The Classic/Retro Pop Culture Thread

[The Old Mixer]

50 Years Ago This Week


January 19

• Three Arab gunmen went to the observation deck at Orly Airport in Paris and tried to shoot down at El Al 747 jumbo jet as it was taking off from Paris to Tel Aviv with 220 people on board. After police prevented them from succeeding, the gunmen fired machine guns into the crowd and threw grenades, wounding 78 people, then took ten hostages. After 17 hours, the men were allowed to depart on a flight to Iraq after freeing all of their hostages.
• The United States Atomic Energy Commission was split up into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), under the terms of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. The NRC assumed the functions of regulating private nuclear power plants, while ERDA oversaw nuclear weapons.
• A group of four surfers became the first to ride the 15-foot (4.6 m) breaker at Kaena Point in Hawaii, described in at least one source as "the final big-wave frontier".

January 20

• Work was abandoned on the British end of the Channel Tunnel. The House of Commons approved cancellation of the project, 294–218, after Environment Secretary Anthony Crosland said that the nation could no longer afford the cost, which had increased to $4.6 billion. Crosland, 56, said that he expected that the tunnel would be finished during his lifetime, but he died two years later. Work was restarted in 1986 as a private venture, and the tunnel was completed in 1994.
• The Passamaquoddy and the Penobscot Indian tribes received a major victory in their lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and their claims against the State of Maine, when U.S. District Judge Edward T. Gignoux ruled in Portland that the Interior Department had to intervene on their side in the case, based on the Nonintercourse Act of 1790. The two small tribes would go on to obtain an $81,500,000 settlement and build a huge gambling empire.

January 21

• The United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in Taylor v. Louisiana, invalidating a Louisiana state law that exempted women from jury duty unless they specifically requested to be eligible.
• The National Hockey League became the first American sports league to allow women journalists into the players' locker room for interviews, a privilege formerly reserved for men. The NBA followed suit later in the year, with MLB and the NFL not admitting female reporters until later. The two women included in the press at the game in Montreal (which the Wales Conference won 7–1 over the Campbell Conference) were Robin Herman of The New York Times and Marcelle St. Cyr of Montreal radio station CKLM.

January 22

• Almost 50 years after it had been proposed, the United States ratification of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare," a treaty to ban use of poison gases in wartime, was confirmed by U.S. President Ford. The U.S. Senate had voted in favor of ratification, 93–0, on December 16, 1974.
• Landsat 2, the second in a series of American satellites designed to photograph images around the world, was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 9:56 am. Nine days earlier, ERTS-1 (launched on July 23, 1972) was renamed Landsat 1 while in orbit above the Earth. Landsat 2 was removed from service on February 25, 1982.

January 23

• Dr. Andreas Gruentzig, a heart surgeon at the University of Zurich, successfully inflated a double-lumen balloon catheter (which he had designed with his wife, assistant to her husband) to dilate the iliac artery of a dog without the side effects of creating an embolism. Later in the year, on September 24, he would first test the method on a coronary artery, and on September 16, 1976, he would use the technique for the first angioplasty on a human being.
• U.S. President Gerald Ford signed a proclamation for an eventual three-dollar per barrel fee on imported oil, with a one dollar fee effective on February 1, followed by similar increases on March 1 and April 1. Ten northeastern States would receive rebates on the fees due to their heavier reliance on imported oil. Congress voted to delay the increase for 90 days, and a federal court eventually ruled that the President did not have the power to implement fees independently of Congress.

January 24

• A bomb, planted by the Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN, killed 4 people and injured 58 at The Anglers' Club of New York at 101 Broad Street in New York City. The club was located in the dining room of the Frances Tavern, where George Washington had given his Farewell Address in 1783. A note from the group said that the bombing was in retaliation for a blast on January 11 in Mayagüez, which the FALN said had been placed by the CIA, and had killed 2 people and injured 11.
• Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald was arrested at his home in Huntington Beach, California after being indicted by a federal grand jury in North Carolina, for the February 17, 1970, murders of his wife and two daughters while he had been in the U.S. Army. Murder charges had been brought against MacDonald but dropped that year for lack of evidence. MacDonald maintained that the killings had been done by four hippies who chanted "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs" before beating him unconscious, and that he had woken to find his family dead. MacDonald was freed on bail a week later. His case came to trial in 1979, and he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. A federal court reversed the conviction in 1980 and MacDonald was freed on bail again, then re-arrested and imprisoned in 1982 after the verdict was upheld.
• Only seven months after its launch, the Salyut 3 space station was deorbited by the Soviet Union, a day after the secret test-firing of its defensive cannon. It was later determined that the firing of the shells had not played a role in taking the station out of orbit. Salyut 3 re-entered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and burned up. ["Say, Professor, do you think we could use this cannon to get us off the island?"]
• Died: Larry Fine, 72, who had been one of The Three Stooges along with Moe Howard (who would die on May 4) and Curly Howard

Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

1. "Please Mr. Postman," Carpenters
2. "Laughter in the Rain," Neil Sedaka
3. "Mandy," Barry Manilow
4. "Fire," Ohio Players
5. "Boogie On Reggae Woman," Stevie Wonder
6. "You're No Good," Linda Ronstadt
7. "One Man Woman / One Woman Man," Paul Anka w/ Odia Coates
8. "Morning Side of the Mountain," Donny & Marie Osmond
9. "Never Can Say Goodbye," Gloria Gaynor
10. "Pick Up the Pieces," Average White Band
11. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," Elton John
12. "Some Kind of Wonderful," Grand Funk
13. "Doctor's Orders," Carol Douglas
14. "Get Dancin'," Disco-Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes feat. Sir Monti Rock III
15. "Best of My Love," Eagles
16. "Rock n' Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)," Mac Davis
17. "Junior's Farm" / "Sally G", Paul McCartney & Wings
18. "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," Barry White
19. "Free Bird," Lynyrd Skynyrd
20. "Black Water," The Doobie Brothers
21. "#9 Dream," John Lennon
22. "Struttin'," Billy Preston
23. "Look in My Eyes Pretty Woman," Tony Orlando & Dawn
24. "Bungle in the Jungle," Jethro Tull
25. "Sweet Surrender," John Denver
26. "Ready," Cat Stevens
27. "Only You," Ringo Starr
28. "Nightingale," Carole King
29. "Lonely People," America

31. "Lady," Styx
32. "My Eyes Adored You," Frankie Valli
33. "Can't Get It Out of My Head," Electric Light Orchestra

35. "The Entertainer," Billy Joel
36. "Angie Baby," Helen Reddy

38. "Kung Fu Fighting," Carl Douglas
39. "I'm a Woman," Maria Muldaur
40. "Big Yellow Taxi" (Live), Joni Mitchell

42. "From His Woman to You," Barbara Mason
43. "Changes," David Bowie
44. "Cat's in the Cradle," Harry Chapin
45. "I Feel a Song (In My Heart)" / "Don't Burn Down the Bridge", Gladys Knight & The Pips
46. "Ding Dong, Ding Dong," George Harrison
47. "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You," Sugarloaf / Jerry Corbetta
48. "You Got the Love," Rufus feat. Chaka Khan
49. "Dark Horse," George Harrison

52. "Dancin' Fool," The Guess Who

55. "Roll On Down the Highway," Bachman-Turner Overdrive

57. "To the Door of the Sun (Alle Porte Del Sol)," Al Martino
58. "Movin' On," Bad Company

60. "Poetry Man," Phoebe Snow
61. "Lady Marmalade," Labelle
62. "Up in a Puff of Smoke," Polly Brown
63. "Have You Never Been Mellow," Olivia Newton-John
64. "You Are So Beautiful" / "It's a Sin When You Love Somebody", Joe Cocker

68. "Sad Sweet Dreamer," Sweet Sensation
69. "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)," B. T. Express
70. "Lovin' You," Minnie Riperton
71. "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)," Al Green
72. "I've Got the Music in Me," The Kiki Dee Band

74. "I Am Love, Pts. 1 & 2," Jackson 5

76. "Shame, Shame, Shame," Shirley & Company

79. "When Will I See You Again," The Three Degrees

82. "My Boy," Elvis Presley

84. "I Can Help," Billy Swan
85. "Express," B.T. Express

92. "Wishing You Were Here," Chicago

Leaving the chart:

• "Fairytale," The Pointer Sisters (16 weeks)
• "Must of Got Lost," J. Geils Band (11 weeks)
• "Promised Land," Elvis Presley (13 weeks)

Recent and new on the chart:

"Big Yellow Taxi" (Live), Joni Mitchell

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(Dec. 28; #24 US; #27 AC)

"Ding Dong, Ding Dong," George Harrison
(Jan. 11; #36 US; #38 UK)

"Movin' On," Bad Company

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(Jan. 18; #19 US)

"My Boy," Elvis Presley

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(#20 US; #1 AC; #14 Country; #5 UK)

"Express," B.T. Express

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(#4 US; #1 Dance; #1 R&B; #34 UK)

"Have You Never Been Mellow," Olivia Newton-John

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(#1 US the week of Mar. 8, 1975; #1 AC; #3 Country)


And new on the boob tube:

• The Six Million Dollar Man, "The Last Kamikaze" (New night!)
• Happy Days, "The Cunningham Caper"
• Adam-12, "G.T.A."
• M*A*S*H, "The Consultant"
• Hawaii Five-O, "A Woman's Work Is with a Gun"
• The Odd Couple, "Felix the Horse Player"
• Kung Fu, "One Step to Darkness"
• All in the Family, "Amelia's Divorce"
• Emergency!, "Prestidigitation"
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "The Shame of the Cities"
• The Bob Newhart Show, "A Pound of Flesh"

---

Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month, with minor editing as needed.

---

Actually, I think he played Lucas's father-in-law.

One time, yes.

He probably hopes it dispenses tomatoes.

The rottener, the better.

I saw him on a few episodes of Laramie when I was babysitting my Mother, and he mixed it up a few times.

I didn't realize he was on another Western...I'm recording some episodes to check it out.

They must be in the same universe as Batman.

Well, they've had the Neal Hefti music cues. I'm not sure if he's still doing music for the show at this point, as I haven't been noticing the Batman similarities that I used to.

But it seemed like he wasn't really fanatically against it, and changed his mind without much fuss.

Watching the episode, he was annoyingly obstinate about it, and actively interfering with the paramedics trying to save lives.

They may have missed an opportunity for a dream episode there.

What, Bob as Kojak?

Now I'm picturing you in a 1940s private eye office.

Can I have a sassy, streetwise secretary?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Three Arab gunmen went to the observation deck at Orly Airport in Paris and tried to shoot down at El Al 747 jumbo jet as it was taking off from Paris to Tel Aviv with 220 people on board. After police prevented them from succeeding, the gunmen fired machine guns into the crowd and threw grenades, wounding 78 people, then took ten hostages. After 17 hours, the men were allowed to depart on a flight to Iraq after freeing all of their hostages.

"And that's our final offer!"

A group of four surfers became the first to ride the 15-foot (4.6 m) breaker at Kaena Point in Hawaii, described in at least one source as "the final big-wave frontier".

I'll bet one of them was Zonker.

Work was abandoned on the British end of the Channel Tunnel.

The French must have been pissed.

Crosland, 56, said that he expected that the tunnel would be finished during his lifetime, but he died two years later.

That's called tempting fate, dude.

Work was restarted in 1986 as a private venture, and the tunnel was completed in 1994.

Never give up, never surrender.

The United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in Taylor v. Louisiana, invalidating a Louisiana state law that exempted women from jury duty unless they specifically requested to be eligible.

If I was exempted from jury duty, I'd be kind of happy about it.

Almost 50 years after it had been proposed, the United States ratification of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare," a treaty to ban use of poison gases in wartime, was confirmed by U.S. President Ford. The U.S. Senate had voted in favor of ratification, 93–0, on December 16, 1974.

Never give up, never surrender.

Later in the year, on September 24, he would first test the method on a coronary artery, and on September 16, 1976, he would use the technique for the first angioplasty on a human being.

Remarkable. And now hundreds of thousands of lives are saved every year.

U.S. President Gerald Ford signed a proclamation for an eventual three-dollar per barrel fee on imported oil, with a one dollar fee effective on February 1, followed by similar increases on March 1 and April 1. Ten northeastern States would receive rebates on the fees due to their heavier reliance on imported oil. Congress voted to delay the increase for 90 days, and a federal court eventually ruled that the President did not have the power to implement fees independently of Congress.

This is what they get paid to do, folks.

MacDonald maintained that the killings had been done by four hippies who chanted "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs"

Sounds reasonable. Probably Satan worshipers, too.

["Say, Professor, do you think we could use this cannon to get us off the island?"]

"I'm going to leave you to guard this Russian space cannon, little buddy. Whatever you do, don't touch that big red button."

Died: Larry Fine, 72, who had been one of The Three Stooges along with Moe Howard (who would die on May 4) and Curly Howard

RIP and welcome to immortality.

"Must of Got Lost,"

"Big Yellow Taxi" (Live), Joni Mitchell

Good one, but I don't remember hearing it until the late 80s. No 70s nostalgic value.

"Ding Dong, Ding Dong," George Harrison

Yeah, I like it, but I don't remember when I first heard it. No nostalgic value.

"Movin' On," Bad Company

Man, I haven't heard this in ages. Pretty good. Moderate nostalgic value.

"My Boy," Elvis Presley

Late-stage Elvis. Meh.

"Express," B.T. Express

Nice try sneaking in some words at the end, BT Express, but I'm not fooled.

"Have You Never Been Mellow," Olivia Newton-John

Now we're talking. Classic Olivia. Strong nostalgic value, although I somehow think of this as a Summer song.

The rottener, the better.

Wow.

I didn't realize he was on another Western...I'm recording some episodes to check it out.

I remember enjoying it, but I couldn't tell you much about it now. I mainly remember one where they were pinned down in a cabin by some gunmen.

Well, they've had the Neal Hefti music cues. I'm not sure if he's still doing music for the show at this point, as I haven't been noticing the Batman similarities that I used to.

My brain is barely capable of noticing stuff like that.

Watching the episode, he was annoyingly obstinate about it, and actively interfering with the paramedics trying to save lives.

Oh, okay. Never mind then.

What, Bob as Kojak?

Yeah, like on Gilligan's Island.

Can I have a sassy, streetwise secretary?

I insist!

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'll bet one of them was Zonker.

This item was like a Five-O/Trek crossover.

The French must have been pissed.

"We wanted to give up first!"

This is what they get paid to do, folks.

I'm not even sure what was going on with this one.

"I'm going to leave you to guard this Russian space cannon, little buddy. Whatever you do, don't touch that big red button."

Said while doing his grabby-hands thing.

Good one, but I don't remember hearing it until the late 80s. No 70s nostalgic value.

A bit surprising that a live version did better as a single than the original studio version.

Man, I haven't heard this in ages. Pretty good. Moderate nostalgic value.

Vaguely familiar and alright. Kind of generic classic rock.

Late-stage Elvis. Meh.

The song is meh, but it's still the King. This one is from a couple of his albums back, whatever was up with that.

Nice try sneaking in some words at the end, BT Express, but I'm not fooled.

I like this one, especially the whistle...though it does seem like it's trying to be the next Soul Train theme, figuratively or literally.

Now we're talking. Classic Olivia. Strong nostalgic value, although I somehow think of this as a Summer song.

I don't have any first-hand recollection of her music career before Grease.

Wow.

For Rudy's purposes, that is.

I remember enjoying it, but I couldn't tell you much about it now. I mainly remember one where they were pinned down in a cabin by some gunmen.

I watched one--the third episode--that guested Ernest Borgnine as a character whose backstory was quite similar to Jason McCord's (who wasn't around yet): a former Army officer who was acquitted of charges of cowardice for his role at the Battle of Cold Creek, but his reputation still suffered for it.

My brain is barely capable of noticing stuff like that.

It was pretty distinct when it was happening...the paramedics arriving at the scene sounded just like the Batmobile pulling up at GCPHQ.

I insist!

 

[RJDiogenes]

This item was like a Five-O/Trek crossover.

I think we've already had a couple of those-- now we've upgraded to a Five-O/Trek/Doonesbury crossover.

"We wanted to give up first!"

Oh, man.

A bit surprising that a live version did better as a single than the original studio version.

I generally prefer studio versions, but I don't really mind live versions.

Vaguely familiar and alright. Kind of generic classic rock.

That's about the size of it.

The song is meh, but it's still the King. This one is from a couple of his albums back, whatever was up with that.

Maybe it got some local play and escalated or something.

I don't have any first-hand recollection of her music career before Grease.

I think I've mentioned before that I much prefer her pre-Grease persona. Pre-Grease seems natural, post-Grease seems forced.

For Rudy's purposes, that is.

Of course, of course.

I watched one--the third episode--that guested Ernest Borgnine as a character whose backstory was quite similar to Jason McCord's (who wasn't around yet): a former Army officer who was acquitted of charges of cowardice for his role at the Battle of Cold Creek, but his reputation still suffered for it.

I didn't see that one. I would remember seeing Ernest Borgnine.

It was pretty distinct when it was happening...the paramedics arriving at the scene sounded just like the Batmobile pulling up at GCPHQ.

That made me wonder why they don't have poles at Station 51. Or do they? I don't remember them using poles. They probably don't have a turntable to turn the truck around either.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Oh, man.

Hey, I resisted zee urge to spell eet in an outrageously French accent!

I didn't see that one. I would remember seeing Ernest Borgnine.

He was playing a more genteel type here than I'm used to seeing him play.

That made me wonder why they don't have poles at Station 51. Or do they? I don't remember them using poles. They probably don't have a turntable to turn the truck around either.

They don't have poles because it's a one-story station other than the extra bay height. The living accommodations are on the ground floor. IIRC, one of the regulars commented in the pilot about the station not having a pole, and the opening sequence showed Johnny going into action from his old station, which did have one.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Hey, I resisted zee urge to spell eet in an outrageously French accent!

How about a Frenchman with a British accent? I'm remembering Jean-Luc from "Encounter at Farpoint," declaring, "We surrender!"

He was playing a more genteel type here than I'm used to seeing him play.

He's actually a good actor when given a chance.

They don't have poles because it's a one-story station other than the extra bay height. The living accommodations are on the ground floor.

That's what I thought. I seem to remember the dorm being on the opposite side of the galley, which is right off the garage.

 

[The Old Mixer]

---

50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)

---

Adam-12
"Pot Shot"
Originally aired January 14, 1975

While paying a visit to the laundromat before going into work, Malloy encounters a man using the facilities to dry something much different from clothing. On patrol, he and Reed deal with a minister-in-training who uses a very unorthodox method to get his message across, try to reunite a Finnish-speaking child with her family, mediate a strange dispute between feuding neighbors, and engage in a high-speed chase with a well-known drug dealer.

Pete's dropping off his laundry in his civvies on a Sunday morning when the proprietor, Thelma (Dorothy Konrad), goes over to deal with a customer who's been hogging one of the driers (Richard Dillon). When she opens the door, a distinctive odor comes out, causing Pete to flash his badge and place the young man under arrest. After he calls it in, Woods arrives to take the suspect in.

When Pete's on duty, we learn from chatter in the squad car that Pete's getting serious about a woman named Judy. The officers are called to a 415 at a warehouse, where they find a young man in a suit (John Elerick) punching out a worker. He explains that he's a divinity student who was passing by when he heard the men inside taking the Lord's name in vain; and that at first he tried to reason with them, but the situation escalated. The workers don't want to press charges, so the student is let go with an admonishment from Pete that he try turning the other cheek next time.

Next the officers are called to see a city bus driver named Tom Hartrum (Paul Factor), who found that a little blonde girl wasn't accompanied by an adult (Riikka Pitkonen), and she doesn't speak English. She's taken in to T12HQ, where Mac brings in Investigator Strickland (Doug Johnson reprising his Team 12 role), who can only confirm that she's not speaking Japanese, but thinks she sounds Scananavian. An offscreen call to the Swedish Counsel determines that she's Finnish and in the States visiting an aunt, but wandered off on her own while playing at a neighbor's house. At Mac's direction, the officers try driving her around the suspected vicinity of her aunt's house, which she eventually points out.

As they're leaving the house, the officers are approached by a Dave Morris (Paul Lukather), who's called the police over an ongoing altercation with a neighbor, Mrs. Alltoff, whom he now accuses of having stolen his comic book collection. It turns out that his kids, who've been the cause of many calls by Alltoff, actually threw the comics--said to include valuable editions of Superman, Captain Marvel, and Green Lantern--into Alltoff's back yard, and the neighbor now refuses to return them. Pete talks to Alltoff (Amzie Strickland), who cites her history with Morris's kids throwing garbage onto her property and wants to teach him a lesson. Pete informs her that if the comics are valuable property, she could be liable for grand theft, so they come to an agreement that involves Morris's two boys (including Stephen Manley) cleaning up a recent rotten tomato mess that they made on Alltoff's driveway.

Meanwhile, Strickland has informed Pete that his laundromat perp still refuses to identify himself, but is probably a dealer or pusher based on the amount he had, and speculates about a larger operation. On patrol, Jim and Pete are talking about how Judy has a nine-year-old son named David when they're called to the laundromat, where Thelma tips them off about a couple of suspects who came by asking about the pot-drying perp. Their car, in which she saw multiple bags matching the one the pot-drier used, belongs to Tony Greer, whom Pete was involved in the arrest of years prior. They proceed to Greer's address, where the suspects are carrying laundry bags out to the car. Jim catches the man before he gets to the car, but the young woman takes off, to be pursued by Pete. The car is cornered and the driver arrested. Multiple bags are found in the car, and even more in the house, where the drier broke.

The officers return to the laundromat for more info from Thelma, only for Pete to be embarrassed when Jim learns that he was doing Judy's laundry along with his own.

---

M*A*S*H
"Bulletin Board"
Originally aired January 14, 1975

It's another day when nothing goes as planned, including Henry's sex lecture, a Shirley Temple movie, and a company picnic.

Alan Alda received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for directing this episode.

Blake assembles the men for a routine lecture that focuses on the need to avoid leaving behind children in Korea, though Burns uses it as an opportunity to get on his soapbox for some anti-Commie propaganda. While Frank is encouraging the personnel to put some of their pay into war bonds, Margaret comes to him wanting to borrow $240 for her younger sister's wedding, which he rebuffs in a war of quotes about generosity vs. the evils of money. Trap writes a letter to one of his daughters, which turns into a flashback of an incident the previous December when Burns promptly declared an incoming casualty dead, only for Trap to find a pulse that wasn't discernable in the extremities because of hypothermia...which Trap also credits for having kept the soldier from bleeding to death on the battlefield.

Klinger's got a date for the Shirley Temple film, though he gets into an altercation with a soldier (Johnny Haymer) who wants him to remove his lady's hat...which turns into an all-out brawl when the man takes Klinger's seat while he's getting popcorn, which Mulcahy unsuccessfully attempts to break up.

Henry reluctantly agrees to proceed with the barbeque/picnic for Korean orphans after losing a patient. The attractions include Trap and a nurse (Patricia Stevens) making out backstage while putting on a puppet show; Klinger in a fortune-teller's outfit striking out in a kissing booth; and a relay race that involves filling jars with spoonsful of water, in which the children and a nun participate. Margaret's giving Frank the cold shoulder over the money, and he gets himself in deeper by asking for an IOU and interest. Frank accidentally wins a foot race while running from Margaret, winning a bra donated by Klinger. The episode climaxes with a game of tug of war that results in everyone in the mud, punctuated by the sobering sound of incoming choppers.

The coda has news items from election season 1952 being announced during a session in the OR.

---

Hawaii Five-O
"Computer Killer"
Originally aired January 14, 1975

An investigation into a murder is sent off track through the modification of computer information, and Five-O must use the latest technology to rescue the case.

William Curtis (Norman E. Dupont) overhears a fight between next-door neighbors Tony and Maureen Tilles (Alfred D. Goldman and Ava Lyn Readdy) over their divorce, which ends with Maureen dead; then sees Tony leaving the scene, taking some things to make it look like a burglary. Sometime later in his car, Charles Aarons (Jeff David) calls a number in his classified "By-Pass Code Book" to hook up to a phone company computer via what is referred to later in the episode as an "acoustic coupler"--what we'd call a modem, whether or not the term was in common use at the time--to retrieve information about Curtis; even while Curtis testifies in court for the prosecutor, D.A. Manicote. After electronics tycoon Hugh Tilles (future Daily Bugle publisher Robert F. Simon) encourages his son not to cop a plea, he's approached by Aarons, who produces phone info about the star witness and offers to get Tony off for a hefty payment.

When court reconvenes, defense attorney Kehoe (Edward Stephen Sheehan) produces computer evidence that Curtis made a call from the Tilles apartment, implying an affair with Mrs. T that calls into question the witness's credibility. Aaron subsequently instructs Tilles Sr. to change his savings account to a specific bank; then uses another number in his book to hook up with a computer that gives him info about an ex-con who served time for burglary named Timothy J. Palmer, whom Aarons garottes with a rope outside his bungalow and buries, while getting one of his fingerprints on a pair of sunglasses along the way. Aarons subsequently quits his programming job at World Business Machines, Inc., while voicing his resentment about higher-ups profiting from his knowhow. Aarons then orders an engraved bracelet at a department store and "hacks" (as we probably weren't saying in those days, either) into the store's computer system to make it look like Maureen Tilles purchased it. Proceeding to the apartment complex where Curtis and the Tilleses live(d), Aaron breaks into an apartment, ransacks some drawers, steals some jewelry, and garottes middle-aged occupant Harriet Brigham when she returns, planting the sunglasses under her body.

In the aftermath, Five-O (this being a Frank episode) connects this with the apparent burglary of the Tilles apartment, and identifies Palmer's print. They investigate the bungalow to find not the occupant, but the stolen jewelry and the bracelet with the initials MT. This makes Palmer a new suspect, and the judge in the Tilles case (John A. Scott) grants a request from Manicote for a continuance while this angle is investigated. Aarons books a flight through a travel agency, which he then hacks, putting the reservation in the name of one of Palmer's aliases; following which he leaves Palmer's car parked at the airport while wearing latex gloves. Having gotten wind of the new angles in the case, Tilles Sr. confronts Aarons about the killings, and Aarons dares him to go forward while directing the same resentment he had for his employers at Tilles.

After the latest planted evidence of Palmer's activities is discovered, Five-O gets a subpoena for him, but Steve begins to smell something fishy in that all of the new evidence has involved generally unassailable computer records. Steve and Danno consult HPD computer expert Larry Fredericks (the other George Kennedy), who explains how the acoustic coupler works and advises that somebody involved in the programming of the specific computer systems could have tampered with the records. Five-O finds that all of the computers were programmed by WBM, as was the system of the bank that Tilles recently transferred his account to. Five-O gets a warrant to examine the computer records of Tilles's new account, and turn up that he transferred money to a Charles Aarons--the name of one of WBM's programmers.

The conclusion really played wrong for me. Back in court, Tilles is surprised when Manicote calls in a handcuffed Charles Aarons to testify. Aarons looks smug, while McGarrett closes the episode with a little lecture to Tilles about expecting more from people than from cold machines. While Tilles certainly bore criminal accountability for the scheme, it was Aarons who initiated it, sold it to him without disclosing how far it would go, and went on a killing spree of his own devising. He was the real monster here, but in the end they play it like Tilles was the bigger fish and Aarons was just a hireling who could implicate him.

---

Ironside
"The Faded Image"
Originally aired January 16, 1975
Original broadcast series finale

When Fran is assaulted, her colleagues launch a search for the culprit.

Fran is dropping into the classroom of her night school art instructor, Prof. Link, when she comes upon a mangled sculpture and recovers it with the plastic she found lying on the floor. An unidentified figure who'd been lurking outside the room stealthily follows her out to her car and violently pulls her into the bushes from behind, but is interrupted by campus security pulling up. The team and Diana converge at the hospital, where we learn of two prior campus assaults and murders of young women. The Chief takes an interest when a trio of fellow students visit, Carole Mapes (Elisabeth Brooks), Ted Glenville (Gary Frank), and Mike Hogan (Bill Garris), questioning them about the last time they saw Fran after class, when she was going back inside.

Ed and Mark liaise with the detective on the case, Lt. John Rainey (James Wheaton), to study files of the prior victims. Dr. Thompson (Jordan Rhodes) lets the Chief in to see an unconscious Fran, which results in a couple of flashbacks to the rocky start of their working relationship in her origin episode. While tracing Fran's steps on campus, Ed and Mark have a run-in with Capt. Dennis Barnes (Donald Barry), the campus security chief who found Fran, who tells of how he saw her before the assault at a payphone with an unidentified second woman who gave her change. Waiting while Fran's in surgery triggers another flashback, of Fran joining the team. The surgery is successful, and the other woman at the phone is identified as another art instructor, Vivian Dorsey (Julie Gregg), whom Ed finds in an argument with Dean Glenville (top-billed guest Richard Anderson) about her qualification for a position. She tells Ed of how she was less than friendly with Fran, who seemed to recognize her, and there's a hint that she's personally involved with the dean, who's unable to provide a connection between Fran and the other victims.

The Chief pays a visit to a conscious Fran, whose memory is jogged about how, after encountering Dorsey and making the call, she noticed Link's door ajar and went in to investigate, finding the mutilated sculpture, a bust of a woman. She also takes great interest in Dorsey's name, struggling to make a connection involving her. Ed questions Prof. Link (Paul Mantee) about Dorsey, his whereabouts at the time of the assault, and his knowledge of the other girls. He's just telling Ed of how Vivian had once dated him with the ulterior motive of getting him to withdraw from the department head position that she was after when Capt. Barnes bursts in and announces that Prof. Dorsey has been found dead outside.

As the Chief's expressing an interest in focusing on what Dean Glenville knows about Dorsey, we cut to the Glenville home, where we learn that Ted is the dean's son, who disapproves of how his father neglects his mother (Coleen Gray). Ed gets aggressive as he tries to get the truth out of the close-lipped dean downstairs. Mark picks up campus rumors of a possible affair between Dorsey and Glennville, and is assigned to stake out the dean. Under further bedside questioning from the rest of the team and Diana, Fran has a flash to Link's class that night, which is interrupted by seemingly unconnected flashes of Dorsey. Notably, Ted's back is blocking a bust that he's working on.

Lt. Rainey turns up that Capt. Barnes was forced to retire from the police after extortion, then was the subject of complaints from female students at his first campus security job. Meanwhile, a figure in doctor's scrubs makes his way to Fran's room and starts to strangle her, but is interrupted when Officer Daggitt outside (John Elerick) belatedly takes interest and interrupts. We see that the assaulter is Ted. In the aftermath, Mark reports that Capt. Barnes is visiting the dean at home, and Ed finds him drinking there, getting out of the dean that Barnes has been blackmailing him for seeing Vivian, and that he also temporarily dated the previous victims, though he denies having killed them. After Ed and Barnes exit, Ted confronts his father, who indicates that he's moved on from a marriage that's already effectively over, threats of suicide having kept him from divorcing the secluded Mrs. Glenville...who walks out of her room just in time to find Ted insinuating that he'd also been with Vivian, which earns him a backhand from his father.

Back at the hospital, the Chief helps Fran to remember that Ted's sculpture was of Vivian Dorsey, which Ted seemed evasive of at the time. Cut to the Chief speaking to the assembled art class, with the dean present, to unveil a restored bust of Vivian Dorsey and share his deduction that the first two girls were preliminaries for her, the real target; and that the killer only subconsciously made the sculpture into her likeness, when he was supposed to be doing one of his mother. A triggered Ted lunges forward to tear apart the sculpture again, then confronts his father, indicating that the dean was meant to take the blame for the killings. Ted being taken away by Mark and Ed is the last we see of the broadcast portion of the series, though the Get recording cuts off early as usual.

---

 

[RJDiogenes]

Pete's dropping off his laundry in his civvies on a Sunday morning when the proprietor, Thelma (Dorothy Konrad), goes over to deal with a customer who's been hogging one of the driers

So this is a laundry service that also has self-service machines?

When she opens the door, a distinctive odor comes out, causing Pete to flash his badge and place the young man under arrest.

I wonder if you can get a contact high from that. Could be good for business.

The officers are called to a 415 at a warehouse, where they find a young man in a suit (John Elerick) punching out a worker. He explains that he's a divinity student who was passing by when he heard the men inside taking the Lord's name in vain; and that at first he tried to reason with them, but the situation escalated.

That's not what they mean by "fighting priest," kid.

An offscreen call to the Swedish Counsel determines that she's Finnish and in the States visiting an aunt, but wandered off on her own while playing at a neighbor's house. At Mac's direction, the officers try driving her around the suspected vicinity of her aunt's house, which she eventually points out.

They just drove around willy-nilly until they found the house? You'd think that it would be best to call or bring her to the Finnish Consulate.

As they're leaving the house

So the kid just wandered off without anybody noticing, and tried to get on a bus to find her way back?

an ongoing altercation with a neighbor, Mrs. Alltoff, whom he now accuses of having stolen his comic book collection.

Shoot first, ask questions later.

they come to an agreement that involves Morris's two boys (including Stephen Manley) cleaning up a recent rotten tomato mess that they made on Alltoff's driveway.

It sounds like these kids need to be sent off to boot camp or something.

Meanwhile, Strickland has informed Pete that his laundromat perp still refuses to identify himself

Good plan. Maybe they'll just give up and let him go.

Jim and Pete are talking about how Judy has a nine-year-old son named David

I wonder if this is going to be a multi-episode arc.

Jim catches the man before he gets to the car, but the young woman takes off, to be pursued by Pete. The car is cornered and the driver arrested. Multiple bags are found in the car, and even more in the house, where the drier broke.

Thelma deserves a big tip for her big tip.

The officers return to the laundromat for more info from Thelma, only for Pete to be embarrassed when Jim learns that he was doing Judy's laundry along with his own.

Heh. It's more serious than we thought.

Margaret comes to him wanting to borrow $240 for her younger sister's wedding, which he rebuffs in a war of quotes about generosity vs. the evils of money.

It's amazing they lasted as long as they did. I also have to wonder why Margaret needs to borrow money.

Klinger's got a date for the Shirley Temple film, though he gets into an altercation with a soldier (Johnny Haymer) who wants him to remove his lady's hat

Er... does that mean his lady's hat or his lady's hat?

The coda has news items from election season 1952 being announced during a session in the OR.

The good news is that all this will be over in less than a year.

Sometime later in his car, Charles Aarons (Jeff David) calls a number in his classified "By-Pass Code Book" to hook up to a phone company computer via what is referred to later in the episode as an "acoustic coupler"--what we'd call a modem, whether or not the term was in common use at the time

Car phones? Computers? Acoustic couplers? This is supposed to be a gritty realistic cop show, not silly Science Fiction!

produces computer evidence that Curtis made a call from the Tilles apartment, implying an affair with Mrs. T that calls into question the witness's credibility.

Is this legitimate incriminating evidence that Aarons found, or did he forge it?

Aaron subsequently instructs Tilles Sr. to change his savings account to a specific bank

Fatal error. He should have known better.

then uses another number in his book to hook up with a computer

How does the modem do all this stuff? Does it have a keyboard attached? Does it use audio signals, like a Touch-Tone phone?

info about an ex-con who served time for burglary named Timothy J. Palmer

Did he search for likely pawns using certain parameters or did he have this guy in mind from the start?

Aarons subsequently quits his programming job at World Business Machines, Inc.

Another stupid move, since his operation hinges on insider bypass code information.

while voicing his resentment about higher-ups profiting from his knowhow.

"Someday geeks will rule the world!"

following which he leaves Palmer's car parked at the airport

Five-O should be able to tell pretty easily that Palmer never got on the flight.

Five-O gets a warrant to examine the computer records of Tilles's new account, and turn up that he transferred money to a Charles Aarons

Amateur hour.

The conclusion really played wrong for me. Back in court, Tilles is surprised when Manicote calls in a handcuffed Charles Aarons to testify. Aarons looks smug, while McGarrett closes the episode with a little lecture to Tilles about expecting more from people than from cold machines. While Tilles certainly bore criminal accountability for the scheme, it was Aarons who initiated it, sold it to him without disclosing how far it would go, and went on a killing spree of his own devising. He was the real monster here, but in the end they play it like Tilles was the bigger fish and Aarons was just a hireling who could implicate him.

Tilles was trying to cover up a presumably accidental murder committed by his son, which is bad but an understandable impulse. Aarons committed multiple cold-blooded murders, along with his computer crimes, out of sheer pettiness. He was definitely the real villain, and a pathetic one at that. His whole plan was a headlong rush into failure.

Fran is dropping into the classroom of her night school art instructor

Has Fran ever demonstrated an interest in art before?

we learn of two prior campus assaults and murders of young women

You'd think that this would be common knowledge, especially with Team Ironside, especially since Fran was frequenting that campus. Students would be taking precautions and not wandering around alone.

Waiting while Fran's in surgery

What kind of surgery? How were the murders committed?

Dean Glenville (top-billed guest Richard Anderson)

Oscar. And Steve.

Prof. Link

Secret chimp.

Under further bedside questioning from the rest of the team and Diana

Further evidence that they were going to ease Diana onto TI.

Meanwhile, a figure in doctor's scrubs makes his way to Fran's room

Drink!

Officer Daggitt outside (John Elerick) belatedly takes interest and interrupts

Better late than never in TV Land. This is the second time Fran owes her life to the unusual circumstance of a security guard actually doing his job.

Cut to the Chief speaking to the assembled art class

Why? Are they all suspects?

his deduction that the first two girls were preliminaries for her, the real target

It seems more like Ted was killing anybody who his father had an affair with behind his mother's back.

the killer only subconsciously made the sculpture into her likeness, when he was supposed to be doing one of his mother.

So Ted is a mama's boy who made a sculpture of his mother, but subconsciously turned it into the woman who his father cheated on her with, and who he also had sex with and killed. They barely scratched the surface with this kid.

Ted being taken away by Mark and Ed is the last we see of the broadcast portion of the series, though the Get recording cuts off early as usual.

Maybe they explained what that phone call was about and why Fran and Dorsey didn't get along.

 

[The Old Mixer]

So this is a laundry service that also has self-service machines?

More of a laundromat with a service option.

They just drove around willy-nilly until they found the house? You'd think that it would be best to call or bring her to the Finnish Consulate.

They had an idea where she got on, and they had no contact info for the aunt.

So the kid just wandered off without anybody noticing, and tried to get on a bus to find her way back?

She left the neighbor’s house because the other kids were being mean to her. IIRC, she didn’t know how far from home she was and thought the bus would take her there.

I wonder if this is going to be a multi-episode arc.

I believe she appears in the finale, though I don’t recall how much setup they did.

It's amazing they lasted as long as they did. I also have to wonder why Margaret needs to borrow money.

She had a story about an alcoholic/klepto mom.

Er... does that mean his lady's hat or his lady's hat?

The one Klinger was wearing. His date was in uniform.

Is this legitimate incriminating evidence that Aarons found, or did he forge it?

Forged it.

How does the modem do all this stuff? Does it have a keyboard attached? Does it use audio signals, like a Touch-Tone phone?

He was using a desktop computer with keyboard and monitor on his end, and a portable unit in his car that closed up into a case.

He also had a printer next to the home unit that was spewing out paper. Pretty far out for 1974-75, huh?

Did he search for likely pawns using certain parameters or did he have this guy in mind from the start?

Searched for burglars.

Another stupid move, since his operation hinges on insider bypass code information.

He had his book.

Has Fran ever demonstrated an interest in art before?

Not that I can recall.

You'd think that this would be common knowledge, especially with Team Ironside, especially since Fran was frequenting that campus. Students would be taking precautions and not wandering around alone.

The other students did make a reference to sticking together.

What kind of surgery? How were the murders committed?

She was beat up, looked like her jaw might have been injured. I don't think they got into the latter, but they were also beaten, I believe.

Oscar. And Steve.

Perry Mason reference?

Secret chimp.

Had to look that one up.

Drink!

Yep.

Why? Are they all suspects?

They needed the one who was to implicate himself.

Maybe they explained what that phone call was about and why Fran and Dorsey didn't get along.

Fran was checking her answering service. Dorsey was like that, and she was there to confront Link.

 

[RJDiogenes]

More of a laundromat with a service option.

So they both must live in apartment buildings without facilities. If she had a house, she'd surely have a washer and dryer that he could use.

They had an idea where she got on, and they had no contact info for the aunt.

But the Finnish Consulate would be the place to look for such info if she is visiting or immigrating.

She left the neighbor’s house because the other kids were being mean to her. IIRC, she didn’t know how far from home she was and thought the bus would take her there.

You'd think the adults would keep closer tabs on a kid that doesn't speak English. Apparently nobody even noticed she was missing, or else the boys would have gotten a call from dispatch.

I believe she appears in the finale, though I don’t recall how much setup they did.

Hmm. And I don't think there was ever an Adam-12 reunion to tell us how that worked out.

She had a story about an alcoholic/klepto mom.

Interesting. I don't remember a thing about her backstory.

The one Klinger was wearing. His date was in uniform.

Okay, I thought as much.

He was using a desktop computer with keyboard and monitor on his end, and a portable unit in his car that closed up into a case.
View attachment 44220View attachment 44221

He also had a printer next to the home unit that was spewing out paper. Pretty far out for 1974-75, huh?

Wow, that's super groovy. Much more than I would have expected.

He had his book.

Yeah, but they would change those codes lickety split as soon as he left.

The other students did make a reference to sticking together.

Then Fran was being reckless.

She was beat up, looked like her jaw might have been injured. I don't think they got into the latter, but they were also beaten, I believe.

So, internal injuries, I guess, but not so bad they couldn't wait for her to stabilize.

Perry Mason reference?

Indeed. He plays a cop named Steve something who turns up fairly frequently.

Had to look that one up.

You didn't know Lancelot Link? I'm a little surprised.

They needed the one who was to implicate himself.

Hmm....

Fran was checking her answering service. Dorsey was like that, and she was there to confront Link.

Makes sense. This was actually a pretty good story for their final episode.

 

[The Old Mixer]

---

50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)

---

The Six Million Dollar Man
"Lost Love"
Originally aired January 17, 1975

Kidnappers disrupt Steve's reunion with an old flame.

Said kidnappers wait outside a restaurant with a bottle of chloroform as Steve, leaving from a lunch with Oscar, spots an old flame sitting alone, Barbara Thatcher (Linda Marsh). (They always put in the eye sound effect when he spots something, even if it's something anyone could see across the room.) Steve charmingly gets reacquainted even as he silently notices the wedding ring on her finger. When he sees her out to her car, the kidnappers decide to delay their plans...even though that would have involved rushing to the entrance where she was having her car brought up by valet. Say, let's kidnap her in the most public place possible, where there's guaranteed to be other people right there who might intervene!

Filling Oscar in later about how he'd been seeing Barbara seven years prior when they drifted apart during his astronaut training, Steve learns that her husband, researcher Orin Thatcher, who's done work for the government, was reported to have died in a plane crash three months prior, which Barbara didn't mention. Steve drops in on Barbara at her apartment and things start to get romantic even as he's talking of taking things slow. The obligatory romantic interlude montage ensues, which in this case involves lots of DC landmarks and Steve using his bionics to win her a kewpie doll via baseball toss. After he returns her to her place, the kidnappers--who've identified Steve and are answering to a character played by Joseph Ruskin--make their move, and Steve looks up at the window to see a silhouetted chloro struggle. He rushes back up and sends the armed kidnappers on their way with bionic feats, including shielding himself from a bullet with a fire extinguisher.

Steve learns from Oscar that Orin's body wasn't found, and he was working on a means of purifying the atmosphere after a biological attack via the use of pixie dust from unicorns. Barbara can't share any specifics about her husband's research except the name of a colleague working on the same thing for another country, Prof. Kosoyin. During a dinner date with Steve, she gets a call from Ruskin in Lisbon, who puts her on the phone with Orin (Jeff Corey). Orin tells her that he's staying at the Bagarian Embassy there and implores upon her to come join him. Steve wants to accompany her so she can dump him face-to-face...which seems like kind of a bum angle, but both he and Oscar think that Orin may have defected, and Oscar doesn't stop Steve from going. As Steve's leaving the OSI, the kidnappers try to run him over, but he jumps over the car and gets a bionic look at their license plate.

The plate leads nowhere, but Ruskin meets Barbara at the airport and introduces himself as Andre Markos from the embassy. Barbara insists that Steve accompany her, and they proceed to the embassy, while the kidnappers lurk behind them. At the embassy, Barbara is reunited with Orin, who introduces his colleague, Prof. Kosoyin (Than Wyenn). Steve questions Markos about Thatcher faking his death to work for Markos's country, and is then shown to a room that he's locked into, after spotting Markos meeting with the kidnappers. He casually hops down from the terrace and bursts in on Barbara and Orin, only for things to get awkward as he presses her about whether she's broken the news to her husband, Markos enters, and she responds by declaring her love and complete loyalty to Orin (no, really, she does).

Steve decides to keep things awkward by staying on as a guest. When Kosoyin shows Steve and Barbara the lab where he and Dr. Thatcher have been pooling their resources, Steve has the opportunity to covertly arrange a rendezvous with a nervous Barbara. When Markos later intercepts Steve on his way to that rendezvous, the kidnappers slug Steve with a pistol, carry him down to the basement, and chain him to a post. Steve promptly escapes from this situation after coming to and proceeds to Barbara's room, where she tries to explain her end of the deception when Orin walks in on them and explains to both how it's all been a ruse on the professors' part--Kosoyin is the one who wants to defect, and they've managed to perfect the formula without telling Markos while waiting for an opportunity to escape. Orin takes Steve to the closet-sized safe where their research is kept, which only Kosoyin has the combination for, and Steve lets Thatcher watch, without quipping about security clearances, as he cracks open the safe in a more literal than usual manner. When Markos and his kidnappers come down to deal with them, Steve busts a fuse box to put the lights out, then uses his eye's infra-red to deal with the kidnappers. Under threat of physical force from Steve's bionic hand, Markos escorts Steve and the Thatchers to a limo, which Kosoyin hops into at the last minute, and the foursome hightails it out like the end of an M:I episode. The escape hits a downbeat as Steve sees the Thatchers warming up to each other again in the front seat.

In the coda, Steve meets Barbara at the restaurant where they reunited and, having developed a new respect for Orin, expresses his understanding of her decision to stay with him. Barbara regretfully exits from the restaurant and Steve's life.

---

Emergency!
"Kidding"
Originally aired January 18, 1975

Johnny is assigned to conduct a school tour of Rampart hospital. A veteran mentally reliving a battle is subdued by the paramedics; he turns out to have a brain tumor. A woman gets stuck in a dog door. A famous novelist attempts suicide. A cargo plane crashes in a residential area, hitting a school bus.

A short order cook (uncredited Buddy Lester) comes to the station looking into his prospects for building a burger stand on a nearby vacant lot, and while Roy's reluctant to give business advice, Johnny's happy to encourage the endeavor. Johnny's not so eager when Cap'n Stanley assigns him to guide a tour of fifth-graders at the hospital that afternoon while the squad's getting its brakes fixed. Then Squad 51 is called to assist an assault victim.

They find Army fatigue-clad Jim Long (James Ingersoll) in an enraged and delusional state, holding a knife to his wife (Laurette Spang). You're thinking that this is a job for the police, and they arrive as the paramedics attempt to approach the man with a white flag and calm him down. They eventually get inside his defenses and grab him, with the officers piling on to subdue him. Unable to get good vitals even when he's restrained because he's thrashing about so violently, the paramedics are instructed to give him shot and bring him to Rampart. Johnny questions his wife to learn that he's been out of the Army for a year, but has only been acting strangely for the last month. At Rampart, while Morton can only get name, rank, and serial number because Long thinks he's at Charlie HQ, Brackett gets more details about his symptoms from Mrs. Long. An examination of Long's eyes reveals a sign that causes Brackett to order a full neurological exam, which turns up a brain tumor.

At Rampart and back at the station, Johnny frets over how to entertain the kids, with Roy and Dix agreeing that he's selling them short, as if they were much younger. The squad is called to assist a woman who's stuck in her doggie door (speaking of J. Jamesons, it's Joyce), which she used to be able to get through. Her husband Harry (Norman Bartold) arrives in time to let Roy in to help pull her in. Once she's free, the paramedics see that her dog, Man Eater, is just a scraggly little thing. Back at Rampart, the doctors and Dix convince Mrs. Long to sign release forms for the operation.

The station is called to rescue a man who's attempting to asphyxiate himself in his garage. They bust open a door, turn off the engine, and get him out. As the paramedics are treating him, a female mail carrier (uncredited Adrian Ricard) informs them that he's famous novelist Maxwell Hart (Paul Fix), who used to get letters from presidents and kings, but hasn't written since his wife died five years prior. He's taken to Rampart, where Dix informs Johnny that the kids he's brought balloons and bubblegum for won an essay contest about medicine. Indeed, as Johnny's tour begins, he finds that the kids are uninterested in the pediatrics playroom, but have a detailed list of things they'd like to see and learn more about. As Dix is taking Hart, who feels that he's forgotten has-been, to be evaluated up in the psychiatric ward, they run into Johnny's tour, and all of the adults are pleasantly surprised when one of the kids recognizes Hart and they all want his autograph.

Johnny's expressing his astonishment about the kids to the other firefighters when Station 51 and several other units are called to a plane in trouble that's about to land at an airfield. Go to town, RJ!

The twin-engine cargo plane overshoots the runway and crashes into a school bus in a residential neighborhood. While firefighters deal with resulting fires, the paramedics break into the bus and help the kids get out, and Cap'n Stanley leads his men in cutting open the plane fuselage to get out the pilots. Just as everyone gets clear, the plane and bus blow up real good, which the firefighters promptly get to work on.

In the Rampart coda, we learn that a pilot died; Dix updates the paramedics that Long's operation went just fine; and Brackett has found the answer to a question from the kids that stumped him by consulting a medical text.

---

The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Phyllis Whips Inflation"
Originally aired January 18, 1975

With everyone feeling the crunch of inflation, Phyllis tries to find a job and Mary tries to coax a raise out of Mr. Grant. Final appearance of Cloris Leachman as a regular cast member.

Snowy Minneapolis: Phyllis comes up to Mary's after having an argument with Lars over him wanting her to live on a budget.

Phyllis: For me, it would be like...trying to make love in...a straightjacket!​

Mary: Hey (laughs)...don't knock it 'til you've tried it.​

Mary tries to show Phyllis how to manage a budget, and it comes up along the way that Phyllis has raised Mary's rent and neglected to tell her, which sends Mary back to work on her budget book.

Mary hesitantly asks Lou for a cost-of-living raise and is ultimately refused. Phyllis drops by the newsroom to announce that she's looking for a job, and when Sue Ann comes in while she's there despite Ted's attempt to warn Mary, it looks like it's going to turn into a catfight, but Phyllis just asks Sue Ann if there are any openings on her show.

Phyllis ends up at an employment agency where she talks to jaded Helen Farrell (Doris Roberts) and finds that she doesn't have any of the job skills that they're looking for. When Farrell discovers a too-good-to-be-true job opening at a PR firm that Phyllis would actually qualify for, the agent runs out the door to grab it herself. Phyllis goes back to the newsroom to report her lack of success only to find Mary too preoccupied with a breaking story to listen to her, which results in an outburst. Back at the apartment, Phyllis resolves to get by living within her means and expresses resentment toward Mary regarding her lifestyle where she used to feel superiority. When Mary prods Phyllis about whether she'd trade places and Phyllis describes all the reasons that she wouldn't, it just deflates Mary, causing Phyllis to feel superior again.

One gag in the episode has Ted sharing a theory that all the money is going to Japan, which in hindsight isn't as far-fetched as they intended it to sound.

---

The Bob Newhart Show
"The Way We Weren't"
Originally aired January 18, 1975

Emily finds out a secret about the girl Bob was dating before he met her.

The opening credits variation with Bob coming home first is back.

Howard comes to Bob's office to fret over how a pilot is bringing Jennifer Evans, a stewardess Howard used to date, to a party that Howard and Ellen are throwing. It comes up that Ellen is inviting a friend from back home named Gloria Webster whom Bob continued seeing right up until he married Emily. At the party, Howard tries to get rid of Jennifer (Casey Connors) before Ellen arrives, but he and Jennifer end up getting assigned as substitutes to the same flight, causing the party to break up early. When Ellen gets there, the subject of Gloria comes up, and Ellen gets the impression that Bob already told Emily all about her, so Emily learns about Gloria being an old girlfriend that Bob never mentioned. (Apparently Gloria didn't arrive at the airport or something, but I missed that detail.) When a navigator arrives late, Bob insists that he stay and chats him up to avoid having to face Emily.

When Howard returns from his flight the next day, there's another misunderstanding about how much Emily knows, and this time she learns about when Bob was seeing Gloria. While Bob's talking out the situation with Jerry at the office, Ellen explains to Emily how Bob was in the process of phasing Gloria out the entire time he was seeing Emily. Bob comes home ready to talk only to find Emily making a show of no longer being jealous. Things get awkward when, following up on what he and Jerry discussed, Bob asks Emily about her past boyfriends in Seattle.

---

So they both must live in apartment buildings without facilities. If she had a house, she'd surely have a washer and dryer that he could use.

True.

Interesting. I don't remember a thing about her backstory.

It struck me as a throwaway episodic detail that would likely be forgotten and contradicted someday.

Yeah, but they would change those codes lickety split as soon as he left.

Maybe they were hardwired in or something. Or he figured he'd make his million in time.

You didn't know Lancelot Link? I'm a little surprised.

Never been exposed to it in syndication, and it aired too early for me to remember firsthand.

 

[RJDiogenes]

(They always put in the eye sound effect when he spots something, even if it's something anyone could see across the room.)

"You've got a little spinach in your teeth, Oscar." Beep beep beep

Say, let's kidnap her in the most public place possible, where there's guaranteed to be other people right there who might intervene!

"Does everybody have their masks off? Good!"

he'd been seeing Barbara seven years prior when they drifted apart during his astronaut training

"We were both astronauts, practicing space walks...."

Steve drops in on Barbara at her apartment and things start to get romantic even as he's talking of taking things slow.

Hey, it's been three whole months!

Steve using his bionics to win her a kewpie doll via baseball toss.

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater.

After he returns her to her place, the kidnappers--who've identified Steve and are answering to a character played by Joseph Ruskin--make their move

That must have been a short montage. Montages are usually used to indicate the passage of weeks, at least.

He rushes back up and sends the armed kidnappers on their way with bionic feats

What prevented him from actually capturing or disabling the kidnappers?

he was working on a means of purifying the atmosphere after a biological via the use of pixie dust from unicorns.

Massive genre shift! This should spice things up!

Steve wants to accompany her so she can dump him face-to-face...which seems like kind of a bum angle

Kind of an odd first reaction to finding out her important government asset of a husband faked his own death.

but both he and Oscar think that Orin may have defected

There do seem to be certain indications.

he jumps over the car and gets a bionic look at their license plate.

Beep beep beep

and they proceed to the embassy, while the kidnappers lurk behind them.

Isn't that where the kidnappers were going to bring them?

only for things to get awkward as he presses her about whether she's broken the news to her husband

"Forget about all this international intrigue and being held prisoner by a hostile foreign power-- are we dating or not?!"

Markos enters, and she responds by declaring her love and complete loyalty to Orin (no, really, she does).

There's no bionic defense against that.

Steve decides to keep things awkward by staying on as a guest.

Which totally confuses the kidnappers.

When Markos later intercepts Steve on his way to that rendezvous, the kidnappers slug Steve with a pistol, carry him down to the basement, and chain him to a post.

Those Bagarians are very strict about trysts with married women.

Orin walks in on them and explains to both how it's all been a ruse on the professors' part--Kosoyin is the one who wants to defect

Okay, so... Thatcher faked his death because Kosoyin wants to defect, and then tried to kidnap his wife and put her in danger even though he wasn't really going anywhere, and when that didn't work he just called her up and invited her to be with him while he didn't go anywhere, and then the kidnappers tried to kill Steve once, and beat him up and captured him a couple of times for no reason or various reasons. I guess this is what happens when scientists plan a defection without consulting professionals.

they've managed to perfect the formula without telling Markos while waiting for an opportunity to escape

Because why wait until you're safely out of the clutches of a hostile foreign power?

Steve lets Thatcher watch, without quipping about security clearances, as he cracks open the safe in a more literal than usual manner.

"I bet this would impress Barbara, eh, Orin?"

Markos escorts Steve and the Thatchers to a limo, which Kosoyin hops into at the last minute, and the foursome hightails it out like the end of an M:I episode.

Did the Bagarian Embassy use that same M:I language?

The escape hits a downbeat as Steve sees the Thatchers warming up to each other again in the front seat.

"Hmm. Legally, he's dead, so...."

Steve meets Barbara at the restaurant where they reunited and, having developed a new respect for Orin

Why?

A short order cook (uncredited Buddy Lester) comes to the station looking into his prospects for building a burger stand on a nearby vacant lot

He should probably talk to the owner of the property and the various licensing boards that would be involved, rather than paramedics.

Johnny's not so eager when Cap'n Stanley assigns him to guide a tour of fifth-graders at the hospital

Other duties as assigned.

his wife (Laurette Spang)

Space Socialator.

You're thinking that this is a job for the police, and they arrive as the paramedics attempt to approach the man

Funny how the paramedics got there first.

They eventually get inside his defenses and grab him, with the officers piling on to subdue him.

Reed and Malloy would have been right up front.

At Rampart and back at the station, Johnny frets over how to entertain the kids

It seems odd that a paramedic gets assigned to tour the hospital, rather than someone who actually works there in HR or something.

The squad is called to assist a woman who's stuck in her doggie door (speaking of J. Jamesons, it's Joyce), which she used to be able to get through.

"I used to be able to squeeze into a size 16 doggy door."

famous novelist Maxwell Hart (Paul Fix)

Former marshal and doctor.

As Dix is taking Hart, who feels that he's forgotten has-been, to be evaluated up in the psychiatric ward, they run into Johnny's tour, and all of the adults are pleasantly surprised when one of the kids recognizes Hart and they all want his autograph.

That was a nice way to tie the two plot threads together.

Station 51 and several other units are called to a plane in trouble that's about to land at an airfield. Go to town, RJ!

One-RJ-12, 10-4! The N5368R is a Cessna 172F Skyhawk. built in 1965. This Emergency! episode is its only TV or movie credit, apparently. As far as I can tell, it's still operational. It has a current registration that expires 7-31-28. It's owned by a company in Oklahoma that specializes in aircraft repair and restoration.

The twin-engine cargo plane overshoots the runway and crashes into a school bus in a residential neighborhood.

Well, that's about as bad as it gets.

In the Rampart coda, we learn that a pilot died

Amazing that all those kids got out okay.

Dix updates the paramedics that Long's operation went just fine

Did Brackett perform the op? I don't think he's a neurosurgeon.

and Brackett has found the answer to a question from the kids that stumped him by consulting a medical text.

One of the kids stumped Brackett? Must have been Doogie Howser.

Phyllis: For me, it would be like...trying to make love in...a straightjacket!
Mary: Hey (laughs)...don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

Somewhere there's an alternate universe where we see the episodes between the episodes.

it comes up along the way that Phyllis has raised Mary's rent and neglected to tell her

Maybe Phyllis should rent out that magical third-floor apartment that's sitting there empty.

Helen Farrell (Doris Roberts)

Everybody's annoying mother.

One gag in the episode has Ted sharing a theory that all the money is going to Japan, which in hindsight isn't as far-fetched as they intended it to sound.

Ted has an unusually ept part in this episode, between this and trying to warn Mary about the Sue Ann/Phyllis encounter.

The opening credits variation with Bob coming home first is back.

He caught the early train.

It comes up that Ellen is inviting a friend from back home named Gloria Webster whom Bob continued seeing right up until he married Emily.

We need one of those Odd Couple/Dick van Dyke-style flashback episodes.

Ellen explains to Emily how Bob was in the process of phasing Gloria out the entire time he was seeing Emily.

And now Emily is going to phase Bob out of existence.

Things get awkward when, following up on what he and Jerry discussed, Bob asks Emily about her past boyfriends in Seattle.

The best defense.

It struck me as a throwaway episodic detail that would likely be forgotten and contradicted someday.

Probably.

Maybe they were hardwired in or something. Or he figured he'd make his million in time.

Yeah, it may have been a big deal to change stuff like that then. Hopefully the guy was preparing to leave the country and go into hiding.

Never been exposed to it in syndication, and it aired too early for me to remember firsthand.

He was kind of infamous when I was young.

 

[The Old Mixer]

---

50th Anniversary Viewing Addendum

---

The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Mary Richards: Producer"
Originally aired January 4, 1975

Mary pushes Lou for the chance to produce an entire show, but the challenge of putting the newscast together almost breaks her.

Take 2!

Mary's anxious to increase her responsibilities, even as Sue Ann brings in a newspaper write-up about Mary's new position, which makes the Happy Homemaker jealous. While Lou tries to "sandbag" Mary by showering her job performance with praise, she eventually gets him to offer to let her produce the next day's show herself. As Mary's studying a rival broadcast at home, Ted and Georgette drop in, the former wanting Mary to make immediate changes to the format, including renaming it The Baxter Report. After he leaves, Mary brings up how she misses Rhoda being her sounding board, and Georgette tries to fill in for her, which goes awkwardly as Georgette doesn't know her role well enough.

The next day, Mary tries to take charge of everything, telling Ted off for showing up late and intercepting a staff member named Mel (Anthony Holland) when he tries to take her requested set changes to Mr. Grant. When Lou casually countermands her, she objects in front of everyone, which ultimately results in Lou walking out and leaving her to her own devices. After Sue Ann finds Lou drinking at the bar, she comes up to watch, while chastising Mary for sacrificing her femininity. Mary has to intervene when director Gus Brubaker (Phillip R. Allen) objects to the approval of changes suggested by Mel, including checked and striped wardrobe that will strobe and bleed.

Mary goes down to the bar to try to elicit a reaction from Lou, finding him relatively uninvested in the broadcast in his current state, though he informs her in a roundabout way that the unconscious drunk next to him (Fred Festinger) is her sound engineer. Ultimately the broadcast goes well, with the usual sort of on-air issue with Ted. When Lou returns, Mary presses him for an evaluation, and while he makes a show of refusing to praise her, she considers it high praise when he admits that "it didn't stink".

In the coda, Lou offers Mary a celebratory drink after teasing her otherwise.

---

"You've got a little spinach in your teeth, Oscar." Beep beep beep

I hear that effect as more of a boop boop boop.

"Does everybody have their masks off? Good!"

Indeed, no masks.

"We were both astronauts, practicing space walks...."

That must have been a short montage. Montages are usually used to indicate the passage of weeks, at least.

They weren't necessarily returning on the same day.

What prevented him from actually capturing or disabling the kidnappers?

Plot contrivance, natch.

Massive genre shift! This should spice things up!

Seems that "attack" got lost in one of my edits.

Isn't that where the kidnappers were going to bring them?

Her, anyway.

Okay, so... Thatcher faked his death because Kosoyin wants to defect, and then tried to kidnap his wife and put her in danger even though he wasn't really going anywhere, and when that didn't work he just called her up and invited her to be with him while he didn't go anywhere, and then the kidnappers tried to kill Steve once, and beat him up and captured him a couple of times for no reason or various reasons. I guess this is what happens when scientists plan a defection without consulting professionals.

The kidnappers just wanted to get Steve out of the way of their kidnapping. I wasn't clear on why Orin wanted Barbara there, but he may have thought it could provide an opportunity to escape or get information out.

Did the Bagarian Embassy use that same M:I language?

Not that I noticed. I'm not even sure if I spelled the nationality right.

"Hmm. Legally, he's dead, so...."

Not really.

Why?

Because he wasn't defecting, he was bravely endangering himself for the good of his country.

He should probably talk to the owner of the property and the various licensing boards that would be involved, rather than paramedics.

He wanted an on-site opinion.

It seems odd that a paramedic gets assigned to tour the hospital, rather than someone who actually works there in HR or something.

IKR?

"I used to be able to squeeze into a size 16 doggy door."

That was a nice way to tie the two plot threads together.

Indeed.

One-RJ-12, 10-4! The N5368R is a Cessna 172F Skyhawk. built in 1965. This Emergency! episode is its only TV or movie credit, apparently. As far as I can tell, it's still operational. It has a current registration that expires 7-31-28. It's owned by a company in Oklahoma that specializes in aircraft repair and restoration.

Good...now what about the other two?

Amazing that all those kids got out okay.

Now that you mention it...

Did Brackett perform the op? I don't think he's a neurosurgeon.

Unclear, but doubtful.

Maybe Phyllis should rent out that magical third-floor apartment that's sitting there empty.

True dat!

Everybody's annoying mother.

Also the second and longer-running secretary on Remington Steele! Her not being in on the secret for most of the series created an entertaining dynamic with her fake boss (whom she hero-worshipped) and her secret real boss (to whom she was less deferential).

Ted has an unusually ept part in this episode, between this and trying to warn Mary about the Sue Ann/Phyllis encounter.

Yeah, it's noteworthy when he sincerely tries to be useful or is unintentionally on-the-mark. And is "ept" actually a word?

He was kind of infamous when I was young.

You may have mentioned it before back whenever.

 

[RJDiogenes]

After Sue Ann finds Lou drinking at the bar, she comes up to watch, while chastising Mary for sacrificing her femininity.

Impossible!

she considers it high praise when he admits that "it didn't stink".

Probably the highest praise he's ever given.

I hear that effect as more of a boop boop boop.

Yeah, probably true.

They weren't necessarily returning on the same day.

They had a couple of impatient kidnappers in the wings, so it couldn't have been too long.

Plot contrivance, natch.

Right.

Seems that "attack" got lost in one of my edits.

My brain filled it in.

I wasn't clear on why Orin wanted Barbara there, but he may have thought it could provide an opportunity to escape or get information out.

While endangering her life. I think the writers just wanted to mislead us.

Not really.

I suppose he might be considered missing, since there was no body.

Because he wasn't defecting, he was bravely endangering himself for the good of his country.

Oh, I suppose.

He wanted an on-site opinion.

Ah. "Would you guys eat there?"

Good...now what about the other two?

Damn, you're as bad as my teachers in school. These might be less detailed, because I have to leave in a couple of minutes.

N3217Z: A Piper PA-22-150 Tri-Pacer, built in 1959. It also appears to be still in service, with a registration expiring 4-30-27. It's owned by Quality Aviation in Arizona, which seems to be a crop dusting outfit.

N7904X: A Cessna 172B Skyhawk, built in 1961. Also still in service and privately owned by a guy in Arizona. Everything seems to end up in Arizona. The registration expires 5-31 of this year.

Unclear, but doubtful.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Also the second and longer-running secretary on Remington Steele! Her not being in on the secret for most of the series created an entertaining dynamic with her fake boss (whom she hero-worshipped) and her secret real boss (to whom she was less deferential).

I never saw that show. You liked it?

Yeah, it's noteworthy when he sincerely tries to be useful or is unintentionally on-the-mark. And is "ept" actually a word?

Well, I intended it to be funny, but it's probably archaic or obscure-- if inept is a word, it must have started as ept.

You may have mentioned it before back whenever.

I love the title Secret Chimp-- it sounds like nobody's supposed to know he's a chimp.

 

[The Old Mixer]

50 Years Ago This Week


January 26

• Immaculata University defeated the University of Maryland 80–48 in the first nationally televised women's basketball game in the United States.

January 27

• The U.S. Senate voted 82-4 to establish its own special committee to investigate the CIA, with Frank Church of Idaho as the chairman.

January 28

• Japan and the Soviet Union signed an agreement for a joint venture of drilling for oil on Sakhalin Island, former Japanese territory that became part of the USSR. In return for funding of the development, Japan would receive "a significant discount on half of the pumped oil" for ten years.
• Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown premiered on CBS.

January 29

• The Weather Underground bombed the U.S. State Department main office in Washington, D.C.

January 30

• A professor of architecture in Budapest applied to the patent office in Hungary for his invention, which he called Terbeli logikai jatek ("Spatial logic game") Bűvös Kocka ("Magic Cube"). Patent #HU 170,062 was granted on March 28, 1977, to Ernő Rubik.
• The area around the wreckage of the gunboat USS Monitor, which had sunk in 1862 off of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, was designated as the first National Marine Sanctuary in the United States. The ship, which had fought the CSS Virginia (better known as Merrimack) in the most famous naval battle of the American Civil War, had become an artificial reef over 110 years prior to its location on August 27, 1973.
• The January 31 deadline for amnesty for draft dodgers who fled from the United States during the Vietnam War was extended to March 1. To that time, about 7,400 of 137,000 eligible had participated in the program, which required one year of volunteer service to avoid prosecution.

January 31

• Twenty-seven people on board the Greek oil tanker SS Corinthos were killed after their ship was struck by the American freighter Edgar M. Queeny. The Corinthos had been docked at Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, and was unloading its cargo of crude oil at a dockside refinery operated by British Petroleum when it was struck by the freighter, which was making a course change.
• Died: Ida May Fuller, 100, former legal secretary and first American to ever receive social security benefits

February 1

• U.S. President Ford announced that the 1976 fiscal year budget would reflect a deficit of 52 billion dollars. At the time, it was "the largest peacetime deficit in the nation's history".

Selections from Billboard's Hot 100 for the week:

1. "Laughter in the Rain," Neil Sedaka
2. "Fire," Ohio Players
3. "Boogie On Reggae Woman," Stevie Wonder
4. "You're No Good," Linda Ronstadt
5. "Pick Up the Pieces," Average White Band
6. "Please Mr. Postman," Carpenters
7. "Mandy," Barry Manilow
8. "Morning Side of the Mountain," Donny & Marie Osmond
9. "Best of My Love," Eagles
10. "Some Kind of Wonderful," Grand Funk
11. "Get Dancin'," Disco-Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes feat. Sir Monti Rock III
12. "Doctor's Orders," Carol Douglas
13. "Never Can Say Goodbye," Gloria Gaynor
14. "One Man Woman / One Woman Man," Paul Anka w/ Odia Coates
15. "Rock n' Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)," Mac Davis
16. "Black Water," The Doobie Brothers
17. "#9 Dream," John Lennon
18. "Look in My Eyes Pretty Woman," Tony Orlando & Dawn
19. "Free Bird," Lynyrd Skynyrd
20. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," Elton John
21. "Sweet Surrender," John Denver
22. "Struttin'," Billy Preston
23. "Nightingale," Carole King
24. "Lonely People," America

26. "Ready," Cat Stevens
27. "Lady," Styx
28. "My Eyes Adored You," Frankie Valli
29. "Can't Get It Out of My Head," Electric Light Orchestra
30. "I'm a Woman," Maria Muldaur

32. "Big Yellow Taxi" (Live), Joni Mitchell
33. "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," Barry White
34. "Bungle in the Jungle," Jethro Tull
35. "Only You," Ringo Starr
36. "Lady Marmalade," Labelle
37. "Roll On Down the Highway," Bachman-Turner Overdrive
38. "Ding Dong, Ding Dong," George Harrison
39. "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You," Sugarloaf / Jerry Corbetta

41. "Changes," David Bowie
42. "Express," B.T. Express
43. "Kung Fu Fighting," Carl Douglas
44. "Angie Baby," Helen Reddy
45. "The Entertainer," Billy Joel
46. "Movin' On," Bad Company
47. "To the Door of the Sun (Alle Porte Del Sol)," Al Martino

49. "Have You Never Been Mellow," Olivia Newton-John
50. "Poetry Man," Phoebe Snow
51. "Up in a Puff of Smoke," Polly Brown
52. "From His Woman to You," Barbara Mason
53. "You Are So Beautiful" / "It's a Sin When You Love Somebody", Joe Cocker

57. "Cat's in the Cradle," Harry Chapin
58. "Sad Sweet Dreamer," Sweet Sensation
59. "Lovin' You," Minnie Riperton

61. "I Feel a Song (In My Heart)" / "Don't Burn Down the Bridge", Gladys Knight & The Pips

63. "I Am Love, Pts. 1 & 2," Jackson 5
64. "Shame, Shame, Shame," Shirley & Company

66. "Junior's Farm" / "Sally G", Paul McCartney & Wings

69. "My Boy," Elvis Presley

78. "Dancin' Fool," The Guess Who

81. "Chevy Van," Sammy Johns
82. "Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)," Al Green

97. "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," Freddy Fender

99. "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song," B. J. Thomas

Leaving the chart:

• "Dark Horse," George Harrison (10 weeks)
• "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)," B. T. Express (18 weeks)
• "I Can Help," Billy Swan (18 weeks)
• "I've Got the Music in Me," The Kiki Dee Band (20 weeks)
• "When Will I See You Again," The Three Degrees (18 weeks)
• "Wishing You Were Here," Chicago (15 weeks)
• "You Got the Love," Rufus feat. Chaka Khan (16 weeks)

New on the chart:

"Chevy Van," Sammy Johns

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(#5 US; #80 Country)

"(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song," B. J. Thomas

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(#1 US the week of Apr. 26, 1975; #1 AC; #1 Country; #51 UK)

"Before the Next Teardrop Falls," Freddy Fender

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(#1 US the week of May 31, 1975; #19 AC; #1 Country)


And new on the boob tube:

• The Six Million Dollar Man, "Return of the Robot Maker"
• Happy Days, "The Not Making of a President"
• Adam-12, "Victim of the Crime"
• Hawaii Five-O, "Small Witness, Large Crime"
• The Odd Couple, "The Rent Strike"
• Emergency!, "It's How You Play the Game"
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "Marriage Minneapolis Style"
• The Bob Newhart Show, "My Business Is Shrinking"

---

Timeline entries are quoted from the Wiki page for the month.

---

Yeah, probably true.

Maybe a bip bip bip. Actually, the closed captioning agrees with you--it says "Beeping".

They had a couple of impatient kidnappers in the wings, so it couldn't have been too long.

Going back to look, at least a couple of days were implied. The scene at her apartment that led up to the montage was at night; there was another implicitly night scene in the montage of them at a restaurant; and she changed outfits about three times.

Ah. "Would you guys eat there?"

Pretty much...and Johnny liked the idea, but Roy scolded him that the guy couldn't run a restaurant on their business alone.

Damn, you're as bad as my teachers in school. These might be less detailed, because I have to leave in a couple of minutes.

N3217Z: A Piper PA-22-150 Tri-Pacer, built in 1959. It also appears to be still in service, with a registration expiring 4-30-27. It's owned by Quality Aviation in Arizona, which seems to be a crop dusting outfit.

N7904X: A Cessna 172B Skyhawk, built in 1961. Also still in service and privately owned by a guy in Arizona. Everything seems to end up in Arizona. The registration expires 5-31 of this year.

And neither had any history in other productions?

How about this one that turned up in something that I recently watched?

I never saw that show. You liked it?

Yeah...it was a rare show that caught my occasional interest when I mostly stopped actively watching TV in the mid-'80s, and I watched through the entire series in weekday syndication in the '90s. I'm pretty sure that it's come up before, are you familiar with the basic premise?

I love the title Secret Chimp-- it sounds like nobody's supposed to know he's a chimp.

My mind went to DC's Detective Chimp.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The U.S. Senate voted 82-4 to establish its own special committee to investigate the CIA, with Frank Church of Idaho as the chairman.

"Good morning, Mr Phelps...."

The Weather Underground bombed the U.S. State Department main office in Washington, D.C.

Now they know which way the wind blows.

A professor of architecture in Budapest applied to the patent office in Hungary for his invention, which he called Terbeli logikai jatek ("Spatial logic game") Bűvös Kocka ("Magic Cube"). Patent #HU 170,062 was granted on March 28, 1977, to Ernő Rubik.

"Hello, Mr Rubik. Yes, this is a gun. I'm from the future. I'm sorry to have to do this, Mr Rubik."

To that time, about 7,400 of 137,000 eligible had participated in the program

That, of course, reminds me of this.

Died: Ida May Fuller, 100, former legal secretary and first American to ever receive social security benefits

I like the idea of the first SS recipient living to 100. I can picture the SSA staff sitting there saying, "Come on, come on!"

"Chevy Van," Sammy Johns

I love this one. Very strong nostalgic value.

"(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song," B. J. Thomas

Good one. Strong nostalgic value.

"Before the Next Teardrop Falls," Freddy Fender

Pretty good. Marginal nostalgic value.

Maybe a bip bip bip. Actually, the closed captioning agrees with you--it says "Beeping".

That's more descriptive than onomatopoeiac. Thinking back, it was kind of a descending series of boops, if my memory is accurate.

Going back to look, at least a couple of days were implied. The scene at her apartment that led up to the montage was at night; there was another implicitly night scene in the montage of them at a restaurant; and she changed outfits about three times.

Those kidnappers were a couple of romantics, I guess.

And neither had any history in other productions?

No, I forgot to mention that. All three of these planes just have the one entry.

How about this one that turned up in something that I recently watched?
View attachment 44272

This is a 1964 Cessna 182G and is also still flying, apparently, with an active registration that expires 10-31-28. It's owned by a guy in a small town in New York that borders Massachusetts. There's no entry in the Movie Plane Database, but it's mentioned in IMDB as appearing in Godfather Part II, which is where I assume you saw it. It's actually listed as an anachronism, because it wasn't built until after the time period shown in the movie.

Yeah...it was a rare show that caught my occasional interest when I mostly stopped actively watching TV in the mid-'80s, and I watched through the entire series in weekday syndication in the '90s. I'm pretty sure that it's come up before, are you familiar with the basic premise?

Kind of. I think Kate Jackson played a writer who created a fictional character named Remington Steele, and Pierce Brosnan played a guy who thought he was that character or was pretending to be that character. I don't know why or how it played out, though.

My mind went to DC's Detective Chimp.

I'm vaguely familiar with him.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"Good morning, Mr Phelps...."

Now they know which way the wind blows.

That, of course, reminds me of this.

I shoulda stuck with that. Wonder how long it'd take me to catch up at this point...

I love this one. Very strong nostalgic value.

Very evocative, particularly of the era. FWIW, this originally came out in '73, and was either a belated single release or rerelease. Also, it's recognized as part of the vansploitation genre.

Good one. Strong nostalgic value.

This one I have first-hand memory of, but it had previously eluded my collection because it was buried in re-recorded compilations on iTunes. I just dug up the original recording from the album yesterday.

Pretty good. Marginal nostalgic value.

This I can't get into.

That's more descriptive than onomatopoeiac. Thinking back, it was kind of a descending series of boops, if my memory is accurate.

And the "running out of gas" version they used when his bionics were failing sounded more like a bloop, bloooop, bloooooop, as I recall.

This is a 1964 Cessna 182G and is also still flying, apparently, with an active registration that expires 10-31-28. It's owned by a guy in a small town in New York that borders Massachusetts. There's no entry in the Movie Plane Database, but it's mentioned in IMDB as appearing in Godfather Part II, which is where I assume you saw it.

Indeed, that's where the cap is from. Tom and Fredo ride in out it at the beginning of the scene where they blackmail the senator in the whorehouse.

It's actually listed as an anachronism, because it wasn't built until after the time period shown in the movie.

I was wondering about that, and caught the answer myself in a casual search. Not too off the mark chronologically, but you'd expect more from a film of this caliber...

Kind of. I think Kate Jackson played a writer who created a fictional character named Remington Steele, and Pierce Brosnan played a guy who thought he was that character or was pretending to be that character. I don't know why or how it played out, though.

Not...quite. Season 1 opening time.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

And hey, it's an MTM Production!

In the pilot, Brosnan's character is a con man/thief who's after whatever jewel or valuable item Laura's agency is protecting; but in a spontaneous move to evade the real bad guys of the story, he assumes the role of the never-seen Steele to give a press conference. Laura has to play along, he quickly deduces that there is no Remington Steele, and blackmails his way into a new career, motivated in part by his "will they or won't they" thing with her.

In Season 1, Laura had a handsome male assistant and perky young secretary who were active conspirators in her ruse; the former serving as Steele's romantic rival. In Season 2, they were both ditched for Doris Roberts's character, whose not being in on the ruse was played up for comic effect.

As the series developed, it turned out that even Steele didn't know who he really was.

Possible source of confusion: Mostly overlapping with Remington Steele's run was Scarecrow and Mrs. King, which co-starred Kate Jackson.

I'm vaguely familiar with him.

As am I. I know he exists, that's about it.

 

[RJDiogenes]

View attachment 44281

I shoulda stuck with that. Wonder how long it'd take me to catch up at this point...

Definitely worth it. I bought up all the existing paperbacks around 1980 or so and burned through them pretty quickly. It's addictive.

Also, it's recognized as part of the vansploitation genre.

I have never heard of Vansploitation before, but I demand an immediate revival.

And the "running out of gas" version they used when his bionics were failing sounded more like a bloop, bloooop, bloooooop, as I recall.

I think they might also have used a mangled version of the sound effects when Big Foot defeated him and his legs were crushed, but I may be making that up.

I was wondering about that, and caught the answer myself in a casual search. Not too off the mark chronologically, but you'd expect more from a film of this caliber...

Possibly the fault of the supplier. Maybe an unavoidable last-minute substitution or something.

Not...quite. Season 1 opening time.

Wow, that's the most exposition I've ever heard in a title sequence. It's kind of funny to hear them playing up the sexism angle years after Honey West and Charlie's Angels and Nancy Drew and whoever else (not to mention the actual female cops).

And hey, it's an MTM Production!

They're part of the Maryverse.

Laura has to play along, he quickly deduces that there is no Remington Steele, and blackmails his way into a new career, motivated in part by his "will they or won't they" thing with her.

Yup, that's totally different from what I thought.

As the series developed, it turned out that even Steele didn't know who he really was.

That's an interesting twist. Reminds me a little of the Shadow.

Possible source of confusion: Mostly overlapping with Remington Steele's run was Scarecrow and Mrs. King, which co-starred Kate Jackson.

Okay, right, co-starring Bruce Boxleitner, future B5 captain. I definitely made an Amalgam comic of the two shows-- neither of which I ever saw. Apparently I completely made up the idea of the protagonist being a writer.

 

[The Old Mixer]

---

50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 1)

---

The Six Million Dollar Man
"The Last Kamikaze"
Originally aired January 19, 1975

A lost Japanese pilot acquires a missing atomic warhead.

A businessman named Hayworth (Edmund Gilbert) alerts Oscar to the crash on a Pacific island of a commercial jet carrying the Peregrine-1, a prototype miniaturized tactical nuclear warhead...without government approval. To top things off, the device is described as being so volatile that it threatens to blow the island off the map if anyone stares at it too hard. On the island, a Japanese soldier whose boots don't look like he's been wearing them for thirty years (John Fujioka) surveys the wreckage of what looks like a small prop plane near a very familiar-looking lagoon. A survivor sees him taking the warhead and then passes out.

Contrary to history, Oscar briefs Steve that there are hundreds of Japanese soldiers known to be lost on Pacific islands; and lampshades that the military can't go in because the island is in the waters of a foreign power. Steve is assigned to work with Filipino scout Tomas Francisco Gabella (Robert Ito), who isn't supposed to know about the warhead but indicates that he routinely hunts these abundant stranded Japanese soldiers, and knows of the one they're after as the Old Devil. (There's an odd bit of recurring business in which Gabella talks as if he fought the Japanese in the war, though it was supposed to have been his father. I suspect a sloppy rewrite.)

After the duo parachutes down, Steve lifts a tree trunk with one hand and then blows his feat off. As they make their way through the jungle, they find it loaded with booby traps. Gabella triggers one that deposits a couple of grenades at them. Steve tosses one away, but the other goes off close enough to knock him out. Finding no pulse, Gabella assumes that Steve is dead; breaks Steve's walkie talkie for therefore no reason; and radios a confederate named Miguel to update him about the atomic weapon that they're after. The Japanese soldier finds Steve, checks the pulse in his left arm, and finds his OSI ID.

When Steve comes to tied up in a cave, he finds that his captor (whose name is Kuroda, though I didn't catch it being revealed/used on the island) speaks English and tries to update him about US-Japanese relations, ultimately dropping the bomb about the bomb, but Kuroda doesn't believe him or that the Emperor would surrender. Steve learns that Kuroda was a 15-year-old kamikaze pilot, and gets nervous when he casually tosses around the warhead. As Kuroda is walking Steve through the jungle, Gabella and the three confederates he's hooked up with fire at them from a concealed position, and Steve, who breaks his bonds during the action, learns that Gabella is a typical OSI operative.

While Oscar leads a helicopter search from a nearby spy tanker, Steve continues to try to convince Kuroda that they're allies as they keep on the move to evade Gabella and company. This includes more updates, including about how Steve walked on the Moon, which Kuroda laughs at. Steve triggers one of the booby traps as a diversion to overcome Kuroda and take the warhead, then shows off his collapsible Polaroid camera in an attempt to prove that he's been telling the truth. Kuroda ultimately makes a break for it, and Steve falls into a spiked pit while pursuing him, revealing the bionic innards of his leg.

Kuroda finally believes Steve, but indicates that he can't go back to Japan because of the shame involved, though Steve tries to convince him that things have changed. Gabella and company catch up, Kuroda is wounded in a struggle, and Steve jumps out of the pit to purse Gabella through the jungle. Gabella tries to use the booby traps to fend off Steve, but is ultimately killed by one of them. Steve reunites with Kuroda to find him preparing to commit seppuku as he believes he should have done after he failed his kamikaze mission. Steve physically stops him, then runs to the lagoon as he hears the approaching search copter.


At a military hospital in the States, Steve informs Kuroda that he can go home without serving time, and Kuroda offers Steve his ceremonial prayer belt in gratitude for everything. Steve returns the gesture by bringing in Kuroda's mother and brother for a tearful reunion.

---

Adam-12
"G.T.A."
Originally aired January 21, 1975

Malloy and Reed investigate a large car theft operation that targets older cars, then stages them around the city as abandoned vehicles so they can be towed and scrapped. Meanwhile, they try to figure out why the son of Malloy's girlfriend is getting bad grades, search for a suspect who robbed an elderly woman, and attempt to rescue two foolish teenagers who enter a house that is being fumigated.

The officers are taking a titular report from Mrs. Corley (Alyscia Maxwell), who doesn't understand why anyone would steal the eight-year-old car that she had to save for. Malloy explains that the thieves are probably selling it for scrap metal. At T12HQ, Pete and Jim work out that there's a sharp rise in abandoned vehicles reported, most of which are back off the street the next day, and think there's a connection.

On patrol, Pete informs Jim that he and Judy aren't going to be able to make a planned day at the beach because David got three C's on his report card. The officers are then assigned to see Tara Wheeler (Dianne Harper) about an abandoned car that's partly blocking her driveway. They ticket it and offer to try to move it a bit, while Malloy asks her to call in should anyone come to move it.

On patrol again, the officers spot someone who matches the description of a previously reported purse snatcher. When they circle back around the block, he's hightailing away from a service station. Jim chases him on foot through a residential alley like the good ol' days, while Pete circles around and catches up with them in time to warn Jim of the suspect hiding behind a corner with a board raised. Jim tackles the suspect and he's arrested.

The officers proceed to see a friendly scrap yard proprietor named Mike Funicello (Tony Giorgio) to ask if he can shed any light on the theft, abandonment, and scrapping operation they suspect. All he can offer is that the towers involved may be an otherwise legit company.

Pete and Jim are speculating about how David may be acting out against a teacher when they're called to a house being fumigated where a couple of teenagers were seen entering the tent with cloths over their mouths. The officers call in Harry from the pest control company (Heath Jobes), who sets them up with a couple of oxygen masks so they can enter. They find the boys, drag them out, and attempt chest compression while ambulance attendants (still no paramedics on A12) administer oxygen, but both boys are declared dead with wage-friendly head shakes.

The officers are then called to see Mrs. Wheeler about a tow truck that just took away the car. They catch up and pull it over. While Malloy questions the driver (Gil Serna) about his authorization to tow the vehicle, Reed finds that the door has a generic towing service decal covering the actual identity of the company. The driver is taken in and the officers proceed to the company in question, where they find another truck with a fake decal inside. Owner Ken Quinnlan (episode writer Leo Gordon) objects when the officers assert their right to inspect the premises because the company has a contract with the police department. They find Mrs. Corley's car, and as they arrest Quinnlan, he complains that he would've gotten away with it if his crusher hadn't broken down.

In the HQ coda, Pete updates Jim that David was letting his grades slip because he was being teased by the other kids, and that the beach trip is back on.

---

M*A*S*H
"The Consultant"
Originally aired January 21, 1975

In Tokyo, Hawkeye and Trapper challenge an older doctor, a veteran of two wars, to visit the 4077th.

Blake sees the guys off to a surgical clinic in Tokyo, though Hawkeye's clubs make it clear that they're more interested in R&R. At the location, the guys enter a bar full of more formally uniformed officers and chat up a civilian doctor with an honorary major's rank, Anthony Borelli (Alan's old man). The guys share that they're not planning to attend the lectures and describe the battlefront conditions under which they perform their brand of meatball surgery, ultimately challenging the receptive elder doctor to come to the 4077th for a real educational experience.

As the guys are settling back in after their return to camp--Burns reporting to Blake that they didn't attend any lectures, though he didn't appear to have gone himself--a chopper comes in to drop off Borelli, now clad in more practical fatigues. While Blake wants to give him VIP treatment, Borelli insists on staying in the Swamp. When casualties come in, Borelli moves from table to table in the OR, offering bits of support and advice. He intervenes when he finds Burns about to amputate a soldier's leg, offering that a new arterial transplant technique might enable them to save the limb.

Radar hits the airwaves to secure a replacement artery from a British unit, which the guys rush to in a Jeep through heavy shelling, dealing with an unflappable Major Taylor (Joseph Maher) on the other end. When they get back to the 4077th, they're excitedly scrubbing up to observe the procedure when Radar directs Hawkeye back to the Swamp, where Borelli has been hitting the still and is no longer fit to operate. Borelli encourages Hawkeye to perform the procedure with his guidance. Hawk does, with Trap assisting and a large crowd assembled to observe. The procedure is a success, to everyone's astonishment.

Back at the Swamp, Borelli explains to a disapproving Hawkeye that he's already served as a combat surgeon in two wars, and that he found the conditions hard to readjust to with age. Ultimately, Hawkeye shows up to see Borelli off, tipping his hat from a distance before the chopper takes off.

---

Hawaii Five-O
"A Woman's Work Is with a Gun"
Originally aired January 21, 1975

A trio of debt-plagued women go out and rob tourist buses for money.

Grungy Dina Hale (Patricia Hindy) arrives in her van for a rendezvous with dealer Lew Chang (James J. Borges), desperate for a dime bag. When she can't produce money and he rebuffs the prospect of alternate compensation, she produces a .45 and takes the merch off his dead body. She goes home and cleans herself up good, then proceeds to a women's center to reunite with her besties, Fay Scott (Patrecia Wynand) and Margaret Hudson (Dale Morse). Claiming she's been at a clinic and no longer putting any stock into what the meetings she used to attend have to offer, Dina proposes a means of acquiring the money that each needs for different reasons. The other two are reluctant at first, but when single mother Fay is told by hospital administrator Hoffman (Wendell H. Martin) that the operation and care her little boy Johnny needs could amount to $10,000 out of pocket; and Margret has to face her drinking, slovenly security guard husband Ed (Eugene Roche); they agree to give it a try. As Dina and Margaret don wigs to hold up their first tour bus, Maggie is panicky about carrying a small automatic, even though it's unloaded. On the bus, Dina puts her gun to the driver's (Louis I. Ko) head, while Maggie reluctantly takes cash and jewelry, and Fay waits in a getaway car. An elder tourist snaps photos of Dina and Maggie as they run into the woods.

Meanwhile, Five-O looks into the drug dealer's murder, suspecting an amateur killing when they find that the larger stash in his vehicle wasn't touched. There's another conspicuous mention of Steve being off-duty (this time sailing) when he's not present for one scene. They subsequently take the case of the bus hold-up, finding that descriptions vary, the gloved robbers didn't leave prints, and that the photos are too blurry from shaking for Che to make anything from them. Maggie is traumatized after the robbery, but is motivated to continue when Dina arrives with her $2,000 cut. But the second bus hold-up goes awry when a passenger enrages Dina by trying to hold out on her and she engages in a shooting spree, taking out the bus's windows. In the aftermath, Fay wants out and questions Dina's real motives.

We get another mid-'70s computer wizardry moment when Che is able to use one to enhance the photos into something useful. A blow-up reveals the make of the getaway car and Fay's obscured face. Che also finds that the slugs taken from the bus match the one used to kill Chang. Meanwhile, Fay and Maggie have relented again, but HPD officer Tom Kamaka (Robert L. Silva) spots the stopped bus while their third robbery is in progress. Dina fires shots and takes cover, only for Maggie to be taken down by the officer's shotgun when she comes out with her gun in her hand. In a subsequent exchange of fire, Dina kills the officer, and Maggie's body is left behind.

Maggie is identified by an envelope found on her person (yes, she is an amateur), and her gun is found to be empty and to have never been fired. A disbelieving Ed Hudson points Danno and Chin to the women's center, where Ms. Keola recognizes the women in the photos, but is only able to identify them by the aliases they use at the meetings. Dina finds Fay preparing to skip island, shares her intent to continue the robberies, and threatens to take Fay down with her if she's caught. Fay subsequently meets with Ed Hudson and, his reputation preceding him, hires him to kill Dina. He breaks into Dina's pad while she's not home and finds Maggie's purse, which Dina had taken. Dina returns and, alerted by her ajar door, catches him at gunpoint. When she learns who he is and who hired him, she clocks him and heads for Fay's. Meanwhile, Chin and Frank have identified Fay by comparing the photo to driver's licenses. Five-O arrives just in time for Steve to grab Dina as she's about to shoot Fay.

Steve: Read 'em their rights, Danno, then book them. Murder one, two counts for this one.​

---

Wow, that's the most exposition I've ever heard in a title sequence. It's kind of funny to hear them playing up the sexism angle years after Honey West and Charlie's Angels and Nancy Drew and whoever else (not to mention the actual female cops).

Definitely getting some deja vu here conversation-wise.

 

[RJDiogenes]

to the crash on a Pacific island of a commercial jet carrying the Peregrine-1, a prototype miniaturized tactical nuclear warhead...without government approval.

And what unlikely series of events led to that? Or was it being stolen?

the device is described as being so volatile that it threatens to blow the island off the map if anyone stares at it too hard.

"The recovery team will need to be blindfolded at all times!"

On the island, a Japanese soldier whose boots don't look like he's been wearing them for thirty years

A crate of LL Beans washed up a few years ago.

the wreckage of what looks like a small prop plane near a very familiar-looking lagoon

A prototype nuclear bomb that will go off if you look at it crosseyed was being transported across the South Pacific in a small prop plane without government approval? Let's go with stolen. Wasn't there a prior episode where Oscar commented about there being a number of nuclear weapons unaccounted for at any given time?

Contrary to history, Oscar briefs Steve that there are hundreds of Japanese soldiers known to be lost on Pacific islands

Well, if you count all the ones on TV shows.

and lampshades that the military can't go in because the island is in the waters of a foreign power.

The Philippines? We're allies. I doubt if they would object to the US military removing a dangerous weapon.

Filipino scout Tomas Francisco Gabella (Robert Ito)

Good old long-suffering Sam.

he routinely hunts these abundant stranded Japanese soldiers

They're considered among the most dangerous game.

There's an odd bit of recurring business in which Gabella talks as if he fought the Japanese in the war, though it was supposed to have been his father. I suspect a sloppy rewrite.

Perhaps he's gone quite mad.

After the duo parachutes down, Steve lifts a tree trunk with one hand and then blows his feat off.

"Leverage, my friend. Leverage."

Gabella triggers one that deposits a couple of grenades at them.

So much for being an expert.

but the other goes off close enough to knock him out.

It's hard to imagine someone being close enough to an exploding grenade to get knocked out without suffering life-threatening injuries.

Finding no pulse, Gabella assumes that Steve is dead

That's kind of cute, but I think his respiration would be pretty obvious after being hit by a concussive blast like that.

and radios a confederate named Miguel to update him about the atomic weapon that they're after.

Et tu, Sam? Did we ever find out who is behind this operation? I'm going to speculate that Gabella lost his mind and thinks he's his own father and wants to wreak revenge on Japan. That would make his characterization a parallel to the stranded Japanese soldier.

The Japanese soldier finds Steve, checks the pulse in his left arm, and finds his OSI ID.

Which would presumably mean nothing to him.

Steve, who breaks his bonds during the action, learns that Gabella is a typical OSI operative.

The managers of my new apartment complex do better background checks.

This includes more updates, including about how Steve walked on the Moon, which Kuroda laughs at.

then shows off his collapsible Polaroid camera in an attempt to prove that he's been telling the truth.

"You don't really have to shake it, but everyone does."

Steve falls into a spiked pit while pursuing him, revealing the bionic innards of his leg.

That's cool, but it seems like Kuroda never sees it.

Gabella tries to use the booby traps to fend off Steve, but is ultimately killed by one of them.

I think Gabella exaggerated his resume.

Steve physically stops him, then runs to the lagoon as he hears the approaching search copter. View attachment 44299

"Skipper! Professor! Skipper! Professor!"

At a military hospital in the States, Steve informs Kuroda that he can go home without serving time, and Kuroda offers Steve his ceremonial prayer belt in gratitude for everything. Steve returns the gesture by bringing in Kuroda's mother and brother for a tearful reunion.

That was kind of a nice story and, since Kuroda was a failed adolescent Kamikaze pilot, we can pretty much rule out his commiting any atrocities against Phillipino civilians.

On patrol, Pete informs Jim that he and Judy aren't going to be able to make a planned day at the beach because David got three C's on his report card.

Apparently Judy's a Tiger Mom.

They ticket it and offer to try to move it a bit, while Malloy asks her to call in should anyone come to move it.

If it's blocking her driveway, can't they just call for an immediate tow? Or are they deliberately leaving it there to bait the car thieves? That kind of inconveniences the civilian, and you'd think they'd call for a stakeout rather than ask her to call in.

Jim chases him on foot through a residential alley like the good ol' days

"I feel 22 again!"

in time to warn Jim of the suspect hiding behind a corner with a board raised.

Yikes.

The officers call in Harry from the pest control company (Heath Jobes), who sets them up with a couple of oxygen masks so they can enter.

It might be a good idea for them to carry some kind of masks in the car.

They find the boys, drag them out, and attempt chest compression while ambulance attendants (still no paramedics on A12) administer oxygen, but both boys are declared dead with wage-friendly head shakes.

Okay, that was grim. Any idea why they went in there?

as they arrest Quinnlan, he complains that he would've gotten away with it if his crusher hadn't broken down.

I really don't see the advantage of this elaborate scheme over the tried-and-true method.

In the HQ coda, Pete updates Jim that David was letting his grades slip because he was being teased by the other kids, and that the beach trip is back on.

An entire subplot about two people we've never seen. How do we know that Malloy hasn't been driven over the edge by the lonliness of bachelorhood and he's hallucinating a ready-made family?

Hawkeye's clubs make it clear that they're more interested in R&R

I know he's a doctor, but I'd expect Hawkeye to be looking for a different kind of R&R.

a civilian doctor with an honorary major's rank, Anthony Borelli (Alan's old man)

Well, that's pretty cool.

they're excitedly scrubbing up to observe the procedure when Radar directs Hawkeye back to the Swamp, where Borelli has been hitting the still and is no longer fit to operate.

This seems a bit contrived to make Hawkeye the hero.

Borelli encourages Hawkeye to perform the procedure with his guidance. Hawk does, with Trap assisting and a large crowd assembled to observe. The procedure is a success, to everyone's astonishment.

I wonder if this corresponds to real-life advances in arterial transplants at the time.

Back at the Swamp, Borelli explains to a disapproving Hawkeye that he's already served as a combat surgeon in two wars, and that he found the conditions hard to readjust to with age. Ultimately, Hawkeye shows up to see Borelli off, tipping his hat from a distance before the chopper takes off.

That was kind of nice, actually. I suspect it was written specifically for Alan's old man.

"A Woman's Work Is with a Gun"

"W-O-M-A-N...."

she produces a .45 and takes the merch off his dead body.

That'll teach him to negotiate.

Five-O looks into the drug dealer's murder, suspecting an amateur killing when they find that the larger stash in his vehicle wasn't touched.

That's definitely a strange oversight.

There's another conspicuous mention of Steve being off-duty (this time sailing) when he's not present for one scene.

Steve's getting old. He's just phoning it in at this point.

Maggie is traumatized after the robbery, but is motivated to continue when Dina arrives with her $2,000 cut.

Money changes everything.

But the second bus hold-up goes awry when a passenger enrages Dina by trying to hold out on her and she engages in a shooting spree, taking out the bus's windows.

Okay, not all of them use unloaded guns.

In the aftermath, Fay wants out and questions Dina's real motives.

Me too.

We get another mid-'70s computer wizardry moment when Che is able to use one to enhance the photos into something useful.

Interesting. H50 is turning into the Bones of the 70s.

Maggie is identified by an envelope found on her person (yes, she is an amateur)

Indeed. They're just everyday people who cracked and ran amok.

Dina finds Fay preparing to skip island

With or without her sick kid?

Fay subsequently meets with Ed Hudson and, his reputation preceding him, hires him to kill Dina.

There goes her profits. She should have just explained to him how Dina was responsible for Maggie's death.

Meanwhile, Chin and Frank have identified Fay by comparing the photo to driver's licenses. Five-O arrives just in time for Steve to grab Dina as she's about to shoot Fay.

Things just kind of rolled to their inevitable conclusion.

Steve: Read 'em their rights, Danno, then book them. Murder one, two counts for this one.

Yep, just a bunch of amateurs, including the wannabe-assassin husband.

Definitely getting some deja vu here conversation-wise.

The show or the general topic?