Random Facts, Opinions and Observations About Classic TV

 

If you’re old enough to remember the shows we talk about here, you’re also old enough to remember when Larry King had a column in USA Today in which he shared random thoughts on whatever was on his mind that week.

 

Over the years of doing this blog I’ve collected a few of these myself, none of which merit a full blog but I hope all of them are still worth sharing (at least until I think of something better to write about). So here, with apologies to Larry, are a few rarely told stories and hot takes from my corner of TV land.

 

1.

As much as I love my favorite TV classics, I’ve never had any interest in reading the paperback novels based on these shows, though such books were incredibly popular in the 1960s and ‘70s. How popular? The first Partridge Family novel, released in 1970, sold 2.5 million copies. 

 

For that achievement, author Michael Avellone received $30,000 in royalties. That is especially impressive when you consider that Avellone, once known as “the fastest typewriter in the west,” could churn out a manuscript in about seven days. However, that also figures out to less than one penny per book sale. If you wonder why writers get disgusted with publishers (among other reasons), this is why.

 

2.

What, in your view, was classic TV’s most memorable train? I’d say it’s a toss-up between the base of operations for Jim West and Artemus Gordon on The Wild, Wild West, which was more luxurious, and the Cannonball on Petticoat Junction, which had more personality. 

 

My vote is with the latter, especially when it’s decorated for Christmas. And if you voted for Supertrain, shame on you.

 

3.

In the fifth and final season of That Girl, someone decided to add lyrics to the show’s theme song. 

 

 

That was not a good idea (“She’s tinsel on a tree”? Really?), but it’s just another chapter in the dubious history of theme songs with lyrics that thankfully became more popular as instrumentals. Gene Roddenberry added terrible words to Alexander Courage’s soaring Star Trek theme. Morey Amsterdam wrote lyrics to The Dick Van Dyke Show theme, which were not as awful but were still unnecessary. And when the cast of Hogan’s Heroes recorded an album (responding to absolutely no popular demand) they “sang” that show’s theme, including the lyric “We’re all heroes, up to our ear-oes.” 

 

 

4.

Speaking of music, we all know Shelley Fabares had the #1 hit (with “Johnny Angel”) when the young stars of The Donna Reed Show went into the recording studio. But for me it’s a mystery to this day why Paul Petersen didn’t have an equally successful single with “She Rides With Me.” The song was co-written and produced by The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and sounds a lot like one of that group’s classic summer anthems. Check it out:

 

5.

I don’t watch The Price is Right much anymore, but it was one of my favorite game shows back when Bob Barker was the host, Johnny Olson was the announcer, and Janice, Dian and Holly were presenting the next item up for bids. I celebrated that era of the show in this piece. What I didn’t mention then is how irritated I always got when a contestant lost the Clock Game. 

 

With some pricing games you could do everything right and still lose, which delivered a valuable life lesson even if you don’t go home with the rotisserie. But there was never a reason for anyone to not win the Clock Game. Ever.

 

6.

We all have our causes about which we are passionate – ideas we support and ideas we reject. That was true in the Comfort TV era just as its true now. The difference is that when we watch the classic shows of the past, we only see those crusades emerge in the places where we’d expect to find them – government chambers, candidate debates, Board of Education meetings, and sometimes around the family dinner table.

 

But elementary school classrooms and department stores and restaurants and sporting events were, for the most part, neutral territory – places everyone could go without being bludgeoned by the demands of any one group. Regardless of your views on any number of topics, I’m always disappointed now when one of these places that should be welcome to everyone allows itself to be hijacked to advance an agenda. In the shows of the past we get to visit communities where the old rules still applied. That’s just another reason why I love them.

 

7.

This is very embarrassing. Years ago, someone emailed me to ask if I would mention a book they published about Mary Wickes, entitled Mary Wickes: I Know I've Seen That Face Before. I said sure, because Mary Wickes was awesome. She was a ubiquitous face on '60s and '70s television, including in my favorite Mickey Mouse Club serial “Annette,” and several memorable appearances opposite Lucille Ball. But then that note was saved in a file that got buried where it was promptly forgotten. I will try to do a “Top TV Moments” piece on her in the near future and I hope the author, wherever he is, will accept my apology.  I imagine this is the look I would get from Mary regarding my absentmindedness. 

 

 

8.

Shelley Smith passed away recently, and when I read the news the first thought that popped into my mind was her walking onto the set of The $25,000 Pyramid with Nipsey Russell or Charles Siebert or whomever would be teamed against her. 

 

And when that happened I knew that if the contestant paired with her played the game as well as she did, he or she was about to come into serious money. I wish I remembered her from something else – but outside of game shows she only worked steadily on two short-lived series that no one remembers now – The Associates and For Love and Honor. And when I say “nobody remembers” I realize that some people who read my blog remember everything, but they did not fare well with the general public.

 

Outside of those her IMDB listing shows appearances on the prime time series where everyone with a SAG card popped up eventually – The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Hotel – and a few other guest spots on shows good and bad. I think she could have made a better Tiffany Welles on Charlie’s Angels than Shelley Hack, though to my knowledge she never auditioned for the part. But when assessing her contribution to pop culture, I do know there are a few dozen people out there who were able to buy a new car or maybe put their kid through college thanks to the money Shelley Smith helped them win, and maybe that’s a better legacy anyway.

 

9.

“We live in a world of structured behavior. Civilized society calls for it, and rightly so. However, while the debatable virtues of “political correctness” could be perpetually argued, new behavioral trip wires sprout like wild mushrooms as special interest groups ram dubious demands down the media-fed throats of every day USA.”

 

Wall Street Journal editorial from last week? Earlier blog of mine? No, and no. That was the opening paragraph to a magazine article by Tim Ferrante about the classic animated series Jonny Quest. And here’s the kicker – the article was written back in 1996!

 

The magazine in which it appeared was one for which I was also a regular contributor, and reading that piece again revealed (I admit, somewhat to my surprise) just how long these battles have been going on. “Woke” has largely supplanted “politically correct” as the label applied to those that want to stop us from enjoying the shows we loved because they find them offensive, but I didn’t think there were that many of these insufferable crusaders nearly 30 years ago.

 

What was their beef against Jonny Quest? Ferrante doesn’t go into great detail, but suggests it had something to do with white characters killing non-white characters in foreign lands. 

 

The fact that the non-white characters were engaged in kidnapping, murder, pillaging and attempted world domination was not viewed as a mitigating factor. He didn’t dwell on their objections beyond that, preferring to focus on the positive aspects of a great show from the past - something I’m sure some of my readers would prefer I do as well. I’ll try.