This week in TV Guide: December 7, 1968

One of the fun things about looking through these old issues of TV Guide is running across the aftermath from a notable television event. Often, we aren't aware of the significance of these events until after they happen, and in such cases, it's always nice to be able to read about what people thought at the time, rather than after they've had a chance to think things over. And that is most certainly the case this week, as we lead off with a look at the "Letters to the Editor" section, and the fallout from an incident in November that has come to be known as the "Heidi Game." I've talked about this before, and most of you probably know about it, so there's no real sense in rehashing the details; besides, I think you'll get the gist of it from what our letter-writers have to say.

 Most of the letters are brief and to the point: Paul Hudimatch, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, speaks for many of them when he writes, "Thanks a lot, NBC, for cutting off the Jets-Raiders football game with a minute left to play. I hope your peacock dies of feather rot." Now, that is a little harsh, I'll admit, but understandable. Jo-Ann Malanga, of East Orange, New Jersey, asks a reasonable question: "Who wants to see two touchdowns in nine seconds anyway? Especially when you can see Heidi." Good point, Ms. Malanga. Another good question comes from John Brace, in Neptune, New Jersey, wonders: "I would like to know if Heidi received that Lamonica pass," referring to the Oakland Raiders quarterback. Meanwhile, Michael Heslin, of Hopewell Junction, New York, tries (and fails) to put a positive spin on it. "Thanks to NBC’s intelligent thoughtfulness, I was magically whisked from that dull football game (with a minute to play) to a wonderful goat farm in the Alps!"   

Of course, there's always one in every crowd, and a Karen named Marie Donnelly, of West Haverstraw, New York, happens to be the one. "My sincerest and heartfelt sympathy to those poor males left crying in their beer because they missed the end of a football game. Did they ever stop to think of the poor mothers and children left high and dry when a Laurel and Hardy movie or a cartoon festival was canceled due to a sports televised overrun? Try explaining that to a wailing 2- or 4-year-old. Heidi was great." To that, one can only note: 1) I wonder how Jo-Ann Malanga would feel being categorized as a "poor male"? 2) An editor's note following her letter says that "Our heavy mail on this ran three to one against NBC’s action." 

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premier variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

Sullivan: Ed’s scheduled guests are opera star Joan Sutherland; Liza Minnelli; comedians Jack E, Leonard and Richard Pryor; the rocking Association; and the Veterans, comedy-acrobatic group. (The episode guide includes Ray Charles and the Venezuelan Folk Ballet.)

Palace: Host Sammy Davis Jr. speaks in cadence to a drum beat. Guests: singers Carmen McRae and Lola Falana, comics Jo Anne Worley of Laugh-In and Jack Carter, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, and Sammy's discovery, singer-pianist Bobby Doyle. Sammy and Jack mix impressions of show business personalities with a rendition of "Without You."

Obviously, Ray Charles elevates the quality of a Sullivan lineup that already includes Liza Minnelli, Richard Pryor, and the great opera star Joan Sutherland, and that changes things completely. You all know by now that I consider Sammy Davis Jr. probably the most talented entertainer who ever lived, and perhaps without Charles that would have been enough. But the Palace lacks the overall depth this week, so I'm afraid Ed takes the title, with Charles playing the tune.

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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era. 

The original (the only!) Hawaii-Five-O ran for twelve seasons, from 1968 to 1980, and was the last television show premiering in the 1960s to go off the air. Jack Lord's Steve McGarrett remains one of the most iconic characters in television history, and among people of a certain age, "Book 'em, Danno" and "Be there. Aloha" are still catch phrases. And so, with all that, we can share Cleveland Amory's puzzlement that the show "hasn't made more of a dent" in the ratings. 

It has much going for it, as Cleve points out. Hawaii is, for one thing, a striking visual location for a television series, and the series takes advantage of that in ways that shows like, for instance, Hawaiian Eye, never did. The fictional state police have their headquarters in the very real Iolani Palace, the only royal palace in the United States, and the location shooting makes it clear that we are, in fact, in the nation's 50th state. For another, Hawaii is apparently a hotbed of crime, judging by each week's episode; "There is so much crime abounding in Hawaii Five-O that the average viewer gets. the distinct impression that, compared with present-day Hawaii, old-time Chicago was the Tournament of Roses." And then there are the characters themselves: Lord, as Five-O boss McGarrett, is, "if he’s a bit one-dimensional, has at least the virtue of not being either so grim or so true-blue that he’s not believable." His number two, Danny Williams (James MacArthur), is earnest, eager to learn, "and yet has a. couple of other expressions too." There are native Hawaiians in the cast as well, Chin Ho Kelly (Kam Fong) and Kono (Zulu), and they're interesting, far from stereotypical, characters.

So what seems to be the problem? It is, says Amory, "that old bugaboo, the plots." There was one story, for example, featuring a couple who preyed on wealthy widows, "And it was all very exciting too—right up to the very end, when it all became so ridiculous you couldn't believe you'd ever believed it." Having seen that episode myself, I can agree with that. However, a subsequent episode in which Danny himself was arrested featured fine performances, not only by Lord and MacArthur, but Gavin MacLeod as a dope peddler. Unfortunately, Amory concludes, without more episodes like this, the half time score is "Hawaii Five-O, viewers 49."

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Pinocchio isn't what you would call a "Christmas" program, but as Sunday's presentation on Hallmark Hall of Fame (7:00 p.m., NBC), it's the kind of family show that fits very comfortably in the season This musical verison has a very appealing cast, including Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, who maks an ideal Pinocchio, and Burl Ives as Gepetto. Anita Gillette and Charlotte Rae are also part of the cast. In an accompanying feature on the show, producer Richard Lewine discusses some of the challenges presented by the story. "The scene of Geépetto inside the whale’s belly worried me. Everything had to happen at once: the interior of the whale had to look convincing, the whale had to sway, the stove had to spout smoke and the whale’s sneezing had to be heard. And when Gepetto and Pinocchio stage their whale escape, things got even more tricky." 

And then there was the matter of Pinocchio's nose; "We didn't want to cheat the audience out of seeing it grow," Lewine says, so puppeteer Bil Baird was brought in to help solve the problem. "Bil stood behind Pinocchio, out of camera range, holding the end of a rod that attached to the nose. When he pushed the rod, the nose, made from expandable material, lengthened. It worked beautifully," even though it required about two hours of make-up work to hide the separation between Noone's real nose and the fake probecius. 

Lewine says that Pinocchio remains a relevant story for today's world: the generation gap, for instance. "There’s the breakdown in communication between father and son," he says, with Gepetto pushing for Pinocchio to go to school and be a success. And in running away, Pinocchio finds out that "'dropping out' isn’t the answer." I wish this production was available somewhere. 

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On Saturday, it's the sports special O.J. (9:30 p.m., KNEW in San Francisco), a profile of the player "considered by many football experts to be one of the greatest runners ever to play college football." Through interviews with his wife Marguerite, parents Eunice and James, and sisters Carmelita and Shirley, we learn about Simpson the man, who majored in public administration at USC and "wants to work in the City in depressed areas." We see interviews with his high school and college coaches, including USC's John McKay, and fellow competitors and Heisman Trophy winners. And we also hear from O.J. himself, who talks about his hopes for the future. "I plan on breaking a few records, and then going into television and commercials, where I expect to make a killing. Or two."* On a tangentially related note, don't miss the late movie, the excellent Anatomy of a Murder (11:00 p.m., KHSL in Chico), starring James Stewart (in his last Oscar-nominated role), Arthur O'Connell, Lee Remick, and Ben Gazzara.

*That's just a joke, everyone. At least I think so.

We've already looked at Pinocchio as one of Sunday's highlights, but earlier in the day we encounter a provocative topic on William F. Buckley Jr., Firing Line (8:00 a.m., KXTV in Sacramento): "Does TV Decide Who Runs America?" Buckley's guests are Alistair Cooke, BBC correspondent and formerly host of Omnibus; Robert MacNeil, also from the BBC and formerly with NBC; and F. Clifton White, public-relations advisor to Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. YouTube has the broadcast here. 

Here's another special that's sure to liven up your Monday: an hour of music featuring two of the biggest groups in pop music, the Supremes and the Temptations. (8:00 p.m., NBC) It's called TCB, which stands for "Taking Care of Business," and according to the always-reliable Wikipedia, it is "the first musical TV special of the rock era to air on American broadcast television." It's also, according to YouTube, "the first US national TV special to star an all-black line-up of artists." It goes on to become the top-rated variety show of 1968. And, speaking of YouTube, you can see the broadcast, commercials and all, here.

Let's keep it going here, with more specials. On Tuesday, Joey Bishop moves into primetime with the ABC special "A Guide to the Swinging Bachelor" (8:30 p.m.), billed as "an educational hour for students seeking a bachelor’s degree." (Which just goes to show: don't try this kind of humor at home, folks.) Joey's guests include Shelley Berman, Noel Harrison, Ann Morgan Guilbert, Larry Storch, Dean Jones, and Emmaline Henry, with "Special decorative effects by 12 Playboy Playmates." Unlike Sunday and Monday's broadcasts, this is not available on YouTube; sorry about that.

Wednesday's NET Festival (8:00 p.m.) is a look at today's cinema scene, which includes interviews and excerpts from a variety of movies that demonstrate "the trend  toward treating films as a personal form of artistic expression, not as an industry." Among the films being discussed is a prize-winning film with "no plot, dialogue or characters in the conventional sense." It's called TXH-1138-4EB, and it was made as a thesis by a USC student named George Lucas. Wonder if he ever made it in movies? If music is more your style, then let's go with Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC), hosted this week by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, with Louis Armstrong, Jackie Vernon, and Robin Wilson. And then we have perhaps the best film adaptation of Mickey Spillane's iconic Mike Hammer, the movie Kiss Me Deadly (11:00 p.m., KTVU in Oakland), with Ralph Meeker brilliant as an almost-psychotic Hammer, as well as one of the most spectacular endings in film noir history.

Speaking of spectacular, one of the most famous exits from Hollywood ever seen was that of actress Dolores Hart, who, after making ten films in the course of five years, including two with Elvis Presley (Loving You and King Creole), gave it all up to become a Roman Catholic nun at the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, where she remains, as Mother Dolores Hart, to this day.* On Thursday, we see her in her penultimate movie, Lisa (9:00 p.m., CBS), as an Auschwitz survivor attempting to escape to British Palestine in 1946, with the help of Stephen Boyd.

*Fun fact: Dolores Hart is the only nun to also be a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Wild Wild West remains a personal favorite, and Friday brings us the return of one of television's great characters, the evil Dr. Miguelito Loveless, played so very memorably by the great Michael Dunn. Tonight (7:30 p.m., CBS), in an episode that sees Charles Aidman filling in for Ross Martin as West's partner (Martin is still recovering from a heart attack), Loveless unleashes an evil scheme to ensnare West by kidnapping seven people, and offering West the clue, "Thursday's child has far to go." Don't you just wonder what that means? By the way, Loveless frequently has a female accomplice, and in this episode she's played by the lovely future soap icon Susan Seaforth.

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This week's highlight is the Christmas special of all specials, A Charlie Brown Christmas (Sunday, 7:30 p.m., CBS). It's really a shame that it's scheduled against Pinocchio, considering how few options there are for this kind of family entertainment. Elsewhere, on Sunday, actress Jeanne Crain introduces a dramatization of Mary’s life in Nazareth. (6:00 p.m., KLOC in Modesto). NET has perhaps one of the more interesting programs of the season on International Magazine (Wednesday, 10:00 p.m.), tracing the national heritage of the three kings who came to see the Christ Child. On Friday, it's A King Family Christmas (7:00 p.m., KNEW), with the entire family providing Yuletide cheer, and on The Magic of Christmas (7:30 p.m., KCRA), Howard Keel and Ann Miller welcome Randy Sparks and the Back Porch Majority. And for your movie entertainment, it's the farcical comedy Christmas in Connecticut, with Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sidney Greenstreet, and a show-stealing performance from S.Z. Sakall as Uncle Felix.

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A couple of additional Christmas notes that bear mention: in the Teletype, Joseph Finnigan notes that Dean Martin gives away $200,000 worth of toys to orphanages and hospitals on his December 19 Christmas show. Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, and Jackie Gleason help pass out the gifts donated by a toy company." Dean did this for two or three years, I thnk, at the end of his Christmas shows, and if you've never seen that segment before, it's pretty neat; YouTube has it here, but of course I'd recommend you watch the whole show, with Dean and his special guests.

And the Doan Report tells us that there's another holiday treat in store, if everything goes according to plan. NASA says that if the Apollo 8 flight is on schedule, it plans a live broadcast on Christmas Eve, as the command module flies just 60 or 70 miles above the surface of the moon. As we all know, things do indeed go as intended, and the Christmas Eve "moon show," including the dramatic and moving reading of the Creation Story from the book of Genesis, will become one of the most famous moments ever seen on television. CBS Sunday Morning remembers it well.  TV

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Around the dial

We start this week at A Shroud of Thoughts, where Terence shares some thoughts on the recent addition of Everyone Loves Raymond to the MeTV schedule, and raises an interesting question on what the definition of "classic" TV actually is. Does it refer to the quality of the show, or when the show was made? I've struggled with this myself, which I tried to rectify with the subtitle of Darkness in Primetime, which refers to "Classic-Era" television. If I were to redefine this blog today, I'd probably use the term "vintage" television to underline the focus on the era; as for the definition of "classic," I'd say that in television terms, a show should be off the air for at least thirty years before it can be termed a "classic"; it has to demonstrate that it can withstand the test of time. Anything less than thirty years old can't make that claim. And MeTV should be for show that can't be seen elsewhere. Period.

At The Twilight Zone Vortex, Jordan reviews the dismal final-season episode "Black Leather Jackets," written by Earl Hamner Jr., which proves, among other things, that Hamner is best advised to stick to relationship stories and not try remakes of The Wild One.

Speaking of, Martin Grams is back with another book review, this time Submitted For Your Approval, a collection of short stories inspired by the original Twilight Zone and edited by Rod Serling's widow, Anne. It's billed as Volume 1, which suggests more to follow.

David's journey through 1970s television continues at Comfort TV, as we come to Sunday nights, 1977. Sunday is generally the night with the highest viewing numbers, and it certainly worked for CBS; see how many of their hits you recognize from this lineup.

Although the anthology format has disappeared from network television in the United States, it was still alive and well in Britain, and at Cult TV Blog, John discusses one of them: Play for Today, specifically the play "Hard Labour," written and directed by Mike Leigh.

At Inner Toob, it's a look at Miracle on 34th Street in popular culture, with allusions or references to it in shows running the gamut from Hart to Hart to Lou Grant. None of them can ever do just to the original, of course.

And now we return to the wonderful world of F Troop at The Horn Section, as Hal reviews "The Great Troop Robbery," in which our con man, Corporal Agarn, is himself the victim of a con, and Milton Berle makes a special guest appearance.

At Drunk TV, Paul is ostensibly reviewing the first season of The Patty Duke Show, but what I really enjoy is his slam on Nick at Nite, his quote from the Book of the Apocalypse, and his memories of the wonderful, early days of cable TV. And his review is pretty good, too! 

Roger reviews the latest A-Team episode, "Chopping Spree," at The View from the Junkyard, and as was the case with last week's episode, it demonstrates a break in convention from the show's usual formula. Read on to see if it works. 

Finally, at Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddie looks at one of my favorite noirs, Murder, My Sweet, featuring the definitive private detective, Philip Marlowe, and the definitive Marlow, the great Dick Powell. I can't think of a better way to end the week. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

Holiday gift reminder!

There's never a better time for a sale than now, so take advantage of it while you can! Between now and the end of the year, Darkness in Primetime is on sale for only $19.95, $10.00 off the regular price! Now, I know you've all already purchased copies for yourselves, so this will make a perfect gift for the classic television fan or history buff. Remember, you won't see a better price this year! TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

What's on TV? Monday, December 1, 1975

Something I didn't mention on Monday amongst the various changes to the daytime schedule is that NBC's Wheel of Fortune is expanding to one hour, joining The Price is Right as the only hour-long game shows on television. Before too many years, there won't be any half-hour dramas left, and not that many years later there won't be any game shows at all, except for Price. Networks don't show reruns of their primetime series anymore; for that matter, save the morning shows, there's not a whole lot of network programming at all during the day. I wonder how long it will be before we see this happening in the primetime schedule as well? Ah well, this week's listing is from the Eastern New England edition.

This week in TV Guide: November 29, 1975

Ahe objective of the 'scandalous revelations' filling the airwaves and news columns ought to be reform, but ‘thus far have brought little but cynicism and disillusion.'"

Talking about Fox, perhaps, or maybe MSNBC or CNN (or late night talk show hosts)? Think again. It’s Pat Buchanan, quoting U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, in November 1975. In this week's issue, we have two stories that tell us much about the evolution of the media’s role in news coverage, and reminds us that nothing really is new.

The first is Pat Buchanan’s News Watch column, the source of the initial quote. Buchanan is talking about the change in media coverage since Watergate, a change that has brought on an "excessively mistrustful and even hostile" atmosphere. This isn't a referendum on Watergate, which remains shrouded in mystery more than fifty years later (Corrupt politicans? A psyop operation by the Deep State?), but it is a searching look at something more, at the natural evolution of such an atmosphere, asking "what will be the ultimate impact upon the democratic system, which itself guarantees freedom of the press?"

The problem, according to Buchanan, is that the media now has a vested interest in scandal: for ratings, for dollars, for prestige. (Little-remembered fact: NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report was once presented without commercial interruption, in order to eliminate potential conflicts of interest and signify that the news division was not driven by profit margin.) What happens when that self-interest conflicts with a larger interest—the national interest, for example? Granting that the exact nature of the national interest is often a subject up for debate, Buchanan nevertheless points to the "declining confidence in leaders and institutions" and speculates on the ultimate consequence this will have for the nation.

Buchanan again quotes Fulbright (a Democrat, by the way, and never a natural ally of Pat's), who had recently authored the article "Fulbright on the Press" in the Columbia Journalism Review: "That Puritian self-righteousness which is never far below the surface of American life has broken through the frail barriers of civility and restraint, and the press has been in the vanguard of the new aggressiveness."

What has changed is not the nature nor the inclination of those in the media to go after their subjects with every weapon at their disposal. What is new now is the very definition of media, which in this sense has come to include every blog, every web page, every podcast, every social media account on X, Facebook, and Instagram; in short, everyone with an opinion, which is just about everyone. As new types of media and new modes of communication have come about, this instinct of which Fulbright speaks has become more invasive, more insidious. Indeed, isn’t this what some here have spoken about, the increasing incivility of the internet? Well, looking at this issue is like seeing the seeds of that harvest being planted.

A lot of people fall back on the "freedom of speech" argument, defending their right to say what they want, whenever they want. And this is not an argument that should be taken lightly, because it's a slippery slope at best. But Fulbright contends that the social contract requires "a measure of voluntary restraint, an implicit agreement among the major groups and interests in our society that none will apply their powers to the fullest." A measure of responsibility, in other words, which is a commodity that is in short supply nowadays.

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Now, I mention this not merely because of Pat Buchanan’s words, but because of the echo which the subject matter receives in another article from this issue, Edwin Newman’s "People are Generally Skeptical of Us…and Indeed They Should Be." Newman shares the concern with the increasing intrusiveness of the media. Asked what was wrong with endless investigation and revelation of public figures by the media, Newman replied, "It degrades public life. If purity tests are to become an accepted part of American life before anybody can go into politics, politics is going to be intolerable. It’s very nearly intolerable now.”

Remember, he said this fifty years ago.

As for "advocacy journalism," which was very much in vogue following Watergate (and remains so today—how many young people get into journalism to "make a difference"?), Newman remains wary: "Advocacy journalism, so-called, cheats the public, which is entitled to make up its own mind." In other words, as Fox News used to say (but no longer does, if they ever did), "We report, you decide." Whether you think they've ever been accurate with that promise, you have to appreciate the perceptiveness of the marketing gurus who developed that slogan.

Newman adds, "Anybody in our business should avoid taking on false importance. We should certainly not pretend to be infallible." Now that’s a novel idea today.

Newman also sounds a cautionary note on something which Buchanan alludes to, the amount of faith (or lack thereof) that people put in their leaders. Buchanan quotes Fulbright: "Bitter disillusionment with our leaders is the other side of the coin of worshiping them." Picking up on that thread (although the two articles are not connected), Newman says that such idolatry "leads to all kinds of lunatic expectations about what can be accomplished by politicians and so leads to irrational and disproportionate disappointment…it misleads Presidents about Presidents, so that they are tempted to do foolish things. And I think the press contributes to this for reasons of its own."

This is a warning we should carefully consider. There’s a pronounced tendency nowadays to put an inordinate amount of faith in human institutions, or perhaps I should say the humans who occupy such institutions—government, medical, legal, religious, scientific, educational—which always seems to wind up badly. We create institutions, we tear them down, we rebuild them again. It keeps everyone busy, I suppose.

In many ways, the sins of the Sixties culture were starting to be felt in the Seventies, and would continue to be felt in subsequent decades. So one can see, as far back as 1975, a growing concern with cynicism in society, a disregard for institutions, and a press displaying an “anything for a story” attitude. Again, there’s nothing new here, as it was not new then. But as communication expanded beyond the newspaper to radio, beyond radio to television, and beyond broadcast television to cable and satellite; as letters gave way to email and the internet, and as information once taking hours or days to transmit is now given instant analysis and parsing through social media, so also the consequences of such concerns are magnified, enlarged, and become even more troublesome.

There really isn’t anything new out there, only new ways of expressing it. And, it seems, new ways of ignoring old truths and concerns.

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On weeks when we can, we'll match up two of the biggest rock shows of the era, NBC's The Midnight Special and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and see who's better, who's best.

Kirshner: Melissa Manchester, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and Hoyt Axton are the performers. Don Kirshner is the host of the series.

Special: Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, soul-pop singer Natalie Cole (the late Nat King Cole's daughter) and country singer Mickey Gilley are the guests. Also: a salute to Rod Stewart. Neil Diamond's "I Am...I Said" is the spotlighted hit. 

Now, I figure you all know who Natalie Cole is, but I left that reference in because, in 1975, she wasn't the established name she is today. Back then, she was just Nat King Cole's daughter. I've never been a particular fan of hers; I don't want to accuse her of being a nepo baby, but I do wonder, if her name was Natalie Smith, how big a career she might have had. Nonetheless, she's part of the winning side this week, as the salute to Rod Stewart breaks a tie between a lackluster matchup. So let's give the nod to Special, but don't exert any more energy than that.

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And now for something more lighthearted, an article about our longtime favorite, game show standard Kitty Carlisle, written by Peter Funt, son of the legendary TV host Allen Funt. (If you're old enough to remember Candid Camera, you'll know who we mean.) "The only way to see Kitty Carlisle in the same dress twice," the article proclaims, "is to watch reruns of To Tell the Truth." Funt's story is a charming portrait of an entertainer who takes her job seriously, as well as her responsibility to her fans, and radiates class all the way. "She is one actress who still refuses to appear in public without beautiful clothes, ornate jewelry and a carefully styled coiffure." Particularly humorous is her description of her "pit crew," the wardrobe people responsible for helping her change in the ten minutes between shows (the five-a-week show was taped in a single afternoon). "Every once in a while, I feel like I'm a car in the pits at Indianapolis. Somebody changes the oil, kicks the tires—you know, pats the hair and shoves me back out on the stage."

She was a fun, classy lady, and an intelligent game player.

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On Saturday, NBC preempts Saturday Night Live for college basketball, and we're not talking about any old game, but one of the biggest regular-season games in many years, as defending national champion UCLA takes on undefeated, top-ranked Indiana at the supposedly neutral site of St. Louis (which in reality is swarming with Hoosier fans cheering their team on). Note the starting time of 11:30 p.m. ET, totally out of prime time. At this point, television hadn't quite figured out primetime sports yet, and although everyone realized how big this game was, they still thought it might be a drag on ratings, which is why it has such a strange time spot. (The game is live, of course, which means tip-off is 10:30 p.m. local time in St. Louis.) The game of the season winds up being no contest at all; Indiana crushes UCLA 84-64, and it wasn't even that close; it's a big win for the Hoosiers on the way to an undefeated season and the national championship; they are, to date, the last undefeated national champion, and unquestionably one of the greatest teams of all time.

Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, who's challenging President Ford for the Republican presidential nomination, is the guest on Issues and Answers (Sunday, 1:30 p.m., ABC). The politicos still aren't quite sure what to make of Reagan's candidacy, and whether he poses a serious threat to Ford; they'll find out the answer soon enough. That night, the Sunday Mystery Movie presents  Tony Curtis as McCoy. (9:00 p.m., NBC). Does anyone out there still recall that series, McCoy?  It was part of NBC's Sunday Mystery Movie series, alternating with McCloud, McMillan & Wife, and Columbo, and people had a lot of fun with three Macs in the series. I thought it was kind of fun, myself, as Curtis plays a con man/Robin Hood-type, not dissimilar to the early '60s series The Rogues, but it only lasted for a few episodes before falling away.  NBC never was able to fill that fourth spot; I suppose Quincy would be considered the most successful, since it was spun off into its own weekly series. Richard Boone's Hec Ramsey actually ran for two seasons in the Sunday spot, which wasn't too bad.

There's a big shake-up in the soap opera world this week, as the venerable As the World Turns expands to an hour (1:30 p.m., CBS), and All in the Family becomes part of the network's daytime lineup, with repeat episodes (beginning today with the series premiere) running Monday through Friday at 3:00 p.m. Meanwhile, ABC welcomes The Edge of Night to its schedule after a 19-year run on CBS with a special 90-minute episode (3:00 p.m.); the serial returns to its regular 30-minute format tomorrow. We've got dueling evangelists on Monday night; Billy Graham's third program from Lubbock, Texas airs at 8:00 p.m. on WSBK in Boston; then, at 10:00 p.m. on WPRI in Providence, Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, and Rex Humbard join forces for a special Bicentennial salute to America, with Pat Boone, Connie Smith, and Senator Mark Hatfield.

On Tuesday, we're treated to the first of two primetime appearances by Richard Basehart, tonight on Joe Forrester (10:00 p.m., NBC), the short-lived cop drama starring Lloyd Bridges as the world's oldest beat cop. (Or maybe I should say "one of the oldest," given that I haven't seen them all.) I'm not sure who "Al Morgan," Basehart's character in the drama, is, but take your pick: he's either a slippery drug pusher, a persistent drunk, or a particularly menacing shakedown artist. And you know what? He could probably play any of them credibly.

Wednesday, Hallmark Hall of Fame returns with "Valley Forge," Maxwell Anderson's dramatization of the cruel winter of 1777-78 spent by George Washington and his troops at their Pennsylvania encampment. (8:00 p.m,. NBC) Cold, without sufficient food or water, and facing the formidable British forces of General William Howe, Washington must struggle to hold his "shambles of an army" against almost insurmountable odds. This time, Richard Basehart stars as Washington, and it's a testament to the power and brilliance of his performance that the 5'9" Basehart is able to present such a convincing portrait of the 6'3" Washington, but as you watch it, you will believe that he is the Commander in Chief. (Insert obligatory slam at today's Hallmark movies here.)

Thursday sees the debut of a pair of new sitcoms on NBC, beginning at 8:00 p.m. with Grady, the Sanford & Son spinoff, with Whitman Mayo reprising his role as Fred's goodhearted buddy, now living in Santa Monica with his daughter, son-in-law, and two grandkids. That's followed at 8:30 p.m. by The Cop and the Kid, a formulaic comedy with Charles Durning as a single, middle-aged white cop who somehow gains the custody of a streetwise black orphan. You might remember Grady, given that its lead character was familiar from a previous show, and it's been released on DVD. The Cop and the Kid, however, is more of a challenge, and rightly so; that's one of those shows where you truly wonder about how it got the green light. It did run for 13 episodes, though, so there's that.

And in the oldie-but-goody category, there's a repeat showing of Sean Connery's debut as James Bond in Dr. No (Friday, 9:00 p.m., ABC). Besides the fact that it co-stars Ursula Andress and features an entirely credible titular villain, played by Joseph Wiseman, it has a savage edge to it that most of the later movies lack. It's not exactly seasonal fare, but then is Bond ever really out of season? Judith Crist calls it "strictly a popcorn-and-Coke Saturday-afternoon-serial entertainment," which isn't really as bad as it sounds, and Connery, "the unsurpassable Bondsman, is elegant and high-living and dashing." However, if you've already seen it, you might be more inclined to the three-hour presentation of Tora, Tora, Tora (8:00 p.m., CBS), the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Crist says it recounts, "in boring fashion how lazy, dumb Americans practically brought Pearl Harbor down on their own heads despite the best efforts of those brilliant gentlemen from Japan." Ouch, that stings!

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I couldn't ignore this oddity from the week's movie listings, one of those things that maybe (probably) interests only me. On Thursday, WFSB in Hartford presents The Quiller Memorandum (9:00 p.m.), the 1966 spy thriller based on the novel by Adam Hall (pen name of Elleston Trevor), starring George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow, and Senta Berger. It's a pretty good movie, as these movies go, and Segal turns in a fairly convincing performance as a cynical American intelligence agent investigating a group of neo-Nazis. 

All right, you say, it may be a pretty good movie, but so what? Well, it so happens that some time later, in 1975, a series based on the Quiller character—called, logically enough, Quiller—hit the British airwaves, starring the very good Michael Jayston* as Quiller, who has now become a British agent. A movie, comprised of episodes from the series, was released in the same year, called Quiller: Price of Violence. And, of course, this movie happens to air this week as well, on Wednesday (12:30 a.m., ABC) 

*Jayston would later co-star with Guinness in the brilliant miniseries Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a spy series set in a similar era, based on the novel by John le Carré. I guess it's a small spy world after all.

I don't know how unusual something like this is; there's obvious coordination between stations in showing these on consecutive nights. But I always enjoy running across these kinds of coincidences in TV Guide.

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Now that Thanksgiving is beyond us, we are, of course, in the thick of the Christmas programming season (as it was still called back then), and the season explodes into view on Wednesday, with CBS's double feature of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (8:00 p.m.) and Bing Crosby's annual Yuletide clambake, Merry Christmas, Fred, From the Crosbys (9:00 p.m.), reuniting Bing with his old Holiday Inn co-star, Fred Astaire. And if you want a second helping of Bing, don't miss White Christmas, with Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen, Thursday at 9:00 p.m. on WJAR in Providence. Finally, on Friday, ABC has a double feature of its own, an animated twin bill beginning with Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus (8:00 p.m.), narrated by Jim Backus, and A Very Merry Cricket (8:30 p.m.), written and directed by Chuck Jones.

I'm a little surprised that there aren't even more on this week; nowadays, the Hallmark movies start, I don't know, a little after the Fourth of July, and Rudolph usually airs in November. And after all, Friday's already December 5, so time's slipping away! You can bet they've been running the commercials, though—those likely started before Halloween... TV

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