What's on TV? Saturday, October 21, 1961

Interesting that CBS would couple Perry Mason and The Defenders. Mason is probably the most beloved lawyer series of all time, while The Defenders emphasized social issues and realism. It would have been like scheduling Lost in Space and Star Trek back-to-back, one would think. It worked, though.

Boomtown was a much-loved kids's show in Boston, hosted by singing cowboy Rex Trailer. It was on the air live, for three hours, running from 1956 through 1974. I miss shows like this - seems as if every local channel used to have at least one.

Robert Cottle, "Captain Bob," was another local host; his show, which involved how-to on drawing nature subjects, ran for 14 years.  

In tonight's fight, the ageless Sugar Ray Robinson makes his 159th professional start, taking on a man who was only one when Robinson made his professional debut in 1940. To put that in perspective, Muhammad Ali, who retired after 21 years, fought in almost 100 fewer professional fights. Robinson, who defeats Moyer in this fight but loses later in a rematch, would retire for good in 1965.

I don't know why anyone would think that "The Desert Fox" was a Western, but that's how TV Guide catagorized it this week. I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking that a movie set in a desert might be in Tombstone, or some other territory in Arizona. As long as that desert had German tanks rumbling through it, led by Field Marshal Rommel, with a cast including James Mason, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Jessica Tandy, Luther Adler and Everett Sloane.

I remember watching magician Mark Wilson's program The Magic Land of Allakazam - I don't know if it was in first run, since it went off in 1964, or if it was some kind of rerun. It never made me want to become a professional magician, although I've always had this great desire to pull quarters from the ears of unsuspecting children.

I don't have many good things to say about Hugh Hefner - in fact, perhaps the only two things I can credit him for are giving opportunities to a lot of very good fiction writers, and recognizing a lot of musical talent. Playboy's Penthouse was one of the few programs of the time to provide a forum for jazz musicians (black and white) and edgy comedians. Well, the man had to do something right.

Have you ever seen Shotgun Slade? You can find it on YouTube; it's a Western with a twist - the hero is a private detective. The music is more like the "jazz detectives" of the time (Johnny Staccato, Richard Diamond, Peter Gunn) than Gunsmoke. Could have been a very good idea, if it had been executed better.

Colonel Clown was the creation of comedian Joey Russell, one of the great Borscht Belt comedians of the time, who worked with all the big names in nightclubs and was famous for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Jewish charities. When he died in 2010 at the age of 90, according to his many obituaries, he left behind a ton of friends and memories. 

WRLP was, at the time, a satellite of WWLP, so they have identical broadcast schedules, which means two markets got to see The Third Man, a spinoff of the Orson Welles classic movie, starring Michael Rennie in Welles' role as Harry Lime, who has apparently gone straight by now. And let's not even discuss how Lime died in the sewers of Vienna in the movie.

Matty's Funday Funnies was named after Matty, the little kid in the Mattel logo. Next year the show will be retooled from the cartoons it shows now, and renamed after its most popular characters: Matty's Funnies with Beany and Cecil.

WATR has a pretty abbreviated schedule, not coming on the air until Saturday afternoon. Time enough for college football and boxing though, which is all that matters.