When I was a kid, I thought TV was just fun. Looking back now, I see it was also shaping how I laughed, imagined, and even how I thought about the world. If I sat my childhood self and my adult self together on the couch, here’s how the conversation might go.
Get Smart
- Kid me: “Maxwell Smart is so funny! He talks into his shoe and always gets into trouble.”
- Adult me: “Yes, but it’s brilliantly written satire. That ‘Not the Craw, the CRAW!’ line has stayed with me my whole life.”
Wacky Races
- Kid me: “Muttley! He’s the best. That snicker, those medals…”
- Adult me: “The formula was simple, but the chaos was perfect. Every character exaggerated some human trait, and maybe that’s why it still makes me smile.”
The Flintstones
- Kid me: “Ha! Fred gets locked out again! The cat is stronger than the caveman.”
- Adult me: “It was slapstick, yes, but it was also domestic comedy in prehistoric garb. Families, jobs, neighbours—it was our own world, just with dinosaurs.”
Morecambe & Wise
- Kid me: “They’re silly, but I don’t know why everyone laughs so much.”
- Adult me: “Because their timing was flawless. The sketch with the piano, the musical numbers—they carried an entire generation along with their humour. And yes, ‘you can’t see the join’ is still genius.”
The Beverley Hillbillies
- Kid me: “Jethro is hilarious. One day he wants to be a brain surgeon, the next a movie star.”
- Adult me: “Underneath the comedy, it was really about wealth, class, and culture clash. But at the time, all I saw was Jethro’s wild naivete.”
The Afterword 
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