What’s on TV?

From an old issue of Mad Magazine:

Son to dad: ‘How come I have to learn to read?’
Dad to son: ‘Why son, you have to know how to read. Reading is one of the most important skills you’ll ever have.’ (Holds up a copy of TV Guide) ‘If you can’t read, how will you ever know what’s on TV?’

As is says in my profile, I’m one of those aging baby-boomers. We are the first generation of Americans to grow up with that ubiquitous invention, the television set. TV sets have been known by a host of other names over the years, and some of them are not too kind. Television has been called ‘The Boob Tube’, ‘The Idiot Box’, and, from the mind of Mister Stephen King, ‘The Glass Teat’. This is a variant of ‘The Electronic Baby sitter’, simply because so many housewives of the ‘˜60’s could park us kiddies in front of the television for hours at a time, and there we would sit. Mom could relax, with the knowledge that the kids were transfixed by whatever they were watching. Dads found a lot of comfort in television as well. Shows like ‘Gunsmoke’, and the original ‘Dragnet’ (the 50’s version, when Joe Friday wore a wide-brimmed hat, and almost every scene was hazy from the cigarette smoke) were designed for the all-american dads of the day. Commercials for automobiles, cigarettes, lawnmowers, and other assorted ‘things for dad’ abounded on these shows.

As a youngster, I was fascinated by almost everything I watched. It was the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of television. Almost every program, from news, to game shows, to sports programs, was in black and white. The only two shows that were broadcast in color were ‘Wonderful world of Disney’, and the classic western. ‘Bonanza’. In a brilliant marketing ploy, Bonanza originally aired early Saturday evenings, when Americans were likely to be out shopping for various consumer goods, including TV sets. Color sets, showing Bonanza, were strategically placed in store windows, to show potential buyers what color TV sets were all about.

We at Mymac are a very diverse bunch of people. We all have our favorite television programs from past and the present, and I’ve assembled a list of them. There are some ‘common denominators’ here. For example, everyone seems to like at least one series of the Star Trek franchise, and we all seem to like ‘Lost’, the show that keeps you guessing. So, as they used to say on the old Jackie Gleason show, ‘And Away We Go!’

Owen Rubin:
Babylon 5
Lost in Space
The Time Tunnel
Deal or No Deal
Stargate Atlantis
Monk
Dead Zone
Battlestar Galactica
Boston Legal
Grey’s Anatomy
Torchwood
Doctor Who
Eureka
Journeyman
The Daily Show
South Park

Waiting for LOST to return.’¦..

Old shows Owen liked:

Star Trek – ALL shows.
Airwolf
Adams Family
Alf
Alias
Bewitched
Blake’s 7
Columbo
Dead Like Me
Dick Van Dyke Show
Farscape
Get Smart
The Gong Show (use to love that show!)
Hogan’s Heroes
I Dream of Jeannie
Knight Rider
Leave It to Beaver
Magnum PI
Man From UNCLE
Mission Impossible
Monty Python
Moonlighting
Night Court
Quantum Leap
Seaquest
Search (also called Probe)
Seinfled
Sliders
The Monkeys
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Wild Wild West
Owen likes a lot of TV!

Beth Lock:
Big Love
Little Britian

John Farr:
Deadwood
Mystery (PBS)

Russ Walkowich:
Sky King
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger
Jet Jackson
Rin Tin Tin
Lone Ranger
Outer Limits
Startrek
Ripcord
Whirlybirds.
Stargate SG1

Rich Lefko:
Star Trek, original series.
Twilight Zone
Leave it to Beaver
Get Smart
F Troop
McHale’s Navy
Betwitched
I love Lucy
Voyage to the Bottom of The Sea

David Cohen:
Top Gear
Little Britain
The IT Crowd
Star Stories
Doctor Who
Torchwood
House MD

Larry Grinnell:
Time Tunnel
Outer Limits (the original)
The Fugitive (the original)
Beany and Cecil (help Cecil, help!)
One Step Beyond (hosted by John Newland)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Anything by Tex Avery
The Hanna/Barbera Tom & Jerry’s
The Bob Clampett and Frank Tashlin Looney Tunes
Ed Sullivan
Hootenanny
Fractured Flickers (briefly revived/unearthed by Showtime Network in the early 80s).
At Home With Les Paul and Mary Ford
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In
Pete Smith Specialties

Donny Yankellow:
Knight Rider
The A-Team.
Alf
The Cosby Show
Happy Days
The Greatest American Hero
Growing Pains.
Eureka
Dresdin Files
The Fall Guy
Dukes of Hazzard
Magnum PI
Macgyver
Heros

Carmel Glover:
Cracker
Pie in The Sky
House
Medium
Boston Legal
Criminal Minds
Silent Witness (new series)
New Tricks
Dr Who (current series)
The Midsomer Murders
Fawlty Towers
Yes Minister
The Good Life
To the Manor Born
Hamish MacBeth
As Time Goes By
(The delightful) Ballykissangel
When the Boat Comes In
Bergerac
The Avengers, and The New Avengers (where I first encountered the wonderful Joanna Lumley)
Dr Who (Tom Baker series)
Sea Change (Australian)
Seinfeld
Mash
Rush (Australian)
Sesame Street I loved watching it with my son
Playschool (Australian) ditto

Richard Lefko:
The Invaders
The Man From Uncle
Sea Hunt
The Prisoner

Roger Born:
all five trek series
Stargate
Babylon 5
Firefly
Farscape – 4 years
Andromeda – 2 years
Battlestar Galactica – 2 years – plus 1 movie
Hercules and Xena – 5 years
The X-Files.

Tim Robertson:
Boston Legal
Heros
Jericho
24
Lost
Holmes on Homes
Dirty Jobs
Rescue Me
Entourage

Bruce Black:
Star Trek, likes the original series best.
The Outer Limits. (original, black and white series) One of the best television series ever.

Twilight Zone. “It’s a COOKBOOK!”

Thriller. From the early 60’s, hosted by Boris Karloff. They would never let this on network broadcast today. Some episodes were released in the early 90’s on VHS. If anyone has any knowledge of DVD releases, drop me a line here.

Creature Double Feature. This helped on many a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon.
Lost in Space. (First season only. Ignore seasons two and three.)
Xena. Any time she mixed it up with Callisto,, well, talk about the poop hitting the fan,,

Cops. A good look into ‘the savage heart of America’.
Ripcord, Whirlybirds, Sky King, Highway Patrol. All from my youth.
High Chaparral. The best western series ever made, period.

The Virginian. I believe the only weekly western that ran 90 minutes per episode.

Millennium. If I could only pick one favorite program, this would be it. I’m surprised they got away with some of the material that was shown. Lance Henricksen rocks.

The Prisoner.
Lost
24
Prison Break.
The X-Files.
Harsh Realm. I’ve never seen a series with so much promise get cancelled so quickly. I think Chris Carter is still smarting over that one. I would be.
Route 66.

And this about sums it up. Not a complete list of everything everyone likes. Such a list would be impossible. But, as you can see, we’re a pretty diverse group. Like the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC says, ‘Infinite diversity, in infinite combinations’. Hey, maybe I’ll walk around Cambridge, MA, saying that.

What are YOU watching tonight?