# TV Shows You Once Loved But Now Think Are Awful **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 6, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037 "2014-03-06T19:16:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/81 "2014-03-09T02:30:53Z")
_The Man from UNCLE_. This was my favorite show when I was 8 years old. I remember it being full of action and suspense, with lots of travel to faraway, exotic locations. When the MeTV network began showing it, I eagerly watched … and was horrified. The show had an utterly impoverished look to it; all the exteriors were obvious studio backlots with an occasional stock shot of London, Paris, etc. thrown in. Scenes in public places like airports were claustrophobic and underpopulated. The high-tech UNCLE headquarters looked to be about the size of an average dental office. And, of course, the show quickly descended into Batman-esque 60s camp. Even in the first, supposedly “good” season, the plots were implausible. _Mission: Impossible_, another show I loved as a kid, holds up somewhat better, although it still has that confined backlot look. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/82 "2014-03-09T02:43:02Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > OK, you expect that _Bonanza_ would be slow and talky and have an obvious plot with a simple moral at the end. What’s really hilarious is how clean everybody was. (I mean physically, not just the dialog.) How anachronistic and unrealistic the clothing was. How totally Hollywood sound stage the sets were. It was practically a cartoon. You have to wonder how anybody ever took it seriously. > > Almost nothing from that era holds up. The only drama I can stand is _Burke’s Law_. And that’s because it was a spoof on all the cliches of the cop shows of the time, with the characters, dialog, and plots deliberately insane and supposed to be laughable. It remains fun while all the serious shows turn inane. I completely agree that most 60s dramatic television doesn’t hold up well, particularly in terms of sets and costuming. Even back then I remember wondering how people in TV westerns stayed so clean and neat. One major exception that people rarely mention is _Route 66_. They actually took a crew all over the USA and filmed everything on location. The stories still contain many of the familiar TV-drama cliches, but the show LOOKS amazing. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/83 "2014-03-09T03:11:54Z")
> [@SirRay](#): > > May we include cartoons? > > I used to be an inveterate cartoon watcher when I was a kid in the 1970s, lots of syndicated cartoons around the middle 70s to watch (yay). > I remember liking Josie & The Pussycats among others…and thanks to the magic of YouTube I recently watched an old episode of Josie & The Pussycats In Outer Space - Ugh, it was absolutely horrible. If the Far-Out space nuts portrayed space travel better than your show does, you know you have a problem. > > Actually I have sampled various episodes of 60s and 70s kids shows (whatever I can find on the web, which I don’t recall watching on 70s TV), and a lot of them just don’t hold up (bad plot, poor dialog, and super-cut-rate animation - actually, I haven’t watched any 1980s era cartoons, maybe they were just as bad). > The first few years of the Flintstones, however, many of those episodes kind of held up - the Jetson’s, OTOH… I got a DVD cartoon collection a while back, and saw some Looney Tunes cartoons I remembered from my youth, and understood immediately why you don’t see them on TV any more. They were loaded with racism, sexism, domestic violence against both men and women, animal cruelty (especially towards cats), etc. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/84 "2014-03-09T03:45:16Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > …I always just assumed that Endora, et al., preferred the “mature” look for themselves. It’s probably a status thing. It was established that witches & warlocks grow more powerful with age (though eventually they get so old their powers fade & senility sets in; witness Aunt Clara). Looking back it makes zero sense how Endora constantly acts like Sam’s throwing her life away by marrying a mortal (though I suppose one could argue that Endora was in constant fear the Witches’ Council would eventually strip Sam of her powers for good and she’d be subject to mortal aging). I loved **The Lucy Show** as a kid, but rewatching it as an adult really made me realize how downhill it went once Lucy moved to LA. It basically morphed into a sketch comedy and aged horribly as so much of the jokes relay on long forgotten celebrities and pop culture. On the other hand the 1st 3 seasons when she lived in Westport with Viv and the kids hold up pretty well (especially the 1st, though it does lack Mr Mooney). ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/85 "2014-03-09T04:02:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I got trapped into watching an episode of _Bonanza_ recently. Not long before I finally watched all three seasons of _Deadwood_. Mental whiplash. > > OK, you expect that _Bonanza_ would be slow and talky and have an obvious plot with a simple moral at the end. What’s really hilarious is how clean everybody was. (I mean physically, not just the dialog.) How anachronistic and unrealistic the clothing was. How totally Hollywood sound stage the sets were. It was practically a cartoon. You have to wonder how anybody ever took it seriously. the shows were funny even if you were in the target audience of the time. one i watched recently, because of the subject, was the family helping out Albert Michelson (the physicist guy) get his start being educated. with crude start to speed of light measurement made out of wood (Flintstones funny). ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/86 "2014-03-09T04:09:03Z")
> [@steveroo](#): > > The high-tech UNCLE headquarters looked to be about the size of an average dental office. And, of course, the show quickly descended into Batman-esque 60s camp. Even in the first, supposedly “good” season, the plots were implausible. Coming out the season after _ **Batman** _ debuted, _ **The Girl from UNCLE** _ (Stefanie Powers, Noel Harrison, Leo G Carroll) was far worse. In one of the few episodes I watched, the supervillain was about to zap April and Mark with his death ray, and then remembered he had forgotten to change the batteries. :rolleyes: Trivia question: Was Leo the first actor to play the same character on two concurrent and related TV series? It seems to me he was (and was followed by Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman on both _ **The Six Million Dollar Man** _ and _ **The Bionic Woman** _). ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/87 "2014-03-09T04:12:22Z")
**Happy Days**. But only the later seasons after it [Jumped The Shark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark). The first three seasons are still pretty good. But man, when I see a rerun of it from 1978+ I think, WTF did I keep watching this show back then. They ruined it!:mad: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/88 "2014-03-09T04:17:05Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > Heh. No, that much was me being snarky. But I still don’t get how that trick instantly landed her a job at Blackie’s whore-house. How exactly would she be pleasuring a guy that way? Have you never experienced the pleasure a woman with a truly talented tongue can impart? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/89 "2014-03-09T04:29:16Z")
Modern-day action television production values have completely shattered the awesomeness that was once Macgyver. The show was really entertaining for me when I was a kid (I think it was in reruns even then), but I caught an episode a year or two ago with excitement only to find out it was horrible. I dream of Jeanie doesn’t hold up nearly as well as Bewitched for me now, though as a kid watching the re-runs on Nick at Nite, Jeanie was by far my favorite. ---
**Author:** ![Indyellen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/indyellen/32/4176_2.png) [@Indyellen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indyellen)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/90 "2014-03-09T05:08:18Z")
I tried watching \*Dinosaurs \* on Netflix. Not as funny anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/91 "2014-03-09T13:05:40Z")
Not after you know the ending especially ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/92 "2014-03-10T05:33:25Z")
Some classics: **Chico and The Man** - When I was a kid and this come after Sanford and Son I laughed my ass off. I tried watching it a few years ago and between Jack Albertson playing a racist A-hole and Freddy Prinze mugging for the camera, I could barely squeak out a laugh. **Starsky and Hutch** - I LOVED this show. But trying watch it now is like a bad short film. Paul Michael Glaser was terrible. And David Soul seemed bored through most episodes. Definitely a 1970s series. **ThirtySomething** - OMG…this show is unwatchable now!. These people are so dull that you have to wonder why this POS was ever a hit. Did anybody,anywhere live like this? **Knots Landing** - I bought my SO the DVD set for this and I tried to watch them with her. I gave up after Season 2. This show just plodded along and really went nowhere. I had forgotten this when I saw it when it first aired. **Spenser For Hire** - While I still love the Robert Parker novels and I think that the films are actually pretty good, the series was just another lame detective show when I tried to watch it recently. It certainly wasted the talents of Avery Brooks and Richard Jaeckel. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/93 "2014-03-10T07:25:05Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > **Kids in the Hall** has aged pretty badly in my opinion. Really? I’ve re-watched the series recently, and like any other sketch comedy show, it’s uneven. But like _Monty Python_ the parts that worked continue to work, and I really don’t see that time has had a whole lot of effect on it. Sketches like Dave and Scott’s [“I Speak No English”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vgoEhsJORU) are timeless. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/94 "2014-03-10T07:57:11Z")
Everything I liked as a kid, I still like. And some stuff (like early SNL) I can appreciate more. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/95 "2014-03-10T08:42:18Z")
**Quantum Leap** Caught it on TV a couple weeks ago. I still found the opening titles exciting and uplifting. But then…10 minutes in I’m bored out of my mind. This show was literally the highlight of my TV week once. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/96 "2014-03-10T08:52:20Z")
I wonder how much of this reflects our sadly truncated attention spans? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/97 "2014-03-10T16:46:17Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I wonder how much of this reflects our sadly truncated attention spans? Not a whole lot, IMO. All those decades of TV simply changed both writers and viewers. At one time, writers (a catchall for all the directors, producers, scripters, and other creatives) thought that audiences had to have every little thing spelled out for them or else they wouldn’t be able to follow. And maybe that was true back in the early days. So we got programs that both showed us events and told us about those events and then reminded us about everything later on because we might have forgotten and there was no way of going back, even one second. As people grew up with television, they learned how to watch a program. Writers could then use shorthand. Lots of things we think are natural are really shorthand. At one extreme, people in the early days walked up to a door, rang the doorbell, waited until the door was answered, walked though the house, and finally met with somebody inside. Today they may as well teleport directly to the action. At the other extreme, characters grew more complicated and more verbal. Once they were established, every word that came out of their mouths had multiple meanings. On a show like Mad Men, only long-time viewers can watch it at all because the experienced will be looking for references to past seasons, past actions, and past relationships in every word - and every glance and every article of clothing. The writers know that and cater to those viewers. They can get away with that because people - both regular viewers and new ones - can and do watch entire past seasons at a sitting and have the whole in their minds in a way that 50s and 60s viewers literally would find impossible. That’s not a shorter attention span. It’s exactly the opposite. Writers do a lot more because audiences know a whole lot more and expect a whole lot more. That’s a major reason why people keep saying this is the Golden Age of television. The average show is much better than any early average show. The good shows are much better than any past good shows. The great shows were and are still great shows, but it’s getting harder every year to appreciate their greatness because the places where they struggled mightily to get past the limitations are obvious and distracting. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/98 "2014-03-10T20:05:50Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Trivia question: Was Leo the first actor to play the same character on two concurrent and related TV series? It seems to me he was (and was followed by Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman on both _ **The Six Million Dollar Man** _ and _ **The Bionic Woman** _). I think you may be correct. The only other likely candidate I could think of is _Gomer Pyle_, since his spinoff series ran concurrently with _Andy Griffith_. However, according to my [admittedly superficial] research, Gomer did not appear on _Andy Griffith_ while he was in the Marines tormenting Sgt. Carter. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/99 "2014-03-10T20:17:34Z")
Some shows mentioned in this thread that I still enjoy are Green Acres, Seinfeld, Magnum PI, Miami Vice, and Dukes of Hazzard. Dukes got very bad in the later seasons but the first few seasons still hold up IMO. It was never Shakespeare. I never liked Lost in Space or Friends. My biggest disappointment was Alf, I loved that show when I was 12 but when I caught reruns in my 20s I could see what horrible one-note dreck it was. ---
**Author:** ![MacCat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maccat/32/216_2.png) [@MacCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacCat)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037/100 "2014-03-10T21:12:37Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Gilligan’s Island. > > The Beverly Hillbillies. > > Petticoat Junction. > > Green Acres. > > Rin Tin Tin. > > Circus Boy. > > I loved these shows when I was a kid. Now I can’t stand them. I must admit I still like Granny and especially Jethro from **The Beverly Hillbillies**. [Jethro explains fast girls](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TonTGAfn2zI) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-you-once-loved-but-now-think-are-awful/683037.md?page=6)