Newsday TV Book, October 15-21, 1972.

We're midway through October and it's just seventy days 'til Christmas, do you believe that? I hope to be posting yuletide stuff other than these '72 TV Books, so keep an eye out for that!

For now, we've got a cover and feature article with the lovely Shelley Fabares, then 28 and appearing on The Little People, later The Brian Keith Show. (Click on pics to enlarge...)

The TV Line broaches such subjects as Room 222 star (pre-Dyna Girl) Judy Strangis, Gloria and Meathead's last name, and David Cloutier's dungarees. (Well, that's what my mom always called them.)

Evelyn Wood wants you to zip through reading The Godfather even faster than you can watch the movie. Of course, now we have home video so you can watch it on fast-forward, which is probably about as enjoyable as reading the book in 64 minutes.

The Sunday afternoon listings include a close-up for that evening's Night Gallery, which starred Ellen Corby as a menacing housekeeper and Alan Napier as "ghostly cousin Zachariah." Brrr! I'm already too creeped out to look up this episode--just as well, since Newsday already gave away the ending.

The 6th Country Music Awards (hosted by a childhood favorite of mine, Glen Campbell) merited a mere hour broadcast, pitted against the second half of Cool Million and the middle of Monday Night Football (Packers and Lions, if you care about that sort of thing).

Tuesday night gave us the usual witty John Cashman movie reviews and an editorial-style Gary Viskupic drawing regarding the black perspective on the '72 election.

Mama Cass Elliott was one of those performers that turned up on every talk and variety show back in the day (she even did a week on Match Game '73, along with Jack Klugman, as seen in this episode on YouTube). Here, less than two years before her death, she shows up on The Carol Burnett Show.

 Here's the Thursday late-night sched, along with an offer from Macy's to get Rheemed.

Saturday morning cartoons and luxurious Kosher catering--a match made in Shamayim!

Rue McClanahan turned up as a swinger on this season's seventh episode of All in the Family, with Vincent Gardenia playing her husband (later returning to the show as Frank Lorenzo).

 Along with much of Saturday night's line-up, here's a close-up for the movie Fool's Parade with lukewarm Cashman review.

Finally, the back cover, where Traub's Furniture presents a Mediterranean Gallery living room set of sumptuous velvet. I like to imagine that if you swam deep enough in the Playboy Mansion grotto, you'd arrive at this exact room contained in a bubble. In real life, however, I prefer not to think about what you'd encounter at the bottom of that protoplasmic Petri pond.

Next week: Carroll O'Connor leaves Archie Bunker behind to star in Of Thee I Sing!