do you remember when ...

[Cory]

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!!??

[Eric H]

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

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

[Carmine]

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.)

[rca2000]

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!!!

[Sandy G]

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

[Eric H]

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.

[bgadow]

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

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!

[nasadowsk]

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

[andy]

---

[madpioneer]

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
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.

[jimmymagick]

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.

[veg-o-matic]

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...

[Big Dave]

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?!?

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