What's Your Favorite TV Show(s) from Childhood?
 

I mentioned on the Insights thread that I have been watching old TV shows from when I was growing up. I found a few of them on Hulu and they have been keeping me entertained.

These are shows I loved as a kid...

Hazel
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Nanny and the Professor
I Dream of Jeannie
Bewitched
That Girl
Green Acres
Petticoat Junction

I know there's more and I can't think of the right now. But may come back and post some.

What's your favorite TV show(s) from your childhood?

I just saw The Brady Bunch on Sunday morning! :)

All the ones you mentioned I remember.

I remember as a young teen watching The Partridge Family (for David Cassidy of course!). And Emergency - those EMT's were cute but I can't remember their names now! :o

Oh yeah!!! Those Emergency guys were cute. I remember watching that and hoping I would marry one of them. :D:D Adam 12 was another good one.

I also have been watching Murder, She Wrote. I get such a kick out of it. It's light mystery, not heavy duty like some of the detective/police type shows. I watch at least one or two episodes a night.

John Gage, played by Randolph Mantooth. Roy DeSoto, played by Kevin Tighe. They were L.A. County paramedics and firefighters. The other characters were Fireman Chet Kelly, played by Tim Donnelly, Captain Hank Stanley, played by Michael Norell, Fireman Marco Lopez, ironically played by...Marco Lopez. And Fireman/Engineer Mike Stoker, also ironically played by...Mike Stoker.

Bit of Emergency! trivia. Mike Stoker was a real L.A County firefighter. He was hired because they needed someone who knew how to drive Engine 51. After Emergency! was canceled, he went back to firefighting. He was a captain when he retired.

Julie London played Nurse Dixie McCall. Bobby Troup played Dr Joe Early. (Troup and London were married to each other in real life), and Robert Fuller played Dr Kelly Brackett.

My favorite characters were John Gage, and Dr. Brackett. My second favorite "character" was Squad 51. When I was in my 20s, my dad bought a red Dodge Ram pickup that looked EXACTLY LIKE THE SQUAD from the front. I LOVED THAT TRUCK!! It was the same color as Squad 51. Had a lot of fun just driving that thing around.

My favorite episodes always seemed to be the ones where Johnny gets hurt. (he gets hurt a lot on the show). My favorite episode was the one where he gets bitten by a rattlesnake, and ends up having to treat himself on the hosebed of Engine 51.

When I started reading fanfiction on the internet. My first fanfic fandom was Emergency!.


That show is practically totally responsible for my obsession with fire engines. I absolutely LOVE fire engines. When I was five years old, we almost had a fire in our house, and my dad called the fire department. It was saturday night, and we'd just gotten done watching Emergency!. The fire engine that came to our house was...Engine 51! (here in Omaha).

I was so excited! I kept looking for Johnny, and the Squad. Sadly they weren't there, but the firefighters let me sit in the driver's seat of the engine, and push the siren and horn buttons.

When my dad came upstairs to call the fire department, my sister and I were in the kitchen eating ice cream. He made both of us go outside in the backyard. I was in the backyard, watching thru the sliding glass door of the deck. Saw one of the firefighters walking thru the house, checking for hot spots. So, I ran back inside to see the firefighter. I was in the hallway, watching him standing on my bed in full turnout gear, feeling the walls for hotspots from the chimney.

He turned around, saw me. Asked if I wanted to see the engine. Picked me up, and that's when I absolutely fell in love with firefighters, and fire engines. They didn't have to leave right away, so they let me and some of the other kids in the neighborhood sit in the engine. It's probably one of my favorite memories from when I was a kid.

I was really really disappointed that Squad 51 and John Gage weren't there tho.

By the way, my house was fine. My dad had put some paneling in the fireplace (that thin cheap stuff people used to put on the walls instead of drywall in the 1970s. That stuff is practically paper. It curled up, and my dad saw it get sucked up the chimney. He freaked out and called the fire department. I remember him coming up the stairs, looking for baking soda to throw into the fireplace to put out the flames that were burning in it. He was yelling at my mom to call 911. Scary when it happened, but the total awesomeness of getting to talk to real firefighters, and sit in the engine pretty much imprinted me with a special love for firefighters. (when I got older, I realized another reason to love firefighters. They're usually cute)

My other favorite shows were Star Trek, CHiPs, and MacGyver.

MacGyver was actually more of a favorite show when I was a teenager than when I was a little kid. I was 16 when that began, and in my 20s when MacGyver ended.

Macgyver definitely. Alfred Hitchcock presents my most favorite :p.

The Addams Family (Lurch was my hero!)
Car 54 (where are you :p)
The Honeymooners
Mousercise (had to stay fit you know)
Mr. Wizard!!! (Which along with Macgyver my mom hated us watching because of course we had to try to do all the cool things)
The Flintstones and the Jetsons
Garfield and friends!
Leave it to Beaver
The original Mickey Mouse club
Bozo the clown
Mary Tyler Moore
WKRP
Taxi
The Patty Duke Show
Happy Days
And regrettably, Bonanza

Really aside from Saturday morning cartoons, and early morning mousercise my dad controlled the remote and what we watched. So it was old school tv shows or game shows :p. Needless to say we played outside a lot ... Like a lot a lot.... Sun up till sundown all summer, any school breaks. So even Mr Wizard and Macgyver were only caught when my dad didn't come home for lunch.

Good shows you guys! I remember so many of those.

Starz - I was on the Bozo show once. I went with my brownie troop. I'm not sure how that worked because I wasn't living in the Chicago area at the time. Maybe Bozo went on tour or something. :D I remember being really excited but once we got to the studio and on air I was petrified.

Does anyone remember Sunday nights with Mutual of Omaha and Walt Disney? I loved Sunday nights. Every now and then my parents would make popcorn and we were allowed to eat it in the living room while watching those shows. It was such a special treat.

My Dad used to love to watch Hee Haw. :D I'll admit I watched it with him!

the howdy dudy show; i was even on it once!
dr kildare; anything medical.
roy rogers/dale evans.

Oh, I used to watch the nature shows all the time. All of them in the late 50's and 60's.

Here is a trip down memory lane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHyuYvvNMe4

I looked up "geese nesting in trees" because we had a goose checking out a huge hole in our old oak (where raccoons typically have their kits). This goose was really interested in the hole which was really high up in the tree..3 stories up. This hole is the result of a tornado ripping off a huge branch one spring-- luckily our home was miraculously undamaged.
Here is a photo of her:

So I searched Google and found the vintage Mutual of Omaha
film about the subject, which includes other wildlife in the Montana marsh with the geese.

So you might like the video, I thought. ;)

When I was in Elementary school we ran home to watch Soupy Sales.

When we got older and more "mature", Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows.

This thread brings back a lot of memories! Thanks for starting it, tkrik.

Two of my favorites were The Munsters and The Addams Family, but in my vicinity they were aired at the same time so you couldn’t watch both of them when they were shown each week.

I also really liked the show that all the critics panned at the time, Gilligan’s Island.

Finally, Get Smart. Remember Smart talking into his shoe? And all the slogans he used that became so popular: “Would you believe...”, and “missed it by thaaaaaaaaaat much.”

Big fan of Million Dollar Movie and Bugsby Berkeley Musicals.

My mom and dad often talked about soupy sales and an episode he did where he told kids to get the 'green' stuff out of their parents purses and wallets and mail it to him.

Apparently even back then parents didn't know what their kids were watching on the boob tube. So a bunch of kids did it :p. I'm sure there were many a spankings following that. Worst of it, according to the folks, was many of the kids didn't give a return address. So the producers couldn't return the money.

Needless to say, my parents tried to ensure we never watched tv unsupervised. (My grandmother, eh not so much hence the Mr. Wizard and Macgyver). There were a few channels we could watch without the parents as we aged we were allowed a bit more TV freedom. But before we could watch any 'new shows' we had to watch a few episodes with the parents if they weren't on PBS or Disney like channels.

Though it's rather sad, Disney and Nickelodeon were okay channels, but Cartoon Network was banned the second it came out, and I was nearly a teenager then, darn Space Ghost Coast to Coast, kept me from my Garfield and Friends on non-Saturday mornings.

Judy - Did you watch Marcus Welby? It came on after my bedtime but occasionally I was allowed to stay up and watch it, probably during summer vacations. I loved watching it and if I had to go to bed (I was a kid who always needed my sleep) one of my sisters would tell me what happened.

Auntie - It does being back great memories.

MrsD - Great video. Thanks for posting that. I teared up watching it because the memories it beought back.

I also really liked The Six Million Dollar Man. And also The Bionic Woman.

All the cop shows back then too. Starsky And Hutch. McCloud.

also liked The Hardy Boys. (really liked Shaun Cassidy, and Parker Stevenson)

Interesting to see some of the shows listed.

Also interesting to see some of the OLDER ones listed. That tells me some of you are almost as old as me. Ha Ha

My favorite was in Black and White. Perry Mason (The hour long TV series)

Also liked the Perry Mason movies (2 hour made for TV) that came later (and in color).

Any one like the old Dr. Ben Casey TV show?

Father Knows Best?

Anyone ever watch Tarzan? The one with Ron Ely? I loved that show. I saw it when it was in reruns on cable in the 80's tho. Pretty sure it was originally on during the 60's. Around the time that Star Trek aired maybe.


and, The Monkees. I loved The Monkees. Also watched that in the 80's when it was on MTV. I got to meet Davy Jones when he was in Omaha for a Monkees concert.

Erin - We used to watch those too!

Kicker - I don't think I've seen Million Dollar Movie and Bugsby Berkeley Musicals. I'll have to check those out.

Hopeless - My mom loved Perry Mason. Again, it came on after my bedtime but I've seen reruns of it as well as Father Knows Best. That was a great show.

I liked watching Leave it to Beaver reruns. I also liked watching My Three Sons, Lost in Space, and My Favorite Martian.

Do any of you remember Planet of the Apes? My brothers liked it but I always thought their faces were creepy looking and never really watched it much.

Oh great, Erin! Now I have that song stuck in my head..."Hey, hey we're the Monkess..." Haha Do you remember on the Brady Bunch Marcia (or Marsha, don't know which way it was spelled) invited Davy Jones to do a show at her school or something like that? Pretty funny. That's cool that you got to meet him.

Omg! I can't believe I forgot about the Monkees!! I even have Pleasant Valley Sunday as an MP3 on my phone, iPad, and saved to at least 2 or 3 CDs in the car. Heck I even used them as the example when teaching a coastal southern lady how to hike up a hill without killing her knees.

Our geology class already knew I was crazy but decided to group her in with me afterwards. As we went up the hill, arms over each other's shoulder swinging our feet diagonally singing the theme song at the top of our lungs from start to finish. :D

She had about ten years on me, but knew every word same as me lol. It was so much fun, but more importantly it succeeded in getting out of the ravine we had hiked down after she swore there was no way possible she was going to make it up. Too much pain, too tired, couldn't go on... Poor girl had never seen a steeper hill than a roadside ditch. Monkees to the rescue!!! :p (with a partial assist from a Yankee girl who spent her life crawling through the mountains everyday lol)

Now, I do, too. Going to have to play some records -- yes, vinyl, -- I said I was OLD, -- to get the Monkeys song out of my head.

I have the entire series of the original Planet Of The Apes television show on dvd. Loved that show too. I also have most of the original movies. (gotta love Charlton Heston running around wearing his Tarzan under-roos)



and yes, I do remember Davy Jones on The Brady Bunch. I seem to remember when I was a little kid, watching Brady Bunch for the first time, and whenever they'd have the Davy Jones episode, I had no idea who he was until I saw The Monkees on MTV in the 80s. I knew the music from the radio. I just didn't ever realize there was a Monkees tv show until it hit MTV. I kind of got obsessed with The Monkees to the point that my sister wanted my parents to get me professional help. (I was a normal 16yr old girl when I watched The Monkees.. You should see me now that I'm obsessed with Benedict Cumberbatch, the British actor that plays Sherlock on the BBC. I might need professional help there. But, I'm a normal 46yr old single woman now. Good looking guys...:eek:)

Hopeless - Vinyls are great! That's what I grew up with. I remember we had 16's (my dad's), 78's, 45's. The sound quality is so much better on vinyls. Apparently vinyls have been making a comeback over recent years due the sound quality. Enjoy listening to your music today!:hug:

I have all the Monkees music on cd. Altho, I do have the vinyl version of their last album (that I know of). It was called Pool It!, came out in the 80's when MTV ended up getting people to remember who they were. They got back to together (I think minus Mike Nesmith) and recorded an album together.

I also have the CD for that album too. Had to buy a second copy. My very first portable cd player was stolen with a copy of Pool It! inside it.

Erin - If I remember right, the Monkees aired on Saturdays. I could be wrong. My parents really didn't let us watch a lot of TV during the week and only a few shows. That's why I'm thinking Saturdays. During the summer or school breaks they let us watch a little more TV. We only got to watch TV at night and very rarely during the day or after school. Which, actually, was fine because we were all outside playing or involved in after school sports.

Mickey Mouse Club; Tom Terrific; Captain Kangaroo; Kukla, Fran and Ollie; Sky King, Rifleman, Cheyenne, Wild Bill Hickock, Maverick, Jack Benny, Ozzie & Harriet, Father Knows Best, Bachelor Father, My Three Sons, I Love Lucy, Dobie Gillis, Dragnet, Lassie, Roy Rogers (Happy trails to yooooouuu), Red Skelton, George Burns and Gracie Allen, the Life of Riley...I could go on and on. I would be hard-pressed to pick one favorite. Oh, and American Bandstand. It has a good beat; you can dance to it.

Art Linkletter was another favorite of mine. Red Skelton was the best, though. I love his talk on The Pledge of Allegiance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBTyTWOZCM

Red Skelton's monologue about the Pledge of Allegiance is one of my favorite things he ever did. And still applicable today. It's too bad that he turned out to be somewhat correct at the end of his monologue...and just so my comment doesn't make this a political thread (because I don't want to do that. Let's talk about TV some more!!!)

Did anyone here watch Big Valley, or Bonanza? I love Westerns still. I really loved The Lone Ranger, and also Hopalong Cassidy.

and moving into movie territory. I love any movie with James Cagney (pretty much all his movies), James Stewart (all his movies too), Gregory Peck (I love the movie Big Country), or Charlton Heston (I love the movie Ben-Hur...and Heston was also in the movie Big Country).


Then there's Charlie Chaplin. I have a serious love for silent movies. Chaplin is probably my favorite actor of all time. (aside from Benedict Cumberbatch)

Donna Reed, Leave it to Beaver, Patty Duke

B2Y - You can watch the Donna Reed Show on Hulu for free. http://www.hulu.com/the-donna-reed-show

I have in my list of shows to watch. You listed a bunch of great shows. I don't have cable so I'm limited to what I can watch. I have Netflix and Hulu. Some of the shows I loved to watch aren't on either one. :( But, The Donna Reed Show is on Hulu. Not sure about Netflix.

Star Trek and Combat, I wasn't real young at the time though, early teens.

Great thread.
So much fun to recall all these old shows.
I may be showing my age but, don't you think TV was so much better back then?
It was at least more wholesome.
I still love "Leave it to Beaver".

Don't know if it was mentioned but,
"Courtship of Eddie's father" ...so sweetly dealing with the loss of a parent.

D.

I do think TV shows were much better back "then." I don't know how or why that all changed. I guess when color TV became the norm. Things were so much better in black and white. :D:D j/k Leave it to Beaver was great!! I don't remember Courtship of Eddie's Father. I'll have to look that one up.

I remembered some more shows I liked to watch, and still do...

The Andy Griffith Show
Ironside
Rockford Files
Abbott and Costello (Reruns)
MASH

There were some more but I forgot. I'll eventually remember and post them.:D

I don't think it is from my childhood, maybe my kids. Hey, hey we're the Monkees!!!!!! We loved that show

Thanks, Doydie! I now have that song stuck in my head again!:D:D

Flipper was always fun to watch as was Lassie.

I remember watching a game show with my Mom called Concentration. I think Art Linkletter hosted it. You had to solve a puzzle made of pictures. My Mom loved that show.

I also loved The Wonderful World of Disney. Every Sunday night we'd get to pop popcorn and watch whatever movie was showing.

There was also a show called Born Free about lions in Africa. I can't remember if it was ever a series but there was a movie that I loved.

Finally, I loved to watch Family Affair. Mr. French was the "gentleman's gentleman" and there was Buffy and Jody. And Sissy. And Uncle Bill! Buffy had a doll named Mrs. Beasley and I always wanted one. I got one for Christmas one year but it just never seemed the same as watching the one on TV. :rolleyes:

I remember Concentration. It was memory type game. I think they actually made a board game based on the show. Password was another game show that they made in to a game.

I totally forgot about Born Free!!! I loved that show.

We did the Walt Disney and occasionally popcorn Sunday night ritual as well. It was a magical night for us and the movies were always so good.

I never really watched Family Affair. I'm not sure why. Lots of my friends did and some of them had the Mrs. Beasley doll. I wanted one so bad but never got one.

Having lived for a few years in Colorado during my childhood, I probably watched more than my fair share of TV westerns. :)

Four of my favorites:

Gunsmoke (James Arness was the epitome of the classic good guy marshal)
Rawhide (Clint Eastwood’s first popular role)
Rifleman (There was always a moral lesson for rifleman Chuck Connors’ son)
Have Gun Will Travel (What else can I say, I liked Richard Boone)