Jim Newsom lists his favorite television shows of all time.
Mary Tyler Moore Show—Turned the world on with her smile.
M*A*S*H—“ I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari-kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!”
All in the Family—“Back in my day, they wasn't called Chicanos or Anglo-Americans or Afro-Americans; we was all Americans. So if a guy was a jig or a spick, it was his own business.”
I Love Lucy—Vitameatavegamin; grape-stomping; candy factory; Harpo mirror mime; Babalou! Enough said.
Andy Griffith Show—Mayberry, Mayberry, our home town!
The Waltons—“When I was growing up during the Depression, I lived with my red-headed brothers and sisters, my parents and grandparents at the foot of a mountain which had been in our family for generations.”
Lou Grant—When newspapers and journalistic integrity still mattered: “If the story is there, we have to print it. It’s our job.”
Leave It to Beaver—Was life ever this swell? Seemed like it at the time.
Seinfeld—Master of its domain
Northern Exposure/Men in Trees—These Alaskan Twins run together in my mind; both were quirky pre-Palin frozen delights.
Boston Legal—“You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, ‘Who's that?’ St. Peter says, ‘Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane.’”
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