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Variety programs and westerns had traditionally been TV's most popular fare - they were now largely a turn off. Established stars and shows with decades long runs on TV had fallen by the wayside - Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, Andy Griffith, My Three Sons, Bonanza and Lucy were gone or on the way out. This led to a scattershot approach to programming and a higher percentage of failures each fall season to come. Local stations around the country began adopting a 'happy news' format with anchors and reporters chatting and yukking it up between stories, a style that still dominates the medium today. Venture back some 40 years to see and hear what the television landscape offered...
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1.
All in the Family
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UNEXPECTED
FLOPS:
Bridget
Loves Bernie
Saturday 8:30pm / CBS
David Birney and Meredith Baxter starred as a jewish guy and his shiksa
wife and the turmoil it caused both their families. In a weird twist,
the two stars fell in love during the production and were married shortly
after the show was cancelled.
How can a program that lands in the top five right out of the gate get cancelled? Despite high ratings, CBS canned this show because they felt too many viewers were defecting after the massive lead in from All In The Family. M*A*S*H* moved into that timeslot in the fall of 1973 and bolted into the top five as well but held on to 10% more viewers than Bridget Loves Bernie. Bridget Loves Bernie on DVD
Here's a fall promo from You Tube:
Sandy
Duncan Show
Sunday
8:30pm / CBS
Funny
Face was
the number 8 show the previous season (thanks to lead-in All in the
Family) when star Sandy Duncan stunned the network by bowing out
to undergo an eye operation. When she returned, the format was changed
and a new supporting cast that included M. Emmet Walsh along with The
Dean Martin Show's Tom Bosley and Meriam Mercer were added.
In this series, Sandy Stockton was a UCLA student / commercial actress who worked for a talent agent; when she got home there were some typically kooky neighbors to contend with. The show was gone by January but inspired a punk band a few years later called Sandy Duncan's Eye.
Funny Face
The Sandy Duncan Show theme
The
Julie Andrews Hour
Wednesday 10:00pm / ABC
ABC scored a major coup when they signed big screen star Julie Andrews
for her own musical comedy hour. The stars lined up to be guests on the
program - Tony Curtis, Diahann Carroll, Cass Elliot, Donald O'Connor,
Robert Goulet, Steve Lawrence and the Disney theme park characters all
shared the stage with the star of Mary Poppins.
This ambitious hour proved to be an expensive flop despite winning multiple Emmy awards and heaps of critical acclaim. Produced by Nick Vanoff (Hollywood Palace).
The
Paul Lynde Show
Wednesday 8:00pm / ABC
Science fiction wasn't big on TV in 1972 - that's why this sitcom starring
Hollywood's center square never got off the ground.
The premise: Paul as a devoted husband and father!
Why was it picked to hit? Paul Lynde was voted TV's most popular comic in 1972 and the show was produced by the same team that created Bewitched (1964-1972). That wasn't enough to overcome the hackneyed plots and the program's All in the Family derivative nature.
NBC
Wednesday
Mystery Movie
Wednesday 8:30pm / NBC
NBC had so much success with this series in 1971, they shifted the hits
(Columbo, McMillian & Wife and McCloud) to Sunday
nights where they flourished, then started over on Wednesday nights with
three all new segments (Banacek, Cool Million and Madigan).
Banacek
George Peppard kicked off this poorly-rated anthology series as Banacek,
an insurance agency investigator with a taste for the high life. Banacek's
first case involved a football player who was tackled on the field before
disappearing in front of a crowd of onlookers and millions of TV viewers.
Banacek was the only one of the three series to be renewed.
Cool
Million
James Farentino starred as a jet-setting former CIA operative who
charged his clients a 'cool' million bucks to solve their case.
Madigan
Another 1970's detective series that used a guy's last name - as
in Mannix, Cannon, Ironside, Banyon, Banacek and McCloud
- for the title of the show. And those were just from this season!
Temperatures
Rising
Tuesday 8:00pm / ABC
A sitcom starring Cleavon Little (Blazing Saddles) as an offbeat
hospital physician seemed like a natural. It got creamed in the ratings
by Maude. The stellar cast included James Whitmore, Joan Van
Ark and Nancy Fox.
Can two failures add up to one success? This show limped into a second season as The New Temperatures Rising; most of the cast members (except Cleavon Little) were dropped while Paul Lynde was added as a prickly hospital administrator.
Anna
and the King
Sunday
7:30pm / CBS
Yule Brenner starred in the role he made famous on Broadway
and in the film The King and I. No expense was spared, with a
massive cast that included Keye Luke (Kung Fu). There were more
people on screen than in the audience. Dropped in January, it was CBS's
lowest-rated series in 1972-73.
Banyon
$385,000 worth of classic cars were called into play for this short-lived
private eye show set in the 1930s. Banyon was fond of spouting Mickey
Spillane-style dialogue like, "Rick Madden was one businessman whose
name you'd never find in the Yellow Pages. His gun was his business. It
came complete with trigger finger." Robert Forster and old school
movie star Joan Blondell starred; Blondell played Lottie Hatfield on Here
Come the Brides from 1968-1970.
SUNDAY
MORNINGS:
Curiosity
Shop
10:00am
/ ABC
This show moved from Saturday to Sunday mornings in the fall of 1972, where programs were routinely bumped by local affiliates for church broadcasts.
The first Sunday show featured a look back at past programs with segments on Charlie Chaplin's Gold Rush, a cartoon about insensitivity, Barbara Minkus as Gittle the Bumbling Witch singing "These Wonderful Things" and a Miss Peach cartoon. Also seen: science experiments for younger kids.
Produced, written and created by animator extraordinaire Chuck Jones - two kids would visit the shop to discover something new each week, with the help of puppets like Baron Balthazar and S.I. Trivia (a worm in the dictionary). In addition to Miss Peach, there were also Dennis the Menace and B.C. cartoon shorts.
Networks were under attack from parental groups for not providing enough educational shows for children, this production was created with that in mind, combining live action, animation, puppets and music - Mr. Wizard meets Sesame Street.
One memorable animated segment was the first Multiplication Rock ("Three Is The Magic Number") which became a regular Saturday morning feature in 1972.
Bullwinkle
11:00am
/ ABC
Reruns of
Rocky and His Friends shows from the sixties (with new titles)
had been running on Sunday mornings for eight years, that ended after
this season.
Make
A Wish
11:30am
/ ABC
Make A Wish (1971-76) was an ABC Sunday morning series starring Tom Chapin, produced, written and directed by Lester Cooper.
Educational in nature, this show is fondly remembered for the original folksy tunes, written and sung by Tom Chapin (singer Harry Chapin's bother). Different subjects were explored each week.
'Make A Wish' was one of those rare educational shows that kids actually liked and parent groups lauded with awards.
Segments this season included: a generator that produces alpha waves, a visit to the Philly Mint, California redwoods, Santa Barbara's off shore oil rigs and trap door spiders from Mississippi.
Captain Noah
Captain
Noah and His Magical Ark, produced by the Philadelphia Council of
Churches, starred
W. Carter Merbreier and his wife "Mrs. Noah," airing
from 1970 until 1994 on
22 stations around the USA. The
theme song was 'I Can Sing a Rainbow.'
From You Tube - Captain Noah:
"Remember what Capt. Noah says... 'Never roam alone.' That was just one of many. I remember drawing tons of pictures thinking they would end up 'posted high in the TV sky' Boy... what silly memories." - Emily M
THE
7:30 TIMESLOT:
Until the fall of 1971, the networks all began their
primetime fare at 7:30, that's when they gave up the 7:30-8:00 slot
to local stations, except on Thursdays and Sundays.
With the fall of 1972, the three networks gave up Thursdays at 7:30
but kept broadcasting at 7:30 on Sundays (all but ABC, they started
at 8:00 on Sundays and broadcast until 11:00pm while the other two nets
finished up at 10:30).
By the fall of 1973, all three networks began Sunday nights at 7:30,
the schedule we enjoy today.
Ozzie's
Girls
The
Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet left the air in 1966 after a 14
year run. Six years later the show was revived with the Nelsons, their
sons long gone, hosting two college girls in their home. The
pilot episode was written, produced and directed by Ozzie Nelson and
broadcast on NBC in 1972 to kick off an early-1973 syndication run.
This was the first network sitcom to be revived in syndication (a major trend during the 1980s), and the first program to show blacks and whites living under the same roof (one of the college boarders was African-American). Lasted only one season.
Former network primetime shows that were flourishing in syndication in 1972-73: Lawrence Welk Show, I've Got a Secret, Hee Haw, Let's Make a Deal, Lassie and This is Your Life.
ABC
had no shows in the top ten
during 1972-73 and only four
in the top twenty:
Marcus
Welby, M.D.
Over the previous three years this was ABC's top show. After
almost 20 years of TV broadcasting, Marcus Welby, MD became the
first ABC show to ever finish the season at number one (in 1970-71).
Monday
Night Football
Debuted in 1969 and steadily built a large and loyal audience
over time. More than 21% of the TVs in the nation were tuned to MNF
in 1972.
The
Partridge Family
The most watched component in ABC's youth-oriented Friday night
line-up that included The Brady Bunch
(1969-1974), Room 222
(1969-1974), The Odd Couple
(1970-1975) and Love American
Style (1969-1974).
ABC
Tuesday Movie of the Week
Weekly low-budget, high concept, made-for-TV movies starring out of work
movie stars and B-list television personalities scored big for ABC starting
in 1969. The Wednesday Movie of the Week was launched
the following year and proved almost as popular, coming in at number 25
this season. The
Crooked Hearts starred Rosalind Russell, Douglas Fairbanks,
Jr. and Ross Martin (Wild, Wild West).
The guy you hear announcing the upcoming episodes at the end of these
ABC promos was John Causier, longtime announcer for the network in primetime
and on 1970's game shows like The $10,000 Pyramid.
Thanks to innovative programming and superlative promotional campaigns (like those seen here), ABC would soon come to dominate the ratings with 15 of the top 20 shows in 1976.
NEW
ON
SATURDAY
MORNINGS:
Fat
Albert and
the Cosby Kids
CBS / 12:00am
Bill
Cosby began an amazing 12-year run narrating the animated adventures of
the North Philadelphia characters he made famous in hit comedy albums
in the sixties.
Each week Weird Harold, Mush Mouth, Bill, Dumb Donald and the gang wrestled
with a problem, usually a moral issue, which they solved just the way
you could at home.
Fat Albert was produced by Filmation and Cosby himself, who had recently earned his doctorate in education (specifically, children's educational TV). Bill Cosby also provided many of the character voices.
The
Saturday
Superstar Movie
ABC / 9:30am
TV teen ideal Gidget returned in cartoon form as part of the Saturday Superstar Movie, a one-hour TV movie-like concept for kids.
Other
cartoon sitcom adaptations on the SSM included: The Brady
Kids, The Mini-Munsters, Bewitched, Lassie and the Spirit of Thunder Mountain
and That Girl in Wonderland.
Willie Mays and the Say Hey Kid, Yogi's Ark Lark, The Mini-Munsters, Daffy
Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie
Goolies, Oliver and the Artful Dodger and other toonerific tales
turned up this year.
ALSO POPULAR ON SATURDAY MORNINGS: The Monkees (reruns), Archie's TV Funnies, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Sealab 2020, The Osmonds and The Jackson 5ive.
1972 COMMERCIALS:
Those big-ass, ugly, gas guzzling 1972 Lincoln Mercury cars.
The equally bulky but more streamlined 1972 Pontiac Grand Am.
Johnny Cash was selling, of all things, Amaco gasoline in 1972.
A very successful campaign - "No cat ever walked away from Friskies Buffet."
PROGRAM
PROFILE:
Ghost Story
Friday 9:00pm / NBC
Sebastian
Cabot was seen as Winston Essex, proprietor of a haunted mansion and introducer
of a different macabre story each week. The whole thing came off like
a third rate Night Gallery - and that show was a third rate Twilight
Zone. Cabot was dropped mid-season when the production was retooled
and retitled Circle of Fear. That didn't fly either.
LAST
YEAR FOR:
Laugh-in (6 years), Bonanza (14 years),
Doris Day Show (5 years), Mission Impossible (7 years),
Mod Squad (5 years), Alias Smith & Jones (3 years)
and Night Gallery (3 years).
Wide World of Sports begins another season while celebrities compete on The American Sportsman as ABC leads the way in innovative sports programming. Stars appearing on American Sportsman this year included Tom Smothers.
NIGHTIME
SYNDICATION:
Wait
'Til Your Father Gets Home
Dopey but fondly remembered Hanna-Barbera cartoon about
a stuck in the past dad and his two groovy kids with a pre-Happy Days
Tom Bosley voicing the father. Meant to remind you of All in the Family
in the way The Flintstones reminded folks of The Honeymooners.
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was first introduced on an episode
of Love American Style.
UFO
Sci-fi adventure.
Wacky
World of Jonathan Winters
Candid Camera-like stunts and audience
suggested improvisations from the undisputed TV king of improv comedy.
On the first episode, Sarah Vaughn and Debbie Reynolds were
guests; Marian Mercer, Mary Gregory and the Soul Sisters were regulars.
Adventurer
"Gene Barry as an international film star involved in the world of
espionage" - description from TV Guide.
The
Protectors
Robert
Vaughn (The
Man from U.N.C.L.E.) starred in this espionage drama produced by
Gerry Anderson' (Fireball XL5). Almost as stiff as those puppet
shows were - ran for two years.
SATURDAY
MORNING
COMMERCIALS 1972:
Sunshine Cookies with the 'Chip A Roo Kid.'
The Heart Association used the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz to make their pitch.
Funny
Face was a popular new drink powder that competed with Kool Aid.
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1972-73
might be considered the tail end of the classic TV era; the year the networks
began to lose their grip. While audience numbers were hovering at record
numbers, the networks were having difficulty providing people with the
shows they wanted to see in primetime.
Top
20
Life
Savers Gum was introduced with an animated spot and a jingle with a Reggae
beat that had kids singing along.