This will be the first in a series of posts about fiction which influenced me as a writer and a person. Though I’m trying to find success as a novelist, it’s probably television that impacted me the most. My TV was my live-in nanny.
The shows in the image above are some of the more prominent television series I watched as a kid. Four of them include a whole lot of no-blood violence (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron: Defenders of the Universe, Transformers, and Power Rangers). These shows had moral lessons here and there, probably at least one per episode, but they’re mostly about beating up bad guys. Watching these shows, I started my life long love of self-righteous violence.
Then, we have two infamous Fox shows, The Simpsons and Married… with Children.
Yes, I watched Married… with Children as a kid (it’s not all that crazy, considering the role Family Guy has in today’s society; then again, it probably paved the way for Seth MacFarlane). The main reason I started watching Al Bundy’s antics is because my uncle would sometimes visit our family and would watch Married… with Children at whatever time it was on—when my siblings and I were supposed to be asleep. I remember one evening my older brother was watching the show with my uncle, and I stealthily made my way downstairs to “secretly” watch the Bundys get into trouble from behind the couch.
The Simpsons is one of my all-time favorite shows. With its decline in writing I haven’t been watching it very often in the past few years, but it still holds a very special place in my TV-loving heart. A lot of my speech mannerisms are probably derived from Simpsons quotes.
What I particularly like about both The Simpsons and Married… with Children is that despite the comedic callousness the characters show each other throughout the series, there are a few episodes when you get an awesomely touching moment where they demonstrate their love for one another.
I guess I’ll go ahead and blame Fox for making me into a sympathetic, yet sarcastic jerk.
Honorable Mention: The Chipmunk Adventure (1987) wasn’t a TV show, but an animated movie spin-off of Alvin and the Chipmunks. The film follows the chipmunks as they travel around the world doing a bunch of awesome stuff and haphazardly foil some sort of illegal diamond trade. This movie may have inception’ed a love of travel (and spontaneous song and dance) in my mind as a kid.
A.D. Martin 
To your honorable mention – I loved the Chipmunk Adventure! I stumbled across the DVD a few years ago on amazon and bought it. 🙂 such a great movie. 🙂
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You and your fancy DVD. We had it recorded on VHS. Our copy wasn’t even labeled with the proper title, it just said “Balloon.”
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Ohh I had the VHS version for a long time…with fancy label that I made (complete with cross outs on how to spell chipmunk) but had to upgrade when my VHS player stopped working.
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Use a pen, sideshow bob…
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Says K-Dog while reading Fifty Shades of Grey on her bed.
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Hahaha my all time favorite moment of that show
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This is CRAZY. I just had this exact same discussion with my fiance last night. We were racking our brains thinking of on-screen couples with healthy relationships and sex lives. He came up with Simpsons and I came up with Married…With Children.
Excellent choices, all of these.
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I’m not sure Al and Peg would be my go-to couple for healthy relationships. I guess Al did fulfill his manly duties, however reluctantly.
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Yeah, it was more to do with couples with healthy sex lives than anything. In contrast to Everybody Loves Raymond 🙂
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Oddly enough, one summer I was living in Germany and one of the ways I learned unusual words in German was through watching television, if rarely. You can imagine my surprise when the signature theme song began and Married… With children was on. Only the show was called Eine Schlechte Familie which translates to “a bad family!” I was astounded. My mother hated the show, but I found it morbidly amusing. Apparently, Germany agreed with my mother!
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Enough German-speakers loved the show to put the entire thing on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MaRTYHluIQ&list=PLtGrzGvkioSmNLb9PUMxRqEyJ0cFj4xsY
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Ha! I was off slightly! Though it was some 15 years or so ago! Shreckliche Nette – not too far off.
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Nothing to be embarrassed about.
I referred to The Chipmunk Adventure as “Balloon” for years. I didn’t learn the true name ’til I googled the film for this post.
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I used to love Ninja Turtles. Your post brought back some good memories. Looking forward to your upcoming posts.. 🙂
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Too bad the new movie seems like a flop. I haven’t seen it, but rottentomatoes is effectively scaring me away.
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Ha ha true
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Reblogged this on SocioTech'nowledge.
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