Retro Friday: Our Televised Future, Circa 1992

It's always fascinating to watch these news stories from 20 years (or more) ago, predicting our telecommunications future. Some things they get sorta right (check out the primitive DVR usage) while others, not so much (not a single mention of the coming Internet?). This CBS News piece from 1992 takes us back to a time when paying bills on a TV screen seemed exotic and VCRs repped the only control you really had in TV viewing.

The report centers on trials for a new TV device being tested in Cerritos. It all seems so primitive now.

Also: Check out the young, pre-VP Al Gore. And watch a National Cable TV Assn. exec predict the death of newspapers -- but blame it on the telcos. (Again, the idea of the Internet is not yet in anyone's mind.)

Some things, though, don't change: Our hatred for the cable companies and their price gouging. Watch above.

Retro Friday: Johnny Carson

Dan Rather is back in the spotlight, having just hit former employer CBS with a megabucks lawsuit. Rather argues that his departure from the network represented a breach of contract.

In 1981, the transition between Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather went much smoother -- even though behind the scenes Cronkite was fuming over the loss of his chair.

Here's a classic clip of Johnny Carson, doing a pretty good Cronkite impression as he re-enacts how the newsman's final night on the "CBS Evening News" shoulda gone. If anything, it's a reminder of how great Carson was, and why, even after his passing, he's still the late night gold standard.