 This is the SF Productions podcast network TV signals in Kansas seven four-year time Remember some old 2d shows of course. I was before President Turner put that of false colorization law through in the 20s Don't be so sure about that. There were some great shows back then See back before all the video was put directly into computer memory in the com net people used to tape shows Let me see There's a tape already in here. Let me let me hook this up here. Let me see what we got back with us to the 60s and 70s dwelling place of the lost generation an era whose heroes Role models and very lives were molded and formed by weekly installments the favorite television programs Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand welcome to the vast wasteland. Welcome home Exciting episode of vast wasteland. I'm your host Mark Smigar along with Wilbert Neal and Marty Wiley And we're here to talk about 60s and 70s television tonight. It's cult shows But before we get into the big cult show phenomena Or whatever we just want to tell you we're on Tuesdays at 6 Wednesdays at 10 and Thursdays at 3 p.m Here on a ctv cable 21 and also if you'd want to write into us And I'm not really sure why you want to do that but just You have nothing else better to do Yeah, pick up a pencil Write something tell us how you like the show or get involved in our big swap meat Video swap meat. Oh, it's big It's Roland. We're just boom. We're zipping along on it They can't control it's like a just a huge onslaught and Basically, if there's a show that you would love to get a videotape of or find out where you can get Just right into us and we'll announce it on the air and see if anyone in our vast Audience of five or six people actually watch the show if one of them might have it and then we'll get you together Mr. Brady meant is probably our biggest fan. That's right. So So just you'll want to write into box 15 14 11 Columbus, Ohio 43 215 and So let's get on to the the big topic tonight There are always shows that were the big hits and then there were the shows that Never big demographically and never big in the audience measurements and the Nielsen's but They were shows that just have this fanatical following Seem to just can't be killed and I suppose we should start off with With exactly what is a cult show or what's your definition of a cult show Wilbur? You might have watched you you could you could remember watching it Was on you can remember the fact that you actually liked watching it I can't say it was me, so Yeah, it was me Get specific you might remember one or two characters maybe the main characters some of the wacky things they did right something like that, but as far as any particular show any a particular episode, maybe you'll remember one, but No, and if you find somebody else that has watched that show, it's like I But well at least to me it seems like There are a lot of shows that they People like to call call shows But they're not really shows that were on the air for especially if they were on the network for like more than a season You know that to me means it was fairly was too darn too darn accepted So Well, let's just we're just going to go through various shows and see One show that I did that currently you can actually see this is amazing. I mean until recently cult shows were like Shows that were on you know, they had their original airings and you've never seen them again because they're not correct for syndication They just you can't You can't get them out there because it's just not enough episodes, but Networks such as A&E and network such as What is it comedy channel slash CTV slash comedy central Basically, yeah, because they're really cheap because the the studios that own the rights to them are like well Yeah, they're gathering dust with we are selling to you than nothing but you know, we can't charge it a lot and From there it's straight to video Big area now, but rid originally you just couldn't get out of cult shows were shows that if you didn't catch them when they were on Forget it. You just couldn't catch them at all. That's right We're no vcrs. They're there were no videotapes. They were the old store. There was no dozens of cable channels They were that are desperate. It was they're showing amazing Amazing discoveries 23 hours a day and then this show the other hour so Well at one show I certainly want to bring up first and is now you can now see it on Comedy central is is quark Now this this show almost nobody remembers From truly a cult show very much like I flipped it on and right. It was like Buck Henry created this of course the creator of get smart and Captain nice and right and Decided I'm going to satirize a science fiction series mostly Star Trek, but lots of other stuff and so he created this series called quark, which is about an interstellar garbage collector and his Star Wars crew and a Lot of when people here are especially people who are into science fiction a lot of them think oh that was because Star Wars was big Well in a way But what actually happened was the first episode aired the month that like three weeks before Star Wars hit the big screen with like like three weeks same month and It's It was something that they put out there and they thought oh this is going to be a big hit and it never really went anywhere And then suddenly the network saw Star Wars and saw a huge box officer seats and Delved into anything they possibly had that was even remotely involved with science fiction We want episodes so they did Eight eight more episodes and put them out there by about the next Like by 78 likes winter of 78 and they went out there. They didn't do very well and they were gone But it was still a really interesting show It's too to sci-fi fans It's really interesting because each episode is is a definite takeoff of some specific Not just genre, but series and in some cases even episode of a series There were about two that were direct takeoffs of Star Trek original Star Trek episodes There was one that was a Buck Rogers parody, you know, there was there was one that's a there was one Star Wars parody the and It was just it was just in concept for a show, but it was such an incredibly limited audience because it was like, you know science fiction fans Who were this at that point really just starting to get going because there hadn't been anything out there right Of course that the big the big influence of that was really Was really a track because you had your your first officer who was a unemotional plant and Let's see then you had you had the the robot the lost in space type robot except he just was pretty much Right, and the yeah, the Betty What yeah, these twins and one of them was a clone and neither of them would admit which that Was the corner who wasn't and they were basically there to to the the archetype Damsel and distress in in scanning will they both know that secret crush on commander quark, right Trying desperately to be a captain Kirk type, but never really making it He's just just a little bit too nebulous to really make it Right, yeah Richard Benjamin for those you know, it was it was the star of the series Now that that kind of brings me in mind of another cult show I guess I'll call it a cult show one of he was on some years ago Gee now was it good morning world or was it he and she and she Because he and she weren't well he was he and Paul print is right and we're actually married. Yes, and they Um, he wasn't that's the one where he was the cartooner cartoonist. No, I think good morning. No, well, good morning. We're gonna find out Thinking up is Let me see. I'll say it's he and she I think he and she is the one with the with the he's he's the cartooners and he had this character called jet man and Did Jetman right it was real neat, you know real neat costume That's that's why I'm calling it's a cult show because I can remember them I can remember jet man and but what the show is I just remember the fact that it was on that's right Okay, he and she did Hollister a successful cartoonist whose creation jet man has been turned into a TV show Starring Oscar north in the title role Oscar was a bit of the I'm the arrogant smug It goes egocentric side and was constantly disagreeing with dick about the proper interpretation of jet man But anyway, yeah, well, I think a cult shows I think my favorite is hotel Baltimore because nobody thought that me Remember hotel Baltimore a lot of a lot of great Was it a normal air show there was just a lot of people that had been on his shows Showed up I'm not sure Was one of the most controversial here. Yeah, it was really controversial for doors by Norman Lear. Yes. Yes And I remember it was on Friday evenings because I baby sat quite a bit 9930 rock sexual innuendo and racy dialogue to the home screen I mean wasn't it about a couple prostitutes that living in an old hotel a couple of the characters. Yeah, that's the Death's clerk and his love April harried manager Clifford Philosophical Charles Susie Martha rocket the Colombian prostitute and Millie and unemployed waitress Jackie Detombo What do you call it ensemble shows? ensemble cast that Kind of like a Bernie Miller feel to it in the way Because it wasn't just like well, I'm going to do my bed and then I'll leave Here's the scene with me and then we'll be the scene with you You see there's only like one episode. I can remember on that the one where the Japanese Japanese salesman came to town and they were trying to talk to him and all I could do was rattle off. Oh Panasonic And it was it was a funny show though Well, you were talking about About animation and that puts me in mind this actually is it has an asterisk is an 80s show Duck Factory Now that this was an interesting concept again more of a Kind of an ensemble type thing. I'm remembering I remember a lamp a little bit a little bit like WKRP Where it was like wacky characters put together In a work group situation kind of like this like a group of animators. Yes, that's exactly a lamp that looked like a duck Well, that was their main character That was that was the Dippy duck was there that was the main character and this This Walt Disney type but it was not nearly successful died and In here and and Throughout most of the series. I believe there was it was all in probate who was going to own it but his his young wife widow Teresa Gansel was Basically trying to run the place and she had pretty much at least the beginning no real business sense and places basically running into the ground and Just the Right here. That's yeah, just like it's back there with the calyx Which I don't even remember when it was on but I remember watching it and eating McClurg was in it The calyx I do this wonderful word horse devils It was about a guy with a gas station It's it's all I remember calyx It was funny in the hopes of finding his fortune out West Jasper T calyx Had moved his family from their native Appalachia We'd worked as a coal miner to the small town of nowhere, California Inherited a small two-pump gas station there and figured that as his own boss He would improve his lot and then we had Jasper calicac and Venus calicac eating McClurg Bonnie Ebson, I'm assuming maybe some relation to buddy Yeah, Bobby Lou calicac With the with the song that ever remembers beat the system by Stanley Ralph Ross sung by Roy Clark And what a hit that was So how many episodes was that all those five or six? Oh, it looks like about four August 3rd August 31st Yeah, Bonnie Bonnie Ebson's father buddy had spent most of the 1960s is dead clamp I think they really have pillbillies which is an American institution on television Well, what else we got here, well, let me see. I was just remembering one the fruits of Southampton That's that was just a fun one This is just going back this might not necessarily be a cult show But it's one of those that I I just put in the definition of cult shows at least in my own tiny mind Because it's one that I just remember being on but yet I couldn't tell you a darn thing about it Oh It had a funny had a funny little theme and everything about how they Really didn't have any money yet They were pretending to have money because they lived in Southampton and so they were just pretending that they had all this money And it was just um, okay, let's see. She was a down on their luck Long Island Society family The fruits could live Life on the hill to their 60 room Southampton mansion to fact despite the fact that they were 10 million dollars in debt to the government So as long as they kept their secret Okay, I kind of remember that one and it was just um, I don't know. It was funny Of course though now if we're gonna talk cult shows one that I we just cannot get out of here without mentioning is probably what I would consider the I don't know. I think I know what you're gonna talk about ultimate Cult show the fact that it was it only had six episodes right and it was just It was on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. It is right there by golly police Even though this one it goes outside of our Little and it also goes out because this this is an example of something that started as a cult But now is of course this big money maker that the naked gun two and a half coming out Yeah, well, they but the time that this was truly a cult series because it was just a just a bizarre Thing most usually satire shows tend to end up being cult shows Started out. Yeah the cult show you were everybody knew you were cool and hip and stayed up late because you knew what? That show was about right cool And this well, it was just after airplane had come out and we see Kentucky Fried movie had been out before then so It was the same as craters of airplanes, of course Yeah But the fact that they just they just satirized everything in the beginning at the beginning of the thing It was had a guest star And then though the one there's one that was a special guest star John Belushi was a special guest star And he was thrown out of a car and he was rolled along and now on the video we get that when somebody else is in there They don't have John Belushi on there anymore So if you could like get that episode that would be the episode to have oh yeah cult show Not anymore, but you could have on beta That would be the thing that would be the one day But but there were only six episodes of it one thing I always remembered from that series was that every time That Drebben would stop his car at the scene of a crime There'd be they started with one garbage can and he'd hit the garbage can as he stopped in each episode There would be more and more like one more garbage can not near the end of like a big stack of garbage cans and he'd hit those Johnny the shoe sign guy there was always a we could answer any question in the world Yeah, the cop would ask him questions and the cop would leave and then like one like Dick Clark It came to us that I'll need some more of that youth cream Any question in the world was great About the first thing Jeff Goldblum was on that's the first thing I remember Jeff Goldblum He was on and it seems like it was just But I I'd be hard pressed to tell you what it was But it was the fact that he was just so tall and lanky and Ben Vareen was just so cool and hip This was the odd couple of detective work Yeah, the the dapper guy Who was Goldblum and Ben Vareen as 10 speed like the The really flashy guy and he would always dress up and they'd are you know be a different character He's a con man and all that and it was it was just really an interesting little show, but it never really that was a It must have been a summer replay. Well, not a summer replacement. I have season mid-season replacement for something else and In fact was one of the early Stephen Jay canal shows. Oh, yeah before a team and all those other ones Well, we we certainly can't We certainly can't get to can't talk about cult shows without talking about when things were rotten Which ought to be somebody ought to pull it out. It's available. It's available It's on again. I don't want to make this sound like an ad but it's on comedy central Saturday Yes when things were rotten Mel Brooks decided I'm gonna do television as Buck Henry did well. Well, of course he did he did television for years But it's like a different Buck Henry's like really really funny. Well, see that's why I really like Mel Brooks But this one was really funny This was before Mel got into his into the thing which I think destroyed him in the movies the fact that he had to Star in him. Yeah, exactly Right, but this was this was a comic retelling of the whole Robin Hood thing which see if if I Was like a big-time producer I would be playing up this series now that the Robin Hood movies coming out This is the kind of thing that like and another great example of not really cult shows Is Nick at night really doing a great promotional type stuff? You know, it's like when when Dick Tracy came out last year They showed all the Warren Beatty episodes of Doby Gillis, you know that kind of thing Considered a cult show I caught it after I caught it when it after it hits indication because it was like ended in 63 to which I was just like Attaining consciousness or something So it was like I caught it later And I noticed people my age seem to catch seem to have caught it I caught it before Nick started showing it someone else was showing it Cable wise or something It I think I think that's a very much overlooked show. I think the thing yeah I agree with that about cult shows though is once it You can't find it and people really want it That's where the cult thing comes in but yet when it when it when they bring it back and it's like you can see it all The time it's like Oh We can see it there's no problem Really when you really think about it a cult show is something that that is better in the memory than that is then is actually on the air Remember it like like I remember when things were right being a being a great show and then when I actually saw it It's like it's okay, but it's not something that really we should be like wow, you know It's it's like it's like childhood You childhood is better in the memory Nice place to visit but Well, let's see another one of course there's we could go on and on about British shows Because just because of their inaccessibility they become a lot of them become cult shows But I just want to just pick one out and that's hitchhikers guy to the guy that guy didn't galaxy only only seven episodes That's about all it's right Basically, it was a retelling of the book but only I've only seen it once when it ran and You know, it's just I think I think that's one of the best things British TV ever sent over here Hmm. I saw it's a lot of British shows When I could get them. Yeah Solo good neighbors things like this right which can't get anymore would love to see them again No way Oh, well, there we are Brainless size of a planet You can't you can't get a reading of that. Oh, yeah the guy that did that robot right does the reading on I've got the I've got the other tape of a restaurant in the universe. Yeah Yeah, anyways, what are the better ways to do those books, believe me Now they are fun to read though Well, uh, he's heard to be listened to though We're Well, there's a lot of the shows we could talk about but we only have half an hour So we got to we got to start wrapping the thing up I just want to mention in our big video swap meet Um, someone had written in I don't remember the name who had talked about Um, uh, Johnny Sacco and his flying robot. Yeah, well, they didn't know the name of the series, but we supplied that Um, again, I don't want to give an ad but I did see it at a science fiction convention So you could buy tapes of it. So next time a sci-fi convention comes through you may want to drop by Uh, and see if they might have something like that So that's that could be a possible source for for that person out there wanted to to know about that I don't have his name on me. Yeah, the Johnny Sacco guy So anyways, uh next time on vast wasteland We'll be talking about all the filmation series and no, no, it wasn't a guy. It was a production company It wasn't like Perry's smarter older brother Filmation they were an animation But you'll hear more about that next time for all of us here at vast wasteland. We'll see you next time. Good night everybody