This year, I'll be recalling some of my favourite programs from television, via A-Z, of course.
How many of these do you remember?
Were these before your time?
This blog post has been written in front of a live studio audience.
1963-1970 / Petticoat Junction featuring: Bea Benaderet, Edgar Buchanon, Linda Keye Henning
Another one of those shows I didn't frequent of my own free will. Usually my sister or mother was watching this.
1986-1993 / Perfect Strangers featuring: Mark Linn-Baker, Bronson Pinchot
Back when Friday's were TGIF, this was on. Still having no car as I neared my 20's, I either went out with a friend who owned a car on Friday, or I sat home watching TV with the family.
1986-1991 / Pee-Wee's Playhouse featuring: Paul Reubens, Laurence Fishburne,
I have to be honest. This one was almost a little too zany for even me. For whatever reason, watching this show always made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. Probably because I felt it was targeted for a younger audience, still I watched it many times.
This A-Z list has been brought to you today, by....
1976 - Parkay (Featuring Vic Tayback)
1980 - Prime Computer (Featuring Tom Baker and Lalla Ward)
1980's - Pepsi (Featuring David Bowie & Tina Turner)
Hi Jeffrey! Love love love 'P'. I loved the Partridge Family - what girl didn't have David Cassidy on her bedroom wall? Petticoat Junction such sweet memories I still know the song. Sue @Sizzling60 from
ReplyDeleteSizzling Towards Sixty
I didn't watch Petticoat Junction much, but I remember it fondly because my sisters and mother did.
DeleteThe Prime Computer commercial made me chuckle. How far we've come!
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. But you have to admit, it was a lot more advanced than the Magnavox game features a few days ago.
DeleteI remember all of these!! Oh my gosh, I can still hear my granpa laughing at the Its not butter its parkay commercials!! Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, all those butter/margarine commercials were pretty funny.
DeleteBesides the Partridge Family, we wrote about completely different shows today!
ReplyDeletePee Wee Herman always freaked me out a little but I had a friend, God rest her soul, who could do the Pee Wee dance so well, it always cracked me up.
I remember watching Petticoat Junction but not that often. I didn't watch Perfect Strangers either..
Always loved the Parkay commercial! That Prime Computer spot is definitely a classic: Just goes to show how old I am: I took the computer language Fortran in college! Hated that class...
Good post Jeffrey.
Michele at Angels Bark
Big surprise here, but I found him kind of creepy too.
DeleteWow, that's so funny, I took computer language in school also!
After awhile it got to be too much for me. I was getting lost.
Hi Jeffrey - couldn't miss the Pepsi ad - Bowie and Tina - what a great one .. we didn't really have the others over here - or if we did I'd escaped to South Africa ... love the Bowie one - think I'll give it another whirl! Cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteThe Bowie commercial was a rip-off of the film Weird Science where two nerd boys create a girl with their computer. Did you ever see that?
DeleteThe Partridge Family and Petticoat Junction weren't really my taste but I did watch some episodes. David Cassidy sure was hot! ☺ Loved Perfect Strangers! Balki was hilarious. Bronson Pinchot was funny in Beverly Hills Cop as well. I wonder whatever happened to him? Never saw Pee Wee's playhouse but I remember the story about Paul Reubens getting arrested for playing with himself in a public theatre. I remember the Parkey and Pepsi commercials. David and Tina made a great pair! That computer ad sure illustrates how far technology has advanced since then. Another fun post! ☺
ReplyDeleteThose shows you mentioned were not my cup of tea either. I wonder how much that computer cost back then. The commercial really didn't say.
DeleteYou need Mrs Q to do a little dance and put a little sugar in our pants. So why am I still here? I know, I can't sing! Isn't that tragic, lol Well, you can't fault me for trying!!! At least I made half a hash of it, boom boom.
ReplyDeleteIs that a quote? I don't think I'm familiar with it.
DeleteJeffrey, Petticoat Junction with all the pretty girls! lol What a wholesome, fun show! That was in the day when girls not only liked being girls, but treated like them, too. The Parkay commercials are cute. In December we did a taste test of margins. We normally eat butter, but decided to give margin a try for certain baked foods. Anyhow, we compared the Parkay to some others and every time I opened the package I said, "Butter" and we both laughed. Yeah, I'm silly, but it's remembering vintage commercials growing up that made the taste test all the more fun. Thanks for putting a smile on my face to today!
ReplyDelete~Curious as a Cathy
All Things Vintage: Pretty Things #AprilA2Z
That sounds like the exact kind of thing I would do. Having a taste test. A few years back, I invited all my sisters and nieces and we did a chocolate taste test. It was a good day.
DeleteI loved Perfect Strangers. But when it came to the Pepsi Commercials, I think I preferred Michael Jackson over David Bowie.
ReplyDeleteMary
#AtoZChallenge P is for Patti
Don't let my brother-in-law hear you say that. He's a Bowie fanatic.
DeletePee-Wee's Playhouse had a lot of dark humor and jokes in it. Kids never got it but they were obvious. I never watched the show as a kid, but I've seen a few clips of such "comedy". I liked his new movie on Netflix a lot.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I have not seen the new movie. Didn't even know there was a new one.
DeletePetticoat Junction was always a hoot. Never did know why they were allowed to bathe in the water supply;-) I saw the Pee Wee show only once. That was enough. The Pepsi commercials always made me want to have one!
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping the water supply the girls were bathing in was used strictly for trains. Otherwise, I'd like to know why they were bathing in it as well.
DeleteThese were all misses for me. I'm trying to think what shows that began with P, now cancelled, were my favorites. Hmmm. I liked Private Practice when it first spun off from Grey's Anatomy. And I continued to like certain threads of that show (though it withered without Shonda Rimes giving it any of her attention thanks to Scandal... which led to its ultimate cancellation).
ReplyDeleteSome letters are certainly harder to find TV shows for. And then there are a few letters I thought would be hard, I found rather easy. More coming up.
DeleteI have fond memories of watching Pee-Wee's Playhouse on Saturday morning as a kid, and watching Perfect Strangers in the early years of TGIF. Perfect Strangers was my best friend's favorite show, and she got me into watching it too.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to My Magick Theatre
Onomastics Outside the Box
That whole TGIF lineup was usually pretty good. Remember the dinosaur one? It was kind of cheesy, but fun at the same time.
DeleteI never watched Petticoat Junction bore Pee Wee as I always thought he was creepy(and I was right). I did watch The Partridge Family all the time. What a shame the young girl died last year.
ReplyDeleteI never liked Partridge Family. Pee Wee WAS creepy. Yet I still watched it if my younger sisters turned it on. It was one of those TV shows that was kind of like a train wreck. You wanted to look away, but you couldn't.
DeleteI used to watch Perfect Strangers. I still remember how Larry and Balki used to do the happy dance when they were excited about something.
ReplyDeleteBalki was so funny. Or was it just funny to watch someone who was confused about everything? Or saw everything in a different light? Made the show that much more interesting.
DeleteThis one brings back memories of David Bowie. He was a fantastic singer, actor and human being.
ReplyDeleteVisiting from the A to Z Blog Challenge.
Shalom,
Patricia @ EverythingMustChange
Yes, Bowie did a lot of great things. Film, TV, stage. He did it all, on top of being the rock star he was.
Deleteneat shows!
ReplyDeleteNot a fan of any of these. I too picky, my husband bring them up on Netflix all the time. Yuck. We couldn't be more different. :)
ReplyDeleteI could stand to be more picky. I'd certainly get more writing done.
DeleteOh gosh - Perfect Strangers, I had forgotten all about that. I vaguely remember once scene where they had been the gym to try and get fit and the next day they couldn't move.
ReplyDeleteTasha
Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)
We call those guys at the gym, One Day Wonders. They knock themselves out, then ever return.
DeletePerfect Strangers was funny...I enjoyed that. Coosin Larry :)
ReplyDelete~Katie
TheCyborgMom
They were both pretty zany, weren't they?
Deletei loved the partridge family. never really got into perfect strangers. i had to use punky brewster for my 1980s post because there weren't too many to choose from.
ReplyDeleteI probably watched Punky Brewster and Perfect Strangers about the same. Which means not very often. For some reason, P was a difficult letter to find TV shows about.
Delete