Tomorrow on Battle of the Network Shows...

 

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 4): It's WALTER!

Tuesday, July 17, 1984, is a historic night in TV history: The debut of a notorious spinoff. Gary Burghoff IS W*A*L*T*E*R!

Following it up was a lesser-known pilot, Hal Linden's Second Edition, in which he is a divorced professor who moves, becomes editor of a regional magazine, and joins a support group. Also in the cast: Gordon Jump, Alley Mills, Edie McClurg, G.W. Bailey.

Look at the lineup on Channel 21--Pretty cool stuff here:

And finally, CBN has another display ad, but it's funny they use "Spice" and then brag about it being an "all-family" soap here on Christian Broadcasting Network:

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 3): Monday Monday brings lots of ads

Monday, July 16, 1984 is mostly reruns in prime time, but we get some interesting stuff. At least in this Dallas/Fort Worth edition, CBN is advertising big time this week, and it's great. Here is BOTNS fave from Season 11, The Rifleman:

And you can't go wrong with Jack:

Finally, this seems a little off brand now, but in 1984 HBO wasn't quite the HBO it would be in about 15 years:

Top Ten #312: Special "Go for the gold" edition!

1) BOTNS Season 12: Yes, the rumors are true! Yes, the podcast returns this Thursday! Yes, it's still as free as free can be! So be here Thursday, and don't ya dare miss it!

2) The Summer Olympics: The 1984 L.A. games opened 40 years ago tonight with American coverage on ABC. What a country! If they had a competition for standup comedy, Yakov could have medaled. Hey, is it that much more farfetched than breakdancing, which is now an Olympic sport?

3) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: It's the 40th anniversary of the multimedia stars' debut in comic books, and we can also give a hearty cowbunga to the original CBS cartoon.

4) The Facts of Life: The good news is, according to Mindy Cohn, the Live Before a Studio Audience presentation of FOL got Norman Lear thinking a reboot was possible. The bad news is, one unnamed person allegedly spoiled it by trying to get her own show (It looks it was totally Blair, by the way).

5) CBS News' Whatever Happened to the Energy Crisis: 50 years ago tonight, the network took a look and concluded that energy was no longer a problem and that oil and energy would be abundant throughout the rest of the prosperous, sunny Seventies,

6) San Diego Comic Con: There are all sorts of things happening at the Con this year, but hopefully you guys didn't miss our Con-exclusive panel on Father Murphy.

7) National Waterpark Day: What better way to celebrate the season than with a fun-filled but relaxing day at a nice, wholesome family amusement park...like Action Park?

8) Solid Gold Salutes the Songs of Summer: 40 years ago, the syndicated program celebrated the music of the season. Hey, as long as Christopher Cross was on there, man.

9) Linda Kelsey: Happy birthday to the Lou Grant star. Do you think Lou ever told her character, "Billie, don't be a hero?" in the newsroom?

10) The National Baseball Hall of Fame: The Hall welcomed a handful of individuals last weekend, including one of my favorite managers, Jim Leyland.

Next Week on Battle of the Network Shows...

 

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 2): ESPN in Summer 1984

Continuing our look at a 40-years-ago TV Guide:

I am fascinated by ESPN's schedule on this Saturday: July 15, 1984. The network had been around for years at this point, and it is a bit of a dead sports zone in mid July, but STILL, wow.

6:30 AM brings Horse Racing Weekly, kind of a filler show.

7AM is Inside the USFL, which I know is a filler show because it shows up many times in the weekend listings!

7:30 is Pro Karate, and while it's a title fight, it was taped June 30 in Atlanta-- TWO WEEKS AGO!

9 is Aerobatics, "Stunt flying in the Oshkosh (Wisc.) Fly-in, taped in August 1983." 11 MONTHS AGO!

9:30 is College World Series Highlights.

10:30 is Play Your Best Golf, another program that recurs throughout the weekend.

11 is Super Bowl Highlights, action from SBXII between Dallas and Denver. SIX YEARS--OK, this goes in the category of classic sports, but still it is kind of odd for 11:00 A.M. And this is the Central time zone, so it's Noon on the East Coast.

11:30 is Inside the USFL again.

Noon is Boxing, and it's Leonard/Duran from Montreal in June 1980. It's classic sports again, so we allow it. I actually welcome that sort of thing.

1:00 brings us some live sports! It's USA vs. Argentina in Davis Cup doubles action, and I very well may have been watching some of this event coverage this weekend.

4:00 is Play Your Best Golf. TV Guide notes the time is approximate.

4l:30 is Hydroplane Racing, action taped in Evansville July 1.

5:30 is Sportscenter for the first time today.

6:30 is Golf, third-round play at the Merrill Lynch Golf Digest Senior Pro-Am, but it's taped from earlier!

8:00 We get some more tennis action, as we return to the Davis Cup. Oh, wait, it's the same coverage from earlier on tape delay.

10:30 is Sportscenter.

11:30 is--guess what--Inside the USFL.

Midnight is another presentation of the Jerry Trimble/Tony Rosser Pro Karate Association fight that was on at 7:30.

1:30 is Sportscenter.

2:30 is another presentation of the senior golf coverage from 6:30.

4:00 is--care to guess? Inside the USFL was a spectacular answer, but, no, it's Pro Karate again.

Sunday isn't much more dynamic. I won't go through the whole listings, but I will tell you the day starts with ESPN staple Australian Rules Football, a match taped June 30.

This is before so many cable networks ceded sports to ESPN and other sports channels. All over the dial you see sports programs like The Baseball Bunch on TBS, Baseball USA (with Don Drysdale) on USA Network, and Vic's Vacant Lot (formerly an ESPN program) and Reggie Jackson's World of Sports on Nickelodeon. It's like in the early days of cable, the channels felt obligated to show some kind of sports. Even early premium channel VEU (Video Entertainment Unlimited) has a History of the Olympics program.

WGN had Greatest Sports Legends, Nashville Network had several auto racing programs, and even CBN had Athletes in Action. Of course, NBC carried Major League Baseball in the afternoon,

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 Years Ago (July 1984 part 1)

The July 14, 1984 Dallas/Fort Worth edition of TV Guide has a Johnny Carson cover and some interesting stuff inside, more than I might expect for summertime right before the Olympics.

 Let's start with Saturday, July 14, where this jumps out at me:

Yes, NICKELODEON, in July 1984, is showing a 90-minute Kansas concert right after an episode of Tomorrow People and right before an episode of Mr. Wizard's World. I never thought Kansas was a particularly kid-friendly band. For this performance, did they show have a large projection screen of a group of toddlers playing kickball behind the band as it did "Play the Game Tonight"?

Just a little bit later, a BOTNS favorite pops up on Lifetime just before 4:00:

Over Easy isn't just for PBS stations! If you know, you know, but this has been a running joke of ours for several seasons now.