TV of my life

Lazer Tag Academy

• Grade: First and Second
• Upon reflection: No kitch value for the show itself, but tons for the game!
• Recap: Buy a Lazer Tag system, right now! Have you bought one yet? Go on ya stupid kids, bug your parents until you get one.
• Fun fact: My brother and I had one of the elusive helmets as a kid, but I’m only now finding out abut the rifles. Boy did we miss out! None of our toys, for the record, allowed us to create blocks of ice or travel through time. Refunds requested.
• On Amazon: Lazer Tag Academy videos

The Letter People

• Grade: Pre-school
• Upon reflection: High kitch value
• Recap: In Letter People Land there lived a mix of “regular” people and Letter People. The Letter People, 26 of them, all represented one English consonant or vowel and generally strutted around about town like they owned the place. The show taught kids about spelling and phonics, especially through “The Matching Game.” The gameshow-within-a-kids-show was hosted by Monty Swell and featured the Letter People combining their sounds to make words.
• Fun fact: The show was produced by my hometown PBS affiliate KETC
• Fun fact: Only vowels were portrayed as women in the show, giving it a male-to-female ratio of 21:5 — far better than the Smurf’s ratio of 1,000,000:1
• YouTube: A ton of clips

Night Court

• Grade: Pre-school through 7th grade
• Upon reflection: Classic! But only some of the humor hasn’t aged well
• Recap: What could be funnier than arraigning hookers, muggers and petty thieves? Arraigning hookers, muggers and petty thieves with this guy as judge, this guy as a lawyer and this guy as a bailiff.
• Fun fact: The show was a vehicle for Brent Spiner in his greatest role ever!
• Amazon: Night Court

Parker Lewis Can’t Lose

• Grade: 5-8
• Upon reflection: Mild kitch value
• Recap: s/Ferris Bueller/Parker Lewis.
• Fun Fact: They made a Ferris Bueller TV show on NBC and it was beat by Parker Lewis! Also, the actor who played Kube, was the son of a famous-in-St. Louis classic rock DJ on KSHE, he also went on to appear in ER.
• Amazon: First Season, Second Season

Robotech

• Grade: Kindergarten
• Upon reflection: Classic!
• Recap: This show had it all: story arcs, characters that died and stayed dead, romance, and jets that transformed into muthafuckin’ robots! Seriously, though the producers may have bastardized three separate shows to make one, it still remains a classic. Most folks in my generation were introduce to anime by this show.
• Fun fact: Before it was called anime, it was called Japanimation.
• Amazon: Robotech

Kidd Video

• Grade: Kindergarten
• Upon reflection:  Slight kitch value
• Recap: Kidd Video, yes that was a character’s name, and his friends who had formed a band were kiddnapped (see what I did there, funny eh?). Kiddnapped by a cartoon character named Master Blaster who inhabited an alternate, cartoon, universe called The Flipside. The kidds (stop me when this isn’t funny anymore), fight for, um, freedom and junk by playing music.
• Fun fact: Every one in the 80s was in a band with their friends. Every. One.

Thunder in Paradise

• Grade: 9 (High School)
• Upon reflection:  Why did I watch this?
• Recap: Hulk Hogan has a transforming boat, and a friend, and some guns, and gratuitous scenes of women in bikinis. What else would you expect from the creators of Baywatch? Now if only the boat talked and had a blinking red light…
• Fun fact: The series was filmed in and around Walt Disney World. There’s even an episode in what was once one of my favorite pavilions at EPCOT, The Living Seas.
• Amazon: Thunder in Paradise Collection

I was born in 1979, and like many of you, my parents let me watch way too much television.

Years from now when we all die of eye cancer or brain rot, the next generation will look upon us as we do upon our parents and grandparents who smoked, or sniffed glue.

“Why did they (watch so much TV/smoke/radiate their food/fly in heavier than air craft)?” they’ll ask.

“Because we didn’t know any better, and get off my lawn! You kids and your ‘rap’ music!!” we’ll mutter while we shake our fist and clench our walker tightly.

So, presented here, for your nostalgic pleasure, are the first and rerun TV shows, made-for-TV movies and cinematic triumphs that I personally remember watching.

For each masterpiece of culture I shall attempt to record, the grade I was in when it originally aired (though I may have seen some of these as reruns), my impression of the show from here in the future, a brief recap and if available, a link to purchase the show.

Now get off my damn lawn,
Chris