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55.5th-ish Anniversary Viewing
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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 18, episode 17
Originally aired January 2, 1966
As represented in
The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Ed said:
Now, ladies and gentlemen, here, for all of you youngsters in the country, the Four Seasons!
The group that features "the 'sound' of Franki Valli" (as the billing on their singles proclaims) gives us the "sound" of a canned performance of their current hit "Let's Hang On!," which has just fallen out of the Top 10 this week.
They're at least acting like they're playing instruments...they were a vocal group, weren't they? Metacritic says that they also did their other current single (billed there as The Wonder Who?), "Don't Think Twice".
Ed said:
Here's American stunner, young Leslie Uggams!
Leslie uses a segment of Jerome Kern / Otto Harbach show tune "Yesterdays" as an intro for one of those many covers of the Beatles' "Yesterday". She puts her own vocal twist on it, but the song loses some of its simple beauty with her punchy delivery. Metacritic indicates that she also sang "What the World Needs Now," which may have been the first part of the medley.
Other performances, as listed on Metacritic:
- The King Family - "When the Saints Go Marching In," "It's a Grand Night for Singing" and a George M. Cohan medley
- Jimmy Roselli - "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "Torna"
- Wayne & Shuster (comedy team) - portray two inept bank robbers
- Alan King (stand-up monologue)
"I flew B-29s drunker than I am right now--and we won!"
- Bel Caron Trio (adagio dancers)
- Brigitte Bardot talks with Ed about her impressions of the U.S. and her film "Viva Maria." Ed shows a film clip of Bardot's first Sullivan appearance from 1958.
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Revisiting a recently reviewed episode, the Sullivan account just posted this yesterday:
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Branded
"The Golden Fleece"
Originally aired January 2, 1966
Xfinity said:
McCord searches for a gold shipment that mysteriously disappeared en route to Washington.
In the town of Bridger, Jason is arrested by a cavalry unit led by Captain Brooks (William Phipps), who says that McCord's court-martial is being reopened based on evidence that he conspired with the Indians who attacked at Bitter Creek. Jason puts up a fight but is overcome by numbers, and is cuffed in the back of their wagon with Colonel Randall Kirby (Harry Townes), a proud former Confederate whom Jason knows by reputation and expresses admiration for. When they're let out for a stop, Jason fights the soldiers again, shoots two of them, and he and Kirby ride off, still chained together. At this point, Greg Morris might as well have popped out of a compartment in one of the trees, because it's all a ruse, with Brooks's superior, Major Meade (Frank Gerstle), reporting directly to President Grant (William Bryant reprising the role) via telegraph. Grant has recruited Jason for a mission meant to thwart what a quick search tells me was the Black Friday Scandal of 1869, when Wall Street speculators James Fisk and Jay Gould attempted to corner the gold market. (Wasn't it 1872 just a few episodes back? Maybe Greg Morris is still alive!)
Kirby tells Jason that he's a member of the Knights of Liberty, a secret society who plan to establish a Confederate Empire in the Caribbean; to that end, they're sitting on a $300,000 gold shipment that Kirby captured at the end of the war. Kirby takes Jason to their hideout back in Bridger, where Jason eavesdrops on the leader, dubbed Sir Falcon, conspiring with one of the members--who disguise themselves in hooded robes, appropriately enough--to get the location of the shipment out of Kirby and then dispose of him. The meeting commences with Kirby nominating Jason for membership and defending his reputation. Jason is voted in against some opposition--including that of Sir Falcon--and upon a brief induction offers to help them get guns and ammo. He then has to deck Sir Falcon, who still accuses him of being a coward and doesn't trust him. Later outside, Jason is confronted by the local sheriff (Bing Russell), and quickly blabs the truth to him. As one could easily guess, Sheriff Gorman turns out to be Sir Falcon, and takes Jason back to Kirby. Jason tries to warn Kirby about Gorman's plot against him, but Kirby tells the sheriff where the gold is hidden. Gorman quickly shoots Kirby and ends up in a tussle with Jason, which ends when Kirby, still conscious, shoots Gorman. The barrels that Kirby had pointed to turn out to be full of bags of sand, and as the colonel lay dying, Jason invokes conciliatory words by Robert E. Lee to persuade Kirby to tell him the real location of the gold for the good of the country. It turns out to have been buried at Cemetery Ridge, the site of Kirby's greatest victory, next to his son. Major Meade's men dig up the gold as Jason watches nearby, and Jason arranges with for Kirby to be buried there.
At this point, with Jason routinely doing missions for President Grant, I'm thinking
Branded /
Wild Wild West crossover. Where's Jason's sweet-ass private train?
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12 O'Clock High
"Falling Star"
Originally aired January 3, 1966
Xfinity said:
An old friend (James Daly) of Gallagher's, traumatized by losses in his life, endangers his crew by trying to prove himself.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-classic-retro-pop-culture-thread.278375/page-86#post-12372459
Col. Gus "Pappy" Wexler is Gallagher's old instructor but also a rival for a wing commander promotion, but in the weaker position because he's been out of commission for too long. It turns out that he actually wants Joe's current command, assuming Joe gets the promotion. When Gallagher's leg gets shot up, Wexler takes over as temporary commander of the 918th and tries to prove that he's still got it. Gone is the easygoing mentor that the men under him had come to know him as. But once he gets in the left seat of the Lily, he starts having delusional flashbacks to an old mission. Sandy takes the heat when his account of what happened in the cockpit differs from the colonel's.
Meanwhile, Joe temporarily fills the wing position and has to get tough on his old mentor. Joe grounds Wexler from the next mission and a young lieutenant whom Wexler had started to treat as a surrogate son gets killed in the colonel's absence. Wexler is back in the left seat and Gallagher fills the right seat for the Act IV climax mission. Wexler goes into flashback mode again and Joe has to slug him to get control of the plane and complete the run. In the coda, Wexler gets a formal diagnosis and is heading for a desk job (evidently not the wing command, though that doesn't seem to be ruled out as a future possibility).
Judy Carne's back as another Archbury pub gal for a couple of scenes...apparently a different one from the name in the credits. Last time she was Floy, now she's Doris.
Didn't Savage have a "Pappy," too? Colonel Wexler's (James Daly) combat command experience is played up in relation to his potential promotion, and again I have to ask, "How did he get it?" Unaware of what's being discussed back at Wing HQ, Gallagher's showing Pappy the ropes on a live mission when he gets shot up by a German fighter, upon which Pappy acts confused and addresses Joe by the wrong name. Back at base, Pappy takes temporary command of the 918th and starts getting all super-hardass on the men who'd previously enjoyed a casual familiarity with him...even Stovall, who speculates to Joe at the hospital that Wexler's using the opportunity to prove himself for the promotion. Meanwhile, General Pritchard maneuvers Gallagher to fill in at Wing. (It seems like we haven't seen Britt in a few episodes.)
Wexler leads his first mission and starts reliving some previous experience, which includes making the wrong moves in combat. Sandy snaps him out of it, he doesn't remember what he was doing, and he assumes that Sandy's the one at fault, such that Komansky gets checked out for combat fatigue back at base. Wexler loosens up a bit at the Star & Bottle and brings Lieutenant Booth (David Macklin), who looks barely old enough to shave, with him to meet a ladyfriend, Alice Clyde-Bryce (Barbara Shelley). I was a bit surprised when she turned out to be real after he'd been shown having several tender, one-sided phone calls with somebody he always addressed as "Blue Eyes". We learn that the "Bernie" that Wexler's been mistaking other people for is somebody he lost on a previous assignment. Alice thinks that Gus is using Booth and herself as a surrogate family. Meanwhile, Pritchard comes down on Gallagher to come down on Wexler about what happened, so Joe orders Gus to have a check-up. Gus realizes that Joe doesn't want the Wing job, and thus that they're "both fighting for second place".
On the next mission, while Wexler is grounded, the leader (Paul Comi), with Booth in the right seat, takes his plane way too low and gets caught in the blast when a friendly bomb hits something highly ignitable. Gus tells Alice what happened to their boy. She turns him away when he won't give up flying, and because he's been using her to work out his issues with the ex who took him out of the service in the first place. Meanwhile, Gallagher comes up with a plan to hit the difficult target with one bomber using parachute bombs, which will delay their impact when dropped from a low altitude. Wexler commands the mission, but with Gallagher in the right seat. When the plane takes a minor ground fire hit, Pappy goes back to Willoughby again and is about to steer the commuter train off the tracks when Gallagher says to hell with Serling, decks Pappy, and takes charge. The parachute bombs are dropped on target and Guy comes to, not remembering what happened again.
In the Epilog, Kaiser diagnoses that Wexler has been suffering incidents of traumatic amnesia when his plane is hit, flashing back to when his plane was struck by lightning in the Bernie affair. Alice is back at his side now that he'll be flying a desk, which he's finally content to do.
I realized why Judy Carne was Doris this time instead of Floy...the last time she appeared, it was explicitly at a joint that wasn't the Star & Bottle.
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Gilligan's Island
"Not Guilty"
Originally aired January 6, 1966
Wiki said:
Who killed Randolph Blake? According to a newspaper that washed ashore, one of the castaways did it the night before the fateful tour. Five of the castaways actually knew Mr. Blake, and each had a motive to kill him. So, they recreate the crime in order to find out who among them is the murderer. When none of the five seem to have done it, the Skipper and Gilligan discover that slamming the door is what caused the spear gun to fire, killing the victim, so no one is guilty.
Note: Well-known Cincinnati news anchor Al Schottelkotte has an off-screen cameo as himself as the radio announcer.
Gilligan catches a crate of coconuts while fishing, and the Skipper sees the old Honolulu newspaper inside being used as packing. They find the Professor working on a guillotine for chopping coconuts (Where did he get the metal for the blade?); the girls mixing up a vat of poison for mice (yet another food source in times of desperation); and a gun in the Howells' hut. Soon Gilligan and the Skipper even start suspecting one another. Mr. Howell finds the clipping, which the Skipper dropped in the hut, following which everyone learns about the murder and four of them reveal how they knew Blake: he claimed a paper written by the Professor as his own; he was an embezzling employee of Mr. Howell; he was seeing Ginger but left her for another woman; and he put Mary Ann's father out of business. They recreate the scene of the crime, which proves to be inconclusive until Gilligan slams the door and triggers a replica spear gun created by the Professor. What isn't clear is who slammed the door in Blake's case; Gilligan was standing in for Blake, so implicitly him, I suppose. In the coda, the castaways learn on the radio that investigators in civilization have just come to the same conclusion. (Why didn't they catch any radio announcements of the investigation and how they were suspects?)
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The Wild Wild West
"The Night of the Steel Assassin"
Originally aired January 7, 1966
Wiki said:
After being crippled in an explosion that he blamed on the other men of his regiment, Colonel "Iron Man" Torres has rebuilt himself as a 19th century "cyborg". He is now seeking revenge on those he thinks wronged him – including President Grant.
In a harbor town, ship's chandler R.L. Gilbert (John Pickard) is confronted and murdered by Torres (John Dehner), who has a partly metallic face and iron replacements for various parts of his body, including his hands. Torres is holding an old grudge based on believing Gilbert and others of being responsible for an incident when they were in the army. Jim happens to walk by, sees Torres in the window, and tries to fight him, but finds that he's bulletproof...the hits just revealing more metal underneath his skin; but a smoke bomb drives Torres away. Jim and Artie are assigned to find Gilbert's killer by the president, so they talk to Gilbert's niece, Nina (Sue Ane Langdon), who reveals that her uncle sent her a picture of his old Army unit, all but two of whom are now dead--Torres and now-president Ulysses S. Grant. Nina goes to see Torres, where Bach's Toccata and Fugue is playing. Jim rides up to her coachman to inquire about where she's went--Were they using kilometers in Mexico then?--and the driver tries to attack him with a knife, but proves to be less than bulletproof.
Artie talks to Torres's surgeon, Dr. Meyer (Arthur Malet), who reconstructed Torres with Torres-designed metal parts after an arsenal explosion. Torres talks to Nina, learning that she's working on a doctorate in psychophysics. He takes an interest in her, but evades her questions. He uses light reflected off a spinning lamp to hypnotize her--having endured his operations without anesthesia via self-hypnosis--breaking down her haughty, formal manner and making her giggly. Jim breaks into the house's cellar, fights off two of Torres's men, and learn that he's taken Nina to the town of Alto Nuevo, which is decorated for a visit by Grant. There Jim spots the Iron Man in a window above a saloon, so he and Artie go in, where they find that Nina is now in the role of a showgirl on a swing. Artie provides a distraction for the crowd so Jim can carry her down to the cellar, where he's confronted by more goons. They don't last long, but Artie is forcefully taken upstairs and fakes being hypnotized, including enduring a pain test. Meeting back at the train, he and Jim decide to go along with Torres's plan to having Artie lure Jim into Torres's dungeon. They're taken prisoner, trick the Torres-loyal but susceptible Nina into freeing them with a torchy pencil gadget, and make their way to a cavern that connects to an underground river, only to be gassed (in a more characteristically visible fashion this time), though Artie seems to fall into the water.
Grant subsequently parades into town looking a lot like he's being played by Ross Martin. While "Grant" makes a speech, Torres explains to trussed-up Jim how he lost a draw to guard the arsenal the night of the attack, but believed the other men had cheated; and shares his plan to use two rockets containing a highly potent explosive--one against Grant, one against Jim--which will be set off as part of a fireworks display for Grant. Once alone, Jim kicks some levers to redirect Grant's rocket so that both hit the building that he's in, though he evades both rockets and the first explosion helps to free him. Torres rushes down to the cavern and is confronted by Jim, who keeps him off-balance long enough to predictably knock him into the water, where his largely metal body puts him at a severe disadvantage. He chooses to die by drowning rather than allow Jim to save him only to be hung.
The real Grant arrives in the coda (Roy Engel in his first of six appearances as the regular series version), giving a speech about when he first visited the site of the town thirty years prior. Artie takes Torres's lamp to the train to un-hypnotize Nina, who, scandalized to find herself dressed in a showgirl costume with two men, starts throwing objects at them.
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Hogan's Heroes
"Happy Birthday, Adolf"
Originally aired January 7, 1966
Wiki said:
The Allies’ probing raid is going to end in a very happy birthday for Hitler if Hogan’s team can’t knock out a line of anti-aircraft guns.
Carter provides a distraction for Schultz (back to not being a hard job) so that the others can sneak out of barracks to...take a call in the tunnel? Since when do they need to leave the barracks to get down there? They learn of the probing raid, so LeBeau is volunteered to assess local troop strength as requested, which he does dressed as an old lady. He finds a heavy AA battery, and having been ordered to maintain radio silence, Hogan has to come up with a plan to knock it out. This involves impersonating a German officer to visit the artillery unit's commander, Major Keitel (a mustacheless Howard Caine in his first appearance on the series), to relay fake orders about having to fix up his camp for the fuhrer's birthday celebration, and suggests that prisoners from Stalag 13 be used for the job. When Hogan visits Klink's office, there's a gag in which Hogan slips the spiked German helmet onto Klink's chair and we hear the result from outside.
The prisoners get sent to work, supervised by Schultz, making it easy for some of them to slip away. They disguise themselves as Germans serving under the disguised Hogan, so that Hogan can relieve Keitel for the party...in which he's aided by Helga and friends as attendees. When their work is done, the disguised prisoners return to barracks--via the usual tunnel entrance--and Hogan gets Klink and Schultz drunk on bad wine for some reason (maybe to cover for Helga's absence, but they don't specify). The probing raid proceeds, but when Keitel sends his men out to man their guns, flags pop out of the barrels that read "Happy Birthday, Adolf".
In the coda, Keitel goes to Klink with his suspicion that the prisoners sabotaged the guns, but Klink is too proud of his escape-proof camp to consider the possibility.
Disss-missssed!
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Get Smart
"Double Agent"
Originally aired January 8, 1966
Wiki said:
Max has to become a broken, drunk agent so that KAOS will probably try to recruit him as one of their agents. He eventually succeeds, but is assigned a difficult task.
Max and 99 are eavesdropping via bug on a KAOS meeting chaired by a man named Alex (Robert Ellenstein) when KAOS Agent #1 (Arthur Batanides) floats the idea of trying to recruit Max as a double agent for use in a scheme against the Pentagon. When the listening device disguised as an ice cube is found, and Professor Parker's (Milton Selzer) next device, disguised as a fly, is swatted by Max, the Chief assigns Max to use the recruitment scheme to infiltrate KAOS. To that end Max goes to a casino where he plays at a poker table with Agent #1, but has too good a run of luck to sell the idea that he's corruptible. The next phase is to pretend to be a down-on-his-luck skid row drunk. 99, who isn't in on the plan, shows up at the bar with Fang, and her attempts to persuade Max to let her help him help to sell his role. Next the Chief goes to the bar to accuse Max of theft, so that Max can hit him over the head with a breakaway bottle, but they have to try several times and then improvise in order to do it while Agent #1 is watching. Along the way, Max accidentally swallows the absorbo-pill that's keeping him from getting drunk, which causes him to immediately succumb to all of the alcohol that he's consumed. 99 is caught following Max to KAOS's lair, and Max is assigned to deal with her. Left in the room with her, he pulls out a really nifty vintage gadget to cover the noise of trying to sneak her out in a ventilation shaft--a phono-watch, which plays a tiny record on a turntable concealed in its dial!
The KAOS agents rush in and Max and 99 take them out, only to discover that all four (including #2, Dave Barry, and #3, Clay Tanner)--now in need of hospitalization--are also double agents, each working for a different friendly agency.
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TUNE IN NEXT WEEK!
NEW BAT-TIME!
NEW BAT-CHANNEL!
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That's funny, I thought we had seen B&W and color mixed. Maybe it was a separate retrospective and not an episode.
Oh yeah, there is one "sampler" episode that assembles clips from various eras (and that are also available in other, era-specific episodes). It's the one that has Elvis and the Beatles.
