It's National Eat Outside Day!

It's National Eat Outside Day! What say we all head down to Arnold's for some burgers and sodas?

Bill Tush: Movie Host and Mailbag Responder!

In our episode on TBS, we focused on Bill Tush's late-night comedy-variety show. Tush was one of the main personalities on the old WTBS, and they used him in all kinds of roles. At about 3 minutes and 50 seconds into this compilation, you can see him doing a mailbag segment with a bit of irreverence. I love that it's mostly people writing in to request movies while a funky beat plays.

Come for Bill Tush, stay for the bee poop controversy!

Facts of Life: The Backdoor Pilots--REVISITED!

I want to thank reader David C., who commented last week on our 2016 post ranking the Facts of Life backdoor pilots:

I just happened to see season 7, episode 4, "Teacher, Teacher" and wondered if it was also supposed to be a backdoor pilot? It seems to set up Jo pursuing a teaching career, and the actors playing the older teachers are familiar TV faces.

As I replied on that post, this is an excellent comment. I didn't remember "Teacher, Teacher" offhand, so I watched it on Pluto TV, and it really does feel like a backdoor pilot. It starts with Jo beginning a student-teaching job, being introduced to her class by veteran teacher Irene Tedrow without any other context. It takes a while for us to see the other gals and Mrs. G., and while they are discussing some other stuff (like Natalie's new job), the focus becomes Jo's gig and a possible corporate job offer.

Then we go back to school--not Eastland, but the school Jo is at--and we get a host precocious kids making cute jokes. The big scene here that screams, "We're seeing if this would work as its own show," is Jo eating lunch in the faculty lounge. As David points out, the fellow teachers are played by Tedrow (Dennis the Menace), Joyce Bulifant (The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and Jason Bernard (Cagney and Lacey). The latter two have an inane conversation about radishes on salad bars that feels meant to humanize them and establish them as actual characters.

Jo tries to ingratiate herself by asking if anyone has read a recent scholarly article on cognitive learning or some such thing, and the teachers brush it off. They are more concerned with the salad bar argument, and these experienced teachers admire Jo's enthusiasm but believe she will bring it down a bit soon enough. The tone is not so much "Jo is learning her path," as, "Here's a potential aspect of a new Jo as teacher sitcom."

The episode ends with Jo pondering a job offer or continuing her student teaching, and her choice is made clear when she blows off an appointment with a recruiter to answer a ridiculously broad question after class by one of the adorable moppets. "Why did World War II happen?" We see that Jo is choosing the low-paying, low-upward-mobility path for now.

Here's the weird thing: I am no expert on season 7 of Facts of Life, but after examining episode descriptions, I don't think this came up before or after this episode. Later Jo got into social work, and there was a proposed spinoff featuring BLAIR becoming headmistress of Eastland. So what happened to this teaching thing? The show went to a lot of effort and brought in a lot of talent for this to be a one-off story idea.

The episode is credited to writers who didn't have much association with the series: Bill and CHeri Steinkellner get story credits, with teleplay credits for Bruce Ferber (and Facts producer David Lerner). This episode feels different. Were they throwing up a trial balloon this early in the season for a Jo spinoff? I don't know, but it sure looks like it. 

Does anyone have more info on this episode and the intentions of the series' producers?

Top Ten #192

1) TV Guide: Thanks again to the venerable publication for, well, existing in 1972 and inspiring the past week of posts here on the site! Here's another ad from the August 19-25 issue, a two-pager starting on the inside front cover:

2) Puff the Magic Dragon: I'm told that Dragons are the big thing in TV right now, so isn't it time to bring this one out again?

3) 1972 Summer Olympics: As I mentioned earlier this week, we know that these Games ended in disaster, but there were a lot of world-class athletes competing in Munich 50 years ago today.

4) National Red Wine Day: Does Bartyles and James count?

5) Daniel Stern: Happy 65th birthday! Before he was the voice of grown-up Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years, he was in the cast of short-lived CBS dramedy Hometown:

6) The Old West: Remember these Jack Palance ads for Time-Life Books? John Wesley Hardin once shot a man for snoring!

7) National Hair Loss Awareness Month: August is almost over, so get aware!

8) Billy Goldenberg: The Extras podcast interviewed Gary Gerani about some recent TV DVD/BD releases, including The UFO Incident. The Kino-Lorber disc includes gerani's documentary about composer Goldenberg, whose scores also appeared in Duel and many other TV movies, and who also created the theme songs for the likes of Rhoda and Kojak.

9) Jack Kruschen: The prolific character actor got a nice little write-up on Me-TV's website. Let's overlook the fact that it was inspired by his role on Full House.

10) R.I.P. Joe E. Tata, Len Dawson: In addition to his longtime spot on HBO's Inside the NFL, Dawson was a sports director at a local Kansas City TV station while he was playing quarterback for the Chiefs!

Inside the Guide: August 19-25, 1972 Letters page

Before we say bye-bye to this 50-years-ago issue of TV Guide, I want to share the letters page with you. The readership had some strong opinions in 1972! 

Some strong words for Curt Gowdy there, but some kind ones for Emergency!

You can see that even 50 years ago, people spent time worrying about things that hadn't happened yet. Witness a reader lamenting the butchery of Patton 3 months before it premiered on ABC. The initial TV broadcast did indeed include most of the film's language, though there were a few edits.

And what in the world is up with "petitioners in New York" trying to ban reruns? Can you imagine TV in the Big Apple without The Honeymooners or The Odd Couple? While I like the writer's praise of Bilko, I can't help but think he might not get many others to call for the removal of I Love Lucy for Crusader Rabbit.

Inside the Guide: Inside Chad Everett's Marriage

Yesterday we concluded our epic look at a week of listings from TV Guide exactly 50 years ago, but what of the other material inside? As we all know, the Guide is more than just those precious listings. In fact, there is an interesting cover story in this one.

Before this magazine appeared, Everett had his notorious appearance on The Dick Cavett show, where fellow guest Lily Tomlin walked off in protest of his remarks. Take a look:

The TV Guide article is all about Everett's marriage (it's great) and his views on women's lib (he prefers traditional marriage roles--he has never changed a diaper--but is sympathetic to some of the concerns). The piece is well written, but Everett's views would raise eyebrows today. For example, he is against test tube babies and...day care! He says of the latter, "I think part of the doctrine of Communist philosophy is to destroy morals and break down the family unit." His wife Shelby disagrees on that one, saying there isn't anything wrong with kids having a place to play with other kids, but she has no complaints in the story.

Chad and Shelby did stay married until her passing!

This Day in TV History: 50 years ago tonight (Friday, August 25) in TV Guide

We just finished the RNC coverage, and now it's time for Olympic coverage! ABC gears up with a two-hour preview special tonight looking at the ill-fated 1972 Munich Summer Olympics. Let's look at what else is scheduled to run in prime time on Friday, August 25, 1972, thanks to a Los Angeles metropolitan edition of TV Guide.

CBS' night is built around a live preseason football game beginning at 6:00 local time. Here's a closer look:

At 8:00, ABC has that Olympic special, described in this closeup below:

NBC follows Partners with Don Adams with a news special, and that gets its own close-up as well:

At 9:00, CBS goes with the O'Hara, U.S. Treasury repeat. On the East Coast, this led into the coverage of the Redskins/Lions game. At 10:00, it's a locally produced special to fill the gap in network coverage:

The final show on the 3 networks is a welfare special airing on the NBC channel.