Decline of TV Showmanship

Certain movies shown on network TV used to be treated as cultural milestones.

Toward the end of the movie “Matinee” the movie distributor that Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) is trying to sell his movie to is observing the melee taking place around the movie theater when the audience becomes convinced that nuclear war is taking place in real life. As he watches the madness he remarks, “He’s put the showmanship back!”

Showmanship is lacking these days in the exhibition of movies, particularly on TV. 20 years ago a movie being shown on Broadcast TV for the first time was greeted with great fanfare. Big part of this was due to the amazing amount of time that transpired between original theatrical release and broadcast television exhibition. In the 1980s that could be as long as five years. In the earlier days of post war movies being shown on TV, that wait was longer.

In the earliest days of TV the only movies shown were mostly pre-1949 B-movies and old Saturday matinee serials. The big studios saw TV as an enemy to be fought and naturally did not want to help the networks beyond using them promote their current movies. Then in the early 1960s NBC struck a deal with 20th Century Fox and purchased TV rights for several movies. The first was “How to Marry a Millionaire” (1953). The established precedent became that studios would release movies theatrically and then re-release them a prescribed amount of times before relinquishing them to be shown on TV. This was driven by profit motive by the studios. Over time as home entertainment evolved this waiting period began to include premium cable channels like HBO and then home video. So a movie would be released to theaters, then at least six months to a year later (depending on how successful the movie was) it would be released on home video and then it would be shown on premium cable three to six months after that. This is a generalization of course, I’m sure there were some exceptions with time in some cases After a movie saw a generous amount air time on cable it would graduate to broadcast network TV where the 50% of American households (like mine) who didn’t have cable could see it. It always seemed a little weird to watch a movie and after the opening credits see the words “Edited for Television” at the bottom of the screen. I used to wonder what we were being protected from, but that was before forth grade, when my vocabulary um… expanded.

Showing a movie on TV for the first time was often marketed a cause for celebration, especially if the movie in question was particularly popular. A good example is the first time “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was shown on ABC. As you’ll see in the link below ABC discarded its usual movie-of-the-week theme music for John Williams “Raiders March”.

(to see links open a new browser and copy and paste the link to the address bar)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njBfxRzezpY

The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was E.T. The first movie I remember seeing on TV was Superman. At the time I was a huge “Superfriends” fan and could not fathom the idea of how a man could realistically look like he was flying. We kids were told that we could stay up and watch if we took naps. The hours between coming home from church and the movie starting went by like a month of Sundays. The movie-of-the-week opening with the 3-D star tunnel graphics and red, white and blue color scheme (as if to remind the viewers, ‘We’re the AMERICAN Broadcasting Company, unlike those Nazis over at NBC or them commies at CBS) combined with a philharmonic sounding score and Ernie Anderson announcing the two to three hour spectacular that was to follow with exciting shots from the movie was enough to make me engage in typical five-year-old ‘I can’t believe this is actually going to happen’ hysterics. A good example of this (oddly enough of “Superman”) is in the link below.

(to see links open a new browser and copy and paste the link to the address bar)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4SDGhq5auU

Pretty much any broadcasting entity that showed movies did it with some kind of flair.

From Network…

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/4945/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J09m_6LAWXk
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/3008/

to local…

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/4155/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn2xteWi4Zo

to cable…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul7tQQRGcOk

But over time the showmanship died. The intros and bumpers got shorter and less flashy and now they have all but died out. Gone from most networks. (ABC might still do it but it’s been a long time since I looked) Forget local, they don’t have the money anymore. And the ones on cable movie channels are too short to make you care. Nowadays if you catch a movie on TV you get nothing but the movie it self. It’s as if they’re saying “Here it is, you’re lucky you got it.” No flashy intro, no hyperbolic announcer, nothing. You get a commercial, a promo for some other show and then the studio logo and the movie starts. There just isn’t ant showmanship anymore. There is one notable exception, Turner Classic Movie has a plethora of cool bumpers and intros they’ve been using since 1994 that somehow never age. (and you can’t beat Robert Osborne’s introductory lectures) So here’s to showmanship!

Comments

The death of late night movies came from the broadcast deregulation. Before the 1990's, there was a limit to how much time could be spent on commercials vs. programming. Try drinking to much coffee then staying up past 1 or 2 in the morning.

As soon as it happens, I will be tickled pink to write "The Decline of Deregulation and the Infomerrcial".

I have caught one of the big three showing a movie once a week. I actually watched a Whoppi Goldberg film from the '80's, just because it was on.

No pictures? Who cares? At least this article actually concerns the PAST and is saying something, unlike a lot of the pieces of crap submitted here. Brava.

I vividly remember when Superman first aired on ABC. I was 9 at that time. My Dad recorded it on our huge VCR. I still have the tape, with all the old commercials on it. There was a huge buzz of excitement for me and my Sis. I truly miss the showmanship. The ABC Star Tunnel opening was to me a sign that I was watching something epic.

Oh, God! Another "Decline of..." article! Also, please use pictures, and not links to YouTube videos.

Ah, yes, I know what you mean. I felt Showtime and HBO kinda killed it for TV Showmanship when they first emerged. And my Mom always thought it was a waste of money (remember these movie channels boasted unedited, uninterrupted movies), because the films shown on these channels would later materialize on the networks for those lacking the movie channels.

In fact, it was TV showmanship which helped the independent networks (you know the ones local stations owned before Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros. got ahold of them) show movies. I can still recall some of the intros for horror films as a kid on these channels.

But as you indicated ABC did have a lot of showmanship when it came to airing movies and films. In fact, before NBC had picked it up, I believe ABC had originally shown "The Sound of Music," once. Mainly because Julie Andrews did a lot of specials for that network. As well as her "Thoroughly Modern Millie" long before it had become a Broadway Musical.

In fact, ABC's Movie of the Week showmanship was so popular, they actually created a Saturday Morning version of it back in the 70s. Though the films were animated and original (well, considering some based on TV shows like "Bewitched" and "That Girl"

, it was the showmanship they did to make you want to watch them.

Yes, TCM is the only one that really keeps the showmanship around. Heck, when AMC sold out to commericalism, I felt I had really lost a close friend.

Another show I miss was one on PBS called 'A Day at the Bijou' where they showed classic shorts and films from the 1930s and 40s, though they were cheesy by today's standards, you had to enjoy the showmanship behind that.

And I agree with 80skidAK, NBC used to hype up a lot of the Hallmark movies they did (pre-Hallmark Channel) as Blockbusters, then after "The 10th Kingdom's" abysmal ratings, they kind of dropped the entire thing.

Ah, well..

Someone mentioned Fox being the last to really hype up the network television premiere of a major movie; the last one to really do that regarding movies of the week was NBC. I'm talking about stuff like Gulliver's Travels and Merlin. NBC hyped them up like crazy, and the movies were about as huge and epic as any TV movies ever were, with production values that mirrored Hollywood blockbusters.

But then they had stuff like "The 10th Kingdom"...

I remember when ABC even hyped-up their made for TV movies that would be considered campy or mediocre. I remember watching "Killdozer" and "Bad Ronald" in the early 1970's when I was a kid. Getting closer to the subject, I do remember whne the Big Three networks would hype up the major movies that came out at the box office but it was a different world then. Even in the mid 1980's when most of these pieces took place, the Big Three were still dominant although they were starting to lose it then. I think naother factor was in the case of NBC is they had Brandon Tartikoff running the show, he totally dominated the 1980's. when he left, things gone to pot it seems. Unfortunatly, he died in 1997 from Hodkgins and/or lymphoma so RIP to Brandon, but that guy was a true genius.

Even local stations ran movies in the late afternoons and weekend afternoons. Here in Pittsburgh, we had "Tarzan Theater" on Saturday afternoons and the local ABC affiliate, WTAE, had the Sunday movie hosted by Rege Cordic, he moved to Los Angeles by that time but he's from Pittsburgh. Local stations like WKBN, out of Youngstown, Ohio, back then they were on the cable system but were receivable by antenna, they ran movies locally in the afternoons after school. Many were theatrical releases years before, most notably, "Planet of the Apes."

p-i-c-t-u-r-e-s PLEASE!

Ahh, Superman on network tv. I waited all day, then the "Tonight...", with scenes, then the big intros, then the 15 minute credits!!!! I went to the bathroom before the credits were done! My popcorn was finished! And I didn't miss a second of action!!!

I hear you....I remember when RETURN OF THE JEDI was on ABC (I think) and it was a HUGE DEAL!!!!

If I can chime in here...

I really enjoyed TBS' "Dinner And A Movie" back in the 90s and early 00s, basically the Paul Gilmartin/Annabelle Gurwitch era. They showed great movies (many of them from the 80s), had great repartee with each other and had some cool guests (When they did an episode based around "Spaceballs", Williams Street, then known as Ghost Planet, got involved by having Paul and Annabelle interact with Space Ghost and Zorak).

Now, I don't even know if its' on anymore. On TBS' website, they say DAAM still airs, but they must not hype it anymore.

On top of that, all of the 80s movies they used to show on there have migrated to the Rainbow Media/NBC Universal channels, the Viacom channels or back to premium cable.

I never got a chance to see TNT's "Monstervision" or "USA's Up All Night", either. Granted, I was only in my teens when they came to a close, but it still would've been nice to see them.

I wonder if we'll ever see these shows' likes again.

It was indeed a spectacle to behold when you got to see a movie on TV for the first time.It wasn't even that long ago that they still did that.When they first showed the special edition of Star Wars on Fox for the first time, you better believe it was hyped up like crazy.And Phantom Menace was too, to some extent.Then when they got Episode 2 for the first time they were just like, "Eh, here's Episode 2.Watch it".Fox were the last guys to really do things like that.

Nice article. It's weird looking back before VCRs were everywhere you either saw the movie in the theater or you had to wait (and hope) it came on TV. I love those bumpers too.

As far as pictures go it's not a big deal.

Movie based channels are kind of blah, it's like 'here's another movie and another and another...'

There's no pinache.

Yeah, ironic that it's about showmanship, yet you have no pics. Anyway, thumbs up from me.

This article is pretty moot to me because I've always hated watching movie on TV. Too many commercials and too many edits. I always prefer to watch the raw versions (if only TCM showed better movies more often....)

Also, you had video sources, but no pictures. Only takes a few seconds to Print Screen a picture from the internet, and a minute to edit out all but the picture. =/

No pictures kinda make this boring...

I liked this article, and couldn't agree more. The use of videos kept my attention too. It gets my vote. Keep up the good work.

I really miss the CBS Special logo that spun out of control. I really liked it at Christmas time before Charlie Brown or Rudolph specials.

man you are soo right about that.

Great article! I love how you used videos to explain your point. I was born in '88, but I know exactly what you're talking about. I think that TV in general has lowered its standards. I remember when TV was fun and had all the bells and whistles so to speak. Now its just, like you said, “Here it is, you’re lucky you got it.” Great article!

A cool articel, but where are the pics man?

No mention of Monster Vision with Joe Bob Briggs, or USA Up All night? Those should have been in here.

no pictures

Nice article, you prove some very good points. I give it a thumbs up

This isn't such a bad article, so I gave you my thumbs up.

It also helps that I happen to agree with you. Back in the day, intros and bumpers and stuff did a great job of getting you amped up to watch a great movie or TV show. TV had a lot more heart back then. Now it's cold and mechanical.

excellent and interesting article, i'm not sure why it doesnt have more thumbs up, i've seen some terrible articles on this site, and this is not one of them. good use of the old bumpers and intros, it really adds a lot to the article. keep up the writing, i'm looking forward to the next article

I miss the famous HBO "spinning logo" and the CBS "Special Presentation" music/theme.