Tattletales to 21 Hours at Munich
Bert Convy wins an Emmy for hosting Tattletales while Bill Cullen loses one for doing the same on Three on a Match. There simply is no justice for game show fans in this section. As for That Girl, do not ask me why Marlo Thomas did not get nominated in 1969 – or why her co-star Ted Bessell finally earned a nod only in the show’s last season.
Tattletales
CBS Weekdays 4-4:30 p.m.*, Feb. 18, 1974-March 31, 1978
W: Game Show Host (Bert Convy), 1977
N: Game Show, 1977
Three celebrity couples, married or dating, competed on behalf of their colored individual sections of the studio audience – red, green and “banana” (yellow) – to answer the most questions about each other successfully. Each sex spent one half of each show guessing their partner’s response to a question, then that partner, who had been listening to music backstage, appeared on a TV monitor in front of his or her other half to give an answer. Matches among two or three couples to a question split the pot, and there was rarely more than $1,000 won by any pair, making the payout to audience members rather small. Still, they received their checks for winnings as they left the show and could rightly claim to have been paid to watch a TV series. Mostly just a less smutty star-studded take on The Newlywed Game, Tattletales will amuse viewers today who realize many of its couples are now divorced or consisted of gay men pretending to have a straight date, such as Tab Hunter and Charles Nelson Reilly. CBS revived the show in its most popular time slot with Bert Convy as host again from Jan. 18, 1982-June 1, 1984.
Convy: ABC Matinee Today.
Telephone Time
CBS Sundays 6-6:30 p.m.* (also ABC), April 8, 1956-April 1, 1958
N: Teleplay Writing, Half Hour or Less (John Nesbitt, “Man with the Bear”), 1956
Based on true stories that took place in the early 20th century, Telephone Time initially took its scripts from its first host and narrator, writer John Nesbitt, who started each show on the set of that episode and showed an item involved in the night’s story before the picture faded into the main action. In its last season Dr. Frank Baxter assumed host/narration duties. As 1950s film anthologies go, this is an average on all levels of writing, acting, directing and producing – you could do worse, but you could do better too. Nesbitt died of a heart attack 13 days shy of his 50th birthday in 1960, just three years after his tenure on Telephone Time.
The Thanksgiving Visitor
ABC p.m., Nov. 28, 1968
W: Actress, Single Performance (Geraldine Page)
Truman Capote narrated this TV adaptation of his autobiographical novel, shot on location in rural Alabama. (However, Eleanor Perry and not Capote wrote the screenplay.) The bittersweet tale described how a local bully who harassed him and complicated his life at home and school was invited by his beloved Aunt Sookie (Page) to attend their Thanksgiving dinner, to his dismay. Page is wonderful as always playing the same character as she did in her previous Emmy win on ABC Stage 67. She amassed four Tony nominations, seven Oscar nominations and one Oscar win (for Best Actress for 1985’s The Trip to Bountiful). This special is realistic and pretty harsh in showing how other adults mistreated the protagonist, but it would make an excellent annual addition to the holiday schedule.
Page: ABC Stage 67, Playhouse 90.
That Certain Summer
ABC p.m., Nov. 1, 1972
W: Actor – Supporting Role, Drama (Scott Jacoby)
N: Single Program – Drama or Comedy; Single Performance – Lead Actor (Hal Holbrook); Single Performance – Lead Actress (Hope Lange); Single Program – Director (Lamont Johnson); Writing – Drama, Original Teleplay (Richard Levinson, William Link); Film Sound Mixing (Melvin M. Metcalfe, Sr., Thom Piper)
Doug Salter (Holbrook) enjoyed hosting his teenage son Nick (Jacoby) at his San Francisco home one summer until Nick suspected that Doug’s friend Gary McClain (Martin Sheen) was his dad’s lover. Confused, he called his mother, Nick’s ex-wife Janet (Lange), for help and ran away before he returned home to find his dad confirming his notion, a revelation that prompts him to leave with his mother with an uncertain future for all parties involved, except for Gary staying with Doug. One of TV’s first and best serious treatments of homosexuality, this top-notch TV-movie remains relevant, with all nominees deserving the recognition. Though standards of the time limited their physical contact to nothing more than Holbrook putting his arm over Sheen’s shoulder, both men excellently conveyed their feelings for each other through the restriction by their body language, while Jacoby perfectly showed quickly and silently he knew something was going on between them. Writers Levinson and Link smartly contrasted Doug as a conservative gay afraid to reveal his life to others with Gary as a moderately liberated type who bowed to Doug’s dictate of hiding their relationship in front of his child but insisted they not do so among other people. Director Lamont Johnson kept everything low-key and believable, making the piece sensitive and affecting. It is a mystery why Sheen received no nomination and Lange (billed as “special guest star”) competed as a lead when her role was a supporting one. Jacoby, the sole Emmy winner here, kept acting as an adult, including a few appearances on The Golden Girls as Dorothy’s son.
Holbrook: Several. Lange: Ghost & Mrs. Muir. Johnson: Execution of Private Slovik, Fear on Trial, My Sweet Charlie. Levinson: Several. Link: Several. Metcalfe: My Sweet Charlie. Piper: Execution of Private Slovik.
That Girl
ABC Thursdays 9-9:30 p.m.*, Sept. 8, 1966-Sept, 10, 1971
N: Lead Actress, Comedy (Marlo Thomas), 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971; Writing, Comedy (Danny Arnold, Ruth Brooks Flippen, “The Mailman Cometh”), 1968; Directing, Comedy (Danny Arnold, “The Apartment”), 1968; Lead Actor, Comedy (Ted Bessell), 1971
Aspiring actress Ann Marie (Thomas) came to New York City to pursue her career but wound up with mostly minor jobs, which made her cranky, overprotective father Lou (Lew Parker) demand that she return home to Brewster, New York. Thankfully, she had a wry boyfriend, Donald Hollinger (Bessell), who loved her unconditionally despite her faults and struggles. If only this series had the same energy and excitement generated by its opening titles montage of Ann coming to Manhattan (directed by Reza S. Badiyi and scored by Earle Hagen), it would be a classic. Unfortunately, its plots favored uneven physical comedy, and Thomas tended to be shrill in her comic mode, both of which weighed down its appeal. Bessell, however, was great as a laidback romantic interest and should have had a better TV acting career (he went into directing by the 1980s following so-so roles in the 1970s). Never a hit, it did well enough with young audiences that ABC planned to run the series two more years when Thomas wisely ended it not long after Ann and Donald became engaged. As Thomas put it, she did not want the show to become That Old Girl.
Thomas: Free to Be – You and Me, The Body Human, more. Arnold: Plenty. Flippen: ABC Afternoon Playbreak. Bessell: The Tracey Ullman Show.
That Was the Week That Was
NBC Tuesdays 9:30-10 p.m.*, Jan. 1964-May 1965
W: Individual Achievement (Burr Tillstrom, for “Berlin Wall” hand ballet), 1966
N: Comedy Show, 1964; Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series (Tillstrom), 1964; Writing in Comedy or Variety (Robert Emmett, Gerald Gardner, Saul Turtletaub, David Panich, Tony Webster, Thomas Meehan, Ed Sherman), 1964 and (Emmett, Gardner, Turtletaub, Meehan, William Boardman, Dee Caruso, David Frost, Buck Henry, Joseph Hurley, Herb Sargent, Larry Siegel, Gloria Steinem, Jim Stevenson, Calvin Trillin), 1965
Henry Fonda hosted the hour special on Nov. 10, 1963, and Elaine May and Mike Nichols were the highlight – they were shamefully overlooked for a gut-busting routine about
That’s Life
ABC Tuesdays 10-11 p.m., Sept. 24, 1968-May 20, 1969
N: Variety or Music Series (Stan Harris, Marvin Marx, P; Robert Morse, star); Electronic Camerawork (Frank Biondo)
Endearingly gap-toothed Robert Dickson (Morse) met bouyant blonde Gloria Quigley (E.J. Peaker), and the result was a whirlwind romance that included having a wedding and planning a family, all told with the assistance of old and new songs plus some dance routines. Despite relatively weak competition (news shows including the first season of 60 Minutes on CBS and the last half of movies on NBC), the sheer theatricality of this program worked against it - it came off more as an extended variety sketch replete with audience laughter and applause, thus diluting one’s commitment to the lead characters - as did the lightening fast pace of the story (they were married on the third episode!). And using music in conjunction with a continuing plot just does not work on TV, as shown by later efforts Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Cop Rock. Still, Morse and his playful mugging are worth a look, the comedy sections are pretty decent (if you can tolerate dated jokes about hippies, turtlenecks, etc.), and the choreography and orchestrations are the cream of the crop for a weekly series and should have been nominated. Of the ones here that were nominated, only Morse ended up winning an Emmy - see Tru.
Harris: Duke Ellington … We Love You Madly, The George Burns One-Man Show. Marx: The Jackie Gleason Show. Morse: Mad Men, Tru.
Theatre 62
NBC Various dates and times 60 minutes p.m., Oct. 4, 1961-April 8, 1962
N: Art Direction and Scenic Design (Jan Scott, art director)
Presented live from New York, this series of seven specials were adaptations of movies produced by David O. Selznick. Jinx Falkenberg served as hostess and commercial spokesperson (the ads were filmed). An odd concept, considering Selznick had nothing to do with the specials and little with TV in general, and it was sheer folly to try to compete with movies that have longer running times and higher production values. Even worse, it appears the actors were made to look and act like the originals as much as possible, so for example James Mason and Joan Hackett tried obviously to emulate Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine in “Rebecca” to so-so success. Given all that, it was not surprising that this concept lasted just one season. This was the fourth of an incredible 29 Emmy nominations for Scott.
Scott: Armstrong Circle Theatre, Blind Faith, CBS: On the Air, CBS Playhouse, Cruel Doubt, DuPont Show of the Week, Evergreen, The Gathering, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Hollywood Television Theatre, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, The Kennedys of Massachusetts, The Lie, The Long Hot Summer, Marilyn: The Untold Story, Orphan Train, Roots, Studs Lonigan.
The Third Barry Manilow Special
ABC p.m., May 23, 1979
W: Choreography (Kevin Carlisle)
N: Tape Sound Mixing (Doug Nelson)
Starting poorly with a gag sequence about Barry being slow in a drive training car in the Hollywood hills, this installment was an up-and-down affair for anyone not a Manilow fan. The big set pieces involving Barry imagining himself in various movie scenes and his Everly Brothers duet with John Denver are spotty, but his concert performance remains strong. Carlisle earned a Tony nomination for Best Choreography for Hallelujah, Baby! in 1968 but did a fair amount of work for TV the following decades after that, including yet another Manilow special in 1988, Big Fun on Swing Street.
Nelson: Emmy Awards,
Three on a Match
NBC Weekdays 1:30-2 p.m., Aug. 2, 1971-June 28, 1974
N: Individual Achievement in Daytime Programming (Bill Cullen), 1973
Three contestants bid on the number of questions they can answer from three categories, with the winner getting a chance to pick a trio of the same squares out of 16 on a board. Winners faced two new challengers. This middling concept nevertheless should have earned at least one nomination for director Mike Gargiulo, who inventively superimposed a shot of a player’s face within the game board as he or she chose the squares. Three on a Match marked the first of just three Emmy nominations – and no wins – for Bill Cullen, considered by many to be the dean of game show hosts for his smooth job leading dozens of series from the 1950s through 1980s.
Cullen: Blockbusters, Hot Potato.
Thriller
NBC Tuesdays 9-10 p.m.*, Sept. 13, 1960-July 9, 1962
N: Achievement in Music (Pete Rugolo, Jerry Goldsmith), 1961
Boris Karloff cordially hosted this anthology (he even gave the names of that night’s major actors!) that never quite came together. Most of the shows in 1960 were suspense melodramas that were scored accordingly by Rugolo. NBC thought Thriller would have more of a horror emphasis – after all, that was the genre that brought Karloff fame – so they fired the production team including Rugolo and Goldsmith assumed the latter’s duties, even though the main theme remained in place. Either way, the scripts and the acting generally did not reach the heights of, say, Alfred Hitchcock Presents or The Twilight Zone, and it ended after two seasons when it bombed opposite Ben Casey (q.v.). Too bad the show lost its sole nomination – it certainly would have made an interesting acceptance speech for the two men having to explain they were not collaborators even though Emmy viewed them as such. This was the first Emmy nomination for both men. For some reason, the Academy’s official records incorrectly list the title as The Thriller.
Rugolo: The Challengers, Do You Take This Stranger, The Last Convertible, The Lawyers, Run for Your Life. Goldsmith: Babe, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Masada, QB VII, The Red Pony, Star Trek: Voyager.
The Time Tunnel
ABC Fridays 8-9 p.m.*, Sept. 9, 1966-Sept. 1, 1967
W: Cinematography (L.B. Abbott, photographic special effects)
Afraid that the $7.5 billion project (and that’s in 1966 dollars, folks) would lose its federal funding due to no tangible results, Dr. Tony Newman (James Darren) launched himself into the time tunnel to show it could allow users to visit the past and present. Officials with the secret project, located 800 stories beneath the Arizona desert, tried to rescue him, with Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) jumping into the tunnel and being trapped with Newman as Dr. Ann MacGregor (Lee Meriwether), Gen. Heywood “Woody” Kirk (Whit Bissell) and Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba) watched them via a monitor within the tunnel and adjusted coordinates in vain to transfer them home while they landed at different points in history. Like producer Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost In Space, what began as a tolerable adventure with dubious science and facts became a joke with bad scripts, only here The Wild Wild West and Hogan’s Heroes on CBS doomed the series to last just a year. Also like those shows, the visuals fared best, with the stunning time tunnel set still one of the most breathtakingly flashy in TV history. L.B. (Lenwood Ballard) Abbott beat himself here, as he was nominated the same year for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He won Oscars for Doctor Doolittle (1967), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Logan’s Run (1976), and in 1984, a year before his death, he wrote a book titled Special Effects.
Abbott: Lost In Space, The Return of Captain Nemo, The Time Tunnel.
To All My Friends on Shore
CBS p.m., Feb. 25, 1972
W: Writing, Drama (Allan Sloane)
Based on an idea by star/executive producer Bill Cosby, who also supplied the overdone funky score as well here, this dramatic TV-movie told of a man (Cosby) who tried to get his wife (Gloria Foster) and son (Dennis Hines) out of the ghetto before learning the latter had sickle-cell anemia. The effectiveness of the fine cast (whatever happened to Hines, anyway?) and a script that avoided the maudlin were hampered by director Gilbert Cates, whose humdrum shot selections and choppy tempo were dated efforts that attempted to add “realism” come off as contrived today. Foster and Cosby worked again on an episode of The Cosby Show and, unfortunately, the horribly awful 1987 movie Leonard Part 6. This was the only win out of three writing nominations for Sloane.
Sloane: Breaking Point, Hallmark Hall of Fame
To Tell the Truth
CBS Mondays 7:30-8 p.m.* (also daytime), Dec. 18, 1956-Sept. 6, 1968 (and syndicated 1969-1978)
N: Achievement in Panel, Quiz or Audience Participation, 1963
To Tell the Truth was the first game show to employ bluffing as its major component. Every game introduced three people pretending to be the same person (the announcer asked each one of them, “What is your name please?” and all responded with the exact moniker), and it was up to a panel of four celebrities to discern the real person through a brief inquisition by each of them. For its CBS run Bud Collyer was host, and Kitty Carlisle, Tom Poston, Orson Bean and Peggy Cass were the panelists most identified with its run in the 1960s. Producer Mark Goodson was so fascinated by the concept (created by Bob Stewart, who later became producer in his own right of The $20,000 Pyramid) that he even made a few rare appearances on TV as guest host on it, and he was excellent, too. The 1969-78 version, hosted mainly by Garry Moore, used a psychedelic set its first few years. The show underwent short-lived revivals every decade since the 1970s, but it only had one Emmy nomination throughout the incarnations.
Topper
CBS Fridays 8:30-9 p.m., Oct. 9, 1953-Sept. 30, 1955
N: Situation Comedy, 1953
Bank vice president Cosmo Topper (Leo G. Carroll) had the odd plight of being haunted by ghosts Marian Kerby (Anne Jeffreys), “the loveliest ghost in town,” according to the opening credits, her swinging husband George Kerby (Robert Sterling), “the liveliest ghost in town,” and a hefty St. Bernard named Neil. All three perished in an avalanche in Europe but returned as spirits to occupy the old Kerby home where Topper now lived with his wife Henrietta (Lee Patrick). To Cosmo’s distress, only he could see and hear the trio, and their impish nature at his home and office, where he served under bank president Mr. Schyler (Thurston Hall), often caused misunderstandings and complications for him. Droll but uneven first TV fantasy sitcom, with the scripts and directing somewhat of a letdown (the limitations of filming transparent superimpositions of the ghosts and having them materialize in person are obvious today). While the cast was strong, longtime movie character actor Carroll did not have the charisma to be a leading man here (he later earned two Emmy nominations for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in the supporting category). The show ended after failing to beat the competing The Life of Riley on NBC.
Trapped
ABC Wednesday 8:30-10 p.m., Nov. 14, 1973
N: Cinematography for Special or TV-Movie (Fred Mandl)
Divorced father James Brolin argues with his ex-wife Susan Clark about her flying of town with their daughter and Susan’s new husband Earl Holliman before he faces his real problem - being attacked and knocked out at a department store and waking up after hours to fight the store’s angry pack of Doberman guard dogs (this was later retitled Doberman Patrol). A surprisingly popular TV-movie, especially given that its first half hour ran against the red hot Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, this is a reasonably done thriller. This was Mandl’s sole Emmy nod after more than two decades as director of photography for several movies and TV shows, and a valid one.
Treasures of Literature
KFI One Hour Weekly, 1948
N: Most Popular Program
This live local Los Angeles anthology series dramatizing classic works of fiction (at $300 per week for cast and crew) looked pretty good from the kinescope clip I saw of it in the 1992 special KTLA at 45: A Salute to Los Angeles Television. Peggy Webber wrote, produced, directed and even occasionally starred on it.
CBS Saturdays 8:30-9:30 p.m.*, Sept. 18, 1965-May 6, 1966
N: Supporting Actor, Drama (David Burns)
Peter Falk was Daniel J. O’Brien, an attorney at law brilliant in court but bumbling in his private life. He had a knack of being late in paying alimony to his ex-wife, Katie (Joanna Barnes), who lived with her mother, Margaret (Ilka Chase) and worked as a fashion designer. O’Brien’s supportive secretary, Miss G (Elaine Stritch), tried to help him out at all times, but his general disregard to life outside the court made her efforts difficult. He was more interested in getting the lowdown on cases from his lead investigator, the Great McGonigle (Burns). This atmospheric diversion flopped in its first time slot, where viewers accustomed to the sober approach on Perry Mason chose Get Smart on NBC or The Lawrence Welk Show on ABC instead, and a move to Friday nights after two months did not help either. It deserved better. Burns was fine as the snoop, but frankly I thought the rest of the cast outshone him. I hate to say it, but his two previous Tony wins (for The Music Man in 1958 and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1963) probably played a good part in his nomination. This was the last black-and-white nighttime series filmed in New York City.
Burns: Hallmark Hall of Fame
Truman Capote’s The Glass House – See The Glass House
Truth or Consequences
CBS Thursdays 10-10:30 p.m., Sept. 7, 1950-May 31, 1951
W: Game and Audience Participation Show, 1951
“Hello there, we’ve been waiting for you!” said the announcer at each installment of this series that began on radio in 1940, as the audience laughed uproariously. Host and producer Ralph Edwards presented scenarios where if someone did not give him the “truth” – the answer to a bad joke or pun – he or she had to pay the “consequences” and do a ridiculous gag. This was a poor choice over such nominees as Pantomime Quiz and You Bet Your Life, because even though it was filmed, it was awkwardly edited and directed to the point where most other live game shows looked more polished in comparison. Edwards revived it several times and succeeded only when Bob Barker hosted a version that ran on NBC daytime from 1956-65 and in syndication from 1966-75, however that effort and other revivals never earned a nomination.
Tuskegee Airmen
HBO p.m., 199
W: Single Camera Editing, Miniseries or Special (David Beatty); Casting, Miniseries or Special (Robi Reed-Humes); Sound Editing (John Adams, Bill Bell, Tim Chilton, Bob Costanza, Mike Dickeson, Mark Friedgen, G. Michael Graham, Mark Heyes, Anton Holden, Kristi Johns, Stan Jones, Mike Lyle, Gary Macheel, Joseph Melody, Jill Schachne, Mark Steele, Rick Steele, Tim Terusa, Darren Wright)
N: Made-for-TV Movie (Frank Price, EP; Robert Williams, Co-EP; Bill Carraro, P; Carol Bahoric, Co-P); Actor, Miniseries or Special (Laurence Fishburne); Supporting Actor, Miniseries or Special (Andre Braugher); Writing, Miniseries or Special (Trey Ellis, Ron Hutchinson, Paris Qualles, teleplay; T.S. Cook, Robert Williams, story); Visual Effects (Fred Cramer, David Fiske, Raymond McIntyre, Jr., Michael Muscal); Music Composition, Miniseries or Special (Lee Holdridge); Sound Mixing ( )
Facing bigotry every step of their journey, four men – (Fishburne), (Malcolm Jamal Warner) – break the color barrier in World War II by training as pilots in Tuskegee, Alabama, eventually resulting in them seeing action in the European theater in shooting down Nazis and protecting bomb squads. A truly patriotic film, illustrating without exaggeration the racism the men faced in real life and how they reacted to it, their obvious love of flying, and their attempts to reconcile why they are defending a country that is slow to appreciate them. Though Braugher does not appear until more than halfway into the story, he obviously earned his nomination from a scene where he eloquently testified to a congressional group. Fishburne and HBO returned the next year with a far darker tale set in Tuskegee – see Miss Evers’ Boys.
12 O’Clock High
ABC Mondays 7:30-8:30 p.m.*, Sept. 18, 1964-Jan. 13, 1967
W: Cinematography (William Spencer), 1965
Ostensibly based on the best selling book and Oscar-nominated 1949 movie of the same name, 12 O’Clock High was meant to be ABC’s Air Force equivalent to its hit Army drama Combat! (q.v.), but it never made the grade with the critics or public because apart from its spectacular battle scenes from stock footage or newsreels, it favored being slick over grittiness. Starring were Robert Lansing as Brigadier General Frank Savage (the character Gregory Peck played in the movie; Lansing was written out by the second season), Paul Burke as Joe Gallagher, whose rank went from captain to colonel during the show’s two-and-a-half year run, and Andrew Duggan as Brigadier General Ed Britt (1965-67). Emmy winner Spencer went two for three, winning another statuette nearly 20 years later for an episode of Fame.
Spencer: Barnaby Jones, Fame.
21 Hours at Munich
ABC Sunday 9-11 p.m., Nov. 7, 1976
N: Special, Comedy or Drama (Edward S. Feldman, EP; Robert Greenwald, Frank von Zerneck, P); Film Editing (Ronald J. Fagan)
A strong recreation filmed on site of one of the worst tragedies ever to befall the sports world - the murders of 11 Israeli athletes by radical Arab terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Germany, and the unsuccessful effort to rescue them. In key roles, and excellent in all of them, are Franco Nero as the lead terrorist, Shirley Knight as negotiator Annaliese Graese, William Holden as Chief of Police Manfred Schreiber, Richard Basehart as Chancellor Willy Schmidt, and Anthony Quayle as Israel General Zvi Zamir. Covering the events from the takeover at the Olympic Village through the shootout and massacre of most participants at a nearby airport, this was professionally presented on every level, and even included a prologue and epilogue narrated by Jim McKay, who covered the events as they transpired for ABC Sports in 1972.
Feldman: King. Greenwald: The Burning Bed, A Woman of Independent Means. von Zerneck: Dress Gray. Fagan: Mussolini: The Untold Story, Young Joe the Forgotten Kennedy.