Favourite TV shows ?

THEN

The Andy Griffith Show

The Beverly Hillbillies

Happy Days

Father Knows Best

The Brady Bunch

Leave It To Beaver

Doc Martin

Monty Python's Flying Circus

I Love Lucy

The Honeymooners

Gilligan's Island

Get Smart

The Munsters

The Addams Family

Bewitched

Green Acres

Family Guy

Cheers

The Dick Van Dyke Show

The Carol Burnett Show

Mr. Bean

NOW

Breaking Bad

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee

Madam Secretary

The Black List

Stranger Things

The Crown

Longmire

Sharp Objects

Better Call Saul

Designated Survivor

Heartland

When Calls The Heart

I will show my age here. Although Australian I was brought up on British TV, especially costume drama because I loved British history. So my favourite shows were along the lines of:

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

Elizabeth R

I Claudius (or I CLAVDIVS as it's known)

War & Peace (the original & the best with Anthony Hopkins. The recent remake wasn't very good).

Anna Karenina (again, the original with Nicola Pagett)

The Onedin Line

The Pallisers

Barchester Towers

Not Downton Abbey. I've never watched it.

And comedy:

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Fawlty Towers

Ripping Yarns

The Two Ronnies

Porridge

Dad's Army

Dave Allen

Benny Hill

Man About The House

Robin's Nest

George & Mildred

American shows:

The Banana Splits (when I was very young)

F Troop

Get Smart

I Dream Of Jeannie

Hawaii Five-O

Hill Street Blues

More recent:

Game Of Thrones (LOVE IT)

The occasional Scandi crime drama

The Strain

Humans

Lucifer

iZombie

The Walking Dead (before it got too unbelievable & repetitive & we abandoned it).

I haven't listed any Australian shows.

A few of my favourite shows ever:

The Wire - I got to this long after it ended, on a friend's recommendation. It might be my absolute favorite TV show.

The Singing Detective

State of Play

Seinfeld

The Larry Sanders Show

Doctor Who

....I'm sure loads of others will come to me later.

Quote from FeelItComing

The Banana Splits (when I was very young)

You're not just showing your age, you're showing mine too! But that show freaked me out. I saw a repeat of it as an adult, and it still did. *shudders*

I love how you watched The Walking Dead "until it got too unbelievable"!

I've just realised one I should add to my list, which was various Tex Avery/Looney Tunes/Tom & Jerry cartoons. There was always a 10-minute slot where they'd put on a cartoon. The Tex Avery ones in particular were surreal and hilarious. They never put on stuff like that and, even if they did, they'd be muffled by the fact they've had to be re-edited for a modern audience.

Over the years, I have always enjoyed a lot of programs produced in the UK:

Spaced

Father Ted

The IT Crowd

The Avengers

The Office

Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Fawlty Towers

Not The Nine O’Clock News

Drop The Dead Donkey

Several Canadian shows – mostly sketch and topical comedies:

The Newsroom

Kids In The Hall

Second City (aka SCTV)

And then some classic American shows that I really enjoy as well:

All In The Family

Seinfeld

The Honeymooners

The Sopranos

Police Squad!

Quote from Backdrifter

You're not just showing your age, you're showing mine too! But that show freaked me out. I saw a repeat of it as an adult, and it still did. *shudders*

I love how you watched The Walking Dead "until it got too unbelievable"!

I've just realised one I should add to my list, which was various Tex Avery/Looney Tunes/Tom & Jerry cartoons. There was always a 10-minute slot where they'd put on a cartoon. The Tex Avery ones in particular were surreal and hilarious. They never put on stuff like that and, even if they did, they'd be muffled by the fact they've had to be re-edited for a modern audience.

Walking Dead too 'unbelievable'. Indeed. Point taken. We had watched so much of it that seeing zombies roaming the streets seemed the most natural thing in the world. It was the world of the show so in that sense it was 'believable' until it got too much.

Love the Tex Avery & Chuck Jones cartoons especially Duck Amuck & What's Opera, Doc?

Noni, the guy you are thinking of is Paul Hogan.

Loved Drop The Dead Donkey as well. We are also Have I Got News For You & Mock The Week addicts.

Quote from FeelItComing

Walking Dead too 'unbelievable'. Indeed. Point taken. We had watched so much of it that seeing zombies roaming the streets seemed the most natural thing in the world. It was the world of the show so in that sense it was 'believable' until it got too much.

Love the Tex Avery & Chuck Jones cartoons especially Duck Amuck & What's Opera, Doc?

Noni, the guy you are thinking of is Paul Hogan.

Loved Drop The Dead Donkey as well. We are also Have I Got News For You & Mock The Week addicts.

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To be fair, I kind of got what you meant about WD - even within the logic and boundaries of a fantastical world, a show can become too silly or over-the-top - but I liked how it sounded!

You've reminded of a guy I knew who - on the subject of the cartoons we mentioned - said he got annoyed by cartoons as they were "too unreal". He smiled as he said it as he knew how daft that sounded, but he explained that what wound him up was when (say) Yosemite Sam catches Bugs, and in 2 seconds flat he bundles him into a crate which he then nails shut all over and festoons with chains and huge padlocks then stands back satisfied, but then gets a tap on the shoulder, whirls around and there stands Bugs. That sort of thing would irritate the hell out of this guy and he'd seethe about how "unbelievable" it was and that "it would never happen"!

While I didn't think the Paul Hogan Show was that great, it was quite watchable. I liked the sketches with him and his dimwitted friend, the guy with the striped cap (who was apparently the show's producer, I think I'm right in saying). Their toast-making method - on the wall was a sheet of asbestos with nails in, they stuck the bread slices on the nails and blow-torched them; toast in 10 seconds!

Good call on Dead Donkey, a great show, especially considering the speed at which it was written and recorded each week. Henry Davenport is one of my favourite comedy characters, George Dent too.

I still love HIGNFY but can't bear Mock the Week. It always comes across as a load of blokes spraying testosterone around. In any case, I can't bear to watch and listen to Andy Parsons, one of the most annoying and unfunny people on TV.

Too many to list off the top of my head but a couple of recent ones I think/thought were excellent here in the US:

The Closer > Major Crimes

Breaking Bad

Better Call Saul (season 3 premier in early August)

Orphan Black - One of the best performances by a lead actress (Tatiana Maslany) in any show I've ever seen. She played all her characters so amazingly well, she could've won awards for best supporting actress as well if she was nominated for one of those other characters and not just the main one. Which she should've been IMO.

Quote from Backdrifter

To be fair, I kind of got what you meant about WD - even within the logic and boundaries of a fantastical world, a show can become too silly or over-the-top - but I liked how it sounded!

You've reminded of a guy I knew who - on the subject of the cartoons we mentioned - said he got annoyed by cartoons as they were "too unreal". He smiled as he said it as he knew how daft that sounded, but he explained that what wound him up was when (say) Yosemite Sam catches Bugs, and in 2 seconds flat he bundles him into a crate which he then nails shut all over and festoons with chains and huge padlocks then stands back satisfied, but then gets a tap on the shoulder, whirls around and there stands Bugs. That sort of thing would irritate the hell out of this guy and he'd seethe about how "unbelievable" it was and that "it would never happen"!

While I didn't think the Paul Hogan Show was that great, it was quite watchable. I liked the sketches with him and his dimwitted friend, the guy with the striped cap (who was apparently the show's producer, I think I'm right in saying). Their toast-making method - on the wall was a sheet of asbestos with nails in, they stuck the bread slices on the nails and blow-torched them; toast in 10 seconds!

Good call on Dead Donkey, a great show, especially considering the speed at which it was written and recorded each week. Henry Davenport is one of my favourite comedy characters, George Dent too.

I still love HIGNFY but can't bear Mock the Week. It always comes across as a load of blokes spraying testosterone around. In any case, I can't bear to watch and listen to Andy Parsons, one of the most annoying and unfunny people on TV.

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Andy Parsons hasn't been on MTW for some time. They are now required to have at least one woman panellist on each show just as HIGNFY are. Most of them however aren't very funny.

Quote from FeelItComing

Andy Parsons hasn't been on MTW for some time. They are now required to have at least one woman panellist on each show just as HIGNFY are. Most of them however aren't very funny.

It's good AP's no longer on it but just the format of MTW is really off-putting for me.

Freakaayy! Watched them as a kid too. Strange, indeed

Quote from Noni

Curious to know what made The Banana Splits so scary?

Well, I'd distinguish from 'scary', I don't think I was ever scared by it as such. It's hard to explain but I just didn't like them. In a way it was probably even worse when I caught one or two as an adult! It seemed like a load of formless gibbering and silly noises and while normally that would just be dull and/or annoying, in this case it kind of bothered me. I have one theory, probably daft but here goes - there were kids at school I couldn't stand because they were kind of like that. Obviously they didn't look like that! But they sort of acted like that - they just gabbled and acted stupid to the point it seemed there was no reason or normality or a proper person in there at all, so they might just as well be in those stupid costumes. I've met some of them in adulthood too. There are loads of them on twitter as well.

So I'm thinking that certainly my adult reaction to them might be drawn from that memory!

Quote from FeelItComing

I haven't listed any Australian shows.

Thank God, for that! We've had our fill of 'Neighbours' and "Home & Away" (Lol)

More Recent stuff:

Life On Mars (wouldn't it be great to wake up and find yourself back in 1973....)

Ashes to Ashes (...or find yourself back in 1980, for that matter!)

Twin Peaks (series 1 & 2. Didn't rate the recent 'return' as much)

The Wire (series 1-4, before it went OTT)

Lost (all of it; yes, I know it went crazy but we kinda went there incrementally..)

Breaking Bad

House of Cards

The Royle Family

Pretty much any Nordic Noir (The Killing, The Bridge etc)

Pretty much anything off Channel 4's World drama channel, 'Walter Presents' (eg. Brazilian series 'Magnifica 70')

Older stuff:

Star Trek (TOS)

Minder (esp the Dennis Waterman years)

Brideshead Revisited

Rising Damp

Dad's Army

Yes, Minister

Yes, Prime Minister

Kids' stuff:

Marine Boy (one of my earliest faves! Still hoping someone will invent oxygum - lol)

Wacky Races

Tom & Jerry (Fred Quimby)

Scooby Doo (TOS) - "I'd have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you pesky kids!"

"Da-ba-da-ba-dabba, that's all folks!"