This week proved a happy one for me as, after a couple of weeks absence from FamilyNet’s Saturday morning lineup, The Monkees returned to my TV life. While I’m not old enough to remember the show in its heyday, but I loved it on MTV in 1986, and I really like introducing my kid to something that’s too old for BOTH of us but still super-cool. If I were to start my own channel tomorrow, I’d want The Monkees as a key part of that programming, and I might enjoy doing something with the massive but mostly-unused Hanna-Barbera library. With that kind of stuff in play, I might as well go whole hog with my Classic Saturday Morning TV channel and get me some Krofft and Filmation properties too, leading us to today’s old-school query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always,”misquoted”) enjoys entertaining the children with the silly ephemera of my pop culture youth, especially when my daughter complains about bad CGI in pre-CGI shows, asking: What retro entertainment would you want to anchor your own theoretical channel?
14 Comments
Is it any surprise I choose Super Sentai and other similar series (like old Ultraman, Kamen Rider and TOEI Spider-Man)?
Either that or Star Trek TOS (and possible the animated series).
Forgot to clarify that I meant older pre-Zyuranger Super Sentai.
Ultraman is great choice! Its the first Japanese pop culture I’ve ever seen, although I had no idea where it was from, only that it felt so different to usual (american) stuff I had seen.
It was around mid 80’s, there was this cafeteria nearby in my hometown that got satellite tv and they showed various children’s programming in there. I was really young kid, like 5 years old, but I still remember how I bought soda with pocket money from my dad and watched those shows every now and then. This different looking superhero caught my attention, even if I had no idea who he was and what was going on (english isnt my first language and I couldnt read much yet) but from all the shows, like G.I. Joe and He-Man (he was my favorite in action figures, btw) and such, it was this quite strange looking guy who stuck to my mind for years.
I might have heard the name Ultraman somewhere at that time, but it was years after these events until I finally figured out who and where Ultraman was from and what was going on with him. One of my earliest pop culture memories.
Well, thankfully I don’t have to think about it to hard because I’ve got some pretty good local Retro stations to watch.
On Saturday mornings It’s RetroTV with: He-Man, She-Ra, BraveStarr, Mr. Magoo, The Secrets of Isis( witch had a bunch of guest appearances by Captain Marvel) and the original Lassie.
Then I switch it to MeTV on Saturday night for: Superman(George Reeves), Batman(Adam West), Wonder Woman(Lynda Carter), Star Trek TOS, Svengoolie( a hosted show with old movies), Lost in Space, and lastly Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
I don’t recall right off which station it is but, one of them also has The Monkees along with the Sid & Marty Krofft shows. And unless they changed it RetroTV had the Green Hornet at sometime as well, but I think it was on Sunday.
So as for my channel I’m pretty well covered especially since both Netflix & Hulu have the other animated & live action shows from the 80’s & 90’s that I like, and of course YouTube to finish anything off. My my, what an era to live in.
I have never seen George Reeves’ Superman and it seems that its impossible to get here.
Really? That’s a shame. Is it even on DVD?
My best option is UK Amazon, either used DVD copies or video on demand. I have no idea why its so hard to get.
I hope you can find it somewhere. Ebay might be another way to go.
When you come across it some stand out episodes are “The Stolen Costume” from the first season & “Panic in the Sky” from the second season. I don’t know if you have access to Netflix, but they have it on DVD as well.
Best of luck.
Thanks for the tip. We got Netflix here in Finland, but selection is nowhere near U.S. one. There are ways around it, but its a bit too much of a hassle to set proxy servers and stuff for one TV show. I’ll find a way eventually, just need to consider my options a little.
Surely some mod psy-fi.
The Avengers or The Prisoner.
It would indeed be a surreal channel.
spy-fi …
I vote both.
I’d like to see the old zorro show up on a channel. I remember really enjoying zorro on Disney as a kid and the old Walt Disney cartoons.
I’ve often thought of what my dream line-up would be if I ever had the chance to program a classic TV station for a day…I really can’t pick just one particular show though, so here’s my top 5 list of must-see TV.
The Munsters
Get Smart
Batman (Adam West)
The Monkees
Gilligan’s Island