HBO’s Larry Sanders Show is still hysterically funny and is about the same age as Seinfeld, which has also held up extremely well. Most of the older comedy stuff is very dated, e.g., MASH is unwatchable for me, but some of the old westerns, such as Gunsmoke, still work.
A '70s show set in the '40s illustrates the sexism of the '60s?
Why are you surprised how funny ‘Golden Girls’ still is? 
That’s what it IS - funny, no politics, no hidden meanings. That’s why you can find it on cable TV practically 24 hours a day, and a good thing, too - there should be SOMETHING worth watching. (the wardrobe is really dated though).
The original series of “Star Trek” obviously looks dated, but nowadays I find those episodes much more watchable than the “Next Generation.”
Despite the obvious flaws (woeful FX, female space explorers traipsing around in min-skirts & beehives, space hippies, that computer voice) the original series ep.'s still have a fun, B-movie quality to them. They look ridiculously implausible, but they’re fun to watch nevertheless.
As much as I loved the series when it was in its’ original run, I see TNG now and it’s so static & talky much of the time. It’s also overloaded with useless, annoying characters like Riker, Troi, Guinan & Wesley who take up too much time. The ongoing subplot where Data “investigates” human emotions is annoying. The Enterprise crew behave more like a bunch of middle managers in a mutli-national (or multi-planetary) corporation than a crew of intrepid space explorers. And the technobabble…In retrospect, TNG is more obviously a product of the corporate late 80s, than TOS is a product of the swinging 60s.
I haven’t seen “Deep Space Nine” in over ten years so I can’t rate how it holds up. “Voyager” and “Enterprise” weren’t watchable to begin with. But I’d say, “TOS” - holds up. “TNG” - dated.
I have the Emma Peel episodes on DVD and they do hold up well. Not so much the plots, but the chemistry between Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. They gave great banter. One problem watching the DVD is that the stunt doubles on the fight scenes are very obvious. You can stream the 67 season on Netflix.
I came in here to nominate Leave It to Beaver. Kids will always be kids.
Because I expect comedies to get dated and stale quite easily. Tastes move on, and things we thought were hysterically funny 25 years ago often seem stupid today.
The first 2 seasons of TNG feel dated, but from Season 3 and on through DS9 still works.
My brother recorded a Rocko’s Modern Life marathon awhile back and I went through several episodes one day. Still great.
Old episodes of the Simpsons remain awesome.
simpsons isn’t old
damn kids these days
My brother and I fought over the TV on Thursdays. He wanted to watch Cosby, and I wanted to watch Magnum. I can still watch and enjoy Magnum PI but Cosby is almost unwatchable.
I still like Cosby show.
I guess the lesson is that time passes has nothing to do with most of the stuff in this topic. do you like it or don’t you?
For my money, The Addams Family (even with its now-super-cheesy special effects) still rocks, as does Night Court, even with Markie Post’s mall-rat 'do and shoulder pads!
I was gonna nominate SOME episodes of the Outer Limits. Some of them never were any good, but “Demon With A Glass Hand” still has a powerful kick to it after all these years, and others are almost as good (Wolf 359 for example).
Most Westerns are as good as they ever were, which mostly isnt saying much, but it’s funny to look back at Gunsmoke from the 50s and realize that one of the lead characters, and a respected leader of the community, was Miss Kitty, a saloon/brothel owner.
Of course it’s not when you’re living in 1995. In the real world, The Simpsons is 21 years old. The teenagers I supervise nowadays weren’t even born when it debuted. It’s officially an “old” show.
Magnum, p.i. is still very watchable.
Hill Street Blues is forever awesome.
Oh, and Quantum Leap, and shit.
I don’t see Friends or Seinfeld as having aged. There’s very little in these shows (especially Friends) that relates to time period, and Friends rarely did topical humor (Seinfeld did, with references to JFK and Tonya Harding and so on), but they don’t feel beyond reach of modern audiences. The character archetypes still exist today… just neurotic friends in NYC.
I suspect that if you didn’t like a series when it first aired, time usually won’t improve it. Even if you don’t like it now where you once did, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s “dated” – maybe your own tastes changed.
Look at the shows that are repeated fifty times a day despite being 20, 30, even 60 years old. I Love Lucy being a prime example; it’s nearing its seventh decade, but Hallmark Channel still shows episodes multiple times a day, and airs marathons as well, which certainly implies they’re pretty popular. The show’s certainly of its time, no doubt. But funny is funny. Even with the old fashioned male/female dynamic and a few cringeworthy elements (Ricky “spanking” Lucy, primarily), there’s something fresh and engaging in the stories and characterizations, and the humor isn’t cheap. My niece was addicted to ILL once she hit 10 years old, and its still one of her favorites four years later.
Similarly, MASH* probably hasn’t left syndication since 1983. People still find it relevant, because (sadly) war is still relevant. All in the Family ditto – bigotry, intrafamily squabbles, generation gaps, struggling to pay bills… they’re all current and strike nerves in many of us. Indelible performances help, obviously. Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel are all identifiable and relatable as real humans, even as broad as some of the humor could get, thanks both to sharp writing and excellent portrayals. Same with Archie, Edith, Mike and Gloria.
I don’t find Mork and Mindy* very funny anymore (admittedly, it was never a huge favorite), but I can still get into Laverne & Shirley, which is a period show. Good Times and Maude feel more dated than AITF, I think, but they still elicit laughs (especially the former, thanks largely to John Amos). Benny Hill feels dated to me because it relies on stereotypes and sexism for its humor; Monty Python doesn’t.
Tone also can affect whether something holds up. Charlie’s Angels is painfully '70s but still guilty fun because it’s so unbelievably cheesey. '80s-era thirtysomething, OTOH, is less enjoyable to me because it’s trying to take itself seriously.
- Whoa, just writing this I’m belatedly realizing that Mork could travel through time, since he visited Richie et al. in Happy Days but alighted on Earth in the “present” for his own show. How did I not catch that during its first run?
the radio version wasn’t as sanitized. it was also way more violent and the characters meaner, especially the Marshall. radio was adult western, tv was prime time western.
same with Have Gun Will Travel, though the tv show predated the radio show.
You see, I love TNG for exactly that reason. No one shoots until we’ve had a nice cup of Earl Grey and a thourough ethical debate. Fantastic. But no, they wouldn’t make 'm like that anymore as sci-fi usually reflects the time in which it was made rather than the time in which it is set. And these days we (not you personally here) tend to prefer warfare to reasoning with the “enemy” and thus sci-fi has got much more trigger-happy and much less multi-cultural peace and harmony. So yes, it has aged, but I kind of preferred that age. 