I may be a few days late with this, but after all, we are talking about 50 years ago! I don't want to miss the chance to share a few items from a TV Guide in my collection: A Northern Indiana edition for November 22-28, 1975.
Let's focus on Thursday, the Thanksgiving holiday. On the Wednesday page is this ad for some morning programming for the kids:
Speaking of the kids, it's interesting that ABC was just like, hey, let's make this a Saturday morning all day:
1) Mulligan Stew: Our podcast topic this week is this charming, eccentric live-action kidvid series from the Seventies. Maybe you learned something! We sure did. Just check out item 4.
2) Thanksgiving: Hope all who celebrated the U.S. holiday were able to have an enjoyable and festive weekend.
3) Macys Day Parade: I spent some time on the holiday watching the 2025 version, yes, but I also saw some of this edition hosted by Lorne Greene and Betty White:
4) Pizza: All hail the king of all foods according to Mulligan Stew. At least that's how we interpreted it. Pizza contains all the food groups!
5) Football: If only someone could figure out a safe and easy way to deep-fry a football, this holiday weekend would be perfect.
6) Teddy Ruxpin: The lovable and cuddly old bear debuted on ABC's Weekend Special 40 years ago today. I don't remember how much that toy cost when it came out, but I know that in today's money, it would be...even worse.
7) David Letterman's Holiday Film Festival: It wasn't all Saturday Night's Main Event when SNL took a break back then. 40 years ago tonight, Dave took over the 11:30 timeslot and presented films with Michael Keaton, Harry Shearer, Bette Midler, and more!
8) McCoy: 50 years ago tonight, the second episode of Tony Curtis' short-lived NBC Mystery Movie series aired, and it starred BOTNS fave Nita Talbot.
9) Dick Clark: Today is the late icon's birthday. He would have been 18, of course.
10) Ed McMahon: He's still the king of the holiday!
Due to the nature of this week's subject, Mulligan Stew, we don't have the usual assortment of material in our official video playlist. We do have some interesting nutrition-related clips, though, and a look at another educational program that aired on PBS stations.
Thinkabout, according to Wikipedia, was a Canadian/U.S. production from the Agency for Instructional Television in 1979. It aired well into the Eighties, though.
I didn't remember this one at all until coming across this clip and watching some other videos on YouTube. Maybe you saw it in the classroom or on your local PBS station back in the day.
We don't want you to miss our brand-new episode today, but we also want to share our traditional Thanksgiving favorite with you. Have a great holiday, everyone!
*I can't find the other series mentioned in the above article: 1986's "Blue sky below my feet adventures in space technology" from 4-H and NASA.
*Leesburg is in Loudon County in Northern Virginia, about 40 miles from Washington D.C.
*Please enjoy our video playlist for this episode with nutritional PSAs, commercials, and more! We put all 6 Mulligan Stew episodes at the front of the list, so just skip through if you don't want to watch all of them. Click below to go right to the list, or you can always visit our official YouTube page for all of our past episodes and similar lists for each one of them!
Just in time for Thanksgiving, we whip an episode about Mulligan Stew, the little-remembered but perhaps oft-seen early seventies show about healthy eating habits. Most of the kids of Mulligan Stew fall prey to the easy appeal of the Flim-Flam Man's fad diets, and only Mulligan and Wilbur can save them. Along the way, they sing some songs and teach us such vaulable lessons as 4-4-3-2, VITAMIN D FOR HEALTHY BONES AND TEETH, and meat comes from hogs!
