Bonus: Total Television Book

One thing that inspired my theme this year was having owned several editions of this book:

The edition pictured was the last update of the book. The info contained only goes up to the fall of 1995, after the launchings of the now-defunct networks UPN and WB. A book that hasn't ben updated in more than 25 years. But it's easy to see why. With all the streaming services as well as the networks and cable stations carrying original series, it would make for a heavy, super-long book, bigger probably than an unabridged dictionary. And please, let's not get too argumentative--we have the Internet so....

My copy of the above edition is so wrong it's fallen apart. Nevertheless, I still glance it, and despite it being terribly outdated, I did use it to find ideas for my blog posts. Only two shows I included in my posts (both coming up this week, as the A to Z winds down) came out after the last edition of this book. 

While recently glancing through my worn copy of the book, I came across listings for TV shows I don't actually remember:

FTV (Syndicated; 1985) A show that parodied music videos hosted by former Eagles member Don Felder? How did I miss this? It must not have been shown on any station in my area. Sounds like something that might have gotten dumped to the afternoon TV wasteland on Saturday or Sunday, subject to preemption by sports and breaking news stories.  Here is a clip I then found on YouTube.

You Write the Songs (Syndicated; 1986). A contest for amateur song writers, with Ben Vereen as host. Again, I don't remember this being on any local stations. A clip on Youtube. Also, Zoobilee Zoo, which Vereen also hosted that same year. The series intro is here.

Again, I don't seem to remember these, and I'm old enough to have seen them. I can't even recall hearing about them! But given my age at the time, I might not have been interested in these shows, as most were aimed at younger kids. Something tells me I had better things to watch then. 

And this one I don't recall seeing or even hearing about: Getting In Touch, hosted by psychiatrist David Viscott, syndicated in 1987. Though I'm pretty sure I would not have wanted to watch this! And I'm now surprised my local NBC station didn't snag this to air in the off-network hours, but I guess they had better syndicated stuff to show at those times, like Oprah Winfrey and Wheel of Fortune.

Now you can see there are things on TV *I* don't recollect!