OFFICIAL FRIDAY NIGHT WATCH-ALONG!!!

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

THE OFFICIAL 1980's SATURDAY MORNING PRESERVATION SOCIETY HISTORICAL REENACTMENT OF FRIDAY NIGHT PREVIEW SHOWS ON-LINE VIEWING PARTY WATCH-ALONG AND CHAT WILL BE THIS COMING FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH AT 7PM PST (10PM EST)!!!

For those of you who have never done this with us before, here's how it's going to work:

Friday night at about 6:30/6:45, we'll post some links here on Facebook and *possibly* over on Tumblr as well that will take you to our 1980's Saturday Morning Preservation & Historical Reenactment Society chat room, along with a link to a super-secret YouTube channel that will only be available during this watch-along. Go log in to the chat, and then go to the YouTube link and cue up the video - BUT DON'T START PLAYING OR WATCHING THE VIDEO! Just pause the video and let it start building up a good buffer.

At 7pm, in the Chat Room, we will shout out "NOW!" or "HIT PLAY!!!" or something else to let everybody know that NOW is the time to hit "Play" so that we're all watching the same video at the approximate same time, just like it was back in the 1980's - No pausing the video, no skipping commercials... if you need to go to the bathroom or get a soda or feed the cat, you wait till commercial or a boring part of the show to do it!

Try to remember that getting to SEE this stuff is only PART of the experience - ANYONE can download a video and watch it at their convenience. But doing that makes the shows themselves less boring. By creating a Shared Cultural Experience, having this two-hour block of time dedicated to doing the exact same thing that everybody else is doing... THAT'S where the magic of Saturday Morning comes from :)

Comments

[venger.livejournal.com]

WOOHOO!!!!! :D

So glad this community is still alive! (I don't use lj much anymore, just now seeing all the new posts here.) Added on Tumblr, I will be there!

Hey just out of curiosity, have you guys considered doing this as a livestream on Twitch.tv or one of those sites instead of YouTube? Seems like it might be easier, but I have no idea if that would even be possible with the way you guys set it up or not. Just thought I'd mention it though. :)

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

We've looked in to stuff like uStream and other live streaming sites, and the biggest problem with them is that they cut in to your stream whenever they feel like it with their own advertising unless you want to pay a pretty hefty fee for a commercial-free stream. SO unless everybody wants to start paying dues to join our little club, we'll be keeping it free and on YouTube where we have control over our video :)

If, however, we ever discover a free live streaming site that DOESN'T butt in to our stream with their own commercials, we'll be all over it!

[aurora77]

Slinky's right. Not only do streaming sites throw in the ads, but if they think the content may match some copyrighted content, their bots can just automatically shut it down and auto-ban you at any time. Just like they did this weekend with Worldcon and the Hugo Awards. They banned WORLDCON. In the middle of the HUGOS. Neil Gaiman was giving a speech accepting an award for Doctor Who when they banned the account for showing authorized clips of Doctor Who at the award show. *facepalm*

With those sites, the worst part would be not knowing if you were going to get through your event or not, knowing they may shut it down at any time. :(

At least with YouTube, we get things uploaded early enough that if we're going to get content match warnings, we know and can do something about it rather than just getting auto-banned outright while people are watching.

[bonnie-rocks.livejournal.com]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Hopefully, my old-fartness won't keep me from being able to watch along with all of you. I'm usually in bed by 10pm Eastern. ::Reminds self to brew coffee Friday night::

~*::Meow::*~

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

We might start at 9:30 your time... we just found some new footage to add to the line-up!

[man-of-snows.livejournal.com]

I am excited. Can you give us a hint about the line up? I want the visiting bf to watch with me and having some secret info may persuade him...

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Not sure what info I can give away... these are the original "Friday Night Previews" that would air the night before the new Saturday Morning Line-Up would premier the next day. Usually they involve one or more "Celebrities" (Sit-Com Stars looking to make a quick buck and promote their prime-time show) in an "Adventure" (hastily written series of 1-minute connecting skits) to discover the new Saturday Morning Line-Up (a 2-minute commercial/clip of the new cartoons).

As always, we will be making sure that these shows run their full boradcast length, occasionally even going so far as to edit in our own 80's commercials along with the program. It's not just *watching* these preview shows, it's EXPERIENCING them. Once you press ploay, you don't pause for any reason; you keep the video running. Snacks, bathroom, phone calls - these things must be balanced against your desire to keep watching, just as it was waaaaaaay back in the 80's. And f course a live chat so you can remember along with the rest of the community!

During the 2-and-a-half hours of programming (just recently expanded), we will have preview shows from ABC, NBC and CBS.

Not sure if that helps, so good luck :)

[aurora77]

One of the good parts is that some of the content doesn't even require editing in commercials! ^_^

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

suh-WEEEEET! I loves me some original commercial breaks!!!

Also, there will probably be a fair amount of trivia in the chat... that's always fun :)