Gen X and the brief golden age of prime-time network action shows for kids
A sampling of the shows kids of my generation were watching. Streaming is a wonderful thing.
It was an ordinary Thursday night when, at 8 p.m. on September 15, 1977, NBC aired the first episode of “CHiPs.” And while I wouldn’t say what happened changed the world or anything, I do see it as sort of an unofficial kick-off to an era when the big three television networks were producing prime-time shows that clearly appealed to Gen X kids. Now, I understand that plenty of adults enjoyed these shows as well, and I’m not trying to insult anyone by calling them kids’ stuff. But when a TV show has a line of branded toys and lunchboxes, it’s fair to say that the people behind it have a good idea of who their audience is.
To me and my elementary school friends, “CHiPs” was pretty cool. There was plenty of action, motorcycles, car chases, massive pileups, all wrapped in a candy-sweet portrayal of a sunny, laid-back life in Southern California and a CHP station full of good-hearted cops trying to do the right thing. While the show occasionally touched on serious topics, it did so more in the tone of an after-school special than a gritty crime show. Above all, “CHiPs” was fun.
“CHiPs” quickly fell to second place in our hearts just over a year later when “The Dukes of Hazzard” landed on CBS in January 1979. Among my cohort, this was about the coolest thing ever broadcast. We’d all seen “Smoky and the Bandit,” and though the similarities were not lost on us, we considered that a plus. The American South was having a bit of a moment in popular entertainment at the time. Semi trucks, 4x4s, dirt bikes, CB radios, and blasting around in something with a loud V8 were all things that had been firmly established as cool. We were riding our bikes through the woods and hurtling toward anything that might launch us skyward like the General Lee.
And while we’re talking about “Dukes,” I wouldn’t say that Daisy Duke was the first crush of every guy I know my age, but the proportion is certainly substantial.
Like “CHiPs,” there was usually a moral to go along with the story when you watched “Dukes.” It wasn’t particularly reverent of authority, but there was a strong message of working hard, respecting your family, doing the right thing, and helping others. It didn’t come off as preachy so much, but young people are often more sophisticated than they’re given credit for, and we could see that kind of stuff as almost code for “this show is made for people your age.”
But again, at least to me, there was something comforting in that. I wouldn’t have quite had the language to explain it at the time, but knowing that big TV network business people were making something for me felt like being acknowledged by the world. Growing up could often be a frustrating experience, and most of the time the world felt like a place that was built for adults, like you didn’t have much of a place yet. And while that frustration led to a desire to grow up quickly, there was also a sense that there was something to be enjoyed about this part of our lives that we were going to be leaving pretty soon.
And that brings up something about my generation, that second half of Generation X: We grew up pretty quickly compared to other demographically significant, living generations. Most of us didn’t have stay-at-home-moms, like the Boomers, and we didn’t have the helicopter-style parenting inflicted on Millennials and Gen Z. We were latchkey kids, with a lot of time to ourselves and not ton of supervision.
Now, I’m not writing this to boast about how much better the good old days were, or whine about how much worse they were. Things were just different, and sometimes those differences are interesting. There were definitely some good things about the way my friends and I grew up, and I wouldn’t trade my experiences for someone else’s. But there were times when it felt like it was nice to just be a kid and watch some mindless entertainment. Something that was made for me.
The early ‘80s would bring more shows like this to our screens. Of course, being the ‘80s, there were a couple of trends that would influence this new crop. One was a distinct focus on high technology, the other a renewed interest in the military in American culture. The first of these shows to make an impact on me and my friends was “Knight Rider,” which immediately sparked intense debate about whether KITT was better than the General Lee.
“CHiPs” was pretty down to earth, just a couple of motorcycle cops on the job, and in a way, “Dukes” showed us a slightly grown-up version of a world my friends and I already lived in, subbing cars for our BMX bikes. “Knight Rider” was a departure in that it exemplified the tech element that would pervade the first half of ‘80s entertainment. It was a bit more imaginative in that way.
And why not? It was an exciting time, and to people my age technology meant things like video games, the existence of which we were acutely aware made our childhoods infinitely better than those of any generation before us. Cars in the real world were showing up with digital dashboards, and some of them even talked! To a kid in the ‘80s, it felt like we had crossed over into a new age, and everywhere you looked technology was changing the way people lived. Look at the automated teller machine.
“Knight Rider” was followed the next year by “The A-Team.” Featuring a group of wrongly-convicted veterans who go around fighting injustices that nobody else can or will, “The A-Team” was almost like a live-action “G.I. Joe.” A combination of time passed since the withdrawal from Vietnam and shifting political views meant that America was ready to see stories with a military tint again in the early ‘80s, and “The A-Team” capitalized on that.
“Magnum P.I.” is frequently credited as the first show that portrayed Vietnam veterans in a positive light, and “CHiPs” mentioned lead character Jon Baker’s service even before that. But “The A-Team” really put the characters’ military experiences in Vietnam at center stage. Not only were they the good guys helping people, it was the skills they learned in combat operations that enabled the A-Team to do what they did.
The shows here before “The A-Team” didn’t feature much in the way of gunplay. “The A-Team” was a rowdy shoot ‘em up in which nobody actually gets shot. They’re either worse at shooting than “Star Wars” stormtroopers, or they’re the best shots in the world. Lots of explosions and cars getting flipped, but watch a couple of episodes and you’ll notice the camera always lingers on a crashed car long enough to show the occupants getting out, shaken, but not really hurt.
In 1984, Donald P. Bellisario’s “Airwolf” combined the tech of “Knight Rider” with the military stylings of “The A-Team.” If a talking car was cool, a Mach-1 capable helicopter that shoots down fighter jets and lives in a secret, hollowed-out mountain lair was something to measure on the Kelvin scale. Similar to “The A-Team,” “Airwolf” explores themes of distrust in the military industrial complex while also showing characters who see reason for pride in their own personal service.
That was a fairly nuanced look at a complex subject, for a kids’ show. There is the view that entertainment of the ‘80s glorified the military, but from what I saw growing up I don’t exactly buy that. The message I got was that there were both good things and bad things about serving, even in situations that may not have the feel-good aura associated with conflicts like World War II.
I’m certain that I didn’t cover every show that might qualify, both during the era staked out in this piece (1977-1986) and outside that time frame on either end. These are just the ones that stood out to me, and those years the ones when the trend was most noticable. There are, however, I do want to mention some shows from the same time that I consider adjacent to the genre, but not necessarily part of it. These are shows that my friends and I watched and enjoyed at that age, but didn’t feel specifically geared for kids.
I’ve already brought up “Magnum P.I.,” but I think this is more one of those adjacent shows. “Magnum” appealed to people my age at the time, no doubt helped along by that red Ferrari 308 GTS and a good dose of action in most episodes, but “Magnum” was made for grownups, just not pushed as far into darker themes as later shows like “Miami Vice” (which in no way qualifies here).
“The Fall Guy” is another that, while simple and goofy enough, didn’t quite seem to have that made for young audiences feel. It was, however, pretty popular and contained obvious elements that captured our interests at the time. Similarly, “Hardcastle and McCormick” was more of a grown-up show that was light enough to capture a young audience too. Simon & Simon as well.
None of these shows had long lifespans. “Airwolf’s” was particularly short. By 1986 it was over, and I can’t think of anything like them that came out after. Network TV execs were still making shows for my demographic, but the genre changed from action shows to prime-time high school soap operas. We got stuff like “21 Jump Street” and “Beverly Hills, 90210.” Not only were these vastly different stories, but both of these shows aired on FOX, which, at the time, was still considered more of a big UHF station than a real network.
It would be easy to point out the obvious reason why shows like this seemed to just disappear in the late ‘80s. Cable TV and satellite services fractured audiences as they gained popularity. Meanwhile it also became more common for families to have more than one television. By the ‘90s, younger generations had been growing up with entire channels programmed for them. Kids could watch what they wanted just about any time of day, and network prime-time shows that were meant to appeal to young viewers skewed to family sitcoms.
Prime-time action shows faded as many other popular things from the ‘80s did, and the cultural transition from peak ‘80s to early-‘90s was stark and relatively quick. Cop and detective shows continued through the ‘90s, of course, but the storytelling shifted to adult audiences and subjects, later airtimes, and more focus on realism. Stories moved to a more procedural approach — vigilantes and private detectives were out, police detectives were in.
Maybe kids today don’t feel the same, but to me, having an entire network for shows aimed at me would not have been the same as the prime-time shows of the late ‘70s to mid ‘80s. What made those shows feel special to me wasn’t just that they were made for me: It was that something made for me was occupying space in the adult world. My folks and I watched these shows together. They were on real television networks when grownups watched TV.
It was shared experience. It was bonding. And it was a little reassurance for a young person growing up that sometimes the world was made for me too.