12/14/1972: Meanwhile, Back on the Moon...

December 14, 1972  (Thursday)

Meanwhile, back on the Moon...

...the Apollo 17 mission was nearing its conclusion.  The third and final moonwalk of the program had begun the previous evening, during which the crew collected 146 lbs. of lunar samples and took nine gravimeter measurements.  Since their arrival on December 11, the three-man crew (Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt) had made 75 orbits of the moon and spent over 22 hours on its surface.  Before the moonwalk ended, a plaque located on the Lunar Module, commemorating the achievements made during the Apollo program, was unveiled.

Shortly after midnight Eastern Standard Time, after spending approximately seven hours and 15 minutes outside during the mission's final lunar excursion, Schmitt climbed into the lunar module Challenger.  Cernan soon followed after, making Cernan the last person to have set foot on the moon.

Back on Earth, in addition to broadcasting news reports on the Apollo mission, the Big Three networks aired much of their usual Thursday night primetime line-up.

NBC featured a brand-new episode of Ironside, starring Raymond Burr.  ABC aired new episodes of The Mod Squad, and Owen Marshall, Counselor At Law, starring Arthur Hill and Lee Majors.  This week's episode featured a young John Travolta in a bit role.  Also on ABC was the latest episode of another of their new series, The Delphi Bureau.

Premiering on October 5, 1972, The Delphi Bureau starred Laurence Luckinbill as a counter-espionage agent for an obscure government agency who would use his photographic memory to procure intelligence for the President of the United States.  The show was one of three ongoing crime/adventure dramas featured on The Men, an hour-long show that would regularly rotate every week between its three regular features.  (The other two were Assignment Vienna and Jigsaw.)  As such, new episodes of The Delphi Bureau would air every three weeks.

On CBS was the latest episode of their newest Thursday night show, the family drama The Waltons.

Created by Earl Hamner, Jr., based on his book Spencer's Mountain, The Waltons debuted as a television movie entitled The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, broadcast on December 19, 1971.  On September 14, 1972, it debuted as a weekly series.  

Set during the Great Depression, in the fictional town of Walton's Mountain in the fictitious Jefferson County, Virginia.  The series tells of the titular family, centering on John Walton, Jr. (known as John-Boy, played by Richard Thomas), his parents, John and Olivia (Ralph Waite and Michael Learned), John's parents, Zeb and Esther (Will Geer and Ellen Corby), and the other Walton children, Jason (Jon Walmsley), Mary Ellen (Judy Norton Taylor), Erin (Mary Elizabeth McDonough), Ben (Eric Scott), Jim-Bob (David W. Harper), and Elizabeth (Kami Cotler).  Among the recurring supporting characters were the Baldwin sisters, a pair of well-to-do elderly spinsters who distill moonshine that they call "Papa's recipe."

Each episode is narrated at the opening and closing by a middle-aged John, Jr. (voiced by author Earl Hamner, on whom John-Boy is based).  Hamner's childhood in rural Virginia provided the basis for the setting and many of the storylines.

This week's episode (#13) was entitled "The Reunion."  The plot centers around the Baldwin Sisters and their plan to hold a family reunion when their cousin Homer (Denver Pyle) comes to visit. But Homer steals their batch of over 100 jars of the "Recipe" intended for the reunion and runs off, planning to sell it in the neighboring town of Charlottesville.  Then the sisters sadly discover all their invitations returned, because the addressees are either deceased or unlocatable.  In a touching finale, the Waltons make up for the failed reunion with a visit to cheer the disappointed sisters.

Much to my fiancee Kelly's surprise, I had never seen a single episode of The Waltons until now. This was her favorite TV show as a girl, whereas I had somehow never managed to see a single episode at any time during my life (although I had, of course, heard of it, and was familiar with Jerry Goldsmith's classic theme song).  Kelly has embarked upon this retrospective with me, watching every film and (almost) every TV show with me, and when she first learned we were going to be watching The Waltons next, she was very excited.  That excitement became infectious, as I started to look forward to finally seeing the show.  I enjoyed it a great deal, appreciating its human-interest stories and the old-fashioned yet timeless values it portrayed.

I may never have had fond childhood memories of The Waltons like she did, but now I do have fond adulthood memories of having shared and enjoyed with the woman I love a beloved and cherished favorite of hers.  And that, to me, is just as precious as the memories of childhood.

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Across the ocean, in the UK, the BBC aired the latest episode of a longtime favorite of mine -- Monty Python's Flying Circus.  After taking a year off to film their first movie (1971's And Now For Something Completely Different), the Python boys were now back on TV, in the midst of their third season.

Trying to describe Python comedy routines always fails to do it justice, especially in print, so instead, I'll simply let the material speak for itself.  Here is a favorite sketch from this week's episode.

The Scottish character (Mr. Badger) would become the episode's running gag, reappearing several times throughout the show.  ("I won't interrupt this sketch for a pound.")

And on late-night TV, Johnny Carson's guests on The Tonight Show were the legendary Ed Sullivan and actor Bruce Dern.

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In Germany, Willy Brandt was re-elected as Chancellor of West Germany, needing 247 votes in the 493 member Bundestag, and receiving 269.

And at 5:55 p.m. EST, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt lifted off from the lunar surface in the ascent stage of the Lunar Module.  After a successful rendezvous and docking with Ron Evans in the Command/Service Module in orbit, the crew transferred equipment and lunar samples between the LM and the CSM for their return to Earth.

And so ends the first week of my life.