Reruns.....why do we like watching them?!

If any of you listen to NPR.....you know, the news radio station on 90.5 FM that you would associate with older people listening to it on Sunday mornings as they ate breakfast and read the morning paper.  They have programs like "This American Life", "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Quiz Show" & "The Splendid Table".  As i was listening to a podcast of This American Life earlier tonight, they did a show on the golden age of television and the concept of rerun shows.  The producer of the show was interviewed and sated that she actually prefers watching reruns as opposed to newer shows that are on television.  And when she was asked why, she said that she felt 'comforted' by watching these shows that held a place in her youth.  She remembered laying on the living room floor, head propped up on her hands, watching intently at the screen.  I know from my own experience as a boy growing up, I had a bevy of shows that I watched religiously every day and looked forward to the 'new' episodes that would grace the television set each week.  But what can we consider the 'Golden Age' of television?  The 50's?  How about the 70's or 80's?  For most people my age, our golden age is probably somewhere around the late 1970's, 80's and early 90's eras.  And yes, although, that does cover a HUGE span of time, each of us have our own programs that defined each of those periods.

Picture this for a moment:  A typical day and you are just coming in the door from school.  You are about 8 years old....what's the first thing you do?  For me, it was usually to turn on the television and see what shows were on.  I had a few staples.....The NEW Mickey Mouse Club, Double Dare, Silver Spoons, Gimme A Break and so much more....and by typing out some of these titles, I just realized I am dating myself!  TV was so much more wholesome than it is today.  We didn't have reality shows or Jerry Springer and such.  We just had sitcoms and dramas that spoke of the topics for the current time in history.  With the dawning of MTV in August of 1981, we finally had music videos....somewhat primitive and comical at best, I remember in retrospect some of the first programs that were shown on MTV and yes, I kind of miss them at this point.  The shows that aired that I can recall were MTV's House of Style with Daisy Fuentes, Remote Control, which was a games show of sorts and beginning in the early 90's, the first season of The Real World: New York aired.  That season of The Real World was one of the best IMO, due to the fact that it was totally unscripted and raw.  Remember the fight Kevin and Julie had outside their apartment on the New York streets about Kevin being a racist? And Eric trying to make it in modeling? lol, well I do!  MTV defined my generation as a kid growing up and as America's youth at that time, we were being exposed to new information and ways of life through the eyes of other people, being broadcast to everyone in the country.

In addition to MTV, we were hooked on shows like Saved By The Bell, a show about high school kids from Bayside, California.  Everyday we would peek into the antics of Zack, Kelly, Screech, Lisa, Slater & Jesse.  As an adult, if I ever am flipping through the channels and I see this on, I stop dead in my channel surfing and watch it.  We all know that episodes, like when Jesse gets addicted to caffeine pills and can't audition for the girls' singing group or when it was career day at Bayside and Slater wanted to become a pro wrestler and everybody made fun of him.  That was one of those shows that I lived for each day.

We also had the TGIF block on ABC each week.  Family Matters, Full House, Just The Ten of Us & a few others were replaced over the years with programs like Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Step by Step, The Dinosaurs, Perfect Strangers & Boy Meets World.   I used to look forward to this all week long because it signified the end of a long week of classes at school and you finally had time to relax for a while before thinking about homework and such.  So why do we like watching these reruns so much?  Does it take us back to that time in our lives when everything seemed to innocent and carefree?  When the hardest thing that we had to worry about was homework?

I think it's a mix of the questions I asked above and the fact that we are in that ever changing game of age, where everyone is a player whether you like it or not.  You gravitate to these old programs because maybe some part of you feels younger when you watch them.  Whatever your reasons are, we can all agree on one thing.  There's no finer substitute on a rainy Saturday afternoon than classic TV.