Pajiba

For me it's shows like Wonder Woman, Charlie's Angels, and other shows from the 70s.

I remember these shows with fondness but after watching the entire series of Wonder Woman recently I realize just how terrible it was, aside from the beauty of Linda Carter, especially when compared to a similar show like Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

I just watched an episode of Xena the other night for the first time since I was a tot. I wouldn't call it unwatchable, but it was definitely cringe-worthy at points. Highly amusing though, and it made me miss the days when it was acceptable for women on TV to have muscles and curves.

I have vague memories of watching Alf. And I've heard of Charles in Charge and of Small Wonder, but the other two... Notsomuch. Show from my childhood that (I'm assuming) is terrible now? Dinosaurs. That show with the talking Dinosaurs. There was a baby who said such gems as "Not the baby!" I think that was the jist, anyway. I remember loving it. Weird. I didn't think I was a dumb kid until now.

And since you're bringing it up? Is this the summer of references not meant for us youngins? I mean, I know I'm deceptively mature for my ripe age of 22, but alot of these lists have left me feeling, well, out of the loop. Couldn't y'all do an ode to AHHHH! Real Monsters or Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles or something?

All I learn from these endeavors is that the 80s were a TERRIBLY embarrassing time for, well, everything. TV, fashion, movies, music, food, color palettes. Seriously, who thought Neon Orange and Highlighter Purple would look good on an outfit? Blech.

I'm from a different era. The favs from the past that I now find unwatchable are:

1. The Partridge Family
2. The Brady Bunch
3. Happy Days
4. Laverne and Shirley
5. Mork and Mindy

And yet, I have no problem watching:

1. I Love Lucy
2. My Favorite Martian
3. Leave it to Beaver
4. My Three Sons
5. The Andy Griffith Show
etc. etc.

I HATE Lucy. I hated it when I was 12 and I hate it now. Even when I was little, I thought it was sexist and I am the kind of woman who can quote Caddyshack.

@A-schaef

I have used a joke that Alf made on The Hollywood Squares since the late 1980s:

Guest - Do you bite?
Alf - 5 bucks extra.

And I still think it is funny.

MacGyver. It pains my heart that I can no longer watch it. I used to look forward to Monday nights as a kid. It was seriously my favorite day of the whole stupid week.

Oh Mac! Why does you 80's do-gooder liberalism come across so painfully hokey today??

Some Guy: "Guns don't kill people. People do."
MacGyver: "Is that anything like 'hydrogen bombs don't kill people, it's the people who sent them off?'"

I quoted that a billion times as a self-righteous teen. Now, I have no idea what the fuck it even means.

Ah, Mamma's Family. Me and my borderline redneck nuclear family used to laugh our asses off at that show. I think airs on some d-grade cable station and I've been tempted to watch it again as an adult but I already knew it would be unwatchable even before seeing this list.

And now for the rest of the day I will have, 'you'll never guess my secret identity' stuck in my head. But only that one sentence because that's all I can remember. That's the *best* way to get a bad song stuck in your head.

And I just love it when people barely out of their teens refer to themselves as mature. It's quaint.

Speed Racer. One of my fondest memories as a little kid, utterly destroyed when MTV started showing them again. Ye gods it was awful.

Wow...look at that...

A veritable "Who's Who" of a group of "Who the fuck is that?!" scrolling through those credits.

I will say this though...Michael Myers got nothing on Marla Pennington. She rocks that jumpsuit. Her FUPA just screams 'sex kitten'. Well, either that, or 'period bloat'.

And whatever network it was that ran with My Secret Identity must not have had much faith considering that fat white guy in the dumb hat from Police Academy 4: C.O.P. got top billing over "Vern".

Way to push a show guys. LOVED tha fat white guy in the dumb hat from PA4.

In the opening still from Mamma's Family (#3):

What the hel... Hold on, need the caps-lock for this one... WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SLIMY GLOB OF TENTACLES TO THE RIGHT OF THE PICTURE FRAME?! Alien squid? A shellacked stomach? An inside-out infant? What could it be?

KIDS! Come up with some of your own answers, write them down along with your name, age, topless photo of your mother/sisters, and address, and send them to:

PROFESSOR SKITTY'S WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING CONTEST
Woodlake Penitentiary
4380 Twin Oak Lane
Wrenshall, MN 55749

If memory serves, wasn't A.L.F. always trying to get down on some pussy? Cat?

Y'see what I did there?

Mrs. Julien,

It's a Fat Upper Pussy Area.

Don't ask me how I know that.

M*A*S*H* ... Preachy, self-important and the only thing nastier is the original movie it is derived from.

I never really did watch the show, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who HATES the movie. Saving lives does not give one an excuse to be a totally sexist asshole.

@scorzi

And that meets my daily requirement for things I can't un-know.

Have you seen Mork & Mindy lately? It's a disaster. And don't bad mouth Alf, he'll eat your cat.

Little Julien is going to get to see some shows just because I can remember when the Happy Days phenomenon hit and everyone was dressed up a la 1950s for Hallowe'en and I had never seen the show because my bedtime was too early. I seem to have had some trouble letting that go.

Of course, Little Julien is nearly 5 and we won't let him watch Sponge Bob, so I might not be doing as well on the inclusion thing as I'd hoped.

And he had to beg for light up Spiderman runners.

And last week when I broke down and bought Fruit Roll Ups I must have said, "You can have these ONCE a week" about 47 times.

I am not a fun Mum, but my Mum was less fun. Baby steps.

RE: PROFESSOR SKITTY'S WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING CONTEST

It appears to be two porcelain flamingos that are kind of intertwined in the neck area...

I miss having television theme songs to sing-a-long to. :-( Sure, a lot of the shows are worse than dysentery in a third world country but they still, nearly every time, provided us with a little jingle that could make us smile all day. 'Charles in Charge' certainly stands as one of those. 'Growing Pains', 'Who's The Boss?', 'The Facts of Life', are a few others. Shows, now? Ehhh. Sitcoms have a 30 second musical intro but save the credits for the first scene. Boo! I even tried to sing the theme song (if you could call it that!) to 'Lost'. A few people around me asked if I was having a seizure.

Off the top of my head, one that comes to mind, sadly, is Robotech. I used to love it when I was young. I mean, LOVE it. Then I started buying the DVDs about 4-5 years ago, when the series was first being released and it's pretty bad. Terrible animation. Dialogue is woefully cheesy. I must've been high, as a 7 year old.

For those of us, ahem, skewing older, SyFy was having a brief, one-day marathon of "The Greatest American Hero" this weekend. Remember how much fun that show was? Cute, geeky teacher guy finds an alien suit but loses the instructions? Teams up with a cranky misogynist Robert Culp CIA agent? Has a beautiful Connie Selleca girlfriend? Gets into silly, over-the-top adventures, all saved by his magic alien suit?

Yeah, well, trust me.....20 years down the road, its a fuzzy-mop-headed goof who can't act in the worst superhero suit ever, with a horribly-over-acting Robert Culp and god-awful guest actors cheezing it up all the way. The only thing that holds up? Connie Selleca is even more gorgeous than I remembered?

I loved Greatest American Hero and will still sometimes get the song stuck in my head. And not because Seinfeld cheaply capitalized off of it. I've been watching Love Boat on Hulu here and there when I can't think of anything better to watch and it holds up surprisingly well. But it was bad then too. It was an Aaron Spelling production so what do you expect? Also another great theme song. But the blatant sexism is a little hard to get past. People bitch about the PC movement now, but there was a reason for it.

did alfs intro really have a video of them being voyeurs to women in the bathroom?

Do not diss Dinosaurs. That is all.

Sincerely:
The We Say So Corporation

I'm trying to get through the X-Files, but we're in season three and it is draaaaggggggging...

Mrs. Julien
I loved this show (Hey you kids and everyone else except Uriah get off my lawn!)

Thanks! Don't mind the night vision goggles.

As a Canuck in the States, I have discovered that WKRP in Cincinnati was a much bigger deal to the BTEs (Butter Tart Eaters) and ran much longer in reruns north of the border.

As a Canuck in Canuckstan, I have no idea what "Butter Tart Eaters" means, but I do share your love of WKRP. Herb Tarlek the style icon...

People always think I'm kidding when I talk about California Dreams. I only watched it cause even the nerb boy had amazing abs. (I distinctly remember an episode where they had to research their family trees as far back as they could go. The pretty blonde girl came from a family of Joneses and Smiths. Hilarity ensues. The black guy couldn't find much and made some stuff up about being descended from an African Prince. Then the cast had a Moment.)

I have a feeling Out of This World wouldn't hold up. (another show people don't believe me on it's existence.)

I've always had a special place in my heart for Mama's Family, even though knowing it's a piece of shit.

I've tried watching Thundercats since I've been an adult and wondered what I was on (though, suprisingly, Rainbow Brite held up better).

I'm still waiting for Hollywood to do a Small Wonder movie, staring the Rock as the distant, work addled dad and Selena Gomez as the robot daughter.

When I hear the CHiPs theme now, I run for the remote and change the channel, Matrix-style. The same is true of any Aaron Spelling show, but I never liked those anyway. Show that holds up extremely well: The Rockford Files.

My Secret Identity holds up for what it is: Greatest American Hero for the under 15 set. Remember that Alf, Mamma's Family and Charles in Charge ran in the primetime slot, so the fact that they don't hold up says something more significant.

My Secret Identity was never supposed to hold up when you get older.

And it had pudgy Jerry O'Connell, what's not to love?

Add to that the Cosby show andthat shit with Kirk Cameroun...

@Uriah

It was just me bein' pithy. I'm happy to start a trend.

Perfect Strangers. I remember being so devoted to that show as a child that I made my family watch the season finale while we were on vacation. I bought the first season DVD about a year ago because I was convinced it would still be awesome, and it's just...terrible. The jokes aren't funny, the laugh track is super obnoxious, and I spent the majority of my viewing time wanting to punch both Balki and Cousin Larry in their respective faces (for very different reasons, obviously).

Thanks! It was a good one.

Good post, thanks

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be. James Matthew Barrie

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