What was on TV May 5th through 11th, 1979

I'm running a little behind on my TV Guides, but just making it under the wire is this week's issue. Due to time constraints and lack of creativity, my friend John stepped up and helped provide some of the humor for this post.  John's good for finding the humor I missed and I often revisit these posts when he does.

Gracing (maybe a little too generous a term) the cover is John Houseman. 

I only knew John Houseman as the Wesson Oil spokesman, Edward Stratton II on "Silver Spoons" and most memorably as Mr. Machen in possibly my favorite opening of a horror movie.  From "John Carpenter's The Fog":

Just recently I learned he was an equal collaborator and script writer with Orson Welles in The Mercury Theater radio show including the famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast.

Shows ending their run this season were "Welcome Back, Kotter", "Starsky and Hutch", "Battlestar Gallactica", and "What's Happening".

Ah..."Family Jewels" When Jerry Lewis' egotism and megalomania reached its zenith. He played seven (SEVEN!) roles in the movie, each one more annoying and one dimensional than the next. 

Someone with as manly a name as Randolph Mantooth should NOT have feathered hair!

 Is it wrong of me that I can totally recall an entire episode of "The Brady Bunch" based on one sentence? Same for "Gilligan's Island." (Friend John's line, but equally applicable to me.)

Battle of the Network Stars was another one of those uniquely 1970s phenomena along with variety shows and thinking Skip Stephenson should be on TV.

Relaxation! Fun! Entertainment during the dinner hour! A light-hearted romp through the horrors of a Nazi POW camp as monstrous evil is reduced to slapstick buffoonery!

Seriously, this baffled me.  My father loved the show and I was amazed that 20 years later America would find humor with a POW camp and Nazis.  Later, I learned that Werner Klemperer and John Banner ("Colonel Klink" and "Sergeant Schultz") were Jewish as were Leon Askin ("General Burkhalter"), and Howard Caine ("Major Hochstetter").  In addition, Robert Cleary ( "LeBeau") spent three years in a concentration camp (his parents died there).  Klemperer agreed to do the role on the condition that the Nazis always lost to Hogan and were to be portrayed as buffoons.

Fonzie's cousin a rip-off artist? You take that back about Spike! What? Cha-chi? Oh yeah, he's all kinds of sketchy.

And because Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson and Yul Brynner just didn't do it right, Anson Williams and Richard Mulligan remade The Ten Commandments.  Sit on it, Rameses!

"The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid" was the typical genie in a bottle story starring Robbie "Oliver" Rist.

That's is awfully cocky of the Redbird to be shading his eyes to watch his hit as he is still swinging. One winged, no less.

"Attica! ATTICA!"

Hard to believe, but I can find no evidence of a television movie called "Power Man" on the internet.  And that's "Night Rider" with an "N", not the David Hasselhoff vehicle (no pun intended.  Okay, yes it was.)

*Update*  I believe this listing for "The Power Within" is the movie "Power Man".  It may have been changed at the last minute because of Marvel's trademark character.

I knew I recognized Joanna Cameron (no relation to Kirk).  I had to look it up.  She played "Isis" on the Saturday morning tv show.

A Google search of "body billfold" returns drastically different results in 2014.