Battle of the Network Shows

Friday, February 20, 2026

Alfred Hitchcock: Man of Mystery! And games! And Funkos!

On the podcast this week, I mention a board game Laurie and I have. We have not had the chance to play it yet (It says 8 players on the box, and maybe we don't need quite so many, but the "audio cassettes" aspect is a bit inconvenient), but here is a look:

Additionally, Laurie got me a few Funkos based on Big Al's movies for Christmas: Rear Window (one of my favorites), North by Northwest (ditto), and The Birds (not one of my favorite flicks, but it's a fantastic Funko):

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Show Notes and Video Playlist: Episode 13-13: Alfred Hitchcock Presents

*Thank you for listening to this season's "retro retro" show! This week, we look at Alfred Hitchcock Presents, an anthology that aired mostly on CBS (also on NBC, though) for 7 seasons (1955-1962). Many consider the hourlong version, essentially the same show but twice as long, part of the same series, which would make the total 10 seasons (1955-1965) and 361 episodes.

*Season 4's 'Six People, No Music" is the John McGiver episode Mike mentions. The Claude Rains story I cite is Season 7's "The Door without a Key."

*The missing episodes we discuss are available on DVD but not in the streaming packages.

*The NBC revival premiered May 5, 1985, and then the network did pair it with Amazing Stories on Sunday nights in the Fall. It only lasted one season, but USA Network picked it up in 1987. The stories were new, but the intros/outros were colorized versions of the ones Hitchcock did on the original.

*Dave Poland's Substack is here.

*Here is a look at the record album Mike mentions. The entire LP is available online:

*"Breakdown" premiered on CBS Sunday, November 13, 1955.

*We talk about Killdozer here.

*"The Glass Eye" kicks off Season 3. "You Got to Have Luck" with John Cassavetes is in the middle of the series' first season. Mike also refers to Season 4's "Design for Loving" with Norman Lloyd.

*Never Again" is in Season 1. "Bang! You're Dead" aired in Season 7. "The Crooked Road" is early in Season 4. "Shopping for Death" in Season 1 is another Ray Bradbury story.

*Before meeting a grim end late in life, Robert Stevens directed scores of AHP episodes but also the Twilight Zone pilot and an episode of Amazing Stories.

*Please enjoy this episode's video playlist, with promos, intros, commercials, and more! Click below to go right to it, or you can always visit our official YouTube page for all of our past episodes and similar lists for each one of them!

Episode 13-13: Retro Retro: Alfred Hitchcock Presents

For this season's Retro Retro episode, we asked listeners to vote on one of three suspense anthologies, and they overwhelmingly selected Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The original half-hour version aired for seven seasons around the time Hitchock was also making classic films like North By Northwest, Vertigo, and Psycho. Besides lending his name and likeness to the show, he starred in intro and outro segments and even directed some episodes, including the one we discuss here "Breakdown" in which a cold businessman played by the great Joseph Cotten takes a fateful drive.

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Check out this episode!

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Tomorrow on Battle of the Network Shows...

Monday, February 16, 2026

From the Game Show Vault: "Just Men" Episode 15

Speaking of game shows, as we do in this week's encore presentation on the podcast, let's talk about a recent upload by the great Game Show Vault channel: A full episode of Betty White's short-lived 1983 NBC daytime game show, Just Men!

(Not to be confused with the 1959 ITV series Four Just Men. Nobody was confused? Oh. Carry on, then!)

OK, if you haven't watched the clip yet, I urge you to check it out not because I am going to reveal the best thing about it.

I warned you. Get ready for some joy!

One of the members of the panel is the great ROBERT PINE! Yes, the inaugural Genius Award winner is one of the men who answer questions so that contestants can guess what they are like based on--Well, the game itself is a mess.

Betty White is an energetic, engaging host--no shock there--but the format doesn't do much for me. Two contestants ask a series of questions in order to determine which of the 7 men answered yes or no to a specific larger question. The idea is to generate some witty banter, but there isn't enough there to make up for what strikes me as lackluster gameplay. It feels like the game is just the slimmest excuse for the banter, but the banter is not always compelling, and the sheer number of celebrity men panelists mean there isn't enough time to have interesting discussion.

That said, there are some good moments in here, and it's fun seeing a young Jerry Seinfeld--and not getting all that much to do, either. Here he is a token comedian instead of the superstar he would later be. Pine is charming if a bit out of place. It's just that the game structure is a head scratcher, with contestants asking seemingly random questions to get the answers to questions that are all 50/50 anyway.

This game show ran a mere 13 weeks after premiering in January 1983, though White did win a Daytime Emmy for her performance as host. I can see why this didn't last, but it's fun to see an episode and enjoy the odd assortment of celebrities, like former NL Rookie of the Year Steve Sax.

Sunday, February 15, 2026

Top Ten #393

1) Game Shows: Our encore presentation on the podcast this week is an earlier episode we did talking about game shows! It's a great time to be a fan of old game shows, with many free streaming options for classics and rarities.

2) Warner Brothers TV toons: Folks, the motherload is coming to Tubi in March: Tons of WB-owned animation, including stuff that has been on streaming recently (Super Friends) and stuff that has not (The New Adventures of Gilligan's Island). It looks like a lot of the old Filmation superhero material will be available on demand, and so will classics like Quick Draw McGraw. It's not everything by a long shot, but it's a lot more than we got on HBO Max.

Oh, and a series we just talked about, Super Globetrotters, is also coming to Tubi next month!

3) Laff-a-Lympics: As the Winter Olympics rolls on in Italy, Warner Archives prepares to unleash perhaps the finest animated athletic competition. This week it announced a March Blu-Ray release of the 1977 Laff-a-Lympics.

4) Harem: When we marked the 50th anniversary of the debut of this TV miniseries in our Facebook group earlier this week, one of our friends (I won't name him here) actually started watching it and found some interesting things. Maybe the movie...isn't total trash? Join our FB group to have more discussions about obscure 40-year-old TV events!

5) The Six Million Dollar Man: I find it interesting that 50 years ago tonight, ABC showed Winter Olympics coverage at 7:00, then went away from Austria to show a brand-new Six Million Dollar Man, and then went back to the sports. That's a nice endorsement of how popular the series was at the time.

6) The Wizard of Oz: MeTV acquired broadcast rights to the classic, meaning this October it returns to broadcast TV after an absence of several decades. Also, CBS aired this movie this very night 40 years ago!

7) Fortune Dane: Also on this night in 1986, ABC premiered this short-lived action series with Carl Weathers. The show turned up on Crackle, much to my astonishment, back when that streamer was really emptying out the vaults.

8) Meeno Peluce: The great Secret Galaxy channel posted a video about Voyagers! this week, and I have to say, when we did our own episode on that 1980s series, I'm afraid we mispronounced "Peluce." Please consider this a Meeno culpa.

9) Valentine's Day weekend: Love is in the air, so why isn't Love. American Style on our airwaves?

At least give us some Karen Valentine!

10) NBA All-Star Game: Cheers to all who enjoy this weekend's festivities, but I'm stuck in 1984.

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Encore: Game Shows

With the Big Game and the Big International Sporting Competition in the air, we thought it would be a good time to revisit the truest form of competition known to humankind--the game show! In this season two episode, we dive into the world of game shows with a look at the syndicated "Face the Music" and NBC's fast-paced "$ale of the Century." Plus, an all-new TV Guide Game! Will one of us go home with a radar range?!