Flashback to 70's TV Entertainment

"Celebrity Olympics" is what a TV Guide Ad touted it as....but we knew it better as the Battle of the Network Stars. Teams, made up of popular TV stars, from the three networks top shows, would come together and compete against each other in sports such as swimming, tennis, golf, bowling. Usually hosted by Howard Cosell and shown on ABC TV it all began in November of 1976 and then about every six months up until December of 1988, we got to root for our favorite celebrity showing off their athletic skills.

Over the course of the series (19 episodes) we got to see such celebrities as Farrah Fawcett, Lynda Carter, Suzanne Somers, Parker Stevenson, Robert Conrad, Telly Savalas, Gabe Kaplin, Catherine Bach, Richard Hatch, Greg Evigan and more!

As a huge fan of the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, I just had to ask if you remember the episode of the Six Million Dollar Man that introduced us to beautiful Jaime Somers (Lindsay Wagner) childhood sweetheart and fiance of Steve Austin. When Steve became an astronaut the couple drifted apart and Jamie went off to start a life of her own becoming a successful tennis pro. It was sky diving accident that almost claimed her life that turned Jamie into The Bionic Woman, but her body began to reject her bionics and she died..or so we were led to believe. The outcry about her death was so loud that the writers and the network had her simply go into a coma until the doctors were able to figure out how to save her life. Once Jamie awoke from her coma, she had partial memory loss and no longer remembered being in love with Steve and she, too worked for the OSI taking on secret missions.

Jamie's show began it's journey on ABC on January 14, 1976 and finished on NBC on September 2, 1978.

Musical Flashback for both Steve and Jaime:
"Sweet Jaime" performed by Steve (Lee Majors) in the episodes "The Bionic Woman" and "The Return of the Bionic Woman" from The Six Million Dollar Man.

"Good to be Alive in the Country" performed by Jaime (Lindsay Wagner) from "Road to Nasvhille" and "Feelings" from "Bionic Beauty" both episode from The Bionic Woman.

Another great "Bionic Memory" is when we met, in an episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man" titled "The Seven Million Dollar Man", Barney Miller (Monte Markham) a race car driver who was in a horrible accident and had both arms and legs replaced with bionic limbs. Barney cost seven million dollars. Barney would make another appearance on the series in "The Bionic Criminal" from the third season and have his last name changed to "Hiller" in that episode as to not be confused with the TV series Barney Miller that was airing on ABC.

Whichever name you wish to remember it by doesn't change the fact that TV Guide Magazine listed this as one of the worst TV series of all time. It was an attempt to bring back to prime time, The Brady Bunch. The original cast, sans Eve Plumb came back to this series that was originally planned to be shown every 5th week in the time slot held by "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" on Sunday evenings, but it actually seemed to turn up at various times and in various places on ABC's schedule. Naturally being shown so irregularly, it was never able to build an audience..how could it... if people couldn't find it to watch it. :)

The plot had Mike (Robert Reed) giving up his job as an architect so that he and his family could star in their own TV show, filmed at their new home, a nice beach front house. Musical numbers, comedy sketches and Rip Torn all come together to entertain viewing audiences. There were 9 episodes that had guest stars like Farrah, Tina Turner, Vincent Price, Rich Little, Lynn Anderson, Charo, The Hudson Brothers and more.

Eye-Popping Crime-Stopping Trio Three beautiful police trained detectives who end up working for an unseen, but heard boss by the name of Charlie became one of the most successful shows of the 1970's. While it was called "jiggle TV", that didn't stop viewers from turning in to follow the exploits of these three beautiful ladies: Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett, Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Jill Monroe and Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan. This series lasted from 1976 to 1981 and had several cast member changes; first Farrah leaving and the bringing on of Cheryl Ladd as her TV sister, Chris. Then Kate left in 1979 and was replaced by Tiffany Welles (Shelly Hack) who lasted a season and finally after Tiffany's departure, the lovely Tanya Roberts coming on board as Julie Rogers. John Forsythe (who would go on to bigger fame as Blake Carrington in Dynasty) voiced Charlie and David Doyle was ever faithful assistant John Bosley.

OK, so David got the bulk of his popularity from being teen idol singing sensation, Keith Partridge, on "The Partridge Family" from 1970-74.

Four years later, he was back on TV playing undercover police officer, Dan Shay who specialized in going undercover in places like colleges, schools, gangs. The pilot for the series was shown as a two hour movie on "Police Story". The series lasted for 10 episodes before being hit with the cancellation axe but he did get an Emmy Award nomination for his work in the series pilot.

Mac Davis became a popular country singer in the 1970's with songs like Baby, Don' t Get Hooked on Me, Stop and Smell the Roses .

It was this popularity that inspired NBC to give Mac his own variety show called, appropriately The Mac Davis Show which ran from 1972-74.

Dennis Weaver starred in one of the best TV movies ever made. He played David Mann, a traveling salesman, who managed to incur the wrath of trucker after passing him while driving on the desert roads of California. What follows is a game of cat and mouse as Mann has to fight for his life and outwit and out drive this manic behind the wheel of a 1955 Peterbilt tanker truck.

This film was based on the short story written by Richard Matheson and was directed by Steven Spielberg which was his film debut as a director. This TV movie was later released as a theatrical venture in Europe and was lengthened from 74 minutes to 90 minutes for the theatrical release with new scenes being added. .

photo information: 1971 Universal Studio Publicity Still # 34111 - D - 2 .

1970's ABC Movie of the Week is a page that makes a listing, incomplete of course, of TV movies that qualified as being an "ABC Movie of the Week". Click the photo to explore the page, if you so desire.

Beautiful and talented Lola was a singer, dancer and actress who seemed to be everywhere in the 70's. Doing guest work on shows like Laugh In, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Flip Wilson Show as well as a series of her own TV specials. She worked on the big screen in films The Liberation of L.B. Jones and on Broadway and in Las Vegas.

Lola no long works in the entertainment industry but instead has turned her attention to God. She founded an organization called The Lambs of God whose mission it is to help orphaned children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Wow...remember this show? Two episodes aired on NBC prime time (preempting the series Project U.F.O.). This was a live action version of the ABC cartoon series The Challenge of the Super Friends Batman and Robin (Adam West and Burt Ward) along with some of their other super hero friends, Captain Marvel, The Flash, The Atom, The Huntress, Black Hawk, and the Green Lantern come together to throw a birthday party for retired fellow super hero Scarlet Cyclone. Then along comes the Legion of Doom, The Riddler, Weather Wizard, Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, Giganta, Mordru, to crash the party and cause all kinds of havoc as only they can.

The second episode was a Celebrity Super Hero Roast of sorts. All of the characters from the first episode come back with an few new characters such as Aunt Minerva (Ruth Buzzi) and Ghetto-Man (Brad Sanders) the first African-American super hero who performs a stand up routine.

This was released onto DVD in 2010.. so you can get your own copy.

Doug first wowed American audiences with his magical feats in a 1974 Broadway show called "The Magic Show" which was a reworking of his hit magic show called "Spellbound" which he performed in Toronto, Canada.

In 1975, Doug got the idea to do his take on Houdini's famous water torture trick and over 50 million viewers tuned in to watch his show Henning's World of Magic hosted by Gene Kelly. While Doug didn't break Houdini's record, he did make a name for himself on American TV and helped to bring the concept of magic show back into popularity.

In the early part of the 1980's Doug retired from performing and got heavily involved in learning about Transcendental Meditation. In February of 2000, Doug would die of liver cancer at age 52. He was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

When I was a kid, in the 1970's, it seemed the Rich Little was every where on TV. His career began in the 1960's, when he made his debut on the Judy Garland Show where he wowed her with his impression of actor James Mason (who had worked with Judy in one of her most memorable roles in A Star is Born .). After that he worked on a short lived series called Love on the Rooftop (which co starred the late actor Peter Duel).

In the 70's, he made lots of appearances on talk shows and did some "serious" acting on TV shows like Mannix, Hawaii Five-0, Police Woman .

Rich is still active today performing in Las Vegas.

With the success of "Rich Man Poor Man" and "Roots", the life of the mini series had begun. Here in the US, we owe the inspiration for the mini series to British TV which has been making shows that were broken down into individual installments (called serials, over there) since the 1950's if you trace the history.

A small listing of American Mini Series Events:

Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) Peter Strauss, Nick Nolte

Captain and the Kings (1976) Richard Jordan, Patty Duke, Perry King

Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1979) Leslie Ann Warren, David Dukes, Marc Singer

How The West Was Won (1978) James Arness, Bruce Boxleitner

Once An Eagle (1976) Sam Elliott, Cliff Potts, Darlene Carr, Glenn Ford

The Rhinemann Exchange (1977) Stephen Collins, Lauren Hutton, Claude Akins, Larry Hagman

Roots (1977) LaVar Burton, Ben Vereen, Ed Asner, Lloyd Bridges

Salem's Lot (1979) David Soul, Lance Kerwin, James Mason, Fred Willard, Geoffry Lewis

Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977) Jason Robards, Cliff Robertson, Stephanie Powers

While it's true that Gilligan's Island was a comedy series that ran from 1964-67...when it went off the air, the fate of the castaways was never solved, they were simply left on the island.

However, that chapter was finally closed, in a way, when in 1978 a TV movie, "Rescue From Gilligan's Island" aired which had them rescued. The original cast returned (except for Tina Louise whose character was recast) . However, at the end of that film, they were shipwrecked again.

But, take heart in 1979, there was another TV movie "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island" which was a pilot for a potential series that never materialized. The proposed series was that the castaways would play host to groups of tourists...sorta a mixture between the Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

FLASHBACK TO A RELATED SHOW : "DUSTY'S TRAIL" was a show that ran in syndication from September 1973 to March 1974. It starred Bob Denver as "Dusty" a Gilligan like character who was the assistant wagon master to Forrest Tucker who played "Mr. Calhoun" his boss. The passengers of a wagon and a stage coach became separated from the wagon train heading west and spent their time roaming around trying to catch up to it and along the way getting into "wacky" adventures. The characters were Mr. and Mrs. Brookhaven a wealthy banker and his wife, Lulu a saloon girl, smart book worm, Andy, and Betsy a farmer's daughter. Remind you of Gilligan's Island...well no wonder as it was produced by Sherwood Schwartz who gave us Gilligan's Island. Several of the episodes have been put together into a movie titled "The Wackiest Wagon Train in the West".

I remember Avery from a variety of things from back in the 1970's, guest appearances on shows like The Rockford Files, Chico and the Man, The Dukes of Hazzard and more.

Avery also had a successful partnership with Jack Burns and together they were the Burns and Schreiber comedy duo.

But maybe where you place his face from is the multitude of commercials he did advertising Doritos Corn Chips, check out the videos below to refresh your memory. :)

At age 66, in 2002, Avery died of a heart attack.

Robert Shields and Lorene Yarnell had a successful summer replacement variety series on CBS starting in 1977. In addition to their mime skills, there was also dancing and other kinds of sketch comedy on the show. One segment was the adventures of the Clinkers, a pair of clumsy robots trying to figure out how to live without accident in their home.

When the series came back in January of 1978, it was put up against ABC's very successful "Laverne and Shirley" and sadly was gone off the airwaves after about 2 months time.

Sadly, the couple who had married in 1972,divorced in 1986. Lorene would remarry eventually, move to Norway in 1998 and died at age 66 of a cerebral aneurysm on July 29, 2010.

Shield and Yarnell Flashback : Remember when this pair worked on an episode of "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman" titled "Formicida". Robert played, Doug, a scientist who sold to a chemical company, a recipe for a chemical that was highly dangerous to humans. His partner and fellow scientist, Irene Janis (Lorene) tried to stop the company from producing the chemical by turning loose on it...ants. That's right Lorene was "Formicida" an ant whisperer who could telepathically control these little guys to do her bidding.

Gary Collins was Dr. Michael Rhodes, a parapsychologist, who along with his assistant, Nancy Murphy (Catherine Ferrar) worked to solve mysteries that usually involved psychic phenomenon like ESP and telepathy.

The series was a short-lived venture beginning on January 15, 1972 and lasting until December 30, 1972. It did get some well known guest stars such as Lee Majors, William Shatner, Patty Duke and even legendary Joan Crawford.

Filmation Studios along with help from Paramount Television gave us 22 animated episodes of Star Trek.

Beginning on September 8, 1973 and lasting until October 12, 1974 fans of the cult 60's sci fi show got to see Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty as their animated counterparts on this NBC series.

Jonathan's syndicated show, The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters ran for 52 episodes beginning in 1972.

It was a sketch comedy venue with Jonathan being his wild wacky self, doing skits as Maude Frickert and other Winters' character creations. The first season had a cast of regular supporting players but the second season brought on guest stars like John Davidson, Charo, Lynn Anderson, Tony Orlando and Dawn and more.

Of course, you might also remember Jonathan for his work in commercials advertising Good Humor Ice Cream and Hefty Trash Bags.

Back in the 1970's one of my local TV channels, possible my local PBS station, showed a British imported show called, "My Partner, the Ghost" which was the Americanized title for "Randall and Hopkirk, Deceased". I loved this show and watched it every chance I got. I suppose it was the supernatural element that caught my attention, you have to admit that the American title was more tantalizing that it's original name.

The show was a mixture of comedy, drama, action and of course the supernatural. Jeff Randall (Mike Pratt) and Marty Hopkirk (Kenneth Cope) were partners in a private detective agency. They handled the usual kinds of cases, blackmail, murder, theft, divorce, etc. During one of their investigations, Marty is killed by the bad guys and then comes back as a ghost that only Jeff can see and spends his time helping his former partner solve cases. A subplot of the show was how Marty was handling the fact that Randall was getting close, emotionally, to Hopkirk's widow, Jeannie (Annette Andre).

The series ran in the UK from 1969-70 with 26 episodes. Thankfully, it was released here in the US onto DVD in 2004.

In 1970, Raquel Welch came to the small screen in her very own TV special titled "Raquel!". It was an extravagant show with scenes filmed in various places throughout the world, like London, Paris, and Mexico.

Raquel showed of her natural charms and her singing and comedic talents with guests Bob Hope, John Wayne and Tom Jones.

She also wore a lot of dazzling costumes designed by the great Bob Mackie.

OTHER 70's CELEBRITY SPECIALS

Of course, Raquel wasn't the only celebrity to have their own TV special during the 70's: Here is just a partial listing:

George Burns: "The George Burns Special" (1976)
The Captain and Tennille: "The Captain and Tennille Special" (1976)
The Carpenters: "The Carpenters Very First Television Special" (1976) & "The Carpenters At Christmas" (1977)
John Denver: John Denver and Friend (1976) "Rocky Mountain Christmas" (1976)
Cass Elliott: Don't Call Me Mama Anymore (1973)
Leif Garrett: "Leif" (1979)
Dorothy Hamil: "Dorothy Hamil" (1976)
Goldie Hawn: "The Goldie Hawn Special" (1978) and "Pure Goldie" (1971)
The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976)
Bette Midler: "The Bette Midler Special" (1977)
Olivia Newton-John "A Special Olivia Newton-John" (1976) and "Olivia" (1978)
Telly Savalas: "Telly... Who Loves Ya Baby? (1976)
David Soul: "David Soul and Friends" (1977)
Lindsay Wagner: Another Side of Me (1977)

Beginning on September 10, 1975 and lasting until December 24, 1975, this very short lived series created by Mel Brooks as a wacky send up of the Robin Hood legend began its run.

Dick Gautier was Robin, a complete and total nitwit who led a completely clueless band of Merry Men. The bad guys of the show, namely the Sheriff of Nottingham (Henry Polic, III) and Prince John (Ron Rifkin) were even more incompetent.

Misty Rowe was beautiful but empty headed, Maid Marian with Dick Van Patten as Friar Tuck, and Bernie Kopell as Alan-a-Dale.