do you remember when ...

[3Guncolor]

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.

[Pete Deksnis]

Star Trek, when it first aired between '66 and '69 had its program content interrupted only twice. [Update 7-4-06. Thanks to Holmesuser01: it's actually 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.

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by 3Guncolor

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

[andy]

---

[dr.ido]

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.

[yagosaga]

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/geb...cht/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

[radio63]

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.

[pallophotophone]

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.

[frenchy]

<<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?

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by frenchy

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.

[old_tv_nut]

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.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by pallophotophone

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!

[jimmymagick]

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.

[Jack Lord]

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!".

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by jimmymagick

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.