Well, dear readers, you know what I miss? Well, I’ll tell you what I miss because why should I withhold such information from the likes of you dear readers? You know what I miss? I miss local TV stations that’s what I miss. I was just fondly thinking back when LA’s channel five, nine, eleven, and thirteen were all local stations and had local programming. For example, I used to love channel thirteen because late at night their commercials between movies were homegrown ones for local merchants. They used the same music – the music would cue up and then an announcer would start, “For ribs, go to Chuck’s Rib House” or whatever it was they were hawking. I don’t know why, but I just found those things so funny – and frequently enjoyed them more than the movie. There were local hosts like Ben Hunter, who had a movie show every afternoon, Ben Hunter’s Matinee Theater. I’ve already written about my local kiddie show host, but it was so much more than that. We had Lloyd Thaxton’s record show, and local programming (besides the local news) that was always weird and interesting. I suppose that sort of thing is all done on cable access now, but even that is going the way of the dodo bird. It was a much more charming world back then, with much more variety. Now huge corporations own everything and we get the same old same old and gone are the all night movies and The Late Show and old Mexican horror movies and in their place are infomercials. I used to love all the wacko religious shows – now even that isn’t wacko like it used to be. I loved our local Rocket To Stardom, which was shot live at Yaekel Brothers Oldsmobile dealership on Western near Wilshire – it was kind of a low-budget Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour, and I never missed it, and sometimes I’d even see them filming because Yaekel Brothers was right around the corner from my father’s restaurant. Even though we didn’t have such a thing as cable, and there were only seven channels, there was every type of program you could ever want, whether on the big three networks or on our local stations. Today I flip through 300 cable channels and can’t find anything that interests me. Where’s Jack Lalanne when you need him? Where are the crazy game shows where nothing was hyped with dramatic music or fancy lighting or movie-style editing – Beat The Clock and What’s My Line and Treasure Hunt and Bowling For Dollars and To Tell The Truth? Where’s local wrestling and roller derby? I’d love for some enterprising person to put together a multi-DVD set of a typical 1958 morning to evening TV day, starting with the Indian test pattern, and a sample kiddie show, soap opera, game show, Ben Hunter Matinee, reruns of Private Secretary and My Little Margie, more game shows, network series, local stations’ syndicated series, all of it, with local news broadcasts (with George Putnam), the Million Dollar Movie – I’d buy that in a second. I have quite a few vintage TV Guide magazines from the mid-to-late 1950s and I go through them from morning to late-night and I know exactly what I would have been watching when on any given day. And that, dear readers, is what I, BK, miss. I have no idea why this was roaming around in the windmills of my mind, but it was.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got quite a few things that must be done today and I must be alert and alive and hence I must get my beauty sleep.
Yesterday was quite a nice day. I got up, didn’t do the long jog (I’d done seven days in a row and I needed a little break). I spent the morning hours making CD-Rs from LPs that are potential Kritzerland reissues. Then I joined dear reader Jeanne for a luncheon at Du-Par’s at the Farmer’s Market. It was very nice to see her again and we had a very good time catching up and I’m sure I’ll be seeing her quite often. I then came home, finished watching a motion picture on DVD, trying to figure out the movie sequence of music cues as opposed to the LP sequence for our next Kritzerland soundtrack release. I think I’ve decided to try and put the cues in movie order to the best of my ability (it’s not always going to be possible, but I think I can get it around 70% there and I think it will be a much better listening experience than the original album) – and then we’ll also include the original LP sequence, too, so people can listen to whichever they like – or both. It’s going to take about two solid days for me to be able to do a road map for my mastering engineer, because the LP has several tracks that have multiple cues edited together for no reason whatsoever. So, I have to take the LP and burn a CD while inserting cue tracks every time there’s an edit within a track. That way I’ll have all the music cues separately, then I can put them in iTunes and have my way with them. On the one hand, I dread doing the work – on the other hand I know it’s the right thing to do.
After that, I had a dinner meeting with our very own Miss Alet Taylor, regarding her one-woman show we’re working on. We also discussed Nudie Musical – she’ll be playing Mary La Rue. After that, I came home and finished the last of the CD-Rs and then sat on my couch like so much fish, not doing much of anything.
Today, I’ll start on this soundtrack project, then at one o’clock it’s off to the tape transfer place to check out some more tapes for potential releases, and then I’m going to see Kiss Of The Spiderwoman at the Alex Theater in the Dale of Glen.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, work on a soundtrack sequence, listen to tapes, and see a musical. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your favorite local TV shows and syndicated shows when you were growing up? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, while we wax nostalgic about the good old days of local TV stations. I miss them, you know.