Timeless TV

Here's a little razzmatazz for you: Dynamic dancer-singer Mitzi Gaynor is on the comeback trail—via DVD, that is. And at 76, she can definitely show the “Dancing With the Stars” crowd a thing or two about fancy footwork.

Gaynor, who rose to movie stardom in the ’50s in films such as “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “The Joker Is Wild” and, most famously, as Nellie Forbush in “South Pacific,” went on to conquer TV in the ’60s and ’70s with a series of lavishly produced, Emmy-winning variety specials. Those specials are the source from which this new DVD release, which hits shelves Nov. 18, has been culled.

Titled “Mitzi Gaynor—Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years,” it showcases Gaynor performing at her peak (and in some pretty wild costumes). It also features new interviews with the star and with costume designer Bob Mackie, among many of her other associates. A truncated version is headed to PBS this fall as well.

While prodigious songbirds Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand fronted their own 1960s specials basically by concertizing, Gaynor was the only female performer of that era who could carry an entire series of specials well into the ’70s on the strength of her glamour, dynamism and dancing talent alone. People of a certain age still talk about her show-stopping appearance on the 39th Academy Awards telecast in 1967, performing the Oscar-nominated song “Georgy Girl,” which no doubt led to her first special in 1968.

See for yourself; here’s a trailer for the DVD. (Oh yeah, and be sure to check out the male dancers’ togs!)

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"Find a wheel and it goes round, round, round!" Corny though it may be, I absolutely love this musical segment from a 1959 "The Lawrence Welk Show"—for a million reasons, including the unabashed wholesomeness of the Lennon Sisters. And, of course, the now-vanished Pacific Ocean Park. And isn't it utterly fabulous how it transmogrifies into the longest Dodge commercial ever, lyrics and all? If you're going to hit 'em over the head, at least entertain 'em.

I stumbled across this old (circa 1960) Marlboro cigarette commercial starring Julie London online the other day.

Dayum, that’s good stuff! Sex on wheels. Can you imagine anyone—producer or singer—taking the time and care to sell a product so artfully today? No wonder the Marlboro brand became firmly entrenched as a man’s cigarette. Talk about your propaganda. To hell with the health risks. When it comes to purveying evil, this is as good as anything Leni Riefenstahl ever did. I wonder how many teenage boys started smoking after seeing that?

There goes another one: Dody Goodman died Sunday at age 93.

I am too young to remember Dody on Jack Paar’s incarnation of “The Tonight Show" (thank God I’m still too young for something), so to me she will always be Louise Lasser’s daffy mother, Martha Shumway, on “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” (And, as for so many others, the ditzy school secretary in the 1978 movie “Grease” and its sequel.)

Created by Norman Lear, “Mary Hartman”—set in the fictitious small Midwestern town of Fernwood—isn’t mentioned much anymore, but it was great fun at the time, if a bit too ambitious (a five-night-a-week soap opera spoof designed for late night—grueling for the cast and crew as well as the viewer).

Dody was in good company on the show—the cast, which bordered on bizarre, also included Phillip Bruns (as her husband, George) Victor Killian (as her father, who was also the local flasher), Debralee Scott (as her other daughter, Cathy, who once accidently left her illegitimate baby in the clothes dryer at the laundromat). Others were Greg Mullavy (as Mary’s husband, Tom) and Graham Jarvis (as Loretta’s husband, Charlie). Notably, Doris Roberts guested for a stint as faith-healing evangelist Dorelda Doremus.

Mary Kay Place famously started out as an assistant to Lear, who cast her as country-Western singer Loretta Haggers, Mary’s next-door neighbor and best friend, a role in which she became a sensation. (Poor Loretta stunningly committed career suicide during her big break, an appearance on Dinah Shore’s talk show, when she talked about all the nice Jewish people she met in L.A., then commented, “I can’t believe they’re the same people who killed our Lord.”)


Here’s a promo for the series, which ran from 1976-77 (it became “Forever Fernwood” after Lasser departed):

TV Land’s annual awards show is consistently the best such presentation on TV—the Oscars and Emmys could stand to take serious notes. It’s clever and funny and very imaginative, even if it’s not super-relevant. But the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously is a big part of the fun.

Last night’s edition—which will air on the network Sunday, June 15, at 9 p.m.—was no exception. The multitalented Vanessa Williams, always a class act, proved a spot-on choice as host: She’s like a studio-groomed star from another era, self-possessed, poised and utterly professional.

Putting on her Broadway musical-comedy hat, she belted out the spectacular opening number, “I’m Flying” from “Peter Pan,” which unfolded as an array of vintage TV stars—Barry Williams, Bernie Kopell, Jerry Mathers, Jimmie “J.J.” Walker, Dawn Wells, Alison Arngrim, Ron Palilo and William Katt—descended from the rafters on wires, while Gary Coleman flew above the stage.

Other highlights included a hilarious spoof of “TMZ” (Could any show be riper for parody?) and a joyous performance of the 1983 hit “All Night Long” by Lionel Richie, who, as part of the show’s expansion to honor motion pictures and pop music as well as TV programs, was honored with the Icon Award.

Also receiving trophies were Jonathan Winters (amusingly introduced by Robin Williams), Mike Myers, Garry Marshall and the casts of “The Office,” “The Golden Girls” and “Roseanne.”

The show, taped at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., was directed by Jeff Margolis. Michael Levitt and TV Land’s Sal Maniaci and Larry Jones were executive producers and Greg Sills was supervising producer.

Sherwood Schwartz will long be remembered for creating “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch,” but not so much for coming up with “It’s About Time.”

Just what is “It’s About Time,” you ask? Possibly the worst TV show of all time, is all.

The series was about two astronauts who, during a space mission, break the time barrier and wind up stranded in the prehistoric era, smack in the middle of a tribe of cavemen. Caveman no talk English good and sound much like Indian, source of much laughing. But topical wisecracks, endless fish-out-of-water jokes and an over-eager laugh track do not a funny sitcom make.

Midseason the writers flipped the story arc and brought the astronauts back to modern times, four of the cave folks in tow. But even more fish-out-of-water humor didn’t salvage the show.

“It’s About Time” ran only one season, 1966-67, Sunday evenings on CBS. While Schwartz’s island castaways and brood of Bradys had certain charms (however limited), these characters seemed hollow and many of the lines they spouted were just plain annoying. Have a sample (a big thanks to Neil):

Before Harry Morgan became Col. Potter on “MASH” and Det. Joe Friday’s sidekick Bill Gannon on the 1960s incarnation of “Dragnet,” he played next-door neighbor Pete Porter on the popular sitcom “December Bride,” original episodes of which ran on CBS from 1954-59.

On the show, Pete forever complained about his scatterbrained wife, Gladys, but she was never seen.

After CBS schedule staple Lucille Ball left the network in 1960 for a shot at Broadway, CBS bought a “December Bride” spinoff starring Morgan called “Pete and Gladys,” on which the mythical Gladys—played by a very Lucy-like red-headed comedian named Cara Williams—would finally be seen. Hoping to fill the Lucy void, “Pete and Gladys” was slotted into a Monday night berth similar to “I Love Lucy’s”; it was even directed by “Lucy” veteran James V. Kern.

It didn’t work. Despite an Emmy nomination for Williams, the show was canceled after two seasons—just in time for Ball’s return to CBS’ Monday night schedule in “The Lucy Show.” But, weirdly, the network stripped “Pete and Gladys” repeats for two more years during daytime.

Here’s the first five minutes of a 1962 episode (complete with opening credits and a quaint Kellogg’s cereal commercial):

In this clip, even with an able assist from longtime "Lucy" nemesis Gale Gordon, it's painfully obvious that the show wasn't working as planned.

TV Land will tape its sixth annual "TV Land Awards" event Sunday, June 8, at The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif. This year, for the first time, the ceremony will also honor favorites in motion pictures along with the best of television.

The show will premiere on TV Land the following Sunday, June 15, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

The 90-minute telecast will also feature reunions of some of the most popular casts from TV and movies and its annual television show parody (the best part of the show for me, anyway). Last year it was "Ugly Betty White" ... great stuff.

Historical Curio Dept.: In 1959, NBC broadcast a 90-minute prime-time posthumous tribute to a man few outside of entertainment circles had ever heard of: Manie Sacks, a Columbia Records and later an RCA and NBC-TV executive who died of leukemia in 1958 at the age of 56.

Mounting a show like “Some of Manie’s Friends” was an unbelievable thing for a network to do even in 1959; today it would be unthinkable.

What made it possible was the star power behind the special—Manie, he of sage advice and a penchant for matching material with artist, endeared himself to a slew of popular music and other entertainment heavyweights who he had mentored, many of whom lent their star power to the occasion (and raised $200,000 for leukemia research along the way). Perry Como, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher, Kay Starr, Bob Hope, Sid Caesar, Danny Thomas Rosemary Clooney, Jane Wyman and Harry James all showed up in a big way for Manie. And the money Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. paid for its ads in the show was donated to the cause as well. (Check out the painfully long cigarette commercials!)

Ed Rothhaar of KVCR-TV’s “I Remember Television" unearthed this black-and-white copy of the show; there’s no telling if a color copy still exists. But color or not, it’s a precious gem.

The first season of “Father Knows Best” comes out on DVD April 1 from Shout Factory.

And that’s just fine with Elinor Donahue, who played the oldest daughter Betty (or “Princess”) on the 1954-60 series, which, uniquely, appeared on all three major networks over the course of its prime-time run.

The show, with its happy little nuclear family, has gotten a bum rap over the decades for being too removed from reality. But Elinor knows its strengths.

“It’s nice for people to have a little window on the past like that,” she told me over the phone recently. “It’s a sweet show and has good moral values. And good acting! Billy Gray was just superior as a kid, and Robert Young and Jane Wyatt were wonderful, and they worked so well together.”

Her performance as Betty was nothing to sneeze at, either. It’s hard to think of anyone so eternally identified with a character. But does Elinor personally identify with the outgoing, overachieving Betty Anderson? Not really. “She was kind of my alter ego, everything that I was not,” she explained. “I was shy and unsocial and quiet, and she had the moxie. So it was fun to be her.”

That initial season was a particularly memorable one for Elinor. First, she flubbed her lines during her audition and only by the grace of star Robert Young was she given a second chance. Then the show itself had performance issues. “The problem was we were on at some terrible hour, 10 o’clock Sunday night. It was really a bad spot for that kind of show,” she recalled. “We didn’t even know we had an audience. After the first season it was dropped [by CBS]. There must have been somebody out there watching, because there was this big hue and cry about putting it back on, and NBC picked us up.”

NBC had it for three seasons, then it moved back to CBS for its final two. Then it reran in CBS prime time, mind you, for two more seasons before moving to ABC for another season of prime-time reruns. Can you imagine?

Among the gems on the upcoming DVD is the episode “Sparrow in the Window,” a moving little morality tale about the importance of freedom, in which Lauren Chapin (as little sister Kathy, or "Kitten") nurses an injured bird back to health and then must return it to the wild. For Elinor, that particular show had a somewhat different significance. “The things that go on behind the scenes,” she related. “I can’t think of anything else but [this] when you mention [that episode]. They couldn’t get the bird that was in the tree to stand still, so somebody said, “Tie it to the branch.” And they did, and it pulled its foot off [trying to get away]."

The upshot? “Lauren went hysterical, of course. I was like, ‘Ewwwwww, gah, look at that. Yuck!’”

Now that sounds like a typical teenager from any era.

Elinor as she is today is interviewed in the bonus material in the four-DVD set. But the release has its own, private bonus for her: “It’s nice to be able to have my grandchildren see more of the episodes,” she said.

t/y Steve Beverly