Free Classic TV Streams --- 2020

[Sal]

Originally Posted by AB

When I click on one of the CTV shows I get this message instead of the video. Is there a way to watch it from the U.S.?

Many of the CTV Throwback series can be seen in the US on Crackle where I tend to get the same message when I try to enter that site. So that might be your best bet.

Crackle

[MA]

Originally Posted by rcbrad

I'll look for a free account sign up option, thanks. I thought that I was doing that initially, but it asked me for a credit card.

You’re welcome.

[Sal]

Today is Canada Day and to celebrate the occasion for you, I found a page that lists a detailed account of every Canadian TV series that you can find on both free and paid streaming services in the US. The list can be found here:


Canadian TV Shows Available In The US - Page 1 (A-G)

Page 2 - Canadian TV Shows H-R

Page 3 - S-Z

[MA]

Thank you for those links Sal.

[AB]

Originally Posted by Sal

Many of the CTV Throwback series can be seen in the US on Crackle where I tend to get the same message when I try to enter that site. So that might be your best bet.

Crackle

Thanks for the help and all the information.

[MA]

For those of you that have a Roku, here is a list of the classic television channels on there:
https://channelstore.roku.com/browse/classic-tv

[Sal]

Originally Posted by MA

For those of you that have a Roku, here is a list of the classic television channels on there:
https://channelstore.roku.com/browse/classic-tv

That link didn't work for me but this one did:

Roku - Classic TV Channels

[Sal]

Before getting into this week's titles, I would like to start by offering a little video tribute to the life and career of the great Carl Reiner by showing you some of his greatest work that is available to be watched online.


Your Show Of Shows/Caesar's Hour

Head Of The Family - The pilot for "The Dick Van Dyke Show" with Carl Reiner starring as Rob Petrie.

The Dick Van Dyke Show (Complete Series)

The 2000 Year Old Man - With Mel Brooks

Excavating The 2000 Year Old Man

- Documentary special from Shout Factory TV

Carl Reiner Tribute (Also from Shout Factory TV)



The Shout Factory collection includes an appearance that he made on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". Each month, Shout Factory adds new highlights and chapters to the show but the latest additions have yet to appear on Tubi so I will give you the Shout chapters instead which are all up to date.

The Johnny Carson Show (All Seasons)

Season 1 - Animal Antics
Season 2 - Best Of Carnac
Season 3 - Best Of George Carlin
Season 4 - The Mighty Carson Art Players
Season 5 - Comic Legends Of The 50s
Season 6 - Comic Legends Of The 60s
Season 7 - Comic Legends Of The 70s
Season 8 - Comic Legends Of The 80s
Season 9 - Comic Legends Of The 90s
Season 10 - Best Of Jerry Seinfeld
Season 11 - Best Of Richard Pryor
Season 12 - Hollywood Icons Of The 50s
Season 13 - Hollywood Icons Of The 60s
Season 14 - Hollywood Icons Of The 70s


News from other providers:


---IMDB will stream all seasons of "Mad Men" beginning July 15 with a full marathon.

---Pluto TV will celebrate July with a full month of marathons, featuring a different theme from a different channel each day, which they are calling 31 Marathons In 31 Days.


New streams this week:

CTV Throwback - The Monkees (NBC 1966-68) (2 seasons, 53 episodes) - One of my favorite series of all time, about a struggling rock band who briefly challenged The Beatles on the Top 40 charts of the 1960s, is now making its free streaming debut. After the series ended, the group made a movie called "Head" which can be seen on CTV Movies. (US Links - Uncle Earl's Classic TV)

CRACKLE

21 Jump Street(1987) (Complete Series)

ROKU

Bewitched (Seasons 1-4)

Charlie's Angels (Seasons 3 & 4)

Hart To Hart (Seasons 1 & 5)

Starsky & Hutch (Seasons 1 & 2)

T J Hooker (Seasons 4 & 5)

I Dream Of Jeannie (Seasons 4 & 5)

Who's The Boss? (Seasons 3 & 4)

NewsRadio (Seasons 1 & 5)

Just Shoot Me (Seasons 5, 6, and 7)

Benson (Seasons 1, 2, and 3)

The Tick (Season 1)


IMDB TV


Dark Shadows (1966) (Complete Series)

3rd Rock From The Sun (Complete Series)

Ugly Betty (Complete Series)


TUBI

Garfield & Friends (Season 1)

AIRY TV

47 Classic Comedy TV - A mixed bag of classic sitcoms of the 1960s and 70s which for now has "All In The Family" and "Hogan's Heroes" but should have more titles coming soon.

On their "60s Classic TV" channels, they have added "The Andy Griffith Show" and "My Mother The Car".


UNCLE EARL'S CLASSIC TV CHANNEL

This weekend, celebrate Uncle Sam with Uncle Earl as he brings you the latest additions to his large classic TV catalog which now includes the following:


Lou Grant (Season 2)

MASH (Season 8)

That Girl (Season 3)

NewsRadio (Season 5)

Love American Style (Season 1) - A great series that I haven't seen on TV in a long time and is hard to find online. I'll be sure to check it out!

[MA]

Originally Posted by Sal

That link didn't work for me but this one did:

Roku - Classic TV Channels

Sorry that the link didn’t work for you.

[Sal]

This week's news, notes, and free goodies from your favorite streaming providers:


This month, as part of its partnership with CBS, Viacom, and Comedy Central, Pluto TV is adding 40 more series to its collection as well as the first 10 seasons of "South Park". The series that will be featured will include the following:

Survivor
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Amazing Race
Beverly Hills 90210
America’s Next Top Model
CSI: NY and CSI: Miami
Everybody Hates Chris
Jag
Melrose Place
MacGyver
Sister Sister
Scorpion
Numbers
Moesha


This new group is scheduled to debut on July 14.

Pluto TV Adds 40 CBS/Comedy Central Shows

If you think that was exciting, here's even better news:

CTV Throwback and CTV Movies: Seasons 1-6 of the family sitcom FATHER KNOWS BEST joins CTV Throwback on Thursday, July 16. The series follows the lives of the Anderson family, led by wise family man Jim (Robert Young, MARCUS WELBY, M.D.), his common-sense wife Margaret (Jane Wyatt, STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME), and their three children. Whenever the kids need advice, they can always turn to their father, because father knows best.


Source: CTV Programming Highlights: Week Of July 13-19, 2020

Speaking of CTV Throwback, their selections this week arrive in great quantity without much quality.

Between Brothers (1997) (FOX) (17 episodes) - An ensemble comedy about four single 20-somethings in Chicago and their lives. One is a sports writer, another a weatherman, and the last is a high-school teacher. Starring Kadeem Hardison ("A Different World") and Tommy Davidson ("In Living Color") (YouTube)

Grown Ups(UPN) (1999) (18 episodes) - A day-dreaming single guy works in a box factory, still pining over a crush he had in high school. Starring Steve Urkel himself, Jaleel White.


The Real Ghostbusters - The cartoon adventures of the 3 heroes from the hit movie along with their pal Slimer. (YouTube)


For fans of the cartoon and the movie, CTV also carries these titles:

Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters (1988)

Extreme Ghostbusters - A new cartoon version released in 1997. (YouTube)

Ghostbusters (CTV Movies)

Ghostbusters 2 (CTV Movies)

Also new to CTV Throwback this week:


What's Happening! (ABC) (1976) (3 seasons, 62 episodes) - Raj, Dwayne and Rerun are three working-class young men dealing with school life, love and the regular antics of teenagers growing up. This is one series I remember watching as a child and not liking very much. I'll wait for next week to watch "Father Knows Best" instead. (Crackle)

The sequel would become much worse:

What's Happening Now (1985) (Syndicated) (3 seasons, 64 episodes) - Raj, Dwayne, Rerun, and Shirley are now adults in this sequel to "What's Happening." (Crackle)


Baywatch (Seasons 10 and 11) - Known as "Baywatch: Hawaii", this show was filmed after the original series ended and found the main characters all transferred to Hawaii. (Dailymotion)


Others to watch this week:

VUDU

Celebrity Bowling (1973) (Season 1) - The Brady Bunch kids and other celebrities bowl for fun and laughter in this entertaining series from the 1970s.


TUBI

The Joey Bishop Show (1961) - The sitcom that came before the talk show starring Joey Bishop as fictional talk show host Joey Barnes. Best known for its unique filming format which I can now definitely confirm for you in case you're not sure. Seasons 1 and 4 were filmed in black and white. Seasons 2 and 3 are in color. I don't know why it was done this way but there you have it.

This series is part of a new streaming library, which has partnered with Tubi and Shout among others, called Proven Entertainment, which so far looks like a proven winner to me. Among the series that it provides to different companies are "The Carol Burnett Show", "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts", "Real People", "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", and a series that I am really looking forward to seeing when it becomes available: "Stanley" from 1957 starring Buddy Hackett, Carol Burnett, and Paul Lynde. With a great cast like that, it's hard to believe that it only lasted one season.

Proven Entertainment



ROKU

Suddenly Susan (Seasons 1-4)

Pluto TV On Demand

Hopalong Cassidy (Season 1)

Uncle Earl's Classic TV

The Rockford Files (Season 2)

The Lucy Show (Season 1) - The real Season 1, not the usual public domain episodes that you normally find. Those are on a different page.

[MA]

It’s going to be nice to see Sister Sister and Moesha on Pluto TV.

[RedPenguin]

Originally Posted by Sal

This week's news, notes, and free goodies from your favorite streaming providers:


TUBI

The Joey Bishop Show (1961) - The sitcom that came before the talk show starring Joey Bishop as fictional talk show host Joey Barnes. Best known for its unique filming format which I can now definitely confirm for you in case you're not sure. Seasons 1 and 4 were filmed in black and white. Seasons 2 and 3 are in color. I don't know why it was done this way but there you have it.

This series is part of a new streaming library, which has partnered with Tubi and Shout among others, called Proven Entertainment, which so far looks like a proven winner to me. Among the series that it provides to different companies are "The Carol Burnett Show", "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts", "Real People", "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", and a series that I am really looking forward to seeing when it becomes available: "Stanley" from 1957 starring Buddy Hackett, Carol Burnett, and Paul Lynde. With a great cast like that, it's hard to believe that it only lasted one season.

Proven Entertainment

The show was already on The Roku Channel if you want to watch them there.

But when the show was recorded it was a big mess.

For S1-S3 it was on NBC. Some episodes from S1 are actually in color, so that makes it more confusing. (Some think NBC must have been testing color at the time and tried it with just a few random eps.)

During S2, NBC switched over to color.

After S3, NBC cancelled it, and CBS, still at B&W, did S4 then canceled it again. (I believe in the end of S3 but definitely in S4, Joey says something like "We were canceled" and "We're on CBS now".)

Just a little bit more trivia, the show changes format/plot from S1 to S2 and there actually was a destroyed episode featuring the JFK Impressionist Vaughn Meader, but the real JFK was killed right before it's airing and it supposedly was destroyed.

[RedPenguin]

I know this isn't VoD type stuff like I did find another classic channel.

It's actually a sister of Folk TV called ZLiving.

https://go.zliving.com

It says it has a Roku & Fire TV App.

Not really sure why it has Login & Register, as it seems broken anyway as the entire website I guess is under construction.

It's totally free though, I just used Google Login as oddly making an account or using Facebook Login seemed broken.

They seem to have VoD but only of new shows but they air Red Skelton, Petticoat Junction, Beverly Hillbillies, WiseGuy, and more during certain hours.

https://www.ontvtonight.com/guide/li.../z-living.html

[Sal]

The big news this week is the launch of NBC's Peacock service which so far has opened to less than enthusiastic reviews from the public. Even though it's not available where I live, I was still a little curious to see what it has to offer in both its free and premium plans, particularly its library of TV series past and present. Under the TV comedies and series categories, this is what you can expect on the free tier:


TV Comedies: “30 Rock,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Saved by the Bell,” “Punky Brewster,” “The Johnny Carson Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show,” “Real Husbands of Hollywood” and “Everybody Hates Chris”

Here is what is available on the paid premium tier:

All library series including “Two and a Half Men,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “George Lopez,” “Jeff Foxworthy Show,” “King of Queens,” “Superstore,” “Frasier,” “Cheers,” “House,” “The Affair,” “Yellowstone,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Ray Donovan,” “Swedish Dicks” and “American Ninja Warrior”

If you ask me, I'll pass on both options.


Peacock will also be getting "The Office" later this year while other popular series like "Friends" and "Seinfeld" will appear elsewhere. Full details here:


Variety - Peacock Launch Lineup


For those who don't have Peacock or simply don't want it, here's what's in store for you for free on other services this week:



THE ROKU CHANNEL

Bewitched (Seasons 1 and 2)

Charlie's Angels (Season 5)

Starsky and Hutch (Seasons 1 and 2)

The Facts Of Life (Seasons 7, 8, and 9)

Who's The Boss? (Seasons 3 and 4)

Strong Medicine (Seasons 1 and 2)

Just Shoot Me (Seasons 5, 6, and 7)

Benson (Seasons 1, 2, and 3)

NewsRadio (Seasons 1 and 5)

The Jeff Foxworthy Show (Seasons 1 and 2)

What's Happening (Seasons 1, 2, and 3)

The Tick (Season 1)

Dilbert (Seasons 1 and 2) (Note: Next week, Dilbert will make its Canadian debut on CTV Throwback.)


PLUTO TV - Hopalong Cassidy (Season 2)

IMDB TV - Mad Men (Complete Series)


VUDU - Movin' On (Seasons 1 and 2)


TUBI

Date With The Angels (1957) (Starring Betty White)

Four Star Playhouse (1952) - A drama anthology series from the early days of live TV which featured 4 famous stars on a rotating basis: Dick Powell, Charles Boyer, David Niven, and Ida Lupino.

UNCLE EARL'S Classic TV - Updated Sat. July 18

Trapper John MD (Season 3)

Room 222 (Season 1) The only full season that can be found online anywhere.

Flipper (Complete Series)




CTV Throwback

Father Knows Best (1954) (6 seasons, 198 episodes) - The timeless 1950s family favorite makes its Canadian streaming debut and it still looks great. TUBI


Also making their debuts this week are a couple of short-lived sitcom spinoffs from the hit series "Married With Children" and "Who's The Boss?" which featured strong casts but weak ratings that were initially presented on their original shows as backdoor pilots.

The first one is "Top Of The Heap" starring Joseph Bologna and Matt LeBlanc before "Friends" as a father and son moving company. It ran on Fox for 1 season and only 6 episodes in 1991 before coming back a year later under a new title "Vinnie and Bobby" which didn't help at all. The new show only lasted for 7 episodes.

Married With Children - 5x20 - Top Of The Heap (DailyMotion)

Top Of The Heap

Vinnie and Bobby



The next series did a little better, but not by much since it only ran for 11 episodes. It is "Living Dolls" (FOX, 1989) about a group of teen girls who work in a modeling agency. One of them was future Oscar winner Halle Berry. The series also starred the beautiful and always funny Teri Garr.

Who's The Boss? - 5x19 - Living Dolls (DailyMotion)

Living Dolls

Next week, CTV will feature another failed sitcom spinoff which you may like and even faintly remember. It will be "Women Of The House" starring Delta Burke in her "Designing Women" role as Suzanne Sugarbaker.

[MA]

I'll definitely be watching Strong Medicine on The Roku Channel.