Monday, June 13, 2016

The Wonderful World of TCM

One of the greatest things about The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind (Turner Classic Movies to the squares) is its distinguished face of the network, Bobby Osbo (Robert Osbourne to the squares). It's understandable that a man of his age would scale back hosting duties, but while B-Mank (Ben Mankewicz to the--aw, forget it) has grown into a likable alternative for me, it's still a letdown to tune in during prime time on the channel and not see the silver fox of screen set-up welcoming me to the feature presentation.

And yet...

I don't want to suggest I want to see Bobby Osbo take more time off or that I wouldn't miss him were he not a regular, but, boy, did I see a suitable fill-in last week. Full disclosure: I am never watching TCM live these days, so I caught the 1957 crime flick "Timetable" on demand. In that format, you never know who's going to intro the movie or if there will be one, so imagine my delight when I saw the lovely and talented Madeleine Stowe discussing the film I was about to see.

Actually don't imagine it; it could get embarrassing for both of us. I'm a big fan of Stowe, and it's been a while since I've seen her in anything--I never watched "Revenge" because, yeah, it had her, but come on--so what a pleasant collision of worlds this was.

Apparently she has been a recurring guest presenter, but much to my shame, I hadn't caught her on TCM. She did a great job of setting up "Timetable," and I'd love to see more of her, but it looks like Turner is--surprise, surprise--leaning just a bit younger as it prepares for Bobby's retirement (which I fear is imminent):  http://www.turner.com/story/tcm-announces-new-saturday-daytime-host-tiffany-vazquez


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