If you watch a lot of TV like I do, you often go through patterns. You'll drift away from a show for many months or even years, and then you start watching an episode one night and find yourself watching the show on a regular basis again (I'm talking about watching the shows on TV, not DVD). Here are a list of shows that I've found myself watching again recently, usually at 1 in the morning when I should be in bed.1. Home Improvement. What a good show this was, and the type of show you don't see much of anymore, a sitcom shot on video in front of a live audience (most filmed-before-a-live-audience sitcoms today, like Gary Unmarried and Old Christine, have that film look). I think a lot of people dismiss this show because it was about a guy who was more into cars and tools than reading and emotion, but the show was a lot deeper than that.Tim and Jill had one of the more realistic sitcom marriages on television, and the writing was always sharp, mixing the outlandish goings-on at Tim and Al's Tool Time with the domestic stuff. The show went on too long, the kids got older, Jonathan Taylor Thomas left, they started to use old plots too much and it just wasn't the same, but those first five or six seasons are really good.
2. Let's Make A Deal. Yeah, that's right, Let's Make A Deal, with all of its 70's game show cheesiness. I watched this when it first aired over 30 years ago, but I'm not watching this on GSN for the game show aspects. I'm actually watching for the fascinating prizes and prices from the 70s. It's fun to remember what things were like back then. The other day, one of the prizes was a Frigidaire refrigerator with a cassette player in it! I had never seen that before. I wonder if that was the sort of prize that seemed really cool and futuristic in 1974. I also like watching to see what companies provided the prizes and then get on Google and see if the companies are still around.
3. George Lopez. I always liked this show. It lasted for several seasons but I don't think it got any respect, really.
4. Wheel of Fortune. This is on every night at 7pm, the time I usually watch Seinfeld reruns, but I've seen every episode of that show 55 times and I need a little break. I used to watch Wheel of Fortune faithfully (even back in the Chuck Woolery days), but the contestants just drove me up the wall with their lousy play and stupid buying of vowels at the wrong times. But I've started to watch it again. The wheel is more complex now and they've added a lot of new features to their rounds, but it's still pretty much the same show it always was.
5. Frasier. This was always third in my mind when it came to the Cheers/Wings/Frasier triumvirate. I just never warmed to it like I did the other two, though I knew it was a good show. Now thanks to reruns I've started to appreciate it a little bit more.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-22-2009 @ 11:32AM
RadioScott said...
I'm sorry, but is this a satirical piece? The part about Home Improvement being a good show made me laugh, but the rest of the article...made me unsure.
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1-22-2009 @ 11:45AM
Chadwick said...
I watch a 2 or three episodes of Wings every week. For a long time. Once in a while I watch Becker and Frasier. I haven't watched any Seinfeld episodes lately but that would fall under scanning the channels and stopping when its on.
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1-22-2009 @ 11:45AM
Davin Peterson said...
Home Improvement is a funny show. Sometimes, I like to flip to Nick and peek at the show.
It's been about 10 years since it went off the air (May 25, 1999).
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1-22-2009 @ 1:33PM
slives said...
Due to my election obsession, I've been rewatching The West Wing. They have two episodes on the Bravo channel every morning. I record them and zip through all the commercials. What a wonderful show! I've forgotten enough that it's almost new again.
It's amazing how much stuff in the show has come true over the years - not just Santos=Obama.
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1-22-2009 @ 1:35PM
Preston said...
This is nothing new to me. January is when I mostly watch older shows, namely the first 20 days of the month when the networks are slowly getting their new shows back. I watched reruns of Let's Make a Deal on GSN in January 2002. Also in January of 1989 when they showed it on the USA Network. It's surprising that cars were $3,000 back then versus $16,000-20,000 now. And Cadillacs were $9,000 in the 70s. They're $47,000-55,000 now. And living rooms and dining rooms were in the $2,000 range versus the whopping $6500 to $7600 that they are now. Refrigerators are returning back to that '70s format with some stereo device in it. This time, instead of a cassette player, it's now an LCD TV in the area where you get ice out of the ice dispenser!
Way back in January 1981 or Jan. 1982, local TV stations seemed to have a complete obsession with shows from 1974 in syndication. This is similar to what TV Land does now with showing reruns of comedies.
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1-22-2009 @ 1:36PM
yatesy said...
Frasier is a great show on two levels. One is that "Hey, I'm in college and can get a lot of the references" but the other is that of a farce, and everyone gets that. Sharply written, fantastically acted, it's going to end up on Nick at Nite eventually.
Home Improvement could have been so much more and never was. It always came down to Tim being a jerk about not caring at all about stuff his wife might enjoy, his wife getting all pissed off and then Tim learning a lesson (with help from his neighbor). The cars & tool stuff could have been anything: computers, sports, music, whatever. He really just had no interest at all in anything at all his wife was into. The older son was a terrible actor, the middle kid always seemed like he didn't belong there and the wife *grated*.
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1-22-2009 @ 1:39PM
Eric H said...
For me its Quantum Leap, on DVD.
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1-22-2009 @ 2:24PM
chrisis said...
I recently started watching again Roseanne, Family Ties and Spin City. All great shows (although Spin City lost a bit when Michael J. Fox and co-creator Bill Lawrence - the genius behind my alltime favorite Scrubs - left the show. It's still funny, though).
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1-22-2009 @ 11:52PM
stg said...
I watch Malcolm in the Middle almost every night. That show is freaking hilarious
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1-22-2009 @ 9:22PM
Ben said...
You, sir, have appalling taste. Wings better than Frasier? Please hand in your reviewer ID card and laptop on you way out.
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1-22-2009 @ 4:34PM
Scott said...
I have to agree about the general lack of taste of these shows, with Frasier as the exception. I just started re-watching "The West Wing" from DVDs. Tuesday was the first time I could imagine feeling good about the White House again.
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1-22-2009 @ 4:39PM
Kristen said...
I never could understand why Wings was always considered such a bad show. I've always found it very funny and entertaining, which is a lot more than I can say for shows like Home Improvement or Everybody Loves Raymond. Now those are two sitcoms I wouldn't watch if you payed me.
One show I find myself watching a little more often lately is MASH. I watched it all the time with my parents growing up and recently started watching it again on TV Land and Hallmark. I've also gotten back into Friends too. I got sick of them a few years ago.
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1-22-2009 @ 7:10PM
Andrew said...
I've been juggling quite a few different shows in the last couple of months.
-The complete works of Aaron Sorkin (Sports Night, West Wing, Studio 60)
-Friends
-The Office
-Weeds
-Lost
-Jeopardy!
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1-22-2009 @ 11:12PM
Tim-1 said...
Bob, what was the premise of George Lopez? I don't recall that show.
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1-23-2009 @ 3:39AM
leftybigguns said...
In the words of Chris Griffin: "The George Lopez Show just perpetuates the theory the George Lopez is funny."
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1-23-2009 @ 9:13AM
Bob Sassone said...
Tim-1: It was a sitcom about Lopez and his family. He was the boss at a factory. I liked the mother character. So screwed up and nasty, heh.
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1-23-2009 @ 4:03PM
Tim-1 said...
Thank you Bob.
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1-24-2009 @ 12:09PM
Zach said...
I've been juggling some shows the last few months as well. Came in handy when nothing but repeats was on.
1. The X-Files. Started at the beginning, amazing how well this held up. I'm now in the middle of S2.
2. Beverly Hills 90210. Just the early seasons on DVD when the show was good. Don't think I'll re-watch past S3 or maybe 4.
3. Growing Pains. Great show, holds up really well. Such a shame only S1 is out on DVD. We need the rest of them.
4. Step By Step. I know it's corny, but one of my favorite shows growing up.
5. Everbody Loves Raymond. Never watched it when it aired, but actually was a pretty funny show. I'll just catch repeats of it on various networks/timeslots, since it seems to air every hour on the hour lol.
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