I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about the relatively new Retro Television Network. As a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was glued to the TV watching such “reality” shows as Emergency! and Adam-12…
A few weeks ago we started getting WMFP again (in the Boston area, formerly UHF 62 and I believe currently DTV 18.1), after it had joined RTV. Now I can watch Emergency! and Adam-12 all over again. For those unfamiliar with these shows, they were often more real that a lot of the reality fare nowadays. Especially with Emergency! Shows weren’t necessarily edited for dramatic effect – characters appear to be really doing the tasks they are shown doing – fighting fires, performing rescues – I even noticed in an episode recently one of the doctors changing the recording tape for the calls – why would they even show that? That’s valuable advertiser time nowadays. But it made it real…in a way that I don’t think is even possible with today’s TV. It’s too bad that there will probably be nothing like Emergency! again.
Now, the antics on Adam-12 would probably get Reed and Milloy indefinitely suspended a hundred times over nowadays… 🙂
