Classic TV / TVparty!

New in the TVparty TV Blog
I did an interview on The State of Things yesterday with host Frank Stasio on WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio. I had a blast talking about the book and everyone there at WUNC was so nice to us.

Timmie Rogers
I was thinking the other day about the great, pionering black comic Timmie Rogers. He came up through vaudeville, he was one of (if not the) first black comedians to appear without blackface makeup in the 1940s. Yes, even the 'negro' comics had to wear blackface back in the day!
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Heil Honey, I'm Home!
It's Heil Honey, I'm Home, the trials and domestic travails of Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun, a not-so-typical suburban couple. The program was presented as if it were an unearthed sitcom from the 1950s. In a nod to that classic sitcom cliche, the first storylines centered around Eva being unprepared for Hitler's important business associate (Neville Chamberlain) coming for dinner and the couple's new neighbors dropping in unexpectedly. The neighbors just happen to be Jewish. WATCH IT FOR YOURSELF AFTER THE JUMP!
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Poker On Television
Poker television grew huge around 2004 when the hole card cameras were introduced to make the game more enjoyable to watch. Both major tournament circuits, the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker, are covered pretty much in detail and then there are a number of smaller poker shows with or without celebrities. Check out ESPN2, ESPNC, Fox Sports or NBC for more poker TV. You may also watch poker on the internet. Sites like Youtube and PokerListings.com have a pretty good range of poker TV in their video archives.

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.
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Sexy Edgar Rice Burroughs
Paperback Covers
These Roy Krenkel illustrations from the '60s came before the racy Frank Frazetta covers of the 1970s. Some of the 1960's books came with illustrations on the title page by Krenkel and they are truly spectacular; he was one of the greatest pen & ink artists of all time.
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Sky King
"Sky King was kind of a cowboy type that would fly around in a twin engine plane. I watched that show religiously. Every time the opening sequence was shown I had to be sitting directly in front of the TV set. The final shot while the opening credits were rolling was of the plane coming straight at you, very low to the ground, and zooming right over your head. I would always time it so that I rolled onto my back, as though the plane had come out of the set and just barely missed the top of my head." PLUS: one TVparty-er discovers the original Sky King hacienda!
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"Plunk Your Magic Twanger, Froggy!"
"I am looking for a newspaper editorial - it could've been in a magazine - written about the kid's show 'Andy's Gang' in which the writer blames Froggy for causing the protest movement of the '60s. He said Froggy's disrespectful behavior towards adults, which he demonstrated every show, influenced the kids who were watching him and those kids grew up to become the protesting college students of the sixties who likewise showed disrespect towards their elders."
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TV's First Angry Conservative!
Joe Pyne was the first outraged, outspoken, right-wing voice on national television, the father of modern conservative talk shows; blazing a path for Morton Downey, Jr., Wally George, Jerry Springer, Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and the rest. Never one to avoid controversy, Pyne claimed to keep a loaded gun in his desk drawer - and no wonder with the kooks he (or more accurately, the TV cameras) attracted.
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Jack Sheldon!
Jack Sheldon - you may not recognize the name but you'll recognize his voice from those wonderful Schoolhouse Rock segments from Saturday mornings. My favorite of his was 'Conjunction Junction' but there were others - like perhaps the most well-known of the bunch, 'How a Bill Becomes a Law.'
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Richard Pryor Show
Was Richard Pryor bitter about his television experience? No, not at all. He had this to say: "One week of truth on TV could just straighten out everything. One hundred and twenty-seven million people watch television every night; that's why they use it to sell stuff. They've misused it a long time so now it's just a business, that's all. They're not going to write shows about how to revolutionize America. The top-rated shows are for retarded people."
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It's About Time
This was one of network 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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Mr. Belvedre movies shown on TV from the 1950s

The Original Mr. Belvedere
These feature films starred the impeccably prissy Clifton Webb as Mr. Belvedere, it's the most well-rounded character of his career and a rare starring role for this popular supporting actor. The first, Sitting Pretty directed by Walter Lang, is a riot as this erudite genius, who has seemingly been everywhere and done everything, goes to work as a live-in nanny for a typical American family so he can secretly write a tell-all book. Pretty modern concept, huh? Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara co-starred.
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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!