I could appreciate the show when I was an adult, but when I was a child at the target age for this show, I didn’t particularly like it. I thought it was boring and weird. I especially didn’t like the puppets, which were creepy in an uncanny-valley way…and one puppet absolutely terrified me (which some Googling tells me was Lady Elaine Fairchilde).
I did like the opening and closing sequence, though, with Mr. Rogers arriving and departing. And I learned later that he was an amazingly kind person, and that the show was not just hosted by Fred Rogers, but also created by him.
Anyway, at that age, I greatly preferred Sesame Street.
Great show, but I know that others have mentioned, on other threads on this board, that they can’t stand it. I just watched an episode this past week (the one where George decides to do the opposite of what he normally would decide), and it holds up quite well. IMHO it’s still just as funny today as it was in the 90s, but I get why it isn’t everyone’s type of humor.
ETA: I think part of why I like it is that it was just the right type of show at just the right time. The late 80s were filled with “very special episodes” sitcoms, where every week it seems like there was some kind of lesson to be learned, and some sort of overly sentimental moment of coming together at the end of the episode. Seinfeld’s “a show about nothing” was a breath of fresh air in an environment like that. People who didn’t grow up around that time, however, might not have the same appreciation for it being a reaction against the hyper sentimental sitcoms that were dominant at the time.
Speaking of sitcoms from the late 80s, there is one that might qualify which managed to avoid the overly sentimental special episode of the week format that was popular at the time. Married With Children should be considered. I didn’t watch it while it was running, but once I discovered it I really enjoyed it.
I’m one of them. Roseanne had plenty of lessons of the week / very special episodes. The only difference between Roseanne and the typical late 80s special episode sitcoms (Full House, The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Golden Girls, etc.) is that Roseanne’s lesson of the week had a blue collar / working class flavor to it as opposed to the typical suburban middle class lesson from those other shows.
If we can forget certain seasons and concentrate on the strong first few seasons, most of us here probably agree that Community was a great show. Of course there are some who don’t like certain actors in real life (you know who), but Community had others at the beginning of their careers, and some really great episodes.
They analyze and enhance the footage of the runner’s feet. Was he out of bounds? Let’s use advance tech to create this 3-D reconstruction that we can rotate and view from all angles. Look, you can see the blade of grass move! Conclusive proof!
Meanwhile, three hours have passed in the stadium. We won’t talk about that.