Post by Lar on Aug 10, 2014 12:55:52 GMT -5
A few observations on the Retro TV airings from a Northeast Ohioan:
Our Retro TV affiliate here is WAOH TV-29 Akron and WAX TV-35 Cleveland (channel 11 on Time-Warner digital cable). The Sunday encores have really been the saving grace for us; WAOH is the station our local horror host Son of Ghoul is on (he's been on NE Ohio TV for 28 continuous years!) every Saturday night at 7 PM. Prior to last week, they had been airing SOG at his normal 7 PM 2-hour slot, and then cutting into the Retro TV feed at 9 PM for the last hour of MST3K. Certainly not ideal, but as long as they keep SOG on the air and we get the complete Sunday encores of MST3K, well, I'm happy. I'm guessing this scheduling was confusing people, because last week they ran SOG at 8 PM, completely skipping over MST and heading into Off-Beat Cinema at 10. Furthermore, last night SOG was back at 7, but rather than switching to MST at 9 like they had been doing, they instead switched over to the America One feed (a network WAOH/WAX was affiliated with prior to Retro TV) and ran some FBI show in place of MST.
So yeah, the Saturday night airings are probably a lost cause for us. Still, that's a problem with our affiliate and not something on Retro TV's part. Luckily, the Sunday encores have been fine EXCEPT the second week they reran 103 - The Mad Monster from the first week in place of 105 - The Corpse Vanishes for some reason, which means so far I've only been able to record that last hour of 105 after SOG. I'm not sure if that change was our affiliate or on Retro TV's part.
Also, did anyone else notice some oddities with Retro TV's broadcast of 211 - First Spaceship On Venus? They ran it with the season one intro, and the sound was wonky the whole way through. The sound effects for the doorway sequence and host segments were MIA, and in the theater you could hear the riffers, but the movie was a barely audible whisper at best, dead silent at worst. I still recorded it for posterity, because hey, I'm an MSTie, but it was certainly headscratching. Both the last hour on Saturday and the Sunday encore airings seemed to exhibit the same problems. Fortunately, the past few weeks have been fine sound-wise.
It's funny, back in the old days a lot of this would have seriously irritated me, but nowadays, with all the DVDs and tape trading (where applicable), it doesn't bother me as much. I mean, the MSTie in me wants to scream "hey, don't mess with my show!" but on the other hand, I'm just happy it's finally back on the air. Retro TV has been promoting the heck out of it too, which is definitely nice!
Our Retro TV affiliate here is WAOH TV-29 Akron and WAX TV-35 Cleveland (channel 11 on Time-Warner digital cable). The Sunday encores have really been the saving grace for us; WAOH is the station our local horror host Son of Ghoul is on (he's been on NE Ohio TV for 28 continuous years!) every Saturday night at 7 PM. Prior to last week, they had been airing SOG at his normal 7 PM 2-hour slot, and then cutting into the Retro TV feed at 9 PM for the last hour of MST3K. Certainly not ideal, but as long as they keep SOG on the air and we get the complete Sunday encores of MST3K, well, I'm happy. I'm guessing this scheduling was confusing people, because last week they ran SOG at 8 PM, completely skipping over MST and heading into Off-Beat Cinema at 10. Furthermore, last night SOG was back at 7, but rather than switching to MST at 9 like they had been doing, they instead switched over to the America One feed (a network WAOH/WAX was affiliated with prior to Retro TV) and ran some FBI show in place of MST.
So yeah, the Saturday night airings are probably a lost cause for us. Still, that's a problem with our affiliate and not something on Retro TV's part. Luckily, the Sunday encores have been fine EXCEPT the second week they reran 103 - The Mad Monster from the first week in place of 105 - The Corpse Vanishes for some reason, which means so far I've only been able to record that last hour of 105 after SOG. I'm not sure if that change was our affiliate or on Retro TV's part.
Also, did anyone else notice some oddities with Retro TV's broadcast of 211 - First Spaceship On Venus? They ran it with the season one intro, and the sound was wonky the whole way through. The sound effects for the doorway sequence and host segments were MIA, and in the theater you could hear the riffers, but the movie was a barely audible whisper at best, dead silent at worst. I still recorded it for posterity, because hey, I'm an MSTie, but it was certainly headscratching. Both the last hour on Saturday and the Sunday encore airings seemed to exhibit the same problems. Fortunately, the past few weeks have been fine sound-wise.
It's funny, back in the old days a lot of this would have seriously irritated me, but nowadays, with all the DVDs and tape trading (where applicable), it doesn't bother me as much. I mean, the MSTie in me wants to scream "hey, don't mess with my show!" but on the other hand, I'm just happy it's finally back on the air. Retro TV has been promoting the heck out of it too, which is definitely nice!