Friday, December 10, 2010

All-Time Favorite TV Show

I was really impressed by your responses to my last post on icons.  Your comments were candid and interesting.  Culture plays a huge role in our lives and understanding which particular icons appeal to us reveals a lot about who we are inside.

I'd like to continue exploring the subject of influences, this time from the ubiquitous medium of television.  My question is: what TV show most influenced you?  What TV show captured your closest attention?

For most of us, it's a show from our childhood or early youth, usually with a character we identify with.  Who's your favorite character?


During my youth (and likely before your time), Mary Tyler Moore starred in a show named after her, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."  In it, Mary played a woman working at a local TV station.  The show was a comedy and had great actors in it (e.g., Lou Asner; Valerie Harper; Ted Knight; Gavin MacLeod; Betty White).

The show explored what it was like for a young woman to be in the workplace.  It's considered a feminist classic because of the ground it covered; as important as that, the show was engaging because you learned to care about Mary and her co-workers.  Mary believed her colleagues at work were "family" to her and she ended up loving them.

What was your all-time favorite TV show?  Why?


8 comments:

  1. Hmmm... when I was a kid, I looked up to wonder Woman and Princess Ardala.

    I wish I looked as good now as Lynda Carter looks now. And isn't she 110?

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  2. Goddesses never lose their looks. MTM is amazing; Julie Newmar is still fit and trim; and Jane Fonda just put out a new exercise video (and she's in her 70s!).

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  3. I watched old reruns of Emergency! when I was younger. Also, Little House on the Prairie. I'd say Little House on the Prairie had the most influence on me...although I don't really think that I was shaped by watching it! I just really liked it. Had every episode taped on VHS. I always liked historical fiction when I was younger, so I suppose my liking for Little House was because of that.

    I watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show once or twice, but it wasn't on very often when I was watching TV!

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  4. You and me both, Shybiker - MTM. I loved her life and wardrobe as a child, and I love Rhoda too. THey were both single, happy in themselves and fabulously dressed - everything I wanted! I ended up working as a TV producer for more than a decade but alas, never quite got the magical wardrobe, and never got the opportunity to toss my hat in the air. I still watch her on cable and still love every thread she wears.

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  5. Probably I Love Lucy and Happy Days. I actually still have a little crush on Desi Arnaz.

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  6. Baxter, I loved Mary's clothes. She was often shown dressing and pulling stuff from her closet: I lived vicariously through her. And Mary carried off every outfit with such panache! Mary had style.

    Francy, who doesn't?! Babalooo!!

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  7. My Fave all time show is CSI. My fave used to be I LOVE Lucy but I am more into the gross crime scene stuff now. CSI also keeps me cautious, I don't ever leave my house after 8:00 at night unless my husband is with me lol.

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  8. TV only came to SA in about 1978. One of the first shows I remember watching (at a neighbours house) was Black Beauty. I loved Mary Tyler Moore. Mostly I now watch Reality Shows and the Style Network, but when I remember the day, I enjoy Brothers and Sisters and Desperate Housewives.

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