So…in a sure sign of continuing mental and emotional regression, I decided the other night to accessorize a drunk by watching a little cable…only to foggily re-discover we haven’t had cable in years (my first clue? No suitcase-sized box on top of a TV not made to support an envelope). I had been reminiscing about how much I had enjoyed those early years of cable and the rise of specialty channels catering to narrowcasting desires, and I thought: “Why not watch a little Nick at Nite?”
Continue reading ‘The Patty Duke Show’ (Season 1): A light, perfectly pitched time capsule back to a sweeter timeTag Archives: tv
‘Dennis the Menace’ (Season 4): Dennis is an older menace in boomer sitcom’s final season
Sooo looooooooooong, Dennis…and not a moment too soon.
Continue reading ‘Dennis the Menace’ (Season 4): Dennis is an older menace in boomer sitcom’s final season‘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?).
Continue reading ‘Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie’ (1993): A familial look back at the fascinating, complicated couple‘Studio One’: A look back at TV’s early LIVE anthology. Was this the ‘Golden Age’?
You know…when you finally come to, and find yourself unaware of the day or date, or the precise county or state in which your body currently resides, but completely aware that your ribs are all stoved in, three fingers on your craps-throwing hand are busted, your front teeth are loose, your head feels like a basketball is being inflated inside it, and that you’re laying in someone’s pool of something…you start to reminisce about earlier days, better days—, indeed better times—when you could put two coherent sentences together and take a leak without pissing blood. Even writers have “golden ages,” gentle readers.
Continue reading ‘Studio One’: A look back at TV’s early LIVE anthology. Was this the ‘Golden Age’?