A Vial of Deadly Germs

"The series failed, but at least the plot for this episode is so tried and true you have to wonder why," writes McNeil. He encloses an eight-second video clip ("click" here) but I know you won't "click," you are too lazy to even "click" on an eight-second video clip, jerk, so now I have to spoil it for everybody by revealing that it says, "A vial of deadly germs imperils an entire city on MY FRIEND TONY, tonight." But now you will never know how funny it is because of the professional cigarette voice of the announcer and the little, almost comic lift he gives to the title of the show, incongruously (but somehow inevitably), considering what has gone before, or maybe I'm just imagining that, but I guess you'll never know. "And here are some of the worst opening credits I've seen. Not THE worst, but the hands to the face at the end....whew," McNeil concludes, but hell, you won't "click" on that either, will you? How I hate you. As consolation, I turn to my copy of THE COMPLETE DIRECTORY TO PRIME TIME NETWORK TV SHOWS 1946-PRESENT by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, which is almost without exception totally useless in our modern world. Yet now I may with glee type up the entire entry on MY FRIEND TONY: "When he was in Italy shortly after the end of World War II, John Woodruff almost had his wallet stolen by a street urchin named Tony. Years later, a fully grown Tony arrived in America to join John as half of a private-investigation team. Professor Woodruff, whose academic career in criminology had given him the ability to analyze the most obscure clues..." ugh, never mind, I can't type anymore, okay, I'll type this one phrase that comes toward the end, "Tony's carefree romanticism," anyway, ha ha ha, "street urchin."