Grammy Flashback

With the Grammy Awards coming up on Feb 12 2012 I thought I would do some looks back at past Grammy Award winners.  
Tonight we start with the 1961 Grammy Awards and the Album of the Year and New Artist of the Year winner, Bob Newhart.
The Album of the Year was "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart"  


This was the debut album for Mr. Newhart  and was recorded live at The Tidelands Club in Houston, TX.
He spent 14 non consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard album chart.  This was the first comedy record to be named Album of the Year and the only time a comedian has been awarded the Best New Artist Grammy.
Bob Newhart wanted to title the album "The Most Celebrated New Comedian Since Attila" but the Warner Brothers executives didnt care for that and created "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart", but allowed his original title to stay as the subtitle.

here is the entire album for your enjoyment.

Gunsmoke - Bad Seed

From Season 6 Episode 216  originally aired Feb 4th 1961

Gunsmoke on Radio - The Last Episode

This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the airing of the last original episode of the radio version of Gunsmoke.   A true legend in radio history, this was the first "grown up" western which started airing in 1952.
Shortly after in 1954 the television version was aired on CBS and ran for 20 seasons.

Here, thanks to Buck Benny's wonderful podcast, is the last episode of Gunsmoke's radio version.

Letter of the Law from June 18th  1961 episode 28 of season 9 and the 413th of the entire run.  Written by John Meston.


The episode was made for the television version in Season 4 episode 5 October 11th 1958.

Gunsmoke Radio - Doc's Visitor

Here from June 11 1961 the penultimate episode in the Gunsmoke radio show.  This episode is  "Doc's Visitor" written by Marion Clark.


Starring William Conrad as US Marshall Matt Dillon, Parley Baer as Chester Proudfoot, Howard McNear as Charles "Doc" Adams and Georgia Ellis as Miss Kitty.

CBS Season Preview for 1961

I stumbled on these over the weekend. Its the preview of the 1961 television season for CBS, with host Andy Griffith, Garry Moore, Sebastian Cabot, Bob Cummings,Rod Serling,Raymond Burr and Ed Sullivan.
One of the highlights for me was the preview of a new comedy on CBS, "The Dick Van Dyke Show".
Amazing how far television has come that none of the networks program anything remotely new for Saturday nights now.