“Ginger or Mary Ann?” There was a time every guy understood the question and had an answer. Now that Gilligan’s Island isn’t on TV every afternoon I bet there’s an entire generation that doesn’t.
True story: when we first bought a HDTV and signed up with Hulu (Netflix?) the first show I watched was Ernie Kovacs. The Wife thought it seemed odd to watch a low-definition, sixty-year-old show on a newtech device.
TVLand is running a marathon 11/28, so there must be some interest.
Does anyone under 50 even remember the concept of prime time variety shows?
Sure, but TVLand’s target audience isn’t young. This is the network whose hit show is “Hot in Cleveland”, where everybody is over 50.
What do you think shows like “America Idol” or “America’s Got Talent” and suchlike are? It’s a little different format than the classic variety shows which were a direct descendant of vaudeville style stage shows–a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.
Mary Tyler Moore, the “Chuckles the Clown” episode! 
I hate to say it, but Xena: Warrior Princess. It paved the way for Buffy (and had a far better musical episode), but I haven’t seen it anywhere in ages.
They showed it in Russia (for the first time, I think) 10–12 years ago. It didn’t last long. I remember watching an episode and thinking “My God, this was the No. 1 show back in the '80s?!?”
Okay, so the music and car races and fashions and deaths in slow motion were really cool. But the writing and acting—WHOOOO-WHEEEEEE!!! SUCK-O!!!
**RICO: **The deal’s goin’ down tonight, Lieutenant!
SONNY: We gotta be there!
[LONG PAUSE]
CASTILLO: Go. Take Gina and Trudy with you for backup.
And *that *was about as good as it got!
I’m not sure how much of a splash it mnade when it was new, but I eagerly watched it. Men Into Space was a surprisingly accurate dramatic series about the dawning space age, depicted realistically with no absurd leaps in logic or technology.
For a LONG time the series has been practically absent from any reference material – books on science fiction television rarely, if ever mentionec it. If they didm they didn’t list episodes (even in books devoted to listing episodes of SF on television). Until relatively recently, there were hardly any internet sites about it.
Add to this that I’ve never seen the series in syndication, or on VHS or DVD. You can find some excerpts on YouTube. Do any of the TV streaming services (like Hulu) carry it? The show has been incredibly inaccessible, even though the episodes apparently still exist.
I suspect those cheesy digital effects shows from that era aren’t aging well. But it isn’t like Xena isn’t influencial:
Wow. It must be Opposite Day.
If there was a thread on "TV shows that have stuck around in public consciousness far more than they should have, Gilligan’s Island would be right up at the top of the list. Sherwood Schwartz, who produced both Gilligan and The Brady Bunch, was a master of making shows that were the TV equivalent of earworms.
And, to add to the conversation, what about S.W.A.T.? There was a flop movie about 10 years ago, but otherwise this show has left no trace except for the theme song.
The show was on less than two seasons. It’s surprising that it’s remembered at all.
Do people remember Dragnet? It was originally a radio show (1949-1957), but was a TV show from 1951-1959, then returned for 1967-1970. There was also a color movie in 1954 (plus a TV movie the pilot from 1966 that was aired later), all of them starring the emotionless and straitlaced Jack Webb as Joe Friday.
It’s easy to poke fun at the assumptions and earnestness, but Webb’s show got away from the absurd shootouts and action-oriented shows and portrayed police life as it frequently was, drawing its cases from actual files.
The 1987 film Dragnet spoofed all this, but they brought Dragnet back as a serious show again in 1989 and in 2003, although those didn’t last long.
The shows were pretty highly rated in their prime, and everyone knew the opening theme and narration (and the closing ones, too). And that hammer-on-metal “Mark VII Productions” was so distinctive that the people who make Robot Chicken stole it. There’s no doubt that Dragnet made a deep impression
But it’s been a decade since the most recent incarnation, and the young’uns might not know about the long history and impact of the series.
Both suffered from the David E. Kelley effect. Make a popular show that has a loyal fan base and then when you get tired of it sabotage it with controversial plots and story lines with your favorite characters acting in out of character and hateful ways.
“Let’s be careful out there” is still a often used cliche/meme in my profession. Not many shows still have a saying being used decades later.
Does anyone 30 years or younger remember a show that started 30 years ago?
How about Alice? It finished four of its nine seasons in the top ten, spawned a popular catchphrase in “Kiss my grits”, and seemed to be practically forgotten even before it went off the air.
It’s weird that you keep mentioning names after Lynda Carter.
I’m surprised Moonlighting hasn’t been mentioned.
I don’t know much about the original Dragnet series in general but I do wonder what happened to the LSD trippin’ Blue Boy from time to time. That is one of the most unintentionally funny episodes of TV ever made. You can watch it on Youtube.
