The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread

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70 Years Ago Last Year (Part 1)

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Wait, this is a thing now?

I was planning to get some '50s retro going in some fashion somewhere down the line. That I have so little material in my collection for this early a point actually works in our favor for easing into it gently...with seasonal posts for the time being, though I have a bit of catching up to do to get to the actual 70th anniversary point.

Timeline entries are quoted from Wiki pages for the year or month; while stuff like the section immediately below, falling between timeline entries, is me talking.

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Noteworthy prime-time shows on the air in the 1949-1950 television season include Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town, Captain Video and His Video Rangers, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, the pre-Jackie Gleason Cavalcade of Stars, and The Lone Ranger in its debut season:

The decade's signature morning children's program, The Howdy Doody Show, is entering its fourth year on the air, having started in 1947.

Recently premiered movies as we enter 1950 include Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne; Samson and Delilah, directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature; and Twelve O'Clock High starring Gregory Peck.


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January 3, 1950 – Sun Studio opened at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee.

January 5 – President Truman said in a press conference that "The United States government will not pursue a course which will lead to involvement in the civil conflict in China", and that American policy would be to not intervene to save the island of Taiwan from conquest by the Communist government of mainland China.

January 6 – The UK recognizes the People's Republic of China; the Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with Britain in response.

January 7 – "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Gene Autry topped the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.

[Note that while 12-inch 33 rpm LPs were introduced in 1948, and 7-inch 45 rpm singles in 1949, 10-inch 78s were still the dominant format at this point.]

January 12 – U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivers his 'Perimeter Speech', outlining the boundary of U.S. security guarantees.

January 13 – Three days after the UN Security Council refused to let the Communist Chinese government exercise China's veto power, Ambassador Malik left indefinitely, saying that the U.S.S.R. would not participate in the Security Council as Nationalist representative T. F. Taiang remained at the table. The Soviet protest proved to be a blunder, in that the Soviets could have exercised their veto power when the Security Council voted on June 27, 1950, to send its forces to combat the North Korean invasion of South Korea in the Korean War.

January 14

• The prototype MiG-17 Fresco makes its maiden flight.
• "I Can Dream, Can't I?" by The Andrews Sisters hit #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.

January 17 – A gang of 11 thieves stole more than two million dollars from the headquarters of the Brinks Armored Car Company at 165 Prince Street in Boston, Massachusetts. A group of men, wearing Halloween masks, used keys to walk through five locked doors, walked into the counting room, tied up the employees at gunpoint, filled 14 bags with money and disappeared. The haul from the job, which took a year and a half to plan and 17 minutes to carry out, was $1,218,211.29 in cash and another $1,557,183.83 in checks, money orders and securities. The gang would be indicted in 1956, only five days before the statute of limitations on the robbery would have expired.

January 19 – Pebble in the Sky, the first novel for science fiction author Isaac Asimov, was published. Previously, all of Asimov's printed works had been short stories. One estimate places the number of fiction and non-fiction books written (or, in some cases, edited) by Asimov at 506.

January 21

• Former U.S. State Department official, and accused Communist spy, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury by a federal jury in New York, based primarily on the testimony of former Communist, and TIME Magazine editor, Whittaker Chambers.
• Died: George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), 46, English novelist who wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, died of complications from tuberculosis after an illness of more than two years. The word "Orwellian" is now used to refer to policies or conditions of an authority similar to those described in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

January 23 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted 373-25 on a bill to make Alaska a state, and then approved a similar resolution on Hawaii by voice vote. The bill then moved to the U.S. Senate for consideration.

January 25 – Minimum wage in the United States was increased from 40 cents an hour to 75 cents an hour, the largest percentage increase (87.5 percent) in the wage ever. The amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act had been signed into law by U.S. President Truman on October 26, 1949. In 2016 terms, an 87.5% increase from $7.25 per hour would be $13.59 per hour.

January 27 – In Washington, the United States signed an individual mutual defense treaties with each of the member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The U.S. made separate agreements with Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom, where each nation pledged to come to the defense of the other in the event of a military attack.

January 29 – The French National Assembly voted 401-193 to approve limited self-government for the State of Vietnam, with the former Emperor Bao Dai designated as "head of state" rather than as a monarch. The French state largely controlled the South, while the Soviet-supported Democratic Republic of Vietnam controlled the North.

January 31

• U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb, after the Soviet Union had become the second nation to acquire the secret of the atomic bomb on August 29, 1949. "It is my responsibility as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces," Truman said in a public statement, "to see to it that our country is able defend itself against any possible aggressor. Accordingly, I have directed the Atomic Energy Commission to continue work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super bomb." The first thermonuclear explosion would take place on November 1, 1952 (a feat which the Soviets would duplicate ten months later on August 21, 1953). On March 1, 1954, the U.S. would detonate the first "H-bomb".
• The Soviet Union announced recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by North Vietnamese Communist Ho Chi Minh.

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January sees the release of the first charting single of a performer who will become one of the legendary trailblazers of a musical genre that's still in the womb at this point:

"The Fat Man," Fats Domino

(charts Feb. 1950; #2 R&B)

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February 1

• Chiang Kai-shek is re-elected as president of the Republic of China.
• U.S. President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 10104, adding another level of nondisclosure to United States government information. The first three levels ("restricted", "confidential" and "secret") were kept, but an even higher classification — "top secret" — was used for the first time.

February 2 – The game show What's My Line? began a 17-year run on the CBS television network, and would continue until September 3, 1967.

February 7 – The United States gave diplomatic recognition to the newly established French-supported governments in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia with the aim to help "the establishment of stable, non-Communist governments in areas adjacent to Communist China".

February 8 – A payment is first made by Diners Club card, in New York (the first use of a charge card).

February 9 – In a speech to the Ohio County Republican Women's Club at the McClure Hotel in Wheeling, West Virginia, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy opened the era of "McCarthyism" as he told listeners that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department. Underscoring his point, McCarthy held up a piece of paper and said, "While I cannot take the time to name all of the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205- a list of names that were known to the Secretary of State, and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping the policy in the State Department." The speech had been written by Ed Nellor of the Washington Times-Herald, whom McCarthy had approached to compose a short talk. Nellor had a list, obtained from Congressional staffer Robert Lee, of 57 State Department employees who were still being investigated by the House Appropriations Committee as possible security risks.

February 11 – "Rag Mop" by The Ames Brothers hit #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.

February 12 – Albert Einstein warns that nuclear war could lead to mutual destruction.

February 13 – The U.S. Air Force loses a Convair B-36 bomber that carried a Mark 4 nuclear bomb off the west coast of Canada, and produces the world's first Broken Arrow [nuclear accident].

February 14 – The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China sign a mutual defense treaty (later terminated in 1979).

February 15 – Walt Disney released his 12th animated film, Cinderella, with a premiere in Boston, followed on February 22 in other major cities. The very successful film marked a "profitable return to the fairy tale" for Disney after losing money on Fantasia and Bambi.


February 18 – "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" by Red Foley topped the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.

February 23 – The British thriller film Stage Fright, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, and Richard Todd, was released.

February 25 – NBC premiered a 90-minute comedy variety show that was telecast live every Saturday night, with a different guest host each week and a regular cast of comedians. The program, originally called Saturday Night Revue, was soon called Your Show of Shows.

February 26 – Hungarian-American nuclear physicist Leó Szilárd appeared with other atomic scientists on the NBC Radio program University of Chicago Round Table, and first described the cobalt bomb, whose radioactive cobalt-60 fallout cloud could spread across the world and destroy all life on Earth.

March 1 – Klaus Fuchs was convicted of passing along American and British atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. After the 90 minute trial at the Old Bailey court in London, Fuchs was sentenced by Lord Chief Justice, Baron Goddard, to 14 years in prison.

March 8 – The first Volkswagen Type 2 (also known as the Microbus) rolls off the assembly line in Wolfsburg, Germany.

March 9 – The first successful American science fiction television show, Space Patrol, began, as a 15-minute afternoon series about adventures in the 30th century, on a Los Angeles station KECA-TV (now KABC-TV). On December 30, it would be picked up nationally by the ABC Television network and run for four seasons.

March 14 – The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives Program was introduced, with bank robber and murderer Thomas James Holden as the first person on the list. As of 2012, 497 persons had been listed, of which 456 had been located--154 of whom had been arrested after ordinary citizens had recognized someone from the list.

March 18 – "Music! Music! Music!" by Teresa Brewer topped the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.

March 19 – Died: Edgar Rice Burroughs, 74, American author who created the Tarzan series in 1912

March 23 – Beat the Clock, an American television game show that required its contestants to accomplish various stunts within 60 seconds, was first telecast, appearing on the CBS network.

March 24 – In an unprecedented honor for an American poet, the United States Senate unanimously approved a resolution honoring Robert Frost on his 75th birthday, noting, in part, that he had "given the American people a long series of stories and lyrics which are enjoyed, repeated, and thought about by people of all ages and callings".

March 25 – Died: Frank Buck, 66, American "collector of wild animals" and author of Bring 'Em Back Alive.

March 29

• The first public demonstration of the RCA system for color television, the all electronic tri-color picture tube, was made at a press conference in Washington, DC. The RCA system would eventually be accepted by the Federal Communications Commission, rather than a competing system designed by CBS, and would become the standard for broadcasting.
• Washington Post editorial cartoonist Herblock introduced the word "McCarthyism" in a cartoon showing the GOP Elephant asking "You mean I'm supposed to stand on that?".

March 31 – The comedy-drama film Cheaper by the Dozen starring Clifton Webb, Jeanne Crain and Myrna Loy premiered in New York.

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Maybe...and if it's an authentic Cheyenne saying, then it'd go back a lot further than that.

You may wanna give it a try. Don't know if you get Movies!, but they're still showing it.

 

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50th Anniversary Viewing Revisited

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Hogan's Heroes
"Klink for the Defense"
Originally aired February 7, 1971

Hogan's motivated to help Hauptmann because he's an intel source. They meet about getting him to England at what appears to be the same lookout cabin that will be used in the finale, and he's captured by the Gestapo right after Hogan leaves through the window. Hogan gains info from Schultz about Hauptmann being held and tried at the stalag with the help of candy bars from newly arrived Red Cross packages. Burkhalter, who's serving as the prosecutor, picks Klink as the defense consul to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, since he hates Klink. Hochstetter is pleased with this choice, thinking that Hauptmann doesn't have a chance. Hogan specifically needs to persuade Hauptmann to share the location of a map (which is hidden on the inside window shade of the cabin), so he gets Newkirk in to help Klink...persuading Klink that he needs to do his best for his own sake because Hauptmann's a German war hero. They learn from Klink that his office safe is full of evidence against Hauptmann, which he's not allowed to see. LeBeau gets into Klink's safe and the prisoners use a makeshift recording machine to tamper with recordings made by Hauptmann's secretary, Fraulein Hibbler (Lynette Mettey), who's a Gestapo agent. The prisoners have Klink accuse Hibbler of actually being a British double agent, which one of the doctored recordings supports, getting Hauptmann off.

DIS-missed!

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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 23, episode 20
Originally aired February 7, 1971
As represented in The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show

This is the one with the Pips in their now-infamous Merry Men outfits. Their lead number in the Best of edit is a more faithful, if not particularly inspired, cover of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" than Aretha's version.

Klein's routine is about going to the dentist; the YouTube clip shows a fuller version than the Best of edit:

Who gives a damn if it's a family show, it's about to go off the air anyway! Gladys & the Merry Pips put a little more oomph into their current hit (which we only have a short clip of):


And that's the last bit of 50th anniversary Sullivan business that I've got.

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Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Season 4, episode 21
Originally aired February 8, 1971

When Dinah is introduced at the beginning of the episode, she gracefully walks offstage and out the exit to a waiting outdoor gag involving a motorcycle sidecar.

The cocktail party:


The regular Swizzlers skit.

Tyrone has Gladys over.

Edith Ann about children going to heaven.

Laugh-In looks at the Mod World of Working Girls, but I couldn't find a clip.

This week's Quickies.

The Fickle Fingle of Fate Flies to Florida.

The Joke Wall has an easily searchable theme:


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Ironside
"Escape"
Originally aired February 11, 1971

The episode opens with an unusual framing sequence of the Chief calling a reporter named Shaller (Len Wayland) to invite him to a wedding reception having to do with a successful case that they were both involved in. Shaller does the wavy flashback thing without the harps to recall how he was investigating the story of a suspect named Lonnie Burnett (Scott Glenn) who was let go by Ironside after being questioned in relation to a murder in San Francisco crime. Then Flashback Shaller calls Ironside to inform him that Burnett has been arrested as a suspect in another murder case in Central America. The Chief sends Ed and Eve to check it out while he and Mark work on another angle in the case. Eve is hesitant because she developed a sympathetic rapport with Burnett, who has issues but whom she doesn't think is a killer.

After they fly down to Santa Cruz, they find police captain Emilio Mercado (Nico Minardos) and his brother, Lt. Fernando Mercado (Cal Bellini), a little too happy and eager to assume that Burnett, a merchant seaman, is the man who murdered two women on a beach based on circumstantial evidence. His story is that he was picked up there while waiting for his girl, Teresa Delgado. Ed and Eve question her (Victoria Racimo), who's sure that he's innocent, though she didn't arrive at the beach until after he was arrested. Ed and Eve become interested in both Lonnie and Teresa remembering the presence of a late-night fisherman in a boat. Over dinner, Fernando warns them that proving Burnett innocent would be considered an embarrassment to his brother. They also run into an unscrupulous reporter with whom they're familiar, James B. Gerard (Robert Ellenstein); on the phone, the Chief warns them to steer clear of him to avoid giving him any ammo for his stories.

In private, Fernando confronts Emilio about having talked to the press too quickly, despite not having found the money and jewels stolen from the victims. Gerard approaches Teresa claiming that he can get Lonnie out of jail if she can get Burnett to talk to him. She and Lonnie both cooperate, despite warnings from Eve not to talk to Gerard. Ed and Eve learn that the Chief has gotten a confession for the San Francisco murder. Fernando brings in a fisherman, Juan Moreno (Nate Esformes), who suddenly had the money to pay off some debts after the murder, and agrees to have his house searched. Meanwhile, Burnett escapes from jail via bribery of a guard. Ed confronts Gerard about his involvement, and Gerard warns that if Ed and Eve find Burnett, they'll be leading their own local police tails to him.

Lonnie and Teresa hide out in the jungle--I think they used Ron Ely an episode too early. Lonnie is packing heat and has a big chip on his shoulder about getting pushed around. Gerard arranges for Lonnie and Teresa to get out on a fishing boat to a freighter headed for the States, but the police are on to them. Ed goes to Moreno's place to apologize for suspecting him and inform him that Burnett has escaped and is now considered the chief suspect. Ed and Eve then follow Moreno, enlisting the aid of Ed's tail. Believing the coast is clear, he leads them to where he stashed the loot under a dock and is arrested by the tailing officer. Emilio considers his face to have been saved, but there's still the matter of Burnett's escape. The local police nab Gerard in his fishing boat, but when Lonnie finds himself surrounded, he doesn't believe that they now consider him to be in the clear, thinking it's a trap. Eve talks Lonnie down from doing anything stupid.

The episode wavily returns to the present, repeating the framing bit at the beginning, then cutting to Lonnie and Teresa as guests at the Cave.

This was an odd one...it seemed a bit more B-grade than the next episode.

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Adam-12
"Log 165: Once a Cop"
Originally aired February 11, 1971

Reed and Malloy make the unusual move of parking the car in an alley to go on foot patrol. While looking in a store window, they see a man across the street collapse. The man, a bum named Sam, has been stabbed, and a friend, Bill White (William Benedict), claims that he saw an ex-cop named Jack Donohoe do it. The officers go with Det. Sgt. Stone (Robert Patten) to pay a visit to Donohue (Leo Gordon) in his fleabag lodgings. We learn that Donohoe was a vice cop who was removed from the force after shooting an unarmed suspect. While displaying a big chip on his shoulder regarding his former colleagues, Donohoe claims that he found Sam and was trying to help him. Donohoe is arrested and taken in for questioning.

Next the officers respond to a 451 call involving the firing of a gun in a courtyard at Union Station. There they find a girl shooting up a phone booth. She identifies herself as Ada Hays (Katie O'Pace) from Missouri, and explains that she was taking out her issues with a crooked agent who lured her to L.A. on the booth. They let her stop by her locker and she finds that a supposed good Samaritan who helped put her luggage in there has ripped her off. She tells the officers that her pet rattlesnake was in her suitcase, though it's supposed to have been recently defanged. Ada's agent, Phil Duke (Shelley Berman), shows up to bail her out, seeing the publicity from this incident as her big break. She's skeptical, and seems receptive to Malloy's alternative suggestion that she call her father, but decides to give Duke a chance rather than return home in failure.

Donohoe is released after Sam revives and describes who stabbed him. The officers drop Donohoe off, he expresses an interest in going after the agent and/or the snake, and Malloy warns him not to play vigilante, alluding to other incidents that Donohoe has been involved in. Reed and Malloy are enjoying a code seven, having just learned that the suitcase with the snake was found, when they hear a call come in about a 459 suspect in the vicinity of Union Station. They proceed there, spot him, and pursue on foot. The suspect (Robert Bruce Lang) pulls a gun and takes some shots at them, then resumes attempting to flee but is cornered. Donohoe listens from nearby as Reed returns to the car to call for backup. Malloy convinces the suspect to slide his gun toward him and surrender, but as the suspect is coming out from behind cover with his hands up, Donohoe pops up and takes a shot at him. Reed calls out in time for the suspect to hit the pavement, and Donohoe is arrested while ranting about how they've got to kill him, kill him, KILL HIM!

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The Partridge Family
"They Shoot Managers, Don't They?"
Originally aired February 12, 1971

The episode opens with Reuben going to the Partridge home to complain about how a woman made a public spectacle of throwing herself at him because Danny, as it turns out, told her that Reuben could get her into show biz...Danny being motivated by the family's perception that Reuben could use companionship.

After the credits, we see Reuben hooking up with a more mature woman named Cathleen D'Arcy (Nancy Malone) when they're both guests at a Partridge cookout. A montage sequence of romancing ensues set to "She'd Rather Have the Rain":

Following this, Reuben and Cathleen announce that they're planning to get married and honeymoon in Paris. Then Reuben regretfully informs the family that his married lifestyle will involve applying his business talents in the more stable environment of Cathleen's cosmetics company. In discussing not being able to stay rooted at home and travel and around the country with the Partridges, he makes a reference to Plastic Man.

Reuben handles some last booking arrangements and says goodbye to the kids. The family then heads to Seattle, where they immediately have issues with their hotel room being too small, the sound system being inadequate, and their gig being of an unsuitable length for the children. Danny makes a call to Reuben via Cathleen's car phone while the couple are on a date in front of the Makeout Point backdrop. Reuben immediately goes into hardball manager mode, making it clear that part of him is still with the band. Then he shows up in Seattle, initially giving them a story of how Cathleen fell into an inheritance that stipulated she could never marry...but admits to Shirley that the breaking point came when Cathleen made comments about Reuben's life with the Partridges indicating that she didn't like children.

In the coda, Reuben returns home with the family on the bus, having trouble adjusting to their on-the-road lifestyle again. Danny makes a crack about his honeymoon with them being over.

Maybe a beat was lost in Antenna's editing, but this one seemed like its main situation was in and out way too quickly...like a quarter-hour LAS segment padded out to fill a half-hour slot.

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That Girl
"Chef's Night Out"
Originally aired February 12, 1971

After seeing her parents off on a flight to Miami Beach, Ann calls her father's restaurant for a routine matter and learns that the maître d’ is out sick. Ann wants to go handle things for her father, but feels that because he's a man, Donald should act as maître d'...leading to a novel "This Man" freeze frame. Frankie (Tom D'Andrea), apparently a regular waiter, has been filling in as maître d'. He thinks that Donald has ambitions to take over the restaurant, and kisses up to him accordingly. Ann and Donald go to crash at the Marie house to find that Laura (Jane Connell) has a gaudily dressed boyfriend named Marvin (Al Molinaro) over. Who's Laura? Suddenly, in the eleventh hour, the Maries have a live-in maid whom we've never seen before! There are stories in which she certainly would have come up as a plot point, like when Ann stayed there alone and got locked in the basement. Maybe she just found them after they abandoned her in Fenwick! I can only imagine that this beat was only put in to fill time, as it otherwise serves no purpose in the story.

Back at the restaurant, Donald has to awkwardly mix a salad at a table, because it's something that the maître d' does, even though he doesn't know what he's doing. Donald discovers that Ann overbooked the reservations, not realizing that the book had more spots than the restaurant has tables; and Frankie reports that the chef, Pierre (Louis De Farra), has also fallen ill. Ann gets the idea of enlisting Lew's retired former chef, Andre (Leon Belasco). Frankie isn't crazy about this, but won't say why. Andre turns out to be more concerned with hitting the sauce than cooking, so Donald has to fire him before he even starts working; then he and Ann tend to the cooking. After some awkwardness, Donald takes charge and comes up with a new arrangement...ordering out to chicken and pizza places and having it snuck in the back door. The evening ends up going well, and for the following evening, Ann has the idea of cooking a Hungarian dish that she considers her specialty and passing it off as a theme night.

In the coda, Donald goes to Ann's for dinner, she pretends to be serving him at a restaurant, and it turns into a bit of role-play for them.

"Oh, Donald" count: 9
"Oh, Laura" count: 1

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Love, American Style
"Love and the Baker's Half Dozen / Love and the New Roommate / Love and the Rug / Love and the Second Time"
Originally aired February 12, 1971

In "Love and the Baker's Half Dozen," Henry (Alan Sues) is a marriage-jaded baker who's separated from his wife, Helen (Susan Oliver), and being threatened by her hardhat brother, Burt (Richard X. Slattery), to pay up on an informal alimony arrangement. To that end, Henry tries to pressure a customer, Susan Parkins (Susan Howard), to pay for the cake that she ordered, even though her wedding is off. Her fiance, John (Dick Patterson), comes in with the woman he's now seeing, Joan (Laraine Stephens), so Henry tries to persuade them to buy the cake, which leads to some friction between the couple about how soon they'll be getting married. Henry learns that Joan's former fiance, George (Joey Forman), is the ultimate cause of the Susan/John/Joan triangle--Joan having started seeing John again after George dumped her--so Henry has George brought in, and it turns out that Helen is George's current girlfriend. When it comes out that Helen broke up with Henry because he was spending too much time at the bakery, the others encourage her to work there part-time to patch up their marriage. When they agree to this, George makes up with Joan, John makes up with Susan, and Burt accidentally falls on the cake, meaning that he now has to pay for it. The punctuation of the triple reconciliation is a mixed-gender pie fight, with Henry and Helen coming out unscathed.

"Love and the New Roommate" involves Linda (Debbie Watson) and Bob (Christopher Connelly), a college couple who haven't told their parents that they're married because they're each getting an expense allowance. When Linda's mom (Eve Arden) comes to visit, Linda's nerdy friend Doris (Kelly Jean Peters) has to pretend that she's Linda's roommate. Her unfamiliarity with the apartment, and Linda's mom finding various signs of Bob's residency, leads Doris, who laughs impulsively when she lies, to pretend that she lives in the closet, wears a man's suit, and smokes cigars. Meanwhile, Doris's mom (Elaine Shore) shows up at Doris's while Bob's staying there. Thinking she's Linda's mom, Bob confesses to his marriage, leading her to believe that he's married to Doris. Bob brings Doris's mom to Linda's and a lot of confusion ensues, which is eventually straightened out. Doris's mom is disappointed that Bob isn't Doris's husband, while Linda's mom's impression of her surprise son-in-law isn't helped by the fact that he's wearing Doris's robe. Doris's mom sits Linda's mom down for a talk to convince her that Linda being married to Bob is a good thing: "I was proud to have Bob for a son-in-law, and you should be, too!" Then Linda's nerdy brother, Armand (Todd Susman), arrives; seeing a matchmaking opportunity, Doris's mom invites everyone over to Doris's for dinner.

In "Love and the Second Time," a young woman named Susan (Elaine Giftos) drops in on a young man named Rob (Murray MacLeod) at three in the morning because her mother and his father haven't returned from a date. Then the parents, Archie Benjamin and Edith Swope (Jack Albertson and Joan Bennett; I have to wonder about those character names, All in the Family having been a brand-spanking-new midseason replacement show at this point) come home and announce that they're getting married. The kids try to talk some sense into their parents; then Rob's grandpa (Robert Cummings, made up to look older than he was and effecting those stereotypical old man mannerisms) comes out of his room and talks some sense into the kids about the wonders of love and not letting their parents grow old lonely, which warms them up the situation.

Once again, a segment with Bill Bixby ("Love and the Rug") is skipped in the syndicated episodes.

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DAY-UMN!

Alas, 60 Years Ago This Week is now pretty close to where I started 55 Years Ago This Week, so we'll have to take the scenic route to 1961.

I've never seen the likes of Captain Video or Space Patrol in my life. The Lone Ranger, OTH, goes way back.

Hold that thought, I may put together a side-post when I get the chance of some pre-1950 examples of rockin' and rollin'...

Yeah, I was surprised to read that as well.

 

Pre-1950 Music Spotlight

All of these numbers are listed as examples on the "Origins of rock and roll" Wiki page, and all except "Rock Awhile" are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

"Caldonia," Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five

(Released Apr. 1945; charted May 26, 1945; #6 US; #1 R&B; Genre: Jump Blues)

"Good Rockin' Tonight," Wynonie Harris

(Released Apr. 1948; #1 R&B; Jump Blues)

"Boogie Chillen'," John Lee Hooker

(Released Nov. 1948; #1 R&B; Blues)

"Rock Awhile," Goree Carter

(Released May 1949; Blues)

"Saturday Night Fish Fry," Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five

(Released Sept. 1949; charted Oct. 22, 1949; #21 US; #1 R&B; Jump Blues)

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That caught my attention, too.

That's not a bad idea.

Yep, yep, and yep.

Yeah, that was kind of underwhelmingly random.

Now that you mention it...

I miss my title card screencaps. Ann tells Donald that being maître d' is a man's job; Donald says, "Not this man"; and the joke logo flips and turns into the normal one.

I just went back and checked "That Metermaid," as it was in the season that I bought to watch. There's a reason that I associated the maid with that episode beyond being another conspicuous bit of Marie family business that they pulled out of their nether regions: the Maries actually had a maid in Fenwick, though it was a different one. I was under the impression at the time that she was just there to fill in for Mrs. Marie, who wasn't in the episode. I can't recall that we've ever seen them with a maid in Brewster...never mind that they acted like we were supposed to recognize this one. At first I assumed that she was a neighbor watching the house. Insert sci-fi/horror gag explaining what's up with the Maries' occasionally appearing maids.

Note that Susan Howard was also a Trek guest...Mara the Klingon.

I thought you'd enjoy that.

I wonder if there was some last-minute part-switching involved. Jack Albertson, who played Archie, was a little bit older, and looked like he'd have been more convincing playing the Grandpa character. (And Burt Mustin was otherwise engaged on the following week's Adam-12.)

Hope you get that worked out to your satisfaction.

 

It's hard not to hear the Little Richard in "Caldonia," or the Chuck Berry in "Rock Awhile". "Saturday Night Fish Fry" is a particular favorite from this era...it just has so much character.

 

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70 Years Ago Last Year (Part 2)

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Timeline entries are quoted from Wiki pages for the month or year. Sections separated from timeline entries are mine.

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April 1, 1950 – The 1950 United States Census was taken. After seven months of tabulation, the population on that day was announced to have been 150,697,361. The population sixty years later (April 1, 2010) would be more than doubled, at 308,745,538.

April 3 – The standard ratio for the dimensions of television receivers was set at 4:3 (with the length of the screen being 4/3 of the height) after originally having been 5:4, and would remain the standard for nearly half a century. With the advent of digital television, the ratio would be changed to the wider 16:9 dimensions.

April 15 – "If I Knew You Were Comin' (I'd've Baked a Cake)" by Eileen Barton hit #1 on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.

April 27 – Britain formally recognises Israel.

April 29 – "The Third Man Theme" by Anton Karas topped the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart for the first of eleven consecutive weeks.

May 1 – The town of Mosinee, Wisconsin, was the site of a mock Communist takeover, staged by the local American Legion outpost to illustrate what life under Soviet conquest might be like. Benjamin Gitlow, who had twice been the vice-presidential candidate for the Communist Party USA (in 1924 and 1928), before renouncing Communism, played the role of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the "United Soviet States of America", while another former Communist, Joseph Zack Kornfeder, assisted as the new Commissar of the town, renamed "Moskva" in the exercise. A Soviet flag flew in front of the American Legion outpost. Mayor Ralph E. Kronenwetter, who had participated in the mock coup by allowing himself to be "arrested", suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that evening, and died six days later at the age of 49, while another participant, Reverend William L. Bennett, died the day after Kronenwetter.

May 4 – The science fiction short story fixup The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury was published.

May 6 – Elizabeth Taylor, 18-year-old movie starlet, went through the first of eight weddings, with a ceremony at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, California. The groom was 23-year-old Conrad Hilton Jr., heir to the $125,000,000 hotel empire.

May 9 – L. Ron Hubbard first published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

May 11 – The McMinnville UFO photographs, among the most famous photos purported of an unidentified flying object were taken by Paul Trent, a farmer near McMinnville, Oregon, after his wife spotted a flying disc. Trent developed the pictures, showed them to a local banker who placed them on display, and a reporter for the McMinnville Telephone Register ran the story after inquiring, and the photos would appear later in LIFE Magazine. "Skeptics found nothing to disparage the Trents' integrity," it would be written 48 years later, "and no financial motive for having faked UFO pictures."

May 14 – The Huntsville Times runs the headline "Dr. von Braun Says Rocket Flights Possible to Moon."

May 17 – The musical comedy film Annie Get Your Gun, starring Betty Hutton and based on the 1946 stage musical of the same name, premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City.


May 18 – The comedy film Father of the Bride starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

May 25 – The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel is formally opened to traffic in New York City.

May 27

• The Journal of the American Medical Association published its first articles showing a link between cigarette smoking and an increased risk of lung cancer.
• Gasoline rationing came to an end in the United Kingdom after nearly eleven years, one day after British Fuel Minister Philip Noel-Baker declared that the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now Exxon) would supply more fuel if rationing ceased. The limitations on sales had begun after September 3, 1939, the day of Britain's entry into World War II.

May 29 – St. Roch, the first ship to make a circumnavigation of North America, arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, from where it had started on July 15, 1944. The ship traversed the Northwest Passage and the Panama Canal in a voyage of more than 15,000 miles. Although the actual sailing time was only 137 days, the ship, owned by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, had layovers throughout the Arctic portion of the trip to bring supplies to remote RCMP outposts.

June 1 – Guam was given the status of a United States Territory, and all of its residents were granted U.S. citizenship.

June 3 – Annapurna, at 26,545 feet (8,091 m) feet the tenth highest mountain in the world, was first ascended by the French Annapurna expedition to become the highest peak climbed (and the first 8,000-metre peak climbed) up to that time. The flag of France was planted on the summit by Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal. Both Herzog and Lachenal, who made the climb without bottled oxygen and refused to turn back in spite of the onset of frostbite, lost all of their toes, and Herzog lost all of his fingers as well.

June 14 – U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief Far East, submitted his "Memorandum on Formosa" to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in order to persuade the Truman Administration not to abandon the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan. MacArthur wrote that "Formosa in the hands of the Communists can be compared to an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender ideally located to accomplish Soviet offensive strategy and at the same time checkmate counteroffensive operations by the United States Forces based on Okinawa and the Philippines."

June 17 – The first human organ transplant in history was performed at the Little Company of Mary Hospital, in the Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park, Illinois. The surgery was performed by a team led by Dr. Richard M. Lawler. Ruth Tucker, of Jasper, Indiana, received a kidney from an unidentified woman who had died an hour earlier from cirrhosis of the liver, and would survive for five more years after the operation.

June 20 – The fastest electronic computer up to that time, SEAC (Standards Electronic Automatic Computer), went into operation for the U.S. National Bureau of Standards.

June 22

• David Greenglass, a technician with the Oak Ridge and Los Alamos facilities in the American nuclear program, was arrested and charged with spying for the Soviet Union. He implicated his sister and her husband (Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg), as the persons who recruited him to the espionage. He agreed to testify against both of them, and would draw a reduced prison sentence. His wife, Ruth Greenglass, was never charged despite being identified as a Soviet agent. Greenglass would be released in 1960, and live until 2014. His sister and brother-in-law would be executed in 1953.
• The Walt Disney live-action adventure film Treasure Island starring Bobby Driscoll and Robert Newton had its world premiere in London.

June 25 – The Korean War began at 4:00 in the morning KST (June 24 – 7pm UTC), South Korean army bases near the border with North Korea, at Yeoncheon, came under fire without warning. After 45 minutes of shelling, North Korean troops invaded with six infantry divisions, an armored brigade and three border brigades coming across the 38th parallel. With many of their personnel on weekend leave, the four South Korean divisions in the area were quickly overwhelmed, and the invaders proceeded toward the South Korean capital of Seoul, 40 miles to the south.


June 27 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered warships of the United States Seventh Fleet to assist South Korean forces in their resistance of the North Korean invasion. At the same time, President Truman ordered the Seventh Fleet to the coast of Communist China in order to prevent an attack upon the Nationalist Chinese outpost on the island of Taiwan, reversing his previous decision not to intervene in the Chinese Civil War.


June 28

• The bombing of the Hangang Bridge was carried out by the South Korean Army as hundreds of refugees were still fleeing across it, in an effort to prevent invading North Korean troops from advancing any further. As the North Korean Army approached the Han River, engineers of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army of South Korea had rigged explosives. In the meantime, South Korean civilians and soldiers were fleeing across to avoid being trapped behind enemy lines. Detonation of the bombs at the main bridge, at Hangang, had been set for 1:30 a.m. General Kim Pak Il, the ROK Deputy Chief of Staff, delayed the blast for 45 minutes, but at 2:15 a.m., the blast order was given, destroying two spans of the Hangang Bridge and dropping thousands of persons in a 75-foot plunge to the river, killing at least 500 people; a railroad bridge across the river remained standing, however. The ROK Chief Engineer, Choi Chang-sik, would be blamed for the mistake and executed. North Korean forces captured Seoul at noon, three days and eight hours after the invasion began.
• Seoul National University Hospital massacre: North Korean troops kill around 800 medical staff and patients.
• Bodo League massacre begins: South Korean armed forces and police summarily execute at least 100,000 suspected North Korean sympathizers.

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June also brings us the release of the second-oldest song on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (#459), which is also listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll:

"Rollin' Stone," Muddy Waters


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Yep.

Electric blues of this era is the stuff that inspired a lot of major '60s musicians...your god among them.

For once, that's the idea!

Fair enough.

How so?

 

55 Years Ago This Week

May 12

• African members of the UN Security Council say that the British army should blockade Rhodesia.
• The Busch Memorial Stadium opens in St Louis, Missouri.
• Radio Peking claims that U.S. planes have shot down a Chinese plane over Yunnan (the U.S. denies the story the next day).

May 14

• Across the United States, more than 400,000 college students took the draft deferment examination, given at 1,200 colleges and universities, in order to be exempted from being drafted into the United States military during the Vietnam War, while anti-war demonstrations took place outside many of the testing centers. Students were allowed three hours to answer 150 questions in order to see whether they could retain their 2-S draft classification; out of 1.8 million students who were 2-S, one million had registered for the test, which would be repeated on May 21, June 3 and June 24, and the test score and class rank would be evaluated by local draft boards.
• Turkey and Greece intend to start negotiations about the situation in Cyprus.

Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

Leaving the chart:

• "Caroline, No," Brian Wilson (7 weeks)
• "Frankie and Johnny," Elvis Presley (8 weeks)
• "Somewhere," Len Barry (8 weeks)
• "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)," The Isley Brothers (12 weeks)
• "What Now My Love," Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (8 weeks)

Re-entering the chart:

"Louie Louie," The Kingsmen
(originally charted Nov. 9, 1963, reaching #2 US, #1 R&B, #26 UK; reaches #97 this run; #55 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time)


Recent and new on the chart:

"Come On Let's Go," The McCoys

(Apr. 23; #22 US)

"Mama," B. J. Thomas

(#22 US)

"Girl in Love," The Outsiders

(#21 US)

"Green Grass," Gary Lewis & The Playboys

(#8 US)

"Paint It Black," The Rolling Stones

(#1 US the weeks of June 11 and 18, 1966; #1 UK; #174 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time)

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Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki pages for the month or year.

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The US is relatively stable in comparison.

The songs that were topping the chart at this point certainly do provide a vivid contrast to the musical innovations that were brewing in what was reportedly referred to as "race music".

Yeah, I was wondering what was up with that.

I'm not much of a blues man...I like the more upbeat stuff myself.

My ex retired last year, but she was overdue. She's unable to do the sorts of things she'd pictured herself doing because of the pandemic, but is still outspokenly happy to be not working.

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ETA: Talk about silly extremes of censorship...MeTV is playing a Perry Mason with Liam Sullivan as a character named Dickie. Every time somebody says his name, the closed captioning reads "XXXXIE".

 

50 Years Ago This Week

May 8 – Mariner 8 fails to launch.

May 9

• Arsenal FC beats Liverpool F.C. 2–1 to win the English FA Cup, thus completing the league and cup 'double'.
• The Emmy Awards were held in Los Angeles. All in the Family won the award for Outstanding Comedy Series, The Flip Wilson Show was the Outstanding Variety show, and The Bold Ones: The Senator won as the best drama. Best acting awards went to comedians Jack Klugman and Jean Stapleton, and to Hal Holbrook and Susan Hampshire. The award for most outstanding single performance by an actor went to George C. Scott, who had rejected his Academy Award for Patton, but announced that he was pleased to accept the Emmy Award.

May 11 – Dallas restaurant operator Mariano Martinez invented the process that would make the frozen margarita "America's most popular cocktail". Adapting a soft-serve ice cream machine to hold gallons of pre-made frozen margarita mix, Martinez was able to serve margaritas that evening as soon as they were ordered, eliminating the process where each individual drink had to be made in a blender.

May 12

• An earthquake in Turkey destroys most of the city of Burdur.
• British musician Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones married Bianca Perez Morena de Macías of Nicaragua in Saint-Tropez, France, in a Roman Catholic ceremony. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and their wives were among the wedding guests.

May 15 – Efraim Elrom, Israeli ambassador to Turkey, is kidnapped; he is found killed in Istanbul May 25.


Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

Leaving the chart:

• "Me and Bobby McGee," Janis Joplin (15 weeks)
• "No Love at All," B.J. Thomas (11 weeks)
• "She's a Lady," Tom Jones (14 weeks)
• "Wild World," Cat Stevens (13 weeks)

New on the chart:

"Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again," The Fortunes

(#15 US; #8 AC; #51 UK)

"Double Lovin'," The Osmonds

(#14 US)

"She's Not Just Another Woman," 8th Day

(#11 US; #3 R&B)

"Rainy Days and Mondays," Carpenters

(#2 US; #1 AC; #52 UK)

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Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki pages for the month or year.

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Oddly necessary in my collection, as I was surprised to discover that I don't have the Ritchie Valens original...no doubt because it was sub-Top 40 in its time. Maybe I should make an exception and rectify that. (A cover by Tommy Steele made the Top 10 in the UK.)

Sweet, but not my cup of tea musically.

Nothing makes Mama cry like a wedding. Wait, it's off? Well, at least you can't accuse the Outsiders of resorting to the ol' soundalike sequel single.

It's like we have a seasonal theme going this week.

Complete with a song that I never realized seems to be about a dead girlfriend. Anyway, them Stones boys is really coming along, ain't they?

As somebody once famously said...you ain't heard nothin' yet!

No doubt...but I think they'd X out the "y," too.

 

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70 Years Ago Last Year (Part 3)

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Timeline entries are quoted from Wiki pages for the month or year. Sections separated from timeline entries are mine.

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July 1, 1950 – The 8055th M.A.S.H. became the first Mobile Army Surgical Hospital to be activated in South Korea. On July 6, its physicians, nurses and support staff would be sent from Sasebo to Pusan, initially to be set up at Taejon. It was followed by the 8063rd M.A.S.H. (often referenced in the television show M*A*S*H), which was activated July 17 and sent on July 18 to Pohang to support the U.S. 1st Cavalry, and the 8076th M.A.S.H. (activated July 19, and sent to Taejon on July 25).

July 3 – The Hazel Scott Show made its debut on the DuMont Television Network, becoming the first television program to be hosted by an African-American woman. Singer Hazel Scott appeared live on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings from 7:45 pm to 8:00 pm Eastern Time on DuMont stations.

July 8 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman named General Douglas MacArthur as commanding general of the United Nations forces in Korea.

July 14

• The Battle of Taejon began as forces of the U.S. Army attempted to defend the headquarters of the 24th Infantry Division.
• Christian evangelist Billy Graham prayed in the White House with U.S. President Harry S. Truman, the first of many meetings that Graham would have with American presidents. Graham would meet with every American president over the next 60 years.

July 15 – "Mona Lisa" by Nat King Cole topped the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.


July 17 – Julius Rosenberg, 32, was arrested at his 11th floor Manhattan apartment on 10 Monroe Street, while the family was listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio. Rosenberg had been fired in 1945 as civilian inspector for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and had been identified by his brother-in-law, David Greenglass, as a spy. Ethel Rosenberg, the wife of Julius and David's sister, would be arrested on August 11. On March 21, 1951, the Rosenbergs would be convicted of espionage; both would be executed in the electric chair on June 19, 1953. Although there was doubt about their guilt, former Soviet spy Alexander Feklisov would claim, in 1997, having had fifty meetings with Rosenberg.

July 20

• The U.S. Senate voted 45-37 to accept a report by the Tydings Committee (chaired by U.S. Senator Millard Tydings). The report denounced accusations of Communist infiltration in the federal government, made by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. The vote followed party lines, with all Democrats in favor, and all Republicans against. During the debate on the bill, Senator Tydings of Maryland said of McCarthy's charges, "What a farce this has been. What a hoax, what fraud, what deceit for a senator from Wisconsin to go to West Virginia and state there are 205 card-carrying Communists in the State Department... and then overnight to reduce the number to 57 and then come back to the Senate and make the same speech, paragraph by paragraph, with that one paragraph changed."
• The South Korean city of Taejon fell to the North Korean invasion, leaving the area south of the Naktong River as the only part of the peninsula not under Communist control.

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In 1950, the Golden Age of Comics is on the wane, and superheroes are becoming an endangered species. At National Periodicals, the cancellation of All-Flash and All-American Comics in 1948, and Green Lantern and Flash Comics in 1949, has deprived several of the line's surviving second-and-third-tier superheroes of their individual features. The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite, and Black Canary continue to appear in print only as members of the Justice Society of America, alongside Wonder Woman, in All-Star Comics.


Timely's premiere superheroes, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, fell out of publication in 1949. That year also saw Captain America Comics rebranded as Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues before its cancellation with issue 75 (cover date Feb. 1950)...a horror/suspense anthology issue sans the title character. Nevertheless, Timely will introduce a new if short-lived superhero this year with Marvel Boy #1 (cover date Dec. 1950).

Major superheroes who continue to appear in their own books include National's Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, who will enjoy continual publication throughout the decade...and at this point, Fawcett's Captain Marvel still has a few years to go before he falls into comic book limbo. Superman, who spun off into multiple media early on, will reach a new milestone in the 1950s. Currently, in addition to appearing in multiple National publications, he's enjoying his own long-running comic strip and radio series...and July 20, 1950, kicks off his second movie serial, Atom Man vs. Superman, with Kirk Alyn (not credited by name) reprising his role as the first live-action Man of Steel:


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July 21

• The Battle of Taejon ended in tactical North Korean victory but a strategic U.S. victory as the 24th Infantry Division was able to delay the North Koreans long enough for other American divisions to establish a defensive perimeter around Pusan further south.
• The 24th U.S. Army Infantry, composed primarily of African-American soldiers, accomplished the first American victory in the Korean War, recapturing the Yecheon railway center from North Korean invaders.

July 23 – The Gene Autry Show premiered on CBS television, and would run for six seasons, until August 7, 1956.

July 24 – Cape Canaveral in Florida was used for the first time to launch a rocket. The U.S. Army sent the two-stage Bumper 8, which combined a German V-2 rocket and an American WAC Corporal rocket, to an altitude of 51,000 feet (16,000 m) in 83 seconds, then exploded it by remote control when it descended to 20,000 feet (6,100 m) 57 seconds later.

July 29 – In Bentonville, Arkansas, entrepreneur Sam Walton opened his first "self service" department store, "Walton's 5¢-10¢", after seeing the new concept in Minnesota, with customers picking their purchases off of open shelves rather than having them brought by a department clerk. From Bentonville, Walton would build a chain of 15 stores and then would create the Walmart chain on July 2, 1962. His company would have 1,960 stores at the time of his death in 1992, and more than 10,000 stores worldwide by 2013.

August 1 – Crusader Rabbit, the first animated TV series, debuts on television in the United States.

August 10 – The film noir Sunset Boulevard starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson was released.

August 12

• The Battle of the Bowling Alley began in a narrow valley north of Taegu.
• The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission issued its first book on safety in the event of a nuclear war, entitled The Effects of Atomic Weapons. Editor Joseph O. Hirschfelder wrote in the introduction that "Just as our ancestors learned to face the perils of cholera and smallpox epidemics, so must modern man learn to live with the man-made danger of atomic bomb attack." Advice included "duck and cover", advising that within one second after the flash of a bomb, to "fall flat and double up".

August 17 – In what would later be called the "Hill 303 massacre", 39 captured American soldiers were executed after being taken as prisoners of war by North Korea. Kim Qwong Toaek, the North Korean officer who had ordered the killing of the captives, was himself taken prisoner during a counterattack by U.S. soldiers, and identified by three survivors of the battle for control of the hill north of Waegwan, identified as #303 by military planners.

August 19

• The American cultural tradition, of Saturday morning television being set aside for children's programming, began with the premiere on the ABC network of two live shows, Animal Clinic and Acrobat Ranch.
• "Goodnight, Irene" by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers topped the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart for the first of thirteen consecutive weeks.

[Listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll]

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August also brings us the release of another entry on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list:

"We're Gonna Rock," Gunter Lee Carr (a.k.a. Cecil Gant)


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September 4 – The comic strip Beetle Bailey, created by Mort Walker, made its debut in 12 newspapers. In the first strip, "Beetle" began his first day as a student at "Rockview University", arriving with only his toothbrush. On March 12, 1951, Beetle would go to a U.S. Army recruiting station, begin a new career, and his strip would soar in popularity.

September 6 – Former librarian Beverly Cleary launched her career as a writer of popular children's fiction with the publication of Henry Huggins by the William Morrow Company, with illustrations by Louis Darling.

September 7 – The game show Truth or Consequences made its debut on the CBS television network at 10:00 pm Eastern Time, after having been a successful radio program.

September 9

• The "laugh track" was introduced to television viewers with the premiere of The Hank McCune Show, a situation comedy, on the NBC television network. Although the short-lived show was not filmed in front of an audience, viewers could hear laughter and applause coming from an invention by sound engineer Charley Douglass. The laugh track would become a feature of most television comedies of the next few decades.
• The U.S. state of California celebrates its centennial anniversary.

September 10 – The Colgate Comedy Hour premiered on the NBC television network as a direct competitor to Ed Sullivan's variety show on CBS (officially called Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town). The Colgate show, which alternated hosts each week among Eddie Cantor, Martin and Lewis (the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis), and Fred Allen, would run for six seasons, ending in 1955.

September 10 – The New York Times crossword puzzle proved to be so popular that the Times began running it daily. The newspaper had refused to run a crossword at all until February 15, 1942, when it began a puzzle in its Sunday edition, though the paper continued to avoid running comic strips.

September 15 – At 6:33 a.m., the 3rd Battalion of the 5th U.S. Marines, commanded by Lt. Col. Raymond L. Murray, became the first American invaders at Inchon Harbor, going ashore on Wolmido Island and quickly overwhelming the North Korean People's Army soldiers there. By midnight, there were 13,000 Marines on the west coast of the Korean peninsula, with a loss of only 21 Americans dead, compared to hundreds of NKPA soldiers. The city of Inchon would be liberated the next day and the Marines would proceed to the South Korean capital, Seoul. Masterminded by U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur, the Inchon landing was the beginning of the retaking of South Korea from its North Korean conquerors. The attack, combined with the UN forces' breakout from the Pusan Perimeter three days later, suddenly trapped the NKPA forces, concentrated in the south, behind enemy lines. The straits between the island and the mainland were dangerous, and navigation depended on predicting the time for high and low tides; one historian would write later, "As MacArthur had assumed, no one expected a landing there."

September 17 – A Miami Herald reporter whose stories were sometimes picked up by the Associated Press, E. V. W. Jones, published the first known press coverage to describe a pattern of disappearances in what would later be referred to as "The Bermuda Triangle". Jones titled his story "Sea's Puzzles Still Baffle Men In Pushbutton Age", and began with the recent news item about the April 6 disappearance of an American freighter, the Sandra, in the Caribbean Sea, and recounted other recent incidents. The illustration accompanying his story suggested a triangle with points at Bermuda, San Juan, Puerto Rico and Miami.

September 19 – At the opening of the fifth annual session of the United Nations General Assembly, the United States, United Kingdom and France sent word to the Soviet Union, that an attack by any nation on West Berlin, or on West Germany, would be considered an act of war against the three Western powers.

September 21 – For the first time, a helicopter was able to fly up and over the Alps mountain range, with a Bell 47 functioning at sufficient altitude in the thinner air.

September 24 – The word "brainwashing", an adaptation of the Chinese term hsi nao (literally, "mind cleansing"), first appeared in print. Edward Hunter had coined the term for his newspaper article about a manipulation tactic used in Communist China, headlined "'Brain-Washing' Tactics Force Chinese into Ranks of Communist Party" in the Miami Sunday News.

September 25 – Television transmission by a microwave relay system began between New York and Chicago, with A T & T technology replacing the prior system of repeater stations every 25 miles.

September 26 – The Second Battle of Seoul ended in United Nations victory as Seoul, the capital of South Korea, was recaptured from the North Korean Army a day after the 7th Division Infantry of the U.S. Marines overran North Korean defenses at South Mountain. The 17th Regiment of the South Korean Army crossed the Han River into Seoul, while the United States 8th Army was 40 miles away and closing in from the south.

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Yep. Sounds like the late '60s. That's not a bad thing.

I went into this willing to give the Osmonds another chance as a group, but while this is certainly better than that horrid Donny single (to set an extremely low bar), it's nothing but a soundalike of their previous single, which was them blatantly aping the Jacksons in the first place...so it's a copy of a copy! Two bad apples does spoil the bunch.

An obscuro, but one that I'd already had in my collection.

Her drum-playing certainly provides an incongruous visual for her gorgeous vocals.

It was his first single...and it only made #76 on the pop chart, but a more respectable #27 on the R&B chart.

First and foremost, though, it has a great sound.

 

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50th Anniversary Viewing Revisited

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Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Season 4, episode 22
Originally aired February 15, 1971

The cocktail party:


There's a segment of Dan & Dick giving Truman Capote a sit-down interview, but I couldn't find a clip.

A Whoopie Award to American women:


Clarence and Claire Voyant:


The closing Joke Wall:


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Ironside
"Love, Peace, Brotherhood and Murder"
Originally aired February 18, 1971

The episode opens with producer Richard Bonner (David Bailey) holding a presentation at the theater of his soon-opening play, "Love, Peace, and Brotherhood," to reassure the show's backers against the pressure being put on them by the Citizens for Decent Theater. The meeting takes place at the show's theater, with the intent of showing the backers a preview of the show and allowing them to meet its hip, hairy cast. Team Ironside is there because the Chief is one of the backers, having been roped into it by an old acquaintance. But a girl in the cast, Carol Fischer, is found dead of an overdose, though a doctor determines that this was her first time, making it unlikely that she killed herself. Thus the presentation makes way for a locked-theater mystery. The rest of the cast is searched, and one of them, Rhoda (Ella Edwards), discloses in advance that she has a needle on her, as she's a diabetic...but when Mark examines her kit, one of her needles is unaccounted for. It later turns up with traces of heroin on it.

Bonner tells Ironside that Fischer had a thing for him, which he kept on the down-low because he's married. His wife, Marge (Karen Arthur), is one of the backers, but they've been having problems. She knows about Fischer, and thinks that the whole play was a smokescreen for Richard having an affair with her. Another person of interest is Alfred Cummings (Robert Lipton), who was Carol's traveling companion and demonstration buddy. He asks to see Ironside while eating, then collapses at the table, from what another doctor determines was an insecticide, which he should have been able to taste in his food. Alfred is revived, and tells the Chief about Steve Colby, a med student in Chicago that he and Carol knew who was killed in a riot, after which Carol started getting threatening phone calls about it from his fiancee, a nursing student named Sylvia Morrison. The Chief chats with the cast member who made dinner for everybody, Sandy (Sally Struthers, wearing a shirt with a Superman emblem on it). She produces Alfred's personal jar of hot sauce, which could have masked the insecticide. The team determines that nurse Morrison has come up missing from Michigan; the Chief suspects that she's in the cast, as she would have had the skill for the techniques used against Carol and Alfred.

The Chief confronts the cast with what he knows, and Rhoda shares how she vaguely remembers somebody providing expert help on an occasion when she went into insulin shock, and that she specifically remembers Carol and Sandy also being there. Rhoda starts going into shock right after a shot, and it turns out somebody substituted water for her insulin. The team pulls her through and enlists her to do some acting for them. Ironside assembles the cast, and she pretends to go into shock then; a cst member named Kerry (Angel Tompkins) gives her some sugar, then acts surprised when Rhoda actually comes to, tipping off Ironside that she's the one. I knew it would be Kerry because of she was the second-billed guest, but hadn't come up prominently in the story yet; the only catch was that I hadn't caught which one she was.

In the coda, the team is getting ready to attend the premiere. Along the way, Marge and Richard have started to reconcile, and the Chief has intervened on the cast's behalf against both their hotel manager and the theater's landlord.

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Adam-12
"Log 76: Militants"
Originally aired February 18, 1971

As the officers respond to a nighttime call for an officer needing help, they find one unconscious at wheel, and the other, Officer Walt Barrett (Ron Pinkard), wounded on the ground. Barrett describes two suspects, both black, and is sure that he hit both. Searching the area on foot at the same time as other units, Reed and Malloy find a trail of blood, and a young, wounded man comes out of hiding and collapses in front of them. Malloy recognizes his uniform as that of the Brotherhood.

At the hospital, Mrs. Woods is told that her husband's fine (I'd have thought he was dead, but apparently he just didn't have any lines). In addition to the usual issues of being a policeman's wife, Nan Barrett (Pamela Jones) is angry that her husband was killed deliberately by one of his own people. The wounded suspect, Willie James, also dies. The Brotherhood arrives at the hospital to declare to the press that this was an act of genocide by the pigs. Kenneth James (Timothy Brown), an old school football pal of Reed's, arrives at the hospital after an anonymous call that didn't explain the situation. Reed has to break the news to Kenneth that his younger brother was killed. Kenneth can't believe that his brother was involved in a police ambush; and after he reads a newspaper story, he goes to the station to angrily confront Reed, believing the Brotherhood's account of the situation, which is supported by Willie having been shot in the back (while fleeing from a wounded officer). By this time, the other suspect involved in the incident, who's still at large, has been identified as a third James brother, Cleotis.

While the officers are on patrol during the day, a car speeds through a stop sign in the opposite direction. They pull over the driver (Burt Mustin), who boasts that it's his 75th birthday, and is then indignant that they're writing him his first ticket anyway, letting them know that he's been driving since the Model T. Malloy counters that he's just trying to help the man reach his 76th birthday.

Cleotis is reported to have been seen near the Brotherhood's HQ, so the officers drive to the location cautiously, suspecting a set-up. They find Kenneth there, his hands raised mockingly as he approaches them; then they spot the members of the Brotherhood on the porch of their HQ, packing heavy heat. Kenneth tries to goad them into facing the Brotherhood, and Reed tries to disillusion him about the Brotherhood's motives. The officers leave the scene, and come across Cleotis's parked car. Then Kenneth pulls up nearby and unknowingly leads them to Cleo's (Felton Perry) door. Kenneth tries to talk his brother into turning himself in; but when the officers come out of cover and order Cleo to freeze, he instead takes his brother hostage. Malloy taunts Cleo into admitting that he and Willie ambushed the police officers, not the other way around. When Cleo starts to aim his gun at the officers, Kenneth knocks him off balance and the officers use the opening to subdue him.

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The Partridge Family
"Partridge up a Pear Tree"
Originally aired February 19, 1971

When Keith is desperate to borrow some cash for his money-guzzling car, Danny makes him sign over power of attorney, making Danny Keith's business manager. On to a gig on a darkened stage with no visible audience, where the family plays "You Are Always on My Mind":


The arrangement proves to be very frustrating for Keith, as Danny keeps a tight reign on his finances in order to eventually pay off his existing debts to the others. To this end, Keith ends up having to take his GOTW, Carol (Annette O'Toole) to a kiddie matinee, bringing their own popcorn and candy. Carol gets upset because Keith won't open up to her and admit to his financial troubles. Then his rusty junker of a car, which looks like something you'd find rotting in the woods, breaks down, jeopardizing his plans to have the money to take Carol to the prom. He follows some motherly advice and gets a job...first as a plumber's (Joseph Perry) assistant, ruining somebody's kitchen; then an assistant to a vegetable slicer salesman (Carl Ballantine), from whom he ends up buying one for his mom; then as a paperboy, breaking a window...all putting him further in the hole. More motherly advice ensues, and Keith decides to take responsibility for his situation and confess to Carol about the situation. Carol takes things very well, and agrees to forego the prom with him. (Hey Keith, she seems like a keeper! Don't let her move to Canada or something.)

Keith ends up donning a tux on prom night and paying off all his debts to the family, revealing that he made the money by selling his car (I'd think he'd have to pay somebody to take that thing), and can now take Carol to the prom. In the coda, Danny uses the power of attorney tactic on Reuben over a Monopoly game, and Keith brings home his brand-old junker of a motorcycle.

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That Girl
"That King"
Originally aired February 19, 1971

Ann and Donald are returning from a play about vampires when they're called upon by an Albert Berg from the US Diplomatic Corps (David Doyle). The US is working on a trade agreement with the nation of Kowali, and their king wants to take Ann on a date because he's seen her on a diet soda commercial in the role of Duchess Duckie. Donald's OK with Ann answering her country's call, motivated to get a story out of it. Berg brings Ann jewels, including a choice of tiaras, for her to wear on her date. Donald and the Baumans get all dressed up to meet His Highness when he picks her up. Then he arrives with Berg, an ambassador (Noel De Souza), and a bodyguard (Tiger Joe Marsh), and the twist is revealed...the King is an 11-year-old (Brook Fuller, who was actually 12). He and the lavishly dressed Ann go to a common restaurant, where the entourage could have come in handy (an excuse having been made for the bodyguard's absence), because the King haughtily expects to be treated like royalty even though nobody knows who he is. Ann tries to correct his manners, but he makes a scene that culminates in him tossing his milkshake on the waiter (Herbie Faye), Ann dumping a sundae on his head in reaction, and a picture of the moment ending up on the front page of the newspaper because a photographer happened to be present.

Berg comes by to fire Ann, and to bring her to the embassy to deliver a formal apology. Ann asks to speak to the King alone first, and reasons with him about how he wronged the waiter before she wronged him. He reacts in his usual manner at first, but then reverts to acting more like a normal child, hurt by her chiding. Ultimately, in addition to Ann signing her formal written apologies, the King signs one to the waiter.

In the coda, Ann and Donald are considering accepting an invitation to have their honeymoon in Kowali, with Donald putting her on about the customs they'd have to follow.

"Oh, Donald" count: 7
"Oh, Ruthie" count: 1

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Love, American Style
"Love and the Boss / Love and the Jury / Love and the Logical Explanation / Love and the Pregnancy"
Originally aired February 19, 1971

"Love and the Boss" opens with Howard Billingsley (Lou Jacobi) complaining to his wife (Alice Ghostley) about being taken to a French restaurant when he spots his boss, Mr. Patterson (John Myhers), coming in with a younger woman (Jane Axell). Howard tries to avoid being seen to avoid being fired. (If anything, I'd think he'd potentially gain job security here, if he wanted to play the blackmail game.) Then he gets the crazy idea of being seen with a beautiful young woman sitting alone at a table (Phyllis Davis) so he'll have a common "hobby" with the boss. He makes a point of approaching the table and saying hi with her on his arm, is told that the girl Patterson is with is his niece Debbie, and then tries to play it off as a practical joke. Patterson makes noise about this reflecting poorly on Billingsley's loyalty. When Howard leaves, Patterson drops the pretense and resumes his date.

In "Love and the Logical Explanation," Mark (Bob Crane) has been working late every night. His wife, Dottie (Gayle Hunnicutt), gives him the benefit of the doubt until her mother (Linda Watkins) finds a pair of naughty panties under the seat of the car. Mark tries to come up with a logical explanation, first scandalizing their maid, Pilar (Carmen Zapata), by trying to determine if they're hers. Then his work buddy, Charlie (Paul Smith), tries to give him an alibi by calling Dottie with a story about how they belong to his wife; but another co-worker, Phil, independently calls her with the same story. Back at home, Dottie learns that they belong to their neighbor, Shari (Erin O'Reilly), who'd been given a lift back from the laundromat. Dottie's ready to apologize, but Mark comes home with a story that Charlie helped him cook up about giving an amorous co-worker a lift home and having temporary amnesia. She plays along with his explanation and they make up.

"Love and the Pregnancy" opens with Libby (Jo Anne Worley) consulting with a doctor (George Ives) about how her husband, Ira (Paul Lynde), is so nervous about her pregnancy that for a while he thought he was pregnant. At home, Libby tries to reassure Ira that the pregnancy should be quick and easy, but this just makes him fret that she won't get to the hospital, so he brings in a midwife, Hilda (Kathleen Freeman), so that they can have the baby at home. But he faints at Hilda mentioning contractions, so he goes back to having it at the hospital, but overplans for it. When the time comes in the wee hours, he's a nervous klutz about it, she ends up leaving on her own, and Ira is informed by a cabbie (Art Lewis) that she delivered in his vehicle.

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I don't know, but I read that she was soon blacklisted as part of the Red Scare.

Great voice...he stands out from the pack of chart-topping artists of this era.

You wish to dispute this?

Probably as a pre-rock example of blending folk and popular music.

It's pretty much all there.

 

Being a Hair knock-off, I imagine.

That I wasn't clear on.

How so? From what I briefly looked up, this episode predates it.

And the Chief was playing Jessica Fletcher here. "Even when I'm off-duty, anywhere I go there's a murder. That's why I bring the team with me."

Or maybe a necessary one.

I don't know...ultimately, the resolution was Kenneth realizing that things weren't as simple as "us" vs. "them".

They definitely try to keep the Partridges rooted in the home and school life, whatever their touring arrangement is.

You lost me there...there's very little gunplay in M:I. The IMF would've tricked the vampires into offing each other.

It was a little nonsensical, but as comically convoluted goes, it was no "Baker's Half Dozen".

I guess the major qualifier here would be that it otherwise qualified as a department store. The stores you see in Westerns are general stores.