15 1974 Classic TV Shows Celebrating 50 Years

Celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year are 15 1974 classic TV shows, many of which have very nicely stood the test of time and are still impacting the audience today the way they did all those years ago. Looking for laughs? Enjoy Good Times, Chico and the Man or Happy Days.

Maybe you're in the mood for a good cry. If so, there's no doubt your heart will be touched by the Ingalls family of Little House on the Prairie. Scares are provided by Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Saturday morning memories by Land of the Lost and The New Adventures of Gilligan (among others), your quench for superheroes with Shazam!, police work via James Garner in The Rockford Files or Angie Dickinson in Police Woman. And, of course, there are even more.

Needless to say, there was a lot happening in terms of 1974 classic TV shows and this is your chance to relive many of them. Enjoy!

1. Chico and the Man: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Chico and the Man

SEASONS/EPISODES: 4 Seasons (1974 to 1978)/88 Episodes

CAST: Freddie Prinze (Chico Rodriguez) and Jack Albertson (Ed Brown, aka "The Man")

PREMISE: Mexican American Chico Rodriguez arrives at the garage of cantankerous — and oftentimes racist — owner Ed Brown, who ultimately takes him in as both a worker and "tenant" (if you can call someone sleeping in your old van a tenant). Over time a bond develops between them.

Note: Actor Freddie Prinze suffered from depression issues and towards the end of the third season, committed suicide. Three episodes of that year were shot without him and producers tried to continue the show the following season by replacing Chico with a younger kid character to be with Ed, but it didn't work and the show was cancelled following season 4.

MUST-READ: Sanford and Son — 10 Surprising Secrets About Life in the Comic Junkyard

2. The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast 

TITLE: The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast

SEASONS/EPISODES: 10 Seasons (1974 to 1984)/54 specials and shows

CAST: Dean Martin and a changing panel of celebrities that would include people like Jack Benny, George Burns, James Stewart, Bob Hope and more.

PREMISE: Dean Martin would lead episodes off as the guest of the week would be roasted by a panel of celebrities.

3. Good Times: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Good Times

SEASONS/EPISODES: 6 Seasons/133 Episodes

CAST: Esther Rolle (Florida Evans), John Amos (James Evans), Ja'Net DuBois (Willona Woods), Ralph Carter (Michael Evans), Bern Nadette Stanis (Thelma Evans Anderson), Jimmie Walker (James "J.J. Evans Jr.), Johnny Brown (Nathan Bookman), Janet Jackson (Millicent "Penny" Gordon Woods, Ben Powers (Keith Anderson).

PREMISE: The comedic and dramatic life, love and struggles of the Evans family in Chicago. The show, created by Norman Lear, is a spin-off of Bea Arthur's Maude (itself a spin-off of All in the Family), as Esther Rolle's Florida Evans had worked as her housekeeper. As the show went on and Jimmie Walker's J.J. became more popular, it became a struggle to balance the show's more realistic themes with his silliness and battlecry of, "DYN-O-MITE!"

MUST-READ: Good Times Cast Then and Now — Catch Up with the Evans Family

4. Happy Days

TITLE: Happy Days

SEASONS/EPISODES: 11 Seasons/255 Episodes

CAST: Ron Howard (Richie Cunningham), Henry Winkler (Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli), Anson Williams (Potsie Webber), Marion Ross (Marion Cunningham), Tom Bosley (Howard Cunningham), Don Most (Ralph Malph), Erin Moran (Joanie Cunningham), Scott Baio (Chaci Arcola), Ted McGinley (Roger Phillips)

PREMISE: Set in Milwaukee in the 1950s, initially the series was about teenager Richie Cunningham and his misadventures with his friends Potsie and Ralph, as well as interactions with his families. Pretty quickly, though, much of the focus went on the developing friendship between Richie and cool kid Fonzie, with other friendships and relationships (romantic and otherwise) developing around them as well. It had an enormously successful run.

5. Harry O: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Harry O

SEASONS/EPISODES: 2 Seasons/44 Episodes

CAST: David Janssen (Harry Orwell), with recurring cast members Henry Darrow (Lt. Manny Quinlan), Tom Atkins (Sgt. Frank Cole), Anthony Zerbe (Lt. K.C. Trench), Hal Williams as Clarence and Farrah Fawcett as Sue Ingram.

PREMISE: Harry Orwell — or Harry O — is a former San Diego cop forced into retirement when he's shot in the back. But to make ends meet, he has little choice but to use his beach house as home base for a private investigation business. Series star David Janssen, of course, was best known as Dr. Richard Kimble on The Fugitive.

MUST-READ: David Janssen — 16 Man on the Run Facts About The Fugitive Star

6. Hong Kong Phooey

TITLE: Hong Kong Phooey

SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 Season/16 Episodes

CAST: Scatman Crothers (voice of Hong Kong Phooey/Penrod "Penry" Pooch), Kathy Gori (voice of Rosemary), Joe E. Ross (voice of Sergeant Flint), Don Messick (voice of Spot and The Narrator)

PREMISE: A parody of the Kung Fu movie craze of the time, the focus is on a nebbish police station janitor who assumes the identity of masked hero Hong Kong Phooey, who manages to succeed despite his clumsiness and mistakes.

7. Kolchak: The Night Stalker: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Kolchak: The Night Stalker

SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 Season/20 Episodes

CAST: Darren McGavin (Carl Kolchak), Simon Oakland (Tony Vincenzo), Jack Grinnage (Ron Updyke), Ruth McDevitt (Emily Crowles), Carol Ann Susi (Monique Marmelstein)

PREMISE: Preceded by the hit TV movies The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973), the series sees Darren McGavin reprise the role of reporter Carl Kolchak, who uncovers stories involving the supernatural but is never able to get them into print due to corrupt government officials who deny what he and others witness with their own ideas. The show was a heavy influence on writer/producer Chris Carter in creating The X-Files. Based on the novel The Kolchak Papers by Jeff Rice.

8. Land of the Lost

TITLE: Land of the Lost

SEASONS/EPISODES: 3 Seasons/43 Episodes

CAST: Wesley Eure (Will Marshall), Kathy Coleman (Holly Marshall), Spencer Milligan (Rick Marshall, seasons 1 and 2), Philip Paley (Cha-Ka), Ron Harper (Uncle Jack Marshall, season 3)

PREMISE: Following an earthquake, the Marshall family find themselves trapped ... somewhere, where they share this realm with prehistoric creatures, primate people known as the Pakuni and humanoid insects called the Sleestak. There was a remake in 1991 and a 2009 feature film.

9. Little House on the Prairie: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Little House on the Prairie

SEASONS/EPISODES: 9 Seasons/204 episodes plus 4 specials

CAST: Michael Landon (Charles Ingalls), Karen Grassle (Caroline Quiner Ingalls), Melissa Gilbert (Laura Ingalls Wilder), Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary Ingalls Kendall), Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush (Carrie Ingalls)

PREMISE: Loosely based on on the best-selling books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the series chronicles the lifes of the Iggalls family from the 1870s to the 1890s as they live their lives — the joys and the tragedies — on a farm near Walnut Grove, Minnesota.

10. The New Adventures of Gilligan

TITLE: The New Adventures of Gilligan

SEASONS/EPISODES: 2 Seasons/24 Episodes

VOICE CAST: Bob Denver (Gilligan), Alan Hale Jr. (The Skipper), Jim Backus (Thurston Howell III), Natalie Schafer (Mr. Howell), Russell Johnson (the Professor), Jane Webb (Ginger and Mary Ann)

PREMISE: For all intents and purposes, this could be a considered a more kiddified version of what would have been season 4 of the original 1964 to 1967 Gilligan's Island sitcom about the comic adventures of seven stranded castaways.

11. Planet of the Apes: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Planet of the Apes

SEASONS/EPISODES: 1 Season/14 Episodes

CAST: Roddy McDowall (Galen), Ron Harper (Colonel Alan Virdon), James Naughton (Major Peter J. Burke), Mark Lenard (Security Chief Urko), Booth Colman (Councillor Zaius)

PREMISE: A pair of modern astronauts — Virdon and Burke — land on Earth in the future where intelligent apes rule supreme and humans are the inferior beings. Finding themselves aligned with the sympathetic chimpanzee Galen, they go on the run to escape the gorilla Urko and his soldiers, driven by the fear of orangutan Zaius who knows of the danger humans of this intelligence represents to the status quo.

MUST-READ: Roddy McDowall Movies Before, During and After Planet of the Apes 

12. Police Woman

TITLE: Police Woman

SEASONS/EPISODES: 4 Seasons/91 Episodes

CAST: Angie Dickinson (Sgt. "Pepper" Anderson), Earl Holliman (Sergeant William "Bill" Crowley), Charles Dierkop Peter Royster), Ed Bermnard (Joe Styles).

PREMISE: Sgt. Pepper Anderson is part of the Criminal Conspiracy Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, working undercover assignements to take down criminal suspects and organizations.

13. Rhoda: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Rhoda

SEASONS/EPISODES: 5 Seasons/110 Episodes

CAST: Valerie Harper (Rhoda Morgenstern), Julie Kavner (Brenda Morgenstern), David Groh (Joe Gerard), Nancy Walker (Ida Morgenstern), Harold Gould (Martin Morgenstern), Ron Silver (Gary Levy), Ray Buktenica (Benny Goodwin), Kenneth McMillan (Jack Doyle), Lorenzo Music (Carlton, the Doorman, Voice Only)

PREMISE: Spin-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show with Rhoda Morgenstern moving back to New York from Minneapolis and following her interactions with her family, her romance with Joe Gerard, their marriage, divorce and her life as a divorcee. As it turned out, marriage was the worst thing that could have happened to Rhoda as a character and in terms of the ratings.

14. The Rockford Files

TITLE: The Rockford Files

SEASONS/EPISODES: 6 Seasons/123 Episodes

CAST: James Garner (Jim Rockford), Noah Beery Jr. (Joseph "Rocky" Rockford), Joe Santos (Sergeant Dennis Becker)

PREMISE: The cases of paroled convict turned private investigator Jim Rockford who is barely able to make ends meet and doesn't necessarily look for trouble in his attempts to solve the mysteries presented to him.

MUST-READ: The Best James Garner Movies and TV Shows — Remembering the Hollywood Maverick

15. Shazam!: 1974 Classic TV Shows

TITLE: Shazam!

SEASONS/EPISODES: 3 Seasons/28 Episodes

CAST: Michael Gray (Billy Batson), Jackson Bostwick (the first Captain Marvel), John Davey (the second Captain Marvel), "Mentor" (Les Tremayne).

PREMISE: Based on the DC Comic of the same name, young Billy Batson travels the country with his "Mentor" in in 1973 Dodge Open Road motorhome looking to help those in need, uttering the word "Shazam" to transform into the world's mightiest mortal, Captain Marvel, to provide the help they need.