​As I mentioned earlier, our Holiday Fest also includes a few little-seen TV specials from the past.  This one tonight wasn't a standalone special per se, but instead was the Christmas special episode for the weekly Julie Andrews Hour, and they went all out to make it stand out.  This is from December 20, 1972, and the cast includes Jimmy Stewart, Joel Grey, Mama Cass Elliot, Carl Reiner, Steve Lawrence, Sergio Franchi, Dan Dailey, Alice Ghostley and Rich Little. 

(Side note: For those who don't know his name, Dan Dailey had a successful movie career in the 1940s and 1950s, including many musicals, and even got an Oscar nomination as Best Actor for When My Baby Smiles at Me.  I saw him on stage at the Blackstone Theater in Chicago as 'Oscar' in a 1966 production of The Odd Couple, which also starred Richard Benjamin as 'Felix,' who so often played nervous, neurotic characters and was memorably picture-perfect for the role. And years later I got to tell him that when I met him and his wife Paula Prentis at a Northwestern alumni party which was held before the football team played in the Rose Bowl in 1995.  And yes, he was stunned.  And pleased.)

(But I digress.)

The special is very well done.  Carl Reiner even has a solo song, and does a nice job on "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."  Jimmy Stewart is the main guest, and travels around with Julie Andrews – and just when you think that that's pretty much all he'll get to do, later in the show he actually gets a solo number with "Away in the Manger" -- then sings a bit on two  duets, including one with Julie Andrews, which in the singing world is the definition of courageous.

What's also fun is that Alice Ghostley sings one of the little-known Christmas songs I've posted here the past few years from the TV musical The Stingiest Man in Town.  For that matter, they also perform yet another little-known song I post here every year -- “A Christmas Carol” from the movie Scrooge.  And are a couple of fun short sketches between Jimmy Stewart and Rich Little.  The special also includes the original commercials which adds some whimsy.

(Note: for some reason, this may open at the 1:48 mark, but  I think I've finally gotten it to begin at the start.  If not, though, you can just click on the scroll bar at the bottom of the video to get it all the way back to the beginning.)
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I’ve written in the past about my longtime friend since our days at Camp Nebagamon, John Kander (who is the nephew of legendary Broadway composer John Kander, writer of Cabaret and Chicago) and that his own nephew Jason Kander was Secretary of State of Missouri.
 
Well, Jason -- who currently hosts the "Majority 54" podcast on the Meidas Touch Network -- is going to be featured on 60 Minutes tomorrow.  It’s for a major story about a remarkable, audacious -- and up to now, secret -- rescue operation he organized with others to evacuate almost 400 Afghan allies from Afghanistan, people who had risked their lives as translators and support for the American military.  Kander, who had served in Afghanistan as an Army intelligence officer, said the decision to get involved in the rescue mission was because, “It felt like leaving a friend behind when you had promised them you wouldn’t.”  And a plan, known as Operation Bella, was created that required raising a great deal of money for an airplane and used, as part of its subterfuge, the deception of a fake wedding party.

When I say this is a major story for 60 Minutes, this is what I mean:  they are spreading the report out over two segments.

Here's a video he posted about the upcoming story about the rescue.  It airs Sunday on CBS at  7 PM Los Angeles and East Coast time.  60 Minutes is calling the segment, "Welcome to the Wedding" --

And here's the promotion video that 60 Minutes ​has released --

Also from the same episode, this is when a turkey was dropped off to press secretary C.J. Cregg so that it could be pardoned. 
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This is a joyous find.  On The Dean Martin Show, one of the series’ regulars was Kay Medford.  She was a wonderful actress with a long career on stage and in film, appearing on Broadway in such musicals as Paint Your Wagon and Carousel, and getting a Tony nomination as Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for playing the mother of Barbara Streisand’s ‘Fanny Brice’ in Funny Girl – repeating the role in the movie and getting an Oscar Supporting Actress nomination.  So, she was no slouch.  I mention all this because on the February 25, 1971 episode of the show, the guest was Zero Mostel.  And he and Medford recreate the “Do You Love Me?” number from Fiddler on the Roof. 

It's not done in period costume – Mostel, in fact, is in a tux.  But the performances together are a joy.  Natural, achingly tender, funny and lovely.  Mostel takes the number a little slower than on the cast album, but he plays it with richness and character touches.  And Medford is excellent, combining the weariness of ‘Golde’ with a modern, almost matter-of-fact “I’m busy, why are you bothering me?” sensibility, appropriate for how the scene is set. 
 
Mostly, though, there is so little footage of Mostel in the role, that anything of him performing from Fiddler on the Roof is a treasure.

I've written in the past about my friend Treva Silverman (also known as The Lovely Treva) who was not only the first female writer hired for the staff of legendary TV series The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but was the first writer hired, period.  And has won two Emmy Awards, as well.  On top of all her other credits. (Like writing on the series, The Monkees and...well, you get the idea).  And I've been writing about her a lot recently, since the winds seem to be blowing in a way where she's been a "talking had" on several TV documentaries lately and featured in articles -- notably an HBO documentary on Mary Tyler Show, an episode of the MSNBC series My Generation, and a Los Angeles Times feature piece.  Well, we can add one more -- the other day, People Magazine did a story on her.

All this, and she doesn't even have a publicist... Which saves a lot of money when you get the publicity all for free.

The interesting thing about the headline is that far more impressive than being "the first female writer" hired -- Treva was (as I mentioned) the first writer hired!  Though leaving out “female” from the headline wouldn’t make it as attention grabbing for reasons.  And at least it gets mentioned within the article.
 
The weird thing about the article is that it is so People.  They really didn’t do much work, and left the heavy lifting to MSNBC.  All they seemed to do is watch the My Generation episode and then described a little bit of what they watched that MSNBC did.  In fact, the photo they used was one on TV.  (Which is A Good Thing, since it’s a very nice photo.)  To be clear, this isn’t a complaint about the article at all – I’m very they did it, no matter how much they took the easy way out.

​If you're interested (especially if you didn't see MSNBC's My Generation, you can read the brief article here.
 
And the Treva Watch continues...

This is the Halloween broadcast of Kukla, Fran & Ollie I mentioned the other day that aired 75 years ago tonight, on October 31, 1949.
 
It follows up on the episode a few nights earlier, when Beulah Witch was preparing for her fellow alums and teachers from Witch Normal college coming to town for a Halloween convention – but a small crisis comes up that she has to avert.  As things develop, the other Kuklapolitans excitedly prepare for trick-or-treating, and sing a bunch of songs along the way – my favorite being Beulah Witch’s rendition of “That Old Black Magic.”
 
The episode also shows off Burr Tillstrom’s artistry well – though it’s subtle because he does it with such ease. 
 
The first subtle example is the opening of the show when music director Jack Fascianato plays the KF&O theme “Here We Are Again,” and he’s joined by two Kuklapolitans accompanying him on toy pianos.  It’s amusing and generally just plunking on the keys, except if you listen closely Burr Tillstrom actually is getting some of the theme music correct.  (And made all the better because one of the two is my fave, the lunatic Cecil Bill.)  And the other comes later in the episode when Kukla, Fran and Ollie sing a trio – with Tillstrom going back and forth with the two voices.  As I said, it’s comes across with such natural ease, but it’s no small trick singing a duet with yourself.
 
By the way, I noticed a bit of information posted with this video.  Over 700 episodes of the show were transferred to digital thanks to funding from the Burr Tillstrom Copyright Trust and fans of the show – as well as, most interestingly, the Jane Henson Foundation.  As I’ve written in the past, Jim Henson always said that Burr Tillstrom and Kukla, Fran and Ollie were one of his big inspirations to get into puppetry and ultimately create The Muppets.  And his wife’s helping to fund this clearly supports that.  Special thanks were given, as well, to the Chicago History Museum for its invaluable help in the process.
 
And now – trick or treat!
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