don't parade in my rain: April 2012

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Newsday TV Book, April 30-May 6, 1972.

[April 2022 UPDATE! Continuing my current coo-coo obsession with adding "new" content to these old posts about vintage Long Island television listings (click here to start from the first 50-year-old issue), I've scanned a few more pages, plus enhanced what was already here.]

This week, 1972, "Mod Squad" hits the cover of the TV Book, including Long Island's own Peggy Lipton (from Lawrence).

(For my older readers--meaning anyone reading this--don't forget to click the pictures to enlarge them and make them legible. I SAID DON'T FORGET TO CLICK THE ah you'll figure it out.)

NEW! The cover story by Leo Seligsohn, with art by Sudduth (I think), and some interesting facts about the show that was almost called "The Young Detectives."

TV Line is where goggle-eyed LI tube watchers wrote in with their questions, usually redefining the meaning of "trivial." Here, Carol Burton alleviates sore puzzlers about such inane matters as "All in the Family" theme lyrics and whatever happened to Adam Cartwright. (Answer to that last one: he left the show eight years ago, you dolt.)

NEW! Here's the late Monday listings, mostly to show reviewer John Cashman's odd fondness for pointing out just how unpretty Vera Hruba Ralston was. Plus, P.C. Richard and Son (with a location in my hometown of Plainview, which pops up a lot this time out) was offering a portable TV that appears to be showing something with Edie Adams.

And now, here's just a little reminder that daytime TV always sucked. I do admit, however, that I have a real hankering to see a little of The Rosey Grier Show at the moment. As for the topic of that day's Galloping Gourmet (WPIX channel 11 at 1pm), I think someone at Newsday sneezed into the typesetter.

Here's a program inset for Tuesday's The Dark Side, just in case you were wondering "What was NBC's first use of videotape for an on-location dramatic shoot in New York City?" If you weren't wondering that, never mind. Just from this one photo, I'm wondering if Phil Leeds was Jerry Ohrbach's inspiration for Lenny Briscoe.

NEW! Here's all day Saturday for you, beginning with a Bob Newman illustration marking the 98th running of the Kentucky Derby.

The afternoon features some great movies, some great movie reviews, a briefcase-sized answering machine you can access from the golf course, and yes, "Skinny and Fatty" on CBS' Children's Film Festival.

"Public Juniper" is a fantastic band name.

I read somewhere that one of the MST3K guys actually kinda liked The Killer Shrews, saying it had a intensely sweaty, feverish quality (or something like that). John Cashman evidently disagrees.
Hey, look! The Twist-Wrist AM radios at Car-Set Stereo Centers come in "crazy colors"! How fun! "Wacky White," please!

The late night schedule, with its variety of flicks, presents a nice assortment of Cashman takes: informative, or dismissive, or enthusiastic, or phoned-in-with-palpable-disgust.

Here now, some ads and other stuff, starting off with this NEW! one for Kentucky Fried Chicken, with cool Colonel logo, and a mention of their tiny (if I recall correctly) Plainview location to boot.
I ate this product just the other night, a fact of which I am not proud. I am thus able to attest that a three-piece meal with two miniature sides, a toothsome biscuit, and 12 ounces of antifreeze-colored, carbonated syrup water is now just under ten bucks. Add to the total cost either a double-slug of Pepto or one night of sleep lost to gree-zee indigestion.

Suburban Dream: Champagne wedding with 4-hour smorgasbord!

"No, Not My Child," insisted delusional Nassau County parents regarding teen drug use, even when faced with the incontrovertible evidence of their bell-bottomed kid slouching inside a giant syringe.

Obscure Long Island Advertising Character: The Macrose Beaver!

Holiday Spa serves up the cheesecake! And in Plainview, too!

Suburban Dream: Beautiful-lawn-in-a-bag! (Although when it comes to your landscaping, I would think "friendly" and "frost" don't exactly go together...)

Why did booze always look so good and enticing in these old ads?
(Oh, right... it's booze.)
Plainview!

Since the back cover ad is one I've already shown, I'll leave you with the crossword puzzle. Print it out and ask strangers on the bus for help with it. Good luck with the first clue--even I don't know that guy.

This is the first TV Book to display something like a masthead, buried under the "Next Sunday" feature near the end. I forgot to scan it, so I'll just tell you that it reads:

NEWSDAY'S TV GUIDE STAFF
Editor Tony Gentile
Assistant Editors Carol Burton, Terri Poole
Art Director Cliff Gardiner

Interesting, in that they didn't call it the TV Book, and no mention of John Cashman yet.
(So interesting that I am literally talking to myself here.)
See ya next time!

Monday, April 23, 2012

Newsday TV Book, April 23-29, 1972.

[UPDATED! April 2022: As with issues one and two, I've added more pics, commentary, w'ev.]

We begin the fourth week of April 1972 with one-third of the Partridge Family. (Remember, you can click on the pics to enlarge them, which would make David Cassidy almost life-size!)

A Yiddish phrase worth memorizing, the whereabouts of Jack Lescoulie, inchoate Nassau County cable, Little Ronny Howard and the Rifleman's rifle: all curious topics, plaguing the minds of curious Long Islanders.

NEW! The cover story, with more about Shirley Jones' home life than I ever cared to know.

NEW! Sunday afternoon's schedule features a close-up about the WLIW (channel 21) auction, comin'atcha live from Roosevelt Field.

The copywriter for Andrews is clearly unacquainted with parentheses.

The late Tuesday night listings offer a look at Jack Paar in Africa (and Up with People serenading the Masai, which I might need to see).

NEW! Thursday morning listings, mainly for the ads. I've often said the finest art comes from an old barn. (And half off? Pssssht...)

NEW! I'm skipping ahead to that afternoon, almost 100% for the Mike Douglas Show listing.

NEW! And just because it's how I roll, here's all of Saturday.

What's it gonna be, 70's stoners: Dr. Strangelove, Terror From the Year 5000, or sitting four inches from your portable Emerson to toggle between them?

Now some ads and stuff:

A car that fits your pocketbook! (And, by the way, the only car I can ever remember thinking was cool. Which will tell you how cool I was.)

Celebrity Sighting: Esther Williams, all extruded.

A coupla Ray Charleses, as envisioned by Gary Viskupic. Can you find the hidden bong?
(Answer: It was in the bottom drawer of Gary's desk.)

Hey, Holiday Spa, some of us have spent a lot of time cultivating "that soft-as-dough look!"

The price tag was great, but man the sportcoats were better!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Newsday TV Book, April 16-22, 1972.

[UPDATED April 2022! Added and enlarged pics! Extra unwanted wise-ass commentary!]

The second 1972 Newsday TV Book in my collection (and in fact only the second produced, after last week's debut edition) features Mary Tyler Moore on the cover, looking as if she is perhaps just a bit allergic to marigolds.

Linda Lamel weighs in with Bill Kaufman, about the LI feminist's perspective on Mary Richards.

This week's TV Line addresses such topics as Jeannie's bottle, a touching toast from Me and the Chimp, and the possibility of a Desi-Patty-Liza threesome.

NEW! Here's an interesting Sunday morning schedule, with a notation that if the Apollo 16 mission was successful, it might really screw up your usual viewing for a while. (It was, and it did.)

NEW! Now here's Monday morning and afternoon.
I know there are plenty of stores that sell yarn nowadays, but in the 70's we had yarn stores. Just yarn. Locally, we had a place that not only sold yarn but also offered knitted garments for pets. It was called "That Yarn Cat."

(Yes, I totally made that up.)

The only thing I know of Paul and Mary Ritts and their menagerie of puppety oddballs is they were responsible (so I've read) for the Better Business Bureau ads with The Abominable Snowman that I saw 8000 times as a kid. Watch Your Kid, however, is completely unknown to me, but you can believe I'm currently trying to track me down some Jim Backus story time segments.

Next to an ad for the Green Acres Shopping Center in Valley Stream (with another to follow), Cutler's lighting factory offers a bathroom fixture called the "Toilette Gombare," a phrase which I have determined, through woefully insufficient internet searching, means "cleaning and grooming yourself with the assistance of a Turkish friend or relative."

NEW! Here's late Wednesday night, because... well, why not? (I swear I could scan every page in this damn TV Book and point out something I find interesting.) And since this is Wednesday, by the time Ace Trucking Company appeared on Johnny, I bet I would have been in bed, having nightmares about Night Gallery Nazis in a castle, tossing and turning with a turbulent bellyful of Recknagel's stuffed flounder! Oofah, I think it was low tide in the bay!

NEW! Thursday afternoon and evening, mainly for the Plainview ad (Guy and David International Piano Center) and Viskupic drawing (for a program about Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley that pre-empted Me and My Three Chimp Sons).