It’s a grey day. Grey and windy. I’m going home to Rhode Island for the weekend. Can’t wait. Hanging out with the parents, hanging out with the sister, hanging out with the high school crowd.
However – I am feeling misanthropic today. And irritated. The big bad city is getting on my nerves. Definitely time for a couple of days away. I need to breathe the salt air, and take a walk on the beach.
And so all of this misanthropy naturally got me to thinking about favorite TV shows of my childhood. (Makes perfect sense.)
I wasn’t a huge TV-watcher as a kid, but what I did love, I loved with a passion which burned me up at night. I would count the days until “my shows” were on. I would feel that life was not worth living if one of them was pre-empted.
I’m sure I’m forgetting some – but here are some old favorites which come immediately to mind: (oh, and I’m counting TV movies)
— 3-2-1 Contact: I was absolutely ADDICTED to this classic PBS show. The Bloodhound Gang! I wanted to be part of the Bloodhound Gang.
Co-ontact
It’s the a-answer
It’s the mo-tion
When everything happens…
Co-ontact…
Also, whatever that apartment was was very cool.
Later: I became ADDICTED to Eight is Enough, but only with the advent of Ralph Macchio. The rest of the eight kids kind of freaked me out with their feathered hair and late 70s adolescent sexuality … but Ralph Macchio? The troubled new addition to the family? Oh, I could not get enough.
Sesame Street. Of course. A favorite to this day. Mr. Hooper, Big Bird, Maria (I always loved the feisty Maria), Bert and Ernie … Cookie Monster, who was just a big walking blue Id … and all the others. I grew up on this show. Magic.
Little House on the Prairie I had read all the books. I was absolutely in love with the show. I think especially because the main character was a little girl about my age. I loved the show so much that my mom (God bless her) actually made me a little bonnet, which I wore to school. I was 16 years old at the time. (No, just kidding. I was 8 or 9 years old). Here is Betsy’s analysis of Little House. Do not miss it.
Land of the Lost I can say with all honesty that this show changed my life. Although HOW it did this I could not tell you. I mean: HOLLY! I absolutely loved Holly. Her relationship with the gentle baby brontosaurus … and just the whole conceit of the show … I DUG it. It filled my imagination with possibilities – I wanted to crawl into the television and join that “routine expedition” with Marshall, Will and Holly. Also, Holly’s clothes were directly responsible for my fashion choices during the ages of 10 and 11. I had long braids, I wore plaid shirts, blue jeans, and “wallabies”. Member those? LOVED. THIS. SHOW.
There was an after-school special which rocked my planet, and I cannot remember the name of it. It was something like: “Shhhh. So-and-so is coming to get me.” (The name in place of “so and so” was something like: ‘Marv Hammerman’ – It was a long strange name) Terrible title, I know – but it was about this little kid, who was mercilessly teased at school – and this big bully kid would follow him home every day, and beat him up, torment him, whatever. The teased kid was terrified, would hide in the bathroom after school, blah blah.
Member after-school specials? Do they still have those? I think they were on Wednesday afternoons, and you would come home from school, and it would be on from 4 to 5, and I loved them! But this one about the tormented kid trying to outrun “Marv Hammerman” touched my sensitive soul. It ends in this manner: A group of boys (Marv Hammerman is not one of them) follow the tormented kid home, and attack him. They’re beating him up, everything is going well for them, when along comes the dreaded Marv Hammerman … And you think: Uh-oh. He’s gonna make things much worse – he’s scary – he’s mean … And Marv takes in the scene, the 6 kids attacking the one, and he says, “Come on, cut it out. He’s had enough.”
Why did that touch my heart so?? I absolutely loved that after-school special, and would closely watch the TV pages, to see when it would be on.
What else did I love?
Bless the Beasts and the Children. A TV movie, which I have never forgotten. I saw it way too young, it upset me deeply – but I am grateful for having seen it too young. Soul-growth.
The Gong Show My God. Remember The Gong Show? The man with the paper bag on his head? I loved that show.
I cannot include CHiPs on this list. I just cannot. It is too shameful.
Donny and Marie “I’m a little bit country…” “I’m a little bit rock and roll…” LOVED those two. I would huddle up next to the television with my tape recorder, taping their duets. I loved Marie’s voice. Little did I know that 20 years later I would work for Donny Osmond’s security detail in Chicago. Very strange. Beth – didn’t you love Donny and Marie, too? (hee hee)
Cosmos I mean, please. Come on. I could not get enough.
Masterpiece Theatre Farewell, Alistair Cooke! You were as much a part of my childhood as … oh, I don’t know … Jessica Savitch! That voice! Masterpiece Theatre had some of the most exciting programs I had ever seen in my life. I still remember “The Prince and the Pauper”. Thrilling. I remember their fabulous mini-series version of “Ballet Shoes” (one of my favorite childhood books, as you will recall…) What else did I see? Uh – “The Flame Trees of Thika” with the delicious Hayley Mills … unbelievable! I watched the entirety of that one with my parents. A great memory.
And how could I forget … there was a TV movie called Orphan Train. Does anyone else remember this? Jill Eikenberry (later on LA Law) played an English woman who somehow (can’t remember) ended up taking a train-load of homeless orphans out into the Wild West of America, during the 1800s, to place them with farming families. I really need to see that movie again. It was an exhilarating experience, I fell in love with it, I loved the story, I wanted to be IN the story. I still remember one of the orphans, a bitter angry Liverpudlian named, appropriately, Liverpool. I LOVED Liverpool. In my memory, this movie was all about the triumph of the human spirit, and also – the essential goodness of people. That you should not judge people if they are ugly, or poor, or have ugly clothes … Every person deserves a chance.
And then there was Square Pegs and its one fated season. But I was addicted to it. Addicted. How many shows last only one season and you never ever remember them again? But this one – people still talk about. The geeks of the world, united. I related to each one of them, in different ways. They were validating.
Oh, and of course – Happy Days. My favorite character was the Fonz. Remember the Christmas episode when he lied to Richie and said, “Oh, you don’t have to invite me over … I got a great family … I go home every Christmas … we open presents … we have stockings …” But then – later – Richie somehow peeks in on Fonz on Christmas Eve and he is sitting by himself, alone at his table, eating macaroni out of a can. Does anyone remember this? Fonzie lied, to save his pride. But it all turned out all right in the end.
Until the show jumped the shark, once and for all.
I would make fun of you for saying that “Land of the Lost” changed your life, were it not true that one of my favorite shows when I was a kid was “Sha Na Na”.
Doh-do-doh-doh-do! Go Bowzer!
Dammit. I knew I had forgotten one. Sha-na-na. Bowser showing his biceps!
I also loved the Sunday night Disney specials. Still remember the thrill of Tinkerbell flying over the castle, which meant the show was about to begin.
Tinkerbell was my favorite! I vaguely remember watching those specials, but my dad tells me I used to go apeshit when she came on. He also told me that I was apparently uncontrollable when “The Streets of San Francisco” came on and that I used to run around the house yelling “Steets! Steets!”
Emily – That is such a damn cute image. “Steets!” ha ha…
I always loved Tinkerbell because she was feisty, and didn’t take any shit from Peter. She talked straight to him, and gave him crap about stuff. I loved her.
“Land of the Lost” – the Sleestaks terrified me; had to watch them from behind the couch.
It’s funny you should post this topic. I was just explaining to a friend the other day that I was a ‘Channel 56 kid'(Did you get that station down south in R.I.) i.e. all the shows that I watched over and over (exluding PBS programs) were on Channel 56. To wit:
Creature Double Feature – oh how I mourn it’s demise, ’twas bad monster movies galore.
Happy Days – I think I saw every single one, from the season with Richie’s big brother who mysteriously vanished to Richie’s weeding via phone. I wish I had a t-shirt that said ‘I liked the original Arnold better.’
Laverne and Shirley – Lenny and Squiggy still crack me up.
Alice – “Mel, kiss my grits!”
Facts of Life – Molly Ringwald’s ‘big break’
Good Times – I still know this theme song by heart. Occasionally sing it after a few beeers.
Three’s Company – I was watchign the original Ocean’s Eleven the other night and was shocked to spot the guy who played Mr. Roper in the cast.
I gotta give some props to Electric Company though – Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader kicked ass.
Have a lovely time at home.
Channel 56 sounds very familiar … I know all my Boston cousins got it.
Beth? Betsy? Are you out there? Help! Were we channel 56?
I liked the original Arnold better, too.
The only thing I remember about Electric Company (besides Rita Moreno’s terrifying “HEYYYY YOU GUYYYYYYS” at the beginning) is the bit where there were two faces in profile and each would say, in turn, one syllable of a two-syllabel word – and then say the word in its entirety together.
“Pop.”
“Tart.”
“Poptart.”
You know what I’m sayin’??
Forgot Morgan Freeman was on that show. Just watched Shawshank Redemption again the other night, and was amazed, all over again, at how great he is.
I’m pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down. You don’t remember ‘Letterman?’ Or was that Sesame, not Electric…
Speaking of Sesame Street anyone remeber that poor SOB in whitepaint and a bowler hat (I think it was a bowler hat) who was always going around trying to paint a ‘3’ or ‘q’ somewhere? And was always stymied in his efforts by some freak occurrence? Very existential (or some such thing) – some heavy shite to lay on kid. I really felt bad for him. I kept wondering ‘why won’t anyone let this poor man paint his 3? why are people so cruel?’
Dan –
I remember it vividly. I had the same feeling of frustration. But I am laughing at your description of it, because I have not thought about the “3” man in 30 years.
How about the guy who would fall down the stairs with the cake in his hands?
I hated that bit. It was too messy. Too awful. He might get hurt. And that cake went everywhere.
Hahahahaha! I’d forgotten that guy. He’d stand at the top of the stairs and make a grand pronouncement…
“One….Strawbery…Layer Cake!”
…and then go ass over teakettle.
I’m not really what the educational value of that one is. Be careful handling baked goods?
And there’s always the pinball medley:
“OneTwoThreeFourFive
SixSevenEightNineTen
ElevenTwelve.”
I still find it strange that now the whole gang can see Snuffy now. I always had pity for when Big Bird got mocked when he’d mention Snuffy.
I used to always wonder what the world was like inside Oscar’s can. I’d occasionally see the kids lifted in there, heading off into this new world that I couldn’t see. Sure, it was this small cylindar, but inside was Oscar’s world, unconfined to this tiny container, and I wanted to see it.
I also liked that typewriter cartoon dude. He’d roll onto the screen singing “Noonoonooonoonoo” I wonder if they still have him, and kids wonder what on earth that thing is.
Laura –
HAHAHA typewriter cartoon dude… God, I remember him!
How about this one:
“It’s a lovely 11 morning
I heard 11 worms yawning!”
(Yawn)
“I saw 11 cows nipping at the buttercups
I said ‘How’s the cottage cheese?’
They said: ‘Eh – dried up!'”
I have to mention the incomparable Johnny Quest. I loved that show–Hadji, Bandit, Dr. Quest, and Bruce Bannon or something like that. It put all other Saturday morning fare to shame. It seemed more grown up than other cartoons.
In the cartoon realm, I was extremely partial to Underdog.
Oh, and one other BIZARRE Sesame Street memory:
Does anyone remember the grapefruit singing the aria from “Carmen”? The grapefruit had a rubber band for a mouth, which would open really wide – and the grapefruit perched on the prosaic kitchen counter, and sang a damn opera aria. So HILARIOUS, in retrospect.
Imagining the production meetings for that one.
“Okay, so here’s my idea. We have this grapefruit come alive, and sing the aria from Carmen … whaddya think?”
Snuffy should never have become visible and typewriter guy is definitely a keeper.
I’m also a big fan of Grover, “The Muppet With A Thousand Faces.”
Grover was adorable. Especially as the superhero with the tragic flaw.
Sheila I do remember that, as a kid I found it so strange, yet I watched it, captivated. Looking back, it was brilliant. I loved watching how she was created, bit by bit. The batting eyelashes, the rubber band mouth.
Another great one as that Teeny Little Super Guy, this cool guy on a drinking glass, he’d go around the pantry helping other kitchen gadgets solve their problems. At the end he’d go back into his cupboard, the theme would be sung again, and it’d be done.
I loved the show so much that my mom (God bless her) actually made me a little bonnet, which I wore to school. I was 16 years old at the time.
Okay, you got me on that one. Had I been drinking something at the time I was reading it, we would have gotten an honest-to-God spit-take.
And Square Pegs was one of the greatest shows of all time. I’ve had a crush on Sarah Jessica Parker ever since.
Mark –
HA!! Can you imagine??
“Mom, everyone makes fun of me and I wish I had a boyfriend!”
“Er … lose the bonnet, sweetheart.”
Hey Red, have fun in RI. Do you happen to know the Hodes family from Westerly?
Daktari – Sea Hunt – Flipper – The Ghost and Mrs. Muir – McCloud – It Takes A Thief – Honey West – The Avengers – “The Name of the Game” (obscure but one of my all time favourites) – Streets of SF was also good – Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea – Mannix
we definitely got channel 56 in RI! i remember the theme music it had. they had the brady bunch on it. but i just wnated to say your marv hammerman comments made me laugh. mostly b/c i like that made up name. poor “marv”.
Grover is fantastic. Several months ago, my husband and I were grocery shopping, and in the checkout lane was the book The Monster At the End of this Book. It was one of the books I loved as a child, and I picked it up, and read it again, still remembering the story word for word, although not having read it, or had it read to me, in 25 years or so. I should’ve bought it and squirreled it away for my kids someday.
Crap, the URL didn’t work. Here it is
Yes, Siobhan, we were Channel 56 kids. Remember the Banana Splits? Na na na- na na na na- na na na na na na na na…..And HR Puffenstuff? Who ya gonna call when things get rough? As for Donny and Marie- I’m a little bit country/I’m a little bit rock’n’roll/ I’m a little bit of Nashville Magic/ Got a little bit of Motown in my soul/ Don’t know if it’s good or bad/ But I know I love it so/ I’m a little bit country/ and I’m a little bit rock’n’ roll…
Here’s a Land of the Lost link, if you haven’t already seen it, Sheila.
some of my favs…
Seasome Street
(especially Cookie Monster)
Dr. Who
(Tom Baker, all hair and teeth)
You Can’t Do That on Television
(early Nickelodeon show that was made in Canada)
Fraggle Rock
“Hey look Ma, I caught me a Fraggle!!”
Picture Pages
(with Bill Cosby and that cool marker of his)
Red and Blue (or Blue and Red)
(It was a claymation short involving a funloving glob of blue clay and an ornery glob of red clay. I can’t remember what show it was on though.)
haha You Can’t Do That..
Barfy Burgers
There was no “channel 56” in my house – John and Mary B. allowed only for PBS, and not much of that. When we were a little older I was allowed to watch Little House, but I once got in so much trouble for sneak watching the Brady Bunch. Maybe, through tv deprivation, it’s Mary B.’s fault that I’ve sunk to the television depths of Average Joe…
Marv Hammerman’s Gonna Kill Me… Mum
Funny no one commented on Square Pegs. My sister and I still say totally to each other the way they did in the show and shake our hand for emphasis.
toddk,
Two words: Green Slime.
Ah yes that’s how the whole “dump a bucket of green slime” craze started on Nick. And Barf must have been paying off the health inspectors. :)
Did you guys know that Alanis Morissette was one of the kids on that show?
My favorite childhood TV show was without a doubt the Looney Tunes cartoons. Far more intelligence and humor to be found there than anywhere else on television at that time (or since, for that matter). So many unforgettable characters and situations – pure genius was at work.
As I got a little older, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman became a favorite show. I was in love with Louise Lasser, of course. That show just had a wonderful mixture of over-the-top hilarity and (relatively) sincere pathos.
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned “Battlestar Galactica” yet.
It was great when I was young, Emily. But having watched the reruns on Sci-Fi, I realize how bad “Battlestar Galactica” was.
Whenever there’s trouble
We’re there on the double
We’re the Bloodhound Gang
If you’ve got the crime
We’ve got the time
We’re the Bloodhound Gang..
what about Fame? Maybe that was more of a me and Siobhan thing. Gold Monkey? The Muppet Show? Hey Siobhan – what about the show with Boz and the kid with the curly hair and The Omni? voyagers? loved that!
I loved Electric Company as a kid…and Letterman was definitely Electric Company and one of my favorites. “Faster than a rolling o!, Stronger than a silent e!, Able to leap a capital T with a single bound!”
Electric company also had a live-action spiderman which I loved. (The one episode that I vaguely remember was one where Spidey ran out of web fluid).
I thought 3-2-1 Contact had it all- scientific facts plus a mystery series solved by child detectives. Scooby couldn’t hold a candle. Do you remember when the boy went to Japan and the Japanese host demonstrated the Tea ceremony? Awesome! I bought my nieces and nephew a subscription to the 3-2-1 Contact magazine! …Oh the good old days of simple fun television!
1-2-3 4-5-6 7-8-9 10-11-12
ladybugs….at the ladybug picnic…
Did anyone mention Mork and Mindy?
what about g, grover
g, georgie
there are two g sounds
Lena Horne singing “But green can be big, like a river, or tall like a tree” like it was the climax of a tragic love story. Brilliant
I am cracking up at the thought of the “3 man” carmen grapefruit, and the baker going down the stairs!
You have listed all of my favoites except Zoom!
And I will never forget the ABC after school specials, especially one titled “My mom’s having a baby”. Showed the whole thing from start to finish!
Mere –
Na-noo, na-noo.
Two words: Lancelot Link, need I say more? Also I remember the Fonzie Christmas episode because his “relatives” lived in Waukesha, where I sit at this moment.
Sheila:
Don’t even freaking get me started. I’ll limit myself to two comments:
(1) Childhood TV in the era of common VCR’s is ENTIRELY different. (You’d know this if you had kids.) We had to watch whatever crap was on at the time. Little kids today hardly ever watch broadcast TV, especially compared to us 1970’s kids. They watch their favorite shows, over and over and over again until it drives you crazy. I’m not sure why that fascinates me, but it does.
(2) The Electric Company POP – TART – POPTART thing is replicated in a new PBS show called “Between the Lions”, except it’s called “GAWAIN’S WORD”, (“GAWAIN’S WORD, GAWAIN’S WORD, PARTY TIME, EXCELLENT!”) and two jousting knights are involved.
Mike –
Wow, excellent with the Fonzie-Waukesha reference!
I went to the Waukesha River Music Fest one year. That was my only time there, though. It was fun.
Diane –
For some reason, Zoom freaked me out when i was a kid. I cannot explain to you why!
I think it MIGHT be because even at the age of 7 I was a small hopeful actress-type, and since the kids on Zoom were real kids, in the Boston area, I may have been experiencing my first pangs of professional jealousy.
ABC after-school specials. What great memories.
Ash –
if my family had had a VCR when I was a kid, my entire life would have been changed. I loved “my shows” so much it HURT me. It would have been great to be able to watch them whenever I felt like it, as opposed to hoping against hope that Masterpiece Theatre would choose to “rerun” the Prince and the Pauper next year some time.
Such an agony of waiting!
marshall, will, and holly
on a routine expedition
then the greatest earthquake ever known….
my strange friends and i had an enox (i later found out the correct spelling was ‘enik’) well, cult i suppose, in high school. we made ‘enox loves you’ stickers and plastered the school with them, and went around hissing at eachother in that nerdy, innocent late 70s sort of way…
Someone mentioned Sesame Street.
I recall the theme songs, or jingles, for the letters O and E. The one for O was a kind of lonesome country wail, E a semi-whispered, semi-sung poem.
As I remember. Lotta water under the bridge since then.
I came across this today and I thought you might enjoy it!
http://www.sesamestreet.com/35/trivia/
P.S. I enjoy reading your “ramblings”
the bloodhound gang!! i remember that one!! ahh, memories…
the teeny little superguy was also one of my favoritess… i was starting to think that i’d made him up… do you know how long it took for me to find someone who remembered the teeny little superguy?!?!
Zoom was the coolest. I never could do that arm thing that Bernadette did. Bitch. :) But I did learn the Zip Code for Boston. . .0..21..34!
Other than clip shows shown elsewhere, I’ve never seen one second of any episode of “Little House.” Wasn’t it on on Thursday nights? Because if so, that explains it. “Welcome Back, Kotter” was on on Thursdays, and NO show about little pioneer girls was keeping me from Vinnie Barbarino.
Childhood favorites
Childhood favorites