Weekend Videos – It’s Mother’s Day

I had almost forgotten that this is Mother's Day until my brother reminded me by telling us that he's cooking supper on Sunday (which I dread because I'm better on the barbecue than he is). As usual I was planning on doing a Mother's Day tribute, but with my recent decision to do videos on the weekend I thought I'd do it a little differently this time around – instead of photos, post videos. But videos of what? What would be my inspiration?

Fortunately succour was at hand. My friend Valerie has three kids, one of whom is getting married this month. Val, whose birthday is on May 9^th – Mother's Day this year – is slightly freaking. Actually she posted on her Facebook page, "The word MOTHER IN-LAW is starting to freak me out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And there it was – inspiration. The supposedly dark side of mothering...The Mother-In-Law.

Mothers-in-law have, on the whole, a negative reputation. For the most part this is courtesy of stand-up comics who usually make their mothers-in law the butt of their jokes. Mothers-in-law in these jokes are inevitably antagonistic to their sons-in law (usually – in more recent shows like Everybody Loves Raymond it's the wife who is targeted by the mother-in-law venom) for not being good enough for their little baby. Mothers-in-law are inevitably seen as interfering with the lives of the next generation on the grounds that "mother knows best."

Our first example comes from this school of mothers-in-law. It's probably inevitable that Ralph Kramden would have an antagonistic relationship with his mother-in-law. Played her by Ethel Owen, Mrs. Gibson doesn't give Ralph any respect at all, not about his weight, his lack of money or his status as the head of the household. This clip, from Mrs. Gibson's second appearance in a Honeymooners piece (her first was in a story that was done on the original Jackie Gleason Show called "The Great Jewel Robbery") contains the great moment when Ralph comes into the apartment and just stares at her with undisguised antagonism. Later in this episode, in a clip that I'm not embedding, we see her entire attitude change when she thinks that Ralph has struck it rich. She not only become respectful she's downright fawning, to the point of telling her daughter to "be quiet" when Alice tries to reign in Ralph's spending. Mrs. Gibson (she's never given a first name) was played by Ethel Owen in five episodes of the original Jackie Gleason Show and The Honeymooners. Years later the character appeared in a colour Honeymooners segment of the 1960s Jackie Gleason Show. In this episode she was played by Pert Kelton in one of her final acting roles. Kelton had originally played Alice Kramden in the first seasons of the Jackie Gleason Show, when the show was seen on the Dumont network.

In a similar style to the relationship between Ralph Kramden and Alice's mother is the relationship between Fred Flintstone and his mother-in-law Mrs. Pearl Slaghoople. Their interactions are almost entirely verbal, since an animated character – particularly a character from the Hanna-Barbera stable of limited animation – can't really sell an attitude based solely on a facial expression in the way that an actor like Jackie Gleason is able to. However, like Mrs. Gibson, Mrs. Slaghoople is entirely disdainful of her son-in-law even though Fred is probably a better provider than Ralph Kramden is (of course they're living in Bedrock not metropolitan New York). Pearl Slaghoople is voiced by Verna Felton, who is probably best known to Old Time Radio fans for playing Dennis Day's mother on the various incarnations of The Jack Benny Program. She even played Dennis's mother on TV, heaping the same sort of abuse on Mr. Benny as she did on her animated son-in-law.

Of course it isn't just men who are the victims of mothers-in-laws. Consider Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond. Marie rules not by insult and intimidation but by making every member of her family feel guilty for even breathing. Her biggest target is her daughter-in-law Debra who at least tries to fight back (but will never win), and her sons Raymond and Robert who just roll over and accept it. In this clip we see that Ray gets along fine with his mother-in-law, but Debra and Marie? Just watch Debra try to call Marie Mom? Marie takes shots from the moment she appears in the scene, and when Debra finally gets the word out Marie turns into the iceberg that sank the Titanic. Beautiful understanding of the character from Doris Robertrs.

Of course when it came to "troublesome" mothers-in-law, no one came close to Darrin Stevens. When he said that his mother-in-law was a witch he wasn't exaggerating. Endora almost never had a good word for her son-in-law, including his real name. In fact, according to the Wikipedia article on Bewitched, Endora only ever called Darrin by his correct name eight times. A favourite was "Dum-Dum." Like many of TV mothers-in-law she didn't think her daughter's husband was good enough for her daughter, but unlike most of them she made a significant and active effort to break up their relationship, whether by bringing in one of Samantha's old boyfriends or by some other complicated scheme. Her antipathy to Darrin ran deeper than just that he wasn't good enough for him. Put into real world terms, it was as like a wealthy woman marrying a man in the middle class, although this wasn't the only dimension to it. Samantha wasn't just a child of privilege, she was someone with a special ability that Darrin refused to allow her to use. It is so typically a 1960s situation that is seen in numerous other shows. If you were to remake Bewitched today and Darrin were to order Samantha not to use her powers, not only would she tell him where to get off, she'd probably take him there, and most of the women viewers would applaud. But in the days when the firm of McMahon & Tate was competing against Sterling Cooper, women like Samantha Stevens and Betty Draper were dutiful wives and suffered in silence.

Most mothers-in-law on TV shows were treated fairly enough. Ricky Ricardo got along well with Lucy's mother, while Lucy's biggest problem with Senora Ricardo was the language barrier. Jed Clampett's mother-in-law moved to California with him (but he was a widower), and even Tim Taylor got along famously with his wife's mother on Home Improvement. I don't think that the "harridan" mother-in-law was ever really as common on TV as we thought it was, and it's probably a thing of the past... unless it's really really funny.

Weekend Videos – TV Themes

I want this weekly segment to be rather special and so I find Inspiration where I can. In this particular case my inspiration was an interview that Media Week's Mark Berman did with Dan Schneider. Now some people might remember Schneider from the Howard Hesseman comedy Head Of The Class (or maybe not – think Welcome Back Kotter with uber-smart kids not Sweathogs). Schneider played the overweight but extremely knowledgeable Dennis Blunden. Since then, Schneider has become a well known producer of kids' shows working for Nickelodeon. Among the series he's created are iCarly, Victorious, Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh, all for Nickelodeon, as well as What I Like About You for The WB (which he did with sometimes producing partner Brian Robbins who also starred on Head Of The Class and was one of the producers of Smallville). In the article Schneider told Berman of his fondness for TV theme songs:

The big networks have virtually abandoned TV theme songs. Granted, there are exceptions like The Big Bang Theory. A theme song is like the soul of a TV show. Imagine Cheers, Friends, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore or Happy Days without their classic openings. Luckily, Nickelodeon gets it.

As for my favorite TV theme song of all time? Maybe The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island or The Beverly Hillbillies…too many great ones to decide. But if I'm forced to choose, I'm gonna go with either iCarly or Victorious.

Schneider is right; the big networks – by which I presume that he means the Broadcast Networks – have largely abandoned the theme song, and the reason seems pretty obvious: commercials. In the 1960s an hour long show had 51 minutes of actual content and 9 minutes of advertising. Today the same hour long show has 42 minutes of content and 18 minutes of advertising – in other words more than a quarter of the show's nominal running time is given over to advertising. Something has to give, particularly since I think that we can all agree that the story telling in the best Broadcast TV shows has become more complex. Something's got to give in order to accommodate the story telling and I think there are a lot of producers, directors and writers who figure that a thirty second or one minute theme song is a waste of time that they could use for plotting.

And yet you do remember shows with themes, even today. It isn't the only selling point but you do remember cues, and sound is something that you automatically associate to a show even when the music is disconnected from the images. Think of the songs that The Who played during the Superbowl halftime show. More than a few people commented that Townshend and Daltrey played "Who Are You?," "Won't Get Fooled Again," and "Baba O'Riley" on the orders of CBS because they're the theme songs of CSI, CSI: Miami, and CSI: New York. Whether or not it is true, the fact that people thought that proves that people immediately thought not of the first time that they heard these songs "in the wild" but as the themes for the shows proves that the link exists. But of course we've known that for years as anyone who, on hearing the last part of the William Tell Overture immediately recites the words "A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty heigh-ho Silver away! The Lone Ranger rides again!!"

I suppose that you could argue that the culmination of this is that TV theme songs have been in the top 60 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart in every decade except the 2000s, according to The Complete Directory To Prime Time Network And Cable TV Shows. This means of course that they had radio air play and when they had radio airplay, people inevitably thought of the TV show. In fact, TV theme songs have been in the Top Ten on the list in every decade except the 2000s. So as a starting point for looking TV show themes – and this is another of those subjects that can just go on and one and on because there are so many good original theme songs – let's take a look at the highest ranking TV themes of each decade (well, with one exception, which I'll explain when I get to it).

First up, from the 1990s we have the theme from a really obscure FOX series called The Heights. The series was about a group of young middle class adults who form a band, named The Heights.The show ran for 12 episodes in the Fall of 1992 but never gained an audience. The song, How Do You Talk To An Angel? (sung by series star Jamie Walters) on the other hand hit #1 on the Billboard Charts. In one of those amazing bits of serendipity the song hit #1 in the Billboard Charts one week after the show was cancelled

In the 1980s the theme from Miami Vice was the big hit. Jan Hammer's theme for the show hit #1 on November 2, 1985, a year after the series debuted at the end of September 1984. Hammer won two Grammy Awards for the theme in February 1986 for "Best Pop Instrumental Performance," and "Best Instrumental Composition." I have to confess that this is an absolute favourite of mine (and not just for the anonymous woman who jiggles her way across the screen at the 0:15 mark... although that didn't hurt). It just seems like the right theme for that series.

In the 1970s two themes actually reached the top of the Billboard Charts. The first was the theme from S.W.A.T. This is a bit of a cheat however since the recording, which hit the #1 spot at the end of February 1976, performed by the "disco-funk" band Rhythm Heritage is described in the Wikipedia article about the song as being "a noticeably different recording than the actual TV theme version." As it stands the theme song for the Leonard Goldenberg-Aaron Spelling police action series is pretty good.

The other song to hit the top of the Billboard charts in the 1970s was John Sebastian's theme for Welcome Back Kotter. In fact the song was the reason the show was renamed Welcome Back Kotter. Originally intended to be called simply Kotter producer Alan Sachs wanted a "Lovin' Spoonfuls-like" theme song. John Sebastien, who had been the lead vocalist for the group and also wrote many of their songs, didn't know what to do with that title and came back with Welcome Back which like some of the best theme songs told the back story of the whole show. The song reached the top of the Billboard chart for one week in Spring 1976 after five weeks on the charts.

I recently played the highest charting theme song of the 1960s when I looked at "spy shows" of the 1960s. That song was Secret Agent Man performed by Johnny Rivers. The song replaced the British theme for Danger Man (which was used over the opening for each episode). Originally consisting of one verse and a chorus but as the song became increasingly popular two more verses were added. The song eventually hit #3 in the Billboard Charts.

Instead of playing the Secret Agent theme again, I'm going to turn the song that had the second highest finish of any TV theme songs on the Billboard Charts in the 1960s. That would be the Hawaii Five-0 theme, which hit #4 on the Billboard charts in 1969. Personally I think it's a better piece of music, and extremely evocative of the show. The quick cuts of the show's opening montage, combined with the music creates an immediate sense that this is going to be a fast moving and exciting adventure. The credit sequence is a beautiful piece of work in itself, anticipating the whole idea of a music video. (I confess however that I would watch that over and over just to see that girl turn her head toward the camera. Beautiful.)

The first TV theme to make it onto the top 10 of the Billboard Charts is the theme from Dragnet, played by the Ray Anthony Orchestra, which made it to #2 in 1953. This is something of a cheat since Dragnet had begun as a radio show in 1949 two years before it came to TV in 1951. Still it was and remains one of the iconic television themes. The theme actually consists of two parts, with an interesting history. The first part of the theme (the Dum da dumdum Dum da dumdum duh) is known as "Danger Ahead" and was the subject of a suit by the publishers of Miklos Rozsa's theme for the movie The Killers. Walter Schumann, who composed the Dragnet theme had visited the sound stage where Rosza was recording the movie theme and had picked up the brief melody, which is used as a cue in the movie. Schumann composed the second part of the theme, known as "The Dragnet March" which appears at the end of the show over the credits. A deal was finally worked out to give both men a share fo the credit for the whole piece. That's why for this theme I'm showing the end of an episode of Dragnet, which contains both parts of the music.

Finally, because I don't have a representative for the 2000s I thought I'd look in at what became of the theme that Roza and Schumann composed when it was updated by Mike Post for the ill-fated Dragnet series from 2003, created by Dick Wolff and starring Ed O'Neill. It's actually not a bad theme.

This one of those topics that can (and probably will) go on for a long time because there are so many great pieces of TV theme music. I'd like to know some of my reader's favourites.

Weekend Videos – Top Rated Shows 1950-54

I started this the other day and lost my work when Works "ceased to function" when I saved the file... or thought I saved the file.

The inspiration behind this post was something that I saw in Bill Crider's most excellent blog Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine. In this particular case the blog entry directed me to an article on TV.com, called The Most Overrated Shows On Television. The article has staff members from the blog, cloaked in the protective veil of anonymity ("to protect them from your hateful comments") these people listed eight shows that they consider overrated: Lost, The Office, Weeds, American Idol, NCIS, Glee, Mad Men, and 30 Rock. I won't go into detail about the article, but the quality of the comments ranged from trivial to downright inane (just check out the comments on NCIS which seems to focus more on Pauly Perrette's wardrobe and whether or not Michael Weatherly and Mark Harmon are "hot" as reasons why the show is "overrated." That sort of "reasoning" together with the anonymous nature of the writers devalued the article in my opinion. Still it did serve as inspiration for this article, a look at the highest rated shows of each year from 1950 to today... or at least as close to today as YouTube and copyright restrictions will let me get.

Here's the way I want to work it. I will list the top three shows of each year together with the percentage of the nation's televisions that were tuned to the show. I'll try to post a comment on the shows as well as one or two clips from the show. If clips from the show are unavailable or the show has already been featured on this list then I'll find clips from the next highest show, and so on. The data is taken from The Complete Directory To Prime Time Network And Cable TV Shows.

1950-51:
Texaco Star Theater 61.6%, Fireside Theater 52.6%, Philco TV Playhouse 45.3%.

Texaco Star Theater was of course the show that made Milton Berle into Mr. TV. The show started as a variety series but became increasingly Berle's show. Eventually Berle would leave sponsor Texaco and would star in his own series, The Milton Berle Show which ran until 1956, and retained much the same format as what the Texaco Star Theater had become by the end of his time with the show. These viewership figures show that everybody watched Berle. Fireside Theater was a half-hour drama anthology. Later it would be renamed The Jane Wyman Show after its most famous host. The show ran from 1949 to 1958. Also debuting in 1948 The Philco TV Playhouse was an hour long dramatic anthology series. By 1950 the show had evolved into a mix of adapted and original plays, musicals featuring actors who either were stars or who would become major stars, including Anthony Quinn, Grace Kelly, Paul Newman, Julie Harris and, in the last episode of the series, Sidney Poitier.

1951-52:
Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts 53.8%, Texaco Star Theater 52.0%, I Love Lucy 50.9%

Arthur Godfrey was a long-time radio host who made the transition from radio to television with not one but two variety shows, Arthur Godfrey And His Friends, and this show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. In 1951-52 both shows were in the top ten in viewership. This really wasn't an amateur show since most of the acts that appeared on the show had some professional experience but needed that "big break." Among the stars "discovered" by Godfrey's Scouts were Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Leslie Uggams, Roy Clark and Patsy Cline. Famously the show passed on a couple of acts that really went somewhere – Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. As for I Love Lucy, well wait for the next clips.

1952-53: I Love Lucy 67.3%, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts 54.7%, Arthur Godfrey And His Friends 47.1%

What can you say about I Love Lucy? Well how about this; between 1951 when the show debuted and 1957 when the last half-hour episodes were shot it was only out of first place in the ratings twice, once in 1951 and once in 1955 when The $64,000 Question was the hottest show on TV. The show marked the debut of the three camera filming system for comedies (so Desi and Lucy wouldn't have to move to New York to do the show), and while it was not the first series to feature a star having a baby it was the first mainstream series to do so. The spike in viewership in this season is undoubtedly explained by the fact that this season marked the birth of Little Ricky. Arthur Godfrey And His Friends was Godfrey's second series, a music show which featured a variety of acts. This season was the one that featured Julius LaRosa whose firing by Godfrey was a major new story.

I'm also including an in-show performance of Babalu by Desi Arnaz because, well I like it!

1953-54: I Love Lucy 58.8%, Dragnet 53.2%, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts 54.7%

Dragnet was in its third season and had built its audience significantly from its debut season in 1951-52. While those of us of a "certain age" remember the 1960's incarnation of the series as being unintentionally funny and certainly "square," the 1950s version of the series was the real deal, touching on subjects from gun control, juvenile delinquency and pornography to unwed mothers, child abandonment and pedophilia. The 1950s version of the show really was hard hitting (and I don't just mean the way that Joe Friday dealt with some suspects). Look for Lee Marvin in this one.

1954-55:
I Love Lucy 58.8%, The Jackie Gleason Show 42.4%, Dragnet 53.2%

When most of us think of Jackie Gleason on TV we think of The Honeymooners, but that show only ran for a single season, 1955-56. Before and after that single season of The Honeymooners was The Jackie Gleason Show, a comedy variety series with a heavy emphasis on sketch comedy. Gleason did shorter Honeymooners stories but had a huge number of characters including Reggie van Gleason III, Joe the Bartender, The Poor Soul and a host of others.

I think I'll try to run this format on a monthly basis.

Weekend Videos – Inspiration Is Where You Find It

I have mostly restored my computer after reinstalling Vista (twice – I made a mistake in naming my primary account the first time I reinstalled and my files didn't go to the right place when I restored the back-up) but that doesn't explain why I'm posting this late Sunday-early Monday. No, for that you have to blame lack of inspiration. My first intention was to take inspiration from the song Video Killed The Radio Star; an examination of radio performers whose careers transitioned from what we now refer to as Old Time Radio, and a few who didn't (Fred Allen being the biggest name of all) but quite frankly it just didn't feel right. Next up was the idea of looking at the four Warner Brothers detective shows that debuted at the end of the 1950s – 77 Sunset Strip, Bourbon Street Beat, Hawaiian Eye, and Surfside 6 – inspired by the news that one of the shows likely to be picked up next season is Law & Order LA, because of course law enforcement and prosecution in Los Angeles is so different from law enforcement and prosecution in New York. The idea was of course that this idea of putting basically the same show on with different locations is hardly original with Law & Order or even CSI. The problem was that there is a depressing lack of YouTube clips from most of the shows. There was only a short clip from 77 Sunset Strip that was shown here earlier, three clips from Surfside 6 that features none of the cast members, and a few seconds from Bourbon Street Beat in a compilation of 1959 TV show themes. The only thing that is available in relative abundance is clips from Hawaiian Eye. So that wasn't going to work out.

For a while I thought that I wasn't going to be able to do a video post but then, on Sunday afternoon I came upon this post from Mark Evanier. It references another post from The Mad Blog about an illustration that legendary comic book artist and illustrator Jack Davis had done for NBC to promote their1965 TV season in TV Guide. The work in question was a five part extravaganza (at least) pieced together by the person who posted the image (I have to say that it was badly put together, not only missing the Sunday night shows but also pushing some of the pages together so that it was bard if not impossible to read some of the entries, but that's not the point here). So the obvious answer to my problem was to find material related to the 1965 TV season... like one or more of those network preview shows that the networks always aired at the start of the season. Unfortunately none of those seems to exist. What does exist is the longer than normal for YouTube clip shown here, a preview of NBC's new entertainment shows done for NBC employees and advertising clients, hosted by Don Adams in character as Maxwell Smart. The show is rather funny, in spite of the laugh track, but you can see why it wouldn't be particularly attractive to as a way to introduce the new shows to the general public. It certainly wasn't shot on the best film stock available.

Adams makes a big deal of the fifteen new shows on NBC the most new shows on the network, as Adams puts it, since 1588. I'm not sure that this is something that they really ought to be bragging about since it's indicative of a major problem the season before. And I believe that this would be an accurate assessment. On most nights only one program from the previous season survived from the 1964-65 season. Still the 1965-66 season on NBC would be a turning point of sorts. While most of the shows that Adams enthused about would be gone by the end of the season, there were some stand-outs like Get Smart, The Dean Martin Show, I Dream Of Jeannie, and Run For Your Life. Other shows had long service in reruns. Laredo ran for a long time on the Lonestar cable channel in Canada practically from the beginning of the channel until after most of the other western content was abandoned and the station became Movietime. Even the most monumental failure was memorable, if not necessarily for the right reasons. My Mother the Car is generally regarded as one of the worst shows ever to air... but it ran a full season. In fact the only show that NBC started the 1965 season with that didn't last for a full season was the World War II naval adventure Convoy; it was the last NBC series shot in Black & White (to take advantage of World War II archival footage) and a number of network affiliates refused to air the show.

I have distinct memories of a number of these shows, including some of the more obscure shows that didn't necessarily show up often in syndication. Wackiest Ship In The Army, based on the movie of the same name was a show that I have vague memories of. Although it is generally regarded as a comedy, I remember it as having more than a little bit of a dramatic/adventure edge to it. Certainly it wasn't a "typical" service comedy. Please Don't Eat The Daisies is another show that I have vaguer memories of. I remember it as having been a fairly conventional domestic comedy in a sea of comedies that were filled with gimmicks, like girls who appeared in a puff of smoke. It was pleasant but I can't really say that I remember too much about it beyond the very large dog and the house. On the other hand I do remember Hank, the show about a teenager who was forced to try to support his younger sister through a series of – very – odd jobs but was still determined to get a higher education even if he wasn't registered (or paying) for college classes. For some reason I remember Hank airing as a summer series, but maybe that was how my local station chose to run the show. Whatever the truth was I remember the lengths to which Hank would go to attend classes. There was a warmth to the show as well.

I can't say that I've seen examples of most of the new NBC shows of 1965. I don't recall ever having seen an episode of Run For Your Life despite the fact that the show ran for three seasons. It is as much a mystery to me as the short-lived Convoy or Camp Runamuck. Of course I'm not sure that I've really missed anything by not seeing the TV version of Mister Roberts or The John Forsythe Show (particularly given the way that the show changed at mid-season from a comedy about a career officer inheriting a girls school, to a cut rate spy comedy). On the other hand a somewhat older version of me would have probably appreciated Juliet Prowse, so maybe not seeing Mona McClusky was a bit of a loss.

Anyway here's Don Adams with NBC's 1965 programs.

Update: Here is a much better version of the original Jack Davis artwork that inspire this, complete with the missing Sunday shows.

Sunday Videos – A Sunday In 1957

We lost John Forsythe on Thursday at age 92. That was one hell of a rotten April Fools Joke.

John Forsythe, was born John Freund, in Brooklyn New York, the son of a Wall Street broker. He graduated from high school at age 16 and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At age 18 he became the public address announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers. At the suggestion of his father he began an acting career and had some bit parts in films before he joined the Army Air Force in 1943. He appeared in the Army Air Corps show Winged Victory and worked with soldiers who had developed speech problems during their military service. After leaving the service Forsythe became a member of The Actors Studio where members of his class included Marlon Brando and Julie Harris. He also appeared in several Broadway plays including Teahouse Of The August Moon. He appeared in a number of anthology TV shows, and larger roles in movies. He was cast in the lead role of Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry, the first of two appearances in Hitchcock films (the other was 1969's Topaz). The Trouble with Harry was a commercial failure and led to his first TV series, Bachelor Father, which had the distinction of appearing on all three commercial networks in the course of its five year career. In 1965 he appeared in The John Forsythe Show which ran for a single, rather schizophrenic, season (it started as a show about an Army Major who inherits a girls' school, and turned into a comedy spy series along the lines of I Spy). This was followed by a two year run in To Rome With Love. In the 1970s he appeared – or rather didn't appear – in Charlie's Angels as the never seen Charlie Townsend, the boss of Townsend Investigations. Beginning in 1981 he starred in Dynasty as Blake Carrington opposite Linda Evans as his wife Krystle. A dark haired Evans had previously appeared on an episode of Bachelor Father as a high school friend of the niece of Forsythe's character, Bentley Gregg, who had a serious crush on him. In 1992 Forsythe played a US senator in a short lived comedy for NBC called The Powers That Be produced by Norman Lear. While the series lasted less than a year it did feature an outstanding cast including Holland Taylor, Peter McNichol, David Hyde Pierce, and John Gordon-Levitt. Thus Forsythe is one of the few actors who had series in five decades.

While the easy way out would be to put up either clips or scenes from the various series that Forsythe starred in, I thought I'd try something different. One idea that I have been playing with in these Video segments is to take one night in one year and try to put together clips from TV shows on the three networks on that particular night. So, for example, I might pick Tuesday nights in 1966 and find clips for the shows from all three networks on Tuesdays in 1966. I thought I'd use the death of John Forsythe as a jumping off point. There's a bit of a problem with that; while it is easy to find clips of Charlie's Angels and Dynasty, some of the other shows have very little material available to them. I've decided to go with Bachelor Father, as Forsythe's first show. But this has a major problem. The only clip I've been able to find for the show has a couple of serious flaws. First, the only clip I can find comes from a commercial outfit selling DVDs of PD TV shows. The clip cuts off Forsythe's name and despite having a stated running time of 2 minutes suddenly stops showing anything new at about the 0:45 second mark.

Still Sunday nights in 1957 was a dream year for TV. Just look at the CBS line-up. The network started the night with Lassie. Next came The Jack Benny Program which alternated with Bachelor Father (the Benny clip here probably comes from before 1957 but it's a classic). That was followed by The Ed Sullivan Show, which featured a young singer named Presley. This clip was probably ripped from a commercial DVD or video tape but I wanted to actually include a clip from 1957 with Sullivan in it. Next up was GE Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan. This clip is from a 1956 show featuring Judy Garland (the one clip I managed to find from 1957 had the commercials cut out). Following GE Theater was Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This clip is from the first part of the second season and aired in October 1956. Alfred Hitchcock was followed by a spin-off from a game show. The $64,000 Challenge took winners from The $64,000 Question and had them face challengers in their fields. If one of the contestants failed to answer a question at a specific level was eliminated while the other contestant carried on until they were eliminated. The show ran from 1956-1958 and was killed by the game show scandal. Winding up Sunday night on CBS was one of my favourite panel shows (it's really not fair to call it a game show or a quiz show), What's My Line? hosted by the erudite John Daly and an equally erudite and witty panel. They don't make shows that are this intelligent any more.

For the most part Sunday was variety night for NBC. First up, opposite Lassie, was The Original Amateur Hour featuring Ted Mack. The show was considerably less polished than the closest modern equivalent, America's Got Talent, but that may be part of whatever charm it has. Following The Original Amateur Hour, was an extremely obscure situation comedy called Sally as a department store sales girl who becomes the "lady's companion" of a somewhat daffy wealthy woman on a world tour. Sally was played by Joan Caulfield, while Myrtle Bascomb was played by Marion Lorne. A format change at midseason changed the setting to a department store and added the always dependable Gale Gordon as store manager and co-owner Bascomb Beacher Sr. and Arte Johnson as his bashful son Bascomb Jr. There do not appear to be any clips of Sally available on-line (okay Toby, prove me wrong!). After Sally NBC rolled out the big guns. The Steve Allen Show was the prime time show that Steve Allen did after he left the Tonight Show. Well that's not entirely accurate since when the show started Steve had not yet left the late night show, but was working on cut-back hours. By 1957 he had left late night however and was working his hardest to be NBC answer to Ed Sullivan (literally since Steve was on opposite Sullivan). These two clips are fairly typical of Allen's prime time efforts and features Tom Poston as the straight-laced host, Pat Harrington as the "hipster Lawrence Welk." Louis Nye, and Steve himself. After Steve Allen came the Dinah Shore Chevy Show. The show was a typical variety show with singing and comedy bits. This particular clip doesn't feature Dinah singing "See the USA in a Chevrolet" but it does feature a comedy bit starring Shore and her husband George Montgomery, Ernie Kovacs and his wife Edie Adams, and band leader Louis Prima and his wife, singer Keely Smith. The fast cuts between the three couples is almost as hilarious as Louis losing track of the word play. Finally we have the Loretta Young Show, an anthology drama series hosted by Hollywood star Loretta young. Originally titled Letter To Loretta the original "gimmick" of Young reading a fan letter as a way of introducing the episode's half hour play was dropped after about 13 episodes of the show's first season. What wasn't dropped was Loretta's sweeping, twirling entry through the doors of "her home" in those glamourous – and vaguely preposterous – dresses. The only extensive clips from the show (which show the actual acting) on YouTube are from the 1953 season, so we'll have to content ourselves with a Loretta Young entrance from the 1954-55 season.

ABC was "the third network" and their Sunday line-up showed it. There were only two shows of real note. Leading up opposite Lassie was the show that you would have to describe as the "original reality show," You Asked For It. The format of the show was amazingly simple. Viewers would write in to the show asking to see some sort of action or event and the show would present it. I have a memory of seeing this show as a child, with the show's second host, Smilin' Jack Smith. The clip here isn't dated but it is probably before 1957, which was the original host Art Baker's last year on the show. I picked it because it represented the sort of thing that I remembered the sort of thing that I remember the show doing, although apparently Baker liked to get show business people on the show. You Asked For It was followed by another show that I have very real memories of Maverick. This extended clip features Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick rather than the more popular James Garner. The clip also includes a number of stars from other Warner Brothers series that may or may not have been on ABC. Wait till you see what Edd Byrnes is doing with his comb in this one! The rest of ABC's line-up was a show called Bowling Stars (opposite the last halves of The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show, a public affairs show called Open Hearing up against GE Theater and the first half of the Dinah Shore Chevrolet Show and the half hour All American Football Game Of The Week against Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the second half of Dinah Shore.

Please let me know what you think of this idea. It probably won't be the only way that these Video segments could go but I confess that it's an idea that I'm warming up to.

Saturday Videos – Spy Show Themes

We lost another favourite actor from my 1960s childhood. Robert Culp died this past week at age 79. He apparently collapsed and struck his head on the sidewalk outside his home. For those who grew up in the 1980s he may be best remembered for playing the hard bitten, sardonic FBI agent Bill Maxwell in Greatest American Hero with William Katt and Connie Sellecca – of the three he was undoubtedly the best actor. More recently he had a recurring role on Everybody Loves Raymond playing Ray's father-in-law Warren, opposite Katherine Helmond. His first series was the 1957 CBS western Trackdown, in which he played Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. The series featured a number of noted directors and guest stars including directors Richard Donner and Sam Peckinpaugh, and Oscar winning actors James Coburn and Rita Moreno. The series may be best known for an episode that introduced bounty hunter Josh Randall, played by Steve McQueen. The Randall character was spun off into a series the next year, called Wanted Dead Or Alive which is generally credited with being McQueen's breakout role. However, for people like me, who grew up in the 1960s, Robert Culp is best known for playing CIA agent Kelly Robinson opposite Bill Cosby as Alexander Scott. Rhodes Scholar Scott was the brains of the team while Culp's Robinson was the athletic playboy. Culp not only starred in the show but wrote seven episodes including the first episode to be broadcast (So Long, Patrick Henry) and directed one of the episodes. The series spawned a lifelong friendship between Culp and Cosby, who later teamed up again in the theatrical movie Hickey And Boggs, which Culp directed, and Culp appeared in single episodes of both The Cosby Show (playing a character called "Scott Kelly" – taken from the names of their two characters in I Spy) and Cosby, where he reprised the character of Kelly Robinson in a dream sequence (with Cosby's name being replaced in the show credits with the name of his character in the show, Hilton Lucas). As Mark Evanier explained in his obituary, Culp was very active in union work, both with the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild.

It would be very easy to do this Saturday videos segment using just the themes of I Spy and Greatest American Hero, and maybe trying to find a few clips from both. The one really good clip that I've found of I Spy features a great deal of Walter Koenig (just before he was tapped to play Chekov in Star Trek and very little Cosby and Culp. However in an interesting turn, the first five episodes of I Spy are available in their complete form on YouTube, courtesy of Image Entertainment which has the home video rights to the show. This includes So Long, Patrick Henry.). But just playing those two themes seems a bit pedestrian. In that mid-Sixties period there were a number of series based around spies and espionage on American TV – by 1966 there were a dozen such shows on the American networks. Many of them were done with a varying amount of tongue in cheek humour, ranging from I Spy through Man From U.N.C.L.E. all the way to Get Smart. There was even an odd blending of genres with Wild Wild West, a series that blended the Western with spies. In fact, about the only people who took the espionage genre the slightest bit seriously were the British. Two British series, Danger Man – renamed Secret Agent when it came to CBS – and The Avengers were bought by American networks. The decade ended with one of my personal favourites, It Takes A Thief.

Let's start off our tour of 1960's spy show themes with the one that got me to thinking about this topic, I Spy even though it debuted a year after The Man From U.N.C.L.E. All of these shows drew their inspiration from the James Bond films, particularly Goldfinger, but as we'll see, the title sequence for the first season of I Spy is practically grand theft intro rather than an homage. Subsequent seasons dispensed with this sequence and replaced it with clips from the episodes (and included the title "Emmy Winner Bill Cosby"). In this sequence the emphasis is definitely on Culp's character, who is the one seen in silhouette, but I swear that producer Sheldon Leonard gets the biggest credit of all.

Next up, here's an extended clip, including the opening theme to the British series Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan as John Drake. The series ran in Britain from 1960-1962 as a half hour show and then from 1964-1968 as an hour series. Thus, in its original incarnation it predated the James Bond phenomenon, while its revival was at least partially because of the James Bond phenomenon.

CBS had been involved in financing he show's first version , which they aired as a summer replacement for Wanted Dead Or Alive but pulled out after the first season. When the show was revived the network again acquired it, and replaced the original theme with its own sequence featuring Johnny Rivers singing Secret Agent Man. Here's the American version of the same episode with the original theme reduced to incidental music (so don't stop the player when the commercial starts).

The biggest of the American made spy series that at least tried to be semi-serious was Man From U.N.C.L.E. which starred Robert Vaughan as Napoleon Solo, Leo G Carroll as Alexander Waverly, and Robert McCallum as Ilya Kuriakin. The show was apparently based on an original concept created by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, and the original plan was to tie the show more closely to the Fleming name. The show itself got increasingly campy as the seasons went on for a variety of reasons, and the quality took a definite downward turn. The show's first season was done in Black & White while subsequent seasons were done in Colour, but while the slide of the show into camp may have coincided with the introduction of colour, the two states were entirely coincidental. The show had a variety of opening sequences during the four seasons it was on the air, but this sequence featuring the bullet proof glass is probably my favourite.

The other big British import was of course The Avengers. The show started in 1961 and actually starred two men – Ian Hendry had the lead role while Patrick Macnee was his partner but his role was secondary to the point where Steed didn't appea in some episodes. It soon became apparent that MacNee's character John Steed was popular and he increasingly became the co-lead. When Hendry quit to do movies after the show's first season Macnee took his place seamlessly. Steed had a number of partners, notably Honor Blackman as Connie Gale, before he started working with "talented amateur" Mrs. Emma Peel, played by Diana Rigg. The two had a definite chemistry, even though Rigg was only on the series for three years. She was in turn replaced by Linda Thorson for the show's final two season... the less said about the better. This was actually the second theme for the series; the first was composed by John Dankworth and was used for the Hendry and Gale episodes. This version of the titles was for the Black & White Emma Peel episodes. The colour title sequence is probably better known but this one features Rigg in her iconic leather cat suit. Edit: Oops, the character played by Honor Blackman was Cathy Gale. There is a character in the current run of the Annie comic strip called Connie Gale and I mixed up the names.

Finally, here's the title sequence for one of my favourite shows of the genre. It Takes A Thief ran for three seasons and featured Robert Wagner as Alexander Mundy, a professional thief who was arrested and given the choice; he could go to prison or he could steal for the government – specifically an agency called the SIA, where his boss would be Noah Bain, played by Malachi Throne, who was replaced by Ed Binns as Wallie Powers in the show's third season. It's not clear when this version of the title is from – I was hoping for a clip from the third season which featured Fred Astaire in a recurring role as Alistair Mundy, Al's equally larcenous but more successful (he never got caught) father, but I can't seem to find one.

Update: This is in fact a third season episode, just not one with Astaire in it. The first two seasons featured the voice of Noah Bain saying, "Hey, look, Al, I'm not asking you to spy... I'm just asking you to steal!"

As I've said, there were a dozen spy shows on TV in 1966 alone. These clips have only scratched the surface of what's out there and I may revisit this area at a later date.

Saturday Video Clips

So I guess it was the other day, when I heard that Fess Parker had passed away, that I had the idea of doing some sort of YouTube video tribute to him. It was an idea that quickly morphed – because just about everyone else was doing just that – into an idea of doing a YouTube based post every weekend. The idea would be to find several TV related videos and posting them on Friday night-Saturday morning. These videos might be related to some news item, like casting for a new version of the Rockford Files, the death of a TV icon like Fess Parker, or just anything that tickled my fancy (or fancied my tickle – no, that doesn't work in this situation). Maybe this won't last long, or maybe it will – let's give it a try.

First up of course is Fess Parker, who passed away on March 18^th at age 85. Parker was born in San Angelo Texas, and after brief service in the Marines in World War II (he wanted to be a pilot but at 6' 6" he was too tall to fit into a cockpit or even serve as an aviation gunner in a bomber) he graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in History, and moved to California to get a Masters in theatre History at USC. He soon found himself too busy because of acting jobs. Initially under contract at Warner Brothers he was nominated for an Emmy in 1954 as "Outstanding New Personality" – he lost to "Lonesome" George Gobel. In December 1954 he debuted in the role that would shape his later career – Davy Crockett. Some people classify Davy Crockett as the first TV miniseries. In three episodes the series told the story (or a highlighted version) of the frontiersman, politician and soldier who died at the Alamo. The series was so popular that it is said to have revitalized part of the fur industry – there was a sudden need for racoon fur for coonskin caps. It also spawn two follow-up episodes – set before the Alamo or even Crockett's time in Congress – in which he was involved with legendary keel boat skipper Mike Fink. Parker was soon under contract with Disney, but the contract restricted the parts available to Parker – he was typecast in roles like Boone in movies for Disney while the studio refused to loan him out for roles outside that persona. Thus he missed parts in films like The Searchers with John Wayne and Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe. So first up we have the complete version of the Davy Crockett theme song. Unfortunately there are no clips of the show on YouTube but this clip includes the complete Davy Crockett Theme (more complete in fact than I can remember it being!).

In 1962 he appeared in the TV version of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington on ABC. The show isn't notable for much, but it did feature the final TV appearance of Harpo Marx. It lasted one full season but it did clear the way for Parker to do the other part for which he was famous, Daniel Boone which ran from 1965-1970. The series is a highly fictionalized version of the life of the legendary frontiersman who pioneered the settlement of Kentucky. The show was hardly historically accurate but as a kid in the 1960s I found it great fun. It was Parker's last hit. After Daniel Boone ended he turned down the role of Marshal Sam McCloud which went to Dennis Weaver he did a short lived sitcom called The Fess Parker Show for CBS before leaving acting to run a well respected vineyard, the Fess Parker Family Winery and Vineyards. Here's the theme from the first season of Daniel Boone with both the opening and end credits.

Casting continues for the new version of The Rockford Files, with Beau Bridges being cast as "Rocky" Rockford (originally played by the great character actor Noah Beery Jr.), Jim Rockford's father. He joins Dermot Mulroney in his first major TV role as Jim Rockford (the role immortalized by James Garner), and Alan Tudyk (best known for playing Wash on Firefly) as Jim's police contact Dennis Becker. Among the parts yet to be cast are the roles of Angel, Jim's slightly less than legitimate former cellmate, Beth Davenport, Jim's lawyer and occasional romantic interest, and Lt. Doug Chapman, Becker's boss who was constantly getting on Dennis's case for helping Rockford...and then taking credit for any arrests that resulted from the work that Dennis and Jim had done. This is being done as a pilot for NBC and while I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of remaking this absolute classic of a show, I have to admit that the casting looks extremely good. Here's the original Rockford Files Theme. I was hoping to find one of the opening segments with the answering machine but any of those that were posted appear to have been taken down at the "request" of NBC. This is a pretty good version of the theme though.

Finally, Nikki Finke reports that there is going to be a big screen remake of 77 Sunset Strip coming from Warner Brothers. Normally the very idea of these things leaves me cold, and for the most part this one does the same. Of interest is that the studio, which produced the original series, will be giving it a period feel. This will presumably include references to the Dodger moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles (which happened at the end of the 1957 baseball season) and period movie stars. The series, based on several books written by Roy Huggins during the 1940s (and legally stolen from Huggins by Jack Warner who screened the pilot as a feature film in the Caribbean to "establish" that the series derived from a theatrical feature not Huggins's books), featured two former secret agents working as private detectives and "assisted" by hipster speaking Gerald Lloyd Kookson III, better known as "Kookie", who worked as a parking valet at the night club next to their offices – it was a real night club, Dino's, owned by Dean Martin. The original show starred Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Stu Bailey, Roger Smith as his partner Jeff Spencer, and Edd Byrnes as Kookie. Here's the intro to the series.

And here is a clip from the show in which Stu and Kookie "talk." Funny, I vaguely remember the series from my youth, but I don't recall Kookie smoking. The cars and his ever present comb I do remember.

Let's see what next week brings.

Upfronts 2009 – Video Previews

Still busy trying to chase that dream I mentioned in my last post, with limited success – finished third the other day in the first round tournament but needed to finish second to do anything. Oh well. Between that, an assortment of real world chores, that brand new time waster Twitter (I'm BrentMcKee there and of course can always use followers), and of course the general summer ennui, I haven't been writing much, and haven't really found the urgency to get this posted. Still I have wanted to get the clips for the season's new show posted on the blog.

The US networks haven't made it easy for the Blogger who just wants to publicize their shows. CBS, FOX and The CW all have YouTube sites but in the case of CBS, the clips aren't accessible to Canadians. NBC abandoned YouTube several years ago, and ABC has followed suit over the past year. Still there are sources available if you're willing to look for them. In fact some of these sources (notably the German Serien Network) provide clips that are longer than what the networks themselves posted. Naturally enough these clips are presented for promotional purposes only, and are the property of the networks and the production companies that made them.

First up we have ABC. I have structured the clips on this playlist (and all of the others) with the shows debuting in the Fall first and in some reasonable approximation of the order in which they'll air. These are then followed by the midseason replacement shows. For ABC the order is The Forgotten, Hank, The Middle, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Eastwick, Flash Forward, Happy Town, and finally The Deep End. Complete running time for this group of clips is about a half hour.

Next we have the CBS shows: Three Rivers, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, The Bridge, and Miami Trauma. I was unable to find a clip for the Monday comedy Accidentally On Purpose that I was able to view. Running time is just under 15 minutes.

The FOX playlist includes The Cleveland Show, Brothers, Sons of Tuscon, Past Life and The Human Target. Running time is about 16 minutes.

The NBC clips run at a little over 20 minutes. They are Trauma, Parenthood, Community, 100 Questions, and Mercy.

Finally The CW has two clips from Melrose Place, a clip from The Beautiful Life, three clips from The Vampire Diaries and an extended clip from Parental Discretion Advised. Running time is about 15 minutes.

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While it is impossible to determine the quality of a new series from this sort of brief clip – particularly when some of the roles have been recast (Julia Ormand is out at Three Rivers and Louise Lombard is gone from NCIS: Los Angeles), I would really like to comments in the realm of first impressions about the new shows. Do they look better than the shows that were dropped to make way for them? Worse? Which ones do you think you'd watch and which ones do you intend to tell your friends neighbours and perfect stranger to avoid like the plague? Where do you think there's potential and where do think that a show represents the total collapse of western civilization. Just remember, I don't control what networks do and don't put on the air. I wish I did – just like everyone who has ever written a review of a show either for a newspaper or a blog, and maybe things will be different come th eerevolution – but as it stands people who write in the comments section "...you are really considering dropping Without a Trace???" will get no satisfaction from me because I don't have the power to bring Without a Trace back.

New Harper’s Island Trailer

Normally I don't post trailers for new shows that are coming up in the next few days, but I'm making an exception for Harper's Island. There are a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that the show features one of my favourite character actors, Jim Beaver (Jim is a favourite of mine not only because he's a first rate actor but because he's an extremely knowledgeable guy who used to post a lot in newsgroups like rec.arts.movies.past-films; it doesn't hurt that he was Don Adams's son-in-law either). The show looks to be a great combination of gothic horror and mystery with a ton of atmosphere.

It's possible that the show could represent a fundamental change in the way that American network TV is done, if it's successful. It will tell a close-ended story in a thirteen week run which is similar to the way that British TV is done. It seems very close to the original concept of a mini-series. However, unlike a miniseries there is the possibility that the show could be renewed for another thirteen week run. If so, most if not all, of the cast would be replaced and the setting would be different. Even the name would change.

I have a couple of worries about Harper's Island. One is the way that the network has chosen to handle it. Starting the show in April and having the finale run on July 2 seems to me to be something of a vote of non-confidence in the series. If CBS felt sure about the show wouldn't they have started during the "February" sweeps (which happened in March this year) and ended it during May sweeps? Or were they worried, once they decided to put it in the prime Thursday night slot following CSI that the show would suffer against the final episodes of ER and wanted to put it against the (supposedly) weaker competition of NBC's new series Southland? My other worry about the show has to do with whether or not the serialized nature is going to have a negative effect on its performance. Will an audience that seems with only a few exceptions to be dialled in to procedurals (here defined as "a genre of programs in which a problem is introduced, investigated and solved all within the same episode") be willing to invest the time and thought needed for this type of drama which requires an extended attention span. A plus for the show in this area is that it will be running for thirteen weeks without a hiatus. Still, it does seem to be a risky move.

Anyway, here's the new Harper's Island trailer. (I hope to have the 1972-73 TV Guide Fall Preview material posted later this afternoon.)

Video Links For The New Shows

Last year was a great time to blog about the new TV season and include clips from the new shows. NBC had its own YouTube Channel and CBS even provided a "bloggers kit" that provided links from their InnerTube video service. The other networks at least had clips on a page even if you couldn't embed them. This year it's not so easy to provide links. This season it's not so easy. NBC gave up on YouTube and put all their eggs in their Hulu basket, not that it matters much since they didn't do pilots this season. Similarly InnerTube seems to be gone, but CBS does have its own YouTube channel (with the series previews on their own playlist), as do The CW and FOX. But ABC provide you with...a PDF file. At least that's what they do officially. If you hunt around you can find clips at YouTube and other video sites such as Brightcove and DailyMotion...if they haven't been taken down yet. Under these circumstances, rather than provide hints on where to find clips it might be better just to show some. To help things along I've set up some playlists of my own with clips from the various networks.

We start off with CBS, and the first video in this group of five generated the most comment from the people who watched it on YouTube...mostly negative. It's for The Ex List, and the negative comments were because it is the show replacing Moonlight on Friday nights. And two more different show you're unlikely to see. Based on this clip I'm not likely to be watching. Following that are clips for The Mentalist and Eleventh Hour. Both show's look more than a little intriguing. Finally come clips for the two new sitcoms on the CBS line-up, Project Gary and The Worst Week. Neither one looks like something I'd be interested in watching, but bear in mind that it takes a lot to get me interested in sitcoms.

Next up we have clips from two of the three new CW shows. First are two clips from Surviving The Filthy Rich featuring Joanna Garcia with Lucy Kate Hale in the first, and with Micheal Cassidy in the second. Then there's a clip from the reality show Stylista that basically introduces Anne Slowey as she clumps (about the best way I can describe her walk in those heels). Nothing from 90210 yet, but a lot of the parts in that series have yet to be cast, and I don't think they've done a pilot.

Next up we have ABC's two new shows, neither from "official" sources. First up is a trailer for Life On Mars clearly taken from an Entertainment Tonight broadcast. It was another clip that got a lot of reaction most of it extremely negative. Of course, to be fair, a lot of those comments were coming either from people in Britain or from Americans who are fans of the original BBC series. The other clip is from the new Ashton Kutcher game/reality show Opportunity Knocks. Based on this, it looks awesomely awful and I would hope that it dies a quick and well deserved death.

Finally we have some clips from the new FOX shows, starting with Fringe. You can certainly pick up the X-Files vibe in this clip. Next we have the new comedy Do Not Disturb, which I fear is going to fall right into the trap of being a workplace comedy rather than something like the British Hotel Babylon. It looks pretty bad. Next we have two clips from Secret Millionaire, including the start and the reveal of one episode. I'm afraid it looks worse than I originally expected, but I still have no doubt that it will find an audience. Then there are a couple of clips from the two animated series, The Cleveland Show and Sit Down, Shut Up. I can't tell much about The Cleveland Show from this, but the clip from Sit Down, Shut Up features that very interesting cast of voice actors. Finally there's a clip from Dollhouse (which oddly enough is subtitled in Spanish) which gives a better sense of what the series is about than the other – non-subtitled – clip I've been able to find on YouTube.

Based on these clips I have a suspicion that I'm going to be watching a lot of shows on CBS with FOX coming in a close second. Mentalist and Eleventh Hour look very intriguing to me, as do Fringe and Dollhouse. Since I haven't seen the BBC original I don't know whether the criticisms of the American Life On Mars are justified but I'm not sure it will work. Surviving The Filthy Rich might work in a Gilmore Girls sort of way but it's probably not for me. The reality and game show clips are singularly unappealing to me – I'll stick to Survivor, Dancing With The Stars, and The Amazing Race thank you very much. As for the sitcoms, the two on CBS might work but the one on FOX looks far worse than the show it's replacing (Back To You). The bottom line on the new shows is this: they look to be adequate but hardly earth shaking or groundbreaking. And maybe that's the way that broadcast TV has to be. Sadly.

For My American Friends

The real Thanksgiving was a month ago - Robin Scherbatsky, How I Met Your Mother

As a result, I am not going to do a list of things I'm thankful for, but I am going to put this up.

Happy American Thanksgiving as we say here in the Great White North, and don't get trampled tomorrow (but just in case vote in the poll before you go shopping).

Brian And Stuey At The Emmy

I promised this at the beginning of my Live Blogging of the Emmys last night but no one had put it up on YouTube by the time I finished up last night. Funny stuff, but notice which networks don't get their trash talked about. That's right, no mention of The CW (which never gets mentioned on the Emmys anyway - maybe they're hoping if they ignore it, the weblet will just go away) and the network the Emmys were on this year - FOX.

Tom Snyder – 1936-2007

I wanted to write this and get it posted sooner, but I've been having difficulty connecting to the Web courtesy of my McAfee Security Center. For reasons known only to it, it suddenly wouldn't let me connect with the Web: email? – fine, newsgroups? – great, online poker? – perfect, World Wide Web – verboten, ils ne pass pas, no frakkin' way.

This was unfortunate as I wanted to pay tribute to one of my favourite talk show hosts, Tom Snyder, who passed away of Leukemia. Others, notably Mark Evanier have mentioned Tom Snyder's facility as a TV News anchor, one of the last great "single" anchors in the business. Not living in Los Angeles, where Snyder did a lot of his local anchor work, I never saw that side of him. My blogging buddy Sam Johnson does mention him as an anchor in Savannah, although these seem to be second hand. I did hear stories about his adventures in local news after his Tomorrow show was cancelled by NBC, and one gets the impression that he didn't adjust well to working as part of an "anchor team." Or maybe it was just the jealousy of others that had them saying less than complimentary things about his abilities as a newscaster.

Snyder the newscaster wasn't my Tom Snyder. My Tom Snyder was the guy who hosted Tomorrow between 1973 and 1982, the guy who was given the timeslot after Letterman (by Letterman, who had a great appreciation for him) from 1995 to 1999. And my Tom Snyder was the guy who had a pioneering blog called Colortini.com (now long gone). My earliest Blogroll included a link to the site and it was there that we learned of the chronic lymphocytic leukemia that eventually took his life. This Snyder was a smart and savvy interviewer with a booming laugh and a willingness to talk to just about anyone.

Snyder was perfect for a University student working late into the night, which was how I first encountered him. This was late in the era of the original Tomorrow show when it was usually Tom and one or two guests – and of course Tom's then nearly ubiquitous cigarette – sitting opposite each other and talking. Snyder wasn't afraid to ask the hard hitting questions when they were called for, but most of the time Snyder maintained a conversational style without things degenerating into "puff-piece" questions. Probably his most famous interview was a prison interview with Charles Manson after which Snyder said that Manson was playing mind-games in prison, and knew exactly what he had done to be there. Tom didn't have a co-host, although author Nancy Friday was a frequent guest and at one point was a semi-regular contributor. He rarely had a studio audience during the original version of Tomorrow. It was intimate, and even when he had a comedian on it was seriously good TV.

The beginning of the end for Tomorrow came when Johnny Carson's show dropped from 90 minutes to an hour, at Carson's demand. For some reason NBC decided to expand Tomorrow to 90 minutes, add a studio audience as well as a co-host – gossip columnist Rona Barrett, who had been lured over to NBC with the promise of a big contract – whom he detested and engaged in a legendary feud with. The new show was dubbed Tomorrow Coast To Coast, and died a merciful death after just under two years. Watching the clip of Tom with Howard Cosell – with Frank Gifford trying very to stay out of the way – it's not hard to see why. He doesn't seem comfortable in the format.

I didn't see Tom's CNBC show or listen to his ABC Radio show that he did with Elliott Forrest but I was a total devotee of The Late Late Show which he did on CBS. It was different from the Tomorrow Show; more in the style of what Larry King (with whom Snyder had a celebrated feud, although the reasons were never totally clear) used to do. There were callers, although they weren't the dominant part of the format. What dominated was what David Letterman called in the clip that follows "the simple art of reasonable conversation." I loved The Late Late Show and watched virtually every episode. Tom was my first exposure to Molly Ivins and the first time I heard anyone call George W. Bush "Shrub" – as Ivins put it "because he's a little Bush." Harlan Ellison was another frequent guest. It was my first exposure to Jon Stewart as a "talking head" – I'd previously seen him as an actor/comedian but he was also an occasional guest and frequent replacement for Tom when he was ill or on vacation, as was Bonnie Hunt. Annual features included a display of Lionel Trains on set at Christmas (Tom was a collector and once had Neil Young on to talk about Young's ownership of the company) and a live broadcast after the Oscars that usually featured Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert, and Bonnie Hunt. In the last year or two of the show that was

A frequent guest was Robert Blake. Tom would bring Blake on and frequently he'd do the entire hour, talking about whatever he felt like. One night Blake spent the entire hour begging a woman with whom he had been in a relationship to come back to him – she didn't. Watching Blake on The Late Late Show, sitting on the edge of his chair waving a (usually) unlit cigarette was often a study in bipolar behaviour played out on our TV screen. Years later, after Blake had been accused and found not guilty of killing his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley (who Blake met after Tom stopped doing The Late Late Show) Snyder wrote in his blog that having known and experienced Robert Blake, he believed that Blake was a killer.

I think I speak for a lot of Tom's fans when I say that I was sad to see Tom Snyder leave The Late Late Show and even sadder to see him replaced, not with Bonnie Hunt or Jon Stewart in a continuation of what Tom had done, but by Craig Kilborn doing a pale imitation of Letterman and Leno, which – with due respect – is really an imitation of Johnny Carson (and in Leno's case in particular, a pretty poor one). When Tom Snyder left the air for good, an era epitomized by Jack Paar, Dick Cavett, and Tom Snyder on major network TV came to a close.

Following are a couple of YouTube videos. First is a tribute that Conan O'Brien did, featuring clips from some of Tom's most famous interviews from the Tomorrow Show, including Manson, Elton John, Johnny Rotten, Bono (and The Edge though he doesn't say a word), Muhamed Ali, and finally Howard Cosell. The second clip is the final portion of an interview that Tom did with his replacement at NBC and his boss at CBS, David Letterman. So as Tom would say, "Fire up the colortinis and watch the pictures as they fly through the air." And when you do, spare a few moments to remember our friend who we never met, Tom Snyder.