About four years ago, while I was still in college, I came home between classes to find that there wasn’t much on TV. I decided to settle on a show that I had never really watched, but that was considered a classic in television history. To think – if there had been reruns of “Boy Meets World” on TV that morning, I might never have watched a single episode of “M*A*S*H.”

Well, I started watching the adventures of Hawkeye, Trapper, BJ, and Radar every day. It was on at least eight times a day, but the morning shows were often the same episodes that ran the night before. Because I enjoyed watching the show with my dad when he got home from work, I decided to stick with the afternoon broadcasts. This, unfortunately, left me searching for another TV show to watch between my classes in the morning. Still without “Boy Meets World,” I settled on another classic TV show called “Laugh In.” It was hilarious.

Since then, my joy in watching classic TV has grown to include “The Cosby Show,” “Cheers,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Frasier,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “The Twilight Zone,” “I Love Lucy,” and “Hogan’s Heroes.” And the list of classic shows that I want to watch is long, but I either don’t have the time or the shows just aren’t on anymore.

TV Land is airing a special tonight on the 50 greatest TV icons (the complete 100 icons can be found in Entertainment Weekly). I don’t know if I plan on watching, but I do know that the list got me thinking about classic TV again.

Who are your favorite TV icons? What classic shows do you watch? Which classic shows should I be watching? Which (if any) of today’s TV shows do you think will someday reach classic or iconic status?