For all my efforts to remind everyone of long, lost shows, the history of TV is littered with shows that are so obscure, even I haven’t heard of them. So let’s all watch this promo for ABC’s Friday night line-up in 1970. In among the more famous shows like The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch, there are shows like The Nanny and the Professor, That Girl and Love American Style that are entirely new to me.
Let’s watch together and see why no one probably remembers them any more.
Of course, ABC was “the place to be” in the 70s – at least according to ABC – which was a theme of many of their promos. See how many you recognise from this one from 1971.
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
