Newsday TV Book, July 13-19, 1980.

We're going back forty-four years with this issue, to the summer of '80. Decades tend to blur at the seams, culturally, but The Eighties were upon us almost immediately. What could be more representative of that jarring shift than chill Jimmy Carter's single term presidency ceding to what would be twelve years of in-your-face Reagan/Bush? Add Lennon being gunned down on the sidewalk, and Raging Bull as the year's best movie--a grim, grimy, bloody portrait of a meat-headed wife-beater--and, well, that's an ominous year.

Anywerrr... this week's cover takes us back to that simpler time, with a newsman on the cover (as depicted by Illustrator/Art Director John Kier) who would be hard to describe to today's young'uns. I couldn't tell you what Walter Cronkite's political bent was, and kids may not understand the concept of not knowing someone else's opinion on everything.

(Click on the pics to enlarge them--and if I needed to tell you that, you must be an even older coot than me.)

Cronkite was covering his last conventions (the Republicans this week, Dems in August), and had already announced his retirement, with his last evening news broadcast airing the following March. The Dennis Duggan article describes Cronkite's coverage of earlier conventions. (Duggan wrote for New York City newspapers for his entire journalism career, publishing his last piece shortly before his death, at 78 in 2006.)

In the TV Line: C.B. of Elmont seems suspicious of the guy who turned the Little House on the Prairie books into a TV show; V.C. of Hicksville was left hanging by Tic Tac Dough; and R.M. of Babylon wanted his or her co-workers to be more like the Japanese.

In her new-ish TV Views column (it was added to the NTVB sometime in fall of '79), the supercilious Harriet Van Horne bashes James Stephens' teeth, scoffs at Catherine Deneuve's voice, has hope for Huntington's wastrels, and rues Charles Aznavour's "disco-beat."

The Republican National Convention began that Monday, and here's a look at the networks' coverage and, uh, coverers.

Sadly, not much caught my eye this week--no Viskupic, that's always a big minus--so it's right on to Friday and Saturday's schedules.

A little Trivia for ya. Two and three are easy, but that first one, I was like, "What the Hec?"

Here's Specials and Cable TV. I hope whoever was hosting Celebrity on Huntington Cable told Donald O'Connor to watch out for them local wastrels!

An item in the Off Camera column makes me want to watch Mom, the Wolfman and Me to see just how cranky Patty Duke Astin seems. I also feel I must seek out Lynda Carter's "takeoff" on Bette Midler in her new special. That must have been like trying to turn a vanilla pudding pop into Passover rainbow cookies.

I can't say I even remember Northstage ("Showplace of Hits") in Glen Cove, but then local theater was never my bag--even when I was reluctantly participating in it. Surely you recall my tour de force as Scrooge in '88? (My acting secret: just do Magoo.)

Finally, I present yet another example to demonstrate that the 80's were increasingly inferior to the 70's. This black and white illustration for Suburban Colonial Shoppes is somewhat striking in its own way (especially once I tweaked the contrast), but it is just no match for the eye-popping, majestic, even aggressive color ads of the previous epoch.

Back to the seventies next time, I swear!