On KTZZ, channel 22 in Seattle, you'll find a collection of truly vintage vintage TV. The Kate Smith Show just wrapped up, sponsored by Norge. Now another tale from The Whistler is just beginning.
True, there are 2025 commercials between the shows, all of them low-rent and crappy, for products available through an 800 number (though the URL does appear, it's always in smaller type).
Yeseterday, I was in a great mood, heightened by four consecutive episodes of Superman on the Heroes & Icons channel. All black and white, and the first even featured the original TV Lois Lane, Phyllis Coates. Flintier and not as cuddly as her successor, but pretty darned good. Those oldest black and white shows are actually serious, as opposed to the more kiddie-friendly fare later on. I still love the cruelty Supie showed when confronting the Mole Men. That trait got taken out pretty damn fast in subsequent scripts.
When these shows were popular on network TV, the Yankees were indisputably the greatest team in baseball. Yogi, the Scooter, Whitey, Mickey, Moose...rarely did they miss a shot at a ring, and when they got one, they rarely missed bringing a ring home.
Casey was a comedian, a sage, a purveyor of some truly strange platoon and defensive lineup moves, a tough competitor who had Rizzuto pushed off the team to make room for Enos Slaughter when the Yanks had a raft of outfielders on the injured list. (Stengel famously told the Scooter to get a shoeshine box and change careers when Phil tried out for Casey's Dodgers in the 1930s.)
I'm an old guy who should lose 30 pounds, find a good hair growth supplement and stop thinking I can carry multiple heavy bags of groceries a mile and a half to our apartment. Yesterday, I smoked too many cigarettes and liked it, but today woke up with a slight smoker's cough and that wheezy chest feeling when I was hacking. I haven't had a drink since last Sunday because my iron is kind of high and booze suppresses the liver enzyme that keeps it under control. I've been getting a lot of headaches, mostly in and around the eyes, thanks to the constantly damp, gloomy weather in this corner of the current Reich (the Third having resurrected in the USA).
But even if I wasn't born yet and then not old enough to appreciate the 1950s Yanks, I wish some of their ashes would drift down onto today's sadly mediocre team, from the front office to the dugout to the broadcast booth.
Obviously, that ain't happening. However, the $64,000 Question just started, sponsored by Revlon, in a Christmassy-decorated episode. Sure, that show became the most prominent of crooked quiz shows, eventually. Scooter also got pushed out of short into the broadcast booth. But before those events, we had some team.
The contestent is in the Isolation Booth and can win a 1956 Caddy. I gotta go.





