Tuesday, August 16, 2011

HOUDINI on channel 13

Here's one for no reason other than I'm feeling nostalgic for those days when I would scan every line on every page of the new TV Guide hoping to catch something about Houdini. One day I opened up to the full page ad below. It still impresses me that the umpteenth repeat on a local L.A. station of what was then a 30 year old film would warrant a full page ad in TV Guide. But, hey, it's HOUDINI!


Of course, Houdini always got nice attention when he periodically appeared on good old KCOP 13. Here are a few more TV Guide ads from my scrapbook for airings in the '70s and '80s.



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5 comments:

  1. EricAugust 16, 2011 at 10:02 AM

    I was young in the early 1960s, and of course there were no videos, so I would check each week's TV guide to see if the movie was showing on one of the few channels that existed. We had a B&W TV for a long time, and it was a big surprise to me to eventually see the movie in color.

    For all it's Hollywood artificiality, the movie retains its appeal for me, maybe because Tony Curtis does a good job embodying Houdini's larger-than-life personality. That and Janet Leigh.

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  2. melboAugust 16, 2011 at 12:41 PM

    I'm probably not remembering this accurately, but it always seemed to be on Saturday afternoons when I was growing up. We didn't get any ads in the TV guide for it though - only my eagle eyes could see it in the programme listing.

    Then they started putting it on in the middle of the night and the print got tinier but I could still find it (and I used to get in trouble for getting up to watch it).

    I can't remember the last time it was aired on television here. If they ever get around to releasing the DVD here, it just might turn up on one of the classic movie channels.

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  3. John CoxAugust 16, 2011 at 11:14 PM

    My recollection is the first time I ever saw the movie was on a Sat. or Sunday afternoon as well. This would have been in 1975 or early 76. At some point I'd like to get into the KCOP logs and find out exactly when this was, because that was the day that forever changed my life. :)

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    Replies
    1. John CoxMarch 2, 2015 at 7:24 PM

      So I've now discovered the date of my first magic viewing and also discovered there was a nice ad in TV for it. I will be doing a post about it soon.

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  4. CarnegieAugust 17, 2011 at 10:11 AM

    As a kid, I too would wait until Friday when the new TV Guide came out and the first thing I would do is go page by page and find every listing for a magician. I remember fondly discovering a show called 'In Search Of' doing an episode on HOUDINI, which I still have on video. I also caught Tony Curtis on Mike Douglas talking about the HOUDINI movie, and showing the front and back palm! So I guess technically, I learned it from HOUDINI, lol!

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