KSFan, thank you so much. I'm off to google!

How about...

The Kids from C.A.P.E.R
The San Pedro Beach bums
Feather and Father
When Things were Rotten

I'll try to think of some others later.

Things were bad, and that ain't good... good for Robin Hood.

My pet obscure TV show was Time Tunnel.

Was that the show with James Darrin?

I think it with Darrin. It was two guys, one a scientist, that kept getting bounced around in time. I think austin Powers was spoofing their time tunnel in the second movie. It was an Irwin Allen show. I remebered it from when I was very young. Then I saw a rerun recnetly and found out how awful it was. But it was fun to finally see it again.

I remember an anime called " The Samurai Pizza Cats" although my memorie isn't really reliable so I may be wrong.

Fellow old-timers: I remember Wonderama and Sandy Becker growing up in NYC, also Officer Joe Bolton, who showed 3 Stooges shorts and took it all very seriously, detailing the differences between Curly and Shemp episodes. I think the guy's name was Jack McCarthy, and he hosted the St Patrick Day parade. Other 60's shows - Ball Four based on Jim Bouton's book. The hook, if I remember, was that all the ballplayers were played by retired baseball and football players. None of them could act and the show was cancelled after a couple of weeks, very rare back then. The Time Tunnel, an out of control time machine kept dropping a group of scientist into random times in the past - of course it would always turn out to be in some famous event in history (Titanic, etc). It's About Time another time travel show with Joe E Ross and (I think) Imogene Coco as cave people. In the first few episodes a pair of astronauts accidentaly went back in time, but later on they came back to the present with the cave couple. The Secret Life of Henry Fife Red Buttons is a meek guy who happens to resemble a Russian super-spy. In every episode a CIA-type would pressure him into impersonating the spy to confuse the enemy. The sad thing is although its been about 35 years since It's been on, and I probably only saw it about a half dozen times, I still remember the theme: A foreign spy arrives by the name of U-31, on his first day in, he's done in by a hit-and-run, got to find a man who looks like U-31, but who? HENRY FIFE!. Other than this, I am a sane, normal person.

I remember that show. With Mr. Anane the talking pineapple. I thought it was a canadian show.

Does anyone else remember Vegetable Soup that used to run on PBS? (One of the NYC stations used to pair it with Big Blue Marble). I remeber a segment involving marionettes that used to travel through space in a treehouse/speaceship.

How about Villa Allegre or Carascolendas? What little spanish I knew as a kid came from those shows.

Vegetable Soup?!? My god! I can even remember the refrain from the theme: "it takes... all kinds of vegetables... all kinds of vegetables... to make a vegetable soup!!" Back in the 70's, things were still groovy like this! The first part of the show was a puppet skit called "Outerscope 1" about kids who had made a rocket in their backyard. Their adventures were very 70'sish inclusive- the most memorable for me being the Tree Treats and the YunYuns. Tree treats were puppets made out of oranges and were the upper chaste of their planet, while YunYuns were onions and lower chaste. Social commentary in a kids show- who'da thunk?!? Other sequences were somewhat "Zoom-like" with inclusiveness and exposure to different cultures, etc. This show aired in Syracuse, NY at 6:15 in the morning & I would literally be waiting for it to start as a youngun.

And Big Blue Marble! International inclusiveness and sensitivity training. This was on Saturday mornings very early-- which leads me to believe these were both syndicated shows.

Yes, there was a show called Samurai Pizza Cats, yet another cartoon inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

For years I had a subscription to Starlog, which was very fond of doing stories on old scifi shows from the 60s. Irwin Allen got lots of ink. I remember they did numerous features on Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. All before my time, so I never would have heard of them without the magazine. Had to give up the subscription when it got too expensive.

I do remember Big Blue Marble, Villa Allegra, and the original Electric Company.

Laaa, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, laaaa
VILLA ALLEGRE!

I remember that show! I had read a book by one of my childhood faves, Paula Danziger, about a girl whose family moved to the first moon colony and I remember that I used to get mixed up about which stuff had happened to the girl in the book and which stuff happened to the girl on that show.

Sonny Fox and Bob McCallister. McCallister was actually a magician. My Dad had a friend that was a member of the NY Magicians Guild, and he got us in to see their annual award shows. It was the coolest thing when I was a kid.

Swinging the night stick. And there was also some captain something. Sounded kinda bombed. "Eight bells, that means its 3 o'clock kids..."

Its about time, its about space. Its about blahdy blah blahdy blah... human race that's all I remember.

If you read the book, its obvious why you couldn't make a show about it. But I think it was the 70's. Bounton used to pitch for the Clifton Tigers semi-pro team right in NJ for many year until he made it back to the majors with his knuckleball for a season with the Braves, IIRC.

Was there a show called "Then Came Bronson"?

The thing I remember most about "Big Blue Marble" is that I got my first pen pal from the show. Unfortunately, I found out that I wasn't good at writing letters (kinda critical), so we lost touch. So Michael if you are out there, hi! :)

Does anybody remember The Adventures of Superboy? It was about Clark Kent/Superboy, the college years. It was kind of an obscure show though. The show never came close to reaching the popularity that the current Smallville has attained. Then again, it was only a syndicated show, and I think it aired during the weekends.



There was another syndicated show that aired around the same time as Out of this World and The Adventures of Superboy that I used to watch; it was called Small Wonder. That wacky robot girl always provided some good laughs.

OMG!!! I totally forgot about Villa Allegra & Electric Company!! I LOVED EC. "12 banana cream pies....."

I kinda remember Suberboy. It came on after My Secret Identity in my area, which was a pretty natural show to pair it with.

(edit: bad typobeast!)

It's frightening but I only don't know about 6 shows mentioned on this entire thread of over a hundred pages.
Probably the most obscure show I could come up with is the Kalikacks. It was supposed to be a comedy and was so bad it was pulled after only one ep. I still remember one of the scenes had to do with a guy interviewing a mechanic who was giving tips on how to sell bad used cars to people. As I recall this was not just a pilot but an actual show.

Inside OUT may or may not have been a pilot. It had Farrah Fawcett in it and was a spy spoof.

I do need help with this one. I can't remember the title and would be curious if anybody can name it. It was a children's show that was on in the early afternoon daily (as opposed to on Saturday mornings) and the central figure was this really fat guy painted green. He sang his national anthem which went "Gory Gory Transylvania, the werewolves and vampires will maim yah" it had a bunch of short skits each ep and a running punch line where different characters would say "imagine a 3 toed sloth!!!" There was also a swamy in some skits but that is about all I can remember. I remember I used to watch it all the time because it was interesting to see what people who must have all been very stoned could produce. If there was one coherent thought during it's run they certainly hid it well.

Does anyone remember a Saturday morning show about baseball hosted by Johnny Bench? Please tell me that I wasn't dreaming this.

It's nice to see some people remember some of the more obscure shows. I haven't seen this one mentioned.

There was a show called Star Games in the mid 1980s. It was similar to the Battle of the Network Stars, but the teams consisted of 3 men and 3 women from different tv shows. There were teams from the Brady Bunch, Days of Our Lives, even the Police Acadamy and Porky's movies. It was hosted by Dick Butkus and Bruce Jenner and came on Saturdays before Solid Gold, I think. Does anyone else remember this?

Ooooohhhh...Big Blue Marble came on at about 11-11:30 on Saturdays, so aired in sort of a transitional dreamtime between Saturday morning cartoons and actual real-life outdoor playtime. I remember the feeling as always a little poignant when it was over--what was that closing song? "The world is just a marble..." or something?--like baby childhood is over and now it's time to take a step outside.

I think this was called "The Baseball Bunch" or something with bunch in the name. They had boys and girls learning the fundmentals of baseball. Plus, there was the Chicken.

Okay, here's one that I don't know the name, but it was one of my faves.

Sitcom about a family with a grown son and the mom runs a daycare center in the house and there was the one really funny episode where the son feels ignored so he dreams he the lost Brady Bunch kid.

Name, anyone?

Step-by-Step Patrick Duffy, Suzanne Sommers and the kid who dreamt of being in the Brady Bunch played Greg in the Brady Bunch movies.

Watch it people, I'm on a roll! With mayo.

ETA: Shelwood is correct. I am off my roll. No mayo, just crack.

auntie317, I think that was Day By Day. (It's been mentioned upthread). The son was Christopher Barnes, who went on to play Greg in The Brady Bunch Movie. Also had Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Courtney Thorne-Smith, and a very small Thora Birch. The mom was played by the female reporter from Lou Grant.

Yes, there was a show called Then Came Bronson.



Sounds like The Hilarious House of Frightenstein to me, which starred the late, great, lamented Billy Van in a thousand and one (okay, I'm exaggerating... slightly) roles. It was a Canadian kids show, from the early 70's I believe. The actor who played Igor (the really fat green guy) passed away in the 70's I think, Billy Van just passed away about a year ago.

Dinosaucers! Lord almonkey, does that take me back. Funniest part? I recently discovered that one of the show's writers was one of my favorite authors, Diane Duane.

Yes, thank you Shelwood! That's it. I don' t know why, but I remember that show being pretty funny.

Thanks KS. Wasn't it some guy riding around on his motorcycle for no reason? I vaguely remember some guy with a wool knit hat riding a honda around.

Back then almost everything was a detective show. Mannix, McCloud, Columbo, Baretta, McMillian, Streets of SF, and Longstreet, Cannon. I think there was a pilot for a Mexican detective series also, but I don't think it was picked up.

Ok, over the past 10 years I have been unable to find a SINGLE PERSON who has any memory of this show. At this point I'm pretty sure I dreamed it. It was about a family (of 4, I think-- mom, dad, boy and girl in their early teens) who were traveling in Egypt and somehow got sucked through the eye at the top of the Great Pyramid. I vividly remember a line that went something like "You know, like on the back of a dollar!" They ended up in an alternate universe, or something, where for some reason police were after them. The alternate universe stuff that I saw was all with people, so it wasn't as if there were big blue aliens or anything. The only actual plot I remember had the kids (the family?) forming a band in the new universe, and becoming incredibly famous singing Beatles songs. I think they had gross, matching blue and white suits, and of course they got away right before the AU Cops got them. Anyone? Please? I think the title might have had the word "World" in it, but that also could be, you know, totally wrong.

ETA: AH! Dani257 remembers!

And, anyone remember Otherworld? I caught reruns on Sci-fi (there weren't many). It was about a family that kept getting sent to these strange worlds, and they had to find out how to get home.

Thank you, Dani. And now I'm going to a)set up a Tivo wishlist, and b)call everyone I know with the news.

Then Came Bronson was on NBC in the late sixties and starred an actor named Michael Parks who was very briefly the "It Boy" of the moment. He was good-looking enough, but had a shuffling, mumbling "Method Actor" delivery which got real old, real fast. He sounded very much like the young Robert Blake.

The show was about a Brando-esque loner named "Bronson" (maybe it was his first name, maybe it was his last, who knew?) who zoomed around the country on his bike in a black leather jacket and knit hat and had a different adventure each week. It was supposed to be very hip and socially revelant in a late-sixties youth culture way. But underneath the brooding existentialism, he was really just a hippie Ann Landers, solving problems in each new town he hit and then moving on. He helped love-starved women discover their sensuality (which gave him an excuse to take his shirt off - always the high point of each episode); reconciled crusty old fathers and rebellious young kids; encouraged teenage misfits to believe in themselves; and rallied apathetic townsfolk to stand up against bigotry.

I think it's time for a big-screen version with Mark Whalberg.

sakana1: I don't remember the show myself, but this page remembers.

There's also an "Otherworld" show guide here with what looks like pretty complete cast lists and episode summaries.

goin' down that long, lonesome highway... gonna, gonna live life my way-

Hey, thanks Albany. I had some vague memories and that stupid little song in my head. I guess it was supposed to be like Jack Kerouac for the masses, and 15 years late. I think Marky-Mark is a good call, since Planet of the Apes must have dropped his value a lot. Or maybe Joey Lawrence.

Did someone mention Banachek (sp?) yet? I think it starred the actor Tarentino used in Foxy Brown.

Banacek starred George Peppard, but I truly don't remember whether it came before or after The A-team. In Banacek he was an insurance investigator.

If you're thinking of Robert Forster, he had a show called Banyon, in which he starred as a 1930s private detective.

Banacek (with George Peppard as noted) was rerun on TV Land for awhile.

I loved Banacek-- it had a great, cool guy atmosphere (ala Rockford Files). Plus, Peppard had great hair.

If you're looking for a Robert Forster fix, please, please, please watch Karen Sisco, imho the best new show on tv. Forster plays Karen's dad and is utterly magnificent.

Finally, thanks for the links for Otherworld. It cracks me up that there were like 8 episodes, and yet a ton of people here remember as a key to their childhoods. Or maybe I'm just projecting....

Thanks guys. I was thinking of Banyon, but somehow Banachek got mixed into my childhood memory. But now I remember Banachek as well. Yeah, he had the cool hair, sort of a Its-Quarter-to-Three-Sinatra thing going on. Or wait, was that the show where he switched to the Roman Legion comb-forward look?

I remeber liking Bayon because it was set in the 30's. I will give Sisko a try now that I know Forster is on the show. I was glad to see him make a comeback in Jackie Brown.

Oh. My. God. I remember this! It had a long and frantic non stop(well about 2 minute) opening theme that that took up all the breath in my little prepubescent throat - which I loved - I knew all the words too and that of course was the initial draw for me. Man, that takes me WAY back.

Samurai Pizza Cats ....Oh Yeah!
Who do you call when you need some pepperoni!

Does anyone else remember What About Joan? I thought it was funny at first and for the life of me I cannot remember if it had a second season?

Thanks for the Hilarious House of Frankenstein info. Althought the name does not ring a bell with me it might be the right show. I don't think Frankenstein was actually on the show but that doesn't mean that couldn't have been the name. Maybe I can dig up some info on the name and verify if it's what I was remembering.

Reg Otherworld not only do I remember it I remember each ep and I even described me fav ep upthread. I think I have the eps somewhere in my video library.

Banacek had one ep where somebody had supposedly stolen a HUGE computer the size of an entire room. Banacek figured out it had not really been stolen. The guy who was selling this billion dollar computer hadn't actually built it, just a huge panel with blinky lights. To "steal" it all he did was turn the panel around to a back painted the same color as the rest of the walls. Banacek noticed the room had shrunk about 6 inches. This show didn't last long and at the time I was soooo disappointed.

Gracelessly, What About Joan did have a second season, but it only lasted like two or three episodes before it got canned. I liked that show, too. I thought Joan Cusack and Kyle Chandler had great chemistry.

Does anyone else remember Visionaries? I don't remember any mention of it in this thread as far as I can remember. It was a cartoon about these kind of futuristic-medieval knights on another world who all had these animal ‘totems’ they could turn into like an eagle, a fox, a lion etc for the heroes and various nasty-looking creatures for the villains. Although the two women characters got stuck with having dolphin and shark totems, so unless there was water nearby, they were pretty useless.

I thought it was a pretty cool cartoon, even though I was probably a little old to watch it by that time. The animation and voices were really well done, and the plots intelligent enough, but I think it only lasted a season. I even remember one of the spells one of them used:



How sad is it that I remember that?

Sure. Mid 80s is right, and it was syndicated (so it was shown at different times in different cities). Dick Butkus was more the "floor commentator" -- the hosts were Bruce Jenner and Pamela Sue Martin -- the latter replaced for the second half of the season by Morgan Brittany. Among the things I remember about the show:

-- For the first few weeks (till producers watched the dailies, I assume, the guys being interviewed after their swimming competitions in their speedos, which under the camera lights revealed pretty much everything. Later in the series they'd clearly gotten the directive to for god's sake put on a warmup suit or at least a towel before getting too near the cameras.

-- The team from "Roots" which was as team captain LeVar Burton put it "5 black people plus Doug McClure," devoting 7 minutes of their show to joshing with Mark Spitz about how they shouldn't be expected to swim, and a Cadillac race would be more in their line. I'm certainly not going to get stuffy about some non-PC kidding around among pals, but it surprised me coming from the very actors who raised America's consciousness about racial oppression. I guess that doesn't mean they can't have fun....

-- The shall-we-say tenuous connection of some of the competitors with the show they were representing. "St. Elsewhere" and other big-ensemble dramas still had to resort to guest stars to fill out the 6 players. On the "Dynasty" team if I remember right, all the men were "dead" on the show (Billy Campbell, etc.).

Visionaries? Hell, yeah. I named myself Cyndarr (Cindar) back in the late 1980's on the pre-WWW online communities. The toys were wicked-cool. One of my favorite short lived cartoons, along with SilverHawks and M.A.S.K.

SilverHawks kicked all kinds of ass!! Great Cartoon, we actually went through like 20 of them by the time the cartoon ended. I use to know them all. I enjoyed it better than the much vaunted 'Thundercats'

Holy crap! M.A.S.K.! Those were the coolest vehicles ever. My brothers had all of them, so I got to play without actually saying that I wanted them. I think that show was our favorite because the main guy's son always somehow ended up involved-- so we, too, could dream of getting to play with real life transforming things. And bad guys! And weaponry!

MDKNIGHT, try this url: Hilarious House of Frightenstein is this what you're remembering?

I miss this show. Hope it's released on DVD soon.

Yes! I remember Becker's characters-Norton Nork and The Big Professor, who wore a cap and gown and walked on set to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance.

I remember he was a hilarious sportscaster on the local NY news (Eyewitness News with Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel). I also remember when Tex Antoine, the weather forecaster, lost his job after making a dumb joke about rape.

Norton Nork! God, I'd forgotten that part.

How about Roller Girls from the 70's. A female roller derby team led by a Daisy-Mae type hillbilly. One of the others was an Eskimo. I guess the producers figured the audience wouldn't realize what she was supposed to be, so she would use phrases like "there's no place like Nome". Of course they were all very sexy, but I don't know if any of them went on to be in anything else.

P.S. - I don't think Eskimo is a politically incorrect term these days, if it is, apologies.