We never had cable; it was a matter of principle my family refused to pay to use our own airwaves.
Joel Send a noteboard - 14/03/2012 03:56:48 PM
Pretty sure Battle of the Planets somehow acquainted me with nostalgia in the early '80s (even though its original US run had not yet finished.) Either that, or summers spent watching fifty year old and/or B movies all night with my dad after I had read long enough for my mom to fall asleep. One of the nice things about living in a city as big as Houston was that there were multiple independent stations even in the early '80s and they did not just turn to snow at 2AM (most stations STILL do in Ausin.) White Heat and Invasion of the Bee Girls (usually) beat Charlie Rose on Nightwatch, and DEFINITELY beat Ag Day. 
There was admittedly pretty limited selection back then, in terms of shows and movies, as you say, you got to pick between 4 channels, though we also got a canadian one in, up along the lakes you usually had decent reception of one or two TV and Radio channels from Hockey-land, Channel 10 IIRC. So the big three, PBS, and that, an absolute Smörgåsbord of options but we had cable, adding a whopping seven or eight more and Nick at Nite, which my older sister and I used to sneak down to watch at 2 AM after Johnny Carson was over. I can't remember the saturday morning cartoon line up as well as the Saturday/Sunday afternoon 'awful movie showing' which IIRC was hosted by Big Chuck and Lil' John, local Cleveland celebs. I'm sure everybody had the equivalent, 'now burn away your afternoon with this matinée showing of crappy colorized 50's and 60's movies with alien robots composed of cardboard boxes spray painted silver' - the alternative usually being Dr. Who reruns on PBS. And the endless, endless reruns of old Looney Tunes, I think I've seen very single episode a hundred times... the bad ones too, Speedy Gonzalez still flew back then.
And maybe slightly a matter of living in Houston after the Energy Crisis oil boom went bust. The only good that came of that was it taught the city the importance of a diverse economy, and it is much better for it now. Well, and maybe my mom (who voted for Reagan in '80) deciding "Reagan did more to make me a Democrat than any Democrat ever did."
I miss Carson; late night just has not been the same without the king. Been a while since I watched any of it much, but it seems like Letterman started phoning it in as soon as he got a 10:30 slot. Conan was about the only one I liked, and NBC managed to screw that up as well (Craig Ferguson still around? He seems OK.)
*returns from tangent* Really, we should consider ourselves lucky, because free-TV is still a wasteland in the wee hours many places. I still have a scar on my right index finger because my pocket knife slipped while stripping antenna wire so I could try to pull in Houston stations from 200 miles away in Austin. Twelve year olds can only endure just so much Charlie Rose.
I remember invasion of the bee girls, but the memory seems more of a recent flavor so I probably watched it some time mid-90's or later, sort of thing they'd have had on USA up-all-night, though the plot of those are always pretty generic, be the chicks aliens, vamps, or zombies so its pretty easy to fill in the mental blanks. I'm like 3rd generation geek so I got raised on a lot TV weekend afternoon matinée crap
Yeah, pretty formulaic; boy meets girl, girl is a supernatural horror Hell bent (often literally) on global domination and/or mass murder, boy loses girl. Alternatively, boy must save girl from aforementioned horror. In my case, the best ones were actually late morning, when one of the local independents would do week long blocks of genre films, so I got to see all the Planet of the Apes films, Godzilla etc.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Test Your Geekdom, Vol IV: Name That Toon
- 13/03/2012 08:15:13 PM
1195 Views
Answers
- 13/03/2012 08:18:27 PM
638 Views
These seem to be getting increasingly obscure... I suppose that makes sense in a way.
- 13/03/2012 08:49:04 PM
516 Views
Mostly a byproduct of why this quiz appears so soon after the last
- 13/03/2012 08:58:43 PM
566 Views
- 13/03/2012 08:58:43 PM
566 Views
On this one more than all the rest, nationality will tell, I guess.
- 13/03/2012 09:03:12 PM
509 Views
That's probably a bit unavoidable
- 13/03/2012 09:24:39 PM
574 Views
Really not as unavoidable as you'd think, I would be inclined to say after that reply.
- 13/03/2012 10:26:42 PM
624 Views
Re: Really not as unavoidable as you'd think, I would be inclined to say after that reply.
- 13/03/2012 10:40:01 PM
720 Views
Re: Really not as unavoidable as you'd think, I would be inclined to say after that reply.
- 13/03/2012 11:02:18 PM
564 Views
I think you're being a trifle unfair
- 14/03/2012 12:19:41 AM
495 Views
From where I'm standing, you're the one who started taking things too seriously.
- 14/03/2012 07:26:53 PM
496 Views
- 14/03/2012 07:26:53 PM
496 Views
16; not bad for a non-comic geek, IMHO.
- 13/03/2012 10:58:48 PM
743 Views
A lot are eponymous
- 14/03/2012 12:31:17 AM
563 Views
Do be a Do-Bee (DO, DO, DO!)
- 14/03/2012 01:08:49 AM
668 Views
- 14/03/2012 01:08:49 AM
668 Views
Re: Do be a Do-Bee (DO, DO, DO!)
- 14/03/2012 01:14:50 AM
575 Views
- 14/03/2012 01:14:50 AM
575 Views
Nostalgic parody, perhaps?
- 14/03/2012 10:51:14 AM
641 Views
That's probably as good as any other
- 14/03/2012 12:32:16 PM
522 Views
We never had cable; it was a matter of principle my family refused to pay to use our own airwaves.
- 14/03/2012 03:56:48 PM
583 Views