Newsday TV Book, July 31-August 6, 1983.

Happy almost-August to ya! So are you ready for fall yet? I am, although we've barely had a taste of the hot stuff in your Non-Parader's neck of the woods. I try not to give in to my inclination toward treating this month as an ordeal to be endured, because, as we all should remember, the odds for seeing another one next year are increasingly troubling to consider. (I had thought of using "Death is Inevitable" as the tagline for this blog, but, I dunno, seems vaguely off-putting.)

This week's issue is awash in the summer doldrums (as Harriet Van Horne will sniffily explain later). The cover features a series that I recall precisely as you see here: It was called Reggie and it starred Richard Mulligan. And with that, I'm out.

By the way, seen with Mulligan is actress Lisa Freeman, not a regular on the show (which only lasted six episodes anyway). I looked her up, she became an author and is hotter now than she was forty years ago. As the small print says, results are atypical.

The story of how Reggie came to be is surprisingly literate, considering how stupid the show sounds.

The last bit of the cover story is accompanied by the erstwhile Cable TV Highlights, now focusing just on Local Cable TV.

In the TV Line, we learn various things that the average person either already knows (the name of the  Alfred Hitchcock Presents theme, duh) or could not possibly care less about (everything about Brian Robbins).

As promised, here's the even-cattier-than-me HVH, bemoaning the season's reruns and grounded pilots, and aiming right between Meg Foster's most unusual eyes while praising her TV movie's setting and horse.

Between the dearth of interesting ads, the gutting of John Cashman's reviews, and the lack of Viskupic (just one illustration, although it is a good one), I'm largely limiting the scans to all day Sunday, Friday, and Saturday. In my estimation, the NTVB editions of the 80's grow more tiresome by the month for said reasons, among others. I was about to enter high school and already a fairly cynical little shit, so I knew, like my boo Harriet, that a lot of what TV offered was utter garbage.

Anyway, the Sunday morning pages also show the local and cable channel legends, which is kinda cool (especially since my hometown of Plainview is included, woot-woot).

I'll break things up a little bit here with this ad for Newsday's own cable channel (called--that's right--The Newsday Channel), which featured a few hours daily of live or taped news programming, but with much of their broadcast day being made up of on-screen text and computer graphics (as seen in the ad). I don't know how long it was around--the last NTVB of my collection is for Christmas 1985, and [NDY] is still there in the key. I thought it was gone by then.

Here is Monday night, notable to me for the continuing use of the Noseless Preggo for Dan Howard's Maternity Factory (except these days her head appears much smaller). Also, the close-up is a mess: that evening's airing of Nashville was on at 8pm, not nine, and on WOR, local channel 9--not on WABC channel 7's network feed. Martinsen and Stewart, sleeping on the job...

As promised, a little Visk for ya, this time out depicting a congressional can of worms which, as cans of worms go, is actually fairly tidy.

Finally, the Off Camera column reveals that J.R. Ewing and Blake Carrington were going to "court." The TENNIS court, that is! And 9 to 5 was going through major changes, always a good sign for a new sitcom. (Note that Valerie Curtin is out... and then back in two sentences later. Do better, CBT.)

Alright, on behalf of 41-year-old television, this is Don't Parade in My Rain, signing off! See you next time, maybe! Remember: Death is
INEVITABLE!!!