TV – Page 5 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

Dialing for Dollars

Oh Lord? Won’t you buy me a color TV?
Dialing for Dollars is trying to find me!

Janis immortalized a local TV phenomenon with her very last recording, “Mercedes Benz.” Indeed, this writer may have completely forgotten about the home-grown giveaway program if not for that lyric, memorized many years ago.

Dialing for Dollars was a part of Boomer memories, as well as those of subsequent generations. Incarnations of the show ran on local affiliates until the 80’s, and may indeed still exist.

It all started in 1939. WCBM radio in Baltimore began running a money giveaway show hosted by Homer Todd. Dialing for Dollars was a local hit, and as television began coming into the picture throughout the late 40’s, it moved to that medium.

The show was franchised, meaning that a fee was paid to use prebuilt props and the like, as well as the familiar format and the ever-more-popular name. Thus, local stations all over the US had their own versions of Dialing for Dollars.

And Boomers, no matter where they grew up, likely can remember such shows.

The concept of the show was simple and effective. The host would announce a passphrase (example: a count and amount). The show might feature interviews, local talent, stuff like that. At some point or points, a telephone number would be selected at random. The number might have been submitted, or it might have been clipped or copied from a local phone directory. I remember a big wire mesh drum that would be rotated and a door being opened and a number being selected. The call would be placed live, and the recipient of the call would be challenged to provide the passphrase.

If they were watching and paying attention, they would win! The money rewarded was appropriate for the budget of a local TV station, perhaps a few hundred bucks.

It was very addictive to a nine-year-old kid home on summer vacation watching television during a weekday afternoon.

Another way the show was conducted was to be featured as commercial breaks during a MOM (moldy old movie) that would be shown in an afternoon time slot, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon when there were no network sports shows available.

In researching this piece, I learned that my own local channel that carried Dialing for Dollars was KODE in Joplin, Missouri. I can remember the canned theme song, a strings tune that was probably used for a dozen other local shows all over the country. And I can remember eagerly sitting by the phone just in case it was our number drawn from the big wire mesh drum.

Of course, it never was, but I experienced excitement nonetheless when a viewer would indeed be watching and win a nifty cash prize in exchange for being in the right place at the right time.

Expanding network offerings and the ready availability of syndicated game shows did Dialing for Dollars in. That was also the case with a plethora of other charming local shows that were designed to fill otherwise dead air time, like this, this, and this. The original DfD left the Baltimore area in 1977, after a 38-year run. They gave away some $800,000 during that period, a few hundred bucks at a time.

So, I guess I can quit waiting by my phone now. Looks like Dialing for Dollars has ceased trying to find me.

Davey and Goliath

“Ooooooh, Davey!”

Those ominous words were regularly coming out of our black and white TV on Sunday mornings. That was the despairing sound of Goliath, world’s wisest claymation dog, who was helplessly observing Davey, world’s most naive claymation boy, ignore his sage advice.

Davey and Goliath episodes were produced by the Lutheran Church, and were widely syndicated from 1962 throughout the rest of the decade. Stations frequently showed them on Sunday mornings as spiritual guidance for little kids who didn’t make it to church that day.

However, they weren’t overly preachy, as I recall. They would concentrate on being a good person, with Davey’s screwups being the basis for instruction given by wise Mr. Hansen at the end of the brief episode.

I really got a kick out of the graphic above (thanks to Davey and Goliath’s official site). It shows the whole family sitting in a living room that is classic 1965. Paneled walls, low-set wood coffee table, landscape print on the wall. That’s what my house looked like.

Goliath was a physical manifestation of the conscience that we all have talking in our ear, but frequently ignore. And when we ignore it, it’s up to a figurative Mr. Hansen to bail us out, as well as sit down with us afterwards and gently tell us the error of our ways.

There was an episode of The Simpsons when Homer rang Ned Flanders’ doorbell, and it played the familiar theme from Davey and Goliath. Good stuff.

Captain Kangaroo

In 1955, a TV show debuted on CBS. It was a morning show aimed at children. The show’s creator, Bob Keeshan, was a talented individual with a love for kids. He was low-key, patient, and appealing to young ones.

The show would last an incredible 29 years, providing loving memories for many generations of Boomers.

The Captain had familiar guest stars, including Mr. Green Jeans, the New Old Folk Singer, and Mr. Bainter, the Painter. These were all played by veteran character actor Hugh “Lumpy” Brannum.

The Captain himself played the Town Clown who had the most enormous shoes I have ever seen.

Another funky visitor was the Banana Man. Here’s his act in a nutshell, from original Banana Man A. Robins’ brochure:

Dressed in clown attire and pushing his trunk on wheels, Robins enters singing his shrill, absurd melody. He then proceeds to produce from his pockets whole bunches of bananas, pineapples, watermelons, banjos, violin, about everything under the sun – he changes wardrobe and character three times, right before your eyes – he fills three trunks with his hundreds of props, converts the trunks into a train, and as the engineer, drives the whole string of cars offstage.

Now THAT’s entertainment!

Other familiar faces were the puppets: Mr. Moose (whose corny jokes always seemed to trigger a ping-pong ball shower on the hapless Captain), Bunny Rabbit, Miss Frog, Mr. Whispers, and Miss Worm.

Additionally, Dancing Bear would come out and do his thing every show.

The show also featured a really cool picture that would draw itself while you watched. The pen lines would magically appear while a song played in the background.

And the songs! The first time I watched Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, I recognized opening tune Big Rock Candy Mountain as one I’d heard on Captain Kangaroo in the 60’s. Cool stuff!

There is an urban legend going around that has Lee Marvin giving kudos to Keeshan for being a war hero. While you want to believe it, unfortunately there is nothing to it. Keeshan signed up for the Marines, but didn’t see any action.

Keeshan did have discernment, though. When a remake of the show was launched in 1997, he was invited to appear as the Admiral. He viewed a few episodes and declared that he wanted nothing to do with it.

Good call, Captain.

Cable TV (The Early Version)

As I have mentioned in previous columns, TV reception in the 1960’s was a hit-and-miss affair. There weren’t nearly as many TV stations back then, and if you lived in small-town America, your signals might be coming from a hundred or more miles away.

An antenna rotor would be of great assistance in getting a good sharp picture to our brand new color TV’s. But they were prone to freezing up, leaving you stuck watching one channel in perfect definition, with the others reduced to snowy, static-laden annoyances.

A strong storm wind could also cause your antenna to become a tangled mass in your back yard. How could a homeowner get all local channels clearly with no worries?

Beginning in 1966 or so in Miami, Oklahoma, the answer was Cablevision.

Cablevision was a radical new concept. It was known as CATV, which stood for Community Antenna Television. And that’s just what it was. Multiple antennae would be mounted on a tall tower, each aimed to optimally capture distant stations’ signals perfectly. The signal would be greatly amplified and sent out over coax cables on telephone poles. Customers would tap into the signal for perhaps ten bucks a month and be treated to razor-sharp images of programs from as far as 150 miles away.

You might get ten channels, VHF and UHF. But the differences would be limited to local programming. There would be two NBC, three CBS, and two ABC affiliates among the dozen. There would probably be an Educational Channel affiliate, and perhaps an independent or two who might only broadcast for a few hours a day.

Micom Cablevision makes it to Miami, Oklahoma, 1965

Dad, of course, would never hear of paying someone for TV signals he could pull in for free. So I never experienced Cablevision. BTW, I know that was the name of the company offering cable service in my hometown. But in 1973, a much larger Cablevision was founded which serves a goodly portion of the northeast USA. No relation, to my knowledge.

I distinctly remember the night Cablevision came to town. They hired a couple of WWII-era spotlights to trace lines of light across Miami’s skies. I was terrified. I had never seen spotlights before, and I was convinced that we were going to be attacked!

My imagination has proven very rewarding over the years, but I’m afraid it was a bit overactive at the age of six.

In 1969, we moved to a rural area, and I spent the next nine years of my life living in the country. Cable TV was not an option. So we were limited to whatever the antenna would pull in. One farm was nestled in a valley, so I spent a couple of years without watching a single CBS show on my TV. However, some of my city-dwelling friends had cable and I was thus able to occasionally catch a Red Skelton Show.

We moved back to town in 1976, and my father decided enough was enough. We got cable, and it included a station out of Atlanta called WTBS. The first Superstation turned my Cardinal-loving father into an additional fan of the Atlanta Braves, as it did with millions of other viewers who lived far from Georgia.

TV Guide didn’t carry TBS programming listings, so you never knew what would be on. But I watched it a lot for the great reruns of old comedies. I watched a bunch of Braves games with dad, too.

And, in a strange twist of retro-technology, I today watch HDTV programming via an antenna I mounted on my roof, due to Dish Network dragging their heels in getting our local channels in that format.

A distinct minority of viewers today choose not to use cable or satellite TV. Many of them take a break form a service, then return when they realize how much they miss a favorite cable-only channel. But once upon a time, cable was brand new, and largely scorned by frugal fathers who saw no reason to pay for something you could get for free.

Bonanza

A time traveler from 1960 would be bewildered by today’s network television offerings. Obviously, the risque content would be shocking. But the dearth of Western dramas would be puzzling as well. For many years, television schedules were heavy with horse operas.

Two series that anchored the genre firmly to Saturday and Sunday nights for many years were Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

Gunsmoke will certainly rate its own future column. Today, we discuss the inhabitants of the Ponderosa.

Bonanza originally aired on Saturday nights beginning the year I was born, 1959. While its rival CBS series had managed to garner good ratings on that particular evening, Bonanza never found its audience. NBC slated it for cancellation, but it received one last chance: a move to Sunday nights.

It was just what the show needed. Ratings skyrocketed, and Bonanza won the yearly ratings crown from 1964 through 1967 as the most popular show in the country.

The show starred Canadian broadcaster Lorne Greene, Georgia singer-actor Pernell Roberts, Texas teacher-turned-actor Dan Blocker, and Teenage Wolfman Michael Landon.

Roberts’ time with the show was marked by many disputes with series writers and show creator David Dortort (who was depicted as the mine overseer in the show’s opening credits). It all came to a head in 1965, when he left the series. Adam was occasionally mentioned afterwards as off traveling somewhere, but eventually was forgotten.

Various characters were introduced to fill Adam’s void, but most lasted only a short time. The longest lasting was David Canary’s Candy, who lived with the family from 1967-1970.

Each show would go one of two directions: serious or comedy. My parents weren’t fans of the funny shows, but they were certainly my favorites. It took the first five minutes of each episode to reveal its nature.

The humorous episodes invariably involved Hoss. Little Joe did his share of funny bits, too. And of course any scene that featured Hop Sing would elicit laughs.

Victor Sen Young, Hop Sing’s portrayer, was a great, underappreciated actor. There simply were no serious roles for Asian-American actors from the thirties onward, so he found himself playing stereotypical roles in the Charlie Chan films and other movies he appeared in. The actor accepted the role of the ranch’s cook, and was in fact an excellent chef in real life. He also had his own real-life adventures, having been wounded in the taking of a hijacked airliner in 1972. Tragically, Sen-Yung died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his home in 1980.

Many say the show was never the same after Adam’s departure, but it garnered its highest ratings nonetheless. However, as we entered the 70’s, Bonanza showed signs of aging. The untimely death of Dan Blocker in 1972 sealed the show’s fate. A last-season-move to Tuesday night was the final nail in its coffin.

Thus ended one of the two longest-running Western series on television, and NBC’s own longest running one until it was dethroned by Law and Order.

Sunday nights in the 60’s wouldn’t have been the same without that familiar theme song coming out of that TV speaker and the Cartwrights riding up on the screen in full-color glory. Here’s to an hour a week that contributed lots of data to my memory banks.

Biff!!! Bam!!! Pow!!!

In May, 1939, DC Comics introduced an unusual super hero with that month’s issue of Detective Comics. This dude had no super powers. He relied on his wits, his physical fitness, and a belt full of cool gadgets. He also had a cave full of nifty stuff like the Batmobile, the Batplane, the Batcycle, and other bonzer crimefighting contrivances.

Batman was a comic book character, sure, but kids (and many adult fans) took him pretty seriously. These hardcore fans must have been taken a bit aback when ABC debuted Batman in January, 1966.

ABC was the perennial loser back then in the ratings race. The loser is the one most likely to take a chance on an outrageous new series to shake things up. In fact, they might try something REALLY crazy, like show two different episodes two nights in a row!

That’s what they did with Batman. Of course, it helped that the show was an instant hit, taking TWO places in the Nielsen Top Ten its first season. Kids like me were completely entranced by the uniforms, the gadgets, the jet-powered Batmobile, and the biffs, bams, and pows. But the show had an appeal to ADULTS, as well.

The producers of Batman decided early on that things were not to be taken too seriously. Hence, comedic camp was a part of every episode, and many moms and dads tuned in to see intentionally silly criminals and crimes.

I remember DC comics of the era and reading letters from angry Batman and Robin fans decrying the campy TV series. “Robin would never say Holy New Year’s Eve!” one man ranted. “They’re making a mockery out of the greatest super hero in the world!” Batman’s storylines remained fairly consistent in comics like World’s Finest, Detective Comics, the Justice League of America, and Batman’s own comic, as I recall. But hard core fans were calling for a return to the old days, when things were taken much more seriously.

All DC knew was that sales of comics featuring Batman were soaring. So what if the TV show poked fun at his image? What mattered to them was that millions of 12 cent sales were being made all over the world.

Batman was an early adopter of cell phones

The show’s campiness made it a hit with potential guest stars. Executive producer William Dozier told of all sorts of Hollywood stars contacting him for roles as villains. Many got the gigs, including Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Cesar Romero as the Joker, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, Eartha Kitt as the Catwoman, and Vincent Price as Egghead, to name a few. There were also THREE Mr. Freezes: George Sanders, Otto Preminger, and Eli Wallach. According to Dozier, many others were turned down simply because no parts could be envisioned for them.

That’s okay, though. Stars could still get in on the action with batclimbs.

As Batman and Robin would climb up the side of a building, as they frequently had to for some reason, a celebrity would pop his head out to have a brief chat. Some witty repartee would be exchanged, and back to the business of climbing buildings and smashing crime. Celebs included Jerry Lewis, Dick Clark, Art Linkletter, Bill Dana, Sammy Davis Jr., Edward G. Robinson, and even a guy who sold Dozier a carpet.

As you can see, there was plenty of comedy to keep the grownups tuning in, but we kids ate up the action. One lucky neighborhood denizen had a black cape complete with an eared hood. A black mask completed the disguise. He was Batman! How the rest of us envied him. We would fashion masks of our own, though, and ride our Batcycles all over the neighborhood terrorizing criminals. It was as much fun playing the Joker and getting whipped as it was being the good guy. We would take play swings at each other and holler Biff!!! Bam!!! Pow!!!

I saw Adam West in a parade in Austin, Texas in 1966. I still get a smile on my face when I remember how thrilled I was.

The show lasted three years before its campiness got old. Still, 120 episodes were in the can, thanks to the two-nights-a-week format of its first season. Therefore, it made a lot more bucks for ABC (and ultimately DC) by being an after-school show for many years afterward. I remember seeing it on local stations as late as the 80’s, and of course on Nick at Nite after that.

If you were a boy in the 60’s, you were profoundly impacted by the Batman show. You doodled pictures of that masked face on your Pee-Chee folder, you imitated the characters in the playground, and you lived for Wednesday and Thursday nights to watch the fun.

Well, that’s about it. Tune in tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

All in the Family

Our generation saw a lot of walls crumble down, for better or worse. We grew up with sweet, sugary shows like Leave It to Beaver, Andy Griffith, and Dick Van Dyke. Make no mistake, these were classic shows in their own right, but it’s impossible to picture Ward Cleaver using derogatory ethnic remarks.

However, when we think of Archie Bunker, the terms Polack, Spic, and Chink immediately pop into our minds.

Norman Lear foisted the Bunker family upon the public on January 12, 1971. It was an immediate hit, as well as an outrage to folks used to watching schmaltz like Mayberry RFD (which was NOT a classic show in its own right).

Lear chose to tackle racism the same way Mel Brooks did in his utterly brilliant Blazing Saddles. I.e., laugh at it, because the very concept is so stupid that it lacks any credibility at all.

Archie and “Edit'” lived at 704 Houser Street in Queens. Mike and Gloria Stivic, his daughter and son-in-law, lived upstairs. Archie was a little right of Rush Limbaugh, and he also believed every ethnic stereotype he ever heard. Mike was a little left of Hillary Clinton, so needless to say, things were a bit lively when they got together.

Archie was further plagued by the fact that he lived in a racially diverse neighborhood, so he had to deal with spics, polacks, jungle bunnies, and the like on a daily basis.

His next door neighbor was George Jefferson, who was as prejudiced toward whites as Archie was towards blacks. Lear was indeed a genius for creating situations for comedy.

Perhaps the greatest episode was on in which Archie is visited by Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy had left his briefcase in Archie’s taxi, and came over to collect it. Note this exchange between them:

Archie: Now, no prejudice intended, but I always check with the Bible on these here things. I think that, I mean if God had meant for us to be together he’d a put us together. But look what he done. He put you over in Africa, and put the rest of us in all the white countries.
Sammy Davis Jr. Well, he must’ve told ’em where we were because somebody came and got us.

When the two posed for a picture and Sammy kissed him, it made for the longest single burst of live audience laughter in TV history. Archie’s reaction was, well, priceless, and he had to hold that expression for better than two minutes.

In addition to being the #1 rated show for five consecutive years, it also spawned five successful spinoffs, as well as its own successor, Archie Bunker’s Place.

The show was loud, offensive, and it went a long way towards showing us how to ignore each other’s racial and religious makeup.

1960’s Game Shows (Part 2)

To continue where we left off yesterday, we watched a lot of game shows in the 60’s. The game show craze originated on radio, and carried over naturally to television.

Concentration was a show that I always enjoyed. Host Hugh Downs made a big impression on me, so much so that I think of him as the guy from this show, not Good Morning America or 20/20.

The premise of Concentration should be known to any human in the western world, so I won’t go into it. Instead, I’ll dwell on my personal memories. One frequent feature of the show was the awarding of “the envelope,” a mystery prize. Any time a contestant revealed “the envelope,” someone offstage would ring a little bell. It was a blast trying to figure out that rebus, too. I remember more than one occasion when the board was cleared, and the contestants STILL couldn’t figure it out!

The special effects were pretty imaginative circa 1965. One show had the contestants themselves provide the special effects. Of course, I refer to Let’s Make a Deal.

The show debuted in 1963. Host Monty Hall and assistant Carol Merrill would give audience members dressed in outrageous garb opportunities to win prizes, provided they made the right choice. Do you want what’s in the box, or behind door # 2? There might be a stack of money under the box, or a chicken. Door # 2 might contain a brand new Chevy Bel Air. Or, it might be the rusted wreckage of a 1941 Studebaker. Decisions, decisions.

The show was a creation of Chuck Barris, who liked to bring the natural comedy of clueless contestants into play on his productions. This tactic would be brought to full fruition a few years later with the infamous Gong Show.

Bill Cullen was another familiar 1960’s face hosting game shows. I can’t look at Drew Carey without thinking of the immortal Mr. Cullen, who had a pretty acute sense of humor himself. Eye Guess ran from 1966-1969. It was a memory game. Two contestants were shown eight answers. They tried to memorize where they were on a game board. Next, they had to match a question with an answer by calling a number where they thought the correct answer was located. Calling out a wrong number could lead to some unintentionally funny answers.

Bill’s wit and mental acuity also landed him a gig as a panelist on I’ve Got a Secret, which began its run in the 50’s and closed shop in 1967. Its original producer was none other than Allan Sherman, who penned the greatest novelty song ever, Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda. It basically ripped off What’s My Line, but it was okay, because it was on the same network. I vividly remember Bill, Comedian Henry Morgan, and beautiful Betsy Palmer and Bess Myerson The fact that Steve Allen was hosting only added to the fun. I loved that show.

There were so many game shows on 1960’s TV that I’m probably going to have to add to this. But that’s enough for now. Stay tuned.

1960’s Game Shows (Part 1)

One of the things I loved about summer vacation in the 60’s (that’s a mighty long list!) was the fact that I could get up in the morning and start watching a slew of great TV shows beginning at 9:00 Central Time.

The shows included great kids’ fare like Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street late in the decade, and the local cartoon shows. But another summer treat was watching all of the game shows that were on in that era.

It’s taxing my brain cells to the limit to even remember the NAMES of these shows, much less the network and time slot. But when I can recall such tidbits, I’ll toss them in.

My very favorite show was the Match Game. It was an afternoon offering. I don’t know why it was so appealing to me, but it was the one that I never missed.

Now I’m not talking about the tasteless 70’s version. The 60’s show didn’t feature the provocative clues like Gene Rayburn would feed Charles Nelson Reilly circa 1974. It was much lower key, and darned entertaining to a seven-year-old. Maybe that’s why CBS spiced it up so much ;-).

Tom Kennedy autographed photo, mentioning You Don’t Say

Tom Kennedy was a prolific game show host in the 60’s. One show I remember was You Don’t Say. It was along the lines of the more famous Password, where you had to guess a clue from a celebrity without hearing it spoken.

To tell the Truth was a show that featured a very familiar closing signoff: “A Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production.” The prolific pair created a big pile of game shows before their run ended with Bill Todman’s death in 1979. This show would feature a person who had accomplished something that was remarkable, but out of the panelists’ view. Celebrities would ask questions of three subjects, the real person and two impostors (I learned that word at a very early age, thanks to this show). They would then guess who was the real deal. The suspense would be prolonged when the real (fill in blank) would be asked to stand up by host Bud Collyer. There would be gestures by all three of standing up before the actual one would reveal his or herself. I remember the panelists of the 60’s frequently featuring Tom Poston, Peggy Cass, Kitty Carlisle, and Orson Bean (one of the funniest men who ever lived).

The aforementioned Password was another MG-BT show. Host Allen Ludden held sway over two celebrities who would try to get their John Q. Public teammates to guess a password (and vice-versa). One of the funniest moments ever to happen in afternoon TV was when comedian Nipsey Russell was being prompted by a (Caucasian) lady to say the word “buck.” She said, very slowly and carefully pronounced, “doe.” Nipsy’s innocent, immortal response was “knob.”

Reach for the Stars was a trivia show, as I recall, and it involved contestants grabbing stars from a board with questions on their reverse sides. “Reach for the stars!” they were exhorted by its host.

Joe Garagiola hosted Sale of the Century. It was a bit out there. Contestants won small amounts of money by answering questions, and were allowed to spend it on items that were ridiculously cheap, a bedroom suite for 30 bucks, for instance. I believe the winning contestant each round was allowed to shop after each victory, if I remember right.

Man, this is getting out of hand. I’m going to draw this segment to a close, and we’ll dig up some more old game shows in the next column.

The Heidi Game

The American Football League, formed in 1960, had a shaky start. It hoped to outlast other American Football Leagues which had predated it. But the first years saw teams losing boatloads of money, and a public which didn’t care a whole lot about any professional football except that exhibited by the NFL.

But by 1968, the AFL had become respectable. Just how respectable would be revealed by one of television’s biggest gaffes.

The Heidi Game, aka the Heidi Bowl, took place on November 17, 1968. The game was between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets. Broadway Joe Namath, who would guarantee a Super Bowl win at the end of the season, was facing off against his skilled counterpart, Daryle Lamonica.

The AFL had scored a major coup by getting Joe Willy to join them. He had been drafted by the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals as well as the AFL’s New York Jets. He joined the Jets by signing the biggest rookie contract in history, and thereby did a lot to cement the AFL in place as a legitimate rival for the NFL to deal with.

NBC was covering the AFL, and had modestly successful ratings. While football was certainly a lucrative producer of revenue for them, it was prime-time advertisers who were providing the lion’s share of cash.

NBC was contractually obligated to Timex, the sponsor of a special presentation that night of Heidi. The movie began at 7:00 EST, three hours after the game began. NBC had instructed Dick Cline, their Broadcast Operations Supervisor, to cut to Heidi at 7:00 pm sharp, whether the football game was over or not. And Curt Gowdy, who was announcing the game, had warned the TV audience that that was what was going to happen.

The problem was that it was one whale of a game! The Jets and Raiders had been fighting a see-saw battle, and the score was Jets 32, Raiders 29. The Jets had just kicked a field goal to break the tie, and the Raiders had the ball on their own 23.

Enter Heidi.

To NBC’s credit, they TRIED to change cutting away from the game. As the game drew closer to 7:00, the network heads decided to hold off broadcasting the movie until the contest was finished.

Unfortunately, thousands of callers who had heard Gowdy’s announcement were calling the network begging that the game be shown in its entirety.

The resulting logjam of calls prevented NBC from getting the word to Cline to keep the game on.

The fallout for NBC was huge. In male American minds, Heidi instantly went from a little Swiss girl to a symbol of clueless broadcasting decisions. Twenty minutes into the movie, the score of the game was scrolled across the bottom of the screen. This made fans even madder.

Angry fans sent Heidi dolls to NBC with knives stuck in their backs. The AFL (as well as the NFL) rewrote contracts that now required networks to carry games to their conclusions no matter what the scores. NBC installed a dedicated phone line to the Control Room so that programming directors could be instantly notified of any last-minute changes.

But the most positive thing for football to come out of the whole affair is that the AFL demonstrated that it had developed a rabid following. Two years later they would merge with the NFL, and the rest, as they say, was history.