Back in the Sixties
people were calling the Fifties "The Golden Age of Television."
Particularly TV dramas. In the Fifties they were telecast live
from New York, usually hour shows in three acts with about two
minutes of commercials between acts. When a promo for another
program was added to the commercial mix it was called "hitchhiking,"
and generally frowned upon. There were dramas like JP Miller’s
"Days of Wine and Roses," Paddy Chayevsky’s "Marty" and Rod Serling’s
"Requiem For A Heavyweight."
I recently ran across
a TV Guide Magazine for the Los Angeles area from June,
1966, and to me it looks like the Sixties were almost as golden
as the Fifties, in music and variety if not drama, compared with
television today. The 1966 TV Guide is 122 pages long and the
cover price is 15 cents. In 1966 there were only 11 channels,
three of them the national networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, and three
UHF.
Today’s TV Guide
for the Los Angeles area lists 253 stations (our digital cable
service lists hundreds more), many of them pay channels with vintage
and made-for -TV movies. The commercial channels are as infested
with commercials as a rotten log might be with termites. There
are 381 pages in the magazine and the cover price is $1.99. Yet,
although digital cable offers more than 40 audio music channels
(no video), there is not one regular variety or music program
among the hundreds of video channels except two music channels
that offer rock and rap almost exclusively, though Today
and Oprah Winfrey have a musical guest regularly. There
is one public series, Classic Arts Showcase, that presents
clips of opera, ballet, vintage films and the like all night,
starting at midnight on weeknights and as early as 10 PM on weekends.
Most music programs are relegated to pledge week on public service
networks.
But in 1966, TV was
more tuneful, with music, dancing and variety:
Saturday —
Repertoire Workshop, jazz group; Talent Search;
Dial M For Music, Odetta guest; Discotheque a Go Go;
Smothers Brothers, guests; Shivaree, Nancy Sinatra, Glenn
Yarborough guests; Continental Showcase, international
singers, Jim Backus host; Melody Ranch, Boots Randolph,
guest; Lawrence Welk; Merve Griffin, Keely Smith, guests;
Hollywood Palace, Bing Crosby, host; California Symphony;
The Beat; Regis Philbin, variety.
Sunday —
Amateur Hour (remember Ted Mack?), Polka Parade,
Mantovani, with Vic Damone as guest.
Monday —
Mike Douglas (every weekday), Shebang (every
weekday), Ray Conif, Folk Festival, Hullabaloo (Nancy Sinatra
was a guest), Merv Griffin (every weekday), John Davidson,
Talent Scouts.
Tuesday —
Red Skelton (the Supremes were among the guests).
Wednesday —
John Gary (Danny Kaye and Leslie Uggams, guests).
Thursday —
Where the Action Is (Bobby Goldsboro guest), Rowan and
Martin's Laugh- In.
Friday —
Sing Along With Mitch.
You will noticed the
big days for music and variety were weekends but every day had
its variety and talk shows and at least one show featuring music.
And every day of the week had at least one Spanish language music
program but I haven’t listed any of those. Most of us dumb mono-lingual
types didn’t watch them.
But you could have
if you wanted to.
David Westheimer,
SeniorWomenWeb's resident male, lives with his wife of 57 years,
Dody, in the same Los Angeles apartment they moved into from Houston,
Texas 41 years ago. Their son, Fred, is a Senior Vice-President
at the William Morris Agency and his younger brother, Eric, is
a veterinarian. Succeeding generations include five grandchildren
and two great-grandchildren. As a journalist, David worked for
Oveta Culp Hobby.
At 85, David Westheimer
continues to write, and not just for Senior Women. The Great
Wounded Bird, his recollections of World War II, is winner
of the Texas Review 1999 poetry prize, was published by Texas
Review Press and may be ordered from Amazon Books, where it has
surged to 821,374th on their sales list. It is also listed with
Barnes & Noble and Borders Books. David's latest novel, Delay
En Route, is hovering at 1,485,676th on Amazon's list.
Poet and novelist,
David is a retired Air Force Officer. He can be reached for a
repertoire of feigned curmudgeonly remarks at: DWestheime@aol.com.
