Good Morning, 1967 Fall Season

On this night, CBS flashed “The Look of a Winner,” while ABC started something “Very Special.” What did NBC do that night? Counter it’s counterparts with a sneak preview of “pilots” starting with a prime-time visit to “Dogpatch” in the form of a special showing of “Li’l Abner.” Just to prove that NBC wasn’t really conceding the night, it showed the duo of Rhett Butler and Calamity Jane making front-page news in the romantic movie comedy, “Teacher’s Pet.”

ABC launched a new season of it’s sci-fi shocker, The Invaders, which CBS countered by showing an “alien chimp” on it’s “Daktari” season premiere. A pair of one-hit wonders made their premiere that night, as ABC rolled out the WWII adventure “Garrison’s Gorilla,” which CBS countered later that night by spinning the platter of a radio station comedy called “Good Morning World,” which never signed on our local CBS station in Kalamazoo/Grand Rapids, which is why it lasted that one season. If it was variety you wanted, CBS had the venerable Red Skelton and the one-two guest star punch of Eve Arden and Robert Stack, with “Secret Agent Man” Johnny Rivers thrown in for musical measure. ABC countered in it’s old Fugitive time slot with the Tuesday premiere of a Saturday favorite, The Hollywood Palace, which featured Bing Crosby in the host’s chair and Milton Berle and Jimmy Durante providing some comic relief. Musical performances were handled by a pre-Julia Diahann Carroll, Joey Heatherton, the “Never My Love” crooners The Association and Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar. But let’s not “forget” ABC’s half-hour cop drama which preceded the Palace premiere that bowed called N.Y.P.D, starring Jack Warden, Robert Hooks and recovering amnesiac Frank Converse. Not bad for starters, with Wednesday looming on the horizon, starting off with a show that led to a quick “Last Stand” and ending with a not-so-dandy Dundee and his “Culhane.”