A Friday in 1970

Friday, September 10th, 1970

Well it's the end of the TV GUIDE week. Let's see what was worth watching nearly 43 years ago.

As always, school, DARK SHADOWS, dinner, etc, etc. all leading up to Friday night TV.



7:30 presented some tough choices for a change--the final CBS episode of GET SMART (a rerun), a late episode of Sally Field's THE FLYING NUN (a much better show then folks might think without seeing it) and one of my parents' favorites and mine, THE HIGH CHAPARRAL, a western starring Leif Erickson, Cameron Mitchell, Henry Darrow and Mark Slade. This episode guest-starred Steve Forrest and Kurt Russell, already a TV veteran and just about to become a movie star in Disney flicks. How to cook Jamaican Cod Fritters on NET's INTERNATIONAL COOKBOOK wasn't even in the running.

I'm going to guess that we watched THE FLYING NUN. That would leave us open for HE & SHE at 8, one of my all-time favorite sitcoms to this very day! The Paula Prentiss/Richard Benjamin/Jack Cassidy series had originally aired in 1967. Said to be ahead of its time, CBS revived it as a summer series in 1970 and tonight was its very last network appearance. As I recall, we watched HE & SHE rather than a BRADY BUNCH rerun. That now-classic series was still relatively new and I hadn't watched early episodes at all. Then one night I was at a friend's house and her family watched it. After that, I got my family to watch it as well.

At 8:30, another conundrum. One of MY favorites, HOGAN'S HEROES (in its final Friday night appearance before moving to Sundays for its last season) or THE GHOST & MRS MUIR, one of my Mother's (and years later my wife's) favorites. Pretty sure we watched one of them rather than DIXON SAN, a locally produced special with Paul Dixon in the orient preempting the network's THE NAME OF THE GAME on both Cincinnati and Dayton channels. It would be 4 decades before I would enjoy THE NAME OF THE GAME in reruns.

With HERE COME THE BRIDES regularly preempted by Channel 12, we were then left with lousy looking movies starring the likes of Ralph Meeker, John Payne and two--count 'em two!--with Louis Jourdan.

Nothing to speak of after that before bedtime. The late night shows that went on whilst I was unconscious included John Cassavettes, Cab Calloway and the then-ubiquitous Jack Douglas and Reiko.

The end of another week for 11 year old me. I was looking forward to the new TV season coming up the following week.