Joe Posnanski

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Saved by the Bell.

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.

“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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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…)

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A-Team.

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.

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.

Jed Bartlet > Jed Lowrie. I will NOT argue this.

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.

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.

“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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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…

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.

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.

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!

As a kid, I liked “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.” A lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qok-MJ8r38U

Pixi-riffic.

Did someone mention Razor Shines?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_Shines

“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.

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)

Jeff P.: Sledgehammer was and still is awesome. I must disagree there.

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.

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.

NBA Jed:

NBA champion Jed Buechler.

Jedediah Sprungfeld

Buecheler’s inclusion into the Jed Hall of Fame is ruined by being named ‘Jud’.

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.

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 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.

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.

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…..

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.

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.

The Rifleman. Period.

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.

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.

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

the a-team
the greatest american hero
gilligan’s island
magnum pi
knight rider
the dukes of hazzard

and the champion:

macgyver

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”.

“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….

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!

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.

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.

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
- 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…