TV Listings from 10/14/83

[danemodsandy]

MattL:

Check your TV Guides out on eBay before you throw any away - some from the '60s and '70s are worth some money, like Brady Bunch stuff.

 

[frigilux]

I have a book somewhere that lists network nighttime programming from 1946 to sometime in the '70s. I haven't seen it (or thought about it) since I moved into my house. I'll have to look for it.

Programming was understandably thin during the first couple of years. The book includes the DuMont network, which I think was gone by the time I was born in '59.

Of COURSE there is a lot of garbage on current TV, but there are also hundreds of channels. I think we have many more programs of quality and distinction to choose from today than we did back in the 1970s.

It's great having channels like Bravo, Turner Classic Movies, The Food Network, The History Channel, National Geographic, Independent Film Channel, The Sundance Channel, HGTV.... I would never want to go back to having only CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS.

You have to remember that while we look back fondly at shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, I Dream Of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, etc., they were panned as dreck by most critics in their day.

 

[jeffg]

Eugene, the shows were panned as dreck in their day, because they were dreck, compared to prime time programming at the time. But the fact that all of these shows are still making millions in syndication, 30 and 40 and sometimes 50 years after they were made, speaks for itself.

Also, to get your list of cable channels we'd have to pay nearly $80/month. Compared to no charge at all back then.

 

[frigilux]

Jeff, if you aren't stealing cable...well, there's just no hope for you, LOL!


But, let's say I'm going to forego cable and take CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox from the airwaves at no charge. I still contend there are as many or more good-quality major network shows today as there were in the '70s-'80s.

As for syndication, people will even watch anything that had decent ratings in its heyday. People watch The Love Boat and Three's Company, for god's sake! They make The Golden Girls episodes seem penned by Wilde by comparison.

 

[danemodsandy]

Frigilux:

:"You have to remember that while we look back fondly at shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, I Dream Of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, etc., they were panned as dreck by most critics in their day."

Yes, they were. But they were harmless fun, with a little story that took your mind off life's troubles for half-an-hour. They did not serve up public humiliation in the guise of "entertainment," the way so many reality and newsmagazine shows do today. Even sitcoms have gotten so nasty (I'm referring to civility of tone here) that they're getting hard to watch. I can get plenty of nastiness from real life; I don't have to spend time in front of the tube to get it. So far as the public humiliation factor goes, I know I'm probably one of a handful of people left who is made uncomfortable by it, but I just can't stand to watch it.

Nearly all my viewing now (I'm on broadcast only; Not. Gonna. Pay. for TV signal) is PBS and Retro Television Network. Favourites include:

- MI5 (known as Spooks in the U.K.)
- Last of the Summer Wine
- The Vicar of Dibley
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
- The Rockford Files
- Are You Being Served?
- ABC World News Tonight

Note that only one of those choices is current network fare. Says something, doesn't it?

 

[frigilux]

I couldn't agree more about reality shows. They are a mirror to our society's worst tendencies; and they're cheap to produce, so naturally they've bred like rabbits.

I don't watch news magazine programs programs either---Entertainment Tonight, etc. I'm not into pre-fab celebrity, nor do I really care what Ben Affleck does offscreen----although I will say he is a very, very, very, very handsome man, LOL.

As for modern sitcoms having a more serrated edge, you're right. All In The Family through a big brick through the window of civility and manners and harmlessness, and there was no turning back. But given the choice between watching 30 Rock or Laverne & Shirley, I'll take 30 Rock every time.

 

[jeffg]

By the time AITF came around in '71, we's already been through the 1960's counterculture, and a long list of TV shows which reflected this culture clash.. David Frost, Dick Cavett, even comedies like the Smothers Brothers Hour had become politically charged.

All Norman Lear did was finally reflect this cultural divide, which had existed for several years prior, in a prime-time sitcom. It may have been groundbreaking but it was also inevitable.

 

[danemodsandy]

Frigilux:

I agree that Laverne and Shirley has been surpassed by many a sitcom since, LOL.

All in the Family definitely did change what was acceptable or not acceptable in a sitcom. The difference between that show and today's was that the spikiness of All in the Family was there for a reason - exposing bigotry. Many '70s sitcoms had an amount of social content that was downright startling by today's standards - even The Mary Tyler Moore Show dealt with very pertinent issues like prescription drug abuse, racism, Watergate, gays, divorce and more. The zingers on those older shows often exposed a character as someone who was clinging to outdated prejudices or some other damaging construct. One of the biggest laughs ever on The Mary Tyler Moore Show came when Phyllis thought Rhoda was after her brother Ben. Rhoda assured Phyllis she had no interest other than friendship, and in typical fashion, Phyllis reversed course:

PHYLLIS: What do you MEAN you're not interested? He's single! He's successful!

RHODA: He's gay.

Cloris Leachman's look of absolute shock at hearing the truth put so plainly generated one of the longest laughs ever on a sitcom - and the episode presented a gay character as just another person, a TV first.

But today, the zingers seem to exist largely for the purpose of cheap one-upsmanship, to see who on a show can out-nasty the other. It's not the same.

I also find the "cartoon" style of acting seen on many of today's shows very irritating. Ugly Betty is perhaps the leading example. I see mugging and exaggerations on that show that would have gotten you flunked out of high-school drama class when I was younger.

 

[jeffg]

Ah Cloris.. Her "beggahs begging from beggahs" line in History of the World has become a mainstay in our house.

 

[launderess]

Eastern, Central Mountain and Pacific Time

Remember hearing programmes being announced, say as in a commercial for an upcoming episode or such as "8 Eastern.....", and wondering just what and where was "Mountain Time". *LOL*

IIRC old telephone directories had area code maps of the United States, and they broke down areas into "Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific" times. That was the answer to my question.

L.

 

[launderess]

ReRuns On Daytime Televison

Well that was the norm in the pre-cable world, wasn't it? I mean now all those programs are owned by huge conglomerates which in turn also own the networks, and mostly are held captive to the score or so of affliated cable broadcast stations.

After weekday morning televison was over (news, perhaps a chat show, cartoons and the like), re-runs started and pretty much ran until soap opera time and in some cases right up until 6PM news.

 

[frigilux]

I think old films have been best served by the era of VCR/cable/satellite/DVD.

Old movies ran late at night pre-cable/pre-VCR, but you'd wait a lifetime trying to see, for instance, all of Cary Grant's films, or Katherine Hepburn's. I recall our local movie theater would run an old classic every once-in-awhile---Streetcar Named Desire, or Suddenly Last Summer. They would sometimes pop up at the drive-inn, as well.

Thanks to Turner Classic Movies, I think I've seen nearly every film made by one of my favorite old-school directors, George Cukor.

 

[launderess]

Well, Until Recently

One could see many of those "vintage" films on PBS, well at least in our area.

Both Channel Thirteen and WLIW, amoung others routinely showed great films as part of their Saturday night line up. However now that those films are the property of aforementioned huge companies, the offerings are much slimer. For obvious reasons Turner and other "broadcast" networks would rather keep such things to themselves, than have them seen for "free" and without commercials on PBS.

When one says "free", this is not totally true, as PBS stations like others had to pay a fee to run the movie, but back in the old days this was rather small beer. As cable grew and the big companies that owned the vast film archives realised there was gold in those reels, the price went up.

Who is Afraid of Virgina Woolf?
Butterfiled8
Suddenly Last Summer
Streetcar Named Desire
Now Voyager
All About Eve
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte
The Graduate

And many others were films one first saw on PBS stations.

L.