When I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s we watched stuff like The Cosby Show, Benson, Diff’rent Strokes, Full House, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, etc.
The “raciest” thing we ever watched together was Married…With Children.
I will admit that my mom was sort of strict with our TV viewing, and I myself might be a little prude now when it comes to what I perceive as “family tv.” But I couldn’t imagine watching something like Two and a Half Men or Cougartown, or even The Office with my parents when I was a kid.
Is there anything on broadcast TV that parents watch with their young kids, or do you stick to ABC Family and Nickelodeon?
There is definitely a dearth of shows that you can watch with your really young kids that are tolerable for the adults.
When my son was 6 and 7 we didn’t have cable or decent broadcast reception and all of our shared viewing was through Netflix. When we did get cable I asked another mom what she watched with her kids and she mentioned Amazing Race, and Extreme Makeover Home Edition. We never did get into Amazing Race.
Most of the things we watch together are on cable; Myth Busters, and Dirty Jobs, How It’s Made and challenges on Food Network. I don’t mind occasional episodes of iCarly, and I liked Neds Declassified, and Drake and Josh well enough. I count myself fortunate that he’s never been interested in Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers.
This season we started watchign No Ordinary Family, which isn’t ground breaking, and is sometimes irritating, but unlike any of the police procedurals there isn’t likely to be any graphic violence or gore. That’s a difference between my childhood and his. I could hang out in the room where my mom was watching TV not exactly watching with no risk of seeing something that would give me nightmares. I remember her watching Mission Impossible, Emergency, Quincy, and a lot of cop shows. You could argue that all of them have corelative shows currently airing, but I don’t want my son to see the arterial spray actually spraying.
If your family has a dark sense of humor, Raising Hope might be safe. It’s by the people who did My Name is Earl, another sweet-natured show.
Each episode has a lesson. Tonight’s Halloween episode was about how Jimmy’s dad would scare him on Halloween, just to get a hug. Jimmy failed to see the point of his dad’s shenanigans, until he got a hug from baby Hope, and then he understood the power of hugs.
Another episode had Jimmy’s mom making the family sit for a themed portrait every year. It drove the family nuts – everything had to be perfect and she totally stressed everybody out. They couldn’t figure out why it was so important to her. She finally explained that she wanted her family to be like the families in the houses she cleans. All those houses have holiday/birthday/etc. portraits and everyone looked so happy. She wanted that for her family. I’m making it sound sappier than it is – the episode was hysterical. They ended up getting the perfect family portrait from a traffic video camera after mom ran a red light – everyone in the van singing and laughing after another failed portrait sitting.
There’s just all kinds of sweetness and love in the show, but there’s a little bit of raunch as well. Great-grandma Cloris Leachman sometimes forgets to wear a shirt. Baby Hope’s mother was a one-night stand of Jimmy’s, and she turned out to be a serial killer. (She was executed, which is how Jimmy got custody.)
But there’s no bad language, not even the half-bad words you hear on other shows. There’s no potty humor or nudges about sex.
Sorry to go on so long, but this is my favorite new show, and even though it’s on Fox, there’s really nothing objectionable in it.
The only show my family watches together these days is Modern Family, but we’re all pretty much old enough now that “adult content” doesn’t matter (my younger sister is 16 and I’m 20).
“Back in the day” when we were little we used to watch Seinfeld, The Simpsons, The Nanny, Friends, and lots of British comedy like The Vicar Of Dibley, Absolutely Fabulous, Father Ted, Fawlty Towers, all four of us. My parents never used to worry about off-colour jokes, we heard much worse in school and most of the stuff went over our heads anyway. They’ve always been pretty cool in that respect. There were boundaries of course - we didn’t all sit down and watch Pulp Fiction on movie night or anything - but rewatching shows like Seinfeld and Absolutely Fabulous now that I’m older, I notice how much I simply didn’t get when I was watching it as a child. I appreciated the funny bits that I understood, like Edina on the airport conveyor belt or Kramer singing with Mel Torme after getting punched in the mouth, and as I grew up I appreciated new layers in the humour.
This is what I was coming in to post. The kids crack up and it occasionally gets a laugh out of us too. Tom Bergeron is much better than Bob Saget as host.
We watch Survivor. I have to be vigilant about the gruesome CSI and other death-porn commercials.
The kids mostly are allowed to watch kid shows, nature shows, stuff like Whose Line is it Anyway, and really old sitcoms. They like watching Come Dine with Me and Doc Martin with me. The ten year old loves stuff like Peep Show and Graham Norton. Yeah, I guess we’re anglophiles.
We watch that show quite a bit in our house, but we have renamed it “People Falling Down” because that’s what a huge amount of the content is.
(But my personal favorites are whenever an above-ground swimming pool breaks, unleasing zillions of gallons of water – it’s great every time).
We would all sit and watch American Idol, and America’s Got Talent.
Everyone else likes the Dancing shows, but I find something else to do then.
Thank goodness for DVRs. Prime time network TV is mostly either uninteresting to or inappropriate for my three-year-old. So, we watch DVRed stuff like Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, some HGTV and DIY shows, and kid shows. One thing she’s been asking to see a lot lately, for some reason, are these little four-minute how-to videos I downloaded from Dish Online about how to make Halloween crafts and snacks. Loves the crafts, she does.
She also really likes certain movies; a while back she watched the Christopher Reeve Superman movie over and over, and more recently she was absolutely enamored with the original version of The Karate Kid.
You said broadcast TV but I agree that iCarly is very popular for family’s with youngish kids as is Spongebob Squarepants. Those are kids shows that lots of adults admit to liking.
The last show I can think of that all four of us loved was Everybody Hates Chris. The humor was clean enough for the youngest but sharp enough for the rest of us.
Our kids are 6 and 7. They do not watch anything on the major networks, but there is plenty to watch on Disney, Nick, and PBS, and much of it is palatable to someone who grew up on TV in the 70s and 80s. We watch iCarly, Phineas and Ferb, Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, and a few others. We also watch the Brady Bunch and I’m going to show them the shows I grew up on, like Growing Pains and Family Ties, when they’re a bit older. They will not be allowed to watch prime-time network TV until they are 12 or 13 unless a miracle occurs and it suddenly becomes appropriate for younger kids again.
That’s interesting - I never would have thought of the shows like Mythbusters and Hoarders for kids, but it totally fits!
Chicken Fingers - your 10-year-old watches Peep Show? Even tho there’s a lot of sexual humor and even a few first person sex scenes?
I do totally understand that everyone has different views on what’s acceptable to show their kids, so I’m not aghast that a 10 year old watches Peep Show or anything
I think Everybody Hates Chris is a great example of a kid-friendly broadcast show. I was into that when it was on. The only other show I could think of that kids might like is Corner Gas which is…1) Canadian 2) Shown in the US on the USA cable network 3) Over.
Little Mosque on the Prairie would be a good one too but that is NEVER going to come to America. It has Muslims!
I watch a lot of TV and actually about 40-50% of it is prime time broadcast stuff. I really can’t think of any of it that I would be comfortable watching with my parents - and I’m 31!
I honestly get creeped out when I am over their house and they’re watching Everybody Loves Raymond. I think that has too much sexual innuendo. heh
I don’t, however, watch any of those reality shows and it seems like they are the new family entertainment, which is cool. Kids like a good competition!
ETA: Sigmagirl, good call on The Middle. I watch that too. My mom and I both enjoy it (yes, once again, I am 31)
Our family has been watching the reruns of Everybody Hates Chris. It’s a great show. I didn’t know about it when it was first aired, but it’s a good show for kids and adults.
