Top Ten #369

1) Labor Day weekend: I am confident saying that all of you reading this deserve a day off, and I hope you have at least one of them this weekend!

2) Summer: At the same time, we must say goodbye to Emotional Summer, and I'm not quite ready to let go.

3) The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon: One of the biggest annual traditions on TV in the BOTNS era!

4) Gunsmoke: Me-TV is celebrating the series' 70th anniversary (And I think it aired for half of those years) this month.

5) Hearts Island: 40 years ago tonight, NBC ran this unsold pilot from David Duclon starring Dorothy Lyman as a widowed mom of two making ends meet--barely--in Louisiana. Things take a turn when she meets an ex-con played by...Patrick Simmons!

No, wait, it's Gary Sandy!

6) Siskel and Ebert: Also 40 years ago this weekend, the duo devoted an episode to the worst films of the summer. The episode is available online, so I won't spoil anything, but one selection is from a certain long-long-long-running iconic franchise.

7) Buddy Hackett: The comedian would have been 100 today. I struggle with picturing a 100-year-old Buddy Hackett.

8) TV Guide's TV Teletype: I love the tidbits in the 8/20/55 issue we spotlighted the last couple weeks. Here are a few more:

"Horses come into their own this fall." Writer Bob Stahl notes Fury and My Friend Flicka start soon, and Gene Autry is developing a show about his horse Champion.

BBC starts its version of People Are Funny in September. CBS plans a series called Wanted profiling notable fugitives, and it took out an insurance policy protecting in case one of them is caught before the episode airs.

9) Major League Baseball: OK, I know everyone is about to be consumed by football. Let me just mark the deal MLB made with NBC/Peacock to bring games back to the network. It puts me in a nostalgic mood (Like I'm ever not in one) thinking about the old Game of the Week. Also, MLB's official Vault channel posted a cool episode of This Week in Baseball this week (Many more have been uploaded on less-official channels lately, too).

10) R.I.P. Jerry Adler: The veteran character actor didn't really get into TV until the nineties, but he was a stage manager on Santa Barbara! 

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 10: News and Info

The 1955 TV Guide has a good deal of news and gossip, including a page of local tidbits that has this note about Fred Rogers:

In the back of the mag, Sheila Graham has a page of brief items. We're told Earl Wilson will have the space next week. Among Graham's scoops: Liberace's show will return next season with a bigger budget, bigger sets, and more extravagance in general. Eve Arden has taken an apartment in town near the studio where Our Miss Brooks is filmed. Gary Cooper is on the hunt for a TV project.

"The Jack Webbs are building a big, beautiful home in the Valley, despite rumors of discord." 

Anita Ekberg, then starring in Warner Brothers Presents: Casablanca, "held up production when her toy poodle came down with heat prostration. Finally, even the director was applying ice packs to the pup--and to himself."

The TV Teletype feature includes nuggets like this: Four Star Productions wants to make Grand Motel as a TV series and a movie, and it wants BOTNS fave George Gobel to star in the movie. Playhouse of Stars was just "renewed for its fourth straight year of 52 films, no repeats."

Joseph Cotten will be host of General Electric's upcoming hourlong 20th Century Fox Show. ABC is scheduling its licensed J. Arthur Rank films 30 minutes before Toast of the Town and Colgate Variety Hour to try to topple those two.

NBC is boosting its color shows by about 500% this season, showing Davis Cup matches this week and doing color broadcasts of college football and the World Series. Max Liebman is producing a big series of Saturday night spectaculars for the same network, opening with Heidi on October 1 and featuring musicals like Jerome Kern's The Cat and the Fiddle.

The opening editorial is an interesting slant; the magazine criticizes the increasing practice of giving Hollywood studios free publicity. It cites Ed Sullivan as pioneering the idea of giving a studio an hour of his show to promote an upcoming release.

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 9: August 20-26: More features

 TV Guide is not just a trove of listings. It's filled with features and reviews! Here  is a look at a few in the back of the August 20, 1955 edition.

Reviews include Caesar Presents and an early Johnny Carson show:

I like this piece about syndicated "film" programs. It name-checks a lot of interesting shows from syndicators like Ziv and more. There's a special shout-out for Guild Films' Liberace, which WPIX in New York (one of 200 stations that carries it) broadcasts twice a day, five days a week.

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 8: Friday, August 26, 1955

We close out our look at the listings of 70 years ago today with a post about Friday, August 26, 1955.

I like that a single sponsor took out an ad listing the various programs it was responsible for:

One of the interesting syndicated daily programs that runs this week is Tele-Comics, AKA NBC Comics.

 It's considered the first network animated program, with the word "animated" being used loosely! The 15-mintue series featured limited movement of various rotating segments. Here's an example:

You don't expect live sports on a random Friday afternoon, but Channel 7 has tennis, live and in color!

Here's a snapshot of early primetime, with a good array of programs:

Finally, here's a cool ad for Swing Shift Theater, a lineup of movies for people who are up late:

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 7: Thursday, August 25, 1955

There is one interesting display ad in the Pittsburgh listing for 70 years ago: Climax!

Today let's just take a look at the whole page here:

At 11:15, it's not regular Rasslin'; it's TEXAS RASSLING!

I'm curious about "Stop and Go on Bike" on Channel 13.

A little earlier, check out what's on at 7;30:

EZC Ranch Girls was a show sponsored by Wilkens department stores and featuring a Pittsburgh-area country music group.

Top Ten # 368

1) TV Guide: I'm having a lot of fun going through an old ish from 70 years ago this week and putting up a post each day. Here's a bonus from the listings for 70 years ago today: An episode of Superman!

2) Emergency!: The 1970s NBC series gets a big ol' Blu Ray box set, available this week from retailers everywhere. Well, actually you can probably only get it online.

3) Looney Tunes: Tubi TV has hundreds of the old cartoons, not in an intuitive format, but available for free streaming, at least.

4) College Football: The so-called Week Zero is here, and, yep, the games count. College football is back and, uh, more different than ever!

5) Run DMC: The group appeared on American Bandstand 40 years ago today. Dick Clark was America's Freshest Teenager!

6) Joe Regalbuto: Happy birthday to the start of The Associates!

7) National Waffle Day: Yum!

8) The Odd Couple: It aired on ABC 50 years ago tonight, but I mean the movie, not the TV series. You know what happens when you ASSUME...

9) Steve Gutenberg: Happy birthday to the star of No Soap, Radio!

10) R.I.P.: Michael Sloan, Dave Ketchum:

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 6: Wednesday, August 24, 1955

Here are a few peeks at what was on 70 years ago today in the Pittsburgh area:

I like the listing of the segments in this Arlene Francis show. Ooh, a segment on draperies!

I was curious about Flynn's Inn in the above pic. Charlie Flynn was a personality at the station, WFBG, which later became WTAJ, my local CBS affiliate as I was growing up. That's all I got! I see references to the show, but not details of what it's about--something that's true in a lot of these local TV listings rabbit holes.

Way of the World, shown here on WJAC, which was my NBC station growing up, was a short-lived (10 months) soap opera that ran different stories as opposed to one continuous narrative. A permanent hostess, Linda Porter, actually actress Gloria Louis, introduced the stories, according to Wesley Hyatt's Encyclopedia of Daytime Television. 

At 2:30, you see a real celebrity, and I don't mean Robert Q. Lewis. It's President Eisenhower! Some stations aired this later that night, after prime time:

Finally, a look at Frankie Laine's variety show, featuring a young Joel Grey. Again, I like the detail in the listings in these early Guides, with nearly every segment touted ahead of time. Laine's show was a summer replacement for Arthur Godfrey's program.

Laine also gets a feature story in the back of the issue.