It Feels Like 1974, part 2: The Stench of Rotting Minds.

Monday from the January 20-26 1974 Newsday TV Book (click pic to embiggen).

Friends is on WNEW (Metromedia channel 5) at 6:25 in the morning? Even 35 years ago you couldn't get away from that friggin' show! Today's ep: "The One Where Chandler Streaks." I love that channel 67's nooner The Nassau/Suffolk Woman (hosted by the redoubtable Oren Palenik) is immediately followed by a discussion show called Mantrap. Saves me from coming up with a joke. Later they have Captain Ahab, who was a kiddie-show host I hope to write about some day this week...
I would love to see Hodgepodge Lodge again. Maybe I'll check YouTube. My only memory is of a serene, plain-looking woman in the woods with turtles. (You can see why I'm eager to find it.) Newsday writer John Cashman zings Burt Reynolds with his review of Skulduggery, on ABC at nine.
More meat! I think that grateful budget ledger may be related to Milton the Toaster.
Some good Cashman reviews on this page, plus a Gary Viskupic drawing (though not a very interesting one). I've been preparing a retrospective of Viskupic's Newsday artwork, as it's often quite demented. I can personally attest that some of the stuff he produced for the TV Book was high-octane nightmare fuel. He's done a lot of sci-fi paperback covers. Keep an eye out for that post (without holding your breath, of course).

Keep an eye out for Tuesday's listings, too! (Not you, Sandy Duncan!)

It Feels Like 1974: Funky Denim Wonderland!

For no special reason, I present the entire Newsday TV Book for this week, 1974, which would be... holy crap, thirty-five years ago! Here's Sunday...

(Click on pics for larger view)

Here's Jack Benny touching up the George Burns figure at Madame Tussaud's. Say, Nat Birnbaum's got some stylin' frames!
The TV Line Q & A. Where have you gone, Lisa Raggio?
Buy a cheesy wall-sized mirror and get eight gallons for the Gremlin. Hold out for premium!

So the only folks who appeared in this Jack Benny special who are still alive are little Tony DeFranco and Harry Morgan?!?

If this running "farewell show" gag was an annual event, then this was, in fact, the real thing. Benny went permanently deadpan in December '74.

Last year she perfected her sewing. This year she's working on her figure. I say 1975 found her resolving to get her whites their whitest or die trying. Ah, nothing says "spa" like the oasis known as the Plainview Shopping Center.
WSNL (channel 67) has lots of local Long Island programming, like this afternoon's Long Island Homebuyer. (Today's hot tip: Dutch Colonial house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville, going cheap, needs new carpeting in all bedrooms but one.) Check out channel seven at 1 pm--I didn't know Tennessee Williams wrote a Law & Order episode!
Here's an innovative way to sell a hair replacement system: Shame the bald guy's wife! And hey, who the hell brushed the Chia pet? WSNL serves up "pro" hockey with the Long Island Cougars, a team I've never ever heard of. On WLIW channel 21, there's a lesson in Fortran for Morons, Geniuses and Hobbits. What did you fucking nerds do before computers and Tolkien? On World of Disney, there's part one of "Hog Wild," a title which portends a typically zany Disney romp. It's about, uh, a man crippled by an enraged sow. (Perhaps zaniness ensues in part two--a sped-up wheelchair race with Don Knotts, maybe?) Anyway, it's gotta be better than the Tim Allen movie. Oh wait, that's Wild Hogs. 67 has Howard Blankman hosting Toast of Long Island. This week: marble rye.
I suspect Shelf House is not really a showroom for wall systems so much as an outlet for a mentally unstable carpenter. Seriously, that's the Winchester House of shelving right there. The David Susskind Show features panel discussions about Harry Truman and vitamins, and that's why you don't remember David Susskind.
Westrock Beef asks: why pay ten goddamn dollars for the best steak dinner when you can buy a slab of cow out of the back of a trailer?

Boy, you thought Sunday verged on interesting--stay tuned for Monday! Oh, and the post title is courtesy Robyn Hitchcock's song, "1974." Go look for it if you've never heard it...

Who Took My Friggin' Christmas?

Yeh, as always, the season zipped by too quickly. And I'm sorry, as always, that I didn't post all the obscure Christmas nonsense like I promised. Blame it on the combination of not enough time (my new job blows walrus ass by the way, to borrow a Carolla-ism) and too little patience for this slower-than-shit-through-a-sieve internet connection (I just checked my email for the first time in three weeks).

I am here now, however, because my wonderful wifey gave me a new all-in-one printer which means I now have, at long last, a flatbed scanner. All the pics you've seen here were painstakingly photographed with a digital camera and edited with Picture it!, then added with Picasa2. That's why so many of them look like crap and take so long to get on here. So right now, this second, I am testing out just how much quicker a scanned pic will magically jump onto the blog as opposed to one I photographed. Here's what should have been here on December 31st:

Guy Lombardo graces the year-end 1972 Newsday TV book...

...and here the 1974 cover.

Well, that didn't take too long, so whoop-de-doo! I'm gonna go scan a bunch more stupid stuff--lucky you! (I'll fiddle with the date to make it look like I posted them by Christmas, and only you and I will be the wiser!)

Oh, and happy new year!