TV Guide Tuesday, Part 2

Go to Part 1

Grab a big bowl of Lucky Charms and get comfy on the couch as we find ourselves transported back in time to Saturday, June 10, 1978.  Returning to this long ago Saturday morning once again, there are several viewing options to choose from at 8:30 am: brain melting cartoons include Speed Buggy on channel 2, Globetrotters on channels 3 and 4, or Brady Kids on channel 5 or the more educational live-action Big Blue Marble to watch "hula-hoop hopefuls in California practicing for a national championship" on channel 11 or the always dependable Mister Rogers on PBS Channel 12 WHYY-TV serving the Wilmington, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania areas.  We also have our first fright flick of the day, the 1961 black and white film, The Devil's Hand on the great Philadelphia independent WTAF-TV channel 29:

From 9 to 10 there are a couple classic 'toons: Bugs Bunny/Road Runner on channels 2 and 10 or Woody Woodpecker on channel 5, along with the slightly less classic Scooby's Laff-A-Lympics on channels 6 and 7, and some more Mister Rogers on channel 13, with Sesame Street popping up at 9:05 on channel 12.  9:30 brings more Popeye & Friends on channel 5 if you didn't get your Popeye fix earlier at 7:30, along with the possibility of seeing a live action Spider-Man sketch on Electric Company on channel 13:

When 10 am rolls around, 1944's Voodoo Man with Bela Lugosi and John Carradine on channel 9 is the obvious choice, though there's always Flintstones on channel 5 or Sesame Street (again) on channel 13 as an option:

More cartoon goodness at 10:30 with Batman/Tarzan on channels 2 and 10, Pink Panther on channels 3 and 4 and Archies on channel 5, with Wild Wild West as a live action drama alternative on the much beloved independent WKBS-TV channel 48 broadcasting out of Philadelphia:

Saturday morning wraps up at 11:00 with the Krofft Supershow on channels 6 and 7, a rerun of I Dream of Jeannie with guest star Sammy Davis Jr. on Channel 11, some cartoon I have absolutely no recollection of called Baggy Pants on channels 3 and 4, or Zoom on channel 13 for the PBS set.  As we savor the last fleeting minutes of this long gone Saturday morning, 11:30 am presents a trio of intriguing sounding possibilities for our viewing pleasure: Secrets of Isis on channels 2 and 10, Space Sentinels on channels 3 and 4, or the 1970 sci-fi film The Forbin Project on channel 9:

And just like that, we emerge out of the bustling cartoon mecca of Saturday morning and into the vast open plains of Saturday afternoon.  Shall we go outside and play in the sun for the remains of the day like normal, healthy children?  Or shall we instead stay inside only to sit zombie-like in front of this boob tube...our pale, glowing skin becoming an ever more sickly pallor, the very hue of white noise static emanating from an unused channel on the UHF wavelength...?  Tune in next time to find out!

TV Guide Tuesday

I've got a few vintage issues of TV Guide that I "liberated" from my good friend Frank Costanza, so I thought it might be interesting every now and then to see what was on television back in the analog days in this new feature on WODS-TV we're calling "TV Guide Tuesday".

First up is a TV Guide for the week of June 10-16, 1978.
Check out that sweet, sweet Close Encounters of the Third Kind inspired cover painting (sorry about that address label, didn't want to risk tearing the cover by trying to remove it):

Very nice!

Ok kids, set your WABAC machine, flux capacitor or TARDIS (depending upon your generational point of reference) to Saturday, June 10, 1978, 5:50 am Eastern Standard Time, head for New Jersey and turn right at the Pine Barrens. Here's the channel line up and early Saturday morning schedule for the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area for this date:

It's hard to believe but there were only seventeen channels total available between New York and Philadelphia back then in '78, and to be honest I don't recall ever getting in channel 23 or 40 where I grew up in central New Jersey--we only ever pulled in fifteen at most, with the UHF channels usually a bit more fuzzy than the majority of the VHF channels (2 through 13).

Even though the listings start at 5:50 am, the actual kid shows didn't really begin until 6:30 am when you had a choice between Casper & Friends on the independent station WNEW-TV channel 5 out of New York or the local live action kid's show Captain Noah on WPVI-TV channel 6, the ABC affiliate out of Philadelphia--unless you were a weird kid and really enjoyed bleary eyed early morning viewings of Agricultural News or the religious program Patterns for Living.

At 7 am you had a few more choices: Underdog on channel 5 being the front runner along with Three Robonic Stooges on CBS channel 10 WCAU-TV out of Philly or Mr. Magoo on WNBC-TV channel 4 out of New York.  If for some odd reason you craved live action instead of animation, you had a few additional options at this hour with several live action kid shows to choose from, including Patchwork Family on WCBS-TV channel 2 out of New York, Chief Halftown on channel 6, and some show I really don't recall called Carrascolendas on both the NBC affiliate out of Philly KYW-TV channel 3 or the independent WPIX-TV channel 11 out of New York; though if you were a glutton for punishment, there was always the dreaded religious killjoy Pat Robertson on the 700 Club on channel 17 WPHL-TV, an independent out of Philly.

At 7:30 you had Muhammed Ali on channel 4, Bugs Bunny & Popeye on channel 5, Popeye and Friends on channel 6, or Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine on channel 10, but it was at 8 am that things really started to "get crazy", kid TV wise.  If you skipped Three Robonic Stooges earlier at 7 am on channel 10, now was your chance to catch them on channel 2, but chances are those robotic knuckleheads would get passed over yet again for more substantial fare, though you had a hard choice ahead of you: Hong Kong Phooey on NBC channels 3 and 4 or Superfriends on ABC channels 6 and 7 (WABC-TV out of New York) being the main contenders, with the Abbott & Costello cartoon on channel 5 running close behind with the slightly more middle brow Gene London show on channel 10, Dusty's Treehouse on channel 11, and the always stalwart Sesame Street on PBS channel 13 WNET-TV in New York bringing up the rear.

Now if you were of the Lutheran persuasion or even a Clokeyite or just an agnostic with a slight Gumbyist bent, you might just decide to forego Zan and Jayna on the Superfriends and switch the dial to channel 9 WOR-TV, an independent in the New York area, to catch up with Davey and Goliath for a half hour of wholesome fun.  Those capsule descriptions above really do sound oddly intriguing: was "Cousin Barney" really Davey's cousin, was Barney even his actual name at all, and why was "Barney's" dad so eager to pawn him off for the whole summer?  And what was the strange machine Davey and Goliath discovered in that abandoned house?  A spinning jenny?  An old bootlegger's still?  A printing press used for counterfeit money?  An atavachron?

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for now so those questions will just have to remain unanswered mysteries.  Until next time!

Musica Moonday

Life Day hymn "Tree of Life" aka "A Day to Celebrate" peformed by Princess Leia Organa from the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978):

Child of Glass

Sleeping lies the murdered lass,

vainly cries the child of glass.
When the two shall be as one,
the spirit's journey will be done.

Child of Glass is a great little creepy ghost story for kids that originally aired in 1978 on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color.  Starring Olivia Barash (Leila from Repo Man and my first childhood TV crush) as the Creole ghost Inez Dumaine.  Also starring Denise Nickerson AKA Violet Beauregarde AKA the girl that turns into a giant blueberry in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory; though here it is the ghostly Inez that is blue tinted instead of Nickerson's character:

Be sure to check out the sweet poster for Laurel and Hardy's March of the Wooden Soldiers on the bedroom wall of young protagonist Alexander Armsworth during early scenes in the film.  Kid's got good taste in wall art!

Child of Glass is a wonderful film for children of all ages and has something for all members of the family to enjoy: a blue tinted ghost, a kid falling down a well, a drunkard handyman intentionally setting fire to a barn, a young girl that mysteriously dies while under the guardianship of her insane alcoholic uncle, a Southern cotillion that starts off great but ends up a disaster, bats, a leaning gazebo, a seance conducted by children, an adult chasing kids through a graveyard with intent to kill, and a broken heirloom lamp.

They don't make 'em like they used to!

Here's a clip:

Salute Your Shorts: Hardware Wars

Salute Your Shorts #2: Hardware Wars

Here's one I remember first seeing at Vacation Bible School(!) back in the day.  Us kids loved it so much they played it twice.

Legendary voice actor Paul Frees narrates this sprawling space saga of romance, rebellion and household appliances.  Without further ado, I give you Ernie Fosselius' Hardware Wars:

Salute Your Shorts: The Collector

Salute Your Shorts #1: In which your humble host introduces a short film that has temporarily caught his Mayfly-like fancy...

In this inaugural edition of Channel 73 WODS-TV's newest weekend feature--which we've deigned to christen as "Salute Your Shorts"--herein lies a personal favorite that I thought was one of the most magical and mind bending things I had ever seen back in 1978:  The Collector, the incomparable Mike Jittlov's stop motion animated tribute to Mickey Mouse mania on the occasion of the ubiquitous rodent's fiftieth birthday celebration.

Enjoy!

First Post/The Alpha Incident

First post!

Why?  I've got several cheap 50 movie DVD sets filled with public domain film titles so needed a place to keep track of what I watch since I probably won't want to revisit too many of them more than once, hence this blog--which I had originally thought should be named Death By Television but ultimately decided on the more life affirming Obscurantist Drivel; the check is in the mail Mr. Ellison.  I love these 50 movie collections because you really get a lot of bang for your buck.  Of course they are mostly filled with forgettably crappy films but there are usually at least a few really interesting gems in each set.

These were the types of odd, low budget films that would pop up on Saturday afternoons or at half past two in the morning on local/independent UHF TV stations in the 1970s and early '80s back when I was a kid living in rural New Jersey--before the rise of the nefarious and soul blasting infomercial and 24 hour a day narrow interest pay cable channels that killed this type of more free form programming.

Obscurantist Drivel and the accompanying YouTube channel for WODS-TV will attempt to recreate a similarly eclectic UHF channel format, with a specific emphasis on the fantastique and outré films of the 1970s to mid '80s, but we will undoubtedly explore content from other eras and genres as well; please feel free to view and comment on the movies (and commercials) "aired".

Disclaimer: Obscurantist Drivel is a 100% fan made, not-for-profit blog so the titles that will be discussed are not offered for sale by your humble host; you will have to locate and purchase these titles on your own dime and your own time, so don't bother asking!

The Alpha Incident (1979)

First up on WODS-TV late night (You'll love the way we smell...W...O...D...S!): Mill Creek Entertainment's Sci-Fi Classics collection and the made-in-Wisconsin The Alpha Incident directed by Bill Rebane, produced by "Studio Film Corporation" (!) and released in 1978 according to IMDB and John Stanley's Creature Features Movie Guide Strikes Again (fourth revised version), though the Mill Creek set lists it as 1977.  The blurb from the booklet reads:

THE ALPHA INCIDENT
Starring Ralph Meeker, Stafford Morgan, George "Buck" Flower
(1977) Color Rated PG 

A Mars space probe returns to Earth and brings with it a microorganism from the red planet.  While transporting the microscopic alien life form by train, there is an accident and the microorganism is unleashed.  Exposure to the alien virus forces four strangers into quarantine while government scientists rush to find a cure.

Here's a clip:



Around 20 minutes in and as I always suspected, it looks like the end of the world will inevitably be brought about by a dumb redneck in overalls and a trucker hat.

Best quote: After the four strangers are quarantined for exposure to the deadly Martian microorganism and informed they'll all die if they fall asleep, Jack Tiller (John Goff)-a good ol' boy train depot worker-turns away from the camera and mumbles under his breath: "It's a bunch o' shit."

Here's an exchange I especially enjoyed:

Jack: "What I need right now is a drink!  Every good party needs some booze...Hey, I bet Hank had some stashed out in that caboose o' his."
Dr. Sorensen (Stafford Morgan): "That's not a good idea...stick to the amphetamines!"

Sound advice Doctor Sorensen...don't mind if I do!

This one ended up being more grim than I expected, and there was some minor profanity (and brief nudity which I wasn't really expecting in a PG rated film) along with a decent sense of '70s flavor with a healthy dollop of paranoia and post-Nixon government mistrust.  Also kind of amazing to think this low budget throwback to Night of the Living Dead was released the year after Star Wars; though if the good Mr. Ellison thought Star Wars and Close Encounters were dreck, what would he have thought of something like The Alpha Incident?  

Together dear reader, we shall strive to explore more of such odious drivel and nonsense on our fictitious late night UHF channel, so don't change that dial!