# What, in your mind, was the strangest thing your grandparents watched on TV?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 21, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162 "2015-11-21T03:44:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/1 "2015-11-21T03:44:53Z")
My grandfather was an Italian immigrant. He was born in 1910 and worked for US Steel. He loved watching all of the nature shows on PBS and he watched Hee Haw every week. Grandma, another Italian, was a sucker for Shirley Temple movies. She also liked “Golden Girls” but found it kind of dirty. They both liked to watch “The Newlywed Game.”
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/2 "2015-11-21T03:52:33Z")
The first time I saw a penis on TV was at my grandparents’ house. It wasn’t exactly intentional, but they both loved movies, had HBO and some other premium channels, and didn’t alter their viewing habits when kids were around. So it was there one day. Scarred for life.
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### Author:  [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/3 "2015-11-21T04:14:31Z")
My grandparents did not have a TV. But they had electricity.
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### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/4 "2015-11-21T04:42:45Z")
My mother, when she was in her late 70’s, early 80’s, adored watching ‘Sex and the City’, the Kardashians, Joan Rivers, and the various ‘roasts’. Oh, and ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Two and a Half Men’. She also laughed her head off watching ‘Borat’. She thought it was a fine time for television. (I don’t remember her when younger, or my actual grandmother, watching anything ‘strange’ on tv, they never watched much tv at all except for Ed Sullivan’s show.)
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### Author:  [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/5 "2015-11-21T05:37:53Z")
My grandmother (passed away in 2009, age 92) really enjoyed Britcoms like Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances. Not really strange, I guess. She also like Benny Hill reruns.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/6 "2015-11-21T06:03:29Z")
Not strange, just funny:
My great-grandpa (good guy, lived to be over a hundred) was watching Lawrence Welk one day in the 1990s and said “Margaret, I don’t know how he does it! He hasn’t changed since I saw him thirty years ago!”
Margaret, his wife (lived to be well into her nineties) said “For Christ’s sake George, it’s a rerun!”
Eh, maybe you had to be there.
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### Author:  [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/7 "2015-11-21T06:14:53Z")
My grandparents always said that going to movies was sinful, and “When Jesus comes back, he won’t go looking for you in a movie theater.”
Yet they loved General Hospital.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/8 "2015-11-21T06:21:18Z")
My grandmother just about lived to watch golf…and college basketball.
My great aunt (my grandpa’s sister) is about 90 and while she likes the ‘normal’ shows, Miss Marple, Rockford Files, Murder She Wrote etc, she loves Two and a Half Men.
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### Author:  [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/9 "2015-11-21T06:45:04Z")
Midwestern Hayride. Sort of a precursor to Heehaw.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/10 "2015-11-21T11:16:19Z")
My mother’s parents loved the soap “As the World Turns” Everyone in the family knew we shouldn’t call them on the phone during the time it was on, they wouldn’t answer. And my grandfather didn’t watch much TV but that show was a must. I couldn’t figure it out, he didn’t seem the type to get into that stuff.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/11 "2015-11-21T11:50:43Z")
Memories of my grandmother are from the mid-70s until she died in 1984. She loved _The Days of our Lives_ (I can’t see an hourglass without thinking of her); she would watch every Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon (not from start to finish, but pretty close); and I recall her having a crush on some young Canadian talk show host named Alan Thicke.
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### Author:  [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/12 "2015-11-21T12:10:42Z")
Here’s the real kicker: my grandmother absolutely loved watching midget wrestling! Every weekend we’d sit down to watch the wrestling matches, hosted here in Pittsburgh by Bill Cardille.
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### Author:  [@kbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kbear)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/13 "2015-11-21T12:16:33Z")
Every Sunday at my grandparents’ house it was Lawrence Welk followed by the Wonderful World of Disney. We only had two channels back then. Pickins were pretty slim!
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### Author:  [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/14 "2015-11-21T12:37:58Z")
> [@kbear](#):
>
> Every Sunday at my grandparents’ house it was Lawrence Welk followed by the Wonderful World of Disney. We only had two channels back then. Pickins were pretty slim!
Same thing here but in between we had **Hee Haw**!
Lawrence Welk didn’t do much for me but Hee Haw had its moments. To this day, I know all the words to “_Where o’ where, are you tonight? Why did you leave me here all alone_” etc. as well as “_Gloom, despair, agony on me_” etc.
Well there was nothing else on.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/15 "2015-11-21T13:22:07Z")
Nothing weird in my family’s TV watching habits. My grandparents died in the 70s (from my Mother’s side - I never even knew my Dad’s parents) so their choice of viewing would have been limited as we only had one channel back then. And my parents watched boring ordinary stuff - Dad liked sports, Mum liked soaps and hospital dramas. Boring and mundane.
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### Author:  [@Donegal\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donegal_Dragon)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/16 "2015-11-21T13:37:43Z")
My great grandmother was addicted to wrestling on tv. For her 100th birthday,my grandfather arranged for Andre the Giant to come to her apartment in St Louis. She giggled like a little girl. It was wonderful.
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/17 "2015-11-21T13:50:42Z")
> [@minlokwat](#):
>
> Lawrence Welk didn’t do much for me but Hee Haw had its moments. To this day, I know all the words to “_Where o’ where, are you tonight? Why did you leave me here all alone_” etc. as well as “_Gloom, despair, agony on me_” etc.
_Deep dark depression, excessive misery!_
I feel. . . dirty. :o
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/18 "2015-11-21T13:53:17Z")
I just remember my Grandma watching the news and whenever Bill Clinton came on TV, she’d yell, “You wicked, wicked man! You wicked, wicked man!”
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/19 "2015-11-21T14:39:58Z")
> [@Frank](#):
>
> _Deep dark depression, excessive misery!_
>
> I feel. . . dirty. :o
_If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all._
Yes, I’m another boy whose grandfather watched _Hee Haw_. And _Lawrence Welk_.
My grandmother was a big fan of _Little House on the Prairie_ and _The Waltons_.
My other grandparents were no big TV watchers (it may have been a language issue). But my grandfather was a reader. I remember being introduced to James Bond by reading his copies of that series at an inappropriately young age.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-in-your-mind-was-the-strangest-thing-your-grandparents-watched-on-tv/738162/20 "2015-11-21T15:12:33Z")
Never knew my grandparents, so I can’t say.
Ask my daughter, she’d probably say _ **Lawrence Welk** _. We both find this bafflingly amusing.
I loved it whenever Welk introduced (as _ **MAD Magazine** _ would call him) the token Negro tap-dancer: “He’s a fine gentleman, and a credit to his race!” :eek:
I’ll bet he fried real good chicken, too! :smack:
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