cover image TVs Turkeys Pa

TVs Turkeys Pa

Kevin Allman. Perigee Books, $9.95 (191pp) ISBN 978-0-399-51404-3

Allman, former society editor of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, takes aim at more than 35 of the ""most bizarre programs that the networks have presented over the years, all of them of dubious artistic quality.'' His survey spans popular long-run hits (Let's Make a Deal, The Dating Game, Hogan's Heroes), single-season flops (Supertrain, America) and short-lived disasters. For example, the CBS celebrity game You're in the Picture (1961), canceled after its first airing, was followed by host Jackie Gleason's appearance the next week to deliver a ``half-hour comedy monologue masquerading as an apology.'' One chapter is devoted to animal shows and another to the ``telembarrassments'' of major starsSteve Allen (Meeting of Minds), Lana Turner (Harold Robbins' The Survivors), Debbie Reynolds (Aloha Paradise) and Lucille Ball (last year's Life with Lucy). More than 50 photos depict the ``bad-taste bathos'' and ``transcendent TV trash'' described throughout this moderately entertaining flashback. (October)