Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Father Knows Best










Father Knows Best was a popular 1950s family sitcom. It originated as a radio show in the summer of 1949 and ran to March 1954. Six months later it made its debut as a television show and enjoyed a long run into 1960. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Knows_Best

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Amos 'n Andy Show




The Amos 'n Andy Show was a pioneering sitcom in the early 1950s. Based on some of the characters of the radio show of the same name which began in 1928 and ran for decades, it was the first TV sitcom to utilize the multi-camera production technique and featured very well crafted comedy scripts by Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly. It starred Tim Moore, Spencer Williams, Ernestine Wade, Alvin Childress, Amanda Randolph, Johnny Lee and Nick Stewart. The main focus of the stories usually revolved around the scheming shenanigans of  George 'Kingfish" Stevens (Tim Moore) {and sometimes lawyer-wannabe Algonquin Calhoun (Johnny Lee)} that usually victimized his good-natured friend Andy Brown (Spencer Williams). However, George was no match for his morally responsible wife Sapphire (Ernestine Wade) and cab company owner and friend Amos (Alvin Childress) who always turned the tables and foiled his schemes. This theme was very similar to that of The Honeymooners which was also very popular at that time, although I must say when it came to comedy acting the cast of Amos 'n Andy had it all over Gleason and friends. The Honeymooners was very compressed and stiff compared to A 'n A. A lot of the comedy was Gleason shouting and bugging his eyes out. The Amos 'n Andy cast was very broad and fluid and warm. The show was canceled before all the episodes aired but they were later broadcast during the show's syndicated life. Six episodes appear to have been lost. There have been a lot of bootleg sets kicking around for quite a few years now but none of the people that issued them ever took the time to correctly identify and arrange the episodes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_%27n%27_Andy

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Honey West


Honey West was the first Hollywood female private detective show. Starring the late Anne Francis in the title role, the character first appeared in an April 1965 episode of Burke's Law (found on Disc 1). The show was well-received but not brought back after its first season because ABC determined it would be cheaper to license the great UK show The Avengers than it would be to produce another season of Honey West. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Good Morning World


Good Morning World was a 1967-1968 sitcom starring Ronnie Schell, Joby Baker, Julie Parrish, Goldie Hawn and Billy DeWolfe. Good, bad or indifferent, this bit from its wiki page says a lot:
"The show's creators were Carl Reiner, Sheldon Leonard, Bill Persky and Sam Denoff, all of whom had worked on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and was inspired by Persky & Denoff's personal experiences working as continuity writers for several disc jockeys on radio station WNEW in New York during the 1950s." In other words, whether it was a good show or not, it was very dated for its time, though it did help launch Hawn's career. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Morning,_World

Monday, January 2, 2012

The Rebel


The Rebel was a western drama that ran for 76 episodes on ABC between Sept. 1959 and June 1961. Starring Nick Adams as a former Confederate soldier named Johnny Yuma who roams around Texas searching for inner peace and justice for all. The good news: someone was nice enough to record all these shows and collate them and make them available. The bad news: as with The Rifleman and defying all logic, they made the picture size only half of what it should be at its minimum! They look okay on a 26-inch set. I don't have a 32-inch to try them on, but obviously these are going to look like crap on a large TV. And that has nothing to do with being DivX. These are available all over iAwful on 10 discs (each disc is only about half full) and it's the same small picture size. More good news: at least you can get the entire show on 2 discs. According to wiki, this is currently being aired on a channel called MeTV...whatever that is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rebel_%28TV_series%29