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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)
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Adam-12
"Routine Patrol: The Drug Store Cowboys"
Originally aired February 12, 1974
MeTV said:
Malloy and Reed begin today's patrol by responding to a call of a drunken woman threatening the patrons of a bar with a handgun. Afterwards, they search for a group of four carjackers who go on a robbery spree after targeting a man with a cache of guns in his trunk, and investigate the suspicious death of a mentally disabled man.
The officers are discussing Pete's date when they're assigned a call for a 390 W with a gun at a bar. Hearing the woman (Jo Anne Meredith) making a drunken commotion inside, they wait until backup arrives before busting in and getting the drop on her. It turns out that she was threatening the bartender (Buddy Lester) and a couple of other patrons with a starter pistol.
Next they're called to a 415 fight. When they get to the scene, they're flagged down by a beaten-up Fred Wheeler (Bill Williams, sporting what looks distinctly like Mentor's jacket from
Shazam!), who describes how a carload of four younger men dressed in the subtitular fashion ran him off the road, beat him up, and stole his car; while other cars drove by without stopping; and informs the officers that he had two .45 automatics and a .44 magnum in his trunk, as he was either going to or coming home from a shooting range.
After that is a 211 at a service station, where day man Dave Moss (Jim B. Smith) describes how he was held up by three men with guns, dressed as Wheeler described, who left their old vehicle there.
Responding to a DB report, the officers are met by ambulance driver Al Guinn (Robert DoQui), who tells them how a tenant with brain damage, Donald Shore, had electrocuted himself with an electric comb in the tub according to the man's wife, Audrey (Rachel Romen); but he thinks she was putting on an act. The officers find that the details on the scene don't match her story that he took the comb from the sink, which would have involved getting out of the tub, and call it in as a possible murder.
During a seven at a food stand called in during the commercial, Mac drops by to update the officers that Mrs. Shore has copped to the murder, and implicated her apartment manager boyfriend as an accomplice. Fishing for a lead on the subtitular case, the officers spend their patrol hitting C&W bars looking for the suspects' stolen vehicle. Prints from the old vehicle identify two of the suspects as the Arnold brothers from Albuquerque, with the others possibly being their cousins, the Bateses. Continuing their search, the officers find a match for the vehicle, which has been recently painted. Then shots are fired at them from behind the cover of other cars, cutting them off from their own vehicle. Malloy keeps the suspects occupied in an exchange of fire, wounding one of them, while Reed maneuvers behind parked cars to a position where he has the drop on them. The suspects are arrested and backup arrives.
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Hawaii Five-O
"Mother's Deadly Helper"
Originally aired February 12, 1974
Wiki said:
An extremist (Anthony Zerbe) embarks on a deadly crusade against what he sees as law enforcement leniency.
In court, D.A. Manicote requests a postponement of his case against Joseph "Happy" Furika--charged with having been hired to kill a man named Contrero who was threatening to make trouble by being elected to a union board--because of a missing witness. Heeding the objections of defense attorney Derringer (Ted Scott), Judge Bergstrom (Frank Cady) dismisses the charges.
An ominous figure (Zerbe) watches from the stands with interest, and after court is adjourned, retrieves a wrapped rifle from his trunk and climbs up to a rooftop, from which he assassinates Furika, denying him the opportunity for a credited role. The assassin calmly leaves the scene in a car sporting a "Support your local police" bumper sticker. A poorly written letter is found declaring the killer's intention to keep helping Five-O in this manner...addressing Steve by first name and signed "Mother's Helper". Steve drops a bit of wisdom that's more true today than ever...
McGarrett: Right or left, the lunatic fringe is always ready to take things into its own hands. That's one thing they share in common.
We see that Mother's Helper works at an arcade, where he takes particular interest in fixing the rifle of a shooting game. When he learns that a Patsy Lahao has been approved for parole, MH stakes out the state prison and follows Lahao. Che determines that MH used a forty-year-old model of typewriter; while Danno turns up a potential suspect named Elroy Wheeler, who has a record for assault and is known to be a law-and-order fanatic, but he later turns out to be hospitalized. Steve gets another letter, indicating Lahao as MH's next victim. Five-O rushes to Lahao's place and find him hanging, with another note pinned to him.
The letter refers to Lahao as "commie scum," which doesn't fit the victim's history. Che's unable to find any prints at the scene. MH sits in on another trial in which Judge Bergstrom gives a lenient probation to a pair of young ADW offenders, on the condition that they'll be sentenced if they commit another offense. The vigilante then proceeds to write another letter to Steve in which he indicates that he'll be taking a more proactive approach..."preventive medicine". McGarrett deduces that MH plans to go after the judges, whom he's been describing as bleeding hearts and pinkos. Looking to flush MH out, Steve calls Freddie Dryden, a local talk show host he's not fond of who's been trying to get McGarrett on his show...
Live in the studio, we get the Battle of the Seventies--Jack Lord vs. Casey Kasem!--as Dryden questions McGarrett about the parole system only to put answers in his mouth to score antiestablishment points.
When McGarrett gives his counterargument, MH leaves his back office to put on the TV in the arcade and make the kids watch. Even as MH's hero worship of McGarrett becomes evident, Steve addresses the anonymous public-minded citizen he's been in touch with, expressing an interest in discussing the issue with him.
After a few days, MH calls Steve to arrange for a meeting via a series of pay phone relays. Steve has himself wired for sound, and when MH specifies that he ride from one phone to another in a cab, Steve has Ben promptly arrange to sub for the driver. At the next phone, MH arranges for Steve to meet him at a funeral that he was reading about in the paper...then heads for the Department of Labor, where he offers to pay a man in an unemployment line (Richard Villard) to help him pull off a gag. The two of them are attending the funeral when McGarrett arrives, and MH has Jobless Guy approach Steve with a note requesting a rendezvous in the mausoleum. Five-O tips its hand, Steve and Ben pulling their weapons and the latter tackling the man, while MH watches from afar. MH slips away with the funeral procession, but leaves behind his car, which identifies him as Cord McKenzie and includes a rifle in the trunk just to ensure Five-O that they're on the right track.
Prints help Five-O determine that Cord McKenzie is an alias for former North Dakota National Guardsman Lester Smith, whose known to have beat up student demonstrators and presided over a vigilante group. Danno belatedly recognizes his alias as the name of a Western character in a pulp magazine series that he read as a kid. MH abducts Judge Bergstrom and calls McGarrett, holding the judge hostage to arrange a paid getaway from the islands. Che uses an oscillograph to break down background noises from tapes of MH's calls. The sounds of gunfire, bowling pins, bells, and traffic indicate a penny arcade, which Five-O narrows down to one in MH's area of operation, Jollyland. Five-O swoops in and MH busts out a back window, leading to a brief chase that ends with Smith finding himself surrounded in an alley.
Smith: You said you thought like I did!
McGarrett: Thought like you!?! No way! No way. You set yourself up as judge, jury, and executioner. I'm just a cop! Book him, murder one!
As he's dragged away, Smith promises to seek vengeance against McGarrett when he gets out on parole.
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Ironside
"The Taste of Ashes"
Originally aired February 14, 1974
Frndly said:
The surprise return of a family's daughter is preceded by the murder of her brother.
Ironside is paying a visit to Joanna Portman (loather of bananas Kim Hunter) and her son, Walter (James Keach)...the latter of whom the Chief, at an earlier point in his career, had brought home when he got lost as a boy. Joanna gets a letter that causes her to faint--signed by her daughter, Gail, who'd run away as a teenager and is believed to have been killed in a commune fire (which is supposed to have happened in 1963--Were communes even a thing yet then?). The Chief learns that Walter has been intercepting such letters recently, and they're why he called Ironside to visit. When the Chief raises the possibility that the letters may actually be from Gail, he finds curious Walter's investment in not wanting that to be so. Other potential suspects we meet along the way are family attorney Simon Cole (Whit Bissell), who's been managing the estate since the death of Mr. Portman a year earlier; and housekeeper Lily (Anne Seymour), who'd been Walter's accomplice in keeping the letters a secret from the health-challenged Mrs. Portman. The trail of letters indicates that Gail was gradually traveling to Frisco; and Walter is subsequently found dead in what was made to appear to be a burglary with an incidental beating, during which the letters have come up missing; though it's later found that Walter was actually strangled. Then a woman arrives claiming to be Gail (Gretchen Corbett), accompanied by her husband, Philip Thomas (Scott Hylands).
Cole emphatically protests to Joanna and the Chief that the woman claiming to be Gail has to be an imposter who's after the estate. The Chief talks to Gail, whose lampshading for why she looks different (post-fire plastic surgery) and doesn't remember some things (drug history) are so conspicuous that they made me think that she had to be telling the truth. Fran is assigned to keep an eye on things at Stately Portman Manor, and by night finds cars running in the closed garage over which Gail and Philip have been set up in an apartment, with the couple choking their way downstairs in their jammies.
Lily also questions whether Gail is really Gail, but Mrs. Portman refuses to hear such talk. Mark investigates the surgical history of Sally Meyer, the commune member whose identity Gail is supposed to have assumed in the aftermath of the fire to fake her death; and Philip catches Fran searching the van that the couple arrived in, where she's found the missing letters. Ed questions a bum named Hobbs (James McCallion) who tried to hock a piece of Joanna's jewelry, which he says he found in the trash. The Chief warns Joanna that he believes she's in danger, and later at the Cave confronts Cole over how he's been funneling the estate's assets to a shady corporation in what initially appeared to be mismanagement. He admits to having been found out and confronted by Walter, but insists that he last saw Walter alive. At Portman Manor, Joanna announces to the Thomases that she wants to travel with them and close the house. Phillip seems more onboard with the idea than Gail.
As Mrs. P is retiring to bed, Gail visits her to express an unexpected love. In the middle of the night, Fran and Mrs. P, who'd been hiding in Fran's adjoining room, catch a figure stealthing up to Joanna's bed to smother her with a pillow--Lily, who breaks down expressing her resentment of having slaved for the family for twenty years, and how she would have gotten away with her scheme to set herself up as the only potential heir if not for those blasted kids showing up. In the aftermath at the Cave, Gail admits to what Ironside has deduced--that she really is Sally Meyer, whose hoax was coincidental to Walter's murder. When Joanna arrives, the Chief is about to have Sally 'fess up to her, but Joanna doesn't want to hear it...making it clear between the lines that she knows the truth, but wants to go on treating Sally as Gail anyway.
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The Brady Bunch
"Top Secret"
Originally aired February 15, 1974
IMDb said:
After Mike gets a visit from an FBI agent and Sam comes to him with some secret plans, Bobby and Oliver believe that Sam is a spy.
Bobby's trying to impress Oliver by building a house of cards when Fred Sanders from the FBI (Don Fenwick) comes to the door, asking to see Mike. While he insists to the boys when asked that nobody's in trouble, they start to let their imaginations take over. Carol learns in Mike's den that it's about getting Mike a routine security clearance for a government building that he's working on. Later Sam (Allan Melvin's last appearance in the role) drops in with some rolled-up plans wanting to see Mike, keeping his purpose a mystery to the ladies while hinting that it will be of interest to Alice; and subsequently tells Bobby and Oliver that the plans he's carrying are "top secret". While the ladies get the idea that it has something to do with building a house for marrying Alice, Sam actually asks Mike for professional help in seeking to expand his shop by acquiring an adjacent property. Bobby decides to get more info about Sam's purpose by asking Alice about him.
Oliver: Boy, you sure do know how to operate.
Bobby: Well, thanks...I used to watch Mission: Impossible a lot.
All they get is that she met him while he was in the Army and that he's an "unbudgeable bachelor". The boys then make an excuse to visit Sam's store to ask him about his service...and he unknowingly feeds the flames by telling them a tall tale about stealing an enemy code book. Then a Mr. Gronsky drops in (Lew Palter) to ask Sam if he's gotten plans from Mr. Brady...and the boys come to the conclusion that Sam's a double agent trying to steal plans from Mike for Gronsky.
The older boys are incredulous at Bobby and Oliver's allegations concerning Sam...
Greg: You mean you think he's selling hamburger to both sides?
Sam arranges to have Mike leave the plans in his den for Sam to pick up later. Carol and Alice's efforts to "accidentally" get the plans to drop out of an envelope prove unsuccessful. The boys witness Sam rushing out with the plans and Bobby tries to dial Mike to warn him.
Oliver (in anticipation): Oh, I only wish we had a push-button phone!
At the shop, Sam and Gronsky look over the plans and call Mike to come over and explain a few things. The boys, in their effort to contact Mike, learn that he's on his way to Sam's and rush to get there first. They get nervous when Sam continues his war story while brandishing his cleaver for emphasis. When Gronsky returns and Sam goes to show him the freezer, the boys take a cue from Sam's story and employ the element of surprise, locking them in. Mike arrives to find Sam and Gronsky trapped in the freezer and the boys trying to explain how Sam's an enemy agent. After they're released, Sam and Gronsky have a good laugh about it.
Sam: This is one spy who's glad he came in from the cold!
In the coda, Sam doesn't understand why Alice is so upset when he tells her what the secret plans are for.
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I just realized April will be 40 years since my first Billy Joel concert and March will be 30 years since my last.
I was at this one:
