This week in TV Guide: August 16, 1969

A new era in television begins this week, as Merv Griffin enters the late-night talk show fray with his debut on CBS. (Guests for that first show: Joe Namath, Woody Allen, Leslie Uggams.) Merv's hardly a stranger to the game, having helmed a daytime show on NBC as well as his syndicated chatfest for Group W, but as Neil Hickey writes, things are a little different now.

This is the first time ever that all three networks are programming simultaneous late-night talk shows, with Joey Bishop representing ABC's entry in the "Insomnialand Sweepstakes." And we're not talking about peanuts in this battle-to-the-death contest; Johnny Carson's Tonight Show earned about $15 million for NBC last year. For years, CBS's affiliates had survived on the network's inventory of old feature films, but with prices going up and inventory shrinking, change was in the air; when around 80% of CBS affiliates said they'd clear the show in the late-night timeslot, the game—or, in this case, the show—was on. As for the host, . . .

According to Hickey, it was a call from the William Morris Agency to CBS's new late-night boss Mike Dunn that set things in motion. Among the Agency's many clients was one Merv Griffin, currently negotiating a new contract with Westinghouse, and the renewal was far from a done deal. The Agency asked if CBS would be interested in Griffin should he become available. Dunn replied that, yes, he'd be interested. When the Group W negotiations reached an impasse, about three weeks later, Griffin's handlers called Dunn back. A couple of meetings later, the deal was set: two years, with an option for six more, and CBS had itself a ready-made show to take on Johnny and Joey.

Merv's not under any illusions about the magnitude of the challenge, but he's also excited. "The biggest drawback to the show which I've been doing for the last four years was its built-in lack of topicality, caused by the fact that it was aired, in some cases, as much as five weeks after we made it." When Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, he says, "we had to just sit there as though it happened." He wants his staff to "read the front page as well as the theater page," but doesn't want propagandizing. "The fewer personal causes I exploit on the air the better the show we'll have." It's the guests he's interested in, and their areas of expertise. "These shows should reflect the whole contemporary scene: comedy, ideas, music." He's not going to let himself worry about the competition, either. "If I let myself pay too much attention to the competition, I risk falling into a tererible trap. I can't let them affect how I do my own show."

There's a very interesting comment made near the end of the article by a CBS executive. "Nobody knows how long Carson is going to work," he says. "He shows signs of wanting to do something else. When he does quit, NBC—which has enjoyed this lush oasis for so long—will suddenly be in the same position we were. Griffin will get a large chunk of Carson's audience and some of Bishop's." The truth, as Hickey concludes, is that nobody knows. And ain't that the truth. Carson, of coursee, is not near quitting; he'll continue another 23 years, to 1992. By that time Bishop is long gone—he won't even make it out of 1969. Merv is absent the scene as well; as Griffin's comments suggest, he wanted a topical show with topical, and often controversial, guests, and soon chafes under the restrictions CBS attempts to put on his show. and he secretly negotiates a deal with Metromedia to return to syndication as soon as CBS cancels his show, which happens in 1972. That edition of The Merv Griffin Show continues until 1986 when Merv finally hangs it up. Maybe he doesn't beat Carson, but he certainly leaves the scene unbowed.

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Speaking of the late-night wars, 1960s style, if you're into this kind of thing then this is your week! Not only do we have Johnny, Joey and Merv slugging it out in the post-local news period, we also have Dick Cavett! Yes, in the timeframe between Cavett's morning show and his anointing as Joey Bishop's successor, during the summer of 1969, Cavett hosts a three-nights-a-week show for ABC. As such, on Monday, Tuesday and Friday of this week, you have all four of my generation's late-night titans appearing on the same evening, three of them at the same time. It's really quite extraordinary, when you think about it. And if you lived in the right market, you could also have seen Steve Allen's syndicated show. If only someone could have found a place for Jack Paar—wouldn't that have been a time!

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We spend a lot of time here looking at woman's fashions, so it's only fair that this week we get a glimpse at Hollywood's "wild" new look for men.

It grooves, doesn't it? Our models are, from left to right, Stan Freberg, Robert Wagner and Robert Culp, three men with reputations as being among the most stylish dresers in entertainment. Dick Hobson gathered the three of them, plus Sammy Davis Jr., to see how they feel about the new styles. Wagner admits to the truth of his publicist's statement that he has "the most impressive wardrobe on the tube"; Culp concurs, saying that Wagner "always looks elegant," but says Davis is "the only cat I'd call a style leader." Not surprisingly, Freberg bosts of the most flamboyant outfits, living up to his daughter's description of him as "a groovy daddy." The formula: "An Edwardian suit with a dragoon collar. Or my Cardin suit with a sculptured back—a real mindblower. I have a Bill Blass blazer with his initials monogramed all over the lining, which is a little ostentatious of him, don't you think, considering it's my coat." He does have his limits, though: "The bell-bottom is a little too faddish for me."

As for other favorite outfits: Davis is proud of "Two mink coats and a mink cape and three pairs of doeskin boot-pants." The boots and pants are all one piece? "Yeah, you put them on just like a regular pair of pants. The gas is to casually put your leg up and people say, 'You mean they're all one?" Wagner boasts of starting the Cassini Nehru look; when Culp suggested that Tony Randall actually ntroduced the Nehru to America on the Carson show, Davis interjects, "No, I brought it from Paris and it wasn't called the Nehru; it was called Mao jacket. Because of politics, you wouldn't use the word Mao so I said it was a Nehru." Davis adds that "I came back from London three years ago wearing beads, and people said, 'Beads?' Within six months everybody was wearing beads." Freberg says that at first he felt a little self-conscious; "A year and a half ago I went on the Tonight show wearing what I thought was a wild Eric Ross jacket until Tony Curtis came on with Edwardian lapels, a whole row of military medals and high knee boots. Everybody applauded."

Yes, boys and girls, this is what the state of men's fashion looked like at the end of the Sixties. But there are some more traditional styles that the men admire: Wagner likes Cary Grant ("He never had to bother with an expernsive wardrobe because he wers clothes so well that the suit that looked well on him in 1939 still looks well on him."), Culp admires Johnny Carson (he "has a fabulous influence, though nobody has ever accused John of being adventurous."), Davis loves Fred Astaire ("Tails on Astaire look as comfortable as tennis shoes, Levi's and a T-shirt."), and they all agree that while Sinatra has loosened up from his investment banker look, Davis tells of how he once kidded the Chairman that "You're dressing like you're known all over the world," to which Sinatra replied, "Well?"

I love clothes myself; I never went for ascots and Nehru jackets, although I'll admit to a couple of leisure jackets in the day, but I've always been most comfortable in a nice three-piece suit or double-breasted jacket with dress boots, and I only wear a white shirt to weddings and funerals. My one regret is that I've never had the opportunity to wear a tuxedo; they say a tux looks good on every man, and at this stage in my life I'll probably never get the chance to find out. But a classic wardrobe is still timeless—I'll let you decide if the outfits above fill the bill.

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As far as TV goes, summertime is reruntime, but that doesn't mean we can't still have a blockbuster. That's the case on Sunday, when NBC repeats Elvis Presley's historic comeback concert (8:00 p.m. CT), first shown the previous December. It was the King's first television appearance in eight years, and it's proven to not only be one of the definitive moments in Presley's career, but a riviting hour of television. In the rerun vein, Saturday night's Jackie Gleason show (6:30 p.m., CBS) shows how far the Honeymooners have come from their half-hour roots; in this hour-long musical-comedy episode, "The Honeymooners visit sunny Spain, where Ralph rushes to the rescue of a lovely senorita—and finds himself entangled in a blackmail plot." It's part of the story arc in which the Kramdens and Nortons have won a trip around the world; the elements are there, in that it would be typical for Ralph to get in over his head with some complicated scheme. But it seems a long way from that New York tenament, doesn't it?

On Saturday and Sunday (4:00 p.m.), ABC presents third- and final-round coverage of the golf season's final major, the PGA Championship, from National Cash Register Country Club in Dayton, Ohio. (Yep, you read that right.) The tournament "offers a mouth-watering $175,000" in total prize money (2019's total purse: $11 million). and Ray Floyd holds on, despite a final round 74, to defeat Gary Player. Proving that political controversy is no stranger to sports, civil rights and antiwar protestors disrupt the third round, throwing a cup of water in Player's face and trying to grab Jack Nicklaus's ball off the green. "The tournament continued in a sinister cloak-and-dagger atmosphere," according to Associated Press. "Small groups of long-haired characters in hippie attire were seen congregating at various places. Police milled through the crowd." Player double-bogied the hole where the water was thrown at him; he lost by one shot. Rounding out the weekend sports scene, WTCN is the flagship for Minnesota Twins baseball, as the Twinkies take on the Washington Senators (noon both days) from Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, which just last year was known as D.C. Stadium.

Liberace is back on network TV with his own summer replacement show (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m., CBS) and his guests are Eve Arden, Mary Hopkin, Matt Monro, and ventriquilist Ray Alan with his dummy Lord Charles. That's on opposite It Takes a Thief (7:30 p.m., ABC), in which we get to see Robert Wagner and his fabulous wardrobe accompanied by a cast of unlikely guest stars: Joey Heatherton, Paul Lukas and Barry Williams. And at 8:00 p.m., "A black district attorney and a white cop are men at odds" in the TV-movie Deadlock, which winds up as "The Protectors" segment of The Bold Ones. We also get part two of a CBS News Special on the generation gap (9:00 p.m.); last week's first segment was called "Fathers and Sons," this week's follow-up is "Mothers and Daughters." The producers express the hope that viewers will watch the troubled families and take consolation in knowing they're not alone; executive producer Ernest Leiser says, "The only way to bridge the gap is with mutual compassion."  Thursday's episode of Ironside (7:30 p.m., NBC) strikes me as a prescient one. "Ironside is caught in a racist crossfire when he's ordered to prove the innocence of a Negro millitant accused of a riot murder. White extremists whant to set an example; black extremists claim it's a frame." I wouldn't want to be the Chief in this one.

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This week's starlet is 22-year old French pop singer Mireille Mathieu, the girl who none other than Maurice Chevalier calls "A little queen [who] has come out of the peoplpe, to be workshiped by those who like French songs." Having made it big first in France and then the rest of Europe, she's now in the process of making it in the United States, doing the circuit with Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and Danny Kaye. Her agent, Johnny Stark, places her in high company, along with such French icons as Chevalier and Edith Pief, but to do so she will need to become both a singer (which she is) and an artist (an area in which she continues to evolve). And she has to be accepted in the U.S. as she is elsewhere.

Back in the day, it was possible to charm an audience by singing in a foreign language; after all, Piaf herself did it with "La Vie en Rose." But, Mathieu tells Robert Musel, she is determined to master the English language. "I cannot sing in English with the emotion I feel in French because the words do not mean as much to me. This makes me dissatisfied because I want the Americans to hear me at my best." She plans to remain in England after the end of her television series with John Davidson (Fridays, 7:00 p.m., ABC) "until I learn English really well." "When I talk with John on the show, I have to read the English from cards phonetically."

Music styles change; in the years since, the type of song Mireille Mathieu sings has waned in popularity. She never really became big with English language songs, and never reached the heights of Chevalier or Piaf, but she's remained popular in France, Germany and Russia, among other countries. And the 75 albums she's recorded, most recently in 2015, are 75 more than I've managed.

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The original PBS logo, using the colors of  the old NET

What's in a name? We're not sure, but The Doan Report tells us that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, about to begin it's first full season of broadcasting, is haggling over just what the new network is going to be called. The preferred name—Public Broadcasting System—is thought by some to sound too corporate, too "centralized," which is just what they don't want to employ, since much of the network's content will be provided by local stations for local stations. ("Besides," says one official, "it may sound too much like CBS." Would that they could get CBS's ratings, though.) Then there's the Public Broadcasting Network, but "the word 'network' is thought be be anathema these days to many congressmen." As we all know, they never did come up with a good alternative, and PBS it is, to this day. And still without CBS's ratings.

NBC, meanwhile, has announced plans for 100, count 'em, 100 specials for the 1969-70 season. There are so many, in fact, that Doan acknowledges the risk that the frequent preemptions may run the risk of antagonizing fans of NBC's hits, such as Laugh-In and Bonanza. I'm not getting too worked up about the specials, though; we're talking about things such as Christmas specials from Bob Hope, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby (plus a repeat of The Little Drummer Boy), standards like the Miss America Pageant, and an all-star circus with Tony Curtis, who can do a few acrobatic stunts himself. In other words, fun, maybe, but not too many "special" specials. Your mileage may vary, though, depending on how much you like the stars.

And the Teletype reports that "A specially set up network will carry Jerry Lewis's annual Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day telethon for 22 hours on Aug. 31. Last year, Lewis, who has been national chairman of the charitable organization for 18 years, raised $1,400,000 on the telethon." The all-time record, set in 2008, is $65,031,393.

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Last but not least, for all you youngsters out there, one of the catchphrases of the post-Apollo 11 era was, "We can put a man on the moon, but we can't" followed by your favorite description of some worthy but insurmountable task, e.g. "We can put a man on the moon, but we can't figure out how to feed the hungry." Subconsciously, it was not so much a complaint about things that needed to be done (although it was certainly that), as it was a reminder of how monumental the moon landing was, and how unthinkable it had been for so long. I don't know what its equivalent would be today, since continuous technological achievement is more or less taken for granted, but you get the point. So did Susan Biles of Waterbury, Connecticut, who, in this week's Letters section, reminds us of something else we take for granted nowadays. "I can watch the fantastic live transmission of the moon walk," she writes, "but I cannot receive a local channel 24 miles away. Ah, the inconsistencies of life!" Indeed, Ms. Biles, and were it so that this could be our biggest complaint today. TV 

This week in TV Guide: November 9, 1968

Last week we dabbled in food, sharing a TV Guide recipe for minestrone. This week we go even farther, as Richard Gehman tells us how "You too can be a chef" by watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. You see, Carson makes a perfect companion for the hungry view (and Gehman finds himself, for some unknown reason, starved every time he watches Carson). Forthwith, Gehman's complete late-night supper, made during a recent episode of Tonight.

Start with the small potatoes, which can be prepared for boiling during Carson's commercial for a new spot remover. You can do the whole thing from your easy chair while Don Rickles comes on and insults everyone in sight. While Rickles continues, it's time for you to separate slices of chipped beef, which you've brought to your easy chair along with the spuds. As Ed McMahon shills for Alpo, take the separated beef to the kitchen, toss the potatoes in a pot for boiling, and while you're there put an eighth of a pound of butter in a frypan which has been preheated to 300°. Turn up the TV while Sergio Franchi is singing, so you can hear him while toasting two slices of bread and opening a can of peas. With the next commercial, you can drain the potatoes and toast a couple more slices of bread. The next guest, possibly George Jessel, allows you to chop a fresh green or red pepper.

When the show pauses for a station break, that's your chance to add two tablespoonfuls of sifted flour to the sizzling butter, stir with a whisk, and add a half teaspoonful of salt, a couple of pinches of dried parsley, a very small dash of oregano and some pepper, preferably fresh-ground. You can add a half-cup of water while the next singer (probably named Connie) warbles away. Add the chipped beef to the mixture when shills for a sewer-cleaning device, along with a half-cup of milk, stirring until the mixture bubbles, at which time you include the drained peas.

This whole thing should take you to within about ten minutes of the end of Carson's show. During the next-to-last commercial, add a tablespoonful of capped black pitted olives, and as Carson interviews his final guest (Mary Martin, Mary McCarthy, Mary Healy, or maybe Mary Queen of Scots), you can serve your creamed chipped beef, either on the toast or the potatoes you've put on the side. Turn off the set. Eat heartily.

I don't know. I don't think I can eat that heavy a meal right before bedtime.

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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: Tentatively scheduled guests: singers Tom Jones, Vikki Carr and Jimmi Hendrix; comedians Wayne and Shuster, and Scoey Mitchell; the Chung Trio, instrumentalists; and Valente and Valente, balancing act.

Palace: Host Mike Douglas presents Polly Bergen, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, Donovan, comics Hendra and Ullett, juggler Rudy Schweitzer and the Solokhins, balancing acrobats from the Moscow State Circus.

Once again, KMSP, the Twin Cities ABC affiliate, has seen fit to tamper with the schedule of Hollywood Palace. The station had a frequent habit of pre-empting the network's prime-time fare for local programming (and the accompanying ad revenue)—in this case sixing ABC's Saturday night shows (after Lawrence Welk, of course) in favor of a movie (Back Street, with Susan Hayward)*, and airing Palace on Sunday afternoon (opposite NFL football).

*Full disclosure: looking at the picture of Susan Hayward in the movie ad, I think I would have preferred Back Street to the Palace myself.

Be that as it may, I love these examples of the variety show adapting to contemporary culture. Vikki Carr is a traditional songstress, Tom Jones epitomizes the power of sexual dynamism, and Hendrix—well, he's out there in an area code of his own, isn't he? Case closed—the verdict goes to Sullivan.

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.Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly 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.

Every one in a while television tries something a little different. Not often, but occasionally. What's not different, though, is the result, which usually takes about thirteen weeks to play out, thirteen being an unlucky number, but the traditional number of episodes a series would run before getting cancelled. The history of television is littered with such noble failures (Cop Rock, anyone?) and this week Cleveland Amory takes a look at one of them: ABC's That's Life, a comedy-variety series with a regular cast and continuing story. It is, Amory says, more like "a long musical comedy—with each act lasting an hour and each intermission a week." 

That's Life stars Robert Morse (Tony winner for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) and E.J. Peaker as a young couple headed for marriage; Morse, Amory admits, "is not our favorite actor. But he is, bar none, our favorite re-actor—in fact, he is perhaps the best in the business." Peaker took a while to grow on Cleve, but by the fourth ekpisode "we were ready, if not for marriage, at least to go steady."

One of the highlights of each week's episode is the guest star, and Amory points out that the show is often written to take advantage of that guest, rather than the regulars. And with a cast of guests including George Burns, Jackie Vernon, and Tim Conway, the show succeeds more often than not. A particular highlight is the show in which Kay Medford and Shelly Berman appear as Peaker's mother and father, an episode that also features Robert Goulet and Alan King. "This was," Amory writes, "by all odds the best single episode of any series we have seen so far." That's Life could actually be considered a success as far as these "different" series go, running for 32 episodes. Cleve's much more bullish on the show, though: "When That's Life is good, it's very, very good—good enough to pay money for on Broadway. And even when it's bad, it's never, never horrid."

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On the cover this week is Barbara Feldon in marryin' garb, and inside is a layout of Feldon in the year's smartest outfits. The hook is the upcoming wedding of her Get Smart character, Agent 99, to Don Adams' Maxwell Smart, but it's clear that there's more to Feldon than meets the eye—or the secret agent, as it were.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

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Last week we also took a look at the story of PBL, the experimental new Sunday night program launched by NET. (I don't have anything to check on in this week's edition; KTCA, the Twin Cities' educational channel, is dark this Sunday.) This week we read of the network's plans to add a half-hour prime-time news program. James White, head of NET, hopes to have the newscast on by the fall of 1969. I don't know that it ever happens; if it did, I've not seen any evidence that it was shown in Minneapolis. It may well have been broadcast in one of the network's larger markets, such as New York, Washington D.C. or San Francisco. But a newscast delayed is not a newscast denied; following their coverage of the Watergate hearings, Robert McNeil and Jim Lehrer begin The McNeil/Lehrer Report, which quickly goes nationally and continues today as PBS NewsHour. White had said that he would seek "top-ranked commentators"—there's no arguing that's what they got.

And in one more follow-up from that piece, the Hawaiian Open golf tournament is back, and this time the broadcast really takes advantage of the time difference—Saturday coverage starts at 7:30 p.m. CT on Channel 11, with the final round airing Sunday at 7:00 p.m.

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The week's football is kind of a meh, but Stanley Frank provides a fascinating look behind-the-scenes at what happens in the television control booth. The focus is on CBS' coverage of the season opener between the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers, where announcers Frank Gifford and Jack Whitaker go through the preparation for the week's game with the production team, producer Bill Creasy and director Chris Erskine. Gifford runs through each team's tendencies, gives insight on key players, and advises the team on what to look for.  (Bobby Walden, the Pittsburgh punter, has "been known to pass from kick formation.")

Covering football has changed dramatically over the years. There are five color cameras assigned to the game: three near the 50-yard line, one on the sidelines, one behind an end zone. (By contrast, the average game today uses at least twice as many, and NBC has 40 for its Sunday night broadcasts.) CBS gets off to a rough start; despite Gifford's warning that Steelers running back Dick Houk had the capability of throwing on the option play, the cameras miss his 62-yard pass on the game's first play. Later in the first half Erskine cuts to the field-level camera as Giants quarterback Fran Tarkenton unleashes an 84-yard pass to Homer Jones; the ground shot "projects the speed and power of the players but loses a panoramic view of the field," blowing the live shot. An instant replay showing the completed pass doesn't make up for Erskine's frustration at missing the original play.

The game continues through to a 34-20 victory by the Giants, a dull affair that, as Frank notes, proves the truism that "false excitement cannot be pumped into an event." Despite the early glitches, the broadcast goes well, and Gifford's tip about a fake punt means the cameras are in perfect position when Walden does in fact opt for the pass in the fourth quarter (which was dropped). It's particularly interesting to note how commercials were treated back in the day: under the current agreement, CBS can ask the officials for a commercial time-out "if there has been no natural break in the action during the first seven minutes of a quarter." The referee misses the network's initial fourth quarter signal, and Creasy nixes a commercial during a first-down measurement. ("We can't interrupt a drive.") The network is eventually bailed out by Giants kicker Pete Gogolak, who obligingly kicks two field goals to provide natural breaks for the spots.

Televising a game is tough work for everyone; as Creasy says after the game's end, "I feel as though my eyes are falling out of my head, and they pop out a little farther every week."

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Us classic television fans remember Robert Young as the wise Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best, or the kindly family doctor Marcus Welby, M.D., but Young was a fine actor who wasn't above showing an edge in his work. We're reminded of that in Friday's episode of Name of the Game (7:30 p.m., NBC), as Young plays Herman Allison, "an ultraright fanatic who's building a private army" to guard against the growing race problem. Gene Barry, one of the three stars of Name of the Game, enters the scene while investigating the death of an investigative reporter, and runs into a cast of characters that includes an influence-peddling former senator, a washed-up actress, a restaurateur, and another murder.

It's just another indication of the sign of the times, as we can see in a Letter to the Editor from Doris Mathews of Checotah, Oklahoma. Miss Mathews writes in praise of a recent special called Soul, which could have been any one of a number of specials but was probably a public broadcasting series of the same name. In the letter, she says "The Negro 'Soul' special was fabulous. More shows like this should be aired so that the whites can see all the talent among the Negro people." Wince-inducing to modern ears perhaps, but this is a time not far removed from the infamous interracial kiss on Star Trek, which caused NBC so much trouble in the South.

Thomas J. O'Neal of New Orleans has a hilarious take on Howard Cosell, who's not quite the household name he'll become in two years thanks to Monday Night Football, but has become plenty familiar thanks to ABC's coverage of boxing—especially Muhammad Ali. In response to an October 19 article entitled "I'm Irreplaceable" (I'm assuming Humble Howard is speaking of himself here), O'Neal writes "In musing over the word 'saturnine,' which Howard Cosell believes everyone 'ought to learn,' it occurred to me that this Argus-eyed, stentorian Palladium of narcissism should pause on his commercial odyssey, pick up his aegis, take his Antaean virtues and his cornucopia of money—and paddle down the Stygian Way to Hades. [That's "go to hell," for the rest of us.] Cosell, you are a myth!" Couldn't have said that better myself.

I'll defer to the following as the Letter of the Week, though, as it checks a number of boxes that I've written about in the past months. Karen Fiedler, of Columbus, Ohio, has CBS' new Western series Lancer in mind in her letter. "Lancer is based on the fact that Murdoch Lancer [Andrew Duggan] was shot so badly he had to send for his boys, Scott [Wayne Maunder] and Johnny [James Stacy]. Scott gets shot int he first episode, Johnny gets shot in the second, and Scott gets shot again in the third by a family trying to avenge Johnny's killing of one of their brood. Johnny is forced to shoot one of them because they shot Scott. Luckily everyone recovers quickly except the bad guys. It is certainly a joy to view the new lack of violence." Got all that straight? TV  

This week in TV Guide: May 14, 1966

What better way to kick the week off than with a look at the undisputed heavyweight Chairman of the Board?

Leslie Radditz' article, which accompanies an encore presentation of  Sinatra's acclaimed NBC special A Man and His Music on Sunday (9:00 p.m. CT), looks at Sinatra at 50. In many ways, Radditz notes, Sinatra "seems to be reaching new peaks." He complains about not getting enough sleep, about his current Vegas gig being about two weeks too long, about lousy service in the hotel dining room. But then, when he gets onstage—well, as Radditz says, "the old excitement is there." Comments from women in the audience bear this out: "It's the eyeball-to-eyeball contact that gets me," one says. "I'll bet there isn't a place in that room where you wouldn't feel he was looking at you." Adds another, "His animal attraction is amazing."

Sunday's Sinatra special, which had originally aired the previous November, bears it out. It's just an hour of Frank singing—no skits, no forced banter, just Sinatra, with two of his best collaborators, Gordon Jenkins and Nelson Riddle, providing the orchestral backing. The show's available on DVD, and if you're a Sinatra fan you need to have it. Looking through some of the songs is like reading the notes on a Greatest Hits album: "I've Got You Under My Skin," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "It Was a Very Good Year," "Young at Heart," "Come Fly with Me," "Lady is a Tramp," "You Make Me Feel So Young," "One For My Baby." He closes the show with his longtime theme, "Put Your Dreams Away."  "My Way" and "New York, New York"? He hasn't even recorded those yet. Yes, Frank Sinatra still has some very good years ahead of him.

Here's a sample from A Man and His Music:

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No Hollywood Palace this week, preempted by a "Holiday on Ice" show hosted by Milton Berle. However, that doesn't mean we don't have some variety for you. Sullivan himself has a pretty good lineup (7:00 p.m., CBS), headlined by Alan King, Kate Smith, and dancer Peter Gennero. Frank's Rat Pack pal Dean Martin, on NBC Thursday night (9:00 p.m.), has singers Gisele MacKenzie, Tommy Sands and the McGuire Sisters, comedian Jack Carter, and Sherri Lewis and Lamb Chop. Red Skelton's Tuesday show (7:30 p.m., CBS) features Petula Clark, who was so big back in the early '60s that she's on twice this week—she's also a co-headliner on NBC's Best on Record program (Monday, 8:00 p.m., NBC), featuring performances by winners from March's Grammy Awards.

While we're at it, let's take a closer look at that Grammys show. The listing for it reads "The annual Grammy awards are presented," and mentions that Dinah Shore will be giving the Golden Achievement award to Duke Ellington. But we know it isn't the awards show itself—that was on March 15, in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Nashville. So what gives?  Well, believe it or not, the Grammy award ceremony wasn't broadcast live on TV until 1971—prior to that, a series of annual specials, called Best on Record, showcased the winners in the major categories, performing their winning tunes. It wasn't about the competition; who knows whether or not they named the losing nominees on the show? It was all about the music. And in that sense, it's no different than the Grammys today. Nobody really turns on the show to see the lame jokes from the presenters, the envelope opened, the four losers on screen while the winner tearfully accepts the award. No—people want the performances, and that's what this show gives them. Maybe they should consider this format every year?

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's weekly 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. 

The Avengers, Cleveland Amory writes, "is so British you don't have to be British to understand it—but it helps." Understand? I'm not sure I do, but we'll leave it at that for the time being.

As I recounted a few years ago, it apparently took the British public a while to figure out that The Avengers was a satire, but with the passage of a couple of years, Cleve has no such problem—"Each of the episodes we've seen has involved not only individual satires of the old days, but also general satires of modern life." He at least acknowledges the presence of Patrick Macnee as John Steed (well, after all, he's only the glue that holds the whole series together), but he more than notices Diana Rigg in the unforgettable role of Mrs. Emma Peel, "the swinging girl of today and the forward-looking woman of tomorrow." "Pretty good, what?" says Amory, and adds, "make no mistake, she's both pretty and good."

He goes on to joke about a few more British-type jokes; cucumber sandwiches, "brollys," and "By Jove," but doesn't really say much more about the show. And I suppose that's a good thing—if you've read these capsule summaries over the years, one thing you know is that the more Cleve has to say about your show, the more you'll regret it. Understand?

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Keeping on the theme of British television, there's Robert Musel's (yes, this one's for you, Mike Doran!) profile of "the incorruptible" Patrick McGoohan, star of the decidedly more serious Danger Man or, as it's known in these parts, Secret Agent. McGoohan hasn't yet ventured into what will become his most famous role, that of Number Six in The Prisoner, but it's not hard to see the genesis of that show as he riffs on his television philosophy. "Every real hero since Jesus Christ has been moral," he says, a statement that will come as absolutely no surprise to those who've noticed the occasional Messianic parallel in Number Six's actions. He adds that he will not let John Drake, his character in Danger Man (and perhaps alter ego of Number Six?), do anything he would not do himself.

McGoohan's a man who knows what he believes in and isn't afraid to say so.  "When I first started the series," he tells Musel, "they wanted me to carry a gun and have an affair with a different girl in each episode.  I wasn't going to do that. I simply will not appear in anything offensive.  I won't accept bad language or eroticism."  That doesn't mean he's against romance on screen; "Romance is the finest for of entertainment...It's something you create in the mind of the viewer."  Rather, it's his philosophy toward television itself, and its responsibility to the viewer.  "What I object to is promiscuous sex which is anti-romance.  Television is watched by so many people, children and grandmothers among them, that it has a moral obligation to its audience."

McGoohan's a demanding man to work with, but "generally liked by his crew because they recognize him as a professional who could, if he had to, light a set or edit a film or even design a production."  I suspect it also doesn't hurt that he has a clear idea of what he wants in a series.  All in all, we get a picture of a man with an ego, a man with vision and the determination to bring it to fruition, a man with a pure artistic integrity.  It's hard not to respect a man like that.

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What else is there to talk about this week?

Well, if you're a sports fan, there's not much to look forward to this week. The Dodgers and Pirates meet in NBC's Saturday Game of the Week (1:00 p.m.), and the Twins take on the Yankees in a local broadcast Friday night at 7:00 p.m. on Channel 11. Otherwise you've got swimming, wrestling, bowling, ice-dancing and hydroplane races to look forward to. Oh, and Sam Snead offers tips on how to avoid sand traps.

Many of the weekly series have started the rerun season, so there's not a lot new there either.  Even the week's biggest show (except for Frank, that is) comes up a cropper. That's the scheduled launch of Gemini IX, which was slated to take off on Tuesday morning as the second-half of a space doubleheader. The day was to begin with the launch of an Atlas-Agena target vehicle at 10:00 a.m., followed at 11:40 a.m. by the Gemini launch. The Gemini, manned by Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan, would then catch up with, rendezvous and dock with the Agena, a crucial component that had to be understood and mastered prior to the forthcoming Apollo flights.

However, as you can see here, the launch of the Agena didn't exactly come off as planned; Mission Control lost contact with the vehicle after the Atlas booster failed, and the Agena plunged into the Atlantic. The Gemini flight was postponed until the following month, when a replacement vehicle was launched. Gemini IX finally took off on June 3, and while it didn't quite come off without a hitch, it was still a success.

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Another of the fashion spreads that TV Guide features from time to time, and this week our model is Joan Hackett.  Hackett, a woman of unconventional beauty, has had a pretty good career, winning awards for her work on stage and showing up regularly on a variety of movies and television shows and series.  This article has nothing to do with that, of course; for TV Guide, Hackett makes a perfect model for the English-styled fashions popularized by the ultra-chic New York shop Paraphernalia.

SOURCE: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

The store, which opened multiple locations and remained around in one form or another until the late 70s, is quite a story itself.  As for Hackett, her career continues on the upswing, with critical plaudits for the TV adaptation of Mourning Becomes Electra followed by Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for her work in her last movie, Only When I Laugh; in 1983 she will die of ovarian cancer.

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That seems like kind of a down note to end on, so let's take a look at a movie that sounds so awful, you have to smile at it.  It's 1958's Attack of the Puppet People, starring two actors who really ought to have known better, John Hoyt (many television shows) and John Agar (Shirley Temple's first husband; how far we've fallen since then, hmm?), and I swear to you that this is the real description of the movie, which airs on Channel 5 at 12:45 a.m. on Saturday night/Sunday morning:  "A toymaker carries his occupation to an extreme.  He shrinks people and locks them in a dollhouse."

Shockingly, the always-reliable Wikipedia says that the movie, which was shot under the working title The Fantastic Puppet People,  "has had a generally poor reception amongst critics."  It was rushed into production to capitalize on the recent popularity of The Incredible Shrinking Man, but something tells me that no amount of time would have helped this flick out.


Perhaps it makes more sense with the Spanish subtitles. But I keep waiting for three silhouettes to appear on the bottom of the screen.

Finally, there's this from Hugh Downs. According to the Doan Report, Hugh was speaking before The Advertising Club of New York last week, and and his comments were, shall we say, less than flattering.

Talking about so-called "high-irritation" commercials—and isn't that all of them nowadays?—Downs says, "Viewers, particularly the younger ones, are insulted by the patronage implicit in this sea of video silliness, and there's mounting evidence that they are rejecting this kind of advertising." One-joke commercials are "repeated to a point of great unfunniness." And to those who counter that, after all, it works, Downs says, "This isn't my point. It may work for a while longer, but while it's working it may be doing heavy harm to the credibility of advertising." Hugh Downs turned 98 earlier this year, and although he said these words over 50 years ago, he could say the same thing today. TV  

This week in TV Guide: July 27, 1968

Dick Hobson leads off this week with an article that's very interesting, although I'm not sure exactly what it all means. It is a demographic study, done by A.C. Nielsen, on what Americans watched on TV during a six-week period from October 23 to December 3, 1967. The  study covers geographic region, income, age, education, and occupation, and the overall results allow us to draw some conclusions about our tastes in television.

We'll start first by looking at the top 10 shows in the United States as a whole; we'll then measure this against some more specific findings. (And by the way, do you see any surprises here, or are the results about what you would have expected?)

1. The Lucy Show
2. The Andy Griffith Show
3. Bonanza
4. The Red Skelton Hour
5. Gunsmoke
6. Family Affair
7. The Jackie Gleason Show
8. Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
9. NBC Saturday Night at the Movies
10. (tie) The Beverly Hillbillies; CBS Friday Night Movie

Now, let's dig into this a little further. In the South, for example, the favorites are quite similar to the nation, sharing eight of the ten shows. (Gunsmoke is number one on this list.) The major difference: the absence of the movies, "originally made for a more sophisticated theater audience." Gleason, an urban taste, is also missing. In their place: The Virginian and Daniel Boone. By contrast, Gleason is number one in the Northeast; there are none of the "rural" shows, but Dean Martin, The Smothers Brothers, and more movie programs make the list.

Deano and the Smothers also make the list of favorites for those with incomes in excess of $10,000; again, there are four movie programs plus The FBI. For those with incomes under $5,000, Lawrence Welk and Ed Sullivan feature on the list, but no movies. As with the viewers in the South, notes Hobson, this list is closer to the nation as a whole with the exception of the movie programs.

If you've completed at least a year in college, Mission: Impossible is #2 on the list, and you also like NFL Football and Get Smart. A grade school education once again aligns you with the rest of the nation, with Lucy and Andy at #1 and #2, and the movies nowhere to be seen. Blue-collar workers are more fond of westerns than white-collars, children under 12 approve of The Flying Nun and The Second Hundred Years while teens go for The Guns of Will Sonnett, The Monkees, and Star Trek. If you're under 35, six of your top ten are movies; the top non-movie show is Mission: Impossible. On the other hand, if you're over 50, you like Lawrence Welk, Walt Disney, and - Walter Cronkite.

What do we learn from this? As Hobson says,* "there is a great deal of overlap in the Top 10's of the South, the Under-$5000 income group, the Grade School educated, and the Blue Collar workers." He considers them collectively as "Just Plain Folks." Concurrently, there's a group which could be considered "The Sophisticates" - the Northeast, Over $10,000 incomes, One-Plus Years of College, and White Collar workers, which have a great deal of overlap with each other, but less with the national ranks. Family Affair was popular with every group but young adults, Westerns are the favorites of men but not women and children, movies rank highly with young adults and housewives but not seniors and children, and Gomer Pyle was listed by both seniors and children.

*Would his recommendations be known as "Hobson's Choices?"

For as much as the United States has changed over the years, there are still some things that seem to ring true decades later, and there's a temptation to view these results through the lens of today's cultural divide. For example, one could equate "Just Plain Folks" with Red America, "The Sophisticates" with Blue America. I'd like to see a similar study today; unfortunately, things have become so fragmented that it's hard to draw a parallel since access itself is more by choice than design. Still, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find my suspicions validated.

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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..

Ed Sullivan: On this rerun, Ed's guests are Charlton Heston, who gives a dramatic reading of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, and presents a scene from his movie Planet of the Apes; singers Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Frankie Laine, and the Young Americans; comedians Myron Cohen and Wayne and Shuster; dancer Peter Gennaro; and the Baraton Sisters, balancing act.

Hollywood Palace: Host George Burns presents the King Family, operatic tenor Enzo Stuarti, singer Lainie Kazan, English music-hall comics Desmond and Marks, and Baby Sabu, performing elephant.

I enjoy easy weeks like this when the call can be made early, and it doesn't get much earlier than Ed's first guest. Chuck Heston shows us why we love him; the sublime - his dignified reading of Lincoln's stirring call for the nation to move on, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right" - and, well, the less-sublime, his wonderfully over-the-top performance in the great Planet of the Apes. Apes deals in a very overt way with civil rights, and it would be interesting to see what scene was used in the show; I suspect it's something complimentary to the tenor of Lincoln's speech. With that, it would be less than patriotic to make any choice other than Sullivan all the way. 

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In case you hadn't notice, 1968 is an election year, and if you didn't already know that, the Sunday morning interview shows are here to remind you. On CBS's Face the Nation, the guest is New York Governor (and Republican presidential candidate) Nelson Rockefeller; Rocky never quite makes it to the White House, but he is appointed vice president in the administration of Gerald Ford, who just happens to be the guest on NBC's Meet the Press. Meanwhile, the nemesis of both men, future president Ronald Reagan, "dark-horse candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination," appears on ABC's Issues and Answers.

On Wednesday, David Frost hosts an hour-long syndicated special on "The Next President" (7:30 p.m., Channel 4), including an interview - recorded prior to his assassination - with Robert F. Kennedy. Other guests include Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller, Harold Stassen, and independent candidate George Wallace. The issues examined are a grim litany of today's headlines: violence in the streets, dissident youth, the plight of the cities, racial problems. The Republican National Convention, by the way, begins on August 5.

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The summer of 1968 is also, according to the industry magazine Variety, "Video's Rush to Black," and this week alone we can see an extraordinary concentration of programs confronting the crisis; almost every day features a show dealing with one aspect of it or another, starting on Sunday morning with CBS's venerable religion program Lamp Unto My Feet (9:00 a.m.) concentrates on Negro-Jewish community relations and the tension between black anti-Semitism and the backlash from Jewish businessmen.

In June, ABC introduced a series of six documentaries dealing with the racial crisis, under the umbrella title Time for Americans. This week we see two of them; on Sunday afternoon, at 3:00 p.m., it's "White Racism and Black Education," a look at the rise of school segregation in the North, with a focus on Boston, one of the most racially charged cities outside of the South. That's followed on Monday night (6:30 p.m.) by "Can White Suburbia Think Black?" which suggests that suburban whites will never understand what it means to be white unless they can comprehend what it means to be black. There's this wincing quote that's pulled from the program, spoken by a white suburbanite to a black friend: "I don't consider you a Negro." I suspect that if this reminds you of the infamous "Some of my best friends are [black, Jewish, etc.]" quotes, it's purely intentional.

Tuesday morning, Merv Griffin's syndicated show (9:05 a.m., Channel 4) is dedicated to New York City's "Give Money...Give Jobs...Give a Damn" program to help ghetto youth. The show takes place in the streets of Harlem, with New York mayor John Lindsay, singer James Brown, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and a fashion show of African-style clothing. ABC pre-empts It Takes a Thief for a documentary at 7:30 p.m. on the "all-Negro" Grambling College and its outstanding reputation for producing pro football talent. That theme continues at 9:00 p.m. on episode four of CBS's own series on the civil rights movement, Of Black America, entitled "Body and Soul," which examines the role of blacks in sports and music, including threats of an Olympic boycott and the struggle of black musicians to express what they've experienced.

It really is something to see this kind of concentrated programming on one topic, and by all three networks: although it doesn't show in this week's issue, NBC has a multi-part series of its own, What's Happening to America?, with its own viewpoints. Indeed, this seems to be the overarching theme of all these programs, that there is something happening that we don't quite understand, something that we must get a handle on if we're to continue as a nation. And where are we, fifty years later? Still with this sense that something is happening that we don't understand, still struggling with the consequences. Some of the issues are the same, some are dramatically different, but still the feeling that things are out of control and we don't know how to stop the spiral.

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Richard K. Doan notes that ABC's looking at an American version of the British comedy series Till Death Us Do Part, with "a profanely offensive, ultra-right bigot, his 'silly moo' of a spouse, and their politically liberal daughter and son-in-law." ABC expects to tape each episode just a week before airtime in order to allow for more topical references. The network winds up passing on the show that eventually becomes All in the Family.

TV writer Pat McCormick will be head writer for Don Rickles' new sitcom, notes the TV Teletype, in addition to working on sketches for the upcoming (and soon-to-be notorious) Broadway revue, "Oh, Calcutta!" Also noted: Glen Campbell, finishing up as the summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers, is on his way to make a movie with John Wayne: True Grit.

Finally, Cher does a fashion spread this week, which would be pretty hard to miss.

This really brings the '60s home, doesn't it? TV  

This week in TV Guide: July 9, 1960

Believe it or not, part one: there once was a time when it was your duty to watch the quadrennial political conventions on TV. At least that’s according to this week’s As We See It, in which Merrill Panitt reiterates the message that Americans owe it to both themselves and the nation to become well-informed in advance of the 1960 presidential campaign. "At the most important level, watching the conventions bears ultimately on our survival as a Nation. To turn the conventions off, or to spin the dial seeking to avoid them, is to play electronic Russian roulette." And brother, he means Russian.

We’re at an interesting point in both American history and the history of television. The medium has already made a significant impact in the way Americans respond to politics—witness the outpouring of support for then-vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon following the Checkers Speech in 1952. And it was their coverage of the conventions in 1956 that helped make Chet Huntley and David Brinkley household names. As John Kennedy points out in his 1959 TV Guide article that TV enables candidates to speak to, what? Twenty million people on TV in the same amount of time and effort it takes to give a speech to 2,000 people in person?

By 1960 television is fully maturing as a participant in the political process. Panitt says, "Watching the conventions and thus participating in our democratic process is one step along the road to a surer, stronger, more purposeful America." The changeover won’t be complete; Robert Drew’s fascinating documentary Primary gives us a look at the grass-roots politicking that Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey engaged in during the campaign for the Wisconsin primary that year, and glad-handing would remain an essential part of presidential campaigns for decades.

But I think that the people at TV Guide understand what the stakes are like, for both nation and citizens. We can look back at Erwin Canham's article urging television executives to use their incredible platform to educate Americans, to make them both better citizens and better-informed citizens for the cold war struggle that would continue throughout the decade. Television is doing its part, presenting vast amounts of coverage not only of the party conventions themselves, but also the platform debates and other behind-the-scenes maneuvering (guaranteed, no doubt, to obscure from site the even-more-behind-the-scenes maneuvering.

This week it’s the Democrats, meeting at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles, and it’s anything but cut-and-dried. The usual suspects are there to provide coverage: Huntley and Brinkley for NBC, Walter Cronkite for CBS, and John Daly for ABC. The highlight is a debate between JFK, the frontrunner, and late challenger Lyndon Johnson, held on July 12 before the Massachusetts and Texas delegations, in which Kennedy easily disarms Johnson’s candidacy with a display of the witty and media-savvy style that will serve him so well in his more formal debates with Richard Nixon. On Wednesday, the nominating speech for 1952 and 1956 nominee Adlai Stevenson (who never explicitly announced his candidacy but was essentially running a no-campaign campaign) touches off a 20-minute demonstration (followed by an additional 15 minutes after Eleanor Roosevelt’s seconding speech), but in the end, it makes no difference. It isn’t until Wyoming that Kennedy is put over the top, but on Friday night at the Los Angeles Coliseum, he’s the one delivering the acceptance speech as the Democratic nominee, along with his surprise running mate, LBJ: a moment which, in the pantheon of history, will take years to play out, in ways that couldn’t have been foreseen at the time.

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Believe it or not, part two: there used to be two baseball All-Star Games, and this year NBC is carrying them both—Monday afternoon at 1:45 p.m. CT from Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium, and Wednesday afternoon at 11:45 a.m. from Yankee Stadium in New York.

The two-game format started in 1959, in order to increase the money going to the players’ pension fund, and that year—as would be the case in 1961 and 62, the games were played about three weeks apart. Ah, but in 1960, those games took place in the same week. There were no red carpet shows, no home run hitting contests, none of the hype that surrounds today’s game: the sole attraction was the only instance of interleague play prior to the World Series. Because of the short timeframe involved, the rosters were expanded from 25 to 30 players (to allow for additional pitchers), but otherwise the squads and managers were the same. It was, many said, a dilution of the product—and the crowd of just over 38,000 that saw Wednesday’s game in 67,000-seat Yankee Stadium would seem to bear that out. After 1962, with an agreement in place to increase contributions to the pension fund, the Midsummer Classic returns to being a single-game affair. And the result of our two 1960 games? A sweep for the National League, winning the first game 5-3, the second 6-2.

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Let's see what else we've got this week; you're not going to find much other than politics during the week, but there's still the weekend. On Saturday at 10:30, WCCO has the Miss Universe 1960 pageant, live from Miami Beach.* George deWitt, host of Name that Tune, is the emcee on stage, while Arthur Godfrey is the television host, aided by Charles Collingwood (!) and Jayne Meadows. The more I read about this, the more interesting it gets; says here that the Miss U.S.A. selection was only two days before, with the winner (Miss Utah, Linda Bement) proceeding directly to compete the next night in the first of two nights at Miss Universe. Not quite like today, where Miss Universe would be an event in and of itself, but then, six states didn't even send representatives. Anyway, by the time midnight rolls around, we're ready to crown the new Miss Universe, and she's: Miss U.S.A., Linda Bement! She just died earlier this year, aged 76.

*Ordinarily I'd say that this would be 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, but with Daylight Savings Time screwing everyone up, who knows what time it was? Nevertheless, even midnight seems to be a very late time for a beauty pageant to end. By the way, this is the first time the Miss Universe pageant is telecast nationally.

If you want to stay up late on Saturday, you could instead choose David Susskind's infamous Open End, which starts at 10:30 p.m. on KMSP and runs - well, runs until it's over. David's panel tonight is a roundtable of international newspapermen, with UPI correspondent Merriman Smith (later to win fame for his coverage of JFK in Dallas), Bob Considine from the Hearst newspapers, Max Freedman from The Guardian in Manchester, England, Indian reporter Krishna Balarman, and Count Adalbert de Segozac from France.

Convention previews and candidate profiles dominate Sunday's programming, but there is a program on at 3:30 p.m. on WCCO Reports regarding the controversy surrounding the Twin Cities' exchange of their two AAA minor league teams, the St. Paul Saints and Minneapolis Millers, in return for a major league team. The Twin Cities already failed in an effort to lure the New York Giants before they moved to San Francisco, but they're going to succeed at the end of the 1960 season in convincing the Washington Senators to become the Minnesota Twins. There were several franchise moves in baseball during the decade of the 1950s, and it's interesting to think that many people preferred their two long-time minor league teams (and the chance to see rising stars; Willie Mays and Ted Williams both played here before moving up) to a mediocre major league team. Which is what we have here today, two World Series championships notwithstanding.

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A couple of items from the TV Teletype: Danny Kaye's going to do his first TV special, preempting Ed Sullivan on CBS October 30. In three years, he'll make the move permanent, lasting four seasons on CBS. But not on Sunday; he wasn't foolish enough to go up against Bonanza. Let Judy Garland have that timeslot.

There's a report that Jack Webb is putting together a golf series of 39 half-hour episodes. I wonder what kind of program that would have been? Friday on the golf course, telling his caddy, "just the four-iron"?

Anthony George and Doug McClure will be co-stars of the new CBS detective series Checkmate, to be produced by Jack Benny's production company. Before the series starts, they'll be joined by Sebastian Cabot. I've seen a few episodes; harmless enough, but not enough Cabot.

Ernie Kovacs' game/comedy show, Take a Good Look, has been renewed by ABC. It's a funny show, but not really what you'd call a game show; Edie Adams, Kovacs' wife, says that he used the skits that comprised the "quiz" part of the show as a way to get ideas for his famous specials.

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Finally—and there's probably no better way to end this week's segment—a fashion show, which we haven't had for awhile. This week, actresses Lola Albright, Leslie Parrish, Peggy Connolly, and Joanne Dru model that split skirt known as the culotte.

Almost makes it worth coming back this week, doesn't it?  TV  

This week in TV Guide: April 29, 1967

Those of us who laud the virtues of classic television are occasionally asked to offer proof as to why the Good Old Days should be considered superior to what television offers us today. This week, I get to offer an example - all from one evening. It's Thursday, May 4, and this week we're coming to you from the Baltimore-Washington beltline. That doesn't matter though, because with one exception the programs I'm about to cite are all on the networks.

It begins on NET at 8:00 p.m. ET with the debut of an interview series with British historian Arnold Toynbee, who I've written about in the past. In the first of five episodes, Toynbee talks about America and Vietnam: why American policy in Asia is wrong, why U.S. forces should be withdrawn from Vietnam, and how the idea of world-wide Communist aggression is an "imaginary dragon." WTTG, the independent station in the Nation's Capital, counters at 8:00 with the gritty English "Angry Young Man" drama Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the movie that catapulted the great Albert Finney to fame.

At 9:00 p.m., CBS has an adaptation of the Arthur Miller play "The Crucible," starring George C. Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, Fritz Weaver, Henry Jones, Will Geer, Tuesday Weld, Cathleen Nesbitt and Melvin Douglas. "The Crucible" is, of course, Miller's take on McCarthyism, told in the guise of the Salem witch trials. You hardly ever see the legitimate theater on TV anymore, but can you believe that on this night you've got dueling plays? The second comes at 10:00 p.m., courtesy of ABC Stage 67 - it's Jean Cocteau's one-character drama "The Human Voice," starring Ingrid Bergman in an extremely rare TV appearance.

The trouble with all this, of course, is that in these pre-VCR days one has to choose carefully what to watch, and hope to catch the other show(s) in reruns. And, truth be told, it's probably no accident that CBS and ABC scheduled these prestige plays opposite each other. Having just praised television for the quality of the programming, let's not forget that even in this era, tony shows like these weren't blockbusters in the ratings. Oftentimes, networks would schedule documentaries, news features, and the like in the same timeslot - no sense getting killed in the ratings by putting Stage 67 up against The Beverly Hillbillies, right? At the same time, the network gets kudos from the critics for scheduling these kinds of shows in the first place, which in turn helps raise the stature of the network in the eyes of the FCC, congressmen, and the like. The viewers might not be happy at having to make tough choices, but after all, nothing's perfect - right?

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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. 

This week Cleveland Amory's review proceeds from an assumption, and I'm not sure whether or not it's a good one. The assumption is that The Avengers should, on the whole, try to be more realistic.

It's not that he dislikes The Avengers, mind you. Last year when he reviewed the series, he was very positive, although "we kidded it for some of the plots - particularly the one where, in a simulated jungle in the wilds of England, a group of dispossessed rubber plantation owners decided to let loose, on the local population, 1000 tsetse flies." I remember that episode - "Small Game for Big Hunters" - and while I'll acknowledge it might not have been the best the series had to offer, it was still good fun. However, compared to this season - well, there's "the story of a pretty girl named Venus who believes there is life on Venus but, just to make sure, causes an awful lot of death on earth" ["From Venus with Love."] and the one about "a 'see-through man' who not only invented a formula for invisibility but goes around disputing, via murder, the fact that seeing is believing' ["The See-Through Man.'], and - but you get the picture.

Amory laments what he sees as the loss of "a genuinely engrossing adventure story," witty and sophisticated, as it would have to be with Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg ("easily not only the most beautiful but probably the best actress on the TV screen on either side of the Atlantic.") as your stars. And here's where I start to have mixed feelings. Having seen pretty much all the Avengers episodes that still exist, I remember when the series was far more serious, and deadly, than it is by this time. Many of those stories were when Honor Blackman was Macnee's partner, and while they're terrific stories, they lack the fun that the later adventures featured, no matter how ridiculous the premise.

And I guess that's the point - The Avengers is a show of its time, combining elements of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Doctor Who and Batman and probably a few others we could toss in. Yes, the show did change over the years, and the plots got a little more outlandish (if you think those are far out, wait until Linda Thorson replaces Rigg) but it remained urbane and - yes - fun. If I wanted to see something that was all those things but a little more realistic, I'd watch The Saint. The important thing to note is that, while it may be campy, Steed and Mrs. Peel themselves never approximate, say, Batman and Robin; they always take the plot seriously, even when it doesn't deserve it. I can throw it over to John at Cult TV Blog and see what he thinks; as for me, The Avengers is like any other series, with its good points and bad - but still a winner.

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There's plenty of it to be had, and some is good and some is bad - that's the week in movies, with two in particular earning praise from Judith Crist, and one singled out for scorn.

The good: The Hustler, which ABC airs Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m. and is arguably Paul Newman's greatest role. Of course, there's also Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, and Piper Laurie, Oscar nominees all. (Although Scott, not surprisingly, refused his nomination.)

Also the good: Donovan's Reef, the Saturday night movie on NBC (9:00 p.m.). It's true that you can't go wrong with John Wayne and Lee Marvin as stars, and John Ford as director - "the sheer physical finesse of the old pros manages to make this continuous barroom brawl set in a Pacific paradise not only a delight for the kiddies but also tolerable for grown-ups."

The bad: Fame is the Name of the Game, a TV-movie that serves as the pilot for the NBC series The Name of the Game. (Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., NBC) Crist describes it as a "sex-and-slaughter" story "starring Tony Franciosa's teeth, chin and chest." Now, I'll agree that of the three stars eventually comprising the rotating leads when Name of the Game goes to series - Franciosa, Gene Barry and Robert Stack - Franciosa is probably the weakest. Still, Tony has a lot of fans out there, and I'm sure this hurt them.

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Ah, it's a good time to flip through the listings. Take Saturday, for instance. At 2:00 p.m. on CBS, it's the fifth game (if necessary) in the Stanley Cup Final between the Montreal Canadiens and  Toronto Maple Leafs. This is a historic occasion, the last time the Cup will be contested among the "Original Six" NHL teams before the league expands to 12 for next season. Fitting that the two winningest teams in Stanley Cup history. The fifth game is, in fact, necessary - with the series tied at two games apiece, the Leafs beat Montreal 4-1; on Tuesday evening in Toronto, they'll win game six and the Stanley Cup by besting Les Habs 3-1. Fifty seasons later (don't forget the lockout in 2005) it remains the last time Toronto has won the Cup.

An interesting day for the Sunday interview programs; at 12:30 p.m., CBS's Face the Nation features Edward Bennett Williams, one of the most famous attorneys in the country (as well as the owner of the Washington Redskins and future owner of the Baltimore Orioles). Williams will be discussing some of his more famous clients, including Jimmy Hoffa, LBJ confidante Bobby Baker, and the late Senator Joe McCarthy. Later on, he'd represent John Hinkley and John Connolly. I think his ownership of the Redskins might be his lasting fame; too bad, because he was one of the best trial lawyers around. Later, at 1:30 p.m., ABC's Issues and Answers has Rhode Island Senator John Pastore, whose committee is in charge of funding for public broadcasting. In 1969, he and his committee will hear from none other than Fred Rogers, famously testifying on behalf of educational television.


Monday features some fine programming as well; at 10:00 p.m. on ABC, Zero Mostel presents a one-man hour of comedy - a pantomime segment in which he plays inanimate objects including a coffee percolator; a Mel Brooks-written sketch where he's an actor preparing to go on stage; bits from his nightclub act; and songs from his hit play "Fiddler on the Roof." Quite a show. Then, at midnight, Bill Dana debuts his new two-hour, five-nights-a-week variety show from Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Show is the first, and only, program of the new United Network, founded by Daniel Overmyer. Now that's a fascinating story in and of itself; it's really too bad it wasn't able to survive. I won't go through the details now beyond what you can read at the link; despite good programs and reviews and decent ratings, Dana's show folds at the beginning of June, when the one-show network runs out of money.

In addition to Fame is the Name of the Game, Tuesday has another of CBS's periodic audience-participation "national tests" - this one is the National Science Test (10:00 p.m.), hosted by Harry Reasoner and Joseph Benti, and featuring Mr. Wizard himself, Don Herbert. On Wednesday, Danny Thomas spoofs the Crosby-Hope "Road" movies with "The Road to Lebanon" (9:00 p.m., NBC); the premise is that Crosby doesn't want Hope in this one, preferring the "young, fresher and Lebanese" Thomas. Another Danny, Kaye, has a fine lineup on his show (10:00 p.m., CBS), with Ella Fitzgerald, Buddy Greco, and Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66.

I overlooked this tidbit on Thursday - the first appearance of the rascal Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel) on Star Trek (8:30 p.m., NBC), while a pre-All in the Family Carroll O'Connor is a playboy opera star on That Girl (9:00 p.m., ABC) On Friday, the week wraps up with an ABC special on The Legend of Mark Twain (8:00 p.m.) we're so used to associating Hal Holbrook with Twain that it's something of a surprise to find anyone else hosting such a show; yet David Wayne, as narrator and portrayer of various Twain characters, looks to do the job well.

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It goes without saying that Lawrence Welk, one of the most popular television stars of the day, remains remembered in his old hometown of Strasburg, North Dakota. There's the Welk Dam and the Welk Swimming Pool and Picnic Park; his picture adorns the bulletin board of the Post Office, right next to that of President Johnson. Maurice Condon's article presents a whimsical look at some of the small-town characters that remember Welk, such as Mrs. Anna Mary Mattern, whose father loaned Lawrence the money to buy his first accordion ("he paid it back in two years!"), and "Uncle Pius," the store owner who knows everything and everyone, and remembers that "Lawrence took a correspondence course with a music academy in Minneapolis." Welk has a diploma in piano tuning, "a good thing for a man to have a trade to fall back on, but I don't suppose he's ever had to tune pianos for a living." Oh, he liked penny candy too. Yes, in a small town, everybody knows everyone back when.

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Finally, we haven't done a fashion spread for awhile, and the timing is perfect when the model is Barbara Bain, the glamorous - and dangerous - Cinnamon Carter on Mission: Impossible. With her then-husband Martin Landeau, Bain helped create the glory days of M:I; the show was never the same after they left.

It begs the question: if the glamorous, beautiful Cinnamon is supposed to be one of the most famous models in the world, how is it that she's never recognized in any of the various missions in which she takes part, particularly since she often plays glamorous, beautiful characters in the IMF's plots. The only explanation I can come up with is the most obvious one, that people don't recognize her because they don't expect to see her in the various guises she takes on. After all, if you were in a store looking at clothes or groceries or even a new car, would you expect her to be waiting on you? At best, you might say to yourself, "That saleswoman looks like Cinnamon Carter!" You probably wouldn't say it out loud, though.

I have to admit, though, that I kind of like the idea of Cindy Crawford actually being a spy involved in secret missions around the world, dealing with dictators and munitions brokers and freedom fighters. It's a ridiculous idea, though. The next thing you'll be telling me, a game show host could travel around the world pretending to chaperone couples while actually acting as an international assassin for the CIA. And who'd believe that?  TV