Honeymooners New Year's Bash Nationally on WGN America, Also Still On WPIX in NY; Other WPIX Holiday Programming Includes Yule Log

Last week we gave you WGN America's holiday programming line-up and hinted we have more to give. And today we will reveal that! We are announcing today what WGN America will air on New Year's Eve and Day. WGN America will close out 2008 and ring in 2009 with a marathon of the sitcom The Honeymooners! That's right, the entire nation will get to celebrate the new year with them this year...not just NY! On New Year's Eve (Wednesday, December 31, 2008) starting at 8pm ET (7pm CT/5pm PT) catch the first 15 episodes of the classic 39 episodes of The Honeymooners thru 3:30am ET...so the fun on the night begins at 8pm ET and ends at 3:30am ET with the first 15 episodes. Then that's not all! On New Year's Day (Thursday, January 1, 2009) itself, forget College Football, wake up and spend the first day of 2009 with more episodes of The Honeymooners! After the regular Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie airings, catch more Honeymooner fun starting at 10am ET (9am CT/7am PT) thru 10pm ET for 12 more hours of fun...yes, 24 more episodes concluding the classic 39. You'll see episodes 16-39 on this day, all in order!
Remember The Honeymooners airs regular on WGN America on Saturday nights at 12 midnight ET and Sunday in primetime at 9pm & 9:30pm ET.

That's not all for The Honeymooners! It wouldn't be a New Year's celebration in the Big Apple without Jackie Gleason and company as WPIX in New York brings you their annual tradition of The Honeymooners New Year's Blowout Bash! WPIX's marathon starts when the clock strikes midnight and we enter 2009! 16 hours, 32 episodes of classic Honeymooners episodes will air. From 12am-4:30am and 9am-8pm, WPIX brings you 32 classics from the original 39 and the lost episodes as well! Episodes airing on WPIX starting at 12 midnight: "The Sleepwalker," "Pal O' Mine," "Hello Mom," "Please Leave the Premises," "Deciding Vote," "Something Fishy," "A Matter of Record," "Ralph Kramden, Inc.," and "Pardon My Glove" then we have a morning news break thru 9am. Episodes starting at 9am are: "Woman's Work is Never Done," "Here Comes the Bride," "Matter of Life & Death," "Brother Ralph," "Oh My Achin' Back," "The Baby Sitter," "Head of the House," "The Worry Wart," "A Dog's Life," "Trapped," "Better Living Thru TV," "A Man's Pride," "The Golfer," "Funny Money," "Young at Heart," "Dial J for Janitor," "Bensonhurst Bomber," "Unconventional Behavior," "Man From Space," "TV or Not TV," "The $99,000 Answer," and "Mama Loves Mambo."
The Honeymooners regularly airs on WPIX Sunday nights at 1am and 1:30am, part of a Viewer's Choice Hour where fans choose episodes.

We haven't had a chance yet to give you WPIX's holiday programming, but we will today! It wouldn't be a holiday in New York without The WPIX Yule Log! The Yule Log, the famous film loop of a burning log in a hearth, has mesmerized viewers since it debuted on WPIX in 1966. To celebrate the Log's 42nd anniversary, WPIX-11 will air The Yule Log from 9am-1pm on Christmas Day (Thursday, December 25), expanding the coverage to four hours! At 1pm, immediately following The Yule Log, WPIX will air the beloved holiday classic, March of the Wooden Soldiers.
In recent years, The Yule Log has been digitally re-mastered and fully restored. In 2001, while searching the company's archives, the original 35mm Yule Log film was found where it was misfiled in a Honeymooners film can titled "A Dog's Life." At that time, the original film was color corrected and cleaned of scratches. In 2003, the Log was up-converted to High Definition (WPIX now airs a simultaneous HDTV Yule Log on WPIX-HD) and in 2005 WPIX made The Yule Log available to viewers as a downloadable podcast.
We menioned the Yule Log will be seen nationally on WGN America on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, but it can also be seen locally on many other Tribune stations: KTLA in LA 5-8am, WGN local in Chicago 1:30-6:30am, WPHL on Philly 9a-noon, KDAF in Dallas 8-11am (airing their own version of the Yule Log), WDCW in DC 8-10am, KCPQ in Seattle 5-9am, WSFL in Miami 7-10am, KWGN in Denver 5-9am, KTXL in Sacramento 4:30-9am, KPLR in St. Louis 8am-noon, KRCW in Portland 5-10am, WXIN in Indianapolis 5-9am, WTTV in Indianapolis 5-8:30am, WTIC in Hartford 8-10am, WXMI in Grand Rapids 5-7am, WPMT in Harrisburg 5-10am, and WGNO in New Orleans 5-7am. Times listed are for each city's respective time zone.
WPIX will also celebrate the holidays with movies and holiday episodes as well. Catch movies such as Jack Frost, I'll Be Home for Christmas, and Christmas at Water's Edge, and holiday episodes of The Jeffersons, Frasier, Friends, South Park, The Odd Couple, and more in the regular time periods on Christmas week!

Lifetime December 2008 and January 2009 Changes; Cincinnati Station Changes Name to WKRP

We didn't get a chance to mention it, but effective last week (Nov. 24), Lifetime removed The Nanny from the line-up. The contract for the show expires later this month, and TV Land and Nick at Nite gain access to it starting this spring, but not sure yet when and where it will air. We'll let you know. The Nanny was airing weeknights at 2am, and Lifetime replaced it with an extra episode of The Golden Girls. Also, The Golden Girls is now airing in the 8am hour replacing Still Standing's morning airings...it will still air weekdays 7-8pm. So The Golden Girls as of now is airing 8-9am, 9-10am, and 1-am-2:30am...7 airings a day. It will be cut to 6 in January, more on that below.
As we mentioned previously, effective today (Dec. 1), Lifetime will add the original series Mom's Cooking in the weekday 11am hour (20 episodes have been ordered) and will add another Wife Swap episode at 10am leading into the series...so Will & Grace and Frasier are off of the daytime line-up until further notice (thru end of January at least), but remain in late night. No other changes are being made in December, so the rest of the line-up is the same as it is now.
Starting in January we get a few more changes. Lifetime will start airing How I Met Your Mother on Monday evenings from 7-8pm starting Monday, January 5, 2009. This is its pre-syndication start before Lifetime can air it daily starting in fall 2010, as we mentioned before. Reba will be the lead-in (6-7pm) and lead-out (8pm) to the How I Met Your Mother airings, while original sitcom Rita Rocks moves from Tuesdays at 8:30pm to Mondays at 8:30pm. Lifetime will move the primetime airing of Wife Swap from Tuesdays at 10pm to Mondays at 9pm leading into their new original series DietTribe, airing Mondays at 10pm starting January 5 thru Feb. 2. Rita Rocks and DietTribe will repeat later on Mondays starting at 1am. So Mondays is a big night for Lifetime in January.
Also, starting Jan. 5, Will & Grace will expand to three episodes airing 11pm to 12:30am, while the Frasier hour slides to 12:30am-1:30am, and the The Golden Girls airs 1:30-2:30am, so it loses an airing. The Golden Girls is moving to Hallmark Channel and WE tv in the spring, so we are down to the last months of the series on Lifetime. Frasier will get an additional slot in January, airing Sundays 12-1am after Grey's Anatomy. There will be no other changes, as of now.

WKRP is actually on the air! No, I don't mean the TV series is on TV, but a local station in Cincinnati has changed its call letters to WKRP! Low-power Channel 38 known as WBQC-TV since 1995, has changed its call letters to WKRP-TV to promote its new digital TV signal.
This is the first time a station here has been known as WKRP since the CBS premiere 30 years ago of WKRP in Cincinnati, a TV sitcom about a wacky rock radio station fictionally set in Cincinnati. Elliott Block, general manager and chief engineer for WKRP-TV says, "When I call someone out-of-town and say we're a TV station in Cincinnati, the response usually is, 'WKRP in Cincinnati?' This gives us recognition." He also has tried to acquire the TV series to air on WKRP-TV, but says "We've checked, but WKRP in Cincinnati is not available for broadcast. It's only available for cable." He is correct, it airs Sunday evenings on WGN America and Monday nights on AmericanLife TV.
So what does WKRP-TV air? Right now just stuff like Matlock, One on One, Punk'd, Cops, and first-run syndicated stuff like Cold Squad and Jury Duty. Nothing out of the ordinary, but still the name change is cool. So baby, if you've ever wondered if there was a real WKRP, now you know there is! Check out WKRP-TV's website. "I'm at WKRP in Cincinnati..."

Lifetime Announces Halloween Programming; Remembering TV Composer Neal Hefti

Wow...two days in a row of Lifetime news! There is no shortage of blood-chillers this Halloween. That mysterious creaking emanating from the shadows. Hockey-masked killers and otherworldly marauders. The Dow. Lifetime Networks is getting in the "spirit" of the season too, rolling out a slate of tricks and treats on Lifetime Television and Lifetime Movie Network.
Lifetime hits the ground running Halloween week beginning Monday, October 27 every day at 11 AM (ET/PT), with five new episodes of Lisa Williams: Voices From the Other Side, featuring the renowned clairvoyant's eerie encounters beyond the grave. Each day's show will feature a lead-in of a quite different brand of terror with themed episodes of Wife Swap at 10 AM (ET/PT). Halloween-themed episodes of the sitcoms Frasier, Reba, Still Standing and Will & Grace will also pepper the week-long schedule.
Over on sister channel Lifetime Movie Network, it's a full weekend of supernatural movies (Saturday, October 25-Sunday, October 26) ranging from the classic scares of The Rage: Carrie 2 and The Unquiet to contemporary paranormal stories like The Watch, You Belong to Me and Nightmare at End of the Hall.

Neal Hefti, a TV composer who composed the memorable themes for the movie The Odd Couple and the campy hit TV series Batman, has passed away. Hefti died Saturday (October 11) at his home in Toluca Lake, said his son, Paul. He did not know the cause of death, but said his father had been in good health.
While known primarily as a film composer, his two TV themes are his most famous work. Among his credits as a film composer are Sex and the Single Girl, Harlow (one of his most famous tunes, "Girl Talk," came out of the score), How to Murder Your Wife, Boeing Boeing, Duel at Diablo, Barefoot in the Park, A New Leaf, Last of the Red Hot Lovers and The Odd Couple, whose theme he reprised for the 1970s ABC TV series. Hefti also gained wide notice for composing the energetic title theme for Batman, the over-the-top 1966-68 ABC superhero series that became an overnight sensation. Hefti's Batman theme became a Top 40 hit and won a 1966 Grammy Award for best instrumental theme.
Hefti retired in 1976. He will be deeply missed but his themes will live on forever. Mr. Hefti was 85.

We'll return with more news, if any...stay tuned!