Newsday TV Book, October 27-November 2, 1974.

 We close out October of 1974 with Valerie Harper on the cover of the TV Book, and the accompanying story being the impending wedding of her character, Rhoda Morgenstern.

In the TV Line, Franny bails and Kristy prevails, the identity of television's first flying cowboy, and a question that raises a question: What's the deal with G.L. and C.S. of Westbury? Who would care about such a thing enough that they'd place a wager on it? I suspect their lives were either perfectly mundane or sad verging on disturbing. Even better, I like thinking that the nature and conditions of their bet would make the average person want to throw up.

Here's Monday evening. I was almost six years old, and I remember the whole Rhoda/Joe wedding hoopla, perhaps accentuated by its proximity to the Great Pumpkin and Dr. Seuss.

I don't know why they even bother with a description, it's a 90 minute TV movie called Death Cruise. What the hell do you think it's going to be about? I mainly include this page for the Viskupic illustration, an example of his work that's ridiculously literal and yet still just a smidge unsettling.

Thursday was Halloween, and here's the whole damned day. If you went treat-or-treating right after school, that means you missed Mike Douglas, hosting Paul Williams and Jessica Harper on the very day Phantom of the Paradise was released.

Along with Friday's evening listings comes an eye-catching Viskupic drawing for The Graduate.

Finally, late Saturday night, always good for a few spook shows whether it's Halloween or not.

I just checked the archives and I have two more issues for November '74 that I haven't already written up. I would tease the next edition by saying it has Barry Newman on the cover, but that's not really a tease so much as a simple statement of fact, and one that will not arouse a molecule of enthusiasm in any human reading this sentence henceforth.

So see ya next time!

Newsday TV Book, October 20-26, 1974.

Not many scans from this issue, due again to lack of visual interest or lots of repeated ads that I've already presented in the last few weeks. The cover features a show that lasted about as long as my look at this issue: Planet of the Apes. The following cover story examines Roddy MacDowell's career.

In the TV Line, we learn that Jack Elam was a number-crunching desk jockey before giving up accounting because of his eyes, plus more about Bonnie Bedelia, Robert Forster, and Humperdinck's prodigious progeny.

Monday morning brought Dinah! into our lives, and we see from this ad that she hosted many celebs who are now dead. You can peruse the daily episode roster to see if you know which ones are still with us, or perhaps to note just how many have double letters in their names. Doing this made me notice that Billy Dee Williams (yes, still kicking) has double letters in all three of his names (and yes, I typically noticed things like this even before the pandemic officially made me a shut-in).

Here are the listings for late Tuesday, with an illustration by Gary Viskupic depicting a faceless Fidel.

Late Saturday's sched came with a reminder that the clocks would require adjustment (by all good people, anyway), so that night you could stay up a little longer to catch the passionate Yvonne DeCarlo.

Finally, a page with yet another Hicks Nurseries ad for their Halloween display, which I may have reproduced on this blog before or not. Any ad with gravestones and anguished pumpkins is okay by me.

Next time: Rhoda!

Newsday TV Book, October 13-19, 1974.

 Hot on the heels of the previous post, here's Flip!

The thumbnails over this week's TV Line feature two celebs who died tragically. The third is the luckiest man in show business.

The ads in this year's Columbus Day page are different from last year's, but the art is the same, with Chris keeping an eye out for natives to brutalize.

Among the top celebrities helping the mentally retarded on WSNL channel 67 this year:
Sandy Becker, Bruce Morrow, and Dan Ingram.
Hearing this, the mentally retarded then wondered who else would be appearing.

Not much of visual interest going on in this issue (and Viskupic apparently had the week off), so here are the listings for late Friday and Saturday nights, with Saturday morning thrown in for good measure.

Finally, another gently spooky Halloween ad for Hicks Nurseries in Westbury.

Next week: Planet of the Apes: the series!

Newsday TV Book, October 6-12, 1974.

 I'm behind on these, so let's get to it!

Der Bingle and Ol' Ski-Slope-Nose grace the cover this week's issue in an elegant portrait by still-active artist Michael Killelea.

Commercials, cable, volcanoes, and how long it takes to dress an ape: all topics on the minds of curious Long Islanders.

Sunday night's schedule is home to an illustration by the great Gary Viskupic, for the great Last Picture Show, spotlighting the great Cloris Leachman. Great!

Then it's on to late Sunday, with an ad for Hicks Nurseries, a haunt of mine when I was a kiddie. (Boo.)

It's always cool to see the morning listings. I chose this Wednesday because of the rare ad for WSNL, the Island's own local station on channel 67, touting an early Columbus Day holiday airing of...
Joan of Arc?

Another Viskupic drawing (for a TV movie I recall watching at a very young age so it may have been this very showing) depicting Ron Howard, or as he was known ever afterward, "Locust-Hat Howard."

And here's what Long Island stoners were staying up for on Saturday night, meaning Equinox, probably. Man, it's bad.

The heroically-hairpieced Sal Bando and Gene Tenace of the Oakland A's evidently asked Hair Replacement Centers for the "Lady Elaine Fairchilde" model.

The inexplicably-pluralized crossword is now a tribute to the recently-departed Helen Reddy (not to mention lovers of busywork puzzle drudgery everywhere).
Next week: Flip Wilson!

Newsday TV Book, September 29-October 5, 1974.

At last we've arrived at the end of September 1974. That month saw my entrance into kindergarten, which did not go well initially, with petulant sobbing and apron-string clutching (not literally but you get my drift). By the end of the first day, however, I was fine with the situation, mostly thanks to the classroom Lite Brite, the commercial for which always left me covetous. I don't even remember playing with it, but at some point I saw it in the room and thought, okay, this place can't be all bad.

(This month? Like in 2020? Doesn't seem to have a Lite Brite in it.)

The cover features Peppery Angie Dickinson, and hard-of-hearing Leo Seligsohn discusses Burt Bacharach and reviews with her.
(Do I need to tell you that you can click on the photos to make them more legible? I probably don't need to add that anymore, but JIC you're even more of an internet greenhorn than I am...)

In the TV Line, Carol Burton explains televised sports blackouts, and also tells us about Portland's Hudson Brothers (and their co-star Stephanie Edwards), lyrical Bob McAllister, and the exorbitant price of network movie one-shots.

This Monday night schedule is nothing special, really. I just liked the premise of the hair replacement ad: that a bald fella is unlikely to form a relationship close enough for the other party to ever notice he's wearing a rug.

An interesting Gary Viskupic drawing accompanies a close-up on an ABC production that aired on only a handful of metropolitan stations. Episodes of Rainbow Sundae included a magazine-format series called "Over 7," which this night featured clown of renown Emmett Kelly Jr., and Viskupic tweaks his bulbous nose with the WABC logo.

Viskupic melds McQueen and Mustang for a Friday night broadcast of Bullitt, and Shatner terrorizes Kodiak. The late listings follow, just for fun.

Here's another full Saturday for ya.

Finally, the back cover introduces us to a merry meat-munching mother and her equally carnivorous daughter. Beef brightens any day (and certainly this mostly monochromatic ad)!

For my next project, I'm going to cull some Cashman nuggets from these September issues for the movie review blog, but when I returns to the TV Books, expect to see Bing and Bob on the next issue's cover, bum bum bum...