Hey, who remembers "Who Shot JR?" Mom watched Dallas.
Posted by Rob1150@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 51 comments
I did not obviously, but I remember it being a huge deal, and shirts and all the speculation. I can only think of only one other event that big, and that was Luke and Laura's Wedding.
CaptainQueen1701@reddit
I remember the tapes arriving at Heathrow being on the BBC news!
CrazyAlbertan2@reddit
The T-shirts about it all that summer.
Rob1150@reddit (OP)
I would wear one NOW.
659DrummerBoy@reddit
My main memory of those days, was my mother watching her soaps, and General Hospital had the Weather Machine story line. I remember that more than Luke and Laura.
Pedals17@reddit
They were stranded on an island with a secret underground base, right?
dperiod@reddit
The Ice Princess storyline! Luke and Laura on the run! Frank Smith and the Cassidines! That was such high drama and espionage!
Pedals17@reddit
Yeah, I was a kid and I thought it was like something out of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon! I watched at my babysitter’s place.
my-coffee-needs-me@reddit
That was when I gave up on General Hospital entirely.
Reachforthesky777@reddit
My parents watched Dallas which meant everyone in the house watched Dallas unless your bedtime was earlier. When they did that whole "it was a dream" thing with Bobby, we all stopped watching Dallas.
We used to hate JR so much but we really loved hating him!
CajunAsianTexan@reddit
Useless factoid of the day. Up until 2018, I lived across the street from the original Southfork Ranch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloyce_Box_Ranch
TheLastMongo@reddit
Oh yeah, that was huge that summer. There was a candy store we went to where they made their own candies. That summer the owner used a gun mold to make chocolate ‘guns that shot JR’
Ill_Pressure3893@reddit
I trust that you’d have the clerk throw in a carton of bubblegum cigarettes, too.
Plastic-Sentence9429@reddit
I remember seeing shirts at Sears or JCPenney that had a picture of him with the caption "The man I love to hate".
5uck3rpunch@reddit
I remember that as a kid. It was huge & everywhere you looked.
FabAmy@reddit
I remember JR, Luke & Laura, and Princess Diana marrying what's his name.
I_am_Russ_Troll@reddit
I was a loyal viewer of Dallas
truthcopy@reddit
It’s amazing to think back to these big TV moments and how the country would unite around them. The MASH finale, the Seinfeld finale, JR, Luke and Laura, the list goes on. The last one I can remember like that was probably 25 years ago with the Survivor finale. But now everything is so fragmented. There aren’t as many “shared experiences” — we’re all in our little bubbles. It’s sad, in a way, but given the media landscape we have, probably inevitable.
JonnyRocks@reddit
Th Red Wedding. I have been amzed at how many different kinds of people watched Game of Thrones
Sally4464@reddit
That Survivor finale was huge! I think something like 50 million people watched it. We even had our own tribal council at work. 😂 Good times!
Lucky_Vermicelli7864@reddit
Both my Mother and Grandmother were glued to their tvs over who shot J.R., while I do remember some of it Dallas was not my jam.
rangerm2@reddit
Iirc, that came on after the Dukes of Hazzard
When I was a kid, nothing came on after that.
Comedywriter1@reddit
I remember it. A few seasons later poor Bobby got shot in the finale. And later Bobby was deliberately hit with a car.
Guess the Ewings were not a popular family. 😂
Severe_Performer_726@reddit
Three of us and three dads were headed to Boy Scout camp in Texas from Oklahoma. The kids and one dad were in the camper shell on the back of the Ford. At 7:45 we pulled over on the side of the road, got out a black and white 12”tv and spent 15 minutes locating the channel so we could watch. The dad’s idea. Not ours.
Allmyexesliveintx333@reddit
I was in first grade watching dallas with my mom. I remember going to school the next day and talking about it.
ClickbaitTheGull1ble@reddit
Over in the UK, my mum had a coffee morning so they could discuss it. They had notepads and everything. It was like a huge case for them
Any_Pudding_1812@reddit
i live with a millennial who hadn’t ever seen Dallas. I soon corrected this, but she had no idea about this. Anyway we were visiting a friend of hers ( also millennial ) and when she told him we were watching Dallas his first words were WHO SHOT JR? her jaw dropped. SOMEONE SHOOTS JR? we hadn’t gotten to that yet.
haha. a spoiler i didn’t see coming.
Extension_Excuse_642@reddit
I just mentioned this last week when my husband was taking about a show where someone important dies and you find out later it was fake.
9fingerjeff@reddit
I remember Dallas was on after it was my bedtime but I was fascinated by it for some reason and I’d always make excuses to have to go talk to my parents when they were watching it, dynasty and falcon crest too. I think it’s just the fact I wasn’t allowed to watch them that it made me want to all that much more. This was also during the period of my life that I used to watch guiding light after school every day too.
Beruthiel999@reddit
Why "obviously"? I watched it! (I mean, I was 11 so maybe I shouldn't have, but there wasn't a big movement to stop kids from watching adult shows at the time. My whole 6th-grade class talked about nothing else for a week)
UnderstandingQuirky8@reddit
I watched Dallas with my mom. I remember when one whole season ended up being one character’s dream.
NotAtAllExciting@reddit
Remember both of these. Yes, huge TV events.
Caninetrainer@reddit
The classic love story! Laura meets and falls in love with and marries her rapist, Luke. Heartwarming, truly
Rob1150@reddit (OP)
Whut.
Sally4464@reddit
Yes. He raped her back in 78 on the floor of his disco. That’s how their relationship started. It’s on YT.
Bloody_Mabel@reddit
On the floor of the disco to the Herb Alpert song Rise.
Pedals17@reddit
They’re right. It was…a choice…
Ok_Fig7692@reddit
I was in something like 3rd or 4th grade when it happened. For about a year any time something fell on the floor - like a book or something loud like that - someone would shout "Who shot JR!"
It was dumb, but we were in grade school, so to us it was the funniest shit ever.
Tattered_Reason@reddit
It was Maggie Simpson, right?
Pedals17@reddit
I was a kid, and my parents watched Dallas and Knots Landing every week. Oh, yeah,I still remember J.R.’s shooting. EVERYONE talked about it, and my Dad & I speculated about the shooter. I guessed right.
HailToVictors21@reddit
Still can’t grasp why Bidden went back in time and shot JR.
SeaweedClean5087@reddit
It was so easy to all be on the same page to side when we only had 3 channels in the uk. Even I watched Dallas not really liking it , but it was such a talking point at school and at mum’s coffee mornings. I wonder if I’d watch shit like love island if it was on one of only 3 channels available.
agravain@reddit
we did not disturb mom when Dallas was on.
itwillmakesenselater@reddit
Made relevant again with "Who Shot Mr. Burns?"
400footceiling@reddit
A can my dad saved.
Adaminium@reddit
My Dad had collected a case of JR beer! Also, I’ve posted this story in other comments before, but a bunch of years back I was at ‘this party in the desert,’ and Larry Hagman wandered in to our camp. Apparently he was enticed by the smells of our dinner, as he said he was camping with a bunch of vegans. It was wild! We may or may not have offered him (and he may or may not have taken) some of the Lucy we had handy.
Rob1150@reddit (OP)
Even fresh, I cannot imagine that being good.
archedhighbrow@reddit
I loved watching Dallas and Knots Landing. I remember the shooting being a huge cliffhanger.
No_Signature3073@reddit
I’m on the one where Ray and Donna went out to check out Down syndrome kids to see if they want to keep the one she is carrying or have an abortion.
GrumpyCatStevens@reddit
I remember "Who shot JR?" And I remember a special that CBS aired on the whole phenomenon that included screen tests of every actor on Dallas shooting JR - including Larry Hagman!
No_Signature3073@reddit
I been watching for months now S9 E8 and counting. The world went to hell in the late 80s when the women cut their hair off and started with the bob cut. It was the beginning of the world’s demise.
wizardofmops@reddit
I was less than 5 or 6 years old but I vaguely remember watching with my parents and not understanding how big of a deal it actually was