What to make your own tv show?

Wired has a fascinating article on a tv production studio in a box.

For $4,000, it's a specialized computer that can control cameras and video effects, letting one person run a live tv show feed, replacing a whole truck of equipment used in the past. It's making niche video programming more viable for sure.

blog post at Wired

The Magnificent Marble Machine

I had a vague memory - a strange recollection in the back of my brain - of a game show I saw once or twice in the 1970s. A game show that was just horrid.

I forgot it for many years until I ran into a game show site that mentioned it. Now, I've found a link to a streamed version of one of the only two surviving episodes from the series.

The Magnificent Marble Machine

The show ran on NBC for a few months and the producers hoped to capitalize on the pinball craze of the time. With the cheezy graphics and music and the massive pinball machine that seems to dwarf everyone on the show, it's a long strange trip back to the worst of the 70s.

More free advice for NBC

The big news in TV this week is that NBC is seriously reconsidering their programming and approach as a network, giving Jay Leno a spot at 10:00 pm on the schedule five nights a week. They're also considering a drop in the number of hours they offer programming in prime-time.

The blog Planet All-Star has an open letter to NBC execs with some free advice. He makes some good points - reducing a "season" to thirteen episodes to avoid "padding" of series, having faith in creative talent, and even dropping Saturday and Sunday evening programming. But, I've got a bit of advice of my own.

One of the things that NBC and other networks fail to recognize is that they have a rich library of programming that would be interesting and relevant to viewers today. Think about it - they wouldn't be bringing back "Bionic Woman" or "Night Rider" as new series if the originals weren't fan favorites. So, as an experiment, why not pull shows out of your library on Saturday or Sunday nights for a whole evening each week of "Classic NBC".

The way I'd program it would be to have different shows each week, but program each block in a similar way, perhaps with more family-oriented or daytime shows at 7:00, some kind of drama at 8:00, a couple of sitcoms at 9:00, and a crime drama at 10:00. And I'd go back beyond the 80s to even include a dash of shows from the 50s and early 60s in the mix - for some, it would be nostalgia, for other viewers they'd be surprised at how campy some of the shows would be.

Sure, many of these shows are available on DVD format or even through streaming at various sites. But, for the casual viewer, looking to be entertained, they could tune in just for the convenience of having a block of old shows programmed for them. Heck, it would be cheap and probably do better in the ratings than offerings from the other networks.

Goodwill hunting - Dora Hall and Just Call Me Old

Stopped by Goodwill today and made two little discoveries.

First off, I found two VHS tapes of Dora Hall tv specials, "Dora's World" and "Secret Sleuth".

If you do any web search on Dora, you can find out more than you ever wanted to know about her. She was born about 1900 and was always fascinated with show business. Her husband, owner of the Solo Cup company, financed recordings of her albums which were given away with proofs of purchase from Solo Cup products. He also paid for some elaborate tv specials starring Dora in the 1970s and these were also available as Solo Cup premiums. (Here's a web version of a great TV Guide article from 1971 about the first tv show she did, "Once Upon a Tour".)

My fellow lp fanatic and musician friend Carman gifted me a couple of Dora's lps, featuring her remarkable song stylings on tunes like "Hang On Sloopy" and the Rolling Stones's "Satisfaction". The tv specials are a very different level of Dora Hall artistry.

The specials are the absolute cheesiest of 70's musical variety shows, compressed into a swift half-hour. In "Secret Sleuth", Dora owns a newstand and the plot has something to do with a mysterious man and a briefcase; it's just an excuse for Dora to perform songs like "Secret Agent Man" and "King of the Road". "Dora's World" has Dora playing a show-biz vet grandmother that annoys her daughter in law by performing numbers for the kids all the time. She does "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" sitting on a motorcyle surrounded by gyrating dancers dressed in bell bottoms and 70's glitter and guys in kung fu outfits (don't ask). Oh, and she serves them milk and cookies. (Again, don't ask.)

My second discovery at Goodwill?

At the checkout, the clerk, after ringing up my tapes asked, "Senior citizens discount?"

Since I'm only 43 and the clerk looked to be well over sixty, I'm not sure why she thought I knew the secret AARP handshake that gets me discount coffee at McDonald's.

Was it the way I look?

Or was it because I bought two Dora Hall videotapes?

1984, the BBC version

Screened the BBC television production of "1984" over the weekend. Sourced from a kinescope, this is the only surviving record of a live, two-hour television adaption of the novel from 1954 that stars Peter Cushing.

The acting by Cushing and the cast is first rate. It was an ambitious production, consiting of 28 sets, several filmed inserts to "open up" the story or bridge scenes, and a live orchestra playing the score in a nearby studio. The intimacy of the production, with minimalist sets and lots of close-ups, adds to the claustrophobic feeling of the story and allows you to concentrate fully on Cushing's disheartening transformation to a man crushed by Big Brother.

The British had considerable experience with fairly elaborate dramatic productions all the way back in the 1930's in the early days of electronic television, so it's no surprise that they were able to pull off "1984" so well - it was light years ahead of US television at the time. The only detraction was the flimsy cardboard set used for Winston Smith's apartment; it just wasn't convincing and briefly broke the "spell" of watching the drama unfold.

Too bad there's not more early British television that has survived and is in circulation.

entry at Wikipedia on the 1954 BBC production of "1984"

Also, the other day, I listened to the "Goon Show"'s parody of the BBC's "1984" telecast; the Goons version is called "1985" and has Seagoon battling the Big Brother Corporation by joining the Independent Television Army. It includes, as a motif, constant announcements from the telescreens such as "Attention! Attention! Lunch is now being served in the BBC cafeteria! Doctors are standing by!" When Seagoon's torturned in room 101, he's subjected to recordings of then-popular BBC radio shows. Peter Sellers, who always does several characters on the Goons, plays both Winston Seagoon's love interest and the Big Brother Corporation torturer at the end.

Catching up with old friends

Here's a web site that collects a number of telephone interviews with many television and film personalities; they were recorded in the 1970's for a local radio show by Tom McCarthy.

link

Video clip - Captain Kangaroo

From YouTube, a wonderful bit of nostalgia for those of us that grew up in the late 60s and early 70s, a clip from the opening of a 1968 episode of "Captain Kangaroo". Sure, we were easily amused, but this seems much more charming than the Teletubbies.

Mummified man found in front of tv

From CNN comes this story.

The mummified body of man who died more than a year ago was found sitting in front of a blaring television set in his Long Island home. Police came to the house to investigate a burst water pipe; his neighbors, who knew he was ill with diabetes, assumed he had been in a nursing home or long term care facility. The low humidity of the house had preserved the body.

Is there anything that's so sad and says more about America?

Brittney and Anna Nicole - why should we care?

According to CNN, the troubled star was seen at a tattoo parlor shaving her head. A crowd gathered and pandemonium broke out.

Along with all of the coverage of the troubled (and still dead) Anna Nicole, I'm becoming convinced that Americans's lives must be really fucked up - if they're following the escapades of a trailer park trash nut that couldn't sing her way out of a paper bag and a buxom golddigger with the intellectual capacity of a peanut as a way to feel better about their own existence, then life must be pretty sad.

A friend gave me the first season of Anna Nicole's reality show on DVD for Christmas a few years back. I could only make it through a couple of episodes before outright nausea set in. In the episode I saw, she was looking for a new house and crawled under a table to retreive something she dropped. She promptly got stuck under the table and required assistance from the crew of the show to get out from under it.

Can any homo sapiens be that dumb?

Is this really what we're watching on television these days?