Did TV suck in 1978? TV Guide's Fall Preview 1978.
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2024
- #FormerNetworkExec #TVGuideFallPreview
Are you a TV-aholic like I am? Then you'll LOVE this review of all the new TV sitcoms that debuted in 1978. Were the sitcoms worse back then?
The American Girls
Apple Pie
Battlestar Galactica
Dick Clark's Live Wednesday
The Eddie Capra Mysteries
Flying High
Grandpa Goes to Washington
In the Beginning
Kaz
Lifeline
Mary
Mork and Mindy
The Paper Chase
People
Sword of Justice
Taxi
Vegas
Waverly Wonders
W.E.B.
Who's Watching the Kids
WKRP in Cincinnati
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ADDENDUM: I said Lori Anderson instead of Loni. I'm very sorry. I love you Loni. I also pronounced Adama wrong. I'm from Hungarian stock, we emphasize the first syllable, so sue me.
If you say “so sue me” in America, surely that’s like a red flag to a bull? Or like an Oscars host joking about Will Smith’s wife!
At least you didn't say Louie Anderson nyuk nyuk
Your real unforgivable sin was not mentioning Buck Rogers and the lovely Erin Gray. But I forgive you anyway.
I just assumed you pronounced Adama like that to wind up the fans.
Don't care, im too busy laughing! Lol
I was 7 in '78 and absolutely loved Battlestar. I saw the Buck Rogers pilot in the theater with my Dad.
Big confession. I'm not a big fan of the Battlestar Galactica remake, found it to dark, nihilistic, and edgelordy. Still watch Battlestar and Buck Rogers on MeTV.
What a show when you were seven or eight try going back and having a look now ..😚
@@MaxPowers1245 it really was a great time to be a kid!! Especially for a sci-fi geek like myself.
@@MaxPowers1245 btw you are so right it did not age well lol 😜 Mr Rogers did not fair any better 🤣
@@adamvangesen9166 I’ve not gone back to Buck Rogers I know I had a crush on the blonde but I had a lot of crushes in those days 😚
Hey now, that was a good Battlestar! I loved it as a kid. The biggest problem with it was it was so expensive to make. The truly godawful one was Battlestar 1980, which lost most the primary cast, added a bunch of kids with super powers and flying motorcycles. Even as a kid that was unwatchable.
Still love WKRP's theme song!
It looks like we went to different schools together
not as unwatchable as the boring weird ass reboot. I'm sorry but that sci-fi channel reboot was sh--.
I LOVED this Battlestar, much more than the gloomy, dark new version. I mean, sure, the new one has classy, polished special effects, but it got so depressing. I prefer to have fun with my sci-fi.
The original Galactica was the poop in 1978. I tried watching the new one; I really tried. The most annoying thing to me was the constantly moving camera trick that they use in some of the newer movies and series, I guess to create the "illusion" of action, but it's just so distracting that I lose focus on the actual show. I gave up on it after a few episodes.
I was a HUGE Battlestar Galactica fan. I still have some of my toys! I heard about the new one, and my first question was, "Who is playing Starbuck?" When I found out Starbuck wasn't even human, I was done with it.
@@ancienttech4603 : Dirk Benedict was my fricking hero on our family wood-framed Zenith television! I suppose my father thought Battlestar Galactica was a bit ridiculous and it was. Lorne Greene was the staple of the show and put every kid in place as we imagined ourselves as Apollo.
My first recognition of the name Starbuck was from Melville's Moby Dick...and what a whale of a tale/tail that is! When BSG became a "thing" with the reboot and Starbuck cast as a female...my disappointment was immeasurable.
@@ancienttech4603 : Sorry, I got sidetracked...they were great toys! I had the Viper, Cylon Raider, and the Scarab. And that toy line changed our lives forever because some dumb kid choked to death because of a "firing missile".
@@tempestfury8324 And lets not forget that it also ruined the Boba Fett figure that I saved all those proofs of purchase for! Damn those irresponsible parents!
Mork was groundbreaking. WKRP as an anchor point for me. Taxi was incredible and launched so many careers. Looking at how good comedy was written then, compared to the diatribes that are called "comedy" now just makes me sigh, shake my head and pull up the old stuff on whatever streamer has it.
*Taxi* would’ve been one of the all-time great sitcoms if they had not enabled the career of T0ny D@nz@. His follow-up series was one of the worst shows of any era or any genre ever to air on television in any nation. It, and the even worse shows it enabled could all have been avoided if only he had gone to jail for assaulting that security guard.
WKRP was one of my absolute favourites! I love how Hugh Wilson gave the cast a lot of leeway.
Howard Hessman and Tim Reid actually programmed their own music. Hessman even spent a couple of months working at an actual radio station to get a feel for the character.
It absolutely sucks that most of the music had to be replaced with royalty-free music for the DVD release because of copyright.
There's a scene in one episode where "The Big Guy" wanders into the booth when Johnny is playing "Dogs" from Pink Floyd's "Animals".
He listens for a minute and asks Johnny "Do I hear dogs barking on that thing?" and Johnny replies " I do!". The joke just doesn't work if you can't use the music.
Fun fact: There's a reason you can't figure out the lyrics to the closing theme. There aren't any!
Jim Ellis (the musician who composed it) sang some nonsense gibberish when he did the demo and Hugh Wilson told him to leave it.
He thought it made a good satiric comment on the unintelligibly of some rock songs of the time.
What a great show! While most were focused on Jennifer, us geeks had Bailey on our minds.😃
"Wind to the bahbin and pop the lot ah binball!"
bah, bah, bah, baaaahhh!
"An I'm peeling hood, skipping the hoobie loo jaw!"
You can have them; I’ll take Andy Travis.
The 1978-79 TV season also saw The Dukes of Hazzard debut in the spring of 79 as a mid-season replacement. It lasted for 7 seasons and was one of the best shows of the era.
I was 17 in 1978 and I remember reading that issue of TV guide! Always enjoyed the crossword puzzle in the back! WKRP was one of my all time favorites.
You must be my twin!😊
I've just been watching the original BattleStar Galactica as part of a compete collection set I bought, and I've been loving the original series. It's been a lot of fun. The continuation from the 80's is a little blah, but that 1978 stuff Is a lot of fun and I really like the characters. It really was too bad it was only a single season.
Man...WKRP was my jam. I loved that show. I've always been a huge music fan, too, and looking at the various posters they had up on the walls (fun trivia: record labels sent those in to the show for free, just to get them seen by viewers to spark interest in certain acts) was always a lot of fun. Pity much of the music can't be licensed so reruns aren't nearly as fun. It's amazing to think that when the show debuted, Black Sabbath still featured it's original line-up, Led Zeppelin was still going strong, Pink Floyd hadn't yet released The Wall nor gone through its tumult...God it seems like just yesterday that show was on.
I think I'm going to break out my copies of the show to watch.
All the guys at school were into Loni Anderson but my heart/lust went to Jan Smithers. I had a mega crush on her.
I was a kid at the time and WKRP taught me that turkeys can't fly. (BTW- your channel is awesome. AD&D forever!)
@@electricpizza5774 Thank you, Electric Pizza! heck yeah, AD&D forever :)
1978 - Dungeon Masters Guide released...1978, WKRP debuts. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. ;)
@@Peorhum All right thinking guys were hot for Jan Smithers.
WKRP's Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaway episode might be the funniest episode of TV in the history of TV. Seriously, that episode had you gasping for breath as it went on and on. The reenactment of the Hindenburg disaster by Les Nessmen was pitch perfect. If you have not seen this it's on UA-cam now and well worth time to watch.
Taxi, missed my radar (too young?) but I remember Mork and Mindy.
Also, I could swear the Battlestar Galactica show lasted more than one season. ...looks up via internet... Dang it, I thought so, looks like I remember the short follow-up series in 1980 with those flying motorcycles above LA. and all. God I was addicted to cheese as a kid...
Yes, it's hard to get anyone younger than 40 to envision a past with only 3-4 channels to choose from (and one of those was PBS!). That you watched the show when it broadcast or you lost out until re-run season, and you better hold those rabbit ears correctly or no signal for you!
Chuckles the Clown funeral scene, Mary Tyler Moore. I think might have been the funniest. Seinfeld, Master of my domain, killer. Not a sitcom but dentist bit with Tim Conway, Carol Burnett. But turkey was a howl.
@@CallMeChato The dentist bit is definitely still up there! I saw that in reruns pre-internet and now on the net and it never fails to leave me laughing, Conway and Korman were brilliant!
Battlestar is like the Honeymooners. Most people are surprised the Honeymooners only had one season too.
There was the infamous Battlestar '79. It could be the core of a creative writing or television creation class about everything you don't do when writing for television.
The death of Chuckles the Clown
Turkeys Away and Ferryman Funerals
The final episode of Newhart
MASH Desk Episode and The Boxing Match
Dick van Dyke show...the walnut aliens dream
The new Dick van Dyke Show...the snake gag
Carol Burnett...Went With the Wind and Mandibles (Jaws)
Andy Griffith...the explosive goat
That's my top funny for US TV prior to 1985.
we're just lucky turkeys can fly!
I had a Mork action figure. It came in the egg ship. Had a Fonzie figure, as well, you could flip his thumbs up, haha. They used to make some really weird and random action figures when I was a kid.
I still have my mork action figure. I don't know where his egg is though.
Remember the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"? there was a figure of one of the creatures from the ship. It was hideous!😮
This was a TV season that is among my most remembered. In the 78 season, I had just gotten back from two years in Korea, where the most recent shows were at least two years old(most were from the 50s and 60s), on AFKN(Armed Forces Korea Network). It was a single channel, broadcast in black and white(for the first year, then color for the second), that ran programming from 2pm-1130pm Monday-Thursday with a creature feature running later on Fridays--10am-12am on Saturdays, and 10am-1030pm Sundays.
New programming from four channels that ran all day was literally a shock after that. 😆
This was great - looking forward to the next one! I have to say that I loved the original Battlestar Galactica, and, without wanting to provoke fans of grim and dark things, I think in at least a couple of areas it was superior to the later version. The miniature effects were up to movie standards for the time (whereas in the early episodes of the remake the CG was on a par with a late nineties video game cutscene) and the score was superb. Full orchestral music, a really great theme tune. That’s something that seems to have died out in the last couple of decades - memorable TV themes. Perhaps due to a need to squeeze in more commercials - or maybe present day creatives think having a catchy theme you can hum is just a dated notion now.
I heard you mention your TV Guide collection in your first Fall Preview review. I am something of a TV Guide collector myself--started saving them in 1967 as a young teen and kept on until they discontinued the pocket-sized issues. Unfortunately, I have no place to display my collection, so they are in boxes in my garage. It is awesome to see these little time capsules brought out to show their stuff. Thank you, Chato, and please keep it up!
Liked this one even more so than the first. Hearing you reminisce about each show as you remembered them as they debuted during their time was interesting!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." was a like secret pass phrase/counter sign at my station. Imposters were escorted out of the building.
One of two funniest single moments in TV history... The other is the" but first " line on the unexploded bomb episode of Mash
I love these. Of course TV was better back then! It was movies, music or TV. There wasn’t a fourth option, and TV had some great writers.
Not every show worked of course but there was true variety and a couple took off
PBS: everything wrong with commercial television now with a British accent!
Enjoying your commentary on these classic TV guides. For the life of me I just can't but my finger on why you're a former executive...
Ahhhh . . . I was hoping you would do more of these !
BTW : that TV Guide is in great shape for it's age, John Byner was almost cast as Mork, it would have been O.K. for a Happy Days epsode, not a long series.
John Byner had a recurring role on *Soap* this season as a detective who fell in love with Jessica.
This is one of those series that didn't sound that interesting from the title until I watched it, now I'm hooked, and kinda sad that it isn't performing as well as the others. It is binge-worthy though, and timeless, so the numbers will hopefully keep ticking up over time as opposed to the more current-news topics that have a shorter shelf life.
Hey, I liked Cattle-Car Galactica! :D Taxi was awesome. I'm surprised it started in 78. I thought it was a bit earlier.. I remember there being several MASH spinoffs, none did well.
Just came across your channel last week and love ! love! love! it! YOu insights and delivery are brilliant. Keep it up! I Appreciate it!
Thank you so much!
Pretty sure that the line up has better writing in it then most modern day television shows and less politics anyway. XD
Less politics? In the 70s?
Maybe not less, but definitely less heavy handed. For politics in TV of the 70's check out All in the Family (Plus spin-offs), MASH especially after Allen Alda took over, many episodes of Barney Miller, and Soap.
At least they were trying to be original in the presentation of non traditional characters and plots.
Sounds like a great year for sitcoms. All these shows were before my time, but many of them became classics that would always be on rerun as I grew up.
Great video again! I loved WKRP! When Andy puts the Kiss poster on the wall in the pilot, I knew I would love the show.
I am so happy you are in front of the camera now and sharing the beautiful quality of person you are and your insightful intelligence.
Thank you
Thank you so much!
I liked the way the first episode of this covered more ground but I like the commentary as well. Keep it up!
Great stuff. I remember eagerly looking forward to these TV guide issues as a kid, maybe there is something to be said about the simplicity of only having a few channels to watch. I do not watch much TV anymore, I think mostly because I cannot keep up with what is actually on and worth watching.
Yes the simple enjoyment of getting this issue and ripping through it to see what the new shows were going to be. Miss that.
Great Breakdown! Fantastic as always.
These are incredible segments! Please get around to reviewing all your old TV guides.
When I was a kid in the 80s, my dad and I would religiously go at the new guides together with highlighters to pick out what we'd watch, and watch together, and also we'd RIFF the descriptions of new shows.
So, thank you! Btw great channel all together, a new fave
1977 coming soon.
I really like these. Please make more.
"WHAT DOES A YELLOW LIGHT MEAN?????????" I still laugh at that one. Almost as funny as the pigmy marnoset that peed on Johnny Carson's head. Even funnier that "I honestly thought that turkeys could fly."
😂❤
Your TV Guide pieces crack me up! Totally showing your age, and good for you. You're about 15 years ahead of me. In the 70's I was younger than 10, you were in your middle plus 20's. And I'm not complaining, just an observation. I remember many of these shows, and I remember these little "digest" style booklets for TV. You're taking me way back, for sure. And it's Ah-Dah-Ma. I know you know. Keep it going, friend.
Battlestar Galactica was the best Science Fiction show during a time when the genre on TV wasn't very good or almost non-existent. Its cancellation was a dumb decision. Bringing it back the way it was an even dumber decision.
The casts contracts expired, the network delayed renewing it till it was too late, MCA should have bit the bullet and wrapped it up .
The original Battlestar Galactica was a fun show in the tradition of appealing to a broad audience like the westerns of the sixties. The remake was done by people who viewed the original as "genre fluff made for kids" so they went to extremes to be dark and gritty because they didn't want to be ghettoized but rather be taken "seriously".
I was 12 when Battlestar Galactia first aried. Demographic wise it had the most college educated audience of any show, I recall reading at the time. The big problem for them is an episode was about 1 million bucks and turned a slight profit. For the same one million you could do 4 episodes of sitcoms. If that was 4 episodes of "Hello Larry" then Galactica was a better deal. But that is not how network execs work. They imagined 4 episodes of the hottest new comedy like "Mork and Mindy". Galactica had to die. By mid-season they moved it to a different night and time on an almost weekly basis trying to loose the audience. Referring back to "best educated audience" and much to the chagrin of ABC, fans kept finding the show and watching it. Galactica 1981 was done on purpose to be very cheap to make and to leave such a bad taste in the mouth of fans that loved the original show, they would stop asking for more.
I agree, for the time Battlestar Galactica was by far the best sci fi on TV that wasn't comedy. Writing and directing could have been better but that is the case of most TV series really... it was 1970s TV for Pete's sake, far from the peak of entertainment. Back then TV just trained you for making movies. The 1st season was pretty good but the 2nd season was total crap. Now of course when you rewatch it you notice how poorly produced it was with the reusing of the same scenes over and over and over again, to save on production costs.
I grew up disliking Dabney Coleman, refusing to ever see anything he was in. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized it was because he was a bad guy in a Muppets movie.
I liked the new format, particularly your added commentary
Oh man, you made my day! You have a tee-shirt with the REAL Iron Man! The 60s, 70s, and 80S classic armor I grew up with.
Another great video! Thanks
Thanks for another fun trip down memory lane. Sticking to sitcoms makes sense, given your interests/experience, so no complaints on that change from your "pilot" episode. Purely for the entertainment quality of it, I will say that when I spotted the blurb for Robert Uhrich's Vega$ it brought back a memory I didn't realize was that old... Grandma coming to visit us for a week or two, and while with us insisting we watch "the show with that handsome young man"--meaning Uhrich! Ah, Grandma... Apparently she was a sucker for those dark haired boys. Even if she was over twice his age at the time. ;)
Oh, that's how they got the little old ladies for sure. Interesting fact, Uhrich had the highest Q score on TV. I believe every show he was in lasted for a few seasons at least.
I would rush home from school to watch Battlestar Gallatica, LOL!
Wow, lot of great shows!
Take care, still hopeful in Manitoba, Canada
Love how you had to define "without further ado" heh. Blast from the past these old guides; Nanu Nanu!
Thanks for the commentary, which I enjoyed.
I love this. The little backstories for the shows are very interesting.
I don't remember most of those shows, especially the Scott Baio one. This was a good video. A blast from the past.
As a future network executive, I picture you as the narrator of a parody science fiction network television show. Your reading of (Battlestar Galactica), made me think of that. But that must be your character animation professional voice work showing up. In fact, I was made aware that you are one of the top commercial product confectionaire character animated voice actors that also has a channel on APPLE PRODUCT HACKS that also watched STARTREK as they were airing live. WOW, Great Work!
This is a great vid about a great era and year in TV. I liked many of those shows, Taxi included. I barely remember Waverly Wonders.
I enjoyed this version much more. Thanks for making it.
See, I was listening. Thanks.
Woah check out that funky outro! This guy hops hip!
I adored the fall preview issues of TV guide and tv guides from the Toronto Star and Toronto Sun. All were fun to read and enjoy
I love this. Do more TV guide videos.
This is great, thank you.
Thank you for doing this.... I still love some of these shows (MTM, MASH, Taxi, and so forth)...
Om totally obsessed with you! You make me laugh! Thank you.
Yay! Thank you!
@@CallMeChato I'm canadian too. Keep up the good work. Youre my new fav :-)
When I was young I was such a fan of WKRP in Cincinnati, it had one of the coolest premise of a show.
I enjoyed it very much! I think I like it with the music for sitcoms. If you do a special show on dramas or crime dramas, try some dramatic music!
I like the personal story aspects, that adds something to these videos which anyone else couldn't do.
Peter I was hoping you would do more of these! What I realized about your voice as I would pretty much listen to you read anything! He's reading Campbell Soup now! What's this noodles chicken MSG? Lol. I agree with you on the use of bed tracks they are totally unnecessary. Your voice carries the emotional quality with no need for music steering it. Thanks again for another great read through!
Battlestar Galactica, Taxi, Mork and Mindy, WKRP...I would consider that a winning year. Sure, Galactica only had one season, but it's the only show that year that became a franchise. It sold toys, books, and merchandise...and had two revivals.
I loved WKRP. The sad part is that I can't get old episodes with the original soundtrack.
You are 100% right on WKRP. A great show that did cover deep and controversial topics as well, a bit unique for a sitcom at the time.
I watched pretty much everything that lasted a season on this list. Fun stroll down memory lane.
Notes on the video:
The music was inoffensive. Frankly, that's better than some other channels I watch. No need to change.
I liked the commentary. Anybody can read a TV Guide; few have a network executive's insight. If anything, go deeper.
Disagreed with your take on Battlestar Galactica, but I understand your reasoning. If you'll recall, sci-fi fans had very few choices back then, so as imperfect as it was, I am still fond of it.
Idea for future series on this channel:
Dive deep into a show each episode; sometimes a hit, sometimes something that didn't get past the pilot. What I really want is to tap into your experience and learn what makes a success or at least why a network executive thinks a show could be a success (or failure).
Glad you mentioned how McLean Stevenson followed many actors before and after, thinking it was them, not the writers….
Remember all, most of these beloved shows you Remember fondly can be found on a streaming service
Now wait, I can't say I ever watched "Vegas" -- I was 8 at the time -- but I recall that being a pretty successful show.
Listed beneath Mork & Mindy was the Paper Chase starring John Houseman. I recall that was a decent show. It lasted four seasons and ended with a two part series finale, which was rare for that time. It was based on the 1973 movie which also starred Houseman in an Oscar winning performance, which itself was based on a 1971 novel. All-in-all, 1978 had a lot of good stuff. I was a high school student back then and a big devotee to the CBS comedies, especially WKRP.
They brought it back on Showtime while Houseman was also playing Ricky Schroder‘s grandfather on *Silver Spoons* and doing Puritan oil commercials.
CBS gave it "lip service". "THE PAPER CHASE" was on for one season- then they tried to attract the same audience watching "HAPPY DAYS" and "LAVERNE & SHIRLEY" by scheduling "CALIFORNIA FEVER" the following season (13 episodes). The 1978-'79 season was a somewhat volatile one for CBS.
9:34 - Hugh Wilson, the creator of “WKRP…” was a graduate of the University of Florida, and he spoke at my baccalaureate at UF in 1981…
Ahh, Mork and Mindy, I really had forgotten about this.
These are interesting. I was born in ‘82, so I’m very interested to see more of these from after that time.
More to come!
Being 10 years old at the time most of the shows you highlighted were a bit to cerebral for me, though I do remember Waverly Place, and thinking it being a poor man's Welcome back Kotter with Turkey's replacing Sweathogs. Love the premise of the video. More please 👍
After that show was canceled, Joe Namath hired a gypsy to put a curse on whatever show replaced it. That show just happened to be *Diff’rent Strokes.* And the rest, as they say, is history.
I'd really like it if you covered all shows sitcoms, drama etc. Even if it's a longer episode. Really liked the commentary music bed is fine.
I so miss these shows - Taxi, WKRP, BSG, and more. Last show on TV that i enjoyed was Psych which replaced Monk, another great show.
I find these a combination of nostalgia and something that makes me feel old. Which are probably flip sides of the same thing.
WKRP aired what is arguably the best sitcom episode ever, "Turkeys Away!" It was brilliant all the way to the last line, "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly"
The creators wanted to do the show because of the turkey episode. It happened at a radio station where one of them worked. Though exaggerated for plot purposes, it's based on a true story that people loved to hear him tell.
New watcher after your appearance on Midnight's Edge. Enjoying the content...even if you're totally ass backwards wrong about OG Battlestar...nobody's perfect
Ahhh... The long-lost art of sitcoms. 1978, the year I was born and Boney M took us on a flight to Venus together with Superman. What a year!!! ;)
I was 10 in 1978 and remember Battlestar Galactica very well.
Aww, I loved Battlestar Galactica. You’re right about WKRP.
I was only 1 in 1978. I remember watching WKRP, probably reruns when I was older. Good American shows aired in New Zealand.
I’ll keep it short and sweet. Loved it. I’m hoping that the views will increase making this worthwhile for you to do many more.
Thanks a lot. It's not easy coming up with stuff that everyone else isn't doing already on this damn platform. These are fun.
Here in the UK, Mork and Mindy was beloved by the kids, and Taxi was a massive hit with adults (well, my mum, anyway). Battlestar Galactica was popular for handsome chaps like Dirk Benedict, impressive looking robots, and quality special effects that made Doctor Who and Blake's 7 look like cheap rubbish. As a massive fan of 1970s Doctor Who, and of Blake's 7, I'm inclined to think these have, conceptually, withstood the test of time better than Battlestar. Looking forward to more of your reviews of yesterdyear!
I'm currently watching Taxi on Hulu. Hulu kept recommending it to me and for months I turned my nose up at it thinking it would be boring, too blue collar and that it looked grungy. I kind of imagined a show like Grace Under Fire. But, holy cow, it's good! I'm trying not to binge the series, keeping it to only an episode or two at a time. It's the type of show I want to pay attention to and not just have it play in the background while working. If that Battlestar series with Lorne Greene had sort of an Egyptian aesthetic, I watched it quite a few years ago when Hulu was newly launched and I think I kind of liked it. It may have been of way poorer quality than the cinematic Star Wars and as campy as the original Star Trek, but I remember it keeping my attention. I'm definitely going to rewatch it sometime if I can find it online again. Maybe it isn't as good as I remember and it deserved to be cancelled. I do like this TV Guide Fall Preview series, though. It's giving me some new old shows to keep an eye out for on Hulu and CTV Throwback.
"It appears to be a sky diver although I don't see a shoot yet. Om my god they're turkeys!"
I remember 1978 but honestly I don't recall any of those 'Failed' shows. No a single one. I do recall all of the hits, though. It's funny looking back at what failed and seeing how similar some of those ideas are to failing shows today.
Next time not just sitcoms. Many of these I don't remember at all. Merciful.
can't wait for the next one! 😀👍
The theme music for "Taxi" was a jazz tune called "Angela".
I recall that TV Guide ran a series of original art by 70s pulp fantasy artist Frank Frazetta to promote Battlestar Galactica. It was an incredible ad campaign (and expensive, I imagine) for a new Fall TV network show. I don't remember anything like it since... probably because the show was rushed to air and failed hard.
That would have been killer.
I was 13 in 1978 and immediately fell in love with Battlestar Galactica. I don't think I ever forgave ABC for cancelling it an then trying to revive it as the awful G80.
Horrid stuff on TV. And not just in '78. Thanks, Chato for the memories of why I stopped watching TV. And stuck to painting, writing, freelance design and illustration. WKRP was the only good thing on the air that year.
I would have watched a show of just Lynda Goodfriend walking around in shorts. Battlestar was an event with my friends and we all got our Micronauts and watched it together every week.
dabney coleman never caught a break....great actor
I recently watched Pam Dawber in the TV movie adaptation of Dean Koontz' novel THE FACE OF FEAR. She and her co-star do some impressive abseiling stunts down the side of a building set in act 3.
Just stumbled on to this part of your broadcast. Did not know you did TV Guide reviews. Is very funny. But I should tell you it brought up a memory. lived in a small farm town. I had a paper route. And we got our TV listings from the newspaper. My parents never bought TV Guide. I believe they thought people that bought that were a little high tone Lol. You know a little too cityfied. Then a little later in life I learned that my dad's dad cut the radio listings out of the newspaper and hung them on a nail driven in the wall. My mother would have shot my dad if he had driven a nail into the wall of the living room So I guess there was some progress made in our family from the 1920s to the 1960s and seventies, But buying a TV guide was a bridge too far for my dad.
Wonderful story.
Spending 20 minutes just walking and talking with Robin Williams is fucking epic!
I recently re-watched WKRP. Still a great show.
Maybe you should do each year like you are doing but I'd like to go back in time and remember each category besides just the comedy shows (please!). BTW, I was born in 1964 so yea, I even remember ST tho it would be some time after when that show hit the re-run era for me to fully appreciate it! Thanks!!!
Typical mix of hits and misses. TV is never as bad or as good as people claim. Looks like 1978 was also the premiere of Spencer for Hire, a great show. I didn't realize that Taxi was not a huge ratings success. But yeah, a wonderful comedy.
I was still a little young during these years but I caught many of those shows in syndication as I was older. Battlestar give me my Star wars fix, and Mindy was fun for a season but as I got older I found it that WKRP was my favorite of all of those offerings. Compared to hollywood, Cincinnati was right around the corner from my hometown of cleveland.
I remember this particular fall preview above all others. Taxi, along with Mork & Mindy & WKRP ushered out the 70's with great comedy, pushing Kotter type sitcoms towards the back.
Apple Pie was a pretty good show, at least in my 13 year old eyes. One of the few times I was angry at such an early cancellation. A few years earlier I was really pissed ABC cancelled When Things Were Rotten but it did really go downhill those last few episodes.
Everything Norman Lear ever produced is degenerate propaganda.