Watched GREAT TELEVISION SERIES last night on PBS. Nothing new offered, but some interesting photos and interviews. Andy Griffith is scary looking with some new plastic surgery.
They went from THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW to THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, and only in passing mentioned THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and its spin offs as shows where the people were laughed at, and not much worthy of discussion.
They talked about how the DICK VAN DYKE SHOW started with some very low ratings but then picked up and the show was a success. Never once did they mention that in its first season DVDS followed THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES (the number one show on TV) and preceded the US STEEL HOUR.....it lost most of the HILLBILLIES audience.
For 1963, it still followed HILLBILLIES but was the lead in to THE DANNY KAYE SHOW, and so most of the audience of HILLBILLIES decided to stay tuned and wait for KAYE, and discovered that VAN DYKE was actually a great show.
Sad that they don't even acknowledge that the key to the show's survival at first was its time slot.