battle of the network stars

i got a hold of the first season of the original "wild wild west" show starring robert conrad over the weekend, and introduced my boys to the world of james west and artemus gordon. of course they loved it. for anyone not familiar with the show it takes place post civil war. conrad plays "james west" a former union cavalry officer turned secret service agent reporting directly to president ulysses s. grant. he is a sort of old west "steampunk" james bond who travels in a private train car filled with all manner of gadgets. west himself also stocks a variety of gadgets including a spring action derringer concealed in his jacket sleeve, a portable climbing spike and rope with winch attachment, and his famous spring loaded boot toe blade. as a kid his coolness factor for me ranked right up there with batman, james t. kirk and steve mc queen.
anyway, as we watched these first episodes on a lazy sunday afternoon i suddenly had a memory flash. it was 1976 and i was watching abc's "battle of the network stars" hosted by the legendary howard cosell. this was a show where most of the big 3 network's stars squared off in a mostly friendly olympic styled competition to determine the best network outside of the ratings system. telly savalas, with a cigarette in his hand, captained the cbs team, while gabe kaplan and robert conrad (now appearing on the show "baa baa black sheep") led the teams for abc and nbc respectively. during a baton relay track race, a controversial hand-off between 2 of the nbc temammates led the race officials to penalize nbc, moving them from 1st to 2nd place in the event. this completely incensed captain bob conrad, who had to be talked down from walking out by a consoling richard hatch. in the end robert conrad settled for a 100 yard runoff against gabe kaplan who bested him.


as i re-visited this memory i was struck by how it seemed to define the 70's in my mind's eye. stoic and belligerent conrad mouthing off as a calm gabe kaplan stood by with his cheesy mustache and afro. the establishment anti-hero and the new representation of woody allen counter culture. shades of things to come. and as with just about every other recorded piece i found it again on youtube today. if you'd like to take a time trip you can see the whole event condensed to 9 minutes here.