TV I Watched: May 31- June 6, 1981

Back when there were just a few TV stations, but it seemed like there was so much more to watch, or maybe I just had a lot of time on my hands. Here is a page from my journal from the week of May 31st to June 6th, 1981 when I clipped out every show I watched from the Detroit Free Press TV Guide:
Channel 50: Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, Flintstones, Funny Fables-- I love cartoons!
Channel 50 Movie: with Bill Kennedy! Bill Kennedy was the local movie host who broadcast live and took phone calls. He used to work in Hollywood, as an actor and voice talent and he had a sardonic attitude but shared his love of the business. I watched "The Chapman Report" 1962, starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Jane Fonda, Shelley Winters and Ray Danton. The Free Press' always hilarious summary: "Sex survey in suburbia."
Channel 62 Movie: "Slaves of the Invisible Monster" 1966 "Richard Webb in see-through plot."
Channel 50 Movie: "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" 1960, "Albert Finney, bored with working, Rachel Roberts."
Channel 62: The Scene -- on the nation's first and only black owned TV station - the afternoon local teen dance program. The funkiest!
Channel 9 Movie: "What's So Bad About Feeling Good?" 1968, "George Peppard gives Mary Typer Moore the bird." (I don't remember this movie, but according to Rotten Tomatoes: "An exotic bird infects an artist with a happiness virus which he and his girlfriend give to New York." Bird flu?
Channel 7: Ryan's Hope -- OK this is a soap opera and the only one I ever got into watching which I blame on a combination of my little sister Rachel, who insisted on watching it, and the fact it that was the best thing on TV during our high school lunch break. Interestingly, actress Kate Mulgrew went on to captain a Starship on Star Trek Voyager and dominate fellow inmates on "Orange is the New Black."
Channel 7: Love Boat. Exciting and new, even in reruns.
Channel 50 Movie: "Daisy Kenyon" 1948 "Joan Crawford can't make up her mind" Dana Andrews, Henry Fonda
Channel 4: Harper Valley PTA - I'll watch practically anything with Barbara Eden! A short lived TV series based on the Tom T Hall song about that hip single mom who "socked it to" the PTA.
Channel 50: Move over, "Orange is the New Black", "Prisoner, Cell Block H" was the original women's prison TV show! Today's episode: "Tension and pressure surround the death threat to Tracy; Jim continues to develop his social life."
Channel 50 Movie: "Bedlam" 1946, Anna Lee in insane asylum. With Boris Karloff. (Of course!!!)
Channel 50 Movie: "Harvey", 1951, "James Stewart has funny bunny friend."
Channel 4 Movie: "Twilight People" 1975, "John Ashley, with strange group." Rotten Tomatoes: An adventurer (John Ashley) sees a mad scientist's creations: an antelope man, a bat man, an ape man, a panther woman (Pam Grier). From the poster: "Test Tube Terrors, Half Beast, All Monster!"
Channel 50: Happy Days Again- or were they?
Channel 50: Prisoner, Cell Block H: "Vera experiences guilt about the night before."
Channel 4: Tiger Baseball: Minnesota at Detroit, 2:30 p.m.
Channel 56: Sneak Previews-- Siskel and Ebert with the current movie reviews!
Channel 50 Movie (what would we do without the Channel 50 movie?) "Dead Ringer" 1964, "Bette Davis kills twin." Sigh. With Karl Malden and Peter Lawford.
Channel 50: Kotter. and by "Kotter" they mean "Welcome Back, Kotter."
Channel 50: M*A*S*H*
Channel 50: Mary Tyler Moore
Channel 50: Honeymooners: Ralph finds a man's glove and thinks Alice is having an affair.
Channel 4: Tomorrow Show- before there was Letterman there was the Tomorrow Show, with Tom Snyder, smoking a cigarette on air, and interviewing, I don't know, like Charles Manson?!

Well, that concludes our broadcast week from May 31- June 6th, 1981. Thanks for joining me for a little blast from the past.


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