I seem to have just gotten a new, unexpected channel on my DirecTV satellite dish. In fact, it's so new, it doesn't even have any shows on it yet.
Something called "Chiller" is now on channel 257. Looking ahead, I see it starts early Thursday morning with episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, followed by Night Gallery, then the Friday the 13th TV show, then more Alfred Hitchcock Presents, then Tales from the Crypt, then more Hitchcock, then more Tales from the Crypt. Then at some point Thursday, they run the movie, The Shining, followed by more Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Further down the line, I see episodes of Twin Peaks, plus they're running other scary movies including all the ones in which Abbott and Costello met monsters.
Sounds like Universal to me. I think I'll do a Google search and see if I can find out more about this channel. Here — you watch this video clip of one of my favorite moments from David Letterman's old NBC show. While you do, I'll have me a look around and then I'll report back.
Okay, I'm back. I found the Chiller TV website but there's nothing much on it yet except to say the new channel launches on March 1 and they dare us to watch. Also found this article from last month telling about the new channel and, yes, it's from Universal. Interesting to know. I may even TiVo a few of those Alfred Hitchcock shows.
All right…so we have Sleuth rerunning old detective shows and Chiller rerunning old spooky shows. Don't we need a couple more old sitcom channels? No one's rerunning Bilko or Car 54 or McHale's Navy or Dobie Gillis. Wouldn't it be great to have a network that ran those and even lesser-known shows like He and She or The Good Guys or Good Morning, World or The Bill Dana Show or I'm Dickens, He's Fenster or The Danny Thomas Show or Hennessey or —
Well, you get the idea. You could probably add to that list, too. I don't think anyone's planning such a channel…but then, I didn't know about Chiller until about twenty minutes ago. Maybe one of these days…