In which I am old
Jun. 12th, 2010 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynDay 13 - Favorite childhood show
Seeing other people's answers to this pains me, since they all name shows that were on when I was an adolescent/teenager/adult. When I was a child, I watched stuff no one else around me would even know about; also, because almost all the people in my age group I know grew up not in these here parts, they wouldn't know about the local things like Brakeman Bill, Nightmare Theatre, and Captain Puget (my favorite of the bunch).
SIgh. Old lady is old.
So I think I will reach for the show that started it all -- Laredo. As with Star Trek, I had to sneak-watch Laredo, but since my sister liked Laredo and wasn't into Trek, she used her favorite-kid wiles to finagle some watch time when my mom couldn't bitch us out for watching.
(I'd discovered Trek on my own, staying up past my bedtime one summer, on a night when all the kid were allowed to play outside as the parents mingled on the block, smoking and drinking. I won't ever really forget it -- we were all in our PJs, running around playing hide and seek in the dark, up much later than we'd ever been before, and I'd managed to 1) step on a slug, which popped between my toes, getting slimy slug guts all over my foot and 2) slipped on the damp grass with my sluggy slick foot, twisting my ankle, so my mom sent me back to the house to clean up and go to bed. My injuries were perpetual, so they were pretty dismissive of them. Instead of going to bed, I turned on the black and white Sylvania television -- we were the last people in the area to get color TV -- and saw... I don't even remember the episode, but I thought it was just MAGICAL. Especially Spock.)
Anyways. Laredo was a strange show that I think no one liked but me and sis_r. It was a comic Western, and featured the slashtastic duo of dandy Chad (Peter Brown) and muscular Joe (William Smith), two Texas Rangers who were not especially bright, but they were reasonably capable (along with their third, braying donkey Neville Brand as Reese). William Smith wore buckskin pants that were pretty much just as tight as Jim West's on Wild Wild West. And kind of more revealing because they were, you know, buckskin. I had no idea what homoeroticness was, and it wasn't till I was in my 30s that I even knew what slash was, but I think Laredo set the stage for that interest to develop. Chad and Joe were intensely devoted to each other, so much so that when Chad was going to get married and leave the Rangers, Joe became despondent and incapacitated.
It was cheesy and '60s and I loved it with all my heart. And clearly it was a developmental peg in my predilection for slashy crime-fighting duos and Western heroes.
Seeing other people's answers to this pains me, since they all name shows that were on when I was an adolescent/teenager/adult. When I was a child, I watched stuff no one else around me would even know about; also, because almost all the people in my age group I know grew up not in these here parts, they wouldn't know about the local things like Brakeman Bill, Nightmare Theatre, and Captain Puget (my favorite of the bunch).
SIgh. Old lady is old.
So I think I will reach for the show that started it all -- Laredo. As with Star Trek, I had to sneak-watch Laredo, but since my sister liked Laredo and wasn't into Trek, she used her favorite-kid wiles to finagle some watch time when my mom couldn't bitch us out for watching.
(I'd discovered Trek on my own, staying up past my bedtime one summer, on a night when all the kid were allowed to play outside as the parents mingled on the block, smoking and drinking. I won't ever really forget it -- we were all in our PJs, running around playing hide and seek in the dark, up much later than we'd ever been before, and I'd managed to 1) step on a slug, which popped between my toes, getting slimy slug guts all over my foot and 2) slipped on the damp grass with my sluggy slick foot, twisting my ankle, so my mom sent me back to the house to clean up and go to bed. My injuries were perpetual, so they were pretty dismissive of them. Instead of going to bed, I turned on the black and white Sylvania television -- we were the last people in the area to get color TV -- and saw... I don't even remember the episode, but I thought it was just MAGICAL. Especially Spock.)
Anyways. Laredo was a strange show that I think no one liked but me and sis_r. It was a comic Western, and featured the slashtastic duo of dandy Chad (Peter Brown) and muscular Joe (William Smith), two Texas Rangers who were not especially bright, but they were reasonably capable (along with their third, braying donkey Neville Brand as Reese). William Smith wore buckskin pants that were pretty much just as tight as Jim West's on Wild Wild West. And kind of more revealing because they were, you know, buckskin. I had no idea what homoeroticness was, and it wasn't till I was in my 30s that I even knew what slash was, but I think Laredo set the stage for that interest to develop. Chad and Joe were intensely devoted to each other, so much so that when Chad was going to get married and leave the Rangers, Joe became despondent and incapacitated.
It was cheesy and '60s and I loved it with all my heart. And clearly it was a developmental peg in my predilection for slashy crime-fighting duos and Western heroes.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 01:42 am (UTC)There was something my brother discovered once when he was home sick, called Yankee Doodles, which was a weekday morning show with kid programming and a lot of topical political humor that would have gone right over the heads of the supposed target audience...since it was on weekday mornings, it was only available when home sick. Or maybe I just made the whole thing up.
And let's not forget Rocky and Bullwinkle...
no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 06:18 am (UTC)I loved Stan Boreson, but he was hugely popular with my folks, so I think it was kind of a natural extension of that. Of course, Rocky & Bullwinkle were in a league of their own. ;-)