Once upon a time watching television was easy. You didn’t need to subscribe to channels, download apps, scan QR codes, binge, DVR, Roku, Apple, or Tubi your way through the media universe. Thirteen channels, one remote control and a couch was the whole deal. And the seasons were simple and
Here’s a continuation of yesterday’s reel of commercials, station I.D.s, intros and outros etc. from a 1967 CBS summer replacement show called ‘Away We Go’. There are almost no repeat commercials which makes for fresh, enjoyable views of what our culture looked and sounded like in that now-distant year. The
Here’s a twelve minute reel of intros, outros, station ID’s and commercials from a 1967 broadcast over the local Los Angeles CBS affiliate KNEXT. They appear to be part of an hour long summer replacement show called ‘Away We Go’ which features an awfully enticing cast–Buddy Greco, George Carlin, The
When I was a kid I had a two-disc LP comprised of the audio of ‘Tonight Show’ segments. The Johnny Carson album was a big flop for some reason–Carson liked to joke about it–and I can’t remember quite why we had it since neither I nor my parents watched Carson.
Last week I posted the ridiculous version of ‘Ole’ Man River’ as performed by Frank Sinatra in the Jerome Kern biopic ‘Til The Cloud Roll By’, wearing a white suit on a white set in a all-white world. Another version of a ‘whiten-ing up’ of the song comes in a
Yesterday I posted about the Steve McQueen 1971 race car epic ‘LeMans’. But before that film was made there was John Frankenheimer’s ‘Grand Prix’ (1966), a movie that from the looks of the trailer is better than the McQueen movie. Having said that, I should know better to base an
I began last week by confidently stating in the first of several posts about race-car driving that I found Motorsports the silliest sport next to tractor-pulls known to man. I’ve never done a 180 on a subject as quickly as I have on race-car driving over the past week. I
I hereby nominate the above rendition of “Ol’ Man River” as performed by Frank Sinatra as the single most wince-inducing racist musical number ever filmed–and that’s saying a lot given the unfortunate preponderance of blackface minstral numbers on view throughout 1930s and 40s movie musicals. This is the climax to
It’s hard for me to think of the 1990s as ‘period’. That was the decade in which I turned 30 and began having a professional life (of sorts) and feels to me relatively recent, not that far in my past. Of course that was thirty years ago–THIRTY YEARS AGO–and the
Here’s a reel of alternately funny, scary, disgusting or disturbing TV ads from the golden 80s. Lots of Cocaine and AIDS nostalgia, of course, and Brenda Vaccaro shilling for Tampons while inhaling through an iron lung in between sentences is pretty messed up. Cosby makes an appearance, natch, and a