Articles are touting an upcoming service from Warner Brothers and AOL (which we should note are part of the same larger corporate structure) that will allow you to download (or perhaps stream) any of thousands of episode of the many WB-produced shows that are not currently on the tube. The articles are touting some of their long-running successes like Welcome Back, Kotter and Growing Pains, but I’ll be far more interested in seeing some of the shorter-lived stuff, the things that haven’t been rerun. I’m not good at remembering what production company was behind what show; perhaps there will be some shows that I remember fondly from my youth, and I can see whether I had better taste than the world or was just taken by anything Pamelyn Ferdin appeared in…
Oh hold on a sec, I think I remember one show that bore the WB label… (sound of Nat checking the IMDB — really, it is quite a specific and recognizable sound, I just can’t think of the right onomotopoeia for it)… yes, the brothers Warner did indeed produce The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.. I know a few people who will be quite happy about that. Myself included, for that matter.
Of course, IMDB can provide a list of shows produced by Warner Brothers Television. The titles in quotes are TV shows; the ones that say (TV) after them are telemovies; I don’t know if they will be included in this deal.
Freebie and the Bean! Various Maverick revivals! Love Sidney – I bet that one’s licensed to one of the gay networks and wasn’t in the package (the character was established as gay in the original telemovie, but that was never explicitly refered to in the series, although I do recall a longing look at the photo of the deceased partner.) Family Dog. There was a Free Willy TV show? Billy. Maximum Bob. Nikki, a show that was far better than it had any right to be! The Chimp Channel. Casablanca. Phil Hartman in The Six O’Clock Follies. Perhaps they’ll even have the film-but-never-aired Commando Nanny!
My real dream is that they coordinate with the ReplayTV folk so that I’ll be able to download to the disk and watch it on the TV.
And here I thought I was the only person outside of her immediate family who remembered the once ubiquitous Pamelyn Ferdin.