1950s/60s TV Shows That Were Truly Ahead Of Their Time

[Mad Mac]

Right now I'm watching Route 66 with that Corvette on fetv. Another favorite of mine was Then Came Bronson with his Harley Sportster. Not to be confused with Charles Bronson, the lead was played by Michael Parks. Both of these shows were like modern westerns. They would ride into town, deal with the bad guys, save the girl and ride off into the sunset. Different town every week.

[Mad Mac]

The Jack Benny Show was funny even though it had a laugh track and you knew what was going to happen. Shtick with regulars such as Rochester and Frank Nelson with his Yeeeeeeeeeessssss. https://youtu.be/JA_r1Ynl4Ls I do that to my grandkids.

Before we had a TV, I listened to the Jack Benny radio program, along with the Lone Ranger at bedtime. I could hear the pounding hooves and see the horses.

[Mad Mac]

Rodeo rider Stoney Burke was only on for a couple of years but my Mom liked Jack Lord.
My Dad liked the series Combat about a platoon in WWII.

[Bloke]

My Dad liked the series Combat about a platoon in WWII.

I liked Combat too! Victor Morrow was my hero. :)

[JD Spydo]

The Jack Benny Show was funny even though it had a laugh track and you knew what was going to happen. Shtick with regulars such as Rochester and Frank Nelson with his Yeeeeeeeeeessssss. https://youtu.be/JA_r1Ynl4Ls I do that to my grandkids.

Before we had a TV, I listened to the Jack Benny radio program, along with the Lone Ranger at bedtime. I could hear the pounding hooves and see the horses.

I used to have a huge set of cassette tapes of the old Jack Benny Radio show along with another huge set of tapes of the "Amos & Andy" show. Jack Benny's radio show was funny but the "Amos & Andy" was absolutely hilarious>> I would put them right up there with the Marx Brothers. Actually both shows were way before the 60s>> but I really liked both of them a lot. I think the guy you are referring to was old Don Wilson who was Jack Benny's MC for many years.

[ChrisinHove]

My Dad liked the series Combat about a platoon in WWII.

I liked Combat too! Victor Morrow was my hero. :)

Not Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo? Loved that, and Daktari.

[Bloke]

I liked Combat too! Victor Morrow was my hero. :)

Not Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo? Loved that, and Daktari.

Skippy was pretty cool. I was about 6yrs old when it first aired. I used to watch Daktari too. Remember Cowboy in Africa? :)

https://youtu.be/4dXOTFvVWkQ

[ChrisinHove]

I liked Combat too! Victor Morrow was my hero. :)

Not Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo? Loved that, and Daktari.

Skippy was pretty cool. I was about 6yrs old when it first aired. I used to watch Daktari too. Remember Cowboy in Africa? :)

https://youtu.be/4dXOTFvVWkQ

I don’t think we had that one! Remember desperately wanting to try Oxygum from Marine Boy?

[The Mastiff]

Yeah I was a "Combat" fan. "12 O clock high" , and " The Rat Patrol" also. There were a few good WW2 combat type shows then. Those and westerns were what I was raised on. I still enjoy military shows now but when they get looked at from modern viewpoints they lose something. Our culture didn't have anguished Goth children in WW2 and when I see them in otherwise good movies now like Logan Lerman in "Fury" it boils me. That is one reason why I like the older ones. There were issues like "combat fatigue" that were present and fairly understood but there were no SJW's correcting the epithets of combat infantrymen in ww2 or korea . Somehow there is usually one present in modern war movies

Other shows I liked were "Killdozer", "The Car", and other staples of late night like "The soul survivor" . These were actually early 70's movies but to me same era.

Others I liked were: "Gentle Ben", "Seattle", "Have Gun will travel" as well as quite a few others.

[James Y]

I remember watching shows like Dragnet and Adam-12.

The thing I most remembered about Get Smart was the end credits, with all the different types of sliding doors.

There was The Green Hornet, starring Van Williams as the title character and Bruce Lee as Kato. Bruce Lee was the only memorable thing about it, though at that age I failed to realize his significance. This was before he became a worldwide sensation. As a little kid, I mostly thought of The Green Hornet as a Batman ripoff (they even fought Batman and Robin at one point); but looking back, there were things that were way ahead of their time. Bruce Lee completely stole the show over Van Williams; a man of East Asian descent doing that (or should I say 'allowed to do that' or even have a role of any significance) in an American TV series was unprecedented, and would still be extremely rare today. Sure, there was George Takei as Sulu on Star Trek, but that wasn't the same. Sulu never really stood out. Being of East Asian descent myself, I was too young at the time to understand or realize that.

My older sister liked shows like Love American Style and Room 222. The only thing I cared for about the former was one of the intro song versions (the updated, faster version). With Room 222, I wondered why anyone would want to watch a show about going to school, lol.

I vaguely remember Here Come The Brides, and thought some of the episodes were pretty decent. IIRC, Bruce Lee even had a guest role on one of the episodes, but I only recognized him as 'the Kato guy'.

Jim

[Ankerson]

Yeah I was a "Combat" fan. "12 O clock high" , and " The Rat Patrol" also. There were a few good WW2 combat type shows then. Those and westerns were what I was raised on. I still enjoy military shows now but when they get looked at from modern viewpoints they lose something. Our culture didn't have anguished Goth children in WW2 and when I see them in otherwise good movies now like Logan Lerman in "Fury" it boils me. That is one reason why I like the older ones. There were issues like "combat fatigue" that were present and fairly understood but there were no SJW's correcting the epithets of combat infantrymen in ww2 or korea . Somehow there is usually one present in modern war movies

Other shows I liked were "Killdozer", "The Car", and other staples of late night like "The soul survivor" . These were actually early 70's movies but to me same era.

Others I liked were: "Gentle Ben", "Seattle", "Have Gun will travel" as well as quite a few others.

Hard to out do a great movie like Kelly's Heros, extremely hard. :)

Not even getting into others like The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen. They just don't make great movies like those these days, I doubt they even know how anymore.

FURY actually was a great movie, one of the better ones from today's moronic Hollywood, it's very rare these days for them to make a really good movie. Someone was actually thinking with their brain when they made that one so it turned out very good.

[ChrisinHove]

Yeah I was a "Combat" fan. "12 O clock high" , and " The Rat Patrol" also. There were a few good WW2 combat type shows then. Those and westerns were what I was raised on. I still enjoy military shows now but when they get looked at from modern viewpoints they lose something. Our culture didn't have anguished Goth children in WW2 and when I see them in otherwise good movies now like Logan Lerman in "Fury" it boils me. That is one reason why I like the older ones. There were issues like "combat fatigue" that were present and fairly understood but there were no SJW's correcting the epithets of combat infantrymen in ww2 or korea . Somehow there is usually one present in modern war movies

Other shows I liked were "Killdozer", "The Car", and other staples of late night like "The soul survivor" . These were actually early 70's movies but to me same era.

Others I liked were: "Gentle Ben", "Seattle", "Have Gun will travel" as well as quite a few others.

There has been a lot of D-day veteran interviews here recently, being the 75th anniversary and a rapidly dwindling number of participants. The striking similarities are how humble they are and their total refusal of any “hero” status.

Maybe older films couldn’t have portrayed their subjects - who were probably also their audience - too falsely, whereas maybe modern films think they have to give their (clearly very different) viewers someone or something they can clearly relate to.

[Ankerson]

Yeah I was a "Combat" fan. "12 O clock high" , and " The Rat Patrol" also. There were a few good WW2 combat type shows then. Those and westerns were what I was raised on. I still enjoy military shows now but when they get looked at from modern viewpoints they lose something. Our culture didn't have anguished Goth children in WW2 and when I see them in otherwise good movies now like Logan Lerman in "Fury" it boils me. That is one reason why I like the older ones. There were issues like "combat fatigue" that were present and fairly understood but there were no SJW's correcting the epithets of combat infantrymen in ww2 or korea . Somehow there is usually one present in modern war movies

Other shows I liked were "Killdozer", "The Car", and other staples of late night like "The soul survivor" . These were actually early 70's movies but to me same era.

Others I liked were: "Gentle Ben", "Seattle", "Have Gun will travel" as well as quite a few others.

There has been a lot of D-day veteran interviews here recently, being the 75th anniversary and a rapidly dwindling number of participants. The striking similarities are how humble they are and their total refusal of any “hero” status.

Maybe older films couldn’t have portrayed their subjects - who were probably also their audience - too falsely, whereas maybe modern films think they have to give their (clearly very different) viewers someone or something they can clearly relate to.

The problem with that is that when they do that it takes too much away from the Movies and they end up just plain sucking.

That's something the new idiots in Hollywood haven't seem to grasp yet these days.

So they keep making bad movies and horrible remakes.

[ChrisinHove]

Yeah I was a "Combat" fan. "12 O clock high" , and " The Rat Patrol" also. There were a few good WW2 combat type shows then. Those and westerns were what I was raised on. I still enjoy military shows now but when they get looked at from modern viewpoints they lose something. Our culture didn't have anguished Goth children in WW2 and when I see them in otherwise good movies now like Logan Lerman in "Fury" it boils me. That is one reason why I like the older ones. There were issues like "combat fatigue" that were present and fairly understood but there were no SJW's correcting the epithets of combat infantrymen in ww2 or korea . Somehow there is usually one present in modern war movies

Other shows I liked were "Killdozer", "The Car", and other staples of late night like "The soul survivor" . These were actually early 70's movies but to me same era.

Others I liked were: "Gentle Ben", "Seattle", "Have Gun will travel" as well as quite a few others.

There has been a lot of D-day veteran interviews here recently, being the 75th anniversary and a rapidly dwindling number of participants. The striking similarities are how humble they are and their total refusal of any “hero” status.

Maybe older films couldn’t have portrayed their subjects - who were probably also their audience - too falsely, whereas maybe modern films think they have to give their (clearly very different) viewers someone or something they can clearly relate to.

The problem with that is that when they do that it takes too much away from the Movies and they end up just plain sucking.

That's something the new idiots in Hollywood haven't seem to grasp yet these days.

So they keep making bad movies and horrible remakes.

I couldn’t agree more! The brutal honesty of films like Soldier Blue is quite rare now, I think.

[Mad Mac]

We've deviated from the TV theme, but being a 1969 graduate of the Armor Officer Basic Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky, I thoroughly enjoyed Fury.

We Were Soldiers and The Patriot were good movies. Funny that it takes an Australian to give fair treatment to a war picture.

[ChrisinHove]

We've deviated from the TV theme, but being a 1969 graduate of the Armor Officer Basic Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky, I thoroughly enjoyed Fury.

We Were Soldiers and The Patriot were good movies. Funny that it takes an Australian to give fair treatment to a war picture.

... and Gallipoli. Superb film.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Well Ankerson and everyone: Why do you think that, in general, with some exceptions, when they try to make a modern remake of older original television series and movies, it often times "flops" and does not have the same draw that the original did?

Some exceptions may be with certain tv series, like Star Trek The Next Generation was very popular, but still built on the Original Series.

From what I have seen, nearly all remake attempts at things like The Addams Family and The Twilight Zone and Gilligan's Island failed.

What if they tried to remake "The Andy Griffith Show" with an all new cast, and also shows like "McHale's Navy"? They tried to make a "New Andy Griffith Show" when Andy Griffith was still alive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_A ... ffith_Show

And they tried to make a McHale's Navy movie in the 1990s:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119640/

Would you say the main problem is similiar to when new bands try to mimic the originals, in music, such as when along comes a group of four modern rock musicians who try to copy the Beatles and it fails?

[Ankerson]

Well Ankerson and everyone: Why do you think that, in general, with some exceptions, when they try to make a modern remake of older original television series and movies, it often times "flops" and does not have the same draw that the original did?

Some exceptions may be with certain tv series, like Star Trek The Next Generation was very popular, but still built on the Original Series.

From what I have seen, nearly all remake attempts at things like The Addams Family and The Twilight Zone and Gilligan's Island failed.

What if they tried to remake "The Andy Griffith Show" with an all new cast, and also shows like "McHale's Navy"? They tried to make a "New Andy Griffith Show" when Andy Griffith was still alive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_A ... ffith_Show

And they tried to make a McHale's Navy movie in the 1990s:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119640/

Would you say the main problem is similiar to when new bands try to mimic the originals, in music, such as when along comes a group of four modern rock musicians who try to copy the Beatles and it fails?

The issue is they don't have a clue how to make good movies these days for the most part. And remaking good movies and making them flat out suck is the common place these days.

As far as the TV shows go, same thing for the most part, almost all have failed because they just plain sucked. Other than Hawaii 5-0 and Magnum PI that are actually good.

The MAIN issues are IMO that today the idiots have to inject every single agenda into every single Movie and TV show so much that it takes away from the story line and or plot. That makes MOST of them just flat out suck because they are far more concerned about ramming their agendas down everyone throat than actually making quality shows. Some are so bad I just turn them off etc, couldn't watch them at all.....

I would much rather watch the old movies and shows than what is on or out today.

[Mad Mac]

That's funny because I was going to use those two shows as examples of failures. However, the new Magnum show is a good show partly because they are not trying to replicate the old show. Higgins is played by Perdita Weeks and in my opinion carries the show.

Hawaii Five-0 lost me when Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park left over contract disputes. The asian characters were not paid as well as the northern europeans. I adored Grace and liked Kim more than the over the top performances of Alex O'Loughlin in the lead role as Detective Steve McGarrett and Scott Caan. I don't miss them at all.

[Ankerson]

That's funny because I was going to use those two shows as examples of failures. However, the new Magnum show is a good show partly because they are not trying to replicate the old show. Higgins is played by Perdita Weeks and in my opinion carries the show.

Hawaii Five-0 lost me when Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park left over contract disputes. The asian characters were not paid as well as the northern europeans. I adored Grace and liked Kim more than the over the top performances of Alex O'Loughlin in the lead role as Detective Steve McGarrett and Scott Caan. I don't miss them at all.

Yeah Perdita Weeks makes Magnum PI, she is a strong actress. :cool:

As far as Asians that left Hawaii 5-0 they blew it I think, they should have stayed, they were stupid to leave. It was idiotic to leave a show like that, one that will be on for awhile to come.

They were replaced with 2 Canadians, they are Asian..