Ah, Bob Dylan, one of the most unique voices of American history. He fits no genre and no genre could hold him. He is a true genius and a creative inspiration. Of course, I always think of his cameo appearance in Doonesbury back in the 70s or early 80s when he's discussing his music with the character Jimmy Thudpucker, and Trudeau has him say, "I just wanted it to rhyme, man." I'm not necessarily going to argue with this, but it certainly does give the appearance of impropriety. There was Spector's Wall of Sound, and then there was Dylan's Wall of Words. It's almost like a form of Tourette's Syndrome. And he makes it look easy. I absolutely love this song. Quite a catchy opening. I never paid attention to albums so much as I did the individual songs, so I'm never sure where each one comes from. Even with Simon & Garfunkel, I couldn't tell you which album each song comes from (unless it's the title song), because I popped them in and out so frequently. Damn. We still haven't gotten Decades back yet. They were both Friday-night shows that I watched regularly. To be even more specific, the memories that it triggers are watching TV in the dining room because the den was being done over and all the furniture had been moved, and I'm sitting in the old brown rocking chair. How that particular connection came to be, I have no idea. As for Room 222, it was an amazing show, very contemporary and issues oriented. I wish it would pop up on one of the retro channels, because it deserves some attention. Well, that's a bit dismissive. I think it's one of the sweetest love songs ever, in the same category as "Darling Be Home Soon." Undoubtedly. I can remember the chair I sat in fifty years ago, but much of yesterday is lost forever.
_______ 50th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing _______ Hawaii Five-O "Kiss the Queen Goodbye" Originally aired March 11, 1970 Season 2 finale Linville appears to be attempting a bad British accent in some of her scenes, hoping we won't recognize her from last season. In New York, her character, Camilla Carver, has a "cutter" named Dietrich (Hans Collin) forge a replica of the Queen, then shoots him. Because trial copies of the Queen were found in his shop, Danny flies out to talk to the investigating detective. Back on the island, McGarrett is handling security for the Kamehameha Day celebration, where the wealthy Vandervoort family will be presenting the real Queen to the state. Suspecting a plot to switch the jewel, Steve wants the Governor to postpone the presentation, but it's too big a deal. Aging movie star Thurman Elliott (George Gaynes) comes into the story when he tries to sell a diamond bracelet that Five-O believes may be hot. He's approached by Carver and her partner, Michael Olson (Christopher Cary, whose accent seems genuine), who blackmail him with knowledge that he opportunistically swiped the bracelet at a society party. Carver wants Thurman to get her into the Governor's pageant, for which McGarrett plans security arrangements using a big map of the sprawling Makaha Inn on an easel...I was disappointed that somebody didn't draw it on the Giant Daylit Lucite Board. In private, Michael prepares a rose that will be used in the switch, while Camilla practices her legerdemain and finds an excuse to drop the episode title. Posing as a waiter, Michael gets the flower in place. McGarrett discusses the potential risk with the Hawaiian girl who'll be wearing the Queen at the presentation (Kanoe Cazimero, whom IMDb informs me was 15 at the time, though she looks very mature for that age). The Governor gives the audience at the presentation and back home a lesson in Hawaiian history in his speech. The girl is portraying a Hawaiian princess who married Captain Reicher Vandervoort, a figure who's credited with playing a major role in the development of Hawaii in the 1800s, though I couldn't find any indication of his existence via Google. Carver holds the well-being of Elliot's granddaughter, Amanda (Druanne Setlow)--who's one of the flower girls in the ceremony--over his head to ensure his cooperation. Carver hands the Hawaiian girl the rose, which pricks her finger and causes her to suffer a fainting spell. Fanning the girl with her wrap, Carver makes the switch. Steve checks the jewel immediately afterward, and is able to tell that it's the fake...while Carver quickly passes the real jewel to Olson. Clearly a bit out of it, the girl ascends the podium to hand the counterfeit jewel to the Governor. Danny receives an alert about a jewel thief named Janet Kingston who was having work done by Dietrich and has come to Hawaii under the alias of Camilla Carver. Five-O has Carver searched and questions Elliott about her. He doesn't have much of a story prepared to explain her presence, and she protests that she's gone legit and threatens to sue. Coming up with a plan to smuggle the jewel out through a lockdown on the premises, Olson hides it in a party favor and takes it back to Carver, who, following Olson's lead, wants to use Amanda to smuggle it out. McGarrett lucks upon Olson, now disguised as an HPD officer, struggling with Amanda for the favor, and pursues his getaway car in a helicopter. McGarrett takes shots at Olson from the chopper and forces him off the road, where his wheels get stuck in sand. Olsen is given a lift back to the village, where he and Camilla/Janet are booked by the real HPD. Elliot, who isn't facing any charges, gives Steve the diamond bracelet to return to its owner; and Steve arranges for Amanda to take a ride in the 'copter. _______ Dragnet 1970 "Forgery – The Ranger" Originally aired March 12, 1970 Saturday, November 8 (1969--didn't even have to look it up this time): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Bunco-Forgery Division, question Barney Regal (Stacy Harris), a forest ranger who was stopped for a traffic violation and found with checks and credits cards under other names, and has a record for car theft and forgery. When Regal starts to show off his knowledge of forestry to prove his bona fides... Friday: Alright now, hold it, Regal, you sound like a textbook. Save your lecture for later, let's see if you can come up with some simple answers for a change. Pot, meet kettle! Regal claims that the items in his possession were lost by campers and he's going to return them when his lecture tour is over. It's found that one of the credit cards belongs to a man who reported his wallet missing after one of Regal's lectures the night before; and that a woman reported credit cards and a diamond ring missing after attending a conservation seminar that he talked at. The detectives dig up a record of a forest ranger named Barney Regal who died two years previously in West Virginia. The FBI believes that the Regal LAPD has may be a failed Forest Service applicant named Clifford Ray Owens. Karen Fields (Judy McConnell), the woman whose car Regal was driving, shows up to corroborate his story that she loaned him the car, but she insists that he only thinks she's his girlfriend, and describes him as a pitiful person. The detectives confront Fake Regal about being wise to his true identity, and he becomes more desperate to prove he's the genuine article, but they trip him up on a detail of his story involving an animal park that burned down a couple years previously. He reluctantly admits to being Owens, but seems genuinely invested in his assumed identity, describing his credit card and auto theft as incidental to the good that he thinks he's doing as a ranger. Finally he breaks down over all of it going down the drain. This was a true bottle show, taking place entirely at Friday and Gannon's desk, with only those two credited guests. It was light on story or any real sense of drama and heavy on infodumps about forestry and environmental issues while Owens/Regal was stalling under questioning. One gets the sense that this was a very clumsy attempt to hop onto the environmental awareness bandwagon. _______ Love, American Style "Love and the Fly / Love and the Millionaires / Love and Double Trouble" Originally aired March 13, 1970 This was the twenty-third episode aired; the YouTube videos for this and the next episode are numbered the same as the airing order. In "Love and the Fly," Corbett (Darren McGavin) is a cartoonist who's using the brass-furnished bedroom as a temporary studio and getting into arguments with his wife, Barbara (Suzanne Pleshette) over her using his drawing pen. A fly invades his studio while he's trying to work and he goes to war with it. But when he tries to swat it while it's perched on Barbara's shoulder, she spitefully claims it's her pet, naming it Caesar and buying it a cage. Corbett's manager, Barney (Herbert Rudley), comes over and ends up swatting Caesar, so he and Corbett desperately try to find a replacement, starting at a pet store. Between scenes, Corbett has managed to find one and is trying to sneak it into Caesar's cage when Barbara comes in to apologize for her recent behavior. In response, Corbett promises to give up his strip and try his hand at being a real writer again, which is the source of their marital issues. Barney bursts in having found a fly of his own, he and Corbett have to explain what happened to Caesar, and Barbara cracks up, admitting that Caesar wasn't really her pet (duh). But Corbett keeps his promise, shooing Barney and his new pet fly away. This was a very lame segment, and a waste of two noteworthy guests. In "Love and the Millionaires," John and Alice Bagley (Forrest Tucker and Jane Kean) are a money-strapped blue-collar couple who argue over the most modest real-life expenditures (though they own a brass bed), but play a game in which they compete over how they'd each spend a half a million dollars. John decides to invest his in the stock market, so he goes to consult an actual broker, Mr. Benjamin (Jonathan Harris), who, assuming that the money is real, is eager to help him invest it. Benjamin pays a visit to their apartment and sees how they're living, but is sold by Alice and John discussing some of their extravagant imaginary purchases. John abruptly ushers Benjamin out after talking about wanting to give his money to charity. Later in bed, Alice is upset that John ruined the game by not just spending his fake money stupidly, and he promises to splurge real money to take her on a cruise to Hawaii. This one had no payoff to the situation with the stockbroker. It just kind of set up the gag and ended. In "Love and Double Trouble," blond-haired American Ali Cooper (Sean Garrison) is sent three slaves as a birthday present by his father, King Allah Salam--Omar (Johnny Brown) and two beautiful girls in harem outfits, Maya and Dina (Phyllis Davis and Trish Mahoney). Ali wants nothing to do with it because he's already engaged, but learns that Omar and the girls will be executed if the king thinks that they didn't please him. Consulting his mother (Pamela Mason), Ali and his roommate, Duke (Steve Franken), come up with a plan to make the girls reject Ali, which involves bringing over Ali's fiancee, Pamela (Joanna Phillips), to make them jealous. Ali tells Pamela that the slaves are his Uncle Omar and two cousins; but when she's alone with the girls, she gets told that she'll be his third wife, and Ali has some 'splainin' to do. Then Ali's father (Malachi Throne) visits and, while putting on some airs, tells Ali to relax, that if he doesn't dig those groovy chicks, that's on Ali, not them. The king notes that he has 75 other sons to deal with, and promises to send Ali a couple more slaves in 5 years when he's 30 to see if his outlook has changed. Apparently the show had more than one brass bed, as there are twins in Ali and Duke's bedroom. _______ Aptly put. The siren whistle was a particularly wacky touch. A notable factoid that came to my attention when writing this one up: those prestigious top five albums on the Rolling Stone list all come from a period inside of two years, and chronologically, Highway 61 is the first of them. Odd detail that I noticed reinforcing my general impression that N.Y.P.D. was a relatively low-rent show: lots of actresses with distinctly natural-looking noses. Something I just noticed about this is that these guys are very obviously imitating the jingle-jangly guitar style of the Byrds.
That was a serious oversight. I think it's probably a fictionalized version of the end of the Hawaiian monarchy, which is probably why the jewel is called the Queen. I think the rose may figure into it, too, but I'm not sure. This one seems rather straightforward compared to most of their stories. Friday does the lecturing in this neck of the woods. See what I did there? That's a pretty interesting character to use up in a half-hour show. They should have written it as Friday and Gannon on a fishing trip. Hey! I was about to say, Darren McGavin and Suzanne Pleshette are two faves. Or does the brass bed own them? Where they'll be arrested by Five-0 for trying to defraud Jonathan Harris. Noah Bane from It Takes A Thief (another show I'd love to see turn up on one of these channels). Maybe one's the stunt double. It's like a big circus. It was an amazing time in history. Yeah, New York has noses like Boston has teeth.
_______ 50th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing _______ Dragnet 1970 "D.H.Q. – Night School" Originally aired March 19, 1970 Tuesday, April 2 (1968?): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Detective Headquarters, are busy with paperwork when quitting time strikes. Friday tells Gannon how he's taking a sensitivity course this semester, which involves group discussion in a circle. He mentions how the professor doesn't want the students sharing their occupations so they won't be judged by them, and that one of the students, Jerry, has a record for narcotics. In class, Jerry (J.C. Curtiss) talks about the benefits of acid trips, triggering a quick lecture from Friday. Jerry has some comebacks involving Vietnam, but he also has a bag of pot stashed in his binder, which Friday spots. A middle-aged student, Norm (Sidney Clute), is in the opposite extreme camp, having a very cynical worldview about what a dangerous world it is out there, which includes believing that war helps trim down the excess population. As soon as the bell rings, Friday bows out of coffee with one of his fellow students, a nurse named Barbara (Shannon Farnon), to pursue Jerry in the hall and bust him. Before next week's class, Friday is asking Barbara about having that coffee after class when Prof. Grant (Leonard Stone) brings him into the classroom to chastise him privately for allegedly being a police spy infiltrating his class. We learn that Friday's working on a master's in criminology, but the professor threatens to undermine that by giving him less than a B. Friday won't drop out voluntarily, so the professor outs him as a "narc" in class and puts his continued attendance of the class to a vote. Friday explains his real reasons for being there, but gets voted out nine to six, with three abstentions. Barbara votes against him. A week later, Friday's still clearly troubled by the incident, with Gannon encouraging him to see the captain about it, but Friday says that it's not his way. (I think this is the most personally emotional beat that he's played...ever.) Instead, Friday goes back to class and demands another vote. Grant agrees on the condition that Friday has to win 2/3 of the new vote to stay in class. Prepared to defend himself, Friday opens by saying straight out that he'd bust a fellow student again if he saw him carrying. Then he explains his perspective as a policeman, his duty as a cop to uphold the law, and their duty as citizens to obey the laws. At one point, he sort of gets in a bit of roundabout swearing... Friday: Now I don't like being called a pig any more than some of you like being called a female dog's relative. And he closes with this number, which clues us in that he's been watching Mod Squad... Friday: Now we've been rapping on and on about doing our own thing. Well that's my own thing--keeping the faith, baby, with the people of this city. Eight vote to expel Friday, and eight to let him stay (including Barbara). Friday's prepared to leave under his agreement with the professor, but one of the students, Carl according to the credits (Harry Bartell)--a middle-aged man with an eyepatch who's remained quiet and abstained from voting during Friday's trials--wants to know why he's leaving on a tie. When he's told, Carl declares that he's a practicing attorney and that Friday will be staying in the class, or he'll be filing charges against the professor for violating Friday's constitutional rights. One of the students, named Jack according to the credits, is Tim Donnelly. _______ Dragnet 1970 "I.A.D. – The Receipt" Originally aired March 26, 1970 We get our first expositional monologue in weeks--and, as it turns out, the last one of the series--but it's a trimmed-down rerun of one they used last season (Dragnet 1969, "Training (DR-18)," Nov. 21, 1968)...and as usual at this point, it has nothing to do with the episode. Out with a whimper... Tuesday, January 9 (1968 again): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Internal Affairs Division, Investigative section, are assigned to investigate two fellow detectives, Sgt. Norman Bivins and Off. Earl Malone (Marshall Reed and Len Wayland), who've been accused of stealing $800.00 from the funeral money of a man whose death they investigated. Joe and Bill have known the other detectives for a long time and can't believe that they're dirty. First our detectives study up on the accused detectives' records. Then they interview the witness against Bivins and Malone, a pawn shop owner named Agnes Emerson (Virginia Gregg--and believe it or not, we're still not up to her last appearance on the show) who took care of the dead man, Elroy Brown's, financial affairs for him. She asked the detectives to deliver Elroy's possessions to the coroner on her behalf and vaguely recalls having signed a receipt for the money, but she says that she threw it away. Then the accused detectives are brought in and informed of the situation, which includes Gannon reading their rights. They protest that Joe and Bill know better, but Friday and Gannon remain hard-nosed, reminding their fellow detectives that they have a job to do. Questioned separately, Bivens and Malone both recall Norm having written identical receipts in his notebook, signing the one he gave to Emerson, while Bivins kept the one that Emerson signed. But they can't produce their copy either, because the notebook came up missing shortly afterward. Emerson is brought in again and asked to submit to a polygraph. She agrees, but the results are inconclusive, because of her "one in a million" lack of emotional registry on the polygraph. The SID man speculates that she could be a pathological liar or completely emotionless, but he can't prove anything. On a long-shot hunch, Friday goes down to the garage to search the detectives' unit for the notebook, even though they'd done so themselves thoroughly. He's unable to turn anything up in the usual places, but his attention is drawn to how his pencil rolls down the dash into the defroster. Fishing into the vent, he turns up the notebook. The officers' copy shows Emerson's signature for $200.00, and SID is able to raise the impressions from the second receipt that was written underneath. Presented with photos of the receipts and the fact that her signature matches one they just had her write, Emerson confesses to having taken the money, insisting that Elroy would have willed it to her if he'd had the opportunity. _______ Love, American Style "Love and the Minister / Love and the Geisha / Love and the Singles Apartment" Originally aired March 27, 1970 Season 1 finale In "Love and the Minister," Susan (Claudine Longet), wants her ex, Reverend Richard Atkins (Richard Long), to marry her...to her current boyfriend, car salesman Bill (Did somebody mention the Green Hornet? Van Williams)...even though Richard still wants Susan, and she admits to still having feelings for him, though she feels that Bill is the more practical life choice. At a full dress rehearsal just a couple of hours before the actual wedding, Richard makes a last-minute play at Susan while officiating, and ends up objecting to the marriage at the customary place in the ceremony, openly declaring his argument for Susan choosing him over Bill. Torn and confused, Susan calls off the wedding. When they're alone, Richard coaxes from her that she still loves him and doesn't love Bill, and she agrees to marry him. It's hard to feel sorry for Bill here...he may have literally dodged a bullet. "Love and the Geisha" is a first-run reuse of one of the segments from the November 10, 1969, episode. In "Love and the Singles Apartment," married man Trevor (Mel Torme) is celebrating his birthday in the bachelor apartment that he's living in because of a recent promotion while his wife back home sells the house. What he's not telling his wife is that it's a swinging setup called the Pleasure Dome, with a bikini-clad waitress trying to give him off-the-books room service--though she's caught by the manager, Mrs. Kaplan (Kathleen Freeman)--and sometimes-nude activities. As one would expect, Trevor's wife, Rona (Joyce Van Patten), pays him a surprise visit, and while he's at work meets the waitress, Debbie (Julie York). Rona plays along and doesn't let on that she's Trevor's wife. After Debbie leaves, Rona's privately losing her cool when a neighbor named Kurt (Mort Sahl) drops in and starts hitting on her. She agrees to accompany Kurt to Trevor's birthday party down in the club, for which she wears a disguise. "Mary" has a dance with Trevor and he hits on her, not knowing that she's Rona. Back with Debbie, he finds out that Rona's in town, and realizes that Mary is her. Not letting on that he knows who she is, he takes her up to his apartment and starts making the moves on her. She starts aggressively making out with him, then he calls a halt to it and tells her that he's married and loves his wife. She starts breaking out of character, eventually removes her wig and Jackie O. sunglasses, and he acts surprised. She actually apologizes to Trevor for distrusting him, and prepares to give him his birthday present. Debbie made this segment. She seemed like a very nice girl. _______ I guess if she knew how it was done, she'd have made the duplicate herself. And try finding the spares in that cluttered jewelry/pawn/whatever shop! Only belatedly, but it's very early. Friday should have put him to work for the LAPD. "Only YOU can prevent pot from leading to stronger stuff!" They'd have to arrest some poachers or something, because they can't do an otherwise format-breaking episode without having somebody get sentenced at the end. Blame Suzanne Pleshette--she's an anti-stripper! And in his testimony, he'd start making with the alliterative insults. I think most people in these parts associate him with a different role... But why would they need a...never mind. It was case after case of "She's cute, but you don't normally see a schnozz like that on TV..." Some factoids I neglected to drop regarding one of this week's chart entries... But...
At which Gannon faints dead away. Does the bell ring in night school? "Hey, Jer, wait up!" No bias or paranoia there. Isn't he already the master of criminology? Does this mean he has career goals beyond being Joe Friday? So he threatens him with an undeserved bad grade, tries to force him out of class, and then breaks his own rule to turn the other students against him. Time for a new teacher. This is a pretty amazing episode all around when it comes to Friday's characterization. He's got a personal life, he's got extracurricular activities, he's got career goals, he's not in control of the situation, he arguably makes bad decisions, and he's vulnerable. I remember that. Although I think Friday would have to agree to his representation for him to do that. Still, nice little turnabout for the self-righteous college professor. I'll bet the rest of that semester was fun. That clone factory is really working overtime. By the book! Actually, wouldn't the fact that they're old friends create the appearance of impropriety? Shouldn't they bring in investigators from another division or something? If she handled his finances, wouldn't there have been an easier way to get the money than framing a couple of cops? I wonder if that's ever happened in real life. The Green Hornet is used to dodging bullets. That's a hell of an apartment building. And he dodged a self-inflicted bullet. Not many credits in IMDB, unfortunately. I suppose she may not have realized that he didn't get it right the first time. They could have still worked it out so they got the identity thief. I'm very disappointed in her. "Bubble-headed bamboozlers!" Probably. I think It Takes A Thief is nearly forgotten at this point.
_______ 50th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing _______ Dragnet 1970 "Robbery – The Harassing Wife" Originally aired April 2, 1970 There now, isn't that better? Monday, October 6 (1969): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Robbery-Homicide Division, are checking out a 211 at a neighborhood grocery store. The owner, Sam Golden (Sidney Clute), describes the robber in detail and urges them to go after him...but his description could be of any number of men, including himself. Then the detectives get a call from Jean Sawyer (Peggy Webber), a bitter drunk who tells them that the robber is her husband, John (Herb Ellis). She doesn't provide any probably cause, though the detectives learn that he's done time for armed robbery. They proceed to John's repair shop, and he admits to having an old grudge against Golden, though he insists he's now clean. He agrees to appear in a "show-up" (line-up), but Golden doesn't recognize him as the robber. A week later, Mrs. Sawyer is still calling Friday and Gannon, insisting that John is responsible for every holdup in the string, but again he isn't identified in the show-up. She barges into HQ to make a scene about them not arresting John, and they inform her that a man was picked up that morning who confessed to the hold-ups. Over a week after that, there's another 211, at a dry cleaner. The robber was wearing a stocking mask, but the clerk (Julie Bennett) saw part of a red tattoo on his wrist. And yes, Jean Sawyer calls them again...and again. Gannon says that she's called 11 times in 19 days. But this time, a partial print on the cash register matches John Sawyer. The prints expert, Carl Freeman (Don Ross), walks the detectives and audience through the points of similarity. The detectives visit John at his shop again and he's happy to cooperate in any way he can. They notice a tattoo of a flag with a red pole going up from his wrist onto his lower forearm, but it's not conclusive enough evidence to take him in. Mrs. Sawyer tells them where John keeps his dune buggy, which they want to search for evidence. They confront him in the remote shed and read him his rights. Noticing a couple of spare tires with an old hand-pump next to them, they threat to get a warrant to tear the dune buggy apart, and he admits that the gun and money are in the tires. He says that as much as his wife had been calling them, he figured they'd assume he was innocent if he actually committed a robbery. Once they've arrested John, Mrs. Sawyer shows up at HQ again...protesting that he's innocent! She didn't figure that he'd actually commit another stick-up, and blames them for the whole incident...for paying attention to her. I wasn't sure if the title was meant to refer to harassment of the husband, harassment of the detectives, or both. _______ Dragnet 1970 "Burglary – Baseball" Originally aired April 9, 1970 (Somebody got a little cute there.) Monday, March 9 (1970): Friday and Gannon are working the day watch out of Burglary-Auto Theft when they're sent to investigate a safe having been broken into at a furniture company. The crime was reported by a bookkeeper named Mrs. Mascall (Virginia Gregg, in her final of thirteen appearances on the show--Was it only thirteen?--here sporting a silver wig and a bit of age makeup). The detectives bring in the department's safecracking expert, Ed Lovold (William Boyett, believe it or not), to determine how he did it. Lovold indicates that the perp was clearly a pro from his technique, though it's a safe that was made to be fireproof rather than burglar-proof. But a uniformed officer tips off the detectives that the burglar may have left behind a big clue--a car in a reserved spot in the parking garage that won't start. They visit the car's owner, Darryl Walton, a drunk man who strongly resembles one of Gannon's neighbors (Jack Sheldon). He tells them that he's been at an all-night party, and describes how he drove a girl home to Long Beach, he stopped his car in the garage just to get off the freeway and it quit on him, and he took a cab home. Mrs. Mascall calls the detectives after having noticed a clue--a Department of Employment referral card that doesn't belong in their files. The card points them to an Arthur Tyson, who has a record for safecracking. Tyson's parole officer indicates that he's gone silent and quit his last job, and that his girlfriend, Claire Reavis, took an extended leave from her job. They're later notified that Claire (Jill Donohue) has returned, and go to talk to her. She tells them that Arthur broke off their engagement a month ago, and she went back to her family to recover. She indicates that he's gone missing, but tips them off regarding his favorite hangout, a neighborhood bar. The bartender there says that he was just there the night before, and has recently been spending very conspicuously. The detectives stake out the bar and nab Tyson (G.D. Spradlin) when he comes in. He claims that he hasn't cracked a safe in four years and lost the card months ago. Joe plays a hunch that he left the card because he wanted to be caught...so they say that they're going to kick him loose. Then he uses them having mentioned going after Claire for being an accessory as an excuse to cop out to the job. Tyson confesses that he can't hack it on the outside, and wanted to pull one last job. The episode title gets its explanation at the last minute--Tyson's looking forward to getting back on the prison's baseball team in time for the new season. _______ Dragnet 1970 "D.H.Q. – The Victims" Originally aired April 16, 1970 Series finale Tuesday, June 11 (1968): Friday and Gannon, working the night watch out of Detective Headquarters Division, Field Investigation section, are booking in guns used in a robbery shooting that they've been investigating when they're sent to a hotel where a dead body was found. The desk clerk, Ernie Barns (Ralph Moody), was a good friend of the victim, Frank Bender, and tells them that he last saw Frank bringing a younger man with a deformed ear to his room, explaining that Frank had a way of treating everyone like a friend. Back at HQ, Erv Fowler (Herb Vigran), who's manning the press room, thinks that the crime isn't worth phoning in because Bender was a nobody and there are so many murders, but he's persuaded by a mini-lecture from Friday. Next a homeless man named Willard Wilbanks (David Bond) comes in to report having been robbed of 76 cents, which he saved from collecting bottles. Gannon wants to skip lunch afterward, causing Friday to speculate that Bill must have slipped Wilbanks his dinner money. Then they respond to a call concerning an old woman named Katie Anderson whose purse was snatched on the street. The caller, who doesn't know Anderson but took her in, is a concerned citizen named Florence Bell (Virginia Capers). A couple of pairs of uniformed officers arrive--one of them, Officer Green, being played by William Boyett, who seems to have gotten a demotion from more than one role! Green's recently graduated rookie partner, Myler (Charles Brewer), talks about wanting to get into detective work where the action is...for which the honor is bestowed upon him of being the recipient of the last full-on, rapid-fire, monotone lecture to be delivered by Sergeant Joe Friday. Friday chastises Myler about how important his job is and how he should think less about himself and more about the victims of the crimes that he responds to. Back at HQ, the detectives learn that a couple of uniformed officers have nabbed a suspect in the hotel murder when they're sent to investigate a 211 shooting at a grocery store; one of the victims is customer Tim Walker (Howard Culver, making the last of his own thirteen appearances). Walker was winged but is concerned for the proprietor, Julio, who was more badly wounded. Walker describes how the robber spitefully shot Julio on the way out, which provoked Walker to throw a wine bottle at the robber, cutting his face and leaving a trail of blood. Green and Myler arrive at the scene, the latter seeming duly repentant. At Central Receiving, a priest is being taken in to see Julio when Green and Myler arrive with the robbery suspect, there to be treated for his face wound, and whom Walker immediately identifies. Right after Gannon reads the suspect his rights, Julio's body is wheeled out, accompanied by his grieving widow and the priest, and the last episode-ending zinger of the series is delivered not by Jack Webb, but by Howard Culver... Walker: Sure is a great world, isn't it, Sergeant?...A two-bit thief gets his rights, and Julio gets his last ones. The set-up for that is questionable, as the suspect was clearly already in custody, so the patrol officers should have read him his rights before they took him to the hospital. (Hotel murder suspect; uncredited) (Grocery store robber; Michael Bow) _______ And that wraps up this hiatus season's round of catch-up viewing...finishing Dragnet and catching us up with Hawaii 5-O and Love, American Style as we enter their new 50th anniversary seasons! _______ It does at this one, bub. Other than bettering himself and the rest of humanity Los Angeles, maybe he's looking at being promoted upstairs. And all played very stoically, of course, though we get that brief peek at how he's hurtin' inside. And Carl enjoys free meter parking for life. It must be the work of...DARKSEID! They're the right division (this week), but the captain did threaten to take them off when they expressed their belief in the accused detectives. I was wondering about that myself. She didn't strike me as a master thespian. There ya go!
"Come to think of it, Bill, we run into a lot of people who look alike." A comedy of errors worthy of Love, American Style. Good. I'm tired of these young punks stealing bases. Wasn't me this time. Was it makeup? Or does dealing with Friday and Gannon prematurely age a person? The Gregg model was discontinued to ramp up the Boyett model. Sad but true. I saw that quite a few times when I worked at St. Mary's Home. Nooo! It can't end. All those clones out of work. I guess Friday doesn't pay Gannon much. That was the other one. "And don't bother with night school. You'll just waste a valuable episode." A little awkwardly phrased, too. Maybe they were using Room 222. He should think more about the people he's helping and less about himself, damn it! Joe Friday versus Darkseid. There's a mashup I'd buy. They don't write 'em like that anymore.
50th Anniversary Album Spotlight Sunflower The Beach Boys Released August 31, 1970 Chart debut: September 26, 1970 Chart peak: #151, October 17, 1970 #380 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time I went back and forth on this album. On first casual listen, I was all ready to declare that the "Order now!" joke applied to the whole LP; then with further casual listens I started liking the album more; but upon closer examination, I veered back in the direction of my first impression. This album basically sounds like exactly what it is...an effort put forth by a once-great act that was past its glory days. From what I read, the band was suffering an image problem at this point, and were well aware of it... The band reportedly even considered changing their name. The album makes a mediocre first impression with Dennis Wilson's "Slip On Through," which was released as a single in June 1970 but didn't chart. It sounds a lot like other examples of past-their-prime Beach Boys. The single B-side of the above track, "This Whole World," was written by Brian Wilson and sung by Carl Wilson. Not sure he succeeded in that. The idea sounds more ambitious than what the song manages to deliver. Next up is the album's lead single, "Add Some Music to Your Day" (charted Mar. 7, 1970; #64 US), written by Brian Wilson, Joe Knott, and Mike Love, which, per Wiki, "features lyrics that are a celebration of music and its ubiquitous presence in daily life": Also per Wiki, "Disc jockeys generally refused to play the song on the radio." Considering the image problems they were experiencing at the time, referencing music at a dentist's office probably wasn't a great idea. Prior to the poor performance of this single, the working title of the album had been Add Some Music. Dennis Wilson's "Got to Know the Woman," described as an "R&B song," features backing vocals by early-'60s girl group The Honeys. "Deirdre," which will be the B-side of the post-album single "Long Promised Road" in 1971, was written primarily by Bruce Johnston with help from Brian Wilson, but sounds more like classic Beach Boys that most tracks on the album. The first side closes with "It's About Time," which will be the B-side of the "Tears in the Morning" single. Written by Dennis Wilson, Bob Burchman, and Al Jardine, and featuring lead vocals by Carl Wilson with Mike Love, this is described as "an autobiographical rock song about the pitfalls of stardom and fame." It's...not great, but not bad. Side two opens with what is to my ear the most striking track on the album, Bruce Johnston's "Tears in the Morning"..."a melodramatic song with strings, horns, and accordions" which Johnston "performed...during the group's live performances without accompaniment from his bandmates." Released as a single in October 1970 but not charting, this one has a good '70s soft rock vibe. Another particularly striking number is "All I Wanna Do," written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, with vocals by Love with Johnston. This track makes me think that somebody should have sued Todd Rundgren, because this song sounds a lot like how "I Saw the Light" will sound in a couple of years. "Forever," written by Dennis Wilson and Gregg Jakobson with vocals by Dennis Wilson, will be the B-side of the "Cool, Cool Water" single in 1971. The song was reportedly hailed by Brian Wilson as "the most harmonically beautiful thing I've ever heard. It's a rock and roll prayer." It's not bad, but Brian must have had a short memory, because the Beach Boys had done better. "Our Sweet Love," written by Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Al Jardine, with lead vocals by Carl, has a good classic Beach Boys sound...and it should, because it sounds more than a little like "God Only Knows". "At My Window," written by Al Jardine and Brian Wilson and featuring lead vocals by Bruce Johnston with Brian Wilson, reportedly "evolved from a rendition of 'Raspberry, Strawberries', a Wilt Holt composition that was recorded by the Kingston Trio." The track has a sort of children's story vibe to it. The album closes with "Cool, Cool Water," written and sung by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, which "evolved from 'Love to Say Dada', an unfinished composition from the band's cancelled Smile album." Released as a single in March 1971 but not charting, this one sounds more than a little like an attempt to recapture the good vibrations of..."Good Vibrations". Holy backhanded compliment! My ultimate impression is that elevating this album to a spot on the Rolling Stone list was a case of music expert hipsterism..."We were listening to the Beach Boys after they were cool, man." To leave things on a positive note... _______ Now that's be an idea for an episode...a Bonnie and Clyde duo played by Virginia Gregg and Howard Culver, with Friday and Gannon having to go around questioning all of the other characters played by them. But not as cute/funny. Friday's waiting at second to give them a stern lecture. I'm sure they'll continue to pop up in Adam-12 and Emergency! I don't think Friday signs the checks. Its a Kihnspiracy.
What was the image problem? I don't know if I recall this. The Beach Men? The Beach Grown Ups? The Old Beach Guys With Metal Detectors? For one thing, it needed to be longer. Feh. I listen to a lot of things after they're cool. That would be a great idea for a Jack Webbiverse pastiche. Too bad Jack Webb was never on Love, American Style. Probably true. He might do the reviews. I got that reference!
55 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "All I Really Want to Do," Cher (12 weeks) "Baby, I'm Yours," Barbara Lewis (14 weeks) "Shake and Fingerpop," Jr. Walker & The All Stars (8 weeks) New on the chart: "Taste of Honey," Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (#7 US; #1 AC; 1966 Grammy Award for Record of the Year) "Everybody Loves a Clown," Gary Lewis & The Playboys (#4 US) "1-2-3," Len Berry (#2 US; #11 R&B; #3 UK) "Yesterday," The Beatles (#1 US the weeks of Oct. 9 through 30, 1965; #13 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time) "Act Naturally," The Beatles (B-side of "Yesterday"; #47 US) And new on the boob tube: The Ed Sullivan Show, Season 18, episode 2 Branded, "Now Join the Human Race" 12 O'Clock High, "R/X For a Sick Bird" Gilligan's Island, "Beauty Is as Beauty Does" The Wild Wild West, "The Night of the Deadly Bed" Hogan's Heroes, "Hold That Tiger" Get Smart, "Diplomat's Daughter" _______ In addition to passages already quoted... Was your own "Order now!" joke about the single not a further indication of all of this? Just "Beach," believe it or not. I like this one. They both answer to their Captain of the Week. I think he'd do the reviews. But who'd get jurisdiction when the time comes, given how they jump from division to division?
Was I the only one who never knew that Jimi Hendrix once toured briefly with The Monkees as their opening act back in the 60’s? I don’t recall it being mentioned in this thread. Really hard to imagine a more different set of pop acts. According to this article, the pairing was the idea of Mickey Dolenz who had been taken to see Jimi at a small club in New York, before he even took the name Hendrix. The tour was brief as Monkees fans were impatient for the headliners as fans can be. They were pretty rude to Hendrix while he was performing. He bailed on the tour after only a week. But credit to the Monkees for even booking Jimi. No doubt he gained at least a few new fans even though his stint on the bill was short. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment...ah-it-was-kind-of-embarrassing-011357916.html
I...might have seen/heard something about that in passing, but didn't think much about it. Wow...what a bizarrely mismatched pairing. Such a huge talent gap, and ironically it was Jimi who was being booed by the audience.
I do remember hearing that somewhere. Something tells me it was a VH1 documentary. I very distinctly remember the cover of this album, but I forget which of my relatives it belonged to. There are better sad clown songs. Nice enough Oldie. Here's another one that's surprisingly short. I knew they were fading, but I just thought there might be some scandal I was unaware of. I didn't know or had forgotten the Manson connection. "Coast" may have been more appropriate. Maybe that's why they jump-- to keep one step ahead of the performance reviews.
50 Years Ago This Week Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week: Leaving the chart: "Hi-De-Ho," Blood, Sweat & Tears (8 weeks) "(If You Let Me Make Love to You Then) Why Can't I Touch You?," Ronnie Dyson (14 weeks) "Overture from Tommy (A Rock Opera)," The Assembled Multitude (13 weeks) "Uncle John's Band," The Grateful Dead (7 weeks) New on the chart: "Engine Number 9," Wilson Pickett (#14 US; #3 R&B) "See Me, Feel Me," The Who (#12 US) "It Don't Matter to Me," Bread (#10 US; #2 AC) And new on the boob tube: Hogan's Heroes, "Cuisine à la Stalag 13" (Season 6 premiere) Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Season 4, episode 2 Hawaii Five-O, "Trouble in Mind" Ironside, "No Game for Amateurs" The Odd Couple, "The Laundry Orgy" (series premiere) The Brady Bunch, "The Dropout" (Season 2 premiere) The Partridge Family, "What? And Get Out of Show Business?" (series premiere) That Girl, "Counter-Proposal" (Season 5 premiere) Love, American Style, "Love and the Father / Love and the Motel" (Season 2 premiere) Mission: Impossible, "Flip Side" Adam-12, "Log 35: Easy Bare Rider" The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "Today I Am a Ma'am" _______ Herb Alpert...the Anti-Squiggy has arrived! Oddly enough, that's true. An odd example of a white artist doing an uncanny impression of Motown. I'll forever associate this song with an '80s pizza chain commercial (probably regional): "1-2-3 / I'm here to tell you that your / pizza is free". The Beatles got far more out of 2-3 minutes than later artists would with 5-6. The Beatles were self-conscious of this number as it was effectively an early solo debut for Paul--none of the others played on it, just Paul and a string quartet. In the UK it was buried on the second side of the Help! album and only belatedly released as a single in 1976 (though it headlined an EP in 1966). This was a case where Capitol doing their own thing with the Beatles material paid off big-time. "Yesterday" became one of the most covered songs in popular music. The melody for the song famously came to Paul in a dream, and he sat on it for some time, trying to figure out if it was something he'd heard somewhere else. Its early working lyrics were "Scrambled eggs / Oh my baby how I love your legs". No comment on Ringo's Buck Owens cover? "Act Naturally" was one of the two covers on the British Help! album, along with "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". Indeed.
Fine, but not really memorable. The Who. 'nuff said. Very nice. I love Bread (of all kinds). He knows how to sell the wordless stuff. Yeah, and I never realized it was so short. I do kind of want to know how that would have worked out. Oops, I guess I missed it in the quoting. It's a cool song no matter who does it, and this is a great cover.
55.5th Anniversary Viewing 12 O'Clock High "End of the Line" Originally aired March 12, 1965 https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-classic-retro-pop-culture-thread.278375/page-67#post-12208868 Gallagher's buddy, Larry Hollander, is killed leading a mission in Gallagher's place, because Gallagher was running a fever the night before. This does play well into his history from the first episode, but this time he has Savage on his side, telling him not to blame himself. The general informs Gallagher of a voluntary special mission to fly a commando group in to interrupt the scheduled execution of a French Resistance leader. Hollander was about to get married to a May Hudson in Archbury (Sarah Marshall), so Gallagher goes into town to tell her of Larry's death. She initially assumes that he's there for a security check because of the marriage application. Gallagher tells her how Larry died in his place and that he and Larry were old friends back in the States, and she says that she doesn't blame him. He runs her on an errand to stop her wedding dress from being made, which causes him to miss a meeting about the mission, which Savage doesn't blame him for, but Micromanageneral Crowe does. Joe's also late for a date with base nurse Lt. Claire Cummings (Barbara Feldon), and has to cancel one the next night because May has invited him for dinner. After dinner, May starts to lure Joe in with a tale of her aunt's money troubles. After he leaves, her Aunt Nell's (Florence Sundstrom) comments give us our first notion that May isn't legit, and May burns the letters that Joe had brought her from Larry's personal effects. Gallagher spends his days training for the mission but he's distracted, fumbling a maneuver and putting his bomber in a tailspin, which forces him to land on the water. Gallagher volunteers the reason for his distraction, but when Savage won't let him drop out of the mission, he says that he won't be seeing May anymore. Joe goes to give her the money she needs, and tries to withdraw from seeing her in the near future. She responds as if she understands, but in a way that makes him feel guilty. He then goes to apologize to Claire and explain that he won't be seeing May anymore. While he's talking to her, he gets a call from May's aunt that she tried to commit suicide. Joe rushes to Archbury to visit May's brass bedside. She tells him that she's carrying Larry's baby, and didn't want to bring him into the world as it is. Joe promises to make thing alright for her and the baby, they kiss, and she plays up how much he means to her. After he leaves, May and her aunt have a frank conversation in which Nell disparages May for her con scheme, via which she plans to get out from under her aunt's thumb. Meanwhile, Gallagher goes to Savage with a marriage request, which the general isn't keen about. He assigns Stovall to look into May, and the major tries to call her, but Aunt Nell initially tells him that May isn't there, which sets off a red flag because they know she's supposed to have just taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Nell indicates that she's probably at a pub. The next day, Gallagher is brought into Savage's office to be confronted with this information, which includes that the general and Stovall found May at the Lion's Den with a Navy CPO. Then Captain Whitelaw of British Intelligence (Ben Wright) shows Gallagher her modelling photos and arrest records. Gallagher declares that he still intends to marry her, clearly still buying into her story, though Savage confronts him with the likelihood that her pregnancy is a story...and takes Gallagher off the mission. Gallagher goes to see May about all this, and she confesses to her sordid history, but says that Savage is lying. When he intends to take her to the Lion's Den to verify her story, she admits to working there. He then asks her to come to the base hospital so they can check on the baby, and she tries to guilt him for not trusting her. She then attempts to change her tactic and is cornered into admitting that there never was a baby. Gallagher's ultimate motivation for becoming involved with May--his friendship with Larry--comes to the fore, as he realizes that she was using both of them. In the Epilog, Gallagher is back on the mission, and Claire watches as he takes off in the dark. _______ Wait, what song are we talking about again? In the name of 50th anniversimilitude, I actually bought this as a separate track, as it isn't sequenced as one on the album. Rye? Pumpernickel? Lucrative commercial jingle for L'eggs. As the news items rarely get any commentary, I'll add that I found it odd that the premiere of The Odd Couple made the Wiki timeline, while the premiere of Mary Tyler Moore--which is routinely held up as a groundbreaking program--didn't. I read somewhere years back that Mary tossing up her hat topped a TV Guide list of memorable television moments. I get it being there as a symbol of the show, but I'm not sold that something that happened in the opening credits of every episode for years qualifies as a "moment" in the same sense as, say, the Beatles' first appearance on Sullivan...which it beat out. To get another oddity out of the way rather than clutter the review post with it...I also find it odd how all sources agree that the official title of the series was The Mary Tyler Moore Show, when the onscreen title was simply Mary Tyler Moore. Odd coincidence: When I was watching MTM last night, I was noticing how Gavin MacLeod had already lost the weight that he had in all of the '60s roles I'd seen him in...then when the episode was over, H&I was playing his appearance on The Rat Patrol!
That's cool. You don't see her around too much on other shows. Hmm. I can see him being suckered into helping her out, but I would think he'd consider her off limits, being the woman of his dead friend. Not... modeling photos! I was going to say that's when she decided to get into Intelligence, but 99 would have only been in grade school at that point. Uh oh. Is this a song of significance? I tried again and I'm still not hearing anything special. My preference would be cinnamon. That is a little odd. That never occurred to me. I think I always thought that the opening "Mary Tyler Moore" was her starring credit, but I never noticed that there was no "in The Mary Tyler Moore Show" afterwards. I just checked the closing credits and it's not there either.
_______ 50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1) _______ Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Season 4, episode 1 Originally aired September 14, 1970 The opening includes a brief Honeymooners skit with a good replica of the set; the gag is that Johnny Brown pops up as Ralph. Dan and Dick introduce the cast one by one with each doing a brief bit in character, including the introduction of Suzie Sorority: They do a brief gag about the goal of a key party being to drive the other person's car home--shades of Love, American Style. Another introduction to a new Lily Tomlin character, Edith Ann: The cocktail party now pops in and out between other gags throughout the episode, its segments being edited together here differently than shown: More party bits here. Dan & Dick's monologue: They proceed into an extended series of gags about events of the Summer, with a hard hat-themed song and dance, but I couldn't find any clips. (The Summer of 1970 must have seemed like quite a letdown after the Summer of 1969.) There's some physical comedy with Art and Artie as a couple of convicts having an imaginary basketball game in their cell. The news segment falls in the last 10 minutes: The closing joke wall has been replaced by gags told standing in a crowd of life-sized cardboard figures of celebrities (shades of Sgt. Pepper). I spotted Sonny Bono, possibly Cher in the background, LBJ, Oliver Hardy, Ronald Reagan, W. C. Fields, Ed Sullivan, Goldie Hawn (now no longer in the cast), Venus de Milo, Phyllis Diller, and a few others who looked familiar but I wasn't quite placing. I'm not sure how much this episode's format changes will be indicative of the rest of the season, but not having as many distinct recurring segments made the episode seem to go by faster. _______ Hawaii Five-O "And a Time to Die..." Originally aired September 16, 1970 Season 3 premiere Wo Fat has a sniper shoot the agent, Kyle Shepard (Chuck Couch), from a hotel room balcony as he's arriving at a rendezvous with intelligence honcho Sam Kavanaugh (Gerald S. O'Loughlin). But as the agent approaches, he sees something that alarms him and runs, so the sniper only manages to wound him. When Five-O arrives, Steve's pissed that neither they nor HPD were notified, so he confronts Kavanaugh at the hospital. When Steve asserts his authority, Kavanaugh reveals that Shepard was a reporter working as an agent in China, who has a map of Chinese missile silos memorized...but he's in a coma, and needs a delicate brain operation. Kavanaugh isn't concerned with finding the shooter, being sure that Shepard, an amateur agent, must have blown his own cover, and considers the identity of whatever Chinese agent did the job to not be important. But McGarrett thinks that Fat has a man on the inside. Kavanaugh's still securing permission from Jonathan Kay to have Shepard operated on when Fat has the daughter of the neurosurgeon, Dr. Forbes (Donald Moffat), abducted and meets with Forbes and his wife to negotiate that Shepard has to die. Forbes goes straight to Kavanaugh and McGarrett, and Kavanaugh wants to take Forbes off the operation, but McGarrett insists that Forbes won't allow Shepard to die, and that having anybody less try the operation would more certainly mean Shepard's death. Investigating the scene of the shooting in detail, Five-O determines that Shepard couldn't have seen the shooter, so he must have ran after seeing Kavanaugh's right-hand man, Ralston (Norman Du Pont). McGarrett persuades Kavanaugh to let Ralston roam free so Five-O can tail him, and to feed him false information about who they think the leak is. Ralston uses a pay phone to connect with Fat on his boat via an operator, and when Five-O determines that he didn't make a long-distance call, McGarrett plays a hunch that it was a marine call. Meanwhile, Shepard dies from cardiac arrest on the table. Kavanaugh has the operating room sealed off and orders everyone to proceed into recovery as if Shepard made it, to make Fat think that the agent is alive and talking. McGarrett has to play hard ball to get Kavanaugh to give him the couple of additional hours that the operation would have normally lasted to run down Fat's boat. While they're searching via helicopter, Kavanaugh gets a call from Ralston and has to give him an update, so he tells him that Shepard made it...even though it means that Forbes's daughter, Ellen (Sherry Plep), will be killed. Kavanaugh considers it vital that Fat go back to his masters with the false intel, so the Five-O gang use subterfuge to bust the boat...posing as crewmen on a Coast Guard vessel, they start inspecting nearby boats, eventually getting to Fat's (from which he's already departed) and rescuing the girl, with Steve utilizing some TV Fu and nobody ending up in the drink. The episode ends with father and daughter reunited and a note of reconciliation between McGarrett and Kavanaugh. Fat's guard comes down a bit when he tells Ellen about how he lost his own daughter, apparently in the Chinese Revolution. _______ Ironside "A Killing Will Occur" Originally aired September 17, 1970 Season 4 premiere Actually, the caller is threatening to commit one. The prospective killer first calls Ironside at his office, catching the Chief's interest but giving him little information. Then he calls the Chief during a meeting about crime prevention in Commissioner Randall's office, where several other attendees witness Ironside's end of the call. As is always the case on TV, the caller doesn't stay on long enough to be traced. Deducing that the caller must have been in the building to see Ironside go into Randall's office, the Chief and Mark time how long it takes to get down to the lobby via elevator and zero in on the pay phone there. It's out of order, but the phone book is open to the right page. A woman named Hank (Diane Sayer) working a nearby concession stand verifies that somebody was looking through the book at the right time. While the Chief is talking to her, he gets yet another call on her counter phone. By this point word of the threats has leaked out in the press, and Randall's office has been flooded with calls from citizens who think they may be the target. Convinced that the caller is keeping very close tabs on him, the Chief arranges to drive around the city conspicuously and have the rest of the team leave the van to engage in a fake investigation, giving the caller an opportunity to get him alone on the Mobile Ironsidephone. The Chief records the call for potential voice recognition by one of the prospective victims. Analyzing the voice, Team Ironside notices how neutral it sounds and zero in on that as a clue, speculating that he may be in, or training for, broadcasting. Ironside and Mark manage to decipher a cryptic clue left during the call to arrive at a remote location where Ironside gets another call. Mark goes outside and gets on top of the roof of an abandoned food stand to try to find someplace in sight from which a call could be made, but spots nothing. After the call is over, Mark jokes that the caller must have a phone...in his pocket! While this is meant to sound extremely far-fetched in 1970, Ironside seizes upon that prospect, checking into the latest in mobile phones, which turns out to be one with a console that fits in an attache case and doesn't require dialing through a mobile operator. After a bit of checking, the Chief's new person of interest is a man who's been selling them named Eddie Street. Team Ironside pays a visit to Street's shabby little apartment to find it's been recently vacated, but discover a clue there--a sugar packet from an eatery. Investigating that locale, they talk to the proprietor, Vern Emmerich (Dane Clark--Top Guest Billing Alert!), who lost an arm in Korea and can't seem to help them identify Street as a customer. Outside the establishment, Mark and the Chief notice that it's near the corner of Eddy Street, and realize that the caller was using an alias that may itself be a clue pointing toward Emmerich--when taken together with the food stand that they'd previously been led to being Cap'n Hook themed. About the same time, Eve reports in via phone that one local broadcasting student hasn't responded to their inquiries...a Charles Borrow. That makes things start to click together for Ironside, as it's the name of an old colleague who was drummed out of the force in 1955 for shooting a man who was found to be unarmed. Borrow had sworn that there was a witness to the circumstances of the shooting who could corroborate his story, but the witness never came forward. Ironside was the one man on the review board who voted in favor of Borrow. The Chief pays a visit to Mrs. Borrow (See? Virginia Gregg remains gainfully employed) only to learn that Charles passed away years ago--but that he has a young adult namesake son who's been out of touch with her for four years. By this point, the Chief believes that this isn't about a killing at all...rather, Charles Jr. (Barry Brown) is trying to expose Emmerich as the witness. In follow-up questioning, Emmerich vehemently denies having been at the scene of the shooting, though Ironside becomes suspicious of how certain he is of his whereabouts on a specific night fifteen years past. The Chief has the team pore through reports from the night of the shooting to find that a hit-and-run accident occurred involving a stolen car, from which the responsible party fled on foot, and that the driver could have been at the site of the shooting when it occurred because the distance and timing is right. The Chief extrapolates that the driver wouldn't have wanted to come forward for fear of exposing himself, and that Emmerich could have been wearing a prosthetic at the time, hence Borrow Sr. not identifying him as missing an arm. By this point, Ed is tailing Emmerich on a bus to the airport, which Ironside attempts to have stopped by the police. On the bus, we find that Charles Jr. is sitting next to Emmerich, apparently holding him at concealed gunpoint while whispering threats to him. Emmerich panics and uses the emergency door to bail from the bus. The Chief arrives to find Emmerich eager to confess and has him arrested (the statute of limitations doesn't come up), following which Charles Jr. reveals that he only had a pipe in his pocket. Back at the Ironsidecave, the team and Charles talk in a friendly manner about why he felt he had to lead Ironside on the way he did rather than just coming forth with what he'd discovered about the identity of the mystery witness. A little noise is made about how Charles will be facing consequences for his actions, but the episode ends on the note of the Chief ordering Charles to call his mother. They must have splurged between seasons on lots of stock footage of the Ironsidemobile driving around San Francisco, emphasizing landmarks like Lombard Street, because they suddenly have a lot of it to show here. _______ She was frozen in an iceberg toward the end of the war in Europe, and accidentally revived by CONTROL in 1964. Think the joke eluded you there...
She just annoys me. But she's funny. Interesting little joke about Nixon cancelling the election. I wonder if they have to get permission for that or if cardboard cutouts are fair use under parody. That's an interesting McGuffin. Of course he does! Rem from Logan's Run. He was also in the adaptation of "The Star," my favorite short story, in the 1980s Twilight Zone revival. This guy has a lot of hunches. It's like he's a space alien with mind powers or something. I suppose it must be a pain in the neck to do reshoots. Is that legal or admissible? Bah! Pure science fiction! Whew! But she has to learn her lines in this one. Was there a fatality involved? It's an unlikely, but interesting, scenario. I like these episodes that have out-of-the ordinary motivations. I like that scenario. And it was Max who pulled her into the submarine, which explains why she's so bonded to him, despite him being Max. Oops. I forgot to laugh.
_______ 50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2) _______ Mission: Impossible "The Killer" Originally aired September 19, 1970 Season 5 premiere The show seems to be changing up its format this season...we get a teaser that includes the tape scene prior to the opening credits. And the first thing we see is Robert Conrad...well, a tattoo on his arm: "Born to Win" over a pair of dice. His character, Eddie Lorca, gets a contract by phone and has to leave his girlfriend. No disavowal warning, either! Light the fuse, it's credits time! Given Lorca's M.O., the plan involves keeping him close so the IMF can determine what his moves will be as he does. There's no portfolio scene, but Jim's obviously got a repertory company at his disposal, as he has a fake hotel standing by, complete with staff plus a little sweatshop in back waiting to customize the establishment's identity on twenty minutes' notice based on where Lorca's fingers do the walking. They've also got multiple cabs standing by at the airport...Lorca passes up Willy's and gets Paris's. There are also some obstacles prepared so that the ride will take the required amount of time, though this still requires some improvisation on Paris's part. At the Jim-manned hotel desk, Eddie rolls a pair of dice to determine his room number, and Barney gets to work putting numbers on the doors so he'll get the one that's prepared with audiovisual surveillance. (Barney must get agoraphobic working in a hotel corridor.) The IMF Hotel's trick phonebooth gives them the number at which Lorca calls Scorpio's go-between, Flo (Carole Carle), for instructions. Paris uses Lorca's voice to call her back and arrange a new rendezvous point, where, using only a disguised voice, he gets the packet on Lorca's target--construction union president William Barton (Davis Roberts). (It's a good thing Scorpio doesn't share photos of Lorca, whom we learn he knows on sight.) Dana makes the original rendezvous in Lorca's room posing as Flo, and gives him the packet with a photo of Barney swapped in. While Dana's fending off Lorca's advances, Barney goes to Barton's hotel and arranges to trade places with him. Paris is ready to give Lorca a ride, but Lorca goes on foot and Paris loses sight of him. Lorca gets the room above Barton's and calls him to arrange a meeting. Barney prepares a lifelike dummy of himself (which I think might be Roberts made up to look like Greg Morris), ready to be hit. But unanticipated by the IMF, Lorca lowers a ball of plastic explosive down the ventilator shaft and calls Not Barton again from a phone booth across the street to make sure he's by the phone in his room, near the vent. Listening in, the rest of the team has been assuming that Lorca would be going to Barton's room, but Jim has some mental photo-flashes of Barton's room, remembers the air vent, and radios Barney to get out of there just in the nick of time. Barton's plastique must be the same stuff that the IMF makes their self-destructing tapes with, because the explosion is all smoke. Lorca arranges a rendezvous with Fake Flo for his payoff, but she's the target of a fake gangland hit in the alley, and Lorca finds that the bag she was carrying is filled with obviously fake cash. Lorca's led to believe that the hit was meant for him, and Cabbie Willy's standing by to take him to Scorpio's Beverly Hills mansion, where a shootout ensues in which both are killed. Jim identifies Scorpio as Alfred E. Chambers (Byron Morrow), and makes final roll of Lorca's dice...which come up snake eyes. Mission: Accomplished. A few screencaps here. _______ Adam-12 "Log 174: Loan Sharks" Originally aired September 19, 1970 Season 3 premiere The episode opens with the officers arriving at the site of the third beating, where all of the victim Roy Jenkins's coworkers turn away and claim not to have seen anything. But a groovily dressed young man named Jim Russell (Tim Rooney) approaches them and says that he not only saw everything, but broke up the beating by threatening to run down the two bat-armed hoods with his car. Jim's father (Marshall Reed), one of the workers, shoos him away, not wanting him to get involved. For this Mr. Russell receives a Fridayesqe lecture from Malloy. At the hospital, the officers learn from Jenkins's wife, Marge (Eve McVeagh), that Roy had been betting on horses, and borrowing money to do it from someone at the plant. At night, the officers try to track down a 211 suspect who's dressed in a cowboy hat and boots and believed to be drunk. They find him lying under a tree in a park (Arthur Hunnicutt). It turns out that after he robbed the liquor store, taking only $2.00, his gun, money, and bottle of wine were in turn stolen by a mugger. At the station, a detective, Sgt. Strong (Kenneth Tobey), shares intel about the bookmaking and loan shark operation at the plant, which is being run by an Eastern syndicate. Strong has managed to get Mr. Russell to allow Jim to talk, and is now able to identify the two hoods. Later, while staking out the plant, the officers learn from Mr. Russell that Jim, who's scheduled to testify before a grand jury, has gone missing. The officers track down the suspects' vehicle, a customized red mustang, to their suburban lair. Mac and Strong arrive as backup, Malloy kicks the door down, they arrest the two suspects, and the officers find Jim trussed up in the bedroom. Undaunted by the experience, Jim's ready and willing to testify the next day...his main concern being that the suspects' fine set of wheels is going to waste. _______ The Mary Tyler Moore Show "Love Is All Around" Originally aired September 19, 1970 Series premiere This is a show that was too adult for me when I saw it in first run as a kid, but its reputation begs me to give it a shot. It basically picks up in single women's portrayal on television where That Girl (with which it overlaps for this season only) is leaving off. Mary's apartment has groovy shelves built into the height difference between levels, but shag carpet...! Phyllis explains the situation that Mary's coming out of to Rhoda...she was supporting her fiance during his internship, but when he was done, he put the marriage on hold. In her interview, Mary tells Lou that she's 30...this is actually very close to MTM's actual age, which was 33 at the time. She was damn young when she was playing the mother of a growing boy on Dick Van Dyke. Lou wants to know if she's married, and delivers a line that's well-known to me from promos for the show: "You know what, you've got spunk....I HATE spunk!" Mary's told that the associate producer position actually pays less than the secretarial job, but she's giddy to get it. (IMDb points out that a secretary is never seen in the WJM newsroom in the entire run of the series.) Back at her new apartment, Mary learns that her boyfriend, Bill (Angus Duncan), is coming for a visit. During her antics to lay claim to the apartment, Rhoda gets in a sign-o-the-timesy jab: "Where'd you get that nightie from? Trisha Nixon?" That night, when Mary's expecting Bill, a very drunk Lou shows up (having previously mentioned that Mary's neighborhood has great bars). When he drunkenly mentions that his wife is out of town for a month, she briefly gets the impression that he's there expecting "favors"...but he just wants to use her typewriter to write his wife a letter. Bill arrives, and Lou serves as a sort of unintentional, smashed chaperone while Bill tries to woo Mary back in his shallow way, and she sees him in a new light, sending him on his way fairly quickly. The episode ends on the beat of Rhoda and Mary bonding despite their rocky start. I found the writing pretty clever compared to other sitcoms of the era that I've been watching. More than once the humor was driven by characters talking about two different things at the same time; and there was a particularly clever beat where Mary realized that Lou was just typing whatever she and Bill were saying, so she dictated the signature of the letter to get Lou to leave. _______ She's got a sign-o-the-timesy vibe, tho. As I recall, the Beatles had to get permission for theirs. But that was an album cover and would have fallen under British law. Not mind powers, just sleep-learning while hibernating in his pod. In this case, it was a hostage situation with a hood having a gun to the little girl's head, so Steve snuck down from a hatch and did the knockout chop. Wouldn't have to be...at that point they just needed something to go on regarding the caller's identity. I got a good laugh when Mark said that, as I'd already been thinking that this was one of those situations that wouldn't work in a modern story because of cell phones. Didn't catch that detail, but quite likely. I think Max would be in Subby's place here, accidentally freeing her as a result of his bumbling.