Meme Lemming: 30 Days of TV - 13

[partly]

Day 13 - Favorite childhood show

If we're going childhood -- as in shows I saw first when I was younger thank 12 that rules out all my favorite 80's shows, because I was 15 in 1980. Just datin' myself there. I also have to point out that in my household there was no watching TV alone. Television watching was a family thing. There was no TV's in our room and no cable. We were lucky to have three channels and they signed off at midnight. Ah. Nostalgia.

Off the top of my head I'm going to pick two shows: WKRP in Cincinnati and The Muppet Show. These are two shows from the 70s that I remember with great fondness and have purchased DVDs for. I think it's rather odd that I, who don't really care for sitcoms now, choose those two as my favorite. But they are the shows that popped into my mind when I thought of favorite shows. And they hold up really well on reviewing now too. Which can't be said for a lot of 70's shows.

Because was curious I did a search of 70's shows and am going to cut and paste all those I remember watching. Just because.



Adam 12 - "1-Adam 12, 1-Adam 12, see the man about…"
Alice – "Kiss My Grits!"
All in the Family - This show wasn't my favorite, and it lost favor with my family before the end of it's run, too. But I remember watching some of the eps. I wouldn't watch it again.
Barney Miller - I loved Barney Miller. Wojo (Wojciehowicz) was my favorite, but I credit this show for making me fall in love with Ron Glass, probably why I loved him so much in Firefly.
Benson Benson was great.
Bob Newhart Show - Awesome show.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - I remember the episode where they find a recording that seems to prove the Buck was a traitor
Carol Burnett Show - One of the best things about this show was how the actors kept trying to crack each other up live, on-air. You could see Harvey Korman and Tim Conway just about dying, but they'd keep working on it.
Charlie's Angels - The first seasons were the best seasons.
Columbo - "Just one more question". I still adore this show.
Emergency! - Any time a show plays the fire tones, I think of this show. I still love it.
Family Affiar - Growing up I had a Mrs. Beasley doll. The only doll I remember with any fondness.
Fantasy Island - "Welcome to Fantasy Island". A show that does not always hold up well.
Get Smart - "Missed it by that much!"
Happy Days - I really loved this show when it was on, not sure I'd rewatch it. Odd, that.
Hart to Hart - Proof a show can survive a happy marriage. Max the butler and Freeway the dog. Gotta love it.
Hawaii Five-0 - I remember the episode with a string of murders where a small amount of money was stolen. It turned out it was this Hillbilly clan that thought it was wrong to steal, but okay to kill someone who wasn't kin. Then you could take their money because they were dead and that meant it wasn't stealling. Very, very creepy. And they almost get away with it, too, except the youngest girl (who is certainly not all there and was probably being abused) takes something with her that gets them caught. I'm pretty sure this was way to intense for a 8-year-old which I was when it first aired, but I don't think it did a lot of reruns. I'd love to watch this show again and look forward to the new one coming out.
Hee Haw - I love old fashioned corny humor and can happily sign "Gloom, despair and agony on me. Deep dark depression, excessive misery. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Gloom, despair and agony on me." Plus I love old country. Can't be helped.
Hogan's Heroes - Still love this show. "I know nothing!"
Incredible Hulk - This show was so very, very sad. It's portrayal of the lonely, sad life of David Banner was wonderful. It wasn't until many years later watching episodes of "The Fugitive" that I realized the show wasn't really about the Incredible Hulk at all, but rather a clever remake of "The Fugitive".
Lawrence Welk Show - I watched this mostly with my grandparents. I suppose I should blame them for making me learn to appreciate all kinds of music.
Little House on the Prairie - Another show that I only watched the early seasons of. I still remember Nellie Olsen as the meanest girl ever.
Love Boat - I loved Gopher. But then, I think everyone did.
Love, American Style - I can sing the theme song. They had a episode where a guy wished that he could live in a musical and kept going into closets to secretly sing about his life. Until he met a gal who did the very same thing! Heh.
MASH - This is one of the few shows that I like better in the later seasons. Which is odd for me, usually.
McCloud and McMillan and Wife - When I was first in college, these shows were on late-night reruns. I couldn't (even now) tell you a plot from one of the shows, but when I watched them late night, I knew I'd seen them before.
Mission: Impossible - Like above, I don't remember watching this when it was on, but when I catch a rerun now, I know what's going to happen.
Mork & Mindy - A show that was completely ruined by the network in it's second season, and I think we stopped watching it around then. The best part of the show was Mork's monologues back to Ork. A precursor to Seinfeld's comedic rants – and done better by Mork, IMO.
My Three Sons and Petticoat Junction - Think that both of these could be considered shows from the '60s, but I remember watching them both. I know that I liked My Three Sons best.
Quincy, M.E. - I liked Quincy until it got all preachy. Every episode in the later seasons had to have a point and the show got boring.
Rockford Files - Classic show. Well written, excellently acted. I wrote a paper about the possible abuses of the grand jury system based on a Rockford Files episode. Although I almost think I watched this show in repeats more than I did when it first aired, although I did watch it when it first aired, too.
Switch - Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert and Sharon Gless? How could this fail? In many ways it was the original "White Collar", but that didn't last long. They changed it to more straight up detective and it bombed.
Taxi - This is a great show. I can't believe that I didn't put it on my favorite list.
Three's Company- I remember nothing of this show, probably because every episode was so much the same that it wasn't memberable.
Walt Disney and Wild Kingdom - these two almost made my favorite list, but they were on on Sundays and I still bare some resentment toward the shows because they heralded the return of school. They were great, though.
Waltons - I have happy memories of the Waltons. They were playing repeats not to long ago and I remembered almost all of them. The episode I remember most is the one where their house burned down and John Boy lost all of his writings. It was very well done, because my first thought was "I'd never write anything again.".

Comments

[aumbry.livejournal.com]

I may have been born in '82 but I remember, fondly, watching half of these shows growing up. Especially M.A.S.H, Quincy, M.E., and Little House on the Prairie. (Though, I have to admit, I was more a Brady Bunch girl than a Little House on the Prairie fan, and I attribute that to my absolute adoration for the housekeeper Alice.) However, practically half this list was among shows that peppered my childhood in reruns.