Growing Up TV!

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Growing Up TV!

By Patrick Hurley
May 24, 2006

Here is a hypothetical concept for all of you....

If you were going to be deserted on an island for the rest of your life and you somehow possessed the ten greatest television shows of your growing up years...your PERSONAL favorites; which ten sets of shows would you want to watch over and over again?

Here is my all-time favorite list of dramas, comedy, sci-fi, variety, sports, documentaries and romance. Remember, you only get ten...

10. The Honeymooners

Every Saturday night in the mid-1950's, the Jackie Gleason Show had a segment featuring one of his characters named Ralph Kramden who was a frustrated bus driver and weekly drew up a plan to get rich and feed his delusions of grandeur. As many of you remember, the foil (usually the cause of his failure) of those plans were his upstairs soulmate, Norton. This goofy "sanitation engineer" was the pin prick to Ralph's balloon much to the delight of the cynical Alice Kramden who served as the conscience and steadying influence which somehow eluded Ralph's universe! The inside story is that Jackie Gleason would look at the script ONCE and had a photographic memory of it. If true, he was as amazing as Ralph was inept. I loved this show.

9. G.E. College Bowl

Remember this staple on Sunday afternoons? Contrary to what most people believed, these college nerds were not as smart as they were good at MEMORIZATION! They were given all the answers to the possible questions at the beginning of the week thus making it a recall contest, not a purely intellectual one. But, it was still great theater even if we all did feel incredibly stupid as we sat in awe watching some sophomore in glasses from Georgia Tech nail the square root of 1,240,000.

8. The Sopranos

I want to watch Tony Soprano and his goofy goons try to cope with their lives. See Tony order a hit on Big Pussy. See Tony eat 25 lbs. of pasta at one sitting. See Tony go to therapy as he fails to understand why his son is dysfunctional. See Tony shoot and get shot. See Tony score with one beautiful babe after another. (much to our AMAZEMENT!) See Tony pacify Carmella with large amounts of cash every other show. See Tony every Sunday night on HBO. For one more season...

7. CSI

Gil Grissom is the perfect forensic scientist. He has NO life outside of his job. He doesn't fall in love with women; he falls in love with insects. A truly remarkable individual. If I ever get murdered, I would want him taking my case. He is the Perry Mason of the 21st Century; he always gets the bad guy! This show reminds me of the old Mission Impossible. You never truly understand it until the last five minutes. But, it is worth the wait, trust me.

6. 1972 Summer Olympic Games

The most intriguing, exciting and devastating Olympics EVER! It had it all....Mark Spitz winning seven gold medals in swimming and setting a WORLD record in every one of them! Dave Wottle coming out of nowhere to score one of the biggest Olympic upsets of all-time in the 800 meters and then forgetting to take off his baseball cap on the medal stand as they played the National Anthem. Howard Cosell berating Stan Wright, the sprinters track and field coach, on national television (almost bringing him to tears) because Coach Wright communicated the wrong times to the fastest Americans in the event thus negating four years of intensive training and disqualifyiing them. And, we will NEVER forget the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the hands of, "Black September," the radical Palestinan group that scaled the fence of the Olympic village in the wee hours of the morning to make this the most memorable and tragic Games ever. Riveting.

5. The Twilight Zone

I first met Rod Serling on television when I was 13 years old in 1961. Every Friday night, usually spending the night with my best friend, Peter Burcky, I learned about human nature and the mistakes it made to cause disastrous consequences. Remember the guy who won a bet that he could refrain from talking for a year because he secretly cut his vocal chords? Or the old lady with the broom who was smashing little men who were "terrorizing" her only for us to find out at the end of the episode they were American astronauts and she was the evil GIANT! How about the woman (Donna Douglass who later played Ellie Mae on the Beverly Hillbillies!) who had her bandages unwrapped to reveal how UGLY she was when in actuality she was beautiful by OUR standards but not to the monkey-faced doctors and nurses who had her quarantined. Wow. It was a show that continues to remain ahead of its time even today.

4. The Mickey Mouse Club (with Spin and Marty)

On October 3, 1955 my childhood changed FOREVER! That was the debut of the Mousketeers...Jimmie Dodd, Roy, Bobby, Cubby, Karen, Darlene, Doreen, Sherry, Tommy and...Annette. *gasping* I would race home after school, grab some cookies and milk and sit there transfixed as Mickey and the Gang invited me into their lives! Do you remember each theme day? "Anything can Happen Day!" "Circus Day." "Fun with Music Day..." I will let you see if you can remember the other two! My dad took me to Disneyland over Thanksgiving weekend in 1955 and I had my picture taken with Jimmie Dodd and several of the Mousketeers. (Was it any surprise that I later hosted children's shows?) My favorite serial was, "The Adventures Spin and Marty." Two boys who become best friends at a youth ranch for the summer. I bought the entire series on DVD and I will be watching it non-stop at some point this summer. Of course, Annette was in that serial, too. Heh, heh.

3. Dallas

The quintessential dramatic character of all-time, J.R. Ewing. What a ROGUE! But, watching him maneuver week in and week out was truly a lesson in villainous behavior. Every Friday night during the 1980's as the series was at its peak, I was there to follow the exploits of the sweet brother, Bobby, his SEXY wife, Pam, the jealous Cliff Barnes, the dependable matriarch Miss Ellie, the flawed and fragile, Sue Ellen, the feisty Lucy, the nice guy Ray and his overachieviing wife, Donna. One major question remains...why did all the Ewings live in the SAME house? If I were that rich, I would never settle for one bedroom and a common breakfast room. Weird.

2. The Mary Tyler Moore Show

From the loopy Georgette to the crusty Lou Grant to the wise-cracking Murray to the sex-starved Sue Ann to the scheming Rhoda to the eccentric landlady Phyllis to the hilarious ego maniac, Ted Baxter, this show had me hooked from the first time I watched it! Throw in a visit from Walter Cronkite, the untimely death of Chuckles the Clown (he was smashed by an ELEPHANT!) a station manager who fired all the capable news people and retained the pathetic Ted, a black anchor who did the weather and not the sports....this show was addictive. You FELT you were in that newsroom right up to the greatest last episode in television history where the crew shuffles over to a desk to get kleenex instead of breaking apart! Mary leaves and then comes back in for one last look around and then...turns out the light. Truly a grand ending to a great sitcom!

1. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

It was only on the air for two years from 1967-69. It was aborted because Tom Smothers continually rebelled against CBS, his parent network. The arguments were always over censorship. Tom may have played the "dumb" brother, but he was a pretty smart cookie off camera. The problem was that he was a very LIBERAL one as it turns out and, if you can believe this, he was further to the left than CBS! They wanted a clever political show. What they got was a weekly attack on Lyndon Johnson, the President of the United States and his rapidly sinking administration because of the Vietnam War. The network told Tom and Dick that they, "would like them best," (even more than Mom Smothers!) if they just toned it down a tad. Nope. So, after skirmishes with Pete Seeger and David Steinburg, plus a glorification of marijuana, "A Little Tea with Goldie," even the most creative campaign for President led by the hilariously droll Pat Paulsen couldn't save the show. But, as college students who were anti-establishment in 1968, my friends and I were there on Sunday nights to laugh at the cleverness and the satire of the greatest show I ever watched on television. I just wish they could have worked things out and stayed on longer...

Honorable mention for my favorite shows include, "Your Hit Parade," "Surfside Six," "Video Village," 77 Sunset Strip," "The Untouchables," "Fury," "Zorro," "The Rifleman," "The Wild Wild West," General Hospital: The Luke and Laura Years," "The Pinky Lee Show," "21," "Father Knows Best," "Sky King," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Donna Reed Show," "American Bandstand" and, "Monday Night Football."

What are YOUR favorites? You can email me or better yet, post them on here. Give us your top ten. Remember, these would be the shows you could watch over and over and over again...

When you think of all the years you spent watching television it was an invention that had a major impact on our life, both early on and even now. Thanks for joining me for a trip down memory lane...

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About the author: Pat Hurley has won three Emmy awards for writing, hosting and producing television shows. He resides in Southern California.

Email: coolhumor@sbcglobal.net

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