Classic TV / TVparty!

New in the TVparty TV Blog
Eddie Murphy as James Bond

'Boomerang' was a romantic comedy but word came down from Paramount - Eddie had to be seen in a tux for the poster, and we should make him look as distinguished as possible - because Eddie Murphy wants to be the next James Bond. The last Bond film, 'Licence to Kill,' had been a disappointment in 1989 as was the star, Timothy Dalton. The series was in flux, there was still no Bond sequel in production three years later. In fact, Timothy Dalton stated at that time, "My feeling is this will be the last one. I don't mean my last one, I mean the end of the whole lot. I don't speak with any real authority, but it's sort of a feeling I have."
Read and watch more...

Cartoon Characters Behaving Badly!
Popeye drinking! Flintstones smoking! Disney character orgy! Innocence lost!
Drunken sailors are nothing new but Popeye's addictions up to now were limited to different strains of spinach. Now that he's taken to drinking with his nemesis Bluto, can a stint in Celebrity Rehab be far behind?
Read and watch more...

Classic Commercials for Women
From the very beginning of the ad age, women became a key strategic focal point for advertisers. The polyester decade in particular played host to some of the most memorable and wildly successful ad campaigns of all time. All too often, early TV advertisements aimed at "the weaker sex" were condescending and simplistic. The women's movement in the sixties was one factor leading advertisers to rethink the methods they were using to reach an increasingly important market segment.
Read and watch more...

What We Watched - 30 Years Ago
The 1973-74 season had the worst new show success ratio of any season in television history. The three networks had only one series each that was renewed that year (Kojak, Police Story, Six Million Dollar Man). A glance back to a tumultuous year in television history - the 1974-75 season.
Read and watch more...

My World & Welcome To It
Smartly-written with a superb cast of familiar faces, My World and Welcome To It presented sitcom life enhanced by the writing and scribbling of New Yorker humorist James Thurber (who died eight years before this show aired). In this dark (for TV) comedy, John Monroe (William Windom), cartoonist for Manhattanite magazine, escapes dull reality through the power of his daydreams; acting out in his mind bizarre notions and fantastic what-could-have-beens.
Read and watch more...

Hootenanny!
Picture this: about two hundred 18-23 year olds sitting in a semi-circle on the floor, digging the latest tunes by artists who sing and play acoustic instruments, while cameras tape the whole shebang for home viewers.
"MTV Unplugged?" Nope, it's Hootenanny, the ABC-TV series that capitalized on the popularity of folk music during the early 1960's. If it's remembered at all today, it's as the show that blacklisted Pete Seeger, a last gasp of McCarthyism that led to a boycott by Bob Dylan; Joan Baez; Peter, Paul & Mary; The Kingston Trio - practically every folk act that meant anything to the masses.
Read and watch more...

For The Love of (Bazooka) Joe!
I always loved the Bazooka Joe characters. I was a little horrified some years ago--was it in the 1990s?--when I unwrapped a piece and the cartoons had CHANGED. Gone were the familiar designs, replaced by some odd nouveau version of the Gang. Why, I thought, if Bazooka had finally gone to the fun extent of creating some new adventures, had they not hired an artist who could draw in the classic style?
Read and watch more...

Interview with Captain Kangaroo / INTERVIEW WITH BOB KEESHAN

What We Watched - 40 Years Ago
The 1973-74 season had the worst new show success ratio of any season in television history. The three networks had only one series each that was renewed that year (Kojak, Police Story, Six Million Dollar Man). A glance back to a tumultuous year in television history - the 1974-75 season.
Read and watch more...

David Bowie on TV
Bowie made several but not many appearances on American TV during the 1970s, mostly on talk and variety shows. Here are a few examples.
Read and watch more...

Wonder Woman's Long Strange Journey to Television
It wasn't until The Six Million Dollar Man debuted five years later on ABC that super-persons were again accepted on television. With that in mind, Warner Bros. decided again to mount a Wonder Woman project in 1974. Stanley Ralph Ross was again brought on board to pitch a completely different approach than the 1967 pilot; his idea was to stay true to the original character concept by placing the comic book character back into the World War II era.
Read and watch more...

Classic TV Shows on DVD?
An extensive catalogue of every classic program available on DVD! See what's available today - with big discounts for you!