That was one of the greatest nights of TV programming ever lasting from 1978-79 season through the 1981-82 season (Wonder Woman in '78-'79, Hulk '79-82). Good times. Good times. May want to check out your local library. Mine had a season or two of Mod Squad and that's how I watched it most recently. The series still holds up pretty well. That's funny as my experience was very similar except I had a friend who did actually win some money because of me advising him on who I felt did it. I did use the contract situation to narrow the field as well along with who'd provide the biggest "OMG!" moment.
The MeTV email came yesterday and there was an article about the Tim Conway tribute, but nothing about Peggy Lipton or Doris Day. Nice. I don't think I ever actually had an opportunity to place a bet, otherwise I might have, but I did see an article about the odds they were giving in Las Vegas. "Who Shot JR?" was a big freakin' deal that Summer.
_______ Dragnet 1968 "The Big Search" Originally aired January 4, 1968 Monday, May 8 (1967): Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of Juvenile Division when they're sent to investigate the disappearance of the girls, ages 3 and 5. Officer Reed is on the scene, though not addressed by name in dialogue this time, and accompanied by a partner who isn't Pete Malloy (Officer Stedman, played by Rick Warick). Again coming off as an experienced officer, Reed does most of the talking. This guy's just begging for a spin-off. (I wonder if Early Installment Weirdness Reed gets to drive the squad car....) The girls' mother, Mrs. Stanley (Peggy Webber), thinks that her ex-husband took them. She describes him as a drunk who didn't used to be able to hold down a job. The detectives visit Mr. Stanley (Robert Clarke), who says he hasn't seen them in over a year, and that he's in AA and trying to turn himself around so he can visit the kids. A search commences as multiple teams of uniformed and plainclothes officers comb the area. At the railyards, Reed picks up a man named Hale (Vic Perrin) who has a record for having beaten a little girl, but he has an alibi. The detectives have taken Mr. Stanley back to his old home, and it's obvious that Mrs. Stanley is surprised at how much he's cleaned up his act. His having seen the girls playing with a dog while driving by the house on a previous occasion turns up a lead--a woman who used to live across the street, had a dog, and spent a lot of time with the girls, but Mrs. S considered her a bad influence. The officers visit the woman, Edna Felton (Jean Howell), at her job and learn that her dog has also gone missing that day. Getting permission to check her apartment, Friday and Gannon find the girls there, lying on the bed with the dog (a beagle). It turns out that the dog got loose, went back to the old neighborhood, and the girls followed it back to its home. When the girls are brought back, they both cling to their father, and Mrs. S seems to be having second thoughts about having both a dog and a husband around. In his opening voiceover, Friday names their captain as usual, but he's not in the scene or the episode. Another one of those perfect moments for the blurb: _______ The Wild Wild West "The Night of the Headless Woman" Originally aired January 5, 1968 The title refers to a mannequin that was being used to smuggle the weevils via stagecoach in the teaser. Jim takes over the stage to find out where it was going while Artie investigates the man who hired the stage driver in San Francisco. There his main contact is Commissioner Jeffers of the Harbour Department (Richard Anderson). He also investigates the warehouse that the mannequin came from. (Think he used that wind-up lockpick device again to break in, but we didn't get a good look at it.) Jim finds himself in the hacienda of Abdul Hassan (Theodore Marcuse), a foreign syndicate leader who plans to use the weevils, including a special breeding pair, to destroy America's cotton crops. Jim uses his piton pistol's zipline function in effecting his escape. Reporting back to San Francisco, Jim has dinner at the Jeffers home at the invitation of the commissioner's daughter, Betsy (Dawn Wells, formerly one-half of "and the rest"), but masked bandits raid the place and abduct her. After looking through a scrapbook of former disguises (consisting of headshot photos), Artie goes undercover as a man very unconvincingly disguised as an old fisherman to investigate a flat boat that's involved in the weevil smuggling operation. Jim tags along with the boat the hard way (clinging to it in the water) to witness how it's used to carry the mannequin out to a buoy from which the weevils are loaded, after which the boat takes the mannequin to the stage. Following this, Artie discovers where Betsy is being held and is himself captured, followed by Jim, and they discover--perhaps not surprisingly given who's playing him--that Jeffers is involved in the operation. But Jeffers is soon shot by one of the other smugglers, Tucker (John McLiam), and after Jim and Artie escape a planned death by burning warehouse, they bust into Hassan's hacienda and mop up the gang. At the end of the episode, Jim and Artie both have Coda Dates on the Train, neither apparently thinking that Betsy could use some comforting in her time of grief. One of the henchmen involved in the operation is named Ringo (Steve Mitchell). ______ That's an interesting idea. Not sure how well it'd work with my MO of watching episodes weekly around the 50th anniversaries of their airdates...but might work for off-season catch-up viewing. Something to look into.
_______ 55 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Glad All Over," The Dave Clark Five (14 weeks) "The Matador," Major Lance (8 weeks) "Thank You Girl," The Beatles (7 weeks) "You're a Wonderful One," Marvin Gaye (10 weeks) New on the chart: "Yesterday's Gone," Chad & Jeremy (#21 US; #37 UK) "No Particular Place to Go," Chuck Berry (#10 US; #2 R&B; #3 UK) "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying," Gerry & The Pacemakers (#4 US; #6 UK) "My Boy Lollipop," Millie Small (#2 US; #2 R&B; #2 UK) "I Get Around," The Beach Boys (#1 US the weeks of July 4 and 11, 1964; #7 UK) Total Beatles songs on the chart: 5 _______
Well, that was a relief. Also a relief. Nice. He's a one-man Mission: Impossible. Mary Ann is too good for them! Good one. Very good one (and sounds like the 50s). Another good one. I forgot about this one. It's cute. Classic.
_______ 50 Years Ago This Week And The Old Mixer is the size of an avocado. Ultrasound? Not in my day! Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show," Neil Diamond (13 weeks) "Galveston," Glen Campbell (12 weeks) "Mercy," Ohio Express (8 weeks) "My Way," Frank Sinatra (8 weeks) "Twenty-Five Miles," Edwin Starr (14 weeks) Re-entering the chart: "But It's Alright," J. J. Jackson (Originally charted Oct. 1, 1966, reaching #22 US, #4 R&B) New on the chart: "I Want to Take You Higher," Sly & The Family Stone (#60 US; #24 R&B) "See," The Rascals (#27 US) "I Can Sing a Rainbow / Love Is Blue," The Dells (#22 US; #5 R&B; #15 UK) "Don't Let the Joneses Get You Down," The Temptations (#20 US; #2 R&B) "Love Me Tonight," Tom Jones (#13 US; #2 AC; #9 UK) "Baby, I Love You," Andy Kim (#9 US; #31 AC; originally a #24 US, #6 R&B for the Ronettes in 1963-64) "Color Him Father," The Winstons (#7 US; #15 AC; #2 R&B) "Good Morning Starshine," Oliver (#3 US; #3 AC; #6 UK) And new on the boob tube: The Ed Sullivan Show, Season 21, episode 30, featuring the 5th Dimension, George Carlin, and Liza Minnelli _______ Peter & Gordon, Chad & Jeremy--Holy Dynamic Duos! Most definitely in this case! Compare and contrast: "School Days," Chuck Berry (Charted Apr. 6, 1957; #3 US; #1 R&B; #24 UK) Nobody ripped off Chuck like Chuck! And that's two British acts new to the US chart this week. And this one's considered ska, which was a precursor to reggae. The Beach Boys seem to be in the zone at this point.
"My Guy," Mary Wells - Motown's first number 1. "Little Children," Billy J. Kramer w/ The Dakotas - I almost posted that this was a Lennon/McCartney composition but thought better of it and checked Google. It was the B side, Bad to Me, that was the Lennon McCartney tune. IMO, it is the better of the two songs. "Every Little Bit Hurts," Brenda Holloway - An overlooked gem of a Motown song that has been all but completely forgotten. Written and performed by Brenda, it is as dramatic and heartfelt a song as any that came out of Hitsville. Aretha would have destroyed this tune had she chosen to cover it. "Black Pearl," Sonny Charles & The Checkmates, Ltd. - A resounding YES! "In the Ghetto," Elvis Presley - A just as resounding, NO! The Dells are my all time favorite male R&B singing group from this era. Marvin Junior's voice and singing style defined male R&B lead singing throughout the 60's and 70's. These guys, somewhat like the Zombies, were way underrated even though they had a fair string of hits. Don't Let the Sun, is one of my all time favorite songs. Beautiful song and performance. A sweet tribute to a stepfather, there is nothing about this song that is not good.
I've got a couple of people crashing on the couches in the next room, so I'll catch up on the music later. In those days, the doctor just knocked and said, "S'okay?" In the early 90s, my old colleague, the late Dr. Agronow, visited Russia to check out the state of the art of their maternity care. Their fetal monitoring technology literally consisted of a wooden tube that the doc would put up against the abdomen and listen through. Dorchester felt like the 23rd century after I heard that story. I'm curious about the reason for your dislike of this song.
I did not know that! Didn't know that was the B-side of "Little Children" either...though according to this site, it was the A-side (and had previously been released twice in the US as an A-side). Whatever the case, it'll be coming our way very soon. To be fair, they had pretty incredible competition. Yet Dorchester apparently hasn't gotten earbuds yet.... So I saw my first commercial for The Summer of Me today (Green Acres moving to weeknights). Since that's starting Memorial Day, I checked their schedule for other changes that week. Apparently they'll be running the 1980s Twilight Zone on weeknights. The only other major change I noticed is a very bad one for me...unless they've moved it to another place in their lineup, they appear to be dropping The Wild Wild West for The Three Stooges! It's also possible that this is a local affiliate thing, as the Me schedule that I see online reflects the fact that my affiliate already preempts the 5:00 p.m. hour on Saturdays for local programming. Whatever the case, it appears that I'll only be getting to the middle of Season 4, as the last one I'll be able to record is the one airing next weekend. (And I would be curious to know if WWW is still in their lineup at 6 p.m. Saturday on June 1 in other areas.) ETA: Found an indication that it may indeed be a Me-wide change...next week they'll be skipping a two-parter to play the one-part episode that follows. And it looks like I'll be getting 2/3 of Season 4 overall, FWIW. ETA: Just learned that Decades is doing a Mod Squad Binge this weekend in tribute to Peggy. Which is nice, but…. ETA: Here's a story about the Summer of Me additions, but no mention of dropping WWW.
This is one of their best. This is pretty good. Not a bad interpretation of "Love Is Blue." Eh, I don't really care for this one. Who can resist Tom Jones? Andy Kim had another hit? I thought he was a one-hit wonder. I don't think I've ever heard it before. It makes me want to listen to The Ronettes. I've never heard this either. Very sweet. Another classic from Hair. 'nuff said. You can't go wrong with Chuck Berry. Somehow I thought that came later. And it also makes me think of Neuromancer for some reason. Don't ask me why. I know, I could have dug out the earbuds, or I could have gone upstairs and listened on my Kindle. I just have a particular way I like to do things, that's all. Yeah, that came in their Saturday email yesterday. I checked the local schedule and we have Three Stooges, too, which comes totally out of left field. It doesn't seem to fit either the MeTV paradigm or the Saturday schedule. Very odd. It's nice to see them airing 80s TZ, though, even if it's on at an inaccessible hour.
May 14 - In music news, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards audition and begin to rehearse with Mick Taylor, guitarist with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, as a replacement for Brian Jones...who was still an official member of the Rolling Stones at this time. Excellent period for Campbell. Such a wonderful song. All aboard...the rocket to the sun! As I've said before, they were setting the tone for the end of the decade and beyond. They were so ahead of their time. Kim co-wrote "Sugar, Sugar" (with Jeff Barry) along with providing some of the back-up vocals for the song, so this was a very big year for the Canadian.
There must be more to Andy Kim than meets the ear. I just remember him as the guy who did "Rock Me Gently" when I was in Junior High.
Spoiler: August A total obscuro from their waning era, but it does have an interesting sound. I'm not even sure I would have recognized this as being half vocal version of "Love Is Blue" if it hadn't been in the title...but a powerful performance. Not as strong as their last two, but it does have that fresh Temptations psychedelic soul sound. I was under the impression that you could, but I must have been mistaken. This one does get some play on Sirius, at least. My first impression would be that it falls in the category of unnecessary cover version, but it did do substantially better on the Hot 100 than its predecessor. And he has yet another Top 20 hit that's yet another Ronettes cover coming in late 1970, though that one will fall well behind its predecessor in chart performance. Kind of reminds me of my departed ex-father-in-law, though in his case, he was directly responsible for about half of those seven kids. For the longest time I was under the impression that it wasn't the original from my oldies radio memory, but I went ahead and got this version from iTunes. Pretty sure they've had Three Stooges in their lineup before, but I think it was an early morning slot. As a replacement for WWW's uniquely qualified position of serving as the threshold between the Saturday afternoon westerns and the Super SciFi Saturday Night lineup, it makes no damn sense. I'll be checking the schedule again to verify that it's a regular lineup change and not a bizarre one-week aberration. Saturday evening I heard the last few minutes of the full-length album version of "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" on '60s on 6! It was going on 8, so it would have been the end of Peter Noone's show!
_______ 50th Anniversary Viewing _______ The Saint "Portrait of Brenda" Originally aired February 2, 1969 (UK); May 16, 1969 (US) Simon resorts to the always-disappointing self-introduction, and does it riffing on Bond to boot..."The name is Templar...Simon Templar." IMDb had a totally bogus trivia post about how this was in celebration of Moore having learned he'd won the role of James Bond...never mind that when this episode was made, 1973's Live and Let Die was three films away. That Xfinity description was a bit confusing for me as Templar finds the body of a murdered male artist acquaintance named Alan in the teaser. He subsequently learns from a ladyfriend of Alan's, a singer named Diane (Anna Carteret), that Brenda, Alan's sister and the subject of a portrait that he painted, was the singer who'd apparently committed suicide some time before that. Diane's initially in the dark about what happened to Alan, and Templar has the Bond-worthy exchange with her when she asks about his absence: Diane: I know, he got cold feet. Simon: In a manner of speaking, yes. Simon learns that Alan was investigating a guru (Marne Maitland, a.k.a. Lazar from The Man with the Golden Gun; his character here is billed simply as "The Guru"), whom Diane has already taken him to see at that point; and that Alan was keeping his file on the suspect hidden behind Brenda's portrait. The file leads Simon to the home of a man named Beardsley, who has the place regularly maintained by a housekeeper who's never seen him. Simon subsequently discovers that Alan had traced money given to the Guru as having been deposited in a Bombay bank by Beardsley; and that Brenda had been giving a lot of money to the Guru. Having learned of Beardsley's answering service, Simon makes a blackmail appointment via phone. At the parking garage, a large thug named Tony who'd attacked him earlier in the episode and had since been following him around tries to shoot him, and when Simon gets the drop on him, is shot himself. Tony is played by a noteworthy guest I never would have recognized by face: David Prowse! This is just a crappy phone shot of my TV screen, but I couldn't allow the moment to go uncommemorated: Bond vs. Vader! Simon proceeds to the Beardsley cottage, where he has Inspector Teal and the Guru and his manservant cooperatively waiting. The person they're waiting for, the real "Beardsley," is the Guru's female assistant, Mrs. White (Petra Davies), who handles all of his finances and has been siphoning the cash donations. But she wasn't Alan's killer. It turns out that was Tony, who was working for Johnny Fox (Trevor Bannister), Brenda and Diane's producer, after Alan had learned that Fox had taken a £14,000 check meant for Brenda after her death. Teal is covertly manning the recording booth when Fox admits to it. Simon's female confidante throughout the episode is a neighbor of Alan's named Josephine (Anne De Vigler), who was on the scene when Simon found his body. This will be the last episode of The Saint that I'll be covering in 50th anniversary sync, as the rest of the final American season consisted of already-viewed episodes from the previous British season. I will, however, be covering several episodes from the final British season that evidently didn't air in the US first-run, as part of my hiatus catch-up viewing, organized by their UK airdates. _______ The Ed Sullivan Show Season 21, episode 30 Originally aired May 18, 1969 As represented in The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show Yes, they're finally plugging the album's title track here, though the single has already peaked at #1. The audio sounds like it's straight from the single. After the song Ed brings the group over to relay compliments from Sylvia and Betty, whom Ed's Wiki page tell me are his wife and daughter. George does his "Big 3 News" sketch, in which he plays multiple parts, including the anchorman, a commercial announcer, the sports reporter, and the famous Hippy Dippy Weatherman... Liza's taking her turn at covering "Didn't We?," which a quick search on tv.com reminds me John Davidson had previously performed on the January 19 show...an episode that also included Liza doing different numbers ("Frank Mills" having been the one shown on Best of). Following this performance, Best of shows an audience bow for author Jacqueline Susann. This time the group is getting ahead of matters, performing what will be their next charting single in the summer--evidently not yet released at this point--"Workin' on a Groovy Thing". This clip uses low-quality video from the performance. Also in the original episode according to tv.com: _______
I was ready to write it off at first, but it grew on me by the end. I was being kind of tongue in cheek, but I have nothing against him. His lounge-lizard persona is amusing. That's exactly what I was thinking. Even if they lost the rights to WWW, there are so many better choices for that slot. That Cubby really planned ahead. Now we know the real reason he had to wear that life-support suit. I saw this one. Groovy special effects.
_______ Dragnet 1968 "The Big Prophet" Originally aired January 11, 1968 Thursday, September 12 (1968; unlikely to be 1963): Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of Juvenile Narcotics under another named-but-not-seen boss when they pay a visit to the home/temple of Brother William--played by future Trek alumnus Liam Sullivan, who has the distinction of being the episode's only guest! William is a thinly veiled Timothy Leary stand-in who's been distributing drug-advocating literature and is suspected of dealing to juveniles. Mention is made of how William has been getting a lot of media attention, and Friday describes him as "dangerous"...which is how Nixon described Leary. Gannon mentions that William also used to hustle old ladies out of their pension checks. William definitely advocates exposing minors to drugs, bringing up the example of an 8-year-old who tripped for 3 days with the permission of her parents. William and the detectives debate the morality of drug laws, which includes the latter party dragging out the same ol' argument about MJ leading to harder things. William argues that MJ is no more dangerous than alcohol, but Friday will have none of that... Gannon brings up the possibility of LSD causing chromosome mutation, which I'd never heard of and, as I suspected when watching, appears to have been a debunked theory. You could tell it was a misinformed talking point just from the way it was presented. Gannon does a lot of the talking for a change, owing no doubt to the nature of the episode. The detectives do score some points in the exchange... [LEFT][SIZE=14px][COLOR=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Friday also asserts that he deals with kids every day. Well, at least on the weeks that he happens to be working Juvenile. [/COLOR][/SIZE][/LEFT] Along the way, William compares himself to Socrates, Galileo, and Christ, and mentions hippies who are building communities, which Friday says that he doesn't object to in principle, but he insists that they're really panhandling. The detectives leave without making an arrest, but Friday promises that "we won't lose his address". The episode's soundtrack makes use of Eastern-flavored music, including cues that very much seem to be evoking "Love You To" and "Within You Without You". _______ The Wild Wild West "The Night of the Vipers" Originally aired January 12, 1968 In the teaser, Jim is on the scene as the Vipers raid a town using an armored bank wagon with a cannon. A key found on one of the gang's bodies in the aftermath leads Jim to the town of Freedom, where Artie is undercover as a St. Louis reporter. At the establishment identified on the key, a fighter named Klaxton (Red West) is taking on all comers. Jim gets in the ring as a distraction for Artie to find the locker that the key opens. The fight is rigged by the local sheriff (Nick Adams), and Jim and Klaxton wind up taking it out into the streets. Artie finds the locker that the key opens, which is empty except for a wooden nickel. He notably doesn't think to put it in the slot of a nearby novelty machine that he'd made a point of looking over. Jim finds himself on the run from the law when Sheriff Cord uses his rolling brawl with Klaxton as an excuse to arrest him. Then he gets set up as the murderer of the man running the establishment, Aloysius Moriarty (Johnny Haymer), who's killed by one of the Vipers right after Jim discovers that he's their bookkeeper. Jim subsequently takes his own turn at checking out the locker room, and he does think to put the nickel in the machine, which opens a passage to the Vipers' underground nest. There he finds the bank wagon, which is being rigged to blow up real good, and drops in--quite literally--on a meeting of the hooded Vipers being led by the unhooded sheriff. They knock Jim out, put him in a coffin-sized box, and toss him down a chute into a nearby body of water. Jim seems to escape by setting off some sort of charge in his boots--perhaps a gadget that had previously been established. In the meantime, Artie has given us another good look at his lockpick device while opening the cabinet of Mayor Beaumont (Donald Davis), where he finds plans for the armored wagon. I didn't catch what made Artie suspect Beaumont in the first place, but he and Jim figure out that the assault on Freedom being planned at the meeting is all a ruse to make the mayor look like a hero to help him get elected governor. Jim locks Beaumont in the bank that's scheduled to be blown away as a means to pressure him into betraying his true motives in front of his strongest political advocate, Nadine Conover (Sandra Smith). Jim and Artie intervene to stop the assault, with Jim rather unconvincingly taking out multiple riflemen at long range using pistols. This episode notably lacks a coda, going straight from the climax to the end credits. Overall it felt it bit fillerish...particularly how both Artie and Jim investigated the locker room before finally, two-thirds of the way into the episode, moving forward with the clue that Jim had discovered immediately after the opening credits. ______ Including moving up Star Trek, with its space western vibe. We always assumed the guy in this sequence was supposed to be Blofeld, but maybe it was Vader... ETA: Well, I guess it's official... https://www.metv.com/stories/metv-presents-the-three-stooges-on-saturday-evenings-beginning-june-1
It's not so much the song as it is the idea of the song and the artist behind it. Up to the point this song was relessed, to my knowledge, Elvis had neither done anything nor even said anything in support of the civil rights movement. I'm also not aware of anything he may have done for the movement after the song was out. So this song seemed to me to be just a cynical attempt to take advantage of the then new, trend toward songs with a social message.
There's a missed origin opportunity for Marvel. Appropriate, since the episode appears to be a Socratic dialogue, with all of the crime drama happening in the epilogue. But he will! Jim and Artie are dateless? He's got the head for it. Plus, he sort of got thrown into a volcano again. Interesting. It says it's a thirteen-week series. Maybe WWW will be back in the Fall. Still a strange programming move, though. True, he wasn't exactly an activist, although he certainly spoke well of Blacks in terms of his musical influences. The only other song I can think of that touched on the subject was "Walk A Mile In My Shoes," although there may be others. In terms of "race" relations, he was probably more of a positive influence in the 50s just by the reactions he got. It makes me wonder how much early Elvis contributed to the early stages of the cultural revolution.
While it's a valid criticism that Elvis's bout of social consciousness may have seemed tacked on, I'd tend to give him a break based on the career context. He was at this point just starting to try to break out of the Movie Elvis persona he'd been stuck in for years and reinvent himself as a more relevant artist. It could be that he'd wanted to do something like this for years but was held back because it didn't fit his image as it was being cultivated at the time. The glass-half-full way of looking at it is, "Hey, Elvis is finally getting with the times, he's actually saying something!" It's always possible that the coda fell victim to syndication edits, but it didn't seem that way to me. Maybe...WWW coming back would be good in the long run, though it doesn't do anything for my attempt to "catch up" with the series by getting to the end during the hiatus. Still seems like they could have found a more appropriate place for The Three Stooges, though...it'd fit much better in their Sunday lineup with all the sitcoms.
Elvis may very well have had a desire to reinvent himself in the mid sixties as a serious artist with musical interests beyond what he'd previously shown, but considering In The Ghetto was, I believe, his only foray into this area, it's hard to believe this to be true. But, I don't know what was in his heart, so perhaps he did want to do more but was stymied by the Colonel or record company. However, the way it looks, and not having any other information, is that Elvis was simply looking to take advantage of a new trend and grab another hit.