Top Ten #400: Special "400 is a cool number!" Edition

1) Easter Sunday: Happy holiday, everyone! In our Season 10, we discussed a beloved Rankin-Bass Easter special. Below is a promo that hypes some other specials:

2) Sesame Street: Last season's Batty winner is now on Tubi, with a big batch of older episodes available, including the first!

3) Downey Wrote That: I enjoyed this 2025 Peacock documentary about the longtime Saturday Night Live writer. Heck, it was nice just revisiting the Norm/OJ jokes Weekend Update era.

4) The Ted Knight Show: The New York Times ran an interesting review of this series 40 years ago today. This is the version where Knight moves to Marin County and buys into a local newspaper. It's not actually Ted knight, though, but Henry Rush from Too Close for Comfort, and he brings Muriel and even Monroe along with him. The episodes now are just "branded" as another season of Too Close (We discussed the show earlier this season).

The odd thing about the pan of the show is that it treats it as a brand-new distinct series and doesn't even mention the multiple seasons of Too Close! It also refers to co-star Pat Carroll as "Nancy Carroll."

5) Matlock: The entire original series is streaming on Prime Video now. Wait till Abraham Simpson discovers Reacher while he's on the platform!

6) He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Many are still waiting for all the old-school Warners/Hanna-Barbera toons coming to Tubi, but in the meantime the free streamer added the iconic Eighties show that we talk about here.

7) Dick Cavett's Backlot USA: This special premiered on CBS 50 years ago tonight. Cavett toured studio backlots and talked with the likes of Mae West in what sounds like a pretty interesting program.

8) Charley Hannah: The pilot movie for a cop show starring Robert Conrad and one of his sons aired on ABC 40 years ago tonight. It seems like at some point, Conrad was just like, "I want to work with my sons," and he was able to do it!

9) Noah's Animals: On this night in 1976, ABC aired this animated special, the first of a trilogy from Shamus Culhane. I have no memory of any of them!

10) WKRP: An actual station in Cincinnati is reportedly getting the famed call letters. I can only hope they celebrate with an hour of Patrick Simmons music.

This Day in TV History: A very early previewing of ABC's 1976 Fall season

An interesting article appeared in The New York Times 50 years ago today. The focus is on ABC and its announcement of mass cancellations plus new additions for the upcoming Fall TV season. Here's a gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/01/archives/marcus-welby-canceled-with-8-other-abc-shows.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XVA.PWKt.o2mt7rWycaH3&smid=url-share

If you aren't interested in reding the whole piece, it leads by mentioning Marcus Welby was once the top-rated program on TV. Other shows getting the axe: Harry O, Swiss Family Robinson, On the Rocks, Good Heavens, Bert D'Angelo/Superstar, Almost Anything Goes, SWAT, and The Rookies. Most of those were not surprises, though the latter two were Aaron Spelling shows that lasted two and four seasons respectively.

The story notes that ABC, a perpetual ratings also-ran, had made inroads in the then-current season, overcoming NBC for second and sometimes winning the week over CBS. ABC announced 9 new shows coming to the network:

The Nancy Walker Show, The Tony Randall Show (not yet titled), variety shows starring Bill Cosby and Captain & Tennille, detective show Most Wanted with Robert Stack, Holmes and Yo-Yo, Mr. T and Tina, and Feather and Father (later The Feather and Father Gang).

OK, that's only 8 series. Didn't they say there were 9 new series?

Almost as an afterthought, the piece ends with this: Charlie's Angels, a series about 3 attractive women detectives, is scheduled Wednesdays at 8.

It's interesting to see this knowing what would end up happening. Most of those new ABC shows were flops--some notorious ones--but of course Charlie's Angels became a top-5 sensation. Overall, ABC rose to number one as Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley became the most-viewed shows on TV, while The Six Million Dollar Man, the ABC Sunday Night Movie, Three's Company, and The Bionic Woman also finished in the top 10.

The only non-ABC series up there were MASH and One Day at a Time from CBS and NBC's The Big Event (really a collection of movies and specials). CBS' big lineup showed some age--for example, an ill-fated move of All in the Family to Wednesdays, where ABC's Baretta was a hit, exposed a vulnerability before the sitcom went back to Saturday.

So the pieces were in place for ABC, but not many of them were mentioned in this article!

Top Ten #399

1) All in the Family and Married with Children: Both series landed on Prime Video this week--one of the funniest and most groundbreaking working-class sitcoms ever...and the Norman Lear show wasn't bad, either.

2) Major League Baseball: The national pastime is back, and while Netflix didn't get great reviews for its Opening Day coverage, I give an A+ to this 1980s hype video:

3) The Bob Newhart Show: Another addition to the Prime Video lineup is the opener of our current season, TBNS. I'd like to see The Mary Tyler Moore Show return, too, but I am happy this one returned. Moonlighting is also on Prime now, by the way.

4) David Garrison: I haven't listened to it yet, but the star of It's Your Move is on Ian Talks Comedy this week, and I am anxious to hear it. I also loved him on Married with Children.

5) Comic Relief: The HBO fundraiser debuted 40 years ago tonight.

6) Super Mario Brothers Super Show: MeTV Toons adds the 1989 series to its lineup today to celebrate the upcoming movie release and maybe, just maybe, to celebrate Lou Albano and Danny Wells!

7) Murder, She Wrote: A movie is really happening--coming December 2027--and Jamie Lee Curtis will be Jessica Fletcher. Not sure how I feel about this, but nothing can take away all 260-some episodes I watched, and --Oh, my goodness, I still can't believe I watched all 260-some episodes.

8) 1976 Oscars: 50 years ago on this date, the 48th annual Academy Awards ceremony aired on ABC, but also on that evening...

1976 NCAA Men's Hoops Final: Yes, they held the championship on the same night as the Oscars! Indiana beat Michigan by 18 to cap off an undefeated season.

9) 1976 John Denver and Friend: Gotta love the name of this other big special on ABC 50 years ago today, in which Friend was actually Frank Sinatra. Rocky Mountain Ring-a-Ding-Ding!

10) R.I.P. Valerie Perrine:

Brooks on Books: "Tinderbox" by James Andrew Miller

When we talked about HBO this season, I had read the section of Tinderbox covering up to about 1990 or so. James Andrew Miller's oral history is a really big book, though! I went back to it and read about The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, and Succession among other shows and events. I even finished the book!

Tinderbox is a juicy read loaded with info about most of the big HBO series, and I give it a strong recommendation. I have to tell you something, though: The real thrust of the text is the executive politics and boardroom intrigue at the company. There is ample stuff about the likes of James Gandolfini, but a whole lot of the history relates to the machinations of various network (and higher-up) people that the average TV viewer does not know at all. Even the stories of hits like Sex and the City and the creative decisions are focused on the executive level as opposed to the production level.

If you are into that sort of thing, you will love the book, but otherwise it might get a bit frustrating at times. Miller's style and format here are familiar to anyone who has read his awesome books about ESPN and Saturday Night Live. He lets the principals tell the story but uses some deft editing and frequent editorial interludes (presented in italics for distinction) to shape narratives. There are a lot of colorful voices in here, and it's fun reading their gossipy comments about colleagues.

I do wish there were more on the Seventies and Eighties as the vast majority is the more modern era of the network. I'd also like to see more about some of the programming other than the original series. We do get a taste of that as Miller highlights some concerts, events like Comic Relief, and some original movies, but I'd like to know more about the programming itself and those choices like why certain theatrical movies played ad nauseam. HBO Boxing gets a lot of space, but other sports like tennis not so much.

I don't want to talk too much about what the book is not because I like what it is. Dick Cavett is barely in it, though, and we noted how he was the de facto face of HBO for a while. Rich Little, someone I remembered as a big deal on the channel in the Eighties, is mentioned in passing. Really, programing in general is not an emphasis until the timeline reaches Larry Sanders.

So for a fan of the early days, it's a little disappointing, but viewers who love 21st-century HBO will be pleased. Eventually I plan to get more of the overall story by diving back into It's Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO, another one I started for the podcast and paused once I got out of the Eighties.

Top Ten #398

Folks, I had my dates mixed up last week and incorrectly reported on what had aired 40 and 50 years ago. I should have included Nell Carter and Robert F. Simon THIS week, not last, and I am sorry for the error!

1) Calendars: I really ought to learn how to read them!

So what DID air 50 and 40 years ago tonight? ABC had the conclusion of Rich Man, Poor Man in 1976; while CBS reran the pilot of Phyllis.

In 1986, CBS aired 1980's Any Which Way You Can.

2) William Shatner: The dude is out there accepting awards and whatnot, and he turns 95 today. 95!

3) Debbie Allen: The star of Fame received an honorary Oscar last Sunday. 

4) Robert Hays: Ian Talks Comedy welcomed the star of The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything, but he decided not to ruin the interview didn't have time to ask about that one.

5) Private Benjamin: Another program aired 40 years ago tonight was a re-air of the 1980 Goldie Hawn film, but more interesting to me is that the forthcoming Warner Archive Blu-Ray of the movie will have a couple episodes of the TV series as a bonus.

6) Battle of the Network Stars: As listener Mario first tipped us off, the outstanding Game Show Vault YouTube channel uploaded the first episode of the original Battle of the Network Stars this week. Sadly, it has frequent audio dropouts due to the music, but it would be nice if GSV could upload the whole run in good quality.

7) Barry Morse: The TV Confidential podcast has been talking about the late actor in recent weeks. We discussed him earlier this season, of course, when we covered Zoo Gang.

8) 60 years ago tonight: How about we jump in with a quick look at a few of the programs that aired this night in 1966?

Dr. Strange star Jessica Walter appeared on The Fugitive on ABC.

On CBS' variety special Carol Plus 2, Carol Burnett welcomed guests Lucille Ball and Zero Mostel.

NBC had the conclusion of a two-part Dr. Kildare and the 1961 movie Ring of Fire, meaning David Janssen was competing against himself!

9) Shadoe Stevens: As I mentioned in our Facebook group last week, I saw a 1980s Hollywood Squares promo that touted appearances by "Crazyman Jm J Bullock" and "Heartthrob Shadoe Stevens."

Bullock getting an upgrade from the standard "Funnyman" is amusing enough, but heartthrob for Stevens? Really?

10) R.I.P. Matt Clark, Ed Bernard, Chuck Norris, Dennis Condrey:

Promo Theatre: Post-Trotter Meadowlark Lemon

Here's a promo for a network appearance of Meadowlark Lemon, then touring with one of his non-Globetrotter groups, the Bucketeers:

You can hear us talk about the Harlem Globetrotters, including Meadowlark, right here.

More Peanuts commercials!

Here's a recent upload of some Peanuts ads I had never seen! Go to the great BetaGems channel for more like this: