While Stranger Things might be inspired by the movies and TV shows of the 1980s, Watch With Us loves the real thing, too.
This week, we want to celebrate the very best that television had to offer during the ’80s.
Tom Selleck’s mustache was huge, everyone knew your name at an underground bar in Boston and a show about nothing that was just about to take the world by storm.
Watch With Us has picked the best show from every year of the 1980s, from Magnum P.I. to Alf and The Wonder Years.
Sci-fi blockbusters like the Star Wars trilogy and Back to the Future may have ruled the ’80s, but it was also a golden age for fantasy movies. This was a decade when Hollywood wasn’t afraid to make some big swings in the fantasy genre, many of which remain among the best ever made. The Watch […]
1980: ‘Magnum P.I.’
Private detective Thomas Magnum (Selleck) hangs out in beautiful shirts in beautiful Hawaii, where he lives on the vast estate of the unseen Robin Masters and takes on cases brought to him by the locals. He investigates with the help of his military buddies, T.C. (Roger E. Mosley) and Rick (Larry Manetti), and clashes frequently with Masters’ haughty butler, Higgins (John Hillerman).
Selleck’s iconic performance as Magnum in this crime procedural earned him an Emmy in 1984, and the show’s success and popularity garnered it a remake of the same name in 2017. Selleck’s charisma, the character chemistry, fun locale and mix of mystery, action and comedy made Magnum P.I. a certified hit.
1981: ‘Hill Street Blues’
In an unnamed city, the staff of the Metropolitan Police Department at a single police station on Hill Street are led by Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) as they take on cases and deal with criminals. However, the show’s focus is more on the cops than on their cases, such as Officer Bobby Hill (Michael Warren) and Detective Mick Belker (Bruce Weitz).
While the show ran for seven seasons, Hill Street Blues struggled with Nielsen ratings but was nevertheless lauded by critics. It received praise in particular for its core cast that included Black actors and episodes that tackled themes of racism, sexism and police corruption. It is considered one of the most influential TV shows of all time and laid the foundation that made future cop shows like NYPD Blue and Homicide possible.
1982: ‘Cheers’
Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Sam Malone (Ted Danson) runs a bar in Boston called Cheers, and the show follows him and his many eccentric employees, customers and friends. Characters include grad student waitress Diane (Shelley Long), accountant Norm (George Wendt) and mail carrier Cliff (John Ratzenberger).
While Cheers was nearly canceled for abysmal season 1 Nielsen ratings, it eventually defied the odds and became consistently at the top in subsequent seasons. It was placed on NBC’s Thursday night “Must See” lineup for most of its syndication and won 28 Emmy Awards, being nominated for a record 117 Emmys. Its success spurred several spinoffs, including Frasier.
1983: ‘The A-Team’
A team of ex-special forces soldiers escapes from prison and goes on the run from the law after being imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit. While they continue to evade capture by police, they become soldiers of fortune and help out people who have problems that need fixing. The A-Team starred George Peppard, Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz.
While The A-Team was ultimately canceled for its sharp drop in ratings in the last couple of seasons, it was incredibly popular during its heyday and has left an immense pop culture legacy — hugely bolstered by Mr. T’s performance as B.A. Baracus, who has become a cult icon on his own.
1984: ‘Miami Vice’
Stylish detectives Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) work undercover in Miami, Florida, busting criminals for crimes related to drug and firearms trafficking, street prostitution and mafia activity — all loosely based on actual criminal activity that took place in Miami at the time.
Miami Vice has become iconic in pop culture for its memorable visual style, sleek wardrobe for Crockett and Tubbs, soundtrack and the sports cars driven in the show. A groundbreaking program at the time, it went on to influence a number of crime procedurals like Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order.
1985: ‘Moonlighting’
This comedy-drama show stars Cybill Shepherd as former model Maddie Hayes, who is scammed out of her money by her accountant and instead tries making a living as a private detective. Partnering with the snarky David Addison (Bruce Willis), Maddie and David investigate cases at the Blue Moon Detective Agency.
While simultaneously having served as the breakout role for Willis, Moonlighting was also pioneering in its combination of comedy, drama, mystery and romance in a TV show, often being considered one of the medium’s first successful “dramedys.” Moonlighting also relaunched Shepherd’s career and was notable for the way it frequently broke the fourth wall.
1986: ‘ALF’
Goofy alien creature ALF, aka Alien Life Form (Paul Fusco), crash-lands in the suburbs and finds his spaceship to be beyond repair. Weird-looking and with a cranky attitude, ALF is nevertheless taken in by the Tanner family, and he learns about earthlings, makes new friends and consistently tries to eat the Tanners’ pet cat.
ALF only ran for four seasons, but it has endured as a classic sitcom of the 1980s in no small part due to its superb joke-writing and the top-notch integration of the ALF puppet into the show. ALF’s popularity at the time generated a mass of merchandising that made the character a huge commercial success.
1987: ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’
The second live-action series in the Star Trek franchise follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise-D nearly a century after Captain Kirk (William Shatner) finished his original five-year mission. In his place, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) carries on Kirk’s legacy as he explores alien worlds with his eclectic crew.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was a massive success, accruing a whopping eighteen Emmy awards during its seven-season run. The Next Generation, well, brought a new generation of viewers into the Star Trek fandom, and in 2021, it was ranked by Empire magazine as one of the best television shows of all time.
1988: ‘The Wonder Years’
During the late 1960s and early ’70s, teenager Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) comes of age in his suburban town while witnessing the birth of the counterculture movement and other historical events. Throughout the show, Kevin endures the many obstacles of adolescence pertaining to family, friendship and first love, with his best friend Paul (Josh Saviano) beside him.
The Wonder Years was an incredibly influential sitcom in how it was formatted, written and structured, awarded the Peabody Award in 1989 for “pushing the boundaries of the sitcom format and using new modes of storytelling.” At only thirteen, Savage became the youngest actor ever nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor for a Comedy Series.
1989: ‘Seinfeld’
In New York City, comedian Jerry Seinfeld dates, tells jokes for a living and balances the many absurd situations in his life, usually involving his wacky next-door neighbor Kramer (Michael Richards), his selfish, neurotic best friend George (Jason Alexander) and former flame-turned-friend Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).
It’s always the right time to watch a good horror movie. But October is prime spooky season, and to stream a merely OK horror movie just seems wrong. To avoid doing the scariest month of the year dirty, Watch With Us has compiled a list of the 10 best horror movies of the 1980s, when […]
Subversive and uniquely hilarious, the famous “show about nothing” is usually considered to be one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms of all time — many even consider it to be the best sitcom of all time. Many of its episodes, characters and lines of dialogue are so cemented in pop culture that you may not have even realized they came from Seinfeld first.
#Show #Year #1980s #Cheers #Seinfeld