Do you remember when your television screen was free from graffiti?

No horrible station logos or other junk ...when end titles to programs didn't get squeezed into a corner and the rest of the screen taken up by advertising for another program or worse a commercial product?

Strikes me that hires color in 5.1 didgital sound is just about completely ruined by the appalling presentation by the networks with their video graffiti and endless program promos!!!

aaaaagh! :(

Take me back to when our screens were free of this video garbage!

Hi Chris. Know what you mean about TV logos being on the screens as watermarks in this day and age and other adverts covering part of the screen too. They can be real intrusive. I heard that ABC is going to put its watermark as of beginning of 2005 which Countdowns will have the ABC watermark on it.

I'm personally a fan of vintage station logos from the early years as they are of interest eg the late 70s Channel 7 colour machine logos and Channel 9's "Still the one" etc... And looking on some old Philips VCR cassettes even back then the movies and shows had on the bottom the logo and titlebar though it wasn't as intrusive. They are fun to come across on old tapes.

Nonetheless today's TV shows have too many logos on them and these watermarks that are constantly there can burn into plasma screen TVs which is an outrage. One of the worse TV graffitiing is musicMax when they put the song title bar on the bottom which is very intrusive and also they have the ordacity to bring up the title bar longer indicating what's coming up on musicMax within the next 10 clips. This ruins the clips being played!!!

Lastly I notice that some of my mates who edit their music clips on computer do their best to remove the station logos and title bars to get a clean graffitiless picture.

Cheers
Troy

I suppose it's nice to know that this on-screen trash is hated world-wide, although I wouldn't wish it on anybody!

I'll add to your list of complaints the following...

1) I miss when local newscasts were only 30mins or maybe an hour. Now they're at least 2 hours, and sometimes 3 hours! Still there is about 30mins of "useful" info. The rest of it is made-up BS, "Channel 7 on your side, etc." These investigative reporters are always taking on some story about the widda' lady who paid $5000 to have her furnace cleaned. Does nothing to infom me, but I guess I'm supposed to get the "warm&fuzzies" for some hipocritical TV station that runs 10 hours of get-rich-quick-scam infomercials all weekend.:thumbsdn:

2) I miss re-runs of good shows like Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Adam-12, Leave-it-to-Beaver, Bonanza, etc. on the independant UHF channels. Now, they run the same crapola 90s "urban-oriented" sit-coms day after day. :puke:

2a) Because the UHF channels are no longer independant, we no longer have "The 8 O'clock movie", Perhaps we'd see "Bullit, The 7-ups, Freebie & the Bean, White Lightning, Blues Brothers, etc." All movies I remember seeing on UHF TV. Now it's an endless parade of sit-com/reality excrement from UPN, WB, FOX and whatever half-ass network just got started last week. :butt1:

3) I really miss the local studio programming from the really cheesy UHF Channels (like old WGPR-62 in Detroit). Often they were laughable dance shows full of high-school kids. These were typically loaded with tons of low-rent graphics, just flashing words on the screen like "wow, fresh, hype". :D

4) I HATE all syndicated junk shows like Oprah, Dr. Phil, Jerry Springer.
:puke2:

5) Test patterns vs. infomercials (Mostly as it relates to late-night DX'ing) :bash:

6) Occasional screw-ups, like seeing a promo card fall down in front of a camera, and then people running around trying to fix it. :D

7) I miss a lot of the old artwork/styles of network promos. For example, I remember ABC (US) kept their very 70s-ish "Saturday Night At the Movies" promo well into the 90s. :lurk: (I'm surprised that the very old-looking Law & Order show title/song seems to continue unchanged)

8) The NBC logo that was just a red/blue triangle that looked like an "N".

9) Commercials where REAL dogs chewed bubble-gum in order to "talk" vs. today's scary-looking computer animations. :pawprint:

10) All that garbage about HDTV on shows that would suck just as bad if broadcast on a 35-line mechanical system! Who needs 1000 lines to watch "Happy Family"??? :no:

Well guys, that's my top ten. What can you add?

I feel bad for guys a young as Doug, who can't possibly remember when TV wasn't as crass and "corporate". At 31, even I know that I was at the end of that good era.

My late model Sony Wega displays the time in the lower right corner, only to be obfuscated by many station's logo/watermark. As near as I can figure, there's no way for me to move the time to another location (unlike my old Heathkit set!)

Another thing that annoys me about this set is that it doesn't allow you to change the color of this nor the channel numbers. Seems to me that this would've been quite simple to design into the set, probably just a matter of programming a chip.

Getting back to the titles, this has been mentioned before regarding the round color sets.....programming way back then was done with the available viewable image in mind. Granted there were lots of B&W rectangular sets which showed more (larger screen image) but the broadcasters had to make sure those with their super expensive color sets were able to see the graphics too. Obviously none of this matters to today's broadcasters (most of whom probably weren't born long after roundies!)

It's just this constant bombardment of advertising today that makes even Blade Runner with their floating digital billboards pale in comparison. Anyone been to or seen Times Square lately? Never in it's history has there been so much advertising there....THIS is their heyday NOW.

Anthony
PS Anyone else have a Wega? The Steady Sound on mine doesn't seem to work at keeping a level volume and am wondering if there may be something wrong with it.

Carmine:

TVLand or Nick at Nite for the old B&W series. AMC, TCM or Bravo for the movies.

The only thing I watch on broadcast TV is football and some basketball; otherwise the main networks aren't worth the effort to change the channel.

As to the Detroit news; it only takes 30 seconds.
Someone got murdered, some politican was caught drunk or stealing, taxes are going up, you're getting ripped off, and the Lions lost :dunno:

Ahh, you boys are mere pups; still wet behind the ears. I can clearly remember"The Following Program is Brought to You IN LIVING COLOR-on NBC" & the cheesy animated peacock & tooty flute music that went along with it. you're right why do local stations insist on drawing the local news out to a couple hours, when it could easily be done in 15 minutes? Ever notice, too, about all the women on local news look pretty much exactly alike? ALWAYS a "regulation 'helmet-head' hairdo", take-me-seriously suit-never a dress, rarely pretty, but hardly ever ugly either. And they're always DEADLY SERIOUS, whether they're at the scene of a 25-car pile-up or the state fair. 99% of what they say & show is so effin bleedin' obvious- but they're Serious Journalists, so take 'em Seriously. Back to you Bob...-Sandy G.

What everyone said is the reason I watch Archie Bunker on DVD instread of this broadcast shit.

I hate:

1. Squeeze ceredits. Just because NBC had to do something moronic doesn't mean everyone else has to copy it. Then again, CBS has ALWAYS copied everything NBC ever did. I feel the FCC should outlaw this and force networks to go back to traditional closing credits, under threat of fine and/or license revocation.

2. Network news not doing real investigations. They should have investigated and exposed the election fraud in Florida 4 years ago, the wrongdoing at Enron and the other corporations that got caught, and they should be investigating all the lies in the Bush ads. Networks should not be owned by corporations that have contracts with the government, like GE.

3. All reality shows, peroid.

4. The fact that soap opera producers and writers are going for the lowest common denominator (all teens all the time) and not writing intelligently. I no longer watch As The World Turns and The Guiding Light because of this.

5. The fact that CBS interrupts AS THE WORLD TURNS more than any other CBS show. If Bush farts, instead of seeing ATWT, we'll see Dan Rather giving 20 minutes of in-depth analysis on the Presidential whiffer.

6. Local news doesn't need to be more than 30 minutes. Larger markets can support 60 minutes. Youngstown, Ohio is now a breeding ground for fluff and the next generation of tabloid reporters. Most of the good ones left. The few good ones there are established and I doubt they'll ever leave. More power to the good ones. Columbus is a good market.

7. The fact that local news will investigate the crooked furnace cleaner, but won't investigate the labor law violations at Wal*Mart. There should be protection for the stations so they can do local investigation and not lose advertisers. Stations should also not hire former salespeople as news directors. This is a big part of the problem.

8. I can't stand graphics that tell me what show I'm watching. I know it's AS THE WORLD TURNS. And, I know The Guiding Light is on next. It's been that way for 17 years. I thought that was what TV listings were for.

9. The fact that CBS plasters the CBS eye everywhere, especially on Browns football. I KNOW IT'S CBS. Wait, I thought it was NBC... no, that's the peacock. I do not like seeing the CBS eye incorporated into team logos. I also can't stand the eye twirling and being animated in other ways. I can't stand them highlighting the first down marker (ABC and FOX are just as bad). CBS announcers are biased against the Browns. What are they going to do if the Browns win a Super Bowl (yeah, right). NBC needs to get the AFC back. News and sports are the few things NBC does right.

10. Too many news magazines. One 60 minutes and one Dateline are enough. On tonight's Dateline, every house has one and nobody gives it a thought. But, your whooppee cushion can become deadly if used improperly. Dateline investigates.

End of rant.

Wow - this one sure set every one off.
Most of my co-workers pick on me because I do not have either cable or satellite TV, IMO, why bother?, just more stations not to watch.
Seeing all the notes listed about the garbage that is on these days makes me understand even more why a room strictly devoted to music is not something weird or that I am sick in the head and just trying to escape from reality.
My thanks to all for the ranting as I know that I am not missing anything and that my opinion of most of the things on TV these days belongs in the garbage can.
Oh and I do agree, re-run those 30 minute black and white Twilight Zones, especially "My name is talking Tina and I am going to kill you".
Thanks again.

Originally posted by Sandy G
I can clearly remember"The Following Program is Brought to You IN LIVING COLOR-on NBC" & the cheesy animated peacock & tooty flute music that went along with it.Sandy G.


Early 50s (http://www.kingoftheroad.net/KARD_html/bw_chimes.html)

50's Peacock (http://www.kingoftheroad.net/colorTV/peacock1.html)

60's Peacock (http://www.kingoftheroad.net/KARD_html/peacock2.html)

the 60s (http://www.kingoftheroad.net/KARD_html/NBC_color_chimes.html)

And then there was the CBS (http://www.kingoftheroad.net/colorTV/cbs_logo.html) Logo


Damn I hope this all works.....

Hockey fans probably can remember the days when the ice and boards were free from billboard advertizing. Then came the advertizing. First it was just the boards. this was an intrusion, okay I can live with this. Then not content with that they needed to put that *hit at center ice. Okay, well let this one go too but enough already. But I swear the day the NHL allows this crap inside the blue lines on the ice like they do for international hockey I will no longer watch the game. They even force the referees and players to put an advertizing sticker on they're helmet or Jersey. Hasn't anybody got any sense of dignity anymore to allow corporations to shove their BS onto even themselves. If this were me I would have walked and told them where they could shove it!:uzi:

I miss Family classics with Frazier Thomas, Sunday afternoons in Chicago's WGN. It was the time that me and my great grandfather would watch movies like Abbott & Costello in Buck Private or Davey Crockett or one of hundreds of other truly great TV broadcasts. I wouldn't trade that time for anything in the world..

This shit they call Television now is pure unadulterated CRAP aimed at kids and parents with no morals, no imagination and certainly no taste.

Just the other day I was at some crappy super store and ran across a DVD copy of Abbott & Costello's Jack in the beanstalk. Me and my 6 year old daughter have spent some of the best father daughter time together ever watching this movie. She absolutely adores A&C and I cannot wait to turn her on to some of the other many Great shows from when TV was TV.

Just wish my other kids would acquire a taste for TV other then for a quick shot of T&A or some absolutely mind numbing POS "reality" show.

Yeah, bring back "Twilight Zone". Even the worst TZ is better than 6 hours of local news pablum read by Muffy & Bob. And "The Outer Limits"-talk about cheesy efx, but they sure scared hell outta me back when. Remember "The Zanti Misfits" & all those little ants?!? Or "A Feasability Study" where everybody had this gawdawful case of acne? Oh man...instead we get Muffy & her shoulder pads telling us breathlessly about some minor scandal at city hall-the mayor's brother-in-law got his dog license for free the last 3 years. Big woo.-Sandy G.

Originally posted by Sandy G
Ahh, you boys are mere pups; still wet behind the ears. I can clearly remember"The Following Program is Brought to You IN LIVING COLOR-on NBC" & the cheesy animated peacock & tooty flute music that went along with it. -Sandy G.

Not only do I remember it, but how about that Star Trek episode (Bread and Circuses) in which Kirk has to battle a Roman gladiator while being televised live an IN LIVING COLOR! (so said the announcer). What a funny touch that was.

Anthony

I'm only 22, but I remember how much better TV was up until the early to mid 90's. There was something extraordinary about watching TV then. After that, everything for the most part sucks. I now mainly watch DVDs and recordings of shows. I do watch some regular TV, but I record it first and watch it on the weekends.

I collect Betamax VCRs, tapes, equipment, etc. and I recently went through and found stuff my parents recorded from the early 80's on there. It was awesome. Heck, I love to watch the commercials on there. One tape has some of the CBS special presentation logos going on with the music. Had some movies recorded off of UHF stations when they were independent stations, and it is setup totally different than todays stuff. I love to have recordings off TV from the 80's and earlier with commercials. It is really a different experience.

Whoa there, hold off on that carwash son. TV was never all that great......lest anyone forget all those "high school plays" entitled

Banacek
McMillan and Wife
McCloud
Hotel
etc.

Incredibly poor writing, direction, acting, and even lighting and camera work (hell, I saw a dolly shot that looked like it was shot at sea during an earthquake!) And this wasn't just the 70's either, look at all those miserable Westerns....even the vaunted Bonanza is filled with mediocre acting, cheap sets, poor lighting etc.

We all tend to view the past with rose colored glasses.

Anthony

Having never seen a McCloud episode until yesterday, I can say that yeah, it was pretty bad. But I think that's part of the charm that makes it so entertaining. There are still some excellently scripted programs out there today that could give Adam-12 and Dragnet a run for the money...I'd probably nominate Law & Order as one. And then there are those shows that had a unique personality about them that just shout about the era in which they were made, like the Rockford Files or Matlock (crazy 80's hair, outfits and cars).

Whatever happened to gameshows!!??

Gotta agree with you here Anthony.

TV has always been maybe 5-10% good-great stuff and the rest was filler, we don't remember or rerun the filler so all we know is the good stuff. ( I wish I could see some of the filler from the 40's-50's, I love crappy TV :))

In the old days it was all concentrated on three networks, now it's spread out over 200 channels and almost none of ithe good stuff is on the Nets anymore :(

eric

P.S. as much as I love the original Star Trek, it's so dated and corny now it should get the MST3K treatment :p:



Originally posted by heathkit tv
Whoa there, hold off on that carwash son. TV was never all that great

Most of my co-workers pick on me because I do not have either cable or satellite TV, IMO, why bother?, just more stations not to watch.

Oh, you get that too?

Anthony, I'll not have you badmouth McMillian & Wife. I always found the Chief's attraction to his lovely brunette wife to be extremely realistic.

Love Matlock. Love when they make fun of Matlock on the Simpsons. Love anything with Andy Griffith I guess.

MST3K and McCloud in the same posting? Does anybody else get this?

Suffice to say that "modern" TV (production styles, not really the shows) sucks because it's boring and predictable. The shows suck too, just for different reasons. I'd rather have weak scripts and bad camera work than hours of immoral, sexed-up crap for kids to watch. Law & Order is one of the few things worth watching on modern TV. I miss Kojak.

Modern radio sucks too. All corporate, all the time. You do find some good stuff on AM every now and then. For you Detroiters, I just stumbled upon AM 1400 WQBH from 6-10pm weekdays. They've got a real, live DJ (Ray-moan) who plays RECORDS and jokes with the callers. It feels like I'm listening to radio circa 1965. Format is non top-40 Blues and R&B. (Etta James, Little Walter, etc.)

I, for one have liked, Mccloud, Mcmillian and wife(although it did dampen it a little, after Rock's "pasing"), Columbo(now, there's just one more little thing...), and some of the other 60's-70's shows, and would take ANY of them, over the garbage out now.(especially mission impossible, my favorite show of ALL time.)
I watch almots NO modern tv, nowdays, and with all of the (un)"reality " shows, I doubt If I EVER will!!!

I generally liked "M*A*S*H*" but boy oh boy, it sure did get preachy towards the end. -Sandy G.

Don't get me wrong, I love all those schlocky 70's cop and detective shows...........that doesn't mean they weren't slapped together worse than a blind retarded syphilitic quadriplegic monkey could do.

Anthony

C'mon Carmine, it's not all bad!

Sponge Bob Square Pants anyone! Great Cartoon, destined to be a classic I predict. :)

Reality shows suck big time, can't wait till the fad is over!

Anyone remember Freaks and Geeks? 1999 or so, great show cancelled due to lack of interest and network support.

Memories? Sitting in front of our GE color console (K8 chassis?) from sunup to sundown, tuned to WTTG Washington, with all those cartoons, Deputy Dog, Flintstones morning & afternoon, Looney tunes w/violence left in. "We are experiencing technical diffiulties, please stand by" sometimes it took 5 minutes or more...broken film? Sometimes I'd turn down the sound & put my ear to the side of the GE just to hear the hum. When we got a solid state set c.1980 it just wasn't the same, barely any hum! There was "AM Weather" on PBS, seemed to be on for hours. How much weather do you need? Well, no weather channel back then. Saturday morning WBAL had "Learning to Read", with a friendly older lady in a classroom-designed to teach reading to adults, if I remember right. I'd get up real early to watch the stations sign on, or stay up real late to watch them sign off. Some were elaborate-WJLA in DC had a great sign off with Ray Charles doing "America" and fantastic aerial shots of the capitol. Local WBOC would run about 15 minutes straight of PSA's prior to sign-off, while competitor WMDT had a great montage which included an aerial shot of a guy way up working on their transmitter tower. Many nights I would fall asleep watching WRC in DC to be awoken by the periodic sound of the annoncer (Mac MacGarry(SP?)) giving the station i.d.-they never went off the air. For quite a while after WMDT went on the air (1981+/-) there was nothing on from 7:30pm-8pm, just a screen with their call letters. Never did figure that one out. I remember WMAR Baltimore with "Private Secretary" running at 3 in the morning. WBFF Baltimore, now Fox but then independent, was popular with kids during the week-Captain Chesapeake played cartoons through at least the 80s, I still have my membership card from his show. They would actually run ads for CBS Saturday morning on WBFF!

What else? How about Super TV, on WFTY-50 in DC or WNUV-54 in Baltimore, regular stations until 7 at night, after which you needed a decoder and special antenna to see the movies they were running. There was Frank White on WBOC with the Southern Sportsman, a low budget hunting/fishing show, he played the same background music in continous loop, all brought to you by House Autry corn meal.

Gee, I'm rambling on too much...tv beta guy mentioned the CBS Special Presentation bit, and I always like that. They brought it back a few years ago for a Carol Burnett special, I sat there and just kept rewinding it, watching that little bit over and over and over...am I nuts or what:screwy:

Okay, I'd better go-oh, Big Dave, I caught a mistake in your list, under #2, you of course meant "all those lies in the Kerry ads"-happy to correct that for you!:p:

Easy way to get rid of the logos in the corner? Get a roundie!
:yippy:

---

Station water mark logos on the screen really piss me off!!
Who was the genius who thought up this waste of space?
Not only burns into plasma screens it burns into your subconcious!lol :headscrat :worried:
I no longer watch ANY televison except the occasional 'Motorweek' on PBS.
When my TV is on, only VHS,Laserdisc,DVD movies, concerts or DVD sets of shows like A-team,Gilligan's Island,Sledge Hammer,Thunderbirds or video games are playing.
Yeah cable has older shows on,but you have to deal with mega commercial breaks and that STUPID,IDIOTIC SCREEN LOGO!
Local news totally sucks!
First you get Local News for an hour then National News for an hour then Local again for another hour reporting the same crap they did the first hour.
I guess they all think that the American viewing public is all inbread,and need to know what station theys on every minute of every hour.
Hey! Bertha whut channel wus we watchin' gain!? huh,huh,huh
And news needs to be idiotic and repeated because we have no memory retention.
Nielson ratings are 'zero' at my home.
Cable? Ferget about it!
I wish someone would just snap and go into a broadcast facility and hold them at gun point demanding the removal of the watermark logo! Then THAT could be on the news! with the station's logo on the screen of course.

The genius behind that moronic bug in the corner of the screen? None other than Ted Turner.

I remember when cable was first becoming popular, Superstation TBS pioneered the bug as well as the idiotic idea to start their programing 5 minutes after the hour.

Originally posted by bgadow
Captain Chesapeake played cartoons through at least the 80s, I still have my membership card from his show.

Bryan:

Two words:

Ahoyyyyyyyyyyy Crewmembers!

I still have my official Autographed Photo of Captain C. Ran into him in a restaurant and asked for his autograph. Even mustered up the nerve to ask him to repeat the above tagline--and he did! I was in my 20's at the time.

Remember Katrina Owens who was on the show for a while? Went to grade school with her. Interesting gal.

Do you remember when channel 24 first started up? It was a regular station until about 8:00 PM and then it turned into the Home Shopping Club.

Hope I didn't hijack the thread...:rolleyes:

At least the candidates get equal time here at AK.

I feel game shows are dead. The new versions of the classics all sucked. I couldn't stomach Match Game 98. Louie Anderson hosting Family Feud made me want to throw a brick through a modern black box. I would hate to see what they would do to Password.

Look at NBC daytime in the 70's. They gave us winners like "The Magnificent Marble Machine." They wondered why CBS was kicking their ass. It wasn't until about 1980 that NBC had a decent game show lineup. During the decade, they had some good ones and some duds. They had to get stupid about it. Rolf Benershke replacing Pat Sajack (whom I hate) on Wheel of Fortune?!?:puke:

When I first got Game Show Network, they had just lost the rights to the Mark Goodson shows, except for The Price is Right (Barker and Cullen) and Family Feud 94 (which sucked). Instead, we got to see The Newlywed Game 26 times a day.

I would just bet Goodson and Todman are rolling in their graves.

Who else expects to hear "Todson" after the announcer declares just "A Mark Goodson Production"? I had gotten so used to the original hyphenated name. AFAIK Todson passed away hence the name change.

Regarding Kiddie shows, how about Capt Ahab from WLIW in Long Island? Big brute of a guy dressed up like a pirate, opens his mouth and a squeaky voice comes out "Hi Kids!" Ya coulda bowled me over with a feather!

Then there's the irascible Uncle Floyd (Vivino). Was on his show many times (WBTB West Orange NJ)

Anthony

my first memory of color tv was in the mid 60s at an electronics expo....a wall of tv sets (probably roundies but I cannot remember) with "The Flinstones" in glorious NTSC color ...LOL

Anthony, my "antique" NTSC, non HDTV, (circa 1990) Sony XBR (best freaking picture I've ever seen on a regular TV) has something in the service menu (accessed by pressing a hidden button on power-up) that allows you to move the clock (i'm pretty sure) yours prolly does too. Be careful tho, change the wrong thing an blooie, you can't see the picture any more to change it back! :eek:

Eric

Originally posted by heathkit tv
My late model Sony Wega displays the time in the lower right corner, only to be obfuscated by many station's logo/watermark. As near as I can figure, there's no way for me to move the time to another location (unlike my old Heathkit set!)

Thanks Eric....seems we've both watched this movie before:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12262&highlight=sony+menu

Anthony

I remember when the local stations started posting time & temperature in the corner, and I thought it was great idea. Not crazy about what is used now, but then I don't spend much time watching tv these days.

Veg, I remember when 24 first started, it was great, played lots of shows from the 60s. A real breath of fresh air, but it didn't last long before it went all shopping.

Big Dave, I missed Match Game 98-glad I did! I cannot imagine any scenerio where it would be any good! The original is hard to beat. Gene Rayburn was perfect for the part.

One thing about TV I like much better now,is the info in the top left hand corner of a football or baseball game telling me the score,the inning,whose on base,etc.I used to hate coming back from the bathroom and waiting till the end of the inning just to find out the score.And I know its not "retro correct" to say it,but it makes the game more enjoyable knowing where Priest Holmes has to run to get that first down,instead of waiting for the stripes to run out with the chains.

...........And while I'm at it,do we REALLY prefer seeing third rate prints of old movies cut to shreds looking like 16mm prints that were shown at my Junior High School before channel 9 decided to show it at 2AM with commercial breaks every 5.4 minutes?
TCM and AMC baby!
Jimmy

---

Originally posted by andy
There had to have been better stuff on TV than Green Acres, I love Lucy and Mr Ed.

Yes, like "My Mother The Car" :lmao:

Originally posted by Eric H
Yes, like "My Mother The Car" :lmao:

and Ren & Stimpy, Beavis & Butthead, Animaniacs, anything by Tex Avery, The Brady Bunch, Hee Haw, Speed Racer, The Jetsons, The Dukes of Hazzard, to name a few.

Well, that's my list, of course, I'm a sicko.:D

More on classic game shows (when they were good).

Match Game 7x/PM: A ture classic. It's where I heard Charles Nelson Reilly say "made doo-doo" as an answer.

Match Game (NBC, original version) Two teams of a celebrity and two contestants. Content was lame compared to the CBS version. I have seen two episodes and the scoring system was different. Only about nine episodes are known to have survived.

Password: Simple as:
CELEBRITY: "bull"
CONTESTANT: "shit"

Password is one of the few shows where revivals were better than the original. Only CBS color and primetime episodes survive (BW daytime are gone), All but a few of the ABC version are gone. Password Plus and Super Password are both completely intact. If done right (no jackass comedian or prettyboy as host with unknown "celebrities"), Password could be successful again.

The Peter Marshall version of The Hollywood Squares was the only good version, and lots of presumably destroyed tapes have been found . GSN aired them, then dropped them (morons).

It's no wonder why GSN ran The Newlywed Game 26 times a day. Most of the classics are gone, as in erased.

At least we have our memories of the good ones, no thanks to GSN.

Now, to unhijack the thread (I hope), if networks, producers and writers would learn to program intelligently (yeah, right), the audience will find it. Wonder how Ren and Stimpy would look on a roundie.

Oh yeah, heh, heh, now I remember :)

Originally posted by heathkit tv
Thanks Eric....seems we've both watched this movie before:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12262&highlight=sony+menu

Anthony

Originally posted by Big Dave
Wonder how Ren and Stimpy would look on a roundie.

Well, those of you with Roundies can wait until Oct. 12th when the 1st and 2nd season come out on DVD.

IMHO it should look great on a color roundie. I was watching my Beavis and Butthead DVDs the other day and I was thinking it would look cool on a roundie.

Yes, let's see some "Outer Limits" shows again; I can still remember watching the very first episode "The Galaxy Being" , back in 1963!! Does anyone remember the episode called "It Crawled Out Of The Woodwork"?

Another great scary show from the old days was "One Step Beyond"; some of them are out on DVD now.

As recently as the 1980s, some TV stations were still running 16mm film on the air.

Originally posted by bgadow
WBFF Baltimore, now Fox but then independent, was popular with kids during the week-Captain Chesapeake played cartoons through at least the 80s, I still have my membership card from his show. They would actually run ads for CBS Saturday morning on WBFF!

Made sense! CBS had the best Saturday programs, and they could pick them up later in return, I'll bet.;)

I'm bringing back another old thread early this morning. I couldn't agree more with most of the stuff said here, especially about late night TV (nothing but infomercials). Which is why I've been reading old posts here instead.

But we do have a good independent uhf station down here in LA - ch56 (until I read this I didn't know how good I had it, I thought they were more common)
During the day it shows old detective-type shows: Matlock, Rockford, Perry Mason, Kojak, Hawaii-5-O, etc.. and at night: the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, followed by the Twilight Zone (the original), nothing but infomercials after 10PM, and on most of the weekend though.

But AM radio here stinks, there used to be a station that I really liked that played all 50s music during the day and old radio shows at night, but that's gone now.

We all tend to view the past with rose colored glasses.

Anthony

Or the color balance on your set has the red gun a little too high and the blue gun a little too low.... :D

IBut we do have a good independent uhf station down here in LA - ch56 (until I read this I didn't know how good I had it, I thought they were more common)
During the day it shows old detective-type shows: Matlock, Rockford, Perry Mason, Kojak, Hawaii-5-O, etc.. and at night: the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, followed by the Twilight Zone (the original), nothing but infomercials after 10PM, and on most of the weekend though.

Are you referring to KDOC? I like that station.

David

"Are you referring to KDOC? I like that station."

That's it. I was just reading about all the old shows people wished were still on in this thread, and thought many of them are still on ch56. I also really like those old Twilight Zones. You must have a good antenna to be pulling that in out in Thousand Oaks.

Agree that KDOC is a pretty cool station on weekday mornings with Rockford and Matlock and Quincy and such, great shows to watch when nothing good on the other stations. Columbo once a week too!

The more things change, the more they stay the same.....

http://www.janda.org/b20/News%20articles/vastwastland.htm

Boy, ain't THAT the truth....<sigh>

Here in Pittsburgh from the early 1960's to the early 1980's, we used to have a horror show hosted by a man named "Chilly Billy" Cardille and it was called "Chiller Theater" on late Saturday nights on Channel 11, WIIC, now WPXI. If you see the old movie, "Night of the Living Dead," Chilly Billy is the TV reporter, IIRC. Anyways, they would use to have skits and stuff as well as talk about space aliens, UFO abductions, and othere paranormal stuff. I remember as a kid, eating pizza, downing pop and so on as we watched it every Saturday. There were others like that too, when we first got WOR on cable, they had something similar as well as WPTT, Channel 22 when it started up as an indy UHF station in 1978.

Today, we have an indy UHF station, low power, channel 59 here in Pittsburgh that show old shows like "Streets of San Francisco," "Hawaii Five-O," old Lucy shows from the 1960's and so on so it still exists here in Pittsburgh. On channel 59 on Saturday nights, there is a horror show hosted much like Chiller Theater used to do although it is more like a 21st Century version and it is called "The It's Alive Show" (www.theitsaliveshow.com) where they show much the same crappy movies Chilly Billy did although there are skits and even short horror films by local Pittsburgh producers. It brings back a lot of memories when I was a kid as well as there are some references to Chiller Theater and there is even an auto repair commercial hosted by a midget who used to be on Chiller Theater (or it could be his son) who now owns an auto repair business. The main host is "Professor Emcee Square." It's a real riot and hoot. I'm ready to get some pizza and pop and enjoy myself, bring on the acid reflux! ;)

I know here in Pittsburgh, we still have the mentality and though processes that are still very much in the 1950's or even the 1930's. Sometimes that's bad, other times that is good. There is a joke out there that if the world is coming to an end, move to Pittsburgh, you get an extra 50 to 70 years to live. :D

My faves growin up--

Howdy Doody

Soupy Sales

Morgus Presents (not necessarily in that order) DAMM !! I missed the 11:00 news! :tears:

how could I almost forget this one--Then Came Bronson '69-'70 starring Michael Parks whose character rides 'the long lonesome hwy' on a Harley Davidson Sportster (with the sleepy eye on the tank), with nothing more than a bedroll strapped to the handlebars and the clothes on his back, a leather jacket and the infamous watchmans cap tilted ever so slightly down his forehead not quite touching his shades.

The basic premise of the show is that he quits his job after his buddy commits suicide and he buys the Sportster to roam the countryside to clear his head. He stops only long enough to work for food and gas. He does help out some people along the way and sometimes he has to kick some ass and other times gets his ass kicked. (winsum,loosum)

I was 16 yrs old when the show was on TV. I knew as soon as I finished High School I was gonna buy me a bike and head on down that 'long lonesome hwy' . And I did . And I never stopped. ('cept for food and gas) :thmbsp:

Don't forget KDOC was the home for Gene Scott after he lost KHOF ch30. KDOC will do anything to make a buck.

All those cheesy horror film shows that every city seemed to have with their local talent introducing them always reminds me of that old SCTV skit with "Count Floyd".He would always be showing films like "The 3D House of Pancakes"."Veddddy Sceddddy".
Jimmy

That's it. I was just reading about all the old shows people wished were still on in this thread, and thought many of them are still on ch56. I also really like those old Twilight Zones. You must have a good antenna to be pulling that in out in Thousand Oaks.

Local cable carries it as part of their package. But, I did have some friends who actually worked a sports shoot for KDOC a couple of years ago. Their studio still uses Sony DXC-3000 cameras. I thought only the studio I worked for still used these 18 year old cameras. It made me smile.

David

I remember as a kid traveling all over the country with my parents in a 6000 pound station wagon (guzzleing 29 cent-per-gallon gas), listening to lots of local radio stations, and watching lots of locally produced TV shows. Now everyone watches the same stuff everywhere. There isn't any local personality to the programming; It's all the same homogenized crap. Except for the guy in the "Severe Extreme Pinpoint Weather Alert Center". And he still gets the forecast wrong about 135 percent of the time.

Those quicktime clips of the old NBC identification almost brought a tear to my eye. :tears:

I miss watching "Dobie Gillis" re-runs and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" with my dad on our old Hoffman Black-and-White. It had a steel cabinet and a steel swivel stand that squeeked so loud the people next door could hear it. We used a bent coat hanger for antenna.

A few years later, we would watch "Sea Hunt", and "The Rifleman" every night after dinner.

Watching the Gemini space launches on that set was really exciting, even I didn't understand the underlying political importance at the time.

Anyone remember "Moona Lisa's Science Fiction Theater" (1960s) on KOGO-10 in San Diego? She showed some of the worst movies ever made, and they were great!

This stuff all seems so long ago, but I remember it so clearly. And I miss it.


Geez, suddenly I feel old.

Geez, suddenly I feel old.
Yes, I feel so too. I remember television in the 1960's. No movie or tv show was interrupted by commercials. Every broadcast was announced by a lovely girl or fine-dressed man. But most of all, the tv presentation breathed a kind of calmness which is completely absent in today's television.
TV shows like Star Trek and Bonanza were family events, and everybody was talking about it.
But one exception I found in the present: the soccer game between Germany and Argentina yesterday was the most exciting television event since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. People are celebrating throughout the whole night.
And for me, this week was exciting in a personal manner too: our third child, a little daughter, was born on wednesday. Today, mother and child will return at home. And the weather of the weekend will be hot and sunny. Summer has really arrived. So we have much to celebrate here.
Eckhard

<<Yes, I feel so too. I remember television in the 1960's. No movie or tv show was interrupted by commercials.>>

Maybe a bit of rose colored glasses here - I am not sure about movies but didn't most regular tv shows still have commercials? Maybe not as many, and not as many breaks, but they still had them dispursed in the shows. Even the mentioned Bonanza and Star Trek, if you watch a dvd they have obvious spots in them where commercials would go.
But now they are getting really bad, I hate stuff like what TBS does to Everybody Loves Raymond, they run an episode, then cut out the credits so they can squeeze in another commercial, then start the next episode while squishing the picture up and running the credits from the PREVIOUS episode on the bottom of the screen! I'm suprised they don't just run two episodes side by side, then run a 1/2 hour of ads!
Also hate promo animations cable shows put on the bottom of a show all night long, those are very annoying and piss me off.

In some countries they did not run commercials in shows from the US. Bonanza and Star Trek had commercials when run in the US on NBC.

Star Trek, when it first aired between '66 and '69 had its program content interrupted only twice. Thanks to [/I] Holmesuser01: it's actually [U]three times the program was interrupted, plus there were the obligatory commercials injected at the opening and closing.] IIRC, back then there were regulations defining how much commercial content a program could have.

Reruns were a different animal. Using ST again as the example, in syndication on channel 11 from NYC, the storyline was chopped up with sections deleted to shoehorn more commercials. Back then, the early '70s, my young daughter and I would watch them religiously when I got home from the city. It wasn't until later in life when she saw the episodes untouched, could/did she fully appreciate the original story lines.

In some countries they did not run commercials in shows from the US. Bonanza and Star Trek had commercials when run in the US on NBC.
Tv shows, reports and movies are not interputed by commercials even today in our national television programmes. Movies and tv shows in the private television programmes are interupted for commercials every 20 minutes. Up to 1984, only national television programmes exist in Germany without commercials during a tv show or movie. In a small time window of two hours between 6 and 8 o'clock pm commercials between the last and the next broadcast were allowed.
Eckhard

---

Here we suffer from ~15 minutes of commercials per hour on the 3 commercial networks. They also have animations that crawl across the bottom of the screen and squash the end credits of programs into the corner of the screen in order to fill the rest with station promos. Most of the cable channels do the same thing. The foreign language/special interest channel on free to air (SBS) runs commericals between shows, but rarely interupts the shows themselves (at least the shows I watch, I suspect they may interupt some programs). Even our public access channel interupts their programs for ads, but not to the extent that the commercial networks do. The only channel here that doesn't run ads is the government operated ABC, but they do run their own promos between programs.

When I watch old tapes that have ads on them I can't help but notice that the ads and station promos seem to get more intrusive every year, but I still manage to ignore them most of the time. Though often network TV here is used more as background noise, or is simply on to test a set that I have just repaired. I find myself seriously watching less and less.

The national television programmes are based on fees. Everyone who ones a tv set has to pay broadcasting fees. Today the actual rate is 17.03 EUR for radio and television. See
http://www.gez.de/door/gebuehren/gebuehrenuebersicht/index.html
Students and unemployed persons are free from broadcasting fees. This is the reason why we had no commercials during the broadcastings.
Here are the programme tables:
http://www.dvb-t-nord.de/programme/index.html
Eleven programmes are national and eleven are private with funding by commercials.

Eckhard

Banacek
McMillan and Wife
McCloud
Hotel
etc.

Incredibly poor writing, direction, acting, and even lighting and camera work (hell, I saw a dolly shot that looked like it was shot at sea during an earthquake!) And this wasn't just the 70's either, look at all those miserable Westerns....even the vaunted Bonanza is filled with mediocre acting, cheap sets, poor lighting etc. We all tend to view the past with rose colored glasses.

Anthony

Well, that's your opinion. I would rather watch these great old shows than the crappy post-yuppie 90's bullshit that is all over the dial today. The technical limitations of the old shows are interesting to see today because in spite of this, by and large, the programs had good story lines. I would rather look through rose colored glasses than to have to see the garbage that is out there now.

I remember seeing a " I Dream Of Jeannie" episode where the laugh track ran amuck and
inserted a laugh track each time the closing credits changed. Prime time Saturday night.

FUNNY ?? I thought I was going to pass out from laughing so hard !! It never ran again, darn it.
And there was a Saturday morning cartoon show which had used film which had been shot, accidentally showing the bottom of the platten of the Oxberry camera. This showed the cell numbers flying by as the animations progressed.

I'll take mediocre 60's shows over ANY of the CRAP that's being forced down the public's throat nowadays.
Infomercials should be outlawed. Especially when 2 or more stations show the same wretched one at the same time and in the same time slot.. and when shown back to back to back without a single REAL program or vintage film to break the damned things up.
I don't have cable and don't plan on having it any time soon. Paying for infomercials and lousy programs doesn't work for me.

<<even the vaunted Bonanza is filled with mediocre acting, cheap sets, poor lighting etc.>>

I love when they are doing an actual outdoor shot, like the guys getting off their horses, then immediately walk over to a rock or tree on an obvious soundstage with the fake background and plants. However most of the outdoor shots are beautiful.
Another good one is Ozzie and Harriet, I believe they used a SINGLE 2-second laugh as the laugh track on every joke for the entire run of the series. I can't believe even people back then didn't think that was ridiculous?? Sounded like "AHH-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ahhh". I think that is one thing I don't miss - laughtracks. Yeah they still use them but not nearly so universally on sitcoms (what's left of them), and certainly not on other comedies like "The Office" where the viewer is the only one laughing (that is a funny show to me by the way). The ones I hated the most are ones like MASH where you KNOW there can't possibly be a real audience like in an outdoor scene... how stupid do they think we were/are?

laughtracks. Yeah they still use them but not nearly so universally on sitcoms (what's left of them), and certainly not on other comedies like "The Office" where the viewer is the only one laughing (that is a funny show to me by the way). The ones I hated the most are ones like MASH where you KNOW there can't possibly be a real audience like in an outdoor scene... how stupid do they think we were/are?

On the DVD season box sets of M*A*S*H you have the option of watching it without the laugh track! Don't know if I will though, I'm used to it the other way.

Back when the stations had the film in hand and edited it by actually cutting, one of the Chicago stations cut up one movie so badly that you couldn't follow the plot. (I think it was "The Egg and I".) Anyway, on that (umpteenth) showing, they got complaints, to the point where they announced they would show it end-to-end without edits the next month.

On the weekend, WGN had a late-night movie sponsored by "Jim Moran, the Courtesy Man" (big local Ford dealer). They actually installed fluorescent banks at the dealership and sent out a remote truck to do live commercials. Moran would have them play the movie uninterrupted for abolut 20 minutes, until some crucial point, then do 20 minutes of commercial in a block, then finish the movie without interruption.

I remember seeing a " I Dream Of Jeannie" episode where the laugh track ran amuck and
inserted a laugh track each time the closing credits changed. Prime time Saturday night.FUNNY ?? I thought I was going to pass out from laughing so hard !! It never ran again, darn it.

I wonder how the hell that could have happened... weren't the laugh tracks recorded onto the final version of the films that were broadcast like Jeannie, Gilligan's Island etc? Maybe the network or local station had their own extra 'laugh track button' or something, this is definitely weird!

On the subject of Chicago television (other markets may have done this too) but when they would run news stories, they actually had a library of music they used under the stories.

I think it was WGN but they always used the same piece of music under fire b-roll.

I love when they are doing an actual outdoor shot, like the guys getting off their horses, then immediately walk over to a rock or tree on an obvious soundstage with the fake background and plants.

Yea that always made me chuckle.

Even more silly and still seen is when a show is supposed to be based somewhere like Washington or Philly, but you see palm trees in the background revealing that it is actually California. I remember watching a chase scene in the Six Million Dollar Man where they were racing through downtown DC past all the palms of Sunset Boulevard. My dad yelled, "That's not DC!".

On the subject of Chicago television (other markets may have done this too) but when they would run news stories, they actually had a library of music they used under the stories.

I think it was WGN but they always used the same piece of music under fire b-roll.

I recall, at KTLA in Los Angeles, we ran music under our news stories. Dramatic stuff for the serious news and light music selections for the puff pieces. And a continuous teletype sound loop, very low background, when the anchor was on camera. Kept the audio person busy.

-Steve D.

Music under the news sounds weird but I guess back when they were doing it it seemed very natural. It brought to mind Frank White, "The Southern Sportsman". That syndicated show (it couldn't have been very widely syndicated) ran through the 80s and featured old Frank narrating films of his latest hunting or fishing expedition. None of the footage had sound so along with the narration was this catchy little tune that I can hear in my head like it was yesterday. My wife remembers it well, too-we often joke about it. Hey, in this 3 station market Frank coming on 7:30 Saturday night was a big deal! "brought to you by House Autry" and what brand of dog food did he sell?

<<even the vaunted Bonanza is filled with mediocre acting, cheap sets, poor lighting etc.>>

The biggest Bonanza laugh I got was in one scene where a DC-9 flew overhead on the Ponderosa :headscrat . I wonder if the producer noticed it, or if they didn't want to pay for a retake?

Similar thing in The Big Valley... I saw a really nice shiny Winegard color TV antenna ontop of one of the buildings in the 1850s Stockton, CA backdrop :nutz:

Charles

The same thing used to happen in Australia in the 60's & early 70's when I used to live in Sydney & I remember watching the news on ATN-7 & the news used to always run music under the news stories as was common practice at the time, Then in around 71 or 72 that came to an end.

I have a complete set of Capitol Records "Needle-Drop" recordings. We used these snippits of music as background music for commercials, our local shows, and other things. All the music was licensed to us for broadcast. MUCH of this music was used on network shows, and many of the early Hanna-Barbera cartoon shows, too I am fortunate to have been there when they were trashing this stuff. I got as much as I could cram into my truck...

I agree TV these days does suck. I remember when I was 10 when UPN and WB started buying up what was left of independent channels. I can remember in Minneapolis, for several months (similar to the "CW" ads WB channels run now) seeing "Your channel 7 is going to be the WB7!" Or whatever channel it was.

In Orlando the only independent channels we have are 52&45 (both religious) and channel 27 (which FOX now has either a controlling share in or wholly owns). 52 is junk and is either all religious shows or informercials. (I love how they show infomercials during primetime.) 45 is actually a decent channel, as they play Ozzie&Harriet, I Love Lucy, old Disney animated movies, etc. during prime time, just like they might have during the 50s.

Two years ago, channel 27 was wholly independent, and I can remember watching lots of local TV either late at night or during prime time. I can remember "The Family Auto Mart Show", which was an infomercial put on by a local car dealer, that actually was entertaining, "The Appliance Direct Show", a show by a local appliance store that had to be entertaining to compete, and "Having a Beer With Mike." Now the only time I watch channel 27 is when Southpark is on at 11pm. The majority of their shows now are old FOX rejects.

It's a shame, but That's the way it was, Monday, July 17, 2006.

Nostalgia's fun, but consider the following: "You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials--many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it."

Newton Minnow said that in 1961... so yes, the rose-colored glasses are 'on' here. That said, I definitely had a 'thing' for Susan Saint James on 'McMillan and Wife'!

Too bad Rock DIDN'T...

Ok Ive read this entire thread and agree, todays TV is nothing more than throw-away crap that isnt worth watching on a throw-away cube set. The only thing "modern' I care to watch is Law & Order and thankfully my Magnavox Astrosonic overscans enough to hide that worthless watermark. I use the commercial breaks to expel my used mtn.dew or grab another cold can.
My fondest TV memories before age 10 are watching Hawaii 5-0 followed by Adam-12 during the weekday evenings and weekends were World of Disney and Wild Kingdom all in bold Living Color on our Zenith Chromacolor set. If I got lucky and my dad wasn't watching football I could watch the fake wrestling matches with the MadDog, Andre The Giant and Mean Gene then follow it up with ABC's Wide World Of Sports. After school I would do my homework to the likes of Scooby-Do followed by Superman and whatever else the old KMSP-9 could string into the film chain at the time. (Screen Gems?) We had no watermarks or sliding titles like CNN, no "cram it down your throat" advertising infomercials or commercial clock, everything just happened when it did.
When I was 11 or 12 I had my own color set, RCA CTC-22 and could watch the Brady Bunch or M*A*S*H re-runs in my room with my mom sitting in my bean-bag chair sewing or whatever while my dad watched the monday night football games... mom hated football! I loved the old Plymouths and Olds Vista Crusier wagons on those shows, call me wierd I dont care!
Today the only thing I will watch on daytime TV are re-runs of 5-0 followed by Magnum PI and Little dump on the prairie. I have a Sony KV-4000 at my bench where I work and I hijack the shop antenna, everyone including the managers know better than to interrupt 5-0. At home I will watch the local news if I get home in time and Law & Order, nothing else is even worth the time of warming up the set to watch. One of the local channels was running the old Superman series but cut them short of the first color films for whatever reason, I have a soft spot for these because Noel Neil and my grandmother were best friends at Washburn High.

Now can anyone confirm that the entire Hawaii 5-0 series was coming out on DVD? Wish it was laserdisc as my Magnavox goes nuts over the "anti-copy" crap in the vertical bar, oh well maybe those rose colored glasses will come in handy, at least NO WATERMARKS!

Someone here made the mention of watching Ren & Stimpy would be best watched on a roundie? Ok to each their own like my old MoPars but the only thing I could salvage out of that series would be a LOG commercial, even my kid won't put up with Ren let alone Bevis and Buttplug. Actually he's not a kid anymore but spent a considerable amount of time watching TV during the 90s growing up. I actually got him hooked on 5-0 and now he tapes it for me so I can watch it on a period correct set minus the worthless commercial aimed at the low-life unemployed couch potatos, since when can you get a 4 year degree in just one year with all those operators standing-by? My kid works for the railroad dispatching overnight (CPR MN Disp) so he's home during the day.


Can anyone identify the Motorola radio series used in McGarrets car? I can and I have 9 working copies!

Ok Im going to find a good disc to drop into my VP-1000a and get the fireplace going, Empire Strikes Back is in order tonight on my Astrosonic.

Better late than never post from ARC tech-109

I suppose it's nice to know that this on-screen trash is hated world-wide, although I wouldn't wish it on anybody!

I'll add to your list of complaints the following...

1) I miss when local newscasts were only 30mins or maybe an hour. Now they're at least 2 hours, and sometimes 3 hours! Still there is about 30mins of "useful" info. The rest of it is made-up BS, "Channel 7 on your side, etc." These investigative reporters are always taking on some story about the widda' lady who paid $5000 to have her furnace cleaned. Does nothing to infom me, but I guess I'm supposed to get the "warm&fuzzies" for some hipocritical TV station that runs 10 hours of get-rich-quick-scam infomercials all weekend.:thumbsdn:

2) I miss re-runs of good shows like Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Adam-12, Leave-it-to-Beaver, Bonanza, etc. on the independant UHF channels. Now, they run the same crapola 90s "urban-oriented" sit-coms day after day. :puke:

2a) Because the UHF channels are no longer independant, we no longer have "The 8 O'clock movie", Perhaps we'd see "Bullit, The 7-ups, Freebie & the Bean, White Lightning, Blues Brothers, etc." All movies I remember seeing on UHF TV. Now it's an endless parade of sit-com/reality excrement from UPN, WB, FOX and whatever half-ass network just got started last week. :butt1:

3) I really miss the local studio programming from the really cheesy UHF Channels (like old WGPR-62 in Detroit). Often they were laughable dance shows full of high-school kids. These were typically loaded with tons of low-rent graphics, just flashing words on the screen like "wow, fresh, hype". :D

4) I HATE all syndicated junk shows like Oprah, Dr. Phil, Jerry Springer.
:puke2:

5) Test patterns vs. infomercials (Mostly as it relates to late-night DX'ing) :bash:

6) Occasional screw-ups, like seeing a promo card fall down in front of a camera, and then people running around trying to fix it. :D

7) I miss a lot of the old artwork/styles of network promos. For example, I remember ABC (US) kept their very 70s-ish "Saturday Night At the Movies" promo well into the 90s. :lurk: (I'm surprised that the very old-looking Law & Order show title/song seems to continue unchanged)

8) The NBC logo that was just a red/blue triangle that looked like an "N".

9) Commercials where REAL dogs chewed bubble-gum in order to "talk" vs. today's scary-looking computer animations. :pawprint:

10) All that garbage about HDTV on shows that would suck just as bad if broadcast on a 35-line mechanical system! Who needs 1000 lines to watch "Happy Family"??? :no:

Well guys, that's my top ten. What can you add?

I feel bad for guys a young as Doug, who can't possibly remember when TV wasn't as crass and "corporate". At 31, even I know that I was at the end of that good era.

I loved the old independent stations. Channel 41 in Kansas City! Good sitcoms that are funny. Todays Sitcoms are NOT funny. I hate shows like Access Hollywood. Who gives a s*** about this actor knocking up his wife or girl friend. Most of them will split in 6 months anyway. Yech! My lady friend doesnt understand why I dont give a damned about crap shows like these. In NY its in the 7-8 time span. Used to watch the Untouchables.

The screen icons suck to. Its bad enough to have ABC or CBS but the local affiliate adds theirs too. Too much. Since my 1989 Sony died I broke down and got HD TV. It has a zoom feature on it. You can pull the picture in so its not distorted on regular TV. Cuts out the stupid Icons! It does occasionally cut the tops of peoples heads.

News shows. Why cant the old independents like WWOR (used to be WOR) channel 9, I still call them WOR and WYNY Channel 5, still call them WNEW and the rest at 10 PM run an hour. A half hour is more than enough followed by a good old sitcom. I thinks its a way to keep people employed. At least at 11 PM the networks run only half hours--if you can stay up that late.

One gripe I have is CBS and NBC have three versions Law and Order and CSI. I dont watch the others. Law and Order on NBC and caught CSI Miami. Never watched the NY one. Cant handle the girl in that one having been in the NBC show Providence. ONE version of each is enough. And the reruns. Enough! TBS runs the hell out of Law and Order. Give it a rest!!!!

I think ABC ran out of shows to run so lets run the hell Grey's Anatomy. I like this show but not 100 reruns of the show. Enough!

Finally program director who keep changin when a show is on. PICK a time a leave it there. You get used to it and these morons change it. Leave it alone already!! Boston Public, I liked it on Sunday. Vegas in Mon night, Now its Fri. These over paid idiots cant think of anything to do so lets change the time. Enough.

Great post. I feel better now. Going to sign off now. I have had the radio on during this whole post! Great station on AM from Canada CHWO AM 740. Plays lots of cool stuff from big band,jazz, top 40. Ran a sound track of a Bugs Bunny cartoon last night at 11 PM eastern time.

Eric :music:

I worked for many years for a little Nashville indie station, WZTV, from its start-up, until 1982. We ran lots of shows, I Love Lucy, Beverly Hillbillies, Twilight Zone, Wild Wild West, Have Gun Will Travel, Hazel, I Dream Of Jeannie, The Monkees, The Flintstones, etc. etc. etc... The Honeymooners, The Partridge Family, Wonder Woman, Ben Casey... The list goes on and on... Oh yeah. How long since you've seen Petticoat Junction? We had a set of brand new prints!

We also ran Star Trek... Hey Pete! It was 5 commercial breaks in the shows, not 3. :)

We NEVER cut anything, ever! Our shows and movies were shown in their entirity.

Being that we didnt cut the shows at all, the film distributors sent us brand new prints of almost everything we played. One glaring aside was "Speedracer," which were some of the worst prints ever!

We maintained a huge library of Paramount features that were beautiful. Many prints were in Technicolor. Any prints that didnt pass my standards: excess scratches, splices, bad color, etc. were replaced. Period.

We ran a movie every weeknight at 8PM. Cinema 17. Good days, then.

We never forced a commercial break in a TV show, ever. Commercials always went where the show producers intended.

Now, FOX is on ZTV. Its just like all the others. I'm so sorry.

I'm so old I remember "SKY BLUE TUNING" on my first Sony 12" color set.

Now can anyone confirm that the entire Hawaii 5-0 series was coming out on DVD?

I am especially interested in that information.

This week's example of why I buy DVDs to watch television rather than the networks is a classis one.

Our network 9 here has the rights to the mega HBO/BBC series ROME.

First they cut scenes and combine episodes to fit one and a half hours into one hour and then they pull the series after two episodes.

Is it any wonder people are turning off network television to spend time on the internet or watching DVDs!

On a happier note, as a teen in the late 60s I saw, and was blown away by, a British televison series called "The Caesars" in living black and white. (It is similar to the very well known BBC series of the 70s "I Claudius").

It disappeared...the tapes were lost or erased ...all that remained were kinescopes. I am not sure if it 625 or 405 line.

Now the series has been put on DVD. it will be interesting to see how the series stands up after all these years.

Oh dear is this nostalgia setting in...

This week's example of why I buy DVDs to watch television rather than the networks is a classis one.

Our network 9 here has the rights to the mega HBO/BBC series ROME.

First they cut scenes and combine episodes to fit one and a half hours into one hour and then they pull the series after two episodes.

Is it any wonder people are turning off network television to spend time on the internet or watching DVDs!

On a happier note, as a teen in the late 60s I saw, and was blown away by, a British televison series called "The Caesars" in living black and white. (It is similar to the very well known BBC series of the 70s "I Claudius").

It disappeared...the tapes were lost or erased ...all that remained were kinescopes. I am not sure if it 625 or 405 line.

Now the series has been put on DVD. it will be interesting to see how the series stands up after all these years.

Oh dear is this nostalgia setting in...

I remember a time before the advent of colour television when the TV networks would at tell you when when a series is finished & ad's were always shown where the producers wanted them. TV shows always started at the published time in TV guides where as today the TV guide is more like a TV guess as shows are staggered to start anywhere from 5 - 30 mins from those published times, The only shows that start on time are news programs. TV shows are now edited to allow at least 15 mins of ads in every hour, TV shows used to be at least 50 mins in duration (Without ads) & now they are about 42 mins. There was a time when late night TV there was actually programs, Now there is infomercials or quizshows that are financed by calling a 1900 number to get on air.