--<-@ Over 30 SW Writers Club! @->--

What were everyone's favorite sitcoms growing up?

I loved all of the major ones, "Three's Company" "Happy Days" "Family Ties" and "Facts of Life."

"Three's Company" is sooo hillarious to watch- not because of the humor necessarily but it's so dated and sooo 70's. God save us from those polyester clothes and scary Farrah hair.

Dianethx

I listen to Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys (sometimes, I write SW fics to their music) and Celtic music.

Really? I can't write if the music that's playing in the background has lyrics on it... unless it's an opera or something where I don't understand the words. They just distract me. I either write best w/ no music- or w/ classical or movie soundtracks playing. (I'll give you a BIG guess what films soundtracks I write my fanfics to )

 

Ahh the Joys of a message board... on the Telly there is nothing but the talking empty war heads or the trash that is Ricky Lake... (Guess which I have on for background noise? )


Favorite shows growing up? Big Bewitched fan... although the mentality is a bit scary now (Samantha calling Darrin 'Sir' on rare occasion but for the era it was actually rather forward thinking) Gilligan's Island (the professor Russel Whatisname lives up here in Seattle actually).
Mork and Mindy... I love the innocence of TV back then....

 

Oh yeah... Forgot about those... "Bewitched," "Gilligan's Island" and let's not forget "I Dream of Jeanie."

Nanoo nanoo- Shuzbutt! I loved "Mork and Mindy" you just knew from that show Robin Williams was destined to be a huge star.

 

Good Lord! Talk about reminiscing w/all these shows...

Harkens back to the more innocent years before adulthood snuck up behind us and bit us in the rear.

LOVED I Dream of Jeannie! And so many other shows. <sigh>

I didn't have the big hair in HS but I was a total jockette and loved it. And to think my reunion is this year. <shudder>

 

*Inez stands up proudly and states*

I was in love with Luke Duke, until Michael Knight came along. I was going to marry Hasselhoff when I was 7... after I found out John Schneider was already taken.

I also owned a pair of Wonder Woman Underoos (and yes, I did spin around trying to convert from Diane to WW) and another pair of Daisy Duke Underoos. My best friend had C3PO Underoos.

inez

 

I wanted a 1970 Dodge Charger to paint Orange, weld the doors shut and throw a conferate flag on the roof... Did you know that during the show's high point they were putting flyers on every DC in the sounthern California area?


Greatest American Hero with William Katt... It was funny until he got the instructions and learned how to fly....

 

That's what was great about the show. He had to learn it all by falling on his face (a lot ). I don't remember when he got the instructions for the suit; I do remember he got them one time, and they were in an alien language.

 

Best thing about GAH was the theme song. The team anthem for any Loser's Club.

Never a Dukes fan (probably 'cause the maternal figure purely hated it--I mean the nail-on-a-blackboard, teeth-clenched, get-that-thing-off-the-tv-now kind of hated it--almost as much as she hated The A-Team), but I remember the car and the micro-shorts.

I won a 25-cent bet with a girl named Christie in fifth grade about who shot J.R. She apparently hadn't been reading TV Guide and didn't have the super-secret info of who was leaving the cast six episodes in. (Yes, Dukes was verboten, but there were no problems at all with Dallas every week.)

Loved Happy Days most of the way through, and even remember the glorious single season of Joanie Loves Chachi. I found a local station that plays Family Ties, and I'm delighted. Penny Marshall can be a director all she wants, but she never looks right to me without a giant cursive "L" on her lapel. I have only the vaguest of Brady memories, but I remember them being in a ghost town in the West. And M*A*S*H... what's to say? I was so rooting for Hawkeye and Hot Lips. And, thinking back, I realize my mom was a fanficcer who just didn't write--she told me once that she'd love to see Hawkeye and Margaret's grown-up daughter show up as an intern on Trapper John...

My favorite non-SW video possessions are America Rock, Science Rock, and Grammar Rock. I ran out of money before getting to Multiplication Rock. I have fond memories of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (the ones not named Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy, though I liked those too).

Anyone else with quasi-flower-child (or real flower child) parents? Mine (singular) was a war protestor and peace-nik, and if my friends were playing war, I was only allowed to play the unit medic (and that with poor grace). No toy guns (or blasters, though I was allowed to play with a whiffle-bat-as-lightsaber if I wanted to), no Halloweens as a soldier...

Ah, right now, I'm thinking that a beanbag chair, a hard granola bar, and some unsweetened Kool-Aid would be good.

 

Unsweetened Kool-Aid?! Heresy!

The only way to drink Kool-Aid is to put so much sugar in it until there's an inch of it in the bottom of the pitcher. Sweet almost to the point where you can't stand it.

*hackcough* Smooth... *hackcough*

Of course, that's the way I drank it as a kid. Can't do it that way now.

 

My parents were NOT hippies- but I grew up in Sonoma County CA where they all congregated. I grew up w/ lots of crafty making hippies around me.

I also wasn't allowed to watch "That redneck Dukes of Hazard show!"

But I must say, "I pity the fool" who didn't get to see "The A-Team" Mr. T was a riot

God that show was great. My sister loved Dirk Benedict back from his days on "Battlestar Galactica" (he was Starbuck) so naturally we had to watch A-Team. ("I love it when a plan comes together.") I always loved crazy Murdock who went on to become a great character in TNG series - Barclay.

Anyone around here remember "The Salem Strangler???"

 

My parents definitely weren't hippies--the last Democrat they voted for was Jimmy Carter, and they only voted for him because he was religious.

I'm a Southern girl--my dad was teaching me to shoot tin cans off tree stumps with a .22 when I was seven years old. Today that's probably the only area I agree with the Republicans on--my definition of "gun control" is "using both hands" and "hitting your target".

I went through a wild phase in my teens that lasted until I was about 28...did everything wild you can think of except for hard drugs...my form of rebellion...some of it is still there.

Sitcoms? I've never been a big TV person, but I did like "Diff'rent Strokes" (whatchatalkinbout Willis?), "The Jeffersons", "Family Ties", and the original "Cosby Show" (pre-bratty Ravin Symone, who IMHO ruined that show).

 

I'm seeing the my life preferences/forks in the road through this old series discussion. There was always a choice.

Luke Duke or Bo? Luke

Apollo or Starbuck? Both (I was an Apollo fan until the A-Team, but by then BG was long gone. I still adore Murdock/Barclay)

Han Solo or Luke Skywalker? Han

Superman/Aquaman? Aquaman

The Fall Guy or the $6 Million Man?
Either or.

Wonder Woman or Isis?
They cancelled both on me!

Okay, so those were my picks growing up.

Was the Salem strangler on DOOL?

I had Threepio underoos! (EEK... there are pictures of me posing in them. I think my brother had Spiderman.)No sugary Kool-Aid at my house. No sugar cereals, no white bread. My favourite outdoor winter game (Post 1980) was Hoth in the parking lot snowbanks down the street.

I think I'll shut up now...

Oh, and like PJL, I cannot have music with words on while I'm writing.

 

The only way to drink Kool-Aid is to put so much sugar in it until there's an inch of it in the bottom of the pitcher. Sweet almost to the point where you can't stand it.

Here here!!!

Man, that brings back memories. Summer camp in the Laurentians where we would sneak out to buy pop with 2 cent deposits on the bottles and chocolate bars for 10 cents. When a phone call was also 10 cents and when the most innovative show was a black and white comedy called "The Dick Van Dyke Show". Mind you, that is the same era that brought us "Car 54, Where Are You?" so I guess I can't be too smug, eh?

 

Yeah, I don't know why they called it "Unsweetened Kool-Aid," actually. It should have been called, "Pour-in-even-more-sugar-than-we-would Kool-Aid."

 

Was the Salem strangler on DOOL?

BINGO!

(Ten points if anyone can name who actually WAS the Salem Strangler!.... And yes, I know the answer )

 

My mother actually made Kool-Aid with half the amount of sugar it called for--and it was delicious that way. Those were the days when they had the red-dye-causes-cancer scare, so she wouldn't let us have strawberry or cherry for awhile.

Because she was home with us, she did a lot that I don't think I'll be able to do with my children. She made all our bread--I didn't have a store-bought piece of bread for years. And she carefully monitored our TV watching, so I discovered the power of books, both fiction and nonfiction.

 

What about all those mini-series that seemed to spring up in the 70's and 80's? Roots, Shogun, The Thorn Birds - Richard Chamberlin, King of the Mini-Series! And V - that was my favorite, with the lizard aliens that wore fake human skin.

I have a serious gap in late 80's television knowledge because I went to a military college where there was little or no opportunity to watch TV. I remember the Cosby Show, but that's about it.

 

V was Robert Englund's (he of Nightmare on Elmstreet fame) first 'starring role'... scary stuff man...

 

Which side was Freddy Kruger on? The humans or aliens. Gosh, what a blast to remember that show. Those cheesy special effects. And to think we thought it was so cool back then.

 

You want to talk about cheesy special effects? NOTHING beats Dr. Who. The BBC takes the prize for plastic sets, cardboard rocks and aliens that came right out of the 50s B-movies.

Even Star Trek in the mid-60s was corny, at least by today's standards. And I won't even begin to detail the sheer hilarity of Space Family Robinson. Danger Will Robinson. Danger!

10 bonus points to the person who can tell me where Wil showed up next.

 

Did anyone see the SE in the theaters (right as if anyone here DIDN'T see them?) I remember watching ANH in 97 and the scene where Han, Luke, the droids, and Chewie find out Leia's on the ship- I remember looking at the red control panels and they just looked like cardboard on the big screen.

 

EXXXSTTTTERRRRMINATE EXXXXXXXSTERRRMINATE!!!!!!! Kill the Doctor!!

Dalecks scared the crap out of me when I was little...




































*still do*

 

What about all those mini-series that seemed to spring up in the 70's and 80's? Roots, Shogun, The Thorn Birds - Richard Chamberlin, King of the Mini-Series! And V - that was my favorite, with the lizard aliens that wore fake human skin.

Thorn Birds! Yes. Loved that one. It skipped half the book, but was reasonably faithful to the rest. I miss real miniseries, the serious sixteen-to-eighteen hour dealies. These two-part movies that they're calling miniseries now just don't cut it. C'mon guys... we finally have a format to adapt long books right... let's take advantage of it!

 

The problem JediGaladriel (IMHO) is the cost of a long mini-series. Remember the Winds of War and War and Remembrance? how about North and South? There was last year's remake (a damn good one, too) of Dune and last week's attempt to combine Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. Even Lord of the Rings is a mini-series of sorts ... roughly 12 hours by the time it is done (with the added footage in the DVDs) ... Shogun could NEVER be made tonday ... and more's the pity for it.

 

I never watched "The Thorn Birds" I could just never picture Richard Chamberlin as hottie Father Ralph. That's probably one of my favorite books of all time that every few years I have to crack out and plow through again and again.

"North and South" irritated me as well. Casting was ok- except they completely changed Bent (the bad guy- from a fat slob white guy to a prissy black guy- helloooo major inconsistancy w/ the story.) I love John Jake's history books- anyone ever read The Kent Family Chronicles--- all 8 books? If you haven't I highly recommend them- it's a fun way to take a walk through the history of the United States.

I read elsewhere that NBC is working on a mini-series of Anne Rices "The Witching Hour" I am soooo praying that they do that right. I LOVE that trilogy of books.