My Journey Through 1970s TV: Friday Nights, 1975

The prime-time network schedules from Friday in 1975 offer something we haven’t seen for a while in these reviews – a winning night for NBC. 

With the first half of the decade dominated by CBS, and ABC warming up for ratings dominance moving forward, NBC had managed to serve up only a few successful series, usually surrounded by short-lived misfires. But tonight, they delivered a lineup of four shows still fondly recalled 50 years later.

NBC
Sanford and Son
Chico And the Man
The Rockford Files
Police Woman

Sanford and Son was the evening’s highest-rated series at #7, and that delivered a strong enough lead-in audience to boost Chico And the Man to #25. Its star, Freddie Prinze, would sadly be dead less than two years later. 

Police Woman finished the season at #30, leaving The Rockford Files as NBC’s lowest-rated Friday night show. What’s ironic is that 50 years later it’s the show that arguably holds up best. From the opening messages on Jim’s answering machine to Mike Post’s harmonica and synthesizer theme, to James Garner’s charismatic performance as an ex-con turned private eye, I’d put in the top five detective shows of the decade. And if you remember the ‘70s that was a very crowded field. 

ABC
Mobile One
The ABC Friday Night Movie

I don’t know very much about Mobile One, except that Jack Webb is listed as executive producer. If it was anything like his other shows – Dragnet, Adam-12, Emergency!, O’Hara, U.S. Treasury, it would have been a procedural about professionals at work – this time, in the field of broadcast journalism. Jackie Cooper played a veteran TV reporter, who works with a producer (Julie Gregg) and a cameraman (Mark Wheeler) out of a mobile unit chasing down stories for station KONE.

TV news has always been a ripe topic ripe for mockery, whether it was SNL’s Weekend Update, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Goodnight Beantown or Murphy Brown. I’d have been curious to watch a show about that profession played straight. Maybe it would have done for broadcast news what Lou Grant did for newspapers – show viewers a day in the life in that job, leaving you with more admiration for those in the trade than you might have had before. 

But thanks in part to Chico and Fred Sanford, Mobile One was gone after 13 episodes, and now gets added to my “missed shows” list below, along with one more bomb as we turn to CBS. 

CBS
Big Eddie
M*A*S*H
Hawaii Five-O
Barnaby Jones

CBS competed well with NBC on Fridays, with M*A*S*H at #14, Hawaii Five-O in the middle of a successful 12-year run, and Barnaby Jones still entertaining its fans as well. 

Which brings us to Big Eddie, a series I can’t judge because I’ve never seen it (onto the list it goes), but I can’t figure out why it exists. 

Sheldon Leonard was one of television’s most successful producers (Make Room for Daddy, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show) – did he play the title role as a favor to series creators Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, who wrote so many classic episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show? Or did he just enjoy reviving the gangster character he had played so often on other shows? Either way, Big Eddie was rubbed out after just ten episodes. 

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)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)

The Twilight Zone, Season One - 3 Classics and 3 Wasted Trips

I can't remember the first time I watched The Twilight Zone – though it was probably at least 50 years ago. I’ve checked in and out of the series over the course of many years but never added this crown jewel of TV classics to my collection – until recently. 

For the first time over the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying the series uncut, in original running order and in the stunning visual clarity of Blu-ray. Watching season one I remembered several episodes but was surprised to discover there were more than a few I had never experienced before. 

Before I begin season two, I thought it would be interesting (to me, at least) to celebrate the three best episodes, and select three that didn’t quite make it. Here we go:

The Three Best

A Stop at Willoughby

I have always believed that classic television shows can serve a higher purpose beyond the entertainment derived from them. Like any work of art worthy of our respect, they have something to teach us as well.

During its five seasons, The Twilight Zone presented dozens of issue-oriented stories, including some effective but occasionally heavy-handed allegories about war, racism and intolerance. For me it was the subtler stories that struck a deeper chord, none more so than “A Stop at Willoughby.”   

Fade up on Gart Williams (James Daly), a media buyer in New York, sitting with other executives in a boardroom, anxiously tapping a pencil. He has just lost a major account, much to the chagrin of his oppressive boss.

Gart leaves the office on the verge of a nervous breakdown that’s been building for a long time. Headed home he falls asleep on the train, but when he wakes he finds himself on a 19th century rail coach. The snowy November evening has been replaced by bright summer sunshine, as the train stops at an idyllic small town called Willoughby, circa 1888. Gart wakes up and dismisses the episode as a dream.

At home his pressures do not subside. “I’m tired, Janie. Tired and sick,” he says to his unsympathetic wife, who coldly ponders how she could have married such an over-sensitive loser. 

Back at work, the stress resumes unabated – angry clients, constantly ringing phones. The next evening, he once again hears the conductor call “Next stop, Willoughby.” This time, he gets off the train. But this being The Twilight Zone, there’s an unexpected zing at the end. 

The episode explored a favorite theme of writer Rod Serling – the soul-crushing oppression of corporate America, which he first examined in the brilliant “Patterns,” and then later on Night Gallery in “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar.” In 25 minutes, “A Stop at Willoughby” paints a complete and perfectly rendered portrait of a man who spent the better part of his life doing something for which he had neither affinity nor desire. He sublimated his true self to pursue a lifestyle that was never important to him, to achieve prosperity that brought no satisfaction. Now he’s at the end of his tether and willing to grasp at any lifeline, no matter how fantastic. 

I still wonder if some viewers feeling the same subjugation were inspired to break out of their fate and pursue something more satisfying. I hope so. 

The Hitch-Hiker

“A Stop at Willoughby” was for me the most impactful episode of season one, but “The Hitch-Hiker” was by far the most unsettling. Rod Serling’s script ramps up the terror slowly but gradually, to the point where you know what’s coming but it’s still scary when it happens.

Inger Stevens plays a woman on a cross-country drive. Along the way she sees a middle-aged man in slovenly clothes trying to thumb a ride. She passes him by as any young woman traveling alone should but is surprised when later that day, after driving many miles, she sees him again, still standing by the side of the road, hoping she’ll stop this time. And then it happens again. And again. 

The hitcher is played by Leonard Strong, a veteran character actor whom you’ve seen in dozens of shows. There’s really nothing frightening about him – but here, without even trying, he’s scarier than Freddy Krueger. If you don’t believe any story from a 65-year-old TV show could have you pulling a blanket up over your head, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Judgment Night

This one really snuck up on me, because I don’t think it ranks highly among fans. It wasn’t doing much for me either for the first half or so, but then its rather confusing scenario is crystallized in a way that changes everything we thought we just watched. 

Nehemiah Persoff plays a man on a fog-bound ship in the Atlantic Ocean headed for New York in 1942. He has no memory of how he got there and does not recognize any of the other passengers. But he is certain that something terrible is going to happen to the ship at 1:15am. 

As with “The Hitch-Hiker” there is a sense of dread that hangs over the entire episode. When the reality of the situation is revealed, viewers like me realized that we should have paid more attention to the episode’s title, as the fate of Persoff’s character proves to be far worse than a case of amnesia.

This could have easily been a top five list. If I were to add a fourth choice it would be “The After Hours” which I recall watching as a kid and it scaring the heck out of me. It’s still pretty unsettling at times, as Anne Francis wanders through an empty department store where the mannequins seem just a little too real. 

What - no “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”? some may be asking. I know that episode is in most TZ aficionados’ lists of classics. Here’s what always bothered me about that show: It opens with some weird stuff happening to lights and car motors, and the neighbors all get together to try and figure out what’s going on. They’re calmly trying to assess the situation together, but turn into a frenzied, paranoid mob because one kid says he thinks aliens are to blame because of what he read in a comic book. I know the point Serling was trying to make, but I wish he could have gotten there in a more credible way.

Other contenders: “Time Enough at Last” with Burgess Meredith as a meek bookworm who survives a nuclear holocaust, and “Escape Clause,” with David Wayne making a deal with the devil for immortality, are both good episodes but were memorable mostly for their climactic twists. 

I also quite liked “Mirror Image” with Vera Miles, though its final scene either makes the episode for some, or ruins it for others. 

And while there’s not much original in “A Passage for Trumpet,” about a down-and-out musician given a second chance at life after a suicide attempt, it’s beautifully written and shot and features a poignant performance from Jack Klugman. 

The 3 Worst

What You Need

Rod Serling loved his humble eccentrics – the simple souls who found joy and meaning in their lives in a harsh and cruel world. They were the central characters in first-season episodes like “Mr. Bevis” and “One for the Angels,” and here again, with Ernest Truex as a peddler who somehow always has exactly what his customers need. That gift is noticed by a vicious bully who tries to take advantage of the situation and lives (though not long) to regret it. 

The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine

This was basically a small screen take on the film Sunset Boulevard with a supernatural twist at the end. Ida Lupino plays a former movie star who sits alone in her lavish mansion and spends her days watching the old movies in which she appeared. According to the website The Twilight Zone Vortex, Rod Serling held no love for this episode and considered it an all-around failure. I agree. 

The Fever

Having lived in and around Las Vegas for decades I know that gambling addiction is no joke and is a subject that could have been explored in a TZ story. But this wasn’t it. The scene in which the fine actor Everett Sloan is chased by a slot machine until he falls to his death from a hotel balcony was just silly – an adjective that should never be associated with this series. 

Which first season shows were your favorites? 

What Might Have Been: Gene Hackman as Mike Brady

No one thinks of television first when they recall the career of Gene Hackman – though like many young actors in the 1960s he first found work on shows like The United States Steel Hour, Naked City, and The F.B.I. Even after earning an Oscar nomination for his performance in Bonnie and Clyde (1968) he still turned up in episodes of I Spy and The Invaders.

But any compendium of Hackman’s TV work would be overshadowed by the role he didn’t get – that of Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch. Series creator Sherwood Schwartz said Hackman was his first choice, but ABC executives wanted an actor with more experience.

The rejection worked out well for all parties involved. Robert Reed, who had recently completed four seasons on the legal drama The Defenders, was cast as Mr. Brady. Despite his frequent grumbling about script quality, he became one of television’s most beloved father figures, and forged close and loving relationships with his TV kids that endured until his passing.

And from 1969 to 1975, the years in which The Brady Bunch aired, Gene Hackman appeared in such memorable films as Marooned, Prime Cut, The Poseidon Adventure and The Conversation, and won the Academy Award for playing Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. 

Given how more than one generation embraced The Brady Bunch to the point of having viewed every episode dozens of times, it is difficult now to imagine how the series might have fared if Sherwood Schwartz got his wish. But not impossible. It’s common knowledge among fans that Joyce Bulifant came close to landing the role of Carol Brady, and I can see that working, just as I think Sharon Tate would have fit well in Petticoat Junction and Susan Lanier could have played Chrissy on Three’s Company. In all these cases there are similarities between the actresses who almost got the parts, and the ones that did. 

Envisioning Gene as Mike seems like more of a stretch. Though he was only two years older than Robert Reed, he seemed much older at the time, and not just because of the already-receding hairline. There was also a roughness around the edges to him. When you see Hackman in Bonnie and Clyde, even though his character is often smiling it’s apparent he came from a hardscrabble upbringing and still wears those scars. 

Consider also that there are not a lot of comedies in Hackman’s resume – and the ones he made aren’t very good. We won’t count Young Frankenstein because that was an unbilled cameo. One could say his take on Lex Luthor in Superman had a comedic quality, but he still gave the character enough of an edge to sell the conflict. 

Of course, it’s acting at the end of the day. There’s not an obvious comp in Hackman’s filmography to the kind of traditional family patriarch he would have played on The Brady Bunch, but that doesn’t mean he could not have made it work. I just know that I wouldn’t have risked it. 

Looking back over my series of pieces reviewing the prime-time schedules of the 1970s, I have come across many shows with potential that didn’t last because of casting.  Shows like Apple’s Way, Lotsa Luck and Kate McShane come to mind. Perhaps The Brady Bunch would have suffered the same fate. 

We’ll never know for sure what Gene Hackman would have brought to the show, but we know what we were gifted with Robert Reed. If the Bradys became the idyllic American family, then Reed’s Mike Brady was its idyllic father: kind, patient, supportive, and always willing to delay a business meeting to help one of his kids with their algebra homework. He could be stern when punishment was necessary, but tempered justice with mercy. He was steadfast and reliable and reassuring in all the ways that, in a perfect world, every father would be. Most of all, you never doubted for a moment how much he loved his wife and children – and housekeeper.

No wonder we still escape from our upside-down world for a 30-minute respite into this alternate reality where goodness and common sense hold sway. 

Perhaps those of us who grew up with the Bradys and treasure the hours we spent (and still spend) with them should be grateful that Sherwood Schwartz didn’t get his way. I never asked Mr. Schwartz about this the one time I was able to speak with him, but given the headaches Robert Reed induced with his pedantic memos about plot inconsistencies in Brady scripts, he might have still wished Gene got the part. 

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Thursday Nights, 1975

Welcome back to my journey through the 1970s prime time schedules. In looking at Thursday nights in 1975, what I found most interesting is how one network introduced four new shows, two of which had potential, but all of which did not last beyond one season. Let’s start there.

NBC
The Montefuscos
Fay
Ellery Queen
Medical Story

One of these short-lived shows deserved to be a hit and run for several years. 

Ellery Queen was a delightful adaptation of the whodunit books penned by different writers beginning in the 1920s. After creating one of TV’s greatest detectives in Columbo, Richard Levinson and William Link brought Queen to television in the genial presence of star Jim Hutton. 

Set in the 1940s, the series revolved around Ellery assisting his police detective father (David Wayne) on baffling murder mysteries. The high point of each episode had Hutton turning to the camera and addressing the audience at home, just after he cracked the case. “Have you figured it out?” he’d ask, before reminding us of the suspects and the most important clues. Rarely has it been more fun to match wits with the characters on screen – and I’m embarrassed to confess that, out of 22 episodes, I only figured it out once. 

In addition to Hutton, who had a likable Jimmy Stewart quality, and the irascible David Wayne, the series had a great supporting cast: John Hillerman as Simon Brimmer, a supercilious radio personality and amateur sleuth who guessed wrong as often as I did, and Ken Swofford as bulldog journalist Frank Flannigan. I wish I could have spent more time in their company. Thankfully, a DVD release offers a chance to revisit these wonderful episodes again and again. 

The Montefuscos I remember because, among my circle of 11-year-old friends at the time, the title became a running joke (“We could go bowling tonight, but The Montefuscos are on!”). 

The concept came from Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, creators of That Girl and the writing team behind many classic Dick Van Dyke Show episodes. That’s blue-chip TV stock, but they missed on this one.

It was a series about a large Italian family, and most of the stories revolved around conversations at Sunday dinners. The Montefuscos overindulged on all the stereotypes of Italian families that would have seemed simplistic then and would likely be viewed as offensive now. Television critic Gary Deeb wrote, "If you grew up in a real Italian family, this shameful piece of burlesque will have you writhing in disbelief." Just eight episodes were made. 

Next up was Fay, which had visions of continuing the genre of “You’re going to make it after all” shows about women doing it for themselves. That Girl gave us a young woman in her 20s on her own for the first time. The Mary Tyler Moore Show featured a working woman in her 30s balancing a work life and social life. Fay starred Lee Grant as a 40-ish woman, divorced, still working and playing the field once again. 

In her Television Academy interview Grant still seemed bitter about the series getting pulled after ten episodes. She blamed the time slot, and going up against The Waltons was certainly one factor in its unimpressive (by comparison) viewer numbers. But I would also add that her character did not have the same charm and likability as Ann Marie and Mary Richards. In fact, she came off as shrill in most episodes, and it was hard to believe she would have ever married a doofus like Jack (Joe Silver). 

With Police Story already a hit, Medical Story was a noble attempt at another anthology series, with each story exploring a new facet of medicine and patient care in a different setting with different stars. 

Only 12 episodes were made, but surprisingly a few of them are now on YouTube. I watched one with Shelley Fabares, cause why not. Good story, about factory workers getting sick from chemical exposure and the company trying to cover it up. I look forward to watching more of them. 

CBS

The Waltons
CBS Thursday Night Movie

Nothing new to report here. The Waltons remains the evening’s most popular series, finishing the season at #14. 

ABC

Barney Miller
On the Rocks
The Streets of San Francisco
Harry-O

“Funny cops and funny robbers.” That’s how ABC promoted the two new sitcoms that kicked off its Thursday lineup. Audiences responded well to the funny cops – Barney Miller would run eight seasons. On the Rocks did not fare as well. There were familiar TV faces among its cast of convicts – Hal Williams, Rick Hurst, Tom Poston, Mel Stewart – but this adaptation of the British sitcom Porridge was paroled from the schedule after one season. 

The Streets of San Francisco was ABC’s highest-rated offering, finishing at #26. I wish more of that audience had stuck around for Harry-O, now with Farrah Fawcett-Majors making occasional appearances as Harry’s next-door neighbor. 

But Harry would be gone the following year, while Farrah would become one of the most famous women in America. Stay tuned. 

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)

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)