I've been watching Air Wolf on Netflix. It makes me giggle.
Renowned Death Hag
I've been watching Air Wolf on Netflix. It makes me giggle.
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"I will be buried in a spring loaded casket filled with confetti, and a future archaeologist will have one awesome day at work."
One thing that strikes me again and again when when I listen to old-time radio is how little things have changed in American society, and that the radio genres were much the same and in many ways foreshadowed what we see on TV today.
In the early 50s, the highest rated shows were police dramas, detective and mystery shows, and sit-coms. But there were also talent competitions and even reality radio. There was a show called "Night Watch" in which a guy with a tape recorder rode with detectives from the Culver City, CA police department, and another show called "Unit 6" which was basically the same thing. Absolutely an audio version of COPS complete with drugs and drug and gambling raids, domestic violence, child endangerment, crazy people wandering the streets, foot chases, etc.
Some people were terrified of perceived Communist influences. Others decried the deterioriation of religion, morals, family values (Family Theater famously proclaimed the motto "The family that prays together, stays together!") and forecast the imminent downfall of civilization as we know it. The how and why of guns was becoming a subject of contention, and some people got very cross when the media waded into the fray (listen sometime to the famous Dragnet episode "A .22 Rifle for Christmas", later remade for the TV version). It's oddly reassuring in a way.
It all holds up pretty well after all of these years, with the possible exceptions of "Broadway is My Beat" (the scriptwriter of which seems to have read way too much Beat poetry) and "I Was A Communist for the FBI" (which groans under the burden of all the propaganda with which it was loaded).
I was a communist for the FBI was and is pretty brutal. I think Nightbeat is better than any crime show on today. I'm going to go find that cd.
You mean Night Watch, don't you? Night Beat is the show about Randy Stone, the newspaper reporter for the Chicago Star. I don't care much for the latter, but I get them both confused sometimes too.Originally Posted by radiojane
No I meant nightbeat. It's one of my favorites and I still consider it crime based. I may just be sentimental because it was one of the first ones I heard though.
Renowned Death Hag
You mean Night Watch, don't you? Night Beat is the show about Randy Stone, the newspaper reporter for the Chicago Star. I don't care much for the latter, but I get them both confused sometimes too.No, no, no!! You both are confused. It was called Night Court!!(Sorry couldn't help myself!)
Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.
There is a long-running late-night comedy show on German TV called Nightwash. It features stand-up comedians performing for a live audience in an all-night self-service laundry, because Germans are edgy and avant garde like that. Maybe you should audition.No, no, no!! You both are confused. It was called Night Court!!
I love Seinfeld and have the DVD box set.
I still enjoy watching MASH but only the episodes where Trapper and Henry were still in it.
Renowned Death Hag
Barney Miller has not aged well
Things have just changed too much.....
I watch Dragnet on Netflix love that show...so amazed at the difference in eras...i remember one show about a dad holding his baby hostage with a gun and Joe Friday saying the baby would be fine because parents don't hurt their children...that would have been a whole different show nowadays....
Renowned Death Hag
Oh my I had totally forgot Barney Miller !!
One show that is a bit mixed when it comes to haven't aged well over the years is Mama's Family. Caught several episodes this past week. Some shows such as Mama doing "Dirty Dancing", The Harper clan selling Iola's stuff to buy a VCR, Mama becoming a consumer host on the radio.....those episodes haven't aged very well..but..the episodes dealing with the homeless, sexual harassment, Vint & Naomi's sexual issues ( Dr. Joyce Brothers ), Bubba's drinking have actually held up quite well over the years. Heck even the one show where Mama was picketing Food Circus over selling porn to Bubba..depending on where you live that holds up well. Last year in my town a woman picketed one of our local convience stores who had sold her 17 year old son Playboy. Unfortunately unlike Mama Harper she wasn't successful. Local media wasn't interested and pretty much neither was anyone else. With so much porn being available online now, stuff that would even shock Hugh Hefner himself...I can see why.
I love Dragnet too and have the DVD's. I crack up how the same actors pop up over and over again as different people. Like that blonde older actress Virginia Gregg. In one episode she was running a pyramid scheme, in another she was a woman reporter etc......she and the rest of those actors had a full time job with Jack Webb.
My favorite episode is the one where the guy insisted he be called Mister Daniel Loomis including his pregnant wife and had it tatooed on his arm in a heart.....he had another wife in another state of whom he knocked up and left, he cleaned out his current blind mother in laws house with a moving company, he became engaged to a overweight homely girl and was planning to run off with their honeymoon savings account, and bragged about it all to Joe and Bill. He told them the homely girl, that the honeymoon money was a small price to pay. The girl was sweet but unattractive and not his ideal mate and that at least she could have the honor of being Mrs. Loomis who's husband had disappeared instead of the girl who never got asked to get married.
Yeah.... Just tried to watch an episode of MASH. I'm too young for the original run, but my dad watched it on video when I was growing up, and I loved the early seasons. Maybe I picked a bad one tonight, but Hawkeye was preachy even in the early years. In the Vietnam era this would have made sense. Now it's just maudlin. I find the same thing with the episodes of Magnum PI that dealt with the war.
Renowned Death Hag
Had to laugh... Ol Festus "talkin out right stupidity" just reminded me of him more, and the way he talked. Gunsmoke still seems timeless to me, there weren't a lot of issues back then to touch on, save for good vs. bad. Amazingly enough, Ken Curtis was quite an accomplished singer, sang with "The Son of the Pioneers" that you can actually catch on youtube, he has a voice you would never expect.
By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death.... He that dies this year is quit for the next.
--William Shakespeare!
I have some of their old albums.
Renowned Death Hag
Murphy Brown, Golden Girls any show
that talked about politics from the 1980s.
Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.
Renowned Death Hag
I can't lie. I watch Golden Girls every Sunday night in bed and laugh my butt off.
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"Do mind the pedestrian, Richard." - Hyacinth Bucket
I remember when either Nick at nite or TV land was running Murphy Brown, I couldn't get over how dated the show was....
As much as I love M*A*S*H, it's dated on 2 different levels,..it's 70's touchy-feely sensibility,....and the 1940's pop culture references..I can't help but think anyone under the age of 45 would get some of the humor...
MASH was at its best during the McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers era, in spite of Alda's mini-sermons here and there. Post Henry Blake and Trapper the show began its progression away from primarily a comedy. Both the show and the movie was set in Korea but was intentionally played down to resemble Vietnam. I think what dates the series is it's mix of being set during the Korean war with 1970's-Vietnam-type anti-war elements.
Dragnet is still ok, bearing in mind it was set during its time...late 1960's, and subjects reflected that, if you're in a Laugh-In/Dean Martin Show/Dragnet mood. I don't think Webb intended the show to "stand the test of time" and his points of view were heavily on display in scripts.
One of my favorite Dragnet eps is when Bill Gannon insists Joe come home with him for a roast duck dinner. Amusing as can be. Two men "lounging" watching a ball game dressed in white shirts and ties. Of course they encounter a door to door scammer selling magazine subscriptions, whom they arrest and have a couple of uniforms come to pick up. Bill in his cooking apron, fussing about turning off lights where they are not being used.
Last edited by Bidmor; 02-02-2013 at 01:49 PM.
That is another one of my favorite episodes too. Bill is bragging to Joe how he is "with it today" and took down the wallpaper and now has in style painted walls , when in a previous episode he and his wife are over at Joe's apartment and hounds Joe his place needs some wallpaper ( like it's an obsession with him) to make it a home.
He also gives Joe those crazy psychadelic pajamas as a gift to sleep in. Bill's neighbors are also as loony as Joe's, barging in every so often and a crime takes place when they are trying to have some off time. You can see Jack Webb lose it a few times bursting out laughing at Harry Morgan's adlibbing antics.
I agree with Murphy Brown and throw in Hill Street Blues (which was groundbreaking at the time, I admit)
Renowned Death Hag
Unsolved Mysteries. I loved this show in my teens. I watch it now and think... wow this is some bad recreation of events. I think the new crime shows have jaded me.
Administrator
Um Miami Vice, I know I was too young when it came on but I started watching it and yeah it's pretty dated, 21 jump street, Young Riders,
I love love love DUE South,
Facts Of Life and Designing Women are really dated and scream 80's. The women's hair do's on those shows helped deplete half the ozone layer with the amount of hairspray that was used. Full House and Fresh Prince of Bel Air look dated now as well.
i remember Winchester referencing Dennis Day when referring to Father Mulcahey. I was the only one in the room that got it, and that's only because I'm a radio nerd.
I will check that out, it's always good to have a diffrent perspective on people.
My 11 year old son ADORES Emergency! Most of the shows are pretty good, but occasionally you get slapped in the face with how society has moved on.
For instance, one show dealt with the paramedics being called to check on a baby who'd been left in a locked car. They got the baby out, and they were checking him/her over when the mom came out of a nearby salon with rollers in her hair. Instead of putting cuffs on the mom and hauling her off to jail for neglect, then slapping her dumb curler-faced mugshot on The Smoking Gun, Johnny and Roy stood there and got yelled at by the mom for daring to interfere with her parenting!
Oh I wanted real bad to be a paramedic ca. 1972 - almost as much as I wanted to an astronaut.My 11 year old son ADORES Emergency! Most of the shows are pretty good, but occasionally you get slapped in the face with how society has moved on.
For instance, one show dealt with the paramedics being called to check on a baby who'd been left in a locked car. They got the baby out, and they were checking him/her over when the mom came out of a nearby salon with rollers in her hair. Instead of putting cuffs on the mom and hauling her off to jail for neglect, then slapping her dumb curler-faced mugshot on The Smoking Gun, Johnny and Roy stood there and got yelled at by the mom for daring to interfere with her parenting!
I remember one episode about a drugged up hippie threatening people with a Coca Cola grenade - a glass bottle of the soft drink that he had shaken thoroughly and was poised to lob onto the floor (where presumably it would burst and scatter lethal glass splinters for yards). Good luck trying that with today's PET-bottles.!
Another Jack Webb series...as memory serves his only successful one other than Dragnet.My 11 year old son ADORES Emergency! Most of the shows are pretty good, but occasionally you get slapped in the face with how society has moved on.
For instance, one show dealt with the paramedics being called to check on a baby who'd been left in a locked car. They got the baby out, and they were checking him/her over when the mom came out of a nearby salon with rollers in her hair. Instead of putting cuffs on the mom and hauling her off to jail for neglect, then slapping her dumb curler-faced mugshot on The Smoking Gun, Johnny and Roy stood there and got yelled at by the mom for daring to interfere with her parenting!
Except for Adam-12 of course.
Renowned Death Hag
I'd watch Emergency just to see Julie London. She married Jack Webb and Bobby Troup? They must have been hung like firetrucks and could lick their eyebrows.
"Everybody is born, and everybody dies. Being born wasn't so bad , was it?"
Peter the Hermit
Renowned Death Hag
He was the button box accordian player and singer in the pub scenes in "The Quiet Man" (great flick!)
Yes, we watch the crap out of that one, too.Except for Adam-12 of course.
Senior Death Hag
Also was in The Searchers. "I'll thank you to unhand my fee-an-cee".
Back in the day, when I was crazy about "Emergency", I organized a playground emergency squad for a while. A few of us staked out a corner of the playground as our "fire station", and every recess we would wait there for some kid to take a tumble, upon which we would race over making siren noises to stabilize and transport the hapless victim.
Forget about that today: a kid could probably spend weeks waiting for as much as a scraped knee.
We never tried organizing a playground police force. Somehow I think that would have been frowned upon by the powers that be.
"Dispatch to 1-Adam-12 . . . Dispatch to 1-Adam-12 . . . unknown disturbance - see the man at the monkey bars, 112 Teeter-Totter Avenue."
Renowned Death Hag
That's hilarious! Oh and today, the parents would sue the school for their kid getting a scraped knee, then playgrounds will be banned so kids won't scrap their knees.Back in the day, when I was crazy about "Emergency", I organized a playground emergency squad for a while. A few of us staked out a corner of the playground as our "fire station", and every recess we would wait there for some kid to take a tumble, upon which we would race over making siren noises to stabilize and transport the hapless victim.
Forget about that today: a kid could probably spend weeks waiting for as much as a scraped knee.
We never tried organizing a playground police force. Somehow I think that would have been frowned upon by the powers that be.
"Dispatch to 1-Adam-12 . . . Dispatch to 1-Adam-12 . . . unknown disturbance - see the man at the monkey bars, 112 Teeter-Totter Avenue."
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I also remember being very much in awe of the chief of our village's little volunteer fire department, who also happened to be the school custodian.
And the disappointed look my third-grade teacher gave me when I announced I wanted to be a paramedic when I grew up and she said she thought I might make a better physician.
In the little upstate NY town where my uncle was a pastor for 25+ years, he was also on the volunteer fire department emergency squad. So he could save them if he could and bless them if he couldn't. That seemed to work out well for all concerned. In fact, come to think of it, I know a lot of clergy who are also EMTs. I guess it's not ambulance chasing if you actually ride the ambulance.
Renowned Death Hag
Since they are now in syndication I wonder if
people in years to come will understand all the
inside jokes of the sitcom: 30 Rock (2006-2013)
Last edited by theotherlondon; 02-08-2013 at 12:16 PM.
Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.
If you used to watch a show in your childhood or teenage years and loved it, and then watched it again some years later and didn't like it, I'd recommend giving them another try at some point.
When I was a child, I loved "The Carol Burnett Show." Carol, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Vicky Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, the talks Carol had with the audience, the ear-lobe pulling, the Tarzan yell, the whole bit. I was sad when it went off the air in 1978.
Fast forward some years later, around the early 2000s. My grandma had the TV on and they were showing old "Carol Burnett Show" episodes. Well I watched a couple of them and found myself thinking "Man, this is not funny. Why did I even like this show?" I left there thinking "The Carol Burnett Show" was not as good as I remembered.
Fast forward again to just last year, 2012. I was flipping channels on a Saturday afternoon and the only thing on (out of 900 channels) was a DVD promo for "The Carol Burnett Show." Now they just showed highlights, but I found myself laughing and having a good time, almost like I did back in the 1970s. It reminded me why I loved that show.
So, the point is, if you saw your once-favorite show as an adult and didn't like it for whatever reason, give it another try at some point. You might re-discover why you liked it in the first place. There are variable factors in all of this, but sometimes, things catch us at the wrong time. You could come back at another time and things will be totally different.
Renowned Death Hag
Me, I think "The Carol Burnett Show" will live
forever.
Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.
Renowned Death Hag
Me too!
Me three.
Renowned Death Hag
Great show. Check out youtube for the bloopers. It's funny to hear the cast dropping the f-bomb!
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Renowned Death Hag
oh God.....at work (since everyone is 90) they watch Metv.....starts off with bewitched (which I love) but moves into I dream of jeannie (never could stand that) the bob newhart show (yech), perry mason, and the twilight zone.....good LORD....
"if you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask someone else first" Kurt Cobain
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"Submitted for your consideration, a woman trapped in a place where time stands still ... does she work in a nursing home? Or has she entered . . . the twilight zone!" Doot doot doot doot, doot doot doot doot
Renowned Death Hag
Chances are 5 years from now if not sooner MeTV will be 24/7 Seth MacFarlane and Ryan Seacrest. The classic..aka "old" stuff on there will NOT last. Kinda like cable 30 years ago.
I'm sorry to say you are right in your prediction. Every time a niche channel shows up dedicated to the classics (good stuff), they then will add a newer show a little further down the line or some original programming, then another, then another till they replace all the oldies with current crap that's still in prime time or isn't even 10 years old yet. Like Nick at Nite, TVLand and Game Show Network.
How many channels are running Scrubs, Raymond, King Of Queens, Family Guy, Friends, Roseanne, How I met Your Mother, Big Band Theory etc....? Just about every one of them since Viacom pretty much owns every channel out there.
Renowned Death Hag
rosebud--LOL!
sometimes I feel like that!
I DID catch my very favorite twilight zone episode...the one where the maniquins(sp) from the dept store can enter "the real world" for a month.....LOL
"if you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask someone else first" Kurt Cobain
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I used to watch that in the morning before work I loved it , rays dad was great
Renowned Death Hag
I also enjoyed the Tv show: Everybody Loves Raymond.
But please ask yourself: How could he always be home at
nights and on Saturdays and Sundays and still cover sports?
Carolyn(1958-2009) always in my heart.
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