My television of 15+ years, with built-in VHS player/recorder, has bit the dust! Actually the tv itself probably had a few more good years left - it was the built-in VHS player that did it in. A word of advice – do not by a tv with a built-in VHS or DVD player. I plan to purchase a new flat screen High Definition set, but have not gotten around to it yet (probably this week-end).
I have a small black and white tv in the office, but it does not get cable, and there is not much to watch on basic broadcast tv these days. While I have missed episodes of cable’s Kyle XY, The Closer and Doctor Who, which will no doubt be rerun, I have not gone “unentertained”. I have discovered some websites that let me watch a wide range of old movies and tv shows on my computer.
Liketelevision.com features movies from the 1930s to the 1970s (I watched “The Satanic Rites of Dracula”, “Bird With the Crystal Plumage”, “Billie the Kid Versus Dracula”, and “The Kennel Murder Case” with William Powell as Philo Vance), oldtime serials like “Lost City” and “Radar Men from the Moon” and classic television comedies from Burns and Allen (a young Bob Fosse danced on one episode), the Jack Benny Show and the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (I saw an episode with a teen-aged Linda Evans, billed as Linda Evenstad) to the Dick Van Dyke Show, Andy Griffith and the Beverly Hillbillies, detective shows like Highway Patrol, Richard Diamond, Peter Gunn, Public Defender and Dragnet, and sci-fi like One Step Beyond.
I have a small black and white tv in the office, but it does not get cable, and there is not much to watch on basic broadcast tv these days. While I have missed episodes of cable’s Kyle XY, The Closer and Doctor Who, which will no doubt be rerun, I have not gone “unentertained”. I have discovered some websites that let me watch a wide range of old movies and tv shows on my computer.
Liketelevision.com features movies from the 1930s to the 1970s (I watched “The Satanic Rites of Dracula”, “Bird With the Crystal Plumage”, “Billie the Kid Versus Dracula”, and “The Kennel Murder Case” with William Powell as Philo Vance), oldtime serials like “Lost City” and “Radar Men from the Moon” and classic television comedies from Burns and Allen (a young Bob Fosse danced on one episode), the Jack Benny Show and the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (I saw an episode with a teen-aged Linda Evans, billed as Linda Evenstad) to the Dick Van Dyke Show, Andy Griffith and the Beverly Hillbillies, detective shows like Highway Patrol, Richard Diamond, Peter Gunn, Public Defender and Dragnet, and sci-fi like One Step Beyond.
In2tv at video.aol.com has classic, and current, television shows in such categories as Animation, Comedy, Drama, Looney Tunes, Sci-Fi, Secret Agent, Superheroes, and First Episodes. I watched several episodes of The Man From Uncle (including one which guest-starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy before they teamed up to go where no man had gone before), The Girl From Uncle (I found an episode I remember from my grammar school days with guest star Boris Karloff in drag), I Spy, Spies (a tongue-in-cheek series from 1986 starring George Harrison that I had never heard of), Hunter (not the Fred Dryer cop show – a spy show from 1976 starring James Franciscus, of Mr. Novack and Longstreet, fame and a grown up pre-Dynasty Linda Evans – also new to me), and Under Cover (from 1990 with Linda Purl of Matlock and Anthony John Denison). I also saw the unaired pilot for an Aquaman spin-off of Smallville and the original pilot for Falcon Crest (the show was called The Vintage Years and featured different actors as Chase, Maggie and Richard Channing).
You can also view full episodes of current tv shows at the websites of the various broadcast and cable stations. I watched the entire first season of Blood Ties (a female private eye teams up with a 450+ year old vampire, the son of Henry VIII, to solve supernatural cases) at the Lifetime website.
So when you are faced with “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)” you now know where to go!
TTFN
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