The BEST shows of 1969
Every show that aired an episode in 1969, ranked
We've compiled the average episode rating for every TV show episode aired in 1969 to compile this list of best shows!
#1 - Mission: Impossible
Elite special agents undertook top-secret assignments in crackerjack episodes, which kicked off with the team leader receiving instructions via a tape-recorded message that self-destructed in five seconds. What followed were usually breakneck spyjinks set to a pulsating Lalo Schifrin score. Martin Landau turned down the Spock role in 'Star Trek' to play IMFer Rollin Hand. When Landau left the series in 1969, his replacement was the man who built a career on Spock, Leonard Nimoy.
View Episode Rankings#2 - The Saint
Simon Templar is The Saint - adored by women, feared by his adversaries and a constant thorn in the side of police forces everywhere. A smooth-talking adventurer, the Saint goes in where angels fear to tread. Always where the action is, he courts danger with a smile, but his charm can sometimes be a lethal weapon. The Saint is always on a mission of mercy or intrigue, with a beautiful woman close at hand. He's Sir Lancelot without armor. A formidable enemy, an unwavering friend.
View Episode Rankings#3 - The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies is among the most successful comedies in American television history, and remains one of the few sitcoms to involve serial plotlines. It centered around Jed Clampett, a simple backwoods mountaineer who becomes a millionaire when oil is discovered on his property and then moves his family to Beverly Hills. The fish-out-of-water farce ran for nine seasons.
View Episode Rankings#4 - Dad's Army
Introducing the Walmington-On-Sea home guard, a bunch of hapless old and young men who have kept people all over the world very amused for the past thirty seven years. Creator/Writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry made each episode of Dad's Army as funny as the previous one, with an element of humour which has survived decades. It has the most memorable catch phrases of any sitcom and due to our fondness of it, it's probably the most re-run show ever. The BBC keep an episode of it queued up in case of a fault at TV centre and it even successfully invaded the big screen with a memorable, well loved Dad's Army feature film made by Columbia pictures.
View Episode Rankings#5 - Get Smart
In 1965 the cold war was made a little warmer and a lot funnier due in part to the efforts of an inept, underpaid, overzealous spy: Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. The hit comedy series 'Get Smart' is the creation of comic geniuses Buck Henry and Mel Brooks.
View Episode Rankings#6 - Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
The first incarnation of what has become a franchise-of-sorts, Scooby-Doo is a large, loveable but cowardly Great Dane who hangs around four California high school students (Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy). The four teen-agers are in constant search of mysteries and adventures, driving around in a bright green van known as the Mystery Machine. Many of the group's adventures involve villians who take on supernatural disguises (ghosts and monsters); the villians' activities usually involve blackmail, theft, fraud and other forms of corruption.
View Episode Rankings#7 - Mannix
Tough, no-nonsense private eye Joe Mannix investigates in this tense and violent detective series. Originally employed by an ultra-computerized organization, he later set up his own shop. But mayhem always predominated.
View Episode Rankings#8 - The Avengers
"Always keep your bowler on in time of stress, and watch out for diabolical masterminds." [Mrs Peel] The Avengers is one of the most popular and beloved television series of all time. Its outrageous blend of wit and style and its unique mix of the fantasy and spy genres, coupled with the marvellous characters of John Steed and Emma Peel make it one of television's great classics.
View Episode Rankings#9 - Adam-12
Follow two Los Angeles police officers as they patrol the streets of Southern California. Adam-12 was the first series to realistically portray the joys/frustrations of being a police officer in the late 1960's-early 1970's. This attention to detail made the show a catalyst for uncounted numbers of people to enter public service as adults. "1-Adam-12" was the radio call number of the unit that Malloy & Reed worked: "1" was the division assigned, "Adam" was LA Phonetic for "A" designating a 2-person patrol unit, and "12" was the beat area assigned. (Although, Malloy & Reed could be seen patrolling the streets anywhere in L.A. from Downtown to the Valley, they retained the number division #1, no matter where they were). The police station used throughout the series was the newly-built (at the time) Rampart Station.
View Episode Rankings#10 - Green Acres
A New York attorney and his wife try to live as genteel farmers in the bizarre community of Hooterville.
View Episode Rankings#11 - Bewitched
Samantha Stephens is a seemingly normal suburban housewife who also happens to be a genuine witch, with all the requisite magical powers. Her husband Darrin insists that Samantha keep her witchcraft under wraps, but situations invariably require her to indulge her powers while keeping her bothersome mother Endora at bay.
View Episode Rankings#12 - Monty Python's Flying Circus
And now for something completely different: Monty Python's Flying Circus was simply the most influential comedy program television has ever seen. Five Englishmen, all working under the constraints of conventional TV shows such as The Frost Report (for which the five Englishmen wrote), gathered together with an expatriate American in the spring of 1969 to break the rules. The result, first airing on BBC-1 on October 5, 1969, has influenced countless future men and women in the media and comedy since.
View Episode Rankings#13 - Dark Shadows
With vampires, witches, warlocks, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures, it became a surprising phenomenon. The show revolves around Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), a guilt-ridden 175-year-old vampire who longs to be human again and returns to his estate after being chained inside a coffin for nearly 200 years.
View Episode Rankings#14 - Hogan's Heroes
The exploits of five World War II prisoners in a German POW camp, 'Stalag 13' who, while "under the cover" of being typical prisoners of war, are really secretly doing their utmost to sabotage the German war effort through whatever means necessary. Col. Klink is very proud that no prisoner has ever escaped under his watch, not that they would want to. Suave, cool and smart, Col. Hogan takes advantage of Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz's bravado and general cluelessness to carry out his missions.
View Episode Rankings#15 - Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Gomer Pyle was a sweet but not too smart Marine from Mayberry, North Carolina who was stationed at Camp Henderson near Los Angeles, California. Gomer's innocence, naivete and low-key demeanor often got him into trouble, most frequently at the hands of his loud-mouthed superior, Sgt. Carter. Duke, Frankie, Lester and Larry were some of Gomer's pals and fellow enlisted men at Camp Henderson.
View Episode Rankings#16 - I Dream of Jeannie
An astronaut rescues a beautiful genie from a bottle who lives to grant all of his wishes.
View Episode Rankings#17 - Doctor Who
The Doctor, a mysterious traveller in space and time, travels in his ship, the TARDIS. The TARDIS can take him and his companions anywhere in time and space. Inevitably he finds evil at work wherever he goes...
View Episode Rankings#18 - Gunsmoke
Marshal Matt Dillon keeps the peace in the rough and tumble Dodge City.
View Episode Rankings#19 - Star Trek
Space. The Final Frontier. The U.S.S. Enterprise embarks on a five year mission to explore the galaxy. The Enterprise is under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, who is assisted by First Officer Mr. Spock, from the planet Vulcan, and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy. With a determined crew, the Enterprise encounters Klingons, Romulans, time paradoxes, tribbles and genetic supermen led by Khan Noonien Singh. Their mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
View Episode Rankings#20 - The Wild Wild West
The Wild Wild West told the story of two Secret Service agents: James T. West, the charming gunslinger (played by Robert Conrad), and Artemus Gordon (played by Ross Martin), the brilliant gadgeteer and master of disguise. Their unending mission was to protect President Ulysses S. Grant and the United States from all manner of dangerous threats. The agents traveled in luxury aboard their own train, the Wanderer, equipped with everything from a stable car to a laboratory. James West had served as an intelligence and cavalry officer in the US Civil War; his "cover" during the series is that he is a railroad president. After retiring from the Service by 1880 he lives on a ranch in Mexico. Gordon's past is more obscure; when he retires in 1880 he goes on the road as the head of a Shakespeare traveling players troupe.
View Episode Rankings#21 - Petticoat Junction
Rural sitcom revolving around a widow, her uncle and three daughters who run the Shady Rest Hotel along the Hooterville Cannonball railroad line.
View Episode Rankings#22 - Hawaii Five-O
The investigations of Hawaii Five-O, an elite branch of the Hawaii State Police answerable only to the governor and headed by stalwart Steve McGarrett.
View Episode Rankings#23 - Bonanza
The show chronicles the weekly adventures of the Cartwright family, headed by the thrice-widowed patriarch Ben Cartwright. He had three sons, each by a different wife: the eldest was the urbane architect Adam who built the ranch house; the second was the warm and lovable giant Eric "Hoss"; and the youngest was the hotheaded and impetuous Joseph or "Little Joe". Via exposition and flashback episodes and each wife was accorded a different ethnicity. The family's cook was the Chinese immigrant Hop Sing.
View Episode Rankings#24 - The Virginian
The Virginian was the very first 90 minute western on prime-time television, and is about a man, only known as "the Virginian" who served as foreman on the Shiloh Ranch (owned in sequence by Judge Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Col. MacKenzie) in 19th century Medicine Bow, Wyoming. James Drury starred as the title character with the likes of Doug McClure, Lee J. Cobb, John McIntire, and Clu Gulager co-starring. It is in these settings that a variety of stories, much more based on character and relationships than the usual westerns, take place.
View Episode Rankings#25 - My Three Sons
Widower Steve Douglas raises three sons with the help of his father-in-law, and is later aided by the boys' great-uncle. An adopted son, a stepdaughter, wives, and another generation of sons join the loving family in later seasons.
View Episode Rankings#26 - Night Gallery
Night Gallery was creator-host Rod Serling's follow-up to The Twilight Zone. Set in a shadowy museum of the outre, Serling weekly unveiled disturbing portraiture as preface to a highly diverse anthology of tales in the fantasy-horror vein. Bolstering Serling's thoughtful original dramas were adaptations of classic genre material--short stories by such luminaries as H. P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, A.E. van Vogt, Algernon Blackwood, Conrad Aiken, Richard Matheson, August Derleth, and Christianna Brand. Variety of material brought with it a variety of tone, from the deadly serious to the tongue-in-cheek, stretching the television anthology concept to its very limits.
View Episode Rankings#28 - Coronation Street
Follows the lives of the residents of the fictional Coronation Street, located in Greater Manchester, which is made up mainly of working-class people.
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