Tag Archives: TBS

Tom & Jerry’s TBS Funhouse Halloween Special

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Looking back through all of my years on this earth, my absolute favorite bit of Halloween viewing was Tom & Jerry’s TBS Funhouse Halloween Special. It debuted in 1987 (before I had access to cable) and was repeated every Halloween season for a few years after.

Back in the late ’80s, Ted Turner and TBS launched Tom & Jerry’s TBS Funhouse.  It was an hour-and-a-half cartoon block every morning and afternoon where they combined Tom & Jerry shorts with Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, shorts from the Droopy library, and Popeye cartoons.  It was a really fun block with great variety.  During the holiday seasons, they kicked it up a notch and put together specials for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

These specials would usually air several times in the weeks leading up to the holiday, and they selected appropriate shorts to fit the theme.  Mixed in with the cartoon shorts were live-action bumpers filmed with Josh Jarboe and Audra Lee of the TBS show, Kid’s Beat.  They would dress up and tell jokes or give history about the holiday featured in the special.

In 1987, we got the first Halloween Special.  I didn’t have cable at the time, but my grandparents did, and rarely did they ever change the dial from TBS.  So when I was there visiting, I was treated to NWA Wrestling, episodes of Andy Griffith, and Tom and Jerry’s Funhouse.  I was lucky enough to be there one time and catch a commercial for the coming Halloween Special.  I got pretty excited about it, and my Mom actually took me back to their house when the special was on so I could watch it.

I remember being ecstatic about it, and really enjoying it, as it was a special filled with just Halloween shorts.  A year later when we had cable at our house, I was super excited when I saw a commercial on TBS advertising the special once again for the 1988 Halloween season!  I couldn’t believe it.  I was going to get to watch it again.  Not only did I watch it again that year, but I watched it every year it was on going forward.

I wish kids today had the opportunity to experience the anticipation of events like this.  Something that you just can’t get instantly, and that you have to wait for.  Things that are special for, and unique to the season.  There is just a certain feeling that can only be achieved by waiting for it, and old specials like this are one of those things.

Unfortunately for most people, 1992 was the last year they were able to view the special.  But all of you reading this aren’t “most” people. You’re part of the select few who can still view the original special in all its glory, as it’s been uploaded in its entirety to Archive.org! So I’m going to quit rambling on about it and post the video for you to watch if you like. I highly suggest you do so during this Halloween season.

Happy Birthday Ric Flair!

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Today marks the 73rd birthday of the greatest professional wrestler of my lifetime, “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, so for this edition of Retro Ramblings, I want to share with some thoughts about the best of all time.

When I first got into wrestling in 1985, Ric Flair was the king of the mountain and had been for a couple of years. Even though I was at the age where I mostly cheered for the good guys, something about Ric Flair made me a fan of his at the time, even though he was a rulebreaker. At my age now, I’m aware of the fact that Flair was very charismatic and that’s likely what drew not only me to him, but probably millions of others watching on television as well.

As I got older, I continued to be a fan of Flair. When wrestling hit its last boom period in the late ’90s and the nWo came along, I cheered for Flair even more. He represented the past, which as you know by being on this blog, is a thing I do. I like the older stuff. But he was the “retro” whereas the nWo was the new hip thing. In the early 2000s, he was part of the nucleus of the Evolution stable in the WWE, and it felt a lot like watching the legendary Four Horsemen again, so I was still a huge fan. Even today, I still like to keep up with his antics, and am genuinely happy that he has continued to find ways to be relevant to other generations as well.

So in honor of the legend’s birthday, I wanted to share a video of him. Something that would capture part of the essence of what made him special, both in the ring and on the microphone. Flair has had a ton of great opponents and even more great matches over his long career, so there are a lot of videos to choose from when trying to pick one.

But I’ve settled on a little gem from late 1988 that took place on the weekly NWA/WCW wrestling show on TBS where he put on a showcase with preliminary wrestler George South. The match has a little back story to it, as Flair rarely wrestled on TV in this era, but when he showed up to the studio on this day, booker Dusty Rhodes told him he was going to wrestle. Flair wasn’t really in the mood, but Dusty insisted. So Flair set out to make a point. He told Dusty to give him George South. As the story goes, just before going out on camera, Flair told South, “Today, you’re Ricky Steamboat pal.” Steamboat was one of the sports greatest performers for years, and someone whom Flair had 100’s of mat classics with.

Now South was a pretty damn good performer in his own right, but he wasn’t a guy you ever saw winning matches on television. But on this day in 1988, Ric Flair went out and made the whole world believe that George South was a world-class athlete who was more than capable of taking the world title. It’s a great example of just how damn good Flair always was in his role. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have through the years, and one more time before I go, Happy Birthday Naitch!

TBS Christmas Creatures Features From 1992

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TBS was one of my favorite TV channels in the late ’80s and the early ’90s, so I like to go back in time and talk about the things that made me love it so much. I’ve even given this stuff its own category…TBS Time Machine!

Am I the only one who fondly remembers TBS back in the days before it was a self-branded comedy channel? The days before the two-hour binge blocks of semi-modern sitcoms dominated their time slots?

The good old days of TBS were filled with off-beat movies from the expansive Turner library, and the programmers behind the channel used to come up with any and all reasons to group movies together and put them on the air. Like this special day of programming for Christmas in 1992. All it took was a little alliteration combining the words “Christmas” and “Creatures” and they had a theme. Then, they just had to search their library for movies that fit that theme.

The movies featured on Christmas Day 1992 were At the Earth’s Core, The Last Dinosaur, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Three movies that probably haven’t been shown on television since. But that was the beauty of TBS back then. Where else would something like The Beastmaster get played at least once a month, and get promoted in bumpers as a “can’t miss” event?

If I could go back in time to 1992, my TV would certainly be tuned to TBS at 10:05 eastern, and that’s where the dial would have stayed until the end of the marathon. I actually looked into making this come to life this year for Christmas by purchasing the three movies, but I had two problems with that. One, I would have had to put out a little more money than I wanted to recreate this, and two, I realized that part of the magic would be missing, as my marathon wouldn’t be filled with those glorious old TBS bumpers for other movies coming throughout the week and would have felt flat as a result.

It wasn’t necessarily the movies themselves that made it special, it was the whole package. And that’s why I lament the loss of the old TBS.

A Christmas Story Ad from 1992

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TBS was one of my favorite TV channels in the late ’80s and the early ’90s, so I like to go back in time and talk about the things that made me love it so much.

A Christmas Story hasn’t always aired as a 24-hour marathon on Christmas on TBS.  That tradition didn’t begin until 1997.  Before that though, TBS did show the movie at various times throughout the holiday season.  The ad pictured above is from 1992 and was from the time that TBS was running the TBS Award Theater movie most days at 10:35 am.  The criteria for the award feature was pretty simple I think, in that as long as a movie had won any kind of award, that was all the excuse they needed to run a movie in that block.  

This ad in particular is one I come across advertising a TBS Award Theater showing of A Christmas Story from an issue of TV Guide from the week of Christmas in December of 1992. I can’t remember the date of the showing though, because I didn’t think to write it down or keep up with it, but it was almost certainly on a weekday. Being out of school on Christmas break that week every year means that I may have very well watched this exact airing in 1992.

The as is a good one as it features Ralphie in his cowboy get up from his dream sequence of ridding the neighborhood of Black Bart and his gang with his trusty Red Ryder B.B. Gun. While I’m a huge fan of the thought of this movie airing in its now traditional 24-hour marathon on Christmas Eve, I also like the idea of it being destination viewing on random days in the month of December.

And if you’re someone who likes the movie and/or the marathon (and I know you are), then check out my friend Jeff’s feature A Brief History of the “24 Hours of A Christmas Story” Marathon over at The Retro Network!