Newsday TV Book, March 25-31, 1984.

I know what you're thinking: "Why are you putting up a new post when you haven't even finished the last one?" (Or perhaps: "Why do you continue to waste your time on this at all?") Well, I've had this issue for many, many years now, and it just seemed like a good time to upload scans from it, in order to compare and contrast with that previous post, from roughly one year earlier. (Yes, even as I typed that, it seemed like a pretty dumb reason.)

In any case, Jimmy Cagney and Artie Carney (and yes, I know no one called him that) do their grimacing curmudgeon thing on the cover, for their TV movie Terrible Joe Moran. (Cagney lived another two years; Carney, who was 19 years his junior, died in 2003.)

As usual, the TV Line column features several queries that one hopes were from children.

Here's the cover story, plus some Local Cable TV highlights. By the way, I don't know if Judge Israel Rubin (of Cablevision's Lawline) is the best guy to get legal advice from; a few years later, he would rule that a mansion in Nyack was, as "a matter of law," actually haunted, as the spooked plaintiff claimed. (Spoiler Alert: it wasn't.)

Speaking of curmudgeons, critical harridan Harriet Van Horne has some nerve calling Beatrix Potter a late-in-life termagant (although I did enjoy her reporting of Potter's deathbed directive).

Sunday morning's listings, and the directory of local stations.

Cool Alien pic--plus, I did not know that Martin Mull played "Martin Crane" nine years before John Mahoney!

Here's Sunday's late listings, although I forget if I had a specific reason for scanning this page. Maybe because I had just gotten my own little television for my 15th birthday a week earlier, so it's nauseatingly nostalgic to see the shows I stayed up all night watching as I dreaded the imminent return to ninth grade misery.

I would describe the gal in the hair replacement ad as "Long Island hot." Not disparagingly, you understand, but she might be a little "ethnic" for fellas in other parts of the country.

I've reproduced this Easter ad for Westbury's Hicks Nurseries elsewhere online, but here it is in its original context.

Cool illustrated ad for the Cagney ITT Theatre showcase, with young representations of him and cutie Ellen Barkin.

Thursday's afternoon and evening schedule is accompanied by an ad that, best as I can tell, is for a two-location video store chain called "Video." (One was on Main Street in Farmingdale, meaning there is a very good chance your humble Non-Parader perused those very shelves at some point in its undoubtedly brief existence.)

As I like to do, I now present late Friday night and all day Saturday.

I remember watching this WNEW channel 5 "Movie Greats" presentation of Desk Set. I liked it, but it's probably not the best of the Tracy/Hepburn movies to start with.

WOR channel 9 had They Saved Hitler's Brain for their wee-hours "Fright Night" feature, followed by UFO's: It Has Begun, both of which I likely anticipated with excitement... and then dozed through.

Off Camera features tidbits for fans of Michael Landon and The Duck Factory.

Now for some ads... No Frills Nuts & Fruit Etc. claimed to be "the greatest nut show on earth," so they clearly had no premonition regarding the present administration.

I seem to recall liking McMichaels (no apostrophe?) Seafood Restaurant just as much as Red Lobster, but don't remember if my family went to the Bethpage or Hicksville location.

I've posted ads for other LI lawn care services in the past, but Lawn Doctor was the one my family occasionally employed. I know this because I remember signs placed on our property of the cartoon hand with the green thumb. I wonder if that scored my dad a discount.

I'm not finding much on "Frantic Fredda" online (or, for that matter, "Leg-Warmer Lucy," in the adjacent ad, probably because I just made that name up).

Trivia page 1: I got the first and third questions correct...

Trivia, page 2: nailed all three--but how dare they omit Joanna Lumley as Purdey!

Until next time, enjoy your spring! Although it's already too damn warm for my taste!
And get off my lawn--a doctor just put chemicals on it! Don't you see the thumb?