TERRYVILLE-"The Ted Knight Musical Comedy Variety Special Special" is one more way that the town's most famous individual is showing people how proud he is of having grown up in this community.
Ted says he could have called the special "The Terryville Show" and still have been accurate about the show's contents. The show's concept and originality both come from Knight, and his experiences of living in Terryville. The special will be aired on CBS (Channel 3) Tuesday beginning at 8 p.m.
Ted did tell the Press, however, that "very little" of his show will be based on actual events. As he explained the script of which he wrote the majorportion, it became apparent that those living here will recognize glimpses of the town.
Noted actor Fred MacMurray, will be portraying the mayor of Terryville who asks Ted to come back home again as Terryville's Man of the Year. Ted accepts the invitation and arrives at the town's railroad station believing the crowds are for him. He soon discovers the commotion is over the high school basketball team.
One segment of the show will be based on the testimonial dinner held in June as a gesture of appreciation to Ted by the people of Terryville. While there may not have been singing and dancing in town at the dinner, but there certainly will be on the show.
Ethel Merman, playing one of Ted's elementary school teachers, sings and Rue McClanahan, as an old flame of Ted's along with his cousin, Loretta Swit, perform a boogiewoogie as part of the entertainment.
Ed Asner, who plays Ted Baxter's boss on Saturday nights on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show," also guest stars in the special as a delicatessen owner, even though Terryville has never had a real delicatessen.
[A KNIGHT ON THE TOWN: Loretta Swit, Ed Asner, Ethel Merman, Fred MacMurry, Phil Silvers and Rue McClanahan join Terryville's Ted Knight in his first CBS Television Network Special "The Ted Knight Musical Comedy Variety Special Special," to be aired Tuesday beginning at 8 p.m. The native's special will be based on events held in Terryville during June when Knight came to town and was honored as the local boy who made good.]
In a rare television appearance, Phil Slivers also clowns with twotime Emmy award winner Knight.
For those who don't know it, or may not have guessed, Ted is Polish. And being proud of his Polish ancestry, he couldn't let the special run for an hour without capitalizing on the fact somehow.
There will be a Polish wedding during the show in which a cousin, Loretta Swit, will marry an actor named Joe Ross.
Ted said there will be a scene when he relates to his Polish relative the beauty of matrimony. The ceremony will be officiated by a Los Angeles Priest, Fr. Przygoda, who received special permission from Timothy Cardinal Manning of that city, to perform the service for television.
To keep the ceremony as authentic as possible, a Polish wedding veil was secured for the show for $4,500. Just for the record, Ted also said that Joe Ross is a Polish Count.
Bobby Vinton's "Melody of Love" will be danced to by those at the reception. There will be Polish jokes too, but these will be "in good taste," Ted promises.
Many Terryville folks have asked what happened to the films taken during Ted's June visit to town. Originally, it was thought that the film would be used in the special, but the idea was ditched when the shows writers feared it could be taken too much as a documentary, rather than a comedy and musical program.
Ted has "seen rough test footage" of the reels but has them "safely tucked away." Two and one half hours of film was taken during the trip, but no one, he said, has seen all of them yet. He may make a documentary someday with the film, or he may put them into some kind of order and send them back to his native town.
[The Bristol Press, Monday, November 29, 1976]