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Red-letter day: November 8, 1965

B

bpatrick

It seems incredible, with only four soaps left on daytime TV, but 48 years ago, the sands through the hourglass began running; that is, "Days Of Our Lives" made its debut. Today's show is a far cry from what my mom watched when I was in late childhood and in my teens, back when Macdonald Carey was the star of the show and Bill Bell the head writer (before he put "Y&R" on CBS); one of the early cast members, Susan Flannery (Laura Spencer Horton from 1966-75) became one of Bell's favorite actresses; if you follow soaps, you probably know her better as Stephanie Forrester on "B&B" (John McCook, who plays Eric Forrester, used to be on "Y&R"). Somehow I think my mom would have changed channels if some of the stuff they've done in the last 25 years or so had been done in the '60s and '70s (think, "Days" fans, of some of the stuff Marlena has gone through).

Will the hourglass still be collecting sand in the bottom two years from now, when "Days"would become the fourth soap to hit the 50th-anniversary mark? Stay tuned.

And while I'm at it, I'll jump ahead to Dec. 30; on Dec. 30, 1963, Monty Hall made his first deal with a greedy contestant. "Let's Make A Deal" hasn't been on continuously over the past 50 years (you all know it's been on CBS for the past four years), but "The Price Is Right" was also off from 1965 (the end of the Bill Cullen era) to 1972 (the start of the Bob Barker/Drew Carey era). And, just by coincidence, from 1965 until it moved to ABC in 1968 (Dec. 30, to be exact), "LMAD" was lead-in to "Days Of Our Lives" on NBC.

Finally, a trivia question for which I'll let you guess the answer before I give it to you: On Dec. 30, 1963, another game show debuted, on ABC, which marked Dick Clark's first game-show hosting assignment. What was the name of that show (hint: it didn't have the word "pyramid" in the title)?
 
B. Patrick asked: said:
Finally, a trivia question for which I'll let you guess the answer before I give it to you: On Dec. 30, 1963, another game show debuted, on ABC, which marked Dick Clark's first game-show hosting assignment. What was the name of that show (hint: it didn't have the word "pyramid" in the title)?
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The title: "The Object Is", which didn't last long.

It did, however, force Clark to "commute" from Philadelphia (where he was still doing "American Bandstand", which had been cut back to once a week on Saturday afternoons a few months earlier) to Hollywood for a couple of days every couple of weeks. He'd tape five shows a day for two days, then fly back East.

It's been claimed that although Clark had visited Los Angeles a few times since the late 1950's, he really fell in love with L.A. when he flew there for his "Object Is" taping sessions and decided to move "American Bandstand" there ASAP, which was in the Winter of 1964.

A few months after "Object Is" got the axe, Clark got a second game-show gig when "Missing Links" moved from NBC to ABC and the show's host, Clark's former neighbor Ed McMahon, couldn't move with the show because the latter was announcer on NBC's "Tonight Show".

By that time, Clark had moved to L.A., and "Missing Links" was being taped in New York, so every two weeks, he'd fly East to do two weeks' worth of "Missing Links" episodes.

And of course, "Pyramid" originally originated in New York as well, although Clark eventually convinced producer Bob Stewart to move the show West.
 
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DingdingdingdingdingdingDING! You're both correct, and you gave me more information than I was looking for, which is fine. "Missing Links" moved to ABC on March 30, 1964 and was replaced on NBC by a little show in which players had to give their answers in the form of a question and which has done even better since 1984 in syndication. After "Missing Links" (along with "Get The Message," hosted first by Frank Buxton, then by Robert Q. Lewis) was canceled on Christmas Day, 1964, Clark didn't do another game show until "Pyramid" debuted in 1973. I think my two favorite Clark-hosted games were also two that were short-lived: "The Krypton Factor" (ABC, summer 1981) and "Challengers" (the updated "Who, What Or Where" which was syndicated in 1990-91).

Just for the record, since probably very few people remember it, "The Object Is" was yet another variation on "Password" (of which "Pyramid" and "You Don't Say!" were arguably the most successful), but almost impossible to explain (even "The Encyclopedia Of TV Game Shows"' description leaves me confused); for example, if the player was trying to get his/her partner to say "Charles Lindbergh," the clue might be "transatlantic airplane." The show originally had three celebrities and three contestants, and I think each player handed off control to the player seated next to him/her after the clue and response. Eventually, they adopted the "Password" format of two teams consisting of one celebrity and one contestant on each team. I remember that my then-local ABC affiliate, WRAL Raleigh, moved the show from its in-pattern time of 11:30 AM to later in the day (1:30, I think) shortly after the show debuted.

Ed McMahon also hosted a "Password" variation, "Snap Judgment," from 1967 to 1969. At first, players wrote down their clues; that apparently proved too cumbersome and by the end of 1968 they were playing straight "Password."
 
Speaking of Dick Clark: How did he get to own Bandstand and move it to LA? He didn't create the show. He wasn't the original host. He was a staff employee of WFIL AM, FM and TV and took over the show from another staff announcer, Bob Horn. WFIL was owned by Walter Annenberg, who also owned the Philadelphia Inquirer, Racing Form, Seventeen and TV Guide (among other properties). How did Bandstand get away from WFIL and its owner?
 
Fred Leonard asked: said:
How did Bandstand get away from WFIL and its owner?
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I think Dick Clark may have purchased the show from WFIL-6 Philadelphia by that time, or at the very least, purchased the rights to produce it from the station.

By 1964, Philadelphia's 1950's/early 1960's music scene was beginning to die out (the "Philly Soul" revolution that would revitalize the City Of Brotherly Love's music scene was still two or three years away), while Los Angeles, in addition to being the center of film and TV, also had a fast-growing music scene (and not just the "surf music" of the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, etc.). Put those together, plus the nicer weather (one of the most remembered "American Bandstand" episodes during it's Philly days opened with a camera aimed out of the studio door onto the WFIL parking lot, during a snowstorm, with Clark dressed like an Eskimo holding a microphone and about a dozen teenagers having a snowball fight in the parking lot), and it may have been a no-brainer for Dick Clark to move West.
 
In his memoir "Rock, Roll, and Remember," Clark included a picture of himself standing outside the Ch. 6 studio with who-knows-how-much snow on the ground, and snow covering the windshields of the cars behind him. The first telecast of his Saturday-night "Dick Clark Beechnut Show" on Feb. 15, 1958, also opened with Clark standing outside the Little Theater in New York with snow still coming down (as it had since Friday evening) and his opening words, "Man, welcome to Lower Slobovia!".
 
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