Cablevision Guide, February 1983.

My family got cable in August of 1981. I remember a guy coming to our house one warm weekday evening, a salesman for Cablevision, our local provider out of nearby Huntington. (This is on Long Island, which, for the unaware, juts out into the Atlantic from New York City, with Connecticut to the north and Jersey to the southwest completing the tri-state area). He talked with my dad at the dinner table for a while, and after he left, I asked dad what it was all about. He said we would be getting cable soon. I don't recall any of my friends having cable, so I don't think I really knew what to expect, although the rep had left that month's guide. Within a day or maybe a few, other guys came out and hooked us up. Here's what the hard-wired "remote" looked like (12 channel buttons in the middle, with a lever on the left that you used to toggle between the three tiers and a dial on the right for fine-tuning):

It was pretty exciting to have Home Box Office. We didn't have a VCR (and, sadly, wouldn't until late '84) so the idea of uncut, uninterrupted movies playing in our home was radical. The Plainview-Old Bethpage Library, my favorite hang-out in my hometown (NERD!), had a laserdisc player that my friends and I liked to mess around with, although there were only two movies available: Jaws 2 and The Eiger Sanction. (We didn't bother with the latter, which meant we were never privy to Clint Eastwood's steamy inter-racial interlude with one, ahem, "Jemima Brown.") They had cable too, but it was just the basic service, no movies, which I found out--twice.

The first time, long before we got our own cable, was when I noticed in the Newsday TV listings that Bugsy Malone was on HBO that evening. I loved Bugsy Malone, had seen it a couple of times in the theater when it was released (summer of '76, when I was seven-and-a-third). I was too young to walk to the library by myself, so I wangled a post-dinner ride from mom or a sibling. I don't think I let on that I mostly just wanted to see if the library's smaller, non-laserdisc-connected television had HBO. It was in an area off to the side from the many study carrels, but still sort-of out in the open, and I felt embarrassed that I was just there hoping to catch a free flick. I'm sure I grew increasingly redder as I noisily ratcheted between channels, trying in vain to find Fat Sam and Tallulah cracking wise in their kiddie speakeasy.

The other time I can recall was probably less than a year before scoring our own HBO, when I was deep in the throes of an Our Gang obsession. I watched those ancient two-reelers (re-packaged for syndication as The Little Rascals, of course) every day after school, happily viewing the same episodes over and over (on WNEW, channel 5). When I spotted the newspaper listing for Rascal Dazzle, a movie-length compilation of scenes celebrating the series, it seemed new and unique and I needed to see it. Once again my mania compelled me to high-tail it to the library, in spite of the previous fruitless experience. Well, maybe they had upgraded since then! (Do I really need to tell you that they hadn't?)

Anyway, my pal Jeff and I were psyched to find that that inaugural August featured The Blues Brothers and Caddyshack. They were in relatively frequent rotation, considering that HBO wouldn't go 24/7 until the following January. The broadcast day began around 5pm with something family-friendly, and concluded by 2am or so on weekdays, with expanded hours on the weekend.

Here's the guide for that first 24-hours-a-day month, in a crummy pic I found online:

Jeff slept over my house a record number of times for the remainder of the summer, since it would be less than three weeks until Saint Pius X again reared his mitered head with the post-Labor Day commencement of seventh grade. Any night when both flicks were shown was a must, and if the goofy sci-fi/horror gross-out It Came... Without Warning was also airing, even better.

Amused at first, I became quickly inured to the salty language and occasional nudity. Alan Parker's Fame was another premiere that month, and during one viewing my mom came downstairs to the TV room. It was the scene where Barry Miller's Puerto Rican comedian-wannabe is tearfully and profanely rejecting God after the rape of his pre-teen sister. My mother walked in just as Raul Garcia (or "Ralph Garci") rebukes "that fucking asshole God up there" (or something like that). She gasped and said, "Turn that off!" I protested, and when she repeated her demand, I nonchalantly replied that I had already watched this movie like five times so what's the difference. Mom just sighed and went back upstairs, violated and utterly defeated by the home invasion of unexpurgated entertainment.

That first Cablevision guide had a dance scene still from Fame on the cover, and I saved that edition, along with the next couple years' worth. At some point, I decided it was silly to be keeping all these issues and, after clipping pics of favorite movies for a scrapbook, I chucked all but that first one. I then lost that as well, among many subsequent moves as an adult. (The scrapbook went missing along the line.) As I am now a collector of personal nostalgia (i.e., I want all my cool old shit back), I wish I had held on to all of them. They've become quite difficult to find, but I did seek out and purchase one a while back, and as you may have surmised from the title, it is the focus of this posting.

The guide I scored is from February 1983. I was finishing up my parochial school sentence at the time, and that fall I would enter public High School with precisely zero friends, Jeff having moved far away and the rest attending Catholic institutions. Thus ended what I would later come to think of as "The Good Old Days." Don't get me wrong--I was a neurotic, insecure mess back then too, but at least I was a mess with a bunch of pals to horse around with. Now it was just me and Pius pal Mike, another tremendous nerd, and we hung out every weekend doing the nerdly things nerds do. (I suspect, since you're reading this, I don't need to describe them.)

The issue heralds the television premiere of Star Wars. I had loved Star Wars exponentially more than even Our Gang, with my room being a 360-degree shrine to the first two movies of the franchise. (See what remains of my SW toys HERE, and the many other sundry items of my collection HERE!) By early '83, however, I was pretty well burned out on it, and I don't even remember watching it on HBO (although I'm sure I must have at some point). Here are the cover and table of contents:

Next, the "February Attractions," movies and specials coming up on the premium pay channels of HBO, Cinemax, The Movie Channel and Showtime (plus the Cablevision General Manager's newsletter and a Fraggle Rock contest).

These are followed by the sports schedule, not a priority for this kid (or grown-up, for that matter).

The big premiere of the month is featured, facing a TDK ad with "Pleasure Playback" contest.

I didn't feel like scanning all of the many pages of movie synopses, so here's a chosen few, starting at the beginning:

 

Next, your channel directory.  Naturally, there were the over-the-air local channels (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 21 and 47), but seeing stations broadcasting from Boston and Chicago was a real kick. This line-up is not the same as when we got cable, but pretty close. I loved sitting there and reading the Swap 'N' Shop items for sale, and bought my first video camera--125 bucks!--that way. (Plus they played unfamiliar radio stations to go along with the graphics, and that's how I found the Hour of Madness.)

 

Before the listings--also represented here only sporadically--there's a rundown of the channel packages, with ours being Rainbow (including Sportschannel II, not Playboy--rats!).

More listings, plus the guide to what the Long Island Sports Network had to offer.

 

An ad and schedule for the Cable Health Network, which would eventually become Lifetime.

This ad for Cablevision includes the soon-to-premiere Newsday Channel, which, as I recall, consisted largely of on-screen print and graphics but not much in the way of live content. It didn't last long.

Kicking off the glossy, color pages at the center, a self-serving article about cable television.

Here are a few pages detailing the programs of Montage, a vintage film channel I vaguely remember. According to info I found online, it was exclusive to Cablevision, renamed American Movie Classics when it went national.


At the center, ESPN. Again, not a favorite.

Next up is a look at Bravo programming, with an MTV ad too. Music Television was added to our line-up in summer of '82, with a package of video clips (I want to say it was less than ten minutes long) that looped over several hours leading up to the big reveal. When the appointed hour arrived, a switch was unceremoniously flipped right in the middle of "Your Imagination" by Hall & Oates. I remained in my seat, continuously watching for the next three months.

The next four pages are non-consecutive ads for PlayCable, a video game service featuring Intellivision gameplay. I had an actual Intellivision console at the time, so I really didn't take much notice. And yes, I was a total anti-Atari snob, scoffing at the comparatively crude graphics, laughing right up until Intellivision went into the toilet within a few years.

Now here's a look at the titillating tidbits proffered by the Playboy Channel. I discovered that other unsubscribed movie channels were somewhat viewable when I simultaneously depressed the two buttons on either side (that is, in order to see an only-slightly-scrambled Cinemax on 35, I'd push 34 and 36 and then wiggle the tuning dial.) The Playboy Channel, however, thwarted this particular type of digital manipulation by being located at the end of the row of buttons, at 37. Double rats! (More listings and ads follow.)

Now we head into the homestretch, more color pages showing you all the crap* you couldn't be bothered to see in the theater, but which you may have found more acceptable if you could lay around in jammies lightly dozing to it.
[*Except Diner]

Here the specials are spotlighted, including the Doobie Brothers' farewell concert (other than the eight tours they've had since).

Finally, a brief look at Harrison Ford's career, and the back cover.

And finally finally, here's a bonus for ya... I don't have any TV Guides from August of 1981, but here's a look at what was surely one of those sleepover Saturdays, 8/29, from the Newsday TV Book. That withering review of The Blues Brothers at 11pm meant nothing to me or Jeff--we added THREE stars because we were enthralled by all that stupid shit! And I now see that our viewing of the movie prevented us from seeing a rerun of the first episode of Saturday Night Live. Oh well, at least we were able to catch the end of SCTV...