As I said in the opening paragraph of my reading nostalgia page, television in my first love. I've been watching TV since before I can remember. We moved from my birthplace of Boston to my mom's hometown of New Sweden, Maine, when I was about 4 (which would be like 1979 or so). For pretty much my whole childhood, we had, as I like to say, three and a half channels. There was WAGM (channel 8), which was mainly CBS, but also sometimes aired some things from other networks, like in the 7 and 7:30pm time slots, or on weekends, or just whenever. There was MPBN- or more specifically, WMEM (channel 10), which was public television; mostly PBS, but some local stuff, or things imported from England by MPBN itself, rather than by PBS (as far as I know). There was CHSJ (channel 6), a New Brunswick station that played a lot of CBC or other Canadian stuff (and local stuff), until officially becoming a CBC station in like 1994, I guess. Also there was another Canadian channel, probably CKLT (channel 3), which mainly aired CTV, I guess. I call it a "half channel" because it came in kind of fuzzy; reception quality ranged from only mildly disappointing to completely unwatchable. But it's where I had to watch several American non-CBS shows, if I wanted to see them at all. In spite of WAGM and CTV airing some non-CBS shows, there were still plenty of shows from ABC, NBC, and later FOX, which I simply never had the opportunity to see. (Incidentally, on incredibly rare occasions we got a French Canadian station on channel 13, which was less reliable than channel 3, and of little interest to me since I don't speak French.)

Meanwhile, I have no idea what the TV situation was like for us while we lived in Boston. I was far too young to think about things like "networks." But I have to assume we probably had cable, and even if we didn't, I would think all three broadcast networks must have been readibly available. Unfortunately, cable wasn't available in the part of New Sweden where we lived. It started becoming available in parts of town probably in the late 80s or early 90s, but to this day it is not available in some parts, including where my parents live. I occasionally got to see other broadcast networks on cable at a friend's house. Instead of channel 8, WAGM was on 4. Instead of 10, MPBN was on 3. But CBC was on 6 either way. Channels that were new to me were (if I recall correctly) NBC on 2, TBS on 5, ABC on 7, FOX on 8, "local organizational channel" on 9, and Prevue Channel on 10 (this became TV Guide Channel in 1999, and Pop in 2015). In 1995 I went to college, which was my first time having cable on a regular basis. Not long after that, my parents got satellite, I believe from PrimeStar. At some point they abandoned that, and for some time had just the same old broadcast channels, but now they have a fairly basic package from Dish Network. (I feel like at some point they may have had DirecTV, or maybe someone else did where I watched TV. Maybe even I did, I don't remember.) Anyway, I moved a number of times over the years, so I had to get used to networks being on different channels. And now it's been several years since I've watched networks on either broadcast or cable, and I think the local lineup has changed a little bit... but it doesn't affect me, and it's not part of "nostalgia," so, whatever.

Man, I've said a lot, but you have to understand, it's all part of the nostalgic process, for me. I want you to know what my TV-watching situation has been. It must have been the 21st century before I started writing reviews for my website, and there's lots of stuff that I barely mention having seen, stuff I don't remember clearly, but which I know was of some importance to me, at various points in my life. This is becoming increasingly important to me now, in 2012, so I thought I'd start a section specifically for shows I consider nostalgic. For such things, see the following pages:

Most of following are shows I don't mention anywhere else on my site. And most of them, I'll definitely never see again, and may have no interest in doing so. But there are some I do hope to see again. If and when I do, I'll give them proper reviews, and remove them from this page, instead listing them on one of the pages I linked to above. They include things like (possibly) Adderly, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (I must have seen some reruns, but all I remember is the iconic opening of each episode), B.J. and the Bear, (possibly) Do it For Yourself, (possibly) The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, (possibly) Hooperman, (possibly) Hunter, some cooking show starring Julia Child, though I couldn't say which one (I hardly remember the show at all, but my mom remembers me being a fan when I was little), The Lone Ranger (surely syndicated reruns from before my time), (possibly) The Love Boat, (possibly) Newton's Apple, The People's Court (in the Judge Wapner days), Rescue 911, probably a bit of Riptide, probably a very little bit of Spitting Image, Top of the Hill, (possibly) TV 101, West 57th, (possibly) WIOU, Yan Can Cook (presumably something I watched because my mother did), etc.

And I vaguely remember cartoon characters such as (possibly) Andy Panda, Heckle and Jeckle, The Mighty Hercules, Mighty Mouse, Mr. Magoo, (possibly) The Pink Panther, Underdog, Woody Woodpecker, Yogi Bear, and I'm sure there are any number of others that don't come to mind.

See also CBS Television Reading Program, kid show clips, programming blocks, and Saturday mornings.