Sat 25 May 2019
TV Time: ABC TV, Fall 1961: 37 shows.
Posted by Steve under TV Adventure , TV Comedy , TV Drama , TV musicals , TV mysteries , TV Westerns[29] Comments
While spending a few minutes of idle time I found I had today, I came across this video on YouTube. I don’t know who put it together — he or she is identified only as RwDt09 — but I found it fascinating. How many of these do you remember?
May 25th, 2019 at 4:37 pm
I’m seventy-one and dear god I enjoyed that
May 25th, 2019 at 4:58 pm
The video is 27 minutes long, but if you’re of a certain age, the time goes by very quickly.
May 25th, 2019 at 4:43 pm
Most of ’em. I believe it was an episode of BUS STOP — maybe the one advertised on the clip, with Fabian — that excited one of Washington’s periodic uproars against violence and “indecency” in the media.
May 25th, 2019 at 5:02 pm
I caught that, too, Fred. The clip must have been the opening for the episode “A Lion Walks Among Us,” and you’re right. It caused a nationwide uproar. Wikipedia has a whole page covering it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lion_Walks_Among_Us
May 25th, 2019 at 5:19 pm
A production that should have been seen by all, and still should.
May 25th, 2019 at 5:29 pm
The picture quality isn’t all that great, but the complete episode is up on YouTube right now:
May 25th, 2019 at 5:47 pm
Anyone else notice the records thief in the night prologue for “Naked City” was Robert Duvall?
May 25th, 2019 at 6:37 pm
It was indeed. You have good eyes. It was too dark, and I didn’t recognize him at all. The title of that episode was “The One Marked Hot Gives Cold,” and the date was March 21, 1962.
May 25th, 2019 at 6:42 pm
Some other comments have come to mind. I didn’t realize till seeing this how any cartoon shows were shown in prime time, at least by ABC. And THE BUGS BUNNY SHOW was the only one of any genre in color, if I’m remembering correctly.
Lots of crime and detective shows. Only two westerns, MAVERICK and THE CHEYENNE SHOW, and only two musical or Variety shows, and no SF or fantasy. Quite a few sitcoms. (All assuming I’m remembering correctly.)
May 25th, 2019 at 7:48 pm
It’s amazing: I’d heard of most of these.
Some remembered from my childhood.
But most seen more recently on cable TV or DVD.
A most enjoyable look back.
Would like to see episodes of THE ROARING TWENTIES or ADVENTURES IN PARADISE.
May 25th, 2019 at 7:53 pm
Re Westerns: you forgot Chuck Connors’ “The Rifleman” and John Russell’s “Lawman” were in the clip montage too.
The only scripted shows I had no memory of were “Follow The Sun” which according to IMDb was about investigative journalists in Hawaii and sounds intriguing to the thirteen year old me, and “Margie” based on the 1940s Jeanne Crain film about a teenager growing up in a small town during the Roaring ’20s. (“Margie” is so obscure it wasn’t directly searchable on IMDb: so I googled it, was directed to Wikipedia which has a link to IMDb that worked.)
May 25th, 2019 at 10:02 pm
You’re right, Rick. Add two more westerns to the total. I never cared for THE RIFLEMAN but LAWMAN was one of my favorites.
I don’t know anything about FOLLOW THE SUN TV series. Without looking it up, I don’t have any idea of how long it was even on. Long enough to have at least two tie-in comic books published, though, both from Dell, but while I’ve owned them at one time or another, I never read one.
May 25th, 2019 at 9:51 pm
10. Mike. You can find most of the ADVENTURES IN PARADISE episodes on YouTube, some have better picture quality than others.
Here is an episode of ROARING 20S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wScjdCL0xs
May 25th, 2019 at 10:05 pm
I have a bootleg copy of several ROARING 20s episodes, none with better picture quality than this one. An enjoyable show, though!
May 25th, 2019 at 11:45 pm
And Steve, I have been trying to do something using all the You Tube clips and theme songs for forgotten TV shows. I sent my version in this morning. You my friend took the easy way out 🙂 I admire that.
May 26th, 2019 at 11:43 am
Yes, my easy way out is coming across what someone else had done and reposting it here. I’ve added to the intro to my own post to make that clear. I wish I could give that person all the credit he deserves, but I don’t know who it was. It’s caught on, though. Nearly 600 comments there already on YouTube.
PS. Thanks for sending me your own article to post. I’ll have it online here tomorrow, if all goes well.
May 26th, 2019 at 6:58 am
Great. Thanks. I remember most of them, of course. How many did I watch regularly? Hmm, Maverick, Lawman, Cheyenne, Bronco, The Rifleman, Ben Casey (sometimes), Hawaiian Eye (sometimes), Ozzie & Harriet, The Real McCoys, The Untouchables (my father’s favorite), 77 Sunset Strip.
Of course, without seeing what was opposite these I can’t say for sure which I watched this season. Kiddies, no VCR, no DVR, if you missed a show, you missed it, except for summer reruns, and we were away for eight weeks in summer camp.
May 26th, 2019 at 7:11 am
And yes, I spotted Duvall immediately.
May 26th, 2019 at 8:15 am
Thank you very much for the Roaring Twenties!
May 26th, 2019 at 9:17 am
This clip reminds me of how far TV has come. In 1961 I lived in an area with only two TV stations – CBS and NBC/ABC. I would have missed some of these ABC series simply because my station was showing the NBC series instead.
May 26th, 2019 at 10:32 am
IN checking the three networks’ schedules for 1961-62 on Wikipedia, I see:
Sunday – Lawman was opposite Car 54, Where Are You? and the second half of The Ed Sullivan Show. At 9, Bus Stop was opposite the #2 show, Bonanza, which I watched.
Monday – CBS had The Danny Thomas Show and The Andy Griffith Show in the top 10, opposite Surfside Six.
Tuesday – I would have watched The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (CBS) or Alfred Hitchcock Presents (NBC) at 8:30, rather than The New Breed.
Wednesday – I watched Checkmate (NBC) from 8:30 to 9:30. At 9:30 it was The Dick Van Dyke Show (CBS).
Thursday – At 8:30 it was definitely DR. KILDARE (NBC).
Friday – The Twilight Zone at 10 (CBS).
Saturday – 7:30 to 10:00 was CBS – Perry Mason, then The Defenders, then Have Gun – Will Travel.
Oh, I turned 13 that Fall.
May 26th, 2019 at 4:02 pm
I remember MARGIE because of the 1920s period setting, which in 1961 was the same distance in time as the span from the early 80s is to 2019. I guess today’s nostalgia for a time 36 years ago is manifest in STRANGER THINGS.
1961-62 may have been the last fertile TV season for the Warner Brothers’ Western and PI shows.
May 26th, 2019 at 4:28 pm
16. Steve, I do hope you know I was joking with you. Don’t feel too “guilty” as I understand how YouTube works (and I don’t) they get ad money based on clicks so whoever it is appreciates your contribution.
The channel is RwDt09 and does some great work with series theme openings. My favorite is when it picks a day and year and adds a copy of the TV schedule at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXFiTvm_mc4
Wednesday Fall 1967
May 26th, 2019 at 4:47 pm
Michael, Yes I knew you were joking, but I also didn’t want anyone else to think I had anything to do with putting those clips together, and more than that, I thought some credit ought to to be given to the person who rea;;y did.
And he does good work. You could spend a lot of time watching his videos.
May 26th, 2019 at 4:41 pm
22. Fred, WB still had a couple of years left but the Western was dying and their formula style of PIs was growing old. Jack Webb would take over the studio in 1963 and fail big time.
Life of the PI was replacing the Western and the studio with the best PIs was Universal (or independent Quinn Martin). WB was attached to ABC and dropped its studio group of talent. Universal continued to have a studio group for writers that reads like a who’s who of successful writer/producers of the 70s-90s.
May 31st, 2019 at 2:54 pm
I was going to suggest just how many of those clip videos that person and others have posted…
May 31st, 2019 at 2:55 pm
And thanks for the BUS STOP link. Been meaning to look that episode up.
May 31st, 2019 at 3:07 pm
And, in 1961, in the US you still had five networks, albeit the NTA Film Network was pretty attenuated from its mid/late ’50s/post Dumont and Paramount Television Network collapse height…and the NET, National Educational Television, had a relatively limited set of national programs.
But it would be fun not to miss THE PLAY OF THE WEEK and THE THIRD MAN tv series from NTA and JAZZ CASUAL and THEATRE AMERICA on NET.
June 4th, 2019 at 2:30 am
And, to once again nail down something that might well skip by, THEATRE AMERICA was a later NET series…I was thinking of NET DRAM FESTIVAL (also as distinct from NET PLAYHOUSE, which ran into the ’70s and the replacement of NET as a network by PBS):
http://americanarchive.org/about-the-american-archive/projects/net-catalog/series/net-drama-festival