Back to One: Nostalgia TV

When I was a kid – my two most favorite tv shows were Emergency! and Space 1999. My parents were young and every Saturday we’d go over to one of their friends’ houses to cook out. No matter whose house we were going to – we had to arrive before 7pm so that I could watch my two shows – Space 1999 at 7 and Emergency at 8. While all the other kids were running around outside like banshees, I was planted in front of a tv somewhere getting my fix.

Emergency! was the 70’s precursor to ER. It ran from  1972 for six seasons and a few tv movies. At the time, this show was considered groundbreaking. A nationwide paramedic program had only been created a couple of years before – that is firemen who were trained in basic medical and life saving procedures. Before that, if you had a medical emergency, an ambulance would come to pick you up and take you to a hospital for treatment. The ambulance drivers only performed very basic medical procedures. 

The show followed two paramedics, Roy DeSoto(Kevin Tighe) and John Gage(Randolph Mantooth), and the emergency room doctors and mainly one nurse of fictional Rampart General Hospital as they saved the lives of LA county residents. The paramedics would call the ER on a callbox and one of the doctors would tell them what to do – mostly give people lidocaine drips if I remember correctly. Some of the emergencies were comical like rescuing someone trapped in a sleeper sofa, some were not – a boy rescued from being trapped in a hole turns out to be a victim of child abuse. To this day, I don’t really eat anything from cans because of an episode about botulism. To kid me it was exciting and I thought Gage and DeSoto were the coolest adults I had ever seen. I wanted to be a paramedic for a long time, although that’s not what I ended up doing. A lot of real life paramedics credit the show as being the reason they got into the profession.

I was such a nerd about Emergency! that my original username on Gawker was KMG365 -which is the call sign for Station 51 from the show and yes, that’s my actual lunchbox in the photo.

The dispatcher’s siren call to the station was my ringtone on my old Nokia cell phone.

My other favorite show, Space: 1999 was a trippy British cross between Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey that started airing in 1975 before Star Wars was even a thing. It ran two very different seasons – the first being very dark and cerebral and way over my head but was about space so I didn’t care – and the second, which made it more colorful and a little wackier which probably helped it’s demise.

Moonbase Alpha’s nuclear waste dump explodes sending the moon and its inhabitants on a physics defying trip into deep space. Along the way they meet all kinds of alien creatures and civilizations, all the while trying to reestablish communications with Earth to get back home. Although it was British, the two leads were American married couple Martin Landau and Barbara Bain from the 60’s show Mission Impossible. The first season was probably based slightly more on hard science than the second season. My most favorite scary episode of anything ever was from the first season called “Dragon’s Domain”. I loved anything that was space based science fiction and for a brief moment a Space: 1999 lunchbox almost dethroned my Emergency! one.

So, good people of Deadsplinter, what childhood tv nostalgia ushered adult you into the world? As always, thanks for your support of DS and for stopping by.

The answer to last week’s poll was D)  Leo DiCaprio never rode three hours in the crew van to LA every weekend. Sometimes he would arrive by helicopter and truthfully, our weekends consisted of Sunday or not all.

This week’s poll:

Who would you think was the worst actor I’ve worked with?
23 votes · 23 answers
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50 Comments

  1. I remember loving Emergency! and watching–but totally not getting–Space 1999.  Other shows that I loved as a kid:

    CHiPS

    The Dukes of Hazzard

    Manimal

    Starsky & Hutch

    Wonder Woman

    Literally, none of those shows aged well.

    • It’s kind of fun now to watch Chips and Emergency  – just to see 70’s/80’s LA and 70’s/80’s Universal backlot. 

      • Oh, I just remembered:  Kung Fu.  Which also hasn’t aged well, but is also something that I steal lines from, such as “I’ve been walking the rice paper for a long time.”  Seems I am very quiet for a 230 lb man so people rarely hear me coming.

        • Oh man, I loved Kung Fu, used to watch it every week with my dad.  If you watched the 30 for 30 on Bruce Lee you know he was up for that part but they thought his accent was too much!  Fucking really?

          • I know, that blew me away.  The thing that always killed me about Kung Fu was it was an hour long, but it felt like the introduction they did every week was 15 minutes long.

          • …I was also a big fan of kung fu…& used to watch re-runs of the green hornet too (they played at the weekend in the UK when I was a kid) without realizing kato was played by bruce lee

            …some years later as a teenagers various friends got slightly hooked on kung fu movies & the green hornet thing wound up seriously inconveniencing one guy who was oddly invested in the idea that he was “first” to be a fan of anything kung fu related & the rest of us were just following his lead…it probably didn’t help that I thought it was hilarious since it was incomprehensible to me why it mattered to them but they genuinely sulked about it


  2. oh yeah…2 episodes a week right before bedtime (or right after the 8 oclock news)
    i kinda miss having specific times to see specific things or miss out…there was fun to the routine of sitting down with the whole fam to watch a show everyones following
    anyways *shuffles on over to netflix to watch anything anytime*

    • I know – I’ve gotten so used to binging things – when it’s a one episode a week show now – I forget sometimes.  I was watching this season of Snowpiercer on TNT with my dad, which is one show a week – and we just realized a couple of days ago that we forgot to watch the season finale. My dad was like did we ever finish that train show? We watched it last night.

      • i completely forgot to watch snowpiercer the series… i enjoyed the movie…sooo..this series has better odds than most of me not getting bored with it halfway through
        guess i know what im doing this weekend when not watching motorsports then 🙂
        (better odds than most means its probably still doomed…lol… attention span of a goldfish here)
        tbh…i think the part i miss most (asides from the whole watching together thing) is everyone being on the same page..wondering what happens next…now theres always someone thats already seent it all

        • I really like Snowpiercer the series – it’s a little more tvish than the movie but I think it’s pretty intriguing.

    • I enjoyed this show.  Had the coolest intro of any TV show at the time.

  3. Well, I hate to say it but I watched “The Cosby Show” a lot growing up and … yeah, hasn’t exactly aged like a fine wine. 

    “Unsolved Mysteries” remains a real favorite. Terror as a kid; hilarity at its cheesiness as an adult.

    I remember being really excited about “Seaquest DSV” when it hit the air but that didn’t last for very long. I also, of course, watched the shit out of “Star Trek: TNG” but I still watch it pretty often sooooo it doesn’t count.

    • I loved Seaquest DSV. I have to admit that I loved Fat Albert as a kid – so I feel your Cosby shame. 

      • I remember liking the first season quite a bit and then being less into season 2 and not really watching any of 3. The timing was a smidge late for me to be into as a kid; it hit the air when I was 13 or 14 and for various reasons I didn’t really watch a ton of TV around that time.

        For example: I recently had the idea to rewatch the “X-Men” animated series from the 90s. I remembered the first season vividly, and most of the second, but then had no memory of the third season … and it hit me at I would have been 16 and at that age, I had a weekend job, and unless I’d had the wherewithal to tape it (which big “LOL”) I’d never have gotten a chance to see it, so of course I didn’t remember it!

  4. “Hey Dude” this was a sitcom on Nickelodeon in the early 90s. It was my favorite show at the time. Other stuff I watched growing up was Clarissa Explains It All, Are You Afraid Of The Dark, Muppet Babies, You Can’t Do That On Television, Mr. Wizard, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Kids In The Hall, In Living Color, and a lot of before-my-time shows on Nick At Nite.

    • Oh man, yes to almost all of this. I was definitely into Hey Dude, Clarissa, Are you afraid of the dark, Kids in the Hall, and basically everything on Nick at Nite. I’d add to that Salute Your Shorts, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Guts, and Legends of the Hidden Temple (which might be getting a reboot??).  But probably the most formative show for me, which unlike most of those I would say has absolutely held up, was Xena Warrior Princess. I still rewatch sometimes. Also Buffy, though that was a bit later. 
       
      I never watched Mr Wizard but it was hugely formative for my husband. I watched clips and he was pretty mean to the kids… 

      • I don’t remember Mr. Wizard feeling mean as a kid, but I’ve seen clips recently and there’s no padding in his delivery, that’s for sure. 
        And yes to all those other Nick shows!!

    • I had much younger sisters and these were all of their fave shows. Except as an adult – I loved Peewee’s Playhouse. 

  5. I didn’t watch a lot of TV as a kid. We only had one TV and as the youngest in the family I had no say in what was on. And I had to sit on the floor if I was going to watch. So I usually read instead. By the time my older siblings were out of the house and there was room on the furniture I had found other amusements. 

  6. I had the same lunchbox and loved the same shows.
    My closest friend at the time had the Playmobile fire rescue? set so we used to “play” Emergency all the time and inject car crash victims with simple saline solution all the time.
    From what I heard, he became a fire marshall so there’s that.
    Space 1999 and Star Trek were the two shows closest to my SF loving geek heart at the time.  My dad used to watch Space 1999 with me from time to time.  He used to MST3K the show and would be the snark master making fun of the science all the time.  He would be rolling his eyes and laughing (much like I did some 25 years later when I saw Armageddon–like father like son.)
    Dragon’s Domain scared the shit out of me.  Also The Trouble Spirit where a plant seance (don’t ask) goes wrong and the ghost of D’ohs past comes to haunt the guest star/victim.

    • When I watch Space 1999 now – I’m like who let me watch that first season? It was so over my head. 

  7. I watched both Emergency and Space: 1999. I also watched Adam-12, which was similar to Emergency but with cops (I had the Adam-12 lunchbox). Other nostalgia shows for me (and we gonna dig in on cartoons here):
    Star Trek (obvs)*
    Star Trek (the animated series)*
    Kung Fu (previously mentioned)* 
    Batman (the 1966 version)*
    Wonder Woman (previously mentioned)*
    The Six Million Dollar Man
    The Bionic Woman
    The Flintstones*
    Lost in Space*
    Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoons (Space Ghost, Herculoids, Shazzan, The Impossibles, Jonny Quest, too many others to mention)*
    The Flash (original series)*
    Super Friends*
    Scooby Doo*
    Josie and the Pussycats (also in Outer Space)*
    Filmation Batman/Tarzan Hour*
    Shoot, I could go on for days.
    *Denotes DVD sets that I own.
     

      • The good Rev did a cover of this tune for the Sat. Morning cartoon album.  Every song on that album is fun & a show I used to watch!
         
         


         
        My others nobody has mentioned I loved were:
        Get Smart
        Gilligan’s Island
        Banana Splits
        Knight Rider
        original Hawaii 5-0
        Night Gallery

        • …get smart was great…as was knight rider at the time…I recall there being several attempts to do other “the vehicle is the star” shows but they weren’t as good…there was “street hawk” with a motorcycle which I mostly remember wanting to be better than it was…”blue lightning” with a helicopter with a machine gun…& of course “airwolf” which had a very memorable theme tune & a ridiculous name for the main character (stringfellow hawk)

          • I don’t remember the other two but was a big Airwolf fan & already a fan of Jan Michael Vincent from Big Wednesday.  My sister took me to that when I was a kid & I loved that movie.
             
             


             

            • Loved Airwolf. I thought Jan Michael Vincent was the coolest dude. I love that Burt Reynolds film with him in it about the stone men – Hooper.

              • I actually did a research paper on that movie in history of film class in college.  That was my favorite Burt Reynolds movie after Deliverance.
                 

              • Stunt men – not stone men, yeesh. 

                • …that reminds me…the fall guy was another show I watched a bunch as a kid

        • I had a Banana Splits ring tone for a while on my phone.

    • I think you and I had pretty much the same childhoods – I watched most of that too. I especially loved the 6 Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman. The episode with Big Foot and that weird tunnel were my favorite of those for some reason.
       Also, Emergency was a spinoff of Adam 12 apparently. 

      • The Hulk too!  Didn’t they do a crossover episode with Bionic Man and the Hulk or did I dream that one?

        • Yes, I thinks so. I loved the Hulk too. I’m just realizing how much tv I watched. 

        • No, no they did not. But I did love the Hulk. 

  8. My favorite Sitcom was WKRP IN Cincinnati.  It taught me a lot of things.  I found the episodes on youtube with the original music so it hasn’t been bad.  Somethings are dated, but I can still laugh at Chuhuahuas and Phone cops.
    When I was kid, Team Loni.  As an adult, Team Bailey.

    • and “Chai Chai Rod-ree-Gueeez”
       

    • As god as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

  9. In the 80s action adventure ruled.
    Miami Vice, Airwolf, The A-Team among others.  All aged badly like Michael Thomas’ acting career.
    My sick friend and I were laughing recently about Miami Vice and their silly character backstories like Castillo DEA ninja.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed those episodes of Ninja nonsense, but they are quite funny as an adult (jeez, I am my snarky dad.)
    Oh Airwolf… Secret government Mach 1 helicopter used A-Team style to rescue wayward kids and hot women from the clutches of local bandits/gangsters.  I preferred the dark espionage based episodes of the 1st season than the A-Team like later ones.
     
     

  10. …my mother is kind of a sci-fi fan so there was definitely a bunch of star trek I saw…& really old (like buster crabbe era) serials like flash gordon where the space ships were little tin models with a sparkler sticking out the back being jerkily winched across a screen

    …I also quite liked the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy as a tv show but as far as she was concerned that was a radio show & the tv version was rubbish so I didn’t see all of it

    …but I also remember watching a lot of re-runs of stuff my dad liked which were things like phil silvers as sargent bilko…a show with a guy called harold lloyd who did all his own stunts way back in the day (like stuff tom & jerry used to do in cartoons running around on girders swinging from cranes on building sites) & was pretty funny…& a few other things I’m definitely not old enough to have seen when they came out

    …there was also a kid who lived nearby who loved the rocketeer but didn’t have a tv at home so he used to come round to ours to watch it & was generally referred to as “mike tv”

  11. I didn’t discover Hitchhiker’s Guide until my early 20’s. I think I would’ve loved both the radio show and tv show. 

    • …the radio show was before my time…pretty sure I read the books before I saw the tv version…but the show was pretty great as far as I was concerned

      • I read and loved the books dearly as a kid. I saw some of the tv show as an adult, not all of it, but what I saw was definitely enjoyable. The 2005 movie was just ok. I did adore Alan Rickman as Marvin. 

  12. I wouldn’t have remembered any of these without reading through the comments, so I don’t really have much new to add…
    Fall Guy, Airwolf, A-Team, Knight Rider, MacGyver, China Beach, Northern Exposure…
    And a few I can’t remember the name of, there was one with ninjas or something when that was real popular.  It was quite silly in retrospect (The Master, maybe?).  And some show in the early/mid eighties, I think it was fantasy, or at least a mideival-ish setting, I can’t remember if there was actually anything magical or fantastical in it.  I think it was weekday primetime?  I can remember nothing else about it, other than it was really popular with the people I hung out with as a little kid. 
    Oh, there was some other tv show about a… computer that came to life or something? I just remember the main character would talk to “cursor” and it would draw cars and helicopters and stuff out of lines of blue light that could be used.  probably mid-late 80s?
    Tales of the Gold Monkey?
    And on weekends, after cartoons, watching various old Godzilla and other Kaiju movies.  Sometimes Land of the Lost…
     
    As a teen, I didn’t watch much tv.  I always had something else to work on, or read, or whatever.  I remember my parents calling me downstairs/out of my room, and I’d go see what they wanted, and they wouldn’t say anything, so I’d leave and go back to what I was doing, when they would call again.  Went through a couple iterations of that before I got annoyed and asked what they wanted, and it was always some “don’t you want to watch this” or similar vaguely-worded-I’m-doing-you-a-favor thing.  And it was always some crappy sitcom that was just not funny.  I have no idea why, after putting so many restrictions on tv-watching as a child, they wanted teen me to stop reading books and come watch moronic sit-coms…

    • Northern Exposure, now there’s a show that I forgot existed. I liked that show.
       
      Oh, and your list jogged my memory to bring up Columbo. My husband loved it, I never watched it as a kid. I watched it with him as an adult and it was kinda fun. 

      • I was never a fan of that show but love the town they filmed it in.  Been there a bunch & that was my breakfast snowmobile stop back in the day 

    • …not sure about the fantasy one but the show with “cursor” & all the blue light special effects was called automan, iirc

      • I think that’s it, thanks.

  13. My friend and I used to run home from school to watch Dark Shadows.
    As a family we would watch Laugh-in and Ed Sullivan.
    My grandmother was a huge Bonanza fan, would not miss it, I wonder if she thought that was what America was like before she came here from Greece. She must have been so disappointed.

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