Technology changes everything

My last two midweek columns have, unfortunately, been obituaries, so this week I’m grateful for the chance to write about something more fun.

Watch an episode, any episode, of an old TV series, any series, from the 50s through the early 80s. As you’re watching it, ask yourself this question: how would the plot change, how would the story be different, if the characters had cell phones and computers? Would we ever again hear lines like this?

• “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you everywhere.”
• “I’m sorry, but you just missed him. Can I take a message?” 
• “I had to make a phone call, and when I got back she was gone.”

For those who grow up knowing nothing other than iPhones and iPads, I fear it might be increasingly difficult to relate to an time in which most meetings took place face-to-face rather than over the phone or via email, where major plot twists occur because someone missed a phone call or didn’t know where to reach someone, where someone had to wait hours, if not days, for a piece of information that could be located or verified with a few strokes on a keyboard. In an era of mobile communication, when people are less tied down to homes, to businesses, to landlines, it’s almost impossible to be out of touch. And that makes for a major change.

In a classic Nero Wolfe story – The Mother Hunt, I think it was – Archie’s out on a stakeout when he has to call Wolfe for instructions or reinforcements or something of the sort, so he drives into town to use a payphone. Naturally, when he gets back he finds the subject’s car, which had been in the garage, is now gone. He’s lost the suspect, and by the time she’s found, she’s also dead.

This is an elemental part of a mystery plot, and yet it would be impossible to pull off today. Archie would simply pull out his iPhone and call Wolfe from the car, while keeping his eyes focused on the front door of the house. He could even take pictures and email it to Saul or Fred or Orrie, to let them know what they should be looking for. Oh, if you needed to create tension you could have the phone drop coverage or have the battery die, but you can’t go there too often without making a joke of it.

In a Route 66 episode, Buz struggles frantically to free a woman whose foot has become caught in a reef, before the rising tide drowns her. There’s no phone in the cabin they’re staying in, and Tod’s taken the car to town to buy supplies. Now, you can say that the situation is contrived and maybe it is, but it remains plausible nonetheless.

So Buz can’t drive to town to get help – he needs to find a phone. He runs to various places where he thinks he might find one – leaving the trapped woman in the meantime – only to find that there is no phone, or that the phone is disconnected. But even if he could find a phone, Tod won’t be any help because Buz doesn’t know where Tod is, doesn’t know that on the way back from the store he’s stopped at a diner for lunch. Probably he could call the police, but in the isolated coastal hamlet they’re in, the police might take even longer to get there. In other words, Buz is screwed. It’s only because a boat happens to sail by (and how’s that for contrived) that he’s able to get help to free her just in the nick of time. But if he had a cell phone? No problem. Call the police, call Tod (on his cell), call the Coast Guard. In the meantime, stay with the damsel in distress and comfort her – who knows what might come of that?

Perry Mason is a great example of how technology can change things.  In a typical Mason episode, Perry’s always sending Paul Drake to San Francisco or Mexico or wherever he needs to go, often on little more than a hunch, in search of the one piece of evidence that proves his client’s innocence. Will Paul find that evidence? And will he get it back to the courtroom in time for Perry to use it in his devastating cross-examination of the real killer?

More likely, Paul doesn’t have to rush to the courtroom – he can just fax or email Perry the information. Come to think of it, Paul doesn’t even have to leave the courthouse; he can go down to the lobby and use the wi-fi to get the info on his iPhone, and text Perry something like “ASK WHAT DOING SAT NITE.”

How many times have we seen a plot hinge on a phone call that was missed, with no voicemail to take the message? How many murders could have been prevented by reaching someone on their cell phone instead of driving to their house only to find out they were too late? How often does someone sit at home desperately waiting for news that today would be only a text message away?

This development of technology has to have changed the art of scriptwriting.* So many misunderstandings, cliffhangers, mistakes, anxiety-ridden moments – the elements of human relationships – all of these are much harder to pull off now, when we’re all so connected, all of the time. And so the story has to change. Information that might have taken 15 minutes to develop on Dragnet now gets done in the blink of an eye. The phone caller claiming to be John Doe in order to suggest that John Doe is still alive when in reality he was murdered an hour ago – that’s a little more difficult with Skype, isn’t it? The frantic drive through rush hour traffic to prevent an assassination can be taken care of easily, with the press of a few buttons.

*I’m sure there’s an article on it somewhere, but frankly I’m too lazy to Google it; besides, I might lose my train of thought.

I wonder if that’s why shows like CSI and NCIS are so prevalent now. The classic police show, Columbo for instance, seldom relies on technology, and when it does it’s usually to confirm a suspicion the detective has already sleuthed out, rather than to point him in the right direction. I’m not saying this is always the case; a lot of shows from the era used advanced science to identify suspects. But the show featuring the lone wolf – the brilliant police lieutenant, the world-weary private detective – how many of these shows still exist? And of the ones that do, how many of them rely on some kind of a gimmick (think any USA crime show, for example), rather than the depiction of good, hard investigative work? Some might say they’ve fallen victim to the ensemble casts that dominate most television nowadays, but I would suggest an additional factor, that these shows reflect the nature of technology today. Simply put, too many of the things upon which these shows were based have now been rendered pointless because technology has changed the way we operate.

I don’t say that it’s good or bad – just different. As for how different, just watch your favorite black-and-white show, pretend there’s a cell phone or a laptop around, and imagine what happens.

This week in TV Guide: September 30, 1967

The 1967 major league baseball season was the penultimate season to be played the way seasons had been played for the whole of the 20th Century.  In 1967 there were no divisions, no wild cards, no way to make it to the World Series without finishing in first place.  Oftentimes the League champions clinched a week or ten days in advance, and even before they clinched the average fan had a pretty good idea who would be facing off in the Fall Classic.  In 1967, however, that was not the case.

It was called "The Great Race," perhaps inspired by the 1965 movie of the same name, and baseball had never seen anything quite like it.  With a week to go in the season, four teams battled for the American League pennant - the Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox.  They had clung to each other for weeks, taking turns at the top, none able to break free from the others.  The ambiguity about the season's end was reflected in the listing for NBC's Saturday Game of the Week, with three games to choose from: Minnesota at Boston, California at Detroit or Washington at Chicago.  If all three games were important to the race, the listing noted, there would be simultaneous coverage.  It was the last scheduled telecast of the regular season, but maybe not: if things were still up in the air there was the possibility of Sunday coverage as well (preempting the Chargers-Bills AFL game).  And should there be a tie involving two, three or even all four teams, NBC would cover the play-off(s).  No wonder TV Guide cautioned viewers that the tiebreaker games "would begin on Monday - and could continue through the week."  The Series was scheduled to start on Wednesday, but with two days to go in the regular season, nobody could even be sure if it would start on time.

As it was, by Saturday the White Sox had fallen out, evenutally winding up three games behind.  But it was still too close to call, with the Twins holding a one-game lead over the Red Sox and Tigers.  My memory could be deceived by having lived in Minneapolis during that time, but as I recall NBC chose the Twins-Red Sox game.  A win by Minnesota would eliminate Boston and put the heat on Detroit, forced by rainouts to play back-to-back doubleheaders with Washington.  And into the fifth inning things were headed that way, before the Red Sox rallied for a 6-4 win, dropping the two teams into a tie for first, with the Tigers just a half-game back.

I don't know if NBC showed the game the next day; Channel 11, the Twins station in Minneapolis, did.  And the Red Sox, behind Cy Young winner Jim Lonborg, topped the Twins again, taking the lead for the first time in the 6th en route to a 5-3 win.  With the Tigers splitting their twin bill against California, the Red Sox were the last team standing.  There would be no play-off, and the Series would start on time.  In Boston they'd called it "The Impossible Dream" (after the musical Man of La Mancha*), and the Sox, who had last played in the Series in 1946, would take the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals to seven games before losing.  It would only be another 37 years before they'd finally win.

*The Great Race.  The Impossible Dream.  Who says sports isn't affected by the rest of society?

The drama of that pennant race, and the final weekend, is only hinted at in the pages of the TV Guide, but it's there.  And for someone who saw it as it happened, those hints bring back a flood of memories, and once again the realization that baseball will never be the way it was back then.  Here's a brief glimpse of the drama.

***

Speaking of sports and hints, there's a big one in the Hollywood TV Teletype section: "Jean Simmons, Sir Michael Redgrave and Academy-Award-winner Maximillian Schell co-star in NBC's version of the classic "Heidi," which will be shown next season.  Oh, yes, it was indeed - but that's another story.

***

Color TV is a bit more than a novelty in 1967; by 1966 all three networks were broadcasting their primetime lineups (except for older movies*) in color (although local schedules continued to be dominated by reruns of B&W series). 

*For example, NBC's broadcast of the 1960 movie Never on Sunday which, not surprisingly, was not shown on Sunday, but on Saturday Night at the Movies.  Really, what choice did they have?

But while color televisions were more common than ever before, the art of getting a perfectly balanced color picture was still mystifying to many, as David Lachenbruch points out in his very funny article "The Hows and Whys of Purple-Faced Cronkitis."  The first step in getting a good picture, Lachenbruch explains, is to understand the machine: 

All color sets are roughly rectangular in shape and have six basic parts.  These are called: (a) front, (b) back, (c) top, (d) bottom, (e) left, (f) right.  (Sides e and f are sometimes known as f and e; i.e., when one is addressing the set from the rear.)

You'll never go wrong if you remember that a color set is very similar to a black-and-white set, except that it has colors instead of blacks and whites.  (This is very important, and you are advised to red the sentence again, and memorize it if possible.)

Yes, things have changed, haven't they?

***

 

During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television.  Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup. 

T
This week Sullivan comes out of the box on Sunday night with scheduled* guests: "singers Peggy Lee, Nancy Sinatra and Sergio Franch; comedians George Carlin and London Lee; the Bob Crewe Generation, instrumentalists; the dancing Birds of Britain; and magician Richardi."

*Sullivan, unlike Palace, was generally broadcast live; thus the guest lineup was always subject to change.

The Palace, in one of its rare periods when it was being shown on Tuesday evenings rather than Saturdays, counters with Victor Borge hosting "an internationally flavored salute to Expo '67.  Joining Denmark's famous clown prince: Adam "Batman" West, French songstress Mireille Mathieu, Hawaiian singer Don Ho, British comedians Hendra and Ullett, Australian vocalists Chris and Peter Allen*, the Lado Dancers from Yugoslavia, a Tahitian dance troupe and the U.N. Childrens Choir."

*Peter Allen, also known as Mr. Liza Minelli.

The verdict: push.

***

Lots of specials and documentaries on this week.  NET, the forerunner to PBS, has an interview with Svetlana Alliluyeva, also known as Stalin's daughter, who had defected to the West the year before.  Also on NET, choreographer John Butler presents an hour of original ballet.  Meanwhile, CBS Reports features a Harry Reasoner report on the painter Andrew Wyeth.  On Monday (in his regular time slot), Johnny Carson celebrates his fifth anniversary as host of The Tonight Show, longer than any previous host.  He'd only be on the scene another 25 years.  And, of course, Wednesday and Thursday it was the World Series, with the glorious starting time of 12:00 noon CT. 

Finally, there's a brief story about continuing efforts to develop a sound meter that will measure and control the volume of loud commercials.  Seems like people don't like loud commercials very much, and they've made their opinions well-known to the FCC.

I guess some things don't change after all, do they? TV  

Andy Williams, R.I.P.

I always liked Andy Williams, and in fact there was something very likable about him. He was handsome, with an attractive family and a smooth, easy style.  He didn't seem to take himself overly seriously, and he did seem to be enjoying himself on stage.  He stood behind his ex-wife when she was accused of murdering her lover, and there was something quite noble about that.  Yes, memories of watching Andy on TV are warm, pleasant ones.

But I wonder if he doesn't become even more likeable in retrospect, and I don't mean that in a critical way.  You see, there are entertainers who are timeless becuase they always seem relevant.  But others, like Andy Williams, are timeless because they epitomize their time. 

What does that mean?  Well, I'm not sure.  Even as I try to figure it out I struggle to explain it in words.  But Sinatra, for example, is always Sinatra; and whenever you watch him (at least until his last, trying years), you feel like it's happening right now.  Inside that concert hall it could be 1958 or 1988; it doesn't really matter.  Time is what Frank says it is.  And that's why Frank's always cool.

But when you watch a DVD of an Andy Williams Christmas special, time doesn't stand still; instead, you’re transported back in time. Perhaps, as in my case, it’s to childhood; for others, it might be the days of your first job, your first love, your first Christmas together. Watching Andy sing with his brothers, you might find yourself remembering trips back home for the holidays; when he walks down the streets of an imaginary downtown, it might be the town where you grew up.; when the whole family sits around the fireplace singing carols, it could be your family on a cold winter’s eve.  The feeling you get watching one of these shows is more than just pleasure; it's a sense of warmth, of security, of simple pleasure.

And just as you smile when Frank Sinatra sings "You make me feel so young" because Frank's always young when he sings that, no matter how old he is, you smile when you watch Andy Williams because he makes you feel so young.  Frank comes into your life; Andy brings you into his.  We can (and often do) idealize the past, but when Andy sings "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (a song written for one of his shows, by the way), you remember what it was like when people actually went downtown to do their shopping, when cities actually used the word "Christmas" without fear, when Peace on Earth wasn't a cynical dream.  But don't take my word for it; those shows were special to everyone.

And that's why Andy Williams' Christmas shows are even better now than they were then; perhaps back then we took everything for granted, assumed that things would continue to be the way they'd always been.  Back then we didn't need Andy Williams to tell us how things were, because we were there.  Today, we need him because we'll never get back there again. And so when we read today of his death of cancer, at age 84, we mourned his death, but in a way he'll never be dead; he'll always be frozen in that time machine, keeping it ready for us every Christmas.

But if this is too existential for you, then let's just enjoy Andy doing what he does best: singing, and making us feel just a little bit better for it.


TV

This week in TV Guide: September 21, 1974 (with bonus footage!)

Another year, another new fall season.   You can either "Look at ABC Now!", enjoy the "Network of the New! NBC", or stick with old, reliable CBS, which undoubtedly felt that actions - or at least good TV shows - spoke louder than words.

The start of a new television season is a bit like the start of the NFL season, which coincidentally appears on the cover of this week's issue.  It's a time for unlimited optimism, when fans everywhere harbor the dream (or illusion) that this could be the year their teams go all the way.  Before that opening kickoff, every team is tied for first.  For a lot of teams, it won't get any better than that.

And so it is with the 1974 fall season.  The excitement from some of these ads jumps right off the page.  Unfortunately, in so many cases the optimism is not only unfounded, it's sadly pathetic.  And instead of a tingling leg, the reader is left wondering just who in the hell thought this show was a good idea.  More on this in a minute.

Theatrical movies were still a big deal in the 70s, and the new season was a great time for networks to display the additions to their inventory.  This week saw three blockbusters: the network premieres of Rachel, Rachel (NBC) and Thunderball (ABC), and the first rerun of Bonnie and Clyde* (CBS). Back then, there were two ways to run movies with big running times: split them into two parts (as was often done with Ben Hur, for example), or put them on Saturday or Sunday night and let them run over the normal time slot.  Thunderball, with a running time of 2:45, falls into the second category.  It begins at the normal ABC time of 8:00pm CT, and pushes the late local news back by 45 minutes, to 10:45pm.  Of course, back then the weekend news wasn't as big a deal; nowadays, pretty much the only time you see programming run over by a substantial amount is when it starts late due to the NFL or breaking news.

*I wonder how much they had to cut out to make it suitable for network television?

Speaking of timing, the NFL's policy in the early 70s was still to start games at 1:00pm local time, perhaps in a nod to churches.  Thus, the 1:00pm kickoff of the first game of NBC's doubleheader, coming from Chicago, means that the second game - Chiefs at Raiders - is joined in progress.  Mind you, in the early 70s it was at least possible (if not likely) that a game could end in well under three hours, which meant that if you were lucky you might only miss the first quarter of the late game.  I can't remember exactly when the league changed to the hard-and-fast noon starting time (except for Baltimore, where the blue laws mandated a 2pm start), but it's hard to believe that "Joined in Progress" used to be a regular part of NFL TV listings.

Now for the teaser: the bonus footage.  The cover of the previous week's issue (September 14) was mocked up to look like a horse racing tip sheet with odds on the new shows.  Some of the predictions were right on, while others - well, let's just say that if you'd actually gone to Vegas and plunked down some dough based on these odds, you might not be reading this now - because you're homeless and the Starbucks won't let you use the wi-fi without making a purchase.

So let's take a look at what all the shouting was about.  Here are the odds on a dozen of the new shows as they appeared on the cover of that issue, along with a catchy tip for each one. 

1. 1-2.  Could take it all.
2. Even.  Won't monkey around.
3. 2-1.  Real contender.
4. Even.  May prove troublesome.
5. Even.  Entry is well placed.
6. 3-1.  Should get the nod.
7. 8-1.  May freeze up.
8. 4-5.  From good barn.
9. Even.  Only filly in race.
10. 7-2.  Might garner support.
11. 6-1. May cop it all.
12. 10-1.  Lost stablemate.

Now we'll take a look at the ads for these shows.  See if you can recognize them from the handicapper's comments.  After the jump, we'll match the quotes and the shows, and separate the winners from the losers.

Steve Sabol, R.I.P.

Mike Greenberg of ESPN said it best this morning: everyone who loves professional football owes Steve Sabol a big debt of gratitude.

When I was a kid, I thought football was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And my favorite TV show was probably NFL Action – even more than Alvin. In Minneapolis, it aired on Sundays in the summer, after the late local news, and it was one of the supreme treats that came from being able to stay up late when school was out. NFL Action – and the other shows produced by NFL Films, such as This Week in Pro Football – created a mythology about the game. It turned players into noble soldiers and simple grass fields became muddied scenes of pitched battle – all accompanied by Sturm und Drang soundtracks and narration by The Voice of God, aka John Facenda.

It was great, great stuff, absolutely mesmerizing for a kid like me. Whereas in past years kids might have grown up idolizing King Arthur or Red Ryder or Dick Tracy, the heroes of my imagination were the Green Bay Packers. They were the best team in the NFL, and the NFL was the best sport there was. And while those kids had sat in front of the radio listening to their heroes in the serials of their day, I sat in front of the television watching my heroes as portrayed by NFL Films, the company founded by Ed Sabol as Blair Motion Pictures, and eventually run by his son Steve. Together the two of them understood that football was more than just a game determining a winner and loser – it was an elemental story of human drama that begged to be told.

Without Ed Sabol, there would have been no NFL Films. But as Joe Posnanski wrote, “the vision [came] from Steve. When it came to football, he heard John Facenda's voice of God narrating in his head long before he knew John Facenda. In his mind, even as a kid playing sixth grade football, the games were epic struggles. The players were gladiators. The uniforms transformed mortals into gods. The autumn wind was a Raider. No, Steve Sabol never thought small.” I never played organized football, but in every other respect I was that sixth grader who understood that football wasn’t life or death – it was more important than that, a validation of one’s entire code of life.

How important to the NFL was the work of Steve Sabol? Brett Farve said, "He changed the face of the NFL without ever playing a down in it.'' “NFL Films,” SI.com's Richard Rothschld wrote, “became a fan’s ticket to the entire league.” It was that dream of the NFL, probably even more than the game itself, that attracted me. It’s hard for me to describe – here, Posnanski puts into words the feelings with which I grew up:

Before the Sabols and NFL Films, mud on the football field was just mud on the football field. NFL Films turned that mud into something holy, something that reflected guts and manhood and courage. Mud proved a Herculean test for the players' souls. NFL Films showed cleats sloshing in mud, mud dripping off taped hands, mud caked on arms, the way mud turned linebackers into heroic and dangerous figures. We take that for granted now because NFL Films has created this image of pro football, but there's nothing intrinsically romantic about mud.

Chuck Klosterman sums up the talent that Steve Sabol had, in talking about a poem that Sabol wrote for an Oakland Raiders film. It’s not, Klosterman says, the best poem ever,

It might not be the 100th-best poem about autumn. But Sabol knew how those words would sound when John Facenda recited them, and he understood the kind of person who would hear them, and he could instantly visualize which images should fall behind them. NFL Films is a rare example of cinematographers placing style over substance and actually making the product infinitely more substantial. Sabol did this effortlessly, for 50 years. It was his natural state of filmmaking.

Steve never lacked for recognition; over the years he earned 35 Emmys for writing, cinematography, editing, directing and producing, and with Ed received the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Ed was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year, and hopefully Steve will follow him there in the not-to-distant future.  So you see, it wasn’t just the fans who recognized how special that work was.

As the years progress you can see the game change through the lens of NFL Films: the muddy grass replaced by plastic turf, the shadows of old ballparks replaced by the light of flying-saucer type creations, the players change from long-sleeved athletes to hulkish giants in stretched-out jerseys, the game itself change into a multi-billion dollar business. In fact, as I go through my collection of shows from NFL Films, I can see my love for the NFL falling away, bit by bit, as time passes, until there is nothing left.

But my admiration for NFL Films and the work they did never left me. And as I learned more about Steve Sabol, I began to appreciate him in a completely different way. A couple of years ago I wrote about how I thought it would have been my dream job to work at NFL Films. "My Dad hated his job," Steve once said. "He sold overcoats, but he wanted to make movies. He had a failed career working with the Ritz Brothers -- they were like the Marx Brothers, only a tier below. I always had a picture in my mind of him in a straw hat.”

You got the impression that Steve also had a picture in his mind of how Ed hated his job, and was determined that would never happen to him. He knew that football was not the most important thing in the world, but it was something he loved, and so it was important to do it right. And so he created a place where people who shared that love could not only get to do it for a living, but have fun doing it. He would give them an incredible amount of freedom with that job, because he knew that people who loved their work, who saw it as more than just punching a clock at a job, would bring to that work a skill and devotion that made it special. Trust and humor – words that keep popping up in descriptions of him. As Klosterman writes, “I never met Steve Sabol, but I wish I could have worked for him.”

He was dedicated to his job, and to his father. When Ed was finally voted into the Hall of Fame last year – after Steve had been diagnosed with the brain tumor that would kill him yesterday, at the much-too-young age of 69 – Steve had the chance to put things into perspective.

"For a company that prides itself on telling good stories,'' he said, "this is one hell of a story. Dad makes the Hall of Fame. Son's going to be his presenter. Son gets a brain tumor. Now the story is, Is the son going to be there? Will the son make it? Who knows? I could be around until the Super Bowl in New York [2014]. But I've had a lot of time to think ...

"So they talk about heaven, and I don't know what is waiting for me up there. But I can tell you this: Nothing will happen up there that can duplicate my life down here. That life cannot be better than the one I've lived down here, the football life. It's been perfect."

Steve Sabol was, by all accounts, an extraordinary man; one NFL GM told Peter King that he “was the most ethical person I knew.” And I think it shows in the way he lived his life. He saw it as a gift: not to be wasted, as some do, nor simply to be endured, as others feel. It was meant to be lived.

And so he did that, for 69 years. He loved what he did and how he did it; he had a passion, and figured out a way to transmit that passion to others, to share it with them so that it would become their passion as well. He loved his work and made a career out of it, and it wasn’t just a career that he somehow fit into; it was a career he created.

As I said, an extraordinary man. TV