first five seasons of MASH are gen pretty funny and occasionally brilliant. I did like Harry Morgan more than McLean Stevenson.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 9 March 2016 23:12 (eight years ago) link
Sanford and Son is unlikely to be shown on UK TV, I'd have thought, as it's based on Steptoe and Son.
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 9 March 2016 23:13 (eight years ago) link
All in the Family was based on 'Til Death Do Us Part and I saw that a couple of times.
― A Fifth Beatle Dies (Tom D.), Wednesday, 9 March 2016 23:14 (eight years ago) link
man, apparently there have been three American remakes of Fawlty Towers
― Number None, Wednesday, 9 March 2016 23:17 (eight years ago) link
Sanford and Son is unlikely to be shown on UK TV, I'd have thought, as it's based on Steptoe and Son
The first season of Sanford and Son (actually a half-season) predominately used actual scripts from Steptoe and Son!
― Josefa, Wednesday, 9 March 2016 23:33 (eight years ago) link
XP One of which starred Bea Arthur!
― Now I Know How Joan of Arcadia Felt (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 9 March 2016 23:38 (eight years ago) link
And one of which made Manuel Italian because making fun of a Spanish-speaker wouldn't play over here.
― nickn, Wednesday, 9 March 2016 23:48 (eight years ago) link
MTM all the way
― ODD FUTURE WOLFGANG VAN HALEN ON BASS (some dude), Thursday, 10 March 2016 00:18 (eight years ago) link
guessing i had a babysitter who watched 'all in the family' on a night i got sick or something because while i have never seen it, the very idea of it (or god forbid the theme song) makes me want to die of depression
― mookieproof, Thursday, 10 March 2016 00:28 (eight years ago) link
I love Bob Newhart and I feel kind of sad whenever I watch an episode of one of his sitcoms because I know that he's probably going to die quite soon.
I've not seen that much of All in the Family but whenever I've tried to watch it I can't get past the fact that it just seems like an inferior version of Till Death Us Do Part/In Sickness and in Health which is one of my favourite sitcoms; maybe All in the Family would make more sense to me if I were American?
― soref, Thursday, 10 March 2016 00:51 (eight years ago) link
Voted MTM
Wasn't alive in the seventies
― lute bro (brimstead), Thursday, 10 March 2016 00:55 (eight years ago) link
i think i did an ilx poll years ago pitting steptoe and son vs. sanford and son and it didn't really work because there wasn't anybody who had actually seen both shows
i watched an episode of till death us do part on youtube once and damn, that was some dark stuff
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 10 March 2016 01:50 (eight years ago) link
Was Three's Company shown in the UK? Because that was based on Man About the House
― Josefa, Thursday, 10 March 2016 01:59 (eight years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/Erp0tbX.jpg
That'd be a pretty good clickbait headline at the bottom of some spam ad.
― pplains, Thursday, 10 March 2016 01:59 (eight years ago) link
^ That was the other big backlash of the mid '70s: crime shows like Police Woman and Kojak were forced to tone down their violence, which was getting pretty gritty. I guess M*A*S*H was subject to that too.
― Josefa, Thursday, 10 March 2016 02:15 (eight years ago) link
"Well, first, we're going to replace all of the children with chickens..."
― pplains, Thursday, 10 March 2016 02:58 (eight years ago) link
I just realized that it's possible I've never seen a single minute of either MTM or The Bob Newhart Show. I guess they were never syndicated to the extent of some of the rest of this stuff?
― Buckles On My Goulashes (Old Lunch), Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:01 (eight years ago) link
Bob Newhart Show had the best drum sound of any '70s TV theme.
And holy hell, TV music arrangers really leaned heavily on the harmon-muted trumpet + flute thing back then.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:01 (eight years ago) link
was sanford the only one of these shows on nbc? what were the other nbc sitcoms of the early-mid 70s?
― salthigh, Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:05 (eight years ago) link
― Buckles On My Goulashes (Old Lunch), Wednesday, March 9, 2016 10:01 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i watched a fair amount of both on Nick At Nite in the '90s but i don't remember them being syndicated as much as MASH etc.
― ODD FUTURE WOLFGANG VAN HALEN ON BASS (some dude), Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:10 (eight years ago) link
Apropos of nothing, "Hi Bob" was a great drinking game when I was in college, early 80s. 1. The Bob Newhart show was in reruns on WTBS in the afternoon during most bars' happy hour. 2. Whenever anyone says "Bob," drink.3. Whenever anyone says "Hi Bob," drain your glass.
― WilliamC, Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:14 (eight years ago) link
CHICO AND THE MAN.
― pplains, Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:16 (eight years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/zYL9Sra.jpg
I must've read this book 10000 times, backward and forwards, until it finally fell apart on me about ten years ago.
I wasn't really watching "Chico and the Man" when I was two, much less knowing what network it was on.
― pplains, Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:22 (eight years ago) link
thank you for lending a helping hand
― salthigh, Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:23 (eight years ago) link
I was very much alive during the 70s and even had a television during a small part of that decade. (I was very poor when I first lived away from home.) My impression of all these sitcoms at the time was [shrug] they're ok I guess, if you like that sort of thing. I was pretty disengaged from mass market entertainment.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:29 (eight years ago) link
haha now i want to watch some of these episodes
Other notable guest stars included:Cesar Romero as Chico's absentee fatherTony Orlando as Chico's look-alike, the ex-fiance of a hostile woman he wants to dateJosé Feliciano, who wrote the theme song, as Chico's womanizing famous-singer cousin Pepe FernandoSammy Davis Jr. as himselfHerbie Faye appeared as Bernie in the 1975 episode "Louie's Retirement"Shelley Winters (reuniting with Albertson, with whom she'd costarred in The Poseidon Adventure) as the owner of the local bakery, Shirley Schrift (her real name)Rodolfo Hoyos, Jr., three guest-starring roles, including Hector Ramirez in "The Third Letter" (1977)Jim Backus as Ed's friend who uses him as a beard, pretending to be playing cards with him when cheating on his wife (Audra Lindley)Silent-film actress Carmel Myers as a former star who has fallen on hard times, brings in her car for repairs, and stays in the garage while looking for workGeorge Takei as Ed's supposed long-lost son from his time in Japan during World War IICesare Danova as Aunt Connie's Spanish aristocrat boyfriend, the Count de Catalan, in the second episode in which she appearedComedian Joey Bishop as an inept robberBernie Kopell as a plastic surgeonRose Marie as a CB radio enthusiast with whom a lonely Ed connects on New Year's EvePenny Marshall, as a waitressFootball star Rosey Grier as himself, Della's date for a charity benefit danceLarry Hovis as a customer in the second episode of the first seasonJim Jordan (of radio's Fibber McGee and Molly) as a mechanic who used to be a big businessman, until he was victimized by his own company's retirement-age mandate
― salthigh, Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:30 (eight years ago) link
xxpI think you mean "Thank you for being a friend."
― nickn, Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:32 (eight years ago) link
MASH was somewhat compromised from the start -- nearly all the docs in the novel (and Hawkeye in the film i think?) are married, including Our Heroes, so they're serial adulterers; none of that for Alan Alda. And Larry Gelbart's sensibility is wisecracking NY liberal as opposed to Altman's anarchic stoned pranksterism. (Gelbart pointedly less sexist, after the first 3-4 seasons anyway.)
And since it was filmed one-camera style, half on the Fox ranch in Malibu i think, it had that goddamn laugh track.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 10 March 2016 03:40 (eight years ago) link
For whatever reason NBC had very limited success with sitcoms in the decades before their famous mid '80s Thursday night lineup. In the 1960s their only hits were Hazel, I Dream of Jeannie and Get Smart. Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man were their only remotely successful ones from the 1970s until Diff'rent Strokes at the very end of the decade. NBC came close to going out of business around 1981-1982; all of their shows, new and old, were unsuccessful at that point.
― Josefa, Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:14 (eight years ago) link
thats basically why Letterman got a late night show, and they mostly left him alone
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:17 (eight years ago) link
TMI: My mother went into labor with me while watching the latest Sanford & Son.
― pplains, Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:23 (eight years ago) link
Hope it wasn't one of the Grady episodes
― Josefa, Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:27 (eight years ago) link
George: You know, my mother used to walk around on our apartment just in her bra and panties. She didn't look anything like you, she was really disgusting, really bad body. If you could imagine uglier and fatter version of Shirley Booth. Remember Shirley Booth from Hazel. Really embarrassing, cause you know I had only mother in the whole neighborhood who was worse looking than Hazel. Imagine the taunts I would hear.
Woman: Like what?
George: Like a "Hey your mother is uglier than Hazel. Hazel really putsyour mother to shame"
― salthigh, Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:29 (eight years ago) link
yeah, didnt watch that much either
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:30 (eight years ago) link
Strange that I have no attachment to any of these, despite most of them being in heavy rerun circulation during my prime TV watching years. I wonder if there was something distinctly adult--for lack of a better word--about them that made them impenetrable to me; I distinctly remember lunging for the channel changer whenever an All in the Family or M*A*S*H rerun was about to come on. I don't know if Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, The Honeymooners or I Love Lucy are necessarily *better* shows than the most beloved 70s stuff, but they certainly strike me as being far more kid-friendly and accessible. I do have some mildly fond memories of watching Happy Days, which I think fits in more with the older shows than any of its contemporaries.
For what its worth, I don't recall ever having seen an episode of The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Odd Couple or Sanford and Son, and Maude I only ever saw an episode or two of rather recently.
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:37 (eight years ago) link
I really loved AitF when i was ten.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 10 March 2016 04:41 (eight years ago) link
Wow yall are old. I have never seen a single minute of any of these shows.
― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 10 March 2016 07:46 (eight years ago) link
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/91/The_Ghost_Busters_%28TV_series%29_cast_photo.jpg
― F♯ A♯ (∞), 10. maaliskuuta 2016 0:41 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
didn't know Neil Young was in a sitcom!
xpost
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), 10. maaliskuuta 2016 0:46 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Me neither, but who are the two guys with hats?
― Tuomas, Thursday, 10 March 2016 11:02 (eight years ago) link
Not even Happy Days? I was born in 1979, so I'm too young to have seen any of these in the original run, and some of them were never shown in Finland, but even I haven't managed to avoid seeing bits of Happy Days reruns.
― Tuomas, Thursday, 10 March 2016 11:05 (eight years ago) link
It's one of those 'use other facts', but when M*A*S*H was shown on BBC2 (the 'upmarket' BBC channel at the time) they removed the laughter track entirely (I guess because canned laughter was considered too vulgar for the British middle classes)
― Chicamaw (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 10 March 2016 11:22 (eight years ago) link
Couldn't believe it ever had a laugh track tbh! Is M*A*S*H is the only long running US sitcom the BBC has ever shown from start of series to end of series? I can't think of any others.
― A Fifth Beatle Dies (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 March 2016 11:41 (eight years ago) link
The BBC didn't show a lot of US sitcoms, I suppose M*A*S*H was worthy enough for the Board of Governors.
― A Fifth Beatle Dies (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 March 2016 11:42 (eight years ago) link
How could I forget Kotter? That show was the bomb. Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, John Travolta.
I was born in 1971 and have seen everything listed. But since everything was still in constant syndication I couldn't tell you whether I watched a given show in 1975 or in 1980. And I'm not sure how much it matters.
Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie felt more late 60s than 70s; they went well with Gidget/Flying Nun. Lucy and Honeymooners felt 50s-ish, just as Mork and Cheers definitely felt like 80s shows. But WKRP and Taxi had a 70s vibe and should imo be considered with the 70s shows regardless of what year they were made.
Evening shows were palatable to both adults and children circa 1978 - Burnett, Muppets, PM Magazine. One misses
― brotato chip (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 10 March 2016 12:05 (eight years ago) link
I see "Soap" ran from 1977 to 1981, so misses out too.
― A Fifth Beatle Dies (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 March 2016 12:07 (eight years ago) link
Tough call between Sanford & Son and Jeffersons. Went S&S.
― Jeff, Thursday, 10 March 2016 12:12 (eight years ago) link
― A Fifth Beatle Dies (Tom D.), Thursday, March 10, 2016 11:41 AM (6 hours ago)
sgt bilko/phil silvers show is pretty popular in the uk, isn't it? it's oddly ignored and forgotten here.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 10 March 2016 17:51 (eight years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Saturday, 12 March 2016 00:01 (eight years ago) link
Dunno why but I was perusing a list of all the TV shows that were around in 1981, and god what a dismal bunch. 2 or 3 of the shows listed above were still around though, plus Three's Company.
One cool thing I noticed was that Andy Kaufman's guest spot on Fridays was the same weekend Charles Rocket said "fuck" on SNL.
― billstevejim, Saturday, 12 March 2016 23:01 (eight years ago) link
voted jeffersons
― billstevejim, Saturday, 12 March 2016 23:42 (eight years ago) link
Love "The Jeffersons" for the Marla Gibbs-Helmsley repartee, unusual for being devoid of sexual tension.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 12 March 2016 23:48 (eight years ago) link