Watched a couple episodes of the 1950s Dragnet last night because I was reading the parody in MAD #11. Not a favourite show of mine but it certainly became iconic. I don't think I've seen any of the more recent remakes or movie versions - by "recent" I mean from the 80s on, so probaby not the right word!

"Wallpaper, Joe. Wallpaper."

If you still need a reason to check out Jonny Quest, try this...

Oh, if only modern retail was like that!  I miss the days when stores weren't open on Sundays (or half days, at most), you closed at a reasonable hour and your wages could support you (especially with commission).  Too many modern middle management are like Rumbold, only more vicious.  I also miss having the staff to actually serve customers in a department, rather than one person trying to cover 1/4 to 1/2 of the sales floor.

I love that show, even though I have watched the whole series dozens of times.  You know every joke; but, the actors are just so good you can't wait for them to deliver the line.  Always enjoyed any episode where they were putting together a production, either a song & dance bit or a commercial.  Those were always great fun.  Also enjoyed Grace & Favor, aka Are You Being Served Again?, where they are retired and managing the manor house entrusted to their pension fund (I miss pensions, too, instead of 401Ks).  Some really funny stuff in that (would have liked to have seen a third series of that).

Our local PBS station (WILL Urbana, operated by the University of Illinois) was always a great buyer of the British programming from the BBC and ITV.  They had at least a couple of comedies on the weekends, since the late 70s and, by the 90s, had Are You Being Served? weeknights and a block of Britcoms on Saturday nights.  We got stuff like doctor in the House, The Good Life/Good Neighbors, To The Manor Born, The Bounder, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister, Keeping Up Appearances, May to December, As Time Goes By, Rising Damp, Mulberry, Red Dwarf, Last of the Summer Wine, The Piglet Files, Blackadder, The Thin Blue Line,  and one or two others that escape me.  When I was in college, A&E was like a cable version of PBS and ran Yes Minister, Blackadder (there were only the two series, at that point) The Feint-Hearted Feminist (with Lynn Redgrave), Butterflies, Solo, Rising Damp and Last of the Summer Wine.  Bravo later brought over A Bit of Fry & Laurie and either they or a Carolina PBS station had French & Saunders, before Comedy central was running Absolutely Fabulous.  MTV had the Young Ones from not long after they did the second series.  They also ran some of The Comic Strip, since it had some of the same cast.

We also got stuff like The Saint, The Avengers and The Prisoner, in syndication and on PBS, as well as Doctor Who, starting in the Tom Baker years, on PBS.  That led to them showing the BBC version of Hitchhiker's Guide, Blake's 7; and, later, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (during a 90s pledge drive, though the response was pretty lukewarm, even though I enjoyed the story, if not the low budget look).

Or half the jokes.

You may be right, as heavy wordplay ala Abbott & Costello really isn't much of a thing anymore