ABC Stage 67

1 9 6 6 – 1 9 6 7 (USA)
26 x 60 minute episodes

ABC presented this series of original television productions in a noble but failed attempt to revive the TV anthology drama series, so popular in the 1950s.

Some of the more outstanding productions included:

• Olympus 7-000, A comedy about a football coach and his efforts to organise a professional team from a group of fumbling misfits (starring Donald O’Connor).
• A musical version of The Canterville Ghost is about an American Ambassador who moves his family into an English home haunted by a ghost (starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Michael Redgrave).
• The Love Song of Barney Kempinski – a comedy about a bachelor’s last fling on a tour of New York City before he marries (starring Alan Arkin as Barney Kempinski).
• The Legend of Marilyn Monroe – a documentary tracing the life of actress Marilyn Monroe from her childhood sorrows to her adult heartaches and death.
• A two-character musical satire called I’m Getting Married.
• C’est La Vie, a musical review of songs from Broadway, films and popular culture (hosted by Maurice Chevalier and Diahann Carroll, pictured below).

The Bob Dylan documentary Eat the Document was commissioned for the series and promoted on-air, but ABC pulled it at the last minute, reportedly because it was deemed too avant-garde for the network’s taste.

Guests who appeared in the 26 shows included Peter Sellers, Lauren Bacall (pictured below right), Ingrid Bergman, Laurence Olivier, Robert Mitchum, Tony Randall, John Huston, Dustin Hoffman, Honor Blackman, Shelley Winters, Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Anthony Perkins, Redd Foxx, Petula Clark, Truman Capote, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Joe Namath, John Gielgud, Connie Stevens, Albert Finney, Michael Rennie, Donald O’Connor, Bobby Darin, Lulu, Peter Noone, Ricky Nelson, Cesar Romero, Lee Strasberg, Ronnie Corbett, Frankie Howerd, John Forsythe and Hugh Hefner.

Episodes

The Love Song of Barney Kempinski | Dare I Weep, Dare I Mourn? | Where It’s At | The Kennedy Wit | Olympus 7-0000 | The Confession | The Canterville Ghost | The People Trap | Evening Primrose | Noon Wine | The Legend of Marilyn Monroe | On the Flip Side | The Brave Rifles | A Christmas Memory | The Trap of Solid Gold | Sex in the Sixties | General Eisenhower on the Military Churchill | David Frost’s Night Out in London | The Light Fantastic, or How to Tell Your Past, Present and Maybe Your Future Through Social Dancing | C’est La Vie | Rodgers & Hart Today | Trilogy: The American Boy – Skaterdater/The River Boy/Reflections | I’m Getting Married | A Time for Laughter: A Look at Negro Humor in America | The Wide Open Door | The Human Voice

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