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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
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The Brady Bunch
"Confessions, Confessions"
Originally aired December 18, 1970
Wiki said:
Peter fears he will be grounded and miss an upcoming camping trip after breaking Carol's vase while playing ball in the house. (In his dream sequence, the ball repeatedly breaks the vase with different visual effects, and Peter's and Bobby's voices are repeatedly heard, "Mom's favorite vase." "She always says, 'Don't play ball in the house.'") All of the other kids conspire to cover up what Peter has done, and assist in gluing the vase together. The damage nevertheless comes to light when water trickles between the vase's glued cracks and onto the dinner table. All of the Brady kids, except Peter, confess. The parents realize what has happened and decree that Peter must decide the kids' punishments, and take Peter shopping for a new lantern for his camping trip, hoping he will confess. Instead, Peter wants the lantern. His conscience finally catches up with him and he admits to breaking the vase, voluntarily decides not to go camping, and does all of the chores he had handed out to the others as punishment.
The boys are horsing around with a basketball in the bedroom, but it goes through the open door and down the stairway to hit a vase in the living room. The girls pop up at the top of the stairs as the boys are conspiring to glue the vase together. The girls intercept Mike, who's coming home with flowers, to put them in another vase; while the boys are at a hardware store buying Elmer's and Carol pops in wanting to know what they're up to.
At dinner, Carol decides to move the flowers into the secretly glued vase while it's still drying. While eating, all of the kids are fixated on the vase, and it finally starts leaking in various spots...at which point all of the kids try to act like nothing's happening. Later, the other five and even Alice each confess; when the parents compare notes, they figure out that it was Peter. They hold a family meeting in which the parents declare that everyone's guilty because they conspired to hide it. When he's assigned to come up with the punishments, Peter has the brainstorm of letting each of the kids decide their own, but the parents encourage him to be harsher. When Mike comes up with the idea of buying Peter a lantern to trigger his conscience, Carol cites Diogenes! After he gets his lantern, Peter has his dream, and, while preparing to leave for his camping trip, watches as the others labor at their harsher chores. On his way out, he finally confesses.
In the coda, Peter's voluntarily doing the chores he'd assigned to the others when Carol gives him the vase pieces to glue back together again. The two of them accidentally drop it and it shatters into many more pieces.
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The Partridge Family
"Star Quality"
Originally aired December 18, 1970
Wiki said:
When Danny gets singled out in a review by a prominent journalist, the praise goes to his head and he decides to go solo. But he changes his mind when he sees his family happily auditioning for his replacement.
Guest Stars: Dick Clark as himself, Mitzi Hoag as Sheila Faber
Song: "Singin' My Song"
Sheila Faber is the reviewer, a famous syndicated columnist. Dick Clark appears in a dream after Danny reads the review. After Dick's fantasy interview, Danny sees himself onstage dressed like Sinatra...not singing, but just showing the audience his famous "impish grin". Danny calling Reuben in the middle of the night seems to be a recurring gag. Danny has Reuben fly out to the home to have a secret meeting in his treehouse, to tell Reuben that he plans to go solo. (It hadn't occurred to me that Reuben still lived somewhere else.) After Reuben arrives, Danny holds auditions for his own band replacement in the garage, at which point Shirley learns his plan. Reuben holds her back from talking sense into him, so that Danny can figure out for himself that it's a bad idea. So everyone takes the news a little too well and they bring in a replacement, Norman, without telling him (Gerald/Jean-Michel Michenaud). Likewise, Reuben enables him to start his own act, while underscoring the loneliness of stardom by giving him his own dressing room. Danny makes what we're led to believe is his solo debut at the same dinner club the family always seems to play at...but it turns out to just be an introduction of the family, with him rejoining the band for "Singin' My Song".
It seems like we got this same basic premise with the "Danny as a comedian" episode; but this iteration felt like it needed a little more room to convey the premise. Danny comes to regret his decision too quickly and easily, without having the chance to fall on his face. It has a great coda, though...Sheila Faber visits the family in their dressing room and it turns out that in her review, she'd misidentified Chris as Danny!
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That Girl
"An Uncle Herbert for All Seasons"
Originally aired December 18, 1970
Wiki said:
Ann's flamboyant Uncle Herbert (Joe Flynn) is turning Ann and Donald's world upside down when he makes bogus get-rich-quick schemes.
Ann's ecstatic to get a telegram from Uncle Herbert, who addresses her as Lollipop. She tells Donald that Lew doesn't get along with Herbert, whom he considers to be wild and eccentric. (Mother Theresa would be too wild and eccentric for Lew Marie.) Ed Peck, who's manning the Immigration Counter, holds the cape-clad Herbert because he hopped on the flight without buying a ticket. Joseph Mell makes a blink-and-miss-it appearance as another customs official in this scene. Donald has to make a stop at
Newsview, so Uncle Herbert meets Mr. Adams (James Gregory's third of four appearances in the role), who takes a liking to him, such that he invites Herbert to have lunch with him in the executive dining room. Lew, who's supposed to be "out of town," appears, concerned that Herbert's going to try to pull a con. Meanwhile, Herbert persuades Adams to buy stock in an Icelandic tuna fish company that he has co-ownership of. When he returns from lunch, Herbert explains that he's in New York because the company's about to go public. Lew doesn't believe him, and Donald's skeptical, but Ann refuses to believe that her childhood hero is a crook.
Donald goes to see Adams to try to explain the feared situation with Herbert...but Adams's broker has confirmed that Herbert is entirely on the up-and-up. At Adams's suggestion, Ann tries to twist Donald's arm to buy stock in the company. Before leaving town, Herbert makes a last visit to Ann's apartment bearing gifts, and Ann has a pleasant goodbye with him. In the coda, Ann's made an Icelandic meal using the fish, but Donald finds it less than palatable; and Ann reveals that Herbert left her his cape.
"Oh, Donald" count:
1
"Oh, Daddy" count:
2
"Oh, Uncle Herbert" count:
4
"Oh, Mr. Adams" count:
1
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Mission: Impossible
"The Hostage"
Originally aired December 19, 1970
Wiki said:
At the conclusion of a successful mission in a Latin country, revolutionaries kidnap Paris, believing he actually is the successful American hotel magnate that he had been portraying.
Paris, who actually got his picture in the paper in his role as Walter Phalen, is gassed in a taxi after leaving the US consulate, where the official was uncharacteristically chatty about Paris's role in the IMF for the audience's benefit. The mastermind behind the scheme, Robert Siomney (Lou Antonio),
calls the police with his demands that several political prisoners be released from prison. He then brings Not Phalen to the lair of his boss, Jorge Cabal (Joe De Santis). Paris immediately kicks off some impromptu scheming, which includes nabbing some berries and eating them in his cell. Meeting with the team (which includes Doug this week), Jim decides to let Paris make the first move. Back in his cell, Paris takes ill and claims that he has Hodgkin's disease and needs his medication. This gets broadcast on the radio, giving the team their opening. Meanwhile, Jim has gotten cooperation from the local government, in exchange for nabbing Siomney...who has the medication dropped via helicopter, flown by Doug with Barney riding shotgun. Barney slipped a tracker in the package, allowing them to identify the village where Paris is being held, which is photographed by an American U2.
In the role of a uniformed government official, Jim goes on TV and ups the ante, declaring the impending execution of the three political prisoners--including Cabal's son, Luis (Ron Castro)--unless Phelan is released. Forced to record a statement, Paris uses code-phrases to give the IMF the location in the village where he's being held. Dana then gets on TV posing as Luis Cabal's secret fiancee. The executions of two of the prisoners are also televised, but their deaths by firing squad are faked with dummies who are swapped in off camera. Barney stows away on a truck going into the village, while Dana drives in openly to see Jorge; Siomney tosses her in the brig with Paris, but Cabal orders her release. Doug, posing as a US representative who also gets airtime, radios Siomney to negotiate; and Siomney secretly orders Dana's murder. Also competing for ratings is coverage of the pre-execution of Luis, with Colonel Jim addressing Cabal Sr. directly on camera. Dana also tries to plead with Cabal, and Barney foils her stabbing, then makes a mold of the guard's face and whips up a quick-drying mask, all right there on the spot. Disguised Barney covertly signals success to Siomney, and is then sent to kill Paris, who's given a drug to fake his death. All the while, Cabal is fixated by his son's execution, which is temporarily stayed by Doug on camera. Then a shot is heard and Paris is found fake-dead. Cabal gets on the radio to come clean about this and plead for Luis's life; Jim agrees on the condition that Siomney be turned over, along with Phalen's body. At the rendezvous point, Siomney gets some major IMF gloating rubbed in his face as Paris is revived, Dana shows up, and Barney unmasks. Nyah, nyah--Mission: Accomplished.
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Adam-12
"Log 96: Pilgrimage"
Originally aired December 19, 1970
Wiki said:
In the series' second Christmas episode, Malloy and Reed confront a man who robbed a bell-ringing Santa Claus, handle a DUI causing a death transporting Christmas presents, encounter a single pregnant shoplifter who wanted to be caught so her children would have a place to stay for Christmas, and assist a Native American family from New Mexico whose young daughter had wandered off while they were sleeping in the hills. Foster Brooks guests as a drunken driving suspect
December 24: At roll call, Reed presents Mac with a present from the guys...a black tie, which Mac mocks enthusiasm for. On patrol, Reed's saying that it doesn't feel like Christmas when they get a call for a 211...Santa's been mugged--brained with a pipe! In the spirit, once Santa (J. Pat O'Malley) has come to his senses, he goes back to work with the bell.
The car has a close call with a jaywalking couple with a small child, the Nasheboos from New Mexico (Ivan Naranjo and Sandra Ego), and have to explain big-city traffic light protocol. While still out of the car, they spot a man who matches the description of the Santa assailant (Stanley Adams) and, finding evidence in his pockets, cuff him. While they're putting him in the car, Santa runs up and attacks him with the bell...which leaves the officers in the awkward position of having to explain to a little girl why they're arresting Santa Claus.
Next they get called to the site of an accident, with one car turned on its side and an ambulance on the scene. The man who hit the car, Mr. Selfridge (Foster Brooks), is very drunk from the office Christmas party; and his victim is lying on the street with a sheet over him, alongside wrapped presents to his wife and child.
Following that, the officers are called to pick up a shoplifter who's been arrested at a department store. The young hipppie, Sandy Quillan (Sallie Shockley), seems very detached and admits to wanting to get caught, so that her two children would be taken care of for Christmas. The officers offer to hook her up with Social Services and to give her a bag of toys and candy that the patrol officers have been given to hand out; and the arresting store security officer (Len Wayland) volunteers to drop the charges.
That night, up in the hills under the light of the Hollywood Cross, the officers find the Nasheboos camping on the open ground. When the couple wake up, they realize that their daughter is missing. The officers call in reinforcements to search the hills, and the toddler is eventually found standing over a precipice, and safely retrieved to the joy and relief of all present. Malloy finds some naturally growing mistletoe and offers it to Reed, who'd missed out on buying some for Jean earlier. The episode ends with the two of them wishing each other a Merry Christmas, in a moment so tender that they're just a thin strand of machismo away from hugging each other.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid II"
Originally aired December 19, 1970
Wiki said:
Mary is forced to work not only on Christmas Day but Christmas Eve, too.
Note: The episode's title is an allusion to a 1966 episode of the sitcom That Girl ("Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid") which [this episode's co-writer] James L. Brooks had scripted.
Note: TV Guide ranked this the best Christmas television episode ever.
Mary's planning to drive four hours to her parents after she gets off work on Christmas Eve. Lou, who's taken aback by a tiny Christmas tree decoration on his desk, informs Mary that she'll be working on Christmas. Back in the apartment, Mary has her door decorated like a wrapped present, which is pretty cool. Phyllis is giving Lars a 12" action figure that you can see through, displaying his organs, which looks familiar to me. I think I may have had or seen one of those as a kid.
Back at WJM, Mary learns that the newsroom isn't having a Christmas party because at last year's, Ted got drunk and told off the President on the air. There is exchanging of gifts, with Ted giving everyone an album that he made of his own broadcasts. Mary's planning to make the most of her Christmas Eve, but a co-worker of the week named Fred (Ned Wertimer) guilts her into working for him so he can spend the evening with his family. Back at the apartment, Rhoda gives Mary a large toaster oven. She also bought a turkey with the plan of having Mary cook it in the oven, but Mary has to inform her that she's about to go back to work.
At WJM, Lou gives Mary a Christmas bonus, but when she won't accept it because the check is blank, he has to think about how to fill it out. He also offers to stick around so she can spend some time at home, but she won't have it. Once she's all alone in the newsroom, she gets a radio call from Charlie (Henry Corden), who's manning the transmitter and was expecting Fred to be in the office. She tries to chat him up, but it's awkward and he has plans. Then she gets a hang-up phone call, followed by the sound of the elevator. She tries to barricade the door and calls Rhoda to inform her that a murderer is coming up...but in burst Lou, Murray, and Ted, for a surprise Christmas party...which is going to be at Murray's, but they have to stick around until the end of Mary's shift at midnight because she'll be receiving a holiday call from the general manager.
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He could move to Sesame Street and live in it.
I hadn't made that connection, and now have to wonder if it was deliberate!
Well, yeah.
As you can probably tell, I take some umbrage at the issue because of the way that I used to have to walk on eggshells around certain relatives and coworkers regarding the holidays.
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Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!
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