Retro: 50 Years Ago, Fall 1961, Monday-Friday Primetime

[bpatrick]

It's that time again; time for me to take you back to what
we were watching in the fall of '61. I'm splitting this into two,
with daytime and weekends on a separate thread. From Castleman
and Podrazik, "The TV Schedule Book"; times are Eastern, new shows
in CAPS.

MON ABC 7 PM Expedition
7:30 The Cheyenne Show (Cheyenne/Bronco)
8:30 The Rifleman (new night and time)
9 PM Surfside 6
10 PM BEN CASEY (along with "Dr. Kildare" on NBC, the
doctor-show craze is on)
11 PM News
11:10 (Local)

CBS 7 PM (Local--"Douglas Edwards With The News" airs in
some markets at 7:15)
7:30 To Tell The Truth
8 PM Pete And Gladys
8:30 WINDOW ON MAIN STREET (Robert Young's one failure--
here he's a small-town newspaper columnist writing about
the people he knows.)
9 PM Danny Thomas Show
9:30 Andy Griffith Show
10 PM Hennesey
10:30 I've Got A Secret (moves to Monday, where it will stay for
the rest of its original run, ending in 1967)
11 PM (Local)

NBC 7 PM (Local--"The Huntley-Brinkley Report" airs in some markets
at 7:15)
8 PM National Velvet
8:30 The Price Is Right (new night)
9 PM 87TH PRECINCT
10 PM Thriller (new night)
11 PM (Local)
11:15 Jack Paar Show (his last year in latenight; Johnny Carson will
take over a year hence)
1 AM (Local)

TUE ABC 7 PM (Local)
7:30 Bugs Bunny
8 PM Bachelor Father (its third and final network)
8:30 CALVIN AND THE COLONEL (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll
try the "Amos 'n' Andy" format in animated form--Calvin is a dumb
bear reminiscent of Andy; the Colonel is a sly fox reminiscent of the
Kingfish. Maybe the resemblance is too obvious--the show doesn't
make it and has never been rerun on U.S. television.)
9 PM THE NEW BREED (Quinn Martin's first show as an independent producer.)
10 PM ALCOA PREMIERE (Fred Astaire hosts this anthology series.)
10:30 Bell And Howell Close-Up
11 PM News
11:10 (Local)

CBS 7 PM (Local or Douglas Edwards at 7:15)
7:30 Marshal Dillon (the half-hour "Gunsmoke"s)
8 PM DICK VAN DYKE SHOW (won't catch on until it moves to Wednesday)
8:30 Dobie Gillis
9 PM Red Skelton Show (last season as a half-hour until 1970)
9:30 ICHABOD AND ME (sort of a cross between "The Andy Griffith Show" and
"Newhart"--Robert Sterling is a New York newspaperman who buys a paper
in a small New England town and moves himself, his young son, and housekeeper
(not his aunt; he is, however, a widower) there, finds a girlfriend, and is constantly
bothered by the man who sold him the paper, Ichabod Adams--sounds like a recipe
for success but it didn't make it; maybe it needed either a Barney Fife or a Larry,
Darryl and Darryl)
10 PM Garry Moore Show
11 PM (Local)

NBC 7 PM (Local or Huntley-Brinkley at 7:15)
7:30 Laramie
8:30 Alfred Hitchcock Presents
9 PM DICK POWELL SHOW
10 PM CAIN'S HUNDRED (Peter Mark Richman, later of "Longstreet," tracks down the
100 most wanted criminals)
11 PM (Local)
11:15 Jack Paar Show
1 AM (Local)

WED ABC 7 PM (Local)
7:30 STEVE ALLEN SHOW (Don Knotts is busy with "The Andy Griffith Show" and
Tom Poston with "To Tell The Truth," but the rest of the gang is there, along
with Tim Conway, Jim Nabors, and the Smothers Brothers, yet the show is
gone by January.)
8:30 TOP CAT (arguably the best of the Hanna-Barbera primetime animated shows)
9 PM Hawaiian Eye
10 PM Naked City
11 PM News
11:10 (Local)

CBS 7 PM (Local or Douglas Edwards at 7:15)
7:30 THE ALVIN SHOW
8 PM Father Knows Best (reruns)
8:30 Checkmate (new night)
9:30 MRS. G GOES TO COLLEGE (an unfair farewell for Gertrude Berg as
Sarah Green--who might as well be Molly Goldberg--who decides in
late middle age to get a college education)
10 PM U.S. Steel Hour/Armstrong Circle Theater
11 PM (Local)

NBC 7 PM (Local or Huntley-Brinkley at 7:15)
7:30 Wagon Train (will move to ABC the following year)
8:30 JOEY BISHOP SHOW (his sitcom--the first season he's a press agent
and Marlo Thomas plays his sister; afterwards he's a talk-show host,
something he'll do in real life from 1967 to 1969)
9 PM Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall
10 PM BOB NEWHART SHOW (like Dick Van Dyke fifteen years later, Newhart
hosts a variety show that wins an Emmy and is canceled after one season)
10:30 DAVID BRINKLEY'S JOURNAL
11 PM (Local)
11:15 Jack Paar Show
1 AM (Local)

THU ABC 7 PM (Local)
7:30 Ozzie And Harriet (new night)
8 PM Donna Reed Show
8:30 Real McCoys (moves to CBS the following year)
9 PM My Three Sons
9:30 MARGIE (not "My Little Margie" but a sitcom about a teenage girl
in the 1920s)
10 PM The Untouchables
11 PM News
11:10 (Local)

CBS 7 PM (Local or Douglas Edwards at 7:15)
7:30 FRONTIER CIRCUS (Chill Wills and John Derek travel the Old West
with a circus and encounter the usual Western plots.)
8:30 THE NEW BOB CUMMINGS SHOW (here he's a globetrotting adventurer--
Cummings gets to put his real-life passion for aviation to use)
9 PM THE INVESTIGATORS (the ironies are unreal--James Franciscus as an
insurance investigator--this one able to see--in the same timeslot where
he will appear as blind insurance investigator Mike Longstreet on ABC in
ten years)
10 PM CBS Reports
11 PM (Local)

NBC 7 PM (Local or Huntley-Brinkley at 7:15)
7:30 The Outlaws
8:30 DR. KILDARE (Richard Chamberlain, future king of the miniseries--interesting
that he and James Franciscus go head-to-head for a half-hour: not only
could they pass for brothers, Franciscus' next series, "Mr. Novak," is produced
by "Kildare"'s producer, Norman Felton)
9:30 HAZEL (Shirley Booth as everybody's favorite maid)
10 PM Sing Along With Mitch
11 PM (Local)
11:15 Jack Paar Show
1 AM (Local)

FRI ABC 7 PM (Local)
7:30 STRAIGHTAWAY (Brian Kelly of "Flipper" fame as a race driver)
8 PM THE HATHAWAYS (How did this miss TV Guide's list of the 50 worst shows ever?
Peggy Cass, Jack Weston, and their "children"--the Marquis Chimps)
8:30 The Flintstones
9 PM 77 Sunset Strip
10 PM TARGET: THE CORRUPTORS
11 PM News
11:10 (Local)

CBS 7 PM (Local or Douglas Edwards at 7:15)
7:30 Rawhide
8:30 Route 66
9:30 FATHER OF THE BRIDE (an attempt to make a series out of the classic 1950
Elizabeth Taylor movie--star Myrna Fahey is a dead ringer for Taylor but it's
not enough to bring the show back for a second year)
10 PM Twilight Zone
10:30 Eyewitness
11 PM (Local)

NBC 7 PM (Local or Huntley-Brinkley at 7:15)
7:30 INTERNATIONAL SHOWTIME (Don Ameche travels Europe, presenting circuses--
a concept that will be revived in 1972 as the syndicated "Circus!" with Bert Parks.)
8:30 Robert Taylor's Detectives (new network and now an hour)
9:30 Bell Telephone Hour/Dinah Shore Show
10:30 FRANK McGEE'S HERE AND NOW
11 PM (Local)
11:15 Jack Paar Show
1 AM (Local)

 

[gregg75]

I think CBS is doing the best with their schedule and shows. Interesting that ABC has
really come on par with NBC & CBS at this time................too bad that is not gonna
last.......as about 1967 ABC is really in the gutter.

Anybody know where ABC went wrong? They sure flipped the coin between 1961 & 1967.

 

[cd637299]

I never could understand why "Calvin & the Colonel" was pulled from syndication. I get the Amos & Andy connection, but C&theC was hardly "pushing the envelope". I own some episodes on video.

I heard it was a hit in Australia well through the 1970s; I wonder if it is still being run on some classic-TV cable network there.

Hard to know if all 26 episodes are out there for possible DVD consumption---not that anyone even knows what it *is* anymore!

cd

 

[Tim L]

There's an Internet TV system-TVU Networks, that has many channels..Several feature "Public Domain" material..I've seen Calvin And The Colonel on some of these channels..The same few episodes That are in cheapie DVD sets..I didnt think the show was bad at all, if you forget about the A&A connection..Even with that I thought the show was pretty funny..

 

[bpatrick]

I think CBS is doing the best with their schedule and shows. Interesting that ABC has
really come on par with NBC & CBS at this time................too bad that is not gonna
last.......as about 1967 ABC is really in the gutter.

Anybody know where ABC went wrong? They sure flipped the coin between 1961 & 1967.

This was Ollie Treyz's last year as president of ABC; "Ben Casey" would be his last new hit.
The Westerns and detective shows were already sliding in the ratings; "Maverick," "Lawman,"
"Bronco," "Adventures In Paradise," "The Roaring Twenties," and "Surfside 6" would not be back
for the 1962-63 season. Treyz's end came, however, with a notorious (for its violence) episode
of "Bus Stop" with rocker Fabian as a psychopath; it merited a slap on the wrist from Sen. John
Pastore ("I saw it and I haven't felt clean since," he said. "I still have the stench in my nose.")

ABC did have a good 1964-65 season, with six new shows sticking: "Bewitched," "Peyton Place,"
"The Addams Family," "Shindig," "12 O'Clock High," and "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea."
However, the network did not move fast enough on color; in the fall of 1965 only about 40% of
its primetime schedule was in color, as opposed to 50% for CBS and 98% for NBC. That in itself
wiped out the gains the network had made the previous year (and 1963-64 as well, with "The
Fugitive," "The Patty Duke Show," "Burke's Law," "The Farmer's Daughter," "The Outer Limits,"
"The Jimmy Dean Show," and--in January 1964--"The Hollywood Palace"); by 1967 only three
shows--"Bewitched," "The FBI," and "The Lawrence Welk Show"--were consistently in the top 30.
By that time ABC had become known as the network of fads; "Shindig" was long gone and "Batman"
was on the bubble.

 

[bpatrick]

I might add that "Bewitched" was ABC's highest-rated show
up to that time, finishing its first season (1964-65) outrating
everything except "Bonanza." ABC wouldn't get its first number-one
show until 1970: "Marcus Welby, M.D."--in part because it was on
against public-affairs programming (including the then-bottom-rated
"60 Minutes") every week on CBS and once a month ("First Tuesday")
on NBC.

ABC did, in fact, have a pretty good bumper crop of new shows in
1969-70; besides "Welby" there was "Movie Of The Week," "The Brady
Bunch," "Room 222," "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father," and "Love,
American Style." 1970-71 wasn't too bad, either: "Monday Night Football,"
"The Partridge Family," and "The Odd Couple," before another slump which
lasted until 1976 and yielded only a few shows that lasted more than a
season, namely "Owen Marshall, Counselor At Law," "The Rookies," "The
Streets Of San Francisco," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Harry O," "That's
My Mama," "S.W.A.T.," "Baretta," "Barney Miller," and a little thing called "Happy Days."
By the fall of '75, though, ABC was starting to cook, with "Happy Days," "The Six Million Dollar
Man," "S.W.A.T.," "Baretta, "Barney Miller," "The Streets Of San Francisco," and two
new shows--"Welcome Back, Kotter" and "Starsky & Hutch." Then things
really began to take off in the winter of 1976, with the addition of "Laverne
& Shirley," "The Bionic Woman," and "Donny & Marie." And ABC wouldn't look back until
"60 Minutes," "Dallas," and "The Dukes Of Hazzard"--all on CBS--were the catalysts for
putting the Eye Network back on top in 1979-80.

BTW, at one of ABC's low points (1973-74) CBS had nine of the top ten shows, led
by top-rated "All In The Family"; only NBC's "Sanford And Son" represented either of the
other networks in the top ten.

 

[FreddyE1977]

8:30 CALVIN AND THE COLONEL (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll
try the "Amos 'n' Andy" format in animated form--Calvin is a dumb
bear reminiscent of Andy; the Colonel is a sly fox reminiscent of the
Kingfish. Maybe the resemblance is too obvious--the show doesn't
make it and has never been rerun on U.S. television.)

Are you sure about that? I seem to recall this running a couple of times on a local channel when
I was a kid around 1970. Very cheaply made as I recall.

 

[cd637299]

8:30 CALVIN AND THE COLONEL (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll
try the "Amos 'n' Andy" format in animated form--Calvin is a dumb
bear reminiscent of Andy; the Colonel is a sly fox reminiscent of the
Kingfish. Maybe the resemblance is too obvious--the show doesn't
make it and has never been rerun on U.S. television.)

Are you sure about that? I seem to recall this running a couple of times on a local channel when
I was a kid around 1970. Very cheaply made as I recall.

I used to be on a classic cartoon forum and asked about when C&C was pulled....I first thought it was removed at the same time as A&A, due to the men involved. Someone did say that they saw it in the 1970s I think. As I said earlier, it was a hit in Australia for many years. Exactly the year of removal, I am not sure.

cd

 

[bpatrick]

There are a few things you guys are saying that I don't recall
at all. First, there are a couple of websites that say it ran on
Saturday mornings (actually, the show was dropped from its
Tuesday-night slot in November 1961, then brought back in
January 1962 on Saturdays at 7:30 PM) and that it was rerun
in the 1962-63 season. Here are the networks' fall 1962 Saturday-
morning schedules:

ABC 11 AM Make A Face
11:30 Top Cat
12 N Bugs Bunny Show
12:30 Magic Land Of Allakazam
1 PM My Friend Flicka

CBS 9 AM Captain Kangaroo
10 AM The Alvin Show
10:30 Mighty Mouse Playhouse
11 AM Rin Tin Tin
11:30 Roy Rogers Show
12 N Sky King
12:30 Reading Room
1 PM CBS Saturday News

NBC 9:30 Ruff And Reddy Show
10 AM Shari Lewis Show
10:30 King Leonardo
11 AM Fury
11:30 Magic Midway
12 N Make Room For Daddy
12:30 Exploring
1:30 Watch Mr. Wizard

And I don't see it anywhere on the networks' schedules from the
fall of 1962 through the summer of 1963.

And if it ever was syndicated, it must have been on a bunch of
stations I couldn't find because I never recall seeing the show
after September 1962.

 

[cd637299]

Yah....I think Wiki said that about C&C. One fo my first TV recollections was the Make a Face/Top Cat 1-2 punch on Sat mornings.

C&C's plot lines were kinda adult in nature (but then again, same with T.C. ---maybe just selected episodes were singled out) for Saturday mornings.

I wonder if C&C was on Saturday mornings for ABC O&O's only. I certainly don't recall them on Saturday mornings.

When I get home, I will look again at the Wesley Hyatt book. I'ts a good reference.

cd

 

[cd637299]

Yah....I think Wiki said that about C&C. One fo my first TV recollections was the Make a Face/Top Cat 1-2 punch on Sat mornings.

C&C's plot lines were kinda adult in nature (but then again, same with T.C. ---maybe just selected episodes were singled out) for Saturday mornings.

I wonder if C&C was on Saturday mornings for ABC O&O's only. I certainly don't recall them on Saturday mornings.

When I get home, I will look again at the Wesley Hyatt book. I'ts a good reference.

cd

Replying to my own post, Wesley Hyatt's "The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television" does NOT list Calvin & the Colonel anywhere in it. He included pre-6pm programs for all networks, all days of the week, including DuMont, Fox and I think UPN & WB (published 1996). He did not list prime time shows that reran in daytime in the A-Z section, but he does have a list in an appendix of all these shows. No C&C.

cd

 

[bpatrick]

By April 1962 at the latest, ABC had five feeds of Ron Cochran's
newscast: 6, 6:15, 6:30, 6:45, 7, and 7:15 (ET); "Expedition" was
canceled after the April 23 broadcast, although host Col. John D.
Craig went on to do the syndicated "Of Lands And Seas," which I
remember being a staple on WFTV Orlando in the late '60s and early
'70s.

In the Georgia (Atlanta) edition of TV Guide, Cochran aired at opposite
ends of the feed pattern; Ch. 9 in Chattanooga aired him at 6, while
Ch. 11 in Atlanta had him at 7:15. In Raleigh, after WRAL switched from
NBC to ABC, he aired at 6:45, where Huntley-Brinkley had been.

Cochran was anchoring ABC's 11 PM newscast in the fall of 1961; when he
got the early-evening slot, Murphy Martin came from WFAA to replace him at 11.
(I still remember the creditable job Martin did helping on ABC's coverage of JFK's
assassination, and Cochran was no slouch either, given ABC's limited resources
in 1963.)

I also recall some resistance to ABC's 11 PM newscast; what is now WLS aired it
at 10 PM (CT), which meant that their local news didn't get on until 10:10, when
WBBM and WMAQ's newscasts were already in progress. And if you'll look at my
Georgia retro for July 20, 1962, you'll note that it's the only ABC program not carried
on Ch. 11 that day (nor would it ever air on WGHP High Point, NC, which was run by
a bunch of transplanted Atlantans for years in the '60s and '70s).

 

[oldiesfan6479]

By April 1962 at the latest, ABC had five feeds of Ron Cochran's newscast: 6, 6:15, 6:30, 6:45, 7, and 7:15 (ET)...

How about CBS and NBC in their 15 minute 'cast days? While network listings often
noted NBC at 6:45 PM ET and CBS at 7:15 PM ET, were there multiple feed times
and when?

And when ABC finally went to a half-hour (1967?), wasn't their first feed at 5:30 PM
ET for a while? I know later on they did 6, 6:30 and 7 ET.

 

[bpatrick]

CBS and NBC each had two feeds (6:45 and 7:15 in the
15-minute days; 6:30 and 7 after the expansion to 30
minutes); ABC had six feeds of Cochran and, IIRC, eight
for Peter Jennings starting at 5:30 from 1965-67 (I remember
Jennings, still at 15 minutes, airing in Richmond at 5:45 in the
fall of 1966) just to get the affiliates to clear the broadcast.

And for the same reason, ABC did offer four feeds of its newscast
after it went to 30 minutes and did so until the fall of 1968, when the
5:30 one was discontinued. The 6 PM feed continued until 1982, by
which time it was carried mainly in the Central time zone at 5 PM. Also,
ABC had reached parity in the ratings by then, so the network felt it
could compete with CBS and NBC on equal terms, with the first feed at
6:30, as it remains today.

Since the advent of "Wheel Of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" in the 7-8 slot,
the 7 PM network feed has become almost a thing of the past; I know of
six stations in the Eastern time zone (ABC in Atlanta; CBS in Baltimore,
Pittsburgh, Albany (NY), Burlington (VT), and Charlottesville (VA); NBC in
Washington) and one in the Central (ABC in Montgomery, AL) that have
continued the practice and even some of these may have changed (WKMG
Orlando tried running CBS News at 7 for awhile and gave up, returning it to
6:30 and putting a local newscast at 7).

The West Coast is the most likely place to see multiple feeds of the network news;
for example, KGO runs ABC News at 5:30, while KABC carries it at 6:30.

ABC does feed at 6 and 6:30 on weekends, as does CBS on Sunday; NBC has one
feed (6:30) on Saturday and Sunday.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Thanks b, great writeup above. So I decided to check various left coast markets
(Tue Jul 26 on zap2it.com) for their current weekday network 'cast times...

LAX all three at 6:30
SFO all three at 5:30
SMF all three at 5:30
SAN ABC/CBS 6:00, NBC 5:30
FAT ABC/NBC 5:30, CBS 6:30
LAS all three at 5:30
RNO ABC/CBS 6:00, NBC 5:30
SEA ABC 5:30, CBS 6:30, NBC 6:00
PDX ABC/NBC 5:30, CBS 6:30