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The basic idea is to say “hello” to 10 people tomorrow, preferably people you would not normally say hello to. Maybe that strange person on the bus, or a total stranger walking by.

So, in honor of World Hello Day, I am having a contest. Be the first person to e-mail me with the answer to the question will win:
1) a copy of a mixed CD with hello/welcome as a theme
2) a copy of a mixed CD of my favorite Hello Records songs (that I haven’t made yet)
3) a Dave Barry book about terrible songs (this has nothing to do with the theme, I just happen to have two copies), and
4) other hello-related stuff to be determined
The next four winners will receive 2) 3) and 4)

The question:
At first so strange to feel so friendly
To say good morning and really mean it
To feel these changes happening in me
But not to notice till I feel it.
1) What is the full name of the song above Title (and Parenthetical Title)
2) Who sang it first?
3) Who wrote it?

10. “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” (1968-73, NBC).
9. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970-77, CBS).
8. “Hill Street Blues” (1981-87, NBC).
7. “The Real World” (1992-present, MTV).
6. “All in the Family” (1971-83, CBS).
5. “Sesame Street” (1969-present, PBS).
4. “The Tonight Show” (1954-present, NBC).
3. “Dragnet” (1952-59; 1967-70, NBC).
2. “The Milton Berle Show” (1948-57, NBC).
1. “I Love Lucy” (1951-57, CBS).
Other shows he deemed worthy of consideration: “Law & Order” (NBC), “The Simpsons” (Fox), “Roots,” (ABC), “Saturday Night Live” (NBC), “Gunsmoke,” (CBS), “Monday Night Football (ABC),” “An American Family” (PBS).

You can read his rationale here.

He also listed the five best spinoffs:
5. “Lou Grant” (“Mary Tyler Moore Show”)
4. “Knots Landing” (“Dallas”)
3. “Happy Days” (“Love, American Style”)
2. “Frasier” (“Cheers”)
1. “The Simpsons” (“The Tracy Ullman Show”)
and the five worst spinoffs:
5. “Joanie Loves Chachi” (“Happy Days”
4. “Gloria” (“All in the Family”)
3. “The Tortellis” (“Cheers”)
2. “Joey” (“Friends”)
1. “AfterMASH” (“M*A*S*H”)

So, my questions to you:

1) What do you consider the 5 or 10 most influential programs in television history? Not necessarily the best, but the ones that help define the genre.
2) What are the 5 best and 5 worst spinoffs of American television shows?
3) What are the 3 or 5 or 10 best shows derived from another medium (book, play, movie, oh what the heck, British TV)?

My answers will be below. You can block it to see it, or put your responses in first, THEN go back and see mine. (Thanks to Tom the Dog for explaining this process to me.)

MOST IMPORTANT:
I Love Lucy
Milton Berle
Dragnet
The Honeymooners- precursor to everything from the Flintstones to the King of Queens
The Real World
Hill Street Blues
All in the Family
M*A*S*H
The Jeffersons
Saturday Night Live
CSI
Gunsmoke
That Girl-precuror to MTM

WORST SPINOFFS
AfterMASH
Fish (from Barney Miller)
The Tortellis
Joanne Loves Chachi
Gloria

BEST SPINOFFS
Simpsons
Frasier
Lou Grant
Happy Days
Andy Griffith Show (from the Danny Thomas Show)

Then my friend Tom Hoffman, husband of the Hoffinator, mentioned on these pages recently, had some sort of digestive tract problem which sent him to the hospital on Halloween, which was on a Sunday. Tom’s problem required some surgery, which meant that he would not be able to go to the polls. For someone as politically conscious as Tom, this was a real crisis. Fortunately, the Board of Elections webpage had a form online that allowed us to print it out. Then his wife still had to take it to the hospital and get him to sign it before 5 p.m. Monday, the day before Election Day. Fortunately, she was able to do so, and she got an absentee ballot, which she delivered to the polls on Election Day when she voted, thus assuring victory for President John Kerry.

Just as Tom was getting out of one hospital, my big boss, Jim, landed in another hospital with a heart attack while playing in a basketball game, saved by the janitor using the defibulator required at all of the schools. Jim was making a slow recovery, but appeared out of danger.

When Tom got out, I e-mailed him pretty much every day, mostly about politics. He was a political junkie who chastized me for voting for Nader in 2000 (in New York, where Gore won by a wide margin anyway.)

Then the next Friday, I came to work, and the secretaries called to me in a conspiratorial manner which meant that they were going to give me bad news. I figured that Jim had died. One of them whispered, “Tom died.”

Tom died? I was happy for Jim and his family. But Tom DIED? He had had a massive heart attack the night before, a year ago today. We all were in shock; he was doing so well. And he wasn’t even 50.

Over the next few days, folks from the office were over at the house, helping in whatever way possible. The funeral was the next week, and it was Jim’s first time out of the hospital.

There’s not a political story that goes by when I don’t think, “I wonder what Tom’s take on this will be, er, would have been?” I’m sure he would be relishing the Republican infighting over the Miers nomination, outraged by the Bush administration’s defense of torture, and thrilled that Scooter Libby was indicted.

More than that, he was a weather junkie, who could predict with some accuracy the path of a hurricane. He was the commissioner of the March Madness basketball pool, and he was often a winner of said pool. (No, it wasn’t a fix, and no money was involved, only bragging rights.) He was a librarian, so he was naturally very bright.

I know the Hoffinator misses him.

With the old VCR, I’d get really behind watching J because I’d have to find the correct show on the tape. My wife will tell you that I was pretty much of a moaner when it came to watching shows on a six-hour tape. She’d say, “Let’s watch Gilmore Girls!” But I’d groan, “Do we HAVE to NOW? It’s the fourth item on the tape, and I’ll have to go back to find it, then skip over it later!” Now, we have a menu, and we can watch whatever we want whenever we have the opportunity.
The other thing I can do is to tape two things at once, which I gather from Mark Evanier TiVo cannot do. Boy, I wish I had this feature some years ago when The Equalizer was on CBS and St. Elsewhere was on NBC, both on Wednesday at 10 p.m.

The downside to the DVR is that it has finite capacity, some 30 hours; it seems to be some combination of number of shows and the hours taped. On Tuesday, I was up to 33 shows unwatched, 98% capacity – we were busy with other things, and I had taped a Macca special here, a Johnny Cash special there- which required dumping a couple shows quickly.

So what AM I recording to watch?
Weekdays:
6:30 pm ABC World News Tonight. We usually watch it after Lydia’s in bed.
7:30 pm JEOPARDY!, which, unfortunately, really starts at 7:29:50, so I miss one or two introductions.
Sunday:
9 am: CBS Sunday Morning
9 am: This Week – I couldn’t decide so I’m taping both.
7 pm: 60 Minutes- But why does the machine suggest that it will actually start at 7 pm when there’s a 4:15 NFL game? I end up recording Cold Case just to see the last 60 Minutes segment.
8 pm: The Simpsons, if I can find when it’s actually on after football.
Monday:
12:35 am: Ebert & Roeper
8 pm: Arrested Development – so I finally decide to watch the show, and what do I get? Two weeks of “encore performances” of Prison Break, then a pair of AD episodes, back-to-back, then more Prison Break.
Tuesday: This has been “Must See TV” night for me for a while
8 pm: Gilmore Girls
9 pm: Commander-in-Chief
9 pm: My Name Is Earl – I know about counter-programming, but why are the only new shows I’m watching on at the same time?
9:30 pm: The Office
10 pm: Boston Legal
10 pm: Queer Eye- which must be on hiatus
And we eagerly await the return of Scrubs
Wednesday: Nothing
Thursday: Nothing. A night of shows we have watched in the past but have given up on: Survivor, The Apprentice, E.R., even Joey. Actually, we have, at my wife’s suggestion, recorded a couple episodes of Everybody Hates Chris, one of which we have seen and enjoyed.
Friday: Nothing
Saturday: The evening news, if it isn’t pre-empted by college football. Otherwise nothing. (With the networks often showing reruns of shows that were on during the week, why don’t they just give the time back to the affiliates? I suspect it’s because it IS a time they can occasionally run specials and they don’t want to surrender the time permanently, but that’s a guess.)

So that’s 15 hours a week, more or less. Probably a few minutes of news in the morning for the weather.
Here’s where you say, “You oughta be watching X.” Well, it won’t be CSI or NCIS or any show that portrays how crummy people are to other people. I’ve given up on 24. I don’t plan on getting HBO.

So we tape early in the week, and watch later in the week.
My wife watches the evening news, 60 Minutes, and the Tuesday shows except Boston Legal. Actually, we haven’t seen Commander-in-Chief in three weeks, but we will, we will. It’s recorded and it’s retrievable, unike some VCR tapes I have. For example, there was a Temptations movie (2-part, 4-hour) taped, never watched; must be 5 years ago now.
The other thing my wife views is figure skating. I say I don’t watch it, but I could, if asked, provide an analysis of the pros and cons of the old scoring system (based on 6.0) and the new one. So I don’t sit down to watch it as much as it’s on while I’m reading the paper and I get to absorb it by osmosis: Grand Prix. Triple salchow. “Fell out of doing a triple lutz and only landed a double; that will cost him plenty.” And why do the sponsors (this year, Ore-Ida and Marshall’s) run the same commercial, 3 5, even 9 times in two hours? Fortunately, she usually watches this in the recorded mode, so she can zap past them.
Yes, I watch some sporting events, but I tend to be a playoff fan: from September on in baseball, from Thanksgiving on in the NFL, March Madness in men’s college basketball. But if a baseball game happens to be on during the season while I’m flicking through the channels, I will check it out, especially in the summer when many shows are repeats.

And maybe I’ll find that Temptations tape.

My mother used to “work outside the home”, as it’s now referred to, when we were kids. So we spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s, her mother’s, house. Grandma Williams used to tell us stories about bogeymen and whatnot, and Leslie and I were gullible enough to believe her tales; baby sister Marcia was too savvy to buy into it.

My mother was pretty much unaware of this until we told her when we were adults. This gave her a huge case of the guilts. Was she a good mother? My sisters and I perfected our response, we heard the question so often.

“We’re FINE, Mom! None of us are mass murderers or destitute. We’re happy, reasonably healthy. You were a fine mom, and we love you.” Which worked until she thought of it again.