For anybody who might be interested the 6 million dollar man it's based on a book by the novelist Martin Caden it's very different from the book which I can assure you was indeed gritty ugly and earthy the characters had to be changed so they can be acceptable for TV I don't think they had to do that sticking to the novel would have given it more realism I hope people will find the original novel and read it I promise you you will not be disappointed the name of the original novel was Cyborg
It really goes to show you how much we relied upon TV Guide back in the day. Most of these shows were canned within 1 season but I remember them all well because every fall TV Guide would put out a special FALL PREVIEW edition with detailed explanations of all the shows, not to mention the three major networks at that time (CBS, NBC & ABC) would advertise the hell out of their shows. Miss those days. If you notice a lot of those shows were very unique and innovative unlike all the remakes, sequels, prequels and the like we have today.
One of my favorite things to read as a kid was the Fall Preview of TV Guide! And I use to read through the tv guide and memorize shows and times . Miss those days!
Unbelievable with that jingle, huh? The second one is much better but I think it still isn't the final music. They improved it the next year. Really an iconic introduction that stays in memory. That original intro really did suprise me.
This series actually had three 90 minute pilot-like shows before it became an established weekly series. The original opening had Dusty Springfield singing the opening theme song and they were trying out a James Bond-like approach but they ditched that for the government agent approach the series was known for. Martin Caidin, who wrote CYBORG, the book the series is based on, actually wrote 4 Steve Austin books and the three pilots were based on those books as well.
Me and my best friend loved TSMDM...we were both 9 years old in 1973. We each watched it at night and then talked about the episode the next day. To this day, when we occasionally meet up for a few drinks, we still say to each other "Get your pitch to zero" as we get into our cars.
Prior to the weekly series, The Six Million Dollar Man had three made-for-television movies; two of which were produced by Glen Larson. The Larson-produced movies portrayed Steve Austin as a James Bond-type spy and it also introduced Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, the director of the OSI. The first theme of The Six Million Dollar Man in the video above is from the Larson-produced movies and is sung by Dusty Springfield.
@@Leadeshipcoach Me too. It was a simpler (television) world then. There were a lot of underappreciated gems on the air. Of course the advent of cable tv changed the the landscape quantitatively and qualitatively.
Toma was the forerunner to Baretta. After the first season Tony Musante decided he didn't want to do the series anymore, so the producers cast Robert Blake to replace him, but then decided to rework it into a new (albeit very similar) series with a new name.
The Six Million Dollar man was my all-time favorite show and he was my ideal male role model. I still remember my joy when he and the Bionic Woman appeared together. And how wonderful to see Ken Howard again. I never knew he was in Adam's Rib. That must have been a fun show.
14:20 If I am not mistaken, "Toma" was the precursor to "Baretta." They decided that "Toma" was just TOO gritty for polite TV, so they toned it down a little, hired a "Little Rascal" and created one of the best series of all time. So, "Toma" wasn't a flop, exactly. It proved the formula for something great that came later.
The 6 Million Dollar Man started off as a series of movies on the ABC Suspense Theatre before graduating to its own series. The pilot movie was serious, while the remaining movies were more light-hearted "James Bond" like. The series went back to the more serious tone we know and love...
That was my show! I was 10 in 1973...it lasted about 5 seasons I think? Then" The Bionic Woman!" " Wonder Woman" with the beautiful Lynda Carter! and of course " Barney Miller".....I am 54 now and remember all the great TV shows!! These last 40 years flew by!!!
I hope Chase gets released on DVD some day. It was a Stephen J Cannell, R A Cinader and Jack Webb production. It's too bad the original cast was changed after a few episodes. One of the stars of Chase, Michael Richardson, was in the news before Father's Day 2018 when his friend went missing in Sequoya National Forrest. Luckily, his friend was found the day before Father's Day and reunited with his family. Good to see Michael is still around and doing well.
Just for fun, I thought I would google the 2017 prices of the food items shown in the Lotsa Luck! open (starting around 7:00). Here are three of them, with the Lotsa Luck! (1973) prices and the current (2017) prices at ShopRite: Veal scallopini: $6.79 vs 13.99 (all per pound) Cooked shrimp: $4.30 vs 12.99 NY cut steak: $3.98 vs 9.19 These prices are roughly 2-3x what they were 44 years ago. However, the CPI Inflation Calculator says prices in general have jumped *5.5x* since then...meaning that today's prices in 1973 money would look like this: Veal: $2.53; Shrimp: $2.35; Steak: $1.66...or about half what they were then! Of course...that only works if *wages* had also increased 5.5x since 1973...which they haven't. Oh, well...lotsa luck!
Thank God they went with Nelson Oliver's now iconic opening theme song. Oliver sadly passed away only 2 years after the show began at the young age of 41 or 42. That explains why he did not score "The Bionic Woman" when it came on a few years later. That was done by James Fielding.
She was a liberated, divorced fashion designer who lived in a NY apartment and had a bunch of wacky neighbors who hit on her and dropped in unannounced
Amazing to see someone using a car phone in 1973, I didn't think they became more common until a decade later. I wasn't born until 1978, so I always thought on-the-road communication prior to the 1980s was primarily limited to CB radio.
Somewhat. In the series, she was Diana Smythe. She was a fashion designer and coordinator for a New York City department store. The show lasted four months. I guess "type casting"? She made guest appearances on TV shows and movies. She was a hostess for Masterpiece Mystery on PBS and in 1994, she was titled as a Dame.
I was born in August of 73. I can picture being on my mom's lap as these promos were going on. That my ears have already these before I even knew it is cool. At one time I was a baby and these shows were big !!!
OMG I've never seen that Six Million Dollar Man opening! Oh God the lyrics! :D I also loved The Magician but never saw it until it was on SciFi before that channel went down the trash chute.
Usually I hate when syndication homogenizes openings so that later versions run with earlier episodes, but in cases like this I'll make an exception. That was an awful original opening.
NBC Follies?? Execs: "Hey! let's put money on a form of entertainment that was popular nearly 50 years ago!" Producers: "You better schedule the shows for 5 pm, because those who remember the Follies go to bed at 6pm now."
Kojak, The Six Million Dollar Man, Police Story, Shaft. And I swear Simon Oakland was in just about every tv show and movie back in the 70s. Unfortunately I missed Diana Rigg and Kathleen Freeman aka Fräulein Burkhalter, shows. I’m doing better here than I was with the mid season 1979 shows.
Simon Oakland was also on Baa Baa Black Sheep 76'-78'. Now that was a cool show! Robert Conrad as marine major Greg 'Pappy' Boyington and his squad of misfits flying those f4u Corsairs in the Pacific campaign in WWII.
ZZZ - the intro for the New Perry Mason. A guy sitting in his office surrounded by law books, reading some papers, then looking out of a window as generic music plays.
They decided that Diana Rigg could be a classier, yet fetishistic MTM. "Who can turn the world on with her accent and leather catsuit including indiscreet cutouts at the hips"? Well, as far as I'm concerned, that would have crushed even MTM's smile to dust. But they didn't let Diana wear the catsuit. It would have been infinitely more interesting to turn MTM into Mrs. Peel than Mrs. Peel into MTM. They were both great, God love them.
In retrospect, it's not hard to understand why most of these shows didn't last. All these police and detective dramas were probably hard to tell apart.
I turned 13 in the fall of '73 and remember more of the actors who played in these shows then the actual shows themselves. Well, it has been 48 years.😝 My favorites here are Kojak, The Six Million Dollar Man and Police Story.
That original intro for The Six Million Dollar Man looks like something you'd see on a sketch comedy parodying '70s TV tropes. When I was watching I seriously thought it had to be a gag.
Too bad Lotsa Luck on NBC didn't had a chance since it was put up against the antediluvian CBS Western, Gunsmoke & another cookie-cutter cop show on ABC, The Rookies.
1973 was the season of some truly HORRENDOUS shows,only thing that came out of it was The Six Million Dollar Man,That’s My Mama,Kojak,and Roll Out and the ONLY reason I say Roll Out because it produced Good Times as its Replacement midway doing that season.
_The Snoop Sisters,_ as an _NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie_ entry, WAS ostensibly a FALL show, albeit naturally somewhat delayed in its premiere, awaiting its "turn" among the shows in rotation, but it ended up being delayed until it was finally scheduled to premiere in November, only to be pulled at the last minute (with a repeat of the season premiere of _Banacek_ being shown instead) to be "retooled", and FINALLY had its debut in December. I don't know what became of the episode yanked at the last minute, if it was revamped to become one of the episodes that eventually aired, or if the would-be premiere never surfaced _at all._ In any event, I loved the series that finally aired for its one short season!
The TV show "Adam's Rib" starred Ken Howard and Blythe Danner. The episode featured in the clip seen here was written by Peter Stone and directed by Peter H Hunt. All four were involved in the movie version of Stone's Broadway musical, 1776.
I caught that too! It's always been 1 of favorite movies bc I saw i1776 on Broadway with my father as a 10 year old in 1970 but not with the original cast
I remember watching The Girl with Something Extra and The Magician, but The Six Million Dollar Man was my show. It actually did not premiere until January 1974 (mid-season). The initial ABC TV movies aired in 1973 before it actually became a weekly series.
CarolJ2013 I liked Bill Bixby, ever since My Favorite Martian. I never got to watch The Courtship of Eddie's Father, because my older sister didn't like it. Fortunately, she liked the Magician.
I am always surprised at the shows I remember and the ones I never heard of. I remember Diana and even Cleveland Amory's review of it in TV guide. I never heard of NBC Folies or Needles & Pins. I loved The Girl WIth Something Extra & thought it deserved a second season, but only gave passing notice to Bob & Carrol (etc). Beverly Sanders (Lota Luck) was one of those comedic actresses they really tried to have succeeded. She was in a host of short-lived shows but I knew as Lucy in "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown."
Roll-Out, what kind of cheap MASH knock-off show with all the black actors was that? I'm guessing it was based on the Red Ball Express in WWII? Who knows, probably because MASH was such a hit they thought they could copy the formula, obviously didn't work.
My dad had a friend who was an enterainment reporter and did an interrivew with James cocoa for this show for his newspaper. After like 10 minutes James Coco started yelling at the guy and calling him rude and inappropriate and stormed out. The guy was one of the quietest, most professional people I've ever known. He was completely baffled.
there were a lot of great actors on POLICE STORY. Sylvester Stallone (Rocky) and Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) played recurring partners on the show for instance. JAN MICHAEL VINCENT did an episode where he played a SWAT officer. Great concept that lead to good spin-offs.
I would love to see a comprehensive list of what actors/actresses have appeared as a regular in the most TV series. Robert Urich has got to be near the top. Ed Begley, Jr. right there with him. I did a quick search and all I could find were lists of people's guesses. :(
18:30 Lemme get this straight, the first scene from the first episode of the TV remake of Shaft made the daring aesthetic choice of NOT actually featuring its title character, let alone depicting any crime which would allow a dramatic entrance for him. Instead we're treated to bland courtroom footage of boring old men who are doing boring things - which is literally the opposite of the intro from the first film.
And it's obvious that the different intros for some shows was because the first reflected the pilot episode and the second, the regular series. For example, Alan Oppenheimer was replaced in "The Six Million Dollar Man" by Martin E. Brooks, while Gary Crosby replaced three actors in "Police Story."
As an 8 year old at the the time, I never missed the Six Million Dollar Man, but I didn’t remember that first intro. I also I think I had to go too bed before The Magician aired, and had too wait until summer vacation too stay up late enough too watch it.
The young Blythe danner was the spitting image of her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow I had a huge crush on Blythe as a kid . RIP Ken Howard. I remember the Adam's rib sitcom . I thought it was charming and funny. I also remember kojak of course and Toma and many of the other series in this collection .btw There were a lot of talented people associated with some of the shows that bombed e.g. Dame Diana Rigg in a sitcom!? OMG!
