What entertainment from days gone by do you miss?

GQ.

I’d give it a decent answer now, if I didn’t have to go to f**n jury duty tomorrow.

Music that doesn’t suck.
Famous people that are famous because they are actually talented, unlike the cast of Jersey Shore or Honey Boo-boo.

I used to watch Tales of Wells Fargo with my father.

TV shows like Soap, Odd Couple, and MASH were awesome. MASH I can catch once in a while, but I have not seen the Odd Couple or Soap in years.

I wish movies had less violence like years past.

I really am not fond of Hip Hop music. It seems like they have cleaned up some of the language and references lately in the songs, so that is moving in a positive direction, but even so I don’t like it in general. Morever, a lot of times I find the dancing to that music vulgar or lacking beauty. I guess that makes me old, yearning for music from back in my day. I even like the stuff before my time, I grew up with my parents playing all the 50’s and 60’s stuff. I like classic rock and the high energy Eurobeat stuff from back in the 80’s. A good Pet Shop Boys or Bronski Beat song always brings me back too. Haven’t heard music like that being created and played lately.

Speaking generally, I really miss variety shows and celebrity holiday specials.

I miss the really great old TV talk shows like Cavet, Carson, Parr and Buckley —where men and women in entertainment, the arts, politics and science expounded on important topics and related wonderful stories about their experiences instead of simply promoting their movies and talking about their sex lives. Check out Orson Welles or Katherine Hepburn on Cavet, for example.

Gilda Radner. Good cartoons.

I’d have loved to have watched people like Houdini or Blondin.
Brave, slightly mad chaps who were true pioneers in their field.

Eating Mother’s Iced Raisin cookies and watching Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.

Board games and card games. It used to be so much fun to sit around with friends, have a cocktail and play spades, but it seems like most people would rather play online poker or download a movie. Boo.

I miss hearing new music by Henry Mancini, who passed away in ‘94. His incredible 40-plus year output included Baby Elephant Walk, Hatari theme, The Pink Panther Theme, Moon River, Breakfast at Tifany’s, Mr. Lucky and Peter Gunn themes, one of my all-time faves, Two for the Road, and so much more. And even though each of his compositions was unique, you can always spot the Mancini touch.

@KNOWITALL Our power went out for many hours a few weeks ago, and the kids and I played Clue by candlelight. It was a lot of fun!

When I was a kid, we would go to two different pizza places that featured music. It was so much fun.

The first one was Shakey’s, where they had a ragtime band with a fellow playing a banjo and another guy playing an upright piano. They also had a player piano there, in which you could put different rolls of music.

The other place had a hug pipe organ in the restaurant. My grandma played the piano and organ so we used to take her there, whenever she’d come to visit. It was really magical.

The other thing that my brother and I loved, was going to a real Halloween carnival at our school. They had games and little trinket prizes, like plastic bracelets and rubber monsters that you could wear on your fingers and fake jewel rings. They also had a cake walk, a bake sale and a parade of costumes. I remember getting so excited on Halloween day and running home from school with my friends, putting on our costumes and then hurrying our parents along to go back to the school yard for the carnival.

My nephew’s school is not allowed to do most of that. For one, they can’t have it on Halloween, or reference the word Halloween at all, so it has become a fall festival. They have baked goods that you can win, but they must be store bought, because they have to see exactly what is in the ingredients, because you can’t have any nuts around. Parents are not allowed to bake items to sell, so mostly there was store bought cake and packages of donuts. No fudge, no brownies, no snickerdoodles, no rice crispy treats, no peanut butter cookies with a kiss in the middle, no lemon pound cake, no pumpkin pie slices, no jelly-filled sugar cookies, no iced cookies shaped like stars, no shortbread cookies, no Mexican wedding cookies. Those are all things that you could purchase for a quarter to a dollar in a baggie laid out on a table. At my nephew’s festival, they ship in Little Caesar’s pizza and you can buy cans of soda and the whole time, loud “house music” is blaring over the PA system. It made me kind of sad.

@augustlan COOL!!!! My friends all seem to be into technology, sitting around playing on their phones, I’d just like to talk and actually get to know who they really are ya know?!

I miss the anticipation and build up for the annual airing of shows like The Wizard of Oz, Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph.
I also miss the ritual of Sunday night Wonderful World of Disney followed by Mutual of Omahas Animal Kingdom. (I’m not sure that’s the name of it. )

@Judi Great reminder of a time before DVD’s, well actually VHS. My mom used to love to take us to the cinema for Mary Poppins when it would play in our local theatre. We also would go to Cinderella and Snow White.

The Lone Ranger, Science Fiction Theater, Gunsmoke episodes with Chester, Life of Riley, Rescue 8, and Annie Oakley.

Also, Phlegm Squad with Lee Marvin was a real boss show.

Fractured Flickers with Hans Conreid.
The Kopy Kats, which was a summer television show with 7 or 8 impressionists. Very funny.
Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The Twilight Zone.

reality tv sucks.

Good old fashioned talk shows.

They were always so classy and educational.

Abbott & Costello