I\'m older than most of you so I\'m not even going to list all the crap I used to watch, which most of you have never heard of. I will just mention a few things that stand out in my memory, and why:
Ark II
This show ran from 1976-1979 on CBS. Somthing about three people and a chimp roaming post-apocalyptic north america seeking survivors and getting into adventures. You may recall that the leader of the group flew a jet pack, which was very popular back in the 70\'s. Looking back at the old pictures, I didn\'t realize there was such a hottie on the cast. I didn\'t care much about her back then...
One more thing: The 12-wheeled offroad vehicle they drove in this series was actually scavenged from an earlier feature film called
Damnation Alley, which was based on a novella by Harlan Ellison. As it happens, the vehicle still exists in one piece! I\'ve driven by it many times here in LA. It\'s parked in storage behind an iron fence just off the access road on the west side of the 101 freeway where it passes through the Hollywood Hills. It totally freaked me out when I first saw it.
The Lost Saucer
Sometimes I tell people that Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi appeared in a kids show where they played robots who could shoot lasers out of their elbows, and THEY DON\'T BELIEVE ME! Can you imagine those people doubting me???? This show aired for one season from 1975 to 1976, and I watched it that year. It was really stupid, and Jim Nabors is a complete idiot, but the shooting lasers out of their elbows thing was cool somehow.
Big Blue Marble
God how I hated this show. The only reason I watched it was because it always aired on
Sunday morning, and there was usually nothing else on except news shows and live church broadcasts. The show was made up of little segments describing how other young people lived in other parts of the world. It seems they were always people from Ecuador, or Tanzania, or some other third world disaster area. They rarely showed anything from the developed world. I guess this was some effort to teach american kids that there was something else going on outside the United States. I think the effort failed.
Well I just looked over these three and realized that none of them are cartoons. Well, I did watch ALL the cartoons back then, but I always like the live action shows better. They just don\'t make em like that anymore. (Thank god.)
