Sigh… I can remember the TV shows I was crazy about as a kid, but I can’t remember what that last university lecture I had was all about.
Okay, remember those shows like Knight Rider? A-Team? Airwolf? Oh, yeah, now there were some fine shows!
Of course, if I ever catch an old episode of Knight Rider now, it seems so… cheesy! I guess cheesy was cool in the eighties.
Most of my young memories of TV are of Knight Rider. Especially vibrant is the memory of how my parents would never let me stay up for the second half of this special 2-hour episode of Knight Rider. You know, the one where KITT is up against this huge truck (sounds so stupid now, doesn’t it?).
All I remember about Airwolf is that it was Knight Rider With a Helicopter (an idea that actually seemed cool to the elementary school kid I was). A-Team had Mr. T in it, and that’s about all I can recall. Mind you, I can clearly recall the theme music for each of these three shows.
There was Automan. A computer geek puts together the perfect man a la Weird Science and he miraculously comes to life. Automan could change into a car that could make perfect 90 degree turns without changing speed and all sorts of cool stuff like that. Together, they fought the forces of evil for no more than one season probably.
There was also Manimal. A guy who could transfigure into all sorts of tough, macho animals like a hawk or a panther.
Sable, this mysterious, covert ops type of guy with weird and elaborate camo face paint. I remember him because he had a blind, computer hacker offsider. He was cool because he had a sort of tactile rather than visual display. I’d never thought of how the blind would get around this sort of obstacle before.
V, which was more sci-fi but still pretty action laden and Tour of Duty which I always thought was a fantastic show.
In Australia, we had Chopper Squad which is possibly a little early for this thread (70’s). It was about these rescue type guys. Crap acting and plot but always had those incredible beach bunnies in skimpy, skimpy bathers. Ohhhh the breasts! The arses!!! And more breasts! Australia has soooo lost its way since then:(
BTW, KITT’s nemesis was Goliath and Hasselhoff’s was Garth. Eeeeeew! Such menace. He looked the same as Michael Knight but you could tell he was evil because of the moustache. Similarly, Airwolf also had a nemesis.
Then, there was the Fall Guy which was shit. He had no super powers and didn’t even do the bionic boing sound that Lee Majors used to such awesome effect in his earlier, superior work.
What about Blue Thunder, the TV spinoff from the movie? LAPD policeman flies the world’s one-and-only super-duper helicopter, complete with whisper-quiet flight, ultrasensitive audio/video sensors, and a truckload of weaponry, to fight various baddies?
I always wanted to be Wonder Woman, loved the clothes, loved the action, just loved it.
Now I want to be Buffy
I can’t remember the name of my fav. show from the 80’s. It was a cartoon about 3 guys and 2 gals who reguarly saved the world. They flew around in some kind of pheonix space craft and wore bird like outfits. We had just moved back to Brisbane, Australia from Nigeria when I first saw this show and I was stunned. We’d never had a TV whilst we lived in Nigeria so the whole concept was mind blowing - I didn’t even realise till about 1984 that it came in colour!
Battle of the Planets! The guys were called G Force. I think one of the Australian posters here has a fanpage devoted to them on her homepage but I can’t remember who.
I was always resentful that Mark was the bad boy because I wanted to be him. Instead Jason, who was my namesake, was the whiny lil goody two shoes. Sure, Mark was wild and a little hot-headed, but you knew you could count on him. Deep down, even at the age of six, I knew the chicks would go for Mark. But Jason?.. Pfff!
It was the youngest one, the kid with the speech impediment; fuck he used to shit me. Not to mention the lame insectoid super weapons that Spectre always came up with. Worst of all were the super crap bad guy soldiers. Worse than Imperial Storm troopers but at least they had cool flairs and mullets.
Those shows always gave me the idea that dozens of towns and villages in America were terrorised by corrupt cops, city officials, bikers and construction developers.
Don’t forget McGyver, I loved that show. Stingray, great car, mediocre series.
BTW Mersavets you are right about Mark, I used to dream about him showing up at school and rescuing me - the dreaded evil of long division has no equal
On other shows - I remember getting into a whole lot of trouble in about grade3 when I convinced all my friends to emulate a scene from one of the cop shows that I caught my babysitter watching. The cop had gone into a strip club and the bad guy was stuffing money into the strippers G String whilst they chatted. We decided to use bark as a substitute for cash and some of the kids got splinters in very uncomfortable places.
Anyways my strict Baptist parents were not impressed and needless to say I got a new babysitter after that incident.
Oh my God - T J Hooker that was the show with the strippers!!!
I had originally thought it was LJ Hooker but that’s a real estate agent and I didn’t want to call it that Hooker show - that has totally other connotations
and then, there was the Greatest American Hero, which sadly, never seemed to make it to syndication. I can’t recall ever seeing that show once it left primetime.
G-Force certainly did rock. I recall lying on the floor about 3 feet from the screen being engrossed in the show.
Also, I used to watch Riptide, a detective show with a robot.
The Dukes of Hazard had plenty of car chases, too.
Ahem - actually, Automan had his sidekick Cursor who would draw all the vehicles they needed.
How sad am I for knowing that?
I remember loving V when it was first a mini-series (and then a regular series) - I watched some of it a couple years ago and couldn’t get over how bad it was to me now.
Hello? Heather Thomas in a bikini! Woo woo!
Oh, and when KITT got dropped into the acid bath or whatever, I called the 1-800 number to find out what great abilities the new and improved KITT would have in the next season. You know, like Super Pursuit Mode, in which they speed up the film as KITT goes around corners.
I recall being sick and in the colleg infimary one day in the late eighties.
In the early afternoon, an episode of “Police Woman” came on. It dealt with bank robbers who held the bank manger’s family hostage and made him go get money. Then they stuffed the family in the closet and fired a shot thoruhg the closet door (too high to hurt anyone). That bullet eventually led to arrests.
Time went on, more afternoon broadcast TV. Still sick
Late afternoon: TJ Hooker comes on. The plot dealt with bank robbers who held a bank manager’s family hostage and made him got get money. Then they stuffed the family in the closet and fired a shot through the door (too high to hurt anyone). That bullet eventually led to arrests.
