December 13, 2017

Yuletide Greetings, Part 1

For the next couple of Wednesdays, I thought I'd focus on some Christmas-type programming that doesn't often get seen anywhere. I think it's important for television to recognize that this time of the year is an important cultural milestone, and not just in a commercial sense.

This first one is one that ought to please our own Mike Doran, because it's about as long-form as you can get: an entire Christmas week's worth of episodes from NBC's daytime drama The Doctors. This was broadcast December 25-29, 1969.


This second clip is from CBS's Search for Tomorrow. It aired on December 26, 1966. The quality may be a bit rocky, but you'll still get the point.


I'll be back next week with a couple more rare shows!  TV  

2 comments:

  1. I know that you meant well, but ...

    See, the thing is I never watched The Doctors, or any other NBC soap;
    Starting in the late '60s, my family had brand loyalty to ABC's daytime schedule, specificaly All My Children, One Life To Live, and General Hospital, in that order.

    Before that, we mainly watched CBS Daytime: this is where I first became intrigued by The Edge Of Night, at that time the only crime/mystery soap.

    When I got my first VCR in '81, Edge had moved to ABC, and so I was able to watch the whole bloc late at night.

    You know, I've been dropping hints about Edge for so long i'd have thought you would have caught on.
    Since you haven't, I just pass this along for your benefit (and anybody else's):
    As it happens, I've been looking at Edge Of Night's Christmas Week from 1984 - the last four shows they did before ABC cancelled the show.
    It's very Christmasy indeed: a wedding, a couple of engagements, a family reunion, some family fortunes, expanding families -
    - and Something Else, which crops up in the last two shows.
    No spoilers here - I want you (and everybody else) to check these four shows out for yourselves.
    The dates are December 25, 26, 27, and 28, all available on YouTube, courtesy of someone identifying as MrEdge80s.
    This worthy has managed to track down almost all the Edge episodes from early 1982 til the Grand Finale.
    MrEdge's collection comes mainly from the USA Network's repeats of Edge circa 1990; however, the last two shows here (the 27th and 28th) are the original ABC network airings, complete with the 1984 commercials and promos, which I always skip.
    Each episode, minus ads, runs about 21 minutes, give or take; the four shows together come up to just under 90 minutes, or one feature film.
    (Of course, you should really start with two episodes from October 21 and 24 of 1983 (a year earlier), which help set up that Something Else I mentioned earlier ...)
    Ah well, if you don't pick up on my needling any better than you have in the past, maybe somebody else who comes here will ...

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  2. Ah, but I wasn't referring to which network's soaps you supported =- just to your love for elongated storylines! A soap is probably the only outlet - other than the Church - that can make Christmas last an entire week! :)

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