3 classics I'd like to see streaming in June 2021

So far, the classic TV picture for June 2021 looks dim. Where are all the Sony shows that were said to be coming to Hulu? When will Peacock and Paramount Plus start adding series from their huge back catalogs? The biggest disappointment for me is that on the list I saw, Tubi has no "new old" TV series coming in June.

There can be surprises, thoguh, so with that in mind here are 3 reasonable guesses/wishlist items we might see in June (with full awareness that I whiffed on Hulk, Maverick, and Riptide last month).

1) Mannix on Paramount Plus: Some ya-hoo from CBSViacom, or is it ViacomCBS, announced here that this streamer, which still seems stuck in the past, will add 1,000 movies in June, adding, "They're real movies, not deep library." 

This guy is a CEO! What chance do we have of getting old TV shows on here when a bigwig is bragging that the upcoming catalog dump is REAL movies--in other words, the same stuff that's been recycled on TV and streaming for the last decade. What a horrible comment. Yet maybe we'll get lucky and find a vintage series buried in with The Avengers.  

(That's the Ralph Fiennes/Uma Thurman flop based on the TV show that won't be coming to Paramount Plus in June, not one of the mega blockbuster Marvel movies.)

2) That's My Mama on Crackle: If Hulu isn't yet ready to get Sony library shows like Riptide, maybe Crackle can re-add this 1974 sitcom a la its surprise add of Grady in May. Anything with Theodore Wilson is worth watching.

3) Ball Four: While we wait for all those cool MGM shows to come to Prime Video (uh-huh), Amazon can throw us a bone by adding this short-lived 1976 sportscom with Jim Bouton. We have talked about this on the podcast; I want to see it, but Mike actually did see it. 

Is this a long shot? Sure, but last year Amazon added On Our Own, an obscure short-lived sitcom also produced by Time-Life Television, so why not? Amazon owes me something for moving so much content away from Prime Video to ad-supported IMDB-TV.

3 classics I'd like to see streaming in May 2021

The lists of May additions for most of the big streaming services are out , and there aren't a lot of interesting older shows on them. HBO Max appears to have abandoned catalog titles for another month, Peacock isn't announcing anything cool, and Netflix...Well, I can't mention Netflix and vintage with a straight face.

However, as I write this, Tubi, Crackle, Roku Channel, and others are still on the clock (Does Paramount Plus even bother listing the handful of non-current CBS programs it adds each month?), and there are often surprises from the paid services. We already have good news with the announcement that Shout! TV is adding CPO Sharkey and several Don Rickles specials. But I want more, more, more, and so here are 3 nice additions I'd like to see when I scan my Roku on Saturday morning:

The Incredible Hulk: Why does this series have such a low profile in the streaming era? The character is popular and in the public eye thanks to the MCU, yet right now it isn't available after NBC quietly dropped it from its own app. It has its flaws but also has some great episodes, and I'd think someone could market it or do something with it. I thought it would be a natural for Peacock, but it isn't on the May list. Maybe it will show up on Tubi alongside other Universal genre shows of the era Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica. 

Maverick: It's outside our time frame, but the show is the ancestor of The Rockford Files, yet outside of a limited stint on Warner Archive Instant, I don't think it has streamed anywhere. We all know how disdainful the various streamers are of "old" shows, but, come on, James Garner! This is a popular Western with a devoted fanbase, and while MeTv runs it each week, I bet the episodes would look great uncut on HBO Max. I bet they'd look better than The Nanny. Even if it returned to Starz, it would at least be something to watch with those constant cheap subscription deals they throw out so often.

Riptide: I never really watched this in its original run, but it would be nice to have the minor NBC hit of the mid Eighties available somewhere.  This series doesn't get mentioned anywhere, and I don't the last time/place it had a significant run, but it's a part of 1980s TV history. This one seems to be a good fit for Hulu, and it comes to mind because of the reports that Sony TV shows would be coming there as part of the new massive deal with Disney. Hopefully the shows include some from the 20th century.

Top Ten #115:

1) Mother's Day: Happy day to all the mothers out there, and thank you from your grateful children! We remind you of the existence of the Dennis the Menace special aired 40 years ago in 1981 if you're disappointed to find there is no Charlie Brown Mother's Day show.

2) Cheers: Rolling Stone ranked the top 100 sitcoms EVER, and to me the top 10 looks solid. If we're not counting The Simpsons as a 1980s show--and so far, we are not--#2 Cheers is the highest BOTNS show on the list. So add this to its multiple Battys in the Cheers trophy case.

3) NBC's Hour Glass (1946): Did you know that 75 years ago today, the first hourlong network program premiered? it did, and no footage exists, but we're gonna pre-empt Murder Monday tomorrow to talk more about it.

4) CBS 1970s sitcoms: Speaking of that Rolling Stone list, All in the Family, MASH, and MTM are 5-7 on that list. Poor Bob Newhart--his show is 'only" 26 (Newhart doesn't make it). The Jeffersons is 48, WKRP is 79, Maude is 68, and in a huge surprise for me, Good Times is 60.

5) The 1971 Emmy Awards: NBC broadcast the 23rd edition of the ceremony, hosted by Johnny Carson, 50 years ago tonight, with the big winner The Bold Ones: The Senator (!) and All in the Family.

6) James L. Brooks: Happy 80th birthday to the influential producer/director who had a hand, or at least a finger, in so many seminal shows. And, hey, guess who won one of those Emmy Awards in 1971?

7) FilmRise TV Classics: An app available on Roku and other platforms is a repository for all the Peter Rodgers Organization properties that have been floating around (Celebrity Bowling, Movin' On, etc.) and now That Girl and others.  This article says it's getting Make Room for Daddy, and I hope that's coming soon because the show recently left Prime Video.

8) Alley Mills: Happy birthday to the former star of The Associates and The Wonder Years. Because it's Mother's Day, let's look at her accepting an award for the latter:

9) Jaleel White: This week, a story made the rounds that he didn't feel welcomed by the cast of Family Matters when he joined as Urkel. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's a shame if he felt uncomfortable on the set--I mean, regardless of how you feel about the character, he was barely a teenager at the time--but if you're gonna try to make me think negative thoughts about Reginald VelJohnson, well, it ain't happening.

10) Billie Hayes: R.I.P. 

BOTNS Top Ten #22

1) Max Wright: The veteran actor died at 75 this week. Remember, he wasn't just the dad on a sitcom about a talking alien. He was also the straight man on a sitcom about a talking alien.

2) Ed Asner: We'd like to congratulate the 89-year-old star for landing a spot on Briarpatch, the upcoming USA network anthology series from Sam Esmail. We'd also like to think he would accept our congratulations with a gruff deflection.

3) Bob Dorian: R.I.P. to the host of American Movie Classics from the days when it was actually good! Dorian's fun facts and easygoing style made prime time on the old AMC a welcoming place for lovers of old movies.





4) Cookie Monster: The Seasame Street veteran sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame this week to rave reviews.





5) Superman: According to DC Comics, today is the official birthday of the Man of Steel, who hit newsstands in Action Comics #1, dated June 1938.



6) David Garrison: The second-best character on Married With Children (and second place is no shame on a series with Al Bundy) was played by the great David Garrison, who was born this day in 1952. He also co-starred with Jason Bateman in one of the great lost sitcoms of the Eighties, It's Your Move:





7) Nancy Dussault: Happy birthday to the Tony-award-winning actress, born this day in 1936 and--wait, she won TONY awards? I am ashamed to say I knew her as Henry's wife on Too Close for Comfort.

8) Bob Ley: Happy trails and a pleasant retirement to the guy Chris Berman called the Conscience of ESPN. That's a lot better than Bob "Lay Lady" Ley.

9) All Creatures Great and Small: The beloved series of books about a Yorkshire veterinarian is going to get a reboot. I'm often wary of reboots, but this one is surely classy and well intentioned because it's British.

10) Gavin MacLeod: The 88-year-old BOTNS-era icon appeared on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast this week. Ed Asner scoffed, "That young whippersnapper? Big deal. I was on that podcast 4 years ago!"

Power Rankings: Networks/Channels by Christmasness

Which TV channel or network feels the most Christmas-y to you? Actually, let me rephrase that: Which one felt most Christmas-y back in the day? Before Hallmark Channel and Freeform turned over their entire daily lineup to the holidays, what station just felt the most festive? Here is my own very personal list:

1) CBS: There was a time, many years ago, children, when CBS was not the Old Folks' Network, or at least it had stuff for the kids as well. It carried the best specials: Rudolph, Frosty, Grinch, and Charlie Brown--and it even helped usher in the season by showing The Wizard of Oz each Thanksgiving. CBS was the network that seemed to run most of the Rankin-Bass classics. It was the clear #1 network of the season. 

And of course there's this:

2) WPIX 11: In addition to running the Christmas episodes of The Odd Couple, The Honeymooners, and The Twilight Zone, the independent New York station was part of the SFM Holiday Network, making holiday weekends seem special with fancy presentations of Danny Kaye movies and specifically seasonal works. I believe I first saw syndicated specials like Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and Yogi's All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper on this channel.

Of course, March of the Wooden Soldiers was a PIX tradition for years, the station ran some great Christmas ads like Crazy Eddie's spots, and there was the classic Yule Log each year!

3) NBC/WJAC: NBC was a respectable second among the broadcast nets, running Chipmunks, for one thing, which I enjoyed. It also presented a Bob Hope hour each holiday season. For me one of the big signs that Christmas season was underway was the arrival of the 1950s interstitial segments that would pop up in commercial breaks on local affiliate WJAC: Suzy Snowflake, Frosty the Snowman, and Hardrock, Cocoa, and Joe.

Seeing these made me feel, oh, yeah, it's on! Plus NBC was my go-to for Macy's Parade coverage, which helped kick off Christmas season each Thanksgiving. I just liked NBC best for some reason, so an NBC Christmas episode meant more somehow.

4) HBO: The pay cable network felt like one of the biggest players of the season for me, likely because it seemed to play the same specials over and over again.  In particular, I remember Rich Little's A Christmas Carol and Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas being staples of the network's lineup in December, and the repetition of the shows themselves and the promos made it feel like the holiday season.

5) ABC: I know that ABC did show Christmas specials back in the day, but I don't have many vivid memories of them. They did have some of the big Rankin-Bass specials, and they also showed Emmett Otter. ABC can't be ignored given its showings of John Denver, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, and many other animated and variety specials. I just don't have a strong association of it as a network with the holiday. I watched a lot of ABC Saturday mornings and daytime, plus Afterschool Special, so I must have received some Yuletide feeling from it.

This Day in TV History: December 22, 1978 (Part 2)

Yesterday we took a look at what was on the tube 40 years ago, to the very day, courtesy of the December 16-22, 1978 St. Louis edition of TV Guide. It's no longer to the day, but it's still 40 years later, and that's a neat round number, so let's examine the sports, late night shows, and other options on that day.

(By the way, if you're wondering, A Charlie Brown Christmas had aired on Monday that week.)

Elsewhere on the dial, Navy took on BYU in the 1978 Holiday Bowl. Remember that back in the pre-ESPN days, and even later, many bowl games were syndicated across the country.

 The Kansas City (!) Kings played the Phoenix Suns in NBA action on another independent station.

On PBS, Dick Cavett welcomed William Safire before staples Wall Street Week and Washington Week in Review and a special titled Wild Horses, Broken Wings.

Later that evening on NBC, The Midnight Special, hosted by Dolly Parton, featured Paul McCartney and Wings, Frankie Valli singing Grease, and Chuck Mangione performing...what else? Feels So Good!



Preceding it at 11 (remember, this was when the show was 90 minutes) on The Tonight Show, Johnny's guests were Bert Convy and Marilyn Horne. ABC went with a Baretta rerun, while the CBS Late Movie was Quo Vadis.

Speaking of movies, here's a sampling of the movies shown on various local stations on December 22, 1978:
*The Trouble with Angels (1966) at Noon central
*Savage Wilderness (1955) with Victor Mature and Anne Bancroft
*Uncertain Glory (1944) with Errol Flynn at 3:00 P.M.
*Nothing But a Man (1964) with Ivan Dixon at 10:30
*Moby Dick with Greg Peck at 11.

It's also cool checking out some of the cartoons on during the morning: Popeye, Bugs Bunny,Heckle and Jeckle, The Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Mighty Mouse...all the classics! Of course that's in addition to kiddie staples like Romper Room, Sesame Street, and Captain Kangaroo.

What do you think about TV in 1978? Better? Worse? Bert Convier? Well, clearly the last one is true.

Inside the Guide #3: 6/27/75 Part 2--TV after dark! (June 22-28, 1975)

Way after dark, that is! After our look last week at the TV of June 27, 1975, it's time to go beyond prime time, and let me tell you, this is where things really get interesting.  In prime time, summer was getting in gear with a lineup filled with reruns.  After prime time, we get plenty of reruns--but cool ones! And movies! And--well, let's just get to it.

Source for this piece is an contemporaneous New Hampshire edition of TV Guide.  This edition includes some big BAH-ston channels as well as the local Granite State fare. It sure looks to me like the viewers in the region had some quality channels.  Ah, the days before infomercials! Even though programming essentially ceases at about 4:00 A.M. (If a station broadcasts but TV Guide doesn't list it, does it really broadcast?), the late/overnight schedule here is packed with great stuff.

It's great to see a Greatest Sports Legends here, and this tribute to the Big O sounds like a good one.  I said on our GSL episode that I always thought of it as a weekend afternoon kind of program, but here it is at 10:30 on a Friday night.

Channel 56 has a lot of good stuff, and here we see a Perry Mason, a Best of Groucho (AKA You Bet Your Life), and a Mitchum flick to end the workweek.

Check out the battle at 11:30, where NBC of course has Carson, then still 90 minutes and with a new episode. CBS runs The Last Rebel, which may be the best Joe Namath/Jack Elam Western ever made.  ABC has Wide World of Mystery. It's a far cry from the "Late Night Wars" of the modern era, with every network offering a talk/comedy show or two.

Channel 27, a Manchester independent, follows GSL and local news with a Bowery Boys movie!  That's it as far as TV Guide is concerned, but 27 did run Jack Benny earlier (and also something called Elder American at 8:00).

Let's skip ahead for a moment to 1:00, when NBC follows The Tonight Show with The Midnight Special. Who says NBC wasn't hip? Keep in mind this is several months before the premiere of Saturday Night! Can't go wrong with the Temps (the rest of the lineup, I admit, doesn't seem as groovy), but what is up with "a 'Rock Rap' segment with Carol Wayne?"

Don't worry, folks, it's a music news segment, not the late Wayne doing a pre-Fred Durst medley.

I think my new favorite channel is retroactively channel 38 WSBK Boston), now sadly a MyTV affiliate but a great indie station back in the day.  According to this issue, Laugh Classics is a nightly program. Earlier episodes this week spotlighted Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy, who shows up again in tonight's pair of comedy shorts.

Channel 5 looks decent, too, with Mission Impossible and an Ealing classic with Alec Guiness. These rebels are running MI before Wide World of Mystery for some reason!

Two final notes: Shout-out to the ABC News on channel 44 for airing with captions.  We here at BOTNS are strong advocates of closed captioning! It's too bad that this captioned showing is the auxiliary one on a PBS station instead of the "main" one earlier in the evening1

Finally, the Crack Research Team at BOTNS assures me that the doctor in residence on House Call is not that Jay Mohr.  I don't think I'd feel comfortable getting stroke advice from the other one.

Top Ten #59

1) Henry Winkler: Who is the face of our Battle of the Network Promos episode? Gotta be this guy in the upper right.



2) Nell Carter: A runner-up has to be Force of Nature Nell Carter, who singlehandedly made it look like NBC was actually a big deal:



3) Eight Is Enough and Three's Company: On this same blessed day, these two classics premiered on  ABC. Both shows, of course, went for the exact same episode and shared identical sensibilities. You could have swapped DVP and John Ritter and had the same result.

4) Quincy, M.E.: I think every season, Quincy had to deal with some kind of contagious outbreak of something and the suits WHO JUST DIDN'T GET IT. We could use a lot more men like Quincy, but then that's been true for 35 years.




5) The Carol Burnett Show: Prime Video keeps adding more seasons of the long-running classic--the edited versions, yes, but still, it's nice to see this show get such a big (if unpublicized) rollout on streaming.

6) Jimmy Baio: Happy birthday to one of the stars of our recent Soap episode, still a teen idol even at 58.

7) Tenspeed and Brownshoe: Shout! Factor's deal this week to nab streaming rights for most of the Stephen J. Cannell library surely means a renaissance for this show and not just 10 more outlets showing 21 Jump Street.



8) Earl Pomerantz: R.I.P. to the creator of BOTNS favorite Best of the West and an accomplished producer, TV writer, and blogger.

9) Alan Alda: He's the subject of a glowing profile in today's Washington Post. His big thing is listening.  Hey, I hope he listens to our podcast!

10) The state of Indiana: It takes several watches--and, yes, I have given this several watches--to realize it isn't a tourism board promo, but a local TV promo. All this is missing is a young Woody Boyd narrowly avoiding a tractor accident!

3 shows I'd like to see streaming in July 2021

Last month I lucked out on That's My Mama coming to Crackle, so let's take another few guesses/wishes for BOTNS-era shows on streaming video services in July 2021. The early lists make this look like a terrible month, and June wasn't all that great, so let's hope we get some surprises. There is one notable program I think may well make an unannounced appearance next month, but I can't reveal that one, so here are my votes for a few other pleasant and unexpected adds:

*Night Court on HBO Max: HBO Max's official list of July additions is noticeably devoid of catalog shows, licensed shows, and anything before 1990. It's time, HBO! We've heard about the reboot for months, we're getting more casting announcements each month...Please don't hold this back for the fall. Throw us a bone and give us a classic sitcom in July.  Its relative lack of exposure in recent years makes this a refreshing newcomer to streaming if it arrives.

*Kojak on Peacock: This streamer is going in the wrong direction as far as catalog content goes (We still don't know why they yanked so many of its classic movies shortly after launc). It appears to be sitting out the summer, assuming the Olympics is enough to bring in new eyeballs. Well, it isn't.

According to Peacock itself, it is LOSING Little House on the Prairie next month, and I have no idea why unless someone else has licensed it for it a run. So maybe there is "room" for one more. I'm assuming Shout! only had DVD rights and not streaming rights, or it would have put it on its OWN channel long ago. So let's see Theo Kojak hit Peacock in July.

*The Ken Berry WOW! Show on Shout! TV: This is the kind of oddball show Shout! adds from time to time, and it has streamed many programs from the TV Classics library of Paul Brownstein, most recently adding CPO Sharkey and several Don Rickles specials.  Shout! even has music-heavy shows like some of the Glen Campbell variety programs, so maybe it can bring us the short-lived but notable 1972 summer-replacement series. In addition to Berry, the cast includes Steve Martin and Terri Garr. It's only 5 episodes and would be a cool summer breeze for classic TV fans.

BONS Top Ten #11

1) Norm Peterson: One of our favorite accountants gets his due as we approach Tax Day. In fact, I think this calls for a free beer in celebration.

2) Tom Selleck: More proof that it's Selleck's world and we only live in it: While the new Magnum reminds us how good the original was, Blue Bloods just got renewed for a 10th season.

3) Jack Wagner: What better way to celebrate yesterday's National Record Store Day than by digging up some vintage vinyl from that classic dual threat, the man who was Frisco Jones and who also gave us:



4) Fay Furillo: On National Ex-Spouse Day, let us pay tribute to one of the classic televisions pains in the--uh, ex-spouses, Hill Street Blues' Captain Frank Furillo's former wife.

5) The Muppet Show: Given that Disney+ is going to throw a bunch of catalog programming up when it debuts, is there any chance that the original series finally comes out of the vaults for streaming? Please?

6) Bob Dorian: All this talk of Turner Classic Movies' 25th anniversary has me a little nostalgic for the guy who was doing it years earlier on American Movie Classics:

7) The Greatest American Hero: Fans are enjoying a weekend-long marathon on Decades.

8) Card Sharks: It returns to our rankings after the announcement that Joel McHale will host the upcoming revival. His experience hosting shows like Talk Soup demonstrates he has the skills to navigate a fast-paced game show while discerning whether 9 is in fact higher than 7.

9) John S. Ragin: Shout out to the late Dr. Astin on Quincy, who died on this date in 2013. Astin was basically a good man who was just trying to do his job even if sometimes he JUST DIDN'T UNDERSTAND!

10) Wizards and Warriors: This article on Me-TV's website this weekend claims the short-lived Jeff Conaway fantasy series could have been Game of Thrones of the 1980s if not for running on Saturday nights. Uh...no. But it's a fun article.