Andy Kaufman Pilot that Inspired Pee Wee’s Playhouse
While ABC passed on the series, this pilot film became the inspiration for an iconic show some 3 years later. Kaufman even gave Paul ‘Pee Wee’ Reubens permission to base his Saturday morning kiddie show, ‘Pee Wee’s Playhouse,’ on the Uncle Andy concept.
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TV's
First Music Videos
Produced from around 1950 until about 1954, all of
the top jazz/pop/country stars made these 3 and 4 minute films.
There was a entire run of these telescriptions numbering in the
thousands. The cool thing is that almost all of them were filmed with multi-cameras
and live mikes, no playbacks and lip-synching! As you will see,
they sing into an Altec-Telefunkin microphone, the best ever made
(next to the RCA 500's).
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Best of Batgirl 1967-68
The most popular character on the show, besides the Dynamic Duo, was Catwoman but she couldn’t be on every week so the producers asked DC comics to come up with a heroic Catwoman so Batgirl debuted in Detective Comics # 359 in 1967. (As opposed to the earlier Batgirl, a minor character from the 1950s.)
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Saturday
Mornings 1977
There
were lots of 'new' shows for kids to choose from in 1977, but they
failed to click and most of them were gone by February. After almost
a decade of the same-old, same-old from the big three electronic
sausage factories, seventies' kids were growing restless on Saturday
mornings. That restlessness translated into a record number of Saturday
AM shows being cancelled mid-season.
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Jerry Vale!
One of the titans of the strip, crooner Jerry Vale packed the houses in Vegas and on the road. He's considered one of the finest Italians singers of all time, his rich tenor bathed each and every song he sang with an authenticity other singers lacked.
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It's
About Time
One
of TV's most beloved sitcoms and it only aired for one year. The series itself may not have been successful, but the show's theme
song is one of the most memorable of all time. People who never
saw the show became familiar with it! Like many Sherwood Schwartz
productions, the theme gives you the entire premise of the show
in hummable fashion. But
will we ever see this classic on DVD?
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Dear
NBC...
Let TVparty remind you how your network went from last place to first in the
1980s - it was done with bold programming, innovative promos and
some of the catchiest jingles ever recorded. Must-see for
every NBC exec in 2007!
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The
Curse of Beulah
It
was one of ABC's first hit shows; the first - and last - TV program
to star an African-American woman until Julia fifteen years
later. Ethel
Waters, Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers and
others inhabited the Beulah role and
found themselves an object of derision, protested by civil rights
groups, their careers and health destroyed. BONUS: we trace
the origins of the 'Mammy' image as it evolved for television.
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It's
Pinky Lee!
By
1955, Pinky was on the air six days a week and rapidly becoming
one of the most popular kid-vid hosts of all time, finally gaining
some respect along the way. Time magazine called him, "One
of the hardest working men in TV" but all of that hard work
took its toll during an airing of his live program late in 1955.
While performing one of his hysterical routines, Pinky Lee collapsed
live on the air - stricken by what appeared to be a massive heart
attack.
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The
Last Days of Bobby Darin
"Regarding
Bobby's reputation for being hard to work with. He was. He had good
days and bad days but for the most part, he treated us (the band)
like gold. We hung together like musketeers and we still talk about
how great those days were."
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55
Years of Today
When Today debuted in 1952,
it was a bold experiment - a daily, network morning program of this
scale had never before been attempted. But it wasn't until a chimp
named J. Fred Muggs joined the show as co-host that the program
finally took off in the ratings.
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Outrageous
outtakes!
Maybe
the most outlandish outake ever filmed comes from The New Zoo
Revue, a fondly remembered 1972 syndicated children's educational
show with Freddy the Frog, Henrietta the Hippo, and Charley the
Owl. Charley and Freddy had a secret life, evidently! WARNING:
harsh language!
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Birthday
House
It
might be hard to believe but forty years ago New Yorkers tuned in
every morning to a toddler's birthday party complete with sing-a-longs,
animals and staring into a tropical fish tank. For the time, this
was big city daytime TV at it's finest - and it was surprisingly
entertaining, better than The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,
that's for sure.
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Los
Angeles Local Kid Shows from the Fifties to Seventies!
Sheriff
John, Hobo Kelly, Baby Daphne, Shrimpenstein, Chucko and more. With
rare video and dozens of photos. NEW BONUS: Never
before seen backstage footage from KCOP's Romper Room!
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The
Untouchables
Now
that The Untouchables is being released on DVD we look
back at this powerful network drama, considered one of the most
violent television shows of its time. Of course, by today's standards
it's not that bad but it was violent enough at the time to spark
protests from concerned parents and from 'concerned' Italian-Americans
who didn't appreciate the whole 'Goombah of the Week' approach to
the show.
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Classic
TV on DVD - New Reviews!
NEW: Stargate
Atlantis, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Dallas, Men Behaving
Badly, Captain N, Hootenanny, ER, Wanda Sykes, Adventures of Superman,
Pride & Prejudice, Battlestar Galactica, F Troop, Cheyenne, and so many more new to DVD. And they're all deep discounted
- for you!
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more...
Sanford Arms
When CBS attempts to save Two and a Half Men without the show's star Charlie Sheen they are not going into uncharted territory. NBC faced the same dilemma when they lost Redd Foxx, the star of their number one sitcom Sanford & Son in 1977. The result, Sanford Arms, was a true debacle and one of the first programs cancelled that fall.
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1980's
TV Wrestling - Greats and Near Greats!
