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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Ledge / Love and the See-Through Man / Love and the Television Weekend / Love and the Water Bed"
Originally aired October 8, 1971
"Love and the Ledge" opens with Marlon (Robert Morse) on the titular precipice, eighteen floors up, when a girl named Gloria (Arlene Golonka) in the office next door sees him while doing exercises in front of the window and tries to talk him out of jumping. The building's window washer, Mr. Gerhudsky (Shelley Berman), proves to be more cynical about the situation, as Marlon has a history of threatening to jump. "For him, every year is 1929!" Nevertheless, Gloria climbs out to try to talk to Marlon, and has a moment of panic.
Gloria: Oh, th-th-there's a crowd gathering!
Gerhudsky: Well, ya climb on a ledge with a mini-skirt, whaddya expect?
Gloria encourages Marlon to vent his problems, and when he does so in a flowery fashion, she flatters him about having a gift with words. When he's ready to come in, she has issues moving, but the guys manage to get her back in the window. Marlon and Gloria go out to eat together, and Gerhudsky breaks the fourth wall to walk the audience through how marriage, children, and the ensuing financial issues will eventually bring the couple back to the ledge.
In "Love and the See-Through Man," Cindy (Nancy Dussault) has her mother (Nancy Walker) over for dinner to meet her scientist husband, Wendell, for the first time--Cindy having eloped with him two weeks prior. While Mother is out of the room, Wendell comes through the door to reveal that he's succeeded in turning himself invisible (voice actor unknown). Cindy frets about how this will inform her mother's first impression. When Mother comes back in the room, Cindy pretends to have been talking to herself, but as Mother proceeds to say negative things about Wendell, he pinches, kicks, and tickles her, and ultimately dumps an aquarium on her head. Cindy drops the charade, Wendell talks to his mother-in-law, and she doesn't know what to make of the situation, but they convince her to come back the next day after the invisibility has worn off. Once she's left, Wendell starts getting invisibly frisky with Cindy....
"Love and the Television Weekend" kicks off with Charlie (William Windom) making a show of being a recliner potato while his wife, Helen (Barbara Stuart), is preparing to go take care of her sick mother. Helen is worried that he'll be engaged in hanky panky, but he insists that those days are far behind him and that he has a weekend full of sports programming to look forward to. But as soon as she leaves, he jumps out of the recliner, calls over his swingin' friend Herbie (Bert Convy), and changes into outdated nightlife clothes, eager to enjoy a wild weekend again.
Charlie: For eighteen years, Herbie, I've been on a desert island completely surrounded by water without even getting my feet wet!
Herbie informs Charlie that his old hangouts are out of fashion, and takes him to a place that has naked dancers. Initially we see a scantily clad waitress, but no nude bodies in evidence. Charlie tries to approach an attractive brunette (Anitra Ford), but she goes all feminist on him, offended by lame pickup lines. Herbie coaches him on doing better with a redhead named Margie (Sunni Walton) by having him pretend to be into palm reading, but deliberately blows it for him so he can set his sights higher. Then a blonde (Pat Delaney) takes the stage and literally disrobes, showing the audience at home her bare back and a frontal of the shoulders and up. (I'm pretty sure I caught the slightest glimpse of what she was wearing on her breasts popping into the Elvis-cam view during her gyrations.) Following her dance, Herbie has Danielle come over to a table with them (clothed again) to talk to Charlie. She's working on a master's in sociology and doesn't engage in common vices, but wants to try a new dance routine on them.
At Charlie's place, Danielle dons a skimpy, leafy costume that implies more nudity than is actually shown (the leaves are on a flesh-colored one-piece bathing suit, but the back looks fairly convincing at first glance) to demonstrate her dance for ecology. Then she shows Charlie some yoga, only for Helen to return unexpectedly and catch them. Charlie improvises a story about Danielle being Herbie's date and sends the two of them on their way. As he's getting ready to retire to the bedroom with Helen, Herbie and Danielle come back to the door and Helen thanks them for keeping Charlie out of real trouble as planned.
In "Love and the Water Bed," Gloria (Anita Gillette) gets a call from her serviceman husband Mark (Bob Hastings) that he's on his way home, and both are eager to get back together after his long absence. She sees a commercial for a waterbed, the H2O Boy, and orders one to be delivered ASAP. Before she knows it, salesman Harry Barker (H2O, Bernie Kopell!) is at the door lugging the mattress and a hose on his shoulders. In her franticness to get herself and the bed ready for Mark, Gloria accidentally leads Harry to believe that she intends to try the bed out with him.
Do they make waterbeds with brass frames? Gloria invites Harry to join her in lying on top and making waves with it. But the ongoing misunderstanding leads to her finding Harry in Mark's pajamas just as Mark's at the door, so she sends Harry out the window...and in a nice bit of installment symmetry, onto a building ledge! She tries to get Mark to take a shower so she can get Harry out through the door, but Mark's enthusiastic to try out the bed, and declares that he doesn't intend to spend a minute of his 72-hour pass out of the bedroom!
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All in the Family
"Edith Writes a Song"
Originally aired October 9, 1971
Wiki said:
Edith wants to spend money on having music composed for a song she wrote, but Archie wants to spend it on a gun for protection.
As the episode opens, Gloria finds that there's now $30 in the family pot, which they've been saving for the poem that Edith submitted in response to an ad. Archie, concerned about a recent spree of local burglaries, has brought home a Save Your Home Alarm System, which consists of an entry-activated reel-to-reel tape of a dog barking. When he finds out that the others plan to use the money in the pot for Edith's submission to what he considers to be a scam, he reveals to Mike that he's also brought home a second-hand Luger that he intends to buy for $20. Archie wants to keep this from the ladies, but Mike instantly blows the whistle, and Archie loses a family vote regarding how the money will be spent.
While the Bunker-Stivics are at a movie, two burglars, Coke and Horace (future saddle-blazer Cleavon Little and future Sanford son Demond Wilson) break into the house to take refuge after robbing a jewelry store and steal some household items along the way. The tape alarm goes off, but they aren't fooled by it, having encountered others of its type. They engage in some repartee about how poor white folks are living before going upstairs. Then the family comes home, and the burglars come back downstairs, having found the Luger that Archie was still holding onto. Archie thinks that this makes a point about having a gun in the house, but the others feel that it does the opposite. The burglars mock Archie for his soon-evident bigotry, but are equally scoffing toward Mike and his school-learned liberal platitudes about life in the ghetto. After the burglars engage in dueling stories of how poor their families were, Edith proves to be the only one to have a true moment of understanding with them. When the burglars find the family pot, Edith pleads with them not to take the money. When he learns that Archie doesn't approve of how Edith intends to spend the money, Coke agrees to let Edith keep it if she sings the song. She does, to agape jaws all around, but Coke is so moved by Edith's guileless sincerity, which reminds him of his mother, that he hands over the bag of goods they'd been planning to steal, and even gives the Luger back to Archie after removing its clip.
In the coda, Mike and Lionel reveal that they've made an improvement to the alarm system: it now plays Edith singing the song.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Room 223"
Originally aired October 9, 1971
Wiki said:
Frustrated with her lack of progress at WJM, Mary decides to sharpen her skills with a class in television journalism. Naturally, she catches the teacher's eye.
Mary agrees to cover for Murray when he's called about a home emergency, following which a late-breaking report about a fire comes in. Lou is less than patient with Mary's pace of writing it up, and rushes to his office to do so himself, but doesn't get it to the news desk on time. Phyllis advises Mary to take a course to work on her skills in that area, and it turns out there's one for newsroom journalism, which Rhoda decides to take with her for reasons. Mary proves to be overqualified compared to the other adult students in the course, two of whom identify themselves formally as Mr. DeForrest (Val Bisoglio) and Mrs. Marshall (Florida Friebus); and she frequently interrupts the instructor, Dan Whitfield (Michael Tolan), to tell everyone how what he's discussing is relevant to what happens in the newsroom, whether it's insightful or not. Whitfield--to whom Rhoda emphatically introduces herself as
Miss Morgenstern--ends up asking for Mary to see him after class, but it's to ask her out--which leads to drinks at her place and a goodnight kiss.
Mary works on an assignment in the newsroom, which Lou finds and starts to call in as a huge piece of breaking news...until Murray explains that it's a hypothetical write-up of D-Day. Mary also asks Lou to speak at the class, which he ends up doing against objections. His scripted speech consists of one sentence, and his contributions to the ensuing Q&A session prove less than encouraging to the students...though he backpedals a bit when he sees that the book he's putting down has Whitfield's picture on the back jacket. Mary ends up getting a C+ on her assignment, worse than the other students (and which Lou takes exception to), along with a written question about their next date. Dan explains that he's grading her on a different scale because of her experience.
The episode ends without addressing why we likely won't be seeing Mary's date again, though we last see them kissing.
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Mission: Impossible
"Mindbend"
Originally aired October 9, 1971
Wiki said:
A Syndicate boss has been using a psychopathic doctor to brainwash former prison inmates to assassinate public officials and then kill themselves immediately after, and Barney must go undercover and resist the doctor's "training" to expose them.
The episode opens with a man named Stambler (Rick Moses) undergoing brainwashing at the hands of Dr. Thomas Burke (Leonard Frey) to kill a Commissioner Beresford (an uncredited Lee Duncan). A man named Alex Pierson (Donald Moffat) calls Burke to pressure him about this. After Stambler is let go, an alarm on his watch buzzes, and he kills the commissioner on the street, then kills himself.
The reel-to-reel tape that we immediately cut to without establishing the scene said:
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Alex Pierson, rising rapidly within the Syndicate, has formed an alliance with Thomas Burke, a psychopathic genius in the field of behavioral psychology. It is believed that Burke is enlisting fugitives from the underworld, whom he first brainwashes, then programs to kill. These assassins have already committed three murders for Pierson, and killed themselves immediately afterward. Since there has been no opportunity to question them, conventional law enforcement agencies have been unable to get any incriminating evidence against Burke and Pierson. Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to stop these murders, and to put Burke and Pierson out of action. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.
Too bad it wasn't the "usual method," as Jim appeared to be on a boat or dockside location, so there no doubt would have been some drinking involved. The IMF has to locate Burke, whom Pierson doesn't see in person. Barney, who's posing as an escaped prisoner who's already made remote contact with Burke with the belief that he'll be getting a new face, demonstrates that he has pills to help him ward off the effects of various brainwashing methods. Jim tails in a van as Barney's abruptly nabbed at a phone booth into another van and taken to a warehouse-like linen supply facility. Barney's abductors give him a special drink that promptly starts to take effect; then they proceed with giving him the treatment, which includes electronic stimulation. He wakes to find himself in a white cell, where he's fed at unusual intervals.
Barney peels false skin off his arm to reveal his kit of pills, a lockpick, and a small transmitter. He gets out of his cell and cases the joint, finding files; listening to a cassette tape about him; and examining the machinery and slides being used against him. He then uses the transmitter to send some one-way info to Jim, including that Burke is using a theta wave machine, which is something their precautions didn't account for. Back in his cell, a disoriented Barney accidentally drops his booster and isn't able to take it before being taken to his treatment, which is now in the same phase that we saw with Stambler. Barney breaks out of his arm straps and goes wild, picking up and throwing a secured chair. His target is Deputy Mayor Harold Watson (an also-uncredited Don Gazzaniga), who's to testify before a grand jury. He shoots the Watson-masked dummy and then tries to shoot himself, though as with Stambler, the gun has just enough bullets for the first part. Barney is then let go with his wrist alarm set.
At a party of Pierson's, Casey poses as one of several girls hired from a modelling agency. She chats the host up about his paintings while covertly snapping photos of him, and entices him with an antique medallion that he wants to buy. The IMFers prep her pad for his impending visit with a hidden panel to the next room. Willy drives to the linen facility in one of their trucks, and uses his Willy Strength to deliver a heavier-than-usual bag of Jim, who takes a ride hanging from a conveyor--this seems like it would usually be Barney's gig! Jim busts out while the workers are taking a break, and sneaks into the brainwashing room, where the mask and slides used in Barney's brainwashing have just been destroyed, then finds Barney's empty cell. He calls Casey to put out an APB for Barney. Jim puts a mask on the dummy, plants some slides, and bugs a light fixture; then knocks out a henchman billed as Stan (Bill Fletcher) and ties him up in the cell. Casey makes a mask of Barney while the real Barney makes his way to the Municipal Building.
An agent named Teague Wilson (actor unknown) is summoned to don the Barney mask. Pierson's men search Casey's pad prior to Pierson's arrival. When Pierson's inside, Not Barney pops out of the panel, takes some shots at him, and jumps out a window for a quick switcheroo with a dummy of Barney's body. Casey fake confesses that she was hired to lure Pierson there by Burke. Pierson and his posse head to Burke's linen lair and find the planted slides and mask, which indicate that Barney was brainwashed to hit Pierson. Jim threatens to turn Stan over to Pierson in order to find out where Barney is and who he's hitting. Barney reaches his destination and pulls his gun as Watson approaches while being questioned by reporters, but is stopped just in time by Willy, though a shot goes off--you gotta wonder how those two stayed out of the papers! Cut to a very abrupt coda of Barney later leaving the hospital with a clean bill of health, in which we're told that Burke cooperated in incriminating Pierson.
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Sentence of the Week.
Wait'll you see the Wiki synopsis of this week's
Hawaii Five-O...!
That's Uncle Jed for ya.
He was a little more Professor Jones here....
My maternal Grandmother never drove either, but she would have been 65 in 1971. How old is Alice?
She was turning 45 in 1971...12 years younger than Grandma.
She had "elemental" powers
I know, it's just that they did a really poor job of defining what that entailed. She does...something. See? She shot some kind of blast, she's got a power. Sometimes the Marvel Method showed signs of a disconnect between what the artist was depicting and how the writer chose to describe it. I think this may have been one of them.
) The new guy turns out to be Punky in a red wig and Danny's stage outfit. This gets Danny back in the game, and we cut to a dinner club gig performance of "Love Is All That I Ever Needed," which I read is one of a small number of PF songs that David Cassidy has a writing credit on.