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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Big Surprise / Love and the Security Building / Love and the Ski Lodge / Love and the Happy Unhappy Couple / Love and the Topless Policy"
Originally aired January 14, 1972
In "Love and the Big Surprise," Dick (Soupy Sales) gives his wife Nan (Stefanie Powers) a dark wig with bangs as a birthday gift. Her brother Monty (Bob Hastings) gets her suspicious about Dick's motives in buying it, and Dick digs himself deeper by saying it makes her look younger and more glamorous, so she refuses to go out for her birthday dinner. Feeling bad about it the next day, Nan tells her girlfriend Wanda (Jill Jaress) how she plans to get romantic with Dick that night; but not having slept the night before, Dick takes some pills to help him sleep first. As she turns on the wiles, he fights drowsiness, and ultimately conks out while she's trying to tango with him.
"Love and the Security Building"--I guess these are a thing at this point. It opens with Fred (Pat Paulsen) taking calls from women for his roommate Bill (Dick Gautier), making excuses why Bill can't make dates with them, because he has a blind date with a woman named Joan. When a woman Bill assumes is her (Sheila James) calls up from the lobby, he doesn't like what he sees on the monitor, so he passes her off to Fred. But when Joan comes up, it turns out that she's a knockout (Anabel Garth), and the other woman is her friend Agnes. She starts to go for Fred, while he acts nervous, and Bill hides out in the kitchen, not realizing what he's missing. When Fred tells Bill about how gorgeous she is, Bill goes out, but only Agnes is there while Joan is taking a call. When Joan returns, she overhears Bill describing what happened on the phone via an extension. Joan slips into something more comfortable in the brassy bedroom, Fred convinces him to come out and say goodnight to her before he leaves for a movie, and Bill discovers the truth too late.
"Love and the Ski Lodge" has a ski instructor named Danny (Ron Harper) training his new wife Laura (Beth Brickell) by having her practice on an angled mattress inside the lodge. Head ski instructor Helmut (Victor Rogers) pays a call to make Danny participate in a race that's been moved up a week--that's what you get for having your honeymoon where you work. Danny comes back on crutches and in leg casts, and Laura assumes that the honeymoon is over...but he rips the casts off to reveal that the doctor helped him get back off duty.
"Love and the Happy Unhappy Couple" opens with Frank and Abby Stevens (Louis Nye and Jo Anne Worley), who've been happily married for six years, being playful when their neighbor Henry (Robert Q. Lewis), a psychiatrist, drops by and observes that they're using sex as a crutch, and tries to get them to express their pent-up hostility. He tells them to keep lists of the things that bother them about each other for a week, and they agree to do it to prove him wrong. The couple quickly start getting paranoid of what they're writing about each other, which makes them edgier toward one another, and self-conscious of the things each is doing when the other writes something down. By Sunday morning when it's time to read their lists, they're having no problem expressing their mutual hostility, and start destroying each other's possessions. Henry drops by again and is happy to see them having a healthy relationship. When it goes too far and they start to make up, Henry tries to tell them to keep letting it all out, so they direct their hostility toward him.
In "Love and the Topless Policy," club owner Howard (Dave Madden) brings in Ira (Dwayne Hickman) to announce the new policy, and Ira has to inform the current waitresses. Gladys (Elaine Shore) and Jenny (Carol Worthington) initially announce that they quit, saving him from having to fire them for not being the right type...but they talk it over and decide that they're willing to take it off to help the place. And Libby (Susan Howard), whom Ira was hoping to settle down with once she left the place, goes along with them. Howard proceeds to interview other, more suitable women (Leslie McRay and Marilyn Nix), but a women's lib activist named Bertha (Marcia Wallace) comes to picket the place. This raises all five ladies' ire, and they decide to picket the picket topless. The men end up coming up with an alternative that won't get everyone arrested and the place shut down...that they'll be the ones serving customers topless, in Chippendale-style collars.
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All in the Family
"Archie and the FBI"
Originally aired January 15, 1972
Wiki said:
Archie thinks a co-worker is guilty of something after an FBI agent asks questions.
Mike's studying Spanish with Gloria when Archie answers the door to find a young man whom he's initially dismissive of, only to learn that Mr. Bradford (Jon Korkes) is an investigator for the FBI. This changes Archie's whole attitude, and he lets Bradford sit in his chair as the investigator asks questions about co-worker and neighbor Larry Grundy. Archie tries to downplay his long friendship with Grundy, and Mike objects to the questions, citing Archie's constitutional rights. Edith lets Grundy (Graham Jarvis) in through the back door and Archie goes to see him in the kitchen. Grundy's desperate because he's heard from other neighbors that a G-man's been asking questions about him, and Archie feels that it's best if he's not seen with Grundy, encouraging him to lay low. After Grundy and Bradford each leave (and Edith drops a reference to Efram Zimablist), Archie gets a call from Mr. McNab that a federal investigator is at his place...asking questions about Archie.
Archie finds himself in the same position as Grundy--paranoid of what his now-suspicious neighbors may implicate him in and of being subject to surveillance. Mike gets Archie going on this and Archie loudly declares his support for J. Edgar Hoover for the benefit of any bugs. Lionel comes by after the Jeffersons are questioned, and Archie isn't happy that they told the investigator that Archie supports civil rights. Grundy comes by through the back again, now conspicuously wearing his American Legion uniform to demonstrate his loyalty. Archie and Larry start exchanging accusations, including that Archie is housing a pinko subversive, and they almost come to blows. Archie then gets a call from his shop steward, and learns that the FBI has been asking questions on behalf of the Air Force concerning a defense contract that the plant handled...and the investigation has been called off after their union intervened. Nevertheless, the damage has been done to Archie and Larry's relationship, as they can't see each other the same way anymore, and have found that they're living on Maple Street.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"The Slaughter Affair"
Originally aired January 15, 1972
Wiki said:
Murray has been moonlighting to earn extra money for a special anniversary gift, but his lack of sleep is starting to affect his performance in the newsroom.
Lou is about to fire Ted for telling viewers to drive carelessly, but Ted shows him the copy, and it turns out to have been Murray's error. Lou takes Murray in his office and they start getting each other yawning. Murray learns that Mary's noticed something's been bothering him lately and has usually been checking his copy. Murray tells her about his approaching tenth wedding anniversary and that he's been teaching news writing at night school to buy Marie a compact car. Back at home, Mary learns from Rhoda that Murray has actually been driving a cab. Murray comes in late the next day and tells Mary that he was robbed right after Rhoda was in his cab; and that because he'd been telling Marie that he was teaching night school, she doesn't believe him and thinks he's been having an affair with Mary.
Mary tells Lou what's been going on, and Lou declares that Murray has to stop moonlighting or he's fired. Mary drops by the Slaughter home to see Marie. Marie's convinced that her husband's having an affair with somebody, and Mary tells her what he's been doing and why. Then Murray comes home and Marie can't keep Murray's surprise to herself; and Murray, having had to quit his second job before he had enough money, reveals that he's bought her a used car that she once had her eye on instead.
In the coda, Lou's happy that he can go back to chewing Ted out for the on-air flubs.
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Emergency!
"The Wedsworth-Townsend Act"
Originally aired January 15, 1972
Pilot movie
Wiki said:
Seeing a dire need in the community for on-the-spot medical assistance, LA County Firefighters Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe) and John Gage (Randolph Mantooth) attempt to convince their staunchest opponent, Rampart General Hospital's Chief of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Kelly Brackett (Robert Fuller), to support paramedic legislation. Because of his pride, Brackett believes in the field medical response by trained and qualified firefighters is a ridiculous notion. Rampart General Hospital's Chief Emergency Nurse, Dixie McCall (Julie London), also Roy and Johnny's mentor and friend, encourages Brackett to reconsider his stance. Their colleague, Dr. Joe Early (Bobby Troup), also lends his support to Johnny and Roy. Dixie's life is saved by paramedics after she is rendered unconscious in an accident.
Note: Martin Milner and Kent McCord of Adam-12 guest star.
This is where I'd have a difficult decision to make if I were playing by strict rules of period viewing verisimilitude, as at this point in the season, groundbreaking sitcoms
All in the Family and
Mary Tyler Moore were running back-to-back against this new entry in the Mark VII franchise, which I also have more of a childhood attachment to. I saw the pilot movie in its original format years back on MeTV (I assume). The version I'm watching now is a syndication edit that chops the movie into two episodes and includes a framing intro of later DeSoto and Gage (most noticeable is Gage's longer hair) reminiscing about how they first met.
The vintage footage commences with firefighters responding to a call from Station 8, which, later Gage fondly remembers, had a pole. Milner and McCord get "Starring" credits after the added-in series opening credits from a later season. Gage is with that station's Engine 10. Back at the station, Battalion 14's Chief Conrad (Art Balinger) tries to recruit Gage for the paramedic program, but he's not interested in being an "ambulance attendant". Engine 10 then responds to a call about a possible high-voltage electrocution. Gage goes up in the bucket with another rescue man to bring down a seemingly unconscious victim from the top of an electrical pole and try to keep him alive as he's rushed to Rampart, where Brackett, assisted by Dr. Tom Gray (Ron Pinkard) and Nurse McCall, futilely attempt to revive him. In the aftermath, Dixie argues for the paramedic program, but Brackett doesn't approve of amateurs treating patients, and underscores this by chewing out Gage for having assumed the patient was alive when he was brought in.
This experience changes Gage's attitude: "'Rescue,' hell...all we rescued was a corpse." Gage sees DeSoto about signing up for the paramedic program, and while Johnny's still skeptical, DeSoto sells him with a gently toned Fridayesque lecture about how they can make a difference on the scene. Rampart handles the training of Gage's class, against Brackett's objections, which includes introducing them and the audience to the trusty defibrillator. Kell and Dixie are seeing each other on the side, and he argues about the bad publicity that will come the first time one of the trainees accidentally kills a patient; nevertheless, he's committed to giving them the best training that he can. In a later exchange on the subject, Dixie compares paramedics to medical corpsmen in Vietnam.
State assemblyman Michael Wolski (Jack Kruschen) attends the class's graduation, and tries to recruit Brackett as an expert to argue in favor of the legislation that will allow the paramedics to operate. DeSoto takes Gage to the brand-new Station 51 and introduces him and the audience to their iconic series ride and its equipment. Squad 51 promptly gets a call for a traffic accident and, because they're not permitted to administer aid yet, they pick up Dixie at the hospital first. She does what will be their gig, calling in the vitals to Early, who instructs her on what to do. DeSoto and Gage endure the indignity of being recruited by an officer to help direct traffic, because they're "not doing anything".
DeSoto and Gage host the assemblyman at the station, and he reveals that an obstacle in the way of the legislation is Brackett's refusal to support it. Back at Rampart, a couple of familiar police officers pop up in relation to a couple of gunshot victims having been brought in, and Malloy engages in some flirtatious small talk with Dixie. Then a young woman who was painting the name on a boat is brought in with a severed right arm. DeSoto and Gage rush to the boatyard to find and retrieve the arm (not shown), and though Early isn't optimistic about the outcome, Brackett, Early, and some other specialists operate to reattach it. This is where the episodes split and we get Those Three Words.
The second part opens with another later-filmed framing scene. Back in Flashbackland, the arm has been successfully reattached, and despite his reservations, Early has potentially restored eventual full use. Dixie invites Brackett to a birthday party at her place for Johnny Gage. At the party, Bobby Troup gets his kicks on the piano, and Brackett and the audience are introduced to Roy DeSoto's wife, Joanne (Kathryn Kelly Wiget). Early is said to have a private practice and to be volunteering his time at Rampart. Wolski announces that he just heard from Sacramento that open hearings will be held for the paramedic bill. There's some tension as everyone takes the opportunity to pressure Brackett about it, with Gage being notably antagonistic toward the doctor.
DeSoto and Gage are then back on duty with Dixie in the middle, responding to a car that's overturned on the side of a cliff. The trio climb in through the windows to pull a passenger out, but Dixie is conked out by the rocking car while it's catching fire, and the prospective paramedics push the vehicle over, resulting in the requisite rolling burst into flames. DeSoto and Gage have no choice but to do Dixie's job, calling in to Brackett. This is where DeSoto describes Dixie as "approximately 30"...which is flattering Julie London by approximately 15 years. Against Brackett's orders, the duo treat the victims as qualified help is too far away. Later back at Rampart, Brackett describes to the hospitalized Dixie the good that the proto-paramedics did, while establishing the official story that she was the one who treated the other victims.
Alone with DeSoto and Gage, Brackett is more frank, chewing them out for working unauthorized based on everything that could have gone wrong...but punctuates the moment with a parting compliment for how they did. Early then enters and gives Brackett a taste of his own medicine (pardon the expression), lecturing him about how much good the paramedics did. Brackett subsequently appears before the hearing committee, which is chaired by Herb Vigran. In a stirring, Fridayesque speech, the doctor makes clear his reservations about paramedics, while ultimately offering his support on the basis that they're necessary to save lives.
Proto-paramedic work continues with Nurse Wilma Jacobs (trusty ol' Virginia Gregg) implicitly having been doing the heavy lifting offscreen. On a dark and stormy night, while the bill is in phase one of being voted on, Squad 51 is called to a tunnel cave-in/explosion. On the scene, Gage insists to DeSoto that they not overstep their legal bounds despite the clear need for more medical hands, asserting that he was wrong before and afraid that acting without authorization again could blow the whole program. While the paramedics do rescue work, helping to free trapped victims, the tunnel continues to deteriorate in the deluge. Patients have already been brought to Rampart, where Early and Gray get to work on their multiple fractures.
DeSoto and Gage find themselves tending to a victim having a heart attack who wouldn't survive a trip to the hospital, even as ambulances aren't arriving fast enough. DeSoto calls it in to Brackett, which includes sending vital sign readings. With the victim hovering on the brink of death, Brackett takes the initiative of ordering the paramedics to defib despite the bill not having passed yet. The paramedics are now hesitant, but comply at the doctor's insistence. They're successful in restoring breathing, and Brackett addresses the paramedics as "doctors"...a compliment that Gage take graciously.
At daybreak, as the tunnel area is being evacuated, DeSoto finds a paper reporting that the bill passed and was signed into law late the night before. The two-parter concludes with a closing bookend in which Later Gage drops the figure that county paramedics are handling 8,000 calls a month, before the duo leave for one.
This would easily be the meatiest origin episode of a Mark VII show, and it had more to do, establishing five lead characters for what would be Mark VII's most ambitious series--essentially two half-hour shows, a paramadeic/fire/rescue series and a hospital series, combined as a single hour-long show.
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Mission: Impossible
"Image"
Originally aired January 15, 1972
Wiki said:
When a Syndicate boss threatens to flee the country to avoid prosecution and take a secret list of corrupt officials with him, tarot reader Barney convinces him he has a heretofore unknown (and separated) conjoined twin to get him to divulge the list's location.
Emil Gadsen (George Voskovec), accompanied by his right-hand son Tony Gadsen (Dan Travanty, a.k.a. Daniel J. Travanti), visits Thor Coffin (Warren Stevens), who's attended to by his chief henchman Hauser (Del Monroe). Gadsen informs Coffin of how he plans to leave the country. Gadsen's obligatory list is considered very valuable, and even while he tries to convince Thor to sell his precious stamp collection as a means of moving cash, Gadsen refuses to part with the list.
The miniature reel-to-reel tape in some sort of maintenance building in a park said:
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. For years, this man, Emil Gadsen, has controlled the largest vice operation in the Northeast. Now Gadsen is about to flee the country to avoid a federal indictment, leaving his partner, Thor Coffin, in charge of the organization. The source of Gadsen's power is a secret list of public officials who are on his payroll. Gadsen plans to take the list with him and continue making payoffs from abroad. Conventional law enforcement agencies are unable to interfere. Your mission, Jim, if you decide to accept it, is to get that list, so we can put Gadsen and Coffin out of business for good. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.
Jim goes to Coffin bearing a stamp of interest, while Willy digs into the wine cellar, gets to work on the alarm box, sneaks into a linen closet upstairs, causes an alarm to sound after Jim signals, and breaks into Coffin's safe. Elsewhere, Barney, sporting shades, a goatee, and a Caribbean accent, gives Gadsen a tarot reading and puts notions in his head, which include that he has a brother who was severed from him who's a source of danger. Barney subjects Gadsen to a gas from a cigarette holder that serves as a hypnosis-like conditioning agent. Guest agent Dave Scott (Paul Marin) dons a Casey-crafted Gadsen mask.
Willy is caught at gunpoint by Coffin goon Belkin (Don Gazzaniga) trying to leave through the door with Coffin's stamp album, but gets under the guy's guard and knocks him out. Jim concludes his stamp wheeling and dealing and picks up Willy outside. Gadsen gets a call about a man who could be his twin dining with Casey. The Gadsens go to restaurant to talk with the double, who's supposed to be a professor with Casey posing as his daughter, and it appears that Gadsen is feeling pains (triggered by Barney flashing the Death card) from his twin's heart condition. With his father showing signs of potentially fatal illness, Tony becomes more interested in knowing where the list is. The Professor is then fake abducted by Jim and agent Tom Hawkins (George McCallister Jr.). Gadsen also feels the Professor's pain from his having been fake struck on the head.
Gadsen is examined by IMF doctor Berk (David Frank), who helps sell Barney's ruse about the "Corsican Syndrome" connection between the twins, which includes identifying a scar on Gadsen as having been from the separation. Gadsen assumes the kidnappers were after him, and Barney triggers another attack that motivates him to have his twin freed from the cellar that Barney has seen him being held in. Willy smuggles the Professor and Hawkins into Coffin's cellar through the secret entry he constructed. Tony forces Belkin to take him down to Coffin's cellar, where Willy is fake interrogating the Professor about the list under the fake impression that he's Gadsen, with Gadsen experiencing similar pains. Jim takes the stolen stamp book to another shady collector, Nate Ullstead (Walter Burke), who calls Gadsen about having an opportunity to buy the collection.
Gadsen goes to Jim to force him to reveal how he got into Coffin's house. Jim shows the Gadsens the tunnel into the cellar. When they get to the Professor, he's fake dead, and Jim uses the Death card to trigger another attack in Gadsen. Willy and Hawkins start shooting at the Gadsens and Jim, and Tony persuades his father under duress to tell him where the list is. Gadsen is abandoned and taken out by Willy and Hawkins, with Willy blowing the tunnel behind them. Conventional law enforcement waits at the other end to take the Gadsens into custody, Jim hands over the list, and Scott makes a show of unmasking in front of Gadsen.
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He's lucky he didn't end up in the Village.
Or did he...?
"Six months of physical therapy? That can wait!"
There was a brief mention in the scene with the reporters that Steve had claimed that the gas was a nerve agent that caused his very temporary paralysis.
He threw her under the bus pretty easily.
It was more of a next of kin thing. She didn't get booked, and provided vital info.
Ninety seconds? He was lucky not to be killed or crippled. Or did that part of the plan go awry?
My impression is that the 90-second part is still to come; what happened in this episode was all set-up.
The Evil Twin doesn't even survive to part 2-- that's disappointing. No scene of them in a life-or-death struggle with Danno saying, "I... I don't know which one to shoot!"
Shoot for the hair--the real Steve's will protect him!
Do patrolmen really do undercover work? I thought that was detective work.
Probably not. McCord and/or Webb were bucking to have Reed do detective work.
And why is she back at the club instead of in custody?
Good question.
Have we seen any prior indication that the Bradys are musically inclined? This seems to have come out of nowhere and quickly returned.
Did this actually go anywhere? I don't remember the Bradys being a group.
I recall Greg having performed a song in an earlier episode, and posting a clip of it. I don't recall from childhood viewing if the Brady Six ever returned, but they did put out the album that I posted the tracks from in 1972.
It's not saying "sure-fire hit" to me.
I like it better than the Osmonds. It's more pleasant to the ear, and has a good times-signy vibe.
Why can't he just bang on the tambourine or something?
Greg might have been strumming a guitar, but otherwise they were a vocal combo. At least they're not pretending to have all the kids playing instruments.
Which makes them older than I would have expected-- and it's odd that they haven't aged in twenty years.
Randall would have been in his early 30s in the early '50s, and Klugman pushing 30. I think we were just supposed to squint past the actual ages of the actors in the flashbacks. Now Janis Hansen, she would have been 10-ish!
That's true. I wonder if they had any banning issues.
In the States they played "Ruby Tuesday" on the radio instead, and it became the #1. I guess you could say that Mick was rolling his eyes to the bank.
