Show Notes: Episode 6-4: Donahue

*As of today, the Donahue episode we discuss is available on YouTube. It aired February 16, 1981, according to the uploader.

*Phil's series aired in syndication from 1970 to 1996, a record run for a nationally syndicated talk show.

*Donahue also appeared on The Today Show throughout the Eighties. After his syndicated series, he co-hosted a CNBC program with Vladimir Posner, then headlined an MSNBC show.

*Despite the sensationalist reputation The Donahue Show earned over the years, it also won 10 Emmys, and Donahue got a Peabody Award.

*Phil and Marlo Thomas married in 1980 and are still together. You can see their on-show meeting in our YouTube playlist this week!

*Donahue was born December 21, 1935, making him 83 today.

*Then Chicago Sun Times critic Gary Deeb is long retired and, sadly, has no social media presence. Here's an interesting 2003 article about a mini-controversy involving him and a Chi-town media personality. this 1975 Time piece (subscription required, unfortunately) described him as the wolf-man of the airwaves!

*The leading advocacy group for censorship on TV today is probably the Parents Television Council, founded in 1995 and still active.

*The hit list of broadcast shows targeted for advertiser boycotts according to an alleged 500,000 concerned voters:

Dallas, Soap, Saturday Night Live, Charlie's Angels, Three's Company. 

You can see our episodes on the last three in our archives.

And the syndicated ones:

Three's a Crowd, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game.

*Chuck Barris created short-lived game show Three's a Crowd (September 1979-February 1980). It was hosted by Jim Peck and featured the premise, "Who knows a man better, his secretary or his wife?" Wikipedia reports:
According to Barris in his first autobiography, The Game Show King, the protests against the show—as well as the sometimes-evident lack of fun the contestants seemed to be having on it—prompted him to retreat from television production entirely

*Alan Thicke hosted a tamer version of Three's a Crowd for GSN in 1999.

*Sally Jessy Raphael hosted her own syndicated daytime talk show from 1984 to 2002.