Afternoon Delight: TV Reruns and the Gen X Childhood

Michelle Newman 0:01

Hi, this is Melissa Gilbert and you are listening to the pop culture Preservation Society.

Kristin Nilsen 0:07

Love American style, which is where I learned the word nightcap. Would you like to come in for a nightcap, and I thought they were gonna put on their night candle. I thought it was so interesting that everyone they offered everyone a hat when they came in.

Michelle Newman 0:20

That show made me feel so naughty.

Carolyn Cochrane 0:22

Oh me.

Kristin Nilsen 0:23

Naughty. Yeah, there is so many cocktails

Unknown Speaker 0:28

and no sound like the saying. Come on get out. We'll make you

Kristin Nilsen 0:44

welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society. The podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who grew up in a world before juice boxes.

Carolyn Cochrane 0:53

We believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images. And if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition.

Michelle Newman 1:04

And today, we'll be saving the shows that we were actually saving during our childhoods, and a top 10 countdown of your favorite classic reruns.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:15

I'm Carolyn.

Kristin Nilsen 1:16

I'm Kristen.

Michelle Newman 1:17

And I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationist.

Speaker 1 1:24

Back then you'll hear a tale of a fateful trip that started from this topic board a board this time that ship was a mighty sailing,

Michelle Newman 1:35

we bet that when you picture your after school time back in the 70s, or the 80s, your vision includes a snack of some sort, maybe a little can of fruit cocktail, or if you were lucky, a little can of pudding. Or if you were really lucky, a hostess treat like a fruit pie. eaten in front of the TV while watching a rerun of an old show from the 1950s 1960s or early 1970s. These old shows many of them still being shown to us in black and white, kept us latchkey kids company, and became friends and storylines we could rely on, which could be one reason we watched them over and over, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 2:16

Mm hmm.

Michelle Newman 2:17

So tell me about your connections to these classic shows.

Kristin Nilsen 2:21

But first, I just have to say that the fruit pie is okay cuz it was fruit in it.

Michelle Newman 2:26

So maybe that's better than putting you can't have a ding dong.

Kristin Nilsen 2:29

That's junk food. But the fruit pie that had like lemon filling, there was a lemon somewhere in there. Yes. So I digress. apple slice. Yeah. This is interesting to me. Because this didn't for a long time. We didn't think that this was a topic for us, because these shows are mostly from the boomer era. But just consider how much of each and every day of our childhood was spent with these shows from the 50s. And the 60s. Mm hmm. Oh, a lot. It's a lot of time. Yeah, it was that they were our babysitters they were made. Yes. Because you'd come home from after school, just like you said, almost exclusively after school. And so when you say what are your favorite shows that your classic reruns? It's, it's almost not about your favorite, because you just watched what was on and you didn't really even choose?

Carolyn Cochrane 3:18

Exactly, exactly. Mine is also kind of that experience, too. I think of reruns and I think of my sister. Those are shows that we sat down together after school with some kind of snack, and we watched and we sometimes would play like, you know, later on in the day, it'd be like, let's play, whatever. But one of our fun things I remember doing would be to guess which episode this is. Because let's say, Ron isn't just once. I mean, you have seen these episodes, three, four or five times. And so we would try to guess if we could remember which one particularly with the Brady Bunch, probably, but you know, Leave It to Beaver and everything. And then you'd also get excited because they didn't run them in order when it was reruns, you know, so it wasn't like on regular TV. So one day, you know, Theodore beaver is, you know, eight and then the next day he's kind of got a little moustache kind of going on. And he's gone through. I mean, how many of those got those TV shows? Did we watch some of the characters, you know, get sets and go through puberty? And we

Kristin Nilsen 4:23

didn't care right? We did not there was no linear thinking about it whatsoever. You could see the Christmas episode after school in May. Yes. And you're like, Oh, hey, it's the Christmas episode, right?

Michelle Newman 4:33

Yes. Well, and I know I watched almost all of these shows I don't know how or when because let's not forget I got sporadic TV time as a child. I'm guessing most for after school especially the year my mom was working. And my sister and I would drag the old TV out of the closet you know at home and feel it and see if I get in trouble. But yes, Kristen to your point. We watch them all regardless of if we loved them or not. I have definite memories of hate watching some. Yes, yeah, for sure, absolutely. But where I couldn't tear my eyes away, but at the same time, I didn't really like it. And I kind of made fun of it. But it was appointment TV for me because I said it was my babysitter. Yes.

Carolyn Cochrane 5:14

Right. And it was usually the only choice a lot of the time. So right there was there might have been a soap opera or something on another channel. And so it was like, Okay, I gotta watch The Beverly Hillbillies.

Kristin Nilsen 5:24

You gotta do you gotta watch it. until dinner, right? You, you're not going to do homework. That's what we were not. No, we 100% of the time, did not do homework after school. Maybe somebody was, I don't know, anybody did homework, I think as I got older, and maybe did it at night, but not after

Michelle Newman 5:43

school. No. And a lot of my childhood was spent in different times in Arizona, and it's hot, hotter than blazes most of the year after school. So we'd couldn't go outside and play or we just chose not to, because it was so hot, that you're just you stayed inside, you know, with all the lights off mind and laying on the floor. Yeah. And you all we had like this tiny TV for my entire life. So we had to lay on the floor. It was usually hidden under a table. So we had to like pull the cloth off and lay on the floor and watch it.

Kristin Nilsen 6:13

I think it bears repeating that we had no limits on our screen time, except maybe Michelle, who would get busted. And it sounds like you didn't even have limits on your screen time. It's like you can't watch TV.

Michelle Newman 6:21

It's either none at all, or that's right to free.

Kristin Nilsen 6:24

We had no limits on our TV. And you they just my mom would just call us for dinner. And that's when you turn the TV off. There's a real

Carolyn Cochrane 6:34

comfort to these reruns that yes, just mainly you just feel a certain way when I hear the first, you know, few notes of some of these theme songs. It's different than an Eight is Enough theme song or Little House on the Prairie theme song there is a different kind of feeling I get when I hear the beginnings of my three sons or something. Yes, very comforting. It's

Michelle Newman 6:57

you know what it shows Carolyn, it gives you a funny feeling on your tummy.

Kristin Nilsen 7:03

But it's interesting that you talk about theme songs because I we should have a game show in which it's like it's not named that tune. It's the reverse where we'll say sing the I Love Lucy theme songs sing the Andy Grove theme song. There will be a lot of singing here today, I am guessing. And they're so imprinted on us that we not only know the theme songs, you can identify the interstitial music, like the music that they would use in the show. Like can you tell me what in the music they would play when something sad happened on the Brady Bunch?

Or how about when something really mundane happened on the Brady Bunch? Do you remember that one?

Michelle Newman 7:46

It was like that day?

Kristin Nilsen 7:51

Yeah. They're walking into the garage putting their bike away. Right?

Michelle Newman 7:59

It's because we heard him every day. And I And we've talked about this with lots of other things that we experienced in our Jennex childhoods, but we know them and feel them on a cellular level. Right. And that's that's not hyperbole here. This is like I am dead serious that I use that word, right? I don't know. But it's just it. It's, it's like when you say literally and people are like no, I actually mean literally we know these songs on a cellular level. They are in our like makeup in our DNA. Yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 8:29

there is something that it's trapped in the folds of your brain in a way that is more than no more than knowing that's what it is. It's more than knowing. And there's also something really interesting as you go through all of this, the when you look at the top 10 list that remember we know the top down right now people were just not telling you yet. When you look at these, how many of them came from these really weird family situations? Like there's always a missing parent? Where is that parents? Sometimes they would tell you, the parent died? Sometimes they didn't. This is a research project right here. Where are all the missing parents in the rewrite of our child?

Michelle Newman 9:05

Oh my god. That's like the best idea isn't it for a made for TV movie? They're on an island like Gilligan. They're trapped somewhere. They all went on a three hour cruise. Yes.

Kristin Nilsen 9:16

Friend their wife. Yes. Surely partridges husband is there. Oh my god, spouses or their wife? I don't know. I don't know. Well,

Michelle Newman 9:32

this is a fun fact. I was last week years old when I learned I Love Lucy was the first television series to be broadcast as a rerun in 1955. Oh, no, that

Carolyn Cochrane 9:44

Oh, no,

Kristin Nilsen 9:45

I don't think I did. But it's a really good Yes. Somebody at some point said saw dollar signs and said why don't we take this show? Well, it's

Michelle Newman 9:53

a great trivia question also. So listeners if you ever get that on trivia night, or if you're on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or anything? You're welcome. They used reruns during Lucy's pregnancy. That's what forced them to do it okay. And it was made possible because I Love Lucy was produced on film and not kinescope, which I guess was too grainy to rerun. And most other programs at the time were produced on kinescope. Everybody just look it up. I don't have time to educate you today on, you know, film versus kinescope. Anyway, so our hours and hours of all of this TV viewing we've been talking about is all thanks to Lucy, of course. So thank you, Lucy. Just another reason that we

Kristin Nilsen 10:38

love we I mean, she started everything pretty much. She's She started TV, did

Michelle Newman 10:42

she invent the TV? She probably had been to the TV. I think she did. She had been at the kinescope. So we asked

Kristin Nilsen 10:48

our followers on social media about their favorite reruns. And once again, we were slammed with responses, which just exemplifies that this was a universal experience among us. We didn't know it at the time. But again, like I said, just think of how much time we spent with these shows on a daily basis, probably more than on our favorite primetime shows. Oh, for sure. Right? Well, yeah, because these were daily daily, as opposed to once every we watched them seven times more than

Michelle Newman 11:17

our favorite years over like she goes to match again,

Kristin Nilsen 11:21

yes, I know, I am the mathematician. So as usual, I tallied each and every response, which is a two person job, like Michelle and I have to sit there together while she reads every response, and I put it in its proper box, and then I tally them at the end. And that takes a significant amount of time. But an hour, it took an hour just to read one by one, all of the responses, but we're committed to our jobs. And then the three of us came up with our own personal top 10 lists, and those selections are weighted in an inverse relationship to their ranking. It's very

Michelle Newman 11:55

inverse rolling out in math terms, like inverse, just trust

Kristin Nilsen 11:59

me, just trust me. I can't believe I came up with this on my own. And then I got out my little Professor calculator in my abacus and voylla we arrive at a mathematically sound top 10 list of your favorite reruns. I think it is worth mentioning some shows that were in our personal top 10 list that did not make the overall top 10 list. Because it's our show. So these, these are the next four places like we got to top 10. And yes, of course, there will be ties, so it's not 10 shows. It's like 14 shows. But the but the places that came just after 10 and 1112 1314. These are our picks that didn't make it into the top 10. The Little Rascals Batman, the courtroom. You should see Carolyn's face. No, she was like giving a great when she said

Michelle Newman 12:51

Batman Carolyn was like, man, no. And I'm like, No, I

Carolyn Cochrane 12:53

did that for The Little Rascals. I didn't have enough time. Oh, my face. Batman was one of my choice.

Kristin Nilsen 12:58

Give me your face for Batman. Oh, oh, that's okay. She loved Batman. The Courtship of Eddie's father, Petticoat Junction and love American style, which is where I learned the word nightcap. Would you like to come in for a nightcap, and I thought they were gonna put on their nightcap, but I thought it was so interesting that everyone Oh, they offered everyone a hat when they came in.

Michelle Newman 13:21

That show made me feel so naughty. Oh, me. Naughty.

Kristin Nilsen 13:24

Yeah. There was so many cocktails. It was also interesting to me. There are so many shows that didn't even get close to the top 10 That really really surprised. Yes. So for instance, Gomer Pile only got two votes, hundreds and hundreds of responses. And Gomer only gets two. I mean, Gomer is like, he's an icon. My first dirty joke is a Gomer joke that I told to all the people at my parents dinner party, because I didn't really understand it. I told it to Mike and he's like, I cannot believe you told that to grownups. Yeah, that was pretty funny. Hogan's Heroes only got two votes a lot. You know, love Hogan's Heroes.

Michelle Newman 14:05

What your birthday is. You guys balloons just floated around like, like, balloons just floating around here.

Carolyn Cochrane 14:17

Word of the Day like are heroes.

Michelle Newman 14:22

In the Riverside, it looked like she just won like a sweet

Kristin Nilsen 14:25

Ed McMahon is gonna come around the corner with my big check.

Michelle Newman 14:30

Well, my husband's like top two shows Andy Griffith and Hogan's Heroes like without even pause, and then when I was reading him all these that didn't get it. He goes, Yeah, it's because of your demographic, which is good. We have a lot of men that listen, all our male listeners we love you to pieces. It's true, though that you you don't have as many numbers. Female listeners, right? So you're sitting vacant but still a minority. So that's also presuming that more males watch that's awesome because you mean more males watch those shows. Mr. Ed

Kristin Nilsen 14:56

only got one vote. And I loved when I saw that. I was Like I forgot about Mr. Ed. I love that horse. The Beverly Hillbillies got a great showing but missed the top 10

Michelle Newman 15:07

Good. It was in my top 10 That was my show. I hate watched you guys. Oh you hate watch. Almost every day probably. I don't know what it was. I loved it. And yet I hated it at the same time my granny me. Oh,

Carolyn Cochrane 15:20

yes, yes, the whole thing. Sometimes we didn't have a choice. It was like that's what was on so it's like, I gotta get through Beverly Hillbillies to get to Petticoat Junction. Yeah,

Michelle Newman 15:30

that's a really good point. I also think I was all in and I still am loved the Beverly Hillbillies theme song. I think the whole probably that sucked me in and then I you know, I had my hostess fruit pie. So I might as well watch fruit

Kristin Nilsen 15:42

as fruit. One of we always ask our husbands their pigs to and one of my ex was Gentle Ben. Oh, and nobody else said Gentle Ben Mike was the only one. Lassie got four votes. I would just I just didn't have enough access to Lassie, but if I had the opportunity to watch Lassie every day, I would have I would have I love that puppy. Andy Griffith just missed our top 10 Emergency only got one vote. Wah wah wah. I loved emergency Randolph Mantooth and nobody not one single person said Adam 12

Michelle Newman 16:16

That was that was a run I was feeling that that was on that was a time it was

Kristin Nilsen 16:21

it was on there was some shows that were on but also running in syndication at the same time and oh, well was one of those Star Trek got a very good showing. Did we get that top 10

Michelle Newman 16:33

A lot. Yeah. Well, I think it's a little bit of a crime that Andy Griffith didn't make the top 10 That's

Kristin Nilsen 16:40

yeah. Carolyn's first crush. Well, I

Carolyn Cochrane 16:45

thought and I guess it was my first crush but I've had some revenue capitalization so that's that's word for being a friend like someone I wanted to pal around with probably was Opie but, um, as I did some research for today's episode, I got some flutters that I forgot I had gotten banned. So I took a little tiresome way. First crushes but I'm like, I get

Kristin Nilsen 17:07

worse. Why didn't I think of that? Who's gonna be so good? Well, how about

Carolyn Cochrane 17:13

we share what those top 10 are. And now without further ado, we present to you the pop culture preservation society's list of top 10 reruns from the Gen X era. Okay,

Kristin Nilsen 17:28

number 10 is me. Danna Nana, Nana that's all you need to know. Right? So in our number 10 spot is the Dick Van Dyke Show starring the legendary Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie, the television comedy writer who commuted into the city for his job at the John Brady show from his home in New Rochelle didn't really want to live in New Rochelle. I just thought that sounded like the nicest place to live. And it has consistently been ranked as one of the greatest TV shows of all time by TV Guide the Writers Guild of America, because it took a very familiar format, which is Daddy goes off to work and mother stays home to take care of the house and the kids and then hilarity ensues. And it stretched it to include funny women. Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie Rose Marie is Sally Rogers and and Gilbert as Millie helper, three funny women in one show. That was unheard of. You might get Lucy and Ethel but never more than Lucy and Ethel. This was three funny women and all of them were funny in wildly different ways. I remember watching this show, in my highchair. I'm not even kidding. You know, I do. I could never remember your high church. So

Michelle Newman 18:48

you were four? Well, that's

Kristin Nilsen 18:49

a good question. Actually. No, I moved from that house when I was three, so I have to be less than three. And I also remember, coincidentally, eating my first hostess fruit pie in that highchair and being like, what, Carolyn

Carolyn Cochrane 19:01

while you were watching?

Michelle Newman 19:03

Yeah, Carolyn, we need to I think we need to call foul.

Kristin Nilsen 19:06

Okay, I'm not putting the two of them together. I don't know if I was watching Dick Van Dyke. Like, don't let the truth get in the way of a good story. Yes. No, I literally remember somebody putting a lemon fruit pie on the tray and putting it in my mouth and just being like, why haven't you given this to us for I should have been eating this every day for every meal. So I could not remember at that very tender age. I could never figure out if it was pronounced dict and dyke or Vic van bike. It was hard. But I eventually figured I was like, you can combine both of them Dick Van Dyke. The show ran from 1961 to 1966. And one of the finalists in the running to play Rob Petri was Johnny Carson.

Michelle Newman 19:53

Are you kidding?

Kristin Nilsen 19:54

I am serious.

Michelle Newman 19:55

That's another good trivia question, isn't it? So it would have

Carolyn Cochrane 19:59

been cool The Johnny Carson Show.

Kristin Nilsen 20:00

That's a really good question. They called the dig Van Dyke Show with Johnny Carson. So I it's not interesting but the actor. Well, he must have been a comedian. Right? Yeah. And I guess you're just trying to get whatever work you can show knows we don't know anything about Johnny Carson before the Tonight Show, really.

Michelle Newman 20:23

So anybody does somebody does, we don't hear but somebody does. But they

Kristin Nilsen 20:27

ultimately chose Dick Van Dyke after seeing him in a Broadway performance of bye, bye, birdie. And I think it goes without saying that a big part of that performance and his performance in the defending show was his physicality. Starting with the way either falls over or skirts around the ottoman. That is our first introduction to rob Petrie. And it's like it's both graceful, and it's hilarious. And I think it's kind of sexy. Just

Michelle Newman 20:58

a highchair.

Kristin Nilsen 21:03

And then last but not least, my brother has said that Laura Petrie was his first crush.

Carolyn Cochrane 21:08

Got to see that.

Kristin Nilsen 21:10

So understanding pedal pushers,

Michelle Newman 21:13

when you know she fought to wear those pants, right? Yes, yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 21:16

brazenly because I was gonna say Ellen braby. Carl Reiner. Not Ellen Brady. But Carl Reiner, of course insisted that she wear dresses and she said, Well, that's not realistic. I want to wear pants and he's like, alright, you can wear pants, like once every four shows. And she just quietly wore pants every show. And he didn't say anything. And she's like 22 She has no powers

Michelle Newman 21:39

and that relationship Zack,

Kristin Nilsen 21:41

right. Somebody who ends up with their own production company. Yeah, exactly. So in the number nine spot this is where our ties cluster This happens when you're when you're at the at the bottom of the of the countdown and we have four separate shows in the number nine spot so Carolyn, why don't we start with you. Okay.

Carolyn Cochrane 22:03

One of the shows and our number nine spot is Leave It to Beaver

and you guys my personal take is that Leave It to Beaver just might be the quintessential Gen X era rerun. Okay, I really think that. No, stay with me. One of the reasons I think that at least for me, and I think for a lot of our compatriots, our age mates, is that this show revolved around a kid. I mean, I kid was the main character, right? We and he was roughly our age when Leave It to Beaver begins in October of 1957. Our main character, Theodore beaver Cleaver, is eight years old, okay. And we watched him grow up over 234 episodes, because of the show ran from 1957 to 1963. And you guys, back in the day, rehab season in these TV shows was not eight episodes or nine episodes, we are talking double digit episodes. So we got a lot of episodes to watch and a lot of episodes and reruns so we had 234 when it came to Leave It to Beaver. And I'm gonna ask did you guys watch the show? Oh,

Kristin Nilsen 23:28

my God. Yeah, absolutely. Because I think my dad thought he was beaver. Oh, he identified so much with beaver. I think still to this day. He thinks he's beaver. Like if he could embody a character. Beaver cleaver.

Carolyn Cochrane 23:40

I love it. I love it. Well, I want to just quiz you guys a little bit and see how much you might remember about our show. Okay, I'm going to ask you about some of the characters. I'm going to just go ahead and tell you right now that I really do think my first crush that made my heart go pitter patter was Wally,

Speaker 2 23:57

Dad, I wasn't thinking at all. I was just concentrating on my dinner.

Carolyn Cochrane 24:03

I think Tony down was my first crush, and I realized it as I was rewatching these reruns and got going. Yes, yes. Yes. GB? Yes. Gosh, he just was the All American guy and, you know, he's just old enough or older. When I was watching to be just, I don't know. He was adorable. And he was a good kid. Because he was friends weren't always that good. So I'm going to ask you that. Okay, who are some of Wally's friends?

Kristin Nilsen 24:32

Eddie was Eddie. Eddie Haskell. There we go. Eddie has

Michelle Newman 24:36

Lumbee was lumpy beavers friend that's yours, friend.

Carolyn Cochrane 24:40

Yes. Yeah. So we've got Eddie Haskell and I would venture to say, well, at least in our family here. My kids have had some friends that have been reminiscing of Eddie Haskell. And if you remember Eddie Haskell was the brown nosing friend who was just Oh Mrs. Cleaver. You look beautiful today. You know, this tastes so great. And then the minute the adults were out of the room, he was just the evil doer.

Kristin Nilsen 25:06

He weren't near do well. Yes.

Carolyn Cochrane 25:07

And you made me so uncomfortable toothpaste and so

Michelle Newman 25:10

follower Michelle. Yeah, like the Eddie Haskell is of the world and the TV screen and you

Kristin Nilsen 25:16

use that you use the word Eddie has you do scripter? He

Carolyn Cochrane 25:19

did. Anyhow, we Andy and I would do that like, and have to inform our children exactly what an Eddie Haskell was. So who was our dad? Kristen?

Kristin Nilsen 25:30

June and Ward Ward Cleaver? Yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 25:32

yes. We had Barbara Billingsley played June and he Beaumont played ward. And if you remember in the intro for Leave It to Beaver, they set all those names. I can't tell you that. I know a lot of the names of the actors and some of the other shows that we watched. But they said them and this was part of the intro. So part of the theme and all of that, so I knew their names and then beavers teacher was Miss lander Miss

Kristin Nilsen 25:55

Landers. That was my dad's first IRL crush, because Snow White is his first first crush. His first real person crush was Miss Landers. I love

Carolyn Cochrane 26:03

that. That's so sweet. Well, and I've got to add, because this is going to be a theme when as I share my reruns today, but one of the reasons or one of the qualifiers as I was trying to decide what some of my favorites were, was, of course, the house. And I've got to tell you, the cleavers had the best house. And actually in a book I have called TV. clever name, by award winning TV critics, Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zeit, they put that house in the number nine spot of the best TV homes of all time.

Kristin Nilsen 26:40

Oh, that's interesting. And I can see it so vividly. And I can did is it on the universal tour or something? I feel like I've driven by it on the lot.

Carolyn Cochrane 26:48

Yes, it is an answer to your question. Yes, it is. And interestingly enough, I don't think that Leave It to Beaver house showed up in our TV houses when we were ranking our dinner.

Kristin Nilsen 26:59

Yeah, that's interesting. All

Carolyn Cochrane 27:03

right, I just have a couple of fun facts. I just I'm gonna go really fast through about Leave It to Beaver because I thought these were super interesting. One it was the first television program to ever show a toilet.

Kristin Nilsen 27:15

to I can see it I don't know. And

Carolyn Cochrane 27:17

there was a lot of time in their bathroom, didn't we? Yes, they do a lot of getting ready for bed.

Kristin Nilsen 27:21

And what's

Michelle Newman 27:23

interesting is that so early and like if you think of shows like The Brady Bunch that came later, much later, they purposefully didn't show bathrooms because like oh, we don't show it already. And yet there was already one shown there

Carolyn Cochrane 27:34

was the first television show feeling like

Kristin Nilsen 27:37

anyone who was sharing Mondello in the toilet like Did they jumping in the toilet? Well, they're

Carolyn Cochrane 27:42

the the first episode where they showed the toilet it's actually the episode is called Captain Jack and Wally has I guess a pet alligator? I'm not really sure. But that's the aquarium for the alligator. So it's actually the top of the tank is off and he's playing with this little alligator.

Kristin Nilsen 28:00

I remembered people like around the toilet. Maybe Larry Mondello comes in and looks at the alligator

Carolyn Cochrane 28:05

maybe or there could

Kristin Nilsen 28:06

have been gee whiz beef.

Carolyn Cochrane 28:07

There could have been many episodes that revolved around a toilet. I don't know. But I know that it was. I can see their bathroom too. I loved their bedroom. And I thought it was so cool. They had a bed bathroom attached to their bedroom. That to me was the ultimate besides having a two story house because if you're using a bathroom connected to your bedroom, oh my gosh,

Kristin Nilsen 28:26

super cool. And then a phone in your room. Oh, please.

Carolyn Cochrane 28:29

Yeah, a growth spurt led to a new Wally. So Tony Tao was not the original Wally. He's not the Wally in the pilot. But the Wali in the pilot Paul Sullivan had this just like incredible growth spurt, and I guess he was taller than mom and dad and all that so they had to recast him. Tony down just happened to be accompanying a friend on the lot who was doing an audition or something. He wasn't even there to audition. And look, look what happened is that I feel

Kristin Nilsen 28:56

bad for that Paul guy daily into puberty. Oh, you're fired.

Carolyn Cochrane 29:03

And my last fun fact is that Hugh Beaumont who played our dad, he actually once he retired, he bought Christmas tree farm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Yes, and he spent his final years in Minnesota. I had no idea that he was one of us, Carolyn,

Michelle Newman 29:22

you always have so many great fun facts. Would you please include the ones you're not able to share in our Weekly Reader this week? Yes, I will be happy to Oh, amazing. And listeners. If you're not subscribed already, you really should be. It's easy. Go to our website, pop preservationists.com and you'll get our fun Weekly Reader with lots of fun extras from our episodes in your email inbox every Friday morning.

Kristin Nilsen 29:45

Also in the number nine spot we have the monsters

which I called you monsters monsters until a kid in my neighborhood corrected me. And I was like what the hell is a monster? I don't know. I had monsters in my story too high me.

Michelle Newman 30:13

Vic van vibe. Make it fit. I actually think it fits with the big van bike and the Van Dyck this I had the monsters

Kristin Nilsen 30:20

there were monsters hiding under my bed. And this kid is like, it's monster. Why are you saying it like that? I'm like, why are you saying it like that? Dumb? I actually think you could reboot the monsters today. And it would be a huge hit with kids. I don't you ran from 1964 to 1966 and debuted only a week after the Addams Family, which aired at the same time on another network. Right.

Michelle Newman 30:46

A lot. And well, and this explains a lot because I'm gonna guess they both reran at about you know, at the same yours. Yeah, because I get them. I know. I'm sure listeners don't throw things at your speaker. I get them confused, a lot used. And I watched one more than the other. And I always forget which one it was, but I think it was the Addams Family. I loved I remember I was

Carolyn Cochrane 31:07

at the Addams Family. I

Kristin Nilsen 31:08

irritate Yeah, you had to choose a sci fi monsters or team Addams Family.

Michelle Newman 31:12

I don't know I'm gonna split the middle here. I think I just I didn't watch either of them very often. I didn't dislike them. Maybe they didn't come on when I could watch them. But I feel like I kind of liked them equally, probably because I was confused. And I was just watching.

Kristin Nilsen 31:24

You just think you're watching one show.

Carolyn Cochrane 31:27

I can't believe they were only on for two seasons.

Kristin Nilsen 31:29

Isn't that crazy? So the the monsters actually got higher ratings than the Addams Family. But even so it was only two seasons. And that is it. And some people say that that is because of Batman. They just could not compete with Batman, which was on their time slot. But they did find much bigger success in syndication, which is so interesting. Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 31:49

a lot of these shows. I think that's yes.

Kristin Nilsen 31:51

So the monsters were a Transylvanian American family, living at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in the fictional city of Mockingbird heights, which is later revealed to be a small town outside of Los Angeles. And the running gag is that they consider themselves to be just an average American family and they don't have any idea why the door to door salesman is running away and screaming like, I wonder what happened to him. And I used to think it was so funny, the show thought Marilyn was so ugly, like Maryland the nice, yeah, cousin with the beautiful blonde. She looks like basically Marilyn Monroe, and they're like, Oh, it's so sad. She's not attractive. I thought it was so funny. It was actually produced by the creators of Leave It to Beaver, and it was intended to be a satire of American suburban life. But even though this was a very ridiculous satirical premise that did not stop the monsters from addressing social issues, especially during the Civil Rights era. And in 2020, a speech that Herman Munster makes to Eddie in a 1965 episode actually went viral. And this is what he said, The lesson

Speaker 3 32:59

I want you to learn is it doesn't matter what you look like, you can be tall or short, or fat or thin, ugly, or handsome, like your father. You can be black or yellow or white, it doesn't matter. What does matter is the size of your heart and the strength of your character. You

Carolyn Cochrane 33:23

go Fred,

Michelle Newman 33:24

so like he was running for Fred? Fred Gwynne?

Kristin Nilsen 33:27

Yes, we played our Master. Yeah, can't you just see Herman Munster, like being our hero? Okay,

Michelle Newman 33:32

and yet another show? Making our number nine spot is the Mickey Mouse club.

Speaker 1 33:41

The club for you? Hey, man, oh, there You're welcome, as can be.

Unknown Speaker 33:55

Black

Michelle Newman 34:01

This is the original one that ran from 1955 to 1959. And then, in response to an upsurge in demand from Baby Boomers, the show again went into syndicated reruns from January 1975 until January 1977, which explains a lot. That's my sweet spot for this show. I'm five to seven years old. And you guys just say I was obsessed is not strong enough. I'm wearing my original Mickey Mouse Club sweatshirt right now. I loved this show again. The Mickey Mouse Club was hosted by Jimmy Dodd, who was a songwriter and of course the head Mouseketeer. And then, the most popular the Mouseketeers, who were the so called Red team. Were were kept under contract for the entire run of the show from the four years 1955 to 1959. And I'm just gonna say their first names here because that's how we know them, right? It was emblazoned right on the front I have their shirt and right now I have this idea. We should get those shirts. I want them to learn. Wouldn't that be really cute?

Kristin Nilsen 35:06

Because Didn't you want to be a Mouseketeer? Of Hello? Yes, we will go,

Michelle Newman 35:10

guys. I know. And you know what, that's a great shirt to just wear around and if you know, you know, yeah. So okay, so we can't forget we have Sharon, Bobby. Lonnie, Tommy a net, Darlene kabhi Karen and Dora Bane.

Kristin Nilsen 35:28

I love Kobe, Karen.

Michelle Newman 35:30

I was just about to say that not surprisingly, you guys know from three years of these conversations, I always gravitated toward the little sister and the little one the Gretel the you know the Cindy that I was a huge cubby and Karen fan. I think. Little romantic five year old Michelle, like I wanted them to be like a couple and they put them together a lot because they were the two younger ones, but they would have them sing little songs together. Do you remember Karen's like corkscrew curls and it was back really tight. Right here with her little Mickey Mouse ears on and then all the curls coming out.

Kristin Nilsen 36:03

I loved it.

Michelle Newman 36:06

And we also all know from our one of our carpenters episodes that in 1973 Cubby O'Brien went on to be the drummer for the carpenters, when Karen was forced to step away from the drums to the front of the stage, which was super sad for Karen. Super great for Cubby. And this is a fun fact. One of the other Mouseketeers who were members of the you know, the white or the blue teams basically like the benchwarmers. Right? Those teams didn't get this amount of screen time. His name was Don a grotty who was later known as Don Grady. Oh, Does that ring a bell? Oh,

Carolyn Cochrane 36:41

well, doo doo doo doo. That's a great

Michelle Newman 36:45

segue. We will get to that in just a minute. But yes, he started as Robbie on my three sons. One of my favorite things about the Mickey Mouse Club was that each day of the week had a special show theme. So the themes were Monday was fun with music day. Tuesday was guest star day. Tuesday is guest star day. Wednesday was anything can happen day Thursday was circus day. And you guys remember what Friday was? No.

Speaker 4 37:08

Sign of your pony. Here we go down to the talent rodeo gather up Susie Jack and Joe joined the talent round around.

Michelle Newman 37:25

Friday was talent roundup day and it was like a little talent show on the Mickey Mouse Club. listeners. They're looking at me. Never seen it.

Kristin Nilsen 37:33

The Mickey Mouse Club was a place where my mom got very involved in TV watching. I was gonna say she was very nostalgic. And she had a cousin named Sharon Baird, which is not the same Sharon Barrett, they just have the same name. But for some reason, my mom thought that was something that like we needed to claim.

Michelle Newman 37:50

Well, if you think about it, our parents I mean, my mom would have been like 12 When the Mickey Mouse Club started. So it could be a show that they watched and

Carolyn Cochrane 37:57

then you have the whole cello than the star in the beach movie like a mango.

Michelle Newman 38:04

And it was fun because as very small children. You know, I don't know that I necessarily understood that these kids like Karen and Cubby that I'm watching in 1974 75 are from 20 years ago. No, I know that I'm realizing that you're now 30 something and you know, currently, Cubby is playing drums for the carpenters that I'm also listening to. So I remember when I think I realized all of that. I was just gobsmacked. Like Wait, that's a Neptune a cello? Wait,

Kristin Nilsen 38:33

no idea. In general with any of these shows. I did not know that. They came from a different era. I just thought they were in black and white.

Carolyn Cochrane 38:39

And they are frozen in time. Yeah. Okay, we

Kristin Nilsen 38:43

have one last entry in the number nine spot and then we'll move on, I promise. And in the last number nine spot is the Partridge Family, which came in at number five on my own personal top 10 lists. Saying this

Unknown Speaker 39:06

is what will make you happy.

Kristin Nilsen 39:11

It was an elusive show. For me. It was not like some of these shows that were on daily throughout our childhoods. It was more like a short appearance on a Saturday afternoon at 2pm before it disappeared and got replaced with something like f troop, which would just piss me off. I don't care about F true. So this only added to my attachment to the show that I didn't have access to it all over the time. I just couldn't scratch the itch enough because it was the perfect formula for a show that I would love. It was the cute kids. It was a crush worthy star plus a musical montage and every episode it was tailor made for me. It was a pop culture juggernaut. The Partridge Family was when you consider what it contributed to the culture at the time for the parents. You had a weekly appointment with Shirley Jones one of the The most beloved songbirds of their generation. And for the kids, you had a garage band playing irresistible radio friendly bubblegum pop tunes that they parlayed into 10 albums in four years. 11 hit singles, including the Forever classic number one Smash, I think I love you. They also had an animated show on Saturday mornings. And last but not least, this pop culture juggernaut gave us possibly the biggest teen idol of all time. David Cassidy.

Michelle Newman 40:29

President was number five on your list. I found it probably in the top three, for sure.

Kristin Nilsen 40:34

It was it was very difficult making these lists and if I went and did it again, it would probably it would be all mixed up. So at a moment in time, you just have to take what you've got and run with it. Right. So The show ran in primetime from 1970 to 1974, and was originally supposed to star their real life family band and the council's who did the song remember the rain the park and other things?

Carolyn Cochrane 41:10

He talked about that.

Kristin Nilsen 41:11

Yeah. And our sunshine pop. Yeah, the rain, the park and other things. But when the real life family looked a bit too real, aka too old and dysfunctional, and also not actors. They decided to turn the show into a fictionalized version of them. It was part of the Friday night lineup alongside the Brady Bunch, which often led to the question. Who do you like better? Yeah, the Partridge Family are the Brady Bunch. And for me, unless I was watching the silver platters, the answer was always the Partridge Family. So because of the council situation, there are two pilots for the show. In the original pilot, which was never broadcast. Surely Jones's name is Connie, and she has a boyfriend played by. First of all, I don't want her to have a boyfriend. I'm not talking to Jack Cassidy, her real life husband, later boyfriend and the original pilot. And instead of living in San Pueblo, California, they live in Ohio. And for my brother's 50th birthday, I gave him a copy of the TV Guide from the week he was born, which was in September of 1970 when the Partridge Family premiered. And there's an ad for this new show the Partridge Family With this storyline. It's about Connie and her boyfriend and her kids in Ohio. Oh, that's so Wow, it's really trippy. So the new and improved Partridge Family from the pilot that actually aired divinely featuring David Cassidy who would graced the world with his presence. They lived in the fictional city of San Pueblo, California, which I always pictured to be somewhere in the cool part of California, like near Los Angeles or near the beach or something like that. But in Episode 24, they mentioned that San Pueblo is 40 miles from Napa County. Oh, oh, I know. So the show has always been beloved and so so emblematic of the 70s like Uber 70s, right, which is why it has been like prime fodder for reunion specials and appearances. The first being in 1977 when they came together for a special called Thanksgiving reunion with the Partridge Family, and my three sons. There was no link between these two shows at all. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to put them together. But they did as if the Partridge Family couldn't carry a Thanksgiving reunion special by themselves. I don't know. There was no link. And then the 1990s especially the 1990s was like a Gen X explosion of 70s culture and the Partridge Family was front and center. Well,

Carolyn Cochrane 43:47

Kristen, you didn't think that the Partridge Family and my three sons had any kind of link? No, I did it. Was I wrong? Well, you might be because guess what? Number eight is in our top 10. TV reruns tell us Carolyn? That would be my three sons.

Another one of my absolute favorites for several reasons. Okay. Every one. I do believe. And I hope that I don't ever find out that this is not true. But I believe again house loved it. This was one of my favorite houses. Yeah, I think they had a Dutch door.

Kristin Nilsen 44:27

They did. Yes. Yes. It would open the door. Okay, thank

Carolyn Cochrane 44:31

you because that began my obsession and love of Dutch doors. And to this day, mark my words, I will not go to my grave without having a home that has a Dutch door. Thank you very much, man. I want you to

Kristin Nilsen 44:45

know, we're gonna put one in our nursing home.

Carolyn Cochrane 44:49

There I don't know. But I am going to have a Dutch door and I'm going to put PI on it. And you're going to get my neighbor's can come over and get the pi i don't know how I'm going to keep insects in Birds and stuff out of my house. That's been my dilemma, but I figured out, okay, my three sons, you guys 12 seasons 380 episodes. Wow. It is considered to be the second longest running live action sitcoms in TV history. Here's our cast. So we were the Douglas family. Okay. We had Stephen Douglas, our dad, our patriarch, he was Fred MacMurray, and we fallen in love with Fred MacMurray recently in the Disney movie. Shaggy Dog.

Michelle Newman 45:31

Oh, yeah, of course. Well, he was in a lot. He was he was a big Disney movie.

Carolyn Cochrane 45:35

He was in a lot. But shaggy dog was like his splash onto he had been on in a lot of movies, but nothing that had had the impact of the Disney movie shaggy dog. Coincidentally, one of our other characters is tramp. Okay, he's our family dog, who happens to be very Shaggy, and also happens to have been trained by the same trainer as Benji. Oh, what I know. And then I realized, again, upon watching some of these reruns that my other crush would have been Don Grady as Robbie Douglas.

Kristin Nilsen 46:12

Oh, Katie, married. Oh,

Carolyn Cochrane 46:15

he married Tina Cole when he married Katie. Oh, and then they had and they had triplets. Because yeah, that my three sons again.

Kristin Nilsen 46:21

Why didn't they just make Ernie one of the sons? Why did they have to have the story of him being like a neighbor's kid and then they adopt him why? He

Carolyn Cochrane 46:29

was with a foster family. And then the foster family was getting transferred somewhere overseas. Okay, because our oldest brother, Mike Douglas, who was played by the actor, Tim Constantine, he didn't want to renew his contract he is so he was not going to be in the show anymore. So they they basically write him off and he gets married. And there, he has to go do a job somewhere.

Kristin Nilsen 46:52

So you just answered a question I've had for decades. Oh,

Carolyn Cochrane 46:56

there you go. So that's why they brought in Ernie because we still needed to have three sons. Exactly. All those boys were so sweet. And they were so real. I mean, that was one of the things this was one of the first TV shows that kind of showed a real fan like the house was sometimes kind of messy. The boys were kind of bickering a lot as brothers would do. So the beginning few seasons, we actually have William Frawley is bob their grandfather. So he is their maternal grandfather. So the mother who when the series started has passed away six years prior to the show's beginning. So chip would have only been like two years old, which makes me really sad when I think about it. But William Frawley aka Fred Mertz. Oh my gosh, he is our kind of caretakers, but then William probably gets sick in real life. And so we're going to have to replace him. And we do that with Bob's brother. This would be Uncle Charlie. Oh, okay.

Kristin Nilsen 47:51

I did not know all of these these origin stories. I had no idea.

Carolyn Cochrane 47:55

Well, I'm glad I can educate them

Michelle Newman 47:57

rainbows shooting across coming out of your speakers.

Kristin Nilsen 48:03

We were talking about our favorites, Mike and I and I said my three sons and he immediately starts going like this. DD Yes, Ed. Ed. Ed, you got your hands going? Yeah, add and Yeah, remember,

Carolyn Cochrane 48:16

I was thinking before we were talking theme songs. So many of the theme songs for these shows? Didn't have words. But man, can we hum them and add them and everything? And maybe Yeah, and we can DDD again, we

Kristin Nilsen 48:29

can make our hands go like this?

Michelle Newman 48:30

Yes. Yeah.

Carolyn Cochrane 48:32

I love that. Yes. I love that.

Michelle Newman 48:33

Taking the number seven spot on our top 10 list is The Flintstones.

Flintstone was my personal number six on my list because I feel like in my memory, this was a show in a block. I don't know what the Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island or something because I feel like I watched the Flintstones every single day after school. The Flintstones was originally broadcast on ABC from September 30 1960 to April 1 1966. And was the first animated series with a primetime slot on television and the only animated show to make our list.

Kristin Nilsen 49:16

Isn't that interesting? Did you guys know though that it was a primetime show? Nope.

Carolyn Cochrane 49:20

No, I finally learned that I think we talked about that. In an earlier episode that we've done. I can't remember what we did. Yeah, maybe I think it was probably our Saturday morning cartoon. But yeah, that was super interesting to me. Because I'm thinking yeah, it's a cartoon for kids. And yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 49:38

it was like their Simpsons basically. Yeah, yeah. And I

Carolyn Cochrane 49:41

thought it was happening in real time for us. Sorry to interrupt you. Yeah. Michelle, but I didn't think that the show had been out in the early 60s. Like I thought it was out now. Like when I was watching him. Yeah, me.

Michelle Newman 49:52

Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I was shocked to find out that it was a 60s show. Well, the main voice actors Alan Reed voiced Fred. And then Mel Blanc voicing Barney also very famously known for voicing who makes money, Bugs Bunny, and that's right and Daffy Duck and Heathcliff, Jean Vanderpump voiced Wilma, also pebbles and Rosie the robot made. Remember that cartoon I feel like I know what and title but maybe I didn't watch it. And then B, been a been a direct captain or her last name, but she voiced Betty

Carolyn Cochrane 50:31

and say how those voices I mean, I can hear him in my head. But I would have never known any of those actors that I don't know any of those names like speech, no people, voices are part of our childhood. And I couldn't tell you who they were what they looked like. Well, and like

Michelle Newman 50:47

I'm going to talk about with another show in a little bit that's at at a higher spot on our list. I loved the show for all the kind of primitiveness of it like all the things that they made from stone or you know, the utensils they used or I just you know, the bowling ball running with Yes, running with their feet and the car. Yeah.

Kristin Nilsen 51:04

So in our number six spot is family affair with that iconic theme song by Frank Deval played over the opening credits, and this kaleidoscopic view of a multicolored array of gems and precious stones. I'm reading that directly from Wikipedia, because I didn't know how to describe it.

Carolyn Cochrane 51:27

What was that?

Kristin Nilsen 51:29

Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep,

Michelle Newman 51:30

deep, deep experience rare to have shown, like I think you should have shown like interior shots of that apartment, which I'm sure you're about to talk about. But like yes, that would have been better that it's so bizarre,

Kristin Nilsen 51:40

but I loved it. And I remember asking my mom this happened a lot actually. Because they didn't know titles of shows. And I remember asking her for the diamond show. I want to see the diamond show. She's a class that's so I think about

Carolyn Cochrane 51:52

me because we call it we called it Buffy and Jody like I didn't even know it was called Yeah, Family Affair family.

Kristin Nilsen 51:58

That's random. It was so random family fare ran from 1966 to 1971 and explore the trials of a wealthy New York bachelor. This is probably where we learned the word bachelor to in his ginormous Upper East Side apartment with his manservant. Mr. French, played by Sebastian Cabot, that's a name we'll never forget. Right? And we know that bachelor as Uncle Bill, or you're not going to Uncle Bo. Yes, because he is the guardian of twins, Buffy and Jodi and their older sister sissy who were orphaned when their parents were killed in a car wrecks. There's just so much tragedy. Why did they do this? So actually, in the script, Buffy and Jodi were different ages. But when they saw Johnny Whitaker and Aneesa Jones together, they just looked so cute, that they decided to cast them both and make them twins. Everyone loved Buffy and Jody, and I just I wonder how come there weren't more babies named Buffy after that, weren't you so enamored of Buffy. I

Michelle Newman 53:01

loved them both so much. I feel like it's only about the time we started this podcast. And I feel like maybe posted on social media and everybody, you know, went nuts with their Buffy dolls and their Mrs. Beasley dolls in there or whatever. And so it forced me to go back and find it on TV or YouTube, of TV, whatever. And I started watching it again. And I was watching it like every night. I probably only lasted for a couple of weeks. But you guys, those first few episodes, they could like fit in the palm of your hand. And they are so sweet to each other. They embody that twin pneus. Right. You forget completely that these are just two nonrelated because they're so they're like stuck together and they're so sweet. And it's I highly recommend watching that if you just it'll make you feel good saccharin,

Kristin Nilsen 53:47

and you can see where they would be like we have to cast these two people. I have to have these two little children. I had when my mom would do my hair in the morning, I had an array of choices for what my hair could be. And I often chose Buffy tails. I can have high ponytails, I could have low ponytails, I could have Buffy tails. So the Buffy tails would be high ponytails curled

Michelle Newman 54:07

up with the little like yarn twisted,

Kristin Nilsen 54:11

little twisted ribbons. Yes, but you mentioned another one of the cultural touchstones from this show. Raise your hand if you had a Mrs. Beasley doll. Or if you put like Mrs. Beasley's glasses on your own face.

Michelle Newman 54:24

It's my sister's favorite doll. So I It wasn't mine, but it's it is a part of my childhood memory because it was everywhere in our house. Yeah.

Kristin Nilsen 54:33

And think about how weird that is like, why would you make a doll of an old lady? Just

Carolyn Cochrane 54:37

gonna say that

Kristin Nilsen 54:38

it doesn't make any sense. And

Michelle Newman 54:41

it is crazy. I mean, listeners we know you right now are all scrambling screaming. I love my missus, basically, because we've seen your comments on social media. And we've also seen all the comments that say that why we loved a doll that looked like an old lady. There's a couple that say no, no, no, that dog creeped me out. But overwhelmingly most of us loved her. People loved Mrs. Beasley and I always wondered, you know, chicken or the egg did did Buffy have a Mrs. Beasley doll because it was a popular doll? Or did we have a Mrs. Beasley doll because of Buffy.

Kristin Nilsen 55:12

It is the latter. That is true. It turned out the family affair was so popular with little girls that they took this doll that they had made for the show, and they mass produced it. And we all got it for Christmas. Well,

Michelle Newman 55:23

there's also a very popular Buffy doll holding a tiny Mrs. Nicely that's also popular and maybe we'll post that in social media this week.

Speaker 4 55:31

Anyway, I like Mrs. Beasley better than a bagel.

Carolyn Cochrane 55:37

Okay, well coming in at number five and one that I loved, of course, because I loved where she lived. This would be I Dream of Jeannie. We did I have visions of what that bottle held? What the bathroom would have looked like I just imagine that. So this series ran from September of 1965. That's the year of my birth months my birth actually one day after my run September 18.

Kristin Nilsen 56:09

And in my image me like yeah, I Dream of Jeannie baby. So

Carolyn Cochrane 56:14

the series ran from September 8 teens, 1965 through 1970 on NBC. And it was created in response to a show that we'll hear about a little bit later, be Witched as kind of competition for that that ran on ABC and I Dream of Jeannie was on NBC. It was created by a name you might might recognize Sidney Sheldon. Oh, yeah. Also very popular author of some popular novels during the time, the other side of midnight and range of angels, which by the way, became a mini series and I think Jacqueline Smith was in it that did

Michelle Newman 56:49

all of our mothers.

Carolyn Cochrane 56:51

Yes, I read them. No, I did. I love range of angels. Yes, I read that often. And I watched the mini series so I think I felt really grown up. Okay, so if you recall, Barbara Eden played a genie, whose name was Genie. Clever, right. And she and her bottle had been discovered when the astronaut Captain Tony Nelson, played by Larry Hagman, Jr. Ewing lands, the space capsule on a deserted island. Okay, this scene was replayed in the opening of every episode of I Dream of Jeannie. You might recall it again. It is animated. And we have the capsule landing. Captain Nelson comes out and he bumps his door of the capsule onto the bottle. And then you guys remember, it falls over and then push this. And so far green for Jamie's head comes out.

Michelle Newman 57:49

Where's her body?

Carolyn Cochrane 57:50

Well then push her body is a thing of smoke. It comes out in it like and they're like damn sachets. And then they kind of do a little belly dancing thing. And then she kind of belly dances over to Captain Nelson and gives him a little peck on the cheek. And then all of the names of the credits come out of that little puff of smoke. And then there's another iconic instrumental theme song that accompanies yet

Kristin Nilsen 58:15

did doo doo doo doo did the game show? YEAH. Jimmy Jimmy. Jimmy theme.

Carolyn Cochrane 58:22

The cast also includes Bill Daley. Do you guys remember who else Bill Daley might have been? Hmm.

Kristin Nilsen 58:27

Was it was on The Bob Newhart Show? Yes.

Carolyn Cochrane 58:29

He was Howard on The Bob Newhart Show. He was major Roger Healey on I Dream of Jeannie. And then William Henry Roark played Colonel Alfred bellows, basically, he was like the Mrs. Kravitz of the show. He always could see Jeanne and all the weird things he did. And then he'd go to show his wife. No, it wasn't there. And Roger was kind of in on it. Roger kind of knew about Jeanne, but he always, you know, always tried to pull the wool over. Colonel bellows eyes as well. So that was just so funny when I was watching some of these that all came back. And you know what, no matter how many times I watched those reruns, I kept thinking that this was going to be the one where Oh, yes, they got caught like, oh, no, what's gonna happen? Because he's gonna see or what are we going to

Kristin Nilsen 59:10

do? And it never occurred to you that if that happened, the show would be over. Right? Well,

Carolyn Cochrane 59:14

eventually, you guys the show has genie and Captain Nelson getting married. Okay, so we've got a lot of kind of sexual tension up until that point, you know, he kind of dates other people, but we can tell they really liked each other. But then the network executives, they kind of got a little concerned about this image of these main characters living together. So they decided they had to get married. And guess what Barbara Eden said that was the demise of the show. The season that they had them getting married? was the last season of it. Yeah, yes. Did

Kristin Nilsen 59:44

she start dressing like normal clothes and stuff? Yeah, she

Carolyn Cochrane 59:47

had to be more mortal, I guess. Yeah. And it just it lost its the tension was zing. Exactly. She said she that genie should have just stayed kind of that can character that interrupted all the dates that Captain Nelson would go on. Yeah, that was kind of her role. So yeah, so we had we saw our last episodes in 1970 after they got married, which was actually a popular episode like it was a big deal when they got married. But then everything after that was kind of out nobody cares. No more Jeannie.

Kristin Nilsen 1:00:18

And I used to fantasize about her bottle. I wanted my kids to be like that Bob

Carolyn Cochrane 1:00:25

was dead. Yes. Everything and I loved her

Michelle Newman 1:00:28

ponytail. Yes. Oh, for sure. Off the

Kristin Nilsen 1:00:31

top of her head.

Michelle Newman 1:00:32

I still love that ponytail. Here we come. Mystery you get funniest rooms. Anyone with a monkey

Kristin Nilsen 1:00:49

in our number four spot is my number one pick.

Michelle Newman 1:00:53

number one pick.

Kristin Nilsen 1:00:54

It is my number one pick. The number four pick in our top 10 Is the mindless and much like the monsters I thought monkey was spelled m o n Ke and I wrote it like that like in my school papers and everything and when it came back crossed out and spelled Mo and ke y I just thought the teacher was wrong. Like I can't believe she doesn't know how to spell monkey. Well, we

Michelle Newman 1:01:17

did have we did have some people vote for the monkeys and they spelled

Kristin Nilsen 1:01:24

Oh Mo and ke y Correct. Oh, that is not correct.

Michelle Newman 1:01:29

We can forgive a lot of things Lester's that one and spelling Shaun Cassidy and correctly as many of us really can't can't be friends.

Kristin Nilsen 1:01:36

So the show was on in primetime for only two seasons from 1966 to 1968. And along with the Partridge Family. The Monkees was my ultimate sweet spot combining these crashworthy characters and musical montages, and together, they formed the foundation of my crush history. Pretty much this is where I live people. This is where I learned how to have a crush. And when I was watching The Monkees, now I was old enough to watch it with other people who were also there for the crushes like I was, and we divvy them up. According to size and personality. Everybody gets a monkey. And I was I originally was attracted to Mike Nesmith, I liked his sort of no nonsense approach to shenanigans. And, and the beanie, of course,

Michelle Newman 1:02:20

I'm sorry. Everybody stopped. Already stop. So I'm gonna please write that down.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:27

No nonsense.

Michelle Newman 1:02:30

Seriously, and I was originally attracted to Mike Nesmith. I really liked his no nonsense approach to shenanigans,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:37

yes, and years old, but that is what I think. No, she's

Michelle Newman 1:02:41

probably sitting in a high chair. I also just want that to be like some sort of tagline like no. Nation society a no nonsense approach to shenanigans. I really liked

Kristin Nilsen 1:02:54

it. I just like the cage Jackson of the monkeys. Right? It was my favorite Angel. But then I was told that I couldn't have Mike Nesmith, I had to have Davy Jones because we were the same size. And you know what that were for me? That was great, because that face is there. There's probably there has never been a more cherubic face in in the world, maybe. Then Davy Jones in crush history, for sure. In teen idol history, there's never been a more cherubic face. That face is responsible for the explosion of Tiger Beat magazine, because it was like a struggling magazine until somebody saw a picture of Davy Jones and they were like, get him on the cover now. And then Wallah, we have Tiger Beat. And then when they put the little animated stars in his eyes when he fell in love,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:45

I mean, love to that I

Kristin Nilsen 1:03:46

would have done, I'd love to get married, right, like today. So the monkeys greatest hits album was the first album that I bought by myself with my own money with my own agency, right. And it is the album that I know best in my whole collection, because my whole neighborhood was involved in this collective crash experience. Even the boys, the boys loved the stupid shenanigans, and they thought they were hilarious. There was one neighbor boy whose mom wrote on his watch in Sharpie like in permanent marker, she wrote the minute that our hand to the four and the minute hand to the 12, so that when the the hands of the clock matched up, it was time to go in for the monkey's. Oh, that's like mom of the year. Yeah. And it was very helpful for the rest of us because Kevin would be like, you guys, it's like, we would all run inside. It was time for the monkey hips. So we listen to that record constantly with everyone. This was a neighborhood experience, and we heard those songs not just on the album, but in the show. In the musical montages that I loved so much. These songs were imprinting on us. The marketing is genius, especially for a show in syndication. The greatest hits album was released 10 years after this Joe was canceled it Wow. So brilliant. And I, like we've discussed and like subsequent generations did not know that these were reruns. I did not know that the monkeys didn't exist in this farm anymore. There's so much dirt about the monkeys that we could never fit in in my little segment right here. It serves a future episode.

Michelle Newman 1:05:23

Okay, well at number three, we have a really big tie. These two shows are huge, huge, and obviously they tied for number three. And the first one I'm going to talk about is Gilligan's Island.

Speaker 1 1:05:39

Back then you'll love a painful trip that started from this topic board a board this time and ship.

Michelle Newman 1:05:48

Gilligan's Island wasn't easy. Number two on my personal list and you know what I think would be fun you guys, let's share our own top 10 our own personal top 10 Listen, this week's Weekly Reader this is gonna be a big Weekly Reader this week, you guys if you're not subscribed yet definitely the week to do it. But I think that would be fun for people to see how the All right to these. I feel like I've seen every episode of Gilligan's Island. I loved the show, despite the fact that it filled me with so much anxiety. I wanted nothing more than for them to be rescued. And like you said, Kristen, with I Dream of Jeannie. I wasn't realizing or didn't care that if they got rescued, the show was over every episode. I wanted them to be rescued. And they almost did almost like every episode, it seemed like they were always almost getting radiofrequency to send a distress call or almost getting the boat fix. And it drove me bananas. But I loved how they made like I said with Flintstones, they made all the everyday objects out of things like coconuts or palm fronds so funny. The professor even made a lie detector machine from I don't know, it's like bamboo, vines or something. And I loved the frequent dream sequences that they always had, where they all played kind of like different characters in the dream. And fun fact those were also the cast members favorites to film apparently, Gilligan's Island was created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. And this shocking to me It ran for just three seasons. Oh my god, you're on CBS from September 1964 to April 1967 98 episodes, which is confusing cuz I thought you needed 100 to go into syndication but

Kristin Nilsen 1:07:30

that must be a rule that was instituted in the 70s because there's so many of these 60s shows that were way less than 100.

Michelle Newman 1:07:37

The show's ensemble cast as we all know features Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jr. Jim Backus, Natalie Schaefer, Tina Louise Russell Johnson, and I don't know about you guys, but my favorite Don wells. Marianne was my favorite. Carolyn, did you have a favorite?

Carolyn Cochrane 1:07:52

I'd say yeah, Marianne, Marianne. Marianne.

Michelle Newman 1:07:55

I just seen just some interesting things tidbits about some of this cast Bob Denver, from 1959 to 1963, of course played Maynard G crabs, the beatnik friend of Dobie Gillis, and that was right before Gilligan's Island. Alan Hale Jr. had a huge resume and you guys he was kind of hot. Let's go back and look kind of young Alan Hale Jr. I'm just saying. I want it out there. We're the darling of Gilligan's Island. Like we just said our favorite Maryann Don wells died sadly from COVID on December 20 2020, at age 82, and up until her death was still doing the celebrity Meet and Greet circus at all those cons you know, post Gilligan's Island if you remember we saw Dawn wells on everything from Fantasy Island to Love Boat to elf. In 1959, Don was was crowned Miss Nevada and represented her state in the Miss America in 1960 pageant in Atlantic City. I can see that not Tina Marie. No, Tina, Tina Louise. Tina Louise. Girlfriend. Well, Tina Louise at age 90 is the last surviving star

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:08

was losing it. She's still alive.

Michelle Newman 1:09:11

Yeah, she's 90. Oh, so Gilligan's Island received very solid ratings during its original run, and then grew in popularity during decades of syndication, which is what we all contributed to right. Especially in the 70s and 80s. When many markets ran the show in the late afternoon, after school guys grabbed your hostess, grab your fruit cup,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:09:32

I mean, that whole lanky kid thing that we talked about and all that that all just lends itself to so we

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:38

can connect that to the the laws that made no fault divorce so that we had a wave of divorces. So we had all the moms going back to work so that we had latchkey children who came home and watch TV for hours of the time. That's for the success of the show.

Michelle Newman 1:09:51

Well, and according to Wikipedia, all that watching by us contributed to this all the characters of Gilligan's Island are today recognized as American culture Roll icons. Yeah, I can totally see that. I don't know if you guys remember this. I remember watching this in 1978 we get the first sequel movie where they get rescued. Only to take a reunion cruise and get shipwrecked again.

Kristin Nilsen 1:10:14

I've been so bad. It's

Michelle Newman 1:10:17

so great. You guys. I feel like I remember the feeling of anger. Inside I do like I felt I felt like I'm treating right? Yes, yes. What? Alright, well, time number three with Gilligan's Island is I Love Lucy

and my biggest memories of watching I Love Lucy are watching every day after school in high school like 8485 but also I do know that even then they were reruns to me. So again, when did I watch it? I can't figure it out. But I had watched it at some point. I loved it. I Love Lucy originally aired from October 15 1951 to May 6 1957, with a total of 180 episodes spanning six seasons, and it always aired on Mondays from nine to 930 on CBS the entire run same time slot. Wow. So let's talk reruns. Like I said earlier, I Love Lucy was the first show to be rerun. It was the first scripted television program to be filmed on 35 millimeter film in front of a studio audience won five Emmy Awards and received many nominations honors, and it was the first show I think this is so fun. This was a fun fact, it was the first show to feature an ensemble cast.

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:36

Oh, that's interesting. And here we are today. Making ensemble cast shows we have a whole award category for ensemble cast. I

Michelle Newman 1:11:43

love ensemble cast, cast. So because of that it's often regarded as both one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms in history. And in 2012, it was voted the best TV show of all time. And a survey survey conducted by ABC News and People Magazine.

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:02

Oh, if I agree with that, I'm saying yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, by all time totally there of all time, when you think about the ground that it broke. When you think about what Lucille Ball did on her own against insurmountable odds. Sure. She was in charge of that show. She was in charge of that company. She was in charge of that script. And there were no women anywhere. Nothing. And my God, she's funny. So yeah, so funny. And

Michelle Newman 1:12:28

2013 the Writers Guild of America ranked I Love Lucy number 12 on their list of the 101 best written TV series. And because I know you too, and most of our listeners are wondering, yeah, here are the top three. At number three is the Twilight Zone. Number two is Seinfeld. Oh, and the number one best written TV series according to the Writers Guild of America, and 2013 is the Sopranos. Oh, yeah, yeah, I

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:58

think timing right. I wonder how long that will hold someday there's gonna be some show that's gonna bump sopranos

Michelle Newman 1:13:04

is if we don't have enough this week. I am gonna put a link to this list in this week's Weekly Reader because it's actually super interesting Brian and I went through all 101 of them the other day because it was really interesting because the 90s you're like, No, it's just best written right? Just

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:19

best written TV series of all time. So for Lucy to be in there is pretty amazing.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:13:24

Coming in at number two, and number one in my heart when it comes to TV homes would be B which

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:39

Oh yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:13:39

we had bewitched for 254 episodes. That is September 17 1964. through March 25 1972.

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:51

Oh my god.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:13:52

If you need a little refresher, we follow the lives of mortal Darrin Stephens and his witchy wife, Samantha. We remember that Elizabeth Montgomery plays Samantha. She also played Lizzie Borden. Remember that? And we have to deferens two actors that portrayed Darren during the course of this series and I want to ask you guys, we have Dickie Ork he's the one who originated the part but illness and a bad back and some other things caused him to leave the series after the fifth season. Then we get Dick Sargent who took over the role. Did you guys have a favorite Darren? Because I had a favorite.

Kristin Nilsen 1:14:30

I had a favorite Darren I was sort of I was kind of pissy about skinny Darren. I liked the more square headed Darren and I don't know which one is which I don't know dig Sergeant Dick York, but I do know that I was so confused. And I thought it was the same one. He just lost a lot of weight.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:43

They don't really think oh,

Kristin Nilsen 1:14:45

I know. But it was I didn't read pointy chin. Yeah, Dick York. Okay. That's any

Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:51

deryni Oh, gee. Yes. And even in the again we have an animated beginning of a TV show. This was created and produced. By Hanna Barbera and yes Darren is chin is very pronounced in those cartoons in the animated version Okay guys I have something awful to kind of admit my favorite was Dick Sargent I thought he was much better looking

Kristin Nilsen 1:15:14

ahead right? Yes just rounder

Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:19

ever I guess really thought

Kristin Nilsen 1:15:20

not pointy chin not

Michelle Newman 1:15:21

pointed or less I say better luck I think

Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:24

of them in terms of geometry. Okay, you could do that. I just thought he was cuter I'm sorry Dick your god rest your soul. I just didn't think he was attractive. He was dorky and he was Sergeant was a little more mod and cute to me. So yeah, I'd have a favorite Darren and it would be the second it would be Sergeant

Michelle Newman 1:15:42

mine was the second to the first Aaron's eyes bugged me. Start really buggy. His eyes were always like little black hole. Exactly right, that teddy bear. stick in there like dark black. Oh

Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:00

gosh. Well, we had an array of characters but great cast of characters in this TV show. And Dora Samantha's mother. ever

Kristin Nilsen 1:16:10

forget. love her so much love to Agnes Morehead.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:13

Yes, Agnes Mora. Who to me would always be indoor. Like that's another one of those actresses that they show you from some movie she was in in 1962. And she was supposedly kind of attractive and you know, she's always indoor just like Margaret Hamilton. Even though she's what the sanka or the Folgers lady? No, she's always the witch from Wizard of Oz. Okay, we got Mrs. Kravitz and her husband you guys remember her husband's name?

Michelle Newman 1:16:39

Oh, yeah. It's like it's like, um, are you? Yeah, I know. They're yelling and I can Abner or something like that. You did. To be like, I can hear

Carolyn Cochrane 1:16:51

her. hear her saying it. Like I caught her. We had Dr. Bombay.

Michelle Newman 1:17:02

Oh, he's like the Wizard and wicked. Yes, you're right. Wizard of Oz. I could say yeah, Aunt

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:08

Clara. Oh, Claire didn't come. So befuddled.

Kristin Nilsen 1:17:12

Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:14

she played befuddled very well. Yes, she did. She of course we had Mr. Tate that would be Darrin boss at the ad agency. Tabitha, we kind of watched Tabitha grow up throughout this episode and get a little brother later on in the series named Adam who had no really forgot about I had no Adam was a mortal. He didn't have any. Oh, I

Michelle Newman 1:17:35

don't even know. Yeah. That was later.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:39

Yeah, much later in the series. But yeah, they had a baby Adam and he's like a toddler, I think when the series ends. And then we have Uncle Arthur. That was Paul Lynde. Love

Michelle Newman 1:17:50

him. I know you guys aren't huge fans, but you know how much I love him. You do and probably

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:55

a really good Uncle Arthur. If I look back and think about it, he was an excellent Uncle Arthur. And then we had Esmerelda. So much goodness to that show. And we've talked about this a little bit and in shows that, especially in the 70s that would kind of have social issues, melded, and kind of sometimes almost secretly that you didn't know you're getting bogged over the head with it. And it's often commented that Andorra would kind of use almost Betty for Dan language. How she talked about all these, like, kind of womanly jobs that Samantha had to do as like the wife. Yes, that's right. And was kind of subtly saying like, you can be you can be more than that. You are more than that. You have power, you can pick up his own damn socks. Right. Exactly. And even though at the time I think I didn't like indoor, I thought she was really kind of mean and snippy, seeing her through those eyes. I thought, yeah, that's she was kind of standing up for you can be more than just this wife that picks up socks. Oh,

Speaker 5 1:18:55

Samantha, you just don't understand. He's turning you into the typical housewife drudge. Oh, good to see you in a few years, surrounded by diapers and bottles, and pacifiers and wild wall, baby.

Michelle Newman 1:19:12

Okay, well, are you guys ready to hear ready? Number one. listeners. Can you guess shout it out right now.

Kristin Nilsen 1:19:19

Everybody knows.

Michelle Newman 1:19:22

Drumroll, please, Carolyn. The number one rerun as voted on by the pop culture Preservation Society members and about 15 billion human beings. That's actually I think, like two times the amount that on earth I believe, but that's fair, is the Brady Bunch.

Speaker 1 1:19:44

Here's the story of a lovely lady who was bringing very lovely girls,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:19:51

of course, the end

Kristin Nilsen 1:19:56

next week

Unknown Speaker 1:20:01

family. We all became the Brady Bunch.

Michelle Newman 1:20:07

Oh my goodness. Well, like most of you the Brady Bunch was an easy number one on my own list. I watched it every single day after school with my sister for as many episodes as they would feed to us. It's the quintessential comfort show. It's one that I don't care how goody goody you think it is? It's the quintessential comfort show. Would you guys agree? 100%?

Kristin Nilsen 1:20:29

Oh, yeah, I'm probably mostly because it was just always there. For us. It was always there. They never took it off the air at 230. Every day I could run home and I could watch it.

Michelle Newman 1:20:41

I would say that the Brady's are our generations family. Not really true. They're boomers, families, but they're also generations subsequent generations family. And that's one thing that we all love about the Brady Bunch too, is that it lives on. And you guys, listeners since we have three podcast episodes already devoted to the Brady Bunch. I am not going to rehash a lot of the stats. I just want to let you know that those are episodes 3536 and episode 123. Do a little loose. The Brady's go to Hawaii. So why is this show still today? In 2024? Why is it still so popular? Well, an article from 2019 So it's still pretty recent by entertainment writer Sandra e burger and I will again link this article in the Weekly Reader because I loved it says The Brady Bunch was my brief drama free break from real life. It was my pixelated security blanket. As entertainment writer Jess Cagle wrote this show was a picture of stability, while Vietnam and the sexual revolution rocked the rest of the world. While our real life parents were splitting up at an alarming rate. Those goody goody Brady's were telling us a shameless lie about family life. We desperately believed it. And I would add we desperately needed it. Yeah, that's so true. It was a bomb to a lot of us who desperately needed that type of security in our days and in our families.

Kristin Nilsen 1:22:14

So what if we all left work at 330 and immediately sat down on the couch for two hours of vintage family sitcoms? No guilt allowed? What if that was a thing that we could do? What would that do for our mental health? To take that kind of break? I feel like it would be the kind of mindless escape that we all need, right after a hard day of work. You empty out your brain, you let go of the emergencies, you lie down, you take a load off. And then when you're freshly rejuvenated, then you can get up and make dinner. Dinner's at 630. But you take those two hours off to watch stupid TV, because life is so fast right now. And it feels like we're constantly running out of time. Could we just slow things down? If we instituted an after work ritual of after school programming.

Michelle Newman 1:23:03

Don't your nighttime I think I'm going to tear I'm going to write down all these shows we've just talked about, and little slips of paper and put them in a cup. And at night, Brian and I are going to each pick one. And so that's two shows. So maybe one night we watched an episode of bewitched and one of I Dream of Jeannie, and the next night, it's an episode of Tech VanDyke. And the Brady Bunch would not be counted, that I do not every night but like for a nice

Kristin Nilsen 1:23:27

idea of like giving yourself permission to do something that we nowadays as an adult, we as an adult, we would look at as a waste of time. And it could be that that time that we took after school to unwind before dinner might have been kind of good for us. Because either way, either way, these shows whether you love them, hated them, or watch them simply because they were on contributed immensely to our daily lives mostly because of the massive amount of real estate they took up in our day. And I don't think any of these would be considered educational or highbrow forms of art by any means. But look at us, we still turned out just fine. Thank you for listening today. And we will see you next time.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:24:07

I thought today's episode was so fun. And I want to thank those people who helped bring it to us today. I want to thank Susan and Joanna and Jane and Jamie and Jill and Sharon. And I want to thank Christine, Elaine and Barbara too. Because you know what? Those are just some of our Patreon supporters and one time donors who make this podcast possible. We have so much fun doing this podcast that we are so grateful to our supporters.

Michelle Newman 1:24:35

Absolutely. And if you'd like to explore our Patreon page and check out the perks our patrons get as a thank you for their support. Just go to Patreon pa t ar e o n.com or our website, pop preservationists.com In

Kristin Nilsen 1:24:52

the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast courtesy of Jack tripper Janet wood and Chrissy snow two good times.

Michelle Newman 1:24:59

To Happy Days

Carolyn Cochrane 1:25:00

to Little House on the Prairie cheers. The

Kristin Nilsen 1:25:05

information opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crush ologists and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there's always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional w j m studios and our beloved Mary Richards Nananana. Keep on truckin and may the Force be with you