50 Years Ago: “Free to Be…You and Me”

One of the many debates currently raging in our culture and politics is focused on education, particularly at the elementary school level. 

There is a widely held belief that public school teachers, with the endorsement of school boards and administrators, are advancing a progressive agenda, with a heavy emphasis on gender and sexuality that many parents believe is inappropriate to be introduced to children that age. It’s not education but indoctrination, they say, and it’s being done without the consent of parents who would prefer those subjects be addressed at home.

Those on the opposing side of the issue do not necessarily dispute the allegation but dismiss any objection to it as bigoted and closed-minded. As Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recently said, commenting on a case before the court dealing with this very issue, “You don’t have to send your kid to that school…you can homeschool them.” 

Well.

While this feels like a relatively recent standoff, it made its first foray into our society more than 50 years ago, spearheaded by one of classic TV’s most familiar faces – Marlo Thomas. In her Academy of Television interview (which can be viewed here) she relates being upset that her sister Terry was reading the same fairy tales to her little girl that she had grown up hearing, about princesses being rescued by a handsome prince. “It’s going to take her 30 years to get over this,” Marlo warned. 

Fans of That Girl were already familiar with Thomas’s resentment at traditional gender roles. In that show’s fifth and final season, Donald Hollinger proposed to Ann Marie and she happily accepted. The network wanted the show to end with a wedding, but Thomas refused. “I said ‘No way,’” she recalled on a commentary track for the DVD release. “I didn’t want all the girls to watch it and think the only happy ending would be to get married. It was really important that we didn’t do it.”

The first piece I wrote for this blog, back in 2012, was called “Why That Girl Didn’t Marry That Guy.” It was my belief, then and now, that Ann Marie certainly wanted to get married, and since the show was about her and not about Marlo Thomas, she should have gotten her wish. But she didn’t, and as a result a very sweet series was left with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Flash forward a couple of years and Marlo is in a bookstore looking for books that told little girls they could be anything they wanted to be, but she couldn’t find any. That was the inspiration for “Free to Be…You and Me,” which was first conceived and released as a record album with songs and stories intended to liberate boys and girls from gender stereotypes. The record company anticipated sales of 15,000, but the album sold more than 400,000 copies, which then sold ABC on doing a TV special. 

The show debuted in March of 1974. I was nine years old. I honestly don’t remember if I watched it back then – given how many schools played the album in classes and likely viewed the show as well (on 16mm prints distributed to anyone who asked), it’s possible I saw it there. 

But I watched it earlier this week, courtesy of YouTube. I know this Emmy-winning special remains a precious memory for many people, so fear not – I have no intention of decimating it. Most of its stories, songs and skits were no more revolutionary than what kids were already seeing on Sesame Street. There was, however, an undercurrent amidst its positive messages about friendship and acceptance suggesting that there is too much emphasis on gender distinctions, and boys and girls are basically the same. 

The opening scene set a fitting tone – children ride on a merry-go-round, and then the scene changes from live action to animation as the kids and horses fly off the carousel, showing how they can go anywhere their imagination takes them. 

Next scene is in a maternity ward where two Muppet-like babies voiced by Mel Brooks and Marlo Thomas are having a chat. The girl baby says she wants to be a fireman when she grows up. The boy baby says he’d like to be a cocktail waitress. That’s followed by a sweet duet about friends between Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack. 

There were three animated segments that drew the ire of some conservative critics. “Ladies First” is about a little girl who enjoys wearing nice dresses and curling her hair, and being treated special. The other kids resent her for this, and she gets her comeuppance when the class goes on safari and when she says “Ladies first” a tiger accommodates her by eating her before the rest of the class. 

“Atalanta” put a feminist twist on a Greek mythological tale that was already about a powerful independent woman. A similar approach was taken with this year’s live-action film adaptation of Disney’s Snow White, which became one of the biggest box office failures in the company’s history. I guess many people still prefer the old fairy tales. 

But the segment that was considered the most inflammatory, that ABC tried to get removed from the special, was called “William Wants a Doll,” about…well, the title pretty much gives it away. 

There’s an upbeat, earnest tone to all of this, fueled by a self-righteous confidence in the benefits of breaking away from established mores deemed best left to antiquity. And history has shown that the culture largely followed the new path forged by shows like this.

The credo Marlo Thomas was so eager to espouse in That Girl, that marriage and family may be one option but not necessarily the best one, runs steadily through Free to Be…You and Me. In one duet with Harry Belafonte, Thomas sings that “Mommies are people too” and that they also have “other things to do.” The message isn’t just that you should have those other opportunities, but you should be obligated to accept them, and to do otherwise is not living up to your full potential as a human being. 

Would it have been asking too much for an acknowledgement that the decision to stay home is all right too? And that, in fact, many women find the prospect of sitting at a desk in a middle-management position at Chase to be a less fulfilling life choice than raising children into principled adults? 

I don’t believe anyone’s choices should be demeaned, if they’re not hurting anyone, making unreasonable accommodation demands on others, or breaking any laws. But we should be honest about the impact of these cultural shifts. Before the 1970s the divorce rate was 9.2 per 1,000 married women. After the 1970s it increased to 22.6 and now hovers between 35-50%. Marriage rates have been steadily declining since then and continue to do so. And 2/3 of couples that are married are both working full-time jobs. 

One last observation – what once seemed revolutionary can, with the passage of time, be deemed offensive by the very people it once sought to liberate. More than one 21st century viewer of Free to Be…You and Me dismissed the special as “very cisgender privilege.” 

And that’s the problem with the social justice crowd. There will never be enough tolerance and acceptance among those who profit from inequity, whether real or perceived. Because when the goal is achieved, they’d have to find something else to do. 

Free to Be…You and Me was rightly considered groundbreaking 50 years ago, and some of that ground perhaps needed a good shake. But earthquakes break ground too, and sometimes all they leave behind is a pile of rubble. 

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Saturday Nights, 1975

 We close out our look back at the television shows from the year 1975 with appearances from several returning favorites, and one infamous misfire.

ABC

Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell

SWAT

Matt Helm

What’s surprising, at least from our half-century in the future perspective, was if you look at the rundowns of what happened on nearly every episode of Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell, the show sounds like must-see TV. 

With its eclectic lineups of comedy and music performances, some beamed in via satellite from remote corners of the world before such technological feats became commonplace, there was bound to be something for every viewer to enjoy. Any variety series featuring appearances from Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali, John Wayne and the Bay City Rollers certainly couldn’t be dull. 

But somehow when all its disparate pieces came together, it didn’t work. Cosell got the lion’s share of the blame, not surprising given how he was equally loved and hated among sports fans. He could have stuck to just introducing his guests like Ed Sullivan, but too often he was a participant in the festivities – one low point was a musical duet with Barbara Walters. 

Critics couldn’t argue with the entertainment value of watching the original cast of The Wiz performing “Ease on Down the Road,” or a live from Las Vegas performance from John Denver (“That poet of the mountains,” Cosell proclaimed). But following up a Shirley Bassey song with an interview with Senator Lowell Weicker, or watching Siegfried and Roy perform magic, then listening to John Wayne suggesting that the attempted assassins of President Gerald Ford be “bloodied up a bit” before their fate was decided by frontier justice – it was all just too awkward. Still, if a show misses the mark from being too ambitious, at least that’s a noble way to fail. 

I’m still bitter over the fate of SWAT. How could a show featuring characters with such cool names as Hondo, Street, Deacon and Luca, who raced into action to one of the most pulse-quickening theme songs ever, disappear as quickly as it did? And who could hate a show that brought together three of the decade’s most stunning blondes – Farrah Fawcett, Loni Anderson, and Lara Parker, in one episode (“The Steel-Plated Security Blanket”)? 

Violence was the culprit, and admittedly this was a show where the guns were blazing and the perps were more likely to be carried out than read their rights. It was too much firepower for ABC, which lost its nerve to a finger-wagging press and a few sensitive but vocal viewers. 

Matt Helm was next up, which was like following a sumptuous and spicy firecracker chicken entrée with a bland vanilla wafer. Anyone expecting the type of tongue-in-cheek adventures from the Helm films starring Dean Martin was sure to be disappointed by this standard private eye series with Tony Franciosa in the title role. 

NBC

Emergency

NBC Saturday Night Movie

The paramedics of Emergency rolled out of Squad 51 for another season, back when Los Angeles still had sufficient funding for its fire and rescue services. 

CBS

The Jeffersons

Doc

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Bob Newhart Show

The Carol Burnett Show

Saturday nights still belonged to CBS, but the shows that once ranked in the top ten had dropped into the teens and 20s as they neared the end of their storied runs. 

In its penultimate season The Mary Tyler Moore Show remained the night’s highest-rated series at #19, with The Jeffersons at #22 and The Bob Newhart Show at #26. The Carol Burnett Show (#29), which anchored the network’s Saturday lineup for much of the decade, would be moved to Sunday nights next season. 

The one new entry, Doc, fared about as well as previous attempts to add another hit to the night, which is to say not very well. 

Barnard Hughes played an elderly doctor who cared kindly for his patients and did his best to tolerate an eccentric family. Mary Wickes added a little zip as she always does as Doc’s nurse, and it was interesting to see zany stand-up comic Irwin Corey in a recurring role. The show was renewed for one more year with a complete format revision but would be canceled soon after. 

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)
Jigssw (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)

“Wow – Who’s that?”

The title of this piece is a quote attributed to me, which I have used at various times along my Comfort TV journey when struck by the appearance of an actress of exceptional beauty, whose name at that time was not known to me until the episode’s credits rolled. 

Since then, I’ve come to recognize all of them immediately and even seek out other shows in which they appeared. None are household names, but for those who grew up in this era or now spend more time with the classics than whatever stuff is streaming now, they are sure to make a borderline episode worth watching and push a good one into the ‘great’ category.

Pamela Tiffin

Look for her in: “The Girl from Little Egypt” (The Fugitive)

Viewers had to wait months into this show’s first season before finding out what really happened the night Richard Kimble’s wife was murdered. That story is told in this pivotal (and fan favorite) episode that was made even more memorable by the appearance of Pamela Tiffin as the title character. 

She plays Ruthie Norton, a stewardess who unwittingly hooks up with a married man. When she learns the truth she flees from the rat in her car and sideswipes Kimble, who was walking on the side of the road. She takes him in after the accident, even after he reveals his identity while still groggy. David Janssen had chemistry with everyone, but Ruthie does not (somewhat surprisingly) become one of his one-episode romances. They connect as two lonely people sharing each other’s burdens, and part platonically toward an uncertain future. 

After that, watch: Tiffin made less than a handful of TV appearances, working more steadily in films both in the US and Italy. So, if you’d like to see more of her check out her bikini dance on a diving board (just for the choreography, of course) in the Paul Newman film Harper (1966).

Nina Shipman

Look for her in “The Student Nurse” (The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet) 

Most of the young actresses who appeared as dates for David or Ricky were already known to me when I discovered and belatedly fell in love with this series: Roberta Shore, Linda Evans, Cheryl Holdridge, Tuesday Weld…but Nina Shipman was a new face and certainly a remarkable one. 

“The Student Nurse” is my favorite of her four series appearances. She plays…well, you probably figured that out already. Ricky visits a friend in the hospital, takes one look at her, and braves a flu shot to get her name and a date. Shipman is utterly charming in the episode, with a more poised and mature quality than most of the girlfriend characters on this series. 

After that, watch: “The County Clerk” (The Andy Griffith Show)

Shipman wears nurse’s whites again in this episode, which introduced Jack Dodson as Mayberry mama’s boy Howard Sprague. 

Brenda Benét

Look for her in “Is There a Doctor In the House?” (Hogan’s Heroes) 

I’ve thought more than once about doing an entire blog entry on Brenda Benét, but every time I try the sadness that overshadowed her later life compels me to abandon the idea in search of less traumatic topics.  

As lovely as she appears in photos I’ve yet to see one that does her justice. On TV her features light up a screen in ways even the medium’s most celebrated beauties rarely achieve. The episode I’ve singled out above only features Benét in two short scenes, and in one of them she’s wearing male POW clothes, her hair covered under Sgt. Carter’s USAF cap. But if it was possible to freeze-frame a show in 1968, I’m sure she would have caused a lot of male viewers to grab the remote. 

After that, watch: “Charlie’s Cherubs” (Fantasy Island)

Ten years after appearing on Hogan’s Heroes, Benét was if anything even more captivating as one of three secretaries visiting Mr. Roarke’s Island, wishing to become Charlie’s Angels for a weekend. 

Irene Tsu

Look for her in “Robbie and the Slave Girl” (My Three Sons) 

Irene Tsu is always easy to spot in a classic TV episode, not just because of her stunning good looks, but also because there were not many Asian actresses making regular appearances on 1960s television. 

She played her share of stereotypical roles, as is this My Three Sons episode – after Robbie saves her from being hit by a car, she tells him that, because of an old Chinese custom, she is now his slave for life. Or is she just saying that to get closer to Robbie? 

Tsu is utterly adorable here, especially in a scene when, without saying a word, she helps Robbie get to the front of a line of boys waiting for a drinking fountain. That clip among others can be viewed here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCXk2kStu88

After that, watch: “San Francisco Cop” (The Smith Family)

Six years after her My Three Sons episode, Tsu could still play a youthful teenager, in this case a free-spirited girl who runs away from her conservative family and takes a job as a go-go dancer in a seedy nightclub. It’s a performance far removed from the demure student she played on My Three Sons, a testament to her talent and versatility. 

Joi Lansing 

Look for her in “Jed Throws a Wingding” (The Beverly Hillbillies) 

She was television’s version of Jayne Mansfield, with platinum blond hair and the kind of voluptuous figure you’d rarely see outside of a comic book panel drawn by Rob Liefeld.

Such striking features could overshadow her other talents, such as deft comic timing and a fine singing voice, but Lansing displayed both in six episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, beginning with season one’s “Jed Throws a Wingding.”

She played Gladys Flatt, wife of Lester Flatt (the bluegrass duo of Flatt and Scruggs play themselves). The joke was that both members of the duo had married gorgeous women, while on the rebound from their true love Pearl, played by Bea Benaderet. 

Lansing is the only actress on this list to merit a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

After that, watch: “Mrs. Superman” (The Adventures of Superman)

I’m tempted to send you back to Ozzie & Harriet as Lansing appeared in 12 episodes, always as a different character, and usually in one scene – just long enough to fluster one of the Nelson men. Ozzie clearly enjoyed having her around. But let’s go instead with her performance as a policewoman who goes undercover at Superman’s wife to help catch a gang of elusive bank robbers. Lois Lane wasn’t too happy about that, but George Reeves’ smile did seem a little wider in this episode. 

Michele Carey

Look for her in “The Brothers” (Mission: Impossible)

After Barbara Bain left Mission: Impossible, the IMF team recruited a rotating coterie of female agents to take her place, including Lee Meriwether, Julie Gregg and Jessica Walter. But to me the most memorable from such an eminent field is Michele Carey, who had Bain’s cool, aristocratic allure and grace under pressure. 

In “The Brothers” her job is to distract a dictator while the team restores the rightful ruler to the throne, which they accomplish through a tainted bottle of cognac and a fake kidney transplant (hey, you try summarizing one of this show’s labyrinthine plots). From the moment she enters her victim’s room in a dazzling white dress, he can’t take his eyes off her. Neither can we. 

After that, watch: “The Night of the Feathered Fury” (The Wild, Wild West)

Drawing one’s attention away from Victor Buono’s delightfully scenery-chewing performance as the evil Count Manzeppi would seem a nearly impossible task. But as Gerta, the Count’s former ally (or is she still an accomplice?) Carey is once again stunning. 

Diane McBain

Look for her in “Fraternity of Fear” (77 Sunset Boulevard)

If Joi Lansing was classic TV’s Jayne Mansfield, then Diane McBain was TV’s Grace Kelly, a regal blonde with the kind of classic features sculptors dream of immortalizing in marble. 

The best way to make her acquaintance would likely be in Surfside 6, the series that launched her career – but that show remains locked in a vault somewhere. So let’s leave that Miami-set series for the west coast, where McBain appeared in nine episodes of 77 Sunset Strip. In “Fraternity of Fear” she plays a co-ed who catches Jeff’s eye while he investigates the hazing death of a college student. 

After that, watch: “The Thirteenth Hat” (Batman)

As hat check girl Lisa, accomplice of The Mad Hatter, McBain ascends to the top of rogues gallery molls on this series, surpassing such stiff competition as Sherry Jackson and Jill St. John. 

Which almost-famous TV faces were unforgettable to you upon first glance? 

If You’ll Pardon the Expression

 These days every time I watch a classic TV episode I am reminded of how these shows and characters existed in a very different country than the one we’re in now. But don’t panic – this will not be another “old man rails at America as it sinks into the abyss” blog. Let’s keep it lighter this time.

I also wonder how the under-30 crowd would view these shows. YouTube is filled with reaction channels now, to movies and music from the past, but when reactors review TV shows, it’s mostly stuff like Breaking Bad and Stranger Things. When they take on “older” shows, it’s usually Friends and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s hard for me to even think of these as older, but there has been a generation that has come along since their debut who would put them in that category. 

A few have watched clips of All in the Family (and were amusingly shocked by the frankness of the language), and some of the more famous Carol Burnett Show sketches, and many music reactors have listened to songs from The Monkees and The Partridge Family, both of which were well received. But music is different: anyone can enjoy “I’m a Believer” or “I Think I Love You” without knowing or caring where they came from. 

So I still don’t know how generation y or z or whatever they call themselves would feel about what shows were loved 50+ years ago. But I do know that they would be confused by references and expressions that are no longer in common parlance, but that would have been immediately recognizable to viewers when these shows first aired. 

I’ve started collecting them – which just means making a note every time I hear one. They are rarely central to the plot so they do not detract from the overall viewing experience, but I imagine they would cause confusion among those who were not around at the time. 

The Policeman’s Ball

Any show like The Odd Couple with an officer as one of the supporting characters will get some mileage out of a joke about the policeman’s ball. And in other comedies where one of the characters (usually someone like Ozzie Nelson) is pulled over, he might casually mention buying tickets for the ball. The reference was also familiar to those in England, as evidenced by John Cleese in his benefit show entitled The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball. 

Some police departments and foundations do still hold annual balls with live music and dancing, that serve as fundraisers for scholarships and community outreach programs. But most people these days wouldn’t get the reference. 

Irish Sweepstakes

Long before most states had a lottery, when classic TV show characters dreamed of a big windfall they often referenced the Irish Sweepstakes. Someone will pull up in a new car, or mention having dinner at an expensive restaurant, and a neighbor will respond, “What’d you do, win the Irish Sweepstakes?” 

I didn’t know much about its history until I did some research for this piece, and what I learned was fascinating. It started in Ireland in 1930 to raise money for healthcare facilities, and at the height of its popularity employed more than 4,000 people. Tickets were sold around the world, and despite the best efforts of American and British authorities to ban it the lottery sales proceeds somehow got through to Ireland. But as revealed in the 2010 book The Greatest Bleeding Heart Racket in the World, the whole operation may have been a scam, with only about 10% of proceeds going to charity.

Joining the Foreign Legion

This was the preferred escape route for any character facing a worrisome situation. You’ll hear it most often from high school students double-booked for a Saturday night date, or facing a test the next day for which they haven’t studied: “I wonder if they take teenagers in the Foreign Legion?”

So acclaimed was the French Foreign Legion, which was founded in 1831 by the French king to support the conquest of Algeria, it became the subject of two 1950s shows – Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion with Buster Crabbe and Assignment: Foreign Legion with Merle Oberon as a journalist covering the elite fighting unit. It’s still around – but today’s troubled TV characters have found other places to hide. 

“Three Cheers for…”

When someone did something great on a Comfort TV series they might receive the ultimate tribute, a rousing “Three cheers for…” followed by three loud “Hoorays!” and then perhaps a chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Now they just take a selfie. 

“Only her hairdresser knows for sure.” 

The most popular television commercial campaigns of the era created catchphrases so well-known that they often make their way into the shows they were sponsoring. One of the most successful emerged from Clairol. Beginning in 1956, the company’s line of hair coloring preparations was sold in print ads and commercials asking the question “Does she or doesn’t she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure.” The phrase popped up in several sitcoms from the 1960s and ‘70s. 

“Trading Stamps?”

From the 1950s through the 1980s, consumers would collect trading stamps from S&H and other companies, which were handed out with purchases at grocery stores and other businesses. 

Once enough books of stamps were filled, they could be traded in for all sorts of household products. The Nelsons and the Bradys were among the TV families who participated in this popular pastime. 

All of these recurring expressions and references add another layer of nostalgic delight to classic television. Do you have any to add to the list? Perhaps calling a telephone operator to place a long-distance call, or dialing information to look up a phone number? Sgt. Joe Friday referring to a nervous suspect as acting “hinky”? Or stopping at the gas station to get a map to your intended destination? Share your favorites! 

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.