American Playhouse

Jan 12, 1982

John Cheever's comedy of a supposedly kidnapped 5-year-old boy. At first the police aren't interested until a ransom note is discovered. Then the town goes into action to support the finding of Toby.

Jan 19, 1982

Jan 26, 1982

Feb 2, 1982

From a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. Christopher Walken is a shy hardware store employee. But whenever he takes a part in a local amateur theater production, he becomes the part completely--while on screen. Susan Sarandon is new in town, a lonely itenerant telephone company employee. On a whim, she auditions for and gets the part of Stella to Walken's Stanley when the theater group does A Streetcar Named Desire. Before anyone realizes the problem, she falls deeply in love with the sexy brute, not knowing what the real man is like.

Feb 9, 1982

Feb 16, 1982

Mabel Lederer is a recently widowed woman who sells all her belongings and leaves her home to start a new life. Mabel believes she has powers to see into the future and to conduct seances. She changes her name to 'Angela Motorman' and moves into a boarding house where she interacts with the strange residents.

Feb 23, 1982

Mar 2, 1982

Mar 9, 1982

Mar 16, 1982

The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters is a 1982 comedy drama TV movie written by Jean Shepherd and directed by Richard Bartlett.

Mar 23, 1982

Mar 30, 1982

Apr 6, 1982

Apr 13, 1982

Apr 20, 1982

Weekend is a TV episode of American Playhouse directed by Paul Bogart.

Apr 27, 1982

May 4, 1982

May 11, 1982

May 18, 1982

May 25, 1982

Jun 1, 1982

Jun 8, 1982

Jun 15, 1982

Jun 22, 1982

Jun 29, 1982

Jan 18, 1983

The Skin of Our Teeth is the 1983 biographical drama TV episode of American Playhouse TV Series.

Jan 25, 1983

A young Depression-era reporter is assigned to write his newspaper's advice column on the insistence of his mocking editor. Unhappy in the demeaning assignment, he begins to take an interest in one of the readers sending letters.

Feb 1, 1983

Feb 8, 1983

Feb 15, 1983

Part 1 of 3: The story deals with the marriage of a black American soldier and a white British woman. Spanning four decades and two decades with drama also introduces their rebellious daughter, Jill, who eventually becomes civil rights activist. Beginning in the war-torn England of the 1940 where the couple meet and fall in love.

Feb 22, 1983

Mar 1, 1983

Mar 22, 1983

Mar 29, 1983

Apr 5, 1983

Apr 26, 1983

May 3, 1983

Jan 17, 1984

Jan 24, 1984

Jan 31, 1984

A videotaped stage performance of Sam Shepard's play

Feb 7, 1984

Feb 14, 1984

Two young urban professionals, each with their own neuroses, make the fatal mistake one day of meeting by chance at an automatic bank teller machine and making a date for the movies.

Feb 21, 1984

Feb 28, 1984

Mar 6, 1984

Mar 20, 1984

Apr 10, 1984

Apr 17, 1984

Apr 24, 1984

City News is an independent, American comedy film, written and directed by David Fishelson and Zoe Zinman in New York City in 1983, which was nationally broadcast on PBS in 1984, exhibited theatrically in the U.S. and Canada in 1983, and selected for 12 international film festivals in 1983-4.

May 1, 1984

May 7, 1984

May 8, 1984

May 9, 1984

May 9, 1984

Nov 26, 1984

Dec 3, 1984

Dec 10, 1984

Solomon Northup's Odyssey, reissued as Half Slave, Half Free, is a 1984 American television film based on the autobiography Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film, which aired on PBS, was directed by Gordon Parks with Avery Brooks starring as the titular character. It was the second film to be funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, following Denmark Vesey's Rebellion in 1982. Parks returned to direct the film after years of absence. He chose to work in the Deep South and to collaborate with a crew of mixed races. The film first aired on PBS on December 10, 1984 and as part of PBS's American Playhouse anthology television series in the following year. It was released on video under the title Half Slave, Half Free.

Dec 17, 1984

Jan 14, 1985

Jan 21, 1985

Jan 28, 1985

The Joy that Kills is a 1984 television film adaptation of Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour." It was directed by Tina Rathborne and co-written by Rathbone and Nancy Dyer. It was released in 1984 as a part of the PBS series American Playhouse.

Feb 4, 1985

Computer programmer Aram Fingal's virtual vacation in the classic film Casablanca is removed by a totalitarian government and accidentally trapped in the virtual reality simulation. He must find a way out before he expires.

Feb 11, 1985

Feb 18, 1985

Feb 25, 1985

Mar 11, 1985

Apr 15, 1985

Apr 25, 1985

F. Scott Fitzgerald's comedy of a stylish young flapper (Sean Young) who chooses a husband (Lenny Von Dohlen), but finds she can't compete with his family.

May 6, 1985

May 15, 1985

May 20, 1985

May 27, 1985

Jun 3, 1985

Jun 10, 1985

Jun 15, 1985

Jun 24, 1985

Jan 20, 1986

Jan 27, 1986

Feb 3, 1986

Feb 10, 1986

Feb 17, 1986

Feb 24, 1986

Mar 3, 1986

Mar 17, 1986

Apr 7, 1986

Apr 14, 1986

Apr 21, 1986

Apr 28, 1986

May 5, 1986

In 1938 New York, a dentist finds his business failing and his marriage on the rocks. He is a hen-pecked husband with little drive left for success. That is, until he starts getting involved with his lively assistant, a free spirit with a penchant for tall tales and a hidden loneliness.

May 12, 1986

May 19, 1986

May 26, 1986

Jun 2, 1986

Jun 9, 1986

Jun 16, 1986

Jan 19, 1987

Jan 26, 1987

Feb 2, 1987

Feb 9, 1987

Feb 16, 1987

Mar 2, 1987

Mar 9, 1987

Apr 6, 1987

Apr 13, 1987

Apr 13, 1987

May 4, 1987

May 11, 1987

Charley Wyckham and Jack Chesney pressure fellow student Fancourt Babberly to pose as Charley's Brazilian Aunt Donna Lucia. Their purpose is to have a chaperone for their amorous visits with Amy and Kitty, niece and ward of crusty Stephen Spettigue. Complications begin when Fancourt, in drag, becomes the desire of old Spettigue and Sir Francis Chesney.

May 18, 1987

May 25, 1987

Zoo attendant Artie Shaughnessy dreams of being a successful songwriter. What his mistress, Bunny Flingus, who lives downstairs from his Queens apartment won't tell him -- and what his insane wife, Bananas, tries to get through to him -- is that Artie's songs stink. On Oct. 4, 1965, the day Pope Paul visits New York City, Bunny convinces Artie to call his old school buddy Billy Einhorn, a famous film director from Los Angeles, to finagle a job writing music for Billy's movies. (After all, Bunny feels that with the Pope here, there must be "miracles in the air.") But ...

Jun 1, 1987

In an affluent area of downtown New York City, a Sunday evening dinner party is taking place. Hosted by Libby, an insecure thirty-something widow who lost her husband in an unfortunate accident, her guest of honor is downstairs neighbor Alice, a successful novelist, and Alice's lesbian lover, Boo, a family therapist. The other guests are Griever, Libby's best friend from group therapy; Norbert, Libby's gentle skydiving instructor; Tom, an old high-school boyfriend of Libby's now working as a jazz musician and composer, and Emily, Tom's current live-in girlfriend.

Jun 8, 1987

Jun 15, 1987

Fictionalized portrait of one of history's great literary couples: Stein & Toklas. Summer 1930s France, Alice tends to ailing Gertrude; they visit Fernande Olivier, Guillaume Apollinaire, others; and Hemingway pops in.

Jan 13, 1988

Jan 19, 1988

Jan 20, 1988

Feb 3, 1988

Feb 10, 1988

Feb 17, 1988

Feb 17, 1988

Feb 24, 1988

Mar 23, 1988

Apr 6, 1988

Apr 13, 1988

May 11, 1988

Jun 1, 1988

Jun 15, 1988

Jun 29, 1988

Jul 27, 1988

Feb 1, 1989

Feb 8, 1989

Feb 15, 1989

Feb 22, 1989

Mar 1, 1989

Mar 15, 1989

Mar 22, 1989

Apr 5, 1989

Apr 12, 1989

Apr 15, 1989

Apr 26, 1989

May 3, 1989

May 10, 1989

May 17, 1989

May 24, 1989

May 31, 1989

Jun 7, 1989

Jun 14, 1989

Jun 21, 1989

Nov 30, 1989

Jan 24, 1990

Jan 31, 1990

Feb 7, 1990

Feb 14, 1990

Feb 21, 1990

Mar 7, 1990

Mar 21, 1990

Mar 28, 1990

Apr 11, 1990

Apr 25, 1990

May 2, 1990

May 9, 1990

May 16, 1990

May 23, 1990

Jun 6, 1990

Jun 13, 1990

Jun 27, 1990

Jul 6, 1990

Mar 15, 1991

Mar 22, 1991

Mar 29, 1991

Apr 5, 1991

Apr 26, 1991

May 3, 1991

May 15, 1991

May 21, 1991

May 22, 1991

May 31, 1991

Jun 7, 1991

Jun 14, 1991

A lonely German-American boy, whose bigoted parents want him to constantly work in their bakery, finds solace in a close-knit, musically-gifted Jewish-American family in the apartment across from his.

Jun 28, 1991

Jul 26, 1991

Sep 29, 1991

Dec 4, 1991

Jan 22, 1992

Feb 26, 1992

Mar 25, 1992

May 20, 1992

Jul 22, 1992

Oct 19, 1992

Nov 11, 1992

Nov 18, 1992

Nov 23, 1992

Nov 30, 1992

Jan 20, 1993

Apr 28, 1993

Jun 11, 1993

Jun 16, 1993

Oct 6, 1993

Nov 29, 1993

Dec 22, 1993

Jan 10, 1994

Apr 4, 1994

May 2, 1994

Aug 26, 1994

Nov 16, 1994

Nov 30, 1994

Jan 2, 1995

Jul 19, 1995

Oct 30, 1995

Aug 11, 1996

Sep 29, 1996