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50th Anniversary Viewing
(Part 1)
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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 21, episode 18
Originally aired February 16, 1969
As represented in
The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Oddly, tv.com indicates that Blood, Sweat & Tears weren't here to perform their about-to-chart first hit single...only what was shown on
Best of, the album track "Smiling Phases," which was written by members of, and originally recorded by, the band Traffic. I couldn't find a clip of BS&T's performance, but
here's the studio recording. It's a good vehicle for their distinctive jazz-rock style. During the instrumental section, the pianist doubles as conductor for the horn section, while the singer contributes with gong and triangle.
Caterina Valente, whom tv.com indicates had already been performing solo in the episode, introduces her brother, Silvio Francesco, who proceeds to play "Turkish Rondo" on clarinet while she sings along--I think her part is scat-singing, but it could be really fast Italian for all I know! It is pretty impressive.
Finally, we have "Austria's plate-spinning Erich Brenn". He's actually spinning clear bowls up on the poles while he keeps a series of plates going down on the table. He also briefly balances a tray of eggs on a pole with his forehead. The clip below is longer than what we see on
Best of, but they actually edit out the egg-balancing bit. You see him preparing the tray and then they cut to him minding the plates and bowls.
Also in the original episode according to tv.com:
Music:
--Arthur Godfrey and the Young Americans - "A Tall Oak Tree" (includes Arthur Godfrey giving a speech about the environment along with other issues).
--The Young Americans - medley of songs including "Georgy Girl," "Tammy" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie."
--Caterina Valente - "Malaguena," "The Look of Love" and "That Old Black Magic."
Comedy:
--Rodney Dangerfield - "No Respect" routine.
--Fiore & Eldridge (comedy team) - Blind Date sketch.
Also appearing:
--The Rios Brothers (balancing act)
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Mission: Impossible
"Doomsday"
Originally aired February 16, 1969
Wiki said:
When a nearly bankrupt European industrialist (Alf Kjellin) tries to recover his fortune by selling a nuclear bomb to the highest bidder, the IMF must keep the weapon out of the hands of third-world nations.
The reused footage of a reel-to-reel tape in a red call box in a park said:
This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.
Jim's explanation in the briefing of how the general that Rollin's replacing is being kept out of the picture by plane trouble suggests that there are other operatives out there handling that end of things. Jim and Cin ally themselves with one of the interested parties, Kura (Arthur Batanidas), so that she can serve as his scientific adviser. Barney uses an interview at the company of the industrialist, Vandaam, as a cover for getting into a ventilation shaft via two elevator shafts with a boxload of equipment, from which he gets to the bomb from above and swaps out its plutonium.
Cin and Jim have little active role in the scheme for most of the episode, while Rollin being among the bidders doesn't seem to have any purpose in the scheme, other than stalling to unsuccessfully prevent somebody from going back into the bomb chamber while Barney's working there...he's just there to be there, and eventually just withdraws from the bidding and leaves. Willy is barely in the episode, he just plays Jim's heavy, and Jim is out of the picture for a good hunk of the episode once he gets Cin in with Kura. Barney's doing all the work without any help from them.
The basis for the operation doesn't make a lot of sense, either. The plutonium is stolen, so why does the thief have to be an industrialist? They say right in the episode that anybody can build a bomb, they just need the plutonium...so why does he bother building one? Why not just sell the plutonium?
Filler alert: Barney has two moments of hanging in the elevator shaft by tenuously grasping a horizontal bar, which I'm pretty sure used the same shots.
This one has kind of a similar twist to "The Glass Cage"--when Vandaam realizes the plutonium has been switched, he attempts to proceed with the sale while deceiving the bidders.
Once Jim is back in the picture, Willy uses a trick suitcase to replace the briefcase full of money from the bank with another one that has money rigged for burning via remote. Cin finally serves a purpose late in the scheme when she demands to inspect the plutonium after Kura wins the bidding. Then Kura demands his money back and finds that it's gone, leading him to have his heavy (Sid Haig) shoot Vandaam.
Barney does the only thing that's really necessary in the scheme, which is steal the plutonium. Overall, the episode seems like an overly simple, practically one-man heist scheme that's loaded with filler. The scheme doesn't have any interesting layers.
Also guesting Khigh Dhiegh (Wo Fat from
Hawaii Five-O) as one of the bidders and Philip Ahn as his scientific adviser. Kind of a waste of two such distinctive actors who could have carried their own plot.
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The Avengers
"Fog"
Originally aired February 17, 1969 (US); March 12, 1969 (UK)
Wiki said:
The Gaslight Ghoul, a Victorian mass murderer similar to Jack the Ripper, strikes again a century later. In a fog-shrouded London, the Ghoul is intent on assassinating all the foreign delegates attending the international disarmament conference. Steed invents a fictitious additional Gaslight Ghoul murder in order to investigate a gentlemen's club, dedicated to uncovering the identity of the Ghoul, which Steed suspects is involved in the new killings.
You can tell from the description that this is going to be back to the tired ol' formula, but it has a decent pace and a novel atmosphere, with the bulk of the episode set on foggy, cobblestone streets; and the eccentricity of the club is a bit entertaining.
The episode opens with the gag of a "Visit Sunny Britain" sign on display on a foggy set of a train station. Mother's driving around in a Jeep with a beacon light, a radar antenna, and flags, making it look sort of like a ship.
Steed's faked murder is a forgery that he has Tara make in his aunt's diary. The club has an even faker foggy street set inside their headquarters...about on par with some of the minimalist sets in
Batman Season 3.
In the climax, Steed shows off his "instinctive reflex training" that lets him catch one thrown saber and deflect several others. The killer, whom I had trouble distinguishing from at least one of the other club members, gives himself away by dropping a Poe reference to one of the victims, after having told Steed that Poe was his favorite author. He's wants to stop the conference--which pretty much fades into the background once Steed starts investigating the club--because he's in the armaments trade.
The sun comes out for the first time at the end of the episode. In the coda, Tara's apartment is filled with fog because of a malfunctioning air conditioning system, and Mother accidentally drives into it (off camera).
Steed actually does have flowers in a tuba in his apartment...I'd never noticed that.
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Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Season 2, episode 20
Originally aired February 17, 1969
The Wiki list of guest appearances said:
Jack Benny, James Drury, James Garner, Guy Lombardo, Gina Lollobrigida, Doug McClure, Tiny Tim
The opening bit, with this week's main guest star (who gets a lot more clips on YouTube than Davy Jones did).
There's no Dan & Dick routine before the opening cocktail party, but there is one after the commercial that follows.
Tiny Tim sings the news song:
The costumes worn by the other cast members in the number are Valentines-themed, even though this aired three days after.
This episode's Potpourri segment, which include James Drury and Doug McClure from
The Virginian:
The Fickle Finger of Fate goes to New York's Finest.
Judy does another Campus Report.
Laugh-In Salutes the Good Ole Days (already in progress in the clip below, following a commercial break in the middle of the segment):
Guy Lombardo said:
I'm Guy Lombardo, and when I go, I'm taking New Year's Eve with me.
In the segment's intro, not shown here, they used a negative effect on Judy doing the bikini dance.
Jack Riley's LBJ gives a brief farewell speech.
The closing Joke Wall, featuring Tiny Tim:
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The Mod Squad
"The Uptight Town"
Originally aired February 18, 1969
Wiki said:
The Squad searches for Greer, who has disappeared while vacationing in a little desert town.
It seems like every show did this episode in some form, from
Route 66 to
Mission: Impossible.
While the Mod Trio are driving in the California desert, we get an interesting Linc tidbit: "My whole life I've never been this far away from concrete." Also, this sign-o-the-times-and-place insight: "A year ago, I wouldn't give two pop bottles for a cop."
Guesting Jason Evers as the local sheriff, who's billed as..."Sheriff". Lou Gossett is back as Lloyd, who runs the local service station...a "jive grease monkey" in Linc's parlance. If I hadn't already seen his name on IMDb, I just might have recognized him this time because of his facial hair. Both are among the conspiring townspeople.
The Squad sniffs out early on that the conspiracy has something to do with Donna Jennings, a mysterious selectively mute girl whom they almost run over in the road. Donna's father runs a local hotel that, predictably enough, doesn't want guests. After witnessing a dispute between Mr. Jennings and his drunk cook, Linc brings the cook a bottle of booze to loosen his tongue, and finds out that a man was lynched in the town.
I got a little
Rat Patrol nostalgia when the Mods confronted Lloyd in the desert and it turned into a set for the close-ups.
Eventually the conspirators round up the Mods at gunpoint and Jennings wants to kill them using a cover story. Pete figures out that they haven't offed Greer, who witnessed the lynching, because the Sheriff can't bring himself to kill a fellow cop. Thus Pete plays the unusual card of dropping the Squad's covers, letting them know that they're about to kill a total of four cops, and that Chief Metcalf will only be sending more to investigate their deaths.
There's a twist when Donna reveals that she wasn't attacked by the man they hanged...she loved him consensually.
With the Sheriff's cooperation , the Mods rescue Greer in the nick of time from being drowned in his car by the deputy (who looks distractingly like a Will Ferrell character).
Julie: A stranger...and they just hung him. Why?
Pete: You already said why. He was a stranger.
Linc: For some people that's enough.
Pete: But it'll change. The world's gotta change.
Linc: I just wanna be around to see it.
And...uptight town walk-off...well, walk to the woody. Woody walk?
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Really nice song. Stealth brilliance in those lyrics.
Co-written by Smokey Robinson and fellow Miracle Bobby Rogers. You can hear a lot of Smokey in the stuff that he wrote for other groups.
Good song, good advice, and it sounds like the 50s. early 60s.
That's what I have to do in my head.
Holy crap, that's like a recovered memory from a hypnosis session. I'm remembering my Mother singing this to me when I was a kid.
I should charge a fee.
Somebody should do a compilation album of all the songs about the Beatle's hair.
This one has a nice sound...between that and the fact that it's available in good quality in that Cameo-Parkway collection, I'm tempted to get it.
Cool, catchy song. That's the happy 60s.
The better side of bubblegum.
This is pretty good. Steppenwolf was a decent band.
Maybe it'll grow on me in playlist listening, but this one is utterly forgettable, in stark contrast to their other two major hits.
Great song, possibly his best.
His contributions in this era continue to be pleasant.
"Thank you for the words of wisdom, Mrs Darwin."
Jerry's got a great voice...very smooth.
Another great song from a great band.
The first in a surprisingly small string of major hits this year.
I've never been that mush of a fan, and I do not give them the overused credit for being some revelation in hard rock/blues fusion, when their former incarnation (the underrated Yardbirds), The Rolling Stones, The Who and Cream all stepped on that bridge before the creation of Led Zeppelin.
Others may have started down the road, but they went further.
