My version of Throwback Thursday is for me to set the Wayback Machine and view a segment of nostalgia. Today the Wayback Machine catches a lift from electronic air wave transmissions to go back to 1968- 69 to see what we would be viewing tonight on TV if we were back in the twilight years of the swinging 60s! Forget about HBO and The Oprah Winfrey Network. Your choices would be rather limited back then ABC: The prime time was ruled by the girls! The Ugliest Girl in Town, The Flying Nun, Bewitched, That Girl, were followed by Journey to the Unknown and local viewing to cap off the night. CBS: CBS opened prime time with Blondie. Then they switched to action mode with shows like Hawaii Five-o and then The CBS Thursday Night Movies. NBC: The National Broadcasting Corporation countered the other big two with The Daniel Boone Show, Ironside, and Dragnet. After an evening of action the smoothy known as Dean Martin hosted a variety show named after him. Speaking of Dean Martins show, that was clearly the era of variety programming formed around a starring celebrity. On various nights shows aired such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Show, The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, Rowan and Martins Laugh-In, The Red Skelton Hour (Known as Red Skeleton to me!), The Carol Burnett Show, The Liberace Show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and The Johnathan Winters Show. All the network geniuses have long held that the variety show genre is dead. If I was paid a dollar for every time someone else or I myself refer to the greatest humor created on The Carol Burnett Show, for example I would have the funds to create my own show. Im inclined to wonder if the genre is dead or is there a shortage of the talent to pull such a show off in our enlightened and scary talented celebrity era. Note to Katie Lisec maybe your buddy can help produce The Kim Kardashian Show? And now.....back to 2014 for me! **sigh** Reality TV has replaced variety shows? On second thought- Maybe the Wayback Machine is out of gas...
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 23:22:12 +0000
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