Box one of three came in yesterday and with one exception, every tape once again was filled with commercials. A better mixture of dramas, some made-for-TV movies, a couple rare sitcoms, a talk show episode, some more local news, a couple conclusions of MNF games, and even the first few minutes of a game show. The only dud was one tape featuring a couple movies recorded off HBO from around fall 1984 with just a few seconds of promos.
Note: All tapes are recorded off the "Big 3" Los Angeles stations (KABC, KCBS, KNBC) with commercials unless otherwise indicated.
TAPE 1: MacGyver ("Bushmate") followed by the ABC Monday Night Movie "Fight For Live", along with the first several minutes of Channel 7's Eyewitness News on 3/23/1987, followed by Spies "From China With Love" and the first several minutes of the CBS Tuesday Move "A Different Affair" on 3/24/1987.
TAPE 2: My only non-OTA find turned out to be the most annoying. It starts with the closing credits of some BBC show, followed by Episode 3 of Jayne Ere (1983 BBC miniseries) recorded off A&E sometime in 1988 with commercials, and then shortly after the closing credits, it loops back to the exact same closing sequences as described in the beginning, and continues to loop for nine times throughout the entire tape! I'm not sure if this was a special preview for non-cable subscribers since that HBO recording above may have also been a special preview. Still, it was annoying seeing Juan Valdez, Socrates, and The New Yorker appear again and again just when you thought we'd move on after seeing part of the Macintosh commercial at the end!
TAPE 3: The last half hour of the Bears-Packers Monday Night Football game followed by the season 2 premiere of MacGyver on 9/23/1986, followed interestingly by the second episode of MacGyver's second season, but actually taken from the 12/1/1986 rerun, with most of an episode of the rather short-lived '70s drama Ellery Queen rounding out the tape, with this of course being ABC 7 filler content to fill the gap between primetime programming and the news. IIRC Peter Jennings came between that and the late local news.
TAPE 4: MacGyver "Out In The Cold" from 2/16/1987, followed by about three fourths of the second installment of the Amerika miniseries on 2/15/1987.
TAPE 5: This recording from 4/4/1987 not only features some footage of some cult '70s drama, but also a full block of primetime dramas on ABC as well. It begins with about two-thirds of an episode of S.W.A.T. and most of the 1976 Blue Knight episode "Everybody Needs A Little Attention" off KTTV, with some promos heralding the Fourth Network for its launch the next day. A full block on ABC 7 with Starman, Ohara, and Spenser: For Hire follows.
TAPE 6: The first three installments of the Fresno miniseries from 11/16-/11/18/1986.
TAPE 7: Recorded on my second birthday (2/22/1987), a full ABC primetime block featuring The Parent Trap II (just seven months after its premiere on The Disney Channel) and the final installment of Amerika are featured, along with much of the KABC 11 PM news as well.
TAPE 8: We're back to back from consecutive knights from Tape 5 (4/5/1987), this time from Sunday Night's most popular network. That's right, the network that brings you Murder, She Wrote, followed by a follow-up to the mid-80s drama in the CBS Sunday Movie with "Still Crazy Like A Fox", with the first segment of KCBS's late news following. Its amazing how quickly Channel 2 in LA changed their news opening graphics in just a couple years BTW.
TAPE 9: Too bad this tape was only about 20% full since it could have led to Carson and Letterman and also incomplete with what was recorded, but I'll still settle for the last half of the premiere of The Bronx Zoo and most of KNBC Channel 4 News at 11 on 3/19/1987.
TAPE 10: A broadcast edit of the theatrical film The Cheap Detective along with the first ten minutes of KABC's late news on 8/22/1987, followed by approximately 70% of the world premiere movie "The Man Who Fell To Earth" along with another ten minute clip of ABC 7 at 11 on 8/23/1987. The copyright of that movie was 1986, indicating that it likely was shelved and/or postponed due to a special report or event. It's not as well known as the 1976 version starring David Bowie. In fact, the Los Angeles Times misidentified it in their TV preview section as that film.
TAPE 11: Murder, She Wrote and the CBS Sunday Movie "Deadly Care", along with the first segment of the KCBS 11 o'clock news. Interestingly though, the commercial break between M,SW and the movie, along with the movie's intro is missing.
TAPE 12: MacGyver "Friends" from 4/6/1987, followed by another episode of the short-lived spy drama Spies, most of Moonlighting, Max Headroom, and the first segment of KABC's News at 11 on 4/7/1987.
TAPE 13: The Season 3 premiere of Murder, She Wrote followed by most of Raiders of the Lost Ark on 9/28/1986. I've already farmed out the commercials from WPVI of that movie, and have also seen WCBS posted as well.
TAPE 14: Ohara (a rerun of "Eddie", Spencer For Hire "The Road Back", the closing of the KNBC 11 PM News, and Saturday Night Live (host: Bill Murray) from 3/21/1987. I've already got a copy of the network rerun from 12/26/1987 off KTSM, but of course it doesn't hurt having the OB as well!
TAPE 15: Now this tape features some rare stuff! It begins with the premiere of Max Headroom from 3/31/1987 (part of the intro is missing), followed by the premieres of the short-lived sitcoms Roxie and Take Five (these lasted just two weeks each before CBS booted them) from 4/1/1987, then it continues with a rerun of Donahue (guest: Diahann Carrol) on 4/2/1987, followed by about half an hour of syndicated TBN religious programming, Entertainment Tonight, and about the first five minutes of Card Sharks with Bill Rafferty from the same night as the Donahue rerun. I have about three-fourths of that ET episode that I received in a trade earlier this year, and have learned now that the 1985 Donahue episode on cooking from my last lot was also a rerun, since it features that "The preceding program is prerecorded" voiceover over the Multimedia Entertainment logo at the end (and I was scared to death as a kid of that logo since it felt like a Tylenol pill that was going to gill your veins, since those rapidly expanding/closing blue MULTIMEDIAS gave me jitters!)
As you can see, most of these were clustered around February-early April of 1987, with a few from the later portions of 1986. As you can see on the link below for the seller I purchased these from, most of these were those Sony L-750 with the diagonal stripes, along with a few grey/black line Maxell L-750s, and I didn't receive any tapes with the labels shown in the photo.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-Of-16-...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
Well with six lots I didn't purchase, hopefully that will cross over eventually in the form of trades, and if weren't for the fact that I'd pretty much hit my capacity, I'd be buying more. We'll see if those steel-colored BASF cases and/or High Output High Resolution TDKs come in the next batch so that I could get those 1983-84 tapes potentially!