The 50th Birthday of 'Rubber Soul'

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"Rubber Soul," the album the Beatles released on this day in 1965, is musical proof of the Theory of Evolution. As Rolling Stone observed when naming "Rubber Soul" the fifth–greatest album of all time, "The moptops were evolving in remarkable ways."

In fact, if you judge by the rankings on Rolling Stone's list, "Rubber Soul" — even at #5 on that list — is the third–best Beatles album behind "Revolver," which hit record stores nine months later, and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which followed "Revolver." Creatively, I suppose, the Beatles were in their prime — even though that rather simplistic approach overlooks the creativity of later albums like "Abbey Road" (my personal favorite) and "Let It Be."

After all these years, "Sgt. Pepper" still gets most of the press, but diehard Beatles fans will tell you that "Rubber Soul" was the true turning point, the start of the Beatles' experimental phase. And when I say that, I'm not just speaking of the substances they ingested although there certainly was plenty of that going on. The Beatles were experimenting musically — with different sounds, different themes, different studio techniques. They stopped doing covers of other people's songs and did exclusively their own stuff — until a dab of "Maggie Mae" popped up on the "Let It Be" album.

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"Rubber Soul" was one of the first Beatles albums I ever owned — albeit a cassette tape — along with "A Hard Day's Night." It really had something for nearly every musical taste — folk rock, pop music, soul, R&B, even the still–emerging psychedelic style. Their work was influenced primarily by Bob Dylan, the Byrds, the Beach Boys and the popular soul groups of the day.

Many people think George Harrison introduced listeners to the sitar in later albums, but the sitar made its first official appearance in a song on a Beatles album on "Rubber Soul" — even though technically, I suppose, you could say the sitar made its debut on the soundtrack for "Help!" as one of several instruments featured on instrumental versions of songs that appeared on the Beatles' "Help!" album.

The sitar made a significant contribution to "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," which has always been one of my favorite Beatles songs. But you could pick just about any song on "Rubber Soul" and say it was your favorite on the album — and you could make a good case for it, whichever song it turned out to be.

The best — and probably most recognizable — tunes on the album are "Drive My Car," "Nowhere Man," "Michelle," "In My Life."

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But that doesn't mean the others aren't just as good — "You Won't See Me," "The Word," "What Goes On," "Girl," "I'm Looking Through You," "If I Needed Someone."

Harrison, who was really coming into his own as a songwriter, said the album was "the best one we made ... we were suddenly hearing sounds that we weren't able to hear before." Ringo Starr observed, "There was a lot of experimentation ... influenced, I think, by the substances."

Be that as it may, "Rubber Soul" has long been regarded as a landmark album in the establishment of what came to be known as "world music." In the next few years, instruments that had not been heard in popular recordings suddenly were everywhere. Even now, half a century later, the heirs of that genre can be heard.

One song on the album would be regarded as politically incorrect if it was released today. Just the title of the song — "Run For Your Life" — sounds menacing, but the more you realize that the singer is singing about his girlfriend and addressing her with the belittling moniker of "little girl," the more you realize how menacing it truly is.

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"Well I'd rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
You better keep your head, little girl
Or I won't know where I am
You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end, little girl"

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The song was credited, as most were, to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership, but it was mostly penned by John Lennon, and it is my understanding that it was inspired by an early Elvis Presley song, "Baby, Let's Play House."

Well, that's what Lennon said. It may also have had some autobiographical elements to it. It is known that, as a young man, Lennon was jealous and possessive and admitted hitting his women. "Run For Your Life" hit the record stores in the third year of his first marriage, a marriage that would end in divorce three years later.

Lennon said it was his least favorite Beatles song; later he said he regretted writing it, although reportedly it was George Harrison's favorite "Rubber Soul" song at the time it was released.

It has been argued that Lennon returned to the theme in a kinder and gentler fashion in "Jealous Guy" from his "Imagine" album.

The Space Race Comes to Gilligan's Island

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"There's space up there, there's space down here, and there's space between your ears!"

The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.)

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I hear people speak of "the '60s" as if the entire decade could be defined by a single word or a single movement — like Vietnam or civil rights. I suppose most previous decades were one–dimensional that way. Must have made things a whole lot simpler.

The '60s were about a lot of things — not the least of which was the space race, which had no obvious connection to Vietnam and could hardly be tied to civil rights. Perhaps not coincidentally, none of the decades since could be narrowed to a single word or phrase, either.

For American sitcoms in the 1960s, it took truly creative writing to make war or race relations into subjects for comedy. That was the kind of thing that TV's comedy writers did in the '70s with shows like All in the Family.

But the space race was different. It tapped into that American desire to explore the next frontier and pride in the courage of the first pioneers — which is why you really don't have to look far to find episodes of TV series from those days, sitcom or not, that focused on space. By its very nature, it was inspirational. It brought people together in a common cause. It wasn't a polarizing topic, like war and race.

As the episode of Gilligan's Island opened on this night in 1965, Gilligan (Bob Denver) had been hired by Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) to gather feathers to stuff a pillow for Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer), but it was strictly hush–hush. So when the Professor (Russell Johnson) and the Skipper (Alan Hale) came too close to Gilligan's hiding place for the feathers, he felt compelled to distract them so his stash wouldn't be discovered.

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Well, that's what was happening on Gilligan's Island. It was the same kind of rather innocuous existence that most humans probably led the world over. Gilligan's existence, of course, was dictated by his circumstances. He and his fellow castaways occupied a part of the world that was, apparently, unexplored, but as a frontier it couldn't possibly compare to space. So I suppose that contrast, unspoken though it was, was there for the viewers to see.

Back at Mission Control, a space probe had been sent to Mars and was about to land. The folks back at Mission Control were eager to see if there was any proof of life on Mars. When I first saw this episode, it didn't occur to me that it would take many months at least for a space vehicle, even an unmanned probe, to travel from Earth to Mars. The characters at Mission Control acted almost as if they had been following this mission for a few days, as they would for a trip to the much closer moon. I guess that time discrepancy didn't occur to the adults who wrote the episode or most of the adults who watched it, either.

Somehow the probe had been diverted from its course and had landed on Gilligan's Island instead; Gilligan stumbled onto it — literally — while looking for some feathers.

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The castaways, who had been keeping up with the news reports on the probe on their radio, knew when NASA would activate the camera so they were going to use that to get a message out to the world.

Unfortunately, the lens appeared to have been jostled loose when the probe landed or when Gilligan accidentally stumbled over it. Now it was missing, and the castaways had to find it before Mission Control activated the camera, which they did, but then the lens got broken — by guess who? — and had to be repaired. The castaways gathered the ingredients, and Gilligan cooked up some glue to repair the lens, and it worked — but, when he was summoned to join the others in front of the camera, he put a lid on the boiling pot of glue, and the pressure caused a glue explosion. The castaways, now covered with glue, chased Gilligan into the hut where he had been storing the feathers, and they all became unrecognizable with feathers covering their bodies.

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The folks at Mission Control thought they had proven that there was life on Mars — chicken people, half man and half bird. As they watched, the Skipper chastised Gilligan and pushed him down. The observers at Mission Control tried to evaluate what they had seen.

"What's that big bird man doing to that little bird man?" one of the Mission Control people asked the other.

"I can't be sure, but I think he's trying to get him to lay an egg," came the reply.

The buzzing of the camera alerted the castaways and they looked for the signs they had prepared for the occasion, but they were behind the camera. Gilligan went to get the signs, then tripped over the camera, knocking it to the ground — and out of commission. Another opportunity for rescue had been ruined by — who else? — Gilligan.

How Does It Feel to Revisit Highway 61 Half a Century Later?

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Like any admirer of Bob Dylan's work, there will always be a place in my music collection for "Blonde on Blonde" and "Blood on the Tracks."

But the Dylan album that Rolling Stone ranked the highest in its list of the Top 500 albums of all time — "Highway 61 Revisited" — was released 50 years ago today. (I have that one in my collection, too.)

It can be argued that, although Dylan had been a popular sensation before he recorded "Highway 61 Revisited," it was the album that truly made him a star.

What's more, three of the nine tracks on the album made it into Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. That's a pretty high proportion of any album, wouldn't you say? The first song on the album, "Like a Rolling Stone," was the #1 song on Rolling Stone's list.

"No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time," observed Rolling Stone. Considering how transformational the music of the 1960s was, that's a pretty comprehensive statement.

You can also find "Desolation Row" and the album's title track on that list.

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The Bible tells us that God created heaven and earth in six days. Dylan recorded "Highway 61" in six days in the summer of 1965. Now, I'm not really trying to equate Dylan with the deity, but folk singer Robert Ochs did say "Highway 61" was "impossibly good. ... How can a human mind do this?"

It was a clear sign that things were changing in popular music. Up to this point, Dylan had been making acoustic recordings, but rock musicians backed him on every track on "Highway 61" except for one — the haunting "Desolation Row," which, although acoustical on the album, was also recorded in a rock mode.

So you could say that "Highway 61" was Dylan's first all–electric album — except the electric version of "Desolation Row" didn't get on to the album. That's OK, though. It can be found on "The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack," which was released in 2005, 40 years after it was recorded.

How did Dylan come up with the name for the album? Easy. There was a Highway 61 that ran through Duluth, Minn., where he was born and linked Duluth with America's great music cities to its south. Knowing that, I have always wondered if the name served a dual purpose — it was a clear reference to Dylan's roots, but the word "revisited" suggests a taking stock of one's life — and moving on.

"Highway 61 Revisited" launched Dylan on the course he has followed ever since.

'Satisfaction:' The Triumph of the British Invasion

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If you weren't alive during the so–called British invasion of the mid–20th century and you would like an idea of how thoroughly and how quickly it succeeded in capturing the imagination of American youth, you really need look no further than the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," which was released in the Stones' homeland — the United Kingdom — 50 years ago today.

It was released in the United States nearly three months earlier.

Although there had been earlier reports in the American media of the popular music being made in England, the British invasion of United States pop culture generally is believed to have begun when the Beatles arrived in New York to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. By 1965, it seems the invasion was over, and the British performers were here to stay. America was where the money was. Media, too.

There is a pretty convincing case to be made for the significance of the year 1965 in modern popular music history. The Beatles had three of the top five hits of the year — "Help!" "Yesterday" and "Ticket to Ride" — but the Stones' "Satisfaction" was the top–selling single of the year, followed by America's Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."

If you listened to the radio in 1965, you heard some of the biggest hits ever recorded by The Kinks, The Who, The Supremes, The Mamas and the Papas, The Beach Boys, The Yardbirds, The Moody Blues, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Roger Miller, Tom Jones, Herman's Hermits, The Temptations, and the list went on.

I was a small child in those days, and many of my peers had older brothers and sisters who introduced them to the music of the time, but my experience was different. I was the oldest in my family but far too young to be interested in the radio, and my parents rarely listened to the radio (my father would switch it on in the car if there was a good football game being played). I suppose my exposure to the music of my generation would have been further delayed if not for the fact that my father was a professor at one of the three colleges in my hometown, and he and my mother typically hired his students to watch my brother and me when they wanted to go out for dinner or a movie or something else. Sometimes the students came to our house to watch my brother and me; other times, my parents dropped us off at the dorm, and I can remember hearing the music of that time echoing through the halls of the dorms.

Undoubtedly, that is where I heard many songs for the first time. It is probably why I feel as if I have always known the words to some songs — I heard them played over and over again when I was young.

(If brainwashing were as benign as simply implanting song lyrics into one's brain, I could probably support it. But, I suppose, that form of brainwashing already exists.)

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Speaking of which, it is funny how the brain functions, isn't it? I mean, every time I hear "Satisfaction," I remember — however briefly — when I saw "Apocalypse Now" and it was featured on the movie's soundtrack.

Everyone Needs a Little 'Help!' Now and Then

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Fifty years ago today, the Beatles stood on the brink of an historic shift in popular music. In a few months, they would enter uncharted creative waters. They would release "Rubber Soul," which included the almost obligatory love songs with which early Beatles albums had become inextricably linked but also boasted an increasing number of songs that showcased the evolving maturity of each Beatle and gave listeners a glimpse of what was to come. Rolling Stone ranked "Rubber Soul" fifth on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

In 1966, the Beatles would follow "Rubber Soul" with "Revolver," Rolling Stone's third–greatest album of all time.

"Help!" the British version of which was released 50 years ago today, didn't fare poorly with Rolling Stone, either; it was named the 331st album on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. It was really more of the same that the Beatles had been peddling for a couple of years — many routine love songs with some cover tunes and a few unique numbers thrown in.

(Actually, all of the Beatles' albums deserved to be ranked among the Top 500 of all time — and most of them were.)

In hindsight, change was clearly in the air — even if the Beatles themselves didn't realize it. At this point in the Beatlemania phenomenon, I think the Beatles were being carried along by their own momentum — and the formula that had made that momentum possible had been established for quite awhile. But if the Beatles were going to continue to be the dominant force in popular music, some changes would have to come. In 1965, the Beatles were beginning to face some real challenges to their musical creativity.

The British "Help!" was sort of a semi–soundtrack. Half of the 14 songs on the British album were in the movie "Help!" which was in theaters in late July 1965 whereas the American version really was a traditional soundtrack from the movie — which, according to the Beatles themselves, was made in a "haze of marijuana." The American album had fewer tracks than the British album and featured three tracks from the movie by non–Beatles. So the British version of "Help!" really was more of a Beatles album than the American version — which was also more of the same. American marketers routinely and shamelessly cut songs from the British counterparts and tried to squeeze more profits from the Beatles by slicing and dicing Beatles records to make extra albums.

(I've never seen the movie "Help!" It's the only Beatles movie I haven't seen, which is why I didn't write about it on the 50th anniversary of its premiere last week. But I've read some interesting interpretations by others, especially Martin King of The Independent: "The representation of masculinity embodied in 'Help!' is a key stepping stone to more obvious displays of gender fluidity that were to emerge in later decades," King wrote. He went on to discuss how, in "Help!" the Beatles heralded the coming of the metrosexual male decades before the word was coined. I never really thought of that. I just liked the music.

(Not much seems to have been written about the 50th anniversary of the release of the British edition of the "Help!" album. About the movie? Yes. But not about the albums, either the British or American versions.)

Both records had two very successful singles — "Ticket to Ride" and the title song "Help!" — but the British album also contained the tune that may be the most covered song not just in the annals of Beatles music but in the history of all recorded music, "Yesterday."

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To be sure, there were other songs on "Help!" that had that unique Beatles brand and probably should never be sung by anyone else — even a Beatles tribute band. "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" was such a song, as was "I've Just Seen a Face."

But there were also songs that merited little more than a minor mention. George Harrison's two songwriting efforts — "I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much" — showed potential, but his compositions were not yet up to the level they would reach in later albums.

Personally, I have always been fond of "Act Naturally," the Beatles' cover of Buck Owens' tongue–in–cheek 1963 country chart–topper that made him a star. It was a song that went unrecorded for a few years after it was written because music publishers didn't think songs about the movie business would sell.

After Owens made it a hit, others began to cover it, and so did the Beatles. I have heard some of those covers, and I have concluded that, apart from Owens, only Ringo Starr could have sung it plausibly, and sing it he did.

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Nearly a quarter of a century after Ringo recorded the cover for the Beatles, he and Owens got together to record a duet of the song.

It wound up spending a few weeks on the country charts, but Ringo didn't have the distinction of being the first Beatle to make the country charts. That honor went to Paul McCartney and Wings with "Sally G." in 1974.

On the Long Road With the Great Leslie and Professor Fate

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Leslie (Tony Curtis): Are you a native of Burracho?

Lily Olay (Dorothy Provine): I ain't no native. I was born here!

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"The Great Race," which made its theatrical debut half a century ago on this day in 1965, was pure slapstick from start to finish. If there was any doubt, the opening credits included this tribute: "For Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy."

It was set shortly after the turn of the 20th century. It was about a New York–to–Paris (by way of the Bering Strait) road race, and it was directed by Blake Edwards at a time when he was getting rave reviews for his early "Pink Panther" pictures — if you are familiar with his directorial style, you could see similarities between "The Great Race" and Edwards' other comedies.

Edwards made many of those movies, of course, with the great Peter Sellers, who had nothing to do with "The Great Race." In "The Great Race," Edwards worked with another of his frequent collaborators, Jack Lemmon.

The project also reunited Lemmon with his "Some Like It Hot" co–star, Tony Curtis, this time as genuine rivals (rather than the implied rivals — for Marilyn Monroe's affections — that they were in "Some Like It Hot"). And, although she seemed to shift her loyalties throughout the movie, Natalie Wood, as a feminist journalist reporting on the race, played Curtis' love interest.

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Kind of an interesting twist, given that, only a few months earlier, Curtis and Wood had been adversarial co–stars in "Sex and the Single Girl."

In the context of 1965, "The Great Race" was a star–studded show with prominent people showing up even in small roles. Vivian Vance (probably best known as Ethel Mertz in the I Love Lucy sitcom), Keenan Wynn, Peter Falk, Larry Storch were there — along with others whose faces you probably would recognize even if you never knew their names.

"The Great Race" clearly identified the good guy and the bad guy. Curtis (The Great Leslie) was the good guy who always dressed in white; Lemmon (Professor Fate) was the bad guy, always dressed in black. And they periodically swapped the lead — for the screwiest of reasons.

In the end, the good guy seemed to be on the brink of victory — but he gave it all up to prove to Natalie Wood that he loved her.

When he stopped his vehicle inches from the finish line, Wood's character protested, "What are you doing?"

"Proving that I love you," Curtis replied.

"But you'll lose the race," Wood said.

"Can you think of a better way to prove it?" he asked before kissing her in a passionate embrace.

Sorta reminiscent of the Sylvester Stallone/"Rocky" experience, eh? When Rocky lost the fight and won the girl. Yo, Adrian.

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Max (Peter Falk): We gotta do something.

Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon): Oh, don't worry. Before this iceberg melts and we drown like rats, we're going to do plenty.

Max: Yeah? What?

Professor Fate: We're gonna starve!

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But Professor Fate wouldn't take a victory that way, though. After all, he had a reputation ...

"The Great Race" was terrific entertainment — complete with an honest–to–God pie fight near the end. Wood got pelted numerous times, but Curtis' character seemed unusually blessed, walking through a crossfire of pies without getting hit once, his all–white duds showing not even a trace of fallout from a pie — until almost the end of the fight.

Meanwhile, Lemmon's double, a dandified drunkard of a king, got hit with a brandy pie and encouraged the participants in the pie fight to hit him with more brandy pies, then got hit with a rum pie and scolded them with the admonition, "I never mix my pies!"

At the Oscars, "The Great Race" beat "Von Ryan's Express" for Best Sound Editing — and lost for Best Sound Mixing, Best Color Cinematography and Best Film Editing. Although he wasn't nominated for his work on "The Great Race," composer Henry Mancini went on to win four Oscars in his lifetime.

Not Your Ordinary Western

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"They're trying to drive him off his ranch. They put manure in his well. They made him talk to lawyers ..."

Cat Ballou (Jane Fonda)

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By 1965, the western genre had become stale and predictable. It needed something to spice it up.

Twenty–seven–year–old Jane Fonda provided it as Catherine "Cat" Ballou, a young woman from Wyoming who had been educated in the East and was returning to her father's ranch. All sorts of things happened from that point on, including the appearance of Lee Marvin, who stole the show with his dual role (which won an Oscar).

But it was Fonda who played the title character, and it was the kind of character that hadn't really been explored in the movies up to that time, particularly not in the context of the Old West — a strong, independent female.

Some people think Fonda's performance in "Cat Ballou" was her breakthrough performance; some people don't. I do, even though she got good reviews for her work in 1962's "Period of Adjustment."

I guess what made "Cat Ballou" special was the fact that Fonda succeeded almost in spite of herself. As I understand it, the folks who were making the movie wanted Ann–Margret to play the role of Cat Ballou, but apparently her manager declined on her behalf (she has since suggested that she would have taken the role) so it was offered to Fonda.

Fonda wasn't going to take it. She didn't want to do another comedy. She was looking for dramatic roles that would establish her as a legitimate actress, but her fiance, Roger Vadim, talked her into it. I guess he saw something in the script that Fonda didn't see.

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The movie was based on a serious story; it was adapted to be a comedy, and that paid off handsomely. Walter Newman and Frank Pierson were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars but lost to Robert Bolt for "Doctor Zhivago."

The movie did win an Oscar for Best Actor — Marvin pulled off the relatively rare accomplishment of winning the award for a performance in a comedy.

Not that he didn't deserve it. He certainly did — although I am sure there were those who were shocked that he beat the likes of Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier and Rod Steiger by playing a gunfighter who had deteriorated into a drunk and his evil twin. (Steiger was regarded as the front–runner, and I am told that he was halfway out of his seat when Marvin's name was announced as the winner.)

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"Cat Ballou," it is safe to say, was the inspiration for spoofs to come, like "Blazing Saddles." You could see it from the beginning, when Columbia Pictures' "torch lady" became a cartoon Cat Ballou with pistols in both hands that she fired into the air.

Oh, there was another nice touch that needs to be mentioned. Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye sang "The Ballad of Cat Ballou" like a couple of country troubadours regularly punctuating scenes in the movie to round out the tale.

No Such Thing as a Sure Thing

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Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.): There's a table in this Navy manual that tells me how much I should weigh.

Gilligan (Bob Denver): Maybe it's under "tonnage."

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The castaways on Gilligan's Island had lots of time to think about what they wanted to do when they returned to civilization — as they were almost always sure that they would.

In the episode that first aired 50 years ago tonight, the Professor (Russell Johnson) was working on a dye marker that everyone believed would be sure to bring their salvation to them — and soon — so Gilligan (Bob Denver) and the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) were making plans for enlisting in the Navy when they got back to civilization.

But there was a problem. According to Navy regulations, the Skipper was overweight and Gilligan was underweight. The obvious solutions were that the Skipper had to go on a diet, and Gilligan had to start eating just about anything he could get his hands on.

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As usual when one of them had a problem, the rest of the castaways pitched in to help. The girls, Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and Ginger (Tina Louise), spoon–fed Gilligan. So did the Howells (Natalie Schafer and Jim Backus) — in their blue blood sort of way.

And Ginger tried to make the Skipper's diet yield greater results by encouraging him to do some exercises that she promised would be good for his figure. She proceeded to demonstrate some of them for him.

The Skipper said he would try, but "mine will never look like yours!" I guess that was an understatement.

He gave it a pretty good shot, but while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak when the Skipper saw Gilligan packing away food while he had to be content with practically no calories at all.

And, at first, he felt put upon when he was asked to feed Gilligan when the girls were asked to help the Professor in some way. But then he appeared to realize it was a golden opportunity for him to sample the food he had only been able to observe from a distance. Gilligan caught on, though, and took over the feeding.

In the meantime, the Professor had been making progress on the dye ("shiny junk" is what Gilligan called it). He had a delightful conversation with Ginger, as I recall, in which Ginger reminisced about mixing two chemicals together in chemistry class. "Do you know what I got?" she asked.

"Expelled," the Professor replied.

"No," Ginger said. "I got a date with the cutest young fireman."

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Gilligan had become so conditioned to eating that, near the end of the episode when the castaways needed that "shiny junk" to signal to a passing plane or boat, it was revealed that they couldn't use it because Gilligan had consumed it.

Once again, Gilligan had foiled an apparently likely rescue.

Personally, I never thought the rescue was that likely. There were gaping holes in the story that even I saw when I first saw the episode at the age of 7 or 8.

But it was still entertaining, as always.

Wishful Thinking

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Gilligan's Island took on the subject of superstition 50 years ago tonight.

The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) was an old salt who knew all the legends and myths of the islands — and seemed to believe most of them, too.

From time to time, the superstition angle would rear its head and form the basis for a plotline. Usually, it worked pretty well, and I must say I found this episode entertaining. But the more I thought about it, the more I had to conclude that it had a fatal flaw in its logic.

When the episode began, Gilligan (Bob Denver) was digging a hole. It's been awhile since I have seen the episode, and I don't really remember the reason for the hole, whether it was to be a new well or a pit for some purpose. I just remember that the Skipper had Gilligan digging a hole.

As he was digging, Gilligan discovered a gem, and the Professor (Russell Johnson) told him it was "$11 worth of quartz." (I can't remember why the Professor was there, either.) The Skipper, however, was convinced that it was the long–lost Eye of the Idol, of which it was said that the finder would be granted three wishes before sundown on the day he found it.

The Professor, of course, was skeptical, but the rest of the castaways began making plans to leave the island when Gilligan's first wish, a gallon of ice cream, came floating up to the island. The Skipper, you see, had told Gilligan to save one wish to get everyone off the island.

The Professor was certain that the ice cream had fallen from a plane or a boat, an explanation that became less plausible when Gilligan accidentally wished for another gallon of ice cream — and it, too, washed ashore minutes later.

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The Skipper told everyone to gather their belongings and assemble at the lagoon. They all made it there shortly before sunset, but the Professor refused to participate in the ritual of huddling together while Gilligan wished them home. That was like striking a row of dominoes. As I recall, it was Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) who broke first, saying she couldn't leave the Professor behind. Then Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) volunteered Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) to remain as their chaperone because it "wasn't proper" for them to stay alone.

Then Mrs. Howell didn't want to leave her husband behind, and Ginger (Tina Louise) gave in, too, leaving just Gilligan and the Skipper. The rest of the castaways prevailed on the Professor to come with them, and he agreed on the condition that, when it failed to work, as he was sure it would, they would stop talking about it and resume their previous activities on the island.

That was when Gilligan realized the gem had slipped through a hole in his pocket, and they all fanned out in teams of two to look for it, focusing on three places where Gilligan had been earlier to gather souvenirs from the island.

This led to one of the funnier scenes in the episode — Ginger and the Professor searching a cave where Gilligan had been earlier. Ginger, ever the actress, told the Professor that he had to put himself in the right frame of mind for searching a cave and suggested that he "think bat."

When that didn't work in the low–ceilinged cave, Ginger instructed him to "think mole."

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The castaways finally found the gem and reassembled at the lagoon minutes before sundown.

Gilligan wished that they were off the island ... and the portion of the island on which they were standing broke off and floated into the middle of the lagoon.

Technically speaking, they were off the island.

Believe it or not, that is not that fatal flaw I mentioned earlier. In the context of the rest of the episode, that was actually a plausible conclusion — and, once again, it was Gilligan's fault that the castaways weren't delivered from the island.

The fatal flaw, in my opinion, is that, once the gem had been identified by the Skipper as the Eye of the Idol, there was no reason for the dawdling other than to further establish the gem's validity with that second wish. But then it took what must have been hours for the castaways to gather their belongings and meet at the lagoon. I would have thought they would be so eager to leave that they would be willing to leave everything behind. They could always come back to the island for whatever they wanted. After all, the Howells were rich and would surely be willing to use their personal yacht for such a purpose.

There were other flaws in the story as well.

As I remember, the Skipper told the Professor and Gilligan that the Eye of the Idol had been lost for thousands of years — so, presumably, there were no pictures of it — yet he was able to identify it immediately. I figure it would have been more effective if that second wish coming true had been what reminded him of the legend of the lost Eye of the Idol, and he put two and two together.

It also seemed odd to me that none of the castaways really disputed the Professor's explanation for the ice cream. After all, if those gallons really had fallen into the sea from a plane or a boat, the contents would have melted before reaching land.

But that may have been part of Gilligan's Island's charm. Like so many of the sitcoms of the '60s, it was more interested in entertainment than logic.

Plugged-In Dylan

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"Look out, kid,
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again"

Bob Dylan
"Subterranean Homesick Blues"

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It's hard to comprehend now just how phenomenally productive the early 1960s were for Bob Dylan.

Obviously, Dylan has had a remarkable career, and the quality of his work has seldom dropped to a level that other singer/songwriters could only hope to equal — some day.

He put out seven albums between 1962 and 1966, and the weakest probably was the first, his debut album (which Allmusic.com's Bruce Eder compared to the Beatles' and Rolling Stones' debut albums — "a sterling effort, outclassing most, if not all, of what came before it in the genre, but similarly eclipsed by the artist's own subsequent efforts").

Those early years weren't more productive than other periods in Dylan's life — they were probably as productive as any, though, and they yielded songs that will probably stand as his primary contributions to the history and traditions of American social activism — songs like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A–Changin'."

But, while one could detect a routine sameness to Dylan's work, that was more a matter of style than substance, and each of the albums Dylan released in that mid–decade period had something that made it unique in Dylan's library.

And the thing that made "Bringing It All Back Home" — the album Dylan released 50 years ago today — unique was that Dylan divided it into equal parts acoustic and electric. In the days of vinyl records, that meant that one side was acoustic and the other was electric, but in the era of CDs, of course, it is all on one side so I guess, if you don't know where one ends and the other begins, you'll have to, uh, play it by ear. The sequence of the tracks is the same on the CD as it was on the original album.

My favorite track on the album has always been "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and that, in turn, always reminds me of a moment from one of the journalism classes I taught at Richland College here in Dallas. I was in the classroom about 10 or 15 minutes before class began on this particular day, and some of my students were there as well. One of my students asked me, "Professor Goodloe, what is your favorite rap song?"

Now, I have nothing particular against rap — other than the fact that I don't consider it music — but, to a great extent, I suppose it's this era's musical generational marker ... in the same way, I guess, that my parents and others of their generation preferred Glenn Miller and others who recorded the songs of their youths, and the people of my generation listened to our own music, and neither side really seemed to understand the other. There are always exceptions, of course — and I do appreciate other types of music more as I get older — but music really does have a strange power to transport you to another time and place in your life. They are so strong, these generational markers, that you can find yourself believing that you can merely walk through a door and be back in that time and place.

For people of a certain age, rap (or hip hop) is their generational marker. (Some people will tell you that not caring for rap is racist, but I can assure you it is not. It is more of that eternal age thing. I have known black people of my generation — some have been students in my classes — who felt the same way so it is clearly not a byproduct of race.

(Sometimes I feel like Jay Leno, who told Seth Myers the other night that he was called racist by a college–age person because he admitted to not liking Mexican food. "Being anti–guacamole is not racist!" he said.)

Anyway, I told my student, "The closest thing to rap in my collection is Bob Dylan singing 'Subterranean Homesick Blues.'"

Another student spoke up. "That's the original rap song!" That really impressed me because it must have been recorded 30 years before she was born, and I told her, "You just got an A!" (And she did get an A — but she earned it with exceptional work in class. Later, when she asked me to write letters of recommendation for her, I was proud to do so.)

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Another song on the album that I have always liked is "Maggie's Farm." As a youngster, I just liked the song, the melody, and I paid little attention to the lyrics. In hindsight, I can see it was a declaration of independence of some sort.

But from whom was Dylan declaring his independence? Perhaps the folk genre — or the protest movement genre. It doesn't matter. Anyone who feels oppressed by someone or something and breaks away from whatever it is — an unsatisfying job, an unsatisfying relationship, whatever — may feel inspired to sing some of "Maggie's Farm."

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I guess the song on the album that had the most Dylanesque folk sound was "Mr. Tambourine Man." I always think of it as a Dylan song — cut from the same cloth as "Blowin' in the Wind" or "The Times They Are A–Changin'" And, of course, it was a Dylan song, and his version does favor those songs, even half a century later (perhaps even moreso).

But I was reminded, not long ago, that an electric version of the song became the breakthrough hit for the Byrds.

Dylan has long been one of the musicians who was admired and appreciated by the people of my generation. "Bringing It All Back Home" was before my time when it was released, but I remember listening to it as a teenager. In many ways, it seems to me that it has always been a part of my life.

Little Reporters Have Big Ears

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I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the episode of the Andy Griffith Show that first aired 50 years ago tonight, "Opie's Newspaper."

I'm sure that the fact that journalism has played such a significant role in my life has a lot to do with it. But there is more to it than that. It was a matter of — for me, at least — art imitating life. Or maybe, since the episode aired long before I was first hired by a newspaper, it was a case of art foretelling life.

Anyway ...

Opie did something that I did for awhile when I was a boy. He tried to put out his own newspaper. Some kids have lemonade stands to make pocket change; Opie and I put out our own newspapers, and he learned the same lesson I did. It isn't easy to put out a newspaper — even for adults who have all sorts of advantages that children do not have.

Of course, Barney (Don Knotts) always had the answers — or thought he did. Opie (Ron Howard) was having trouble selling his newspaper, which was almost exclusively dedicated to the goings on in his grade school. Barney thought he wasn't getting the right copy ("Copy — that's newspaper talk," he told Opie), and he advised Opie to widen his scope.

But, while Barney and Andy were trying to be helpful, the message that Opie got was that their paper had to be more like the local newspaper so he and his pal Howie went through the latest copy of the Mayberry newspaper looking for inspiration, and they found it in a gossip column, "Mayberry After Midnight."

And they agreed that they needed to do the same thing that was done in "Mayberry After Midnight" so they went about eavesdropping on conversations around town.

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They overheard Barney saying that the young wife of an older man was a "blonde out of a bottle."

They overheard Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) criticizing the food that was served at a luncheon and describing it as "wallpaper paste."

And they overheard Andy describing the local minister's sermons as "dry as dust."

And they put it in the paper, which Andy and Barney and Aunt Bee discovered to their chagrin. See, Opie and Howie were giving away the first edition of their new newspaper as a get–acquainted special, and they had distributed copies all over town. They had put them in mailboxes and under windshield wipers. In some cases, they hand–delivered them to people.

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Andy, Barney and Aunt Bee fanned out over Mayberry seeking to retrieve the copies of the paper — and each one ran into the person of whom he/she had spoken so poorly, which was a bit of a lesson in itself. Be careful what you say. You never know who might be listening.

Of course, as Andy pointed out, just because somebody said something does not mean it should be printed up and circulated. It isn't surprising that Opie and Howie failed to grasp the concept. Sadly, there are a lot of adults who struggle with the same issue.

Andy was trying to explain to Opie and Howie why they shouldn't print stories like that. "You don't circulate stories that are mean and unkind about people," he said. "There are too many other stories to put in. Nice stories."

"But, Pa," Opie protested. "When we put in the nice kind of stories, nobody wanted to buy the paper." There is the conundrum.

It's been many years since I worked for a newspaper, but I have had that discussion so many times that I know every angle by heart. People who aren't in the news business always criticize newspapers and news broadcasts for focusing on the negative. But that's what readers want. Nobody wants to read about who sold the most Girl Scout cookies — except maybe the Girl Scout and her family.

The truth is, newspapers can't afford to be crusaders all the time. They have to give the readers what they want part of the time — or else they would go out of business. Quite often, that means providing the tawdry and sensational at the expense of things that may be more uplifting.

It's a complex thing, really. The nature of news is to be negative — wars, natural disasters, economic collapses — and human nature often veers to the negative. Many people — not all but many — are greedy and selfish. It isn't news when people are civilized with each other because that is what is expected. It is news when they are uncivilized with each other.

Or, as we are frequently told in journalism school, it isn't news if a dog bites a man. But it is news if a man bites a dog.

There was a valuable lesson in the episode, which was articulated best by Aunt Bee. When she, Andy and Barney concluded they had retrieved all the copies of the paper, and Andy said he hoped Opie and Howie had learned from the experience, she observed that perhaps the adults could learn something from it, too.

"We're responsible for all this loose talk going around town," she said. "If we want the boys to behave better, we'd better set them a better example."

That's good advice, and it would have been quite effective — if Opie hadn't mentioned that he and Howie had had so much material that they had printed up the next week's edition in advance. He assured them that all those copies had been taken to the dump so no one would ever read them.

Except for Aunt Bee, Andy and Barney who went to the dump on a late–night expedition to find the papers and read what other gossip the boys had picked up.

Nosey Business

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Andy: Oh, I wouldn't worry about Barney, Floyd. He gets a little excited about things sometimes, you know.

Floyd (Howard McNear): I think his trouble is he's not married. Now, if he was married, these little things wouldn't bother him.

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The episode of the Andy Griffith Show that first aired on this night in 1965 was a great lesson in friendship.

Andy (Andy Griffith) and Barney (Don Knotts) were going through some old office files when they came across a file concerning a 19–year–old assault case involving Floyd the barber (Howard McNear) and the grocer, Old Man Foley (Frank Ferguson). According to the report, Floyd had punched Foley in the nose in the barber shop.

The case had never been properly disposed of, and that set off Barney, who promptly stirred up a hornet's nest. It was really a classic example of Barney being Barney, obsessing about something to the point of driving everyone around him nuts.

Having taken the position that the case was never properly disposed of and that it was the responsibility of the sheriff's office to close the case if possible, Barney interrogated the two people who were involved — and, not surprisingly, he got two versions of what had happened.

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So Barney wanted to re–enact the event, bring Foley and Goober (George Lindsey) in and see if they could arrive at the truth. Goober had been a little boy at the time of the incident, but he had been the only witness.

Barney said the first thing to do was put everyone where they had been 19 years earlier. He speculated that Goober had been sitting in one of the chairs lining the wall, waiting for his turn in the barber chair, and Goober agreed that was probably the case so Barney led him to a chair. Goober said he was probably reading a comic book because he always read a comic book while waiting his turn so Barney grabbed a comic book from the stack of magazines on a table.

Goober asked for another one. "I've read this one," he told Barney.

Barney said it didn't matter if he had read it before. It was really just a prop for the re–enactment.

"But I've read it twice," Goober protested.

So Barney gave him a different comic book.

Andy, who had been getting a haircut before Barney came in with Goober and Foley, had had enough. He leaped out of the chair, grabbed Barney and pulled him over to a doorway where he apparently hoped they could speak in private. He told Barney that he wanted him to drop the whole thing, that nobody cared about a 19–year–old assault case.

Barney said he cared and he hoped Andy would, too.

Andy said he didn't care, and the two began to argue, apparently unaware that another fight was breaking out back in the barber shop. Barney had stirred up some long–forgotten feelings, and Floyd punched Foley again.

Andy and Barney ran back into the barber shop, and Barney asked Goober — once again, the only witness — what had happened, but Goober had been reading the comic book, just as he probably was doing 19 years earlier.

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Things really snowballed from there.

Mayberry, of course, was a small town, and it seemed that just about everyone was related to either Foley or Floyd. Before you knew it, the town was dividing into two camps, and people were getting hit on the nose at an astonishing rate. Some of the people who were getting into fights didn't even know each other.

In a last–ditch effort to bring peace back to Mayberry, Andy brought Foley and Floyd into the courthouse for a little discussion — and sent Barney out to get Goober. With Barney out of the way, he tried to reason with the two of them.

"You've been friends for 20 years," he told them. "More than friends, you've been neighbors. You must have seen one another through a lot of trouble in that time. Now, you're not kids, either one of you, and you both know the value of old friends. And the first law of friendship is to be ready to forgive. I know you're both sore about what happened yesterday, but I don't believe anything that's happened couldn't be made right by a warm, forgiving handshake. Do you?"

Floyd said that was what Sheriff Poindexter said to them 19 years earlier.

What happened then, Andy wanted to know.

They had shaken hands, Floyd said, and then he had invited Foley over for a free shave. Foley agreed; that is what had happened.

"Well, if it worked then," Andy said, "I don't see why it wouldn't work now."

So they shook hands, and it seemed everything was resolved — until Barney returned from the gas station with Goober and found that Foley and Floyd were no longer in the courthouse. Andy told him they had settled everything like friends, but that wasn't good enough for Barney. He found out that no official paper had been signed closing the case.

"Well, then, the case isn't closed," Barney said. "It's as open as it ever was!"

The Castaways' Commitment

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The nature of television has changed in unpredictable ways over the years — and I am not talking about the rise of pay–TV services like cable and satellite. That is a separate issue.

I'm talking about the kinds of stories that were written, especially for the sitcoms. In the 1970s, Norman Lear was behind the emergence of socially/politically conscious programs like All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons and Good Times that contributed to increased awareness of things that are considered outrageous today. In hindsight, that was an important step in TV's maturation process — not to mention the country's. By comparison, the story lines that had been used in sitcoms prior to that time seem preposterous, childish and immature. They made audiences laugh, but they didn't make them think.

To be fair, there was a certain amount of truth to the stereotypes. The sitcoms of the '50s were unrealistic in their depictions of individuals and families, then or now, and, frankly, the premises of many of the sitcoms of the '60s (in fact much of the programming of that decade, sitcom and otherwise) were just plain silly — talking horses, Martians and witches and genies living among us and passing themselves off as one of us, hillbillies who strike it rich and move to California to live among the other millionaires, a high–society couple who throw away their city life to live on a farm in the country.

But there was also a genuine commitment to certain principles on those shows that are still worth celebrating, even though their importance was de–emphasized by the issues that were squarely in the spotlight of the more socially aware sitcoms.

In the Gilligan's Island episode that aired on this night in 1965, Gilligan (Bob Denver) was suffering from an inferiority complex. The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) had rescued Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) when she had a cramp while swimming. Actually, Gilligan had tried to rescue Mary Ann, but, as usual, he fouled it up, and the Skipper wound up saving both of them. Everyone made a fuss over the Skipper, and Gilligan was jealous.

(At least, that was Mrs. Howell's diagnosis. As I recall, she had taken a college class or two in psychology. She wasn't a psychoanalyst. She didn't have a degree. As nearly as I could tell, none of the castaways had college degrees in anything — except the Professor, who had several and could make all kinds of things with just the raw material on the island, like coconuts and vines, but he couldn't figure out how to patch a hole in a boat.

(In spite of the absence of a degree, though, Mrs. Howell's diagnosis was accepted without question by her fellow castaways. I'd be tempted to say she and Mr. Howell stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before the three–hour tour, but such things didn't exist in the 1960s.)

So the castaways decided to concoct a scenario in which Gilligan could rescue someone and be a hero, too.

Some people think it was corny for the castaways to be so worried about Gilligan's mental and emotional well being. After all, there were so many more critical things to occupy their attention, like trying to be rescued or avoiding headhunters from nearby islands.

Personally, I thought their concern for Gilligan was admirable. It is the kind of quality you don't see much from TV characters anymore.

And their plan might have worked, too, if, in their attempt to avoid being overheard by Gilligan, they had not chosen to go to a spot in the jungle where Gilligan happened to be, and he overheard everything.

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In their scenario, the Skipper would be positioned with his legs trapped beneath a fallen tree — as if that tree had just fallen on him. It would be up to Gilligan to free him.

In hindsight, this was just plain silly. After all, it was a small island. The tree had been laying there for a long time; surely even Gilligan would have noticed it and known that it hadn't just fallen on the Skipper, that it had been in that position for weeks, maybe months. In their zeal to help him, though, Gilligan's friends must not have realized that.

Anyway, Gilligan was hip to what was going on, and he played along with it — until he managed to get both himself and the Skipper caught — for real — beneath the log. Ginger and Mary Ann ran off to find the Professor to get him to help them with the log.

While they were gone, an honest–to–goodness headhunter started to zero in on the prone pair — but he had to retreat into the jungle when he heard the girls returning with the Professor.

Gilligan got a chance to be a hero for real when the headhunter captured all the other castaways and bound them to poles.

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Gilligan found them all while the headhunter was searching somewhere else on the island, but Gilligan still believed that it was a con job. I wonder how he rationalized the fact that all six of his fellow castaways were bound to poles. Who did he think tied them up?

Well, anyway, he rescued his friends, and, in what can only be regarded as a slapstick moment, the headhunter wound up sitting in a campfire and running into the lagoon to put out the blaze — which really wasn't a blaze at all, just a lot of smoke.

All in all, it was a better–than–average sitcom for the '60s.

A Milestone for 'The Sound of Music'

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"After all, the wool from the black sheep is just as warm."

Sister Margaretta (Anna Lee)

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"The Sound of Music," which premiered on this day in 1965, is one of the most vivid memories of my childhood.

Unless you are at least 40, you probably have no memory of a time when movies — even the blockbusters — spent more than a few weeks in theaters — and, for that matter, could not be seen at many locations in the same city. Those were the days when multiple–screen theaters were rare, and the so–called "big screen" really was a big screen. Theaters made exclusive — or almost exclusive — deals for movies. That was how you scooped the competition in those days.

Those were the days when it was a real coup for a theater to strike a deal to get the hottest movie, and, in those pre–home video days, that movie might stay at that theater for months as the theater owner tried to squeeze as much from that engagement as possible. If the movie was really hot, it could stay indefinitely.

And "The Sound of Music" was a moneymaker, that was for sure. It cost a little over $8 million to make, and, ultimately, it earned nearly $300 million. For awhile, it was the highest–grossing movie of all time.

It also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. That always helps at the box office.

Anyway, I tell you all this to set the stage. See, there was a theater a few blocks from my grandparents' home in Dallas, the place where my family stayed whenever we came to visit. And that theater had struck a deal for "The Sound of Music."

I don't know how old I was at the time — not very old, I'm sure — and I don't really know how long "The Sound of Music" was showing at that theater, but it was long enough that even I realized, whenever we were visiting my grandparents and my grandmother suggested that we all go see a movie, she was talking about "The Sound of Music." She really loved that movie, and, after all, it was just a few blocks away.

I must have seen that movie half a dozen times when I was little. And that was at a time when it wasn't nearly as easy to drive between Little Rock and Dallas as it is today.

And it was a good movie. But I remember that it was a nice — and unexpected — change when we all went to see something else. I don't remember what it was, only that it was a relief to be seeing something other than "The Sound of Music."

I recall that, while doing some research during my graduate school days, I read some of the reviews of "The Sound of Music" that I came across on microfilm. Many of the critics of the day seemed to dismiss it as corny and too saccharine, which it may have been, but the box office receipts indicate that the public didn't care. Maybe audiences of the mid–1960s craved something that was corny and saccharine. (I guess that describes my grandmother's taste in movies — she always was a sucker for musicals.)

My grandmother and my mother were fans of Julie Andrews, who made her big–screen debut the year before in "Mary Poppins." She won Best Actress for it, too, and got a nomination for Best Actress for "The Sound of Music" the year after that. In the mid–'60s, there were few actresses who were as popular as Andrews.

No doubt she was a big part of the popular appeal of the movie. But that doesn't account for all of it, nor does it account for the movie's enduring appeal. Half a century later, the anniversary has become something of a cottage industry. Books are being published about it. And USA Today reports that a special video package is being released as well as reissued recordings of the music; Turner Classic Movies will start its annual film festival later this month with a showing of a restored copy of the movie; presumably, the same restored version will be the one that will be shown at roughly 500 theaters across the country on two dates in April.

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Part of the movie's appeal has to be the art direction, the cinematography, the costumes — all of which were recognized with Oscar nominations. And part of its appeal was the Rodgers and Hammerstein score.

But I think a lot of it has to do with a very simple formula that has served filmmakers for generations.

In "The Sound of Music," you knew who the good guys were, and you knew who the bad guys were. Instead of black hats, the bad guys were dressed in Nazi uniforms. Instead of white hats, the good guys wore matching outfits from their latest performance.

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Most important, audiences really cared about the good guys. It's hard for an audience to become involved in a story if that audience doesn't care about the good guys.

But you couldn't help caring about Julie Andrews and the seven children who were her charges — even if there were parts of the story that really were ridiculous. I mean, the big problem that the nuns at the Austrian convent had with Andrews was that she missed morning prayers pretty regularly because she was dancing and singing about the hills being alive with the sound of music. So she was hired by Christopher Plummer to be the governess for his seven children, who had already run off several governesses. Winning them over was no small accomplishment.

The plot was so silly, though, that, as I understand, several prominent people in Hollywood were approached about either appearing in it or directing it and refused. Robert Wise directed it and won an Oscar for his work.

Not bad for a corny and saccharine project.

Joan Rivers and Johnny Carson: It Was Complicated

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Joan Rivers, who died a few months ago, was never my favorite. I know many people who thought she was funny. I didn't.

But a lot of people did.

And they thought so long before she made her first appearance with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show 50 years ago today. In the '50s, she was on the stage. Her first role, as I understand it, was as a lesbian who was infatuated with a character played by Barbra Streisand. She appeared in New York comedy clubs in the early '60s and got a gig writing for Candid Camera — where, thanks to her relative anonymity up to that point, she was both a gag writer and an on–camera participant, luring the unsuspecting into bizarre situations.

She spent some time in front of the camera as well as behind it. When she appeared with Carson 50 years ago tonight, it was not her first time on the Tonight Show. She had been on the program when it was hosted by Jack Paar.

Rivers had lots of irons in the fire, as the saying goes, which was how she lived her life. She was always involved in several projects at once. In the '60s, she also appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and she had a part in a movie with Burt Lancaster. For awhile, she even had her own daytime talk show on TV. She had several shows, in fact.

But it was her appearance with Carson that changed the trajectory of her life. He was one of those who thought Rivers was funny, and she made many appearances on his show over the next 18 years — until Carson named her the permanent "guest host" of the show.

Carson was unique in many ways, but one of the most remarkable (I always thought) was the fact that, even when he took time off, he believed his audience deserved fresh material. He refused to run a rerun of one of his old shows. Instead, he would have a "guest host" fill in while he was gone. (Carson always went to England for two weeks in the summer to attend the Wimbledon tennis tournament so that was the plum assignment for an up–and–coming comedian.)

Some of Hollywood's most talented people filled in for Carson over the years, and Rivers did her share. It was a floating assignment, and regular viewers got to see a wide assortment of talent sitting behind Carson's desk whenever he was taking time off. But by August '83, Carson was ready to name Rivers his permanent guest host. That was as good as making her his heir apparent.

But that wasn't how it played out. The Fox Television Network, which was about to go on the air, offered Rivers her own late night talk show. She accepted, and Fox announced it before she could speak to Carson. When she did, she said, Carson hung up on her.

I don't know if that is how it happened or not. I don't know if Rivers wanted to speak to Carson first. If she did, she should have said something to Fox executives and asked them to withhold any statement until she confirmed that she had spoken to Carson. Perhaps she wanted to approach it as her asking for career advice from Carson or perhaps seeking his blessing instead presenting it as a done deal in which he had not been consulted.

Of course, if the Fox executives told her they would keep quiet and then spilled the beans, it was Fox's fault.

However it happened, I know that Carson and Rivers had no relationship in public — or, apparently, in private — after that. According to Rivers, he never spoke to her again.

But it all began 50 years ago tonight when Rivers made her first appearance with Carson on the Tonight Show.

Goober and the Art of Love

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Barney (Don Knotts): You'd better be going on your date, hadn't you? It's almost eight o'clock.

Goober (George Lindsey): I already been.

Barney: You're on your date already?

Goober: Yeah, and it sure went fast. I follered all the directions.

Barney: Goober, you were on a date. You weren't taking medicine.

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The Andy Griffith Show had many amusing episodes, episodes that still make me laugh today after countless viewings.

The one that first aired 50 years ago tonight, "Goober and the Art of Love," was such an episode for me.

Andy and Barney were frustrated because Goober insisted on being around when they were on double dates with Helen (Aneta Corsaut) and Thelma Lou (Betty Lynn), and they decided that Goober needed a girlfriend of his own. Goober wasn't enthusiastic about the idea, but he admitted there was one local girl he'd had his eye on — Lydia (Josie Lloyd). Apparently, she came in to have her car's oil changed.

Goober said he'd like to go out with Lydia, but he wouldn't know what to say. Andy noted that they talked when she brought her car in for service. Goober agreed. Well, what did they talk about then? Andy asked.

"Her tires," Goober replied. "She's got bad tires."

"Don't you talk about anything else?" Andy asked.

"Well, she does have an oil problem," Goober answered.

That was a bit much for Barney. "You mean you never talk about anything but her tires and her oil?" he asked.

"Well, ain't nothing else wrong with her," Goober observed.

Which made perfect sense from Goober's point of view. He was a mechanic; Lydia brought in her car for service. But it brought Andy and Barney no closer to their objective.

So Andy tried to steer the conversation back to more promising pursuits. He encouraged Goober to call Lydia and ask her out that very night.

"I wouldn't know what to say on a date," Goober protested.

So Andy and Barney gave him some conversation starters.

"By the end of the evening, you ought to be friendly enough to hold her hand," Andy said.

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"Hallelujah," Barney muttered sarcastically.

But Goober took their advice too literally and raced through the conversation starters like he was double parked. He went back to the courthouse to get further instruction from Barney, who recalled that Andy was over at his girlfriend's house watching TV. He took Goober over to observe from the shadows of Helen's front porch.

That would have been a good idea — or, at least, one with better results — if Goober had been able to restrain himself, but he got worked up when Andy and Helen began to kiss. And that was that.

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Anyway, the Goober situation continued to be a rocky one until Goober announced that his social calendar was "all dated up" with Lydia and wouldn't be able to spend time with Andy and Barney anymore.

Barney and Andy told Goober a good way to start his new relationship would be to bring Lydia a box of chocolates, and they gave him some money to get the biggest box available. It was a well–intended gesture that backfired.

When the two couples were about to go to a dance, Goober showed up once again, this time with Lydia. They had eaten all the candy, he said, and "there wasn't nothing else to do."

The fifth wheel had returned — with a sixth wheel.