Newsday TV Book, October 29-November 4, 1972.

It's the last week of October, and thus on this edition's cover Linus urges us to vote. (Click on any pic to blow that shit up.)

This Peanuts special was just shown the other night (along with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, as it has been for ten years now). However, it's now known as You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown. The TV Book article refers to it as "You're Elected, Charlie Brown," which is in fact the original title. It was changed at some point by creator Charles M. Schulz when he realized that the titular mopey asshole never actually runs for office, just briefly considers it. (Uh, didn't you write the fucking thing, Chuck?)

Interestingly, it appears the initial airing of this show was presented in lieu of the Great Pumpkin special. I scanned all the October 1972 TV Books and there is no sign of it being shown. Three-year-old me feels cheated.

In the TV Line, we're educated on such topics as whether Alice Cooper played Eddie Haskell (spoiler: no), the lyrics to the Yankees' anthem, Brian Keith's relationship to Nurse Puni, the exact location of Gilligan's Island, and stoic Roger Grimsby's newsreading method.

The first page of listings gave us a little reminder that Daylight Saving Time ended while we slept. I hope this bit of time manipulation chicanery didn't cause anyone to miss "Halloween Who-Dun-it," the Davey and Goliath special from which young viewers learned exactly how to conduct their holiday vandalism.

Yellow Submarine, a favorite of mine as a kid and to this day, makes its network debut, with this close-up situated among late-night listings. (I've included several days of the wee-hour offerings this time out, as there are many horror and sci-fi titles being aired for the holiday...)

Monday afternoon listings come with a Gary Viskupic drawing for that night's jazzy PBS Special of the Week, "'til the Butcher Cuts Him Down." Check out the computer programming course at 4pm on educational channel 21 (WLIW out of Garden City, Long Island, not far from where I grew up). Fortran for Morons, Geniuses and Hobbits seems to have eluded the Internet's memory circuits, as I cannot find any reference to it.

Tuesday evening has a close-up on The Dunwich Horror (which reviewer John Cashman tepidly endorsed with his familiar "Try it"), and mentions of two shows I liked, Hodgepodge Lodge and Wait Till Your Father Gets Home.

Here are the spooky late offerings.

Wednesday's That Certain Summer was one of those Very Special TV Movies addressing a "tabu" subject--in this case, dad's totally gay. Dad is Hal Holbrook, unaccepting son is Scott Jacoby, leading me to develop the theory that Bad Ronald is intended as a sequel of sorts, showing the possible warping effects on a kid when pop comes out.

Thursday had The Dirty Dozen and another military story, Everything's Ducky.

On Friday's The Brady Bunch, Florence Henderson and Maureen McCormick danced together. Forty-four years later, Maureen dances and Flo just watches. Burt Mustin guests on Love, American Style. I'd call that Mustin-See TV!

Here's Saturday, with an afternoon showing of the finest all-bird film out there, Bill & Coo...

...and we close out the week with more late shows and another Viskupic sketch, for "The Rimers of Eldritch" on Playhouse New York.

No back cover this week, but to get you psyched up for next week, I'll tell you that our cover boy is none other than... Alastair Cooke! Oh... boy. See ya.