October 16, 2020

Around the dial



Well, let's see what we have this week. I never played video games on our TV when I was growing up; we didn't have them yet, for one thing, and by the time they did come along, it was cooler to go to an arcade and play them. We still don't have anything like a Playstation; nowadays, it's easier to just use your phone. Perhaps I just don't have the imagination for it.

At Comfort TV, David gets in the Halloween spirit with a look back at the 1970 ABC telemovie Crowhaven Farm. What kind of movie is it? The plot involves Hope Lange and Paul Burke and an old farmhome they've inherited, and discover that the creepy handyman is played by John Carradine. As David says, "That is sign number two that this may not be a great place to relocate," and truer words have seldom been spoken.

Keeping in that Holloween spirit, Shadow & Substance delves into the famed first episode of The Twilight Zone, "Where Is Everybody?" which aired in October 1958, and a small scene which never made the final script.

Speaking of spooky holidays, Realweegiemidget reviews the 1972 TV movie Home for the Holidays, in which "The Morgan sisters return to the family home for Christmas, as their estranged father is worried his new wife is trying to kill him." And you think your family gatherings are bad.

Let's find something a little more relaxing. Ah yes, at Garroway at Large, Jodie tells the story of what at the time was the world's largest Venetian blind, 18 by 88 feet and weighing 248 pounds. It was used by NBC for the front window of the Garroway-era Today window to the world. Suddenly, our vertical blinds don't look so bad.

At The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew talks about the evolution of the show from radio, where it had started in 1935, to television: a move which started with four experimental broadcasts, and led to the premiere, 70 years ago this month, of the television series.

Finally, one of the great baseball players of my youth, Whitey Ford, died last week, and Inner Toob commemorates the life of the Yankee giant as only that site can, looking at his television apperances in which he played himself. TV  

3 comments:

  1. Is there supposed to be a link following the video games comment?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the mention Mitchell, it really was a treat seeing Eleanor Parker in this film... it's definitely one for the towatch list if you haven't already!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for writing! Drive safely!