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.

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 5: Tuesday, August 23, 1955

Here's a look at some items in the listings 70 years ago today in Pittsburgh!

I wish I had this one below. I like that you're sitting there looking up what's gonna be on tonight, and then the mag tells you, hey, go get the new issue! It's already out there!

Check out what's on at 4:30 and every weekday on Channel 10: Roller Derby!

Here is what is up against the hottest show on TV, The $64,000 Question. China Smith is a syndicated adventure series starring Dan Duryea, Truth is another game show, and With a View to Music is something about which I know nothing!

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 4: Monday, August 22, 1955

Here are some highlights of the programming in Pittsburgh 70 years ago today!

Monday morning, Arlene Francis gets a new show to precede her existing program, and look who's along with her: BOTNS star Hugh "Over Easy" Downs!

The big showcase production of the day is, well, Producers' Showcase, a 90-minute prestige production.

Here's a glimpse of one of my favorite obscure shows: It's a Great Life, a syndicated sitcom about three guys living in a boarding house run by Francis Bavier. I'd love to get a set of complete episodes of that one!

Here's a look at the sports lineup for the week. Notice what's missing: Baseball! No national games in this week in August. I believe Pittsburgh Pirates broadcasts on local TV did not start until two years later.

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 4: Sunday, August 21

 I want to highlight a few things today, but let's start with this look at a Boy Scout jamboree!

Religion is a big part of Sunday TV (not just the morning, either, but the whole day), but unlike the heavy diet of televangelism that would become common in the eighties, you get a variety of faith-themed anthology programs, including different episodes of the same series.

And look at this episode of Pall Mall Theatre. Didn't every TV Western use this plot at one time or another?

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 3: The listings! Saturday, August 20

It was 70 years ago today that...a lot of locally produced programming was on the air, at least in the Pittsburgh area. I don't only mean shows made in Pittsburgh, but shows made at local stations. It was a different time, when network affiliations were much looser and everyone was still trying to figure things out.

KDKA-2 and WJAC-6 at the time are listed as affiliates of ABC, CBS, Du Mont, and NBC! Every channel in the listings apart from WQED-13 (later a PBS station) have multiple network affiliations.

70 years ago, Saturday, August 20, 1955, this program stands out, right here in the middle:

Yep, that's our pal Fred "Mister" Rogers! Notice pals like Daniel Tiger are already here, too, in this Pittsburgh original.

Later in the day, we get Rassling. Not wrestling. RASSLING.

Here are a few ads for the shows in prime time tonight:

Here's an overview of late prime time. One thing I like about early TV is that the same show will appear on different networks, different channels, even with different episodes on the same evening. An example here is Your Play Time, one of the many, many dramatic anthologies on the airwaves this week.

Wrestling at 11:05 is obviously a different show than RASSLING earlier in the day.

Earlier in the evening, all kinds of stuff. Take 8:00's The Soldiers, a short-lived military comedy that stars John Dehner, Tom D'andrea, and this issue's cover subject, Hal March!

Musical Chairs is a panel show, I think, not a literal game of musical chairs. There's a lot of game show and music action in Summer 1955 on TV.

Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 2

Yesterday I focused on the cool cover story about The $64,000 Question, but there are other features in the Guide this week. For example, this look at The Ina Ray Hutton Show, a syndicated program starring the biggest female band leader of the Big Band era. Years later, research indicated that Hutton was of mixed race and had been "passing as White" during her heyday. I don't know if this TV show exists in any form.

They were putting a lot of stuff out there in the early days of the medium, but how about TV dentistry? Jerry Robinson and Jerry Helper are nowhere to be seen here, but I trust these guys know what they're doing.

Tomorrow we'll dive into the listings!

Inside the Guide: 70 years ago, "The $64,000 Question" was the hottest thing on TV (August 20-26, 1955)

This week we'll go back in time and look at the TV Guide Pittsburgh edition from August 20-26, 1955--70 years ago!. Here's a look at the front cover:

You will notice the cover subject is Hal March, emcee of The $64,000 Question. That quiz show had premiered just about two months earlier but was the talk of the medium, breaking summertime viewership records and capturing the public's collective attention. Newspapers, street corners, water coolers...all were abuzz with discussions about the smash program.

Yes, this was one of the shows implicated in the quiz show scandals that would soon take down the genre and help lead to network, rather than sponsor, control over TV programming. $64,000 Question was not the first quiz show exposed, nor the most egregious, but it was believed sponsor Revson did influence the direction of the series in multiple ways. At least one contestant on the spinoff 64,000 Challenge (a head-to-head format, unlike the escalating-questions-solo format of its predecessor) claimed he was given answers in advance. Producer Louis Cowan became president of CBS TV after this show took off, but he was booted out in the wake of the scandals.

All this makes the issue in question (Ha!) a fascinating read. Ah, to be innocent and read this as it played out in Summer 1955, 3 years before the scandals broke. The cover story talks about how producers select contestants, not directly mentioning how sponsors might manipulate the gameplay or try to juke ratings.  One amusing note mentions how producers verified that potential participants weren't "misrepresenting themselves": "Cowan checks with their, ministers, priests, or rabbis, with their banks and their place of work." Note: Lack of semicolons and Oxford commas is from the original text.

The article mentions that people write the mag all the time asking how the show can afford to give away the big cash prizes. Actually, the program is much cheaper to produce than most primetime entertainment shows, as a helpful list indicates. The Jackie Gleason Show cost over $72K per week last season, but even with cash winnings averaged in. Question is estimated at a little over $25K.

The "TV Teletype" feature at the front of the mag has an item on the show, saying that American Research Bureau figures reveal it draws 47 million viewers each week. "That's unprecedented for summertime TV. 

This is my favorite reference in the issue, though, an item from the "Letters to the Editor" page:

Knowing what would happen a few years later, this is quite a thing to read here!

Top Ten #367:

1) Chubby Checker: The rock legend declined to appear at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, preferring to do a gig. Hopefully he's doing an ongoing celebration of the 38th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Celebration.

2) National Black Cat Appreciation Day: My personal favorite is Felicia Hardy, but how about some love for Salem and--Wait, he was like reddish-brown in this series?

3) Suburban Beat: 40 years ago, NBC aired this unsold pilot about a group of moms who band together to solve the murder of a prostitute. The creators of Scarecrow and Mrs. King produced this one, which starred Shelley Fabares, Dee Wallace, and Patti Austin. BOTNS fave Joe Santos is in this somehow, too.

4) Back to school: All over the country, kids go back to school this week even though it's way too early.

5) WWE on ESPN: So-called "Premium Live Events" are coming to ESPN next year in a huge deal. Maybe they'll put them in that classic 4pm afterschool weekday time slot! Or if they really want to get fancy, they can bring back that Tuesday night AWA showcase:

6) Mark Malkoff: I'm very much looking forward to the podcaster's forthcoming Tonight Show book. 

7) MTV's The Cutting Edge: Now that MTV is almost dead as a "brand," it's especially fun to look back at when it aired stuff like this:

8) Quincy: The show left Get TV, and now it's being booted off FETV for The Jeffersons. Why am I including it here? Because it's finally time. Bring it to Peacock! 

9) National Sandwich Month:

10) R.I.P. Danielle Spencer, Tristan Rogers:

Inside the Guide: Next week, we go back 70 years! (August 20-26, 1955)

Next week, we'll start looking at a TV Guide from 70 years ago: The August 20-26 issue seen below:

One thing about going this far back in time is that every page of the listings is an adventure. It's so early that you see lots of obscure/forgotten/rare programs. We will get to those listings and try to line up more or less with what was on 70 years ago to the day, but there is a lot more in the issue, including the remarkable cover story. This cover hit newsstands mere weeks after The $64,000 Question debuted and became a sensation.

Stay tuned!

Top Ten #366: Special "Summer ain't over yet" edition!

1) Police Squad!: Saw The Naked Gun last week and loved it. It was everything I wanted it to be, and it made me want to dig out my DVD of the TV show. Hey, why isn't it on Paramount Plus, though?

2) Brian Robbins: The exec left Paramount but got an $18 million going-away gift. So there's little chance he'll be doing Cameos as Eric Mardian anytime soon. He would have received $20 million if he hadn't lost the Police Squad! tapes.

3) T.J. Hooker: Multiple outlets reported that a reboot movie is headed to Netflix after it "landed the project." There was a bidding war?

Maybe there was a TekBiddingWar!

4) The Addams Family: Speaking of old properties in new times, Wednesday's second season premiered on Netflix this week.

5) Manhattan Transfer: The vocal group's summer replacement variety series (filling in for Cher) aired 50 years ago tonight and welcomed Bob Marley and the Wailers, who made their American TV debut.

6) Victor Awards: 40 years ago this weekend, this ceremony recognizing excellence in amateur and professional sports aired in syndication. I wasn't able to confirm that Vic Tayback got an honorary award at the end of the ceremony.

7) The Pink Panther: A whole bunch of Pink Panther cartoons are on Tubi, including the Seventies version and even the 1984 Pink Panther and Sons!

8) Miami Vice: Kudos again to Secret Galaxy for its spotlight on the iconic Eighties cop show this week. If you want to hear what we think about the series, click here!

9) Gary Deeb: Somehow I missed that Deeb died back in June. The Chicago media critic was the highlight of our Donahue episode a few years ago.

10) R.I.P. Loni Anderson:

Entertainment Tonight: The Board Game

When we talked about Entertainment Tonight, I wasn't aware of this commercial for an apparent Trivial Pursuit ripoff based on the show:

Oh, I'd love to play this one today! Imagine sitting down with Tesh, Hart, Gibbons, Weller, Maltin, and, yes, HENDREN to play this while enjoying chips and margaritas.

Top Ten #365

1) Rodney Dangerfield's 9th Annual Young Comedians Special: This program aired on HBO 40 years ago tonight, spotlighting such upstarts as Sam Kinison, Bob Saget, and BOTNS superstar Yakov Smirnoff!

2) Dynasty: The iconic Eighties soap is now on free streamer Tubi, which seems wrong somehow.

3) Thundarr: The great Secret Galaxy YT channel took a look at the series and its context this past weel; for more on the show itself you can check out our episode right here.

4) Mrs. America 1985: 40 years ago this weekend, the annual event, taped earlier, was broadcast in syndication, won by Mrs. Mississippi Donna Russell and hosted by...Richard Dawson. Yeah, that checks!

5) Lalo Schifrin: The Forgotten TV podcast, which I really need to catch up on, posted a great episode on the career of the composer this week.

6) National Sports Card Convention: The event is taking place in Illinois this weekend, and while it says "sports," I bet there's someone else out there looking for a GEM MINT Roscoe P. Coltrane.

7) National Sisters Day: From all of us with sisters to all of those who have sisters, or to those who are sisters, or--Oh, I messed it up. Here's a clip of a show that has a lot of sisters in it.

8) This Is Spinal Tap: Laurie and I just rewatched the classic mockumentary, and, wow, is it loaded with TV stars even outside the main cast--Howard Hesseman, Fran Drescher, Dana Carvey, Ed Begley Jr., Billy Crystal...

9) Martin Sheen: Happy 85th birthday!

10) National Black Business Month: