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Dear Fellow TV Fans: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Bohn, and I have been watching TV for quite some time. In fact, I have faint memories of watching ‘Bat Masterson’ from as early as 1958. Science Fiction shows seem to hold the fondest memories of my childhood. My favorite of those, was ‘Lost In Space’, but ‘Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea’, ‘The Time Tunnel’, and ‘Land Of The Giants’ (All of which, coincidentally, were Irwin Allen productions), were at least ‘semi-regulars’ for me, back in the mid-60s. I didn’t watch a lot of TV, during my teen years, what with schoolwork, friends, and dating taking up most of my time, but young adulthood brought a new interest. Marriage, a steady job, and a home of my own, all presented their own challenges and stresses, but I found escape, in the evenings, with the ‘Magic Box’ in my living room. The ‘Cop Shows’ held most of my attention, in the mid-to-late 70s. ‘Baretta’, and ‘Starsky And Hutch’ (In that order) were my favorites, from that period, but ‘Hawaii Five-O’, and, the short-timers ‘Joe Forrester’, and ‘Caribe’ would often include me in their audiences. I usually found time for some of the ‘P.I.’ shows, like ‘Cannon’, ‘Barnaby Jones’, and, occasionally, ‘Mannix’, and I went back to my SciFi roots, when I became a huge fan of ‘Kolchak – The Night Stalker’, during it’s short run, in ’75 and ‘76. I never missed ‘Movin’ On’, which became one of my all-time favorites, and, as silly as it may seem, I even watched – And enjoyed – ‘When Things Were Rotten’. TV, in general, for me, began to take a downturn, with the 80s, and I watched less and less of it, as time progressed. I kept my hand in, with such shows as ‘CHiPs', ‘The Dukes Of Hazzard’, and ‘The A-Team’, but there was little else that I was really interested in. Some of the ‘big’ episodes – Such as the ‘Who Shot J.R.’ episode(s) of ‘Dallas’, and the ‘Goodbye, Farewell, And Amen’ episode of ‘M*A*S*H’, drew my attention, as well as that of a hundred million or so other people. My #1 most favorite TV show, ever – ‘Sanford And Son’ – Reached that status retro-actively. I never watched the show when it was new, but I started watching late-night re-runs of it, on one of the local stations, back in about 1979, and was immediately hooked. It has since gotten to the point that, if I don’t see at least one ‘Sanford And Son’ episode per day, I tend to get a little down in the dumps. Similarly, ‘McHale’s Navy’ – Thanks to syndication – Holds the #2 spot on my list of all-time favorites, and, further down the list, ‘Dragnet’ (The late-60s revival), and ‘Adam-12’. ‘Dallas’ comes in at #3 on my list. I became interested in the Ewing saga, when I started watching re-runs of the series, in the mid-80s. I started watching new episodes of the show, regularly, in ’86, and watched it through to the end, in ’91. In ’04 & ’05, I watched the entire run of the series on the ‘Soap’ network, from first episode, to last, and, I gotta admit… J.R. Ewing has become one of my greatest TV heroes. It almost seems un-American not to know The Ricardos, The Cartwrights, The Taylors, The Clampetts, The Bradys, or those ‘Seven Stranded Castaways’. Here, again, these good Americans didn’t become a part of my life until after they went into syndication, but I know and love them all, and I believe I could hold my own in a trivia contest with the Experts on those TV Families. Aside from a few notable exceptions – Like ‘Roseanne’, and ‘Walker – Texas Ranger’, both of which I watched with some regularity – I had little use for prime time TV, from about the mid-80s, on, and I began to depend on syndicated re-runs, shown on independent cable stations. I’ll watch pretty much any action or comedy series made before about 1986. I tend to lean toward the obscure, and it saddens me, to think of some of the short-lived TV gems of the 60s through the 80s, that I missed. Ohh, to be able to travel back in time, with a VCR, and record ‘Branded’, ‘The Guns Of Will Sonnett’ (“No brag… Just fact.”), ‘Toma’, ‘Matt Helm’, ‘The Cop And The Kid’, ‘Life With Lucy’… I could go on and on. I could have cared less about either of the spin-offs from ‘Sanford And Son’ – ‘Grady’, or ‘The Sanford Arms’ – When they were new, but ohh, how I wish I could see them, today! Alas… The less popular a series was, the less likely it is to be rebroadcast, or released on DVD. Though I’ve only scratched the surface, I hope I’ve given you an idea of what kind of TV fan I am. It should be evident, from the above, that I’m a little (Okay… A LOT) old fashioned. I’ve given you my Top 3, but the other 7 of my Top 10, would take quite a bit of time, with so many to choose from, and I shudder to think about how long it would take to decide on the other 97 of my top 100. In short… You can keep your ‘Friends’, and ‘Will And Grace’, and ‘CSI’, and ‘Law And Order’, and I’ll take my ‘Gunsmoke’, ‘Mr. Ed’, ‘The Twilight Zone’, and ‘Green Acres’ – Or any one of hundreds more like them – Any day of the week . Sincerely, David C. Bohn ‘bohn007’

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