Power Rankings: Gary Coleman TV Movies

After enjoying The Kid Trilogy, I needed to see the other Gary Coleman TV movies. Unfortunately, the one I have wanted to see for years, Playing with Fire, continues to elude me, but I saw a couple others. Here, then, is my exclusive Power Rankings of the TV movies Coleman starred in during the BOTNS era:

1) The Kid with the 200 I.Q. : To me, this is peak Coleman in part because it plays like an extended sitcom pilot as much as a movie. You could easily see his Nick Newell returning for weekly adventures with Robert Guillaume. The supporting cast is amusing, and the story combines elements of all sorts of teen movies of the era but in a wholesome way. If you see only one Gary Coleman movie...see Halo because we discuss it on the pod. If you see two, catch this one, too.

2) The Kid from Left Field: The baseball theme gets me on this one. It's fun, it has the Padres, and I just get a kick out of it.

3) The Kid with the Broken Halo: Yes, it's the one we covered, and I am glad we did. You, the listeners, demanded it! Yet it's my least favorite of the Kid Trilogy. This is all relative, of course, but I think the concentration on multiple storylines dilutes things a bit. The big thing is, I just like the other two a bit better.

4) The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins: This one features a number of whimsical (and budget-friendly) set pieces sending up Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other pop culture phenomena. Collins is a diplomat's son who has an overactive imagination to the extent he spaces out while experiencing fantasy scenarios. He finds himself in a situation of real espionage and Washington D.C. intrigue.

This is less sitcom-ish than the Kid Trilogy and has more an emphasis on the relatively mild adventure and action. It's charming in its way but not as compelling as the Trilogy.

And by the way, while you may not find Jason Bateman in The Boy with the Cracked Horns, you WILL find him here, with a posh English accent, to boot!

5) Scout's Honor: Coleman is a lonely foster kid who finds his niche in Cub Scouts while Katherine Helmond finds hers when forced by her boss to be a den mother. This is not as entertaining as the Kind Trilogy, despite the presence of Meeno Peluce, but it has some really affecting moments.

It's not an exaggeration to say that one scene in which Coleman stands in front of a mirror and cries really hit me. His Joey has just received a cruel reminder of how little his foster parents care for him. Their attitude about a situation is shockingly dismissive in fact. When Coleman runs off and starts bawling, it's the actor as I never saw him before--not stage crying or being sad for effect, but just crying--a sad, pitiful boy whose heart is broken. The movie is worth seeing for that scene alone.

Show Notes and Video Playlist: Episode 12-3: The Kid with the Broken Halo (1982)

*The listeners spoke and decided we should cover this Gary Coleman TV movie, but fear not, we mention The Kid from Left Field and The Kid with the 200 IQ on the podcast as well. There is plenty of talk of what we affectionately call "The Kid Triology!" Thanks to all who voted in our poll.

*The Kid with the Broken Halo premiered Monday, April 5, 1982 on the NBC television network. Diff'rent Strokes was finishing its fourth season at the time. Halo is the second of the Kid Trilogy, following Left Field (1979) and preceding 1983's IQ. Also preceding this one: 1980's Scout's Honor.

*Robert Guillaume was starring in the third season of Benson on ABC when this movie premiered. Kim Fields was in the third season of The Facts of Life. Bosom Buddies with Thelma Hopkins had aired its final episode about a week earlier!

*The Paper Moon series Mike mentions starred Christopher Connelly (Not that one) and Jodie Foster (That one) and lasted a mere 13 episodes on ABC in 1974.

*Coleman was born February 8, 1968 and died May 28, 2010.

*Perhaps the upcoming Peacock original documentary, Gary, premiering August 29, will be that definitive biography we ask for on the podcast.

*As we mention, Hanna Barbera's The Gary Coleman Show cartoon ran a mere 13 episodes on NBC in first run in Fall 1982.

*Here is the archival UPI note on We Dare You!:

'We Dare You' is the title of a brand new 30-minute freak show anchored upon what the network calls 'a great American tradition -- the practical joke.' A joke it is. Practical it will never be.The show's premise is a clumsy cross-pollination of 'You Asked for It' and 'Candid Camera' in which hosts Terry McGovern and Jon Bauman - the 'Bowser' of Sha-na-na -- go around the country daring people to do stupid things to each other and filming them on the sly.It was funny when Alan Funt did it years ago -- but he did it and did it and did it. ABC really doesn't have to do it. But ABC is going to do it Monday from 8-8:30 p.m. None will den all.

*"Man proposes, but God disposes," is from Proverbs 19:21.
*Enjoy author Jeff Pearlman's ruminations on the great Rudy Desautel here.
*Among June Allyson's notable films are Good News, Two Girls and a Sailor, The Opposite Sex, and The Glenn Miller Story.
*Enjoy our discussion of Poor Devil from Season 8 here!
*Here's an example of those era Spalding comic book ads:

*The 1981 Cleveland Browns lost their last 5 games to finish 5-11 and last place in the AFC Central. It was a disappointing season after a playoff appearance in 1980.

*Ratings info:
Left Field  was #15 for the week with a 21.4 rating. I couldn't find specific info for the other two.

*And here is this week's video playlist! Click below for promos, a look at other 1982 shows and the work of the supporting cast, commercials, and a whole lotta Gary Coleman! We include the video we watched of the movie, too.
And remember, you can always check out our official YouTube page for all of our past podcasts and episode-specific playlists for each one!

Poll: Choose our Season 12 TV movie!

Season 12 of the podcast is in the works! Some of your suggestions are already in our lineup, but we have one more slot to finalize. Help us determine our TV movie this season by selecting the Gary Coleman "Kid" classic that YOU want us to discuss!

Update: Voting has now closed! Stay tuned for info on Season 12, and you won't have to wait long to see which movie we spotlight in our Gary Coleman episode!

Vote here in the comments or by sending an email to mailbag@battleofthenetworkshows.com. You can also vote in the poll in our official Facebook group (membership is free and easy!) by Saturday, May 11!

The choices are:

1. The Kid from Left Field (1979)
2. The Kid with the Broken Halo (1982)
3. The Kid with the 200 I.Q. (1983)

Show Notes and Video Playlist: Episode 11-7: Exo-Man (1977)

*We hope you enjoy this look at an obscure TV movie! Unsold pilot Exo-Man premiered June 18, 1977 on NBC.

*Before we get too far into it, we promised you a screengrab, and here it is:

*Here is the video playlist for Exo-Man. Note that we include a recent upload of the movie and not the multi-multipart version we saw.

 

And remember, you can always check out our official YouTube page for all of our past podcasts and episode-specific playlists for each one!

*Kevin McCarthy is listed on the Exo-Man IMDB page, and Exo-Man is listed on his IMDB page, but we don't think it's him. Are we totally clueless here?

*Martin Caidin wrote the novel Cyborg, which was turned into The Six Million Dollar Man, and 3 follow-ups in the series.

*Here is Brick Mantooth's tweet re: The Exo-Man custom toy (the toy is no longer available, but the pic is below):

*Little Women was an NBC miniseries in October 1978. David Ackroyd appeared in the series that came out of that mini and aired only for a brief time in early 1979.

*Anne Scheeden did have a recurring role on Emergency but was actually in more episodes of Marcus Welby M.D.

*Here is a history of the Photoplay Gold Medal Awards that is more accurate than Wikipedia!

*1978, just after this movie, saw the last recorded auction of a Gutenburg Bible. It sold for $2.4 million.

*This article in Paste talks about anchovies on pizza and cites another article as pointing to 1989's Loverboy as helping make anchovy pizza a joke. 1989 is at the tail end of our era. Surely the joke was around well before then, right?

*Mike mentions the amazing find of a demo for a theme song, and here for the first time anywhere are the actual lyrics!

Dr. Nick Conrad likes to jog
With his girlfriend Emily
He keeps a meticulous log
And teaches physics at the University
He always does what's right
Even if it means crossing a line
He never backed down from a fight
Till he got piped in the spine
Now it's time for some UV light

Exo Exo Exo-Man

He uses science we don't understand
Exo Exo Exo-Man
He has a really cool van
Exo Exo Exo-Man
When he hops, he will land
Exo Exo Exo-Man
Gonna give the man a hand

Malfuntion, Malfuntion, Malfuntion

Larry, give him a haaaaaand

Exo Exo Exo-Man

He uses science we don't understand
Exo Exo Exo-Man
He has a really cool van
Exo Exo Exo-Man
When he hops, he will land
Exo Exo Exo-Man
Gonna give the man a hand

BOTNS Investigates and REPUDIATES an earlier post

When we spotlighted the TV movie Hunter last week, we acknowledged that it may not have avtually aired on that date 50 years ago. Well, we did a deeper dive and broadened our search to include some primary sources, and now we can report that it did NOT in fact run at 9:00 PM EST on March 10, 1972.

What did air on that night after O'Hara, United States Treasury was a different TV movie: Goodbye, Raggedy Ann, which itself had debuted in October 1971. In this picture, Mia Farrow is a troubled Hollywood actress who attempts to turn her life around by marrying a rich guy played by John Colicos! Hal Holbrook is her friend who apparently tries to save her from instability and, more importantly, from John Colicos.

Also in the cast are Genius Award winner Ed Flanders, Martin Sheen, and Walter Koenig! It sounds like quite a movie, but it ain't Hunter!

Why did one notable site have the movie wrong and another have a big blank space in that timeslot? I don't know, but I do appreciate the effort those free sites have put into building semi-decent databases.  There are many inconsistencies in old listings, and even original newspaper and TV Guide records may not be accurate because of pre-emptions and last-minute changes.  

I wish we had a big TV listings database where one could go to find this stuff without the hassle (and expense in some cases) of perusing old PDF files. There could be a site maintained by the community to make corrections, updates, notes, etc. Until then we have to do our best and try to use multiple sources to see what aired when.

This Day in TV History: Hunter (1972)...maybe

No, not the Fred Dryer vehicle. 

No, not this Hunter:

50 years ago tonight, an unsold pilot called Hunter aired after an episode of O'Hara, U.S. Treasury on 1973. Or did it? According to IMDB, the movie was shot in 1970 but not aired until 1973, yet Ultimate 70s TV has it at 9:00 on March 10, 1973. TV Tango has nothing in the timeslot between O'Hara and The Don Rickles Show, yet another of the many frustrating gaps that site's grids have.

Well, Lee Goldberg's book of unsold pilots lists the airdate as January 9, 1973, so maybe the movie didn't air March 10, 1972. I will continue to investigate, but in the meantime, hey, this is interesting enough to discuss today!

This is the only clip I could find of the program, which comes from Mission Impossible's Bruce Gellar (and even has music from Lalo Schiffrin):

Goldberg describes the pilot as John Vernon "assumes the identity of of a fellow agent brainwashed by unknown enemies into releasing a virus that could kill half the U.S. population. Yes, Vernon is the HERO! Goldberg makes a funny remark about "Hunter" being the most common name in law enforcement on TV.

Check out the cast. In addition to Vernon, there is Edward Binns, Barbara Rhoades, Fritz Weaver, Ramon Bieri, JOHN SCHUCK (!), Genius Award winner Ed Flanders, and more! I don't know why it didn't work out, but it sounds interesting, even if it did NOT air 50 years ago tonight!

This Day in TV History: Brian's Song premiers on ABC

50 years ago tonight, the nation learned...that men could cry.

Real-life subject Chicago Bears RB Brian Piccolo had died of cancer not a year and a half earlier, so the tragic situation was still fresh in minds when this dramatization of his career and friendship with Gale Sayers debuted.

Well, maybe not exactly, but one of the weepiest male-oriented TV movies of all time had a big impact and is still remembered with fondness today. In 2021 it isn't quite the cultural touchstone it was in the 1970s, 1980s, and even 1990s, but Brian's Song was a go-to reference for many years. It's not streaming anywhere officially, but that is more a sign of the lack of respect for TV movies than any lack of anything with Brian's Song.

This Day in TV History: Born to Be Sold (1981)

40 years ago tonight, NBC premiered the TV movie Born to Be Sold with Lynda Carter, and, though I don't mean any disrespect to the somber subject matter, each time I see the title I think of Born to Be Wild or I read it as Born to Be Bad, and I think of Lynda Carter in bad-ass motorcycle gear, and I...Where was I, again?

In reality, Carter was fresh off her stint on Wonder Woman and played a crusading social worker trying to bust up a baby-selling ring. The cast features Harold Gould, Dean Stockwell, Ed Nelson, Lloyd Haynes, Philip Sterling, and Sharon Farrell. 

This vintage TV Guide ad is all over the web. The movie itself is easy to find online.

Note that is central time in the ad. NBC preceded the movie with a new Little House on the Prairie.

ABC offered a new That's Incredible! including an 8-year-old fiddler. Is that really incredible? The Vikings and Broncos followed on Monday Night Football.

CBS' lineup consisted of Private Benjamin and The Two of Us, then MASH, the third-season premiere of House Calls (surprising it had 3 seasons and 57 episodes), and the fifth-season premiere of Lou Grant.

This Day in TV History: TV movies and baseball

40 years ago tonight, CBS and ABC took different approaches to countering the National League Playoffs (Expos vs. Dodgers) on NBC. ABC broadcast an original movie with a veneer of prestige, a biopic of an important figure of the 20th century:

Jaclyn Smith was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing Jackie, and the movie also picked up 3 Emmy nominations in side categories. James Franciscus (JFK), Donald Moffat, and Rod Taylor also star.

Meanwhile, CBS, after Mr. Merlin and WKRP, showed The Two Lives of Carol Letner, which pretty much sounds like trash.  I know which movie I'd want to watch, and it ain't on ABC!

The above promo is taken from a rerun from 1984, when Meredith Baxter-Birney and Don Johnson were parts of bigger and better things. Also in the cast is the great Dolph Sweet, who is also in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy! Stalwarts Robert Webber and Graham Jarvis appear, too. This one just seems like fun...for the viewer. Maybe not so much for Carol Letner.

YouTube playlist: The Last Ninja paves the way for...the next ninjas

The ninja craze hit all aspects of pop culture in the 1980s, as we mention on this week's podcast looking at The Master. One thing we did not discuss is the 1983 TV movie The Last Ninja. It was far from the last, and maybe closer to the first on high-profile network TV!

IMDB says simply: A story of an art dealer who leads a double life as a ninja.

The lead is Michael Beck because of course in 1983, the networks would go with an American dude as a titular ninja.  He plays Kenjiro Sakura. Why not?  Beck also stars in The Warriors, Xanadu, and one of my personal faves: Megaforce!

Giving the movie "Eastern cred" are the likes of accomplished performers Nancy Kwan and Mako. And go further down the cast, and you find John Laroquette and Irene Tedrow!

The Paramount-produced movie premiered July 7, 1983 on ABC against repeats (Magnum, Simon & Simon, Fame, Gimme a Break) but finished third in the 9:00 hour and barely edged the Fame rerun for second in the 8:00 hour. 

This cool article explains the "occidental master" trope and notes that the movie was produced by one of the original Kung Fu's creators. The author says it's thought this was a pilot for a series but NBC's Master beat it to air. In fact, this article is such a thorough review that I am not going to read all of it. I think I want to see this one myself first!

This Day in TV History: Hardhat and Legs (1980)

On this night 40 years ago, CBS' Wednesday Night Movie was an encore presentation of 1980's Hardhat and Legs.  Yes, this movie is exactly what you think. Here is the summary from Google:

An amorous construction worker begins a complicated and humorous romance with an attractive sex-education teacher.

The stars are Kevin Dobson and Sharon Gless. Can you guess which one plays the construction worker and which one the attractive sex ed teacher?

IMDB fleshes it out a bit more. Gless' character is a socilaite, and Dobson's hardhat has a gambling problem.

Co-written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin (yes, that Gordon and Kanin; this was the first movie they wrote together since 1952's The Marrying Kind), this sounds so lovable in its old-fashioned title and premise. For what it's worth, it receives several positive viewer reviews on IMDB, and it must have done something right if CBS reran it a year and change after its February 1980 debut.

it does sound a little dated, though, doesn't it? But that didn't define CBS in 1981. Let's look at what preceded it on April 8, 1981.  OK, it's an episode of Enos titled...uh, "The Shaming of the Shrew." Never mind!

This Day in TV History: The Point (1971)

50 years ago tonight, ABC premiered the animated special The Point, featuring songs and story by Harry Nilsson.  The cast included Dustin Hoffman, Mike Lookinland, and the ubiquitous Paul Frees and June Foray. Nilsson's concept album had come out in December 1970.

Hoffman's deal meant his narration could be used only on one broadcast of the movie, so in subsequent airings and releases, his track is replaced by voice-overs from Alan Thicke and Ringo Starr.

The Point is streaming on Tubi and received a Blu-Ray special edition release last year.

YouTube Spotlight: Darkroom

One of the more obscure clips in this week's Darkroom video playlist is this Ernie Anderson promo for two premiering shows on ABC:1979's Beach Patrol and Samurai!

Beach Patrol? Samurai?

First of all, why are these even IN a playlist devoted to Darkroom?

Well, it's because Michael V. Gazzo, one of the stars of the "Catnip" segment in the Darkroom episode we discuss, has a role in Beach Patrol.  According to IMDB, he is "Banker."

Both these movies are failed pilots that ABC burned off on April 30, 1979. Patrol is a Spelling/Goldberg production co-starring Paul Burke, Jonathan Frakes, and Robin Strand, but the focus is apparently the "comely female cop who transfers from the narcotics division...and is assigned to a special police team patrolling California's beaches in dune buggies..." (IMDB)

Christine De Lisle is the "comely female cop." Lee Goldberg's book of unsold pilots says she is targeted for assassination after spotting a fugitive mafioso. Sadly, it appears Gazzo may not be the mafioso. Is that Banker? I do not know.

As for Samurai, check this out: It's not obvious from the promo, but the lead character is a half-American, half-Asian DA/samurai played by...James Shigeta? No, though he is in the cast. It's Joe Penny!

Goldberg calls this a "ludicrous and unintentionally funny pilot." Other interesting names involved: Dana Elcar, Norman Alden, Phillip Baker Hall. Credited co-exec producers are Danny Thomas and Fernando Lamas!

YouTube Spotlight: Maybe Baby (1988): "A comedy that really delivers!"

One of the clips in this week's Newhart video playlist is this promo for the 1988 NBC TV movie Maybe Baby with Julia Duffy supporting the team of Dabney Coleman and Jane Curtin!

IMDB reports:

For a happily married man, life changes completely and he finds himself in distress when his wife decides to have a baby after several years of marriage.

The movie premiered Monday, December 5, 1988 and drew a respectable audience but as edged by Monday Night Football's presentation of the Rams beating the Bears. CBS had Murphy Brown, Designing Women, and ALmost Grown.

Maybe Baby looks madcap in this promo, but the first review on IMDB is 1 out of 10, though the critic puts their credibility in question by leading off with, "As soon as I saw Jane Curtin and Dabney Coleman I knew it would be a waste of time."  As of this posting, the movie is available on Prime Video and Tubi. Anyone interested in us considering it for a future season of the podcast?

This Day in TV History: Tribes (1970)

50 years ago tonight, acclaimed made-for-TV movie Tribes premiered as the ABC Movie of the Week at 8:30. Joseph Sargent directs Darren McGavin, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Earl Holliman in this story of a hippie joining the Marines:

Networks started prime time at 7:30 then, and ABC led off this Tuesday with a new Mod Squad and followed the movie with a new Marcus Welby.  NBC offered The Don Knotts Show, Julia, and its own TV movie: Western The Intruders with quite the cast--Don Murray, John Saxon, Edmond O'Brien, Anne Francis, Edward Andrews. That's not enough? How about Zalman King, Harry Dean Stanton, and a young Harrison Ford?

CBS said, "Rural purge? We don't know anything about that yet," and broadcast Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Hee Haw before To Rome with Love and 60 Minutes.

Show Notes: Episode 8-6: Poor Devil

*Sammy Davis Jr. was indeed involved with Anton Lavey's Church of Satan, but he eventually had a falling out with the organization, though his memoir doesn't give details as to why.

This piece is a nice summary of various proclivities of Davis, including his association with Satanism. It also makes the case that Poor Devil was Davis' attempt to get a Satanistic sitcom off the ground.  This article and others claim that religious groups' protests killed off the project. 

*The blog/website/podcast by Amanda Reyes is Made for TV Mayhem, but I misidentified the book as such. The book's title is Are You in the House Alone?

*NBC Follies lasted 14 episodes at the beginning of the 1973-1974 season.

*Sammy and Company was a late-night program in first-run syndication weekends from April 1975 to March 1977. Here is a fascinating account of the series. Davis needed the money at the time, sure, after some rough years, but he also loved the format. However...

However, Sammy’s familiarity with his guests, mixed with his legendary generosity and the occasional effects of drugs and alcohol, became a toxic combination; Sammy generally exhibited his worst tendencies as host. On screen, he came across as unduly unctuous – with his over-the-top flattery and his uncontrollable laughter at the mildest of his guests’ jokes. Sammy arguably had more individual talents than anyone in entertainment history, but being an insightful interviewer probably wasn’t one of them. (One episode featuring Chita Rivera and Liza Minelli found Rivera patiently waiting for Sammy’s rambling and incoherent questions; both Sammy and Liza were seemingly high as kites.)

The series inspired the famous Sammy Maudlin sketches on SCTV.

*NBC made-for-TV movie Poor Devil premiered February 14, 1973 (Valentine's Day), preceded by Adam-12 and followed at 10:00 by Search.  ABC had The Paul Lynde Show, The Girls f Huntington House, and Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law with guest Robert Reed.  CBS' lineup: The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Medical Center, and Cannon.

*The movie has some great location shooting of early 1970s San Francisco, but the scenes in Hell were done on soundstages.

*To hear more about A Year at the Top, check out this bonus episode.

*Helen Wheels is a 1973 single from Paul McCartney and Wings.

*Finally, thanks again to James, and we ask, *What are YOU gonna do when Pine-a-Mania and Battymania run wild on you? 

This Day in TV History: Mister Jerico!

On this day 50 years ago, ABC ran Mister Jerico at 9:00 EST following a Mod Squad rerun.  Jerico, according to Wikipedia, was released theatrically in the United Kingdom despite being made for TV. In fact, ABC had already aired this same movie a mere 5 months ago.

Marty Allen?

This great write-up of the movie says it was a failed pilot. I guess ABC was really getting as much mileage as it could, burning off another screening here in the middle of summer.

Check out the movie's swinging theme song by Lulu!

The Challenge (1970)

Yesterday we looked at the network prime-time schedules of 50 years ago and saw a rerun of The Challenge.  The 1970 TV movie is available at the Internet Archive, and here is the uploader's description.

All-out war between the United States and an Asian country is averted when the two sides agree to settle their differences by each choosing a single soldier as champion and having the two men fight to the death on an isolated island.

Premiering February 10 as an ABC Movie of the Week, its director took his name off it, leading to the classic Alan Smithee credit.  How bad can it be, though, with this cast:

Darren McGavin
Broderick Crawford
Mako
James Whitmore
Sam Elliott

The premise is ridiculous, awesome, or maybe both.  Check this out from the excellent review of the movie from Shock Cinema (via Wikipedia):

The US's unorthodox candidate is court-martialed Jacob Gallery (McGavin), a tough, arrogant scumbag currently working as a Biafra mercenary! Heavily-armed Gallery is dumped onto this rock, convinced it's going to be a cakewalk, because one lone guy from some insignificant Asian country couldn't cause much damage to an American, right? Yep, it's a heavyhanded Vietnam analogy, but I'm still surprised that this made it onto prime-time TV in the midst of the war. The remaining hour is a battle of wills, and as these two warriors cautiously track each other about Craphole Island (which often looks about as Asian as an episode of MASH, with rubbery jungle foliage that could've been leftovers from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND), Gallery quickly discovers that his foe, Yuro (Mako), is equally clever and determined. 

Please read the rest of Steven Puchalski's lively take on the movie. It's an entertaining read that will make you want to see the flick yesterday.

This Day in TV History: Rankin Bass do Tolkien

On Sunday, May 11, 1980, ABC premiered a Rankin/Bass movie, a two-hour J.R.R. Tolkien adaptation: The Return of the King.



The producers did The Hobbit in 1977 and enlisted another all-star cast for this follow-up. Wikipedia has the date wrong, by the way; listing its premiere as November 11, 1979.

By the way, remember a couple days ago when we talked about NBC's TV movies airing May 8 and May 9 1980 and how it promoted Capricorn One as 'coming soon"? Well, it WAS soon--May 11! Was it too confusing to just tell people "Sunday"?

This Day in TV History: A pair of deuces on NBC 40 years ago today

An unusual programming strategy crafted NBC's prime-time lineup 40 years ago today.  On May 9, 1980, NBC featured two movies--but it showed the second part of each one.  Yes, rather than show 1976's King Kong on Thursday and The Curse of King Tut's Tomb on Friday, it started each the first night and finished them the next.


Notice how Casey Kasem kind of glosses over Tut in that promo and instead rushes to hype Capricorn One, which is "coming soon." Tut stars Raymond Burr, as Kasem says, but top billed is Eva Marie Saint in the original TV movie, with Robin Ellis as famed archaeologist Howard Carter.  Also in the cast: BOTNS favorite Tom Baker, AKA the Fourth Doctor!

The 1976 Kong is of course the Dino DeLaurentiis remake, a big-budget production that did well in theaters despite its less-than-stellar reputation.  NBC spent a then-record amount to license the movie and got an expanded ("bloated?) edition of the film that was 134 minutes in its original theatrical run. This 1980 screening was NBC's second of the movie; it debuted to much hype in 1978 (Multiple sources call it "October 1978," but I can't find the actual airdate).


The longer running time encouraged NBC to do it as a two-night event (or maybe it was the other way around), but it seems odd to pair it with a TV movie instead of an hour long program each night. So the Kong-size Kong is split into two two-hour slots, but the regular-length Tut gets two one-hour slots.