Favorite "Historical" TV Series

Drama: "Here Come the Brides"
Comedy: "Hogan's Heroes"

 

Sorry, I misread the question.

 

Well, these would qualify as historical and "reality" shows: Frontier House, Manor House, 1940's House. A group of modern day people are sent to a house to live as if they were in a different time period, using only the tools available during that time. 1940's House is set in England during Hitler's air raids, so the occupants had to put black paper on all the windows.

 

The Mini series "North and South" comes to mind.

 

History: "The Holocaust" miniseries, which was also chock full of great actors, many of whom were just starting out.

Also "The Grey Ghost" (let's see who remembers that one)

Comedy: McHale's Navy
And let's not forget: "F Troop"

 

Gunsmoke and Bonanza

 

Drama: "Tour of Duty"

Comedy: "Hogan's Heroes"

 

Was'nt the Grey Ghost a disney series?I liked Davey Crocket,Daniel Boone,& Robin Hood with Richard Greene.

 

Anything by Ken Burns

 

I always loved the "Untouchables" with Robert Stack. I wish they would put it back on TV.

 

Dragnet
Mission Impossible
Little House on the Prairie
The Waltons
The Andy Griffith Show
Car 54 Where Are You
Wagon Train
McHale's Navy
Gilligan's Island
Fantasy Island
The Naked City
This Is Your Life
You Are There

 

His stuff is really good and more accurate than most

 

I remember how much my Dad enjoyed the Rat Patrol, Wagon Train and Raw Hide. I tend to watch documentaries these days.

 

Little House on the Prairie

 

By "historical," I thought you meant a lot more than just the setting taking place in the past. Some of these mentioned, such as Bonanza, Hogan's Heroes, and Rawhide IMO would not qualify in that way.

The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie *may* qualify because they are at least based upon some real life experiences, though the fiction obviously flows freely from the facts. Same thing with Mash and Daniel Boone.

Documentaries are not series; "mini-series" at best. And mini-series are probably all we can get out of anything really historical without either making up stories or blowing some little incident way out of shape. Maybe a mini-series like Roots would meet the characterization best, but even in that one much has been written about Alex Haley's inaccuracies and conjectured incidents to "tie in" one time period to another, as well as the television version taking many more liberties (no pun on that last word).

 

I once read an interview with the real life doctor who inspired the character of Capt. B.F. "Hawkeye" Pierce in Ring Lardner's book, "MASH".

If you remember, in the book, there were four doctors, "Hawkeye", "Trapper John", "Ugly John" and "Spearchucker Jones".

He said that he and "Trapper" (sorry, their real names escape me at the moment) tried to sue Twentieth Century Fox Televeision over how their characters were portrayed.

Evidently, all four of them were good surgeons, good soldiers and very proud of their service, and were furious at the way they were shown to be malcontents for the sake of the producers' political ideology.

They were also unhappy with the depictions of drug use in the book, but didn't go after the author.

By the way, Ugly John and Spearchucker (not to mention the Korean houseboy, Ho Jon) only appear in the first season of the TV show and those shows are no longer distributed because of the political incorrectness of calling a black man "Spearchucker". It's explained in the book, the movie, and the TV show that the nickname has nothing to do with race, but with the fact that he was a track star in college who held a record in the javelin. What doesn't make it into the show is that Trapper was a star quarterback in college or that he got his nickname by "trapping" a woman in a bathroom stall.

Likewise, what is often left out of the show when distributed to syndicators is Trappers nickname of Father Mulcahy, "Dago Red". Dago is an offensive nickname for Italians, which is odd, since the father is nothing if not Irish.

Frank Burns is also much different in the book. In the book, he's a competant officer, but a religious zealot.

Radar O'Reilly is also much different in the book and movie. The kid in the show (and, by the way, he's the only character to be played by the same actor in both the movie and TV show) might not be getting any, but I wouldn't leave my daughter alone with the movie Radar for one second.

I always thought it was interesting that in all of the time the TV show talked about home, they never once mentioned where the unit was based.

Major Houlihan once made an offhand comment about being stationed at Walston Army Hospital (which, ironically, is where I was based when I was a paramedic at Fort Dix/Maguire AFB) and Colonel Potter (who, of course, appeared in neither the book or the movie) mentioned that he was stationed at Fort Dix during "the Great War", so I'm going to assume it's Fort Dix.

In case you're wondering why I know all of this, I just really like trivia.

 

Drama - The Waltons
Comedy Set in the Past - Hogans Heros.
(Favorite Comedy - Mayberry RFD)