Retro TV Channels: ”The Good Old Days of Television”

[Milz]

That was Michael Landon's 1970's Pa Ingall's hair.

 

We don't get Retro around here anymore. Our ABC affiliate dumped it (when it lost almost every show except some really bad Canadian imports) and replaced it with MeTV.

[Maverick]

 What the hell is up with Bionic Woman on COZI?  Every other week they show Jaime's Shield.   It's been on at least 3 times in the past month and a half.

[Actionmage]

I was wondering about a similar situation over on HOT. The husband and I stumbled onto Lock Up, an old Macdonald Carey show. I was enjoying it. Then they started heavily rotating about three episodes. Granted one of the eps had Leonard Nimoy as a gang kid, but still- the same three episodes?

 

Then I tuned in one day and there was Charles Bronson in Man With A Camera!

 

Then again, at least locally, the Dragnet and Life With Elizabeth episodes seem to repeat often.

 

Maybe there is a delay in getting "newer" episodes or new series for Winter/Spring?

[Jipijapa]

MeTV doesn't seem to repeat episodes like that.  They just cycle through all episodes in order.  MeTV even has had some Rockford Files episodes that are missing from Netflix.

[Maverick]

MeTV can be spotty too.  There are several shows where they are missing whole seasons, of a few or many episodes within a season.  I think they only have the first 3 years of The Love Boat.  They are missing most of the latter seasons of Hawaii 5-0, but will have a handful of random episodes from one of the missing seasons.  

[Cobb Salad]

That may be due to how The Love Boat is packaged for syndication. TVGN runs episodes on a regular basis however I haven't noticed what seasons they are from.

[Collinwood]

For those who are watching Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on MeTV, Season 2 just concluded this past weekend and the next episode is the start of Season 3.  MeTV has been going in order, but I don't know if they will continue to the end of the series.  Just a reminder, Season 3 is the one with an episode about Admiral Nelson becoming a werewolf .

[ennui]

Going back to CHiPS -- I love the show. I just like to see all the cars, back when makes and models were visually distinctive. It was a great job for stunt drivers, too. Seems like there's a rollover every episode.

 

For "the blonde guy" commercial ... Larry Wilcox has a website. He was offended, but if you read his entire letter, he's embarrassed by the show, anyway. I was surprised to learn that he takes himself so seriously as an actor. In the whole letter, he mentioned Erik Estrada twice. Now, Erik seems like a decent person. I haven't heard that he spends his free time stomping on kittens or anything, so the snub seemed odd. I used to like Larry, but now I'm not so sure.

 

The first two seasons of Chips were good; then, they started to take themselves too seriously. Jon and Ponch go to prison for refusing to name an informant, etc. Kinda silly. I still watch for the cars. Life was so much simpler then. I do like when they need to manually go through all the police records and it takes five people all day to find a parking ticket.

 

RE Gilligan's Island, someone asked if it's colorized. I believe the show started in B&W, but later episodes were filmed in color. Sign of the times.

 

 

 

 

[roamyn]

COZI also misses scenes.

I noticed during the summer while watching Starsky & Hutch . And they completely skipped 'The Fix" where Hutch gets hooked on heroin by a ruthless Robert Loggia.

[Jipijapa]

Is it just me, or is the fact that MeTV isn't offering any holiday marathons a little disappointing?  I would love to mainline 12 hours of The Rockford Files or Columbo or something.  Or anything really.  Except F Troop.

 

I read the Larry Wilcox thing in question.  File under "How not to maintain your presence on the Internet/social media."

Edited November 26, 2014 by Jipijapa

[Maverick]

 

For "the blonde guy" commercial ... Larry Wilcox has a website. He was offended, but if you read his entire letter, he's embarrassed by the show, anyway. I was surprised to learn that he takes himself so seriously as an actor.

 

 Sounds like Robert Reed Syndrome.  He thinks above the material, and that every script should be deep, thought-provoking and completely accurate.  The difference is, Reed never dissed his co-stars.  I get so tired of people who shoot to fame and then whine about being embarrassed, typecast, etc.  If you want to be known as a serious actor, then don't take a job about cops patrolling the LA freeways, even if it's "just a job".  If you have such integrity as an actor, then accept the alternative of being just another unemployed actor just waiting for the world to realize how talented and serious you are.  You know, since that's where you ended up anyway.  Then instead of a has-been, you could be a never-was without such horrible skeletons in your closet.   

[roseha]

 

Is it just me, or is the fact that MeTV isn't offering any holiday marathons a little disappointing?

 

Well, what I've noticed is that they try to show holiday-themed episodes; they ran the two Bob Newhart Thanksgiving shows back to back Monday night.  I couldn't wait, for me "Over the River and Through the Woods" is one of the funniest sitcom episodes of all time.  Unfortunately Channel 3.10 was breaking up to some degree, so at times I ended up laughing at what I *knew* were the lines.  No problem, though, really, I went ahead and bought Season 4 of Bob's show on sale.

Anyway, my guess is they may have tried to include other Thanksgiving themed shows this week.  I kind of like that METV hasn't fallen victim to the "marathon" syndrome that TV Land and other networks have continually fallen into, I don't even watch some of those channels at all as a result.

[ennui]

OK, last comment about CHiPs and I'll shut up. It's fun to see Michael Dorn before he learned Klingon and became Worf. 

[DowntonStabby]

I like seeing the old cable boxes and HBO guide (just clicked on this thread & read from the beginning). I'm a youngin' in comparison to you all (33 here), and my parents got cable around '83 or '84, I want to say. Our first cable box that I can remember had this round dial that you had to turn (like on an older model color TV) to get from channel to channel. When we got a new setup at the second house we moved to (after a year and a half without cable, for some reason), the remote was attached to the cable box.

I am probably one of the youngest people to remember seeing a TV signoff in real time, when Channel 2 in St. Louis (back then an ABC affiliate; it and Channel 30, which started out life as an independent station, but became a FOX affiliate, flip-flopped network affiliations in the summer of '95), & that had to be the mid-to-late '80s. I want to say it was the early '90s before station signoffs completely went away (aside from the ones stations did to mark their analog signals signing off for good), but I could be wrong.

Despite having cable for virtually all my growing up, going to college, moving back home, then leaving home again (mainly because it was including in my rent), when my husband (who was then-my boyfriend of s year or so) decided to move in together, we decided to forgo cable and just stream Netflix. Then I got an HD antenna (because apparently HD antennas work differently from analog TVs in terms of picking up channels--I am educated enough to figure shit out, yet not enough to realize that off the bat. Awesome!), and later, I got a Roku box from my brother and his boyfriend (was streaming from my Wii console before), got a Hulu Plus subscription (plus enjoying other free stuff on the Roku), and...yeah. The husband & I are not missing cable one bit (he previously lived in a place w/free DirecTV himself).

Word to those singing the praises of Green Acres. Came across an episode recently of that show concerning computer dating. Looked it up on IMDB--it was from 1967!

[Milz]

RE: colorized Gilligan

 

I read on the MeTV site shortly after I posted that they were airing the colorized Season 1. Back in the 80s or 90s, colorizing B&W tv shows and movies was somewhat in vogue. IIRC watching the "colorized" It's a Wonderful Life (it didn't look very good either.)

 

They're back to airing the regular B& W season 1 GI.

 

Is it me or does anyone else find Ann Marie and her father on That Girl annoying? 

[Cobb Salad]

I watched the colorized version of It's a Wonderful Life when colorization was "in vogue". It looked terrible. I spent more time noticing the bad color than paying attention to the story. Any of the colorized stuff I saw back then looked "dirty". They could never match the brilliance of color like it could have been filmed back in the day.

A while back Hulu had some colorized first season episodes of I Dream of Jeannie that looked very good. I wonder if the technology changed enough to "fool" those who would never know the difference?

[DowntonStabby]

RE: colorized Gilligan

I read on the MeTV site shortly after I posted that they were airing the colorized Season 1. Back in the 80s or 90s, colorizing B&W tv shows and movies was somewhat in vogue. IIRC watching the "colorized" It's a Wonderful Life (it didn't look very good either.)

That was also back during the times when "It's a Wonderful Life" aired around the clock from the day after Thanksgiving onward--on TBS, WGN, and your local, then-still-independent stations--up until NBC bought exclusive broadcast rights to the movie roughly 20 years ago. TBS was so notorious for the colorization practice, it was known as "Turnerization" (though it's certainly not the only place I saw the colorized print).

[Milz]

I watched the colorized version of It's a Wonderful Life when colorization was "in vogue". It looked terrible. I spent more time noticing the bad color than paying attention to the story. Any of the colorized stuff I saw back then looked "dirty". They could never match the brilliance of color like it could have been filmed back in the day.

A while back Hulu had some colorized first season episodes of I Dream of Jeannie that looked very good. I wonder if the technology changed enough to "fool" those who would never know the difference?

 

Colorized Gilligan looks bad too. Their skin tones look yellowish-orange. The color on the clothing looks flat. And the trees look more fake than they were.

 

That was also back during the times when "It's a Wonderful Life" aired around the clock from the day after Thanksgiving onward--on TBS, WGN, and your local, then-still-independent stations--up until NBC bought exclusive broadcast rights to the movie roughly 20 years ago. TBS was so notorious for the colorization practice, it was known as "Turnerization" (though it's certainly not the only place I saw the colorized print).

 

I remember "A Christmas Carol"  starring Alistair Sim was colorized too, with equally horrible results, imo.

 

Personally, I enjoy watching B&W movies and tv shows.

[Milz]

Me will show all the Christmas episodes of their shows after Gilligan's Island this month.

[roseha]

I just missed the Christmas Dobie Gillis ep last night...sigh, will probably be months before they show Dobie again.

 

I remember the colorization controversy, and it makes me think of a thread we had back on TWOP about black and white versus color shows - IMO, the movies and shows that were filmed in black and white, were *meant* to be filmed that way, either just visually, in terms of mood (the noirish, gloomy Fugitive should never have made the switch to color, but I'm sure the network felt compelled to do it) or whatever.  Maybe the older Hollywood films and shows were saving money as well by going B/W but I'm sure the directors and cinematographers knew what effects they wanted that way.  My 2 cents anyway.

[Milz]

 

 

I remember the colorization controversy, and it makes me think of a thread we had back on TWOP about black and white versus color shows - IMO, the movies and shows that were filmed in black and white, were *meant* to be filmed that way, either just visually, in terms of mood (the noirish, gloomy Fugitive should never have made the switch to color, but I'm sure the network felt compelled to do it) or whatever.  Maybe the older Hollywood films and shows were saving money as well by going B/W but I'm sure the directors and cinematographers knew what effects they wanted that way.  My 2 cents anyway.

 

I agree with you. "Dark" tv shows like "X-Files", "Buffy", "Angel", and currently "Gotham" would benefit from B&W because the  visual mood is set. One of the better movie uses of B&W and color was "The Wizard of Oz": everything in Kansas was B&W, but Oz was all colorful and bright.

 

I think the color switch in the '60s was more of marketing thing: everyone HAD to have color shows because everyone else had them.

[Cobb Salad]

I think NBC was leading the charge on the move from B&W to color since their parent company at the time was RCA, the makers of color TVs.

I agree with what's been said here about the use of B&W and its conveying of mood. IIRC there was an episode of the X Files (or a show around that time) filmed in B&W and it was a good choice.

[ennui]

MeTV is running a promo that they will be showing all of their Christmas episodes in the evenings. They claim to have too many. 

[Milz]

The Carol burnett Show is coming to MeTV according to the promo I saw this morning. I hope they'll show all of the episodes, not just the popular ones. Gone with the Wind was funny, but I think seeing Scarlett's window dress every other night will get really, really, stale.

Edited December 9, 2014 by Milz

[roseha]

I'm a little surprised to see any variety show being rerun, though from what I remember the Carol Burnett show pretty much had a regular recurring cast.  I think usually the problem would be paying the rights for musical numbers, but I guess that isn't an issue since her show was pretty much sketch comedy throughout IIRC.

[Actionmage]

I've also seen teasers for The Mod Squad and Quincy, M.E. on MeTV. I have seen them mainly after early Perry Mason (9am Central), so they may be replacing Dragnet and either Perry or Rockford. (Perry because they show him twice a day, or Rockford because that is also on" Catch Me If You Can" Sundays.)

 

If The Carol Burnett Show is coming to MeTV, I will be delighted! One of the more consistently funny sketch shows on TV. 

[Maverick]

They ran MOD Squad over the summer; surprised it's coming back this soon.  

 

 The new schedule looks to start January first.  Some of the changes are:

 

 That Girl moves to 7 am and Donna Reed moves to 8 am.  Abbott & Costello take over the 5 am slot.  Mary Tyler Moore returns to the schedule at 8:30 am.  Leave it to Beaver is gone (apparently it is moving to Antenna TV)

 

 Love Boat replaces Daniel Boone at 9 am.   DB appears to be off the schedule.

 

 Quincy replaces Dragnet at 11 am.  Dragnet is apparently going to COZI TV.

 

 The Adventures of Superman replaces Adam 12 at 4pm.  Adam 12 is apparently going to COZI TV as well.  The Saturday airings of Superman continue.

 

 Cheers moves to 9:30 pm, replacing Gilligan's Island which still airs on Sundays.

 

 The Carol Burnett Show (actually the repackage 30 minute Carol Burnett and Friends show) airs at 11pm.

 

 A 'mystery movie' airs at 12:30 am, replacing Dragnet, Adam 12 and Ironside.  Ironside appears to be off the schedule.

 

 The Mod Squad airs at 5pm on Sundays replacing Rockford Files, which still airs weekdays. 

[ennui]

Regarding schedule changes ... I get a small channel called INSP, which shows a lot of old westerns. If they move High Chaparral back to a decent time (it's on at 5 a.m.!), I'll be happy.

[Milz]

They ran MOD Squad over the summer; surprised it's coming back this soon.  

 

 The new schedule looks to start January first.  Some of the changes are:

 

 That Girl moves to 7 am and Donna Reed moves to 8 am.  Abbott & Costello take over the 5 am slot.  Mary Tyler Moore returns to the schedule at 8:30 am.  Leave it to Beaver is gone (apparently it is moving to Antenna TV)

 

 Love Boat replaces Daniel Boone at 9 am.   DB appears to be off the schedule.

 

 Quincy replaces Dragnet at 11 am.  Dragnet is apparently going to COZI TV.

 

 The Adventures of Superman replaces Adam 12 at 4pm.  Adam 12 is apparently going to COZI TV as well.  The Saturday airings of Superman continue.

 

 Cheers moves to 9:30 pm, replacing Gilligan's Island which still airs on Sundays.

 

 The Carol Burnett Show (actually the repackage 30 minute Carol Burnett and Friends show) airs at 11pm.

 

 A 'mystery movie' airs at 12:30 am, replacing Dragnet, Adam 12 and Ironside.  Ironside appears to be off the schedule.

 

 The Mod Squad airs at 5pm on Sundays replacing Rockford Files, which still airs weekdays. 

 

Dang! I wanted it to air earlier in the evening.......

[Actionmage]

The Carol Burnett Show (actually the repackage 30 minute Carol Burnett and Friends show) airs at 11pm.

 

 

Dang! I wanted it to air earlier in the evening.......

 

Dang! I wanted a full episode to be aired like it was when I watched it live.

[ennui]

So, I clicked over to MeTV to watch CHiPs and it was Gilligan's Island. I guess the schedule change happened without notice. 

[Maverick]

CHiPs was on here today (and isn't scheduled to move).   Today's episode was Bonnie Gets Kidnapped by Bikers.

[ennui]

Hmmm. Instead of CHiPs, I got Gilligan's Island. And, the schedule said MASH, but it was Welcome Back Kotter. 

[Maverick]

 I think those were the Christmas episodes for tonight (I'm not sure because my MeTV preempts the 10pm slot.  Maybe yours does the same but they still want to show the Christmas episodes.  

[Ananayel]

Dang it! I don't get Cozi TV - it's only on Dish or U-Verse in my area. I hope Dragnet and Adam-12 aren't permanently gone.

[ennui]

 I think those were the Christmas episodes for tonight (I'm not sure because my MeTV preempts the 10pm slot.  Maybe yours does the same but they still want to show the Christmas episodes.  

I didn't watch enough to see if Christmas got a mention. The Gilligan's Island had Larry Storch as a gangster. 

I just clicked over to Bonanza, and it was two nurses drinking coffee in a break room. The schedule is off. Maybe it's the rain.

 

I caught CHiPs -- three hours early, so maybe they borrowed an east coast feed. I think my affiliate is having problems. After the credits finished, the screen went dark.

 

The accident at the end of today's episode was gruesome. I had to remind myself it was a dummy.

Edited December 13, 2014 by ennui

[Jipijapa]

I'm also disappointed by the time slot for Carol Burnett...

[Kitty Redstone]

I didn't even know we had Cozi TV.  So I looked up their schedule just now and saw a promo that Murder, She Wrote is coming in January!  Squeeeee!  I haven't seen it on television in two years since we switched to Uverse, which for some stupid reason doesn't have the only station that reliably aired MSW.  My husband thinks I'm a complete doofus for loving this show, but who cares.  I love Angela Lansbury.

 

Am looking forward to watching the mystery movie after Perry Mason on METV in a couple of weeks, too.

[ennui]

Quincy M.E. is coming to MeTV in January!

 

And, MeTV found "Grossie" (Paul Linke) for one of their CHiPs promos. He looks pretty much the same, aside from the hair color.

[Collinwood]

Antenna TV is adding the Judd Hirsch sitcom Dear John to it's lineup in January. It ran from 1988-92.  I remember the show but I didn't realize it lasted that four seasons.

[ennui]

I didn't even know we had Cozi TV.  So I looked up their schedule just now and saw a promo that Murder, She Wrote is coming in January!  Squeeeee!  I haven't seen it on television in two years since we switched to Uverse, which for some stupid reason doesn't have the only station that reliably aired MSW.  My husband thinks I'm a complete doofus for loving this show, but who cares.  I love Angela Lansbury.

 

Am looking forward to watching the mystery movie after Perry Mason on METV in a couple of weeks, too.

You do realize, of course, that Jessica Fletcher is a serial killer. Everywhere she goes, someone dies, yet no one makes the connection.

If you were at a party, and Jessica showed up, wouldn't you feign a headache and make a hasty exit? 

[Maverick]

 Maybe it's just a regional thing, but I've never seen a Christmas tree like the ones you see in these shows from the 50s and 60s.

[ennui]

 Maybe it's just a regional thing, but I've never seen a Christmas tree like the ones you see in these shows from the 50s and 60s.

Do you mean the trees, or the decorations?

[Maverick]

 The trees

[ennui]

I don't know where you are, but the trees look familiar to me, so it's probably regional.

[shapeshifter]

Would posts about ION fit here, or is it something different? They show exclusively (I think) reruns, but they are more recent.

Anyway, the station's signal just went dark right in the middle of a The Listener marathon. Hrmph!

[WendyCR72]

Would posts about ION fit here, or is it something different? They show exclusively (I think) reruns, but they are more recent.

Anyway, the station's signal just went dark right in the middle of a The Listener marathon. Hrmph!

 

Ion already has its own thread. It has an appropriate subtitle, as it should be the police show network.  :-)  But it's not a complaint as I watch a lot of the repeats there, and I love the marathons it has, including L&O: CI, Blue Bloods, and a lot more.

[roseha]

I guess we can stretch this thread to include Retro TV?  I found out on another forum that they have started transmitting over the air in the New York City area on Channel 42-7.  Any way, I have been tuning in at 6PM on Fridays to watch Soupy Sales.  Sadly, it's not the black and white show from his 1960s New York heyday - I guess I couldn't have expected that since most of those films were said to have been trashed by the channel (!) without Soupy's knowledge. What they are showing is a later color version of his show from the 1970s I think.  While it's not so wild and crazy, it does have its moments, especially when Soupy's love of jazz and R and B come through.  On tonight's show Pookie the lion puppet lip-synched (if a lion puppet can do that) to a rollicking R and B version of You Made Me Love You, and then Soupy proudly introduced his musical guest B.B. King!  I bring all this up for anyone interested, I wish they would run a few of the remaining 60s episodes, but I imagine most are gone (and yes the "send me the little green pieces of paper" New Year's day show did happen, I saw it!).

[Collinwood]

I so envy you roseha.  I wish I had Retro TV. I read that Retro is showing the old soap opera The Doctors.  I remember the last few years of that soap and would love to see some of the early episodes.  If there were a retro channel showing nothing but old soap operas, I would be in heaven.  I would also spend most of my time watching a channel like that so I suppose I should be grateful that it doesn't exist.

[ennui]

I'd watch early episodes of General Hospital. I seem to recall it was in black and white, once upon a time, but I could be wrong.

 

I ran across another network ... I noticed "TJ Hooker" in the listings, but the network is Spanish language. I wonder if it's really cost-effective to show reruns that are dubbed, but I guess it must be.