Bijou Fans Speak Up

Those of us here at The Bijou Blog pay attention to your comments on our posts and appreciate the feedback we have received so far. Meanwhile, we’re also monitoring what’s being said elsewhere in cyberspace. The original Matinee at the Bijou, which aired on PBS more than two decades ago, still has countless fans, many of whom were quite young when they first discovered the show. What follows is a partial sampling of comments from other Web sites by fans of the old show … and the new one.

“I enjoyed Matinee at the Bijou on my local PBS station at the grand old age of eight. It was my first introduction to Bosko cartoons, for which I'll forever be grateful!” - David Gerstion

“I always liked the serials best, both because I just liked the cheesy damn things and because there wasn't any other place to see them in those days … I got the word earlier today that Matinee at the Bijou is coming back. The producers of the new Bijou have a blog and are promising to be back on the airwaves by fall of next year, with Debbie Reynolds (Princess Leia's mom!) as host … This news has really put a smile on my face today... I'll be watching for this one.” - Jason Bennion

“Matinee at the Bijou … This brings back pleasant memories of when I was a kid sick at home, and this was the only decent thing to watch on TV during the afternoon Each episode had a short subject, a serial, a cartoon, and an old movie (which my fever-stupored brain rarely let me see the end of.) If I was really lucky it was a Laurel and Hardy movie (which can do a REAL number on the sickly delirious mind...) Good times.” - "Amethyst" at Agony Booth Forums

“When I was a kid, I absolutely loved Matinee At The Bijou, a program on PBS that showed a theatrical lineup from the middle 20th century, including a newsreel, a cartoon, a short subject, and a movie (sometimes even doing an A Picture and a B Picture). The show is back in 2007 with Debbie Reynolds hosting. I'm particularly excited about getting to see Boris Karloff in British Intelligence.” - Kevin Church

“For a seven- or eight-year old boy, it was like heaven. Nothing was cooler than Zorro or Flash or Buck. Usually I would get bored with the full-length movie, but during the newsreels I would ask my mom questions about FDR or the war or what-have-you, laugh through the cartoon, and watch the adventure stories with excitement. When they showed the original Bela Lugosi "Dracula" around Halloween, I was hooked, and have loved vampires ever since. I miss that show. But! PBS is bring it back. In HD, apparrently. I may have to get HD from DirectTV just for this". "Mattbear" at The Inexcusable

“Ahh, Matinee at the Bijou. If Saturday afternoon was rainy or too cold to enjoy, I was guaranteed to be camped out in front of local PBS affiliate channel 15 for Matinee at the Bijou. I loved it. Matinee at the Bijou was as faithful a recreation of going to a movie theater when movie theaters were worth going to as you could get from television. They always showed a serial -- Flash Gordon, Radar Men from the Moon, old Batman serials where Batman drives a regular sedan and punches out Japanese spies, or the thing where Bela Lugosi bosses around that ugly robot. Phantom Creeps, wasn't it?” -"Keith" at Teleport City

“I think this may have been when I first got a taste of old films, cause I remember watching it when I was but a wee lad enrolled at the hippie elementary school. It was a weekend show on PBS, and it pretty much was a bill of fare as would have been seen at a movie theatre back in the 1930s and 40s. They'd show an episode of a serial, a newsreel, maybe a comedy short, and a feature film. Well, apparently it's coming back next year and Debbie Reynolds will be hosting. That's awesome.” - "derspatchel" at Live Journal