“Trials of O’Brien” with Peter Falk
“Fractured Flickers”
“Gulla-gulla Island”
“Sky King”
Several great British shows, including:
“Danger Man” with Patrick McGoohan
“Doctor Finlay’s Casebook”
“Family at War”
“The Planemakers”
“Rumpole of the Bailey”
“The Bounder”
From Canada:
“St. Lawrence North”
“Cannonball”
“The Friendly Giant”
“The Bounder” was the funniest show I ever saw. Only 14 episodes in 1982. A slick con man gets released from prison and goes to live with his sister, who refuses to believe that he has not mended his ways.
Last night I was flipping through channels and ran across a show that I didn’t even remember having existed. I recognized it as soon as I saw it, though. Voyagers!. (I see that not long after the show originally aired, the star chose an unfortunate bit of horseplay.)
Well, Kristy was the cute girl next door and only 2-3 years older than me and Meredith is about 20 years older. I don’t even remember her on the show.
I liked that show, pretty talented cast but I went back to watch a few episodes maybe 8 years ago and it has not held up in any way for me. Besides Sarah Jessica Parker it had Jami Gertz & Tracy Nelson. I know neither went on to great work but still pretty talented trio there.
It was so long ago and I was so young, I can’t really remember. I seem to recall that it was just a very short-lived variety show, but I can’t be very sure about that.
This is the one I was going to name. I remember liking it as a kid but not much else. Since most of the reviews say it was pretty bad, I probably won’t ever go back to rewatch it so I can keep it as really cool in my head.
I remember loving a Mel Brooks show called The Nutt House, set in a hotel. They used the same set as the TV series Hotel, which was a Love Boat / Fantasy Island clone.
There used to be a show called Lottery! about the different ways people reacted when they won the lottery, starring Ben Murphy, who was also in one of my favourite shows when I was a kid, about a guy who could turn invisible, called The Gemini Man.
There were a whole bunch of detective shows in the wake of Magnum PI, like Simon and Simon, the aforementioned Riptide, and Hardcastle and McCormick, but one of my favourites was Kate Jackson and Bruce Boxleitner’s Scarecrow and Mrs King. I am pretty sure that was why Boxleitner was in Chuck, for the similar premise of an ordinary person getting caught up in the spy world. And also Tron of course.
Only ran for one season in 1987-88-- 22 episodes, which is what constituted a season back then. Fabulous program starring Tim Reid, who had played Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati. He was also the Executive Producer.
The premise: “Frank Parish is a professor from Boston, who has not seen his father since he was two. 35 years later, he is told that his father died and that he owned a restaurant in New Orleans, which is now legally Frank’s.”
But there was so much more to the show than this brief description conveys. Frank moves to New Orleans with the intention of shutting down and selling the restaurant. But instead he learns the ways, manners, stories of New Orleans, along with its quirky denizens. The cast was 90% black. God, this was a great program–one of those “too good to last.” It had humor, heart, understanding, and some great writing.
I also loved Memphis Beat, which someone else mentioned.
I liked her too, and I guess it was an age thing because she was kind of funny looking. Her first role, however, brings up another forgotten “gem” Run, Joe, Run
I know of it, but remember when it was on only very vaguely. The theme song is on YouTube:
The resolution (which SFAIK was never filmed) was that
the dude who had lost his memory was actually a Soviet sleeper agent.
When I was in third grade, I absolutely loved **this **show. Whereas Combat! was set in France, and The Rat Patrol in North Africa, this took place in Italy:
Yeah, I used to just take it for granted that NatureScene was shown on PBS stations across the nation (like The Joy of Painting and other shows) but apparently it never much broke out of the South Carolina market for some reason, even though it covered multiple states and even other countries (I remember a trip to Russia, for instance.) It even should have intersectional feminist appeal–when Jim Welsh wasn’t with Rudy, it was Beryl Dakers–a black woman–even close to 40 years ago.
Each summer when the American TV show The Dean Martin Show (very popular at the time) went on hiatus, the time slot would be filled in by a replacement show run by the same production company. Several times this show starred the Golddiggers, the singing and dancing female troupe from the regular show. In the summer of 1970, someone decided that it would be nice to film the show in London. They hired Charles Nelson Reilly and Marty Feldman to be the hosts of the show. Reilly (who never did anything else half as funny) was well known to American audiences. He was sort of on the edge of being part of the Brat Pack. Marty Feldman wasn’t known to American audiences but was a hot new comedian in the U.K. He was one of the cast and writers of the British show At Last the 1948 Show. Feldman and Reilly did comedy sketches on this Dean Martin summer replacement show, some of which came from At Last the 1948 Show, including a version of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, one of the most famous comedy sketches of all time. The sketches that I remember were screaming funny.
I saw Night Flight broadcast in syndication in the early 90s.
It came in horribly, and it was like midnight and I’d keep dozing off, but…I was a rural kid with little exposure to anything, and it was So Fascinatingly Weird by pre-internet standards.
I loved that show when I was a kid! It’s the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread.
I remember it was absolutely the only thing on TV on Sunday mornings that wasn’t religious programming, news, or infomercials (this was pre-cable, for those of you for whom that statement doesn’t make any sense), but it was also a decent show, or at least it was in my 30+ year old memory.
I do! I watched Night Flight all the time on USA. Lots of crazy short films and music videos. It’s also where I first saw the movie Fantastic Planet. There’s a Roku Night Flight channel but it’s pay so I have never seen it but my understanding is it rebroadcasts episodes.
I have another one that wasn’t a series. It was a TV movie that as far as I know only only aired once. I believe it was called Without Warning and it was a TV movie about an alien invasion but in the format of a series of live newscasts. I only saw it the one time but my memory of it is that it was good. I suspect if I saw it again it would probably be cheezy.
I think I have a vague collection of Gemini Man, but I definitely remember Lottery! Got into a fight once with a cousin who wanted to watch Dallas instead.
Oh yes! I had forgotten about that. It was regular viewing when I was a kid.
I recall Frank’s Place getting good marks from critics. I have a vague notion that I might have seen an episode but I don’t recall too much about it.
I’ll second GuanoLad on The Wizard. It starred a genius inventor who wanted only to make wondrous toys. He always got into various sorts of adventures, and his toys always somehow saved the day. I don’t remember the carpetbag, though. The only specific toys I remember were a super-cool remote controlled jet (I don’t remember what it did), and a little spherical robot that was strong enough to bend prison bars.
