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Classic TV Show - Centenial

W

wxctintern

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In 1979? NBC ran a show about settlers going out west called Centenial. I also read it aired during the writers strike in 1980. Sometime after 1984 it aired in reruns on local stations.

What local stations carried this show and how long were each episode?

The only reason I know about this show is because it was the major part of my Grade 11 History Class in 1998-1999. And I know it aired on local stations sometime after 1984 becuase my teacher Mr. Rossi taped the show off of WTIC-TV 61 and they came on the air in 1984. (They became part of FOX when Fox launched a few years later). I know the part about it airing on NBC because I have a book called "The Complete Directory To Primetime Network TV Shows 1946-Present".
 
WOR, New York carried the 1984 re-runs of Centennial.

I am surprised that a high school US history class would use a TV mini-series as a "major part" of the course. Your Mr. Rossi should have his sorry butt fired. Not only for incompetence as an educator, but for violating copyright. "Centennial" (note the spelling) is a made for TV movie based on a novel by James Michener (at the very least, the guy could have had you read the novel and then talk about it in class rather than spending 30 hours of classroom time watching TV). Both are works of fiction, not history. Hasn't this idiot ever heard of textbooks?

Centennial is available on VHS (but not DVD).

I did like the mini-series (and the book) but neither is appropriate material for a history course. The mini-series was very faithful to the book. WOR ran it over two weekends. I started watching and got hooked. I had to go out of town Sunday night, so I missed a few hours of the first weekend. At the airport, I got a copy of the novel to read on the plane. I finished the novel and then watched the second weekend of the mini-series. So for the first part, I saw the movie - then read the book. For the middle I only read the book (I did see the entire movie sometime later). For the final part, I read the book and then saw the movie. The novel is not great writing but a good airplane book. The movie was horribly miscast (apparently based on Q-scores and who was available). The make-up was terrible (it's a multi-generation epic, so everybody starts young and gets old). It's the same formula Michener used in all his other multi-generational place-based soap operas (the same families plus a group of new-comers every few chapters - with members of a family having the same personalities - repeating the same basic conflicts each generation - until all the families are inter-married and we have one big happy family tied to the land). Before Michener, Edna Ferber used the same formula (except in her world, the women held everything together).

See what you missed: Go the library and get Morison and Commager, "The Growth of the American Republic" (Vols. I and II)
 
> WOR, New York carried the 1984 re-runs of Centennial.
>
> I am surprised that a high school US history class would use
> a TV mini-series as a "major part" of the course.
> I agree. This is unbelievable! I saw this on WTIC when they first came on the air in 1984, and , aside from the period costumes and sets, it had little historical context whatsoever. If a teacher needs to be wasting his or her student's time on TV fare, then how about Ken Burns' CIVIL WAR documentary.
Flabergasted!
 
Gee maybe this is one of the reasons why the school is on the failure list for that bs "No Child Left behind" law. At any rate the high school I attended is a state-run Technical High School. A School a student goes to to learn a trade in addition to the regular Math, History, English, and Science. Here is the School's website. EC Goodwin Technical High School New Britain, Conneticut. Also after being a teacher there for over 15 years Mr. Rossi is no longer there.

On average graduates from that school do the following:

20% Go into their Trade
20% Go into the Military
20% Go to a College (either to furhter their education in their trade or they go to a 4 year college)
20% Go end up in Jail.
20% End Up in a job with no connection to their trade.

Guess which 20% group I'm in? The last one.
 
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