Best TV Ever: Eric Deggans Edition

I'm cranking out some stuff for the newspaper to hit print in weeks to come -- the first few weeks of October are jam-packed with interesting television -- so I've decided to present a column that I originally wrote for a different web site, in the prehistoric days B.B. (Before Blogging).

The guy who ran the site asked a bunch of people -- including my fellow critics Diane Werts and Robert Bianco, to list their favorite TV shows of all time. I liked the idea of doing it, because this is, hands down, the question I hear the most from anyone who discovers I am a professional couch potato.

To that end, I offer an updated version here; please feel free to list your own in the comments section, along with a few clues to why you listed the shows you did.

1. The Nat King Cole Show

I've only seen this one in archival footage and documentary tapes. Still, the sight of a suave, talented Cole trading vocal and piano licks with the likes of Mel Torme and Peggy Lee was an amazing source of pride -- especially in 1956, eight years before black people would gain the federally mandated right to vote in all states. And watching Cole prove he was more than just a slick balladeer with performances that revealed his true singing and piano playing prowess -- well, that was just icing on the cake.

2. The Richard Pryor Show

  Another series that didn't last long, this was ribald comic Richard Pryor's reward for acing several Saturday Night Live appearances and a special. Despite repeated inteference from the censors -- Pryor appeared in one sketch nude with his, um, "naughty bits" removed to symbolize what censors were doing to him -- it was incredibly funny, hinting at the comic feast to come when TV let comics such as Arsenio Hall and Chris Rock mine black culture to fuel their shows.

3. Saturday Night Live (first five seasons)

I remember stumbling on this show during its second or third episode, clicking channels late one Saturday night while my mother lay sleeping on the couch. It reminded of the days when I'd smuggle a Richard Pryor or Redd Foxx record into my room, turning down the volume so my mother couldn't hear the profanity-laced comedy routines. This was rock 'n' roll sketch comedy, weaving rock culture, stoner culture, college culture and New York culture into a potent stew that was irresistible for a fan of zietgist-tapping pop art. Even at a young age, I could tell this was something new, dangerous and fun.

4. The Sopranos (first season only)

Watch these 13 episodes and you see creator David Chase's complex vision fully realized -- a textured, darkly comic drama about a Mafia capo forced to realize the mother he adores is his worst enemy. No other storyline mined since has presented the same level of drama and artistic fulfillment, making you wish Chase had folowed his first instinct and let Tony kill his mother at the end of the first season's final episode (example of network TV-friendly version here).

5. Good Times (first season only)

Yeah, Jimmie Walker's J.J. character was a coon in teenager's clothing, but John Amos and Esther Rolle's depiction of hard working, project-living parents in Chicago's South Side reminded me of a dozen families I knew growing up in my own ghetto home in Northwest Indiana. Put simply, Good Times was the first time I saw a family on TV that looked like the ones I knew (my father wasn't in my home, so it wasn't like mine). They had money troubles, worried about getting and keeping jobs, fretted about racism and struggled with the knowledge that so many were doing so much better than they were. Then Amos left the show and it turned into "the J.J. Hour" - destroying a powerful program.

6. Don Kirshner's Rock Concert

Kirshner was a record executive with severe stage fright -- Paul Shaffer's dead-on impression of his deer-in-the-headlights delivery of band intros during an SNL Blues Brothers skit remains a classic -- who somehow managed to offer the hippest late night music showcase of the late 70s and early '80s. I remember being glued to a live performance of "Message in a Bottle"-era Police, British ska experts The Specials, Earth Wind and Fire knockoffs Cameo, and many other bands years before MTV would make such appearances routine. For a young music fan, watching Kirshner's show -- before he began letting disco bands lip synch performances -- was like mainlining musical ecstasy.

7. The Twilight Zone

For a young fan of science fiction and comic books, this was heaven -- a TV show that took all those storytelling techniques seriously and weaved compelling, classic tales out of them. I couldn't know at the time that literary heavyweights like Ray Bradbury were making the magic behind the scenes. All I knew was that the episode showing bookworm Burgess Meredith sitting down in a city depopulated by nuclear war, preparing to spend his days blissfully reading his beloved literature, only to break his glasses -- that was pure TV heaven.

8. Roots

It made me angry for weeks, mostly because it made real how my ancestors were stripped of everything that they had -- their homes, family, heritage and self-respect -- forced to a new land where they would be treated like animals for the rest of their days. It was a potent lesson in the facts of slavery, exposing exactly how it all unfolded in a way that viewers could never forget. Even discovering that Alex Haley may have plagiarized or manufactured material in the book didn't change the way it changed me.

9. Star Trek

Nine movies, five TV series and countless geek jokes later, it's easy to take this 40-year franchise for granted. But before Lost creator J.J. Abrams makes Trek cool again, it's worth tipping a hat to the classic series, which was the first non-anthology series to take science fiction seriously. Racism. Nationalism. Cold war politics. Global unity. Look beneath the bad makeup and dates special effects and its all there, disguised as a science fiction adventure show creator Gene Rodenberry once called "Wagon Train to the stars."

10. The Daily Show

At a time when America's war machine is at full throttle, our country's leaders and its enemies locked in a dance of aggression which oddly benefits both, Jon Stewart and his cohorts have offered a more incisive analysis of America's BS than any pundit around. I'm not sure if I'm ashamed or angry that Americans are so tuned out to journalists that it takes a snappy, inventive comedy show to inform them of the excesses politicians committ in their name. But I'm sure glad somebody's shakin' the cages.

(click on any image to enlarge, and feel free to add to/argue with my list in the comments section)

Comments

[Your neighbor Dave]

Continuing the TZ thought, if any of you are considering purchasing any of the TZ boxed DVD sets, make sure you buy the "Definitive Collection" series. The original boxes were good, the DC series features beautiful prints of the shows.

[Eric Deggans]

for a real treat, click on the link inside the Twilight Zone entry on my blog and you will go to a YouTube steam of Terror at 20,000 feet...

[Your neighbor Dave]

In no particular order:

-Lou Grant - started at the same time as my career in the newspaper business; always loved "Animal"

-Twilight Zone (original series) - some of those shows really creeped me out....and I loved every minute of it; a couple of my favorites were "To Serve Man" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

-Late Night with Conan O'Brien - it always looks like he's still having a LOT of fun as he "plays" with the medium of television (see next)

-Ernie Kovacs - I never saw him in the old days but caught up with the shows when his widow started hosting the rebroadcasts on PBS; fascinating seeing somebody discover what television was capable of doing back when TV was barely 10 years old....camera tricks, Percy Dovetonsils and the Nairobi Trio

-Night Flight - taped episodes are actively traded on the 'net; what an amazing (and uneven) collection of progressive music videos and animation

-Northern Exposure - another show that I didn't discover at first but was completely hooked by the quirky characters and the amazing choice of music used in every show

-Mystery Science Theatre 3000 - I REALLY miss this show; it was such a wonderful mixture of lousy films and clever writing aimed at all the B+ students of the world; not bad for "a cow-town puppet show"

-The Daily Show with John Stewart - I feel exactly the same way as you do toward this show. I'm glad that it's there holding up a magnifying glass to the absurdities of politics but I'm mad that it even has to exist; long live Louis Black

-The West Wing - this show sneaked up on me when it went into syndication (after I had pretty much given up on network television) and it never ceased to fascinate me as the characters always sought out their "better angels"

-Bullwinkle - what can I say....learned a lot about politics and bad puns with this series

[Bluegrasswriter]

Homicide: Life on the Street (first six seasons with Andre Braugher). Never has a better cop show been on the air. Short on car chases and shootouts, which made it special. They didn't dumb it down and it stayed lively. Braugher (as Det. Frank Pembleton in the box) question suspects was art. A smart show that never got its due.

[Rynk]

I'm a bit older than Eric, with dim but persistent memories of "The Nat 'King' Cole Show" and other variety fare from the late 1950s. Network TV aired jazz and classical music then because the programmers thought of their audience as sentient beings.

By 1956 Cole was a mainstream pop singer like Perry Como or Dinah Shore, yet NBC scheduled Cole with neither a synergistic RCA record contract nor a network sponsor. Advertisers feared a Southern boycott. The biography by Mary Ann Watson for the Museum of Broadcast Communications quotes an embittered Cole: "A man sees a Negro on a television show. What's he going to do call up the telephone company and tell them to take out the phone?"

[SixPack]

What about Family Guy. It has to be in there somewhere...

[chase]

Hmmmm ...

1) Miami Vice: Accepted change, forced the rest of television to change. TV/Music/Movies, sound, image, light, color. And aside from that recycled school building that served as the HQ, no set.

2) MASH: Reinvented sitcom, infused heart and conscience, social commentary without being preachy (last few episodes excepted, I could do without the chicken)

3) Seinfeld: MASH of the '90s. Commentary on society instead of the war overseas that went down easy. Man, we're all a bit self-centered. Well, mostly you people are self-centered.

4) SNL: agreed. Imitated, never duplicated.

5) Sopranos: Agreed. The Miami Vice of a new generation, reinvents TV once again. Drama, no neat answers, "sometimes you have to just let art wash over you."

6) tie Survivor/Real World (first few seasons of both) ... Wow, Bunim/Murray and Mark Burnett show us "real" isn't always "real," but it can be real fun. We can pretend reality TV isn't important, but we sure talk about it a lot.

7) Sanford and Son: Hey, remember when there were all those comedies on TV that involved charcters/creators of color, and nobody noticed? There were funny shows that appealed across the board, Sanford, Chico and the Man, Jeffersons, What's Happening, Good Times ... and it wasn't a big deal it was all major network TV. Like, name some now? (Everybody Hates Chris doesn't count, because Everybody Made a Big Deal About It and it's not on a "major" network). Reason: they were funny, smart shows. Just make good TV, we'll watch.

8) Barney Miller: A play on a tiny set that worked, week after week. Dialogue, remember that?

9) F/X: gonna cheat here, a nod to F/X's lineup of winners. I give them credit for showing us free-cable, non-network, can drive the pack: Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, Shield, Over There, Always Sunny in Philadelphia ... dear lord, I can't wait to see what they deliver next.

10) The Simpsons: Branded a new network when the idea of a new network was laughable. And what's this, Bart's old enough to vote now? A cartoon? Yeah. It worked.

[tampafilmfan]

Great list! On my list I'd have to include:

Little House on the Prairie
M*A*S*H
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel

To each his/her own....

[joe hillman]

that was a nice obit/eulogy.

not sure if it was orbach, the writers or both, but his character's really dry humor worked perfectly on that show. and it didn't matter who is onscreen cop partner was, there always seemed to be a chemistry between orbach and his "partner."

[Eric Deggans]

Great list! If I could have made my list of 10 a little longer, Seinfeld, Late Night and Law & Order definiely would have made it.

In fact, check out this eulogy I wrote for Jerry Orbach (his son sent me an email after it ran saying how much he liked it!)

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/02/Columns/Jerry_Orbach___the_ul.shtml

[joe hillman]

not in any particular order:

seinfeld -- arguably the greatest sitcom of all time.

sopranos -- like watching your favorite baseball team. at times, the team plays like the cardinals. other times, it plays like the cubs. you don't know which team will show up. but when the good team plays, there's no better.

law and order -- classic whodunit.

this week in the pro football -- in the days before cable, this was one of the few vehicles where you could find highlights of other games. the nfl films soundtracks still haunt me.

this week in baseball -- see above, only mel allen's voice.

notre dame football -- growing up a catholic kid in the midwest sticks, this was must-see-tv on sunday mornings (again, long before cable). few things were more reassuring that all was right with the world than to listen to lindsey nelson describe jerome heavans and vegas ferguson run through the evil defenses for touchdowns. now, ironically, i hate notre dame and rarely go to mass.

20th century with mike wallace -- growing up, a local pbs station showed these black and white documentaries in the afternoons after school. i was hooked and still say the documentaries were a springboard for me getting a history degree and becoming a geek.

f troop -- very few sitcoms had cameos by famous comedians on every episode. the one-liners were as funny as any rodney dangerfield line. no, it wasn't politically correct. it didn't need to be: it was satire! ("who says i'm dumb?")

three stooges -- timeless classics. curly, moe and larry never, ever grow old.

late night with david letterman -- was almost mandatory to watch this nightly in college.