i agree, i think we need to strap Vidiot in and and make him rewatch all 174 episodes Clockwork Orange style until he agrees with us. and if that doesn't work, The Ropers.
Let's agree to disagree. They're beyond horrible and not watchable today -- at least to me. I also worked on the Rockford File shows and Incredible Hulk, and while I'm not much of a fan of either, they're not terrible shows at all. There's thousands of hours of stuff on which I can better spend my time. For example, we're occasionally watching old episodes of Mission: Impossible at our house, and while a lot of it is very dated (being 50 years old), there's some amusing scenes in it here and there. It doesn't drive me screaming from the room the way Lobo or BJ or Three's Company would. Mary Tyler Moore was terrific (as were most of the MTM shows), and many the Lear shows still have good moments, even though they're very dated now.
Wow! Every show you worked on had a great theme song! I don't suppose you had anything to do with The Greatest American Hero or Simon & Simon, did you ??
Much respect to you, as always, as you know more about TV shows and film than I'll ever know, but the Lear shows are dated? How so? I'm not baiting here. I want to know your genuine opinion, maybe because I've been thinking about how much has stayed the same after all of these years, or in many cases gotten worse. I simply think about what the Hippies were about, yet they didn't change much from a social standpoint. Or, anybody from today who seeks equality for all; do we stand much of a chance? But I also think about how laughter is a cure (or can be). Perhaps I'm naive, yet I see the comedy shows, where people from all walks of life are packed in to see Carlin or Chapelle. We laugh when they point out the ills of society and our human failings. Going into a comedy, there's a predisposition to switch our brains to accept the laughter, because that's what we expect: laughter. Still, we laugh in the moment, but is it our faults if we don't take the lessons home with us? I think that it is. In that light, maybe the Lear shows aren't that dated, because the lessons have yet to be learned.
They look real bad (particularly the tape shows), the acting is way over the top, all the actors deliver their lines with a lot of histrionics, and I think the messages are very heavy-handed. I don't dispute that they're historically important, and I think they survive because many of the actors were very talented, and -- maybe most importantly -- they're still very funny. Even the super-over-the-top shows like Good Times and The Jeffersons have moments. And even when I'm grimacing at the heavy-handed production and direction, I'll occasionally laugh. Not a lot of 45-50-year old shows can do that -- especially Three's Company, which to me is just a goofy, low-class show with lot of cheap laughs. I'm often quick to tell people, "hey, this show or movie isn't so bad when you think about it in historical context," and for that reason I'd concede the Lear shows were really important and represented a huge change in writing and producing for 1970s television. As has often been pointed out, CBS jettisoned all their "hillbilly" shows (Mayberry RFD, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Red Skelton, Gomer Pyle, and so on) and replaced them with much more sophisticated "urban" shows like All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, Carol Burnett, and so on. While some viewers whined about it, I was struck by the change and I liked the new shows, and I got what the networks were trying to do. Still, 45-50 years later, the shows are pretty creaky and tough to watch -- even though many of them are bona fide classics. There are some shows that become so dated because of contemporary references, it really killed them in syndication. Murphy Brown is an example often-cited by TV execs, where it's well-acted, fairly well-written, it looks halfway decent (and was shot on film), but is very tough to watch when the actors are poking fun at Bush and Dan Quayle and making a lot of political comments. Similar early-1990s hit sitcoms like Seinfeld still hold up amazingly well today since they're so character-oriented, and much of the dialogue comes out of the actual situation and not the world around them, while most other shows of that era are slowly fading away.
I reserve the “screaming from the room” distinction for shows like Small Wonder, Life With Lucy, and The Bradys (the 1990 revival). But as you said, let’s agree to disagree. I also agree that the Lear shows are dated, but there’s still goodness to be had there, particularly with All in the Family and The Jeffersons.
It’s cut off top and bottom and zoomed to make it look widescreen. I ripped the dvds to a nas and use kodi to view it with hardware deinerlacing. Looks good
And, if you read further, you would see where I said I posted a typo. I know better. I've been in So Cal many times. Too many Santas. Santa Clara, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa... EDIT: I see I already replied with a similar post.
How many of you remember the first of the two Three's Company spinoffs, The Ropers (1979-1980)? The Ropers starred Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, along with Jeffrey Tambor, Patricia McCormack and Evan Cohen. The story behind the development of the series goes was that Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, during the break between production of the first two seasons of Three's Company, were approached with the idea of their own spin-off series. Lindley took to the idea right away, but Fell was reluctant, fearing that a spin-off could damage his acting cred. When the producers of the series came up with a special clause in the contract that would guarantee their return to Three's Company if the spin-off failed to capture the magic within a year of the first episode being broadcast (from March 1979 to March 1980), was when Fell then agreed. When the first season of The Ropers began broadcast on ABC on Tuesday, March 13, 1979 at 10 PM, the first six episodes did very well in the Nielsen Top 10 for the 1978-79 season, which effectively allowed ABC to renew the series for a second season. But then this is where the series begins tailing off: season 2 began on Saturday, September 15, 1979 at 8:00 PM (right against CHiPs on NBC). ABC shifted the show to 8:30 PM on January 26, 1980, but this did not help either and Norman Fell was so upset he stormed ABC's headquarters in New York City to demand they look for another, better timeslot for The Ropers, but by then most of the show's former viewers had moved on. ABC officially canceled the series that April, with the last three episodes airing a month later in the 9:30 PM timeslot, just after Barney Miller; the final episode, "Mother's Wake," was broadcast May 22, 1980. Meanwhile, the fourth season of Three's Company saw the former two landlords replaced with just one, in the name of Ralph Furley (played by Don Knotts). This change helped Three's Company ratings to survive. In retrospect, Norman Fell insisted ABC's cancellation of The Ropers was much sooner than expected, as it also coincided with the end of the one-year contractual deadline of his and Audra Lindley's special proviso in their contract that would have guaranteed their return to Three's Company upon cancellation of their spin-off. But all was not lost for the pair, as they did have one more appearance on Three's Company following the cancellation of their spin-off: on season 5, episode 18, "The Night of the Ropers," which aired March 17, 1981. The Ropers co-star Jeffrey Tambor also made guest appearances on Three's Company since the cancellation of the spin-off, playing varying character roles. The two season premieres of The Ropers, "Moving On" and "The Party" (the latter featuring the then Three's Company regulars John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt and Suzanne Somers; and which was re-titled in early syndication as "Stanley, the Ladies' Man") were included in the Three's Company syndication package, while the other 26 episodes were initially broadcast under the umbrella title Three's Company's Friends: The Ropers. Recent cable reruns, on Antenna TV for one, showed this series being run back-to-back with Three's Company as the third season ended with The Ropers leaving the Regal Beagle, and played back-to-back until the end of Three's Company's fourth season. ~Ben
Agree. I just can't watch the ancient sitcoms anymore. They probably wouldn't live up to my memories of them, though if I catch an episode of WKRP now and then I usually enjoy it. I'm up for old episodes of Weeds, Six Feet Under, Banshee, The Sopranos, or Dexter anytime at all. But comedy's weird - the only two old comedies I'd really be into would be the first run of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Eastbound And Down. I completely lost touch with comedies on the the old Big Three + Fox. Haven't watched anything in prime time on those channels in 15-20 years.
Oh, man, those are not old. Stuff from the 1950s and 1960s is really old. Stuff from the 1970s and 1980s is "somewhat old." I said a long time ago, we're going to soon have a generation that runs screaming from the room the moment they see a 4x3 picture: square picture, it's squaresville (meaning too old). There are some major 1990s film sitcoms that protected for 16x9, so they look pretty good in HD: Friends would be the biggest example. Seinfeld was blown up for HD so you do lose a bit of the picture, but it's not horrible. And a lot of people have complained about the first 20 years of The Simpsons being blown up, losing part of the frame and some of the jokes. Naaaa, I'm just talking about a lack of laughs. Stupid is rarely funny. Trust me, I watch some pretty gross-out comedies: Bojack Horseman, Big Mouth, Rick & Morty, Venture Brothers, and F Is for Family have some very R-rated moments but are funny as hell. There are moments in those shows that are so funny, I have to pause so I can yell and laugh and pound the table, then catch my breath and continue. Those are damned funny shows... albeit gross and crazy. There's a way to be gross and crazy and still be funny; Three's Company is just lame and dated to me. Hey, it's not as bad as Cars, so there is that. Oh, I worked on every episode of Life with Lucy, and that was like having eye surgery every week: painful and horrific. It's very hard to conceive of a show worse than Small Wonder.
Well, you know, everyone has different things that trigger the humor parts of their brain. To me, Three's Company was hilarious. I was in my teen years during its run.
Lots of these older shows look like crap on the diginets. It takes away from the shows and make them seem boring. Then they put terrible medical commercials in them. Get the DVDs, looks so much more lively and enjoyable.
I'm talking about how it's perceived today. There's not a lot today I have the same reaction to as when I was a kid. Though I still laugh at the Three Stooges, Abbott & Costello, and Jerry Lewis. Some of that stuff is timeless.
I liked it as a kid, but even then the misunderstandings that led to false premises became somewhat predictable and tiring.
Even more interesting when you consider that a lot of that stuff was written, and they shot more than an hour's worth of material for every half-hour episode of You Bet Your Life. Groucho was quick, but he needed good writers and jokes to make his expert timing work. Naaaa, I can only speak for myself. My brother is 12 years younger, and he dislikes Three's Company more than I do. Maybe it's just us. But I actually think most 1970s and 1980s sitcoms don't hold up well today. It's actually rare when they do. M*A*S*H does, I think partly because it's in a historical setting. Cheers is a classic show, but I'm not hankering to watch it today. Looking at dramas, Paramount was sorely disappointed when they spent $10 million dollars to restore Star Trek: Next Generation, and that flopped on home video and streaming, and basically killed the efforts to restore the other spin-off shows. Old shows are a tough sell these days. I was talking to a friend of mine about B&W TV the other day, and we figured out there's only about four B&W shows that get any kind of real airplay today: Twilight Zone, The Honeymooners (classic 39), I Love Lucy, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Those are all bona fide classics that hold up very well, even today. Everything else... not so much. As always: if it were my decision and it were up to me, I would make every TV show ever broadcast in the history of North America and make it available on U.S. streaming in some form. But to modern executives, I think they believe 1980s shows are old, 1970s shows are ancient, and anything before that is from the Cro-Magnon era. There are ways to restore standard-def videotape and make it look better, but it takes time, effort, and whole lotta spendin' money. It takes patience and money. Lorne Michaels did that for quite a few of the old Saturday Night Live shows, and they're as good or better now than they ever were in the 1970s or 1980s. Starting at some point in the 1980s, they started recording the show in multitrack so they'd have the ability to remix it later, and that helped in terms of sound quality.
My father had aortic dissection. He didn’t survive. The doctors said it’s extremely rare to survive aortic dissection and that even if you’re undergoing open heart surgery it is nearly impossible to save someone that experiences it. Miracle that he survived it!
