1979

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1978

Happy Thanksgiving. It's time to get serious about NFL78. We start today (Thursday, Nov. 23, 1978) with Broncos at Lions at 11:30 on Channel 6, and then we have Washington at Dallas at 2:30 on Channel 12. I'm excited.

We're through three quarters of the league's first-ever 16-game season, and it's time to figure out what needs to happen for the Dolphins to go back to the playoffs and get back to winning all of the Super Bowls. Three division winners and two wild-card teams from each conference will advance to the playoffs, and here's how the AFC stacks up going into Week 13 action:

Steelers 10-2

Patriots 9-3

Raiders 8-4

Broncos 8-4

Oilers 8-4

Dolphins 8-4

Jets 6-6

Browns 6-6

Seahawks 6-6

Chargers 6-6

Colts 5-7

You're going to have to win at least eight games to make the playoffs from the AFC, so that means the Bills (3-9), Chiefs (2-10) and Bengals (1-11) are eliminated from postseason contention.

Now here's where the NFC stands in sussing out which team loses to the Dolphins in the Super Bowl:

Rams 10-2

Cowboys 8-4

Washington 8-4

Vikings 7-5

Packers 7-5

Eagles 7-5

Falcons 7-5

Giants 5-7

Buccaneers 5-7

Saints 5-7

Bears 4-8

Lions 4-8

Cardinals 4-8

The number is probably already even higher than this the way the rest of the schedule is set up, but, even on first blush, it's clear that at least seven wins will be necessary to make the playoffs from the NFC. So, sorry, 49ers (1-11). Also, it should be noted that the Saints cannot win the NFC West because the Rams already have more wins than New Orleans could get to.

As I settle in for Channel 12's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade coverage, I plan to get out the Street and Smith's and look at the scenarios with the schedule over these last four weeks. 

Don't let the YouTube thumbnail there fool you; the real stars of this broadcast are CBS's New York hosts, Linda Lavin and Ron Leibman. Alice and Kaz air back-to-back on Channel 12 on Sunday nights in 1978, and the shows' titular stars are married in real life! What a powerhouse TV moment this broadcast was!

I really am excited about most everything.

1978: What's on TV Friday Nights?

I was disappointed to learn that Donny & Marie have ditched the ice dancers for Season 4.  

But the truth is that 1978 me was probably moving away from that perky show for my TV79 Friday nights, anyway. NBC has my 7/7:30 Central eye wandering with new sitcoms showcasing Broadway Joe and Chachi!

As GoHeath noted, TV79 is not going down as a proud-as-an-anything moment in NBC history.

But there's a pretty good chance I'll give Channel 6 the benefit of the doubt with its new entries bookending old-standby Rockford Files Season 5.

And if I lose the Channel 6 steam by Eddie Capra at 9, I will happily flip to Flying High on Channel 12. I caught the preview pilot the other night, and that thing feels like it is poised to deliver the absolute best kind of made-for-TV movie (no guns/killing, more laughs than drama, familiar faces, lots of love) every freaking Friday night.

But, just to be clear, none of us is watching any of that stuff on this particular Friday night in 1978.

Well, I guess 27 percent of us were watching something else at 7 Central Sept. 15, 1978. Per the Associated Press, "The biggest audience ever for a televised sporting event watched ABC’s broadcast of the heavyweight championship rematch between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks live from New Orleans. ABC estimated the audience for the 15-round fight at 90 million and said that meant 73 percent of the sets in use at the time were tuned to the fight."

1978: What's on TV Thursday Nights?

Mom pitched camp in the kitchen Thursday nights in 1978. Her portable was absolutely locked in all prime time to Channel 12.  

But, for me, it's more 7-9 p.m. Central sitcom domination by ABC.

The new show (a last-second shift from Monday nights) is the stud of the Channel 3 Thursday bunch. I found both Mindy and Mork to be adorable in their own ways.

And I'm satisfied to roll the next 90 minutes with What's Happening!! Season 3, Barney Miller Season 5 and Soap Season 2. Mom's Waltons/Hawaii Five-O/Barnaby Jones bender is helpful in this regard, as it is likely to keep her distracted from helicoptering the Channel 3 storylines on the portable in my bedroom.

As for 9 p.m., the new NBC show about broadcasting doesn't sound like nearly as much fun as the new CBS show about broadcasting. 

I might opt for a Season 4 Quincy, M.E. on SelectaVision. Or, every other Thursday night, I might expand my horizons with some public broadcasting, as PBS is bringing to its national audience an appealing creation germinating from its Chicago affiliate.

1978: What's on TV Wednesday Nights?

It honestly had never occurred to me until my year-by-year nostalgia slog at the HP just how hard I fell in love with newsrooms and newspeople through TV shows like Eight Is Enough and Lou Grant in the wake of Watergate and All the President's Men. In fact, I think Eight Is Enough might've been the most formative for me of all of the newspaper art of the 1970s. 

I really, really dug Dick Van Patten's Tom Bradford, an editor with a secretary and lots of professional respect--but a guy who ultimately seems to spend most of his time and emotional energy hanging out with with his wife, children and friends. Also, he's forever playing football or tennis or some sport. I see now that this dude was a total hero for me. I watched Eight Is Enough regularly when it was on; I skipped a lot of class in my first year or two at Western watching daytime reruns of the show on one of the two channels I could tune in on my dorm-room portable TV, and my wife and I even now and then put on an episode on Tubi (she liked/likes it, too).

So, Eight Is Enough Season 3 is my solid Wednesday-nights TV79 opener.

I don't know that I ever actually loved The Jeffersons, but I did come to love George, Louise and all of their family and friends, as I can't imagine that there's an episode that I haven't seen at least some of. So Jeffersons Season 5 is a likely SelectaVision situation for me at some point later in the evening.

The new shows? Meh.

I think it makes total sense that NBC in 1978 would take a flier on Dick Clark as ringmaster of an SNL for squares, but, in hindsight, it sure seems clear that the Ed Sullivan era was just solidly passed.

I watched a lot of the Vega$ pilot movie, and I found it surprisingly compelling. Still, I never watched that show when I was a kid; it's just not the kind of fun I'm usually looking for from TV. I'm not holding space for it.

Of course, 1978 me will give the new Channel 12 sitcom, In the Beginning, a go. It's clear CBS had high hopes for this Norman Lear sendup of Going My Way. Here is a very entertaining reel of promos that the network put together, apparently, for affiliates or advertisers or some B2B audience, and In the Beginning ("a different kind of comedy with impact for on both children and adults") is introduced as a big-tent Social Gospel meditation:

That back end of TV79 Wednesdays ultimately looks like movie territory for me, however. Here's what most grabbed me from the borrowed-from-box-office summary that TV Guide compiled for the new season:

• Airport '77
• Bad News Bears
• Black Sunday (just for the football parts)
• Blume in Love
• Fun with Dick and Jane
• Gone with the Wind
• Harry and Tonto
• Lady Sings the Blues
• Mother, Jugs and Speed
• Network
• Norman, Is That You?
• Orca
• Prisoner of Second Avenue
• Rocky
• Two-Minute Warning (again, football parts)

1978: What's on TV Tuesday Nights?

Channel 12 did a special preview of The Paper Chase the other night in 1978, and I thought it was excellent! 

However, there's just zero hope of any other network's breaking ABC's hold on me 7-9 Central Tuesday evenings. 

Jumped-the-shark Happy Days is starting Season 6 with an hour-long visit to a Colorado dude ranch. I am embarrassed to admit that I failed to note that Laverne & Shirley Season 4 actually kicked off last week in 1978, so we will have to hope to catch the hour-long "Festival" extravaganza in rerun. As previously noted, Three's Company (Apartamento para Tres) Season 3 gets going with "Double Date." And, then, at 8:30, one of my favorite shows of all time debuts.

For my money, there is no better sitcom pilot than Taxi's first episode, which includes the following phenomenal scene in which the coworkers learn that the pay phone in the garage is broken in such a way that they can place calls anywhere and get their coins back. So Bobby calls the National Theatre of Great Britain; Tony tries to call a Bangkok masseuse whom he met on R&R during the Vietnam War, and Alex initially declines to call his estranged daughter. It's such a clever, clever way to introduce these characters' back stories and shared station in life, and the actors are so immediately lovable and believable.

Well, anyway, I'm back open to offers at 9 Tuesday nights, which means Grandpa Goes to Washington might get some SelectaVision love during that hour.

But, more likely (sorry, Jack Albertson), I'm going to use that hour to catch up on Paper Chase or the last hour of the NBC special or CBS movie. Speaking of which, in the "Wednesday Nights" edition of this HP series, we'll take a look at some of the exciting-to-me movies that the networks have licensed for my pleasure in this dawning, glorious TV79.

1978: What's on TV Monday Nights?

Once NFL78 finishes its regular season, Monday nights portend as a Channel 12 situation from prime-time wire to prime-time wire ...

However, football season is only now getting started and extends to 16 games for the first time, and so here's a coin (apparently created by or for a Lexington TV station, now offered by an eBay seller in Bagdad) embossed with the 1978 lineup of ABC's NFL Monday Night Football games in 1978 for us all to coordinate calendars accordingly ...

As for that 7-8 p.m. Central hour before kickoff, I was never that much of a Kotter guy, anyway, so I'm not going to be any too conflicted about giving WKRP ("a hilarious, new comedy with exceptionally strong youth appeal") a try. And I imagine I will stick right with Phyllis George, whom I love (and with whom I once rode on a helicopter from Barkley Regional to a field somewhere down in Graves, Fulton or Hickman counties), until time for Frank, Howard and Dandy Don on Monday nights this fall or M*A*S*H Season 7 and One Day at a Time Season 4 in the new year.

Finally, I want to send a special 1978 Desk shoutout to Lou Grant (and YouTube compiler "mtmepisodes2"). The show's 1977-78 Season 1 (TV78) was fantastic, and Season 2 episodes don't start until Sept. 25. So that leaves us all time to acquaint or re-acquaint ourselves with "Animal," Mrs. Pynchon, Billie, Joe and all of Lou's new friends around the Los Angeles Tribune newsroom.

1978: What's on TV Sunday Nights?

The 6 p.m. Central Sunday block was almost always a disappointment to me. Occasionally, there was a Disney show or 60 Minutes segment that interested me, but, for the most part, I was always rooting for the late-afternoon NFL games to run late or wished this hour would've been given to the local affiliates to plug in old sitcom reruns and game shows.

But, at 7, now we're talking ...

It felt like every other 10-year-old boy in the United States was more into science fiction than I was in 1978, but, still, I was kind of into it. That's how huge science fiction was. I liked Star Wars. I really liked Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And I loved the toys. So while I almost certainly won't stick with it, I'll give Lorne Greene in space a go.

And I'm totally, totally down for Mary Tyler Moore getting a big Sunday-night variety showcase ...

I would've preferred that she just kept on making her sitcom, but this is good. CBS did a giant, self-congratulatory anniversary special over the course of a week this summer in 1978, and I really enjoyed that. Mary Tyler Moore ushered us through that whole deal, and she was just absolutely in command of the role.

So, I have high hopes for Mary, and, indeed, I don't envision myself tuning away from Channel 12 from 7 straight on through 9 on Sunday nights. I'm only OK with All in the Family, but I'll give it a fresh chance at 8 with the cast and story evolutions in light of the Stivics' move. I adore Alice, so I'm locked in there at 8:30.

Neither of the new shows at 9 p.m. grabs me ...

So that's probably when I'll fire up the ol' SelectaVision and a tape of that night's Battlestar Galactica or some NBC Big Event special. Speaking of which, here are the specials scheduled for the 1978-79 TV season that TV Guide has me especially juiced for:

• One in a Million made-for-TV movie, CBS, with LeVar Burton as Detroit Tigers outfielder Ron LeFlore, scheduled for Sept. 26
• A Salute to the American Imagination special, CBS, marking Ford Motor Co.'s 75th year, Oct. 5
• 10th Anniversary Hee Haw special, NBC, Oct. 22
• Bud & Lou made-for-TV movie, NBC, about Abbott & Costello, Nov. 15
• Benji's Very Own Christmas Story, NBC, Dec. 7
• A Woman Called Moses miniseries, NBC, with Cicely Tyson as Harriet Tubman, starting Dec. 11
• Perry Como's Early American Christmas special, ABC, Dec. 13
• Bob Hope All-Star Christmas Show, NBC, Dec. 22
• Dolly & Carol in Nashville special, CBS, starring Parton and Burnett, Feb. 14, 1979
• Roots: The Next Generations miniseries, ABC, starting Feb. 18
• Friendly Fire made-for-TV movie, CBS, with Carol Burnett as the mother of a soldier killed in Vietnam, April 22
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made-for-TV special, CBS, with Esther Rolle, Ruby Dee and Diahann Carroll starring in the dramatization of Maya Angelou's book, April 29
• Ike: The War Years miniseries, ABC, with Robert Duvall as Gen. Eisenhower, starting May 3

I love television.