The TV Generation

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope you are all still enjoying gobs of turkey, wine, pie, football and family the entire 4-day weekend...I love this holiday.  Safe travels, and enjoy every minute of it.  So anyways I was sitting at work this past Wednesday afternoon listening to the 'Monkees Greatest Hits' on cd....then I started thinking about the TV show that they did and how I used to watch it when I was VERY little.  I was born in 1966 and the show ran from 1966 to 1968 so I must have watched the syndicated episodes, but cripes that was a long time ago and I still remember it very well.

Then that got me thinking about all the other shows I used to watch when I was a kid.  The more I thought, the more and more shows came to mind that I remember very well.  And not just shows I occasionally watched and remember the names of, but shows I watched practically every single episode of...either in the morning before school, after school, at night, or before I was even in school.  And I remember the commercials from back then as well, as I have dozens of characters and theme songs in my head that will seemingly never go away...Mr. Whipple (please don't squeeze the Charmin), Madge (you're soaking in it), Rosie (the quicker picker-upper), Mikey (let's get Mikey!).  And knowing the whole:  "two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-all-on-a-sesame-seed-bun" Big Mac jingle made me one of the cool kids in 2nd grade.

TV was huge in our house.  Me and my 2 sisters Jan and Cindy literally worshipped it.  "TV control" was always a big deal as we would fight over who got to turn the knob and decide which of the 4 available channels that we would watch.  I remember when we got our first color TV in the early 70's and it was put in 'The TV Room'.  Shortly afterwards my 3 year old sister Cindy inexplicably tried to move the 5,000 lb beast early one Saturday morning and managed to knock it off the TV stand and cracked the case...it was like the world had come to an end.  Fortunately my Dad, who can fix anything, was able to get it working and the world was right again, but those were anxious times.  One of my earliest TV memories was sitting on the couch with my Dad watching the moon-shots on our black and white TV.  It was such a huge deal and all the grown-ups were talking about it.  It was hard for a 4 year old to make sense of it when we would watch the guys on the moon on TV, and then we would go outside and look up at the moon and think that that is where they guys in my TV-room are.  I of course wanted to be an astronaut.  Actually, a football player, a cowboy and an astronaut.

I guess I also know 'TV' on another level.  I have a relative I chat with on the phone occasionally who's real name is Bruce and he shares my last name.  He has appeared on numerous TV shows, including Perry Mason, Big Valley, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Kojak, The Dukes Of Hazzard, etc.  I am also email-friends with a woman named Lydia Cornell who was on the show Too Close For Comfort that me and my sisters used to watch every week in the early 80's.  For geographic reasons with her being in California and me in Minnesota we do not know each other in person, but I have a feeling that if we lived in the same state we would be buddies.  She is a really good person, extremely cool, and I like her a lot.  Check her out at:  www.LydiaCornell.com or http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lydia-live-todhd or on Facebook.

I have a 2-year old daughter named Autumn and we let her watch one TV program per day.  Either Sesame Street or Yo Gabba Gabba.  Unless it's Sunday and football is on (poor li'l thing loves the purple Minnesota Vikings...Percy Harvin is her favorite player) she gets ONE show at the most per day.  But a quick memory check from when I was little brings up literally dozens and dozens of TV shows that I watched religiously.  Did I do anything but watch TV?  Seriously.  Mom?  What up?  I am not complaining and I do not think I am warped (as we are warned nowadays about kids and TV viewing) but holy crap I watched a LOT of TV.  Not counting all of the Saturday morning TV shows that me and my sisters would watch religiously every week, here is a quick list of the shows that I remember very well from the late 60's through the 70's.  I am sure I left out a few, but here are the shows that I remember watching regularily.  After I made this list I googled "1970 tv shows" to help jog my memory for more, but 90% of these I remembered off the top of my head.  And I don't just remember the shows, but I still remember the theme songs, the characters, plots...everything.  What is wrong with me?  Do these names bring back some memories?

The Monkees

Too Close For Comfort

The Beverly Hillbillies

Andy Griffith Show

Hogan's Heroes

That Girl

Family Affair

Price Is Right

Let’s Make A Deal

Family Feud

Wheel Of Fortune
Star Trek

Gunsmoke

Big Valley

Bonanza

Davy Crockett

Daniel Boone

I Dream Of Jeannie

Bewitched
Gilligan's Island
Flinstones
The Jetsons
McHale's Navy
The Little Rascals

Leave It To Beaver
My Three Sons

Love Boat

Fantasy Island

Baretta

Mannix

McCloud

Columbo

McMillan & Wife

Barnaby Jones

Cannon

Police Woman

Hart To Hart

Night Court

Happy Days

Laverne & Shirley

Mork & Mindy

Welcome Back Kotter

Taxi
Hee Haw

Sonny & Cher

Donny & Marie

Captain & Tennille

Tony Orlando & Dawn

Sesame Street

Electric Company

Zoom

Mr. Roger's Neighborhood

Captain Kangaroo

6 Million Dollar Man

The Bionic Woman

Love American Style

The Odd Couple

Barney Miller

WKRP In Cincinnati

Kojak

McCloud

Three’s Company

Dukes Of Hazzard

B.J. And The Bear

Grizzly Adams

Little House On The Prairie

The Waltons
The Dick Van Dyke Show
I Love Lucy

Mary Tyler Moore Show

Rhoda

Phyllis

Maude

Bob Newhart Show

All In The Family

The Jeffersons

The Gong Show

Soul Train

MASH

Brady Bunch

Eight Is Enough

The Partridge Family

Quincy

One Day At A Time

Sanford And Son

Chico & The Man

Good Times

What’s Happening

Different Strokes

The Facts Of Life

Alice

CHIPs

Starsky & Hutch

Rockford Files

The Hardy Boys

Charlie’s Angels

Greatest American Hero

Wonder Woman

The Incredible Hulk
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
Emergency
Adam-12
Man From Atlantis

Night Stalker

Kung Fu