A "Very Special" Issue

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit how much I used to look forward to TV Guide's Fall Preview Issue back in the 70s. Long before anyone had heard of the World Wide Web, back when there were three major channels in most cities, this was big stuff. Page after page of details, with full-color photos, of all the new shows waiting to be sampled. A big grid showing the entire prime-time schedule.

For many of us old-timers, TV Guide died the day it gave up the interior pages of local program listings, and converted from digest size into a glossy, slender magazine that looked like a hundred others. I don't buy it anymore. But I still remember a time when one of the highlights of Labor Day Weekend was getting this once-a-year issue into my hot little hands.