June 19, 2014

Around the dial

There's lots of good stuff out there, and I've been negligent lately in pointing it out to you. Let's take a look, shall we?

Another great Danger Man piece over at Cult TV Blog, this time about the episode "You're Not In Any Trouble, Are You?"  The irony is intentional.  You've probably picked up that I like both the blog and the show.

I've been listing to old-time radio (OTR) on the Sirius channel lately, and I never fail to be surprised at the number of radio shows that made the transition to television.  We all know that early TV was filled with radio imports, but it's the shows that we don't think about - such as the radio version of Have Gun - Will Travel, that actually came after the TV version stared - that are the most fun.  This week, How Sweet It Was takes a look at one of them - Father Knows Best, which had a very successful radio run before moving to TV.  And yes, Robert Young played Jim Anderson there, too..

I confess - I watched the Archie cartoons on Saturday mornings when I was a kid.  I'm not proud of it, but if I'll admit to this, just think of the things I won't admit to, at least here.  Comfort TV takes us through the history of Archie on television, but for me the clincher was in the very first sentence, alluding to the implausibility of eternal teenagers: "Seventy years in high school? Even a Kardashian could graduate in that time."

Looking at some other sites, SI.com discusses what televised football will look like ten years from now.  Are you ready for 4K and 8K HD television, pictures that will make today's HD sets look like the analog tubes of yesteryear?  What about technology that can digitally remove players from a pile up in order to see whether or not the ball crossed the goal line?  It won't do much for vintage TV, but it makes the head spin, doesn't it?

Whitman TV-tie in books.  I'll bet you had some of these when you were young.  I know I did; I remember in particular an F-Troop book that was just as much dumb fun as the show was.  This week, Television Obscurities takes a closer look at the Whitman line, including many titles I've seen in antique stores, and a lot that I was never aware of.

As you'll see on this site over the next couple of weeks, there's no shortage of classic television online nowadays, and some of the shows - classics as well as unknowns - are quite illuminating.  This week Kinescope HD offers a look at the King of 1960s Comedy, the nation's "Comic in Chief," Bob Hope, and this complete episode of the Bob Hope Buick Show.  Yes, I know it's so commercial, but I really do like those shows that had the sponsor's name in the title.  It works much better with a TV show than, say, a bowl game, don't you think? TV  

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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!