Join the Pet Set

If you are a fan of animals, of classic TV -- and here's a no-brainer:  a fan of Betty White -- then you'll want to check out today's DVD box set release of her early '70s talk show, Betty White's Pet Set.

The show's 39 full-color episodes, which debuted in 1970 -- in one early episode, Betty hosts her friend Mary Tyler Moore, years before she would join that show and become an iconic member of its cast -- boast a veritable who's who of  '70s television, each star stopping by to show off a beloved pet.  It's such a revealing and intimate look at the stars' personal lives, the kind you won't get during a packaged, PR-approved visit to The Tonight Show.

No one will ever have a career like Betty's, spanning eight decades in televi
sion, because Betty was quite literally there when they first turned on the TV cameras in Los Angeles, hosting hours each day of live talk.  By the time of Pet Set, Betty was an established pro, and it shows in her quick wit, and her ability to make her guests comfortable and move the segments along.  Combine that with her innate love for and comfort with all creatures great, small, and even deadly, and also her relationships with experts in zoology and conservation, and you have a breezy half hour that's both enlightening and entertaining.

I've heard that Betty has had these episodes sitting in her treasure chest for years, and decided now, at the show's 50th anniversary, was the perfect time to release them for a new generation to enjoy.  (They are also apparently available, for a fee, on Amazon Prime.)  The box set, which was released today, also boasts a good number of special features, including a behind-the-scenes mini-documentary; promo and public service spots; photo galleries of Betty and pets and also Betty and her husband /fellow producer Allen Ludden; and several featurettes about Betty subtitled Game Show Goddess and Queen of Television.

I spent the weekend bingeing episodes with such amazing guests as Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett, Paul Lynde, Agnes Moorehead, Beverly Garland, Lorne Greene, Eve Arden and Barbara Feldon -- and I have so many more to look forward to, including Doris Day, James Stewart, Burt Reynolds, Shirley Jones, Michael Landon, Barbara Eden, James Brolin, Della Reese, Vincent Price, Eva Gabor, Eddie Albert, Peter Marshall, Rose Marie, Bob Crane, Bill Bixby, Jim Nabors, Bob Barker, Mike Connors, Barbara Bain, Dennis Weaver, Johnny Mathis, Donald O'Connor, Merv Griffin, Rod Serling, Pat Carroll, Peter Lawford, Vikki Carr, Amanda Blake, Arte Johnson, Sue Anne Langdon, Miyoshi Umeki, Richard Deacon, Nancy Kulpe and Billy DeWolfe.

Between Pet Set and my continued viewings of The Love Boat in preparation for writing my next book, I can look forward to spending many of these pandemic hours with some old friends from sunnier times past.  Thanks, Betty!

Bloomingdales Gets Smart

Check out the lush, oversized color catalog for Bloomingdales' men's sale, now through this coming week, with its tribute to my favorite TV comedy of all time, and its nattily attired hero, Maxwell Smart.

Is someone from Bloomingdales also moonlighting at TV Land? Or are they just eagerly awaiting the sequel to Steve Carell's 2008 big-screen version of Get Smart?

Either way, I'll be checking out the sale... and loving it!

Vanessa Williams Introduces You to the Stars of Classic TV

For the past 5 years, I've been working with a fabulous organization within the Television Academy in Los Angeles, the Archive of American Television. The Archive is an unprecedented catalog of revealing, behind-the-scenes interviews with over 600 television industry greats -- from stars to producers, executives and other creative talent.

Now, those interviews are available to be viewed online, at the Archive's home page, EmmyTVLegends.org. Check out my chats with Jayne Meadows, The Cosby Show's Phylicia Rashad, Cagney & Lacey Star Tyne Daly, Get Smart's beautiful Agent 99, Barbara Feldon, and so many others conducted by preeminent TV experts and journalists.

Below, in a newly produced video promoting the Archive, the incredible star of Ugly Betty, Vanessa Williams, will introduce you to the Archive's resources. "What the Academy Foundation has done with EmmyTVLegends.org is amazing," she enthused in a press announcement of the video. "I am proud to help spread the word about this incredible resources for TV fans worldwide."

And an incredible resource it is, too, full of little-known anecdotes, unique perspectives, and eyewitness accounts from the top names in TV, past and present. The interviews can be watched in their entirety, or browsed by person, show, topic or profession. Check them out! You just might come across a gem, such as when Golden Girl Rue McClanahan slipped, at my request, into Blanche Devereaux's voice to talk about her "many, many men." Priceless!

Barbara Feldon and Leonard Stern talk about Get Smart

In the fall of 2007, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Barbara Feldon for an interview for the Archive of American Television. The Archive has edited together footage from this interview, along with footage of Get Smart showrunner Leonard Stern, talking about how Feldon was cast in the iconic role of 99.

Would You Believe... Season 1 of Get Smart on DVD?

Now that the first season of Get Smart is available on DVD, ardent fans of the 1965-70 series will be watching the first 30 of the series' 138 newly restored, remastered, full-length episodes. And… loving it.

The spy spoof ran on NBC for seventy-two seasons (would you believe four?) before switching to CBS for fifty more (would you believe one?), and was the first and still to date the most successful satiric series in the history of television. Chronicling the battle between good-guy government agency CONTROL and evil organization KAOS, Get Smart starred Don Adams as CONTROL Agent 86 Maxwell Smart – who was anything but – and Barbara Feldon as his beautiful, resourceful and loyal partner, and later wife, known throughout the series only as Agent 99.

Adams, who died in 2005, attributed the success of the show, with its unique combination of borscht belt and surrealist humor, to perfect timing – and not just of the comedic variety. In captivating TV audiences just before the ultimately turbulent 1960s got into full swing, “I feel like we led the way in TV back in ’65, when everyone was stirring the oatmeal and sending the kids to school,” he speculated in a previously unpublished 2001 interview. “When I read the Get Smart pilot I thought it was too satirical and ahead of its time, and that it would never go on TV. But it went, and led the way for shows like All in the Family. It was the ‘60s, and with everything that was going on – the drug culture, Charles Manson, Woodstock – there was a whole cultural revolution and I guess Get Smart was part of it.”

Co-star Feldon, who now resides in Manhattan, recalls having been taken by surprise by the passion audiences immediately felt for Smart. “Doing a series is very time-consuming,” she explains. “And in L.A., you’re in your car, and go to some local restaurant where they don’t pay attention to you. So it wasn’t until a few years into the show that I went out into the country on a tour and saw the fervor people were feeling that I got the idea that this was a big show.”

Although Get Smart exited TV Land’s lineup in 2003 and has not aired in the U.S. since, its famous comic catchphrases -- like "Sorry about that, Chief" and "Missed it by that much," which Adams first ad-libbed in a Season 1 episode -- still thrive in our pop culture lexicon. Now, with the series debuting on DVD, a new generation will be able to tune in and turn on to the show’s groovy gadgets, like the constantly malfunctioning "cone of silence." And that's just fine by Feldon. “To this day, almost every day, somebody smiles at me because of 99,” she says. “It has been such a pleasure in my life.”

Get Smart Season 1
Release Date: August 5, 2008
4-disc DVD set; approx. 750 minutes
Suggested Retail Price: $24.98