What are your top 5 favorite shows of the 1970s? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Lawrence]

There are so many great shows from this decade, I can't possibly narrow it down to 5 favorites. I'll try 5 favorites per category.

Comedies - My 5 favorite US comedies of the 70s all had great casts and (more often than not) strong scripts. The humor was at times incredibly smart and other times ridiculously silly, sometimes within the same episode. And it worked.
1) All In The Family
2) Barney Miller
3) The Bob Newhart Show
4) Maude
5) WKRP In Cincinnati

UK Comedies - I'll always be grateful to PBS for first introducing me to British television when I was a kid, especially British comedies.
1) Fawlty Towers
2) Are You Being Served?
3) Two's Company
4) Agony
5) The Good Life (a.k.a. Good Neighbors)

Dramas/Crime Dramas - The first 3 actually had their beginnings in the 60s, but the majority of their runs were in the 70s, so I include them here. (Just as I would put Dallas at the top of an 80s list rather than here.)
1) Columbo
2) Hawaii Five-O
3) Ironside
4) Emergency!
5) The White Shadow

 

[LeoA]

Here's my list of favorite shows that are predominantly associated with the 1970's.

Little House on the Prairie
The Waltons
Adam-12
Emergency
M*A*S*H

For cartoons, the early 70's episodes of Scooby Doo would lead.

And I love WKRP In Cincinnati, but the bulk of the run was in the 1980's. Only the first season and half of season 2 aired during that decade. Would probably top my 80's list though. And Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley I love, but only the earliest seasons. Even M*A*S*H could log a good episode once in a while late in its run, but not these two so they don't make the cut for a top 5 list.

And I like what I've seen of Good Neighbors and intend to go through the whole run of that one of these days. And I haven't seen a bad episode of The Rockford Files or The Doris Day Show, but dozens remain unwatched still.

Just a casual fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Odd Couple, and The Bob Newhart Show and don't own any on DVD. And can't stand the Brady Bunch, Patridge Family, and the Norman Lear shows that everyone thinks of when 70's tv is thought of.

And never seen McMillan & Wife, but it's on my list of things to get around doing someday. I like Rock Hudson so I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

 

[Ejanss]

UK Comedies - I'll always be grateful to PBS for first introducing me to British television when I was a kid, especially British comedies.
1) Fawlty Towers
2) Are You Being Served?
3) Two's Company
4) Agony
5) The Good Life (a.k.a. Good Neighbors)

Agony? Never had that during the PBS British Invasion of the 70's. (And Two's Company didn't show up until the 80's days when A&E Cable was still a British-programming network.)
We had Python, Fawlty, Served, Good Life, The Goodies (which has not, sadly, aged well), and Tom Baker/Jon Pertwee Doctor Who aired out of context, but our fifth UK Comedy had to be The Two Ronnies:

Spoiler

Benny Hill--and the Brit stereotype that that was the only UK comedy Americans ever watched--came later.

Spoiler

 

[Brian Himes]

I don't think I can limit my list to just top five but here are my absolute favorites from the 70's.

Starsky & Hutch
Charlies Angels
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Bob Newhart Show
The Courtship of Eddie's Father
Battlestar Galactica
McMillan & Wife
The Brady Bunch
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Bionic Woman

Since all of those have been completed on DVD, everything else that I've collected in the way of 70's TV is just gravy.

 

[Dave Lawrence]

Agony? Never had that during the PBS British Invasion of the 70's. (And Two's Company didn't show up until the 80's days when A&E Cable was still a British-programming network.)
We had Python, Fawlty, Served, Good Life, The Goodies (which has not, sadly, aged well), and Tom Baker/Jon Pertwee Doctor Who aired out of context, but our fifth UK Comedy had to be The Two Ronnies:

Benny Hill--and the Brit stereotype that that was the only UK comedy Americans ever watched--came later.

Yeah, when I first started watching the British shows in the early 80s, our local PBS station had enough to scatter them throughout the week, as opposed to later on when they seemed to limit them to Saturday nights only. Agony and Two's Company were among those that didn't stay on too long, probably just one cycle through their entire runs, and then never appeared again. I now have both series on DVD (Region 1 for TC, and Region 2 for Agony), and both are still fun to watch.

Of my list of 5, only Fawlty and Served seemed to last throughout the 80s. (And only Served continued showing up periodically well into the 90s.) To the Manor Born was another good one that stuck around for awhile in the 80s.

I do remember watching The Goodies, but now I can't recall a single thing about the show other than the title. I know Yes Minister aired as well for awhile, but I didn't get into it. I may have to try it now, to see if I'd like it as an adult, since I've heard only good things about it. I don't remember if we got the Two Ronnies, but I know I've never seen it.

I'm familiar with the Benny Hill stereotype you mention. It seems based in truth though since, for the longest time when talking TV shows with people, if I mentioned I liked British comedies, the usual response was, "Oh, you mean Benny Hill?" (Well, it WAS the only British comedy I knew of at the time that aired on a channel that wasn't a PBS affiliate, so that could be why.) Most of these people were also familiar with Monty Python, but only the movies, not knowing about the Flying Circus.

Oh, and we did get Dr. Who on weekends, but I always preferred Blake's 7. Haven't seen either one in forever.

 

[EdG]

The Rockford Files
Columbo
McMillan and Wife
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Odd Couple

 

[Jeff Willis]

The 70's are sometimes referred to as the "miniseries" decade, when the networks realized that, after a couple of miniseries ratings bonanza's, they had struck a "cash cow" concept in the TV market. With that in mind, I had to pick a couple of those to start of my list:

1) How the West Was Won This starred James Arness, not long after his historic tenure as "Matt Dillon" had completed. This pov is in the very small minority, in fact, I'm probably on an island here but I preferred James A in this role to his later-years in "Gunsmoke". I'd be hard pressed to pick that though, if comparing to the 30-min B/W Gunsmoke years.

In the miniseries, imo, he clicked on all cylinders as the "mountain man" in this miniseries. The series also included Bruce Boxleitner ("Scarecrow and Mrs. King"), and a generous helping of the character actors of the era. I particularly liked Lloyd Bridges in 4 episodes.

1A) Rich Man, Poor Man (Book 1 is my favorite) This one is tied with "...West..", in my top list of all-time miniseries ("Shogun" being a close second).

2) Bionic Woman, only because of Season 1, which I really liked and it holds up today for me. I did like S2-3 but imo, the episode subjects dropped off some after S1.

3) Cliffhangers! One of the few unreleased shows on my grail list.

4) Battlestar Galactica

5) New Avengers I'm on "Mars" here, preferring the later version to the original, but that's probably due to seeing this one before the Peel series. I recently acquired the original series and have started watching it. So far, it's great but I'm early into the Peel seasons at present.


There's several that came in just under the 5-pick wire....


Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (S1 only)

Centennial Miniseries

Barney Miller

Columbo

Six Million Dollar Man mainly for the Bionic Woman crossover episodes

 

[Gary OS]

The 1970's was probably one of the worse decades for television. Not that there weren't a number of good shows, but it was a serious decline from the explosion of creativity of the 1960's. I would say the best genre of the 1970's was the police/detective shows. The comedies were particularly bad with few exceptions (Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show to name a few). However the comedies of the 1970's were in general horrible. The focus was messages. MASH quickly became a major liberal anti-war rant, All in the Family was frequently uncomfortable with all the serious themes and Archie's demeaning treatment of his wife. It became apparent that the main focus wasn't the show or it's lame comedy but a message.

Then you had the ethnic comedies of the 1970's.....Hey, Hey, Hey....in a word, bad. (Sanford and Son, What's Happening, Good Times, Chico and the Man) These shows would have been bad regardless of the ethnicity.

As a kid I did enjoy the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family--Oh, who am I kidding, I still like them and watch them.

Some good cartoons but a serious decline since the 1960"s. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You was the king of that decade. It inspired many reincarnations (none as good as the original) but the New Scooby-Doo Movies was very good. But many shows followed this crime/mystery solving model (Goober and the Ghost Chasers, The Funky Phantam, Speed Buggy, Josie and the Pussycats, etc.).

Sci-Fi, Horror was good (Six Million Dollar Man, Night Stalker, Planet of the Apes Series)

This pretty much sums up my feelings on the 70's as well. Even though it was the decade I grew up in (from elementary school to early teen) watching a lot of TV, many of the shows I watched were older fare from the 50's and 60's in the afternoons. I watched some Prime-Time stuff, but I have to say that it never did a whole lot for me. As has been mentioned by many, the comedies in particular I find to be horrid. There are only a couple I cared much for: Brady Bunch/Partridge Family and Happy Days before it jumped the shark. Other than that, I thought the drab, set bound, message driven comedies of this decade were generally putrid. On the other hand, I do think the decade brought some great mystery/detective shows and some solid Sci-Fi stuff too. With that in mind my favorites would be:

1. Little House on the Prairie - a decidedly non-70's type show that now looks spectacular thanks to the new Lionsgate releases.

2. The Incredible Hulk - another retelling of The Fugitive if truth be told. And it was quite good at it.

3. Quincy - it did get overbearing toward the end, but I've always enjoyed Klugman in this role.

4. Hawaii-Five O - started in the 60's but the majority of it's run was in the 70's and I loved the on-location work with this one. Just beautiful.

5. Bionic Woman - the first season specifically.

Honorable mention: Planet of the Apes


Gary "most of the shows I enjoyed from this decade didn't have that heavy '70's' vibe to them" O.

 

[Ron1973]

Good choices, Gary.

I do see The Fugitive connection to The Incredible Hulk. I wish Bill Bixby would have lived long enough to see his character absolved of the crime he was accused of. Such a great actor. Whether he was playing the "nephew" of "Uncle Tim" or the innocent doctor seeking justice, he made the part his own. We lost one of the best when we lost him.

With the new DVD's of Little House on the Prairie out, I should jump on the bandwagon. I thought it was a boring show until 1984 when my 4th grade teacher introduced us to the series of books and I found an interest in the show. We had moved to Sikeston, MO for about 9 months due to my dad's job and I caught it in reruns on KPLR from St. Louis.

I watched all 8 seasons of Quincy, M.E. on Netflix last year. I got my kids hooked on it, too. The HD transfers are absolutely beautiful. The last couple of seasons he did get "preachy" but not on an unwatchable level. I wish there would've been a S9 to flesh out the storyline of his marriage. The funny thing for is as an Emergency! fan, the first few seasons had the old Rampart set as a backdrop. Station 51 even made a cameo in an episode and the paramedics called Rampart. Sadly no appearances from the cast.

I've considered watching Hawaii Five-0 on Netflix as it's streaming on there. I did catch an episode with Buddy Ebsen and David Canary a while back. Certainly a classic without a doubt.

Amazon has the first 2 seasons of The Bionic Woman streaming if you're a Prime member. I didn't catch a whole lot of it growing up but what little I remember, I'm not disappointed.

Happy Days still had some quality episodes after jumping the shark. I have a VHS tape of a later episode (post-Ritchie) I taped on WREG in the late 80's when they were showing them in syndication on Saturday afternoons. Al starts dating Chachi's mother and winds up marrying her. He woke her up at like 2AM to propose AFTER Fonzi persuaded him to finally do it.

 

[Ockeghem]

Ron,My wife and children have been reading through the series of Little House books for over a year. My daughters have found that the show is far more interesting to them after having read the books. Of course the show departs greatly from the books, but that doesn't deter from their enjoyment of the series.

 

[HenryDuBrow]

Here's my list of favorite shows that are predominantly associated with the 1970's.

Little House on the Prairie
The Waltons
Adam-12
Emergency
M*A*S*H

For cartoons, the early 70's episodes of Scooby Doo would lead.

And I love WKRP In Cincinnati, but the bulk of the run was in the 1980's. Only the first season and half of season 2 aired during that decade. Would probably top my 80's list though. And Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley I love, but only the earliest seasons. Even M*A*S*H could log a good episode once in a while late in its run, but not these two so they don't make the cut for a top 5 list.

And I like what I've seen of Good Neighbors and intend to go through the whole run of that one of these days. And I haven't seen a bad episode of The Rockford Files or The Doris Day Show, but dozens remain unwatched still.

Just a casual fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Odd Couple, and The Bob Newhart Show and don't own any on DVD. And can't stand the Brady Bunch, Patridge Family, and the Norman Lear shows that everyone thinks of when 70's tv is thought of.

And never seen McMillan & Wife, but it's on my list of things to get around doing someday. I like Rock Hudson so I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

WKRP surely had two years in both decades, no? More or less anyway, a few months less doesn't really mean the world I still regard it a '70s show, also very much in spirit if you will.

 

[BobO'Link]

WKRP surely had two years in both decades, no? More or less anyway, a few months less doesn't really mean the world I still regard it a '70s show, also very much in spirit if you will.

WKRP had 88 episodes 2 of which are hour length which means 90 for syndication.

S1 (1978/79 season) - 22 episodes
S2 (1979/80 season) - 24 episodes (both hour length episodes are in this season)
S3 (1980/81 season) - 22 episodes
S4 (1981/92 season) - 22 episodes

Even though 10 episodes from S2 *aired* in 1980 that season is *still* a 70s season as it began in 1979. Technically more episodes aired in the 70s than 80s but physically more aired in the 80s than 70s with 54 in the 80s and 36 in the 70s. It could be considered part of either decade of TV depending on your outlook. I usually look at TV series from the technical side and consider WKRP to be a 70s series.

 

[LeoA]

It was more out of convenience. I love WKRP, but it wouldn't sneak past a show like Little House into my top 5. Conveniently with much of its run actually airing in the 80's, I have a out by just classifying it as a 80's show.

If I was to grade my favorites from that decade, it's quite possibly at the top spot. I love shows like Highway to Heaven, Newhart, and the early seasons of The Facts of Life (Never watched a Cloris Leachman episode). But every 80's show I enjoy a lot that I can think of off the top of my head has a good number of duds.

But with WKRP, I can't think of much that fell short of the mark.

 

[benbess]

In terms of shows from the 1970s on blu-ray, so far we have very few titles. I must be forgetting some, but in fact right now I'm only recalling one: Little House on the Prairie. But I have to say LHOP looks great in HD in these unedited episodes, and makes it, as the clichéd phrase goes, like watching it again for the first time. And sales seem to have been good, apparently starting something of a revival for and reconsideration of this show. It's allowed me to introduce Little House successfully to my teen son and 12-year old daughter.

Which other shows from the 1970s might benefit from blu-ray and potentially be commercially viable?

Now that The Dick van Dyke Show has had some success on blu-ray, is The Mary Tyler Moore Show worthy of similar treatment? What about a complete Columbo on blu? They made so few of those that it wouldn't even need to be a crazy number of discs.

Speaking of that, it's interesting that the were able to put, on average, six 50-minute episodes of Little House on each disc while still having very strong PQ. That's 5 hours of entertainment per disc, which is fairly impressive....

 

[LeoA]

I think most with a lot of outdoor scenes would benefit a good bit. The Rockford Files, Emergency, Adam-12, The Waltons, etc.

Less so the typical 70's show that mostly, if not completely take place on a sound stage (Although I think the Mary Tyler Moore Show would be a better candidate than most such shows).

But maybe that's my prejudice coming through since many popular 70's programs just don't do a thing for me. And the dark and dreary look of the typical 70's sitcom with everything seemingly a shade of brown at times also doesn't do anything for me.

And most of these were never real lookers to begin with and intentionally so, I assume, since they were after a more gritty look in many cases like the Lear programs to distance themselves as far away from portraying people as contented or showing anything with foliage on it.

And 70's styling trends certainly also don't help.

 

[HenryDuBrow]

That's partly why that decade's so cool and fun, to think we wore such ridiculous clothes. Some may have noticed, that a bit into the '70s styling in America would actually be quite stuck and influenced by the '60s for once (changing fashion) trends seemed to move quicker abroad.

 

[Ron1973]

I think most with a lot of outdoor scenes would benefit a good bit. The Rockford Files, Emergency, Adam-12, The Waltons, etc.

Less so the typical 70's show that mostly, if not completely take place on a sound stage (Although I think the Mary Tyler Moore Show would be a better candidate than most such shows).

But maybe that's my prejudice coming through since many popular 70's programs just don't do a thing for me. And the dark and dreary look of the typical 70's sitcom with everything seemingly a shade of brown at times also doesn't do anything for me.

And most of these were never real lookers to begin with and intentionally so, I assume, since they were after a more gritty look in many cases like the Lear programs to distance themselves as far away from portraying people as contented or showing anything with foliage on it.

And 70's styling trends certainly also don't help.

And you've hit the nail on the head! Dramas of the 70's were generally good and not usually preachy. If you want an idea of how excellent they can be, many of the Universal dramas stream in HD on Netflix.

Many of the 70's comedies seem stifled. Many of the Lear shows were over the top and the actors played them that way. While I enjoy Sanford and Son, one can look at Nancy Kulp's character on the show. While she had been funny on The Beverly Hillbillies, her part seemed "staged" and over the top on Sanford and Son. The white cop on there, the same way. How did this guy even become a cop to begin with?

 

[Ejanss]

Many of the 70's comedies seem stifled. Many of the Lear shows were over the top and the actors played them that way. While I enjoy Sanford and Son, one can look at Nancy Kulp's character on the show. While she had been funny on The Beverly Hillbillies, her part seemed "staged" and over the top on Sanford and Son. The white cop on there, the same way. How did this guy even become a cop to begin with?

It was an insult to Kulp--I'm trying to think of an acceptable word on this forum to describe the Lear years that white sitcom writers would deliberately kiss up to their black audiences (and largely black studio audiences) by inserting freakish-white-stereotype actors to play dopey-white-stereotype gag characters in black-oriented sitcoms.
Whenever Dennis Leary, Danny Aiello, Adam Baldwin, Gilbert Gottfried or Eugene Levy show in an urban black movie comedy to play All White People Everywhere, they have to pay tribute to their roots in The Jeffersons' Franklin Cover and Paul Benedict.

(This really belongs in the "Least Favorite 70's" thread, but now that it's been mentioned...)

 

[atfree]

top 30 shows from 1970-71


[*]29.6 - Marcus Welby M.D. (ABC)
[*]27.9 - The Flip Wilson Show (NBC)
[*]25.9 - Here's Lucy (CBS)
[*]25.7 - Ironside (NBC)
[*]25.5 - Gunsmoke (CBS)
[*]25.1 - ABC Movie of the Week (ABC)
[*]25.0 - Hawaii Five-0 (CBS)
[*]24.5 - Medical Center (CBS)
[*]23.9 - Bonanaza (NBC)
[*]23.0 - The F.B.I. (ABC)
[*]22.7 - The Mod Squad (ABC)
[*]22.6 - Adam 12 (NBC)
[*]22.4 - The Wonderful World of Disney (NBC)
[*]22.4 - Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (NBC)
[*]22.3 - Mayberry R.F.D. (CBS)
[*]21.4 - Hee Haw (CBS)
[*]21.3 - Manixx (CBS)
[*]21.2 - The Men from Shiloh (ABC)
[*]20.8 - My Three Sons (CBS)
[*]20.7 - The Doris Day Show (CBS)
[*]20.6 - The Smith Family(ABC)
[*]20.3 - The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS)
[*]20.1 - NBC Saturday at the Movies (NBC)
[*]20.0 - The Dean Martin Show (NBC)
[*]19.8 - The Carol Burnett Show (CBS)
[*]19.8 - NBC Night at the Movies (NBC)
[*]19.8 - The Partridge Family (ABC)
[*]19.7 - ABC Sunday Night Movie (ABC)
[*]19.5 - The Jim Neighbors Hour (CBS)
[*]19.3 - CBS Thursday Night Movies (CBS)
[/list]

Amazingly, ABC's Monday Night Football premiered in 1970 and apparently didn't crack the top 30. Can you imagine that today?

Also, the ratings for the top 10 shows are double that of today's top rated network shows due to fragmentation of the audience with cable, etc.

 

[TravisR]

Also, the ratings for the top 10 shows are double that of today's top rated network shows due to fragmentation of the audience with cable, etc.

I was just watching an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show where they said that The Alan Brady Show (which Rob/Van Dyke works for) was seen by 40 million people. I'm going to guess that was a pretty good sized audience back in the early 60's but if a show averaged 40 million viewers today, it would be the biggest hit in decades.