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50th Anniversary Viewing
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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 21, episode 23
Originally aired March 23, 1969
As represented in
The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Ed said:
Now here's the young fella who won three Grammy Awards for his "Classical Gas"--Mason Williams!
It seems a year late as he doesn't appear to be plugging anything else, but here he is...starting the song in a spotlight, but the lights come up to reveal that he's surrounded by an orchestra.
From Madrid, the Spanish comedy group Pompoff, Thedy & Family
This act uses classical instruments as part of their physical comedy routine. The high point is when one of them appears to have a clarinet sticking out the back of his head, while another reacts by spinning his toupee; a couple other lame bits follow in the obviously shortened performance shown on
Best of.
At the end of one of his more mumbly intros...
She's a tiny little ballerina and her name is Joyce Cuoco, so let's have a very fine reception for her.
According to Encyclopedia.com, she would have still been 15 going on 16 at the time, but she looks younger. I'm not sure offhand what piece she's dancing to, though I might guess that it's Strauss, because it sounds very similar to "Blue Danube".
Finally, Sly & the Family Stone are back, and this time they made
Best of. They're performing a song called "Love City" from their mid-1968 album
Life, which didn't produce any hit singles, on a stage adorned with animal skins. At one point, during an a cappella break that sounds like "Dance to the Music," Sly and Rose go out into the audience briefly. Sly closes the song by saying, "Thank you, for letting us be ourselves," foreshadowing a future hit.
Here's a poor-quality clip. Looks like they'll be performing the song again at that Woodstock place.
Also in the original episode according to tv.com:
Music:
--Sly and the Family Stone - (possibly "Stand").
--Dionne Warwick sings "This Girl's in Love with You."
--Lana Cantrell - "Don't Tell Mama" (Broadway production number) & "My Way."
Comedy:
--George Burns (stand-up monologue)
--Jack Carter (stand-up comedian)
Also appearing:
--Phillip Waruinge (boxer from Kenya)
--Audience bows: James Garner (actor), Bill Gargan.
ETA: It seems that I'd accidentally misidentified the guests in the March 30 episode of
Sullivan...I've edited the 50 Years Ago This Week listing accordingly.
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Mission: Impossible
"Nitro"
Originally aired March 23, 1969
Wiki said:
A near-eastern ultra-nationalist assigns a demolitions expert (Mark Lenard) to kill his nation's leadership so a peace treaty can be replaced with a declaration of war. The IMF must act in time.
The hand-cranked microfilm with sound said:
This recording will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.
A portfolio scene! Jim's got the usual suspects already laid out, and adds a newspaper clipping of General Tamaar (Dick Latessa), a special assistant to the targeted King Said of Kurak (Joe E. Tata) who enables the IMF scheme from the inside in vague ways.
Barney's gotten into the camp of the would-be overthrower, General Zek (Titos Vandis), as a systems analyst, giving him access to the General's old-school tape-using computers. Willy and Rollin abduct Skora (Lenard), after which Rollin disguises himself as a legendary demolitions expert who specializes in using nitroglycerin. Nobody knows what the guy looks like, so it's basically Landau in a false nose, bad silver wig, mustache, and sunglasses at night--It's hard not to laugh at him, he looks like a parody of a hipster. Meanwhile, Jim and Cin are in the palace as reporters, with Jim setting up Cin as an associate of Nitro Legend Rollin.
NLR gets into the General's nitro vault thanks to Barney's reprogramming of the door, taking care of the human factor by knocking out a guard with a TV Fu Knockout Chop (perhaps I spoke too soon the other week). Rollin proceeds to make a painfully slow getaway in his Nitromobile, which is a forklift that runs out of juice, so he has to change the battery mid-heist. Then he experiences another tense moment when he has to go over a speed bump
very slowly. At this point the episode started to feel very lame and never recovered. There's a way to get tension out of the volatility of nitro (
Hell on Wheels did a good episode revolving around it, which included Bohannon having sex on a table where he was mixing the stuff). Rollin driving a forklift on a backlot in that silly getup wasn't it. Anyway, the Willy Strength comes into play when he has to manually unload the crate of nitro from the forklift. After the heist, Rollin disguises the drugged-unconscious Skora to look like him, but in his own lame-ass disguise--so he's disguised as somebody who's already wearing a bad disguise--and Rollin disguises himself as Skora. Fake Nitro Rollin is found unconscious with his stolen stash of nitro nearby, and Cin is interrogated about his plan. Fake Skora, having come up with an excuse not to use Real Skora's plan, decides to commandeer Fake Nitro Rollin's plan instead.
General Zek is listening to audio reports from one of his men of what's happening at Government House while the King makes a speech, but the reports are commandeered by Rollin and Barney (with the help of more TV Fu), who play a faked sound effects tape of the place being blown up with Rollin delivering Hindenburg-style narration. This causes Zek to broadcast his takeover announcement prematurely. The team then fakes a nitro truck attempt on Government House by remote-driving the truck (with no monitor) with unconscious Fake Nitro Rollin at the wheel. There's a complication because of a brake line that got shot by guards during the heist, but Barney still manages to stop the truck in time. Fake Nitro Rollin is revived and he pulls off his mask, revealing himself as Skora, which further implicates Zek.
This one moved along at a decent pace despite some obvious padding, but it generally just wasn't doing it for me. The plan felt more silly and contrived than
a-ha clever.
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The Avengers
"Thingumajig"
Originally aired March 24, 1969 (US); April 2, 1969 (UK)
Wiki said:
A fiendish, and lethal, device that eats electricity, designed as the ultimate killing machine, gets loose in a rural English village and electrocutes everyone it comes into contact with.
I could tell this was going to be per formula template from the description. As such, the first half is very slow and repetitive and "So what?," but it picks up some in the second when we have a better idea what's going on.
The attacks are taking place at the site of an archaeological dig under a medieval church. There are two devices responsible--plain-looking little metal boxes that move around through no obvious means, leaving tracks with their entire bottom sides. When the protagonists are figuring out how it works, our main female guest of the week, Inge, compares it to one of those new-fangled robot vacuum cleaners.
Steed's in good form. There's one cute bit in which he calls Tara on the phone and he correctly guesses very matter-of-factly that she's icing a cake. Also...
Steed: I used to have a very favorite aunt, and she used to say, "If Christmas had come in August, chestnut stuffing would never have been invented."
Inge: And what does this mean?
Steed: I haven't the faintest idea, but she was always saying it.
OTOH, the episode features the annoying detail of two characters suffering bad colds for no story-relevant reason--a friendly scientist whom Tara's consulting and the main bad guy's Russian conspirator, who disappears from the story.
Steed mails one of the devices to Tara for examination, so she has to deal with its attacks--with the scientist's help via phone, she turns off her apartment's power and throws plugs from various electrical devices at it, which drain its power! Then she has to douse it with the only liquid immediately available, a bottle of champagne. Steed takes on the remaining device at the site in the climax, wearing goggles and rubber gloves and boots, and using a gun-like device which was either a torch or a laser--it had a flame coming out of its nozzle, but overheated the device from a distance while projecting a beam of light.
Tara's car is alive and well in this one.
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Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Season 2, episode 25
Originally aired March 24, 1969
The Wiki list of guest appearances said:
Tony Curtis, Perry Como, Laurence Harvey, Flip Wilson, Stu Gilliam
An opening cocktail party with a twist:
The episode features a new segment, Letters to
Laugh-In, and another subway sketch. There's no news segment, but they briefly touch upon the Big Al sports announcer bit near the end.
The Mod, Mod World of Beautiful Downtown Burbank:
Dick Martin and the Aristocrats:
The closing Joke Wall, with Tony Curtis:
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The Mod Squad
"Keep the Faith, Baby"
Originally aired March 25, 1969
Wiki said:
The Squad is assigned to protect the life of a militant black priest (Sammy Davis Jr.), threatened by a murderer (Robert Duvall) who is afraid he will break his seal of confession.
In an argument between players during the opening basketball game, Decades saw fit to mute out some language--I'd assume racially charged language from the context. Some presumably more tame language is muted out during a heated discussion between Sammy's character, Father John Banks, and his pastor, played by William Schallert.
Mod Squad was too edgy for 2018! But they did leave in Banks reading how the N-word was misspelled (missing a "G") in a threatening letter.
This episode I learn that the woody has a police radio in it. (I can't say "we," because it may have been established in an earlier episode that I didn't see.) Linc carelessly makes a call while one of Matt Jenkins's (Duvall) brothers, Emmitt (Dick Dial), lies within easy earshot. Emmitt had been tailing Linc, and Linc was a little too quick to assume that he'd knocked the guy out cold. That Linc has been hanging out with Father Banks is just a coincidence, but Frank Jenkins (Ron Hayes) takes what appears to be police protection as indication that Banks plans to squeal. This impression is reinforced by Banks having recently been suspended from his church position for his controversial activities.
So the bad guys try to make a Chicago-style drive-by hit on Banks, but shoot a young member of the Father's flock instead. By this point Banks does need protection, but he doesn't want to be seen with "the fuzz". There's a good "secret identity reveal" moment when Greer indicates that the "cops who don't look like cops" whom he has in mind are already sitting casually nearby, to the Father's astonishment.
When Matt Jenkins tries to lure Banks into a trap by requesting a meeting for a confession on the phone, Banks realizes who's after him, but, refusing to compromise his seal of confession regardless of his current position, goes through with the meeting to convince Matt that he won't say anything. Banks refuses to let the Squad tag along, but they tail him anyway. The meeting is a success for Banks, with Matt agreeing to let the Father go, but Frank gets trigger happy, resulting in the requisite climactic action scene, in which Linc takes a bullet and Banks takes Frank down with his fists.
With Linc laid up in the hospital, Father John joins Pete and Julie for the end-of-episode walk-off.
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Ironside
"The Tormentor"
Originally aired March 27, 1969
Wiki said:
A baseball star is being driven to a breakdown by hate letters, threatening phone calls and pellets.
Guesting Gary Collins as the ball player in question, Clint Atkins, an old buddy of Ed's who plays for the San Francisco Giants. The threatening letters aren't that specifically threatening...they contain vague warnings that Atkins will be going "down". But they give us a chance to add handwriting analysis to the Chief's repertoire of know-it-all-ness. Things get a little more serious when Atkins gets shot with a pellet gun during a game and his tormenter fires a smoke canister into his young son's bedroom.
At one point the tormentor's motive seems to be money, but he proves to be more interested in tarnishing Atkins's public image by making him fly into rages via the pellet attacks during games, which we learn are accomplished via a gun hidden in the telephoto lens of a camera.
Team Ironside eventually zeroes in on a likely suspect, Ernie Wilson (Noam Pitlik), a failed fellow ball player who'd been eclipsed by Atkins during his only pro season. An attempt on Atkins at the stadium is stopped by Ed, who takes Wilson down in a locker room brawl. The episode ends on a feelgood note when the benched Atkins returns to the field just in time to turn the turn the tide of the game while his wife and son are watching.
A pretty meh episode overall.
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Adam-12
"Log 92: Tell Him He Pushed Back a Little Too Hard"
Originally aired March 29, 1969
Wiki said:
Malloy and Reed respond numerous times to a dispute between two neighbors who continually argue over the motorboat they jointly own ... a situation which, despite the officers' best efforts, comes to a tragic conclusion. Dick Sargent guest stars.
For context, Sargent will be assuming his signature role in the coming Fall season.
The episode opens with Reed and Malloy already responding to a call at the home of the Wellmans. When they learn that it's over Mr. Roemer (Sargent) locking his garage so that Wellman (James Callahan) can't access the boat, Malloy objects that they can't do anything because it's a civil matter, but he nevertheless tries to settle things. Roemer, a bespectacled nebbish type, accuses Wellman of dominating use of boat and not putting gas in it when he's done, and feels that he's standing up to being pushed around. The officers leave when they think they've convinced Roemer to unlock the garage, but they warn Wellman not to try anything.
Only 45 minutes later, they get a call for a neighbor dispute at the Roemer home. They find Wellman in the act of taking the motor from Roemer's garage. Roemer admits to having let the air out of tires of the trailer so that Wellman couldn't move the boat; Wellman was going to move it anyway, so Roemer accidentally smashed his own car windshield, thinking it was Wellman's car with his glasses off. The officers ask for a reason not to arrest the pair for disturbing the peace, but their wives promise to handle things. Pete gives both men a talking to, accusing them of behaving worse than children in a sandbox, and promises that if he and Reed have to come back, somebody's going to jail.
It's daytime when the officers get their next call to the Roemer garage, this time for a 415 fight. Wellman broke into the garage, but wants to file a complaint for assault, so the officers take both in, even though the charge against Wellman is a felony. Malloy hopes that it will cool them off. At the station, he asks our resident recurring detective, Sgt. Miller, for advice. Pete wants to find a reason to keep them locked up because he has a bad feeling about the situation. But Roemer and Wellman agree to drop the charges, so they have to let the men go.
It's night when the officers get their final call to the Roemer garage: see the woman, unknown trouble. They find Mrs. Wellman crying over her husband, who's lying face-down in the garage; Malloy orders her to call an ambulance, then goes into the house with his gun drawn and arrests Roemer.
Sidney Roemer said:
I--I couldn't just let him keep on pushing me around.
At the station, Malloy delivers the news to Miller that Wellman is dead; and though Roemer's story is that Wellman came at him with a boat hook, Pete relays that Wellman was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher at least four times. Miller says that Roemer has been expressing concern over Wellman's condition. Pete closes the episode by delivering the titular line.
I recall finding this one pretty disturbing the first time that I saw it. It lulls you into thinking it's going to be a lighthearted episode about the officers dealing with a recurring nuisance...then the ending catches you with your guard down.
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Get Smart
"The Not-So-Great Escape: Part 2"
Originally aired March 29, 1969
Wiki said:
Smart's disguise is uncovered and is captured. He and the Chief try various escape methods, but each time Siegfried appears to have an upper hand causing their attempts to fail. The Chief realizes that there must be an informer in the camp and devises a plan to fool the informer.
It turns out that there were no dogs...the barking was only a tape recording. Siegfried learns that the dogs had recently run away while pursuing some escapees because Starker had been feeding them the same food as the prisoners.
At one point there's a joke that a prisoner played by an African American actor had been white before he tried to vault the electrified fence.
Max's ultimate successful escape is, of course, accidental...during a flubbed tunneling attempt, he damages what turns out to have been a power cable, which brings the utility crews and emergency services to the location of the camp.
The episode included more directorial touches that I assume were based on TGE.
And so closes
Get Smart's penultimate season. In the Fall it will be moving from NBC to CBS.
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Sorry, I didn't mean specifically that song-- I was thinking of "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon."
Neil Diamond?
There are a couple of Gary Puckett "Girl" songs you might be thinking of, but I don't think "Morning Girl" sounds like any of the above.
Great songs are more than top 40 hits, hence the popularity of "deep cuts" that fans, DJs and companies releasing music packages have made popular over the decades, with some believing the non-top 40 songs are as good as the bigger hits.
But you had specifically used the term "hits list," which is what I was responding to.
...which made Lennon pretentious; he knew all of that "peace" talk was utterly unrealistic, especially were government conflicts/wars were concerned, but he tried to sell his message anyway, as if he were trying to paint himself as the image which--ironically enough--some of the worst of his fanbase bought and repackaged in the years to come.
I can believe that he actually believed in it at some level, and felt that it was a message worth delivering, even if it wasn't likely to become practical reality. He was expressing himself as an artist in Yoko's field of conceptual art, which was all new and creatively exciting to him.
Its not like there was an active sub-genre of music with songs of that kind before the Monkees hit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_pop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_pop
And there's what "Morning Girl" is described as on its own Wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_pop
That would be something to see.