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TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television
 
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TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television [Hardcover]

TV Guide Editors (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)


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Book Description

October 29, 2002
Imagine the greatest week of television ever. In celebration of its 50th anniversary, TV GUIDE has done just that. Picking and choosing from classic programs, unforgettable characters, hilarious moments and broadcast-interrupting tragedies, TV GUIDE has created in this deluxe and nostalgic history the ultimate week of programming. Here are fifty years of riveting innovation distilled into one unforgettable book.

From Saturday morning cartoons through prime time and late night, Fifty Years of Television pays tribute to hundreds of the most important shows of all time. More than 250 color and black-and-white photographs capture the giants of TV in their prime—from "The Great One," Jackie Gleason, to his latter-day descendant Homer Simpson, from Jack Webb of Dragnet to James Gandolfini of The Sopranos. The exciting, graphic covers of TV GUIDE offer a fantastic voyage through generations of pop culture. More than 400 collectible covers are included, featuring the work of artists such as Charles Addams, Salvador Dalí, Al Hirschfield, Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol. Landmark essays from the pages of TV GUIDE by Oprah Winfrey, John F. Kennedy, Alex Haley and other American icons shed light on the seductive power of the medium. In original interviews, some of TV's best known and most beloved personalities reminisce about the shows that made the country tune in. A sweeping appreciation of TV, this is the ultimate book of its kind.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The engine of American culture receives an affectionate and often perceptive overview in this retrospective from the nation's biggest weekly magazine. Classic shows from I Love Lucy and Howdy Doody to The Sopranos and Survivor are given lavishly illustrated spreads along with quirkier cult favorites like The Prisoner and I, Claudius. TV's milestone discoveries of politics (All in the Family), social realism (Hill Street Blues) and nihilism (Seinfeld) are duly noted, while through-the-years thematic comparison of news broadcasts, sit-com families and TV detectives-and even the antics Ozzy and Harriet and The Osbournes-remind us that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Excerpts from TV Guide back issues include essays by literati like Alistair Cooke (on the "one of a kind" Mash) and Jay McInerny (on Seinfeld, which he initially thought would fail because it was "way too good to be on TV"), as well as nuanced analyses of television's impact on political campaigns and the Vietnam War. Best of all are the funny and thoughtful capsule appreciations of individual shows: Bewitched is pegged as a 60s microcosm in which a clueless, gray-flannel-suited Darrin goes to the office while "back at home, everybody else was on acid;" while Hawaii Five-O's Jack Lord "looked like a film-noir refugee who had wandered onto the set of a beach-blanket movie." Leafing through this volume will provoke floods of nostalgia, followed by the unsettling realization of just how much our memories consist of the TV shows we have watched.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-This visual feast has a heaping helping of narrative about trend-setting programs and an interesting dollop of celebrity essays. YAs might find themselves surprised to realize that what they consider innovative programs today have parallels with shows of the past. The book is categorized by time slot: weekend, daytime, evening, prime time, and late night. Teens may read for pleasure, perhaps to test their parents' or grandparents' memory on the novel days of TV, or for information. The book is a plum for a report about American culture from the 1950s to the millennium. Also, the pages are stuffed with photos of TV Guide covers that are perfect for art and photography students learning design and layout. An index of every TV Guide cover is included, along with photographer. This coffee-table-sized book will be popular because of its balanced and colorful account of each decade.
Karen Sokol, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Crown; 1ST edition (October 29, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1400046858
  • ISBN-13: 978-1400046850
  • Product Dimensions: 12 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #996,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A colorful guide to the box in the corner., September 21, 2004
This review is from: TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television (Hardcover)
This is typical of those overpriced books that come out for buying in the festive season but the good news is that after December you can usually find them at a greatly reduced price. I got my copy via the Net at well below ten dollars.

Read the Book Description above to find out about the contents of this thick coffee table book. Most of the two hundred and fifty photos (all publicity shots) are one to a page with long captions and covers of the Guide, more than four hundred, pop up at relevant places. Other covers are shown on five spreads devoted to each decade and actually I would have preferred the book to have concentrated on the covers rather than the publicity photos, a lot of well known illustrators were used, like Jack Davis, Ronald Searle, Al Hirschfeld, LeRoy Neiman and Bob Peak to name a few.

I did like the way the material was divided into themes, Weekends, Daytime, Evenings, Prime Time and Late Night, rather presenting it all in strict historical order. The back of the book has an interesting complete list of covers from April 1953 to April 2002 but unfortunately it is set in a real tiny type (Day-lite Sans would be an appropriate font name).

If you can find this book at a low, low price it will certainly be worth buying.




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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Past Programming Brought to Life, May 24, 2006
This review is from: TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television (Hardcover)
This book and its photos stir up unforgettable memories: Mickey Mouse, Leave it to Beaver, Dennis the Menace, Get Smart, Ed Sullivan, Batman, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Lawrence Welk, Bonanze, Flipper, Daktari, the JFK assassination, and much more. It also provides a useful TV Guide index covering the years 1953-2002.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars What a fun look at TV history!, April 17, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: TV Guide: Fifty Years of Television (Hardcover)
I got this book for my TV buff husband for Christmas... he has been reading it ever since. The whole family has enjoyed reading it. This book is a must for any true TV buff... and what man isn't one! Looking for a great gift for a man in your life... this is a must, especially if he's a babyboomer or prior. Highly recommended for the money!
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