I haven't found what I'm looking for yet, but I did stop and marvel at a page of the September 17, 1965 issue, where ABC-TV is running a contest that draws attention to 4 of its new TV shows, one of which is hilariously unfamiliar:
I really kept track of all the TV shows in the mid-60s — back when some people could keep their whole body in running order with just Ban, Vitalis, Ipana, and Excedrin — so I'm amazed to see a title that's completely unknown. "Okay Crackerby."
Was Okay his first name, or was it like the "Okay, Boomer" of more recent American ephemera?
So it was the first name, but they hadn't figured out how they wanted to spell it at the time they put together the contest (which must have been won by "F-Troop," don't you think?).
Here's an article about "Okay/O.K. Crackerby" in Television Obscurities. A blip in the career of Burl Ives.
I still haven't found the Mary Quant article I'm looking for, but here's something from October 18, 1963, just before the Kennedy assassination and the Beatles invasion: "U.S. Girls Can Get the Chelsea Look/Brash New Breed of British Designers."
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Seems like a cousin of A Family Affair. Episode 1 is on YouTube. I can understand if there wasn't a Episode 2. Seems like a mis-casting.
Before fun was shadow banned
won by f-troop?
HELLO? two words.. Barbara Stanwyck ??
Never heard of Okay Crackerby, but I recognized Burl Ives straight away. He was so much more than Frosty The Snowman!!
On the page before the sweepstakes article. I need a better explanation of what “nip-ups” are. Didn’t see it clarified in the article.
The Big Valley had 4 seasons, F-Troop 2, and the Long Hot Summer only 1. I thought it was probably the Big Valley, but sometimes it takes some time for a TV drama to catch on. So maybe initially F-Troop, but then the schtick got old. I can't easily find which show won.
Burl Ives? He named names!
The “OK Crackerby” promo had the “In color” tag at the ending. I still remember my disappointment when I started seeing the “now in color” tags and having it explained to me that we didn’t yet have a color tv and so they wouldn’t really be in color…..
I too don't recall ok crackerby.
But I do recall another show with a fellow named St John taking care of a rich guys kids.
Chubby fellow, British with a beard as I recall. Sort of similar looking to burl Ives. I can't recall his or the show's name?
Peter Ustinov comes to mind but I am pretty sure it was not him.
Sounds like one show was a ripoff of the other.
But which?
John Henry
If you haven't seen it, do watch the 2021 documentary Quant. I watched it last night on Crackle and loved seeing those dresses again. I didn't realize she opened her store on King's Road as early as 1955. While I'm the one who dressed like that in the 1960s, Quant was born the same year as my mother!
Sounds like a Beverly Hillbillies knockoff without the great theme song and a setting at a converted Palm Beach hotel instead of a BH mansion. Hmm, gives me an idea for a remake....
St. John is pronounced Sinjin...
Showrunner - "we resurrect Big Daddy, but we make him nicer, and bit more human."
Exec - "like he isn't dying this time"
Showrunner - "...exactly. We may even let him sing!"
Since 1966, I haven't seen or heard the words "Mary Quant" without thinking of Donovan's song Sunny South Kensington: "Jean-Paul Belmondo and Mary Quant got stoned to say the least."
Mellow Yellow, the album it's on, like the album Sunshine Superman, is superb. Except, ironically, for the two title songs.
I still haven't found the Mary Quant article I'm looking for, but here's something from October 18, 1963, just before the Kennedy assassination and the Beatles invasion: "U.S. Girls Can Get the Chelsea Look/Brash New Breed of British Designers."
Scroll down a couple of pages from that link, and you'll see a multipage ad for Winchester rifles...in Life magazine! The times sure have changed.
God, I loved Big Valley. I don't know how it fared in this poll, but it must've done great overall. It's the only one that survived into afternoon reruns, which is how I watched.
Big Valley was on for four seasons, while F Troop only lasted two--so maybe F Troop didn't get the most votes. As for Long Hot Summer, when's the last time a TV series was based on William Faulkner's stories? And found itself advertised alongside F Troop?
The sheer tackiness of the ad reminds me of a theme in the play "Best of Enemies," which dramatizes the coverage of the '68 conventions by Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley--on ABC. At the time, the network was the fourth horse in a three-horse race; the convention stunt was a desperation move. That worked, maybe.
Ban Roll-On! Do they even make that anymore?
I didn't know anything about that show, but somehow the name is vaguely familiar. I wish it unleashed a flood of memories, but it didn't. We were watching My Three Sons, or maybe The Double Life of Henry Phyfe. Anyway, Burl Ives has already achieved immortality, if not for his role as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, then for his animated avatar in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
I did not know that Ives was blacklisted in the Fifties, but I should have been able to guess: folksingers and red ties went together in the Forties. Burl survived the ban and went on to continued successes. I also didn't know that a young Brooke Adams, the It Girl of 1978, played a role on O.K. Crackerby.
All I remember is Burl Ives driving what might have been a steam- or electric-powered car, handing out money. Boring to my kiddie self.
You mean to tell me Long Hot Summer preceded global warming?
Okay, Crackerby.
Edmond O'Brien from Long Hot Summer had a somewhat tragic career. Typecast as a bad guy after his role in D.O.A., O'Brien grew increasingly irascible over the years including walking off Long Hot Summer halfway thru the first season because the writers were elevating another cast member as the central role.
It was his last leading role and left him bitter.
Spent his final years in a VA hospital often in a strait jacket as Alzheimer's left O'Brien extremely violent.
I really enjoyed the article about the Durants.
Will was a 27 year old teaching assistant when he met and married his 15 year old student.
I wonder what OK Crackerby was scheduled against. My parents were Burl Ives fans but I'm sure we never watched it.
'(which must have been won by "F-Troop," don't you think?).'
I don't know.
Linda Evans was an absolute hottie at that point; worth a watch...
Okay, O.K.? I think that I'll not tax my Burl Ives memories, so I'm sticking to more famous takes such as "Lavender Blue" - dilly, dilly.
Quant was the quintessential feminine beauty. God forbid she would have ever become a man. God made Quant women to please men. We accept.
John Henry: "But I do recall another show with a fellow named St John taking care of a rich guys kids."
Sebastian Cabot in Family Affair. Character's name was Mr. French.
I remember it. Thought it was “O.K. Crackerby” that being the rich guy’s name who hired a poor but educated kid named St. John Quincey to bring his kids the cultural chops he himself had never had. A common paradigm in story telling…street smart versus book smart. Segue to All In The Family; though Archie wasn’t rich he was solvent, unlike the dependent Meathead. See also O. Henry’s “Mammon and the Archer”.
@cassandra lite
Thanks for the Donovan quote. I remember the song well! Still have the album.
Short skirts seemed so short. They got shorter and shorter in HS, despite a quasi dress code for the girls. Guys loved them, because you were always trying to see what was up them in class (yes, Ann, that’s what the guys were doing with your short skirts). Except then, it was all white underwear. But then I went away to college, and the Hippie Era struck. My GF then dressed in overalls that she borrowed from a friend who outweighed her by 50 lbs. 5’6”, 110 lbs, and long legs. And I would see her in a skirt every couple months at one of our fraternity parties. Maybe because it was CO, but jeans were ubiquitous.
I was considering saying "F-Troop" or "Big Valley" but for some reason I felt like my readers would be more nostalgic for "F-Troop." I stand corrected.
I had forgotten about it, but I do remember seeing promos for "O.K.Crackerby," (though I didn't watch it for its brief season.)
'Quant was the quintessential feminine beauty. God forbid she would have ever become a man. God made Quant women to please men. We accept.'
Are we talking about the same woman?
I checked googled images...she looked like Spock's plain sister.
But I guess there's a woman out there for every man...
I had an Indian friend in HS, and his family LOVED F-troop in reruns. I liked the guy, so Would just nod along and go "Yeah, that sure was funny" and change the subject. I thought F-Troop was funny when I was 10, but moved on. Different strokes...
I'm amazed the Edmund O'brian, who set a world record for sweating in B/W movies, ended up in a TV show in the last 60s. Must have been humiliating for him. No wonder he walked off. Heck, the guy must have been a little over 50. A couple years before, he'd been hamming it up in "Seven Days in May".
As for Burl Ives. He was good at playing Burl Ives, and that's about it. He must have had a great supporting cast to get a TV show.
Off Topic: Has anyone seen the "Invaders"? I"m willing to watch it, but y'know its a cancelled 60s TV show.
Lots of people, especially women, loved the "Big valley". It was ALWAYS on Tv in re-runs. My mother watched it. I didn't. I wanted gunfights. Not yak yak yak.
Chubby fellow, British with a beard as I recall. Sort of similar looking to burl Ives. I can't recall his or the show's name?
Sebastian Cabot as "Mr. French" opposite Brian Keith as "Bill Davis" in *Family Affair".
Now, *OK Crackerby" was (still is) interesting as a comment on the social differences between the old money rich, the new money rich, and all the rest of us. "New Money" oilman Crackerby (the name signifies his roots as a redneck "Cracker") was so often snubbed at the Old Money events he worried his three kids would also, always, be so snubbed. So he hired a broke man from an impoverished Old Money Family (with the Old Money name St. John prounounced "sin-jin") as tutor to catch up homeschooled heathens on which fork to use at a formal dinner, etc.
@Hohn Henry 09:03 - I wonder if you're thinking of Family Affair, Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot. It was a pretty big hit, in its day.
I was a fan of F Troop especially the Heckawi Indians. Couldn't do that today.
F Troop was funny enough; but no way could you show it today. I remember OK, but I didn't watch it. Even then I thought Mr. Ives was a bit of a beebo. I was a scamp in those days
Thanks to all. Family affair and sebastian Cabot were what I was rembering
But I also remember sinjin (Saint John) from somewhere and about 99% sure it was not burl Ives.
Another of life's mysteries I guess.
John Henry
I would have tuned into a show with Brooke Adams as the teen daughter in 1965, but only Big Valley and F Troop made it to UK. But appreciated Linda Evans and Melody Patterson alright.
I usually don't jump in on things like this but Michael Caine and Lawrence Olivier (wow) did a movie called Sleuths or something like that. Larry's character was named St. John Lord Merridew. First heard it was pronounced sinjin.
"Biff said...
Scroll down a couple of pages from that link, and you'll see a multipage ad for Winchester rifles...in Life magazine! The times sure have changed."
Came here to say that.
SMURF I learned the pronunciation through the late, flamboyant scholar and Tory politician Norman St John-Stevas.
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