At the end of a busy work week in 1972, what kind of shows were families sitting down together to watch? Time to take a look at the Friday night prime time lineups and, as always, find out whether my quest to see at least one episode from every series from the decade will be dealt yet another setback.
CBS
The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour
The CBS Friday Night Movie
The evolution of Sonny Bono and Cher from long-haired hippie singers to mainstream TV stars did not happen overnight.
After recording a few hits (most written by Sonny), Bono ditched the beads and fuzzy vests for a tux, and Cher went glam courtesy of famed designer Bob Mackie, and they reinvented themselves as America’s favorite young couple, playfully bickering between slick covers of current pop hits. By the time they brought out their adorable blond daughter Chastity and reprised “I Got You, Babe” at the close of every show, the audience was hooked.
None of it lasted, sadly. They broke up and failed at hosting separate variety shows, Cher started making movies, Sonny went to Congress, and Chastity became a dude named “Chaz”. But it was delightful while it lasted.
ABC
The Brady Bunch
The Partridge Family
Room 222
The Odd Couple
Love, American Style
This is the same Friday night lineup that ABC presented the previous year, after it drew good but not spectacular ratings. This season only The Partridge Family cracked the top 20 (at #19).
This was season four for The Brady Bunch, and featured many of the series’ most beloved episodes. After a three-part opener set in Hawaii, fans watched Marcia anxiously prepare for high school while Peter builds a volcano (“Today I Am a Freshman”), the debut performance of the Silver Platters (“Amateur Nite”), Marcia take a football to the nose “(The Subject Was Noses”) and Greg fall for a teenage temptress who wants to be head cheerleader (“Greg’s Triangle”).
For me there’s a gap between the first two Partridge Family seasons, when the musical performances feature great songs from the group’s first three albums, and the second two seasons, where the music quality drops a bit with cuts from their final three albums. This is season three, but even when the songs aren’t as catchy there were some memorable episodes. Highlights include Laurie’s romance with guest star Tony Geary (“Ain’t Loveth Grand”) and the family’s trip to Cincinnati’s Kings Island amusement park (“I Left My Heart in Cincinnati”)
With Room 222 the quality remained consistently high from the first episode to the last. Season three includes stories about censorship battles at the school’s radio station “KWWH,” and the first appearance of Bruno Kirby as slick-talking high school huckster Herbie in “Suitable for Framing.”
The Odd Couple likewise delivered consistent comedy gold in all of its five seasons, but the show’s most famous scene happened here in season three with the “Password” episode. It ranked #5 on TV Guide’s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.
NBC
Sanford and Son
The Little People
Ghost Story
Banyon
Four new shows debuting on the same night? That was a bold move for the Peacock network, and one that delivered mixed results. Sanford and Son was a hit, ending the season at #2 behind another Norman Lear series, All in the Family. For star Redd Foxx the transition to prime time was as dramatic as that of Sonny and Cher. He was still edgy here, with punch lines that would now raise eyebrows in our current hypersensitive times, but he’s a long way from the X-rated material that filled his Las Vegas act.
The Little People starred Brian Keith as a pediatrician, and Shelley Fabares as his daughter; together, they operate a medical practice in Hawaii. The series ranked #25 for the season and would return the following year as The Brian Keith Show. From the clips I’ve seen it looks like a show I’d enjoy, even with the frequent caterwauling of crying babies in his waiting room. But I’ve never seen a full episode, so on the list it goes.
The supernatural anthology series Ghost Story I’ve seen, and in fact wrote an entire blog about back in 2019. Great stuff, at least until host Sebastian Cabot was dropped and the series morphed into the less interesting Circle of Fear.
When I first watched Banyon I remembered thinking how the 1970s featured a lot more period pieces in prime time than most decades: The Waltons in the 1930s, this show in the 1940s, and of course we’ll eventually get to Happy Days in the 1950s. I guess they’re out of vogue now as today’s millennials probably don’t want to see stories form what they dismiss as less enlightened times. Here Robert Forster plays Miles Banyon, a cop turned private detective taking on gangsters and dangerous dames in Los Angeles.
I admit I was surprised that the handful of comments about this series on IMDB were all positive, as Banyon struck me as an exercise in style without much substance. Don’t expect the kind of colorful dialogue detective story fans love from this period, courtesy of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, because what you’ll get sounds like someone asked ChatGPT to rewrite The Maltese Falcon.
Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
The Chicago Teddy Bears (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY aired its Kings Island visit a season before THE BRADY BUNCH. I think both showcased the park well, though PF had a threadbare plot involving former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley. There was so little plot that the show reprised "Together We're Better", reusing some of the same camera shots. I do love the ending though, where Reuben threw Danny in the pool.
ReplyDeleteROOM 222 was on Season 4, not 3. It only lasted half a season for Season 5, cancelled in Jan. 1974 along with LOVE AMERICAN STYLE.
I'd love to see the season finale of THE LITTLE PEOPLE, which had Dr. Jamison making an appearance on a kids' show hosted by Rip Taylor, playing "Sunrise Sailor"