The Video Vault of Mora Tau 7/17/12!

For this trek into the VVoMT - this blog's good buddy Melissa Bradley inspired this post thanks to her comment on this past Saturday Night at the Movies post - wherein she waxed nostalgic for the way the American Broadcasting Company used to be the exclusive source for the James Bond movies - and they continued rerunning them for almost twenty years, from Dr. No through The Living Daylights.



They finally lost the license to show...and rather appropriately it was for Licence to Kill, which premiered on Fox. Then, the other networks jumped in to the bidding, and NBC scored the first showing of GoldenEye; while a couple of years later CBS bid highest to show Tomorrow Never Dies for the first time.



By the time The World is Not Enough was released the networks weren't showing movies any more - so 007 moved to cable - first on TBS for a few years, then over to Spike TV, where I believe they currently still reside, though other cable networks do schedule one now and again.


But this is about the long love affair between ABC and 007 - and here are several short promos from across the 80's. (You can really tell when VCRs came into American households - just look at the earliest available TV promos on YouTube!)


We have to mention the late great Ernie Anderson - formerly a horror host in Cleveland (Ghoulardi) and later a very successful announcer - and the voice of ABC for me and scads of other television fiends in the 80's. Of course, you remember the great way he'd say The Looovvve Boat!



This is from sometime in 1980 - a feature film that was then 17 years old. Wow.

December 23, 1979:

November 2, 1986:

1986:

January 1, 1989:

April 13, 1986:

This one is a well remembered favorite - because I had it taped (on BETA!) along with the movie and watched it a few dozen times on my own tape. From November 22, 1981:

And lastly - from September 24, 1982 - a little clip that shows how racy the James Bond movies were considered back in the day:

Thanks to Melissa for prompting this look back - sure - I have the whole series coming in a Blu-Ray box set in a couple of months - but there was something very special about watching these movies on network television on a Sunday night.


Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!