SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

TCA Tour Cable: Day 4; SitcomsOnline Remembers Three TV Veterans

We are at day four of the cable portion of the TCA! Today is the big day for TV Land and Nick@Nite. TV Land announced that it will launch its first broadband video player for its TVLand.com on Thursday, Aug. 24. The site will feature full-length episodes of new programs each month, episodes and clips from TV Land’s original programming and classic TV shows, the "retromercials" that run on the linear network, recent and classic promos, celebrity interviews. Uncut Episodes of '60s western Daniel Boone will kick off the online channel in August. Then Three's Company clips, outtakes, bloopers and more (possibly episodes of the spin-offs, The Ropers and Three's a Crowd?) will be the main feature in September. October will see the premiere of TV Land's original Mr. T series I Pity the Fool. November has episodes of the pop culture hit Star Trek and in December viewers can watch the work of Marlo Thomas with the special Free to Be You and Me and episodes of That Girl! I was excited about this online channel, and it certainly is not disappointing! We will certainly have more updates on this. We might see Daniel Boone on the TV Land network itself in September, but it premieres first on TV Land Online on Aug. 24. Star Trek and I Pity the Fool will both be offered online and on-air. Not sure yet about That Girl. For the complete press release, click here.
I Pity the Fool debuts on-air on TV Land on October 11 at 10 p.m. Nick@Nite hyped its new series A Different World, which will air on Wednesday nights this summer from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. and on weekends at 10 p.m., before airing every night at 10 p.m. starting in September.
Other networks also went:
FX will create a mini-episode of gritty cop series The Shield to air on-demand and on video-broadband platforms prior to the show's sixth-season premiere in early 2007. The show, which will be dubbed The Shield 5.5, is similar to the Rescue Me 2.5 video short released in May prior to the third-season premiere of the network's popular Denis Leary-produced firefighter series. That show, which featured Leary and the show's cast, drew 1.5 million viewers through cable video-on-demand and on the Internet via AOL, network officials said. FX also announced Wednesday the renewal of Rescue Me for a fourth season.
The Discovery Channel name opened more doors of interview subjects internationally than did the name ABC News, journalist Ted Koppel told television critics. Koppel lavished praise on the network when he was asked what it is like doing important news on a "smaller platform" than ABC. He noted that his reporting could reach millions of people internationally through Discovery's more than 160 affiliates. Koppel said he hopes the channel's international cache will help him and his crew to get into Iran in the fall so that he can report on that nation's growing nuclear program and its distrust of America.
Can't wait to see the next episode of HBO’s The Wire and Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam? The network will premiere each episode of the urban drama and the standup-comedy series via its subscription-video-on-demand service one week before it airs on the premium service, Multichannel News says. HBO On Demand will debut the fourth season of The Wire, as well as the first episode of Def Comedy Jam -- returning to HBO after a 10-year hiatus -- Sept. 4, three days before they air on the network.
Keep checking back for further updates!

Today, SitcomsOnline.com mourns the deaths of three TV veterans: Amzie Strickland, Barnard Hughes, and Kasey Rogers. Amzie Strickland was best known for her guest starring roles on classic TV shows, but she also had a recurring role on short lived shows such as Carter Country and Full Circle. Among her many guest roles include a few characters on The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, My Favorite Martian, The Donna Reed Show, Gomer Pyle, F Troop, Petticoat Junction, The Doris Day Show, Happy Days, The Bob Newhart Show, Flo, Three's Company, The Golden Girls, ALF, Murphy Brown, Empty Nest, Full House, Sister Sister, Roseanne, Ned & Stacey, Wings, Ellen and many many more! Ms. Strickland suffered from Alzheimer's disease and had not acted in 5 years. She passed away on July 5 at the age of 87.
Barnard Hughes was best known for his roles on Doc (70s version), Blossom, The Cavanaughs, and the short lived sitcom Mr. Merlin. He received an Emmy Award in 1978 for a guest appearance on Lou Grant, and began appearing on television in the 1950s in shows such as Kraft Television Theatre and The U.S. Steel Hour. He appeared on other series as a guest such as All in the Family, Hawaii Five-0, Bob Newhart Show, The Love Boat, Hotel, and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. He later had stints on the soap operas The Guiding Light, The Secret Storm and As the World Turns. He had a Broadway career dating back to 1935 and has won Tony Awards. Mr. Hughes died Tuesday after a brief illness, he was 90.
And finally, Kasey Rogers has also passed away. Rogers was best known probably for her role as Louise Tate on the hit sitcom Bewitched. She was a series regular on Peyton Place. She has guest starred on series such as Perry Mason, Marcus Welby, Maverick, Hawaiian Eye, Adam-12, Wyatt Earp, and Cheyenne. She had basically stoped acting in recent years, but she did interviews for The E! True Hollywood Story: Bewitched and TV Land Confidential. Ms. Rogers died of a stroke and was 79.