Shows I used to watch when I was a kid.

Let's begin....

Charles in Charge
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV.com; Wikipedia

I very vaguely recall watching this when I was a kid. So, I don't know what to say about it. But maybe I should like to see it again sometime.

Diff'rent Strokes
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV Tome

Gary Coleman was pretty good. It's always fun to see him show up now and then in something else. But anyway, um... so this rich white guy, Philip Drummond, adopted a couple of black brothers, Arnold and Willis. And he had a daughter of his own, Kimberly (who we kinda liked, I guess). I guess he was a widower, and he later married a woman (played by Dixie Carter, who we've always liked) with a son of her own.

The Facts of Life
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV Tome

A bunch of girls lived at a boarding school in Peekskill, NY. This was I guess a spin-off from Diff'rent Strokes when the housekeeper on that show went to work at this boarding school. Anyway, there were several cast changes over the years I guess, but the main four girls were Blair, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie. Jo was always my favorite. Of course I didn't see all of the series. Um... and I dunno what to say. I didn't think the show was that great, just okay; but if Kirk liked it, maybe there's something to it that I missed....

Family Ties
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV Tome

I guess this is what made Michael J. Fox famous. He was, of course, the best part of this show. It was a decent enough show, actually. I dunno what to say about it. Alex Keaton (Fox) was a conservative, and his parents were liberals. Plus Alex had a couple sisters and a brother. That's about it.

Growing Pains, ABC
IMDb; In2TV; Retro Junk; TV.com; Wikipedia

Oh yes, we like Carol. ...What? A description of the show? Well, there was a psychiatrist and his wife, and their kids. The show seemed to make Kirk Cameron pretty popular, for awhile. I dunno what to say about the show, though. It was just okay, I guess.

Head of the Class
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV Tome

This series was okay. Howard Hesseman has always been cool. And I rather liked Simone. Hmmm, this show always struck me as being "Welcome Back, Kotter," but with an advanced class instead of a remedial one.

Mork & Mindy
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV Tome

Well okay, I don't remember this too well. But I'd like to see reruns. Maybe. Anyway, Robin Williams has always been cool. What else to say? It's a spin-off from Happy Days, of course. Funny show. Mork was an alien from the planet Ork. He came to Earth to like, I dunno, study us or something. And then like fell in love with Mindy, I guess. It was weird. Oh yes, Mork was very weird. And funny. Dunno what else to say. Nanu, nanu! Um... shazbot! Or something....

Pac-Man
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV.com; Wikipedia

I dunno how much of this I saw, but I definitely saw some of it. Anyway, of course it's based on the classic video games. Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man were married, and they had a Pac-Baby, and there were the ghosts, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde. And... I dunno what to say. But I kinda liked the show.

Square Pegs
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV Tome

I don't remember it well. I wouldn't remember anything other than the title, if not for seeing a few reruns recently. Anyway, it was okay, but not great. Sarah Jessica Parker was in it, playing Patty Greene, one of the two main characters. It's always fun having pretty girls playing characters who are s'posed to be sort of unattractive and unpopular, in TV shows or movies. Her best friend, Lauren, was less interesting, I thought. In fact the only really interesting character was Johnny Slash, played by Merritt Butrick (Jim Kirk's son, David Marcus, to Star Trek fans). He was kinda weird. Actually, it seems he was s'posed to be a sort of new-waver, or whatever. Except he just came off seeming rather spacy... but funny. The whole show is s'posed to be soooo 80's, with all the trends and slang terms and fashion and whatnot (even an annoying, self-centered Valley girl). But it just sort of... gets it all wrong, I think. I mean, I was kinda too young at the time to really be aware of much of what was going on, but watching it now, it's almost like watching your parents do an impression of how they see you and your generation. Because of course, TV is written by adults. It's just sort of bizarre to watch young actors playing roles written by adults about the teenagers of the day. Kind of painful to watch, at times. The wrongness of it just makes you wince, and then you have to wince again at the laugh track. But still, it's funny, even if not for the intended reasons. And it's about one hundred and thirty-two trillion times better than "That 80's Show."

Three's Company
IMDb; official website and fan network; Retro Junk; TV.com; TV Land; Wikipedia

Well, I guess I used to watch this when I was a kid. Later on, after it had been off the air for some years, I kind of felt like it was stupid and felt guilty about having enjoyed it. But I was very young at the time, and didn't know any better. It was TV, and that was pretty much good enough. TV is good. Now... I don't know. I might consider watching reruns someday. Possibly. Maybe. But I doubt it. I suppose it wasn't really a good show, but it may not have been quite as bad as I later thought.

Anyway, the premise, as you well know, is that this guy named Jack Tripper (played by John Ritter) came to share an apartment with a couple women, Janet Wood and Chrissy Snow (both of whom I guess we kinda liked, maybe, especially Chrissy). But even though they all had their own rooms, the landlord, Stanley Roper, didn't approve of a man sharing an apartment with women, so Jack had to pretend he was gay. What else to say? Um... Jack was a chef. And he had a friend named Larry Dallas. And at some point Chrissy moved out, and was replaced by her cousin Cindy, who was later replaced by someone named Terri. (I suppose we probably kinda liked both replacements, at the time.) Oh, and Mr. Roper had a wife named Helen, with whom he argued alot. Eventually the Ropers were replaced by a new landlord, Mr. Furley, who was played by Don Knotts. But Jack still had to go on pretending to be gay. Dunno what else to say.

Oh, except that there was a brief spin-off series called Three's a Crowd (IMDb; Retro Junk; TV.com; Wikipedia). Jack moved out of the apartment and in with a woman named Vicky (who we liked). Her father didn't like that they were living together, so he made some trouble for them. But I don't remember the show that well. I seem to recall liking it, at the time, though. There was also a spin-off called The Ropers, but I don't think I ever saw that.

Too Close For Comfort
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV Tome

Later spun itself off as "The Ted Knight Show," not to be confused with an earlier series of the same name (which I never heard of until preparing this page), starring the same actor, but having nothing to do with this show. Anyway, Too Close For Comfort was one of those cliched, contrived, utterly sitcom-y sitcoms that littered the 80s, which I probably wouldn't care about today, but nevertheless enjoyed when I was younger. It's about this guy Henry Rush, and his wife Muriel, and their daughters Jackie (who we liked) and Sara, and their weird neighbor or friend or whatever, Monroe Ficus. He was kinda funny. I can't really think of anything else to say about the series, and I don't remember it that well, but I thought I might as well mention it, just for the hell of it, I guess. *shrug*