SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

The Hallmark Channel has announced their April 2011 schedule. As we already told you, Frasier is joining the line-up starting April 4. Now we have the full details for the month. Frasier will air weekday mornings after I Love Lucy (6-8am) from 8am-10am replacing a Golden Girls block, leading into the Hallmark Martha Stewart Home block. After that block is over, two episodes of Touched by an Angel will air from 3pm-5pm replacing a block of Empty Nest. Then from 5-7pm, two hours of Little House on the Prairie remains, but the 7pm hour will be The Golden Girls, as will be the 8pm hour, replacing Touched by an Angel. So the ladies of Miami will air from 7-9pm leading into a block of Frasier from 9-11pm, which replaces two episodes of Touched by an Angel. Then the Frasier Crane block continues as we see him before he moves to Seattle, in Cheers from 11pm-1am, replacing The Golden Girls. The ladies of Miami will however air from 1am-3am now replacing Cheers. So as a recap, The Golden Girls will air 7-9pm and 1-3am. Then from 3am-5am, we have a two-hour block of Empty Nest in its new time period, replacing an hour each of Cheers and Who's the Boss? The 5am hour will now be more I Love Lucy replacing Who's the Boss? This means Tony Micelli and company will be off the schedule completely, while I Love Lucy will air weekdays from 5am-8am.
How about weekends? There continues to be stunts on most Saturdays. A Touched by an Angel 24-hour marathon will air on Saturday, April 9 starting at 6am. The following week will have a "Love" movies marathon starting at 7am leading into the premiere of new movie Beverly Lewis' The Shunning from 9pm-11pm with an immediate encore 11pm-1am. And on Saturday, April 23, Hallmark will have a 24-hour marathon of Little House on the Prairie beginning at 6am. As for the weekend schedule, I Love Lucy remains from 6am-8am. Empty Nest will now air for an hour at 8am leading into a block of The Golden Girls from 9am-11am. One daytime movie has been pulled for a block of Frasier from 11am-1pm. The movies now start at 1pm and will last through 11pm. Another Frasier block replaces a movie from 11pm-1am. As weeknights, The Golden Girls will air from 1am-3am, Empty Nest from 3-5am and I Love Lucy in the 5am hour.
Now, this schedule was made prior to the launch of Empty Nest on March 8 (weekdays 3pm-5pm), so this schedule is subject to change. Also, Hallmark has announced that they have acquired The Waltons to air starting Monday, March 21...but as of now, it isn't scheduled. As soon as it is, we will let you know and what this will mean for April 2011. So come on back.
View the Hallmark Channel April 2011 schedule and stunts.

TV Rebels is back with another book! We posted 12 exclusive excerpts from the book previously and reviewed the first volume, but now another volume is here! TV Rebels: People and Programs that Shaped the Medium, Volume 2 has been released as the second in a series of chapbooks by The Last Automat Press. Innovators like Stephen J. Cannell, Nancy Dickerson, Dick Clark, and Jack Webb and series such as An American Family, Perry Mason, The Heidi Game, and That Girl are honored in this collection of essays as significant contributors to the growth of television.
To achieve "rebel" status is to have presented something new, innovative, and thought provoking. It was to have set a standard that those who followed were inspired by and in turn looked to emulate. The people and programs in this volume as in the previous TV Rebels collection have done just that. In so doing they have become part of our collective pop culture consciousness. We quote them, we laugh at them, we cry for them, and here, we remember them.
Contributing authors to this volume are Oscar De Los Santos, Brett Glatman, Kelly Goodridge, Mark Misercola, Lou Orfanella, JJ Sargent, and William Suesholtz. Copies may be ordered for $10 each, plus $1 shipping per order.

Order:
The Last Automat Press
P.O. Box 35
Patterson, NY 12563.
Mention SitcomsOnline.com and your copies will be signed by at least two of the contributing authors!

We will post one excerpt from the book today as a sample:

Dick Clark: Perennial Teenager and Media Mogul
by Lou Orfanella

Who would want to watch a bunch of teenagers dancing on television while a radio disc jockey hawked pimple cream? That no doubt is a question that dogged executives and critics alike. American Bandstand premiered on Philadelphia's local ABC station in 1952 with Bob Horn hosting but he had been replaced by young clean-cut disc jockey Dick Clark by the time the show went national in 1957. Though originally conceived as little more than an inexpensive afternoon time filler it went on to become a phenomenon and the linchpin in Dick Clark's massive production empire. "The Bandstand show was originally created because it was less expensive than old English movies for daytime programming, but its rapid ascent brought prestige and a host of imitators (Diehl 165)."
The premise of American Bandstand was simple and changed little through the decades. Guest musicians would lip sync to their hit records while teenagers danced on stage and Clark oversaw the proceedings with his genial style and ever youthful persona. Bandstand ran until 1989, mostly on ABC but with syndicated and USA (cable) Network versions toward the end, with Clark hosting all but the final year. To Clark, the simplicity with a nod to human nature is what made the show work. "People-watching. You just can't beat it. It's been going on since folks just sat in the railroad station. All it needs is a personality to head it up who will subjugate himself to the audience, and that's me." The emcee told TV Guide in 1970 (Lasswell 25). Bandstand was a veritable who's who of recording stars and in the pre-MTV years, exposure on the show was a valuable marketing tool for record companies. While the stars certainly helped attract viewers, "it was the teenagers' insatiable urge to study one another's personal style with an anthropological intensity-while the benign chaperon Clark looked on-that made Bandstand classic viewing for more than 30 years (Lasswell 25)."
American Bandstand wove its way into the fabric of Americana largely by reflecting and presenting the music that was popular at the time, but in other subtle ways as well. It brought rock and roll music into the mainstream and in so doing helped integrate the black music and culture from which much of it was derived into the mainstream as well. In 1957, years prior to Bill Cosby and Diahann Carroll playing lead roles on weekly network series Bandstand was integrating the races from coast to coast. "Up until that time, the dancers on Bandstand had one thing in common-they were all white. You didn't see a lot of black people on TV in the fifties, or other minorities, either...So in 1957, we were charting new territory. I don't think of myself as a hero or civil rights activist for integrating the show; it was simply the right thing to do (Clark 19)."
While Clark's legacy will likely always include a reference to his being "the world's oldest teenager" his list of television hosting and producing credits is one of the longest in the business. From award shows like The American Music Awards to TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes to numerous versions of his Pyramid game show to decades of ringing in the new year on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, he was a ubiquitous presence and force in television from the 1950s through the turn of the century, for a time even hosting shows on all three networks and in syndication simultaneously.

Works Cited
Clark, Dick with Fred Bronson. Dick Clark's American Bandstand. New York: Collins, 1997.
Diehl, Digby. "The Oldest Living Teen-ager." TV Guide: The First 25 Years. Ed. Jay S. Harris. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. 164-166.
Laswell, , Mark. TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television. New York: Crown, 2002
We will review Volume 2 at a later date, so stay with us!