Rating: 
Summary: At last, an antidote to the same old....
Review: Tvparty! is the type of book I've been waiting for. I'm a comic book collector and what TVparty did was take the collector's mentality and apply it to classic television. So what you get is not a glazing over of the same old TV shows you read about in other books. Instead you get essays and stories on the characters you may not know a lot about. I really liked the stories on Bette Davis, Redd Foxx and the murder of Alfalfa. Hysterical stuff!There's a lot to like and laugh at here. The Super Hero shows of the 60s and the Variety Programs of the 70s stand out in particular. When have you read anything on these subjects? And now I know where 'Plunk your magic Twanger' came from. My dad used to say that! Although I didn't grow up in Minneapolis, I loved the story of the kiddie show hosts who were swept out of a job in the mid-70s. It's that kind of detail that Tvparty! does best. The CD-ROM is a lightweight bonus that animates what you just read about in the book. I recommend this package and want more, more!
Rating: 
Summary: Party On!
Review: I am always haunting the bookstores looking for new products about classic TV and this is the best I've seen in a long time. It really is like a party between two covers. I don't have a lot of friends that I can talk about my TV passions with, and this book is like hanging out with the coolest TV addicts around. I especially liked the coverage of local children's programming, I thought I was the only one who remembered Gigglesnort Hotel and Tom Terrific from Captain Kangaroo. The update on the Sitcom Houses was a trip down memory lane, and now I know the history of the TV Laugh Track. Being a Variety show fan, I've waited forever for someone to write anything about those great shows and I devoured that section. There are even mini-biographies of stars like Bette Davis and Redd Foxx - I can't wait for another TV Party book. Every time I picked up the book I discovered something new. I don't want the party to end!
Rating:
Summary: Video Valhalla
Review: For anyone who ever wondered wny their Mom didn't act like Lucy Ricardo, who eagerly awaited summer each year to watch unsold sitcom pilots on VACATION PLAYHOUSE and who dreamed of growing up to be one of the glamorous panelists on TO TELL THE TRUTH, this book is like sticking your head through the TV screen. More fun than the black-and-white episodes on Game Show Network--and that's saying plenty. Bring on the sequel!!!
Rating:
Summary: Funky, fresh and slick
Review: TVparty is a book I've waited for for a long time. I recently caught the author on a morning radio show and bought the book here (in spite of the weird reviews apparantly written by the same person. I get it - you liked the Superman article and hated everything else. Move on!) There's a lot to like here. The look at Bette Davis' TV career, Tallulah Bankhead's messy life (loved her on Batman),Ida Lupino and Howard Duff's shows, the sci-fi programs that never made it on the air, local children's entertainment and - Winky Dink! The first interactive video game, and I played it in the 1950s (boy does that date me!) No one I ever met remembers Winky Dink, I was starting to think I dreamed the whole thing! And Andy's Gang with 'Plunk Your Magic Twanger Froggy.' In short, if you want to explode with repressed TV memories, get TVparty! A great companion to the website, highly reccomended.
Rating:
Summary: Super Man!
Review: The book I've waited for. I'm a fan of super heroes and sci-fi on TV and this book covers a lot of my favorite subjects. The Time Tunnel story is great. The murder/suicide of George Reeves aka Superman, the lost pilot shows of Gene Roddenberry (I saw them!), there is so much here I haven't gotten to it all. I also appreciate the history of TV's variety shows and the local programs aimed at children that disappeared in the 70s. I always wondered what happened to those shows. Now I know. I say get this book if you love classic television and the way things used to be - but aren't anymore. Times have changed, and this TVPARTY! book brings the past alive. It makes you nostalgic, but in a good way.
Rating: 
Summary: Some nice articles on old tv shows
Review: Nostalgia usually hits people with warm fuzzy feelings and this book has its share of them. All in all, I don't think the book quite hit its mark. I was entertained by a few stories but I was expecting much more since many of the reviews here had such high praise. I think the warm fuzzies that some people get by reading about their childhood memories overshadows the point that the book really isn't all that great. This is a great topic for a book and hopefully a better one will come along later.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: After reading TVPARTY I feel like I just came back from the past. I had forgotten all about Wonderama and was eager to learn about Bette Davis' failed TV shows and Paul Lynde's reckless life. And any book with Brett Somers gets my $$$. There are so many big and small touches here, it left me with the strong feeling that things have changed a great deal in this country and especially how TV has changed. Dramatically! That's probably not the author's intent, but there you go.
Rating:
Summary: This was a surprise
Review: I browsed this book at a friend's house and bought it the next day. This is not a book for people who want to read the same-old same-old. And I don't! A lot of this is esoteric stuff. The first TV couple in bed together? Weird local kid shows from the 60s, stories I hadn't heard about shows I saw once as a kid then never saw again, like It's About Time, The Green Hornet and Mr. Terrific! And now I find out TV's Superman was murdered? Wonderful!
Rating: 
Summary: Over rated book
Review: I am a big fan of nostalgia and the early televison shows of the 50's and the 60's and love to gobble up books and information related to these great eras of tv. I purchased this book and found that there was very little to like about it, even for a fan like myself. I found the book boring and shallow. Very little of the book covers the popular tv shows. What happened?!
Rating:
Summary: TVparty: Television's Untold Tales
Review: WOW!!! Excellent look at the strange reality of television. I was especially impressed with the formatting an photo choices and placement. Mr. Counts gets two thumbs up. Witty and true.
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