12/9/1972: Remember Saturday mornings?

December 9, 1972  (Saturday)

As a child, there was always something special about Saturday mornings.

These days -- thanks to the proliferation of specialty channels like The Cartoon Network, Teletoon, Teletoon Retro, NickToon, and many others, as well as the the Internet -- cartoons are easily accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  And while there's something to be said about the convenience of being able to watch cartoons any time of the day, any day of the week, this same convenience contributed to the demise of a tradition that dated back to the mid-1960s:  the Saturday Morning Cartoons.

There were many contributing factors to the eventual decline of the timeslot, and I'll write about them in a later blog.  But during the 1970s and '80s, Saturday Morning Cartoons were at their peak.

Back then, Saturdays were a special time.  Part of the reason, of course, was because it was the weekend, a brief respite from the drudgery of school.  But what made Saturday so special was that it always offered four splendid hours of animated bliss.  Sure, we had our weekday and lunchtime cartoons -- mostly re-runs of Spider-Man, The Flintstones, and classic Warner Bros. cartoons -- but what made Saturday Morning Cartoons so special was that they only came once a week.  Therefore, they were a real treat -- something to look forward to all week long.  I enjoyed them all, the good and the bad (and let's face it: there were some really bad ones).  To this day, I look back fondly on those mornings, when I would wake up before my parents, sit on the floor in front of the television with my bowl of Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs and my big, yellow plastic cup of chocolate milk, and let myself get swept away. From childhood to mid-adolescence, before sleeping in late began to take priority, my Saturday mornings were always spent in front of the TV, engrossed and entertained by the latest animated antics and adventures of my favorite cartoon characters.

On December 9, 1972, I was only a day old, and those mornings were still a few years away. However, if I had been old enough to watch cartoons, this is the Saturday morning lineup I would have had to choose from:

CBS

8:00:  Bugs Bunny

8:30:  Sabrina the Teenage Witch  (3rd season)

9:00:  The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan  (NEW)

9:30:  The New Scooby-Doo Movies  (NEW)

10:30:  Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space  (NEW)

11:00:  The Flintstones Comedy Hour  (2nd season)

12:00:  Archie's TV Funnies  (2nd season)

12:30:  Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids  (NEW)

ABC

8:00:  H.R. Pufnstuf  (re-runs)

8:30:  The Jackson 5ive  (re-runs)

9:00:  The Osmonds  (NEW)

9:30:  The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie  (NEW)

10:30:  The Brady Kids  (NEW)

11:00:  Bewitched  (re-runs)

11:30:  Kid Power  (NEW)

12:00:  The Funky Phantom  (2nd season)

12:30:  Lidsville  (2nd season)

NBC

8:00:  Underdog  (re-runs)

8:30:  The Jetsons  (re-runs)

9:00:  The Pink Panther

9:30:  Houndcats  (NEW)

10:00:  Roman Holidays  (NEW)

10:30:  The Barkleys  (NEW)

11:00:  Sealab 2020  (NEW)

11:30:  Roundabout  (NEW)

12:00:  Around the World in 80 Days  (NEW)

12:30:  Talking with a Giant  (NEW)

As you can see, the 1972-73 season brought a slew of new shows, as well as new formats for returning series.  Michael Eisner (later the head of Disney) was in charge of Saturday morning programming for ABC in 1972, and he basically brought a prime-time feel to Saturday mornings with cartoon versions of popular recording artists and nighttime shows.  Over at NBC, The Pink Panther was the only thing keeping the network afloat on Saturday mornings.

At CBS, that network's two biggest new shows were The New Scooby-Doo Movies and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

The New Scooby-Doo Movies was the second series (following Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, 1969-1970) to star Scooby-Doo and the Mystery, Inc. gang.  Produced by Hanna-Barbera, the show ran for two seasons (24 episodes) and was the only hour-long Scooby-Doo series to date.  What also made this series different from its predecessor was the addition of a rotating special guest star; each episode featured real-life celebrities or well-known fictional characters joining the gang in solving that week's mystery.  As with the previous series, the voice of Shaggy was provided by radio personality and American Bandstand host Casey Kasem (one of the many animated roles for which he provided voice work during the '70s).

This week's episode (#14), entitled "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall," guest-starred country music singer/actor Jerry Reed.  

The story involved Reed being kidnapped as an attempt to prevent him from staging an important concert and the Mystery, Inc. gang's attempts to rescue him and discern the identity of the mysterious "Phantom."

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids was created, produced, and hosted (in live-action segments) by Bill Cosby, and was based on Cosby's remembrances of his childhood gang.  Beginning a run that would last an amazing 12 years (the longest run in the history of Saturday morning cartoons), the show centered on the title character and his friends who often hung out in a North Philadelphia junkyard.  

Each episode, "The Junkyard Gang" dealt with an issue or problem commonly faced by young urban children.  Every episode would also feature an educational lesson, for which the show was honored and for which Cosby earned a Doctorate in Education.  Cosby himself provided the voices of Fat Albert, Mushmouth, and Bill (the latter character being based on Cosby himself).

This week's episode (#14) was the first season finale and was entitled "Stagefright."  The story dealt with the gang taking an interest in a local drama club and attempting to stage a production of Moby Dick in the hopes of winning a cash prize.   The lesson offered that week was on the importance of self-esteem.

*     *     *

Meanwhile, in the real world, pilot Martin Hartwell was rescued in the Canadian Arctic more than a month after he and three other people had crashed near Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories.  The plane's disappearance had led to the largest aviation search in Canadian history.

Green Day drummer Tré Cool was born in Frankfurt, West Germany, and American gossip columnist Louella Parsons died at the age of 91.

*     *     *

Another staple of Saturdays, one that is still ongoing to this day, is the Billboard Hot 100.

Running in its current incarnation since August 1958, the Hot 100 is the music industry standard singles popularity chart, issued weekly by Billboard magazine.  The statistics of the chart are compiled according to national retail sales and and radio airplay.  (In recent years, the chart has acknowledged factors such as digital downloads and online streaming.)

The week of Dec. 9 saw 11 new songs debuting on the chart, the highest ranking being Elton John's "Crocodile Rock," debuting at #73.  The biggest jump was Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," which debuted at #99 the previous week before leaping up to #60 this week.

The Top 10 singles were as follows (just click the title to hear the song):

          10.  I'm Stone in Love with You -- The Stylistics

            9.  Clair -- Gilbert O'Sullivan

            8.  Ventura Highway -- America

            7.  It Never Rains in Southern California -- Albert Hammond

            6.  Me and Mrs. Jones -- Billy Paul

            5.  You Ought to Be with Me -- Al Green

            4.  I Can See Clearly Now -- Johnny Nash

            3.  If You Don't Know Me By Now -- Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes

            2.  Papa Was a Rolling Stone -- The Temptations

And the #1 song that week....

Yes, that's right.  The #1 song when I was born was "I Am Woman."  I'm not sure whether that falls into the category of irony, but regardless, feel free to laugh all you want.

*     *     *

On prime-time television, the Big Three networks offered new episodes of all of their Saturday night programming.  NBC aired a new episode of Emergency!.  ABC's line-up consisted of Alias Smith and Jones, The Sixth Sense, and the latest episode of their brand new show The Streets of San Francisco.  CBS continued to dominate Saturday nights with the one-two punch of their hits All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as well as Bridget Loves Bernie, their newest sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, and Mission: Impossible, which was in the midst of its seventh season.

The Streets of San Francisco, which had debuted that September, was a police drama starring Karl Malden and Michael Douglas as Mike Stone and Steve Keller, two San Francisco homicide detectives.  At the time the show debuted, Douglas was still primarily known as the son of Kirk Douglas.  Although he had begun his acting career in the late '60s, appearing mostly in little-known films and various television roles, he had yet to land a significant role.  The Streets of San Francisco was that role.

This was a show I had never seen until I started this retrospective, although I did learn about it as a pre-teen, when I first became familiar with Michael Douglas through Romancing the Stone.  So this week's episode (#10), entitled "The Year of the Locusts," was my first.  The plot involved a band of modern-day gypsies descending on San Francisco, with its aging patriarch unaware that the younger family members have moved on from simple con jobs to million-dollar heists and murder.  

Surprisingly (to me, at least), unlike many other cop shows of its era, The Streets of San Francisco did not seem the least bit dated.  The material could just as easily be transported to a modern show and be just as effective.  And, most importantly, the show works because of the excellent chemistry between the two leads.  That kind of rapport is vital for a show or movie of this type to succeed, and thankfully, Malden and Douglas pull it off admirably.

The other new Saturday night show was the CBS sitcom The Bob Newhart Show.  The show stars Bob Newhart (obviously) as Chicago psychologist Robert Hartley and Suzanne Pleshette as his wife, Emily.  The supporting cast consists of Bill Daily as Howard Borden, their friendly but inept neighbor; Peter Bonerz as Jerry Robinson, the orthodontist who practices in the same medical building as Bob; and Marcia Wallace as Carol Kester, Bob's receptionist.  The show divides its attention between Bob's work and home life.

Most of the situations involve Bob playing straight man to his wife, colleagues, friends, and patients. This was an extension of Newhart's stand-up comedy routines, where he would routinely play one side of a telephone conversation, the other side of which is never heard.

Episode 12 aired on this date.  Entitled "Bob and Emily and Howard and Carol and Jerry," the story involves Emily setting up Howard and Carol on a blind date, which turns out to be a disaster.  And that's only the first act.  Readers familiar with the show and the history of the characters will know how it ends, and what the ending leads to in subsequent episodes, but the less a newcomer to the show knows beforehand the better.

Like Sanford and Son, this was a show I never got to see until the '90s, when I would catch syndicated reruns on various cable channels.  By then, I was already quite familiar with Bob Newhart from his '80s sitcom, Newhart, and his numerous appearances on The Tonight Show. The show was a hit from the start, ranking in the Top 20 in the ratings, and even 20 years later, I could understand why.  Smart, funny, and wry, it's the kind of sitcom that has a timeless feel to it, one that can still be enjoyed just as much today as it was in 1992 or 1972.

*     *     *

And to paraphrase Lloyd Robertson, that's the kind of day it was on December 9, 1972.

12/8/1972: And So It Begins

The year was 1972.

Richard Nixon had recently been re-elected for his second term in the White House.  Here in Canada, Pierre Trudeau had become Prime Minister again.  The war in Vietnam was still raging, although peace negotiations were in progress.  Germany was still divided and the Soviet Union still existed.  The Beatles had broken up two years before, but all four members were still alive.  And Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift were still decades away from being unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace.

1972 was a Leap Year that began on a Saturday.  And within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), it was the longest year in history, as two leap-seconds were added -- one on January 1, the other on December 31 -- an event which has not since been repeated.  (Anyone who is curious about Coordinated Universal Time and what it all means, you read about it here.)

December 8, 1972 (Friday)

Dr. Mahmoud Hamshari, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) representative in France, was fatally wounded by a bomb, planted near his telephone by agents of Israel's Mossad, in retaliation for his suspected role in the 1972 massacre at the Munich Winter Olympics.  After the explosive had been placed while Hamshari was absent, a Mossad agent posing as a journalist telephoned him and asked enough questions to confirm his identity.  The bomb was then detonated by remote control, possibly by a signal through the telephone line, making Hamshari the second target in the Mossad's "Operation Wrath of God."

United Airlines Flight 553 Boeing 737 from Washington to Chicago crashed at 2:29 p.m. while attempting to land at Chicago's Midway Airport during an ice storm.  43 of the 61 people aboard were killed, as were two people in a house at 3722 W. 70th Place.  The dead included Dorothy Hunt (a CIA employee and the wife of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt), CBS News reporter Michelle Clark, and Illinois Congressman George W. Collins.  Hunt was revealed to have been carrying $10,000 in her purse when the plane crashed, leading some to allege that she was supplying the Watergate defendants with money for legal expenses.

Meanwhile, in the fabled northern land known as Canada, in the southeastern Ontario town of Cornwall, I slid headfirst out of a vagina with no clothes on into the freshly-shaven crotch of a screaming woman.

This monumental event occurred at approximately 8:30 a.m. at the Cornwall General Hospital.  I weighed 9 lbs., 2-1/2 oz., hence the aforementioned screaming.  I was the firstborn child to my parents, who had been married nearly 16 months when I came along.  At the time, my father was a truck driver, and my mother, until she went on maternity leave, worked in the packing department at MCA Records.  Mom couldn't recall what the weather was like that day, but she does remember that there was already snow on the ground.

In record stores, Marvin Gaye's twelfth studio album, Trouble Man, was released.

Following the success of his previous album, What's Going On, Gaye won creative control of his music, as well as a renewed $1 million contract, making him the most profitable R&B artist of all time.  After the success of Isaac Hayes' soundtrack to Shaft and Curtis Mayfield's for Superfly, Gaye was offered the chance to compose a film soundtrack of his own, one for the blaxploitation crime thriller, Trouble Man.  Gaye not only composed and produced the film's soundtrack but its musical score as well.

The title track was released as a single, and its success bolstered the album into the Billboard Top 200 albums, where it peaked at #12.  The album would be Gaye's first and only soundtrack and film score.

On TV, ABC's Friday night line-up that season consisted of returning shows like The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Room 222, and The Odd Couple.  NBC aired new episodes of The Brian Keith Show, the anthology series Ghost Story, Banyon (starring Robert Forster), and, of course... Sanford and Son.

For any readers too young to be familiar with the show, Sanford and Son was a half-hour sitcom that starred comedian Redd Foxx as Fred Sanford, a bigoted and cantankerous old junk dealer who ran a junk and antique dealership with his son, Lamont (Demond Wilson), who was usually a peacemaker and more conscientious.  At times, both characters would involve themselves in schemes.  Based on the BBC sitcom Steptoe & Son, the show was adapted by Norman Lear and was considered NBC's answer to All in the Family.

The series debuted in January 1972 as a mid-season replacement for the cancelled The D.A., and as such, the first season only ran for 14 episodes.  But the show returned for a second, full season in September.

I never saw the show as a kid, although I had heard of it in later years when I became familiar with Redd Foxx.  It wasn't until 1992 or so, when Atlanta's TBS (later Peachtree TV) became available through our local cable provider, that I had the opportunity to finally see the show.  It aired in syndicated re-runs from Monday to Friday at 7:30 p.m., and my best friend and I would watch it every day.

Episode 26 (or #2.12), which originally aired on December 8, 1972, was titled "A Guest in the Yard," directed by Jack Shea and written by Ilunga Adell.  Fred and Lamont discover a homeless man named Gus (Liam Dunn) sleeping in a bathtub in their yard.  When they try to kick him out, he continuously manipulates them into letting him stay.  Once they realize they're being played for suckers, Fred tries to forcibly eject him from the premises.  But Gus pretends to injure himself then threatens to sue the Sanfords unless they tend to his every need.

This was one of several episodes of Sanford and Son written by Ilunga Adell, then a 20 year-old alumnus of Joseph Papp's Public Theater.  While the plot itself is a good one, offering a humorous variation on the old "Man Who Came to Dinner" premise, the dialogue is hit-and miss.  Some lines offer solid laughs, while others warrant a mild chuckle at best.  One of my favorites is the following exchange between Fred and Lamont:

LAMONT:  Wait a minute, Pop.  You think this dude [Gus] is serious about killing himself?

FRED:  I don't know, Lamont.  It's not my affair.

LAMONT:  How would you like to pick up the paper tomorrow and read about how this guy killed himself because we kicked him out of our junkyard?

FRED:  Well, I won't read the paper tomorrow.

LAMONT:  What's it going to cost to extend ourselves a little, Pop?  Haven't you ever heard of the Good Samaritan?

FRED:  You know I don't like them Japanese movies.

Little gems like these, along with expert delivery by the cast, make up for some of the weaker dialogue and the one-liners that don't quite work.  "A Guest in the Yard" remains an enjoyable episode, with a solid plot, enough laughs to keep it afloat, and a satisfying resolution to the entire situation.

And that's the day I was born.