Category Archives: Live Television
Remembering Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar died earlier this week at the ago of 91. Unfortunately, most episodes of Your Show of Shows have been destroyed, so it’s impossible to watch from beginning to end how groundbreaking he was. Since there aren’t many full episodes, enjoy Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, and friends in This is Your Story, a parody of This is Your Life.
For those who want better commentary on Sid Caesar, David Zurawick over at The Baltimore Sun provides it.
‘The Million Second Quiz’: All Hype, No Substance
NBC is attempting to make game shows an event again, which isn’t going to happen with The Million Second Quiz. That’s because the show is boring. While Ryan Seacrest is likeable, he talks too much. To make matters worse, most of this chatter is about contestants that viewers only watching the hour in primetime will never get to see play the game or about how line jumpers became contestants. Clearly, NBC didn’t think through the fact that no one will be sitting at home watching the live stream for the remaining 23 hours a day.
When Ryan isn’t talking, the show is the lovechild of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Twenty One with NBC’s version of the Prize Patrol surprising line jumpers, who are contestants that have been playing from the comfort of their own home and now will be flown to New York City to play the game for money, thrown in for good measure. Like daytime Millionaire, every questions has four possible answers. The elements taken from Twenty One are the fact that two contestants answer the questions at the same time and the “doubler,” which is explained in the rules below.
James Bond: On TV and American
Everyone knows James Bond as a suave, debonair, British fellow, who likes his martini’s shaken, not stirred. However, that wasn’t always the case when it came to screen adaptations of Ian Fleming’s novels. In 1954, CBS bought the rights to adapt Casino Royale for television. On October 1954 of the same year, this adaptation of Fleming’s first Bond novel aired live as part of CBS’s Climax!, later renamed Climax Mystery Theater, anthology series. For some reason, CBS decided to make James Bond, played by Barry Nelson, an American, who works for a fictional counterpart to the CIA.
Cool TV Video of the Day: Rowan Atkinson Spoofs Classic ‘Doctor Who’
Comic Relief is a charity that helps raise money for the poor. Every odd-numbered year in March, people in the UK celebrate Red Nose Day. This is a semi-holiday created by Comic Relief where people get a foam red nose in exchange for a donation. Most donations occur during the live telethon, which is famous for its hilarious comedy sketches.
Naturally, most people anticipated a Doctor Who sketch because it is pretty much a telethon staple. In 2011, Rowan Atkinson poked fun at classic Doctor Who in this clip.
‘Saturday Night Live’ Loses Another Castmember
Jason Sudeikis leaves Saturday Night Live. Last night, Jason Sudeikis announced on the Late Show with David Letterman that Saturday Night Live‘s 38th season was his last with the long running sketch comedy show. At the end of the past season, Bill Hader and Fred Armisen also left the show.
Cool TV Video of the Day: Rod Serling’s “Patterns”
Rod Serling may be best known for The Twilight Zone, but that doesn’t mean his other work is not worth watching. On January 12, 1955, the NBC anthology series Kraft Television Theatre aired Patterns, which marked Serling’s first major success. Not only would Serling go on to win the first of his 6 Emmys, but Patterns became the first drama repeated because of its popularity. However, television was not yet in the habit of recording live television, so the actors had to perform everything over again on February 9, 1955. Fortunately, the second live performance was captured on kinescope.
Wait! What's A Dial? 