# Remember when it was a big deal to see movies on broadcast TV? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 8, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419 "2009-04-08T19:40:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/41 "2009-04-10T00:54:06Z")
I remember the networks played Steven Speilberg films like Jurrassic Park and ET. It was a big deal. The networks promoted them as “Thanksgiving Specials”. I still don’t know what ET has to do with Thanksgiving, but I still remember the TV Guide adverstisements with our favorite little extraterrestial pictured. ---
**Author:** ![Nutty\_Bunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d07c76/32.png) [@Nutty\_Bunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nutty_Bunny)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/42 "2009-04-10T01:08:17Z")
Of course, every Easter was “Wizard of Oz”. Every Sunday was “The Wonderful World of Disney” (I remember the first time I saw “Mary Poppins”, I was 6 and had a fever of 103). In the 80s, every Saturday was a big movie on HBO–I remember the first time Grease was on. TV was more of an event then. > [@AuntiePam](#): > > One of my **least** favorite TV movie memories is the kids settling down to watch _The Muppet Movie_. Their dad came home half-schnockered and made them go to bed because they hadn’t cleaned their rooms. Mommy??? ETA: CalMeacham, I had forgotten about the Million Dollar Movie! ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/43 "2009-04-10T02:41:20Z")
> [@Nutty\_Bunny](#): > > Mommy??? Sorry to see there are kids with similar memories. ☹ But hey! Didn’t we take you to see _Death Race 2000_ at the drive-in the following week? Or was it _Night of the Living Dead_? (One of those.) ---
**Author:** ![kath94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/67e7ee/32.png) [@kath94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kath94)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/44 "2009-04-10T05:42:46Z")
Oh, man, do I feel old! I’ve lived through the birth, heyday, and death of the VCR. ☹ As a teenager working at the local mall movie theater during high school I tried to get a co-worker to swap shifts with me. But “American Gigolo” was on TV that night and she wouldn’t give it up. Yes, I still remember that, Anna-Marie, wherever you are! Ah, memories of childhood… …even the theater is gone. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/45 "2009-04-10T06:13:42Z")
> [@](#): > > The last film I remember making a big splash was way’s back in 1982, when they showed The Deer Hunter on network TV, uncut and without commercials. I was going to mention this, because it _wasn’t_ on network TV. Where I lived (NY Tri-state area) it premiered on WWOR channel 9 which was unprecedented. No major film had debuted on a non-network channel before. It was _almost_ totally uncut, they did take out the line when they were hunting where Axle asked “Fredo” (John Cazele) about catching his wife, “Sucking some forest ranger’s cock!” ---
**Author:** ![Runestar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/74df32/32.png) [@Runestar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runestar)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/46 "2009-04-10T14:12:59Z")
I remember scanning the TV listings that came in the Sunday paper each week to see if ABC would be airing a James Bond movie on its Sunday night movie (or was it their Saturday night movie?) – if they were, I’d be jumping with excitement all day. We hardly went to see any movies when I was growing up, so watching them on TV was almost the only way we ever got to see them. (It’s kind of funny that the link in the earlier post to the ABC Movie Special is for the James Bond film _From Russia With Love_. In the early 80s, one of the local art theaters was showing a special double-feature of _From Russia With Love_ and _Goldfinger_. Being a huge JB fan, I of course had to go see them, which was the first time I’d ever seen them in their uncut version. Imagine my surprise to discover that the train compartment fight between 007 and Donovan Grant was a lengthly, exciting, and brutal fight that lasted several minutes, versus the 30 seconds or so in the ABC version. ABC’s version cut out pretty much everything but the start of the fight and the very end.) ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/47 "2009-04-10T15:46:41Z")
Nobody else used to wait all year for the annual showing of the Rogers & Hammerstein _Cinderella_? The one with Leslie Ann Warren. This was the one night of the year we got to stay up past our bedtime on a school night and eat dinner (TV dinners!) in front of the TV and have extra-cool snacks. A Big Deal, in other words. Well, one year – I was about the third grade, I think – I decided not to go right home after school like I was supposed to. I went over to a kid’s house instead (Shirley Barnett – I still remember her name) _without_ telling my mom about it. I hung out at Shirleys for an hour or so, then walked home. I met my very-nearly-hysterical mother on the way – she was walking back and forth between our house and the school looking for me and was, literally, minutes away from calling the cops. As it happens, that very night was _Cinderella_ night. My punishment was that I had to eat dinner in the kitchen and go to bed at the normal time, missing The Big Event for that entire year. I had to lay crying in my bed, listening to the music from the living room, smelling the popcorn and hearing my kid brother and sister enjoying themselves. Trauma! ---
**Author:** ![Emily\_Litella](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emily_litella/32/3370_2.png) [@Emily\_Litella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emily_Litella)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/48 "2009-04-10T17:30:02Z")
I remember waiting to see Rogers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, I loved that movie. Prince Charming was handsome. I remember waiting to see “Heidi”, it was supposed to come on after My Grandpa was watching a Jets game. I used to wonder why he was cursing so bad when “Heidi” did come on. (I had the sound track on a 33 1/3 LP album.) And **CalMeacham** , if you’re reading this again, I remember a whole lot of Vincent Price movies that scared the crap outta me. Remember Conquerer Worm?And the “Tingler”? ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/49 "2009-04-10T17:59:30Z")
> [@](#): > > by **Algher** > I also remember watching old John Wayne movies Yeah! Usually _Big Jake_, _Rio Lobo_, or _Rooster Cogburn_. And the annual James Bond fest. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/50 "2009-04-11T05:51:26Z")
More clips of network movie openings and bumpers: [ABC "Movie of the Week"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3giCVmQEGs&NR=1)complete with theme by Burt Bacharach. [ABC Wednesday Night Movie](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PvXbX23afk&feature=related) (from around 1967). [Walt Disney’s intro to a 1964 airing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4WfP-foY6s&feature=related)of Alice in Wonderland on his Wonderful World of World of Color. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/51 "2009-04-11T06:19:01Z")
> [@SkeptiJess](#): > > Nobody else used to wait all year for the annual showing of the Rogers & Hammerstein _Cinderella_? The one with Leslie Ann Warren. Not a movie, but a [videotaped television production](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIe2Y5lgahQ). Mary Martin’s _[Peter Pan](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbQqH3c_Uwg)_ was another like it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419/52 "2009-04-11T20:39:25Z")
> [@](#): > > And CalMeacham, if you’re reading this again, I remember a whole lot of Vincent Price movies that scared the crap outta me. Remember Conquerer Worm?And the “Tingler”? I know about them, because they were always in _Famous Monsters of Filmland_, but I have to admit that I’ve not actually seen The Tingler. Oddly, a Chiller Theater site claims that the film ran there in the early seventies, but for the life of me I don’t remember it. “The Conqueror Worm” is actually a pretty decent film. It’s not one of the Corman Price/Poe films, despite the title cribbed from Poe (deliberately, to foster the confusion. In the UK, its title was “The Winfinder General”). It’s one of very few films directed by that one guy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-it-was-a-big-deal-to-see-movies-on-broadcast-tv/492419.md?page=2)