But for those of us who remember this ad, there’s truly something remarkable about it. Take this ad for Sony. We were excited - perhaps even stunned - by the idea of a television set so small it could be held in the hand.
Imagine, as the ad says: now you could carry your television around with you, like a book. Watch it next to your bed, on the desk at your office, picnicking on the patio. It even had a battery pack that you could use to make it truly portable. For those who remembered a picture tube that size encased in a huge, bulky console that sat in the living room - well, it must have been an amazing thought.
Fast-forward* to today. What's the big deal about being able to carry your television around like a book? Thanks to the iPad, we can have both television and book all in one slim tablet. Watching TV at work? Anyone with a computer can do that. Got an iPhone? That alone makes your Sony look ancient, and it picks up more stations besides. In other words, the future did come true - and yet it's completely unrecognizable.
*If the term "fast forward" itself hasn't become anachronistic.
A more familiar ad for the tiny Sony.
Think about this for a moment, because it's so easy to take it for granted. In the span of a few years, we've developed a machine, not that much bigger than a credit card, that allows you to watch television, make a phone call, listen to music, access the internet (something that wasn't even around when this ad ran), keep a calendar, - in short, you can carry your whole life around in that little thing. Any of this technology would be amazing, but to think you can have it all, right there in the palm of your hand - for about the same price as that television!
This week's cover profile of Andy Williams was written by John Gregory Dunne before he became a successful novelist. I don't have anything against Dunne, although I do prefer the work of his brother, Dominick, to either John Gregory or his wife, Joan Didion, but it bears saying that Dunne's story on Williams displays, I think, the worst aspects of TV Guide writing of the era.
There is, for starters, the annoying habit of the author injecting himself into the article. Dunne notes in the first page that "I had no particular desire to meet the boy next door, and the first two paragraphs concern Dunne's reactions to the comments of Williams' publicist, his thoughts on the decor of the dressing room, his impressions of the books on the shelf.
Once the focus of the story turns to the putative subject, Williams, there are more TV Guide trademarks; the anonymous criticisms, for instance. "One executive who has had dealings with [Williams] refers to him in extremely unflattering terms. Another says, 'He's not a very nice young man.'" We are, of course, never told who the unnamed critics are, nor are the criticisms put in any context. Is Williams an unpleasant person? A hard negotiator? A driven, hands-on micromanager of his own show? Your guess is as good as mine.
I'm not a fan of this kind of faceless, nameless attack, but one reads it week after week in the TV Guides of the 60s. A story about insecure Gene Barry, a score-evening profile of David Susskind, a hatchet job on Patty Duke - it's almost as if the magazine. desperate to distinguish itself from the fan magazines of the era, bends over backwards to tear down every star it profiles. Now, these comments could be from someone with a score to settle: a jealous co-worker, a disgruntled former employee, a frustrated publicist. They might be completely true, or a bushel of lies, or something in-between. We could be seeing one side of the story with two sides, or we could learn what everyone in Hollywood already knows.
The point is, I don't much like writers who repeat anonymous comments without providing context. I don't think it's good journalism. I'm not suggesting all TV Guide profiles should be puff pieces; that's just as bad, and it's terrible to read. But a journalist should demand more of his sources - he should challenge them just as much as he does his subject. If what they have to say is reliable, if he's satisfied himself that their comments have merit, if he can give a positive answer to the question "Do my readers need to know this?" then by all means go ahead. But if that's the case, then give your readers that same satisfaction. Otherwise, I'm going to think your source is just nursing a grudge - and you're just a lazy writer.
***
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..
Ed Sullivan: Scheduled guests: Victor Borge; Steve Allen; comedian Jackie Vernon; the Israeli Ballet; the Dave Clark Five, British rock 'n' rollers; comedians Rowan and Martin; the Mattison dance trio; and John's balancing act.
Palace: Host George Burns welcomes Connie Stevens, his co-star on "Wendy and Me"; singer Wayne Newton; the Greenwood County Singers; impressionist Rich Little; the Zacchinis, human cannonballs; illusionist Prassana Rao; and the Ganoas, Mexican trampolinists.
Following up on that point from last week's Dean Martin piece: if it is true that 1965 is the representative year of the 60s, one can see it right here in this week's Sullivan show. Victor Borge had been around (and very funny) for years; Steve Allen was also a TV veteran, but one who'd shown an ability to adapt to the times. Jackie Vernon was a classic nightclub comedian (as well as the future voice of Frosty the Snowman); Rowan and Martin would in a few short years be part of the progressive TV future with Laugh In, and the Dave Clark Five were a prime example of the state of rock music, as the breeziness of The Beatles transitions to the harder sound of the Stones.* I can't speak for the success of John's balancing act. (And who is John, by the way?)
*A website that lists the Dave Clark Five's appearances on the Sullivan show says that Steve Lawrence was also on this show, and does not mention Steve Allen. Either TV Guide got the wrong Steve, or the website did (although the songs they list for Lawrence aren't the kind you'd expect to hear from Allen), or both were on the show but Allen didn't sing any numbers.
You see this to a lesser extent in Palace - Burns the old-time star trying to recapture the magic with the new generation, Connie Stevens taking the place of Gracie Allen; Wayne Newton, the youngster singing the old-time songs, and Rich Little, part of the new breed with the politically sharp humor. But unless Little can impersonate two or three more big-name guests, this one goes to Sullivan.
***
These United Nations dramas just seem to keep popping up. You'll recall my article from a few years ago on the series of four dramas designed to educate the public on the activities of the United Nations; the first drama in the series, Carol for Another Christmas, broadcast in December 1964, was reviewed here.
Well, now, in February 1965, ABC airs the second installment: Who Has Seen the Wind? Like Carol, it boasts an all-star cast, including Edward G. Robinson, Maria Schell, and Theodore Bikel; an original story, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tad Mosel, adapted by Oscar and Emmy nominee Don Mankiewicz (nephew of Joseph L.); costumes by Oscar-winner Edith Head; and produced and directed by George Sidney, who had cut his teeth on Our Gang comedies before going on to such classic musicals as Anchors Aweigh, Show Boat and Bye Bye Birdie. Like Carol, it's presented without commercial interruption and sponsored by Xerox.
Who Has Seen the Wind? was more successful, or at least not as heavy-handed a mess, compared to Carol. The Los Angeles Times called it “better than [the] first,” and the Lima (OH) News named it the night’s “Best Bet” and pronounced it “an extraordinary television film.” On the other hand, to The New York Times it was a “soap opera at sea,” a “waste of [the actors’] artistry.” Oh well, you can't please everyone.
***
Want some more politics? Earlier that week (Monday, to be precise) on the same network, Dinah Shore hosts a musical salute to the Peace Corps, with Harry Belafonte and Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver. You think I'm kidding, right? Well, here's proof:
According to newspaper accounts, there were about 100 Peace Corps volunteers in the audience along with Shriver, preparing to head for Uganda and Kenya. However, aside from a cringe-worthy opening in which Shore sang "Getting to Know You" while shaking hands with members of the audience, the show was apparently pretty good. UPI correspondent Rick Du Brow called it a "so-easy, so-relaxed, so-expert" evening, and that the stars were able to concentrate on the job at hand "without too many pitches for the corps." Significantly, the show was featured "a minimum of heavy-handed idealistic talk (thank heaven no one thought of calling Abby Mann to write the script)." That, of course, might have been even worse than Carol for Another Christmas.
Which just goes to show that Samuel Goldwyn was on to something when he famously said, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." "Message" shows like this one and the UN series go a lot farther if you take it easy on the message and emphasize the entertainment. Nobody likes to be preached to, but everyone likes to be entertained.*
*Well, almost everyone. I'm sure I have to put that disclaimer in somewhere. By the way, some of you youngsters might be too young to remember what Western Union was. They sent something called "telegrams." Think of them as emails printed on paper, sent by an intermediary who'd charge you for them by the word, which could result in some pretty fragmented speech, generally without conjunctions or articles.
***
Had enough politics? How about we through Pope Pius XII into the mix? Though he died in 1958, Pius remains a controversial historical figure. Did he do enough to save the Jews during the Holocaust? Was he, as one author referred to him, "Hitler's Pope"? Or was he a man of heroic virtue, arch foe of the Nazis, who in fact did everything he could to save the lives of the Jews?
The controversy about Pius was largely absent during his lifetime, largely gaining traction following the staging of Rolf Hochhuth's 1963 play The Deputy, which suggested that Pius was too timid to speak out publicly against the Nazis. Evidence suggests* that Hochhuth's play was financed and promoted by the KGB as part of a Kremlin disinformation plot against the Vatican. I myself hold to this position, and believe Pius to be the victim of a wholesale character assassination. However, this is neither the time nor the place to debate the issue, nor do I bring it up for this reason.
*Full disclosure: the author of the piece, Fr. Welzbacher, is my former pastor. Regardless, in 1965 the public perception of Pius was still largely positive, as witnessed by Tuesday night's episode of Biography on KCMT Channel 7, narrated by Mike Wallace, in which Pius is presented as a man who "dedicated his life to peace and denounced tyranny and religious persecution."
This early Biography series was produced by master documentarian David L. Wolper and ran for three seasons in the early 60s before going into a seemingly endless series of syndicated reruns. It was a popular film in schools (I sat through more than one in my days), and eventually wound up on A&E, where many additional episodes were produced (though without Wallace; the most popular narrator was Peter Graves), and was eventually spun off into the Biography channel, which may or may not still show biographies.
***
A few weeks ago I'd noted in passing how there were so many more soap operas on TV in the 60s than there are today. (I don't think that's giving away any state secrets.) But it's interesting how some of them even have episode write-ups, which I'd think would be very unusual for a soap since they always tried to keep you tuned in to see what happens next.
Moment of Truth (NBC): Nancy's sister and niece arrive unexpectedly. Flame in the Wind (ABC): Jason's maneuvering brings unusual results. (Live) The Doctors (NBC): Matt's actions have a surprising effect on Maggie and Kurt. (Live) Day in Court (ABC): A five-part story begins today when a woman seeks to have her husband committed.
Granted, with the possible exception of The Doctors, none of these are the biggest soapers, so this could have represented an effort to drum up an audience. But, looking through the entire week's listings, there's nothing in any of these write-ups that would seem to give anything away or tip off viewers as to what happens next, so I guess the key element of surprise is retained.*
*In other words, we don't learn that "Joan has shocking news for Martin" on Monday, and "After telling Martin she's pregnant, Joan runs away with Jeff" on Friday.
Of course, we know that soap operas used to be done live; after all, it's because As the World Turns was being taped for rebroadcast in the Pacific time zone that we have CBS' first bulletin on JFK's assassination. But as late as 1965, we still have at least two being shot live. I wonder how long it was before they all went to video tape? I'm sure there's someone out there who knows. And, aside from some variety shows, were these the last regularly scheduled series to be done live?
***
On Saturday evening ABC has a David L. Wolper documentary entitled "The Way-Out Men." Sounds vaguely psychedelic, doesn't it? In fact, it has to do with "[t]oday's scientific theorists, researchers and other inquiring men [who] are testing theories and ideas that are 'way out'." Probably the best-known featured was the famed heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, who'd recently operated on the Duke of Windsor. However, for my money, the most interesting was probably Dr. James V. McConnell. Here he's profiled for his work on "the chemistry of memory," but that doesn't begin to scratch the surface.
His original research involved memory transfer among flatworms that had been trained to respond to external stimulus - bright lights and electric shocks. The flatworms were subsequently cut up and fed to other flatworms; the second group of flatworms, McConnell contended, responded to the same stimuli more quickly than flatworms not part of the experiment. McConnell called this memory RNA, but when subsequent experiments by other researchers failed to duplicate his results, buzz on the theory faded away.
But on a more pleasant note, McConnell was also known for his quirky sense of humor, beginning a magazine called The Worm-Runner's Digest featuring flatworm-themed satirical articles - because, supposedly, readers couldn't tell the difference between the serious and satirical articles that appeared in his other journal, The Journal of Biological Psychology.And you know how much of a sucker I am for flatworm humor. I wonder if Wolper covered any of that in his documentary? TV
Many of this week's links can be found at the Classic TV Variety Show Blogathon, but that doesn't mean there aren't other good things out there:
It's not exactly part of the classic TV genre, but soccer fans (like me) have been all abuzz about the news (h/t Awful Announcing) that Fox is grooming Gus Johnson to take over as the networks' voice of the 2018 World Cup. Now, I'm inclined to like Johnson, and I think there's every chance that he could turn out to be a pretty good soccer announcer. On the other hand, as a fan of dependable British announcers like Martin Tyler, Ian Darke and Jon Champion, I'm also apprehensive about this. But that World Cup is five years away (ESPN and ABC still have next year's edition), and I'm just hoping I'll be around then. At any rate, we'll get some idea of how this work in progress is going when Johnson calls the upcoming Champions League final, as well as some Premier League matches.
TV Obscurities reviews the latest episode of PBS’ Pioneers of Primetime and finds it the best of the season, so far.
I watched the first two seasons of this series, spending about as much time complaining about it as I did enjoying it, so I decided to take a flyer on this third season, and from what I’ve read here, I don’t think I’m missing anything. My main bone to pick has always been that the producers of this series have a very unique definition of the word “Pioneers” that emphasizes programs from the 70s and 80s, rather than the dawn of TV..
Look, I get it that much of the video from the truly “pioneering” shows in TV’s history are gone forever. I know that for many people today, shows from the 80s are part of ancient history. And I understand that television is a visual medium and that, when you’re making a TV series, the emphasis is going to be on moving pictures. But this show has long been guilty of ignoring TV’s rich past in favor of the more recent (and accessible). I mean, how can you virtually ignore Peyton Place in any discussion about soaps in primetime? Dallas and Dynasty were megahits, and perhaps they changed the definition of prime time soaps, raising the bar forever. But that’s not quite the same thing as being a “pioneer,” is it?
If producers can get the footage, they should use it. If they can’t, then they should show still photos, interview people who where there, show how the old shows influenced the new. Either that, or change the name from Pioneers of Primetime to something more accurate.
I was always a Jerry Lewis fan, so if I had to choose between Martin and Lewis, I would have chosen Lewis. But I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Dean Martin, primarily because of my mother. She had been quite ill in the mid 60s, and she told me once that during that illness, the Dean Martin Show was the only TV show she enjoyed, the only one that made her laugh, and that she had regretted not sending him a letter telling him about that – he did, after all, end each show by urging his viewers to “keep those cards and letters coming in.”
I don’t know whether or not that letter would have reached Dean, or if it would have meant anything to him if it did. It’s a moot point now, of course; both he and my mother have been dead for many years. But it did teach me a couple of things: first, you should never hesitate to let someone know when they’ve made an impact in your life. The people you think are most inaccessible may well be the ones who most need to hear from you. And second, that Dean Martin was an entertainer worth appreciating.
At one point in 1967, Dean Martin was the highest paid entertainer in show business. His show had just been renewed by NBC for not one but three years, at a cost (to the network) of $34 million. Added to the $5 million that Dean was already making*, the man they called the “King of Cool” was sitting pretty.
*$750,000 each for three movies (not including his share of the profits), $825,000 for his records, $150,000 for three weeks at the Sands Hotel, and $2 million for the past season of the show.
It hadn’t always been this way. After the tumultuous breakup of Martin and Lewis, Dean had watched as Jerry made it big with a string of solo movies. Martin’s movie career, by contrast, laid an egg - a bomb called 10,000 Bedrooms. He’d received $250,000 for that movie, but that wouldn’t do him much good if he wasn’t able to turn things around. That turning point came with a dramatic role in the movie The Young Lions, which Martin eagerly accepted even though it paid him almost $200,000 less than he’d received for 10,000 Bedrooms. He then followed up with his own string of hits – Rio Bravo and Some Came Running – and all of a sudden Dean Martin was hot stuff again.
The Dean Martin Show began in 1965, and Martin’s easygoing style made the show an instant success. In retrospect Dean seems a natural for his own variety show. There was only one problem - doing a weekly series would be too much like work. "I only left the house four times last year and made a million dollars," Dean joked, and between the movies and the records, who needed work? William Harbach, producer of ABC’s Hollywood Palace, tells Kliph Nesteroff a wonderful story about trying to get Martin to host an episode of Palace (prior to the NBC series) that illustrates precisely Deano’s style, and the appeal it had for viewers:
One of the guys that Nick [Vanoff, Harbach's partner on Palace] and I wanted on the show because he belonged on the show was Dean Martin. He didn't want to do it. We asked him several times. He always said no. Finally I said to Nick, "What if we ask him twenty minutes before the taping?" All he has to do is go to the dressing room, put on his dinner jacket and look at the cue cards to see if he wants anything changed. He'll just do the show and go right back to the golf course. No rehearsal, just bang. We asked him and he said, "Yeah, I'll do that if I don't have to do any goddamn rehearsal."
When NBC approached Martin for a weekly series, he exhibited the same lack of interest. Still, they pressed, so he gave them his terms. He knew they'd never accept them - he wanted a lot of money, and only wanted to show up for the actual taping - no rehearsal. They said yes anyway. He told his family, "They went for it. So now I have to do it."
There's no question that Martin's laid-back attitude was one of the show's major selling points. It was Dean the way people wanted to see him - dressed in a tux with a red pocket hanky, cigarette in one hand, drink in the other, so relaxed you wondered how he could stand up. Martin didn't put on airs, and that's why people loved him. He'd enter the show running down stairs, or sliding down a pole, making it all look cool. He was just himself - to be anyone else would have required too much work.
But really - you don't want to read someone writing about Dean Martin. Not when you can actually watch him, right?
This skit with Jonathan Winters is one of my favorites; it's a great example of how Dean's lack of rehearsal made the show that much funnier. Of course, nobody could really prepare for Jonathan Winters.
Here's a similar sketch from a few years later. Look at how Martin replies to Winters' "I just buried my brother" line - he has this wonderful "Did I just say that?" reaction. That's what made Dean Martin cool.*
*Notice how Dean's always playing himself in these bits? He doesn't bother to change into something that might be more "suitable" for the sketch. I mean, when was the last time you sat next to someone in an airplane wearing a tux?
And here's Bob Newhart, reprising one of his famous monologues with Dean as his foil. I don't know about you, but I've never had someone that well-dressed wait on me in a department store.
Don't think that it was all just comedy, though: Martin had some of the business' greatest entertainers as guests. Here he is with the great Ella Fitzgerald.
And another medley - this one with Bing Crosby.
One of the highlights of each show was his banter with longtime accompanies Ken Lane.
Of course, things weren't always as they appeared:
And it's also true you never knew just who might show up.
The Dean Martin Show ran until 1974 - when the very format of variety shows was on life support. By then the "Celebrity Roast" feature had taken over, and it was in that format that the show would continue, as a series of specials, for another few years. I prefer to forget about those years; you don't see the real Dean there. By then his drunk act had become dominant, almost forced. The easy charm of the early days was gone, and soon Dean would be as well.
The decade of the 60s, for all its fame, is difficult to pigeonhole. It began as a continuation of the 50s, in style and substance, and at the moment it seemed poised to morph into something new – modern, streamlined, space-aged – it all came to an end on a street in Dallas. By the end of the decade it had become something else entirely, a cultural French Revolution, awash in libertines and protestors and druggies, which would continue into the early part of the 70s.
One could say, then, that the identity of the 60s rests between two bookend decades, beginning like the 50s and ending like the 70s, with perhaps two or three years in the middle which it could call its own. In that sense, you could argue that 1965 was the model year of the 60s, the year that the decade might, under other circumstances, have most resembled. The drive to the moon was in full swing, the surging tumult hadn’t yet boiled over, the war still garnered widespread support.
It was then that Dean Martin’s show premiered, and I would suggest it serves as the perfect bridge to connect the times. Watching the show’s progression through the years, one sees sideburns grow longer while skirts grow shorter, pop standards mixing with rock (and more than one artist painfully trying to remain relevant), and the devil-may-care
attitude of the Rat Pack sliding into the hedonistic end of the decade. We can see it all, the end of one era and the beginning of another.
When Martin hosted the Hollywood Palace back in June of 1964 he made a comment that, I think, illustrates his ability to live in both these eras. Introducing the Rolling Stones, a group he may or may not have ever heard of, he commented that "I've been rolled while I was stoned myself." He could just as easily have said that in 1974, and he would have been just as much at home saying it.
Ah, Deano - there'll never be another one like him.
***
Just a reminder that today's the first day of the Classic TV Blog Association's variety show blogathon. It should be a lot of fun, with some great bloggers writing about some classic shows. Here's the schedule for the rest of the week.
We've skipped ahead twenty years from last week's issue, to another Olympics preview - the XIV Winter Olympiad, in perhaps the most tragic city ever to host the games.
The '84 Games were the first Winter Olympics to be held in a Communist country, Yugoslavia. At the time Sarajevo was known primarily as the site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the event that triggered World War I. Fresh off of its triumphant coverage of the Lake Placid games, ABC presented what was then a record 63½ hours of coverage for the 14 days*. As was the case in 1980, we see the coverage dominating ABC's prime-time schedule, covering anywhere from 2 to 4½ hours each night, with a 30 minute review after the late local news. It's interesting that ABC feels the need to point out that most of the coverage will be on a tape-delay basis, viewers having been spoiled by all the live coverage from Lake Placid (not including the US - USSR hockey game, of course).
*This was the last Winter Olympics to start in mid-week; in 1988 the Calgary games would begin on Saturday, and since then the start has been moved to Friday in order to accommodate a prime-time opening. ABC's coverage actually started the night before, on Tuesday, with the first round of the hockey tournament.
The Opening Ceremonies, Kosevo Stadium
Questions abounded: would the hockey team be able to repeat its memorable gold medal-winning 1980 run? (Not hardly; they managed to defeat Poland 7-4 in the seventh-place game.) Would the speed skaters duplicate the amazing Eric Heiden's five gold medals? (Not quite - no medals at all, actually.) Would the Mahre brothers come through in the alpine events? (Yes; Phil won gold and Steve silver in the slalom.) And would there be another American star born in Sarajevo? (I'd nominate Bill Johnson, the downhill gold medalist.)
It was a great show; everyone agreed that Wednesday afternoon's Opening Ceremonies were charming, capturing the spirit and culture of Sarajevo. As the flag was passed to Calgary for 1988, everyone agreed that the Canadians would have a hard act to follow.
The bobsled run became a mortar launching pad
Fast forward to 1994. Kosevo Stadium, the site of the Opening Ceremonies, is riddled with holes from howitzer shells and snipers' bullets, and a graveyard lies not far away. The bobsled run has been turned into an artillery position from which rebel forces can shell the city. The men’s downhill ski area is now a UN buffer, and the steps on the medal presentation stand are being used for executions. Zetra Stadium, home of the figure skating, was blown up a few years ago, and now serves as a base for French UN troops. Maps that used to direct tourists to various Olympic venues are now used by journalists as military battle maps.
The civil war that gutted Yugoslavia in the 90s killed nearly 150,000 people, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees and the breakup of the country itself.* The siege of Sarajevo, which lasted nearly four years, killed over 11,000 people, including 1,500 children. Reminders of the 1984 games are few and far between, even as the city (now the capital of Boznia and Herzegovina) is well on the way to rebuilding. Some civic leaders even speak of the hope that they might once again host the Olympics. That, indeed, would be a miracle.
The stand for medal ceremonies: an execution site
*Making this the only Olympic Games to be held in a country that no longer exists, if one discounts the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. I don't think the reunification of a country is quite the same as the dissolution of one, myself.
One of the most memorable quotes about Sarajevo came in a Sports Illustrated article written during the height of the war. Skier Jure Franko, who carried Yugoslavia's flag in the Opening Ceremonies and went on to win silver in the giant slalom, speaks bitterly about Sarajevo ten years later:
"As many positive feelings as I had then, that's how many negative feelings I have now. For me to know that the people who surrounded me with such love, the same people who surrounded all the athletes with such love, who wrapped the entire Olympic Village in all possible warm feelings...to know that they are now trying to kill each other is basically unthinkable. Eighty, maybe 90 percent of the people dying now in Sarajevo have absolutely nothing to do with the war. They die when they go to get bread or a bucket of water. They are innocent."
It puts the "warfare" of modern athletic competition in perspective a bit, don't you think?
***
I don't know about you, but these 1980s TV Guides really don't do much for me. But that just means I have to work a little harder to find something of interest, and hard work is good for you. Isn't it?
How about Barbara Walters? Her Monday night interview special features Mr. T. ("Is he as mean as he looks? Is anybody?"), Ester Williams ("The movie queen of the 50s dove out of stardom, into marriage. Any regrets?") and Howard Cosell ""Why does he think people love to hate him?"). No word on whether or not she asked any of them what kind of tree they would be.
It's also a pretty good movie week, with a number of top theatrical flicks making their network debuts. Three alone come from 1981: Chariots of Fire, the Oscar winner for Best Picture, premieres on Sunday night on CBS. Its Oscar rival, On Golden Pond, makes its own bow 30 minutes later on NBC And a third, Dudley Moore's Arthur, hits the airwaves on Monday, courtesy of ABC. But if you want to watch that one, you're going to have to skip Little House: The Last Farewell on NBC. Tough call, isn't it?
There's plenty of sports to choose from, mostly for college basketball fans. I count ten games on Saturday alone, and - this is the important part - only two of them are exclusively on cable. ESPN has those, while the rest of them are either network, syndication, or a syndication/ESPN pairing. If you don't like roundball, there's other stuff: bowling and boxing on ABC, the 24 Hours of Daytona on TBS, the Bing Crosby Pro-Am on CBS, the NHL on USA.
***
You might notice that some cable stations have started to creep into our discussion. It's not much, but we are seeing some of the mainstream networks being featured in the programming grids - A&E, ESPN, HBO, Nick, Showtime, TBS, TMC, USA and WGN. Of these, I'd say that A&E has undergone the most dramatic change over time. It's still only a part-time station, starting its broadcasting day at 8pm ET, known as "Arts & Entertainment" and listed in the programming grid as "ART", and that's where the focus is. A selection of typical shows: Dudley Moore in concert with the San Francisco Symphony, the hilarious British sitcom Yes, Minister, a profile of the painter Andrew Wyeth, and a program by the Allen Ailey American Dance Theater. Is all of this to my interest? No, of course not. But for anyone interested in the arts, there's going to be something there - and it's not likely you're going to find this kind of programming anywhere else.
Indeed, today you won't even find it on A&E. Hell, the network doesn't even have the words "Arts" and "Entertainment" as part of their name. Today's A&E is dominated by various reality shows. Now, my inclination is that the letters A and E ought to stand for "Artless" and "Embarrassing", but I haven't watched it in many years, so I can't really say for sure. Any of you out there care to chip in?
***
CBS must really be banking on the success of two of its mid-season replacement shows. It has full-page ads for Airwolf and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. That's something else I've noticed about this issue: it's very busy. Every page seems to have a half- or quarter-sized ad for something or other, and there are more than a few pages that only have ads. And there's very cluttered ads as well, filled with explosive ads and garish images, fairly shouting off the page. Between that and the newly introduced prime-time programming grid, not to mention the added cable stations, there's less and less room for the programs themselves.
And that's why it's so hard to "read" a TV Guide from this era. When you pick up a coffee-table book of photographs, you don't think of yourself as "reading" it; you leaf through it, browse the pages, scan the contents. (Probably the only picture publication anyone reads is Playboy, where the "reading" is sure to be in quotes.) Same here - there's so much visual overload, you can't really do anything more than flip through it. Maybe there's something worth watching buried somewhere in this mess, maybe there isn't. And that's change; times are different. More networks, more shows, more choice than back in the 60s.
I wonder how I felt about it at the time. Did I notice? Would I have made the same complaints that I'm making now? Perhaps; probably, if I'm truthful about it. After all, I was weaned on what to expect from reading those old TV Guides, that had such a different look and feel to them. I remember being disappointed with TV Guide's redesign at the end of 1969 - it its attempt to look modern and updated I thought it was too sparse, too insignificant, not special enough. Compared to the clutter of the 80s, though, I might be inclined to give them a break. It's true that I love TV, but as one of our great TV heroes, Captain Kirk, once said, "Too much of anything, even love, isn't necessarily a good thing."
Come back tomorrow for a special version of the Tuesday essay, as the Classic TV Blog Association kicks off the Variety Show Blogathon with "The Dean Martin Show"
It's become a cliché to talk about the marvels of technology. For the youngsters out there, it isn’t even a marvel, just something they’ve grown up with and always known.
