 This is the SF Productions podcast network The tape shows. Let me see. There's a tape already in here. Let me hook this up here. Let me see what we got. Back with us to the 60s and 70s, the dwelling place of the lost generation. An era whose heroes, role models, and very lives were molded and formed by weekly installments of favorite television programs. Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand. Welcome to the vast wasteland. Welcome home. Good evening and welcome to another exciting episode of Vast Wasteland. I'm your host, Mark Schmidbar along with Wilbur Neal and Marty Wiley. We're here to talk about 60s and 70s television. Before we get into the big extravaganza-o-fun tonight, I just want to tell you we're on Tuesdays at 6, Wednesdays at 10, and Thursdays at 3 p.m. here on ACTV, cable 21. Also, if you want to write into us, we have a new box number. Yes. Whatever reason you want to write into us, just write it care of Vast Wasteland, box 15, 14, 11, Columbus, Ohio, 432, 1-5. And we're still having that big... And this is... I do this every show. I can't remember the name of what we're calling this, the swap. The big video swap deal. If you have a show that you can't seem to find anything about and you'd love to get a videotape of it, write to us. We'll mention on the air that you're looking for it. And if somebody else has it, they can write into us and we'll ring some big swap. Or if somebody knows where you can get it. Right, exactly. Information or not. So it's a clearinghouse. That's the word I want. A free exchange. That's the word. Clearinghouse. Yikes. A free exchange of wants and ideas. Exactly. Or wants and ideas, I don't know. So we'll set everybody up. And this is, of course, not for commercial use at all. We're not making any money on this. We want to make sure, you know, don't write it and say, I'll tell you if you give me five bucks, we can't do that. So if you have no money. So let's move on to tonight's topic. Certainly in the 60s and 70s, especially the 70s, one of the probably the guiding force in the 70s of programming. Let's make that the late 70s. Fred Silverman. The man with the golden gut, as he was called. Because of his uncanny ability to take a network with really bad shows and just put him in number one. He did it with CBS. He did it with ABC. He didn't quite do it with NBC. So tonight it's NBC, the Silverman years. That was ABC. NBC. He was on all of them. That's the point. That's so confusing. Now what's your guy? Now of course he started out. Actually, he wrote a thesis for OSU. He's a buck eye, huh? Yeah, he was at OSU and he wrote a thesis about how ABC was programming their shows in the early 50s. And somebody at CBS saw him and saw this thesis somehow and they said, wow, this guy really knows what he's doing. So they brought him in as a young executive. And before you know it, he was in charge of daytime programming. Amazing. And it's just that simple. That's right. It's that easy to get it. And then we could be on a network. Yeah. So it's that easy to get into television, or at least it was in the 50s. So by the time you get to the early 60s, Silverman has become the new head of nighttime programming, all evening programming. And he's doing very well and he kind of brought in a lot of those rural shows that made CBS such a hit at the time. It was also Mike Dan, this other program. But Silverman was like this, trying all these... Silverman. Yeah. He was trying all these maverick concepts. Oh, we're going to try this counter-programming and we'll change shows around. And lots of things that no one would hear about. But it seemed to work for Silverman. And before you know it, boom, CBS is moving into second or first place by that point. They were really doing bad. He brought in shows like All in the Family and Mash. I mean, he really had some great ideas. He said, you know, we're going to change the rural outlook. So right at the point when CBS is just roaring along, Silverman leaves because he doesn't think he has a big enough challenge. So he goes to ABC, which at this point is doing garbage. They're third, they're in the hold. This is the early 70s. And he came in and he said, well, we've got to get to kind of like a consciousness between all the shows. So there's a lot of crossovers on shows, a lot of spectaculars and a lot of glitzy stuff and a lot of counter-programming. This man brought up the concept of the second season before, you know, like the, you know, before there were, you basically have a show went on the air. It was like on for 26 weeks, whether it was good or not. Show's were not canceled until like the end of the season. And he looked at the reviews and said, let's get rid of it. All right, let's keep it. And the show re-runs over to somewhere and well, shot a new season in the fall. But all of a sudden he comes in and says, no, no, we're going to trash all these shows and aren't doing any good. In fact, at one point, I read that ABC, by 1975, had no programming, on the prime time programming that had been on before 1973. Everything was gone. Clean slate it. Boom, everything's gone. It's all new. It's all for you. Not improved. And so ABC became the network of happy days and Silverman became Mr. Spinoff with Laverne and Shirley and things like Mork and Mindy. Mork and Mindy is a spin-off of happy days now. Right. And brought in shows like Welcome Back Cotter and Excellent Show. Oh yeah. And so he's just roaring along and everything's going great and he hits the 76 Olympics and it's a huge hit and Olympics until that point had never done well in the networks and so no one paid any money for him. So he goes in there, big hit and because it's a big hit a lot of people see all these promos for new shows which catapults them in the number one place the first time ABC had ever been number one. And he just rolled on into roots. I mean, you can just go through and just like a hall of fame of 70 shows, especially at ABC that is boom, show, show. Great show, great show, great show, great show. Now a lot of the things they did like Freeze Company, a lot of people. A lot of bubblegum shows. A lot of bubblegum shows. Charlie's Angels, stuff like that, you know. Not exactly your upper crust programming. But popular. Right. You know, nothing for the brain really. Right. Just eye bubblegum, yeah. Lots of jiggle, lots of the same thing but people get comfortable with stuff. Over and over and over again. See how many situations we can break. Gee, John Ritter has gone. John Ritter has, I mean, you think John Ritter was Freeze Company. Yeah, he was the show. And now he's like, getting like famous. Like, he's like a real actor now. He can tell he's a real actor because he does promotional commercials for items that you wouldn't or nearly buy. That's right. Like, he's actually done a movie or so, eh? Yeah, he's done a couple movies. Like, well, what's that? They literally did that Cooperman series. That was a good series. That was a good series. That was really good. Well, he's done movies and stuff. It was a Blake Edwards movie. Skin Deep. Skin Deep. Yeah, which I thought was really, you know, you think Skin Deep was really a pretty much successful movie and then Therese Company. Oh, he traveled. What's happened to Suzanne Summers besides bed-wedding? You don't know. Bed-wedding and childhood alcohol. She was like a police, police captain or something. She's the sheriff. Yeah, okay. Went on that. That was a weird concept. NBC tried to do the idea, we're going to move back, move prime time back to 7.30. Now, this is something that most affiliates didn't see because I saw it because the NBC affiliate in Cleveland was a, what did they refer to it, an O&O station, owned and operated. NBC owned it. And so all the O&O stations were forced to show these five nights of sitcoms starting at 7.30 with NBC shows. And none of the other affiliates did because it was later. But at the beginning, they tried to push it as NBC shows and of course the only people that did it were the owned stations because all the other ones said, hey, we got crosswits or, you know, Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy or Entertainment Tonight or whatever. And we're making big bucks with those. We're not going to give another half hour to the network. So that idea died and they went on to syndication. So she went on to syndication heaven with the... Joycee Witt's got nowhere. Boy, she just, boom, she was gone. A vapor. And I think she lasted longer on the show than the original of any of the originals. Well, her and John Redder were basically the only... Yeah, he stayed on it. The only ones that stayed the whole time, of course, the Ropers. The Ropers. Got their own show. The Ropers, they're gone. And of course, Mr. Furley, the immortal Don Knotts, moved in. Yeah, that's Don Don Knotts. Hi, Gally. Doing his Barney Pfeiffer impression again. Oh, can you do somebody else? Tell me. Barney Pfeiffer. He did Barney Pfeiffer. He made Barney Pfeiffer. Barney Pfeiffer. What Barney Pfeiffer is. A legend in his own mind. That's right. So, certainly, they just moved along with huge enormous hits. And then again, Silverman said, oh, I don't have a challenge anymore. ABC is so dominant over the other two networks that I must go somewhere else. So he went to number three, which by that point was the extremely beleaguered NBC, which by that point it was just doing horribly. And what magic did he bestow upon them? Well, she tried to say. Things didn't go as well in NBC as it had for the others. I think basically by this point he had to have an enormous ego because he was about to pull the hat-trick of broadcasting. Bring all three networks from number three to number one. And he's like, yeah, I'm in the home stretch now. This would be easy. I'll just whip up some magic and boom, NBC will be number one. And just breeze right through. And so I think what happened basically between his ego and the fact that nobody else at NBC, at least at the beginning, was saying, well, Fred, isn't this a silly idea? Because he's Fred Silverman. He must know what he's doing. So when he brings up concepts like, we're going to have a nuclear-powered train and we're going to pay $10 million per set at a time when NBC was in the red, nobody said, Fred, can't we kind of do it with a bus or something? Kind of alter this. Wouldn't it be nice to have that kind of power? Walking into a TV station and just... And that's what he did. Say the law. He did. And he just ran into... Piasco's O Plenty. It's just like one after another. Boom, boom, boom. Starting with... Well, these aren't in chronological order, but just going along a big hit. Grandpa goes to Washington. What a great idea. September 7th to January 16th. Is that about 13 weeks? Jack Albertson played a crotchety old... Oh, what a surprise. What a stretch. He played this grandpa who decides, I'm going to be a senator. So he runs for the Senate and he gets elected. And it's all this, you know, it's kind of like a... And obviously it's a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington kind of thing. You know, it's lots of... Well, he's the only honest guy and everybody else are... And it's really amazing when you look at the... Look at the supporting cast featuring... Larry Lindville. Larry Lindville. Straight from there. Straight from Frank Burns. He went on as Major General Kevin Kelly. Got a promotion on? Yeah, yeah. Based on how old they made him, you almost think, this could be Frank Burns like by the 1970s. It really could. Because they kind of grade him up and, you know, made him older and maybe. So, I don't see they have him listed here as the bland, empty-headed Air Force General. Gee, Frank Burns. The bland, empty-headed Army Doctor. My son, the fat head. And you can really see Jack Albertson sitting there saying that. Charlie! Oh, I'm Kevin. hahahahahahah Burp, Charlie, burp! Attaboy. And? Yeah, Jack Albertson, like, always been old. He seems to have been. It's like John Huston. First one old people like John Huston and John Carrey. Hey, get away from me! What are you doing? I've been born, get away from me. Nah, I'm old already. You had gray hair and wrinkles when it was born. So, I must've... I must've. Scary. So then we move on to certainly the archetype for bad Silverman shows. Hello Larry! With another mash. With another mash regular for some reason he kept reaching in the old mash regularly. For McLean Stevenson. Well, McLean Stevenson actually has enough bad shows to basically rate his own show pretty much for bad shows. McLean Stevenson has something to do. It's like, and this was basically every cliche that they could find wrapped up into a show. You know, you had the swinging widow guy. Bachelor dad. Bachelor widow. Was it a widow? No, no. He was divorced. No, break up. Oh, he was divorced. But didn't he have kids? Oh, yeah. Had two kids, of course, went with him. Sounds like every other show on the day. It was like one day at a time there. And then he's on a radio station like WKRP. And then... Oh, I see they've got another one of these great... Let's change the character, the person that plays the character, and maybe nobody on notice kind of deals here. Oh, yeah. Diane Holder played by Donna Wilkes and then Krista Erickson. And no one... And no one noticed. She's got a little sister. I'm sure a little sister never even noticed either. And this was another Silverman concept in the show that didn't work in this case, which was, well, we'll kind of pump some blood into this show by kind of an emergency transfusion by, we'll bring a hit show coming in, which, of course, was Different Strokes. And we find out that these two guys were old army buddies. And so there was lots of cross-pollination. They were right next to each other for a long time on the schedule, and they'd be on one show, and they'd be on their show. And it didn't work. Every time it was like, people would say, hey, Different Strokes is on. They'd watch that. And as soon as they heard Larry, boom, they're gone. Different Strokes when the kids were cute. Right. Or they all turned crime. Committed felony death. That's like a show in itself, though, by a guy. Like, of course, they've done all the talk shows. Right. And finally, what I consider the final cliche... All right, wait a minute. For the show, I have the same show. The final cliche. If a show is dying, bring in a real sports figure as a new character. Yes, they brought in metal-like lemon. Metal-like lemon as himself. He just happened to move into the same apartment building that's the other ones in. Bouncing basketballs up and down the steps all hours of the night. Then I'm on his finger. But it just wasn't enough to save the show. They pulled out all the stuff. And then, you know, when everyone was trying to do those western kind of country shows, Dukes of Hazard and stuff like that, well, they said, you know, we've got this BJ and the Bear, it's doing pretty well. There's this character. He would be great on his own show. Yes, it's the Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo. Sheriff Lobo. I used to watch that one, because I like Perkins. Perkins on there. A lot of Acons, and certainly one of his worst roles. Well, it was pretty much the way I looked. It looked like Andy Griffith to me. But I mean, Andy Griffith had some semblance of sanity to it. This was a complete slapstick. We're trying to be Andy Griffith, but we just don't have that much talent. That's right. There you go. That's why they had this fellow here, Mills Watson, who played Deputy Perkins. Now he was the show, in my opinion. Amazing, he didn't get spun off into his own show. I almost thought he would have. Because you look at that other, well, Dukes of Hazard, and then they spun off Edis. Oh! Which went by other names, but... Right. So there was that show. And look here, Nell Carter was in the cast of that show. On that Lobo. I remember she and Perkins used to always get into arguments about things. Because she'd tell him how stupid he was, and he wouldn't believe her. He'd go out and prove to the rest of the viewing audience how stupid he was. And Lobo would have to come in and save the day. Yeah, that was fun. So then we move on to certainly possibly the worst concept of any television show. Oh, I'd say ever. You're going forever here, huh? I think anyone will come up with the worst concept. I'm saying, you know... That's your challenge. Come up with the worst concept. Then Pink Lady and Jeff. Hello, Jeff! For those who don't remember this show, and those people don't because it was on for such a short time. We have mentioned it before, though. This time, pay attention. So it won't happen again. Jeff Altman, who's now a fairly funny comedian, but the time was a fairly... Up-and-coming comedian. He talks a lot. So he put him together with this hot new Japanese rock duo, Pink Lady. And it was these two Japanese women, and then a huge hit in Japan. Me, Nemoto, and Kei Masuda. Yeah, and they look great, and they put them in, you know, like sexy outfits. Oh, and they're going to have banner. It'll be like Sunny and Cher, kind of thing. So you can do both of those at once. But there was the one slight problem. They didn't speak a wit of English. Not at all, so not a bit. All the witty banner, they spoke phonetically. Which really screws up your timing. And so they get the one who's the nice little sweet one and the other one's trying to be the mean one. So in order to make her mean, they order to make her mean. What do they do? They tell her to lower her voice a couple of octaves. They're talking like... They're like to show them kume. Put it! Put it! Put it on! Like a bad kung fu movie. That's what the show needed, some kung fu, yeah. That's what I helped it, actually. Really scary that this show ever got in the air. And again, an example of... Nobody said... Mr. Zoverman. There's a slight problem here. Could we possibly get somebody who could speak English? Well, apparently somebody did, from May the 1st, 1980, until April 4th of 1980. But this show should never have hit the air. It was on for exactly one month. Did you say May to April? No, no, no. Okay, March, excuse me. March the 1st to April the 4th. Okay, I didn't know the time was going backwards or what. Maybe I said it wrong, but... It was on for one month. Maybe you said wrong! We're on the pier! Whoa! I corrected that. Another example of... Why did the show get on the air? But here's one of my favorite shows. Super Train! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Let me set the stage for you for Super Train. Love Boat. Big hit on ABC. In fact, something that Zoverman had something to do with when they started getting together. So he comes over and he says, Hey, what a great idea! Lots of people falling in love on some form of transportation. Well, we can't do a large form of transportation. Now, also about the time between there somewhere, there was the movie The Big Bus. Yes. Which was out. It was a satire. Exactly, it was a satire on the idea of people meeting, falling in love, situations happening on a large sort of transportation. Whatever it is. Because it was making fun of the airplane movies. No, the airport movies. Which were out. Right. They had gone through maybe three or four of them at the time. And so then they came up with The Big Bus. Which is a take off on those. But at the same time on TV, we've got the Love Boat. Which is coming out. And it's kind of a decent kind of show, you know. And then they go on and so, so then he gets the idea. Well, let's see what's working here. Large form of transportation. Large form of transportation. Nuclear power. People meeting. Okay, so we've got to make, and we've got to have a wacky crew. And a bar. And we have to have a disco. Yeah. Well, let's see what form of transportation could do that. Well, we can't use a boat. A train. Not just any train. An enormous nuclear power train. Then we go back and forth across America 200 miles an hour. Now, I guess that nuclear power is safe. That's right. So, of course, they had, but it wasn't. That was the worst part. So, of course, since they couldn't have this enormous train actually going across America, they had to build miniatures. Lots of miniatures. $10 million worth of miniatures. What's the good year for the miniature makers? At a time that NBC was like out of money. They were in the red. They were like affiliates dropping off left and right. Silverman comes in and says, this is for a show that's a complete rip-off and probably won't be on that long. And they went, okay. So, boom. I'm sure he had to sell it like, come on, this will be. This is the big one I can feel. Oh, yeah, this is the one. So, he does this series. It's on for a month. And then, boom, it's off again because the ratings are absolutely hideous. And they retool it, get rid of all but one of the cast members, and then put it back on for a couple months. And it still doesn't work. And so, it's gone. Yet another huge fiasco from Fred Silverman. And, let's see, I want to just, let's see, mention oh, one more, Turnabout. Oh, no. This is fun. Turnabout, John Shuck, Sharon Glath. Actually, two fairly good actors. Why the heck they're, well, maybe not John Shuck, but... Two very good actors. Except for John Shuck. Sharon Glath, fine actress. How she was roped into this beyond me. This man and wife secretly wants to have the other's life. She wants to be a man and make all the decisions and have this powerful job. And he just wants to get out of the rat race and have her lovely job or whatever. And they find this totem or whatever. And, boom, their souls are moved back and forth. His soul is in her body and her soul is in his body. This has been done over and over but never as a series because it's such a limited concept. Exactly. And so, where can we go from here? It's gone. Lots of two-hour movies about this but you can't really do a series on it. Well, it lasted for a good two months. Was that eight weeks? So, anyways, one last thing I just wanted to... Oh, actually, we're almost desperately out of time. Believe it or not. But anyways, so Fred Silverman basically got up to the 1980 Olympics which he was convinced was going to really, he was going to build up to the big thing. By the end of 1980, they were going to be number one and of course, we boycotted the Moscow Olympics and boom! He couldn't show the Olympics. NBC lost $50 million. And by that point, he's a ghost. Bye-bye for it. Bye-bye for the show because we're out of here. Next time at Bass Wasteland, it's our rerun of our big Trek show. It's Bass Wasteland from the Vault. So... Vintage Bass Wasteland. So, we'll see you next time. Well, we won't but you will. Good night.