ABC Movie of the Week

They knew that they had tiny budgets compared with Hollywood, and so...

Typical ABC Movies of the Week included Kingdom of the Spiders, starring William Shatner, or Snow Beast, about a Bigfoot monster which rampages through a ski resort.

That's what you got with ABC's Movie of the Week.

But who was complaining? Because when you sat down to one of these films, you knew what the deal was.

amazing.

But it is ABC Movie of the Week.

Sometimes

those made-for-TV movies, I don't know.

Hollywood...

They jumped on the bandwagon too, and they would air programs like ABC's Movie of the Week.

There was one.

It was called – it was about – it was a news broadcast.

So it's like they kind of struggle with what they were.

And when ABC, these films, the ABC movie of the week, the first season was, I think at the time, considered the most expensive TV season, like the most expensive show ever produced at the

time.

69, the first season? Yeah, 69 to 70.

I mean, there's a lot going on in these movies, as you say, and Kildare's is a great example, even with the silliest of plots.

But there's a special fondness.

I mean, do you find in your circles for the ABC movie of the week still? Because people of a certain generation grew up on, you know, Pray for the Wildcats and Savages and even the rom-coms.

Yeah, I think it's they definitely introduced sort of the idea of genre like it had already existed, but it was just not as as being produced as much until it ended up on the ABC movie of the week.

I didn't pick up on this, but about a football player that went to Wake Forest.

It was like the ABC Movie of the Week.

Was it?

Yes.

Yeah

... of ABC Movie of the Week.

Yeah, yeah.

Um-

But the s- the snag was Universal, who he was under contract to-

Yeah

... wanted the budgets to be a lot higher than they thought they should be and wanted exclusivity, so every ABC Movie of the Week would be made by Universal.

Yeah

'Cause it turns out I have seen this movie before.

It was on, it was the ABC Movie of the Week in like 19-

What?

1982 or '83.

I got to... 'Cause the tapes were expensive.

It's so funny you should say that, because now I'm remembering that when we used to do, and many families in the '80s did this, it was like, "Oh, we're gonna tape this one off of the ABC Movie of the Week."

That's right.

And, and we would have these...