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What's on TV? Thursday, May 26, 1966
It's an election year in California, as we can see from the half-hour paid political broadcast on behalf of Los Angeles' controversial and outspoken mayor, Sam Yorty, who's running for governor of...
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Realism vs. plausibility
Back in the days when the classic version of Hawaii Five-0 was part of our regular Thursday night viewing, there was a span of a few weeks during which we saw Steve McGarrett blown up on a boat (no...
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Around the dial
We'll begin this week at Comfort TV, where David asks a question that's both practical and existential: how much TV is too much? It speaks to not only the quantity but the quality of what's available...
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This week in TV Guide: May 25, 1968
In the long and occasionally glorious history of television, there have been many fiascos. Some of them, such as Turn-On and You're In the Picture, each of which ran for only one episode, have become...
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What's on TV? Wednesday, May 29, 1968
Wait, we're back in the Twin Cities again this week. How did that happen? Well, never mind. One of the guests on The Mike Douglas Show is Lt. General Lew Walt, who served in World War II, Korea, and...
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Around the dial
At bare-bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project continues with "Mink," Irwin Gielgud and Gwen Bagni's first-season story, a complex story of deception and suspicion that also serves as a time capsule to...
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This week in TV Guide: June 1, 1963
One of the storylines we've seen in our continuing journey through the history of television is the role of the sponsor in determining the programs that viewers saw. It wasn't uncommon for advertising...
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What's on TV? Thursday, June 6, 1963
It's always nice to look at an issue that includes a station from Canada. CKWS, now an affiliate of Global TV, was with the CBS in 1963, and while some of its programs come from the United States (The...
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If I ran the network, part 3
Recently I kicked off a new feature, "If I Ran the Network," a series of TV concepts that would never have made it to the small screen without network executives screwing them up. If you have similar...
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Around the dial
William Russell died this week, just short of 100 years of age, and with him died one of the last links to the beginnings of Doctor Who. We were introduced to him in the very first episode of Who,...
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This week in TV Guide: June 11, 1960
Since you're bound to wonder, that "lady comic" mentioned on the cover, the one who's apparently having zany experiences, is none other than Audrey Meadows, who says, by way of explanation, "I used to...
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What's on TV? Sunday, June 12, 1960
You'll often notice, especially on Sundays, a program simply called Christophers. This program, which ran on ABC and in syndication from 1952 to 2012, was a production of The Christophers, a Catholic...
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Comfortably numb
TV Guide: What is TV's greatest need? Gore Vidal: A sense that getting people to buy things they do not need is morally indefensible. One does not ask for Utopia, only a slightly less frantic...
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Around the dial
That looks like the coolest TV setup, doesn't it? It reminds me of fall Sundays back when I was a kid, when I'd bring a portable set out from the bedroom and put on top of the console in the living...
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This week in TV Guide: June 16, 1962
It's been quite a few years now since the concept of "six degrees of separation"* was coined, the idea being that everyone in the world could be connected to everyone else by no more than six degrees....
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What's on TV? Tuesday, June 19, 1962
The Andy Griffith Show isn't on Tuesday nights, but that doesn't stop this from being a good day for the show's co-star, Don Knotts. He does double duty on CBS, appearing first on The Red Skelton Show,...
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F is for Fake
I'll admit, on a good day, that I can be a little bit neurotic. Not crazy; I mean, it's a given that anyone who spends the amount of time watching and writing about old television shows has to be at...
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Around the dial
It's remarkable how close to the screen people used to sit to watch TV, isn't it? As someone with more than a passing interest in interior design and layout, I'd be interested to know what the rest of...
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This week in TV Guide: June 22, 1968
The nation still reels from the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy a little over two weeks ago, and television is no exception. Periodically throughout its history, the medium's majordomos have engaged...
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