Five-O Usenet discussion group

In the 1990s there was a lively discussion about Classic H50 in the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.hawaii-five-o. This group was a discussion forum, and Usenet was sort of like the original "social media." For more information about what it was and is today, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet

These days, not many people post on Usenet. The groups got overrun with nonsense postings, tons of spam and large files. Most internet providers who used to carry Usenet groups stopped doing this years ago. These days, if you want access to Usenet, you have to subscribe to a special service. The one I use has some postings in the H50 newsgroup which only go back to July of 2003.

Fortunately, Usenet postings were archived by a company called DejaNews, starting in 1995, which was taken over by Google in 2001. These postings are now available in Google Groups (groups.google.com). The link below will take you to postings from when the H50 group started around 1994 to the end of 1998. There are over 9,000 postings in total!

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan....e%3A1999-01-01

If you are unable to see anything via this link, you may have to log in to Google or create an account there.

There are a lot of great discussion threads in the H5O newsgroup….it’s like a time machine for me, as I was posting in there 25 years ago when I was but a wee lad. Threads about specific episodes and Mike’s original reviews, butchered airings on WGN and Family Channel, Columbia House VHS releases of classic episodes, local station airings around the country, cast questions, the 1997 pilot, a silly debate over whether Jack Lord wore a hairpiece (he didn’t), and much much more! Definitely worth checking out, you can get lost in the threads for hours!

To keep it manageable, Google has a filter function if you want to look for certain keywords, date ranges, posters, etc.

If you go up to the URL at the top of the page (the https:// stuff) and change the part at the end which starts with "q=" to

q=after%3A1996-01-01 before%3A1996-12-31

Then you will only see postings from the year 1996. Prior to this, I could only find a couple of postings, one of which was about me complaining that my internet provider didn't carry the group. Maybe Todd knows if there were other postings before December 31, 1995?

In 1996 there were 2411 postings, which works out to an average of over 6 per day!

The postings are in reverse order, from December 1996 to January 1996 (and with other dates too). I don't know if there is a way to display them the other way.

This newsgroup had an ongoing discussion started by a woman named "Judith" who was obsessed with the idea that Jack Lord wore a hairpiece. Some people were wondering if she was a real person!

In a posting made on Feb 3, 1998, I wrote the following:

On Mon, 02 Feb 1998 05:26:42 GMT, boo...@uniserve.com (B.Merkley) wrote:

>Nope...this dizzy old biddy is apparently real...she trolls in a
>couple of other groups as well...one of them being a nutrition group,
>where she is derided regularly for her inconmpetence and general lack
>of knowledge. I normally just delete anything that has her name on
>it...

Someone in alt.support.diet did a "turgid analysis" on her posting habits.
This is required reading:

>Subject: Judith in a nutshell
>From: Laurie <lau...@seanet.com>
>Date: 1998/01/21
>Message-ID: <34C6689E...@seanet.com>
>Newsgroups: alt.support.diet
>[More Headers]
>
>Pun intended.
>
>I had some free time and did some investigating, both in Dejanews and in
>some other places. Judith has an agenda and has used it many times. I
>will relate a few:
>
>1. She "celebrated" (her words) M L King Day in an Elvis NG by telling
>them that Elvis had made racist remarks in his day and she wanted a
>discussion about it. To attack the subject of a newsgroup is her first
>step in the door that she uses over and over.
>
>2. She told the Elvis NG that she thought Donald Trump and Elvis looked
>like twins and was probably not surprised, au contrair, she was probably
>happy, when more than one person told her to have her eyes examined.
>
>3. She busted into a Star Trek group with the sole purpose of getting
>people to make fun of the shattering "fact" that the star of that
>program committed the ultimate crime of wearing a hairpiece or plugs or
>whatever and wouldn't back down until they bowed to her. They didn't.
>
>4. She busted into the Hawaii 5-0 NG with the sole purpose of getting
>people to admit that the star of the program wore a hairpiece and that
>must prove that he and any star who did had a deadly ego disease. They
>told her to get lost. They called her a troll, as did other groups.
>
>There are more, but I think you see the trend here. She busts into a
>group, finds its weakness (our competitive nature regarding Atkins vs.
>low fat) and tries to cause us to start yelling at her and, in her
>hopes, at each other.
>
>She claims to have connections to the hair replacement industry, hence
>her easy focus on one's hair, plus her claim to be involved in the film
>industry, hence her fixation on Hollywood. If she saw dissention here
>with Hollywood people (e.g., Oprah's diet), she saw her opening. Her
>presence here is logical, considering her history.