Dec 20, 2015 5 min read

Heeerre’s Johnny!

Beginning Jan. 1, full-length episodes of “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” will premiere on cable television – and might just give late-night TV the jolt it needs.

“Johnny Carson” (NBC owns the rights to “The Tonight Show” name) will air at 11 weeknights on Antenna TV. These are the original shows from 1972 to 1992. The early 1970s’ 90-minute programs will air at 10 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. This will be the first time the episodes have aired since Carson retired; part of the delay evidently was obtaining rights to music performances.

“Johnny Carson” is the newest addition to Antenna’s classic television schedule. It’s perhaps the best of the retro-TV stations and, by most accounts, quickly becoming the most popular.

Among its offerings are “All in the Family,” “Family Ties,” “Leave It to Beaver,” “Father Knows Best” and “Newhart” (the series with Larry, Daryl and Daryl).

And while you may not know it, you probably already have access to the relatively new station. WPGH and WPNT, perhaps better known as Channel 53 and Channel 22, respectively, just revamped their substations, with WPGH now carrying Antenna TV on 53.2 and Grit, which specilizes in old action films, on 53.3, and WPNT featuring Comet (science fiction) at 22.3 and Get TV at 22.4. For those with cable, Antenna TV is on Comcast channels 208/189 and on Verizon FiOS Channel 466, while Grit is on Comcast channels 209/187 and Comet is on Verizon Channel 469. Get TV is no longer part of the local cable lineup.

Antenna joins a growing list of retro-TV stations that also includes This TV (older movies), Laff (sitcoms and comedy movies) and Decades (a mixture of older TV shows during the week and 48 hours of one series each weekend). All are attempting to fill the void created when TV Land mostly abandoned its original concept of ’50s and ’60s series in favor of ’80s and ’90s sitcoms and new series featuring actors from classic TV shows. If my mailbox is a fair indication, the change did not go over well with those in the older Washington and Greene counties demographic, for whom Antenna seems to be a perfect match.

Its prime-time schedule includes double episodes of “The Jeffersons” at 8 p.m., “All in the Family” at 9 p.m. and “Family Ties” at 10 p.m. Until “The Tonight Show” premieres, “One Day at a Time” is filling the 11 p.m. block. Overnight offerings, beginning at midnight, include “Barney Miller,” “Newhart,” “Doogie Howser M.D.,” “Three’s Company” and “Maude.”

And folks who enjoyed the original TV Land concept (or TV’s first 20 years, for that matter) will especially relish the morning schedule: “Burns and Allen” at 5 a.m., “The Jack Benny Program” at 6, “Mister Ed” at 7, “Father Knows Best” at 8, “Hazel” at 9, “Dennis the Menace” at 10 and “Leave It To Beaver” at 11.

Afternoons progress into, beginning at noon, “Bewitched,” followed by “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Green Acres,” “Three’s Company,” “Mr. Belvedere,” “Too Close For Comfort,” “Sanford and Son” and “Good Times.”

In addition to a solid, yet varied sitcom schedule, Antenna’s advantage, at least for now, is that it concentrates on sitcoms, presents them in one-hour blocks and doesn’t stretch sitcoms to 40 or 45 minutes to insert more commercials. Of interest to TV fanatics especially, Antenna shakes up the schedule on weekends to insert some shorter-run curiosities such as “The Ropers,” “The Flying Nun” and, yes, “My Mother the Car,” which produced more stand-up comedian jokes than it did actual episodes.

For those who prefer action, Grit, which has been available for a while, has a wealth of old movies, surrounded by episodes of “Zane Grey Theater,” “Laramie” and “Walker Texas Ranger.”

Here’s exactly what’s wrong with radio stations that program wall-to-wall Christmas music. On our way to a holiday party, we heard the Jackson Five’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” just before we pulled into the hosts’ driveway. Backing out of the driveway about four hours later, the song came on again. My wife thought I was playing a compact disc. I wasn’t.

With thousands of holiday songs available, there’s no reason for radio to have such a tight play list of noniconic songs. One can understand quicker rotations for a few standards associated with just one artist: “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby, “The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole or “Happy Xmas” by John & Yoko.

But there are dozens of decent versions of “Mommy,” so why not mix it up a bit? There are at least four hit interpretations of “Mommy” (the others being by John Mellencamp, the Ronettes and Jimmy Boyd) that could help extend the play list. It’s no wonder that at the party, holiday music was being supplied by the TV Christmas music channel and not the radio. No particular recording was ever repeated … and the nuggets of information flashed on the screen served as cool conversation starters.