[pedonbio]

An advantage of staying up late is the number of "retro" channels that broadcast old tv shows, especially for those of of us who are retro enough to remember when they were cutting-edge tv. For example, "Sea Hunt" with Lloyd Bridges (father of a generation of male leads) was high-end tv at the time and now serves as a reminder of how far marine science has progressed. I was especially charmed by an episode of "Sea Hunt" which detailed the horrors of that most aggressive of man-eaters, the killer whale. It's really funny now to remember back before the IGY (International Geophysical Year) when nobody believed in tectonic plates except a few crazy Germans.

[Robin_K2]

I highly recommend MeTV, for those who can recieve this side channel. I just finished watching "The Rockford Files." Right now I'm viewing "The Rifleman." Next up is "M*A*S*H," followed by "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" -- then Bob Newhart, "The Odd Couple" -- television heaven! Laurel and Hardy on Sunday mornings, "The Wild, Wild West" tomorrow. "Lost in Space," the original "Star Trek" . . . all on MeTV.

Oh! And "The Honeymooners" every night and every morning, along with "I Love Lucy."

It's not that all of these shows were so fantastically great (though some are, indeed!), but that modern TV is such #*&# by comparison. And let me finally add that they had far fewer commercials than any programs today. Almost all MeTV programming is uncut.

[DruulEmpire]

"The Rockford Files," yes!  Just the other morning ThisTV here in Pittsburgh showed the original Outer Limits episode "The Sixth Finger."  I always sit still for that, if only because Jill Haworth is so fine.  But MeTV is good for "Sea Hunt."  Mike Nelson, the one-man Coast Guard -- and what theme music it had.  (bio, I can forgive the bad science if only because they were obviously desperate for plots.  I recall one insane episode featuring a mysterious "satellite" -- it was "orbiting" Earth, just underwater, so the description went. )

[gOOber]

My father would put one of these in our car.

[pedonbio]

 Just the other morning ThisTV here in Pittsburgh showed the original Outer Limits episode "The Sixth Finger."    

Was that the episode about pushing human evolution and the only external sign was a sixth finger?

(bio, I can forgive the bad science if only because they were obviously desperate for plots.  I recall one insane episode featuring a mysterious "satellite" -- it was "orbiting" Earth, just underwater, so the description went. )

I saw one recently where a piece of orbital junk lands in the bay and Mike only has 20 minutes to determine if it's space junk or an incoming nuke. I've known a few divers. It takes longer than that to get the tanks ready. But Mike saved the world.

[Magiciano]

My father would put one of these in our car.

Hell !! I used to put one of those in my car.

[DruulEmpire]

Bio, hi.  "Sixth Finger" is great because you get to see David McCallum, round about his Ilya Kuryakin heyday, play a Welsh miner suddenly wearing a HELL of a lot of makeup, not just a budding sixth finger -- by the end he has a HUGE bald skull and big elfin ears.  It's also simply one of the best episodes.

"Finger" is still to be recommended if only for Jill Haworth.  Her name was pronounced "ha!-worth" but she acquiesced to the Hayworth pronunciation so long as it was spelled right.  She's not much by BEA standards -- they can't all be the great Joanna Frank in "ZZZZZ" -- but she is a genuinely romantic charmer.  She created the on-stage role of Sally Bowles for "Cabaret" and was a center of jealous contention between, of all people, Sal Mineo and Aaron Spelling.  She never married -- I do hope because she had plenty of fun.  Ascending to eternal cosmic nirvana, or hanging around in a grubby coal-dusty valley to roll in some hay with Jill Haworth -- the eternal existential dilemma.

[Zorro]

 

[gOOber]

Once upon a time, almost all pics of nudie cuties came with staples.

[pedonbio]

Bio, hi.  "Sixth Finger" is great because you get to see David McCallum, round about his Ilya Kuryakin heyday, play a Welsh miner suddenly wearing a HELL of a lot of makeup, not just a budding sixth finger -- by the end he has a HUGE bald skull and big elfin ears.  It's also simply one of the best episodes.

"Finger" is still to be recommended if only for Jill Haworth.  Her name was pronounced "ha!-worth" but she acquiesced to the Hayworth pronunciation so long as it was spelled right.  She's not much by BEA standards -- they can't all be the great Joanna Frank in "ZZZZZ" -- but she is a genuinely romantic charmer.  She created the on-stage role of Sally Bowles for "Cabaret" and was a center of jealous contention between, of all people, Sal Mineo and Aaron Spelling.  She never married -- I do hope because she had plenty of fun.  Ascending to eternal cosmic nirvana, or hanging around in a grubby coal-dusty valley to roll in some hay with Jill Haworth -- the eternal existential dilemma.

I agree on all counts--And besides, McCallum is still working, as the pathologist on NCIS. I would love to have a gig like that at 78!

[WadeWilsonEsquire]

I highly recommend MeTV, for those who can recieve this side channel. I just finished watching "The Rockford Files." Right now I'm viewing "The Rifleman." Next up is "M*A*S*H," followed by "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" -- then Bob Newhart, "The Odd Couple" -- television heaven! Laurel and Hardy on Sunday mornings, "The Wild, Wild West" tomorrow. "Lost in Space," the original "Star Trek" . . . all on MeTV.

Oh! And "The Honeymooners" every night and every morning, along with "I Love Lucy."

It's not that all of these shows were so fantastically great (though some are, indeed!), but that modern TV is such #*&# by comparison. And let me finally add that they had far fewer commercials than any programs today. Almost all MeTV programming is uncut.

Ahh so it seems to be what TV land once was. I hate that I have to try so hard to find episode of Dick Van Dyke or Lucy on television these days.

[gOOber]

 

[DruulEmpire]

I find myself strangely haunted not even by established TV classics, but shows that flickered by in an instant of ambition and were never heard of again, such as some found among these:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oL-MAUmLQg

This all started when I was researching surnames and came across Primus, and thought "Wasn't there a TV show by that name?"  Yup!

Ahh, the possibilities.  I even remember when fellow PBS show "Sesame Street" featured "Monsterpiece Theatre" with the Cookie Monster as Alistair Cookie.  Not so sure about the Curtis-Moore thing, seems to me just about anything starring Robert Wagner, like "It Takes a Thief" or "Switch," covered much the same ground.  Still -- Henry Fonda as a policeman!  (With Ron Howard as his son!)  An updated reboot of "Sea Hunt"!  Anthony Quinn as big city mayor Thomas Jefferson Alcala!  Sadly, I think they invested so much in Fonda and Quinn respectively than any actual stories went malnourished, and "Primus" simply never caught on, even as we would go on to be inundated by Dirk Pitt novels.  Still, I salute these bygones.  Someone was at least trying.  I miss that.

PS: apologies if the link is weirdly sluggish, evidently you may actually have to hit the Play arrow.  

[WadeWilsonEsquire]

I find a lot of nostalgia in company chimes and logos. I know that sounds weird but the little three second snip for a movie studio or production company that would play at the end of a show or before a movie makes  me get all fuzzy.

[DruulEmpire]

I think I take your point -- there's something reassuring in the surreal 20th Century Fox monolith with the trumpeting fanfare, or the Paramount mountain with its stars whirling into position, or the Statue of Liberty wannabe that is the Columbia woman, or simply the giant WB shield for Warner Brothers, now frequently played with a quick few notes from "As Time Goes By" in "Casablanca."  Universal has gotten too computerized for me -- I miss the days when I would get to worry "Why is the Earth so cloudless, and spinning so damn fast, and what's that nebula behind it that's about to swallow it?"

You have no idea of the reverie you've just triggered in me.  Suddenly I'm envisioning an embittered, world-weary, war-scarred cartoon tiger, making his big movie comeback in --

TANK TIGER

"Back when Exxon was Esso ... they used him to sell gasoline ... and he made them billions of dollars.  Now ... his species is dying ... and he has returned to Exxon with one simple message -- YOU OWE ME, BITCHES."