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

[Maverick]

 The Love Boat episode is from season 9.  Surely Cloris must have been in another earlier episode.  Season 9.  Ace.  The Mermaids.  That awful updated theme song.  And the cherry on top is it's the infamous Andy Warhol episode. 

 MeTV doesn't have the rights to MTM but Cloris was in many of the westerns they currently air and they also show the Facts of Life. 

[chessiegal]

5 minutes ago, Maverick said:

MeTV doesn't have the rights to MTM

I remember when MTM passed they ran episodes of MTM, so there must be a way for them to show limited episodes.

[GHScorpiosRule]

39 minutes ago, Maverick said:

 MeTV doesn't have the rights to MTM

It doesn't? I could have sworn that they did and ran the show for a short run; and now only sporadically air some episodes. But nothing about this channel surprises me. They've removed the Message function on their Facebook page so viewers can't ask questions/complain and actually get answers. Now they just have to accept whatever changes they make and sending an email only gets the auto response it will be sent to the "appropriate" department and they can't answer every single email. Whatever.

[Maverick]

 I suppose they could have the rights and just aren't airing it but that wouldn't make much financial sense.  It relative terms, I imagine it's one of the more expensive classic shows to license. 

[DXD526]

Quote

I believe that the Early Edition episodes that are airing will be from the middle of the series and beyond.

It looks like all the episodes are from seasons 3 and 4.

[chessiegal]

I'm ticked at MeTV. They said they were running 3 hours of Gilligan's Island on Sundays for the month of January. It's now February and they're still running 3 hours of Gilligan's. Bring back Laverne & Shirley!

[Maverick]

 Or maybe get rid of both and bring back I Love Lucy Sundays. 

 Does Antennae TV really bleep the word hell?  I realize it's supposed to be old fashioned TV but isn't that excessive?

[DXD526]

Some Decades binges: 2/27-28 - The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast; 3/6-7 - Route 66; 3/13-14 - The Saint; 3/20-21 - The White Shadow; 3/27-28 - The Fall Guy.

[Lili]

On 2/7/2021 at 9:03 PM, chessiegal said:

I'm ticked at MeTV. They said they were running 3 hours of Gilligan's Island on Sundays for the month of January. It's now February and they're still running 3 hours of Gilligan's. Bring back Laverne & Shirley!

Laverne & Shirley currently airs on Logo, if you get that.

[chessiegal]

17 minutes ago, Lili said:

Laverne & Shirley currently airs on Logo, if you get that.

I do, thanks. I'm still ticked MeTV has messed with my Sunday afternoons.

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 hour ago, chessiegal said:

I do, thanks. I'm still ticked MeTV has messed with my Sunday afternoons.

They messed with my early morning viewing! First, they took the double airings of I Love Lucy back in 2019, then when they brought it back last year, it was only and episode a day!🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

 

[giovannif7]

Speaking of Gilligan's Island, here's a 1988 episode of Fox's Late Night show I came across, featuring all 7 original stars of the show, along with creator Sherwood Schwartz. I have to admit I really enjoyed seeing them all together again one more time...

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by giovannif7

[DXD526]

Upcoming Decades binges: 4/3-4 - Police Woman; 4/10-11 - Police Story; 4/17-18 - The Beverly Hillbillies; 4/24-25 - Mission: Impossible; 5/1-2 - The Father Dowling Mysteries. 

[Cobb Salad]

Mission Impossible is also on Pluto TV.  I like to catch an episode or two every so often.  

[DXD526]

Lots of cops on the Decades binges for May: 5/8-9 - Mannix; 5/15-16 - T.J. Hooker; 5/22-23 - Matt Houston; 5/29-30 - The Rookies. 

[ratgirlagogo]

45 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Mannix is very watchable, although I like the early seasons far better than the latter ones.  The first season is my favorite.

I find them enjoyable too.  The first season, though, is a completely different show - it's all Mannix versus the Machine.  Starting with season two we get Peggy! who I love.

Also it's shocking just how good the show looks. Somebody spent some time and money on remastering because honestly every episode looks as though it aired for the first time last week.  As opposed to, ahem, Cannon, which looks its age (not that I don't love it, because I do, but it looks, shall I say, unrestored).

[LennieBriscoe]

On 1/20/2019 at 1:17 PM, Tom Holmberg said:

All good shows. I don't think any of the other channels, ME-TV, Cozi, Decades, showed "Danger Man" (AKA, "Secret Agent").  Which also leads me to wish someone would show "The Prisoner'.

Both "Danger Man" and "The Prisoner" are shown on the free IMDb Channel. 😎

Also, "Danger Man" is shown on the Z Living Channel, two episodes a day, 4:00 a.m.--5:00 a.m. EST. 

Next up are Season 1, Episodes 30 and 31, Monday, 4/17/21. 

[LennieBriscoe]

Interesting comparisons of "DM" and Bond movies, including actors in both. 

https://www.bondsuits.com

 

 

[DXD526]

Decades is doing a little doubling-up for some of the binges next month. On 6/5-6/6 is Police Squad! and Sledge Hammer! There were only six episodes of PS! and all six will be shown once each day. On 6/12, Mama's Family, which on 6/13 is paired with Bosom Buddies, and on 6/19 is Taxi, paired with Cheers on 6/20. The only solo of the month is 6/25-27, Greatest American Hero. 

[WendyCR72]

23 hours ago, DXD526 said:

Decades is doing a little doubling-up for some of the binges next month. On 6/5-6/6 is Police Squad! and Sledge Hammer! There were only six episodes of PS! and all six will be shown once each day. On 6/12, Mama's Family, which on 6/13 is paired with Bosom Buddies, and on 6/19 is Taxi, paired with Cheers on 6/20. The only solo of the month is 6/25-27, Greatest American Hero. 

Sledge Hammer! was so ridiculous, but I still loved it [hence having the DVDs, which actually had a lot of great bonuses!], so I'll have to check that out.

[chessiegal]

Damn fetv. They're pre-empting their 4-10 pm time slot with father oriented shows for Father's Day - which is next Sunday! How dare they take away my Jim West from 4-6. Harumph!

[chessiegal]

My Decades channel went away about 2  years ago. I'm still not happy about that. fetv is going to redeem themselves on Sunday the 27th with 6 hours of random The Wild Wild West episodes starting at 2 pm. I've discovered I probably have room on my DVR for all 104 episodes. I should just buy the whole series on DVD.

Edited June 15, 2021 by chessiegal

[WendyCR72]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

Anne-Marie Martin was absolutely gorgeous in that series.

I could have done without the laugh track.  I hate laugh tracks with a passion, they are even worse when they are in cartoons.

 

Anne-Marie Martin was married to the late Michael Crichton, author and creator of ER. They divorced before his death, but it is my understanding from what I've read that he still left much of his estate to her and their daughter.

I read she was also one of the writers in the movie, Twister.

She quit acting and now deals with raising horses and competing with them. (Read she even did so in the Olympics one year!)

But she was indeed striking.

[chessiegal]

Well, saw the whole ad on fetv for TWWW marathon on June 27th, and it's a farewell marathon. Damn! How dare they take Jim West away from me!! I don't know how long fetv had been running this show. I rediscovered it during the pandemic. I was 15 when it aired on CBS, and have a vague memory of it, but was in college when it ended so probably did not see the later seasons. I did see it on other channels. Google tells me it was on MeTV and TNT at some point. Off to Amazon to buy the DVDs.

[opus]

3 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Off to Amazon to buy the DVDs.

At the end of the day, if someone loves a show, and it's affordable and available, that's the best way to go.

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Well, saw the whole ad on fetv for TWWW marathon on June 27th, and it's a farewell marathon. Damn! How dare they take Jim West away from me!! I don't know how long fetv had been running this show. I rediscovered it during the pandemic. I was 15 when it aired on CBS, and have a vague memory of it, but was in college when it ended so probably did not see the later seasons. I did see it on other channels. Google tells me it was on MeTV and TNT at some point. Off to Amazon to buy the DVDs.

That’s how I feel about I Love Lucy. MeTV aired it for years, then took it off its schedule in 2019; brought it back in 2020, then took it off again, while other, more stupid shows remain and air MULTIPLE times!🤬🤬🤬🤬

And while I have the series, it’s not the same!

[chessiegal]

Take that fetv! Arrived today. 

[chessiegal]

4 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I do wonder what they are going to air in its place.

Good grief, they're replacing it with Matlock Like you can't watch that a zillion times a day on fetv and other channels.

[chessiegal]

I complained to fetv this morning and got this email this afternoon.

Quote

Thank you for writing to us with your feedback. We do not take any programming decisions lightly. While we enjoyed airing The Wild Wild West for the last two years, we have some new shows coming for our fall schedule. Matlock will be a temporary replacement until we introduce the new shows this fall.

 

We are excited about the farewell marathon featuring the best Dr. Loveless episodes (and pop up trivia) this Sunday from 2-8p ET. More details for that marathon will be coming soon.

 

I guess they only had the rights to air TWWW for 2 years.

[DXD526]

Decades binges for July: 7/3-4 The Twilight Zone (the 60s series); 7/10-11 The Monkees; 7/17-18 Love American Style; 7/24-25 Rhoda; 7/31-8/1 Daniel Boone. 

[SmithW6079]

This is from the free streaming service Tubi, but I've watched a few episodes of "My Little Margie," from the early 1950s, and I'm kind of surprised that they've made me laugh out loud.

Margie, a young woman in her early 20s, wants her "old" father (who's almost 50!) to be an settled, fuddy-duddy father, not the handsome widower he is who still dates and stays out all hours. She's got a boyfriend the father can't stand, and Margie likes her father's semi-steady girlfriend (but only as an older friend of hers, not as her father's wife).

The plots are silly, and usually involve some escapade of Margie trying to get one over on her father, him finding out, then her finding out that he found out, and then things resolve in the end. 

One thing that shows how society changes is that almost all of the characters smoke, even 21-year-old Margie. (Today, she couldn't even buy her own cigarettes.)

[Annber03]

17 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

One thing that shows how society changes is that almost all of the characters smoke, even 21-year-old Margie. (Today, she couldn't even buy her own cigarettes.)

I was watching "Get Smart" a while back, and I got a kick out of a scene in one episode where Max offers the Chief a cigarette and he responds with, "Oh, thank you, Max." It just struck me so funny to see somebody thanking someone for offering them a cigarette. 

[ebk57]

25 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

This is from the free streaming service Tubi, but I've watched a few episodes of "My Little Margie," from the early 1950s, and I'm kind of surprised that they've made me laugh out loud.

Margie, a young woman in her early 20s, wants her "old" father (who's almost 50!) to be an settled, fuddy-duddy father, not the handsome widower he is who still dates and stays out all hours. She's got a boyfriend the father can't stand, and Margie likes her father's semi-steady girlfriend (but only as an older friend of hers, not as her father's wife).

The plots are silly, and usually involve some escapade of Margie trying to get one over on her father, him finding out, then her finding out that he found out, and then things resolve in the end. 

One thing that shows how society changes is that almost all of the characters smoke, even 21-year-old Margie. (Today, she couldn't even buy her own cigarettes.)

I will just drop here for no reason that I had a My Little Margie paper doll set when I was a wee lass.  About a hundred years ago.  I don't even remember if I ever saw the show, but I did have those paper dolls! 

[chessiegal]

1 hour ago, SmithW6079 said:

even 21-year-old Margie. (Today, she couldn't even buy her own cigarettes.)

21 year olds can buy cigarettes in the US. Anyone under 21 can't. If you watch any old tv shows, people smoke like crazy.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Annber03 said:

I was watching "Get Smart" a while back, and I got a kick out of a scene in one episode where Max offers the Chief a cigarette and he responds with, "Oh, thank you, Max." It just struck me so funny to see somebody thanking someone for offering them a cigarette. 

Get Smart ran until 1970, at which time if you were in a bar and someone took out a cigarette, etiquette dictated that the polite thing to do was to offer a cigarette to anyone sitting next to you. I’m not exactly sure, but I think by 1980 the polite thing was to ask “mind if I smoke?” to which the polite response was “go ahead.”

[ratgirlagogo]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

I think by 1980 the polite thing was to ask “mind if I smoke?” to which the polite response was “go ahead.”

Maybe even "hey, blow some my way."

[roseha]

You have to be my age to remember this kind of thing, but it would have been during the run of Get Smart that cigarette advertising was banned from US television.  Something tells me about 1969?  Up until then there was a ton of cigarette ads, and it's possible that some of the companies were sponsors of the various shows that featured the actors smoking.

[shapeshifter]

Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_Cigarette_Smoking_Act

Quote

The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act was introduced into Congress in 1969, but it was not until April 1, 1970, when U.S. President Richard Nixon signed it into law. The actual cigarette advertising ban did not come into force until January 2, 1971, as per a compromise that allowed broadcasters to air these commercials during their telecasts of college footballbowl games on New Year's Day.[4] The last cigarette ad on U.S. television, advertising Virginia Slims, was carried on the last possible legal minute at 11:59 p.m ET/PT, 10:59 p.m. CT/MT that evening on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

 

[Tom Holmberg]

18 hours ago, ebk57 said:

I will just drop here for no reason that I had a My Little Margie paper doll set when I was a wee lass.  About a hundred years ago.  I don't even remember if I ever saw the show, but I did have those paper dolls! 

MLM was one of the "I Love Lucy" clones, it ran on both CBS and NBC. 

[Tom Holmberg]

On 5/14/2021 at 8:43 AM, LennieBriscoe said:

Both "Danger Man" and "The Prisoner" are shown on the free IMDb Channel. 😎

Also, "Danger Man" is shown on the Z Living Channel, two episodes a day, 4:00 a.m.--5:00 a.m. EST. 

Next up are Season 1, Episodes 30 and 31, Monday, 4/17/21. 

Zliving now only seems to show the half-hour, first season episodes, at least last time I looked.

[Tom Holmberg]

On 4/29/2021 at 11:16 AM, icemiser69 said:

Both Cannon and Barnaby Jones episodes haven't aged well at all.   Not only do they not look remastered, but the clothing.  Yikes the clothing.  Not only the horrible colors, but the collars on those shirts.  Yikes, they were so big, a gust of wind could lift someone right off of the ground.

Having lived through that era, the clothing doesn't bother me now as much as it did then. Cannon's clothing isn't as bad as Bob Newhart's.

[DXD526]

Decades binges for August: 8/7 - The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour; 8/8 - The Lucy Show, I Love Lucy; 8/14-15 - The Guardian; 8/21-22 - The Love Boat; 8/28-29: Mayberry R.F.D. 

[opus]

Is anyone here going to have access to Rewind TV (a spinoff of Antenna TV)? Here's their launch schedule starting Sept 1

 

2 minutes ago, opus said:

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by opus

[Annber03]

17 minutes ago, opus said:

Is anyone here going to have access to Rewind TV (a spinoff of Antenna TV)? Here's their launch schedule starting Sept 1

 

 

I'm hoping we'll get it on our TV listings - there's a few shows in that list that my mom and I like that would be fun to see (and I've noticed on their website that there's more that'll be coming in 2022). 

[Cobb Salad]

1 hour ago, opus said:

Is anyone here going to have access to Rewind TV (a spinoff of Antenna TV)? Here's their launch schedule starting Sept 1

 

According to their website, yes.  It’ll be on a digital sub channel I already get and presently don’t watch so I’ll probably check it out when it goes live.  

[Cobb Salad]

56 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Thank you for the information.

The more I read about Lucy, the more I don't like her.

I won't watch anything Lucy related, even though I watched her in reruns when I was a kid.

I was never a big Lucy fan growing up but one of the kids in my neighborhood had to watch I Love Lucy reruns all the time.  I’m just not into that kind of comedy.  What I did like about her was as she was head of Desilu she green lit the production of the Star Trek pilot.  Granted, she thought it was about USO tours but it got made for the networks to decide whether or not to pick it up. 

[Tom Holmberg]

15 hours ago, opus said:

Is anyone here going to have access to Rewind TV (a spinoff of Antenna TV)? Here's their launch schedule starting Sept 1

 

 

Too much late Seventies-Eighties. Though they are avoiding the usual route, which to have good shows like "Bilko", "Jack Benny" or "You Bet Your Life" then transition to Eighties shows like "Mama's Family".  (They are going straight to "The Hogan Family" and eliminating "Valerie's Family"? Or is the whole series renamed?)

[GHScorpiosRule]

Unlike many here (as it seems), I'm peeved because nowhere do I see I Love Lucy returning to the retro channels where I live.

I loved that show growing up, and I continue to love it and Lucille Ball. I love the Hollywood episodes where the stars of the era made cameos. I will never not laugh my ass off so hard until my tummy aches whenever Lucy sets her nose on fire, trying to hide her face when Ricky brings William Holden to the hotel. Or when she and Ricky do the Tango while Lucy's got a whole lotta eggs stuffed inside her shirt and they go SMASH! 

[SmithW6079]

On 7/15/2021 at 3:43 PM, Tom Holmberg said:

Having lived through that era, the clothing doesn't bother me now as much as it did then. Cannon's clothing isn't as bad as Bob Newhart's.

Or Felix Unger's. He had some really ugly clothes (ties especially) because he was "fashionable." It's Oscar the slob's sartorial choices that hold up precisely because they're so nondescript. 

[shapeshifter]

2 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

Or Felix Unger's. He had some really ugly clothes (ties especially) because he was "fashionable." It's Oscar the slob's sartorial choices that hold up precisely because they're so nondescript. 

I wonder if the wardrobe folks always did think the plaid polyester leisure suits were hideous.