{"id":4111,"date":"2006-12-01T07:17:43","date_gmt":"2006-12-01T13:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2006\/12\/01\/desert-island-meme-part-2-tv\/"},"modified":"2022-03-15T15:56:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T20:56:45","slug":"desert-island-meme-part-2-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2006\/12\/01\/desert-island-meme-part-2-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Desert Island Meme, Part 2: TV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our recent <a title=\"From the Gazette archives\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2006\/11\/15\/desert-island-movie-meme\/\">&#8220;Desert Island DVDs by Genre&#8221; list<\/a> seemed to elicit fewer yawns than usual, which has emboldened me to put forth a memequel. This one&#8217;s similar to the first, except instead of movies, you get to pick boxed sets of television programs to accompany you on your island getaway. However, you still have to stick with the genres. (Don&#8217;t gripe at me; I don&#8217;t make the rules. OK, I do make the rules, but I don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m doing.)<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my list (and I&#8217;ve tried to stick with broadcast shows; no offense to you premium cable subscribers):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Western<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Rawhide<\/em> (I toyed with <em>Gunsmoke<\/em> for a moment, but just couldn&#8217;t take the thought of being alone with Chester for all that time. At the same time, <em>Maverick<\/em> was a strong contender.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Horror<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Twilight Zone<\/em> (The horror genre is underserved on broadcast TV, but as a mere youth, some of the TZ eps gave me nightmares, so it qualifies.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Sci-Fi<\/strong> &#8211; <em>X-Files<\/em> (I never enjoyed the government conspiracy episodes, but there were enough creature features to more than make it worthwhile.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Musical<\/strong> &#8211; <em>American Bandstand<\/em> (I still remember being inspired by Blue Cheer and their wall of amps.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Comedy<\/strong> &#8211; <em>The Dick Van Dyke Show<\/em> (Not only funny, but a great series of snapshots from a culture that changed America in many ways.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Police\/Crime\/Courtroom Drama<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Boomtown<\/em> (Smart and edgy, this could have been the best police series in history, if NBC hadn&#8217;t given up so quickly.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Medical Drama<\/strong> &#8211; <em>M.A.S.H.<\/em> (It&#8217;s my list, and I don&#8217;t have to choose <em>E.R.<\/em> if I don&#8217;t want to. And I&#8217;ve never watched <em>House<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Foreign<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Fawlty Towers<\/em> (Consistently hysterical, especially the occasional attempts at American accents.)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Variety<\/strong> &#8211; <em>The Ed Sullivan Show<\/em> (Two words: Topo Gigio!)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Mini-Series<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Shogun<\/em> (How can you not pick the show that made <em>konichiwa<\/em> and <em>domo arigato<\/em> a part of mainstream American vocabulary?)<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 1.25em;\"><strong>Bonus Pick (any genre)<\/strong> &#8211; <em>Seinfeld<\/em> (The <em>Dick Van Dyke Show<\/em> for the 90s.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking the &#8220;vast wasteland&#8221; to your desert island&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memes","category-tv-radio","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8819,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111\/revisions\/8819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}