Is rewatching old TV good for the soul?...

[DGUtley]

When I hear "old TV" I think of really old TV - like from the '60s and '70s or even earlier. 'The Andy Griffith Show', 'The Beverly Hillbillies', 'Gilligan's Island', etc. Yeah, sometimes watching those shows can sort of "reset" you in a way. Hard to explain, but I think at least some of you know what I mean.

As for what younger people might consider "old TV", I don't think of 'The Office' (one of my all-time favorite shows...I just re-watched the whole series last year) or 'Friends' (I think I watched one or two episodes back in the day) or 'Seinfeld' (I've seen a lot of episodes, but I'm not a huge fan) as particularly therapeutic. Maybe it has to do with whether or not a person feels isolated and lonely; I don't, so having those "t.v. families" in my living room isn't really a big deal.

Andy's on til 8.

[Standing Wolf]

Andy's on til 8.

I remember many years ago, living alone and feeling pretty stressed, I used to get up a little early every weekday morning to watch an episode of 'The Beverly Hillbillies' before going to work. It made me laugh and put me in a good mood every time.

[BenjaminO]

When I hear "old TV" I think of really old TV - like from the '60s and '70s or even earlier. 'The Andy Griffith Show', 'The Beverly Hillbillies', 'Gilligan's Island', etc. Yeah, sometimes watching those shows can sort of "reset" you in a way. Hard to explain, but I think at least some of you know what I mean.

As for what younger people might consider "old TV", I don't think of 'The Office' (one of my all-time favorite shows...I just re-watched the whole series last year) or 'Friends' (I think I watched one or two episodes back in the day) or 'Seinfeld' (I've seen a lot of episodes, but I'm not a huge fan) as particularly therapeutic. Maybe it has to do with whether or not a person feels isolated and lonely; I don't, so having those "t.v. families" in my living room isn't really a big deal.

I was a western fan.
The Rifleman, Bonanza, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, and a really old one, Have Gun Will Travel.
That's a short list.
Then there's Leave it to Beaver, Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Ozzie and Harriet, The Monkeys, and...
Buddy Hackett on The Carson show always cracked me up.

The internet has given us the ability to watch all those old programs upon demand.
The days of antenna only TV and 3 channels are long gone.

[BenjaminO]

Andy's on til 8.

TV?
What channel?

[DGUtley]

TV? What channel?

I think it is TV Land. It's 148 on Armstrong. I get home and while I'm changing I click 148 as I'm changing (I don't watch the news anymore). It's always Andy Griffith. I think it's 6 - 8. At 8, it's Everybody Loves Raymond. Nice, funny, mindless, easy going. Yes, I've seen them all dozens of times each but Ms. Crump and Debra are both kind of hot....

[Standing Wolf]

I was a western fan.
The Rifleman, Bonanza, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, and a really old one, Have Gun Will Travel.
That's a short list.
Then there's Leave it to Beaver, Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Ozzie and Harriet, The Monkeys, and...
Buddy Hackett on The Carson show always cracked me up.

The internet has given us the ability to watch all those old programs upon demand.
The days of antenna only TV and 3 channels are long gone.

I remember back when I was in grade school, every day at the same time in the afternoon the local independent station would show an episode of - and it rotated throughout the week - The Lone Ranger, Superman, Robin Hood (with Richard Greene), William Tell (hardly anyone remembers that one these days, but I can still remember the words to the theme song) or Sgt. Preston of the Yukon. (At the end of every episode, he would say to his husky, "Well, King, this case is closed".)

As for Westerns, I never ever really favored the "singing cowboys" like Autry or Rogers, but I liked 'Have Gun, Will Travel', 'The Rifleman'...and 'The Rebel' with Nick Adams, who died much too early.

'T.H.E. Cat' with Robert Loggia. That series is not available on DVD, although I certainly hope it will be someday. I bought a bootleg set of DVDs a few years ago, but they didn't work very well or last very long. There was another show called 'World of Giants' - about an American spy who is exposed to some kind of gas while watching a Soviet space launch and shrinks down to being 6" tall. His partner carries him around in a briefcase. And of course 'Sea Hunt'. One of the nostalgia channels ran almost the entire series a few years ago, and it was great seeing that again.

[BenjaminO]

I remember back when I was in grade school, every day at the same time in the afternoon the local independent station would show an episode of - and it rotated throughout the week - The Lone Ranger, Superman, Robin Hood (with Richard Greene), William Tell (hardly anyone remembers that one these days, but I can still remember the words to the theme song) or Sgt. Preston of the Yukon. (At the end of every episode, he would say to his husky, "Well, King, this case is closed".)

As for Westerns, I never ever really favored the "singing cowboys" like Autry or Rogers, but I liked 'Have Gun, Will Travel', 'The Rifleman'...and 'The Rebel' with Nick Adams, who died much too early.

'T.H.E. Cat' with Robert Loggia. That series is not available on DVD, although I certainly hope it will be someday. I bought a bootleg set of DVDs a few years ago, but they didn't work very well or last very long. There was another show called 'World of Giants' - about an American spy who is exposed to some kind of gas while watching a Soviet space launch and shrinks down to being 6" tall. His partner carries him around in a briefcase. And of course 'Sea Hunt'. One of the nostalgia channels ran almost the entire series a few years ago, and it was great seeing that again.

Great memories.

[carolina73]

I saw "Live & Let Die" on the classic movie channel yesterday.

My first reaction was that movie is not that old.

I guess that means that I am a classic now too.

[mamooth]

If you watch the old shows on DVD, you see that a one-hour show in the 1960s had about 52 minutes of content. The other 8 minutes was for commercials.

That number has been sliding down over the years. A one-hour TV show today wil have about 44 minutes of content. Commercial levels have doubled. The old shows sometimes have pieces cut out to fit in more commercials.