# TV Shows Only You Remember **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [July 8, 2021, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022 "2021-07-08T20:36:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/81 "2021-07-09T06:57:08Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > _Tenspeed and Brown Shoe_ , a buddy cop (actually private detective) show created by Stephen Cannell (Rockford Files). It only last for six months, but I liked it. It starred Ben Vereen and Jeff Goldblum. One interesting thing about _Tenspeed and Brown Shoe_ is that the character of Tenspeed (played by Ben Vereen) was brought back for several episodes of the program _J. J. Starbuck_. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/82 "2021-07-09T07:10:32Z")
Back in the first half of the '60s, there was a whole slew of prime-time game shows, most of which were hosted by the same guy who did their daytime versions, e.g., _ **Password** _ (Alan Ludden), _ **To Tell the Truth** _ (Bud Collier), and _ **I’ve Got a Secret** _ (Steve Allen). One that was on when I was in fifth grade (I think) was _ **The Face Is Familiar** _. Celebrities were shown the face of some famous person cut into horizontal strips and then scrambled. The point of the game was to be first to recognize the face as the strips were slowly put back together in their right order. I don’t remember what the reward was or who was host, but I know it didn’t last long. I wonder if there’s anyone alive today who remembers seeing **this** game show in 1961: > **[Jackie Gleason’s Half Hour Apology and You’re in the Picture, the Show that...](https://www.vulture.com/2012/01/jackie-gleasons-half-hour-apology-and-youre-in-the-picture-the-show-that-warranted-it.html)** > > The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, \[...\] ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/83 "2021-07-09T07:16:31Z")
I remember watching _Clerks: The Animated Series_ and liking it it, but it disappeared very quickly and I never hear about it anymore. Looking at Wikipedia, I see only six episodes were produced and only two of them aired. I suppose it’s a wonder that I remember it at all. > **[Clerks: The Animated Series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerks:_The_Animated_Series)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Clerks (retronym: Clerks: The Animated Series) is an American adult animated sitcom that was first broadcast on ABC in 2000. Based on Kevin Smith's 1994 comedy film of the same name, it was developed for television by Smith, Smith's producing partner Scott Mosier and former Seinfeld writer David Mandel with character designs by Stephen Silver, known for character designs in Disney's Kim Possible and Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom. It is the first tel... ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/84 "2021-07-09T08:22:50Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Speaking of Richard Benjamin: he also starred in _Quark_ , a sci-fi comedy, about the crew of a garbage-collection spaceship, that was on NBC in 1977-8, for a grand total of eight episodes. I remember that. It was very…Richard Benjamin. > [@River\_Hippie](#): > > The Jackie Thomas Show. Haven’t seen it since it aired on network TV but I remember it as being pretty funny. It was pretty funny, despite basically being “Roseanne giving her husband his own show as a gift”. Tom Arnold is capable of being funny when he’s not being incredibly annoying. ---
**Author:** ![its\_the\_daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bb73d2/32.png) [@its\_the\_daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/its_the_daddy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/85 "2021-07-09T08:26:38Z")
Let’s have some British/Irish shows!! [Virgin of the Secret Service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_the_Secret_Service)? [Me Mammy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Mammy)? ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/86 "2021-07-09T11:25:31Z")
_NBC News Overnight_. A really atypical (for the time) news show, anchored by Linda Ellerbee and a couple of dudes (in sequence, not at the same time, and I can’t remember their names). It ran in the middle of the night (like 2:00 AM), so they could pretty much do whatever they wanted. It was smart, and sometimes funny. And in those pre-internet, pre-YouTube days, they’d often run bits of video sourced from God knows where, but that were interesting and relevant in some way to the events of the day. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/87 "2021-07-09T11:32:17Z")
I also liked “It’s Like You Know…” At least I remember liking it. And I actually have Clerks The Animated Series on DVD here somewhere. Here is another one: I remember watching a TV movie in the 90s that was set up as if it were a series of news reports about a meteor hitting the Earth. My memory is it turns out it’s aliens and at the end the world ends. As best as I can tell this only ever aired once. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/88 "2021-07-09T12:07:53Z")
Struck by Lightning. (Working from memory) Jack Elam as Frankenstein’s Monster, now working as a handyman at a New England resort, who entices the Doctor’s descendant to stay there because he is starting to need repairs himself. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/89 "2021-07-09T12:44:25Z")
**Johnny Bago** was a summer series from sometime in the early 90’s. The main character was a guy on the run from the mob, who hitches a ride from an old guy in a Winnebago. When the old guy dies Johnny commandeers the camper to aid his escape. Besides the mob being after him, he is also being pursued by his parole officer, who also happens to be his ex-wife. Every week there was a different mob hitman chasing him. He’d get close, then die somehow, so the next week they’d send another one after him. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/90 "2021-07-09T12:58:57Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > the john laroquote show…the original premise was the character was a blackout drunk who one day decided to get sober lives in a former crackhouse and finagled a job in a dive of a bus depot with other assorted characters who were sort of down and out… > > The humor was acidic and it was a rather dark show so in the 2nd season they "brightened " it up and didn’t get to finish the second I _really_ liked that show! ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/91 "2021-07-09T13:16:03Z")
I remember busting a gut with laughter when I saw an episode of the TV show _Ask Dr. Science_ as a kid. I had a hard time finding anything about it on the internet until relatively recently. I guess it’s more famous as a radio show. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/2YebJ6lzKpY/hqdefault.jpg "Ask Dr. Science: National Science Test 1987 Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YebJ6lzKpY) ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/92 "2021-07-09T13:22:04Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The show got off to a bad start. They recast the lead at the last moment, which is usually a bad sign. A lot of affiliates never aired it (It was never shown in Boston) and it was on a Saturday night. This was the quick hook era of TV pilots, so it never stood a chance. I don’t think I’ve run across anyone who remembers it. The only thing I remember about it is a scene where Captain Justice is in a diner with a kid who was embarrassed to been seen with him. Captain Justice says something like, “What? Most kids would be thrilled to be here with me.” ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/93 "2021-07-09T13:34:29Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > _Once a Hero_ , about a comic boo hero, Captain Justice, who travels to the real world and learns that things don’t work the way they do in the comics. Clever dialog and a great job of subverting clichés. For instance, > > Lady Reporter: What’s your name? > Captain Justice: Brad . . . > Lady reporter: Not Brad Steele, like Captain Justice? > Captain Justice (embarrassed that she knows his identity) No, Brad . . . Kent. > > Like I often point out, the fourth episode (unaired) was about an actor who had gotten typecast playing a TV superhero and was frustrated about it. And who played the actor? Adam West. > > The show got off to a bad start. They recast the lead at the last moment, which is usually a bad sign. A lot of affiliates never aired it (It was never shown in Boston) and it was on a Saturday night. This was the quick hook era of TV pilots, so it never stood a chance. I don’t think I’ve run across anyone who remembers it. I remember it. I was disappointed when it was disappeared. From my memory, there wasn’t even an announcement it had been cancelled. It just…wasn’t on anymore. My favorite character wasn’t Captain Justice, though, it was Robert Forster as the noir detective that also gets transported to the real world. The one scene I clearly remember was Captain Justice coming to the rescue by smashing through a brick wall and the bad guys unloading Uzis at him and the bullets bouncing off. After he subdues the bad guys, he reveals he used demolitions charges to destroy the wall (How did he get them? Or learn to use them?), and was wearing a bullet-proof vest under his costume (that’s…that’s not how body armor works in the “real world”). It all made sense to me at the time, though. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > I’ll also mention _The Middleman,_ a sort of superhero/spy spoof about a strait laced adventurer who took one weird threats (e.g., gangster gorillas, vampire flying piranhas, etc.), with his cynical artist assistant. Bizarre, very funny, filled with in-jokes and references to comics and TV. I have the DVD and just rewatched the pilot; it’s fantastic. I _loved_ that show! I think a big problem it had gaining traction is that it was on an obscure channel that re-branded itself several times - I think at the time, it was ABC Family, and I _think_ the pilot also aired on ABC in an obviously failed bid to increase its exposure. I remember the actor who played the Middleman turning up shortly afterwards on Joss Whedon’s _Dollhouse_ as a psycho killer. I just couldn’t take the character seriously. Nothing against the actor, but he was pitch perfect as the Middleman, and I just couldn’t take him seriously as a menacing villain. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/94 "2021-07-09T13:47:05Z")
The pilot movie was great, the series not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/95 "2021-07-09T13:49:17Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > the john laroquote show…the original premise was the character was a blackout drunk who one day decided to get sober lives in a former crackhouse and finagled a job in a dive of a bus depot with other assorted characters who were sort of down and out… > > The humor was acidic and it was a rather dark show so in the 2nd season they "brightened " it up and didn’t get to finish the second Toward the end of her time on _Blossom_ (and thus well before finishing her Ph.D., having two sons, and starring on _The Big Bang Theory_), Mayim Bialik in three episodes played a young woman who showed up and surprised Larroquette’s character by saying that he was one of three men who might be her father. (Her mother was a long-ago girlfriend of Larroquette’s character.) She wanted him to take a genetic test to determine which of them was her father. He turned out to actually be her father. I can’t find it anywhere online, but the three old boyfriends of her mother that she thought could be her father were Larroquette’s character, a random made-up character, and a real well-known man (whose name she mentioned). Apparently this man had given his permission to be mentioned on the show as one of the three possible fathers. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/96 "2021-07-09T13:51:16Z")
I remember many of these shows. I watched My World and Welcome To It, and He and She, and both Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice (and read the Captain Nice novel) and many of the others. how about **Hank** – about a college “Drop in” who takes courses on the sly because he can’t afford tuition. How he was supposed to retain credits towards graduation I don’t know. It’s memorable because it was one of the few 1960s shows that had a final episode that wrapped everything up (and Hank got his degree) **Camp Runamuck** – hijinks at a summer camp in the 1960s, long before all those summer camp movies came out. **One Step Beyond** – Twilight Zone-like creepy stories, often with a twist ending, made about the same time as Twilight Zone (alte 1950s-early 1960s) **Man Into Space** – late 1950s near-future hard science fiction. William Lundegan stars as an astronaut. The stories didn’t have aliens, FTL travel, interstellar travel, teleportation, or any other highly speculative gadgets. Stories were set in the Solar System, mostly in Earth orbit of the moon. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/97 "2021-07-09T13:56:43Z")
Future Cop in 1978 about an android policeman. It was not bad, as I remember, but Harlan Ellison sued it into oblivion. So it transmorgified into Holmes and Yoyo Was it realy worth it Harlan? ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/98 "2021-07-09T14:02:14Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > My obscure contributions are _Space Precinct_ . A show about a cop, but he’s in space for some reason. It was syndicated in the 90s, like _Xena_ or _Hercules_ , but unlike those I’m not sure anybody else ever watched it. I remember that one. Not just _Space Precinct_, but _Gerry Anderson’s Space Precinct_. I remember it actually having fairly impressive prosthetics/puppetry for the aliens, especially given that it was an ultra-low budget production. At the time, there wasn’t a whole lot of sci-fi on TV, and there were very few sci-fi shows I wouldn’t watch. This one was one of them. In discussing 80s and 90s TV with geeky friends in my age range, pretty much everyone _remembers_ this show _existing_, but no one I know remembers _watching_ it. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/99 "2021-07-09T15:04:57Z")
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but I do remember _No Soap Radio_. It was a surrealist comedy that didn’t last long. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022/100 "2021-07-09T15:13:48Z")
_ **Strange Report** _, which ran on NBC in the spring and summer of 1971. Anthony Quayle was the titular character, a detective who hadn’t carried a gun “since the end of the War.” He had a young American sidekick to make the show more palatable to US audiences, plus a hot young female assistant. The crimes he investigated were unusual, to say the least. One episode I remember in particular involved Soviet diplomats in London, and the Russians weren’t the bad guys! It also had a kick-ass signature tune: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/5Fnp6zb4RnM/hqdefault.jpg "Theme From Strange Report") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fnp6zb4RnM) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-only-you-remember/946022.md?page=6)