50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
Emergency!
"Right at Home"
Originally aired January 10, 1976
MeTV/Peacock said:
Dr. Brackett rides along with a fire department helicopter crew. DeSoto opens his home to an accident victim's son, who wrecks his house and reputation. Dr. Early treats a boy with spinal meningitis. The firemen rescue a man from a burning building.
Doc Brackett reports for extracurricular weekend duty at Fire Dept. Air Operations HQ, where he's teamed with the crew of Copter 10--the pilot, Mac, pilot (uncredited Allan MacLeod), and Crewman Larry Younkers (uncredited as himself). They show him the copter's equipment before they're one of four copters to take off from the field, each in turn. They land at a camp located at 3,800 feet in a central location in their mountainous area of operations, which includes a dormitory and mess hall for ten fire crews.
Station 51 and Copter 10 are conveniently called to an accident involving a tank truck and a camper. The copter scouts out a winding mountainside road in the vicinity of Little Seco Dam, having difficulty finding the accident. They eventually find the two vehicles overturned in a ravine. The chopper lands and they find a bespectacled young boy (Poindexter Yothers, who looks a lot like Robbie Rist) who tells them that his dad is hurt. 51 arrives while Brackett's working his way into the camper cab to help the unconscious father. Johnny assists Brackett while the rest of the station crew approach the truck and find a conscious, injured driver (Steven Marlo). The father is brought out on a backboard with a cervical collar, and Roy comes over to get treatment instructions for the truck driver in person. While the patients are loaded on the copter, the boy identifies himself to Roy as Eddie Lapeer.
The Lapeer family being from Seattle with no local family, at Rampart Dix and Johnny talk Roy into taking Eddie in. Dix then assists Early in examining an unconscious boy in PJs named Ben. The doctor asks the woman who brought him in (Peggy Stewart), assuming that she's the mother, to consent for a lumbar tap while questioning her about symptoms before he went unconscious. She's hesitant, but ultimately signs. Performing the procedure, Early confirms meningitis. Afterward, the boy's actual mother, Joan Hanrahan (Sandra Balson), arrives, and the other woman is identified as babysitter Martha Felt. Mrs. Hanrahan is outraged that they did a procedure on her boy without her consent; but Early talks her down from legal action by assuring her that Stewart may have saved Ben's life.
At the station, the crew discusses Roy taking Eddie in, the cap'n being skeptical about getting too involved with patients. When family can't be reached, he advises turning the boy over to the county. Eddie proves demanding while Roy watches him at the station; and Roy tells Johnny of what a handful he's been at home, including an incident at a neighbor's house involving goldfish in a toilet bowl; and that he's afraid Eddie's behavior is rubbing off on his own kids. After the boy causes trouble at the station, Stanley insists that he go. At Rampart, Dix, respecting the father's wishes, insists that the boy not be put in a home. Roy tells her and Johnny about another incident in which the cops were called in the middle of the night, thinking that Roy was abusing Eddie while he was stopping the boy from terrorizing the dog. Dix agrees to take Eddie, planning to go to Disneyland with him.
In the middle of the night, Station 51 and other units are called to an in-town house fire. The paramedics climb in a window, covered by Marco with a hose, to carry an unconscious man out. The fire worsens when a heater blows, spreading to another house's roof. The paramedics examine and treat the man while his wife watches, conferring with Brackett via biophone. The fire is brought under control, though the couple's house is a loss.
On a new day, Roy's still recovering from the boy's stay when the paramedics check on Dix at Rampart. They're astonished to find that she's got Eddie perfectly under control and acting uncharacteristically polite.
Roy: How'd you do that?
Dix: Same way I handle Joe and Kel.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"The Seminar"
Originally aired January 10, 1976
Frndly said:
First Lady Betty Ford has a cameo in an episode that places Mary and Lou in Washington, DC, for a seminar.
This noteworthy installment was directed by our old LAS pal Stuart Margolin.
Lou comes into the newsroom enthusiastic that he's got two tickets to DC for the titular event on politics and the press. Upset because Lou had promised to take him on the next trip that came up, Ted guilts Lou into leaving him in charge of the newsroom, which includes making Lou tell a disbelieving Murray in front of him. As soon as Lou and Mary leave, Ted moves his things into Lou's office and formally addresses the newsroom crew.
On their first night in DC, Mary wants to see the sights, but Lou insists on waiting for word on parties from old contacts to him he sent out feelers, turning down a party invitation that Mary gets from the French ambassador. When Congressman Phil Whitman from Iowa (Dabney Coleman, now with mustache and a piece) calls to invite Mary to dinner, Lou tries to take charge by getting them into a swank restaurant he's been to, only to find that his local contacts are out of date. Lou's embarrassed when Phil's quickly able to get reservations.
The next day, Mary finds that Lou didn't do anything, having waited in the room all night for a call. He tries to play it down as she enthusiastically tells him how she met the secretary of state, defiantly insisting that he's going to be getting calls. She chastises him for sitting alone being a stubborn jerk.
Lou: I should've brought Ted.
Mary: I will never forgive you for that.
Back in Minny, Ted makes a show of trying to run a tight ship, while the crew tries their best to ignore him. When they find themselves needing to cover a fire and a robbery, Murray holds back on advising Ted about how to do both with only one film crew.
Mary returns from another eventful date with Phil, while Lou too-casually tells a story involving having spent time with John Glenn, Hubert Humphrey, Eric Sevareid, Ethel Kennedy, and the Fords, which Mary finds hard to swallow. Lou then gets a call from a party whom he addresses as Betty, who's asking about a pipe her husband lost, which Mary assumes Lou planted in the couch cushions. Mary humors Lou when he hands her the phone.
Hello, Mary? This is Betty Ford.
Hi, Betty. This is Mary...Queen of Scots.
Mary proceeds to dismiss the party on the other end for engaging in a childish charade and tells her that her impression of Betty Ford really stinks before hanging up.
The Bob Newhart Show
"Carol at 6:01"
Originally aired January 10, 1976
Wiki said:
Carol finds that her new husband, Larry, is giving her more attention than she can handle.
At the Hartleys' one evening with Howard, Carol is embarrassed by how Larry dotes over her, which includes showing pictures from his extensive collection of her doing all manner of sundry things. (The title comes from a series of her on the beach at sunrise, each taken a minute apart.) This extends to her work day, as he drops by the office during lunch to help "Big Red" and take more pictures. Carol tells Bob how she finds him exhausting, never having a minute to herself. She's so desperate to get away from him for a while that she agrees to go to the ballet with Emily in Bob's place, while he hosts poker night with Howard, Jerry, and Larry; during which Larry repeatedly brings her up and pines for her. When the ladies return, Larry insists on going home with Carol immediately, cutting out of the game in progress. Things finally come to a head when he objects to not be included in a new routine of going to a ladies' gym with Emily one night a week. When the Bondurants leave, Emily takes Larry's place at the table as everyone bets bananas for Jerry's answer to Howard having seemingly made up a Chinese version of the game.
In the bedroom, Emily recalls her first fight with Bob in too much detail, reigniting the argument they originally got into about Emily putting ketchup on Bob's overcooked steak on August 17, 1970. At the office, Carol tells Bob how she's giving in on the gym, but his argument that she needs to be straight with Larry encourages her to stand her ground. Larry comes by the Hartleys' during a pre-gym dinner (in which it turns out that Bob still overcooks his steaks and Carol also likes them with ketchup) to ask Carol about a note she left him, and she finally confronts him with her need to do some things without him, seeming to get through by framing it as being a way for him to prove his love...though he still can't help trying to dote as she leaves with Emily. Left alone at the table, Bob finds that he likes his steaks with ketchup as well.
A poker night coda involves another made-up game. Bob's patient of the week is Mrs. Bakerman, who's obsessing over multiple visits about her church's bingo game being rigged.
NBC's Saturday Night
Season 1, episode 9
Originally aired January 10, 1976
Host: Elliott Gould
Guests: Anne Murray, Franken and Davis
A brief opening gag features Dan, Laraine, Garrett, and Chevy as the Dead String Quartet. Paul Schaffer appears in Elliott's monologue, playing piano as he sings. The monologue provides the first beat in a running gag of Gilda talking to Elliott onstage about an affair that they're supposed to be having.
After a repeat of the Try-Hard pacemaker battery commercial, Chevy, Elliott, and Garrett do a sketch as interior demolitionists:
John does the Godfather...in therapy:
A live commercial gag advertises New Shimmer Non-Dairy Floor Wax--a floor wax
and a dessert topping.
After Elliott shows a film by Gary Weis that cuts between multiple piano players playing and singing "Misty," Anne Murray performs a song called "The Call".
Chevy: Our top story tonight--While campaigning for the upcoming primary in New Hampshire, President Ford kissed a snowball and threw a baby.
The Franco gag is about the generalissimo having had a summit meeting with just-deceased Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai. A repeat of a Jamitol commercial leads into a gag of Michael O'Donoghue and Chevy having an apparently romantic squabble at the news desk. Chevy solicits viewers to send him marijuana samples for testing, then does a gag about the unveiling of the new NBC logo. In a twist on the usual Garrett Morris WU ending, Chevy repeats the top story in a foreign language.
A Killer Bees home invasion, with an appearance by Lorne Michaels:
Albert Brooks introduces what he says will be the last film in his series for the show, about testing his material at the National Audience Research Institute, which includes the use of test subjects and computers.
In the Land of Gorch, as Scred and Queen Peuta are reading from
The Joy of Sex together, she insists that he tell Ploobis about their affair. It turns out that the king already knows that she's cheating on him, but not with whom, which discourages Scred from coming clean. Scred consults the Mighty Favog, who refers him to a page in
The Joy of Sex covering self-fulfillment.
Jane hosts a show called
Birthright, on which Dan demonstrates a method for simulating the conditions of the womb during delivery; while Elliott demonstrates an opposite method that involves immediately exposing the newborn to as much commotion as possible, including a marching band and clowns.
Anne Murray returns to perform the upbeat "Blue Finger Lou," sitting beside the piano player.
Elliott introduces a standup routine by the comedy team of Franken and Davis, who portray a couple of Native American talk show hosts discussing the invasion of Minnesota by the white man.
The running gag culminates in the final bow wedding of Elliott and Gilda.
Not one of his more upbeat early seminal hits, but it got him in the spotlight.
Then there was the time on
Babylon 5 when a character makes a remark about the Second Coming and three Elvis impersonators walk through the gate on cue.
Kinda casts a sour note on the song.
What song, "Heartbreak Hotel"?
There's a ranking I can agree with.
There's a first.
I don't think I've ever seen this all the way through, although I do remember it showing up on one of the UHF stations from time to time. Seems like a Channel 38 kind of movie.
I took a liking to it when I caught it on TV in the '90s.
He made quite a good impression. Those audience members had quite a story to tell in their later years.
What, about the mostly out-of-shot hip-wiggling?
He promised her the Moon.
I wonder if she got a piece.
Old Mix has left the building.
That does sound vaguely familiar.
Here we go:
The first time I ever saw
Kamandi #1 was in a barber's shop. I really wanted to ask him if I could buy it, but I was too embarrassed because there were a bunch of guys there. He probably would have just given it to me.
How old were you at that point?
So you were spared Season Three your first time around.
With TOS being shown less frequently in syndication at that point, it became a sort of holy grail for me. I didn't catch most of Season 3 until a few years later.
