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50th Anniversary Viewing
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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 20, episode 32
Originally aired April 21, 1968
As represented in
The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Tom Jones opens the
Best of edit with a run-through of his breakout hit, "It's Not Unusual," accompanied by a big band with a conductor.
(Charted Apr. 10, 1965; #10 US; #3 AC; #26 R&B; #1 UK)
Next we get the latest Muppets installment...this is the one with what appears to be Kermit in drag, though I think they're just trying to pass him off as a female frog Muppet.
"I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face"
A quick bit of research tells me that (s)he was lip-synching to a Rosemary Clooney song. And it looks like this was the second time they did this particular skit on the show...the original was in February 1967.
Patty Duke, who had a recording career that produced a couple of Top 30 hits in 1965, performs a Yiddish-origin song called "Dona, Dona," accompanied by male and female dancers in costumes that look Eastern European or Russian.
Mr. Pastry then does a skit that tv.com tells me is something called "The Passing Out Ceremony," which involves him imbibing drinks that leave food coloring on his mustache and hopping back and forth between two facing chairs. Ed participates in the performance, holding the tray of drinks.
Tom Jones returns to plug his then-current hit, "Delilah," which is still in the process of climbing to its peak position 50 years ago this week.
There's a case of the intro indicating that it was likely the first performance in the original episode. And you'd think that it was his first time on the show...he'd been on many times going back to '65.
Totie Fields does a self-deprecating version of a song called "I'm Perfect," which involves going out and interacting with members of the audience.
Closing the
Best of installment,Tom Jones comes out one more time for the Irish standard "Danny Boy," arranged to suit his style.
Also in the original episode according to tv.com:
Music:
--Patty Duke - "And We Were Strangers."
--Your Father's Moustache (Dixieland band) - perform a medley of vintage songs.
Also appearing:
--Pavel (magic act)
--Audience bows: Captain Geoff Mitchell & other captains, Major General William J. Sutton, and Kevin Robinson.
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Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Season 1, episode 13
Originally aired April 22, 1968
The Wiki list of guest appearances said:
Shelley Berman, John Byner, Johnny Carson, Tim Conway, Hugh Downs, Barbara Feldon, John Wayne, Flip Wilson, Paul Winchell
At the beginning of the episode rather than the end, Dan actually manages to get in an announcement of one of next week's guests: Tiny Tim.
This week's News from 1988 president is Shirley Temple.
Mod, Mod World looks at advertising.
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The Avengers
"Get-a-Way!"
Originally aired April 24, 1968 (US); May 14, 1969 (UK)
Wiki said:
Three captured Russian spies, one of whom is assigned to assassinate Steed, escape from a seemingly escape-proof prison hidden in Oldhill Monastery. Steed investigates a suspicious consignment of vodka recently delivered there, whilst Tara finds a clue in a magazine article about camouflage.
It's back to the armor intro for this one.
I'd hardly describe the facility as escape-proof when they send one guy into the cell to check when the occupant seems to be missing...who promptly gets knocked out by the occupant. That's the oldest trick in the book. It turns out that the agents, whose escapes play out one by one through the episode, do have a gimmick helping them...some sort of chameleon chemical that's being smuggled in trick bottles of vodka with a separate lower chamber in them...which they dip their backsides into while fully clothed. I knew those conspicuously placed bathtubs in the cells would come into play somehow.
In the climax, Steed uses the gimmick to get the drop on his would-be assassin, the last escapee...Peter Bowles, whom I recognize from previous roles on the show. They try to play him up as Steed's opposite number, but he was unconvincing as such to me because of the age difference...Bowles was 14 years Macnee's junior.
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"Old Man's Darling"
Originally aired April 25, 1968
Wiki said:
An elderly man who ruins Ann dress get her a new one and keeps buying her gifts which she feels that she can't accept.
After the cocktail party incident, in which Ann refuses to let Mr. Washington pay her dry cleaning bill, she learns that he's one of the ten richest men in the country.
Ann said:
Whaddya know? I could've taken him to the cleaners.
Jesse White returns as press agent Eddie Edwards, previously seen in this season's "Just Spell the Name Right." This episode he offers Ann a good part if she can procure some financing from her new suitor.
In the end, Ann relents and requests one gift of the charming and persistent Mr. Washington: peanut brittle. He has a 300-pound box delivered that won't fit in her door.
"Oh, Donald" count:
2
"Oh, Daddy" count:
0, though he is in the episode
And that's a wrap for Season 2 of
That Girl. We'll be seeing her again in September.
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Well, actually, the implication is that Man is not necessarily the fittest-- he would have gone extinct without the Monolith.
In that moment, he put down his deadly new rival, HAL...and symbolically began to divest himself of his tools, ready to move on to the next stage, when he wouldn't need them anymore.
Man, it all starts to squeeze together with age. Oddly, though, I have a couple of associational memories that are definitely from 1986 and I have no idea why.
The band was around in that era, though obscure. Don't know if that's what it would be.
Of the war shows, Twelve O'Clock High seems to be the better one.
There's also
Black Sheep Squadron, which I've started recording from H&I to watch now that the retro TV season is winding down. It nicely balances wartime action/adventure with drama, and a good amount of humor stemming from the Black Sheep being a bunch of regulation-defying screwballs and misfits...with Robert Conrad's charismatic portrayal of Pappy Boyington setting the example. Plus, lots of nice, then-new color footage of F4U Corsairs!
