CASUALTIES OF SPRING
KITMAN, MARVIN
on Television CASUALTIES OF SPRING BY MARVIN KITMAN First, a moment of silence for the 31 programs the networks killed from April 19-25, a period that will go down in the history of Western...
...Toma tracks the love birds down...
...It is almost as if the network programming executives, incited to violence by watching their own shows, streaked down Sixth Avenue yelling, "Kill...
...Now she realizes she has to smoke pot to relate to the one kid in her house...
...Many's the night I had to turn down my "contrast" dial in order to see the expressive faces of the players, especially Mrs...
...Inexperienced at smoking, Ma Brady accidentally sets the house on fire...
...Some day, I'm sure the cavities-results will be revealed in a commercial...
...But I'm worried about what the dropping of the show will do to young Ricky, whose career may be finished at 4V2\ "He had his shot at stardom and blew it," a hardened ABC source told me...
...and since each partner had three kids when they were married, did ZPG expect the family to eliminate some of them...
...Kill...
...The Partridge Family was considered important because in only four years it made a deity out of David Cassidy, who became so big Jack Cassidy wouldn't talk to him...
...ZPG accused the Bradys of foisting the image of the large happy family unit on the unsuspecting TV public...
...Brady and Keith Partridge falling in love and driving off together along Route 66 in their VW bus...
...After all, ABC did not condone the number of children the Bradys had...
...But in the case of The Partridge Family foul play is suspected: ABC may have deliberately bumped it off...
...One never saw so many flashing smiles at the same time on the small screen...
...Why he can't even look forward to retiring to a life of commercials...
...The network's hands are as clean as they are turned hopelessly to the skies...
...But being a city cop he can't cross state lines and he has to call in the FBI...
...And sure enough, The Partridge Family jumped-or fell-to 64th place (dead last) on the Nielsen charts...
...Since its opening on September 25, 1970, this series has set child labor ahead many years by giving hope to all kinds of kids that they could make it in show business: old kids like David Cassidy (26), young kids like Ricky Segall (4%), fat kids like Danny Bonaduce, or skinny kids like Brian Forster...
...on Saturdays, a shudder ran down the spines of informed observers...
...It was the perfect crime, like those unsolved mob killings that used to dot Bath Beach, that once unsettled section of Brooklyn...
...She asks Dave Toma (Tony Musante) to put out a missing persons alarm...
...Moreover, what ZPG forgot was that The Brady Bunch was a show about two families, not one...
...The series, you probably never realized, performed a valuable public service by keeping millions of teen-aged girls off the streets, first on Friday nights, and this past year on Saturday nights...
...No social scientist I have spoken to was willing to predict the impact on the nation of Keith Partridge's absence from the tube next season...
...Of greater concern than the shattered lives of the personalities involved, however, is what the demise of The Partridge Family will do to the quality of American life...
...They stayed at home to watch Keith Partridge (David Cassidy), the biggest sex symbol on TV since Bobby Sherman...
...After eating pey-ote, Ma Brady gets sick...
...It was formed in 1969 when Mike (Robert Reed), a widower with three boys, married Carol (Florence Henderson), a widow with three girls, thereby merging two TV trends of the late '60s: the widower show (My Three Sons) and the widow show (Doris Day...
...As usual, it takes them a half-hour to put out the blaze, and the couple's love nest burns down...
...The series was also a source of inspiration to the Women's Lib movement...
...I suppose it is true that the Bradys consumed 42 tons of chaff just to get the few kernels of humor every week...
...Ma Partridge (Shirley Jones) is also distraught...
...Saturdays is the Bath Beach of television land...
...It proved, too, that little kids can work in night clubs and at Las Vegas...
...Inspector Erskine, furious, contacts Chopper One and they are trailed until the chopper runs out of gas 30 minutes later...
...The New Dick Van Dyke Show expired of old age...
...But the last episode would have been a natural for The ABC Suspense Theatre, which is also folding at the end of this season...
...Most of the 31 programs canceled this spring died of natural causes...
...the girls were said to prefer "the other brand"-either Ultra-Brite or Colgate MFP...
...on Television CASUALTIES OF SPRING BY MARVIN KITMAN First, a moment of silence for the 31 programs the networks killed from April 19-25, a period that will go down in the history of Western civilization as the Great Mass Medium Massacre of 1974: The casualties were so high, the slaughter so sudden and unexpected, that the critic no less than the average TV viewer is still reeling from the shock...
...He's not grotesque like Mason Reese...
...He goes to Owen Marshall (Arthur Hill), counselor-at-law, to start divorce proceedings...
...Keith has been bugging her...
...Doc Elliot was found to be practicing medicine without a license...
...The conspirators expected the programming shift to create some of the worst conflicts seen in the American home in years...
...She's never smoked it before because she's had a responsibility not to set a bad example for all of her kids...
...If her child had a voice, an electric outlet (to plug in a guitar or the hi-fi set), any talent whatsoever, she understandably believed she had a shot at being a stage mother...
...Indeed, the California Unemployment Service might be persuaded to sponsor The Partridge Bunch...
...I don't know how it all ends up...
...When this unusual family gathered, it was absolutely blinding...
...Of the 31 cancellations, I think the greatest loss may be The Partridge Family (ABC, Saturdays, 8 p.m...
...All he does is sit around and play his guitar and comb his hair...
...The Brady Bunch was also known as the "conglomerate next door...
...Ricky will never make it in that world...
...It showed mothers they did not have to stay at home gathering dust...
...The death of the program will set back aspiring stage mothers everywhere, for each one could relate to this story...
...Doc Elliott has just finished an acupuncture course, studying under Caine in Kung Fu, and he is eager to practice on Carol Brady...
...All in the Family remained Number One...
...Ma Brady and Keith Partridge take to the open road again...
...While Inspector Erskine is placing a tap on their phone, Ma Brady discovers grass...
...The only problem with this theory is that television executives usually don't watch much TV...
...Meanwhile, back at the Partridge Bunch home, Pa Brady is very upset...
...One possible scenario for the new show begins with Mrs...
...Whenever the brass at ABC or NBC want to assassinate a show, they put it in that time-slot...
...The League Against Infanticide would have picketed...
...Keith sends his trained singing falcon to Doc Elliot (James Franciscus), who is riding around the countryside in his new emergency doctor's truck...
...The boys were reportedly using Crest...
...The younger generation (9-13) would want to see David...
...They say Bonaduce is finished— a has-been at 13...
...a series that was important because it brought back white teeth...
...It was argued that ABC should not be glorifying big families at a time when the world was suffering from starvation, etc...
...He's just a nice cute little kid...
...Kill...
...Certainly ABC might have lessened the blow of killing The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch simultaneously by trying another merger, which could have been called The Partridge Bunch...
...The second saddest death this year is The Brady Bunch (ABC, Fridays, 8:30 p.m...
...For the scenario outlined here would provide jobs to almost every unemployed actor on the ABC lot, who comprise a third of the victims of the Great Mass Medium Massacre of 1974...
...In addition, the series was responsible for foisting Danny Bonaduce on the American public, an achievement topped only by its promotion of Ricky Segall...
...But on the larger issue of family size ZPG may have been a little unfair in its criticism...
...Thus, in dropping Cassidy ABC can point to the ratings and escape the wrath of the teenagers...
...This season, when ABC suddenly scheduled it opposite All in the Family at 8 p.m...
...From 1970-73 the series sailed smoothly along on Friday nights, with ratings even higher than the acknowledged hit The Odd Couple...
...Brady (Florence Henderson...
...your older folks (14-84) would want to see Archie...
...The Firehouse crew answers the call...
...Everybody knows that 8 p.m...
...they could be out with their kids on their gigs...
...traces the older woman and her young boy friend to the heartlands, where they have set up light housekeeping a few miles away from The Cowboys' ranch...
...This historic union was to become a prime target of the Zero Population Growth (ZPG) movement in the early '70s...
...Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr...
Vol. 57 • June 1974 • No. 12
