Link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2010/02/22/DI2010022203188.html)


Washington Post Style columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Shales will be online Tuesday, Feb. 23, at Noon ET to discuss television, its cultural impact and his columns.

Today's column: Tom Shales reflects on 'Father Knows Best' and his real-life Margaret

Submit your questions and comments before or during today's discussion.

Shales, The Washington Post's chief television critic for 30 years, is the author of several books, including "On the Air," "Legends" and "Live From New York." His column, "Shales on TV," appears in the paper every Tuesday.

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Tom Shales: Hello again, thank you for being there - wherever 'there' may be. I am here, wherever here is. But before I get too philosophical -- I should get to the questions.

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Olney, Md.: Good afternoon Tom. I completely enjoyed reading your trip down TV memory lane with the Andersons of "Father Knows Best".

I like to mention another classic sitcom, "The Patty Duke Show" which I have revisited recently since it now airs on cable early weekday mornings. Thank goodness for TiVo!

Cut from virtually the same cloth as FKB, "The Patty Duke Show" takes on the perspective of a teenage girl (Patty) growing up in the early to mid 1960s with all its slang, and was the perfect companion show paired with another TV classic that you refer to, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" on ABC for that show's last three seasons.

For 96 episodes, Patty and her "twin cousin" Cathy explore life, with the help of Patty's dad, Martin Lane, to keep it all in perspective. She had a beautifully dimpled mom, Natalie Lane, played by actress Jean Byron. It seems that virtually all TV moms of that era had either cute dimples or high cheekbones.

While both programs simplifed real life, they both provide enjoyable accounts of life at that time, a simplier life without the cell phones, etc., of today, where families always ate together and spent time together after dinner in the living room, and not, by the way, watching TV.

Tom Shales: Thanks. We all have our favorites, usually the shows we watched in adolescence or just before. I will tell you a story and try to make it quick ... Before I worked at the Post I worked for - some other paper - and Robert Reed, the actor, was sent around to promote his new show "The Brady Bunch." And I remember him telling me that yes, he knew there were lots of family sitcoms on the air but "we hope to make this one just a little more intelligent than most." Well of course there was nothing intelligent about it. It's almost "Gilligan'sIsland" stupid. And yet people who grew up watching it have great affection for it, and Hollywood even catered to them by making a movie version, or two, not that long ago. The quality or lack of quality has nothing to do with one's affection for a TV series -- true perhaps of other things in life as well. Thank you.

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NBC's Olympics: Tom, as a real sports fan I'm very frustrated with NBC's prime-time coverage. Too much figure skating, ice dancing, and 'features' -- not enough actual competition...especially live. How could they choose to put USA-Canada hockey on MSNBC this past Sunday instead of on the main channel?

Tom Shales: Beats me. They must have their research and polls and surveys about what will draw the biggest crowds - or maybe there was the feeling that they didn't want it to look like what was playing on the "other" NBC networks was exclusively the minor, fringe, small-audience kind of thing. So they spread the big-ticket items around- perhaps? I know there are lots of complaints, but there always are. I like events that are fun to watch, I don't care much about competitiveness, but most people do.....

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Santa Fe, N.M. : is 24 maxed out?

Tom Shales: Spiritually it certainly is. Do you think they should do ANOTHER season? I don't know if it's in the cards. And Kiefer Sutherland has to stay out of jail.

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Old TV Viewer: As entertaining or escapist as those old sitcoms (e.g., Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, December Bride) were, the BEST television was that given to us by Berle, Gleason, Skelton, Sullivan (and select others). I especially loved the multi-talented Gleason and Skelton because each discreet show seemed to offer broad comedy, gentle humor, pathos, music and, well, pure entertainment. Signed, Missing Those Shows

Tom Shales: I agree, "Variety" was the byword in early television because the audience was considered to be , well,
EVERYBODY. There was an attempt to provide something "for the whole family," at least from 8 til 10 (7 til 9 in the midwest). Gleason could be quite brilliant but I also think he over-extended himself. Berle, like Gleason, tried to ride herd over every detail of the show. I even liked the low-key souls like Perry Como - every show didnt come stampeding at the viewer. Como's hour said "relax, calm down, put your feet up" etc. Nothing on television today really invites you to lay back and chill....

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Not a question: but a comment. That was a sweet column on your mother; made me tear up. Thanks!

Tom Shales: Thank YOU. If left to my own devices, I would have been much more sentimental -- but people would might have found it a trifle excessive. I always think of Nixon talking about his mother - one of the few cases where he seemed to be affecting and sincere. "My mother was a saint" -- well there are millions and millions who feel that way. Hence the national mantra "Hi Mom" still mouthed by the toughest football players in the business when they find they're on camera.....

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Hockey on MSNBC: My only complaint about pushing that great U.S.-Canada hockey game to MSNBC is that the channel isn't carried in HD on DirecTV. I found the game almost unwatchable because of poor picture quality. Very frustrating!

Tom Shales: I wondered about that. WHY would MSNBC be High-Def during normal times? With all due respect nobody needs to see every line on the face of Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews. NBC should not have relegated HD-worthy stuff to non-HD channels.

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Bethesda, Md.: Tom, vey nice column today. I read it as a eulogy for your mom and a tribute to moms everywhere. Well done.

Tom Shales: Thank you.

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NBC Coverage: I'd love to see the focus group who told NBC that viewers would much rather watch a feature on the Canadian Mounties -- during prime time, no less -- than event coverage.

Tom Shales: Yeah - er - good point. That's not focus group stuff, that's some "creative" producer. They sit around a conference room and go "What do people think of when they think of Canada?" "Well let's see - the Mounties, Polar Bears, maple syrup...." Watch for a feature on maple syrup, the why's and wherefore's....

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Philadelphia, Pa.: I am reading a TV column that mentions how "Lost" ratings have been increased because they are now counting people who watch the show after recording it.

Please explain to me how this works. You mean the ratings people finally realized that most of America records their shows, even recording one show while watching another, and doesn't watch them in real time? Wow. Maybe ratings someday will reflect what we, the public, actually watch. If this is true, are there any indications, other than "Lost," which shows might be in line to gain substantial ratings once it is realized people record the show?

Tom Shales: Well there's long been a similar complaint about shows watched on college campuses -- when I was in school, 50 or 60 students would gather in a recreational room and watch "Batman" (yeah, we weren't very picky - actually Batman was considered camp and cool in its time). I think the technology is set up for registering what people watch "live" but it's complicated to measure what they watch on tape-delay (TiVo, DVR's, whatever) so Nielsen is just now catching up with technology. In their defense, it does move fast. Now - are they going to measure what people watch on their cell phones or other hand-held devices? It's getting very complicated.

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Takoma Park, Md.: Hi Tom,

I know some folks get bent out of shape when you discuss Turner Classic Movies, even though it IS a TV station, can I just put in another plug for how wonderful TCM is?!

Took yesterday off and found a wonderful old thriller on TCM: "Night Must Fall" from 1937 with Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell and Dame May Witty. Really suspenseful with not one view of violence or blood. Am now looking for it on DVD!

Tom Shales: You know one place to look is TCM itself. Go to their web site - they have a bunch of old movies for sale on DVD, and the prices are basically competitive (frankly, it makes me kinda sad to see some old classic for sale in a grocery story for 6 dollars and 47 cents - I think of all the work that went into that picture! Now people can own it for about what they once paid for a couple admission tickets just to see it once in a theater). Warner Bros Home Video has a new thing where they print copies on DVD sort of on-demand -- less-famous movies like "Night Must Fall" just might be available on that WB label, so long as Warners or MGM or maybe RKO owns them now, or released them then. Again - complications!

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Washington, D.C.: Is TV really that much more realistic now? Yes, it's more sensational (more sex, more violence), but is that reality? For example, most Americans are religious -- how many shows have individuals or families whose religious practices are shown, or even mentioned? Most Americans live a middle-class life, but dramas freqently feature the wealthy, or give the "middle class" family a much larger house with nicer furnishings than they could reasonably afford, or give people in creative jobs (like newspaper columnists) ridiculously large salaries. How many programs focus on people in blue-collar jobs, or rural settings?

More sex and violence does not necessarily mean more accurate programming. It's television still showing us what we want to see.

Tom Shales: "ridiculously large salaries"? ha ha ha ha ha. You haven't been reading about the state of the economy in Newspaper Land. In fact in Media Ville. Why do you think I was still borrowing money from my mother in my 40s? 'Cause I was broke! Seriously, the newspaper business pays few of its members well. The only way to suck up a huge income is to be syndicated like George Will. He makes a fortune. And deservedly so -- I don't begrudge him that. TV critics are notoriously underpaid, though the Post was good to me for many years, relatively speaking......

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Orlando, Fla. : Grew up watching a stable of classic sitocms... starting with I love Lucy, then My Favorite Martian, then McHale's Navy (Joe Flynn, very underrated actor, btw), then the classic Dick Van Dyke show. Obviously, the quality of the writng was very good, but was it something about those actors, at that time as well, that made those shows special?

Tom Shales: Well, a lot of them had movie experience. If you watch enough Lucy's you will see many of the great character actors who'd been in feature films of the '40s and even '30s. Remember Mrs. Trumble, the friendly little old lady who baby-sit Little Ricky? She's in films made way back in the early '30s ("Love Me Tonight" for one with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier - great picture) AND SHE'S PLAYING A LITTLE OLD LADY EVEN THEN. She must have been born a little old lady. Or gone directly to
Little Old Ladydom from Puberty.

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Silver Spring, Md.: If your DVR is turned to show "A" to record it then you actually watch show "A" does that count as one or two? If show "A" is watched more than once in the household by more than one family member does it count again? So many questions.

Tom Shales: So many questions, so few answers. From me at any rate. I honestly don't know how it works but it is worth looking into. So much about TV-watching has changed over the years. Oh by the way - last question - I forgot to mention the name of the actress who played Mrs Trumble. That's because I can only remember her first name: Elizabeth. If I know this chat crowd, someone will come up with her last name. And for bonus points: what was Mrs Trumble's first name?
And in what episode was it mentioned? Sorry, this is pretty silly I admit.....

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Snorelympics: It seems pretty apparent that NBC has made a conscious decision to market the Olympics to chicks, hence the overkill on soft stories and skating. Just look at the commercials that run during the prime-time coverage, and you can see that they match the "35-year-old mother" demographic perfectly.

Tom Shales: OUCH. You're gonna get it!!! Those "chicks" are not going to like being lumped together like that. You probably are on to something, though; it is always a chore to get women to watch sports, even the Olympics, so you see more women on the air and, perhaps, more "human interest' stories about the participants. I don't really think this detracts that much from the games - but it would be nice if on just one of its channels, NBC showed PURE SPORT and none of the fluff and frills.

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Re: NBC should not have relegated HD-worthy stuff to non-HD channels. : On my cable system (Cox in Fairfax County), MSBNC is available in HD. It showed up in the channel lineup several months ago. It appears that it's up to the cable or satellite company to decide whether to include MSNBC's HD channel.

Tom Shales: I guess so - as long as the channel is sent out in HD in the first place, and more and more are. In fact I think HD caught on much faster than was expected. People DO care about the quality of the picture they see at home, and the sale of big-screen TV's bears that out. Thanks for the correction; I didn't think MSNBC was available in HD anywhere.....

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Arlington, Va.: MSNBC is available in HD on Verizon FiOS. It was added about a week or two prior to the game.

Tom Shales: Part of a general NBC upgrade,no doubt...

"Well let's see -- the Mounties, Polar Bears...." : What would happen to Mary Carillo if she'd refused orders to do those features? She's taking the blame and mockery, but I suspect it's not really her fault, and that she did the best she could short of being fired or exiled.

Tom Shales: Of course. Reporters don't have free rein and don't choose all the stories they cover. I didn't think the polar bear feature was so terrible except that you can see nature photography -- including shots of polar bears -- that is 20 times better virtually any night of the week on cable or on public TV. "Planet Earth," the BBC import, spoiled some of us when it comes to nature photography; there were so many spectacular incredible shots in that documentary miniseries -- another good DVD purchase, by the way, but try to find the version from the BBC narrated by David Attenborough, not the Americanized version narrated by Sigourney Weaver.

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On the plus side...: ...at least your mother lived long enough to see you become successful. I bet she treasured your wit.

Tom Shales: "Successful"?? A matter of degree. But she was always, always encouraging, as only mothers can be, and I miss
that terribly. I am almost glad she didn't live to see
the decline and fall of the American newspaper or the
tumult and turmoil we're going through now. My mom
loved to laugh but it was my father who had the great
sense of humor in our house.......

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Ridiculously Large Salaries: Tom, my comment about "ridiculously large salaries" was in a list of things show on TV that are not realistic. It was not meant to claim that newspaper folk get paid a lot, but just the opposite.

Do you have any response to my point? (That TV is not much more realistic now, just more sexual and more violent)

Tom Shales: Oh sorry. That one phrase leaped out and poked me in the eye. No, I don't really think TV is more realistic now in a deep sense of that word. I mean if someone is shot in the face, we now see that much more realistically than in the fifties, when there wouldn't be even one drop of blood -- but this is one of those "is it really progress??" kinds of things. I think Cosby and Roseanne and going back further All in the Family were indeed more realistic depictions of family life than "Beaver" and "Donna Reed" were - but family sitcoms are not that big any more, though ABC has one or two exceptional examples still on the air.

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What?: Tom: "don't care much about competitiveness, but most people do....."

The whole point of the Olympics is competition -- the winners get prizes. If no one cares about that, then let's just have an exhibition every 4 years.

Tom Shales: Oh. Yes. But I don't mean I think everyone should be like me. And I do care about competitiveness, yeah, when the skaters are zooming around the last curve in the track and heading for the finist line etc etc. Who wouldn't get a bit excited and cheer for their favorite? But I admitted that "most people" do care about the competition. I don't WANT most people to be like me - I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

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Providence, R.I.: Tom, I am a HUGE Big Valley fan and always wondered if it was taken off prime-time TV prematurely (only ran 4 seasons). Actually, it would be interesting (if possible) to go back and see what kind of numbers they were pulling when the show was canceled in 1969.

Also, I've heard a movie is in the works, with Susan Sarandon in the lead. Any news from your end on this? And thanks for the great writing over the years (still have your old book).

Tom Shales: Maybe Barbara Stanwyck said she didn't want to do it any more. Wasn't she the Big Valley matriarch? There can be a hundred reasons why a show goes off the air. In fact, to mention another "classic," the producer of Gilligan's Island says it was canceled by CBS even when it was getting excellent ratings. It seems that William Paley, chairman and founder of CBS, liked "Gunsmoke" more and they didn't have room for both shows, so the low-brow "Gilligan" got the axe, poor guy.

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Arlington, Va.: I think the reason they have to adjust the ratings based on DVR viewing is the very nature of DVR viewing, i.e. time shifting. They are reporting who has WATCHED the show, not taped it and deleted it without watching. So you have to add those numbers in as they come in. Makes sense to me.

Tom Shales: Rrrrright. But what about people who zap through the commercials? All the ratings people really care about measuring is how many people saw an ad. What now is
the definition of "seeing" an ad, because even that
has changed? If you watch it zoom by at 5x normal speed
as you fast-forward through it, does anything about
the message still register? Personally I think it
does. I also think people will turn off the FF and watch
a commercial at regular speed if it intrigues them, or
if they've seen it before and love it. (McDonald's has
brought that ridiculous singing-fish back - notice??)

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WRC: Tom, local television question for you: WRC's newscast is being broadcast from a much smaller studio these days. Does this mean that they are finally upgrading their news studio to HD?

Tom Shales: It could. I thought they already were HD because they are OWNED by NBC, not just an NBC affiliate. WUSA, which is owned by Gannett, not by CBS, went HD with its news quite a while ago, and promoted that fact generously. In fact, I think they went HD so quickly that many viewers didn't yet know what the heck they were talking about.

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"If show "A" is watched more than once in the household by more than one family member does it count again?": Actually, unless you're in one of the very few metered households, it doesn't count at all.

The networks are selling on the basis of "live" viewing plus "within 7-days" viewing, in those metered households.

Tom Shales: Thank you.

Frederick, Md.: Tom, please console me now that Men of A Certain Age is over for this season. I really have been enjoying it, and am sad to see it go so quickly. Any chance new episodes will start up soon?

Tom Shales: We get this question every week. I feel 80 per cent certain that Men of A Certain Age, which is a show of a certain high quality, will be back with new episodes in MARCH.

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Germantown, Md.: Washington, D.C. asked, "How many programs focus on people in blue-collar jobs, or rural settings?" It always interested me that in the 1980s, blue-collar "Roseanne" had much higher ratings than the yuppies of "Thirtysomething."

Tom Shales: Deservedly so, if you ask me - at least until "Roseanne" went haywire and the star was given too much authority
over the show. Roseanne Arnold or Barr or whatever always
assumed she was right and everybody else wrong.

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Chevy Chase, Md.: Thanks for the TV memories. I spent many a cold, gray New Jersey winter afternoon watching those reruns in the late 50s, early 60s. Nothing beats Lucy and Desi. I saw a documentary where one of the writers call Desi Arnaz a genius who never got the credit. Yes, Mrs. Trumble! And the Tuesday Afternoon Arts League who ment on Wednesday morning! I loved the episode where Lucy went for an interview,and there were some hot babes in the waiting room -- and she tried to compete with them. Or my personal favorite -- trying to disguise herself from William Holden, who she had harrassed the previous day -- she had a fake nose, lit a ciggie, and the nose caught fire! And that was unscripted -- such a pro, they all just kept on filming and blew out the nose on fire. Try that, Two and a Half Men!

Tom Shales: It was classic slapstick shtick - slapshtick? Oddly enough, this is the first year in a long time that Lucy doesn't air daily on an accessible cable channel -- the Hallmark Channel had a Lucy marathon on a recent weekend but I don't think anyone slots the show on a daily basis, as Nick used to do. I suppose those who remember and love Lucy will die out and that younger viewers won't watch a black-and-white show. LUCY really should be colorized, especially with all those jokes about her red henna-rinsed hair.......

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ABC has one or two exceptional examples still on the air.: Which ones?

Tom Shales: They're on Wednesday night - I can't remember the names - I know that sounds pretty bad but having seen 30,40 seasons come and go, it really goes get harder to keep titles in one's head for very long. Especially since the shows are canceled and depart so quickly now. What IS the show -- the guy from "Married ... with Children" is in it. I gave it a rave at the start of the season ... I have no one here to look stuff up. Help! Where's Emily???

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Glen Burnie, Md.: Tom,

For old shows give me Jack Benny any day. Now, thanks to You Tube, that can come true. A couple weekends ago I played back to back to back Benny shows, and my wife, who grew up in the Philippines, said, "Why don't they make shows that funny any more?" So, it's not just poor memory that makes them funny.

Tom Shales: Yes. I mean no, I didn't mean that EVERY show we remember fondly was crap! Why would I say or even imply a thing like that. I mean, "Father Knows Best" was a GOOD show within the limitations of the time. It was on a higher plane than most of the sitcoms; in fact they weren't afraid to do a "serious" scene now and then, or to make a serious point. And yes as you say, Jack Benny was a master performer; he'd had all those years on radio and in the movies to prepare him. Generally speaking, the older his shows are, the better. He began to run out of material as all the former vaudevillians tended to do. Television consumed their "acts" within a few weeks or less. But Benny adapted, and he had that great character, and all the great subsidiary characters, to continue being funny. Letterman reminds me of the Benny show sometimes -- a comedian with many many idiosyncracies at the center, then a collection of wacky supporting players who pop in and out....

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FKB: Didn't Elinor Donahue go on to do some more acting? I'm pretty sure I've seen her guesting on a number of TV series over the years (too lazy to IMDb her right now).

Tom Shales: YES, she popped up in TV movies and even in another series or two.

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Minneapolis, Minn.: Elizabeth Patterson played Matilda Trumble on I Love Lucy.

Patterson was great in the 1930's "Dinner at Eight." She played Lionel Barrymore's secretary and has a wonderful exchange with Marie Dressler's character (a retired actress with a past). After Patterson's character says she recalls seeing Dressler's stage performance in "Trelawny of the Wells" when Patterson was a little girl, "We must have a nice talk about the Civil War someday. Just we two."

Tom Shales: Thank you Minneapolis. I knew someone would come through. Elizabeth Patterson. Yo!

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Alexandria, Va.: Tom, what do we have to do to get TV execs out of the 1970s. I have a remote, and on screen channel guide and 9 zillion channels.

I'm not just going to stare blankly at ice dancing while waiting for something more interesting like the Super-G.

Do they really think that their ratings would be worse if they just told us that it'd be ice dancing form 8-8:45, Super-G from 8:45-9:20, half-pipe from 9:20-9:45 and so on....

Tom Shales: Sometimes on the screen they will flash something like "Nine minutes to bobsleds" or something ... especially if it's a skating event, since those are so popular. But you're right, they keep viewers under-informed and that's because they do not want you tuning out in search of other programming just because you know your favorite event is an hour or more away. I guess they figure they can't be like ESPN's "SportsCenter" and run a schedule along the side of the screen. OH LOOK AT THE CLOCK, my the time has flown. We'll get in as many as we can....

Plantville, N.D.: Regarding the Olympic prime-time coverage... The audience for these events is largely not the traditional sports fan (male, young), but rather skews more towards female and slightly older. So while the NBC coverage with its personal interest story after personal interest story, confounds people who expect the coverage to be like the NFL or NBA (live with an emphasis on the actual sport), it is probably scoring high with the actual viewing audience.

Tom Shales: Yes, good point. Meanwhile EMILY is on the case. The title of the high-quality sitcom on ABC Wednesday nights is MODERN FAMILY. Emily also reports that TNT's (or TBS's, whichever) "MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE" has definitely been renewed for another season. I toldya it would be !
Thanks to Emily.....

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Albany, N.Y.: All family sitcoms provide a simplified look at universal problems -- the fear of embarrassment, the attempts of teenagers to bite off more than they can chew as they try out adulthood, the need for open communication within the family, the ways in which families rally to support each other, and so forth. I don't know that "FKB" is necessarily better or worse than "The Brady Bunch," "The Cosby Show," or "Growing Pains" except that it is yours, Tom.

I was trying to come up with a 1990s or 2000s take on the family sitcom and found that today it is much more likely that familial love is fighting a rearguard action against dysfunction. Consider "Roseanne," "The Simpsons," and "Malcolm in the Middle": on the surface the characters are antagonists, but if you scratch the surface then love and support emerge. If there is a sea change, I think this is it.

Tom Shales: Good point(s). Archie Bunker was the first sitcom character ever to flush a toilet (offscreen, but we heard it). "Realism" can be measured by various details, some as superificial as a toilet flush, others more subtle and profound.

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ABC Wednesday: Modern Family and The Middle. (I like Cougar Town as well.)

Tom Shales: Thank you.

What IS the show -- the guy from "Married ... with Children" is in it: Modern Family and it's fantastic!

Tom Shales: Oh now that we have answered the question -- Answers are pouring in!

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"How many programs focus on people in blue-collar jobs, or rural settings?": "Grace Under Fire," starring Brett Butler.

Tom Shales: Yes true. HATED IT.

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Columbus, Ohio: To Washington, DC who said most people are religious but few shows mention it. The Simpsons often has the family at church.

Tom Shales: not to obsess on Archie Bunker, but his wife Edith was always trying to get him to go with her to church. Archie kept calling "Rev. Fletcher" "Rev. Felcher."

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Olney, Md.: The shows are The Middle and Modern Family (the one with Ed O'Neill). I really enjoy Modern Family but don't care much for The Middle, but that's me.

When I was young, I didn't want to watch shows about people who lived like me (lower middle class at that time). I wanted to see people who had what I would strive for. Many people feel that way -- that's why Dynasty and Dallas were so popular!

On another note, I looked up Your Show of Shows on Wikipedia and was amazed to see it was only on from 1950-1954. That and Your Hit Parade were my "must see television."

Tom Shales: Yes but those dates on Your Show of Shows are misleading, because Sid Caesar continued with mostly the same cast in a sequel called "Caesar's Hour." The bad thing was, and for whatever reason (well she got her own series, "Grindel," for one thing) the fabulous Imogene Coca left the show, and was replaced by the less-fabulous Nanette Fabray

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Washiongton, D.C. : For the poster asking if TV is more realistic: Oddly enough, it was the highbrow TV of the 50s -- Playhouse 90, Lux Video Theater and the like -- that featured blue-collar people, small town people, middle class families. The film Marty, for which Ernest Borgnine won an Oscar playing a lovelorn Bronx butcher, was originally a TV play. Rod Serling, before Twilight Zone, was a socially conscious TV playwright. Despite there being more than 100 channels today, there is no place in TV for this kind of stuff -- not when we can have home remodeling shows, singing and dancing contests, etc., etc.

Tom Shales: Sad but true. It also has to do with television originating in New York (and the theater) in the 50s, but then moving to Hollywood (and movie people) in the 60s. Also, videotape was invented and FILMED shows were considered more cost-effective from a rerun point of view, so "live" tv drama mostly died. Actually one of the greatest anthologies, "Playhouse 90," was taped and from "Television City in Hollywood," so it's dangerous to say that eras ended abruptly on such-and-such a day or date......

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Modern Family on ABC: and Elinor Donahue played Andy Griffith girlfriend the first season in Mayberry.

Tom Shales: Oh I knew I'd seen here elsewhere. Glad she kept working. And of course I didn't mention in my column but Robert Young had ANOTHER long-running hit in "Marcus Welby, M.D." Thank you, thank you - you answered as many questions as you asked, but thats fine with me, I enjoy this immensely.

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Tom Shales: And happy birthday, mom

...Tom Shales can be such a pompous ass at times- and his information can be a bit off as well.

In the early summer of 1967, William Paley asked his CBS executives for their analysis of what the network had planned to fill Mondays from 7:30-8:30pm(et) for the fall. Now, "GILLIGAN'S ISLAND" had tentatively been renewed, but the sitcom that was scheduled before it, "DOC" {a Filmways "country confection" concerning a venerable small-town doctor at odds with his young replacement}, was considered by some of those executives as "iffy". Then, Paley brought up the fact that "GUNSMOKE" was being eased out of its venerable Saturday night time period because it wasn't doing so well [and it had recently "converted" to color in the fall of '66], and, in effect, had been "cancelled". Paley then suggested, couldn't "GUNSMOKE" be moved to Mondays at 7:30 to enable it to find a new audience? No one was going to say "no" to any suggestion "Mr. CBS" offered- especially if it sounded like a formal request. So, Sherwood Schwartz found himself without a network series; Filmways refilmed "DOC"'s pilot episode and offered it to NBC for its fall 1968 schedule [they also passed on it]; and "GUNSMOKE" rebounded beyond anyone's expectations, and continued until 1975.

{I'm sorry Mr. Shales feels the way he does about "GILLIGAN'S ISLAND"- nobody loved it but the viewers, myself included. And if he doesn't care for "TWO AND A HALF MEN", either....tough ----!}

As for all of Jack Benny's longevity, Shales never noticed that Jack often "recycled" his best comedy routines and "bits" over the years, on stage, radio and television. I'll give you an example- in 1946, on his radio show, he initially offered his parody of radio's popular mystery anthology , "THE WHISTLER": "I am 'The Fiddler'...and I play by night. They won't let me during the daytime! {sinister laugh}". And he did it again on radio in 1952....and again on live TV in 1957...and yet [U]again, on film, in 1964.
There was a stage routine he did in the mid-'30s, where he introduced a small "Japanese wrestler", claiming the man could beat up six beefy guys bigger than him within 20 seconds. To prove his point, the six [stunt] men are brought out, Jack gives the signal....and they proceed to "beat" the wrestler to a pulp, leaving him "unconscious" in a heap on the stage. Jack kept staring at the audience, and the "wrestler" (to a huge audience reaction), until the curtain fell.
He did that routine twice on TV at the end of his show in the '50s. The finish for the second one (in 1956) I've seen- after Jack finishes staring at the audience and the "wrestler" (with another big audience reaction), he steps over him and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, be sure to watch Ann Sothern in 'PRIVATE SECRETARY' next week..", ending the program. After the show is "over", the "wrestler's" body is pulled under the curtain by a stagehand, ending the episode.

What's the point? Jack Benny, for all his comedic talent and gifts, KNEW what the audience wanted to see...even if it was the same material in "new trimmings" over the years.


And maybe Nanette Fabray wasn't a "comedy beacon" as Imogene Coca was ["GRINDL" was seen, by the way, in the 1963-'64 season], but she was Sid Caesar's equal during the two years she was featured opposite him on "CAESAR'S HOUR" [especially a 1955 musical sketch where she's trying to sing "Shadow Waltz" to Sid, while he keeps screwing up her singing with his false mustache, trying to swat a fly on her nose, and knocking down the set around them at the finish].


When "PLAYHOUSE 90" premiered in the fall of 1956, it was mostly telecast LIVE; however, because of the logistics of staging a live 90 minute drama virtually every week, a filmed episode was scheduled once a month, produced by CBS, or Columbia's Screen Gems TV subsidiary [they offered their 13 episodes for syndication in the '80s, with no takers, as far as I know]. With the advent of videotape, the series began taping several episodes by 1958, while continuing to stage "live" presentations, virtually to the last episode in 1960 {"In the Presence of Mine Enemies", by Rod Serling}.


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