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The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread

But an armed bomb ends up stuck in the bay, and while Waller tries to kick it out, Gunther rides him, holding him to blame.
Gunther is a bigger jerk than Waller.

Michaels points out that Waller just saved his life by pushing him out of the way of a line of bullets that made Swiss cheese of the fuselage where Gunther had been standing.
You're welcome!

Once they're safely on the ground, Savage tells Waller that he'll be reported for disobeying the order to bail, but that he's also earned himself a promotion to lieutenant and a position as lead bombardier.
Nothing from Gunther? "Shucks, Waller, you're an okay Joe after all."

I stand by my old comment about the lousy episode title.
Indeed. I prefer the TOS style over the TNG style. :rommie:

You really don't like this show, do you?
:rommie: That may have been a little over the top. But I never did care for either Brady Bunch (except for Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, of course) and Partridge Family. And, unlike some other things, neither one has accumulated any nostalgic value over the years.

I think it was true enough...the counterculture wasn't all peace and love, there was a lot of activism. This was about fighting back against corruption / somebody who was abusing the system.
Eh, I don't know. Seems like an awkward attempt to be hip.

Is this a Phyllis reference, or just the usual gag about adding horror twists to TG?
The usual gag. I thought about working in Lars, but it didn't work for me.

Not yet, they aren't. That'll be their downfall.
Yeah, a little bit of license for the sake of humor. :rommie:

Ah, I didn't realize he was Major Burns.
Interesting. Because he was very different in the role, or because you're unfamiliar with M*A*S*H?

That was his Martian Power over Women.
Lucky Martians.

Guy on tape may never have named the Country of the Week as Greece, but he's certainly had occasion to drop the word junta.
I do recall junta being a popular term.

I have been getting season sets of Adam 12 from our library. My husband, mom and I are really enjoying them! I don't recall most of them so it is like seeing them for the first time!
I'm noticing that with old shows I've watched recently, too, like Six-Million Dollar Man. I recall liking them, but most of the details are forgotten so it's almost brand-new again.
 
I have been getting season sets of Adam 12 from our library. My husband, mom and I are really enjoying them! I don't recall most of them so it is like seeing them for the first time!
The local library is not someplace I'll be visiting anytime soon under present circumstances. Looks like I'll be buying the first season of All in the Family on iTunes when it comes up in the hopefully better new year.

Nothing from Gunther? "Shucks, Waller, you're an okay Joe after all."
He had his approving smile moment, what more do you want from the guy?

Indeed. I prefer the TOS style over the TNG style. :rommie:
It's not just the brevity and general vagueness...in this show, they could've used that title for at least 95% of the episodes! What makes this week's mission more missiony than all the other weeks' missions?

:rommie: That may have been a little over the top. But I never did care for either Brady Bunch (except for Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, of course) and Partridge Family. And, unlike some other things, neither one has accumulated any nostalgic value over the years.
That's interesting, as my main reason for including them is that both shows have a strong sign-o-the-times vibe for me.

Eh, I don't know. Seems like an awkward attempt to be hip.
Susan Dey sold it. The counterculture and youth culture in general had a scope and complexity far beyond the hippie subculture. Think of the situation in terms of still-emerging women's lib, for example. A younger woman encouraging the older, establishment woman to stand up for herself against a man who's trying to take advantage of her.

The usual gag. I thought about working in Lars, but it didn't work for me.
Ah yes, that's his name.

Interesting. Because he was very different in the role, or because you're unfamiliar with M*A*S*H?
I'm familiar enough that when I looked him up and saw a picture of him in his M*A*S*H role, I recognized him instantly...but despite having just watched the film earlier this year, was drawing a blank on the character's name.

MI48.jpg
Jim: (Say, haven't I seen this guy in something else...?)
 
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He had his approving smile moment, what more do you want from the guy?
A Twelve Oclock High five?

It's not just the brevity and general vagueness...in this show, they could've used that title for at least 95% of the episodes! What makes this week's mission more missiony than all the other weeks' missions?
The titles should be like Adam-12: "Mission 387: The Washout."

That's interesting, as my main reason for including them is that both shows have a strong sign-o-the-times vibe for me.
Oh, they definitely have the vibe, just no personal nostalgia factor.

Susan Dey sold it. The counterculture and youth culture in general had a scope and complexity far beyond the hippie subculture. Think of the situation in terms of still-emerging women's lib, for example. A younger woman encouraging the older, establishment woman to stand up for herself against a man who's trying to take advantage of her.
Yeah, I get that (I remember it :rommie:), but my expectations for the characters would be that Susan Dey would want to stick it to the system, in the form of the insurance company, and Mom would argue the dishonesty and the cost to regular people who pay for the insurance. I suppose the Women's Lib angle works, since most of these interpersonal conflicts are subjective.

Jim: (Say, haven't I seen this guy in something else...?)
"Wait, you're our undercover contact-- Code Name Ferret Face?"
 
A momentous occasion is upon us!
H534.jpg
That's pretty much all we see of it, other than closer shots of Steve. The episode doesn't explain how Diana Muldaur got a connection to the mothership from a payphone.

A Twelve Oclock High five?
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

The titles should be like Adam-12: "Mission 387: The Washout."
Or just "The Washout"...that would've worked.
 
_______
October 4
  • American singer Janis Joplin dies at age 27 from an overdose of drugs.
What a waste, and what was typical of many in the rock music business, few ever learned a lesson from what was a human speeding train seconds from crashing into a mountainside.

The Partridge Family
"What? And Get Out of Show Business?"
Originally aired September 25, 1970
Series premiere

...and so, the true (or most visible) face of bubblegum music begins...or was it. More on that later.

There's another new fake TV band in town!

What? You mean the Plastic Ono Band has competition? Who knew?!?

The episode opens with the family driving their bus into L.A. for what appears to be a gig on The Johnny Cash Show, which was airing Wednesdays on the same network, ABC. Cash's brief, close-up intro appears to have been filmed separately from anything else in the scene. The group performs "Together (Havin' a Ball)"; for pilot purposes, the cast credits are played over the performance in lieu of the usual series opening credits.

At this early stage, David Cassidy and well-known vocalist Shirley Jones were not providing vocals on some of the tracks of the first album (The Partridge Family Album, released in October of 1970), notably, "To Be Lovers," "I'm on the Road" and "I Really Want to Know You." Cassidy--who was already a pretty good guitarist and stronger singer before being cast on the show--campaigned and won the opportunity to sing lead vocals, along with his step-mother Shirley Jones.

Chris and Tracy (Suzanne Crough) always seemed way too young to be playing in a band

...although the female drummer who shows up Chris (Debra Pearce) is around their age and has serious drumming chops, so Chris and Tracy being in a band (or having the ability to do so) was plausible.

That early 70s vibe you referred to is clearly all over this TV series, and their music. It holds its own place in music history as their sound--despite being produced by well known, well seasoned writer/producers like Wes Farrell--ever had any "soundalikes" from any of Farrell's other acts, as far as I can recall.

More sad news for Anniversary-Land: Both Helen Reddy and Mac Davis have died, both at 78. :(

Both leaving a great musical legacy for 70s music.
 
A momentous occasion is upon us!
Are we sure it's his place? Is there anybody on the other side of that bed? :rommie:

That's pretty much all we see of it, other than closer shots of Steve. The episode doesn't explain how Diana Muldaur got a connection to the mothership from a payphone.
They have had her under observation for quite some time.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
That's pretty much what I go for. :D

Both leaving a great musical legacy for 70s music.
Indeed.
 
55 Years Ago This Week

Wiki said:
October 10 – The first group of Cuban refugees travels to the U.S.
October 12
  • Per Borten forms a government in Norway.
  • The U.N. General Council recommends that the United Kingdom try everything to stop a rebellion in Rhodesia.
October 13 – Congo President Joseph Kasavubu fires Prime Minister Moise Tshombe and forms a provisional government, with Évariste Kimba in a leading position.
October 15 – Vietnam War: The Catholic Worker Movement stages an anti-war protest in Manhattan. One draft card burner is arrested, the first under the new law.
October 16
  • Moors murders: Police find a girl's body on Saddleworth Moor near Oldham in Lancashire. The body is quickly identified as that of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, who disappeared on Boxing Day the previous year from a fairground in the Ancoats area of Manchester. Ian Brady, arrested for the murder of a 17-year-old man in nearby Hattersley, is charged with murdering Lesley, as is his 23-year-old girlfriend Myra Hindley.
  • Anti-war protests draw 100,000 in 80 U.S. cities and around the world.



Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:
1. "Yesterday," The Beatles
2. "Treat Her Right," Roy Head & The Traits
3. "Hang on Sloopy," The McCoys
4. "A Lover's Concerto," The Toys
5. "Keep On Dancing," The Gentrys
6. "The 'In' Crowd," The Ramsey Lewis Trio
7. "Just a Little Bit Better," Herman's Hermits
8. "Baby Don't Go," Sonny & Cher
9. "Do You Believe in Magic," The Lovin' Spoonful
10. "Eve of Destruction," Barry McGuire
11. "I'm Yours," Elvis Presley
12. "Everybody Loves a Clown," Gary Lewis & The Playboys
13. "Some Enchanted Evening," Jay & The Americans
14. "Get Off of My Cloud," The Rolling Stones
15. "Liar, Liar," The Castaways
16. "You're the One," The Vogues
17. "You've Got Your Troubles," The Fortunes
18. "Positively 4th Street," Bob Dylan
19. "You Were on My Mind," We Five
20. "Catch Us If You Can," The Dave Clark Five

22. "Help!," The Beatles
23. "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," The Animals
24. "Make Me Your Baby," Barbara Lewis

26. "Laugh at Me," Sonny

28. "I Knew You When," Billy Joe Royal
29. "Just You," Sonny & Cher
30. "Taste of Honey," Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

33. "Not the Lovin' Kind," Dino, Desi & Billy
34. "Ride Away," Roy Orbison
35. "I Want to (Do Everything for You)," Joe Tex

42. "Everyone's Gone to the Moon," Jonathan King

44. "It Ain't Me Babe," The Turtles
45. "Heart Full of Soul," The Yardbirds
46. "Respect," Otis Redding
47. "But You're Mine," Sonny & Cher
48. "1-2-3," Len Berry

49. "Act Naturally," The Beatles
50. "Say Something Funny," Patty Duke
51. "Rescue Me," Fontella Bass

54. "Universal Soldier," Donovan

58. "Ain't That Peculiar," Marvin Gaye
59. "Run Baby Run (Back into My Arms)," The Newbeats
60. "Let's Hang On!," The Four Seasons

62. "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," Johnny Rivers
63. "There but for Fortune," Joan Baez

65. "Round Every Corner," Petula Clark
66. "Agent Double-O-Soul," Edwin Starr

73. "My Girl Has Gone," The Miracles

80. "I Found a Girl," Jan & Dean
81. "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," The Silkie

83. "Where Do You Go," Cher

100. "Make It Easy on Yourself," The Walker Brothers


Leaving the chart:
  • "Action," Freddy Cannon (9 weeks)
  • "I Got You Babe," Sonny & Cher (14 weeks)
  • "Like a Rolling Stone," Bob Dylan (12 weeks)
  • "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, Part I," James Brown & The Famous Flames (13 weeks)
  • "Summer Nights," Marianne Faithfull (9 weeks)
  • "Unchained Melody," The Righteous Brothers (13 weeks)

Recent and new on the chart:

"Universal Soldier," Donovan
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(Sept. 25; #53 US)

"Say Something Funny," Patty Duke
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(Oct. 2; #22 US)

"Make It Easy on Yourself," The Walker Brothers
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(#16 US; #1 UK)

"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," The Silkie
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(#10 US; #28 UK)


And new on the boob tube:
  • The Ed Sullivan Show, Season 18, episode 5
  • Branded, "The Bar Sinister"
  • 12 O'Clock High, "Big Brother"
  • Gilligan's Island, "The Sweepstakes"
  • The Wild Wild West, "Night of the Casual Killer"
  • Hogan's Heroes, "The Flight of the Valkyrie"
  • Get Smart, "Now You See Him...Now You Don't"
_______

55th Anniversary Fly-on-the-Wall Listening

By October 12, sessions have begun for the Beatles' next album...
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_______

What? You mean the Plastic Ono Band has competition? Who knew?!?
I was speaking of the Partridges being the continuation of a legacy established by the Monkees and the Archies.

At this early stage, David Cassidy and well-known vocalist Shirley Jones were not providing vocals on some of the tracks of the first album (The Partridge Family Album, released in October of 1970), notably, "To Be Lovers," "I'm on the Road" and "I Really Want to Know You." Cassidy--who was already a pretty good guitarist and stronger singer before being cast on the show--campaigned and won the opportunity to sing lead vocals, along with his step-mother Shirley Jones.
I can guarantee that Yoko was providing her own vocals from the get-go.

Are we sure it's his place? Is there anybody on the other side of that bed? :rommie:
Kono...?

That's pretty much what I go for. :D
Cruel and unusual pun-ishment?
 
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He would have turned 80 today...

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https://twitter.com/PaulMcCartney/status/1314494539567108096
 
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'm familiar enough that when I looked him up and saw a picture of him in his M*A*S*H role, I recognized him instantly...but despite having just watched the film earlier this year, was drawing a blank on the character's name.
Ferret Face.
 
"Universal Soldier," Donovan
Not bad, but it's standard Folk, not that special Donovan style.

"Say Something Funny," Patty Duke
This is pretty good, with a bit of a unique angle.

"Make It Easy on Yourself," The Walker Brothers
This is a good one.

"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," The Silkie
An okay cover, I guess.

That would be great. :rommie:

Cruel and unusual pun-ishment?
Cruel and unusual and contagious. :rommie:

He would have turned 80 today...
Happy Birthday, John.
Birthday-Cake-Animated.gif


"Imagine" is one of the greatest songs of all time.
 
50 Years Ago This Week

Wiki said:
October 11 – Eleven French soldiers are killed in a shootout with rebels in Chad.
October 12 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas.
October 13
  • Canada and the People's Republic of China establish diplomatic relations.
  • Saeb Salam forms a government in Lebanon.
October 14 – A Chinese nuclear test is conducted in Lop Nor.
October 15
  • A section of the new West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapses into the river below, killing 35 construction workers.
  • In Egypt, a referendum supports Anwar Sadat 90.04%.
  • The domestic Soviet Aeroflot Flight 244 is hijacked and diverted to Turkey.
October 16 – October Crisis: The Canadian government declares a state of emergency and outlaws the Quebec Liberation Front.
October 17
  • October Crisis: Pierre Laporte is found murdered in south Montreal.
  • A cholera epidemic breaks out in Istanbul.
  • Anwar Sadat officially becomes President of Egypt.



Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:
1. "I'll Be There," Jackson 5
2. "Cracklin' Rosie," Neil Diamond
3. "Green-Eyed Lady," Sugarloaf
4. "All Right Now," Free
5. "We've Only Just Begun," Carpenters
6. "Candida," Dawn
7. "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," Diana Ross
8. "Lookin' Out My Back Door" / "Long as I Can See the Light", Creedence Clearwater Revival
9. "Julie, Do Ya Love Me," Bobby Sherman
10. "Fire and Rain," James Taylor
11. "Indiana Wants Me," R. Dean Taylor
12. "Lola," The Kinks
13. "Express Yourself," Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band
14. "It's a Shame," The Spinners
15. "Out in the Country," Three Dog Night
16. "Snowbird," Anne Murray
17. "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma," The New Seekers feat. Eve Graham
18. "Still Water (Love)," Four Tops
19. "(I Know) I'm Losing You," Rare Earth
20. "It's Only Make Believe," Glen Campbell
21. "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)," Simon & Garfunkel
22. "War," Edwin Starr
23. "Closer to Home (I'm Your Captain)," Grand Funk Railroad
24. "Patches," Clarence Carter
25. "Long Long Time," Linda Ronstadt
26. "Groovy Situation," Gene Chandler
27. "Joanne," Michael Nesmith & The First National Band
28. "Somebody's Been Sleeping," 100 Proof (Aged in Soul)
29. "That's Where I Went Wrong," The Poppy Family feat. Susan Jacks

31. "It Don't Matter to Me," Bread
32. "Our House," Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
33. "Lucretia Mac Evil," Blood, Sweat & Tears
34. "Super Bad (Pt. 1 & Pt. 2)," James Brown
35. "Stand by Your Man," Candi Staton
36. "Deeper & Deeper," Freda Payne

39. "See Me, Feel Me," The Who
40. "Montego Bay," Bobby Bloom
41. "Gypsy Woman," Brian Hyland
42. "Yellow River," Christie

45. "Engine Number 9," Wilson Pickett
46. "Cry Me a River," Joe Cocker

48. "For the Good Times," Ray Price
49. "Neanderthal Man," Hotlegs

59. "Fresh Air," Quicksilver Messenger Service
60. "I Think I Love You," The Partridge Family

62. "Funk #49," James Gang

66. "Let's Work Together," Canned Heat

68. "The Tears of a Clown," Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

72. "5-10-15-20 (25-30 Years of Love)," The Presidents

75. "After Midnight," Eric Clapton

78. "Heaven Help Us All," Stevie Wonder


Leaving the chart:
  • "Don't Play That Song," Aretha Franklin w/ The Dixie Flyers (10 weeks)
  • "I (Who Have Nothing)," Tom Jones (8 weeks)
  • "Riki Tiki Tavi," Donovan (8 weeks)
  • "Rubber Duckie," Ernie (Jim Henson) (9 weeks)
  • "Solitary Man," Neil Diamond (24 weeks total; 14 weeks this run)
  • "Spill the Wine," Eric Burdon & War (21 weeks)
  • "(They Long to Be) Close to You," Carpenters (17 weeks)
  • "25 or 6 to 4," Chicago (12 weeks)

New on the chart:

"After Midnight," Eric Clapton
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(#18 US)

"Heaven Help Us All," Stevie Wonder
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(#9 US; #2 R&B; #29 UK)

"The Tears of a Clown," Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
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(#1 US the weeks of Dec. 12 and 19, 1970; #1 R&B; #1 UK)


And new on the boob tube:
  • Hogan's Heroes, "Lady Chitterly's Lover: Part 1"
  • Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Season 4, episode 5
  • Hawaii Five-O, "The Guarnerius Caper"
  • Ironside, "Noel's Gonna Fly"
  • The Odd Couple, "The Jury Story"
  • The Brady Bunch, "The Un-Underground Movie"
  • The Partridge Family, "See Here, Private Partridge!"
  • That Girl, "No Man's a Manhattan Island"
  • Love, American Style, "Love and the Big Date / Love and the Longest Night"
  • Mission: Impossible, "Flight"
  • Adam-12, "Log 65: Cigarettes, Cars and Wild, Wild Women"
  • The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "Keep Your Guard Up"

_______

Not bad, but it's standard Folk, not that special Donovan style.
His "standard folk" phase is kinda growing on me. Anyway, Donovan as we know him will be along soon enough.

This is pretty good, with a bit of a unique angle.
This one doesn't remind me of a specific song, but she still sounds like she's aping Lesley Gore.

This is a good one.
And these guys seem like they're trying to sound...righteous.

An okay cover, I guess.
Nice that somebody got a hit out of it. As mentioned in one of the news posts, the Beatles were actually involved in the production of this, as the Silkie were a Brian Epstein discovery.

"Imagine" is one of the greatest songs of all time.
#3 on the version of the list that I'm using. Will being from the '70s keep it relatively safe...?

Also, the overexposure of this song in the decades following John's death seems to have worn off some...I'm coming back to just hearing it as the beautiful song that it always was. Guess it's been a while since I heard it in a commercial.
 
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"After Midnight," Eric Clapton
Clapton is God. Also, Frodo Lives and I Grok Spock.

"Heaven Help Us All," Stevie Wonder
This is very nice. I'm sure I've never heard it before.

"The Tears of a Clown," Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
Uber Classic. And the best sad clown song of all.

His "standard folk" phase is kinda growing on me. Anyway, Donovan as we know him will be along soon enough.
His standard Folk is very good, but the Essential Donovan is a completely different universe.

And these guys seem like they're trying to sound...righteous.
Kind of, yeah.

#3 on the version of the list that I'm using. Will being from the '70s keep it relatively safe...?
How does it compare to "Blowin' In The Wind?" I always think of these two as equal in terms of simple profundity.
 
50th Anniversary Album Spotlight

After the Gold Rush
Neil Young
Released September 19, 1970
Chart debut: September 19, 1970
Chart peak: #8 (October 17, 1970)
#71 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003)
Wiki said:
After the Gold Rush is the third studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released in September 1970 on Reprise Records. It is one of four high-profile albums released by each member of folk rock collective Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping 1970 album Déjà Vu. Gold Rush consists mainly of country folk music, along with the rocking "Southern Man", inspired by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Bermann screenplay After the Gold Rush.
Songs on the album were inspired by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Bermann screenplay for the unmade film After the Gold Rush. Young had read the screenplay and asked Stockwell if he could produce the soundtrack. Tracks that Young recalls as being written specifically for the film are "After the Gold Rush" and "Cripple Creek Ferry." The script has since been lost, though has been described as "sort of an end-of-the-world movie."


The album opens distinctly with "Tell Me Why," which Wiki says "was first introduced during the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young shows of 1970 prior to the release of Déjà Vu":
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Musically, the song marks a shift from the hard rock of 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and bears more folk and country influences, which would continue onto 1972's Harvest. The only instruments are two acoustic guitars, played by Young and Nils Lofgren....The chorus line "Tell me why, tell me why/Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself/When you're old enough to repay/but young enough to sell?" is the most famous from the song, typifying the introspective and melancholic nature of not just this song, but the whole album.


This is followed by the album's title track, "After the Gold Rush," which references the new decade:
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"After the Gold Rush" consists of three verses which move forward in time from the past (a medieval celebration), to the present (the singer lying in a burned out basement), and, finally, to the end of humanity's time on Earth (the ascension process in which the "chosen ones" are evacuated from Earth in silver spaceships).
The third verse doesn't seem as out-of-left-field to me in light of the album's above-mentioned connection to an apocalyptic screenplay...but the Wiki article for the song paints a more confused picture of the song's origins:
Dolly Parton (who was in the process of recording a cover of the song along with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt) has said, "When we were doing the Trio album, I asked Linda and Emmy what (the song) meant, and they didn't know. So we called Neil Young, and he didn't know. We asked him, flat out, what it meant, and he said, 'Hell, I don't know. I just wrote it. It just depends on what I was taking at the time. I guess every verse has something different I'd taken.'" However, in his 2012 biography Young reportedly gave a different explanation of the song's origin and meaning, describing the inspiration provided by a screenplay of the same name (never produced), which apocalyptically described the last days of California in a catastrophic flood. The screenplay and song's title referred to what happened in California, a place that took shape due to the Gold Rush. Young eventually concluded that “After The Gold Rush is an environmental song... I recognize in it now this thread that goes through a lotta my songs that’s this time-travel thing... When I look out the window, the first thing that comes to my mind is the way this place looked a hundred years ago.”


Next is the album's most successful single--and Young's first as a solo artist to make the Top 40--"Only Love Can Break Your Heart" (charts Oct. 24, 1970; #33 US):
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The song was supposedly written for Graham Nash after Nash's split from Joni Mitchell, though Young in interviews has been somewhat tentative in admitting or remembering this.


Prior to getting this album, "Southern Man" was best known to me as part of the inspiration for Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," which was a rebuttal to this track and one called "Alabama" from Young's subsequent LP, Harvest:
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The lyrics of "Southern Man" are vivid, describing the racism towards blacks in the American South. In the song, Young tells the story of a white man (symbolically the entire white South) and how he mistreated his slaves. Young pleadingly asks when the South will make amends for the fortunes built through slavery....The song also mentions the practice of cross burning referencing the Ku Klux Klan.
I can see why Skynyrd would take exception...while the song's heart is in the right place, it delivers its message in a gratingly condescending manner. Reportedly there were no hard feelings between Young and Skynyrd over the three songs, however:
Young has said that he is a fan of both "Sweet Home Alabama" and Ronnie Van Zant, the lead vocalist for Lynyrd Skynyrd. "They play like they mean it," Young said in 1976. "I'm proud to have my name in a song like theirs." Young has also been known to play "Sweet Home Alabama" in concert occasionally. To demonstrate this camaraderie, Van Zant frequently wore a Neil Young Tonight's the Night T-shirt while performing "Sweet Home Alabama". Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot can often be seen reciprocating by wearing a Jack Daniel's-styled Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt (including at the Live Rust concert).

This segues directly into "Till the Morning Comes," a brief, pleasantly jaunty piano tune that closes the first side.

Side two opens with the album's only cover, "Oh, Lonesome Me," originally a 1957 country chart-topper by Don Gibson.

Next up is "Don't Let It Bring You Down," which seems familiar from somewhere:
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On [CSNY live album] 4 Way Street, Young says, "Here is a new song, it's guaranteed to bring you right down, it's called 'Don't Let It Bring You Down'. It sorta starts off real slow and then fizzles out altogether." The crowd then roars with laughter.


"Birds" is a gentle piano ballad that was used as the B-side of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart".

We finally get a much-needed chunky electric guitar fix with the album's second single, "When You Dance I Can Really Love" (charts Apr. 10, 1971; #93 US).

Things get slower and more intimate again with "I Believe in You".
Although the title of the song seems to be positive, the lyrics suggest that he is unsure of his ability to love and reluctant to enter the new relationship.


The album closes with the other song that's said to have been written specifically for the screenplay, "Cripple Creek Ferry".

Critics were not immediately impressed; the 1970 review in Rolling Stone magazine by Langdon Winner was negative, with Winner feeling that, "none of the songs here rise above the uniformly dull surface."
...
Critical reaction has improved with time; by 1975, Rolling Stone was referring to the album as a "masterpiece", and Gold Rush is now considered a classic album in Young's recording career.


This is a pretty decent listen, but I didn't get as much out of it as I did from Young's previous album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, with its generally harder style and more immersive tracks.

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Clapton is God. Also, Frodo Lives and I Grok Spock.
This one's alright, but it hasn't got me on my knees...I'm not beggin' darlin' please.

This is very nice. I'm sure I've never heard it before.
Good message, not memorable musically.

Uber Classic. And the best sad clown song of all.
Indeed, exactly the one I was thinking of when I made that comment the other week! With this single, the 1970 playlist gets a welcome injection of 1967. This was an album track that was belatedly released as a single in the UK in 1970, topped the chart there, and was subsequently released in America. The album it was from, Make It Happen (which also gave us uber-classic "More Love"), was then re-released under the title The Tears of a Clown. "Tears" is such an uber-classic that you kinda gotta wonder what the hell they were thinking in 1967 that they didn't just release it as a single in the first place.

His standard Folk is very good, but the Essential Donovan is a completely different universe.
That's the collection that I got for all of his singles, but I've had so much going on with my music collection in recent years that I've never just listened to the entire collection.

How does it compare to "Blowin' In The Wind?" I always think of these two as equal in terms of simple profundity.
#14.
 
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I was speaking of the Partridges being the continuation of a legacy established by the Monkees and the Archies.

I knew you were referring to at least one of those acts. I took a shot at the Plastic Ono Band just because they were standing there!


I can guarantee that Yoko was providing her own vocals from the get-go.

Yes...and there's legions of bleeding ears to prove it! :D
 
Next is the album's most successful single--and Young's first as a solo artist to make the Top 40--"Only Love Can Break Your Heart"
That's surprising, given the long-haul AOR success of "Southern Man."

I can see why Skynyrd would take exception...while the song's heart is in the right place, it delivers its message in a gratingly condescending manner.
The lyrics are scathing and merciless, while the vocals are plaintive and passionate-- it's definitely an affecting song. That said, it's also more than a bit self righteous and paints the South with a broad and sloppy brush. As good as it is, it's one of those things that's more likely to alienate than cultivate.

Reportedly there were no hard feelings between Young and Skynyrd over the three songs, however:
This well-mannered collegiality is inspiring, however. So civil and respectful.

Next up is "Don't Let It Bring You Down," which seems familiar from somewhere:
I'm hearing some echoes of his song "Old Man," perhaps that's it.

The album closes with the other song that's said to have been written specifically for the screenplay, "Cripple Creek Ferry".
I wonder if it's that Cripple Creek.

This one's alright, but it hasn't got me on my knees...I'm not beggin' darlin' please.
Definitely an Oldies Radio mainstay, though.

Good message, not memorable musically.
I can see why it's been forgotten, but it's kind of a shame.

Indeed, exactly the one I was thinking of when I made that comment the other week! With this single, the 1970 playlist gets a welcome injection of 1967. This was an album track that was belatedly released as a single in the UK in 1970, topped the chart there, and was subsequently released in America. The album it was from, Make It Happen (which also gave us uber-classic "More Love"), was then re-released under the title The Tears of a Clown. "Tears" is such an uber-classic that you kinda gotta wonder what the hell they were thinking in 1967 that they didn't just release it as a single in the first place.
Yeah, that's for sure. I had no idea it was a delayed-action hit.

Sometimes that list just makes no sense to me.
 
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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)

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Hogan's Heroes
"Klink's Masterpiece"
Originally aired October 4, 1970
Wiki said:
To smuggle maps out of camp, Hogan encourages Klink to feed his artistic side.

Hogan's providing intel to the underground so that they can coordinate hits on three convoys. Klink brings Hogan into his office because the prisoners don't engage in any voluntary activities (:lol:), and Hogan butters him up over some doodling that he's doing. Later, stuck for a way to smuggle out three maps to his contact, Rhona (Victoria Carroll)--who runs an art gallery--because the tunnel can't be used for reasons that I didn't catch, Hogan encourages Klink to try painting and then accompanies him to the gallery to arrange for Rhona to sell three of the paintings that he's hidden maps in the back of. Rhona has three buyers lined up--the underground men leading the hits on the convoys. When Klink's ego swells up from his first two sales, the third man gets charged five times as much for his painting. In the coda, Klink pays Rhona much more to take more of his paintings, and Hogan tempers Klink's expectations by telling him that his work probably won't become really valuable until after he dies.

DIS!missed!

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Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
Season 4, episode 4
Originally aired October 5, 1970
The Wiki list of guest appearances said:
Ken Berry, Tim Conway, Jilly Rizzo

Gary Owens does the intros this week.

Ken Berry is played up as the main guest, with Mayberry R.F.D. referenced.

Suzie Sorority saves the day--by bringing us a clip!
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Also, Edith Ann:
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Ernestine calls Penn Central Railroad:
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Second segment.

In one of the cocktail party segments (still spread throughout the episode), there's a bondage joke.

The Mod World of the Funeral Business:
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The Fickle Finger goes to the Department of Interior.

Wolfgang with tapdancing Ken Berry:
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Hawaii Five-O
"Time and Memories"
Originally aired October 7, 1970
Wiki said:
McGarrett becomes personally involved in a murder case and jeopardizes his job when his former girlfriend (Diana Muldaur) becomes the prime suspect.

McGarrett is awoken in the middle of the night by a call from his old flame, Cathy (Diana Muldaur), who's been walking on the beach. She hangs up promptly and returns to her home, where she finds her husband murdered. McGarrett investigates the murder scene and is surprised to find that Cathy is now Cathy Wallis, the victim's wife. Cathy's presences causes him to slip into flashbacks at various points in the episode, including one of how they met when Navy lieutenant McGarrett escorted her to the USS Arizona Memorial...which it turns out she'd been to before, as she lost a brother at Pearl when she was only one year old. This is only a couple of years younger than Muldaur's actual age, and would place their romance sometime between 1962 and 1968, when the series began. Other flashbacks show how she had to leave Steve because she was engaged to another man, who was apparently Wallis, though Steve never caught the guy's name.

Having no alibi, Cathy is the primary suspect, and evidence turns up against her--a blood-stained wrap, and a hairdryer that served as the murder weapon, buried in the sand. She's not the only suspect, though...Joan Wallis (Kathy Cannon), Mr. Wallis's daughter by a previous marriage, is his sole heir...but her fiance, Arthur Dixon (Martin Sheen, playing a lawyer again, but sans 'stache), whom her father didn't approve of, provides her with an alibi, as he was talking to her long distance from San Francisco at the time of the murder. Because of this, Dixon wasn't considered a suspect for most of the episode...but I suspected him all along--mostly because he's Martin Sheen, but also because he seemed quick to play angles to cover for Joan, and because the thing about him having talked to her via a "tie line" through his office seemed like a conspicuous detail...though McGarrett doesn't think anything of it at first. But later it comes to his attention again, and he does some investigation to determine that Dixon flew to Hawaii that night, made the call through his office in Frisco via tie line, and flew back to Frisco the same night. He demonstrates how the tie line worked to Cathy and Joan, tricking Arthur into thinking he's getting a call from Frisco, when it's actually from Steve's office. I didn't catch exactly how this immediately implicated him, however.

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I'm hearing some echoes of his song "Old Man," perhaps that's it.
Ah, yes...I thought there was another "Old Man" song...shoulda looked into it...and it's in my collection...and it's his most popular download on iTunes... :o

I wonder if it's that Cripple Creek.
You mean the Band's? No idea if there's a connection...nothing about it on the album's Wiki pages.

Yeah, that's for sure. I had no idea it was a delayed-action hit.
As I recall, I did include it in a post around the time that the album came out or charted in '67. I believe that I posted this performance clip.

Sometimes that list just makes no sense to me.
I can only halfheartedly defend Rolling Stone's choices at this point, but here are the intervening songs for perspective:

4) "What's Going On," Marvin Gaye
5) "Respect," Aretha Franklin
6) "Good Vibrations," The Beach Boys
7) "Johnny B. Goode," Chuck Berry
8) "Hey Jude," The Beatles
9) "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nirvana
10) "What'd I Say," Ray Charles
11) "My Generation," The Who
12) "A Change Is Gonna Come," Sam Cooke
13) "Yesterday," The Beatles​

Not exactly a buncha pikers there. And keep in mind that another Dylan song was in the #1 spot.
 
Hogan tempers Klink's expectations by telling him that his work probably won't become really valuable until after he dies.
Probably true-- after all, he's the Stalag Kommandant who helped the Allies win the war. :rommie:

Suzie Sorority saves the day--by bringing us a clip!
I'm not sure which part of the Suzie Sorority clips I like better-- the jokes or the dead air. :rommie:

Also, Edith Ann:
Thank goodness for Edith Ann. :rommie:

McGarrett is awoken in the middle of the night by a call from his old flame, Cathy (Diana Muldaur), who's been walking on the beach. She hangs up promptly and returns to her home, where she finds her husband murdered.
She called him before she found the body-- did we ever find out why?

He demonstrates how the tie line worked to Cathy and Joan, tricking Arthur into thinking he's getting a call from Frisco, when it's actually from Steve's office.
Interestingly, this gimmick was used on another show I saw recently-- it's a dim memory at this point, but I'm pretty sure it was Perry Mason, which means it was about ten years earlier.

As I recall, I did include it in a post around the time that the album came out or charted in '67. I believe that I posted this performance clip.
I would have had no idea when it was on the charts. It's one of those songs that's just always been there.

Not exactly a buncha pikers there. And keep in mind that another Dylan song was in the #1 spot.
Personally, I would put "Blowin' In The Wind" above "Rolling Stone."
 
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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)

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Ironside
"The People Against Judge McIntire"
Originally aired October 8, 1970
Wiki said:
Mark's law class re-enacts a murder case when real drama unfolds.

It sounds like Ironside is now using a new version of its theme as well. Not sure if it was used in the last couple of episodes and I didn't notice.

The titular justice (James Daly) is enlisting the Chief's aid in the belief that one of the students is trying to kill him, having been unsuccessfully shot at through his office window. The Chief thinks that there might be a connection with a series of lectures the judge had just announced, about a case involving a man named Parkman who was found guilty of murdering his business partner. The judge wants to keep his security low profile, so Ed signs up to audit the class. Also auditing is Laurence Drescher (Alan Hale!), who testified in the case. Before the bell rings (note concerning the question of this having come up with Dragnet), Ed chats up another student, Joanna Leigh (James's little girl Tyne). In the classroom, somebody has left a message on the blackboard for the judge in French, which translates as "I regret nothing." The judge introduces the class to Drescher, an accountant who discovered Parkman's embezzling in 1962. The class begins a multi-session re-enactment of the case, with an older student, Lee Anderson (George Murdock), while representing Parkman, over-emphatically pleading "not guilty!" After the judge dismisses the class, an attempt is made in his adjoining office using cyanide. Ed hears the struggle and rushes in after the assailant has left, and is overcome by the fumes. It's noted afterward that Parkman was executed at San Quentin via cyanide gas.

Eve questions Anderson at his plumbing job, and it turns out that he was the holdout juror in the Parkman case and bears a grudge against McIntire for pressuring him into conceding. The Chief and Eve also look into backgrounds of Leigh and Drescher. All three come to suspect that Ed's a cop because of the way he saved McIntire's life.

Back in the reenactment, McIntire gets a little too into a scripted rebuking of Mark as the defense attorney. Leigh confronts the judge after class, revealing that she's actually Parkman's daughter. She accuses him of having decided the case prematurely and influencing the jury, which lines up with Anderson's beef...but she insists that she doesn't want him dead until he's had a chance to feel guilty for his role in the trial. At the next session, McIntire seems to not be able to go through with it and announces that he'll recommend reopening the case...which is apparently the Chief's plan to force the would-be killer's next move. And the would-be killer turns out to be...the Skipper, who nabs Mrs. McIntire (Mala Powers) in the parking garage and calls the judge! Drescher reveals that he was the actual killer, and that he plans to kill the McIntires and make it look like an accident to prevent the case from being reopened. The Chief and Ed intercept them as he tries to escape the garage.

Before the retrial commences, the Chief tries to convince McIntire not to retire.

This episode used a novel editing style in dramatic moments, involving quick cuts of multiple faces accompanied by a distinctive music cue.

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The Odd Couple
"Felix Gets Sick"
Originally aired October 8, 1970
Wiki said:
Oscar's weekend with a beautiful stewardess is ruined when needy Felix comes down with the flu.

Oscar has Murray rush him home from the airport in his police car so he can make a date with a stewardess he met named Barbara (Bridget Hanley). He's looking forward to a weekend with her while Felix is in Washington on an assignment...but it turns out that Felix is in bed, having come back home with a 48-hour virus. Concerned about Felix's fever, Oscar has Barbara come over, while Felix is supposed to stay quiet in the bedroom. Barbara is very forward about her intentions, but even while she's talking about the importance of honesty in a relationship, Oscar's making excuses for the noises coming out of Felix's bedroom. Felix is eventually discovered behind the couch trying to sneak to his medicine, and taking care of him becomes the focus of Barbara's attention.

On Sunday, the guys come over for a poker game. Felix wants them to play loudly so it feels like he's there, so they end up playing in his bedroom, trying to use the bed that he's lying in as the table, which doesn't go well. Oscar tries to salvage what's left of his weekend on a Sunday night date with Barbara, but while he's pretending to be on the restaurant's out-of-order phone checking on Felix, Felix comes to tell Barbara that the airline called for her, and Oscar returns to the table to find...just Felix.

The coda has Oscar trying to get revenge by coming home pretending to be sick while Felix is having a date with a woman named Mary Ann (Beryl Hammond), but he abandons the pretense when Felix immediately drops everything to tend to him.

Before the restaurant date, Felix tries to get Oscar's reassurance that he'll give Felix a decent funeral, as Oscar's "got this habit of letting everything lie right where it falls."

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The Brady Bunch
"The Slumber Caper"
Originally aired October 9, 1970
Wiki said:
Marcia is accused by the school principal J. P. Randolph (E.G. Marshall) of drawing an unflattering picture of her English teacher Mrs. Denton. Mike and Carol believe Marcia's claim she merely copied a portrait of George Washington and never wrote Denton's name on the picture. They allow Marcia to have her planned slumber party, but she still has to serve a week's detention at school. Marcia becomes convinced her best friend Jenny was the guilty party and "uninvites" her. Greg and his brothers conspire to disrupt the party and place itching powder in the girls' sleeping bags. While the girls clean up, Marcia's friend Paula (Chris Charney) admits she took the drawing and added the insulting remark. Marcia re-invites Jenny to the party.

Guest stars: Hope Sherwood (daughter of Sherwood Schwartz) as Jenny Wilton, Barbara Bernstein (daughter of Florence Henderson) as Ruthie, and Carolyn Reed (daughter of Robert Reed) as Karen.

Note: This episode reunites E. G. Marshall (who played Lawrence Preston) with Robert Reed (who played Kenneth Preston) from their former television series The Defenders from 1961 to 1965.

The episode opens with the girls waiting pensively outside the den door for word on whether Marcia can have her slumber party. Carol convinces Mike, but Alice has a more cautionary spin on the situation. The boys aren't crazy about it, either, and Greg comes up with the idea of pulling tricks on the girls (which kinda clashes with him wanting to prove that he was mature enough to babysit in the previous episode). Then the drawing comes up, the principal notifies the parents, and they cancel the party, about which Marcia gets very upset. Mike then looks into the situation with the principal and decides to err on the side of believing Marcia, allowing her to have the party. Mike gets suspicious when the boys are enthusiastic that the party's back on. Meanwhile, Marcia comes to suspect Jenny because she uses the same desk in the period after Marcia does, and uninvites her.

The night of the party comes, with what looks like nearly a dozen of Marcia's friends attending to much giggling and squealing. As the girls play a game of truth or dare, the boys start pulling their pranks...one of them popping up in a fright mask at the top of the stairs; a rubber spider in a sleeping bag (which amuses Alice); a light-up skull in the fridge (which startles Alice). Alice refrains from intervening in the boys' antics.

When the girls settle in to tell ghost stories, the itching powder takes effect, and Paula offhandedly remarks about what she did with the picture, which she'd only intended Marcia to see. Then the parents come home from dining out, and Mike turns the situation into a teachable moment, noting that Marcia did the same thing to Jenny as the principal had done to her. She calls Jenny to apologize and invite her over. When Mike goes to answer the door, a bucket of flour falls on his head.

Shortly after the episode, General Zod takes over the school.

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The Partridge Family
"Whatever Happened to the Old Songs?"
Originally aired October 9, 1970
Wiki said:
Shirley's dad is having a mid-life crisis and decides to hit the road with the band to pursue his long-lost dream of being a star, but will his act appeal to the new generation?

Guest Stars: Ray Bolger and Rosemary DeCamp as Fred and Amanda Renfrew

Songs: "Baby I Love Love, I Love You"; "Together (Havin' a Ball)"; "On the Road"; "Bye Bye Blackbird"


The episode opens with Grandpa Renfrew playing his ukulele in the garage and accompanying the band on "Baby I Love Love, I Love You"...
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He then jumps on a polite comment made by the kids and corners them into taking him on tour. Grandma is skeptical about his tendency to engage in impetuous behavior, and Shirley reassures her mother that he'll find out how tough life on the road is. But a montage sequence to "Together (Havin' a Ball)" shows him doing just that.

The family hopes to let Reuben break the bad news to Grandpa in an audition, but Reuben likes his act, thinking that it's campy and would bring needed comedy to the show. Then Grandpa learns what "campy" means from Chris and his spirits fall. The night of the performance at a club comes, and Amanda, sitting at a table in front, requests "Bye Bye Blackbird," which isn't the song he'd planned to play. The family accompanies him in a soft, lounge-ish arrangement, and the audience enjoys it. Fred thanks Amanda backstage and they decide to meet in the middle--her acting a little more youthful and him acting a little more mature...which begins with an around-the-world cruise.

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That Girl
"I Ain't Got Nobody"
Originally aired October 9, 1970
Wiki said:
Ann finds her head, but not her body, in "Playpen" magazine.

Jerry rushes into Donald's office but finds that Ann's there. When she leaves, he shows Donald the angel in the centerfold, but Donald tries to pretend not to be bothered by it. Meanwhile, Ann's applying for a job on The Captain Gooney Show, meeting the good captain (Kenneth Mars) via a frog puppet while he hides behind the office couch. She goes to Donald to talk about the new job she got, and he initially assumes that it's the other thing. He promptly produces the picture, which appears to use her head from a shoot that she did for Hairstyle magazine. When they confront the photographer (Eddie Ryder), he matter-of-factly admits to it, as she signed a release. Now Donald knows the truth, but Ann's worried about everyone else seeing it. And that quickly becomes an issue, as their waiter at the usual restaurant (Bob Ross) asks for "Miss February's" autograph on the spread. (Holy sexual harassment!) And of course, who should see it at the barbershop but...Mr. Marie?

Meanwhile, Jerry doesn't want to look at Ann because of the awkwardness, though she tries to explain the situation to him. Lew drops in unannounced to make a fuss about it, having bought 78 issues to keep them out of other people's hands. There's a bit of an upside as Ann gets a job offer from somebody who saw the issue, but Ann's more concerned with explaining it to her new boss, whose frog's verbal abuse causes her to quit. Lew drops by again with an apology to his daughter and a plan to sue.

In the coda, the heat has passed as the March issue has come out, but Donald teases Ann about helping get her voted "Playpen Pal of the Year".

At one point at Ann's, Mr. Marie says of Donald, "He's always here." Lew should talk!

"Oh, Donald" count: 4
"Oh, Daddy" count: 3

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Love, American Style
"Love and the Hypnotist / Love and the Psychiatrist"
Originally aired October 9, 1970

I was able to find "Love and the Hypnotist" as an individual clip on YouTube (in very poor quality). It opens with the titular character (Lou Krugman) trying to locate a groom whose bachelor party he entertained at the night before. He placed a posthypnotic suggestion on Richard (Rich Little) that causes him to act like a three-year-old (or return to normal) whenever a bell rings, and passed out before he had a chance to remove it. At the house where the wedding is taking place, the doorbell is ringing constantly, and the reverend (Burgess Meredith) becomes concerned with Richard's erratically immature behavior. This carries over into the ceremony itself, where we meet the bride, Jane (Emily Banks!). The person at the door turns out to be the hypnotist, who does his thing. The segment ends with Jane saying that having seen Richard as a child, she wants two more just like him.


In "Love and the Psychiatrist," Doris (Corinne Camacho), the wife of psychiatrist Paul Meltz (Jerry Paris), is having an affair with one of her husband's colleagues, Harry Fishberg (Larry Hagman, who's grown a beard since he left NASA). Harry tries to explain to Doris that Paul's coldness is just a facade, but they resolve to stop sneaking around and come clean about their relationship. Harry goes to see Paul at his office, and confesses to the whole affair in an impromptu session on the couch, with Paul insisting on keeping the woman anonymous and encouraging Harry to disregard the husband and follow his heart. That night at home, Doris is nervous to find out how Paul's day went, and he tells her about the session, speculating that the woman was somebody else, which makes Doris break into laughter. The next day, however, Paul bursts into Harry's office while Harry is packing a suitcase. Paul's distraught and desperate to talk to somebody because Doris left him a note that she's running off with another man. Paul expresses his rage at the situation vividly, making Harry very nervous. Then Doris comes in, surprised to see Paul there, and Harry passes it off as a session about her affair, puts the two of them on the path of reconciliation, and rushes out with suitcase in hand.

_______

She called him before she found the body-- did we ever find out why?
Sorry, I wasn't taking notes while watching so a lot of odd plot details got lost. She'd had a nasty fight with her husband at a party that night. She just felt like calling Steve. Also, to further clarify Sheen's role, his character was a protege of the husband at his firm, but I think the husband was planning to cut him out because he didn't approve of Sheen marrying his daughter. And Danno made an excuse to visit Sheen when the call from Not Frisco was scheduled to come in, so he was there to book him when he accepted the call.

I'm pretty sure it was Perry Mason, which means it was about ten years earlier.
Not necessarily...the show ran until '66.
 
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Also auditing is Laurence Drescher (Alan Hale!)
Nice!

Before the bell rings (note concerning the question of this having come up with Dragnet)
Was this night school, too? I find it hard to believe there's a bell in night school. Unfortunately, Google is no help. :rommie:

And the would-be killer turns out to be...the Skipper
Good for him. I'm glad he got at least one meaty role after Gilligan.

Before the retrial commences, the Chief tries to convince McIntire not to retire.
Well, he and the jury did send an innocent man to his death.

Felix is eventually discovered behind the couch trying to sneak to his medicine, and taking care of him becomes the focus of Barbara's attention.
Of course it does. :rommie:

The coda has Oscar trying to get revenge by coming home pretending to be sick while Felix is having a date with a woman named Mary Ann (Beryl Hammond), but he abandons the pretense when Felix immediately drops everything to tend to him.
This has to be the most character-drive show ever. :rommie:

When Mike goes to answer the door, a bucket of flour falls on his head.
Episode saved!

Shortly after the episode, General Zod takes over the school.
There goes my next That Girl twist.

Reuben likes his act, thinking that it's campy and would bring needed comedy to the show.
Now there's irony. :D

Fred thanks Amanda backstage and they decide to meet in the middle--her acting a little more youthful and him acting a little more mature...which begins with an around-the-world cruise.
Maybe he can get a job performing on cruise ships.

When she leaves, he shows Donald the angel in the centerfold, but Donald tries to pretend not to be bothered by it.
The fact that he doesn't immediately know it's not her tells us something very depressing. :rommie:

Meanwhile, Ann's applying for a job on The Captain Gooney Show, meeting the good captain (Kenneth Mars) via a frog puppet while he hides behind the office couch.
Sounds like a Captain Kangaroo parody.

He promptly produces the picture, which appears to use her head from a shoot that she did for Hairstyle magazine.
And done without Photoshop. People were real artists in those days.

And of course, who should see it at the barbershop but...Mr. Marie?
Mr. Marie! I'm shocked!

In the coda, the heat has passed as the March issue has come out, but Donald teases Ann about helping get her voted "Playpen Pal of the Year".
After Donald leaves, there's a knock on the door-- and it's the Fembot who posed for Playpen showing up to take Ann's place.

He placed a posthypnotic suggestion on Richard (Rich Little) that causes him to act like a three-year-old (or return to normal) whenever a bell rings
Recycling a classic Dick van Dyke plot.

The segment ends with Jane saying that having seen Richard as a child, she wants two more just like him.
Awww. :adore:

Then Doris comes in, surprised to see Paul there, and Harry passes it off as a session about her affair, puts the two of them on the path of reconciliation, and rushes out with suitcase in hand.
Now there's a convoluted plot with a satisfying resolution.

And Danno made an excuse to visit Sheen when the call from Not Frisco was scheduled to come in, so he was there to book him when he accepted the call.
They're like a well-oiled machine.

Not necessarily...the show ran until '66.
That's true, and we have seen some later-season episodes.
 
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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 3)

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Mission: Impossible
"Homecoming"
Originally aired October 10, 1970
Wiki said:
Jim Phelps discovers a series of murders going on in his hometown, and he brings in the rest of the IMF team to help him get to the bottom of it. Loretta Swit guest stars.

This one's a format-breaker and a half, as we don't just get an impromptu mission, but a relatively personal one that gives us glimpses of Phelps's childhood...which, granted, are fairly generic, but put to rest any theories that he came off of an assembly line somewhere. Literally the first thing we see in the teaser after the series title card is Jim going all Kwai Chang...it must be Stoic Main Character's Rarely Glimpsed Personal Life Flashback Week!
MI51.jpg
MI52.jpg
Jim is fixing the above-seen family business because he's planning to donate the property to the county for use as a park, when a female acquaintance named Connie Hastings (Sharon Acker) waves hi as she drives past. Shortly afterward she gets a flat, and stops to find that her spare is damaged as well. This might make you wonder where Barney is hiding, but it turns out to be somebody else, who taunts and chases her as she runs back screaming for Jim, and almost catches her but is forced to flee.

Attending a town meeting at the office of Norville County sheriff Brad Owens (Joe Maross), Jim learns that two women in town have already been killed; and when asked for his opinion, recommends that rather than replacing Owens with somebody who'll face the same issues of being understaffed and poorly equipped, some of the townsmen should volunteer as deputies. The one clue is that the attacker wore thick glasses...so of course several townsfolk do, including reporter Stan Sherman (Jack Donner) and deputy Karl Burroughs (Larry Pennell). Jim calls in Barney to pose as a criminologist friend; Barney informs the others at a swank party that Dana's throwing, where we see Paris tinkling the keys (same link). They all volunteer to assist if needed.

At a bar run by another childhood friend, Midge (Loretta Swit), Jim notices an intense young vet named Seth Morley (Frank Webb), who's sitting alone...and also has thick glasses that he only wears when he needs to. A brief conversation reveals that Seth's suffering some delusions, as he thinks that their mutual old school coach, who died years ago, was in 'Nam with him. The kid also gets into an altercation with Jim's childhood friend Joe Keith (Fred Beir). Connie covertly calls Joe to tell him that she's leaving town, and we learn that she's having an affair with the married man. Shortly after, she's attacked again outside her flower shop...this time fatally.

Jim searches Seth's place and finds a list with the names of five women, including the three who've now been killed...though the other two are married women, Brad and Joe's wives (Jacqueline Scott and Patricia Smith), which doesn't fit the pattern. Barney arrives and determines that the killer was small and strong. An earpiece from the assailant's glasses was also found. Seth's glasses are missing an earpiece, but Jim attests that the timing is wrong, as they were already missing when he met the young man at the bar. Standing over Connie's body, Jim has another poignant visual flashback, of him pushing young Connie on a swing.

Dana comes into town to serve as bait (sporting a completely backless blouse, with a glimpse of side naughty that I'm surprised got past 1970 censors), and gets a job as a waitress at Midge's. Joe Keith takes an immediate interest in her. Meanwhile, Seth is paying a visit to Cynthia Owens with a gun when Jim drops in. Seth thinks that the MPs are after him for killing Cong women. Jim tricks Seth into taking him to the sheriff's office, where Brad is waiting behind the door to get the drop on the lad, forewarned by Cynthia. Brad assumes that they have their killer, but Barney produces more evidence indicating that the killer is a smaller person. Also, Cynthia reveals that the the five women on the list had gotten together to write to Seth while he was in 'Nam...raising the possibility that it's just an innocuous thank you list. While the townsmen learn that Seth is being sent to a state mental facility and conspire to get all lynch mobby, Jim learns from Julia Keith that Joe was having affairs with all of the murdered women.

Willy rolls into town in a hearse, posing as Connie's cousin. Pretending to pick up her body, he springs and chloroforms Seth, and smuggles him out in the coffin. Afterward, Paris drops by Midge's as Dana's jealous old boyfriend to make a scene about her seeing Joe. Jim and Barney, now sworn in as deputies of Norville County, stake out Midge's waiting for the killer to make his move. Midge leaves Dana alone with Stan to close the place. Dana goes down to the cellar to fetch a bottle of Stan's favorite, and the killer makes their move. At the same time, Jim has a random childhood flashback outside, reminding him of how one of the girls used to dress like a boy, hiding her blonde hair under a hat. He rushes in and stops the killer--who turns out to be Midge, who's secretly had a thing for Joe, while he pursued all the other available women in town, never noticing her.

Back at the family shop, Jim has one last childhood flashback of his old gang playing ring-around-the-rosie as his current gang piles into a car for their Impromptu Mission: Accomplished moment.

This episode relies on the unlikely trope that pretty much all of the prominent townspeople are supposed to have been Jim's childhood peers...which is undermined by evident age differences between the actors. Peter Graves was nine years older than Sharon Acker; and the wives look noticeably older than her as well.

When Jim is searching Seth's apartment, Brad comes in and Phelps gets behind the door and gives him a judo throw before seeing who it is. When Brad wonders where he learned that, Jim says that he must have picked it up in the Navy. This raises the possibility that Jim actually did serve in the Navy, which I can't recall ever having come up before.

_______

Adam-12
"Log 45: Bright Boy"
Originally aired October 10, 1970
Wiki said:
Malloy and Reed meet Harold, a young boy with a photographic memory, who alerts them to, and helps bring down, a group of home burglars disguised as movers. Other calls include stopping two female joyriders and two paint-sniffers shooting at a box of dynamite.

Reed tries to call in a code seven, but is interrupted by a bulletin about a suspect vehicle being pursued for numerous traffic violations. It's coming their way, so they intercept it. The drunk female driver immediately starts yelling crude insults at Malloy as he takes her out of the car and cuffs her. ("Fascist creep!") In between she says that she was trying to teach her sister how to drive.

Later on patrol, they get a call to see a boy about 459 suspects. The boy is our titular character, Harold Ruskin (Stephen Hudis). Standing by his bike, he describes how a moving van suspiciously pulled into the driveway of the house behind him and took various valuables like a TV and stereo out through the garage, while leaving the furniture. The owners come home while the officers are approaching the house, and confirm that a burglary has taken place. The boy is able to provide a license number and descriptions, which the detective, Sgt. Poster (Bruce Gordon)--who assigns Harold his titular nickname--tests him on.

Back on patrol, the officers get called to respond to shots fired. In the back of a house, they find a couple of good ol' boys, high on sniffing paint, who've been taking shots at a box of dynamite that they found, which is hanging nearby on a rope. After that they see Marnie Prout (Robin Raymond), the proprietor of a hair salon / beauty school, who's received a bomb threat from a disgruntled customer. No bomb is found, but Prout identifies the caller as Lorean Harper, then points her out while she's exiting a cleaner's across the street Harper (Patricia Winters) admits to the threat, then shows the officers what one of Prout's students did to her hair. She's surprised to learn that she's committed a felony.

Back at the station, the officers learn that Harold hasn't been able to identify the burglars in a book of mugshots. Sgt. Poster cynically suspects that the boy's info is made up, as it's too detailed. Malloy volunteers to take Harold back home, and on the way, he spots one of the burglars in the car next to them at a light--insisting that it's him despite a difference in the description of his hair. The officers let Harold out a few blocks from his house and tail the vehicle to a house, where they go to the door and start asking questions. The suspect lets them in and tries to pull a gun, but they stop him. Then his partner comes down the stairs firing his own gun, and is shot dead by Malloy. The captured suspect turns out to be wearing a shaggy reddish-brown wig, with the short blonde hair that Harold described underneath. He says that he and his partner are AWOL from serving in Vietnam, as they don't believe in killing or being killed for their country...which is just setup for a brief Friday moment from Malloy about how they're fine with killing at home, and how his partner died for nothing.

Back at the station, Harold enjoys a victory beat for his info about the burglars having been 100% accurate.

_______

The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Divorce Isn't Everything"
Originally aired October 10, 1970
Wiki said:
Rhoda convinces Mary to join the "Better Luck Next Time Club," an organization for divorced people, so they can take advantage of its discounted charter flights to Paris. Guest star: Shelley Berman

And it turns out that this is an episode that Decades skipped for whatever reason when I was recording the season. It happens to be coming up again in a couple of weeks, so I'll try to get back to it.

_______

Was this night school, too? I find it hard to believe there's a bell in night school. Unfortunately, Google is no help. :rommie:
I think it's night classes...that's what Mark was enrolled in before. Now are there bells in colleges...?

Episode saved!
I think you would have appreciated the boys' costumes...
TBB02.jpg

There goes my next That Girl twist.
TBB03.jpg
"I'll kneel before you if it will save lives."
"Um...I don't think that'll be necessary, Principal Randolph..."

The fact that he doesn't immediately know it's not her tells us something very depressing. :rommie:
I wouldn't describe it that way, but yes, they've made it implicitly clear time and again that these two are saving it for marriage.

Sounds like a Captain Kangaroo parody.
'Twas.

Mr. Marie! I'm shocked!
Was this going on when I was a kid and I didn't notice because they were distracting me with comic books and suckers?

After Donald leaves, there's a knock on the door-- and it's the Fembot who posed for Playpen showing up to take Ann's place.
...in the state of being completely dependent on raiding Ann's wardrobe...

Recycling a classic Dick van Dyke plot.
Did not know that.

And boom-chicka-BOW-WOW.

Now there's a convoluted plot with a satisfying resolution.
I hear that Harry headed to Texas looking to make his fortune in the oil business...

They're like a well-oiled machine.
There was also a beat in which Danno offered to take the case off Steve's hands because Steve was too personally involved...but a lot more gently than Steve would have if their roles were reversed.
 
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