Things you remember seeing on TV in the past BUT............

[Cincinnati Kid]

This could also go into thoughts on the John Kennedy assasination coverage and its aftermath on TV, but let me explain. At my home, my family almost always tuned to NBC for TV coverage of news events and that network is where I saw almost all of the events of that weekend in 1963. However, not long after the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby on Sunday, there was a brief time when the TV was switched to the ABC-TV Network. There was a segment fed from Dallas inwhich a newsman was interviewing a man who it was said had appeared at Ruby's niteclub in recent weeks. The man went on to claim that not long before, he had seen Oswald sitting at a table in the club talking to Ruby. I don't recall the name given for the man (either stage name or real name) on that interview and I have never heard any reference to that TV interview in any reports, books, documentaries, investigations, etc. done on the assasination and its aftermath.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Totally forgotten now but I can recall back around 1980 when Lorne Michaels/Saturday Night Live found themselves in trouble with PBS over a skit. Back in the 1970's the networks were known for their promos like "NBCCCC US" or "You and me and ABC". As a joke SNL did a promo for PBS. "PBS PBS..We are not stuffy anymore" complete with people dressed up as PBS stars dancing around and such. The SNL/PBS promo even did a take off on the NBC proud as a peacock line with "PBS...Proud as a Big Bird".

Are you sure you didn't dream this? If Lorne Michaels did make such a statement, are you sure it wasn't part of the joke?

If he dreamed it, then bk77 must've been sleeping in a motel that night, and I was in the room next door. Because that "we're not stuffy anymore!" line brought it all back. I remember seeing that. It had to have been the last "original" season (1979-80), right at the time NBC started using "Proud as a peacock."

Public broadcasting circa 1979, hate to say, WAS stuffy. And the whole pedantic "ETV" mentality, in many cases, extended to the management. While not knowing who exactly was in the carpeted office at PBS back then, I would not have put it past them to have gotten their leiderhosen in a bundle over an SNL parody.

But explain the (beautiful!) parody a couple of years later on SCTV: Battle of the PBS Stars. Fred Rogers in a boxing ring beating Julia Child with his King Friday puppet always cracks me up just thinking about it.

The PBS parody on 'SNL' would have been around 1982 or 1983, and it said "Proud as a Ph.D." with Big Bird surrounded by peacock feathers.

I remember this because I was about 9, and my parents watched 'SNL'. But there was a very strict taboo against any discussion of 'Sesame Street' in my household, because a running joke about the show got out of hand. I was snickering throughout the sketch because I knew there was going to be some mention of 'Sesame Street'.

I didn't know what a Ph.D. was, so after I saw that sketch, I figured it must have been Big Bird's species or something.

If PBS had a problem with the SNL promo skit mentioned above, I'm surprised that they didn't seem to complain about Eddie Murphy's "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" skits that were featured on SNL during that time (in addition to the forementioned SCTV "Battle of the PBS Stars" skit).

 

[mleach]

Totally forgotten now but I can recall back around 1980 when Lorne Michaels/Saturday Night Live found themselves in trouble with PBS over a skit. Back in the 1970's the networks were known for their promos like "NBCCCC US" or "You and me and ABC". As a joke SNL did a promo for PBS. "PBS PBS..We are not stuffy anymore" complete with people dressed up as PBS stars dancing around and such. The SNL/PBS promo even did a take off on the NBC proud as a peacock line with "PBS...Proud as a Big Bird".

Are you sure you didn't dream this? If Lorne Michaels did make such a statement, are you sure it wasn't part of the joke?

If he dreamed it, then bk77 must've been sleeping in a motel that night, and I was in the room next door. Because that "we're not stuffy anymore!" line brought it all back. I remember seeing that. It had to have been the last "original" season (1979-80), right at the time NBC started using "Proud as a peacock."

Public broadcasting circa 1979, hate to say, WAS stuffy. And the whole pedantic "ETV" mentality, in many cases, extended to the management. While not knowing who exactly was in the carpeted office at PBS back then, I would not have put it past them to have gotten their leiderhosen in a bundle over an SNL parody.

But explain the (beautiful!) parody a couple of years later on SCTV: Battle of the PBS Stars. Fred Rogers in a boxing ring beating Julia Child with his King Friday puppet always cracks me up just thinking about it.

The PBS parody on 'SNL' would have been around 1982 or 1983, and it said "Proud as a Ph.D." with Big Bird surrounded by peacock feathers.

I remember this because I was about 9, and my parents watched 'SNL'. But there was a very strict taboo against any discussion of 'Sesame Street' in my household, because a running joke about the show got out of hand. I was snickering throughout the sketch because I knew there was going to be some mention of 'Sesame Street'.

I didn't know what a Ph.D. was, so after I saw that sketch, I figured it must have been Big Bird's species or something.

If PBS had a problem with the SNL promo skit mentioned above, I'm surprised that they didn't seem to complain about Eddie Murphy's "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" skits that were featured on SNL during that time (in addition to the forementioned SCTV "Battle of the PBS Stars" skit).

I am pretty sure it was Pittsburgh's WQED and/or Fred Rogers himself who owned the show and not PBS not too mention that like Julia Child, I have heard over the years that Fred Rogers actually had a great sense of humor so who knows. Maybe he actually enjoyed Murphy's skit based on his own show. We may never know.

Somewhat related to this is Bob McAllister's Wonderama that was syndicated through Metromedia in the 70's. Not so much as far a clips and information about the show goes ( the net is full of that ) but rather who watched it. Some hardcore New York City Wonderama fans swear to this day that the show was only seen on NYC's WNEW-TV channel 5 and nowhere else even though one can look at old TV Guides from Washington DC, Los Angeles, Cincinatti and a number of other places way outside the Big Apple and prove these people wrong. Sadly some years back on TV Party back when they had their own board, some of these people actually got in this online screaming match with Bob McAllister's own daughter over this, telling her SHE was wrong that the show was seen ONLY on WNEW. Maybe these people are confused with Sonny Fox's Wonderama since I believe that show was seen only in NYC but not Bob McAllister's.

 

[azumanga]

I have heard over the years that Fred Rogers actually had a great sense of humor so who knows. Maybe he actually enjoyed Murphy's skit based on his own show. We may never know.

Even so, he probably had his limits on parodies -- sometime in the early-1980s, Burger King featured a Mister Rogers parody called "Mr. Rodney", in which he disparages McDonald's by saying things like, "Can you say Flame Broiling?" The ads were taken off the air after a short run, after Rogers complained to Burger King about the commercials.

 

[rwells2265]

Let's see. In the summer of 1979, late at night, ABC ran a failed pilot called The T.V. Show (a U.S. equivalent of SCTV, with Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and a few others - this pilot led to the birth of the mock rock group Spinal Tap), and one of the sketches was a "documentary" series called "History on Trial" which claimed to run "without commercial interruption," and then proceeded every 2-3 minutes to run ads from Proto-Chem. The "ad" I remember was one where a cat running loose in a lab knocked down something and the contents spilled over to another container, and that was the birth of aluminum chlorohydrate (as they saw it).

Do my memories mesh with yours?

THAT'S the one. I didn't know the Spinal Tap connection. Somehow I think the spokesman in the "little league" Proto-Chem commercial was Martin Mull. Yeah, I remember the bit with the cat.

Now then, did anyone happen to roll tape -- on a top-loader VCR with the wired remote -- on this thing? That's one I'd like to see again.

--Russell

 

[LKellerIII]

Let's see. In the summer of 1979, late at night, ABC ran a failed pilot called The T.V. Show (a U.S. equivalent of SCTV, with Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and a few others - this pilot led to the birth of the mock rock group Spinal Tap), and one of the sketches was a "documentary" series called "History on Trial" which claimed to run "without commercial interruption," and then proceeded every 2-3 minutes to run ads from Proto-Chem. The "ad" I remember was one where a cat running loose in a lab knocked down something and the contents spilled over to another container, and that was the birth of aluminum chlorohydrate (as they saw it).

Do my memories mesh with yours?

THAT'S the one. I didn't know the Spinal Tap connection. Somehow I think the spokesman in the "little league" Proto-Chem commercial was Martin Mull. Yeah, I remember the bit with the cat.

Now then, did anyone happen to roll tape -- on a top-loader VCR with the wired remote -- on this thing? That's one I'd like to see again.

--Russell

I wonder if Guest and Shearer had anything to do with writing that program? More recently, McKean and Shearer have both been regulars in Christopher Guest's odd but brilliant (IMO) films - Best in Show, For Your Consideration, A Mighty Wind - perhaps some others.

Shearer, McKean, and David L. Lander ("Squiggy" to McKean's "Lenny" on Laverne & Shirley) first collaborated on the brilliant Credibility Gap on two Los Angeles radio stations in the late 60s and early 70s.

 

[wbhist]

Let's see. In the summer of 1979, late at night, ABC ran a failed pilot called The T.V. Show (a U.S. equivalent of SCTV, with Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and a few others - this pilot led to the birth of the mock rock group Spinal Tap), and one of the sketches was a "documentary" series called "History on Trial" which claimed to run "without commercial interruption," and then proceeded every 2-3 minutes to run ads from Proto-Chem. The "ad" I remember was one where a cat running loose in a lab knocked down something and the contents spilled over to another container, and that was the birth of aluminum chlorohydrate (as they saw it).

Do my memories mesh with yours?

THAT'S the one. I didn't know the Spinal Tap connection. Somehow I think the spokesman in the "little league" Proto-Chem commercial was Martin Mull. Yeah, I remember the bit with the cat.

Now then, did anyone happen to roll tape -- on a top-loader VCR with the wired remote -- on this thing? That's one I'd like to see again.

--Russell

I.I.N.M., this pilot is at the Paley Center for Media in New York and Beverly Hills. Also, about a decade ago TV Land actually showed it in conjunction with what was then the Museum of Television & Radio as part of a set of specials of rare TV programs.

The bit I remember from this was the "Wild People Kingdom" sketch where they were hunting for a CPA.

 

[mleach]

This could also go into thoughts on the John Kennedy assasination coverage and its aftermath on TV, but let me explain. At my home, my family almost always tuned to NBC for TV coverage of news events and that network is where I saw almost all of the events of that weekend in 1963. However, not long after the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby on Sunday, there was a brief time when the TV was switched to the ABC-TV Network. There was a segment fed from Dallas inwhich a newsman was interviewing a man who it was said had appeared at Ruby's niteclub in recent weeks. The man went on to claim that not long before, he had seen Oswald sitting at a table in the club talking to Ruby. I don't recall the name given for the man (either stage name or real name) on that interview and I have never heard any reference to that TV interview in any reports, books, documentaries, investigations, etc. done on the assasination and its aftermath.

Last night out of the blue I found this...its WFAA/ABC's coverage of the assasination of JFK....

http://www.archive.org/details/WFAA_TV-22nd-24th_November_1963

What you describe may be there...however I haven't had a chance to view the whole thing yet.


Going back to shows like SNL/SCTV/Fridays and the like...I just thought of something today. Back in the 70s and 80's a lot of those shows and a number of comedians like Robin Williams sometimes would poke fun at TV preachers like Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ernest Angley, even Jerry Falwell. Come to think of it I seem to remember Williams talking like Angley on a few episodes of Mork & Mindy and my wife swears she remembers a long time ago when SCTV did some funny skits about the Bakkers and this was way BEFORE the Jessica Hahn scandal. Remember the preacher/wrestler "Brother Love"?

Now I have to admit its been awhile since I have seen shows like SNL, do they still do "religious" skits" ? If not I wonder why? If thats the case I wonder if its a case of the writers thinking that today's crop of TV preachers aren't as, well "funny" as the ones in the past even though I have heard over the years that some of those relgious groups of today are known to sue anyone if they dare poke fun of them and that scares them but I don't buy that.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Now I have to admit its been awhile since I have seen shows like SNL, do they still do "religious" skits" ? If not I wonder why? If thats the case I wonder if its a case of the writers thinking that today's crop of TV preachers aren't as, well "funny" as the ones in the past even though I have heard over the years that some of those relgious groups of today are known to sue anyone if they dare poke fun of them and that scares them but I don't buy that.

Possible...Also, the Robert Tilton "Farting Preacher" videos pretty much trump anything an SNL writer could come up with now.

 

[Ultimajock]

...I know I keep bringing KFIZ-TV/34 Fond du Lac WI up in these environs, but there's an item that fits here. KFIZ used to have a station logo in which the numerals for "34" appeared in a television screen frame with an arrow extending out to the right, seemingly a variant of the WMTV/15 Madison logo of the late '60s and early '70s. Does anyone possibly have any ads KFIZ-TV ran in TV Guide or area newspapers containing this logo that they can scan (and enlarge) and post somewhere in the Net? TIA...

 

[azumanga]

Back in the 70s and 80's a lot of those shows and a number of comedians like Robin Williams sometimes would poke fun at TV preachers like Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ernest Angley, even Jerry Falwell. Come to think of it I seem to remember Williams talking like Angley on a few episodes of Mork & Mindy and my wife swears she remembers a long time ago when SCTV did some funny skits about the Bakkers and this was way BEFORE the Jessica Hahn scandal. Remember the preacher/wrestler "Brother Love"?

Now I have to admit its been awhile since I have seen shows like SNL, do they still do "religious" skits" ? If not I wonder why?

Mainly because today's religious shows are no longer as entertaining as "The PTL Club" and the 70s/80s "700 Club" was -- they were practically variety shows along the same line as Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin, but with religion thrown in. Today, most shows concentrate on wanting your money and sharing their own idea of "love".

 

[cowboybud]

Going back to shows like SNL/SCTV/Fridays and the like...I just thought of something today. Back in the 70s and 80's a lot of those shows and a number of comedians like Robin Williams sometimes would poke fun at TV preachers like Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ernest Angley, even Jerry Falwell. Come to think of it I seem to remember Williams talking like Angley on a few episodes of Mork & Mindy and my wife swears she remembers a long time ago when SCTV did some funny skits about the Bakkers and this was way BEFORE the Jessica Hahn scandal. Remember the preacher/wrestler "Brother Love"?

Brother Love was the WWF(E)'s version of Brother Ernest Angel on the old Memphis circuit.

 

[easttxtv]

This topic might be easier for many of us had several of the programs/products/people not came/went prior to the availability of the internet. Some shows had a short lifespan and didn't get any new life due to no rerun or syndication. Many soaps (particularly those with live episodes or those taped and later erased or destroyed) were cancelled and not rerun prior to availability of VCR/DVD, much less the internet. People who came along since the 1970s or 1980s, otherwise, can now be clued into what they missed in regards to some obscure showings of the past, thanks to DVD and retaining of master tapes. Who would have thought something from one of NBC's lowest points, Pink Lady and Jeff, would be found today on DVD? Many things I've seen from TV's past on the internet were things I'd completely forgotten or I wouldn't think I'd see ever again.

 

[NoWayNoCC]

I remember a commercial that used to air in the late '70s constantly. It featured a man waking up in the middle of the night and asking his wife, "Barbara, you up?"

Everyone thinks I'm making this up, but I swear, it was on every time you turned the TV on. And it was on for years.

Another one like this is an ad for Pepto-Bismol that featured people turning weird colors and slowly saying "in-di-ges-tion!" Everyone says I just made it up, but I know I saw it quite a bit.

 

[LynnW]

"Barbara, you up?" is from a Sucrets throat lozenge commercial. Look about 3/4ths of the way down http://www.inthe80s.com/tvcommercials/s.shtml

I remember the Pepto ad, too.

 

[easttxtv]

I remember a commercial that used to air in the late '70s constantly. It featured a man waking up in the middle of the night and asking his wife, "Barbara, you up?"

Everyone thinks I'm making this up, but I swear, it was on every time you turned the TV on. And it was on for years.

You're **definitely** not making that one up!! One of my dad's favorites (it always reminded my mother of being married to my dad); I've been looking all over the web for that one for years....

 

[Stanislav]

Back in the 70s and 80's a lot of those shows and a number of comedians like Robin Williams sometimes would poke fun at TV preachers like Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ernest Angley, even Jerry Falwell. Come to think of it I seem to remember Williams talking like Angley on a few episodes of Mork & Mindy and my wife swears she remembers a long time ago when SCTV did some funny skits about the Bakkers and this was way BEFORE the Jessica Hahn scandal. Remember the preacher/wrestler "Brother Love"?

Now I have to admit its been awhile since I have seen shows like SNL, do they still do "religious" skits" ? If not I wonder why?

Mainly because today's religious shows are no longer as entertaining as "The PTL Club" and the 70s/80s "700 Club" was -- they were practically variety shows along the same line as Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin, but with religion thrown in. Today, most shows concentrate on wanting your money and sharing their own idea of "love".

Plus, in the PTL era, those flamboyant overly-produced Christian extravaganza shows and their colorful and goofy hosts were a relatively new phenomenon, and ripe for satire. Fewer channels around as well, so they stood out like a sore thumb. Now we have several full-time fundie networks and a myriad of local Christian stations (we have 3 here in Orlando -- add up all their sub-channels and you have gobs of religious stuff available even without cable or satellite). I think they just became too commonplace, plus those of us who look askance with a satirical eye at that sort of "spiritual" programming kind of burned out on the whole phenomenon -- they were at first fun to make fun of; now they are just an annoyance.

 

[Legend City]

Let's see. In the summer of 1979, late at night, ABC ran a failed pilot called The T.V. Show (a U.S. equivalent of SCTV, with Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and a few others - this pilot led to the birth of the mock rock group Spinal Tap), and one of the sketches was a "documentary" series called "History on Trial" which claimed to run "without commercial interruption," and then proceeded every 2-3 minutes to run ads from Proto-Chem. The "ad" I remember was one where a cat running loose in a lab knocked down something and the contents spilled over to another container, and that was the birth of aluminum chlorohydrate (as they saw it).

Do my memories mesh with yours?

THAT'S the one. I didn't know the Spinal Tap connection. Somehow I think the spokesman in the "little league" Proto-Chem commercial was Martin Mull. Yeah, I remember the bit with the cat.

Now then, did anyone happen to roll tape -- on a top-loader VCR with the wired remote -- on this thing? That's one I'd like to see again.

--Russell

I remember that, I thought it was called TV-TV, and I believe John Candy had a small bit in it. I remember a sketched with protesters chanting "Forced Male Sterilization" and Candy being run over by a truck and they edited it at the tv station to make it look like Candy had been sterilized..they asked how he felt and said "I feel like I just got hit by a truck!"

Very fuzzy memories of this one. I think they ran it in SNL slot once in the summer.

One other thing I finally saw again thanks to the SNL DVD's is "The things we did last summer" which had each of the cast doing a 5 minute film, pretty good, very low budget, Belushi and Ackroyd just showed Blues Brothers concert footage.

 

[bk77]

Back in the 70s and 80's a lot of those shows and a number of comedians like Robin Williams sometimes would poke fun at TV preachers like Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ernest Angley, even Jerry Falwell. Come to think of it I seem to remember Williams talking like Angley on a few episodes of Mork & Mindy and my wife swears she remembers a long time ago when SCTV did some funny skits about the Bakkers and this was way BEFORE the Jessica Hahn scandal. Remember the preacher/wrestler "Brother Love"?

Now I have to admit its been awhile since I have seen shows like SNL, do they still do "religious" skits" ? If not I wonder why?

Mainly because today's religious shows are no longer as entertaining as "The PTL Club" and the 70s/80s "700 Club" was -- they were practically variety shows along the same line as Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin, but with religion thrown in. Today, most shows concentrate on wanting your money and sharing their own idea of "love".

Plus, in the PTL era, those flamboyant overly-produced Christian extravaganza shows and their colorful and goofy hosts were a relatively new phenomenon, and ripe for satire. Fewer channels around as well, so they stood out like a sore thumb. Now we have several full-time fundie networks and a myriad of local Christian stations (we have 3 here in Orlando -- add up all their sub-channels and you have gobs of religious stuff available even without cable or satellite). I think they just became too commonplace, plus those of us who look askance with a satirical eye at that sort of "spiritual" programming kind of burned out on the whole phenomenon -- they were at first fun to make fun of; now they are just an annoyance.

I agree with you there but I also think politics is another reason for the lack of "lets poke fun at the preachers" on shows like SNL today since there are a number of churches who have gotten into the game of politics over the years thanks to issues like gay marriage and abortion. Which leads me to ask this. Say for example Saturday Night Live decided to a skit making fun of James Dobson & Focus On The Family. Could Dobson & Focus force SNL to give them "equal time"?

My brother is a huge Southpark fan and I remember him telling me some years back that Trey Parker & Matt Stone had plans to feature a character on that show based on Fred Phelps ( the Kansas preacher who picketed funerals ). However Parker & Stone, perhaps it was Comedy Central who was behind the final decision but either way the idea was dropped due to a fear that Phelps could demand equal time such as forcing Comedy Central to give him TV time to spread his message. I don't see how this would have been possible even had Southpark did poke fun at Phelps. After all regardless if one is a preacher, news anchor, movie star, music star politican, or even a million dollar lottery winner, if one appears in front of the cameras and they do it quite often I don't see how they would have the power to stop anyone on another TV show, or even in other media ( like radio for example ) from making fun of them.

 

[azumanga]

Say for example Saturday Night Live decided to a skit making fun of James Dobson & Focus On The Family. Could Dobson & Focus force SNL to give them "equal time"?

First of all, rules for "equal time" were repealed several years ago. Secondly, even when Equal Time was in effect, satire and parodies were exempt. Thirdly, Equal Time was for broadcasters only, not cable -- meaning that South Park could poke fun at Phelps, if they wanted to.