Top 10 TV Shows of All Time
Posted by in TV Shows on July 20, 2011
Here is my list of my all time favorite TV shows, in no particular order. These are the shows that I could watch at anytime. I’ll try to keep it fun by telling you what I didn’t like about them and their characters, some great lines from the shows, maybe some interesting things you didn’t know, and more – anything but just the usual top ten list.
1. The Rockford Files
Cool theme song; cool car (gold Firebird, which crashed innumerable times); great cast with Rocky, Angel & others; cool trailer on Malibu beach with a handy bar for rendezvous and drops; great cases, mostly believable; lots of good guest stars, like Lyndsey Wagner at her most beautiful. I’ve said all this without even mentioning the lead: James Garner, the consummate cool actor.
Gimmicks and or quirks, etc.: now-dated answering machine from which we hear something amusing before the theme song kicks in; James Garner’s brother Jack in cameo roles as, often, a bailiff, a bartender and the like.
Great line: Angel: “Just do (kill) Jimmy, and I’ll spread the word (tell what might happen to others should they doublecross these thugs like Jimmy did).”
2. Gunsmoke
What a great cast, with Matt, Doc, Kitty, Chester, Festus, Sam and others. This show began as thirty minutes but was expanded to an hour. Some of the early shows were tightly scripted and regular works of art. Ran twenty years (1955-75).
Gimmicks and or quirks, etc.: early on, old Doc was often drunk as a skunk, but he sobered up as the years passed; the Bull’s Head saloon as a rougher alternative to Miss Kitty’s Longbranch; the house near the pond, which was often used in scenes set out of town.
Great line: “Becasue we’re gonna bushwhack em,” as said by a very early and very un-Matt Matt, to Chester, when Chester asked him why they were hiding out in a cabin with some thugs nearby.
3. The Andy Griffith Show
This show has always been very therapeutic for me to watch . . . just something about it I can’t put my finger on; let’s just say that if it’s an episode I’ve already seen, I don’t care, I’ll watch it again, because I just want to be in Mayberry, and it doesn’t matter to me what they’re doing there.
Gimmicks and or quirks, etc.: drunk Otis having access to the keys as he’s locked up weekly for being lit up; Andy being a lot more “countrified” in the earlier episodes, his pants sometimes stuck clumsilly down his nerdy boots; barber Floyd being nearly mad . . . as in crazy; Goober saying, “Yo”; Gomer saying, “Tell ‘em Gomer says hey”; very fake downtown Mayberry drawn as background mural outside the courthouse door; different love interests for Andy; such as, Elinor Donahue, Joanne Moore (Tatum O’Neal’s mom), Julie Adams, Anita Whatever who played Helen for a long run. (I was more of a Thelma Lou fan; she looked remarkably like Olivia De Havilland.)
Memorable lines: Goober: “Judy, Judy, Judy”; Gomer: “Shazam!” Read the rest of this entry »
Ten TV Shows That Went To Rerun Heaven Way Too Soon
Posted by in TV Shows on July 20, 2011
TOP CAT – 1961-1962
This cartoon came out in the early 60s just after The Flintstones proved that a prime time cartoon could work. Top Cat was funnier-a wisecracking Sgt. Bilko-like cat who ran con games in a NY back alley with the help of 5 buddies under the watchful eye of Officer Dibble of the NYPD.
How could it miss?
But it did because TV only needed one prime time cartoon and The Flintstones came first. Ask the geniuses in TV land-this was a brilliant show. Yeah we still miss those funny cats.
CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU? – 1961-1963
A New York cop show from the early 60s. This was a sitcom that should have lived a long, happy life-how could you possibly miss with Herman and Grandpa Munster playing NYPD cops with room temperature IQs? It was an early retirement from the force-ratings were lukewarm after the first season. That took Car 54 over a big cliff into a fiery landing because funny network TV cop shows have a short shelf life even in 2010.
Goodbye Herman, goodbye Grandpa-see you a few years later in The Munsters.
F TROOP – 1965-1967
This 60s Western comedy took an arrow in the throat after only a few seasons. It was pricey to film and going to color in the second season caused the bean counters to take it down hard and fast. Better than average ratings wasn’t enough of a Calvary charge to save this Western comedy classic.
Too bad – it was a great show, but the geniuses in charge of finances refused to circle the wagons for Corporal Agarn, Sgt. O’Rourke and Roaring Chicken.
NIGHT GALLERY – 1970-1973
Rod Serling said goodbye to television in the early 70s with this horror anthology-they treated Rod like crap but he still brought his A-game. That wasn’t enough. Rod Serling could read a grocery list and scare the liver out of you but as usual…the chuckleheads that run TV knew better. They took away any real power behind the scenes and, in a real life horror story; he became a pale imitation of the power guy Rod Serling from the classic TV era so…they sent him to the real Twilight Zone after only a few seasons.
KOLCHAK NIGHT STALKER – 1974-1975
We’re not talking about the last 21st Century version of this show. We’re talking about the classic Darren McGavin early 70s version. The one where he played the chicken hearted big city reporter who drove a piece of crap car. McGavin liked the basic premise behind Kolchak, but he bucked at the “monster of the week” format. That, and lukewarm ratings gave both network and actor common ground to drive a stake through the heart of this highly underrated TV series. This show was fantastic but once it died, they shouldn’t have made it undead in that horrible 2005 version. That was true terror. Read the rest of this entry »