ENJOY THESE UNIQUE LISTS, PACKED WITH TV TRIVIA AND TIDBITS ON SUCH TOPICS AS: TV REPLACEMENTS * All-TIME FEMALE SITCOM EPISODE CHAMPS * STATUES HONORING CLASSIC TV * MOST REGULAR ROLES IN PRIME TIME * TV'S TOP MOMENTS * THE LONGEST-RUNNING SHOWS * STAR TREK MEMORIES * IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME * LIVE-ACTION SHOWS THAT WERE ANIMATED * SUPERMAN AND LOIS ON TV * EMMY ESSENTIALS * AND MORE!
Best-selling author Michael Karol (Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia) is at it again, with a book of lists honoring Lucy’s 100th birthday and the 60th anniversary of I Love Lucy — both of which occur in 2011! Chapter titles include Headline News, Lucy by the Numbers, The Lucy Show Mystery, Mam’selle Mame, and many more...with an exclusive list by Lucille Ball’s and Desi Arnaz’s good friend, comedian Kaye Ballard (The Mothers-In-Law). You’ll laugh, learn and love this unique peek into the Lucyverse.
Movies made for television were in their infancy when ABC came up with a novel idea: a weekly series of films made exclusively for the small screen. The ABC Movie of the Week became a great success and a cultural touchstone for a generation of Americans. In this loving tribute to the classic series of TV films, more than two hundred films in the series are reviewed, including well-remembered titles such as Duel, Tribes, The Six Million Dollar Man, Go Ask Alice, Brian's Song, The Night Stalker, Bad Ronald, Starsky and Hutch, Trilogy of Terror, That Certain Summer, and Killdozer. In addition, choice bits of trivia about the actors and films and exclusive pictures are sprinkled throughout the book. So bit back, relax, and return to a time when the counterculture was in full swing and you could tune in every week for one or more original films made just for you.
Ray Abreu just met his forever guy: a handsome New York detective who's a cool, hot piece of man candy. But someone — or something — else is after Ray, and he’s not used to losing. He's killer. And he'll redefine the meaning of forever.
Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible? For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down to this: What's the greatest TV show ever? That debate reaches an epic conclusion in TV (THE BOOK). Sepinwall and Seitz have identified and ranked the 100 greatest scripted shows in American TV history. Using a complex, obsessively all-encompassing scoring system, they've created a Pantheon of top TV shows, each accompanied by essays delving into what made these shows great. From vintage classics like The Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy to modern masterpieces like Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, from huge hits like All in the Family and ER to short-lived favorites like Firefly and Freaks and Geeks, TV (THE BOOK) will bring the triumphs of the small screen together in one amazing compendium. Sepinwall and Seitz's argument has ended. Now it's time for yours to begin!
The quintessential insider's account of network television, from the man who founded the industry's most successful independent production company, MTM Enterprises, then rescued a struggling NBC. Leaving an indelible imprint on American TV, Tinker's triumphs, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, proved that profitability need not preclude quality programming. Photos.
Here is an excellent reference book on "first run" syndication--the distribution of programs either made exclusively for non-network play, or of programs intended for network telecasts but ultimately making their debuts in syndication. Bringing together information not easily found, this work covers the classics such as Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol, The Merv Griffin Show and the Muppet Show, as well as such once-popular but now obscure productions as China Smith, Ripcord and The Littlest Hobo. Coverage goes back to 1947 and the book includes a number of series ignored in other works. The first section is an overview of the concept of syndication from its earliest application in the newspaper world to the attempt by Fox Television to become a fourth network. The next four sections each cover ten years of syndication, listing the shows (with full background--who produced them and why, who liked them and why, etc.) alphabetically by title under the following genres: Adventure/Mystery, Children's, Comedy, Drama, Game/Quiz, Informational, Music/Variety, Religious, Sports, Talk/Interview, Travel/Documentary, Westerns, and Women's.
The ultimate in the genre of funny TV nostalgia books, Bad TV celebrates the amazingly bad shows that have made it onto TV--from My Mother, the Car and Pink Lady & Jeff to Manimal and Cop Rock--and into our psyches, and hands out awards to the bad classics in every category. 45 photos.
Television history has become one of the hottest areas of research in popular culture. Because the field is relatively new and so wide-ranging, no matter what one is researching much of the relevant material will be found scattered through numerous other works, frustrating scholarly progress. This work makes the television researcher's job easier by providing a single index to 341 books that include information on 1,002 shows. Most of the books deal exclusively with television, though some autobiographies, biographies, Congressional hearings, and works on communication and the media are also indexed. For a show to be included, it must have been carried on NBC, CBS, ABC or Fox and must have been a series. Shows on PBS are generally not included, though exceptions have been made for Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Praised by the New Yorker and New York magazine, Saul Austerlitz’s fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Friends, is, according to Newsweek, the “next best thing” to a cast reunion. In September 1994, six friends sat down in their favorite coffee shop and began bantering about sex, relationships, jobs, and just about everything else. A quarter of a century later, new fans are still finding their way into the lives of Rachel, Ross, Joey, Chandler, Monica, and Phoebe, and thanks to the show’s immensely talented creators, its intimate understanding of its youthful audience, and its reign during network television’s last moment of dominance, Friends has become the most influential and beloved show of its era. Friends has never gone on a break, and this is the story of how it all happened. Noted pop culture historian Saul Austerlitz utilizes exclusive interviews with creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman, executive producer Kevin Bright, director James Burrows, and many other producers, writers, and cast members to tell the story of Friends’ creation, its remarkable decade-long run, and its astonishing Netflix-fueled afterlife. Readers will go behind the scenes to hear from the people who were present as the show was developed and cast, written and filmed. There will be talk of trivia contests, prom videos, trips to London, Super Bowls, lesbian weddings, wildly popular hairstyles, superstar cameos, mad dashes to the airport, and million-dollar contracts. They’ll also discover surprising details—that Monica and Joey were the show’s original romantic couple, how Danielle Steel probably saved Jennifer Aniston’s career, and why Friends is still so popular that if it was a new show, its over-the-air broadcast reruns would be the ninth-highest-rated program on TV. The show that defined the 1990s has a legacy that has endured beyond anyone's wildest expectations. And in this hilarious, informative, and entertaining book, readers will now understand why.
