Soap Operas, French Lessons & Political Dramas - TV Obscura Vol 2 - January 15th, 1965

[@jorgerosado2087]

So glad to see TV Obscura back. It's such a great format. Here's hoping we make it to the 80s at least once.

[@jaydensvhsarchive3.095]

Agreed

[@vgtrp]

Considering he picks years at random, it’s most likely he’ll get there at some point.

[@marcomacias3960]

i didn't realize the Flintstones had a comic strip.

[@2dskillz]

Great episode. These mean a lot to me. I have a passion for single season shows. Even the smallest TV program was a production that so many worked on. The fading memory of art pushes my desire to love these things, I sometimes feel the pain of knowing many shows may be forgot when I am gone just because I was the last one that cared.

[@christopherb501]

A feeling shared by many in the age of streaming.

[@Undrave]

This is really a cool format!

[@Saintnick90]

Yay for the Muzzy reference! I watched that so much in my elementary Spanish class, and it's fun to see that so many from my generation learned another language from a green monster and other strange characters. Although I just learned that it wasn't even in Spanish initially. It was originally the BBC's way of teaching English to ESL speakers but was dubbed into other languages. I never would have been able to tell. It's funny how much longevity soap operas have had, even if they are a fraction of what they were 60 years ago. I recently caught a bit of a General Hospital episode while I was at the gym, and it kept cutting back and forth between about five different conversations, and I had no idea what was going on. It must have an audience if it's still going, but I wonder how long it will be before it completely goes away, given how much competition for entertainment there is out there.

[@radd1865]

I wish these videos were more popular for you. I love seeing a spotlight cast on forgotten things, and you do a great job with presenting the material. It's the same reason I love your episodes on Nick at Nite content almost more than when you cover well-loved 90s material -- it's such untrod ground, and it's fascinating to me.

[@candidgamera]

Holy crap, a Clarksburg, WV mention! That's not too far from me. So glad to see this series back.

[@ladambell]

Really digging this series. I appreciate all the research you do for this!

[@CannotFindServerSA]

as a capital region resident, your pronunciation of schenectady was entertaining

[@kapiteinfox3142]

Love these so much!

[@CinnamonGrrlErin1]

I really love this new series you're doing!

[@spews1973]

No Peanuts in the Lincoln Star but they had a Flintstones comic strip. That's weird.

[@ddw1272]

I wonder if Lincoln was a two paper town and Peanuts ran in the other one

[@morbidsearch]

​@@ddw1272 I remember in the 10th Anniversary Calvin and Hobbes book (1995), Bill Watterson said there was once a time when towns had as many as five newspapers, which meant they would offer full pages to comic strips to keep up with the competition. I don't know if that point had passed by the 1960s.

[@VivisPal]

@@ddw1272 That's exactly right. Peanuts ran in the rival paper, The Lincoln Journal.

[@bradleygiven5193]

Turns out I like your voice over so much I'd literally listen to you read from an old newspaper. (Very creative way for you to find old tv listings)

[@GoingRampant]

Would the computer in question be a guy who performs computations, not a machine? Like in Hidden Figures? I like that the soap's lighting obscures the eyes, so you can't tell if they're reading something off-screen. It does add a German expressionist look. Reminds me of Dark Shadows, my only exploration of old, black and white soaps. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I like that you show appreciation for the soap as an art form. 😊 Parlon Francais seems like a good way of teaching French to children with simplistic language they can pick up. I like that you provide prospective on it as a product of nationalism without condemning the show itself. You're a good historian. Just hearing the bits of Slattery's People you've described, it sounds like a well-thought-out entry in that loosely fascist genre of "special man fixes corrupt system", the kind of thing Goebbels admired as what appeared to him as fascist propaganda. The introduction of complications and allowing him to lose a lot makes it seem less of a "special man" show despite existing in the same genre. Interesting look into past art!

[@KaseyWynne]

Man, I love this series. This was a great episode.

[@chelmrtz]

A Flame in the Wind ➡️ Gossip Girl

[@tokublwhovian]

As a Brit and soaps fan (more so of EastEnders nowadays, one of four main ones) you’re correct about scenes being dragged out back then, compared to today. The same can be said for storylines, but I sometimes enjoy them dragging because of where one might end.

[@TheDashingRogue]

Very interesting method of content selection .

[@MrMatteNWk]

Ironic that the Nebraska ETV network logo kinda reminds me of the RCA logo since NBC (then owned by RCA) stole its original logo in 75-76

[@AJ-xc4qe]

We’re probably gonna need French lessons THIS week!

[@ghostnote-6]

really enjoyed this. somehow must have missed the first installment,

[@Xepscern]

Glad to see more of this series.

[@BlackoutCreature]

Yeah, uh, Schenectady is pronounced with a hard "k" sound. Ska-nectedy.

[@JimmySand9]

Plus, WRGB was an NBC affiliate at the time.

[@natethefighter]

S'alright, NY state is filled with town names that folks have difficulty pronouncing at first (unless you're first nations)

[@darktetsuya]

always fun to see a new episode in this series! and I thought recordings of shows from the 80s were hard to come by, I can appreciate when stuff much older than that gets covered.

[@stuffingtonjfluffypantsiii]

everyone knows the best French teacher is Pierre Escargot

[@jph139]

Slattery's People is exactly the sort of wheat bread show I'd love to get a deep dive into someday... but it's so "unsexy" that I can't imagine there ever being much clamor into getting those episodes released or tracked down. I love the vague interrogative episode titles, too! It's like a series of pulp novels for boring people.

[@YujiUedaFan]

Where is part 1?

[@jackomon1129]

Amazing video, I need to find Volume 1 thou as I am very interested by that

[@willshaw1389]

As The World Turns is labelled as running from 1956 to... 10? Should that be 60?

[@poparena]

No, it ended in 2010.

[@willshaw1389]

@@poparena oh wow! Guess I shouldn’t be so surprised, these successful soaps run for donkey’s years.

[@lmeeken]

It's always great to see a new video! I *think* "Parlons Francais" would be more accurately translated "Let's Speak French," rather than "Speaking French." But that's one quibble in an otherwise fun bit of analysis!

[@Kol-Fox]

So what I'm hearing is, if we want our schools to be better funded we need to make it a nationalist issue.

[@christopherb501]

Sadly, that's pretty much the ONLY way to stimulate anything in the current age.

[@chelmrtz]

Always here for Muzzy

[@MSP10julia]

I also came here for Muzzy too. In honor of the summer olympics this Friday.

[@christopherb501]

Wonder if this format will ever roll up Nickelodeon.

[@jonathanstern5537]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHbMoph6qrp9adk

[@samwill7259]

It shouldn't have been THAT hard to find French Speakers in the American public, even back in the 60s. Or is this that thing where American keeps forgetting it even HAS Maine? I know we're not interesting but we have the most native french speakers in the union!

[@thomasstone3480]

my mom was a native francophone from new hampshire who, around this timeframe, was actively prevented from speaking french in school lol

[@samwill7259]

@@thomasstone3480 Because isn't that always the way it goes?

[@CinnamonGrrlErin1]

We do! I live in Biddeford, and there is a deep French connection here, although I've noticed I don't hear it spoken as much as I did in the 80s and 90s.

[@randy9769]

When is Nick knacks coming back

[@transopticon13]

"low" art is just the stuff a bunch of snobs didn't like and couldn't come up with any real justification other than marginalized people liked it so it must be bad. the "low" shares its root in phrenology. so yeah, art is just art 26:28 Question: Did He Who Smelt It, Delt it?