Strange names for TV shows...

[Lkeller]

L.A.T.E.R. (The Life and Times of Eddie Roberts)
The Law & Mr. Jones
Topper
December Bride
The Dan Smoot Report

Wow - Dan Smoot - hadn't though of him in years.  He was a right-wing nut member of the John Birch Society, and had his viewers looking under their beds and in the rose bushes for communists.  Among the politiicans Smoot opposed for being too liberal were George Bush Sr (in his run for US Senate from Texas) and that left wing pinko Richard Nixon for President.

There were a number of these commentators - always right-wing for some reason - that had 15 minute shows on TV in the 1950s.  Another was Dr. Harold Fishman who later became second banana to George Putnam,, then finally became kindly grandpa anchor Hal.

[Mark_Giardina]

T.H.E Cat. A show featuring Robert Loggia that aired in the late 60s. If memory serves me correctly Loggia played a cat burglar.

[azumanga]

Suzanne Pleshette Is Maggie Briggs
Stockard Channing in Just Friends

Also... "James Garner as Nichols", in its final season.

[bpatrick]

"T.H.E. Cat" was indeed about a cat burglar,
full name Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat (!).

"Nichols"/"James Garner As Nichols" lasted only
one season (1971-72).  At first, he was a cowardly
sheriff in the Maverick mold; in order to try to save
the show, which was borderline in the ratings, NBC
had the original Nichols killed off and replaced by his
brother (IIRC), a more conventional Western lawman.
That's when the title change was made, but the ratings
didn't improve enough to warrant a renewal, and Garner
had to wait two years for his next big hit: "The Rockford
Files."

"Topper" isn't really so strange a name; he's Cosmo Topper
(Leo G. Carroll), who owns the house once inhabited by
George and Marion Kirby (Robert Sterling and Anne Jeffreys),
now ghosts, and only he can see them.

Likewise "December Bride" refers to a very eligible and
desirable (yes, older men are crazy about her) senior citizen,
Lily Ruskin (Spring Byington), who's always looking for a husband.
Watch for Harry Morgan as neighbor Pete Porter, who later got
a spinoff, "Pete And Gladys."

One I think is a little strange is "Lotsa Luck," with Dom DeLuise
as a bus driver who lives with his family.  Since it's based on a
British sitcom, I'm not surprised.

[Ultimajock]

...then there was The Summer Brothers Smothers Hour, which ran in the Sunday night slot that The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour usually appeared in between June and September 1968. It was a pilot run for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour...

[ricksegers]

Two that never made any sense to me were Picket Fences and Northern Exposure. Wild, Wild West would not lead you to believe it was a special agent with loads of Bond-like gadgets.

[Lkeller]

...then there was The Summer Brothers Smothers Hour, which ran in the Sunday night slot that The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour usually appeared in between June and September 1968. It was a pilot run for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour...

Those summer replacement shows were pretty common in those days, and some of them were odd.  The Jackie Gleason Summer Show (or similar title) never featured an appearance by Gleason - it just carried his name because it was in his Saturday evening time slot.  It featured comedy skits, odd clips and even early day music "videos" (probably shot on film).  I remember seeing a music video on that show of a pretty woman riding around in the snow in a sleigh singing "Walking in a Winter Wonderland"...in German...in July...and she was riding, not walking. Very odd show.

[Lkeller]

Two that never made any sense to me were Picket Fences and Northern Exposure. Wild, Wild West would not lead you to believe it was a special agent with loads of Bond-like gadgets.

Those all made sense to me: 

Picket Fences took place in a small town, and small towns have lots of picket fences. 

People often talk about whether their home has a northern or southern exposure...in the Northern hemisphere, you'll get more light if you have a southern exposure.  Northern Exposure took place in Alaska which is very far north, as Sarah Palin could tell you.

Wild, Wild West was a play on words.  Robert Conrad played James West, and it was a western of sorts, after all, even if it featured high tech gadgets that would have been science fiction in the 19th century.

[nightfly61]

Jake & the Fat Man
Life With Father

[M.J.]

Slightly off topic, but the local newspaper here always indicated Edge of Night in their TV listings as "Night Edge" throughout the 1960s.

Some CBC affiliates in Canada called their local newscast "Hour Glass" in the late 60s and early 70s. It doesn't seem like a newscast name.

There was "20 Minute Workout" in the 1980s. It was a half hour show.

On CKGN (now CKNY) in North Bay there was "Clock Watchers", the first TV morning show in Canada when it debuted in 1959. That sounds more like a game show to me, or a show where people just watch clocks.

Finally, not on TV but on radio, CBL in Toronto had a morning show called "Toast and Jamboree" for several decades, which evolved into the current Metro Morning in the 1970s. My father had his birthday mentioned on Toast and Jamboree when he was a kid.