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Retro: HBO, July 1984

K

KMRichards

Guest
We all get nostalgic on this board for the "good old days of pay TV" from time to time, so I pulled a TV Guide at random and typed out a week of listings (all times ET/PT) for HBO.

Note how little of the schedule would be called "blockbuster" and how many plays mediocre movies like Bear Island got in a single week. Also how some of the original programming would get repeated to death, sometimes playing twice in a week at the exact same time!

Saturday, July 7, 1984
6:30 am Donna Summer
7:30 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers
9:30 Unforgivable Secret
10:30 Yesteryear
11:30 Movie: Bear Island
1:30pm Movie: Swamp Thing
3:00 Donna Summer
4:00 Movie: Melanie
6:00 Yesteryear
7:00 Movie: Bear Island
9:00 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers
11:00 Not Necessarily the Olympics
11:30 Robin Williams
1:00am Movie: The Last American Virgin
2:35 Life or Death in the Emergency Room
3:40 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers

Sunday, July 8, 1984
5:20am Donna Summer
6:30 Movie: Race for the Yankee Zephyr
8:30 Movie: Honkytonk Man
10:30 Video Jukebox
11:00 Movie: Octopussy
1:30pm Howard Hughes: The Inside Story
2:30 Movie: Tempest
5:00 Movie: Race for the Yankee Zephyr
7:00 Movie: Honkytonk Man
9:00 Movie: Octopussy
11:15 Movie: Things Are Tough All Over
12:50am Movie: Night Shift
2:40 Movie: Tempest

Monday, July 9, 1984
5:10am Video Jukebox
5:40 Howard Hughes: The Inside Story
6:35 Tale of Four Wishes
7:30 Yesteryear
8:30 Movie: Let's Spend the Night Together
10:00 Movie: The Learning Tree
12:00pm Hollywood Clowns
1:00 Movie: Lovesick
3:00 Yesteryear
4:00 Special Magic of Herself the Elf
4:30 Tale of Four Wishes
5:30 Movie: The Learning Tree
7:30 Fraggle Rock
8:00 Carlin on Campus
9:00 Movie: 10 to Midnight
11:00 Movie: The Betsy
1:05am Movie: Doctor Detroit
2:40 Movie: An Officer and a Gentleman
4:50 Yesteryear

Tuesday, July 10, 1984
6:05am Movie: Tammy Tell Me True
8:00 Movie: Bear Island
10:00 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers
12:00pm Howard Hughes: The Inside Story
1:00 Movie: Jaws 3
3:00 Movie: 80 Steps to Jonah
5:00 Movie: Bear Island
7:00 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers
9:00 Movie: Jaws 3
11:00 Life or Death in the Emergency Room
12:00am Movie: Bear Island
1:50 Movie: Deadly Force
3:30 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers

Wednesday, July 11, 1984
5:10am Life or Death in the Emergency Room
6:15 Movie: Moon Madness
7:30 Movie: Honkytonk Man
9:30 Fraggle Rock
10:00 Movie: Smokey and the Bandit, Part 3
11:30 Not Necessarily the Olympics
12:00pm Movie: Swamp Thing
1:30 Movie: Race for the Yankee Zephyr
3:30 Yesteryear
4:30 Fraggle Rock
5:00 Movie: Moon Madness
6:30 Video Jukebox
7:00 Movie: Honkytonk Man
9:00 Not Necessarily the Olympics
9:30 Movie: Smokey and the Bandit, Part 3
11:00 Movie: The Octagon
12:50am Movie: Spring Break
2:35 Movie: Honkytonk Man
4:40 Movie: Race for the Yankee Zephyr

Thursday, July 12, 1984
6:30am Man of the Serengeti
7:30 Movie: Tempest
10:00 Movie: Melanie
12:00pm Yesteryear
1:00 Movie: The Learning Tree
3:00 Donna Summer
4:00 Special Magic of Herself the Elf
4:30 Movie: A Dog of Flanders
6:30 Movie: Tempest
9:00 Movie: Melanie
11:00 Movie: Night Shift
12:50am Movie: The Last American Virgin
2:25 Movie: Doctor Detroit
4:00 Movie: 10 to Midnight

Friday, July 13, 1984
5:45am Yesteryear
6:30 Tale of Four Wishes
7:30 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers
9:30 Not Necessarily the Olympics
10:00 Movie: Bear Island
12:00pm Movie: Race for the Yankee Zephyr
2:00 Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers
4:00 Tale of Four Wishes
5:00 Fraggle Rock
5:30 Not Necessarily the Olympics
6:00 Howard Hughes: The Inside Story
7:00 Movie: Bear Island
9:00 Movie: An Officer and a Gentleman
11:30 Not Necessarily the Olympics
12:00am Movie: Eddie and the Cruisers
1:40 Movie: Things Are Tough All Over
3:15 Movie: Heartaches
4:50 Howard Hughes: The Inside Story

I am not nostalgic anymore.<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
> We all get nostalgic on this board for the "good old days of
> pay TV" from time to time, so I pulled a TV Guide at random
> and typed out a week of listings (all times ET/PT) for HBO.

> Saturday, July 7, 1984
> 6:00 Yesteryear

Has this show ever made it to DVD? Also, was the narrator Dick Cavett or am I crazy?

> 11:00 Not Necessarily the Olympics

Produced by the same minds behind Not Necessarily the News if memory serves. Speaking of which I wonder when NNTN will be on DVD?


> Monday, July 9, 1984


> 7:30 Fraggle Rock
Family loved

> 8:00 Carlin on Campus

8 year loved...dirty comedy for 1984 Mom and Dad hated same reason

Not a bad memory for a guy that was 8 at the time :).


-Sathman
 
> > 11:00 Not Necessarily the Olympics
>
> Produced by the same minds behind Not Necessarily the News
> if memory serves. Speaking of which I wonder when NNTN will
> be on DVD?

It only barely made it to VHS, on a single one-hour "Best Of" tape (which I own a copy of, and which hasn't been re-released on DVD).

Heck, it didn't even get rerun on the HBO Comedy channel ...<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
> > 11:00 Not Necessarily the Olympics
>
> Produced by the same minds behind Not Necessarily the News
> if memory serves. Speaking of which I wonder when NNTN will
> be on DVD?

I certainly hope soon. I loved that show and Rich Hall's "sniglets". In some repsects it could possibly be considered the '80s version of "The Daily Show" but "NNTN" relied more on fake commercials and cleverly edited footage of real politicians for alot of its laughs. Still, Stuart Pankin and the entire cast were great. I sincerely hope we see a DVD release soon. I know several episodes were released on VHS in the late '80s.
 
> > We all get nostalgic on this board for the "good old days
> of
> > pay TV" from time to time, so I pulled a TV Guide at
> random
> > and typed out a week of listings (all times ET/PT) for
> HBO.
>
> > Saturday, July 7, 1984
> > 6:00 Yesteryear
>
> Has this show ever made it to DVD? Also, was the narrator
> Dick Cavett or am I crazy?
>

Yes Dick Cavett was indeed the narrator of Yesteryear. I have doubts we will see it on DVD as I dont believe very many of them were produced but then again..

For a few years before Yesteryear Cavett did a similar show called Remember When. Looking back there wasn't much difference between the two shows.

Another HBO show I remember was HBO Sneak Preview. Pretty much the title says what the show was about. Stiller & Meara hosted it back in the late 70's until 1982. Besides telling you what is on HBO for the month, they did comedy bits poking fun at some of the stuff HBO was showing. For example when HBO showed the Neil Diamond/Lucie Arnaz flick The Jazz Singer, Stiller & Meara did "The BAD Singer". Someone once told me the remember seeing a young Ben Stiller on one of these shows but that I dont remember.

In 82 some guy named Harris took over and then Cavett. I actually have a tape somewhere in my collection ( may take some digging here ) of Cavett's HBO Sneak Preview from I think October 1982 which I believe was HBO's then 10th Annivsary.
Cavett showed a clip of some local Pennsylvania Polka dance saying that was HBO's first show even though it has been reported that the Paul Newman flick "Sometimes A Great Notion" (?) and a hockey game was the first to be seen on HBO in 1972.
 
> Yes Dick Cavett was indeed the narrator of Yesteryear. I
> have doubts we will see it on DVD as I dont believe very
> many of them were produced but then again..
>
> For a few years before Yesteryear Cavett did a similar show
> called Remember When. Looking back there wasn't much
> difference between the two shows.
>

Don't know about "Yesteryear", but on "Remember When", Cavett would actually insert himself into classic footage or scenes on that show at various invervals.

While these shows never saw video release (other than, perhaps, for schools and colleges), they were seen in reruns on some PBS stations in the early-1990s.

> Another HBO show I remember was HBO Sneak Preview. Stiller &
> Meara hosted it back in the late 70's until 1982.
>
> In 82 some guy named Harris took over and then Cavett.

The only "Harris" I was familiar with associated with pay TV was Bill Harris, an entertainment columnist who did a similar show for HBO's competitor, Showtime (where he also hosted a monthly gossip newsbrief, "Hollywood Spotlight").


> I actually have a tape somewhere in my collection of Cavett's
> HBO Sneak Preview from I
> think October 1982 which I believe was HBO's then 10th
> Annivsary.
> Cavett showed a clip of some local Pennsylvania Polka dance
> saying that was HBO's first show even though it has been
> reported that the Paul Newman flick "Sometimes A Great
> Notion" (?) and a hockey game was the first to be seen on
> HBO in 1972.
>

I also read that that film was the first show on HBO when it started in 1972. Though the polka festival was mentioned as HBO's first original program.

A Time Warner ad in 1990 (when Time Inc. and Warner Communications merged) had a ad that featured a mockup of a couple of people polkaing in front of HBO's first (allegedly) logo -- the words "Home Box Office" in a TV screen. That ad mentioned that polka was HBO's first show.
 
Wow! Nine airings of Eddie and the Cruisers in one week! Now that's scary! I seem to remember that we got HBO in 1977. I was eight years old at the time so don't remember quite as much about what they aired then. I do remember two really cheesy movies called Eat My dust and grand Theft Auto. I guess that even into the mid 80s it was still such a novelty to be able to watch movies without commercials that people were willing to settle for just about anything.
 
> We all get nostalgic on this board for the "good old days of
> pay TV" from time to time, so I pulled a TV Guide at random
> and typed out a week of listings (all times ET/PT) for HBO.
>
> Note how little of the schedule would be called
> "blockbuster" and how many plays mediocre movies like Bear
> Island got in a single week. Also how some of the original
> programming would get repeated to death, sometimes playing
> twice in a week at the exact same time!

...I distinctly recall a promo for The Movie Channel that had a mock-up of an HBO schedule, on which a movie titled FRIENDLESS LOVE was run every two hours for four or five days straight ;-) ...<P ID="signature">______________
King Daevid MacKenzie
WLSU Wisconsin Public Radio, La Crosse
heard weekly on http://www.radio4all.net/
"Kill Ugly Radio." FRANK ZAPPA</P>
 
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