50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)
The Six Million Dollar Man
"One of Our Running Backs Is Missing"
Originally aired November 2, 1975
Edited Wiki said:
Football player Larry Bronco is kidnapped as part of a plan to make his team lose and generate a fortune for his abductors. Steve determines to find him before the start of the game.
The only episode of the series directed by Lee Majors opens at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, where Steve watches practice and reacquaints himself with college football teammate turned pro player Larry Bronco (Larry Csonka) and his wife Pam (Pamela Csonka). When Larry makes a crack about Steve's throwing arm, Steve tosses Larry a pass that threatens to raise his security clearance. Also in the stands are Rick LaPort (Les Josephson) and a guy named Tatashore (former Tarzan Mike Henry), who are planning with Larry's rival teammate and Rick's younger brother, Bobby (Dick Butkus), to kidnap Larry.
Larry further challenges Steve to race to Steve's car several blocks away, and Tatashore, who's tailing them, has trouble keeping up. Parked outside a bowling alley, not-winded Steve challenges an exhausted Larry to a game inside and wins a double-or-nothing bet by putting a little bionic into it--smashing the pins, natch. Afterward, Steve claims that it was a gag that he set up with the manager. Elsewhere, Rick introduces Bobby to his burly team of ex-prison mates--Stolar (Carl Weathers), Ailes (O. William Faison), Harnell (uncredited Terry Leonard), Rosen (uncredited Allan Graf), and Kibbie (Tom Mack). At the hotel, Steve's lured away via page and then trapped in an elevator by Stolar (fortunately, Steve's not expecting). While he's prying himself out in front of an astounded maid, Stolar, Rosen, and Rick make their move on Larry, shooting him with a tranq dart and smuggling him out in a laundry bin. Steve busts into Larry's hotel room and finds a pair of smashed sunglasses.
Making the scene as usual, Oscar questions why there's been no ransom demand, and Steve speculates that it's to keep Larry out of the game, which would affect the points spread in a way that an in-the-know gambler could take advantage of. Oscar, who happens to have been a public prosecutor in Pasadena, enlists bookie George Yokum (Al Checco) to sniff out unusual betting activity of that nature, which leads to Stolar, whom Steve recognizes from having seen him impersonating hotel staff. Steve tails Stolar to a ranch in the countryside, doing the last part offroad on foot. He finds that the place is occupied by Bobby and his squad, and finds Larry chained, doped up, and singing. As Steve's preparing to get away with Larry, he's caught by a rifle-sporting Tatashore, who spotted him running in.
When Tatashore brags about his old prison team, Steve sees an opportunity, challenging Bobby and crew to a game against him and Larry. Steve and Larry end up playing against four of the baddies, while the four others stand guard with rifles. Steve improvises a plan to get him and Larry closer to a nearby van (which is consistently referred to as a truck). Rooting on the sidelines, Tatashore gets so invested in the game that he jumps in and tackles Larry. Steve and Larry put up such a good game that Steve's also able to lure Harnell into playing. When the duo get close enough to the van, Steve turns up the bionics while setting up a pass to Larry, and Larry uses his run to plow into one of the guards; while Steve ultimately tosses the ball at another guard, breaking his rifle. Larry gets the van started, while Steve kicks in the wheels of the baddies' other ride, a sedan...enabling Steve and Larry to drive off unchallenged.
Bronc makes the game, though the coach (Russ Grieve) fines him for being late. By this point Larry has picked up that Steve's bionic, though he doesn't understand what that means...and demands Steve pay him back for their bowling bet.
All in the Family
"Edith Breaks Out"
Originally aired November 3, 1975
Wiki said:
Edith gets a volunteer job despite Archie's objections.
Archie comes home to an empty house and no beer in the fridge. Edith rushes in behind him with TV dinners and beer, hurrying to get everything ready before noticing that he's already there.
Edith: When did you come in?
Archie: Just before this Road Runner cartoon started.
Edith explains that she was working at the old folks' home as a volunteer from a church group called the Sunshine Ladies. She's enthusiastic to tell stories about her interactions with the residents at the expense of Archie's usual routine of wanting to talk about his day at work. Edith tells him that she enjoys what she's doing, which makes her feel like she has a purpose in life, and Archie declares that her purpose is to see to his needs, and insists that she quit. She tries to convince him that she still loves him, but gets bored while he's at work. As an example of how he promised her a life of fun and excitement before they were married, she produces a letter that he wrote her during the war.
Edith (reading the letter): "I hope you will be waitin' for me when I come marchin' home and the world is safe from democracy."
Edith also reminds him of an early routine they had of eating at a Chinese restaurant called Hop Sings on Friday nights. But Archie insists, so Edith, on the verge of tears, refuses to serve him dinner until he takes back saying that her volunteer work isn't worth anything. Then he tries to call the Reverend Fletcher...
Edith: Felcher!
Whatever. And she refuses to let him, slamming the phone down. What's more, when he's about to storm out to Kelcy's, she anticipates that he'll slam the door in her face and beats him to the punch, storming out and slamming the door herself.
When Mike brings the dry-cleaning on Edith's behalf, Archie runs downstairs for his "welcome home kissy". (This is the last of Sally's strike episodes.) Following that bit of awkwardness, the two of them get into a discussion about Edith's situation, Archie citing passages in the Bible that support women serving men, and Mike asserting that Archie's jealous. When Edith comes home, she gives Archie the cold shoulder. After Mike leaves, he tries to sit her down to talk, and she makes it clear that she's still mad at him and wants him to take back what he said.
He tries to make up with her by taking her to Hop Sings, where they're waited on by the owner (James Hong), who remembers Archie's old ordering gags and lousy tips from 26 years ago. Archie toasts Edith, thanking her for 26 beautiful years of marriage and telling her that she's his Sunshine Girl, which earns him a kiss. While they read their fortune cookies, Edith breaks the news that she won't be volunteering at the home anymore, which Archie is happy to hear...until she explains that now they'll be paying her $2 an hour.
M*A*S*H and
Hawaii Five-O will not be viewed this week so we can check out what's on ABC....
The New Original Wonder Woman
Newly originally aired November 7, 1975
Edited Wiki said:
Princess Diana (Lynda Carter) volunteers to return Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner) to Washington, D.C., after he crashes his airplane on Paradise Island. Upon arriving, she establishes the secret identity of Diana Prince and begins working for Steve.
The TV movie opens with a faux newsreel establishing the setting as Summer 1942. An impersonated announcement by FDR transitions into the classic opening credits with their very memorable theme song.
Comic book-style captions introduce us to a secret Nazi manor in Germany, where Oberst (Colonel) Von Blasko (Kenneth Mars) briefs pilot Captain Drangel (Eric Braeden) about a secret mission to use the advanced XV-12 bomber to conduct a pinpoint strike on an American factory producing the new Norden bombsight. (I should be taken out of the period by the '70s hair, but at this point I'm immersed in the mid-'70s, so it all looks normal to me.) They're attended to by a flunky named Nikolas (former
Laugh-In poet Henry Gibson), who sneaks out a message via carrier pigeon. In Washington, DC, General Phil Blankenship (John Randolph) briefs Major Steve Trevor with the intel. In order to keep the attack on the lowdown for morale, Steve plans to intercept Drangel by himself over the Bermuda Triangle. Steve's civilian secretary and love interest, Marcia (Stella Stevens), reports back to the Nazis via Morse code, causing the Oberst to suspect a leak.
Trevor and Drangel engage in a dogfight, ultimately destroying each other in a head-on pass and simultaneously bailing out. While Steve salutes his worthy adversary on the way down, Drangel pulls out his Luger, wounding Steve...only to meet his reward when he lands in a school of sharks. Steve washes up on an uncharted island, where he's found by Princess Diana and her friend Rena (Inga Neilsen), who wear toga-style short dressees and have never seen a man before.
Edited Wiki said:
The island is home to the Amazons: beautiful, ageless women with great strength, agility, and intelligence.
An Amazon doctor (Fannie Flagg) reports Steve's identity to Queen Hippolyta (Cloris Leachman chewing the scenery), who fears what this means, remembering how the Amazons were slaves in Greece and Rome. Diana, who wants to believe that some men can be trusted, takes an interest in observing Major Trevor as he's nursed back to health while his eyes are kept bandaged for his brief periods of consciousness, during which he describes the conflict between America and the Nazis.
Hippolyta wants to shield her daughter from contact with Trevor and the strange feelings that he evokes, which threaten to rob the princess of her Amazonian immortality.
Queen Hippolyta decrees that Olympic-style games shall be held to select one Amazon to return Trevor back to America. But she forbids Diana to participate. Diana states that since she is not allowed to participate, she does not want to be present for the games and will take a retreat to the other side of the island. The games are held with participants wearing masks and numbers, shown as Roman numerals in triangles on white sleeveless short tunic-dresses.
Among the contestants is a masked blonde Amazon. During the events, the blonde Amazon shows exceptional skills, and she ties for first with another Amazon. To break the deadlock, the "bullets and bracelets" event is decided as the tiebreaker, wherein each of the women takes turns shooting at the other; the one being shot at must deflect the bullets with her bulletproof bracelets. The blonde woman wins the event, superficially injuring her opponent's arm.
Hippolyta presents the anonymous winner (numbered XXXIII) with the accoutrements that she'll take with her man's world.
A golden belt will be the source of her strength and power while away from Paradise Island. She has her bullet-deflecting bracelets and also receives a golden lasso which is unbreakable and forces people to obey and tell the truth when bound with it.
When she is pronounced the winner, she removes her mask and wig and reveals that she is Diana. Her mother, though initially shocked, relents and allows her to go to America.
Diana's uniform as Wonder Woman, designed by Queen Hippolyta, features emblems of America, the land to which she will be returning Steve Trevor.
The iconic outfit includes a Golden Age touch, an optional skirt that Diana doesn't wear.
Hippolyta: Go in peace, my daughter. And remember that in the world of ordinary mortals, you are a wonder woman.
Diana: I will make you proud of me. And of Wonder Woman.
Diana, as Wonder Woman, flies to Washington, D.C. in an invisible plane.
Trevor first sees Diana when he briefly comes to in the plane, which looks like it's made of transparent plastic. Diana creates quite a stir when she drops Steve off at the hospital in her outfit...and all the more so on the street, which is very obviously Rodeo Drive or a backlot lookalike. She tries to shop for a civilian dress, but isn't familiar with the concept of money.
The heroine stumbles upon a bank robbery, which she stops.
This includes tossing the robbers around and stopping their driver from getting away by lifting the back end of the car. Diana identifies herself to a cynical policeman (Tom Rosqui) as Wonder Woman. Ian Wolfe appears as the bank's manager.
A theatrical agent who sees her in action [Ashley Norman (Red Buttons)] offers to help make her bullets and bracelets act a stage attraction. Diana is hesitant, but needing money in this new society, she agrees.
Upon learning that Steve's alive, Marcia calls a Fifth Columnist contact named Carl Hoff. As she and General Blankenship visit Steve at the hospital, he's watched over by a surgically masked nurse who turns out to be Diana.
Marcia's first attempt is arranging for an accomplice to fire a machine gun at Wonder Woman during her stage act.
The act involves having audience volunteers shoot at Diana in front of a metal wall. The accomplice (Maida Severn, billed as Teutonic Woman) brings her own Tommy gun, which Norman acts hesitant to let her use, but Diana agrees to the test and displays her superhuman speed, surprising the collaborators. When Diana declines doing a tour and insists on collecting her pay, Norman makes an attempt on her from behind with a gun, but she flips him over her head. He calls Marcia, identifying himself as Carl Hoff.
Meanwhile, Herr Oberst heads for the States via Argentina, flying the next model, the XV-13, to finish Drangel's mission. Upon leaving the hospital, Steve defies orders to go after Von Blasko himself; but is captured on the road by Hoff and a couple of henchman (including Severn Darden). At the hospital, Diana learns from the head nurse (Helen Verbit) that Trevor's been released. Her first spinning transformation into Wonder Woman is done with a dissolve, sans the later flash and bang effect.
Held in Marcia's apartment in Chevy Chase, blindfolded-again Steve is questioned by Marcia under the influence of truth serum, and while he's a tough nut to crack, she eventually persuades him to give her the combination to the wall safe at Military Intelligence that contains the Nazis' secondary objective, the Norden bombsight plans. But she's intercepted rifling the safe by Diana, who indicates that she was always onto Marcia.
Wonder Woman defeats Marcia in an extended fight sequence in the War Department.
Knowing that her gun is no match for WW, Marcia employs her Nuremburg judo champion skills and knife-throwing ability in a climactic, acrobatic catfight set to the theme tune that tears up a good section of corridor. After coming out on top, Diana questions Marcia with the lasso. While spilling intel, Marcia taunts Wonder Woman that she can't be in two places at once, boasting that the Third Reich will go on for a thousand years.
WW: I heard the Greeks and the Romans say the same thing.
Marcia: You heart that?
WW: I may be older than I look.
Diana proceeds to deliver a bit of propaganda about Nazi-unsupported feminism and sisterhood; then calls the apartment while mimicking Marcia's voice, delaying a rendezvous for a submarine pickup so she can intercept the XV-13 in her invisible plane, which apparently has some sort of magnetic tractor beam that forces an attachment with the bomber. She boards the Nazi craft, knocks the Oberst out, and uses her mimicry power to impersonate him, requesting the coordinates of the sub. When the Nazi craft surfaces, she dives the bomber into it and escapes in her plane.
WW delivers an unconscious Von Blasko to police HQ (also knowing nothing of jurisdiction), where she refuses for the second time to stick around and fill out reports. She then proceeds to Marcia's apartment and defeats Norman and his goons, the theme tune briefly recurring. As she frees Steve, he finally sees her in costume again. She reports her success in busting the spy ring and drops the bomb that Marcia was their leader.
The film closes as Trevor and Brigadier General Blankenship talk about Trevor's new secretary, whom Blankenship selected not only for her outstanding clerical test scores, but her decidedly plain appearance in contrast to Marcia: the bespectacled Yeoman First Class Diana Prince USNR(WR), Wonder Woman in disguise.
Steve struggles to dictate a letter expressing his feelings to his mysterious benefactress. The final shot is a closeup of Diana that transitions into a comic book panel.
I don't recall offhand how much it will carry over into the first season, but this initial installment emulates to some extent the campy tone of
Batman.
It occurred to me that we've seen another such career arc-- the guy who played Barclay was previously in the main cast of The A-Team.
But he was the crazy guy on that show.
I'm picturing Oscar playing with dolls while imitating the bionic noise.
en.wikipedia.org
Just Sunday afternoon at Grandma's.