I worked for the magazine in the mid 80's and that issue was a nightmare to pull together. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.
Big Bang is strange, I suppose everyone has seen that clip of the show without a laugh track and its decidedly less funny.... it seems like its really just a bunch of people constantly insulting each other. Still, it can be amusing, and there are few shows anymore I'd give that description to. Comedy seems to be a lost art.... or maybe its just me, I dont know.
I don’t miss much. If I want to watch an old show, most aren’t hard to find, and I still like some new shows. I enjoy some 50s family pablum and I enjoy some violent, profanity laced drama. And I, for one, think this country needs unfettered boobies on the boob tube. You may be seated.
Indeed-- many voiceover people did that, even Don Robertson of CBS Sports (who sometimes did regular CBS promos on the side)!
Well, different types of comedy shows have different structures to them. Call it formulaic for a lack of a better description. Each decade or tv era’s shows had a similar formula to them and even then there was/is a variety of styles.
The dramatic phone slam. Nothing says "f you" like a good old fashioned phone slam. There's no way to convey anger by tapping a smartphone icon.
Always fascinated me (and its still done). Person hangs up or gets hung up on and hears the dial tone. Gee, my phone doesn't do that.
true dat.. its gone from "noticeable" to "overt" in the last few years. In the glory days of the old sit-coms, they wouldnt touch politics with a 10 foot pole.
What about all those Norman Lear shows (All in the Family, Maude, etc), and MASH (especially in the later years) could be preachy.
Especially Maude. I think some folks (not just here at the forum) have a false sense of reality that things were "different" or "better" back then. It's really no different. Just the names have changed.
Well Norman Lears shows pushed in that direction, from about 1970 onward. So I think you're both wrong. It was anodyne until Norman Lear, and then it became socially conscious.
Not every show needs to be dark or ironic. Such is the case now. If they re-booted Mr. Ed, he would have to come with a very sordid back story, and his one liners would be need to be of the soul crusher variety, intended to render the object of them if not suicidal at the very least, questioning his/her own existence. Nothing light hearted. Most is heavy handed and purposely dark, and becoming horribly predictable. Ah cynicism and snark you have been overused.
Seems like there's always something in that category every season. For now there's Take Two, with Rachel Bilson, whom I like a LOT. The show itself is OK, nothing special, but much better than a lot of the crap currently running.
IMHO TV is overall better than ever. Much, much better. The quality, writing, creativity, production, variety, etc. That said, there are things about the old TV landscape that I'm naturally nostalgic for. The main thing being the BIG television event. Back when TV could be America's (or the world's) living room. Think "Live Aid" or the Motown special when Michael Jackson first did his Moonwalk. Of course for all you Boomers there was that boy band on the Ed Sullivan Show I hear was kind of big... Because of the fractured and vast media landscape now, we seldom have those moments where we all see something together. I do miss that. dan c
