Comfort TV

Sometimes you hear a story that makes you smile, and it continues to do so every time you think about it. This story does that for me. My guess is that many of my fellow classic TV lovers have heard it, but since it’s always nice to share happy remembrances, I hope they will indulge my telling it again.

In the second season of Petticoat Junction (a series long overdue for praise in this blog) a new character was introduced – a stray dog adopted into the Shady Rest Hotel by the youngest of Kate Bradley’s three daughters, Betty Jo. He was never given a name on the show but trainer Frank Inn, who discovered the dog at the Burbank Animal Shelter, called him Higgins.

The dog was loved by everyone in the family except for gruff old Uncle Joe, played so memorably by gruff old Edgar Buchanan: “One thing we don’t need around this hotel is some flea-bitten hound eating us out of house and home.” Between takes, Buchanan was as fond of Higgins as the rest of the cast.

Higgins remained a prominent presence for the remainder of the show’s seven seasons, and he astonished audiences with the remarkable and complex tasks he was trained to do. Whether running and jumping on cue, picking up objects and carrying them to a specific place, turning off lights or picking up phones, Higgins became known as “the one-take dog,” because he always got the scene right the first time.

When Petticoat Junction ended its run in 1970, Frank Inn had planned to let Higgins, then 10 years old, enjoy his retirement. But in 1974, the dog was cast as the star of a hugely successful family film that (according to IMDB) was made for $500,000 and grossed more than $39 million. From then on Higgins had a new name – Benji.

As coincidence would have it, Benji also featured Edgar Buchanan in a supporting role. Buchanan had not seen Higgins since Petticoat Junction was canceled three years earlier. On his first day of filming, as he stood on a porch that was part of a set, he wondered whether the dog would remember him. But as soon as Higgins spotted his friend, he ran toward him and took a flying leap into his arms. And even gruff old Edgar Buchanan couldn’t hold back the tears.

As I said, just a nice story to make you smile. And perhaps to wonder what we ever did to deserve the pure and unconditional love we receive from dogs.

Imagine a place where all of the instantly recognizable objects associated with classic television are on display. It doesn’t exist, so we’ll create it here, and pay tribute to many of our favorite Comfort TV things.

As with any museum, some exhibits are more popular with visitors than others. At the moment we’re seeing a lot of people coming in to check out the General Lee – not sure why.

Anyway, whenever I stop by I always pause to admire Joe Friday’s badge (best-looking shield in the country) and Emma Peel’s leather catsuits. But I won’t even waste a sideways glance on Freddy the Flute.

There, I said it. I hate Freddy the Flute, that little gold buzzkill on H.R. Pufnstuf.

I grew up with the Sid & Marty Krofft shows and I love their remarkable puppetry and subversive sense of humor. But Pufnstuf, arguably their most successful creation, is the one I revisit the least – mostly because Freddy is so annoying.

As a flute he was tolerable. He had a pleasant tone, and could play without someone blowing him, which I guess means he was able to finger himself. How's that for a sentence that doesn’t belong in a G-rated blog?

The trouble was that Freddy, like everything else on Living Island, could also talk. His voice was provided by Joan Gerber, but his squealing, high-pitched voice will remind most viewers of Mr. Bill, the oft-abused clay figure who appeared in several filmed shorts during the early days of Saturday Night Live.

And just like Mr. Bill, Freddy was vulnerable to all manner of trouble. That resulted in non-stop whining every time he was captured by Witchiepoo, and constant cries of “Help! Help!” “Jimmy! Save Me!” and “Please let me go!” It should surprise no one that my favorite Pufnstuf episode is “Flute, Book and Candle,” in which Freddy fell into an evil mushroom patch and was turned into a mushroom. Because it finally forced him to shut up.

The crux of the problem is that I know I am supposed to be cheering for Jimmy and Freddy to escape the evil clutches of the witch. But I can’t. I root for Witchiepoo. Because Witchiepoo was a riot.

Let’s also remember that, as we learned from the show’s theme song, Freddy is the one responsible for Jimmy getting stuck on Living Island in the first place (“But the boat belonged to a kooky old witch, who had in mind the flute to snitch”). I recognize that can be interpreted as blaming the victim, but I can’t help it. H.R. Pufnstuf inverts my perception of right and wrong. Even Jimmy gets on my nerves sometimes. His best friend is a flute? Freud would have a ball with that one.

Am I alone in my Freddy hate? Kellogg’s Cereal thought enough of him to offer a home version in 1970, complete with a movable mouth. These plastic Freddys were made in my hometown of Skokie, Illinois by the Toy Development Co. and came with a long sheet of assembly instructions that probably resulted in a lot of frustration-induced breakage. That may be why they go for so much money today.

As for the original, it remained in the Krofft warehouse for decades. It was stolen in 1995, but after Marty Krofft offered a $10,000 reward for Freddy's safe return, the flute was dropped off anonymously at a Los Angeles television station. The reward was never claimed.

Now he’s here at the Museum. Sometimes we leave the display case open, in case Witchiepoo wants to make another attempt at flute-napping. Don’t tell Marty.

This blog has always been a haven to focus on positive subjects. If you want grim headlines and sad stories you have plenty of other places to find them.

But in the wake of the most recent revelations about Bill Cosby, and given his remarkable television career, the subject becomes the proverbial elephant in my room. This is not just another pop culture controversy like the newfound denigration of The Dukes of Hazzard, which is beyond ludicrous. There are much bigger questions here.

Bill Cosby is more than a classic TV star or a famous TV dad. Over a career that spans 50 years he has ascended to a place in the pantheon of the medium’s most important and beloved creative talents. And in less than one year, he has fallen from grace to a point where he is now a pariah. That doesn’t happen every day.

We are technically still in the “innocent until proven guilty” phase of the story. Several of his accusers are represented by publicity-obsessed ambulance chaser Gloria Allred, which damages their credibility by association, and model Janice Dickinson’s story seems to change every time she tells it. But there are valid reasons why Cosby has already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. This was not one incident or one lapse in judgment. If the allegations of any of his 40 accusers are to be believed, this once-beloved comedian orchestrated cruel and calculated acts of abuse that cannot be defended.

So how are we to square that persona with the man who costarred with Robert Culp in I Spy (1965-1968) and won three consecutive Best Actor Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Alexander Scott? Cosby was already a rising standup comic who had written and performed such brilliant routines as the ark-building conversation between the Lord and Noah (“What’s a cubit?”). With I Spy he became the first black man to play a lead role in a prime time network television series.

This was just one year after the passage of the Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination. It was a significant moment in the evolution of television, and had it been tried with another actor it might not have worked; Cosby had a charisma, charm and approachability that made it easier for audiences to accept him as a full equal in his on-screen partnership with Culp. He made that happen, and we can’t take it away now.

The Electric Company (1971-1977) is a show I watch more often than any adult should. I love the still-funny sketches and catchy songs and wonderful cast, which for a time included Bill Cosby. In the 1970s he was a passionate advocate for the role that television could and should be playing in educating children and teaching them to be tolerant, and kind, and better citizens of the world.

These objectives were also incorporated into Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, the animated series he co-created and hosted, while also voicing several characters. It was not only another success (in 2013 TV Guide selected it as the best cartoon series of the 1970s) it earned Cosby a Doctorate in Education.

And yet it’s possible that throughout this entire time, he was also drugging and molesting women. Does that mean everything he did on behalf of kids was a lie? And if he was sincere does it even matter?

The Cosby Show (1984-1992) was as groundbreaking in its own way as I Spy, and once again Cosby was not just a hired actor but also the creative force behind the series’ concept and development.

For the first time, a series was built around an affluent African-American family, without the caricature overtones of The Jeffersons. It was a harbinger of the post-racial culture we all hoped we were headed toward, but that recent news stories suggest is still a distant dream. The result was #1 Neilsen ratings, more Emmys and as celebrated a comedy series as television has ever produced.

So what do we do with all of this?

First, we need to identify the extent to which Cosby’s behavior has tarnished the legacy of his work. We’ve faced this type of decision before, from Danny Bonaduce and Todd Bridges to Woody Allen and Robert Blake. Blake's reputation fared the worst – but if you think murder is where we draw the line, tell that to Vince Neil, or Snoop Dogg, or Teddy Kennedy.

The other factor in the Cobsy case is that we still don’t have any closure, in the form of a conviction or an unambiguous confession. This makes it easier for fans to stand by him, as they did with Lance Armstrong through a decade of doping denials. At this point, however, it’s hard to imagine Cosby’s reputation getting any worse no matter what happens next.

Thus, there are only two choices: we could expunge his shows, films and comedy routines from public broadcast, because his flaws as a human being were more significant than his talent and philanthropy.

Or, we put Cosby’s abuse in context by keeping the work accessible to those who wish to see it, while reminding present and future generations that this man who could be so funny and insightful was also capable of awful things.

I understand the sentiments of those who never want to watch his shows again. However, I also understand those who can separate the artist from the art and still appreciate the exceptional entertainment he provided for half a century. Besides, a lot of other people worked on those shows too. Why should their hard work be punished?

None of us are the sum of all of our virtues or the sum of all of our sins, no matter how exceptional the virtue or how despicable the sin. For that reason, my tendency is to concur with the latter option. But if and when I watch Bill Cosby’s television work in the years to come, I will never fully watch it in the same way again.

Next week we’ll get back to more pleasant subjects.

I love the music of The Monkees. Always have.

I was too young for the series’ 1966-1968 prime time run, but when that ended The Monkees was moved to syndication on Saturday mornings, an unusual but effective programming strategy. That’s when I discovered them, right alongside Josie and the Pussycats and Kaptain Kool and the Kongs.

The songs were my favorite part of the show, and back then that was the only place where you could hear them. This was the early 1970s, when the original Monkees albums were out of print, and radio (even oldies stations) never played them because they were not a “real band.” Only dopes like Jann Wenner still hold that opinion.

Since my generation of Saturday morning Monkee fans couldn’t buy the records, and iTunes was still about 30 years away, we improvised by holding the microphones from our portable cassette tape players up to our TV speakers, and making our own Monkees tapes.

Given the generally poor state of my short-term and long-term memory, it’s surprising that I still remember being in the record department at Sears in 1972 and seeing something I had never seen before – an actual Monkees album.

Sometime after that I picked up this import gem from Australia with 40 songs, plus amazing liner notes that told the full story of the band.

It took MTV to finally reignite Monkee-mania with an episode marathon that aired on February 23, 1986. Its reception prompted a reunion tour (yes, I did get to see them live, and it was awesome even with out Mike Nesmith) and the re-release of all the band’s original albums, as well as the new top 20 hit “That was Then, This is Now.”

Today the reputation of The Monkees has been mostly restored, though they remain a glaring omission from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

These are my 20 favorite Monkees songs, in no particular order – along with 5 I’d rather forget.

I’m a Believer

This is not only one of the band’s most popular and successful songs (seven weeks at #1!), I think it belongs in the select company of the most perfect pop records ever made, alongside The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and “California Girls” by The Beach Boys.

Last Train to Clarksville

It was about a soldier leaving for Vietnam, as most fans know by now. It’s fascinating to me that the first single from this manufactured band of TV goofballs not only tackled such a serious subject, but was also climbing the charts before the series even debuted. Personally I think “Clarksville” is slightly (just slightly!) overrated, but it was their first #1 hit and deserves to be here.

Mary, Mary

Given the master plan behind The Monkees machine it’s doubtful that Mike Nesmith’s songwriting played any role in his casting, but it became an essential element in the band’s evolution. That’s Glen Campbell playing the distinctive lead guitar riff on “Mary, Mary,” a song also covered by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Run DMC.

Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)

I think this is their best pure bubblegum track. Those familiar with Monkees history know that original music producer Don Kirshner exerted dictatorial control over the band’s first two albums. Had Davy, Micky, Peter and Mike been the bystanders to their own careers that some critics alleged, all Monkees songs might have sounded like “Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow).” Thankfully, sweets like this form only one part of their diverse catalog.

Shades of Gray

The Monkees’ third album, Headquarters, was the first that gave the quartet control over their musical output. It produced no singles in the U.S., but this plaintive ballad would have been a worthy choice.

Daydream Believer

Another obvious pick, another #1 hit, and featuring Davy’s best vocal on a Monkees track (though if you prefer “She Hangs Out” I won’t argue the point). How many other bands could boast three lead singers as distinctive and as good as Davy, Micky and Mike?

Randy Scouse Git

This is a Micky Dolenz composition that was a huge hit in England and throughout Europe, but it tanked in America. According to Dolenz, it was written the morning after a London party for The Monkees hosted by another popular quartet called The Beatles.

Papa Gene’s Blues

“I have no more than I did before…but now I’ve got all that I need…for I love you and I know you love me.” Mike brought a country-folk flavor to the group both as a singer and songwriter. This is one of his first Monkees contributions, and one of his best.

I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone

From “More of the Monkees,” this is the only Monkees song covered by the Sex Pistols – assuming there’s not a bootleg somewhere of Johnny Rotten singing “Valleri.” Micky’s delivery is not quite as aggressive, but there’s a lot more snarl in this track than anything else on the album.

Early Morning Blues and Greens

This “Headquarters” track is an acquired taste, as it lacks the irresistible hooks found in the band’s best-known songs. I find it reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash, and it’s become a song I like more every time I hear it.

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You

Neil Diamond, who wrote “I’m a Believer,” also penned this memorable single, which just missed becoming their third consecutive #1 hit. It stalled at #2 for two weeks, behind The Turtles’ “Happy Together.”

The Girl I Knew Somewhere

History tells us this is the first fully self-contained Monkees song. Mike wrote it, and the group played the instruments and performed all the vocals. Peter Tork plays a mean harpsichord on this top-40 classic.

The Door Into Summer

The “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd.” album (1967) came closest to earning The Monkees some critical praise during their first go-round. Tracks like this one are a reason why.

What Am I Doing Hanging Round?

Mike showing his Texas roots again, on a track that has all the twangy qualities of one of his own compositions. However, this one was actually written by Michael Martin Murphy, later of “Wildfire” fame. As much as fans wanted then and now for the band to be taken seriously, it’s admirable how they rarely took themselves seriously, as evidenced by Micky hamming it up in the video for this song.

Words

I know “Pleasant Valley Sunday” was a hit, and I do like it, but if I’m being honest I prefer the song on the flip side of the single, which was written by The Monkees’ most prolific go-to songwriters, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. It’s also a nice reminder that Peter could sing too, when he wasn’t goofing around on novelty tracks like “Your Auntie Grizelda.”

Sometime in the Morning

The brilliant songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King contributed several songs to the Monkees’ music catalog – this tender ballad is my favorite, perhaps because they sang it to Rose Marie in the episode “Monkee Mother.”

Ríu Chíu

Ríu Chíu is a Spanish Christmas carol that dates back to the 1500s. The Monkees a cappella version (performed on “The Christmas Show”) is mesmerizing in its beauty.

Aunties Municipal Court

By now you may have sensed that I am partial to Mike Nesmith compositions. Here's another one, but there’s not much Nashville to be found in the psychedelic arrangement and evocative beat poetry lyrics of “Aunties Municipal Court.” If you’re into great bass riffs, this has one worthy of McCartney.

For Pete’s Sake

This is The Monkees’ “summer of love” song, not surprisingly co-written by the Monkee that most embraced the counterculture and peace and love movements of the era, Peter Tork. It was played over the closing credits of every episode in the series’ second and final season.

Nine Times Blue

There are versions of this Mike Nesmith song with Mike singing lead and Davy singing lead. I prefer the first one, though it’s interesting to compare the interpretations.

My Five Worst:

Gonna Buy Me a Dog

Three minutes of Micky and Davy ad libbing and telling bad jokes. Fun if you’re in the right mood, but it’s hard to believe this earned a spot on their debut album while better songs like “All the King’s Men” didn’t make the cut.

Mommy and Daddy

It’s a toss-up between this song and “Zor and Zam” for the title of Micky’s most awkward stab at social commentary.

Can You Dig It

The movie Head had some memorable music moments, particularly “Circle Sky” and “The Porpoise Song,” but this was not one of them.

P.O. Box 9847

Proof that even Boyce and Hart could have an off day.

99 Pounds

The last original Monkees album was “Changes,” released in 1970. By then only Micky and Davy remained, but even with half a group the album isn’t all bad – sample “Ticket on a Ferry Ride” and “I Love You Better” if you’re curious. But on “99 Pounds,” Davy Jones tries to be Little Richard, and falls short. But then, Little Richard couldn’t do justice to “Forget That Girl” either.

In the Comfort TV era a “special two-part episode” was promoted as a big deal. Sometimes it actually turned out that way. Sometimes it didn’t.

As we explored back in March, there are good reasons to double the running time devoted to a story, such as character introductions and marriages, big-name guest stars and Emmy-bait scripts. But there were also times when the attempt to create something memorable only resulted in something twice as long.

Let’s take another look at some more two-parters from the Comfort TV era – 5 that worked, 5 that did not.

Good: Charlie’s Angels: “Angels in Paradise”

My first blog on this topic exposed “Terror on Skis” as a shameless cash grab padded into two episodes to justify a road trip to Vail, Colorado. But Charlie’s Angels could also deliver a first-rate two-part show. “Angels in Paradise,” the Hawaii-set adventure that introduced audiences to Cheryl Ladd, would be on any fan’s short list of the series’ very best moments. There’s a great jailbreak sequence, a charismatic adversary played by France Nuyen, and bikinis everywhere.

Bad: The Dick Van Dyke Show: “I Do Not Choose to Run”/’The Making of a Councilman”

This season 5 story was sunk by its premise – Rob Petrie is recruited to run for a vacant city council position. It didn’t work because viewers of the previous four seasons knew Rob as an intelligent, eloquent, civic-minded gentleman who would probably make a great public servant. That didn’t serve the comedy, so he was presented as a dithering, uncertain candidate. Not buying it.

Good: One Day at a Time: “J.C. and Julie”

The Norman Lear shows usually had a reliable sense of when to go two-part and when to keep it simple. One Day at a Time offered more than a dozen multi-part stories over its nine seasons. I’ve singled out “J.C. and Julie” because it pulls off a tricky concept – Julie joins a Christian youth group and annoys her family – in a way that is consistently funny without offending believers or non-believers.

Bad: Wonder Woman: “Mind-Stealers from Outer Space”

Yes, it delivers on the kitschy sci-fi promise of its B-movie title. There is an alien invasion story that leaves the fate of mankind in the hands of Dack Rambo, and flying saucer special effects that wouldn’t make the cut on Jason of Star Command.

Wait – was this one in the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ category?

Like a lot of old cheese it can be fun if you meet it halfway, but any show that releases a two-part episode where the special guest star is Vincent Van Patten is just asking for trouble.

Good: That Girl: Mission Improbable

Unifit Sleepwear hires Ann Marie to go undercover as a seamstress at Sleeptight Fashions to find out who is stealing the company’s designs. She takes the job, despite the danger of discovery and the fact that she can’t sew. “Mission Improbable” justifies its two-part status as a clever genre departure from typical That Girl stories, and in the presence of such familiar comfort TV faces as Sandy Kenyon, Lou Jacobi and Avery Schreiber.

Bad: The Waltons: The Outrage

Some shows don’t know when to go away. By its ninth and final season, The Waltons had lost several beloved cast members but soldiered on, with World War II-era stories and a fake John-Boy (Robert Wightman) with the personality of an eggplant. The story in this season premiere two-parter focused on one of the family’s neighbors, a sure sign that writers had run out of ideas for the remaining Waltons.

Good: Bewitched: “My Friend Ben”/ “Samantha for the Defense”

A standard Bewitched set-up – Aunt Clara tries to summon an electrician but zaps up Benjamin Franklin instead – is elevated into the series’ best two-part outing on the strength of its shrewd scripts and guest star Fredd Wayne. Wayne takes a gimmick and gives it real depth – he captures Franklin’s wit and principles as well as the scientific curiosity and wonder that you’d expect to see in a man suddenly transported 200 years into the future.

Bad: Diff’rent Strokes: The Hitchhikers

It’s customary for a sitcom to get serious every so often, especially in those “very special episodes” that inspire two-parters, but I doubt family audiences were all that pleased when Arnold and Kimberly are kidnapped by a mentally ill child molester.

Good: Battlestar: Galactica: “The Living Legend”

Remember, this is Comfort TV, so we’re celebrating the original series with Pa Cartwright and not the critically acclaimed but relentlessly grim remake. In “The Living Legend” the Galactica encounters the Pegasus, a long-lost starship with a legendary leader in Commander Cain (Lloyd Bridges). The philosophic sparring between Lloyd Bridges as Caine and Lorne Greene’s Adama provides a substantive counterpoint to the show’s signature action scenes.

Bad: Starsky & Hutch: “Murder at Sea”

Aaron Spelling shows were never above cross-promotion, so here we have our two streetwise cops sailing on a thinly disguised variation of the Love Boat, in the undercover roles of entertainment directors Hack and Zack. It’s doubtful this adventure’s tired antics inspired anyone to spend more time on the Pacific Princess.

I had a revelation while watching a 40 year-old episode of The Lawrence Welk Show. Which, to be clear, is not something I do very often.

I grew up with the series, but like many in my generation it was against my will. How many of you also recall Sunday visits to the grandparents’ apartment, where conversation and card playing ceased the moment Welk raised his baton? To them The Lawrence Welk Show was one of the only good reasons to turn on the television. To me it was sappy music performed by sappy people who apparently wouldn’t stop smiling even if someone took a shot at them.

My appreciation for the music has grown since then, but that wasn’t the reason I recently spent a few moments watching Guy and Ralna, courtesy of PBS (which has been airing Welk reruns for years). I did it because there is a lot going on in the world right now, and much of it is not to my liking. Sometimes life in the 2010s is pretty lousy. And there was Lawrence Welk offering a respite, a temporary escape into simpler times.

That’s when I had my revelation – 40 years ago, my grandparents were doing the exact same thing.

From my current perspective the 1970s seem like a kinder, gentler time. But many seniors back then were convinced the world was going to hell. The popular music of the day was like a foreign language to them, and the nightly news brought stories of Vietnam War protests and Watergate and gas shortages and American hostages held in Iran, while a feckless government had no answer for what Ted Koppel called “terrorism in the Middle East.”

It was all a bit too much, so they watched Lawrence Welk. Here were tunes they recognized, performed in a style that harkened back to the entertainment of the 1940s – big bands, happy polkas, couples dancing together to songs with understandable lyrics. Everybody seemed so nice.

Say what you will about Welk’s refusal to change with the times, but he knew his audience. From local TV to the ABC network to first-run syndication, he stayed on television from 1951 to 1982.

And he didn’t completely ignore modern music – he just arranged it so it sounded like something Doris Day would have released when FDR was still in the Oval Office. The show’s infamously wholesome take on “One Toke Over the Line” has been watched nearly a million times on YouTube.

That’s many more views than the clips of “Calcutta,” the instrumental that Welk took to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. Take that, Chubby Checker.

If I feel nostalgic when I watch now, it’s as much for my grandmother’s traditional Russian cooking as for the show itself. But if you can get past the sight of all those ladies with the big round faces and pageant hair, and the guys wearing ties wide enough to land airplanes on, there was clearly a lot of talent in the cast.

The Lennon Sisters were the show’s biggest discovery, but there was also the wonderful Irish tenor Joe Feeney, peppy dancers Bobby and Cissy, the exquisite soprano voice of “Champagne Lady” Norma Zimmer, and the accordion wizardry of Myron Floren. Yes, I said accordion wizardry – it may be the most un-hip instrument ever, but Floren was its master and respect must be paid.

As proudly old-fashioned as it was, in its own way The Lawrence Welk Show could also be progressive. This was the first variety show to regularly feature an African-American in dancer Arthur Duncan. Welk was praised for that back in the day – today he’d probably be called a racist because the only black guy on the show is a tap dancer. With some people you just can’t win.

There was also a gorgeous Mexican singer billed as Anacani who performed songs in Spanish. I still remember her lovely version of "Eres tú," the song that should have won Eurovision in 1973. Another singer performed in a wheelchair. For its time, the show was inclusive.

Though I have recently achieved AARP eligibility, I’m not sure my fondness for The Lawrence Welk Show will continue to escalate. But with the way the world is headed, I’m also not ruling out any return visits. If things don’t get better, I’ll meet you in front of the bandstand. Until then, Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen....Good Night.

About 15 years ago I went to a Hollywood Collector Show, which was not held in Hollywood but at the Beverly Garland Hotel in Burbank. Yvonne Craig was there and she was the celebrity I was most excited to meet.

I believe our conversation went something like this:

Me: Ummm…Hi

Her: Hi! Are you having a good time at the show?

Me. Ummm…Hi

Her: Would you like me to sign a photo for you?

Me: Ummm…Hi

And so on. But I did get a signed photo that was proudly displayed for years on my office wall.

As every fan of good TV knows by now, Yvonne Craig passed away last week. We have a no-obits rule around here, but when Mitchell Hadley, one of the TV bloggers I most respect, describes her passing as news that “no classic television blog worth its weight could ignore,” I listen. So let’s call this a tribute as we did with the James Best piece.

Actually, a piece on Ms. Craig was roughed out several months ago. She was going to be one in a series of blogs on Comfort TV stars that were blessed with an exceptional magnetism that always drew your eye and captivated your attention. With these actors it wasn’t about the role they played, it was the charisma and personality they brought to it that made it special.

It’s a quality that is hard to define but you know it when you see it. James Garner and David Janssen had it. So do Kate Jackson and Diana Rigg. Craig, like Jackson and Rigg, could have coasted through a performance on her remarkable looks, especially when the script didn’t call for much more than a pretty face. But she never did.

She appeared in memorable guest spots on more than 50 different shows, from westerns (Bronco, Wagon Train, The Big Valley) to sitcoms (McHale’s Navy, I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father). I can’t cover them all but here are some of the many highlights.

Yvonne Craig appeared in five episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (actuallysix including the pilot but that was just a walk-on). Dwayne Hickman as Dobie played a dumb guy but in a smart way; he was very nimble with dialogue and needed a strong female presence to play off of, which he always had in regulars Tuesday Weld and Sheila Kuehl.

Playing five different one-episode crushes, Craig always made a formidable match for the love-struck Dobie. In “The Flying Millicans” she was Aphrodite, the toga-clad daughter of a fitness-obsessed family; in “Dobie’s Navy Blues” she was Myrna Lomax whom Dobie loved enough to almost join the Navy to please her father. Even in “Flow Gently, Sweet Money,” working with a character clearly derivative of Tuesday Weld’s money-hungry Thalia Menninger, she delivered delightfully cynical dialogue with aplomb.

In the Star Trek episode “Whom Gods Destroy” she was Marta, the green-tinted Orion slave girl. People remember her seductive dance but not the dialogue around it, and that’s where Craig really created a haunting, (and haunted) schizoid casualty that joins Khan and Harry Mudd among the series’ most memorable guest characters.

In The Wild, Wild West Craig played an assassin named Ecstasy (“The Night of the Grand Emir”), who was so alluring that after her intended victim survives he asks her out to dinner. As in Star Trek this was a role that made delightful use of her professional dance training.

Craig also played a rich girl turned beatnik in the appropriately named Mr. Lucky episode “Little Miss Wow,” the feisty daughter of a missing sailor in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and a meter maid on My Three Sons.

But it was her one-season appearance as Batgirl opposite Adam West and Burt Ward that still overshadows a lot of other fine work, a plight experienced by any actor fortunate enough to create an iconic character.

The show really didn’t do right by her much of the time. In the third and final season of Batman the writing had slipped, most of the stories were no longer two-parters with cliffhangers, and poor Batgirl was usually captured far too quickly by chumps like Lord Fogg and Louis the Lilac.

And yet, every episode in which she appeared was a joy. Craig’s Batgirl was a carefree superhero, the antithesis of the dark and brooding caped crusaders of more recent films. She smiled and high-kicked through every fight, and radiated confidence each time she bounced into a room, head tilted back, hands on hips, ready for action.

I bought the Batman series blu-rays about three months ago and have been getting reacquainted with the show ever since. The third-season is coming up soon and I expect the experience of watching it will be bittersweet. But I will still be happy to see Batgirl again.

Every museum has its must-see exhibits. When you visit the Louvre, you don’t skip the Mona Lisa. If you are at Chicago’s Art Institute, you pay homage as Ferris Bueller did to Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. And when you visit the Comfort TV Museum, you always stop to admire Jeannie’s bottle.

It’s one of television’s most instantly recognizable props, surpassed perhaps only by vehicles like the Batmobile. It did not exist anywhere in the real world before I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970) but has been an iconic objet d’art now for 50 years.

And, like many TV stars, it had some cosmetic work done between seasons.

As any Jeannie fan knows, the original bottle was smoked glass with leafy gold filigree. It appeared only during the show’s first season, which was broadcast in black and white. It wasn’t until 2006, when a colorized version of season one was released on DVD, that viewers finally got a non-monochromatic glimpse at that first bottle.

The series’ switch to color coincided (not coincidentally) with the introduction of the classic metallic purple version. It’s a beautiful piece with a pearlescent sheen and highlights in turquoise, orange, brass and pink. If you’d like get as close a look as the series provides, check out the season 3 episode “Genie, Genie, Who’s Got the Genie?” (Part II).

There was also a third bottle belonging to Jeannie’s sultry sister, featuring a green variation on the familiar purple design.

While the finished versions of these bottles were created by talented artists at Screen Gems, back then the actual bottle used for these makeovers was as close as the local liquor store. It was a 1965 Beam’s Choice bourbon whiskey decanter from Jim Beam, 11 inches tall, just over 14 inches with the stopper in place.

Whose idea was it to use this particular bottle on the show? According to Steve Cox’s book Dreaming of Jeannie, no one is really sure. Director Gene Nelson may have the best claim, but its discovery has also been attributed to series creator Sidney Sheldon and a still-anonymous employee in the studio’s art department.

Less than ten bottles were made during the show’s five-year run. One of them is still owned by Barbara Eden. Others pop up at memorabilia auctions every so often, but there is almost no way to guarantee their authenticity. That hasn’t stopped them from selling for more than $15,000.

If that is out of your price range, you can pick up a ceramic reproduction for less than $200. If you are a classic TV lover you really should have one. I bought mine several years ago, and it is now the centerpiece of a small collection of Jeannie memorabilia. An eBay search for “Jeannie bottle” will bring plenty of buying options.

As you might expect, when people spot it they always pull the cork, hoping to see a plume of pink smoke. I’ve always been tempted to rig the bottle to produce one, but the shocked response might result in dropping and breakage.

Next, they peer inside, looking for the round couch and oversized pillows in Jeannie’s harem-esque abode. I’ve always thought that interior set was one of the show’s most visually appealing touches. I did not know until I read Steve’s book that Larry Hagman had the fiberglass dome set shipped to his Santa Monica home. He kept it in his backyard and used it for meditation and listening to music.

Given how prominent the bottle remains as a symbol of the show and of 1960s TV in general, it’s surprising how few episodes actually revolve around it.

Major Healey gives the bottle to a visiting Cosmonaut in “Russian Roulette” (season 1), and Dr. Bellows’ bratty nephew steals the bottle in season 5’s “Jeannie and the Curious Kid.”But the series’ most bottle-centric episode was season 3’s “One of Our Bottles is Missing.” When Tony refuses to sell the bottle to Amanda Bellows, she takes it anyway so she can have a replica made. Tony breaks into the Bellows home that night to retrieve it, while claiming to be sleepwalking. Not much of a plot, but then that was pretty standard with this show.

Creative shortcomings aside, I Dream of Jeannie is a charter member of the comfort TV canon, and Jeannie’s bottle denotes the gateway to ultimate wish fulfillment. Replicas are available in the museum gift shop. Jeannie sold separately.

How do you separate the hardcore Brady Bunch fans from the casual observers? They are the ones that, like me, actually purchased a DVD called The Bradys Go Bowling.

The DVD features two episodes of Celebrity Bowling, a series produced at KTTV in Los Angeles from 1971 to 1978. The concept was as straightforward as it sounds – two pairs of celebrities bowl one game against each other, each playing to win prizes for a randomly chosen member of the studio audience.

In the first show, Barry Williams and Maureen McCormick take on their younger TV siblings, Christopher Knight and Eve Plumb.

The second show features Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen against two of the Waltons kids, Eric Scott (Ben) and Mary McDonough (Erin). The host is actor Jed Allan, best known for multiple stints on daytime dramas, and here wearing suits from the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding Collection.

The competition was best-ball format, meaning both members of one team would roll a first ball. A strike ends the frame; anything else, the bowler with the worst result would then try to pick up the spare left by their teammate.

Prizes were typical for a low budget syndicated game show – Samsonite luggage, an Amana Radarange and Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat!). The higher the teams score, the better the reward. For something really good, like a trip to Mexico, the celebrity bowlers had to bowl 210 or more. If the athletic prowess displayed on The Bradys Go Bowling is any indication, that didn’t happen very often.

I bought the DVD because I am a devoted Brady Bunch fan, and I thought it would be intriguing to see the cast in something else they did at the time the show was still in production. The Brady-Walton match aired September 8, 1973, six days before “Adios, Johnny Bravo,” the memorable first episode of the series’ final season.

The Brady vs. Brady showdown aired on December 22 of that year, the same week as another spectacular Jan flameout in “Miss Popularity.”

But something was missing. In fact a lot of things were missing, starting with any sense of good-natured competition between the participants. There are no pep talks, no “Come on, Eve!” no, “Good one, Barry!” No ‘70s equivalent of a high-five after a strike, or any affectionate heckling after a gutter ball. They came, they bowled, they left.

One would expect players to be mic’d so their comments could be picked up for viewers. This wasn’t done either, but from what can be seen of their limited interaction between frames, we didn’t miss much.

The entire undertaking is surprisingly subdued, to the point where I wondered if any of the Bradys really wanted to be there.

For fans this should have been a delightful chance to see the real people behind the familiar characters, and find out how they got along with each other. That cheerful combination of competition and camaraderie is what made the Battle of the Network Stars specials so much fun. Well, that and the lycra swimsuits on Heather Thomas and Lynda Carter.

But it’s not here. And without that good-natured rivalry, the only potential for entertainment was in getting caught up in the actual matches. Unfortunately, the level of bowling prowess is about what you’d see at a third-grade birthday party.

If you remember the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby was upset over never winning a trophy, now you know why he didn’t get one for bowling. And Peter bowls about as well as he fixed bikes for Mr. Martinelli. Greg is the only participant who could throw a hook, but in a best-ball format Barry Williams and Maureen McCormick could not even break 100.

My one qualifier for purchasing a series or special on DVD is re-watchability. Great shows deserve repeat viewings. But I knew as soon as I removed The Bradys Go Bowling from the DVD player that I wouldn’t need to watch it again. Even with a total running time of just 45 minutes, it would be a chore.

Instead, I’ll pull out my Season 1 set and take another look at “54-40 and Fight.” This was the episode about the trading stamp company that was going out of business, and how the boys and the girls combined their stamp books but couldn’t decide whether to buy a sewing machine or a rowboat. Instead, they have a winner-take-all showdown, boys against the girls, building a house of cards. Now, that was a Brady vs. Brady competition with some gravitas.

Here’s a question I present for discussion among my fellow comfort TV fans: Does watching an inordinate amount of television from 30 or 40 years ago alter your perception of how time passes?

I don’t know about you, but for me the 1980s don’t seem that long ago, even though I graduated high school in that decade and I’m 51 now. Is it the same with everyone, or has constant exposure to television from the 1970s and ‘80s kept that era fresher in my mind, and made it seem less far away?

One recent night’s TV viewing included a Charlie’s Angelstwo-parter, followed by a Harry Oepisode and two Bob Newhart Shows. The transition from the hoursspent in those bygone fictional worlds to the here and now hardly felt distant at all.

It’s a different experience with shows from the 1950s and early ‘60s, especially those broadcast in black and white. Here, there are numerous and obvious indicators that these are stories from another age. Just observing the way students dress to go to school is enough to realize how life has changed.

I feel at home among the shows from the 1970s, perhaps because I shared cultural touchpoints with the characters that were growing up in that decade. And watching the shows in 2015 doesn’t feel any different from watching them in 1995 or 1985 or when they were first broadcast. My TV is bigger and I don’t have to worry about fixing the vertical hold, but otherwise it’s the same happy experience.

Maybe that is why I find myself occasionally jolted, almost painfully, into the actuality of passing time.

Earlier this year I saw a photo of the Eight is Enough cast, when they gathered at a memorial service for Dick Van Patten. I hesitate to say they looked older because that sounds like a criticism when it is merely an observation. Laurie Walters and Dianne Kay and Grant Goodeve and Joan Prather have been out of the public eye since the series ended 34 years ago, and time has not stood still for them any more than it has for the rest of us. Of course they looked different.

But if Eight it Enough is still a part of your regular TV viewing, as it has been for mine, that chasm of years can seem like it’s passed in the blink of an eye.There also isn’t much in the series’ stories or settings that loudly indicates how much time has elapsed. Sure, Tommy has a Fleetwood Mac poster in his room, but the band is still performing.

“What about the fashions and the hairstyles?” I hear some of the most stylish among you enquire. I don’t know - have they really changed that much? On Eight is Enough I see a lot of jeans and t-shirts and Nike athletic shoes, and sweaters and dresses that wouldn’t make anyone do a double-take if you saw someone wearing them now. There are exceptions, but I find most of them more flattering than their present-day counterparts.

The Bradfords didn’t have computers or cell phones. But phones are phones, really, or at least they should be. I have a cell but I don’t care for it much, and I have never felt the need to carry a portable camera/GPS tracker/videogame/etc. wherever I go. A corded landline does not look to me like a primitive device.

Of course, someone in their teens or 20s will have a very different perspective. Eight is Enough to them looks how I Love Lucy does to me. But I have driven the Burbank streets where you’ll often glimpse the Bradfords on location, and to me only a few store names and the gas prices have changed.

If my temporal perspective seems altered, I can only imagine what it must be like for the actors, constantly contending with an image of their younger selves still airing on TV every day. They have lived the days and weeks and years between so they are not stuck in that earlier time. But how must it feel to get that look of disappointment from a fan at an autograph show, because they are no longer the cool teenager or the stunning young woman they were back in prime time?

The gap widens a little more with each passing day. But I have a feeling that ten years from now, when I enjoy another trip through the Eight is Enough seasons or any of the shows from that period, it will still seem like a visit to a place that is not so far away, and a time that was here just yesterday.

You may have noticed I like to jump around in my topic choices. Comfort TV covers a wide range of television programming from the 1950s to the early 1980s, and it’s fun to have that big a sandbox to play in.

But if I was ever to devote an entire blog to one specific show, it would be The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet.

As much as I may have more personal affection for the ‘70s sitcoms that were part of my childhood, or the superhero shows that fired a young comic book nerd’s imagination, only Ozzie & Harriet would provide enough material for dozens – even hundreds – of posts, because there is so many aspects of this endlessly fascinating series worthy of in-depth exploration.

Start with the most obvious – it’s the longest-running live action family situation comedy in U.S. history, and it features a real family – married couple Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and their two sons, David and Ricky.

At a time when millions of viewers (for reasons unfathomable to me) are fascinated by shows about the Kardashians and Duggars and others (and don’t kid yourself, reality TV is as scripted as anything on Ozzie & Harriet), here was a series that was 50 years ahead of its time.

Imagine – going to work with your whole family and acting out everyday situations like sitting around the dinner table or planning a weekend trip, all on a set built to resemble the house you just left. In fact, the exterior series shots of the Nelson residence showed their actual Los Angeles home (at 1822 Camino Palmero St. in case you're ever in the neighborhood and want to drop by).

And when the workday is done you return home and pick up where you left off as an actual family. What must it be like to participate in an idealized version of your life, while simultaneously coping with any less sitcom-friendly aspects of those relationships when the cameras stopped?

The results, to me, are as captivating as they are unique. And this wasn’t some short-lived sociological experiment in entertainment – The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet ran for 14 years, longer if you count the radio show that preceded the television series. The show aired long enough for David and Ricky to grow up and get married, and for their wives to join the show, also playing dramatized versions of their real selves.

I still wonder who these people really were. On the show Ozzie was a genial, laid-back patriarch who avoided household chores or any kind of labor. But the real Ozzie served as the show’s producer, director and cowriter. Harriet appeared the quintessential 1950s housewife, with her woman’s club meetings and the stack of pancakes she served her family every morning for breakfast. But the real Harriet was a vaudeville performer and band singer who was smoking at age 13 and enjoyed hanging out at the Cotton Club. She had such a way with an acerbic punch line that you knew she was just as feisty when the cameras weren’t on.

What was it about this one family that millions of Americans found so interesting for so long? Was that window into aspects of real people’s lives a factor? I’m not sure whether that even played into its longevity.

Instead, I think it was a familial affection that compounded in viewers over time, as well as audiences seeing aspects of themselves and their own families in the Nelsons – or at least what they aspired to be.

This was a time in television when there was a lot more of that – shows about families and doctors and lawyers and police officers that depicted their subjects in a way that would engender affection, admiration and respect from the viewing public. It wasn’t done overtly to send that message; it was, rather, a natural consequence of the way a self-assured and principled nation would portray itself.

Another element that made the show special was its balance of traditional ‘50s and ‘60s stories with elements of surrealism and a style of plot-less meandering that was later hailed as groundbreaking on Seinfeld. From the most basic of incidents – Rick grows a beard; Ozzie decides to stay in bed all day; Harriet gets a new hairstyle – the show devised clever, labyrinthine scripts that are still laugh-out-loud funny.

You never know where the show is going to take you. An episode about Ozzie’s quest for tutti-frutti ice cream features a 1920's-themed musical dream sequence. In “The Manly Arts,” David and Ricky fight a gang of smugglers in a scene out right out of The Untouchables. And they did their own stunts, just as they did in a circus episode where they performed a trapeze act. In several episodes one of the Nelsons will break the fourth wall and comment directly to the viewers, sometimes in character, sometimes as themselves.

And we’ve come all this way without mentioning Ricky Nelson’s remarkable music career, another trailblazing aspect to the series. He was one of the biggest teen idols of the 1950s, but also one with real talent, as evidenced by his 35 top-40 hits and his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His frequent performances boosted record sales, establishing a pattern of crossover success that would be emulated by everyone from Shelley Fabares to Miley Cyrus.

But one of the things I love the most about The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet is that I still have so many episodes to look forward to watching. There were 435 shows, and I have seen only about 150 of them.

Despite its quality and historic significance, the series has not fared well on DVD, for reasons too complex to explore here. Ricky’s son Sam Nelson is currently working on an official DVD release, but he chose to go it alone rather than work with an established DVD distributor. That may not have been a wise choice at a time when the market is already in decline, particularly for television shows of this vintage. The project was announced in 2011, but nothing has yet been released.

Hurry up, Sam – the fans that still remember the Nelsons as America’s favorite family aren’t getting any younger.

Monsters and strange creatures are intrinsic to Halloween, so this seems a fitting time to blog about Bigfoot.

The legends date back centuries though few believers remain in our skeptical times. But the name still resonates – Animal Planet is currently airing a series called Finding Bigfoot, and we’ve all seen those “Messin’ with Sasquatch” beef jerky commercials.

Bigfoot was biggest in the 1970s, a time when hairy dudes were everywhere, from Burt Reynolds and Barry Gibb to Billy Preston and Grizzly Adams. The phenomenon was likely launched by what is known as the Patterson/Gimlin film, shot in 1967 in Bluff Creek, California. It purported to be the first footage ever captured of the “real” Bigfoot, and it made frequent rounds on various news shows, talk shows and documentaries for years.

Having thus captured the public’s imagination, it was inevitable that versions of Bigfoot would start turning up in several TV series, perhaps most memorably in The Six Million Dollar Man. “The Secret of Bigfoot” was a two-part episode from the show’s third season that is probably the most famous story they ever tried.

The high point was a mano a mano throwdown between Col. Steve Austin, then one of the coolest dudes on the planet, and Bigfoot, played here by wrestler Andre the Giant. It was difficult to find believable opponents for someone with Austin’s bionic upgrades, so this was a rare opportunity for the show to cut loose with a full-out, slow motion slugfest, that ends shockingly when Austin rips the creature’s arm off.

Before the PETA folks could start writing angry letters, it’s revealed that the secret alluded to in the episode’s title is that Bigfoot was a robot, created by an alien race who were living inside a mountain, observing humanity. Fortunately they’re friendly visitors, especially the hottie scientist played by Stefanie Powers who asks Steve, “What makes a woman attractive in your world?”

The episodes were so popular that Bigfoot even got his own action figure.

I'd rather have had one of Stefanie Powers.

Bigfoot was quickly brought back for a crossover story between The Six Million Dollar Manand The Bionic Woman. In “The Return of Bigfoot” the aliens have split into two camps: an evil ring led by John Saxon and the original “we come in peace” group, featuring Powers and Sandy Duncan ("We need someone to play a strange visitor from another world. Quick - get me Sandy Duncan!").

Unfortunately the nasty ones control Bigfoot (now played by Ted Cassidy), and it’s up to Steve and Jaime to set things right.

Episodes like these exemplify ‘70s adventure TV: slightly silly but good-natured fun, with unambiguous heroes, action, suspense and a positive message that doesn’t pound you into submission.

It’s probably not surprising that Bigfoot was especially popular among children, hence his appearances in several Saturday morning shows.

Of course, you’d expect the meddling kids at Mystery Inc. to run into him eventually, and it happened in 1972 on The New Scooby Doo Movies. In “The Ghost of Bigfoot,” the Scooby gang find their vacation at the MacKinac Lodge interrupted by the spirit of Bigfoot. They solve the case with help from bellhops Laurel & Hardy. It was not one of the better shows of the run.

Over on The Krofft Supershow, “Bigfoot and Wildboy” featured a Bigfoot (Ray Young) whose existence was known at the local ranger station. As with many Krofft series the opening theme/narration tells you everything you need to know:

Out of the Great Northwest comes the legendary Bigfoot

who, eight years ago, saved a young child lost in the vast wilderness

and raised that child until he grew up to be Wildboy

Bigfoot – hero and single parent – took on aliens, poachers, vampires, mummies and mad scientists. The series lasted 20 episodes, which is about the average run for a Krofft show. It wasn’t one of my favorites, mainly because I always hated the escalating, cacophonous electronic sound effect that accompanied Bigfoot’s running and leaping. Seemed totally out of place.

I’ll mention one more ‘70s Bigfoot story here, though I’m sure I’ve missed a few others. Isis was and remains my favorite Comfort TV kids show, and the episode “Bigfoot” is an example of this kindhearted, uplifting series at its best.

A high school field trip ends after two students spot a huge, shadowy figure in the mountains. One of them, Lee, wonders if it might be Bigfoot, and the next day suggests getting a group together to hunt it down.

"Why?" asks Dr. Barnes, the principal.

Lee: "Why? Because that thing is dangerous!"

Dr. Barnes: "Why?"

Lee: "Well…it’s big, and we don’t know what it is."

Dr. Barnes: "So it must be dangerous…too many people think that anything they don’t understand is dangerous. That’s wrong. If you don’t know what something is you should be cautious but not afraid, not set out to hunt it down."

There’s a show that laid down some knowledge and lessons in tolerance to go with our Frosted Flakes and Fruity Pebbles. But some of the kids do head back to the mountains, where Lee meets not Bigfoot but a long-bearded hermit named Richard, who turns out to be the gentlest of giants.

Isis invites him to come back with them, but Richard has been told he’s big and ugly all his life and is still too afraid to return to civilization.

“Sometimes people are very cruel to those who seem different,” Isis says. “But it’s worth giving them a chance.”

Seems like a graceful note on which to end. Let's all keep that in mind as we head toward an election year. Happy Halloween.

I was recently surprised, and very pleasantly so, to find that the Scholastic Reading Club was still in existence. I was certain that by now it had become a relic of the past, like many good ideas we have discarded because they no longer fit the times we live in.

When I was in elementary school and junior high it was called the Arrow Book Club. Every month new catalogs would be distributed by a teacher, and I would peruse titles about sea monsters and old west outlaws, or be tempted by the latest mystery facing Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective.

And of course, there was Dynamite Magazine. For someone already fascinated by television, Dynamite was like a Christmas present delivered every month. It was a seminal pop culture moment in my life that stands out because back then there weren’t a thousand other sources reporting on the shows and stars that I loved.

My family didn’t get TV Guide, which may be why I enjoy checking out the back issues so much today. Peopleand Us were around, but that was about it except for tabloid rags and gossip sheets like Rona Barrett’s Hollywood. The TV series Entertainment Tonight debuted in 1981, at the tail end of my high school years.

At the time no one could have imagined the instant gratification and over-saturation of pop culture coverage unleashed by the Internet (heck, no one could have imagined the Internet). For those accustomed to that access, I think it's almost impossible to appreciate how exciting it was just to see a favorite star on the cover of a magazine.

Dynamitewas written for kids my age. It not only featured my favorite shows, which were usually dismissed by the serious TV critics of the day, it did so with articles that were as excited about them as I was. It spoke my language to an almost embarrassing degree, as I discovered while going through a cache of back issues.

What a nostalgic rush it was to page through these ancient publications, getting reacquainted with the puzzles of Count Morbida, the comic book serial adventures of Dawnstar and Nightglider, Magic Wanda’s card tricks and the Hot Stuff section featuring practical jokes called “Gotchas.”

But it’s the cover stories that transported me back to a more innocent era in television and in life.

Where else could you have “A Special Talk with Greg Evigan,” or spend a “Happy day with Scott Baio”?

There were a lot of ‘Meet’ and ‘Face to Face’ covers: Meet Rick Springfield; ‘Face to Face with Erik Estrada’; Meet Kristy McNichol; ‘Face to Face with Fonzie.’

Three of Charlie’s six Angels (Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd) made the cover, an acknowledgement that perhaps that show wasn’t as scandalous as some believed. Lee Majors made the cover three times, which as near as I can tell is the record.

Remember Shields & Yarnell, two mimes that got their own TV series and that people actually liked? They head the list of now-obscure cover subjects, along with Clark Brandon (from Mr. Merlin) and David McCallum from his 1975 series The Invisible Man, which appropriately vanished after just 13 episodes.

There was also a 1985 feature called “Backstage at The Bill Cosby Show.” I’ll leave that one alone.

The reporting was solid and the interview pieces were authentic, unlike the made-up quotes and stories in teen publications like Tiger Beat. Still, this was clearly the G-rated version of celebrity coverage (“Mr. T – his look is tough, his heart is tender”). Questions explored what actors liked about their characters, how they got along with their costars, and what they hoped to do next. For most of them, those aspirations never came true.

Dynamitewas published from 1974 to 1992, a pop culture era that spanned from The Waltons to The Simpsons; from Jimmie Walker to Johnny Depp; from Land of the Lost to Beverly Hills 90210. Back issues are plentiful on eBay and not that expensive.

In its heyday, kids all over the country formed Dynamite Clubs to hang out together and talk about the stars in the magazine. I didn’t join one then. I’d kind of like to now.

So I was all set to write another Museum of Comfort TV piece and then Paris happened. Of course, this isn’t the forum to discuss such atrocities, but the impact was such that it didn’t feel right to proceed with my original topic.

Instead, let’s talk about Thanksgiving, and Father Knows Best. Seems more fitting, I think, since the holiday was inspired by a moment when disparate groups of people came together in peace and friendship. It didn’t last, but it gave us a glimpse of what we can be at our best. We need more of those now.

Several classic TV shows had Thanksgiving episodes, though even 40 years ago the holiday was overshadowed by the more vibrant sacred and family traditions of Christmas and the material-rich spooky fun of Halloween. Both evoke myriad ideas that would work for almost any kind of series.

Thanksgiving is more of a challenge. It’s always tough and time-consuming to shoot a large group of characters seated around a dinner table, and such scenes feature very little movement outside of passing the sweet potatoes and the biscuits.

Unless you unleash a food fight.

There were football games and parades on Thanksgiving in the Comfort TV era, but would you want to watch a television show in which the characters are also watching TV? Not very exciting.

Friendshad some great Thanksgiving shows but it’s a bit out of our era, though I did cover the series once before. And Bewitchedoffered a delightful holiday episode in its fourth season (“Samantha’s Thanksgiving to Remember”) in which Aunt Clara accidentally blinks Sam, Darrin, Tabitha and Mrs. Kravitz (!) to the Pilgrims’ Plymouth settlement. I watch it every year around this time.

But my topic for today is “Thanksgiving Day,” from Father Knows Best. It was just the eighth show of the series’ first season, so at the time America was still getting to know the Andersons of Springfield (a radio version had aired for five years already, but that series had a much different tone).

In the story, the Andersons decide that Margaret deserves a break from cooking, and instead they’ll all go out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. But then Bud announces he’s going to spend the day with his high school football team, and Betty accepts an invitation to dine with a neighbor’s family. “She didn’t think you’d mind,” Margaret tells Jim, “as long as we were eating out.” “No, of course not,” Jim mutters, though it inspires reflections of the Thanksgiving traditions he cherished as a boy, and how times have changed.

There’s another plot about Kathy having an emotional meltdown, but these were fairly common occurrences in the Anderson home. So let’s skip past that to Jim having second thoughts about dining out. “I’d just rather eat here,” he tells Margaret, even though all they have in the house is hamburger.

Perhaps, even if you have never watched this episode, you can guess what happens next. Kathy calms down, and Bud and Betty heed an innate call to home and hearth and realize that is where they should be and want to be on this special day.

The episode ends with the family seated around the kitchen table, on which sits a platter stacked with hamburgers. The Andersons join hands, as Jim offers a prayer of gratitude for the blessings they have received. One particular part of that recitation brings us back to Paris and the challenges of the times with live in now:

“We thank thee for the privilege of living as free men in a country which respects our freedom, and our personal rights to worship and think and speak as we choose.”

There are people in this world who want to take that away from us. And not all of them are terrorists. It’s something to think about as we keep Paris in our thoughts and prayers, and look forward to our own family Thanksgivings.

NOTE: This post is part of A Very Merry MeTV Blogathon hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. Click hereto view the entire blogathon schedule.

The Bob Newhart Show is one of the few television series to feature a Christmas episode in every season.

I wish more shows had embraced the holidays that way, because for me Christmas shows were always special moments. Every year I looked forward to seeing familiar sets decked out in holiday finery, listening to the characters sing Christmas carols, and waiting for those little extras that you wouldn’t see in any other episode – like the Christmas wreath that appeared around the MTM Enterprises kitty logo. These are happy memories inextricably linked to my Christmases past.

So it’s wonderful to have not one but six Bob Newhart Christmas shows, which I have listed in countdown format based on personal preference, overall quality, holiday humor and Christmas-y feeling. Don’t call it a worst-to-best list, as even the #6 episode has its moments and is better than much of today’s prime time fare.

#6: “Making Up is the Thing to Do” (Season 5)

The holidays play a part in wrapping up this two-part story about an estrangement between Bob’s parents.

Christmas-y Feeling: Marginal

This is the show’s only holiday episode in which Christmas seems like an afterthought, which is particularly regrettable because it originally aired on Christmas Day in 1976. However, do take a moment to appreciate the exceptional tinsel application technique on the Hartley tree.

Holiday Humor:

Bob: (on his plan to reunite his bickering parents on Christmas Eve) “The holidays have a way of bringing people closer together…they remind you of the ties that bind.”

Larry Bondurant: “Yeah. When did they separate?”

Bob: “Thanksgiving.”

Why it’s Worth Watching:

This is the best of Barnard Hughes’ three series appearances as Bob’s father.

#5: “Home is Where the Hurt Is” (Season 3)

Carol can’t face going home for the holidays, so she spends Christmas Eve relating her sad life story to Bob and Emily, just as they are getting ready to go to the symphony.

Christmas-y Feeling: Transformational

Early scenes show undecorated trees at the office and at Bob and Emily’s apartment. Later scenes show both trees covered in lights and ornaments, making for a memorable before-and-after effect.

Holiday Humor:

Bob: (explaining to Jerry why the office party was canceled) “It would just be you, me and Mr. Carlin.”

Jerry: “That’s not a party, that’s a wake.”

Why it’s Worth Watching

The Mr. Carlin scenes are the highlights, particularly the moment when he tells Bob how he always feels like everyone is laughing at him, setting up one of the show’s trademark elevator gags.

#4: His Busiest Season (Season 1)

Bob invites his group therapy participants to a holiday party.

Christmas-y Feeling: Prominent

The Hartley residence looks especially festive this year, with a double-string of Christmas cards across the bookcases, a great tree and presents piled everywhere. The scene where Bob and Emily exchange gifts is heightened by a picturesque snowfall in the window behind them. All this, plus group sing-alongs of two Christmas carols, “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Deck the Halls.”

Holiday Humor:

Emily: “What do you think I should buy your Uncle Harry and your Aunt May?”

Bob: “What did we send them last year?”

Emily: “A basket of fruit.”

Bob: “They should have eaten it by now.”

Why it’s Worth Watching

This is a quieter and subtler episode, as was typical of the show’s first season. At this point Howard Borden is merely eccentric, and not the absurd man-child he would become. I also liked the appearance of King Moody, who at the time was playing Ronald McDonald in some of my favorite Christmas commercials of that era. Does McDonald’s still have gift certificates? If they do, they’re probably not 50 cents each anymore.

#3: I’m Dreaming of a Slight Christmas (Season 2)

Bob is called back to the office on Christmas Eve by a panic-attacked Mr. Peterson, then gets stranded when a blizzard strikes.

Christmas-y Feeling: Satisfactory

The episode opens with some brief glimpses of Chicago at Christmas, and I liked the Santa figure on the Hartley bookshelves. The office lobby went with a white tree this year, and I’ve never been a fan of those.

Holiday Humor:

Bob: “Carol, what kind of coffee is that?”

Carol: “Irish.”

Bob: “Is it ok to drink from the water cooler?”

Carol: “Sure – if you like martinis.”

Why it’s Worth Watching

Having spent many Christmases in Chicago, I enjoyed the acknowledgement of how cold it gets, and how the weather can scuttle the best of holiday plans. This is the perfect wintery episode to watch with a cup of hot chocolate (marshmallows optional).

#2: ‘Twas the Pie Before Christmas (Season 6)

In retaliation for Bob raising his group therapy rates, Mr. Carlin hires an organization called Pie Incorporated, which specializes in hitting victims with a pie.

Christmas-y Feeling: Abundant

Christmas permeates almost every scene in this episode, with wonderful decorations and carols and many other sights and sounds of the occasion. Bob coming home with a lousy Christmas tree is a repeat gag from year two, but in the spirit of the season we’ll let that pass.

Holiday Humor:

Bob: (on his Charlie Brown-like tree) “I know it’s not as pretty as last year’s tree.”

Emily: “I think it is last year’s tree.”

Why it’s Worth Watching

While the series’ last season is its most hit-and-miss, they pulled off a merry and mirthful final holiday episode. The running pie-in-the-face gag delivers not one but several payoffs, and the group therapy scenes are hilarious.

# 1: Bob Has to Have His Tonsils Out, So He Spends Christmas Eve in the Hospital (Season 4)

The title says it all: Bob is subjected to the indignities of peekaboo hospital gowns, Howard’s hospital horror stories, and an ancient nurse.

Christmas-y Feeling: Muted

This is the only Yuletide episode where we don’t see a tree in the Hartley apartment. But since Bob isn’t home for Christmas, that sense of missing out on the holidays is thematically appropriate.

Holiday Humor:

Howard: “I was just decorating my Christmas tree and I was wondering, is there a trick to stringing cranberry sauce?”

Why it’s Worth Watching:

This is one of the best episodes of the entire series, right up there with the classic Thanksgiving show (“More goo to go!”). There are laugh out loud moments in every scene, from the doctor’s diagnosis to a tree-trimming scene in Howard’s apartment. The dotty nurse who takes care of Bob (veteran character actress Merie Earle) gets a laugh with every line she utters, and sometimes when she’s just standing there.

To all of you who, like me, will be spending some of your holiday season with the classic Christmas shows airing on MeTV, Comfort TV wishes you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Music is an integral part of Christmas. And for many of us the classic TV specials from an earlier era are part of that celebration as well. The best of them introduced even more wonderful music to enrich the season.

These are my ten favorite songs from these shows. I would love to hear more about yours.

“The Most Wonderful Day of the Year”

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

Every song in this landmark Christmas special is wonderful, but it’s “The Most Wonderful Day of the Year,” performed by the misfit toys, that best conveys the hope and joy of the season. Because the lyrics are so specific to the TV special it hasn’t remained as prominent as “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Silver and Gold,” but that didn’t stop Glee(a show about another group of misfits) from covering it in their first Christmas show.

“Keep Christmas With You”

Merry Christmas From Sesame Street

Anyone who watches Sesame Street into adulthood would not be surprised that it would introduce a memorable Christmas song. “Keep Christmas With You (All Through the Year)” was featured on several of the series’ holiday shows, beginning in 1975 and continuing (sadly) through 2006’s “Elmo Saves Christmas.” Stick with the early versions.

“Snow Miser/Heat Miser”

The Year Without a Santa Claus

Ba Dump-Bump-Bump….Baaaaaaaaa-Dump… this may be the most powerful earworm unleashed by any Christmas show ever. I’m slightly partial to the slower tempo of Heat Miser’s version, but whether you prefer it hot or cold, it’s...too much.

“Linus and Lucy”

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Next to Linus’s recitation of Luke 2: 8-14, this now iconic jazzy instrumental by the Vince Guaraldi Trio was the highlight of A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s more associated now with Peanuts than Christmas, but you can’t help but smile when you hear it.

“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

It’s not exactly hummable, but the wordplay of Dr. Seuss and the deep-toned vocals of Thurl Ravenscroft came together to create something that is certainly unique among holiday tunes. “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” also has a second classic TV connection as the music was composed by Albert Hague, Mr. Shorofsky on Fame.

“Put One Foot in Front of the Other”

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Is this a Christmas song? The lyrics make no reference to Christmas, Santa, snow, the Nativity or anything related to the holiday. But as it’s performed by Kris Kringle and the Winter Warlock in Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the connotation endures. I know a couple of people who felt inspired by the song’s message to make a positive change in their life, and any song that does that should be celebrated.

“A Baby Just Like You”

John Denver & The Muppets: A Christmas Together

John Denver hosted five Christmas specials in the 1970s and ‘80s. Perhaps not in the same longevity class with Perry Como or Bing Crosby, but fans have fond memories of these shows, particularly the two featuring The Muppets. Denver debuted several original Christmas songs in these shows, all of which are worth hearing. He wrote “A Baby Just Like You,” with frequent collaborator Joe Henry.

“Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”

Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

This buoyant song played over the closing credits of the 1974 animated special of the same name, and is performed by Jimmy Osmond in a sprightly English dance hall style. It’s a bit on the cheesy side but the enthusiasm is infectious.

“Even a Miracle Needs a Hand”

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

It’s possible that more people now know this song, introduced by Joel Grey in a 1974 animated special, from an unlikely homage on South Park. I’ll take the original.

“I Believe in Santa Claus”

The Year Without a Santa Claus

I couldn’t decide between this one and the Heat Miser/Snow Miser songs from The Year Without a Santa Claus, and then I remembered it’s my blog and I can include them both. If you’re not careful, this tender ballad will bring on a tear or two. Maybe even one of those big water drop tears that you see on the Rankin-Bass stop-motion classics.

We’ve arrived at the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. If you’re a kid you’re off from school and if you’re a lucky adult like me you are enjoying a few days off from work. It’s a chance to rest up and celebrate surviving one more turn of the calendar, before diving back into your normal routine.

For many of us television is a treasured part of that routine, albeit one that has changed dramatically since we were still in the school vacation phase of our lives. There once were moments, now long gone, that we relied on and awaited with anticipation, and other elements of the programming day that, while not exciting in themselves, were reminders of the medium’s familiarity and constancy.

Here are some that I miss the most.

1. New Soaps on Holidays

For decades, while other programs were pre-empted on holidays, you could still see a new episode of your favorite daytime drama. Given the close relationships viewers developed with the characters on these stalwart series, watching their holiday traditions became part of many annual celebrations.

For General Hospital fans like me, that meant wondering what disaster would befall Thanksgiving dinner at the Quartermaine residence, prompting the family to call for pizza delivery. And on Christmas Day, Dr. Steve Hardy (John Beradino) would read the story of the first Christmas to young patients in the children’s ward.

After Beradino’s passing, the task was bestowed on other members of the senior hospital staff, and you could see in both the character and the actor how they recognized the privilege of carrying on this revered tradition.

Now, the few soaps that remain air reruns on holidays. Just what we need – another hour when we have to talk to our relatives.

2. Network Sign-ons/Sign-offs

There was a time when television networks ended their broadcast days at 1 or 2 a.m., returning the next morning around sunrise. Local affiliates would sometimes get the ball rolling with a sermonette, or by playing the National Anthem before the first network morning show. Night owls like me can still recall the various sign-offs, followed by a test pattern.

Changing viewing habits, cable TV and the infomercial all played a role in prompting stations to broadcast 24/7. But I remember being in London in the late 1980s, a time when these quaint customs were already disappearing in the U.S., and being unexpectedly delighted to find the sign-off still in use at the BBC, executed with typical British aplomb.

3. No Winter Breaks

If there is one phrase that rankles the veteran Comfort TV fan it is “winter finale.”

What constitutes a “season” for a show today? For some cable series it’s 8 or 12 episodes. Most network series manage to reach 22 shows, necessitating a holiday season hiatus that may last a month or more. Contrast that with some typical first seasons from the classic TV era:

Leave it to Beaver: 39 episodes

The Donna Reed Show: 37 episodes

Gunsmoke: 39 episodes

Naked City: 39 episodes

Bewitched: 36 episodes

The Twilight Zone: 36 episodes

Ozzie & Harriet: 39 episodes

Today’s television actors, writers, directors and creative teams earn many times what their classic TV counterparts did, for doing a lot less work.

4. A Sense of Propriety in Commercials

Commercial interruptions are never not annoying, but they don’t have to make you queasy or generate uncomfortable questions from kids about what the man in the bathtub means by erectile dysfunction. I know that just by using the word ‘propriety’ I risk derisive comparison to the Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey. But I don’t care if I am the last person in America who thinks that some topics are best left between one’s self and one’s doctor. I just want to watch Gilligan try to get off the island – I don’t want to hear about your vaginal yeast infection.

5. Fall Season Musical Promos

Excitement still accompanies the arrival of fresh network TV episodes every September, though these days summer offers a supplemental season of new alternative programming that makes the wait easier.

But in the Comfort TV era the new fall season was a much bigger event, heralded by the networks with extravagant promotions featuring all of their top stars. The setup often consisted of actors from established shows welcoming newcomers to the team. There was a sense of company pride in these spots, that also promoted a familial relationship between network and viewer. Look, we thought, at all these rich and famous people, taking time out of their busy schedule to invite us to watch their shows.

If you’re old enough you may still remember some of these musical campaigns: “You and Me and ABC,” “NBC Just Watch Us Now” and CBS’s “Looking Good.” I always enjoyed the ABC promos the most, from “Still the One” to “Come on Along with ABC.” They were the top dog network at the time these promos were in vogue, and were happy to invest the time and money to keep it that way. The days of presentations like this are certainly gone forever.

For Comfort TV fans, the casts of favorite shows are as familiar as close friends. But in so many instances, particularly among the supporting players, we know actors almost exclusively from a single role. They are the television equivalent of one-hit wonders.

You may already be thinking of some that qualify – Marion Lorne, so wonderful as Aunt Clara on Bewitched; David Schramm as the blustery Roy Biggins on Wings; Francis Bavier on The Andy Griffith Show; Milburn Stone on Gunsmoke; Gordon Thomson on Dynasty.

Many of these actors have a number of other significant credits, from stage to feature film – but a successful television series, particularly back in the Comfort TV era when such shows were viewed by tens of millions of people every week – almost always becomes their primary claim to fame, whether they like it or not.

I pondered this topic as I read Alan Napier’s autobiography, Not Just Batman’s Butler. His most famous role was Alfred, faithful servant to millionaire Bruce Wayne (and his youthful ward, Dick Grayson) on Batman (1966-1968). Napier seemed ideally cast as the ever-proper British gentleman’s gentleman, whose duties occasionally required him to take on special assignments that Sebastian Cabot never had to worry about on Family Affair.

With his snow white hair, gaunt physique and thick, oversized spectacles, Napier looked about 90 when he appeared on Batman (he was actually 63) so I always figured he had other jobs before this, and I probably saw a few of them even if I never made the connection. In the days before IMDB such information was more difficult to come by.

As it turns out, he had appeared in nearly 100 films before arriving at stately Wayne Manor, and was a fixture on the London stage for decades. His remarkably prolific career includes such eminent credits as a production of Heartbreak House supervised by the play’s author, George Bernard Shaw, alongside equally lowbrow projects, such as his portrayal of a mad scientist in a Bowery Boys movie.

These tales and many more can be found in his new book. Which technically isn’t really new. McFarland published it last year but most of the text was completed in the early 1970s, not long after Napier finished his “It’s the Bat Phone, Sir” days.

In 1975 he shared the manuscript with writer James Bigwood, who was then researching the actor’s career for a magazine article. After reconnecting with the Napier family, Bigwood was allowed to update and edit the manuscript, inserting additional information where needed. Now, 41 years after the book was started, you can finally read the results.

And I thought I waited a long time to get some of my books out.

Why wasn’t it published earlier? Napier once quipped it was because “I’ve never committed a major crime and I’m not known to have slept with any famous actresses.”

I’m not sure if that’s the case, but the delay certainly had nothing to do with quality. Napier is a remarkably engaging writer – clever, candid, self-effacing – and his memoirs are not merely another show business biography, but a window inside English aristocracy in the early 20^th century (one of his cousins was Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain). How ironic that a man who achieved fame playing a butler has a blue-blood ancestry dating back to Shakespeare’s time.

Napier enjoyed a wonderfully prolific career and traveled in some fascinating company, from Charles Laughton and Laurence Olivier to Noel Coward and Alfred Hitchcock. But for those of my generation, he’s the guy at the beginning of every Batman episode who opens up the cake platter cover, picks up the beeping red phone and says, “I’ll summon him, sir.”

Did that bother him? Not really – he loved the fame the show brought and all of the young fans that recognized Alfred wherever he went. Unfortunately we don’t get as many Batman memories as some readers might wish, though Bigwood does his best to fill in some of these gaps.

The surprising thing is, as much as you might want some inside scoop on Napier’s favorite Catwoman, or working with the likes of Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero, or how many women Burt Ward smuggled into his trailer in an average week, you won’t really miss it. Or you can just read Burt Ward’s book.

I’m glad I read Not Just Batman’s Butler– it’s available here if you want to check it out.

From 1997 through about 2001, if you called my home and I wasn’t in, you would have heard the following answering machine message:

Hello, this is Gary Owens, reminding you that David Hofstede is not in right now. But if you leave your name and phone number, your height, weight, religion, and of course, your favorite color, then he will return your call.”

Beep!

It generated a lot of laughs, occasional bewildered frustration, and pleas from friends who had heard it a hundred times to take it down. But the message only came off my machine after I reluctantly landed a real job in the corporate world that necessitated a more professional greeting.

Gary Owens recorded the message for me after an interview I did with him in 1996, that was published in a magazine called Baby Boomer Collectibles. We stayed in touch for a while after that but I had not spoken to him in years prior to his passing in 2015.

My thoughts returned to him the other day when I mentioned to someone that I was driving to California for the weekend, and would be staying in “Beautiful Downtown Burbank.” His recognition of that phrase, once familiar to just about everyone, marked him as a fellow classic TV fan.

It’s an expression some associate with the monologues of Johnny Carson, whose Tonight Show originated from NBC’s Burbank headquarters. But it was first coined by Gary Owens in the unique weather reports he delivered on his Los Angeles radio show (“It’s 80 degrees in romantic Reseda, 75 degrees in lascivious Laguna, and in beautiful downtown Burbank, it’s 500 degrees”).

But Burbank’s infamy did not enter the national lexicon until Gary Owens revived the phrase during his six-season run on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

There are some perhaps that only remember him from that landmark series, with his striped suit and horn rimmed glasses, standing at an old-fashioned microphone, hand cupped to his ear, saying the silliest things in a mock serious tone.

“This just in – the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France is not made of Eiffel at all!”

“On this date in history, Snow White said to a well-known charming prince, “Dear, there are seven reasons I can’t marry you.”

John Chancellor is back in our NBC newsroom practicing a speech that is worthy of Cicero – or any other small town in Illinois.”

But Laugh-In was just one part of his entertainment legacy, and a small part at that, as well as one of the easiest jobs he ever accepted. As he revealed during our interview, they typically finished each episode in just two days – three, if the writers decided to play with Goldie Hawn by writing dirty words on her cue cards so she would giggle through 17 takes.

Owens, one of four cast members to appear in every episode (along with Dan Rowan, Dick Martin and Ruth Buzzi) taped his segments in the morning, then returned the following day for the weekly cocktail party sketch. At the same time, he was lending his voice to several cartoons and hosting a daily local radio show.

One of his more famous promotions on KMPC Los Angeles was offering an autographed photo of the Harbor Freeway. “Fifty thousand people wrote in,” he recalled, “and we sent them a picture of the freeway signed at the bottom, ‘Yours truly, Harbor Freeway.’”

There isn’t a lot of Laugh-In available on DVD yet, but there are plenty of other ways to celebrate Mr. Owens’ remarkable career, starting with Roger Ramjet, one of the funniest cartoons ever created. Every episode of this 1965 lampooning of the military-industrial complex appeared as if it was made for about three dollars – the animation was so limited it made Clutch Cargo look like a Pixar film. But the writing was genius, and Owens’ portrayal of Roger was note-perfect.

Got six minutes? Get ready to laugh.

Owens also lent his dulcet tones to characters like Space Ghost, Blue Falcon, and Powdered Toast Man on The Ren & Stimpy Show, and served as the narrator on The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. He also appeared in such Comfort TV series as McHale’s Navy, The Munsters, Batman and I Dream of Jeannie (when he was joined by Laugh-In alums Judy Carne and Arte Johnson in one of that show’s more memorable episodes).

And if you still need one more reason to think fondly of this wonderful, whimsical talent, he also spearheaded a crusade to convince the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce that The Three Stooges deserved a star on the Walk of Fame. His efforts paid off in 1983. Owens has his own star on that famous sidewalk, located next to another man who gave us a few great cartoons, Walt Disney.

I think I'll put that answering machine message back up – at least for a little while.

Taking my TV viewing preferences as a whole, there didn’t seem much hope that I would enjoy The Fugitive.

It’s a somber show that is not fast-paced or action-packed, there is almost no humor, and the protagonist, Dr. Richard Kimble, suffers through the most tortured existence of any character created for television (though Oliver Queen on Arrow is catching up).

For someone who values classic TV as a means to escape the harsher realities of life, a show this relentlessly downbeat is an unlikely destination.

And yet…I would cite it as one of television’s ten best shows, and I am entranced by it every time.

The series is justly revered among classic TV fans, but it’s still not as celebrated as it should be, because it was not syndicated as often as the sitcoms and lighter dramatic fare of the 1960s.

Several episodes were released on videocassette in the mid-1980s, and this was when I saw it for the first time. The series aired on A&E in the ‘90s but I didn’t have cable then, so I didn’t revisit the show until the year 2000, when TV Land aired a 24-hour Fugitive marathon to promote a deservedly short-lived remake starring Tim Daly. My VCR was running round the clock to capture them all.

The Fugitive finally hit DVD in 2007. Hardcore fans (and make no mistake, there are Fugitive fans as ardent as those for Star Trek and Game of Thrones) were outraged about music substitutions. While the purist in me was on that barricade with them, at the time I was just too happy to finally have access to every episode to really care.

Even if you have enough interest in classic television to visit this blog, it’s possible you haven’t had a chance to get to know this series. The purpose for this entry is to let you know that this must stop. Find it, watch it, and thank me later.

The premise is covered in an opening credits sequence narrated by William Conrad: Indiana doctor Richard Kimble is convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death. He claims he saw a one-armed man flee the scene. No one believes him. He escapes when the train taking him to prison derails. The police lieutenant escorting him to the death house, Philip Gerard, becomes obsessed with his recapture.

From such broad stroke set-ups TV shows both great and terrible have been made. But The Fugitive was Les Misérablesfor television, as compelling in its medium as Victor Hugo’s literary masterwork.

The pilot, “Fear in a Desert City,” provides a perfect illustration of the series’ strengths. Kimble is working as a bartender in Tucson, just one more in a litany of menial jobs. He meets a sympathetic woman, he runs afoul of local law enforcement, and flees before he can be captured.

But it's not just what happens but how it happens, and how David Janssen, who never won the Emmy for his portrayal of Kimble, inhabits this role on a cellular level. You believe his every skittish reaction to a squad car parked across a street; the lonely desperation of a man trying to prove his innocence by tracking down his wife's killer in a world that predates Google by 30 years; a “victim of blind justice” cast adrift in a relentlessly dark and hostile existence bereft of any permanent home, prospects or friends.

Throughout the show’s four seasons he is most often found in rural areas, a skilled physician taking day labor work and trying to blend in among poorly educated people. Though he keeps his head down and doesn’t talk much they sense he’s not like the rest of them. Some react with kindness, some with curiosity, some with hostility.

But he’s still a doctor, which was a brilliant decision on the part of series creator Roy Huggins. As much as Kimble needs to distance himself from his former life to stay alive, he is also compelled by his vocation and his conscience to help if someone needs medical attention. As soon as he does, he knows people will wonder how a migrant worker picking strawberries in Salinas knows how to perform a tracheotomy, and his days there will be numbered. Yet Kimble repeatedly compromises his own safety to help the kind of person that society ignores.

Lt. Philip Gerard, played by Barry Morse, was Javert to Kimble’s Valjean, and a formidable adversary throughout the run. Gerard only appears in about one-third of the episodes in every season – another wise and all-too-rare example of restraint in service of the drama. If Kimble kept narrowly escaping Gerard 25 times a season, the series becomes a Road Runner cartoon. This way, when Gerard does get close, it ratchets up the tension to unbearable levels.

Once you grasp the premise, you know that in a typical episode Dr. Kimble is not going to be captured, or killed, or exonerated, because that would be the end of the show. Yet the series teases each of those outcomes repeatedly, and does it so well you can’t help but wonder how Kimble is going to get out of another no-win situation, or how the end of his nightmare will elude him once more.

To illustrate, I present “The Iron Maiden,” a typically solid season two episode. Kimble is working construction on a missile silo in the Nevada desert. The site is visited by a U.S. Congresswoman, who is injured at the bottom of the shaft. While Kimble tries to help her, a press photographer snaps a photo that makes the national news. Gerard sees it and immediately heads for the site. Before he arrives an accident strands several workers, including Kimble, 200 feet below the surface. By the time the equipment is fixed, his identity has been exposed. There’s only one way out of the shaft, and when he surfaces Gerard is there waiting for him. How will he escape this time?

For a series so groundbreaking in its format, its lack of a permanent setting or supporting cast, and its inversion of traditional hero and villain roles, there was one cliché to which The Fugitive was not immune. That would be Kimble’s capability to make every woman he approaches fall in love with him. Certainly the show had to be aware of how this trope became abused. But perhaps, given the tribulations he endures for four seasons, it seemed only fair to allow him a few hours of pleasure with guest stars like Lois Nettleton, Suzanne Pleshette, Hope Lange and Susan Oliver.

The Fugitive finale was famous as the most-watched episode of network television up to that point, garnering an astonishing 73 share. It’s satisfying but not perfect. I always thought the final moment between Kimble and Gerard should have been more substantive. And it would have been wonderful to insert brief clips of previous characters Kimble met in his travels, smiling as they read a newspaper account of his exoneration.

Still, since most shows did not receive the luxury of a definitive final installment, we are fortunate that Kimble’s saga ended at all. There was concern over how it would impact the series’ syndication appeal, and perhaps that proved to be valid. But viewers were so invested in the series that they deserved closure.

So here is my final appeal to those who missed The Fugitive, and already have too many other things to do to worry about tracking down episodes of a 50 year-old series. If you care about great art, and you think a life well lived requires taking time to experience some Shakespeare and Mozart, some Donatello and Picasso, some Keats and Shelley, some Beatles and Stones, and in television some Lucy and Twilight Zone, make sure The Fugitive is added to that list. It really is that good.

From Hooterville: A Classic TV Dog Story

The Museum of Comfort TV Salutes: Freddy the Flute

Is There Still a Place in Comfort TV for Bill Cosby?

The 20 Best Monkees Songs – and the 5 Worst

Two-Part Episodes Revisited

Despair is No Match for Champagne Music

The Magical Magnetism of Yvonne Craig

The Museum of Comfort TV Salutes: Jeannie’s Bottle

Bowling for Bradys

Time Passages

Here They Are, America’s Favorite Family: The Nelsons

Bigfoot: Big in the 1970s

The Comfort TV Covers of Dynamite Magazine

Paris, Thanksgiving and Father Knows Best

Christmas With the Hartleys: Celebrating the Season on The Bob Newhart Show

Classic TV Christmas Songs: My 10 Favorites

Five Things TV Used to Do That it Doesn’t Do Anymore

A Book From Batman’s Butler

Comfort TV Tribute: Gary Owens

Do Not Leave This World Without Tracking Down The Fugitive