Classic TV

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Yeah, I have fallen into the habit of watching Adam-12 instead of early news. 

The less news the better nowadays, it's so repetitive!

I wondered who was the voice of the dispatcher. I learned that her name was Shaaron Claridge, and she was a real LAPD dispatcher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam-12

She's actually IN one of the Adam-12 episodes and when I saw her she was NOTHING like I was imagining she was! She also guested in the same capacity on a few other episodes of similar kinds of series.

[Jeff Wrangler]

She's actually IN one of the Adam-12 episodes and when I saw her she was NOTHING like I was imagining she was! She also guested in the same capacity on a few other episodes of similar kinds of series.

I have to admit that lately I've been thinking that Kent McCord was kind of, I don't know, maybe wooden is the word? But maybe it was the writing, not him? It's been a long, long time now, but my memory is that just about everybody in those old Jack Webb series was kind of wooden.

McCord is still easy on the eyes, though, in an old-fashioned "matinee idol" sort of way.

Of course anybody who wants to see Jack Webb really different from Sgt. Joe Friday has only to watch Sunset Boulevard.

Incidentally, Ed Asner was in the episode of Wild. Wild West broadcast on Me-TV this morning. Robert Conrad was handsome back in the day, but I never cared for Wild, Wild West. I still just keep the TV on between the Bugs Bunny cartoons and Wagon Train. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

I suppose this isn't exactly Classic TV, but maybe it's at least related.

I learned this weekend that we now have a new Miss America. She's Active Duty in the Air Force and graduate student; how do you do both of those and then add Miss America in addition, too?

Anyway, my point really is that I remember when I was a kid, watching the Miss America Pageant on TV was a Big Deal at our house, and now I don't know if the pageant is even televised.

[killersmom]

I suppose this isn't exactly Classic TV, but maybe it's at least related.

I learned this weekend that we now have a new Miss America. She's Active Duty in the Air Force and graduate student; how do you do both of those and then add Miss America in addition, too?

Anyway, my point really is that I remember when I was a kid, watching the Miss America Pageant on TV was a Big Deal at our house, and now I don't know if the pageant is even televised.

Jeff, the Miss America pageant is on streaming channels now. 2023 was on Peacock. The Miss Universe pageant was shown on Roku TV. The change is due to falling ratings and controversy over its role in the modern world. 2023 was the 100th anniversary of the pageant.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Jeff, the Miss America pageant is on streaming channels now. 2023 was on Peacock. The Miss Universe pageant was shown on Roku TV. The change is due to falling ratings and controversy over its role in the modern world. 2023 was the 100th anniversary of the pageant.

Thanks. I'll bet nobody objected to it being on Peacock--unlike the objections raised over football games on Peacock.

[killersmom]

Thanks. I'll bet nobody objected to it being on Peacock--unlike the objections raised over football games on Peacock.

Exactly!!!

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Yes, growing up I remember the Miss America Pageant was one of the first specials of the fall and very highly rated. Always was on a Saturday, I believe. I used to watch it, I thought of it more as a variety show! Heh! It was a tradition. What was/is your opinion of it Linda?

[Jeff Wrangler]

Sort of a jackpot of actors in supporting roles in the episode of Perry Mason shown on Me-TV this morning: Hugh Marlowe (Celeste Holms' playwright husband in All About Eve), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. John McIntire--they often worked together), Carol Hines (Wilbur's wife in Mister Ed), and ... Burt Reynolds (who needs no identifying).

[Jeff Wrangler]

Here's something that suggests to me how much times have changed. The episode of Wagon Train shown on Me-TV this morning was called "The Prairie Story" (originally broadcast Feb. 1, 1961) and dealt with how difficult the wagon train journey could be on women.

One of the women had insisted on bringing a piano with her, and at one point in the story she played the piano while the other travelers sang "Rock of Ages."

The real kicker for me was at the very end, where a woman (the piano player) who had wanted to turn back agreed to go on. This was played over an off-screen chorus singing the doxology "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."

I can't imagine these things occurring now in what I might call a "mainstream" TV show. (Maybe if the characters were involved in religion--clergy or whatever, or if it were done for comic effect, or something, but these were done in dead seriousness.)

Incidentally one of the two main supporting characters was played by Beulah Bondi (Jimmy Stewart's mother in It's a Wonderful Life). She was listed as a guest star.

[Jeff Wrangler]

This afternoon I saw that precocious child actor Jodie Foster in an episode of Adam-12. The episode was from 1970, the same year she appeared in an episode of Daniel Boone.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I recall that episode, Jeff, for a very specific reason. The last segment of the episode with the hispanic man and the car robbery takes place right on the sidewalk, the parking area underneath the apartments, that I frequently walk by to where a friend of mine's place is. He lives up that side street where a police car drives down and I chuckled to myself because it's not a through street, so they wouldn't be doing that, heh! The apartment building on that opposite corner is also a different color now. Not that any of this is interesting to you, but it is to me, of course!

Take a look: (that's you and me on the left, heh!)
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0871923?entry=ttu

I was hoping that episode would have a reverse angle shot toward San Vicente Blvd. because there used to be a church on that corner that was replaced with a brand new and larger West Hollywood Fire Department, which USED to be located halfway up MY street! Someone had told me that, but I do not recall that church and wanted to see it.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

The episode was from 1970, the same year she appeared in an episode of Daniel Boone.

I recently saw a couple first season episodes of Daniel Boone that had Kurt Russell in them. His IMDB page says he appeared in 5 episodes, 4 different seasons. His first credit listed is as an unbilled character in an episode of Dennis the Menace! Amazing.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I recall that episode, Jeff, for a very specific reason. The last segment of the episode with the hispanic man and the car robbery takes place right on the sidewalk, the parking area underneath the apartments, that I frequently walk by to where a friend of mine's place is. He lives up that side street where a police car drives down and I chuckled to myself because it's not a through street, so they wouldn't be doing that, heh! The apartment building on that opposite corner is also a different color now. Not that any of this is interesting to you, but it is to me, of course!

Take a look: (that's you and me on the left, heh!)
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0871923?entry=ttu

I was hoping that episode would have a reverse angle shot toward San Vicente Blvd. because there used to be a church on that corner that was replaced with a brand new and larger West Hollywood Fire Department, which USED to be located halfway up MY street! Someone had told me that, but I do not recall that church and wanted to see it.

Sure these things are interesting! No, I've never been there (never been to L.A. for that matter), but it's always interesting to hear about places that people actually have been that show up in movies or TV shows. While it's not in a TV show or movie, I'm sure I've written somewhere that I was astonished to read a chapter in Craig Johnson's "Longmire" novel Hell is Empty that takes place in a location in Wyoming where I've actually been.

Adam-12 really is a time capsule of circa 1970: the cars, the fashions, the language/vocabulary (reference to police officers as "pigs")--and especially the women's hairstyles!

Assuming the policing we see in the show is accurate for the time, it was really--I don't know the word for it: In one episode I saw last week, they had to call in "the bomb squad." "The bomb squad" was two guys in suits with no protective gear of any kind.

[fritzkep]

I remember in the initial episode of NCIS New Orleans they showed people walking through a cemetery with the Mississippi River bridge in the near distance. That's St Bartholomew's Cemetery, where my maternal grandparents are buried, though of course they didn't happen to walk past their vault.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I recently saw a couple first season episodes of Daniel Boone that had Kurt Russell in them. His IMDB page says he appeared in 5 episodes, 4 different seasons. His first credit listed is as an unbilled character in an episode of Dennis the Menace! Amazing.

Off the top of my head I think I know two of the episodes.

Daniel Boone is another show where I think the first season was the best.