Folks,
I taped quite a bit of the PIX 60th...and honestly, it looks to me as though they just don't have the archives one might have hoped. It was a great collection of reruns of their best reruns, but there wasn't much shown that displayed the uniqueness of the station's history, except in passing while trying to get to the next rerun. Some observations...
- Classic film shorts seemed pretty well cleaned up; I'd guess they were presented from the latest DVD releases.
- The pre/post break 60th Anniversary IDs were a pretty jarring transition from some of the older shorts, especially The Little Rascals.
- There was no video of kid show hosts at all - and at my age, that was my earliest exposure, between 1968 and 1972, give or take, so it was kind of what I was looking for. I'd have liked to have seen a Three Stooges short with an Officer Joe Bolton intro, for instance. (Shame Popeye wasn't available, though it was nice that the documentary did have audio of Jack McCarthy's show opening.)
- The St. Patrick's Day Parade was given about ten seconds of airtime on the documentary. There's a lot of history there; wonder if any video exists?
- My father picked this one out: while mentioning Yankees coverage, they showed film of Joe DiMaggio bursting through a "56" banner - assuming that was in celebration of his 56-game hitting streak, it happened in 1941, predating the station's existence.
On the plus side, they did have video of TV Pixx, which got a laugh out of my daughter (who, it should be said, likes playing games on my original Nintendo system...)
Also, for the classic series they showed, they selected great episodes. (Thankfully, the shows' syndicators are in the business of preserving *their* heritage...)
So, in summary: an "E" for effort...but not much meat for the TV history buff. Guess I'll have to hightail it over to the Museum Of Television And Radio...
I taped quite a bit of the PIX 60th...and honestly, it looks to me as though they just don't have the archives one might have hoped. It was a great collection of reruns of their best reruns, but there wasn't much shown that displayed the uniqueness of the station's history, except in passing while trying to get to the next rerun. Some observations...
- Classic film shorts seemed pretty well cleaned up; I'd guess they were presented from the latest DVD releases.
- The pre/post break 60th Anniversary IDs were a pretty jarring transition from some of the older shorts, especially The Little Rascals.
- There was no video of kid show hosts at all - and at my age, that was my earliest exposure, between 1968 and 1972, give or take, so it was kind of what I was looking for. I'd have liked to have seen a Three Stooges short with an Officer Joe Bolton intro, for instance. (Shame Popeye wasn't available, though it was nice that the documentary did have audio of Jack McCarthy's show opening.)
- The St. Patrick's Day Parade was given about ten seconds of airtime on the documentary. There's a lot of history there; wonder if any video exists?
- My father picked this one out: while mentioning Yankees coverage, they showed film of Joe DiMaggio bursting through a "56" banner - assuming that was in celebration of his 56-game hitting streak, it happened in 1941, predating the station's existence.
On the plus side, they did have video of TV Pixx, which got a laugh out of my daughter (who, it should be said, likes playing games on my original Nintendo system...)
Also, for the classic series they showed, they selected great episodes. (Thankfully, the shows' syndicators are in the business of preserving *their* heritage...)
So, in summary: an "E" for effort...but not much meat for the TV history buff. Guess I'll have to hightail it over to the Museum Of Television And Radio...