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50th Anniversary Viewing
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The Ed Sullivan Show
"The Great Santa Claus Switch" (Season 23, episode 14)
Originally aired December 20, 1970
This special teams up Art Carney (in the dual roles of Santa Claus and evil magician Cosmo Scam) and the Muppets, with narrative bookends provided by Ed Sullivan, who's depicted as reading the story to children. Alas, I wanted to like it more than I did, finding that it dragged a bit, filling up its hour with mediocre musical numbers. Cosmo's scheme to impersonate Santa as a means of burglary seemed a little Grinchmiliar. Santa's habit of unsuccessful magic trick attempts was a bit random, though it did have a brief moment of payoff. His disarming niceness in all situations, however, was a nice touch. The part I enjoyed the most was the sequence in which Cosmo has Santa's suspicious elves replaced one by one with his own minions, the Frackels...and the elves' roll call song is repeated each time to display the new substitutions. And I'm sure that somebody here quite liked the elves' escape from Cosmo's lair disguised as rocks, which included elf hero Fred breaking the fourth wall to indulge in multiple puns of this nature...
Fred: I used to be scared, but this costume has made me a little boulder.
On the subject of the special's status as an
Ed Sullivan episode, the name
The Ed Sullivan Show is displayed at the end of the closing credits.
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The Odd Couple
"The Blackout"
Originally aired December 24, 1970
Wiki said:
When $50 goes missing after a power outage during a poker game, Oscar is the prime suspect. Cynthia Lynn guest stars.
Felix and Oscar are already having power issues in the apartment prior to the game, while Felix sets up the situation that the guys are already untrustworthy of Oscar's ability to pay his debts...which is underscored when Felix tries to hit up the super (Herbie Faye) for a loan so he has enough cash to play.
The lights go out in the entire building during the game, and a neighbor named Inga (Cynthia Lynn), whom Felix has been flirting with at the grocery store, comes to the apartment by mistake. When the power comes back on, a $50 bill is missing from the top of the cigar box that serves as the bank. Felix turns the lights out to give whoever took the bill the chance to replace it anonymously, and it turns back up at the top of the box; but the guys are still suspicious of Oscar, and make excuses to cut the game short. Felix reveals to Oscar afterward that he put the $50 in the box out of his wallet to cover for Oscar, convinced that Oscar swiped it.
Reading mystery books for ideas of how to solve the crime (Oscar cites Perry Mason as one of the great detectives--here I thought he was a lawyer), Oscar comes up with the idea of reassembling the entire gang, including Inga, at an odd hour of the morning to reenact the scene of the crime. Surprisingly, everybody comes. During the reenactment, Felix's attention is drawn to a sandwich that Oscar made in the dark, which turns out to have a $50 bill as one of its fixings--bitten into along with the rest of the sandwich.
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Adam-12
"Log 85: Sign of the Twins"
Originally aired December 26, 1970
Wiki said:
The officers' day begins with a liquor store robbery allegedly committed by the owner's brother that resulted in an officer being shot, later confronting the thieves in a shootout. Other calls include a zoning dispute with an elderly woman doing astrology readings out of her apartment, and a young boy asking a pharmacist questions about Seconal pills and his very uncooperative mother.
The officers are about to respond to a call about a zoning dispute when an all-units call about an officer having been shot at a liquor store takes priority. Officer Quinn (Larry J. Blake) is only wounded in the leg, and is able to give a great deal of detail about the suspects and their vehicle. The owner, Carl Kegan (Stacy Harris), complains about Quinn's ineffectiveness, while separately giving completely contradictory details. When they compare notes, the officers suspect that Kegan is hiding something. Quinn also tips them off that Kegan didn't fire at the robbers, when he had a gun in his hand and a clear shot. Detectives later confirm that Quinn's details were more on-the-mark, helping them to identify one of the possible suspects. When the officers later go back to the liquor store to inform the detectives there, Kegan is confronted with this information and eventually admits that one of the robbers was his own brother...but he says that he doesn't know his brother's current whereabouts.
The officers proceed to their original call, which concerns a senior citizen named Mrs. Wade (Sheila Bromley) who's making money giving astrology readings out of her apartment, in a residential neighborhood. She seems genuinely unaware that she was doing anything wrong, and Malloy suggests that she try to get a permit to do it at a senior citizens' club that she mentions. She correctly identifies Malloy as a Leo, and manages to narrow down his exact birthday (July 23, I think it was).
Next the officers see a druggist (Howard Culver), who's concerned about a 14-year-old neighborhood boy named Terry Pendleton having brought in a partially consumed bottle of Seconal pills, asking a lot of questions about potential overdosing. They go to the boy's home and talk to his mother (Margaret O'Brien), who'd just attended a lecture about drugs that the officers had given, and seems very defensive about their questions. After putting out a description of Terry (Buddy Foster), they spot him on the street and chase him down. He doesn't want to talk and insists on being taken to the station instead of his mother; and when taken home, he urges her not to talk. When informed that Terry's facing a felony, Mrs. Pendleton admits that the capsules are hers, that she's been getting them under the table, and that she's been taking eighteen a day.
Finally, the officers receive a request from the detectives investigating the liquor store robbery to rendezvous with them at a service station. The detectives have gotten a lead on the suspects' address, which is within sight of the station, and have the officers stake the place out while they check out some other leads. Eventually the vehicle that Quinn had identified pulls in, and when it looks like the suspects are about to leave again before the detectives have gotten back, the officers rush in to intercept the suspects. There's an exchange of fire, in which one of the suspects is wounded in the leg.
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I love pretty much everything from Jesus Christ, Superstar.
This song is all that I've got of the soundtrack, though I did see a production of it at a Westchester County dinner theater several years back. The theater shut down this year because of you-know-what.
I generally like Bread, but this isn't one of their best.
But isn't it adorable? I think Bread is trying to do rock!
This is a catchy Oldie... wait, the Osmonds? No!
Apparently the Osmonds had been releasing records for several years. I'm not familiar with their earlier works, but it seems that they finally found breakout success by aping the Jackson 5.
I'm dancing with my hobgoblin here. I went ahead and reluctantly bought this one...I could stop there, as it's their only #1--and the only song by them that I can recall ever having heard on oldies radio--but I'm inclined to at least give their Top 10 singles a try. By the time I've done that, I've bought their $6.99 collection and might as well include all of their Top 20 singles (which I'll be covering here anyway), as I'll already own them...
I think I remember this, except for the spoken parts. Is it a cover or something?
It was originally recorded by the Rascals, but subsequently covered by a number of other artists over the years, including a 1992 single version by Divinyls that was part of the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer film soundtrack.
Gotta admit, this is a Sinatra song that I like.
It is an attention grabber. I had to get this one in before the New Year, for contrast with 2020.
Interesting. It's all new to me.
And me.
That's interesting. I don't hear the "Thanks, Dean," though.
Turns out that bit of business is from the largely different, extended, more live-in-the-studio album version:
He's just plain freaky to watch.
1966 
