Nostalgia Alert! Ranking The 16 Classic Shows On Rockford’s New TV Station
There's a new TV station in town called Rewind TV, and it is chock-full of some awesome classic shows from the 80s and 90s.
Before we get to which shows are on the network, a quick question. Is this how Boomers felt about 30 years ago when Nick at Nite started? Getting old is a wild journey.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure you can't find any of these streaming on the major sites and the only way to get Rewind TV right now is through a digital antenna. If you haven't used one, they're pretty great. Cheap. You can get one for about 20 bucks, though you can spend a lot more on them. It allows you to get all the local channels as well as quite a few more that are hidden in the digital abyss.
Rewind TV can be found locally on channel 39.4, you might have to reset your antenna to receive it.
They unveiled their Fall schedule with 16 shows being broadcast. There really aren't any bad ones on here, some I'm not very familiar with, but if you spent anytime in front of a TV before 2000, you're sure to find a gem.
Here's my personal ranking of all 16 shows. Yours may vary.
16. Sabrina The Teenage Witch
Nothing against Melissa Joan Hart, I loved her on Clarissa Explains It All, but this show was either never marketed or I was just too old for it. I don't think I've ever seen a full episode.
15. Caroline In The City
I watched maybe 25% of these episodes. I think she was a cartoonist. The thing that I remember clearly about the show was that Caroline's apartment in the city was amazing. I was fascinated by lofts when I was a kid. Still am to be honest.
14. Facts Of Life
This is another show that I didn't watch too much of, but I just wasted 5 minutes watching Helen Hunt try and convince Blair to smoke weed. Maybe I should give this another whirl.
13. Hogan Family
The Wikipedia on this show is pretty fascinating. It started out as Valerie, starring Valerie Harper. After 2 seasons, they killed her off because of behind the scenes disagreements, and replaced her with Sandy Duncan. I remember this being a pretty big story at the time. It also stars a young Jason Bateman as one of the show's children.
12. 227
I will watch literally any show with Jackée Harry. Hilarious and stunning. Just a one-two punch that refused to let you look anywhere else.
11. Mork And Mindy
I haven't seem many episodes of Mork and Mindy, it was a little before my time. But the genius of Robin Williams could never be denied. It would be great to look back on this show knowing what we know now.
10. Becker
Ted Danson's biggest TV role after Cheers wrapped up. Becker was not great but always good. It also happens to be Future Butters from South Park's favorite show.
9. Diff'rent Strokes
I loved this show when I was a kid. My parents told me that Arnold and I were the same age and apparently that's all it took. I don't think I've seen an episode in 30 years so I'm not sure if it holds up at all.
8. Murphy Brown
I liked this show when I was a kid even though I think I understood about 10% of the jokes. I'd love to take another stab at this one with a little bit of knowledge under my belt.
7. Dear John
Has Judd Hirsch ever done anything bad? The theme song was great and it's also where I learned what a Dear John letter was. Another show that I didn't understand all the time and would like to watch again.
6. Designing Women
Just an absolutely packed cast in Designing Women, the least of which was Mechach Taylor. It was the younger version of Golden Girls, another show that I loved growing up.
5. Head of the Class
Just a wonderful show to watch while you were actually in school. These kids were so cool. The one guy in the back that just had his feet up all the time during class was my hero. I think it explains a lot if I'm being honest.
4. Who's The Boss?
Now we're getting to heavy hitters. I watched every episode of Who's the Boss? Who was the boss? Angela or Tony? Neither. It was obviously Mona to anyone that really watched the show. Contact me if you'd like to talk about this.
3. Growing Pains
A top 5 theme song of all time and the courage to have a character named "Boner" puts this show in another stratosphere. This show is also one of the best examples of Hollywood messing up child actors. All three of the Seaver kids had issues following the show.
2. Family Ties
The timeslot on Thursday night between Cosby and Cheers helped lift this classic to monster ratings. Alex P. Keaton might be one of the greatest sitcom characters ever AND it's the second Bateman sibling on this list. They had a GREAT time in the 80s and 90s.
1. Wings
Like Family Ties, Wings benefitted from NBC's extremely popular Thursday night line up. It made me want to become a pilot when I was a kid and the will they/won't they between Joe and Helen is only second in my mind to Sam and Diane. An incredible show that I feel doesn't really get it's correct due.
You can watch all of these shows every day on Rewind TV, the new station in Rockford. Find it on your digital antenna on channel 39.4.