[PenultimateManStanding]

My friend the Mexican Cook and I both watched I Dream Of Genie when we were kids. He watched it down in Old Mexico and I watched it as a suburban kid in San Diego. We both agree that Barbara Eden was hot. He was pissed off at Larry Hagman's character because he didn't love her and alway seemed irritated at her. She was pretty, sexy, charming, called him "Master", and could perform magic for him and all he could do was act embarrassed. What was his problem, anyway? Now I always liked Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha on Bewitched which had a similar theme. Since then I have enjoyed other TV entertainments. When I was in College I always tried to watch James Garner in The Rockford Files. I've liked James Garner ever since seeing him in the movie The Great Escape. He had qualities that I admired. Then there was Dallas which I used to watch every Friday night. Then came Moonlighting, a truly witty show that launched Bruce Willis' career. After that it was Northern Exposure. Janine Turner was the most beautiful woman I ever saw on TV. The quirky humor and creativity of that show was entrancing. Then for a while I got into X-Files. Good show while it lasted. The Simpsons are cool. But I don't have a TV anymore and don't know if anything good is happening now. TV is dead, Long Live TV.

[emersonbiggins]

Seinfeld is my tops for sitcoms, with The Simpsons being a close second. Chappelle's Show was amazing while it lasted.

[lotrfan55345]

The Adventures of Pete&Pete!

[PenultimateManStanding]

I must be one of a small minority of Americans who actually saw the one and only Network show to be canned in a storm of protest after one single showing, the Tim Conway show, "Turn On" which aired around '69 or '70. It was a spin off on Laugh In with Rowan and Martin. Lewd and corny. America wasn't ready for it.

[PrairieMule]

When I was still wearing short pants, I was highly terrified yet drawn to Space:1999. The monsters scared the crap out of me.

[holmes]

this is cool.
We did have a 1970 bw big monster tv that my dad tied to the ceiling so us kids could not watch the boob tube.
But when i went to my grandmas house friday night was love boat and fantasy island or was that saturday? Anyway the following night was dallas and falcon crest?
I loved those shows.
Then on one night I was allowed to watch starskey and hutch and another the 6 million dollar man at home. The show SWAT I was allowed to watch once and awhile too.
I remember how exited i was when those shows came on. I played out so much stuff in my head before hand.
how simple and pure things were it seemd back then. Times ahve changed so quickly.

[Zardoz]

Unquestionably the greatest American television series you've never heard of:

East Side/West Side

The great George C. Scott's only TV series, it was so far ahead of it's time the nation couldn't handle it. I didn't miss an episode. Every show was a tough, gritty, realistic masterpiece.

Museum of Broadcast Communications

"Writers grappled with issues such as poverty, prejudice, drug addiction, abortion, and capital punishment, which do not lend themselves to tidy resolutions. Although the loose ends of a plot might be tied together by story's end, the world was not necessarily depicted as a better place at the conclusion of an episode."

It was phenomenally great. American TV at it's very finest.

[strider3700]

I grew up watching dukes of hazards in rerun. Daisy Duke got me permanently hooked on short shorts. Then it was on to air wolf, mcguyver, A-team... MASH reruns I think, where great. I didn't really like seinfeld. Of course after school you'd get things like saved by the bell(kelly was so hot), Mr belvedere, full house. I slowly started watching less tv in highschool though, ER back when it was good, star trek, not a lot else regularly X files when it started, and then at university, Buffy the vampire slayer, and angel. The last show I saw that I really liked was Firefly. Good enough to be cancelled in one season and I don't watch much other then news or shows like Holmes on homes and the other renovating shows.

What I really miss and wish they would make another season is James Burke Connections, The day the universe changes and Connections II. I have them all on my PC and they are still excellent. Everyone should watch the first episode of Connections after having peak oil explained. It's a doomer warning made almost 30 years ago. It scared the crap out of me when I last saw it and realized that things had only got worse since he made it.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', ' ')
What I really miss and wish they would make another season is James Burke Connections

[oowolf]

Indiana in the early '50s: Smilin Ed with Froggie and his "magic twanger"--the sudden appearance of Froggie made me squeal with delight--I can still remember it, Winky Dink-an "interactive" show where you had to draw on a plastic sheet plastered over the screen, 2 Ton Baker who sang a song that went "I'm a little weenie lookin' for a bun...", Supermanic Pinky Lee and of course the great Soupy Sales--anyone remember Pookie the Lion or White Fang--who you never saw anything of but a paw? I think it was Lee who collapsed live on the air during a show...

This was back when tv's had, like 9" round screens.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', ' ')the great Soupy Sales--anyone remember .

[Aaron]

U give good thread Penn...

GunSmoke
Star Trek
That's Incredible!
Tony Orlando & Dawn
Dark Shadows
Monte Pythons Flying Circus (I know... not American)
Land of the Giants
lost in Space
Family Affair
The Flying Nun
Bonanza

[Aaron]

Oh yeah...

The Wild Wild West
Fantasy Island

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'U') give good thread Penn...
GunSmoke
Star Trek
Bonanza

[PenultimateManStanding]

Ha Ha! The Wild Wild West! Damn I loved that show. I positively looked forward to it. There is no question about it, we have all loved TV. Get Smart used to crack me up with the shoe phone thing. Anybody see that show about the guy traped on an island where if he tried to escape he would be engulfed by a big white bubble? Emma Peel, anyone? "This Message will self-destruct".

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'U') give good thread Penn...

[Atlantean_Relic]

So this is the Nick at Night thread.

[worrier]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nybody see that show about the guy traped on an island where if he tried to escape he would be engulfed by a big white bubble?

[perdition79]

Red Dwarf, Mr. Show, The X-Files, and maybe the Thundercats were my favorite shows at one time or another. I don't think there's much worth watching now except for CNBC and Bloomberg.

[PenultimateManStanding]

BTW, sometimes you can find the most profound clues right under your nose. Nickleodeon still shows those perennial favorites I Dream Of Genie and Bewitched or they did untill recently. Those simple, silly shows showed a deeply profound shift in culture taking place. If you go back to the 50s you see a Male world, a Patriarchic social order. Then it was "Father Knows Best", now it's "Father is a Dunce". How did that happen? I wouldn't pretend to know the full of it, but those two old 60s comedies were cutting edge at the time in portraying magic women. The very obsequious attitudes of Genie and Samantha was a cover for the real message which was that the woman had the magic and the man was a dolt. I've always wondered how much TV was a mirror of society and how much it has shaped society. There are McCluhanesque theories that the decline of literacy and hence intellectual attainment is directly the result of television. The messages appealing to women by subtle flattery which those old show represented were probably a result of and part of the consumer society being driven by women's purchasing power.