Last week on the checklist, I wrote a tiny blurb (blurbette?)
about seeing some Me-TV promos for the TV shows
Emergency! and
Remington
Steele, which would be making their debuts on the classic television
channel in the fall. At the time, I
expressed some reservations about this because there have been a lot of cable
channels who have featured vintage TV in the past (Nick at Nite, TVLand,
GoodLife TV, etc.) and then once they receive a little exposure or a larger
audience start to “update” their programming.
For example: I can remember enjoying
The Patty Duke Show and
the pre-1965
My Three Sons on Nick at Nite once upon a time. Nowadays it’s
Yes, Dear and
Boy
Meets World—shows I didn’t watch the first time they were on, and have
little interest in seeing now.
My fellow boob tube enthusiasts
hobbyfan and Mike “Mr.
Television” Doran joined me for a nice friendly convo about this in the
comments section…but it was
Cultureshark blogger-in-exile Rick Brooks who was
nice enough to shoot me a heads-up e-mail that even though Me-TV is adding the
previously mentioned programs, they are not going to totally abandon their
classic TV mission. (The details can be
found
here at
Sitcoms Online.) In
addition to
Emergency! and
Steele, Me-TV will welcome
Make
Room for Daddy (
The Danny Thomas Show),
The
Donna Reed Show and
Night Gallery into the fold. They’re also going to introduce a feature
called
Me-TV Sunday Showcase—which according to the MeTV website will spotlight
“marathons, themes, tributes, rarely seen shows—all memorable favorites!” (For example, the first “Sunday Showcase” will
feature a mini-marathon of
Night Gallery episodes, to be
telecast on September 9th.)
Me-TV is also going to bring
Kojak out of hibernation,
as well as the 1963-65 crime drama
Burke’s Law (the amusing thing about
this is that it will replace
The Rogues at
4am on late Saturday nights—it’s like Four Star Television
has their own designated time slot). But
with the additions and returnees, that means a few shows will have to be stored
in mothballs—the only one I’m kind of bummed about is
The Untouchables…and even
that’s not such a big deal, because I have the first three seasons of that
series on DVD already (and hope to get the fourth and final season someday when
my father one day goes out to shoot for some food and up from the ground comes
bubblin’ crude. Oil, that is. Black gold.
Texas tea.) The other shows we’ll say goodbye to (though
as Mike has pointed out in the past, they may return like the proverbial bad
check) are
Family Affair,
Cannon,
The Mothers-in-Law,
Love,
American Style,
Green Acres,
Honey West,
The
Rogues,
Happy Days and
Laverne & Shirley.
Here’s the complete schedule:
Monday-Friday
05:00am The Honeymooners
05:30am The Danny Thomas Show (The
Many Loves of Dobie Gillis moves to Saturdays)
06:00am The Beverly
Hillbillies
06:30am Petticoat Junction
07:00am My Three Sons (replaces Family
Affair)
07:30am The
Donna Reed Show (inherits Sons’ time slot)
08:00am That Girl
08:30am I Love Lucy
09:00am Daniel Boone
10:00am Perry Mason
11:00am The Rockford Files (replaces Cannon)
12:00pm Hawaii
Five-O
01:00pm Gunsmoke
02:00pm Bonanza
03:00pm The
Big Valley
04:00pm The
Wild Wild West (inherits Rockford’s
time slot)
05:00pm Emergency!
(Hogan’s
Heroes moves to Saturdays at 6pm)
06:00pm The
Rifleman
07:00pm M*A*S*H
08:00pm Remington
Steele (inherits Mary Tyler Moore and The
Dick Van Dyke Show time slots)
09:00pm Mary
Tyler Moore (inherits The Bob Newhart Show time slot)
09:30pm The
Dick Van Dyke Show (inherits The Honeymooners [Classic 39] time
slot)
10:00pm Cheers
10:30pm The
Bob Newhart Show
11:00pm The
Twilight Zone
11:30pm Perry
Mason
12:30am Kojak (replaces The Untouchables)
01:30am Night
Gallery (inherits Peter Gunn’s time slot)
02:00am Mission:
Impossible
03:00am Combat!
04:00am 12 O’Clock High
Saturday
05:00am Gumby
05:30am The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo
06:00am He-Man & the Masters of the Universe
07:00am She-Ra: Princess of Power
08:00am E/I series
11:00am The Rebel
12:00pm Branded
12:30pm The
Guns of Will Sonnett
01:00pm Gunsmoke
02:00pm Bonanza
03:00pm The
Big Valley
04:00pm The
Rifleman (inherits Wild Wild West’s time slot)
05:00pm Emergency!
(inherits Rifleman’s time slot)
06:00pm Hogan’s Heroes (replaces Green
Acres)
07:00pm Batman
08:00pm Lost
in Space
09:00pm Star
Trek
10:00pm Svengoolie
12:00am Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
01:00am Get Smart
02:00am Car 54, Where are You?
03:00am The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
(replaces Honey West)
04:00am Burke’s
Law (replaces The Rogues)
Sunday
05:00am The Honeymooners
05:30am The Phil Silvers Show
06:30am Laurel and Hardy
08:00am E/I series
11:00am The Brady Bunch
01:00pm MeTV
Loves Lucy (replaces Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and
The
Mothers-in-Law)
03:00pm MeTV
Sunday Showcase
07:00pm M*A*S*H
08:00pm Columbo
10:00pm Thriller
11:00pm The Twilight
Zone
12:00am The Fugitive
01:00am Naked City
02:00am Peter Gunn
03:00am Route 66
04:00am 12 O’Clock High
If you need a copy to keep by the TV set…you can download
one
here.
Just as I was getting ready to post this sucker—I got an
e-mail from Melissa Prince at the INSP network about an acquisition to their
lineup that I know some people (particularly my pal Laura at
Miscellaneous Musings) are going to
flip over: the channel has acquired the broadcast rights (from CBS Television
Distribution) to the 1967-71 oater
The High Chaparral:
First aired on September 10, 1967, The High Chaparral featured the life and struggles of the
Cannon and Montoya families in Arizona Territory during the 1870s.
Under the direction of David Dortort, the creator of the project (and
the genius behind such classics as Bonanza), the producers of this
series were committed to realism and went to unusual lengths to depict actual
conditions of the West. Even the Apaches
who worked as extras on the set were real.
In many ways ahead of its time, the program explored culture and class
conflicts among Caucasians, Hispanics, and Native American tribes to an
unprecedented level.
As the exclusive cable home of this
and other western series, INSP is proud to offer a new generation of Americans
the opportunity to fall in love with the characters and stories that made The
High Chaparral a western classic. Launching on September 15th, viewers
can enjoy an all-day marathon beginning at 1:00pm ET. The series joins the Saddle Up Saturday line-up beginning September 29th and also is
scheduled to air in the Monday-Friday lineup.
Yowsah!
My feed of ME-TV only shows Weekday hours 9AM-10PM and then 2AM-6AM.
ReplyDeleteWeekends seem to be 2PM-10PM and then 2AM-6AM.
The other hours are used for SHOP AT HOME things.
The shows I don't see are enticing.
I get some solace from Antenna TV which is 24 hours,
My feed of ME-TV only shows Weekday hours 9AM-10PM and then 2AM-6AM.
ReplyDeleteWeekends seem to be 2PM-10PM and then 2AM-6AM.
"I cried because I had no shoes...until I met a man who had no feet." I really feel for you, man -- we lose MeTV Sunday mornings from 6-11am for infomercials, and during high school football season it goes dark on Friday nights to telecast select games. (The WSB affiliate also pre-empts the programming from time to time for arena football.) So the next time I start bitching about losing the second ha;f-hour of Bilko I'll remember how lousy you have it. (Shop at Home...feh!)
Ooooooh! I think I get INSP network. Will check as soon as movie is done recording. Thanks for the GREAT news!
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Laura
What are the chances that Me-Tv will somehow make it to Dish Network?
ReplyDeleteI knows its probably crazy talk but I would love to see it on there.
Not to rub it in or anything like that ...
ReplyDeleteAnytime something gets squeezed off the MeTV slate, we here in Chicago can often count on it getting picked up by MeTOO, one digital channel over.
At present, MeTOO is showing Star Trek amd ST: The Next Gen in prime time, leading into sitcoms like Bewitched, Frasier, some others I can't call to mind.
On weekends there's StoogeAPalooza on Saturday nights (Chicagoans have to remember to change cahnnels at 9pm (Central) to get a full night of Rich Koz), and a block of mystery shows on Sunday mornings and afternoons (they switch them around periodically) fron 9am to 6pm; this might be changed in the fall (have to check.
I'm currently taking (or being taken by) AT&T U-Verse cable, which hasn't (yet) picked up THiS, the Ugroup's movie station, but I live in hope - I really miss Highway Patrol.
"I wept because I had no shoes,
And then I met a Man who had no socks."
- the Gospel according to Miami Vice ;-P
... and a nice 119 oreoki to you.
Quick correction on my as-yet unposted post ...
ReplyDeleteMeTOO retired the Star Treks at the onset of summer, and has been running Detective shows in their stead, one series-two episodes each night (Charlie's Angels, Rockford, Magnum, Hart To Hart).
Right there on my TV, staring me in the face, and I forget.
"Ol' rockin' chair's got me ..."
Oh, snap!
ReplyDeleteRockford had just returned and gave Kojak a summer vaca, after it'd been placed on hiatus to make room for Hogan's Heroes. Now it moves further up the trail.
Insp is all of a sudden a playa. They share The Waltons with GMC, Big Valley with Me-TV, and now they're scoring by bagging High Chapparal. Suh-weeeet!!!!
The only downside is that Insp has fallen into the bad habit of compressing the credits at the end of the show so they can move on to the next ep. El suckola. I've seen this with Big Valley & Happy Days in recent days, and I cringe. Who's the jabroni in charge?
The only downside is that Insp has fallen into the bad habit of compressing the credits at the end of the show so they can move on to the next ep. El suckola. I've seen this with Big Valley & Happy Days in recent days, and I cringe.
ReplyDeleteI could write a multitude of blog posts on how this practice irritates the heck out of me. I can't say for certain, but it seems to me TVLand instituted it...and then alleged "movie channels" like AMC followed suit by speeding up the closing movie credits (another pet peeve of mine). Me-TV has a promo that pokes a little fun at this, declaring that "we give credit where credit is due." (And that's the way Me likes it!)
Ivan writes: I could write a multitude of blog posts on how this practice irritates the heck out of me.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah. The Television Tropes and Idioms website refers to this as Credits Pushback and it comes in various flavors. Check out the link for, if nothing else, the wonderfully apt comment of Charlie Brooker that leads the article, which concludes:
It's a bit like the moment you finish a novel. It's nice to gaze wistfully out of the window for a few moments and reflect. But how much shittier would that be if the minute you finished, someone tried to get you to read another book and another book!?
My personal bugaboo is with digital time compression, which for the unititiated, speeds up the show ever so slightly without affecting audio pitch, making an extraa minute or two for commercial content.
This is done on Hallmark's Perry Mason episodes, along with Credit Pushback both front and back, with somewhat comical results if they're not careful.
Perry normally has a ponderous walk and line delivery, but suddenly he has a spring in his step, and an energetic line delivery.
Paul Drake, on the other hand, normally has a quick step and rapid-fire line delivery, so he speeds around like he's on wheels and sometimes his dialog is nearly unintelligible, and sounds like the old FedEx Fast Talker ads of the eighties.
Oughta be a law. Thankfully MeTV does not engage in either of these practices, God Bless 'em.
And I'm relieved to find that MeTV has left the "Sunday Noir" block untouched. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteVery happy to see that the Hearst station in Boston has grabbed Me-TV from the other local station that had it. Now we actually get the FULL schedule instead of infomercials late at night (and the picture is better too).
ReplyDelete