Ultimate TV

Our Parents were right: We watch too much television. Always have. It was the first soft, nonprescription drug we could abuse until we passed out and/or it was time to go to bed. Part of the problem was the sheer proliferation of the medium. Here we had, at our finger tips, tens of thousands of hours of mental popcorn that apparently never gave us a sufficiently horrendous bellyache.

But out of this vast wasteland--as it was called by former FCC Commissioner Newton N. Minow--there remain some magnificent oases. We're talking about those episodes of TV so magical, so inspired that they excused TV's soap-selling, its garishness and maybe even the career of Jim Nabors. They are those few happy moments when commerce collided head-on with a wild creative impulse, with a resulting unforgettable splat. The series that gave them rise may not have been great, but it doesn't matter whether they won Emmys or were called something like Masterpiece Theatre. The point was never art. Art reached higher than what we had in mind. And when it tried to squeeze itself onto the small screen, it somehow went over our heads. Like it or not, television has become our ethical mirror. And when we see ourselves there, we don't try to straighten our tie; we are content, even delighted, just to recognize a familiar face.

Thanks to syndication and cable, we are now more likely than ever to find these gems in our living rooms. For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the very best episodes in the golden agelessness of TV.

The andy griffith show

Every episode of life in Mayberry can be seen independent of the rest, because each tells its folksy little tale and then high-tails it out of there. And the only thing you're left with is that insistent whistling theme song. In "Mr. McBeevee," the adults become concerned about Opie's hyperactive imagination, which has spawned a certain Mr. McBeevee, who walks in tree-tops, wears a hat made of silver and keeps extra hands on his belt. Animaginary friend is one thing; but when Opie brings home an expensive tool--"Mr. McBeevee gave it to me, Paw"--Andy and Barney figure Opie for a thief. Andy goes looking for Mr. McBeevee and finds a telephone lineman, wearing a silver hard-hat, who refers to the tools on his utility belt (including the one he gave Opie) as "extra hands." So much for jumping to conclusions. Today's lesson: Trust your child.

Batman

Given the shameless excesses that became synonymous with the Dynamic Duo, it's hard to believe that there was ever a memorable script. But the series' debut, the two-part episode titled "Hey Diddle Riddle"/"Smack in the Middle," managed to restrain the camp that quickly devoured the program, which turned more doltish than cultish. The premiere had some genuine fun with the idea of caped crusaders; it starred Frank Gorshin as the Riddler and bouncy, buxom Jill St. John as his girlfriend--who, in a charmingly implausible plot development, masquerades as the Boy Wonder to trap Batman. Jill St. John managed to survive, even rise above, this sort of casting. But, alas, Boy Wonder was not so lucky.

The dick van dyke show

Talk about dream sequences: In "It May Look Like a Walnut," Rob has a nightmare in which Danny Thomas is an alien brainwasher from the planet Twylo who transforms humans--most notably, everyone important in Rob's life--into insanely grinning aliens by use of a radioactive walnut. Twyloites have an extra pair of eyes in the back of their heads, so when Thomas, facing away from Rob, points out a spot on Rob's tie, he credits his "perfect twenty-twenty-twenty-twenty vision." This episode also contains the extravagant, indelible image of a Twyloite Laura Petrie cascading out of the hall closet on a sea of walnuts.

Star Trek

"The Trouble with Tribbles" may be the expected choice, but we can't escape it: Filling the Enterprise with a mushrooming population of furry, squeaky--yet vexatious--intergalactic fur balls was a brilliant idea. This episode played against type--the series' self-serious melodrama--by exaggerating those elements of coy humor that were always lurking around the corners. Captain Kirk on the Enterprise bridge, surrounded by little saddle-shoe-shaded mopheads, is an unforgettable touch. And it predated those disgusto terrorist Gremlins by almost 20 years.

Gilligan's Island

Yep, even the Castaways had a memorable moment, in an episode called "The Prodecer." Phil Silvers, guest-starring as the madcap Broadway producer Harold Hecuba, washes up on shore and, finding the casting to his liking, decides to stage Hamlet--as a musical. (And this was years before Shogun.) It's the series of weird juxtapo-sitions--Shakespeare and Tin-Pan Alley, Shakespeare and Tina Louise, Sergeant Bilko and The Skipper, real comedic energy and Bob Denver--that gives this episode its staying power. Where else is there such rich silliness?

Magnum, P.I.

Beneath the plots, it was the simulated father--son relationship between Thomas Magnum and Jonathan Higgins that held this program together; so it's no surprise that a variation on that theme lay at the heart of an unforgettable hour of television. In "Home from the Sea," a boating accident leaves Magnum afloat and alive but unfed and unprotected in shark-patrolled waters. He saves himself by remembering bits of advice from his dead father, as Higgins (like a teenager's dad) fulminates over the detective's "irresponsible" failure to return home and meet his responsibilities.

The Honey Mooners

Jackie Gleason was the greatest talent of television's first decade. Period. He was, to use a handy analogy, the medium's equivalent of Orson Welles (artistically, spiritually, even physically). Although each show has persuasive and passionate admirers, two episodes stand as irrefutable classics:

Ralph becomes a contestant on a song identification quiz show in "The $99,000 Answer" and spends every free moment being prepped and quizzed by Norton, who can read music and play the piano--but who starts every song by playing the introduction to Swanee River. Predictably, Ralph blows his top at this typical Norton quirk; predictably, Swanee River is the first song played for Ralph on the actual game show, and of course, he hasn't a clue to its name.

"A Matter of Record" starts with one of the Kramdens' frequent squabbles: Ralph has insulted Alice's mother (who can't stand him, either). When Alice storms out, Norton persuades Ralph to head for a "make-your-own-recording" studio, to phonographically craft an apology to Alice. On the first take, Ralph spins characteristically out of control, as he vents his litany of annoyances with his mother-in-law; when he tries again, it's a serious and tender catalog of what his wife really means to him. Norton, of course, manages to deliver the wrong recording to Alice, who moves out. She returns when she finally hears the second take, perhaps the most poignant of Gleason's heartfelt monologs.

The Twilight Zone

There were 136 episodes of Rod Serling's silver-tongued fantasies, and two that we remember best:

In "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," a recently released and supposedly cured mental patient takes an airplane trip home and thinks he sees something on the plane's wing: a supernatural figure tearing at the engines. When he steals a gun and opens an emergency exit to shoot at the gremlin, the authorities figure he has suffered a relapse. Their reaction to the twisted metal on the engine cowl is left to our imagination. William Shatner, playing the patient, adds to the retro pleasures of this one.

In "Time Enough at Last," Burgess Meredith stars as a misanthropic bookworm who'd be happy to live with out people as long as he had books to read. When he spends lunch hour in a bank vault--to get some privacy for his reading-he inadvertently becomes the sole survivor of a nuclear war and gets his fondest wish. But then he stumbles in the rubble of the local library, losing and then smashing his reading glasses. There are (continued on page 180) Ultimate Tv (continued from page 107) none of those blasted neighbors around, one of whom might have been an optician, and Rod Serling chuckles at yet another personalized hell.

Columbo: "Any Old Port in a Storm." It's Donald Pleasance time (true Columbo addicts identify each show by the guest-shot villain, rather than the title or even the plot). Here, the of mole man turns up as a wine master who commits murder by locking his victim in the wine cellar and turning off the air circulation. But fate exacts its retribution. While the murderer goes on a business trip, a heat wave hits town, and the cellar's precious cargo--unprotected by air conditioning-- turns to vinegar. Columbo shares a bottle with the soon-to-be-arrested felon; he clearly understands that no prison sentence could outdo Pleasance's torture over destroying his own priceless collection.

The Fugitive: Forget its legendary place in TV history. Ignore its irresistible finality. "The Judgment," the last episode of TV's longest cat-and-mouse game, is just damned good television. Both the hunted Kimble (David Janssen) and the pursuing Gerard reach sublime if quirky heights, and the show's film noir settings are darker than ever. The two-hour story has enough plot twists for half a season, capped by one magnificent glance between the principals at show's end--in unspoken recognition of (and gratitude for) their eerie Doppelgänger liaison.

I Love Lucy: In 1958, there was a special called The Top Ten Lucy Shows, which featured scenes from 13 of them. And-- whether it's because they're so good or because Lucy herself became such an undisputed icon--these two just won't die:

"Job Switching" climaxes with the much-remembered scene--hell, it has even been quoted in other TV shows-- that places Lucy and Ethel in a candy factory, trying (and hilariously failing) assembly-line work. What almost nobody remembers, though, is how they got there; it's the girls' part of a competition with their husbands, Ricky and Fred, who are simultaneously discovering what it's like to be a housewife.

Lucy Ricardo had an uncontrollable mania for meeting celebrities (a nice irony in that Lucille Ball was among the biggest celebrities of TV history). In "L.A. at Last," Lucy lunches at the Brown Derby and drives the place into a turmoil trying to get William Holden's autograph. When she leaves the tony restaurant, Ricky announces that he has met William Holden and wants to introduce his wife. To avoid being recognized, Lucy disguises herself in a babushka and a putty nose--which goes up in flames when Holden graciously attempts to light her cigarette.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show: In "Chuckles Bites the Dust," the TV clown is killed in a freak accident--dressed as Peter Peanut in a local parade, he is trampled by a rampaging elephant. Lou and Murray find release for their grief in a steady stream of wisecracks; Mary doesn't realize until the funeral what everyone has been laughing about. M.T.M. was always one of the funniest shows on the tube, even when the plots were thin; but in this episode, the writers lowered the lamp just a bit to look at how differently people react to death, stringing together some of the most gleefully dark jokes anyone can remember. Few who have seen this episode forget it.

The Prisoner: The series pops up in every pop-culture treasure-trove, and so should the last episode shown, "Living in Harmony." This oddball, which did not air in the show's original U.S. run, looks different from the start. The series' familiar opening sequence--Number Six resigning his commission, then being abducted--is recast using a gun-fighter motif, and the show continues as a Western-genre allegory of Number Six's life in the Village. The town, called Harmony, is run with ironhanded authority by The Judge (Number Two), who tries to enlist Number Six in his camp by making him sheriff. Not until the last few minutes do we learn it has all been a drug-induced hallucination forced on Number Six by his modern-era captors to break his resistance--and even so, he gets the last laugh.

The Rockford Files: If there has ever been a more perfect TV actor than James Garner, he has yet to be found. In "The Big Cheese," Rockford receives a package from an old reporter pal who has warned him to look out for something "special." Nervous Mobsters are convinced it's an account book and they murder the reporter. Then they start chasing Rockford--who, of course, is only too happy to let them have the package. But it's no account book; it's a wedge of cheese, and the typically Garnerian look of frustrated disbelief is what this show--what every Garner series--is all about.

The Sound of Jazz: A one-shot, part of a loosely structured series called The Seven Lively Arts, this 1957 show is the first and still the best television concert: The assemblage includes Billie Holiday, sax men Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young; trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Doc Cheatham; clarinetists Pee Wee Russell and Jimmy Giuffre; Count Basie and a hand-picked assortment from his band. Better still, the emphasis is on the casual and informal nature of jazz collaboration, with the musicians dressed in rehearsal clothes and playing in a mostly bare studio, with cameramen frequently visible and the production's seams showing. The results are lambent or incandescent, depending on the performers, but glowing throughout.

WKRP in Cincinnati: In "Turkeys Away," station manager Carlson is feeling useless. So he decides to stage a little promotion--no, a great promotion--a Thanksgiving-turkey giveaway at an outdoor mall. He installs newsman Les Nessman for a live report--as a hired helicopter flies overhead and tosses live turkeys onto an unsuspecting audience. Nessman's reactions make it sound like he's reporting on the Hindenburg disaster, as he struggles to describe people being strafed by big fowl. Carlson closes by swearing, "I really thought turkeys could fly." This one's a little gem that plays on the goofiest ineptitudes of its two biggest nebbishes.

I, Claudius: "Queen of Heaven" has it all. It starts with tales of the emperor Tiberius' sodomistic debauchery (followed by the victim's stunning suicide). Before it ends, we've witnessed early scenes of the young Caligula's depravity and sadism; the ambitious treachery of the outsider Sejanus, replete with husband poisoning and rape-fantasy foreplay; and Livia's offhand admission to a half-dozen far-flung murders ("You've got a long reach," comments her duly impressed grandson Claudius. "The Empire's very large, I need one," Livia responds)--all set in a Rome awash with treason trials and seditious blather. That snake crawling across the opening credits never made so much sense as in this, the middle episode of the 13-part PBS classic.

Andy usually had less difficulty subduing barney's enthusiasms than he did here, but it was griffith's benign despotism that kept bucolic mayberry on an even keel

"Baby, you' re the greatest," ralph kramden used to tell alice. the same is true for that most perfect of tv sitcoms, the honeymooners. ralphie boy was our postmodern falstaff, while norton and alice flailed and failed to keep the great one humble.

If there has ever been a more perfect TV actor than James Garner, he has yet to be found."