Atlanta: February 26, 1983

[Ccook55]

A Saturday, from the AJC:

WSB/ch. 2 (ABC)
6 AM - Lone Ranger
6:30 - Bugs Bunny
7 AM - Big Blue Marble
7:30 - ABC Weekend Special (week delay from 12 Noon) - "Horatio Alger Updated: Frank and Fearless"
8 AM - Superfriends
8:30 - Pac-Man/Little Rascals/Richie Rich
10 AM - Scooby-Doo / Puppy Hour
11 AM - Bugs Bunny (strange WSB would slot this opposite Bugs Bunny/Road Runner on ch. 5)
11:30 - Timeout (local kids show)
Noon - News
12:30 - American Bandstand
1:30 - Tarzan
2:30 - Movie: "Walking Tall" (1973) Joe Don Baker
4:30 - SportsBeat
5 PM - Wide World Of Sports - International pro figure skating championships
6:30 - News
7 PM - Hee Haw
8 PM - Special Edition (local) - Georgia's 200th anniversary
9 PM - Love Boat - April Lopez says she's leaving America; trouble from a young man and his parents; a woman tries to win over a bachelor
10 PM - Fantasy Island - A singer wants to perform at the Cotton Club in 1925; a woman wants to reunite with her high school peers
11 PM - News
11:30 - Solid Gold
12:30 - America's Top 10
1 AM - Solid Gold Special
3 AM - News
4 AM - News

WAGA/ch. 5 (CBS)
7 AM - Morning At Emory
7:30 - Kidsworld
8 AM - Latin Atlanta
8:30 - Pandamonium
9 AM - Meatballs & Spaghetti
9:30 - Bugs Bunny/Road Runner
10:30 - The Dukes
11 AM - Bugs Bunny/Road Runner
12 Noon - News
12:30 - Road To Los Angeles (1984 Olympics preview)
1:30 - NCAA Basketball: Notre Dame at DePaul (Live)
3:30 - Golf: Third round play in the Doral Eastern Open (Live)
4:30 - CBS Sports Saturday -World sprint speed skating championships
6 PM - News
6:30 - CBS News
7 PM - Weekend Magazine
8 PM - Wizards & Warriors (premiere) - A prince and his vassal battles dark forces in Camarand
9 PM - Movie: "Zorro, the Gay Blade" (1981) George Hamilton
11 PM - News
11:30 - Movie: "Slaughter In San Francisco" (1981) Chuck Norris
1:30 - News

WGTV/ch. 8 (PBS)
1:30 - Victory Garden
2 PM - This Old House
2:30 - Magic Of Decorative Painting
3 PM - Lap Quilting
3:30 - To be announced
4 PM - To be announced
4:30 - To be announced
5 PM - Supersoccer
6 PM - Movie: "His Brother's Ghost" (1946) Buster Crabbe
7 PM - Austin City Limits
8 PM - Movie: "Penny Serenade" (1941) Cary Grant, Irene Dunne
10 PM - Father, Dear Father
10:30 - Mystery! - "The Agatha Christie Stories: Magnolia Blossom"

WXIA/ch. 11 (NBC)
6 AM - College Today
6:30 - Adventures In Living
7 AM - Laverne & Shirley and Company
7:30 - George Of The Jungle (Ch. 11 had been running this continuously in syndication since 1977)
8 AM - Flintstone Funnies
8:30 - Shirt Tales
9 AM - Smurfs
10:30 - Gary Coleman Show (Hanna-Barbera show with Gary as a guardian angel)
11 AM - Incredible Hulk/Amazing Spiderman
12 Noon - Star Trek
1 PM - Bobby Cremins (Georgia Tech basketball)
1:30 - Movie: "For A Few Dollars More" (1967) Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef
4 PM - NCAA Basketball: LSU at Auburn (Live)
6 PM - News
7 PM - NBC News - featured is a report on artificial intelligence
7:30 - Siskel & Ebert At The Movies
8 PM - Diff'rent Strokes - Arnold's plan to help handicapped Kathi threatens his friendship with Dudley and Robbie
8:30 - Silver Spoons - Grandfather Stratton tries to put a halt to Edward and Katie's romance
9 PM - Mama's Family - Mama and Eunice are arrested for disturbing the peace during a birthday celebration
9:30 - Teachers Only - Diana and Principal Cooper trade places for a day
10 PM - Family Tree - Kevin fights his own jealous when Annie's ex-husband turns to her for help
11 PM - News
11:30 - Saturday Night Live
1 AM - Star Trek
2 AM - Movie: "Barracuda" (1978) John David Crawford
4 AM - Outer Limits

WTBS/ch. 17 (Ind.)
6 AM - News
7:05 - Between The Lines
7:35 - Vegetable Soup
8:05 - Romper Room
8:35 - Movie: "Rodan" (1957) Kenji Sawara
10:05 - Movie: "Triple Cross" (1967) Christopher Plummer
12:35 - Movie: "The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre" (1948) Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston
3:35 - Movie: "The War Lover" (1962) Steve McQueen
5:35 - Motorweek Illustrated
6:05 - Wrestling
7:35 - NBA Basketball: Atlanta at New Jersey (Live)
9:50 - To be announced
10:05 - News
11:05 - Tush! (WTBS personality Bill Tush had his own variety show)
12:05 - Movie: "The Naked And The Dead" (1958) Aldo Ray
2:55 - Movie: "Time Limit" (1957) Richard Widmark, Richard Basehart

WETV/ch. 30 (PBS)
1 PM - Track & Field - Mobil USA Indoor Track and Field Championships
3 PM - Tennis - Congoleum Classic from Palm Springs, Calif.
5 PM - Victory Garden
5:30 - Take 30
6 PM - This Old House
6:30 - Inside Business Today
7 PM - Sneak Previews
7:30 - Agronsky & Company
8 PM - Kennedy Center Tonight - a salute to Duke Ellington
9 PM - Great Performances - "Wagner's Ring: Die Walkure, Act I" (part 2 his "Ring Of The Nibelung")
10:30 - Between Life And Death
11 PM - David Susskind

WATL/ch. 36 (Ind.)
7 AM - Eye Sat
8 AM - Ernest Angley
9 AM - Jim Bakker
10 AM - Movie: "Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1965) Yosuke Natsuki
12 Noon - Soul Train
1 PM - College Basketball: Duke at Georgia Tech (Live)
3 PM - College Basketball: Maryland at Wake Forest (Live)
5 PM - Jukebox Video
6 PM - Kung Fu
7 PM - Movie: "Seven Blows Of The Dragon" (1976) David Chaing
9 PM - Movie: "The Strange Vengeance Of Rosalie" (1972) Ken Howard, Bonnie Bedelia
11 PM - Movie: "Fanny Hill" (1964) Miriam Hopkins
12:45 - NCAA Basketball: Louisville at Western Kentucky (delayed)

WANX/ch. 46 (Ind.)
6:30 - Atlanta Forum
7 AM - The Lesson
7:30 - Christ Is The Answer
8 AM - Taffner Children's Classics - "Robinson Crusoe"
9 AM - Wrestling
10 AM - Movie: "Hit The Ice" (1943) Abbott & Costello
11:30 - Movie: "Curtain Call At Cactus Creek" (1950) Donald O'Connor, Gale Storm
1 PM - Movie: "Northwest Mounted Police" (1940) Gary Cooper
3 PM - Bonanza
4 PM - Big Valley
5 PM - Daniel Boone
6 PM - Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries
7 PM - Battlestar Galactica
8 PM - Movie: "The Left Hand Of God" (1955) Humphrey Bogart
10 PM - Music City News Top Country Hits Of The Year - the top 15 songs of 1982
Mid. - INN News

WVEU/ch. 69 (Ind.)
No regular programming; mainly music videos.

 

[Mike Stroud]

A Saturday, from the AJC:

WSB/ch. 2 (ABC)

8 PM - Special Edition (local) - Georgia's 200th anniversary

WTBS/ch. 17 (Ind.)

11:05 - Tush! (WTBS personality Bill Tush had his own variety show)

As you may know, CCook55, Georgia's statehood bicentennial didn't actually occur until January '88, but WSB was on the mark here with this special, probably commemorating the five-year countdown to it. WSB was always a "full-service," civic-minded broadcaster, and compared to the run-of-the-mill low-quality character of local TV today, probably still is in comparative terms. Its dominant position in the market allows it to make occasional sacrifices of network revenue to do public service docs and the like--despite the FCC no longer breathing down their backs as was the case in the Sixties and Seventies.

"Tush!," I believe, was Ted Turner's consolation prize to Tush after Turner, embarrassed by a Congressional investigation into then-WTCG's news programming as Turner Broadcasting began to ramp up for the launch of CNN back in '79 or so, had to pull the plug on Tush's hilarious, far-ahead-of-its-time late-night news parody that was a treat for night owls back in the late Seventies, in order to gain public credibility for his serious ambitious in the news field. You might call Tush's comedy sketch show a Southern-fried ripoff of "Saturday Night Live," with a heavy emphasis on send-ups of TV tropes popular during that period. The airing here was actually a repeat, as the show went out of production about a year and a half before; Turner had reassigned Tush to the entertainment beat on CNN by then.

You may also be aware that this was the show that launched the career of the recently-deceased Jan Hooks, who went on to HBO's "Not Necessarily the News," "SNL" itself, and the Southern Eighties/Nineties sitcom "Designing Women."

 

[Ccook55]

Yep. Jan was well-loved here.

Noted pre-emptions from network fare was mostly Saturday morning. The only ABC show bumped by WSB Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz; WAGA bumped CBS shows The Popeye & Olive Comedy Show and Gilligan's Planet (Blackstar, The New Fat Albert Show and CBS Children's Film Festival were already pre-empted by CBS for the Olympics preview and college basketball); WXIA bumped The Jetsons and Flash Gordon from NBC.

 

[installLSC]

"Tush!," I believe, was Ted Turner's consolation prize to Tush after Turner, embarrassed by a Congressional investigation into then-WTCG's news programming as Turner Broadcasting began to ramp up for the launch of CNN back in '79 or so, had to pull the plug on Tush's hilarious, far-ahead-of-its-time late-night news parody that was a treat for night owls back in the late Seventies, in order to gain public credibility for his serious ambitious in the news field.

Ironic the founder of CNN had a motto in the 70s of "no news is good news". A 1979 TV Guide noted for a while Tush's co-host was a dog named Rex!