Soupy Sales - that brings back memories. I watched a couple of episodes on YouTube a while back. There’s a lot stuff that went flying over my young mind’s head. 
So, this discussion reminded me of just how much I enjoyed the show the first time around, and it’s $10 on Amazon Prime, so I bought it. I’ve rewatched the first two episodes, and I was not disappointed. Well, a little. The writing was just as clever as I remember it, and the acting was just as good. But the effects…it’s still enjoyable to watch, as long as I keep in mind they apparently had almost no budget, and it’s almost more of a stage production than a TV show.
Part of it, of course, is watching the show on an HD big screen, which I don’t think is how it was originally meant to be broadcast. So you get things like what’s supposed to be a shadowy, unidentifiable character being fairly clearly illuminated for a few seconds by muzzle flashes. But also, you have “gorillas” that are very clearly just humans in gorilla suits. And then we get a scene with stock footage of gorillas in a zoo, and they’re supposed to be indistinguishable from the guy-in-a-gorilla-suit, but they’re very clearly actual gorillas, and the guy-in-a-gorilla-suit we just saw was very clearly a guy-in-a-gorilla-suit, and there’s no way he blends in with the actual gorillas.
Anyway, making allowances for the stage production budget, it’s still really enjoyable, and makes me wish it had lasted longer.
Anyone remember Baywatch Nights a weird spinoff from Baywatch where David Hasselhoff’s character investigates supernatural phenomenon. Surprisingly good considering the premise.
I remember a depressing number of the shows in this thread, and yes, I remember Baywatch Nights. If I recall correctly, when it began, Hasselhoff was just a part-time P.I., who worked cases at night after a busy day being a lifeguard, investigating mundane mysteries. But, as it aired in the peak X-Files era, it pretty quickly devolved into a supernatural mystery/monster hunting show.
And I definitely don’t remember it being good, surprisingly, considering the premise, or otherwise. But it did have Angie Harmon in one of her earliest roles…
“The Oblongs” - The less said, the better.
However I was a fan of the short-lived “Hot Pursuit” on NBC. Bear with me: a woman is framed for a crime by her employer using a look-alike. The victim is tried and sent to prison. Her husband breaks her out of jail. Livid, the employer sends a thug to retrieve the woman. The thug loses an eye in the process so now it’s personal. So, the woman and her husband are chasing the impostor and they are being chased by an assassin with a vendetta. Whew. It was canceled after about three episodes.
“Hot Pursuit” makes me think of something called “Golden Years” from 1991 or so, about a guy who gets an experimental youngening treatment and then gets pursued by evil folks. With theme by Bowie!
Excellent Stephen King mini-series!
I had forgotten it was by King (I think I did watch all of it)
HBO had quite a lot of original content from its early days if you consider stand-up comedy specials and concerts original content. HBO also had Inside The NFL, which my father watched religiously, starting in the late 70s. HBO starting producing original series in the early 80s. I remember Fraggle Rock, Not Necessarily The News, and First & Ten.
So I looked it up and apparently it was a series of 15 minute cartoons that ran for about 2 months on a local NY station. A few years later, there were a series of 5 minute cartoons shown as a segment on Captain Kangaroo. Still later, the 5 minute cartoons were syndicated and were apparently shown either during or between local children’s shows.
Good to know, thanks! 
Thanks !
“Down the Shore” was a show I seem to be the only one who remembers.
A trio of dudes rent a beach house for the summer and learn that WHAT! the same house was rented to a trio of girls too! They decide to make the best of it because sexual tension.
I remember one of the cast was being interviewed on Short Attention Span Theater on Comedy Central and saying “Down the Shore is now down the tubes…we’ve been cancelled.”
Does anyone remember Cavemen? Sitcom inspired by the GEICO commercials.
I swear I read that as Dinah Shore… and thought surely lots of folks remember that show.
I remember Down the Shore because it was set in NJ. “Down the shore” is a Jersey -ism for going to the beach.
I wandered into “Arnie” while searching that actor who played the character, Lt. Jacoby from “Peter Gunn”. He did a very convincing “Fiddler on the Roof”. I was impressed.
Mr. and Mrs. Fugitive.
I was just reminded again of this great one season comedy that aired on MTV in 1997.
Austin Stories
Flashing back to various midsummer replacement shows, and looking them up on Wiki to confirm I didn’t imagine them…
The Nutt House: horrible hotel comedy starring Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman. Only six episodes aired out of eleven shot.
First Impressions: actually a pretty smart sitcom starring Brad Garrett. I remember thinking it was quite good, then it vanished. Five episodes aired out of eleven shot.
Does anyone remember a really broad family comedy about middle-ages royalty zapped by a witch into modern suburbia? It was unbearably twee and probably didn’t last longer than a week or two. I remember at one point the witch saying to the Prince Charming wannabe father “You just sent your son to school. In tights.” as a way of taunting him at how out of his depth he was.