Slight correction. A retired military member is someone who made it a career and receives a pension. A veteran can be that but also includes those who were in the military for a short time (particularly in wartime) but does not receive a military pension (Like me).
It was easy for a cartoonist to get a deferment during WWII as they were deemed necessary for morale at home, but I know that Chester Gould depicted a Service Star flag flying in a window in wartime Dick Tracy for his brother Ray, who served.
One of the benefits of retirement and possessing a Roku-capable television set is that I get to binge-watch the complete runs of TV series I remember fondly. Over the last two years, I have completed viewing the following runs, roughly in the order listed:
Lawman (1958-62)
Mr. & Mrs. North (1952-4)
The Saint (1962-9)
Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-7)
Monk (2002-9)
Twelve O'Clock High (1964-7)
The F.B.I. (1965-74; the real one with Efrem ZImbalist, not any of the later poor-man's versions)
Ironside (1967-75; again, the real one, and not that remake from 2013)
and the one which I finished to-day---Fireball XL5 (1962-3)
Still in progress are Hawaii 5-O (1968-80, and of course, the real one, not that overblown remake)---I have a season and a half to go---and The Lone Ranger (1949-57). I'm following The Lone Ranger as it airs on FeTV, but I'm skipping the third season currently running, the one that saw John Hart replacing Clayton Moore as the masked man. It's more than my usual "Clayton Moore is the Lone Ranger" attitude. I watched three with Mr. Hart---two at the beginning of his run and one to-day. I hate to say it, but he has all the personality and charisma of a department-store manniquin. I'll pick up the show again when Mr. Moore returns.
Waiting in the wings is The Champions (1968-9).
I'm usually caught by surprise at what the Good Mrs. Benson enjoys watching with me. Most of the shows above she can take or leave. She's younger than me just enough to have missed seeing the older shows when they first ran, as I did, so they're new to her. Case in point, she'd never seen Combat! (1962-7). About five years ago, I started watching it on one of the satellite channels and when she started watching it with me, she really got into it. Go figure a wife wanting to watch a World War II drama. It's an excellent show, but not one you'd think a wife would find compelling. Go figure.
She also enjoyed Mr. & Mrs. North. I was thrilled to find its entire run on a Roku channel. I had only vague memories of the show, mostly of how fond I was of its two stars. I'm a fan of Richard Denning, and one of my first crushes was on Barbara Britton. She died too young. In watching the show as adults, the GMB and I both found Denning and Miss Britton to have marvelous chemistry together. That carried the show when a clunky plot popped up now and again. The GMB was more insistant than I was to binge-watch that one.
Another show that we watched all the way through---it was as its episodes aired on one of the family channels, so it wasn't technically a binge-watch---was My Three Sons. Like many, the GMB was surprised to discover that the original three boys weren't Robbie, Chip, and Ernie, but rather, Mike and Robbie and Chip. And Uncle Charley wasn't there for the first four and a half years, but the boys' grandfather, Bub (played by William Frawley). So, I was her "tour guide" over the seasons, as the show evolved.
One of the things I appreciated as an adult watching My Three Sons again was the show paid attention to the characters' back stories and how they fit into the actors' portrayals. For example, we learn, over the course of the show, that the father, Steve Douglas, was a bomber pilot during WWII, and that immediately after the war, he was a test pilot before easing into the position of an aeronautical engineer. So, while Fred MacMurray plays Steve as affable and sometimes a bit bumbling, every once in a while, when the situation calls for it, he brings out a steely edge that bespeaks of his earlier life. I recall one episode in which middle son Robbie was caddying for a golf pro. After a dry streak, the pro finally wins a tournament, but a mistake by Robbie requires the pro to invalidate his victory. Steve accompanies Robbie to the locker room when the boy tells the pro about his mistake which disqualifies the pro. The pro reacts harshly, snarling to Robbie, "I ought to thrash you within an inch of your life!" Steve's eyes turn hard, and he tells the man, "I wouldn't try that, if I were you." It's a soft voice but has a hard tone that would make anyone step back a few paces.
I have also embarked on varous watching projects for shows I never saw all of that I wanted to. But my wife hasn't been enthusiastic about it -- "Can we watch something from this century?" -- so I have to watch solo, fiting it in around the times we aren't watching things together. And I am still working 40 hours a week. That slows things down.
I envy the list you made, as most of it occurred before I was old enough to watch TV, and are just legends to me. I was aware of Combat!, having seen some in reruns, and I would love to watch that start to finish. And the rest of my priorities -- Twilight Zone, Dick Van Dyke Show, Outer Limits, Rat Partrol, one or two others -- are old hat to just about everyone on this site. What can I say? I've been reading comics all these years instead of watching old TV shows my wife isn't interested in.
I expect I'll find that with most of these shows I have seen most of the episodes. But not all, and the completist in me won't let me leave them alone.
There are also a ton of old movies that I never got around to seeing that have been referred to most of my adult life, and it's about time I found about them. I'm thinking of this because Netflix just put a bunch of Alfred Hitchock movies on their site. I've seen the big ones (The Birds, Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window, one or two others) but there's plenty I haven't seen. Last night I watched Family Plot, with The Man Who Knew Too Much and Frenzy on deck. (Which I may have seen.) There are lots of other movies made in the '40s, '50s and '60s on Tubi and other free services that I need to watch (or re-watch), too many to list here.
Believe it or not, Family Plot was the first Alfred Hitchcock movie I ever saw, and I saw it in the theater. (Ironically, it was his last.) Soon after that I saw Psycho and The Birds for the first time on TV, but Family Plot was the first. I watched it for the second time about a year ago and realized that that was the first time I had ever encountered the phrase "too pooped to pop."
Believe it or not, Family Plot was the first Alfred Hitchcock movie I ever saw
I'm surprised you watched any more! JK, it's not bad. It's just not the sort of thing that made Hitchcock a legend.
"[I] realized that that was the first time I had ever encountered the phrase "too pooped to pop."
My mother used that expression all the time, so it's definitely got a clean connotation, at least in the Mid-South. It was a sexual reference in Family Plot, of course.
But my wife hasn't been enthusiastic about it -- "Can we watch something from this century?" -- so I have to watch solo . . .
I experience the same problem with the Good Mrs. Benson. She had no interest in any of the above shows I watched, save Mr. & Mrs. North. I was able to convince her of the high quality of Lawman by insisting she view three of its exceptional episodes---including one with the best performance by Whit Bissell ever. The GMB agreed the show's writing was excellent, but she just doesn't like Westerns. At least, not the classic Westerns of my youth. When she does watch a Western, she prefers the ones in which the cowboys wear dusters and long moustaches and spit a lot.
One caveat to her anti-Western stance: the GMB does like Maverick, and we'll both watch that whenever it's on. It's not an entirely smooth ride there, either, as she prefers James Garner as Bret Maverick, and I enjoy Jack Kelly as Bart. Fortunately, the best episodes were the ones that featured both brothers.
Where the GMB and I really divide, when it comes to television series, is in the concept of good and evil. She loves shows like House of Cards and Breaking Bad, in which the "hero" is the one slightly less murderous than everyone else. (And when she tries to explain the shows to me, her explanations to justify the heroes' illicit behaviours jump through hoops.) Me? I want my heroes . . . well, heroic. Now, they don't all have to be as sterling pure as the Lone Ranger. They can be flawed. But they inevitably have to be honest and morally straight. (That's why, please, fellows, don't post telling me how great Breaking Bad is and how complex and intriguing the plots are, because I'm not interested in a hero who's not a hero.)
Captain Comics > Commander BensonJune 9, 2025 at 10:57pm
I try to be open-minded about art. Isn't Iago really the most important character in Othello? But I do confess that I have been known to lose interest in this show or that with the words, "I can't find anybody to root for."
Replies
Slight correction. A retired military member is someone who made it a career and receives a pension. A veteran can be that but also includes those who were in the military for a short time (particularly in wartime) but does not receive a military pension (Like me).
It was easy for a cartoonist to get a deferment during WWII as they were deemed necessary for morale at home, but I know that Chester Gould depicted a Service Star flag flying in a window in wartime Dick Tracy for his brother Ray, who served.
Resident Alien, S4 E1
One of the benefits of retirement and possessing a Roku-capable television set is that I get to binge-watch the complete runs of TV series I remember fondly. Over the last two years, I have completed viewing the following runs, roughly in the order listed:
Lawman (1958-62)
Mr. & Mrs. North (1952-4)
The Saint (1962-9)
Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-7)
Monk (2002-9)
Twelve O'Clock High (1964-7)
The F.B.I. (1965-74; the real one with Efrem ZImbalist, not any of the later poor-man's versions)
Ironside (1967-75; again, the real one, and not that remake from 2013)
and the one which I finished to-day---Fireball XL5 (1962-3)
Still in progress are Hawaii 5-O (1968-80, and of course, the real one, not that overblown remake)---I have a season and a half to go---and The Lone Ranger (1949-57). I'm following The Lone Ranger as it airs on FeTV, but I'm skipping the third season currently running, the one that saw John Hart replacing Clayton Moore as the masked man. It's more than my usual "Clayton Moore is the Lone Ranger" attitude. I watched three with Mr. Hart---two at the beginning of his run and one to-day. I hate to say it, but he has all the personality and charisma of a department-store manniquin. I'll pick up the show again when Mr. Moore returns.
Waiting in the wings is The Champions (1968-9).
I'm usually caught by surprise at what the Good Mrs. Benson enjoys watching with me. Most of the shows above she can take or leave. She's younger than me just enough to have missed seeing the older shows when they first ran, as I did, so they're new to her. Case in point, she'd never seen Combat! (1962-7). About five years ago, I started watching it on one of the satellite channels and when she started watching it with me, she really got into it. Go figure a wife wanting to watch a World War II drama. It's an excellent show, but not one you'd think a wife would find compelling. Go figure.
She also enjoyed Mr. & Mrs. North. I was thrilled to find its entire run on a Roku channel. I had only vague memories of the show, mostly of how fond I was of its two stars. I'm a fan of Richard Denning, and one of my first crushes was on Barbara Britton. She died too young. In watching the show as adults, the GMB and I both found Denning and Miss Britton to have marvelous chemistry together. That carried the show when a clunky plot popped up now and again. The GMB was more insistant than I was to binge-watch that one.
Another show that we watched all the way through---it was as its episodes aired on one of the family channels, so it wasn't technically a binge-watch---was My Three Sons. Like many, the GMB was surprised to discover that the original three boys weren't Robbie, Chip, and Ernie, but rather, Mike and Robbie and Chip. And Uncle Charley wasn't there for the first four and a half years, but the boys' grandfather, Bub (played by William Frawley). So, I was her "tour guide" over the seasons, as the show evolved.
One of the things I appreciated as an adult watching My Three Sons again was the show paid attention to the characters' back stories and how they fit into the actors' portrayals. For example, we learn, over the course of the show, that the father, Steve Douglas, was a bomber pilot during WWII, and that immediately after the war, he was a test pilot before easing into the position of an aeronautical engineer. So, while Fred MacMurray plays Steve as affable and sometimes a bit bumbling, every once in a while, when the situation calls for it, he brings out a steely edge that bespeaks of his earlier life. I recall one episode in which middle son Robbie was caddying for a golf pro. After a dry streak, the pro finally wins a tournament, but a mistake by Robbie requires the pro to invalidate his victory. Steve accompanies Robbie to the locker room when the boy tells the pro about his mistake which disqualifies the pro. The pro reacts harshly, snarling to Robbie, "I ought to thrash you within an inch of your life!" Steve's eyes turn hard, and he tells the man, "I wouldn't try that, if I were you." It's a soft voice but has a hard tone that would make anyone step back a few paces.
I have also embarked on varous watching projects for shows I never saw all of that I wanted to. But my wife hasn't been enthusiastic about it -- "Can we watch something from this century?" -- so I have to watch solo, fiting it in around the times we aren't watching things together. And I am still working 40 hours a week. That slows things down.
I envy the list you made, as most of it occurred before I was old enough to watch TV, and are just legends to me. I was aware of Combat!, having seen some in reruns, and I would love to watch that start to finish. And the rest of my priorities -- Twilight Zone, Dick Van Dyke Show, Outer Limits, Rat Partrol, one or two others -- are old hat to just about everyone on this site. What can I say? I've been reading comics all these years instead of watching old TV shows my wife isn't interested in.
I expect I'll find that with most of these shows I have seen most of the episodes. But not all, and the completist in me won't let me leave them alone.
There are also a ton of old movies that I never got around to seeing that have been referred to most of my adult life, and it's about time I found about them. I'm thinking of this because Netflix just put a bunch of Alfred Hitchock movies on their site. I've seen the big ones (The Birds, Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window, one or two others) but there's plenty I haven't seen. Last night I watched Family Plot, with The Man Who Knew Too Much and Frenzy on deck. (Which I may have seen.) There are lots of other movies made in the '40s, '50s and '60s on Tubi and other free services that I need to watch (or re-watch), too many to list here.
Last night I watched Family Plot...
Believe it or not, Family Plot was the first Alfred Hitchcock movie I ever saw, and I saw it in the theater. (Ironically, it was his last.) Soon after that I saw Psycho and The Birds for the first time on TV, but Family Plot was the first. I watched it for the second time about a year ago and realized that that was the first time I had ever encountered the phrase "too pooped to pop."
Believe it or not, Family Plot was the first Alfred Hitchcock movie I ever saw
I'm surprised you watched any more! JK, it's not bad. It's just not the sort of thing that made Hitchcock a legend.
"[I] realized that that was the first time I had ever encountered the phrase "too pooped to pop."
My mother used that expression all the time, so it's definitely got a clean connotation, at least in the Mid-South. It was a sexual reference in Family Plot, of course.
I'm surprised you watched any more! JK, it's not bad. It's just not the sort of thing that made Hitchcock a legend.
I was already somewhat "familiar" with Hitchcock (actually, curious about) him from MAD magazine ("Alfred Hatchplot").
But my wife hasn't been enthusiastic about it -- "Can we watch something from this century?" -- so I have to watch solo . . .
I experience the same problem with the Good Mrs. Benson. She had no interest in any of the above shows I watched, save Mr. & Mrs. North. I was able to convince her of the high quality of Lawman by insisting she view three of its exceptional episodes---including one with the best performance by Whit Bissell ever. The GMB agreed the show's writing was excellent, but she just doesn't like Westerns. At least, not the classic Westerns of my youth. When she does watch a Western, she prefers the ones in which the cowboys wear dusters and long moustaches and spit a lot.
One caveat to her anti-Western stance: the GMB does like Maverick, and we'll both watch that whenever it's on. It's not an entirely smooth ride there, either, as she prefers James Garner as Bret Maverick, and I enjoy Jack Kelly as Bart. Fortunately, the best episodes were the ones that featured both brothers.
Where the GMB and I really divide, when it comes to television series, is in the concept of good and evil. She loves shows like House of Cards and Breaking Bad, in which the "hero" is the one slightly less murderous than everyone else. (And when she tries to explain the shows to me, her explanations to justify the heroes' illicit behaviours jump through hoops.) Me? I want my heroes . . . well, heroic. Now, they don't all have to be as sterling pure as the Lone Ranger. They can be flawed. But they inevitably have to be honest and morally straight. (That's why, please, fellows, don't post telling me how great Breaking Bad is and how complex and intriguing the plots are, because I'm not interested in a hero who's not a hero.)
I try to be open-minded about art. Isn't Iago really the most important character in Othello? But I do confess that I have been known to lose interest in this show or that with the words, "I can't find anybody to root for."
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