The time travel aspect of TV is under-appreciated. Especially watching bits of old variety shows. You get a weird sense of what it was like to be alive then and paying live attention to what for us is history.
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I randomly watched the pilot of the Carol Burnett show. The opening sketch is Cafe Argentine based on the premise of an Argentinian restaurant run by Nazis who speak German, serve German food, etc. It’s very funny, but it hit me that it was also news back then.
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This was just a few years after Adolf Eochmann had been captured in Argentina, and presumably Nazi hunting was l9ve in the news.
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I wonder if they’ll eventually put all news broadcasts online. You could kinda live in sat 1972 by watching an episode a day. It might turn into a weird subculture.
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Walter Benjamin wrote “Angelus Novus” before television existed, but he nailed that feeling
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I watch compilations of old commercials on YouTube all the time. The ones from years right before I was born feel particularly uncanny
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Marion Stokes of Philadelphia recorded pretty much everything from the Iran Hostage Crisis to present. It should be coming online soon.
atlasobscura.com/articles/mario
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