What TV shows did you really enjoy as a youth but when you watched them again as an adult, they were not as funny or scary or interesting when you watched them again as an adult?
I’ll start:
I Dream Of Jeannie (Yeah I admit it; I only watched because of a crush on Barbara Eden)
Welcome Back Kotter (It was the 70s)
Here’s Lucy (The Lucy Show was much better)
Any others?
Night Court
The Dukes of Hazzard - awesome show when I was 6. I caught a couple of episodes years later and, oh boy, I am surprised even little kids fell for that crap.
I found Hercules: The Legendary Journeys to be an action-packed thrill ride when I was a teenager. They started rerunning it on the Hub last week and I couldn’t believe how incredibly campy it was and how poorly the special effects had aged. It’s still fun, mind you, but I can’t take it anywhere near as seriously as I did as a 12-year-old Greek mythology buff.
Moonlighting. It just didn’t seem the same when I watched it 20 years later.
Macgyver! A couple years ago my husband got a bug and rewatched the whole run. We were both amazed at how sexist it was: probably 85% of the episodes seemed to be this plot: dumb bitch doesn’t listen because she thinks she knows best, fucks everything up, Macgyver has to fix it. Oddly enough, he followed that up with the complete A-Team and it wasn’t nearly as bad. I mean, it was 30 years ago, so some attitudes were different than today, but “those stupid women” didn’t seem to be the go-to plot development.
Watched a few shows on the retro digital channel one of our local stations has. Mostly disappointing.
Noticed a lot of things that I didn’t care about as a kid.
The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet: Some really bad acting, especially by Harriet. Poor plot, etc. The discrepancy between the canned laughter and what was being said was maximal.
The Cisco Kid. Abysmal production values. Really poor writing. Painful to watch. Kids upload higher quality stuff to YouTube thousands of times a day now. I had remembered it as one of the better westerns of the era. My memory was wrong. “Hey Cisco, wait for me!” will never have the same ring.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Only a mild letdown. Not quite as funny, but still okay to watch.
I am tempted to watch an episode of Love That Bob (as I remember the show title), but I don’t want to have that ruined, too.
I wouldn’t say *ruined *but I watched *Batman *starring Adam West when I was 8 and thrilled to the amazing adventures of Batman and Robin.
I watched it again as an adult and was surprised to find that it was an intentional comedy.
I haven’t seen Land Of The Giants in 40 plus years but I would guess it isn’t the thrill ride I remember…
they always seemed to be wrestling with that giant (dial, desk) phone…
Pretty much all of them. I mean, that’s part of maturing.
Have Gun, Will Travel
Lost in Space
Batman
Wild Wild West
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in, Adam 12
Dark Shadows. It’s just a completely different thing than I remembered. I suspect that Evil Captor has it pegged.
Emergency!
No medical staff washing their hands between patient contact. No seatbelts in the ambulance.
Actually, you should check it out. I watched some of it about ten years ago and it holds up quite well, and the effects for their time are remarkably convincing. Land of the Lost, on the other hand, should be avoided.
Most iconic 80s sitcoms don’t age well, like Happy Days, Family Ties, etc. And I shudder to think how The Love Boat or CHiPs look these days. (I don’t have Cable, so presumably some of those shows are perennials still in the US and you get used to their outdated schmaltz). But I still like MASH, and Hogan’s Heroes. Somehow their period setting transcends datedness.
I’m kind of curious about watching Benson again one day.
I’ll second Dukes Of Hazzard, and add Speed Racer.
When MTV showed Speed some years ago, I was stunned by how incredibly stupid it was. It was much better in 1974…
I think that was all just standard practice in the 70s. I’ll bet the ambulances weren’t even equipped with seat belts.
(if a thread gets started on the opposite premise of this one, I’m posting in with praise for I Claudius)
*The Red Skelton Show. * As a kid I lived for Thursday nights. Went to look at some tapes a few years back at the Museum of Broadcasting and, well, either the times or my tastes had changed.