Posted on 11/15/2007 12:45:46 PM PST by Caleb1411
There are events in most of our lives that offer opportunities for us to change our ways. The strike by television writers affords one such opportunity.
By its very nature, television is mostly illusion. During the golden age of television (that would be the '50s and '60s), real audiences laughed (or didn't laugh) at comedy shows, which were mostly live. If you weren't funny, you didn't get laughs. But most shows were genuinely funny and devoid of bad language. The FCC had more influence then and there were only three television networks. Today, a laugh track laughs for you, whether or not anything is funny and most "comedy" is full of sexual innuendo. On cable, there is no innuendo. The f-word is used like a bludgeon.
Female "scientists" on the crime shows display enough cleavage that if the commercial were for Victoria's Secret, viewers wouldn't notice the transition. Such fantasies don't resemble any female scientist I know, nor would a professional woman dress like a hooker for the office. It's not much better in the news division, especially on cable, where female anchors and reporters resemble Barbie doll cutouts. They mostly look alike: big hair; big lips; big … well, you get the idea. The Website Radar (www.radaronline.com) recently had a quiz that asked people to distinguish between a list of female anchors and porn stars. I scored seven out of 10 correct. That's because I recognized the anchors, not the porn stars, though the two are increasingly difficult to tell apart.
Entertainment scripts are formulaic: plenty of murders, bad language, sex, explosions and gallons of blood and gore. Even when they're not "re-runs," the plots are mostly re-runs. So is the news. On broadcast TV, Bush is evil, the Iraq war is wrong, higher taxes and bigger government are
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Go to http://www.in2tv.com. There are a lot of the old TV series like My Favorite Martian, Dagnet, some of the old cartoon series. It’s free too. I suggest the Adventures of Superman Season 1 Episode 1. It’s in black and white and the special effects are really funny. Here’s the link to the Superman page http://video.aol.com/video-category/in2tv-superman/103305/page/2/view-type/detail/per-page/12
Same here. The strike doesn’t have much chance to effect me other than the first 10 minutes of Leno. What show is ‘Anne’ from?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Several years back I decided to cut the cable because the R.O.I. was not there. I think I might have watched TV once that month so I figured why pay for something I never really use?
I suppose once NTSC goes away altogether, replaced by Digital/HD, then I’ll have to get rid of my like new, 1996 21-inch TV (hardly used). Probably won’t get much for it on ebay.
Sorry - it’s a 27-inch TV
TV fries your brain.
[...real audiences laughed (or didn’t laugh) at comedy shows]
I think one of the reasons “Office” is so successful...no laugh track.
Enormous! I never had a tv that big until I married into it a year ago:) My old 14 inch sits in my home office now.
NO!!!
Ms. Emily Proctor is REAL!!! Don’t ruin it for me!!!
;-)
Yeah, I couldn’t get over the massiveness of it when I bought it (shortly before the Super Bowl that year).
Does anyone remember when Soap came on the air years and years ago? I barely remember the scandal it caused (I was very young then), but it is so tame to what is on now.
Yes and i remember the scandal surrounding it. As a child at the time (age 8 maybe) it was entertaining on those rare occasions I could get a glimpse of it without parents finding out. (They would never watch it nor would they let me.) Once I got a little older I realized how insipid it was. At the age of 18 after seeing a few episodes of Three’s Company I turned TV off for nearly 10 years.
For a number of years now the only things I've watched on teeeveee (in order of frequency) are election returns and football games.
And I don't watch much of either of those anymore.
Lots of Bush and Gore.
Surely there is some middle ground between what you describe and the pneumatic Barbies on the crime dramas, like the one on CSI Miami?
In my household we only watch FoxNews and Turner Classic Movies. Pretty sad. Remember the Mary Tyler Moore show? Great TV. Very funny and entertaining - the key word being “entertaining”. Can’t find that anymore.
Stopped watching Fox when Gary Condit was the most important person on the planet. Came back after Sept 11,2001 for a few months until I heard ‘Condit’ again. Saw a few hours last Feb while visiting people who have it on constantly. It oscillated perpetually between Brittainys shaved head and Anna Nicole Simpson’s painted clown face video, interspersed with loud awful commercials yelling at me that INTEREST RATES HAVE CHANGED! Is there a particular redeeming segment worth watching?
That’s the point. TV, like all other entertainment, is incredibly fragmented as compared to 20 years ago. This allows for advertisers to target in on the market they want and for people to get exactly what they want to watch.
What the hell does he want?Big fat,hairy dykey,Rosie looking skanks reporting the news?There's nothing wrong with some eye candy now.
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