Nostalgia TV corner

The Saloon
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Themes from yesterday…anything that brings back memories of a Friday or Saturday night…
It can be detective, kid’s TV, documentary, controversial, or simply newsworthy at the time…

It can also be recent TV openings that have grabbed your attention…after all, nostalgia doesn’t have to be from two centuries ago! :smile:

The TV years are there to be explored…

I’ve got to start this with the classic ‘Starsky and Hutch’ (theme by Lalo Schifrin), (note: when did Lalo Schifrfin do anything bad?) which aired on a Friday evening, BBC1, April, 1976. The pilot episode blew my socks off…so cool.

As a 12 year-old at the time, I remember that the series was so popular that the first story (pilot ep) was serialised in a British newspaper tabloid…not sure which one.

We became so used to ‘Starsky and Hutch’ playing ‘buffoons’ occasionally, over four subsequent series, that we forgot how damn good the pilot episode really was…tough, gritty, and Schifrin’s score lifted it above and beyond.

It was the same week that I watched ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’ on BBC1 (Easter Monday), for the first time, albeit in 4:3 pan and scan. It shows how good it was, because it changed my life for the better, and forever! :grinning:

A good week indeed! :grinning:

Next. For me, ‘Cannon’ and ‘Kojak’. Essential Saturday night viewing, when I were a lad down pit… :smile:

Always followed by ‘Match of the Day’…

Good looking back on these days now… :cowboy_hat_face: :wine_glass:

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Eeeeeee … I were down same pit ! :wink: Special treat on Saturday night was Heinz oxtail soup and toast. Nought like kiddies today, LOL

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My favorite was always The Rockford Files which aired Friday nights at 9:00 in the U.S. on NBC.

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Blimmin’ eck…same here!!! :smiley:

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Also a great show … in the UK, Rockford was on Monday nights, I think.

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They were good times with all those classic American progs.
Gotta agree, ‘Rockford Files’…a gem.

I used to love the opening, with the different voice-messages…

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I remember that my older brother, whom I lost recently to cancer, used to like making treakle toffee when he was looking after me on a week-end…
this was usually followed by “Quick, get it down, before mum and dad get back from the pub”.

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James Garner was born to play Jim Rockford…

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Anyone remember ‘Petrocelli’…Friday evenings, BBC1.? (1974-76)

I remember as a time when mum used to go out doing the weekly shop, and came back with pork pies etc from the local bakery. It was a case of watch the 9 pm news, and then ‘tuck into your treat for the week’.
And then…the lawyer who kept promising to buy a permanent home for his long-suffering wife.

I used to have a school-boy crush on Petrocelli’s wife, (Susan Howard).
Albert Salmi, also pictured, was a stalwart of many a fine film.

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Starring Barry Newman, who was so good in ‘Fear is the Key’ (1972).

All, in all, good memories, that I thought deserved an airing…

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And then Parkinson and then a late night horror film of the Fall of the House of Usher variety. I always loved these films but could never stay awake past half way at best. Once you’d decided you could probably watch it better lying down on the couch you were done :sleeping: :sleeping: :sleeping:

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Wasn’t Petrocelli building the house himself in the middle of the desert? Although he must have been rich enough to pay some builders. And I don’t think it ever got made. If I was Mrs P I’d have not managed to last the first series without taking executive action about that… The character originally appeared in a Sidney J Furie movie The Lawyer (1970). In that movie Newman’s wife was played by Diana Muldare. Susan Howard was later on Dallas for many years.

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I used to watch Columbo, Murder She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger with my parents when I was a little younger. I miss these shows so much, we need them back on tv :cry:

The OG MacGyver is one of my fave tv shows. It’s on tv quite often but now they’ve shown all the episodes again, I think, so there will be a break before the show returns to tv

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These are all still shown in the UK … continuously! :wink:

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Sunday afternoons in particular. Especially Columbo!

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I haven’t watched Colombo in quite some time though it is easily accessible on several of my apps. I need to give it a re-watch I think watching Colombo growing up is why I enjoy watching British TV mysteries now - they seem to adhere to that classic style and that is something that has been completely lost on modern U.S. television.

Another one I loved as a kid, though it only lasted one season, was Ellery Queen with Jim Hutton. I never missed an episode. The thing I really loved about that one was that the clues were all there for the truly astute viewer to solve the case for themselves. Typically though, that was easier said that done.

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As you probably already know that was the UK television premiere of the film.
‘A Fistul of Dollars’ debuted on Friday, 1st August, 1975, then ‘For a Few Dollars More’ on Tuesday, 30th December, 1975 and finally ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ on Monday, 19th April, 1976. The latter was in the shorter 148min UK cut with additional trims for violence. The BBC had the (mildly) annoying habit throughout the 80s of screening the first two films over successive weekends but not concluding with the third.
Although UK spaghetti western aficionados had to wait until August, 1990 to finally see ‘The Great Silence’ and ‘A Bullet for the General’ on television.

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I didn’t know they appeared so early on UK TV … I do know that they all continued to play as re-runs in local cinemas well after their TV debuts.

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I saw all of those. The BBC screened the UK theatrical versions post BBFC cuts. So, Fistful was missing 5m and Few was missing the entire climatic flashback whilst TGTBTU was missing most of the prison torture sequence as well as being edited by the distributor to get in an extra screening a day (missing was the Tuco gunsshop scene and all sight of the Union prison commandant as well as some other trims). I had them on VHS from subsequent screenings and annoyingly junked them at a later date. The Movie Censorship site has a comparison up of what they claimed was the UK print of Fistful but it wasn’t- it was a different version. Although I do have a list of the actual censor cuts of all 3.

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