Oh my God, I love The Hub. It’s only two months old, but it’s already a fixture of my TV diet.

What is The Hub?  It’s a new cable channel that plays all these shows from back in the day.

If you’re like me, you probably didn’t even realize you were longing for Doogie Howser and Wonder Years reruns, but you were. Or Fraggle Rock! Man, that Muppet-derived funfest takes me back. Seriously, has Fraggle Rock even been on American TV since it aired on HBO in the 80s? And, in the premiere of Doogie, Neil Patrick Harris throws his driving test to speed to the scene of an accident, push a cop away, and fix some dude’s leg. You can’t make this stuff up, though I guess Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley did in 1989.

What else? Family Ties, which New York magazine also noticed. (Seriously, the writers of their Approval Matrix and I have algorithmically similar tastes in cultural consumption.) There are also a few shows from before my time like Laverne & Shirley, the original 60s “Pow! Kaboom!” Batman, and Happy Days. Then again, who doesn’t know the Fonz?

Sure, some of this stuff may be on Hulu or iTunes, but you are less likely to know it’s there and seek it out than stumble on it on TV. Read the rest of this entry »