Critics of the past half-century have never had much use for MGM’s Andy Hardy movie series of the late 1930s and ’40s, but the films really do merit watching. The series of theatrical films starred Mickey Rooney as the title character, a teenaged boy who wants to get things the easy way and always finds out that doing the right thing always works out the best .

Guided by his wise and strong father, Judge Hardy, and his affectionate and hardworking  mother, Andy manages to muddle his way through girl trouble, money problems, car repairs, and the like, and learns something in each film.

Yes, the characters are solidly middle class—upper middle class, really—and the films don’t wallow in an effort to plumb the depths of human evil, which make them entirely uninteresting to most critics.

Those very characteristics, however, are what make the films interesting and edifying for normal people. The problems that Andy and his family confront are the same types of troubles that beset most of us from time to time, and the family’s way of binding together in a crisis and of attacking troubles by taking responsibility for their actions are exemplary, educational, and inspiring.

People who hate such things have serious defects, and we really shouldn’t listen to them. So ignore the critics in this matter.

You can see for yourself on Thursday and Friday as Turner Classic Movies is playing what appears to be all of the Andy Hardy films during the daylight hours. Here’s the schedule: