The Other Glass Teat

by Harlan Ellison

Further essays of opinion on television.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Tv, Pop Culture, Short Stories, Criticism, Collections

397 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Harlan Jay Ellison (1934-2018) was a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, teleplays, essays, and criticism.

His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.

Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Glass Teat (and the companion volume, inevitably titled The Other Glass Teat) are collections of columns that Ellison wrote for "underground" publications from the late 1960's into the early 1970's. Ostensibly "essays of opinion on the subject of television" as the subtitle puts it, Ellison examined American morals and values and provides a unique history of one of the most traumatic and influential decades of change in history. He also showed us how we could do better, how we could be better, and how we could help make a better world. His message seems to me to be even more important now than it was then; the technology has changed but attitudes still hold true, the politicians are just as self-serving, the religious leaders are just as corrupt, we're bombarded by banal wastes of time endlessly, and on and on. Many of the television shows and films he reviews are long forgotten, but the meaning of his message is still clear. The television screen has been replaced by the smart phone, but that just makes it worse. You know, the names have changed but the song remains the same. His writing is impassioned, at times frenzied, but what it may lack in polish doesn't impact the clarity. These two volumes are my favorite works of non-fiction.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a newspaper column devoted to critiquing TV shows of the years 1970 to 1972 probably wouldn’t---or shouldn’t---resonate with contemporary readers. Unless, of course, those columns were written by the late, great Harlan Ellison.

“The Other Glass Teat” is a follow-up to Ellison’s groundbreaking collection of columns, “The Glass Teat”, which compiled his reviews, musings, complaints, cantankerous outbursts, and other wonderful miscellenia that he published in a weekly newspaper, The Los Angeles Free Press (a.k.a. The Freep) during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

While the TV shows he mentions (“The Flip Wilson Show”, “The Young Lawyers”, “The Interns”, “The Partridge Family”, “The Mod Squad”, et al. ) have all been relegated to the ash heap of (thankfully) forgotten and culturally insignificant television, and while the current events he writes about (the Kent State shootings, the My Lai massacre) have seemingly no bearing on our current state of affairs, there is something fresh and, well, important about what he is writing about.

Fifty years may have passed, but Ellison’s words still strike at the heart of the problem: our government officials are a cabal of shitty no-good pieces of dog excrement who care little to nothing about anything other than their own self-interest. On top of that, there are lots of Americans who are so ignorant and willing to suckle the government teat that they will lap up anything and everything that government officials dish out to them and call it gospel. And while television can be a showcase of artistic talent and vibrant intellectualism, it more often than not is simply a place where people turn off their brains for a few hours because they don’t want to think about the world and their own personal problems. Not that escapism is a bad thing, but it can, occasionally, lead to an overload of escapism, which can be a bad thing.

Ellison’s writing from fifty years ago touches upon some of the same issues, fears, and worries that we face today, almost as if the problems of the past are still the problems of the present. Fancy that.

While Ellison was dealing with Nixon and Agnew, we’re dealing with Trump and Pence. While Ellison was defending the student protests against Vietnam, we’re dealing with nationwide protests against police brutality and the inequities of our legal system against black people. While Ellison was dealing with corporations fighting to stop regulations so that they can pollute the air and seas, we’re dealing with... well, fuck, the very same thing.

Disregard the publication date of 1975. This book could have been published yesterday.

Peace, Ellison, wherever you are...

[Florence Salmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nixon and Agnew DESTROYED by a five foot three, side-part wearing, ankle biting little freak through the power of enema jokes and television reviews... the US Government never did fully recover...

[Craig Childs · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This is my final statement of the torture chamber tv has become."

The Glass Teat (1970) was not a commercial success upon its release, except in New York and Los Angeles. (It was rumored Spiro Agnew strong-armed bookstores into dumping their inventory.) However, it reached cult classic status over the next few years. Some universities made it required reading in film and journalism classes.

So, in 1975, a different publisher collected the second half of Harlan Ellison's television and social commentary columns into this sequel, The Other Glass Teat.

The centerpiece of this book are the columns about a teleplay Ellison wrote for an episode of Young Lawyers. The first column details the initial negotiation with ABC and the writing of the first draft. The script itself is published across five columns. Follow-up columns examine changes imposed during filming. Harlan breaks down what was changed and why. He goes full scorched earth on every actor, director, editor, and producer who "ruined my show."

It is a tantrum of epic proportions as well as a fascinating study of how television compromises artistic vision. The author ends by cursing everyone involved: "To all of you, I wish the worst. I wish nameless and terrible dream monsters that will haunt you till you die. And when that great Trendex in the sky finally hands down the ratings, I hope to God that God and all his high level executives cancel you in mid-season."

Other highlights include:

A 2-part column on the rise of sex appeal in commercials. I suppose this was the beginning of the "sex sells" era of marketing, or else Ellison just has an dirty imagination. He delivers a funny riff on why Life Savers have a hole in the middle. Plus, I will never look at a Butterball turkey the same way.

Ellison addresses a May 1970 column to his mother to talk about the generation gap and their different world- and life-views. He gives his passionate reaction to the murder of four Kent State students by the National Guard. In the follow up column, he responds to a New York Times article that supplies quotes from the residents of Kent, Ohio. Their chilling, hate-laced comments sadly remind me of the conservative rhetoric during the Black Lives Matters protests of 2020.

Discussion of CBS News footage of a South Vietnamese soldier killing a wounded Viet Cong prisoner. An American officer stood to the side and watched. The war crime is disturbing but not unexpected. However, the Nixon administration's attempt to suppress the footage and then their subsequent lies about the event serve as a reminder to be mistrustful of governments, no matter which side of the political aisle you are on.

In his early 1968-69 columns, Ellison spilled a lot of ink bemoaning the conservative forces that blocked progressive, anti-Vietnam programming. However, by the start of the 1970 season, television begins to air shows dealing with the war and other topics of social consciousness. Some of these Ellison praises (All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show); others he pans (Arnie, The Young Rebels). However, the results still somehow do not live up the utopian entertainment landscape he envisioned.

Police brutality and the danger of portraying cops as action heroes on tv: "They work their will with fear and fascism."

Happy Days and "nostalgia for the decaying corpse of the past".

A pilot episode for Matt Lincoln launches a discussion of suicide awareness and abortion access

Author Jacqueline Susann compares the death of her dog to the assassination of JFK on The Merv Griffin Show. (Harlan is not amused.)

The icky horror of child beauty pageants

Anecdotes from the author's appearances on The Dating Game and The Man Trap.

(I listened to the audiobook read by Luis Moreno.)

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like the first volume, fascinating from a cultural history standpoint, irritating for the dated swagger of Ellison's prose. I was going to avoid giving it a star rating, as I did with the first volume, but then on literally the last page he engages in some out-of-nowhere slut-shaming to show, I guess, that he won't take shit from anyone.
Filled with promises about future columns he never gets around to writing (which is like The Last Dangerous Visions writ small). Apparently he only managed two columns for Rolling Stone? Did he quit, or did they drop him, I wonder?
He persists in using his coinage "scuttlefish" which I'm amused to report never caught on. Although it does show up in the Urban Dictionary, it has a completely different definition than Ellison's.

[Joseph Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

While not as hard-hitting as "The Glass Teat", it's still an indictment of television entertainment, and what passes for news reporting in this country. Television could be an educational medium, that brings information and knowledge to more people than are in the classrooms, yet it's used for such "reality" shows as are more questionable entertainment than educational entertainment.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A re-read of the second volume in a collection of polemical TV columns written for an independent newspaper, The Los Angeles Free Press, continuing from February 1970. This book contains the last batch of 52 columns up until May 1972. Ellison uses the medium of TV criticism to discuss the ills of contemporary society in the Vietnam War/pre Nixon impeachment era.

For those not familiar with his style, be warned that there is a lot of swearing and words that would these days be completely unacceptable, including derogatory ones about race, although the writer is not using them to be racist: quite the opposite. This volume shows a growing awareness also of the objectification of women, with criticism of a beauty pageant show about little girls, among other things.

An interesting feature for anyone interested in either the development of TV drama at that time, or Ellison's work in particular, is that he gives the complete script of an episode he wrote for a series about lawyers being made at the time, and as a follow-up his angry reflections on how it was hacked around and changed beyond recognition when actually made.

As with volume 1, The Glass Teat, some of the material in these columns is so of its time that it would have gone over my head even when I first read this as a teenager, as the TV shows or actors under discussion were long gone. However, there's enough of interest in Ellison's rancour, despair, occasional ray of hope that young people will be the saving of the USA, and the insight this collection gives about Americans of liberal views, despised as "intellectuals" at that period and probably also nowadays, to be worth a read.

[Edward Champion · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, this volume is worth reading for the hilarious column where Harlan describes his experience on THE DATING GAME, which was one of the funniest things I have read in the last week. Even so, these series of columns are decidedly messier than the first batch. If Harlan Ellison were an undisciplined blogger, then this is more or less how he would sound -- which is an intriguing enough scenario, especially for Ellison completists. But it does result in some clumsy and wildly digressive columns that truly don't have the power of Harlan at his best -- in the Hornbook or the Watching columns. It's fun to watch him see his idealism both announce itself with the lead-free Chevron gas and then transform into anger once he finds out that the gas is a con. I'd have greater regard for this book if his script for "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" (no relation to the famous story) weren't so clumsy and bad. He reproduces this across several columns and it's not a good script. And it doesn't help that Harlan's ego boasts about it as if it is the second coming. The first Glass Teat volume was better, but this is still a fun read.

[Dick Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although now 50 years old,Ellison's columns of television criticism remain tremendously enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of his unedited script for "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs", a television script that he maintains was destroyed, to use a civilized word, by the network. Ellison's writing is so good that you can easily visualize each scene that he describes in his script. Most of all, it is hard to imagine a writer more gifted in his or her ability to both criticize and praise.

[Ken Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of essays was, according to Harlan Ellison, kept out of print for 5 years after the collected articles were written, by the dead hand of conspiracy by none other than Spiro Agnew and his minions, with no doubt the connivance of Tricky Dicky himself.

The articles are enjoyable and interesting, or at least were in the late 1970s. Today, despite the return of knuckle dragging authoritarianism in our polity, they are perhaps not so groundbreaking as once they were.

[Lucy Batson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A follow-up to The Glass Teat, this is the second and final collection of Harlan Ellison's essays for the Los Angeles Free Press relating to TV. This is rough going at times due to some very dated language and mores from Ellison (despite how left-wing he was for the time), but remains an interesting document about how little has changed in terms of politics and perception in the last 50 years.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the late '60s, Harlan Ellison wrote a series of articles for the Los Angeles Free Press which provided a television critique and television's effect on society.

As with all of Ellison's writing, this is creative, witty and thought provoking and pulls no punches when discussing the issues of the day. This volume contains the second half of the compiled articles.

[Lea Columbus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this years ago in paperback when it first came out. I decided to reread it when I saw it available on nook . It is dated, but good. He skewers the television of the 60's and 70's , with a sensibility that still resonates today.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It is as if no time has passed at all. It reminds me how little people learn from history...so sad.

[Neal Umphred · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of Ellison's weekly observations of television for the Los Angeles Free Press way back in the '60s.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I go back and forth on Ellison's fiction, I adore his criticism. This is mostly a collection of columns on the television industry circa 1970, and sadly I don't recognize many of the shows reviewed or listed. However, the vigor and venom of Ellison's writing is still a joy to read. The highlights for me included a scathing column on an "Our Little Miss" beauty pageant for preteen girls and a script Ellison wrote for a show called the "The Young Lawyers". Ellison shows the script in its earlier form and then details the history of its evolution as filming nears. As might be expected, Things Do Not Go Well.

There's a fair bit here about the rise of youth, the impact of "the Movement", and Eliison's accusations against Spiro Agnew and the Nixon administration concerning government control of media. Much of it might seem dated and laughable, except that you can easily see parallels in today's television. Switch out the government for corporations, and Ellison's words mirror current critiques.

[L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love TV, this will make your blood boil; if you HATE TV, you will find yourself reading this with relish (and maybe a little ketchup or mustard). Either way, Harlan Ellison, who has never been one to mince words, takes on the world of the tube in this second volume of criticism gleaned from his Los Angeles "Free Press" and "Rolling Stone" pieces. The opening piece is titled "Days of Blood and Sorrow," and here is what is just in the opening paragraphs: (Ellison describes being sick in bed and taking meds while watching "Let's Make a Deal") "I don't know which will kill me first: the flu or Monty Hall...From time to time in the writing of this introduction, I will keep you apprised of what nightmares flit across my screen; if I have to be miserable, so do you. We can go nutso together."

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This second of two books collects the '70-'71 columns from Ellison's stint as a Los Angeles Free Press television critic. It's largely the same as the first in tone and range, except that this one serializes a script Ellison wrote for "The Young Lawyers," a story that remains thorny and compelling, as well as present his columns of over-the-top denunciation once it aired in seemingly only modestly altered form.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume 2 of the underground cult classic. Deals with events around 1970-72,
so you need to be 50-something at least to really get this most out of this
(I was 10 when the killings at Kent State took place). By no means is this
just about TV. Gives you a glimpse of a bygone era when liberals were the
anti-government good guys.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book for all of us that both love and fear our media overlords.

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you remember these TV shows from the 70's, it's really amusing to read Ellison's smart and snarky reviews of them.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember if it was the first or second volume that described the Brazilian coverage of the moon landing, but it is the funniest piece of short reportage I have ever read.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If you haven't read Harlan Ellison, you haven't read." ~ Richard Halasz

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great essays on TV.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second collection of Ellisons columns from the LA freep.