*We don't have a lot of notes this week (and no video playlist for this episode), so let's share the cards with you! Big thanks again to Friend of the Show Dann for providing these:
*We have not covered L.A. Law, Dallas, The Cosby Show, Hawaii Five-0, Thirtysomething, Mission Impossible.
*This week's bonus episode is an installment of our popular TV Guide game, in which one of us tries to guess what the other would have watched on a particular night in TV history. This time we look at a Los Angeles metro edition from Saturday, September 11, 1982. If you don't want to be spoiled, please listen to the episode before checking out these Show Notes and the video playlist! Would your picks match Mike's?
*Click below for that playlist, featuring ads, promos, and the entire Texaco Star Theater special we mention!
And remember, you can always check out our official YouTube page for all of our past podcasts and episode-specific playlists for each one!
*Gus (1976), directed by Vincent McEveety, was Bob Crane's final feature. It was a hit for Disney's Buena Vista distribution arm
*Roger C. Carmel was best known for playing Harry Mudd on Star Trek and also starred in The Mothers-In-Law after beginning as a successful stage performer.
*Peter Allen and the Rockettes played multiple shows at Radio City Music Hall in 1981 and 1982.
*Texaco Star Theater: Opening Night does not feature Milton Berle, but it does have Ken Berry! It's a salute to musical theater and does not have a direct connection to the old TV series.
*If you want to see Berle at his most obnoxious, check out our playlist to see him presenting an Emmy to the writers of SCTV a mere 8 days after this date we examine on the podcast. He interacts with a Genius Award winner!
*The Miss America 1982 show selected the 1983 Miss America, was won by Debra Maffet, who later became a TV presenter on PM Magazine and other shows, even acting in Matlock.
Maffet moved to California after a series of unsuccessful pageant appearances in home state Texas. After her MA win, the Dallas Morning News reported she had extensive cosmetic surgery before the competition. Maffet's mother claimed there was only one procedure in 1980 to repair a deviated septum. I think in the early Eighties that procedure was more common than booster shots.
*CHOMPS is an acronym for "Canine Home Protection System." The 1979 film was produced by Hanna-Barbera and disappointed at the box office.
Those of you who watch the playlist on a device and not the web, and/or those who don't see/read the video descri0ptions by the uploaders, may be puzzled why I included a clip from Fistful of Dollars this week. I mean, yes, it was one of the viewing options on August 27, 1977, but why not a trailer or a promo instead of this:
I thought it was interesting that, as per the uploader, this was extra footage for the broadcast, an extended beginning directed by Monte Hellman designed to alleviate concerns over the film's violence. Harry Dean Stanton is talking to a stand-in for Clint Eastwood!
According to Wikipedia, this was done for a 1975 TV showing, but other sources indicate it only ran before a 1977 broadcast. Here's what I think about "contextualizing" the violence in the movie with this tacked-on scene:
In that 1977 TV Guide, critic Judith Crist mentions the ABC broadcast of the movie and says it's on its third run. She calls it "the 1964 Italian-German-Spanish rip-off of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. it introduced an obviously waiting world (the film earned millions) to the immutable squint of Clint Eastwood and the flavor of the sadomasochistic blood-red sauce that soaked this spahgetti-spatzle-paella Western. Enough said,"
Here are some scans showing the listings Mike and I used for this week's bonus episode playing the TV Guide Game. These are from the Eastern New England Metro edition (Boston) of the magazine for the week beginning (in TV Guide terms) August 26, 1977. In brief, 2 = PBS, 3 = CBS, 4 = NBC, 5 = ABC.
Jean Shepherd's America was a 1971 PBS program, and, hey, it is readily available on YouTube, so I think I am going to have to check it out.
Is there any significance in Paul Williams getting the first picture in that row of stars? And how about that great look on George Carlin's mug?
Kudos to channel 27 for showing The Honeymooners, but I wish I knew which episode it was. I mean, they're all great...but still!
I thought Dickens was making a "Right on!" gesture the first time I saw that ad.
Some interesting stuff later at night here, including reruns of the likes of Perry Mason, Mod Squad, and Name of the Game.
*Thanks for joining us for another bonus episode in the middle of our season 10 and another installment of our popular TV Guide game! This week's game draws on this issue:
*Here is the video playlist for this week, including commercials, promos, music, and more!
And remember, you can always visit our official YouTube channel for our past podcasts and episode-specific playlists for each one!
*Tomorrow we'll share scans from the listing pages we used!
*Crockett's Victory Garden was created by prolific gardening author James Underwood Crockett for Boston PBS station WGBH in 1975. Bob Thomson took over the renamed Victory Garden after Crockett's death, and the series ran continuously on PBS stations through 2010 and then in a couple of revivals.
*It's Tough to Be a Bird (1969) won an Oscar in 1970 for Best Animated Short, and then it premiered on TV in 1970.
*The short on Americana, Number Our Days, is Lynne Litman's documentary short based on the work of author Barbara Myerhoff. The film had won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 1977 Academy Awards. You can see a short clip of the film and Littman's acceptance speech in the playlist!
*The People's Command Performance was an annual event on CBS. This particular showing was a repeat. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything on YT for the 1977 version, but there is a 1978 promo in the playlist.
*Dickens of London premiered in 1976 in the UK as a Yorkshire production before airing in the USA on PBS.
*McCloud's vampire episode is "McCloud Meets Dracula" from its seventh season.
*Michael DeLano appeared in 11 episodes of Rhoda as lounge singer Johnny Venture!
*Again, thanks to our Facebook group members for voting for 1977. Don't worry, 1982 fans, we'll be doing a game from that year soon, too, but next week we're back to a regular episode!
This week, we go back 40 years for the TV Guide game to March 30, 1981, when a major historical event disrupted the TV schedule. Rick tries to guess what Mike would have watched from the originally planned schedule, and we ponder a number important questions raised by the schedule and the day's events.
*Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City was released by Orion in 1981 and was well reviewed but not a commercial success. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay.
*Send us your dream casts for Twelve Angry Men, but remember it has to include Jack Klugman!
*You Again? lasted two seasons on NBC but was not a hit.
*Check out our YouTube playlist to see intros of all the series discussed in this episode!
We start to ramp up for season 7 with another round of the TV Guide Game, this time from the summer of '86! When school lets out and the sun stays out longer, what better way to spend your time than in front of the tube? This game includes such luminaries Jack Klugman, John Stamos, Valerie Harper, and two "Seinfeld" dads!
On this day in 1953, newsstands unveiled the first issue of TV Guide. Before on-screen programming guides and the Internet, the Guide was the bible of tube lovers everywhere. Today collectors still love to find old issues, and we at BOTNS like to use 1970s and 1980s editions for our TV Guide game!
Here is one of the great Fall Preview issues from the BOTNS era, the 1983 issue. New shows highlighted on the cover: AfterMASH! Hotel! And you know that in 1983 it was NBC that brought us the show about a talking orangutan: Mr. Smith!
Mike and I recently played our TV Guide game again, journeying back in time to January 1987. Here are some scans from that issue that relate to the stuff we talked about:
NCAA Basketball action on 5 different channels!
In case you are not interested in the lighter fare on the airwaves this Wednesday night, enjoy a look at Mother Teresa.
BOTNS does not endorse nor approve the above product but includes this ad for historical purposes.
No catfights on Dynasty (see below) tonight? Well, check out this National Geographic special.
The infamous (not really, but I want it to be) My Dissident Mom really exists!
Ooh-la-la, the glamour of the 1980s encapsulated in one full=pager.
Click below to see promos and clips from the shows we discuss in this episode, including My Dissident Mom! Plus theme songs for Perfect Strangers and Head of the Class! Dick Van Dyke on Highway to Heaven! Rex Reed and Bill Harris review Full Metal Jacket! And Yakov Smirnoff finally makes his way into one of our playlists!
*This episode's game is courtesy of the Richmond, Virginia, edition of TV Guide, cover-dated January 10-16, 1987. We look at 8:00-11:00 P.M. Wednesday, January 14.
*My Dissident Mom was slated to be a CBS Schoolbreak Special but was shifted to this prime-time slot because...well, it's not clear. This review from The New York Times provides some background.
From the review: This kind of hourlong drama is so tightly packed that oversimplification is unavoidable. But Mr. Sheen and Ms. Potts manage to get remarkable character-development mileage out of their relatively brief snippets of dialogue. Both Joe and Kathy become genuinely touching figures, and their dilemma is wisely left unresolved.
John J. O'Connor's piece spends a significant amount of ink speculating on right-wing groups seizing on this program as evidence of liberal bias!
*Ernie Sabella played landlord Donald Twinkacetti (hence the 'Twinkie" nickname) on Perfect Strangers.
*The late Joe Alaskey voiced many classic Looney Tunes characters, including Bugs and Daffy in Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
*This Magnum P.I. episode, Murder by Night, aired in black and white but is shown in color in reruns.
*Spoiler alert: North Carolina beat Virginia 95-80 in this night's game and would finish undefeated in the ACC before eventually losing to Syracuse in the NCAA tournament.
The Heels were indeed led by J.R. Reid, along with Jeff Lebo, Dave Popson, Joe Wolf, and the great Kenny Smith! UVA's top scorer that season was forward Andrew Kennedy.
*The Mother Teresa doc on PBS is a rebroadcast from 1985.
*Fast Break with Gabe Kaplan is a 1979 basketball comedy.
