TV Shows that did nothing more than fill time on the schedule-50's to the 70's..

[Tim L]

The forgotten shows thread made me think of shows from the 1950's to the 1970's that were mainly (though not all) free of charge that sometimes more than one station would air in a market..That basically filled out a program slot..Anywhere from 5-30 minutes in length..Some I can think of..

The Big Picture-Army promotional films
http://www.armypictorialcenter.com/the_big_picture.htm
Many of these are on YouTube and the Internet Archive..

Industry On Parade
Christophers
Les Paul and Mary Ford (sponsored)
Ohio Story-Based on a radio series of the same name-Actor Nelson Olmstead narrated 10 minute films that appeared on TV all over Ohio in the 50's..Sponsored by Ohio Bell Telephone Co.

I'm sure there are others I am not as aware of, especially regionally..

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Does Dan Smoot count? (15 min.)

 

[Ultimajock]

...considering the circumstances under which it was produced, I'd have to say Dr. Simon Locke/Police Surgeon qualifies here. It was produced from 1971 to 1974 strictly to satisfy Canadian Content regulations in Canada, and distributed in the United States to satisfy Prime Time Access regulations here. Thus, it pretty much served the same practical purpose that The Big Picture did in the '50s. The series, even though it was produced for three consecutive seasons, was so wretchedly made that co-star Jack Albertson quit during the first season and the series has been rarely rerun since those first runs on CTV and in Stateside syndication. It was, however, mercilessly lampooned in the theatrical movie TunnelVision (as "Police Comic"), and I recall Second City TV (in their pre-NBC days) taking some occasional swipes at it, too...

 

[Ultimajock]

Does Dan Smoot count? (15 min.)

...not according to Harlan Ellison, who considered Smoot so howlingly funny that he recommended The Dan Smoot Report as a comedy in his Los Angeles Free Press Glass Teat columns...

 

[rnigma1]

I remember "Police Surgeon" - its entry in the "Prime Time TV Shows" index stated that Albertson complained about the show's tiny budget - he had to change costumes behind a bush during a location shoot because they couldn't spring for a trailer or dressing rooms. No doubt that led to his quitting.

SCTV's "McKenzie Brothers" sketches were also a jab at the "Canadian content" laws.

I certainly recall the "Big Picture" and other fillers TV stations ran in odd hours on weekends. When I was a kid and my dad was in the Air Force, he was stationed in the Philippines and Mom and I were there too. We got to watch plenty of AFRTS, which would run odd little interstitial films in place of the commercials that originally interrupted the US programs they broadcast. The only one I recall was a 3 minute film of a golfball rolling from one locale to another, accompanied by "Holiday for Strings."

 

[Hal Erickson]

The fillers I recall (running between 5 and 15 minutes) are the ones that entertained me: MOVIE MUSEUM, THE AIR FORCE STORY, LEARN TO DRAW (actually something of an infomercial for Jon Gnagy), SOCIAL SECURITY IN ACTION, YESTERDAY'S NEWSREEL, ALMANAC, GREATEST HEADLINES OF THE CENTURY, FUNNY MANNS, TELESPORTS DIGEST.
And I'd love to track down a print of a "safe driving" filler (there may have been more than one) which used weather-map style cartoon graphics (with ominous music) to depict a traffic accident, whereupon the narrator intoned "This accident should NOT have happened. Why DID it happen?"

 

[azumanga]

Back at least through the early-1980s, WTOG in Tampa Bay would run a filler feature after a movie if it runs short. Sometimes it was the aforementioned "Yesterday's Newsreel", but sometimes it's a general short film in general.

 

[cd637299]

Dating myself here....

Does anybody remember watching "Milestones of the Century"? (Copyright MCMLX, but they were newsreels going back to the turn of the century.) That was my first encounter with the Pathe rooster. Looking at old schedules, WCKT set aside 15 minutes after the news, but I believe they were three 5-minute clips. I have seen it on eBay....that would make an interesting watch again.

cd

 

[bpatrick]

"The Dayton Allen Show," a five-minute comedy feature with
one of the members of Steve Allen's (no relation) gang in the '50s.
On some of my Kentucky retros from the early '60s you may have
noted that WFIE Evansville, IN, carried this show twice a day, at
the 8:25 AM break on the "Today" show and between 5:30 and 6 PM.

 

[Tim L]

Good responses thus far-While Police Surgron/Dr. Simon Locke..could have been thought of as a "time filler"..For the thread purposes, this show was meant to be a regular series and have some success..

Another show I've mentioned before is "Kiplinger's Changing Times" Usually aired in the 15 minutes before "Dugout Interviews" and Cleveland Indians Baseball in the early 70's..

 

[Ultimajock]

Good responses thus far-While Police Surgron/Dr. Simon Locke..could have been thought of as a "time filler"..For the thread purposes, this show was meant to be a regular series and have some success..

...in which case, it should have been made in a somewhat professional manner. At best, its production values just barely surpassed the average cable access production of the '80s ;-) ...

...also admittedly not intended as a time-filler, but in this instance obviously used as one, was Mr. Magoo. In 1971-72, KFIZ-TV/34 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, usually ran an American International movie of some sort from 8:00 or 8:30 to 10:00 weeknights, but had to wait until about 10:15 to pick up WVTV/18 Milwaukee's one-night tape delay of the CBS version of The Merv Griffin Show. Instead of a rip-and-read newscast or such, KFIZ decided to run a couple of Mr. Magoo cartoons at 10:00, well past most kids' bedtime in that pre-VHS era; most nights, KFIZ's cartoons caused it to pick up Griffin from WVTV in mid-opening titles at the earliest, if not in mid-opening monologue. Certainly, if Yesterday's Newsreel and Milestones of the Century, which were re-programmed copies of material originally produced with first-run intentions, qualify for this thread, so does this use of Mr. Magoo ;D ...

 

[rnigma1]

Another show I've mentioned before is "Kiplinger's Changing Times" Usually aired in the 15 minutes before "Dugout Interviews" and Cleveland Indians Baseball in the early 70's..

If I recall, they were hosted by a bespectacled guy named Doug Prager (or something similar). He also did half-hour infomercials promoting Changing Times magazine (now called Kiplinger's Personal Finance) in which he dispensed consumer tips. There were also infomercials for the Shop Smith.

Another filler I recall is "Beltsville Newsreel," produced by the USDA.

Way before my time there were the Snader Telescriptions, perhaps the first music videos.

 

[RicoGregg]

Back in "Them Thar Days", Los Angeles TV would be cluttered with farm reports during very early mornings and weekends. Some of them were very campy.

Speaking of farm animals....

Dating myself here....

Does anybody remember watching "Milestones of the Century"? (Copyright MCMLX, but they were newsreels going back to the turn of the century.) That was my first encounter with the Pathe rooster. Looking at old schedules, WCKT set aside 15 minutes after the news, but I believe they were three 5-minute clips. I have seen it on eBay....that would make an interesting watch again.

cd

I haven't thought of the Pathe' rooster in eons. Totally jarred my memory!

KABC - 7 for years ran a morning program called "The Daily Word". It came from a religious organization called Unity, out of Missouri. I think Unity still exists. Not to be confused with the Universalist/Unitarian church.

At both sign-on and sign-off, KNXT -2 (now KCBS) ran mini-sermons on scratchy black and white film called Give Us This Day. They were brief speakings by pastors from throughout Southern California.

 

[jake1966]

In Boston, during the 1970s, WCVB Ch. 5 use to run newsreel stories around 4:45 am to fill in 15 minutes of programming (At least I think it was around 4:45 am).

 

[LKellerIII]

Does Dan Smoot count? (15 min.)

...not according to Harlan Ellison, who considered Smoot so howlingly funny that he recommended The Dan Smoot Report as a comedy in his Los Angeles Free Press Glass Teat columns...

Smoot was one of many mostly right-wing commentators that had 5 to 15 minute shows on early local LA television - another was "Dr. Harold Fishman," who later became George Putnam's sidekick, then the beloved multi-decade news anchor at KTLA.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

What about music video shows? I remember one from the mid 80's called "Flip Side" which only seemed to consist of about 2 videos, "Rockit" by Herbie Hancock and a stiff by Ronnie Milsap, "She Loves My Car".

There's another one I remember from the early 70's called "The Fritos Sports Club", hosted by longtime NBC play-by-play guy Charlie Jones. This was a 5 minute filler that ran early mornings, usually.

 

[azumanga]

KABC - 7 for years ran a morning program called "The Daily Word". It came from a religious organization called Unity, out of Missouri. I think Unity still exists. Not to be confused with the Universalist/Unitarian church.

This is from the Unity Church, based in the small town of Unity Village, Missouri, near Kansas City. The church is more known for its "The Word From Unity" public service announcements, where celebrities talk about a particular word and what it means to daily life. A few of those have surfaced on YouTube.

At both sign-on and sign-off, KNXT -2 (now KCBS) ran mini-sermons on scratchy black and white film called Give Us This Day. They were brief speakings by pastors from throughout Southern California.

WCBS in New York also ran "Give Us This Day", which featured taped sermonettes by religious figures in the NYC area, as well as from other CBS O&Os (an example on YouTube featured WCBS showing a sermonette from a pastor in Los Angeles, no doubt have been taped at KNXT/KCBS.

That being said, many TV stations through the 1980s have shown sermonettes at sign on and/or sign off, featuring local material, material from other sources (including inspirational PSAs), or both. In Tampa Bay, WLCY/WTSP ran "The Pastor's Study" at sign off, though the couple of times I saw this in the early-1980s, it was nothing more than Michael Guido's "A Seed From The Sower" PSAs, with an opening and closing to "The Pastor's Study" added. The Guido PSAs were nothing special, as they also appeared at random during station breaks on WCLF, the local Christian station.

 

[CrankyYankee]

We had lots of "fillers" at our AFRTS station in Germany, but we didn't use them all that much. One I recall seeing in the library rack was something called "R-O-F", meaning, "Records on Film." It was a various pop groups, doing songs of theirs, that were mostly stiffs. One thing we'd do from time to time, was pick a movie from the library, just because it was the right length to fill a space.The only movie I recall that we used this way was 1942's "Canal Zone", with Forrest Tucker, Lloyd Bridges and Hugh Beaumont.

 

[mjlarochelle]

There were several programs, particularly in the 70s, that were meant as filler programs to satisfy Canadian Content regulations. One such program was The Trouble with Tracy.

Toronto's CFTO used to show various short films from their library just before 6:00am to fill time before the repeat of the previous night's Night Beat News. One from 1991 that I saw on Youtube was a mid-70s film about Toronto's Ontario Place; they didn't even play the whole film, starting the news right in the middle.

To this day, or at least as recently as two years ago, CTV was still airing filler just before 6:00am. As I recall the video shown every day was related to World War II and was always saddening to watch.

 

[azumanga]

There were several programs, particularly in the 70s, that were meant as filler programs to satisfy Canadian Content regulations. One such program was The Trouble with Tracy.

With about 130 episodes produced in a single season and being known for its sub-par quality (like "Dr. Simon Locke" / "Police Surgeon", also from CTV), "Tracy" was the perfect cancon filler used by many stations into the 1980s, just something that would score brownie points with the CRTC.

To this day, or at least as recently as two years ago, CTV was still airing filler just before 6:00am. As I recall the video shown every day was related to World War II and was always saddening to watch.

Apparently, it's filler to pad out the time between the last infomercial and the 6AM program, due to the irregular times for its 11:30PM news and its late-night talk shows.