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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
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All in the Family
"Archie and the Editorial"
Originally aired September 16, 1972
Season 3 premiere
Wiki said:
Archie goes on television to protest an editorial in favor of gun control, then faces the consequences for opening his big mouth.
Archie comes home from his part-time cabbie job complaining about how inflation is costing him fares. Nixon's price freeze and McGovern are referenced (the latter by Mike). Archie objects when he learns that Gloria's applying for a job in the cosmetics section of a department store, and finally blows his stack when he sees an editorial by station manager Lyle Bennett (Sorrell Booke) arguing that the state should buy citizens' guns. In an argument about the Consitution, Edith gets the amendments mixed up with the Ten Commandments, and Archie gets the commandments mixed up with the Gettysburg Address. George Wallace having recently been crippled in an assassination attempt is brought up. Lionel comes over on his way to a date and Archie asks what "his people" think about guns.
Lionel: Well that depends on who's holding 'em.
Mike challenges Archie to take his objections directly to Bennett (whom Archie considers to be a "f***y" for his views), and gets the station manager on the phone. Taunted by Mike about being afraid to speak up, Archie demands equal time.
Archie visits the station, where Bennett is already contending with various constituencies via phone, and wants to know what group Archie represents. Learning that Archie's also pro-death penalty gets his attention. Archie comes home to put on the TV, as they're about to air his taped rebuttal. Archie looks like a combed-over deer in the headlights on camera, demonstrating his aptitude for mangling phrases and arguing for handing out guns to airline passengers to stop skyjackings. Afterward at Kelsey's bar, where Gloria is celebrating having gotten her job, Archie is approached by a man who saw him on TV (Val Bisoglio) in a seemingly admiring fashion...then he and the man he walked in with pull out guns to hold the place up. Returning home, Archie insists that things would have been different if he'd been armed.
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Emergency!
"Decision" / "Problem"
Originally aired September 16, 1972
Season 2 premiere
Wiki said:
Roy and John rescue a trapped man whose engine fell on him, but en route to the hospital, Roy's link to Rampart malfunctions, and he is forced to treat the injured man without supervision. When the patient later dies from his injuries his doctor (Lloyd Bochner) excoriates Roy and the whole paramedic program, which angers Drs. Brackett, Early and Dixie, especially after a doctor dies from a heart attack despite all their efforts, and Roy considers resigning from the program. Dixie chokes down of Roy's decision. Other rescues include a motorcyclist gored by a bull and a boy and his dog from a burning house.
Station 51 responds to a call concerning an unconscious man named Charles Phillips who's lying under the hood of his car with the engine on his back. The paramedics try to get information from his wife, Virginia (Candace Howerton), over the loud jabbering of a busybody neighbor, Edna (Jessica Rains). The firemen push the car under a beam so they can winch the engine off of him. Then Johnny calls Rampart and learns that the man's doctor, Larry Sunderlin, is there waiting for him. Sunderlin wants his patient brought in immediately, not trusting the paramedics to stabalize him first, causing Brackett to stand up for them and assert his authority in E.R. matters. As the ambulance drives away from the man's home, an antenna breaks off on a tree branch.
When he realizes that the biophone radio isn't working, DeSoto has the driver stop and call Rampart through dispatch. Sunderlin gives Brackett a hard time about the firemen delaying his patient's arrival. Once the ambulance gets to Rampart, Sunderlin takes his issues directly to DeSoto, but Brackett intervenes, and informs Roy that the patient is in critical condition. Roy returns to the ambulance shaken and doubting his judgment in treating the patient. Johnny tries to back Roy's call, arguing that the man would have had brain damage from lack of oxygen if Roy hadn't treated him, and that Brackett would have been on Roy's back if he'd thought he'd made the wrong call.
Next Squad 51 responds to a call for an "unknown rescue". On a road in a hilly area, they're flagged down by a couple of dirt bikers, and one of them, Chuck (Michael W. Stokey), leads them to where their friend, Doug (Michael Richardson), is downed with an injured leg and trapped with an angry bull who charges when anyone tries to approach him. Roy drives the truck into the pen and positions it between the bull and Doug so they can get him in the cab and drive out. At Rampart, Dixie informs Roy that Mr. Phillips has died. Back at the station a few days later, a distraught Roy is considering transfering to a remote station that doesn't have a paramedic unit.
Later at Rampart, Kelly and Dix discuss Roy's situation while treating a drunk named George (Jack Dodson--Was Hal Smith not available?). Kel sits Roy down over coffee and informs him that his actions didn't impact the cause of death. Roy is still wracked with doubt about potentially taking the wrong actions in the future, and Kel tries to convince him that he's at least as good a man for the job as the one who'd replace him.
Some time later, Sunderlin brings a colleague, Dr. Eccles (Willard Sage), down to the E.R. because he's suffering chest/abdominal pains. Sunderlin and Early start to treat him, but when Brackett gets there, Eccles fibrillates and the three doctors are unable to save him. Out in the hall, a tearful Dixie lays into Sunderlin about how he wasn't able to save his patient despite having the proper facilities, contrasting the situation with what DeSoto puts himself into danger to do in the field every day. Sunderlin begins to realize that he may have misjudged the paramedic.
Back at the station, Roy is having trouble sleeping when the station and several other engines get a call for a fire. They proceed to a burning house, where Roy and Johnny help man the hoses until the couple who live there (Vic Mohica and Annette Cardona) realize that their son has run back in to save his dog. DeSoto dons oxygen gear and searches the house, finding the boy and his terrier, and temporarily places his mask on one of them. (This is shot so tightly that it's hard to tell what's going on.) But Roy's tether is severed by the flames, so he has to find a new way out, carrying both patients to a window that the firemen outside raise a ladder to. Both are treated and revived.
Johnny spends the ride back to the station trying to convince Roy not to transfer, only to learn that Roy had already made up his mind not to before they responded to the call.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"The Good Time News"
Originally aired September 16, 1972
Season 3 premiere
Wiki said:
Both Lou and Ted are unhappy about the upbeat "happy news" format Mary has been assigned to develop for the Six O'Clock News.
The huggy Christmas scene is gone from this season's opening sequence, replaced by a more recent shot of the newsroom cast laughing together about something.
Rhoda comes back from an underwhelming date with a male stewardess to find Mary preparing for a meeting with the station manager the next day. Mary feels under pressure for representing women everywhere, which seems kinda meta. The next day in the newsroom, Mary learns that she's making less than her male predecessor did. When she works up the nerve to confront Lou about it, he's matter-of-fact that the previous assistant was paid more for doing a worse job because he was a man and supporting a family. Lou, Mary, and Ted proceed to the meeting with Jack Stoneham (Robert Hogan), who's looking for a way to make the news more informal, and agrees with Mary basically agreeing with him that it could be more entertaining. Lou brings up having worked as a newspaper editor, which lays the foudation for the venue change of his follow-up series. Lou also notes a failed experiment at the station with a hippie weather girl.
Later at a bar, Lou's grumpy because he's been ordered to help Mary implement her suggestion, and he's at a loss for how to make Ted entertaining. Mary comes up with the idea of pairing Ted with Gordy for contrast, which Lou approves. (Bobby Fischer is name-dropped in the conversation.) Lou breaks the news to Ted during a break in the news, and Ted walks out in protest, but promptly returns when Lou has Gordy fill in for him. Just as the first broadcast in the new format is about to start, Ted learns that he's considered the straight man of the pair, so he tries to compete with Gordy by telling a Polish joke. An aghast Mary tricks Ted into later reading an apology on the air. Then when she tries to deliver a straight editorial about population control on behalf of the management, Ted heckles her, and Lou and Murray--sauced from downing a bottle of scotch--watch from the newsroom as Mary tells Ted to shut up on the air...of which Lou approves.
The next day, Lou's desk is covered with telegrams from outraged parties, including the FCC, but he agrees to give Mary a raise.
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The Bob Newhart Show
"Fly the Unfriendly Skies"
Originally aired September 16, 1972
Series premiere
Wiki said:
Bob brings Emily to his "fear of flying" therapy group to help her overcome her own fear of flying. Penny Marshall has a minor role in this episode as a stewardess.
This would be another of those "grown-up" sitcoms that single-digit-aged me didn't pay much attention to when it was on in the background. I actually had to watch this one last as Decades just circled back around to the beginning of the series today!
The series opens with a brief phone monolog...I wouldn't have known back in the day that his was Newhart's signature schtick as a comedian. After the credits, Bob comes home to break the news to Emily that he's gotten a ticket for her on his group's trip to New York. Her reaction forces her to confess to her own fear of flying. Bob loses points as both a shrink and a husband when he describes this as "stupid". Bob noting that this would explain a vacation they took to Gary, Indiana, got an extra giggle out of me because it reminded me of ripping into
The Incredible Hulk for depicting Jack McGee sitting on a tarmac in Chicago waiting for his flight to Gary to take off! It doesn't help Emily when neighbor Howard Borden (Bill Daily, best known to audiences then for his role on
I Dream of Jeannie) drops by to complain about a hairy experience he just had on a flight in his job as an airline navigator.
When Bob returns to the office, we meet receptionist Carol Kester (Marcia Wallace), who's more interested in making astrology charts than giving Bob his messages, and who informs Bob that she was only able to get the group a discount by claiming that they were a marching band. Another telephone monologue ensues when Bob calls to change the number of passengers in the group, this one involving a confusing amount of numbers flying around. Then Emily calls (in a two-way conversation for a change) to tell Bob that she changed her mind. Emily attends the pre-flight group meeting, offending one of the patients, Elliot Carlin (Jack Riley in a frequently recurring role that I actually recognized him from), when she's reluctant to tell the story of how her first fear-of-flying experience resulted in her stopping the plane from taking off. Howard shows up to speak to the patients, and reveals a phobia of his own when it turns out that the group is larger than he'd expected. He subsequently clears the elevator when he offhandedly notes its danger relative to that of flying.
On the plane, Stewardess DeFazio evokes a reaction from the group when she gives the oxygen mask demonstration. As the plane's taxiing, Emily makes it turn around to let her off. Back at home, she has to explain to Howard why she isn't in New York, and notes that she caused Bob some difficulty with the patients. Bob returns and she cries an apology. He apologizes for not having prepared her as thoroughly as his patients, and confesses that her crying always makes him laugh before he starts guffawing over it. She's just happy that he's not mad at her.
In the coda, Carol gives Bob complimentary messages from his patients about the flight, which includes one from Emily about something that happened that morning...
Along the way, we also meet regular Peter Bonerz as office neighbor Dr. Jerry Robinson, an orthodontist. Other recurring characters established are Patricia Smith as Hartley neighbor Margaret Hoover (only appearing in several early episodes) and patients Victor Gianelli (Noam Pitlik, only appearing in the first two seasons) and Lillian Bakerman (Florida Friebus, appearing throughout the series).
The show does look promising.
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Mission: Impossible
"Break!"
Originally aired September 16, 1972
Season 7 premiere
Wiki said:
In New Orleans, Jim Phelps poses as a pool shark in order to locate microfilm in a dead agent's wristwatch. Robert Conrad guest stars. This is the first of seven episodes in which Barbara Anderson starred as Mimi Davis, who replaced Lynda Day George while she was on maternity leave (George's character Lisa Casey is explained to be "on some special assignments in Europe").
In an office above a New Orleans pool hall, a player called Toledo (Med Flory) is caught by Dutch Krebbs (Carl Betz) and Press Allen (Conrad) having broken into a safe to take pictures of Krebbs's books with a wristwatch-concealed camera. Dutch accuses Toledo of being a fed and Allen shoots him.
The reel-to-reel tape in an outdoor sketch artist's box said:
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. This man, Dutch Krebbs, controls the largest illegal gambling empire in the Southeast. Conventional law enforcement agencies are certain that undercover agent Fred Stenrock, known as Toledo, who was gathering information that would have led to a government indictment, was murdered by Krebbs and his longtime lieutenant, Press Allen. At the time of his death, Toledo was wearing a wristwatch camera, which we believe contained enough microfilmed information to smash Krebbs's empire. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to locate Toledo's body and recover that watch before the exposed film deteriorates. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim!
In the briefing, Barney demonstrates a computer guiance system that will give Jim a cumulative 10 percent edge against his opponents. This system utilizes an intertial guidance system concealed in the cue ball, and marking the other balls radioactively so they'll show up on Barney's computer screen. Mimi is established to be an agent of opportunity--Press's ex-girlfriend, who's on parole from prison.
Jim and Willy don masks to conduct a drive-by robbery of Allen and his right-hand man, Mork, doing collections. The IMFers take $30,000, which puts Allen in hot water with Krebbs. Barney sneaks into the pool hall at night to rig a table with a self-destructing circuit board underneath, replace the cue ball, and spray the other balls. Pinstripe Willy later shows up looking for a job from Krebbs, auditioning by decking Mork. Jim visits the hall with a cased pool cue looking for action, accompanied by Mimi. Barney calls his shots via an ear-implanted radio receiver. Press goes down to check out the new "phenom" and runs into Mimi. Allen tries to recruit Jim to play under Dutch's management, but Jim's not interested, introducing Barney as his manager.
Now on the job, Willy similarly rigs Dutch's private pool table in time for Jim to play an exhibition game there. Mimi puts on a show of drinking, seeming to be experiencing trouble with Jim, and attempting to rekindle the flame between her and Press. Dutch starts planning a series of games pitting Jim against various pros. Jim and Mimi get into a fight over Jim making moves on a waitress (Francine York), giving Press an opportunity to move in on Mimi. While Jim plays in a game attended by Krebbs's rival Tim Sharkey (Robert Mandan), a disgruntled Mimi shows Krebbs and Press the van where Barney is calling the shots.
Masked Jim and Barney pull off another robbery, this time of Allen and Willy, costing Krebbs another $20,000 and putting Press in hotter water. Barney propositions Press, and the two of them take the rigged table tech to Sharkey. One of Sharkey's men watches as Barney calls the shots for Jim in a game against Sharkey's top player, Stick Hudson. Barney throws a key shot for Jim, giving Stick the lead. Then Barney shoots his minder with a tranquilizer and causes Stick to pocket the cue ball. Press heads for the van only to find it gone, and Barney sets the circuit plate under the table to vaporize.
Jim wins the game, and Sharkey confronts Krebbs with his knowledge that the game is rigged...but when he tries to take apart the cue ball, it's an ordinary one, putting Press in very hot water with both Krebbs and Sharkey...the former threatening to put out a contract on Allen. Willy offers to help Press in return for Toledo's watch camera, which is news to Allen. Press pulls a gun on Willy, Mimi walks in to provide a drunken distraction, and Willy gets away. Press goes to Sharkey with the news about the camera, takes Sharkey to where Toledo is buried, and digs up the grave...only for the pair to find Jim and Willy holding guns on them. Cut to the IMFers looking at a newspaper headline about Krebbs having been indicted, and Jim offering Mimi--now off of parole--more work while Casey's in Europe.
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A classic. Mott was on the verge of breaking up until Bowie offered this song to them.
Funny that are lowest charter this week is easily the best-known radio classic of the bunch.
DarrenTR1970 said:
RJDiogenes said:
Overstays its welcome pretty quickly.
Noteworthy only for its repetitiveness. It doesn't offer a hard choice for getting it, though, as it's on a compilation that I bought for Grand Funk's more classic hits.
DarrenTR1970 said:
It didn't click until I heard the chorus. Haven't heard this in years.
RJDiogenes said:
Like Darren, I haven't heard this in years and didn't recognize it by title, but it's a good one.
I may have had occasion to hear this on oldies radio, but if so, it didn't leave much of an impression.
Well, it probably seemed that long to the people who actually served there.
The length was more appropriate to the show actually being about the Vietnam War in disguise.
The cops probably had special Beatles Drug Bust forms by now.
The Japanese authorities were certainly taking note...
