http://You definitely get a different spin on the book after you have kids. is totally my favorite website now. 
I sensed at the very beginning of this show’s run (once I grokked the basic premise) that they would pull a Chris Carter on the viewer. Turns out I was right; a show which tries to engineer these kinds of convoluted plot twists galore kind of format is very susceptible to viewer backlash if they don’t give you a satisfactory payoff in a reasonably timely manner.
Dang. I blame Windows.
Anyway, there’s a compilation DVD out there.
Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, the whole blue-collar genre (Earl doesn’t count).
Home Improvement was huge in its day. Now Tim Allen is doing Santa Clause, Shaggy Dog, and probably thinking to himself, “I left prison for this?”
Cybill Shepherd in general.
Murphy Brown was once a cultural touchstone.
Jon Stewart mentioned Wings on his show last night as an example of ubiquitous cable programming which made me chuckle.
I remember in the early-mid 90’s when USA and TBS each seemed to show syndicated episodes ten times a day but I haven’t seen the show on in years.
I only mentioned Lou Grant because of that very FJ. Hadn’t thought of the show since it went off the air.
Does anyone still rewatch Maude? (other than Bea Arthur fetishists, that is)
Malcolm In the Middle
There are plenty of older shows that disappeared. Even among cult shows.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Science Fiction Theater on any form of video. I’ve seen one or two episodes, mostly on the SciFi channel, when they needed fuiller.
Similarly, One Step Beyond, a Twilight Zone-esque shoe from about the same era, is almost completely forgotten. Again, no videos or DVDs. I’ve never seen it in syndication.
But one of the most completely disappeared shows is Man Into Space, a circa 1959 near-future science fiction series. I can barely recall it from the original broadcasts of my youth. Again, AFAIK it’s never been syndicated or released on video. It never showed up on the cable networks, even SciFi. Unlike the other two I cite, it’s never had a book or a portion of a book devoted to it. Eventually, a couple of websites and synopses appeared on the internet (although it was YEARS after the others shows had been covered). I think it’s on IMDb now, and clips on YouTube. But it’s still virtually invisible. Yet this was a mature, hard science space drama (long before Star Trek made that claim), that ran in prime time.
The wonderful AuntiePam found that show on DVD and when she was finished with it, sent it to me so I could add it to the collection at the library I worka at.
I don’t understand. What backlash, what Chris Carter Effect and what loss in viewers? Lost is still tremendously popular and is still a huge part of the cultural landscape.
Not to mention, it’s still good and just finished one of it’s strongest seasons yet. Which is why it’s still tremendously popular and still a huge part of the cultural landscape.
The OP specified shows that aren’t rerun anymore and that no one has seen in ages. Malcom is rerun on FX and in local syndication several times a day. I can watch at least 4 episodes a day in my area, and in HD, too.
Same here.
And I agree about ER, too, not that I was ever a huge fan. At one time it was “must see TV” now even my ex (huge fan at one time) doesn’t even bother.
Great quote from the linked page:
Sorry for the double post. Lost the edit window. Wings was run daily on TV Land and USA both until about a month or two ago. It’s still shown daily on USA.
Married With Children runs several times a day on Spike TV and TBS.
I would disqualify any program that is run daily on a national cable network as having dropped off the cultural radar.
Melrose Place seems to only be mentioned when the TV people are talking about Heather Locklear, totally discounting her quality work on TJ Hooker.
News to me!
They forgot to add The Pretender, John Doe, and Journeyman. Oh and Joan of Arcadia. Wonderfalls.
I swear, when I become World Dictator, one requirement of those “it’s all a great mystery” shows will be to have all the answers wrotten down and sealed in a mayonaisse jar, to be opned when (not if) the show gets canceled without all the questions/mysteries being revealed.
The only legal use for torture who be on the show’s creative staff in case the mayonaise jar turns out to conatin a blank page or not every answer is in there.
Are you under the impression that her sudden ability to have inanimate animals talk to her was a mystery subject to solution?
Wonderfalls, like its current sister-show Pushing Daisies, has a central factor that is mysterious in nature but is not a mystery, as such. We aren’t going to find out why these tchotchkes started talking to Jaye, just like we’re not going to find out why Ned can bring the dead back to life. And I, anyway, don’t care. Those aren’t mysteries that need solving. They’re just part of the overall world that the series is (are) set in.
KneadToKnow
I missed the part of the OP about “no reruns”, but I would argue that reruns on GSN don’t really qualify as reruns compared to reruns on a channel like TNT. Heck, I don’t even have GSN. The most important thing is that WWTBAM, when Regis was hosting, was popular and prominent in the collective national consciousness. IIRC, at one point it was on three times a week. Then one day everybody decided that they were sick of network game shows and that was that.
Same with Roseanne, Twin Peaks, Home Improvement and Murphy Brown. I can watch these every day. I’m currently trying to record the whole series of Twin Peaks in the correct order. It’s wonderful!
I wasn’t the one making the argument about its popularity, but I was calling attention to the apparent syndrome of making it up as they go along (which is what Chris Carter did with the X-Files, if you had bothered to follow my link).