TV Guide March 27-April 2, 1971

This is the second 1971 TV Guide I'm looking at. I talked about the January 9-15, 1971 TV Guide last week. (By the way, a big tip of the hat to Orlando Busino. Click above for Orlando's updates on Rowland B. Wilson and a mystery signature, which Detective Busino solves. There's a photo of Mr. & Mrs. Wilson at this link courtesy of Roy Delgado.)

The Guide used a good amount of art and cartooning as a routine part of its art design. Nowadays, everything's photos, photos, photos. And that's too bad.


Another helping of 2 great cartoonists:Rowland B. Wilson and Bob Weber. Great to see these fellows, best recalled for their gag cartoons, used as illustrators.



Although, sometimes I have to admit that the art just isn't doing its job. Above: a guy holding a gun, looking at .... ? For a movie with the word DUEL in it, why not have a bit of action? Man firing a gun, for instance.


A half page of Schulz art lets us know that PLAY IT AGAIN CHARLIE BROWN is a premiere.


The ads for STAR TREK and FLIPPER seem pretty standard for now: photo, logo, channel, when it's on.


And here's my favorite gatefold: an ad for NEWSBEAT, which looks to be hosted by Siamese twins, and some bad art for STAR TREK depicting what looks like a flying saucer and then, in an odd Charlie Brown touch, a kite above the hand-drawn logo. This is so badly drawn, and seemingly unnecessary since there was all ready an ad for TREK a page before, that I have to believe there was some blackmail going on.

Well, might as well go off-topic and just look at a bit of nostalgia.

The TONYS! The nice thing about the Tonys, as well as a lot of shows that would have a singer on them, is that the Guide would list what songs were going to be performed and who was going to do the performing. I don't think that's done any more.



A good week for Charles Schulz. Here, he appears in a show based on the Guinness Book of World Records. It doesn't sound too interesting to me, nor could I find out why Schulz was one of the guests, but dear ol' Flip Wilson is trying to reassure me with his big time mugging that all will be fun.

The great purge of the CBS "rural shows" had begun. I'd always heard that one year, CBS took out all of its high performing small-town shows and retooled itself. Here's the report from the front lines as they were putting together their 1971-72 TV season.



And here is our TV nostalgia digestif: Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, in the waning years of their Hollywood marriage, preen around in cool '70s fashions. The giant bird cage makes it all the more unsettling!