• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 15, 2007

TV is in retro mode these days, seemingly drawing premises from 1950s-style TV.

There is a talent show, “American Idol”; a ballroom dance show, “Dancing with the Stars”; and now a bingo show. ABC will be airing “National Bingo Night” during the May sweeps.

This isn’t just 1950s TV stuff. This is 1950s community-center, neighborhood-church material. What’s next? How about a program that shows precocious 10-year-olds and 11-year-olds who are smarter than adults? (Yes, I am smarter than a 5^th grader.)

The old yarn is, there are few new ideas in television -- just new executions. “Bingo” will allow viewers to play along on their home computers.

And speaking of retro -- what would show off the 1950s better than a good old-fashioned firing of TV talent for a good old-fashioned reason:  sleeping on the job. WABC’s Steve Bartelstein was fired after snoozing through a newsbreak.

It doesn’t appear that the action was taken for problems with drugs, a violent crime, or sexual harassment (though there seemed to be a lawsuit that was dropped previously).

It gets better. Bartelstein missed another newscast because he allegedly wanted to meet Samuel L. Jackson, who was visiting the ABC network show, “The View” which was taping nearby.  That’s only a 1950s-style crime of celebrity drooling.

Bartelstein hosts an early-morning news show on ABC, and no doubt his internal clock is always being messed around with. Bartelstein should call Matt Lauer, Howard Stern, or Diane Sawyer for early morning wake-up advice.

TV in retro-land has never really left.  Now all we need is a comedy about a zany housewife married to a crazy Cuban orchestra leader, and some Congressional hearings to blackball people of different political leanings.

But until then we have another TV news anchor, in Philadelphia, who feels dumb and disoriented because she gets sleep-deprived. She said she felt like a “retard” -- a word that brought community outrage. 

"I did say it and I feel terrible about it. It's not a word I would ever use in relation to someone with a mental disability or brain injury. It was meant as a self-deprecating remark," Fox’s Dawn Stensland told the Philadelphia Daily News.

The good news is that there is some 1950s TV-style remorse as well.