Shark Bytes

I love dogs, but COME ON!!! This show is alomst cartoonish. They should have went with a Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound) instead. Purebreds are usually as dumb as most people, but they look cool!

Unless you were that age, at that time, you can't really relate to the fact that "Lassie" was the show to watch on Sunday nights...we all loved "Gramps", and when he died, it was like our own grandparents had died...for most of us, that hadn't happened yet...my memory of that show is sitting with my grandparents and a TV tray watching that show...it will always be special to me...and I really enjoyed Joey Viera on the reunion show a few years back.

The original Lassie coincided perfectly with me as a kid. I was probably a couple of years younger than Jeff was (supposedly) on the show. I watched it without fail in those years (c. 1954-57).
After that I grew away from it. No reason, just really didn't watch it anymore. I do remember being unhappy that Jeff and his mom left the show.
It was years later that I watched another episode. This was probably at the tail end of the Timmy years, but more likely the Ranger years. I watched an episode and absolutely could not beleive it!!.
It seemed that an Owl broke its wing and couldn't take care of its babies or eggs (forget which). But the part I remember was that Lassie barked at an eagle flying overhead. And damned if the eagle didn't fly down and take care of the owl's offspring.
Let's face it, I'm afraid that was stretching the bounds of credibility to the max. I never watched again but I wouldn't be surprised if the dialoque in some episode went like this

Lassie: Woof, Woof, Woof
Person: What's that you say girl?, The atomic reactors about to explode? What can we do?

Lassie: Woof, Woof, Woof

Person: You say we have to modify the gate arrays within the spectral compartments of the collectomizer!!

Lassie: Woof

Person: Good girl, you saved the country.

The thing that annoyed me about this show was that theme music it was so scarry!!! CJ

June Lockhart's character:

Lassie, I will be going aboard the Jupiter II. Do you want to come along?
You can bite Dr. Smith in the ass! That'll teach him!

Lassie in the years of the Miller family (1954-1957) was one of the best television series ever. Many other posters have explained why on this board; it doesn't need to be said again. My childhood wouldn't have been complete without Jeff, Ellen, Gramps, and their Lassie. I still watched some of eposodes during the Timmy years, but distractedly. I don't fault the actors during those years: with proper writing, producing, and directing, the show could have been just as good with the Martins as it had been with the Millers. But the change in management defintely caused the show to jump the shark. By the way, when it came time for the forest ranger, I never saw it again. I do wish now that I had seen the episode of the New Lassie series in 1991 when both Tommy Rettig and Jon Provost were guests on the show.

Lassie NEVER jumped.

My favorite episode had to do with intolerance. It had almost no people in it, only animals. Lassie finds a skunk caught in a trap and frees it. The skunk follows Lassie home to where Lassie brings food for other animals. Naturally, the skunk as a "certain air" about it, as such the animals want nothing to do with the skunk.

Then, a big bad wolf, coyote, or some such thing shows up and starts eating the animals food. The animals are afraid. What can they do? Lassie starts fighting the intruder, but is losing. Can nothing save her?

Then the little skunk charges into the fray. It gives the wolf its "BRING IT ON, MUTHA" stance, does its thing, and the wolf is sent running.

In the end, all the animals come out of hiding and realize the skunk, though different, is a friend.

Isn't that touching?

Lassie may have jumped the fence at the start of each and every show, but she jumped the shark after the death of Gramps at the beginning of season #4. After Gramps died, the show lost its identity. The actors who played Timmy's parents were replaced; Timmy lost all his friends his own age; Lassie became a forest ranger - I mean, you could analyze it through and through, but it all goes back to the sad and tragic time when George Cleveland, the actor who played Gramps, died at the beginning of season #4. Gramps was my favorite character because he filled so many roles on the show well: father figure, grumpy old man, comic relief, voice of logic, persona of the farming life, and even hero (How many times did Jeff tell Lassie "Go get Gramps" just to save him from some peril! So, I vote Lassie jumped the shark "When Gramps died."

Show jumped when Timmy's mother got caught in a bear trap.

Lassie turning into SuperCollie was a jump the shark situation. In Specialist For Lassie, even though wounded with a hunter's bullet wedged near her spine, SuperCollie fights off a coyote and scales a hgh fence and then goes racing down a street despite the fact the dog is supposed to be resting and recuperating

On the Lassie series, Timmy could be overly sweet at times but he did do some episodes with June Lockhart where he wasn't trying to act adorable or cute like Growing Pains or Gentle Tiger as well as some others

Some quick thoughts after watching several episodes of the 50th Anniversary Marathon a couple of weeks ago on TV Land. Great stuff - great memories. Yes, Jeff, Mom and Gramps were better than Timmy and his family, but Timmy, although rather cloyingly sweet, wasn't that bad. Compare Jon Provost to, say, Jay North as Dennis the Menace, or, God love them, Jerry Mathers and Tony Dow, who are so comically untalented, that they make Leave It to Beaver a hoot. Lassie was always a great show, with the two kids or with the Rangers. A rock of stability for a kid every Sunday night (actually 5 in the afternoon in the Mountain Time Zone) for many years.

The 1954-58 seasons were absolutely iconic. I loved the Miller Family so much!!! I could even stand it when Timmy and Jeff were both on the show together (1957-58). And Gramps was a gem; he was cranky and bitter, but sentimental underneath. I live in a big city, but when I used to watch this show on reruns on cable in high school (I'm 18 now) I used to want to BE Jeff Miller. I thought he and Porky had the most awesome life!! When Timmy and his foster parents took over, it was never the same. I will always remember lassie for the Miller episodes. Those were fantastic.

The show obviously JTS when Bob Maxwell & the original cast faded away. It ran for all those years afterwards mainly on the reputation it had in the beginning and because 6 year-old kids didn't have many other choices as to something better to watch. From an adult perspective, Jeff's collie is superb for many of the reasons already mentioned in this group & Timmy not too great mainly due to Bob Maxwell no longer managing the show & poor choices for actors.

"Lassie" jumped when Jeff left the show. The show steadily went downhill from year to year after that. Yes, I hated Timmy. Lassie on the loose the final season was really strange. My little sister watched it right to the end.