Where do you get your information on classic shows?

[mets82]

I know they might not be reliable or 100 percent all of the time but I look on wikipedia. They have a pretty detailed synopsis on the shows and networks and whatnot. What do you guys use?

[MA]

I look on Wikipedia as well.

[RetroGuy2000]

The best place, IMO, to look for info on shows are historical newspaper clippings from the era the show was on. The advantage of this is that we're not allowing the passage of time to change recollections, alter details, etc.

By checking the newspaper articles from Newspaper Archive and Google Newspapers I've learned so many things about, for example, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. These articles show, for example, that the cast of The Facts of Life was very much aware by June or July 1980 that there was going to be a Cast Purge: it was announced in newspapers at the time, so everyone on set was aware this was going to happen. This is far different than what Lisa Whelchel now says: that "no-one" knew there was going to be a major cut in the cast, and that she showed up to the set in November 1980 unaware of what had happened.

Video interviews are another great source, but they can often be biased: NBC execs have been known to exaggerate or even outright lie about some details. for example, in the case of The Facts of Life, Warren Littlefield claims there were "ten, twelve girls" on the first season; we know, of course, that there were only seven. In some cases, memories fade and the stars or execs themselves don't remember things the way they happened. We all know Blair and George (Clooney) kissed on-screen, but in later years, Lisa Whelchel denied this... until fans of the show corrected her, with the video evidence. NBC executives would claim Nancy McKeon was "discovered" in a Hallmark ad, but the truth is she had been on the sitcom circuit for two years before landing the gig on FOL.

Books written by the stars can be really good; Todd Bridges, Kim Fields, Charlotte Rae, and Geri Jewell have all written books about their lives; some stars, however, like Lisa Whelchel and Molly Ringwald, have opted not to reveal that part of their lives in their books. Still, sometimes these memoirs can be helpful in piecing things together. For example, Kim Fields' recollections in her book reveal that trouble was occurring on the set of Diff'rent Strokes for far longer than most people would have suspected. TV historians also write books, and I swear by my Brooks and Marsh and my McNeil.

Wikipedia is great for episode guides, and IMDB is great for who was in what episode.

This forum is a great source for pulling together sources from many different areas. The FOL forum here has an excellent list, "stickied" to the top of the forum, of production dates (as opposed to air dates) as well as a database of which writers are credited for each episode. Sadly, I haven't seen anything like that for DS or other series. Fans on the FOL forum are always finding new things, and are great about sharing info, videos, and links.

Stars' social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc) can be useful. Sometimes Reddit has AMAs (Ask Me Anything interviews).

Sometimes, it's helpful to watch the episodes themselves, holding your finger over the pause button, as this can answer questions about things like the details of the set, what someone was wearing, or information about a prop.

That's all I can think of right now...

[MA]

Sitcoms Online has some great links to information on classic shows:

https://www.sitcomsonline.com/listofsites.html

[Charley Knox]

Originally Posted by RetroGuy2000

The best place, IMO, to look for info on shows are historical newspaper clippings from the era the show was on. The advantage of this is that we're not allowing the passage of time to change recollections, alter details, etc.

By checking the newspaper articles from Newspaper Archive and Google Newspapers I've learned so many things about, for example, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. These articles show, for example, that the cast of The Facts of Life was very much aware by June or July 1980 that there was going to be a Cast Purge: it was announced in newspapers at the time, so everyone on set was aware this was going to happen. This is far different than what Lisa Whelchel now says: that "no-one" knew there was going to be a major cut in the cast, and that she showed up to the set in November 1980 unaware of what had happened.

Video interviews are another great source, but they can often be biased: NBC execs have been known to exaggerate or even outright lie about some details. for example, in the case of The Facts of Life, Warren Littlefield claims there were "ten, twelve girls" on the first season; we know, of course, that there were only seven. In some cases, memories fade and the stars or execs themselves don't remember things the way they happened. We all know Blair and George (Clooney) kissed on-screen, but in later years, Lisa Whelchel denied this... until fans of the show corrected her, with the video evidence. NBC executives would claim Nancy McKeon was "discovered" in a Hallmark ad, but the truth is she had been on the sitcom circuit for two years before landing the gig on FOL.

The so called kissing scene between her and Clooney, was just played for laughs. Probably the main reason why she forgot about it over the years. Nancy probably has more a recollection of kissing Clooney, because her scene called for a more passionate moment in the same episode.

Just my theory.

[RetroGuy2000]

Originally Posted by Charley Knox

The so called kissing scene between her and Clooney, was just played for laughs. Probably the main reason why she forgot about it over the years. Nancy probably has more a recollection of kissing Clooney, because her scene called for a more passionate moment in the same episode.

Just my theory.

I think you are right, Charley. Had the scene been more serious, it would have caused Lisa to think more about what kind of relationship George and Blair were getting into. I think it then would have registered with her as a memory.

[icecream]

The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh is a fantastic reference that has over 6500 series listed with information about them. Last print edition of it was in 2007, but that would still have all the 20th century classics listed. If you want specific air dates of shows epguides.com has a big list of shows by letter.

[OH Nuts!]

Wikipedia also:

Google to see what comes up

[SledgeBarone]

Originally Posted by RetroGuy2000

The best place, IMO, to look for info on shows are historical newspaper clippings from the era the show was on. The advantage of this is that we're not allowing the passage of time to change recollections, alter details, etc.

By checking the newspaper articles from Newspaper Archive and Google Newspapers I've learned so many things about, for example, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. These articles show, for example, that the cast of The Facts of Life was very much aware by June or July 1980 that there was going to be a Cast Purge: it was announced in newspapers at the time, so everyone on set was aware this was going to happen. This is far different than what Lisa Whelchel now says: that "no-one" knew there was going to be a major cut in the cast, and that she showed up to the set in November 1980 unaware of what had happened.

Video interviews are another great source, but they can often be biased: NBC execs have been known to exaggerate or even outright lie about some details. for example, in the case of The Facts of Life, Warren Littlefield claims there were "ten, twelve girls" on the first season; we know, of course, that there were only seven. In some cases, memories fade and the stars or execs themselves don't remember things the way they happened. We all know Blair and George (Clooney) kissed on-screen, but in later years, Lisa Whelchel denied this... until fans of the show corrected her, with the video evidence. NBC executives would claim Nancy McKeon was "discovered" in a Hallmark ad, but the truth is she had been on the sitcom circuit for two years before landing the gig on FOL.

Books written by the stars can be really good; Todd Bridges, Kim Fields, Charlotte Rae, and Geri Jewell have all written books about their lives; some stars, however, like Lisa Whelchel and Molly Ringwald, have opted not to reveal that part of their lives in their books. Still, sometimes these memoirs can be helpful in piecing things together. For example, Kim Fields' recollections in her book reveal that trouble was occurring on the set of Diff'rent Strokes for far longer than most people would have suspected. TV historians also write books, and I swear by my Brooks and Marsh and my McNeil.

Wikipedia is great for episode guides, and IMDB is great for who was in what episode.

This forum is a great source for pulling together sources from many different areas. The FOL forum here has an excellent list, "stickied" to the top of the forum, of production dates (as opposed to air dates) as well as a database of which writers are credited for each episode. Sadly, I haven't seen anything like that for DS or other series. Fans on the FOL forum are always finding new things, and are great about sharing info, videos, and links.

Stars' social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc) can be useful. Sometimes Reddit has AMAs (Ask Me Anything interviews).

Sometimes, it's helpful to watch the episodes themselves, holding your finger over the pause button, as this can answer questions about things like the details of the set, what someone was wearing, or information about a prop.

That's all I can think of right now...

Great summary. I've never gotten Google Newspapers to work for me, though.

I've found that searching Newspapers.com or NewspaperArchive through Google works better than searching directly on those sites (for example, site:newspapers.com "Phrase to search for"). Then go to a page result, click OCR to get the scanned text (the page image is deliberately made small so it can't be read other than large headlines), and decipher the word salad. Unfortunately, all of the page text is cobbled into a single paragraph, the text is not necessarily contiguous, and there are usually a lot of misspelled words. Here's an example (relatively clean): https://newspapers.com/newspage/255802055/ . If you're lucky, a user has clipped the article you're looking for, so you can read a legible image of it. If you pay for a monthly account, you don't need to bother with the OCR kludge, and you can clip articles for other people to read.

Google Books (https://books.google.com) is a good source for older books and magazines.

Check the web site of your local public library (if you have one) or your college library. They usually have online databases to historical stuff that's unavailable directly on the Internet. Probably the best research database is Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive, which I have access to on my college library's web site. That DB has full text to many of the entertainment trade publications, like Variety magazine (going back to 1905!) and Broadcasting magazine (to 1957). I understand it's also available to members of the New York Public Library. Also, you could go old school and trudge yourself over to the nearest library and read through physical books and magazines (or place holds on stuff from other branches).

https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/ has a ton of multi-hour video interviews with actors, directors, writers, makeup artists, etc. Great site.

Being the local newspaper, the Los Angeles Times has lots of articles about television shows and the industry in general, and AFAICT the older stuff (including pre-Internet era articles) is not blocked by a paywall on its web site. I'm not sure how searchable its site (www.latimes.com) is, though. I usually find LA Times articles through library newspaper databases such as ProQuest or NewsBank, and then do a Google search of the titles to see if they're on the LA Times web site. (For example, I found this review of the 72 pilots in contention for the 1985-1986 season using that method: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...075-story.html .)

I've used archive.org as a source for other things, so you might be able to find TV-related info there, but I haven't tried it for that yet. The Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) part of that website is great, but its text search function is nearly unusable. URL search is what the Wayback Machine is good for. It works well if you know the URL of an old web site that may have the info you're looking for but is no longer online; if the web site was archived by someone in the past, it's a satisfying feeling.

[LUNCH]

I get some information from this site, Sitcoms Online.

[RetroGuy2000]

Originally Posted by SledgeBarone

Great summary. I've never gotten Google Newspapers to work for me, though.

It used to work extremely well, but then Google changed some site settings, and now it mostly sucks. sometimes, though, I've still managed to find some great clippings.

I've found that searching Newspapers.com or NewspaperArchive through Google works better than searching directly on those sites (for example, site:newspapers.com "Phrase to search for"). Then go to a page result, click OCR to get the scanned text (the page image is deliberately made small so it can't be read other than large headlines), and decipher the word salad. Unfortunately, all of the page text is cobbled into a single paragraph, the text is not necessarily contiguous, and there are usually a lot of misspelled words. Here's an example (relatively clean): https://newspapers.com/newspage/255802055/ . If you're lucky, a user has clipped the article you're looking for, so you can read a legible image of it. If you pay for a monthly account, you don't need to bother with the OCR kludge, and you can clip articles for other people to read.

Yep! The OCR word salad isn't great, but sometimes I will copy the URL, email it to myself, and then take it to a local library that has either a Newspaper.com or NewspaperArchive.com subscription.

Google Books (https://books.google.com) is a good source for older books and magazines.

They used to have a really good interface, but the new version is terrible.

Check the web site of your local public library (if you have one) or your college library. They usually have online databases to historical stuff that's unavailable directly on the Internet. Probably the best research database is Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive, which I have access to on my college library's web site. That DB has full text to many of the entertainment trade publications, like Variety magazine (going back to 1905!) and Broadcasting magazine (to 1957). I understand it's also available to members of the New York Public Library. Also, you could go old school and trudge yourself over to the nearest library and read through physical books and magazines (or place holds on stuff from other branches).

Nice!

Google Books used to have old issues of both Billboard and Broadcasting; I managed to get tons of info before they discontinued it.

https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/ has a ton of multi-hour video interviews with actors, directors, writers, makeup artists, etc. Great site.

It truly is. Those interviews are some of the best I've ever watched. I learned so much from them.

I've used archive.org as a source for other things, so you might be able to find TV-related info there, but I haven't tried it for that yet. The Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) part of that website is great, but its text search function is nearly unusable. URL search is what the Wayback Machine is good for. It works well if you know the URL of an old web site that may have the info you're looking for but is no longer online; if the web site was archived by someone in the past, it's a satisfying feeling.

The Wayback Machine is amazing.

[TVFactFan]

Books
Vintage NY Times
Jet Magazine
Old TV Guides