It may be the most notorious Thanksgiving promotion of all time. It is the 40th best television episode of all time. It's available in (semi-)entirety on
HULU. And the classic TV blog
offers an oral history. Happy thanksgiving, and, as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
posted by Bunny Ultramod
on Nov 21, 2012 -
102 comments
In 2005, Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks produced a 6 episode miniseries that spanned the period of expansion of the United States into the American West, from 1825 to 1890. Through fictional and historical characters, the series used two primary symbols--the wagon wheel and the Lakota medicine wheel -- to join the story of two families: one Native American, one White settlers, as they witnessed many of the 19th century's pivotal historical milestones. The award-winning
Into The West can now be
seen in its entirety on YouTube.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 20, 2012 -
12 comments
In the late 1970s the UK's Anglia Television ran a respected weekly documentary series:
Science Report. But when the show was cancelled in 1977, the producers decided to channel Orson Welles in their final episode. The result was
Alternative 3. Over the course of the hour, the audience would learn that a
Science Report investigation into the UK "brain drain" had uncovered shocking revelations: man-made pollution had resulted in catastrophic climate change, the Earth would soon be rendered uninhabitable, and a secret American / Soviet joint plan was in place to establish colonies on the Moon and Mars. The show ended with footage of a US/Soviet Mars landing from May 22, 1962. After Alternative 3 aired,
thousands of panicked viewers phoned the production company and demanded to know how long they had left to change planets. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 20, 2012 -
22 comments
In 1984,
The Voyage of the Mimi set sail on PBS, exploring the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts to study humpback whales. The educational series was made up of thirteen episodes intended to teach middle schoolers about science and math. The first fifteen minutes of each episode were a fictional adventure starring a young Ben Affleck. The second 15 minutes were an "expedition documentary" that would explore the scientific concepts behind the show's plot points. A sequel with the same format,
The Second Voyage of the Mimi aired in 1988, and featured the crew of the Mimi exploring Mayan ruins in Mexico.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 9, 2012 -
36 comments
On May 19, 1984, an unemployed ice cream truck driver named Michael Larson went on
Press Your Luck and over the course of two episodes, took home more money than had ever been won in the history of television: $110,237 -- to the shock of the show’s producers and host, the late
Peter Tomarken. How did he do it? The show’s game board had only 5 patterns of 18 squares, and Mr. Larson had memorized them all. After the show, CBS tried to disqualify him but couldn’t, because Larson hadn’t done anything illegal. But they
did refuse to allow those episodes to be aired in syndication. So, they didn’t re-air until 2003, when the Game Show Network produced a Tomarken-hosted documentary about Mr. Larson’s incredible win:
Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 3, 2012 -
42 comments
The Victorian Kitchen Garden is a 13-part TV series that aired in 1987 on BBC2. It follows the month-by-month restoration of the Victorian walled kitchen garden at the Chilton Foliat estate in Wiltshire, England.
Almost all the episodes are available to watch online.
(via hark, a vagrant) It had three sequels -
The Victorian Kitchen,
The Victorian Flower Garden, and
The Wartime Kitchen and Garden - and inspired more recent historical reconstruction programs:
Tales From the Green Valley,
A Tudor Feast at Christmas,
Victorian Farm,
Victorian Farm Christmas,
Victorian Pharmacy, and
Edwardian Farm.
(Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm previously.) [more inside]
posted by flex
on Feb 26, 2012 -
29 comments
"Just last week you read about the H-bomb being dropped. Now two great English writers, two very imaginative writers — I’m gonna tell you if you have youngsters in the living room tell them not to be alarmed at this ‘cause it’s a fantasy, the whole thing is animated — but two English writers, Joan and Peter Foldes, wrote a thing which they called ‘A Short Vision’ in which they wondered what might happen to the animal population of the world if an H-bomb were dropped. It’s produced by George K. Arthur and I’d like you to see it.
It is grim, but I think we can all stand it to realize that in war there is no winner." [
via]
posted by brundlefly
on Jun 27, 2011 -
13 comments
Captain Video and his Video Rangers was a television series that was staple of the
DuMont Television Network. The series first aired in the middle of
Golden Age of Science Fiction, and with an initial air date in 1949, it was the first science fiction television series in the United States, complete with
futuristic gadgets. The series was aimed at children, with
public service announcements for kids,
the a special ring (
or three). Recorded and broadcast live five to six days a week, the series had a run of thousands of episodes, though most are now considered lost.
24 episodes are in the
UCLA Film and Television archive, and a few episodes have made their way into public domain compilations, and online (
three random episodes episodes on Internet Archive; and
same three episodes on YouTube). Continue in for more on the good Captain, and the network he called home.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Mar 21, 2011 -
19 comments
The Personal Photographs of Dr. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, Television Pioneer. The screen images are time exposure photographs of the picture on the kinescope in the monitoring rack in the main control room. Some were taken with stationary frames of moving picture film projected upon the iconoscope by a standard moving picture machine. Others are actually the pictures transmitted with the iconoscope camera in the studio and outdoors.
posted by tellurian
on May 3, 2010 -
9 comments
When "The Dark, Dark Hours" episode of General Electric Theater aired live from Hollywood on December 12, 1954, Ronald Reagan and James Dean were just two actors yet to find the roles that would define them. –
The Atlantic has a six-minute video clip and some background.
posted by The Mouthchew
on Apr 27, 2010 -
6 comments
"What if America wasn't America?" That was the question posed by a series of ads broadcast in the wake of the September 11th attacks, ads which depicted a dystopian America bereft of liberty:
Library -
Diner -
Church. Together with more positive ads like
Remember Freedom and
I Am an American, they encouraged frightened viewers to cherish their freedoms and defend against division and prejudice in the face of terrorism (
seven years previously). The campaign was the work of the
Ad Council, a non-profit agency that employs the creative muscle of volunteer advertisers to raise awareness for social issues of national importance. Founded during WWII as the War Advertising Council, the organization has been behind
some of the most memorable public service campaigns in American history, including
Rosie the Riveter,
Smokey the Bear,
McGruff the Crime Dog, and
the Crash Test Dummies. And the Council is still at it today, producing striking, funny, and above all
effective PSAs on everything from
student invention to
global warming to
arts education to
community service.
Additional resources:
A-to-Z index of Ad Council campaigns -
Campaigns organized by category -
Award-winning campaigns -
PSA Central: A free download directory of TV, radio, and print PSAs
(registration req'd) -
An exhaustive history of the Ad Council [46-page PDF] -
YouTube channel -
Vimeo channel -
Twitter feed
posted by Rhaomi
on Sep 11, 2009 -
69 comments
"The special moment when the Kohanim blessed the assembly moved me deeply, for it possessed a great sense of magic and theatricality... I had heard that this indwelling Spirit of God was too powerful, too beautiful, too awesome for any mortal to look upon and survive, and so I obediently covered my face with my hands. But of course, I had to peek."--Leonard Nimoy,
I Am SpockLeonard Nimoy discusses
his inspiration for the Vulcan "live long and prosper" hand gesture. Rabbi Yonassan Gershom
explains its Jewish origins, and discusses
Jewish themes in Star Trek. Via Laughing Squid.
posted by mattdidthat
on May 21, 2009 -
47 comments
The Archive of American Television "produces extensive video oral history interviews with television legends of all professions and makes them available online. To date, the Archive has completed over 2000 hours of videotaped conversations with over 570 Actors, Producers, Writers, Newscasters, Executives, Directors, Craftspersons, and more. ... The interviews are conducted by reviewing the subject's life and career chronologically. They discuss their childhood, early influences, how their career began, and thoroughly cover their television careers, ending with their thoughts on the industry and legacy."*
posted by not_on_display
on Nov 11, 2008 -
9 comments
TV Tickets! A great gallery of tickets to TV show tapings, some going back to the 1950s. Includes some fascinating commentary by Mark Evanier.
posted by braun_richard
on Jan 31, 2005 -
7 comments
The Open Video Project offers nearly 2,000 videos from various sources and collections, including such gems as 34 reels from the 1930s and 40s in the
Digital Himalaya Project, a series of
classic television commercials, and, from the Library of Congress, some shorts from the early 1900s, including the popular
2 a.m. in the Subway and
A Ballroom Tragedy ("Vaudeville" is a good search term for finding more like this). Also, especially for MeFi,
Johnny Learns His Manners.
posted by taz
on Oct 12, 2003 -
17 comments
So I'm watching Dog eat Dog tonight Mostly for the incredibly tasty
Brooke Burns. And for the contestant to win, one of the losers had to miss the question "Which 32'd president said '
We have nothing to fear but fear itself?'". Now the guy said he was guessing and answered "Roosevelt", but he didn't clarify, Teddy? or FDR? They said he got it right so the contestant lost. Personally I think a retraction or apology is due.
posted by bitdamaged
on Jul 29, 2002 -
20 comments
Internet To Be Bigger Than TV - UCLA Report "For the first time in the history of television, TV usage by children under 14 declined," recalled Cole. "Kids finally found something that was more interesting than TV. It was an epiphany moment for me." Download the report
here.
posted by owillis
on Oct 25, 2000 -
5 comments
The first episode of 1900 House was really cool, and I can't wait to watch the rest tonight. The main link (above) is to pbs.org's cool site about the project. And if you're not a fan of "reality TV," but you like history, you might still enjoy the
Victorian links page.
Note: I love the Victorian period, but there are other periods that also interest me. It would be REALLY cool to watch a show called "Middle Ages House," but I doubt that will ever be possible. There were so many health and safety issues involved in just going back 100 years. In fact, the producers had to make some concessions for the safety of the family. No network would ever take the insurance risk of placing a family in any sort of authentically reproduced early period.
posted by grumblebee
on Jun 13, 2000 -
12 comments
