Newsday TV Book, November 24-30, 1974 (Thanksgiving Week).

Oh boy! It's here at last, a late Thanksgiving to herald a rapidly-approaching Yuletide season. The tree is just now up, the banisters festooned, the gifts (in the process of being) wrapped, the grounds illuminated all twinkly-like. Enough now about your humble Non-Parader's estate--let's get right to the nostalgia, shall we? Of course, it's a Newsday TV Book, and I'm spotlighting 1974. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I like this year because it's forty-five years ago (which is a nice, neat number for someone as impolitely anal as myself), and because the days correspond with 2019's (that is, in both cases the Monday before the holiday is the 25th).

Anne Bancroft lounges on the cover, awaiting her husband and seven other fellas.
(Click on the pics to fatten 'em up, turkey!)

Was Tommy Smothers ever a ghost? Why don't we see more of the Baldwin sisters? Did Olga Worrall cure Tom Snyder of being an insufferable prick? The answers, more or less, in this week's TV Line.

Here's that cover story about Anne and her various 'hoods.

Judging by the occasional request, it seems people enjoy seeing the Sunday morning listings. Brings back memories, I guess. I preferred to sleep, until I was of the age to be rudely awakened and dragged to church. Either way, I was left in the dark on matters such as the hijinks of "gourmet scavenger" Andre Dalrymple and whatever Maryknoll World was.

I'm not even sure why I enjoy this ad so much. I just imagine the carpeting being installed on Wednesday, and then the next day some idiot family member spilling hot turkey grease on it. (That would have been me, btw.)

I present the late Monday listings, mainly for the Viskupic Bigfoot drawing.

Long Island's WSNL (channel 67 out of Patchogue) has come up a number of times on this blog. This is just because of the TV Book references, as I have no recollection of the station in this incarnation. The fact that their big holiday movie is a bizarre Russian dubbed-into-English fairy tale says a lot about WSNL's subpar fare, however highly the Venetians thought of it.

 

And now the big day! Counter-programming Mad Monster Party against the King, are you fucking kidding me?!?

And then March of the Wooden Soldiers a half-hour into that?!? Why don't you local station schedulers just call my house and convince mom to serve dinner at two this year so I'll miss everything? Bastards!

Remember kids--there were NO DVR's back then! Who am I kidding, none of this is the least bit interesting to anyone under 40...

The Thing, Oklahoma! and Going My Way, simultaneously. More evidence that, back in the day, every household must have had at least three televisions on at all times... but we didn't, I swear!

Now a look at the specials of the week, with Saturday's movies and some sports.

Everybody loves old advertising Santas, so let's blow this sucker up!

Stay tuned, nostophiles, I'll have even more sensational seasonal succor!
(Whudju call me?)
Happy Thanksgiving!

Newsday TV Book, November 17-23, 1974.

There's plenty o' vintage TV holiday goodness arriving imminently, and since I've got much scanning and editing to do in the upcoming weeks, I'm only going to post a few pics from this issue.

The cover features Michael York and Margaret Leighton in an adaptation of "Great Expectations," with a photo that I'm sure your five-year-old Non-Parader was delighted to have floating around the TV den all week. Yikes!

 

 The TV Line lets us know that Robert Redford likes turquoise, Shelley Winters' stunts went swimmingly (while her cruise-mates took a beating), Rhoda caught the subway at Lex, and the gals of Hooterville were not frolicking in the town's water tank, despite Mr. Haney's frequent contentions that he detected notes of Jean Naté coming from his tap.

 Gary Viskupic has a couple of illustrations this week, first on Monday for Hollywood TV Theatre on WNET...

...and then for a health series on Wednesday, also on PBS.

(If Cos offers Helen a "protein shake," I'd advise her against partaking.)

Here's Saturday's late-night sched, with an unusually charitable John Cashman review for The Tingler (on WPIX at 11:30). But check out his take on Bodyguard--they didn't call him "The Spoiler" for nothing!

Minnesota Fats fits more neatly into a billiard ball rack than I'd have suspected.

Finally, here's an ad for Westbury's Hicks Nurseries on Jericho Turnpike. I'm sure I've posted this very ad on the blog before, but since a yearly Yuletide visit was a must during my childhood, as far as I'm concerned it can't be reproduced enough.

Don't forget to check out the DPiMR Facebook page, the Instagram account, and my "Hugo Faces" YouTube channel of old video nonsense. It's the most wonderful time of the year for wasting time, and these are the places to do it!

Newsday TV Book, Election Day, 1974.

This holiday blogging season, I'm hoping to concentrate on November and December 1974, because it's 45 years ago so that's a neat number, and the dates and days of the week correspond with 2019's. I didn't have time to do this whole week, so I figured I'd at least get Election Day done. It even features an ad for WSNL's coverage, on Long Island's channel 67. So here are your NYC-area television listings for Tuesday, November 5th, 1974 (and what was being pre-empted to boot).