1975: U.S. of Archie

18 Jul 1975, Fri The Paducah Sun (Paducah, Kentucky) Newspapers.com

If you're skipping church this Sunday morning, July 20, 1975, you could take a last, fleeting look at U.S. of Archie, on Channel 12. Here's a clip from the 16th of 16 episodes produced, "The Wizard of Menlo Park."

Wikipedia: "The series features Archie, Jughead, and the other Riverdale High student regulars re-enacting famous scenes throughout American history, taking full advantage of the Bicentennial in the months leading up to it. These re-enactments were termed by Archie during the show to be historical accounts featuring the "ancestors" of the current Archie gang; surprisingly, these ancestors were nearly identical to Archie et al. and were seemingly close friends of famous people in several eras of American history."

The Freakin' Weekend (1974)

Here's the game from Week 8 of the 1974 NFL season that NFL Films deep dove into for its NFL Game of the Week telecast ...

Sports Illustrated got excited about the same game and dispatched Joe Marshall to Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, for the lowdown. Plus, SI uprounded the rest of the Sunday games, so I know how all of those came out. But given that Nov. 11 Ali/Foreman issue's coverage cut off at Nov. 3 and I was busy watching a lot of 2020 stuff last week, I don't know how the Nov. 4 NFL Monday Night Football episode comes out ...

Once I watch the game, I'll plan to update the standings in the comments, to get us all reset for Week 9 action. And to get us all fired up for the Sunday, Nov. 11, kicksoff, ABC is rerunning a made-for-TV movie shot during the Chicago Bears' 1971 training camp ...

More NFL74 in the Nov. 9-15 Sophia Loren TV Guide ...

Also, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The Freakin' Weekend (1974)

Channel 3 at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, 1974 ...

 

Channel 6 at 7:30 p.m. Friday ...

Channel 6 at 10:30 p.m. Friday ...

Channel 3 at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7 ...

 

In conclusion: TV! Football! 

Comments flow ...

What's On TV This (Labor Day) Weekend (1974)?

I'm planning to work the rest of this week to mostly clips from the 1974 Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy Association of America, which got rolling on WDXR Channel 29 in Paducah at 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 1.

The Freakin' Weekend (1974)

Current World Football League standings as of Thursday, July 11, 1974:

Eastern Division
Florida Blazers 1-0
Philadelphia Bell 1-0
New York Stars 0-0
Jacksonville Sharks 0-0

Central Division
Birmingham Americans 1-0
Chicago Fire 1-0
Memphis Southmen 1-0
Detroit Wheels 0-1

Western Division
Houston Texans 0-1
Portland Storm 0-1
Southern California Sun 0-1
The Hawaiians 0-1

The league kicked off last night with 10 games, and tonight we have the first nationally televised contest, the New York Stars at the Jacksonville Sharks, syndicated by TVS (check your local listings).

I actually hate the WFL. It's going to have a big hand in killing the Dolphins. But by this point in the summer, 1974 me is willing to watch whatever football you're willing to give me. We'll see how much interest I have left in the WFL in a couple of weeks.

MLB74 is going on ...

The big sports news of late, though, has been Wimbledon. Lovers Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert won the men's and women's singles titles, and they are on the covers of both the current SPORT and Sports Illustrated magazines. SI has the couple posing with their trophies. Monthly SPORT, of course, had to go to press before the tournament was played, so its cover shot of Connors and Evert leaping the net together is especially impressive. Newsweek also had tennis on a cover earlier this month, but it guessed wrong and went with Sweden's Björn Borg.

I like playing tennis. 2020 me, in fact, played just this past Thursday, July 9 (and won my best-of-three-sets match at the Madisonville Community College Garnett "Penny" Pennington courts, 6-2 and 6-3). I just have never much been able to get into it as a spectator sport, however. I didn't even read the SI coverage and was actually more interested in some of the ads.

I might have to add some of those books to my Christmas list.

Tree(s) Today/#Stamps/The Freakin' Weekend (2020/1974)

First, it's almost Saturday in 2020, and you know what that means: It's about time to get our stamps on!™

Second, my YouTube Watch Later queue is working again, and that makes everything better. 

Third, I've got some 1974 media (pictured with Ella) backed up and ready for consumption, and so what I'm saying is this weekend is about to blow up!

U.S. History 1974-75: TV, M*A*S*H, Chapel Hill, Lorne Michaels and the Bicentennial

In the M*A*S*H episode "There Is Nothing Like a Nurse" (originally aired Nov. 19, 1974), the 4077 nurses are evacuated upon intelligence of a forthcoming air raid. It turns out to be a harmless pamphlet drop by so-called "5 O'clock Charlie," and the nurses return to much jubilation. The end.

Over the course of the episode, the show's makers appeared to have jammed in several very funny, probably leftover gags (trapping Major Burns in a latrine with a jeep, Hawkeye's riffing over a mailed-from-home wedding film, etc.) that were probably each too short to carry their own storyline. M*A*S*H was in its third season, and it had really found its stroke. The show is confident enough by this point to fly plot-light and play to its established base. This episode is probably unlikely to have won over any too many new converts to CBS at 7:30 p.m. Central Tuesdays, but it's a treat for fans who get to explore all sorts of little idiosyncrasies of their beloved characters through this highly amusing amalgamation of one- to three-minute, only loosely associated scenes.

In addition to the gags, there are three separate musical numbers led by guitar-toting Capt. Calvin Spalding, portrayed by Loudon Wainwright III. He's a pleasant enough troubador and, in real life, the dad of singer-songwriters Martha and Rufus Wainwright. According to Wikipedia, Loudon III is the 1946 yield of the union of a Life editor and yoga teacher. He's a native of Chapel Hill, N.C., a former "new Dylan" and still a frequent contributor to the scores and soundtracks of hit movies, such as Knocked Up.

Loudon III bubbles back up on TV in the Nov. 15, 1975, Saturday Night Live, performing his rousing preview of the now-near Bicentennial, “Bicentennial.”

1975: Rest in Peace, Mary Frann

I was saddened this morning to learn that Mary Frann died in September 1998. The Associated Press reported that year that an autopsy concluded Frann, who died in her sleep, suffered a heart attack associated with "an existing but undiagnosed scarring of heart-muscle tissue." She was 55. 

On Jan. 16, 1975, Suzanne Pleshette had been a Hollywood Square, and, on Jan. 18, 1975, she's in another episode of the hit Bob Newhart Show. Pleshette is a bonafide TV star as of today 1975. 

Not Mary Frann. Not yet. 

Things are looking up, however. Mary Frann turns up for a guest spot on the Jan. 17, 1975, episode of Rockford Files, much as the 1961 "America's Junior Miss" has been turning up on shows here and there for much of the last decade. Her TV career is really starting to take off, in fact. Just last year, in 1974, Frann had finally secured her first regular part--as Amanda Howard, on Days of Our Lives. Mary Frann's 15th Nerinx Hall High School reunion is coming up in 1976, and it's beginning to look like there's going to be a lot of fun stuff to talk about when the girls get back together after all those years in Webster Groves, Mo. 

If they only knew. It won't be until 1982 that Mary Frann lands the role for which she will be primarily remembered. Mary Frances Luecke is going to be bonafide Network Star in her own right (even if, after 184 episodes and eight years as Joanna Loudon, she never exactly convinced us that she was Bob Newhart's wife). 

And, then, not many years later, Mary Frann will be gone. What a sad and odd conversation that must've been when the Nerinx Hall Marker alumnae of '61 reconvened for their 50th last year.