At bare•bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project examination of the works of Joel Murcott continues with the third-season episode "Last Request," a death-row drama with that little twist at the end that makes the series so enjoyable. Harry Guardino is at his hammy best.
Had an episode called "Bob the Body Buider" been written nowadays, people would have thought it a painful pun on the kids' show. Instead, it's the latest episode of Love That Bob, directed by Bob Cummings himself, and Hal has all the details at The Horn Section.
L for Lesteris a fairly obscure 1982 British sitcom that folded after only six episodes. At Cult TV Blog, John calls it "a pleasant way to spend half an hour," and since all six are on YouTube, you can easily tell whether or not he's right.
At Television Obscurities, Robert reviews "Halloween's On Us," a seasonal (but I'll bet you figured that out) episode of 1967's Accidental Family. In case you'd forgotten, the stars are Jerry Van Dyke and Lois Nettleton; it's about par for the course for Jerry, but Lois really deserved better.
I didn't subscribe to Ed Asner's Twitter feed, but it seems as if he was fairly active (I often saw his Tweets), and so his death at age 91 was more surprising that it perhaps should have been. It's really difficult to find a classic TV show in which he didn't appear, and Terence has a good appreciation of his career at A Shroud of Thoughts.
At Shadow & Substance, it's a look at yet another Twilight Zone episode that presents us with some harsh realities about ourselves: "The Encounter," an episode often left out of syndicated packages, starring Neville Brand and George Takei. Read about what makes it so controversial. TV
It isn't often that I use one of your comments as the focal point for an article of my own (also known as "theft" in some corners, but we're all friends here), but last week a reader named "Toad" left a comment on something I'd written five years ago, and I was afraid it wouldn't be seen by enough people if I didn't bring it to your attention.*
*I'll bet many of you didn't know I actually pay attention to your comments. I don't respond to them often enough, but I do read them.
There's another reason I want to share Toad's comment with you, though. He'd read my 2016 story about ABC's as-it-happened coverage of Robert F. Kennedy's shooting. It brought back a lot of memories for him, in a way that books, movies, and even newspapers aren't able to. "Watching this particular non-stop footage puts you in the moment, almost as if it is still happening live somehow, on a continuous loop," he wrote. "I had the feeling I get while watching actual live moments, like if you wished hard enough, you could help control the outcome."
Ever since I started this website, I've maintained that television should be regarded as an original source document, a form of entertainment that serves to place events in context, to give the viewer an idea of how things were "back then." Programs made in the 1950s and 1960s show what those decades were like in a way that period pieces like Mad Men are incapable of doing. Watching the final game of the 1965 World Series, played in the afternoon with the shadows acting as an hourglass, creeping across the diamond as the innings wear on, you're transported back in time, and things come alive. And when you watch breaking news, as was the case with Toad, you allow yourself a few moments to hope, that this time events might end differently.
In short, Toad, you've justified the reason I've spent more than ten years writing "It's About TV." It's the nicest thing anyone's done for me in a long time.
Here's what Toad had to say:
I watched all 7 hours of the ABC footage throughout the week upon hearing the news that Sirhan Sirhan may be released from prison soon. I was born in 1969 so I have only heard or seen things associated with the Kennedy assassinations way after the fact. My grandparents loved the Kennedys so I learned a lot about them growing up. And I have always sought out new documentaries or footage I hadn't yet seen. Watching this particular non-stop footage puts you in the moment, almost as if it is still happening live somehow, on a continuous loop. I had the feeling I get while watching actual live moments, like if you wished hard enough, you could help control the outcome. Even knowing that RFK would be dead in a number of hours, I got a feeling of hopefulness watching the doctor tell us that all was not lost. Kennedy was shot in the head, sure. But it was the best possible spot to be shot if one had to be shot in the brain. This particular location of the brain was a non-vital area. Perhaps Bobby could be out of the hospital and back on the campaign trail in a week or two. After all, his pulse was strong and he had a good heart. He was not unconscious right after being shot and he said a few words and squeezed hard on the rosary beads that were placed in his hand.
After watching the ABC broadcast, I found color footage from inside the Ambassador Hotel. This CBS footage was recorded but I guess it wasn't broadcast live when the shooting occurred. But while watching this on a big TV and with all surround sound speakers going, I did FEEL what some of the attendees described: that immediate shift in mood. "Kennedy, Kennedy, Rah Rah Rah! Kennedy, Kennedy Sis Boom Bah!" Then everything SUDDENLY and disturbingly turned to horrific screams and it seemed like the entire ballroom was shaking and on the verge of exploding. People OUTSIDE the kitchen seemed to realize instantly that their world just caved in on itself. The TV cameras didn't pick up the sound of the shots. ABC thought they did. But it must have been balloons popping or some other noises. On the CBS tape, nothing resembling gunshots was heard. And reading descriptions of the shooting by the ABC newsman that was also shot, actually made me chuckle. He said he thought he was dying. He was bleeding a lot from his wound and what he said he distinctly remembers most vividly was looking up and seeing how the kitchen door would open up to reveal a hysterical woman standing in the doorway, screaming a blood-curdling scream, only to shut and then be opened up again by a whole different woman, screaming in the same disturbing way. Then the door would shut again, open again, new woman, same scream, over and over and over again. I pictured his description in Looney Tunes animation and found it amusing. But of course there is nothing funny about any of this. Our minds need to go someplace absurd because the weight of this tragedy really drives home the fact that no matter how happy you are one moment, everything can be turned upside down the next. And there is no way to predict it or to prepare yourself for it. And the course of history is irreversibly changed forever. Nixon, more Vietnam, Watergate, and on and on.
I'm only sorry we weren't able to watch it together, Toad. We could have talked about it for hours.
If you haven't watched it yet, take some time over the course of a few days and do so. Does it bring back the same kind of memories? Does it help you appreciate what it was like to be alive during those days? History books and documentaries may wind up being more accurate, with access to information that wasn't available at the time—but can they make you feel, in the words of Walter Cronkite's old program, that "You Are There"? What a magnificent time machine it is. TV
Happy Labor Day, everyone! On Saturday I joked about calling this Labour Day, since most of today's listings are from Canada. Be that as it may, it's certainly an interesting day of television we have, and while the commentary might be lighter than usual, I don't doubt but what we'll find something to write about!
You remember Newton Minow. When he was head of the FCC, he looked out at the television landscape and saw only a vast wasteland, and wound up having the marooned ship in Gilligan's Island named after him. Well, he did a lot more than that, actually, before leaving his position in June of 1963 to become executive vice president of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Now he's back, and in excerpts from his forthcoming book Equal Time: The Private Broadcaster and the Public Interest, he discusses the problems and potential of television.
One priority for Minow is eliminating interference from advertisers, something far more prevalent then than it is now. The Quiz Show Scandals, for instance, resulted in large part from sponsors exercising creative control over the shows they often developed and sold to television networks. Here's an example of what Minow's talking about:
Automobile sponsors do not like shows involving automobile accidents; or even stories that use "chase" scenes with cars driven at high speed to the sound of squealing brakes. Detective Michael Shayne might be an authority on cognac, but if he discusses this specialty, no beer company wants sponsorship.
Sherlock Holmes' love of the pipe rules out a cigaret company or a cigar maker for sponsorship. A coffee sponsor would not allow the comic scenes in Gunsmoke in which Chester makes such dreadful coffee for Marshal Matt Dillon. A company manufacturing shaving tools would never permit a bearded hero, and a soap company does not want a hero who wears dirty clothes.
Colorfully written, but I think it's essentially accurate. Of course, the Law of Unintended Consequences is bound to rear its ugly head here; an outgrowth of the Quiz Show fiasco was greater control by the networks over their programming. The downside to this, not surprisingly, is that networks become far more anxious over ratings; in order to placate sponsors leery of investing their money in a program over which they've had no control, they've had to make the investment as attractive as possible, and low ratings aren't a particular inducement to a company to spend their money. As we've seen throughout time, the rating system has come under heavy criticism from viewers and legislators concerned that "quality" television falls victim to a fickle public, and ultimately is sacrificed in the name of the financial bottom line.
Minow appears to have anticipated this, taking a long, hard look at the relationship between broadcasters and the FCC. He cites examples of FCC commissioners and their too-cozy relationship with the industry they're supposed to be regulating, and points out that commissioners, as governmental appointees, are likely to be opposed by powerful interest groups if they take too strong of a stand against the networks and/or their affiliates. The only way to counteract this is to open the FCC up more to public input, and as FCC chair he'd urged President Kennedy to streamline and reorganize the Commission. Rather than the regulated controlling the regulator, he feels that such an approach will set up healthy conflict: "the sight and sound of battle [between public and private interests] are the public's best evidence that their rights are being protected."
And there will be battle, for as Minow writes, there is and will be that eternal conflict between public and private interests. One the one hand, he readily recognizes that broadcasters have "a vested and narrow interest in achieving and preserving profits." On the other, however, the FCC exists to guarantee that the public's interest is being served by those who hold the special and precious privilege of owning a broadcasting license. Broadcasters have come to view this not as a privilege but as a right—but, as Minow points out, "a 'right' cannot be regulated. It is part of the power the people refuse to give to a government. Only a privilege can be regulated."
This is an important concept and a huge conflict, one that resonates through our political system today despite the fact that Minow's statement can trace its roots all the way back to the Declaration of Independence and Jefferson's assertion that the "unalienable Rights" which mankind enjoys come not from the government, but from "their Creator," and that government exists not to bestow but to secure those rights. When privileges become rights, when the government seeks to grant obfuscate the difference and then grant something over which it has no natural authority, then the entire concept of the governor and the governed falls under suspicion.
This, invariably, leads to a discussion of politics and political advertising, an emerging point of import for Minow's FCC. Again, he takes the industry to task for thinking that their granting of free time to candidates is a gift from them to the candidate; in fact, Minow contends, the gift is in actuality from the public, which has allowed the broadcaster the right to use the public airwaves. It is, therefore, the obligation of the broadcaster to treat this time with care, and not to look at it as yet another opportunity to make a profit: "Television's soaring costs have created a monumental danger that a dollar wall will be stretched across ready access to the public air waves. This wall can create obstacles to the most able candidates—while helping the election of the most obligated candidates. Such an event would be a catastrophe."
Minow's answer is for broadcasters to be obligated to make "minimal amounts of free political time an explicit responsibility of those privileged to hold a broadcast license." He then makes the prescient observation, true even from the early days of television, that "Some politicians believe that television sells candidates as well as soap. But we cannot stack the deck in favor of the candidate able to buy the most time."
What a kettle of fish this discussion has opened! For the power in Minow's arguments is that they strike at the heart of how our system of government functions. Television and radio broadcasting can't, and shouldn't, be treated as something above and beyond the established system, and if that system can't handle something like this, if an activity as vital as broadcasting cannot fit in or conform to those sensibilities, then the question must be asked: can anything? Minow seems confident at the end of these excerpts, as long as "each of us insists that those involved in broadcasting—in industry and government alike—ceaselessly go to the people." It has become apparent, with over fifty years to reflect on it, that neither industry nor government any longer feels such a need or obligation. We are starting to see the fruits of such behavior ripen; what the future portends is anyone's guess.
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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.. Sullivan: Ed's guests are the Kim Sisters, Italian recording stars Rita Pavone and Enzo Stuardi, and one of America's favorite clowns, Bert Lahr. The tap-dancing Stepp Brothers perform and the Two Carmenas present their head-to-head balancing act. Other guests are child saxophonist Attila Galamb, and comedians London Lee and Pat Buttram.
Palace: Host Louis Jourdan introduces songstress Anna Maria Alberghetti; the singing King Sisters; comedian Henny Youngman; tap dancer John Bubbles; ventriloquist Russ Lewis; comics Lewis and Christy; juggler Johnny Broadway; and Olympic gymnasts Muriel and Abe Grossfeld, Armando Vega and NCAA champion gymnast Ron Barak.
An interesting comparison this week, as Ed presents a rerun from earlier in 1964, while the Palace is into its new season. Both shows are into the vaudeville look, with jugglers, tap-dancers, singers and comedians. It's not particularly an inspired choice, but dapper French actor and singer Louis Jourdan's (Gigi) picture appears next to "suave" in the dictionary, Anna Maria Alberghetti is lovely to look at and delightful to listen to, and when he's on Henny "Take my wife, please" Youngman* is as funny as anyone. Perhaps Bert Lahr should have been singing "If I only had some help," because the choice is The Palace by a comfortable, if unimpressive, margin.
*Whose first name is spelled "Henry" in the issue. The proof reader must not have been a fan.
There is, by the way, an article in this week's issue on how The Hollywood Palace has made vaudeville work in the same time spot where Jerry Lewis failed so spectacularly.
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You know you're in an election year when the week's TV review is of the networks' convention coverage. And, surprise, surprise, it's not all that different from what we're used to today. "To a large degree," writes Samuel Grafton, "[the networks] have made themselves the show, instead of the meetings they are supposed to be covering." In the process, he asserts, they missed important stories at both conventions.
For example, they were so fired-up to see Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton as a serious challenger to Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater—a challenge that was always hopeless—they missed the bigger story, that of how Goldwater took over the Republican party in the first place. Seems to me it's not unlike their confusion as to how Donald Trump took over the Republicans in 2016. (Oh well, I guess some things never change.) At least, he notes, ABC kept their cameras trained on the podium, unlike NBC and CBS, who "constantly cut away from Senator Dirksen's nominating speech, to tell us what they thought about what Dirksen was saying, instead of letting him say it." David Brinkley's humor, however, was in good form, part of the reason why NBC thrashed CBS in the ratings (leading the network to sack Walter Cronkite for the Democratic convention in favor of the "team" of Robert Trout and Roger Mudd). ABC's own team of Howard K. Smith and Edward P. Morgan worked hard, but "lost out in the ratings because they did not show enough of the special qualities—the glint, the jokesmithing—that these broadcasters' Olympics now seem to call for."
The Democratic convention wasn't much better for the networks, as they again missed the big story: once again preferring conflict (in this case, delegate challenges in Alabama and Mississippi) to the more significant fact that Southern delegates, by-and-large, stood by their party rather than walking out because of LBJ's civil rights legislation. No matter how hard they tried, the floor reporters were unable to convince delegates that it was in their best interests - the networks' best interests, that is - to make trouble.
In the end, concludes Grafton concludes, viewers were frequently treated to scenes that looked more like a "convention of reporters" rather than delegates. Even when they were forced off the floor during the demonstration for Johnson's nomination, they wound up cutting away to show Johnson's arrival in Atlantic City. It makes one pine for the old days "when television was only a camera reporting the news, and modestly keeping itself off the screen."
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And now a word about this week's issue. As is the case from time to time (we'll see it again in a couple of weeks), we're going north of the boarder, with the St. Lawrence edition covering Montreal, Ottawa and Sherbrooke, in addition to stations in upper New York, Vermont, and Poland Spring, Maine. Many of the programs are similar (you'll see CBC programming in Monday's piece)—except when it comes to sports, specifically football. Although the NFL, AFL and colleges haven't kicked off yet, the Canadian Football League is in full swing, having started in July.
On Labor Day (or Labour Day, I suppose we should say) CTV carries the matchup between the Montreal Alouettes and Saskatchewan Roughriders from Regina, while a Friday doubleheader pairs the Alouettes and the Edmonton Eskimos, followed by the Ottawa Rough Riders (no relation to the Saskatchewan Roughriders) against the British Columbia Lions (taped Tuesday). If you've not seen the Canadian version of football, you should catch it sometime when it's on one of the ESPN networks; it's similar to our version, just different.
As far as American sports, there's plenty of that as well. The New York stations have the Mets, playing the Dodgers in New York on Sunday, the Houston Colt 45s* on Labor Day, and the Dodgers again on Friday, this time in Los Angeles. And on ABC's final Friday Fight of the Week, former and future Middleweight Champion Dick Tiger takes on Rocky Rivero in Cleveland.
*Known today as the Houston Astros.
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Finally, a quick look at the rest of the news.
The front section of the magazine takes note that on August 27, Gracie Allen died of a heart attack at age 58.* Her widower, George Burns, debuts on Friday night with his new ABC series, Wendy and Me, co-starring Connie Stevens in the dumb blonde role.
*Or 69, as the case may be; her birth records were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. Her actual birth year remains a mystery.
Actress Maureen O'Sullivan is leaving her role as the "Today Girl" after four months. She's headed back to acting, having called her role on Today "asinine." She explains, "It's not enough to sit ther and smile every day with nothing to do. . . The show is simply no place for a woman." Her successor is Barbara Walters.
On Wednesday, CBS's Robert Pierpoint interviews Mrs. Barry Goldwater at the family home outside Phoenix. Apropos of the times, the listing never gives us her first name, Margaret. I hardly think the viewers would have confused her with some other Mrs. Goldwater...
Also on Friday, Jack Paar's prime time program (10:00 p.m. ET, NBC) has Muhammad Ali and Liberace as guests, and the two team up for a memorable duet.
And finally, the final program of the week also makes for a great exit line. It's the biographical film "I Aim at the Stars," the story of the brilliant rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who designed the Saturn V booster that helped land Americans on the moon. The British, who remembered von Braun as the man who developed the V2 rockets that rained terror on England, had a different name for the movie. As Tom Wolfe recalls in The Right Stuff, they called it "I Aim at the Stars—But Sometimes Hit London."
TV
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..
