Tomorrow on Battle of the Network Shows...

 

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 4): It's WALTER!

Tuesday, July 17, 1984, is a historic night in TV history: The debut of a notorious spinoff. Gary Burghoff IS W*A*L*T*E*R!

Following it up was a lesser-known pilot, Hal Linden's Second Edition, in which he is a divorced professor who moves, becomes editor of a regional magazine, and joins a support group. Also in the cast: Gordon Jump, Alley Mills, Edie McClurg, G.W. Bailey.

Look at the lineup on Channel 21--Pretty cool stuff here:

And finally, CBN has another display ad, but it's funny they use "Spice" and then brag about it being an "all-family" soap here on Christian Broadcasting Network:

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 3): Monday Monday brings lots of ads

Monday, July 16, 1984 is mostly reruns in prime time, but we get some interesting stuff. At least in this Dallas/Fort Worth edition, CBN is advertising big time this week, and it's great. Here is BOTNS fave from Season 11, The Rifleman:

And you can't go wrong with Jack:

Finally, this seems a little off brand now, but in 1984 HBO wasn't quite the HBO it would be in about 15 years:

Top Ten #312: Special "Go for the gold" edition!

1) BOTNS Season 12: Yes, the rumors are true! Yes, the podcast returns this Thursday! Yes, it's still as free as free can be! So be here Thursday, and don't ya dare miss it!

2) The Summer Olympics: The 1984 L.A. games opened 40 years ago tonight with American coverage on ABC. What a country! If they had a competition for standup comedy, Yakov could have medaled. Hey, is it that much more farfetched than breakdancing, which is now an Olympic sport?

3) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: It's the 40th anniversary of the multimedia stars' debut in comic books, and we can also give a hearty cowbunga to the original CBS cartoon.

4) The Facts of Life: The good news is, according to Mindy Cohn, the Live Before a Studio Audience presentation of FOL got Norman Lear thinking a reboot was possible. The bad news is, one unnamed person allegedly spoiled it by trying to get her own show (It looks it was totally Blair, by the way).

5) CBS News' Whatever Happened to the Energy Crisis: 50 years ago tonight, the network took a look and concluded that energy was no longer a problem and that oil and energy would be abundant throughout the rest of the prosperous, sunny Seventies,

6) San Diego Comic Con: There are all sorts of things happening at the Con this year, but hopefully you guys didn't miss our Con-exclusive panel on Father Murphy.

7) National Waterpark Day: What better way to celebrate the season than with a fun-filled but relaxing day at a nice, wholesome family amusement park...like Action Park?

8) Solid Gold Salutes the Songs of Summer: 40 years ago, the syndicated program celebrated the music of the season. Hey, as long as Christopher Cross was on there, man.

9) Linda Kelsey: Happy birthday to the Lou Grant star. Do you think Lou ever told her character, "Billie, don't be a hero?" in the newsroom?

10) The National Baseball Hall of Fame: The Hall welcomed a handful of individuals last weekend, including one of my favorite managers, Jim Leyland.

Next Week on Battle of the Network Shows...

 

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 2): ESPN in Summer 1984

Continuing our look at a 40-years-ago TV Guide:

I am fascinated by ESPN's schedule on this Saturday: July 15, 1984. The network had been around for years at this point, and it is a bit of a dead sports zone in mid July, but STILL, wow.

6:30 AM brings Horse Racing Weekly, kind of a filler show.

7AM is Inside the USFL, which I know is a filler show because it shows up many times in the weekend listings!

7:30 is Pro Karate, and while it's a title fight, it was taped June 30 in Atlanta-- TWO WEEKS AGO!

9 is Aerobatics, "Stunt flying in the Oshkosh (Wisc.) Fly-in, taped in August 1983." 11 MONTHS AGO!

9:30 is College World Series Highlights.

10:30 is Play Your Best Golf, another program that recurs throughout the weekend.

11 is Super Bowl Highlights, action from SBXII between Dallas and Denver. SIX YEARS--OK, this goes in the category of classic sports, but still it is kind of odd for 11:00 A.M. And this is the Central time zone, so it's Noon on the East Coast.

11:30 is Inside the USFL again.

Noon is Boxing, and it's Leonard/Duran from Montreal in June 1980. It's classic sports again, so we allow it. I actually welcome that sort of thing.

1:00 brings us some live sports! It's USA vs. Argentina in Davis Cup doubles action, and I very well may have been watching some of this event coverage this weekend.

4:00 is Play Your Best Golf. TV Guide notes the time is approximate.

4l:30 is Hydroplane Racing, action taped in Evansville July 1.

5:30 is Sportscenter for the first time today.

6:30 is Golf, third-round play at the Merrill Lynch Golf Digest Senior Pro-Am, but it's taped from earlier!

8:00 We get some more tennis action, as we return to the Davis Cup. Oh, wait, it's the same coverage from earlier on tape delay.

10:30 is Sportscenter.

11:30 is--guess what--Inside the USFL.

Midnight is another presentation of the Jerry Trimble/Tony Rosser Pro Karate Association fight that was on at 7:30.

1:30 is Sportscenter.

2:30 is another presentation of the senior golf coverage from 6:30.

4:00 is--care to guess? Inside the USFL was a spectacular answer, but, no, it's Pro Karate again.

Sunday isn't much more dynamic. I won't go through the whole listings, but I will tell you the day starts with ESPN staple Australian Rules Football, a match taped June 30.

This is before so many cable networks ceded sports to ESPN and other sports channels. All over the dial you see sports programs like The Baseball Bunch on TBS, Baseball USA (with Don Drysdale) on USA Network, and Vic's Vacant Lot (formerly an ESPN program) and Reggie Jackson's World of Sports on Nickelodeon. It's like in the early days of cable, the channels felt obligated to show some kind of sports. Even early premium channel VEU (Video Entertainment Unlimited) has a History of the Olympics program.

WGN had Greatest Sports Legends, Nashville Network had several auto racing programs, and even CBN had Athletes in Action. Of course, NBC carried Major League Baseball in the afternoon,

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 Years Ago (July 1984 part 1)

The July 14, 1984 Dallas/Fort Worth edition of TV Guide has a Johnny Carson cover and some interesting stuff inside, more than I might expect for summertime right before the Olympics.

 Let's start with Saturday, July 14, where this jumps out at me:

Yes, NICKELODEON, in July 1984, is showing a 90-minute Kansas concert right after an episode of Tomorrow People and right before an episode of Mr. Wizard's World. I never thought Kansas was a particularly kid-friendly band. For this performance, did they show have a large projection screen of a group of toddlers playing kickball behind the band as it did "Play the Game Tonight"?

Just a little bit later, a BOTNS favorite pops up on Lifetime just before 4:00:

Over Easy isn't just for PBS stations! If you know, you know, but this has been a running joke of ours for several seasons now.

Top Ten #311: Special "National Ice Cream Day" Edition!

1) Bob Newhart: I thought last week was bad, and it was, and then we lost the Sultan of Stammer himself. Let's just post an appearance with Carson and wish that someone would start streaming The Bob Newhart Show again.

2) Holland Taylor: We could congratulate any one of many Seventies and Eighties stars for getting Emmy noms this week, but let's give Bosom Buddies some love and congratulate Taylor for being recognized for her work on The Morning Show.

3) Super Friends: I hope the MSRP is more Super Friendly than Legion of Doom to our wallets, but an official announcement of a complete Blu-Ray set is imminent. It's long overdue after years of the show being dished out piecemeal on DVD and then yanked from MAX last year. Current company membership is more like Legion of Dumb, but this is a good move by Warners.

4) Art Hindle: This day is too hot to Hindle because it's Batty-nominated Art Hindle's birthday.

5) Sportsbeat: 40 years ago today, the ABC magazine show hosted by Howard Cosell featured the following segments: "Randy Newman and I Love L.A., javelin thrower Bruce Kennedy, Olympic reports." Wait, Randy Newman! Did Cosell grill him about "Short People"?

6) San Diego Comic Con: The annual pop culture fun fest begins this week in La Jolla. Look for Mike and I roaming the convention hall cosplaying as Hardcastle and McCormick.

7) The Edwardians: 50 years ago tonight, PBS' Masterpiece Theatre continued its run of this BBC anthology series with a look at Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. Hey, were they the guys who gave us Car Wash?

8) Don Knotts: The legend would have been 100 years old today, and he surely would have celebrated by snorting and yelling, "Damn!"

9) National Junk Food Day: Or as it's known in my house, every day! Here with a dissenting opinion: Fat Albert and the Gang:

10) R.I.P. Shannen Doherty. James B. Sikking: Salute to these two stars; rest assured the only reason they weren't included last week was timing, not neglect. 

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago (June 29-July 5, 1974 Part 7)

We have reached the end of the listings week in this issue of TV Guide from 50 years ago. Yes, I took a week off, and I am sorry, but we are in the 50-year-ago ballpark, eh? I mean, assuming it's the Astrodome or another really big one.

Here is some of what was going on July 5, 1974, in reverse order!

The night ends, more or less, with this eclectic lineup on Midnight Special. TV really crashed after midnight in those days. I don't know why, but I love the mag referring to the artists by their first names in the song listing.

It's a repeat, but I can't NOT mention the first appearance of Cousin Oliver!

Movie night on CBS!

Finally, a look at a few forgotten soap operas of the day. What a great title: How to Survive a Marriage! 

Somerset, an NBC soap, is a spinoff of Another World that ran from 1970-1976. In fact, it was the first soap spun off from another one. Ann Wedgeworth was one of the stars, and she later made an impact as Lana on Three's Company.

How to Survive lasted just over a year, also on NBC, and was known for its "social relevance" and emphasis on sexual themes. According to Wesley Hyatt's Encyclopedia of Daytime Television, it's 90-minute premiere episode was hyped with a pseudo-nude scene (characters were under covers in bed).

Top Ten #310: Special In Memoriam Edition

I hate to turn this whole list into a series of obituaries, but, wow, what a week. While I don't want to rank deaths, a few absolute TV icons of the Eighties left us this week.

1) Crackle: With its parent company declaring bankruptcy, the days are numbered for this free streamer. I always complained about its interface and its commercial load, but there was a glorious period when it had all kinds of rare TV shows from the Sony library, most of which have not been made available anywhere else since they left.

Sony never seemed to take Crackle seriously enough, and then somehow it got worse when Chicken Soup for the Soul took over, but at least I got to watch some Mr. Merlin.

2) Dr. Ruth: Who was the more unlikely sex icon of the Eighties, Dr. Ruth or Miss Piggy? The tiny old lady that was willing to talk about it was one of the early Mt. Rushmore faces of Lifetime and one of the breakout stars of the rise of national cable television.

3) Richard Simmons: And talk about an icon! His Sweatin' to the Oldies ads alone would have made him memorable, but he had multiple shows of his own and of course was a frequent guest star all over the dial, sometimes even on programs that didn't mock him.

4) The Munsters: Mike and I saw the new Super 7 figures at separate stores this past week, and they look great. Hot Rod Herman is tempting even at the high price point. Of course, for me, Leo Durocher or Baseball Herman would be a must-buy.

5) Bert Sugarman: I am a few weeks late on this one, but he provides a fantastic interview on Mark Malkoff's Inside Late Night podcast for Latenighter. You will get a lot of info and stories about The Midnight Special.

6) Summer: CBS burned off this unsold pilot on this date in 1984. According to Lee Goldberg's Unsold Television Pilots, it features "the summer adventures of five high school students and the two adults in their lives--the beach lifeguard (Gerard Prendergast) and the woman who owns the disco (Sally Kirkland). I hope it is a literal disco and not just a nightclub in 1984. It also stars Gary Hershberger and Tico Wells/

7) Missy Gold: Happy birthday to the former Benson star.

8) MLB All-Star Game: The Midsummer Classic returns Tuesday night, and if nothing else, we gotta tune in to see Pirates phenom Paul Skenes start the game for the National League!

50 years ago, the game took place in Pittsburgh at Three Rivers Stadium.

9) Rosey Grier: Grier turns 90 years old today!

 

10) R.I.P. Sika, Shelly Duvall, Doug Sheehan, Benji Gregory, Pat Colbert: And unfortunately, we end with a host of other TV personalities who we lost this week. Sika was one half of the vaunted Wild Samoans tag team. We just celebrated Duvall's 75th birthday in this column. Sheehan was on Day by Day among other shows, and Gregory was the adorable moppet (the kid--not muppet) on ALF. Colbert was on Dallas and Knots Landing.

Top Ten #309: Special "National Strawberry Sundae Day" Edition!

1) Esther Rolle: The cover subject of the 1974 TV Guide we have been looking at this week was called "Esther Rolle the Fishing Pole" as a youth because she was so thin. More interesting than that (though that is a pretty cool rhyme) is reading her thoughts on the show and advocating for more stories for the females and less cheap laughs. Right from the get-go, Rolle was pushing back against what she saw as the deterioration of the show that made her laugh after a few more years.

2) Tony Orlando and Dawn: Let's run this spectacular Close-Up again after the series premiered 50 years ago this week. 

3) Rubik's Cube: Can you believe the thing debuted 50 years ago? And I am sure it only took about 2 days for some wise-ass to brag about solving it in 10 seconds.

4) Michael Bell: I am a bit late on this one, but The Funtastic World of Hanna Barbera podcast had a great interview with this prolific voice actor recently. His voice was everywhere when I was a kid. In fact, I'm pretty sure he said, "Here," for me a few times when attendance was taken in first grade.

5) Still the Beaver: The TV movie that revived the Beververse was just posted to YouTube this week. To be fair, it's been posted many times before, but why quibble? We touch on the revival of the show right here in our TBS episode.

Bonus: The 1981 CBS movie Return of the Beverly Hillbillies was rerun on this date 40 years ago. How's that for fresh summer programming: A 3-year-old rerun of a movie based on a 20-something-year-old show.

6) Michael J. Fox: Give it up for the man jamming on stage with Coldplay. Just give him a Pepsi and it could be 1985 all over again. Except, you know, Coldplay would all be like 8 and wouldn't form as a band for another decade.

7) Shelly Duvall: Happy 75th to the former star of Fairie Tale Theatre.

8) The Bounder: Michael McKean, Richard Masur, and Jeanetta Arnette starred in this pilot that aired 40 years ago on CBS. Based on a 1982 Britcom, it spotlights a con man played by McKean. Hey, sigh me up!

9) It's Your Move: I guess I should be happy that on his recent TV Confidential podcast appearance, former NBC casting director Joel Thurm talked about the sitcom I used to love. Unfortunately, he described it as a nothing show that wasn't going anywhere but was just a place for NBC to stash Jason Bateman so he wouldn't go elsewhere.

10) National Macaroni Day: Today is not the day to count carbs. Today is the day to enjoy macaroni!

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago (June 29-July 5, 1974 Part 6)

A day late, but let's look at the Guide from Independence Day 50 years ago! The highlight for me is this little tidbit at the end of this description of a Waltons rerun:

Yes, it's the debut of the Bicentennial Minute!

Otherwise, there are specials and repeats, with this one being the standout:

Is Tennessee Ernie Ford about to be smothered by that Colonial American flag? And what's up with the incorrect spelling of Dionne Warwick?

Another interesting program is NBC's Comedyworld, featuring Rodney Dangerfield as host with Jimmie Walker, Mark Russell, "the black and white team of Freeman King and Murray Langston, and Puerto Rican Freddie Prinze."

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago (June 29-July 5, 1974 Part 5)

Not a lot going on here in Northern California this date in 1974, but we do have a nice occurrence in the afternoon reruns when we get to Brady Bunch (Though that cast on Squares ain't bad, either):

Yes, it's the episode we discussed on the podcast. "The Big Bet!"

Prime time is rerun territory again, but we do get a nice ad to enjoy.

But maybe the most exciting of all is another debut this week! Back in the day, we used to see the summer replacement series, and many variety shows started out as such, including this one:

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago (June 29-July 5, 1974 Part 4)

The theme of the day for Tuesday, July 2, 1974, as we continue our look at the TV Guide from 50 years ago today is "judge." How judgy can shows be? How judgy can TV Guide be?

First, let's look at The New Zoo Revue at 9:00:

Well, maybe I LIKE being lazy! This episode is getting a little too preachy for my taste. I'll relax NOW if I feel like it, Doug and Emmy Jo!

Later on, it's the magazine itself that seems to get all judgmental in this summary of tonight's Maude rerun. 

Who wrote this, Arthur Harmon? Jeez!

Finally, a serious-minded program on NBC...that the network puts on at 10pm in the summer, of course:

There isn't a lot else going on on this Tuesday. There are short-lived programs like Tenafly and Doc Elliott. Let me go back to the daytime period, though, and since it's a slow day, I will cheat and show you two listings from 50 years ago yesterday.

NBC premiered two games shows this week: Winning Streak with Bill Cullen and High Rollers with Alex Trebek and Ruta Lee. The latter stuck around and saw a few remakes, but the former lasted a mere 6 months and is considered a lost show, but at least one episode survives:

The network canceled the show, which aired its final episode January 3, 1975. The following Monday, a new show took its place: Wheel of Fortune.

I could have just told you about this, but I had to show you the listings because you have to enjoy the thrill of seeing that boldfaced word in the mag: Debut.

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago (June 29-July 5, 1974 Part 3)

In the third part of this series, we look at the listings for Monday, July 1, 1974, 50 years ago today! We are squarely in reruns territory, so new prime time programs are scarce, and even the display advertising is a little skimpy. Come on, advertisers, people watch TV in July, too!

Today's big winner for me is The Mike Douglas Show, which welcomes Mac Davis as co-host this week. Today's episode also features Doug Henning, 

Looking through these old TV Guides, the indie stations always jump out, and Channel 40 here looks pretty cool. I like this ad for daily reruns of The Untouchables:

More tomorrow!