My Journey Through 1970s TV: Monday Nights, 1975

 

Monday blues? Not around here – it’s time for a look at another Monday night in the 1970s, with the usual mix of hits and misses. And thankfully no new shows to add to my “missed series” list – have you seen all of these as well?

 

ABC

Barbary Coast

Monday Night Football

 

In his book Star Trek Movie Memories, William Shatner reflected on the state of his life and career in the years between the cancelation of Star Trek and his return to the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Part of that time was spent living out of a camper and taking whatever jobs were offered, from appearing on the game show Tattletales to promoting a frozen food sale at Loblaws, a Canadian supermarket.

 

Better times seemed imminent when he was at last offered another top-billed role on a network series. In Barbary Coast he played Jeff Cable, an undercover government agent in San Francisco, circa 1860s. Doug McClure costarred as Cash Conover, a casino owner and card sharp who (reluctantly) helps Cable in his missions. 

 

 

“I thought the show was absolutely great,” Shatner writes. “In no time, I mused, people would stop typecasting me as a starship captain and start pigeonholing me as a cowboy.”

 

During a break he visited the Star Trek soundstages on the Paramount lot and ran into Gene Roddenberry, who told him he was now working on a new project – Star Trek – The Movie. Shatner thought the very idea was ridiculous: “Didn’t he know the next big thing was going to be Barbary Coast?”

 

Well…about that. Barbary Coast was canceled after 13 episodes, while Star Trek remains a cultural phenomenon more than 50 years later. 

 

I think Barbary Coast failed because, consciously or unconsciously, it was unmistakably derivative of other – and better – shows. Cable’s reliance on elaborate disguises and makeup recalled that of Artemus Gordon in The Wild, Wild West. Cash’s card-playing cons were reminiscent of Maverick.  

 

I also didn’t really buy the relationship between Jeff and Cash as friends or frenemies or reluctant allies. There’s a connection between actors and characters that either happens or it doesn’t. It didn’t for me, but there’s a DVD release if you’re interested.

 

 

 

CBS

Rhoda

Phyllis

All in the Family

Maude

Medical Center

 

CBS easily won the night, even with Gunsmoke no longer anchoring its Monday lineup. All in the Family remained the season’s top rated series, followed by Rhoda at #6, Maude at #7, and Medical Center at #27.

 

 

Scheduling Phyllis after Rhoda seemed like an obvious decision. Viewers who watched one Mary Tyler Moor Show spinoff would likely stick around for a second one. But it didn’t work – Phyllis struggled through two underperforming seasons before being canceled. In retrospect it’s easy to see why: Rhoda always had the audience on her side as she struggled with her various insecurities. Phyllis was the pretentious, self-absorbed neighbor who almost ruined Rhoda’s wedding. That’s not a character audiences would be likely to follow into her own show – even the series’ theme song made fun of her. 

 

 

NBC

The Invisible Man

NBC Monday Night Movie

 

There have been at least a dozen films and television series inspired by the H.G. Wells story of a man who finds a formula for becoming invisible. In this version, David McCallum plays Dr. Daniel Westin, whose experiments are successful – until he discovers he can’t find a way to become visible again. 

 

 

The series made the cover of Dynamite Magazine, suggesting that hopes were high that the show would draw a younger audience, and that another generation of teenage girls would take to McCallum the way they did on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. ten years earlier. But this invisible man disappeared after 13 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)

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Sunday Nights, 1975

 

Time to start a new year in our journey through the 1970s, and to realize we’re already halfway through the decade. I hope you’ve enjoyed these pieces as much as I have – celebrating some iconic shows, remembering others long forgotten, and looking back fondly on all the other series that filled our evenings with a pleasant diversion from gas shortages and political scandals.

 

Perhaps the best news – in 1975, Sony introduced the Betamax, and for the first time we could all go out and save our favorite shows to watch later. I wonder how many of these series are still in someone’s tape collection?

 

Sunday, 1975

 

ABC

Swiss Family Robinson

The Six Million Dollar Man

ABC Sunday Night Movie

 

ABC won the night according to the Nielsen ratings, with The Six Million Dollar Man at #9, and the Sunday Night Movie at #13.

 

New to the lineup was Swiss Family Robinson, produced by famed master of disaster Irwin Allen. Martin Milner played the head of the Robinson clan, supported by future TV stars Willie Aames and Helen Hunt. 

 

 

The cast also included Cameron Mitchell, who found time from guest-starring on every other 1970s series to stick around for all 20 episodes. 

 

 

 

I’m not sure why this one didn’t last more than one season. Perhaps audiences still had fond memories of the 1960 Disney version starring John Mills and Dorothy McGuire, which told that story about as well as it could be told, while also inspiring a popular Disneyland attraction in the Robinson’s elaborate treehouse.

 

 

CBS

Three For the Road

Cher

Kojak

Bronk

 

As with Swiss Family Robinson, Three For the Road was a perfectly pleasant show with a likable cast that just never found a big enough audience. Alex Rocco played a freelance photographer, and a widower with two sons, played by Vincent Van Patten and Leif Garrett. Together they travel the country in an RV, so Rocco’s character can take whatever assignments come his way. 

 

 

Both Van Patten and Garrett were already making the cover of Tiger Beat, but not enough teen girls tuned in to keep the show around. Maybe they were watching Willie Aames on ABC, and couldn’t yet afford a Betamax.

 

The writing could get a little wonky; lines like “Sometimes you act like you don’t know your big toe from a trombone” betray an older writer’s inability to find a teenager’s voice. But it was a gentle show that always had its heart in the right place.

Cher’s solo variety series lasted longer than ex-husband Sonny’s, which isn’t surprising, through it was also canceled after one season. But what was deemed unsuccessful in 1975 is today a wonderful time capsule of great performances by the era’s top pop stars.

 

 

 

Even with a poor lead-in, Kojak remained a top 20 series, but viewers did not stay for a second helping of cops-and-robbers action in Bronk. Jack Palance played the title character, a detective-lieutenant in Ocean City, California who worked closely with the town’s mayor (Joseph Mascolo) on special cases. Just a guess, but audiences may have expected tough-guy Palance to be a small-screen version of Dirty Harry, but were disappointed by the character’s more laid-back persona.  

 

 

 

NBC

The Wonderful World of Disney

The Family Holvak

The NBC Sunday Night Mystery Movie

 

This was not one of Disney’s more memorable seasons, though animal lovers would likely disagree, given episodes like “The Boy Who Talked to Badgers,” “The Bears and I” and “The Survival of Sam the Pelican.”

 

My last 70s piece included a short-lived series called The New Land that appeared to be similar to The Waltons. Now we have another in The Family Holvak, about a preacher and his wife and kids struggling to get by in the Great Depression. I never saw The New Land but I’m guessing this series was better – it would almost have to be with a cast headlined by Glenn Ford and Julie Harris. Those performances certainly helped but I found it slow, and caught myself glancing at the clock a few times, something I rarely did when visiting Walton’s Mountain. 

 

 

Finally, the Sunday Mystery Movie adds one new feature to its revolving lineup of returning favorites Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife. McCoy starred Tony Curtis as a gambler and con man who uses his skills to steal from crooks. Never saw it, and probably never will see it because only four episodes were made before it was dropped from the rotation. 

 

 

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)

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)

 

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Friday Nights, 1974

 

Every night in the 1970s offered interesting shows to explore (and revisit!). But sometimes there is an evening that stands out more than usual. Such is the case with the Friday prime time network schedules from 1974. Even the shows that didn’t last were memorable, and some have a following that remains to this day.

 

Friday, 1974

 

ABC

Kodiak

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Texas Wheelers

Kolchak, the Night Stalker

 

After several years of popular, if not always high-rated shows like The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room 222 and Love American Style, ABC ditched its entire Friday night lineup from previous seasons and introduced four new shows. Only one lasted, and since you’ve already looked at the titles you know which one. 

 

 

To be honest I can’t recall whether I watched Kodiak or not, so I’ll add it to the “missed” list. But it sounds like something I would have enjoyed. Clint Walker, who I thought was wonderful in Cheyenne, played Alaska State Trooper Cal “Kodiak” McKay, whose territory covered 50,000 miles of harsh wilderness. 

 

 

The 6’6” Walker was an imposing figure but a very kind gentleman. A long time ago I wrote a piece about western TV shows for Cowboys & Indians magazine, and shortly thereafter received a phone call from him thanking me for my praise of Cheyenne. I’m not even sure how he got my phone number, but that gesture was much appreciated.

 

So it’s  a shame about Kodiak, which sounds like a one-hour action drama that should have worked. But it was a half-hour series, and maybe that was part of the problem. It was pulled after just 13 episodes.

 

Viewers had already met Lee Majors as bionic astronaut Steve Austin in three TV movies that aired in 1973, which proved successful enough to bring him back again for The Six Million Dollar Man. The very popular and heavily-merchandised series ran for five seasons, and introduced Jaime Sommers in the spinoff The Bionic Woman (which I actually liked more). 

 

The Texas Wheelers provides another example of what usually happens when a veteran supporting actor/second banana gets cast in a lead role. It rarely works, especially when the banana in question is Jack Elam, who played nasty and crazy old coots in about a thousand westerns. He didn’t go full Elam here, dialing down the eccentricities to play a father who returns to his family after abandoning them for years.

 

Two of Elam’s sons were played by Gary Busey and Mark Hamill, which could raise the curiosity factor for anyone wanting to check it out now. Several episodes are on YouTube – it struck me as a series that didn’t have a clear idea what it wanted to be. But if you like banjo music, this is the series for you. 

 

 

Kolchak: The Night Stalker followed the same formula as The Six Million Dollar Man: introduce a character in TV movies, then give him his own series. But what worked for Steve Austin did not for Carl Kolchak, despite The Night Stalker being one of the most popular and acclaimed made-for-TV movies of its era.

 

What went wrong? To find the answer I consulted an expert – Mark Dawidziak, author of multiple books about Kolchak and his adventures.

 

“That was back in the day when horror might have worked as a one-shot movie event in prime time, like Rod Serling's Night Gallery or, of course, The Night Stalker, but, in a three-network universe, there wasn’t a big enough regular audience to sustain a weekly series,” Mark told me. “The Night Gallery series didn't make it, either. It also didn't help that the series was on the lowest-rated network.” 

 

Take heart, ABC - you won't be the lowest-rated network in the 1970s much longer. 

 

 

CBS

Planet of the Apes

CBS Friday Night Movie

 

In the 1970s, when a hit motion picture was first shown on television, it was still a big deal. That was the case with Planet of the Apes, for which CBS paid $1 million. Their investment was validated when the movie aired and drew an amazing 60 share of the audience. Given that response, would a series work?

 

It didn’t, but it wasn’t a bad try. The show took its cues from the first Apes movie – two astronauts (played by Ron Harper and James Naughton) land on a planet ruled by monkeys with rifles who view them as an inferior race. Roddy McDowell, who had played two ape characters in five films, returned once more to endure what had to be grueling makeup sessions to play Galen, an ape who joins the humans on their adventures. Their nemesis, General Urko, was played by Star Trek’s Mark Lenard. 

 

 

There were high hopes for the series (Mego released an entire line of action figures featuring its characters), but reviews were poor and the show found its most enthusiastic audience only among the elementary school set. 

 

“Of people 50 and over, apparently, only four are watching,” said then-CBS head programmer Fred Silverman. “Two old ladies in Iowa and a couple who owns a zoo.” However, it did get a DVD release, which is rare for a series with just 14 episodes.

 

NBC

Sanford and Son

Chico and the Man

The Rockford Files

Police Woman

 

If any network executive ever earned a bonus, it’s the one that gave a green light to three successful new shows and scheduled them all on Friday night, following the evening’s most popular returning series.

 

Sanford and Son finished the season at #3, and Chico and the Man seemed like an ideal pairing to complete the hour. The Rockford Files featured James Garner, one of TV’s most charismatic leading men, as Jim Rockford, aka “Jimbo,” “Rockfish,” Beth Davenport’s most troublesome client, and the only person on earth who could tolerate Angel for more than ten seconds. 

 

Great show with a great theme song, and who didn’t look forward to the different voicemail messages that opened each episode?

 

Police Woman was more standard fare, though a female lead in a cop show was still somewhat original in 1974. Angie Dickinson played pop culture’s most famous Pepper until the MCU launched, and was ably supported by Earl Holliman as her commanding officer. Viewers voted with their remotes to watch Angie instead of Carl Kolchak, keeping the series around for four seasons. Maybe Darren McGavin should have gone undercover in more slinky cocktail dresses. 

 

 

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)

 

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Thursday Nights, 1974

 

One of the more interesting discoveries I’ve made during this exercise of reviewing ‘70s network prime time schedules is the trends that come and go. Take this night in 1974, which features three new shows all shot on location. That can be expensive, and in this case it wasn’t money well spent as all three shows didn’t last that long. But I’m sure the viewers they attracted enjoyed the fresh scenic visuals. 

 

Thursday, 1974

 

ABC

The Odd Couple

Paper Moon

The Streets of San Francisco

Harry O

 

I have fond memories of watching The Odd Couple on Sunday nights, but I have no memory at all of when it aired on Thursday, or of the show that followed. 

 

 

Paper Moon was TV’s latest attempt to adapt a popular movie into an equally popular series. That was a persistent trend throughout the decade, even long after ratings showed such experiments were rarely successful.  M*A*S*H worked, but Love Story, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Born Free and this show among many others suggest that the odds are stacked against a lucrative transition.

 

I didn’t go into watching this one (which I just did recently) with an open mind, because I’m in the minority that didn’t think the movie was all that great either. Also, one of the books I wrote put me in close enough contact to Ryan O’Neal’s orbit to make it difficult to enjoy him in anything. That wasn’t an issue with the series, in which his role of Moses Pray was played by Christopher Connelly, opposite young Jodie Foster as Addie, the role for which Tatum O’Neal won the Academy Award. Jodie would have to wait another 15 years for her first Oscar.

 

The premise of the movie didn’t figure to work well across an entire season, much less multiple seasons, which is why the relationship between Moses and Addie was quickly softened in the very first episode. And once that happened, it really wasn’t Paper Moon anymore.

 

This was the first of the three shows mentioned above shot on location – in this case, rural Kanas.

 

The Streets of San Francisco was the network’s highest rated series this night at #22, and was followed by another new series, Harry O, starring David Janssen as a private investigator in San Diego. I enjoyed this series enough to splurge on the pricey DVD sets. Janssen is always a compelling actor to watch, especially when he plays a character that can’t catch a break. 

 

 

CBS

The Waltons

CBS Thursday Night Movie

 

The Waltons continues its ratings dominance, finishing at #8. This is still early in the run, when the grandparents are around and Johnboy is not yet off to college.

 

NBC

Sierra

Ironside

Movin’ On

 

I wish NBC had been more patient with Sierra, or moved it to a timeslot where it wouldn’t be crushed by The Waltons. R.A. Cinader, who produced Adam-12 and Emergency, presents another series with straightforward looks at professional public servants at work – in this case, the rangers that serve and protect our national parks.

 

 

At a time when the only park ranger TV fans knew was the one stopping Yogi Bear from stealing picnic baskets, this was an insightful look at what the job entailed, the challenges and the rewards. It takes its time as it accurately depicts not only what rangers do but also how they do it. It would not surprise me if some of the safety and life-saving actions performed on the show were remembered by viewers in moments when they could be used to help someone in distress.

 

The stunning location scenery, much of it in Yosemite National Park, added another aspect of authenticity to its stories, and the theme song was also memorable, with lyrics by John Denver. It was performed by Denny Brooks, who sounds a little like Denver on helium. But among the cast only Michael Warren went on to greater TV success. 

 

 

Following Ironside (in its final season) it was back on the location shooting road for another new series starring Claude Akins and Frank Converse. “It a takes a special breed, to be a truck drivin’ man,” according to the theme song written and performed by Merle Haggard. 

 

 

But if you watched Movin’ On you know it must also take a special breed to run a trucking company when drivers take time out from their scheduled deliveries to help people in trouble every week. The series lasted two seasons and about 40 episodes. Not appointment TV for me, but something I’d watch if there was nothing else on, especially when a guest star like Lois Nettleton, Cameron Mitchell or Lisa Eilbacher was along for the ride. 

 

 

No shows added to the “missed” list! Now let’s get those big wheels rollin’ on to Friday night next time.

 

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)

Love Story (1973)

Sons and Daughters (1974)

Manhunter (1974)