TV From Our Past: Gold or Just Old?

What was primetime TV like in 1970? The first thing you’ll notice is that the most popular genre of show back then is extinct today.

When it comes to primetime TV, my sons, Matt, 22, and Tim, 19, do share a common frame of reference with me, despite the grand canyon of generational gap.

Thanks to Nick At Nite and TV Land, my sons have seen Lucille Ball stomp grapes, Dick Van Dyke trip – and subsequently miss – the living room ottoman at the beginning of his eponymous show and watch as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fiff did his “scared to death” impression while investigating a haunted house with Gomer.

Their casual interest in shows of my youth started me thinking about analyzing primetime TV from a year in the past.

So I decided to focus on the primetime season of September 1970. I chose that year because it seemed to be the last year before significant changes in TV programming (All in the Family and more realistic shows began in 1971) and it was a highest-rated year of the last five TV seasons.

Variety was the spice of TV

First, the most popular TV show genre in 1970 is extinct today on TV. In 1970, there were more than 12 hour-long, comedy-variety shows that dominated primetime TV. In fact, the Carol Burnett Show was a top-rated show on Monday night and in 1972 moved to Saturday night, where networks today have given up on original shows because of low ratings and years of Walker Texas Ranger with Chuck Norris dialogue that was as wooden as the hardwood floors on HGTV’s Designed To Sell show.

With Burnett and her band of impresarios, sketch comedy reached vertical limits not seen since Sid Caesar.

These shows – often helmed by big names – blended sketch comedy with music. With Red Skelton, a comedian, sketches dominated with his lovable Freddie The Freeloader. By contract, Dean Martin and Andy Williams focused on musical standards.

Of course, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was in a class by itself with its iconic humor, from “Here Come The Judge” to Artie Johnson’s WW II German soldier who repeated, “Very interesting, but stupid.”

Laugh-In shattered time, transitions, traditional pacing and linear comedy. It screamed chaos, space-time fissures and comedy at once insouciant and searing, always catching viewers by surprise. The ground fault interrupters in this 60-minute lunacy were a traditional comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, who did a typical, Las Vegas lounge stand-up act that enabled viewers to catch a breath and revel in traditional entertainment before being treated to Goldie Hawn and her gyrating body art.

How the West was Lost

The western drama hasn’t been a staple on primetime TV in 40 years. In 1970, the dramatic gun belt of the horse opera was nearly devoid of bullets. The 60s revolution had made the western seem outdated and a vestige of the dreaded older generation. In 1970, only the venerable Gunsmoke, Men From Shiloh and High Chaparral remained on TV, with the Men From Shiloh renamed from the long-running The Virginian as its ratings dropped faster than cows from hoof and mouth.

In fact, Men From Shiloh was cancelled after the season, as was the High Chaparral. Gunsmoke, which ran for 20 years (it began as a radio show in 1952 with William Conrad of Cannon fame as the voice of Matt Dillon), was being relegated to the audience of the denture generation. It ended its run in 1975, but in the 70s James Arness was seen in fewer shows as a more anthology series took hold and more contemporary themes like minority rights, social awareness and rape were addressed to make the show seem more relevant.

I see nothing

The 1970 season was rich in situation comedy shows; with an incredible 27 such shows on the schedule. Before All In The Family, the most progressive sitcom was the Mary Tyler Moore Show, since she was a single woman on her own in the business world. Julia with Diahann Carroll broke new ground with an African American star as a nurse, but the plots were so as bland as rice cakes.

In today’s hyper-sensitive era, a show like Hogan’s Heroes about American POWs in a Nazi prison camp could never be produced, with so many protests from so many groups with grievances that the Supreme Court could be forced to add new judge to handle all the litigation.

There were traditional comedies like Here’s Lucy, the Doris Day Show, My Three Sons and, of course, The Brady Brunch. There were hipper comedies but with themes seemed so 1950s with 1970s clothes. The Partridge Family, That Girl and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father wore contemporary window dressing but preached more traditional values.

The Bill Cosby Show put the comedian in familiar surroundings as a phys ed teacher in an inner city school, but the show was too gentle and warmhearted for its own good. It died in 1971.

Finally, 1970 was still the era of rural comedies and there CBS dominated like the Americans in Olympic beach volleyball. With the Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and then its comedy-variety Hee Haw, it was a down home cookin’, folksy sayings and granny’s vittles.

By 1971, however, all three shows had been cancelled, although Hee Haw lived on for 20 years in first-run syndication. By then, CBS had caved to Madison Avenue interests who didn’t like the buying demographics of viewers who still knew how to pitch hay and harvest a field.

This show will self-destruct…

Dramas in 1970 ran the spectrum from the traditional Medical Center with doc hunk Chad Everett to the counterculture Mod Squad with Clarence Williams III and his afro of Everest proportions, which gave Johnny Carson monologue material for 20 years.

During the 70s, NBC had tried – and succeeded to a point – with revolving shows under one series heading. So its Sunday night offering included the new doctors, the lawyers and the senator. On Wednesday night, its four shows rotating in one time slot included McCloud, the New Mexico Sheriff on loan to the NYC Police, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, San Francisco Airport and The Psychiatrist.

Within a year, McCloud joined Columbo and McMillan and Wife (with Rock Hudson and Susan St. James) to form NBC’s highly successful Mystery Movie.

The gold standard of TV action dramas in 1970 was Mission Impossible. That year was the first without stars Martin Landau as Rollin Hand and wife Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter. But the format was solid enough to easily absorb Leonard Nimoy as Paris and Lesley Anne Warren as Dana Lambert.

Sex, Drugs and Rock N’ Roll

Outside the cocoon of TV shows in American society, the country was in social, racial and cultural upheaval. Inner city race riots, increasingly violent anti-war demonstrations, and the burgeoning youth culture gave birth to new sex mores, new attitudes on drugs, more relaxed behavior and more casual dress.

To address the needs of the younger generation and younger consumers, networks initially made clumsy efforts to develop “relevant” shows. In 1970, two “with it” shows about neighborhood lawyers offering free legal assistance to indigent clients debuted. On ABC, that show was called The Young Lawyers and on CBS, it was called Storefront Lawyers. Predictably, both shows lasted one year.

That was the year that was

So how do you define the 1970 primetime TV season?

First, as a season with an impressive cast of professional entertainers, from Lawrence Welk to Carol Burnett and from Tom Jones to Dean Martin. Today, the only entertainers with TV shows are celebrities staring into the rear view mirror of fame, such as Pamela Anderson and Bret Michaels.

Second, there existed a staple of traditional sitcoms that made Americans feel good about themselves in a laugh-track, almost funny sort of way. The Brady Bunch, Bewitched, The Odd Couple and That Girl served up laughs like the bartender serving you Shirley Temples. Nothing to hurt you and nothing to get you too silly about.

Third, shows that reflected American culture still survived in such a turbulent time — with Ed Sullivan still giving us that “big show,” Marcus Welby holding our hand as the family doctor who made house calls and Matt Dillon still bringing outlaws to justice.

Finally, some shows bridged the gap between the traditional and the cutting edge, with Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In creating a cultural phenomenon, Mary Tyler Moore showing that a woman didn’t need a man to be successful and happy and Diahann Carroll, Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson carving out a place for African Americans in the TV world.

By 1971, All In the Family was an over-the-top hit and suddenly relevance on TV electrified viewers and advertisers. As a consequence, the landscape of TV themes began to change rapidly, with topics like abortion, promiscuity, premarital sex and even homosexuality paraded around in TV’s sanitized, lukewarm bowl of relevance soup.

By contrast to the rest of the decade of the 70s, 1970 seemed warm and friendly like a wool blanket that kept you comfy, safe and cozy.  

I still remember fondly how Elizabeth Montgomery twitched her nose, Jack Klugman slept under a pile of clothes on his bed, and Peter Graves never worried that the tape would self-destruct in five seconds.