What's yours?
For those who need help, here's a list: http://www.fromthe80s.com/tv/series.php
Tales Of The Gold Monkey :cool:
I would say Alf, Dynasty and Robin of Sherwood bring back the best memories. I suspect they would be unwatchable today though. :P
For me without a doubt. In the Heat of the Night.
and I didnt even see it on that list. 1988-1995
Dynasty, Out of This World, The Cosby Show and though not listed there (presumably because of it showing up in two decades) - Murder, She Wrote.
Moonlighting
Moonlighting, Murder, She Wrote, Remington Steele, Fantasy Island
:wub:
The Smurfs or Inspector Gadget. I was a young'un. I did enjoy watching Cheers in syndication in high school.
Kidd Video, and I kinda liked Miami Vice.
Also, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. The TV game show was awesome, even with the barbershop singers.
I was a kid when Fall Guy with Lee Majors was on, and it was seminal in my elementary school years.
Have to think about absolute favorite, though, because there's so many good ones.
Too many to choose only one:
Magnum P.I., Moonlighting, The Twilight Zone, Miami Vice, The Cosby Show, The Dukes of Hazzard (oh cousin Daisy :wub:), and others.
I had to wrestle control of the remote with my sister, who loved Three's Company, Eight is Enough, LoveBoat and Fantasy Island: god, how I hated that Tattoo midget.
L.
Quote from: Pedrito on November 16, 2012, 11:34:57 AM
Too many to choose only one:
Magnum P.I., Moonlighting, The Twilight Zone, Miami Vice, The Cosby Show, The Dukes of Hazzard (oh cousin Daisy :wub:), and others.
I had to wrestle control of the remote with my sister, who loved Three's Company, Eight is Enough, LoveBoat and Fantasy Island: god, how I hated that Tattoo midget.
L.
;)
For US shows it'd be a toss up between the A Team and Knight Rider, two staples of the childhood of any Spanish kid who grew up during that era. :P
Blossom. In a very special episode, Joey gets raped.
WHOA!
:lol:
I guess Magnum PI or Three's Company. I didn't watch, or at least don't remember, a ton of television at that age, and what I do remember is largely kiddie fare, e.g. G.I Joe and Transformers and such. Was Garfield and Friends 80s or 90s? I liked that.
Probably Family Ties.
and Cheers.
The A-Team, Knight Rider and Transformers defined my childhood. Always ate my lunch in a blast so we could go to the living room to watch those, since they ran at 15:30 pm. (Transformers in the afternoon after school).
In particular, A-Team led me to believe that guns weren't that much of a big deal, since people could shoot 1000000000 bullets at each other without a drop of blood being shed, and that car crashes shouldn't be feared since you could always crawl off the car.
Magnum PI, Dukes, McGyver and the old Battlestar Galactica were also big favorites of mine.
I want to say MASH or WKRP, but both are more 70s-era shows. I also want to say Star Trek: TNG, but that is probably more a 90s show.
Lots of shows I enjoyed in the 80s, but probably haven't aged well. LA Law for example.
Shows like A-Team or Knight Rider were shows I loved as a kid, but wouldn't these days.
I'm going through the list - I'm reminded of Police Squad! If shows with only six episodes count, then that's my vote. Those were 6 really funny episodes.
NBC's Thursday night line up was amazing: Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers and then my favorite, Night Court.
Moonlighting was great right up until they ruined the show by getting hooked up, but I used to fucking cancel plans when it came to Miami Vice on Friday nights.
Night Court is a good one. I was going to go with it until I decided to go into left field with Police Squad!
And it's surprisingly accurate for a TV show in its portrayal of docket court.
I was an avid LA Law fan. Arnie was the bomb.
The black lawyer cross-examining the witness to death was a tv classic moment. :)
As for non-American shows, I was a huge Blackadder fan. Also loved The Young Ones, but I got more into it in the 90s, when I was older and could understand more of the jokes. Same with Red Dwarf.
I forgot the two shows bordering the 70s that were the favorite : Happy Days and Mork & Mindy!
L.
As technically it started in 1987, Unsolved Mysteries. It's the only 80s show that I still watch on off-times, in fact, as a lot of the segments are still circulating around as it was syndicated on Lifetime for Women, and quite a few cases are unresolved and are still investigated.
I haven't watched the new version on Spike with Dennis Farina, however.
There's a fan community at Sitcom Online. Relatives of victims or missing persons covered on UM (and, allegedly, a few suspects as well) have also posted over there with their own inputs.
Quote from: merithyn on November 16, 2012, 10:35:46 AM
What's yours?
For those who need help, here's a list: http://www.fromthe80s.com/tv/series.php
Of the shows on that list, easily WKRP in Cincinnati, but I consider it more of a 70's show. Otherwise, at the time, my favorites would have been Family Ties and Magnum, PI. In retrospect, I really like The Equalizer.
There was a lot of great TV.
Hill Street Blues,
Mork and Mindy
Cheers
Family Ties
The list goes on but these after a quick scan were the those that jumped out at me that I never missed.
From North American output meantioned only Hill Street Blues and Cheers held my attention back then.
For UK tv, mainly comedy series from that era.
I guess it's largely a question of age more here grew up in the 80s whereas us olders have more fondness for the 70s stuff.
TV from the last ten years is way better than the stuff of our youth*. Mainly because they no longer have to dumb it down enough to attract 20 million viewers.
*Of course, I'm comparing best to best. It's likely worse on average, but there's no reason to watch crappy tv shows.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 16, 2012, 06:22:23 PM
TV from the last ten years is way better than the stuff of our youth*. Mainly because they no longer have to dumb it down enough to attract 20 million viewers.
*Of course, I'm comparing best to best. It's likely worse on average, but there's no reason to watch crappy tv shows.
They never did really have to dumb it down, they just thought that they did. But the people in charge of the best of the older shows knew this, and I'm not sure that the best of the newer shows are any better than the best of the older shows.
I really liked Night Court.
One of the best older shows was Cheers, which was nominated for over a hundred Emmys. Going back and watching it now, the jokes all seem painfully obvious and the characters cliched. Same thing happens when watching other classics like I Love Lucy, Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, All in the Family, etc. There's a good reason television got the nickname "the boob tube", nearly all early programming was designed so you could be entertained while resting your brain.
The biggest improvement as far as I'm concerned doesn't have anything to do with sitcoms, however. It's the influence of the DVD boxed sets on action oriented shows. Now that shows are frequently watched in a marathon binge, it's much harder to justify the "new problem comes up and is solved in 45 minutes" approach. Instead, many if not most of those shows now have a lot of emphasis on meta-narrative and multi-episode arcs.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 16, 2012, 09:16:04 PM
One of the best older shows was Cheers, which was nominated for over a hundred Emmys. Going back and watching it now, the jokes all seem painfully obvious and the characters cliched. Same thing happens when watching other classics like I Love Lucy, Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, All in the Family, etc. There's a good reason television got the nickname "the boob tube", nearly all early programming was designed so you could be entertained while resting your brain.
The biggest improvement as far as I'm concerned doesn't have anything to do with sitcoms, however. It's the influence of the DVD boxed sets on action oriented shows. Now that shows are frequently watched in a marathon binge, it's much harder to justify the "new problem comes up and is solved in 45 minutes" approach. Instead, many if not most of those shows now have a lot of emphasis on meta-narrative and multi-episode arcs.
:bleeding:
I have the Magnum PI theme song as my cell phone ringtone. :cool:
Man, there's a lot of great shows on that list.
I'm going to go with Degrassi Junior High since it's probably the only one I actually watched in the 80s.
I was between 4 and 13 in the 80s. The shows I liked at the time were (keep in mind not all shows made it over the pond):
- Cosby Show
- Our House
- The Fall Guy
- Riptide
- Simon & Simon
- MacGyver
- Knight Rider
- Airwolf
- Street Hawk
- Max Headroom
- Tour of Duty
- ALF
- Who's the Boss
- A-Team
- Schwarzwaldklinik (German hospital drama series that had a huge following at the time)
- Das Boot (tv-miniseries)
- The Wonder Years
- Three's Company
- Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister (they were showing British comedy shows subtitled at the time)
and lots of others I don't quite remember right now.
My parents didn't let me stay up to watch Magnum or Miami Vice at the time which were on late on German tv.
Quote from: Caliga on November 16, 2012, 10:42:41 PM
I have the Magnum PI theme song as my cell phone ringtone. :cool:
Had a co-worker at the old job. One day a new colleague (19 years old) asked if it was some sort of Nintendo 8bit tune. :bleeding:
I hope you punched him in the balls. :)
knightmare
Magnum PI, Cosby, Hill Street Blues, In the Heat of the Night, Night Court, Matlock. I'm sensing a trend here.
Quote from: Scipio on November 17, 2012, 09:54:05 AM
Magnum PI, Cosby, Hill Street Blues, In the Heat of the Night, Night Court, Matlock. I'm sensing a trend here.
You're missing Hunter. And/or Slegde Hammer.
Oh yeah. "Yes, Minister" most definitely. Probably one of the very few shows mentioned here that is still watchable and fresh.
I forgot about Night Court, that was a great show.
Quote from: sbr on November 17, 2012, 03:19:13 PM
I forgot about Night Court, that was a great show.
:yes: "Bob and June Wheeler, as I live and breathe!"
Although it lost a few points in my book when I finally found out why Karen Austin disappeared after the first season. Karen Austin >>> Markie Post.
Quote from: Syt on November 17, 2012, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Scipio on November 17, 2012, 09:54:05 AM
Magnum PI, Cosby, Hill Street Blues, In the Heat of the Night, Night Court, Matlock. I'm sensing a trend here.
You're missing Hunter. And/or Slegde Hammer.
Sledge Hammer and Police Squad were great shows, but they lasted such a short period of time that I hesitated to call them favorites--I'm not sure that they could have kept up the quality if they'd run longer.
Sledge Hammer's beauty was that it was silly and ludicrous, and more often than not went for the cheap joke, but all charactersare aware of the stupidity and silliness - with the exception of Hammer (and often the villain) who plays it straight with endearing naivete. But I agree, I doubt it could have sustained its level for long.
And went out with a pretty good un-fulfilled cliffhanger.
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 18, 2012, 02:41:59 PM
And went out with a pretty good un-fulfilled cliffhanger.
You mean the atom bomb? That was end of season 1. They returned in season 2 with an announcement, that the new season was taking place before the events of the last episode of season 1.
Quote from: Syt on November 19, 2012, 01:34:56 AM
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 18, 2012, 02:41:59 PM
And went out with a pretty good un-fulfilled cliffhanger.
You mean the atom bomb? That was end of season 1. They returned in season 2 with an announcement, that the new season was taking place before the events of the last episode of season 1.
Yeah, it wasn't really a cliffhanger. The bomb went off, and everybody died.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on November 18, 2012, 10:09:24 AM
:yes: "Bob and June Wheeler, as I live and breathe!"
Although it lost a few points in my book when I finally found out why Karen Austin disappeared after the first season. Karen Austin >>> Markie Post.
Why did she leave the show? :unsure:
I just presumed it was probably because Markie Post had bigger...tracts of land.
Quick look said she had a few months of facial paralysis post bell's palsy.
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 19, 2012, 12:20:54 PM
I just presumed it was probably because Markie Post had bigger...tracts of land.
Markie Post didn't become a regular until season 3. Until then, she was just an occasional cast member.
Quote from: merithyn on November 19, 2012, 12:27:23 PM
Until then, she was just an occasional cast member.
Because she was busy on The Fall Guy. Though she had nothing on Heather Locklear.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldskoolanthemz.com%2Fforum%2Fattachments%2Fchillout-room%2F32029d1326668935-first-crush-fall-guy.jpg&hash=2789817b8d453bdaa0ae340519582b3961c22e2a)
:wub:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 16, 2012, 01:52:29 PM
NBC's Thursday night line up was amazing: Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers and then my favorite, Night Court.
Moonlighting was great right up until they ruined the show by getting hooked up, but I used to fucking cancel plans when it came to Miami Vice on Friday nights.
Yeah I watched that NBC line-up every Thursday Night when my parents would go out. It was the only night I watched TV though so I do not feel very qualified to start naming my favorites. Different World also came on that night eventually, I loved that show to.
What ruined Moonlighting was actor problems not getting them together, they just happened to occur at the same time.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on November 18, 2012, 10:09:24 AM
Although it lost a few points in my book when I finally found out why Karen Austin disappeared after the first season. Karen Austin >>> Markie Post.
What was wrong with Markie Post?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmj0ru_markie-post-night-court-clevage_tv
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 19, 2012, 12:20:54 PM
I just presumed it was probably because Markie Post had bigger...tracts of land.
I had a serious lust on Markie Post. Erection ahoy!
Quote from: Syt on November 19, 2012, 12:32:01 PM
Quote from: merithyn on November 19, 2012, 12:27:23 PM
Until then, she was just an occasional cast member.
Because she was busy on The Fall Guy. Though she had nothing on Heather Locklear.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldskoolanthemz.com%2Fforum%2Fattachments%2Fchillout-room%2F32029d1326668935-first-crush-fall-guy.jpg&hash=2789817b8d453bdaa0ae340519582b3961c22e2a)
:wub:
She's got no tummy.