We live in a golden age of television with shows such as Game of Thrones, Homeland, The Fall, Breaking Bad and Justified all on our screens, about to resume or recently finished. Why, then, watch shows from 20, 30, or even 40 years ago? Tony Love attempts to explain why he has been doing just that.
There is a wonderful exchange involving Jim, Tony and Alex in the 1970s-1980s American sitcom Taxi which has always stuck with me.
Tony: Is your father wealthy, Jim?
Jim: Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's rich. We lived on a big ranch; my dad taught me how to be a man. Me and my two brothers, Little Joe and Hoss.
Alex: Jim, that's Bonanza.
Jim: Oh, yeah!
Over the past few years, thanks to Sky's Jones channel, I managed to watch every episode of both series. Taxi, despite winning 18 Emmys, including three for best comedy series, lasted for ''only'' 114 episodes across five seasons, but Bonanza ran from 1959 until 1973, a total of 430 episodes. And, of course, Bonanza episodes were an hour-long compared to 30 minutes for Taxi. So that's almost 18 days of the past few years I spent watching Bonanza.
Or, to put it another way, if I had treated it as a job and I limited myself to 40 hours week, then it would have taken me nearly 11 weeks.
I have been the subject of considerable derision for my devotion to Bonanza and other shows such as The High Chaparral, but the existence of Jones proves there's a market for television nostalgia.
I'm not sure why, exactly. Of course, there's the fact that many shows of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were very good and worth another look but I think it's more than that. I think, for me, anyway, and for others of my age-group who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, it takes us back to a time when everybody watched the same shows.
Hell, we had to - there was only one channel in New Zealand until 1975. I remember going to school and everybody discussing the likes of The Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie's Angels, Happy Days, Fawlty Towers, Man About the House, I Claudius and so it goes on.
So I intend to share with you the results of my Jones journey so far.
Of course, Taxi's Jim was not wholly correct when he talked about living on a ranch with his two brothers, because there were actually three Cartwright boys. Adam, the oldest, left after 202 episodes when his character, Pernell Roberts, became dissatisfied with his character's lack of independence. Perhaps Jim thought he was Adam!
It really surprised me how well the show stacked up after all these years. I'm not saying it was as gripping as modern programmes such as The Fall or Homeland but sometimes it is nice to watch something which does not require you to concentrate for every minute in case you miss something vital.
I have to admit that I don't think it succeeded the few times it tried to be a comedy rather than a drama.
The pin was eventually pulled on Bonanza due to declining ratings in its final season after the loss of Hoss, following actor Dan Blocker's death in 1972. The other main characters all went on to star in other hit shows.
Lorne Greene (Ben) played Commander Adama in the science fiction series Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980 from 1979 to 1980, while Pernell Roberts (Adam) starred in Trapper John, M.D. from 1979 to 1986. That focused on the character originally played by Wayne Rogers in M*A*S*H* 28 years after his discharge from the Korean War.
Michael Landon (Little Joe) must have one of the most impressive resumes of any television actor in history. After co-starring in Bonanza for 13 seasons until 1973, he starred as Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie from 1974 until 1983 and then as angel Jonathan Smith from 1984 until 1989, which means he was a non-stop feature in living rooms around the world from 1959 until 1989.
I can't leave my discussion of Bonanza without mentioning that great opening theme music emulating galloping horses and the blazing Ponderosa map as the four main characters (later three) rode into view. The four were billed equally and the opening credits alternated the order from episode to episode.
Sticking with Westerns . . . Bonanza has played out its time on Jones now but I still get my Western fix through The High Chaparral and Alias Smith and Jones. The High Chaparral was created by David Dortort, who had previously created - wait for it - Bonanza. It ran from 1967 until 1971. Unlike Bonanza, which was on Jones five days a week, The High Chaparral is on only once a week, so I never feel as though I am going to be overwhelmed as episodes stack up on MySky.
My favourite characters when I watched The High Chaparral as a kid were Buck (Cameron Mitchell) and Manolito (Henry Darrow) and, surprise, surprise, they still are.
Whereas Bonanza was set in Nevada in the 1860s, The High Chaparral was set in Arizona in the 1870s, meaning both the Indians and the conditions were considerably more hostile. The annoying thing about The High Chaparral is that I missed the first episode so I won't be able to boast I saw every minute of the show. Of course, that's the episode when the first wife of ''Big'' John Cannon (Leif Erickson) is killed. He then marries Victoria (Linda Cristal) , the daughter of powerful neighbouring Mexican rancher Don Sebastian Montoya and Manolito's sister.
I have to admit that, towards the end of a recent episode I watched, which centred on Buck, I blubbed like a baby. Come to think of it, Bonanza also occasionally reduced me to tears (in a good way). And, like Bonanza, The High Chaparral had a great opening theme.
Alias Smith and Jones enjoyed a comparatively short run from 1971 to 1973. That does mean, of course that, for a season, it, Bonanza and The High Chaparral were all on air at the same time.
Alias Smith and Jones starred Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes (aka Joshua Smith) and Ben Murphy as Kid Curry (aka Thaddeus Jones). The series was inspired by the success of 1969 hit movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford and it certainly contains elements of both that film and that pair's 1973 movie, The Sting. The names Smith and Jones originated from a comment in Butch Cassidy when, before one of their final hold-ups, the characters are outside a bank in Bolivia and Sundance turns to Butch and says: ''I'm Smith and you're Jones''.
Apparently, Murphy was offered his role because he was considered a lookalike for Newman, although it's Duel that plays the Newman-type character and Murphy Redford's character.
I absolutely adored this show as a kid and, you know, it's still excellent viewing now. OK, it's 40-plus years old but it's funny, well acted, surprisingly modern and slightly new-agey, cleverly scripted and very slick. In fact, a good friend of mine considers Heyes and Curry the original new-age cowboys and she reckons if the parts had been cast today, they could have been played by Brad Pitt and George Clooney or Mark Ruffalo and Owen Wilson.
If I had to be picky, it would be that the fight scenes weren't always particularly realistic. The same goes for Bonanza and The High Chaparral.
Pete Duel was always my favourite although women seem to go for Ben Murphy. I guess I can see why ...
Tragically, Duel died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on New Year's Eve, 1971. It carried on with Roger Davis in Duel's role. I kept watching it but it just wasn't the same without Duel and, apparently, most viewers agreed with me. The show was canned after another 17 episodes.
Beyond the West
I know I've focused almost exclusively on Westerns so far but my Jones journey has consisted of far more than that. Another old favourite which I watched in its entirety was The Wonder Years, a coming-of-age drama set in ''Anywhere'', USA in the late 1960s and early 1970s, against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the Apollo programme.
The show aired from 1988 until 1993, winning the Emmy for outstanding comedy in 1988. Episode, My Father's Office (he finds his father is only human, after all, but it's to earn money for his family) was ranked No 9 on TV Guide's 100th greatest episode all time. I remember it well and am not ashamed to say I had a tear in my eye at the end.
Reliving The Wonder Years was different - but still very good - from watching the Westerns again, in that it didn't bring back memories of my childhood. In fact, I first watched it at the age of 28, when living in London in 1989.
I began this article with a favourite exchange of mine from Taxi in which my favourite (and probably everyone else's) character, Jim Ignatowski, played by Christopher Lloyd, is convinced he grew up on the Ponderosa. Jim, of course, is an ageing hippie who had taken far too many drugs as a younger man.
There are way too many of Jim's great lines to mention here but I'll always remember one he used when he had a brief stint as a door-to-door salesman: ''I'm `Fill in your name' but you can call me `Nickname'.
Has there ever been a funnier comedic creation?
Of course, Danny DeVito was great as Louie De Palma, I had a crush on Marilu Henner's character, Elaine Nardo, and Judd Hirsch was the glue of the show as Alex Rieger. I have to admit though I wasn't always a huge fan of Andy Kaufman's creation, Latka Gravas.
Taxi's run ended in 1983 but it was followed by an even better comedy in Cheers. The show actually ran for 275 episodes (and again I watched every one when it was replayed on Jones) over 11 seasons from 1982 and was created by brothers Glen and Les Charles, who were also involved in creating Taxi.
After nearly being cancelled during its first season when it was ranked 74th from 77 shows, it went on to win 28 Emmys and, in 2013, TV Guide ranked it No 11 on its list of the 60 greatest shows of all time.
When I first watched it in the 1980s, my favourite characters were Cliff Clavin, played by John Ratzenberger, and Norm Peterson (George Wendt), and indeed they both had many very funny lines. Just one example.
Woody: Can I pour you a beer Mr Peterson?
Norm: A little early isn't it, Woody?
Woody: For a beer?
Norm: No, for stupid questions.
However, this time around a mate pointed out the influence on the show of Ted Danson, who played Sam Malone (he was the ''star'', after all), and I have to agree.
He really did carry Cheers and was involved in numerous very funny and clever scenes.
When it comes to the barmaids, who are also Sam's love/lust influences, it seems Cheers fans always go for either Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) or Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley). Diane for mine.
Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) or Woody (Woody Harrelson)? I did love Coach, but he featured for only three seasons, as a result of Colasanto's death in 1985, so I have to go for Woody, who appeared in eight seasons.
And, of course, no discussion of Cheers could complete without mention of funny, feisty and fertile barmaid Carla Tortelli (Rhea Perlman). Of course, there was another Cheers regular who was intended to appear in only a few episodes but who not only became a regular, but then played the same character for another 11 seasons from 1993 in a spin-off of Cheers. I'm referring, of course, to Kelsey Grammer's character, Frasier Crane.
Frasier, which is on Jones at the moment, was one of the most critically acclaimed comedy series of all time, winning 37 Emmys and breaking the record previously held by The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Grammer, who was briefly the highest- paid actor on American television for his portrayal of Frasier, tied the record for the longest-running character, equalling James Arness' 20 years as Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke (that was also on Jones but you can't watch everything).
Final act
I also watched Yes Minister and follow-up Yes Prime Minister in their entirety. The 38 total episodes, which ran from 1980 until 1988, must rank among the best-written comedy of all time. Even today, the series haven't dated a jot and are still laugh-out-loud funny.
Nigel Hawthorne's Sir Humphrey Appleby was truly a masterpiece while he was more than ably supported by Paul Eddington (Jim Hacker) and Derek Fowlds (Bernard Wolley). I can still remember Fowlds as Mr Derek in Basil Brush.
I also watched one episode of 1970s American police drama The Streets of San Francisco, starring Karl Malden, who had previously enjoyed a stellar career on the big screen, and a young Michael Douglas, who went on to a enjoy a stellar career on the big screen.
I remember watching it as a teenager and it wasn't bad at all. It was shown in four acts, followed by an epilogue. Why don't they do that any more?
I do love the opening as Hank Simms announces: ''The Streets of San Francisco, a Quinn Martin production''.
Another show which was a particular favourite of mine as youngster was The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a spy drama which ran from 1964 until 1968.
All I can say is that it's 60 minutes of my life which I'm never going to get back. Still, it did feature Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who both went on to star in shows I enjoyed immensely.
Vaughn later co-starred with New Zealander Nyree Dawn Porter (of The Forsyte Saga fame) in 1970s British action thriller series The Protectors (I was also a big fan of its theme song, Avenues and Alleways, sung by Tony Christie). Vaughn also played a major role in British confidence trickster drama Hustle from 2004 until 2012 and appeared recently in Coronation Street (it always gets back to Coro) as the love interest of Roy's mother, Sylvia.
McCallum later starred in the short-lived The Invisible Man, Sapphire and Steele and, of course, Colditz, one of my all time favourite shows. They used to repeat it endlessly but I haven't seen it for years.
Hello Sky, if you're reading this ... I have an episode of Kojak and one of Columbo taped but whether I'll ever get around to watching them is another question.
There you have it. My Jones journey. I'm just waiting for Sky to ask the viewers what programmes they want to see on Jones. I've got a few ideas but that's for another article.
