When I was a kid in the 80s, one of the most exciting weeks of the year was the TV season premeire week in the fall. In those days almost all TV series would begin new episodes in the same week. You’d get the triple sized special edition of TV Guide to figure which new series you’d give a look. The best part was those Saturday morning preview shows that came on the Friday before the new season. Now of course series premiere almost randomly through the year. Any one have old entertainment traditions they really miss?
I liked variety shows: a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.
Music videos. At least ones played anything close to consistently on TV.
Ditto on the Saturday morning cartoon preview specials…but hell, what about the Saturday morning cartoons themselves? Not much on, nowadays—edu-tainment stuff for the kids on one network, re-tread live action Disney tween stuff on another. Local news programming and/or sports on the rest. 
Cheezy movies on late at night. Now all there are are infomercials.
King Kong and Godzilla movies on Thanksgiving
The 4:30 movie on ABC. Not that I am even home then now but I miss Monster Week and Planet of the Apes week.
I’m actually lucky on this particular front—one of the local stations has a bad movie show on Saturdays, with it’s own horror hosts (one of whom may be slightly tanked during that clip), followed by Elvira’s new movie show. 
I miss Johnny Carson. 'Nuff said. None of the late night hosts do it for me.
Yup, I grew up on those. There’s nothing like turning on the TV as a 10-year-old kid and finding Radiohead’s ‘fade out’ and trying to make sense of the narrative.
When Jerry Lewis’s Muscular Distrophy telethon was a bigger deal than it is now.
Thank you. 'nuff said, indeed.
mmm
Another for late-night movies, especially with local hosts & especially classic horror films. Ditto for locally-hosted kiddie cartoon shows, Also, uncensored un-PC old cartoons.
"Good night Chet.
“Good night David. And good night for NBC news”…followed by some Ludwig van’s 9th.
New Year’s Day being the big day for college football bowls with Rose Bowl being Big 10 vs Pac 10. Not that it was good for determining a national champion, even the flawed BCS is better than the old system. But it was special.
During the 1970s when the New York Rangers would play at the Toronto Maple Leafs, Rangers analyst Bill"The Big Whistle" Chadwick would interview Maple Leafs legend King Clancy. I didn’t know 80% of the stories and people they were talking about but it was great.
I used to stay ‘UP all night’ on Friday and Saturday to watch Rhonda and Gilbert.
IIRC Rhonda did the cheesy/sexy horror and Gilbert did the Bikini Ski School type movies.
LOVED “Up all night”! Also, the video show, “Night Tracks”, which was on USA as well.
Oh, I am SO envious! Elvira has a new movie show?? What is it, when, where? We adored Elvira! … I would give anything to go back to the old days, We used to be allowed to stay up late on Friday night and watch “scary movies” (which were just being shown on TCM last month - The Blob, Village of the Giants, It Came From Beneath The Sea)… And Commander USA on Saturday afternoons, he was hilarious and showed movies I haven’t seen since. And Night Flight that showed videos and odd stuff. And Gilbert and Rhonda (who I think is selling underwear on QVC now). We, too, had our own local horror hosts for the afternoon and late night movies, one of them played The Narrator at the Rocky Horror Show at the theater on Halloween - good times!
Saturday morning cartoons are not what they used to be… and it wasn’t just the shows; the commercials were awesome as well… told me what toy I would be kicking and screaming for on some department store floor later that week…
It was basically an all out battle between the big three for the attention of the kids and the almighty advertising dollar…
My average childhood Saturday morning consisted of getting up at 5:30 or 6 to watch Kidbits… usually while eating about a dozen of the popsicles (I love all three flavours) that my parents had bought grocery shopping the night before (guess who was still in bed a 5:30??? Muuhahahahahaha)… then by 7 am or so I was ready to spend the rest of the morning aloft a zen like sugar induced high and would usually reach a state of nirvana around noon… at which time all of the cartoons were over so I would go outdoors to contemplate the beauty of nature and how I could use it to make myself less beautiful…
I miss coming home from elementary school and watching reruns of The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island.
Johnny Carson was great. Funny but classy.
I miss the juvenile/campy weekly shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and Battle Star Galactica.
ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
Watching The Wizard of Oz once a year.
The Wonderful World of Disney.
Growing up near Dayton, Ohio, I miss Clubhouse 22. It was a local kid’s show broadcast from WKEF.
Saturday morning cartoons, and especially the Saturday morning local kids shows. Things like Wonderama, the Sandy Becker Show, Chuck McCann, Captain/Colonel Clown, Officer Joe Bolton (not Saturday morning, but he was probably the one person most responsible for the current popularity of the Three Stooges). The shows also allowed for the various syndicated cartoons like Clutch Cargo, Space Angel, Diver Dan and Roger Ramjet.
The Four O’Clock Movie on Pix - especially their “themed” weeks, most especially “Monster Week” in which they’d air all the Godzilla movies.
I miss the New Years Day college bowl games. All the big bowls were played on the same day and by the end of the orgy of football and after seeing who beat who, you knew who the national champion was. The Big 10 champ would lose to the PAC 10 champ.
Well, it looks like there’s a station listing for who carries her show (it’s syndicated), and Hulu carries the older episodes online. (Sometimes, the future ain’t so bad. 
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