Bad Television memories

[Niko Bellic]

Hee Haw (http://www.timvp.com/heehaw.html)

Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me


I didn't have to Google the lyrics of that song, I remembered it. Hee Haw was watched so often when I was growing up that the songs are still taking up valuable space in my head. God only knows what the booze and drugs have destroyed in my mind over the years, but the brain cells that contained that song have survived every chemical assault I have launched on them.



Donnie and Marie (http://www.osmond.com/donnyandmarie/70s-show.html)

I'm a little bit country
and I'm a little bit rock and roll


Somebody please shoot me now.


At work today, I overheard some people having a conversation about these old TV shows, and it all came back after being blocked for years.

[OVERWATCH]

'Hee Haw' was great, we watched that whenever it came on.

[Kamandi]

"I searched the world over and thought I found true love ... but you found another and *phhtttt* you were gone..."

[Intrepid]

I'd watch this every Saturday night, when I was a youngster, with my great grandmother. Lord rest her soul. I found it very disturbing.

The Lawrence Welk Show

http://www.delsjourney.com/images/news/news_01-09-15/1-6682-Welk-Band-Photo.jpg

[Dan Dare]

The Black and White Minstrel Show


http://www.sterlingtimes.org/black_and_white_minstrel_show.jpg


This was my wife's dear old Dad's favourite show. It used to air every Saturday night in prime-time and ran, believe it or not, right up until 1978.

From the mid-sixties onwards continuous campaigns were launched by Race Relations groups to have it taken off the air but the BBC, to its credit, managed to hold out for a number of years claiming that the show was not racist and was loved by its older audience.

How quaint it all seems now.

[Kamandi]

Nothing could be worse than The $1.98 Beauty Contest, although The Chevy Chase Show was almost as painful to watch.

[il ragno]

Good to see there were others traumatized by Lawrence Welk. To this day, I can't say the words "Joe Feeney" unless all the lights in the house are on.

One of the bitterest regrets I have is not having a VCR the week the Chevy Chase Show was on. A few years before, Fox had tried another guy to go up against Carson....Jerry Lewis. Not the frenetic-spazz Jerry Lewis who'd put a full glass of water in his mouth, either, but the oily-scalped shamelessly name-dropping/celeb-hugging show biz egomaniac monster. Even his Ed McMahon was the lowest of low-rent: Charlie Callas.

Two indelible memories of the show: episode 3 (it lasted a week - do the math) featured Dabney Coleman as a guest, who'd just appeared in TOOTSIE and 9 TO 5. Jerry puffed up his first question: "Dabney, in my 40-year career of making people laugh - although I don't consider myself a comedian per se - I've seen comics come and go. As you know. Most, let's be honest, are not very good. They don't have the seasoning that we got in vaudeville, in nightclubs, and on the stage, night after night. They don't get the chance to work on their chops anymore. You - my friend - are a natural, however. And do you know how I know you're a natural? I'll tell you how I know. Because as I was watching TOOTSIE the other night...and this happens to me rarely; so rarely I can't think of another time I experienced this - as I watched TOOTSIE, I...was jealous....of you. Let me repeat that, Dabney - I, Jerry Lewis... was jealous - of you. Take me through the process by which you do this marvelous thing we call 'comedy'."

And Coleman, half-amused, half-appalled, cleared his throat and began: "Well, Jerry, I just believe comedy comes out of character. I could never just make stupid faces and mug at the camera, that's not funny to me." Jerry's smug grin looked bonded to his face as he icily went to commercial a minute later. Classic!

The next night, episode 4, the guest was William Shatner. Not as deflating an encounter as Dabney Coleman for Jer...more a meeting of the minds. This time it wasn't the answer but the question that burned itself into my brain:

"Bill - we've known each other a long time, we're close friends. Level with me now - actor/director to actor/director...." I can't even remember the rest of the question, I was laughing so hard.

What an oily, smarmy, self-obsessed piece of shit that man is. No wonder Dean's parting words to him when they split up were: "You can talk about friendship and how I'm your big brother all you want, pally - when I look at you, all I see is a dollar sign."

[ironweed]

Good to see there were others traumatized by Lawrence Welk. To this day, I can't say the words "Joe Feeney" unless all the lights in the house are on.

Dude, St. Paddy's Day fast approacheth. And the way Lawrence said "Joe" "Choe?" "Chooooe?" Feeney was amazing. Though the way Joe would trot out his 817 children at the Christmas special was also an event to witness.

Actually, if there's a hell and I get sent there, I'm quite sure Sissy and Bobby will be in charge. Or maybe that smiling piano broad, can't remember her name.

And who could forget Anna Cani, our "lovely little senorita from South of the Border?" My grandmother insisted that since she was a Mexican she was the only one in the cast allowed to wear strapless dresses.


What an oily, smarmy, self-obsessed piece of shit that man is. No wonder Dean's parting words to him when they split up were: "You can talk about friendship and how I'm your big brother all you want, pally - when I look at you, all I see is a dollar sign."

Yeah, but I'll bet you cried when they did they did the big kissy-kissy make up on the telethon. Though I guess nobody said no to Sinatra and stayed in show business back then.

[Kodos]

When they cancelled "You can't do that on television"( release it on DVD you lazy Canadian bastards) "Brisco County Jr.", and "Fastlane"( the best fucking series nobody saw).

[il ragno]

I'll bet you cried when they did they did the big kissy-kissy make up on the telethon.

Missed that one, actually. Though for years, friends of mine would rent a hotel room the night before Labor Day just because we figured between 3 and 5am was statistically the most opportune time-window for Jerry to drop dead of a coronary on live tv in.

[Thomas777]

How could you guys leave out "the Magic Hour" with Magic Johnson?

[Kodos]

Whats that show with the really old lady who talks about sex... some buddies of mine made me watch that once...

[Thomas777]

Whats that show with the really old lady who talks about sex... some buddies of mine made me watch that once...

Dr. Ruth. Dr. Ruth was part of a Jewish plot to make Aryans grossed out at the thought of sex so that they would be unable to mount their wives and the Aryan race would cease to exist.

[sainte-marthe]

Whats that show with the really old lady who talks about sex... some buddies of mine made me watch that once...


Talk sex with Sue?

That is funny, she does the sex toy reviews and gives tips. On every show someone calls in to complain that their sex life has grown boring. Sue always responds with "Have you tried doggy style?", and her face lights up with a weird glow. But that is not the funniest part, what makes it a really amusing thing is that the caller HASN"T tried it. People well into their 30s and 40s still have never tried it.

My friends used to watch Talk Sex with Sue and then Adult Swim while getting drunk, and then would go to a 24 hour restaurant, a sort of Sunday ritual much more fun that church.

[Kodos]

Yeah I think Robin had the right one... she was talking about dildoes a lot and her face "got a weird glow"... it was very disturbing.

[il ragno]

Talk sex with Sue?

That is funny, she does the sex toy reviews and gives tips. On every show someone calls in to complain that their sex life has grown boring. Sue always responds with "Have you doggy style?", and her face lights up with a weird glow.

Thank you God!

I thought I'd dreamed that old woman.

How could you guys leave out "the Magic Hour" with Magic Johnson?

That ever-grinning field hand actually made Arsenio look like Washington Week in Review by comparison. I think Magic must've worked out regularly with a Stupid Coach to keep his IQ down to a managable 75 or so during the taping of that series.

[Pablo Escobar]

The tv series SISTERS http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101199/

This is the most godawful piece of crap I've ever seen.
If you want to see how I imagine hell, this series is it.

http://www.geocities.com/ruthyanat/cast1.jpg

[Keystone]

Good to see there were others traumatized by Lawrence Welk. To this day, I can't say the words "Joe Feeney" unless all the lights in the house are on.

There was an old bag who played the piano at warp speed for LW while grinning like a maniac. Around 1964 or 1965. I would see her and run out of the room crying...She was scary, man.

[Keystone]

There was an old bag who played the piano at warp speed for LW while grinning like a maniac. Around 1964 or 1965. I would see her and run out of the room crying...She was scary, man.
Alfred Hitchcock scared me too. I was a jumpy little kid.

[sugartits]

I am haunted by the memory of a recorded episode of Les Schtroumpfs that cuts off near the end of the show. The only thing I remember is Gargamel nearly succeeding in drowning some of the petite blue folk in a swamp...never got to see how it ended.

It was THE episode

[Intrepid]

I was dumfounded and repulsed at the same time, upon seeing this display for the first time.

http://tonykurtsandy.homestead.com/files/sammy___archie.jpg

[il ragno]

Did you know Moshe Dayan storyboarded that sequence?

[A. Radek]

The dark, warping abyss of Lawrence Welk at Grandma's for me as well, especially the always horrifying Polkas. Next is Big Valley, another Grandma favorite, later on.

I'm sorry, Pablo, but you have to die for bringing up Sisters. You have no need to live.

I hated Jerry Lewis. Dean Martin made that act.

[Pablo Escobar]

I'm sorry, Pablo, but you have to die for bringing up Sisters. You have no need to live.

I know. :(

[Crowley]

But that is not the funniest part, what makes it a really amusing thing is that the caller HASN"T tried it. People well into their 30s and 40s still have never tried it.



Dude, the caller was a studio employee. :D

[Jaybird]

My dad's a truck driver so he'd be gone for like two weeks, then have a whole week off and I remember him falling asleep in the middle of the day to "All my Children" and shit.
For Lord knows what, my mom had some personal vendetta against Michael Landon and we we're forbidden to watch "Little House on the Prairie" or "Highway to Heaven".
"Roseanne" was another bad memory. Although, I always had a hard on for Sara Gilbert, "Darlene", so that made up for it.
As for talk shows, I remember Pat Sajak having one on CBS that bombed pretty fast. And the worst was the Late Late Show with Tom Snyder. God, that was the most boring host in the history of television.