1960s television Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

ABC “Meet Us in September” — 1969

I remember this song like it was yesterday, played dozens of times a day on ABC to promote the new season. I was hoping to find the writer or performer of the song, but no luck this time.

“Meet Us in September” was ABC’s big promotional campaign for the fall of 1969, and looking back at what ABC was introducing that season, they had plenty to promote. The Brady Bunch, Marcus Welby, M.D., Room 222, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Love, American Style and ABC’s Movie of the Week were all part of that new season.

The graphics in this clip were created by Harry Marks, one of the pioneers of television motion graphics. That same year Marks worked with Douglas Trumbull, who had done groundbreaking visual-effects work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, to create the memorable opening for ABC’s Movie of the Week.

I really thought finding out who wrote and sang the catchy “Meet Us in September” jingle would be the easy part. Surprisingly, the surviving archival material credits Marks for the visuals but doesn’t identify a songwriter or the studio singers. Rather than guess and attach somebody’s name to it, we’ll have to leave that one a mystery for now.

ABC was still battling CBS and NBC for viewers, but this season brought some major successes. Marcus Welby finished #8 during its first season and, the following year, became the first ABC series ever to finish #1 in the ratings.

It’s funny how a little network promo like this can stick in your head for more than half a century. Does anyone else remember ABC playing “Meet Us in September” over and over as the new fall season approached?

Did You Walk A Mile For A Camel?

If you grew up watching television in the 1950s or ’60s, cigarette commercials weren’t unusual or something that jumped out at you — everybody saw them. Camel, Winston, Marlboro, Salem and the rest were mixed right in with the cereal, cars and laundry detergent.

And Camel was certainly no little brand. It was introduced by R.J. Reynolds in 1913, became the company’s first nationally marketed cigarette and within four years was America’s number-one seller.

The commercial I’m showing comes from Camel’s revival of one of advertising’s most famous lines: “I’d Walk a Mile for a Camel.” What surprised me is how old that slogan actually was. Smithsonian records show it appearing in Camel advertising back in the 1920s, and Reynolds brought the idea back again near the end of the 1960s.

There’s also a future TV connection. Geoffrey Scott, who later played Mark Jennings on Dynasty, became one of the faces of the “Walk a Mile” Camel campaign. Scott made nearly 100 commercials during his career and also wound up doing ads for Old Spice and even portraying a Marlboro Man.

Then everything changed. Federal law ended cigarette advertising on American radio and television after January 1, 1971.

Do you remember the Camel commercials themselves, or mostly just the line “I’d Walk a Mile for a Camel”?

My Favorite Martian

When I think of My Favorite Martian, I really don’t remember watching it as a first-run show — I remember the repeats. After looking into it, I have a feeling I’m far from alone.

The show originally aired Sunday nights at 7:30 on CBS from 1963 through 1966, right after Lassie and immediately before The Ed Sullivan Show. And here’s something I never really thought about: at the same time over on NBC, it was going head-to-head with Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. That’s quite a Sunday night television lineup!

The opening I’m showing here is from 1965, when My Favorite Martian finally made the jump to color for its third and final season. The first 75 episodes were black-and-white, while only the last 32 were produced in color. Production also moved from Desilu to MGM that final year.

But here’s why so many of us may remember the show from later. Almost immediately after the CBS run ended, My Favorite Martian went into syndication. I found a 1967 television-industry advertisement promoting all 107 episodes to stations as “The Martian Strip,” with the show already running or being sold in major markets around the country.

So while Uncle Martin originally belonged to Sunday nights, reruns probably created a whole second generation of viewers who never really thought about when the show originally aired. I think I’m one of them.

And once that George Greeley theme starts, I’m right back there again!

Do you remember watching My Favorite Martian on Sunday nights, or like me, do you mostly remember it from the reruns?

The Bullwinkle Show

I think one of the reasons Rocky and Bullwinkle still holds up is that when we watched it as kids, we probably weren’t getting half the jokes! The kids got a flying squirrel, a goofy moose and Boris and Natasha constantly trying to cause trouble, while the adults were getting political satire, pop-culture references and some pretty clever wordplay.

The show actually started in 1959 as Rocky and His Friends before moving to NBC in 1961 and becoming The Bullwinkle Show. What surprised me was how much talent was packed into those voices. Bill Scott, who played Bullwinkle, was also the show’s head writer and co-producer. June Foray voiced both Rocky and Natasha, Paul Frees played Boris, and that great narrator’s voice belonged to William Conrad, who many of us later knew as Cannon.

Here’s another one I didn’t know: Bullwinkle’s name reportedly came from a real person, Clarence Bullwinkel, who owned a car dealership near Berkeley and was known by creator Alex Anderson.

And despite how simple the animation sometimes looked, that almost became part of the charm. A lot of the animation work was done in Mexico to keep production costs down, while the writing remained incredibly sharp.

I went back to these cartoons expecting pure childhood nostalgia, but they’re actually funnier when you’re old enough to understand what the writers were sneaking past us!

Liberace Feelin’ Groovy

This may be one of the strangest—and most wonderfully 1968—things I’ve come across in a while. That’s Liberace getting “groovy” with The Youngfolk on The Red Skelton Hour on March 5, 1968.

And The Youngfolk weren’t just a bunch of dancers thrown together for the show. They were an actual seven-member Los Angeles folk group who recorded for United Artists and had already made several appearances with Red Skelton.

The song, of course, was Paul Simon’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy).” Simon & Garfunkel recorded it on August 16, 1966—which, amazingly, was 60 years ago this week. Their version wasn’t originally the big single, though. Harpers Bizarre turned it into a #13 hit in 1967 with an arrangement by Leon Russell.

What I love about this clip is watching television try to interpret the whole flower-power generation for a mainstream audience. Giant flowers, bright colors, “groovy” slang—and right in the middle of it all is Liberace, completely committing to the bit.

Even better, Paul Simon eventually admitted he really didn’t care for this song and once jokingly used it as his own punishment after making a mistake onstage!

Do you remember seeing variety shows trying to get “hip” like this back in the late ’60s?

F Troop

There’s no special birthday or anniversary behind today’s Ken Berry clips. They just happened to come up, and after seeing him in Mayberry R.F.D., it seemed only right to go back to the role that first made him a television star, Captain Wilton Parmenter on F Troop

Parmenter was a well-meaning but accident-prone officer who became a Civil War hero completely by mistake after his sneezes were misunderstood as orders to charge. From there, he was placed in command of Fort Courage, where Sergeant O’Rourke and Corporal Agarn ran their own questionable business deals while trying to keep the captain out of trouble

Ken Berry’s background as a singer and dancer helped make his falls, reactions and physical comedy look effortless. Before F Troop, he served in the Army with Leonard Nimoy and later became part of Desilu’s talent-development program after attracting the attention of Lucille Ball.

Melody Patterson was only 15 when she auditioned for Wrangler Jane after claiming she was 18, although she had turned 16 by the time filming began. Jane could ride and shoot better than most of Fort Courage’s soldiers, but Captain Parmenter somehow remained completely unaware that she was in love with him.

And then there was that unforgettable opening theme. William Lava composed the music and Irving Taylor wrote the lyrics, creating a song that quickly explained how Parmenter accidentally became a hero and ended up commanding F Troop. It was almost a miniature episode before the show even began.

F Troop lasted only two seasons, from 1965 through 1967, but Ken Berry, Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, Frank de Kova and Melody Patterson created the kind of cast chemistry that kept the show popular through decades of reruns

Mayberry R.F.D.

How many of you kept watching Mayberry after Andy Griffith left? Mayberry R.F.D. continued the familiar small-town setting, but shifted the focus to farmer and town councilman Sam Jones, played by Ken Berry, and his young son Mike

The series still included many familiar faces, including Aunt Bee, Goober, Howard and Emmett. Its first episode even featured the long-awaited wedding of Andy Taylor and Helen Crump, giving longtime viewers a proper goodbye before the new chapter began

What may surprise many of us is how successful the show remained. Mayberry R.F.D. ranked among television’s top ten during its first two seasons and was still number 15 when CBS canceled it as part of the network’s move away from rural programming

This short clip also reminds us of the days when sponsors like Sanka and Post were announced as part of the program itself. Did Mayberry still feel the same to you after Andy left, or was something important missing?

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

“Good evening.” With those two words, Alfred Hitchcock welcomed viewers into a weekly world of murder, mystery, suspense and wonderfully dark humor.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents premiered on CBS in 1955 and ran for seven seasons as a half-hour anthology. In 1962, it expanded into The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, continuing for three more seasons until 1965. Each episode told a separate story, usually ending with an unexpected twist or a criminal discovering that the perfect crime was not quite perfect.

The opening became almost as famous as the stories. Hitchcock stepped into a simple outline of his unmistakable profile while Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette” played. Hitchcock had drawn the nine-stroke caricature himself.

Although he introduced every program, Hitchcock directed only 17 episodes of the original half-hour series. Producers Joan Harrison and Norman Lloyd helped select stories, writers, directors and actors who could deliver a complete suspense film in less than 30 minutes.

The television series also influenced Hitchcock’s movies. He later used members of the show’s experienced television crew to make Psycho, helping him film quickly and economically while creating one of the most famous thrillers ever made.

Did the theme music make you uneasy before Hitchcock even said, “Good evening”?

And Away We Went With Jackie Gleason

I remember sitting in the living room with the family to watch The Jackie Gleason Show. The dramatic introduction always confused me because I expected some action, not the June Taylor Dancers!

When the “Glea Girls” were shown waiting for their cue to say their lines, we all yelled, “Go!” or “You’re on!” We did not realize the show was being broadcast live.

The Glea Girls introduced segments and helped give the program its glamorous Miami Beach look. They were different from the June Taylor Dancers, the professional dance troupe that performed the show’s large, carefully choreographed production numbers.

Jackie Gleason moved his show from New York to Miami Beach in 1964, turning Saturday nights into a weekly television trip to Florida. The program featured Gleason’s comedy characters, Sammy Spear and his orchestra, the June Taylor Dancers, celebrity guests and Johnny Olson’s enthusiastic introductions.

Beginning in 1966, The Honeymooners returned in color with Art Carney once again playing Ed Norton. Sheila MacRae played Alice Kramden, while Jane Kean played Trixie Norton. Many of their Miami adventures became full musical productions with elaborate sets and original songs.

Gleason regularly promoted Miami Beach as the “sun and fun capital of the world.” He ended each show by declaring, “The Miami Beach audience is the greatest audience in the world!”

The Miami version continued until February 28, 1970. But what I remember most is sitting in the living room with my family, waiting for the show to begin and yelling cues at the Glea Girls, even though we knew the program had already been recorded.

Did your family ever talk back to the television just for the fun of it?

Sea Hunt and the Shows We Watched With Dad

Sea Hunt was another show I watched with my dad. Combat!, The Rat Patrol and, heck, even Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. were shows many of us watched beside our fathers. We were entertained, but we also learned from them about courage, responsibility, loyalty and doing the right thing.

Lloyd Bridges starred as professional diver Mike Nelson, a former Navy frogman who took on dangerous underwater rescues, criminals, sabotage and sunken mysteries. Sea Hunt ran from January 4, 1958, through September 23, 1961, producing 155 episodes over four seasons.

The show never belonged to one major television network. It was sold directly to local stations through syndication, so families watched it on different nights and at different times depending on where they lived.

Bridges learned to scuba dive for the role and eventually performed many of his own underwater stunts. Since actors could not easily speak underwater, much of the action was explained through Mike Nelson’s narration. Many scenes were filmed in the clear waters of Silver Springs, Florida.

I do not want to sound old, even though I am, but there do not seem to be as many father-and-son bonding shows anymore. Maybe it was not only the programs that made those nights special. Maybe it was simply sitting beside Dad and sharing something together.

Did you watch Sea Hunt with your father, and what other shows brought the two of you together?