Entry 15-.01.05.09 in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

Entry Table of Contents

(a) Greeting
(b) Leading to the Top Five
(c) Top Five Productions
(d)

Uh-oh, folks. SIX days of the new year down… how are you on resolutions? I’ll share what a good friend said: If you already failed, there is no need for shame! Life is a series of successes and failures; the only true failure is giving up.

Watching Friends today, what my cousin “Edna” said (see here) is more and more apparent. I pointed this out to my wife and she brought up an interesting point. Even though it wasn’t my formative years; I watched this show from 1994 to 1996 religiously and sporadically from 1997 to 2002. As my wife suggested… perhaps it is less that Chandler Bing and I are alike… perhaps it is more that Chandler Bing influenced who I have become. This got me thinking… what are the Top Five Television Programs that have, likely, influenced my life the most? When were they on, how old would I have been, was I watching them in syndication or first run?

(1) Saved By The Bell (Franchise)
I watched Good Morning, Miss Bliss; Saved by the Bell; Saved by the Bell: College Years; and Saved by the Bell: The New Class. All in both first run and syndication. Primarily, of course, I wanted to be Zack Morris.

(2) Boy Meets World
This show, man. Granted, the entire ABC TGIF lineup was awesome and… yes, I was the sick kid that would try to work my entire schedule around being able to watch TGIF. But no show was as necessary to see every week as Boy Meets World. Admittedly, I stopped watching when I hit High School in 1999… but the show started in 1993; so that is still 6 years of catching every single episode (and almost every single time it was re-run). Two funny things about that, though. One… there is no way to prove this but my memory reports that there is a higher than 87% chance of accuracy… I’m fairly certain I had my first erection ever because of this show. No, it wasn’t an overtly sexual thing… it is ABC after all… but… something about Topanga Lawrence… that girl DID stuff for me… and then Lauren? I mean… yeah! But… I also think this show screwed me up a bit! Honestly! So… my parents… high school sweethearts.... my brother (not like I knew this back then but) married one of his best friends from High School… you add this show into the mix, is it any wonder why I was so stressed about finding someone in High School and/or College?

(3) Friends
So… I still have no idea what I was doing watching such an adult show! Friends premiered on September 22, 1994. I watched regularly until I graduated from High School in 2002. Not only is there the “Chandler Thing” but “Thompson” was obsessed about the show. One of the biggest dates of our relationship was when I drove to her college for the Series Finale (May 6, 2004).

(4) Spin City
Granted, this one was almost exclusively during the Michael J Fox portion before he quit for health reasons. That was still 4 full seasons (1996-2000). Here’s the reason I started watching the show: For some reason, 1996 felt like a fairly depressing year. Then I watched the premiere of this series and I literally laughed out loud. I remember sitting there, on the couch in my parents’ place, pausing after laughing out loud and just… realizing that it had been a long time since I had done that. So… it really does beg the question… is my interest in politics because of how much I appreciated the show?

(5) Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
It may be cheating to count both of these shows but… I’m doing it anyway because my character focus was Angel. Now… here’s where the fundamental insanity of who I am enters the common knowledge. I was Angel. I don’t mean, like, one of these vampire kids today going around saying I sparkle and want to kill but I’m so depressed and emotionally deep that people should love me. I mean… I was Angel. To speak of how much this character influenced me; I would have to write out my entire life story from 1997 to 2004.

Honorable Mentions

Frasier: This show really cemented something that may or may not become a problem in my life… it cemented my deep appreciation for class, culture, and intelligence. In a big way. The reason that could be a problem is… those are three things I typically see in decline in the modern age and it makes me seem a bit snobby when I get sad about that.