Tuesday, January 10, 2006

The Vids Just Keep on Coming

iTunes just added these series to their service:
  • ''Wildfire'' (season 2 - in progress, ABC Family)
  • ''Kim Possible'' (season 1 - partial, Disney)
  • ''The Proud Family'' (seasons 1 & 2 - partial, Disney)
  • ''Saturday Night Live'' (Best of & sketches, NBC)
  • ''Soapography'' (season 1 - partial, SoapNet)
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Common Threads #2

What do these series have in common?
  • ''Turning Point''
  • ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire''
  • ''Jones & Jury''
  • ''Love, Hate & Joy''
  • ''Stylemaker''
  • ''National Geographic Explorer''
  • ''Good Day Live''

(+/-)answer

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Don't Shoot the Video Messenger (Updated)

Not only is Google Video up and running, but they've already addressed the incomplete listing issue I mentioned in the previous post. You can now see all videos that you are supposed to see.

As of 12:20AM PST this morning, here is the list of non-PBS TV eps that you can purchase from Google for $1.99 each. I did not include specials (Ed Sullivan) nor TV eps that you can rent for $1.99 a day (''CSI'' and ''NCIS'').

If you click on an item, you'll be directed to the Google Video page to see a preview for that particular ep. In parentheses, I've included season number, ep number and original air date. I'll add links to all Google Videos to the trivialTV database so that you can link directly to them from the TV Listings.
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Monday, January 09, 2006

Don't Shoot the Video Messenger

Google Video is finally up and running!

Google is still having a few issues. If you select ''Brady Bunch'' from the pull-down menu, Google says you're seeing 1-15 of about 17 even though you only see three videos. I assume this 'unplanned feature' will be fixed over the next day or so.

As of 10:20PM PST tonight, here is the list of non-PBS TV eps that you can purchase from Google for $1.99 each.
  • The Brady Bunch - Dear Libby (01-002, oad:10/3/1969)
  • The Brady Bunch - Mike's Horror-Scope (01-016, oad:1/16/1970)
  • The Brady Bunch - To Move or Not to Move (01-023, oad:3/6/1970)
  • Have Gun Will Travel - Three Bells to Perdido (01-001, oad:9/14/1957)
  • Have Gun Will Travel - A Matter of Ethics (01-005, oad:10/12/1957)
  • Have Gun Will Travel - The Bride (01-006, oad:10/19/1957)
  • I Love Lucy - The Operetta (02-005, oad:10/13/1952)
  • I Love Lucy - Sales Resistance (02-017, oad:1/26/1953)
  • I Love Lucy - The Black Eye (02-020, oad:3/9/1953)
  • MacGyver - The Golden Triangle (01-002, oad:10/6/1985)
  • MacGyver - Thief of Budapest (01-003, oad:10/13/1985)
  • MacGyver - The Gauntlet (01-004, oad:10/21/1985)
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Emissary (Part 1 of 2); Emissary (Part 2 of 2) (01-001; 01-002, oad:1/2/1993)
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - A Man Alone (01-004, oad:1/16/1993)
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Babel (01-005, oad:1/23/1993)
  • Star Trek: Voyager - Initiations (02-002, oad:9/4/1995)
  • Star Trek: Voyager - Non Sequitur (02-005, oad:9/25/1995)
  • Star Trek: Voyager - Tattoo (02-009, oad:11/6/1995)
  • Survivor: Guatemala: The Maya Empire - Man Down (11-002, oad:9/22/2005)
  • Survivor: Guatemala: The Maya Empire - Eating and Sleeping with the Enemy (11-010, oad:11/17/2005)
  • Survivor: Guatemala: The Maya Empire - Thunder Storms & Sacrifice (11-014; 11-015, oad:12/11/2005)
  • The Twilight Zone - One for the Angels (01-002, oad:10/9/1959)
  • The Twilight Zone - Walking Distance (01-005, oad:10/30/1959)
  • The Twilight Zone - Time Enough at Last (01-008, oad:11/20/1959)
I did not include specials (Ed Sullivan) nor TV eps that you can rent for $1.99 a day (''CSI'' and ''NCIS'').

In parentheses, I've included season number, ep number and original air date. I'll add links to all Google Videos to the trivialTV database so that you can link directly to them from the TV Listings.
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Relive Each Day As If It Were Your Past

Today I'm introducing a new feature in the near left column. You'll be able to see the top ten rated shows for select weeks in the past. I'll update this feature every weekday.

Here's the schedule:
  • Mondays: one year ago from the current week
  • Tuesdays: five years ago
  • Wednesdays: ten years ago
  • Thursdays: fifteen years ago
  • Friday: twenty years ago


Enjoy!
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Friday, January 06, 2006

Cell Begun Is Half Done

Just when you think every major player has already announced plans for delivering content to your mobile phone, along comes 20th Century Fox.

They haven't announced anything too specific yet. Sure, the division has a name, Fox Mobile Entertainment. Yes, it's produced mobisodes specifically for cell phones—but that content was distributed by a third party. And according to the Airborne Entertainment site, Fox has an overall strategy for wireless content distribution. I haven't heard much else though.

But rumor has it that Fox finally has a name for its own service. Drum roll please!

Mobizzo.

In case you were wondering, Fox registered mobizzo.com just a few weeks ago.

Watch for the biz buzz on Mobizzo.
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Thursday, January 05, 2006

Seeing By Sky Cam Is Believing

I sure take Sky Cam coverage for granted these days when I watch football. Sure, it's very videogame-esque, but I expect to see these angles now. Almost demand them. So I decided to find out when networks started using Sky Cam, and I thought I would share two excerpts with you in today's retro technology entry.

From Kevin Mulligan (Philadelphia Daily News, 31 Aug 1984)
It stands 4 feet, 6 inches high, weighs 38 pounds and can do the 100 four seconds faster than Carl Lewis.

It took $1.8 million to get the first and only one off the ground - where it spends 99.9 percent of its time hovering at anywhere from 20 to 100 feet or zipping around at speeds as high as 20 mph - and is controlled by a joy stick similar to the one hooked up to your Atari 5200 home computer system.

Its name is Sky Cam, a radically new TV camera that last Friday made the 50-yard line the second best seat in the house at the Raiders-Jets NFL preseason game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Sky Cam, a computer-controlled camera suspended by cables over the playing field, took an NBC-TV audience places it never had been during the game, when the remarkable invention made its national TV debut.


From Bill Carter (The Seattle Times, 13 Jan 1985)
NBC did use Skycam more extensively at one other event, a World Cup soccer match between the United States and a team from the Netherlands Antilles. ''Nobody noticed because the game got a 1.9 rating,'' Monaghan said.

NBC director John Gonzalez was intrigued with Skycam, however, and he and one NBC cameraman worked long hours with the Skyworks technicians to polish the skills necessary to make the device work. The result was the Orange Bowl coverage, where the exceptional shots provided by Skycam exceeded NBC's greatest expectations.

It almost had to be the Orange Bowl, Aagaard said, because of the free rein that bowl usually allows. NBC calls the Orange Bowl ''the bowl of innovation.''

In this case, that may mean the bowl will be remembered not for having more people on the field than in the stands during its halftime show, but for giving the first real exposure to the next step in the revolution of sports coverage on television.
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Wednesday, January 04, 2006

A (Parenthetical) Word To the Wise Is Sufficient

Twenty-five years ago this week John Lennon topped Billboard's Hot 100 Charts with "(Just Like) Starting Over."

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for parentheses. I always wonder why a writer chooses to use them. Why did she use parentheses instead of dashes? What's so important about the text in parentheses that she included it even though her words aren't important enough to be part of the main thought?

TV writers often use parenthetical text for ep titles when they add words to a well-known phrase. These extra words are banished between brackets, just like the title for this entry.

Here's a short list of TV ep titles with clever parentheticals:
  • Anna (Palm) Springs into Action (''The Anna Nicole Show,'' 5/11/2003)
  • Baby's Got (Flash) Back (''All of Us,'' 4/26/2005)
  • Best (Mis)Laid Plans (''Atomic Betty,'' 3/20/2005)
  • Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (in 22 Minutes) (''Full House,'' 10/6/1989)
  • Cute First (Ask Questions Later) (''Animaniacs,'' 10/11/1997)
  • Dog Day Afternoon (and Morning, Too) (''Fire Me...Please!,'' 6/28/2005)
  • Every Dream Has Its Price (Tag) (''Beverly Hills, 90210,'' 10/18/1990)
  • Games (Married) People Play (''The Debbie Reynolds Show,'' 1/6/1970)
  • It's Beginning to Look a Lot (Less) Like Christmas (''The Golden Palace,'' 12/18/1992)
  • Life Goes On (and On and On) (''Life Goes On,'' 5/23/1993)
  • Like a Virgin (Kinda) (''What I Like About You,'' 10/9/2003)
  • Love Stinks (Sometimes) (''Less Than Perfect,'' 2/10/2004)
  • Nicki Tells Her Parents (Off) (''Reunited,'' 12/29/1998)
  • One Step (Parent) Backward (''Once and Again,'' 3/18/2002)
  • Stand (Up) and Deliver (''Beverly Hills, 90210,'' 3/7/1991)
  • Sweet (and Sour) Charity (''Will & Grace,'' 4/4/2000)
  • The King Is (Un)Dead (''The Chronicle,'' 3/8/2002)
  • The Party's Over (Here) (''Moesha,'' 9/6/1999)
  • You Must(ang) Remember This (''Dave's World,'' 9/27/1995)
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Mind Your P's and Q's & Your X's and O's

Like everybody else, I watched a lot of college football in the past week. When I watched Oklahoma slip past Oregon in the Holiday Bowl last Thursday, I thought about Brian Bosworth.

You remember him, don't you?

It's hard to believe Bosworth's second TV series, "Lawless," was shorter-lived than his first!

Don't remember his first series? The networks aired 24 new episodes of "First Round Bust" over three seasons (1987-1989) on Sunday afternoons and occasional Monday nights during the Fall. The Boz played a former two-time Butkus Award winner trying to make good on a 10-year, $11 million dollar contract with the Seattle Seahawks. Most memorable episode? Monday Night Football. Bo Jackson flattened The Boz and prematurely ended his pro football career.

Brian Bosworth was one of many former NFL players who tackled the small screen when their football careers ended. Can you name some other football players-turned-performers and their primetime network TV series? (No, Jesse Palmer's stint on ''The Bachelor'' doesn't count.)
Athelete/PerformerTV Series
1.Alan Autry
(a.k.a. Carlos Brown)		"Sons of Thunder"
"In the Heat of the Night"
2.Lyle Alzado"Learning the Ropes"
3.Dick Butkus"Blue Thunder"
"Half Nelson"
"My Two Dads"
4.Bernie Casey "Harris and Company"
"Bay City Blues"
5.Fred Dryer"Hunter"
6.Bob Golic"Saved by the Bell: The College Years"
7.Rosie Greer "Make Room for Granddaddy"
"Movin' On"
8.Alex Karras"Webster"
9.Ed Marinaro "Hill Street Blues"
"Sisters"
"Oh Grow Up"
"Champs"
10.Joe Namath "The Waverly Wonders"
11.Merlin Olsen"Little House on the Prairie"
12.O.J. Simpson "1st & Ten"
13.Bubba Smith"Blue Thunder"
"Half Nelson"
"Open All Night"
"Semi-Tough"
14.Fran Tarkenton "That's Incredible"
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Monday, January 02, 2006

Better Upate than Never

No great new feature today. Just another update.

I've added 370 series and confirmed 174 series preem dates for the trivialTV database this past week. That means you'll see about one new show every other day for "On This Date" that you would've have seen otherwise.

Enjoy!
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