After hearing us do the podcasting equivalent of throwing around the ol' horsehide for about 40 minutes, continue to enjoy The Baseball Bunch with us by watching our video playlist! In addition to the Chet Lemon episode we discuss (most of it, at least), when you click below you will find commercials, PSAs, talk show appearances, singing, and of course HIJINKS from the San Diego Chicken!
And remember you can visit our official YouTube channel anytime to hear past episodes of the podcasts and specific playlists for each one of them. BOTNS fever--catch it!
*NBC broadcast the MLB Game of the Week from 1957 to 1989, with exclusive rights from 1966 till it lost the package. Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola became the #1 announce team in 1983. Bob Costas and Tony Kubek were the #2 team in that stretch.
*The first player to get a contract with an annual salary of a million bucks per year is Nolan Ryan, who signed a 4-year contract with the Houston Astros as a free agent after the 1979 season.
*Was baseball best in the 1980s? You tell us!
*Listen to us discuss the Punky Brewster 1984 NLCS episode here.
*Lance Parrish was in Diff'rent Strokes' "Baseball Blues" in season 7. Teammates Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker were in "A Sense of Debt" from season 4 of Magnum P.I.
*I think Mike thought Kevin McReynolds was the "Peanut" he was remembering, but Jim "Peanut" Davenport was a player, coach, and manager in the San Francisco Giants organization, including in the Eighties.
Summer in America means baseball, so break out the peanuts and Cracker Jacks. For a few years in the eighties, Major League Baseball made an educational baseball show for kids--The Baseball Bunch. Johnny Bench, the Famous Chicken, the Dugout Wizard, and guest Chet Lemon teach the Bunch about shagging flies, eating right, and more.
50 years ago tonight, NBC premiered a summer variety series starring Richard and Karen Carpenter, Make Your Own Kind of Music. In addition to the brother/sister act, Mark Lindsay was a regular along with Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses. That comedy team went on to write for and produce TV like The Bob Newhart Show and Buffalo Bill before splitting in the mid 1980s and doing stuff like The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (Tarses) and ALF (Patchett).
The show lasted 8 episodes, and each one started with the theme of the letter "A" and went through the alphabet. The series aired 8:00 P.M. on Tuesdays, replacing The Don Knotts Show. In September, NBC revamped the night, with Ironside at 7:30 (replacing The Bill Cosby Show) and the debuting Sarge with George Kennedy at 8:30.
I don't know if there are a lot of full episodes of Make Your Own Music floating around, but there are a lot of highlights on YouTube!
It's time for my regular unsolicited, uncompensated reminder that TwoMorrows Publishing's RetroFan exists, is awesome, and that it has a new issue out. Issue 15, with Ricky Nelson on the cover includes a look at Evel Knievel toys of the Seventies, an article the infamous "rural sitcom purge," and a piece on The Muppet Show. If that ain't enough, Andy Mangels has a comprehensive story on Filmation's Super 7!
And while we're at it, I just snagged the new issue of its sister pub,Back Issue, and the theme of this one is TV tie-ins of the (comic book) Bronze Age. Included are the likes of Sledge Hammer, Emergency, and V!
1) Alice: Can you believe it took till our ninth season to get to this sitcom? Or is it harder to believe that this sitcom lasted 9 seasons itself?
2) Crisis on Infinite Norman Lears: The fantastic event Mike and I have alluded to on the podcast (and by alluded to, I mean BS'ed about and thought it sounded funny) became one step closer to reality this week when Amazon dumped multiple Lear series onto its Prime Video and IMDB-TV platforms. Great move, Amazon, and you saved a lackluster July for classic TV fans. Now how about making IMDB-TV shows free for those who actually pay for Prime?
3) Vic Tayback: Mel Sharples rules! Sure, he's stingy, grouchy, and chauvinistic, but that usually lasts for only about 22 minutes, and he's much better in the last minute or two.
4) Marvin Kaplan: I'm sure the late great character actor would have been honored to learn he topped my Power Rankings of Diner Regulars. He's also #1 on my list of TC's Gang Members:
5) Linda Lavin: I guess we should give the star of the show some love, huh? I mean, the show is called Alice, not Mel, Henry, nor Flo. Wait, that last one sounds familiar.
6) "Kiss my grits!": If you could pick one phrase to epitomize the rise of "Southern chic" of the late 1970s, it would probably be something else--maybe a Billy Carter quote? But this one would be no lower than number 6!
7) Tommy and Vera: Honestly, I feel bad about leaving them out so far. Tommy wasn't even in the episode we covered!
8) Audrey Landers: Happy birthday to someone who, as you might imagine, shows up a lot in the shows we cover for the podcast. In fact, I think I have seen her a handful times just in things we are doing this season!
9) Jackee: Because a waiting room I was in happened to have Days of Our Lives running, and I saw her and thought, "Hey, it's Jackee!" Good a reason as any to put her in the top ten, right?
10) R.I.P.: Paul Orndorff, Charles Robinson, and a special word for Rebecca Schaeffer, who was killed on this day in 1989.
