TV
I was born in a house with the television always on. Guess I grew up too fast and I forgot my name.
Most TV is trash. But here are some shows that aren't, in my opinion, listed in ascending order of greatness.
THE PRISONER: Oh, man, what the hell is this? My sister introduced me to what must be the coolest 17-episode series in history. For the uninitiated, this is the show about the guy who is Number 6. Who is Number 1? And there's a giant blob. And it chases you if you try to leave. Anything that manages an environment this oppressive on television has to be good.
GREEN ACRES: This show had Eva Gabor and Mr. Haney. That's all you need to know. I truly believe this was an innovative series, with the surreal way the maddening world around Eddie Albert is portrayed. Petticoat Junction I never dug, though.
THE X-FILES: Remember back when, like, everybody watched this? Well, I hate to be a downer, but I WATCHED IT BEFORE THAT. That's probably not true. Anyway, okay, David Duchovny was great on this show but it turns out he actually can't play any other parts. Gillian Anderson was not always so great but from what I can tell she's actually a hell of an actress. Funny how sci-fi turns traditional values on their heads. I adored this show when it was funny or when it had a stand-alone plot; the conspiracy Smoking Man abduction stories were soooooo boring and incomprehensible, though.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: I know I'm getting predictable, but this was my introduction to Hitch. He only directed about 25 episodes and they were invariably the best ones, but his intros and outros were hysterical. This had nothing on TZ but as anthology shows go it was unpredictable and fun. Roald Dahl's stories were made for this show.
FREAKS & GEEKS: An exquisitely written show that, despite its reputation as the height of high-school realism, is much more obvious than it thinks, and the clichés do abound a little too often. That said, no show displayed Baby-Boomer parents as the maddening creatures they can easily be with such daunting accuracy. A fine series that was cancelled years too early.
TINY TOON ADVENTURES: Shut up. I know it blew when it was sappy (but not as much as Animaniacs), but it was frequently hilarious. The episodes parodying television and music videos were brilliant, and the movie HOW I SPENT MY VACATION is a keeper.
THE BOB NEWHART SHOW: I ended up watching this years ago just because I loved the opening sequence. It's so jazzy! Newhart is a genius and this show needs a new life. It's the rare sitcom that allures enough with its characterizations that you actually make a point to keep watching, although they moved the timeslot or removed it from Nick at Nite before I'd even seen half the episodes.
When it wanted to be funny, ANIMANIACS was brilliant. With its Marx-derived comedy characters it was even transcendent at times, though aside from the Warner Brothers and Pinky & the Brain, the cast of characters was one-dimensional at best and each set was given approximately one good episode, but oh well. Unfortunately, Animaniacs also had a compulsive case of "cute" and was capable of becoming disgustingly saccharine.
DOBIE GILLIS: I haven't seen this in roughly ten years so I can't say much about it but I remember thinking it was unbelievably funny. Watched Gilligan's Island when I stayed home from school just because it had Maynard G. Crebs and I fucking HATED it. Bob Denver should've stuck to his good role.
THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW: The Seinfeld of its time, only much much better. Despite the twin beds and network-imposed worthless kid, this is the rare sitcom that offered a couple with genuine chemistry, and the writers were smart enough to give them dialogue that was well-observed and not clichéd. The characters and situations were almost always outrageously funny, and I couldn't be happier that this show is coming out on DVD now.
DARIA: A wonderful show that was crippled by a severe identity crisis. The intention was clearly to make a show that was more akin to the early Simpsons, subtly funny but character-driven and with all those Jim Brooks moments that "ring true." But we mustn't forget that Daria inherited the writing staff from its parent, Beavis & Butt-Head, and these writers, however gifted, were made for comedy. As a matter of fact, Daria worked well in a dramatic sense when it focused on its sympathetic characters, but sadly in an effort to eradicate stereotypes from the show and display "all facets" of each personality, they wasted screen time on worthless, strained characters like Mack, Jodie, and in particular Kevin and Brittany (who only made sense as caricatures; the show's ability to make no secret of its loathing of the status quo disappeared when they actually spent time with the football player and cheerleader) while turning Daria into a cold-hearted bitch instead of a teenager to whom one might relate. I'd better give this its own page...
MY SO CALLED LIFE: All things considered, the best TV drama of the '90s, and also a contender for both the funniest and most observant show on television in its painfully brief lifespan. It's anything but pretentious, its characters wandering around in a confused state, the adults as insane as the teenagers. It wasn't a "navel-gazing" show, it was a brilliantly acted one that never forgot to be interesting, and didn't coast on the presence of pretty-boy Jared Leto, hottie Claire Danes, or writers from the then-beloved Thirtysomething. It also had teenagers who didn't talk like Mamet characters and weren't vampires. No other teen show, Freaks & Geeks included, is worth a fraction of this one.
THE CRITIC: You can't blame Matt Groening for holding a grudge against this show; during its run this ABC (and Fox, later) cartoon project of Simpsons mainstays Jim Brooks, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, etc. upstaged The Simpsons so consistently you half wonder if Groening didn't bribe Fox to cancel it, particularly since the ratings were excellent. By 1993, when The Critic began its run, The Simpsons had become a tired franchise, cracks showing in the characters, incredibly stupid ideas turning up as excuses for episodes, and not a trace of the sincere livelihood of its early days. But if Groening's show is the prime example of one that completely failed to fulfill its potential, The Critic showed many of its staffers having learned lessons. The show was as full of gags as its sibling, but its scripts are held down by Brooks' usual wisdom, so that even the characters that would logically be vacant have a logic and purpose and warmth to them. Another brilliant show cancelled far too soon.
FUTURAMA: It figures that once Matt Groening found a way to encompass both packed-like-sardines jokes and character development, he started a new show to demonstrate instead of incorporating it into The Simpsons. It also annoys me how he gave up the show after two years and let it run like a well-oiled machine until its cancellation. This was a hell of an expensive midlife crisis, but while the show lasted and when it actually made it to air, it was better that I ever would have expected, and is a great choice for DVD release.
BATMAN: Specifically I'm referring to the 1960s live action series, although aside from some painful Saturday morning features, Batman has been treated remarkably well on television, with the absorbing Batman: The Animated Series as cerebral and fascinating a cartoon as ever seen on TV. But Adam West and Burt Ward carried this wonderful show, brightly colored and beautifully filmed, scripts layered with hysterical dialogue and absurd plot twists. This is the kind of insanity the medium should breed more often (and when they got the chance to make a movie, they really went nuts. "A sparrow with a machine gun!")
THE SIMPSONS: After all that talk above maligning this, why is it listed as ten positions down from my favorite show? And hey, point taken. As I mentioned, it lost its direction five years in, working occasionally. It got a little funnier the next year and delivered one of its best seasons the year after that. Since then it has varied from mediocre to unwatchable; it's now in its fifteenth season and I've long since abandoned it. But if you take the first three years (and the seventh) on their own, you have quite possibly the finest television series ever produced. More in the linked essay.
MOONLIGHTING: I am crushed that almost no one my age has seen this show, and I suspect that we've made tripe like Buffy and Dawson and even better shows like The X-Files popular because of it. I was introduced through my sister, who was a fan of this '80s institution at the time. Besides the fact that it's a scream, with the same surreal wink-nudge humor as Rocky & Bullwinkle, you have to admire any series that indulges itself in such a world of its own within the confines of network TV, not to mention the exhausting egos of its two whiny stars. For that last reason, not many episodes of this were made even though it was one of the most popular shows on television. Season sets would be extremely easy to put out. I'm waitiiiing...
BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD: I'll say it whether anyone agrees or not. Whatever the debatable merits of this as satire may be, Mike Judge created a show that, on its own modest scale (and tiny cable-sized budget), offered a world twice as potent as any of Groening's. In coming through with the opposite method of The Simpsons -- cracking dumb jokes for a year until, inevitably, the characters gained personalities -- Judge turned his unique observational humor into slices of side-splitting genius. A true American original, he made us feel guilty for identifying with his evil monsters then only reminded us that they exist in everyone. By the way, I think that anyone who dismisses this show as either stupid or offensive has never watched it long enough to discover how good-natured and witty it really is. These days The Simpsons really is pretty offensive, if you ask me...
M*A*S*H: Canned laugh tracks annoy the piss out of me. There's something a bit maudlin about the one on this show, which sometimes only appears once or twice in an episode and frequently fails to punctuate the jokes that are the funniest, that cut the deepest. Someone told me once that you know you're getting old when you watch M*A*S*H on a regular basis. I got addicted to this show in high school and never lost interest for a second. Eleven years with very little change in scenery, yet the people remained people and the scripts remained painfully amusing and sometimes harrowing.
THE BULLWINKLE SHOW: Much is made of the idea that it would take several viewings of a Simpsons episode to digest all of the pop culture references and in-jokes, but why bother with such tomfoolery? The Bullwinkle Show mastered that forty years ago; it could take years to figure out everything that is hinted at in any given five minutes of this poorly animated, absolutely flawlessly written series. And in contrast to Animaniacs, not a single one of the many segments on this show sucked.
THE KIDS IN THE HALL: Keep SNL, Mad TV, SCTV, The State, and anything else you want to throw at me. This is all the sketch comedy I need. The Kids' humor is certainly an acquired taste, but once you've got it you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. It has the advantage of being a real entity all its own, with all five performers immensely gifted and full of humor that can be conventional, surreal, or just impenetrable. The funniest show ever produced aside from MST3K.
THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW: Unique in two respects... first of all, it must be seen from the beginning and in sequence to watch its characters grow and develop over the course of six brilliant years... and second, it only got better each year, to the point that its greatest moments are possibly all in the last few shows. But not a single one (that I've seen) is dispensable, and this is a comedy that is smart and grounded without pandering and manipulation. Mad's parody, "The Mary Tailor Made Show," was still hilarious, but James L. Brooks made a series here that spoke to everyone in an inexplicable way. The last episode chronicles the idea of crying and not being sure why, and that's the best possible way to sum up this series.
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: I don't know where to begin. I'm not convinced a more astonishing pool of talent ever came together at the same moment in the history of television. The fact that a show about robots making fun of movies manages to strike a chord deeper than mere silliness and yet worshipful of the very idea of silliness speaks volumes, and so do I if you click that link up there.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE: Rod Serling was a passionate, wise man who understood as well as Alfred Hitchcock the fact that showmanship and industry can be as much an aid to a writer or director as a hindrance. Serling's chilly demeanor hides the life-affirming beauty of his scripts (plus Richard Matheson's, Charles Beaumont's, etc.) on this series. The Christmas episode is one of the best things ever shown on television.
GET SMART: Even after being abandoned for Hollywood by its visionary creators, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, this was a series so delightful and often flawless as to be intimidating. With an impeccable staff of writers who had (or would later) forge pioneer trails in TV comedy, Get Smart found its success by hamming up the craziness yet never undermining its stories or dramatic potential... and basing even its most off-the-wall humor on the personalities of the people in it, a skill unique to television that was never utilized as well as on this series. And after they kowtowed to the network and married off the two main characters, the show ironically only got better.
So there you have it, with additional perspectives to come in the future. Three wonderful shows I didn't note above due to their lack of narrative convention: TALK SOUP, which will be missed; the painfully funny DAILY SHOW, preferably with Jon Stewart; and either of David Letterman's shows.
Also, I've recently -- since returning to digital cable -- become a fan of two highly unusual series on Showtime. FAMILY BUSINESS is an amusing reality show about a porn mogul; it's the most entertaining thing on the air right now. Their PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT, meanwhile, is the best thing on TV. I've wanted someone to do what they did to PETA for years and years. I also like that show O'GRADY on Noggin.
In conclusion, don't watch TV. It's bad for you.