I remember that well, PapaBear, and how channel 13 maliciously edited the hell out of the Python episodes. Incidentally I remember hearing somewhere about a man in England who died laughing watching an episode of “The Goodies.” My list:
“Dusty’s Treehouse” Saturday morning show featuring Dusty, a curious man-child who lived in a treehouse, and all his woodland pals. This one’s pretty obscure…even TV Party.com and the IMDB don’t have entries about it.
“Mario’s Marvelous Movie Machine” (or something like that) Another Saturday morning show about a fellow who lives in the bowels of a building with his “movie machine” that he uses to show short films and cartoons. Again, nowhere in sight on TVParty.com or the IMDB.
“One of the Boys” Short-lived but hilarious 1982 sitcom featuring Mickey Rooney as a grandpa who enrolls in college and moves in with his grandson/fellow student Dana Carvey
and his roomate Nathan Lane. Meg Ryan had a supporting role.
“Open All Night” Another short-lived show from 1981 about life in an 24 hr. convenience store. Premise sounds thin but it was actually pretty funny. A pre-“Late Night” David Letterman made a cameo in the final show. He came into the store and asked the guy behind the counter if he should accept a network offer to host his own late night TV show.
“The Bill Cosby Show” Not to be confused with the 80’s “Cosby Show,” this 70’s sitcom featured Cosby as hip gym teacher Chet Kincaid. Very funny in that 1970’s kind of way and winner of the most bitchin’ TV theme song ever.
Sassy and Flo: The main character in Coronet Blue was played by Frank Converse. Series (11 episodes) ran from 05/27 to 09/04/67. www.ultimatetv.com
Would seem Converse also had parts in three Law and Order episodes.
P.S.: Didn’t see the final episode of Coronet so never knew the outcome.
Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine syndicated
1977-1979 Kids’ show hosted by Laurie Faso as Marlo, operator of the Magic Movie Machine, a talking computer that could be programmed to show old newsreels and film shorts as well as baby pictures of celebrities. Taped at WFSB-TV in Hartford, the show was first seen in an hour-long format, but was later trimmed to a half hour. Mert Koplin provided the voice of the Machine.
Frankie may be talking about “Hardcore TV”. It came out around '93 and was a parody show with (my favorites) “This Old Whore House” and “This Old House Party”.
For all Monty Python fans who don’t already know: A&E is showing the original episodes with all of the original footage (the shows ran 28-32min each w/o commercials in the UK). In order to do this, A&E shows a full episode along with naughty bits of other episodes. Three cheers and a tiger for A&E for doing this. Now I can replace my aging PBS/MTV/CC tapes!!
For a really obscure show how about “On the Air” - the follow up to Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”. Reportedly, David Lynch hated it so much, he tried to get his name taken off the credits!!
The badly-animated stop motion show was called Fireball XL-5.
What scares me is that none of you have come up with a show I haven’t seen! Has anyone else ever seen a show called Dark Justice? It was a late-night show CBS had on back in the eighties.
A few years back, there was a show on Fox called “Strange Luck”. D.B. Sweeney was the star. Each episode had a series of good and bad coincidences happening to Sweeney’s character. I must have been the only one watching it because it lasted one season.
Gail
“Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you, my friend–
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again…”
-Steely Dan
sorry to say Gail I was also watching Chance each week. (I think that was his name.) Did they ever find out what the big deal was with his family? Didn’t his mom save him during a plane crash?
These would probably be candidates for the “worst shows” thread, except that I never actually saw either of them, so I can’t vouch for them. In 1980, there were two shows that were supposed to be unbelievably raunchy. One was called United States, about a married couple, and the other was called Number 96, about a bunch of kooky people. I was forbidden to watch either of them, and they only lasted about six weeks each, but I clearly remember Number 96 as “The series they tried to ban in Australia!” No offense to any Aussies reading this, but if Australians think a show’s too raunchy for TV, it must be rank!
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
There are several shows i think no one really watched. The most memorable was “Out of This World” I loved that show and watched it nearly every day. It was a bout a girl whi was half alien and had power to stop time, whose father had to go back to his own planet. She talked to him through this communicator that looked like an odd lamp. The last episode I saw was supposed to reveal who her father was, then it was cancelled. Just now i find out it was Burt Reynolds :).
I remember it well because it was set near here somewhere just south of Carmel and Monterey in the town of “Marlowe”. It was also the show i was watching when the '89 Loma Prieta quake struck.
I also loved a show called “My Secret Identity” with a young and chubby Jerry O’Connell. And i remember watching a show called “Small Wonder” about an android who lives with her creators family as their “daughter”. She would get into all kinds of funny situations.
sigh too bad these shows aren’t available on VHS. I would probably think they were so corny and silly (like I do with “Growing Pains” now).
Anyone remember “Square Pegs”? It was about highshool kids who didn’t fit in. Wasn’t around for very long, but it was pretty good (at least at the time I thought it was pretty good).
“What I wonder is why people are so afraid of everybody coming up with their own reality on their own terms.” - Jerry Garcia
Mr. Knowitall: House Of Frightenstein was taped here in Hamilton as is my favorite The Red Green Show. Dave Allen is not very well and his last appearance on this side of the big pond was 1990(he appeared here in Canada and was very funny)…Gilligan: The last appearance of the 2 Ronnies was in 1996 at the Royal Variety Show. The 2 Ronnies came out on a motorcycle dressed as the 2 Fat Ladies.
DD, I used to LOVE “Square Pegs”! Made me feel like there was somebody more nerdy than myself!
I can’t believe no one has mentioned “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast”. It’s the weirdest show…but I love it. It’s on (I think) either the Cartoon Network or the Comedy Channel at 11:00 EST on Friday’s. Very stupid, very funny, very weird. I’m a fan! Last week, he interviewed a plant. The time he interviewed Jeff Foxworthy I think has been the best though. Moltar told him he was going to peel him with a vegetable peeler…HAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHhahah…um…ha…err… I guess you had to be there.
Slythe, was Dark Justice about a blind guy who supposedly develops his other senses to such a degree that he can go around with his face completely covered but still move with ninja-like grace? Rex Something-or-other, the former rock star, had the lead?
And I think Fireball XL-5 was one of those Supermarionation jobs from the Anderson workshop.
I didn’t get to see much of the Two Ronnies, but I did see one sketch that had me doubled over…it was about a limerick writer’s convention, and the two of them talk to one another completely in limericks.
I’ve been searching high and low for either a video tape, audio tape or transcript of that sketch, but so far, no luck. If that’s one of the ones you’ve taped, I’d love to get a copy.
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective