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Hurricane Sandy Affects Primetime TV Scheduling

Before we give you the lay down on how Sandy is impacting television this week, we want to be sure to send our thoughts and prayers to all of those who are in one way or another affected by Sandy this week. You’re in the Yak’s thoughts.

Now, those of you hoping to get CBS’s comedy block and Hawaii Five-0 last night found out the hard way. CBS pre-empted their original programming and aired a CBS News special on Sandy, since those on the east coast likely were not able to enjoy the same laughs you might have. The original episodes of How I Met Your Mother, Partners, 2 Broke Girls, Mike & Molly and Hawaii Five-0 will air next Monday, November 5.

ABC and NBC have also made some moves. NBC’s special Halloween episodes of Go On and The New Normal, slated to air Tuesday at 10/9c after The Voice, have been pre-empted. ABC has also pre-empted Private Practice on October 30. Both NBC and ABC will air special coverage of Hurricane Sandy instead. Private Practice will return November 13th (next week is Election coverage) and there is no word when NBC will air their Halloween comedy specials.

The irony between much of the country being unable to see Revolution last night is not lost on NBC. The peacock has opted to pre-empt their Thursday comedies (30 Rock, Up All Night, The Office and Parks & Rec) to air a repeat of Team Adam and Team Cee Lo’s Knockout Round on The Voice, which aired Monday night. Monday night’s Revolution will air Friday November 2 at 8pm ET, followed by an all-new Grimm. NBC will, however, air an ORIGINAL 30 Rock Wednesday Oct 31, since the episode is a continuation from last week’s election themed plotline. This will give Tina Fey and Co. to finish off that story before next week’s actual Presidential election. This 30 Rock episode knocks off the final episode of already cancelled Animal Practice.

Phew. Got all that? That about covers it … check your DVRs.

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James MacArthur, Actor ‘Hawaii Five-0’ Dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stage and screen actor James MacArthur, who played “Danno” in the original version of television’s “Hawaii Five-0,” died Thursday at age 72.

MacArthur’s agent, Richard Lewis, said the actor died in Florida of “natural causes,” but no direct cause was specified.

In a career that spanned more than four decades, MacArthur was most recognized for his role as Detective Danny “Danno” Williams on “Hawaii Five-0,” which aired from 1968 to 1980. Episodes often ended with detective Steve McGarret, the lead character, uttering what became a pop culture catch phrase: “Book ’em, Danno.”

Jack Lord, who starred as McGarret, died in 1998.

MacArthur quit the role of McGarret’s sidekick a year before the program’s final season.

“Quite frankly, I grew bored,” he explained on his website. “The stories became more bland and predictable and presented less and less challenge to me as an actor.”

“Hawaii Five-O,” one of the longest running crime shows in TV history with 278 episodes, was shot on location in the Hawaiian islands. It was the first Hawaii-based national TV series.

The drama has been remade by CBS with a new cast this season.

MacArthur, born Dec. 8, 1937, seemed destined to become an actor. He was the adopted son of playwright Charles MacArthur and Helen Hayes, an award-winning actress often referred to as “First Lady of the American Theatre.” Silent film star Lillian Gish was his godmother.

“They did teach me a lot about the theatre just through my life with them,” he said of his parents in a 1957 interview in Teen Life magazine. “They never pushed me in any direction. Any major decision has always been my own to make.”

James MacArthur made his stage debut at age 8 in a summer stock production of “The Corn is Green.”

His breakout role was in the 1957 “Climax!” television series production of “The Young Stranger,” in which he starred as the 17-year-old son of a movie executive who has a run-in with the law.

He entered Harvard that same year, but dropped out in his sophomore year to pursue an acting career.

As a young actor, MacArthur appeared in the Walt Disney movies “Kidnapped,” “Third Man on the Mountain,” “Swiss Family Robinson” and “The Light in the Forest.”

He also had roles in “The Interns, “Spencer’s Mountain,” “Battle of the Bulge” and “Hang ‘Em High,” as well as many guest roles on TV series such as “Gunsmoke.”

He performed in many stage plays, including the lead role of Hildy Johnson in a 1981 production of “The Front Page,” which was co-written by his father in the late 1920s, at the Stanford Community Theatre in Palo Alto, Calif.

His live acting career won him the 1961 Theatre World Award for best new actor for his performance in “Invitation to a March.”

MacArthur said that one of his favorite “Hawaii Five-O” episodes was a 1975 segment called “Retire in Sunny Hawaii Forever” because it marked one of the rare times that he worked on screen with his mother. Hayes played Danno’s Aunt Clara, who visits Hawaii and helps the detectives solve a murder.

Asked by the Hawaii Star Bulletin newspaper in 2003 about his fondest memories about working on “Hawaii Five-O,” MacArthur replied: “Living in Hawaii.”