 11 still has plenty of local coverage of the state's minor league teams: Fort Worth plays St. Paul on Wednesday, while Dallas takes on Denver Thursday. Next week, Fort Worth plays Houston in a pair, followed by their game against Omaha.

August seems a bit early for football, but the annual kickoff to the season, the College All-Star Game, is Friday night from Chicago, with the defending NFL champion Baltimore Colts taking on an all-star team featuring the best college seniors from 1958. The Colts will win 29-0 before a crowd of 75,000, so if you had Baltimore plus the points you did pretty well.

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Now here's a picture to treasure: two of the most iconic Western stars ever, in the same shot.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDES

Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, the quintessential singing cowboys, may not be the flavor of the month in this era of the "adult Western," but neither one of them seems to be too worried about it. Roy, in particular, says "I'm getting tired of these cracks about singing cowboys. I'll challenge the whole bunch in an all-around competition for horsemanship, roping, pistol and shotgun. And I'll challenge any of 'em at the box-office draw, too."

Things aren't really that different today; "They're a little more psychological, maybe. I see some pretty rugged things on TV. Sometimes the hero gets it in the belly - we always stayed away from that. Dress is more realistic . . . [and] there's more killing. But the stories are similar. It's still the cattlemen versus the sodbusters."

Fact is, Roy Rogers hasn't done too poorly - a millionaire with extensive real estate holdings, part owner of 24,000 acres between Phoenix and Tucson, a boat business, a golf course, an auto agency, and those appearance fees that he and his wife Dale Evans get from the state fair circuit. Oh, and there's also the $1.5 million he got from Nestlé for selling them the rights to his show. His specials trounce the opposition in the ratings, and Chevrolet has signed him up for six to run next season. No wonder Dwight Whitney describes him as "probably one of the happiest and least-resentful deposed cowboys (if you can call him deposed) in the world."

Gene Autry "is, if anything, even happier and even richer." His production company currently has five shows on the air, he has a 90-acre ranch which he rents out to Gunsmoke and Wyatt Earp (among others), he co-owns five radio and two TV stations, collects yearly royalties from merchandising, does state fairs and rodeos, etc., etc. Oh, and then there's the baseball team he'll own in a couple of years, the California Angels. Gene Autry may be the only Western star to have his number retired instead of a ten-gallon hat.

He, too, is skeptical that the adult Western is all that different - while "I miss the action. TV Westerns drive me nuts! Too slow!", he also says that the emphasis in today's shows on acting "means you've got to have a good story. And there're not that many stories kicking around these days. I admire a good actor - but the fact he's got boots on doesn't make him a cowboy." He's not interested in challenging today's shows to see who's the quickest gun. "What Roy and I have got is box-office draw - and showmanship." And as for the "singing cowboy" bit, he's quick to remind everyone that a record of his called "Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine" sold six million copies. And then there was a ditty called "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" - you might have heard of it. Sold five million copies.

"If that's funny, then that's the kind o' joke I like," Gene says. Like Roy Rogers, he's laughing all the way to the bank.

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Scattered headlines from the week:

On Sunday afternoon, NBC's Meet the Press welcomes former President Herbert Hoover, who's just about to turn 85. Hoover has since been surpassed as having had the longest retirement after leaving office, but still - when he departed the White House in 1933, it had been less than 30 years since the Wright Brothers made their flight, there had been only one World War, and we pretty much lived in a black-and-white world. Now, this same man is appearing on television, the man who defeated him for president has long since died, and before Hoover himself dies in 1964, he'll have seen man orbit the earth in a spacecraft. It's true that many people were able to claim that distinction - but that doesn't prevent one from being taken aback to think of Hoover on TV.

In Washington, the House Legislative Oversight Subcommittee announces it wants to look at the Grand Jury minutes from the New York investigation into the quiz shows. Says Rep. Oren Harris says, "We now have information leading us to suspect that contestants on some shows were coached."

In New York, the producers of CBS' Person to Person, John Aaron and Jesse Zousmer, announce that Charles Collingwood will take the place of Edward R. Murrow when the later goes on sabbatical from the network.

NBC takes an option on Michael Shayne, an hour-long pilot (or "test film" for a detective series. The pilot's going to be shot this fall; this is one of those pilots that actually does make it to the network schedule, premiering in the fall of 1960 with Richard Denning in the title role, and running for one year. I mentioned Shayne here a few years ago.

Did you know there used to be a Miss America Parade? Neither did I, but it's true - in fact, it still exists. CBS plans to show it on September 8, prior to the September 12 pageant, which it will also cover. Douglas Edwards and 1958 Miss America Marilyn Van Derbur will host.

Many of the shows this week are reruns, but we have the usual assortment of summer anthology series burning off pilots that didn't make the cut. Andy Williams continues his summer replacement series, with guests Diahann Carroll, Buddy Hackett, the Mello-Larks vocal group, and danger Joan Holloway. Merv Griffin, guest-hosting for the vacationing Bill Cullen, announces the winner of the Gift Showcase on NBC's The Price is Right. Tony Bennett, Jaye P. Morgan and the Modernaires appear on NBC's Perry Presents, a replacement series for - guess who? And Ed Sullivan welcomes movie star Jane Russell and her brother Kevin, singers Toni and Jan Arden, actor Keefe Brassille, comedian Shecky Green, dance team Helene and Howard, jugglers the Martin Brothers, guitarist Sabicas, trampolinists the Schaller Brothers, flying trapeze artist Miss Mara, and Sid Kroft's Marionettes.

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Finally, I don't know if this will help people figure out what classic TV fans are made of, but for what it's worth, here is the television guide to the Human Anatomy. I never was all that good at studying the human body - at least, not this way.

TV  

Around the dial

There's a little something for everyone in the blogosphere this week, so without further adieu let's get going.

The Summer Olympics open tonight - provided nothing else happens in Rio. This seems like a good time to check out the history of the Olympics in the movies, which is what's going on at Classic Film and TV Cafe.

I've only seen one episode of Inspector George Gently, but that was enough to tell me it will be worth it pursuing more episodes (when I have time!). British TV Detectives explains why the series is a keeper.

It seems to be about time for another episode review of Love That Bob!, and The Horn Section graciously obliges with this write-up of the second season episode "The Fallen Idol."  I like Bob Cummings; don't know why I haven't taken time to check this series out.

When I was a lad, Bill Dana was a well-known comedian. He'd first hit it big with his Jose Jiminez astronaut routine (which the real astronauts loved), and appeared frequently on shows like Ed Sullivan's. His Jose character not only appeared in Make Room For Daddy, he was spun off into his own series, several episodes of which you can see via Classic Television Showbiz.

Do you remember the 1987-88 television season? If you do, you might (or might not) be surprised to see some of your favorite shows listed on Nielsen's Bottom 10 for January 18-24, 1988. Television Obscurities has the details.

Some of you might recognize the name of Vivean Gray, the Australian actress who appeared in several down-under series, including The Sullivans and Neighbours. Vivean Gray died recently at 92, and Television.au has a right proper appreciation of her.

Here's something that may be of interest - Ken Levine's tips on how to write effective dialogue. This link goes to part two, but the article contains the link to part one. Considering my most recent novel was comprised primarily of dialogue, I can vouch for the importance of knowing how to do it right. Don't be afraid to judge the programs you watch based on this criteria.

Nothing like an anthropomorphized television set to get your attention - not to mention said TV set standing at the top of a totem pole. It's a charming classic ad for KOIN-TV in Portland, Oregon, as always a part of the great collection at Faded Signals.

Lately I've been musing about the various components of classic television, but in many ways the same could be said for classic movies. At Phantom Empires, Clayton gives us 15 great films from the post-1979 wasteland. What do you think?

I know what I think - that you should be back here tomorrow, same time and channel, for more great TV fun! TV  

What's classic about classic TV?

Last month I wrote about how people who enjoy classic television shouldn't be looked upon as trapped in the past; in fact, it is only today's technology that enables one to unlock the past and fully appreciate it, and the past attains a certain richness particularly when viewed from a distance: in other words, from outside and not from within.

All this brings to mind a question I keep coming back to, again and again: why classic television? Specifically, what makes me seek to return to two particular decades more than any other: the ‘50s, the decade before I was born; and the ‘60s, the decade which saw me enter the world, but also the one of which I have the fuzziest memories.

It’s normal, I think, to have curiosity about what things were like in the years B.Y., “Before You,” even though the current generation appears to think history begins on the day of their own birth. Oftentimes we don’t want to go all the way back to the far past, decades before we became the blessed event; it’s the near past, when things were recognizably similar to what we remember, when there is a tangible link between that time and our own, that captures our attention. For example, I can recognize 1955 as different from 1962, but far more similar than 1962 is compared to, say, 1969. And it’s natural to want to know more about what things were like in the early years of your life, at the age when you could form a vague memory of something but not one strong enough to survive intact to adulthood. Lileks had a paragraph about this that, as usual, describes what I’m talking about far better than I could:

I have a box of my dad's slides, taken in the first few years we lived in the hallowed Turquoise Rambler, and they are precious - prelapasarian pictures whose situations I remember in the most vague and indistinct form. In one picture I am squinting unhappily and holding up a dead pheasant. My dad shot it, brought it home; we ate it. We spat shot onto the plate. In another I'm in the turquoise inflatable pool in the backyard, Mom in a lounge chair, and while I don't remember the moment I remember everything about that pool, the feel of the plastic seam, the pink bricks that paved the patio by the back door, the tall thin trees at the end of the lot, the clothesline - the more I think and drill down the more I recall, and the slides are doors into rooms at the far end of a corridor, way back behind me. The backyard was summer. One year I dug canals in the dirt back by the tall trees, filled it with water; there was a story, a plot, an afternoon spent alone finding some drama in this ration of dirt.

Isn’t that nice?

For someone who enjoys the history of television almost as much as television itself - someone like me, for example - it's easy to see why the '50s and '60s are of interest. They represent television's formative years, the years in which the medium struggled to find out what it was good at and what it wasn't good at, when creative minds threw all kinds of programming against the wall to see what stuck, when live programming came and went and more sophisticated forms of filming came into their own, and when color slowly but surely replaced black-and-white.

Although television has come a long way since those early days, just as the United States has come a long way from the days of the revolution, one still has to hearken back to the beginning to understand it all. There's no doubt that if you want to become a TV historian, you have to start there, and if you do, nothing that has come since is likely to much surprise you. The growth of cable and satellite, the advent of reality programs, the striving for dramas dealing with adult content, the myriad advances in technology - all of those can be found back at the very start.

For me, and people of my age demographic, there's another reason why this era of television is so interesting - that's because it comes from our own formative years, the years that go into making us who and what we are today. In that sense television isn't so very different from us; it grew up as we did, and just as our teen years begin to form our personalities, our mores, our ways of thinking and acting - such is the case with television as well. And since television is a part of those years for us, it's natural that the programs we watched played a role in our development, even if it's only limited to creating the memories that we look back upon years later.

Take that quote from Likeks - who among us, watching a television show from our youth, can't be swept back to a certain place and time, remembering the home we lived in, the school we went to, the classmates we dated? Perhaps it's a little later - that first job, a memorable Christmas, an even that remains frozen in our memory. All it takes is a glimpse of a particular program, and we're whisked back to that time as if we'd never left.

Those formative years are going to be different for everyone, depending on when and where you grew up. It's why some are drawn to '80s shows like Alf, others to the '90 sitcoms like Friends. If you were to ask me, both of those shows seem too recent to be considered classic, but for someone who was born in 1980, Friends can be right up their wheelhouse. Friends left NBC a dozen years ago, meaning that someone who came to the show when they were, say, 18, is now 30. A lot younger than me, to be sure, but old enough that we wouldn't necessarily call them a "kid" anymore.

This isn't nostalgia, exactly, nor is it sentimentality. Classic television does not create an alternate universe, one to which we retreat to escape the pressures of modern life, a place where everything and everyone is frozen in time as if nothing had changed since we lived there ourselves.* People who think of it that way, and who think of classic TV fans as people who long for a different world, really don't understand what it's all about.

*That is, unless you happened to grow up in The Twilight Zone.

The point to all of this is that television, more than anything, is like a book of photographs, a family album. It's what Lileks talks about - a place where one can revisit the past without becoming lost in it, where one can emerge from the memories refreshed and invigorated rather than bitter and disappointed. You may not like the direction the world's headed in, and you may think things were better back in the good old days - and you may well be right. But as I said in that previous piece, it's today's world that gave you the means by which you could revisit the past.

There's nothing wrong with escaping to another time and place for a little while; it's the function that movies played during the years of the depression, the function that all entertainment plays, really - books perhaps most of all. Television happens to provide a visual as well as an aural snapshot, and being that our senses play such a strong role in forming memory, it's not surprising that TV's effect would be so great. Now, too much of anything - even cherished memories of the past - isn't necessarily a good thing,* but that's a lesson we ought to have learned by now.

*So sayeth Captain Kirk.

You'll notice I've left out most of the part where I talk about the value of being a cultural archaeologist, of digging through the remains of classic television and finding the remnants of a lost civilization, one that has evolved into the world in which we live today. I haven't talked about how a particular program or series might have changed someone's life, made them decide to become a doctor or a lawyer or a football player. I haven't touched on whether or not the world given to us by these TV shows was a realistic depiction of the world in which they were created, or if it was even intended to be. And these things are a very important part of it, at least for me. It's a fascination, as it would be for anyone interested in history and sociology. It's important as well, in that it truly does teach us about how we got there. It's all this, and much more, as I hope the past five-plus years of this blog have demonstrated.

The one thing it isn't, though, is a justification. You shouldn't have to use scholarly pursuits and other highbrow rationale in order to excuse yourself from enjoying classic television. We can, and often do, debate just what makes a particular television program classic, but one thing I think we can agree on is that if it's played a significant part in your life, if it's made you smile or cry or think, if you can remember what it was like when you first saw it, then it's classic to you.

That's why I watch a lot of television from the past, from America's midcentury. It's classic television, for more reasons than one. And that's why I won't apologize for it.

What's on TV? Thursday, July 31, 1975

We're in the Twin Cities today, and although we looked at this issue a few years ago, this is the first time we've given it the "What's on TV" treatment. Between the shows themselves and the names of the guests on them, this is thoroughly '70s, isn't it?

This week in TV Guide: July 26, 1975

We're back this week with another in our summer series of second looks, this time at the issue of July 26, 1975. As always when we do this, all the material you're reading is brand new - no duplication from last time. (You can read the first look here.)

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Periodically, we read about the specter of cable television looming over the network horizon. It goes by many names, depending on when the article's written; it's referred to as "Pay-TV," "CATV," and "pay-cable" in this article alone, but it all amounts to the same thing, and just about every time we read about it, we're assured that it's the next big thing, that it is - as the cover says - "ready to take off."

In this case, the phrase "take-off" can be taken literally, as the big game-changer may well be "a satellite-fed national pay-TV network," primarily financed by Time Inc., which just happens to be the owner of a fledgling cable channel named Home Box Office. Until recently HBO had a national audience of about 115,000 subscribers, gathered in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, where the signal is transmitted via microwave and land lines. However, once Teleprompter Corp., the nation's largest cable system, joined Time in the satellite investment, nearly 200,000 more homes were added. And once HBO starts beaming the signal via an RCA-leased satellite to dishes in Florida - well, you can see where this is headed. Time is nothing if not ambitious - they plan 24 of these earth stations, which will enable HBO to be delivered to over 80 systems in 21 states, comprising some 870,000 homes. Although TeleMation and Paramount are also talking about getting into the satellite and microwave networking business, "most cable experts see no HBO competition in sight."

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

There's some discussion in this article (written by Richard K. Doan, whose Doan Report is a reliable TV Guide look at what's new in the industry) as to why the growth in cable hasn't happened earlier; the recession is cited as a factor, drying up venture capital, but even so there are already 10 million homes hooked up to cable. It's also interesting that, at least in the beginning, a sort of ala carte delivery method exists, with many customers paying a basic service fee of $5 or $6 per month, and anywhere from $5 to $9 for the pay channel. In a few years, however, this is expected to be replaced by a pay-per-view system (they got that wrong, at least when it comes to day-to-day watching). Everyone agrees that uncut movies are the big attraction for cable; pornography, interestingly enough, isn't seen as much of a factor, and HBO doesn't air R-rated movies until after 9:00 p.m. "It's the convenience of watching at home" that makes the difference, according to Bob Weisberg of TeleMation, who adds that the key audience is between 30 and 50 and rarely goes out to movies, but will pay to watch one at home.

Don't overlook the obstacles to growth, however. The FCC has ruled that cable can't "siphon" off movies between three and ten years old, and networks are pushing studios into even more restrictive exclusivity deals. There are also network fears that a prime sporting event, such as the World Series or Super Bowl, might eventually wind up on cable. For all that, though, one expert forecasts as many as two million homes might have cable by 1980*, a "haunting possibility" that pay-TV could grow into a "massive box office."

*In fact the number was actually closer to 16 million; by 1990 the number was 51,700,000. I wonder if any of the experts saw that coming?

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I remember how much of a treat Monday Night Baseball was, back in the summer of 1975. It wasn't really called "Monday Night Baseball" back then; Monday Night Football wasn't yet as iconic a brand as it is today. But in the days before the aforementioned cable networks started to bring us 15 or so games a week, before teams started to broadcast virtually all of their games on their local cable affiliates, you were lucky to see three or four games a week. There was the Saturday Game of the Week, of course, and if you had a team to call your own (as we did in Minnesota, though in the mid-'70s few of us would admit it), you might get two or tree more games if your team was on a road trip. But glimpses of teams from the other league (the National, in our case) were few and far between, which made an additional national TV game a treat.

The Monday night broadcast started in 1967, when NBC broadcast three specials a year, but by 1973 that number had swelled to 15. This 1975 season marks the last year of NBC's Monday night telecasts; next year the games would move to ABC, as part of the new TV deal that included alternate-year broadcasts of the All-Star Game, League Championship Series and World Series. This may have been good news for ABC, but it was bad news for me, because our single channel in The World's Worst Town™ chose to carry The John Davidson Show and Monday Night at the Movies instead. It wasn't a very good trade.

This season, the game is preceded by the 15-minute Baseball World of Joe Garagiola, a show that was both insightful and witty. Tonight, Joe talks about the minor league Portland Mavericks, a team that features Ball Four author Jim Bouton in the midst of his comeback after five years in retirement. The main game, following at 7:15 p.m. (CT) pits the Milwaukee Brewers and Boston Red Sox, back when Milwaukee was in the American League (where they belong). The secondary game, in case of rain (it was also broadcast in the cities of the two teams playing in the main game) has the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds. Those were the days - I can't remember the last time baseball was a feature prime-time program for me.

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This year we're seeing various limited-run summer series popping up on the networks. For example, on Wednesday night ABC premieres a six-week variety series hosted by Jim Stafford. Meanwhile, Gladys Knight & the Pips wind up a four-week stint on NBC Thursday nights; next week it will be Ben Vereen's turn to fill the time slot for another four weeks.

However, perhaps the oddest show of the summer debuts its five-week run on ABC Thursday night (up against Gladys Knight). It's Almost Anything Goes, I mentioned this briefly back when I did this issue the first time, but I think it bears a little more extrapolation.

Almost Anything Goes comes to television during what might be thought of as the British invasion of American TV (All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Lotsa Luck and Beacon Hill, among others); the British version was called It's a Knockout which was, itself, a takeoff on the French series Intervilles.* As I wrote back in 2012, it can be seen as a forerunner to shows such as Wipeout, but that alone sells the show short. As the synopsis from "The Screening Room" says, "shooting greased beach balls through a hoop while balancing on a tilted, greased platform" is "Silly? Definitely - but also old-fashioned slapstick fun."

*Fun fact, and one of the reasons you come to this site week after week: Both the American and British versions were part of the overall franchise umbrella, called "Jeux Sans Frontières," or "Games Without Frontiers." It's the inspiration for Peter Gabriel's hit song of the same name, which not only contains the words "Jeux Sans Frontières" in the chorus, but also contains the line "It's a knockout." You can thank the always-reliable Wikipedia for this.

The show pits six-member teams from small towns across America; this week's participants are the Burrillville (RI) Indians, the Webster (MA) Broncos, and the Putnam (CT) Clippers. The following three weeks will feature additional three-way battles, with the four champions meeting in the final episode to decide the championship. In that contest, Putnam - tonight's winner - takes on Boulder City (NV), Canton (IL), and Marianna (FL). (Boulder City wins the title, in case you've ever wondered about that.) The announcers for this wild concept are Charlie Jones - whose other work includes AFL football, the World Track & Field Championships, the Olympics, and the college football National Championship Game - and Lynn Shackleford, who for several years announces Lakers games with Chick Hearn. Dick Whittington (not this one, but this one) is what today we would refer to as the sideline reporter.

Almost Anything Goes is actually successful enough that it will be back for a second season; Jones and Shackleford return as well, but Whittington will be replaced by this guy.

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Another program we looked at last time out was Catholics, which airs as the Friday night movie on CBS. It's up against the College All-Star Game on ABC, but I remarked back then that "I'd love to see that program today." Well. . .

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Saturdays nowadays are a television wasteland, as I've mentioned more than once. In 1975, CBS didn't feel the same way. The prime time lineup is their killer sitcom schedule, with All in the Family, The Jeffersons, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Bob Newhart Show. In the 9:00 p.m. slot, however, the network has chosen to show a prestige property, the six-hour miniseries Moses the Lawgiver (appropriately enough, given our earlier mention of the British invasion, an import from the British distributor ITC), starring Burt Lancaster in his television debut.* As I recall, this was something of a big deal back then; unimaginable, now, that a network would show it on a Saturday night. Cable, though - maybe.

*Fun fact: Just as Charlton Heston's son Fraser played the infant Moses in The Ten Commandments, Burt Lancaster's son Bill plays the infant Moses in Moses the Lawgiver.

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Finally, let's spend a few minutes with Andy Rooney.

Rooney's in this week's issue twice; on Monday night, CBS replays his whimsical look at the vagaries of the Federal bureaucracy, "Mr. Rooney Goes to Washington." If you want to know what's wrong with the government, look no further than this statistic: "every week [the Government Printing Office] covers a forest of paper with an ocean of ink," while at the same time the Pentagon Disposal Office destroys secret papers at the rate of 10 to 14 tons of pulp a day. What man giveth, man taketh away, I guess.

More interesting, though, is Rooney's appearance in this week's Letters to the Editor section. It's not that Rooney has written a letter to TV Guide; his contribution was an article from June 28th's issue commemorating the beginning of the Bicentennial year. Apparently, in that article, Rooney wrote that there had been no women heroes in American history. Let's just say a number of readers took issue with his contention.

Linda Bilodeau of Windsor Locks, CT, suggests the names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Eleanor Roosevelt as candidates, while Rose Joyner of Celina, OH offered Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Sybil Ludington. Mrs. J.R. Rogers of Massilion, OH nominated Revolutionary War figures Deborah Sampson and Molly Pitcher, and Betty Zane, whose exploits were chronicled by her great-grandnephew, Zane Grey. Lenora Brennan of Brooklyn mentions Sojourner Truth, Mary Cassatt and Jane Addams, and says that "Rooney's attitude, in writing off 200 years of American women, is offensive." And out of date, I say; 200 years out of date. TV