TV Listings from 10/14/83

[jeffg]

Came across this earlier tonight, it's a stark reminder of what TV used to be like, and just how far programming quality has decayed in the last 10-20 years.

What's amazing is the amount of quality programming that was shown on a small number of channels, compared to several hundred channels of absolutely nothing to watch today.

Hawaii Five-O, The Flintstones, Taxi, and on and on. So much was very well written and enjoyable.

 

[mattl]

Hmmm.

The Dukes of Hazard?

Dallas?

Manimal?

Falcon Crest?

Mr. Smith? (Have no recollection of that one...)

None of these compare favorably to much of the stuff on today. Unfortunately most of the good stuff is on pay channels. True Blood, Nurse Jackie, Weeds, Entourage, Mad Men, Damages, Saving Grace, The Closer and Lost come to mind as shows that are a LOT better than that stuff.

The stuff like The Flintstones, Hawaii 50, and Taxi were in reruns at that point.

 

[qsd-dan]

ahhhhhhhh, childhood memories

 

[jeffg]

Matt, this schedule is for free broadcast TV. Not only were there no fees for pay channels, there were no fees period for any of this programming.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Thicke of the Night! I remember that well! They used to do some damn funny stuff on that show like making up dialogue to a movie they'd show with no sound! Like they do now on "Who's Line Is It Anyway?."

Chuck

 

[toggleswitch2]

Actually, I find shows along the lines of today's CSI to have quite a bit of merit.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Funny-

In looking closer, I see that a lot of the daytime line-up is re-runs of night-time shows: Diff'rent Strokes, Incredible Hulk, Bewitched, Mission Impossible, Adam-12, Starsky & Hutch, Eight is Enough.....

Chuck

 

[toggleswitch2]

Eight is Enough.....

It is?

 

[douglasdc6]

I watch all the old tv shows on you tube now days.

Todays television is garbage, Mostly intended for 3rd grade mentality trailer trash .

 

[ptcruiser51]

Jimmy Swaggart!

AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

 

[mattl]

Well we all have different tastes, but in no way would I consider a show like Damages, or Rescue Me geared toward a 3rd grade mentality.

Sure, there were some good shows in the past, but to me today's stuff is better written, free from the limits of broadcast restrictions, have higher production values, and often better acting. True there is a lot of crap out there but there are also hundreds of channels to fill. To be honest with the limited number of channels back then the quality should have been higher, but Manimal?

Competition has served us well. You could not conceive of a show like Weeds or Jackie even 10 years ago, yet Weeds is in it's 5th or 6th season with a skewed world view, True Blood is taking off quite strongly, and lets not forget a show like The Soprano's. They all have strong fully developed characters and well though out plots.

Trying to compare a show like The Soprano's to a show like Dallas, both soaps in a way, is like comparing a Nancy Drew to some of the stuff by Elmore Lenard - sure there may be a who-done-it, but that is all they have in common. Some of it stems from the difference in broadcast vs cable/SAT, but a good plot and good story telling can be done on broadcast tv, but it's not. Compare a procedural on any of the broadcast networks to a show like Saving Grace, sure they are cop shows, but Grace has a lot better sense of reality to it.

I can't think of too many broadcast shows other than Lost that keep you thinking. All the CSIs are there just to show gore, House has devolved into the illness of the week, Bones has turned into Moonlighting, and so on. At this point there is nothing on broadcast that I would put up against the stuff on the basic tier of cable/SAT. Why do you thing NBC stripped Leno 5 nights a week?

 

[danemodsandy]

What Gets Me:

Is the CBS Saturday night lineup for the early '70s. On one night, every week, you had:

All in the Family
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Bob Newhart Show
The Carol Burnett Show

Over the years, other shows came and went within that lineup, like Bridget Loves Bernie, but the four mentioned above were the core of CBS's powerhouse Saturday nights.

You don't get that much good TV in a year now, at least, not on network broadcasts. Thank God for DVD and the Retro Television Network. I know you can also watch a lot of classic TV on the Internet, but after working on a computer all day, I'll be damned if I want to watch TV on it.

 

[mielabor]

Interesting to see an American TV guide.

So the numbers in black ellipses are channels? And all programmes have a duration of 30 minutes or a multiple thereof?

Never seen such a thing here.

 

[perc-o-prince]

So the numbers in black ellipses are channels?

Yep, that's how they did it. And, most shows were in 30-minute increments as you've discovered. As I remember, it was pretty rare for anything to run off-time unless it was late for a sporting event or something like that. If a movie was run, commercials were placed to have it run the "proper" amount of time!

Chuck

 

[jeffg]

Theo, yes and mostly yes. This rule was sometimes broken by sporting events, films and other programs, e.g. note the start of "Lawrence of Arabia" at 8:15PM.

Sandy, Thursday nights on NBC were another powerhouse.

I wish I could find more old listing like this. One UK website covers all BBC listings going back forever, I wish something similar existed for TV Guide.

 

[perc-o-prince]

So the numbers in black ellipses are channels?

Now that I think of it, at some point it went from just white numbers in black ellipses, to those and black numbers in a black-bordered rectangle w/ the corners rounded. Each show might have anywhere from 1 to 4 or more channels next to it. Does anyone remember what the difference was between the two ways of showing the channels? Was it because of cable?

Chuck

 

[jeffg]

No, the black numbers in a black rectangle were UHF channels (as opposed to VHF, shown above).

 

[andrewinorlando]

There were very few good shows that originated in the 80's. They were kind of moronic if you ask me. The 60's and the 70's were a different story. Today's TV is far better in many ways, though there is still plenty of crap on, there are far more channels to spread it out over. Nothing of the time compares to Nurse Jackie, Weeds, Damages, and the list goes on.

 

[jeffg]

I agree with that, Andrew. Cable was the major nail in the coffin of free TV.