This is from Michael Kilgore...and I should note again that one reason I blog (I get asked a lot why) is that I can ask a question and get an answer from someone who knows...
If you really, really want to know the arcane, satellite-TV-law reasons why DirecTV chooses infomercial and religious channels over C-SPAN 3, read on. If not, I completely understand.
Satellite providers, as part of their FCC licenses, are required to carry a certain number of Public Interest (PI) channels for free to all subscribers. The PI channels have to be non-commercial, and they have to be from different sources. So carrying C-SPAN 1, 2 & 3 only satisfies one channel against the quota because they're all from the same source. C-SPAN and a couple of different flavors of religious channels take up the same space but count as three against the quota.
No one requires anyone to carry infomercials (thank goodness!), but the economics are reversed. These channels actually pay the carrier a few dimes per subscriber per month to be in the lineup. (Or they cut the carrier in for a percentage of sales, but you get the idea.) That's why they're favored over good free channels with little demand.
C-SPAN isn't free to carriers. According to a reputable list, it costs 5 cents per subscriber/month. Dunno about C-SPAN 2 and 3; they might be included if you pay for C-SPAN.
I'm guessing they aren't...so I guess it just comes down to the fact that I'd rather they spent the nickel on C-SPAN 3 than on the DIY Network. And they probably would if they felt more subscribers felt as I do.
What I guess I'd really like is for C-SPAN's coverage of Congress (and just that) to be underwritten by the government and made available free to all. I think it says something very good about this country that we let everyone who's interested watch this process. I am not, as you may recall, in favor of the government funding PBS or really any of the Arts...a position that horrifies many of my friends. I would not even be in favor of Uncle Sam paying for the parts of C-SPAN where they interview authors or let folks call-in and yell at public figures...or anything other than pointing cameras at Your Government at Work. That would cause too many arguments about whether those shows are, ahem, fair and balanced. I just think you should be able to see your Congressperson or Senator doing their job...or not doing it, as the case may be.
Warner Archive, which puts out limited-edition DVDs, has recently added complete sets of several cartoon shows, including one I worked on called Thundarr the Barbarian. This is probably bad news for fans of the show since it means the rumored release of a "regular" DVD will not occur for quite a while. The Warner Archives DVDs contain no special features and little if any restoration work is done on the material. Probably none was done on these. I'm betting they just took the same transfers that run from time to time on the Boomerang Network, put them on four DVDs and now they're selling them.
Thundarr was a pretty good show...something I don't say about all or even most of the cartoon shows I worked on back then. My friend Steve Gerber was the story editor and he wrote the pilot with a little help from his friends. (I believe Marty Pasko, who also wrote episodes, named Ookla, Thundarr's hairy pal who was named when they saw a sign that said "U.C.L.A." And I think I named Thundarr, though I stopped claiming that when several other folks who worked on the show — though not Steve — claimed it was their idea and got real, real mad at me.) Others wrote scripts too, including Buzz Dixon and I think Roy Thomas. Alex Toth designed the three main characters and then most of the other design work was done by Jack Kirby.
Jack did some pretty good work on the series though it isn't always evident due to the poor (I thought) animation. A few years ago, an exec at Time-Warner had the idea to have the 21 episodes reanimated by a better studio — same scripts and voice tracks, and they'd salvage as much of the Kirby design work as they could. I actually thought that was a good idea but it was nixed by someone because it would, they thought, create a bad precedent. It was allegedly said that, "if we go back and start fixing all the shows in our library that were done on the cheap, we'll bankrupt the corporation." Well, maybe. But Thundarr was a show that didn't get enough of a chance to live.
It was only on ABC's Saturday morning schedule for two seasons. The ratings would have justified another but that was the year someone at Paramount decided they wanted a Happy Days cartoon series in that lineup. This was during the period when if Garry Marshall had said, "I want all the ABC executives dancing naked on my lawn and I want them there in ten minutes," they'd have all been there in five. Off the schedule went Thundarr and on went the animated Fonz and the Happy Days Gang which, of course, did worse than the barbarian it displaced. There were later a number of attempts to revive the show — Buzz Dixon wrote a terrific script for a feature version that never got made — but nothing happened. There were even a few issues of a Thundarr comic book that were written and drawn for Gold Key but never published. I think it could still be a major property but no one at Time-Warner, which now owns the show, seems that interested...and I guess the DVD release is more proof of that.
Here's a link if you want to order it...and remember that the video quality may not be what you've come to expect from DVD releases. Then again, it might be. If someone buys one, let me know.
The set is, let us note, $29.95. Someone on eBay is taking advantage of the fact that some people don't know about Warner Archive and he's selling them there for $59.95. That may soon be the price at Warner Archive, which has sometimes raised their prices after initial offerings. So if you want one, order it now. I don't make a commission on these links and I don't expect Time-Warner to send me residuals or even a free copy of the DVD with my work on it. But I loved the show and I do like seeing it get some attention, especially because of all the hard work Gerber put into it.
As we all know, Johnny Carson hosted the daytime game show, Who Do You Trust (usually spelled without the question mark) on ABC before he took over The Tonight Show on NBC late night. A lot of folks don't know though that Who Do You Trust was originally called Do You Trust Your Wife...with similar punctuation. It started out as a prime time game show hosted by Edgar Bergen and his wooden pals. That ran from 1956 through 1957...and the premise was basically that a husband and wife would come on and the host would do one of those long, light-hearted interviews that hosts used to do on game shows. Groucho Marx was, of course, the master of that and there were many attempts to replicate that success with others. Then the show would progress to the game part where the host would ask questions for money and the husband contestant would have to decide if he thought his spouse could answer the question. The "gold" on the show would be when they'd fight a little, especially when he'd take the question for himself, get it wrong and then the wife would say, "I knew that one."
The Bergen version was shot in Hollywood and ran on CBS until March of '57. When it was cancelled, ABC picked it up as a daytime show that would be produced out of New York. Bergen declined to either relocate or do a Monday-Friday series so they hired Carson. His version debuted on ABC in the late afternoon the following September and began to evolve as Johnny made it his own. The interview portions became more important...and they'd even have contestants come on and demonstrate skills or what they did for a living so that Johnny could join in. A hula hoop champion would teach Johnny how to use a hula hoop or something like that. It worked very well but the producers began to have trouble finding married couples who gave Johnny interesting things to do. That's when they changed the name of the program and began having on "couples" that were a team of any kind — partners, brothers, mother and daughter, etc.
Another important change occurred in October of '58 when announcer Bill Nimmo (who you'll see in the episode below) left for another gig. The network suggested Carson try a female sidekick and auditions were done. The auditions left Carson unsure how to relate to a lady in that role so he asked for another man. A quick talent search came up with Ed McMahon and that combo worked out so well that when Carson left in September of '62 to go host The Tonight Show, he took Ed with him. He also dragged along some other personnel from the game show including its line producer, Art Stark. Comedian Woody Woodbury (and the returning Bill Nimmo) replaced Carson and McMahon but the program only lasted another 15 months.
This episode has Nimmo and married couples and it appears to be from January of 1958. The first contestant is a fencing master and Johnny gets a lesson. If you stick with it 'til the end — and I couldn't blame you if you didn't — you'll hear an announcement that Johnny is guest hosting "The Jack Paar Show" (i.e., The Tonight Show) that week. I guess he did all right with it...
September 28, 2010
