Let's begin...
Adolescent shows
Adventures in Wonderland
IMDb; Retro Junk; TV.com; Wikipedia
I guess this was on Disney Channel before I had cable, but I did occasionally watch it in syndication or whatever. Even though I was too old for it, really. I don't remember it that well, but I'm sure it was kind of weird and stuff. There was a girl named Alice, of course, played by Elisabeth Harnois, who was kinda cute. And she had a cat named Dinah, and she'd go through her mirror to get to Wonderland whenever she wanted, which of course was full of all the weird characters from the books. And they'd do alot of stupid singing and dancing and stuff. I don't even remember how much I might've liked or disliked the show. But still I should just mention that I watched it sometimes, right? I guess that's all I can think to say....
Boy Meets World, ABC
ABC Family; IMDb; TV.com; Wikipedia
Reruns on ABC Family.
Not really a great show, but it was okay. Sometimes. My favorite ep was a sort of "Scream" parody or something. And it had some South Park references thrown in. And stuff. And Jennifer Love Hewitt was in it. But anyway, aside from that ep, what is there to say? Corey is clearly insane. So is his brother Eric, who is also quite stupid. Corey's best friend is Shawn, who is kinda cool I guess. Corey's girlfriend is Topanga, who we've always liked. And I think Corey's mother was in the first ever commercial for Nutra-grain cereal bars. I kinda liked her. Um... what else? I dunno. Nothing else to say, I guess.
Caitlin's Way, Nickelodeon
IMDb; TV Tome
Reruns on the N.
We most definitely like Caitlin. Kinda reminds me of Claire Danes on My So-Called Life, sort of. The show ain't that great, though. It's okay, sometimes. Anyway, this girl from Philly got shipped around to various foster homes or something, I guess, cuz her mom was dead and her dad was just gone. And she was all kind of cynical and stuff, and gets into trouble, and finally gets sent to High River, Colorado, to live with these relatives she never knew she had. Dorrie and Jim (the local vet and sheriff), and their son Griffen. And it's all rural and she doesn't like it. All she really likes is photography, but she gets a horse named Bandit, and she likes him. And she eventually starts getting used to her new family, I guess, but never completely. Anyway, I think she's pretty cool. And deserves a better show.
Clarissa Explains It All, Nickelodeon
IMDb; TV Tome
I never saw much of it, and what little I did see was just sort of passable, though sort of cheesy. But Melissa Joan Hart was a cute kid.
Degrassi Junior High, Canadian
IMDb; Retro Junk; The N; TV.com; Wikipedia
Later renamed Degrassi High (TV.com; Wikipedia). And there was an earlier show called "The Kids of Degrassi Street," which I never really saw. And now there's some show on the N called "Degrassi: The Next Generation," but I don't get the channel, so can't watch it. Anyway... this show wasn't really great. But it was on. I didn't have alot of viewing options at the time. And it wasn't really bad. It had some characters I liked. We liked Caitlin. And Joey was funny. And he and his friends Snake and Wheels had a band called, alternately, "Zit Remedy" or "the Zits." They only did one song, but I can never forget it... "Everybody Wants Something." Dunno what else to say. I probably liked a few other characters, but most of them were kinda lame. It was still... a show that deserves to be recognized and remembered, or something.
Even Stevens, Disney Channel
IMDb; TV Tome
The first full episode of this I ever watched was "Influenza," which was a total rip-off of the Buffy episode "Once More, With Feeling." But it was still kind of cool. Later, I tried to catch more of the series. Um, it's sort of about this brother and sister, Louis and Ren Stevens. Louis is kinda weird, and Ren (who we like) is an overachiever. They each have their own friends, and enemies too I guess. At least Ren seems to have an arch-rival in Larry Beale. We like Louis's friend Tawny. Um, and there's a band, too, I guess, the Twitty-Stevens Connection. Twitty is one of Louis's best friends. There's also a sort of weird guy named Tom in the show, who kind of reminds me a bit of Kirk on Gilmore Girls, but only a little. Anyway, the show can be kind of funny and stuff, but I rarely get into it enough to watch a full episode.
See also The Even Stevens Movie (IMDb; Movie Tome), in which the Stevens family wins a trip to a tropical island, but it turns out they're actually on a reality show, but they're not told this, and the evil producer pits them against each other and stuff.
The Famous Jett Jackson, Disney Channel
IMDb; TV Tome
I never watched alot of this, but it's not a bad show, really. Anyway, there's this guy named Jett who plays this cool superspy called Silverstone on a TV show of the same name. And he moves the production of his show to his hometown of Wilstead, North Carolina, cuz he wants to be with his family, and his friends J.B. and Kayla, and have a normal life in addition to being a TV star. Silverstone is kind of interesting, I guess. Sort of. Later on he gets a partner named Hawk, played by this girl named Riley (played by Lindy Booth, who we like).
See also Jett Jackson: The Movie (IMDb; Movie Tome) in which somehow the "real" Jett Jackson and the fictional Silverstone switch lives. It was weird, but generally more interesting than the regular series.
Flash Forward, Canadian
IMDb; TV Tome
Sometimes reruns on Disney Channel.
A show about four friends in junior high, I believe... The main two were Becca Fisher (played by Jewel Staite, who we like, and who we'd see in other things later, most notably Firefly) and her best friend and neighbor, Tucker James. The other two major characters were their friends Christine (who we like) and Miles. Anyway, I'm not sure what to say about the show except it was just plain fun. It was a kind of silly, trivial, unimportant little show. But did I mention how fun it was? It was so much fun! And sometimes you really don't need any more than that.
Flight 29 Down, Discovery Kids on NBC, Saturdays 11am (check local listings)
Discovery Kids; IMDb; TV.com; Wikipedia
This little plane carrying ten students from Los Angeles to Palau for a Micronesia EcoAdventure, crashes somewhere in the South Pacific. Three kids left with the pilot to explore and look for help or whatever. Haven't seen or heard from them in quite awhile. So there's basically just 7 characters (all around 16 years old, except for Lex). A girl named Daley and a boy named Nathan spent some time fighting over which one would get to be leader, though personally I thought it should have been Daley's little stepbrother Lex. He seems to be the smartest person on the island, despite being just a little kid. However, an election was held, and the one who was voted leader was... Jackson, a boy no one knew very well, who tends to keep to himself. There are also a couple of annoying characters named Taylor and Eric, who don't want to do anything to help out, and neither of them seems very smart. And Taylor's always complaining about everything. There's also a girl named Melissa who seems to be the one most interested in doing whatever she can to help and get along with everyone, plus she has a crush on Jackson.
I have to say, nothing terribly interesting really happens on the show, and it all seems fairly lame. The kids argue about various things, but somehow they always end up working things out. And later arguing about something else. Oh, and they all record sort of video diary entries on a video camera. Anyway, the show seems to have improved a bit since the first episode, but I still don't think it's very good. I mainly watch because the girls are cute.
Life With Derek, Disney Channel, various times
Disney Channel; IMDb; TV.com; Wikipedia
Okay, there's this girl named Casey (who we like), whose mom Nora just married George; and Casey, her little sister Lizzie, and Nora moved in with George and his sons, Derek and Edwin, and daughter Marti. There's not enough space in the house, and Casey isn't happy about having to move, start a new school, make new friends, and everything. And she's especially not happy to be living with Derek, who's really annoying. To make matters worse, he seems to always get whatever he wants at home, and at school everyone thinks he's really cool. (Kinda reminds me of Ferris Bueller, except he actually was cool.) Anyway, the shows okay. Not great, but I like it well enough I guess.
Lizzie McGuire, Disney Channel
IMDb; TV Tome
I never watched too much of this, but it ain't bad, really. I guess it ccould be kinda funny and stuff. It's about Lizzie McGuire (who we like) and her friends Miranda (who we like) and Gordo, who all go to like junior high or whatever. We really like Lizzie's mom, though. She played Data's daughter Lal in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (see Star Trek shows), though I think it's awful hard to tell. She looks very different. Hmmm, what else to say? Lizzie's little brother Matt kinda reminds me of Harper, on Andromeda. As a kid, I mean. If that show ever does a flashback to Harper's youth, I think they should get this kid to play him. Anyway, Matt has a friend named Lanny who never talks, but Matt always understands him perfectly, somehow. Um... Lizzie's dad is played by Robert Carradine, and I want to mention that his brother David Carradine, from "Kung Fu," (which I hope to see someday) guest starred in one episode, which was cool... And that's all I can think to say, for now....
See also The Lizzie McGuire Movie (IMDb; Movie Tome), which I haven't seen and dunno if I will.
Naturally, Sadie, Disney Channel, Sundays 4pm
Disney Channel; IMDb; TV.com; Wikipedia
I guess this is a Canadian show. It's about this teenaged girl named Sadie Hawthorne (who we quite like), who's into science and nature, and tries to compare her studies of nature to human behavior. She's got an annoying older brother named Hal, who's in a band called Morning Breath, that isn't very good; and a best friend named Margaret Browning-Levesque (who we kinda like), and another friend named Rain Papadakis. And then there are some mostly annoying characters like Mallory (who we kinda like) and Ron. And Sadie has a job, I think, at a pet store or veterinary clinic or something like that. I dunno. She goes to her boss for advice alot, though. At least in the first season. Also in the first season, Sadie has a crush on a boy named Owen Anthony, but in the second season she's more interested in a boy named Ben Harrison, who actually I think is a much better match than Owen. Dunno what else to say about the show. I think it's just sort of okay.
Saved by the Bell, NBC
IMDb; Retro Junk; Saved By the Bell Now (fansite); The N; TV.com; Wikipedia
Okay, fine. I used to watch this when it was first on. I enjoyed it. I suppose I must say, we liked Kelly, Lisa, and Jessie. And I thought Zack was really cool. Mr. Belding was funny. Screech was kinda funny, if somewhat annoying. I suppose they were all kinda funny. The Max was also a cool hangout, especially when Max himself was running the place. Of course, I suppose I watched this for years before I learned it was like a sort of spin-off or continuation of a series called Good Morning, Miss Bliss (IMDb; TV.com). They eventually reran old episodes of that, so I got to see a bit of it. It wasn't really any different from SBTB as far as I recall, except that it included a teacher named Miss Bliss (played by Hayley Mills). There were also later spin-offs of SBTB (The College Years, of which I saw very little, remember basically nothing, and isn't really worth mentioning anyway; and The New Class, which I never saw at all).
Anyway, SBTB was about this group of friends who went to Bayside High together. The main character seemed to be Zack Morris, who was sort of... I dunno, a bit of a schemer or whatever. I don't remember that well. His best friend was a brainy girl named Jessie Spano. His girlfriend was Kelly Kapowski. There was also a jock named A.C. Slater, and a geek named Samuel "Screech" Powers. Screech really liked this girl named Lisa Turtle, who was rather vain and spoiled I think, and didn't like Screech, except as a friend. And the principal was Mr. Belding. And I dunno what else to say.
I can't remember too much specifically about anything that ever happened on the show. But... after I stopped watching it, I eventually felt guilty about ever having watched it or liked it. Like, it was really pretty lame, or whatever. Still, Adult Swim reran the show for a little while, and eventually I tried catching an episode, but I only watched a very little bit of it because it sucked beyond my capacity to bear. I dunno, maybe there are episodes I wouldn't mind watching again someday, but I may never know. I doubt I'll ever try to watch it, if the opportunity presents itself. But whatever, it's a part of my TV-watching past, so... there you are.
Scout's Safari, Discovery Kids
Discovery Kids; IMDb; TV.com; Wikipedia
Well, I watched some of this on NBC. Like pretty much all Discovery Kids shows, I suppose it was meant to be educational, and like pretty much all of the ones I've seen, I didn't really find it to be particularly so. But of course, I watched them as an adult, so whatever. Um... so, there was this girl named Jennifer "Scout" Lauer (who we quite like), who lived in New York City, but then she had to go stay in South Africa with her mother Cheryl and step-father Roger Schickler, at a Lodge they ran. She had been there before, I guess, when she was quite young, and had a friend named Bongani, who she now reconnected with. But she she also kept in touch via webcam with her rather Goth friend Sherna (who we kinda like), in New York. Oh, and Scout also had a step-brother named Tyler, who was quite a troublemaker. And there was Bongani's uncle C.B., a vet who worked at the Lodge. And there were plenty of African animals around, of course, like elephants and whatnot. Dunno what else to say. Not a bad show, but I wasn't too interested in it....
Little kids' shows
The Big Comfy Couch, PBS
IMDb; TV Tome
I never watched much of this, what with it being for little kids and all, but Loonette was kinda cute, and there was a cat named Snicklefritz. Any show with a cat named Snicklefritz has to have some redeeming value, in my opinion.
Captain Kangaroo
IMDb; TV Tome
What can I say? I'm sure it must've been important to me when I was a little kid, but I don't remember it that well now. I remember the Captain, of course, and Mr. Green Jeans, and Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit. I especially remember the ping-pong balls always falling on the Captain. Really, it's a classic show and quite good and I wouldn't mind seeing some more of it. Oh, I also remember Picture Pages. Actually, I remember them best from say like the mid-90's or so, I'd turn on the show for nostalgic value. I remembered Picture Pages (IMDb; Toonarific; Wikipedia), vaguely, from when I was a little kid, but couldn't really remember that it was part of Captain Kangaroo before. But I guess it was. Anyway, it's great fun, if you're into the nostalgia.
LazyTown, Nickelodeon, weekdays 11:30am
Go Go Lazytown! (fansite); IMDb; Nick Jr.; Noggin; official website; Toonarific; TV.com; Wikipedia; YTV
This is a kids' show, made in Iceland. It's um, y'know... for kids. And not one of the sorts of shows for kids that I think are just as good for any age. No, this one is for kids, alright. Preschoolers, ostensibly, though the main characters are all 8 years old (though the actress playing Stephanie was like 13 at the time). But, it's not mind-numbingly, brain-shreddingly unbearable like most kids' shows seem to be in recent years.
Anyway, here's the idea: there's this town that has like three characters who are played by live actors, and everyone else is puppets. The main characters are the local superhero (or slightly above average hero), Sportacus; the local villain, Robbie Rotten; and this sort of "pink cheerleader" girl who just moved to town, named Stephanie. She's cute, and her singing is pretty catchy. Actually, she kinda seems to me like an anime character come to life. The puppet characters, who all seem more prone to laziness than Stephanie, except when she or Sportacus are encouraging them not to be, include 8-year-olds Ziggy (who eats too much candy), Pixel (who lives for computers and video games), Stingy (who is just plain stingy, and kinda reminds me a bit of Gollum, especially this one time when Ziggy got an automatic candy making machine), and Trixie (who, um... I dunno how to describe, maybe a bit of a tomboy; she certainly likes to tease Stephanie for being so girly), and adults, Mayor Milford Meanswell (Stephanie's uncle, who if possible is even dumber than the Mayor of Townsville, from The Powerpuff Girls [see cartoons 1]), and Miss Bessie Busybody (I think she might be the mayor's secretary, and potential love interest, but mostly she's just the town gossip).
Basically the point of the show is to get kids to, you know, exercise, by playing, having fun, being active, instead of... being lazy. There isn't much of a plot aside from Robbie trying to do some sort of evil thing, designed to get kids to be lazy or get Sportacus to leave town; and the good guys stopping him. And occasionally breaking into seriously catchy song and dance. There's also a fair amount of humor. Sometimes I don't find it at all amusing, but occasionally I find it hilarious. And that's about all I can think to say.
Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, PBS
IMDb; Toonarific; TV Tome
I used to watch this when I was a little kid, along with Sesame Street (muppet shows) and The Electric Company (educational shows). It's a classic, of course. I dunno what to say about it. Fred Rogers came in singing, changed his shoes and stuff, talked to us kids, friends stopped by, Trolley took us to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where there were a bunch of puppets and people and stuff, and later took us back to Fred's place. What else to say? Um, I guess we liked Betty Aberlin. Yep, dunno what else to say about the show. It's just um... an integral part of early childhood, and stuff....
Of course I was too old for the show, but I still liked it. It had 3 hosts. Two were real live humans, Mara (who we liked) and Lucy. There was also a puppet kid named Kino, voiced by Mark Ritts, who was also Lester in Beakman's World (see educational shows). Anyway, in each episode various stars would come on to read stories to Kino and some real live human kids. It was pretty cool. I miss it.