This prompt is 100% rerun. And this response is the identical (except for a teeny tiny bit of editing) response I made the first time around, on June 23, 2013. I keep saying: if you are going to re-issue the same prompts, I’m going to republish what I wrote in response. Not that anyone from WordPress pays the least bit of attention to what we write. You guys up there think we are really not very bright, don’t you.
No matter how sophisticated we become, how many degrees in film, literature or the arts we obtain, we keep our guilty pleasures. By which I mean the movies, books, books, and television shows we know aren’t great — and may be really dumb.
It doesn’t matter. We love them anyway.
I have a whole bushel of them, ranging from television shows about vampires with glowing eyes (Forever Knight), to reruns of the original Lassie. I’m a sucker for any movie featuring a non-human, be it cat, dog, horse, or sea creature. I’ll watch pretty much anything in which Candice Bergen starred or was at least featured. I’ll watch anything from any season of any Star Trek, even if I’ve seen it a hundred times.
I love comedies by Mel Brooks, even the bad ones because they make me laugh. Ditto the Zucker brothers for the same reason. If you can make me laugh, you’ve got me. Sometimes, I watch things that are unintentionally funny … Xena, Princess Warrior comes to mind. I don’t know whether it was supposed to be funny, but it made me laugh until I cried.
My lists of favorite movies, books and television shows are a study in contrasts. I love The Lion In Winter and The Seventh Seal. I love Airplane and Hotshots Deux. I never miss a run of Best Of Show or A Mighty Wind. Or the original version of The Haunting. From the sublime to the ridiculous, I will watch or read whatever grabs my fancy or makes me laugh without discrimination.
It’s one of the reasons I think that “awards” like the Golden Globes and the Oscars need many more categories. How can you put a screwball comedy against a serious drama and have any kind of sensible outcome? It would be like having a dog show that included camels and goats. It wouldn’t matter how beautiful a goat or camel you have entered, it would never win Best of show.
What makes you laugh? What cheers you up when you’ve got the blues? Are you a secret fan of Gilligan’s Island or Love Boat? Time to come clean!
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Categories: Daily Prompt, Entertainment, Humor, Movies, Television
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
I’m not sure I have any guilty pleasures except, OK, for comic book movies. But those seem to be wearing thin. I have every Star Trek series on Netflix streaming and watch every so often as many as I can. But I don’t feel guilty about watching them. 🙂
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I love a lot of old shows from before my time that got a second life in reruns…. Dragnet (the color version with Harry Morgan), Twilight Zone, Dobie Gillis (I especially loved the latter seasons that seemed built almost entirely on the show’s many running gags)… but one of my absolute favorites that fits the guilty pleasure description to a T is Hogan’s Heroes. It’s gotten panned for over 50 years merely because of its very unfunny historical setting, but it’s really a brilliant concept that worked well and was supported by a talented cast and writing staff. Klink and Schultz are one of the best comedy duos in television history!
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I liked Hogan’s Heroes too … after I got past the whole Nazi prison camp thing. If it weren’t for oldies channels, we wouldn’t have very much to watch. Garry and I are rediscovering (or discovering because neither of us saw the series first (or second) time around) Star Trek: Next Generation. Re-enjoyed JAG (neither of us saw it when it was on first time). Dobie Gillis hasn’t shown up yet (I used to watch it) but Night Court reappeared and others that are still, after all these years, genuinely FUNNY. They seem to have lost funny over the years and I NEED it.
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I don’t remember this prompt, but I am not sure if I was daily prompting in 2013, if Multiply still existed. In any case, I love those old series, although we only get the old German series, but some of them were good. After being here for 48 years I remember the beginning of some of them that they rehash now and again. I just wish I could see a Gun Law (not gun Smoke) film which was only 30 minutes weekly. It had Chester, Miss Kitty, doc and of course the big guy James Arness. I grew up with them in my teenage years like “Wanna a cup of cawfee Mister Dillon?” Oh those words from Chester sent shivers down my spine.
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They do rerun them from time to time, those really early ones in black and white that were only half an hour. I think those were the best … Dennis Weaver was SO much better than the guy who replaced him. Miss Kitty was still young enough to be nubile. Ah … the good old days. REALLY the good old days.
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I used to love Xena Warrior Princess, and yes, parts of it were meant to be funny, but not as cheesy as the show she came from: Hercules. It was supposed to be darker, and still funny, that’s what Gabrielle was for, comedy relief. Other than all things Star Trek, your tastes and mine are pretty close. 🙂
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I always thought if Xena fell against you, her bra would slice you open. I couldn’t make it through an episode of Hercules, but Xena was OK — Wonder Woman Redux. My husband is currently discovering Star Trek: Next Generation which he missed in its initial run (those were very busy years for both of us). Sometimes we watch 3 or 4 of them on a single evening and the theme music gets stuck in my head (and won’t LEAVE)!!
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My husband likes all things Star Trek and he’s rewatching one of them (I don’t’ remember which one) after I retire to read my trashy Urban Fantasy novels. We each have our own tastes. ^_^
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Oh my god! “It would be like having a dog show that included camels and goats.”
You have me laughing so hard!! I’m glad you re-post things when WordPress does stupid things like rerun prompts, otherwise I would have missed this brilliant post of yours!! 😀
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I realized this was published so long ago even if someone in my current audience read it, they probably don’t remember it anyhow. I’m a big devotee of dog shows, so that’s one of those analogies that sort of “pops out” now and then 🙂
I’m not a culture snob. I think reading crappy novels is fine if you like them. Watching bad TV is fine too, and one person’s junk is another’s high comedy. I get more than a bit ticked off by people who always have their noses in the air about other peoples’ tastes. I’m not a fan of romance novels, but I don’t care if you read them. I read a lot about vampires and witches, so I’m a fine one to talk.
I’m rarely in the mood to be enlightened or educated. Mostly, I want to be entertained. Tastes change with the years. Life has been a very serious business for me. When I read, watch TV or a movie … I am very happy to escape from reality and anyone who doesn’t like it is welcome to go elsewhere.
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All I need, as you saw the other night, is another viewing of “The Magnificent Seven”. The old man was wrong.
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You need a multi-time-per week fix on that one 🙂
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That first pic is from Bergman’s Seventh Seal, isn’t it. A great film.
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And one of my top five favorites. I am nothing if not eclectic.
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