DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

Bianculli's Blog

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

The Cold Light Reader

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Dateline Donovan

DAVID HINCKLEY

All Along the Watchtower

ED BARK

Uncle Barky's Bytes

ALEX STRACHAN

TV That Matters

MIKE HUGHES

Open Mike

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Ed Martin's TV Mix

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TVWW ARCHIVE

Contributors Archive

2012

Nov

1996: CBS PRESENTS THE MINISERIES 'IN COLD BLOOD' By Christy Slewinski

On this day in 1996, CBS presented a miniseries version of Truman Capote's celebrated nonfiction crime novel, In Cold Blood...

2012

Nov

1963: THE BBC INTRODUCES 'DR. WHO' By Christy Slewinski

On this day in 1963, the BBC introduced the the first incarnation of Doctor Who...

2012

Nov

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN By David Bianculli

This 1969 holiday special shows up, fittingly, on a holiday weekend – but the wrong one. It’s the day after Thanksgiving, yet here we are, with the first network prime-time Christmas special of the year. When I’m still digesting my turkey and awash in leftovers, is it too early to say “Bah humbug”? Yet as TV memories go, for aging Boomers (and all Boomers are), this one’s quite evocative.

2012

Nov

ICARLY By David Bianculli

SERIES FINALE: This Nickelodeon sitcom, starring Miranda Cosgrove, has been so popular with tweens that Michelle Obama, a fan of the show because of her daughters, guest starred in one episode. (She’s not the first First Lady to take her message to a sitcom, either: Nancy Reagan, pushing her “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign in the 1980s, appeared on Diff’rent Strokes opposite Gary Coleman. As they say: Diff’rent Strokes for different folks.) Anyway, iCarly ends its

2012

Nov

MY FAIR LADY By David Bianculli

Audrey Hepburn stars, in this 1964 film musical, as a cockney street waif transformed by an elocution professor (Rex Harrison) into a fashionable, presentable young woman. Harrison talks, rather than sings his songs, but even that’s more than you can say for the luminous Hepburn: Her singing voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who did the same for Natalie Wood in the film version of West Side Story. What is it about Nixons and secret recordings?

2012

Nov

IT'S A SPONGEBOB CHRISTMAS! By David Bianculli

This isn’t your normal SpongeBob SquarePants TV cartoon. It’s not a cartoon at all – but a stop-animation holiday special, an intentional and affectionate nod to some of the classic holiday TV specials of the 1960s. It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! has an appropriately holiday-themed plot: Plankton, in his latest scheme to discover the secret formula for the Krabby Patty recipe, floods the already-underwater town of Bikini Bottom with fruitcakes. Those, too, have a secret

2012

Nov

HUNTED By David Bianculli

In this penultimate Season 1 episode of Hunted, the true target of billionaire Jack Turner (Patrick Malahide) is revealed, and I’ll be damned – it’s a dam! And what does a dam have to do with a Pakistani presidential candidate? Enough, it seems, to make this week’s installment an entertaining hybrid of the water-rights plot of Chinatown and the patsy-assassin plot of The Parallax View. Melissa George stars.

2012

Nov

BEFORE CYBER MONDAY... By Eric Gould

...There was the Home Shopping Club. Before the internet, HSC made a good business out of round the clock home shopping on your television...

2012

Nov

ANCIENT ALIEN THANKSGIVING? By Eric Gould

Here's what happens in South Park when the boys have to do a school project on Thanksgiving, and go to The History Channel for their research...

2012

Nov

MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE By David Bianculli

Hello Kitty! And hello, all you other parade floats in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – a celebration not only of the holiday, but of New York’s resilience after Superstorm Sandy. A day, indeed, to give thanks, unless you don’t have power to watch it.

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