Tag Archives: NBC

‘The Jazz Singer’ (1959): A valuable, entertaining piece of vintage TV history

So, I tried to stay up with Jerry to watch the stars come out this past Labor Day weekend, but no matter how many channels I tried…I couldn’t find the telethon. What’s up―can all those kids walk now?

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All-Time Time-Wastin’ Champ: I’ve finished NBC’s soap, ‘The Doctors’!

After years and years of false starts, I’ve finally achieved another worthless TV-watching milestone: I’ve made it through The Doctors, the NBC daytime serial that ran for 20 years, and won the first Emmy for Best Show Daytime (1972).

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‘NBC’s 60th Anniversary Celebration’: As the Peacock turns 100, here’s how it celebrated in 1986!

So apparently, not many of my 13 readers here at Drunk TV know that I have a separate blog—Mavis Movie Madness!…but mostly TV—most probably because absolutely no one reads it. Well, my intrepid editor thought it would be a good idea to cross-reference them, so here’s a piece I wrote about the NBC’s 60th Anniversary Celebration, that aired May 12th, 1986. Enjoy, you booze hounds!

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‘The Rhinemann Exchange’ (1977): Final ‘Best Sellers’ miniseries is a 4-hour drag

Okay, okay. I know I wrote months ago (wait…was it years?) that I would finish off my look at the NBC Best Sellers “series of mini-series” from the 1976-1977 season, with a review of The Rhinemann Exchange, based on the Robert Ludlum WWII espionage thriller, starring Lauren Hutton, John Huston, Roddy McDowall, Claude Akins, Vince Edwards, Jose Ferrer, Rene Auberjonois, Larry Hagman, Werner Klemperer, Trisha Noble, and that pedo. I’m also fairly certain that I told you people that I was experiencing actual physical discomfort in doing so, not so much because I would have to write about Stephen Collins (we’ll dissect him later), but because The Rhinemann Exchange is so cosmically dull, so existentially dead, that I honestly don’t know—I mean right now, sitting here—what the hell I’m going to say about it.

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‘The Executioner’s Song’ (1982): ‘Director’s Cut’ trims down ‘true life’ crime miniseries

I made the mistake of going to the movies this week. A new movie. In an actual theater. That I had to pay for. Without thinking, I bought a ticket for Terrifier 3, for no other reason than I wanted to see if I could recreate the feeling I used to have back in the 80s—the golden age of slasher movies—where you just walked into some horror gore fest you didn’t know a thing about, and had a rowdy good time at the movies.

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‘The Norliss Tapes’ (1972): Can the creepy thrill of ‘The Night Stalker’ be duplicated?

Fall’s here! Fall begins with the letter “f,” kids! There are lots and lots of other words that begin with the letter “f,” now that fall is here! Can you think of any? I know can! Like…”f******” leaves to rake! “F******” snow tires to drag out of the garage! “F******” heating bills I can’t afford! “F******” pumpkin spice everywhere you “f******” turn! “F******” elections that are fixed! And “f******” sitting alone in your den, drinking heavily on a dark, rainy afternoon, cleaning the pistol your old man blew his brains out with, while you mentally flip a coin to see if you should just f****** follow suit! Can you think of any others? You can? Great! So remember: Fall means f****** fun!”

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‘Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story’ (1987): Farrah portrays tragic socialite in opulent, soapy miniseries

No one revels in TV excess like myself…but this is just too, too much.

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‘What Makes Sammy Run?’ (1959): A fantastic, gutsy peek inside the Hollywood machine

“Tears are for losers. What kind of a sissy word is ‘fair?'”
Amen, Sammy…amen.

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‘Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie’ (1993): A familial look back at the fascinating, complicated couple

I hadn’t realized that this past April was the 35th anniversary of the passing of Lucille Ball, television’s greatest comedienne. Probably because that former standby of media information—the old “TV listings”—hadn’t reminded me. Since traditional linear network TV is now essentially a niche joke—the last form of mass communication that actually helped unify our popular culture, as opposed to the internet and streaming, which have completely Balkanized it—I seriously doubt there was any kind of effort on the part of her old network, CBS, to commemorate her death while celebrating her legacy (maybe they did something on MeTV…do people still have cable?).

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‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’: Thrilling & educational, Marlon Perkins paves way for ecology & conservation

Hey―we care about the planet here at the DrunkTV HQ. But we don’t wear diapers and tampons about it, that’s all. We don’t want to get taxed for it, or eat ground-up bugs so cows won’t fart, or drive an electric lawn mower instead of a kick-ass V-8. We like the Earth…we’re just not pussies about it. That’s why we like ultimate outdoor chad Marlin Perkins and his Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom series.

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‘Greatest Heroes of the Bible (Vol. 3) – God’s Power’: Your Easter Sunday viewing is here, and it’s…good enough!

Forgive them, Father, for they know not this is Schick Sunn Classic entertainment.

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‘Bonanza’ (Season 2): Popular Western picks up steam, gallops into Top 20

The Cartwrights ride into Season Two!

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‘The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case’ (1976): Anthony Hopkins hams it up in shallow true crime performance

So, wait: Lindbergh willingly sacrificed his kid to Nobel Prize-winning biologist Alexis Carrel in some Abrahamic gesture to provide Carrel a body for eugenics experimentation that went wrong…and then covered it up? That promotion for a new whack-job book conspiracy theory came over my news feed the other day, and sucker though I am for any and all looney conspiracy theories, it immediately reminded me of NBC’s 1976 long, long telemovie, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, where the real crime wasn’t the kidnapping, but Anthony Hopkins’ deliciously awful Emmy-winning performance.

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‘Bonanza’ (Season 1): Epic Western ropes viewers’ hearts in first of 14 seasons

Bonanza, the single most successful television series of the 1960s (and, at 13 1/2 seasons, second only to Gunsmoke for network TV’s longest-running Western), created and produced by David Dortort and starring Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, and Michael Landon, has been lovingly and painstakingly restored and remastered for CBS’s and Paramount’s fabulous DVD boxed set, Bonanza: The Official Complete Series. The hefty set—112 discs in four chunky volumes—was executive produced by Andrew J. Klyde, and his results are spectacular: all 431 full-length episodes have been digitally remastered (including the problematic Season 2 transfers previously released) from the original 35mm color film camera negatives, complete with original music…and with a ridiculous amount of incredibly rare, fascinating bonus material included on this set. It’s an astonishing work of television preservation.

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‘Seventh Avenue’ (1977): Third ‘Best Sellers’ miniseries really moves!

Oy vey iz mir did I get myself into something.

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‘Once an Eagle’ (1976): NBC’s second ‘Best Sellers’ mini a sprawling epic across two world wars

Back when “the Big Three” were the only game in town, do you remember how exciting Septembers were, you vintage TV-crazed viewer? Sure you do. How exciting the prospect was for the upcoming slew of new TV shows, thoughtfully brought to you by your friendly networks, entirely free of charge? It was as if you had this whole new group of friends who were waiting to entertain you, and all you had to do was turn on the TV to see them, to welcome them into your home.

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‘Captains and the Kings’ (1976): Kennedyesque mini was the first of NBC’s ‘Best Sellers’ series

Hot creepers are they really trying to foist another Kennedy on us for the White House? As a VP replacement for Madame Word Salad? That family of bootlegging, pill-popping, ballot box-stuffing, movie star- shagging poon-hounds? Incrapitable!

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‘Greatest Heroes of the Bible (Vol. 2) – God’s Chosen Ones’: More good lovin’ from the Good Book

Oy gevalt what’s with this meshugganah Easter season? The last time I put something out specifically for Easter (the Shick Sunn Classic TV epic Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume One review), we were in the middle of a deliberately manufactured global lockdown that was designed by our elitist overlords as a dry run for who-knows what’s to come…and God didn’t do anything about it (or them). To say I was in a snit with His rather, shall we say, casual attitude about the whole thing is an understatement, and it convinced me not write any more about Him or his people.

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‘Dead by Sunset’ (1995): Juicy melodrama is exactly what true-crime lovers want

I don’t even know what’s up anymore with Lifetime or Lifetime Movie Network; I haven’t watched since we ditched cable years and years ago (I think they just make Christmas movies now where everyone’s best friend is some screaming Billy Eichner queen). But back in the day, those channels, particularly LMN, were a treasure trove of lurid, pulpy, old-school true-crime mellers, and Dead by Sunset―featuring one of the genre’s “Psycho Hall of Fame” performances from Ken Olin―was one of the best.

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‘The U.F.O. Incident’ (1975): Fact, fiction, or Hollywood entertainment?

Can’t some bug-eyed outer space piece of sh*t abduct me the hell out of what passes for America today? Oh, well…one can dream. 

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