11 October,2026 10:12 AM IST | Mumbai | Arpika Bhosale
Pic/iStock
For those of us who grew up in the '90s, India had the best TV programming, in both Hindi and English. The programming was planned by people who understood children, pre-teens, and teens. For example Doordarshan always had the Children's Film Society of India working on both the visuals and the language so as to soothe kids and drive home social messages. The shows appealed to all ages, so everyone could watch it together, and even our dads and moms loved it.
Right now, our screens are too noisy, with visuals designed to distract more than truly entertain or move the viewer. We grew up on shows like The Last Airbender, which has graphics that were both spectacular but also calming, and the plot and character arcs lent an understanding of complex emotions such as empathy at a young age.
In an era of brainrot like Fruit Love Island and relentless rows on reality TV, these are our recommendations of shows that will leave you feeling warm and comforted.
The show that seemed to have expectation baked into it was Jaspal Bhatti-starrer Flop Show. The show was loved for its Mr Bean-like humour sans the physical comedy; it was a laugh riot.
We still can't forget the show's theme song "Ye hai flop show, flop show, flop show" - you just had to be there in the '90s to get how iconic this was.
The execution of tongue-in-cheek, dry humour by Bhatti and Vivek Shauq was just too good.
The show lasted only 10 Sundays. The final episode was as meta as it gets, parodying the TV industry's producers and broadcasters who, despite being loaded, did not want or fund quality content.
The show's name was also a satirical take on how the common man of India was made to feel like a flop show because of government apathy.
The original series ran initially from 1986 to 1987, and the revival from 1993 to 1994. Nukkad roughly translates to "the corner", or "our corner of the neighbourhood". The show was about urban youth trying hard to make a living. Our favourite character was Khopdi, a loveable drunk with a sad origin story.
The show is set in an unspecified city, and our "nukkad" is just one corner with a mix of middle-class and lower-income residents. One of our arcs was the love story between the characters Guru and Teacher ji that didn't go anywhere but was nevertheless enough to get our pre-teen heart racing.
Watch this if you want to actually see the magic of writing and acting meeting organically on a modest budget.
The series aired between 1984 to 1985 and was about a middle-class married couple, Ranjit Verma (Shafi Inamdar) and his lively wife Renu Verma (Swaroop Sampat) and the ups and down in their relationship. It also starred Dhrandhar-fame Rakesh Bedi when he was a fresh-faced 29-year-old.
It stuck in our memory because of the theme song, sung by none other than Kishore Da, filmed against the backdrop of Mumbai.
Bedi played Renu's unemployed brother who would often create some drama between the couple, dispute living on his brother-in-law's dime unapologetically.
The show aired before our time, but we enjoyed the reruns. With almost 67 episodes, today, it would count as a show with about five seasons.
Please catch it if you want to watch something sweet with the family this festive season.
This American show aired from 1980 to 1985. It's an innocent story about the Lawson family. We loved Jamie, the mischievous, wisecracking son of Ted and Joan Lawson, but it was their goddaughter Vicki - who was actually a robot - who won our hearts when the show finally came to India in 1995.
Today, we're scared out of our minds as to what AI-powered robots will mean for humanity. In our childhood, though, a robot girl was the coolest thing we could imagine.
Ted is a robotronics cybernetics engineer working on a project titled "Voice Input Child Identicant" aka VICKI. She is brought to life by Ted, who then brings her home to see if human beings can be fooled into believing that she is a real child.
The show ran for four seasons, and the plot largely revolved around Lawson's attempts to hide that Vicki was a robot, until she actually starts emoting human emotions and the family ends up thinking of her like a family member. I especially loved the fact that this tiny robot could lift a car and a couch. She had a superpower before the Avengers.
My favourite character was the ginger-haired Harriet Brindle, who was always close to figuring out the Lawson's family secret.
It's a soothing watch for me!
