Spy Magazine Hit List: The 100 Most Annoying and Alarming People and Events of 1992 (1992) (TV)

Based on "Spy" magazine's annual feature, the year-end summary of top 100 most annoying, appalling and alarming people, events, and trends.

Spy Magazine Hit List: The 100 Most Annoying and Alarming People and Events of 1992 (1992) (TV)
Host: Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Best TV Shows That Never Were, The (2004) (TV)

Finally airing after two years on ABC's shelf, this summer special turns a bunch of lemons into refreshing lemonade. 

Best TV Shows, based on the book Unsold Television Pilot by co-executive producer Lee Goldberg, is a breezy hour of clips from sample episodes of series that the networks decided against ordering. Not surprisingly, most of them stink—which is why the special is such a good time. 

You'll slap your head in disbelief—try not to hurt yourself—at the idea of John Denver as a singing FBI agent. You'll wonder whether Joe Penny as a samurai district attorney would have been funnier—unintentionally—than John Belushi's samurai character on Saturday Night Live. And you'll think Scott Bakula is pretty down-to-earth in Star Trek: Enterprise after you see him in a busted pilot as a wacky scientist who accidentally merges with a satellite. For tube historians, this is a must-see.

The Best TV Shows That Never Were (2004) (TV)
Cast: Craig Bierko, Jane Leeves, Rome Romanne 

Good, the Bad & the Beautiful, The (1996) (TV)

Documentary celebrating the history of women in film -- using film clips, historical footage, contemporary interviews and the fictional journey of a woman from the inception of the film (1895) to the current movie world.


Film clips and interviews show how female stars have helped shape the dreams Hollywood sells to movie fans.

The Good, the Bad & the Beautiful (1996) (TV)
Cast: Laura San Giacomo, Kathy Bates, Nora Ephron, Rosie O'Donnell, Natasha Richardson, Sharon Stone, Kathleen Turner, Glenn Close, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sally Field, Whoopi Goldberg, Daryl Hannah

1968: 25th Anniversary (1993) (TV)

Hosted by Martin Sheen this is a special looking back on the events of 1968, including the Vietnam War, civil rights marches, riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

1968: 25th Anniversary (1993) TV)
Host: Martin Sheen

50 Years of NBC Late Night (2001) (TV)

Special that celebrates 50 years of late night television on NBC. The program presents highlights from "The Tonight Show" and features the four great hosts through the last half-century: Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. In addition, there are clips from landmark NBC late-night series such as "The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder," "SCTV," "Later With Bob Costas," "Later With Greg Kinnear," "Late Night With David Letterman," "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" and "Saturday Night Live."

50 Years of NBC Late Night (2001) (TV)
Host: Conan O'Brien

60 Minutes, 25 Years (1993) (TV)

Celebrating 25 Years of '60 Minutes' : Television: The show's stars and New York notables attend a party honoring the newsmagazine's longevity.
November 12, 1993|JANE HALL | TIMES STAFF WRITER


NEW YORK — "This is so much better than the 'wrap' party for 'South of Sunset,' " quipped Howard Stringer, president of the CBS Broadcast Group.

No fooling. The CBS detective series was canceled after one episode last month. The party Stringer was attending here Wednesday night was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "60 Minutes."

Some 600 New York notables, from Beverly Sills to Mayor-elect Rudolph Guiliani, ate dinner in the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and heard David Letterman offer a special Top 10 list ("No. 2: Like Lassie, there have been three different Mike Wallaces") at the event thrown by CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch to celebrate the longevity (and the ratings and profits) of "60 Minutes," the Daddy Warbucks of TV newsmagazines.

The stars of the evening were the stars of "60 Minutes": Mike Wallace, who was shown in a recent film clip hiking up a hill after a story at age 75; the show's 70-year-old creator and executive producer, Don Hewitt; Andy Rooney; Morley Safer; Ed Bradley; Lesley Stahl and Steve Kroft, at 48 the youngest of the "60 Minutes" correspondents.

"My voice hadn't changed when I started watching '60 Minutes,' " Kroft joked before dinner. "I'm celebrating 25 years of '60 Minutes' after having worked only five years here--and Mike and Don aren't letting me forget that."

The correspondents were "sound-bited" by TV crews and photographed together by a clamor of still photographers before they went into the party. In a medium that has few national institutions among its current programs, "60 Minutes"--still going strong as TV's third most popular program this season--is practically the news equivalent of Johnny Carson.

Hewitt, who based "60 Minutes" on Life magazine, said the program was less dependent on ratings-grabbing subjects than many of the prime-time newsmagazines that have sought to imitate its success.

"I really think that we could have Michael Jackson on one week and it might not make that much difference in the weekly ratings," Hewitt said in an interview.

"A '60 Minutes' story can be an essay, a profile or an investigation. It's the stories and the mix that people tune in for."

Wallace, who said he intends to keep working on "60 Minutes" "till my toes turn up," paid tribute to the producers who work in the shadows of the correspondents. "This is a producer's broadcast," he said.

"It's the producers in the field who are out there working before we get there."

Diane Sawyer, who left "60 Minutes" to join ABC's "PrimeTime Live," recalled that competition there for high-profile stories was intense.

"It was like waking up and finding yourself in the middle of an Olympic relay," Sawyer said. "All of these other people were running past, with their Olympic medals flying, while you'd barely had time to (suit up.)"

Viewers will be invited to join in the anniversary celebration Sunday night when "60 Minutes" serves up a two-hour collection of highlights from its 25-year run at 7 p.m.

60 Minutes, 25 Years (1993) (TV)
Host: Charles Kuralt

Freedom Festival '89 (1989) (TV)

An Independence Day special hosted by Patrick Duffy and featuring a lineup of song and dance performers at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the Constitution.

Freedom Festival '89 (1989) (TV)
Cast: The Oak Ridge Boys, Nell Carter, Frankie Avalon, Ann Jillian, Patrick Duffy

Everyday with Joan Lunden (1989–1990) (TV Series)

One of the prettiest of the co-hosts of "Good Morning America" branches out and takes her crack at daytime talk show hosting. Awkward and clumsy, fawning yet disingenuous, she was still able to recruit some surprising guests.


AVAILABLE EPISODES
Joan Collins, Vanessa Redgrave, Will Smith
June 1989

Everyday with Joan Lunden (1989–1990) TV Series
Host: Joan Lunden

Sixty Years of Seduction (1981) (TV)

A USA network special, this documentary focuses on sixty years of romance on the silver screen. This program features clips of some of Hollywood's stars in romantic moments, covering the 1920s to the 1970s. ''60 Years of Seduction,'' was a two-hour essay on love and romance as seen through the movie camera. The hosts are stars of the ordinary variety - James Garner, Angie Dickinson, Robert Urich and Victoria Principal. The ''guests,'' though, courtesy of movie excerpts, include just about every superstar that ever stepped out of a celluloid dream, from Dietrich and Bogart to Redford and Taylor. 

It is a ''cozy, lighthearted look'' at sex symbols created by the movie business. Mr. Garner notes that while the East Coast may have its Statue of Liberty, the West Coast has its Hollywood, urging the world to ''give me your young, your fresh, your wide-eyed beauties yearning to be stars.'' 

The film clips are arranged in neat categories. Set to the sound of Dooley Wilson singing ''As Time Goes By,'' one sequence explores the kiss, going from torrid contemporary scenes back to coy beginnings. Then, as Marlene Dietrich sings ''What Am I Bid for My Apples?'' another sequence looks at the concept of sex as forbidden fruit. 

There is the male star, a category including exotic Rudolph Valentino, macho Marlon Brando and gentle Gary Cooper. The female star list encompasses such types as Mae West, Katharine Hepburn, Doris Day and Marilyn Monroe. Arguing that, despite surface differences, Hollywood themes do remain remarkably the same, the program points up the similarity between a Valentino tango and John Travolta's famous dance scene in ''Saturday Night Fever.'' 

Surrounding these glimpses of the superstars is a good deal of ''special material'' that has the hosts strutting about in assorted costumes for sketches loosely related to the film sequences.

Sixty Years of Seduction (1981) (TV)
Hosts: James Garner, Angie Dickinson, Robert Urich, Victoria Principal, Sandahl Bergman

Being With John F. Kennedy (1983) (TV)

A documentary combining rare personal footage and well-known archive footage of President John F. Kennedy. AKA "A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy" and "A President to Remember (2008)". There is a simple mention elsewhere on the internet that Alec Baldwin is the narrator, this is NOT accurate as this is evidence. The hosting duties are entirely handled by the late newswoman Nancy Dickerson who is also credited as a Co-Producer. Both on-camera and voiced-over, all narration is Ms. Dickerson.

Being With John F. Kennedy (1983) (TV)
Host: Nancy Dickerson

Glenn Miller: A Moonlight Serenade (1984) (TV)

Glenn Miller and his music on the 40th anniversary of his death, shot at Glen Island Casino and narrated by Van Johnson, with guests Johnny Desmond, Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton, Julius La Rosa, Anita Gillette, and Sylvia Syms.

Songs include: "In the mood" by Andy Razaf, Joe Garland (TB); "Chattanooga choo choo", "I’ve got a girl in Kalamazoo" (MH, TB), "At last", "Serenade in blue" by Mack Gordon, Harry Warren (JD); "Elmer’s tune" by Elmer Albrecht, Sammy Gallop, Dick Jurgens (JLaR); "Skylark" by Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael (AG); "Little brown jug" by Joseph E. Winner, arr Bill Finegan (JD); "A string of pearls" by Eddie De Lange, Jerry Gray (TB); "The anvil chorus" by Giuseppe Verdi, arr Jerry Gray (JD); "Fools rush in" by Johnny Mercer, Rube Bloom (JD); "Long ago and far away" by Leo Robin, Ralph Rainger (JLaR); "Perfidia" by Milton Leeds, Alberto Dominguez (SS); "Stairway to the stars" by Mitchell Parish, Matty Malneck, Frank Signorelli (SS, JD); "St. Louis blues march" by W. C. Handy (MH, TB); "Pennsylvania 6-5000" by Carl Sigman, Jerry Gray; "Moonlight cocktail" by Kim Gannon, C. Luckey Roberts (JD); "I’ll be seeing you" by Irving Kahal, Sammy Fain (MH); "Don’t sit under the apple tree" by Lew Brown, Charles Tobias, Sam H. Stept (TB, MH); "Moonlight serenade" by Mitchell Parish, Glenn Miller.

Glenn Miller: A Moonlight Serenade (1984) (TV)
Host: Van Johnson

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life (1987) (TV)

A retrospective on the life and career of actor James Stewart with the star himself and hosted by his longtime personal friend Johnny Carson. With clips from many of the films of Mr. Stewart and interviews with some of the people that worked with him during his long, long career. One of the last of the good guys from old Hollywood, there was a time when Jimmy was everywhere. Talk shows, holiday specials, gala events, TV and film, Jimmy Stewart was always a pleasant addition. Stoic, calm and quieting, let's hope his humanity lives on through his efforts.

This is episode number 309 of "The Great Performances" anthology series.

James Stewart: A Wonderful Life (1987) (TV)
Host: Johnny Carson

Off Ramps: L. A. STORIES - The Second City - Inside the World's Largest Jail (1996) (TV)

As we take a visit to Los Angeles' Twin Towers Correctional Facility, also referred to in the media as Twin Towers Jail, Lisa Ling is front and center ably assisted by Mitchell Koss and together they bite off quite a bit for a simple two man crew in "The Second City - Inside the World's Largest Jail" or what most would consider a day in hell. The amount of scary access given and taken is surprising, I'm not sure if I would be willing to go and do as these two. As this is a production from 1996 it needs to be updated if for no other reason than contrast. Very eyeopening watching 3 unarmed correctional guards (sheriffs) walk amongst the population and keep order in a crowded lunchroom with 100 of the baddest types. This is the best way to take the tour when the alternatives are considered.

Off Ramps: L. A. STORIES (1996) (TV)
Cast: Lisa Ling, Mitchell Koss

The Century (1999) TV Mini-Series

An attempt to chronicle the 20th Century through the eyes of the ABC network news machine. Far in reach and bursting with footage this is an example of a program that will be relevant and watchable for years into the future.
 

AVAILABLE EPISODES
Heaven and Earth
Season 1, Episode 1
29 March 1999

Ultimate Power
Season 1, Episode 2
April 1999

No Man's Land
Season 1, Episode 3
April 1999

The Fall
Season 1, Episode 6
3 April 1999

Nothing to Fear
Season 1, Episode 7
8 April 1999

Picture This
Season 1, Episode 8
8 April 1999

The Race
Season 1, Episode 9
April 1999

The Evolution of Revolution
Season 1, Episode 10
April 1999

The Century (1999) TV Mini-Series
Host: Peter Jennings

Memorial Service for the Sailors of the USS Cole (2000) (TV)

Officials, relatives, and injured shipmates of 17 sailors killed in a terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Yemen gathered on pier 12 at the Norfolk Naval Station for a memorial service. While the crews of the ships moored at the pier manned the rails, President Clinton and other officials honored the sailors as heroes and vowed that those responsible for the attack would be brought to justice. The ceremony concluded with the Navy Hymn and the playing of Taps.

Memorial Service for the Sailors of the USS Cole (2000) (TV)
Host: Tom Brokaw

NBC 75th Anniversary Special (2002) (TV)

Originally broadcast on May 5th, 2002 this is a 3 hour celebration of NBC's 75th anniversary. From Studio 8-H in New York City.





 
NBC 75th Anniversary Special (2002) (TV)
Host: Jerry Seinfeld

Mike Wallace: Then & Now (TV) (1990)

In a CBS special broadcast on September 26, 1990 Mike Wallace recalls 40 years of reporting and interviewing, recapturing some of his top stories and most provocative interviews.

Mike Wallace: Then & Now (TV) (1990)
Host: Mike Wallace

Hi Honey, I'm Home (1991) TV series 1991-1992

A 1950s American sitcom family participates in the Sitcom Relocation Program, and are transported to 1990s suburbia. Anyone recognize Julie Benz? And yes, that's the Pina Colada guy, (Escape).


AVAILABLE EPISODES
Season 1, Episode 1
Meet the Neilsens
19 July 1991

Season 1, Episode 2
Make My Bed
26 July 1991

Season 1, Episode 4
Hi Mom, I'm Not Home
9 August 1991

Season 1, Episode 5
Grey Skies
16 August 1991

Season 1, Episode 6
SRP
23 August 1991

Hi Honey, I'm Home (1991) TV series 1991-1992
Cast: Charlotte Booker, Danny Gura, Eric Kushnick, Julie Benz, Peter Benson, Stephen C. Bradbury, Susan Cella