Ron Miller
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…if You Watch TV Too Long! |
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By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
YOU KNOW you've been watching TV too long if …
…you think of Walter Cronkite as that guy who used to host "You Are There."
…you still think David Letterman is doing well in his quest to prove he's more than just a TV weatherman.
…you tell people "Touched by An Angel" really owns the old "Toast of the Town" time slot on Sunday nights.
...you keep marveling at how well Warren Beatty has done since he left the role of Milton Armitage on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."
…you still think Arthur Godfrey was wrong to fire Julius LaRosa -- and something ought to be done about it.
…you still think the most scandalous moment in TV history was the night Don Sherwood and Esther Williams shared a chaise lounge on "San Francisco Tonight."
…you still think they're talking about a CBS drama series when you hear the word "Climax" on the Sally Jesse Raphael talk show.
…you still think Alice Lon was the best "Champagne Lady" on "The Lawrence Welk Show" because you once saw her bare knee and got all excited.
…you're still sorry they ever let
Lada Edmund, Jr., out of that cage on "Hullabaloo."
…you're still wondering what trouble Lance Kerwin might
have gotten into if NBC had ever allowed "James at 15"
to reach 18.
…you wish the girl singers on MTV were as cute as Jill Corey was on "Your Hit Parade."
…you still think it was highway robbery
that Rod Steiger didn't win an Emmy for creating the role of
the homely, lonesome butcher, in Paddy Chayefsky's immortal "Marty."
Footnotes for younger
readers
1. Walter Cronkite was the "reporter" who observed re-creations of historical events on CBS' "You Are There" series from 1953-57.
2. Late-night host David Letterman was indeed a local TV weatherman -- and even a daytime TV host -- before he found his real calling in late night television.
3. "Toast of the Town" was the original title for CBS' "The Ed Sullivan Show," which premiered in 1948 on Sunday nights at 9, but had its longest run, from 1949-71, in the 8-9 time slot now occupied by "Touched by An Angel."
4. Superstar Warren Beatty did indeed play a supporting role in the "Dobie Gillis" series on CBS from 1959-60. Milton was Dobie's handsome, wealthy rival for the affections of Thalia Menninger, played by Tuesday Weld.
5. Arthur Godfrey fired singer Julius LaRosa from the cast of CBS' "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" in 1953 because he thought the young man was getting too big-headed and lacked "humility." The public sided with LaRosa, who had a couple of hit records after he very tactfully refused to fight with his former mentor in public.
6. Local radio-TV personality Don Sherwood and movie star Williams seemed to be getting pretty cozy while cuddling up to each other on live TV. Their passions were cooled, though, when Williams' then husband, Ben Gage, appeared on the set and broke them up, taking her off camera.
7. There actually was a CBS drama series
called "Climax," which ran from 1954-58. James Bond
buffs remember it best for introducing the Bond character for
the first time on the screen with an October, 1954, adaptation
of "Casino Royale," Ian Fleming's first novel about
agent 007, starring American Barry Nelson as Bond and Peter Lorre
as the villain.
8. Alice Lon was the first "champagne lady" on ABC's
"The Lawrence Welk Show," from 1955-59. Her primary
job was to sing a song or two, dance with bandleader Welk and
look pretty. But Welk fired her in 1959 because "too much
knee" was showing when she sat down and crossed her legs.
Thousands of irate fans bombarded Welk with letters, so he tried
to hire her back, but Lon wasn't interested. Norma Zimmer eventually
took her place.
9. Lada Edmund, Jr., was a "go-go" girl who danced almost constantly in a cage toward the rear of the set for NBC's "Hullabaloo," a prime time series of 1965-66 that showcased rock acts of the era. She was very pretty and energetic, getting so much publicity that she finally started appearing in movies and other TV shows. Unfortunately, her only talent seemed to be her ability to do the frug ceaselessly in a cage.
10. Lance Kerwin was the teen-age star of NBC's "James at 15," a very realistic weekly series about Boston high school kids circa the late 1970s. Kerwin's character, James Hunter, was a daydreamer, but he also got into lots of typical teen troubles -- and in one famous episode actually lost his virginity, which was unheard of on TV in that era. When James had a birthday, NBC changed the name of the show to "James at 16," but he never had another birthday. It was cancelled in 1978 after just one season on the air.
11. Jill Corey was perky -- you had to be to get a job as a regular on "Your Hit Parade" -- but she also was gorgeous and could really put a song over. She was the cutest of the many girl singers on the show, which ran from 1950-1974, first on NBC, then on CBS. But she only was there for the 1957-58 season.
12. It's true: Rod Steiger was the original "Marty," but the most famous program from the live TV drama era didn't win a single Emmy because, in 1953, the Television Academy didn't have a category that covered single episode dramas. Ernest Borgnine won the best actor Oscar in 1955, repeating Steiger's role in the movies, and the movie won the Oscar as best film of the year.
© 2000 by Ron Miller
CREDITS: The cartoon image used in this column was obtained from IMSI's MasterClips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506, USA. The photograph from "James at 15" is © 1977 by Twentieth Century Fox Television.
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