Ten TV Shows I Watched as a Child/Teenager—Remember ...

1. Kenny Everett Show. I can only remember it vaguely as bad eighties costumes and funny and wrong humour. It was weird as far as I remember. A skit show of ridiculousness, probably along the lines of a new generation Monty Python.
2. Dr Who. Tom was always my favourite doctor. I think I may have even made a scarf. The theme songs stay in your subconscious—I can’t hum it but I can feel how it goes.
3. Countdown. That I can recall the song to—but I am better at words than music. How cool were the clothes of the eighties? I didn’t think that would be something I would ever say. I also find it really interesting to look at the females on Countdown and see how voluptuous they look. I used to look at the women on Countdown when I was a teenager and wish I could be that skinny. Now they look practically fat in comparison to the ‘famous’ of now. It scares me how much that means a contemporary teenager thinks they need to lose in weight to look ‘cool’.
4. Get Smart. How could 99 ever fall in love with such a klutz? I suppose we did. Remember the poor depressed guy who always had to hide in very small spaces? I would be depressed too if Max was promoted over me, and I ended up inside a fire hydrant.
5. The Goodies. Goodie, goodie, yum, yum. What were they saying at the end of that refrain? Don’t tell me because then I will never be able to remember what I originally thought it was—like Cheap Wine and a Three Day Growth. I don’t think I valued these shows enough at the time—especially now that it is so hard to see them again without a TV antennae or cable.
6. Moonlighting. Any platform that launches Bruce Willis has to be a good, or at least moderately mediocre, platform. Throw in a naughty boy/professional woman sexual tension, some comedy and murder mysteries and it’s a guarantee you will be in front of the telly every week. It is also a way for someone (maybe a sister) to get sucked into buying Bruce Willis musical albums.
7. The Avengers. This is a show that takes me all the way back to South Africa where it was more likely that the episodes would be viewed on a hired projector than on TV. The catsuit stands out. Maybe that is where my idea of being a female spy comes from—if I was one I would look like her.
8. M*A*S*H. Do you think that this is one of the places where the really good character based shows started? Or maybe it’s just that I came to it at the right time to understand, or feel, that character was important, vital.
9. The Greatest American Hero. A TV equivalent of a one-hit wonder. Character is one thing; fallibility is another. Quirk is the third. I can’t remember character from this one but it did have the other two.
10. The Muppets. I was going to put McGyver down but I think it was more D——‘s thing than it ever was mine. I have just seen my work colleague do the Swedish chef’s hands and it brought this crazy cast back to mind. A timeless classic.