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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2021 18:38:48 GMT
Yeah, I could see saying something like "a groundbreaking show in its portrayal of certain aspects of teen life." I mean, they did have a gay character at a time when that was very unusual. They hit some realistic issues harder than your typical TV of the time, where things tended to be awfully tidy (e.g., Saved By The Bell when Jessie gets addicted to ... caffeine pills).
But one of the greatest series of all time? That's funny.
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Post by kds on Mar 25, 2021 18:52:09 GMT
Yeah, I could see saying something like "a groundbreaking show in its portrayal of certain aspects of teen life." I mean, they did have a gay character at a time when that was very unusual. They hit some realistic issues harder than your typical TV of the time, where things tended to be awfully tidy (e.g., Saved By The Bell when Jessie gets addicted to ... caffeine pills).
But one of the greatest series of all time? That's funny.
It sort of reminds me of the click bait you tend to see like "(Insert Beloved TV Show / Movie) would not play well in 2021." Ah, the "very special episode." Remember when the cast would break the fourth wall at the end to talk about the issue they presented?
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2021 19:01:18 GMT
I'm trying to remember the first "very special episode" I ever saw. It had to be one of a few from Family Ties, but I can't recall the sequence. There were three:
1) Uncle Ned (played by not-yet-superstar Tom Hanks!) was an alcoholic, as discovered while he visited the Keatons. 2) Alex (Michael J Fox) had a good friend "Greg" die, and he dealt with the grief. 3) Alex got hooked on speed while studying for a test.
I think they probably occurred in that sequence, but could be wrong. I believe all three were "very special, two-part episodes."
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Post by kds on Mar 25, 2021 19:06:08 GMT
At a pretty young age, I remember seeing the episode of Punky Brewster where the kids were playing hide and seek, and Cherie hid in an old refrigerator. The other kids couldn't find her and went inside, and when they went to look for her, she was unconscious and her life was saved with CPR.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2021 19:17:20 GMT
Ooooh, I thought of an earlier one that was really surprising for the time: Diff'rent Strokes had an episode where Arnold (Gary Coleman) and his friend Dudley were hanging out in a bicycle shop. The proprietor was very nice to them, eventually inviting them into his home (which was behind the shop) and then he showed them cartoon-porn and took pictures of Dudley after Arnold left.
This would have been around 1982, 1983ish. I remember not quite understanding what was going on that was so bad, and asking my mom. In hindsight I have to admit that my parents were pretty awful at fielding tough questions from very-young me (and in this case, I would've been about 6 or 7). I can't recall what she told me, but I recall thinking "well that didn't help ... so the lesson is no watching cartoons with old people unless mom or dad are around."
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Post by kds on Mar 25, 2021 19:28:56 GMT
I didn't see that episode until it was in reruns, probably in my late teens.
Funny thing about Diff'rent Strokes, after such a serious episode that dealt with pedophilia, they later did an episode where Dana Plato's character got dolled up, and looked a little older than 15, and they played up some sex jokes with her for laughs. Diff'rent times.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2021 19:36:52 GMT
Diff'rent Strokes might have been one of the biggest creators of "very special episodes." You had sexual abuse/pedo, bulimia, drugs, epilepsy...I'm sure there must have been some race-focused ones (although the whole premise of the show involved that angle)...
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Post by kds on Mar 25, 2021 19:44:10 GMT
Yeah, they did have quite a few. That was a big thing on sitcoms probably until the 1990s. I think Seinfeld pretty much spelled the end of the very special episode.
I'm partially torn on that. On one hand, I do prefer my comedies stick to comedy. But, on the other hand, especially now that I'm a father, having those sorts of issues presented on sitcoms wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But, on the other other hand, its my and my wife's job to bring up stuff like that, not the Drummonds or the Tanners.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2021 19:49:53 GMT
I'm partially torn on that. On one hand, I do prefer my comedies stick to comedy. But, on the other hand, especially now that I'm a father, having those sorts of issues presented on sitcoms wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But, on the other other hand, its my and my wife's job to bring up stuff like that, not the Drummonds or the Tanners. Yeah, it's tough. On one hand, it can be a good way to help parents introduce a topic when it isn't REALLY urgent: better to have a chance to bring up drugs because of Facts of Life (where I think someone took drugs to stay up and study, too!) than when your own kid gets caught with drugs.
But on the other hand, you hate for TV shows, or movies, or schools for that matter, to overreach and give perspectives or ideologies you think are going too far. For example, you hear about elementary schools (and I'm talking like the youngest grades) having discussions about race that take the modern "antiracism" perspective (which is highly ideological and not at all universally acknowledged), or discussing sexuality in ways that seem not to be age-appropriate. I could see not wanting my kid to be exposed to touchy subjects through outside sources.
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Post by kds on Mar 25, 2021 19:58:34 GMT
I'm partially torn on that. On one hand, I do prefer my comedies stick to comedy. But, on the other hand, especially now that I'm a father, having those sorts of issues presented on sitcoms wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But, on the other other hand, its my and my wife's job to bring up stuff like that, not the Drummonds or the Tanners. Yeah, it's tough. On one hand, it can be a good way to help parents introduce a topic when it isn't REALLY urgent: better to have a chance to bring up drugs because of Facts of Life (where I think someone took drugs to stay up and study, too!) than when your own kid gets caught with drugs.
But on the other hand, you hate for TV shows, or movies, or schools for that matter, to overreach and give perspectives or ideologies you think are going too far. For example, you hear about elementary schools (and I'm talking like the youngest grades) having discussions about race that take the modern "antiracism" perspective (which is highly ideological and not at all universally acknowledged), or discussing sexuality in ways that seem not to be age-appropriate. I could see not wanting my kid to be exposed to touchy subjects through outside sources.
That's true. I think at the end of the day, I'd prefer to just be entertained. One example was the show I brought up that started this conversation - Superstore. Some of the storylines in Seasons 4 and 5 started to go into illegal immigration, ICE, and poor treatment of retail employees. I thought the handling of the subjects was pretty clumsy, and resulted in some less than good episodes.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 25, 2021 20:06:49 GMT
And there is probably the real key: who are sitcom writers? Generally they are comics.
What reason do we have to believe that comics will provide any particularly valuable insights on difficult social issues? I'm not saying none could--there are definitely some brilliant minds in the history of standups and comic writers--but it's certainly not why they've been hired, not their core function.
An analogy: a few former pro athletes have become politicians. Great. If Heath Shuler or Bill Bradley are qualified and capable, cool. But that doesn't mean we ought to assume we should look to athletes for political insights. That's roughly where I'd put it with comic writers. I'd rather their professional focus be on their real objective.
(If somebody develops a show that is supposed to blend comedy with serious, intellectual topics, well, go for it. If it's good, I guess, we'd find out and watch it. But we're talking about traditional sitcoms here, and the vast majority of those were and are first and foremost for the gags.)
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Post by kds on Mar 25, 2021 20:11:50 GMT
(If somebody develops a show that is supposed to blend comedy with serious, intellectual topics, well, go for it. If it's good, I guess, we'd find out and watch it. But we're talking about traditional sitcoms here, and the vast majority of those were and are first and foremost for the gags.)
This is how I feel. Shows like All in the Family, or more recently Superior Donuts, did a great job of presenting issues while still making me laugh. Superstore is a show about the shenanigans of a big box store. I felt like the show went outside of its wheelhouse a bit there. Family Guy did that a couple times in recent years where they did some "deep" episodes. Just goes against the tone of the show a bit much for my liking. Just show some silly crap and cutaway gags / pop culture references and let me decompress for 22 minutes.
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 31, 2021 13:38:07 GMT
Curse my luck! Yesterday I stumbled across a "Great Courses" series of lectures on Amazon Prime called "The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague." It is a studio-version of college lectures, as are all of the items in that series. (I've previously watched a really interesting one from Dr. Bart Ehrman about the history of Christianity, which is on YouTube, I believe.) So it isn't as entertaining as a documentary or fictional series--it's just a person on a set, lecturing, with occasional PowerPoint-style notes.
Curse my luck? Yes, because it turns out this series of 24 episodes will be pulled from Prime tomorrow! I got through several last night and plan to watch several more tonight, but I highly doubt I'll watch them all. (Maybe it's also on YouTube: I haven't checked.)
The series is very interesting. It has already (through four or so episodes?) been informative in terms of biology, virology, social history, political history, geography ... it's a subject that in my experience anyway was just a thing: the plague hit Europe in several waves wiping out half the population, the end.
As you might guess, reality was far more complex than that, to the point that "the plague" isn't even agreed upon by scholars as being "the plague": in other words, the bubonic plague was a plague, but many scholars believe what we consider "the plague" was probably various, overlapping waves of various diseases including bubonic plague.
If that sounds interesting, give it a try!
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Post by kds on Apr 7, 2021 18:12:57 GMT
I'm curbing my enthusiasm for the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife. When the first teaser trailer was released in late 2019 / early 2020, I was concerned because the movie seemed to lack fun. But, this clip was released today, and this looks fun.
Again, I'm keeping my expectations low, considering this movie is coming over 30 years after the last one, but I feel somewhat cautiously optimistic.
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Post by kds on Apr 14, 2021 14:44:31 GMT
Here's some more virtue signaling from the voice of a fuckin' cartoon character. www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-56731420Get over yourself Hank. Was Apu based on a stereotype? Yeah. But, so are many character in The Simpsons, and comedy in general. Plus, I feel like, pretty early on in the series, the writers made Apu a fully fleshed out character and were very respectful of his culture.
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