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!