Vintage TV thread

[Buddhabreath]

Do you believe in the hereafter? That's what Arte Johnson was here after.

Ha! I didn’t doubt it.

[Dave (in MA)]

[GuitarGeek]

So the last couple days of Route 66 has found guest stars that include Leslie Nielsen (back when he was still a "dramatic" actor), Ronny Howard (moonlighting from The Andy Griffith Show), Daniel J Travanti (a good 17 or so years before Hill Street Blues, he was also in a really good Flipper two parter also), Vera Miles, and Sylvia Sydney.

[nosebone]

Been binging on season 1 of The Partidge Family.

Some damn goo songwriting for that show.

[Staun]

So the last couple days of Route 66 has found guest stars that include Leslie Nielsen (back when he was still a "dramatic" actor), Ronny Howard (moonlighting from The Andy Griffith Show), Daniel J Travanti (a good 17 or so years before Hill Street Blues, he was also in a really good Flipper two parter also), Vera Miles, and Sylvia Sydney.

Isn't it funny, especially in tv, how we recycle actors over and over? I think a lot of this has to do with just having a familiar face. But, I can't believe that there aren't other actors, just as good, that we haven't seen.

[Staun]

Is anyone getting, The Naked City? A police drama which was very good. Another crime show was, M Squad with Lee Marvin. He's enough to make me watch. Also, Highway Patrol. It got better as it went along but I don't know how many seasons it was on. Broderick Crawford was the man.

[GuitarGeek]

Isn't it funny, especially in tv, how we recycle actors over and over? I think a lot of this has to do with just having a familiar face. But, I can't believe that there aren't other actors, just as good, that we haven't seen.

You'd see the same actors, sometimes even on the same show, playing completely different characters on different episodes.

[ronmac]

You'd see the same actors, sometimes even on the same show, playing completely different characters on different episodes.

Vito Scotti was everywhere, often playing ethnic stereotypes.

[GuitarGeek]

Is anyone getting, The Naked City? A police drama which was very good. Another crime show was, M Squad with Lee Marvin. He's enough to make me watch. Also, Highway Patrol. It got better as it went along but I don't know how many seasons it was on. Broderick Crawford was the man.

I've never seen any of those shows, though I've heard of them. In the film It Came From Hollywood, Dan Aykroyd apparently does a Broderick Crawford impression, when discussing movies about juvenile delinquents. David Letterman also was fond of launching into a Crawford impression, usually when we'd have either Matthew Broderick or Sarah Jessica Parker on.

There's an interesting bit of trivia about M Squad that John Landis mentions on the Blues Brothers DVD: apparently, Mayor Daly banned all filming in Chicago city limits, because he was incensed about an episode of M Squad where a Chicago cop is depicted as taking a bribe.

And apparently, Police Squad!, one of my favorite police shows, drew a lot of elements of it's parody from M Squad (or at least that's what Wikipedia says).

[Buddhabreath]

Thanks I needed that.

[Staun]

QUOTE]And apparently, Police Squad!, one of my favorite police shows, drew a lot of elements of it's parody from M Squad (or at least that's what Wikipedia says).

Will never understand How Police Squad only lasted a handful of episodes. Would have thought that the films would have at least, brought them back into more reruns.

[Plasmatopia]

What are the best places to look to stream these old shows? Was that discussed somewhere in this thread?

A few years ago we bought the entire Get Smart series on DVD and my wife loved it. Pretty goofy stuff, but fun.

[moecurlythanu]

^ If you have a digital antenna, they're sub-channels that are broadcast over the air.

[Staun]

You'd see the same actors, sometimes even on the same show, playing completely different characters on different episodes.

This is true. Has to have something to do with contracts and studios.

[Staun]

^ If you have a digital antenna, they're sub-channels that are broadcast over the air.

Bump.

[Dave (in MA)]

Will never understand How Police Squad only lasted a handful of episodes. Would have thought that the films would have at least, brought them back into more reruns.

[GuitarGeek]

Will never understand How Police Squad only lasted a handful of episodes. Would have thought that the films would have at least, brought them back into more reruns.

I forget who it was who told Zucker, Abrams & Zucker that Police Squad! would fail because "you have to pay attention" or something like that. I think the logic it was literally too good for an American sitcom audience. So teh show only ran like 9 episodes, I think. I remember A&E was showing it for awhile in the mid 80's. I think it was the A&E airings that led to them doing the Naked Gun movies.

re: actors frequently recurring on TV shows, playing different roles

This is true. Has to have something to do with contracts and studios.

There might be a correlation to who's directing a given episode. I know on the Doctor Who DVD's, it's sort of suggested that each director who worked on the show had his own "company", as it were, and when he'd get a job directing something for the BBC or whatever, he'd get out his address book and find out who was available. Perhaps it was the same with American TV.

BTW, today's Wild Wild West had Jim Backus and Alan Hale Jr, with a Gilligan's Island allusion during the epilogue!

And a familiar name, but alas a different person: on Route 66 a few days ago, the episode was directed by one Paul Stanley. No, not the Starchild, Stanley Eisen would have been like 10 years old at the time. I actually first spotted that name in an episode of Lost In Space almost 40 years ago, he did a lot of TV work from the 50's through the mid 80's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stanley_(director)

[Dave (in MA)]

Police Squad was only 6 episodes. For some reason I thought it was a precursor to Airplane!, but it was actually the other way around.

[GuitarGeek]

Police Squad was only 6 episodes. For some reason I thought it was a precursor to Airplane!, but it was actually the other way around.

Like I was saying, 6 episodes. I knew it wasn't anywhere close to a full season. At any rate, it would be difficult to do a conventional rerun schedule when you've only got six episodes to work with. A&E was showing it on it's "Cult classic" programming block, where they'd rotate through various extremely short lived sitcoms. I remember one of the others was called Working Stiffs, and starred James Belushi and Michael Keaton, neither of whom were famous yet when the show was produced.

I suspect what happened was Airplane! was such a big hit, ABC probably gave Zucker, Abrams & Zucker a blank check, to do whatever they wanted. I think the same thing happened later in the decade with the Max Headroom series, everyone was loving the Coke commercials, and they had already done the film in the UK explaining Max's origins, so they probably said "Do whatever you want", and were probably aghast when they realized the entire show was just great big Bronx Cheer aimed at the entire TV industry.

One of my favorite gags is when someone, in a mansion asks someone else for a meeting in the Japanese garden. So they go through these French doors, and walk out into a patio area, surrounded by Asian people, standing in oversized flowerpots.

Another is when they initially think a kidnapped woman is being held down by teh dock, because you hear what they think at first is a foghorn followed by nautical bells. They eventually figure out it's actually the bell at the gas station when you drive over the hose, to tell the attendant a customer has arrived, combined with someone playing a tuba. So they reckon she's being held somewhere near both a gas station and a tuba teacher.

Another good one was when Drebin is interogating a man, who insists the night before he was "at a movie, On The Waterfront". Drebin replies, "You know just as well as I do that there's no movie theaters on the waterfront!".

[progmatist]

^ If you have a digital antenna, they're sub-channels that are broadcast over the air.

We geezers are the ones most likely to still be watching over the air via antenna. It should surprise nobody the shows we grew up with dominate the digital sub-channels.

[Staun]

GG, do you remember the tall guy who worked in the lab? They never showed his head just up to the top of his shoulders. I think his name was Nick. When he ate lunch, huge chunks of food would fall to the desk and Drebin would just stand there looking at it. Funny as hell.

[GuitarGeek]

GG, do you remember the tall guy who worked in the lab? They never showed his head just up to the top of his shoulders. I think his name was Nick. When he ate lunch, huge chunks of food would fall to the desk and Drebin would just stand there looking at it. Funny as hell.

Al, played by Tiny Ron Taylor (who passed away last November). It would be something like Drebin saying "Al, you've got something on your lip", and he'd reach up, and you see a full banana land fall to the desk, or something like that.

Then there was the lab guy, who would use videotapes of Barbara Walters' interviews for ballistics tests.

There was also the shoeshine boy (actually a guy in his 50's from the look of him), who'd give Drebin the dope on what "the word on the street" was on the case. Invariably when Drebin would get up, someone like Tommy Lasorda or Billy Martin or whomever would sit down and ask the shoeshine guy for professional advice.

[Staun]

Al, played by Tiny Ron Taylor (who passed away last November). It would be something like Drebin saying "Al, you've got something on your lip", and he'd reach up, and you see a full banana land fall to the desk, or something like that.

Then there was the lab guy, who would use videotapes of Barbara Walters' interviews for ballistics tests.

There was also the shoeshine boy (actually a guy in his 50's from the look of him), who'd give Drebin the dope on what "the word on the street" was on the case. Invariably when Drebin would get up, someone like Tommy Lasorda or Billy Martin or whomever would sit down and ask the shoeshine guy for professional advice.

You got it. Yeah, the shoeshine guy bit was the greatest. Like Batman and Robin climbing up a building, a famous person would open the window and they would have a conversation.

[Dave (in MA)]

[Proglodite]

I've seen Johnny the Shoeshine Boy pop up in movies and it always drives me crazy trying to place where I know him from! --Peter