TV Time Capsule

Dr. Hartley’s Busiest Season on ‘The Bob Newhart Show’

“Holidays With the Hartleys” continues.

On December 23, 1972, CBS aired “His Busiest Season,” an episode of “The Bob Newhart Show” that finds everyone feeling blue at Christmastime.

While Chicago psychologist Dr. Bob Hartley (Newhart) struggles to treat his sad-sack patients, his wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette) makes her shopping list.

EMILY: What do you think I should buy your Uncle Harry and Aunt May? I can’t think of a thing.

BOB: What did we send them last year?

EMILY: A basket of fruit.

BOB: They should have eaten it by now.

To cheer his patients – and himself and Emily – Bob throws an impromptu Christmas Eve party. He tries to lead everyone in a round of carols, but each song brings back a bad memory for a member of the group.

Suddenly, things begin looking up.

“I just feel great because we’re all having such a rotten time together,” Emily declares as the room erupts in laughter.

See for yourself: “His Busiest Season” is part of “The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete First Season” DVD set and can also be rented and purchased at iTunes and Amazon.com and streamed at Hulu.

 

On TV

Here’s the prime-time lineup for Saturday, December 23, 1972:

8: “Alias Smith and Jones”* (ABC), “All in the Family”* (CBS), “Ernie Ford’s White Christmas” (NBC)

8:30: “Bridget Loves Bernie” (CBS)

9: “Streets of San Francisco” (ABC), “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (CBS), “Climb an Angry Mountain” (NBC)

9:30: “The Bob Newhart Show” (CBS)

10: “The Sixth Sense” (ABC), “The Carol Burnett Show” (CBS)

 

The Record

For the week of December 17, 1972:

Top novel: “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach

Top song: “Me and Mrs. Jones” by Billy Paul

Top movie: “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean”

In the news: U.N. Ambassador George Bush quit

 

 

Captions: “Bob Newhart Show” stars Bob Newhart and Suzanne Pleshette in scenes from “His Busiest Season.”

‘The Bob Newhart Show’s’ Endless Holiday Office Party

“Holidays With the Hartleys” continues.

On December 22, 1973, CBS aired “I’m Dreaming of a Slight Christmas,” a “Bob Newhart Show” episode that finds Chicago psychologist Bob Hartley (Newhart) dreading his office holiday party.

The shindigs always follow a pattern, as Bob explains:

Around 2 o’clock it usually starts and then Carol says what a great guy I am. And then about 2:05, somebody spikes the watercooler. About 2:30, Carol tells me off. And then sometime between 3 and 4, somebody asks for some free psychological advice. And then around 4 o’clock, all the ear, nose and throat men on the sixth floor come down and challenge us to an ice hockey game on the roof. And then at 5 o’clock, Tupperman starts reciting the Hippocratic oath while Jerry hums “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.”

This year, Bob plans to leave the party early to spend Christmas Eve with wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette). Too bad a blizzard strands him at the office!

See for yourself: “I’m Dreaming of a Slight Christmas” is part of “The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Second Season” DVD set and can also be rented and purchased at iTunes and Amazon.com and streamed at Hulu.

 

On TV

Here’s the prime-time lineup for Saturday, December 22, 1973:

8: “Partridge Family” (ABC), “All in the Family” (CBS), “Emergency!” (NBC)

8:30: “Snatched” (ABC), “M*A*S*H” (CBS)

9: “Mary Tyler Moore Show” (CBS), “Fitzwilly” (NBC)

9:30: “Bob Newhart Show” (CBS)

10: “Griff” (ABC), “Carol Burnett Show” (CBS)

 

The Record

For the week of December 16, 1973:

Top novel: “Burr” by Gore Vidal

Top song: “The Most Beautiful Girl” by Charlie Rich

Top movie: “Amacord”

Top TV show: “All in the Family” (CBS)

In the news: First-class stamp prices increased from 8 cents to a dime

 

 

Captions: Dr. Bob Hartley, patient Mr. Peterson and receptionist Carol Keester – played by John Fiedler and Marcia Wallace, respectively – learn a blizzard has shut down Chicago during Bob’s holiday office party (top); Emily isn’t thrilled with the tiny tree Bob has brought home for their scaled-down Christmas (middle); Bob braves the blizzard to spend Christmas Eve with Emily, but he’s too tired to celebrate, so they snuggle on the sofa (bottom).

A Crowded Christmas Eve on ‘The Bob Newhart Show’

“Holidays With the Hartleys” continues.

On December 21, 1974, CBS aired “Home is Where the Hurt is,” another “Bob Newhart Show” episode where everyone spends Christmas Eve together.

Chicago psychologist Bob Hartley and wife Emily (Newhart, Suzanne Pleshette) – decked out in their very finest – are headed to the symphony when neighbor Howard Borden (Bill Dailey) shows up and asks to borrow some tinsel for his aluminum tree.

After Howard finally scoots out the door, Bob’s receptionist Carol Keester (Marcia Wallace) arrives and embarks on a long-winded monologue about her unhappy childhood.

Later, Howard returns to borrow more decorations.

“I thought you guys were going to the symphony,” he says.

“We thought we’d give them another year to practice,” Bob responds.

Carol finally musters the courage to confront her father and leaves. Bob awakens his dozing wife by sliding next to her on the sofa.

“It was kind of a nice Christmas Eve,” Bob says as he and Emily snuggle.

“And I think it’s going to turn out to be a lovely Christmas morning, too,” she coos.

See for yourself: “Home is Where the Heart is” is part of “The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Third Season” DVD set and can also be rented and purchased at iTunes and Amazon.com and streamed at Hulu.

 

On TV

Here’s the prime-time lineup for Saturday, December 21, 1974:

8: “A Dream for Christmas”* (ABC), “All in the Family” (CBS), “Emergency!” (NBC)

9: “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (CBS), “Geronimo”* (NBC)

9:30: “The Bob Newhart Show” (CBS)

10: “The Carol Burnett Show” (CBS), “Nakia” (ABC)

 

The Record

For the week of December 15, 1974:

Top novel: “Centennial” by James Michener

Top song: “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas

Top movie: “The Man With the Golden Gun”

In the news: Stimulate the economy, experts urged

 

 

Captions: In “Home is Where the Hurt is,” Dr. Bob Hartley (Bob Newhart) dozes off while receptionist Carol Keester drones on (top); neighbor Howard Borden, played by Bill Daily, drops by to borrow decorations and Emily and Carol – played by Suzanne Pleshette and Marcia Wallace – chat (middle); and Bob and Emily finally have some alone time (bottom).

Betty White, Carol Burnett and the Saga of Ellen and Eunice

“Betty, White Hot!,” a series of periodic flashbacks to key moments in Betty White’s amazing television career, continues.

On November 22, 1975, Betty White made her first guest appearance on CBS’s “The Carol Burnett Show,” creating the memorable role of snobby Ellen Jackson.

Ellen was featured in the show’s recurring “The Family” sketches, which starred Burnett as Eunice Higgins, an emotional and frustrated homemaker in the south; Harvey Korman as her husband Ed, a dimwitted slob who worked in a hardware store; and Vicki Lawrence as Thelma “Mama” Harper, Eunice’s mother, an ornery and bitter widow who always picked fights with her daughter and son-in-law.

“The Family” sketch that aired 35 years ago tonight introduced Ellen, Mama’s oldest daughter, who had married into money and seemed rather embarrassed by her uncouth family.

“Mean as she was, Ellen was the apple of Mama’s eye and took credit for whatever poor Eunice had knocked herself out to do,” White recalled in her 1995 memoir, “Here We Go Again: My Life in Television.”

In the sketch, Eunice throws a birthday party for Mama and presents her with a fly swatter. Of course, Ellen upstages Eunice when she gives Mama a fur shawl.

“I’m so glad one of my girls married someone with some get-up-and-go,” Mama says as she strokes the fur.

White made at least one more appearance as Ellen before “The Carol Burnett Show” ended its 11-season run in 1978, then reprised the role in NBC’s “Eunice,” a 1982 special that found the squabbling Harpers reuniting for Mama’s funeral.

“It doesn’t sound like too many laughs, but the writers had put a marvelous spin on the subject,” White wrote in her book.

“Eunice” was a ratings hit, inspiring NBC to resurrect Mama for “Mama’s Family,” a weekly sitcom starring Lawrence.

White appeared occasionally on the show, including one episode that found Ellen scheming to regain her social status after her wealthy husband dumped her.

NBC cancelled “Mama’s Family” in 1985, but the show returned the following year with new episodes that were syndicated to local stations.

White returned for one of these installments: a storyline in which vain Ellen gets a fanny lift.

See for yourself: “The Carol Burnett Show” isn’t online or available widely on video – neither is “Eunice” – but “Mama’s Family: The Complete First Season” is on DVD. The next “Betty, White Hot!” installment will be posted December 1.

 

On TV

Here’s the prime-time lineup for Saturday, November 22, 1975:

8: “Saturday Nigth Live with Howard Cosell” (ABC), “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”* (CBS), “Emergency!” (NBC)

8:30: “The Jeffersons” (CBS)

9: “S.W.A.T.” (ABC), “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (CBS), “Doctor Zhivago, Part 1” (NBC)

9:30: “The Bob Newhart Show” (CBS)

10: “Matt Helm” (ABC), “The Carol Burnett Show” (CBS)

 

The Record

For the week of November 16, 1975:

Top novel: “Ragtime” by E.L. Doctorow

Top song: “Island Girl” by Elton John

Top movie: “Rooster Cogburn”

Top TV show: “Sanford and Son” (NBC)

In the news: Vice President Rockefeller warned activists

 

 

Captions: “The Family,” a series of recurring sketches on CBS’s “The Carol Burnett Show,” featured Betty White and Burnett as sisters Ellen and Eunice, seen her in a 1976 episode.

A Celebrity Olympics: ABC’s ‘Battle of the Network Stars’

On November 13, 1976, ABC launched “Battle of the Network Stars,” a series of specials featuring teams of actors from ABC, CBS and NBC shows competing in swimming, kayaking and other sports, as well as games of tug-of-war and Simon Says.

Howard Cosell hosted most “Battles,” which ABC aired about twice a year through the mid-1980s.

Joyce Millman remembered the specials in a 2003 New York Times column:

Everybody who was anybody in prime time suited up for “Battle of the Network Stars” – it was like Emmy night with taunting and a dunk tank. Which led to memorable incidents, like Robert Conrad, the competition-crazed captain of the NBC team, crowing over a foot race and making the ABC captain, Gabe (“Welcome Back, Kotter”) Kaplan, so mad that he dug down deep and blew Mr. Conrad off the track.

“Battle of the Network Stars” was a celebrity peep show, with egos as exposed as a Charlie’s Angel in a wet T-shirt (of which it offered many glimpses). It was utter trash, and it was delicious.

See for yourself: “Battle of the Network Stars” isn’t online or on video; visit TVShowsonDVD.com and petition its release!

 

On TV

Here’s the prime-time lineup for Saturday, November 13, 1976:

8: “Holmes & Yoyo” (ABC), “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (CBS), “Emergency!” (NBC)

8:30: “What’s Happening!!” (ABC), “The Bob Newhart Show” (CBS)

9: “Battle of the Network Stars” (ABC), “All in the Family” (CBS), “Macon County Line” (NBC)

9:30: “Alice” (CBS)

10: “The Carol Burnett Show” (CBS)

 

The Record

For the week of November 7, 1976:

Top novel: “Sleeping Murder” by Agatha Christie

Top song: “Rock’n Me” by Steve Miller Band

Top movie: “Carrie”

Top TV show: “Gone With the Wind, Part 2” (NBC)

In the news: The movie industry sued to stop selling VCRs

 

 

Captions: Howard Cosell speaks to Gabe Kaplan on the first “Battle of the Network Stars” special (top, photograph by ABC Photo Archives courtesy Getty Images); ABC’s advertisement for the special, from TV Guide’s November 13, 1976, issue (bottom).

‘The Godfather’ – Bigger, Longer, Uncut

On November 12, 1977, NBC launched “Mario Puzo’s The Godfather: The Complete Novel for Television,” a four-night, seven-hour miniseries that combined the first two “Godfather” films into one epic.

“The Godfather,” which was released in 1972, chronicled the final days of aging don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando); 1974’s “The Godfather, Part II” followed the reign of his son and successor Michael (Al Pacino), interspersed with flashbacks to the rise of young Vito (Robert De Niro).

“The Complete Novel” told the story in chronological order, beginning with the flashbacks.

NBC reportedly paid between $12 million and $15 million for the miniseries, which was edited by Barry Malkin, who collaborated with director Francis Ford Coppola on the original films.

Malkin included scenes cut from the theatrical versions, as well as a new introduction by Coppola’s sister Talia Shire, who played Vito’s daughter Connie.

The Washington Post’s Tom Shales called the miniseries “the most satisfying and significant television event since ‘Roots’” – but “The Complete Novel” averaged just 41 percent of the available audience – 19 points lower than NBC expected.

See for yourself: “The Godfather: The Complete Novel for Television” isn’t available on DVD.

 

On TV

Here’s the prime-time lineup for Saturday, November 12, 1977:

8: “Tabitha” (ABC), “The Bob Newhart Show” (CBS) “The Bionic Woman” (NBC)

8:30: “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”* (ABC), “We’ve Got Each Other” (CBS)

9: “The Jeffersons” (CBS), “Mario Puzo’s The Godfather: The Complete Novel for Television” (NBC)

9:30: “The Tony Randall Show” (CBS)

10: “The Carol Burnett Show” (CBS)

* Repeat

 

The Record

For the week of November 6, 1977:

Top novel: “The Silmarillion” by J.R.R. Tolkien

Top song: “You Light Up My Life” by Debby Boone

At the movies: “Pete’s Dragon”

Top TV show: “Laverne & Shirley” (ABC) 

In the news: Congress relaxed environmental regulations

 

 

 

 

 

Captions: “Mario Puzo’s The Godfather: The Complete Novel for Television” stars, from top, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro on TV Guide’s November 12, 1977, cover (top, illustration by Charles Santore); NBC’s advertisements for the miniseries, also from that issue.

Sue Ann Nivens, Happy Homewrecker

“Betty, White Hot!” a series of periodic flashbacks to key moments in Betty White’s amazing television career, continues.

On September 15, 1973, CBS aired “The Lars Affair,” the classic “Mary Tyler Moore Show” episode that introduced Betty White as TV hostess Sue Ann Nivens, whose dimpled smile masked a deliciously bitchy personality.

The episode, which served as the sitcom’s fourth season premiere, finds snobbish Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) devastated to learn henpecked husband Lars is having an affair with Sue Ann, the star of “The Happy Homemaker” on WJM, the Minneapolis TV station where Phyllis’s friend Mary Richards (Moore) works.

Phyllis confronts Sue Ann on “The Happy Homemaker” set, where she slams the oven door, deliberately destroying a chocolate soufflé Sue Ann is baking. (“My poor baby!” Sue Ann wails.)

Before Sue Ann, White was known for playing sweet-as-spun-sugar characters such as newlywed Vicki Angel, her role on the 1950s sitcom “Date With the Angels.”

In White’s expert hands, Sue Ann became a precursor to Martha Stewart: a perfectionist with a helpful hint for every occasion.

In “The Lars Affair,” as Mary’s neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper) helps tidy up after a dinner party, Sue Ann admonishes the “dear” for throwing out the coffee grounds (“They’re the perfect plant food for Mary’s geraniums!”). In “Happy Birthday, Lou!,” a December 22, 1973, episode,  Sue Ann objects to the chafing dish Mary plans to use at another party (“What do we plan to do about the tarnish?”).

Sue Ann’s favorite sparring partner was WJM newsroom writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod): He zinged her for being promiscuous, she zapped him for being bald.

From “Not With My Wife, I Don’t,” a January 3, 1976, broadcast:

SUE ANN: Mary, I just dropped by, dear, to tell you to be sure to stop in my studio this week. I’m devoting all my shows to you poor unfortunate single girls.

MARY: Sue Ann, in case you’ve forgotten, you are single also.

SUE ANN: Oh yes, but that’s only because I don’t happen to place my love life above my profession.

 

MURRAY: I thought that was your profession.

SUE ANN: Oh Murray, witty Murray. Jokes fall from your lips – almost as fast as hair falls from your head.

The show’s writers occasionally explored Sue Ann’s vulnerable side. In “The Happy Homemaker Takes Lou Home” – a December 6, 1975, installment – Sue Ann finds herself spurned by her favorite target, gruff Lou Grant (Ed Asner), who gently tells her she’s “too good” to keep throwing herself at him.

“Isn’t life funny?” Sue Ann says. “I’ve been accepted by lots of men and felt rotten. You’ve just rejected me and I feel like a million dollars. Thanks, Lou.”

Sue Ann was conceived as a one-time character, but White proved so popular that producers made her a semi-regular. She appeared in 33 episodes after “The Lars Affair,” twice winning Emmys for her performance.

In White’s 1995 memoir “Here We Go Again: My Life in Television,” she credited Moore, her longtime friend, with Sue Ann’s success:

No matter how funny the part is, if a guest character is someone the lead character doesn’t like, the audience can often get protective and not respond well to the newcomer. It might work in drama, but that syndrome can do you in when you’re going for comedy. It was thanks to Mary’s choice as an actress that Sue Ann worked. Rather than disliking her, Mary Richards found Sue Ann Nivens laughable, so the audience could relax and laugh with her.

“The Lars Affair” can be rented for 99 cents or purchased for $1.99 at iTunes and downloaded for 99 cents from Amazon.com. The episode is also part of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Fourth Season” DVD set. The next “Betty, White Hot!” installment will be posted tomorrow.

 

Also on TV

On September 15, 1973, CBS also aired the season premieres of “All in the Family,” “M*A*S*H,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and “The Carol Burnett Show” (guest: Jim Nabors, natch); ABC broadcast the season premiere of “The Partridge Family” and showed “Irma La Douce,” a 1963 flick starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine; and NBC carried “America Goes Public,” a Democratic Party telethon.

 

The Record

During the week of September 9, 1973, the number ones included Mary Stewart’s “The Hollow Hills” (book) and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” (song). “American Graffiti” was new at the movies, and in Washington, President Nixon and special prosecutor Archibald Cox were at an impasse in their dispute over the Watergate tapes.

 

  

Captions: Mary Tyler Moore and Betty White in a 1976 photograph by Ken Whitmore (top, courtesy IMDB.com, via MPTV); CBS’s advertisement for “The Lars Affair” from TV Guide’s September 15, 1973, issue (bottom).

Saturday, April 21, 1990

For a few weeks in the spring of 1990, sketch comedy was suddenly abundant on Saturday night television.

The genre’s heyday was in the ’70s, when stars such as Carol Burnett, Flip Wilson and Sonny and Cher hosted variety hours that emphasized comedic sketches and recurring characters like Wilson’s tell-it-like-it-is alter ego, Geraldine Jones.

Fox’s half-hour “Tracey Ullman Show” kept the flame flickering in the late ’80s, winning critical acclaim and several Emmys but failing to attract many viewers.

Then, on March 31, 1990, Burnett returned to her old Saturday-nights-at-10 time-slot in NBC’s “Carol & Company,” a half-hour show in which she played a different character in each episode.

Coincidentally, the following week, Fox moved Ullman from her longtime Sunday-night perch to Saturday nights at 9:30. Then, after airing the “In Living Color” pilot on Easter Sunday, Fox moved the outlandish sketch show to its regular time slot – Saturdays at 9 p.m. – on April 21.

It was a night for comedy-variety fans to rejoice: Three sketch shows airing back-to-back-to-back in prime time, albeit on two different networks. (The cherry on top: Alec Baldwin hosted his first edition of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” later that night.)

Sadly, the triumvirate didn’t triumph: “Carol & Company” ranked 11th in that week’s ratings, but “In Living Color” trailed in 81st place and “The Tracey Ullman Show” finished dead last in the 90th spot.

This pattern continued for weeks. In May, Fox cancelled Ullman’s show and moved “In Living Color” to Sundays, where it thrived for years.

NBC kept “Carol & Company” on Saturdays for another year, but after ratings softened and the producer quit, Burnett returned to CBS to host a short-lived revival of her ’70s variety hour.

The networks have since made sporadic attempts to revive sketch comedy without success. Notable failures in the ’90s include shows hosted by Dana Carvey and a young Ben Stiller.

Cable has been more successful: Comedy Central’s “Chappelle’s Show” drew big audiences from 2003 to 2006, while one of the Disney Channel’s latest hits, “Sonny with a Chance,” includes “So Random!,” a sketch-show-within-a-sitcom.

 

Elsewhere on Television

TV Guide listings for April 21, 1990:

8 PM ABC SUNSET BEAT (CC); 2 hrs.

Debut: Undercover L.A. copes posing as rugged bikers ride hard on the city’s crime scene. In the opener, they battle a crime lord (Anthony Geary), who terrorizes L.A. while demanding the return of a truckload of cash lost in an accident. Ray Parker: James Tolkan. Chic Chesbro: George Clooney. Tim Kelly: Michael DeLuise. Bradley Coolidge: Markus Flanagan. Tucson Smith: Erik King.

Additional Cast

J.C. ……………….. Marshall Teague

Holly …………………. Sydney Walsh

Hobbs …………………… Gary Frank

Debbie …………………. Ami Dolenz

 

For the Record

Also on April 21, 1990:

Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” is the week’s top song. Robert Ludlum’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” is the top book. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is the top movie. And in the news, interest rates climb after the government posts a record $53.34 billion monthly deficit.

Saturday, March 31, 1990

Carol Burnett returned to weekly television in “Carol & Company,” an ambitious anthology comedy series that NBC introduced 20 years ago tonight.

Each week, Burnett played a different character in a half-hour teleplay that was recorded in front of a studio audience. She was joined by a repertory troupe that included Terry Kiser, Meagan Fay, Richard Kind, Jeremy Piven and Peter Krause.

The opener found Burnett playing a woman who hires a “human-exterminator” service to kill her boorish husband. In week two, she portrayed a transsexual – a woman who nervously attends a class reunion at the high school where she was the star quarterback.

Critics couldn’t help but to compare “Carol & Company” to the classic “Carol Burnett Show” variety hour that CBS aired from 1967 to 1978.

In the New York Times, John J. O’Connor wrote Burnett was “clearly determined” to make her new show edgier but suggested her new material wasn’t up to snuff. As the Washington Post’s Tom Shales saw it, Burnett was “uncomfortable” in her new showcase.

Viewers eagerly welcomed Burnett back to Saturday nights: The “Carol & Company” debut was seen in 17.5 million homes, finishing ninth among that week’s prime-time broadcasts.

One year and 34 episodes later, executive producer Matt Williams quit, saying the half-hour anthology format was like doing a new pilot each week. “It just drains the hell out of you,” he told USA Today.

Burnett asked NBC to make “Carol & Company” an hour-long variety show but the network declined. She returned to CBS and revived her “Carol Burnett Show” with a new supporting cast – including “Carol & Company” holdovers Fay and Kind – but it folded after just six episodes.

           

Elsewhere on Television

TV Guide listings for March 31, 1990:

9 PM ABC COLUMBO (CC); 2 hrs.

A tale of diabolical revenge opens on a tragic note – the burial of the murdered Mrs. Columbo.

The lieutenant’s often mentioned wife – who never appeared on his series but had one of her own in 1979 – is dead, the victim of a pathological killer named Vivian Dimitri (Helen Shaver). After her husband died in prison, Vivian vowed to exact vengeance on the people who put him there.

Vivian’s first victim was the fellow (Ed Winter) who informed on her husband. Her third and final target: none other than Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk). But she’s held off killing him until Columbo has felt the same pain of losing a spouse that Vivian feels.

Additional Cast

Leland St. John ………………… Ian MacShane

Sgt. Brady ……………………….. Tom Isbell

Dr. Steadman ……………… Roscoe Lee Browne

Dede Perkins …………………. Teresa Ganzel

Connolly ………………… Michael Alldredge

Priest ………………………….. Hugh Gillin

Mrs. Thornwood: Rosanna Huffman. George: Thornwood Buck

 

For the Record

Also on March 31, 1990:

“Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles is the top song. Robert Ludlum’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” is the top book. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is the top movie. And new statistics show more people were slain in New York City in 1989 than ever before.

Sunday, February 19, 1984

Yes, I could tell you about the CBS miniseries “Master of the Game” – the sweeping, multigenerational epic that debuted 26 years ago tonight – but wouldn’t you rather read excerpts from Tom Shales’s Washington Post review?

Here’s how he described the saga’s central character, Machiavellian matriarch Kate Blackwell:

Kate values money and power above all else, drives her son to insanity by ruining his art career and allowing his wife to die in childbirth, and tricks a man into marrying her by buying him a meat-packing plant.

And yet – you don’t just rather like her, you love her, because the role is played from the age of 19 to the age of 90 by the marvelous, magnetic, whimsically mercurial Dyan Cannon. … Either Cannon thinks she is giving a bravura performance in a serious film … or knows just what this material is worth and has made up her mind to have a high old time with it.

Here’s Shales on two of the story’s tempestuous lovers:

[T]heir first lovemaking bout is signaled by a pair of powerful slaps. People always get slapped in the face in films like this. …

Here’s Shales on Alexandra and Eve, Kate’s twin granddaughters:

One is an evil twin and one is a nice twin and both are played with a lack of subtlety that is downright festive by Liane Langland.

Finally, here’s how Shales concluded his review:

The mini-series is … like a Carol Burnett spoof in which Carol Burnett never shows up. Everything is dutifully played with faces straight except by the invaluable and adorable Cannon, who now and then seems to give us a wave to let us know we’re all partners in a goofy joke. She seems to be saying, “Empty your li’l ol’ head and enjoy yourself.”

Viewers did just that.

“Master of Game,” which aired in three-hour installments over three consecutive nights, was a ratings blockbuster, with each episode drawing more viewers than the previous edition. The finale was seen in 23.6 million homes, making it the week’s most-watched broadcast.

  

Elsewhere on Television

TV Guide listings for February 19, 1984:

8 PM NBC KNIGHT RIDER

Seeking revenge against Michael (David Hasselhoff), old nemesis Garthe Knight (also played by Hasselhoff), kidnaps Devon, April and a scientist to force a showdown between Kitt and his new and improved Goliath. Devon: Edware Mulhere. April: Rebecca Holden. (2 hrs.)

Guest Cast

Christina ………… Suzanne Barnes

Dr. Klaus …..… Peter Mark Richman

Adrianne St. Clair ........ Ann Turkel

 

… And in the News

New York Times excerpts from February 19, 1984:

ITALY ABOLISHES STATE RELIGION IN VATICAN PACT

Italy and the Vatican signed a concordat today under which Roman Catholicism ceases to be the state religion of Italy.

The document was signed by Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and the Vatican Secretary of State, Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, in a stately ceremony in the Villa Madama, a 16th-century palace that once belonged to Pope Clement VII and is now owned by the Italian Government.