October 30, 2014

The Love Boat, Maverick, The Prisoner and more!

Yours truly has, from time to time, poked fun at ABC's '70s-'80s hit The Love Boat, and will probably continue to do so when given the opportunity.  And yet, as Comfort TV reminds us, it was an enormous hit that's still fondly remembered by many - and maybe it's the perfect kind of show to watch when the real world gets a little too hard to handle.

The Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland has this very cool picture of Portland, Oregon television station KGWs futuristic broadcasting studio.  Does this scream midcentury, futuristic design or what?  What a great link between early television and the styles of American culture.

Be sure to read the conclusion of Cult TV's write-up on allegory in The Prisoner - this week, it's the infamous final episode, "Fall Out."  Some very interesting conclusions here, with which I'm inclined to agree - that The Prisoner "may be better interpreted in psychological terms" than as an allegory, though I don't think there's any doubt there are allegorical images contained.

Nice picture at The Lucky Strike Papers of author Andrew Lee Fielding's mother, Sue Bennett (a member of the cast of Your Hit Parade) along with fellow singer Russell Arms.  We're really geared to think of moving images when studying television, and yet I think that still photographs, with an unlimited time to study them, can be even more forceful in bringing back memories.*  And by the way, read the book!

*Did you know that every time you remember a memory of the past, you're actually remembering the last time you remembered it, rather than the original memory?  I didn't know that until recently.  But of course I'm not recalling that conversation - merely the last time I thought about it.

All Things Kevyn has nothing to do this week with television, but everything to do with the wonderful Calvin and Hobbes.  Anyone who's ever looked at the sidebar knows that strip is held in high esteem around here, and this cartoon helps explain why.

Television's New Frontier: the 1960s takes a look at what it is that makes Maverick one of the most unique, clever and fondly remembered Westerns of the late '50s, and how Warner Brothers' foolish decisions brought the show down.  It's always the suits in the end, isn't it?

You should always read Television Obscurities for the weekly TV Guide review, but also for the looks at the obscure shows of the past (hence the title, right?) such as Thrills and Chills, a New York show from 1941.  Always interesting to remember that television started much earlier than we think, isn't it?

Coming up this Saturday - a look at Election Day 1980 in the pages of TV Guide! TV  

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