TV Time Capsule

Happy New Year, ‘Laverne & Shirley’

“New Years Week” continues.

On December 27, 1977, ABC aired “New Year’s Eve 1960,” the “Laverne & Shirley” episode that showed how the girls spent the last night of the 1950s.

 

Ah, the “Laverne & Shirley” credits: Sadly, another example of a sitcom that doesn’t quite live up to its terrific theme song. And we’ll do it our way/Yes our way/Make all our dreaaams come truuue/For me and yooou.

The girls are counting the money they’ve collected for the New Year’s Eve party that Shirley (Cindy Williams) is throwing. Laverne (Penny Marshall) wants to go with Norman, the cop she’s been dating, but the “entire Milwaukee police force is on duty New Year’s Eve.” She’s narrowed her remaining options to Jake the Snake, Benny the Newspaper Guy and Herbie Schul.

SHIRLEY: Hmmm. A motorcycle hoodlum, a man with filthy hands and a guy who turns his eyelids inside out.

LAVERNE: Yeah, they’re really nice guys.

The girls learn Laverne’s childhood crush Pete has broken up with his latest squeeze, Beatrice. Shirley tells Laverne if she can lure Pete to their apartment, Shirley guarantees she can persuade him to ask Laverne to the party.

 

Scene change!

 

Pete (guest star Craig Littler) brings Laverne home. She puts on some make-out music, but the record she chooses – “Chances Are” – turns out to be Pete and Beatrice’s favorite. “Stupid song!” Laverne says as she rips the record off the phonograph player. Laverne and Pete get chummy when Shirley arrives and begins dropping hints that Laverne needs a date for New Year’s Eve. Before Pete departs, he asks Laverne if he can escort her to Shirley’s party. The plan worked!

 

Party time! Shirley’s boyfriend Carmine (Eddie Mekka) tries to teach Laverne’s dad Mr. DeFazio (Phil Foster) how to dance the twist: “Just pretend you’re drying your backside with a towel while putting cigarettes out with your feet.”

 

 Time lapse!

 

SHIRLEY: I’m telling you Laverne, this is the best New Year’s Eve party I’ve ever thrown!

LAVERNE: Yeah, being here with Pete is like a dream come true.

SHIRLEY: Well, would you look who’s dreaming?

LAVERNE: What? I dream. I just don’t like to talk about them. It don’t hurt so bad if they don’t work out.

SHIRLEY: Well, I’m glad this one’s working out. It’s nice to see you so happy.

Oh, this is going to end well.

 

Carmine gives Shirley a diary as a present. She opens it and finds the first page already filled in:

SHIRLEY [reading]: January 1, 1960. Dear Diary: Spent New Year’s Eve with Carmine as usual. This year’s midnight kiss was his best ever. After everybody left, Carmine stayed and told me that the nicest thing about the ’50s was me.

CARMINE: And you’re going to be the nicest thing about the ’60s, too.

That Big Ragu is so sweet!

 

Pete wants to kiss but there’s no mistletoe, so Laverne hangs some oregano. Then Pete’s ex Beatrice enters and plays “Chances Are” on the jukebox. Pete and Bea fall into each other’s arms and begin dancing; Laverne is crushed. Altogether now, studio audience: Awww!

 

Laverne returns to the apartment, where she mixes a bucket of her favorite drink: milk and Pepsi. Shirley arrives and tells her it’s not her fault Pete left her standing under the oregano.

“Yes it is. I just ain’t pretty enough for him,” Laverne says as a slow version of the “Laverne & Shirley” theme begins swelling in the background.

Shirley, take it away:

SHIRLEY: Don’t ever say that. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.

LAVERNE: It’s true.

SHIRLEY: It’s not true. You’re very pretty. Very pretty. What’s more important, you’re pretty on the inside.

LAVERNE: Big deal, pretty inside. If they ever cut me open, maybe I’ll be Miss America. Pretty inside is what they say to people who ain’t pretty, Shirl.

SHIRLEY: Laverne, you’re pretty on the outside too, and you know it.

Shirley begins singing – Should auld acquaintance be forgot/And never brought to mind – and it’s so awful Laverne smiles.

 

The girls move to the front stoop, where everyone has gathered to witness the mysterious stunt goofball neighbors Lenny and Squiggy (Michael McKean, David L. Lander) have planned for midnight. A squad car arrives – it’s Norman, the cop Laverne had hoped to spend New Year’s Eve with in the first place!

 

It’s time for the big surprise: Lenny, dressed as Father Time, leads the countdown to midnight as Squiggy, dressed as Baby New Year, lowers himself down a rope from near the top of the building.

 

Ten, nine, eight …

 

… seven, six, five …

 

… four, three, two, one!

 

Happy New Year!

 

See for yourself: “New Year’s Eve 1960” is part of the “Laverne & Shirley: The Complete Third Season” DVD set.  

 

On TV

Here’s the prime-time lineup for Tuesday, December 27, 1977:

8: “Happy Days”* (ABC), “CBS Reports: Illegal Aliens in Los Angeles” (CBS), “Pine Canyon is Burning”* (NBC)

8:30: “Laverne & Shirley” (ABC)

9: “Three’s Company”* (ABC), “M*A*S*H”* (CBS)

9:30: “Soap” (ABC), “One Day at a Time” (CBS), “Terraces”* (NBC)

10: “Family”* (ABC), “Lou Grant”* (CBS)

 

The Record

For the week of December 25, 1977:

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

Top song: “How Deep is Your Love” by Bee Gees

New at the movies: “High Anxiety”

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

In the news: Sadat planned a visit to Sudan

‘Oh Madeline’? Oh Brother

On September 27, 1983, ABC introduced “Oh Madeline,” a sitcom that tried to establish Madeline Kahn as the Lucille Ball of the 1980s.

Kahn played Madeline Wayne, a bored housewife whose misadventures exasperated her romance-novelist husband Charlie (James Sloyan). There were two quarreling supporting characters: Robert Leone (Louis Giambalvo), Charlie’s best friend, and Doris (Jesse Welles), Robert’s ex-wife and Madeline’s sidekick.

The similarities to Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel were undoubtedly intentional.

In fact, ABC and producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner – who would later produce “The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne” – seemed to invite comparisons to “I Love Lucy.”

Like “Lucy,” “Madeline” relied on screwball plots and slapstick physical comedy, albeit with ’80s sensibilities.

In the first episode, Madeline gets trapped in Robert’s bathroom during a clandestine mission to retrieve Doris’s diary and winds up fleeing while wearing only a towel.

In another scene, Kahn mugs for the camera, Lucy-style, while using a treadmill.

Miami Herald critic Sandra Earley noted how Kahn even wore her red hair piled atop her head, a la Ball.

Earley wasn’t crazy about “Oh Madeline” but she liked Kahn, describing the actress as having “the kind of TV presence that requires ours.”

The Washington Post’s Tom Shales wrote the show “squanders Kahn’s singular broad-comic gifts on frazzled and tattered material. … The woman is funny. But no intriguing context is ever developed. It’s just Madeline thrown out into a sitcom like a child dropped in a sandbox and told to play.”

The Associated Press’s Fred Rothenberg described “Oh Madeline” as being “forgetfully funny, with characters you wouldn’t find in real life, or want to know anyway.”

Viewers agreed.

“Oh Madeline” was part of ABC’s fading Tuesday night lineup.

The debut was the week’s 21st most-watched prime-time broadcast, but ratings soon dipped and ABC cancelled the show after 18 episodes.

 

Also on TV

On September 27, 1983, ABC also aired a new episode of its hip-genie sitcom “Just Our Luck” and the final season premieres of “Happy Days” (Fonzie experiences a midlife crisis), “Three’s Company” (guest star Joanna Kerns wants to have Jack’s baby) and “Hart to Hart” (Jonathan and Jennifer recall how their romance began in London; when they met, it really was murder!); CBS broadcast the season premiere of the Ralph Waite legal drama “The Mississippi” and “One Cooks, the Other Doesn’t,” a comedic TV-movie starring Joseph Bologna as a man caught between ex-wife Suzanne Pleshette and young bride Rosanna Arquette; and NBC showed new episodes of “The A-Team” and “Remington Steele” and the first installment of “Live … And In Person,” a series of three variety hours – aired over consecutive evenings – hosted by Hollywood super-agent Sandy Gallin.

 

The Record

During the week of September 25, 1983, the number ones were James Michener’s “Poland” (novel), Billy Joel’s “Tell Her About It” (song) and “Mr. Mom” (movie). In Washington, pressure grew on Interior Secretary James Watt to resign after he described a federal commission as being comprised of “a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple.” Classy guy!

 

 

Captions: “Oh Madeline” cast members, from left, Francine Tacker, James Sloyan, Madeline Kahn and Louis Giambalvo in a photograph from TV Guide’s September 10, 1983, fall preview issue (top, photo by Mario Casilli); ABC’s advertisement for the series premiere from the magazine’s September 25, 1983, edition (bottom).

Tuesday, February 14, 1978

“Be Mine Week” concludes with “Be My Valentine,” the “Happy Days” episode ABC broadcast 32 years ago tonight.

Sing! Valentine’s Day finds Joanie Cunningham (Erin Moran) daydreaming – in music! – about the couples in her life. The loveliest sequence stars her parents, Howard and Marion (Tom Bosley, Marion Ross):

HOWARD: We met at nine.

MARION: We met at eight.

HOWARD: I was on time.

MARION: No, you were late.

HOWARD: Oh yes, I remember it well. We dined with friends.

MARION: We dined alone.

HOWARD: A tenor sang.

 

MARION: A baritone!

HOWARD: Oh yes, I remember it well. That dazzling April moon.

MARION: There was none that night. And the month was June.

HOWARD: That’s right. That’s right!

MARION: It warms my heart, to know that you, remember still, the way you do.

HOWARD: Oh yes, I remember it well. That carriage ride.

MARION: You walked me home.

HOWARD: You lost a glove.

MARION: I lost a comb.

HOWARD: Ah yes, I remember it well. That brilliant sky.

MARION: We had some rain.

HOWARD: Those Russian songs.

MARION: From sunny Spain?

HOWARD: Ah yes, I remember it well. You wore a gown of gold.

MARION: I was all in blue!

HOWARD: Am I getting old?

MARION: Oh no! Not you. How strong you were, how young and gay. A prince of love, in every way.

HOWARD: Ah yes.

TOGETHER: I remember it well.

 

Elsewhere on Television

TV Guide listings for February 14, 1978:

8:30 ABC LAVERNE & SHIRLEY

The girls bus to a distant city for a rendezvous with two medical students, who meet – and strand – them in a deserted depot. Laverne: Penny Marshall. Shirley: Cindy Williams. Greg: Christopher Guest. Larry: Thomas Leopold. Bum: Peter Elbling. Station Master: Carl Gottlieb.

9:00 ABC THREE’S COMPANY

Janet and Chrissy are visited by a girl who says she’s looking for Jack because he has gotten her in trouble. Jack: John Ritter. Janet: Joyce DeWitt. Chrissy: Suzanne Somers. Larry: Richard Kline. Linda: Anne Schedeen. Sandra: Susan Blu.

9:30 ABC SOAP – Comedy

To save his skin, Danny (Ted Wass) must marry Lefkowitz’ daughter. Meanwhile, Mary (Cathryn Damon) decides to have Burt committed. Burt: Richard Mulligan. Elaine: Dinah Manoff. Lefkowitz: Sorrell Brooke. Franklin: Howard Hessman. Judge: Charles Lane. Eunice: Jennifer Salt. McCallam: Edward Winter. Chuck: Jay Johnson. Jodie: Billy Crystal.

10:00 ABC FAMILY

Willie (Gary Frank) has serious doubts about his future. He’s almost 21, a high-school dropout, and his first screenplay was rejected. Doug: James Broderick. Kate: Sada Thompson. Nancy: Meredith Baxter Birney. Buddy: Kristy McNichol. (60 min.)

Guest Cast

Bambi ……………. Shera Danese

Skipper Thor ……… Richard Masur

 

… And in the News

New York Times excerpts from February 14, 1978:

Experts Say This Winter Approaches 1977’s in Severity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 – Federal meteorologists today forecast sharply colder weather for the he eastern, central and southern parts of the country, and indicated … this winter, which so far has been warmer than last year’s, could end up about as cold.

Monday, February 1, 1982

Holy moly! How many ministers did John Ritter play during his TV career?

In “Pray TV,” an ABC movie that aired 28 years ago tonight, Ritter – immortalized as “Three’s Company’s” Jack Tripper – portrayed Reverend Tom McPherson, an idealistic young preacher who falls under the spell of charismatic televangelist Freddy Stone (Ned Beatty).

It was one of at least four turns Ritter took behind the TV pulpit.

He also played Reverend Matthew Fordwick, who ministered to “The Waltons” from 1972 until 1976, and guest starred on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” as Reverend Chatfield, the tennis-shorts-clad preacher who married Ted and Georgette (Ted Knight, Georgia Engel) in 1975.

In addition, Ritter played an Episcopal minister married to Meredith Baxter in “Holy Joe,” a 1999 TV movie, and he portrayed a priest in a 2000 installment of the short-lived legal drama “Family Law.”

Of Ritter’s many clerical roles, “Pray TV” may have been the least interesting.

Televangelism was big business in the 1980s – shows like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s “PTL Club” were attracting huge audiences in syndication, while Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network was reaching millions of cable subscribers – but critics dismissed “Pray TV” as a toothless critique.

The movie also flopped with viewers, failing to crack Nielsen’s top 20 in the week it aired.

“Pray TV” was a surprise hit for the phone company, though.

During the film, Reverend Stone urged his viewers to call 800-555-6864 to join his TV flock.

A whopping 15,000 people dialed the non-existent number on the night “Pray TV” aired, the Associated Press reported. The phone company typically received 300 calls to non-existent numbers each night.

 

Elsewhere on Television

TV Guide listings for February 1, 1982:

9 PM CBS M*A*S*H

A deeply distressed AWOL private (Cyril O’Reilly) seeks refuge at the 4077th. Mulcahy: William Christopher. Lieutenant: David Graf. Hawkeye: Alan Alda. B.J.: Mike Farrell. Potter: Harry Morgan. Sal: Val Bisoglio.

9 PM NBC MOVIE (CC) – Drama

“World War III” concludes with escalating hostilities, as President McKenna (Rock Hudson) and Secretary Gorny (Brian Keith) conduct an exercise in brinkmanship. A 1982 TV-movie. (2 hrs.)

Additional Cast

Colonel Caffey ………… David Soul

Kate …………… Cathy Lee Crosby

General Rudenski ….. Robert Prosky

Dorothy ………. Katherine Helmond

 

… And in the News

New York Times excerpts from February 1, 1982:

MORE STATES TESTING TEACHERS IN RESPONSE TO SCHOOL CRITICS

A growing number of states are beginning to test teachers before letting them into the classroom, in an effort to produce better teachers and counter increasing dissatisfaction with the nation’s public schools.

M.T.A. FEARS A RISE IN NEW YORK FARES

New Federal budget cuts expected to be announced next Monday have raised the possibility that New York’s 75-cent subway and bus fare may be raised a nickel or more by this summer, transit officials said yesterday.

U.S. TO PAY PART OF POLISH DEBT
DEFAULT AVOIDED

The Administration has decided to repay $71 million that Poland owes to American banks.

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1981

Twenty-eight years ago tonight, CBS aired “The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies,” a critically panned TV movie reuniting just three cast members from the 1960s sitcom.

The cast members: Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett, Donna Douglas as daughter Elly Mae and Nancy Kulp as Miss Jane Hathway.

Jethro is played by Ray Young, replacing Max Baer Jr., who chose – wisely, apparently – to not participate.

Also missing is the actress who played Granny – Irene Ryan, who died in 1973.

Filling in for her is the legendary Imogene Coca in the role of Granny’s Maw.

As the Associated Press’s Fred Rothenberg observed, “Miss Coca, once a TV comedy pioneer with Sid Caesar in ‘Your Show of Shows,’ is now relegated to hitting people with a stick and stamping up and down in some of the least amusing of many unamusing moments.”

The movie finds Miss Jane, now an Energy Department official, returning to Beverly Hills, hoping to use Granny’s moonshine as the answer to the energy crisis.

In 1993, CBS reunited the cast again for “The Legend of the Beverly Hillbillies” clip show that was dismissed by critics but scored with viewers.

 

From the Pages of TV Guide

Also airing Oct. 6, 1981:

8 PM ABC HAPPY DAYS

The film rolls on the ninth season as Joanie shows home movies recapping the summer of ’62. Highlights include Lori Beth’s announcement that she’s pregnant, Howard’s sudden passion for baseball, Fonzie’s reunion with his old motorcycle gang and Joanie’s breakup with Chachi. Anson Williams (Potsie) sings “Every Time, Every Place.” Howard: Tom Bosley. Marion: Marion Ross. Fonzie: Henry Winkler. Joanie: Erin Moran. (60 min.)

8 PM CBS DUKES OF HAZZARD

The Dukes’ fourth season roars in with a motorcycle gang, affording Hogg the opportunity to set up a stolen-bike racket until a transient (Laurette Spang) discovers a scheme. Johnny Paycheck sings “Take This Job and Shove It.” (60 min.)

[An additional episode airs Friday.]

8 PM NBC BASEBALL DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF
Special: The Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the second-half representative in Game 1 of the NL West playoff. (Live)

9 PM ABC THREE’S COMPANY (CC)

Jack and Janet (John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt) find a new roommate after Cindy (Jenilee Harrison) moves off to dormitory life at UCLA. She’s Teri Alden (Priscilla Barnes), an emergency-room nurse who starts off on the wrong foot with Jack in this sixth-season opener. Larry: Richard Kline. Furley: Don Knotts. (60 min.)

10 PM ABC HART TO HART (CC)

The Harts begin a third season of murder mystery when Max (Lionel Stander) enters his prize roses – under Jennifer’s name – in a contest whose finalists are being pruned one by one. Jonathan: Robert Wagner. Jennifer: Stefanie Powers. (60 min.)

Guest Cast

Stinton … Graham Jarvis

Sylvia Williams … Salome Jens

Eliot Knox … John Considine

Papadopoulos … Titos Vandis

Thursday, Sept. 16, 1993

Sixteen years ago tonight, NBC introduced “Frasier,” possibly the best spinoff – and, by some measures, the greatest sitcom – in television history.

The series starred Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier Crane, a role he played for nine seasons on “Cheers” until it ended its run in May 1993.

In “Frasier,” the character abandoned his Boston barstool and returned home to Seattle to begin a new career as a radio psychiatrist and reconnect with his aging father Martin (John Mahoney) and younger brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce).

Spinoffs have a notoriously dismal track record, so the chances of “Frasier” succeeding weren’t high.

Rarer still is the successful “sequel spinoff” – spinoffs that debut after the parent show ends.

“Lou Grant” ran for five seasons after “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” concluded its seven-year run.

“AfterMASH” lasted just a season-and-a-half after “M*A*S*H” ended, while “The Golden Palace” (a “Golden Girls” spinoff), “Three’s a Crowd” (“Three’s Company”) and “Beverly Hills Buntz” (“Hill Street Blues”) each folded after a single season.

But the perfectly cast, sublimely written “Frasier” was an instant hit and went on to run for 11 seasons, just as “Cheers” did.

Along the way, “Frasier” collected a record 37 Emmys, including four acting awards for Grammer.

A 2006 British poll of people who work in sitcoms named “Frasier” the all-time best, edging homegrown fare like “Fawlty Towers” and the original “The Office.”

Grammer played “Frasier” for 20 years, tying with James Arness, who starred Marshal Matt Dillon during all seasons of “Gunsmoke,” as prime time’s longest-running character.

He also appeared as Frasier in guest stints on “Wings” and “The John Larroquette Show.”

Grammer has talked about bringing Frasier back for a third series, “when the television landscape is appropriately bleak.”

Until then, he’ll star in “Hank,” an ABC sitcom slated to debut this month.

 

From the Pages of TV Guide

Also airing Sept. 16, 1993:

8 PM CBS IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT – Crime Drama 1:00

In the seventh-season opener, Sparta city council opts for a change, replacing Chief Gillespie (Carroll O’Connor) with Insp. Hamilton Forbes (Carl Weatherly) from Mephis, who arrives in the midst of a probe into the murder of an unpopular man killed while awaiting his own trial for manslaughter.

Guest Cast

Billy Ray Caton … John Aaron Bennett

Arlo … Jason Byle

Lydia Caton … Ly Merritt

Holly Colmer … Wallace Merck

8 PM NBC MAD ABOUT YOU (CC) – Comedy

Paul may have to call K-911 when Lisa (Anne Ramsay), against his wishes, takes Murray for a walk and returns with a pooch that Paul doggedly insists can’t be Murray – this one is smart. Cop: Jerry Adler. Warren: Steven Wright. Ira: John Pankow. Paul: Paul Reiser.

9 PM FOX IN LIVING COLOR (CC)

Scheduled for the fifth-season opener: Wanda the Ugly Woman (Jamie Foxx); parodies of Ike Turner (David Alan Grier) and “Seinfeld” (James Carrey). New cast members: Anne-Marie Johnson, Carol Rosenthal, Marc Wilmore and Jay Leggett. Returning regulars include Tommy Davidson.

Pryor’s convictions

If it’s true television is a mirror – reflecting the values of the people who produce and watch it – then reruns can never be dismissed as simply “old TV.”

Reruns, at least when viewed in this context, serve as a cultural metric – a measure of how our attitudes shift over time.

Who doesn’t cringe when Ralph threatens to send Alice to the moon? Or when June defers to Ward on the most inconsequential of household decisions? Or when Jack Tripper’s wrist goes limp the moment Mr. Roper enters the room?

Scenes like these make us squirm today, but they’re also oddly comforting, offering a kind of affirmation of our social progress.

So when revisiting “The Richard Pryor Show” – the short-lived 1977 comedy-variety series that boldly satirized racial relations – one would hope to find its humor similarly dated.

Sadly, the show is as timely as ever.

Consider the series premiere, which NBC aired 32 years ago tonight.

In that episode’s most memorable sketch, Pryor – the pioneering African American comic – portrays the first black president at a White House press conference.

Initially, Pryor’s president is serious, giving straightforward answers to questions about Mideast peace and nuclear proliferation.

But as things progress, the president’s speech grows “blacker” and the reporters – who are almost all white – become hostile.

One woman, identifying herself as a writer for Christian Women’s News, asks the president about his personal life.

“Since you’ve become president, you’ve been seen and photographed on the arms of white women,” she says to a chorus of “oohs” from the press corps. “Quite frankly, sir, you’ve been courting an awful lot of white women. Will this continue?”

“As long as I can keep it up,” the president responds, with Pryor flashing a smirk that eerily recalls George W. Bush’s. “I mean, why you think they call it the White House?”

Next, a reporter with a thick southern accent asks about the president’s mother, described as a retired maid.

“After your tenure, will your mother go back to being a maid, will your mama do my house?” the reporter asks, causing Pryor to leap from behind his podium, attacking the man as chaos erupts.

Three decades later, wouldn’t it be nice to find that sketch outlandish?

Yet there stood America’s real-life first black president four days ago, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, being heckled by a lawmaker from South Carolina.

Who knows what caused Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst – but is it that much of a stretch to see racial undertones in his loss of decorum?

And what about the irrational fury unleashed at all those town hall meetings last month?

Granted, Obama was not present at those gatherings, but the parallels between the town halls and Pryor’s presidential press conference are unmistakable.

Indeed, how can any rational person watch this 32-year-old sketch – broad though it may be – and not find it prescient?

NBC produced just four episodes of “The Richard Pryor Show,” ending the show after low ratings and Pryor’s feud with network censors.

Watching it today on DVD, the “Pryor Show” plays like a precursor to “In Living Color” and “Chappelle’s Show,” with virtually every sketch addressing the disparities between blacks and whites – be they economic, historical, political, social or all of the above.

The second “Pryor Show” episode parodies the “To Kill a Mockingbird” rape trial, casting Pryor as the wily white prosecutor and cast member Robin Williams as the defendant’s Jewish attorney.

At the skit’s conclusion, the foreman announces the jury has found the defendant not guilty.

“However, your honor, we find this carpet-bagging, Communist, Pinko, Jew-boy lawyer guilty of getting him off!”

In the final episode, Pryor is seen in a lifeboat, rescuing white survivors of the Titanic as they hurl racial epithets at him.

Finally, a survivor played by Williams tells the others he finds their racism “appalling” – then it’s discovered the boat is overcrowded. “Oh, I see. Well, throw the nigger overboard then,” Williams declares.

Not all the humor is this raw.

The first episode ends with an elaborate sketch that lovingly recalls Harlem nightlife in the 1940s; another show features a rare performance by the Pips, sans Gladys Knight.

Yet even these moments prove a bit unnerving today.

After all, when was the last time a major broadcast network set aside even a few moments in prime time to showcase African American culture – or any culture, for that matter?

 

From the Pages of TV Guide

Also scheduled to air Tuesday, Sept. 13, 1977:

8:00 CBS BOXING

Special: Two World Boxing Council championship fights and two bouts featuring 1976 Olympic champions are on tonight’s card at Los Angeles. Carlos Palomino (22-1-2) defends his welterweight title against Everaldo Costa Azevedo (55-7-19). Palomino has worn the 147-lb. crown since June 1976. Danny “Little Red” Lopez (31-3) puts his featherweight crown on the line against Jose Torres (28-5-1), who is ranked 10th by the WBC. Other bouts: Montreal gold-medalist Howard Davis (4-0) vs. Arturo Pineda (29-8-1) – lightweights; Montreal gold-medalist Michael Spinks (4-0) vs. Ray Elson (15-1-1) – lightweights. Boxers’ records by Ring Magazine. (Live)

[The Michael Spinks-Ray Elson bout was a last-minute substitute for the previously announced fight between Leon Spinks and Alfio Righetti.]

9:00 NBC MOVIE – Comedy

“Sex and the Married Woman” is a book that wins fame for housewife-turned-author Leslie Fitch (Joanna Pettet), but at the cost of a jealous husband (Barry Newman), who resents her overnight success. A 1977 TV-movie. (2 hrs.)

Supporting Cast

Uncle June … Keenan Wynn

Duke Skaggs … F. Murray Abraham

Louie Grosscup … Dick Gautier

Peter Nebben … Angus Duncan

Virginia Ladysmith … Fannie Flagg

Irma Caddish … Jayne Meadows

Alan “Arnie” Fish … Larry Hovis

Carolyn Fish … Jeanne M. Lange

10:00 ABC FAMILY

Return: The Lawrences begin a third year in Pasadena with Willie befuddled by a new girl friend’s on-again, off-again moodiness. First of two parts. Willie: Gary Frank. Kate: Sada Thompson. Buddy: Kristy McNichol. (60 min.)

Guest Cast

Lizzie … Brooke Adams

Ellen .. Gretchen Corbett