The Fedora Chronicles Picture Tube

The RCA SelectraVision!

Before the proliferation of VCR's (First The Beta, then VHS...) how were people able to see movies at home? Erin Weinstock (System Cat from our forum and "Buck Rogers In The 26th Century" shares with us a look back at this technology that was ahead of it's time...
 

Ken Burns' - "The War"

From The PBS Website: "THE WAR, a seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four quintessentially American towns. The series explores the most intimate human dimensions of the greatest cataclysm in history — a worldwide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America — and demonstrates that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

Throughout the series, the indelible experience of combat is brought vividly to life as veterans describe what it was like to fight and kill and see men die at places like Monte Cassino and Anzio and Omaha Beach; the Hürtgen Forest and the Vosges Mountains and the Ardennes; and on the other side of the world at Guadalcanal and Tarawa and Saipan; Peleliu and the Philippine Sea and Okinawa. In all of the battle scenes, dramatic historical footage and photographs are combined with extraordinarily realistic sound effects to give the film a terrifying, visceral immediacy." Click here for more information...

"That 70's Rant" -

It’s kind of weird for me taking about “That 70’s Show” on a website for retro-centrics and vintage aficionados with our main focus being the 192’0s through to 1955 and trying to revive that spirit of substance and style now in the 21st Century... With some obvious exceptions, everything that I disliked about the 1970’s is everything I love about “The Golden Era.”

 

The Apprentice 5

Why a rant about “The Apprentice” on The Fedora Chronicles? It’s for no other reason, because it’s the only show that I follow and this is a test to see if other members of The FC staff would like to follow another Reality Show and write a weekly rant about it. (And, let’s be blunt… Trump needs to get a Phantom Blue fedora to go with those suits of his. His Hair needs to get trimmed and he needs to get with the Retro-Centric style of yesteryear.)

Why is this the only show I watch regularly? It’s one of the few shows that are entertaining and informative, and it’s fun to see someone else get fired for a change. (Not that I’ve been fire a lot…) The show is also a bit of commentary on traditional values or the lack of them, as personified by the individual candidates.

 

First, it’s hard to imagine that NBCs "The West Wing" - the show staring Martin Sheen as President Jeb Bartlet, his cabinet and his family - is heading off the air. Since the show will play on forever indefinitely on The Bravo Network, sandwiched between other reruns of that channels own shows such as “Queer Eye…” “Blow Out” and The Survivor/Apprentice knock-off which is almost as good as it’s prototypes – “Top Chef.” it won't ever really be gone. Forever we’ll be able to “travel back in time to The Bartlet Administration;” where at least on Television politicians on both sides of the isle are the people we wish they could be… or at least how the show’s creator Aaron Sorkin would like to believe.

 

The Fedora Chronicles: Save Joan Of ArcadiaA few years back, some readers of The Fedora Chronicles wrote in and asked our support to help raise awareness of one of their favorite shows being taken off the CBS -Joan of Arcadia.

We’re posting some of the letters they have sent to us, which may or may not represent the management, the staff, or the guest contributors of The Fedora Chronicles.

The Campaign to "Save Joan" ended, the site that this page referred to is now down and up for grabs for anyone to buy from some cooperation that sucks up old used Site Addresses. Seems that the effort to save this show has failed and those involved have moved on.

So, why keep this up? It's pretty simple - the young women who wrote in make some good points about what's missing from Modern Television. And their efforts should be remembered when someone else takes up the cause of saving another show. It's not what you do, it's how you ask and how.

 

Your thoughts? Drop us a line on our forum.

More articles from Ren can be found here: The Rant Archive