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50th Anniversary Viewing
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Hawaii Five-O
"Is This Any Way to Run a Paradise?"
Originally aired December 21, 1971
Wiki said:
McGarrett searches for an ecology fanatic whose pranks are harmless until he threatens the lives of those he feels are the cause of the islands' pollution.
The suspect first strikes by causing a fire at an incinerator plant that involves having plugged the top of the stack with a custom-fitted metal plate. Kono's actually pleased at the choice of target. Up top, Danno finds a figurine of Kaili, the Hawaiian god of battle, containing a typewritten message attributed to the deity. McGarrett goes to the museum to consult Curator Sumi (Edward Fernandez). A witness describes how one man climbed up the stack bearing the large circular metal plate, indicating a perp of considerable strength. In the next incident, a garbage truck dumps its load on the steps of the capital. McGarrett talks to Environmental Defense League official Clyde Finley (Fred Ball), who indicates that a lot of his membership support this Kaili and delivers the titular question.
Kaili's next target is a crop-dusting plane, which he shoots down with a shotgun, pulling the badly injured pilot out afterward and leaving his calling card. Steve considers this attempted murder and takes the investigation that much more seriously. Finley now volunteers his cooperation, so Five-O knocks on the doors of a list of EDL members, eliminating physically unlikely suspects. Five-O HQ gets an older hippie visitor (Don Lev) who confesses to being Kaili, but Steve considers him to be an unlikely suspect. The team narrows things down to a construction man; an athletic high school shop teacher; a gas station owner who openly owns a shotgun; and a man who's been threatening to demolish an apartment building that blocks his view of Diamond Head.
During a talk show broadcast concerning industrial pollution, we see Kaili type a death list that includes the panelists: Senator Bob Patterson (Fred Titcomb) and industrialists Edgar Hackbart (Mitch Mitchell), T. Emory Grace (Ted Scott), and Lai Han (Richard Morrison). The list is distributed and McGarrett gathers the potential targets to warn them and assign protection. Based on Kono's insight of Kaili's nature, Steve picks Lai Han--the strongest man--as the most likely target. At night, a man swims against a strong current up to Han's shoreline estate, sneaks up to the owner's bedroom clad only in trunks, and snaps his neck. Based on this additional feat of strength, Steve and Kono agree that it has to be the shop teacher whom the latter spoke to, Aku (Nephi Hanneman), who slips away during a search of the school after knocking out a posted police officer. In the school's basement, Danno finds a typewriter that matches the one used to write the notes.
Steve goes to the next likely target, Grace, wanting to use him as bait, but he won't cooperate. Senator Patterson proves more willing, so he goes on TV to address Kaili in a critical manner. The senator proceeds to attend a luncheon with Five-O among the crowd. The team then leads and tails him as he proceeds to the dedication of a sugar plant...outside of which Aku waits in the cane fields. Aku cuts off the senator's car with a dump truck and, when fired on by McGarrett, returns fire while fleeing into the fields. Squad car units are called in and surround the field. McGarrett calls for Aku's surrender via bullhorn, then has Kono address him in Hawaiian. Aku sets the field on fire, which Kono intuits is his way of committing suicide, shedding a tear and tossing a Kaili figurine found in the truck into the blaze.
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The Brady Bunch
"The Not-So-Rose-Colored Glasses"
Originally aired December 24, 1971
Wiki said:
Jan accidentally takes someone else's bicycle and her grades are falling. It is learned her eyesight is failing and she needs glasses – which she refuses to wear. She bicycles without her glasses, but crashes her bike destroying the portrait of the kids Mike intended as an anniversary present for Carol. Jan tells the kids the photographer lost the negative and they have to be photographed again for the replacement portrait. Mike realizes it is a new photograph – Jan wears her glasses in the new portrait. Jan says she was not wearing her glasses at the time of her accident and that she sold her bicycle to pay for the replacement portrait. In the subplot, Carol and Mike are trying to hide anniversary presents from each other.
The episode opens with the times-signy sight of Jan riding home on a banana seat bike, and sets up the anniversary present business as Alice feigns a toothache to keep Carol occupied while Mike takes the kids to the photographer. Mike gets a call from a playground that Jan stole another girl's bike. Jan is oblivious that the similar-looking bike isn't hers until the parents point out minor differences. (It seems like she could have made this mistake without needing glasses.) Mike proceeds to smuggle the kids, dressed up for the occasion, to the studio of comically disorganized photographer Gregory Gaylord (Robert Nadder). The parents later get a letter from one of Jan's teachers about her having difficulty and her grades slipping, and when talking to her about it notice that Jan can't read the letter. Learning that Jan sits in the back of the class further indicates an eyesight issue. Jan's brought home in her new specs and the younger kids have to be coached not to make fun, but they slip and make her feel worse. Marcia catches Jan taking her glasses off before going out to meet a boy at the library. On her way back, without the glasses, Jan rides right into the portrait, which is wrapped in paper in the garage, being hidden from Carol.
The boys are unsuccessful at attempting to repair the picture and frame, so the kids try to put together enough money to have another picture taken without letting any of the adults in on it. When they're unsuccessful, Jan offers to come up with the bread. The kids sneak out in groups and rendezvous at the studio wearing the same good clothes...which Alice and Carol notice, though the kids offer them impromptu excuses. They go out of their way to recreate the original picture, but nobody notices that Jan's now wearing her glasses. The anniversary arrives and the folks are surprised with gifts. The portrait is the first opened, and Carol notes that Jan wore her glasses. Mike takes Jan aside and she confesses. Mike, expressing concern that she could have hurt herself in a worse accident, grounds Jan from riding her bike, and she explains that she sold it to pay for the new portrait. Carol hangs the portrait in the parents' bedroom, and Alice reveals that during her diversion of Carol, the dentist found three cavities.
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The Odd Couple
"Felix the Calypso Singer"
Originally aired December 24, 1971
Wiki said:
When Nancy can't make it, Oscar takes Felix on a Caribbean vacation.
Felix is giving Oscar and Nancy a little bon voyage party at the apartment when Nancy gets called in for an emergency. Oscar is upset and feels like he has to take the vacation, so he gets the idea to ask Felix to come. In luggage still packed from a previous trip, Oscar finds a wrapped Christmas present that he forgot to give Felix the previous year: a box of assorted cheeses.
Felix has difficulty on the small plane ride that's their last leg of the trip to the island of Jacaloma. The pilot, Pepe (Vito Scotti), is also their cabbie, hotel bellhop, and hotel musician. As the guys are settling in, Oscar gets a call from Nancy that she found somebody to take her place. Felix is reluctantly willing to return to the States, but the flight off the island is delayed by Pepe getting stinking drunk, so Felix spends the night in the lobby.
Oscar offers to spend the next day with Felix seeing the local sights, but Felix confronts him with what he's learned of what a pathetic backwater Oscar managed to find--which includes the island's "museum" being a shelf with a few local artifacts displayed right there in the hotel bar. Nancy arrives and Felix hangs around to guilt Oscar about having to explore what little the island has to offer alone. Nancy takes pity on Felix and tries to get him involved in what she and Oscar are doing, but Oscar arranges for Felix to sing in Pepe's calypso band. While Felix hastily prepares for his performance...
Drunk patron (Jack Perkins): I'm Jesse Skolnik, who are you?
Oscar: Ringo Starr.
Felix ends up singing a song that ribs Oscar by name. When he brings Jesse into the song, Oscar ends up having to deck Jesse to stop him from going after Felix. Before leaving, Felix admits that if their roles had been reversed and Gloria had been in Nancy's place, he would've dumped Oscar in a minute; and Pepe invites Felix to join the band for an encore performance.
As I recall, MeTV was using Felix's song in one of its spots for the show years back.
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I could have sworn it came up in this thread before. I would have supplied a link.
A search for "omnibus" only turns up a mention of a series of those for Kirby's Fourth World.
BTW, you're missing half the fun if you go reprint. The Fourth World titles largely ran through the phase in which DC was embracing a 52-page format to deal with the need to increase prices, so each issue of the titles includes a Golden Age Simon/Kirby reprint...the Newsboy Legion in
Jimmy Olsen, Sandman in
Forever People, Manhunter in
New Gods, and the Boy Commandos in
Mister Miracle.
A decent cover. But I'm amazed that the original didn't make the list.
I also meant to mention that while this was T. Rex's only big hit in the States, they were already into a decent run of big hits in the UK at this point. They often come up in Beatles lore as a band that was being seen as the next big thing after the Fabs on that side of the pond.
I actually didn't realize it was a cover, but, yeah, still weirdly appealing.
Apparently it has a long list of recorded versions going back to 1939 under different titles, "Mbube" and "Wimoweh". The definitive r&r-era version, and apparently the first to use the title "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," was the chart-topper by the Tokens in 1961.
"Precious and few are the moments we toucans share."
Knowing who I was dealing with, I should have caught that...
Garry Crimble, all! 