My favorite foreign TV shows - STARbytes by Butch Francisco

(Part II)

Last Tuesday, I began writing down my list of favorite foreign shows from the time I started watching television up to the present. Below is the conclusion.

= The Carol Burnett Show – Although this comedy/variety show was aired in the US as early as 1967, I believe it wasn’t shown here in the Philippines until the mid-’70s (by the old BBC-2). Starring the multi-talented Carol Burnett, this series featured colorful song and dance numbers and hilarious sketches and spoofs. (As the Stomach Turns was one of the show’s continuing satires on soap operas.) Unfortunately – to the dismay of local viewers – BBC-2 failed to get new episodes of this series toward the late ’70s and ended up showing nothing but replays week after week.

= Cher – For quite some time, Sonny and Cher Bono had their own program called The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. (Margie Moran appeared as a guest here when she was Miss Universe and found Cher to be masungit.) But when they divorced in 1974, this show naturally had to be dissolved. Sonny (who died in a plane crash only a couple of years ago) was given his own program, The Sonny Comedy Revue. Cher, on the other hand, got her own series, too – a musical/variety that also carried her name. The format of Cher was patterned after The Carol Burnett Show – although it wasn’t as funny. But I still regularly followed this program during its less than a year run on local television sometime in the late ’70s.

= Charlie’s Angels – This detective drama must have been the most popular series in the whole world when it burst into the small screen in 1976. (Channel 7 picked it up and showed it to local viewers less than a year later.) Its original cast members were Kate Jackson (Sabrina Duncan), Farrah Fawcett-Majors (Jill Munroe) and Jaclyn Smith (Kelly Garrett). Farrah eventually became the most popular among the three girls – thanks to her flowing blond hair and cheesecake photos. (Besides her posters, Farrah Fawcett dolls and shirts also flooded the market.) When success went to her head, she walked out of the series and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd (Kris Munroe).

The series still remained popular even without Farrah. The only time the ratings dipped was after Kate Jackson quit the show in 1979. Kate‘s slot was taken over by Charlie signature model Shelley Hack (Tiffany Welles), who – in the story – was supposed to have trained in a police academy in Boston. When Shelley failed to impress the viewers, she was yanked out in the next season and was replaced by Tanya Roberts (Julie Rogers). But Tanya’s presence didn’t do anything to improve the ratings. Eventually, the show’s producers were left with no choice but to shelve this once highly successful detective drama.

= Donny and Marie – I do not know that many people who would admit to having regularly followed this tacky show, but I did – every Sunday when it was being aired by Channel 7. When the Osmond family came to visit Manila in the early ’80s, I was an apprentice in a TV magazine and got to meet them personally. Donny and Marie were very nice and weren’t all that icky.

= Second City TV – I think I was one of the very few people who bothered to watch this comedy show when it was aired by GMA-7 in the late ’70s. Highly-irreverent, it spoofs everything – especially movies and television.

= Falcon Crest – The only American soap opera that I followed religiously. In the beginning, I only watched this because I was curious about Jane Wyman. Before I knew it, I was already hooked on this drama series set in California’s Napa Valley. Other Hollywood veterans also became semi-regulars in this program: Mel Ferrer, Cliff Robertson, Kim Novak, Celeste Holm and Lana Turner.

= Three’s Company – Nothing could make me leave the house every Sunday night when this sitcom was being aired by Channel 7 starting from the late ’70s up to the early ’80s. My favorite character here was a dumb blonde, Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers) – until she left the series in 1981. And then I also liked Stanley and Helen Roper (Norman Fell and Audra Lindley) who were later given their own series, The Ropers (a spin-off of Three’s Company), which – sadly didn’t last long on television.

= A.L.F. – I was crazy about this comedy series - some episodes of which I still have on Betamax tapes. I also have with me some ALF souvenir items, like mugs and shirts.

= Perfect Strangers – Who would ever forget this sitcom about an aspiring Chicago photojournalist and his cousin from the Mediterranean island of Mypos? You do remember this, don’t you? Oh, don’t be ridikalus!

= It’s a Living – A comedy about a bunch of waitress working in an LA restaurant. The most popular cast members here are Ann Jillian and Susan Sullivan, who later played Maggie in Falcon Crest and is now seen as Kitty in Dharma & Greg on Channel 9.

= Cheers – Although this was aired here in the Philippines sometime in 1983, I never bothered to watch this comedy series set in a Boston bar called Cheers. I only started watching this when I lived and studied in Boston a couple of years ago. It was only then that I realized how brilliant a show this was.

= Murphy Brown – The best comedy about the broadcast industry since The Mary Tyler Moore Show. This was a must-see show for me ever since ABS-CBN started airing this every Friday night as a pre-programmer to The World Tonight.

= Saved by the Bell – Another comedy series I discovered while I was staying in Boston. Set in a school in Los Angeles, this program is geared more toward teeners – and not people my age. But I still loved watching it and saw it regularly while having a bowl of cereals in the afternoon.

Saved by the Bell is still being aired regularly by Studio 23. I hope you don’t lose your respect for me, but I have yet to wean myself away from this show. And this may be very embarrassing, but I have to admit, I sometimes run my schedule around this show.