The Perfect Day: August 28, 1964

It’s cool for August on Friday, August 28, 1964, with a high of 79 degrees, and in the low sixties overnight. Earlier in the week, Lyndon Johnson was named the Democrat’s nominee for the November election during the convention held in Atlantic City, as the long shadow of John Kennedy, murdered only ten months earlier, hangs over the week’s proceedings.

We’re living in what could best be called interim housing, a massive brick fortress of an apartment building while my parents saved enough to buy a house – which would happen it just another year’s time.

But right now, it’s time for 24 hours of television.

The morning is the usual mix of cartoons, game shows and Gale Storm and Topper reruns. We make time for Birthday House at 9 a.m. on NBC, hosted by Paul Tripp, a longtime children’s TV host (a job title nobody can claim anymore). One of his IMDB credits is for the movie, "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't," an abysmal affair that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 once featured. Birthday House was on five days a week for an hour, live, leaving its cast to scratch around for material, like time spent each show saying good morning to a caged parakeet and making a boom microphone (Mike) a character (greeted with the song, “Hi Mike, Hi Mike, I like to say, Hi Mike”).

More live TV at 12:30 with Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane. At 2:00, it’s Loretta Young, always worth watching for the show’s opening as Loretta sweeps into the room, a different gown everyday trailing her entrance.

At 4:00 p.m., it’s time for Hall of Fun on Channel 5. Uncle Fred Hall’s most memorable bit was having the viewers mail in drawings of five random lines, which Uncle Fred would turn into whatever the kid requested: a lion, a car, a lollipop. It was endlessly fascinating to watch and hear the squeak of Uncle Fred’s marker on the easel.

On Channel 11 at 6:30, we’re treated to two episodes of a 1953 serial, “Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders,” billed at the time as “Thrill a minute action in the frozen north.” The female lead was a mostly unknown actress named Susan Morrow, the older sister of Judith Exner, who claimed to be the mistress of both Mob boss Sam Giancana and John Kennedy.

We’re into prime time now. I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster is on Channel 7 at 7 p.m., with John Astin and Marty Ingels. At 7:30 on Channel 2, it’s time for The Great Adventure, an ambitious dramatic anthology series based on events in U.S. history. Tonight, Leif Erickson stars as President Grover Cleveland in an episode about his mysterious public disappearance for six days in 1893. (He had a malignant tumor on the roof of his month, which was removed in secrecy by a team of doctors aboard a yacht anchored off Manhattan). And we recall that Grover Cleveland was a character in Robert Altman’s “Buffalo Bill and Indians,” played by Pat McCormick.

At 8:30, we go to Channel 7 and Burke’s Law, with the usual line-up of Hollywood guest stars whose fame was on the fade: Joan Blondell, Betty Hutton, Buster Keaton and Giselle McKenzie. The TV Guide tells us that the script is by Harlan Ellison, a writing machine and professional maverick who seemed to have written thousands of scripts, novellas, short stories and critical columns. (He wrote the only Star Trek episode that matters, “The City On the Edge of Forever,” as the future fate of the world hinges on Captain Kirk being held back to helplessly watch as Joan Collins is struck by a car and killed while crossing the street; Shatner’s restrained “Let’s get the hell out of here” was powerful and shocking for its use of a word that you just didn't hear on television back then).

At 10, there’s a boxing match between Willie Pastrano, 28, and Bobo Olson, 36, on Channel 7. The much younger Pastrano knocks out Bobo two minutes into the first round. How will ABC fill out the rest of the hour?

The rest of the night is mostly old movies (“Brain From Plant Arous” on Million Dollar Movie, starring Mr. Shirley Temple, John Agar) and Steve Allen’s syndicated variety show on Channel 11 with guests Jim Backus (and wife, Henny), Jayne Mansfield, Connie Stevens and Joe E. Lewis – no need for having a parakeet on camera to kill time.