Since the people who hold the licenses to all my childhood television memories have decided to release as many DVDs as possible, I have made several excursions into 1980s television as of late.

Perhaps the show that has stood up the best is Fraggle Rock. While I'm sure some would call it "hippy drivel," since a majority of the episodes theme's have to do with living peacefully, it still rings true today. Perhaps the best indicator of its timelessness is that my daughter loves it as much as I did/do.

Maybe the worst, or one that hasn't stood up to the test of time as well is the Frugal Gourmet. Given the smoothly run, and organized cooking shows on TV today, the Frugal Gourmet just seems haphazard and hard to follow. Perhaps my biggest disappointment is that he doesn't cook anything! Michael Smith, Jamie Oliver and Alton Brown — my current trifecta of TV chef idols — really cook things, and demonstrate the steps. All too often Jeff Smith — the Frugal Gourmet — throws some things in a bowl, says "here's one I made earlier" and pulls a completed dish out from behind the counter.

I remember this being common place on older cooking shows, but it is something that was left in the 80s and 90s, and cooking shows are better for it, in my opinion.