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Ten Perfect Classic TV Punch Lines
I’ve mentioned Entertainment Weekly magazine before in this blog, usually in disparaging terms. But inexplicably I’m still a subscriber, and recently I received their 30th anniversary issue, which...
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Halloween Comfort TV: Crowhaven Farm
The calendar says its October and usually that means I’d start delving into my go-to Halloween-themed classic TV episodes…but I’m just not feeling it this year. Maybe 2020 has been scary enough...
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The Unshakeables: The Bionic Woman Saves the World
A television show succeeds if it holds your attention for the time it’s on. But some episodes stay with you long after the credits roll. The emotions they generate do not dissipate for several...
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Pumpkins, Presidents and “That Girl”
Halloween is a couple of days away, and there’s a presidential election just three days later (you might have read something about that over the past two years). If you’re looking for appropriate...
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Five Classic Shows With Great Final Seasons
When you look back over the dozens of series that most television fans view as classics, it’s amazing that so many of them stumbled in their final seasons. Reasons for this phenomenon vary: the most...
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Spending the Day After Thanksgiving With Ozzie & Harriet
One week from today will be the day after Thanksgiving. Usually it’s also Black Friday, but this year most stores will either be closed or keeping their usual hours, which may be the only positive...
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Introducing My New Book: When Television Brought Us Together
For the past eight years this blog has been a celebration of the era of television that I deemed “Comfort TV.” I started the blog as a place to write about the classic shows I grew up watching and...
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I Need a Little Classic TV Christmas – Right This Very Minute
When I watched my usual line-up of classic TV Christmas episodes over the last couple of years, it sometimes felt like just going through the motions. Oh, I still enjoyed my favorites, and found...
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Top TV Moments: John McGiver
We classic TV fans all have a few actors that bring a smile to our face when they show up in a guest appearance. That’s how I feel when I see John McGiver, in one of his typecast roles as a prickly...
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Classic TV 2020: The Year in Review
On January 1 of 2020 I posted a review of the most memorable classic TV-related moments from the previous year. How little we all knew then about what lay ahead of us. I almost didn’t bother with a...
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Purchase or Pass: The Eleventh Hour
Full disclosure: I do not own any medical shows on DVD. There are several I like, and I’ve watched episodes here and there online and on nostalgia networks, but for me they don’t have the...
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Why Didn’t "Please Don’t Eat the Daisies" Work?
A few months ago I decided I had waited long enough for some TV shows to be released on DVD. Life is too short and with certain short-lived series, the likelihood of an official release seems more...
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Banks – For the Memories
In most classic TV series there will eventually be a scene in which someone goes to the bank. Like many such moments, it depicts an activity both immediately familiar and yet very different from how...
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Censoring Classic TV
The other night I was watching an episode of Room 222entitled “What Is a Man?” The story opens with Alice (Karen Valentine) proposing a reading of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in the way it would be...
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Feeling Sad? Watch The Nelsons Host a Fraternity Party
Before we get started…Last week’s piece on the censorship of classic television generated several hundred comments on social media, almost all of which expressed a strong preference for allowing...
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The Subversive Pleasure of Watching Christmas Shows After Christmas
March is right around the corner, but this week I watched two classic Christmas episodes: “The Angel’s Sweater” (Father Knows Best) and “The Voice of Christmas” (The Brady Bunch). Why? Because I...
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Ranking the Ranks of TV’s Top Cops
Police shows have been a television staple since the earliest days of the medium. And like many such shows they can educate the public about the profession they portray, even if that is not their...
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Wait – That Show Was a Hit?
“The Top Ten” is a phrase synonymous with success. Whether it’s a reference to Billboard music charts or weekly box office figures or Nielsen ratings, if you crack that list, it’s an impressive...
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The Twelve Most Memorable Commercials Featuring Classic TV Stars
I love old TV commercials, for reasons that would take too long to explain here. The short answer is they were generally quieter, more sincere, and a lot less annoying than the commercials we get now...
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Do You Agree With IMDB’s Top Rated Classic TV Episodes?
As often as I’ve visited the Internet Movie Database, I never cared about its selections of “Top Rated Episodes” for TV shows. But when I was there last week to look up an episode of Soap, I noticed...
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