Lord, I remember Best of the West. I can even still sing some of the theme song.
A few years after that came an hour-long drama called Wildside, which I remember liking. Only lasted about 5 episodes, although IMDb says there were six.
Here’s Boomer which sort of glommed off the Benji movies with a cute, small dog solving people’s problems then leaving them like the frigging Hulk does at the end of every episode.
St. Elsewhere a medical drama in the vein of Hill Street Blues. Known mostly for its ludicrous ending than anything else. But it was also amusing because the cast was huge and quirky, and most went on to better things. Mark Harmon seemed like he was set up to be the hot young lead of the show but was drowned out by the more bizarre ensemble cast and merely became another doctor on the show.
wow, what a walk down memory lane this thread has been.
(I don’t care what anyone else says, Kristy McNichol was FOXY! to my young eyes)
My contribution is The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams
I actually remember that show too, and I was barely in school at the time.
Did anyone else watch “Space: 1999”?
I also remember a cartoon called “Bob and Margaret” that aired on the Cartoon Network in the evenings, because while it didn’t really have adult content, it wasn’t for children. I mainly remember it because at the time, I worked with a woman who looked a lot like Margaret.
How about “Wait Till Your Father Gets Home”? Our local station aired it on weekend afternoons; I got the DVDs through Netflix a while back, and it’s still relevant today. I could, however, see how it was considered edgy at the time.
Wow, you’re all giving me blasts from the past. Lucan(I can still picture the title sequence) Nanny and the Professor (Phoebe Figalilly is a silly name!). Does anyone remember Three for the Road ? It starred one of my first sweet babies, Leif Garrett. How about Homefront ? Now that was a quality show.
I wouldn’t classify St. Elsewhere as a favorite show that nobody but you remembers. It ran for 6 seasons at over 130 episodes, while never a ratings success it was a huge critical success, winning over 20 awards including 13 Emmy awards.
It was one of my favorites .
Now, if you wanted to name an ensemble drama show, from the early 1980’s with a huge, quirky cast (and also aired on NBC) then I’d go with Bay City Blues
It only ran 13 episodes and IMO had a lot of potential, and since it was a series about a Minor League Baseball team and the community where it was set, there not only could have been lots of additions to the cast but it could have been diverse as well.
On a related note, do you all remember the theme songs? I just noticed nearwildheaven’s mention of Wait Til Your Father Get’s Home and I immediately started singing it (in my head, of course :p) "I love my mom and dad and my brothers too . . . ". Even those that were only instrumental are stuck in my brain.
I remember one of the jokes and to 10 year old me it was just funny and wacky enough to somehow be reserved a parking spot in my brain forever.
The female trapper holds up a pelt, “We call this a ‘Whatyuck.’ you take one look at say ‘what?’ then you take a taste and say ‘yuck.’”
Two cartoons in the mid 80s that I thought were pretty good were Adventures of the Galaxy Ranger and Spiral Zone.
Galaxy Rangers had a team of space cowboys who had special implants activated by touching their badges. The show had a pretty deep list of secondary characters, aliens, and wacky robots. It also had a bit of a bleak premise despite the good the Rangers did. The team leader’s wife’s mind is trapped in the evil Queen’s psychocrystal and he’s working on saving her.
Spiral Zone has part of the Earth covered in a spiral-like zone and anyone trapped in the zone becomes a zombie-like “Zoner.” The good guys have suits that resist the Zone influence and they fight free the zones bit by bit. Another series that’s a little darker than its peers though I recall it didn’t really have much depth beyond the good guys always winning despite being in a losing situation.
St. Elsewhere is where Ed Begley, Jr – the guy mentioned in the OP–is from. Even if people didn’t watch it, it does have the famous Snow Globe Finale.
Nobody has mentioned The Charmings yet…
Believe it or not Salvage 1 was based on a story by Robert Heinlein. “Have Rocket, Will Travel.”
Lord, you must really be old.
I remember Crusader Rabbit. I can even sing the theme song… “Watch for a-no-ther-er episode…”
I also remember Beany and Cecil, but since I was a kid (about 6), the humor probably went over my head.
Do you remember Sheriff John? An Andy-Griffith-ish guy sat behind a desk and hosted cartoons. This was California in the early 1950s–KTTV. I also remember all the words to his theme song:
I remember that the word “livelong” didn’t make any sense to me.
I have this on DVD, and just watched several episodes last weekend.
I remember this. I have sitting on my desk right now a copy of the NNTN board game, never been played.
And for years I got the ‘sniglet a day’ wall calendar, until they stopped making them.
I won’t go over all of the other already posted shows that I remember. Here are a few I didn’t notice…
Apple’s Way
The Ghost & Mrs Muir
My Life & Welcome To It
Bugaloos
Night Gallery
Midnight Special
Mothers In Law (I think that was the title)
There was one with Doris Day - she was a widow with kids and an Old English Sheepdog. For some reason I keep thinking of daisies!
came back because I forgot The Greatest American Superhero:smack:
(not Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom that I almost posted the first time)
These aren’t really unknown. And you’re thinking of daisies because the show was called Please don’t Eat the Daisies. Doris Day was in the movie but I don’t think she was on the TV show.
Fridays was ABC’s attempt to capitalize on the success of Saturday Night Live. It faded away after two seasons, and is only remembered nowadays for the fight that broke out between Andy Kaufman & Michael Richards (which, of course, later turned out to be staged.)
Clubhouse was a drama series about a teenager who gets his dream job working as a batboy for a major league baseball team. It was meant as a star vehicle for that kid from Peter Pan, but instead it bombed horribly, and was cancelled after only 5 episodes.
There was a show I vaguely remember watching as a little kid, “To Rome with Love.” A widowed father moved his young family to Rome in order to take a teaching position. Just looked it up - it starred John Forsythe. Only lasted a few seasons.
But how can something be obscure if it makes it to George Costanza’s answering machine? (Not to mention Sheldon Cooper’s chest.)