TV Shows that apparently, you're the only person ever to watch

Cafe Society
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Another Quark viewer here :slight_smile:

the Krofft series brings back nightmares from my youth, what were Sid and Marty Krofft on when they made those shows, there’s no way they could have been sober, they had to have been on some sort of controlled substance…

another late 70’s show, “Project Blue Book”, a show about a governmental UFO investigation wing, i guess you could say it was the precursor to “The X-Files”

more recently, 2 underappreciated shows on the Sci-Fi channel

Lexx, a crew of losers in a giant living insect spaceship (capable of destroying planets) the size of Manhattan, looking for a home, the crew included;
The Lexx (the ship itself)
Kai, last of the Brunnen-G; an undead assasin, kept in a cryopod until he’s needed
Stanley Tweedle; “Captain” of the Lexx, a timid, insecure man obsessed with sex, but too ugly to get lucky
Zev; (later Xev) Bellringer; a half Cluster Lizard Love Slave
790; a robot head who was madly in love with Xev (early season) then later Kai (late season)

Farscape, IMHO the Best sci-fi show on TV, or at least it was until the morons at the skiffy channel cancelled it, happily, there is a 4 hour miniseries in the works, thanks to a massive grassroots campaign by dedicated (well, obsessed, really :wink: ) 'Scapers, we’ll finally be able to see how the end of Season 4 plays out

personally, i think the Henson group has more planned for 'Scape than a 4 hour mini, after all, when 'scape was cancelled a little over a year ago, the sets of Moya and all the props were destroyed, so for a production company to rebuild everything from scratch just for a 4 hour miniseries for the hardcore fanbase seems illogical, my gut instinct tells me that my fellow 'Scapers are in for more than a 4 hour miniseries, i’m thinking that we should get a few more seasons

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Nope, I’m Tina…FINALLY I have validation! :smiley:

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I remember Nanny & the Professor, but I swear that wasn’t it. The girl was a nanny/housekeeper in the mid 80s…and has done walk ons on Friends & Dhama/Greg & Mad About You.

And while we’re talking the '70s, does No One remember ‘The Magician’ with Bill Bixby? (Light years better than 'The Courtship of Eddy’s Father"
Arrrrgh! Now I have That Damn Song In My Head!!!

(“People, let me tell you 'bout my Best Friend! He’s my One boy, cuddly toy, loves me to the end-da…”)

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Finally. I’ve slogged (well, skimmed) through five pages of this thread just to make sure nobody has posted about my favorite obscure tv shows… Normally, I see no point in posting this late in a thread, but I must give props.

First, count me among the Herman’s Head fans. That also featured Melanie Chartoff, from SNL – what’s shet up to these days anyway?

I also loved Duckman and made a point to watch it every week.

My new contributions:

ZOOM – Which may have been a regional show (OH -PA?). It was sort of like Electric Company and Sesame Street, only they had a better theme song. (“We’re gonna zoom-a zoom zoom…”)

Did nobody watch Dangermouse? He was a mouse, of course, who was a British spy or something like that, and he had a sidekick named Penfold. I used to ask for babysitting jobs so I’d have an excuse to watch this right after the Muppet Show. This would have aired in the late 80’s.

And finally, and way more recently, I must speak up for Strangers with Candy. Twas a sad day when that was finally cancelled. I think there were only three seasons, but there was some brilliant comedy writing.

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Nope, ZOOM was a national show…and it’s back. There is a new ZOOM on certain kids networks.

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Does anyone remember Vegetable Soup? I think it was aired around the same time as Villa Allegro and the Big Blue Marble. The intro was psychedelic – swirling cartoon musicians singing about soup…The show consisted of several different segments. The most memorable one to me was “Outerscope”. The characters were puppet kids (eerie ones. with human hands) that created a spaceship out of old boards and a bicycle wheel. They once landed on a planet inhabited by cleaning utensils that attacked them because the puppet kids made a mess when they landed. Another segment I remember is Nigel the snake, who was always getting lost. “Nigel - where are you??” Oh yeah, another one was a short ‘kids in the kitchen’ bit with the voice of Bette Midler as a cartoon spoon teaching kids how to make guacamole.

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I’m surprised at how many of these I have a vague recollection of… I Married Dora and its weird ending, TV 101, Misfits of Science… Along similar lines to the latter I recall something called Whiz Kids, but little more than the title. Can anyone fill in some details? I also particularly liked Time Trax, despite the hokey special effects. I thought it was cool that the hero sent messages to his bosses in the future by taking out classified ads in the New York Times.

Speak up if you remember Night After Night with Allan Havey! I used to watch this Comedy Central talk show, which I think ran opposite Johnny Carson and/or Jay Leno, when I was in junior high. It was small-scale and low-budget; each episode had an “audience of one” who sat in a single theater seat surrounded by red velvet ropes, who talked briefly with Mr. Havey at the start of the show. I still have the free mail-away bar of soap from the “Mobley Hotel” (“Now with soap!”) where guests of the show were supposed to have stayed. Co-host Nick Bakay went on to other bigger things, but what happened to Allan Havey?

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As long as so many kids shows are being mentioned, does anyone remember a kids variety/sketch comedy show from about 1977 called Wacko. I can find info about it online (more than I remember for sure, like Rip Taylor being on the show) but I have never run across anyone who ever remembers it.

How about The Highwayman from the late 80s, starring Sam J. Jones of 1980’s goofy Flash Gordon movie fame and former Australian rules football star turned annoying Energizer battery pitchman, “Jacko” (OY!)? The gimmick to the show was that they were some kind of special agents who rode around the country in an 18-wheeler that could turn invisible at times and also contained helicopter that could launch from the top of the semi’s cab. Just jaw-droppingly stupid, and neither lead could act to save their life. IMDB lists Tim Russ (Star Trek: Voyager’s Tuvok) as a cast member as well, bet he leavews this one off the resume. I wonder how much cocaine producers and network execs needed to think this was a good idea? Then again, I sometimes wonder whatever became of Jacko, he seems to have been completely forgotten since the name “Jacko” has become associated with Michael Jackson thanks to the British tabloids. IMDB list two acting credits since then one in 1994 and one in 2003.

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You’re not the only one!

In elementary school, we used to troop down to the library to watch Big Blue Marble once a week… “Together is a word, we must learn to understand, cause tomorrow’s just another day to get together, and … get closer… closer…”
I think I even got a pen-pal thru that show for awhile.

I remember Villa Alegre too… the cool Ferris wheel in the downtown area…

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Here are a few I didn’t see mentioned yet:

Pixanne: This was on when I was a kid in the mid to late '60s. It was a low-budget show featuring a lady dressed up in Peter Pan type costume. The only thing I remember about it was being fascinated by her “magic paintbrush,” where she would “paint” on a blank canvas and make it look like the brushstrokes were creating a real photographic image.

Hodgepodge Lodge: Another low-budget PBS-type show. I think it focused on doing crafts, and the host was a tall lady IIRC.

Two bits of drek from the early Fox network: Beans Baxter, about some kind of secret agent kid (the only thing I remember about this was a scene with two Canadian guys on a dam, and one said to the other, “Time to flood the St. George, eh?”), and Beanpole, about a tall thin girl who towered over her peers. I don’t think I actually watched that one, but it was on right after Beans Baxter.

MANIMAL

Anybody else remember these?

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Okay, I’m going to mention several shows that I’ve not seen mentioned anywhere on this thread, yet.

First: Two shows that were done in the 70’s by WCVB TV-5 in Boston - Capt. Bob’s drawing show, always nature/ocean related, and kind of fun. I think it was simply called Capt. Bob but I won’t swear to it.

Then there was something called Jabberwocky which as best as I can recall was Monty Python for kids - with some educational value, too. It also had a Muppet look-a-like in a rock, but i can’t recall the name. Whichever it was a shock for me to discover in HS the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ since I thought they’d made up the name for the show.

Then, around 1990, two SF shows that I really enjoyed.

First was something called Mann & Machine starring some yutz and Yancy Butler (I remembered that name since it seemed such an odd name for a woman.) as a hard bitten cop in the near future, and his android ‘partner.’ In addition to the ‘cop’ show plots there were a lot of ‘odd’ things going through it: I remember that the main character kept having dreams where his dog would be talking to him, and part of the hook was that there was a hint of some kind of relationship brewing between the cop and and android. I think it only lasted 13 eps, and wasn’t surprised to see it go, but I remember thinking it was pretty good SF - a number of episodes about ‘new’ crimes. (I remember one with a ‘villian’ who’d taken out the psychoactive medical injection unit in his arm to be able to go back to feeling what he felt was normal.)

Second was a two hour made for TV movie that had the feel of being a failed series pilot called something like Plymouth about a town transplanted to the moon. Not any magic, or anything, just the people of a town poisoned by an industrial accident offered a chance to become the first colonists on the moon. I can’t say I recall much of the characters, but the main plot of the pilot was the effects of a large solar flare on people living on the moon. And I was very impressed with how much attention was being paid to real science issues.

Finally, I’m surprised that no one had brought up Due South yet. Another odd cop show. My favorite part was the way it would slide into the surreal - between the ‘deaf’ wolf that read lips, the way that the Mountie’s father’s ghost would show up once an episode to kibbutz or kvetch, and the time on the Halloween episode that Vinnie (the allegedly normal, American, cop) seemed to be haunted as well by the ghost of his father.

Now, for some affirmation:

I greatly enjoyed many of the shows mentioned here:

Voyagers
Tales of the Brass Monkey
Brisco County, Jr.
Herman’s Head

Just to list a few that I can recall, now.

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I’ve heard of it but only because of the animated remake

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Anyone remember Q.E.D. with Sam Waterston?

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Ah yes, back when the Comedy Channel had 12 employees, and all of them had their own shows. The Higgens Boys and Gruber, anyone?

As I recall, Night After Night ran pretty much all night, didn’t it? At the beginning, at least, it was like a four or six hour show (padded out with film clips and such) and got chopped down to something more like an hour and a half or two hours only near the end of its run.

I think. It’s been a while.

And a show that just leapt unbidden into my forebrain: Anyone else ever watch Man From Atlantis, with a pre-Dallas Patrick Duffy? Only detail I can recall right offhand was the fact that the guy swam like a dolphin, with his arms tucked against his sides. And he had webbed fingers.

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Q: of all the Briscoe County Jr. fans: what was your real reason to watch the show?

A) A young an talented Kevin Campbell (Note: to choose A, you must admit Publicly you like his jokes).

B) The Amazingly Talented ’ Lord Bowler. (THE Funniest person on the show, bar none)

C) The ever-present (“did he say effervescent…?”) Dixie Cousins (aka Kelly Rutherford in pettycoats & lace. She’s not bad, but she certainly is dressed that way)

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I remember that, too. He had a private plane and drove a white Corvette.

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Well, so far no one else has mentioned Far Out Space Nuts…so I guess I’m all alone there…

But what about Stingray? Came out mid-to-late 80’s, about a guy with a mysterious past, who helped people out, and in return all he asked was that they return the favor at some unspecified point in the future, whenever, wherever, whatever he asked at the time…

And while we’re on cars…does anyone remember Viper?

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Gosh lots here that I’d forgotten existed!

I remember watching a couple of shows in the late 80s that no one has mentioned yet. They were called Bordertown and the other one was Rin Tin Tin K-9 Cop (or something like that. They were on the family channel and I LOVED them.

Bordertown was about a town on the border of Canada and the US during the 1880s. There was a straight-laced Mountie and a rough and tumble US Marshall who had to share the space, since the town spanned two countries. And a pretty French-Canadian doctor that they both liked. I even remember the commercial “She was a woman of the 80s, the 1880s”.

Rin Tin Tin was about a cop who had a dog partner and was raising his nephew. The kid’s name was Stevie Katz, I remember. I think the cop was Hank Katz. I just remember thinking it was funny that their last name was Katz, yet they had a dog! LOL.

Does anyone remember these?

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Dern, I knew I forgot some. Yeah, I loved Bordertown, too.

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The five Dark is Rising novels are legendary over here in the UK, but I don’t recall it ever being adapted - and you’d think I would.

Other shows in this thread that I know of:

Time Trax. Decent show. I liked it.

Misfits of Science and The Monster Squad. Never shown on UK TV, but the pilots for both shows were released as DTV movies (a not uncommon practice back in the days when we only had four channels). I did recently manage to acquire a complete run of Misfits, though. <evil grin>

Highlander: “the future one”. Better known as Highlander: The Animated Series. God, what a festering pile of dung.

Due South. This one was always appreciated more in the UK than the US, to the point where we played a major part in getting it renewed twice.

Prey. Shown late night on TV. A goodly show which I watched religiously. I suspect the arc-based nature is what put viewers off in the States.
My contribution to the thread, sticking to US shows:

Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys. I’m still looking for someone else who’ll admit to watching this - which is odd, because it was great.

Brimstone. You Yanks really like cancelling anything that even remotely challenges the norm, don’t you?