Don't Touch That Dial: Pointless TV Tidbits...

[Anthonynotes]

Yeah, I know that TV's have remotes these days, but "don't touch that remote control" doesn't have the same ring to it (even if Pinky did use said expression in that one PatB infomercial episode)...

Anyway, looks as if "King of the Hill"'s finally (and quietly) hit its magic minimum-#-of-epiosdes mark to enter syndication, which it does today (check local listings for airtimes; where I live, it's airing at 7 PM weeknights, which won't put it up agains the 6-7 PM block of "Simpsons" episodes on a rival channel). Now, it'll be a guaranteed money-maker for years to come (the main profitability goal of most TV shows is for it to reach the syndicated-rerun stage, I've heard....), as it enjoys a long life of endless reruns...um,unless they bump it to 3 AM and it gets bought out by Nickelodeon (to have its titles changed so that Peg's dumping an orange "Nickelodeon" trash bag and Hank's drinking out of a "Nickelodeon" can of beer or something :-)

In other news, I noticed this morning when I checked my VCR that they've moved "Bullwinkle" reruns from 6:30 AM (on a local station, seperate from Cartoon Network's reruns) to 6 AM, resulting in taping "Moesha" in its place. Dunno why they moved that show to 6:30; guess they need the extra hour in the morning at 8 AM for infomercials...

Finally, the local UPN station keeps running an annoying strip at the bottom of the screen during its shows (when it starts up from commercial breaks, etc.) to mention what's "coming up next" and/or that stuff like "King of the Hill" debuts tonight at 7 PM. Along with the ad slogan "central Indiana's watching UPN 23!" with a montage of clips from their various syndicated/UPN shows. Somewhat annoying, though I hear that cable's TNN runs a similar black bar at the bottom of the screen during its shows (only full-time?)...

-B.

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

Yep, KotH has finally reached the big time. This means I can actually catch up on eppys! :D I wouldn't worry about bad scenarios for a while...
...and please, PLEASE don't tell us what Nick might do...(shudders) ;)

Look on the bright side about UPN-I dunno if it does it, but if UPN runs those bars, wouldn't this mean no scrunched up credit scenes?

[Anthonynotes]

Originally posted by BourgeoisBuffoon
Yep, KotH has finally reached the big time. This means I can actually catch up on eppys! :D I wouldn't worry about bad scenarios for a while...
...and please, PLEASE don't tell us what Nick might do...(shudders) ;)

Look on the bright side about UPN-I dunno if it does it, but if UPN runs those bars, wouldn't this mean no scrunched up credit scenes?

Well, my local UPN affiliate for its syndicated shows sometimes scrunches them into the corner (to air ads for other shows, and/or run their "central Indiana's watchin' UPN 23!" promos, complete with recycled stock footage of clips from "Sabrina", "WWF Smackdown!", and some local yokels cheering for the cameras....).

They're running the bars over the bottom of the screen with the "coming up next" text messages sporadically through their syndicated shows (but not all the time)...which is probably why they changed the look of their "UPN 23" logo (the "23" used to be larger than the "UPN" part, then they changed it so both were the same smaller size...presumably so that the new logo would fit in the black-bar area and to emphasize their network alliance....). Of course, this is different from the station identification logo they run on the top of the hour, which consists of the number "23" and the words "WNDY: Marion-Indianapolis" (useless fact: the FCC madates radio/TV stations to identify their call letters and city of license at the top of the hour...which is why one might see stuff like "Marion-Indianapolis" in the above: the station's licensed to the podunk town of Marion [located 40 miles north of here], but since their main viewership's centered around Indy, they tack on "Indianapolis" to their station ID as well....a common tactic for radio/TV stations in suburbs of larger cities. I've also seen "Aurora-Chicago", "Oak Park-Chicago", and "Brownsburg-Indianapolis" [this last one *sung* rather quickly, as part of one of those cheesy, cheerful-sounding radio station IDs] cited for radio/TV stations... ).

As for my WB affiliate, they seem to not succumb to such shenanigans to push their syndicated shows, though their top-of-the-hour station ID consists of two lines of small text at the bottom of the screen, since it's A) licensed to Bloomington, IN (50 miles south of Indy) and B) has another simulcast station located 30 miles north of Indy in Kokomo (to boost its range to the northern part of central Indiana)....thus said text reads: "WTTV-4: Bloomington-Indianapolis, WTTK-29: Kokomo". If anyone cares, I watch WB/KWB (over-the-air, not having cable) on the Kokomo channel (channel 4's too snow-filled; I presume the skyscrapers downtown's blocking the signal or something)...

And I think all this has to be the most useless/geekiest information I've conveyed in quite some time...


-B.

[Calhoun07]

I suppose this might mean we have to wait longer for KOTH to come to DVD now, as they try to milk more money out of the syndication market?

I don't know about my local UPN. I don't watch UPN, but I will watch Enterprise, so I will let you all know!