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50th Anniversary Viewing
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All in the Family
"Mike's Hippie Friends Come to Visit"
Originally aired February 23, 1971
Wiki said:
Mike's friends - an unmarried couple - plan to share a sleeping bag in the Bunker home, over Archie's objections.
Archie's complaining about Mike and Gloria making out again--this time while she's helping him study--which eventually leads to Archie complaining that Mike doesn't do enough around the house, when a friend of Mike and Gloria's named Paul Goodrow (Jack Bender) comes over, having been invited by the Stivics to stay overnight before being taken to the airport for a charter flight to Europe. He's said to have been Mike's best man at the wedding (somebody make a continuity note for the wedding flashback episode), but has apparently only gone hippie since then.
Archie: I liked him when he was a nice, clean engineerin' student...used to dream about buildin' bridges and banks. Now he looks like someone who wants to blow 'em up!
There's a side argument between Archie and Edith about what their doormat says, and it turns out to be one borrowed from some neighbors. (This would have been a great opportunity to work in a reference to the original pilot, which had a doormat reading "Justice" shown in the credits.) Anyway, Paul brings in his old lady, Robin (Jenny Sullivan)...who's barefoot, to Archie's chagrin. And as advertised, Archie won't have them staying together because they're not married.
Mike and Gloria accuse Archie of having a hang-up about sex, and there's a great bit involving Edith trying to remember the circumstances when Archie references how Gloria came into the world. Discussions about legality and Christianity ensue, and Archie gets to two conflated. Archie is further put off when it turns out that Robin doesn't talk, but "speaks with her eyes," which amounts to Paul speaking for her based on her nonverbal reactions. Gloria comes up with the idea of the guys and girls sleeping dormitory-style, which Archie agrees to, but Robin, via Paul, feels that it's hypocritical. Then Archie, just wanting to get to bed, puts money on the table for the two of them to stay in a motel, but they won't take it, claiming that it amounts to bribery. At that point, Mike and Gloria actually stand up to their friends for being so difficult and not meeting in the middle. Finally, a friend they called as an alternate arrangement, Jeff (Corey Fischer), comes by, but declines to put them up when he finds out that Paul and Robin aren't married, because he's living with his parents and his father has the same hang-up as Archie.
Mike and Gloria end up taking the couple to the airport hours ahead of schedule, leaving them to sleep there. When they get home, Archie's fallen asleep in his chair and nobody wants to wake him up, so Edith, Mike, and Gloria sing "Down by the Old Mill Stream," evoking a waking comment from Archie that he must have died and gone to the wrong place, "because youse all sure sound like hell."
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Hawaii Five-O
"The Bomber and Mrs. Moroney"
Originally aired February 24, 1971
Wiki said:
An armed lunatic who blames Danno for his brother's death (as seen in season one's "...And They Painted Daisies On His Coffin") takes people hostage at Five-O headquarters and threatens to blow up the office.
Another substantial spoiler in the capsule description. The episode opens with a prisoner (Mark Jenkins) being granted parole, after which he goes straight to the palace, bearing a small case and asking the girl at the information booth (Terrilee Kekoolani) where Danny's office is. The other titular character, Mrs. Minnie Leona Moroney (Hope Summers), is talking to Chin (the only Five-O investigator in the office at the time) about wanting to stay in Hawaii against the wishes of her children back in Wisconsin, who plan to put her in a home. The parolee comes in with a gun and takes everyone hostage, which includes recurring secretary Jenny (Peggy Ryan) and uniformed officer Kyle (Verne Hoke). He has a really cheesy mental fantasy about plugging a superimposed Danny full of holes...
Might've been more stylish if he'd imagined luring Danny to a dock first or something. Anyway, Kono is just outside the office and Danno quickly shows up, but when asked while Chin is being held at gunpoint, Kono tells him that Danny's not there yet to buy time. Danno confers via phone with Steve, who's in Chicago. The gunman holes up with his hostages in McGarrett's office, while a couple of officers watch him from another building via binoculars. Chin covertly patches Steve's speaker phone through to the information desk so that the others can listen in on what's happening. The captor goes into his cheesy superimposed fantasy again, then has Officer Kyle walk out onto the balcony and shoots him so that he goes over the edge...onto the lawn. (Steve may want to consider moving Five-O HQ to a waterfront location.) The captor then fires a shot close enough to Chin's eyes that it blinds him. Following all of this, a sniper, Officer Olena (Roland Naauao), is assigned to the observation post, awaiting an opportunity for a clean shot.
Danno's planning to burst in wearing a bulletproof vest with a group of SWAT officers when the intercom informs him that the captor has rigged the door with dynamite. Plan B has Danno crawling through the ventilation shaft with a rifle, which doesn't go anywhere. During all of this, Mrs. Moroney earns her title spot by badgering and berating her captor, showing no fear of his gun. She gives Chin some water, so he can ask the captor what he plans to do with Danno, just to trigger the cheesy superimposed fantasy for a third time. Along the way, the captor mentions his brother Joey in the past tense. Danno determines that he's got to play along and give himself up as the captor expects.
Once Danno's face-to-face with the captor, he tries to get the others released, but the captor reveals and activates his human bomb harness. Steve tensely listens to what's happening via the speaker audio over the phone, while Kono informs Olena that he can only go for a head shot. Challenged to tell everyone what it's all about by Mrs. M, the bomber (as we can now call him) drops the name Joey Collins, and Danno breaks into a flashback to his first killing from a previous episode, as spoiled by the Wiki summary. Back in the present, the bomber identifies himself as Joey's brother, Marty. Danno pads things out with another flashback, to remind the audience of how the killing affected him, as well as to give Lord a little more screen time while he's working remotely. Marty tells Danno that he indulged in his cheesy superimposed fantasy over 3,000 times while he was in the hoosegow, which is enough to drive anyone batshit crazy. Mrs. M, though not familiar with the circumstances of Joey's death, stands up for Danno.
Marty's mother (Bea Barrett-Davis) is brought in, though she doesn't think she can be of much help. Danno tries to tell Marty how things really went down in Season 1, and Marty informs Mrs. M that the vest is rigged so that if he takes it off before the timer runs out, it'll blow. Mrs. Collins tries to talk her son down via a bullhorn, which provokes a strong negative reaction from Marty, who then figures out that the phone is off the hook and yanks it out. Mrs. M continues to berate Marty, and Danny plays along, shifting the focus to talking smack about Joey as a means of taunting Marty to approach him while he stands in front of the window. When Marty is properly lined up, Danno quickly drops down and Olena takes his shot, which does the trick. At that point, the climax becomes about Danno defusing the vest while Mossman (Doug Mossman, who already had a recurring Five-O character, but is now being identified by his actual name) talks him through it, unable to come in because of the door bomb. Danno succeeds, tossing the detonator across the office so that it can blow harmlessly. Steve is informed in order to give him one last bit of screen time; Chin is taken away for medical treatment; Mrs. M asks Danno what she was asking Chin about earlier, and he opines that he doesn't think anyone can force her to do anything that she doesn't want to; and Jenny goes back to answering the phone.
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The Brady Bunch
"The Winner"
Originally aired February 26, 1971
Wiki said:
When Cindy comes home with a first-place jacks-playing trophy, Bobby realizes that he is the only Brady family member with no first-place trophy. He first tries entering a magazine selling contest and seems to be successful, until Cindy unwittingly reveals that Mike and Carol have asked their friends to buy subscriptions from him, Bobby quits, as he wants to win a trophy on his own. He wins a place on the Kartoon King (Hal Smith) TV show, where he takes part in an ice cream eat-off. Bobby does not win the eat-off, but his siblings throw him a surprise party and give him a first place award for trying the hardest.
So who's giving out trophies at the playground? Bobby downheartedly goes over the other boys' trophies. Continuity point: Peter's Outstanding Citizen Award from the
Daily Chronicle is presumably from Season 1's "The Hero". The parents encourage Bobby to find one thing that he's good at and stick with it, but he fails to demonstrate aptitude at various other games. Greg and Marcia report to the parents that Bobby's being "a real stinker"--which is language too strong for Carole--and the grown-ups explain what's bugging him. Bobby dreams of himself winning the World Series, a boat race, and a ski jump competition...but he just wakes up tearful.
Another kid (Kerry MacLane) comes to the door selling subscriptions for a contest, which grabs Bobby's interest. Mike and Carol hit the phones, calling in favors from friends. Bobby thinks that all the people are buying the subscriptions because of his salesmanship, then learns the real reason, which causes him to throw a little tantrum. (It's not too late for military school...) Then he sees Kartoon King's announcement of his contest, which involves a trophy and all the ice cream you can eat for a year. (Interested? Call 555-6161!) This episode may be breaking Hal Smith's typecasting, at least on camera...the King is probably hitting the bottle after the show. Bobby gets all dressed up and the parents drive him to the studio, where it turns out that the contestants have to eat the ice cream with their mouths, hands behind their backs. Another kid wins, so Bobby's brain freeze seems for naught. Then the other kids throw their little surprise party (which isn't a surprise to us, because of the beat-by-beat Wiki descriptions). I'm not sure how being given a trophy by his family is better than selling subscriptions through his family. Anyway, Bobby reacts negatively to the sight of the party's main treat--ice cream.
In the coda, Alice dusts off an old dance contest award.
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The Odd Couple
"A Taste of Money"
Originally aired February 26, 1971
Wiki said:
Felix and Oscar try to determine how their young neighbor acquired $2,000 in cash.
Oscar's busy writing a piece for his column when Phillip (in what turns out to be Christopher Shea's second of three appearances in the role) comes to the door wanting to arm wrestle him on a bet. After beating him, Oscar arbitrarily sets a wager of $1,000, and Phillip actually pulls out a wad of bills and counts it out. He claims that he saved it from doing his paper route...for fifteen years (four longer than he's been alive); then he claims to have robbed a bank. Oscar and Felix assume that the money is hot but don't want to call the police on him, so they try talk to his family's maid, Alicia (Queta De Acuna), while his parents are away...and though the language barrier proves comically difficult to break through, eventually she confirms his robbery story...so they next visit the local bank. The manager, Mr. Larkin (Howard Morton), initially goes into a sales pitch, but eventually confirms a recent robbery and brings in the teller involved, Mr. Skyler (William O'Connell)...but thinking that they're onto him, he confesses to having stolen the money himself...which leaves the question open of where Phillip got his wad, which turns out to be $2,000.
Wishing now to get the police involved informally, they call Murray over. Murray, Oscar, and Felix mock-interrogate Phillip, but just tire themselves out as his lips remain sealed. Felix realizes that he's enjoying the attention, so they have to trick the information out of him by having Murray mock-arrest Oscar and Felix for the crime. It turns out that Phillip found it in a garbage can, so Felix and Oscar head to the location, which looks an awful lot like the neatly organized alley that George Reeves used to muss up a bit by taking off. They stake it out for a couple of hours before a duo come out to use the can in question...longtime roommates Max Turner and Sam Mitchell (
Peter Brocco and John Qualen), who, it quickly becomes apparent, are older counterparts to Felix and Oscar, respectively. Max and Sam take them up to their place, which is neatly packed with organized clutter...literally bags and bound piles of things that they've been keeping for many years. When the question of money comes up, Max checks the cabinet where they keep their savings, and finds a bag of garbage in it instead...realizing that he must have made a mistake when attempting to clean things up. Grateful to have their money returned to them, they roll out a huge ball of silver foil that they've been saving for years, as a reward for Phillip.
In the coda, Oscar checks through everything in a bag of garbage that Felix is about to toss in the chute.
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Mission: Impossible
"A Ghost Story"
Originally aired February 27, 1971
Wiki said:
A fascist militia leader (Andrew Duggan) must be made to believe that he is seeing and hearing ghosts in order to find where he has hidden the corpse of his son, which contains the only remaining clues to the secret of a deadly nerve gas.
On a dark and stormy night, a young boy named Paul (Anthony Norwalk) is woken up by somebody standing outside his terrace doors. Justin Bainbridge (Andrew Duggan) goes up to an attic room and finds his adult son, Howard (Frank Farmer), who says that he was exposed to nerve gas in a lab accident, and wants to spend time with his son, Paul. A struggle ensues and the already dying Howard punches out early, with dear old Dad burying him in the yard.
The miniautre reel-to-reel tape in the Mexican-themed gift shop that we've seen before said:
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. This is Howard Bainbridge, noted specialist in chemical warfare who defected to the East, where he developed the lethal chemical TRA, a nerve gas formula known only to him. We believe that Bainbridge, contaminated by his own deadly chemical, escaped the Iron Curtain and returned to his father's estate, where the elder Bainbridge killed his son and concealed the corpse. Since Howard Bainbridge destroyed all his records before fleeing the East, the only existing trace of the chemical TRA is in his corpse. Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to find Howard Bainbridge's body. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim!
In the briefing, we learn that Bainbridge is a crypto-fascist with a heavy security force on his estate; that a tiny earpiece, a microphone hidden in his ring, and a couple of laser-projected holographic ghosts will be used in the scheme; and that there's also a mercenary working security at the estate, Vincent Sandler (William Smith), who's secretly working for the East, and is also there to find Howard's body. While the rest of the team enters the estate covertly and makes their way into the unused bomb shelter from which they'll be operating, Jim drives through the front gate under the cover of being Paul's new tutor. Paul is found sneaking through the woods and Jim intervenes when Sandler threatens to punish him. Jim then meets the housekeeper, Mrs. Foster (ayyyyy, Marion Ross), and Grandpa Bainbridge himself, who believes in rigid discipline. Jim slips something in Bainbridge's drink, which causes him to see a picture of his son in the bottom of the goblet. (Did Barney come up with that, or did Jim order it from a comic book ad?)
Jim sneaks Paris and Barney into the house from the shelter, and they spray gas through Bainbridge's keyhole and enter his room, where they insert the device in his ear, conceal some equipment in false bedpost tops, and replace his ring. Jim finds that Paul's been sneaking up into the attic, where he can be heard laughing, so he goes up to investigate and is TV Fu'ed back down the stairs, with Mrs. F standing over him as he comes to. He goes back up and finds the room empty. He questions Paul about it the next day, establishing that it was Howard's room, and Paul asks him if he believes in ghosts. While the team in the shelter send Bainbridge reel-to-reel audio of a loud heartbeat, which seems to disorient him, Jim tails Paul outside and is himself pursued by Sandler, whom he escapes.
The heartbeat audio is then accompanied by Howard's voice, pleading for help. Willy sneaks into the attic and places a picture of Dana there...which Bainbridge is lured to visit by the sound of his son's clarinet. He's evidently meant to think that it's a picture of Paul's mother, whom he never met. Paris prepares a Howard mask so that he can enact a BarneyVision visitation via the bedpost projectors...which has Howard begging his father to burn him and destroy the poison in his bones. Bainbridge tries to call his doctor and is patched through to Dana, following which Paris makes a house call as the doctor's new assistant. (I wonder if this was written as a Doug part.)
Dr. Spock proposes that Bainbridge is suffering early symptoms of a mental collapse, and presses him on how he thinks of his son--who's supposed to be alive behind the Iron Curtain as far as anyone else knows--as being dead.
When it's dark and stormy enough (Has Barney got a weather machine with Willy pumping the pedals?), footfalls and clarinet lure Bainbridge toward the attic; then Dana is projected into his room, pleading on behalf of Howard's spirit to burn, baby, burn him. While Bainbridge runs out into the rain and starts digging up his son's grave, Dana hears Paul's laughter and goes up into the attic. In flashes of lightning, she sees Paul...with Howard! Outside, Bainbridge finds the grave empty and accuses Jim of having taken the body. Then Sandler demands to know where the body is and attacks Bainbridge, who falls in the grave, following which Sandler is Willy Fu'ed. (It's not clear if Bainbridge is supposed to have died here...kind of like
Superman II.) Inside, Howard explains to Dana that he wasn't really dead, and managed to dig himself out of the shallow grave...but then finds himself held an gunpoint by Mrs. F, who's working with Sandler. Jim's entrance provides a distraction, Howard struggles with Mrs. F and takes a fall down the stairs, and Barney subdues Mrs. F. Jim checks on Howard and openly persuades him to share the TRA formula with goverment scientists on the outside chance that an antidote can be found. Mission: Accomplished.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Smokey the Bear Wants You"
Originally aired February 27, 1971
Wiki said:
Rhoda's generous new boyfriend has no apparent source of income, and Mary grows suspicious.
As the episode opens, Chuck Pelligrini (Michael Callan) has given Mary and Rhoda a lift after Rhoda's car broke down. Rhoda expresses an interest in whether or not he's married and BSes him a bit (which includes telling him that she's Mary's roommate because he likes the apartment), and he asks her out to dinner. Rhoda sees him a lot, which becomes common knowledge at WJM, and Mary has develops her suspicion regarding his conspicuous spending. Back at the apartment, Mary learns that his latest attempted gift was his car, and she and Rhoda start speculating that he might be in organized crime. Then Chuck drops in wanting to introduce Rhoda to his godfather.
Chuck turns out to have recently been the vice president of a lawn mower and snow blower company, though he's been on a break after quitting, and is planning to go back to college to become a forest ranger. Rhoda openly disapproves of his choice. Later, when she's explaining it to Mary...
Rhoda: He has some stupid idea about being happy.
Mary convinces her to go through with joining him for a group hike, which Mary will also be going on. The outdoor life doesn't agree with Rhoda, and while Mary goes up to Rhoda's under a pretense, Chuck offers to bow out of the relationship, but Rhoda persuades both of them to stick with it.
In the coda, Rhoda's reading up on tree diseases, but with the ulterior motive of trying to steer Chuck back into a better-paying career.
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I never saw him, but I did get pics of the Batmobile.
Now you've gone and turned this into a porn thread!
I don’t think the point of this bit was a send up of ventriloquist acts.
Whether or not it was
the point, it's definitely what he was doing. He was doing all of the usual ventriloquist schtick, but with a backwards twist, like having the dummy drink a glass of water while he sang.
meh (or the equivalent in the early 70’s)
Going from childhood memory: "Yeah, so what?"
BTW, fun fact; structurllly,What’s Going On and Mercy Mercy Me are the same song.
I had noticed a similarity on casual listening. As they're on the same album, which I've read is a concept album, I presume that was deliberate.
This is why Mom always sewed my name into my beret, in case I was ever wanted for murder.
She knew you were a bad seed.
I love lucite.
Was this a suicide attempt or just a too-much-to-drink accident?
I assume both. It was played as a suicide attempt, and I assume that people don't just kill themselves by lying face-down in a pool without some medicinal help.
Robert Conrad?
Interesting twist, that he's blackmailing the daughter rather than the customer.
Samantha was never the customer. Louise was the one who went to the dating service.
Do the recordings ever expire, or are they there potentially forever?
Potentially forever, I guess. I've still got stuff in there that I recorded in 2017.
