Oh, hey, I forgot about this thread. Time to use it for its intended purpose.
Look at this shit:
The NBC shows in particular are mostly bad, bad, bad. A Topper rehash? Whatever the fucking hell We Got It Made is supposed to be? Mr. Smith?! Really, what were they thinking?
Okay, they ran Manimal that year, too, but Manimal is classic TV compared to some of this crap. The Rousters looks like it might have done well if more people watched it; same for Bay City Blues (check out the cast on that one).
It's interesting spotting trends, too. The "oh wow, computers!" thing that started with Knight Rider last season continues here with Whiz Kids. There are a lot of Neo-Western adventure series on the schedule, probably because The Fall Guy was a hit (The Rousters is one of them), and there's also a lot of breezy, light buddy-detective shows because Simon & Simon did well. It also looks like the An Officer and a Gentleman cash-ins mostly waited for now, as that movie was a late summer release in 1982.
Now I'm watching the new shows of 1987, and the strongest emotion I get from it is...boredom. Some of these good shows, true, but we moved to Palmyra that year and I WAS ALWAYS BORED THERE.
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
unrelated to that stuff (will get to it later), but for some reason Carlton always struck me as the most faceless and corporate of the ITV franchisees, despite their flair for visual identity
it probably doesn't help that Carlton gobbled up a bunch of other franchises until they were themselves gobbled up by Granada
Is it just me, or did the early 1990s have some of the most garish TV intros ever put to film? Back in 1985, they were saying "yay, we have digital video effects" full stop, but by 1990-1991, cheap 3D effects and gamut-busting palettes were all the rage.
Hmm. Another take-away from the old Broadcastings: Lorimar was in big trouble after the Telepictures merger. Apparently, some of their off-network shows didn't do as well as they planned, or one of their movies flopped, or something, but in any case, by late 1988 they were pretty much forced to sell out.
This also explains why The Rebranding never really took, except in print ads and on network shows like Full House; by the time they went through all the backlog, Warner Bros. DTD would have taken over everything anyway.
Hmm. Another take-away from the old Broadcastings: Lorimar was in big trouble after the Telepictures merger. Apparently, some of their off-network shows didn't do as well as they planned, or one of their movies flopped, or something, but in any case, by late 1988 they were pretty much forced to sell out.
I read an old Fortune article at some point within the last year that said that the Telepictures merger was kind of a bust, Lorimar had screwed themselves over losing money on movies, and that Warner knew there was blood in the water.
(Their buyout of L-T was also of the "please help us" variety, like Disney's of Pixar would be later)
Yeah, pretty much that. They also had connections at Warners to begin with; some of their shows (like The Waltons) were already with WBDTD, and Lorimar started on the Warner lot anyway, if my bio-dad's 1976 Broadcasting Yearbook is to be believed.
(I used to see The Waltons with the "DISTRIBUTED BY WARNER BROS" variant of the Big W all the time, so they definitely had it before 1984...that or they pulled a CPT and botched the plastering. :P)
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
anytime I see WB calling attention to the Looney Tunes characters I become upset at how badly they treat the characters now
one of the reasons Scooby-Doo still seems to be alive is because WB doesn't fuck with it as hard - it lacks the sentimental value that the Tunes have for them, as they've only owned Scooby since 1997
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
Boomerang seems to have become WBA's playground, seeing as how CN no longer wants to clear their shows for whatever reason (unless they're Teen Titans Go!)
(I used to see The Waltons with the "DISTRIBUTED BY WARNER BROS" variant of the Big W all the time, so they definitely had it before 1984...that or they pulled a CPT and botched the plastering. :P)
I was right about this, by the way; I just found a Broadcasting from 1977 with an ad for The Waltons on the back cover...proudly bearing a Big W.
It would seem that "mca tv" became "MCA TV" (in the squiggle font) in the fall of 1976, at least in the trades. Makes me wonder why it took them until the 1990s to change the logo.
It looks like something you would have seen on a not-very-pleasing CPG package design at the time, or something aiming for the least sophisticated audience possible
It's obviously a recreation (any use of Arial before Windows 3.1 came out in 1992 is suspect, and any of use of it at all before its development for IBM in 1982 is dead wrong), but I'm wondering if this logo ever existed at all. It looks a bit too much like the later CBS Broadcasting International logos.
I'm also having trouble verifying its existence because, from what I can tell from Broadcasting, CBS Films just plain didn't advertise until after they became Viacom. Also, CBS reused the name for one of its many cinema ventures not too long ago, so it's a pain to Google. :P
According to the ad, the "eye with globe pupil" device was new for 1968, when CBS Films changed its name. I get the feeling CBS Films used the 1958 logo right up until then!
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
did they really produce cartoons by then? wasn't Terrytoons gone by then?
(Oh, and CBS has a real nasty habit of sitting on the Terrytoons library. Somehow people have gotten their hands on their more mid-century work, but CBS doesn't really release that stuff. Via Simon & Schuster, they've also refrained from letting Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure see the light of day in any official capacity for ages)
I've learned to tolerate drama...except on the boat
I once wanted to create an alternate universe where I bought CBS in the 1980s and later revived Terrytoons as the animation division of the Family Channel (I bought IFE with another aim of preventing MTM from landing in Murdoch's clutches), but I couldn't commit :n
Intereeting. I was watching CNN's The Eighties earlier, and I was somewhat amused that they when they needed ABC and CBS logos in one scene, they used "ABC Is the Place" and the past logos thingy from "Great Moments on CBS".
Comments
According to the ad, the "eye with globe pupil" device was new for 1968, when CBS Films changed its name. I get the feeling CBS Films used the 1958 logo right up until then!
Whatever rights Screen Gems had might not have reverted yet by 1964.