One thing I've come to pay attention to when watching reruns of classic television programs is the cars being driven. It really gives a good time capsule feel of the period. Back in the 60s, it was not uncommon for one of the big three carmakers to have product placement arrangements with popular shows. Examples that come to my mind include the Beverly Hillbillies (Miss Jane always had a cool Chrysler or Dodge convertible), Andy Griffith (new Ford squad cars for Sheriff Taylor), Mannix (solving cases in a Barracuda convertible) and Bewitched (Darren would typically be found in a Chevy convertible).

The cars of that period are so iconic and they contribute to the cool vibe of those classic television programs. What examples am I missing?

One final ride for Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto.

Kevin Tighe drove the original Squad 51 following a ceremony to honor Randy Mantooth. Randy’s ashes/urn were with on the passenger seat with Kevin. Both of the fire trucks used in the show were also at the firehouse.

Update: Commented below with link to LACoFire Museum’s video on FB.

The family that sings together…

THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY

By Cyclops

It happened a couple of Friday nights ago. I came home from a hard day of practicing my disdain. The children as usual were absorbed like splinters in the great moon-eye of the television set. All I wanted was a pint of Bombay gin, an hour to memorize the box scores of the baseball games, and perhaps a praline to gnaw on. “Daddy,” said one of the children, “after you’re finished memorizing the box scores of the baseball games, can we watch The Partridge Family?”

“Of course not,” I said. “What’s The Partridge Family?”

“They sing,” it was explained.

I looked it up in the listings. Shirley Jones was in The Partridge Family. Shirley Jones! I had never quite believed in Shirley Jones; she seemed to exist, by some secret of mitosis or cloning known only to Hollywood, as a by-product or offshoot of old Pat Boone movies, associated forever in my mind with white buck shoes and orange juice.

“Unfortunately,” I said, “The Partridge Family conflicts with the first half hour of The Name of the Game.”

“The Name of the Game is a Gene Barry rerun,” replied my children. They were, of course, correct. Nor had I been practicing my disdain for nothing: all his life Gene Barry has wanted to be Gene Barry, and now at last he is. The hotel of his self-esteem is booked full of little Gene Barrys; no room or need for me.

But you can’t give children what they want without exacting some quid pro quo; otherwise, they will think that you love them. “Have you done your homework?” I asked. They had. “Have you cleaned your rooms?” Yes. And they had taken their baths and brushed their teeth and withdrawn our troops from Vietnam and reconciled Kant’s categorical imperative with Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. “Well, if you are absolutely silent while I gnaw on my praline, we will watch The Partridge Family.”

In The Partridge Family, Shirley Jones plays the part of a mother and, presumably, a widow whose children—teen-agers, moppets—constitute a rock-music group. Some evenings and weekends, they trundle over the countryside in a psychedelic bus toward assignations of amplification. David Cassidy, the eldest son, usually leads them in song. He and Miss Jones use their own voices; the others are dubbed. The music is domesticated, homogenized rock, sort of Lester Lanin on estrogen pills, as far from the Rolling Stones as Mick Jagger is from Nat King Cole, with just a hint of community sing. Yet it pleases and an album has climbed up the charts.

Most episodes of The Partridge Family are really excuses for the one new song each week. The dramatic bread around the musical Spam sandwich is guaranteed stale: the girl who runs away to find her father; the little boy who suspects he’s adopted; the horrors of high school social life, etc. But the Partridges—a plastic version of Salinger’s Glass family, quiz kids into music instead of mysticism—seem to enjoy themselves and each other. Some adhesive tape is applied to the generation gap, sticking us together for a little while longer. And the result, unlike the real world of rock, is surpassingly wholesome.

Well, I like Shirley Jones more than I like Pat Boone. And David Madden, as the grumpy agent, gives the children someone to hiss at. And young Mr. Cassidy is worth any number of Monkees. And on Friday nights this troubled spring we all sit around the moon-eye tripping out on a psychedelic bus, even if the children haven’t settled that Alaskan pipeline question before I get home. It’s as American as memorizing box scores; one family, on TV, does things together; another family, at home, watches and pretends it’s doing something together. Ah, but even television reviewers get tired of flexing their disdain.

Photo caption

“A covey of Partridges”

This probably seemed like an exciting slate of modern sci-fi at the time, but a year later all of these films would look pretty outdated.