60 Minutes
Tick-tick-tick — Sunday night investigative theater that outrated sitcoms.
broadcast network
CBS
CBS is broadcast television's heavy furniture: I Love Lucy inventing the sitcom laugh, Gunsmoke holding the prairie, All in the Family picking a fight at dinner, M*A*S*H turning a war tent into a national appointment. Dallas, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Magnum, P.I., and Murder, She Wrote prove the eye could do oil, newsroom, Hawaii, and a mystery writer in a cardigan.
On TV Flash, CBS reads as the broadcast network that could own Sunday and still win a weeknight argument. I Love Lucy and The Mary Tyler Moore Show set comedy grammar; All in the Family and Good Times made the living room political; Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote made the courtroom and the cabot cove a ritual. M*A*S*H still hurts on purpose.
The catalog is the other CBS: 60 Minutes as stopwatch theater, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Criminal Minds as later forensic engines, Cagney & Lacey as precinct partnership, Alice as diner labor. Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver sit beside Dallas like a dare. Start with Lucy or Mash if you want the monument. Stay for Cannon or Airwolf when you want the network in a louder car.
FAQ
What did CBS mean as a broadcast network?
CBS is where the sitcom, the western, and the newsmagazine learned to feel inevitable. I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, All in the Family, and 60 Minutes are not cable experiments; they are broadcast appointments that taught America when to sit down. Drama here runs from Perry Mason to Dallas without apologizing for scale.
Where should I start with CBS on TV Flash?
Start with I Love Lucy, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, or The Mary Tyler Moore Show if you want comedy that still teaches. Gunsmoke and Perry Mason for the older ritual; Dallas for oil-soap heat; Magnum, P.I. for Hawaiian swagger. Then sample 60 Minutes or CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for the catalog's later engines.
How is CBS different from NBC here?
NBC's highlights in this catalog hang out in bars, ERs, and coffee shops. CBS hangs a laugh track on Lucy, a holster on Matt Dillon, and a stopwatch on Sunday. Both are broadcast cathedrals; CBS's house style is the prairie, the Archie Bunker armchair, and a mystery that still airs like a habit.
Catalog
Shows on CBS
Airwolf
Supercopter Cold War fantasy — rotor wash and secret missions.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The master of suspense as dry host — murder with a wink and a silhouette.
Alice
Kiss my grits — Mel's Diner as working-class stage and catchphrase factory.
Amos 'n' Andy
Hugely popular, deeply fraught — the sitcom that forces the conversation about race and early TV.
Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts
Godfrey's ukulele empire discovers stars — and teaches America how a host can own a network night.
Barnaby Jones
Buddy Ebsen trades Jed Clampett overalls for a PI trench and lab coat.
Beat the Clock
Married couples vs. messy stunts and a ticking clock — proto-Fear Factor in formal wear.
Beauty and the Beast
Tunnel-world romance with Perlman's leonine hero and Hamilton before Terminator 2.
Cagney & Lacey
Two women detectives, one badge culture that had to make room.
Candid Camera
Smile — you're on hidden camera. Allen Funt's prank sociology as entertainment.
Cannon
William Conrad as the heavyweight PI who never needs to look like a leading man.
Captain Kangaroo
The gentle captain, Mr. Green Jeans, and a Treasure House of manners — no scream track required.
Chicago Hope
ER’s rival hospital — prestige white coats on the other network.
Criminal Minds
Unsubs, profile boards, and the BAU's dark comfort food.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Flashy forensics, Vegas neon, and the 'CSI effect' on real juries.
December Bride
Spring Byington's merry widow — mother-in-law chaos as warm sitcom engine.
Dennis the Menace
Good ol' Mr. Wilson! — comic-strip kid chaos in midcentury suburbia.
Designing Women
Atlanta interior designers with monologues sharp enough to reupholster the culture war.
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Woman doctor on the frontier — Saturday family drama with progressive tilt.
Everybody Loves Raymond
Long Island in-laws as contact sport — multi-cam marriage comedy at peak craft.
Falcon Crest
Wine-country warfare with Jane Wyman as matriarchal iron fist.
Family Affair
Uncle Bill, Mr. French, and the twins — urbane guardian sitcom sweetness.
Family Matters
Perfect Strangers spin-off that got Urkel'd into a phenomenon.
Ghosts
Haunted mansion multi-cam that made network comedy feel easy again.
Gilligan's Island
A three-hour tour that never ends — castaways as pure syndication candy.
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Shazam! Mayberry's gas man joins the Marines — innocence vs. sergeant rage.
Green Acres
New York lawyer, socialite wife, Hooterville surrealism — rural sitcom goes absurdist.
Have Gun – Will Travel
A chess-piece knight for hire — Paladin's calling card was cooler than most heroes' faces.
Hawaii Five-O
Book 'em, Dano — island cop drama with a theme that still chases you.
Hee Haw
Cornfield vaudeville — country music, cornball sketches, and rural syndication power.
Hogan's Heroes
Allied POWs outwit Nazis every week — wartime sitcom as high-wire farce.
How I Met Your Mother
A long setup about a mother, with slap bets and yellow umbrellas.
I've Got a Secret
Celebrity secrets and panelist guesses — Goodson-Todman charm with a wink.
JAG
Navy lawyers with jet fuel — procedural that quietly built a franchise navy.
Kate & Allie
Two divorced moms, one Greenwich Village brownstone, SNL-caliber comic precision.
Knots Landing
Dallas's suburban cousin — longest-running prime-time soap with quieter knives.
Kojak
Who loves ya, baby? — bald charisma, lollipops, and Manhattan grit.
Lassie
The collie who saved more kids than most sitcom dads — loyalty as weekly serial.
Lost in Space
Danger, Will Robinson — family space opera with a scene-stealing robot.
Lou Grant
Mary's boss goes hour-long serious — newsroom integrity with teeth.
Mama
Norwegian immigrant family warmth — live family drama before sitcoms ate the hour.
Mannix
Hard-charging P.I. who takes the punches — detective cool after the gadget phase.
Match Game
Blank the blank — celebrity panel innuendo as daytime sport.
Maude
Liberal firebrand in Tuckahoe — abortion episode included, sponsors terrified.
Mister Ed
A horse is a horse, of course — talking-animal sitcom that shouldn't work and did.
Murphy Brown
A newsroom diva with a point of view — and a culture-war cameo by the Vice President.
My Favorite Martian
Uncle Martin the antennaed alien — sci-fi sitcom before Trek made space serious.
My Little Margie
Gale Storm's scheming daughter vs. dad's blood pressure — screwball sitcom fizz.
My Three Sons
Widower dad, three boys, and Uncle Charley — domestic sitcom built to last.
NCIS
Gibbs's rules, banter, and the procedural that outlived fashion.
Newhart
Vermont inn deadpan — "Hi, I'm Larry; this is my brother Darryl; this is my other brother Darryl."
Northern Exposure
New York doctor, Alaska weird — quality TV with moose cameos.
Omnibus
Aloft culture for the masses — Leonard Bernstein, Orson Welles, and Sunday seriousness.
One Day at a Time
Divorced mom, two daughters, and a superintendent with all the punchlines.
Our Miss Brooks
Eve Arden's wisecracking teacher — the faculty lounge as comedy club.
Pee-wee's Playhouse
Saturday morning surrealism — secret word screaming and design-school chaos.
Person to Person
Murrow via remote camera in celebrity living rooms — intimacy as spectacle.
Petticoat Junction
Shady Rest Hotel, three daughters, and the Cannonball train — rural comedy's cozy hub.
Phyllis
Cloris Leachman's self-absorbed neighbor gets her own San Francisco chaos.
Picket Fences
Small-town weird cases — Bochco’s Rome, Wisconsin fever dream.
Playhouse 90
Live ninety-minute prestige plays — when network TV still pretended it was Broadway with better lighting.
Rawhide
Head 'em up, move 'em out — trail-drive western that gave Eastwood his sneer.
Rhoda
Mary's best friend moves home to New York — wedding special as event TV.
Route 66
Two guys, a Corvette, and America as open-road anthology.
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Housewife meets spy — suburban espionage with will-they charm.
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Meddling kids, a cowardly Great Dane, and monsters who are always Mr. Whoever.
See It Now
Murrow with a cigarette and a conscience — when news still looked like a civic sacrament.
Simon & Simon
Brother PIs — one denim, one preppy — riding Magnum's lead-in wave.
Studio One
Westinghouse's live stage — where 'Twelve Angry Men' first argued on television.
Survivor
Outwit, outplay, outlast — reality TV's founding American empire.
The $64,000 Question
Isolation booths, big money, and the quiz boom that made America hold its breath — then file subpoenas.
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Richard Greene's Robin — British export that American kids treated like native folklore.
The Beverly Hillbillies
Oil-rich Clampetts crash Beverly Hills — rural comedy as ratings dynamite.
The Big Bang Theory
Nerd culture goes multi-cam prime-time global.
The Bob Newhart Show
Hi, Bob — deadpan psychology with the perfect group-therapy Greek chorus.
The Carol Burnett Show
Movie parodies, Tarzan yells, and variety comedy's gold standard ensemble.
The Danny Thomas Show
Make Room for Daddy — nightclub dad energy meets living-room warmth.
The Dukes of Hazzard
Yee-haw justice — General Lee jumps, Boss Hogg schemes, and controversy rides shotgun.
The Equalizer
Ex-spy with a newspaper ad — urban vigilante cool before the movie reboots.
The Ernie Kovacs Show
Visual gags, blackouts, and Nairobi Trio — the medium inventing itself for laughs.
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
Fourth-wall George and dizzy-logic Gracie — marriage as perfected vaudeville.
The Good Wife
Political scandal's aftermath as smart network prestige.
The Incredible Hulk
Don't make me angry — Bill Bixby pathos, Lou Ferrigno smash.
The Jack Benny Program
The world's cheapest violinist and the longest pause in comedy history.
The Jackie Gleason Show
The Great One's variety palace — where the Honeymooners were born between production numbers.
The Jeffersons
Movin' on up — Black excellence, dry-cleaning money, and a deluxe apartment in the sky.
The Kids in the Hall
Canadian sketch anarchists — Head Crusher, Chicken Lady, and fearless queer bits.
The Lucy Show
Lucille Ball post-Desi — widow schemes, bank chaos, and comedy empire 2.0.
The Millionaire
Michael Anthony delivers a tax-free million — then we watch money ruin or redeem a stranger.
The Munsters
Herman's bolts, Grandpa's cape — monster family as blue-collar sitcom.
The Nanny
Fran Fine’s voice, wardrobe, and Queens energy invade a Broadway household.
The Paper Chase
Law school as blood sport — Professor Kingsfield terrifies a generation of pre-law kids.
The Phil Silvers Show
Sgt. Bilko's motor-pool hustles — the funniest con man in uniform television ever licensed.
The Real McCoys
West Virginia clan hits the California farm — rural sitcom before Green Acres made it a punchline.
The Red Skelton Show
Clem Kadiddlehopper and Freddie the Freeloader — pantomime pathos with a clown's tear.
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
Folk-sibling banter that smuggled Vietnam-era dissent onto CBS.
The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour
I got you babe — marital sparring as variety gold before the divorce plot twist.
The United States Steel Hour
Industrial giant, theatrical punch — live drama with a steel-hard production sheen.
The Waltons
Goodnight, John-Boy — Depression-era mountain family as soft-focus America.
The White Shadow
White coach, mostly Black high-school team — gym class as social drama.
The Wild Wild West
Steampunk Secret Service on the frontier — gadgets meet six-guns.
The Young and the Restless
Genoa City boardrooms and bedrooms — youth, wealth, and that theme song.
To Tell the Truth
Three claim the same identity — only one is telling the truth, and the panel sweats.
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
Space Academy cadets learning the solar system — homework with rocket ships.
Touched by an Angel
Angels with case files — faith-based network drama as comfort appointment TV.
Truth or Consequences
Wrong answer? Do the stunt. Ralph Edwards's radio chaos, now with cameras.
Two and a Half Men
Beach-house multi-cam machine — then the most public cast explosion in sitcom history.
Unsolved Mysteries
Robert Stack’s trench coat and that theme — true crime as living-room séance.
Walker, Texas Ranger
Chuck Norris roundhouse justice — sincere pulp that became meme archaeology.
Wanted: Dead or Alive
Steve McQueen and a sawed-off Mare's Leg — bounty-hunter cool before he was a movie king.
Wiseguy
Undercover arcs with real serialization — before prestige was a marketing word.
WKRP in Cincinnati
Turkeys away! — rock radio misfits and the funniest disaster in sitcom history.
Wonder Woman
Spinning transformation, golden lasso, and Lynda Carter as patriotic pop icon.