Last weekend, I was scanning through the goods at our local thrift store and I found a small treasure - a complete set of DVDs for “EMEREGENCY!”. They had all six seasons plus the made for TV movies for ten bucks. I had good memories watching this in reruns as a kid and for the most part, I’ve been enjoying watching them again. There are some truly cringe worthy moments (S2,Ep5) and there of lots of small things shown that we just never see today. When was the last time you walked up to the nurse’s station at a hospital and casually flicked your cigar ashes into the ashtray sitting right out in the open for everyone to use?
Another old show I’ve recently been watching - WKRP. Thanks to YouTube, I’ve nearly finished and it still holds up as viable entertainment. There were so many laugh out loud moments from the show that still managed to tackle some serious subjects. Johnny and the phone cops, the Thanksgiving day turkey bombing, “There’s a chair and there’s a chair and there’s a… No, that’s a clock.”
I’m not going to suggest that theses shows are perfect or that the don’t show their age but, filtered through an air of nostalgia, I’m having fun and they’re more enjoyable than a lot of modern drek.
So, what shows from your childhood are you still enjoying?
You know, I’ve got nothing against the TZ but it never quite clicked with me. There were certainly some great and iconic episodes and we owe Rod Serling a great debt for the scores of actors he introduced to us but I can’t help but feel the series isn’t quite worthy of the legend around it.
It might have something to do with the specific way Chet was going on about Johnny’s native American ancestry or it could involve the rescue of a woman from her overly tight girdle.
I liked watching ER if for no other reason than to drool over Julie London for an hour. Interesting trivia: The show was co-created by London’s first husband, Jack Webb, and co-starred her second husband, Bobby Troup.
Maybe my LATE childhood! I offer up ‘The Carol Burnett Show’, ‘The Avengers’, ‘The Monkees’, and various overblown holiday specials with Big Jolly Happy Families all gathered ‘round the Christmas tree, faces all aglow: ‘The Andy Williams Holiday Show’ (and there are others, sometimes shown on cable tv over and over as we sit alone in our downsized apartments eating our holiday pizza).
Any music special from the past is worth a look, with a chanteuse tossed around by a dozen ‘boy dancers’ - and swingin’ 60’s specials…Also old Warners Brothers cartoons, the older, the better. I like the charming 30’s cartoons (well, it might be 40’s) without any major cartoon stars like Bugs Bunny.
Of course this immediately intrigues me, drawing me down the youtube rabbit-hole in vain, desperate search for it, and could only come up with this Travolta debut.
I always thought Julie London was sultry smokin hot.
DVD, especially, will always be in, like, top 3.
And the jazzy, splashy Rn’B end credits - stellar.
If there’s Odd Couple or Bob Newhart (Chi.) reruns, I’m there.
Funny you should mention that. It’s recently re-aired, and I watched some shows. When I was a kid ( middle school age ) in the 70s, sitting down to watch the show with the family, I thought it was gut-bustingly funny. Now the humor seems lame and obvious. If I collect all the mirth generated by watching 5 or 6 episodes, and sweep it into a pile, I’d come up a couple of half-hearted chuckles at best.
Honestly, the entire Jack Webb shows - Dragnet, Emergency and Adam-12 - hold up pretty well at this point. They may be a bit corny but they’re so damn sincere that you can’t help but be entertained.
Agreed. On the rewatch, during the first half season or so, the show’s creators tried to shoehorn a romance between Dixie and Dr Brackett. I’m glad they dropped that plotline.
Soap. I didn’t understand probably 60% of the jokes when I watched it as a kid, but enjoyed the silliness of it. Watching it as an adult, I still enjoy the silliness but also the things I didn’t get when I was too young. Still a very funny show.
I was always morbidly fascinated by Katherine Helmond, the comely redhead whose deep-set (dare I say almost sunken) eyes gave her, I thought, a slightly spectral/cadaverous look about her.
And speaking of characters’ looks - after the first Bob Newhart Show season, they stopped showing Suzanne Pleshette in bedroom scenes wearing skimpy nighties with plunging necklines. Guess she looked too appetizing. Or something.
Damn.
Quite easy on the eyes.
De Gustibus non disputandem est. I loved the series, and think its reputation fully justified. It was several years later that I discovered that many of the episodes were based on short ironic SF and Fantasy from the 1950s, the kind which gloried in a punchy twist ending. Many were written by Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson (who went on the write for the show), but I also discovered others which were never adapted for TZ – Fredric Brown, Robert Sheckley, William Tenn, Theodore Coggswell, and others.
