Shows
All Categories
Action & Adventure
Animation
Arts
Business
Comedy
Documentary
Drama
Educational
Events & Specials
Fantasy
Food & Cooking
Game Show
Health & Lifestyle
Horror
Kids
Music
News
Reality
Science
Science Fiction
Sports
Suspense
Talk & Interview
Tech & Gaming
Travel
All Networks
A&E
ABC
ABC Family
AMC
Adult Swim
Animal Planet
BBC
BBC Three
BBC Two
Bravo
CBC
CBS
CTV
Cartoon Network
Channel 4
Comedy Central
Discovery Channel
Disney Channel
Disney XD
E!
E4
ESPN
FOX
FX
Food Network
G4
HBO
HGTV
IFC
ITV
LOGO
Lifetime
MTV
MTV 2
NBC
Nickelodeon
Nicktoons Networks
PBS
Showcase
Showtime
Spike TV
Starz
Syfy
TBS
TELETOON
TLC
TNT
TV Tokyo
TeenNick
The CW
The Guild
The History Channel
The Hub
The Science Channel
The WB
Travel Channel
UPN
USA
VH1
YTV
-
1
Soul Train
(ended 2006)It's the SOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUL TRAIN!
Pop music has always had shows like American Bandstand to sing its praises, but R&B music had to wait a while for its own major weekly showcase. Just the same, Soul Train proved to be well worth the wait when it hit the airwaves in the 1970s. This weekly extravaganza, which showed off the latest and greatest in soul music and dance moves, became a national sensation in the mid-1970s and became a pop culture juggernaut that broke new ground for African-American entertainment.
Soul Train was the brainchild of radio announcer Don Cornelius. After studying broadcasting in college, Cornelius got a job at WVON, one of Chicago's most popular urban radio stations. During this time, he pondered breaking into television with a dance and music show from an African-American perspective. In 1969, he produced a pilot episode and dubbed it "Soul Train" after a local radio promotion he had done in Chicago. The pilot impressed the Sears Roebuck Company, which gave Cornelius some funding in exchange for the rights to use Soul Train to promote a line of record players. With this help, Cornelius launched Soul Train on WCIU-TV, a Chicago UHF station. It premiered on August 17, 1970 as a weekday series airing from 4:30-5:30pm. Cornelius himself hosted the dance-stravaganza, which took place on a club-set. The show featured performances by soul music acts, appearances by guest hosts, and scorching dance numbers from the Soul Train Gang. Local word-of-mouth made Soul Train a big hit in Chicago, which won it another sponsor in The Johnson Products Company, makers of Afro-Sheen.
Soul Train's relationship with The Johnson Products Company also helped it make the move from local television to syndication. With this company's financial backing, Cornelius moved the show to Hollywood and got it into television syndication in the fall of 1971. Only seven cities were on the initial lineup, but the Soul Train quickly picked up steam and began playing in new cities as its reputation spread. Pretty soon, people all over the country were enjoying the funky thrills that only Soul Train could provide. By the mid-1970s, Soul Train was a force to be reckoned with. Each week, the latest hits and coolest dances were served up in a slick package that had kids of all ages and races dancing around the TV-room floor. Cornelius cut a stylish, unflappably cool figure as the host, making him an often-imitated icon in the entertainment community. Music groups clamored for an appearance on Soul Train, since it was practically a free ticket to r&b (and often pop) chart success. Today, many critics fondly remember Soul Train as the television show that did the most to bring African-American popular culture into American households.
As the 1980's began, Soul Train was as popular as ever. Tribune Entertainment, a Chicago-based company, became the exclusive distributor of the show and helped launch The Soul Train Music Awards. This yearly awards gala has become one of the most popular and respected awards ceremonies for r&b musicians and now enjoys "institution" status in the music world. The success of this awards show has also led to other popular Soul Train spin-off specials like The Soul Train Lady Of Soul Annual Awards Special and The Soul Train Christmas Starfest.
In the 1990s, Don Cornelius stepped down as Soul Train host and passed the role to others. Guest hosts were used from 1993-97 (seasons 23 through 26). Mystro Clark became host in 1997. Following him, was Shemar Moore who hosted seasons 29 through 32. Dorian Gregory is the current Soul Train host. Cornelius remains active as an executive producer for the show, which shows no signs of slowing down. With r&b music more popular than ever in the mainstream, viewers everywhere continue to shake their groove thing to the churning wheels of the Soul Train.
Soul Train continued with new episodes through the 2005-06 season. The final, first-run episode aired on March 25, 2006. The 2006-07 season began with repeats from 2005-06. As of December 9, 2006, the series has been retitled The Best of Soul Train and features c episodes from the 1970s and 1980s. 1970's & early 1980's Soul Train airdates On this guide, we've listed the earliest known airdates for episodes 1 - 163. The original Los Angeles airdates are listed for episodes 164 - 366 (Dec. 27, 1975 - June 20, 1981). In the 1970s through the early '80s, the episode airdates varied from city to city. Instead of using communications satellites, tapes of the episodes were mailed directly to individual TV stations. And once a station aired an episode, the tape would then be forwarded to a station in another city. (This practice, called "bicycling," was common with most 1970s first-run syndicated shows.) Sometime in the early 1980s, Tribune Entertainment began using satellites to distribute Soul Train resulting in standard airdates across the country.
Find at what television station and time the train pulls up to your TV: http://tv.tribune.com/showfinder/search/1,1001,soultrain,FF.html
Contributors to this guide include: --Nick Puzo (Nickfresh) - editor of the Soul Train Yahoo Group --Jabar Robbins (Calatine9) --Robert Spiegel --Edward Loney ("ehloney")moreless -
2
The Dating Game
ABC (ended 2000)THE DATING GAME was and still is by all accounts, the premiere game show for singles. It was the forerunner for many imitators such as "Love Connection", MTV's "Singled Out" and numerous others. But they all have the same influence: Chuck Barris, the creator of the one that started it all! "THE DATING GAME" first premiered on December 20-24, 1965 on abc-TV and remained a fixture on the network in both daytime and nighttime incarnations through the rest of the 1960s and well into the 1970s. Jim Lange, fresh from his announcing duties with Tennessee Ernie Ford stepped through the flower-speckled rotating partitions for the first of many, many times shortly before Christmas 1965. The game play was simple. On one side you had 3 bachelors answering questions from a girl on the other side of the partition (each not being able to see the other). The girl was given a certain amount of time to ask as many questions as she could to the 3 bachelors. More often than not the questions would be of a quirky nature. (E.G.: "If we were marooned on a desert island, what would be the first thing you'd do and why?"). During a commercial break, the girl would think about which bachelor she'd select. When the show returned, Jim would have her announce her choice. After meeting the 2 boys she didn't select, she's meet her date at which point Jim would tell them where they were going for their dream date. On less frequent occasions, the roles were reversed. To wit, the game would feature a boy selecting 1 from the 3 Bachelorettes. The show became an enormous hit with young viewers. (In fact, in light of its success, Baskin-Robbins named an ice cream flavor in honor of the show.) And over the years, the show featured many stars of the day (Burt Reynolds, Paul Petersen and even Dick Clark showed up) as well as newcomers who would in later years become big stars in their own right (John Ritter, Teri Garr, Tom Selleck and Farrah Fawcett were among these.) The show left abc-TV on July 2-6, 1973, but stayed in syndication for another year (1973-1974) before leaving the airwaves altogether. Creator Chuck Barris brought the show back again 4 years later with Lange as host from 1978 to 1980. Along with an updated version of "The Newlywed Game" and 2 new shows, ("The Gong Show" and "The $1.98 Beauty Show") "The Dating Game" returned to syndicated in 1978, only this time with a more adult-oriented borderline dialogue format--perhaps in an effort to recapture the same audience that had grown up watching THE DATING GAME in the 1960s. The newer version- along with Jim Lange's gaudy red tuxedo- lasted for 2 years until local stations finally got tired of the protesting phone calls. Once again, the show featured both present-day and future stars such as Jaye P. Morgan, Bob Saget and Murray "The Unknown Comic" Langston. THE DATING GAME was all but forgotten until the mid-80s, when Barris decided to do it yet again. An all new 80s update of "The Dating Game (The All-New DATING GAME)" premiered on syndicated on September 8-12, 1986, but this time the hosting duties were handled by Elaine Joyce (Lange was busy at the time hosting "The $1,000,000 Chance Of A Lifetime"). This version lasted for three years with Joyce hosting the 1st season and Jeff McGregor hosting the last 2 Seasons and again as in the previous 2 incarnations, the show featured present and future stars. (Among the future stars was Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding, Jr.!) The Program Demised on September 8, 1989. Now... as for the NINETIES update? Well... I don't know terribly much about it except for the following: By the time the 90s rolled around, Chuck Barris sold the rights to all his shows to Columbia-Tristar Television. A newer, corporate-whitewashed version of the DATING GAME was released on September 9-13, 1996 and packaged with another updated version of "The Newlywed Game", this time with Chuck ("Love Connection") Woolery (1st Host is Whose Line is it Anyway (US) Brad Sherwood for the 1st Season for the difference) and outside of the quizzer and the respective suitors & suitorettes not being able to see one another, the rules were almost completely overhauled and all ended the show on September 15, 2000. But if you're a game show retrophile like me, you would have to agree that there's just no Dating Game without Jim Lange with or without the awful tux. And now you don't have to suffer from Lange withdrawal because Game Show Network has some episodes to show you... And HEEEEEEEE-RE THEY ARRRRRRRR-RE! Now you can see the classic Jim Lange episodes of the original DATING GAME on The Game Show Network- in particular, the ones that featured present-day and future superstars. You can see them Saturday and Sunday nights at 11:30pm on GSN. Enjoy them if you can... and if you can't stay up that late, TAPE THEM... LIKE ME!! (Dates with celebrities are always subject to their availability.) THE BROADCAST HISTORY of THE DATING GAME: December 20, 1965-March 31, 1967 at 11:30am-12Noon on ABC-TV April 3, 1967-July 12, 1968 at 4:00-4:30pm on ABC-TV July 15, 1968-July 6, 1973 at 2:30-3:00pm on ABC-TV. On 1st Run Syndicated from September 10, 1973-September 15, 2000.moreless -
3
Inside
National GeographicNational Geographic delves deep into little known topics to discover the truth from inside prison gangs to the chicago mob. The Inside goes deep to gain exclusive access to the most mysterious stories.moreless
-
8:00 pmCBS
-
FOX
-
9:00 pmNBC
-
FOX