MeTV Bemoans the Loss of...The Magnificent Marble Machine?

[Matt Ottinger]

Today's Adventures In Stupid Lists brings us to MeTV and their listicle "Eight Important TV Shows That Were Lost or Destroyed" (emphasis mine)

As these sorts of thing go, MeTV is pretty harmless, and conveniently puts their entire list on one page.  Sure it's clickbait, but of the most benign sort.  Still, it's amusing to see what they came up with.  They mention Jeopardy and say that "one percent" of the original show survives (do we have 27 at this point?).  But given all the game shows of the 50s, 60s and 70s that have been lost forever, how on earth did somebody decide that the ONE, above all others, that humanity is the poorer for not having was Art James and his Magic Flippers?

http://www.metv.com/lists/8-important-tv-shows-that-were-lost-or-destroyed

[calliaume]

I've occasionally posted inaccuracies in MeTV's articles in replies on Facebook.  They haven't offered me a job yet (they're in Chicago, for Pete's sake), so I guess they're okay with the exaggerations.

[aaron sica]

"Edge of Night" has enough episodes on YouTube that make me question that entry, too.

[snowpeck]

"Edge of Night" has enough episodes on YouTube that make me question that entry, too.

Everything of "Edge of Night" past 1979 exists, but in the 23 years prior to then the number is probably no more than a couple dozen.

Their entry for "Search for Tomorrow" is pretty distorted too. They only did one live episode in 1983 because just that one tape had gone missing, which was probably a publicity stunt anyway.

[Chuck Sutton]

Does seem like a stunt since it was happened at the end of Tootsie which came out in Dec 1982.

[Thunder]

I'm surprised that Special Friends haven't yet chimed into that comment thread with tons-o-minutia.

[thomas_meighan]

The whole article (does it merit that description?) is weird because whoever wrote it doesn't quite grasp the technology of early TV. There's also this persistent "it was live, so it was never recorded" misunderstanding that has invaded other writings about the period. Sure, many local programs back then didn't get recorded, but at the network level, NBC opened a transcription division as early as 1935. Once kinescope technology was perfected, the networks made plenty of use of it on the TV side of things. The idea of recording radio and TV broadcasts wasn't *quite* as foreign in the 1950s as some make it to be.

[whewfan]

I thought that was odd myself, but considering only a couple of episodes exist, maybe the author of the article is saying "I want to see more." The qualifying round for MMM, in my opinion, is entertaining enough. Some of the clues are clever. As for the playing of this large pinball machine, I suppose it relies on your point of view. Some people like watching someone play one of the earliest forms of a video game, but whether it's entertaining enough to watch over a period of several episodes, the novelty obviously never caught on. Also, a TV camera can only capture so much trying to follow a very large ball navigate through all the bumpers on the machine.

For me, there are certain celebs I would've liked to have seen play the machine. I think Alex Trebek and Peter Marshall were both on the show, and they would've made it entertaining.

[clemon79]

maybe the author of the article is saying "I want to see more."

That does not make the show any more "important", nor the author any less of an idiot.