Babar Through Bewitched
Lots of 1960s faves here – Batman, Barbra Streisand specials, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched – plus a few unexpected items popping up as well. Believe it or not, The Betty White Show in 1954 was not the titular star’s first brush with Emmy – she first competed all the way back in its third ceremony honoring 1950, losing the Best Actress Emmy to Gertrude Berg (but Betty would win later, of course).
Babar the Elephant
NBC p.m., Oct. 21, 1968
N: Individual Achievement, Music (Tom Adair and John Scott Trotter, words and music)
Trotter: Play It Again, Charlie Brown.
The Ballad of Louie the Louse
CBS p.m., Oct. 17, 1959
N: Comedy Writing (Nat Hiken)
Louie Cramfield (Phil Silvers) is a bubbly loan shark barely tolerated by his clientele until he is reported missing in a plane crash. That prompts his grief-stricken customer, reporter Paul Hughes (Eddie Albert) to lionize him in print in order to assuage his guilt about wishing Louie dead. But when Louie is found alive, Paul has to hide him and convince him to return all of his money in order to preserve his legend. Louie does so, before his old cash-grubbing habits come back to him again. Despite a few nice cameos of people playing themselves (Mike Wallace giving Louie’s obituary on air and Ed Sullivan introducing Louie as a guest), this videotaped musical-comedy special is not anywhere as amusing as the last collaboration between Silver and Hiken, The Phil Silvers Show, chiefly because the beginning has Louie so eagerly collecting his IOUs from a glum crew in a bar that it sets a pall over the later humorous moments. Hiken lost this nomination to The Jack Benny Program.
Hiken: Car 54 Where Are You?, The Phil Silvers Show.
Banacek
NBC Wednesdays 8:30-10 p.m.*, Sept. 13, 1972-Sept. 3, 1974
N: Cinematography (Sam Leavitt), 1973
Thomas Banacek (George Peppard), a proud Polish freelance insurance investigator partial to turtlenecks, solved crimes for 10 percent of the contingency fee. Aiding him were peppy Jay Drury (Ralph Manza), his chauffeur for his fleet of vehicles that included a 1941 Packard, and distinguished Felix Mulholland (Murray Matheson), operator of a rare books and prints shop in Beacon Hill with extraordinary research skills. The mysteries were fascinating – a football player disappears after being tackled, a 25-ton freight car vanishes from a moving train – and the production bore the typical Universal Studios polish. The drawback was that Banacek himself was off-putting. He was smug, smoked stogies, made passes at every woman, and earned paychecks close to the title amount of one show that alternated with the series in 1972-73, Cool Million. (Only one other series alternating with Banacek as part of a mystery movie wheel earned an Emmy nomination – see The Snoop Sisters.) Leavitt won a black-and-white cinematography Oscar for The Defiant Ones in 1958, followed by a nomination in the same category in 1959 for Anatomy of a Murder and a third in the color category in 1960 for Exodus.
The Barbara Stanwyck Show
NBC Mondays 10-10:30 p.m., Sept. 19, 1960-Sept. 11, 1961
W: Lead Actress in a Series (Barbara Stanwyck)
Following her contemporaries Loretta Young and Jane Wyman, movie queen Barbara Stanwyck hosted and usually starred in this anthology show. Stanwyck’s effort owed a debt to Young’s program – like the latter, she appeared in a glamorous outfit to introduce that night’s story, but unlike Young she did not stand in a posh living room set but rather a dramatically lit yet stark bare stage. Stanwyck was as solid a pro as she had been throughout her acting career. Unfortunately the presentations, filmed at Desilu Studios, were not as inspiring as her in their producing, writing and directing, and its competition Hennessey on CBS led to it ending after just a year. Ironically, she beat out Young for the Emmy here. Stanwyck won again five years later for The Big Valley.
Stanwyck: The Big Valley, The Thorn Birds
Barbarians at the Gate
HBO p.m., March 20, 1993
W: TV-Movie (Thomas M. Hammel, EP; Glenn Jordan, EP; Marykay Powell, Co-P; Art Stark, P)
N: Lead Actor, Miniseries or Special (James Garner); Directing, Miniseries or Special (Jordan); Writing, Miniseries or Special (Larry Gelbart); Editing, Miniseries or Special (Patrick Kennedy); Art Direction, Miniseries or Special (Michael Armani, art director; Jan Bergstrom, Karen O’Hara, set director; Linda Pearl, production designer)
“The following is based on the truth … as unbelievable as that may seem.” When RJR Nabisco CEO Ross Johnson (Garner) learned in 1988 that his company’s highly anticipated new smokeless cigarette was a dud, he determined that the only way to increase its stock’s value was to offer a leveraged buyout to its board of directors and become its new president. But Henry Kravis (Jonathan Pryce) thought Johnson stole the idea from an earlier conversation with him, so he made a counteroffer $3 billion higher, leading to escalating machinations, press leaks and more between the two men. Based on real events drawn from the 1990 best seller of the same name by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, this excels on several levels – satire, adventure, even feel-good comedy, with Garner most likable. Gelbart’s script is on his typically delicious level, the actors rise to it, and the elaborate recreation of the go-go late 1980s financial atmosphere was dead-on. All of the nominees were deserving, but there was a big omission of Pryce in the supporting actor category – he is at his iciest, most disdainful best here.
Barbra Streisand: A Happening in Central Park
CBS p.m., Sept. 16, 1968
W: Achievement in Music (Mort Lindsey, musical director)
N: Musical or Variety Program (Barbra Streisand, star; Robert Scheerer, P)
Recorded at night on June 17, 1967, including the inevitable “People” and “Happy Days Are Here Again,” this stellar special had Streisand in great form as always, proving that she truly needed no one else with her to make great entertainment. An album with music from the special came out afterward and became a million seller. Emmy winner Lindsey previously served the same role on The Judy Garland Show and probably is best remembered for conducting the orchestra for the legendary 1961 concert featuring Garland that became the best-selling Grammy winning Album of the Year Judy at Carnegie Hall.
Lindsey: The Merv Griffin Show. Scheerer: American Film Insitute, The Danny Kaye Show, Fame, Live From Lincoln Center, Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim, Shirley MacLaine: If They Could See Me Now.
Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments
CBS p.m., Nov. 2, 1973
W: Directing, Comedy-Variety, Variety or Music (Dwight Hemion); Director of the Year (Hemion); Writing, Comedy-Variety, Variety or Music (Larry Gelbart, Mitzi Welch, Ken Welch); Musician of the Year (Gelbart, Welch and Welch)
N: Comedy-Variety, Variety or Music (Barbra Streisand, star; Martin Erlichman, EP; Hemion, Joe Layton, Gary Smith, P); Writing, Comedy-Variety, Variety or Music (Gelbart, Welch and Welch)
Barry Manilow: Big Fun on Swing Street
CBS p.m., March 7, 1988
W: Art Direction, Variety or Music Program (Charles Lisanby, production designer)
N: Lighting Direction (Bill Klages)
Manilow, 1940s obsessed and questionably dressed as ever, performed a boatload of songs in various settings with a host of jazz notables, including Stanley Clarke, Gerry Mulligan and Diane Schuur, in this videotaped studio production with no studio audience but plenty of dancers and extras. The star reteamed with Steve Binder, the producer/director of his first (and best) show, The Barry Manilow Special, but there was really little fun here, thanks to a virtually plotless script co-written by Manilow and some horribly dated 1980s musical arrangements, hairstyles and outfits. The biggest problem of all is that Manilow’s mellow pop sensibility did not mesh well with the lively jazz numbers, and fans of either genre are bound to be disappointed by what does exist. Lisanby, whose work here was a little too gaudy for my taste, notched his second of three Emmy wins with this show.
Lisanby: Academy Awards, American Playhouse, Benjamin Franklin, Diana, Disney’s Greatest Hits on Ice, Garry Moore Show, IBM Presents Baryshnikov on Broadway, MTV Music Awards. Klages: Dance in America, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: A Concert on Ice, Motown Returns to the Apollo, Olivia.
Barry Manilow: One Voice
ABC p.m., May 19, 1980
N: Music Direction (Artie Butler)
The middle-of-the-road vocalist’s fourth special is like a ragged retread of his last two, with Barry telling the audience how he wished he lived in the 1940s and made small talk and sang along with another easygoing star (in this case Dionne Warwick). What’s worse, most of the songs performed were not hits, except for “Ships,” which was movingly performed and dedicated to his late father. This aired at the time when Manilow’s popularity began to ebb, and it sadly reflects that lack of excitement. This critical and ratings flop led Manilow, who wrote and produced it, to avoid doing another special for eight years (see Barry Manilow: Big Fun on Swing Street). Butler, whose hits as an arranger stretch back to 1963’s “Sally Go Round the Roses” by the Jaynetts, worked on many Manilow records but ironically (in this context) earned his only pop Grammy nomination for arranging Warwick’s “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again” in 1979.
Butler: Sinatra (1992), Suzanne Somers and 10,000 G.I.’s.
The Barry Manilow Special
ABC p.m., March 2, 1977
W: Special, Comedy-Variety or Music (Miles Lourie, EP; Steve Binder, P; Manilow, star)
N: Writing, Comedy-Variety or Music Special (Alan Thicke, Don Clark, Susan Clark, Ronny Pearlman, Bruce Vilanch, Manilow, Binder); Director, Comedy-Variety or Music Special (Binder); Videotape Editing, Special (Bill Breshears, Thomas Klein)
This combination studio/concert hour moved so sprightly that even those who profess to hate Manilow’s music should find it at least tolerable. Wearing horribly dated gaudy outfits, Manilow performed “Mandy,” “It’s a Miracle,” “Could It Be Magic” and other hits with dedication and verve, getting excellent support from his backup trio Lady Flash. The concert footage in Illinois and video taken on the streets of New York City give it historical value today as well. Even the requisite guest star appearance was well handled, with Penny Marshall giving it her all and Manilow showing surprising acting talent with her in a sketch. Binder, whose production and direction here are superb, has a voiceover bit when Barry wants to tell the audience that he did not write “I Write the Songs” nor want it to sound like an ego trip. This was the first of many Emmy-nominated Manilow specials over the next 30 years, the next being The Second Barry Manilow Special.
Bastard Out of Carolina
Showtime p.m., Dec. 15, 1996
W: Casting, Miniseries or Special (Linda Lowy)
N: TV-Movie (Gary Hoffman, EP; Amanda Digiulio, P); Supporting Actress, Miniseries or Special (Glenne Headly); Directing, Miniseries or Special (Anjelica Huston)
Ruth Anne “Bone” Cartwright (Jena Malone), the illegitimate daughter of Anney Cartwright (Jennifer Jason Leigh), endured constant abuse and molesting from her stepfather Glen Waddell (Ron Eldard) until Anney finally recognized what had happened and stood by her daughter. Based on Dorothy Allison’s 1992 novel, this powerful tale is nonetheless depressing and hard to watch, and I am afraid most of its nominations occurred for the wrong reasons. Headly, as Bone’s Aunt Ruth, had limited time in the film, but her character died tragically, which some voters always feel merits acclaim. Huston did a fine job of recreating South Carolina from years gone by, but the tone is too reminiscent of other Hollywood clichés about the South – poor families hanging out on the porch in overalls, country music playing often and so on. Her reputation as an actress and as John Huston’s daughter probably played a major part in her nomination, and it is telling that this is the first of what so far are just three films she has directed. However, Lowy’s award was a worthy one – anyone who can corral Pat Hingle, Lyle Lovett, Dermot Mulroney and Christine Ricci into the same movie is aces with me.
Lowy: Grey’s Anatomy. Hoffman: Kennedys of Massachusetts. Headly: Lonesome Dove. Huston: Buffalo Girls, Iron Jawed Angels, Lonesome Dove, The Mists of Avalon.
Bat Masterson
NBC Thursdays 8:30-9 p.m.*, Oct. 8, 1958-Sept. 21, 1961
N: Editing, Film (Richard Van Enger, “Two Graves for Swan Valley”), 1959
William Bartley “Bat” Masterson (Gene Barry) was an actual person who lived in Dodge City, Kansas in the late 1880s and had been portrayed previously on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp by Mason Alan Dinehart III from 1955-57. In this series he was a dapper cowpoke replete with a black derby and a walking stick with a flat golden top who foiled the likes of lynch mobs with his fists and gunshots while finding time to romance beautiful dames. A pedestrian effort from the height of the late 1950s western boom, this entry collapsed after three years against The Real McCoys on ABC. Barry, who later went on to star in Burke’s Law (1963-66) and The Name of the Game, among other series, surprisingly has never received an Emmy nomination despite typically being a suave, engaging presence as he was here.
Van Enger: Bus Stop, Medical Story.
Batman
ABC Wednesdays and Thursdays 7:30-8 p.m.*, January 12, 1966-March 14, 1968
N: Comedy Series, 1966; Supporting Actor, Comedy (Frank Gorshin, “Hi Diddle Riddle”), 1966; Sound Editing (Richard Legrand, Ross Taylor, Harold Wooley, Ralph Hickey), 1966
Even executive producer William Dozier participated, delivering overheated narration and advising viewers to get answers to each cliffhanger by tuning in again at the “Same bat time, same bat channel!” Taylor, who won the Emmy in his other nomination, earned an Academy Award of Merit in 1980 for developing a system of air guns for propelling objects used in special effects.
Legrand: The Amazing Howard Hughes, The Legend of Lillie Borden. Taylor. Bell Family System Family Theatre. Wooley: Brian’s Song, Legend of Lillie Borden. Hickey: Brian’s Song.
Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown
CBS p.m., Jan. 28, 1975
N: Children’s Special (Bill Melendez, P, Lee Mendelson, EP)
In this Peanuts installment Charlie Brown wants a valentine, Lucy wants Schroeder and Linus has his eyes on his teacher while Sally still pines for him. Typically delightful cartoon written by creator Charles Schulz, with Snoopy in fine form, especially as the ticket taker/usher/concessionaire/actor at the “Pawpet Theatre” segment. This has been superceded in network reruns by A Charlie Brown Valentine (2002).
Melendez: Mendelson:
The Beat of the Brass
CBS p.m., April 22, 1968
N: Achievement in Music (Herb Alpert, arranger and conductor)
The soundtrack LP to this special hit #1, as did the song Alpert introduced on it, “This Guy’s in Love With You,” his first vocal single. See also Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
Belafonte, N.Y. 19
CBS p.m., Nov. 20, 1960
N: Variety Program; Performance in a Musical or Variety Program (Harry Belafonte)
Belafonte: Harry and Lena, The Revlon Revue.
Bell System Family Theatre – See The Count of Monte Cristo, Jack Lemmon in ’S Wonderful, ’S Marvelous, ’S Gershwin; and Jane Eyre.
Ben Casey
ABC Mondays 10-11 p.m.*, Oct. 2, 1961-March 22, 1966
W: Single Performance, Lead Actress (Kim Stanley, “A Cardinal Act of Mercy”), 1963; Supporting Role, Actress (Glenda Farrell, “A Cardinal Act of Mercy”), 1963
N: Drama Program, 1962; Lead Actor in a Series (Vincent Edwards), 1962; Supporting Role, Actor (Sam Jaffe), 1962 and (George C. Scott, “I Remember a Lemon Tree”), 1962; Supporting Role, Actress (Jeanne Cooper), 1962 and (Joan Hackett), 1962; Writing, Drama (Jack Laird, “I Remember a Lemon Tree”), 1962 and (Norman Katkov, “A Cardinal Act of Mercy”), 1963; Cinematography (Ted Voightlander), 1962; Directing, Drama (Sydney Pollack, “A Cardinal Act of Mercy”), 1963; Film Editing (James Ballas, George Boemler, Al Clark, Mike Pozen, Aaron Stell), 1963
James Moser followed up his with this less clinical yet somewhat more melodramatic
The Best of Broadway
CBS Every Fourth Wednesday 10-11 p.m., Sept. 15, 1954-May 4, 1955
N: Actor, Single Performance (Frederic March, “The Royal Family”), 1954
Color adaptations of plays and musicals live from New York were what The Best of Broadway offered. If this was meant as CBS’s answer to Producers’ Showcase and other splashy “spectaculars” on NBC, it missed the mark, though not for lack of top talent. It is just that doing hour versions of stage hits already had been done to death by most other live anthologies, and the show’s monthly schedule did not engender regular audiences (viewers of Pabst Blue Ribbon Bouts, which this series pre-empted, must not have been too impressed either). The pretentious openings, which showed cast members as they appeared to be looking through a makeup mirror, did not help either. Multiple Oscar and Tony winner Frederic March had the dubious honor of being the first actor to compete against himself for an Emmy both here and for a role on Shower of Stars in 1954. He lost both to Bob Cummings for Studio One, and he lost again with a later nod for, ironically, Producers’ Showcase. Apart from his nominations, March found television artistically inhospitable and made only a handful of appearances through his last major job on it, as narrator of the 1966 special The Legacy of Rome (he died in 1975).
March: Producers’ Showcase, Shower of Stars.
The Betty White Show
NBC Weekdays 12:30-1 p.m.*, Feb. 8, 1954-Dec. 31, 1954
N: Daytime Program, 1955
TV fixture Betty White hosted her first network TV series here that aired live in the East and Midwest from Hollywood. She sang, read jokes and letters from home viewers on a living room set, interviewed guests, pitched products and bantered with her announcer/assistant Del Sharbutt and members of her musical group, Frank DeVol and the Little Band. Art Duncan, later to gain fame as a tap dancer on The Lawrence Welk Show from 1964-1982, also was a regular, a rare opportunity for a black personality on 1950s TV. A tolerable way to pass half an hour every day, although Betty was freer as a talk show guest than as a hostess here, and what sounded like a studio audience of less than 10 people certainly did not make it lively to watch. The show went off in 10 months after executives at NBC, which has the worst record ever of any network in programming daytime TV, installed it in three different time slots. Betty came back to daytime TV each decade thereafter – the same cannot be said of those executives.
The Beverly Hillbillies
CBS Wednesdays 8:30-9 p.m.*, Sept. 26, 1962-Sept. 7, 1971
N: Achievement in Humor, 1963; Writing, Comedy (Paul Henning), 1963; Lead Actress, Series (Irene Ryan), 1963, 1964; Directing, Comedy (Richard Whorf), 1963, 1964; Supporting Actress (Nancy Kulp), 1967
When Ozark Mountaineer Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen) accidentally struck a gusher of oil while hunting one day, the profits from it made him an instant multimillionaire. His clan, including his crotchety mother-in-law “Granny” Daisy Moses (Irene Ryan), his curvy blonde daughter Elly May (Donna Douglas), his dimwitted cousin Jethro Bodine (Max Baer, Jr.) and in 1962-63 Jethro’s mother Pearl Bodine (Bea Benaderet) and Pearl’s daughter Jethrene (Baer, Jr. in drag), convinced him they ought to move to Beverly Hills, California, and live among the movie stars in a mansion with their new riches. The trouble was that much of the upper crust’s culture was foreign to the transplants, and while ignorance was bliss to them, it often wreaked havoc among others and sometimes befuddled their obsequious banker Milburn Drysdale (Raymond Bailey) and his super-professional aide Jane Hathaway (Kulp). Possibly the silliest, most unrealistic comedy on television, at least by 1962, The Beverly Hillbillies stunned critics as it was the number one series in its first two years (often by a large margin), remained in the top 20 until its last season, and holds the record for the largest audience ever for a regular sitcom episode (on Jan. 8, 1964), which means it had to be a guilty pleasure among some of those who claimed in public it was dopey. The Emmys muted their enthusiasm for it and what it spawned, giving it only a handful of nominations and none to its successful quasi-spinoffs Petticoat Junction (1963-70) and Green Acres (1965-71). Even so, it remains fitfully amusing in repeats, and good luck getting its theme song “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” (a #1 country hit in 1963) out of your head. Ebsen was the only regular to overcome typecasting from this series, scoring a later hit with Barnaby Jones.
Henning: The Bob Cummings Show.
Bewitched
ABC Thursdays 8:30-9 p.m.*, Sept. 17, 1964-July 1, 1972
W: Actress, Supporting Role, Comedy (Alice Pearce), 1966 and (Marion Lorne), 1968; Directing, Comedy (William Asher), 1966
N: Comedy Series, (Jerry Davis, P), 1966, (William Froug, P), 1967, (Asher, P), 1968 and 1969; Lead Actress, Comedy (Elizabeth Montgomery), 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970 and (Agnes Moorehead), 1967; Supporting Actress, Comedy (Moorehead), 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 and (Lorne), 1967; Directing, Comedy (Asher), 1967; Actor, Leading Role, Comedy (Dick York), 1968; Makeup (Rolf J. Miller, “Samantha’s Old Man”), 1971
Darrin Stephens (Dick York 1964-69, Dick Sargent 1969-72) wed his gorgeous blonde wife Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) before knowing that she was a witch, albeit a nice one. His biggest obstacles came when her magical family visited, including her shrewish mother Endora (Agnes Moorehead), who felt her daughter could have done better and rarely said Darren’s name; befuddled Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne 1964-68) and shy Esmeralda (Alice Ghostley 1969-72), who were prone to cast spells that went awry; and mischievous Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde 1965-71), who went wild out on the town a few times with Samantha’s lookalike brunette bubbly cousin Serena (Montgomery 1966-72, billed as “Pandora Spocks” – get it?). The complications often affected Darrin at work where his boss, ad executive Larry Tate (David White), constantly threatened to fire him if an account fell through. Observing the odd goings-on was nosy next-door neighbor Gladys Kravitz (Alice Pearce 1964-66, Sandra Gould 1966-72), who just missed catching what really was happening to confirm them to her unimpressed husband Abner (George Tobias). TV’s longest-running fantasy sitcom (an overdone genre in the 1960s), Bewitched was the highest-rated ABC series for four of its eight seasons, including its peak of #2 in 1964-65, and stayed strong before ABC put it up against All in the Family in 1972. Considered a sophisticated comedy in its time, its audience in later reruns consisted mostly of children, as Bewitched seemed a little too silly and strained at times, particularly in later years when Dick Sargent became the “second Darrin” (York had to leave due to complications from an injured back), but generally it is pretty humorous. It did establish Montgomery as a TV star and earn her then-husband William Asher his only Emmy in a long career of directing. Pearce and Lorne won their Emmys posthumously.
Lorne: Mister Peepers, Sally. Davis: The Farmer’s Daughter, The Odd Couple. Montgomery: The Awakening Land, A Case of Rape, The Legend of Lizzie Borden, The Untouchables. Moorehead: Wild Wild West.