Old Television Shows

Before bed last night I watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver and when it was over I drifted off to sleep feeling happy. Usually I'll watch an episode of Taxi and feel like I am seven years old again.  I was always in bed when Taxi would come on and would hear the theme song creep down the hallway and into my room. If I heard the Johnny Carson theme song I was either ill or had too much sugar during the day. Bedtime was 7:30pm.

I am crazy about old television shows so I have quite the collection on DVD. Years ago, I remember telling my little brother that when I grew up I wanted to buy all the television shows on film and show them at my mansion. He would reply he wanted a teenie, tiny television set so he could watch Tom and Jerry and then play Pac-Man and Donkey Kong wherever he went. Then our imaginations would go on and on fueled by the gadgets we'd see on Get Smart. I honestly remember us  once discussing a camera/tv/phone/radio/tape player/video game and how cool it would be and if it were as small as a box of Cracker Jacks so we could fit it in the front poket of our overalls. Who knew? And now I have no desire to own a tiny phonecameratelevisonmusicvideogame box. But I digress...

After a long day relief can be found in a few episodes of some old television shows. I like everything from My Little Margie, Burns and Allen, I Married Joan to I Love Lucy and Hazel to The Dick Van Dyke Show, and My Three Sons to The Monkees, Love American Style, Hawaii Five-O, Wild Kingdom, What's Happening, Laverne and Shirley, Love Boat  and every show in between. One of my  favorite websites is TV Party.  But we have managed to get a few bootlegs like the entire In Search Of series until it is released, if it is ever released.

After 1985 there isn't much out there that I want to watch over and over.  I tried watching Thirtysomething  recently but it didn't really work. I am on my way out of my thirties and to be reminded that at one time I thought these people were so old and to be older than they were on the show...eek. At the age of 15 I  don't know why I found tthe show so interesting but something appealed to me.

By 1987 I was already in high school and didn't get into many new televsion shows.  I'll sit and watch an episode of Perfect Strangers, Night Court, The Wonder Years or Who's the Boss, but these shows ran into the early 90's when I was struggling with college and money, heating Ramen on the stove in the kitchen of a cheap rental, in the middle of summer, with a broken window unit.  Then there were those two months when I was unemployed and had a television with really bad reception. All I had was back to back Reading Rainbow all afternoon to look forward too.  My introduction to the adult world and being on my own for the first time had it's moments and maybe one day I'll find those days charming, at best, but the theme song to Blossom will not soothe me to sleep. Unfortunately, I don't feel the sweet, warm cuddle of nostalgia around me in an episode of 90210 and re-runs of Melrose Place just about make me puke. But one day I think I'll look back on The Office and Gilmore Girls with much affection.