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50th Anniversary Viewing
(Part 2)
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Ironside
"Up, Down, and Even"
Originally aired January 9, 1969
Wiki said:
Eve tries to help her niece who's been arrested on a second narcotics [charge], bringing teenage mores and the generation gap into the fold.
This week's top-billed guest is Alfred Ryder as Sgt. John Darga.
Yes, it's a Very Special Episode of
Ironside. Kim (Susan O'Connell) was already on probation when she was busted based on the smell of marijuana coming from her car (which seems like a flimsy basis for a charge), though she tells her parents (Richard Anderson and Rachel Ames) that she was just smoking Turkish cigarettes. Her one shot at not getting sent to a girls' school is to tell the authorities where she got the drugs that they apparently didn't find.
This episode uses a couple of songs--music by William Goldenberg, lyrics by Richard McLelland, but the female vocalist isn't identified. The first, "The Melody Man," is a soft song that vaguely reminds me of "Windmills of Your Mind". It plays a few times in the episode, including in the post-intro credits. The second, "Anywhere," has a funky, Aretha-ish vibe, and plays over a scene of Kim being taken on a visit to the girls' school, which is basically a prison.
Ann said:
Stay outta here! Do anything you have to, but stay outta here! It's a real bummer!
Remaining unreptentant, Kim tells Aunt Eve not to knock marijuana if she hasn't tried it, and plays the "victimless crime" card, portraying herself as a victim of the law. Eve has twin beds for some reason...I can only assume that she's having an affair with Ricky Ricardo or Rob Petrie.
Meanwhile, keeping with the episode's theme, Ed does a substitute teaching gig out of the blue, just so he can find that one of the students is stoned in class. This leads to a Very Special Expository Discussion between the principal and Team Ironside.
Kim busts out of Eve's place overnight, and the following day happens to be the day of a planned drug inspection at the school that had gotten around through the grapevine. Drugs are found in her locker at school. Ironside tracks down a group of Kim's truant friends and lectures to them about how dealing drugs is a crime just like burglary.
Team Ironside finds Kim staying with a young man named Terry, who has a pad somewhere in the vicinity of some establishing shots of Haight-Ashbury and was a fellow arrestee at the party that was the source of Kim's probation. Mark finds bags of week in the bottom of a cereal box. Terry faces a contributing to the delinquency charge, but says that Kim was the one who turned him on. In the end, she gets sent to the school.
I can appreciate what they were trying to do here, and it was all very timely...but I dunno, Very Special Team Ironside make Friday and Gannon look cool.
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Star Trek
"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"
Originally aired January 10, 1969
Stardate 5730.2
H&I said:
The Enterprise finds itself host to two alien beings from the same planet, who share an intense and self-destructive hatred of each other.
See my post here.
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Adam-12
"Log 36: Jimmy Eisley's Dealing Smack"
Originally aired January 11, 1969
Wiki said:
In between trying to find a suitable headlining performer for the department party, Malloy and Reed break up a narcotics ring when they raid the apartment of a dope pusher. Reed, chairman of the party's entertainment committee, finally finds his performer when he serves a subpoena on a country music entertainer who is a witness in a tax case.
While Reed's despondent over all of his entertainment options having been shot down by the other officers in the locker room, they come across Teejay on the backlot, who gives them the tip about Jimmy Eisley's drug deal. This time the details are vague enough that they're assigned to handle it, with the option of calling for backup if it pans out.
Back on patrol they spot a young woman with a child waiting at the same bus stop that they'd seen her at an hour previously. It turns out that they're from out of town, haven't had anything to eat, and the woman, Ellen Harris (Jenny Sullivan), confesses to having reluctantly stolen a box of cookies from a nearby market. Malloy makes a call and says that he's taking them to the Salvation Army. Ellen breaks into tears, thinking that she was going to jail, but Malloy promises to smooth things over with the store manager.
After dark, they drive stealthily into the alley behind the house where the deal is taking place (from which loud stock groovy music emanates) and inspect the garbage cans for evidence. They quietly apprehend one man coming out of the house and find out how many are inside, then call in for backup. Once it arrives, they take to the front door and start arresting and questioning. Eisley (William Mims) insists that nobody's been shooting up there. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the officers are stumped as to the location of the stash itself...until Malloy finally discovers it hanging inside the bathtub drain.
The officers then proceed to deliver their subpoena to Randy Tait, a famous folk singer. We never see the fictional celebrity, but find out later in the locker room that Reed was successful in recruiting him, much to the delight of the other officers. Cozi chose to cut out the audio of part of the coda for a
Quincy split-screen commercial, but there was some sort of denouement involving having to raise the price of the tickets.
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Get Smart
"The Day They Raided the Knights"
Originally aired January 11, 1969
Wiki said:
It's budget-cutting time at CONTROL and 99, who has less seniority, is temporarily laid off. Rather than be idle, she manages to find a job at a stamp redemption center (the late 1960s was the heyday of S & H Green Stamps). However, the redemption center is a KAOS munitions depot that CONTROL has been actively looking for. With most of the CONTROL agents away from town on a false lead, KAOS uses the opportunity to distribute its new weapon to its agents: a stereophonic gun (two guns mounted left-right on a common trigger base). Will 99 be able to alert CONTROL in time? The title is a parody of the movie The Night They Raided Minsky's.
Guesting Nancy Kovack as KAOS agent Sonja, who hires 99 at Knight's Stamp Redemption Center. At one point a black hippie comes in to redeem his stamps for a George Wallace poster and a set of darts.
The stereophonic pistol is a pretty silly threat that doesn't look terribly practical. For starters, it's about the width of four pistols...how could you wear it concealed?
After 99 is captured calling in, the Chief and Larabee go to the Redemption Center dressed as old women, but are also captured, so believe it or not, it's Max to the rescue. In the long shots of the fight/chase through the back storage room, Max's stunt double is really obvious--his hair looks nothing like Adams's. When one of the KAOS agents gets the drop on him and tries to shoot him with one of the guns, the twist is that the manufacturers took the order literally, and made twin-gun-shaped radios.
99's reflex of hitting Max when he sneaks up on her at home comes up again.
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Hogan's Heroes
"Who Stole My Copy of Mein Kampf?"
Originally aired January 11, 1969
Wiki said:
The team has second thoughts about following London’s orders when they learn their assassination target is a woman (Ruta Lee).
Hogan assumes that their target is a man because her name is Leslie, so they plan to kill him with an exploding electric razor. When the Colonel tries to deliver it in disguise and finds that he's a woman, baby, he backs out of the plan, because there are some things you just don't do even in espionage and war.
But because his orders were actually to "silence" her, and she's a propaganda broadcaster who's presenting Klink with an award for Stalag 13's record, Hogan's Plan B is to let her think that he's vocally pro-Hitler, such that she wants to bring him on her program as well. Once he's on the air, he's effusive in his backhanded praise for the Fuhrer, which results in Leslie being taken into custody by the Gestapo--You have to wonder if that's a more gentlemanly fate to condemn her to! Hitler's personal orders regarding Colonel Hogan: "If this man ever attempts to escape, let him!"
DIS-miiissed!
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Actually, I'm surprised they did a torture story about a woman in those days.
Well, it effectively involved scaring her into talking...and M:I's sister show was known for having its main female officer telling the captain how frightened she was.
At least I remembered them.
But do they sound like the '50s...?
They're the band that needs no introduction-- or comment.
But do they...no, I'm afraid to ask.
