I was watching old home videos my dad recorded and noticed the scrolling guide went from that basic blue and white text to fancy animated backgrounds with music in just 5 years, any one else remember when they first saw that new design pop up?
Back in 1997 I was helping a buddy install cable for his parents house in Austin. This grizzled old guy named Hank who ran the shop kept yelling at me about mounting dishes on roof jacks. Sure enough 4 months later that leak showed up right through their ceiling in the living room. Cost them like $800 in drywall repair. Has anyone else had a simple cable job turn into a plumbing nightmare?
I chose Comedy Central for the stand-up specials and ended up missing every single TRL countdown for five years straight, anyone else regret a channel choice like that?
Back in '97 I had a busted Zenith cable box that would skip to channel 0 if you touched it wrong. One day I landed on some scrambled signal and realized if I hit the fine-tune knob just right, the picture cleared up on HBO. Did anyone else accidentally stumble onto free channels messing with the tuning wheel?
I've been thinking about this for a while after watching some old Toonami and Nicktoons clips from the late 90s on YouTube. Cartoon Network had that block programming like Toonami at 4pm and Adult Swim at 11pm, while Nickelodeon ran stuff like Rugrats and Hey Arnold all day. I spent way too long arguing with my buddy about which channel had better pacing. He says Nick felt more complete weekend mornings, but I swear CN's themed nights built more hype. What's your take? Did one network nail the schedule better than the other?
I was at a buddy's place in Tampa flipping channels and we landed on MTV Spring Break '98. They had some band playing live and the audio cut out for like 30 seconds, but the crowd kept cheering. It made me think: does that raw unpolished stuff make live TV better or just feel like amateur hour? I remember a local public access show in Cleveland where the host tripped over a cord and it was the funniest thing ever. Curious if you all prefer the slick polished shows or those messy real moments on old cable.
I was at a cookout in Toledo last summer and put on the Don Rickles roast from 1974 on a tablet. My cousin took it too seriously and started yelling at my uncle about some joke. Now I never show old roasts at family events. Has anyone else had a vintage TV clip cause drama in real life?
I was flipping channels around 1am on a Sunday back in 2000 and landed on MTV hoping for some Headbangers Ball, but it was just reality show reruns. It hit me that I had been waiting for videos for weeks without really noticing the shift. Anyone else remember the exact moment they realized MTV had given up on music?
I always thought AOTS was just dumb filler between actual tech reviews, but last month I went down a rabbit hole of 2007 episodes on someone's archive channel. The chemistry between Kevin and the crew was way better than I remembered, especially when they'd do those live DIY segments that would go horribly wrong. For example, there's one where they tried to build a potato cannon and nearly took out a camera - pure chaos lol. I also caught an interview with a developer from Bungie right before Halo 3 dropped that had some legit insider info. The show actually had substance underneath all the goofiness, which I totally missed when I was 16 and just wanted to see game trailers. Now I'm watching old episodes weekly, and I feel like a dummy for skipping it back then. Anyone else find a show they trashed on back in the day that holds up better now?
I was at my nephew's birthday party last Saturday and one of his friends saw an old Powerpuff Girls clip on my phone. He asked why I was watching 'retro cartoons' from the 90s. It hit me that shows I stayed up late to catch are now older than I was when I watched them. How do you folks explain to young people that Toonami and the old Boomerang channel were amazing?