a melting-pot crew on the bridge of the Enterprise... Room 222 was set at a large high school in contemporary Los Angeles... The Mod Squad depicted young undercover cops made up of “One White, One Black, One Blond.” (You didn’t miss the Mod Squad in RetroFan #38, did you? –RetroEd.)
In its way, The Brady Bunch (1969–74) was part of this sea change. Though it was at heart a silly sitcom, it introduced the concept of the “blended family.”
The show starred Robert Reed and Florence Henderson as Mike and Carol Brady, a newly wedded widower and widow with three kids each—his three brunette boys, her three blond girls—of corresponding ages, yet.
The boys: hipster-nerd Greg (Barry Williams), wise guy Peter (Christopher Knight), and little squirt Bobby (Mike Lookinland). The girls: budding Marcia (Maureen McCormick), mildly neurotic Jan (Eve Plumb), and lisping kewpie doll Cindy (Susan Olsen). Making the meatloaf was live-in housekeeper Alice (Ann B. Davis).
References to the blended family situation were rare, and largely confined to the first of five seasons.
But the show resonated in another powerful way. Young viewers who were going through adolescence at the same time as the Brady kids identified with their conundrums.
It must have worked. Has any TV show had as many cast reunions as The Brady Bunch? Not counting one-shot specials and reality shows, there were The Brady Kids (a 1972 animated series); The Brady Bunch Hour (a 1976–1977 variety show); The Brady
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT) Robert Reed, Christopher Knight, Maureen McCormick, Michael Lookinland, Florence Henderson, Ann B. Davis, Eve Plumb, Barry Williams, and Susan Olsen were The Brady Bunch.
Girls Get Married (a 1981 TV movie); The Brady Brides (a 1981 sitcom taped in front of a live audience); A Very Brady Christmas (a 1988 ratings bonanza); and The Bradys (a 1990 “dramedy” series). Off-screen in 1972, the six young Brady stars toured as the Brady Bunch Kids singing group, with wild fringed outfits and jaw-dropping (not in a good way) choreography.
The original Brady Bunch was, and remains, wildly popular. Of course, having your face plastered on everything from trading cards to lunchboxes to comic books to paper dolls while you’re going through puberty came with its agonies. The child stars didn’t always find it easy, as I learned when I spoke with Williams (on four occasions between 1992 and 2004); McCormick (in 1995 and 2008); and Plumb (in 1992).
BARRY WILLIAMS
Talk about awkward stages. When viewers first met Greg Brady in 1969, he was a typical American kid who loved sports and endured two little brothers (not to mention three “instant” sisters). By Season 5, Greg morphed into a rocking, rolling lady killer wearing a Brady fro, flying fringe, and polyester bells. And the actor who played him went through every in-between stage in front of millions of viewers. Still, Santa Monica native Williams (born 1954) always seemed willing to oblige fans who wished to time-trip back to a very Brady time in their lives.
RetroFan: I always related to Greg Brady. I was the oldest of three in our family.
Barry Williams: So you know the demands and the challenges. Did you treat your little siblings as well as Greg did?
RF: Not always. When you moved into the den and turned your room
“groovy”—I had a groovy bedroom just like that, with the lights and posters and all.
BW: Did you have a lava lamp?
RF: No, but I had spinning lamps and a faux black light.
RF: When I see the episode today and the camera pans across the room, I have a flashback.
BW: I’ve been having those myself.
RF: Of course, the six of you were children when the show began. You were the oldest at 14.
BW: Exactly. You’ve got these kids who are really ahead of their times. You’ve got this split consciousness. It’s not just being a kid, running around. It’s learning how to play being a kid.
Desi Arnaz Jr. … a jealous sibling who exclaims, “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!”
Some of the more memorable Brady Bunch moments centered around eldest sister Marcia, played with hair of gold by Los Angeles native McCormick (born 1956), who turned pro in an early Sixties commercial for the Chatty Cathy doll. (Also in that spot was McCormick’s future TV sister Plumb.) Marcia, and McCormick, blossomed before our eyes over five very Brady seasons. But the actress later revealed that she struggled with depression while shooting The Brady Bunch. In the 13-year gap between my two interviews with McCormick, I found that her perspective on Marcia Brady changed sharply. First, our 1995 conversation ...
RF: Do you mind being asked Brady Bunch questions?
Maureen McCormick: Not at all.
RF: You were 14 when the show premiered. When did you realize The Brady Bunch was a phenomenon?
MM: I don’t think I really realized it until I was in my 30s and 40s.
RF: Because people still remembered it?
MM: It goes on and on and on. It’s still amazing to me, the longevity of it.
MM: I think the Hawaii episodes, probably. After all, we went to Hawaii.
RF: Who did you enjoy working with more, Davy or Desi?
MM: Oh, God. I can’t answer that. But his name begins with a “D.” How about that?
RF: Your byline accompanied an advice column for 16 Magazine called “Dear Maureen.” Did you really write those?
MM: I think I helped with it.
RF: What is your perspective now on the time the six of you Brady kids toured as a singing group?
MM: Obviously, it was really, really fun for us. But, it was hard, because some of the people couldn’t sing. And that was painful, because singing has always really been a love of mine. But we had a great time.
RF: Florence Henderson said certain Brady kids couldn’t sing or move too well, which made The Brady Bunch Hour painful for her. Was it painful for you?
MM: Painful? Well, it was really fun. Again, it was hard, because not everybody could really sing and dance. And of course, for the most part, they had
us as a group. So that was frustrating. It was what it was.
RF: I was surprised that in 1973, you cut a duet album with Christopher Knight. MM: Yeah! He was the one that couldn’t sing! Isn’t that amazing?
RF: What genius dreamed that one up?
MM: Don’t—ask—me. I guess it was, you know, because of the (teen) magazines. Who knows?
RF: Of all the Brady albums—Meet the Brady Bunch, The Brady Phonographic Album, Merry Christmas from the Brady Bunch, etc.—was there any one track that you were proud of?
MM: I don’t even really remember them. I think that they’ve been put out of my mind.
RF: And then there were the songs you sang in episodes of the show. On “Time to Change,” the male verses are sung by Barry and the female verses are you. In both case, your vocals are double-tracked.
MM: Maybe, yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did (doubletracking). I haven’t heard that thing in 20-some years.
BY L. WAYNE HICKS
Father Guido Sarducci, arguably the most famous Catholic figure in the United States for the past half-century—at least until the first American was elected pope last year—has cemented his place in television history.
Sarducci is one of the two alter-egos employed by Don Novello, an actor, writer, and comedian who has appeared as this character on every late-night talk show since creating the chain-smoking priest more than 50 years ago. It is on Saturday Night Live that Sarducci has enjoyed the greatest visibility. Joel Navaroli, who runs The SNL Archives website, counts 43 Sarducci appearances, considerably more than any other recurring character. (In second place is Will Forte’s MacGruber, with 29.)
Sarducci made his SNL debut near the end of the third season, in May 1978. Host Richard Dreyfuss introduced him as the rock critic and gossip columnist for the L’Osservatore Romano newspaper. Relying on crutches from having injured himself during a sketch rehearsal two weeks earlier—Sarducci blamed the mishap on a nun riding a Vespa—he told the world Jesus couldn’t really walk on
water. He was actually standing on the shoulders of his stepbrother, Billy Christ, who was breathing through a snorkel.
“Jesus, you know, he was the greatest man who ever lived,” Novello-as-Sarducci said. “But I mean he couldn’t walk on water, you know? Come on! Grow up!”
CAREER PATH TO THE VATICAN
Becoming a faux priest was not originally Novello’s intended career path. He grew up in Lorain, Ohio, about 30 miles west of Cleveland, to an Italian father whose parents had immigrated from Sicily. His father had graduated from medical school in Rome, and Novello’s brother and uncle also went into medicine. Novello, the middle of three children, went in a different direction. He studied economics at the University of Dayton, spent his junior year studying abroad in Rome, and later embarked on a career in advertising.
“I wanted to be an account executive. But then I saw the creative people were having all the fun, and I thought I could be good at that,” Novello said. “I was never a good student or had any interest in anything, but I really kind of found myself in writing.”
(LEFT) Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci during the Chicken Little Comedy Hour days. Photo by Elisa Leonelli. (BELOW) Sarducci in front of Swiss guards. Photo by Paul Solomon (1981).
Novello wrote ad campaigns for the likes of Schlitz malt liquor, Cleveland Trust Bank, and even a dictionary. But it was an offered promotion to become a creative director for the ad agency’s Mexico City office that put an end to that career.
“I went down there, and I just didn’t like it. I felt I didn’t want to sell Alka-Seltzer to poor people.”
Novello moved to California instead, where he unsuccessfully tried to sell a rock opera he wrote called Special Eddie. The story revolved around a two-headed man; one head was a hippie and the other a greaser. Novello worked on the project for about a year, and in the meantime decided he would try performing his own material.
“I just started performing to get attention for my writing more than anything,” he said. “It’s hard to get anything read.”
But Novello did not want to take the stage as himself.
“When I started doing it, I didn’t want to be another comedian talking about the difference between New York
and LA, or your friends in high school or something,” he said. “I spent time in Europe, especially around the Vatican. When I was there was during the time of the ecumenical council, and that’s how I knew about the L’Osservatore Romano and the workings of all that Vatican stuff. I wanted to be like a foreigner commenting on America, so that’s why I started doing a character like that.”
FIRST SIGHTING
Father Guido Sarducci made his first appearance on a UHF-TV station in San Francisco in November 1972, on a program called The Chicken Little Comedy Show, a shoestring production a group of his friends had created and starred in that lasted less than a year.
Novello wore a black pinstriped suit from his advertising days, found a cape at a thrift store, and donned a clerical collar made of cardboard and paper. A homemade hat, tinted glasses, and a lit cigarette completed the look. Novello spoke in Italian-accented English.
“We put together a comedy show with music interludes, just like four years later Saturday Night Live would do,” said Elisa Leonelli, who served as its production manager and still photographer.
“It was sort of a homegrown show that just evolved from getting in the studio, trying stuff out, experimenting,” said Matt Neuman, who wrote for Chicken Little and acted on it as well. “But no one said to Don, ‘Hey, Don, you can’t make fun of the church. You can’t dress as a priest.’”
“I never make fun of religion,” said Novello, who turned 83 in January. “It’s more about the hierarchy.”
Novello remembers managers telling him that people would not know his real name if he was billed only as Sarducci, rather than “Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci.” “But I thought by doing that, Don Novello as Father Sarducci, it made it less real. I wanted to make it more real, and I really wasn’t worried about them knowing my real name.”
Novello took on another name as well. He became a prolific letter writer during this period, adopting the pen name Lazlo Toth to reach Nixon administration officials, business executives, and celebrities. He tweaked the name of Laszlo Toth, who a year earlier had vandalized a sculpture by Michelangelo depicting the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus. Among his targets: Sammy Davis Jr., who was hospitalized after a heart attack. “I’ve loved you ever since you were in The Little Rascals.” Davis responded with an autographed photo.
Novello said he considered those missives “like a monologue, but in a letter form.”
Novello also kept Sarducci going. In 1974 he and Neuman released a single, “A European (Speaks Up for the U.S.),” a
parody of a conversative Canadian broadcaster’s recording called “The Americans,” in which he praised how helpful the United States has been to other countries. But the record label wouldn’t allow Novello to identify Sarducci as a priest. That same year, Novello earned his first dollars as a standup comic when he was booked at the Playboy Club in San Francisco. He was fired after a day. The club welcomed busloads of tourists, many from Japan.
“They didn’t speak English. It’s not like they didn’t get my humor,” Novello said. “They didn’t get my language.”
Other club dates were more successful and opened doors. Comedian David Steinberg invited Novello to collaborate on his 1975 album, Goodbye to the ’70s, which began with a roast of Sarducci, who had been elevated to Pope Pius XIII. The Steinberg connection brought Novello to the attention of the Smothers Brothers, and he wound up appearing on and writing for their short-lived show that year. In one sketch, Sarducci takes confession from oil industry executives and tells them their penance is to say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” 210 million times for fouling the environment. “I remember I was in high school, and I just thought they were the funniest. That I ended up being on their show was great,” Novello said.
The Lazlo Letters: The Amazing, Real-life Actual Correspondence of Lazlo Toth, American! (Workman Publishing, 1977). Courtesy of L. Wayne Hicks.
Novello published a collection of letters in 1977 as The Lazlo Letters: The Amazing Real-life Actual Correspondence of Lazlo Toth, American! The book attracted the attention of Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, who hired Novello as a writer for the third season.
Novello’s first appearance on the show came on the Jan. 21, 1978, episode hosted by Robert Klein. He had written a sketch based on a Chicago diner where he would sometimes eat during his advertising days. John Belushi played the Greek owner of the restaurant who hurried his customers through its limited menu and called out orders to the cook (Dan Akroyd):
“Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Fries? No fries, chips. Coke? No Coke, Pepsi." Esquire magazine in 2024 ranked this the twelfth-best sketch on a list of the show’s 50 best of all time.
Sharp-eyed viewers could spot Novello in the background. Novello said he never liked it when writers on The Smothers Brothers Show were trying to get on camera and writing for themselves rather than the performers, so he deliberately left himself out of the sketch. Director Dave Wilson suggested he put himself in.
In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to walk on the Moon and declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” A year later, Mary Tyler Moore did the same for womankind when she returned to primetime television in a sitcom bearing her name—The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
An Emmy winning actress because of her outstanding performance on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore had ventured into movies after that program ended a five-year run on CBS in 1966. Although these roles did not yield the bounty expected for an actress of her caliber, an appearance with her former co-star on the CBS special Dick Van Dyke and the
Other Woman proved that her popularity among television viewers remained palpable.
“I didn’t want to be married—the public wouldn’t accept me as married to anybody except Dick Van Dyke,” explained Moore about deciding on the premise for her new sitcom. “I didn’t want to be divorced—the network said this was not the time to kid about divorce. I didn’t want to be a widow with two kids—there are too many of them on the screen already. By a process of elimination, that left only one category—a single girl. A single girl who is looking for a man.”
It was a bold move. Moore proved that a woman could be the focus of a sitcom without losing her sexuality or becoming amorphous, consequently inspiring a generation of women trying to balance a challenging job with a vibrant personal life. James L. Brooks and Allan Burns created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which premiered on September 19, 1970. Setting: Minneapolis. Premise: Mary Richards is a 30-year-old woman from the suburbs coming to the Twin Cities for a fresh
start after a two-year relationship ends, and finds a job as associate producer for The Six O’Clock News on WJM. Sonny Curtis wrote and sang the theme song “Love Is All Around” accompanying scenes of Moore around Minneapolis for the opening; character actors who had been nearly ubiquitous in guest roles throughout the 1960s played her co-workers.
Ed Asner guided the newsroom as Lou Grant, the gruff and dedicated executive producer who made his bones in journalism as a newspaper reporter. His resumé included Route 66, Sam Benedict, Cain’s Hundred, Dr. Kildare, Stoney Burke, Ben Casey, The Outer Limits, The Defenders, Slattery’s People, Burke’s Law, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Ironside, and Judd for the Defense Gavin MacLeod played newswriter Murray Slaughter. He also made the rounds of TV soundstages with roles in The Rat Patrol, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show, My Favorite Martian, and Hogan’s Heroes, among others. Ted Knight played egotistical yet intellectually deficient TV news anchor
Ted Baxter. His path to this breakout role included appearances on Arrest and Trial, McHale’s Navy, Gunsmoke, 12 O’Clock High, T.H.E. Cat, and The Fugitive. [I hope you enjoyed our Hogan’s Heroes article in RetroFan #40, T.H.E. Cat in issue #36, and The Fugitive in issue #39 –RetroEd.]
At home, Mary lived in a one-room apartment in a Victorian house owned by her friend Phyllis Lindstrom, played by Cloris Leachman, who could point to 77 Sunset Strip, The Big Valley, Mannix, and The Virginian on her roster of credits. Valerie Harper played Mary’s neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern. Although she didn’t have as much TV experience as her co-stars, Harper had a chemistry with Moore that actors pray to have when they get cast.
Moore struck gold. “As a reactor—not a standup comedienne—Mary brings beauty, charm, and chuckles, while her associates muster the big laughs,” wrote TV reviewer Charles Witbeck. In the Minneapolis Tribune, Irv Letofsky showered praise on the show as “a happy blend of comic elements. That is, script, casting, and production.” Further, he singled out the titular actress: “Lastly, but probably mostly, is Mary Tyler Moore, who carries away the show (at least in this
and variety: “sit-var.” He also pointed to the failure of the previous venture caused by Moore playing different characters in sketches, contrary to what American audiences sometimes want from an icon, which is to play a similar character in role after role.
Success didn’t happen, but not for lack of trying. Moore revealed the sweat that went into the production. “It was the hardest work I’ve ever done, mounting a one-hour show with song and dance, in the same five days it takes to do a half-hour comedy,” shared the actress. “But it was the best, most terrifying fun, too. Gene Kelly, my adored dancing sex symbol from the Forties and Fifties, was my guest, for God’s sake, as well as Lucille Ball, Hal Linden, Johnny Mathis, Bea Arthur, and Dick Van Dyke, among others.”
The episode with Van Dyke had resonance for fans of The Dick Van Dyke Show starring him as TV comedy writer Rob Petrie and Moore as his wife, Laura. A sketch poked fun at what the Petries might look and sound like in their old age. At the end of the episode, Moore as McKinnon tells him that she tried out for a role but didn’t get chosen, leading the audience to believe that the actual Moore beat her out for the role. There’s a twist. McKinnon auditioned for Sally Rogers, played by Rose Marie.
Moore and Van Dyke reprised their roles in the one-hour, 2004 special The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited Her storied career continued with a Golden Globe for her role as a distant, icy mother in the 1980 film Ordinary People. Moore’s work also includes
the TV movies Heartsounds, Finnegan Begin Again, Thanksgiving Day, The Gin Game, and Blessings, as well as guest appearances on That ’70s Show, Lipstick Jungle, Hot in Cleveland, and The Naked Truth. In the film Flirting with Disaster, starring Ben Stiller and Patricia Arquette, Moore gives a bravura performance highlighted by a hysterical scene where she boasts about her breasts and the importance of a bra.
Television beckoned in the form of a weekly series again three times on CBS, but none lasted more than 13 episodes: Mary, Annie McGuire, New York News. Set in a Chicago newspaper office
Who’s Your Daddy… at Work?
Sitcom Fathers and the Jobs Where They Work Hard or Hardly Work
BY ROBERT JESCHONEK
What do the dads in TV sitcoms do for a living, and why should we care?
Because giving a TV dad an interesting profession makes the reality of a show more convincing? Because the more quirky or exciting the job, the more storytelling possibilities open up? Because some shows prefer to focus on the lives of adults instead of kids or teens, and the working world is a big part of adults’ daily existence? Probably, we should care because all the above are true. Maybe also, at least a little, because such details appeal to the voyeurs within us all, the instincts we feel even as children looking in at the lives and families of friends, wondering what makes them tick. Wondering how much like us and our own families they are… and how much different. Wondering what we want to be like when we grow up. Mike Brady or Homer
Simpson? Steve Douglas or Dan Conner? Ricky Ricardo or Fred Sanford?
Perhaps, by looking at the qualities they share—and those unique to themselves as individuals—we can open a window on the importance of sitcom dads’ careers to the shows in which they work, the lives of the viewers they entertain…
And our own hearts and worldviews, which sitcom dads shape as profoundly, in their way, as they do those of their own sitcom kids.
HARDHATS OFF TO BLUECOLLAR DADS
If your real-life dad wasn’t an executive type, didn’t practice law or medicine or work as an engineer or architect, you might have a special appreciation of those sitcom dads whose collars are of the blue persuasion.
Many blue-collar dads have graced TV sitcoms through the decades, mining laughs—and life lessons—in jobs that often (but not always) keep them far from a desk or office. Dads in these lines of work find fulfillment—or at least a living wage—in challenging, street-level employment, the kinds of jobs we might refer to as “honest labor.”
Such work might be based in the retail field, with dads working to flog merchandise in shops or stores. In The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Dobie’s dad, Herbert T. Gillis, owns a grocery store; decades later, Alan Matthews is in the same line of work—though a very different kind of show—in Boy Meets World.
Al Bundy of Married… with Children has a different kind of retail job, selling shoes at Gary’s Shoes and Accessories for Today’s Woman in the New Market Mall. Can there be a more perfect job for this put-upon character who spends his life being stepped on and kicked around by over-the-top wife Peg and children Bud and Kelly?
Howard Cunningham—Richie’s father in Happy Days—owns a hardware store. Archie Bunker, the bigoted man of the house in All in the Family, starts out as a longshoreman working the docks, and goes on to drive a cab
and own a bar. On the animated side, Hank Hill of King of the Hill works as an assistant manager at a propane dealership.
Though Red Forman starts out working at an auto parts factory on That ’70s Show, he goes on to work in retail at Bargain Bob’s and Price Mart (before a brief stint as the owner of a muffler shop). Then there’s Fred Sanford, who hocks junk (and runs get-rich-quick schemes) out of his humble home while constantly faking fatal heart attacks in Sanford and Son. (“I’m comin’ to join you, Elizabeth!”)
Working in the retail sector is about as down-to-earth as a TV dad can get. This kind of sales and customer service is just one part of the blue-collar dad story in sitcoms, though.
For example, Carl Winslow in Family Matters is a cop… though why he never arrests Steve Urkel for a jillion counts of being a public nuisance remains a sitcom mystery for the ages.
There are quarry workers in the blue-collar mix as well, like Mike Heck of The Middle and Fred Flintstone of The Flintstones. Mike is more management-level, overseeing a team of quirky employees and calling the shots from an onsite office trailer. Would he be jealous of Fred and his dinosaur-based earth-mover with a built-in back slide? Of that, there can be little yabba-dabba-doubt.
Factory work is also a viable blue-collar trade, as demonstrated by George Lopez on his sitcom George Lopez. George’s job on the factory floor at Powers Brothers Aviation is often woven into the storylines, adding a strong workplace element to the show.
The Simpsons often visits the world of Homer Simpson’s workplace, too, and finds plenty of opportunities for laughs at the expense of the nuclear power industry. The fact that a proven moron like Homer is somehow hired to work as a nuclear safety inspector is a joke in itself, and his continued incompetence on the job ensures the half-life on that joke is very long indeed.
Then there are the “Jack of All Trades” dads, who hold a variety of different occupations through the course of a series. James Evans, for example, goes through a string of odd jobs on Good Times. Dan Conner changes jobs, too, and sometimes runs his own businesses in his struggle to support his family on Roseanne. His contracting company and motorcycle repair business don’t hold up for long… but it ultimately doesn’t matter when the family wins the lottery in the ninth season. (Though, wait, that didn’t actually happen according to the Roseanne revival and the sequel series The Connors, did it? And what about those ninth season reruns where the family’s richer than Bezos and Musk put together?)
No doubt about it: blue-collar dads have a major role in TV history… and will probably continue to do so for as long as there are sitcoms, dads, and blue-collar jobs. Even when AI comes for our jobs, it seems likely there will still be a place for hard-working TV dads who don’t mind slaving away in retail, law enforcement, manufacturing, quarry management, nuclear safety inspection, and odd jobs.
Though, yes, there will also be a place for dads who don’t tend to get their hands—or their collars—quite so dirty,
“How are you?” Author Roald Dahl takes a puff of a cigarette and proceeds, in sardonic tones, to relate a macabre anecdote about creative methods of murder. Thus began each weekly introduction to ʼWay Out, an anthology series that premiered on Friday, March 31, 1961, at 9:30 p.m. on CBS, to replace a Jackie Gleason quiz show that disastrously bombed. Immediately preceding the popular Twilight Zone, but quite different from it, it featured dark and disturbing tales of horror. I was 13 when it aired, and it left an unforgettable impression on me.
While the Twilight Zone offered moralistic tales, the fantasy elements often used to make commentary without invoking network censorship, ʼWay Out offered horror for its own sake. Stories often dealt with vengefulness, murder, and the blatantly grotesque. The show was shot on
videotape, rather than film, giving it an imme diacy simulating a live performance. The show was the brainchild of executive producer David Susskind, a reputed maverick in the industry, who wanted to create something different from the ubiquitous Westerns crowding the airwaves. He had produced numerous TV shows and films, created and hosted the talk show Open End, and founded and headed the organization Talent Associates Ltd. He hastily created ʼWay Out to fill the suddenly vacated Friday night time slot. One of the last television series to be produced in New York City, it was, indeed, different.
Dahl, who wrote macabre short stories, often with a touch of dark humor, initially agreed to host the first three episodes, but soon decided to remain as permanent host. Several of his short stories had previously been adapted as notable episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including “Man from the South” and “Lamb to the Slaughter.” The first episode of ʼWay Out was adapted from his own short story, “William and Mary.” Another story of his, “Skin” was considered but deemed too gruesome for television.
While it was Susskind’s show, the real guiding force behind it was producer Jacqueline Babbin, a member of Susskind’s Talent Associates, Ltd. She had previously worked on Armstrong Circle Theater and the Dupont Show of the Month, among others. It was Babbin who selected the stories, wrote Dahl’s sardonic introductory and closing monologues, and had a hand in every other aspect of production. She would later go on to produce numerous other projects, including the 1976 miniseries Sybil, about a woman with multiple personalities, and the 1980 adaptation of Brave New World.
The talent of Dick Smith, a makeup artist known as “the Godfather of Makeup,” was an invaluable asset to the show. He went on to work on films such as The Exorcist and Scanners, and eventually was awarded Oscars for his work on Amadeus and for lifetime achievement.
The original music was performed by Robert Cobert, later to score the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows, and other Dan Curtis productions such as The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler. It was supplemented with the eerie electronic tones of Warren Luening, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Tod Dockstader.
The New York location made many stars readily available, including Henry Jones, Fritz Weaver, Barry Morse, John McGiver, Barbara Baxley, Murray Hamilton, Tim O’Connor, Mildred Dunnock, Alfred Ryder, Kevin McCarthy, Mark Lenard, Ray Walston, and numerous others.
EYE OPENER
The initial episode opens with the camera zooming in on a photograph of a human eye, which then shatters. A brief glimpse of a CBS video control room follows, while a voiceover introduces Dahl. In subsequent episodes, the eye image
is replaced by a shot of a human hand rising up, and with a musical sting, bursting into flame.
Dahl, backed by multiple video images of himself receding into the background, relates a macabre anecdote with deadpan humor, and ends each time with the assurance that that night’s story is, indeed, “ʼWay out.” His introductions have been compared to those of Alfred Hitchcock.
The first episode, “William and Mary,” the only one actually written by Dahl, opens in a hospital as a doctor explains to Mary (Mildred Dunnock) that her husband William (Henry Jones) has only a brief time to live. William, a cranky, overbearing professor of philosophy, is approached by a Dr. Landy (Fritz Weaver), a mad scientist of sorts, who offers him a part in a rather unusual experiment. Landy proposes removing his brain, along with an attached eyeball, from his dying body. He explains he could keep it, and therefore him, alive in a tank using a heart machine. His emotional state could be monitored by an electroencephalograph.
William is understandably reluctant at first, but finally decides to do it, solely “to irritate his wife.” The operation is performed, but with the professor in such a helpless state the tables have been turned, and long-suffering Mary has her revenge for the years of abuse she has suffered. As the episode ends, she gleefully blows cigarette smoke onto the tank, to the horror of the doctor.
Dahl’s closing comments end, as in all the succeeding episodes, with the words “goodnight, and sleep well…”
It had a mostly positive critical reception. The Philadelphia Inquirer was an exception, calling it “pedestrian and repetitious,” but The New York Times called it “ a sparkling little production… a tale told tightly and brightly with wry and brittle dialog… an “auspicious beginning” for a series… and… a good team-mate for the Twilight Zone.” Variety said it was “...thoroughly original if not thoroughly successful television.”
However, letters to CBS from viewers told a different story. Some comments described it as “awful,” “wasted time,”
Robert Cobert with David Selby and Jonathan Frid, stars of Dark Shadows.
BY G. JACK URSO
Hot Hero Sandwich is a 1979–1980 NBC EmmyAward winning Saturday morning children’s TV program. Often described as a Saturday Night Live approach to children’s entertainment, Hot Hero Sandwich featured some elements similar to SNL, such as sketches and performances by some of the hottest bands. In fact, Hot Hero and SNL were filmed in the same famed Studio 8H and shared some of the same stage and technical crew, which further enhanced production similarities.
As in the many layers of a well-stacked hero sandwich, Hot Hero Sandwich likewise had many layers: sketches, music, animation, short films, and celebrity interviews. The creators, Bruce and Carole Hart, got their start on Sesame Street, and the intention here was to provide that first generation of viewers with a natural evolution of the multimedia concept pioneered by Sesame Street.
I first turned my attention to Hot Hero Sandwich in 2020 in an article for my blog, Aeolus 13 Umbra, which focuses on obscure topics, and Hot Hero Sandwich certainly qualified. There was very little information about the show online, so I created the first-ever episode guide by going through old TV Guides, wrote up lyrics for the theme song, and researched background on the performers. It quickly became one of my blog’s highestranked articles. I wasn’t the only one—people did remember the show!
Hot Hero Sandwich We Deliver!
In 2022, I received an email from Sherry Coben, one of the writers for Hot Hero Sandwich, who went on to create the hit 1980s series Kate and Allie. Coben, in fact, met and married the film editor for the series, Patrick McMahon, who learned his craft on Woody Allen’s early films, worked on Kojack, and later A Nightmare on Elm Street, and many other projects up to the current day.
This led to the creation of the Hot Hero Sandwich Project to document and preserve the legacy of the show. To date, the Project has a website (www.hotherosandwich. com) with over 100 articles about the show, including original production documents, rare photos, and interviews with over two dozen people who worked on the show, including cast, crew, and the house band. With exclusive access to the series for the first time since the original broadcast, a YouTube channel, Hot Hero Sandwich Central, was set up with clips from virtually every scene in the series.
So, let’s take a look at the ingredients in this hero sandwich and see what made this show worth our memories.
(INSET) Recreation of the colorful Hot Hero Sandwich neon logo created for this article’s author. (ABOVE) The stars of the show: (BACK ROW) Jerett Smithwrick, Paul
courtesy of author’s collection except where noted.
From the opening credits, Hot Hero Sandwich grabs our attention. The theme song was an earworm that stuck in my mind for decades, even without any recordings to sustain its memory—and many fans feel likewise. A straight-ahead hard rock number, it was written by Bruce Hart and his long-time music writing partner Stephen Lawrence. You may have heard of another song they co-wrote, the classic Sesame Street theme! The Hot Hero theme reframes the adolescent experience of surviving the trials and tribulations of growing up as nothing less than heroic, and something everyone goes through.
Got out of bed today—HERO!
Got to school okay—HERO!
Did what I could do
Pretty much like you
You’re a hero too
Having fun and coming through
You’re a hero to me, yes, it’s true
You are my hero
Me, I’m like you
I’m a hero too!
The opening credits themselves were directed by John Nicolella, a friend of the Harts with production credits for Saturday Night Fever and later for Miami Vice, for which he would also direct several episodes, and later Nash Bridges
Announcing the week’s guests was none other than America’s Top 40’s Casey Kasem, and the bumper voiceovers were provided by Barbara Feldon, Get Smart’s Agent 99 herself. The Harts could have found any generic announcer to do the voice work and paid them scale, but they knew these familiar voices would help make the show seem more like an extension of our everyday viewing habits.
THE SKETCHES
The sketches hit both comedic and dramatic notes, and touched on topics ranging from basic teen angst issues like dating and fitting in, to marijuana and running away. Some
sketches hit all too close to home, such as those on divorce, the death of a grandparent, or the effect of too frequent moves on children. These were all situations I was facing at the time.
The cast includes Paul O’Keefe, Patty Duke’s younger brother Ross on The Patty Duke Show and a Broadway vet; Denny Dillon, a veteran of stage and soon to join Saturday Night Live next season; Matt McCoy, in his first credited screen appearance and later known for his appearances on Seinfeld and currently the Hartford Insurance spokesperson; Nan-Lynn Nelson, familiar to audiences at the time as part of the Bloodhound Gang on 3-2-1 Contact; Jarett Smithwrick and L. Michael Craig (a.k.a. Michael Longfield), two actors with extensive stage experience; and Vicky Dawson, at 17, the youngest of the main cast, who was doing double duty during the production of Hot Hero Sandwich as Ray Liotta’s wife on Another World
Supporting cast members included Andrew Duncan, who appeared in everything from The Andy Griffith Show to Slap Shot; Claudette Sutherland, who was a cast member in the original Broadway production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Frankie Faison, a veteran stage and screen actor; and Saundra McClain, also a veteran stage and screen actor, who during Hot Hero Sandwich could have been seen on her long-running Peppermint Pattie commercial enthusiastically comparing the virtues of the candy with “honey… to dew
Welcome back to “Andy Mangels’ Retro Saturday Morning,” and prepare for a visual feast! Saturday morning television was appointment viewing for anyone growing up from the 1960s to the 1990s. From 8 a.m. to noon, while their parents slept in from the work week, kids could sit in front of the television and enjoy a time just for them. Cartoons—and later, live-action series—were produced by studios like Filmation Associates, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Total Television, Jay Ward Productions, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Sid and Marty Krofft, D’Angelo Productions, Marvel Productions,
Sunbow Productions, Ruby-Spears, DIC, Film Roman, and others.
But how could the networks best reach kids to let them know when the new shows would be airing? Enter the television ads that ran in the comics, touting new and exciting fall seasons! It made sense since many shows were
For some reason, CBS ran two different ads for their 1978 season!
The two-page color version (ABOVE) of this ad for CBS’s 1978 season appeared in Harvey comic book centerfolds, and featured a complete schedule. (LEFT) The black-and-white version for TV Guide was less complete, but with different art. Both ads were created by Neal Adams’ Continuity Associates, and as the artists were often working from early character versions, note that Web Woman and Manta and Moray look completely different from their later looks! All artwork courtesy of Andy Mangels.
adapted from comic books. For most kids, those two-page spreads were their first looks at future TV favorites, but by the mid-1970s, comic ads were dropping and more plain TV Guide ads were sometimes the only promotions. In the fourth of a yearly series, we’re giving you a rare look at every Saturday ad we can find from 1978–1980!
And you can see RetroFan #24, #30, and #36 for the previous installments.
(ABOVE) This yawn-worthy ad for ABC’s 1978 Saturday morning lineup season—beginning on September 9th—didn’t appear in any comic books; it only appeared in TV Guide! The best installment of Super Friends, Challenge of the SuperFriends [see RetroFan #27 –RetroEd] debuted with the most boring ad ever!
NBC’s had a rough year, switching schedules in early November. Their color ad, running in Marvel comics, highlighted their The Fantastic Four cartoon, which introduced H.E.R.B.I.E. [you might remember from RetroFan #33 –RetroEd]. A TV Guide ad, referenced their first lineup, starting September 9th. When NBC reconfigured the morning, on November 4th, The Galaxy Goof-Ups was split off from Yogi’s Space Race to its own timeslot, and Krofft Superstar Hour was changed to The Bay City Rollers. A new ad in TV Guide gave fans the news.
Celebrating the Art of Game Cards for Kids
BY SCOTT SAAVEDRA
From the beginning, RetroFan has been a nostalgia driven magazine buttressed by facts. Well, we’re going to shift gears a bit here since my memory of game cards for kids is dim at best and scholarship on the subject has proven elusive. Oh, there is information to be had, it’s just scattered or focused on classic playing cards (for, you know, poker and such like). And that’s okay. What is really special about RetroFan-era game cards is the lively artwork that occasionally graced them. The illustration’s subject matter can also warm the hearts of us kids at heart with superheroes, cartoon characters, and the like making appearances.
Education was the name of the game for this Game of Authors card set from 1873. Artistically, cards would only get better for kids in the decades to come.
Cartooning and illustration have always enchanted me, so we’ll take a gander at some of the (mostly) best looking game cards designed for children and family play. But first, a bit of Tang. Not the spaceman’s drink… the dynasty.
MADE IN CHINA
There is plenty of informed speculation as to the origins of playing cards. Game cards printed using wood blocks date to the Tang Dynasty during the 9th century. Part of the reason we know about these Chinese card games is because gamblers were caught, and had their wood blocks and cards confiscated by the Ming Department of Punishments in 1294. Alcohol use became part of game play in addition to gambling (more in the manner of poker than, say, Crazy 8s). As playing cards
developed in Persia and Egypt they eventually made their way to Europe.
It was in Europe that playing cards developed into the familiar design we know today. There are regional variations throughout the world, but English speaking countries use the French-suited 52-card deck. So, yeah, our cards are based on the French design. The American contribution to the modern card deck is (hang on, Bat-Fans)… the Joker.
Please keep in mind that this is a very condensed version of playing card history, but we need the set-up to get to the card games popular with children.
What type of cards are game cards for children?
According to Playing Cards and Their Story by George Beal (Arco Publishing Company, 1975) there are two types of playing cards. Standard cards are the type you might use to play poker or solitaire. Non-standard cards are similar to standard cards, but can be “fanciful or inventive.” Decks for Snap, Old Maid, Happy Families, and others “are not included in either definition.”
So there you go, kid’s cards don’t seem to be the subject of serious study. However, little snippets of facts turn up here and there, and we shall deal them out to you.
POPULAR GAMES
Old Maid
Before the advent of cards created for kids, certain games were originally played with standard decks. One such game is Old Maid. According to a 2023 YouGov survey, Old Maid is fourth on a list of games adults remember playing. It’s worth mentioning that Old Maid is at the bottom of the list of thirty games adults recall loving/liking.
The earliest rules date to 1831. Currently, the goal of the game is to match card pairs, and the player with the unmatchable card, the Old Maid, is the loser. The name of the game is offensive to some and certainly
seems cruel as it refers to a woman who is unmarried and therefore, it is assumed, unhappy. There is a less common version called Old Batchelor (which, of course, brings up its own assumptions about love and happiness). Either way, the game can be played with a standard deck by removing 1 or 3 queens (or Kings, I suppose) from the deck. The colorful Old Maid card games of the later 20th century tend to feature a more cheerful—but still aged—lady. The game continues to be sold with even happier vintage ladies. One recent deck features an “old maid” riding a skateboard. This is reckless as broken hips are a major health issue for the elderly.
Other similar card games are Merry Matches, which pairs couples (such as Father Christmas and Mrs. Bond—not someone I’m familiar with) and Black Peter, who is depicted
(LEFT) Late 1800s Parker Bros. Old Maid card showing a young women in unmarried distress. (LEFT CENTER) A circa 1960 Old Maid box cover from E. E. Fairchild (RIGHT CENTER) Old Maid Wildlife Edition (the Old Maid is a duck) from the National Wildlife Federation circa 1959. (RIGHT) Russell Cards’ Old Maid Mother Goose Edition circa 1980s.
“He’s No Fun, He Fell Right Over!”
BY SCOTT SHAW!
Robin Williams once referred to a Firesign Theatre album as “the audio equivalent of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.”
John Lennon was once photographed wearing Firesign Theatre’s “Not Insane—Papoon for President” campaign button they had made for the troupe’s short The Martian Space Party film.
In 1997, Entertainment Weekly ranked Firesign Theatre among the “Thirty Greatest Comedy Acts of All Time.”
“I may not be objective, but I can say that the world’s trippiest troupe has shown stunning innovation in the way they stage their work, and their recorded comedy is more layered and imaginative than a dozen James Joyces on peyote,” wrote a loyal fan.
So, who or what is a !?!@#$%&*!?! Firesign Theatre, anyway?
Like many of the earlier Firesign Theatre crowd, my first exposure to them was with my pal Dave Clark when he brought his copy of How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All to my apartment in 1969. I immediately
bought it, their second record album as well as their first LP, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him (1968) at the Licorice Pizza outlet in San Diego’s Pacific Beach.
There were gags that were goofy and gags that I didn’t understand... until I looked them up, which was kinda difficult without the net that we all now rely upon for information. “Smart and stupid” brings in twice the audience; television’s The Simpsons is a good example of that entertainment gimmick. And although Monty Python and Cheech & Chong were very popular humorists for my generation, I felt that MP’s whimsey got old fas,t and that, although C&C’s humor was focused on marijuana, it was too predictable. Firesign Theatre, like drugs, took us on sudden turns into weird situations that
were somehow connected but we didn’t know why. I thought of their material as “psychedelic humor.” Dave and I—and soon, with most of my friends, including those who had never used drugs—listened to the first four Firesign Theatre albums so often that we had memorized them, which took a lot of effort since we were often really stoned.
By the way, this was my—and some of my friends’—lurid youth, but frankly, we weren’t all that unusual. Exploring could be fun or dangerous. A lot of kids my age were doing the same things across America during the late 1960s and early ’70s. For those of us who survived, it’s nostalgia.
THE BACKSTORIES
Here are the backstories of the four men who formed this legendary comedy group.
Born under the fire sign Sagittarius, Peter Bergman (November 29, 1939—March 9, 2012) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. In high school, he got into trouble with his principal by announcing a takeover by Communists on his school’s radio system during the Korean War. Eventually, while attending Yale University to study economics, Peter’s sense of humor paid off, writing for—and eventually, the managing editor of—the campus’ humor magazine, The Yale Record. In his second graduate year, Peter became a fellow in playwriting. He met Philip Proctor in the Yale Dramatic Association, when Peter was writing two musical comedies with actor Austin Pendleton. In 1965, Peter spent a year
working in England on the BBC television program Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life. While there, he visited the surrealist comedian Spike Milligan in a play. Bergman went backstage and struck up a friendship with the comedian. Also that year, he saw the Beatles live in concert, which gave him the inspiration to form a four-man comedy group. He also coined the term “love-in” for the first-ever hippie get-together which he also organized. The event happened in Los Angeles, sometime during April 1967.
Philip Proctor (born July 28, 1940) was born under the fire sign Leo in Goshen, Indiana. After his family moved to New York City, he became a television child actor. This eventually led him to Yale University and a drama degree. More importantly, it was where he first met Peter. By the time Philip was an adult actor, he had a regular role on the soap opera The Edge of Night, before contacting Bergman to join him on Radio Free Oz in 1966. Since then, outside of Firesign Theatre, Philip has prolifically acted in many television series, including Daniel Boone, All in the Family, Night Court, and many others, as well as films such as Tunnel Vision, J-Men Forever, Amazon Women on the Moon, and Lobster Man from Mars. He also provided voiceover work for animation projects for television and films. He currently serves among the repertory cast of featured voices in many Disney animated films, including Beauty and the Beast, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, and all of the Toy Story films—and dozens of video games. In 2017, Proctor published an autobiography
BY WILL MURRAY
Producer Aaron Spelling has the distinction of being the most prolific and successful television producer in the history of the medium. Over a fifty-year career, he was responsible for hits like The Mod Squad, Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch, not to mention confections like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island
Spelling’s first breakout success was a show where he perfected a format he revisited in many subsequent endeavors—the galaxy of splashy guest superstars. Yet it had a most convoluted beginning.
Spelling was a producer for The Dick Powell Show, which was hosted by the veteran film star, who had been a songand-dance man back in the 1930s until he reinvented himself as a dramatic actor playing Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in 1944’s Murder, My Sweet By the time television came along, Powell’s Four Star Productions jumped
in with both feet, producing Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater in 1956 and The Dick Powell Show in 1961.
The premier episode of the anthology series was entitled “Who Killed Julie Greer?” Powell played millionaire police inspector Amos Burke. Burke inherited his wealth, but had joined the Los Angeles police force, working his way up the ranks. He was driven around in a Rolls-Royce limousine by his Filipino chauffeur, Henry.
Some of you reading this are probably staying, “Wait a minute! Didn’t Gene Barry play that character in his own show?”
Exactly. The evolution of Burke’s Law is one of the most confused in all of television history.
THE SECRET ORIGIN
The Dick Powell Show was a vehicle for testing TV pilots. Powell considered playing Amos Burke in a weekly series of his own, but decided to stick with hosting.
“I’m too old to play a weekly show, and how are you going to cast it?” he wondered. “Who can play that offbeat kind of comedy? Gary Grant? Sure—try to get him.”
In reality, the veteran performer had been diagnosed with cancer. A second pilot script was commissioned. Here is where it gets murkily mysterious. In late December 1962, Four Star announced that Jackie Cooper had been signed to play the role in a new series called Amos Burke
Simultaneously, other newspapers reported that former Maverick co-star Jack Kelly was going to play Burke! Furthermore, Kelly was Dick Powell’s choice for the part.
In January 1963, Powell died. Then it was announced that the cast of Amos Burke had been “realigned.” Shooting commenced with Gene Barry as the lead, replacing Cooper.
Barry, a former song-and-dance performer who had just left TV after playing the urbane and sartorially perfect Bat Masterson, planned to return to feature films. Reading the second pilot script, he fell in love with it.
“I just couldn’t resist the character,” Barry recalled. “I first saw Amos Burke in The Dick Powell Theater, ‘What Happened to Julie Greer?’ It just cried to be done as a series, and nobody could play the part but myself.”
The reimagined pilot was shot and scheduled, but NBC passed on it as a series. Before “Who Killed Holly Howard?” could air, Four Star sold the series to ABC-TV. NBC, which telecast The Dick Powell Show, was not pleased. They refused to air the episode.
This was almost unheard of. Since the new series had been sold to ABC, it was only a minor inconvenience. Aaron
Spelling went along with the project. Its creator was Frank D. Gilroy, later to win a Pulitzer prize for his 1965 play, “The Subject Was Roses.”
Over the summer, Four Star tinkered with the title. Amos Burke was out to avoid confusion with Jack Lord’s Stoney Burke. The Gene Barry Show and Murder, Anyone? were considered, then discarded. Finally, the show became Burke’s Law.
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The new title was inspired by the aphorisms Burke recited in each episode, such as “Never confuse the improbable with the impossible. Burke’s law.”
Burke’s Homicide squad included Detective Tim Tilson, a brainy go-getter fresh out of college played by Gary Conway.
“You might say I am a Quiz Kid detective,” the actor quipped.
Veteran actor Regis Toomey co-starred as world-weary Detective Sergeant Lester Hart. Eileen O’Niell played gorgeous Sgt. Gloria Ames. Michael Fox was coroner George McCloud. Another veteran, Barry Kelley, was announced as a regular, but Detective Joe Nolan vanished after the first episode.
Of the original cast, only Leon Lontoc as Burke’s Filipino chauffeur Henry carried over from the Dick Powell pilot.
The Burke’s Law formula was unvarying. In the pre-title teaser, a corpse would be discovered. Captain Burke, usually wrapped up in the arms of a new woman or attending some lavish party, would be summoned to the murder scene. During the investigation, he would encounter an array of kookie characters, apparently inspired by Peter Gunn
BRADY BUNCH interviews with MAUREEN McCORMICK, BARRY WILLIAMS, and EVE PLUMB! Plus a look inside the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, hard-knuckled features on GENE BARRY’s 1960s detective series BURKE’S LAW and satirical tough-guy NICK DANGER of the FIRESIGN THEATER radio comedy troupe, Saturday Morning’s HOT HERO SANDWICH teen variety show, and more!
