Television Obscurities - Exploring Forgotten TV from the 1920s to Today

I remember Earth 2. I didn't watch when it originally aired on NBC. In the late 90s/early 00s, SyFy used to air a lot of short lived sci-fi and horror TV shows.

I remember the name Baileys of Balboa, but the opening doesn't ring a bell.

R2, talk about bizarre coincidences-

Having given up on MSNBC I’ve been binging oldies but goodies. Keeps the mind off the orange mist hanging over us.

This week it’s been Gunsmoke.

Sometimes I’ll get curious about an episode and I’ll go to IMDB for more info.

This morning it was the season 11 episode The Avengers guest starring the incredible James Gregory. And Les Brown Jr.

Who the fuck is Les Brown Jr? Why the star of The Baileys of Balboa of course!

Apparently the president of CBS in 1964 wasn’t a big fan of Gilligan’s Island. He thought the show should have been about a charter boat. So he commanded his minions to create one.

Giving us The Baileys of Balboa!

It lasted 1 whole season. Gilligan made it 3.

TV didn't exist in the 1920s.

There's a sub on Reddit called Forgotten TV. It's pretty fun to browse through because they are tons of 1-3 season shows that I liked, but I forgot about after they were canned.

For your consideration! - Diver Dan

r4 Yes it did. Although very few people had it.

I hate how so many networks expecially dumont threw tapes in the ocean/garbage. Television history lost forever.

I would say "Hardcastle & McCormick" seemed to basically disappear from the TV landscape after its original network run.

Hot L Baltimore -- didn't even last a season.

I remember a weird cable show about mis-remembered kids' TV shows from an adult's perspective. I loved it because it encapsulated all the odd TV shows I thought I saw when I stayed up too late in the 1960s. Might have been a Lorne Michaels thing?

No Soap, Radio.

Dirt, the Courtney Cox tabloid show from the late 2000s.

Anyone remember Temptation, a late '60s, Art James-hosted, game show that aired for a few months?

I remember watching The New People. It aired on Monday nights. It was 45 minutes long, aired after a 45 minute-long music show, which I can't remember the name of. something like Music Scene. One of the hosts of that show was David Steinberg. I can't recall if Lily Tomlin was a host too, or just a guest, but the first time I ever saw her was on that show. I remember seeing 3 Dog Night on it. Both of these shows aired in the fall of 1969, and they only lasted half a season.

I also remember the Baileys of Balboa. I never watched it but I remember seeing Judy Carne's picture from it in one of the teen magazines I read in the 60's. First time I'd ever heard of her. Just one of the totally inconsequential things from long ago that I remember, when I suffer big time from CRS disease now!

Anyone remember the talking dinosaurs?

There was a really good show in the mid aughts, I think maybe ABC. A cop gets transported back to 1970s New York. It was sooo good. The opening scene is like him waking up in his Manhattan apartment to see the glorious old twin towers.

R13, it was called Dirt

R6, I think that was Ronald Reagan in the voiceover introducing "Diver Dan."

OP, do they have that one show about the man who’s married and has three kids? What was the name of that again?

[quote]There was a really good show in the mid aughts, I think maybe ABC. A cop gets transported back to 1970s New York. It was sooo good. The opening scene is like him waking up in his Manhattan apartment to see the glorious old twin towers.

It was called Life on Mars, starring Jason O'Mara. Aired in the 2008-2009 season on ABC.

I love watching old Ernie Kovacs episodes.

r18 That's literally the first word in the original post.

Greg the Bunny!

We’ll Get By, CBS, 1974-75. Starring Paul Sorvino, Mitzi Hoag, Jerry Houser, Devon Scott, and Willie Aames. I was in 5th grade, loved it (had a crush on Willie Aames), then the show just disappeared! I think the cast sang the titular theme song in the opening, which consisted of “home movies” of the cast under the credits.

I don't remember 'The New People,' but looking at that intro, it struck me like a decades-earlier version of 'Lost.'

Does anyone remember 'Make a Wish' from 1971, hosted by Tom Chapin?

Patty McCormack, Marsha Hunt and Wendell Corey starred in the 14 episode run of 'Peck's Bad Girl' in 1959 on CBS. At least one episode is on YouTube (starting at 2:45) with a bonus appearance by Vivian Vance (as Ethel Mertz) selling Sheaffer Pens. Don't know if it was from that episode.

Way Out, hosted by Roald Dahl

r16 That would be me.

I remember a show entitled "Learn To Draw"(mid 50's or thereabout, in glorious black and white) on learning same hosted by a rather Mephistophelean gentleman named John Gnagy. His kits and books could be purchased at toy and hobby stores(remember them?)

John Gnagy! Been a minute. Wow. I can't picture him or what he did but I remember that name.

What about Ding Dong School?

I've never watched it but was given a stack of hand-me-down books related to the show.

[quote]What about Ding Dong School?

Creepy

r31 and r32 I fondly remember "Ding Dong School" and the ringing of the bell that started each episode. I believe the host, named Miss Frances, was Frances Horwich, who must've had a Ph D because several articles I read about her referred to her as Doctor Horwich. She was a pleasant woman, faintly Gold Meir-y, somewhat grandmotherly, at least what grandmothers used to look like BITD. I'm gettin' all verklempt. 🤭

Did you have a Sweet Sue doll, r34?

My sister had Tiny Tears. We fed it real milk and it clogged her up.

Miss Frances seems nicer than I imagined. Her picture on the books looked stern. Still, there's something a bit offputting.

I was born in 1959 so I missed her. But we had Romper Room instead.

[quote]r36 = My sister had Tiny Tears. We fed it real milk and it clogged her up.

Tiny Tears was known to be lactose intolerant.

I had an official Ding Dong School bell!!!

TEMPTATION

Who will win the *Mountain O' Merchandise*?

In 1963 CBS had an hour long sitcom called FAIR EXCHANGE.

A young American girl moved to London for a year and the English family's daughter came to live with the American family....Judy Carne was the British girl and Lynn Loring was the American girl.

I kept watching hoping it would be good, but it never was. For a second series it was reduced to 30 minutes. It did have the sparkling Flip Mark but was scuttled by Eddie Foy, Jr.

CASH ON YOUR LINE

"Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" — a prime-time animated comedy that was like a lighter version of "All in the Family."

Highway Patrol

Highway Patrol is on FETV 5 or 6 days a week.

The Family starring Joan Allen. 2016.

Only ran for one season. Had great potential and ended on a cliffhanger. I wonder what happened. I liked it.

Joan was a mayor running for governor. She had a toddler son kidnapped years ago. Son returns as a teenager. Turns out he's an impostor but her campaign decides to cover it up.

The Black & White Minstrel Show

R46 Whites are a nasty, vile species.

I loved The Real Housewives of Hooverville.

Highway Patrol with Shitpants Crawford.

It's just a shame "G.I. Jane and the Jap" had to premiere on December 6, 1941. It was "I Love Lucy" ten years before "I Love Lucy." Thank God we have a kinescope of the pilot in the Paley Museum.

[quote][R4] Yes it did. Although very few people had it.

To be fair, TV in the (late) 1920s was limited to a few experimental test broadcasts. By the mid-1930s events were broadcast such as the coronation procession of George VI and the opening ceremony of the Berlin Olympics. In the USA, television sets were mostly limited to network executives.

Two sitcoms, "The People's Choice" and "Happy" had a rather unique formula. The viewing audience would hear the thoughts of a pet basset hound and an infant. The thoughts were comments on what was happening on screen, with the various characters completely unaware that they were being observed and talked about.

DL fave Dick Kalman starred in "Hank," about a young man(variously disguised) who attempted to get a free education by sneaking into college classrooms. Helped along the way by the registrar's daughter who was his girlfriend. All the while raising a younger sibling and hawking various goods and services to make money.

"The Hathaways" was about a married couple keeping/raising 3 chimpanzees almost as if the chimps were their children, while trying to manage their entertainment career. Starring DL fave Peggy Cass and Jack Weston.

Me and the Chimp

Ted Bessell and Anita Gillette

The Ugliest Girl in Town

Well...shit.

Turn-On

THE GREAT AMERICAN STRIP OFF #1-Dack Rambo-1983

The Man and The City. An early '70s single season ABC drama starring Anthony Quinn as the mayor of Santa Fe or some similar place.

Ten Speed and Brownshoe, starring Jeff Goldblum and Ben Vereen, is a sharply written satire on detective dramas. I don't remember it lasting a season. It was sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s (maybe?).

Celebrity Bowling

What was the horrifying short-lived reality show where people would come out in their underwear and Lorenzo Lamas and a panel would critique their bodies using laser pointers to accentuate their flaws?

Blansky's Beauties

R61, I think it was called Are You Hot?

The Celebrity Game.

Checkmate.

What America Thinks

I loved those silent TV shows from the 20s!

R55. Mercedes McCambridge on hard times

I remember Checkmate, r65.

Orson Welles' Great Mysteries

[quote] Life on Mars, starring Jason O'Mara. Aired in the 2008-2009 season on ABC.

A short lived show - it was OK but the original British show (and its sequel/spinoff Ashes to Ashes) was far better.

I'll Bet

The DuMont network

R72 Nancy Culp?

scary cherry pie lady

R72 Yet another variation of “Tattletales,” as was “He Said, She Said” hosted by Joe Garagiola.

The French contestant on the linked show was the French version of Aliza Kashi.

Wait Til Your Father Gets Home

Haunted

Waynehead

Here's a really obscure one. "NBC Experiment in Television" on Sunday afternoons. I remember one really bizarre episode called The Cube which was a Jim Henson creation about a guy stuck in a white cube. I was something like 6 and for some reason it stuck with me. That is some strange late 60's stuff!

The Cube

The Demontic Nationwide TV Hijacking of 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝟵𝘁𝗵, 𝟭𝟵𝟲𝟴 as seen on NBC (Confirmed Footage)

Apple's Way. It couldn't find its way and lasted two season, I think. The second season had a lot of changes. But it had Vince Van Patten who I liked. Who looks like this now.

Used to look like this. I thought Vince was cute but I also identified with him because we both had blond hair and long chins.

A few years ago I noticed that the actor who played the dad, Ronny Cox, was playing a gig...at the coffee house of a local church. The ubiquitous (at the time) Kristy McNichol was also on the show.

Jackie Susann as a blonde???

Uncle Miltie when he was sponsored by Buick (he first appeared on an experimental TV broadcast in Chicago in 1929.)

The Life of Reilly with William Bendix

Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and Arthur Godfrey and Friends (and his radio show, too: my grandmother loved him.)

Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar

Your Show of Shows is hardly obscure, r87.

R85, that little lezzie stole my job!

Neither were any of the others when they were broadcast, R88. In fact they were all big hits.

Big hits now largely forgotten.

Forgotten isn't the same as obscure, r90.

"Largely forgotten" isn't the same as forgotten, either.

Why are you an asshole?

The title of the thread is "Television Obscurities", r92.

QUEEN for a Day.

From Hollywood's Moulin Rouge! With your host Jack Bailey......which story is the most pathetic?

And a nice outfit from Jeanne Cagney to the winner as well.

Diver Dan

Diver Dan was pure surrealism. Baron Barracuda had a voice like my Aunt Esther.

Over the last 10 days I have become OBSESSED with [italic]Medic,[/italic] a mid-1950s sort of anthology series with Richard Boone as host "Dr. Konrad Styner." I had never appreciated the hunkiness of Boone; in the series he looks like a craggy version of the beauteous George Nader. And the series itself tackles some VERY mature and controversial subject matters for an Eisenhower-era TV show during a time when they could not even say the word "pregnant" on [italic)I Love Lucy.[/italic]

So far I've seen male infertility, multiple sclerosis, a little black girl horribly burned by her psychotic mother, an old Hollywood star embittered by his paraplegia, leprosy and its stigma, etc. It's really, really good.

I watch it on Tubi.

"Insight" was a weekly anthology drama that ran for 23 seasons and had major Hollywood stars. I don't think one person in ten thousand could name it today.

I've watched a few on YouTube. It was funded by the Paulist church but there's little direct talk of religion in it. A couple of the stories had open-ended conclusions. Unlike The Twilight Zone et al. it's filmed like a soap opera or recorded play.

I loved Insight when I was a kid (early eighties.) The one where Martin Sheen (I think) was executed by a firing squad has lived rent free in my head for 45 years. I would tell all the other kindergarteners about the episodes I watched and they would look at me like I was crazy. My teacher finally told me to stop talking about it.

Was that the Execution of Private Slovik, R100?

r101, I don't think so. This was just an episode of Insight where nobody is on the set but him and he just monologues for the entire episode, if I recall correctly. It was crazy sad (or at least it seemed that way to seven-year-old me.)

Ok, R102. I was remembering a great made-for-tv movie of the ‘70s in which Martin Sheen plays the only WWII deserter who was executed.

Yep. I thought I might be mixing them up, but Martin Sheen *was* in that Insight episode and it was called "The Clown of Freedom."

R98, I bought the Medic DVD set a few years back. It's a really good show!

I have zero memory of it. I guess I didn't watch TV on Sunday mornings.

TV was developed in the 20s. I don’t believe that any programming was developed for it in that decade.

I remember [italic]Insight,[/italic] R99!

My sibs and I used to watch it before church after we were dressed and my parents were in the kitchen. finishing Sunday dinner prep then got dressed themselves.

My middle sister and I joke about it to this day, saying Martin Sheen must've had a piece of the show because it seemed like he was in every other episode.

But that title sequence was a bit scary to me when I was little. But I couldn't admit that to my older sibs, or I'd still be teased about it in 2025.

I'm watching a London Weekend Television sci-fi political thriller miniseries from 1971 called "The Guardians," about a right-wing coup in England. Not because it's an eerie prophecy of the times we live in, because it's very British, and anyway fuck that. It's just low key good theater, like so much British TV from that era.

I love The Champions - a Brit Sci Fi series that was shown during the summer of 1968 on NBC.

Frank's Place and Doctor, Doctor. Both were quite funny. Then there was Richard Lewis' show with Jamie Leigh. There was also an Ellen Burstyn show where she broke the wall and spoke to viewers at the beginning inspired by Loretta Young and Jane Wyman it would seem.

And Doctor In The House - the tv series that played for awhile in the US.

Alexandra Bastedo was so pretty, r110

Oh, R103! I'd never have thought it was available on DVD.

Think I'll check into it, because many streaming channels don't allow DVR of their content.

The Mattison Trio

Angie with Donna Pescow and Doris Roberts continuing the great tv tradition of Jews as Italians. DebraLee Scott was there as well.

HuggyBear76, I love the Joy Behar joke about how everyone thinks she’s Jewish. She mentions a telephone call she got wishing her a good Shabbos. “Ma,” she exclaimed, “how many times do I have to tell you I’m not Jewish?!”

The Stand-In

I loved the old UK show UFO. Great opening theme.

Tattinger's, a drama about a restaurant run by Stephen Collins and Blythe Danner. It was a failure, so they retooled it as a half-hour dramedy and changed the name to Nick & Hillary, which was also a failure.

Anyone remember this one?

She wasn't happy to be aging and her neck was painted a dark brown under her chin so it would look like her neck was always in shadows.

LOL I guess you couldn't remember it since it never aired. Written by Mart Crowley of The Boys in the Band fame.

R121 Mary Wickes had to have been the toughest second banana in Hollywood!

I know R123. It was supposed to have been Paul Lynde in that role, which might have saved the show.

“The Real McCoys”

“Lilias, Yoga And You”

R116, Angie had a great theme song.

Rocket Robin Hood, cartoon version of Robin Hood story set in outer space.

Deservedly forgotten for the horrible theme song alone, Sugar Time! was a 70s jiggle offering from Fred Silverman and James Komack (Welcome Back Kotter.) I saw one of the actresses (Marianne Black) on a rerun of Three's Company and looked her up to see if she'd done anything else which is how I discovered this abomination. Didi Carr is not Didi Conn. Carr looks like Valerie Bertinelli but couldn't work that into any kind of career - only one other acting credit and 10 episodes of Match Game. Barbi Benton was the big draw I guess.

To be fair I've never actually seen an episode so I don't know if the show is truly an abomination but the theme song definitely is.

R128 wins this thread......truly forgotten.....

Brini Maxwell

The Mighty Hercules - a cartoon muscle hunk with a very gay admirer.

The Tammy Grimes Show, ABC, 1966. 16 episodes filmed, 4 aired. The producer, Bill Dozier, called it an “organized disaster.”

Dick Sargent (the second Darrin Stephens on “Bewitched”) played her brother. By coincidence, Tammy had been chosen to play the original Samantha on the series but turned it down for a role in “High Spirits,” a musical rewrite of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirits” and regretted her choice as soon as she saw “Bewitched.”

Who knows how it would have played with Tammy, r132? Liz wasn't remotely eccentric which played beautifully with her being a witch and she looked more like a beautiful housewife than Tammy would have.

When I was in high school we saw Tammy Grimes perform a one-woman show. Our teacher was very annoyed that none of us had heard of her.

The Jackie Gleason Show. When I was little and the show would come on, I'd run upstairs until I was sure the theme song was over and it was safe to come down. It creeped me out, everyone thought that was funny. I sure didn't.

Obscure...

The Fanelli Boys (1990-1991) starring DL fave Christopher Meloni. From the producers of The Golden Girls.

I only know Tammy Grimes as the host of CBS Radio Mystery Theater in its final season. Yes I'm old

[quote]The Jackie Gleason Show. When I was little and the show would come on, I'd run upstairs until I was sure the theme song was over and it was safe to come down. It creeped me out, everyone thought that was funny. I sure didn't.

Same with me, but the shows were The Twilight Zone and Perry Mason. Their themes would filter down the hall into my room and I'd pull the covers up a little.

5 from the '80s

My mom and I used to watch He and She with Paula Prentiss and Richard Benjamin. Lasted one season, I think.

There was a show I remember seeing as a kid called Fair Exchange.

[quote] Eddie Walker and Thomas Finch were World War II veterans and old friends who decided to have their teenage daughters live in each other's households for a year because Eddie's daughter Patty wanted to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

[quote] While Patty lived in London with Tommy, his wife Sybil, and their son Neville, Tommy's daughter Heather lived with Eddie, his wife Dorothy, and their son, Tommy, in New York City.

There was also a show called Grindl, with Imogene Coca. I think she had a different job with a different family every episode, or something like that.

Maybe already mentioned but there was a short-lived sitcom called ER in the 80s that featured George Clooney. Starring Elliott Gould, Conchata Ferrell and Mary McDonnell among others, Clooney did 8 episodes during its one-season run. Jason Alexander did 7. If it's remembered now at all it's only as a mention that Clooney starred in two different series called ER.

Private Secretary was a show I loved, shown on Nick at Nite in the mid-80s. My mom had a portable black-and-white TV, and somehow, it also picked up Nick at Nite and the local Mercy hospital air ambulance frequencies.

Paul Barresi on The Skip E Lowe Show

In 1969, ABC ran a series called "That's Life" starring Robert Morse and E.J. Peaker.

It was a weekly 30-minute musical comedy, with Morse et al delivering Broadway classics somehow shoehorned into the plot.

I am, of course, too young to have ever seen it. (Ok, ok... in 1969, i was interested in Scooby Doo & Jonny Quest, not Broadway.)

At any rate, i would love to see it now.

The Travels of Jamie McPheeters with Charles Bronson and Kurt Russell. Bronson's tight pants drove this very young boy crazy and he didn't know why.

It gave us the enchanting song stylings of Miss Agnes Moorehead, r145.

See? That's whst I'm talkin' 'bout R147!

I only learned about The Pruitts of Southampton from a Datalounge thread years ago. Fabulous theme song!

r144 is Must See TV!

I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, about 2 buddies who were youse painters. John Astin And Marty Ingels.

^house painters.

I always looked forward to That's Life.

R15, the show was “Real People”.

[quote]There's a sub on Reddit called Forgotten TV. It's pretty fun to browse through because they are tons of 1-3 season shows that I liked, but I forgot about after they were canned.

I went and joined the subreddit based on your recommendation, then I saw people posting such "forgotten" shows as Mork & Mindy, Greatest American Hero, Mr. Belvedere, and Empty Nest, and quickly un-joined.

I wonder if pre-Hays code TV was more blue?

R149 - thx for unearthing that hidden treasure.

I was pleased to see in the closing credits that both Grady Sutton and Charles Lane appeared in that episode.

The Naked News.

Naked News was so stupid.

Does anyone remember Prince Planet? I saw it on a Spanish-language station. I watched Astroboy in Mexico. I remember that they were made in the mid-50s. I saw them in the mid-60s and early 70s.

Eddie Albert was on Wagon Train today. I thought is that Margo? And it *was* Margo playing his wife!

A 1980s live action puppets children's show set on a Caribbean island. All the characters were dogs: one named Ookie who played bongoes, another one called Professor. It might have aired on PBS.

Just adorable! I even remember the theme song, but can't find any mention of the show online.

Any ideas?

TIA

There was a show on TV around 190 or '71 (maybe) called Happy Days--before there was the more famous Happy Days. It was a summer replacement show, I think.

It was a variety type of show that featured music and pop culture of the 1930s. It had big band music, and I think Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were on it at least once. They also would play short clips from radio comedy shows (while a cathedral-style radio was shown on the screen). There were singers like Bob Eberle and Helen O'Connell.

As a kid I was very into the '30s, especially the music, so I loved it.

Sorry--around 1970 or '71.

DECOY

*The Phoner*

[quote]When Betty begins receiving disturbing and obscene phone calls, NYPD Officer Casey Jones steps in to help uncover the identity of the anonymous harasser. Staying close to Betty, Casey attempts several investigative tactics that ultimately prove fruitless. But when Betty is attacked and hospitalized, the urgency intensifies. Determined to catch the predator, Casey sets a trap—but the caller never shows. Just when the trail seems cold, the culprit emerges in an unexpected and dangerous way. A tense and timely story about fear, vulnerability, and perseverance, The Phoner keeps viewers gripped until the final reveal.

It's interesting that the only police show from earlier times that has been consistently popular in reruns for decades (I'm talking before MeTV, etc.) is Dragnet. Partly because it was a half hour show.

But nobody seems to know where most of the episodes of the original series are (1951-1959). These are the older, b&w episodes before the series was revived in the late 1960s. The same small number of episodes have been avialable for years, mostly in badly-degraded versions.

[quote] Over 200 of the 276 episodes of Dragnet have not seen broadcast since the late 1960s, or received any kind of home video or DVD release. It is unclear if these 'missing' episodes are lost, destroyed, or are being withheld from distribution for some reason.

I know Dragnet isn't "forgotten TV" but, in a sense, the 1950s incarnation is.

They play a lot of the old "Dragnet" radio shows on the SiriusXM Radio Classics channel.

BIG NIGHT OUT

Me.Adams and Eve with Ida Lupino-she was really very funny-high energy. Only one season.1950’s