So he loaded up the truck …
Posted: October 7th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball, Pop Culture | 188 Comments »
A few years ago, I made the rather bold and yet admittedly bewildering claim that former Kansas forward and now longtime NBA journeyman Raef LaFrentz was the greatest athlete ever named Raef. You would not expect anyone to care enough about this to disagree, but as it turned out that, Mark Zieman, the former editor and now publisher of the Kansas City Star, disagreed vehemently. He pointed to Rafer Johnson, the old decathlete. I explained that LaFrentz was RAEF while Johnson was RAFER — that’s like the difference between raze* and razor**. But you cannot win a fight with an editor soon to be publisher, and he went back into the archives and found some archaic story where some unnamed coach called called Johnson “Rafe.” I weakly pointed out it was spelled differently.
*Defined as: To completely destroy something.
**Defined as: Overpriced shaving devices, especially the Mach III. Wow, they created more new and expensive blades for the Mach III. You hear politicians talk about standing up to the oil companies … big deal. When is somebody going to stand up to the razor companies? You know, I was thinking that maybe when razor companies can afford to have commercials with Tiger Woods AND Roger Federer AND Derek Jeter AND Thierry Henry, then maybe they are pulling in a bit too much profit.
Anyway, when Jed Lowrie got the game-winning knock in Game 4 of the Boston-California series, I immediately decided he had become the most accomplished Jed in American history, surpassing Jed Clampett, who was the only other Jed I could think of. There have been some famous Jedediahs, beginning with Jedediah Strong Smith, who Wikipedia calls a hunter, trapper, fur trader and explorer, in that order. The Jedediah I always think of is Jedediah Leland, the Joseph Cotton character in “Citizen Kane,” — probably because of the way Orson Welles would say “Jedediah.” But anyway, Jedediah is not Jed, not the way I’m looking at it.
So, being that I only have 204,347 things to do, I decided to look into this Jed situation. There have only been two Jeds to ever play Major League Baseball, unless you want to go back to the 1890s and count the old Colts and Beaneaters catcher Malachi Jeddidah Kittridge who was sometimes called Jedediah. Kittridge hit .219 in a staggeringly long 16-year career as a backup catcher, and he managed the 1904 Washington Senators for 17 games. The team went 1-16. It seems possible that Jedediah Kittridge was, in fact, the least successful baseball player ever.
Anyway, as mentioned, he wasn’t really a Jed.
No, there have been two. One was Jed Hansen, who played for the Kansas City Royals briefly, in the late 1990s. Hansen was one of those players who got labeled early as a Quadruple-A guy, and so he spent more than 1,300 games in the minor leagues — the vast majority of those in Class AAA — waiting for someone, anyone, to give him an opportunity. Hansen spent his younger days as a scrappy middle infielder with some speed (he stole 44 bases one year) and he got to the big leagues, hit .309 and on-based .394 in 94 at-bats. But the Royals had Jose Offerman and (I guess) Mendy Lopez, and Hansen for some reason did not fit in. He got four big league at-bats the next year and did get up for a few games in 1999. And that was it. He never played another big league game. He went to Cincinnati, the Mets, the Padres, back to Kansas City, to Milwaukee, to St. Louis, back to Kansas City, back to the Mets, and to the Giants. He tried to adjust and hit with some power — he banged 27 homers one year. But nobody paid him any mind.
Maybe it was the name.
There have been two Jeds in NFL history, the more successful of those being Jed Weaver, a tight end from Oregon. Jed Lowrie is also from Oregon — Jed Hansen from Washington, Jed DeVries, a tackle briefly in Cleveland, is from Utah. The American Northwest is our leading producer of Jeds.
There has never been an NBA Jed or racing Jed as far as I can tell. For a moment, I thought of a pretty famous driver named Jed Narett, but it turns out his name is actually Ned Jarett, which doesn’t count.
There’s a fine hockey player named Jed Ortmeyer — from Omaha, Nebraska — who has come back from a pulmonary embolism to play in the NHL again. He is apparently known for his good work ethic (source: Wikipedia) but I also found this page, which is probably outdated, that discusses, at some length, if he has a girlfriend or not. Ah, the Internet.
There are a few other Jeds — including a campus preacher who calls himself Brother Jed and travels around the country abusing people (his real name is George) — but I would say that Jed Lowrie is now the leading Jed in the clubhouse. I suppose more people may know of Jed Clampett at this very moment in time, but really that show has been off the air now for 37 years, and it was such an astonishingly bad show* in the first place that I think the Jed title is Lowrie’s for the taking.
*OK, so it’s time for our first installment of “Pixishows.” You might recall that pixifoods are foods you found tasty as a child and found to be grotesque as an adult. So it goes with pixishows — these are shows that, when you were young, you found to be intriguing, enlightening, fun, dramatic, whatever. And these are shows that, as an adult, are SO BAD you cannot even believe what you are watching.
I would nominate Happy Days as a legit Pixishow. I honestly thought Happy Days was a good show back in the early days, when Ron Howard was Richie, before the Fonz got a library card, before Al replaced Arnold, before the producers tried to inflict Eric Moran on us as a sex symbol. But I have since seen some of those early shows and, um, they were pretty awful. PRETTY DARNED AWFUL. I had no idea.
And I think this is the key to the Pixishow. They cannot be shows you realized were stupid as a kid but you liked anyway — like “Land of the Lost” would not qualify, in my mind, as a pixishow because you knew, even then, it was pretty bad. No the key here is to find shows that you legitimately liked because you thought they were really good, only to find as an adult that they were SO BAD you could not even fathom how they made it on the air. The Waltons would qualify too I think. And I have a lot to say about the astonishing “Hogan’s Heroes.
Send your pixishows and your level of shock here.
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So, ALF was on some cable channel a couple of nights hence. Pretty awful, a short-lived experience.
Also, a few years ago a roommate brought home the Transformers cartoon series DVD set. Totally psyched!
The show was what it was, but the production value was atrocious. Characters on screen with the wrong voices, wrong colors, etc. I was a pretty sharp kid – how did I not notice Starscream on screen with Ramjet’s voice, colored like Scourge?!
Man, I love this blog.
I used to love “Night Court” as a kid. With the exception of Dan Larroquette’s character, I think the humor would be atrocious to me now.
It just seemed like it got worse and worse, even as a teenager it started to dawn on me how hokey the show was.
Bull and his catchphrase (word?) “Ohh-kay” just doesn’t pass for humor once you pass 9 years old.
Let’s not forget the President from “The West Wing”, Josiah Edward ‘Jed’ Bartlet.
And if you were wondering, there has been only one “Josiah” ever in baseball. And that was the middle name of Harry Eccles ( a dude nicknamed “Bugs”), a pitcher who played in 5 games for the Athletic’s back in 1915.
No thanks.
Gilligan’s Island is a pixieshow.
Joe, are you a Simpson’s fan? If so, I’m wondering out loud if Jebidiah Strong Smith was the influence for the fictional Springfield’s founding father – Jebidiah Springfield? Almost has to be, right?
When I was a kid, the first absolute must-watch show I picked up from my friends in school was “The Six Million Dollar Man”. What kid did not want to be Steve Austin? Who does not know the words? “Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.” I even had a few of those 2 piece polyester suits like Steve always wore. Man I was cool back then…So is it a pixishow? We all know how well NBC did with that “Bionic Woman” remake…and it gets extra points for Lee Majors’s subsequent Shatner-like ironic fame…I yeah it’s a pixishow
I logged on here (I read the blog through bloglines) to nominate “ALF” and saw the one and only comment beat me to it. When I was first out of college, our whole office would talk about ALF on Tuesdays. I bought a VCR, the primary purpose being to tape ALF (I think I bowled on Monday nights). I joined the ALF fan club (probably the oldest member by 12 years) and might still have some of the paraphernalia. I watched the ALF cartoon series. A friend got me an ALF bobblehead. In short, I loved ALF.
So, a couple months ago, I was browsing through Netflix’s TV section, and came across ALF. Hungrily, I began watching, and I couldn’t believe how unfunny it was. At first I chalked it up to being one of the first episodes, before the characters found their groove. So I watched one from later in the first season, and it was just as bad.
At this point, I had to stop for fear of finding out the whole series was that way.
Had a similar experience with “Soap”, which I started watching in 8th grade.
1. Welcome Back, Kotter
2. Night Court
The thing is, this was good TV to our parents ! As adults this was prime time TV for them. Happy Days, Laverne and Shirly, The A-Team, Mork and Mindy…it goes on and on.
Don’t you think that most sit-coms of the late 60’s to mid 70’s are going to qualify as pixishows? Looking back, I realize that I actually looked forward, LOOKED FORWARD!, to watching shows like “One Day at a Time” and “Good Times”.
To me, what hurts the most though is realizing how bad the cartoons I used love were. Damn Boomerang and their ilk for letting me see how bad those shows were rather than letting me live in ignorant bliss.
I loved “The Rookies” when I was a kid. Probably because I had a massive crush on Michael Ontkean. I suspect it’s probably a pixishow. I don’t want to check, though, because I don’t want to spoil the memories….
And I love me some Jed.
Speed Racer. It’s hard to believe this show is so terrible now. I L-O-V-E-D this show.
Wacky Races. Embarrassing moments of parenthood: excitedly calling your children in to watch this show that you remember as funny and clever (if admittedly stupid: it’s still Hanna Barbera) as a kid and finding out … it’s just awful.
Agree with Gilligan and Kotter.
Starsky and Hutch. Dumb show. And it’s hard to explain the appeal of “The Rockford Files” to my kids now, too. I still like it, but understand why my kids get distracted away from it.
Saved by the Bell.
Early SNL……. Like Happy Days, or The Beverly Hillbillies, old shows must be viewed in the context of their time, rendering pixi-worthiness moot.
On a related note, The *Andy Griffith Show is better now than it was in the Sixties.
*Don Knotts version.
90210…the first incarnation. That’s the first show that comes to mind.
I have to disagree about Saved By the Bell…part of its charm was that it was so cheesy and bad. I can still get sucked in to an episode if I happen to catch one on, but while I watched every episode multiple times, I would have never told you it was a “good” show.
Johnny,
How can you include early SNL in this group? Early SNL is the definition of classic television.
“I think the Jed title is Lowrie’s for the taking”
He can have it. I don’t care much for being called Jed, especially by people who do so right after I introduce myself to them as Jedidiah. Jedidiah originally comes from the old testament, it was the family name for Solomon.
And lest we forget Jebediah Springfield’s full name: Jebediah Obadiah Zachariah Jedediah Springfield. A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
“Perfect Strangers” I think qualifies as a pixishow, as does “Small Wonder” or the immortal “Full House” (though I suspect I knew that show sucked in its first run).
[...] here: So he loaded up the truck … books, definition, happy-days, international, joe-posnanski, kansas, kansas-city, kids, media, [...]
I think the vast, vast majority of television from the past qualifies as pixishows. There are a few that just jumped the shark, and I don’t think that qualifies as the same thing, but tastes in popular culture shift a lot more quickly than, say, actual physical and sensory tastes. You look at what was on television 20 years ago and most of it seems painfully dated and clunky.
We all know the sitcom conventions, the action show tropes, the dramatic cliches, and most of the entertainment I watch tends to avoid those, whereas in my childhood, writers/directors could get away with those things and the non-discerning nature of youth and a lack of previous exposure to those same conventions made them always seem novel. In time, though, the General Lee jumping over a dry river bed only to have the pursuing Rosco P. Coltrane drive right into the gully went from being cool to being ridiculous, predictable, and generally lame.
Comedy (or at least watchable comedy) has also become more meta, with the better shows eschewing the standard cliches in favour of more nuanced and intelligent humour. The idea of a comedic catchphrase is more likely to be mocked than embraced by smart writers.
I guess what I’m getting at is that as old standbys become the norm in the entertainment world, audiences are quick to recognize their failings, or at least demand the next big thing. Beyond the societal side of things, it’s natural for individual personal tastes to change as people mature – I would never presume to enjoy the same things, entertainment-wise, as I did when I was a kid.
In short, it would be easier to come up with a shortlist of shows that didn’t qualify as pixishows than it would to come up with a list of shows that do. The latter list would be unbelievably long and unwieldy, with only the best of the best not showing their age after a decade or two at the longest.
I really want to hear Joe expound at length about Hogan’s Heroes – I haven’t seen it in ages, but I’d be really surprised if I went and watched an episode and found it to be a “pixishow”. Col. Klinck and Sgt. Schultz were really the olden-day equivalent of Principal Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (which is definitely, categorically NOT a “piximovie”, by the way), as far as I can remember…so stupid, and yet rather endearing in their stupidity. (Nazis = parents, in this somewhat strained analogy.)
Three’s Company. When I was 8, I liked this show. I looked at it at 14, and…wow! Craptacular.
The Brady Bunch. How could this not have been nominated by someone, yet?
Which prompts the question of the common link. Can we predict this stuff? I think that any show that tried to depict wholesomeness, while being a den of sin on set is likely to be craptacular. But if done properly, it can fool children and simple adults.
(On the flip side, I’ve been watching original Muppet Show episodes. Brilliant. Perhaps the perfect kids’ show. I almost wish that I had a kid so s/he could grow up watching this stuff.)
Knight Rider- Kit could unlock building doors from fifty yards away?
Dukes of Hazard- ‘qu, qu, qu’ said Roscoe.
Three’s Company- Every episode was a miscommunication, then hilarity ensued (or not)
WKRP. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Now it makes me cringe and I don’t know how it was ever funny.
The Avengers. It seemed like a secret door into a secret world. Now it just seems weird, but not good weird.
Early SNL?? I’m stunned mostly by how much they were truly able to get away with, and how bitingly clever and intelligent it is. They get away with stuff now, and it might be funny, but it’s not clever or smart – not the way the early seasons of SNL are. “Landshark” is still hilarious. I’m reasonably certain I won’t feel that way about the song about the you-know-what in a box in 20 years.
I’d have to say Kids in the Hall.
Now, I love the Kids, and they’re capable of doing unbelievably funny stuff. But I first saw the show when I was in middle school, and I laughed at every single thing they did. I thought it was brilliant, beginning to end. But I have the DVDs now, and, well, not so much. There are some real duds in there. Lots of them, actually. Like, 75% of the show. The brilliant moments make it worth watching, but are rare enough that I definitely wouldn’t call it a good show.
First pixishow that pops into my mind: “Home Improvement.” Growing up in the early-to-mid 90s I used to watch this with my mom, and I thought it was a legitimately good show. I’ve caught bits and pieces of it lately, and it’s just awful.
My level of shock, however, was pretty low – the vast majority of programming on television at any given time is abjectly horrendous. Indeed, I almost find it more surprising that good television somehow manages to exist.
I love this “pixistuff,” but I’ve often thought that you could probably extend it to other periods of life, as well. There’s probably almost as much stuff that I liked as a teenager that I later realized is really not very good (and I’m still pretty young) – “Dogma,” Nine Inch Nails lyrics, almost anything by JD Salinger. Of course, this is none too surprising, and perhaps less fun, but I bet you could take this concept far beyond childhood.
Petticoat Junction/Green Acres
The Real McCoys
Bewitched
I Dream of Genie
My Favorite Martian
Lost in Space
Land of the Giants
The Rifleman
I think I’ve just repudiated the entirety of my childhood teloeuvre. (Except, of course, for Rocky & Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle, The Invaders and Maverick, none of which I’ve seen in decades — guess I should steer clear of them, like Jim P & ALF).
Alf, definitely. I was pumped to bust out with that one, imagine my dismay to find it mentioned within the first two WORDS of the letters…I hate you guys.
As for Full House, it was so historically atrocious that, even at the tender age of 8 or 9, I got tremendous enjoyment out of how much it sucked.
Can we count things like Mr. Ed and Green Acres? Obviously I wasn’t around when they first came out (I did see Alf as a kid…), but I did watch them on Nick at Nite, and somehow enjoyed them. Especially the former.
Macgyver?
Who’s the Boss? (though I can’t remember if I ever even liked that show…)
Agreed with B.E. Earl. If we’re including fictional characters, which we must be since Jed Clampett was in the discussion, then Jed Bartlet has to be the most accomplished Jed. 1590 SAT, summa cum laude from Notre Dame, Master’s and Ph. D. from London School of Economics, professor at Dartmouth, Nobel Prize winner, three-term Congressman, two-term governor, two-term president.
And even if we’re not including his fictional accomplishments, you’ve still got to respect the accomplishments of the show lasting seven seasons, and many people who watched the show wishing they could have voted for Bartlet rather than any of the real-life candidates in the last two elections.
I’d like to argue that Hogan’s Heroes has the strangest plot in the history of television. Or entertainment, generally, for that matter.
Set in a Nazi POW camp, hilarity ensues!
I have two:
The Greatest American Hero
Sledge Hammer
I loved both these shows as a kid but was unable to finish the first episode when they came out on DVD.
BTW, I own all 4 seasons of Alf and I still enjoy it. My kids love it. Alf rocks.
Jeff,
I couldn’t agree more about Saved by the Bell. I lived and died with this show as a kid/teen. Now, the reruns are so uncomfortably bad that i have to change the channel.
American Gladiators?
Any 70’s show with that hokey disco type music in the background such as The Love Boat, Charlie’s Angels, etc. Oh, and let us not forget CHips…. what an awful show now, but I used to be riveted to it back in the day.
Kotter, Kotter, Kotter. That show was a phenomenon and is just plain unwatchable now.
Also, Laugh In, though I admit it aired before I was born. I can’t see how anyone ever thought it was funny, but it was a phenomenon. Now it looks like a parody where all anyone does is state catchphrases. That’s a sketch from The State or a plotline from The Simpsons.
My pixishow nominations:
- Airwolf. Why? Two words. Ernest. Borgnine.
- The Cosby Show. Bill Cosby and Roseanne Barr’s sitcoms battled each other each week, but Roseanne’s show still holds up, because it actually bears some resemblance to real life.
- The A-Team. As much as I love Mr. T, how many times could he really be drugged by Murdock before he would finally lose it and kill the crazy SOB?
- Married With Children. For some time in high school, I felt like Bud Bundy was the only character on television who I could identify with. Now even Kelly Bundy doesn’t seem that appealing to me any more.
- Star Trek : The Next Generation (first couple of seasons). Yeah, I thought this series was the shiznit back in the day, but those early episodes are nearly unwatchable now. Riker pre-beard (and pre-girdle) was particularly bad. Much love for Wil Wheaton, though.
- Night Court. I’ll join the chorus on Night Court; Larroquette was fine, but Harry Anderson is really quite insufferable, and wow, you could see those punchlines from over the horizon.
Joe – I look forward to your comments on Hogan’s Heroes. If it goes as I suspect, then I humbly submit F Troop as it’s near mirror image, with the inadvertently culturally offensive material this time directed at American Indians.
Vin is right- the stuff we embrace as teenagers is frequently WAY more embarrassing than what we liked as kids.
Look at it this way- a 10 year old girl who loved the Donny Osmond and the Partridge Family in 1971 is now a 47 year old Mom. But she can still smile and dance when she hears “I Think I Love You” or “One Bad Apple” on the radio. On the other hand, her intellectual teenage big brother who loved King Crimson and Frank Zappa is now a 54 year old engineer who CRINGES in embarrassment any time he hears that endless 10 minute jam session on “Moonchild,” and finds Zappa’s lyrics… well, smug, stupid and obnoxious rather than funny or insightful.
As for me, well, at age 6, my favorite musicians were Bach and Simon & Garfunkel. At 16, my favorite musicians were Peter Frampton and Boston. It’s sobering to realize I had much, much better taste at 6 than at 16.
Can I nominate an anti pixishow.
Animaniacs. When I was young I thought they were kind of annoying. But now after watching their clips on Youtube I find the show and the parodies they do hilarious.
Hmmm…I think we are not distinguishing here between shows that just seem so dated now that it’s hard to remember a time when they were current, and genuine pixishows. Sitcoms are such a product of their times that almost any sitcom from your childhood might seem like a pixishow now.
Also, the basic plot structure of the sitcom has been the subject of mockery for years now, so, almost by definition, shows that adhered to it back in the golden age of the sitcom are going to seem like pixishows viewed through that cynical lens.
The best pixishow mentioned so far, I think is The A-Team. That’s a show that, when you’re 10, seems action-packed and exciting. And later you realize how absurd it is. Machine guns fired every week but not once does anyone get shot. A bad guy’s car flips over and lands on its roof every single week and every single week the bad guys crawl out of it (so that it’s clear they were not hurt). Guns, explosions and flipping cars and nobody ever gets hurt. That show was terrible. But it sure seemed exciting when I was 10.
When I was six, my favorite song was “Music Box Dancer,” which should be the soundtrack for the eventual show about pixishows. The song was rescued, partly, by its appearance on the Simpsons — Homer did a gymnastics routine to it in high school.
Astorian, I think if you played the game “Rock Band”, your appreciation for Boston could grow again. I know mine certainly has.
And Grrrbear, you are dead on with Married with Children. I saw a marathon just the other day with old episodes, and was amazed I ever uttered a single laugh. And yeah, Kelly lost her luster unfortunately.
Jeds Lowrie and Hansen are the only two Jeds in modern MLB history and they both went to Stanford.
A-Team.
As someone already mentioned, there are always going to be shows from one’s youth that were loved them but are terrible now. Writers and directors are able to get away with more cliches and literary conventions simply because the younger you are the less experience you have understanding them.
That’s why a show that relies on them (Full House probably being the supreme example from my generation, and my favorite show for a very long time), or on repetition of one or several elements as the basis for the show’s humor, will look bad in retrospect.
Full House and Home Improvement are my nominees.
The ‘Billies rule! NOT a pixie show. Still watch them, still think they are hilarious. Great characters, totally moronic humor that transcends era and taste. Jethro Bodine is one of the all time great “dumb” parts, right up there with Costello and Laurel. Milburn Drysdale still a perfect portrait of the American greedy capitalist pig. Also Frank Zappa was and remains a genius, so there.
I found the complete 3rd season of The Addam’s Family on sale for $10 the other day and snatched it up. I labored through 3 episodes before giving up and listing the set on Amazon. Man, oh man.
When I was a kid Julie Lutz hosted a show on Ch. 41 called A.M. Live. They used to play tons of “classic” TV shows – Kate and Allie, Head of the Class, Mork and Mindy, Happy Days, WKRP. At noon they played Beverly Hillbillies, Munsters, Brady Bunch, I Love Lucy, Green Acres.
I think the only two shows from that entire day of programming that hold up are Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke. Geez I wasted a lot of my life on those crappy shows as a kid. Maybe my parents were right.
A Team, McGyver, Knight Rider, Air Wolf. Any show that was based on action made in the 80s pretty much stinks. Or going further back, B.J. and the Bear.
I don’t know if you can count as pixishows comedies that pretty much were seen as silly at the time (Gilligan’s Island, Saved by the Bell). Those shows never “jumped the shark”, because they started out just ridiculous.
And I know we really don’t know our American history anymore, but Jedediah S. Smith was extremely famous in his day. If Lewis and Clark were the most famous explorers, he was right there in the picture. According to Wikipedia:
Smith was the first white man to cross the future state of Nevada, the first to traverse Utah from north to south and from west to east; the first American to enter California by the overland route, and so herald its change of masters; the first white man to scale the High Sierras, and the first to explore the Pacific hinterland from San Diego to the banks of the Columbia River.
Miami Vice
Very low production values (except for the million dollar boats, etc).
Jed Bartlet > Jed Lowrie. I will NOT argue this.
When you think about it, probably 95% of sitcoms anyone watched as a kid qualifies. How many still watchable sitcoms came out between 1970 and 1995? Cheers, All in the Family, Seinfeld, Simpsons…Anything else?
Pixishow:
In Living Color.
I lived for this show when I was a kid. I wrote down the names of the musical acts and bought their CDs (Digable Planets, Naughty By Nature, some others I couldn’t find.)
I was so excited when I saw BET was showing it and then Fire Marshall Bill came on and Jim Carrey was just not funny while electricuting himself and then blowing himself up. And a lot of the cultural stuff is dated, but Fire Marshall Bill was not cultural, and not funny.
First off its astounding to me that anyone could put down WKRP, early SNL, or the Cosby show. That’s completely insane.
The true definition of a pixieshow is something that was watched at the time even though on some level we KNEW this was garbage. Dukes of Hazard, anything produced by Aaron Spelling, Gilligan’s Island. F-Troop.
But shows that got critical acclaim or racked up Emmy awards cannot become Pixieshows. Another example: Get Smart. Don Adams won Emmy awards for Best Actor in a comedy. And yeah, some gags were repeated ad nauseum. But that show holds up.
Fascinating discussion as usual. My wife and I will occasionally take a trip back to the 80s to revisit (or visit for the first time) some shows, movies, etc. Don’t want to rehash what others have said so I’ll limit my comments to a few:
GI Joe – Definite Pixieshow. I had no idea how often they yell “Yo Joe!” and “Cobra!” back in the day.
A-Team & Knight Rider – Pixieshows, although I remember thinking they were kind of silly when I was a child.
Magnum, PI – I remember this being a ‘quality’ (whatever that means) show and I was stunned at how lame it was. Poor acting, nonsensical plots. This was an absolute shocker for me.
The MUNSTERS!!! No-one has yet mentioned the MUNSTERS.
Here’s a poll questions for you someday… Were you a Munsters or Addams family person. Personally, I didn’t care much for Addams family, but I never missed the Munsters. What does THAT say about me???
Spot-on about the Muppet show. Try you-tubing some muppet show classics. Had my kids in stitches the othe day watching the many, many skits of the Sweedish chef. Also check out the drum solo dual between animal and Buddy Rich. And Beaker singing “feleings”. Man, where’s TV like that today. It was original, funnny w/o being stupid, and completly g-rated. True comdedic genius needs neither an F-bomb or a “gross” factor.
One last Jed comment… Beverly Hillbillies still rules. I bet 95% of the people could tell you what a C-ment pond is… You-tube flatt & Sruggs and you’ll find their appearance on the show too. Great stuff….
“that’s like the difference between raze* and razor**”
I understand why you used raze and razor, but regarding just raze, it bothers me that we can raise a building and then raze it. On paper, I understand, but WTF were they thinking?
Re: Addams Family vs. Munsters
To me the key is that the Munsters constantly tried to conceal their true monstrous identities. They were essentially conformists. The Addams were who they were and didn’t give a crap. It’s almost inspiring.
Joe, I would be fascinated to hear your views on Hogan’s Heroes. As a member of one of the first generations that grew up with television, I looovvved that show. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized how wrong I had been.
Well, just kidding about that last one. Of course, the politically correct line became one of horror and outrage that anyone could even think about making fun of a war that was responsible for a holocaust, and I can understand that. There are no words to adequately describe what it must have been to live in that time and be subject to the evil that ruled in Europe during Hitler’s reign. People who experienced the holocaust (and whose families did) have a right to feel any way they want about a television show that makes fun of their personal hell.
However, I think the people who tsk-tsk at the idea of a comedy about Nazis are missing an important point, and that is that one of the strongest, most life-affirming reactions to terror and evil is to LAUGH IN ITS FACE. And that is what I think Hogan’s Heroes did, on a weekly basis. Every week, Colonel Hogan and his cohorts would, in their own small way, strike a blow against the evil of dictatorial power. If Colonel Klink, General Buchalter, and the rest of the German High Command were buffoons, wellllll, it was network television in the 60’s.
Ultimately, I don’t think Hogan’s Heroes resulted in the downfall of western civilization, and I don’t think anyone needs to feel any the worse for having laughed at it.
Now I’ll shut my mouth…my brains are falling out.
Gilligan’s Island is the ultimate pixishow. Loved it as a kid, but so broadly acted that it is impossible to sit through now, even with Ginger and Mary Ann.
I also used to love the Odd Couple but that’s a tough watch now.
I’d be interested to see if Barney Miller fits the bill as a pixishow, because I haven’t seen it in at least 10 years. I loved that show as a teenager. I always thought Inspector Luger and Dietrich were two of the funniest supporting characters on TV. That show also suffered from a Diloneism, thinking that Wojo and Fish were the strongest supporting characters when Harris, Levitt, Luger and Deitrich blew them away.
Married… with Children
Five Jokes:
1. “Al, let’s have sex.” “No.”
2. Bud masturbates.
3. Kelly’s a whore.
4. Marci has no breasts.
5. *flush*
ELEVEN SEASONS.
The Superfriends
Plot for Every Episode:
1. Bad guys do bad things.
2. Bad guys tie up Superman.
3. We are a collection of superheroes with astonishing powers! We can do anything except stop bad guys! Let us talk to fish! Oh no, talking to fish does nothing to prevent global destruction! If only someone could untie Superman from his kryptonite binding!
4. Someone unties Superman.
5. Superman again proves the futility and obsolescence of EVERY OTHER SUPERFRIEND.
I agree somewhat with Saved by the Bell being a pixishow. The originals are still amazing, but the primetime spin-off, The College Years is a debacle. I watched and adored every episode and remember being completely perplexed when it was canceled. Now that those episodes have reached syndication, I am actually embarassed to watch them alone.
Ironically, Colonel Klink was played by a Jew.
What was the worst thing about “Quincy, M.E.”? Was it the fact that some aging coroner was foisted upon us as a crime fighter? No. It was during the intro music for every episode, when they showed Quincy on his boat with a hot bikini-clad woman half his age. I’m supposed to believe that a coroner who looks like Jack Klugman can be a ladies man? Good God, how did that show last for 148 episodes?
On a different note, there is no faster way to get my wife to leave the room than to start singing the theme song to “Eight is Enough”. A horrible show with perhaps the worst theme song in history….
“We spend our days like bright and shiny new dimes… If we’re ever troubled by the changing times… There’s a plate of homemade wishes on the kitchen windowsill… And eight is enough to fill our lives with looooooove.”
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Grant Goodeve!
MSS, I can do something similar with Home Improvement.
-Tim angers Jill
-Tim gets advice from Wilson on how to make it up to her
-Tim screws up a quote
-Jill forgives
TJ Hooker
I loved it as a kid, mostly due to Heather Locklear. And then one episode Heather Thomas guest starred. It was more than my 6th grade mind could handle.
Looking back that was awful, awful television…
The A-Team, seriously, have more bullets and explosions ever led to fewer deaths? These guys were supposed to to top notch soldiers, the best of the best and the only things they could hit were tires engines and exploding gas tanks!?
I second the nomination of Speed Racer. Back when I still liked cotton candy, I absolutely loved this show. I used to get up early every morning so I could watch it before school. At some point within the past 10 years I had a chance to watch an old episode. I was crushed to realize that it may be the worst cartoon ever made.
I am pretty sure razors are one of the most common items stolen in a store. Last time I was at Target, some guy was stuffing Mach 3’s into his jacket.
Gee, no one’s mentioned Man from UNCLE. I loved that show as a kid; made my dad give up whatever show was on at the same time so that I could watch it. Even went out into the woods to do spy stuff. Saw an ep. a couple years ago, and wondered how I could possibly have seen anything there??
And I agree with In Living Color. Watched it at the time and thought it was great. Saw an episode a few months ago and realized it did not age well.
Family Ties. Absolutely loved it as a kid, as did my parents. Thought we were wtahcing great television. And I then I caught an episode on reruns and… wow. The show is poorly written and outside of Michael J. Fox, poorly acted. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it seems even worse because I once thought it was good.
Thanks to DVD, we can go back and buy old TV series. As a rule, sitcoms do not hold up well at all. I’ve gotten to the point where I refuse to buy sitcoms on DVD for fear of it ruining the show for me. Better let it to live on in my memory.
Dude, A-Team is still classic. Go back and watch it, take a shot every time an unnessesary explosion doesn’t kill someone, and tell me you didn’t have a good time. You can’t! The A-Team Drinking Game provides for amazing entertainment!
Full House is probably the biggest pixishow I remember from my not so distant youth. As a kid I LOVED that show. I’d make sure my parents had on TGIF every friggin Friday just to watch it. I caught an episode on TV the other day, and couldn’t get through two minutes of it. Painful!
“…but it turns out his name is actually Ned Jarett, which doesn’t count.”
Thank you for the laughs, Joe.
As a kid, I liked “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.” A lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qok-MJ8r38U
Pixi-riffic.
After all this muppet show talk, which is a little early for me(born in 1978), does anyone remember the one season of the ‘jim henson hour’? it was on sunday in like 1990, and i thought it was the best show on TV, does anyone else remember this, or was i the only one that caught it’s short run? anyway haven’t watched it since, but i would guess it holds up.
Did someone mention Razor Shines?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_Shines
Looking at the list, you see a pretty common thread. People will chime in on shows they loved as kids but hate now, which shows the biggest discrepancy between pixifoods and pixishows. The mind tends to become far more refined over the years (for some, at least), whereas the palate’s refinement isn’t always as notable (I’d wager that more foods transcend shift in tastes from childhood to adulthood than do television shows).
Full marks for the Muppet Show as an anti-pixishow, though. I’d also nominate the old Looney Tunes cartoons and still think there’s some good subversive material and plain old absurdism in Rocky and Bullwinkle (for whoever said they were too afraid to revisit it).
I think the Cosby Show qualifies more as a show that jumped the shark than as a pixishow in my mind. Earlier episodes still have some genuinely funny moments, probably because many of the best lines were direct transcripts of some of Bill Cosby’s stand-up.
“The Cosby Show” is absolutely not a pixieshow. If you disagree, there is a real chance that you have no soul. It’s probably not that serious, but you should visit your preferred clergyman/woman just to be sure.
Oddly, “A Different World” may deserve consideration. I’m 29, and I once thoroughly enjoyed that show. I came across a re-run a few years ago. What a letdown. The voice of Jasmine Guy causes seizures in lab rats.
The Jim Henson Show was great. I haven’t seen it years now, so I hope it holds up, but given the Muppet Show’s quality on a viewing this past year, I’d venture to say his other stuff probably holds up as well.
I’d vote for Fun House as a pixishow. Does anyone else remember this program? Amazingly, the host is still doing game shows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun_House_(game_show)
I would nominate every Hanna-Barbera cartoon ever created as a pixishow, except MAYBE The Flintstones.
Jeff P.: Sledgehammer was and still is awesome. I must disagree there.
People didn’t have a choice other than to watch a crappy show until recently. What was life like before cable and satillite became popular? How can one survive with only 5 channels? That is a world I cannot imagine.
For me personally, it’s impossible to watch an episode of ‘Hogans Heros’ without thinking of what we now know about Bob Crane. It’s like trying to watch the OJ parts in ‘Naked Gun’. Tainted.
I’m repeating myself here, but the best thing about the Beverly Hillbillies is Weird Al’s “Beverly Hillbillies” song from UHF, sung to the tune of Money for Nothing:
Before you know it, all the kinfolk are saying,
“Yeah buddy, move away from there”
That little Clampett’s got his own see-ment pond!
That little Clampett, he’s a millionaire!
Sheer genius.
As for pixishows, it’s more probable that the real rarity will be the shows that hold up, not the ones that turn out to be dreadful. (And for the commenter who mentioned it before, “Small Wonder” was ALWAYS dreadful.) Basically, will you watch it if you stumble across a rerun on cable?
Cheers makes me stop and watch. Early MASH, before Linville left the cast. Futurama, even though I’ve memorized half of the eps at this point. Kudos to those who’ve already mentioned the Muppet Show. (The Mummenshanz episode was on the other day – it was like drugs beamed into your brain through your eyes, and that was just Scooter singing “Mr. Bass Man” with the Electric Mayhem – Mummenshanz hadn’t even come on yet. But still entertaining!) Fraggle Rock is right there with it. The original Twilight Zone usually comes through. And, laugh if you will, but despite cheesy acting and cheesier sets/effects, I will watch old eps of Dr. Who.
I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the shows that did hold up are ones originally aimed for children – not just for the nostalgia value, but also because the themes are more universal, less purely “topical” than your average preachy half-hour of Maude or Murphy Brown. So stuff like Battle of the Planets and Starblazers to more recent stuff like Animaniacs or the animated Batman and Superman shows (so well done)…
As a kid, I loved reruns of Bewitched and hated I Dream of Jeannie. It reversed some time in my 20’s. Both Darrens were total d-bags. I still watch WKRP on Sundays on WGN, but Gary Sandy, like the Darrens, sucks the funny out of any situation.
Pat is asking the right question – what ISN’T a pixieshow. Much shorter list!
I think you can safely add M*A*S*H to Pat’s list.
NBA Jed:
NBA champion Jed Buechler.
I take personal offense to the MASH nomination.
But I think everyone would agree after thinking about it for a second, that MTV is the ultimate pixishow.
Jedediah Sprungfeld
Wait, check that. MTV is the ultimate pixi-CHANNEL. A new category!
Buecheler’s inclusion into the Jed Hall of Fame is ruined by being named ‘Jud’.
Dinosaurs from the early 90’s, which I believe I watched every episode of. It was ABC’s direct Simpson’s clone and I rented it a couple years back and it was awful. The dumbest guy in my fraternity house couldn’t stop laughing, and that just affirmed my thinking.
I would say that most sitcoms will apply, although the 90’s sitcoms on NBC were all pretty good. The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Fresh Prince, NewsRadio, Frasier, and Cheers were all shows I’ve watched in syndication and enjoy. I would also say that the shows without laugh tracks have raised the bar for comedy, that even those shows pale in humor to the nuances of Arrested Development. I missed out on Nick at Night for a lack of cable as a child, but my small experience says the shows became less formulaic after Seinfeld. Home Improvement and Married with Children are exceptions to this vague ruling of mine.
As a more recent entry – Friends. I didn’t love the show by any means while it was on, but would watch it and thought it was funny. Now, watching a re-run on TBS, especially immediately after watching a re-run of Seinfeld, I can’t figure out what all the fuss was about.
I agree with the general sentiment concerning “Hogan’s Heroes.” I don’t find it as funny now as I did when I was 13 (and I’m only 27 now), but there is some odd genius to that show you can’t quite put your finger on. And when I watch re-runs, I still laugh out loud at Klink, Shultz, and Hochstetter. Carter, too.
A-Team isn’t a pixi-show in my book because even when I was six I realized that a) nobody is dying, which is absurd; and b) every show had the same exact plot arc. But I still loved the show. If I see an episode now, I still enjoy the nuances of the main characters.
Actually, now that I think about it, that’s a common theme to those old shows. I now realize most the plots are dumb, but the characters, if well acted, still amuse and interest me. “Simon and Simon” is like this.
“Murder she Wrote” is a pixi-show for me. I liked it when I was little. Now, I can barely make it through an episode.
I hate to say this, but “Bonanza” is border-line a pixi-show. LOVED it when I was little. Now, I realize that the sets were awful and the episodes with dramatic plots are generally eye-rollers. But the characters are still great and the episodes with comedic plots are still good.
My Pixishow nominee would be The Wild Wild West.
I couldn’t wait for this show when I was a kid. My mom would set up a TV tray so I could eat dinner and watch the show. Great opening credits – remember they were animated!
Cool gadgets, tough fights and hot Old West babes for James West every week.
Saw an episode a few weeks ago and couldn’t believe how cheesy it was. Poor production values, cheap props and the fights were so choreographed it was funny.
What a bringdown.
I was never a big TV watcher, and “Caroline in the City” is the only pixishow I could add to the list here. “ALF”s the one I thought of first, but I never was that big a fan, and I did love “WKRP”, which I have doubts about now, but I’ve never actually re-watched it to check. All of these, even “ALF”, were shows my Mom watched too, and she was and is an extraordinarily bright woman, author of several books, deservedly influential columnist in her field. I don’t know what to make of this.
I still love “Muppet Show”, “Fraggle Rock”, and “Doctor Who” as an adult — alright, the episodes about the Master and the Daleks and the Cyberman were mostly awful, but I knew that when I was 12, and eventually the BBC writers figured that out too.
My favorite non-Henson / non-time-traveler show while growing up was “L.A. Law”, and there’s a good chance I’ll regret that if it ever comes out on DVD. So far, however, the people in charge of reissuing have spared me.
I think a lot of westerns qualify. The western that holds up best is “Gunsmoke.”
I think the Lone Ranger would qualify as a pixishow also.
And to clarify: the A-team characters don’t have nuances. I don’t know why I used that word. But I still enjoy those characters.
I’m assuming, btw, that “You Can’t Do That on Television” is by definition _not_ a pixishow, because it never pretended to be funny for people over 12. Loved it dearly then; recognize the jokes as total groaners now; don’t see my current opinion as even slightly relevant.
Ironically, Colonel Klink was played by a Jew.
John Banner (Sgt. Schultz), Robert Clary (Lebeau) and the guy who played General Burkhalter (sp?) were also Jewish. I believe Clary was a concentration camp survivor. I watch way too much TV.
Pixishow? “Ultraman”- While taking a break from important TV stuff, we were checking out some “Ultraman” clips on youtube. We thought it would be a gas. Sadly, it wasn’t.
I guess the fact that even as a child I always wondered why Ultraman couldn’t figure out that he had a time limit to kick alien butt. He’d be beating down some weird octopus from another world, and that damn beeper would go off and he couldn’t breath. Figure it out, moron…
Has anyone mentioned “BJ and the Bear”, and, by extension, “Sheriff Lobo”?
Why don’t they ever bring back or remake good shows, like “BJ and the Bear.” Now there’s a concept I can’t get enough of, a man and his monkey.
And the Hillbillies are still great.
Saved By the Bell
…awful…
Saved By the Undeniable Hotness of Kelly Kapowski
Past that? Nothing…
Pixishows:
AirWolf
Night Rider
Street Hawk
Dukes of Hazard (ugh… can’t believe I liked this one sooo much)
Charles in Charge
Three’s Company
I could go on and on…..
“MSS, I can do something similar with Home Improvement.
-Tim angers Jill
-Tim gets advice from Wilson on how to make it up to her
-Tim screws up a quote
-Jill forgives”
Brian, it’s funny that you mention this. In a TV production class in HS, we had to storyboard an episode of any scripted show. I completely blanked on the assignment until my free two periods before the thing was due. I fictionalized an episode of Home Improvement using basically this exact formula (toss in a few “wacky” wipes and graphics). It got an A from my teacher who actually told me that he remembered the episode, which goes to show just how formulaic it was.
One that nobody’s mentioned: Mission Impossible. When I was 12 I thought it was the ultimate in cool; saw it years later and realized it was actually pretty dumb (although Landau and Bain were terrific).
Old shows that still hold up for me: Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart (the original, never saw the second one), MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Get Smart. And Hill Street Blues is still one of the greatest shows ever.
Oh, and a “reverse pixishow” — back in the 60s I thought Green Acres was too stupid for words, even though I was a kid. Saw a couple of episodes 20 years later and realized it was actually pretty funny. Might have just been in a good mood that day.
I have a very strong feeling that 20 years from now, “Burn Notice” on USA is going to be one of those shows we look back on and say, so why was everyone saying this show was “so freaking cool,” when really, it was just an up-to-date A-Team just with the “mysterious” CIA-type subplot that dragged on for three seasons?
Having said that, I never missed an episode of the A-Team when I was a kid, and I never miss an episode of “Burn Notice” now.
Oh, and Voxpoptart, never have doubts about WKRP. A lot of that show does, in fact, hold up over time. WGN re-runs episodes on Sunday nights.
I never watched the show so I don’t know for sure, but are the OC and those phenomenon shows that burn out after like 2 years their own category of pixishow where viewers grow out of them in real time?
I vaguely remember a show where Geena Davis played the president and I think it had huge ratings for like the first three weeks and then may not have even lasted a whole season. That’s got to be some kind super fast acting pixishow.
The Rifleman. Period.
MTV PixiChannel…yeah. Start in about 1984 and ride it until about 1989 and pretty much every freaking minute was pixi. I remember telling people that I could live with just ESPN, MTV, and whichever channel had an NFL game. I mean, I never went an entire day without the TV in my room tuned to MTV for at least a little while. (One caveat is this: The original Remote Control is possibly the greatest game show of all time.) Right about the time MTV stopped playing in my room at home and started playing in my room in my fraternity house, I realized that Kurt Loder was a tool and that listening to music was cooler than watching it. Funny, though, my iPod sure does have a lot of music from…1984 to 1989.
Random Thoughts:
At least where I lived, there were only 3 channels in those days (no cable). If you wanted to watch TV, you watched these shows. That’s how they got to be popular.
Re: Hogan’s Heroes, I always thought it was a “funny version” of the movie “Stalag 17.” Then, on TCM, I saw the movie “The Password is Courage.” Unbelievable how many of the stratagems used by Hogan’s Heroes were in this movie!
The one thing I remember from “Sledgehammer” was when he flung a paper plane and it lodged in his captain’s afro, unbeknownst to the captain. It stayed there, unremarked, for the remainder of the episode, which cracks me up every time I think of it. First, for the non-PC guts to make fun of an afro, and second, for the fact that they never referred to it.
“MTV is the ultimate pixishow.”
Great comment, although to be fair the MTV that sucks today bears so little resemblence to the awesome MTV of 25 years ago.
I would also like to read Joe’s comments on Hogan’s Heroes. I have a kind of perverse respect for that show.
Imagine walking into any network today and pitching a comedy show about being in Al Qaeda. Nobody would have the balls to get within a hundred miles of it whether it was funny or not.
All this sitcoms that are being mentioned are still kind of likably stupid to me. Yeah, they’re awful but I can’t hate them. They are to me what comic books were to an earlier generation.
The shows that really make me feel embarrassed are the game shows. How many hours of childhood did I blow watching Card Sharks, Pyramid, The PiR, etc.? It hurts just to think about it.
I’m a bit old, at 63 and not seeing television until I was 16 or 17, to have any TV pixishows but I’d like to nominate The Three Stooges. I can recall cheering at movie matinees when these guys popped up among the first-half shorts and then rocking in my seat at their antics. About a year ago I bought a four-disc DVD set and settled in for a treat — buoyed by Jerry Seinfeld’s endorsement from the episode where he’d stolen the coma guy’s girlfriend (“Jzoo must tell me of the Stooges Three”).
I lasted twenty minutes . . . and most of that was in extreme pain.
Another from the antique file: Pete Smith Specials (these turn up on obscure TV channels from time to time here). . . hilarious in the fifties, beyond lame now.
And, sorry, MASH was never funny. Caught an episode the other day — the plot was stupid, the dialogue swung between pathetic and preachy and the timing was atrocious.
One show I’d like to see again is The Naked City . . . my recall is an hour every week of film noir at its best.
I’d vote for Silver Spoons – Erin Gray notwithstanding.
When Jed Graef won the 200m backstroke with a new world record at the Tokyo Games, he became the first Princetonian to win an Olympic gold medal for swimming. This proved to be by far the most significant victory of his career; the only other major title he won was the NCAA 200y backstroke in 1964. Graef earned a Ph.D. in psychology and was a pioneer in the field of sports psychology.
per olympic-reference
Full House, for sure… I thought it was a great show when I was a kid. I saw an episode recently (with a 12-year-old) and was totally horrified by how saccharine it was. I was ready to jab myself through the eye with a pencil just to have an excuse to leave the room.
the a-team
the greatest american hero
gilligan’s island
magnum pi
knight rider
the dukes of hazzard
and the champion:
macgyver
Before I roll out my nominations, I’ll address some of the shows thrown into the ring…
ALF definitely qualifies. It’s writing was abysmal, and Max Wright’s energy is extremely off-putting. (Special ALF side-note, check out the tight pants on the doctor in the Christmas Special. There’s something equine going on with that doctor.) Nevertheless, my ass was plopped down in front of the TV every Monday night for that hour of ALF and Valerie/The Hogan Family.
The Rockford Files still holds up insanely well. I didn’t get into it until I was in college in 1998, and I absolutely love it. I own many seasons and shudder to think that someone could include it in this list.
Completely agree on the A-Team to all who suggested inclusion. I had an A-Team lunchbox. I loved that show. It’s not good.
The same goes for Airwolf. Jan-Michael Vincent is perhaps the most leaden actor to walk the face of the Earth. What were we thinking?
The Cosby Show is still great. Perfect Strangers goes beyond unwatchability. After ten minutes of sitting through Mark-Linn Baker’s neuroses, you’re glad he’s reduced to playing rapists on police procedurals.
On to the nominations…
When I was a kid, I loved Webster. I wanted the Papadapolises for parents. I wanted a dumbwaiter (sp?) in my house. I wanted to be 4′8″ for life. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
My Two Dads, which I actually wrote a blog entry about last night, was appointment TV for my 10-year old self. Holy Hell is it terrible. The more I think about it, the more I wonder was Paul Reiser ever good.
Scrubs will be one in ten years. I wish I had been a kid to excuse my liking this show for as long as I did. It’s last few seasons have been bogged down in never evolving characters who have become less and less interesting than the supporting cast.
And even though it was mentioned once, MacGyver is terrible. The writing is awful, Richard Dean Anderson (the second-most famous product of Hibbing, Minnesota) was unintentionally laughable, and the notion of him always having gum and matches and bleach on hand to make a bomb was preposterous. The science-to-the-rescue plot feature was preposterous to have a show hinge on.
Probably too obscure for most of y’all, but I’d nominate “HR Pufnstuf”. A children’s show that was pretty much nothing but drug culture references, with enough characters in huge, ugly costumes to give ANYone the feeling they were on a bad acid trip. I thought it was kind of funny and interesting as a small child. Having recently seen a few videos of the show on YouTube (many of which were pulled, I believe, although the main theme segment is still there) it actually frightened me it was so bad.
It’ll probably never make Joe’s list, because as I said it’s just way to obscure. But if anyone here is old enough to remember that monstrosity of a show, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
As far as more modern, “regular” TV shows, I’d go with “Twin Peaks”.
Buck Rogers, definitely. A few months ago I came across an episode that I even remembered as being one of the “good” ones, and couldn’t stand it. (Although Erin Gray did make up for some of it…)
The comment about shows being reflective of their times and having to look at them that way is spot on.
Barney Miller holds up remarkably well. Then look at the interactions between the characters (both regular and frequent guests) and notice they were ahead of the curve on some of that stuff…
Early Kotter (before Travolta became big) holds up ok, actually. The later stuff blows. (And watching Marcia Strassman waste away is no fun…)
Finally, re: Hogan’s Heroes — Werner Klemperer only agreed to do the show on the condition that the Germans were idiots. Still, we got to caring about Klink and Schultz, and learned that even some of the folks on the wrong side of a war can be good people.
Another show, upon further reflection, that I would *expect* to be a pixishow, but isn’t (having seen it again a few years ago), is “Emergency”. I don’t like the modern “hyper-reality” dramas.
“The Ed Sullivan Show”
For every Beatles or Elvis moment on those “best of” compilations, there were hours of Topo Gigio and the Ukrainian Dancing Bears and Martin and Rossi trying to work clean. Senior Winces, doing the same routine for forty years. The guy who spun plates to the Turkish Saber Dance….
Welcome Back Kotter is an awesome choice. Loved it as a 7 year old.
Mork and Mindy?
The other thing you realize about the A-Team after age 12, is that every episode is exactly the same. Particularly the part where the bad guys leave the A-Team tied up in a warehouse with things that you can assemble into a tank lying around.
Jokelahoma,
Right there with you! Question is, do you remember the even MORE terrible and more obscure shows from that era?
- Sigmund the Sea Monster
- Lidsville
- The one with the bugs….The Buggles?
- There was another one with Charles Nelson Reilly and Ruth Buzzy in a spaceship…..can’t put a finger on that one.
L.O.V.E.D. then as a kid, looking back now, very, very scary!
Speaking of Jedidiahs (which always makes me think of The Simpsons) … the Orioles have a shortstop in their minors named Jedidiah Stephen.
I think I should clarify my Cosby Show pick…
The first two or three seasons, as someone else mentioned, were heavily based on his stand-up material, and were very good. Once he ran out of material, though, things went downhill very quickly.
And I’m saying this as a guy who has nearly all of Bill’s comedy LPs. That’s right – LPs. When I was ten years old, I had ‘Wonderfulness’ and ‘200 MPH’ practically memorized. I would sit on the floor of my room, spinning these albums on my Fisher-Price turntable, rolling on the floor with laughter.
Then two years later I heard Eddie Murphy’s ‘Comedian’ and nearly lost my mind. How sheltered was my childhood if I don’t discover the comedy value of profanity until the age of twelve?
Oooo, if we get to Piximovies, put Beverly Hills Cop on the list.
Green Acres is stupid on the surface, but brilliant on the meta-level. I hated it as a kid and love it now. Anti-pixie.
Alf was brilliant, except for the last year with the stupid neighbor kid.
A few great shows not mentioned:
– HR Puffinstuff only had about 10 episodes but somehow stayed on TV for four years. It was one of the better acid trips of all time;
– Schoolhouse Rock. Enough said;
– The Prisoner, which pretty much defined how a formulaic plot should be handled, not that anyone paid attention
As for the true pixieshows, I fail to see how anyone could lump Green Acres with its hideous spinoff, Petticoat Junction. Take Acres and strip out all te humor and the logic games.
Laverne and Shirley was a sitcom where the writers almost never bothered to create a situation: The characters stood around ineir apartment and waited on something to happen.
The Real World gets some credit for being one of the earliest “Reality” shows. Still, they never had a group that you wouldn’t prefer to watch getting beaten to a pulp in a bar fight rather than see them sulk around the house.
For some reaon I gave up TV.
As a Kittridge myself, I’ve known about Malachi for a while now. Long before you could “Google” yourself, you could take our your Dad’s 1983 Baseball Encyclopedia and see if any great ballplayer had the same last name as you. With that in mind, I don’t know whether I should be upset or proud in you naming him “the least successful baseball player ever.”
Ehh, screw it. We’ve still got the bad guy from the first Mission: Impossible.
I am glad some people are defending “Green Acres” which was a very clever show filled with nonsequiturs.
With the exception of Seinfeld, practically every sit-com loses its impetus after a couple of years. This is either because they lose their nerve (MASH became a pro-war show pretty quickly, although not in the standard sense. On the surface it seemed anti-war), tried to be about relationships and serious matters (also MASH, All In the Family, Mary Tyler Moore) or elevated one of fundamentally stupid or stoned characters into a wise child (Edith, Georgette, Reverend Jim). At that point, I find them unwatchable.
To Paul White:
I take your point about Quincy M.E. — but, to me, the worst thing by far about that show was that every episode was about a career-making case; no ordinary days in the life of Quincy. One coroner, 148 major cases. It’s the same problem that exists with so many shows of that type — Murder She Wrote, House, etc., etc. — the writers are put in the situation of saying, “What do we do for an encore” every time out. So the episodes get increasingly ridiculous. With Murder She Wrote, it got to the point where you expected the secondary characters to start running for their lives whenever Jessica Fletcher appeared on the scene — after all, she’s the common denominator in all these deaths.
The other thing that always grated on me about Quincy was the character Sam. Always pleasant, but never did a damn thing except advance the plot with his well-placed questions.
DORIGHT
Were you thinking of “The Ghost & Mrs. Muir”? If so, that wasn’t Ruth Buzzi (she was the Laugh-In cast member, which was anything BUT a Pixieshow!) but instead was Hope Lange.
Otherwise I can’t think of any show with CNR and Ruth Buzzi together…
DORIGHT
- There was another one with Charles Nelson Reilly and Ruth Buzzy in a spaceship…..can’t put a finger on that one.
— “The Lost Saucer”, and it was Jim Nabors, not CNR. I used to love all of those Sid & Marty Kroft shows when I was a kid, especially “Land Of The Lost”. Those Sleestaks scared the hell out of me, but the dinosaurs were really cool, and Holly was kinda cute…
Surprised no one has mentioned Batman (starring Adam West). My brother and I used to watch it religiously. BIFF! BAM! POW! When it ended, we’d re-enact every scene, running around in our Batman & Robin Underoos. We couldn’t imagine a more awesome show; and now it’s just cheesy and painful to sit through. Imagine Christian Bale doing the Batusi now?
And would (original) Star Trek be considered a borderline Pixieshow? If you look past the bad Shatner acting, there were some great stories that I can still enjoy watching all these years later. But there were still plenty of awful ones too: like when the hippies took over the Enterprise; or when Kirk met Abraham Lincoln; or when Spock’s brain got stolen…
Petticoat Junction was the original — Green Acres was the spinoff. And though I liked the Junction well enough, Green Acres wasn’t worth the effort. Neither was the wretched Gomer Pyle.
F Troop, definitely.
Man from UNCLE, as well.
Brother Jed and his wife and slaves– err, daughters — come to Lincoln almost every year. Thanks to them, I discovered the mystical, hypnotizing power of Evangelist Bingo.
“Bingo! She said ‘fornicator!’” I played for a week straight without even realizing time was passing.
no one mentoned Different Strokes yet? all the “messages”, and the awful episode where Willis at first explores his “black” roots (with Dashiki and Yoruba drum no less) only to go back to the checked-cardigan sweater by the end.. “I don’t know what i was thinking, Dad! WTF??!
I actually thought this was such a “deep” show as a kid…shudder…
First off, I liked and still like The A-Team. Yes I know its silly but I enjoy it.
Anyway on to more important matters such as how to classify The Flintstones. I think its both a pixi and anti pixishow in so much as some episodes are still great to watch while others not so much. Any thoughts on this?
Joe totally agree on the Mach 3* point. I was wondering if you guys get King Of Shaves over there because it has to be the best shaving range going here (UK). The shaving gels/foams/oils are all excellent (and far better than most rival products) plus they just released their first razor. Its cheap (£5 ($9/10) including 3 blades) and gives a very smooth/close shave. I also find it irritates my skin less then other razors. All in all a great affordable product/range.
*We don’t have Jeter in our commercials just Henry, Woods and Federer. Nobody would know who Jeter is over here
Someone mentioned “Burn Notice” as a pixi-show in waiting. Ever since I started watching this show I always thought this was a classic-paced TV drama like “Magnum PI,” “Simon & Simon,” “The A Team” or “Riptide.” Instead of a situation comedy, it’s a situation drama — albeit with a serial story woven in at the end. It’s a competently-executed show that provides an alternative to a heavily serialized show you get into, like “Lost,” “Heroes,” “24″ or “Prison Break.” I can see how 20 years from now it will seem trite and dated, but in its current context, it’s a damn fine show.
“The Prisoner” could never be a pixi-show, since there were very few people that saw that show when they were kids, and if they did, they probably didn’t get it. The best damn theme song of all time. I haven’t seen any of “Danger Man”/”Secret Agent,” but that would seem to be a show that was much more vulnerable to pixi-hood, like “The Avengers” (but not any of the Diana Rigg episodes).
I would add “Newsradio” as an anti-pixi show. One of the most underrated comedic acting ensembles ever. Some episodes were right up with “Cheers” and “Frasier.”
“Home Improvement” may be a pixi-show now, but “Everybody Love Raymond” has anti-pixi potential.
As for anti-pixi cartoons, I second “Animaniacs,”the golden age of Looney Tunes, and anything from the Dini-verse/Timm-verse: esp. “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Justice League”/”Justice League Unlimited.”
“*We don’t have Jeter in our commercials just Henry, Woods and Federer. Nobody would know who Jeter is over here”
I haven’t seen Henry in our US ads here lately. Maybe they switched him with Jeter for the US versions and re-editied them. I always thought that Woods and RFed were a great pair to be pitchmen… Thay are true international stars, while Henry or now Jeter are not as much (although Henry is viable outside the US). I always thought it should be just the 2 of them. There’s a personal relationship there that can come through on-camera. I think adding the third person (no matter who it is) makes it a little forced.
While we’re on Sid and Marty Croft shows, I can’t remember the show that starts out with 2 guys loading the space capusle with meals and when the crew leader says “Lunch” his gilligan-like assistant replys “Launch”… “I said Lunch, not launch… Oh no…..” And off to space they go. Anyone remember the name of THAT show?
Oh, and tip of the hat to the “starblazers” reference. I was 10 when that ran, and me and my buddies were GLUED to the TV that summer every day at 2:00 to see if they would be able to save the earth in time. We counted it down with every episode. We were worse then our Moms with their soaps. We couldn’t miss it.
Jokelahoma,
You are right about Jim N not CNR in “Lost Saucer.” I guess that Charles Nelson Reilly was just ubiquitous on Saturday morning in my childhood. His turn as the mayor in “Lidsville” was classic.
Those of you to young to remember these…look them up! Magic talking flutes, talking mounds of sea weed….Wow.
After sleeping on this–man, I need a life–it seems to me that we might be discussing two separate categories.
There are true pixi-shows. And then there are shows that merely did not age well. I mentioned “Bonanza” yesterday as a pixi-show, but now that I think about it, it’s not a pixi-show, it just hasn’t aged well. It’s not really the show’s fault that the backdrops were paintings and that all it’s “in-town” scenes were filmed in the same place. The plots and concepts are still good.
I can’t believe I got a no-brainer pixie-show that no one has mentioned yet:
Lost in Space
Definitely must see TV (in syndication for me, but still …) and definitely something that no adult could watch today.
Diff’rent Strokes. Absolutely. I loved that show when I was about 11. I don’t think I could sit through ten seconds of it now. The same goes for Silver Spoons. I wonder how Gimme A Break! would hold up. Not well, probably.
Didn’t have time to read everyone’s comments, so if these shows were already mentioned, well…too bad.
Being in my mid-to-late twenties, basically any show that was in the TGIF lineup , or any sitcom during that same timeframe, has to qualify as a pixishow. For instance, I saw “Family Matters” for the first time in probably 10 years last week – WOW. Incredibly awful.
I will say that one show that seems to hold up is “Fresh Prince”. I’m very much aware of how corny it is, but it’s still funny and entertaining (at least at 1am when nothing else of value is on). And really, who hasn’t tried to do ‘The Carlton’?
Someone mentioned Diff’rent Strokes. I think that show was basically a 1980s update of the idea of the “White Man’s Burden.” Mr. Drummond and Kimberly were tasked with the unfortunate, but necessary, task of civilizing those Negroes. Did a fair job of it, too.
The trivial thing about that show that bugs me is the theme song. “And along come the two, they got nothin’ but the jeans” clearly should have been, “… they got nothin’ but their dreams.”
Great, now I got that song stuck in my head.
MARK H
While we’re on Sid and Marty Croft shows, I can’t remember the show that starts out with 2 guys loading the space capusle with meals and when the crew leader says “Lunch†his gilligan-like assistant replys “Launchâ€â€¦ “I said Lunch, not launch… Oh no…..†And off to space they go. Anyone remember the name of THAT show?
——-
“Far Out Space Nuts”. And the gilligan-like assistant was actually Gilligan himself: Bob Denver.
Speaking of those Sid and Marty shows, here is a partial listing from Wikipedia…..brings bad lots of rainbow colored memories….
The Bay City Rollers Show (1978; aka The Krofft Superstar Hour Starring the Bay City Rollers)
The Krofft Supershow (1978)
Bigfoot and Wildboy (1977)
Wonderbug (1976)
Electra Woman and Dyna Girl (1976)
Dr. Shrinker (1976)
Donny & Marie (1976; aka The Osmond Family Show)
The Lost Saucer (1975)
Far Out Space Nuts (1975)
Land of the Lost (1974)
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973)
Lidsville (1971)
The Bugaloos (1970)
H.R. Pufnstuf (1969)
You need to put the shows in perspective of how long they ran on TV.
Fantasy Island – that ran for 6 years. Pixishow.
Hogan’s Heroes ran longer than WWII. Not a pixishow.
First I just want to say that the guy who mentioned the Cosby show as a pixishow must be a terrorist. Rudy’s friend Peter riding on Cliff’s knee is the best sitcom moment of all time. Cliff’s hoagie obsession, Theo’s end zone dance, Denise’s home sewn ‘designer shirt’, the boyfriend that sings “eh man” at the TV…. This is no pixishow. You are a terrible person
.
And Roseanne??? Are you kidding? Even as a kid I wouldn’t watch that rubbish. Why would you want to watch a bunch of disgusting people making poor life choices and then laughing about it. They should do a reunion episode of that show like they used to do with The Brady Bunch. Show the kids all grown up and let everyone see the consequences of poor parenting. The parents would have died of liver disease. Some of the kids would be in jail and the lucky ones would be hanging around the shelter trying to feed their addictions. Yep, that show was a riot.
I don’t think I’ve seen this one mentioned yet, but ‘Benson’ is some pixi material. And to think I thought Robert Guillaume was a comedic genius. Just doesn’t stand up.
I am not ashamed to say I love Hogan’s Heros. Have the first two seasons on DVD.
I am ashamed however to say I still like the Brady Bunch. Although I do not own any of the DVDs.
Holy cats…. Doright…. That list is a spectacular collection of trainwreck TV, right there.
I’m convinced that all Sid and Marty ever had were a bunch of neat theme songs, and felt obliged to actually create the shows as an excuse for them. They would have been better off releasing a weird kids’ album with HR Pufnstuf and the Bugaloos and Land of the Lost, rather than actual television.
Old Man Duggan – are you ranking Richard Dean Anderson ahead of Bob Dylan or Kevin McHale amongst prominent Hibbing-ites?
The pixieshows doesn’t have the same effect as the pixiefoods. It depends a lot more on the era you grew up in. With the foods it doesn’t matter near as much the era because a lot of the foods have been around a long time.
My ultimate pixieshow is Speed Racer. I saw a rerun of it a few weeks ago and I could not believe how stupid it was! A close second is Saved by the Bell, although I think subconciously I knew it was dumb back then.
The #1 JED is the guy who went to visit his sister in Trier, Germany and became, after competing in a huge bierfest competition, the BEER KING OF GERMANY.
This #1 JED also caught the winning touchdown when his team played Miami of Oklahoma (ROY 85!!).
Now he is a doctor in a small Kansas town and is doing quite well with three daughters and a jack russell terrier.
I have a feeling that show Quark, about a garbage spaceship was a pixieshow.
With syndicated shows like Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island, and I Dream of Jeannie you have to separate out some hormonal reasons for watching. This also true of the “guest shot” shows where you are just looking at the the credits to see if someone like Adrienne Barbeau, Victoria Principal or Phyllis Davis is going to be on, and likely in a skimpy outfit. Would anyone watch Love Boat if Charo’s [or insert lusted after actress here] body were not involved? The most honest presentation of this was that Wonder Woman show, really, if you could just turn the sound off, at least you’d have 15 minutes of useful memory video for adolescent onanism. Well, and Charlie’s Angels.
I excuse some things which have an existential quality beyond the moronic plot trappings like Green Acres or the Addams Family. Green Acres is like a reverse version of Harvey. Arnold ZIffel is accepted as a pig member of society by everyone BUT the supposedly rational Oliver – who is a stiff/straight man in large part because of this inflexibility. I was thinking Pink Panther is not funny, but at least has an existential quality too.
The Flintstones holds up which is pretty cool since it’s ripping off a sitcom that ALSO holds up – The Honeymooners.
I think the Odd Couple holds up, I know those who disagree.
One thought is a lot of the shows that have depicted high school were not for the high school crowd or not even for high schoolers but present a sanitized view of teenage life for pre-teens. Those shows always seem to age poorly, but I wonder if it is because of us growing up and becoming more mature and realistic or cynical. Silver Spoons is a great example of that, as is Saved By the Bell, as is everything on Disney Channel that my eight year old adores.
The original Muppet Show, and the first Muppet Movie for that matter, remain brilliant, and I love the Animaniacs.
The cartoons I liked as a younger kid, though, oh my gosh. He-Man and ThunderCats and Transformers. Yikes.
Political discussions ought to be as a thorough and thoughtful as this one has been.
There is the Fonz, in front of the mirror, comb in hand, searching IN VAIN for a hair out of place. Finally he gives up a useless effort and replaces his comb in his pocket. How could anybody EVER tire of that? One of; the funniest things ever on TV and it always will be. Almost as funny as the archeologist being shown a Coke bottle at a dig and not being able to identify it. They haven’t used that style bottle for a generation or two, but even some of the brilliant readers could identify it.
Of course, there was the episode of WKRP where Cincinnati was bombed with turkeys tossed out of the WKRP helicopter. “We thought they could FLY.”
I vehemently disagree with the commentors who have categorized Home Improvement as a pixishow. It is true that Home Improvement had many of the same recycled and lame storylines as all of the other TGIF-style shows from the 90’s. However, like the Cosby show, Home Improvement can still get laughs in the new millennium because of the main character.
Now, I’m not equating Tim Allen to Bill Cosby, that would be insane, but, I’ve caught Home Improvement a few times in the past couple years, and Tim Allen still holds up as funny in a slapsticky, lovable dope kind of way. I imagine that people who think of Home Improvement as a pixieshow probably aren’t fans of that kind of comedy in general, even though they may have liked it as a child. Here comes a gross overgeneralization, but I would guess that people who continue to like Tim Allen’s style of comedy as adults also continue to like Home Improvement.
Maybe, in that sense, slapstick comedy could be a “pixiegenre?”
Heart to Heart and Moonlighting aren’t nearly as good in retrospect.
Captain Nintendo, on the other hand, is classic early ninties animation entertainment.
As a grade schooler, I remember racing home from school every day in order to be in front of the TV when “Dark Shadows” began (it also reminds me of how great summers were, when we could leisurely play outside, confident that my mom would let us know when the show was coming on). And for a year or two, I was obsessed with Barnabas Collins, the vampire whose casket sat alone in that thrillingly empty basement vault. I remember I even had a blanket handy when I watched, so I could duck underneath it when the show got overwhelmingly spooky, which I recall being almost every day. (That small blanket doubled as a cape whenever we play-acted the show among ourselves, which was always frequent; sure wish I knew where that blanket is today.)
Anyway, about six or seven years ago, I discovered that many episodes of the series had been released on VHS. Delighted, I bought a few tapes and eloquently described for my wife what a treat I had in store for her. I couldn’t wait. And we popped popcorn, got comfortable on the couch, put in the tape, and …
Boring. Wow, what a snooze. Collins was still sort of creepy, but he was in only about every fifth scene. The production was ridiculously cheap, the sets made of cardboard, all the actors playing about four different roles (which made it confusing and rather silly), and worst of all, just deathly dullllll. I fast-forwarded through the other tapes I had bought, and for the past five years, they have sat untouched on the shelf, mocking my fondest memories of childhood. It makes me cringe to look at them, and hesitant to revisit some of my other kid obsessions. To this day, I’m afraid to inquire about how my favorite football team, the St. Louis Football Cardinals (always a four-word name, though we never referred to their stadium-mates as the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals, and never questioned why — come to think of it, why the hell would two pro franchises in the same town share a name?) are doing. Now I know, I was watching a Pixishow and rooting for a Pixiteam. Joe, this concept is genius.
Rhoda
What’s Happening
Alice
King Crimson is still great. I did not know it on the first go round, I really only know the Adrian Belew stuff but that is great.
c’mon, joe. you’re gonna take daniel at his word that nebraska was dirty? and then put it on SI? that’s BS. can you find one dirty play in that game from the guys in red? no need to perpetuate the BS from this era’s Chad May.
Seems to me you overlook a Jed right inside Fenway’s walls — Jed Hoyer, Theo Epstein’s Asst. GM.
They have this new service on netflix that let’s you watch old tv shows online. I thought I’d treat my kids to the old Bill Bixby / Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk, which I loved when I was a kid. My God it’s bad. Bixby works so hard to be treated seriously as an actor, and cripes Ferrigno can’t even be bothered to learn a new flex. There’s one – a two-parter no less – where Ferrigno battles a bad hulk that looks pretty much like a cross between Jed Clampett and Jaws (James Bond, of course). It is fun to laugh at, though. Not as fun as laughing at Steven Seagal movies, but close.
The Monkees. Loved the show as a kid, thought it was charming & wacky, but, after stumbling onto a few episodes I found on On Demand awhile back, I was amazed at how cheap everything was, sets, lighting, costumes, “plot”, etc. Which was all outdone by some of the worst acting ever committed to tape. Basically one of the worst shows ever, which is ironic because their music was what most people hated in the day, but has actually stood up pretty well.
It is definitely harder to bring up anti-pixi shows. It’s amazing how much crap was put on TV during the 70s and 80s, especially when they were pre-dated by great shows like “I Love Lucy,” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Other shows I would include in the anti-pixi list would be “MASH”, “Cheers”, “The Cosby Show” and “SNL.” That show is still going, so it obviously still endures.
Hey Brian
what’s BS is you assuming that any Big Red player can do no wrong. Grow up. Jacked-up 20-year-olds are capable of just about anything.
right, tim. they are. but did you see any dirty play in the game? i didn’t. the spitting thing is a whole other entity, worthy of its own question. but i didn’t see any dirty playing between the lines. hell, he only got hit a few times. daniel needs to stop crying, and i’m just upset he was given the benefit of the doubt. that’s what’s BS.
“Jedediah Kittridge was, in fact, the least successful baseball player ever.”
Hey, that dude is my hero man, lay off him. He gives me hope that someday I could be a major leaguer and suck at a professional game as much as he does. Sort of like Corey Patterson.
Dude, you’ve got a lot to answer for.
I’m a long-time reader of this blog who has quietly enjoyed your speculations on baseball, pop culture, and so on.
But last night, I dreamed of Bonnie Franklin, circa 1980, wearing a black bustier and fishnet stockings, prancing around that shabby living room set from ‘One Day at a Time’.
I will never forgive you for this Pixieshows post.
I’m with Phil. I tuned into a Dark Shadows episode years after the original run. Unbelievably cheap production. One scene that sticks out has a stagehand center stage when the scene opens. The stagehand sees the camera is rolling, then casually walks off camera. The actor looks confused for a second, obviously waiting for someone to yell “Cut!”, then realizes they’re not going to waste good film. So he has to quickly start acting a scene where he’s supposed to be worried about some problem, but he can’t help grinning over the screw-up.
Joe – you are the only one at the star that really knows how to do a blog. this is awesome. i used to laugh at the show Full House when i was young b/c i thought it was funny. Jessie was awesome. Joey was funny. And danny…well…I was glad to find out he liked women. I also thought the older daughters were cute (yes i was a kid at the time). now i see it on tv land and i laugh not b/c it’s funny but b/c it’s so lame and predictable. Jessie was a joke. Joey isn’t funny. And well…he might of found a girlfriend, but I still have my doubts about Danny and a possible cover up. Knowing how hot all the girls became today, I stick with my previous views on their looks. Seriously..have you seen the older girls lately??? whoa!!
I really must object to your characterization of The Beverly Hillbillies. It wasn’t until I watched it as an adult that I realized what made it so clever: social commentary (I’m serious) combined with simple physical comedy. It appealed to both high and low in the same ways the Simpsons used to. The Hillbillies never asked the viewer to suspend disbelief; it was absurd and knew it. It was ahead of its time.
As evidence I refer you to the episodes where Mr. Drysdale rents space to the beatniks, or the episodes when Jethro takes up with the hippies.
>>>>>>”Johnny,
How can you include early SNL in this group? Early SNL is the definition of classic television.”<<<<<<
I consider early SNL to be the very definition of a Pixishow. The genius of the show was that they were a bunch of new kids, baby boomers, doing things that had never been done.
Many of the skits were more daring than funny, and they often flopped. It was fairly common for a skit to end with absolutely no reaction from the audience until a few painful seconds would go by and the APPLAUSE signs would come on, eliciting a polite response.
I was 15 during the first season, saw every episode and considered the show my secret pleasure, a show that the old people – folks over 30 – would hate, a show, finally, for my generation.
Example: “I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not!!”
I ask you, is that funny? I don’t believe it is, not anymore, but at the time it was absolutely hilarious. If you could bust out lines like that, or “Exxxccuuuuuussse Meeeee” at school on Monday morning, you were considered cutting edge, and had a good chance at getting laid. Now? Meh.
When I was growing up, the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” routine was considered the comedy gold standard, but it didn’t do much for me. On the other hand, my grandpa would practically laugh so hard to piss his pants.
Tomato/Tomahto
Joe, can we get a Banny-Log season-in-review?
Johnny,
I agree with you about the shift in comedic value of SNL, but that doesn’t make it a pixieshow. At that time SNL was funny. It doesn’t seem as funny now because it is no longer cutting edge. A pixieshow is something you liked as a kid, but now realize how dumb the show was. To be a pixieshow the show was always dumb, you just didn’t realize it at the time. Classic SNL is genius. The spectrum of comedy has changed, not the quality of SNL.
Isn’t Jed Hoyer an Assistant GM in Boston, or something?
Also, I think “The Fall Guy” is a pixieshow.
Also, Joe, this might be in reference to an earlier post, but a pretty awful ’80s movie called “Chasing Dreams” had horrible baseball scenes. You could see the hatter clearly pop up a pitch, then they’d cut to the outfielder running to the wall and having the ball soar over his head. I remember this happening over and over again in a sequence of the film, and even as a young kid I could tell the “actor” was popping everything up.
Mike Bagnall: the full line (one of my friends insists these are the funniest ten words ever spoken on television) is: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
There are several shows cited as both being classic and pixi. I think the problem is that many shows just lasted too long. Early “The Cosby Show” was great; late, not so much. Same for Roseanne, and give her show its due: Terry Metcalfe and John Goodman led a great cast to act with/against. I think Happy Days suffered from this, and although it didn’t last as long and was pretty badly screwed by the network, “Mork and Mindy” also peaked early. The original Star Trek was in rapid decline its third season, or maybe just had lots and lots of bad episodes written to be makeable affordably (i.e. historical costumes). Early Cheers was much funnier. Friends had a lot of bite its first few years, and while it didn’t drop off as far, at the end it was all a character show. Early “Night Court” drew more heavily upon Harry Anderson’s standup material. “Dharma and Greg” is another that started with a bang and ended with a fizzle. “L.A. Law” went from must see to must avoid. “Ally Macbeal” was a show I watched with my daughter every week the first three years, but once so many cast members departed (especially Robert Downey Jr.) it wasn’t worth the effort.
About the only potential pixishow I can think of which was as good at the end as at the beginning and had a long long run was “The Muppet Show.” Some dramas were solid their whole run, especialy the frequently cited “Hill Street Blues” but to a lesser extent “Homicide” and “NYPD Blue.” But it’s hard to find excellence, and even harder to sustain it. And it’s hard to call a serious police procedural a pixishow. Except CSI: Miami. Many, that’s pixi.
Hey Joe,
Your Chiefs column the other day, and the recent baseball news kind of linked up in my brain and got me thinking about something that always bothered me: just what is the deal with all these sports guys named Thigpen, anyway? I mean you have Bobby Thigpen, he of the late lamented save record. (I remember when Bobby first came up, Lupica saying something similar about the Thigpen name in a column that your buddy said, along with wondering what Mickey Mantle’s nickname would have been if he was named Bobby Thigpen – “The Thig”? Never forgot that…) Then of course there was the Steelers/Titans receiver Yancey Thigpen in the 90’s, who went to 2 Pro Bowls. And of course currently Tyler, carrying on the proud Thigpen name into the new century. and I just learned from nosing around pro-football-reference.com (another awesome stats site) that the NY Giants drafted a guy named Thigpen in 1993 as well. I mean, what’s the deal here? Are all these Thigpens related, like the Sutter brothers or the Boones or something? And related to this column, who is the “best” Thigpen? I guess at this point Tyler’s not in the conversation…
I mean,
Must take issue w/”Dinosaurs” being labeled as a pixieshow. (Many of) The jokes on that show are subtle and written more for adults than kids. We’re in our 40’s and it still makes us laugh. Of course, being able to empty my bladder in less than 20 minutes makes me smile so what do I know?
While I agree on “Happy Days” being a pixieshow, I can’t agree on “The Beverly Hillbillies.” It sucked the first time around. It was mildly amusing for an episode or two, and then you began to realize that it was the same joke, over and over and over again, episode after episode, and the character never learned anything.
The thing I first think of when I think of Jed and brood is the doorbell. Time and time again, the doorbell would ring, and they would ask “Where’s that music coming from?” And lo and behold, company would arrive. What kind of morons wouldn’t eventually put two and two together?
Add to that the fact that it was a cheap, dumbed-down knockoff of the far superior Walter Brennan/Richard Crenna vehicle, “The Real McCoys,” and the Hillbillies were just a loser from day one.
The one really good laugh I remember from Night Court was Selma Diamond talking about her fancy stationary bicycle with all the heartrate and bloodpressure gear that she had to remove to make room for an ashtray. Looking back, it’s kind of sad, but it was hilarious at the time. Does that qualify as pixieism?
Whew, Joe has unleashed the tv passions of several generations! I was born in the mid 50’s, so many of the shows talked about from the 70s and 80s are a bit late for me on the pixie time spectrum. I did notice someone put down sitcoms of the 70’s/early 80’s–I agree for the most part, but the Bob Newhart shows hold up VERY well (much as the Dick Van Dyke show does from the 60’s). I think that is because much of the humor in both shows is about people and their timeless traits, as opposed to being social commentary that turns much less interesting over time. Despite the twin beds of the Dick Van Dyke show and the lesiure suits of the Bob Newhart show, the comedy is timeless.
Many people mention shows from the 60’s that were certainly the equivalent of mental junk food—Gilligan, Hogans Heroes, F Troop. I did love those as a little kid, but I am pretty sure even then that i KNEW they were stupid mental junk food. How about shows I thought were good. Hawaii 5-0? After the theme music, pretty lame. Mission Impossible? Well, as someone said the Landau/Bain episodes hold up pretty well. I wonder about I Spy—loved it so much, but I wonder what I would think now. One show that holds up very well is Combat. Yes, it is unrealistic in the sense of no blood and guts flying, etc, but is actually very very dark in a psychological sense–not at all a rah rah show glorifying war. Altman directed some of the episodes if I remember correctly.
The Monkees—defiinitely Pixie food.
Batman? I am surprised no one has mentioned this!!!!! (or did I miss it?)
Not exactly tv, but I saw them all on tv (much like with three stooges). A KC tv station showed Bowery Boys movies every Saturday when I was a kid (a lot less sports on tv back then!) and I thought they were wonderful. PIXIE for sure with those.
I agree about Ed Sullivan–and virtually all the variety shows. Flip Wilson…arrgh. Carol Burnett…not as bad but still. Red Skelton…urp. Even the Smother Brothers is not as wonderful as my memories. I watched a bunch of them at the broadcasting museum in nyc a few years ago (mostly to see the pete seeger episodes), and while there were some great moments, the sketches were SLOWWWWW (big change from later) and often not funny. NOT funny. NOT FUNNY.
here’s one that is anti-pixie food. What’s My Line. i often see this at 2 a.m. on the game show network. It is often very witty, very funny. Something about smart people being set loose on odd situations. Or just smart people in evening dress interacting! I guess that makes me an elitist.
How about Green Acres? I come down on the side that it was totally brilliant. Almost a deconstructionist comedy.
Beverly Hillbillies–other than the first few shows of culture shock in California, very lame….except when Flatt and Scruggs were on. Of course, there was great bluegrass on the far superior Andy Griffith show when the Dillards were on portraying the Darlings.
More non-Pixies:
Columbo. Holds up very well, despite the formula.
Maverick. I have seen these and they are still very good.
Ditto Rockford Files. Did Jim Garner ever make a bad tv series (answer: NO)
Ultimate pixie tv show:
local pro wrestling shows from the early-mid 60’s. In St. Joe we had Wrestling with Bob on Channel 2 late at night (10???) on Saturdays, and I did everything I could to stay up late, hear the theme song (“The Wrestling Polka”). This was when the likes of Bob Geigel and Bob Brown were relatively young (Brown was, however, as non-handsome as later).
“Dukes of Hazzard”.
While there is a lot of commentary on there about “pixishows” what about, what I like to call, “boomerang” shows. These are the shows that you loved as a kid, were too cool to watch as a teen/early college student, but then came back to after watching a needlessly complicated/preachy episode of say…”The West Wing” I think that Matlock, Murder She Wrote, and Magnum P.I. all fit pretty solidly into this wheelhouse. I know that for years and years I wouldn’t let anyone know I used to like matlock but then Senior year of college I started skipping the first half of my finance class to finish up episodes. Then I would brazenly walk into class and if I was questioned I would just claim “Griffith just went on, and on today” and was never really nailed down on specifics. The same hot dog jokes and formulaic plot are kind of nice to watch now that every show makes you think.
If I wanted to think I’d read a book, I get the feeling that a lot of the “smart” shows like the wire, sopranos, the shield, and others are going to look really lame in a couple of years due to the evolutionary leaps that are taken while the CSI’s (not a big fan of) will hold up well b/c you can just enjoy and do your laundry and such and pretty well know what is going to happen next.
If Springfield’s founder was “named” for Jedadiah Strong Smith, there’s even some irony in that. Jedadiah (called ‘diah by his friends) met his end searching for water on the Sante Fe Trail. Depending on which theory you believe, he was killed either by Commanches or Mexicans, after he’d found a spring. This spring was located in Seward County, KS and was probably the future site of either Fargo Springs or Springfield, both of which have long since been ghost towns. The name Springfield comes full circle maybe? I’d vote for Jedadiah Smith as most athletic Jed due to the fact that besides his exploring accomplishments, he was also a leader among men, well respected, etc. He once tangled with a grizzly bear and nearly had his scalp and one ear torn off, so he had another mountain man buddy sew his ear back on for him. Now that’s definite All-Madden consideration, I mean All-Time All-Madden.
The coexisting thread about pixieshows brought a few good memories of some classics, especially the anti-pixie list. Barney Miller has lasting appeal, from the esoteric humor of Dietrich to the bathroom humor at Fish’s expense (literally). I think a lot of the votes for pixieshows may owe part of those feelings to burnout. After someone watches every episode over and over and over, they eventually outgrow or and/or burn out on it, so it’ll never be the same for them. Raisins aren’t a pixiefood, but I can’t stand them since I ate so many I burned on them when I was a kid.
I don’t think anything with Jim Carrey qualifies to be a pixieshow just because it’s too stupid to begin with. I can’t think of anything good (TV show or movie) with Jim Carrey in it except the Dead Pool. One, Clint Eastwood is the star and Carrey only plays a minor role. Two, Carrey gets killed off early in the movie. Quark is likewise not elibigle for pixieshow status, even though it might have had an entertaining moment or two, but not much else. I can’t believe that show only lasted a couple episodes it seems.
Shows like Charlie’s Angels, Dukes of Hazzard, and Vegas weren’t aiming to be the video equivalent of a Nobel Prize winner in literature,. They entertained, and they still do. Jacqueline Smith, Farrah Fawcett, Cheryl Ladd, Catherine Bach, Phyllis Davis, and the Landers twin (I think) were the eye-catchers, and who cared much one way or the other if there was a plot.
I don’t think CSI will become a pixieshow, but then, one person’s pixieshow might be another’s classic. But, if it became a pixieshow and you also have Beverly Hillbillies on your pixie list, what about their offspring, …… CSI: Little Rock. You know the one, they just couldn’t solve that many crimes because everyone had the same DNA and there weren’t any dental records.
A-Team isn’t really any dumber than every other Hollywood TV show or movie that misrepresents the capabilities of the weapons, it’s still classical good guys vs. bad guys. MacGuyver was pretty good until he got on his gun control soapbox too man times (once was too much). He rants about individual gun ownership and then builds a bomb out of whatever was handy. The first two or three seasons of most long-running shows are probably the best, and not just because they might run out of ideas. By the second season, there are knockoffs and maybe even spinoffs and you’re headed toward that famous burnout again. Even the soaps copy each other all the time, right down to naming new characters similarly (remember Sean Donnelly and Shane Donovan?).
Other non-pixieshows: Hogan’s Heroes; M*A*S*H; All in the Family; Columbo; Maverick; Quincy; Wildside; Dragnet; Mission Impossible; Alias Smith & Jones; Rockford Files; Hardcastle and McCormick; Fridays.