Great Moments in 70s and 80s TV History: Scatman and Lawanda team up

It doesn't get much more seventies than Lawanda Page joining Scatman Carothers at the podium at a roast of Angie Dickinson:

Ok, maybe it does if you throw in a Kojak reference.

Scatman is doing some not particularly Angie-focused material about garbage collection and how rough his old 'hood was when he makes a comment about it being in worse shape than LaWanda Page, which makes her say, "Hold on, turkey!"

To his credit, Scatman invites her to come on up and tell her side of the story:

She says, "The last time I saw a face like yours, honey, a jockey was feeding it sugar." He retorts, "They could push your face in batter and make gorilla cookies." YIKES!

They exchange a few more quips until Page gets the last words: 'So long, SUCKER!"

It's truly a great moment in 1970s TV history, but don't take our word for it. Check out Jummie Walker's reaction:

Battys "In Memoriam": Commemorative playlist

We started a new Battys tradition last week by paying tribute to the stars of the BOTNS era we lost over the course of our last season. Join us as we continue to salute these departed icons with our latest YouTube playlist:



Click the embed above to see: Harry Anderson doing a card trick! Robert Mandan urging us to wear seat belts! Joseph Campanella for LSU! Bruno Sammartino flipping out! Burt Reynolds on The Tonight Show! All this and so much more...and keep checking this page for more posts, news, and fun stuff as we get ready for another season of the podcast.

Your Season 4 Batty Award Winners Are...

Here is the complete list of Batty Awards presented on Theta Station to commemorate season 4 of Battle of the Network Shows.

Nominees are listed for each category with winners in bold.

Outstanding Youth:

Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster)

Quincy (Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter)

Ralph Carter (Good Times)

The dumb kid from CHiPS

Outstanding Non-human:

Twikki from Buck Rogers

Space Vampire/Vorvon from Buck Rogers

The Computer from Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter

The Boulder from CHiPs

Outstanding Performance as Oneself

Barry White from Late Night with David Letterman

David Letterman from Late Night with David Letterman

Dean Martin from Dean Martin Celebrity Roast

Milton Berle from CHiPs

Outstanding Facial Hair

Harris (Ron Glass) from Barney Miller

Barney Miller (Hal Linden) from Barney Miller

Mark (Geoffrey Scott) from Dynasty

Commander Royko (Christopher Wallace) from Buck Rogers

Outstanding Hair (Male)

Mr. T from The A-Team

John Forsythe from Dynasty

Dean Martin from Dean Martin Celebrity Roast

Erik Estrada from CHiPs

Outstanding Hair (Female)

Linda Evans from Dynasty

Joan Collins from Dynasty

Erin Gray from Buck Rogers

Jacqueline Bissett from Late Night with David Letterman

 

Biggest Dope

The werewolf from Barney Miller

Ted Baxter from The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The reverend from Good Times

Commander Royko from Buck Rogers

The dumb kid from CHiPs

Best Poor Man's Harrison Ford

Gil Gerard from Buck Rogers

Dirk Benedict from The A-Team

Biggest Heel

 

Joan Collins from Dynasty

Connor Mason from The A-Team

Christopher Lee from Captain America

Professor Grimsby from Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter

 

Outstanding Ensemble (voted by our listeners)

 

Good Times

Barney Miller

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of Peter Marshall

 

Outstanding Male

 

Ed Asner from Lou Grant and The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Gil Gerard from Buck Rogers

Hal Linden from Barney Miller

George Gaynes from Punky Brewster

David Letterman from Late Night with David Letterman

Reb Brown from Captain America

 

Outstanding Female

 

Joan Collins from Dynasty

Erin Gray from Buck Rogers

Mary Tyler Moore from The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Esther Rolle from Good Times

 

Outstanding Theme Song (with lyrics)

 

Punky Brewster

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Good Times

Outstanding Theme Song (instrumental)

 

The A-Team

Late Night with David Letterman
Lou Grant
Barney Miller

Buck Rogers

CHiPs
Dynasty

Captain America

 

Best episode

 

Late Night with David Letterman, "Camping with Barry White"

 

Best series

 

Late Night with David Letterman

 

The GENIUS Award

 

John Amos from Good Times

Season 4 BATTY Awards: BATTYs in Space

Live on data tapes from Theta Station, it's the Season Four BATTYs...in...space! Join the stars in the stars as they vie for the most prestigious awards this side of Neptune! Ooh and even ahh at the latest high-fashion jumpsuits! Thrill at the competition of space push ball! Learn lessons about camping in space with Barry White! Most of all, root for your favorite stars in your favorite categories like best performance by a non-human, best episode, and of course best facial hair!

Check out this episode!

Tomorrow on Battle of the Network Shows...

New to streaming video

In recent posts, we looked at new 70s and 80s reruns on DVD and on digital subchannels. Today we want to point out some new additions to various streaming services.

The biggest surprise is NBC, which added The Equalizer, The Incredible Hulk, and The Six Million Dollar Man to its assortment of free shows on its app (conveniently available on Roku). I find the NBC app erratic and the commercial load oppressive, but it's free!

Amazon Prime Video quietly added the first two seasons of Growing Pains last week, adding to its growing roster of Warner Brothers TV shows from the BOTNS era. Could Night Court be on the way eventually?

Hulu has been busy adding reality shows from the likes of Discovery and TLC, but it also has the early seasons of Unsolved Mysteries, which is suddenly available all over the place.

The Roku Channel added Ray Bradbury Theater, an anthology which ran 1985-1986 on HBO and 1989-1992 on USA.

Pluto TV has added early episodes of Charlie's Angels and Crime Story to its on demand library.

TubiTV now has 3rd Rock from the Sun available for free streaming.

CBS All Access added 18 episodes of Murphy Brown from throughout its original run as a primer for the reboot.

Conspicuously absent from this post is Netflix, which is pretty much out of this game. That's a shame, but maybe new services will pick up the slack. For example, the new DC Universe launched last week with Wonder Woman, the 1988 syndicated Superboy series, and Super Friends. NBC's steady buildup of its assortment of catalogue programming could also bode well for the future.

Upcoming DVD releases

It's been a while since we did one of these posts, and TV Shows on DVD is no longer with us as a standalone website, though the site's operator are posting updates on Facebook. Do you know how hard it is to find TV shows on DVD info without TV Shows on DVD? I spent a while sorting through other sites--"Hey, Hawaii Five-0--no, wait, that's the current version..." before finding Geeky Hobbies, which maintains a cool list. I recommend you give them some traffic...but come back here for the curated list!

September:

Laugh-In season 6 (out now): This rounds out the series of individual season releases that followed the massive complete set. It doesn't sound like a BOTNS show at first glance--I think of it as a Swingin' Sixties deal--but this season was 1973, so I am declaring it eligible for the podcast!

And a certain BOTNS fave makes an appearance this season:

Magnum P.I. Complete Series (September 18): Same number of discs, same transfers (I assume)...yet more expensive than the 2013 version. In other words, this is not one of those Mill Creek budget repackaging releasings. I am not sure what the rationale for this is. Maybe it's one more attempt to extract some bucks before a Blu-Ray release.

Police Story Season 3 (September 25): It looks like this will be filled with cut-down syndication versions, but it's nice to see Shout! is continuing the series, albeit at a...methodical...pace. In this season: Kurt Russell, Sly Stallone, and some REAL TV stars like Danny Bonaduce and Cindy Williams.

October:

The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler (October 2): Kino Lorber is releasing the two original Kolchak TV movies in fancy Blu-Ray packages, remastered and with extras. Could this pave the way for a Blu-Ray re-release of the entire series?

Love Boat: Season 4 (October 2): FINALLY the series continues! YASSSSS!

Unfortunately, it's in two split-season releases.

 

New Adventures of Gumby: The 1980s Volume 1 (October 2): These are pretty good under-the-radar releases, and it looks like the whole Gumby run will be out eventually. This Eighties version of the character  is not to be confused with this Eighties version of the character:

Hopefully more releases will be announced as we get closer to the holiday shopping season.

Next week on Battle of the Network Shows...

The BATTY Awards go where no award show has gone before!

The Blue Ribbon Nominating Committee prepares to board
a transport to the Season 4 BATTY Awards site.

Coming to a TV near you

We are inundated with info about the new fall shows hitting the airwaves, but what about the new old shows? Various digital subchannels are updating their schedules for the season. With a tip of the hat to sources like Sitcoms Online, here is a look at what's coming up:

Charge! is now showing Chips. Get your daily dose of Robert Pine on this action-oriented diginet.

Antenna TV announces that ARCHIE'S BACK! on its website, with Archie Bunker's Place airing weeknights at 7:30. Did Archie ever go away?

(Update: It's been on since July along with What's Happening Now!!.  Other not-so-frequently aired reruns on here include Gimme a Break, The Hogan Family, Lotsa Luck, and The Hogan Family.

MeTV is adding Buck Rogers and In the Heat of the Night. Buck's return is welcome, but, man, it seems like In the Heat of the Night is overplayed by every channel that gets its hands on it.

Get TV is adding Married with Children to its weeknight lineup September 17. In addition to a lot of rare variety shows, Get is airing Good Times and The Equalizer, which we talked aobut on the pod recently, plus Designign Women, Tour of Duty, and The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.

New diginet Start TV, which focuses on procedurals and dramas aimed at women, has launched with BOTNS-ers shows like Dr. Quinn and Early Edition.

I wasn't aware of this, but Decades is now running Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, and The Bob Newhart Show each weekday. Unfortunately, Start is replacing Decades in many areas, so check your local listings. Let's hope that the full Bob Newhart  and Newhart come to Hulu as was announced months and months ago.

TV Land has...well, it apparently still has The Golden Girls and M*A*S*H. Moving right along!

Nick at Nite has.........Moving right along!

Things are pretty slow for BOTNS-era programming, which is why we should appreciate our DVDs and also why next week we will take a look at recent and upcoming releases.

Reboots, Remakes, and Returns

After recent announcements of possible ALF and Facts of Life reboots, we asked members of our Facebook group what reboots, remakes, or returns of seventies or eighties shows they'd like to see. We break those down and offer a few suggestions of our own, plus a tale of Ray Liotta.

Check out this episode!

Tomorrow on Battle of the Network Shows...

Great Moments in 70s and 80s TV History: Punky Gets Old, Henry Gets Older

In season 1, Punky dreams she is elderly and alone--well, not entirely alone. After all, she is still living with Henry. This is one of the most disturbing things I've seen on television.