26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

Coming to America was on channel 11 on Sunday afternoon. There is something great and nostalgic for me about watching movies on a Sunday afternoon on the old WPIX.

If you lived in New York City during the eighties and early nineties you were fortunate enough to be exposed to the phenomenon that was WPIX, local channel 11.

It was the kind of low-budget, small signal, non-network affiliated channel that I imagined existed for decades in secondary television markets across the country. Naturally, it just SEEMED that way. The Tribune Company owned WPIX since it's inception.

During the eighties and nineties WPIX was good for two things. Tales From The Darkside at 11 p.m. on Saturday nights and the stream of b-movies that the network played nearly everyday. On Saturdays and Sundays there were b-horror and sci-fi movies like The Stuff and Escape from the Planet of the Apes hosted in cramped studios be a string of over the top characters.

There is a genius to turning on public television and watching Piranha 2: The Spawning or Ice Pirates in the middle of the afternoon. Television needs a WPIX, broadcasting the type of movie that you don't have catch at the beginning to enjoy. After all, how hard is it to piece together the first 15 minutes of Andromeda Strain or Oh,God!?

Let's all start a television network!!!