My Journey Through 1970s TV: Saturday Nights, 1974

 

To go out, or to stay in on a Saturday night? That was the question (and probably still is), but in 1974 one network offered a compelling reason to skip the restaurant and the movie, and order in a pizza.

 

Saturday, 1974

 

CBS

All in the Family

Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Bob Newhart Show

The Carol Burnett Show

 

CBS programs dominated the mid-‘70s on Saturday nights; All in the Family remained the season’s #1 show, followed by Mary Tyler Moore at #9, Bob Newhart at #12, and Carol Burnett at #27. 

 

All in the Family was about midway through its nine-season run, but was already such a phenomenon that CBS aired a special salute to the Bunkers in December, hosted by Henry Fonda. This was also the season in which George and Louise Jefferson were spun off into their own successful series. 

 

 

New to the lineup was Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers, but not for very long. What an odd title – I assume they wanted Sand to have his name in the title like Mary, Bob, and Carol – but they were all already known quantities to viewers, where he was not. According to series co-creator Allan Burns, they gave Sand his own series because he and James Brooks were so impressed by his guest spot as an IRS agent on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. But despite being surrounded by hits on the schedule, the series never found an audience. 

 

 

It’s been decades since I’ve seen it, but in my memory Sand came off like a slightly less nebbish-like Woody Allen, and that’s not the type of character that viewers would embrace on a weekly basis. CBS dropped it after 15 episodes, but Sand continued to work steadily for decades, and is still with us at age 92.

 

NBC

Emergency

NBC Saturday Night Movie

 

Emergency continued to draw enough viewers in its fourth season to stick around, even against such formidable competition. Did you know that the Squad 51 fire engine shown on the series is now housed at The Los Angeles County Fire Museum, along with other equipment used on the show?  

 

 

ABC

The New Land

Kung Fu

Nakia

 

The returning Kung Fu would survive another season, even sandwiched between two shows that were given hasty exits.

 

I’ve never seen The New Land, so on the “Missed” list it goes. But from what I’ve read and the clips I’ve seen it appears ABC was trying to pull in some of the Waltons audience with another series about a rural family struggling to survive hard times. Here its Minnesota in the 1850s, and the Larsen family, immigrants from Scandinavia, try to claim their share of the American dream. 

 

 

Bonnie Bedelia and Kurt Russell are in it, and John Denver performed the theme song, but it was pulled from the schedule after just six episodes. That was bad news for the Lookinland family, given the cancellation of The Brady Bunch at the end of the previous season. Todd Lookinland played young Tuliff Larsen, and was hoping to keep those network paychecks coming in, but it was not to be. Mike would be back on the air two years later, singing and dancing with his TV family plus Fake Jan, on The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

 

Nakia was another ‘70s law-and-order series set in the wide-open spaces of the Southwest. Previous attempts (Cade’s County, Man of the City) hadn’t made it, and this one didn’t either. 

 

 

But it had Robert Forster in the title role as a deputy sheriff of Navajo heritage, based in Davis County, New Mexico. According to IMDB, this series gave Lynda Carter her first acting credit, just one year before she became Wonder Woman. That clip is on YouTube along with one full episode. Forster's always good, but I enjoyed the clip more. 

 

 

 

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)