Newsday TV Books, April 1974.

Alright, I let April slide a bit, leaving it until the last minute. Chalk it up, perhaps, to the dismaying fact that I lack two guides for this month, the weeks beginning with the 14th and the 21st. While I'm ecstatic that I got my hands on these TV Books--almost three year's worth consecutively, early '72 to early '75, starting with the inaugural issue--the gaps still annoy me. And you wouldn't like me when I'm annoyed. (I'll write something scathing! It'll smart, I tell ya!)

Anyway, I published this cover last time, and I'll be damned, I'm doing it again.

The TV Line prints a pic of Sandy Duncan lookalike Marni Nixon, parts a sea of Jell-O, and gets John Wayne's real name very wrong.

A Gary Viskupic drawing accompanies an ABC presentation on the history of the movies, using his familiar theme of symbolized mechanical elements.

Here's your Oscar ballot of the 46th Academy Awards (with the unnamed Newsday TV Book Reviewer being John Cashman, of course).

Burgess Meredith (seen here sporting either a remarkable toupee or a spectacular comb-over) gave his voice to the titular vertebrae in the health special I am Joe's Spine. Joe's friends were inclined to occasionally comment, "Doesn't Joe's spine sound whimsical and wizened?"

Late Thursday night. No reason. Although there are some good Cashman reviews, including a memorable one for Nightmare Alley.

The first full week of April brings a cover for The Story of Jacob and Joseph.

 

It seems appropriate that Colleen Dewhurst looks like a cigar-store Indian, because Tony Lo Bianco, in the program close-up below, looks like Kramer with his underpants on his head.

 

Back in the TV Line, we learn of Stevie Wonder's back-biting brother and Rose Marie's baffling bow. And we at last learn John Wayne's real name.

    

Another Viskupic drawing for another Easter program.

The Woolworth at Sunrise Mall in Massapequa says its Easter plants are sensibly priced, but then says prices begin at 99 cents! Well, which is it, Woolworth?

At last, a Ben Gazzara cover! I knew there'd be one at some point!

He's talking about his TV mini-series QBVII, in which Sicilian Gazzara plays a Jew. He could pass. (The series was not the ratings hit ABC had hoped for.)

A TV Line reader asks why Bill Roe, who would occasionally appear on WSNL channel 67's Saturday newscast, has a real job. I guess she figured that a part-time gig at a tiny UHF station in Patchogue really padded the passbook. (Her local celeb encounter reminds me of the time in the late 80's when I went to chase some raccoons out of our trash and it turned out to be Bill Zimmerman. "Aren't you the anchor for News12 Long Island?" I asked. "That's not all I am!" he shouted, and scurried away with a pizza crust.)

This close-up on an episode of MacMillan and Wife features a masked Satanist. Remember Satanists? The 70's was lousy wid 'em! That is definitely not a Tor Johnson mask, btw, looks more like Boris Karloff to me, maybe even Lionel Barrymore.

Viskupic did love his barbed wire...

...but on the other hand, to my knowledge, he didn't render many cash register beds, as he does for a five-hour Emile Zola-thon on WNET. Check it out: Long Island Bowling on 67--right after Celebrity Bowling on WOR! What a world! Who have guessed that one day I'd rue not watching more televised bowling?

 

Try this: Go to a Best Buy and inquire about their "quadrophonic 8-track players." They might think you're from the future! But no, you're really from the 1970's, when a Monday morning of tee-vee could begin with Barbara Walters dwoning on about wiboflavin, to be followed up on another channel by a doc about Frenchmen eluding pygmies and cannibals--with The Flying Nun in between!

Lastly, to properly take in this back cover ad for Holiday Spa, let's disrobe, take a knee and ask ourselves, "When you gonna do it?"

(I said 'take a knee,' Chad. Take a knee, that means all the way down! Ah, forget it!)

 Bye for now, but I'll tell you that the first cover in our next installment features Glen Campbell and Peter Sellers dressed as Scotsmen, with Sellers sporting some really off-putting faux facial hair.

(And just like that I hooked ya, din I? See ya then!)