I love watching shows on Amazon; here's why...

[Idaho45guy]

I love watching TV shows on Amazon Prime because of the ability to see the name and history of the actors that appear on screen.

Just now, I was watching the 1st season of the Andy Griffith show, Episode 3. I've seen it a couple of times before over the years, and had never realized something until just now, thanks to Amazon.

The guest character, Jim Lindsey, a guitar player played by a man named James Best, appears on the show.

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I clicked on the screen and up popped his information. His complete bio and acting history.

I had no idea that he was the same guy I watched for years on The Dukes of Hazzard.

Sheriff Rosco Coltrane...

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Couldn't believe it!

[GregLaROCHE]

You have a good point. I find myself clicking more and more to find out information about actors. I still remember the days when you couldn’t pause a movie or rewind if you missed something.

[Minerat]

I saw him on the Randolph Scott western Ride Lonesome not long ago too.

[sigep1764]

I find myself going down rabbit holes and discovering interesting things with The History Guy on youtube, wikipedia(taken with a grain of brains, not salt), and Amazon info. Truly fun.

[StuBach]

Couple the info page with the IMDB app or website (internet movie database) and you can really have some fun.

An additional fun fact, there is a sister website IMFDB.org that gives the same treatment for firearms. That’s a really fun one to use if you see a unfamiliar firearm on the big/small screen or are just curious what else it’s been in.

[sharps4590]

I remember when we had three channels....sometimes, depending on the weather. B&W was all there was and the picture "tube", ie, screen on our TV was 10 inches....and round. The stations came on at either 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM and started the broadcast day with our National Anthem and a picture of our flag waving in a breeze. They went off the air at midnight and you had to watch the little white dot until it went out when you turned off the set. Then you had a test pattern until the morning began again.

You felt like your family had arrived when you could afford the "console" as not only a piece of furniture but with built in TV, AM/FM radio and a stereophonic record player with storage for your LP's on one end....all under a convenient lid.
Later models included an 8 track tape player.

[richhodg66]

I don't watch on Amazon, but a sight called IMDB has break downs of synopsis, history, cast with bios and work history, etc., of every TV show and movie ever made.

James best was a good actor and a good guy. He was in three of the better episodes of Twilight Zone, and you see him turn up in quite afew movies. Never really a star, but had a long and steady acting career. He was also a WWII vet.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0078940/

[richhodg66]

I don't watch on Amazon, but a sight called IMDB has break downs of synopsis, history, cast with bios and work history, etc., of every TV show and movie ever made.

James best was a good actor and a good guy. He was in three of the better episodes of Twilight Zone, and you see him turn up in quite afew movies. Never really a star, but had a long and steady acting career. He was also a WWII vet.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0078940/

[GhostHawk]

Add to that, once you find an actor you like, are interested in. You can search for that actor via voice or text and see everything else he/she was in that is available.

A while back I rewatched the transporter. The rest of the week was all Jason Strathorne movies.

I have done the same with Sly Stallone, and others.

IMO Amazon fire tv rocks.

[beemer]

James Best passed not long ago. He had retired and lived in the Hickory, Bethlehem area in NC. Several people I know including my step daughter and her husband met him. All said he was a great guy and would take time to chat a few minutes.

[1Papalote]

Watch Gunsmoke and you'll see them all.

[Wheelguns 1961]

Watch Gunsmoke and you'll see them all.

I was watching Wanted: dead or alive yesterday, and Michael Landon was in the episode. He was very young, probably still a teenager. Well before Bonanza.

[richhodg66]

I was watching Wanted: dead or alive yesterday, and Michael Landon was in the episode. He was very young, probably still a teenager. Well before Bonanza.

I have the entire series on DVD, including a special features part. Quite a few future well knowns showed up in it including Mary Tyler Moore as a dance hall girl when she was an unknown.

[alfadan]

Always looking up the gorgeous actresses on the old shows to see what else they've been in.
Often its a "Where have I seen her before?" thing

[sharps4590]

Always looking up the gorgeous actresses on the old shows to see what else they've been in.
Often its a "Where have I seen her before?" thing

Guilty. Often I'll look them up on wiki. It's interesting to learn where they came from and something of their pre motion picture days. I guess most know Gary Cooper was born and MOSTLY raised in Montana. His father was a judge who later moved to California, I think to settle some estate. Coop also did like 3 years of school in England, I think at Eaton, where Churchill went to school. Virginia Mayo was from St. Louis and has a street named for her there. Hedy Lamar and some guy invented some kind of frequency hopping guidance system....and the list is endless.

[Idaho45guy]

Hedy Lamar and some guy invented some kind of frequency hopping guidance system....and the list is endless.

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[alfadan]

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[smilie=l:

[MT Gianni]

Hedy Lamar was a real life genius, born in Hungary who invented technology we use today for triangulation. Slightly blacklisted in Europe for being Jewish and doing a very risque scene in a movie, she traded clothes with a maid to escape out of a house and flee to the US. She has a great bio on Netflix or Prime.

[MT Gianni]

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Mel Brooks had a teen age crush on Hedy Lamar hence the Hedly name used in Blazing Saddles.

[alfadan]

ha, watching Columbo Etude in Black. Has Myrna Loy and Blythe Danner. Love her whispery voice, and she was Evelyn on two and half men.

[Handloader109]

Used to watch car show from BBC Top Gear. The three guys that were on the show had contract dispute and quit about 4 years ago. Jeremy Clarkson was main guy on show. He had gotten into a physical altercation with one of the producers. At any rate, Amazon added a new show for the three of them. And its pretty good, but Jeremy had bought a large farm in the UK and decided to start farming it himself when the farm manager retired. If you ever had an interest in farming, it's a fun watch that actually gives the viewer an inside eye in the true difficulty in farming. Jeremy is a dunce, but his accountant, who has extremely good knowledge of farming pops in about every other episode with good and usually bad news.... Way better watch than the car show.

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[waksupi]

I found "Shout at the Devil" last night. I thought I had seen it before, but nope! Excellent Lee Marvin movie.

[mtnman31]

Amazon Prime has TONS of documentaries available. There's lots of military history documentaries and also many of the Ian McCallum "Forgotten Weapons" episodes.

Don't say it out loud, Jeff Bezos' head might explode if he realized his Prime network had content available that contained firearms...

[sharps4590]

Hedy Lamar was a genius...in addition to being one of the most beautiful women ever to grace Hollywood. The resemblance of her and Vivian Leigh is remarkable.

Everything I ever read about Hedy has her born in Vienna, Austria unless it was all wrong....which is possible. Austria, Hungary and much of the Balkans was part of the Austro/Hungarian empire ruled by the Hapsburgs....but I never, ever heard Vienna referred to as being Hungarian.

Ecstasy was the film in Germany where she was filmed nude, supposedly with a long distance lens.....

[Bmi48219]

I view the The History Guy podcasts (if that’s what they’re called) every week. Really interesting topics.
Amazon occasionally but hard to reconcile with their business model.

[Idaho45guy]

Used to watch car show from BBC Top Gear. The three guys that were on the show had contract dispute and quit about 4 years ago. Jeremy Clarkson was main guy on show. He had gotten into a physical altercation with one of the producers. At any rate, Amazon added a new show for the three of them. And its pretty good, but Jeremy had bought a large farm in the UK and decided to start farming it himself when the farm manager retired. If you ever had an interest in farming, it's a fun watch that actually gives the viewer an inside eye in the true difficulty in farming. Jeremy is a dunce, but his accountant, who has extremely good knowledge of farming pops in about every other episode with good and usually bad news.... Way better watch than the car show.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Used to love the Top Gear guys, then watched their Grand Tour show on Amazon, and they seemed to get more anti-American in their comments. Watched Clarkson's Farm and it was hilarious. Then, the latest episode of The Grand Tour came out last week in which they took 3 beautiful 70's American classic land yachts, and proceeded to lampoon America and and abuse and destroy the cars. Made me sick to my stomach. They can toss off as far as I'm concerned, now.

[John Wayne]

Speaking of triangulation. I met the chief engineer who was in charge of tracking down and capturing Tokyo Rose. He was old then and I can't remember his name as it was 30 years ago. My crew was working on the house next door to his in Sandy Springs Georgia and he ask me if we could clean his gutters. He took me into his radio room and showed me his inventions, medals and government recognition of that achievement. I personally cleaned his gutters every year for free until he passed away. I was very lucky to have met him.

[samari46]

Haven't even thought about "shout at the devil" in years. Lately with so much junk and re-runs on the boob tube, have dug into our stash of old tapes and dvds to find something to watch. My wife is an avid fan of Prime TV lately. Sadly her choice in movies is about par for the course, usually dismal. Mine isn't much better. Frank

[GhostHawk]

Last year the wife and I dove into "Burn Notice" which we had not watched the first time around.

Now, compared to the crap our stations are making make Burn Notice look like solid gold. No uneccesary sex. Some violence, mostly fast moving good stories.
We watched one every night worked our way through the entire series. And were sad to see it end.

Right now the line up is "In Plain Sight" a couple of witness program inspectors dealing with problems.

911 and 911 lone star, both good entertainment. The Rookie, Station 19, just finished the last of Almost Paradise.

Overall British TV is WAY better than American made IMO.

2 years ago we dropped cable from over 110$ a month to 40, basic 35$ cable plus a DVR.

Half the savings goes into channels for Amazon Fire TV. Netflix (currently on hold for 6 months) Hulu We watch it for 4-6 months then put it on vacation while they get new stuff. HBO, we'll run it for a while then dump it. Same for Stars. 2 years ago Disney had a deal where you could join for a year for 60$. At the end of the year the price went up, we'd seen all we wanted to see so dropped it. And we are still money way ahead of where we were with cable, with a much wider variety.

The best thing I did was switch from the little Fire Stick to a bigger box that has a Lan port. Ran a cable up to it from the network. No more streaming BS.
Shows load almost instantly.

The only downside of Amazon Fire TV is you do need a good internet connection to make it work.