Watching the Detectives

My title comes from an Elvis Costello song from 1977. We did watch many detectives in the early 1970s; Columbo, Kojak, The Rockford Files, Hawaii Five-O, Ironside, McCloud, Barnaby Jones, Cannon etc.

Anyway, I’ll list the shows under two main categories. I won’t attempt to elaborate on them. You can Google them. If you are curious about any, feel free to add a comment. Some are Irish shows, and I don’t remember much about the likes of Sean the Leprechaun or Luidin Mac Lu, but I do remember them. There’s a real cool Facebook page named Classic RTE Guides, which I use to jog my memory.

I’ll bold all the Irish shows. The remainder are either from the UK or the US – or even Australia.

1965 to 1969

I should add my top 10 shows – here goes:

• The Late Late Show: Gay Byrne was one of the guys who would make you proud to be Irish, along with U2 and Zig and Zag 😀. Even as a young child, I would enjoy the political debates, and it was also where you got to see pop stars. Gay Byrne left in 1999. I did watch it when Pat Kenny took over, but apart from the Christmas toy show, I haven’t watched it in years.
• The Riordans: This was an Irish soap about a farming community near Kilkenny. I remember two of them coming to speak at our school in Wellington Road, Cork in 1974 – Michael and Maggie. And I once saw Benji in Dublin. I’d love to find some 1960s episodes or even an account of what happened in each episode.
• Batman: This was great fun. We had the Batman car at home, and we had Batman and Robin suits. I remember going to the movie and seeing them all in colour. We didn’t get a colour TV in our house until 1974. The same series showed again on Irish TV in the early 1980s.
• Get Smart: I remember being fascinated by the opening sequence, where he went through a series of doors. We got the series on DVD in recent years, and we thoroughly enjoyed it again.
• The Monkees: I remember my dad coming into the room while I watched it and mentioning the Beatles. Beetles sounded quite scary to me. Monkeys were a lot cuter. Then, a few years after they split, I discovered the Beatles. Now I prefer beetles to monkeys 😀.
• The Good Old Days: My grandfather liked this show because it reminded him of his youth. It’s funny that the 1960s are as far back for me as the 1900s were for him in the 1960s. My kids started watching it on YouTube in recent years. I’m keen to sit through a whole episode again soon.
• The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo: Mr. Magoo would probably be de-platformed nowadays, but I thought it was the funniest of the cartoons we watched.
• The Black and White Minstrel Show: This would be controversial nowadays too because of the face blackening. My memory of this was one of the dancers looking at me. She was just looking into the camera, but I didn’t understand that at the time. I was convinced that she fancied me. Lots of older females fancied me until I was about 12. Then most females lost interest in me – just as I was becoming interested in them 😀.
• Hawaii Five-0: This might have been the first of the detective shows that we watched in the early 1970s. I am keen to find and watch an episode again.
• Wanderly Wagon: A key memory of this is probably New Years Eve 1967, when an old man with a 1967 banner on him left and a new boy with a 1968 banner arrived. I still remember all the characters, Rory, O’Brien, Godmother, Judge, Mr. Crow, and Forty Coats. It was the top Irish kids show of the time.

1970 to 1974

A good number of the above shows continued into the 1970s. I’ll just list what I watched among the new shows that appeared from 1970 to 1974.

So I’d better write my top 10. Here goes:

• Star Trek: When I heard about Star Wars in 1977, I thought it was just someone copying Star Trek. Little did I know how big it would become. A key memory of Star Trek was a friend getting a colour TV and him telling us that all the uniforms were different colours. The first time that I saw a colour TV was when we went down to the Manhattan Bar in Cork to watch the 1970 World Cup Final. Then, in 1974, we got one in our home, for the 1974 World Cup in Munich.
• The Partridge Family: I watched this shortly before I got into pop music. David Cassidy was popular with the girls, as was Donny Osmond. I’d never admit to liking their songs, but I did like I Think I Love You. I was more into Slade and Sweet when I initially got into pop music in 1972.
• Sesame Street: I think that it arrived in Ireland in 1971. I saw it as something for younger kids, but I loved it too. And I think I’d even love it if I watched it now.
• Hall’s Pictorial Weekly: Most of the shows that we liked were British or American, but this was an excellent Irish show, spoofing politicians and exploring various towns around Ireland. Frank Hall was an excellent host, and it featured the guy who later played Father Jack in Father Ted – Frank Kelly. There were various attempts at Irish comedy shows in the 1970s, but many of them were awful. But this was an exception.
• The Likes of Mike: This was another Irish show that featured Father Ted himself (Dermot Morgan) as Father Trendy. Again, it was excellent entertainment. It’s best described as a variety show. I remember Twink featured in it a lot in both the music and the comedy. And Mike himself would play jokes on people on camera – a little like Candid Camera.
• The Goodies: We didn’t have Monty Python in Ireland, but this was the next best thing.
• The Waltons: I remember George Bush saying that he wanted to make America more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. Both families are very similar really. Like all families, they have their disputes, but they love each other. A big memory from later years was when Jim Bob had a close call when a car nearly fell on him. He had some sort of a religious experience, and he went around quoting the Bible to everyone. This was shortly after my own conversion in 1980. We were sitting watching it and they said, “Ha ha, he’s just like Paul,” I was a bit embarassed. Jim Bob’s conversion didn’t even last until the end of the episode. Mine has lasted 45 years so far. So, whatever my failings, at least I’m better than Jim Bob Walton 😀.
• The Odd Couple: This was an excellent comedy that I haven’t seen for years. I could put Mary Tyler Moore, and Rhoda in this slot too. Monty Python’s Flying Circus had some excellent sketches, but also had a lot of bad ones that didn’t age well. But for me, many 1970s comedies do age well. I never particularly liked things like George and Mildred and Terry and June, but I did enjoy a good number of other British and American comedies.
• Says Lez: Lez Dawson would be considered quite old fashioned these days. I remember Tommy Cooper being on in the same era, even if I didn’t find him in any of my old newspapers. As well as the comedy, I used to enjoy seeing the musical guests at a time when the only opportunity to hear pop music in Ireland was on Larry Gogan’s radio show. Maybe they were a few others. A key memory of Says Lez was seeing Gilbert O’Sullivan singing But I’m Not. I found that on YouTube, but it’s gone again now.
• Upstairs Downstairs: That’s another one that we got on recent years on DVD. I remember us watching it in the 1970s. We identified more with the downstairs folk than the upstairs folk. I quite liked Hudson’s character. He appeared in a Paul McCartney video in 1986 – Only Love Remains. He didn’t look all that different, but he passed away a few years later in 1990.

Eurovision Song Contest

• This was just a couple of shows a year, the National Song Contest and the Eurovision itself. Ireland’s first entry was in 1965. I think that the Irish 1960s entries were excellent. It sort of went downhill in the 21st Century, with acts such as Dustin the Turkey in 2008, but here are songs from the golden days.
  • 1965 Walking the Streets in the Rain: Butch Moore (I remember singing this, though I was only 3)
  • 1966 Come Back to Stay: Dickie Rock (Ireland’s Frank Sinatra)
  • 1967 If I Could Choose: Sean Dunphy (My parents bumped into him in Cork and got his autograph for us)
  • 1968 The Chance of a Lifetime: Pat McGeegan (The father of Barry McGuigan, boxing champion)
  • 1969: The Wages of Love: Muriel Day (I didn’t like pop music when I was 7, and I thought the song was a bit too poppy. We tried to see her when she opened the new Eason’s store in Cork later in 1969, but it was too crowded)
  • 1970: All Kinds of Everything: Dana (We won!)
  • 1971: One Day Love: Angela Farrell (I saw her at the Opera House in the 1971 panto, and I thought that she was gorgeous. Perhaps this was my first time falling in love, though I was only 9 😀)
  • 1972: Ceol an Ghrá : Sandie Jones (The National Song Contest was held in Cork, and the song was in Irish)
  • 1973: Do I Dream: Maxi: (Maxi went on to become a TV presenter.)
  • 1974: Cross Your Heart: Tina (I didn’t like the song much, but all the kids used to sing it. This was probably the best Eurovision ever. I watched the whole show a couple of years ago. Abba won with Waterloo, and the Wombles featured in the intermission.)

The only Eurovision songs that I liked in later years were Johnny Logan: What’s Another Year? (1980 winner) Maria Christian: Wait Until the Weekend Comes (1985) and Niamh Kavanagh: In Your Eyes (1993).

Here are two from the 1960s:

And here are a couple from the 1970s:

I can’t see how I can weave any Christian message into this post. Religious TV shows never really had much of an impact on me, apart from movies about Jesus that would sometimes show at Easter. There were a few good documentaries, such as Bamber Gascoigne’s The Christians, but that came later. And nowadays, I have YouTube, which is a great resource. Maybe I should just point you to my Recommended Audio Resources page 😀.