You, too, timber? Aww man!
Nascar. Jeezopete. I lose half of my friends when the season hits.
Everything they wore was black or white.
Yeah, well black and white, don't forget the shades of gray Larry.
Everybody in the wardrode dept called it color co-ordination. Continuity was easier to control. The camerman tho was in his element, he could show off his skills. Black and white is a lot harder to light and photograph than color is. It's all in the shadows.
I love B & W - it is beautiful in the right hands. My favorite may be Manhattan, just stunning - the Gershwin helps though, it must be said. Saw Welles' butchered Magnificent Ambersons last night - thats a pretty one too.
My first TV show that I remember was I Love Lucy. The thing I remember most about the olden times of TV was we did not always get good reception and the test pattern would pop up. One weird memory is I remember when we moved to California when I was five I could not figure out why everyone had all those things (antennas) on top of their houses.
We always bought 19 or 20" Zeniths. To me that was fine as a movie screen. I love the pablum of old t.v. I love the good stuff that was old t.v. too.
One thing for sure there were less commercials and the commercials that were shown usually told some kind of story. Recently I have tried to count the number of commercials in one commercial break and I could not keep up.
I remember one year the public was in revolt. The networks promised to give us less commercials. That of course only lasted til the publicity wore off. Of course there are some nights the commercials are more entertaining than the shows. The Jack in the Box commercials could run as a series on its own.
We had our first TV in the mid 50s. Life then as a teenager was pretty good in London. The city was a huge playground full of adventures, plenty too see and do. TV was fun but never the be all and end all of life. There were some great shows tho, mainly Cops and Westerns. I fondly remember shows such as "The Naked City", "Stacato" with John Cassavetes and "M. Squad" with Lee Marvin. Then we had "Gunsmoke", "Rawhide" and "Wagon Train".
Even tho I spent much of my working life in TV, I was never fixated by it. But I would like a channel that did re-runs of those Cops and Westerns from the 50s and 60s. A touch of retro nostalgia would be fun.
I may have mentioned this already, but, what the hell, you get older, you start to repeat yourself. I fondly remember the live broadcasts of what were often high quality stage productions: Alcoa Theater, 90 Minute Theater, US Steel Hour (?, i think), Hallmark Theater--there were so many. I remember seeing Hat Full of Rain. Many of the early variety shows were live, too. A good deal of why i've abandoned tv is the drop in quality.
Most of the TV programs are soo bad, I spent my free time with "Talk Radio" on.
The only talk radio I listen to anymore is PBS - that's KPFT in Houston. They do Democracy Now and Peace Watch, among others.
As I seem to be spending a lot of time A2k'ing lately, I'm listening more and more to this new BBC7 online radio that I've posted the listings to elsewhere ("Radio Programs"). If you like British stuff, its really good - comedy, dramas (LeCarre, S.King, Sherlock Holmes), all kinds of stuff.
Sports and Nature - don't watch any that trash. Remember the first TV show I ever saw was John Cameron Swazie (sp) doing the news at about 4 years old. It was a 15 minute show! He is famous for timex watch commercials.
Amazing he could do that at only 4 years of age!
Takes a licking, keeps on ticking. He had a great voice.
we have two major "Talk Radio" shows on am radio in Boston. There are several minor ones, as well , on fm and am radio.
Larry == You are right about BBC Radio7. In fact there are 8 national radio channels from the BBC plus World Service all available over the net via
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/.
Between them they broadcast all types of music, news, comedy, drama, sport, feature items. All details are listed.
I listen to BBC Radio6 coz it plays real good rock and roll
Hey Larry, it was early in the morning -
bw - I know, just needling.
Thanks oldandknew, I forget about all those other stations - can't remember how I found out about BBC7, but loved it from the beginning, which wasn't long ago, four or five weeks.
T.V. can propel unknowns to stardom (Tom Hanks for instance) or tear established stars down to nothing (Gene Wilder for instance). In some cases it can do both (made Chevy Chase a star, then reduced him to nothing). It can keep the mediocre working for a career (Lee Majors) or chew up the brilliant in a single season (George C. Scott). And, success in one series is usually the kiss of death to a follow up series by the same star (Jason Alexander). There are some who have multiple hits, but not that many.
