Remember 85-95, The Glory Days Of Cable Syndication (1 Viewer)

[jcroy]

I must have been completely asleep during this "golden age".

If I had known that cable channels did this type of syndication back in the 1990's, I probably would have been glued to the TV.

(I didn't have cable consistently for many years).

 

[Ejanss]

I never cared for TV Land, especially due to the fact they were mostly running cut episodes. Here you have a channel who is talking smack about how they love classic TV and they're running butchered episodes.

I had an argument with their little know-it-all moderator on their discussion boards, the one who liked to ban everyone. I brought up The Beverly Hillbillies. I explained they were running cut episodes and I would love to see uncut episodes. Oh, but all they could acquire were cut episodes. Now the problem there is that Viacom both syndicates the show and owns TV Bland. I think a huge majority of the shows they were showing were Viacom syndicated ones. I also made mention that they advertised "full episodes" online but that after watching them, they were the same old tired edited episodes. Yeah, I wasn't a very popular fella!

Not to mention, the new "Cram 'em in!" directive that removes all current TV end-credits, so the network can run promos for the next show before you lose interest and might, heavens, change the channel between programs.
Back in the reruns' day, networks didn't do that--So, like every other channel, the Beverly Hillbillies reruns now have their end credits muted and squashed to a little bar on the side, and we vintage-TV mavens no longer have a heapin' helping of the Clampetts' hospitality.

 

[Gary16]

Deleted

 

[Gary16]

Which is what's great about MeTV and AntennaTv as they show end credits complete and uncut.

 

[Gary16]

Did anyone mention that the Disney Channel regularly aired "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and the original "Mickey Mouse Club"? I recorded many of the episodes.

 

[Kasey]

IMO nothing could beat the early '90s when NICK ran Donna, Patty, Dobie, My 3 Sons, B&W Bewitched, Green Acres, DVD, Lucy Show and Mister Ed; TBS had Jeannie, color Bewitched, Bradys, Addams, Beverly, One Day, Andy; WWOR had Mod Squad; That Girl; Hazel; It's a Living.

TV Land ran uncut episodes of almost all shows their first year 1996 but by the time the channel went mainstream in 1997 they began cutting everything (including seasons 6 and 7 of Petticoat--they never showed those uncut).

I think when NICK acquired The Cosby Show in 2002 is when things officially began to go into the toilet. I stopped watching TV Land shortly thereafter when I noticed they cut the whole Veal Prince Orloff scene from The Dinner Party episode of Mary Tyler Moore.

 

[Richard V]

I remember when TV Bland first started broadcasting, they would run entire episodes of everything as was mentioned. Their pride and joy was to show the entire I Love Lucy with bumpers, and the original little animated figures, instead of the familiar "heart" opening and closings used for syndication and reruns. They showed old commercials as well, instead of modern ones. I was glued to TV Bland for a long time till they started removing everything, and started to just show about 10 series. Now it is a vast wasteland of crap. Sad, started with a roar, ended (for me) with a whimper.

 

[Regulus]

As most of you know, I abandoned pay-TV at the end of 2006 because of what I saw was happening to it. Prices did nothing but Climb, Climb, Climb, yet the quality of what I was getting did nothing but head south. I haven't seen much since then, but every now and then I do get a glimpse of what's happened since then (Whenever I'm visiting someone that still subscribes), and all I can say is thank Heaven I pulled out when I did. I cannot fathom how people put up with all the stuff they do. Shows that are aired with nearly a third of their content cut just so they can cram in more commercials. On-screen advertisments consistantly obscuring what you are trying to watch. I know many resort to using recording devices, such as DVRs, to skip the commercials, nevertheless the shows they are watching are still only a remnent of what they used to be. No thanks. I have better things to watch. I'm not saying I found perfection, but I have found a system, and boy does it work!

 

[JMFabianoRPL]

Did anyone mention that the Disney Channel regularly aired "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and the original "Mickey Mouse Club"? I recorded many of the episodes.

And Ready Steady Go, IIRC. If I knew what I know now, I'd have been all over that one just to get as much Dusty Springfield as possible! And don't get me started on the packages of classic Disney shorts. Later on, they also reran the (mostly) '80s cartoon The Raccoons, which I loved. (They might have shown episodes as first-runs in the past, even before their home country of Canada got them!)

As far as USA, we cannot forget the Candid Camera reruns as well, and Cartoon Express, which hosted '60s - '80s cartoons before there was a Cartoon Network OR DVDs. SPEAKING OF WHICH....

How has nobody mentioned CN as another channel that went to *&*%? Live action movies and series? Too many originals, many not quality? Burying the GOOD shows on DC Nation (the only redeeming factor about them, aside from parts of Adult Swim)?

GSN we talked about, though they surprise us sometimes, like with the 1983 Press Your Lucks and SALE OF THE FRICKIN' CENTURY, which NO ONE saw coming. And we must mention USA's game show block as well as CBN/Family's. (which reminds me...ABC Family is now Family in name only, because of Pat Robinson's stipulation).

I admit to still watching TVL, but just for Hot in Cleveland, which is new but good and has some great women on it (especially that White chick ). But for my classics fix, I am glad I have my DVDs, and Antenna and This (for Patty Duke).

 

[Frank Soyke]

I don't want to appear intolerant, but as someone else posted, things really started to go downhill when they started Cosby as both Nick at Nick in particular really appeared to move toward programming catering to the minority audience (Lopez, Everybody Loves Chris, Family Mattersn My Wife and Kids, and to some extent The Nanny due to it's heavy Jewish fan base). Frankly, most of these shows will never be cosidered classics so if I am not right in my assumptions above, why the odd choice of a fairly little known (by today's standards) program like My Wife and Kids when there is so much other stuff out there (even more up to date stuff)? This all combined wityh their apparant attitude of "all Friends, all the time" has totally trashed this channel that didn't have far to go anyway.

I'll end with two words - Full House

are you serious???

 

[Frank Soyke]

I missed Fresh Prince.

 

[Neil Brock]

There's too many to name but off the top of my head:

USA - Second Hundred Years, Girl With Something Extra, Temperatures, Rising, He and She, Griff, Get Christie Love, Petrocelli, Eddie Capra Mysteries, Toma

TNT - Mr. Novak, National Velvet, Cain's Hundred, Maya, Beyond Westworld, Logan's Run, Then Came Bronson, Medical Center, Mayberry RFD, Daktari, Courtship of Eddie's Father, New Dick Van Dyke Show, Bronk, McClain's Law, Chicago Story, Northwest Passage, Jericho, A Man Called Shenandoah, The Rounders

BET - Sanford, Sanford Arms, The Outcasts, Love Thy Neighbor

Fox Net - Arnie, Roll Out, Felony Squad, Judd for the Defense, Bracken's World, The Outlaws, Peyton Place, Blue Light, How To Marry a Millionaire, Karen

Nostalgia - Lone Wolf, Dick Powell Show, Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre, Wendy and Me, The People's Choice, The Rogues, too many others to mention

CBN - Bill Dana Show, Farmer's Daughter, Love That Bob, My Little Margie, Empire, The Young Rebels, Wackiest Ship in the Army

HA! - Occasional Wife, CPO Sharkey, Camp Runamuck, Captain Nice, Bridget Loves Bernie, Girl With Something Extra, You Bet Your Life, Candid Camera (60s),

A&E - James at 15, American Dream, Alcoa/Goodyear Playhouse.

Turner South - Dr. Kildare

Even Lifetime had a good share of rarities, like The American Girls, etc. If you weren't taping shows (or having someone taping for you) then you missed out on the last chance to get many of these shows.

 

[Brian Himes]

I think both Cartoon Network and Boomerang have gone down hill.

SciFy is a joke.

TVLand....just sad to see this one go so far down hill. They've been running the same syndication package of Gunsmoke and Bonanza for way too many years now. They don't even try to get new old shows anymore. Just sad.

 

[Ejanss]

I think both Cartoon Network and Boomerang have gone down hill.

Every time Warner decides that they're "safer" to treat one of their DC superhero properties with "kitsch" goofiness (the, ahem, Green Lantern movie springs nimbly to mind), we're still living with the legacy of Cartoon Network thinking they had to school-bully those annoying 70's-80's Hanna-Barbera reruns off their network for good...After first conditioning the audience through diligent, 24/7 educational-adjustment propaganda to permanently associate H-B with the Superfriends, the Wonder Twins, Ranger Smith and Jabberjaw.

Nowadays, we all watch the classics on Warner Archive disk, and it's CN/AS living in its own little pot-hazed original-programming universe , away from the outside world...Dude, crack open a window, we're gettin' fumes!
Sadly, and perhaps ironically, Warner ended up indoctrinating themselves, and is now the only studio on the planet who still believes we'll all giggle like a junior high locker room if anyone dares mention Aquaman or Yogi Bear without being hip and ironic.

 

[Wvtvguy]

I grew up watching tbs in the 70's when they ran Bewitched, Gilligan, Green Acres, & so many other 60's classics. I signed up for SciFi in 96 when I saw they ran Six Million Dollar Man!! I didn't get TV Land until 99 I believe. They were showing Adam-12, Dragnet, Flip Wilson & many old comedies. Then they changed. Started showing more recent stuff & running those blocks shows all day. I started looking into DVDs when I couldn't find any old shows on anywhere!! I visited the tv land forums hoping things might change but it just went downhill. Just like Bravo, History & even channels like Home & Garden & food! Reality shows!!!!! They've all gotten away from their original purpose! Anyway, only classic shows I watch on cable are the westerns on encore. Love Gunsmoke!!!!

 

[Harry-N]

Far be it for me to be defending these channels, *but*

Whenever a channel does a start-up, it usually lacks programming of any kind. Back in the '80s, the main source for TV programming was in fact old off-network reruns. They didn't have the funds to create their own programming, so they relied on what the syndication marketplace held. That was a boon to those of us who liked older series and got a chance to see them again in the days before anyone ever thought of actually selling these shows to home video (STAR TREK, TWILIGHT ZONE and THE PRISONER excepted).

Once the channels were up and running for a number of years, became the property of the big conglomerates, and the money was there to do original programming, then slowly the old syndicated reruns went away to be replaced by newer stuff. Now that these channels have had years of making their own shows, they can run them ad nauseum, back-to-back, wall to wall. Who needs to spend money at a syndicator?

That action has set adrift the ancient reruns from the '50s and '60s and yet newer start-up nostalgia networks are snapping them up - the MeTVs, the RetroTVs, the AntennaTVs, the CoziTVs. These guys are only too happy to snap up these unwanted old shows to the point where there are bidding wars between them. (Witness the change of "Leave It To Beaver" from Antenna to MeTV for example.)

I personally dumped cable back around 2000 in a household budget cut due to the dot-com bust and have never looked back. Whenever I visit a hotel or someone's house I'm appalled at the nonsense that these people pay for. I'm only too happy to go home, watch my classic TV DVDs or MeTV. I get to sing along with the theme songs!

Harry

 

[Frank Soyke]

Far be it for me to be defending these channels, *but*

Whenever a channel does a start-up, it usually lacks programming of any kind. Back in the '80s, the main source for TV programming was in fact old off-network reruns. They didn't have the funds to create their own programming, so they relied on what the syndication marketplace held. That was a boon to those of us who liked older series and got a chance to see them again in the days before anyone ever thought of actually selling these shows to home video (STAR TREK, TWILIGHT ZONE and THE PRISONER excepted).

Once the channels were up and running for a number of years, became the property of the big conglomerates, and the money was there to do original programming, then slowly the old syndicated reruns went away to be replaced by newer stuff. Now that these channels have had years of making their own shows, they can run them ad nauseum, back-to-back, wall to wall. Who needs to spend money at a syndicator?

That action has set adrift the ancient reruns from the '50s and '60s and yet newer start-up nostalgia networks are snapping them up - the MeTVs, the RetroTVs, the AntennaTVs, the CoziTVs. These guys are only too happy to snap up these unwanted old shows to the point where there are bidding wars between them. (Witness the change of "Leave It To Beaver" from Antenna to MeTV for example.)

I personally dumped cable back around 2000 in a household budget cut due to the dot-com bust and have never looked back. Whenever I visit a hotel or someone's house I'm appalled at the nonsense that these people pay for. I'm only too happy to go home, watch my classic TV DVDs or MeTV. I get to sing along with the theme songs!

Harry

Great Post. I hate hearing what you are saying here, but I know you are very right. Sometimes I, for one, seem to lose track that time passes quickly and society's viewing habits and preferences "evolve." I remember watching morning/afternoon TV as a kid in the late 70's and how, especially on indies, it was littered with reruns of 50's -60's stuff. You could most likely find stuff like Hogan's Heroes on a couple diffferent stations maybe multiple times a day. Now I'lll state the obvious. That was 35-40 years ago. In 78 for example, stations had maybe 25 years of syndicated reruns to chose from since, with spotty availability of prints, there probably wasn't too much available to run pre 53. Point being, at that time, they only had that aforementioned 25 of programming to chose from, whereas there are more than 60 now. If we add this to all the well thought out reasons that Harry already stated, I suppose we should feel lucky there is an classic programming on air anymore at all. The good news is that, save for the semi rare to rare stuff, quite a bit of the syndicated programming being run then is already out for us on DVD. Two/Three years from now, we will have ever more. So we always have that. Facing real facts, most rarer shows some us want like THE Cat and or The Defenders were rarely, if ever, seen on your local stations then either. Sure, some stuff we don't have like Switch or Carter Country would have been more easily accessable then, but as classic DVD's continue to be released. The pool of syndicated shows that we can say that we can't get keeps dwindling. And that's OK by me.

 

[jcroy]

At times I wonder how much the "tv on dvd" market has affected the off-network syndication market.

 

[Regulus]

Whenever I visit a hotel or someone's house I'm appalled at the nonsense that these people pay for. I'm only too happy to go home, watch my classic TV DVDs or MeTV. I get to sing along with the theme songs!

Harry

Whenever I'm traveling I take a case of "Unofficial Release" DVDs (If something happens to these its no big deal, there's A LOT MORE where these came from!) with me to watch, along with my Portable DVD Player. These things are a GODSEND for travelors. Time and again I find myself in a situation where I'm glad I bought these items. Yes, I love to travel, there are a lot of things i loathe while I travel. These include Waiting Areas where some monitor shoves "The Woes of the World" down your throat while you wait for your flight to depart, Hotels "Propriatory" Cable Systems which are even worse than a standard cable system! among others. If I find myself with some spare time, I'll pop a disk in my player and pass the time away. On one occaision my player made a flight more enjoyable for me. I had the misfortune of having a couple of "Seat Kickers" behind me, I did my best to ignore them. I placed a disk of an animated series on my player and suddenly the kicking stopped! The Father of these two had left his seat, when he returned he noticed his kids were peering between the seats to see what I was watching. He tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I could switch seats, and I was more than happy to do so. My DVD Player has two earphone jacks and I had a device that would let two sets of earphones use one jack. For the remainder of the flight I kept the two kids entertained with cartoons. After we landed the man said he had NEVER seen his kids behave as quietly as they did when they were watching my cartoons. I told him I was happy to be of service, the kids are simply bored, and I gave them something to alieviate their bordem. I then told him to make a BEELINE to the nearest Uncle Wally's and get a Portable DVD Player and some DVDs of their favorite Shows. I told him NOT to get one of those Cheap $40.00 Players, their Batteries give out within an hour of being turned on (Been there, done that). Pay an extra $80 and get one with a 12-hour battery. If you have kids, and you travel a lot will be the best $120.00 you'll ever spend.

 

[Neil Brock]

How about adding to the list all of the rare shows that TV Land aired in its early days:
Paper Moon, Shane, Coronet Blue, The Outsider, Young Lawyers, Barbary Coast, Petrocelli, Longstreet, Nero Wolfe, Me and the Chimp, Joanie Loves Chachi, The Loner, Who's Watching the Kids, Goodtime Girls, and probably many more that I'm forgetting. Of course, they never ran full runs of anything but still it was better than nothing.