The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread

50 Years Ago This Week

November 14 – Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria was enthroned as the leader of the Coptic Christian Church and the 117th successor to Saint Mark. He would serve until his death on March 17, 2012.

November 15

• Intel announced the world's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004.
• The International Organization of Space Communications (Intersputnik) was founded by scientist delegates from the Soviet Union and from seven Soviet allies (Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Mongolia, and Cuba) to cooperate on communications satellites, in the same manner as the western Intelsat organization.
• The People's Republic of China formally joined the United Nations after the October 25 vote in favor of its admission and the expulsion of Taiwan as the representative of the Chinese mainland.
• World premiere, in Rome, of the film Blindman, which includes an appearance by Ringo Starr.

November 16 – Died: Edie Sedgwick, 28, American actress and associate of Andy Warhol, of a barbiturate overdose.

November 18

• Oman gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• At a cafe in the town of Hestroff, the government of France began the first auction of the structures of the 40-year old Maginot Line that had been built in the 1930s along the border with Germany, finally disposing of what one journalist observed to be "an emblem of a false sense of security". The heavily fortified Maginot Line, designed to stop a German invasion, never saw battle after World War Two broke out in 1939. In 1940, the German Wehrmacht invaded France anyway, sweeping across the unfortified border with Belgium.

November 19 – The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) released its report of the November 6 nuclear detonation in Alaska of a five megaton thermonuclear weapon, and said that there was no radiation detected nor evidence of radioactive contamination to the environment of Amchitka Island. The AEC said that the explosive force of the $200 million test had created a conclusion that killed "hundreds of fish... as well as 18 sea otters, four seals and 16 birds."

November 20

• In Brazil, 29 people were killed in the collapse of a bridge still under construction, the Elevado Engenheiro Freyssinet, when a 110 metres (360 ft) section of the structure fell on traffic at the intersection of Paulo de Frontin Avenue and Haddock Lobo, in Rio de Janeiro. According to authorities, at least two buses and ten cars were crushed under thousands of tons of debris.
• Women from all over the U.S. marched in support of abortion rights in events in Washington D.C. and San Francisco. The marches were organized by a new organization, WONAAC, which had been created in July.

Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

Leaving the chart:

• "Birds of a Feather," The Raiders (10 weeks)
• "Go Away Little Girl," Donny Osmond (15 weeks)
• "If You Really Love Me," Stevie Wonder (14 weeks)
• "Sweet City Woman," Stampeders (14 weeks)
• "Thin Line Between Love and Hate," The Persuaders (12 weeks)

New on the chart:

"Pretty as You Feel," Jefferson Airplane

(#60 US)

"(I Know) I'm Losing You," Rod Stewart w/ Faces

(#24 US)

"One Monkey Don't Stop No Show Part I," Honey Cone

(#15 US; #5 R&B)


And new on the boob tube:

• Hawaii Five-O, "Rest in Peace, Somebody"
• Adam-12, "Anniversary"
• The Brady Bunch, "Her Sister's Shadow"
• The Partridge Family, "The Forty-Year Itch"
• The Odd Couple, "The Odd Couple Meet Their Host"
• Love, American Style, "Love and the College Professor / Love and the Eyewitness / Love and the Lady Barber / Love and the Plumber"
• All in the Family, "Mike's Problem"
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "Don't Break the Chain"
• Mission: Impossible, "Blues"

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Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki pages for the month or year and Mark Lewisohn's The Beatles Day by Day, with minor editing as needed.

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"Now that I've fought off death and acquired all these physical infirmities...I think I'll go a few rounds with Muhammad Ali!"

Was it worth it?

Had to look that one up.

Still in their classic groove.

If only the singer weren't such a "wise guy," right?

It's kind of uncanny to see her being her normal self in interviews.

 

All the more so for me...effectively the first decade of my life, sans a couple of months.

Has kind of a groovy, laid-back psychedelic vibe that I'm realizing has become a rarity at this point.

I can't recall if I ever heard this version on oldies radio. It's generally got a decent sound, but stretches the song out too long. A drum solo?

This was a total obscuro to me before I got it. Kinda mediocre.

I definitely wasn't surprised that he didn't win.

I'll take the instrumentals, but Herb will do much better with a vocal-accompanied single in a couple of years.

The Millennials are rubbing off on you...

Edith reminds me more than a little of my Mom, so she seems very real to me.

 

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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)

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Hawaii Five-O
"The Burning Ice"
Originally aired November 9, 1971

Dr. Alexander Southmore (Great Caesar's ghost! Jackie Cooper) is in his garage working on Prohibition-era cars when his jaded wife, Melissa (Linda Ryan), comes home and, after we get a hint of an affair he's having that she's in the know about, reclines on a pool chair in the dark. Mrs. Southmore, whom we saw followed to the house by a character played by Lou Antonio, is snuck up to by an unrevealed figure who shoots her in the chest, robs her of her jewelry, and then shoots her in the head, while a horrified maid watches from up in the house. Steve suspects that there's more to this than a robbery, and Southmore's story sounds a little too practiced. Antonio's character calls a fence called Charlie Ling (Tom Fujiwara) to arrange a rendezvous to try to unload his hot ice. Lou's desperation makes Ling nervous, and Lou agrees to a hastily low sum to get rid of it.

At Southmore's clinic, we meet his nurse and lover, Betty (apparently uncredited). Again, he plays things a little too smooth, making it clear that he had been wanting to ditch his wife, but not this way. Che examines a bullet from Southmore's .38, which is the same type of gun used in the killing, but it doesn't match. Danno, who's been assigned to share the heat with all the local fences, goes to see Charlie, who talks. Five-O stakes out Sea Life Park for Ling's rendezvous with Lou's character, David Harper, who sees Kono approaching and tries to split, though he's obviously in very bad health and is caught with the ice. In Steve's office he confesses, telling a story that paints Melissa Southmore as a target of opportunity, while Steve notices his illness. Harper collapses while being booked and is taken to a hospital. Danno and Kono bring his wife, Harriet (Loretta Leversee), who doesn't believe that he killed anyone. David passes away while she's talking to him, and Steve is informed that he died of a brain hemmorahage and had terminal leukemia with only weeks to live.

In Steve's office, Harriet shares that David was desperate to raise money for their disabled son who's in a special school. A diver is unable to find the gun where David said he dumped it, and Ling tells Danno how Harper, despite his motivation, was willing to take $1,000 for $30,000 worth of ice. What's more, it comes up that Harper was a conscientious objector who arranged to serve in the Army Medical Corps; and that the previous week, Harper had given a $75,000 check to his son's school. When Chin questions Steve about not accepting Harper's story, Steve pulls out the Lucite map of Honolulu to illustrate a flaw in his story...and when the search for the gun comes up, Steve realizes that he already has it.

Che confirms that Southmore's gun could have been re-bored with the right equipment. Kono visits Southmore's garage as a phone company tech and sneaks some filings from a drill press thingy, which Che examines. Danno learns that Southmore volunteers at the hospital where Harper was treated, where he was looking through files of male patients with terminal illnesses. Steve visits Southmore with the story that he's pieced together, about how the doctor arranged to kill his wife and have the dying Harper take the rap for it, in return for the $75,000; and presents Che's finding that the filings match his gun. Southmore tries to make a break but finds himself surrounded and is booked.

I wasn't sure what to make of this one...Southmore seemed obviously guilty from the beginning, it was just a matter of figuring out how Harper factored in. I guess it was kind of going for Columbo (which had aired two pilots at this point, in 1968 and earlier in 1971)...being less about whodunnit and more about the chess game of proving it.

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Adam-12
"Ambush"
Originally aired November 10, 1971

Reed and Malloy travel to a sheriff's station to pick up repeat traffic law violator Charlie Shanks (William Campbell) for transport, and are promptly tailed by another vehicle. Shanks inadvertently draws Reed's attention to the other car. Plot-conveniently, the officers have trouble transmitting on the radio in the canyon...which motivates Shanks to share that a racketeer named Louis Jacks is out to have him killed, because he witnessed Jacks committing an unsolved murder in Malibu. Jacks's men, having since pulled ahead of the squad car, shoot out a tire from a hill, leaving the car a sitting duck for more rifle fire.

The officers and Shanks get out to take cover and attempt to exchange fire, but the snipers are out of range of their shotgun. Pete provides covering fire so Reed can slip out to try to find them, but they get the drop on him and he's taken prisoner, held in his own cuffs. From the hilltop, Jacks's boys, Luke Nathan (Mort Mills) and Larry Lee (Julian Burton), try to negotiate a hostage trade. Pete's plan is to leave Reed and try to find the hoods' sedan, which Reed anticipates, though Shanks is uncomfortable with the notion of abandoning him.

Malloy and Shanks find the car, and Shanks hotwires it. Malloy finds a call box and contacts Lt. Bayer (Jim B. Smith) at the sheriff's station. In the meantime, Reed stalls for time by refusing to cooperate with his captors. Taken off Malloy's hands, Shanks offers a sincere apology about Reed. An L.A. detective, Capt. Edwards (Marshall Reed), is brought in, and a sheriff's chopper leads the search. When Nathan tries firing on the low-flying chopper, Reed tackles him and grabs his rifle, getting the drop on Lee and the keys for his cuffs. Malloy and company approach to find Reed nonchalantly holding the two hoods prisoner.

The episode ends with the officers, back at their station in L.A., learning that they've been assigned to return Shanks to Malibu.

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The Brady Bunch
"The Private Ear"
Originally aired November 12, 1971

Didn't we just get a Peter episode? I think they're overcompensating.

Marcia comes home from school on cloud nine and confides to Jan upstairs that she's in love with a boy at school. Unknown to them, Peter, who's been hiding in the bathroom, had a tape recorder under the bed they were sitting on. Peter later goes to Marcia and repeats her florid description of the attraction, so Marcia assumes that Jan told him and the girls get into a fight. Next Greg confers with Marcia in the boys' room to ask her for a loan because he got wiped out by an overdue library book. This time Peter had the recorder under the bunk beds, and pulls the same thing on Greg, who assumes that Marcia told him.

Greg: How did he find out!?!
Marcia: I don't know, maybe he's got ESP!​

There's some story material for ya, RJ!

Cut to Bobby and Cindy arguing in the aftermath of a similar incident. The dinner table is conspicuously quiet, as none of the kids are talking to each other. Mike orders them to speak up, and they all start hurling their accusations at each other in general terms...except for Peter, whom Mike notices is quietly basking in the chaos. Mike and Carol bring him to the den, where he confesses to what he did, and he's persuaded to apologize to his assembled siblings. But Greg and Marcia think he's getting away with murder, and decide to give him something worth listening to.

The two of them make a recording about how the parents are planning to throw him a surprise party for getting an A in geometry, then Greg brings Peter the recorder, accusing him of having planted it in the girls' room. Peter listens to the tape, and the adults notice him being strangely helpful around the house while dropping hints about presents that he'd like. When Mike goes to use the recorder, he and Carol hear the tape. After the parents leave for their ski trip, Peter gets all dressed up in anticipation of his party, then wanders around the house trying to spring it. Greg and Marcia start to feel guilty and confess to him. Just as he gets deflated, the parents actually come home to spring the surprise, bearing presents that are supposed to be from everyone. Peter's led to believe that this was the plan all along, but Greg and Marcia get a brief talking to on the side. One of Peter's presents is...a tape recorder, on which he leaves Greg and Marcia a message about what they did, which they take in good spirits, because happy ending.

Peter not only got away with murder this week, he was rewarded for it. He should have hidden the recorder under the parents' bed...he might have gotten an education.

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The Partridge Family
"[A/The] Tale of Two Hamsters"
Originally aired November 12, 1971

The Trouble with Hamsters...?

Teaser! Danny and the two younger siblings announce that they've started their own business so the family will have something to fall back on should they succumb to the precarity of show business.

Danny: I mean, when was the last time the Beatles put out a record?
Shirley: Danny, the Beatles broke up. They don't exist anymore.​

When the kids pull two hamsters out of a sack, Shirley screams "Rats!" Danny's named one of them Dean Martin because it has bulging red eyes...but it turns out that Dino's a Dina, and is having babies (which was supposed to be the idea, so you have to wonder how/why Danny would get the genders mixed up).

When the family has to go on the road, Danny can't find anyone to hamster-sit, so they have to bring the critters with them. Shirley's surprised that the hamsters the kids have been tending to in the cellar have multiplied such that they supposedly have over 50 cages of them. (We see the kids carrying out at least a dozen, and are told there are at least 40 more.)

In the recording studio, Danny has brought in another pregnant hamster, named Lord Byron, which makes enough noise that the engineer (Martin Speer, who appears to have a recurring role, having appeared at least once previously) picks it up. Once that's dealt with, the band proceeds to fake-record "Twenty-Four Hours a Day":

The family are unable to check into a hotel bearing the rodents, so they have to drive around in the bus all night to keep them warm. Back at home, Danny and Shirley find that there's no demand for Danny's investment, being unable to even give them away to the pet store from which he bought the original pair because they've already got their own surplus. Finally, in a sequence set to recent hit "I Woke Up in Love This Morning," they give the hamsters away one at a time as part of a department store album signing promotion.

When they find that they're running out of hamsters, Danny has a trio named Peter, Paul, and Garfunkel put in the back room to make more.

In the coda, it turns out that Reuben has taken a hamster that was named after him...and keeping with the pattern, it's revealed to be pregnant.

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The Odd Couple
"The Fat Farm"
Originally aired November 12, 1971

After an athletic outing at the park, Felix expresses his concern about Oscar's gluttony to Nancy. As Felix attempts to prove that he's in better shape than Oscar, Tony Randall impresses the studio audience by standing on his head, hopping onto a desk, and doing push-ups.

Felix: Every summer I go away to the health farm for two weeks of really rigorous training. Those are the best two weeks of my life.
Oscar: Mine, too.​

When Oscar is unable to match Felix's feats, Felix recommends diet, exercise, and the fat farm. Oscar reveals that his last physical was on Okinawa.

Felix: You should have a physical examination every war.​

Oscar has one with Nancy, who determines that he's generally in good shape but could stand to trim up...which is underscored when a hunkier male patient comes in for his examination, making Oscar jealous. Felix manages to convince Oscar to go to the farm. Upon checking in, Oscar bucks against the controlled environment, which allows no smoking and only carrots and celery as snacks. Felix insists that they're going to have a ball. In the cafeteria, Oscar is appalled at his meager portion of "concentrated energy food".

Oscar: That was dinner!?! I've spilled more food on my shirts!​

Dessert turns out to be anything you want...and purely imaginary. Oscar is incredulous that everybody else, including Felix, seems to be enjoying it so much.

Dr. Burger (Norbert Schiller) comes into the gym munching on a peach and Oscar goes after it like a ravenous dog. At bedtime, Oscar learns that he's smelling meat from a nearby delicatessen, and sneaks out with another patient (Thelma Pelish) to buy a sack full of forbidden goods. Felix reports him and the attendants rush in to confiscate it. The doctor punishes Oscar by not allowing him to attend movie night, which includes unbuttered popcorn. Felix comes back to the room munching on his and Oscar goes after it, which gets him kicked out. Feeling guilty for turning on his friend, Felix decides to leave with him. Oscar declares that being happy is more important than living a few more years...and the thought of Oscar dying first moves Felix to tears. "I'll miss you!"

In the coda, Oscar's enjoying a plateful of meat when Felix challenges him to arm wrestling and wins easily, causing Oscar to put it back in the fridge.

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Would that be your Uncle Joe or the one from Petticoat Junction?

 

Not depicted graphically, of course.

To clarify, Harper wasn't the killer. That was the original intent, but the conscientious objector thing put a monkey wrench in Southmore's plan, so he was stuck with the guy being in the know and recruited him to take the rap instead; Southmore did the actual killing.

There was one moment I should note that struck me as being particularly Columbo-ish, from what I know of that show. At one point Southmore is questioning why Steve's still investigating when he's got Harper, and Steve asks him if he'd ever, as a doctor, gotten all the facts and still questioned the diagnosis because it felt wrong. Southmore's response was a moment of adversarial understanding between them.

Yep. I imagine there would have been a more heavily guarded convoy if they'd known what Shanks knew. Or they'd have just left him in Malibu.

I imagine.

"Aw, shucks, I was hoping for Emma Frost...!"

Yep...previously it was a reference to "those old Beatles records". The show seems to like to reference the Beatles as recently having passed into history.

Whoops! That was supposed to be Oscar getting the physical. I still catch myself transposing their names occasionally...and didn't catch it in this case.

They're certainly subverting any expected stereotyping of Oscar being the jock and Felix being the intellectual.

 

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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)

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Love, American Style
"Love and the Baby / Love and the Big Mother / Love and the Free Weekend / Love and the Jealous Husband / Love and the Old Cowboy"
Originally aired November 12, 1971

"Love and the Baby" opens with Stan (Ivan Dixon) and Penny (Gail Fisher) looking for a property settlement because they're getting a divorce. Penny feels funny, and thinks she's pregnant. She's seeing a man named Gordon (Johnny Brown), who's coming to her place for dinner. Stan drops by with a care package of food that's good for the baby, making sure Gordon knows that she's pregnant. Gordon decides to bow out. Stan then engages a Mrs. Jones (Isabel Sanford) as a nurse. Penny comes home early from work to find Stan preparing what was supposed to be a surprise baby shower. She has to inform Stan that her latest test came up negative, but both feel that the situation has brought them closer together. Stan declares that they won't have to turn their guests away if they plan to have a baby anyway....

In "Love and the Big Mother," Mrs. Jones (Florence Halop) is hosting her son Eddie (Milt Kamen) and his girlfriend Connie (Joyce Bulifant). Connie finds Mrs. Jones overbearing, and we learn that Mrs. Jones has a history of driving Eddie's girlfriends away. At a roller derby, Eddie gets run into by one of the players, Sock It to 'em Susie (Jo Anne Worley--see what they did there?). Something she says gives him the inspiration to bring her over to meet his mom, who's privately resolved to accept whoever Eddie brings over next. To Eddie's surprise, his mother declares that Susie is Miss Right and goes out of her way to make her feel welcome despite her loud, crude manner. After Susie leaves, Mrs. Jones admits to what it was all about, and then calls Connie to invite her back over.

"Love and the Free Weekend" has a woman named Birdie (Pat Carroll) showing Tony (Fred's second TV son, Don Grady) a well-furnished apartment in a Marina del Rey complex that comes with a free trial weekend. Having no intention of getting the place, Tony calls his girlfriend Laurie (Hilarie Thompson) over, leading her to believe that it's already his. She's impressed with the apartment, but Birdie barges in using her key while they're starting to get romantic, and is there when Laurie carves her and Tony's initials over the fireplace with the hot poker, which is sure to cost Tony his deposit. When they get around to trying the bed with its remote-lowered curtains, Tony pushes a cabinet in front of the door, but Birdie manages to barge in anyway, breaking the cabinet. Laurie ends up signing a lease, as Tony led Birdie to believe that she was his wife. Tony confesses to Laurie that the place isn't really his; she confesses that she maneuvered him into trying the place so he'd take things to the next level; and the two of them decide to make an honest apartment of it by going ahead and tying the knot.

"Love and the Jealous Husband" involves John Pettidrew (Jerry Van Dyke) thinking that his wife Mary (Jessica Walter) is having an affair, though she insists that she loves him. He promises that he'll try to be less suspicious, but questions every odd thing she says; and recruits a work pal, Bill Hanson (Pat Harrington), to meet her at a restaurant in his place to see how she behaves...but his secretary, Gladys (Mary Grover), calls Mary to tip her off. Mary's friend Gloria (Sharon Acker) recommends "shock therapy"--going along with it to give John something to be jealous about. Mary's not comfortable with that, so Gloria makes the lunch in her place, as Bill's never met Mary...but it's love at first sight for Bill and Gloria. Bill goes back to John to tell him that he loves his wife. Bill then goes to the Pettidrews' pad to see "Mary" (Gloria), which Mary goes along with. John comes home and begs Mary not to leave him; but Bill assumes that the real Mary is a woman that John's having an affair with, and a brief bit of misunderstanding ensues that includes blows being exchanged before Mary and Gloria are in the same room and the situation is clarified. The two couples share dinner, and just as it looks like all's better, John accuses Mary and Bill of holding hands when they briefly touch while reaching for a wine bottle.

"Love and the Old Cowboy" features John McIntire as the titular character, Billy Buck Smith, an old Western movie hero who talks to a horse in a stable adjoining his kitchen. Billy is excited to catch his ex-wife, old screen star Madeline Dawes (Jeanette Nolan), being interviewed by Regis Philbin (himself) on TV about a book she wrote. She tells Regis that Billy would sleep with his horse and didn't do his own riding, which raises his ire, getting him arguing with his outdated TV. Billy gets in a better mood watching old films of himself on a projector; then dons his old costume and rides up to a studio lot on his famed horse, Lightning, to set things straight...giving Madeline and a few others who are engaged in a photo shoot for the book (including Barney Phillips) a demonstration of his riding, which ultimately results in taking a harmless fall. When Billy asks Madeline why she was telling lies on TV, she says that it was the only way she could draw him out, as she'd never gotten over him and had been looking for him for twenty years.

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All in the Family
"The Blockbuster"
Originally aired November 13, 1971

The Bunker-Stivics are suffering a furnace breakdown during Sunday breakfast when a leaflet is left at the door from the realtor, Chester Byrd, offering to buy the house. While the others think that it wouldn't be practical, Archie believes that the house has a respectable resale value...

Archie: This house is constructed way better than most of the new ones you see around today.
Mike: So are the pyramids, but who'd wanna live there?
Archie: You would, if they'd let you in for nuttin'!​

...and sees it as an opportunity to fulfill an old dream to move out west. Archie gives Byrd a call and the realtor arranges to come over shortly. Archie tries to act nonchalant by being in the kitchen when Byrd arrives, so he gets his moment of reaction when he comes out and sees Byrd getting up out of his chair. Archie blurts out the obvious, but Byrd is good-humored about it. Archie promptly gets a call from his neighbor McNab about his visitor, after which he tells Byrd that he's changed his mind and doesn't want to sell the house. When Byrd prompts him to name a figure, Archie drops one that he thinks will be too high, $35,000, and Byrd immediately shakes on it.

Byrd insists that if Archie doesn't want to sell for such a profit, others will, and Mike jumps up and accuses the realtor of being a blockbuster--somebody who buys a couple of houses at good prices, which causes a lowering of property values for the rest of the neighborhood, so he can buy the other properties at low prices from panicky owners, then resell the houses to black families for all he can take them for. After Byrd leaves, Archie insists that they're going through with the deal, and Edith is moved to tears reminiscing about Gloria's childhood and wedding. Lionel comes over briefly and shares his opinion of Byrd, which Archie considers to be a compliment. Byrd returns via the back door per Archie's instructions. Archie's ready to sign when his cousin Bertha (Peggy Rea) drops by. She's the mother of cousin Rudy, whom Archie's counting on to help the family get on their feet in California, but it quickly comes to light that Rudy's looking to take Archie for his $20,000 to get out of debt. Archie decides not to go through with the deal, and goes to warn all the other neighbors not to make the mistake he almost did.

Thalmus Rasulala will go on to play Captain Donald Varley of the Yamato on the TNG episode "Contagion".

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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"And Now, Sitting in for Ted Baxter"
Originally aired November 13, 1971

Mary discovers that Ted has never taken a vacation in four years at the station, which is in violation of his union contract; and Ted acts uninterested when it's brought up. Ted's history of avoiding taking vacations is no news to Lou, who shoots down Mary's every idea for tricking Ted into taking one because it's all been tried before (which makes it seem like this has been going on a bit longer). It soon becomes evident that Ted's highly insecure about a temporary replacement becoming a permanent one. This isn't helped when his substitute turns out to be handsome Rod Porter (Jed Allan), who makes cracks about being after Ted's job.

Mary actually feels bad when the ratings go up and viewer reaction to Rod is outspokenly positive, including word of mouth from Rhoda. Mary discovers from a fake postcard and a crank letter against Rod that Ted, who's supposed to be in Acapulco, never left town. Lou is fine with the idea of high ratings for a change and is motivated to keep it that way. Ted ends up dropping by Mary's, claiming to have come back early, and Murray reveals that he's in Ted's corner, admitting to Mary that he actually likes the guy. When things look worst for Ted, it turns out that Rod has done better than expected--he's being promoted to a network position, which means that Lou is stuck with Ted, and it's back to abysmal ratings for the WJM News. Ted's egotistical facade returns with him, as he fumes over not having been around to have been spotted by the network himself.

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Mission: Impossible
"Invasion"
Originally aired November 13, 1971

Enemy agents? The security of the free world at stake? What madness be this!?!

The episode opens with Whitmore Channing (McCarthy) being electronically eavesdropped on while sharing a coded intel drop location with his control (Ted Gehring, whose character is billed Novak, though I didn't catch the name being used) via phone. When the conversation is over, his control declares to an underling (Lee Paul, a.k.a. Gristin) that Channing will have to be killed.

No Syndicate! No mention of conventional law enforcement agencies being unable to do the job! Should tapes go up in smoke in an unventilated phone booth? Lucite map! The uber-tight ticking clock is underscored by the IMFers showing up for the briefing in whatever they were wearing...Jim with his jacket off and tie undone. They have to get the codename and flight number of Channing's control, and don't think Channing would crack under interrogation in time. The control hires a hitman named Shewitt (Scott Walker) to go after Channing.

While Willy spies on Channing from the next apartment through an electric socket with the plugs removed, Casey makes a call about the general whom Channing murdered to distract him while Barney plants a device to stun him in his kitchen...and jumps at the opportunity to hide in a pantry when Channing hears him. When Channing is shocked, Willy knocks him out with a dart gun and the IMFers make various alterations to his place, including setting his watch ahead, to make it look like the next day. When Channing comes to, he tries to use the phone and gets a recorded message (from Casey) that phones have been taken out of service because of the national emergency. Fake news reports piped through his TV and radio inform him of a preemptive nuclear strike and subsequent invasion by the European People's Republic, which has the U.S. on the verse of surrender. And somehow the IMF managed to clear out his apartment building along the way to sell the illusion. Meanwhile, Shewitt gets set to snipe Channing from an adjacent rooftop.

IMFers doing bad accents! Shewitt is interrupted by a fake EPR van driving up, from which Captain Willy takes Channing into custody. During the ride in the back, tapes are piped in with the sounds of occupation--tanks, marching, and announcements--and Channing looks pleased with himself. He's taken to an EPR occupation headquarters manned with what appear to be actual soldiers who are in on the plan and is tossed into a holding area with several fake prisoners, including Casey and Barney, who are all facing execution via proceedings in an adjacent military courtroom overseen by EPR Colonel Jim. Meanwhile, Shewitt has tailed the van, and after scoping out the situation (being told by a guard at the door that a training film is being shot), knocks out another guard and takes his uniform.

Captured Air Force Major Barney is declared an enemy of the people by Kangaroo Court Colonel Jim and fake-executed in a courtyard below. Hysterical Civil Defense Secretary--Whose Got Babies!!!--Casey is tried and fake-executed next. As Channing is called in, Shewitt sneaks his way to the courtroom area. Channing tries to tell Colonel Jim that he supplied the intel that made the invasion possible, and drops his codename. Channing proceeds to explain what he's done on tape, but won't share the location of the codenamed drop point, which Jim seems to confirm via phone. Channing's taken back to the holding room alone and, after hearing the sound of gunfire, finds that the courtyard and courtroom are both suddenly empty, so he busts out into the courtroom and plays back the tape. Then, apparently having figured out that it's all fake and still Wednesday--and all according to plan--he makes an IMF-intercepted call to an airline to have his control paged by his codename. Shewitt then comes into the courtroom and wings Channing, only to be taken out by a watching Phelps, who admits to Channing that this wasn't part of the plan.

Barney: He's dead, Jim.​

Willy mans the airline desk and tails the control to a dockside sail loft, where he watches Novak retrieve the dropped intel and keeps him and Gristin occupied until Jim and Barney can arrive. They corner Novak, retrieve the intel, and take him out to arriving police. The episode ends with the IMF burning the intel.

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I dunno, I was thinking of when she was first introduced, as the head of the rival academy...with a kinky outfit and a bondage fetish.

And it sits there, begging to be corrected, if only we knew where it was...!

 

'Scuse me, gotta bang my head to the earworm guitar riff.

But LAS is certainly getting Laugh-In's former and current cast members left and right.

It did seem uncharacteristically out of left field. He and Edith had been saving brochures and such. The idea of actually doing it had holes poked in it by the rest of the cast.

And Archie bought it for $14,000, FWIW.

Interesting.

Karmic balance for Big Chicken.

I'll say! It was too bad we didn't get the disclaimer of disavowal by the Secretary for old times' sake, but it wouldn't make much sense when they're operating domestically with the cooperation of conventional law enforcement.

The IMF are working hand-in-hand with the LAPD these days.

Yeah, that timeframe was problematic both for enacting the plot and what the plot played out.

His son was in "Miri," Star Trek III, and episodes of DS9 and VGR...but is best known for playing Johnnie Cochran spoof Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld...a role that spun off into commercials for a couple of products.

Not at all...the whole idea was to keep that intel out of anyone's hands. What struck me as odd was how Jim made a point of showing the IMFers which DEW installations were inoperative on his Lucite map at the briefing. Why would they need to know that?

I was thinking years earlier than that--Claremont/Byrne, Kitty Pryde's intro.

Could be I quietly corrected it at the time if you quoted it.

 

Ah, so they were repertory soldiers after all.

No suspicion to it...it was. And Byrne's original depiction of Emma was based on Diana Rigg.

 

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55th Anniversary Fly-on-the-Wall Listening

Mid-November had John recording demos at his home in Weybridge, of a song that he began writing while filming How I Won the War in Almeria, Spain:


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55 Years Ago This Week

November 20

• Cabaret, one of the most popular musicals on Broadway, opened at the Broadhurst Theatre. In its initial run, the Tony Award-winning Kander and Ebb production would have 1,165 performances, and a 1998 revival would be staged 2,377 times.
• In what would later be described as "the first instance of a spacecraft imaging an archaeological site on the Moon", Lunar Orbiter 2 photographed Ranger 8 and its impact point in Mare Tranquillitatis ("The Sea of Tranquility").

November 21

• Johns Hopkins Hospital of Baltimore, Maryland, announced that it had opened its Gender Identity Clinic in July, and had started accepting applications for the first sex reassignment surgery in the United States. The announcement came as a front-page story by reporter Thomas Buckley on the front page of The New York Times.
• The first international computer chess competition between the United States and the Soviet Union began between the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics at Moscow, and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The Soviet Minsk M-20 computer had a program developed by a team led by Georgy Adelson-Velsky and Vladimir Arlazarov; the Kotok-McCarthy program, created by Alan Kotok and John McCarthy, used an IBM 7090 computer. Four games were played simultaneously between the two computers, and the moves were communicated by telegram. It would not be until March 10, 1967, that the first result could be reported, when ITEP checkmated Kotok-McCarthy in 19 moves; eventually, with two wins and two draws, ITEP defeated Stanford, 3–1.
• In Togo, the army crushes an attempted coup.

November 24

• The Beatles begin recording sessions for their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album at Abbey Road Studios in London.
• TABSO Flight 101, from Sofia, Bulgaria, crashes near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board.

November 25 – Due to an ongoing smog event, New York City was placed under a "first-stage alert" by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller because of heavy air pollution that had been held over the metropolitan area by a stagnant air mass. Residents were ordered to drive "only when necessary", to maintain minimum temperatures in all buildings heated by oil or coal, to avoid open fires and to not run incinerators until the alert ended. The alert was triggered by smog that had risen to 400% above normal levels on Thanksgiving Day, measured at 0.5 parts per million of sulphur dioxide, nine parts per million of carbon monoxide and 7.5 parts per million of haze for four consecutive hours. The days of smog were later credited with causing 169 additional deaths in New York City, lower than the estimate for a prior period in November 1953.

November 26

• 1966 Australian federal election: Harold Holt's Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a significantly increased majority, defeating the Labor Party led by Arthur Calwell. Calwell resigns as Labor leader shortly after; he will be replaced by his deputy and future Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
• In the Canadian Football League, the Saskatchewan Roughriders defeat the Ottawa Rough Riders to win the 54th Grey Cup at Vancouver's Empire Stadium 29–14. Saskatchewan were led by quarterback Ron Lancaster.

Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

Leaving the Chart:

• "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)," Otis Redding (8 weeks)
• "The Great Airplane Strike," Paul Revere & The Raiders (8 weeks)
• "The Hair on My Chinny Chin Chin," Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs (8 weeks)
• "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?," The Rolling Stones (7 weeks)
• "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself," Dionne Warwick (8 weeks)
• "See See Rider," Eric Burdon & The Animals (10 weeks)

Recent and new on the chart:

"I Need Somebody," ? & The Mysterians

(Nov. 19; #22 US)

"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," The Yardbirds

(#30 US; #43 UK)

"Help Me Girl," Eric Burdon & The Animals

(#29 US; #14 UK)

"Mustang Sally," Wilson Pickett

(#23 US; #6 R&B; #28 UK; #434 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])


And new on the boob tube:

• The Ed Sullivan Show, Season 19, episode 11
• Gilligan's Island, "The Invasion"
• The Monkees, "Monkees à la Carte"
• The Rat Patrol, "The Deadly Double Raid"
• Batman, "Marsha, Queen of Diamonds"
• Batman, "Marsha's Scheme of Diamonds"
• Star Trek, "The Menagerie, Part II"
• That Girl, "Soap Gets in Your Eyes"
• The Green Hornet, "The Hunters and the Hunted"
• The Wild Wild West, "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse"
• The Time Tunnel, "Secret Weapon"
• Hogan's Heroes, "A Tiger Hunt in Paris: Part 2"
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Concrete Overcoat Affair" – Part 1
• Get Smart, "Island of the Darned"
• Mission: Impossible, "Zubrovnik's Ghost"

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

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Genre fans would also know him as Smallville's version of J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter.

"One of"?