Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 8)

This is my favorite piece of this 50-year-old bicentennial L.A. edition of TV Guide, a look at themed station ID cards from around the nation!

Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 7: Friday, July 9)

Two more local ads on this day in TV Guide (L.A. edition) 50 years ago today:

Let's supplement today's post with some news from the "Teletype" column. This week, tidbits include another story on John Amos' departure from Good Times (this was a big story at the time in the TV press) and mentions of upcoming shows Wonder Woman and What's Happening!!

Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 6: Thursday, July 8)

We continue our look at the bicentennial issue of TV Guide, but we are several days past the big holiday, and now local TV ads continue to dominate the pages.

A reminder that this is a Los Angeles edition, and so we get some boxing from the historic arena:

Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 5: Wednesday, July 7)

Local ads still dominate in this Los Angeles edition of TV Guide. 

Here we see Mike Douglas:

Next up, Name That Tune. I miss when game shows were so big on daytime television.

Finally for today, a close-up on the state dinner PBS is covering:

Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 4: Tuesday, July 6)

Things have slowed down in the Guide this week after the weekend festivities.

We do see an ad for a movie with that beloved BOTNS favorite George Gobel:

KHJ really wants you to know about The Joker's Wild. It ran this ad several times this week and mentioned the show in at least one other ad, too:

Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 3: Monday, July 5)

Well, the holiday is over, and TV is back to normal, it appears, with reruns dominating the lineup. the local stations dominate the advertising, taking the opportunity to promote movies, reruns, and game shows!

The holiday fun lingers, though, with some taped coverage of fireworks:

Finally, end the evening with John Davidson!

Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 2)

Today is the big day! 50 years ago today was the big bicentennial celebration, the culmination of a huge buildup, and TV Guide had everyone covered with this spread appearing before the day's actual listings:

NBC took out a full-pager:

How about a Bob Hope special? And check out the cool album you can buy!

I can't overstate how much TV was all about the bicentennial on this day. Among the shows, personalities, and specials with themed episodes on this day: Billy Graham, Firing Line, Lawrence Welk, and National Geographic. Local stations aired movies like Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Would there be a letdown when everyone went back to work Monday, July 5 and TV returned to normal? Come back tomorrow!

Inside the Guide: BICENTENNIAL FEVER! TV Guide 50 years ago today! (7/3/26 PART 1)

Yes, the nation had bicentennial fever in 1976, and we are here to revisit it with a look at the special issue of TV Guide (Los Angeles edition) dated July 3, 1976. We'll take a trip, Saturday through Friday, and the first few days are loaded with holiday coverage. Let's jump right into it!

Everyone was talking about the event, even Youth and the Issues:

Metromedia stations offer The Great American Celebration:

That's not to be confused with the Great American Music Celebration, which aired later in the evening and was hosted by Lorne Greene, Dionne Warwick, and Harve Presnell. 

Speaking of music, American Bandstand got in the act with a salute to the bicentennial featuring The Mugelsons, Paul Jabara, and comedia Kip Adotta. "Dick Clark is the host," the listing says. Well, i'm familiar with...Dick Clark.

A TV Movie adaptation of Huckleberry Finn was rerun on ABC tonight. In the cast: Ron Howard in the title role, Antonio Fargas as Jim, and Donny Most as Tom Sawyer!

Worried about the Fourth? CBS has you covered:

Don't feel the need to watch all day! "Drop in any time to see how it's going."

For you eggheads out there, NBC has a program about invention and discovery:

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago today! (6/26/76 Part 7)

Today there isn't much to see in the Friday, July 2, 1976 listings, but let's talk about some of the features in the issue.

There is this page, which gets into two topics of interest to BOTNS fans: The decision to break up Rhoda and Joe and also the pending debut of In Search Of!

Other stories include the cover story on Mary Tyler Moore in Moscow, a light piece about a writer trying video dating, and experiments with "two-way cable" and interactive TV. There's a profile of Rich Little, then starring in The Rich Little Show, but there is no review column.

One interesting item in the news section relates how NBC's revenues jumped as its ratings went down. The explanation is that the economy's revival boosted ad spending at a time when CBS and ABC had already sold most of its ad inventory. NBC, in effect, benefited from its plummeting ratings because it had plenty of sports to sell to advertisers looking to spend.

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago today! (6/26/76 Part 6)

It's still fairly slow in prime time this week, with reruns dominating, but I do like this local station ad in the Thursday, July 1, 1976 listings:

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago today! (6/26/76 Part 5)

There wasn't a lot going on Wednesday, June 30, 1976, on the tube, but NBC did have a patriotic special. It didn't bother taking out an ad for it, though.

I can also tell you that on Dinah Shore's show, Jim Nabors co-hosted, and guests included Lynda Carter, George Gobel, and Minnie Pearl!

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago today! (6/26/76 Part 4)

There is a clear highlight in prime time 50 years ago on broadcast television. As America geared up for its bicentennial, NBC premiered the film 1776, itself an adaptation of the musical:

On Channel 8, right before the movie, viewers were treated to an animated Benji special (Other stations aired this syndicated program throughout the week):

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago today! (6/26/76 Part 3)

Perhaps the highlight of prime time on Monday, June 28, 1976, is this CBS rebroadcast of the Chuck Jones Yankee Doodle Cricket:

Other than that, there are some neat local station ads:

One thing that stands out to me is the afternoon here. For one thing, William Shatner is on The FBI, which was a very popular rerun in syndication at the time. Also, look at the display ad for Marcus Welby that uses the syndie title Robert Young, Family Doctor:

I get that TV shows got alternate titles for syndication when they were still in first-run, but those alternate titles were usually lame. Happy Days Again is an example. This one is worse, avoiding the character name and just saying, "Here's the show where Robert Young is a doctor."

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago today! (6/26/76 Part 2)

We move on to Sunday, where we see the special Mary Tyler Moore is promoting in the cover story of this 1976 issue!

Otherwise, there isn't a lot going on, though one local channel is showing Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops in the afternoon! An independent station has a retrospective of Your Show of Shows, too!

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 50 years ago today! (6/26/76 Part 1)

For the next week, we'll share some photos from TV Guide of 50 years ago. Note beloved icon Mary Tyler Moore on the cover:

We begin, as the mag does, with Saturday--specifically, Saturday, June 26, 1976. This is a Bay Area edition.

First let's take a look at a few morning shows! There isn't enough Run Joe Run out in the world, but here is a listing for the show that we discussed in our second season:

Then at 10:00, a show I knew nothing about, Westwind. It's a live-action kids series filmed in Hawaii and produced by the same company as Run Joe Run and starring Van Williams.

How about this classic match-up on Celebrity Tennis? The unofficial Canadian Celebrity Tennis Championship is on the line!

I didn't recognize this one but was intrigued by the title:

Ron Schmeck was an RV dealer turned music star with his 1975 country album Easy Livin' The American Way.

Here's a look at an unsold pilot that premiered on this day. I mentioned it in our Facebook group today:

Finally, it amuses me that the mag puts the identical listing back to back for separate channels rather than combine the channels. Why did they do that sometimes but not others? Got me!