The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread
- Thread starter The Old Mixer
- Start date
The album covers were by Roger Dean, who is as much associated with designing the YES covers, as Hipgnosis is with Pink Floyd's.
I know this thread is about the old channels like your H&Is and Decades, but can we start talking about old 90s shows as classic/retro pop culture? I ask because I found out yesterday Suzanne Summers passed away, and growing up, one show I watched every week was Step by Step, part of the TGIF line up. I've been thinking about that show lately, and even watched the first episode last night. I kinda want to do a watch through of the series, but the only way I can is Freevee, because I don't have Max anymore.
Okay, I see. I had the impression of being dropped in the middle of the action.
Whew.
Hepatitis is generally transmitted through bodily fluids, but Wiki does say that it can be caused by some industrial toxins, so maybe that's it.
Ah, okay.
True.
But did she respond to him? Malloy just listened, which seems to be what triggered the guy.
Okay, I thought that was enhanced by their program as well.
Yeah, for the sake of dramatic suspense, but I suspect that there are a lot more safeguards in real life.
"Fly Like an Eagle" is pretty good. The other two I can take or leave.
I should have known.
Old Mix is the boss, so he'll let you know. Personally, I wasn't watching much new TV by the 90s, though, so I won't know much about it.
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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
_______
The Brady Bunch
"Peter and the Wolf"
Originally aired October 12, 1973
At school, Greg's friend Len (Bill Miller) is impressed that he's gotten a date with Sandra Martin (Cindi Crosby), but Sandra informs Greg that she'll have to break the date because her 18-year-old cousin Linda is visiting. Greg asks her about double-dating, though Sandra hasn't seen Linda in years so she can't accurately describe her. Len doesn't want to risk it, and Greg has trouble recruiting anyone else. When Peter (whose voice seems to have fully changed at this point) wants to borrow Greg's razor to deal with his peach fuzz, Greg gets an idea.
Mike has Carol brush up on Spanish because they're taking the Calderons, a company client from Mexico City and his wife, to dinner. The rest of the family ends up getting in on the subplot, with Alice making a Mexican dinner that the younger girls and Bobby find a bit spicy. Peter comes up to the architecturally incorrect bead-curtained attic room that Greg's now occupying to prepare for his role as Phil Packer, which involves wearing a false mustache. Linda (Kathie Gibboney) turns out to be better-looking than the guys expected, and Peter's smitten. As Peter's trying to follow Greg's lead in coming on to Linda in the back seat at the drive-in, his mustache starts to slip and Greg has to extract him to the concession area.
The girls are suspicious afterward, and figure out who Peter is based on Greg having slipped in addressing him once. They decide to pull their own gag by arranging another double date...the plan being for both of them to come on to Peter, who's already full of himself over his perceived success. Juan and Maria Calderon (Paul Fierro and Alma Beltran) arrive at the Brady home, but they want to try pizza, so the kids recommend a place. It turns out to be the same place where Sandra and Linda are fawning all over "Phil" in a booth. Juan makes a comment about children necking in public, and the parents and Greg spot each other...just as Peter's 'stache is coming undone again. The girls start to 'fess up, and we cut to the guys having some 'splainin' to do at home. Peter gets a lame joke out of describing how he's learned his lesson. In the coda, Jan tries on the 'stache.
Has Alice's last name ever come up before? It's Nelson.
_______
The Odd Couple
"The Odd Holiday"
Originally aired October 12, 1973
Oh boy, I knew I should've gone back and compiled my continuity notes...! Felix is helping Murray pick out a vacation spot to take his mother to when Oscar brings Murray's attention to a pamphlet for the Caribbean island of San Domingas, which provokes a sinus issue from Felix. Oscar tells Murray to ask Felix about what happened there.
The flashback commences with the usual post-Season 1 continuity issue of the Madisons living in the current apartment. Oscar and Blanche get into a fight over Oscar being late for leaving with the Ungers on vacation over playing baseball. Felix decides to try to set an example by showing the Madisons what a happy couple is like, though Gloria is reluctant to get involved. The Madisons are continuing to bicker as they're checking into their hotel after an exhausting plane ride, and it turns into an all-out fight over Oscar not tipping the bellboy, Ramon (Victor Brandt). They then declare a truce and start to make up when Felix shows up...having grabbed the same hut when Felix called to cancel during the argument...so the Madisons end up having to share the hut with the Ungers.
The Madisons watch in disbelief as Gloria helps Felix go through his nightly checklist routine. The next morning, Felix makes everyone miserable by trying to take charge of having a great day. While the Madisons are on the same page, Felix shames Gloria over her bikini. Not seeing what's going on, Felix continues to be overbearing in trying to coax Oscar into being more romantic with Blanche.
Felix overhears the Madisons having a fight across the divider over Oscar wanting to leave, and Felix wakes Gloria up to try to stage a bigger fight, in which the Ungers air their grievances with each other, culminating with Gloria asking for a divorce...and she isn't acting. Felix resorts to trying to get into the twin bed that the Madisons are already crowded in, and Blanche promptly goes to Gloria's bed. Oscar and Felix then get into a fight over Felix's interference, and Oscar ends up going to the ladies' bed. Alone the next morning, Felix invites Ramon to sit down to breakfast with him.
Felix winds up badgering Ramon over his eating habits. Then Oscar unexpectedly returns after the Madisons were supposed to be leaving early, because he and Blanche had a big fight at the airport in which the police got involved. Oscar blows it off, assuming that they'll make up back in New York.
Flashing back to the present, we learn that the Madisons and Ungers got divorced more or less simultaneously.
So the continuity issue here is a whopper--Felix was always depicted as having moved in with an Oscar who was already comfortably established in his slovenly bachelor lifestyle. The Madisons are said to have been married for eight years, and the Ungers for seven. I think one of the conflicting mentions of how long the Madisons had been divorced had it at three years, which would more or less line up with this episode. Wasn't there a flashback episode just last season that took place when the Ungers were either already married or meeting each other, but Oscar already had his place to himself? Yeesh, I will have to go back and take those notes some day...
_______
Love, American Style
"Love and the Bonded Separation / Love and the Fractured Fibula / Love and the Pretty Secretary"
Originally aired October 12, 1973
"Love and the Pretty Secretary" is an oddly unspecific segment title for the show. When lawyers Dick Trent (Lt. Chief Don Galloway) and Leo (Austin Pendleton) hire the titular assistant, Angie (Robyn Millan), Leo is giddy about it and dates her; though Dick is more concerned with her sweeping lack of job competence, which includes being unable to spell, type, write shorthand, or read her own handwriting...the guys having to haphazardly decipher her notes. Dick has to put his foot down when one of their biggest clients is outraged after they miss an important meeting...leaving it to Leo to fire her. He tries to break it to her nicely. Very upset, she angrily reads her last set of garbled messages, but insists that Leo show up for the dinner that she's making him...which Leo considers a win.
_______
Super Friends
"The Shamon ‘U’"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
The Junior Super Friends are hiking up Mystery Mountain when they encounter strange magnetic occurrences. At the top of the mountain, they find a large U-magnet pointing upward out of the ground, but it no longer appears to be attracting metallic objects. They go to tell the Super Friends, but the magnet lowers into a trap door in the ground after they leave. The Dynamic Duo take the JSF back to the scene in the Batcopter, where they initially find nothing, but on the ground witness a laser beam shooting up out of the mountaintop. They get back in the copter and the magnet is deployed again, pulling the copter toward it. To make things worse, it also pulls down a golden meteor, which threatens to hit the copter. It misses and crashes into the ground, and the magnet having been turned off, Batman regains control of the copter. On the mountaintop, a claw crane comes out of the hatch and takes the meteor to the underground lab of Dr. Simeon Shamon (Alden), where we learn that he and his lab technician, Madame Lila Labonne (Shannon Farnon), are using the magnet to draw a space cloud toward Earth; the laser to smelt gold meteors out of it; and the magnet again to pull the meteors down. (Fun fact: gold isn't magnetic.) Madame Labonne expresses concern about other, unknown elements coming down in the meteors with the gold. Famous last words...
The Super Friends get to the top of the mountain on foot to find the meteor gone, so the Dynamic Duo climb down a steep cliffside thinking that it fell down there. The JSF then witness the magnet and laser at work again, and when another meteor is brought down, they hop onto the platform as it lowers into the lab and meet the scientists, learning of their sky-mining. What nobody is aware of is that the meteor brought down mysterious, unseen gases, which react with Earth's atmosphere.
The Dynamic Duo are intrigued to find cable car cables leading into the mountain. Then one of the green mists affects a nearby rabbit, making it grow to at least 8 feet tall. Its hops threaten to shake the Dynamic Duo off their perch, so they slide down the cables onto a tower. When they call the Hall of Justice, Superman informs them that strange occurrences are happening all over the world...the TroubAlert showing the attending Super Friends how animals and plants (but not humans) are mysteriously growing and shrinking. Back in the mountain, when Shamon won't stop his activities to consider the potential dangers, Labonne leaves with the JSF, threatening to report Shamon's activities to the authorities; and he stops the cable car as they're descending. Batman and Robin slide into the car, to Labonne's astonishment. Batman then slides down to bring up the Batcopter to rescue the others. Meanwhile, Superman deals with a giant orange tree that's threatening to crush a nearby farmhouse with its dropping fruit; while undersea, Aquaman summons whales to tow a giant lobster away from a sea lab...then comes upon a whale that's been shrunken down to a foot in length.
The Super Friends and Labonne converge at the Hall of Justice, Superman bringing a giant orange and Aquaman bringing the miniature whale, giving the scientist specimens to examine to determine the element responsible. When the Dynamic Duo attempt to return to Mystery Mountain, Shamon uses the titular magnet to repel the Batmobile. The JSF follow on their bikes, but Marvin's is broken when Wonder Dog enlarges to about the size of an elephant...so Wendy and Marvin ride him to the mountain. The Dynamic Duo attempt to climb the mountain's cliffside, having difficulty when Robin is caught on a tree that grows like Jack's beanstalk. Reaching the cables, Robin climbs them into the mountain lab. Above the lab, Batman finds the trap door and tries to open it; but Shamon shoots the laser beam up through the hatch to stymie his efforts. Robin opens the doors from the inside and Shamon and his remaining pair of assistants flee into a secret tunnel...but on the other side they find the giant Wonder Dog and think that he's a Yeti, so they flee back to the Dynamic Duo.
The JSF proceed through the tunnel and reunite with the Duo, and they describe to the doctor what's happening out in the world. Shamon gets a demonstration when the gases effect his two gold meteors, shrinking them down to microscopic size. Back at the Hall of Justice, Labonne has isolated red and green samples of what she calls Shamonite. Batman calls Superman, who disperses the space cloud in the stratosphere with windmill vanes. Observing a world map display at the Hall of Justice, Wendy works out that the size changes only occurred in places that were in night; and Labonne determines that solar radiation cancels out the Shamonite...while humans have been protected by the vibrations of their superior brains, however that works. The heroes and Labonne decide that they can't afford to wait for sunrise to hit the effected areas, so they work out how to speed up the process. On to our climactic clip:
"Some days you just can't get rid of a whale!"
In the aftermath, the Super Friends treat Labonne to a dinner in her honor, where there's a gag of Marvin thinking that he's growing, only to find that Wonder Dog is lifting his chair.
_______
Star Trek
"The Survivor"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
Personal fortune? It can't be canon! Our uncredited special guest star in the role of Carter Winston is none other than Ted Knight! Also noteworthy is the only onscreen mention of McCoy's daughter in the original TOS-era productions.
Winston's credentials check out, though McCoy gets strange readings from him. When Anne Nored (Nichols) is brought in to see him, he asserts that he can't marry her because of the circumstances under which he was put back together by unknown parties when they found him severely injured. Meeting with Kirk in his quarters, Winston transforms into a tentacled alien, knocks Kirk out, and assumes the captain's appearance. Fake Kirk goes to the bridge to order a course for Rator III, which is in the Neutral Zone...and is met with the obligatory objections from the crew.
The real Kirk is just as incredulous when he wakes up from his nap and returns to the bridge to find out where they're at. In Sickbay, Carter pulls the same trick on McCoy. In the doctor's guise, he counsels Anne, advising her to let Carter go. Kirk and Spock drop in to have the captain checked out, and they find it suspicious when the doctor nonchalantly blows them off.
The Romulan commander (Doohan) demands surrender. Kirk refuses, accusing him of using the Vendorian as an agent to set a trap. Lt. M'Ress (Barrett) makes her first appearance in this scene. Disguised as an Engineering crewman, the Vendorian knocks out Scotty and sabotages the shields. While this is being discovered, Anne holds the Vendorian, back in the form of Winston, at phaser-point. He describes Winston's fate; expresses how he's now come to share Winston's feelings for her; and confronts her with his true form. Kirk joins them with phaser drawn, but the Vendorian makes a break for it when the Romulans fire on the Enterprise. The crew assumes that they'll be forced to capitulate, but the forward deflector suddenly comes back online and the Enterprise puts up a fight, sending the Romulans into retreat. Scotty reports that he didn't have time to repair the shield...and Spock leaps to the conclusion that the Vendorian took the form of a deflector shield! The Vendorian then appears on the bridge in his true form, explaining why he was motivated to work for the Romulans, but how Carter Winston's influence on his personality caused him to have second thoughts. Anne volunteers to stand guard over the Vendorian, wanting to persuade him to embrace his continuation of Winston's identity. The episode ends with a bit of repartee between Spock and McCoy about the pros and cons of having two of the other.
The story elements in this one remind me strongly of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" and "The Man Trap".
_______
Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band song) - Wikipedia
FWIW, the retro channels do play some '90s and 2000s fare these days. Don't know if there'd be much interest among the usual crowd here, though. (I'm not familiar with the show either.)
ETA: A USA Today article about CBS's historic 1973 Saturday-night lineup:
A Saturday night television lineup to end them all celebrates 50 years (usatoday.com)
Geez, rub it in that I chose to watch Emergency! first...
50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
_______
The Brady Bunch
"Peter and the Wolf"
Originally aired October 12, 1973
Paramount Plus said:
At school, Greg's friend Len (Bill Miller) is impressed that he's gotten a date with Sandra Martin (Cindi Crosby), but Sandra informs Greg that she'll have to break the date because her 18-year-old cousin Linda is visiting. Greg asks her about double-dating, though Sandra hasn't seen Linda in years so she can't accurately describe her. Len doesn't want to risk it, and Greg has trouble recruiting anyone else. When Peter (whose voice seems to have fully changed at this point) wants to borrow Greg's razor to deal with his peach fuzz, Greg gets an idea.
Mike has Carol brush up on Spanish because they're taking the Calderons, a company client from Mexico City and his wife, to dinner. The rest of the family ends up getting in on the subplot, with Alice making a Mexican dinner that the younger girls and Bobby find a bit spicy. Peter comes up to the architecturally incorrect bead-curtained attic room that Greg's now occupying to prepare for his role as Phil Packer, which involves wearing a false mustache. Linda (Kathie Gibboney) turns out to be better-looking than the guys expected, and Peter's smitten. As Peter's trying to follow Greg's lead in coming on to Linda in the back seat at the drive-in, his mustache starts to slip and Greg has to extract him to the concession area.
The girls are suspicious afterward, and figure out who Peter is based on Greg having slipped in addressing him once. They decide to pull their own gag by arranging another double date...the plan being for both of them to come on to Peter, who's already full of himself over his perceived success. Juan and Maria Calderon (Paul Fierro and Alma Beltran) arrive at the Brady home, but they want to try pizza, so the kids recommend a place. It turns out to be the same place where Sandra and Linda are fawning all over "Phil" in a booth. Juan makes a comment about children necking in public, and the parents and Greg spot each other...just as Peter's 'stache is coming undone again. The girls start to 'fess up, and we cut to the guys having some 'splainin' to do at home. Peter gets a lame joke out of describing how he's learned his lesson. In the coda, Jan tries on the 'stache.
Has Alice's last name ever come up before? It's Nelson.
_______
The Odd Couple
"The Odd Holiday"
Originally aired October 12, 1973
Wiki said:
Oh boy, I knew I should've gone back and compiled my continuity notes...! Felix is helping Murray pick out a vacation spot to take his mother to when Oscar brings Murray's attention to a pamphlet for the Caribbean island of San Domingas, which provokes a sinus issue from Felix. Oscar tells Murray to ask Felix about what happened there.
The flashback commences with the usual post-Season 1 continuity issue of the Madisons living in the current apartment. Oscar and Blanche get into a fight over Oscar being late for leaving with the Ungers on vacation over playing baseball. Felix decides to try to set an example by showing the Madisons what a happy couple is like, though Gloria is reluctant to get involved. The Madisons are continuing to bicker as they're checking into their hotel after an exhausting plane ride, and it turns into an all-out fight over Oscar not tipping the bellboy, Ramon (Victor Brandt). They then declare a truce and start to make up when Felix shows up...having grabbed the same hut when Felix called to cancel during the argument...so the Madisons end up having to share the hut with the Ungers.
The Madisons watch in disbelief as Gloria helps Felix go through his nightly checklist routine. The next morning, Felix makes everyone miserable by trying to take charge of having a great day. While the Madisons are on the same page, Felix shames Gloria over her bikini. Not seeing what's going on, Felix continues to be overbearing in trying to coax Oscar into being more romantic with Blanche.
Oscar: I had a better time on Guadalcanal!
Felix overhears the Madisons having a fight across the divider over Oscar wanting to leave, and Felix wakes Gloria up to try to stage a bigger fight, in which the Ungers air their grievances with each other, culminating with Gloria asking for a divorce...and she isn't acting. Felix resorts to trying to get into the twin bed that the Madisons are already crowded in, and Blanche promptly goes to Gloria's bed. Oscar and Felix then get into a fight over Felix's interference, and Oscar ends up going to the ladies' bed. Alone the next morning, Felix invites Ramon to sit down to breakfast with him.
Ramon: Me?
Felix: Of course, I don't believe in any caste system. This is a democracy, isn't it?
Ramon: No it isn't, it's a military dictatorship.
Felix: Of course, I don't believe in any caste system. This is a democracy, isn't it?
Ramon: No it isn't, it's a military dictatorship.
Felix winds up badgering Ramon over his eating habits. Then Oscar unexpectedly returns after the Madisons were supposed to be leaving early, because he and Blanche had a big fight at the airport in which the police got involved. Oscar blows it off, assuming that they'll make up back in New York.
Flashing back to the present, we learn that the Madisons and Ungers got divorced more or less simultaneously.
So the continuity issue here is a whopper--Felix was always depicted as having moved in with an Oscar who was already comfortably established in his slovenly bachelor lifestyle. The Madisons are said to have been married for eight years, and the Ungers for seven. I think one of the conflicting mentions of how long the Madisons had been divorced had it at three years, which would more or less line up with this episode. Wasn't there a flashback episode just last season that took place when the Ungers were either already married or meeting each other, but Oscar already had his place to himself? Yeesh, I will have to go back and take those notes some day...
_______
Love, American Style
"Love and the Bonded Separation / Love and the Fractured Fibula / Love and the Pretty Secretary"
Originally aired October 12, 1973
"Love and the Pretty Secretary" is an oddly unspecific segment title for the show. When lawyers Dick Trent (Lt. Chief Don Galloway) and Leo (Austin Pendleton) hire the titular assistant, Angie (Robyn Millan), Leo is giddy about it and dates her; though Dick is more concerned with her sweeping lack of job competence, which includes being unable to spell, type, write shorthand, or read her own handwriting...the guys having to haphazardly decipher her notes. Dick has to put his foot down when one of their biggest clients is outraged after they miss an important meeting...leaving it to Leo to fire her. He tries to break it to her nicely. Very upset, she angrily reads her last set of garbled messages, but insists that Leo show up for the dinner that she's making him...which Leo considers a win.
_______
Super Friends
"The Shamon ‘U’"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
iTunes said:
The Junior Super Friends are hiking up Mystery Mountain when they encounter strange magnetic occurrences. At the top of the mountain, they find a large U-magnet pointing upward out of the ground, but it no longer appears to be attracting metallic objects. They go to tell the Super Friends, but the magnet lowers into a trap door in the ground after they leave. The Dynamic Duo take the JSF back to the scene in the Batcopter, where they initially find nothing, but on the ground witness a laser beam shooting up out of the mountaintop. They get back in the copter and the magnet is deployed again, pulling the copter toward it. To make things worse, it also pulls down a golden meteor, which threatens to hit the copter. It misses and crashes into the ground, and the magnet having been turned off, Batman regains control of the copter. On the mountaintop, a claw crane comes out of the hatch and takes the meteor to the underground lab of Dr. Simeon Shamon (Alden), where we learn that he and his lab technician, Madame Lila Labonne (Shannon Farnon), are using the magnet to draw a space cloud toward Earth; the laser to smelt gold meteors out of it; and the magnet again to pull the meteors down. (Fun fact: gold isn't magnetic.) Madame Labonne expresses concern about other, unknown elements coming down in the meteors with the gold. Famous last words...
Dr. Shamon: Who cares about side effects?
The Super Friends get to the top of the mountain on foot to find the meteor gone, so the Dynamic Duo climb down a steep cliffside thinking that it fell down there. The JSF then witness the magnet and laser at work again, and when another meteor is brought down, they hop onto the platform as it lowers into the lab and meet the scientists, learning of their sky-mining. What nobody is aware of is that the meteor brought down mysterious, unseen gases, which react with Earth's atmosphere.
The Dynamic Duo are intrigued to find cable car cables leading into the mountain. Then one of the green mists affects a nearby rabbit, making it grow to at least 8 feet tall. Its hops threaten to shake the Dynamic Duo off their perch, so they slide down the cables onto a tower. When they call the Hall of Justice, Superman informs them that strange occurrences are happening all over the world...the TroubAlert showing the attending Super Friends how animals and plants (but not humans) are mysteriously growing and shrinking. Back in the mountain, when Shamon won't stop his activities to consider the potential dangers, Labonne leaves with the JSF, threatening to report Shamon's activities to the authorities; and he stops the cable car as they're descending. Batman and Robin slide into the car, to Labonne's astonishment. Batman then slides down to bring up the Batcopter to rescue the others. Meanwhile, Superman deals with a giant orange tree that's threatening to crush a nearby farmhouse with its dropping fruit; while undersea, Aquaman summons whales to tow a giant lobster away from a sea lab...then comes upon a whale that's been shrunken down to a foot in length.
The Super Friends and Labonne converge at the Hall of Justice, Superman bringing a giant orange and Aquaman bringing the miniature whale, giving the scientist specimens to examine to determine the element responsible. When the Dynamic Duo attempt to return to Mystery Mountain, Shamon uses the titular magnet to repel the Batmobile. The JSF follow on their bikes, but Marvin's is broken when Wonder Dog enlarges to about the size of an elephant...so Wendy and Marvin ride him to the mountain. The Dynamic Duo attempt to climb the mountain's cliffside, having difficulty when Robin is caught on a tree that grows like Jack's beanstalk. Reaching the cables, Robin climbs them into the mountain lab. Above the lab, Batman finds the trap door and tries to open it; but Shamon shoots the laser beam up through the hatch to stymie his efforts. Robin opens the doors from the inside and Shamon and his remaining pair of assistants flee into a secret tunnel...but on the other side they find the giant Wonder Dog and think that he's a Yeti, so they flee back to the Dynamic Duo.
The JSF proceed through the tunnel and reunite with the Duo, and they describe to the doctor what's happening out in the world. Shamon gets a demonstration when the gases effect his two gold meteors, shrinking them down to microscopic size. Back at the Hall of Justice, Labonne has isolated red and green samples of what she calls Shamonite. Batman calls Superman, who disperses the space cloud in the stratosphere with windmill vanes. Observing a world map display at the Hall of Justice, Wendy works out that the size changes only occurred in places that were in night; and Labonne determines that solar radiation cancels out the Shamonite...while humans have been protected by the vibrations of their superior brains, however that works. The heroes and Labonne decide that they can't afford to wait for sunrise to hit the effected areas, so they work out how to speed up the process. On to our climactic clip:
"Some days you just can't get rid of a whale!"
In the aftermath, the Super Friends treat Labonne to a dinner in her honor, where there's a gag of Marvin thinking that he's growing, only to find that Wonder Dog is lifting his chair.
_______
Star Trek
"The Survivor"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
Wiki said:
Captain's log, stardate 5143.3: While patrolling the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone, the Enterprise has changed course to assist a one-man vessel which has fallen victim to a meteor swarm. Sensors indicate the occupant is still alive.
Personal fortune? It can't be canon! Our uncredited special guest star in the role of Carter Winston is none other than Ted Knight! Also noteworthy is the only onscreen mention of McCoy's daughter in the original TOS-era productions.
The Enterprise has rescued a living legend--the foremost space trader of our time. Carter Winston has acquired a dozen fortunes only to use his wealth time and again to assist Federation colonies in times of need or disaster.
Winston's credentials check out, though McCoy gets strange readings from him. When Anne Nored (Nichols) is brought in to see him, he asserts that he can't marry her because of the circumstances under which he was put back together by unknown parties when they found him severely injured. Meeting with Kirk in his quarters, Winston transforms into a tentacled alien, knocks Kirk out, and assumes the captain's appearance. Fake Kirk goes to the bridge to order a course for Rator III, which is in the Neutral Zone...and is met with the obligatory objections from the crew.
Ship's log, stardate 5148.7, First Officer Spock recording: The captain's course change has taken us deep into the Romulan Neutral Zone.
The real Kirk is just as incredulous when he wakes up from his nap and returns to the bridge to find out where they're at. In Sickbay, Carter pulls the same trick on McCoy. In the doctor's guise, he counsels Anne, advising her to let Carter go. Kirk and Spock drop in to have the captain checked out, and they find it suspicious when the doctor nonchalantly blows them off.
Captain's log, supplemental: Due to interference by the alien Vendorian aboard, the Enterprise has been detected violating the Romulan Neutral Zone. By the terms of our treaty, the Romulans have a legal right to seize and impound the Enterprise. To complicate matters, we have not been able to apprehend the Vendorian responsible for putting us in this position.
The Romulan commander (Doohan) demands surrender. Kirk refuses, accusing him of using the Vendorian as an agent to set a trap. Lt. M'Ress (Barrett) makes her first appearance in this scene. Disguised as an Engineering crewman, the Vendorian knocks out Scotty and sabotages the shields. While this is being discovered, Anne holds the Vendorian, back in the form of Winston, at phaser-point. He describes Winston's fate; expresses how he's now come to share Winston's feelings for her; and confronts her with his true form. Kirk joins them with phaser drawn, but the Vendorian makes a break for it when the Romulans fire on the Enterprise. The crew assumes that they'll be forced to capitulate, but the forward deflector suddenly comes back online and the Enterprise puts up a fight, sending the Romulans into retreat. Scotty reports that he didn't have time to repair the shield...and Spock leaps to the conclusion that the Vendorian took the form of a deflector shield! The Vendorian then appears on the bridge in his true form, explaining why he was motivated to work for the Romulans, but how Carter Winston's influence on his personality caused him to have second thoughts. Anne volunteers to stand guard over the Vendorian, wanting to persuade him to embrace his continuation of Winston's identity. The episode ends with a bit of repartee between Spock and McCoy about the pros and cons of having two of the other.
The story elements in this one remind me strongly of "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" and "The Man Trap".
_______
Looked that up...for the record, Pena's version wasn't released until decades later. Thus the work is rightfully distinguished as...
Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band song) - Wikipedia
You were, but Steve wasn't in that part...he popped up for a briefing at the office in the evening. He was delegating Sunday arson duty to Danno.
Couldn't say, we didn't see any of the other calls.
I am...?RJDiogenes said:
FWIW, the retro channels do play some '90s and 2000s fare these days. Don't know if there'd be much interest among the usual crowd here, though. (I'm not familiar with the show either.)ETA: A USA Today article about CBS's historic 1973 Saturday-night lineup:
A Saturday night television lineup to end them all celebrates 50 years (usatoday.com)
Geez, rub it in that I chose to watch Emergency! first...
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More like "Peter is the Wolf."
Greg needs new friends.
It's never a good sign when a Brady kid gets an idea.
I wonder if Mike Brady designed the house that Mary Richards lives in. Or did I say that already? It seems familiar.
That will set her apart from Marcia.
I'll remember that in case I ever need to tie her in to other characters named Nelson, like Ozzie & Harriet, or Tony.
It's very strange that this particular show has so many continuity issues. I think we were well past the time where they only expected each episode to be seen only twice at most. I wonder if any of them has ever been questioned about it in an interview.
That's odd. I'd expect Oscar to be a good tipper-- or try to be, if he isn't tapped out.
The Odd Quartet. Or maybe The Odd Couples.
"We are at T-minus toothbrush and holding...."
There's something I don't remember.
But I wonder if that's a continuity error, too. I remember their service years coming up before, but not the details.Oscar wins this episode.
Ask a silly question....
True-- although it doesn't take long for Oscar to degenerate when left to his own devices. Hasn't Felix gone away for the weekend and returned to find the apartment returned to its Apocalyptic state?
I wonder if it's already been done. Maybe I'll do a search today. I had my second kidney stone done yesterday afternoon, so I'm not going anywhere.
Not a really substantive story either.
Just put her in charge of their social media presence.
We have a happy ending implied, at least.
Aren't those called Horseshoe Magnets?
Once again, the super-villain is already rich to be able to afford all this technology, unless he's unbelievably deep in debt-- but bringing that much gold down from outer space will just make the bottom fall out of the market anyway.
And there's that.
There's no such thing as side effects, doc. There's just the effects you like and the effects you don't like.
And assures them that unnamed heroes are dealing with it!
Now there's a Silver Age plot.
"Why, yes, I did bring enough for everybody."
"Size of an elephant!" Oops, wrong show.
Cosmic poetic justice. I guess the little whale should count his blessings.
He can't suck it into his super lungs and take it back to space?
I'd guess not very well, based on observations of social media.
I thought they were going to use the gas to super-size Wendy's pocket mirror.
That's great.
Too bad, though, because it would have been an opportunity for Wonder Woman to save the day, especially in an episode where she seems to have not done much.The hell with Doc Shamon, I guess.
The episodes seem to follow a pattern of Mad Scientists redeeming themselves.I'm not sure if the original show ever really addressed the idea of a post-scarcity society. I remember one time (in "The Apple," I think) where Spock notes how expensive his training was. And there were other signs of commerce around, too, like in "Trouble With Tribbles."
He was a busy guy.
By name? I think it was Joanna. Now that I think of it, it's kind of funny they didn't use that script for the cartoon.
"What, again!"
Does he not remember the tentacle attack?
Despite being a Tentacle Monster From Beyond The Stars.
Okay, I'm gonna need a whole lotta technobabble to buy that.
I do like how this turned out. That's my kinda Trek.
"The Cage," too, with the mention of how aliens put Winston back together incorrectly, although that turned out to be a lie.
Danno gets all the fun jobs.
People usually say things like, "Leave me alone" and "I'll call the cops" and all that stuff, so I assumed it was the sudden silence that set him off. That is just an assumption, though.
The Boss, the Chief, the Big Cheese, Fearless Leader, the Great Big Head.I am...?
I can work up an interest in most things, but I'll just be totally ignorant.
That was definitely a great lineup. The article has some interesting information about Bridget Loves Bernie, which I do vaguely remember. I had no idea that it was cancelled because it was controversial. I wonder what the controversy was, given that it followed All In The Family.
Eight other series regulars come first.Greg needs new friends.
I think you might have.
I wonder if there are published compendiums or websites devoted to Odd Couple continuity.
Nose drops, stuff like that.
We only see it briefly because he has her covering it up.
I wanna say that some recent episodes had established that they served in WWII. Pretty sure there was a war flashback episode.
To the extent I can recall, not in the state that it was before Felix moved in.
There ya go. Even after they knew it was a magnet, they kept referring to it as a U or the Shamon U.
The two he brought down were boulder-sized.
Is that a quote from somewhere?
Like our next episode's guest JLAer, who really gets around...
If having to proactively shake the oranges off a giant tree was the worst thing Superman had to deal with, you'd think they could have waited for daybreak.Now there's a Silver Age plot.
"Shape of an elephant" would be just right for the next iteration of the series.
You'd think. Even Byrne's Supes did stuff like that.
I had to wonder if that little bit of business wasn't an homage to the Adam West film, even though they didn't have Batman running into a bunch of obstacles.That's great.
Oh yeah, all indications were that they used some form of currency in TOS, until that reference in STIV, which was doubled down on in TNG.
Not by name. He mentioned his daughter going to school on a planet that Winston saved in the first clip.
The alien did it from behind; and in general, when its victims came to, they seemed to not remember how they went unconscious.
Glad it's not just me. Being able to look like a table is one thing; being able to absorb ship-scale phaser fire is another.Okay, I'm gonna need a whole lotta technobabble to buy that.
Maybe.
I suppose we're not supposed to say "Big Kahuna" anymore...The Boss, the Chief, the Big Cheese, Fearless Leader, the Great Big Head.
Yeah, I wasn't familiar enough with the show to know about the mixed-faith marriage angle.
I thought it was odd that the article lumped Night Court in with The Single Guy...Night Court was on the air for 9 seasons!
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I was hoping for something like that, but this is the best I could find (search for "When did TOC actually meet?"). Not exactly what we were looking for, but interesting.
Of course.
The link does mention war-related stuff.
He wasn't going to stop there. He had Gold-Rush Fever!
I definitely read it somewhere, a long time ago, so it's more of a paraphrase. The back of my mind is telling me that it was in Analog, either in the editorial or the fact article, maybe as far back as the 80s. So it comes from some Science Fiction writer. I can't find it online, though.
At last, another guest star.
He should have eaten the giant orange, given the trouble he had with that pipe. He might have super-scurvy or something.
"Size of a [animal]!" was the battle cry of a character from an old Arabian Knights cartoon back in the 60s. He could do just about any animal, I think.
I think it must have been. It's pretty famous and would have been fresh in their minds.
"They still use money." I remember that. Of course, you could spin that as meaning cash specifically, but the TNG Era definitely sent mixed messages (and Orville made the concept really weird
).Oops. I didn't watch either of those clips. I blame the opioids. I'm better this morning.
Not to mention the scaling factor.
I wouldn't be surprised.
I think I knew but didn't care much. I just watched it because it was between other shows, and I didn't really care for either of the stars.
I wasn't familiar with any of those later shows, although I've heard of Night Court.
_______
50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 3)
_______
Emergency!
"An English Visitor"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
Roy and Johnny are returning to the station from a rescue when a community relations officer named Dick (apparently uncredited) introduces them to the titular VIP from Coventry, Jason Channing (Jamie Ross). The station and other units are called to a fire at an apartment building, to which Channing rides in Boot's spot. At the scene, the paramedics pry into an elevator shaft to find an injured policeman. Chet finds evidence that the fire was started by somebody having thrown a Molotov cocktail down the shaft at the officer. Along the way, we get another look at the new base station at work, with Dix and Brackett handling simultaneous calls.
In the operating room at Rampart, Early butts heads with nurse Sheila Graves (Judi Meredith), who gets surly when he chastises her for being late. Meanwhile, Brackett examines rock singer Patsy Flynn (Mira L. Waters), who was found unconscious in her apartment and brought in by a paramedic from another unit. Elsewhere, Squad 51 arrive at a suburban home where Homer (Jack Bailey), an old Wild West show trick shooter in a cowboy outfit, has accidentally grazed the hand of his wife/partner, Martha (Lucille Benson), who's dressed as a saloon girl. Martha insists that it was because she moved, but whipping out his pistol to shoot a flowerpot across the room, Homer finds that his aim is a little off, and Johnny surmises that Martha having moved may have saved her.
Roy calls in to Dix that Homer's taken Martha to a private doctor; following which Dix has a talk with Sheila about her bad attitude, which is attributed to her having formerly been in charge of her own service. Assisted by Morton, Brackett diagnoses that Flynn is suffering from diabetic acidosis brought on by a case of pneumonia that she was neglecting because of her busy performing schedule. While a distraught woman named Shirley (Barbara Boles)--apparently the police officer's wife--is tearfully telling Early how her implied husband was responding to a false call and apparently attacked by militants, Brackett goes out to the waiting room to take Patsy's callous manager, Harry Rivers (Stanley Kamel), into his office to fill him in on her condition. Rivers is primarily concerned with how much Patsy is worth to a lot of people. At the station, a bit of friction develops between Johnny and Jason as the paramedics help their visitor set up a bed. Back at Rampart, Dix is talking to Early about Graves when the nurse calls them in because a catheter broke in the officer's leg. Graves snaps at the sobbing Shirley to shut up, following which Dix takes Shirley out of the room to demonstrate a little more compassion. Brackett is called in to navigate a wire into the officer to pull out the broken catheter, which has made it up into the patient's chest.
Dix brings Shirley in to see her recovering implied husband, then has another talk with Sheila, who blames herself for not getting a tourniquet on in time, though Dix reassures her that she did everything right. When Sheila thanks Dix for her kindness, Dix tells her to spread it around. (Unfortunately, we don't get a payoff beat for this.) Out at the nurse's station, Jason, whom the paramedics have been showing around the hospital, asks Dix about a pretty nurse he saw, and Johnny takes exception because she's one that he's been working on. The squad is then called to where a pickup truck has overturned on a backlot while being pursued by Officer Vince, who was concerned about its heavy load. The truck obligatorily if belatedly bursts into flame. As they're pulling out the hippie driver, Johnny and Jason start reacting to the smoke that they're inhaling while noting its distinctive smell. They let Roy treat the patient, and it's discovered that the truck's cargo was marijuana bricks. Back at Rampart, Brackett is having a tougher talk with Rivers, who's now acting a little more soberly concerned about Patsy's situation, when the doctor is called in because Patsy has gone Code Blue.
Station 51 is called to a rock quarry where a man has gotten his leg caught in the "jaw crusher". (I'm pretty sure David Banner's due to have a climactic Hulk-Out here in a handful of years.) Channing accompanies the paramedics as they climb up the conveyor to get to the victim. Johnny and Jason (having by now recovered from their Cheech & Chong beat) are pulling up the Stokes when it slips and pulls Johnny off the platform. Jason grabs Johnny's arm and pulls him up.
The victim is lowered in a Stokes via bucket ladder.
Back at Rampart, Patsy is stabilizing and has regained consciousness. Jason comes down the elevator with the nurse he was asking about on his arm, taking her out to a dinner that Johnny's picking up the tab for. Johnny then learns from Roy that back in Jolly Ol', Channing was hospitalized for three months after pulling eight people out of a fire.
A good shot of the new base station, though I don't have a "before" for comparison:
_______
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Hi There, Sports Fans"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
Disgruntled with odd jobs like ordering supplies, Mary tells Lou that she wants more challenging responsibilities. He immediately gives her the assignment to hire a new sportscaster and fire the old one, Ed Cavanaugh. Mary takes Ed (former CONTROL robot Dick Gautier in a plaid blazer with big lapels and a flared collar) out to a restaurant, and he thinks it's a date. As he starts getting frisky, she firmly breaks the news to him. At Mary's apartment, there's a bit of side business about Rhoda learning that Mary wasn't just a cheerleader, but the head cheerleader. Back at the newsroom, Ted's recruited to fill in until the new sportscaster is hired; and for the occasion he clomps around elevated by large-heeled "Conquistador boots". Lou then chews Mary out for firing Ed before hiring the replacement, which he underscores by turning on the broadcast, in which Ted plays his news and sports roles as if he were two people.
Mary is overwhelmed by applicants, including one we see her interviewing, Hank Morton (baby, if you ever wondered / What Gordon Jump was doing in '73, / Before he was working off the air in Cincinnati...), who's outspoken about having lost his previous position to a "jock"--a former pro player. Justifying Morton's concerns, Mary is pressured by Lou to hire an ex-Vikings linebacker friend of his; but she wants to leave her own mark and chooses Andy Rivers (John Gabriel), following which she becomes very invested in making sure his first broadcast goes well. He does fine, but once she's seen him rapidly firing off scores on the air, Mary's so disappointed by what her two weeks of effort were for that she breaks into tears. Lou tries to console her by telling her how meaningless everyone's lives are, which doesn't seem to help.
In the coda, Mary accepts a dinner invitation from Andy.
_______
The Bob Newhart Show
"Emily in for Carol"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
Bob, Jerry, Bernie Tupperman, and Dr. Phil Newman (Howard Platt establishing an infrequently recurring role) interview applicants in Bob's office--including airheaded Miss Brennan (blink and you miss Teri Garr); and Joan Rossi (Rhoda Gemignani), who's preoccupied with people getting the wrong idea about the sorts of things she'd be expected to do as a secretary. When Bob takes a call from Emily, the others get the idea to hire her, as she's now between semesters. Bob's motivated to go through with it because Bernie then nominates his wife Tippy, an unseen touch typist with a screechy voice...so he finds himself talking Emily into it when she's not interested. At the office after Carol leaves, Emily and Bob are kissing when Joan Rossi walks through while switching elevators and comments on the situation.
Elliot Carlin sees Bob about abandonment issues triggered by a dog disappearing on him while chasing cars; but Bob's distracted by the phones ringing off the hook in the reception area and goes out to try to manage Emily, though she insists that she's got everything under control. Bob starts to leave for a lunch date with her...but then remembers that Elliot's still in his office. As Emily's stint goes on, she has issues with Dr. Newman expecting her to pick up his laundry, and Jerry has issues with Emily not lying to his girlfriends for him. Bob finds himself having to fire her...though he insists that she not quit first, because then she won't get severance pay. Bob then has to call Tippy Tupperman.
In the coda, Carol's back from Italy, showing pictures of other countries that she took from the plane.
_______
50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 3)
_______
Emergency!
"An English Visitor"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
The first sentence on Wiki edited to end where it should have said:
Roy and Johnny are returning to the station from a rescue when a community relations officer named Dick (apparently uncredited) introduces them to the titular VIP from Coventry, Jason Channing (Jamie Ross). The station and other units are called to a fire at an apartment building, to which Channing rides in Boot's spot. At the scene, the paramedics pry into an elevator shaft to find an injured policeman. Chet finds evidence that the fire was started by somebody having thrown a Molotov cocktail down the shaft at the officer. Along the way, we get another look at the new base station at work, with Dix and Brackett handling simultaneous calls.
In the operating room at Rampart, Early butts heads with nurse Sheila Graves (Judi Meredith), who gets surly when he chastises her for being late. Meanwhile, Brackett examines rock singer Patsy Flynn (Mira L. Waters), who was found unconscious in her apartment and brought in by a paramedic from another unit. Elsewhere, Squad 51 arrive at a suburban home where Homer (Jack Bailey), an old Wild West show trick shooter in a cowboy outfit, has accidentally grazed the hand of his wife/partner, Martha (Lucille Benson), who's dressed as a saloon girl. Martha insists that it was because she moved, but whipping out his pistol to shoot a flowerpot across the room, Homer finds that his aim is a little off, and Johnny surmises that Martha having moved may have saved her.
Jason: Crazy yanks...
Roy calls in to Dix that Homer's taken Martha to a private doctor; following which Dix has a talk with Sheila about her bad attitude, which is attributed to her having formerly been in charge of her own service. Assisted by Morton, Brackett diagnoses that Flynn is suffering from diabetic acidosis brought on by a case of pneumonia that she was neglecting because of her busy performing schedule. While a distraught woman named Shirley (Barbara Boles)--apparently the police officer's wife--is tearfully telling Early how her implied husband was responding to a false call and apparently attacked by militants, Brackett goes out to the waiting room to take Patsy's callous manager, Harry Rivers (Stanley Kamel), into his office to fill him in on her condition. Rivers is primarily concerned with how much Patsy is worth to a lot of people. At the station, a bit of friction develops between Johnny and Jason as the paramedics help their visitor set up a bed. Back at Rampart, Dix is talking to Early about Graves when the nurse calls them in because a catheter broke in the officer's leg. Graves snaps at the sobbing Shirley to shut up, following which Dix takes Shirley out of the room to demonstrate a little more compassion. Brackett is called in to navigate a wire into the officer to pull out the broken catheter, which has made it up into the patient's chest.
Dix brings Shirley in to see her recovering implied husband, then has another talk with Sheila, who blames herself for not getting a tourniquet on in time, though Dix reassures her that she did everything right. When Sheila thanks Dix for her kindness, Dix tells her to spread it around. (Unfortunately, we don't get a payoff beat for this.) Out at the nurse's station, Jason, whom the paramedics have been showing around the hospital, asks Dix about a pretty nurse he saw, and Johnny takes exception because she's one that he's been working on. The squad is then called to where a pickup truck has overturned on a backlot while being pursued by Officer Vince, who was concerned about its heavy load. The truck obligatorily if belatedly bursts into flame. As they're pulling out the hippie driver, Johnny and Jason start reacting to the smoke that they're inhaling while noting its distinctive smell. They let Roy treat the patient, and it's discovered that the truck's cargo was marijuana bricks. Back at Rampart, Brackett is having a tougher talk with Rivers, who's now acting a little more soberly concerned about Patsy's situation, when the doctor is called in because Patsy has gone Code Blue.
Station 51 is called to a rock quarry where a man has gotten his leg caught in the "jaw crusher". (I'm pretty sure David Banner's due to have a climactic Hulk-Out here in a handful of years.) Channing accompanies the paramedics as they climb up the conveyor to get to the victim. Johnny and Jason (having by now recovered from their Cheech & Chong beat) are pulling up the Stokes when it slips and pulls Johnny off the platform. Jason grabs Johnny's arm and pulls him up.
Johnny: Thanks, man.
Jason: Anytime, sport.
Jason: Anytime, sport.
The victim is lowered in a Stokes via bucket ladder.
Back at Rampart, Patsy is stabilizing and has regained consciousness. Jason comes down the elevator with the nurse he was asking about on his arm, taking her out to a dinner that Johnny's picking up the tab for. Johnny then learns from Roy that back in Jolly Ol', Channing was hospitalized for three months after pulling eight people out of a fire.
A good shot of the new base station, though I don't have a "before" for comparison:
_______
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Hi There, Sports Fans"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
Wiki said:
Disgruntled with odd jobs like ordering supplies, Mary tells Lou that she wants more challenging responsibilities. He immediately gives her the assignment to hire a new sportscaster and fire the old one, Ed Cavanaugh. Mary takes Ed (former CONTROL robot Dick Gautier in a plaid blazer with big lapels and a flared collar) out to a restaurant, and he thinks it's a date. As he starts getting frisky, she firmly breaks the news to him. At Mary's apartment, there's a bit of side business about Rhoda learning that Mary wasn't just a cheerleader, but the head cheerleader. Back at the newsroom, Ted's recruited to fill in until the new sportscaster is hired; and for the occasion he clomps around elevated by large-heeled "Conquistador boots". Lou then chews Mary out for firing Ed before hiring the replacement, which he underscores by turning on the broadcast, in which Ted plays his news and sports roles as if he were two people.
Mary is overwhelmed by applicants, including one we see her interviewing, Hank Morton (baby, if you ever wondered / What Gordon Jump was doing in '73, / Before he was working off the air in Cincinnati...), who's outspoken about having lost his previous position to a "jock"--a former pro player. Justifying Morton's concerns, Mary is pressured by Lou to hire an ex-Vikings linebacker friend of his; but she wants to leave her own mark and chooses Andy Rivers (John Gabriel), following which she becomes very invested in making sure his first broadcast goes well. He does fine, but once she's seen him rapidly firing off scores on the air, Mary's so disappointed by what her two weeks of effort were for that she breaks into tears. Lou tries to console her by telling her how meaningless everyone's lives are, which doesn't seem to help.
In the coda, Mary accepts a dinner invitation from Andy.
Ted: Be careful, Andy. That's the way she fired the last sportscaster.
_______
The Bob Newhart Show
"Emily in for Carol"
Originally aired October 13, 1973
Wiki said:
Bob, Jerry, Bernie Tupperman, and Dr. Phil Newman (Howard Platt establishing an infrequently recurring role) interview applicants in Bob's office--including airheaded Miss Brennan (blink and you miss Teri Garr); and Joan Rossi (Rhoda Gemignani), who's preoccupied with people getting the wrong idea about the sorts of things she'd be expected to do as a secretary. When Bob takes a call from Emily, the others get the idea to hire her, as she's now between semesters. Bob's motivated to go through with it because Bernie then nominates his wife Tippy, an unseen touch typist with a screechy voice...so he finds himself talking Emily into it when she's not interested. At the office after Carol leaves, Emily and Bob are kissing when Joan Rossi walks through while switching elevators and comments on the situation.
Elliot Carlin sees Bob about abandonment issues triggered by a dog disappearing on him while chasing cars; but Bob's distracted by the phones ringing off the hook in the reception area and goes out to try to manage Emily, though she insists that she's got everything under control. Bob starts to leave for a lunch date with her...but then remembers that Elliot's still in his office. As Emily's stint goes on, she has issues with Dr. Newman expecting her to pick up his laundry, and Jerry has issues with Emily not lying to his girlfriends for him. Bob finds himself having to fire her...though he insists that she not quit first, because then she won't get severance pay. Bob then has to call Tippy Tupperman.
In the coda, Carol's back from Italy, showing pictures of other countries that she took from the plane.
_______
It's gratifying to see that not only wasn't I missing something, but there was even more bad continuity business than I recall having previously noticed. I think he might have misremembered Felix supposedly having served at Guadalcanal, though, as Oscar just mentioned having served there this episode.
Andy my first exposure to another major DC hero, which prompted me to pick an issue of his comic off the stand.
Ah, so the Wonder Twins were probably copped from him. I assume that he actually transformed into the animals, not just changed to their sizes?
But hadn't been around so long that it would have accumulated the sort of meme-worthy pop cultural cache that it enjoyed by the age of the internet.
Which was exactly how I rationalized it in '86.
For context, The Single Guy was a two-season wonder that passed through the revolving-door 8:30 timeslot between Friends and Seinfeld. (And I didn't realize until I just looked it up that Ming-Na Wen was in it...)
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This is interesting. I wonder if it's based on a real event, and what the results were if so.
Good moment for Chet.
The landlady on Bosom Buddies.
Th' old sawbones down t'the saloon, ah reckon.
And which explains why she is no longer.
A plot thread left dangling, apparently.
Mr Monk's shrink, and Kosinski on TNG.
Maybe the ER isn't the right assignment for her. She doesn't seem very good under pressure.
Yikes.
That seems true of several subplots this week.
Johnny and Jason are friends now.
Perhaps not completely recovered from their Cheech & Chong moment.
Nice. I remember the old one as being little more than a transistor radio.
No wonder Lou wanted him fired.
Until the vampire incident, following which she had to leave town.
That's pretty clever, actually.
Yeah, that trick never works.
They're really not putting much effort into the titles this week.
That's a little surprising. I thought she was a bigger name even then.
These are the things you're expected to do as the secretary.
More abandonment issues.
That might have been funnier.
I checked Google and YouTube, but I wonder if there might be an actual book that covers it. Also, it just occurs to me that ChatGPT might give a better answer.
Yes, exactly.
Hmm, true. I don't really remember.
Both shows I disliked-- no wonder I never heard of him.
I wasn't clear if he was already a paramedic, as the Wiki article stated, or if he was a rescue firefighter like Johnny in the pilot, there to assess the paramedic program.
I had a feeling you'd have an opinion on this...And which explains why she is no longer.
Emergency! isn't about running down the perps, it's about saving the victims.
It had a large metallic console that churned out paper vitals data.
The order came from higher up...he'd made a "completed pass" at the station manager's wife.No wonder Lou wanted him fired.
I missed this line...
Mary: Mr. Grant, please, no, I've never fired anybody in my life! I had a cleaning lady once I couldn't fire...so I moved!
"Over to you, Ted!"That's pretty clever, actually.
"Thank you, Ted."
It played that way for a moment...they literally showed him walking out of the office to find the reception area abandoned.More abandonment issues.
Ming-Na played the wife of the title character's best friend. One of the two bits of business that remain in my head from the show had them considering adopting. The husband had his reservations, but was inspired to go through with it when, watching TV in bed, he caught the origin episode of The Adventures of Superman. The punchline: "Aren't you setting your expectations for the kid a little high?"Both shows I disliked-- no wonder I never heard of him.
The other bit had either them or another friendly couple considering moving from NYC to Connecticut. The deal-breaker was when the realtor told them that the nearest Chinese restaurant was 45 minutes away! Connecticut is only about two hours across by highway. Even in its remotest corner (which is on the opposite end of the state from where NYC commuters would live), you'd never be 45 minutes from a Chinese place!
ChatGPT was little help with the Odd Couple continuity question, except to point out that every episode listed on IMDB has its own individual "Errors" section, which might have more information, though it would require some legwork.
I wondered about that, too.
Heh. Indeed.
Which can be occasionally frustrating.
The picture in my head is obviously not accurate.
Ah, now we know the real story behind the pilot.
Well, when your adoption method is wandering the wheat fields of Kansas, waiting for an alien infant to crash in a rocket, there's not much to worry about.
Connecticut should use that in its advertising.
50 Years Ago This Week
October 21
October 22
October 23
October 24
October 25
October 26
October 27
Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:
Leaving the chart:
New on the chart:
"If You're Ready (Come Go with Me)," The Staple Singers
(#9 US; #1 R&B; #34 UK)
"Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up," Barry White
(#7 US; #40 AC; #2 R&B; #14 UK)
"Smokin' in the Boys Room," Brownsville Station
(#3 US; #27 UK)
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," Elton John
(#2 US; #7 AC; #6 UK; #380 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])
And new on the boob tube:
_______
Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month and Mark Lewisohn's The Beatles Day by Day, with minor editing as needed.
_______
Yes, The Odd Couple is about to do yet another flashback episode. They really should stop given their track record with establishing reasonably consistent background continuity.
So apparently its single console that the biophone transmits data to is an older model of the smaller twins; and there's no status board or fire radio monitor.
We just happened to catch the paramedics calling in about injured hiker John Travolta.
October 21
- The Oakland A's defeated the New York Mets, 5–2 in Game 7 of the best-4-of-7 to win the World Series, 4 games to 3.
- Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Dubai announced that they would ban all shipments of oil to the United States. The move brought the number of Arab nations reducing the export of oil to the U.S. to eight.
October 22
- A ceasefire began between Egypt and Israel at 6:50 in the evening local time (1650 UTC) after both nations agreed to United Nations Security Council Resolution 338, a call for a halt in hostilities. Fighting continued between Syria and Israel. The truce was violated almost immediately, and fighting resumed again hours later.
October 23
- President Nixon agreed to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations to U.S. federal judge John J. Sirica. The tapes released pursuant to Sirica's order included the June 20, 1972, conversation with an 18½-minute portion erased, but not the June 23, 1972 tape that would eventually force Nixon's resignation. Nixon's release of tapes temporarily halted a move within the House of Representatives for Nixon's impeachment.
October 24
- U.S. President Nixon vetoed the War Powers Act, passed 75 to 20 in the U.S. Senate on October 10 and 238 to 123 by the U.S. House of Representatives on October 12. The proposed law, described by one reporter as "the most serious effort in U.S. history to curb presidential power to commit American forces without congressional approval," was criticized by Nixon as unconstitutional. With the House having passed the legislation three votes short of a two-thirds majority, the possibility remained that the veto could not be overridden. On November 7, however, the House would vote 284 to 135 to override and the Senate would follow the same day, 75 to 18.
- A new ceasefire went into effect in the Yom Kippur War at 7:00 in the morning local time in Israel and Egypt. Both sides had agreed to a ceasefire two days earlier, but full-scale fighting had resumed the next day.
- The U.S. television crime drama series Kojak, starring Telly Savalas, premiered with the first of 118 episodes over five seasons.
- John Lennon sues the US government, demanding it admits or denies whether he and/or his lawyer have been subjected to FBI surveillance and telephone tapping.
October 25
- Shortly after midnight, President Nixon ordered a worldwide military alert of all U.S. military forces after concluding that the Soviet Union was "planning to send a very substantial force" to intervene militarily against Israel in the Middle East war. Nixon said the next day, "The purpose of that was to indicate to the Soviet Union that we could not accept any unilateral move on their part to move military forces into the Mideast." Nixon sent an urgent message to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and explained "I indicated to him our reasoning, and I urged that we not proceed along that course and that, instead, that we join in the United Nations in supporting a resolution which would exclude any major powers from participating in a peacekeeping force."
- Egypt and Israel accepted United Nations Security Council Resolution 340 as the UN created a peacekeeping force that would have neither Soviet nor American troops.
- As nations worldwide developed responses to the shortage of oil and gasoline, Lebanon became the first to institute a plan to cut the number of cars being driven in half based on the last digit of the license plate number; cars with even-numbered plates could only drive on even-numbered days, those with odd-numbered plates only on odd-numbered days.
October 26
- California's Alcatraz Island and the federal prison building that had been located there were both opened by the U.S. Park Service as a tourist attraction.
- First UK release of Paul McCartney and Wings' "Helen Wheels" single.
October 27
- The governments of Egypt and Israel announced a ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War and their agreement to a United Nations-sponsored meeting of their military representatives to discuss a peaceful settlement. The United Nations Security Council voted, 14 to 0, to approve a 7,000-person peacekeeping force to be deployed in the Sinai peninsula for six months. The People's Republic of China did not vote or attempt to veto the resolution, but said that it would not pay for the force.
Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:
Leaving the chart:
- "Brother Louie," Stories (18 weeks)
- "If You Want Me to Stay," Sly & The Family Stone (17 weeks)
- "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," Elton John (12 weeks)
- "Theme from Cleopatra Jones," Joe Simon feat. The Mainstreeters (13 weeks)
- "Touch Me in the Morning," Diana Ross (21 weeks)
- "Woman from Tokyo," Deep Purple (6 weeks)
New on the chart:
"If You're Ready (Come Go with Me)," The Staple Singers
(#9 US; #1 R&B; #34 UK)
"Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up," Barry White
(#7 US; #40 AC; #2 R&B; #14 UK)
"Smokin' in the Boys Room," Brownsville Station
(#3 US; #27 UK)
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," Elton John
(#2 US; #7 AC; #6 UK; #380 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])
And new on the boob tube:
- Hawaii Five-O, "Tricks are Not Treats"
- Adam-12, "Hot Shot"
- Kung Fu, "The Brujo"
- Ironside, "House of Terror"
- The Brady Bunch, "Marcia Gets Creamed"
- The Odd Couple, "That Is the Army Mrs. Madison"
- Love, American Style, "Love and the Other Mistakes" (?)
- Super Friends, "The Androids"
- Star Trek, "The Magicks of Megas-tu"
- All in the Family, "Archie and the Computer"
- M*A*S*H, "L.I.P. (Local Indigenous Personnel)"
- Emergency!, "Snakebite"
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "Son of 'But Seriously, Folks'"
- The Bob Newhart Show, "Old Man Rivers"
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Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month and Mark Lewisohn's The Beatles Day by Day, with minor editing as needed.
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Yes, The Odd Couple is about to do yet another flashback episode. They really should stop given their track record with establishing reasonably consistent background continuity.
FeTV happens to be on Season 2 ATM, so I back-recorded yesterday's episode and got this:
So apparently its single console that the biophone transmits data to is an older model of the smaller twins; and there's no status board or fire radio monitor.
We just happened to catch the paramedics calling in about injured hiker John Travolta.
I hadn't even thought of that...Ah, now we know the real story behind the pilot.
Last edited:
Say good night, Dick.
Now there's a show I never liked.
He may want to rephrase that.
Well, holy crap.
Very nice.
Right on, Barry.
Classic Rocker, perhaps bordering on novelty number.
Elton at the peak of his super powers.
Or make their connection to the Temporal Cold War explicit. Gotta keep an eye on those background characters.
That is definitely more than I was picturing.
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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)
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Hawaii Five-O
"Murder is a Taxing Affair"
Originally aired October 16, 1973
A man travelling under the name of Garrison (Wydell W. Hughes) checks in a brown valise at San Francisco International and boards a flight for Honolulu--followed by a mystery man in shades and a beard (Don Porter). Five-O gets a teletype from the IRS (because their own people don't work on Saturday) notifying them that indicted tax evader Jason T. Adams is headed to Hawaii, traveling under the name Garrison and believed to be carrying a $600,000 in illicit cash. When their man doesn't come down the stairs on the tarmac, McGarrett boards the plane to find the flight supervisor (Tim Tindall) dealing with a man who's locked in the restroom. Stewardess Alma Saunders (Jenny Sullivan) unlocks the door with a can opener, and Adams drops out of the compartment, strangled to death. The stewardess recalls that when she saw Adams heading for the restroom minutes before landing, he was followed by a bearded man. Meanwhile, the bearded man picks up what he believes is Adams's bag and examines it in the restroom, to find ordinary contents. Seeing that the fuzz is on alert outside, he ducks back in to remove his fake beard and rinse the dark coloring out of his hair, calmy walking out as McGarrett is going in to pursue a sighting of the bearded man.
At 5OHQ, Saunders helps a police artist (James Severson) work up a sketch of the suspect, who was traveling under the name Henry Marsh; and McGarrett is visited by his unbearded alter ego, IRS agent Jonathan Cavel, who sent the teletype. McGarrett shows Cavel the sketch while Saunders continues to share what she remembers of the suspect, not realizing that she's talking to him. Five-O hits the pavement to find and question all of the passengers. In the hotel room of two of them, Will and Betty Rowen (Jack Dodson and Sally Kirkland), Betty goes to get Will's shaving kit from his brown valise and is shocked to find it loaded with bundles of cash. (I kinda figured when we saw a former Mayberry resident loitering around the plane and airport that he was gonna have a bigger role in the story.) Betty wants to turn it in, but Will wants to keep quiet, seeing it as their big break. Thus when Danno comes by to question them about a murderer on their flight, they hide the bag and stay mum about it...but Betty is horrified afterward that the murderer could be looking for them.
Meanwhile, the murderer works his own angle, breaking into and ransacking the suite of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Robinson (here's to you, Nelson Fair and Joan Chapman). Five-O follows up on that, soon joined by Cavel, who snuck out on the balcony when the Robinsons returned. (Note that Cavel was apparently drawn to them by the initials on the bag that he picked up, WR.) Cavel produces a book of matches from another hotel, the International Inn. McGarrett assigns Cavel to check out the airline's Lost & Found, but the Rowans beat him there...Will wanting to cover their tracks by retrieving their actual bag. The clerk (Gary Kav), suspicious that they're looking for a bag matching the one that the police are asking about, calls in Saunders, who takes the Rowans outside and tries to disarmingly persuade them to come forward by taking her to the bag that they picked up by mistake, promising to keep it all quiet and anonymous. By the end of the scene, it becomes clear that Alma is working her own angle.
Steve and Ben check out the International Inn and find that Cavel is registered there, making them suspicious of him. At Lost & Found, Cavel learns about the couple looking for the bag and the stewardess's involvement, and soon he's tailing Saunders as she takes the bag back to her place. When he comes to the door, she hides the bag but lets him in, recognizing him from McGarrett's office. But he quickly plays hardball with her about handing over the bag, and she complies. She realizes who he is when she sees him polishing a table knife...an odd habit that she'd told Five-O she'd noticed Henry Marsh engaged in. She tries to sweet-talk him into splitting the dough, but he goes into a little spiel about underpaid work in a government office for 32 years, punctuated by his lack of interest in what she's offering. When she locks herself in the bathroom, he calmly fastens his belt into a loop, turns up the radio, breaks down the door, and...afterward finds that bag is stuffed with colorfully covered Oahu telephone directories. Back at 5OHQ, the team figures out that Cavel drew their attention to the matchbook to keep them busy, and Steve engages in a little police artistry of his own, drawing shades and a beard on a wired photo of Cavel. McGarrett figures that Cavel will be back for another look at the list, so they give him a chance to be alone with it--where he finds the Rowens--then tail him, which he notices.
At the International Inn, Cavel switches cars by stealing keys from the valet's desk. He catches up with the Rowens, laden with bags and trying to catch a cab. He flashes his badge to take them in for questioning. DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROWEN! Backtracking Cavel's activities, Chin and Ben find Saunders dead in her ransacked place. Cavel takes the Rowens to a scenic overlook out of town, but his stolen wagon is spotted by a police chopper. At gunpoint, Will hands over the bag that's now carrying the money, Cavel verifies the contents, and orders the horrified Rowens to get into the front seat of the car. Then HPD cars swoop in, and the chopper drops off McGarrett and Danno...the former uncharacteristically sporting a mildly gaudy hat...
Briefly using the Rowens as shields, Cavel makes a break down the hillside, and Will, in a redemptive beat, attempts to tackle him. Cavel shakes him off and, refusing to be taken alive, proceeds to jump off a cliff...
Ouch...maybe he thought he'd find a drink waiting for him down there. (The pic doesn't really capture the bounce.)
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The Brady Bunch
"Getting Greg's Goat"
Originally aired October 19, 1973
Greg sneaks into the house late at night leading Raquel, Coolidge High School's titularly specied mascot, up to his attic pad. Greg wakes up the next day to find Raquel eating his history report and tennis shoes. After noticing the extra-large breakfast that Greg's taking up to his room, Mike relates a story in the paper about the Westdale High mascot (a bear) having been stolen, and Greg's encouraged when Mike tells of how he once got suspended for having reciprocated a similar prank. Greg takes Marcia into his confidence about his revenge prank, and she tries to cover for him. Mike hears Greg talking to Raquel through an air vent and gets the wrong idea. When Mike sits Greg down for a talking-to, Greg admits that there's a Raquel up in his room...without Mike knowing who Raquel is. When Greg fills him in, Mike's relieved and acts a little pleased at Greg following in his footsteps, but nevertheless affirms that Greg has to return Raquel. Afterward, Mike realizes how deep Greg's in it when Carol's leaving for a PTA meeting about the mascot-stealing, and tells him that the vice principal, Mr. Binkley, plans a severe punishment.
Mike recommends arranging a prisoner exchange with the mascot-swipers from Coolidge. While they're out of the house seeing to that, the other boys hear bleating through the same vent and go up to the attic to find Raquel, who gets loose and downstairs past all of the girls, sending the kids outside in a commotion to catch her. Carol unexpectedly brings home the PTA ladies, led by Mrs. Gould (iconic nosey neighbor Sandra Gould), for their meeting. Mike and Greg return after a successful summit and try to keep them downstairs. Then Mr. Binkley (George D. Wallace) arrives to Greg's surprise; and Raquel slips back inside and heads upstairs--this time seen by Alice--followed by Greg, who briefly clues in Mike. Mike tries to cover while Carol insists on showing their guests the upstairs, and Greg tries to quietly herd Raquel out of their path. Greg ends up caught goat-handed by Carol when she opens the walk-in linen closet they're hiding in, which she promptly closes. The goat subsequently breaks away from Greg and bursts into the parents' bedroom while all of the guests are there, and after some hijinks, Greg finally catches her.
Binkley is pleased with Mike for having seen to the exchange, and assigns Greg a 5,000-word essay. When Greg's out of earshot, Binkley shares that he got a longer suspension than Mike's for doing the same thing.
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The Odd Couple
"The New Car"
Originally aired October 19, 1973
The episode opens with Dick Clark (himself) DJing a radio show in which he picks a person out of the phone book to quiz about opera. He ends up getting Oscar, who's fed the answers by a nonchalant Felix. Felix is unimpressed with the prizes for the first couple of rounds, but the final question wins Oscar the titular big one.
Felix is sore, even though Oscar gives him the other two prizes; and Myrna and Murray are on Felix's side, arguing that they should share the car. Location footage ensues of Oscar and Felix receiving the cream-colored 1973 Dodge Coronet on the street and driving it around town. They scope out a parking garage run by a character named Bert (John Byner) to find that there's a years-long waiting list. Unwilling to pay the jacked-up price necessary to circumvent the list, they decide to take their chances with on-street parking, though it involves having to repark the car on the other side of the street at 7 every morning. Oscar soon has enough of this and wants to sell it, but Felix refuses to give up his half.
Despite this, Oscar contacts a prospective buyer, "Pushover" Page Livingston (Bella Bruck), from whom Oscar learns the harsh realities of car depreciation, as she values it down from $4,500 to $900 for the few miles that have been put on it. When Felix comes home unexpectedly, Oscar tries to hide her in the kitchen and pass her off as a girlfriend...
...but Felix soon learns the truth. A montage ensues of a disgruntled Oscar having difficulty securing legal parking spaces. When he's ready to call a shady contact to have the car stolen for him so that they can collect its full value in insurance, Felix initially threatens to call the police, but ultimately relents...only for the two of them to look out the window and find that the car has been vandalized, which they're not covered for. They end up splitting $56 from Pushover Page for the stripped car.
There's a sight gag in this one that calls back to the earlier one of Felix nudging the bundle on Oscar's bed only for Oscar's head to pop up at the foot (which is now in the opening credits). In this one, Felix methodically unlayers the bundle on Oscar's bed only to find that he isn't in it.
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Cozy Comrades / Love and the Flunky / Love and the Hoodwinked Honey / Love and the Secret Spouse"
Originally aired October 19, 1973
In "Love and the Cozy Comrades," a visiting Soviet deputy premier named Ivan (Kurt Kasznar) is delivered a gift from the President by a Mr. Thompson (Chuck Woolery)--a Washington [Football Team] warmup jersey with his name on it (and the number 13). After Ivan tries it on, he discovers that he has a loose button on the blazer that he's going to be wearing for a television appearance. An earthy, straight-speaking maid named Gladys (Gloria LeRoy) is recruited to sew it up. While she's working on the button, Ivan and Gladys get past their differing politics and get to know each other, learning that he used to be a farmer, and that she's a widowed grandmother. As they proceed to shoot some scotch (as he doesn't like vodka any more than she does), Ivan discusses his dream of being a writer and is coaxed to share some poetry that he's written. When he briefly leaves the room, Gladys reports into the button to Thompson that the bug has been planted. Ivan regifts the warmup jacket to Gladys. After she leaves, he thanks her for sewing on the button and makes a parting romantic comment, into the button.
"Love and the Flunky" has All-American basketball celebrity Mayfield Gordon (former Boston Celtic Bill Russell) rooming with a drugstore clerk named Vance (Otis Day) who hero-worships him and does all of the housework. When Mayfield has a girlfriend named Kimberly over for dinner (recent history-making Bond girl Gloria Hendry), she's appalled at the arrangement, suggesting a more equitable division of chores. She later calls Vance for a date, and he assumes that it's so she can learn more about Mayfield. Mayfield later returns from a road trip to learn that Vance has moved in with Kimberly. When an angry Mayfield goes to confront them, he finds Vance doing the housework. Kimberly tells Mayfield that she likes him more, but needs a maid worse. Mayfield accepts this, and after he leaves, it turns out that Kimberly's really into Vance, whose playing maid was an act for Mayfield's benefit.
"Love and the Hoodwinked Honey" takes us back to August 1933, when Arsenal Andrews (Jerry Orbach) and a country girl named Nellie (Bernadette Peters) check into a shabby, brass-bedded "honeymoon suite" under married aliases. It turns out that she snuck out on her mother with Andrews, whom she's been led to believe is a traveling salesman. The bellhop, Jasper (Burton Gilliam), calls the sheriff, knowing Andrews from a wanted poster and wanting the $500 reward for him. The sheriff (Robert Foulk) announces himself via bullhorn, ordering Andrews to surrender; then takes shots through the window. Andrews opens his "salesman's" case, which turns out to be the source of his nickname. Nellie finds herself caught in the crossfire while learning that Andrews is really an infamous gangster, which turns her on. He proposes that she act his hostage so they can get away; she counterproposes that he surrender so they can reunite after he's served his time. He complies, walking out the window to the unseen sheriff. It turns out that she was working in cahoots with Jasper for half of the reward. Jasper wants to lure in John Dillinger next, as he's worth $1,000...but she wants to do that one without calling the cops.
In "Love and the Secret Spouse" David (young Bruce Davison) and Jennifer (Renne Jarrett) are college students who are hiding that they've gotten married from her father, Judge Glenn...who calls that he's coming for a visit, so Jenny has her nerdy friend Jane (Maggie Roswell) pretend to be her roommate, per the cover she's established, while David stays at Jane's place. When the judge (John Dehner) arrives, awkwardness ensues from Jane's relative unfamiliarity with the apartment, and the judge finding a man's suit hanging in the closet. (I'm pretty sure that we've already had a segment with more or less the same premise.) Back at Jane's place, David gets a surprise visit from Jane's father (Bob Cummings), and David, mistaking him for Jenny's father, confesses to the situation, giving "Daddy" the impression that he's married to Jane...and as the father learns about David, he quickly comes to approve of the situation. Meanwhile, Jane's pretending to be a hardcore feminist who wears men's suits and smokes cigars. Then Jane's father and David go to see Jenny and learn the truth about each other, followed by some Abbott & Costello-style confusion as Judge Glenn learns about David and Jennifer, Jane's father sends everyone out of the room so he can have a father-to-father talk with the judge about what a good son-in-law David is. Then Jenny's nerdy brother Alan (Michael Byers) arrives and Jane's father, having taken to the idea of Jane getting hooked up, immediately starts to play matchmaker.
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Since I've pretty much given up on album spotlights, here's a well-known track from the now-charting Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album that wasn't released as a single in the US, but was so nice that Elton made it twice:
(#347 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])
50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)
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Hawaii Five-O
"Murder is a Taxing Affair"
Originally aired October 16, 1973
Wiki said:
A man travelling under the name of Garrison (Wydell W. Hughes) checks in a brown valise at San Francisco International and boards a flight for Honolulu--followed by a mystery man in shades and a beard (Don Porter). Five-O gets a teletype from the IRS (because their own people don't work on Saturday) notifying them that indicted tax evader Jason T. Adams is headed to Hawaii, traveling under the name Garrison and believed to be carrying a $600,000 in illicit cash. When their man doesn't come down the stairs on the tarmac, McGarrett boards the plane to find the flight supervisor (Tim Tindall) dealing with a man who's locked in the restroom. Stewardess Alma Saunders (Jenny Sullivan) unlocks the door with a can opener, and Adams drops out of the compartment, strangled to death. The stewardess recalls that when she saw Adams heading for the restroom minutes before landing, he was followed by a bearded man. Meanwhile, the bearded man picks up what he believes is Adams's bag and examines it in the restroom, to find ordinary contents. Seeing that the fuzz is on alert outside, he ducks back in to remove his fake beard and rinse the dark coloring out of his hair, calmy walking out as McGarrett is going in to pursue a sighting of the bearded man.
At 5OHQ, Saunders helps a police artist (James Severson) work up a sketch of the suspect, who was traveling under the name Henry Marsh; and McGarrett is visited by his unbearded alter ego, IRS agent Jonathan Cavel, who sent the teletype. McGarrett shows Cavel the sketch while Saunders continues to share what she remembers of the suspect, not realizing that she's talking to him. Five-O hits the pavement to find and question all of the passengers. In the hotel room of two of them, Will and Betty Rowen (Jack Dodson and Sally Kirkland), Betty goes to get Will's shaving kit from his brown valise and is shocked to find it loaded with bundles of cash. (I kinda figured when we saw a former Mayberry resident loitering around the plane and airport that he was gonna have a bigger role in the story.) Betty wants to turn it in, but Will wants to keep quiet, seeing it as their big break. Thus when Danno comes by to question them about a murderer on their flight, they hide the bag and stay mum about it...but Betty is horrified afterward that the murderer could be looking for them.
Meanwhile, the murderer works his own angle, breaking into and ransacking the suite of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Robinson (here's to you, Nelson Fair and Joan Chapman). Five-O follows up on that, soon joined by Cavel, who snuck out on the balcony when the Robinsons returned. (Note that Cavel was apparently drawn to them by the initials on the bag that he picked up, WR.) Cavel produces a book of matches from another hotel, the International Inn. McGarrett assigns Cavel to check out the airline's Lost & Found, but the Rowans beat him there...Will wanting to cover their tracks by retrieving their actual bag. The clerk (Gary Kav), suspicious that they're looking for a bag matching the one that the police are asking about, calls in Saunders, who takes the Rowans outside and tries to disarmingly persuade them to come forward by taking her to the bag that they picked up by mistake, promising to keep it all quiet and anonymous. By the end of the scene, it becomes clear that Alma is working her own angle.
Steve and Ben check out the International Inn and find that Cavel is registered there, making them suspicious of him. At Lost & Found, Cavel learns about the couple looking for the bag and the stewardess's involvement, and soon he's tailing Saunders as she takes the bag back to her place. When he comes to the door, she hides the bag but lets him in, recognizing him from McGarrett's office. But he quickly plays hardball with her about handing over the bag, and she complies. She realizes who he is when she sees him polishing a table knife...an odd habit that she'd told Five-O she'd noticed Henry Marsh engaged in. She tries to sweet-talk him into splitting the dough, but he goes into a little spiel about underpaid work in a government office for 32 years, punctuated by his lack of interest in what she's offering. When she locks herself in the bathroom, he calmly fastens his belt into a loop, turns up the radio, breaks down the door, and...afterward finds that bag is stuffed with colorfully covered Oahu telephone directories. Back at 5OHQ, the team figures out that Cavel drew their attention to the matchbook to keep them busy, and Steve engages in a little police artistry of his own, drawing shades and a beard on a wired photo of Cavel. McGarrett figures that Cavel will be back for another look at the list, so they give him a chance to be alone with it--where he finds the Rowens--then tail him, which he notices.
At the International Inn, Cavel switches cars by stealing keys from the valet's desk. He catches up with the Rowens, laden with bags and trying to catch a cab. He flashes his badge to take them in for questioning. DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROWEN! Backtracking Cavel's activities, Chin and Ben find Saunders dead in her ransacked place. Cavel takes the Rowens to a scenic overlook out of town, but his stolen wagon is spotted by a police chopper. At gunpoint, Will hands over the bag that's now carrying the money, Cavel verifies the contents, and orders the horrified Rowens to get into the front seat of the car. Then HPD cars swoop in, and the chopper drops off McGarrett and Danno...the former uncharacteristically sporting a mildly gaudy hat...
Briefly using the Rowens as shields, Cavel makes a break down the hillside, and Will, in a redemptive beat, attempts to tackle him. Cavel shakes him off and, refusing to be taken alive, proceeds to jump off a cliff...
Ouch...maybe he thought he'd find a drink waiting for him down there. (The pic doesn't really capture the bounce.)
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The Brady Bunch
"Getting Greg's Goat"
Originally aired October 19, 1973
IMDb said:
Greg sneaks into the house late at night leading Raquel, Coolidge High School's titularly specied mascot, up to his attic pad. Greg wakes up the next day to find Raquel eating his history report and tennis shoes. After noticing the extra-large breakfast that Greg's taking up to his room, Mike relates a story in the paper about the Westdale High mascot (a bear) having been stolen, and Greg's encouraged when Mike tells of how he once got suspended for having reciprocated a similar prank. Greg takes Marcia into his confidence about his revenge prank, and she tries to cover for him. Mike hears Greg talking to Raquel through an air vent and gets the wrong idea. When Mike sits Greg down for a talking-to, Greg admits that there's a Raquel up in his room...without Mike knowing who Raquel is. When Greg fills him in, Mike's relieved and acts a little pleased at Greg following in his footsteps, but nevertheless affirms that Greg has to return Raquel. Afterward, Mike realizes how deep Greg's in it when Carol's leaving for a PTA meeting about the mascot-stealing, and tells him that the vice principal, Mr. Binkley, plans a severe punishment.
Greg: Looks like I'm the one who's the goat, Raquel.
Raquel: Maaaaa!
Greg: You can say that again.
Raquel: Maaaaa!
Raquel: Maaaaa!
Greg: You can say that again.
Raquel: Maaaaa!
Mike recommends arranging a prisoner exchange with the mascot-swipers from Coolidge. While they're out of the house seeing to that, the other boys hear bleating through the same vent and go up to the attic to find Raquel, who gets loose and downstairs past all of the girls, sending the kids outside in a commotion to catch her. Carol unexpectedly brings home the PTA ladies, led by Mrs. Gould (iconic nosey neighbor Sandra Gould), for their meeting. Mike and Greg return after a successful summit and try to keep them downstairs. Then Mr. Binkley (George D. Wallace) arrives to Greg's surprise; and Raquel slips back inside and heads upstairs--this time seen by Alice--followed by Greg, who briefly clues in Mike. Mike tries to cover while Carol insists on showing their guests the upstairs, and Greg tries to quietly herd Raquel out of their path. Greg ends up caught goat-handed by Carol when she opens the walk-in linen closet they're hiding in, which she promptly closes. The goat subsequently breaks away from Greg and bursts into the parents' bedroom while all of the guests are there, and after some hijinks, Greg finally catches her.
Binkley is pleased with Mike for having seen to the exchange, and assigns Greg a 5,000-word essay. When Greg's out of earshot, Binkley shares that he got a longer suspension than Mike's for doing the same thing.
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The Odd Couple
"The New Car"
Originally aired October 19, 1973
Wiki said:
The episode opens with Dick Clark (himself) DJing a radio show in which he picks a person out of the phone book to quiz about opera. He ends up getting Oscar, who's fed the answers by a nonchalant Felix. Felix is unimpressed with the prizes for the first couple of rounds, but the final question wins Oscar the titular big one.
Felix is sore, even though Oscar gives him the other two prizes; and Myrna and Murray are on Felix's side, arguing that they should share the car. Location footage ensues of Oscar and Felix receiving the cream-colored 1973 Dodge Coronet on the street and driving it around town. They scope out a parking garage run by a character named Bert (John Byner) to find that there's a years-long waiting list. Unwilling to pay the jacked-up price necessary to circumvent the list, they decide to take their chances with on-street parking, though it involves having to repark the car on the other side of the street at 7 every morning. Oscar soon has enough of this and wants to sell it, but Felix refuses to give up his half.
Despite this, Oscar contacts a prospective buyer, "Pushover" Page Livingston (Bella Bruck), from whom Oscar learns the harsh realities of car depreciation, as she values it down from $4,500 to $900 for the few miles that have been put on it. When Felix comes home unexpectedly, Oscar tries to hide her in the kitchen and pass her off as a girlfriend...
Felix: She's not touching any of my things, is she?
Page (to Oscar afterward): Your wife keeps a nice kitchen!
...but Felix soon learns the truth. A montage ensues of a disgruntled Oscar having difficulty securing legal parking spaces. When he's ready to call a shady contact to have the car stolen for him so that they can collect its full value in insurance, Felix initially threatens to call the police, but ultimately relents...only for the two of them to look out the window and find that the car has been vandalized, which they're not covered for. They end up splitting $56 from Pushover Page for the stripped car.
There's a sight gag in this one that calls back to the earlier one of Felix nudging the bundle on Oscar's bed only for Oscar's head to pop up at the foot (which is now in the opening credits). In this one, Felix methodically unlayers the bundle on Oscar's bed only to find that he isn't in it.
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Cozy Comrades / Love and the Flunky / Love and the Hoodwinked Honey / Love and the Secret Spouse"
Originally aired October 19, 1973
In "Love and the Cozy Comrades," a visiting Soviet deputy premier named Ivan (Kurt Kasznar) is delivered a gift from the President by a Mr. Thompson (Chuck Woolery)--a Washington [Football Team] warmup jersey with his name on it (and the number 13). After Ivan tries it on, he discovers that he has a loose button on the blazer that he's going to be wearing for a television appearance. An earthy, straight-speaking maid named Gladys (Gloria LeRoy) is recruited to sew it up. While she's working on the button, Ivan and Gladys get past their differing politics and get to know each other, learning that he used to be a farmer, and that she's a widowed grandmother. As they proceed to shoot some scotch (as he doesn't like vodka any more than she does), Ivan discusses his dream of being a writer and is coaxed to share some poetry that he's written. When he briefly leaves the room, Gladys reports into the button to Thompson that the bug has been planted. Ivan regifts the warmup jacket to Gladys. After she leaves, he thanks her for sewing on the button and makes a parting romantic comment, into the button.
"Love and the Flunky" has All-American basketball celebrity Mayfield Gordon (former Boston Celtic Bill Russell) rooming with a drugstore clerk named Vance (Otis Day) who hero-worships him and does all of the housework. When Mayfield has a girlfriend named Kimberly over for dinner (recent history-making Bond girl Gloria Hendry), she's appalled at the arrangement, suggesting a more equitable division of chores. She later calls Vance for a date, and he assumes that it's so she can learn more about Mayfield. Mayfield later returns from a road trip to learn that Vance has moved in with Kimberly. When an angry Mayfield goes to confront them, he finds Vance doing the housework. Kimberly tells Mayfield that she likes him more, but needs a maid worse. Mayfield accepts this, and after he leaves, it turns out that Kimberly's really into Vance, whose playing maid was an act for Mayfield's benefit.
"Love and the Hoodwinked Honey" takes us back to August 1933, when Arsenal Andrews (Jerry Orbach) and a country girl named Nellie (Bernadette Peters) check into a shabby, brass-bedded "honeymoon suite" under married aliases. It turns out that she snuck out on her mother with Andrews, whom she's been led to believe is a traveling salesman. The bellhop, Jasper (Burton Gilliam), calls the sheriff, knowing Andrews from a wanted poster and wanting the $500 reward for him. The sheriff (Robert Foulk) announces himself via bullhorn, ordering Andrews to surrender; then takes shots through the window. Andrews opens his "salesman's" case, which turns out to be the source of his nickname. Nellie finds herself caught in the crossfire while learning that Andrews is really an infamous gangster, which turns her on. He proposes that she act his hostage so they can get away; she counterproposes that he surrender so they can reunite after he's served his time. He complies, walking out the window to the unseen sheriff. It turns out that she was working in cahoots with Jasper for half of the reward. Jasper wants to lure in John Dillinger next, as he's worth $1,000...but she wants to do that one without calling the cops.
In "Love and the Secret Spouse" David (young Bruce Davison) and Jennifer (Renne Jarrett) are college students who are hiding that they've gotten married from her father, Judge Glenn...who calls that he's coming for a visit, so Jenny has her nerdy friend Jane (Maggie Roswell) pretend to be her roommate, per the cover she's established, while David stays at Jane's place. When the judge (John Dehner) arrives, awkwardness ensues from Jane's relative unfamiliarity with the apartment, and the judge finding a man's suit hanging in the closet. (I'm pretty sure that we've already had a segment with more or less the same premise.) Back at Jane's place, David gets a surprise visit from Jane's father (Bob Cummings), and David, mistaking him for Jenny's father, confesses to the situation, giving "Daddy" the impression that he's married to Jane...and as the father learns about David, he quickly comes to approve of the situation. Meanwhile, Jane's pretending to be a hardcore feminist who wears men's suits and smokes cigars. Then Jane's father and David go to see Jenny and learn the truth about each other, followed by some Abbott & Costello-style confusion as Judge Glenn learns about David and Jennifer, Jane's father sends everyone out of the room so he can have a father-to-father talk with the judge about what a good son-in-law David is. Then Jenny's nerdy brother Alan (Michael Byers) arrives and Jane's father, having taken to the idea of Jane getting hooked up, immediately starts to play matchmaker.
_______
I see what you did there.
I was never really into it, either.
I'm sure that he had some legal advice...whether or not it was professional or good.He may want to rephrase that.
It'd be nicer if it wasn't such an obvious soundalike of "I'll Take You There".
Not the most memorable example of Barry doing his thing.Right on, Barry.
I can see that.
Elton and Bernie take it to a new level with this striking ballad.
Since I've pretty much given up on album spotlights, here's a well-known track from the now-charting Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album that wasn't released as a single in the US, but was so nice that Elton made it twice:
(#347 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time [2004])
Here's a pic of the newer base station from the current episode, sporting a full house:
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Kinda makes you wonder what his plans were.
You'd think they'd have a key.
Strange, since it has the "WR" initials on it.
Shouldn't McGarrett recognize him from the men's room?
Missed opportunity for a meeting between McGarrett and Sheriff Taylor.
Everybody on the flight had the initials WR-- except the tax evader.
Wow, everybody in this episode is corrupt.
He was working for the wrong government agency.
No wonder that hillbilly girl stole one.
He's not gonna let that hair explosion happen again!
Yeah, the drink was pretty far away....
I think we've hit the Jump-the-Goat point for The Brady Bunch.
Did schools really have actual animal mascots in the early 70s?
Time's have changed, Mike. Animal abduction is a serious crime.
They should have gone with this. I'd like to see the bear and goat exchange in the middle of an empty football field or something.
Yeah, seems a bit much.
Popular nerdy character actor-- another Wally Cox wannabe.
I was wondering about the insurance for a car in that neighborhood-- you'd think that alone would make owning the car prohibitive.
She probably sent the vandals.
Fitzhugh.
Good one.
Another good one.
Ooh, a period piece. Nice.
Omnipresent character actor in those days.
Gunplay is unusual for LAS.
Another good one.
Omnipresent scary character actor.
Bob Cummings Show, My Living Doll, et cetera.
Another good one. Nothing like massive confusion. This was a good episode all around.
Wait, what's happening here?
Kind of a big loophole. "Er... okay... we deny it."
They had a definite sound.
He had a definite sound too.
One of the most beautiful songs ever. I'm surprised to hear it wasn't released as a single, because it got frequent airplay here at least through the mid 80s.
It's amazing how informal it all looks. They've probably got a fully staffed call center nowadays.
She played it as a trick they used when kids locked themselves in.
Having gone back to look, I have to correct myself--the initials were on a grooming item in the case.
Steve walked past him on the way to the restroom, having no reason to take notice of him.
IIRC, Andy's already been on the show. Wasn't he the patriarch of a family of con artists last season?Missed opportunity for a meeting between McGarrett and Sheriff Taylor.
The thing she liked was the hard cover that the hotel put the directory in.
I should've taken the trouble to make more caps for the setup.
BOINK!
But we haven't even gotten to Cousin Oliver yet!
Got me.
Again, I don't see Byner as quite the same type. He seems to play petty crooks and swindlers.
Now that you mention it...She probably sent the vandals.
There are no small roles...
It was played for comical effect, of course.
I think I've mainly seen him in Westerns.
Whoops--that was supposed to be Jenny's brother that Jane's dad was taking an interest in hooking Jane up with.Wait, what's happening here?
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" was; the original studio version of "Candle in the Wind" wasn't in the States, but I should clarify that a live version was a Top 10 hit in '87-'88.
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Interesting.
Ah, that makes sense.
Okay, I pictured them passing each other in the doorway.
Ah, that's right. I still want to see the team up, though. At the very end, McGarrett opens his mouth to say, "Book 'im, Danno," but Andy beats him with, "Book 'im, Barn."
Whoa, Nelly. He's definitely not gonna pull through.
Oh, man....
Small roles. I get it.
Tons of Westerns. I must have seen him twenty times when I was taking care of my Mother.
I had a feeling.
I remember "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" from when it was released, but I mostly remember "Candle in the Wind" from the late 70s, early 80s when it got a lot of play on WBCN.
_______
50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
_______
Super Friends
"Too Hot to Handle"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
The Junior Super Friends are riding to visit the Gotham City Museum of Art during an oppressive heat wave when they witness a giant ivy plant enveloping the building. Batman and Robin are called by the other Super Friends to handle this trouble in their own backyard. In a scene cut, they somehow turn the plant's strength against itself, getting it rolled up into a giant ball. The JSF are subsequently visiting the Justice League Hall of Fame (which looks just like the Hall of Justice on the outside) when the air conditioning is overwhelmed by the heat and wax figures of the JLAers start to melt. The JSF spring into action to save the figures' costumes. We get a bit of foreshadowing in that one of the figures is of this week's guest hero. Afterward, the Super Friends disperse to deal with crises being caused by the unnatural heat wave:
(The farmer voiced by Olan Soule reminds me of William Schallert.)
Colonel Wilcox summons the Super Friends to the City Observatory, where he and Professor Von Knowalot (Casey) inform them that Earth is being moved out of its orbit by an unknown force. Back at the Hall of Fame, the JSF notice the same, heavily dressed mystery figure in photos of all the recent heat wave-caused catastrophes. At the observatory, the Professor explains to the Super Friends how the orbits of the planets work, and that something has upset their delicate balance; and Wonder Dog spots the overdressed mystery figure, whom the JSF attempt to tail, but lose outside. The Professor determines that a magnetic force is pulling the Earth, and that encircling the Earth with a copper wire at great speed could counteract it.
The Flash is in India, so Superman flies off to retrieve him. Meanwhile, the mystery figure, Kolbar (Ted Knight), driving an antique fire truck, reports via monitor to a similar-appearing alien, Lupis (John Stephenson), about how the plan is working. In India, the Taj Mahal is being threatened by heat-triggered earthquakes, but the Flash (Knight doing a light, fast-talking voice) is on the scene to put the damaged structure back together.
Superman takes him back to the observatory for a briefing, following which he attaches copper wire to himself from a spool that doesn't look nearly big enough and circles the Earth multiple times, which starts to move Earth back into its original orbit.
At his SPECTRE-like island volcano base, Kolbar is reporting to Lupis that their people can start coming to Earth, as it will soon be warm enough for them to be comfortable...when he notices the Earth returning to its orbit. The JSF spot the fire engine--which they'd seen before when Kolbar gave them the slip--outside the Weather Bureau Office, which Kolbar comes out of. Wendy and Marvin send Wonder Dog back to the Super Friends with a clue and stow away in one of the engine's compartments. The engine transforms into a rocket and returns to the island. (Luckily, the compartment if unaffected by the vehicle's transformation.) At the observatory, the Professor finds that an unknown force is now pulling the Earth back out of orbit, from the other side of the Sun. Superman heads to space to investigate. He finds Kolbar's "Solar Robot," a satellite that tries to fend him off with rings of fire...but Superman breaks free and flings the robot into the Sun.
Wendy and Marvin figure out how to get into the volcano, where Kolbar's crying over his failure as his machinery goes haywire. After a series of mishaps accompanied by an arrangement of "Flight of the Bumblebee," Wonder Dog gets the clue to the Hall of Justice, which appears to be a schedule of some sort. Batman analyzes it to find volcanic dust and ocean coral particles. This helps Aquaman to deduce that the schedule is from Malabar, a Pacific isle with a volcano that erupts every 3 hours and 10 minutes. In the volcano, Kolbar relates to Wendy and Marvin how his planet's industry resulted in a thick smog cover that made the climate inhospitably cool to his people. Superman, Aquaman, and the Flash arrive at the volcano base (the Flash using a vibratory trick to open the base's secret entrance by waggling his fingers) and are filled in, then taken to Kolbar's planet, Solar Terrarium, where they use their powers to clean up its environment in short order! Superman puts his super lungs to use here, sucking up and the smog cover and blowing it out into space.
The people of Solar Terrarium are grateful to the Justice League for giving them their sun back. As Superman flies the other Super Friends back to Earth, there's a bit of messaging about everybody having to do their part to make sure Earth doesn't end up like Solar Terrarium...as if the Super Friends couldn't fix Earth in minutes just as easily!
_______
Star Trek
"The Infinite Vulcan"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
Featuring the return of Walter Koenig--in the writing credit!
On a landing party, Sulu discovers a small, mobile plant, which he tries to pick up, pricking himself. (He seems a little too amazed by it, considering the Hand Plant we saw him playing with in "The Man Trap".) While the rest of the party investigates an energy reading from a building in a seemingly abandoned city, Sulu collapses outside...
Agmar and Stavos Keniclius 5 are both Doohan, natch.
Kirk finds that the ship's weapons are neutralized in the area of the building that they were in. Records indicate that Kiniclius was a scientist who was exiled during the Eugenics Wars. For some reason, McCoy connects this with rumors of a "modern Diogenes" who's said to be wandering the galaxy looking for a special specimen. Kirk speculates from the numbering that the scientist has been cloning himself over the centuries. Kirk beams back down with McCoy, Sulu, and some mystery equipment; and has Scotty leave orbit so the landing party can take the beings on the planet by surprise. They find a fleet of unused ships and nab and question Angmar, who explains that the few Phylosian survivors are unable to reproduce, and asserts that Spock will be carrying on their work. He takes the party into an underground complex, where theyhook back up with Artie have some additional trouble with the annoying dragon-thingies before finding a chamber where Spock's body is lying on a table. Kiniclius 5 enters to introduce them to...Spock II, a.k.a. the Giant Spock Clone!
The crew don masks--including McCoy slipping one onto OG Spock--and whip out chemical sprayers that fire a weed-killer that, like the beans and bourbon, is an old McCoy family recipe. The spray proves effective in neutralizing the annoying dragon thingies, but the landing party is unable to contact the ship, and find that Spock's mind has been transferred via a mechanism into Giant Spock, who's still processing the info. Up on the ship, Scotty orders all power focused to communication, which dramatically threatens to drain the dilithium crystals! That has to be the first time there was any indication that communications could cause a massive energy drain...maybe if they were trying to channel a signal through the main deflector or something, but we're not in that era yet. Anyway, climactic clip time!
It doesn't make any sense that the original Keniclius would have been looking to bring peace to the galaxy in the 1990s, when even by the rough chronology established in TOS, humans weren't out and about in the galaxy yet. The clone might have had more recent but still out-of-date knowledge about Romulans, Klingons, etc. (note how they've foreshadowed the use of the Kzinti on the show), but that doesn't explain the original Keniclius's motivation.
And a story about Spock being abducted and his mind being transferred...Koenig should have known better. The whole concept of a giant Spock clone seems like too big of a thing (pardon the expression) to be treated in such a throwaway manner. Was there even any purpose to the clones being giants? Regular-sized Spock clones might have been more practical to transport on the Phylosian vessels.
_______
Emergency!
"Heavyweight"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
Station 51's firefighters are all sleeping soundly when an alarm calls them and several other units to a burning apartment occupied by a small group of hip young musicians who are preoccupied with saving their instruments and sheet music. (The sleeping area lights come on when the alarm sounds--I can't say that I've noticed that before.) One of the rescued kids is a pregnant girl, April Rawlins (Barbara Sigel), who's suffering from smoke inhalation. April seems to think that a higher power is punishing her and her husband for something, though Rab (Dennis Redfield) doesn't seem to want to her to talk about it. April's going into labor earlier than expected, natch. Following the rescue, Johnny finds that his shoulder's bothering him.
At Rampart, Roy arranges for Johnny to see Dr. Morton, who gives him an earful about being out of shape and puts the arm in a sling, wanting him to go off duty. Dix shares that the Rawlinses didn't want their parents notified and were very reluctant to give out personal information. A paramedic from another unit brings in a young boy named Pete Gibbs who suffered an electric shock while trying to fix his TV. The boy is saved, and Dix talks to his mother, Ruthie (Rebecca Ray), who appears to be a drug addict who was too high to supervise her son.
The next time we see April, she's happily holding her newborn son, but when she's informed that he'll need an operation for a cleft palette when he's a little older, she goes into a rage, wanting the "deformed" child taken away and blaming the matter on "what we did". In the outdoor cafeteria, Rab tells Brackett and Dix how he met April when his group was playing in Iowa, and took her away from a strict, religious family who filled her with guilt, causing her to blame a series of mishaps the band had since been having on herself.
At the station, Johnny's out of his cast and reading a book about nutrition when the squad is called to tend to a gunshot injury. Officer Vince is at the scene to relate what he knows about how the shooting happened after the victim drunkenly ran into a neighbor's car, but the victim's daughter, Angie Harper (Pamela Peters), doesn't want to talk about it. The neighbor's teenage son, Tommy Wright (Sean Kelly), comes out to accuse Mr. Harper of having stabbed his father first. Johnny goes in to see to Sam Wright (Wayne Heffley), calling his case into Rampart separately via landline (which they were already calling it back then). When Johnny has trouble stopping Sam's bleeding, he learns that the man is on an anti-coagulant for a heart condition. An angered Tommy grabs his father's shotgun and goes outside to threaten Harper. Vince and Roy talk him down, Roy successfully arguing that Tommy's just stopping them from getting his father the timely attention that he needs. Tommy is taken into custody by another officer, and his father to Rampart...where Dix tries to encourage Rab, who informs her that April wants to give the baby up for adoption and return to her family. Brackett subsequently gives April a gently tough talk that helps her to appreciate what she has.
While Chet's ribbing Johnny about having to prepare a recipe from his book for rutabaga stew, the squad is called to a canyon road where a hang-glider is stuck in a tree down the hillside. The paramedics rappel down, where Johnny learns that the man has a broken leg, and that the limb he's on is threatening to give. The limb is secured via rope and Johnny gradually saws it to lower the limb and victim to the ground in a controlled manner. Afterward, Johnny's grateful for the skinniness that allowed the weak limb to hold him. At Rampart, April reaffirms her love for and commitment to Rab and the baby.
In the coda, Johnny's enjoying a huge submarine sandwich that he claims to Chet is filled with healthy Native American ingredients.
_______
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Father's Day"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
Mary relays phone messages to Ted that his father's coming from Indianapolis and Ted has a panicky reaction. Mary learns that Mr. Baxter walked out on the family when Ted was ten. Ted drops by Mary's with Georgette, wanting Mary to lie for him when his father visits the station, but both of the ladies encourage Ted to be there to meet his father. At the station, Ted tries to fake losing his voice but is soon outed. A new station owner called Mr. Caldwell (John Holland) drops in for a follow-up visit, having missed Ted before, and Ted hugs him, assuming that it's his father. Then Robert Baxter walks in (Liam Dunn).
While showing Robert his dressing room, Ted starts to express his resentment about how he struggled to establish his career without fatherly support, and learns that his father owns a laundromat. Robert awkwardly tries sharing belated bits of fatherly advice, and shows Ted an old (unseen) picture in which he looks just like Ted, chalking up his current appearance to age...which seems unlikely, as the actors aren't at all the same type. Nevertheless, Ted gets upset that he's going to grow old to be like his father, whom he's generally disappointed in...and shares with Mary at her apartment that his father asked for a $2,000 loan. Mary takes a forwarded call from Ted's father about how he's leaving and sorry to have bothered Ted, while complimenting Ted's newscasting. Ted goes to see Robert while he's packing in his hotel room. They bond a bit over Robert being impressed with his son's career, and Ted insists on filling out the check, though he shows signs of reluctance. As they're trying to exchange awkward good-byes, Ted offers to see Robert to his bus.
In the coda, Mary and Murray find that Ted's trying to get something back for the loan by air-mailing his laundry to his father.
_______
The Bob Newhart Show
"Have You Met Miss Dietz?"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
Emily's old friend and recent divorcee Marilyn Dietz moves into the building, and is having dinner with the Hartley's when Howard drops in and meets her. They bond over being divorcees, and Howard informs Marilyn that the former occupant of her apartment died there. When Marilyn leaves with Howard to loan him some cocoa, Bob accuses Emily of having helped hook them up when she claimed they were out.
Ah, I remember that tin...though it looks like they obscured the brand name.
At the office, Carol is late back from lunch after getting "swacked" with Emily and Marilyn; when Bob reprimands her for it, Marilyn, who was frustrated with being a housewife and is now going back to school, encourages Carol to stand up for herself, which she tries with Jerry to mixed success. Emily encourages Jerry to take Marilyn to a basketball game that he has tickets to, claiming that she and Bob have an engagement. At home, Emily shares with Bob her envy of Marilyn's independent lifestyle.
Howard drops in to ask where Marilyn is and learns that she's out with Jerry. Marilyn calls after the game while she's having dinner with Jerry, and asks Howard to feed her cat.
At the office, Jerry indicates to Bob that he's pretty seriously attracted to Marilyn. She throws a painting party at her apartment, and when Howard arrives, he finds that Jerry's already there...and has changed Marilyn's mind about the color that Howard helped her pick out. Bob drops in just to grab some Chinese, but ends up getting paint all over his suit and food in a series of mishaps. He shares a brief analysis of everybody's recent behavior, including that Marilyn's taking advantage of the guys by seeing them both at once.
Of course, we'll never see her again. An IMDb contributor claims that she was supposed to be a recurring character, but didn't get along with one of the cast, who insisted that she not be brought back.
_______
50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
_______
Super Friends
"Too Hot to Handle"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
iTunes said:
The Junior Super Friends are riding to visit the Gotham City Museum of Art during an oppressive heat wave when they witness a giant ivy plant enveloping the building. Batman and Robin are called by the other Super Friends to handle this trouble in their own backyard. In a scene cut, they somehow turn the plant's strength against itself, getting it rolled up into a giant ball. The JSF are subsequently visiting the Justice League Hall of Fame (which looks just like the Hall of Justice on the outside) when the air conditioning is overwhelmed by the heat and wax figures of the JLAers start to melt. The JSF spring into action to save the figures' costumes. We get a bit of foreshadowing in that one of the figures is of this week's guest hero. Afterward, the Super Friends disperse to deal with crises being caused by the unnatural heat wave:
(The farmer voiced by Olan Soule reminds me of William Schallert.)
Colonel Wilcox summons the Super Friends to the City Observatory, where he and Professor Von Knowalot (Casey) inform them that Earth is being moved out of its orbit by an unknown force. Back at the Hall of Fame, the JSF notice the same, heavily dressed mystery figure in photos of all the recent heat wave-caused catastrophes. At the observatory, the Professor explains to the Super Friends how the orbits of the planets work, and that something has upset their delicate balance; and Wonder Dog spots the overdressed mystery figure, whom the JSF attempt to tail, but lose outside. The Professor determines that a magnetic force is pulling the Earth, and that encircling the Earth with a copper wire at great speed could counteract it.
Aquaman: So speed is important, eh?...We know just the man for the job!
Wonder Woman: Flash!
Aquaman: Right, Flash--the fastest man on Earth!
Wonder Woman: Flash!
Aquaman: Right, Flash--the fastest man on Earth!
The Flash is in India, so Superman flies off to retrieve him. Meanwhile, the mystery figure, Kolbar (Ted Knight), driving an antique fire truck, reports via monitor to a similar-appearing alien, Lupis (John Stephenson), about how the plan is working. In India, the Taj Mahal is being threatened by heat-triggered earthquakes, but the Flash (Knight doing a light, fast-talking voice) is on the scene to put the damaged structure back together.
Superman takes him back to the observatory for a briefing, following which he attaches copper wire to himself from a spool that doesn't look nearly big enough and circles the Earth multiple times, which starts to move Earth back into its original orbit.
At his SPECTRE-like island volcano base, Kolbar is reporting to Lupis that their people can start coming to Earth, as it will soon be warm enough for them to be comfortable...when he notices the Earth returning to its orbit. The JSF spot the fire engine--which they'd seen before when Kolbar gave them the slip--outside the Weather Bureau Office, which Kolbar comes out of. Wendy and Marvin send Wonder Dog back to the Super Friends with a clue and stow away in one of the engine's compartments. The engine transforms into a rocket and returns to the island. (Luckily, the compartment if unaffected by the vehicle's transformation.) At the observatory, the Professor finds that an unknown force is now pulling the Earth back out of orbit, from the other side of the Sun. Superman heads to space to investigate. He finds Kolbar's "Solar Robot," a satellite that tries to fend him off with rings of fire...but Superman breaks free and flings the robot into the Sun.
Wendy and Marvin figure out how to get into the volcano, where Kolbar's crying over his failure as his machinery goes haywire. After a series of mishaps accompanied by an arrangement of "Flight of the Bumblebee," Wonder Dog gets the clue to the Hall of Justice, which appears to be a schedule of some sort. Batman analyzes it to find volcanic dust and ocean coral particles. This helps Aquaman to deduce that the schedule is from Malabar, a Pacific isle with a volcano that erupts every 3 hours and 10 minutes. In the volcano, Kolbar relates to Wendy and Marvin how his planet's industry resulted in a thick smog cover that made the climate inhospitably cool to his people. Superman, Aquaman, and the Flash arrive at the volcano base (the Flash using a vibratory trick to open the base's secret entrance by waggling his fingers) and are filled in, then taken to Kolbar's planet, Solar Terrarium, where they use their powers to clean up its environment in short order! Superman puts his super lungs to use here, sucking up and the smog cover and blowing it out into space.
The people of Solar Terrarium are grateful to the Justice League for giving them their sun back. As Superman flies the other Super Friends back to Earth, there's a bit of messaging about everybody having to do their part to make sure Earth doesn't end up like Solar Terrarium...as if the Super Friends couldn't fix Earth in minutes just as easily!
_______
Star Trek
"The Infinite Vulcan"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
Wiki said:
Featuring the return of Walter Koenig--in the writing credit!
Captain's log, stardate 5554.4: The Enterprise has been ordered to survey a new planet recently discovered at the periphery of the galaxy.
On a landing party, Sulu discovers a small, mobile plant, which he tries to pick up, pricking himself. (He seems a little too amazed by it, considering the Hand Plant we saw him playing with in "The Man Trap".) While the rest of the party investigates an energy reading from a building in a seemingly abandoned city, Sulu collapses outside...
Agmar and Stavos Keniclius 5 are both Doohan, natch.
Captain's log, stardate 5554.8: We have come upon one of the most fascinating discoveries we have ever seen--plant life of extraordinary intelligence and technology. However, they have captured Mr. Spock, apparently under the orders of a human named Keniclius. Lieutenant Uhura is trying to locate any reference to such a man in order to unravel the mystery of this giant human.
Kirk finds that the ship's weapons are neutralized in the area of the building that they were in. Records indicate that Kiniclius was a scientist who was exiled during the Eugenics Wars. For some reason, McCoy connects this with rumors of a "modern Diogenes" who's said to be wandering the galaxy looking for a special specimen. Kirk speculates from the numbering that the scientist has been cloning himself over the centuries. Kirk beams back down with McCoy, Sulu, and some mystery equipment; and has Scotty leave orbit so the landing party can take the beings on the planet by surprise. They find a fleet of unused ships and nab and question Angmar, who explains that the few Phylosian survivors are unable to reproduce, and asserts that Spock will be carrying on their work. He takes the party into an underground complex, where they
The crew don masks--including McCoy slipping one onto OG Spock--and whip out chemical sprayers that fire a weed-killer that, like the beans and bourbon, is an old McCoy family recipe. The spray proves effective in neutralizing the annoying dragon thingies, but the landing party is unable to contact the ship, and find that Spock's mind has been transferred via a mechanism into Giant Spock, who's still processing the info. Up on the ship, Scotty orders all power focused to communication, which dramatically threatens to drain the dilithium crystals! That has to be the first time there was any indication that communications could cause a massive energy drain...maybe if they were trying to channel a signal through the main deflector or something, but we're not in that era yet. Anyway, climactic clip time!
It doesn't make any sense that the original Keniclius would have been looking to bring peace to the galaxy in the 1990s, when even by the rough chronology established in TOS, humans weren't out and about in the galaxy yet. The clone might have had more recent but still out-of-date knowledge about Romulans, Klingons, etc. (note how they've foreshadowed the use of the Kzinti on the show), but that doesn't explain the original Keniclius's motivation.
And a story about Spock being abducted and his mind being transferred...Koenig should have known better. The whole concept of a giant Spock clone seems like too big of a thing (pardon the expression) to be treated in such a throwaway manner. Was there even any purpose to the clones being giants? Regular-sized Spock clones might have been more practical to transport on the Phylosian vessels.
_______
Emergency!
"Heavyweight"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
The first sentence on Wiki said:
Station 51's firefighters are all sleeping soundly when an alarm calls them and several other units to a burning apartment occupied by a small group of hip young musicians who are preoccupied with saving their instruments and sheet music. (The sleeping area lights come on when the alarm sounds--I can't say that I've noticed that before.) One of the rescued kids is a pregnant girl, April Rawlins (Barbara Sigel), who's suffering from smoke inhalation. April seems to think that a higher power is punishing her and her husband for something, though Rab (Dennis Redfield) doesn't seem to want to her to talk about it. April's going into labor earlier than expected, natch. Following the rescue, Johnny finds that his shoulder's bothering him.
At Rampart, Roy arranges for Johnny to see Dr. Morton, who gives him an earful about being out of shape and puts the arm in a sling, wanting him to go off duty. Dix shares that the Rawlinses didn't want their parents notified and were very reluctant to give out personal information. A paramedic from another unit brings in a young boy named Pete Gibbs who suffered an electric shock while trying to fix his TV. The boy is saved, and Dix talks to his mother, Ruthie (Rebecca Ray), who appears to be a drug addict who was too high to supervise her son.
The next time we see April, she's happily holding her newborn son, but when she's informed that he'll need an operation for a cleft palette when he's a little older, she goes into a rage, wanting the "deformed" child taken away and blaming the matter on "what we did". In the outdoor cafeteria, Rab tells Brackett and Dix how he met April when his group was playing in Iowa, and took her away from a strict, religious family who filled her with guilt, causing her to blame a series of mishaps the band had since been having on herself.
At the station, Johnny's out of his cast and reading a book about nutrition when the squad is called to tend to a gunshot injury. Officer Vince is at the scene to relate what he knows about how the shooting happened after the victim drunkenly ran into a neighbor's car, but the victim's daughter, Angie Harper (Pamela Peters), doesn't want to talk about it. The neighbor's teenage son, Tommy Wright (Sean Kelly), comes out to accuse Mr. Harper of having stabbed his father first. Johnny goes in to see to Sam Wright (Wayne Heffley), calling his case into Rampart separately via landline (which they were already calling it back then). When Johnny has trouble stopping Sam's bleeding, he learns that the man is on an anti-coagulant for a heart condition. An angered Tommy grabs his father's shotgun and goes outside to threaten Harper. Vince and Roy talk him down, Roy successfully arguing that Tommy's just stopping them from getting his father the timely attention that he needs. Tommy is taken into custody by another officer, and his father to Rampart...where Dix tries to encourage Rab, who informs her that April wants to give the baby up for adoption and return to her family. Brackett subsequently gives April a gently tough talk that helps her to appreciate what she has.
While Chet's ribbing Johnny about having to prepare a recipe from his book for rutabaga stew, the squad is called to a canyon road where a hang-glider is stuck in a tree down the hillside. The paramedics rappel down, where Johnny learns that the man has a broken leg, and that the limb he's on is threatening to give. The limb is secured via rope and Johnny gradually saws it to lower the limb and victim to the ground in a controlled manner. Afterward, Johnny's grateful for the skinniness that allowed the weak limb to hold him. At Rampart, April reaffirms her love for and commitment to Rab and the baby.
In the coda, Johnny's enjoying a huge submarine sandwich that he claims to Chet is filled with healthy Native American ingredients.
_______
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Father's Day"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
Wiki said:
Mary relays phone messages to Ted that his father's coming from Indianapolis and Ted has a panicky reaction. Mary learns that Mr. Baxter walked out on the family when Ted was ten. Ted drops by Mary's with Georgette, wanting Mary to lie for him when his father visits the station, but both of the ladies encourage Ted to be there to meet his father. At the station, Ted tries to fake losing his voice but is soon outed. A new station owner called Mr. Caldwell (John Holland) drops in for a follow-up visit, having missed Ted before, and Ted hugs him, assuming that it's his father. Then Robert Baxter walks in (Liam Dunn).
While showing Robert his dressing room, Ted starts to express his resentment about how he struggled to establish his career without fatherly support, and learns that his father owns a laundromat. Robert awkwardly tries sharing belated bits of fatherly advice, and shows Ted an old (unseen) picture in which he looks just like Ted, chalking up his current appearance to age...which seems unlikely, as the actors aren't at all the same type. Nevertheless, Ted gets upset that he's going to grow old to be like his father, whom he's generally disappointed in...and shares with Mary at her apartment that his father asked for a $2,000 loan. Mary takes a forwarded call from Ted's father about how he's leaving and sorry to have bothered Ted, while complimenting Ted's newscasting. Ted goes to see Robert while he's packing in his hotel room. They bond a bit over Robert being impressed with his son's career, and Ted insists on filling out the check, though he shows signs of reluctance. As they're trying to exchange awkward good-byes, Ted offers to see Robert to his bus.
In the coda, Mary and Murray find that Ted's trying to get something back for the loan by air-mailing his laundry to his father.
_______
The Bob Newhart Show
"Have You Met Miss Dietz?"
Originally aired October 20, 1973
Wiki said:
Emily's old friend and recent divorcee Marilyn Dietz moves into the building, and is having dinner with the Hartley's when Howard drops in and meets her. They bond over being divorcees, and Howard informs Marilyn that the former occupant of her apartment died there. When Marilyn leaves with Howard to loan him some cocoa, Bob accuses Emily of having helped hook them up when she claimed they were out.
Ah, I remember that tin...though it looks like they obscured the brand name.
At the office, Carol is late back from lunch after getting "swacked" with Emily and Marilyn; when Bob reprimands her for it, Marilyn, who was frustrated with being a housewife and is now going back to school, encourages Carol to stand up for herself, which she tries with Jerry to mixed success. Emily encourages Jerry to take Marilyn to a basketball game that he has tickets to, claiming that she and Bob have an engagement. At home, Emily shares with Bob her envy of Marilyn's independent lifestyle.
Emily: If you were single tonight, what would you be doing?
Bob: I'd probably be at the basketball game with Jerry. Unless you were around, and then you would've fixed me up with Marilyn.
Bob: I'd probably be at the basketball game with Jerry. Unless you were around, and then you would've fixed me up with Marilyn.
Howard drops in to ask where Marilyn is and learns that she's out with Jerry. Marilyn calls after the game while she's having dinner with Jerry, and asks Howard to feed her cat.
At the office, Jerry indicates to Bob that he's pretty seriously attracted to Marilyn. She throws a painting party at her apartment, and when Howard arrives, he finds that Jerry's already there...and has changed Marilyn's mind about the color that Howard helped her pick out. Bob drops in just to grab some Chinese, but ends up getting paint all over his suit and food in a series of mishaps. He shares a brief analysis of everybody's recent behavior, including that Marilyn's taking advantage of the guys by seeing them both at once.
Of course, we'll never see her again. An IMDb contributor claims that she was supposed to be a recurring character, but didn't get along with one of the cast, who insisted that she not be brought back.
_______
Did Andy and Barney do a lot of booking?Ah, that's right. I still want to see the team up, though. At the very end, McGarrett opens his mouth to say, "Book 'im, Danno," but Andy beats him with, "Book 'im, Barn."
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A rare, but serious, side effect of climate change.
I love how Aquaman saves an important Pacific island by beaching every whale in the ocean.
It's kind of funny having these educational tidbits in the same show that has monster ivy plants and copper wires wrapped around the equator.
Don't they have Justice Beepers or something?
Borrowed from Station 51.
They should have contacted the Metal Men.
That could have turned ugly fast.
It might have been helpful for Batman to examine that, Supes.
So he decided to move a planet in another solar system closer to its sun, rather than his own.
He must have heard me.
There's definitely a pattern to the stories on this show.
The eternal problem with a superhero universe.
Sulu views the universe with endless wonder.
These are good aliens, and I like the graphics of the hall of ancestors.
It's hard, man. It's really hard. You think you've found your special specimen and it just doesn't work out.
They're seedless.
Complete with his Giant Spock Clone Starfleet Uniform.
Possibly the same one.
No bars in that sector.
Hmm. Khan and his followers escaped Earth on an interstellar voyage on that submarine-looking ship. Maybe Keniclius did something similar and was picked up by aliens or something.
Especially since the giant Spock clone survived as a separate character and was left behind on the planet. That's worse than Tom Riker.
With Keniclius, they seemed to be trying to invoke the imagery of Apollo.
I can appreciate that-- the sheet music, at least.
It's a good idea. Maybe they got an upgrade, too.
Don't these guys have to follow a regular fitness regimen?
You can't be too rich or too skinny.
I'm glad we got a happy ending there. But did we ever find out what happened to Wright?
Yeah, grilled bison.
I don't remember this. It's probably the only time we heard anything about his father.
There had to be some reason he showed up out of the blue.
Still, a nice moment for Ted to actually give him the money.
Spock's cave girl and James Garner's Polaroid wife.
I don't think I recognize it.
Howard's not doing too good here.
Come on, Bob, she's freshly divorced!
That's very interesting. I wonder who it was.
No, they shoot first and ask questions later-- unfortunately, the network censored all those scenes.