Most of the serial TV shows listed here are from my early years in the 1960's, and looking back, most of them were good shows that I would watch again today. As the 60's rolled into the 70's fewer TV shows caught my attention, as most TV serials were becoming ever more baseline dumb. By the mid-1970's there was almost nothing being produced in the realm of serial TV that interested me.

 

Pondering the list, it would appear that I was watching a lot of TV during my early years, especially when considered along with the movie list. I don't recall ever feeling like I watched more than an average amount, but then, I do list a lot of shows here! I'll have to expand on that later...

 

Other than news programs, documentaries, The History Channel (pre-2008), and movies on the Western channel, I haven't watched much TV since the 1970's. Northern Exposure (1990-1995) was the last serial TV program that I tuned into almost every week, and I probably watched Modern Marvels on The History Channel (pre-2008) more than any other program since the Northern Exposure days.

 

As an aside, when The History Channel dumbed-down most of its programming in 2008, becoming simply "History," it became largely a load of pop rubbish like most of the other networks. History International maintains more of the old style, but many of its programs are also weak.

 

As I look over the list below, so many of those old shows were choice!

 

Title	Date	Notes
12 O'Clock High	1964-1967
Alias Smith and Jones	1971-1973
The Andy Griffith Show	1960-1968
The Ascent of Man	1973	Jacob Bronowski. BBC documentary.
Astro Boy	1963-1965
Batman	1966-1968
The Beverly Hillbillies	1962-1971
Bonanza	1959-1973
Breaking Away	1980-1981	The movie...
The Civil War	1990	Documentary by Ken Burns.
Clay Jenkinson as Meriwether Lewis	Ongoing	The Chautauqua Method. The Jenkinson portrayal of Meriwether Lewis that I have watched many times was recorded in Tukwila, WA, in 2003. The presentation is riveting (in spite of a few distracting nods to political correctness).
Colombo	1971-1978
Combat!	1962-1967
COPS	1989+
Dark Shadows	1966-1971
Daniel Boone	1964-1970
Death Valley Days	1952-1975
The Dick Cavett Show	1968-1975
The Ed Sullivan Show	1948-1971
Firing Line	1966-1999
Flipper	1964-1967
Fred Kirby	1960's
Lost In Space	1965-1968
The Merchants of Cool	2001	Documentary from the FrontLine series.
Get Smart	1965-1970
Gunsmoke	1955-1975
Grizzly Adams	1977-1978
Hogan's Heroes	1965-1971
The Huntley-Brinkley Report / This Week With David Brinkley	1950's-1990's
Johnny Quest	1964-1965
Kung Fu	1972-1975
Lassie	1954-1973
Leave It To Beaver	1957-1963
Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corp of Discovery	1997	Documentary by Ken Burns. The music from the soundtrack of this documentary has played a thousand times in my world...
Little House on the Prairie	1974-1982
The Little Rascals	1922-1944	Also known as Our Gang.
Lost in Space	1965-1968
McHale's Navy	1962-1966	Ernest Borgnine.
Mission Impossible	1966-1973
Modern Marvels	1995+
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom	1963-1988
My Three Sons	1960-1972
Northern Exposure	1990-1995
On the Road - With Charles Kuralt	1967-1987	Very influential... Charles Kuralt.
The Porter Wagoner Show	1960-1981
Rawhide	1959-1966	Looking back, I can clearly see how the character Gil Favor contributed to my conception of the "real man." Other characters who contributed were Roy Rogers, Ben Cartwright (Bonanza), Ward Cleaver (Leave It To Beaver), Steve Douglas (My Three Sons), etc. Note that while fictional characters such as these were influential, my conception of the "real man" was formed even more by real men such as my Father.
The Red Skelton Show	1951-1971	Red Skelton
The Red Green Show	1991-2006
The Road Runner Show	1966...
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show	1959-1964
Route 66	1960-1964
The Roy Rogers Show	1951-1957
Shindig!	1964-1966
Sky King	1951-1959	I watched the Saturday lunchtime reruns in the mid-60's.
The Sons of Hercules (TV movie series)	1960's	Theme song - "The Mighty Sons of Hercules"
Star Trek	1966-1969
The Story of English	1986	Documentary directed by William Cran.
Then Came Bronson	1969-1970
Time Tunnel	1966-1967
Tom & Jerry	1940-1958...	My favorite episode is "Pecos Pest." Even now, I can watch Tom & Jerry episodes for hours...
The Twilight Zone	1959-1964
The Up Series (Every 7 Years)	1964 + 7...	Documentary directed by Michael Apted.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea	1964-1968
The Wackiest Ship in the Army	1965-1966
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	1961-1969	Walt Disney.
Wagon Train	1957-1965
The Western Tradition	1989	Lecture series presented on public TV by Eugen Weber.
The Wild Wild West	1965-1969	Artemus Gordon and his gadgets, and the well appointed train car that James West and Artemus Gordon traveled in sparked my young imagination week after week...
The Woodwright's Shop - With Roy Underhill	1979...	I do not support government funded TV and radio, but the Woodwright's Shop is a fine show. The point is made that back in the 1960's, when all TV broadcasting came from just 3 networks, more program variety was needed. PBS was created to fill that gap. But since the 1960's that gap has been filled by a plethora of new commercial TV networks. Which is not to say that commercial network TV generally meets high standards. Commercial TV networks produce large amounts of garbage; but at least they are not subsidized by tax payer dollars. The government has no business funding TV, radio, or the arts in general.

 

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television