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

Frank Soyke

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I was thinking about the marked change of many of the channels that played classic TV from 85-95 and their decension into virtual garbage. Remember?

Ha Network/ Early Comedy Channel - Camp Runamuck and Captain Nice to name a few, I may be wrong but I think they might have run Operation Petticoat too.

Nick at Nite - No examples necessary. You all now them well. Let's just say going from I Spy to George Lopez is a huge jump

CBN - I can't even believe I once watched I Married Joan in the morning on here. They had a ton of rare great stuff.

USA in the AM - They had their share of good stuff too. He and She and It's Your Move actually ran on there (albeit cut badly).

TBS to some degree -Once upon a time their morning and afternoons once had some really great programming. Bob Newhart, One Day at a Time, Alice, Mason, Griffith, Hillbillies, etc.

SCI Fi - Invaders, Voyage, etc,

The one that really sickens me is TV Land. Their initial lineup was nothing short of increbible. Mannix, Cannon, Fantasy Island, Batman/Green Hornet, Dynasty, Petticoat, etc. They even had The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as I recall. They run COMPLETE garbage now. IMO.

As an aside, as a late 70's/early 80's teen, don't even get me started with MTV. What they did to that channel was a complete travesty ( then they turned around and did the same thing with VHI and M2 once they finished "gutting" the original.

All these channels have turned into complete garbage now. IMO
 

Gary16

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Frank Soyke said:
I was thinking about the marked change of many of the channels that played classic TV from 85-95 and their decension into virtual garbage. Remember?

Ha Network/ Early Comedy Channel - Camp Runamuck and Captain Nice to name a few, I may be wrong but I think they might have run Operation Petticoat too.

Nick at Nite - No examples necessary. You all now them well. Let's just say going from I Spy to George Lopez is a huge jump

CBN - I can't even believe I once watched I Married Joan in the morning on here. They had a ton of rare great stuff.

USA in the AM - They had their share of good stuff too. He and She and It's Your Move actually ran on there (albeit cut badly).

TBS to some degree -Once upon a time their morning and afternoons once had some really great programming. Bob Newhart, One Day at a Time, Alice, Mason, Griffith, Hillbillies, etc.

SCI Fi - Invaders, Voyage, etc,

The one that really sickens me is TV Land. Their initial lineup was nothing short of increbible. Mannix, Cannon, Fantasy Island, Batman/Green Hornet, Dynasty, Petticoat, etc. They even had The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as I recall. They run COMPLETE garbage now. IMO.

As an aside, as a late 70's/early 80's teen, don't even get me started with MTV. What they did to that channel was a complete travesty ( then they turned around and did the same thing with VHI and M2 once they finished "gutting" the original.

All these channels have turned into complete garbage now. IMO
I'm thankful for MeTV which has pretty much mirrored the old TVLand and then some! AntennaTV has its moments too but is now showing more movies.
 

Richard V

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TNT - The Travels of Jamie McPheeters, Then Came Bronson are two that immediately come to mind, plus many more that I can't remember at the moment.

F/X - Casey Jones

CBN - I think they showed The Real McCoys, and I know they showed The Farmer's Daughter and The Patty Duke Show
 

Richard V

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Sci-Fi - Boy they used to show a lot of stuff, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Science Fiction Theater

During those years, I absolutely loved MonsterVision, Joe Bob Briggs Drive In Theater, Up All Night, Night Flight, and many, many other shows that the cable networks used to put on. I prefer all that to the "original programming" they show now. (With a few exceptions, like Justified, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead)
 

Frank Soyke

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Just another couple. Hogan's was a TBS-er, as was Gilligan. WGN ran Rat Patrol. Either CBN or USA (not sure which anymore) ran Room 222, and TV Land (in addition to the aforementioned ones) also had Family Affair. The WOR satellite feed in the late 80's/early 90's was great. I was in college and skipped many a class to watch their weekday afternoon lineup (Laredo, Ironside, Hawaii Five -O, Run For Your Life and it Takes a Thief. I don't know what they run now but I'm guessing it's probably garbage. And for those New York/ New Jersey folks, Odd Couple, and Honeymooners were mainstays for years
 

Professor Echo

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Just off the top of my head:

HONDO was on every Saturday morning on TNT.

"TV LAND GOES WEST" showed lots of rare western series every Saturday and Sunday morning.

WGN used to show THE WILD WILD WEST in the wee hours every Saturday night and Sunday night.

TNT showed THE MAN FROM UNCLE every Monday night following wrestling.

CBN ran FLIPPER, DAKTARI, GENTLE BEN, THE LONE RANGER, THE ROY ROGERS SHOW and SKY KING every Saturday morning.
 

Frank Soyke

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When TV Land first came out, they used to run shows like The Rogues and The Westerner on weekends
 

Peter M Fitzgerald

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Early FX (around 1994) also used to run NANNY & THE PROFESSOR, RAWHIDE, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, BATMAN, FAMILY AFFAIR, LONGSTREET, and some others.

Encore-Mystery, in the mid/late 1990s ran un-cut, commercial-free THE AVENGERS, THE NEW AVENGERS, THE PRISONER, DANGER MAN/SECRET AGENT, THE SAINT, THE PERSUADERS, PETER GUNN, MIKE HAMMER (both 1950s and 1980s versions), RICHARD DIAMOND, NAME OF THE GAME, NIGHT GALLERY, THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR (although some key episodes were inexplicably missing from this run, like 'The Magic Shop', 'An Unlocked Window', 'Where the Woodbine Twineth' and a few others), etc.

Late-nite Sci-Fi Channel, into the late 1990s, ran Karloff's THRILLER, (KRAFT) SUSPENSE THEATER (a.k.a. CRISIS), LIGHTS OUT, TALES OF TOMORROW and either MEN IN SPACE or THE MAN & THE CHALLENGE (or both). Sci-Fi also ran mini-marathons of short-run forgotten shows, like THE IMMORTAL.

TV Land's weekly 'Ultimate Fan Hour' (in the late 1990s/early-2000s), hosted by an annual contest winner, gave us some sample episodes of CORONET BLUE, M SQUAD, MR. TERRIFIC, HAWAIIAN EYE and several others. The monthly 'The Museum of TV & Radio Showcase' had some select episodes of SUSPICION (Hitchcock's terrific 'Four O'Clock'), FORD STARTIME (John Frankenheimer direction 'The Turn of the Screw', with Ingrid Bergman), DESILU PLAYHOUSE (Rod Serling's 'The Time Element') and FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE ('The Losers', Sam Peckinpah's attempt to revive THE WESTERNER as a modern-day hour drama, with Lee Marvin playing Brian Keith's role from the original series) and other rarities.
 

Peter M Fitzgerald

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Oh, and Encore-Action, in the late 1990s, used to run un-cut, commercial-free COMBAT (though time-compressed), THE GREEN HORNET and THE TIME TUNNEL.
 

maskedmala

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Peter M Fitzgerald, don't forget that Encore-Mystery used to run The New Adventures of Charlie Chan starringJ. Carrol Naish
 

David_B_K

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I recorded a bunch of episodes of 12 O'Clock High off a channel called Nostalgia network that I used to get back in my C-Band days (the 90’s maybe?). Thay also showed Loretta Young and a short lived Howard Duff show called Dante.Oh and FX showed Mission Impossible at the same time.
 

Ejanss

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Frank Soyke said:
The one that really sickens me is TV Land. Their initial lineup was nothing short of increbible. Mannix, Cannon, Fantasy Island, Batman/Green Hornet, Dynasty, Petticoat, etc. They even had The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as I recall. They run COMPLETE garbage now. IMO.

As an aside, as a late 70's/early 80's teen, don't even get me started with MTV. What they did to that channel was a complete travesty ( then they turned around and did the same thing with VHI and M2 once they finished "gutting" the original.

All these channels have turned into complete garbage now. IMO
And if you want to throw in Bravo, that offers up a clue to what happened to a lot of the above once-great channels:
Bravo used to have a mystique--A premium service for foreign films and cultural concerts, until premium channels started hitting the skids, providers had to start running the channel free with commercials and editing, and eventually the lineup started dwindling to a handful of the same rerun movies. "The South Bank Show" and James LIpton's "Actor's Studio" interviews kept the channel afloat with original programming.
For a while, it changed hands, and one point was used ONLY as a dumping ground for NBC cross-aired "West Wing" reruns--But as all channels started being courted by "Original programming" that they could sell on boxset, and be paid for instead of paying for, all of a sudden the channel went in search of what was their one cash-cow show. They got it: "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy". Okay, so it caught on as a cult hit with its target audiences and females, but why did the channel decide to expand their gravy train to at one point wanting to be "The first gay-themed cable channel!"?
Well, there was a reason for that: Bravo's exec had made a big news event of coming Out, to become, quote, "The first gay CEO of a major US cable network!" Which everyone immediately assumed was going to be a thunderbolt on cable network audience diversity, but instead only has Bravo now running unbroken block-loops of Real Housewives, Project Runway, and shows with overbearingly smug-cutesy hosts. Yep, ain't nothin' like that ol' diversity, is there? :rolleyes:

As for NaN , TVLand, MTV, VH-1, and all other channels owned by Viacom--and THEIR sudden interest in sexy cougars, fading-celebrity reality shows, and decadent teen lifestyles on MTV...I only offer what circumstantial evidence there is, for your own theorizing.
 

Bob_S.

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When TV Land started dropping the old classic tv shows, I thought I'd never see those shows again. I figured that it just wasn't profitable for a cable channel to run those shows. Thank God for Antenna TV, ME TV and COZI TV. Between the three of them (and the ocassional b/w movie THIS TV shows) I hardly watch any other channel.
 

Ron1973

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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! :cool:
 

Jack P

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F/X is the only channel that I think ever showed the short-lived 1975 "Swiss Family Robinson."

GSN in its prime from 1994-2004 gave us thousands of game show classics which I am so glad I taped as much of as I could.
 

David_B_K

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Posted by Ejanss:
And if you want to throw in Bravo, that offers up a clue to what happened to a lot of the above once-great channels:Bravo used to have a mystique--A premium service for foreign films and cultural concerts, until premium channels started hitting the skids, providers had to start running the channel free with commercials and editing, and eventually the lineup started dwindling to a handful of the same rerun movies. "The South Bank Show" and James LIpton's "Actor's Studio" interviews kept the channel afloat with original programming.
Bravo in the early to mid 80’s was almost my only channel of interest. Tons of foreign, classic and independent films, and the only time the Royal Shakespeare Co. Production of the 1965 Wars of the Roses has been shown. Haven't watched it for a decade at least.
 

mattCR

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A little bit post this, but when SciFi would pickup Science Fiction or the like when other networks would drop them.

They picked up:Stargate SG1
The Outer Limits (new)
MST3k

And more than a few attempts at shows.. SciFi would provide shows a home,a nd they ran a lot of unique SciFi material.. movie marathons of great old SciFi.

There are times I really miss "The Outer Limits" (new series and old) but the new series was at least a real attempt to capture something unique and a big diverse cast that changed a lot.. had a few of my favorite episodes in that series.
 

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