TVSquad

You should be reading Classic Television Showbiz, a really fun blog that often showcases video of old and/or obscure TV shows. This week he has a video of the short-lived game show Pitfall, which Alex Trebek hosted.

Not only did the company that produced the show run out of money, they ran out of money while the show was still on the air. So they couldn't pay some of the later contestants and Trebek didn't get paid either! He still has the check framed in his office. Video below (quality isn't great, but it's interesting).

We're used to reading all of the lists that rank the best and worst TV shows of all-time, now ABC is getting even more specific than that. What are the top moments in television history?

You can vote for them at the ABC site and your answers will be revealed on the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, which will be broadcast on Sunday, September 21. There are two categories, comedy and drama (sorry fans of game shows and reality shows). No, you can't write in your own vote, you have to pick from the finalists that they've already chosen for you, so right off the bat you know there's going to be a lot of "but what about..." and "why did they include..." talk.

Right away this list from Burbia.com of the 12 Top TV shows based around the suburbs doesn't make any sense. Sorry, any show that doesn't include The Dick Van Dyke Show just doesn't know what it's talking about. It was the show that epitomized the suburbs in the early 60s, but it doesn't even get a mention on this list.

Instead we get recent shows like The Sopranos, Weeds, and The Simpsons. They might even be good choices, but whenever a list leaves out a show that is so obvious the entire thing becomes suspect. They did include some classic shows on the list, including Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (and some that didn't make the list but are mentioned anyway, like Mr. Ed), but I have to ask: since when is Milwaukee (Happy Days) a suburb? Wasn't My Favorite Martian set in L.A.? And I wouldn't really call Beverly Hills (The Beverly Hillbillies) a suburb either.

What other shows should have been on this list?

If you're a TV fan and have been around for a while, the TV logos/credit montage in the video after the jump is going to be like a trip back in time, a history of television in 5 minutes and 33 seconds.

Some of them are national logos (Paramount, Sid and Marty Krofft, Viacom, Desilu), and some of them will probably only be known to people in certain markets (Lexington Broadcast Services?). Some of the companies are repeated, but you get to see different logos they used.

I like lists as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure how useful a "100 Best" list of anything is. Twenty-five best? OK. Ten best? That's good too, because you're really picking what you think are the best. But once your lists gets into three digits, it seems more like history than opinion. I mean, what wouldn't be on the list?

Time's James Poniewozik picks the 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time (or All-TIME, as the web site cleverly puts it). Since he picked 100 shows, all the usual suspects are here. The obvious ones (The Dick Van Dyke Show, All in the Family, Your Show of Shows, 60 Minutes, Cheers, I Love Lucy, M*A*S*H, etc) and the not-quite-so-obvious but certainly deserving (Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Odd Couple, Friends). And it includes a few surprises too (American Idol, King of the Hill, Oprah).

If I was to pick the Top 5 things I hate about television, the coverage of the NCAA Tournament this month would be near the top of the list. It interrupts regular shows, and I truly don't understand why people get so ga-ga over COLLEGE basketball, unless you went there or something.

But I do like the brackets set up, and we can use it for other things in life, including TV! Jacksonville.com has a tournment of their own going on. They're trying to pick the best sitcom character of all-time and they need your help. Go here and vote for your favorites in Week 1 (the second round is this Wednesday). Make sure you read the directions carefully.

Speaking of brackets, I picked up the new book The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. It's a clever idea: get an expert in a particular field to set up a tournament about everything in life (puncuation, sports rivalries, dogs, political issues, etc) and keep on narrowing them down til you get the champ. There's a lot of TV-related ones in the book, including game show catchphrases (by Ken Jennings), animation characters (by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast), black and white TV shows, talk show hosts, and several more). Lists like these are argument starters for sure, and the entire outcome depends on how you start the brackets, which is rather random (unless you do something like talk show hosts, which you can at least start by nighttime, daytime, or region). Why are certain people/items placed together and not in another bracket? So it's probably not precise, but it's a ton of fun.

[Thanks to Toby for the tip.]

Veteran comic/director/writer David Steinberg has a lot of stuff going on.

The second season of his TV Land talk show, Sit Down Comedy, began a couple of weeks ago with an interview with Jerry Seinfeld. This Wednesday, Steinberg sits down with Daily Show host Jon Stewart. The show airs at 10pm. The following weeks, Steinberg will interview Garry Shandling and then Ray Romano.

But that's not all: Steinberg also has a book coming out in June, The Book of David. And he's a busy guy in his life as a director too. He's directing his seventh season at Curb Your Enthusiasm, episodes of Campus Ladies, and a pilot for Dane Cook.

There might be a lot of people who aren't familiar with Steinberg since a lot of his work has been behind the camera for a while, but he has quite a resume.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a boat for sale...

This web site is selling what they say is the original S.S. Minnow from Gilligan's Island. Boing Boing readers aren't so sure, saying the show started before that, but others say that this could have been one of several boats used during the show's run. Looks liegit to me.

It's $99,000, with an engine rebuilt in 1999.

Several years back, long before TV Squad or most other TV-related web sites, there was a terrific magazine called Television Chronicles. It was basically the ultimate publication for the serious TV fan, and I was really hoping to write for it at some point. But after a few years it ceased publication, but now I'm happy to report that it's back in online form (God bless the internets)!

Publisher Bill Groves and editor Ed Robertson are back at the helm, and their first issue (August) has a lot of great stuff, including a long feature on the 70s adventure drama The Magician, with Bill Bixby (a favorite of mine when I was a kid) and the short-lived 80s series Sable (I had completely forgotten that Rene Russo costarred in that!). Plus they have other features, including an audio hello from Larry Cohen (The Invaders, Coronet Blue, Branded), and podcasts.

Welcome back, Television Chronicles.

[via Lee Goldberg]

Every once in a while, we here at TV Squad give our opinions about what we'd like to see/not see on television. And since last week was my one-year anniversary here, I figured I'd give my current list:

1. Bring back game shows. I don't mean a syndicated game show or a game show/reality show like Survivor or American Idol, I'm talking about real, honest to goodness, daytime game shows on the networks. The Price Is Right is the only one left, and the rest of the schedule has been taken over by the likes of Maury Povich, Dr. Phil, The View, Starting Over, and a third hour of The Today Show. Wouldn't it be great to just dump all those shows and bring back a Card Sharks, a Concentration, a Blockbusters, a High Rollers, a Sale of the Century. Hell, I'd watch Match Game again over Jerry Springer.