{"id":82720,"date":"2025-08-14T17:32:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T17:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/82720\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T17:32:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T17:32:06","slug":"tv-shows-from-the-80s-and-90s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/82720\/","title":{"rendered":"TV Shows From the ’80s and ’90s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back before streaming, on-demand, and remote controls with enough buttons to land a ship on the moon, TV was a slower, simpler distraction. We even nicknamed it the \u201cidiot box,\u201d because staring at it too long could make you feel like one.<\/p>\n

There was no “browsing” when it came to looking for something to watch. You plopped down, flipped to one of the handful of channels you were able to get on the clunky set, and that was that.<\/p>\n

Background Shows We All Remember (Sort Of)<\/p>\n

If The Lawrence Welk Show was on and Mom was doing some knitting, you were going to be serenaded by a nice man with a violin, a bubble machine, and some very vanilla people doing very vanilla comedy, whether you liked it or not. (Fun fact: Some people today may have no idea that the iconically weird recurring Kristen Wiig \u201cSisters\u201d sketch on SNL<\/a> \u2014 the one with the tiny hands \u2014 was inspired by this very real show.)<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Can You Recognize These ’80s Celebrities Today?<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC’s Wide World of Sports<\/p>\n

ABC \/ Getty<\/p>\n

If Wide World of Sports was on, Dad would be in his chair with the newspaper while the booming announcer promised “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” Remember that horrific skiing crash during the opening? And since you were stuck watching it, you got exposed to sports you didn\u2019t even know existed \u2014 suddenly becoming an \u201cexpert\u201d on, say, luge strategy or remembering the names of horses from Olympic dressage.<\/p>\n

Did Anyone Watch These TV Shows in the 1980s and 1990s? <\/p>\n

While you might think \u201cwatching while distracted\u201d is a modern habit, even back in the day the TV was just\u2026 there, humming along while you did other things. These were the shows that weren\u2019t exactly \u201cmust-see TV,\u201d more like \u201cmight-see TV\u201d \u2014 part of the culture, but you had to wonder: who was actually watching?<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz<\/a><\/p>\n

LOOK: Iconic TV Shows With Only One Cast Member Surviving<\/p>\n

From Diff’rent Strokes to Gilligan’s Island, several of the most iconic TV shows in history now have only one surviving main cast member. Keep scrolling to see who remains from these beloved programs.<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back before streaming, on-demand, and remote controls with enough buttons to land a ship on the moon, TV…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,57723,92],"class_list":["post-82720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-pop-culture-gallery","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}