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Does TV encourage the creation of a police state?
Regular readers know that I don’t often write about current television because I don’t often watch current television.* I’m going to make an exception today, however, and I’m also going to be touching...
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Around the Dial
Apologies for another abbreviated issue - and so with that, let's go to the good stuff.Kliph Nesteroff at Classic Television Showbiz has this great clip of William F. Buckley Jr. interviewing JFK...
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This week in TV Guide: May 3, 1958
Nostalgia is never far from the surface when it comes to discussing vintage TV Guides, but this week's issue itself is awash in nostalgia, as Shirley Temple returns to television.The former child star,...
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Wither TV's private detectives?
In our last episode, I'd tentatively explored the idea that today's TV police procedurals* were subtly influencing the viewing public to accept the idea of a stronger government control over personal...
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This week in TV Guide: May 13, 1961
The new Chairman of the FCC, Newton Minnow, kicks off this week's edition of TV Guide with an Open Letter to the public, asking for their help in improving television.Minnow is responding to a recent...
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Be my guest
Our bags are packed and we're ready go go, and that includes the TV Guides. The Hadleys are moving this week, which isn't a TV story itself; but it does mean the resources are all packed up, so we'll...
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This week in TV Guide: May 21, 1966
Lately I've been checking out Mr. Lucky, a show I'd never seen before, which has been running on MeTV. Mr. Lucky, produced by Blake Edwards and starring John Vivyan, ran for only one season in 1959 on...
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Ken Venturi, R.I.P.
I first heard of Ken Venturi when I was ten or so. It was in Phil Pepe’s book Winners Never Quit, one of those books that I’d buy at the scholastic book sales they had when we were kids. Pepe’s book...
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This week in TV Guide: May 25, 1968
As you're reading today's piece, I'm likely in our new home, waiting for our furniture to catch up with us. Fortunately, thanks to the miracles of technology, I've written this post weeks in advance!...
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This week in TV Guide: June 5, 1965
By the time you read this, I may - emphasize may - be unpacked. I might have at least found the box with the TV Guides in them. Of course, there's no assurance of that, as indeed is the case when...
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Home is where the heart is
It's good to be back to live blogging, as opposed to the pre-recorded (so to speak) pieces you've been reading for the last few weeks. It's still going to take awhile for everything to find its place,...
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This week in TV: five days in June
This week, rather than my regular "This Week in TV Guide" feature, I'm going to focus on a specific series of days: June 4-8, 1968. And I'll be dealing not only with television, but with radio as...
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The kitchen of the future
We spend a lot of time looking back at the past in an effort to understand it, but it can be just as enlightening to consider how the past viewed the future. Does our present look anything like the...
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This week in TV Guide: June 16, 1962
A few years ago 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. The same could be...
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Watch your language
I've remarked before about how Mad Men is one of those shows many people assume I watch, and are invariably surprised when I tell them I've never seen it. Like any good blogger, though, this doesn't...
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Around the Dial
We haven't visited the classic TV blogosphere for a while - hell, I've been having trouble visiting my own site - so let's catch up on some of the superior writing out there.I had a very nice email the...
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This week in TV Guide: June 22, 1968
The nation's still reeling from the assassination of RFK a little over two weeks ago, and television is no exception. Periodically throughout its history, the medium's majordomos have engaged in bouts...
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No laughing matter
Last week’s TV Guide offered an interesting glimpse into the state of children’s programming circa 1968, one that deserves a closer look. By 1968, most children’s shows were confined to Saturday...
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This week in TV Guide: June 28, 1975
We've been spending some time lately in the dark years of the late 60s, and frankly I'm a little tired of it, so let's jump ahead a decade to the beginning of the Bicentennial year. True, when we...
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Around the Dial
It’s a special Tuesday edition of Around the Dial, which means you’ll be able to catch Part 2 of my look at the state of children’s television on Thursday (you can recall part one here). But in the...
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