Streaming Recommendations (Netflix, HBO, Amazon, etc.)

Quote: Mission146

I enjoyed Matlock reruns when I was a kid, but I can't say I have even heard of those other shows.

Love Boat and Murder She Wrote we're both 80's shows and extremely popular. Murder She Wrote was on for 12 years and is still popular in reruns. For some reason I didn't like it at all. Love Boat was exactly as the title sounds, guest stars on a cruise ship every week.

Quote: Mission146

I enjoyed Matlock reruns when I was a kid, but I can't say I have even heard of those other shows.

Young people wouldn't recognize TV from 35 years ago. Very heavy emphasis on sitcoms, huge viewership numbers that are almost unimaginable today. Almost everybody watching three channels.

Although Fox debuted as a fourth network effort in October 1986, the network waited until April 1987 to commence offering prime time programming, effectively deferring its first Fall programming season until September 1987.
1986-1987 Prime Time Top 10 (millions of viewer, % of TV sets turned on at that time)
The Cosby Show (#1 34.9/53)
Family Ties (#2 32.7/49)
Cheers (#3 27.2/41)
Murder, She Wrote (#4 25.4/37)
The Golden Girls (#5 24.5/41)
60 Minutes (#6 23.3/37)
Night Court (#7 23.2/35)
Growing Pains (#8 22.7/33)
Moonlighting (#9 22.4/34)
Who's the Boss? (#10 22.0/33)

A lot of people don't realize that Betty White almost vanished from TV for 20 years (except for guest starring in episodes, doing talk and game shows). The Golden Girls basically juiced her career and set her in motion to becoming the first lady of television.

1958 The Betty White Show Herself Lead role, 14 episodes
1977–78 The Betty White Show Joyce Whitman Lead role, 14 episodes
1985–92 The Golden Girls Rose Nylund Main role, 180 episodes

I remember Betty White from the Mary Tyler Moore show which ended in the late 70s. I don't remember the '77 - '78 Betty White Show at all, but I was in high school then. I and didn't watch much TV after I started driving.

Quote: Evenbob

I cannot thank JimRockford enough for posting about the Hemingway documentary. And it just finished a couple days ago and it's available online until April 26th. There are a bunch of 1 hour interviews connected with the show that I will be watching also. To a Hemingway affectionado, this is a treasure trove of Hemingway material. I will be watching in 30 minute segments so it will take me twelve days to watch it all. Ken Burns says it took him six years to make this. I totally believe it, the amount of visual material they have assembled is beyond amazing. Stuff I didn't even know existed. Some people read Hemingway for the first time today and say, he's good, but I don't get what the big deal is. They don't realize that absolutely nobody was writing like this 100 years ago. He invented this writing style and it has been copied by absolutely everybody who wrote after him. And he did it out of the gate, he was never a struggling writer, he published his first book of short stories in his very early twenties and never looked back. He was a literary genius. And like most geniuses he had no qualms about telling you so.

https://www.pbs.org/video/hemingway-episode-1-writer/

EB, have you finished? What did you think?

Quote: Evenbob

Love Boat and Murder She Wrote we're both 80's shows and extremely popular. Murder She Wrote was on for 12 years and is still popular in reruns. For some reason I didn't like it at all. Love Boat was exactly as the title sounds, guest stars on a cruise ship every week.

I also liked Murder, She Wrote reruns when I was a kid. You said, "That Agatha Christie Show," and I have no idea who Agatha Christie is, so I didn't know what you meant. I thought there must have been a show actually called that.

Murder, She Wrote and Matlock were basically the same thing, except maybe Matlock was a little more absurdly funny and Murder, She Wrote was meant to be taken ever so slightly more seriously. I think the two shows even had a crossover episode once or twice. I don't think I'd really care for either show now, but I've been busting a gut at The Golden Girls!

My point was Betty White was not always theGrand Dame of television. For a long time she was like Paul Lynde, a funny character actor who was constantly on game shows and Roasts, but not obvious material for primary ensemble roles.
She won the Best Actress Emmy in 1951, and won 2 out of 3 nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a comedy for her work on the MTM show.

Quote: JimRockford

I don't remember the '77 - '78 Betty White Show at all, but I was in high school then. I and didn't watch much TV after I started driving.

Even if you did watch a lot of TV back then you might have missed the show. Mary Tyler Moore Enterprises created the show starring two of her supporting actresses from the MTM show (Georgia Engel and Betty White) along with John Hillerman about 2.5 years before he was cast in Magnum PI. The show was supposed to provide light sitcom counterprogramming to Monday Night Football and the high ranking but serious MASH (in it's 6th season). Predictably it did terrible and was cancelled almost immediate airing only 12 episodes in the fall and 2 episodes in January.


The Golden Girls put her back in the A league netting her Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series 35 years after winning the Emmy for Best Actress. After the age of 64 she received 17 more Emmy nominations.

Quote: Pacomartin

Young people wouldn't recognize TV from 35 years ago. Very heavy emphasis on sitcoms, huge viewership numbers that are almost unimaginable today. Almost everybody watching three channels.

Although Fox debuted as a fourth network effort in October 1986, the network waited until April 1987 to commence offering prime time programming, effectively deferring its first Fall programming season until September 1987.
1986-1987 Prime Time Top 10 (millions of viewer, % of TV sets turned on at that time)
The Cosby Show (#1 34.9/53)
Family Ties (#2 32.7/49)
Cheers (#3 27.2/41)
Murder, She Wrote (#4 25.4/37)
The Golden Girls (#5 24.5/41)
60 Minutes (#6 23.3/37)
Night Court (#7 23.2/35)
Growing Pains (#8 22.7/33)
Moonlighting (#9 22.4/34)
Who's the Boss? (#10 22.0/33)

A lot of people don't realize that Betty White almost vanished from TV for 20 years (except for guest starring in episodes, doing talk and game shows). The Golden Girls basically juiced her career and set her in motion to becoming the first lady of television.

1958 The Betty White Show Herself Lead role, 14 episodes
1977–78 The Betty White Show Joyce Whitman Lead role, 14 episodes
1985–92 The Golden Girls Rose Nylund Main role, 180 episodes

I guess the question is: How young? I'm not even forty yet, so maybe you meant younger than me. I definitely liked Murder, She Wrote when I was a kid, and I'd say that Cheers and The Golden Girls are both in my Top 5 all-time sitcoms.

I never really got into any of the others listed. I couldn't really get into Family Ties because I didn't care for any of the characters. Who's the Boss was basically the same problem. I haven't even seen any of the others, except the occasional 60 Minutes, if the topic is of interest to me, which it usually isn't.

My Top 10 Sitcoms would be:

1.) Frasier
2.) Cheers
3.) The Golden Girls
4.) Seinfeld
5.) Lucifer
6.) Wings (Yes, I know it's formulaic and stupid)
7.) Married With Children
8.) The Orville
9.) Family Guy (Animated)
10.) King of the Hill (Animated)

Quote: JimRockford

EB, have you finished? What did you think?

The first two segments we're very good, the third one sucked as I knew it would. Hemingway's life was pretty much over when World War 2 ended, 1945. His health was in steady decline and his writing career was over. Old Man and the Sea was basically a long short story he had written in his head since the 1930s. It was not his original idea, it was told to him by the Cuban guy who ran his boat. He just embellished it. In the late forties through the 50s he was basically a useless drunk who would start drinking at noon and pass out about 9 p.m.. A lot of men who wore young during Prohibition seem to have alcohol as an important part of their lives after Prohibition ended. Hemingway was one of the first modern victims of his own fame. He could not lead a normal life because he had to constantly live up to the myth that he was an indestructible man's man. Hunting, deep sea fishing, sport shooting, big game African hunter, fly fisherman, boxer who was never beaten. And of course, two-fisted drinker.

Quote: Mission146

but I've been busting a gut at The Golden Girls!

And so it begins. The next symptom to look for is an urge to drive a Grand Marquis?

Quote: JimRockford

Quote: Mission146

but I've been busting a gut at The Golden Girls!

And so it begins. The next symptom to look for is an urge to drive a Grand Marquis?

Late-80's Grand Marquis', I kid you not, are my favorite cars.