Has anyone given up on TV?

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yeah, the Twilight Zone, Playhouse 90, The Dick Van Dyck Show, were great, but for every one of those great ones, there were two or three (or more) clunkers like The Hathaways, a show about a family who owned a bunch of chimps, My Mother the Car, a show about a guy who's dead mother talked to him through a car, Mr. Ed, a talking horse, My Favorite Martian two talented leads, stuck in a badly written show, and on it went.

MFM couldn't have done that badly to spawn a sister series.

There was an animated series with the same name but not sure if it was the same characters though they did have a young woman as a core character.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I still have a VHS player hooked up to my TV set, but I figure I will probably retire that when I finally break down and buy a new TV. Our current set is about twenty years old and has been known to provoke giggles from visitors.

"What is that strange boxy thing in your living room?"

I keep a VCR in my closet not hooked up just because there's a few obscure classic films still VHS only.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Have you got Night of the Kickboxers?

UM, I need it for a friend.

 

[Marsden]

I know you weren't responding to me, but, speaking as a card-carrying member of AARP, who has been watching TV since it was in black-and-white, I'd argue against viewing the past through rose-colored glasses. There's always been schlock and gems to be found amidst television's fabled "vast wasteland." And, yes, many of today's TV dramas and comedies are much slicker and more sophisticated that the stuff we grew up on.

Don't get me wrong. Some vintage TV shows, like TWILIGHT ZONE or TOS, remain timeless classics. But are we really going to argue that the likes of F TROOP or CHARLIE'S ANGELS or THE LOVE BOAT were of much higher quality than, say, THE BIG BANG THEORY or THE WALKING DEAD or THE AMERICANS?

You don't need to be a millennial to see that the best TV is better than it's ever been.

Greg, I disagree with you lumping F Troop in with those others. I also would argue F Troop is as good in quality as those others you mentioned, but I've really only seen BBT of the 3 you listed, so in direct comparison I'd say F Troop is at least of equal quality, probably even better quality. No matter how funny BBT is, it's just 4 to 7 people sitting in a room talking 80+% of the time.
F Troop had location shooting every episode, because they actually built a fort on the lot. It was not a sound stage in a building. There were also some very overlooked, because it's a comedy of course, details about the uniforms and equipment that were actually pretty good. I found it to be far more realistic than many movies of the same setting in the same era of production. It was actually cancelled because the network didn't want to keep paying for it's budget for a comedy rather than poor ratings. But I agree with your main point that there was many poor quality programs, the two you listed were from the 70s.

This is what has been said about the show in the years since it left the air. But this wasn't the way it was promoted when it first aired. As I recall, it was promoted as chronicling the exciting adventures of the caped crusader. No reason to think the show would not treat the main character with any less respect than what was given Superman. Batman, IMO, turned out to be an "adventure/sitcom" which made the main characters, B & R , look embarrassingly ridiculous.

I understand people like the show, but from my perspective, the show was a slap in the face to the characters and comic book fans in general. But in true 1960's TV form, I never missed an episode...because that was because there just wasn't anything else like it on the networks at the time.

I don't think I can disagree with you more. I thought it was a very good depiction of Batman and Robin. What was silly was the situations that occurred, not the characterization or portrayal of the characters themselves. I still think Adam West is the best Batman, with Kevin Conroy a very close second. I also think Adam West is the best Bruce Wayne, something that's criminally ignored when talking about the character. I just watched Batman 66 recently and it was really very good. Yes there was some silliness, but they were situational and not Batman or Robin being silly. I really liked the part when Batman couldn't get rid of the bomb, it showed that he was willing to do anything he could do to avoid harming innocents. I also liked the stunt work with the helicopter and the boats.

 

[mos6507]

I don't think I can disagree with you more. I thought it was a very good depiction of Batman and Robin. What was silly was the situations that occurred, not the characterization or portrayal of the characters themselves.

Agreed. Adam West played it straight in such a way that had the show around him had been straight, it would have worked fine. That's why when he voiced Batman in animated form (for Filmation and HB) it worked, since neither of those were as campy as the live-action show. He could never be a modern dark emo Batman, but he could do a straight ahead comic book approach.