The year’s last day offers a chance to reflect on the television-related people who left us in 2023.
Star of both “American Graffiti” and “The Conversation,” Cindy Williams (Jan. 25) will always be associated with “Laverne & Shirley.” While never a household name, Lisa Loring (Jan. 28) created a template with her role as Wednesday on the “Addams Family” that has influenced several movies and a hit Netflix adaptation. Appearing on both “Homicide” and “Law & Order: SVU,” Richard Belzer’s (Feb. 19) conspiracy-spouting Det. Munch may have been ahead of his time. After his childhood stint in “Our Gang” shorts and his starring role on “Baretta,” Robert Blake (March 9) became best known for his notorious legal woes, which included a murder trial. The former mayor of Cincinnati, Jerry Springer (April 27) left politics for tabloid television decades before the latter consumed the former.
As FCC chairman in 1961, Newton Minnow (May 6) castigated broadcast television’s “vast wasteland” of violence and inanity. His proposals changing the relationship between producers and networks earned him the scorn of “Gilligan’s Island” creator Sherwood Schwartz, who emblazoned Minnow’s name on the doomed pleasure craft that took the cast on its three-hour tour.
Both Ed Ames (May 21), of “Daniel Boone” fame, and George Maharis (May 24), star of “Route 66,” also enjoyed careers as popular singers.
Best known for films, Treat Williams (June 12) starred for several seasons on the WB’s “Everwood.” Pat Robertson (June 8) married television and Christian fundamentalism so effectively that he entered the Republican presidential primaries in 1988, cementing the influence of his brand of evangelical Christianity on the GOP. In a long TV career that ran from “East Side/West Side” (1964) to Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method” (2019), Alan Arkin (June 29) earned six Emmy nominations.
Few spirits embraced postmodern silliness as effectively as Paul Reubens (July 30), star of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.” Bob Barker (Aug. 26) hosted “The Price Is Right” with appropriate gusto from 1972 to 2007. An esteemed star of the London stage and Hollywood epics, Michael Gambon (Sept. 27) starred in the musical fantasy “The Singing Detective,” one of the most indelible, influential and imitated productions in television history. As a “Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” Scottish actor David McCallum (Sept. 25) was a mid-1960s heartthrob, and arguably the first “grownup” TV character to sport a Beatles-inspired haircut. As the affable Chandler Bing, Mathew Perry (Oct. 28) was part of one of the most beloved sitcom ensembles ever.
To fans of “Lost in Space,” Mark Goddard (Oct. 10) will always be the handsome Major Don West. The face of late 1970s “jiggle TV,” Suzanne Somers (Oct. 15) would transcend her “Three’s Company” image with a business acumen and infomercial appearances that earned her a fortune. Frances Sternhagen (Nov. 27) had a long career playing formidable women on stage and in daytime dramas, as well as “Cheers” and “The Closer.”
By injecting topicality into sitcoms, producer Norman Lear (Dec. 5) helped rescue the genre and perhaps TV itself from cultural irrelevance. At a time when pop music dominated the conversation and Hollywood was poised to embark on a revolutionary period of creativity, TV was rightly dismissed as “the boob tube.” Before “All in the Family,” TV comedy was confined to mother-in-law jokes (on series like “The Mothers-in-Law”!). After the arrival of Archie Bunker, nothing was off limits, much to the delight of audiences.
Before “Love Story” made him a movie star, Ryan O’Neal (Dec. 8) played Rodney Harrington five nights a week on the ABC prime-time soap opera “Peyton Place.” Andre Braugher (Dec. 11) did such a good job as an exacting police officer in the gritty drama “Homicide” that he could parody the role on the farcical “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
In some ways, CBS gave free rein to Norman Lear to win back the younger, more urban audience it had alienated by abruptly canceling “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1969. Tommy Smothers, half of that folk comedy team, died on Dec. 26.
As always, this list merely skims the surface, citing the most recognizable of the many performers, creators and behind-the-camera talent who we lost this year and recall along with other old acquaintances as we depart 2023.
Happy New Year one and all. May 2024 brings us television worth watching. Not to mention thinking and writing about!
SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— The Dallas Cowboys host the Detroit Lions in NFL action (8 p.m., ABC, ESPN).
— The “women’s network” leaves Christmas behind and returns to form with the 2023 shocker “Secret Love Triangle” (8 p.m., Lifetime, TV-14).
— In her hometown for a holiday chorale, Carly stumbles on a man in a uniform in the 2023 romance “Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas” (8 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— “50 Years of the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award” (8 p.m., TCM).
— The 2023 documentary “Time Bomb Y2K” (10 p.m., HBO) recalls widespread fears of a technological meltdown as the clock ticked down on the year 2000.
SUNDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS
— Elle King and Rachel Smith host “New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash” (7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., CBS).
— Ryan Seacrest, Rita Ora and Jeannie Mae host “Dick Clark’s Primetime New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2024” (8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., ABC).
— Cynthia Erivo, Ben Platt and Joaquina Kalukango perform on “NEXT at the Kennedy Center” (9 p.m., PBS, TV-PG, check local listings).
Maroon 5, Enrique Iglesias, Jonas Brothers, Bowen Yang, Patti LaBelle and others perform on “CNN New Year’s Eve Live With Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen” (8 p.m., CNN).
— The Minnesota Vikings host the Green Bay Packers in “NFL Football” (8:15 p.m., NBC).
— A boy’s night out on “The Curse” (9 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
CULT CHOICE
Subway excavations unleash a prehistoric menace in the 1967 shocker “Five Million Years to Earth” (2 p.m. Saturday, TCM).
SATURDAY SERIES
Old and new faces on “CSI: Vegas” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … “Password” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-PG) … “48 Hours” (9 p.m. and 10 p.m., CBS) … “Dateline” (9 p.m., NBC, r) … “TMZ’s Merry Elfin’ Christmas (9 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14) … A vintage helping of “Saturday Night Live” (10 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).
SUNDAY SERIES
Marge can’t handle the notion of an empty nest on “The Simpsons” (8 p.m., Fox, r, TV-PG) … A hero’s return on “Krapopolis” (8:30 p.m., r, Fox, TV-14) … More than chores at stake on “Bob’s Burgers” (9 p.m., Fox, r, TV-PG) … Quagmire’s enchanted suitcase on “Family Guy” (9:30 p.m., Fox, r, TV-14).
