Showing posts with label educational TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label educational TV. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Bonne anniversaire, Julia!


Sometimes, America cranks out a true individual. And even more rarely, that person gets recognized for what he or she is, earning the embrace of the Powers That Be.

And even more rarely than that, those Powers That Be are in television.

A hundred years ago today, America cranked out Juila Child. A half-century ago, a public television station in Boston realized who -- and what -- had walked into its studios.

Before the centenary of Julia's birth slips away from us here, let's enjoy the second-ever episode of
The French Chef, which originally aired Feb. 11, 1963.

Et la révolution gastronomique commencé.
Vive la chef française . . . et bon appetit!

Monday, February 28, 2011

Simply '70s: Defund public broadcasting


If you hadn't noticed, there was a hell of a fierce debate going on about federal funding of public broadcasting. In 1971.

Why, we could have the specter of taxpayers funding a fourth network! Both on television and on the radio. We hear they're very liberal. Not friendly at all to conservative values.

And what about localism?


Tsk, tsk. There's something very un-American about this whole pointy-headed enterprise, I tell you.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Simply '70s: Woot! Woot! Let's all pledge!


Nebraska ETV survived disco . . . and 1976.

But it was close there for a while.
Hotline, hotline,
Calling on the hotline for your cash. . . .

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Meanwhile, in the U.K. . . .


Hours after John Lennon's murder in New York, a shocked Great Britain sat down to watch this memorial on BBC 1's Nationwide program.

Roll the videotape. . . .




Thursday, November 04, 2010

Your Daily '80s: Cold coffee. I blame Reagan.


Cold coffee.

Before Starbucks.

Came to Omaha.

The state of office coffee drinking, circa 1983, immortalized by University Television at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The weekly TV show was called Cityscape; the music was by Citydog.

Welcome back to when Omaha was New Wave.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Your Daily '80s: Signing off


The Soviet national anthem, as broadcast in 1984 on state television.

Here we see a vision of a mighty empire and a proud people. Here we listen to a soaring hymn to the glories of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In little more than seven years -- on Dec. 26, 1991 -- the Soviet Union ceased to be.



OUR AMERICAN national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," as broadcast in 1984 at the close of another broadcast day for Buffalo, N.Y.'s public television station.

Here we see a vision of a mighty empire and a proud people. Here we listen to a soaring hymn to the glories of "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

In little more than. . . .

Sic transit gloria mundi. Thus passes the glory of the world.

Americans would do well to remember that.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Your Daily '80s: Strawberry Square


Strawberry Square, produced by what in the 1980s was the Nebraska ETV Network, may be the explanation for any strange behavior exhibited by people from the ages of 36 to, perhaps, a decade younger.

This 1981 episode of the instructional program, aimed at early elementary students, is . . . is . . . is . . . aw, hell, it was the '80s, people! I don't know what to make of it, and you don't either.

It may or may not make more sense if you're wearing an Izod polo shirt. Pink. Maybe pastel green.

Oh . . . the little girl in the show?

Here she is today.