I am a child of the 1950's, and I remember in the late 50's and early 60's watching movies like Mothra, Beast from 20,00 fathoms, Godzilla, Rodan, The Thing, Forbidden Planet, etc. and many others on regular tv. I remember tv's in those days had to WARM UP and there were only 13 channels to chose from. These classic b&w sci movies were regular features on MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE which started about 5 o'clock in the afternoon on channel 9 in the New York viewing area. An added plus was the movies would also run continuously for a few hours with each showing.
I can still remember trying to do my homework and watch tv at the same time, but the movie would win out every time!
Nowadays, it's rare to find them on tv at all! Anyone else recall good ol' days? :bluesad:
I'm a kid of the 90s, but I wish I could've seen these movies on TV. TCM sometimes airs classics like The forbidden planet, but it's few and it's far between. :bluesad:
Thirteen channels? We used to get 2! And we had a big box on top of the TV - you'd turn the dial and it would rotate the antenna on the roof to aim it at the other channel. It was the pinnacle of high technology! :teddyr: Once in a while we got one UHF channel, but it was barely watchable even on a really good day and would invariably fade away completely as soon as you got interested in something. I used to shoot that UHF antenna with my slingshot. Man I was a rotten kid.
But yeah, they used to show a lot of great old movies on TV. The made-for-TV stuff from the '70s was awesome. There was a certain vibe to them I still love today. If I can find one starring Peter Graves or David Janssen I'm in heaven. I remember when they showed Planet of the Apes on TV, all the kids at school were talking about "Are you gonna watch it? It might be too scary." Then there was USA's Up All Night, they'd show bad old movies sometimes hosted by Gilbert Gottfried. Ah, the memories.
Quote from: Silverlady on December 03, 2009, 09:29:38 PM
I am a child of the 1950's, and I remember in the late 50's and early 60's watching movies like Mothra, Beast from 20,00 fathoms, Godzilla, Rodan, The Thing, Forbidden Planet, etc. and many others on regular tv. I remember tv's in those days had to WARM UP and there were only 13 channels to chose from. These classic b&w sci movies were regular features on MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE which started about 5 o'clock in the afternoon on channel 9 in the New York viewing area. An added plus was the movies would also run continuously for a few hours with each showing.
I can still remember trying to do my homework and watch tv at the same time, but the movie would win out every time!
Nowadays, it's rare to find them on tv at all! Anyone else recall good ol' days? :bluesad:
Saturdays were big events when I was a kid. You could usually catch horror movies on TV in the afternoon and at night. I remember "Chiller Theater," which was on Saturday afternoons. Then at night (on a different channel) they had "Creature Feature" followed by "Tales of the Unknown." Eventually, they got rid of "Tales of the Unknown" and replaced it with "Double Creature Feature." For a short period of time, they also had "The Ghoul Movie" (the host was Boston's rip-off version of Ghoulardi). I remember watching movies like THEM, THE BEGINNING OF THE END, THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, GOG, GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER, and WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS in these Saturday time slots. There was also an out of state channel (from Rhode Island maybe) that showed THE BLOB about once a month on Saturdays. We didn't get great reception on that channel, but I watched the snowy picture anyway.
my friend taped some ultraman movie off a uhf channel. we must've watched that a thousand times.
"aim for his ears, they are radar receivers!"
"increase in size and go to the harbor!"
I've seen it around but with subtitles and letterboxed. baah
But nowadays we can watch almost any of those we like, whenever we want, without commercials. I'm spoiled by Mill Creek 50 packs. I can't watch movies on TV with commercials anymore. Today's regime definitely has its advantages.
Quote from: lester1/2jr on December 04, 2009, 10:15:28 AM
my friend taped some ultraman movie off a uhf channel. we must've watched that a thousand times.
I bought all the original Ultraman shows on DVD. They aren't nearly as exciting now as when I was 6 years old!
I spent quite a few Saturday afternoons hiding behind the couch when Chiller was on. What I really miss is the late show. I remember begging to stay up to watch something like Forbidden Planet or The Magnificent Seven on the Late Show. Channel 11 always played a Mr. Magoo cartoon right after the news every night (something else I would beg to see only sometimes I couldn't stay awake that long).
Damn the infomercial is what I say !!
I'm a kid of the '90s, but we had a tv station here that would show movies like that. It was a local UHF style station, indepentantly owned, that would show a variety of programming. Weekday afternoons saw syndicated programs like Hawaii Five-O, Matlock, Perry Mason, Family Feud, People's Court, etc. But I loved it on the weekends: they'd show syndicated pro-wrestling shows in the late morning and early afternoon, then about 3PM-9PM: older movies like Mothra, Godzilla, old Lugosi flicks, Ed Wood flicks, Nosferatu, etc.
Not just those flicks either. They'd also show cheaply made, direct to video style flicks, Bruce Lee Martial Arts flicks, Claymation movies, etc.
I remember Million Dollar Movie, Chiller Theater, Supernatural Theater, The Late Show, the Late Late Show is where I got my weekly dose of B sci-fi. Now I don't watch TV at all.
Good stuff. I grew up in the 70's, when there was plenty of great B-fair on the few channel options available. Some of the gems I caught in the 1970's on t.v.:
Bad Ronald (1974)
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
SSSSSSS (1973)
Psychomania (1971)
Not to mention many 50's/60's classics like The Incredible Shrinking Man and Empire of the Ants.
Quote from: Cthulhu on December 04, 2009, 06:31:26 AM
I'm a kid of the 90s, but I wish I could've seen these movies on TV. TCM sometimes airs classics like The forbidden planet, but it's few and it's far between. :bluesad:
I was born in '83, and TNT used to show stuff like Godzilla and 50s monster movies regularly. Now, almost no one does. Instead we get crappy STDVD junk.
My sisters and I used to watch a lot of Monster Matinee on Saturday afternoons back in the late '70s/early '80s at my Grandma's house. Rodan, Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera and the like.
I'm a child from the 80's and I remember the saturday afternoon movies. They were usually on the abc network. Thats's where I first saw "Killdozer" and the original "The blob". I belive on saturday nights, the local station out of indianapolis showed "Sammy Terry" the cool ghoul and his sidekicks to host a horror or sci fi movie. I remember in the mid to late 80's, USA network would have captain USA on saturday mornings showing some older horror films. I remember watching "The Hearse" on there. Nowdays, I just watch old vhs movies.
That was how I cultivated my taste in movies, when these great oldies - some good, some bad in a good way - were appearing late at night, Sunday afternoon and sometimes even in prime time. Basically any time there was a two-hour block to fill and not much money to fill it. I think the biggest problem is that independent TV stations are pretty much history at this point. Now, you'd be hard pressed to find our kind of movies anywhere but on specialty channels. It's all network programming, and the slow hours are sold off in blocks for infomercials. The decline of independent TV (which also killed locally-produced shows) and the rise of infomercials pretty much ruined it.
As someone mentioned, these movies are now more available than they've ever been, but a lot of kids are going to lose out on that introduction of sitting down on a rainy Saturday afternoon when not much is on, and just finding something they didn't know they should be looking for.
I remember watching many GODZILLA movies in the 1970s... I remember MOTHRA, RODAN, GAMERA, GHIDRA and ASPYGA ("a big ugly spider!"). There used to be Creature Feature Saturday afternoons (at noon out of New York I think) and most of the networks showed movies on weekend afternoons... fond memories of another time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ftdWpA7D0chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_rWm_u2oQQ
I also miss the badmovie show hosts. If Dogget was still around he'd be talking about Elvira. I remember Big Chuck and Little John and the Son of Ghoul-local celbrities.
Yeah informercials seem to have killed off a late of the typical late-night TV viewing too which back in the day was when tons of great old Horror and Sci-Fi movies used to air. Caught numerous films from the 50s-70s in that fashion for the first time...there was something magical to staying up late at night, chomping popcorn and watching stuff like The Brain From Planet Arous, Journey to the Seventh Planet, The Angry Red Planet, and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed for just some of the ones I recall first watching in that fashion.
Horror hosts are still out there - moreso in the U.S. than here in Canada. Mr. Lobo's Cinema Insomnia is very entertaining and I highly recommend it if you can access it. Me, I can only see his show via DVD where I live so yeah, he has those out there too.
Man I'm only seventeen :question: I wish I was born in those days, I like everything from the past way better then now, the movies, the music ...
Quote from: Vik on April 02, 2010, 01:01:59 PM
Man I'm only seventeen :question: I wish I was born in those days, I like everything from the past way better then now, the movies, the music ...
There is some good music nowadays, but I think we'd agree it's not always easy to find. I am old enough to at least be your ... older brother ( :wink: :lookingup:) and I have to agree with you about the movies, the music, and goshdarnit we even had great TV that was free and we didn't even realize it! :smile: :wink:
Quote from: Allhallowsday on April 02, 2010, 07:10:41 PM
Quote from: Vik on April 02, 2010, 01:01:59 PM
Man I'm only seventeen :question: I wish I was born in those days, I like everything from the past way better then now, the movies, the music ...
There is some good music nowadays, but I think we'd agree it's not always easy to find. I am old enough to at least be your ... older brother ( :wink: :lookingup:) and I have to agree with you about the movies, the music, and goshdarnit we even had great TV that was free and we didn't even realize it! :smile: :wink:
Indeed, the cartoons and stuff were so much better in the old days, now it's all ... crap. And about the music, all it seems to be nowadays is Techno, electro and stuff. No more Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, ...
Quote from: Vik on April 03, 2010, 04:47:32 AM
Indeed, the cartoons and stuff were so much better in the old days, now it's all ... crap. And about the music, all it seems to be nowadays is Techno, electro and stuff. No more Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, ...
I have all of those artists in my collection (except
BS) but we do have nowadays
AMY WINEHOUSE and
BECK and
BJORK... there is some very fine modern music, it's just few and far between. :smile:
Quote from: Allhallowsday on April 03, 2010, 07:27:16 PM
Quote from: Vik on April 03, 2010, 04:47:32 AM
Indeed, the cartoons and stuff were so much better in the old days, now it's all ... crap. And about the music, all it seems to be nowadays is Techno, electro and stuff. No more Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, ...
I have all of those artists in my collection (except BS) but we do have nowadays AMY WINEHOUSE and BECK and BJORK... there is some very fine modern music, it's just few and far between. :smile:
I miss the past and I wasn't even there