With summer coming to a close, we begin our annual tribute to the fall television season of fifty years ago. Great to have you onboard for the ride... we hope to bring you some nonstalgia, entertainment and perspective on vintage television of yesteryear.

The 1967-1968 Television season was a transitional time for the medium, reflecting the transition America was going through as the decade of the 1960s reached its final phase and began showing signs of what might come in the early 1970s.

In our minds, the 1960s was a three act play, with a beginning (1960-1963), a middle (1964-1966) and an end (1967-1969). Broadcast television in America reflected that progression of social change and innovation as the decade unfolded each year. That middle stage of the 1960s was a time of incredicle change on television: the migration from black and white to color television, the rise in youth oriented programming, the steady decline of westerns, and the beginning of the inclusion of more women and people of color on shows to better reflect the civil rights and women's movements in America.

The 1967-1968 season would usher in the beginning of a second golden age of variety programming, while saying goodbye to the spy and super-hero/sci-fi craze that had swept the nation and the airwaves during the 1964-1966 era on television.

Over the coming months, we'll looking back at many of the new shows that were introduced during that 1967-68 season:

The Carol Burnett Show
Mannix
The Mother's In Law
The Flying Nun
Garrison's Gorillas
Ironside
The High Chapparel
Hondo
The Guns of Will Sonnet
Laugh-In
It Takes a Thief
Accidental Family
Good Morning World

And we'll be saying farewell to many of the mid-1960s spy/hero/sci-fi shows that were so popular in the 1964-1966/7 era, as well as one very significant youth-band series:

Batman
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Lost In Space
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
The Monkees
I Spy

And we'll be saying goodbye to two of the most popular shows on CBS during the 1960s: The Andy Griffith Show and The Lucy Show.

Clearly, continual change was taking place on broadcast television during the 1967-68 season. We start off our look back at the year with an episode of The Dean Martin Variety Show, with guest star Donald O'Connor, doing a 'spy-like' dance number from October 26, 1967.

So, here's to the 1967-68 Television Season, as we pay tribute to the men and women who helped make that season so special and important in the transition of the medium in the late 1960s.

Enjoy.

This video clip is presented here on YouTube for the entertainment and informational value of the viewer, and no copyright infringement is intended.

To own your own set (or partial set) of The Dean Martin Variety Show DVD series (King of Cool: The Best of the Dean Martin Variety Show/Collector's Edition), go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and you'll be able to select various packages to enjoy and watch at your leisure.

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