Saturday, April 30, 2016

My Heroes have always been Icons


Yesterday, for unknown whys and wherefores, my father decided to strike up a conversation with me about the old Steve McQueen TV western Wanted: Dead or Alive.  You may remember from a previous post that I capitalized on a Starz/Encore freeview several months back by building an episode collection of the entire series (I obtained 92 out of 94), but I worked on this out of the watchful eye of Dear Ol’ Dad, who doesn’t often comprehend how these things work.  (Which is to be expected of the man whose favorite function on the remote is the “mute” button.)  So I was curious as to how he would have access to the series.

As it turns out, he watched it the other morning (while Mumsy and I collected groceries) on WGTA-TV Atlanta—a new channel acquisition appearing on our DISH Network system.  Digital subchannels like MeTV and Antenna TV are a rarity on DISH; for unexplained reasons, they won’t carry them—the only such station that DISH carries (as of this post) is GetTV, and I don’t need to rehash why this is a wonderful way to stoke my classic television obsession.  (Well, I suppose I could also include Laff; DISH replaced Blue Highways TV in March with this subchannel devoted to recent comedy movies and sitcoms.)  So seeing WGTA in the lineup made my little heart go pitter pat: they’re a Heroes & Icons affiliate, and H&I has sprinkled its ho-hum rerun schedule (Hunter, 21 Jump Street) with delectable classic goodies including 12 O’Clock High, Combat!, Wagon Train, and Broken Arrow.

I’ve seen the 1950 James Stewart film that inspired the TV version of Broken Arrow, but I’ve never actually seen an episode of the small screen version.  (My mother announced that she has, and she was kind of smug about it.)  I’m just pleased that DISH added the station (they removed the Toccoa, GA station that had a fairly impressive rerun library many months back), and perhaps there will come a day when I will be able to rejoin my MeTV brethren and sistren.  Apologies for the dearth of posts this month, by the way; I've been distracted by various shiny objects but I hope to have a more robust posting schedule in May.

7 comments:

Terence Towles Canote said...

Charter is very good about carrying digital subchannels. We've had Me-TV for years. Unfortunately they won't carry getTV, even though we've had a local affiliate for well over a year now! It's rather frustrating and I keep thinking I should just break down and buy an aerial so I can watch it.

Anyhow, WGTA sounds wonderful. I have part of Wanted Dead or Alive on DVD, but I do enjoy watching it live. I'd also love to see Combat! again. I've seen the entire run, but it has been a while.

Anonymous said...

Heroes & Icons also carries Cheyenne. I highly recommend it.

Scott Lovrine

A said...

Directv doesn't carry the in-between channels either. I really wish they did. I don't understand how they are able to have the regular channels, but not the in-between. Since they have hundreds of shopping channels, clearly it is not for a lack of frequencies.

Ivan G Shreve Jr said...

Terence:

I still haven't forgotten those episodes of The Lieutenant I promised to send you. Just waiting until GetTV finishes their showings before I slap them on some black discs.

Ivan G Shreve Jr said...

Scott jogged my memory:

Heroes & Icons also carries Cheyenne. I highly recommend it.

I think Encore Westerns is still showing Cheyenne, too. (I saw them all when I had EW.) As of this comment, the 'rents are watching Have Gun -- Will Travel until the Braves-Cubs game comes on.

Ivan G Shreve Jr said...

Amanda wondered out loud:

Directv doesn't carry the in-between channels either. I really wish they did. I don't understand how they are able to have the regular channels, but not the in-between. Since they have hundreds of shopping channels, clearly it is not for a lack of frequencies.

A most excellent point, and one I have cogitated on myself from time to time. We had the same problem when we had AT&T U-Verse; they refused to carry the substations (though I had one or two people tell me they were able to access MeTV in their markets).

Cur Ladnier said...

Hi, Ivan.
Love your blog! I'm not on much social media, so I couldn't figure any other way to contact you except reaching out via this rather unorthodox method. I don't actually mean this as a blog comment, just a brief personal note to you. Like you, I really love these vintage TV shows that are seeing revivals on channels like Decades, MeTV, getTV, etc. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to snag excellent DVD-R recordings of Louis Hayward's detective series THE LONE WOLF from the now defunct AmericanLife Network. Was wondering if you might be willing to swap a copy of the first 5 episodes of THE THIN MAN for some of my LONE WOLFs? I know you must get tons of requests from fans across the country, so I'll understand if you're unable to help me out. But if you'd be up for a small trade, I'd love to chat with you. My email address is curt@maljardin.com. Thanks for all the great work you do with your blog, and I hope to chat with you further.
Regards,
Curt Ladnier