They might have done better with a TV show based on the 1956 movie The Man Who Never Was. On the other hand, it’s tough to maintain interest (and freshness) when you’re dealing with a corpse.
At some time in the 80s, there was a show called “The Wizard”. The main character was a diminutive genius toy inventor, whose young friends ended up using his toys in creative ways on adventures to foil… some sort of evildoers. I remember it very fondly (if vaguely), but I’ve never met anyone else who has heard of it (though it does at least have some mention online).
The specific scenes I remember are a ball that’s rolled in between two bars on a prison window, and then unfolds into a little robot that pushes the bars apart, like Samson with the pillars of the temple, and a couple of remote-controlled drone aircraft, one of which has been stolen by the villains and armed, and the other still controlled by the good guys who use it to take down the villains’ one.
Somehow or other, I’ve never seen the movie, but I would like to. I bought a copy of Operation Mincemeat a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Quite a story!
‘Fridays’ was just execrable. I hated Andy Kaufman and Michael Richards from the moment I saw them in 1980. I didn’t think the skits were clever or funny. … A few friends of ours used to come over to watch, smoke a joint, then hoot and holler and clap like seals at the idiocy. I had my slice of pizza and zoned out, wondering if this was as good as ‘partying’ was ever going to get. It unfortunately was, as time and life went on and we all went our separate ways.
Elaine played a high-class call girl on an episode of Three’s Company. She was even hotter in the '80s than she was in the '70s. 
So is Combat! 
That reminds me of a show called QED about a 19th century inventor in the old West.
Oh my gracious! The lead was Sam Waterston!
It was one of the few sitcoms that wasn’t tied to Norman Lear or MTM at the time, and was actually pretty decent.
We watched that one.
Can’t remember a single episode, though…
Wait - didn’t somebody get a red suit in one episode? If that was that show, not only do I remember, I made my mom buy me a red jacket. She should have said no!
It’s appalling what you can find on YouTube, but it’s better than Herman’s Head.
… And the Germans were decades ahead of their time: “We even have a name for it: BLITZKRIEG!” 
These shows were on CBS’s space-age schedule in the '60s:
Notice that the format and theme for the second one changed in the middle of the season in a desperate attempt to save the series. The name of Imogene Coca’s character was also changed to “Shad,” probably after it was pointed out that “Shag” has entirely different connotations.
I may as well include this show, though I expect people remember it more:
I never knew the theme had lyrics:
Remember this Japanese import?
Here’s the original theme:
Dozo harigata!
When I was in high school, there was a Sci-Fi TV show called, Farscape . I really liked, but I doubt anyone even remembers it.
I definitely do. I’m honestly a little surprised you would doubt anyone remembers it. It was one of the Sci-Fi Channel’s highest rated shows when it aired. It was eventually killed by high production costs and low profit margins, as repeatedly happened to Sci-Fi Channel/SyFy shows (and sci-fi shows more generally). But a lot of sci-fi fans watched it. It’s still fondly remembered by most sci-fi fans I know.
I never even saw an episode, but I know of it.
In fact, over the past week, my wife, who was a big fan of Farscape during its original run, has been binge-watching the first two seasons, after discovering that the series is on Amazon Prime. 
(And, I agree, most sci-fi fans, at least those over the age of 35 or so, are likely at least aware of it, even if they haven’t seen it.)
After a couple years of the ole Betamax, our family ditched it for some rogue Panasonic VHS, and upon hearing of an (at the time) resurrected King Crimson making an appearance on some SNL-ish knock-off, I set up the godless, newfangled machine just in time to record the following two fine performances:
Elephant Talk and Thela Hun Gingeet
Can’t recall anything else about the show.
Bizarre? With John Byner? Didn’t mind’im. Yeah, slightly different approach to their thing.
Good to see some nods to Fernwood Tonight. Wasn’t Fernwood The Prefabricated Furntiure Capital of the World? And to back that comment about Fred Willard seeming ad lib (and glib!).
And also the nods to Jacob Brownoski’s Ascent of Man. There’s no way I’m going to believe I was the only one when I was a kid who imitated the way he’d emphatically dish with that owlish delivery of his, sometimes in a slightly hunched over posture (or so it seemed).
Another good imitatee was not-pretentious-in-the-least Kenneth Clark, whose doc Civilisation was the stuff of PBS and classroooms. “But SHORELY the Ro-CO-co Era was an influence not be under-es-ti-ma-ted.”
Basically yelling the theme song, and then whistling the bouncy Untamed World theme song, and then if I was starting to get a bit of a Merlin-on, slide in to some maudlin Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Thought about linking them, then thought, how dare I.
Me too. A show that made sure this grade 8’er’s mind didn’t wander too much.
That was a nice summing up. I’d maintain, possibly, that Jim Rockford’s allegiance may have lain more with the brown Thunderchicken than Noah Beery, Jr.
YMMV. (pa-dum-dum)
Has The Associates been mentioned yet, with an 
earnest, striving Martin Short, and the cutesy-old Alfred Hyde White?
I designed a puzzle game based on Farscape and a horror story I read.
Remember them and watched them all.
Except for Ultraman, because that one was dumb.
I only watched Ultraman for the opening, mostly because I loved that swirly title effect. After that, I turned it off.