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55.5th-ish Anniversary Viewing
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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 18, episode 6
Originally aired October 17, 1965
As represented in
The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Ed said:
The distinctive blues rockers do a number I'm not familiar with called "Work Song":
Ed said:
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the delightful voice of Pat Boone!
I think that the unseen orchestra brings more to this rendition of "Night and Day" than Boone does:
(Though I think something went wrong with the audio mastering in that clip...it sounds like I'm listening through a tin can.)
Ed said:
The McGuire Sisters singing "Sing Something Simple".
As if trying to make Pat look cool, the show goes full Lawrence...
Still, they've got talent for what they're doing.
Recycled Ed said:
Boone now performs "I Love You So Much It Hurts" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". I think the latter number better showcases his vocal talent.
Ed said:
Now here you have comedy stars Sid Caesar and Joyce Jameson in a typical operetta, with Joyce as the prima donna of the show and Sid Caesar as her, well, as her sort of awkward foil.
While Joyce sings "Shadow Waltz," her hair extension and Sid's false mustache get stuck to one another and both come off. Then a superimposed fly buzzes around them and Sid fake swats it on her face. The number ends with her knocking him into the set dressing.
Ed said:
Here for you youngsters is a new group, two of 'em Texans, three Tennesseeans, and you've enjoyed their records like "Hully Gully" [sic]. Now let's have a big hand for Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs--now come on, let's have a lot of applause...!
The group performs their brand new single of the moment, "Ring Dang Doo" (charted Oct. 9, 1965; #33 US):
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Branded
"Seward's Folly"
Originally aired October 17, 1965
Xfinity said:
Two prospectors scheme to steal McCord's land survey report, which confirms evidence of a lot of gold and oil in Alaska.
Alaska...I wonder how Jason's reputation fares up there. We don't find out, because he quickly leaves the stock footage of dogsleds and travels with a work buddy, Rufus I. Pitkin (J. Pat O'Malley), down to Seattle, where Jason has a meeting with actual historical figure William Henry Seward. Jason's reputation extends as far as hotel clerks in Seattle...as does Seward's, whose advocacy of the purchase of Alaska is a subject of controversy. In a saloon, Pitkin talks loosely about gold and furs to be found in Alaska, which catches the attention of a shady character named Sobel (Charles Maxwell) and his flunky, Grimes (Robert Hoy). Proceeding to Seward's hotel room, Jason is met by Leslie Gregg (Coleen Gray), whose father was a partner in the Alaska venture. She's gratified and Seward (Ian Wolfe) is enthusiastic to hear Jason's appraisal that the territory will be a very good investment for the nation. Seward considers Jason to be a kindred soul: "They branded you a coward and me a fool." Meanwhile, Pitkin is getting sauced up by Sobel for information.
Jason works on the report with Leslie, but as they're sparking a romance on the side, Sobel and Grimes don masks to hold them up for the report. Jason fights them off with fists, broken saber, and something that looks a little too much like a karate chop for 19th-century America; and Pitkin identifies the crooks when it's over. Seward and Leslie board a stage back East, Seward expressing his eternal gratitude to Jason and Leslie leaving Jason with a kiss. While working on a survey of the Seattle dock area, Jason gets a telegram from Leslie that Seward died in his home before he was able to meet with President Grant. Jason is sorry that Seward never got to enjoy his public moment of triumph, but expresses confidence in his legacy.
This one barely had a plot to speak of...the business with the crooks was very perfunctory.
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12 O'Clock High
"The Hotshot"
Originally aired October 18, 1965
Xfinity said:
Gallagher faces a challenge from the leader of a P-51 fighter squadron, who blames the B-17 pilots for the loss of a plane.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-classic-retro-pop-culture-thread.278375/page-107#post-12494347
The episode opens with General Britt briefing press officer Roy Saxon (Walter Brooke) on how the 918th is going to start hitting the Germans anywhere from any direction via shuttle raids while escorted by Lt. Col. Jerry Troper's (Warren Oates) squadron of shiny new P-51 Mustangs. Troper is a titular type who has 22 confirmed kills, going back to having flown as a volunteer for the RAF. On the next mission, the P-51s are late to the rendezvous and the 918th is jumped by German fighters. When Troper's squadron finally arrives, Komansky engages in a friendly fire incident. Troper should complain, the 918th lost nineteen bombers. Nevertheless, back on the ground he tries to start a fight with Gallagher, but is interrupted. In his office, Gallagher accuses Troper of not following identification protocols. Forced to speak with Saxon, Gallagher levels with him about what happened. Britt makes Gallagher work with Troper in a training course to develop tactics for working with the fighters. Troper carries his attitude to the Star & Bottle, where he makes a scene in front of a couple of British servicewomen that Gallagher's spending time with, Fay Vendry (Jill Haworth) and Alyce Carpenter (Jill Ireland).
Gallagher and Komansky review gun camera footage from the mission and come across a reel from one of the fighters that explains the squadron's tardiness--they were busy strafing a freight train. When only twelve of the seventeen pilots show up for the briefing the next morning, Gallagher chews out Troper's second-in-command, Major Marriott (William Bryant), and orders the missing pilots--including Troper--placed under arrest. The training proceeds, though, which includes Troper flying as Gallagher's co-pilot. In private, Gallagher proves a point by giving Topher a flash-card drill of fighter silhouettes, in which Troper misidentifies P-51s as Me-109s twice--or as Gallagher puts it, shoots down two of his own men. After a rendezvous exercise, Troper makes an excuse to break formation and engages in a bit of solo low-flying stunt work.
Things are otherwise going much more smoothly between the B-17 crews and P-51 pilots, though Troper sees his squadron's willingness to play ball with the 918th as loyalty to Gallagher and tries to assert his authority by cracking down on them. Troper's supposed to still be under arrest, but goes out drinking and comes back to base shitfaced. Gallagher grounds Troper from the next day's mission...which includes a cameo by a squadron of P-38s doing the initial leg of escort duty, because we weren't getting enough WWII fighter porn with beauty shots of the Mustangs. The P-51s, led by Marriott, are late again, but get there in time to take on the German fighters, and Marriott shoots down feared German ace Colonel Falkenstein (Gunnar Hellstrom). Back on the ground, Troper tries to take his men to task for not scoring more kills, though they understand that their duty was to protect the bombers. Troper finds himself alone on the airfield, his men turning their backs on him.
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The Wild Wild West
"The Night of a Thousand Eyes"
Originally aired October 22, 1965
Wiki said:
When ships along the Mississippi River are attacked by a gang of pirates known as the "Thousand Eyes", Jim and Artie are sent to investigate. The trail leads to the leader of the gang: Captain Ansel Coffin, a blind man seeking revenge. His gang uses false lights to lead ships astray, crash them, and then plunder them.
Can't...get...Bobby...Vee...out...of...head...!
Captain Tenney (Barney Phillips) has just assured a passenger named Miss Devine (an uncredited Celeste Yarnall) that his boat is well protected when the well-organized and -equipped pirates set up a false church steeple to cause the pilot to run the ship aground. The pirates then attack the boat with men jumping aboard and covering machine gun fire from the shore. Possibly having been aboard was the fourth dead Secret Service investigator to turn up dead, in the river where the other victims of the piracy are found. A chip was found on the agent's body that leads Jim to a gambling establishment, where an employee named Crystal (Janine Gray) keeps him occupied at a rigged roulette table by letting him win while all but throwing herself at him...but this proves to be the bait for an attack by several scruffy-looking types, whom Jim overcomes. When Jim is pressing her afterward for the name of who hired her, she's shot through a wall and utters "Coffin".
Elsewhere, Captain Ansel Coffin (Jeff Corey) has the man in charge of the ambush, Poavey (Donald O'Kelly), dealt with, then digs into his braille files to select an alternate operative to use against West, Jennifer Wingate (Diane McBain). Jim meets Wingate while she's using the man's bathing room at his hotel. She agrees to have dinner with him, where she gets close enough to shoot him point blank with a small pistol, but he's wearing a bulletproof vest and, unrealistically, doesn't even flinch from the impact. Both taking the incident in stride, she admits to being Coffin's source of information about riverboats going through, and then takes Jim to see Coffin, leading him to a cave entrance where he's taken prisoner by Coffin's men.
Coffin divests Jim of his vest so that he can be tied up bare-chested, describes how a riverboat explosion took his eyesight, shows Jim his collection of objects that stimulate his other senses, and introduces his wife, Oriana (Linda Ho), who saved him after the explosion and has difficulty speaking. Coffin describes how his operation works, and shares his goal to extort the president for allowing passage of cargo. He then has Jim put in a hanging cage that's connected to a lightning rod, during a thunderstorm (which I'm pretty sure uses the lightning flash from
Gilligan's Island, among others).
Along the way, Artie is approached by Poavy's vengeance-seeking daughter (Jeanne Vaughn), who warns him that West is in danger from Wingate, but doesn't know where. He returns to the hotel, where he's accosted by Coffin's men, but pulls some trickery in the bathing room that gives him the upper hand.
Meanwhile, Jim gets so bored waiting for that fatal lightning strike that he manages to bust out of his cage, but trips a wire in the cavern that ignites a powder flash, blinding him. He makes his way to Coffin's living room and the two engage in a duel, in which Coffin has the advantage of being used to operating without eyesight. But when Oriana tries to warn her husband of an attack by Jim, he hurls an African throwing knife in her direction, killing her. Coffin pursues Jim into the cavern, where, his eyesight having started to recover, he drops the cage on Coffin.
In a train coda that fills a little too much time, Wingate uses her wiles to bargain with Jim and Artie for leniency.
Artie appeared in more than just bookends in this one, but was still conspicuously sidelined from the main story.
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Hogan's Heroes
"The Prisoner's Prisoner"
Originally aired October 22, 1965
Wiki said:
Having kidnapped a German general, Hogan must convince General Schmidt that he is in need of medical attention in order to learn the location of his attack center.
British commando Sergeant Walters (John Orchard) is brought in as a new prisoner after a failed raid on an ammo dump. Hogan plans to finish the job, so he shares fake scuttlebutt with Klink that the camp is being closed so that he'll demand that the other commandos be brought to Stalag 13 in a truck that he sends to the ammo dump. Hogan and Carter stow on the truck, sneak into the wine cellar where the explosives were in the process of being set, end up taking General Karl Schmidt (Roger C. Carmel) prisoner while he's entertaining a fraulein, and smuggle him into the stalag among the commandos.
Klink won't believe Schmidt is who he is because Schmidt is supposed to have been killed when ammo dump was blown. But when Hogan offers to get out a message for him, Schmidt won't reveal where his staff is located. The prisoners pull a ruse in the barracks to make Schmidt think that he's suffering symptoms of an illness; and throw him an early Christmas celebration, with Schultz well cast as Saint Nick...following which the general finally spills the name of a town. Schmidt is then smuggled out to England, accompanied by Walters.
That will be all!
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Get Smart
"Washington 4, Indians 3"
Originally aired October 23, 1965
Wiki said:
Indians threaten to start a war if they don't get all of their land back. Smart is assigned to go into their camp and foil their plan. Will Max and 99 save the United States from Native Americans? (Title changed to "Washington 4, Indians 3" for DVD release; "Redskins" was a common sports team name in the 1960s but is now considered racist.) The title is a parody of a sporting event's score and based on the American football team the Washington Redskins.
In Arizona, a bus is held up by a band of Native Americans on horseback, sporting Old West-era dress and speech. They deliver a message to vacationing Agent 43 (Monroe Arnold) giving their ultimatum that all lands be restored to their people or they'll go to war. 43 calls Max, who immediately puts the military on alert, but the Chief is incredulous, and the joint chiefs (Willis Bouchey, Bill Zuckert, and Donald Curtis) bumble around for a bit about how to deal with the threat before deciding to send Max in for more intelligence.
In Arizona, 43 informs Max and 99 that the Red Feathers are concealing a powerful weapon in a tent. The agents are waylaid by a tribesman (Armand Alzamora), but gain the upper hand, so Max changes into his outfit to infiltrate. It turns out that Max is impersonating Running Creek, the bride groom of White Cloud (Adele Palacios), the daughter of the group's leader, Red Cloud (Anthony Caruso). Max slips away into the war tent, where he finds a missile, then hides as a war council is convened, but is found, and then saved by 99. Max attempts to talk Red Cloud out of war, but finds that his argument regarding progress in Native American affairs is so weak that he concedes and allows Red Cloud to fire the missile...which turns out to be a giant arrow. In the coda, we learn that the arrow landed harmlessly in the West Wing of the White House, and Red Cloud has been appointed Undersecretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.
Other tribesmen include Green Meadows (Barry Russo) and Blue Skies (Roberto Contreras).
This was a pretty weak episode even allowing for its problematic elements, as it was pretty much all about those elements. It might have made for better, smarter parody to have the tribesmen dressing and acting like contemporary Native Americans, and the agents interacting with them based on the outdated stereotypes that were instead on full display here.
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After all, if a time traveler from the past landed in Mayberry, they could hardly extrapolate the existence of New York. However, nothing we ever saw in either the movies or TV show can support that. There's also the possibilities that Zaius's faction was using or investigating the technology they were suppressing, or that there was a cabal of apes working with an enclave of mutants. There's a whole movie in there somewhere.
I find it perfectly enjoyable in its own, original right, but yeah, my mind can't help rubber-banding to Pat when I listen to it.