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

[chessiegal]

17 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

They are definitely programming the episodes with big stars (and Dr. Loveless) first rather than going in episode order. This weekend was Sammy Davis Jr.

Once they did 3 episodes of Season 1, they started doing Season 2 in order.  Last Saturday was episode 5, this Saturday is episode 6, The Night of the Flying Pie Plate. I'm not sure William Windom is a big star, but they had quite a few big stars over the years. Someone asked Michael Garrison, creator of the show, how you get big names. His answer was - you pick up the phone and call them. Looking at MeTV's schedule, they will continue to air them in order. 3/11 is episode 7, and 3/18 is episode 8.

Edited February 28, 2023 by chessiegal

[roseha]

Sorry to hear that Decades is dropping the drama binges.   I guess I will have to hope that MeTV keeps Mannix and The Fugitive on their schedule, even though they are on 2 AM Eastern and I have to Tivo them.

I see that a few of us posted about Mannix a while back here, and I started watching again, it's been long enough that I don't remember all the details and can watch again.  I really like the show's camera work and the opening with Joe chasing/being chased down the bridge (it's hard to imagine a good reason for it, but it looks cool), and Mike Connors' characterization of Mannix (and Gail Fisher as Peggy is also good).  He's idealistic enough to take a case on faith, but of course smart enough to see when the seemingly sympathetic guest star is actually double crossing him.  I guess I like these plot twists as well when they happen, not sure how typical that was of the era - I never saw this show at the time, but it's good that I don't always sense what's coming.

[Tom Holmberg]

16 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Once they did 3 episodes of Season 1, they started doing Season 2 in order.  Last Saturday was episode 5, this Saturday is episode 6, The Night of the Flying Pie Plate. I'm not sure William Windom is a big star, but they had quite a few big stars over the years. Someone asked Michael Garrison, creator of the show, how you get big names. His answer was - you pick up the phone and call them. Looking at MeTV's schedule, they will continue to them in order. 3/11 is episode 7, and 3/18 is episode 8.

So I guess they felt the color episodes would attract more viewers (I know a lot of younger people dislike black and white TV and movies). Windom was sort of a mid-range star, IMHO.

[Tom Holmberg]

16 hours ago, roseha said:

Sorry to hear that Decades is dropping the drama binges.   I guess I will have to hope that MeTV keeps Mannix and The Fugitive on their schedule, even though they are on 2 AM Eastern and I have to Tivo them.

 

I've been watching "The Fugitive." It's too bad they don't show it when most people could see it.

[StatisticalOutlier]

I noticed this in Variety's story about Decades's new format (starting March 27):  "Beyond that, Sabin plans to also sprinkle the weekend binges with some little-seen or short-lived sitcoms that still made an impact on pop culture, like 'Square Pegs.'" 

Square Pegs!  Please let it be so.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/decades-network-catchy-comedy-night-court-1235521267/

[Gharlane]

On 2/22/2023 at 8:29 PM, DXD526 said:

The Streets of San Francisco

A Quinn Martin production.

[Tom Holmberg]

Robert Blake has passed.  I can't feel too sad about him considering it was pretty obvious he murdered his wife (despite getting acquitted).

[Tom Holmberg]

Either my cable channel recently added or I was oblivious of it, but I now get GETTV.  It has some interesting shows, "Rockford Files", "Bret Maverick" (from the 80s), two Kurt Russell series, "The Travels of Jamie McPheeters" and "The Quest" with Tim Matheson.  It also has way too much "Walker, Texas Ranger".

[chessiegal]

8 minutes ago, Tom Holmberg said:

It also has way too much "Walker, Texas Ranger".

Isn't that the truth! They used to show The Rockford Files at noon after Hart to Hart. They replaced HTH with Ironsides, fine, but then also dropped Rockford at noon with another Ironsides. Rockford was my lunchtime eye candy. Now I have to wait until 8 pm.

[Tom Holmberg]

1 hour ago, chessiegal said:

Isn't that the truth! They used to show The Rockford Files at noon after Hart to Hart. They replaced HTH with Ironsides, fine, but then also dropped Rockford at noon with another Ironsides. Rockford was my lunchtime eye candy. Now I have to wait until 8 pm.

At least it doesn't look like it runs "Gunsmoke", or maybe I haven't noticed it yet.  I wish they'd pick up "Longstreet".

[Tom Holmberg]

On 3/18/2023 at 10:19 AM, chessiegal said:

Isn't that the truth! They used to show The Rockford Files at noon after Hart to Hart. They replaced HTH with Ironsides, fine, but then also dropped Rockford at noon with another Ironsides. Rockford was my lunchtime eye candy. Now I have to wait until 8 pm.

I noticed they still show "Hart to Hart" once a day, early mornings.

GET-TV also shows "Nichols" on weekends, a James Garner western I can't recall ever even hearing of.  It looks like it premiered at same time  and opposite of "Cannon" so I was probably watching that.

[chessiegal]

I'll have to keep an eye out for Nichols. I've never heard of it, but I adore James Garner. I don't understand why they show the same 5 or so episodes of Bret Maverick when there were many more episodes in the series. Did they only get the rights to show a few?

[DXD526]

This is the last week of the Decades schedule. The all-comedy lineup starts next Monday. There are binges listed for April, all comedies, of course: 4/1-2 - Night Court; 4/8-9 - The Carol Burnett Show; 4/15-16 - Gilligan's Island; 4/22-23 - All in the Family.

[roseha]

Just out of curiosity, how were the Rockford revival TV movies?   I am not sure if I ever saw them, or if they would be shown now on one of these channels but I wonder how they are.

[Tom Holmberg]

On 3/20/2023 at 11:36 AM, chessiegal said:

I'll have to keep an eye out for Nichols. I've never heard of it, but I adore James Garner. I don't understand why they show the same 5 or so episodes of Bret Maverick when there were many more episodes in the series. Did they only get the rights to show a few?

I only started watching GET-TV so I can't answer this.  I noticed that Rockford is showing second season episodes.  "Bret Maverick" only had 18 episodes, so maybe it just seems like they show the same episodes.

15 hours ago, roseha said:

Just out of curiosity, how were the Rockford revival TV movies?   I am not sure if I ever saw them, or if they would be shown now on one of these channels but I wonder how they are.

I'm sure I probably watched many of those when they first ran, but I have little memory of how good they were (though I'd guess a lot of the same people were involved in both productions).

[chessiegal]

I was excited about the new Catchy Comedy (formerly Decades), but much of what I want to see isn't on the Frndly streaming service. No Laverne & Shirley or Newhart shows. I don't understand why. They do have the original Night Court. ☹️

[Jaded]

10 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

I was excited about the new Catchy Comedy (formerly Decades), but much of what I want to see isn't on the Frndly streaming service. No Laverne & Shirley or Newhart shows. I don't understand why. They do have the original Night Court. ☹️

I know when the 90's version of The Newlywed Game started airing on Buzzr a few years ago those episodes weren't shown to people not watching on their TVs with antennas or cable. It wasn't until a couple months later when I guess they were able to reach a deal with Sony who owns the rights to that version of the show to show it through streaming too. So it may be something in the deal that was made to air those shows that prevents them from being able to air them through the streaming services.

[chessiegal]

7 minutes ago, Jaded said:

I know when the 90's version of The Newlywed Game started airing on Buzzr a few years ago those episodes weren't shown to people not watching on their TVs with antennas or cable. It wasn't until a couple months later when I guess they were able to reach a deal with Sony who owns the rights to that version of the show to show it through streaming too. So it may be something in the deal that was made to air those shows that prevents them from being able to air them through the streaming services.

Thank you. I'm sure rights are the issue. I was able to watch both Newhart shows on Decades and now they're gone on Catchy Comedy through the streaming service. ☹️

[Tom Holmberg]

On Saturdays TRU-TV is running the 1990s show "Step by Step", as well as "Family Matters"

[shapeshifter]

On 3/20/2023 at 7:51 PM, DXD526 said:

This is the last week of the Decades schedule. The all-comedy lineup starts next Monday

Anyone else have serious syncing issues with the audio and video lagging about 5 seconds behind on Decades Catchy Comedy? I re-scanned the channels several times for my Over The Air antenna, but it’s not that. I don’t have the syncing problem with any other stations via my antenna, and my streaming channels are perfectly synced too.

[shapeshifter]

On 3/28/2023 at 2:59 PM, chessiegal said:

I was excited about the new Catchy Comedy (formerly Decades), but much of what I want to see isn't on the Frndly streaming service. No Laverne & Shirley or Newhart shows. I don't understand why. They do have the original Night Court. ☹️

It looks like  The Bob Newhart Show got bumped to 12:30am ET, and Newhart at 1am. ☹️

Laverne & Shirley episodes run 2-3pm ET.

[chessiegal]

4 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

It looks like  The Bob Newhart Show got bumped to 12:30am ET, and Newhart at 1am. ☹️

Laverne & Shirley episodes run 2-3pm ET.

Not on streaming with Frndly. Those shows are replaced by things like Love American Style and so on. I live in an over-the-air black hole. I've accepted that this is a first world problem. I plan on canceling Frndly today. It's not worth it for just MTM.

[wilsie]

2 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Not on streaming with Frndly. Those shows are replaced by things like Love American Style and so on. I live in an over-the-air black hole. I've accepted that this is a first world problem. I plan on canceling Frndly today. It's not worth it for just MTM.

I keep it for the ability to record METV and other programs they do show.  They do get their shows from a different streaming source.  When 77 Sunset Strip was a marathon it showed different shows than at least their over-the-air programming.  Monday over-the-air is Nash Bridges, Frndly has Police Story.  Also no JAG on Wednesday.  And the Laverne and Shirley episodes on Frndly never included the diner one.  But it has a lot I can record, so it's worth it for me. 

[chessiegal]

I have MeTV with my cable package. I checked my Frndly account, and I'm paid through April 27th.  I see they have the full hour of Carol Burnett, which is nice. One of my PBS stations runs the full hour Carol once a week. I also caught the full hour on ZLiving the other night. I might check out the Night Court marathon this weekend.

[chessiegal]

Saturday at 10 am ET, the MeTV episode of The Wild, Wild West is airing is "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse" It features Carroll O'Connor as the villain (before his days on All in the Family). It's reported that Conrad, while watching dailies, got pissed because O'Connor was up-staging him in every scene they were together. Also of note, the show's creator, Michael Garrison died while the show was being shot. He had bought a nice mansion with a grand marble staircase that was carpeted. He had the carpet removed, and then slipped and fell. The fall killed him. The cast got word of his death just before they were to film a scene at the funeral parlor to identify a body.

[SVNBob]

7 hours ago, chessiegal said:

The cast got word of his death just before they were to film a scene at the funeral parlor to identify a body.

Enforced Method Acting?

[Tom Holmberg]

On 4/7/2023 at 4:53 PM, chessiegal said:

Saturday at 10 am ET, the MeTV episode of The Wild, Wild West is airing is "The Night of the Ready-Made Corpse" It features Carroll O'Connor as the villain (before his days on All in the Family). It's reported that Conrad, while watching dailies, got pissed because O'Connor was up-staging him in every scene they were together. Also of note, the show's creator, Michael Garrison died while the show was being shot. He had bought a nice mansion with a grand marble staircase that was carpeted. He had the carpet removed, and then slipped and fell. The fall killed him. The cast got word of his death just before they were to film a scene at the funeral parlor to identify a body.

Not to insult Conrad's acting, but a lot of the villains upstaged him because their characters were more melodramatic (I'm looking at you Dr. Loveless).

[chessiegal]

59 minutes ago, Tom Holmberg said:

Not to insult Conrad's acting, but a lot of the villains upstaged him because their characters were more melodramatic (I'm looking at you Dr. Loveless).

I think you can insult Conrad's acting. Conrad had quite the ego. Ross Martin told Conrad - you do the stunts and I'll take care of the acting.

[Tom Holmberg]

26 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

I think you can insult Conrad's acting. Conrad had quite the ego. Ross Martin told Conrad - you do the stunts and I'll take care of the acting.

Ross Martin upstaged Conrad as well.

[roseha]

9 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

Not to insult Conrad's acting, but a lot of the villains upstaged him because their characters were more melodramatic (I'm looking at you Dr. Loveless).

I happened to look up both Dr. Loveless, the character, and Michael Dunn, the actor on Wiki.  Dr. Loveless has quite a long entry!  As for Mr. Dunn, he certainly had many career accomplishments, so sad he died at 38.  I think it was a shame that his character was killed off in the pilot of Get Smart.

[Tom Holmberg]

11 hours ago, roseha said:

I happened to look up both Dr. Loveless, the character, and Michael Dunn, the actor on Wiki.  Dr. Loveless has quite a long entry!  As for Mr. Dunn, he certainly had many career accomplishments, so sad he died at 38.  I think it was a shame that his character was killed off in the pilot of Get Smart.

Dr. Loveless is my favorite TV villain of all time.  Michael Dunn was a very interesting person.  When you see Dr Loveless singing with Antoinette in the show Dunn and Dorin are recreating their singing act they did in nightclubs. He had a great deal of talents. Apparently he lived with chronic pain from his medical conditions.

[chessiegal]

The episode that aired on Saturday is the last episode to have Antoinette. Dr. Loveless appears in 5 more episodes. He was supposed to appear in more in Season 4, but his health issues prevented it.

[chessiegal]

I created a forum for The Wild Wild West so I don't have to keep hijacking this forum.

The Wild Wild West forum

[GHScorpiosRule]

Guess what I discovered while scrolling and trying to find something to watch?

Spenser: For Hire! On the Roku Channel App. I watched the pilot last night, and Jeebus. I guess playing the good guy or sort of a good guy in his older years didn't appeal to The Rifleman Chuck Connors? First, he's some kind of slave trader in the mini-series Roots (from the 70s), then he was some kind of not a good guy who was murdered in an episode of Murder, She Wrote. And now I discover that he was some drug/gun runner kingpin thug in the pilot.

And Hawke was more of an enforcer than the uber kewl guy from the regular episodes. I'm glad they sort of...smoothed out some of his jagged edges.

And I always get misty when I see Robert Urich. Taken from us/the world way too soon.

[DXD526]

Upcoming Decades Catchy Comedy binges - 4/29-30: Happy Days; 5/6-7: Laverne & Shirley; 5/13-14: The Odd Couple. 

[Jaded]

22 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Guess what I discovered while scrolling and trying to find something to watch?

Spenser: For Hire! On the Roku Channel App. I watched the pilot last night, and Jeebus. 

And Hawke was more of an enforcer than the uber kewl guy from the regular episodes. I'm glad they sort of...smoothed out some of his jagged edges.

And I always get misty when I see Robert Urich. Taken from us/the world way too soon.

My Mom loved Spenser: For Hire! and that was when I first became aware of Robert Urich. The memories of the show when it first aired have to be from the last season going by how old I would have been. I remember when it started airing on the Lifetime Network or when I caught it airing on there in the early 90's and was excited to see it from the star when they started over with the episodes. I think I saw at least a couple of the TV movies too. I would watch Robert in some of those not so good TV movies. One I remember is him helping to find a young girl who had been buried alive before it was too late.

I had wanted to see Vega$ for the longest time and someone had uploaded all the seasons to YT. I was in the middle of the 2nd one when the channel got taken down. I see there's a channel with all of the episodes up again and they have most of Trapper John M.D. while another channel has the missing episodes the first one doesn't.

I agree about Robert being taken too soon. He always seemed like he was a really nice guy and I've never read anything where someone has said something about him being unpleasant in all this time. 

[opus]

20 hours ago, DXD526 said:

Upcoming Decades Catchy Comedy binges - 4/29-30: Happy Days; 5/6-7: Laverne & Shirley; 5/13-14: The Odd Couple. 

5/20-5/21: Cheers
5/27-5/28: Bosom Buddies

6/3-6/4: Mama's Family

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, Jaded said:

I had wanted to see Vega$ for the longest time and someone had uploaded all the seasons to YT. I was in the middle of the 2nd one when the channel got taken down. I see there's a channel with all of the episodes up again and they have most of Trapper John M.D.

Yeah, last year to early this year, Vega$ was airing on MeTV+, then it got taken down; now it's on weekly on Heroes & Icons.

Trapper John, M.D.????! Awesome! I loved that show. It was a Sunday night staple for our family.

What I loved about Spenser was it wasn't afraid to tackle tough issues. I remember at the end of the first season that Susan got an abortion. She and Spenser broke up--she was gone the second season, and new love interest was played by Elizabeth Olivet Carolyn McCormick from Law & Order. Then Susan returned in season three.

I can't remember how many seasons S.W.A.T. ran for, but it seemed Urich's other two shows only ran for three: Vega$ and Spenser. Not counting the movies.

10 minutes ago, Jaded said:

I agree about Robert being taken too soon. He always seemed like he was a really nice guy and I've never read anything where someone has said something about him being unpleasant in all this time. 

Agree. That's why I hated that he played the murdering husband in Blind Faith, where Joanna Kerns played his wife, that he hired a hitman to murder. The oldest son  married Tracy Gold of Growing Pains fame.

[Tom Holmberg]

17 hours ago, opus said:

5/20-5/21: Cheers
5/27-5/28: Bosom Buddies

6/3-6/4: Mama's Family

Bosom Buddies!!!

Ugh, Mama's Family

[Maverick]

nm  Apparently my cable guide is whacked out

Edited May 1, 2023 by Maverick

[Tom Holmberg]

R.I.P., Eileen Saki

On "M*A*S*H", she was the longest running actress to play Rosie, the Korean owner of the bar near the camp.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/obituaries-people-news/eileen-saki-dead-rosie-mash-1235601819/

 

 

[opus]

More Catchy binges

6/10-6/11: Taxi
6/17-6/18: Mayberry RFD
6/24-6/25: The Beverly Hillbillies

[Tom Holmberg]

Sat. May 20 on GET TV, will be showing the final episode (it actually originally aired out of sequence, which shows how much the network thought of the show) of "Nichols", a Western series from 1971-2 starring James Garner.  James Garner, the star of the show, is killed and his twin brother (James Garner with a mustache) comes to town to avenge the killing.  They really wanted to kill off this show.

[chessiegal]

24 minutes ago, Tom Holmberg said:

Sat. May 20 on GET TV, will be showing the final episode (it actually originally aired out of sequence, which shows how much the network thought of the show) of "Nichols", a Western series from 1971-2 starring James Garner.  James Garner, the star of the show, is killed and his twin brother (James Garner with a mustache) comes to town to avenge the killing.  They really wanted to kill off this show.

As much as I love my boyfriend James Garner, Nichols is boring. It's like they were trying to do an updated Maverick but failed.

[Tom Holmberg]

Just now, chessiegal said:

As much as I love my boyfriend James Garner, Nichols is boring. It's like they were trying to do an updated Maverick but failed.

I like "Nichols" better than the "Bret Maverick" show, but it's not as good as "Maverick."

[roseha]

I never saw that show but I thought that killing off Nichols was James Garner's own idea, maybe to get back at the network for canceling it?

[Tom Holmberg]

19 hours ago, roseha said:

I never saw that show but I thought that killing off Nichols was James Garner's own idea, maybe to get back at the network for canceling it?

There appears to be multiple theories on it. Garner claimed that it was to prevent a revival, but another theory was that the network might buy a more conventional western with Garner more of a gunfighter.

[Tom Holmberg]

R.I.P., Ed Ames

Best known as a singer and as Mingo, the Oxford educated native American on "Daniel Boone".  Also for being part of the longest laugh on "The Tonight Show."

https://variety.com/2023/music/news/ed-ames-dead-daniel-boone-1235626012/

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Tom Holmberg

[DXD526]

Catchy Comedy binges for June, and a little of July - 6/10-11: Taxi; 6/17-18 - Mayberry RFD; 6/24-25 - The Beverly Hillbillies; 7/1-2 - Green Acres.

[Tom Holmberg]

On 5/28/2023 at 10:19 AM, DXD526 said:

Catchy Comedy binges for June, and a little of July - 6/10-11: Taxi; 6/17-18 - Mayberry RFD; 6/24-25 - The Beverly Hillbillies; 7/1-2 - Green Acres.

Do we really need a Beverly Hillbillies or Green Acres binge< considering they're on multiple channels already?