This week in TV Guide: May 7, 1960

This week's issue comes to us once again from loyal reader and friend of the blog Jon Hobden, who provided this issue via loan.

Those two images on the cover, though, say a lot, don't they? It's the past, present and future all rolled into one; Frank Sinatra, the once and future king, with Elvis Presley, The King himself, in the middle.

That's not to say that Sinatra wasn't popular during the heyday of Elvis, nor that Presley hasn't remained big; both statements are true. But the renaissance of the Rat Pack in the '90s demonstrated that Sinatra's appeal was timeless, that fads may come and fads may go but Frank goes on forever. He's not called The Chairman for nothing, after all.

Anyway, the hook for this week's cover is Presley's appearance on Sinatra's ABC special (the singer had a series of four specials for the network, all sponsored by Timex). It's a publicist's dream, Sinatra welcoming Elvis back for his first television appearance since being discharged by the Army, and it informally becomes known as the "Welcome Home Elvis" show. Elvis sings both sides of his first single since leaving the Army, and does a duet with Frank where he sings Sinatra's "Witchcraft" while Frank sings "Love Me Tender."

So special is this week's special (Thursday at 9:30 ET), there are two articles devoted to it. One, by Alan Levy (who wrote the recent book Operation Elvis), tries to explain the Presley phenomenon, reciting the by-now familiar litany of what makes The King's fans tick ("A simple and familiar combination of escapism and substitution, to be expected in times of high emotional stress."), and recaps the many different groups who were threatened by Presley ("Freudians,...sociologists, churchmen, criminologists, politicians, anthropologists and businessmen.") On-site at the taping of the special in Miami Beach, Herb Zucker reports on the massive crowd, replete with 400 screaming youngsters, that filled every inch of the Grand Ballroom of Miami's Fontainebleau Hotel.

What I find interesting about this show is that Frank's other guests are Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, and Frank's daughter Nancy. It's almost as if Frank was reminding everyone that while Elvis might be a special guest star, it's still Frank's show. And I think that Frank Sinatra's enduring popularity, even while Elvis continues to be a legend, proves one thing: it's Frank's world, and we're just living in it.

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Let's see what's moving on the TV Teletype this week:

This goes a long way to explaining the state of big screen movies airing on television: the movie studios have announced plans to package a dozen or so of their movies to sell to the networks as specials, rather than simply flooding the market. The reason they have the inventory? "Recent settlement of the actors' strike gave the studios the right to release to TV movies made between 1948 and 1960 without residual payments to actors." Nowadays movies are sometimes available to home viewers the same day they hit the theater; we forget how big a deal it was to watch a movie on TV.

Speaking of movies, CBS will once again be airing The Wizard of Oz, this year on December 11. Curiously, however, the movie will air in black-and-white; the last two times, it was shown on color. I can think of a couple of series that actually moved from color to black-and-white during the course of their run, but it's strange that on a property as big as this, CBS would go this way.

Here's the kind of note we like to pick up on: "After publicizing Pat Buttram's Down Home series as its Thursday night replacement for Pat Boone next fall, ABC has quietly let the project die. Tentatively set for the Boone spot is Fred MacMurray's new series, My Three Sons." Good move, I'd say.

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There's a nice little note on Tuesday night that Jack Paar's Tonight will be delayed by 15 minutes so NBC can provide coverage of the West Virginia Primary. It's a lot of drama to be described in such an offhand way. For John F. Kennedy, West Virginia was a state that could make or break his candidacy; heavily Protestant, it would be a true test as to whether or not his Catholic faith would prove to be fatal to his chances.

The showdown in West Virginia revolved around two candidates: Kennedy, and Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey. The reporter David Broder recounts the colorful details of the campaign, which saw Humphrey spring ahead of Kennedy as voters learned of Kennedy's religion, which had remained largely in the background prior to Kennedy's victory in the Wisconsin primary.* Kennedy's secret weapon was Franklin Roosevelt Jr., son of FDR, who had been wildly popular in West Virginia.

*Famous JFK quote: "I refuse to believe that I was denied the right to be president on the day I was baptized."

In the end, Kennedy won the primary easily, defeating Humphrey 61%-39% and knocking the latter out of the race. Kennedy would only have to fend off the late challenge from Lyndon Johnson at the convention, and the nomination was his. In Houston, he would famously address a group of Protestant ministers and alleviate their concerns, essentially throwing Catholicism under the bus in the process. (Don't blame me for saying this; a number of historians, both religious and political, have said the same thing.) In November, he would defeat Richard Nixon to win the presidency. And nobody doubted that West Virginia played a pivotal role in the entire process.

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Some notable programs on this week; let's look at them.

First, there's a showdown between two of the great dancers of all time. On Monday, NBC presents a rerun of 1959's acclaimed Another Evening with Fred Astaire, in which the dancer appears with his latest partner, Barrie Chase, the Jonah Jones Quartet, Ken Nordine, and the Bill Thompson Singers. The color special is produced and directed by Bud Yorkin, who did a lot of television before teaming up with Norman Lear for several groundbreaking comedies of the 1970s.

Then, on Friday night, NBC repeats a 1959 special starring Gene Kelly, who dances to a poem recited by Carl Sandburg, who also plays the guitar. Gene also sings "For Me and My Gal" with 13-year-old Liza Minelli, whose mother, Judy Garland, sang the song with Kelly in the 1942 movie. Wonder if they knew how big a star Liza would wind up being. Maybe; her award-winning 1972 special Liza With a Z was shown on NBC, too.

Meanwhile, it's the first Saturday in May, and you know what that means: the Kentucky Derby. Chris Schenkel and Bud Palmer are on hand at Churchill Downs to present CBS's half-hour telecast of the race, which will be won by Venetian Way.

To celebrate Mother's Day on Sunday, Ethel Barrymore narrates "The World's Greatest Mother" (7 a.m., WRCV), a story of the life of Mary. Ruth Hussey appears as the Virgin, with Ann Blythe singing Marion hymns, and Loretta Young introducing Fr. Franklin Peyton, the famed "Rosary Priest," who coined the famous phrase, "The family that prays together stays together." Fr. Peyton is no stranger to the media; for many years on radio and television he hosts Family Theatre.

Also on Sunday, Ed Sullivan has a terrific lineup for his show; singers Gordon and Sheila MacRae; the comedy teams of Wayne and Shuster, Ford and Hines, and Noonan and Marshall;*, former Miss America Bess Myerson, playing the piano (her pageant talent); singer-pianist Nina Simone; the Browns, vocal group; and ventriloquist Arthur Worsley. Too bad there isn't another show to compare it to. And on G.E. Theater, current Academy Award winner Simone Signoret appears with future Academy Award winner Lee Marvin in the two-person play "Don't You Remember?"

*Peter Marshall, of The Hollywood Squares, in case you were wondering.

If your interests lay other than in politics, Tuesday's highlight may be NBC's Ford Startime presentation "Tennessee Ernie Meets King Arthur," starring Tennessee Ernie Ford and Vincent Price. What's it about? "A clause in his TV contract forces Ernie to become the guinea pig of research scientists demonstrating a time machine on television. They send him back to the England of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and Ernie is in trouble the moment he arrives." Price plays Sir Bors, Ernie's nemesis.

For more conventional viewing, there's One Step Beyond  (ABC, 10 p.m.) with another two-person play entitled "The Visitor," starring past Academy Award winner Joan Fontaine and future winner Warren Beatty. Too intense? Try The Garry More Show (CBS, 10 p.m.), where Garry's guests are singer Patti Page and comedian Ed Wynn.

On Wednesday's Perry Como Show, one of Perry's guests is comedian Johnny Carson, along with singers Genevieve and Toni Arden, and pianist Roger Williams. It's always nice to have a Carson sighting, two years before he takes over The Tonight Show on his way to television immortality.

I'd think Frank and Elvis would be enough for anyone on Thursday (67% of viewers thought it was), but there's also The Ford Show with Tennessee Ernie back for another night, a live broadcast starring Johnny Cash and Homer and Jethro.* Ernie Kovacs' panel show is also on - demonstrating mostly that he's much better served with his surrealistic comedy shows.

*Although the always-reliable Wikipedia says Groucho Marx was on with Ernie as well.

Finally, suppose you've already seen that Gene Kelly special on Friday, and you're in the mood for something else. One possibility is Person to Person, on at the same time on CBS, where the guest for the entire program is 85-year-old former president Herbert Hoover.

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Steve Allen, the renaissance man. I didn't always agree with him, especially when it came to politics and religion, but I always respected his opinion. In this unsigned article, Allen acknowledges it's sometimes controversial for a celebrity to express opinions on the issues of the day ("Well, I think all human beings should [be interested in controversial activities], and I presume it's safe to say that actors are human beings." He's for a sane nuclear policy, and doesn't apologize for it. ("If I'm a pinko for having supported the United States policy of a moratorium on nuclear tests, then so are the President, the Vice President and a lot of others.")

Having moved from What's My Line? to the nightly host of Tonight to the weekly Steve Allen Show, as well as having authored more than 2,000 songs, he would seem to be a man with his hands full, and yet to him it seems he's just doing what he's always done: "playing the piano, chatting with guests and making wry and often philosophic comments on the state of the Nation and the world." "When you're living in a time when a couple of bombs can pretty well wipe out the world, I feel I should do what little I can to help keep it from happening."

It's really no surprise that Allen will go on to transcend comedy, writing dozens of books and hosting the delightfully wide-ranging program Meeting of Minds. It's no surprise that a man of generally liberal political beliefs would also be against obscenity on television. And it's no surprise that he'll be a fixture on television until his death in 2000, because Steve Allen really is an interesting man. Maybe not the most interesting man in the world, but certainly on television.

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There's something else about this issue that makes it special - but you'll have to wait until Monday to find that out. Ain't I a stinker? TV  

Around the dial

This week David Hofstede takes a look at the TV books that inspired Comfort TV. It's a great list; I even have a couple of them on my own shelf. Hopefully my TV book, when it comes out, will be able to find a place on David's distinguished shelf. Now if I can only find one of his publishers...

Like Rick at Classic Film and TV Café , I've always liked James Garner's performance as Philip Marlowe in the 1969 movie of the same name. I also agree that Bogart's version of The Big Sleep, as much fun as it is, is not my favorite Marlowe movie. (Too much Bacall, to the detriment of Chandler's story. The Maltese Falcon is much better.)  I would have enjoyed seeing Garner tackling that story, about the men and women sleeping the big sleep.

In our British TV section, British TV Detectives reviews Taggart, the long-running, gritty police drama, while Cult TV Blog looks at the Special Branch episode "Intercept." Between these two blogs and Stephen Bowie's piece from last week, I'm finding more and more Brit TV that looks worth exploring.

The Twilight Zone Vortex reviews "Little Girl Lost," one of my favorite TZ episodes. I agree with the various shortcomings that Jordan mentions, but like him I'm most impressed by Charles Aidman's terrific performance as a physicist exploring a new dimension, and Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score. The Twilight Zone did very well by those two, not to mention Richard Matheson, who wrote the script.

A tip of the hat to the return of Profesor Barnhardt's Journal, which links to several Slate articles on how Twin Peaks changed television, and related topics. I'm hopeful that the new show will retain some of the magic of the original (the returning cast members certainly helps), but there's no way for people who didn't see the original series to understand how that series was unlike anything that had ever been seen on television, or at least anything I'd seen.

Ken Levine goes off-topic for a moment to explain why he no longer engages in text conversations. I'll go off-topic as well and say I agree with him! For as many times as I lament the loss of collective experiences - like watching TV - I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't give a thumbs-up to the idea that personal conversations might be a nice thing to resurrect.

Television Obscurities is taking a tour down memory lane with a look (or listen) to TV theme songs. I had two or three of those albums (when we bought albums), and I'm a sucker for those compilation videos on YouTube. Do people still feel as attached to today's themes? Not rhetorical; I really do wonder.

One thing I don't wonder about: I'l be back tomorrow with yet another TV Guide, this time taking a trip back to the 1960s for the first time in almost two months! TV  

When the interrogator becomes the interrogated

I want to come back to something I mentioned the other day, that throwaway line in Saturday's TV Guide about the Ironside episode in which Don Galloway's character, policeman Ed Brown, finds himself in jail and realizes that the rough treatment he's receiving from the police mirrors the way he himself has treated suspects in the past. That presented, to me, an irresistible existential dilemma for Brown in the future: whether or not he can continue as he has in the past, using the tactics which are now coming back to haunt him, or if his police methodology, of necessity, will have to change in order for him to look in the mirror each morning; and if, as a result, he can continue to be an effective lawman.

It's an appealing question to ask, particularly when it comes to the detectives populating so many of the police procedurals on TV today - say, for example, Elliot Stabler, the jackbooted, crypto-Fascist thug masquerading as a policeman on the execrable Law & Order: SVU. What if a character like Stabler were to find himself, one dark night, lying prone on the rain-slicked pavement of an alleyway in a city like Chicago, where he's been on vacation. He can't remember exactly what's happened; apparently, judging by the dull ache throbbing at the base of his skull, he's been unconscious, although for how long he can't be sure because his watch appears to be missing. As he slowly pulls himself to his knees, he feels around and discovers his wallet, with all of his identification, is missing as well. He does, however, find a gun in the pocket of his coat - his gun, a gun which, by the smell of it, has recently been fired.

It's at this point that he notices the body of a man lying next to him in the alley, a man with a trickle of blood running down his cheek from a bullet hole in the side of his head. Stabler feels quickly for a pulse and finds none; the man is dead, although not for long, since the body is still warm. It's also at this point that he notices the people up in the windows, looking at him, or standing on the sidewalk, pointing at him; he hears the sirens from the police cars that have pulled up, and sees the blue-clad officers aiming their guns at him, telling him to freeze.

(Cue Serling voiceover.) Despite all appearances, though, Elliot Stabler happens to be an innocent man, the victim of a drug-addicted prostitute who knocked him out and then used his gun to kill the man lying next to him, a man who happened to have been abusing her while keeping her addicted to heroin for his own nefarious purposes. Yes, Elliot Stabler is in for a very long evening - an evening that's set to get even longer when it's discovered that the dead man next to him happens to have been a member of Chicago's finest.

As the scene opens, we find our hero being interrogated by Chicago homicide detectives. They want to know his past contact with Johnson. They want to know how they happened to get together that night. They want to know what they were drinking, how many they had, who paid for them. They want to know what they were talking about. When they ask how the argument started, Smith protests that there was no argument. No argument? they ask incredulously. It was pretty noisy in the bar that night, and they had the games on the tube. Are you telling me you didn’t raise your voices once with all that noise?

That’s different, Stabler says. Different, the two detectives say, looking at each other knowingly and laughing sardonically. You know what I mean, Smith says. Maybe we were talking loud – Talking loud? the second detective repeats skeptically. All right, maybe we were shouting, Stabler concedes. So you’re changing your story now, the first detective points out. What other things do you want to change?

I don’t know what you’re talking about! Stabler repeats. The last thing he remembers was Johnson waiving to a couple of girls who came over to the table, and then he felt something hit the back of his neck, and the next thing he knows he’s lying on the cold wet pavement of the alleyway behind the bar, with Johnson’s body lying next to him. He reached over to check Johnson’s pulse and found none, and that’s when the uniforms showed up.

And you’re sticking with that story? the first detective says. I’m just trying to tell you what happened, Stabler snaps. But how can you tell us what happened? the second detective says. You told us yourself that you didn’t remember anything after you claim you were struck from behind. It seems to me there’s a whole lot you aren’t telling us. Like what the argument was about.

Stabler repeats his innocence and accuses the detectives of trying to frame him, of building up a case against him because Johnson was one of their own. At that, one of the detectives slaps his hand against the table with a crack. Who do you think you’re dealing with? he asks Smith. We may not be fancy cops from New York, but we know how to solve crimes here in Chicago.

When he tells them he wants a lawyer, they look at one another again and repeat his words – he wants a lawyer, he says – and they tell him he can call one, but what does he need a lawyer for if things happened the way he claims they did? He tells them that they won’t let him explain, but the first detective interrupts. You really expect us to buy that?

It’s looking pretty bad for you, the other detective chimes in. You try to deny an argument that people in the bar heard. You tell us about a couple of dames that nobody else saw. You may not believe it, Stabler repeats, but it’s the truth.

That’s not what I think, the other detective says. I don’t think it happened that way at all. I think you and he were involved in some kind of deal, and when it came time for the payoff, Johnson tried to back out, and you leaned on him. Look, we know what Johnson was like after he had a few in him. He gets loud, gets in your face a bit, maybe he even starts pushing you around. It’s instinct – all of a sudden the gun’s in your hand and the hole’s in his chest and he’s lying there with blood pumping out onto the cement.

We understand, his partner tells him, there are more than a few guys in the squad room who’d give you a medal, but you know how it is – we’ve got a job to do. If you just give it to us straight, we can talk to the DA and see what we can get. Man one, maybe, instead of murder two or even murder one. I think he might go for that, the first detective adds, But it’s going to go a lot easier for you if you just play ball. And you know how messy lawyers can make things.

Smith tells them he’s not talking anymore. Oh no, the second detective says. You’re going to have to do a lot more talking before this is all done. You’ll be talking to the DA, and then the grand jury, and then the prosecutor at the trial, and you’d better hope that mouthpiece of yours comes up with a better story than the one you’ve been trying to peddle.

Fifteen years, the first detective says. That’s what you’re looking at. Maybe the last best years of your life. What are you going to do after that, after you get out? What are you going to be in shape to do after that, pretty boy?

It's at this point that Stabler, pushed beyond his breaking point, stands up, takes a cup of cold coffee that's been sitting on the table, and flings it in the first detective's face. The detective blinks away the moisture, moves across the table with lightning speed, pushes Stabler against the wall and slugs him in the stomach. Don't try to get tough with him, pal, the second detective says as Stabler struggles to get his breath back. He's got anger issues, too.

Eventually*, everything is cleared up; the woman is arrested on a separate charge but, thinking the cops are after her for the murder, confesses all. Stabler's identity is confirmed. and he is released from custody. No hard feelings, the first detective says, we were just doing our job, after all. Adds the second detective, Even you have to admit you looked pretty guilty. Stabler glares at them, resists the impulse to start throwing punches, and leaves the precinct house, headed back to New York.

*Don't bother me to provide the details on all this; I'm not writing a spec script, after all.

OK, this might all have been a little melodramatic - and I stress that this is my own creation, not something that you've ever seen or likelhy ever will see on SVU - but the point I'm trying to illustrate, the one that I'm most interested in, is that crisis that's bound to hit Stabler, or someone like him, the next time he interrogates a suspect and resorts to the rough stuff that's apparently his default mode. Will he remember what happened to him in Chicago? Will he have flashbacks whenever he finds himself echoing the words that the detectives threw at him? Will he see the irony of the suspect's protests of innocence, when the Chicago cops laughed at his own claims?

While contemporary television does a very good job of turning drama into soap opera, I think they're much less adept at having characters - especially the leads, the putative heroes of the story, truly look at their own behavior in terms of how it affects not only the people they interact with, but how it affects themselves: their souls, the meaning they attach to their own lives. Stabler has undergone counselling, though which the viewer has been able to learn the demons that plague him*, so we know that the psychological boarder has been breeched. But is there no sense of irony when Stabler then resorts to the very behavior he condemned when it was turned on him? Television does sex and violence well; conscience, not so much.

*How someone with the psychological problems he has ever got on the police force in the first place, let alone a special victims unit, is madness. If this kind of thing actually happens in real life, no wonder we have some of the problems with law enforcement that we have today.

I don't know how Ed Brown wound up dealing with this conundrum. I suspect Ironside probably used it as a learning moment, to teach Brown that suspects are people too, which may have be a bit simplistic if you're talking about a cop like Stabler, one who has no business being in a position of authority in the first place.

In writing about the id, Freud described it as "know[ing] no judgements of value: no good and evil, no morality. ... Instinctual cathexes seeking discharge—that, in our view, is all there is in the id." When the ego "attempts to mediate between id and reality, it is often obliged to cloak the [unconscious] commands of the id with its own [preconscious] rationalizations, to conceal the id's conflicts with reality, to profess ... to be taking notice of reality even when the id has remained rigid and unyielding."

In other words, someone like Stabler will probably wind up on the verge of a nervous breakdown. While he thinks he operates under a moral code that differentiates between good and evil, but in reality these are simply constructs that he has built to enable him to function in his mission, which is essentially to revenge himself against his parents, whose faces he subliminally sees every time he looks across the table at a suspect. (He could have even chosen police work not to even the score, but as a kind of unconscious death wish, a desire to destroy in himself that which he sees in others.) When such a man fails to differentiate between the actions of those he holds in contempt and his own, similar actions - or, even worse, recognizes them but rationalizes their legitimacy - then we see a disconnect that will eventually catch up with him and bring him down. Thrust into this kind of a situation, Stabler will probably find that his ego is unable to mediate the dispute between his id and his long-dormant super-ego (which, after all, Freud felt was formed by the parents), and his world will come crashing down like a house of cards.

As I said, I don't expect anyone to ever produce a script like this for any Law & Order iteration, or any other procedural that mucks up the airwaves nowadays. When you're building up a quasi-police state where anything goes and the only objective is to solve the case regardless of the consequences, all the while holding the public in contempt, you don't stop to consider things like conscience. It just gets in the way, after all. And we can't have that, can we?

What's on TV? Friday, May 4, 1973

What is it with you guys? Five weeks, and nobody's commented on the new format for the listings? And to think of the time and effort I put into perfecting this. Eh...

A number of interesting notes this week; I think they speak for themselves, so we'll get to it. The edition in question is the Minnesota State Edition, so of course you're treated once again to a look at KCMT, the station available in The World's Worst Town™.

This week in TV Guide: April 28, 1973

This week's issue is another from my own personal collection of issues that have always belonged to me. Most of the copies of TV Guide that I now own were purchased at flea markets, antique shows, nostalgia conventions, and from online dealers, and it's a good thing I haven't purchased multiple copies of it; until recently I was able to recognize the issues I had by sight, and this particular one is missing the cover. It could have been disastrous.

You know, this cover just doesn't look familiar at all. I still remember many of the covers I got when I subscribed to the magazine, but this one doesn't ring any bells at all. Perhaps something inside will trigger a reminder as to why I hung on to it.

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Rather than saving this for the end, let's shake things up by leading off with a spin through the week's programming. We'll start on Saturday, where CBS affiliate WCCO preempts a repeat of Bridget Loves Bernie (7:30 p.m. CT) to give us a half-hour WCCO Reports story on "The Monster of Loch Ness." Description: "For more than 1,400 years, there have been reports of the legendary Loch Ness monster of Scotland. WCCO's Alan Lotsberg* interviews residents of Scotland who have reported seeing the monster, and Terrance Mitchell, a toy designer and manufacturer from Arden Hills (Minn.) who believes the Loch Ness phenomenon also exists in Lake Okangan in British Columbia, Canada. Also on Saturday, The Julie Andrews Show takes its last bows (8:00 p.m., ABC) with guests Sandy Duncan, Sergio Franchi, and the Muppets.

*Who played "Willie Ketchum" in WCCO's beloved kids' show Clancy and Willie.

You'll read more about Sunday's sports extravaganza later on, so we'll focus on the non-athletic side of things. We can start with McCloud (7:30 p.m., NBC), as Dennis Weaver's fish-out-of-water cowboy cop goes to London, Paris, Rome, and Nassau in hot pursuit of a trio of thieving stewardesses. If that doesn't do it for you, William F. Buckley Jr.'s Firing Line (9:00 p.m., KTCA) features Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, a full three years before he's elected president, and a year before he even declares for the office - which, two years before the election, was considered preposterous at the time. Today, if you weren't already a candidate two years before election day, people would be wondering why you were taking so long. At 10:50 p.m., the nemesis of my teen-age years, KCMT, Channel 7, presents a live, hour-long public affairs program on tornado safety. Tornadoes are pretty scary and dangerous things, so of course you schedule a program on them to run until nearly midnight on a work/school night, in a time when there are no recording devices so you can watch it later. Of course.

Lucille Ball welcomes yet another big-name guest star to Here's Lucy (Monday, 8:00 p.m., CBS) - this time Eva Gabor, who has to deal with Lucy's star-struck friends. Opposite that, the ABC Monday Night Movie has a black-and-white movie, a rarity in 1973, almost unthinkable on network TV today (except for Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life). It's "Man Trap," John D. MacDonald's crime drama, starring Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen, and Stella Stevens, and directed by Edmund O'Brien. I might recommend checking out the CBS Late Movie, "The Comedy of Terrors," starring Vincent Price and Boris Karloff, spoofing their reputations, with Peter Lore and Basil Rathbone.*

*And Orangey the cat, who starred in Rhubarb, one of the greatest cat baseball movies ever made.

Andy Griffith gets to stretch his acting muscles a bit in Tuesday's episode of Hawaii Five-O (7:30 p.m., CBS), in which he plays the patriarch of a family of con artists who wind up mistakenly conning a crime lord. Just wait until he has to deal with Steve McGarrett. And on Wednesday, it's another black-and-white movie, - apparently, it's black-and-white week on ABC - the 1948 Alfred Hitchcock classic "The Paradine Case" (7:00 p.m.) starring Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Ethel Barrymore, Louis Jourdan, and Alida Valli. If I'm not mistaken, I believe this is Hitchcock's only courtroom drama. Also on Wednesday, music buffs will enjoy NBC's All-Star Swing Festival (9:00 p.m.), with a who's-who of music greats: Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, and more.

On Thursday, another movie steals the show - literally. It's the delightful caper flick "Hot Millions" (8:00 p.m., CBS), co-written by and starring Peter Ustinov, with Maggie Smith, Karl Malden, Bob Newhart, Robert Morley, and Cesar Romero. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you feel like skipping the last hour, you can catch Zero Mostel in the musical comedy Saga of Sonora (9:00 p.m., NBC), with Vince Edwards, Jill St. John, and Don Adams heading up the supporting cast. Finally, on Friday there's an interesting coupling; first, on Room 222 (8:00 p.m., ABC), a young student who's gotten his girlfriend pregnant has to decide whether or not to marry the girl, and thereby give up an appointment to West Point. Then, at 9:00 p.m. on NBC, "The New Doctors" segment of The Bold Ones has David Hartman struggling with one of his patients, a pregnant teenager who hopes her new baby will fill a void in her life. That's up against Love, American Style on ABC - and we wonder how we get where we are.

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The Midnight Special held court over the late night rock music scene Friday nights from 1973 to 1981 on NBC. Its challenger: ABC's In Concert, which appeared every other Friday as part of the network's Wide World of Entertainment. When we're lucky, we get to match them up and see who has the best lineup.

Midnight Special: Johnny Nash hosts, with Gladys Knight and the Pips, folk-rock artist Kenny Rankin, Pop group Raspberries, singer/composer Chi Coltrane, and comic Jack Andrews.

In Concert: This three-hour concert (originally broadcast in two parts) features Alice Cooper; the Allman Brothers Band; Blood, Sweat and Tears; Curtis Mayfield; Seals and Crofts; Chuck Berry; Poco; and Bo Diddley.

Well, well. Last week it was Midnight Special vs. Don Kirshner; this week, it's In Concert. From famine to feast, apparently. Actually, we're cheating just a little here; the In Concert program we're watching was actually taped last Friday, and is being shown on KMSP Sunday night at 11:00 p.m. (Just as they did all those years with Joey Bishop and Dick Cavett, Channel 9 still shows local movies Friday nights in place of network fare.)

No matter; it's a heavyweight shootout, but I'm afraid the knockout punch comes early. Yes, Special has Gladys Knight and Kenny Rankin, but that duo is completely overwhelmed by the powerhouse In Concert lineup, even if it did take three hours to do it. Chuck Berry on his own was probably enough to do it, but when you throw in the rest of the cast, it's no contest. In Concert takes this week's crown.

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's 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 series of the era. 

A television series about doctors isn't supposed to make you sick, but then not all television series are Police Surgeon.

Police Surgeon is a syndicated drama, made to cash in on the new opportunities created by the Prime Time Access Rule, which as we know was supposed to make local stations more responsive to serving the public interest. Cleveland Amory isn't sure, however, whether any public interest is being served by Police Surgeon. It's an import, filmed in Toronto, "where it's evidently cheaper to make it." Not that cheaper programming is in the public interest either, though. "The only way [the viewer] could break even with this show would be if they gave something away with it. One episode was so sloppily shot we even saw one of the microphones. And when the villain said to one of his henchmen, "If she's up to something, kill her," he looked right into the camera. He didn't wave, though."

Police Surgeon stars Sam Groom as Dr. Simon Locke, the eponymous police surgeon of the title. He's earnest, Amory will grant him that, but "earnestness is not enough. You also need something else. And whatever it is, Groom, or his part, doesn't have it." Locke's boss is Lieutenant Palmer (Len Birman), who isn't any better. When he tells Locke during one crisis that "you're only second line. Don't become a hero," Amory remarks that "The first part of this was way too true for comfort. As for the second part, the danger was remote."

If it weren't for the fact that I actually remember this series from my time in The World's Worst Town™, I'd be inclined to doubt that such a show could possibly exist. Honestly, I laughed all the way through Amory's review; clearly, this is one of the funniest programs on television. And then I remembered it wasn't supposed to be funny. In that sense, it was a perfect fit for The World's Worst Town™.

Amory points out that the show airs in most markets in the 7:30-to-8:00 p.m. timeslot, the one recently vacated by the networks. (Where I lived, it was seen Sunday nights at 10:30 p.m.) Considering that its plots involve sons trying to commit patricide, psycho telephone callers, and drug addicts chained to bedposts, one has to wonder what the stations airing Police Surgeon could possibly have been thinking. Says Amory in conclusion, "The station in New York that puts it on calls itself 'Your Community-Minded Station.' One thing seems certain. Your community should mind this one."

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It's an interesting week in sports - significant, if not downright historic. The centerpiece event of the weekend comes on Sunday, with CBS's live broadcast of the U.S. - U.S.S.R. basketball game (2:30 p.m.) from the Los Angeles Forum. It's the first time the two countries have played since the controversial gold medal game in the 1972 Olympics, when the Soviets - let's be honest here - stole the gold from the Americans. It's also the first of an eight-game U.S. tour for the Soviet Olympians, six of the games to be played against the U.S. national team. I can't tell you how much the country seethed as a result of that 1972 game; it tends to get overshadowed because of the Olympic Massacre, but the Soviet victory has to be one of the biggest robberies since Jesse and Frank James roamed the American Midwest. These U.S. vs. Soviet showdowns always seemed to be an event, no matter what sport they took place in, and in this case we have the added ingredient of an American side thirsting for revenge.*

*It was, in fact, marketed as the "Revenge Tour."

The tour was a brutal, punishing series, marked by physical play on both sides, and numerous players fouling out in each game. Amidst name-calling by both sides and charges of aggressive play (at one point Bob Cousy, the U.S. coach, said of his center, Sven Nater, "I wish he could play 40 per cent more aggressively, and if that means 40 per cent dirtier, that's all right with me."), the United States won that first game decisively, 83-65, and took four of the six games between the two sides.

In other, less violent sports, CBS begins its Sunday sports with the opening game of the World Hockey Association finals between the Winnipeg Jets and New England Whalers, with the Whale coasting to a 7-2 victory. Over on NBC, it's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals, and the Montreal Canadians skate to an 8-3 victory over the Chicago Black Hawks. Not to be left out of the act, the NBA playoffs continue on ABC, with the New York Knicks defeating the Boston Celtics 94-78 in the seventh and final game of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Knicks now head to Los Angeles, where they'll defeat the Lakers to win the NBA title. Whew!

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I've neglected to mention some other things, such as the fact that Jack Paar's back on latenights, as the once-a-month host of Jack Paar Tonite, his effort to give a boost to the struggling ratings for his friend Dick Cavett. Jack's sidekick is Peggy Cass, to my knowledge the only time a woman has served that function. And, again if I remember correctly, the couch and chair were to the right of Jack's desk, rather than the traditional left side that all other shows used.

And then there's an interesting episode of Ironside in which Don Galloway's character Ed Brown finds himself on the wrong side of a jail cell, arrested for a misdemeanor while he's out of town, and he finds himself faced with an existential crisis: "the rougher he's handled, the guiltier he feels: he has treated suspects the same way." I wonder if there's anything to the fact that Raymond Burr himself directed the episode?

We have another week of deadly accuracy from the TV Teletype, which as we know is not always the case. The Hollywood edition reports that Burt Lancaster will be starring in a CBS miniseries entitled "Moses the Lawgiver" (true), and that Bill Bixby will be returning to weekly series television next season with an NBC effort called The Magician (also true). Richard Roundtree plans to reunite with his Shaft character for a CBS series in the fall (yes, every third week, but it only survived for seven episodes), and Jack Palance plans to assay the title role of CBS's movie Dracula, which does indeed come off as planned.*

*Or almost as planned, that is. According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, the movie was originally scheduled to air in October, but was preempted due to a speech by President Nixon on the resignation of Vice President Agnew. Not exactly an auspicious sign, is it? It eventually aired in February 1974, which seems like a very long delay.

The summer schedules are coming out, and NBC plans to copy ABC's success with Monday Night Football by introducing 15 weeks of Monday Night Baseball, while also bringing on Helen Reddy  to replace Flip Wilson. CBS is mostly shuffling things around, and bringing in repeats of the Burt Reynolds' old ABC series, Dan August. Ozzie and Harriet are coming back after six years, in the syndicated Ozzie's Girls. And the favorites for the lead in CBS's revival of Perry Mason are said to be Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen.

Finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't look at this week's editorial, and if you think this year's Academy Awards show was a fiasco, take a look at the 1973 show which aired just a couple of weeks previously. "It was," says the editor (Merrill Panitt?), "television's most magnificent spoof, a rib-tickling, guffaw-producing parody of all the Oscar shows that have ever been televised."

Where to start? The "high-camp: movie-set opening? The late arrival of co-host Charlton Heston, which forced Clint Eastwood to read jokes about Moses and chariot races?  The off-key singing of "You Oughta Be in Pictures?" Maybe it was how "Hosts introduced co-hosts, who introduced award presenters, who introduced their co-presenters."? Presenters "who delivered the stilted dialogue while convincingly feigning fright, [and] were the essence of genial informality as they misread the cue cards."?

The most entertaining performances of the night had to be those of the Best Song nominees, "each of which carefully received the treatment it deserved." Not to be forgotten was the spectacle of Sacheen Littlefeather [real name Marie Louise Cruz], "an Indian maiden in high-fashion regalia" refusing Marlon Brando's Oscar. "And then there was the cleverness of having members of the audience boo her. A real Hollywood twist."

It was, the author concludes, "the funniest, most entertaining Oscar show in years. To those who say it was not intentional parody, we say 'Ridiculous!' It would not be possible to put on such a flawless fiasco unless it was carefully planned." And just think, they didn't even have to use the old joke about the presenters who opened the wrong envelope. TV