Retro: Atlanta Friday, January 26, 1968

[bpatrick]

From the Atlanta Constitution. Schedules from
7 AM. I don't have Channel 8 (noncommercial).

WSB Ch. 2 (NBC)

7 AM Today
9 AM Today In Georgia
10 AM Snap Judgment
10:25 NBC News
10:30 Concentration
11 AM Personality
11:30 Hollywood Squares
12 N News
12:30 Movie: "Chartreuse Caboose"
2 PM Days Of Our Lives
2:30 The Doctors
3 PM Another World
3:30 You Don't Say!
4 PM Match Game (the original)
4:25 NBC News
4:30 Popeye Club
5:30 Mr. Ed
6 PM News
7 PM Huntley-Brinkley Report
7:30 Tarzan
8:30 Flesh And Blood (play about a
contemporary New York family
that was roundly assaulted by
critics--that same week, Lee
Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy's sister,
starred in a remake of "Laura" on
ABC and was likewise panned)
10:30 The Loyal Opposition
11 PM News
11:30 Tonight Show

WAGA Ch. 5 (CBS)

7 AM Local News
7:05 CBS Morning News
7:30 Mr. Pix (kids' show with future WXIA
and CNN anchor Dave Michaels)
8 AM Captain Kangaroo
9 AM Don Barber Show (local talk show--
Barber did Dialing For Dollars on Channel
11's 3:30 Prize Movie from 1972-75)
9:30 Dick Van Dyke
10 AM Candid Camera
10:30 Beverly Hillbillies
11 AM Andy Griffith
11:30 Secret Storm
12 N Love Of Life
12:25 CBS Midday News
12:30 Search For Tomorrow
12:45 Guiding Light
1 PM Divorce Court
1:30 As The World Turns
2 PM Love Is A Many Splendored
Thing
2:30 Art Linkletter's House Party
3 PM To Tell The Truth
3:25 CBS Afternoon News
3:30 Edge Of Night
4 PM Gilligan's Island
4:30 Mike Douglas (co-host Ann Miller)
6 PM Truth Or Consequences
6:30 CBS News
7 PM News
7:30 The Defenders
8:30 Gomer Pyle, USMC
9 PM CBS Movie: "Island Of Love"
11 PM News
11:30 Movie: "The Sun Also Rises"

WAII (WXIA) Ch. 11 (ABC)

8 AM Cartoon Carnival
9 AM Ed Allen Exercises
9:30 Dateline: Atlanta
10 AM Dating Game
10:30 Donna Reed
11 AM Temptation
11:25 ABC News--Marlene Sanders
11:30 How's Your Mother-In-Law?
12 N Bewitched
12:30 Treasure Isle
1 PM The Fugitive
2 PM Newlywed Game
2:30 Baby Game
2:55 Children's Doctor (Dr. Lendon Smith)
3 PM General Hospital
3:30 Dark Shadows
4 PM Marshal Dillon
4:30 Wanted: Dead Or Alive
5 PM News
5:30 ABC News--Bob Young
6 PM Merv Griffin
7:30 Off To See The Wizard (tonight, William
Shatner as "Alexander The Great," voted
one of the 50 worst shows by TV Guide)
8:30 Operation: Entertainment
9:30 Guns Of Will Sonnett
10 PM Judd For The Defense
11 PM News
11:30 Joey Bishop

WJRJ (pre-Turner) Ch. 17 (Ind.)

4 PM Movie: "At Gunpoint"
5:40 News
6 PM Adventure Theatre
6:30 Flintstones
7 PM Village Square
7:30 Wild Wild West (pre-empted on Ch. 5)
8:30 Movie: "Sherlock Holmes And The
Woman In Green"
10 PM The Rogues
11 PM Alfred Hitchcock
11:30 News
11:45 Dr. Pierce Harris (I know nothing about
this one)

WETV (WPBA) Ch. 30 (NET)

5 PM Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (I wonder
if this is a typo and it aired at 6,
see the next entry)
6:30 What's New
7 PM Big Picture
7:30 Bozo's Adventure (and no cracks about
Bozo the Clown)
8 PM The Independent Mr. Jefferson
8:30 Islands Of Pleasure
9 PM NET Playhouse: "A Choice Of Kings"

 

[classictvfan]

NBC
8:30 Flesh And Blood (play about a
contemporary New York family
that was roundly assaulted by
critics--that same week, Lee
Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy's sister,
starred in a remake of "Laura" on
ABC and was likewise panned)

What shows did this preempt?

ABC
7:30 Off To See The Wizard (tonight, William
Shatner as "Alexander The Great," voted
one of the 50 worst shows by TV Guide)

What shows did this preempt?

 

[Braves2005]

Off To See The Wizard was a regular show on ABC during the 1967-1968 season featuring children's films hosted by characters from The Wizard Of Oz.

As for what shows were preempted by the showing of Flesh And Blood on NBC, High Chaparral and Star Trek were the shows that were preempted that Friday night.

 

[trusty]

WJRJ (pre-Turner) Ch. 17 (Ind.)
11:45 Dr. Pierce Harris (I know nothing aboutthis one)

Probably an inspirational program. The people who started ch. 17 were members of First Methodist Church. Dr. Harris was their pastor.

 

[bpatrick]

Off To See The Wizard was a regular show on ABC during the 1967-1968 season featuring children's films hosted by characters from The Wizard Of Oz.

As for what shows were preempted by the showing of Flesh And Blood on NBC, High Chaparral and Star Trek were the shows that were preempted that Friday night.

Actually, High Chaparral was airing Sundays at 10 at the time; it moved to
Friday at 7:30 in the fall of 1968. The shows that were pre-empted were
Star Trek (8:30) and Hollywood Squares (9:30). At 10, NBC alternated the
Bell Telephone Hour and news specials, and I would think that "The Loyal
Opposition," although only 30 minutes, qualifies as a news special.

Off To See The Wizard was ABC's answer to Disney's NBC show. Chuck
Jones was hired to oversee the program, which consisted of films mainly
from MGM. By the summer of 1968, by which time Channel 11 had new
owners (Pacific & Southern Broadcasting) and new call letters (WQXI), the
station would be airing movies on Fridays at 7:30 and Off To See The Wizard
on Sunday afternoons.

 

[bpatrick]

I should mention who was anchoring the networks'
daytime newscasts, since I ordinarily do. I had to
check a 1968 issue of TV Guide for this.

On CBS, Joseph Benti, who was anchoring the CBS
Morning News, did the 12:25 newscast; Douglas
Edwards anchored the 3:25.

On NBC, Nancy Dickerson was on at 10:25 (a great
friend of LBJ, she pretty much disappeared after he
was out of office); Floyd Kalber had the 4:25. Also,
Edwin Newman anchored at 12:55; this was pre-empted
on Channel 2.

I did mention that Marlene Sanders anchored ABC's
11:25 AM newscast. It would be the first of the five-
minute newscasts to fall, in March when Dick Cavett
took over the 10:30 AM-12 Noon slot. Bob Young
(5:30 PM) seems to have been an interim anchor in
retrospect, but I'm not sure. I know he replaced Peter
Jennings (the first time) in January, and gave way to
Frank Reynolds by the summer (ironically, a decade hence,
Jennings and Reynolds would be back anchoring World News
Tonight). I also don't remember if he stayed with ABC or
went back to Cincinnati.

 

[bpatrick]

A liitle addendum about "Alexander the Great," according
to TV Guide. What aired on ABC that night in 1968 was
a pilot filmed in 1964, with Shatner in the title role and
Adam West as his sidekick Cleander. Joseph Cotten and
John Cassavetes were the guest stars (special guest
villains?).

In the four intervening years, Shatner had gotten famous
for "Star Trek" and West for "Batman," so ABC figured it
might be a good idea to dust off the old pilot and take
advantage of the popularity of the stars. TV Guide described
the exteriors as obviously located in Utah, and the costumes
as "the miniest skirts this side of 'Laugh-In.'" Also, Shatner
was burdened with lines like, "If they've killed Cleander, I'll
teach them!"

Also, a note about "Flesh And Blood." After CBS's triumph
with "Death Of A Salesman" in 1966, all three networks went
drama-crazy, peaking with "ABC Stage '67" in the 1966-67 season
(and that show was as much variety as drama). "Flesh And Blood"
was the end of the craze; NBC paid playwright William Hanley $125,000
for a play most critics said would have closed on Broadway in one night.
By 1969 all that was left was the occasional "CBS Playhouse" (a revival
of sorts of "Playhouse 90"), which never produced more than three plays
a year. But there's something else to all this: the networks had discovered
that, in the late '60s/early '70s, the made-for-TV movie worked better
than the '50s-style stage productions which were, to be honest,
quite static on the small screen. And with the success of ABC's "Movie
Of The Week" and NBC's "World Premiere Movies," the attempt to bring
back the '50s drama shows ended.