Saturday, May 12, 2012

Happy Mother's Day (1976) from WLVI-TV 56 in Boston!




Sunday May 9, 1976 was Mother's Day.  With Mother's Day 2012 upon us it seemed like a nice time to show a little ad from TV Guide (the May 5-11, 1976 issue) that's appropriate for the day.  It is from WLVI-TV 56.  This independent Boston TV station used to show a ton of great movies throughout the week as part of its programming.  They had regularly scheduled movies at 8:00 every night as well as afternoon films on the weekends (4:00 PM on Saturdays, 12:00, 2:00 and 4:00 on Sundays).  Around this time they also put a lot of great-looking ads in TV Guide for these movies.  But the absolute best thing about channel 56 for a Monster Kid growing up in the Boston area in the 1970s and 1980s was its Saturday afternoon Creature Double Feature show.  Two wonderful (and frequently terrible) monster/horror/sci-fi movies would be shown at 1:00 and 2:30 every Saturday afternoon for many years.

Anyway, before I get too carried away, let's get back to the point of this post.  On Mother's Day of 1976 WLVI-TV 56 commemorated the day by showing the movie "I Remember Mama" (1948) at 1:30 in the afternoon.  Here is the special ad WLVI put into TV Guide for that presentation:




The May 5-11, 1976 issue of TV Guide also featured a number of other WLVI TV-56 movie ads in a similar style to the one above.  Since we're already talking about this issue why don't we take a look at a few of these ads.  Note that they're all from just two days: Saturday May 5th and Sunday May 6th.

Creature Double Feature ad for Saturday May 5, 1976

WLVI would frequently follow up Creature Double Feature
with a beach movie or a Doris Day one like this at 4:00
(I've also included an ad from WBZ-TV Channel 4,
mainly because it was right below the WLVI one)

Here's the 12 Noon movie that came on before the
"Mother's Day Special" at 1:30 on Sunday

And here's the 4:00 movie that followed
the "Mother's Day Special" at 4:00
(along with another WBZ-TV 4 ad)

So, Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there.  I hope your special day will be at least as entertaining as tuning into channel 56 in 1976 to watch "I Remember Mama" at 1:30.  Actually, I hope that it's a LOT more exciting than that must have been!


ENJOY YOUR DAY!


5 comments:

  1. Loved this trip down Memory Lane with the ads for all the old movies! I always enjoy this blog and it inspired me to pick up an old copy of TV Guide I found at a yard sale--it's dated the night after I was born. Such fun to look back on the ancient shows people were watching when I came into the world.

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  2. One of the best made for TV series, in my opinion, was ABC's Circle of Fear. The opening credits scared the wits out of my 7 year old self. Between that and the opening credits for Chiller Theatre, I rarely made it through the movie without running out of the room to hide in the kitchen (where my Mom was)!

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