Relive Your Glory Days With These Retro TV Sites
Today’s television is fundamentally different even from its relatively recent past. Sure, cable TV still exists, but broadcast TV is becoming more of an afterthought, and there are fewer and fewer moments where everyone seems to be watching the same show. You’re streaming something on HBO, I’m watching a season of one of the latest Netflix shows; I watch on TV, you watch on the phone. But you can return to an earlier era – sort of. The internet runs on nostalgia, and there are several websites that specialize in pre-time re-creation: one makes you feel like you’re watching another era, and another lets you tune in to shows with other people.
Consequences of Toons
If you want to go back to a simpler era where people were watching the same thing at the same time, check out Toonami Aftermath . The site hosts various live stream “channels” that broadcast live cartoons that are pre-programmed. You can click on different channels to see which shows are currently playing. When you do this, you will have access to that channel’s unique chat, allowing you to join the conversation with whoever is still watching.
How well this works for you may vary as the site is fully supported by these separate channels (really servers). Sometimes you will see a channel that is not currently active and you will need to come back later to see if anything is playing. During off-peak hours, you may only have a few channels to choose from, which really takes us back to the old days of TV.
If you want to know what programs are coming up next, most channels have their own schedule. If something sparks your interest, set a reminder to return to it at the scheduled time, like it’s 2003 all over again.
My TV!
If you want to relive certain eras of TV, hardware and everything, check out My TV! This @joeycato project brings together five different decades of television to explore, including the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. Each era has its own website with the name of the decade (My70sTV.com, My00sTV.com, etc.), complete with an on-screen TV for the era. Depending on the era, you will see different options: remotes for newer TVs and colored dials for older TVs. It gets more disjointed as you can select the specific year you want to watch. For example, if you are using a My 90s! You can select any year from 1990 to 1999 on the site.
Unlike Toonami Aftermath, these channels do not air live or offer full episodes. Instead, these different web apps showcase a collection of things you might have come across as you scroll through the channels in their respective eras: clips from popular shows, talk shows, music videos, and, my favorite, vintage commercials. Who knew the ads we once hated could be so much fun to watch online in 2022?
You can change the channel to see each type of media content on offer, or narrow down your choices by unchecking some of the options to the right of the TV. This section is useful in any case, as it gives you an idea of how much content of a certain type is here. For example, there may be only 427 dramas, but there are over 15,000 commercials to study. (If each commercial was 15 seconds long, that’s roughly 62.5 hours of commercials in one decade of programming. Enjoy!)
Both of these sites are interesting and contain many hidden features that can be discovered while browsing the channels. Go revive your childhood! Or, depending on how old you are, maybe your parents’ childhood.