Think Anti-Conservative Bias is new to TV? Think again--

Decades.Com ^

[Bender2]

Decades (channel network) is an American digital broadcast television network that is owned as a joint venture between the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation and Weigel Broadcasting. The network, which is primarily carried on the digital subchannels of television stations, mainly airs classic television sitcoms and drama series from the 1950s through the 2000s, feature films from the same period, along with historical news and documentary programming.

[Bender2]

Recently my cable service added the Decades.Com channel to their lineup and I started watching if because it offers a lot of old TV Series I recall with fondness from the 1950s and 1960s. One is which was my favorite sitcom of all times--

"Love That Bob" hold up well and even with knowing what was coming from my recall of seeing the episode when it came on in the 1950s, it can still make me laugh out loud. Something hardly any of the nowadays' comedy sitcoms can do--

The also offer two episodes of a day and I DVDed them. Watching them showed that while most of the skits, jokes and bits they did were laugh out loud funny much in the mode of comedy previously done by Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen, they really poured on the liberal slant in response to the then ongoing Vietnam War, the liberal look at how they felt life must be lived and promoting Gun Control by knocking the National Rifle Association by presenting them "The Flying Fickle Finger... of Fate Award" for selling a shotgun sized down for young people.

While I recall watching "Laugh In" back in those days as the late 1960s flowed into the 1970s, I did not remember them being so damn liberal minded. Must have been my mind was on college studies, keg parties and all those short-skirted, free-love loving co-ed that were everywhere!

However, I did find it hilarious that on one of the "New of the Future" segments, ultra-Liberal Dan Rowan offered up: "Hollywood 1969, twenty years from now, the Screen Actor's Guild demanded that current films provide there be roles that white male actors can play."

Looks like some chickens... do come home to roost!

Goldie and I have told you and told you, Bendy-- Lay off... the chicken jokes!

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[Bender2]

Okay, y’all add your 2 cents—

[fruser1]

The bias definitely existed during vietnam war and up.

If anything, I’d say what little I know of 50s, is that it seemed to be, if anything, pro-US with cold war themes.

[robroys woman]

I saw it in the 80’s and said so. First it was sitcoms where the smart kids saved the dumb adults, and then it was the smart women saving the dumb men. That last one stuck to this day.

[oh8eleven]

Recently my cable service added the Decades.Com channel to their lineup ...
Since Spectrum took over for Time Warner 13 months ago, the only thing "added" to my account has been a rate increase of 30%. MFers.

[joesbucks]

I don't remember Love That Bob, but saw a portion of it the other day on Decades. What I saw was funny.

I don't watch it much during the week, but on weekends they binge on a show or a theme. A few weekends ago it was Get Smart.

[Mouton]

The fifties had a bunch of series with a moralistic tone, The Rifleman comes to mind. I watch it diligently. The lead actor of course was Chuck Conners who from what I gather was a righteous guy. Also liked him because he went to my college, ten years before me.

[buckalfa]

"If anything, I’d say what little I know of 50s, is that it seemed to be, if anything, pro-US with cold war themes."

One could make a case that FedGov extended it's WW2 propaganda efforts well into the 1950's Cold War period. Then again I lived in a town that whose main economic support was the AEC, so that probably colors my memories.

[Bender2]

Re: If anything, I’d say what little I know of 50s, is that it seemed to be, if anything, pro-US with cold war themes.

So true, the US Military was held in high regard, even when they were they were made fun of like when Grand Pa Collins bombs the US Air Force with cider jugs on "Love That Bob" in one episode or in another one where a real Air Force General plays himself sending Bob to reserve training in Greenland to help Bob's sister Margaret comic plan.

There was not any anti-military slant at all that I recall. I went from 3 to 13-years of age in the 1950s yet there was some things shown that could not happen today.

Just the other day there was an episode of "Love That Bob" that showed how things have changed. In 'Bob's Forgotten Fiancée' from 1958 a very young Constance Towers played Patricia Plumber, a stew on airline pilot Paul Fonda's Mexico run. Margaret gets her to play act as one of Bob's old girlfriends to teach him a lesson but when Bob flies away to Mexico to escape her, she is the stewardess on the flight. Bob sees her and realize he was the butt of a joke and he also know that Paul was in on it, so he goes to the cockpit door, saying he is going to thrown pilot Paul off the plane--

Can you imagine that being shown on today's TV?

[Mr. K]

WE have known this for decades here on FR.

It has never been this blatant before, where everyone else is starting to see it.

[equaviator]

After the 38-minute false alarm in Hawaii and seeing footage of yesterday’s incoming meteorite (MI) I wonder if this isn’t all just another episode of Twilight Zone.

[edzo4]

I saw an old episode of hill street blues the other day it started with a scene where the cop was having a dream that his family was blown up by a nuke. But at the end of the episode he dreamed Reagan called him and said he was going to turn all the nukes into studebakers.

[Bender2]

Re: ...robroys woman (So you're not confused, I'm male.)...

Well, you have succeeded-- And speaking of confusion, most may remember that it was Goldie Hawn's bikini dancing that made he the hottest babe on "Laugh In"--

Yet after watching many of them recently, I find that, believe it or not as I cannot find a photo on the internet anywhere to back this up, but Ruth Buzzi had a sexier bikini bod when she danced on the show.

BTW I think Lincoln Mercury thought the same when Ruth played it straight--

So, in the spirit of the times when "Laugh In" was on the air, take that and smoke it... in your Funk & Wagnall!

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[robroys woman]

And for the record, Mary Anne was hotter than Ginger! :)

[Sans-Culotte]

I watch this channel occasionally via an antenna. AFAIK, neither DISH (which I currently have) nor DTV offers it. I, too was surprised at how very very leftist Laugh-In was. I guess I was too busy ogling the pretty girls and enjoying the risque humor when I watched it back in the late 60's/early 70's. What is really amazing is how they edited together so many clips into a coherent program.

They also show a lot of news coverage of what happened "through the decades" on a specific date. You can definitely see the bias when they show old news clips featuring the likes of Cronkite and Rather.

They also show some old kinescopes of early TV live productions. One that I found interesting was "The Night America Trembled" from 1957. This was about the Orson Welles/Mercury Theater radio production of The War of the Worlds. The program showed the actors in the radio studio performing the play, while different people listening on the radio believe it to be a real Martian invasion. There had been a TV movie in the 70's called "The NIght That Panicked America" which was little more than a remake of this program. If one looks closely, one can glimpse Warren Beatty as a college student, and James Coburn has a featured role. I should probably watch this channel more often.

[null and void]

The Viet Cong thought they’d lost the Tet Offensive until the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite, announced they’d won.

Without his sedition, they would have folded, and communism would have been stopped at least locally.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I remember watching Laugh-In as a child.
It does not really stand the test of time.
If you don’t know who Spiro Agnew was you’re totally lost.

[Sam Gamgee]

The 30s as well was a period of hyper-leftism. The media and the “thinkers” of the time laughed at Ayn Rand when she told them the truth about Russia, her homeland. She could not get anyone in any of the major publication houses to publish Atlas Shrugged.

[Wuli]

The Decades channel is not the only channel with offerings of 1950s/60s/70s TV shows. “Me” TV does as well, and so does one of HallMark’s channels. Other channels do also, though not throughout every day.

However the “Decades” channel as a big negative as far as I am concerned.

Sometimes, in between the old TV shows, the Decades channel has a commentator, and sometimes he has segments that are 30 minutes in length. His overall talk may be of the old TV shows but it includes his own commentary which has a very Liberal political and cultural bias which to me is nothing less than Liberal-social arrogance.

[sparklite2]

If you think Laugh-In was liberal,
you'll melt down over The Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour. Oh, and tell
Goldie I still love 'er.  LOL