{"id":13530,"date":"2013-07-01T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T10:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=13530"},"modified":"2019-11-26T06:32:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T11:32:02","slug":"bj-like-bj-thomas-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/07\/01\/bj-like-bj-thomas-right\/","title":{"rendered":"BJ – Like BJ Thomas, Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bj-and-the-Bear\"<\/a>As I wrote last week<\/a>, we had cable television in Southern New Jersey in the late 1970s so we did not have to suffer the garbage that the broadcast networks were airing in lieu of genuine entertainment. We were probably watching an uncut movie on HBO. The people in the city of Philadelphia at that time were not as lucky. Cable would not arrive until nearly the end of the 1980s so on the night of March 22, 1980 they were stuck with broadcast, crappy reception and the awesome spectacle that was BJ and the Bear.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Looking back I wonder if broadcast television executives realized that they were careening towards their own irrelevancy by green-lighting such crap. Did they not take cable seriously? Shows like this were patchwork quilts of borrowed ideas from successful movies that the kids would like. The show featured truckers which were popular thanks to the AM Top 40 hit Convoy<\/strong><\/em>, Burt Reynolds movie Smokey and the Bandit<\/strong><\/em> and a primate sidekick just like Every Which Way But Loose.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Crappy show aside, it’s interesting that NBC saw fit to hire an illustrator and buy ad placement in newspapers to promote a fairly lame Saturday night lineup. Those days are gone. Nowadays, it seems that only ambulance chasers and pimps advertise on newsprint, and don’t get me started on the state of illustration!<\/p>\n

\"DSCN0854\"<\/a>This was another ad appearing in the March 22, 1980 issue of the Philadelphia Daily News.<\/em> I wrote about this particular issue earlier<\/a> and while the mob intrigue is fascinating, what really interests me is the newspaper being a snapshot of another time and place. Philadelphia is a different place than it was 33 years ago. It’s amazing to leaf through the paper and look at the ads for places, people and businesses that have long since gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I wrote last week, we had cable television in Southern New Jersey in the late 1970s so we did not have to suffer the garbage that the broadcast networks were airing in lieu of genuine entertainment. We were probably … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31,120],"tags":[366,359,2670,2671,582,2669,43,3661,2668,2672,354,3669,2673,186,336],"class_list":["post-13530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blast-from-the-past","category-curious-clutter","tag-366","tag-ad","tag-bj","tag-bj-and-the-bear","tag-crime","tag-gangster","tag-humor","tag-illustration","tag-march-22-1980","tag-nbc","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-saturday","tag-television","tag-vintage"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-3we","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":37219,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/02\/08\/because-it-was-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":13530,"position":0},"title":"Because it was on…","author":"Joe","date":"February 8, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Back when I attended The Philadelphia College of Art, the city of Philadelphia was not wired for cable television while the surrounding suburbs had enjoyed the benefits of basic cable and perhaps a pay station like HBO or PRISM for a few years. I lived in New Jersey with my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/night-of-the-claw.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/night-of-the-claw.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/night-of-the-claw.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/night-of-the-claw.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19792,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2015\/10\/16\/friday-the-13th\/","url_meta":{"origin":13530,"position":1},"title":"Friday the 13th","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"October 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Being that Halloween is practically upon us, I figured I would dust off this curious piece of ephemera found in a flat file cabinet at a Philadelphia area printer. This printer has always done work for a local television station, and it looks like they caught this job where they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/fri-the-13-detail.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/fri-the-13-detail.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/fri-the-13-detail.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8939,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2012\/07\/18\/roller-derby-circa-1949-new-jersey-vs-philadelphia\/","url_meta":{"origin":13530,"position":2},"title":"Roller Derby Circa 1949: New Jersey Vs Philadelphia","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"July 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a treat from the dawn of broadcast television I found while trawling the Internet Archive on my Roku box. It's the ROLLER DERBY! This is probably a kinescope which was a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor which is probably why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/blatz.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/blatz.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/blatz.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1924,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2010\/11\/30\/i-want-my-roku-tv\/","url_meta":{"origin":13530,"position":3},"title":"I Want My Roku TV!","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"November 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Tina's birthday card to me for 2010. It's another one of her brilliant digital collages. Tina usually bases the card on whatever my current obsession may be (it seems there is never a shortage!) This year she's ribbing me over my fixation with the Roku which is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Drawer Cards"","block_context":{"text":"Drawer Cards","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/drawer-cards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"TV Man - I Want My Roku TV!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5287\/5221078570_67d60fae3b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2788,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/05\/10\/philadelphia-lawyer-ad-1980\/","url_meta":{"origin":13530,"position":4},"title":"Philadelphia Lawyer","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"May 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Gosh, I hope not! This is the quality of graphics you could expect from a tabloid newspaper in Philadelphia around 1980. \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/lawyer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35015,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2020\/08\/15\/things-to-do-about-four-decades-ago\/","url_meta":{"origin":13530,"position":5},"title":"Things to do about four decades ago…","author":"Joe","date":"August 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"These ads were on the back of an article in what was probably The Courier Post that I thought was very important at the time. This was before the home video market took off and not everybody had cable television just yet so the only way to catch a familiar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"NJ Drive-In circa 1980","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/50223432978_8954a4afac_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}