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50th Anniversary Viewing
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Adam-12
"Taking It Easy"
Originally aired January 29, 1974
Wiki said:
Reed, suffering from a wrist injury, works the front desk of the Rampart Police Station, while Malloy patrols with a rookie.
Sitting next to old desk hand Officer Smith, a.k.a. Smitty (Barney Phillips), Reed's handles a call from a woman whose boyfriend has been threatening her by phone; while Malloy's preparing to head out with his eager, green substitute partner, Officer Phillips (Kip Niven).
Pete (to Jim): You know, it seems like I've been through this before.
Reed gets a bomb threat at the desk, scheduled for 2:00 a.m., and alerts Mac. Out on patrol, Malloy gives Phillips a tip about learning the streets, but Phillips's radio protocol when responding to a call is better than Reed's was in the first episode. A search of the station by a team of officers (but no bomb squad) doesn't turn up anything, so they return to business as usual.
Reed's approached at the desk by a young man (Ron Castro) questioning an incident of alleged police brutality, but as Reed gets more details, he has to explain that the officer was using justified force for dealing with a suspect brandishing a knife. Then an old man (John Gallaudet) walks in and starts to pull a rifle out of a bag, causing the officers at the desk to whip out their guns. After it's taken from him and he's frisked, the man explains that he just wanted to turn in the gun, which he inherited.
Other sundry business ensues, including Malloy and Phillips bringing in a group of children from Tulsa whose mother was supposed to come out to meet them. Reed deals with one caller checking on a drunk driver who was brought in, and another who regularly calls in about her husband being in the drunk tank, when he actually died several years ago.
A gunshot is heard in the parking lot. Several officers rush out to investigate, and it turns out to be Officer Brinkman (Claude Johnson making his first credited appearance in the early recurring role since Season 2), whose shotgun misfired as he was trying to clear it.
Investigator Ed Powers (Ed Faulkner) informs Malloy that the woman in Oklahoma deliberately sent her kids to L.A. without following so welfare would take care of them, and Pete has a gentle talk with the oldest, David (Kirby Furlong), to explain the situation. David isn't surprised at the turn of events, and tells Malloy of a grandmother in Chicago.
Pete: You know, David, sometimes children have to grow up before their time.
David: Officer Malloy...I don't wanna grow up.
As 2:00 approaches, Reed goes out to the parking lot to retrieve a bagged lunch that he doesn't have to call dispatch to eat when he listens with Woods on his unit's radio as Adam-12 pursues a suspicious vehicle to the vicinity of the station. When Malloy and Phillips lose the suspect, they realize that there's only one place he could have gone, and find that Woods and Reed have arrested him in the parking lot. Pete notes that it's after 2.
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Hawaii Five-O
"Murder with a Golden Touch"
Originally aired January 29, 1974
Wiki said:
A search for sunken treasure leads into the Pacific off Oahu involving two conmen and three murders.
Private eye Henry Mott, whom we learn is former HPD, sneaks to the window of Geodetic Surveys Ltd. to snap photos of a couple of men, Greg Lawrence (Peter Donat) and Joe Quillian (John Orchard), having a party with possibly hired female companionship. He then searches the basement, but accidentally trips on a poorly placed electric cable, causing the lights to go out. Lawrence and Quillian investigate the basement with weapons drawn and check their vault, in which they're keeping gold bars submerged in water. Mott stupidly makes a break for it and is wounded, but still manages to drive away. Down the road, he crashes, stumbles out of his car, and collapses dead; immediately after which a pair of surfer dudes steal his valuables, including his camera and gun.
Che's intrigued to discover enough gold dust on Mott's body to indicate proximity to a sizeable quantity of gold. Five-O tries checking legitimate sources who might be in possession of such large quantities. Questioning a group of Chinese businessmen whom I assume are jewelers or merchants, Chin learns of someone having come around asking about obtaining a mold for gold bars...but they're unable to provide a description as the old man who was asked is blind. Lawrence and Quillian write off their visitor as a burglar who's believed to have been shot in a robbery, and decide to proceed with their plan. We see Lawrence with his young wife, Tamisha (Haunani Minn), who worried because he was out so late; and his father-in-law, jewelry manufacturer Tenjo Kayata (John Mamo [Fujioka]), for whom he works...and whom we see afterward taking an interest in the newspaper story about Mott. Quillian pays a visit to a pair of shipwreck salvagers, Charles Fleming (future Romulan admiral James J. Sloyan) and Ed Boyle (James Davidson), who try to sell him counterfeit jade statuettes. He initially pretends to be a cop busting them, then offers to buy them.
The investigation into institutions working with gold leads McGarrett to take an interest in Kayata, who was also one of Mott's clients. Upon being questioned, Kayata admits that he hired Mott to investigate his son-in-law's suspicious absences from home. While Steve has Lawrence checked out, Mrs. Lawrence wakes up in the middle of the night to spy on her husband burying a gun in the garden. Quillian makes a rendezvous with the salvagers over a shipwreck they'd discovered, and delivers several antique trunks, which are picked up by the salvage boat's crane and dipped into the drink before being taken aboard the boat. The last trunk is lowered down to the wreck, following which Fleming dives down and scatters the bars inside around a bit. Five-O takes interest when the salvagers subsequently make the TV news for having found $1 million worth of gold. Steve and Danno question them right after the gold is taken via armored car to a bank, bringing up their record for past bunco. They disclose that the gold belongs to the clients who chartered them...Geodetic Surveys.
A Coast Guard vessel takes Five-O, Quillian, and the salvagers to the site of the clipper
Boston Cloud, where divers go down and discover the planted additional gold. Arthur Jentry (Peter Carew), a dealer interested in purchasing the gold, consults with Che, while the U.S. Mint is conducting tests. Both Che and the Mint are able to vouch for the gold's purity, though neither can verify its age, which could be simulated via high-temperature casting. Elsewhere, the salvagers try to blackmail Quillian into cutting them in for full shares of the deal rather than the $10,000 they'd been hired for. When Quillian reports this to Lawrence via phone, Tamisha offers her husband support regarding whatever's troubling him. Danno reports that the kids who looted Mott's body were picked up and the camera and gun found; while Kayata updates Steve that a vault inventory has discovered $1.2 million of gold missing...Lawrence being the only other one with access. Five-O puts out APBs on Quillian, Lawrence, and the salvagers, following which the salvagers' boat is found anchored near the wreck. Divers go down again to discover something new--Fleming and Boyle chained to the bottom.
As the bodies are being brought to shore, Steve reports the news to Jentry, who's already paid for the gold.
McGarrett: The finders were not keepers.
Tamisha confronts her father about his allegations and Greg having disappeared. He regretfully shows her evidence that he'd withheld from the police to protect her--photos Mott had taken of Lawrence with other women. Five-O enlists the cooperation of the president of the bank in which Geodetic Surveys deposited their money (Howard Gottschalk), Quillian and Lawrence having used aliases. McGarrett gives the president a message to be delivered to either of them when they attempt to withdraw their money in the countries that they've fled to. While the conspirators come running back to the islands, each led to believe that the other withdrew the remaining money, Tamisha visits 5OHQ to turn in the gun that her husband buried. Later at the bank, Greg Lawrence storms in to see the president, whose chair swivels around to reveal McGarrett.
Steve: Book them, Danno...murder one, three counts.
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Ironside
"Terror on Grant Avenue"
Originally aired January 31, 1974
Wiki said:
The son of Ironside's old friend is the prime suspect in a Chinese man's murder.
Shopkeeper Frank Chin has just closed up his store for the night when he's assaulted by a young man using martial arts. (Retro-Trend Alert!) After the assailant splits the scene, a similar-looking young man (Frank Michael Liu) wakes from unconsciousness in the alley, and seeing the businessman's body and gathering onlookers, makes a run for it. The Chief gets a call from his old friend, Henry Wing (Benson Fong), about his son, Billy, being wanted for murder. On the scene, Lt. Reese indicates that Billy belongs to a gang that's been leaning on Chin.
Billy has just gotten in a quick, defensive call to his girlfriend, Lori Li (Irene Tsu), when Ed and Fran arrive at the not-meant-for-tourists neighborhood bar she's working at to question the straight-talking proprietor, Phil Tsang (Mako), as his joint was a hangout for the gang. Elsewhere, the Chief tries to get his friend to open up about where Billy might be hiding, but Henry holds out about Billy's hideout at his grocery storage basement, which Henry subsequently visits to offer his son what help he can while trying to convince him to give himself up. The Chief determines that a cane Chin had fought back with was split by karate. (The martial art used is consistently identified as karate, although that's Japanese.) He then visits Phil's to talk to Lori. Phil intervenes, recognizing Ironside, but gives his permission for her to take the Chief to the HQ of Billy's gang. Meanwhile, a long-haired young man (Don Sato) watches as Henry brings groceries to Billy's hideout.
The Chief drops off Ed and Fran to parlay with the gang, who appear to be ideologically motivated based on a poster of Chairman Mao.
They seem to believe that Billy did it, which they approve of, and things are looking to get ugly when a mysterious figure who's obviously Lori slips in, turns out the lights, and fends the gang off singlehandedly with "karate" and the help of some freeze frames, allowing the detectives to escape. Back at the Cave, Mark's just reporting how he's uncovered that all of the businesses that the gang targets were bought out by the same dummy corporation when Lori storms in to object to having been relieved of undercover duty. The Chief goes over her background, which includes having majored in sociology, while she indicates that her relationship with Billy was part of her cover. She thinks that Tsang, who has undetermined means beyond what the bar would provide, is a likely suspect. Ironside agrees to let her back on the case answering directly to him.
Lori's hanging out at the bar off duty when she sees Phil sending out the bartender, Truman Sand (George Chiang), with a briefcase. She follows him via cab and sees him switch the case off to a blonde woman at a market. The next day, Lori reports that the woman dropped it off at a depository, and her description leads Mark to identify her as the receptionist at the office of the dummy corporation. After Lori leaves a note supposedly from Billy for Truman to find, Tsang confronts Henry, wanting to know Billy's whereabouts and making a show of sharing the gang's anti-capitalist ideology; following which Henry arranges a rendezvous with the Chief to meet Billy at his hideout. Lori accompanies the Chief, admitting the truth to Billy. As the Chief is sharing what he's deduced about the frame-up, Tsang trains a gun from behind some boxes, only to be nabbed by Ed, Mark, and the young man outside, whom the Chief identifies as Officer Fong...having known where Billy was the whole time but not wanting to play into the frame. The Chief accuses Tsang's organization of having been after Chin's business and using the gang as a cover. The Chief and Lori then go to the bar to see Truman, whom Ironside accuses of having been Phil's boss in the racket and of having murdered Chin. Truman tries to make a break for it and is taken down by Lori in a "karate" fight that looks like a kung fu-inspired choreographed dance routine.
In the coda, the Chief shares how he deduced Truman's role because the alias used for the dummy company's owner meant "true man" in Chinese. Lori gets panicky about the Chief potentially revealing the meaning of her own birth name, Lang Lei...which a quick search indicates may be Cantonese profanity, though the Bing AI is coy about providing an exact translation.
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Emergency!
"The Hard Hours"
Originally aired February 2, 1974
IMDb said:
Dr. Early is diagnosed with a heart condition and undergoes a bypass. A pro football player is embarrassed to admit that his son tackled him too hard. The firemen rescue a boy trapped in his homemade rocket, a woman with her toe stuck in a bathtub faucet, and an electrocution victim.
After Early casually fixes an engine issue the squad's been having for the departing paramedics, Brackett brings his colleague into his office to show him an EKG for a anonymous party with a negative cardiac history. After Joe recommends hospitalization and arteriogram, Kel reveals that the EKG is Joe's, from a recent physical. Kel recommends that they perform the arteriogram that day.
While the paramedics are enjoying the ride back in their smoothly running squad, they're called to tend to a former pro football player named Dave--nicknamed "The Animal" (Dick Butkus)--who's fractured his ankle in the park. Dave initially claims that he tripped on a sprinkler, but comes to admit that he was caught off-guard when tackled by his apologetic teenage son, Rich (uncredited Casey Morgan).
Back at Rampart, Early tries to play it down as the paramedics see him being wheeled to his procedure, but they're concerned by how serious Dix looks. After seeing Dave out on crutches and consulting with a pair of specialists named Fred and Tom (
that Nick Nolte and uncredited John Rayner), Brackett commences the exam...which Joe is awake for. After examining the results, Fred and Tom recommend an immediate bypass.
At the station, the paramedics try not to say anything about Early, though the others can tell that something's bothering them, and they don't have the appetite for Capt. Stanley's clam chowder (sounds like a name brand), which the paramedics had agreed to have Early over for as payment for fixing the squad. The station is called to a warehouse where a boy named Clyde Spinetti (uncredited Eric Shea) has lacerated his arm while messing around in a homemade rocket. At first the firefighters are concerned about the type of fuel he's using for the smoking craft, until Roy finds a bag of dry ice.
As Joe's about to get his chest shaved for the procedure, he admits to Kel that he's scared. At the base station, Dix tells the paramedics that she's also scared as she updates them about what's happening. Clyde's father (uncredited William Wintersole) comes in for him as Brackett's giving the boy a tetanus shot. Back at the station, the paramedics are filling in the captain when the squad is called to assist a young woman named Betty (uncredited Megan Landis) who's gone all MTM and gotten her toe stuck in her bathtub faucet while the bathroom door was locked. Surprised because they were expecting a younger girl from the description given by her mother (Eve Brent), John excuses himself and Roy uncomfortably frees the toe and promptly departs.
At Rampart, Kel and Dix try unsuccessfully to keep themselves occupied while pensively waiting at the quiet base station. Station 51 is called to a parking lot where a worker is lying unconscious in a basket crane that accidentally came down on some electric wires, giving him a dangerous jolt. With the crane's controls shorted out, Johnny and Roy climb up the arm and get in the basket to resuscitate him, while the firefighters cut the power lines so the crane can be lowered via popping the relief valves. On the ground, the paramedics defib the patient before calling Rampart, and an ambulance promptly arrives to take him in.
At Rampart, Kel is relieved when Fred comes out to reveal that the operation was a success...the surgeon having been delayed because he saw to the suturing personally. Brackett goes in to tell a semi-conscious Joe before seeing to the new patient that the paramedics are rolling in. We get the coda this time, in which the paramedics bring the recovering Early a Thermos of chowder, which he proceeds to enjoy while settling in to read a pile of magazines.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Better Late...That's a Pun...Than Never"
Originally aired February 2, 1974
Wiki said:
Mary writes a humorous obituary as a joke, but when it is mistakenly read on the air, she is suspended from the newsroom.
Mary's pulling an all-nighter at home preparing obituaries for the station, so Rhoda keeps her company and pitches in. In a wee-hours fit of underslept silliness, they write up a silly obituary for 110-year-old Wee Willie Williams, Minneapolis's oldest living citizen. Mary's horrified the next evening when Ted reads the piece on the air. Lou's so dumbstruck to learn that Mary wrote it that he postpones reprimanding her until the next morning. When he sits her down in his office, he doesn't want to hear her explanation, but tells her a story about a rewrite man who was just short of retirement when it was discovered that he'd been slipping Latin jokes in sports pieces for years, and was fired, because the news is sacred. Lou declares that he's placing Mary on suspension without pay for two weeks. Encouraged by an angered Murray, Mary goes back in to declare that she won't accept the suspension, Lou will have to fire her. When neither backs down, Mary clears out her desk and tearfully walks out.
When the duration of the intended suspension is up and Mary hasn't been able to find another job, she drops by the station to have lunch with Murray, hoping to scope out Lou's attitude, and unexpectedly meets her replacement, Erica Jordan (Jennifer Leak). Mary tries to play it cool, but as she's about to walk out, she breaks down sobbing about wanting to come back. Lou takes her into his office and admits that he misses her, and that everyone else has been mad at him for replacing her. When Mary points out that somebody else is now sitting at her desk, Lou sends Erica on an errand to personnel and calls down to tell them to find her another job...then pulls out the desk chair for Mary.
In the coda, Mary's back to working on obituaries in her apartment, and Rhoda can't help dictating one in which Robert Redford dies with her name on his lips.
I discovered that the house they're using for the exterior shots in Season 4 is a similar-looking but different one than in the previous seasons...hence there being an attic level and tower window above Mary's apartment.
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The Bob Newhart Show
"Mind Your Own Business"
Originally aired February 2, 1974
Wiki said:
To help manage his money, Bob hires a business manager (Ron Rifkin) who puts him on a budget of $50 a week.
When Bob's trying to get Carol to do some overtime on a Friday night, one of her excuses leads him to learn that Jerry's co-owns a yacht with two other dentists, which they're writing off as a business expense. When Jerry sees Bob's envy, he recommends his business manager.
Jerry: Well, I've given you tips before. Have I ever given you a bum steer?
Bob: No, Jerry, I'm just crazy about my Studebaker stock.
Jerry arranges to bring Jeff Boggs (Rifkin) to the Hartleys' that night, which disrupts their dinner plans. Jeff makes his pitch about effectively doubling Bob's income by controlling and investing his finances, right down to paying his bills, and impresses Bob by accurately calculating what his actual income is. He puts each of the Hartleys on a negotiated weekly spending allowance--$60 for Emily, $50 for Bob.
Bob finds himself having to watch his spending on--and get receipts for--trivial things like a sandwich from an office vendor and pitching in for a gag birthday gift for Dr. Tupperman; and he learns that Jerry's on a substantially higher allowance. When Bob goes to Boggs's office to beg for an additional $20, Jeff chastises him but gives him the money. Tension comes into the household when Bob asks Emily to reimburse him for groceries. Bob gets into one of his stories to describe to Emily how he feels like a duck at the zoo pecking at a mechanical feeder to get a pellet, and with her support, decides to discontinue Boggs's services.
The catch comes in the coda when Bob learns how hard it is to reach Boggs on the phone because of his answering machine.
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I actually remember that cover, if not the character. Zardoz was a squashup of "Wizard of Oz," so I wonder if Vartox was something similar or just meant to evoke it.
I don't recall any Oz elements, but it's been awhile.
I watched Good Times and Maude often enough to be familiar with them, but not really on a regular basis, like All In The Family.
Maude I was never into as a kid, though it was on in the house.
).
