Clik here to view.
Watching the sausage get made
Question: What is TV's greatest need?Answer: 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 exploitation...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Around the dial
This week gets off to a flying start with Comfort TV's look back at the TV career of Veronica Cartwright, from Leave it to Beaver to The X-Files. A trio of episode reviews is next: "Dear Uncle George"...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This week in TV Guide: February 17, 1968
The good news: every room in the house, save one, has been unpacked and set up. The bad news: that one room is the library. The good news: the TV Guides were in one of the boxes that has been unpacked,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's on TV? Wednesday, February 21, 1968
I'm back! Well, sort of, anyway. Although I don't have the time to provide in-depth commentary for this week's issue, I can tell you that it is the same one I wrote about on Saturday. This should auger...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A program of substance
Here's a fascinating article that was forwarded to me by my friend Marc Ryan, on the week that entertainer Harry Belafonte spent guest hosting the Tonight Show back in 1968. I’ve alluded to this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
This week in TV Guide: February 24, 1968
When last we looked at this issue, back in 2012, the focus of attention was Joey Bishop's ABC talk show. It was a good article; Bishop's show was far from the laughing stock that many today may think...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's on TV? Thursday, February 29, 1968
To commemorate my return to the Twin Cities, I'm offering exclusively local observations about this week's programming. Some of it surprised even me. It goes to show why, even though I enjoy reading...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The voice that lingers
Does this ad have any significance for you? Does it speak to you?My choice of words there is no accident. We’ve become so used to the idea of free long-distance phone calls that it’s hard to remember...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
This week in TV Guide: March 6, 1965
The Fugitive was the big story when we looked at this issue back in 2013; back then, the focus was on star David Janssen, but in this encore look I think it'd be appropriate to recall the series...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's on TV? Saturday, March 6, 1965
One of the reasons I enjoy looking at Saturday listings, aside from the fond memories it produces, is that it gives us a little more variety than weekdays. The afternoon programs are rarely the same...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Robert Osborne, R.I.P.
I've written in the past about the big-game sports announcers, the ones who made you stop what you were doing and listen, because you knew if they were calling a game it had to be a big one. Well,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Around the dial
It's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to do this, so there should be plenty of good stuff to go over, right?Terry Teachout takes an affectionate look at the TV commercials of his childhood....
View ArticleClik here to view.
This week in TV Guide: March 11, 1967
We've done the "good news, bad news" shtick before, so I'll just say this: next week we have a brand-new TV Guide to look at, but in the meantime we have one more issue deserving of a second look (to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's on TV? Friday, March 17, 1967
Friday is St. Patrick's Day, in 1967 as it is this year, and while nobody thought to dye the Mississippi River green, there was a parade in St. Paul, the more Irish of the two Twin Cities. You can see...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stranger in a Strange Land
Or is it The Man Who Fell to Earth? Either analogy is OK, I guess. The question is what people from the ‘50s and ‘60s would think of television today, if they hadn’t been exposed to the cultural...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Around the dial
This week, The Flaming Nose kicks off our spin through the dial with something I really like, a critical look at the moral code - or lack thereof - of the Fox series Lethal Weapon. Some people will...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This week in TV Guide: March 16, 1968
Yes, children, there was a time when you didn't simply run out to the store and buy a new TV when the old one stopped working, nor did you go online and order one.* This was a time long, long ago, when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What's on TV? Monday, March 18, 1968
It's a bilingual TV Guide this week; although our focus is on Buffalo and Rochester, we've also taken a brief foray across the border to Toronto, where as always we see an interesting mix of American...
View Article