We all have those special shows from our childhood that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside.

For every girl in the universe born after 1980, that list includes Friends, Saved by the Bell and some spare-to-fair cartoon like, say, Ducktales. For me, I get excited about old episodes of The Simpsons. After that, there’s a big gap of time before I liked TV again enough to declare a show a favorite.

Since there will be plenty of time for our thoughts on TV as the fall season arrives and offers up something besides crappy reality shows and the mental Rubik’s Cube of trying to figure out if HBO’s Hung is good or not, we thought we’d start the first of several random TV reflection lists.

First up: Shows with intros that still depress the heck out of us.

Perry Mason

Curse this black and white descent into Hades.

The second Raymond Burr’s head appeared and the strings vibrated to pave the way for the horns, something bad was afoot. If you were a child in Dallas in the late 80s/early 90s, trying to stay up past 10:30 p.m., that music meant that happy syndication programming for youngsters was over. It was time for TV to turn into the non-cable equivalent of Nick at Nite for your parents.

No more Night Court, Simpsons, or Married with Children for you. Instead- time to grow up and learn about the hot, sexy, uncolored, and extremely talkative Swift Hammer of Justice.

In short, this show was a metaphor for the changes going on inside a confused adolescent. Better learn how to come to terms with putting fun and joy behind you, kid… Because things were about to get confusing and dull.

Also, you couldn’t masturbate without guilt (or serious gender identity issues) anymore.

Three’s Company

For years, me being repulsed by this show confused everyone. This show was groundbreaking! John Ritter is an legend who will never die in our hearts! It’s like 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter, but without zombies and with tons more homophobia!

My response is simple: you can’t control my brain, assholes from 1970. The second those keyboards and guitar effects kick on, I have to change the channel.

Luckily, my grad school roommates shared my extreme aversion to the Three’s Company theme (and show). We created a little game called “Three’s Company roulette”, where the remote gets hidden and everyone scrambles to hang in through the song.

Mama’s Family

Ragtime horns! Jazz for white people! Rue McClanahan and Betty White! This all should add up to big fun, but any kid who loved baseball knew that Mama’s Family meant the ultimate kick to the baseball weenie: RAIN DELAY!

Instead of getting a broadcast of a Rangers, Braves or Cubs game… You were going to have to suffer through 30 of the most painful minutes of your life. Design borrowed from Lawrence Welk. Jokes lifted from Hee Haw. Absolutely nothing; nothing at all with the remotest appeal to anyone under the age of 50.

The worst, the absolute worst was when you sat through an entire episode (because you could never know when they’d cut out to baseball)… Only to see a soggy tarp and hear the voice of Skip Caray or Pete van Wieren telling you that the field was still too wet to play, but the officials weren’t ready to call off the game yet.

Then that horrible, horrible music would start up again and you were in for another half hour of misery.

I believe that the torturers at Guantanamo used old Mama’s Family episodes as their most brutal and effective form of information extraction. Even the most hardened jihadi, should they somehow manage to get through a full show’s worth of Vicki Lawrence and company, would surely crack if their CIA tormentor just went up to the VCR, pushed rewind, and pressed play to restart the episode. If I had to choose right now between bamboo shoots under my fingernails and electrodes on my genitals versus watching an episode of Mama’s Family… I wouldn’t have even bothered to finish that last sentence before reaching for the jumper cables and crappy, splintering Pier One furniture .

As ubiquitous as Mama’s Family was on baseball rain delays, one can only assume that syndicated episodes came as free prizes in ballpark boxes of Cracker Jack. Boxes of Cracker Jack manufactured by Lucifer himself.

Burn in hell, Vicki Lawrence. Damn you and your wretched show.

I Love Lucy

First, note from this clip that the theme has freaking lyrics. Who knew?

Second, note that they are exactly what I would have made up in my head if it came on while I was drunk: “Lucy, Lucy something… Something… Raise the note and hoooooold!”

Nicely done, Ricky. She’ll be putty in your Latin hands now.

This show had a similar role in my life as Perry Mason. It meant that I had fallen asleep, snoozed through Perry Mason, and jolted awake violently because of the sudden doubling of the TV volume when the Lucy theme started. Screw you for doing that, you crazy old Hollywood Jew Producers [This moment of faux antisemitism is brought to you by the letter N.]

The People’s Court

It’s summer and you’re a kid. Perhaps one of the many latchkey kids in my wonderfully middle class, sheltered life. We all want to get out and play with our friends, but without our stupid parents around, it’s too easy (and just plain fun) to sleep in all day.

This puts everyone in an awkward dilemma — When is it appropriate to knock on your friends’ doors to see if they’re ready to get a basketball game, meth orgy, or bike ride going?

You can pass the time with morning cartoons and The Price is Right! And hooray for Dennis the Menace in animated form! But just when things are humming along and you’re settling into a TV groove… You see the end credits of Scooby Doo start playing, and you know the TV is about to turn it’s back on you.

Sadly, it’s time for The People’s Court. Cue the unmistakable music and the baritone narrator.

But you’re a kid, not a 65 year old shut-in chain smoker, so you have no desire to watch. And you’re not a bored housewife, so you don’t want to watch Days of Our Lives, either. What else can you do?

Your only choice is to go visit the creepy weirdo down the street with the above-ground pool and pantry full of candy. By the time his Polaroid runs out of film, maybe one of your friends will be awake.

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TV Photo by: DailyInvention