Hot answers tagged tv-shows
13
There are 52 weeks in a year.
American TV series usually go from the end of September to May, about 34-35 weeks.
Before the late 1960s, a television season was closer to about 30 episodes in the United States.[Wikipedia] [Version]
Most shows go on hiatus over the winter holidays and thanksgiving, due to lower viewership. Events such as the president of ...
11
The rules for how the order of credits is produced is very long and convoluted. They also vary from show to show, so for any one "rule of thumb" it's almost guaranteed you can find an exception on the air right now on some channel.
The basic guidelines that most shows follow most of the time are drawn from the rules for the various industry guilds. In the ...
9
As the name suggests, a marathon is the sequential broadcast of a single or a number of related television programs for a long period of time; up to days if it is a TV series with many episodes.
The most common reasons for a network to run a TV show marathon are:
to celebrate the acquisition of a series,
to lead into a highly anticipated episode of a ...
9
A marathon is a collection of shows from the television show run one after another, mostly in order of release, such as a full season run together.
Bloopers are generally mistakes caught during filming that would tend to be funny (i.e. trips and falls, or really dangerous and bloody accidents, or unfortunate script mispronunciation, especially if it comes ...
9
According to an article from TV Guide, the four quadrants are split according to male or female and old or young. From another site about audience demographics, it appears the the old-young split is made at age 25.
Edit: Here's an image I found on a site for independent filmmakers:
7
As FredH mentioned in his comment, in this particular case most of the gaps in NCIS correspond to political pre-emptions. However, even when there aren't these kinds of special things going on, most shows on the big networks have these kind of breaks. The reason is they are trying to make sure that they have shows for as many sweep periods as possible.
...
6
From the wiki page for 555:
The phone companies began encouraging the producers of television shows and movies to use the 555 prefix for fictional telephone numbers, roughly during the 1960s. One of the earliest uses of a 555 number can be seen in Panic in Year Zero! (1962), with 555-2106.
In the 1942 film: "Eyes in the Night", starring Edward Arnold and ...
6
According to this transcript, the game is called Jeu Militaire, also known as the French Military Game thought it has nothing to do with France or the military. It is a strategy game that works like this:
The game is played against the computer with the two players
alternating turns. You control the three black pieces while the
computer controls the ...
6
Why do TV networks air pilot episodes of a series that has already aired a first episode?
A TV pilot is a scripted and filmed “first episode” of an intended series. It is usually used to test the waters of whether or not an idea for a TV show is viable and marketable.
Why do they call it a pilot episode?
The first episode of many TV series is ...
5
The show is set in Indiana, and the title is trying to evoke the idea that this is a fun, "meat and potatoes" family sitcom that represents "middle" America (i.e. it's not New York, it's not California, it's not the South ... just the "Heartland").
Here's a "TV Tropes" link that can really do a better job answering your question than me: Flyover Country
I ...
5
One of the earliest, if not the first such announcements was "All in the Family was recorded on tape before a live audience" from 1971.
According to Michael Tueth's Laughter In The Living Room (2005), one of the earliest American sitcoms to broadcast live was I Love Lucy (1951 – 1957). For personal reasons, Lucy Ball wanted to produce the programme from ...
5
It seems to be an amalgamation of agreements between the various guilds: the screen actors guilds, the screen writers guild, and directors guild. These aren't set in stone and there are many different variations to opening credits. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the subject.
Opening Credits on Wikipedia
4
I think the most likely reason is writing down notes/topics for making jokes as you supposed. A post on the QI forum suggests the same. Since the format of these shows allows diverting off-topic, any jokes (and interesting facts in the case of QI) that come into their head are fair game.
On some shows, notepads may be used for other things. For example, on ...
3
I would hazard a guess that, if you were a kid in the 70's/80's that you may just not have watched many of the serialized shows. (of course, I was a kid in the 80's and remember watching all of these...) Off the top of my head, from the 80's, you've got:
Hill Street Blues
St. Elsewhere
Cheers
M.A.S.H.
Moonlighting
Family Ties
L.A. Law
...
3
Baseball players in 1911, 1912, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1920, 1921, 1927, 1942
The Guide to United States Popular Culture (2001) by Ray Broadus Browne and Pat Browne says:
As Linda K. Fuller has noted, "The real story of the success of baseball films is not the batting box, but at the box office. From the beginning, filmmakers were quick to realize the added ...
2
Mayim Bialik meets the criteria to a point, but she's certainly not the earliest. After she left Blossom, she got a degree in neuroscience with a specialty in obsessive-compulsive disorder. This tied in well when she played psychiatrist Dr. Bialik on the sitcom 'Til Death, treating Doug, who has a psychiatric problem where he feels he is living within a ...
2
On television, a couple of early examples (though not necessarily the earliest) might be The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show or The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, although it's debatable if those are really fictional versions of themselves or just characters with the same names. Then there is The Monkees in 1962, which is most certainly them playing ...
2
Here's some I found from searching Subzin.com:
Eyes in the Night (1942):
00:20:32 ROSSMORE 555.
...
00:26:01 I WANT ROSSMORE 555.
...
00:26:08 HELLO, ROSSMORE 555?
The Second Time Around (1961):
00:29:59 The number is 555 - 3485.
...
00:30:35 That's right. The number is 555 - 3485.
KL5 and 555 can be found in a list of (presumably ...
2
Bluntly, no, there is no strict definition for a "season".
Now, tradtionally, broadcasters would start showing a seasons in August and run until May. Mostly because of the belief that people watched less TV in the summer. But this gave them the opportunity to have shows set during Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc.
Some shows would even make ...
2
From Nielson.com (retrieved Dec 2012):
How We Do It
Panels
Electronic metering technology is at the heart of the Nielsen
ratings process. Our tools capture not only what channel is being
watched, but also who is watching and when, including “time-shifted”
viewing.
Nielsen’s TV families represent a cross-section of representative
...
1
Yes, there is a term and it is known as "Reverse" Chuck Cunningham Syndrome"
A reverse Cunningham is essentially the opposite of Chuck Cunningham syndrome, in which a previously-unknown and un-alluded-to character is introduced under the context that they had always been there, and had significantly interacted with the other characters before. This ...
1
Under civil law frameworks based on common law (which we have in the US), there is the doctrine of res judicata -- or "already judged." Once the appeals process is complete, or the time frame for filing appeal has run out, res judicata states that the suit cannot be brought again, even for new evidence (there are exceptions, such as proof of fraud). Its ...
1
I'd have to go back and watch it again to see what specific scenes you're referring to, but in I Am Anne Frank (both parts) the style shifts a few times. WWII-era flashback scenes are stylized to look like documentary footage, and I remember the flashback scenes when her husband recounts how her delusion developed also shifted style to something more akin to ...
1
There are many different types of TV pilots. You can find your answer in this wikipedia entry
Also, many networks never air certain series in their entirety. This can be for a variety of reasons, such as a controversial topic or extremely low ratings.
1
There was a 30-minute documentary called Lava Lake Acid Lake by volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft. The Kraffts were famous for close-up photography of lava flows, and in fact, died in Japan in 1991 (along with 41 other people) when a lava flow suddenly changed direction. Their documentary appears to have been released on disc in 2006 by Learning Media ...
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