If you were a child of the 80's like me, there were a lot of  TV shows you have fond memories of. Shows like Knight Rider, Diff'rent Strokes and Family Ties are familiar to most people, but there were quite a few shows that I remember from the 80's that aren't as memorable because they never made it past the first season. Here's my top 5 list of shows from the 80's I loved that never made it past one season. If you know me at all you'll see how these shows made me pretty much into who I am today. Do you remember any of these?

5. Whiz Kids (1983-1984)

Inspired by the 1983 film WarGames, Whiz Kids focused on a group of teenage computer geeks who solved mysteries that seemed to baffle the police. The head geek, Richie, is pretty much me, except I was writing programs that would flash words on the screen with my TI-99/4A rather than solving police crimes with the millions of dollars of computer equipment given to me by my dad. Richie also had friends, so come to think of it I was nothing like him.



4. Mr. Merlin (1981-1982)

What if the medieval wizard Merlin were still alive in 1981 San Francisco working as an auto mechanic? And what if a teenage kid comes along and pulls Merlin's crowbar out of a bucket of cement becoming his apprentice? Comedy gold! Well Mr. Merlin was comedy gold if you were 10 years old anyway.



3. It's Your Move (1984-1985)

Jason Bateman starred in another witty sitcom before Arrested Development. At the age of 15 he played Matthew Burton in It's Your Move. He was a teenage scam artist with a sarcastic wit and ability to lie through his teeth. He met his match when someone equally as clever moves into the apartment next door and starts to take an interest in his mom. Like Arrested Development, I think this show was ahead of its time. The intro and theme to the show however was pure 1984.



2. Voyagers! (1982-1983)

I love time travel! Throw a hidden educational spin on it and how could Voyagers! not be a hit with kids and adults in 1982? In Voyagers!, a kid named Jeffrey runs into Phineas Bogg, who travels through time to correct things that have gone wrong in the past through the use of his very cool looking device called the Omni. If the light flashes red, then something is wrong in history and they have to find out how to correct it so they can get a green light. Jeffrey is important because his best subject in school is history and Bogg seems to have zero knowledge of it except how to be a womanizer in any time period. If I couldn't have a time traveling Delorean in the 80's, my second choice was an Omni. Of the shows I've listed here, Voyagers! is the only one available on DVD.



1. Automan (1983-1984)

This show was almost as cool as Knight Rider for me. If you were a police officer named Walter who was also a computer programmer, wouldn't you create a holographic super hero and name him Automan since he was an Automatic Man? 26 years later and I still haven't been able to pull that trick off. Automan was a total rip off of TRON and should have actually gotten his name from the cool car he could make with the help of his sidekick "Cursor." In reality it was a Lamborghini, but looked cooler all TRON'd out. My brother and I would literally ROFL every time Automan would take a turn in his car at a 90 degree angle, slamming Walter into the inside walls of the car. (No seat belt laws in 1983) Two videos for you on this one. The first is the opening which features a famous poster of Heather Locklear that I had hanging in my bedroom. The second shows Automan taking Walter for his first ride in his tricked out car and has some amusing dialogue about other characters Automan knows that turn at 90 degree angles.