Happy Thanksgiving!

From all of us at Battle of the Network Shows to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for all of our listeners and friends out there, and if you don't celebrate this holiday, well, have a great day anyway! Remember we have a brand-new episode available today. We'll be back this weekend on the website with more stuff, too.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

From all of us at BOTNS to all of you...Happy Thanksgiving! 

We present our annual holiday tradition, a performance by BOTNS fave and unofficial KING of Thanksgiving, Ed McMahon!

Looking for a Thanksgiving-themed episodes of the podcast?

A few seasons ago, we covered Newhart, "Thanksgiving for the Memories."

In Season 5, we looked at The Waltons and the episode "Thanksgiving Story."

Happy Thanksgiving from BOTNS!

From all of us at Battle of the Network Shows to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

But allow us to let the King of Thanksgiving set the tone for this holiday:

As a reminder, here are a few Thanksgiving-themed episodes of the podcast if you are in the mood today:

A few seasons ago, we covered Newhart, "Thanksgiving for the Memories."

In Season 5, we looked at The Waltons and the episode "Thanksgiving Story."

We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Things for which I am thankful

I used a lot of space on this site complaining about various things this year, but I think given the holiday, it's a good time to show some gratitude.  Of course Mike and I are thankful for all of you who listen to the podcast, visit us here at the website, and participate in our official Facebook group--not to mention those of you who supported us by purchasing some of our stuff at our merch store.

I am thankful that in a time when not everyone shows reverence for catalog material (trying to keep it positive here), Crackle and Tubi are licensing older material on a regular basis and making it available for free. Much of it is even in the original aspect ratio!

I'm thankful that for most streaming services, the default is to run older programming uncut and not to hack it up as if it were on broadcast TV.

I appreciate that enough copyright holders let enough go to make YouTube the user-generated television history archive that nobody else will create.

I'm grateful for the home tapers and collectors who saved all that stuff that they and others upload to video-sharing sites!

I like that I can still find cool stuff at affordable prices even as prices of high-end graded collectibles like baseball cards have gone through the roof.

I am thankful for the presence of One-Armed Pat Morita:

I'm beholden to the folks who kept their TV Guides for so many years, enabling me to assemble a collection of them decades after they were published.

I feel indebted to authors who create interesting TV reference books and the publishers who support them.

I love that we've been able to keep this podcast going for 5 years through various life changes and issues, and I love that it's still as fun now as it was at the beginning.

Finally, I am thankful that this exists:

Happy Thanksgiving from Battle of the Network Shows!

From all of us to all of you...Happy Thanksgiving!

If you have some spare time for audio on this festive occasion, here are some Thanksgiving-themed episodes from our archives. Thanks for your support, and keep watching this space for the Season 9 batty Awards!

Last season we covered Newhart, "Thanksgiving for the Memories."

In Season 5, we looked at The Waltons and the episode "Thanksgiving Story."

Have a happy and safe holiday, everyone!

The Newhart (and Thanksgiving!) video playlist is now live!

After the turkey, parades, football, and our podcast (natch), sit back in your extended food coma and enjoy this week's video playlist devoted to Newhart!  Click below to see promos, commercials, and interviews! Bob Newhart for libraries! Peter Scolari and Julia Duffy host Friday Night Videos! Craig T. Nelson as Ted Kennedy! And, yes, Captain EO makes an appearance! All this plus a few Thanksgiving-themed commercials when you start the playlist below:

And remember to visit our official YouTube channel anytime for past episodes of the podcasts and video playlists for each one! Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

Show Notes: Episode 8-10: Newhart "Thanksgiving for the Memories"

*Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Thanks to all of you for supporting our podcast and for listening to us each week.

*Newhart aired October 1982 to May 1990 on CBS for a total of 8 seasons and 184 episodes, mostly on Mondays, mostly at 9:30 P.M. The series earned 25 Emmy nominations but zero wins.

*Bob lasted two seasons and 33 seasons from 1992-1993 on CBS.

*Here is the Entertainment Weekly show reunion piece with the quote from Julia Duffy about the finale.

*The Bob Newhart Show's famous Thanksgiving episode, "Over the River and Through the Woods," actually the second that series did, premiered November 22, 1975.

*Steven Kampmann, who played Kirk Devane in the show's beginning seasons, is also a writer, credited for co-authoring the Back to School screenplay and serving as one of the staffers on WKRP.

*Coach (1989-1997) lasted 9 seasons and 200 episodes whether I was watching them or not.

*The role of Larry was written for Tracy Walter, according to this Mental Floss article, but after auditions, William Sanderson got the part.

*"Thanksgiving for the Memories" premiered Monday, November 24, 1986, on CBS, preceded by Kate and Allie and My Sister Sam. After this episode, it was Designing Women and Cagney and Lacey.

ABC showed MacGyver and the Dolphins pasting the Jets on Monday Night Football.

NBC's lineup consisted of Alf, Amazing Stories, and The Ted Kennedy Jr. Story. Craig T. Nelson does indeed play Senator Edward Kennedy in that TV movie!

*Captain EO (1986) is Michael Jackson's much-ballyhooed 3-D film made for Disney theme parks.

*Another shout-out for William Lanteau as Mayor Chester Wanamaker and Thomas Hill as Jim Dixon!

Tomorrow on Battle of the Network Shows...

 

Great Moments in 70s and 80s TV History: Gary Sandy introduces a special WKRP rerun

One of the most famous sitcoms episode is the 1978 WKRP in Cincinnati Thanksgiving installment titled Turkeys Away. What fascinates me is this clip of series star Gary Sandy introducing a repeat of it in December 1980:




I don't remember many reruns getting this kind of special treatment back then. Sandy talks about the big reaction the original broadcast got, so I guess CBS figured this rebroadcast would get good numbers.

Personally I'd like to see every rerun get a special intro like this.  "Hi. I'm Grant Goodeve. When we first broadcast this episode of Eight Is Enough, we didn't anticipate the dozens of cards and letters we received talking about the Who's on First routine performed by Dick and Nicholas."

I also think it's funny that Sandy jokes about showing a Thanksgiving episode several weeks after the holiday. Hey, if they can do that, we can run this post months before the holiday. It's really this intro, though, not the episode itself, that excites me.

(As it happens, November 27 was Thanksgiving in 1980, and CBS ran a new The Waltons, while the preceding and the following Saturday each saw a new WKRP, or so I think. I am unable to confirm the airdate reported by the YouTube poster as December 13, 1980, and in fact, I saw an indication that a different episode aired that evening. )