For reasons I don't quite understand, they've brought back the game show, The Tell the Truth.  Of the major game shows of that era -- notably I've Got a Secret and What's My Line?, I find it the least interesting, and even sort of annoying.  While I know it's the one that's most-easy for the home audience to play along with, there are two huge problems for me.  The first is that when you have an interesting guest...two-thirds of the time you're not hearing what he or she has to say, and worse, for all you know, what you're hearing about this interesting guest may not even be remotely true, but one of the impostors guessing.  But secondly, what bothers me the most is that, after the real-life, interesting person is identified, and you'd love to hear what this remarkable person has to say, now that we know who it is -- the show uses this post-guessing time to interview the two other people!  When we want to hear from the actual, real person, we instead hear from the two fakes!!  Honestly, I don't care who the two fakes are, I want to hear from the Actual, Real Person.

It's for that reason I don't post many clips from To Tell the Truth.  But once in a while, I come across a guest who's so fascinating to see in person, that it's outdoes any hindrances.  Sometimes, at this point, decades later, we can identify who it is when the game starts and watch while knowing.  But even if we can't, we do find out at the end, and can go back and replay the thing.

This is one of those times.  It comes from the October 10, 1960.

I suspect that most people here have seen the movie, Inherit the Wind, about the famous "Monkey" Trial (or Scopes Trial, as it was also know). That was based on the stage play written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (no, not that one...) -- who oddly enough also wrote another famous play totally different in subject and tone, Auntie Mame (which they later adapted themselves as bookwriters of the musical version, Mame.)  The play, of course, told a fictionalized version of the battle between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, over schoolteacher John Scopes, who had taught evolution and Darwin's Origin of the Species which was against the law in Tennessee.

Well...the guest here is -- John Scopes!  Yes, the actual, real.  Even the panelists are impressed.  (As one notes, "It's like having a national monument here.)

The questioning is sort of bizarre.  (The polite term for "bad.")  They spend so much time asking about the casting of Inherit the Wind, rather than the Scopes Trial.  And what he went through.  And the history of the time. Worse, they ask about the casting of the two lawyers...and not who played Scopes himself!  The guy who is right there in front of them they're trying to guess.

Still, it's great fun to see, odd questioning and all.

Fortunately, he's the first guest, so you don't have to scroll through.  And happily, since when I do watch the show I'm not very good at it, I guessed correctly here.  Unfortunately, as always, no, they don't talk to him afterwards.  Just the two fakes.  Sigh...

A couple weeks back, we had a yowza of a video here -- the 1960 Tony Awards, when it was still just a local broadcast, and included most-memorably a special award and wonderful acceptance speech by James Thurber.  Today, we have a worthy companion piece.  It doesn't have anything quite at the level of a Thurber (or the legendary George Abbott), but it's still pretty impressive on its own -- the very next year, the 1961 Tonys.

Again, this is still just a local New York broadcast.  And similarly, there's no entertainment, just speeches, many winners who today are little know to the public, and a pretty dry broadcast overall, so this is really for major theater buffs and theater historians to watch all the way through.  But -- not to fear!  For all others, it's still a remarkable treat to scroll through and watch for appearances.

Oddly, perhaps the most-memorable thing here is not who won, but who comes up on stage to deliver acceptance speeches for winners who couldn't be there that night.  Today, awards shows have gotten out of the habit of using time to let someone else accept an award "on behalf of" the winner who isn't in attendance, but this is before that time.  And usually, that's was an understandable disappoint for viewers to not get to see the winner but merely "someone else," whoever they were.  But here -- the "accepting on behalf of..." is almost preferable, because we get such acclaimed subordinates as Lilian Gish, Julie Andrews, Richard Burton (this is the year of Camelot, as you might have guessed) and the rarely seen on film legend, Beatrice Lilly.  Again, these are people who did not win the awards they're accepting!  Just willing to get up on behalf of others.  

(All are identified by the announcer, except for some reason Lilian Gish.  So, I can't be 100% that's her, but I'm 95% certain.)

This year is notable also for being a terrific example of the strange Tony rule for who is eligible in what acting categories, the result of which meant for decades (until it was finally changed) that stars of shows often weren't eligible for the 'Leading" award, but would get nominated as Best Featured performer instead.  (To be a leading actor, your name had to be either above the title or if below, specially set off by the words "Starring,")  That meant, for instance, that if a cast was presented as an ensemble below the show's title, the star could only be nominated in a Featured category.  One of the turning points for changing the rule came after William Daniels famously took his name out of contention for being nominated as Best Featured Actor in 1776 for his role as 'John Adams.'

There are several such instances in this year's awards, but the most interesting is Dick Van Dyke in Bye, Bye Birdie getting nominated as Best Featured Actor in a Musical, when it was the starring role that launched his career.  And though it's disappointing that he too is among those "unable to attend," what's fun is seeing that his award is accepted by his understudy -- a very young Charles Nelson Reilly.  And how young is he?  He's introduced as "Charles Reilly."

There are some other notable moments.  One is an award to the legendary producer David Merrick, who was unlikable enough even back then to get humorously-chided by host Phil Silvers.  (Hey, just having Phil Silvers as the show's host is pretty good on its own...)  And also intriguing is the category of Best Leading Actor in a Musical, since not only is one of the nominees Richard Burton for Camelot, but also -- Phil Silvers himself, for Do Re Mi.  And when Burton wins (hey, I'm not giving much away -- this is Richard Burton in Camelot, after all.  And it was 57 years ago!), it's fascinating to see how gracious he is to host Silvers, and how Silvers handles it all when he has to go back out to host after not winning.

(By the way, it was by all accounts a wonderful performance that Phil Silvers gave in Do Re Mi, including his memorable "11 o'clock" soul-searching number, "All of My Life,"  I wrote about the show and embedded that song here, if you want to hear it and know more, along with the final with Silvers joining in on the show's most famous song, "Make Someone Happy.")

All that aside, here's the 1961 Tonys.
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I was going to post something else tonight, a fun song, but when checking it out online again first, I came across this, and felt it had to have priority.

It's an episode of Dragnet 1967 with Jack Webb and Harry Morgan.​  No need to watch the whole thing, although it's enjoyable to scroll through.  As for the plot line -- well, you can see the premise (and the reason for posting this) from the image below.  

It all starts when explosives are stolen from a warehouse, and Joe Friday and Bill Gannon go to investigate.  Along they way, they come across a witness who had confronted the perpetrator in a car accident and got shot in the arm.  It turns out there hadn't been an argument, but the reason for the shooting, as the on-site officer explains, "is because he said he was a Negro."  Eventually, Joe and Bill track the suspect down to his home where its full of dynamite, guns and Nazi paraphernalia -- all intended to blow up a school...that was going to be integrated. And yes, happily, they stop the plot.

My favorite line comes at the very end, in fact the last line before the Epilogue, and it's 100% pure Joe Friday.  The neo-Nazi clearly has no intention of doing any more talking, after gloating about how he knows his rights and that Friday will want a motive.  Joe jumps right in -- "Hate'll do for a start.  And try to put that walnut-size brain of yours to work on this.  You keep harping about minorities."  (The guy says, "That's right.")  "Well, mister, you're a psycho.  And they're a minority, too."  

Cue the music.  And then the narrator....

"The story you have seen is true..."

Every once in a while, a new TV series comes along that has me scratching my head, wondering how this can possibly succeed.  Young Sheldon for CBS this Fall is one of those.

This is the spin-off "prequel" of The Big Bang Theory, that has the 'Sheldon Cooper' character as a little boy, growing up back in Texas.  It strikes me as a great idea for a flash-back episode.  Or even a few episodes, the kind of thing they could do once a year.  Maybe not for a full half-hour each time, but flash back to for about 10 minutes.

But a series?  Sheldon Cooper is brilliant, obnoxious, clueless, without social skills, cold, close-to-friendless, compulsive-obsessive, and unthinkingly mean.  He's also a hilarious character, not just for how well he's written, but largely because of brilliantly he's played by Jim Parsons, who has won four Emmy Awards for his portrayal.  I'm sure the character is well-written on paper, but I'm equally certain that it's Parsons who makes such an objectionable person actually "lovable."  Moreover, he's helped by being surrounded by an ensemble that embraces how awful he is. In fact, being socially-inept themselves, it's Sheldon who makes them seem solid, warm and substantial.  And that creates this happy, little world.  Add to all this that by the point of The Big Bang Theory Sheldon, for all his massive flaws, is a genius with many impressive accomplishments.  And except for the one foil of 'Penny,' all the core group around him are brilliant scientists themselves, who can hold their own with him.

Now, dump all that on a 10-year-boy, played by a 10-year-old child actor without the skills of a Jim Parsons.  And keep in mind that what we do know of the character's past (from what Sheldon has talked about), it was very unhappy, being the only smart person in town, surrounded by an annoying religious-freak mother, and idiot locals who ostracized him and bullied him.

So, what we have is a show about a 10-year kid who is condescending and a jerk to all the other kids around him, none of whom like him, and is condescending and belittling to all the adults around him.  And with no actual accomplishments yet that can justify his rudeness.  And no others around him even nearly as smart, so he is truly alone.

And this is a show the public is expected to tune in to every week?  Like I said, it seems like something that can have a very funny pilot episode. Maybe even a really fun follow-up.  But, boy howdy, do they have a big hurdle to get over every week after that -- week after week.  Maybe they'll give him some friends his own age who -- despite being totally out of his league and lost in the dust by his brilliance, an entire gang of "Penny's" -- are all able to tolerate him, and some very smart adults who are able to tolerate this obnoxious little kid as their equal.  But it seems to me a major hurdle.  The main saving grace is that the show's creators have a good track record.  But then, even Shakespeare wrote Cymbeline, Charles Dickens wrote Barnaby Rudge, and Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote Me and Juliet.

I remember at the height of the series Happy Days, Henry Winkler was offered a spin-off series with his wildly-popular 'Fonzie' character.  And he turned it down.  With great perception, he said that The Fonz character worked in relation to the other characters on Happy Days.  Take him out of that, and you just have this guy in a leather jacket who goes around saying, "Ayyyyyyyyyy."  And so, he wisely stayed with Happy Days, and the character became legendary in TV history.

It strikes me that 'Sheldon Cooper' is all that -- and far, far worse when you don't even have the same actor, or even really the same set-character, but instead a 10-year from a different world at a different time played by a child trying to make this obnoxious, annoying, pontificating, condescending kid endearing in an environment we know he desperately wants out of.  And sustaining that week after week after week.

Hey, maybe I'll be wrong.  I wish it well.  But at the moment, I don't get it.

For years, a complaint I've had about TV coverage of sports is that they don't use the technology they have, but instead toss in surface gimmicks, like in baseball overlaying a strikezone.  But only on rare occasions will they, for example, use a split screen, which is the easiest, most basic thing to do.  

If there's a fast runner on first pace who might steal, show the pitcher and batter, but split the screen to show the runner dancing off first, or put him in a "picture-in-picture" box.  Or when covering a football game, have the normal camera angle of the line-of-scrimmage, but isolate a camera on a linebacker or the wide-receiver who you expect to be a target and split the screen to show both.  

But TV simply doesn't do that, except, as a I said, on a rare instance, or in replays.

Well, today, on the CBS coverage of the PGA championship, they actually entered the real world and used split screen -- the whole time!  O huzzah.

On every hole, when a golfer was teeing off, they solved the eternal problem of watching the golfer or following the ball.  What they did was split the screen, with two-thirds of the monitor being the golfer -- and then the other third showing the hole in its entirety.  And so, when the ball was hit we could not only see it in that split screen, but they added gimmickry properly and with computer technology showed the flight of the ball.  Even displaying both the distance and loft as it was in the air.  And it was wonderful.

​Hats off to CBS.

"They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen." 
-- Trump. August 9, 2017

We've seen it.  

Sorry, guy, Old News.

Been there, done that.  So, you're not scaring them.  August 6, 2017.  Geez, it's like he was watching TV only three whole days earlier, and that's how he came up with the phrase.  But you're three days late with the whole, "Like the word has never seen."  

This is "fire and fury."  And we've seen it.  And honestly -- honestly -- I wouldn't be surprised if he did, too.

It's been a while since we've had a Mystery Guest segment from What's My Line?, so let's rectify that.  The guest isn't someone most people reading this will likely have seen -- but that's largely the point in posting this.  And one of the fun things about the Mystery Guest segment, having game show contestants who you would never expect to think of seeing in this venue.

This guest contestant here is the legendary Italian actress Anna Magnani.  As I said, I doubt most people here have seen her (though some surely have -- I will vouch for Nell Minow, without even checking first), and many people probably don't even know of her.  But two years after this appearance, she would win an Academy Award as Best Actress for the film, The Rose Tattoo.  She starred opposite Burt Lancaster, and Tennessee Williams wrote the part expressly for her.

The segment comes at the 17:45 mark.  Though she speaks English well-enough to have done so in The Rose Tattoo, she clearly feels more comfortable in her native language and uses an interpreter here.  (Since this is two years before The Rose Tattoo, perhaps she was still working on getting better at it at this point...)

Anna Magnani (17:45) Interpreter, soon to win be Oscar for Rose Tattoo, three years

And what the heck, let's just toss in a bonus video while we're at it, just because you've been so good lately.  Here's an almost 8-minute clip from her Oscar-winning role, so you can have a better idea about Anna Magnani .and her talent.

​John Oliver and Cookie Monster anchor the Action 7 News for station WORD on Sesame Street, along with some on-the-street celebrity reporters.