Reviews

In 1965 Ed Vane took over as head of daytime programming at ABC. Saturday mornings were dominated by CBS- Vane wanted to change that. He felt the best bet was a Beatles cartoon. Working with Al Brodax at King Features, a deal was made for 26 shows with 2 cartoons per show at a budget of $32,000/show (cheap for 1965). And Brodax had just 5 months before the premiere. Result was a rush job with all the animation outsourced outside the U. S. Results were as you would expect-simple animation with lots of cycles repeating. Still, "The Beatles" was the top rated cartoon for the year, and ABC came in #1 on Saturday mornings. That shocked CBS into opening its wallet and spending millions on a complete revamp of their lineup.

13 more Beatles cartoons were made over the next two seasons- since they're not as rushed the quality is noticeably better. Al Brodax went on to produce the Yellow Submarine film.

In the early 1950's, NBC and CBS try to figure out how to program Saturday daytimes. They decide the afternoons will be devoted to sports, with mornings to children. At first that means Saturday Mornings became the home for Howdy Doody, Pinky Lee, and Mr. Wizard as well as reruns of westerns.

Then in 1955 CBS buys the Terrytoons cartoon studio for $3.5 million. On December 10, 1955 at 10:30AM EST, the network debuts the Mighty Mouse Playhouse (sponsored by Colgate Dental Cream). The show's an instant hit and CBS will air (and profit from) it through 1966. The episodes originally aired four cartoons from the Terrytoons library- one Mighty Mouse with the rest featuring characters like Farmer Al Falfa and Gandy Goose. Over time the older toons are phased out and more Mighty Mouse cartoons added until the lineup is 3 Mighty and 1 "other". CBS, NBC and later ABC add more cartoons to their Saturday Morning schedule. By the time Mighty leaves CBS, the networks have 24 cartoons airing on Saturday morning. But he was the one who showed the way.

This was one of the films Clark Gable was in between "It Happened One Night" and "Mutiny on the Bounty". Today it's remembered mainly for what happened between Gable and Loretta Young off camera.

This is a very loose adaptation of the Jack London book, but you expected that going in. Much of it was filmed at Mt. Baker (in January!) and those scenes are wonderful to look at- especially the scenes filmed on the Nooksack River. The actors do a great job considering how cold it was. Plus we now get the original 1935 release version as opposed to the reissue version which is a whopping 14 minutes shorter-Katherine DeMille finally gets her moment. I found the film entertaining but I do wish they had stayed with the original ending instead of going with that silly "happy ending". I won't go into the details except to say that the original ending does explain some of the dialogue and character reactions we get in the last 30 minutes. We have the preview audience to blame for that.

In 1961 "You Bet Your Life" ended its 11 season run on NBC. In 1962 Groucho returned to network TV-now on CBS-with "Tell It to Groucho", done by the same production company that had done YBYL. TITG was similar in format, but with several key differences. As Groucho himself explained "We've discarded the secret word, the quiz, the duck, Grant's Tomb, and Fenneman". Replacing the quiz was a game where the contestants had to identify a picture that appear on screen for a very short time. The game show element was reduced to an afterthought, and the program came off as another talk show. And whereas YBYL had George Fenneman as the perfect straight man to Groucho, TITG had Joy Harmon (called Patty on the show) who was what Jane Russell would call a "full-figured gal" who said very little. Viewers in 1962 who wanted to see Groucho had a choice between TITG, or syndicated reruns of YBYL (retitled "The Best of Groucho"). They preferred the reruns, and TITG was off the air after 5 months.

Dotto, like other game shows of the 1950's, had 2 contestants answering questions to get points that would help them win the main game. The game in Dotto was based on connect-the-dots- correct answers connected some dots and triggered clues to the puzzles identity. The connect-the-dots feature caught on, and Dotto became the most popular show on daytime TV in 1958. A Dotto game sometimes ended in a tie, another feature common in 50's quiz show. And just like the others, Dotto employed measures to "control" the gameplay. Before each show, a few staff members met to decide which contestant should win. That favored contestant got questions in subjects they had knowledge in. That allowed them to connect more dots and get clues before their opponent (the clues were vital-some like "Fireside Chats" virtually gave away the subject). But on other occasions Dotto staff simply gave the favored contestant answers to the questions and the drawing before the broadcast. A disgruntled contestant complained to the FCC, triggering a CBS investigation that ended with Dotto's sudden cancellation with no explanation. The media took up the story, and soon more contestants from Dotto and other quiz shows went public stating they also received answers beforehand.