Here we have another episode of The Red Skelton Hour, this one from September 23, 1969. Red's main guest was Peter Graves who, in the years before he appeared in Airplane, was not someone you might have booked for a comedy show. Mr. Graves was then the star of Mission Impossible (also on CBS, of course) and to facilitate the cross-plugging, he brought along Leonard Nimoy and Greg Morris from that show's cast…

…and also on this episode was Walker Edmiston, who had a recurring role on Mission Impossible and was also a frequent sketch player on Skelton's program. Walker was a lovely, versatile talent and I had the pleasure of working with him and knowing him. He did a lot of voice work and puppetry and was another one of those actors who turned up on almost every TV show at one time or another. Skelton used him a lot. If you search this here blog, you'll find a great many mentions of him.

And we have to mention Red's musical guests: In their first network TV appearance, we have the rock group Iron Butterfly performing "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" — the perfect music for the kind of folks who'd tune in to watch The Red Skelton Hour.