The biggest problem was that the Really Rottens never won.  And they were the best ones.  

I was just shy of 10 when it started and I remember liking it.  I've not watched it since then.  I suspect it wouldn't hold up well.  

I tend to enjoy more pre-1975 H-B, and more from the 60s, when the adventure shows weren't so hampered.

Favorites:

Space Ghost and Dino-Boy
The Herculoids
Birdman & the Galaxy Trio
Frankenstein Jr and the Impossibles
Moby Dick & Mightor
Jonny Quest
Scooby Doo, Where Are You?
New Scooby Doo Movies
Josie and the Pussycats
Hong Kong Phooey
Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch
Scooby Doo and Dyno-Mutt Hour
Super friends
Challenge of the Superfriends
World Greatest Superfriends
Dastardly & Muttley and their Flying Machines
The Perils of Penelope Pittstop
Wacky Races
Clue Club
Jabber Jaw (Nyuck, Nyuck!)
Space Stars
Banna Splits Show (especially The Three Musketeers)

Plus, the original Huckleberry Hound Show and Yogi Bear

Sadly, I have never seen actual episode of Atom Ant or Secret Squirrel.

Banana Splits were definitely H-B.  Alex Toth designed the characters for both The Three Musketeers and Arabian Knights and probably Micro-Ventures.  Then you had the live action Danger Island, with Jan Michael Vincent.  It was actually the success of that series that paved the way for the Krofft Brothers to sell HR Pufnstuf to NBC.  It was debuted on a special that the Banana Splits hosted.

Now, the Kroffts did create the Banana Splits characters, for the show and designed the sets.  However, HR Pufnstuf was their first Saturday Morning venture, with their own company.

For the record, the Krofft brothers did:

HR Pufnstuf
Liddsville
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters
The Bugaloos
Land of the Lost
The Krofft Super Show (with Dr Shrinker, Wonder Bug and Electro-Woman and Dyna-Girl, Magic Mongo and Bigfoot & Wildboy)
Far Out Space Nuts
The Lost Saucer

Fun fact:  Richard Donner directed Danger Island and the live action Banana Splits segments, in the first season.

I can't believe I forgot to mention Flintstones and the Jetsons with H-B favorites!

The main draw to the West Wing was the writing and the cast.  Politics played a certain role, as they dramatized current events and you saw them from a more thoughtful perspective than the news delivered.  Martin Sheen is a hell of an actor (his kid is a bit screwed up) and they gave him plenty of great material.

The US hasn't done political comedy well, on tv, though, other than one-off things, like a couple of Mary Tyler Moore episodes.  There is one where she is in charge of the station's coverage on election night and their teletype goes down and they only have one result in, which Ted Baxter keeps repeating, while flailing about for something to say.  The  other features Bill Daily (Maj Healy, on I Dream of Jeannie and Howard, on The Bob Newhart Show) as a candidate, who isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but has a good heart and legitimately wants to help people.

I should mention that when I mentioned people being addicted, I’m referring to those working within politics, not citizens taking an interest (if at home doing my tax return, I’ve been known to have political radio shows on in the background, so I can be addicted, especially during elections).

No, I’m referring to characters like Josh Lyman. Yes, he’s a fictional character, but he’s totally immersed in politics. In the seventh season, there’s one episode where a woman, Donna (his assistant), sort of gives him an ultimatum of four weeks to prove he’s serious about her, so that the relationship can progress, but his answer is something like, “With all the work I’ve got to do, I don’t know if I can do that within four weeks.”

What?! If I had been him, my answer would have been, “You’re right. I want this relationship to work, so let’s try and get a weekend or holiday away over the next four weeks; my staff can cover the admin and wider work here.”

There have been workaholic characters in fiction, or characters who put personal desires second to a national need. But Lyman is unlikeable to me, and he’s not the only one. Nothing seems to exist outside politics for them. No, I didn’t need episodes showing them on vacation all of the time, but it just made me feel bleak and exhausted. And had me hoping that in the real world, their equivalents hopefully have some time for hobbies, family, relationships, etc.

I just wish the show had shown a nicer side to some main characters, it felt like quite a few main characters were forever barking orders at others.

There is a difference between politics and government service, though it is a very fine distinction, sometimes.  You have politicians and political appointees, like Cabinet secretaries and ambassadors and the professional staffers who work for the various government agencies that administer government programs and enforce the laws.  It is similar, though not exactly the same, as the Civil Service, in the UK system.  The organizations themselves can have their own politics, like the US State Department or the Justice Department.  Sometimes those politics are in line with the political appointees and President and sometimes they are at odds, which can lead to politically motivated purges, though there are mechanisms to keep that in check (with varying degrees of success).  Like you see in Yes Minister, the professional managers are out to keep control over their fiefdom.

Politics are a means to an end.  People who genuinely want to serve their community go into it to try to help their community, as they see it (whether you agree with their view of helping their community or not).  Others go into it to gain power, influence and money.  Under our political system, accomplishing legislation requires votes, either through a large enough majority to carry it off, or being able to garner enough votes from the opposition, via compromise deals.  With lobbyists throwing money at everyone, it has a corrupting influence and even those who enter politics for the noblest of reasons find themselves dirtying their hands for what they see as a greater good.  Given that a group of people can rarely agree on just ordering dinner, imagine trying to get them to agree on things like education, especially when a large section of them privately school their children (because of that whole money and power element).  Like Nietzsche said, power currupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

As for the rest of us?  Well, and informed citizen has to have some interest in politics to make an informed choice in elections; but, that doesn't mean you don't make compromises there.  Often, elections boil down to a vote against one candidate, rather than a vote for the opponent.  I've always been interested in history and politics plays a big part in historical events and decisions.  For instance, in the Spanish Civil War, the political divisions on the Republican side doomed them to defeat by the Nationalists.  The crown had been overthrown by a Leftist revolt, which established the first republic of Spain.  The Nationalists consisted of the Army, royalists and conservative landowners and privileged classes, as well as the Spanish Church, which had traditionally been the third power in Spain (after the Crown and the Army).  The attempted a counter coup, with military forces from the Army of Africa, in Spanish Morocco, as well as support among the ight, in key locals.  The coup was blocked in some areas and then the longer civil war broke out.  The Republican side consisted of Anarchists, who wanted to decentralize power, Social Democrats, who wanted to socialize some elements, but operate as a democracy, and Communists, who wanted to mirror the Soviet state, with centralized authority and class equality (fiction that it was, as classes changed from peasant and noble, to commisar and worker).  Those factions had, at best, an uneasy alliance and it worsened over time, until they were arresting and jailing non-Communist supporters.

In World War 2, politics shaped strategies as much as military necessity.  Churchill wanted to attack through the Balkans, hoping to destroy Soviet influence in those regions and ultimately attack the Soviet Union.  Roosevelt was committed to liberating France and building up for that, to free the European nations and drive out the Germans, but also to appease the Soviets, in exchange for their alliance against Germany and potential alliance against Japan (which Stalin held off on until Germany was defeated and his western borders secure).  Because the US was supply much of the manpower and equipment, while the Soviet forces were needed to press Germany on two sides, Churchill was forced to go along with Roosevelt's desires, though he did force a compromise invasion of Sicily and Italy.

Even the invasion of Normandy was filled with politics, as DeGaulle demanded to know the plans, before he would speak to the French people and he had his own designs for establishing a new French government, immediately.  Roosevelt was adamantly opposed to DeGualle becoming the defacto leader of France, after the invasion, but Eisenhower and Churchill were forced to accede to French demands, out of expediency.  Eisenhower was as much politician, holding the military alliance together, as he was a campaigning general.

I grew up during Vietnam, Watergate, the Iran Hostage Crisis and served during the Gulf War.  I couldn't help but be interested in politics as it dominated the news of my lifetime.  It wasn't just the news, as Saturday Night Live, which was filled with political satire, as well as social satire and sketch comedy, debuted during that, plus things like the Daily Show, in the aftermath of the Gulf War.  Plus, there were British satirical influences, like Monty Python and, later, Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image, Yes Minister, and Have I Got News For You, joining American influences, like National Lampoon, Mark Russell, Will Rogers, SNL, Second City and SCTV, people like Mort Sahl and Tom Lehrer and such.  For me, politics is as much about satirizing the claims of politicians and the manipulations of voters as it is about Right or Left, or benefit vs cost.  Also, have been involved in an instrument of the political will, I have had a peak behind the curtains that woke me up to some hard realities.

The saddest part of politics is how many people talk them, but don't participate beyond talk, with voting.  That is how you end up with a broken system and lack of choice.