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55th Anniversary Viewing
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Gilligan's Island
"It's Magic"
Originally aired May 15, 1965
Wiki said:
A magician's trunk washes ashore and the castaways learn tricks to scare away natives. But after Gilligan causes trouble with a magic trick, he hides out in a cave and the castaways try to get him back.
Actually, Gilligan catches the trunk while fishing. Ginger has experience working with a magician, so she knows how to use the gear, and the Professor comes up with the idea of learning tricks to scare natives, even though they're not currently having a problem. Mrs. Howell, for example, learns how to tear up a five-dollar bill and put it back together...
Thurston: Yes, you've rearranged Lincoln--his beard is now on the top of his head.
Lovey: Oh, how charming, I've made a Beatle out of him!
Gilligan causes some mishaps trying his tricks, which culminates in ruining breakfast when he tries to pull the tablecloth out from under it, following which he overhears the other castaways talking smack about him. When Ginger enlists his aid in performing a disappearing cabinet trick, he takes the opportunity to stay disappeared.
But Gilligan proves easy to find because he left a sign outside of his cave. The castaways try to lure him out with offerings of food, blankets, and a certain teddy bear. When that doesn't work, they decide to throw him a party, and to have the men wear monster masks from the trunk to scare him away from the cave. When they do, he accidentally switches a bowl of flash powder that he intends to use on the monsters with Mary Ann's bowl of flour. Having been taken back in before he had a chance to use the flour, when he blows out the candles of his cake it explodes, but only to comical effect.
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50th Anniversary Viewing
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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 22, episode 31
Originally aired May 10, 1970
As represented in
The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Ed said:
From Gary, Indiana, here's the youthful Jackson 5...
The Jacksons perform an enjoyable medley of their two number one singles to date, "I Want You Back" and "ABC". An excerpt of the latter:
Ed said:
Now from Alabama! Southern gentleman Sonny James singing his latest hit, "My Love".
James performs a cringey easy country listening version of the song best known for Petula Clark's rendition...which was indeed a big hit for him on the country chart (charted Apr. 25, 1970; #125 US; #1 Country).
Here's the studio version. tv.com indicates that he also performed a number called "Waterloo," which I assume wouldn't be the ABBA song at this point.
Ed said:
Now George Carlin as the vacation expert tells you what to do and what not to do.
Carlin offers some comical tips, such as letting yourself drown so as not to ruin other people's vacations, before taking questions from Ed.
Ed said:
I visited them in Vegas...the Four Step Brothers...
This youthful quartet of acrobatic dancers is misidentified onscreen as The Little Step Brothers. I couldn't find a match for this performance on tv.com, so I'm including them here, as all of the other segments in its
Best of installment were from this date.
The group had a history of rotating membership going back to the 1920s.
Ed said:
Michaels's Connie Francis impersonation is a lot more dated here than it was in 55th anniversary business. She also does Barbra Streisand and opera singer Roberta Peters.
Seems like somebody was a little overdue to update their routine.
Ed said:
From Iowa, Roger Williams!
The pianist performs an instrumental piece identified as "Mas Que Nada":
tv.com indicates that he also did a medley of Irving Berlin numbers.
Ed said:
Right now, here they are again singing "The Love You Save" from their new album, ABC.
The Jacksons give the television audience an energetic preview of their next number one, which was released three days after this broadcast (charts May 30, 1970; #1 US the weeks of June 27 and July 4, 1970; #1 R&B; #7 UK).
Also in the original episode according to tv.com:
Music:
--Gino Tonetti - "This Is My Life."
Comedy:
--Don Rickles (stand-up routine)
Also appearing:
--Peter Gennaro (dancer, with 6 female dancers).
On film: Don Rickles appears with Clint Eastwood on the "Kelly's Heroes" movie set.
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Get Smart
"I Am Curiously Yellow"
Originally aired May 15, 1970
Series finale
Wiki said:
While investigating a villain known as the Whip, Max is hypnotized by his special gong to obey his every command at specific times. Max is eventually instructed to steal the NARCO 5–12, a powerful prototype weapon, from the Chief's safe. When the Chief confronts Max about the theft, he has no recollection of it. A spoof of I Am Curious (Yellow). Series finale.
Not a flattering note for the show to go out on...not only is the villain a white actor in Fu Manchu get-up, but the title itself appears to be a reference to the Asian motif of the episode. This includes all sorts of lame Chinese-themed gags, like the Whip not wanting to waste food because "people are starving all over America".
Max looks into the gong being struck while spying on the Whip (Robert Middleton) and his henchman, Abe Fu Yung (Victor Sen Yung). When it's doing its thing, it makes a psychedelic light pattern play over the victim's face. Being under its influence changes Max's personality, making him more romantic toward 99. She and the Chief figure out what's going on after Max is caught stealing the weapon.
Sign o' the time tech: The NARCO 5-12 operates with the help of a computer program on a cassette tape. As part of the ruse to nab the Whip, Max brings him a cassette with rock music on it...
The Whip: You make a mistake, Mister Smart, you bring the wrong cassette!
Max (handing him another cassette): Uh, would you like to try Glen Campbell?
After the Whip is dealt with, Larabee strikes the gong, hypnotizing the Chief, and proceeds to roll off a list of commands.
And that's our last scripted episode of the 1969-70 season, and the last of
Get Smart. If it pops up on Decades, I'd be willing to squeeze its earlier seasons into 55th anniversary business.
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Groovy! I should check to see if we've got it, too.
I was doing my occasional random check and saw new info under Where to Watch indicating that a Comcast channel from NYC was coming soon, so seeing that they were about to do a
Mannix binge, I did a voice remote search for that, and voila. It looks like the info for Boston is still the same: "Over the air," "Please check back for future channel updates". But if you have a voice remote, you can try looking for
T.J. Hooker next weekend. Or if your retro channels tend to be blocked together, look around that area. (All of mine except Me are between the 920s and 940s.)
And especially timely as I'd just run out of
Laugh-In and was about to run out of whole seasons of
Sullivan. And those two and
Get Smart were the last things that I recorded on Decades. They'll be getting into Season 4 of
Laugh-In next week, so especially good timing there. As for
Sullivan, I was holding onto some odds and ends from the '70-'71 season from mixed episodes, but hadn't been saving that far ahead when I last had Decades, and thus had nothing from the '65-'66 or '66-'67 seasons. I've started to cherry-pick episodes from the needed seasons by cross-referencing the episode data on the Decades site against tv.com. (And FWIW, the cable guide info for the show seems more accurate than it was on my old Decades affiliate.)
I went ahead and deleted Season 2 of
The Invaders so I could let the new recordings roll for a while without fretting over space. And Season 1 would be next to go. I'll be recording the last Season 1 episode of
M*A*S*H from Me today. That could also go if needed, as I was recording that a season farther ahead than I typically go. If it stays in Me's line-up, they'll get back to Season 1 again soon enough at twelve episodes a week.
What's particularly nice is that for the first time I have the trinity of Weigel retro channels all at the same time: Me, H&I, and Decades. I'm wondering if they still have
Get Smart for bingeing, in which case I may have an opportunity to grab the earlier seasons for 55th anniversary viewing. And I know they were doing
Mod Squad binges fairly recently, so that may be on the table again as well. I'm also thinking of grabbing at least the first season of
Mary Tyler Moore, which is part of Decades's daily line-up. They should be getting back around to the beginning of that show sometime during the hiatus season.
My main issue now is that between the two eras, my scheduled anniversary viewing may get more packed than ever!
We've been watching the occasional Mannix-- it's not the greatest show ever, but kind of better than I remember.
I've had it on low in the background all weekend when I wasn't watching something else. The cross-currents between
Mannix,
Star Trek, and M:I run strong. They just had an episode from Fall of '69 with Logan Ramsey and Lee Meriwether, and Ramsey was using Jim Phelps's apartment!
"Where's Barney?"
Another point of interest regarding the show is that apparently Robert Reed played a semi-regular character during the same years that he was starring in
The Brady Bunch.
Timely. Little Richard is actually a lot more entertaining when you can watch him.
Extremely timely that his first single to chart this high since 1958 would pop up here the week after he died. Yes, it was already planned for inclusion...and I like it, it has a good contemporaneous sound while carrying forward his distinct style. He'll have just one more single that charts as high as the 40s...in 1986!
I don't think I've heard this before. It's okay.
Okay, but just okay. Nothing about it really pops.
I'm not familiar with this one either, but it's Aretha.
Yeah, it's not a memorable classic, but it sounds perfectly nice.
Would you care to make an argument for my getting this? Because I haven't been able to come up with one.
And this is one that I wasn't taking any bets on! As for me, I dig it, it's got a groovy, funky vibe.
This is a fantastic song. They're obviously channeling Dylan here, and I could quibble a bit about their choices because their reception isn't quite on the beam, but it wouldn't be worth it-- it's a fantastic song.
Interesting...an unexpectedly strong positive reaction, but I'm curious to know what you would quibble with. I don't think the song is meant to be taking any sides...it's just commenting on what a confusing mess the world is in at that point, which is a perfectly fair assessment for a time of great social upheaval.
It was especially timely of the Tempts to provide an advance review of the single appearing directly below them in this week's post...
That would've been the late '70s, right? Not bad.
Mixed feelings.
Same here, for presumably different reasons. Overall a gorgeous song, but forever marred by Spector's overproduction. He was right that the raw track needed a little something more, but he overdid it.
Random Beatles pleasantness.
Methinks one of these "A-sides" is riding the coattails of the other...
Three Dog Night! I love it.
Not just the latest in their string of classics from this era, but their first of three chart-toppers!
- "I Want to Take You Higher," Sly & The Family Stone
I assume that this most welcome re-entry owes to the song's exposure in the
Woodstock film. Encore!
I should've included chart info, as the song peaks this run. In 1969 it got to #60...this time around it reaches #38.
