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    27 TV Nuggets About Classic TV Shows To Show You Just How Good Boomers Had It

    JamesBy 1 Comment2 Mins Read
    27 TV Nuggets About Classic TV Shows To Show You Just How Good Boomers Had It
    <img src="https://comicvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/https-3A-2F-2Fmedia.zenfs_.com-2Fen-2Fcracked_901-2F9dc104dbb38c64ac6e64a40397c00f62.jpg" alt="27 TV Trivia Nuggets About Classic TV <a href="https://comicvibe.com/10-best-tv-shows-like-scrubs/” title=”10 Best TV Shows Like Scrubs”>Shows To Show You Just How Good Boomers Had It”>

    You know what we love as much (or sometimes more) than TV itself? Facts about TV history! And now we have to apologize to our Gen X and Boomer readers who now have to think of their favorite shows as “history.” We recently heard some punk kid describe ’90s music as “music from the late 1900s” and we curled up in ball under our beds for about a week. We now know the feeling, but let’s all take a moment to shake that off and enjoy the coolness (or grooviness) of your favorite shows of yesteryear.

    Kids these days don’t know how good you had it, but hopefully this list will help any young readers see for themselves!

    27. Mork & Mindy

    AT A GLANCE ROBIN WILLIAMS Pam Dawber and Robin Williams met for the first time when they shot the opening titles of Mork and Mindy The show never had a pilot. They cut footage of the two actors on separate shows to sell it to ABC, without a script. CRACKED.COM

    26. Laverne & Shirley

    COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM LAVERNE &SHIRLEY One of the many spin-offs of Happy Days (of which two make this list) is Penny Marshall & Cindy Williams' Laverne & Shirley. If you want to talk about successful spin-offs, in its second season, Laverne & Shirley was the most watched TV show in America. Ahead of another show called... Happy Days.

    25. M*A*S*H

    Minutes after the finale of M.A.S.H., 6.7 million gallons of water surged through the Big Apple's sewer. YE One million New Yorkers held their pee all through the episode, and when the show was over, they all flushed at once. That amount of water can fill up 10 Olympic-size swimming pools. CRACKED.COM

    24. I Love Lucy

    CRACKED.COM A fan colorizes I Love Lucy better than CBS. When CBS started colorizing / Love Lucy, Lucille Ball's hair ended up looking like some radioactive carrot. Zach Smothers of Pop-colorture.com doesn't have CBS' budget, but he managed to get much better results.

    23. Gilligan’s Island

    COMEDY NERD The "Gilligan's Island" theme song is totally different in the show's (unaired) pilot. It's a calypso song with lyrics like "The captain is brave, he's a fearless maaan, and Gilligan helps him all that he caaan." CRACKED.COM

    22. The Jeffersons

    COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM THE JEFFERSONS Spin-offs are often written off as money grabs, pushing comfort over substance. All In The Family spin-off The Jeffersons defies that characterization on every front. The Jeffersons was not only a success, but an incisive and fearless show, treading into topics that most current sitcoms would steer clear of.

    21. Archie

    COMEDY NERD Archie Bunker from "All In The Family" was originally called Archie Justice. And the show was called "And Justice For All"-and that was just the first of the show's three pilots. CRACKED.COM

    20. Fawlty Towers

    COMEDY NERD "Fawlty Towers" originally had a totally different theme song than the one you know. You can hear the original version only in the pilot-it got changed in the very next episode. CRACKED.COM

    19. Happy Days

    on HAPPY DAYS, RICHIE HAD An OLDER BROTHER nAmeD CHUCK. OR не DID, unTIL THE seconD SEASON. Chuck was away at college for much of the first season, and his defining characteristic was that he always carried a basketball. Не didn't just disappear without explanation- he completely ceased to exist. In later seasons Howard Cunningham would claim that he had just two children. CRACKED.COM http://onmilwaukee.com/ent/articles/gavanoherlhy.html

    18. The Corner Bar

    The first recurring gay character 1972 CRACKED.COM Vincent Schiavelli's portrayal of set designer Peter Panama on The Corner Bar was the first gay character to get regular screen time.

    17. Gilligan’s Island

    Gilligan's Island is based on the seven deadly sins. Each one of the castaways symbolizes a sin: Skipper is Anger, Professor is Pride, Ginge, and so on. That's not a fan theory or anything, it's how creator Sherwood Schwartz conceived of the characters. CRACKED.COM

    16. Mister Ed

    Mister Ed won a Golden Globe for Best Television Series - Comedy in 1963. The show about a talking horse and his owner, Wilbur, has aged like milk. What was once amusing, now comes off as a gimmick. CRACKED.COM

    15. Andy Griffith

    THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW Andy's maps are upside-down. Weirder still: why does a sheriff in North Carolina need maps of Idaho and Nevada? CRACKED.COM

    14. Spin-Offs

    The Adventures of Champion 1955 CRACKED.COM The first TV show spin-off was based on The Gene Autry Show, with the titular Champion being Gene Autry's horse.

    13. The Tonight Show

    Joan Rivers THE TONIGHT SHOW CRACKED.COM Joan Rivers was a permanent guest host on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show... until she launched a competing show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, on FOX. Her ban lasted until Jimmy Fallon invited Rivers back on in 2014 to play Karaoke Pictionary or whatever.

    12. The Love Boat

    THE LOVE BOAT Those aren't paid actors or extras in the background. They're "regular" people who paid up to $8,000 to take a highly restricted cruise in the viscinity of celebrities. CRACKED.COM

    11. CBS

    CRACKED COM In the early 1970s, CBS cancelled all its shows set in the country. Rural shows like Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies made up the bulk of CBS's programming - but their audience skewed old, and execs wanted their network to be young and hip. So they cancelled the lot of them-a move that went down in history as "the Rural Purge."

    10. Gilligan’s Island

    CRACKED.COM Gilligan's Island was almost rebooted in the '90s (with more cannibalism). According to James Gunn, Charlie Kaufman managed to get a Gilligan's Island reboot greenlit, with the starving castaways killing and eating each other. The project was nixed by Gilligan's creator Sherwood Schwartz.

    9. The Batmobile

    The original Batmobile sold for $4.2 million CORN The Batmobile from the original TV series was bought by 56-year-old who owned a logistics company. CRACKED.COM

    8. Andy Griffith

    The Andy Griffith Show CRACKED.COM The world was introduced to Andy Griffith in an episode of The Danny Thomas Show. Thomas takes time off from being a good comedian and terrible father to get arrested in the small town of Mayberry.

    7. Spock

    Spock was originally supposed to have red skin. But TV sets at the time were still black-and-white, so Spock would have looked black on screen. So, thankfully, Gene Roddenberry dropped the idea. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

    6. Charlie’s Angels

    CRACKED.COM Worst TV Finales Charlie's Angels The show chose to end with a clip show, of all things. Jaclyn Smith's character gets shot, and the rest of the cast just waits and remembers better scenes from better episodes. No thrills, just waiting. And then Charlie finally shows up-wearing a surgeon's mask.

    5. Happy Days

    Happy Days RONNY-HOWARD CRACKED.COM The Happy Days crew started out on an episode of Love, American Style, which was basically an anthology of unconnected rom-com pilots. Their episode was meant to be a pilot for an entirely different show that was never picked up. Two years later, the characters and settings were yoinked for Happy Days.

    4. Mork & Mindy

    Mork & Mindy CRACKED.COM Mork from Ork originally appeared on Happy Days, attempting to kidnap Richie Cunningham. The episode was technically one long dream sequence, but people loved Robin Williams' performance so much, they edited the ending and spun off a four-season show.

    3. Leave it to Beaver

    Leave It to Beaver 1957 CRACKED.COM Although not quite the first show to feature a toilet (it was edited out for being too scandalous), it was the first show to show a toilet tank and certainly one of the first to even include a bathroom.

    2. Sabrina

    Sabrina The Teenage Witch CRACKED COM Sabrina hails from the Archie universe. She had her own animated series in the 70's, but her first appearance was as the new kid at Riverdale in 1968's The Archie Show.

    1. Batman

    In the 1960s Batman series, Batman and Robin buckled their seatbelts before taking off in the Batmobile. This occurred after a complaint by the National Safety Council & the Dynamic Duo set a good example thereafter. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM
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