Saturday Night Live: 50 Years of Apologies

I didn't watch the recent 50th anniversary celebration for Saturday Night Live. But in reading about the presentation I was intrigued by one segment, in which Tom Hanks introduced an “In Memoriam” for characters and sketches that would now be deemed inappropriate. 

Among the sketches featured – John Belushi as a samurai, one of the most popular recurring characters in the show’s early seasons; Chris Farley’s Chippendales audition, a Harry Potter sketch with Lindsay Lohan (in a low-cut blouse) as Hermione, a Weekend Update debate featuring the famous line “Jane, you ignorant slut”; Buck Henry’s portrayal of Uncle Roy (if you know, you know), and the now legendary word association test with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor – and yes, that word you’re thinking of was muted. 

Notice how, if you are of a certain age, you remember every single one of these scenes, and you enjoyed them. 

"But even though these characters, accents, and let's just call them ethnic wigs were unquestionably in poor taste, you all laughed at them," Hanks scolded. "So, if anyone should be canceled, shouldn't it be you, the audience? Something to think about.”

The way it was presented, it was honestly hard to tell if the mea culpa was sincere, or a clever way to present another collection of moments from when the show was still funny, or an attempt to have it both ways. The studio audience laughed at the clips, but Entertainment Weekly, which lost its sense of humor somewhere around 2012, declared without irony that SNL was ready to “bury its problematic past.” 

“The show called out its history of offenses, including ethnic stereotypes, sexism, underage sexual harassment, body shaming, gay panic, and other "yikes" moments,” wrote EW’s Jillian Sederholm, who I’m sure at this very moment is holding up a “Resist” sign somewhere. 

I don’t know if any Japanese Americans seething for half a century over Belushi’s samurai character will rest easier now. What I do know is pushing boundaries is what put Saturday Night Live on the map, and it’s a big reason why the show survived long enough to celebrate a 50th anniversary. 

As the book Live From New York revealed, this was a series fueled in its early days by raging hormones, counterculture convictions and illegal substances. It assembled a cast that honed their talents in the anything goes atmosphere of improv; it hired outlaw writers like Michael O’Donoghue, who once said, “I don’t think television will ever be perfected until the viewer can press a button and cause whoever is on the screen’s head to explode.” And it fully indulged in the latitude that came with a time slot far removed from the family hour. 

But now it is 2025, and what once was funny is now cruel, or discriminatory, or not showing the proper deference to other races, other cultures, other life choices that are all equally worthy of validation. No quarter is given to context, or how satire targets human flaws and vices. It’s all, if you’ll pardon the expression, black and white to the societal scolds who will not hesitate to lecture us about what we are allowed to find amusing. 

We should be used to this by now. Over the last 10-15 years there have been wave after wave of language expressions, clothing options, entertainment offerings, names of sports teams, grocery store products, etc. that were not considered offensive, but have since become so. 

I know that somehow there are still comedies on television, but I’m not sure what is still safe to find amusing in this never-ending national production of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” as people dutifully nod their heads as what is admirable is viewed as weird, and what is weird is viewed as admirable. 

Thankfully, the ire directed at vintage comedy has not yet resulted in censorship. The Harry Potter sketch with Lindsay Lohan has been viewed more than 77 million times on YouTube. What does that tell you? 

In case you’ve never seen it, the sketch has students returning to Hogwarts after summer vacation. Harry and Ron are surprised when Hermione appears, having clearly ‘blossomed’ over the summer, and they become flustered. It’s funny – and it’s true to life. 

But once you are put in the position of having to explain or justify a comedy sketch, you are already on defense and will ultimately realize that no reason will be sufficient to explain why something is funny to someone who doesn’t see it that way. 

Is there anything inherently wrong about John Belushi playing a Japanese character? About Fred Armisen playing a Latino variety show host or a Native-American comedian? About Garrett Morris interpreting Weekend Update news stories for the deaf by shouting them? Or can we once again acknowledge that the ways in which people are different can be regarded in comedy, without affecting how we relate to those we encounter in our non-scripted world? Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? 

I also found it interesting that the “Coffee Talk” sketches were omitted, featuring Mike Myers, a Canadian protestant, playing a stereotypical Jewish woman from New York who was prone to burst out in Yiddish when getting “verklempt.” 

Perhaps this suggests that some groups are still fair game by the gatekeepers of what is no longer acceptable. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that so many of these arbiters of taste emanate from Ivy League institutions and liberal arts universities, of late the home of virulent anti-Israel demonstrations. Nope – no connection there. 

The issuing of apologies for things that happened 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, has been trending upward in recent years, though that trend is likely not to continue under the current administration. But this too will not last, news that will be celebrated by some and mourned by others. Who knows what will follow? But if SNL lasts another 50 years, one can only imagine what they’ll be apologizing for in 2075. 

Top TV Moments: Tony Roberts

The obituaries for the recently passed Tony Roberts identified him as a sidekick in Woody Allen films and a Tony-nominated Broadway star. All of which is true – but to me he’ll always be the guy who almost married Julie McCoy on The Love Boat. 

Television was, admittedly, the least heralded aspect of Roberts’ multifaceted career. The credits that stand out on his IMDB page are classics like Annie Hall, Serpico and Hannah and Her Sisters. But over the course of a six-decade career he also made regular appearances on TV in good shows, bad shows and those long forgotten. 

To his credit Roberts certainly wasn’t a snob who looked down on the small screen when that was a prominent mindset among film actors in the 1970s. In fact, he agreed to recurring roles in four different series, none of which lasted a full season. Their fate was not his fault – in fact I can’t remember any TV show or movie that didn’t benefit from his combination of class, professionalism, and approachability. 

Many of the Top TV Moments listed below are more obscure than most in these career retrospective pieces, but most are accessible on YouTube and worth a look. 

The Trials of O’Brien (1965)

The first credit on Roberts’ IMDB page is for an episode of this short-lived series starring Peter Falk and Elaine Stritch (sounds interesting already, doesn’t it?). A handful of episodes are on YouTube but not “Charlie’s Got All the Luck,” featuring Roberts as Charlie. 

Night Gallery (1971)

Night Gallery episodes are notoriously hit-and-miss, but “The Messiah on Mott Street” belongs in the win column. Edward G. Robinson plays a dying man concerned over the fate of his grandson in this tale that borrows from Jewish traditional stories of the Messiah and the Angel of Death. Tony Roberts plays the man’s doctor, and Yaphet Kotto is wonderful as the Messiah. It’s a sad story until it isn’t, and I’m sure has become annual holiday viewing in many homes. 

McMillan (1977)

Many viewers likely lost some interest in McMillan and Wife when it became just McMillan, after the departure of Susan Saint James. But “Philip’s Game” is a solid entry with two intriguing mysteries. The first – how was the key witness in the prosecution of a crooked land developer killed, before his car seemed to start automatically and plunge into San Francisco Bay? The second begins when McMillan meets Philip (Tony Roberts) who introduces himself to the police commissioner, says he’s a hit man and that McMillan is his next target. He also reveals how he plans to do the job. 

Roberts is terrific here – he exudes both good manners and menace, and the suspense builds nicely until it’s time to carry out his assignment. I admit I was slightly bummed by the ending but getting there was still fun. 

Rosetti and Ryan (1977)

This was Tony Roberts’ first attempt at series stardom, and the one I think had the most potential. He and Squire Fridell played law partners with opposite personalities; Roberts, as Joe Rosetti, was something like Arnie Becker on L.A. Law: high-class style, active social life, while Fridell’s Frank Ryan, a former cop, was more focused on a by-the-book approach to each case. 

Had NBC not pulled the plug after just six episodes, I think the show would have found an audience. The two leads worked well together, and the scripts were better than those used in other legal dramas that lasted longer. Fridell would later find a career-defining role as the successor to King Moody in the role of Ronald McDonald, which he played in dozens of commercials from 1984 to 1991. 

The Girls in the Office (1979)

This TV movie follows the stories of three women working in the corporate offices of a major Houston department store, as it prepares for the grand opening of a new location. Tony Roberts plays second in command to the company’s founder (well-played by David Wayne). Barbara Eden is outstanding as an executive assistant who falls for a younger construction worker (Joe Penny), as is Susan Saint James as a ruthlessly ambitious woman determined to move up the corporate ladder by any means necessary. There are some dated elements to this look at office politics in the 1970s, but like so many long-out-of-circulation TV movies from this era, it’s a joy to rediscover on YouTube. 

The Love Boat (1978)

Romances among the Pacific Princess crewmembers and their passengers were part of nearly every Love Boat episode, but every so often they got more serious than a single-episode fling. When Julie met Jack (Roberts), a widower with two daughters, it was love at first sight for all of them. He proposed, but Julie couldn’t move with him to Alaska and felt unprepared to become a wife and mother all at once. But by the series’ next season she had changed her mind, and with the ship sailing to Alaska she was eager to reunite with Jack and accept his proposal, but fate had other ideas. 

The Four Seasons (1984)

It was 13 episodes and out for this adaptation of the 1981 Alan Alda film about the friendships and other relationships between three middle-class couples. Alda produced the series, but only Jack Weston returned from the film to reprise his role. It’s the only one of Roberts’ series that didn’t work for me at all. Tina Fey is apparently bringing a new version to Netflix later this year. 

The Lucie Arnaz Show (1985)

Series attempt #3 was a workplace sitcom set in New York, starring Arnaz as a radio psychologist, albeit one without the neurotic hangups of Frasier Craine. Roberts plays her understanding (sometimes) boss. The whole thing was a bit too low-key for me, but Arnaz and Roberts are both eminently likable performers, and the older I get the more I appreciate that aspect of a series. But viewers back then were more interested in TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes on another network, and The Lucie Arnaz Show was gone after just six episodes. 

Hotel (1985)

After such memorable appearances on The Love Boat, it’s fitting that Roberts also shined in another series featuring rotating lineups of celebrity guests. In “Wins and Losses” he plays a rival hotel manager pursuing Christine (Connie Selleca) personally and professionally. His approach is two parts smarm to one part charm, but that’s enough to pique her interest and make Peter (James Brolin) jealous, something that happens about a hundred times over the course of five seasons. 

The Thorns (1988)

Now this was an interesting show, and certainly one that was ahead of its time. Today’s audience that prefers dysfunctional families to happy ones would have enjoyed the selfish exploits of this aptly named clan. Roberts played Sloan Thorn opposite Kelly Bishop (Gilmore Girls!) as his wife Ginger. Twelve episodes were made, only seven aired, but watching it in 2024 you’d never suspect it was more than 30 years old. The characters are petty, insecure, sniping and greedy – and yet somehow still remain likable. 

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Wednesday Nights, 1975

Continuing our journey through the prime-time schedules of the 1970s, and we’re now halfway through the decade, and halfway through the week in 1975. How many of these new hits, returning favorites and forgotten misfires do you remember? 

ABC

When Things Were Rotten
That’s My Mama
Baretta
Starsky & Hutch

ABC continues its trek toward late 1970s ratings dominance, introducing two new shows that both found an audience. Starsky & Hutch cracked the Nielsen top 20, finishing the season at #16, and spawned the same merchandising blitz that most of their hit shows produced. It was a standard maverick cop series that coasted largely on the chemistry of stars Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul. 

As I wrote in this blog in 2023, “Good scripts help, but there are only so many urban crime stories and criminal investigations to dramatize. Viewers watch to see characters they like inserted into narratives no matter how familiar. And when there are two or more leads, camaraderie is another essential. We want to believe the friendships between the characters, to the point that we’re sure they would enjoy each other’s company after work as well.” That’s what the show got right, and that’s why it lasted four seasons. 

Baretta, a reworking of the Toma series starring Robert Blake, finished the season at #22. It paired well with Starsky & Hutch, keeping the “guys who play by their own rules” vibe going for another hour. Unfortunately, Blake played by his own rules away from the show a little too often as well. 

I’m sure ABC thought it had a third hit in When Things Were Rotten, given Mel Brooks’ name among the creators. But this spoof of Robin Hood was nowhere near as clever as the James Bond spoof created by Brooks and Buck Henry a decade earlier. 

Fifty years later Get Smart remains a classic, while When Things Were Rotten faded quickly after a highly rated pilot. Still, it’s an interesting curio now with its cast of familiar TV faces – Dick Gauthier, Misty Rowe, Bernie Kopell, Dick Van Patten – and if you were about eight years old at the time, it was probably your favorite show. 

That’s My Mama was the only holdover from the previous year, but casting changes were not enough to save it from an abbreviated second season. 

CBS

Tony Orlando & Dawn
Cannon
Kate McShane

As with other variety series back then, Tony Orlando & Dawn was introduced over the summer and proved popular enough to earn a spot on the fall schedule. The music, provided by the trio of hosts and guest stars like Dr. Hook, Freddy Fender, Steve Lawrence, Tanya Tucker, Johnny Cash and many others, was wonderful. The comedy skits were lame, as they were on most of these shows. But there was a segment in every episode in which Orlando would hop off the stage and interact with the audience, and my mother, bless her soul, always loved those sweet moments and concluded that Tony must be a pretty wonderful guy. 

This would be the final season for Cannon after five solid years, and the first and final season for Kate McShane after just nine episodes. I wish I could offer something nice to say about the latter series, but this was a real dud of a legal drama with a poorly miscast Anne Meara in the title role. 

Charles Haid, so good on Hill Street Blues, did not fare any better as her brother, a priest who seemed to know more about the law than she did. Not the best way to strike a blow for feminism, CBS. 

NBC

Little House on the Prairie
Doctors’ Hospital
Petrocelli

It wasn’t yet the ratings powerhouse it would become, but in its second season Little House on the Prairie drew enough viewers to insure a bright future. There would be nine total seasons and more than 200 episodes.

That solid lead-in did nothing to help Doctors’ Hospital, a new medical drama that focused more on the staff at Lowell Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles than on the patients they treated. There were 15 regular and recurring cast members, enough perhaps to outnumber the audience for some episodes. You’ll recognize some of the names – George Peppard is top billed, and supported by Zohra Lampert, Albert Paulsen and John Larroquette among others. 

There’s one episode on YouTube that didn’t do much for me – Peppard as a surgical chief was still in arrogant Banacek mode, without the underlying Polish charm. 

Petrocelli entered its second season with good but not great ratings, so someone decided what this courtroom drama needed was more action. Suddenly our crusading attorney (Barry Newman) now found himself being chased by helicopters, having his camper run off the road, getting shot at and getting jumped in biker bars. But that was not enough to stave off cancelation. 

And despite some obscure and short-lived series on this night, no new additions to my “missed shows” list. Let’s see if my luck holds out when we get to Thursday.  

Shows Missed:

The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Tenafly (1973)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)

 

My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: Don Adams as Maxwell Smart

Let's first acknowledge the obvious reasons why Get Smart remains one of the crown jewels of television comedy.

Start with the clever foundation laid by genius creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry; the perfect casting of Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, with equally memorable support from sultry Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 and Edward Platt as Max’s exasperated Chief; the movie spoofs (“Bronzefinger,” “Witness for the Persecution”); the catchphrases (“Missed it by that much”); surefire visual gags like the Cone of Silence; guest characters that would be delightfully offensive to easily-triggered modern sensibilities (The Claw, Harry Hoo).

And many, many more. But there’s one ingredient in this remarkable mix that is not always acknowledged: the show was perceptive enough to not make Max stupid all the time. 

Even if part of the intent was to spoof both James Bond and U.S. covert agencies that had come under increased scrutiny in the late ‘60s, making Max a complete moron would have quickly become tiresome. He would often be clueless and clumsy, but usually he would also complete his missions, knock out a few bad guys, and keep the world safe from the evil plots of KAOS.

Contrast this with, say, Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island. In every episode, a rescue plan is foiled because Gilligan screws up. The only suspense is in exactly how he’s going to doom his fellow castaways to another week on the island. There was no point is rooting for him to be a hero. Max, despite his mistakes, could still save the day, much to the amazement of everyone around him. 

The stars seemed to align to bring this series to magnificent fruition, though there were some bumps along the way. The pilot was first offered to ABC with Tom Poston cast as Max. When ABC turned it down, NBC picked it up – not because they had a lot of confidence in the idea, but because they already had comedian Don Adams under contract and wanted to get something out of that investment. 

They didn’t know how fortuitous that decision would prove. With Adams in place, Maxwell Smart was not a character that had to be developed or shaped by the first scripts. He was fully formed before the first scene of Get Smart was shot. If you watch Adams as hotel detective Byron Glick on The Bill Dana Show, you’re seeing the birth of Max – same mannerisms, same line delivery – he was even using the “Would you believe” routine that became one of Get Smart’s best recurring bits.

Another reason I believe this is one of the most perfect matches of actor to role of the Comfort TV era, is how, in a different world, Don Adams could play it straight and make an audience accept him as a dashing secret agent - at least when he wasn't talking into his shoe. 

That debonair quality would be on display early in several scenes, as he’d walk confidently into a potentially fatal encounter, gun drawn…and then fall down the stairs. 

As gifted a physical comedian as Adams was, it’s his voice that is first recalled as a defining characteristic. The network asked him to tone it down a bit after the pilot, but thankfully it wasn’t dialed back far enough to lose that nasally quality inspired by William Powell in the Thin Man movies. Adams was also a gifted mimic, working in credible impressions of Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Colman in some of the series’ most fondly remembered episodes. 

Fifty years later Get Smart remains one of the most laugh-out-loud comedies ever created. In 1965, when one of the Gemini 7 astronauts suffered a minor technical malfunction in his space suit, the response from Mission Control was “Sorry about that, Chief.” That’s how you know a series has fully penetrated the pop culture.

Even on a tenth viewing of an episode when you know the jokes are coming, they still land. That’s a testament not only to Adams, who won the Emmy three years in a row for his portrayal of Agent 86, but to the entire cast, including occasional regulars like Hymie and Larrabee and Agent 13, not to mention the villainous Siegfried (Bernie Kopell) and William Schallert as the first Chief of CONTROL. 

Classic episodes? Where do you even start? The pilot, pitting Max against a villain known as Mr. Big (when you see him you’ll know this show was politically incorrect from day one); “Washington 4, Indians 3,” in which a Native American tribe threatens to take back their stolen land by force with a weapon that, to me, may be the best sight gag in 1960s television; “A Man Called Smart, Part 1,” featuring a masterpiece of slapstick comedy starring Don Adams, a stretcher and a revolving door.  

And about 50 or 60 more. Yes, the series did start to run out of gas in its fifth and final season, with Max and 99 married and becoming parents (did that ever work to save a troubled show?). But by then viewers had already been gifted with more laughter than most sitcoms manage in twice as many seasons. And Don Adams was doomed to a typecasting fate that befell many other creators of iconic television roles. 

Sorry about that, Don. But I wouldn’t trade a minute of this series for anything. 

Doorbells

"Not Knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson

The first time I saw comedian Sebastian Maniscalco was when he was performing the routine that brought him to the attention of a national audience. It focused on doorbells and how, back in the day, the sound of your doorbell in the evening brought joy and excitement because it meant an unexpected but welcome visit from friends or relatives. Maniscalco then contrasts that reaction with how people now react to a night-time doorbell – with anger and trepidation. 

It’s a routine that has been viewed more than ten million times on YouTube.  Deservedly so, because not only is it funny, but it’s also true to life for so many of us whose time on earth spans the decades from the Comfort TV era to the present day. When we were young we remember how we responded to a doorbell at our parents’ home. And that’s not the same way we feel about them now. 

It’s a good thing we were more open to those visits, because back then doorbells rang far more often than they do now. Milk was delivered and diapers were delivered, and the dry cleaners brought your newly cleaned clothes back to you. Neighborhood children sold tickets to school events and Girl Scouts sold cookies. Or, in the case of Peter on The Brady Bunch, Sunflower Girl cookies. 

And there were door-to-door salesmen. They were often selling either vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias, which in retrospect seem like two of the most impractical things to sell that way, given the exertion of lugging them around an entire neighborhood. 

Lucille Ball was on TV long enough to be on both sides of the vacuum transaction. On I Love Lucy she was talked into buying a vacuum from a fast-talking salesman (“Sales Resistance”). On The Lucy Show she is selling vacuums and accidentally sucks up a rare stamp from Mr. Mooney’s collection (“Lucy and the Missing Stamp”). 

Of course, we still get stuff delivered now, but the men and women who execute those deliveries just drop the package and leave. I like that, but on the older shows they’d be just as likely to stop and chat for a while about the weather or if the rain will hurt the rhubarb, and perhaps even be invited in for a glass of lemonade (summer) or hot chocolate (winter). 

Some companies, like Avon cosmetics, built their entire business around home visits. “Ding Dong! Avon calling,” was once as familiar a phrase as “Ring around the collar.” 

Around the holidays, the doorbell turned into another Christmas bell, with everyone from the mailman to the paper boy providing extra personal service, while hoping for a little something in return. The Christmas episode of The Donna Reed Show featured several such scenes, in which Donna passed out fruitcakes instead of cash. Knowing Donna they were probably home-made, but that didn’t make them any more desirable. 

Then there were the types of visits that no one could anticipate. A strolling Shakespearian actor stops by the Nelson residence to help them stage a reading of Hamlet. “An Evening With Hamlet” is one of the more unique episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, made more special by the guest appearance of John Carradine.

Uncovering an essential truth can be a sobering, even disturbing experience. I must confess that me, Mr. Comfort TV, who would gladly hop in a time machine and return to that kinder, gentler era, am no different than anyone else these days. I want to be the person that opens the door with a smile, the way Fred Rogers always did when Mr. McFeely stopped by. 

I know that’s the better way to go through this life – but as Alice says in Wonderland, “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.” 

It shames me to confess that there is a “No Solicitors” sign on my front door. I do not react well to doorbells in the evening, or even in the afternoon. And anyone who rings that bell before 9 am better be telling me my house is on fire. 

Of course, society has changed too. Cities are more crime-ridden, communities aren’t really communities anymore – most people aren’t even on a first-name basis with their next-door neighbors. Friends or relatives who want to pop in for a visit will likely call or text first, so no one panics when they hear the doorbell.

From the Comfort TV era, we have progressed to the Ring Video Doorbell era, when we can tell whoever’s out there to get lost without leaving the couch. 

Among the comments left on the Sebastian Maniscalco video was this: “I’m crying knowing those times will never come back but I’m grateful I had a chance to experience that era.”

Me, too. 

You can watch the Maniscalco doorbell routine here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CznoAW2k1I

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Tuesday Nights, 1975

If you’ve been keeping track on our journey through the 1970s, or if like me you’re old enough to remember when these shows were new, you’ve noticed that the first half of the decade largely belonged to CBS. The Norman Lear shows (All in the Family, Maude, Good Times), and some iconic Saturday night lineups featuring such classics as M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and The Carol Burnett Show all became mainstays among the 20 top-rated series each year.

But as we approach the latter half of the decade, and look at Tuesday night in 1975, we begin to see a shifting of audience tastes and preferences toward perennial underdog ABC. The network that led the medium in one-season-and-out losers finally started homing in on a successful formula, one that relied heavily on youth, titillation, fantasy and escapism. Critics hated it, of course, but viewers welcomed a chance to forget their troubles – and the nation’s - for a little while. 

ABC

Happy Days

Welcome Back Kotter

The Rookies

Marcus Welby, MD

In its first season, Happy Days introduced the Cunningham family of Milwaukee – dad ran a hardware store, mom was a housewife, Richie went to high school, Joanie to junior high. A third sibling named Chuck was introduced and subsequently forgotten even by his closest relatives.

And then a supporting character named Arthur, unbilled in the opening credits, became the most popular television character in America. Soon The Fonz would be the focal point of nearly every episode. Some (like me) may prefer the gentler tone and quieter stories of season one, when the series was not filmed before a studio audience. But it was episodes like “R.O.T.C.” (Fonzie takes on the army) and “A Star is Bored” (Fonzie plays Hamlet) that catapulted Happy Days into one of the decade’s biggest successes. 

And if that show didn’t add enough expressions to be parroted on junior high school playgrounds, it was followed by a new catchphrase generator in Welcome Back Kotter, featuring such additions to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations as “Up your nose with a rubber hose.”

Kotter soared into the top 20, and was then moved to Thursday nights in January so Happy Days could be followed by its spinoff, Laverne & Shirley, a series that, for a time, would surpass its predecessor in popularity. 

This would be the final season for both The Rookies and Marcus Welby, MD. Kate Jackson would not be absent from TV long, as her next project would be the pilot movie for Charlie’s Angels, which drew an extraordinary 54 share in the ratings. 

CBS

Good Times

Joe and Sons

Switch

Beacon Hill

As Fonzie began his rise to pop culture prominence, the same ascent was happening to Jimmie Walker on Good Times. J.J. and his “Dy-no-Mite!” catchphrase expanded the show’s audience but were not as welcomed by top-billed stars Esther Rolle and John Amos. 

Joe and Sons seemed like a natural pairing with Good Times, being a show about another working-class family struggling to get by. It lasted just 14 episodes, none of which I’ve seen, and I’d be tempted to dismiss it as just another short-lived failure if it were not for one name in the cast – Barry Miller, who played Joe’s oldest son. 

He's certainly not a household name, but Miller is an actor I’ve liked and remembered in everything I’ve seen him in. He made a dull Wonder Woman episode almost interesting and played a troubled (for Saturday morning) teenager in episodes of both Shazam and Isis, and outperformed everyone else in every scene. If you know him from anything it’s probably a supporting role in Saturday Night Fever. Ten years after Joe and Sons, he won the Tony Award for his performance in Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues, proving what I already knew at 12 years old – this guy’s really good. 

I’ve been hoping for a Switch DVD release for 20 years and am still hoping, though I’ve been told it’s stuck in some legal limbo over a profit-sharing issue and may never see the light of day again. That would be a shame – the partnership between Robert Wagner as a reformed con man and Eddie Albert as a former cop had great chemistry, and they were ably assisted by an ex-con played by comedian Charlie Callas and Sharon Gless as the team’s secretary. 

The early stories were the best, in which the team set out to foil the schemes of con artists with elaborate cons of their own. It was part Mission: Impossible, part Rockford Files, and even when the plots were simplified in the latter seasons the cast made it worth watching. 

As for Beacon Hill, it was CBS’s attempt to emulate the success of the PBS series Upstairs, Downstairs, a 55-part(!) serial drama about the Bellamys, a well-to-do family in Edwardian England. While it had the sophisticated look and style of a precursor to Downton Abbey, the show was pure soap opera in its stories, a formula that could have adapted well to Boston in the 1920s, where viewers met Beacon Hill’s Lassiter family. But after a promising debut in September, the series was gone by November. 

NBC

Movin’ On

Police Story

Joe Forrester

I’m tempted to just say “Oh, and NBC put out some shows this year too,” but that would be unfair. The third season of Police Story delivered another batch of widely varied stories exploring different facets of law enforcement. One episode from the previous season, “The Return of Joe Forrester,” starred Lloyd Bridges, and was picked up as a series the following season. It didn’t last, but it provided an accurate depiction of community policing the way it ought to be. 

Shows Missed:

The Don Knotts Show (1970)

San Francisco International Airport (1970)

Nancy (1970)

The Headmaster (1970)

The Man and the City (1971)

Search (1972)

Assignment: Vienna (1972)

The Delphi Bureau (1972)

Jigsaw (1972)

The Little People (1972)

The Sixth Sense (1972)

Tenafly (1973)

Faraday & Company (1973)

Kodiak (1974)

The New Land (1974)

McCoy (1975)

Joe and Sons (1975)

Beacon Hill (1975)

 

Some Things Change…Others Don’t

When we watch classic TV, we may be struck by how American life, culture and attitudes are different now than they were in the era in which these shows were set - sometimes progressing to a more broadminded outlook, and often regressing, ironically in the name of progress. And sometimes we are dismayed by how we are still struggling with issues that challenged our society decades ago. 

And sometimes, it can be tough to tell the difference. 

“Lift, Thrust and Drag,” a season four episode of Room 222 that first aired in October of 1972, illustrates both perspectives. It introduces us to Eddie, an African American student who is indifferent to Pete Dixon’s classroom lectures about history. “I’ve never been able to find the key to that kid,’ Pete tells Principal Seymour Kaufman.

Eddie isn’t interested in any of his subjects, so Walt Whitman High begins the process of transferring him to another school, hoping the change will stimulate some engagement. Pete, a licensed pilot, is headed to the airport that day and on a whim invites Eddie to join him. 

Almost immediately the apathetic student finally seems enthusiastic about something. That reminds Pete of a flight-training program started at another California high school that raised the GPAs of every student that participated. 

There were and still are actual programs like this. My high school had one. But I went to a well-funded suburban school that could afford it.

When Pete proposes the class be tried at Whitman, he already knows it will be shot down by the school board over budget concerns. 

Fortunately, the flight instructor offers to volunteer his time, so for this one semester at least Eddie and other students can learn the rudiments of aviation. And it does stimulate an interest in math and science – for the first time, Eddie’s grades go up, as do those of his classmates.

Failing schools and education funding are two issues that haven’t gone away and are usually linked together in the debate over what’s wrong. It’s easy to contrast the school I was fortunate enough to attend with an inner-city high school like Whitman and conclude that the only problem is money – or the lack of it. But like other proposed solutions to complex issues that are presented as quick and easy, they don’t tell the whole story.

Fact: The United States spends more per student than the UK, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Germany, France and many other countries where better results are achieved. So perhaps it’s not just funding. Maybe it’s administrators not allocating funds toward programs that would inspire better engagement. Perhaps the wrong lessons are being taught (hold that thought). Or perhaps we no longer have enough teachers like Pete Dixon. 

A school board rep meets Pete at the airport, is impressed with the flight program, but as expected regrets that they can’t afford it. Eddie overhears the conversation and is ready to drop out, this time for good. Without the program, he asks, how am I going to learn how to fly?

“How bad do you want it?” Pete responds. “Get a job – washing planes, pumping gas, scrubbing floors, anything.” But then Eddie offers another reason to quit: “Do you think they would ever hire a black pilot?”

“Sit down,” Pete says, getting peeved in a way he rarely did with a student. “The times are over for that ‘I’m black’ cop-out. Because that’s just what it is – an excuse not to try. If you’re willing to give it everything you’ve got, you can do anything you want to.” 

And unless it emanates from home, I would guess that, for many black teens in 2024, this episode would be the first time they hear that message. How terribly depressing, especially following so much of the divisive rhetoric that emerged from one side of the debate this election year. Who could blame anyone exposed to that poison to believe that we were still in the 1960s – or the 1860s. 

Racial disparity in opportunity was certainly more likely 52 years ago when “Lift, Thrust and Drag” originally aired. But there was Pete Dixon, a black teacher, telling a black student in 1972 not to buy into the vile programming emanating from media and politicians that the deck is stacked so high against him that he might as well give up now. And if you want something, it won’t always be handed to you from a school or government program – you need to work for it. I hope that lesson is still being taught in many of our schools, but I fear that too often schools and society are now sending the opposite message. 

Television once had the prominence to inspire, to educate, to advocate paths to success and fulfillment when such options were not provided elsewhere. In its current fractured landscape, I’m not sure the medium could still do so. But even if it could, are there any shows like Room 222 willing to do it?