Sunday, January 22, 2006
I Miss Old TV
Today I was thinking about old TV, the kind I watched when I was a kid. I miss it. I miss things like aliens showing up inexplicably. Was there a better episode of any show ever than when Mork and the Fonz "duelled" on Happy Days? I think not. Coming up with an episode about masturbation is easy for Seinfeld. But imagine their writers trying to come up with a way for the Fonz to outdo an all-powerful alien. (By the way, what happened to all those powers when Mork started his own show? I want ANSWERS!!!!)
I also miss shows about aliens. Alf is the one that most people remember. It was the peak of hilarity. I swear to god, I thought Alf was going to finally eat a cat on one of those episodes. And I can't explain how heartbroken I was when that series ended without them revealing whether or not Alf got to go back to his home planet. (And, no, I'm not being sarcastic about that. It scarred my childhood more than my own brother disfiguring me by pushing me face-first into the wooden corner of a chair.)
The other show about aliens (the domestic kind, anyway) that I miss is Perfect Strangers. Ever since his string of hits in the early 80's (Risky Business, Bachelor Party, and Bevery Hills Cop), I'd been clamoring for a way for Bronson Pinchot to flex his acting muscles. Making him an alien sheepherder from Mypos, Greek was a stroke of genius. And pairing him with the adorable Mark Linn-Baker was just icing on the cake. The perfect fish-out-of-water story didn't even skip a beat when Larry (Linn-Baker) lost his job at the newspaper and for some reason started working in an antique shop.
The other two things I really miss are shows about robots and shows that revolve around cars. And would you believe that I got the best of both worlds with Knight Rider? Yes, you would. Because the whole world stopped what they were doing when Knight Rider came on the air. The attraction of David Hasselhoff and a talking Trans Am were just too much for the American (nay, the worldwide) public to ignore.
Knight Rider had everything. It had secrets. (Just who was Michael Knight, anyway? How smart is Kitt? Isn't Kitt's voice the dude from St. Elsewhere? How did this show gets ratings?) It had a semi truck. It had a chick. It had a British guy. It even had an evil robot car (Karr), who was Kitt's archenemy. Brilliant!
After years of solid entertainment, now we've got crap. We've basically got just CSI and Law and Order for dramas. And for sitcoms, we have fat men with hot wives and a bunch of children that they don't know how to raise. What does that sound like? Crap. But if you add a lovable alien who wants to eat the family cat? High comedy.
I also miss shows about aliens. Alf is the one that most people remember. It was the peak of hilarity. I swear to god, I thought Alf was going to finally eat a cat on one of those episodes. And I can't explain how heartbroken I was when that series ended without them revealing whether or not Alf got to go back to his home planet. (And, no, I'm not being sarcastic about that. It scarred my childhood more than my own brother disfiguring me by pushing me face-first into the wooden corner of a chair.)
The other show about aliens (the domestic kind, anyway) that I miss is Perfect Strangers. Ever since his string of hits in the early 80's (Risky Business, Bachelor Party, and Bevery Hills Cop), I'd been clamoring for a way for Bronson Pinchot to flex his acting muscles. Making him an alien sheepherder from Mypos, Greek was a stroke of genius. And pairing him with the adorable Mark Linn-Baker was just icing on the cake. The perfect fish-out-of-water story didn't even skip a beat when Larry (Linn-Baker) lost his job at the newspaper and for some reason started working in an antique shop.
The other two things I really miss are shows about robots and shows that revolve around cars. And would you believe that I got the best of both worlds with Knight Rider? Yes, you would. Because the whole world stopped what they were doing when Knight Rider came on the air. The attraction of David Hasselhoff and a talking Trans Am were just too much for the American (nay, the worldwide) public to ignore.
Knight Rider had everything. It had secrets. (Just who was Michael Knight, anyway? How smart is Kitt? Isn't Kitt's voice the dude from St. Elsewhere? How did this show gets ratings?) It had a semi truck. It had a chick. It had a British guy. It even had an evil robot car (Karr), who was Kitt's archenemy. Brilliant!
After years of solid entertainment, now we've got crap. We've basically got just CSI and Law and Order for dramas. And for sitcoms, we have fat men with hot wives and a bunch of children that they don't know how to raise. What does that sound like? Crap. But if you add a lovable alien who wants to eat the family cat? High comedy.
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Dude, I was just talking last night about my favorite old TV shows. He let me download the theme to Perfect Strangers and the Panjabi MC's song with the Knight Rider theme (have you heard this?). Good times. We also had a great discussion about the best cartoons of the times. I could not get enough Smurfs as a kid. Perhaps it was identifying with the only chick Smurf in an entire village of guys? If that doesn't make you a lesbian, I don't know what will!
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