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Television you watched in the '80s....

Warped9

Warped9

Admiral
Admiral
The 1980s are a solid twenty-five years behind us now. For me I aged from 21 to 30 in that decade. A lot of stuff happened back then but, of course, there was always television to distract you from your everyday cares and give you something to talk about with friends.

So here is looking back to the shows that interested us back in 1980-89.

Note: these shows can include ones than began earlier and ran into the '80s as well as those that ran beyond the decade.

Regularly watched
Cagney & Lacey
The Equalizer
The Fall Guy
Magnum, P.I.
Moonlighting
Simon & Simon
Unsolved Mysteries
WKRP In Cincinatti

Sporadically watched
The A-Team
Airwolf
Alien Nation
Charlie's Angels
Cheers
China Beach
Columbo
Designing Women
Fantasy Island
MacGyver
Miami Vice
Night Court
Quantum Leap
Quincy, M.E.
Remington Steele
The Rockford Files
Soap
Spenser: For Hire
Star Trek - The Next Generation
T.J. Hooker
 
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Perfect Strangers
Alf
Family Ties
The Wonder Years
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Rainbow Brite
Fraggle Rock
Sesame Street
Miami Vice
Night Court
Cheers
 
The A-Team
Knight Rider
Airwolf
Dukes of Hazzard
Family Ties
GIJoe: A Real American Hero!
Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye
Mighty Orbots
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
The Incredible Hulk
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Night Court
Benson
Bionic 6
Robotech
Starcom: The US Space Force
The Real Ghostbusters
Pole Position
The Littles
Inspector Gadget

(As you can tell, the eighties was my toon watchin' heyday.)
 
Airwolf
Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (1979-1981)
Galactica:1980
Otherworld
Ray Bradbury Theater
Spenser: For Hire
Star Trek:The Next Generation
The Twilight Zone(80s version)

 
Warped9 said:
Man, not a lot of SF in the '80s.
Click to expand...


Using a broad definition of SF if you include shows which ran into the 80's or started in the 1980's you could include


Doctor Who
Red Dwarf
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Blake's 7
The Tripods
Terrahawks

ALF
ST:TNG
Quantum Leap
Buck Rogers
V
War of the Worlds
Alien Nation
Mork and Mindy
Galactica 1980
Captain Power

I could list several more, it might be more accurate to say there wasn't a lot of space travel based SF shows.
 
MacLeod said:
Warped9 said:
Man, not a lot of SF in the '80s.
Click to expand...
...it might be more accurate to say there wasn't a lot of space travel based SF shows.
Click to expand...
Yeah, back then there wasn't much SF of interest to me on television. I was still watching TOS reruns periodically, but that isn'r a show of the '80s.

Fueled by articles in Starlog magazine and intense curiosity I did tune into the TNG premiere, "Encounter At Farpoint." I was seriously underwhelmed with that. Nonetheless I hung in for a few episodes and then watched only sporadically out of a mixture of lingering curiosity and boredom. I watched a bit more frequently during the second and third seasons, but my viewing of the show remained sporadic throught the series.

Eventually in the 2000s I managed a complete series rewatch from beginning to end through daily syndication. And then a few years ago I did another rewatch through dvd and online viewing where my opinion mellowed (in some respects) from seeing the show in the late '80s and early '90s.
 
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MacLeod said:
Warped9 said:
Man, not a lot of SF in the '80s.
Click to expand...
Using a broad definition of SF if you include shows which ran into the 80's or started in the 1980's you could include


Doctor Who
Red Dwarf
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Blake's 7
The Tripods
Terrahawks

ALF
ST:TNG
Quantum Leap
Buck Rogers
V
War of the Worlds
Alien Nation
Mork and Mindy
Galactica 1980
Captain Power

I could list several more, it might be more accurate to say there wasn't a lot of space travel based SF shows.
Click to expand...
I don't remember that the '80s were much of a drought as far as SF went.

The '80s was when I got hooked on Doctor Who, and oddly enough it was my anthropology instructor who told me that V was a good series (I followed his suggestion and found it to be a good adventure show, if a little silly in places).

I loved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Tripods (shame they couldn't have finished adapting all three novels).

Of course TNG premiered in the '80s (on the same day as a major local SCA event; someone had recorded the show and over 2 dozen people dressed in medieval-era clothes crowded into her living room to watch it after the evening feast).

After doing some searching, it turns out that most of my favorite shows in the '80s were British, as Are You Being Served? was still on in the '80s, and Blackadder also premiered in the '80s. The superb series Tenko was also an '80s show (about a group of British and Dutch women POWs in WWII).
 
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Three's Company
Diff'rent Strokes
The Facts of Life
You Can't Do That On Television
Thundercats
Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends
ALF
Whiz Kids
Misfits of Science
Moonlighting
Quantum Leap
Highway to Heaven
Happy Days
Laverne & Shirley
Battle of the Network Stars
Mama's Family
The Incredible Hulk
 
I'm going to break this up into different parts.

Part I: '80s Shows I Watched During the Actual '80s
So this isn't all just cartoons, I'm going to slightly cheat and include shows that started in the '80s but I didn't watch until the early-'90s.

Cartoons
Transformers
Thundercats
Jem
He-Man
She-Ra
Teddy Ruxpin
MASK
Dino Riders
Bionic Six
Gobots
Heathcliff
Count Duckula
Dennis the Menace
The Real Ghostbusters
The Smurfs
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
GI Joe
Super Mario Bros.
The Legend of Zelda
Gummy Bears
... a bunch of other stuff I'm not immediately remembering.

Live Action
Three's Company (all the innuendo went over my head)
Benson
Taxi
ALF
Perfect Strangers
Full House
Growing Pains
Who's the Boss?
Married With Children
Laverne & Shirley
Charles In Charge
Mama's Family
Mr. Wizard
You Can't Do That On Television
Double Dare
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Facts of Life
Night Court
Small Wonder
Star Search
Sesame Street (obviously)
Mr. Rogers (obviously)

Part II: Older Shows I Watched During the '80s
I Dream of Jeannie
The Monkees
Bewitched
The Flinstones (obviously)
The Jetsons
Mister Ed
Dennis the Menace
Green Acres
The Brady Bunch
Good Times
Batman
That Girl
What's Happening
Looney Toons (obviously)
Tom & Jerry (obviously)

Part III: '80s Shows I Watched Later
Any '80s show that I discovered from the mid-'90s on.

Knight Rider
A-Team
McGyver
Spenser for Hire (thanks to DS9)
Miami Vice (thanks to BSG)
Amen
One Day at a Time
Soap
Galactica 1980 (it's in the title!)
Three's Company (yes, listed twice, because it was a completely different show to me once I was old enough to know what was going on!)
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
Can't believe I forgot V! That was a big part of my TV life back in the 80's. :techman:
Click to expand...

V was one of the must watched shows of the year it came out. And I remember it airing late evening on ITV in the UK, and given my age at the time I really should have been asleep in bed.
 
I was a teen and there was a lot of family viewing. We used to all sit in front of the TV on Thursdays for The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers and Night Court, and then my folks and my brothers and sisters would go to bed and I'd watch Hill Street Blues on my own. I started taping Magnum P.I. to watch because of the conflict, till it moved to Wednesdays.

The shows I remember most fondly besides HSB, Cheers and Magnum, were

St. Elsewhere
SCTV
Late Night with David Letterman
Saturday Night Live (the decade when I really got into it)
Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) on PBS Mystery
Tom Baker and Peter Davidson Doctor Who on PBS
Danger UXB on PBS Masterpiece Theater

I went through high school on about 6 hours sleep because of Letterman. I could have taped it but I felt like I had to see it immediately, like I might miss something.
 
Jem
Thunder cats
He man/She-ra
Transformers
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

with my mom: Cheers, Family ties, Who's the Boss

I played more than watched shows in the 80s
 
I watched a ton of TV in the 80's, and then I went to college in 86 and it really slowed down for me. Here are the highlights:

Cheers
MASH
The Cosby Show
Night Court
Newhart
Family Ties
Growing Pains
The A-Team
Knight Rider
Magnum P.I.
Simon and Simon
Remington Steel
TJ Hooker
St. Elsewhere
Dukes of Hazzard
Alf
The Love Boat
Fantasy Island
Saturday Night Live
Trapper John, MD
Quincy
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Just the Ten of Us
MTV's Remote Control
Lots and lots of MTV videos
Late Night with David Letterman
The Tonight Show
 
I watched a lot of stuff casually but in terms of appointment television it was mostly the classic NBC shows of the era:
Hill St Blues
LA Law
Miami Vice
Family Ties
Night Court
Cheers
Taxi
 
Airwolf
The Equalizer
A-Team
TNG of course
Barney Miller
Taxi
Night Court
Cheers
Hill Street Blues
St Elsewhere
Miami Vice
Stingray
Hunter
...
 
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