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RETRO: Philadelphia/Scranton/New York - December 11, 1979

I actually lifted these from a blog that I found which is devoted to repostings of classic TV listings. Unfortunately, there's only eight blog posts, and it appears to have not been updated since last year. Nonetheless, the complete address is:
http://colton-wwwtvschedules.blogspot.com/

The source of the following listings is: http://colton-wwwtvschedules.blogspot.com/2008/06/tues-dec-11-1979-wcbs-2-cbs-new-york.html

(The actual source, according to the poster, is the Allentown Express. Being as it's not from a TV Guide, I used a generalization in naming this thread.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WCBS 2-CBS New York
6:08 News
6:28 Sunrise Semester
6:58 Editorial
7:00 CBS Morning News (News 7:25)
8:00 Captain Kangaroo
9:00 Three's a Crowd
9:30 Siegel's Final Days
10:00 Beat the Clock
10:30 Whew!
10:55 CBS News
11:00 Price is Right
noon Love of Life
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1:00 Young & the Restless
1:30 As the World Turns
2:30 Guiding Light
3:30 One Day at a Time
4:00 Love of Life (Match Game normally aired here)
4:30 Mike Douglas
6:00 News
7:00 CBS Evening News
7:30 Real Life!
8:00 California Fever
9:00 Hawaii Five-O
10:00 Paris
11:00 News
11:30 Barnaby Jones
12:40 CBS Late Movie "Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn"
2:38 Movie "She's Back on Broadway"
4:31 Siegel's Final Days

KYW 3-NBC Philadelphia
5:55 Farm Market Report
6:00 News
6:05 American Peoples
6:35 Farm, Home & Garden
6:47 News
7:00 Today (News 7:25/8:25)
9:00 Card Sharks
9:30 Hollywood Squares
10:00 Morning Show
11:00 High Rollers
11:30 Wheel of Fortune
noon News
12:30 Password Plus
1:00 Days of Our Lives
2:00 Doctors
2:30 Another World
4:00 Special Treat (Mike Douglas normally aired at 4)
5:00 Mike Douglas (JIP)
5:30 News
6:30 NBC Nightly News
7:00 Evening Magazine
7:30 Cross-Wits
8:00 Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo
9:00 NBC Movie "The Great Smokey Roadblock"
11:00 News
11:30 Best of Carson
1:00 Tomorrow
2:00 News
2:30 sign-off

WNBC 4-NBC New York
5:55 Infinity Factory
6:25 Health Field
6:55 News
7:00 Today
9:00 Donahue
10:00 Card Sharks
10:30 Hollywood Squares
11:00 High Rollers
11:30 Wheel of Fortune
noon Mindreaders
12:30 Password Plus
1:00 Days of Our Lives
2:00 Doctors
2:30 Another World
4:00 Special Treat (pre-empts Newlywed Game and Mary Tyler Moore)
5:00 News
7:00 NBC Nightly News
7:30 Sha Na Na
8:00 Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo
9:00 NBC Movie "The Great Smokey Roadblock"
11:00 News
11:30 Best of Carson
1:00 Tomorrow
2:00 Mary Tyler Moore (x2)
3:00 sign-off

WNEW 5-Ind New York
5:50 New Zoo Revue
6:20 News
6:30 Bugs Bunny & Friends
7:00 Battle of the Planets
7:30 Herculoids
8:00 Flintstones
8:30 Woody Woodpecker
9:00 Andy Griffith
9:30 Partridge Family
10:00 Bewitched
10:30 Ghost & Mrs Muir
11:00 Love, American Style
11:25 New Jersey Report
11:30 Midday Live
12:55 News
1:00 Gong Show
1:30 Addams Family
2:00 Gilligan's Island
2:30 Star Blazers
3:00 Popeye & Friends
3:30 Woody Woodpecker
4:00 Little Rascals
4:30 Flintstones
5:00 Gilligan's Island
5:30 Brady Bunch
6:00 I Love Lucy
6:30 Carol Burnett & Friends
7:00 M*A*S*H
7:30 All in the Family
8:00 Holiday Cartoon Festival: Woody Woodpecker Night
8:30 Merv Griffin
10:00 News
11:00 M*A*S*H
11:30 Kojak
12:30 Movie "Illegal"
2:25 Movie "The Other Love"
followed by sign-off

WPVI 6-ABC Philadelphia
6:00 Operation Alphabet
6:30 Perspective
7:00 Good Morning America (news 7:25/8:25)
9:00 Donahue
10:00 AM Philadelphia
11:00 Laverne & Shirley
11:30 Family Feud
noon News
12:30 Ryan's Hope
1:00 All My Children
2:00 One Life to Live
3:00 General Hospital
4:00 Merv Griffin
5:30 News
6:30 ABC World News Tonight
7:00 Tic Tac Dough
7:30 Hollywood Squares
8:00 Happy Days
8:30 Angie
9:00 Three's Company
9:30 Taxi
10:00 Hart to Hart
11:00 News
11:30 Barney Miller
12:03 ABC Movie "Terror in the Wax Museum"
2:00 New Jersey: Perspective
2:30 sign-off

WABC 7-ABC New York
6:00 News
6:25 Listen & Learn
6:55 News
7:00 Good Morning America
9:00 AM New York
10:00 Movie "State Fair" (pt 2)
10:57 Quality of Life
11:00 Laverne & Shirley
11:30 Family Feud
noon $20,000 Pyramid
12:30 Ryan's Hope
1:00 All My Children
2:00 One Life to Live
3:00 Another World
4:00 Edge of Night
4:30 Movie "The Oblong Box"
6:00 News
7:00 ABC World News Tonight
7:30 Match Game
8:00 Happy Days
8:30 Angie
9:00 Three's Company
9:30 Taxi
10:00 Hart to Hart
11:00 News
11:30 Barney Miller
12:03 ABC Movie "Terror in the Wax Museum"
2:00 Movie "The Mystery of Thug Island"
3:50 News/sign-off

WGAL 8-NBC Lancaster
6:00 News
6:05 Extensions
6:21 American Trail
6:25 News
6:30 Porter Wagoner
6:57 News
7:00 Today (news 7:25/8:25)
9:00 Donahue
10:00 Card Sharks
10:30 Hollywood Squares
11:00 High Rollers
11:30 Wheel of Fortune
noon Mindreaders
12:30 News
1:00 Days of Our Lives
2:00 Doctors
2:30 Another World
4:00 Special Treat (Merv's normally on at 4)
5:00 Merv Griffin (JIP)
5:30 Carol Burnett & Friends
6:00 News
6:30 NBC Nightly News
7:00 Tic Tac Dough
7:30 Hollywood Squares
8:00 Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo
9:00 NBC Movie "The Great Smokey Roadblock"
11:00 News
11:30 Best of Carson
1:00 Tomorrow
2:00 News/sign-off

WOR 9-Ind New York
5:00 News
5:22 Movie "Apache Drums"
6:54 News
7:30 PTL Club
8:30 New York Report
9:00 Joe Franklin
10:00 Romper Room
11:00 Straight Talk
noon News
12:30 Father, Dear Father
1:00 Movie "Doctor at Large"
3:00 Ironside
4:00 Movie "The Third Man"
6:00 Joker's Wild
6:30 Tic Tac Dough
7:00 Dating Game
7:30 Benny Hill
8:00 NHL: Detroit-Rangers
10:30 Nine on New Jersey
11:00 Jackie Gleason
11:30 Benny Hill
mid. Movie "Otley"
2:00 Joe Franklin
3:00 Movie "Dakota Lil"

WCAU 10-CBS Philadelphia
5:55 Editorial
6:00 Sunrise Semester
6:30 Party of the First Part
7:00 CBS Morning News (news 7:25)
8:00 Captain Kangaroo
9:00 Joel A. Spivak
9:30 Leave It to Beaver
10:00 Beat the Clock
10:30 Whew!
10:55 CBS News
11:00 Price is Right
noon Love of Life
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1:00 Young & the Restless
1:30 As the World Turns
2:30 Guiding Light
3:30 One Day at a Time
4:00 Movie "The McConnell Story"
5:30 News
6:30 CBS Evening News
7:00 Newlywed Game
7:30 Dance Fever
8:00 California Fever
9:00 Hawaii Five-O
10:00 Paris
11:00 News
11:30 Barnaby Jones
12:40 CBS Late Movie "Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn"
2:38 Movie "Tarzan's Three Challengers"
4:28 News
4:58 Editorial

WPIX 11-Ind New York
6:30 Mighty Mouse
7:00 Popeye
7:30 Tom & Jerry
8:00 Josie & the Pussycats
8:30 Jetsons
9:00 Dinah! & Friends
10:30 Puerto Rican New Yorker
11:00 Contemporary Catholic
11:30 700 Club
12:30 News
1:00 Odd Couple
1:30 Dick Van Dyke
2:00 I Dream of Jeannie
2:30 Magic Garden
3:00 Magilla Gorilla
3:30 Marvel Men
4:00 Krofft Superstars
4:30 Laurel & Hardy
5:00 Three Stooges
5:30 Tom & Jerry
6:00 Happy Days Again
6:30 Sanford & Son
7:00 Odd Couple
7:30 News
8:00 Seekers (pt 2)
10:00 News
10:30 Puerto Rican New Yorker
11:00 Honeymooners
11:30 Odd Couple
mid. Three Stooges
12:30 Twilight Zone
1:00 News
1:30 Movie "Bus Riley's Back in Town"
3:30 Biography
followed by sign-off

WHYY 12-PBS Wilmington
Pledge period, times appoximate
8:45 AM Weather
9:00 Sesame Street
10:00 Electric Company
10:30 Finding Our Way
10:45 Self, Incorporated
11:00 Mulligan Stew
11:30 Short Story
11:45 Physics
noon Art of Being Fully Human
12:30 Pledge Break
1:08 Dick Cavett
1:46 Over Easy
2:24 Evening at Symphony
3:31 Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
4:08 Sesame Street
5:00 Over Easy
5:30 Ask WHYY
6:00 Today in Delaware
6:30 Doctor Who
7:00 MacNeil-Lehrer Report
7:30 Dick Cavett
8:00 Nova "Termites & Telescopes"
9:00 Pledge Break
9:06 An Evening with Ella Fitzgerald
10:50 Dick Cavett
11:58 Today in Delaware
12:28 Captioned ABC News
12:58 sign-off

WNET 13-PBS New York
7:00 New Jersey Nightly News
7:30 MacNeil-Lehrer Report
8:00 The Return: A Hassidic Experience
8:30 Over Easy
9:00 Sesame Street
10:00 About Animals
10:15 Readalong/Write On
10:30 Finding Our Way
10:45 Gather 'Round
11:00 When You Grow Up
11:15 Under the Blue Umbrella
11:30 Many Worlds of Nature
11:45 Understanding the Media
noon American Enterprise
12:30 Short Story
12:45 Performing Arts
1:00 Thinkabout
1:15 Hands On
1:30 Trade-Offs
1:50 Get It Together
2:00 American Scrapbook
2:15 Juba
2:30 Music
3:00 TBA
3:30 Villa Alegre
4:00 Sesame Street
5:00 Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
5:30 Electric Company
6:00 Zoom
6:30 New Jersey Nightly News
7:00 Over Easy
7:30 MacNeil-Lehrer Report
8:00 Mediz "Beware: The Cancer Quack"
8:30 Dick Cavett
9:00 Nova "Termites & Telescopes"
10:00 World "John Alok, Merchant Tailor"
11:00 Newsline
mid. Dick Cavett
12:30 sign-off

WNEP 16-ABC Scranton
5:55 American Trail
6:00 700 Club
7:00 Good Morning America
9:00 Hatchy Milatchy
10:30 Edge of Night
11:00 Laverne & Shirley
11:30 Family Feud
noon Newlywed Game
12:30 Ryan's Hope
1:00 All My Children
2:00 One Life to Live
3:00 General Hospital
4:00 Movie "Snowman"
6:00 News
6:30 ABC World News Tonight
7:00 PA Lottery Daily Number
7:01 PM Magazine
7:30 Tic Tac Dough
8:00 Happy Days
8:30 Angie
9:00 Three's Company
9:30 Taxi
10:00 Hart to Hart
11:00 News
11:30 Barney Miller
12:03 ABC Movier "Terror in the Wax Museum"
2:00 sign-off

WPHL 17-Ind Philadelphia
6:30 Black Forum
7:00 Porky Pig
7:30 Marvel Superheroes
8:30 Romper Room
9:00 Delaware Valley Forum
9:30 Ross Bagley
10:00 700 Club
11:30 Milton the Monster
noon Soupy Sales
12:30 Love, American Style
1:00 Movie "Belles of St Trinian's"
2:30 Dinah! & Friends
3:30 Three Stooges
4:00 Bugs Bunny & Friends
4:30 Get Smart
5:00 Carol Burnett & Friends
5:30 Rookies
6:30 Good Times
7:00 Starsky & Hutch
8:00 NCAA Basketball: Notre Dame-UCLA
10:00 Love, American Style
11:00 Outer Limits
mid. Movie "Breaking the Sound Barrier"
2:10 Delaware Valley Forum
2:40 sign-off

WDAU 22-CBS Scranton
6:30 Sunrise Semester
7:00 CBS Morning News
8:00 Captain Kangaroo
9:00 One Day at a Time
9:30 Love of Life
10:00 Beat the Clock
10:30 Whew!
10:55 CBS News
11:00 Price is Right
noon News
12:30 Search for Tomorrow
1:00 Young & the Restless
1:30 As the World Turns
2:30 Guiding Light
3:30 Carol Burnett & Friends
4:00 Merv Griffin
5:30 News
6:30 CBS Evening News
7:00 Match Game
7:30 Hollywood Squares
8:00 Billy Graham Christmas Special
9:00 Hawaii Five-O
10:00 Paris
11:00 News
11:30 Barnaby Jones
12:40 CBS Late Movie "Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn"
2:38 News/sign-off

WBRE 28-NBC Wilkes-Barre
6:30 The Story
7:00 Today
9:00 Donahue
10:00 Mary Tyler Moore
10:30 Hollywood Squares
11:00 High Rollers
11:30 Wheel of Fortune
noon Mindreaders
12:30 Password Plus
1:00 Days of Our Lives
2:00 Doctors
2:30 Another World
4:00 Special Treat (pre-empts Brady Bunch and Happy Days Again)
5:00 Odd Couple
5:30 M*A*S*H
6:00 News
6:30 NBC Nightly News
7:00 Joker's Wild
7:30 Three's a Crowd
8:00 Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo
9:00 NBC Movie "The Great Smokey Roadblock"
11:00 News
11:30 Best of Carson
1:00 sign-off

WTAF 29-Ind Philadelphia
6:47 Community Update
7:00 Tom & Jerry
8:00 Bugs Bunny
8:30 Star Blazers
9:00 PTL Club
11:00 Newsprobe
11:30 Health Field
noon Bullwinkle
12:30 Barney Bear & Droopy Dog
1:00 Mothers-in-Law
1:30 Green Acres
2:00 Bewitched
2:30 Daffy Duck
3:00 Tom & Jerry
3:30 Bugs Bunny
4:00 Krofft Superstars
4:30 Tom & Jerry
5:00 Happy Days Again
5:30 Gilligan's Island
6:00 Happy Days Again
6:30 Joker's Wild
7:00 M*A*S*H (x2)
8:00 Billy Graham Christmas Special
9:00 Movie "Mr & Mrs Smith"
11:00 M*A*S*H
11:30 Kojak
12:30 Movie "The Enchanted Cottage"
2:15 Community Update
2:30 sign-off

WLVT 39-PBS Allentown
(The Express listed ch 39 first, followed by all the other channels in numerical order)
7:15 AM Weather
7:30 Sesame Street
8:30 Yoga for Health
9:00 Trade-Offs
9:20 Readalong
9:30 Inside/Out
9:45 Word Workers, Inc
10:00 Magic Carpet
10:15 Hands On
10:30 Primary Science
10:45 Self, Incorporated
11:00 Pennsylvania: A Changing Society
11:30 Finding Our Way
11:45 Physics Demonstrations
noon Music
12:30 Readalong
12:45 Safe & Sound
1:00 When You Grow Up
1:15 Ripples
1:30 Electric Company
2:00 Thinkabout
2:15 Search for Science
2:30 Community of Living Things
3:00 Manager's Chat
3:15 Movie Museum
3:30 Over Easy
4:00 Sesame Street
5:00 Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
5:30 Electric Company
6:00 Sesame Street
7:00 MacNeil-Lehrer Report
7:30 Manager's Chat
7:45 Movie Museum
8:00 Nova "Termites & Telescopes"
9:00 World "John Alok, Merchant Tailor"
10:00 Hanukkah
10:30 Monet
11:00 Dick Cavett
11:30 Captioned ABC News
mid. sign-off

WKBS 48-Ind Philadelphia
7:30 Flintstones
8:00 Casper
8:30 Popeye
9:00 Dennis the Menace
9:30 Lucy Show
10:00 $20,000 Pyramid
10:30 Edge of Night (ABC)
11:00 Delaware Valley
11:30 New Zoo Revue
noon Munsters
12:30 McHale's Navy
1:00 Beverly Hillbillies
1:30 Dick Van Dyke
2:00 Dennis the Menace
2:30 Casper
3:00 Woody Woodpecker
4:00 Flintstones
4:30 Brady Bunch (x2)
5:30 Flintstones
6:00 I Love Lucy
6:30 Bob Newhart
7:00 Sanford & Son
7:30 All in the Family
8:00 Movie "The Postman Always Rings Twice"
10:30 Night Gallery
11:00 Make Me Laugh
11:30 Wild, Wild West
12:30 sign-off

WNJT 52-PBS Trenton
7:45 AM Weather
8:00 Sesame Street
9:00 MeasureMetric
9:15 Let's All Sing
9:30 News Notebook
9:40 Trade-Offs
10:00 Electric Company
10:30 Finding Our Way
10:45 Self, Incorporated
11:00 Understanding the Media
11:15 Under the Blue Umbrella
11:30 Many Worlds of Nature
11:45 Bread & Butterflies
noon American Enterprise
12:30 Going Metric
1:00 Thinkabout
1:15 Hands On
1:30 Word Shop
1:45 L-4
2:00 Way to Go
2:15 Best of Cover to Cover
2:30 News Notebook
2:40 Minorities
3:00 Modern Supervisory Techniques
3:30 TBA
4:00 Sesame Street
5:00 Contemporary Society
5:30 Electric Company
6:00 Humanities Through the Arts
6:30 Growing Years
7:00 MacNeil-Lehrer Report
7:30 New Jersey Nightly News
7:57 Lottery
8:00 NCAA Basketball: Boston College-Seton Hall
10:00 New Jersey Nightly News
10:30 Masterpiece Theatre
11:30 Captioned ABC News
mid. sign-off

WFMZ 69-Ind Allentown
5:30 Ross Bagley
6:30 Archie Campbell
7:00 off-air
9:30 PTL Club
11:30 Movie "A Tale of Five Women"
1:00 Fran Carlton Exercise
1:30 Health Field
2:00 Donahue
3:00 New Zoo Revue
3:30 Archies
4:00 Mission: Impossible
5:00 Andy Griffith
5:30 Mary Tyler Moore
6:00 Star Trek
7:00 News
7:30 Hogan's Heroes
8:00 Penn State Football Highlights (v Syracuse)
9:00 Donahue
10:00 News
10:30 FBI
11:30 700 Club
1:30 Journey to Adventure
2:00 Donahue
3:00 Movie: TBA
4:25 News
4:30 Movie: TBA
 
A few notes on the New York station entries:
- Siegel's Final Days on WCBS was hosted by Stanley Siegel. It's likely the showing of the movie She's Back on Broadway was under the Late Show banner.
- By this time, WNBC only had movies on weekends, thus the absence from this list. A far cry from the years 1956 to 1974.
- From what I vaguely remember about WNEW's late night movies, the first one (Illegal) was shown under the Movie Greats heading, and the second (The Other Love) as a Hollywood's Finest.
- If based on the list of films shown on WABC's 4:30 Movie in 1979, what aired on the 11th was The Masque of the Red Death, while The Oblong Box was shown on the 12th. Their other movie shows were The Movie in the Morning (at 10 A.M.) and the Late Movie (at 2 A.M.).
- The daily WOR movie shows as of this period were Movie 9 (at 1 P.M.), The 4 O'Clock Movie, Million Dollar Movie at 8 (preempted on this evening for NHL Hockey), and 9 All Night - Parts 1 & 2 (with Joe Franklin in-between the double feature).
- The Seekers (Part 2) was shown by WPIX in the time slot usually occupied by The Eight O'Clock Movie. Their only other daily movie series at this point was The Channel 11 Film Festival. I think it was a few months from this that 'PIX went 24/7.
- I could see that these listings didn't bother to mention WNYE 25, WNYC 31, WXTV 41 and WNJU 47 listings (forget for a minute WWHT 68). Oh well, I guess you can't have everything . . . ;)
 
wbhist said:
- I could see that these listings didn't bother to mention WNYE 25, WNYC 31, WXTV 41 and WNJU 47 listings (forget for a minute WWHT 68). Oh well, I guess you can't have everything . . . ;)

Of course, considering that these listings came from an Allentown paper, maybe NYC's UHFs were difficult to get in the region, as opposed to the VHFs.
 
Allentown PA was and still is in the Philadelphia DMA. The Allentown Paper and TV Guide included Philadelphia market stations as the primary broadcast stations. The TV Guide there, however, included Scranton/Wilkes Barre, Philadelphia major players, Harrisburg/York/Landcaster, and the VHF New York stations. The cable system there back in the 70's and 80's included Philadelphia stations, the two local Allentown stations, some Scranton stations, and the New York independents full time in most cases. The Network New York stations were included early on but gone by the mid 80's.

Over the air back then the VHF stations from Philadelphia and the local Lehigh Valley stations came in easily while the UHF stations from Philadelphia came in with a UHF Roof antenna. The Scranton stations (all UHF} also came in with a roof UHF antenna, while New York stations hardly came in at all. Also WGAL 8 in Landcaster came in at certain points.

The New York UHF stations were considered minority formats and first of all could not get a signal into Allentown. ALso there were plenty of other stations to carry and so the New York UHF stations were not necessary much less could they even come in.

In fact, even in Sussex and Warren COunties in NJ, Channels 41, 47, 31, 25, 21, 68, etc were not carried at all on any of teh cable systems in those areas. They only could come in with a good UHF antenna and that was questionable. In fact most people in the New York market were unaware that the UHF New York stations even existed unless they wanted the two hour version of PTL or the 90 minute version of 700 CLub, extra PBS shows, Spanish shows, or WHT Subscription TV. Many in North Jersey even wondered why their TV had a knob with channels numbered 14 to 83 when the highest channel they knew of was Channel 13.
 
DToTheJ said:
WOR 9-Ind New York
11:00 Jackie Gleason
11:30 Benny Hill

The "Jackie Gleason" mentioned was a half-hour compilation edit of episodes from his 1962-66 Jackie Gleason's American Scene Magazine. In a way, the format of Gleason's show had some similarities to Benny Hill's: at one point (1963-64), quick blackout sketches of Gleason's show were taped in advance of "audience night" at CBS Studio 50 in New York (later the Ed Sullivan Theatre; this before The Great One away-he-went to Miami Beach); both shows had knockabout comedy with the host portraying different characters every night, accompanied by bevies of beautiful girls of both dancing and supporting "acting" roles; and the hosts were somewhat heavy. Other than that, the similarities end . . .
 
wbhist said:
DToTheJ said:
WOR 9-Ind New York
11:00 Jackie Gleason
11:30 Benny Hill

The "Jackie Gleason" mentioned was a half-hour compilation edit of episodes from his 1962-66 Jackie Gleason's American Scene Magazine. In a way, the format of Gleason's show had some similarities to Benny Hill's: at one point (1963-64), quick blackout sketches of Gleason's show were taped in advance of "audience night" at CBS Studio 50 in New York (later the Ed Sullivan Theatre; this before The Great One away-he-went to Miami Beach); both shows had knockabout comedy with the host portraying different characters every night, accompanied by bevies of beautiful girls of both dancing and supporting "acting" roles; and the hosts were somewhat heavy. Other than that, the similarities end . . .

The big difference being off-camera: Gleason lived "the high life" in a very public way, while Hill was very much a recluse and lived frugally in spite of the millions he made from his show. Mark Lewishon's bio recounts how Hill often accumulated large sums in the form of paychecks and residual payments that ended up lying in a drawer, uncashed, because Benny just never bothered to put them in the bank. He says when Hill's accountant would try to talk numbers with him, his eyes would just glaze over. Benny was perfectly content to eat canned soup and frozen fish sticks, and often owned just two shirts ("Well, now, I can only wear one at a time, can't I?"), one getting hand-washed while he wore the other, while Gleason dined on lobster and steak and wore thousand-dollar suits. Two very funny men, very similar TV shows, but two men different as night and day.
 
Stanislav said:
The big difference being off-camera: Gleason lived "the high life" in a very public way, while Hill was very much a recluse and lived frugally in spite of the millions he made from his show. Mark Lewishon's bio recounts how Hill often accumulated large sums in the form of paychecks and residual payments that ended up lying in a drawer, uncashed, because Benny just never bothered to put them in the bank. He says when Hill's accountant would try to talk numbers with him, his eyes would just glaze over. Benny was perfectly content to eat canned soup and frozen fish sticks, and often owned just two shirts ("Well, now, I can only wear one at a time, can't I?"), one getting hand-washed while he wore the other, while Gleason dined on lobster and steak and wore thousand-dollar suits. Two very funny men, very similar TV shows, but two men different as night and day.

And that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Or is that the proverbial tip of the iceberg? Whatever. Indeed, I had written an essay of the similarities and differences between the two men. (Another set of differences: Gleason loved performing live, just hated performing the same material over and over again night after night; whereas Hill had a fear of performing before live audiences that got worse as he got older. Gleason moved his show to Florida so he could play golf year-round while Hill moved his home to walking distance from his TV studio. I have both that Lewisohn bio of Hill and William Henry's Gleason book.) This essay can be found at:
http://runstop.de/about.html#greatones
In sum, if they ever met, I don't think one would have understood the other at all.
 
wbhist said:
Stanislav said:
The big difference being off-camera: Gleason lived "the high life" in a very public way, while Hill was very much a recluse and lived frugally in spite of the millions he made from his show. Mark Lewishon's bio recounts how Hill often accumulated large sums in the form of paychecks and residual payments that ended up lying in a drawer, uncashed, because Benny just never bothered to put them in the bank. He says when Hill's accountant would try to talk numbers with him, his eyes would just glaze over. Benny was perfectly content to eat canned soup and frozen fish sticks, and often owned just two shirts ("Well, now, I can only wear one at a time, can't I?"), one getting hand-washed while he wore the other, while Gleason dined on lobster and steak and wore thousand-dollar suits. Two very funny men, very similar TV shows, but two men different as night and day.

And that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Or is that the proverbial tip of the iceberg? Whatever. Indeed, I had written an essay of the similarities and differences between the two men. (Another set of differences: Gleason loved performing live, just hated performing the same material over and over again night after night; whereas Hill had a fear of performing before live audiences that got worse as he got older. Gleason moved his show to Florida so he could play golf year-round while Hill moved his home to walking distance from his TV studio. I have both that Lewisohn bio of Hill and William Henry's Gleason book.) This essay can be found at:
http://runstop.de/about.html#greatones
In sum, if they ever met, I don't think one would have understood the other at all.

I don't think they would have understood each other as people, but both would have appreciated the others' work. I doubt Gleason ever heard of Hill, but it's a safe bet Benny knew Jackie's work, being as U.S. shows were frequently imported to the U.K., and Hill, like all good comics, "borrowed" (*ahem*) frequently from U.S. comedians (as Buddy Hackett would have confirmed, heh...those who've read the book will understand) as well as European acts seen on his frequent trips to France.

Interesting that with all the U.S. TV shows and genres that Benny parodied, I don't think he ever lampooned The Honeymooners, which surely had some exposure on the British telly. I'm trying to imagine Benny Hill doing his take on Ralph Kramden...

Nice essay, BTW!!
 
Stanislav said:
Interesting that with all the U.S. TV shows and genres that Benny parodied, I don't think he ever lampooned The Honeymooners, which surely had some exposure on the British telly. I'm trying to imagine Benny Hill doing his take on Ralph Kramden...

And of course, I'd've loved to see Hill parody Gleason's monologue bits with him drinking his "coffee" - only with the "coffee" in such a takeoff being glue or something (as Mr. Hill did from time to time in his "blooper" sketches).

The funny thing was that prior to Mr. Hill revamping his comedy/variety series in 1964 (when he was still with the BBC), BBC2 ran an episode of Gleason's American Scene Magazine that took a "Bronze Rose" in that year's Golden Rose of Montreux festival. Maybe Benny was among those who'd viewed it . . .
 
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