Some people can’t handle history. :rolleyes:
I’ve seen it on the Game Show Channel. They repeat it every now and then. I remember the panelists included Jimmie Walker (from Good Times) and Shannon Tweed (of ***Playboy ***“fame”).
I also enjoyed Muscle, which was on the new WB network on UHF and almost impossible to tune in, thus requiring intense concentration. I recall it went off the air abruptly, never to return.
Oh as far as kids shows go I will wax lyrical for hours about the awesome stop motion show Trap Door:
I have fond memories of Amazing Stories but no one that I know in my age group seems to recall them. I believe the series is on Netflix now. Amazing Stories (disambiguation) - Wikipedia
GuanoLad, if all you’re saying is that you remember a comedy sketch that was parodying Gone with the Wind, this may be difficult to find. Lots of Gone with the Wind parodies exist. For instance, The Carol Burnett Show did a Gone with the Wind parody. You listed a group of people who you thought were in the sketch which was obviously the Cambridge Footlights group. So that would indicate the show Alfresco or the show There’s Nothing to Worry About! or could even be some TV show which found a sketch done on stage at Cambridge which was filmed by an amateur. Even limiting it to British actors leaves a lot of sketches about Gone with the Wind.
Two more shows with some Cambridge Footlights people in them are The Comic Strip Presents . . . and The Crystal Cube, but I don’t think either of them is likely to be the show you’re remembering.
I understand why you were confused, I take all the blame for not being clear. I am indeed looking for that Gone With The Wind sketch, by Brits, with the aforementioned punchline. I thought it was Alfresco, I am not able to easily check if it was, I have not found a list of their sketches, I haven’t sat through every episode (it’s not a great show), I was hoping for someone to say “I know that sketch, it was in blah episode of blah blah show, etc” but instead you got hung up on my supposition. Nobody knows it, though, so let’s leave it be.
Connections, by James Burke. Another series from the way distant past that I rediscovered on Youtube.
“It took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, and demonstrated how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. The series was noted for Burke’s crisp and enthusiastic presentation (and dry humour), historical re-enactments, and intricate working models.”
Personal opinion: best popular science series I ever saw.
j
I loved connections[. I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t think it was that obscure, but maybe I’m wrong.
His second series, The Day the Universe Changed is also great. He later did two series for TLC, Connections[sup]2[/sup] and Connections[sup3[/sup], which weren’t quite up to the standards of the first series, but were a lot better than other stuff out there.
I’ve been looking for al of these on DVD. They were all issued on DVD, but are hard to find and/or expensive. I own The Day the Universe changed, and I know a library that has the three other series.
If you want more Burke, by the way, there are the companion books to the first two series (which ran on PBS). There are audio versions of those, as well, which basically consist of readings from the companion volumes, rather than coming directly from the TV series. And he wrote about half a dozen books as well (along with a column that ran for a year in Scierntific American, which also got collected into a book)
If you like Burke, by the way, you might want to look into another TV series that, in the US, ran on one of the science cable channels – The Secret Life of Machines.
Any love for DC Follies? I wish they’d bring that back.
Sample joke from the nineties:
Man, all these news stories about the Japanese buying up America. I didn’t even know the Arabs were selling.
Blake’s Seven was hugely popular in the UK and fondly missed by many of my vintage!
Another summer series, from the early 1990s: “Johnny Bago”. The main character is on the run from the mob and his ex-wife, who is also his parole officer. He’s driving around the country in a Winnebago, which he acquires after hitching a ride with an old guy who dies from a heart attack or something. Every week the mob sent out a different hit man after him, who wound up dying by the end of the episode. It was goofy fun.
I thought it was just me. Now I think it’s just you and me…
(Thanks for the recommendation, BTW.)
j
I watched this on PBS my first couple of years in college. I think the one I remember best was where Chicken Marengo led to the Moon landings. I also laughed when limelight was used to measure the distance from Ben Nevis to Ireland. I’ve been to the top of Ben Nevis, and you can’t see more than three feet in front of you because of the crappy weather.
Far from obscure. Years later I met Burke and got his autograph at a trade show where he was pimping some software connection stuff. Drew nice crowds to his talks. Lotta fans.
I also went to a lecture by Burke and got him to sign half of dozen of his books.
Here’s one for you, going back to 1973/74: The Unofficial Miss Las Vegas Showgirl Pageant, hosted by Steve Allen. I remember laughing long and hard when one of the contestants played a lamp for her Talent segment.*
I believe there were two pageants a year apart, and I’d give a month’s salary to see them again.
*This is hard to describe in writing…
This was a filmed puppet show that was syndicated to local stations. It dramatized classical tales that were over the kids’ heads.
I got a chance recently to chat with its production director, who is better known for “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”. He had lots of fond memories of the gory props.
Hey, look , I’m just pleased to see the evidence mounting against me. I do fear though that dopers are not really a representative sample of society.
j