What’s on tonight?

I’m watching House Calls at 9:30 for Dack Rambo and Dack Rambo only.

Sometimes they aired it twice in a row, which I referred to as the Dack Stack.

I've always enjoyed Billy Santoro's work.

I just noticed Lou Grant is a repeat. NOT WATCHING

Forget ultrasounds, Pro-Life religious conservatives should show pregnant women considering abortions this episode of Quincy.

Mason Adams gives me hives.

I'm watching The Last Convertible; I loved those trashy miniseries based on equally-trashy book club novels!

John Shea and Perry King! Yum

Such *pretty* boys.

R4 What do you expect? It's June. Nearly everything in primetime is a rerun!

Wow, they really made Bruce Boxleitner look dorky at R8. I didn't recognize him at first.

I would suggest watching "The Rehearsal" at 10:30pm.

This Gus Giordano ballet features one of his company's lead dancers, Jeffrey Mildenstein.

Fantasy Island and Three Stooges, but I'd tell everyone I watched Hidden Struggles.

Flipping between Quincy, the NACCP conference, and Wimbeldon.

Quincy will hook you and put a stop to your flipping, missy.

I’m very glad that “The Three Stooges” listing at 1:10am is specified as COMEDY.

I might have tuned in mistakenly thinking it was the hard-hitting drama also titled “The Three Stooges.”

Not watching Fantasy Island.....that cunt Celeste Holm is on!

I guess it's Dame Edith Evans for me!

*NAACP and Wimbledon

Our very own Earl Holliman in Gunsmoke!

Tom Snyder always has great guests. And definitely watching The Rehearsal.

June 29, 1981 was a Monday. I was at NYU at the time but of course this was summertime. I had a night job and probably didn’t get home until about 12:30am.

What I typically watched was David Letterman, then the Mare-athon (three episodes of the MTM Show and then the three eps of Bob Newhart. I’m not sure what I would have watched in 1981, though, because Letterman didn’t start until late winter of 1982.

What location is this? Lots of different markets overlap it seams. In NYC, each network had only one station unless you counted the Long Island PBS.

Wimbledon commentator, Billie Jean King, had just come out the month before in May 1981.

Santa Bárbara?

For the PBS types, "The Ambassadors" looks promising. It's part of the "BBC Play of the Month" series where they broadcast a filmed version of a stage play.

Seeing David Huffman's name listed as one of the actors reminds me that he was murdered by a 16-year old in San Diego in a violent attack just four years later.

[Quote] What location is this? Lots of different markets overlap it seams. In NYC, each network had only one station unless you counted the Long Island PBS.

I actually can’t tell. I collect issues of the French surrealist magazine Minotaure and purchased one a few months ago. The seller padded the package with assorted, very old pages from magazines and newspapers. This page from TV Guide was in there.

Not :Free to Choose since Friedman fabricated much of the data he used to prove inflation was caused by the money supply. It does have a role of course but he was an ideologue not a true academic

R23, that's a nice bit of revisionist history, but Billie Jean King did NOT come out at any point in 1981. She did however, admit to a one time homosexual relationship with Marilyn Barnett, who was suing her for palimony. She went on to say that she was straight, was happily married to her husband Larry and they were hoping to have/adopt a child. She and Larry would not divorce for another seven years and she would not come out as a lesbian until the early 2000s. Billie Jean was a trailblazer for the feminist movement, but she was not a trailblazer for the gay and lesbian movement.

Martina Navratilova on the other hand DID come out in 1981, as bisexual, yes, and in an interview that she thought was 'off the record,' still she never backed down from it and had already been living openly with Rita Mae Brown for a couplle of years. In fact it was the aforementioned BJK who cautioned Martina about being so public about her relationship with Brown

How could I have gotten to be the age I am without ever having seen Telly Savalas co-starring with Dame Edith Evans in "Crooks and Coronets"? Or without ever having heard of it?

I loved women's tennis more than men's, and I knew King, Navratilova and Virginia Wade were all gay and it never bothered me. The main women's sponsors at the time, Avon and Toyota were freaked out. Chris Evert wrote an article defending BJK in World Tennis that more or less outed her.

John Astin, playing a business executive who wants to be a beachcomber on "Fantasy Island," is still with us at 94.

It’s the local edition for Santa Barbara.

Tony Soprano's mother (Nancy Marchand) sighting!

r31 As are Andrew Young (92) and Jesse Jackson (82). They're some of the speakers mentioned in the NAACP conference segment.

Also Earl Holliman (96!), Alan Oppenheimer (94), Carol Rossen (87), Sharon Gless (81), Robert Walden (81), Billie Jean King (80), Linda Kelsey (78), Perry King (76), John Shea (75), Bruce Boxleitner (74), James Van Patten (67), and Irena Ferris (66).

In 1981 I would have sucked the socks off Perry King.

I see that in “The Last Convertible,” the Fusiliers “have enlisted in World War Two,” as if the war were a sort of fan club one joined

R29 Wiki and IMDb indicate it was a British film, but in the United States the title was originally changed to "Sophie's Place."

I was in college that year, taking summer classes. I don't think I watched six hours of television the entire four years I was there. There was too much going on around me to resort to TV.

R33 Irena Ferris married Mike Medavoy, and retired from acting. During the Clinton Administration they stayed at the White House and someone leaked that she had shaved 9(!) years off her actual age, having seen her drivers license. Good for her!

I always thought Linda Kelsey was Linda Kaye Henning with a new surname.

I'm watching The Rehearsal, Quincy and I'm not missing that interview with Thelma Toole. A Confederacy Of Dunces is one of my favorite books.

I guess the movie after Housecalls

Lou Grant then Quincy.

This was two days before my 7th birthday, I can't remember what we did for the party that year.

In exactly one month, many of us would be glued to the television watching the wedding of Charles and Diana.

R39 that's funny considering Jack Bannon was Bea Benadaret's son. I totally see what you are saying. I doubt LKH needed to work after Petticoat.

[quote]Also Earl Holliman (96!)

r33 A little over a month later, we're already one down.

Is my favorite show on tonight- Archie Bunker’s Place?

[quote]r7 I'm watching The Last Convertible; I loved those trashy miniseries based on equally-trashy book club novels!

I’ve always wondered about that title. They still make convertibles today. So how can any car be the “last convertible”?

I’ll be up all night on cocaine while watching Will, Wild World Of Animals before sign off.

[Quote] So how can any car be the “last convertible”?

It’s a Bildungsroman. A bunch of young and carefree guys starting at Harvard. In 1940. One of them owns a convertible. The car is a symbol of youth and being unattached, not weighed down by responsibility.

The title doesn’t refer to the last convertible in the universe. It’s the last convertible for the protagonists.

I loved Lou Grant and Tom Snyder.

Going for the tennis highlights

I'm watching The Last Convertible just for the eye candy cast.

No tv I am still reading an article from the newspaper June 5th

I'll probably rent a movie to watch on my Betamax.

Ah summer 1981 .. I was out nearly every night at age 26.

No TV for me!

Not a slam in any way I am actually curious because I remember my reaction and we are close in age (really fucking old)

What were you thinking, about the June 5 article or MMWR , talking about those men when you read it?

"Teh Last COnvertible" book was trashy

[quote]I'll probably rent a movie to watch on my Betamax.

I bought my first Betamax later that year. It was over $800.

In June of '81, I was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Needless to say, I didn't have access to any of this programming.

That background figure with her tits falling out in THE (ALLEGED) LAST CONVERTIBLE artwork @ r48 is that mannish drunk, Christine Cagney.

Hopefully Mary Beth will happen by and help her. But there’s no guarantees.

Lou Grant was a pretty good show in the day. Back in the 1970s - 1990s there were regularly scheduled shows that you would follow each week night. Some of it was light fare entertainment and some of it was serious. We took it for granted how this would eventually start to be replaced, first by cable television, and now by online streaming channels. On demand sounds like a good idea, but the daily structure routine is gone. Most of what the network television channels offer today are cheaply produced throwaway bullshit that I would never spend any time watching, such as reality TV shows.

FAN-tah-see EYE-land!

(If i was at my Grandma's house. There's no way my parents would ever allow me up at midnight)

Lou Grant was a great show. You kind of forgot Lou from MTM, he was less irascible and shown more as a true journalist. I don't recall Lou ever mentioning Mary, Ted, Murray on LG. The only connection was when Eileen Heckhart appeared as Mary's liberal aunt who Lou had the fling with.

Yeah r63, other than the hook of his being the same character from a beloved show, there was no other bridge at all. In fact, and correct me if I’m wrong Lou Grant superfans, but I don’t think the character ever refers to his many years in tv news in Minneapolis/St Paul at all.

MTM was open to doing a cameo but the producers wanted there to be a clean break.

[Quote] "Teh Last COnvertible" book

Teh Last COnvertible? What’s that?

R64 I think the only mention might be in the first episode when his friend at the newspaper wants to hire him as City Editor, and before going in to meet Mrs. Pynchon, he tells Lou, "Don't tell her you've been working in television. She hates television." When Lou asks, "What do I tell her I've been doing for the last 10 years?" his friend says, "Tell her you've been in jail."

Interesting r65. It’s been 40 years since I watched that!

What an oblique reference.

Probably not so oblique to audiences at the time

So what's on tomorrow night?

Mrs. Pynchon was based on Katharine Graham.