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Around the dial
We'll start off the week at Garroway at Large, where Jodie shares a charming tribute to Garrowayat the Chicago School of television locally produced by a group from Chicago. It really is a treat to...
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Around the dial
Happy day-after-Thanksgiving to you all, and hopefully you've recovered from yesterday's tryptophan coma (which, as we all know, is just an urban legend). Classic television, of course, does not take...
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This week in TV Guide: November 25, 1961
In 1962, Bob Dylan adapted a Canadian folk tune called "Peter Emberly" into a song which he titled "The Ballad of Donald White." It's not one of his more well-known songs, and he didn't perform it...
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What's on TV? Wednesday, November 29, 1961
One of the things I noticed in today's listings was a little note in the description of the U.S. Steel Hour story "Tangle of Truth.""Taped from a live broadcast," it says, and of course it's because of...
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Toscanini and the NBC Symphony, April 3, 1948
From the YouTube channel Free the Kinescopes, it's a televised performance by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, with the Robert Shaw Chorale, in a live broadcast from April 3, 1948. On...
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Around the dial
We've got a full slate of stories to look at At bare-bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project focuses on the seventh-season episode "What Frightened You, Fred?", an excellent and taut story starring R.G...
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This week in TV Guide: December 5, 1964
I have a friend who, for the last 30 years without fail, has called me on November 1 to leave a message on my voicemail: "Let the holidays begin!" For him, it was the best time of the year; putting...
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What's on TV? Monday, December 7, 1964
I don't suppose this is the right time to wax pjlosophical about how TV was better when there were only three networks and five, at most, channels to choose from. But I'll say this much: it makes...
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Season's greetings, from 1966
Fr was watching some old Christmas variety specials this week, which put me in mind to look back at this piece from a couple of years ago. It's a look back at CBS's famous Christmas interstitials,...
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Around the dial
Xxne of the things I depend on from classic television is the "inadvertent documentary," the things that once were but no longer are. At Comfort TV, David (who has a fine appreciation of such things)...
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This week in TV Guide: December 12, 1959
This week leads off with an interesting article—well, interesting to me, anyway—by the historian Arthur Schlesinger, who in time will become best-known as one of President Kennedy's chief advisers. The...
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What's on TV? Tuesday, December 15, 1959
I've mentioned before that sometimes the most interesting things are hidden in the details; I'd like to think that it's more than just an excuse to talk about things that only interest me, and we'll...
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Looking for the perfect holiday gift?
As much as I complain about Amazon, I can't entirely desert it; for one thing, I get my books published there. For another, it has made the ability to get last-minute gifts much easier than it used to...
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Around the dial
Another family gathered around the TV watching C-SPANWhenever I see an article about how classic shows of the past weren't really that good, my Spidey sense starts to in, and I immediately prepare for...
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This week in TV Guide: December 17, 1955
This week, Robert Montgomery reminds us that TV just ain't what it used to be.We read that and we laugh. In 1955 television has been around for less than ten years, although it's been around longer...
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What's on TV: Thursday, December 22, 1955
We're in the home stretch tonight, and those programs that aren't Christmas specials have a holiday theme. Johnny Carson's variety show, for instance, features Johnny being granted three wishes by his...
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Christmas Greetings, 1962
About ten years ago, I wrote about a magazine I’d stumbled upon in an antiques store. It was the kind of magazine I love to look through, because it tells us so much about, as Paul McCartney would say,...
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Around the dial
On this Christmas Eve (that's not me in the picture, by the way, although I wish I could say it was), we'll start, appropriately enough, at Comfort TV where David tells us about one of the best...
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The Night Before Christmas
Picture courtesy MNKidVid.comIt's true that we don't live in Minnesota anymore, but my childhood memories of Christmas are all from there, and it wouldn't be Christmas without appearances from two...
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