Sell By Date Expiration: Old Shows That Don't Stand Up To The Test Of Time

[Joe Hellandback]

On ‎5‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 8:06 PM, Lugal said:

The thing with Wonder Woman was I think that it was under the long shadow of the Adam West Batman series.  That show put the idea out there that superheroes had to be done campy, and that they wouldn't work otherwise. Don't get me wrong, I liked the Adam West Batman show, catching it in reruns growing up, but I think execs took the wrong lessons from it.  On the DVD special features, some of the ideas they had for the Christopher Reeves Superman movie were campy as hell.  It was Richard Donner that fought for a more serious take on the character , or as serious as he could do in the late 70s.

The other part of Wonder Woman is that things have moved on.  I remember their computer room with all the blinking lights and reel-to-reels and I recall that they had a car phone which was considered super advanced.  The other thing is acting styles have changed, I've caught shows from the early 90s that seem weird because of that.

And I remember when Married With Children started out, there were "Good Christian Folk" who raised holy hell about how awful the show was before it ever even premiered.  Ed O'Neill even once said: (paraphrasing) thank you Christian nutjobs for promoting our show.

The technology ages it but that doesn't make it lesser by modern standards, the plots are weak and we have some very dull villains and lack of supervillains, once Lynda does her spin she's pretty much invincible (Roddy McDowell/Frank Gorshin aside). How many mad scientists and gangsters in 3 piece suits can you stand?

 WW's selling point was Lynda Carter who was UTTER perfection. And her costumes, the super patriotic dominatrix/skin-tight swimsuit. And the fact that she was always getting into all these situations where she was knocked out, tied up, brainwashed, transformed into a living waxwork, robot etc for the fetishists. 

[Bastet]

I recently re-watched Grace Under Fire (on Pluto), which I hadn't seen since it aired and which I remembered liking and the general plot and characters but no specifics, and it's one where watching in hindsight with knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes makes it a very different experience.  If I didn't know what a holy terror Brett Butler was during production, I'd say it holds up well - the relationships are timeless, as are the struggles of a single mother in a small town.

But knowing what was going on backstage made it difficult to just get lost in the stories.  Grace's friendship with Nadine was a highlight of the series, but the knowledge Julie White refused to come back for season five because of Brett Butler's behavior cast a shadow long before I even got to that season. 

Most of all, Grace's interaction with the kids is great (especially for an actor who is not a mom) and Quentin is a right royal shit (but a realistic one; I can't stand him, but in a very natural way), but it was utterly impossible not to think about the fact the actor playing him was one of her victims (and wound up committing suicide as an adult) every time I was irritated by the character.

Specifically, the big story as to why his parents finally yanked him from the show is that when Butler got breast implants, she showed them off on set, including once when the young actor was there.  Well, post-augmentation, there is an episode with Libby wondering when she'll get breasts and if they'll look like her mom's, and there's a meta joke from Grace directly referencing Brett's surgery.  Hearing that joke after knowing about her exposing herself is horrible.  I continued to the end, but it was never the same, and I'll never watch it again.

[kathyk24]

On 2/8/2018 at 8:11 PM, Chaos Theory said:

I think this was the episode where he "leaped" into his own life but as a young boy while his father was still alive.  A father who I believe would eventually die of lung cancer or something.   Sam became convinced he was there to save his father's life.  I forget if that was the reason or not.  

But since this is shows that DON'T stand the test of time and I think Quantum Leap vey much does.  My big one is "Married With Children".    The show was at the time original and extremely forward thinking but now it just seems mean.   I also mentioned a few pages back The A-Team.   Which is not a bad show I just tend to get annoyed at the lack of females.   It had one during the first couple seasons then it became a male action show.   Not that there is anything wrong with that but that is just a personal turnoff for me.

The best thing about the A-Team was the friendship between Face and Murdock. It's depressing that Hannibal was a nicer person than George Peppard. The A-Team also has some excellent fanfiction especially their time as Prisoners of War. I agree about Married with Children if Al was so unhappy with Peg he could just get divorced. He also doesn't do anything to ensure that he gets a better job.

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, Bastet said:

I recently re-watched Grace Under Fire (on Pluto), which I hadn't seen since it aired and which I remembered liking and the general plot and characters but no specifics, and it's one where watching in hindsight with knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes makes it a very different experience.  If I didn't know what a holy terror Brett Butler was during production, I'd say it holds up well - the relationships are timeless, as are the struggles of a single mother in a small town.

But knowing what was going on backstage made it difficult to just get lost in the stories.  Grace's friendship with Nadine was a highlight of the series, but the knowledge Julie White refused to come back for season five because of Brett Butler's behavior cast a shadow long before I even got to that season. 

Most of all, Grace's interaction with the kids is great (especially for an actor who is not a mom) and Quentin is a right royal shit (but a realistic one; I can't stand him, but in a very natural way), but it was utterly impossible not to think about the fact the actor playing him was one of her victims (and wound up committing suicide as an adult) every time I was irritated by the character.

Specifically, the big story as to why his parents finally yanked him from the show is that when Butler got breast implants, she showed them off on set, including once when the young actor was there.  Well, post-augmentation, there is an episode with Libby wondering when she'll get breasts and if they'll look like her mom's, and there's a meta joke from Grace directly referencing Brett's surgery.  Hearing that joke after knowing about her exposing herself is horrible.  I continued to the end, but it was never the same, and I'll never watch it again.

I agree. I liked the show when it came out. I see it on LAFF now but can't watch because knowing what happened behind the scenes.

[Neurochick]

13 hours ago, Bastet said:

I recently re-watched Grace Under Fire (on Pluto), which I hadn't seen since it aired and which I remembered liking and the general plot and characters but no specifics, and it's one where watching in hindsight with knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes makes it a very different experience.  If I didn't know what a holy terror Brett Butler was during production, I'd say it holds up well - the relationships are timeless, as are the struggles of a single mother in a small town.

But knowing what was going on backstage made it difficult to just get lost in the stories.  Grace's friendship with Nadine was a highlight of the series, but the knowledge Julie White refused to come back for season five because of Brett Butler's behavior cast a shadow long before I even got to that season. 

Most of all, Grace's interaction with the kids is great (especially for an actor who is not a mom) and Quentin is a right royal shit (but a realistic one; I can't stand him, but in a very natural way), but it was utterly impossible not to think about the fact the actor playing him was one of her victims (and wound up committing suicide as an adult) every time I was irritated by the character.

Specifically, the big story as to why his parents finally yanked him from the show is that when Butler got breast implants, she showed them off on set, including once when the young actor was there.  Well, post-augmentation, there is an episode with Libby wondering when she'll get breasts and if they'll look like her mom's, and there's a meta joke from Grace directly referencing Brett's surgery.  Hearing that joke after knowing about her exposing herself is horrible.  I continued to the end, but it was never the same, and I'll never watch it again.

From my understanding what we think was going on behind the scenes wasn't 100% true.  Wasn't Brett Butler's husband having an affair?  I also think she relapsed at some point.

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 4:04 AM, Joe Hellandback said:

The Equalizer; some eps are brilliant but it has such a tendency to preach you just want to hit fast forward to more McCall/Mickey/Control/Scott interaction. 

I don't remember it being preachy.  Obviously I need to see it again.  But I mostly was there for Mickey anyway.

[Joe Hellandback]

On 9/3/2020 at 7:44 AM, kathyk24 said:

The best thing about the A-Team was the friendship between Face and Murdock. It's depressing that Hannibal was a nicer person than George Peppard. The A-Team also has some excellent fanfiction especially their time as Prisoners of War. I agree about Married with Children if Al was so unhappy with Peg he could just get divorced. He also doesn't do anything to ensure that he gets a better job.

I always loved the ep where Murdoch discovers one of their clients might be Face's father and agonises about telling him, In the end the man dies without Face ever being able to speak with him but he does gain a half sister.  

[Trini]

Wasn't sure where to put this, and there wasn't a show topic;

The Roku channel now has 21 Jump Street, and - HOO BOY - I saw the most horrendous wig that was supposed to be dreads(??) in a random season 1 episode, but it was just an afro wig kind of separated into random chunks of hair. 😬

[Shannon L.]

Just a thought about tv in general:  I've been re-watching some older shows and some that I just didn't watch the first time around (all from early 2000s) and it's surreal watching them through the lens of  the post me-too movement.  I can imagine that a lot of dialog and scenes wouldn't be written today.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Shannon L.

[DrSpaceman73]

52 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

Just a general thought about tv in general:  I've been re-watching some older shows and some that I just didn't watch the first time around (all from early 2000s) and it's surreal watching them through the lens of  the post me-too movement.  I can imagine that a lot of dialog and scenes wouldn't be written today.

I've been watching frasier and bulldog in particular would have to be completely rewritten

The most disturbing one is threes company for many reasons. But one episode in particular a date of Chrissy's is literally chasing her around the apartment trying to date rape her and it's played for comedy on the laugh track

[Blergh]

Is it too early to hope that Me Too  has FINALLY opened enough folks' eyes to the fact that Urkel was a stalking, harassing, vandalizing bully who was NOT entitled to have the Winslows all cherish him? I never liked him or thought he was funny or entertaining but it seemed like I was shouting down an empty well when I tried to explain why to those fans who thought he was perfectly justified in being a complete creep to this neighboring family! 

[catlover79]

On 4/23/2014 at 12:50 PM, JTMacc99 said:

A lot of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons don't do it for me. With Boomerang showing them, and my children rolling into the age group where they might want to check them out, I thought it would be fun to watch some stuff I watched when I was a kid.  As it turns out, I would much rather watch some of the newer stuff on Disney and Nick than I would almost any old episode of any Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

 

Having said that, Boomerang is also showing the old Warner Brothers cartoons, and they are just as awesome today as they were when I was a kid. Giant Acme steel ball to the head will always be funny.

My nephews, born in the mid/late 00s, love both HB and WB...everything from Looney Tunes to The Jetsons. They absolutely loved Tom and Jerry. I never realized until I was an adult that it was/is probably the most violent cartoon of all time. 😳

[Trini]

3 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

Just a general thought about tv in general:  I've been re-watching some older shows and some that I just didn't watch the first time around (all from early 2000s) and it's surreal watching them through the lens of  the post me-too movement.  I can imagine that a lot of dialog and scenes wouldn't be written today.

2 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I've been watching frasier and bulldog in particular would have to be completely rewritten

...

It's kind of a sitcom character trope that still around. There's always the one character that's the horndog/slut or the otherwise promiscuous one.

[methodwriter85]

As a result of the WW84 storyline where

Spoiler

Diana has sex with Handsome Guy who has been taken over Steven Trevor, 

I'm now having a lot of questions now about consent when it comes to Quantum Leap. Was it okay for Sam to have sex with people while he was assuming the identity/aura of others? If you did a modern Quantum Leap, would they reconfigure it so that Sam/the Leaper doesn't actually take over the aura of other people? 

[Blergh]

On 2/1/2021 at 9:19 PM, methodwriter85 said:

As a result of the WW84 storyline where

  Reveal spoiler

Diana has sex with Handsome Guy who has been taken over Steven Trevor, 

I'm now having a lot of questions now about consent when it comes to Quantum Leap. Was it okay for Sam to have sex with people while he was assuming the identity/aura of others? If you did a modern Quantum Leap, would they reconfigure it so that Sam/the Leaper doesn't actually take over the aura of other people? 

 Well, consider that  King Arthur was claimed to have been conceived due to his father Uther Pendragon somehow disguising himself as Arthur's mother's husband, it shows that even when telling Dark Age legends folks knew this was sex by fraud and therefore a rape so use that how you like re Sam.

[kieyra]

Maybe not old enough to qualify here, but have been rewatching The Closer, which originally premiered in 2005. There's a lot of stuff in it that feels pretty questionable now, but one recent episode was basically celebrating 'getting a confession via police brutality'. First, one of the show's main detectives beats the shit out of the suspect while his colleagues turn off the interview room cameras; then, to make sure they really get a solid confession they turn him loose in gen pop to get beaten up some more, then threaten to return him to gen pop if he doesn't cooperate. 

It's a child predator/murderer so we're supposed to be on the 'ends justify the means' train, but it's still hard to watch a 'turn off the camera while the cops beat the shit out of the suspect' plotline in 2021. 

[Irlandesa]

3 hours ago, kieyra said:

Maybe not old enough to qualify here, but have been rewatching The Closer, which originally premiered in 2005. There's a lot of stuff in it that feels pretty questionable now, but one recent episode was basically celebrating 'getting a confession via police brutality'.

I liked that the spinoff was with an internal affairs officer.  It was a nice swing. 

[Dr.OO7]

On 1/3/2021 at 1:54 PM, Blergh said:

Is it too early to hope that Me Too  has FINALLY opened enough folks' eyes to the fact that Urkel was a stalking, harassing, vandalizing bully who was NOT entitled to have the Winslows all cherish him? I never liked him or thought he was funny or entertaining but it seemed like I was shouting down an empty well when I tried to explain why to those fans who thought he was perfectly justified in being a complete creep to this neighboring family! 

I hope not. There's a LOT of TV/movie scenes/storylines of men ignoring a woman telling them "No" and persisting until she gives in that are pretty cringeworthy now. Hell, they were cringeworthy even then.

I always hated Urkel for his behavior towards Laura. And the worst thing is, it's successful after an entire DECADE of him acting like this. When you consider how long real life stalking cases have lasted--my first MeToo story is of being stalked for an entire year by an ex-boyfriend who refused to accept that I'd broken up with him--it's utterly ghastly how this kind of behavior is promoted.

[Blergh]

Ann Sothern (born Harriette Lake)(1909-2001) had quite the varied performing career (as she once claimed to  having done everything but rodeo) . Anyway from 1958-1961, she starred in her 2nd primetime sitcom called. .The Ann Sothern Show in which she played a character called Katy O'Connor who was the assistant manager at a rather swanky Manhattan hotel. In some ways, the show was ahead of its time with the character not only being a single working woman but perfectly comfortable in  bossing around male and female employees.  However, I'm not sure that the show's opening credits would still pass the muster.

It had her walk up in ritzy clothes in front of the revolving door in front of the hotel lobby with the announcer doing the usual deal of announcing the show's name and that it starred Ann Sothern but then it had a male chorus sing 'as KAAY-tee [abbreveviated wolf-whistle] Kay-Tee' (the theme song's only three words) before she entered the lobby and wordlessly invited the audience to follow her in via her gesturing index finger.

By this point, Miss Sothern was still facially  gorgeous but had had the misfortune of having caught a debilitating case of hepatitis a few years earlier which resulted in a permanent weight gain and she  would pass fifty by the show's close so I wonder how realistic it would have been for this chorus to have wolf-whistled at her. Of course, one of the  show's ongoing themes was that she supposedly had all these male employees (including a young Ken Berry)constantly falling all over her while she would occasionally flirt back to comically gain leverage. Often Miss Sothern would wear black and/or hide behind furniture to avoid attention to her weight gain and sometimes she would be filmed with so much haze that it appeared that she was inside a steam room! Oh, and  in recent years , Barbara Eden would reveal that Miss Sothern had asked if there was any way that the younger performer could be made less attractive during Miss Eden's one-shot performance. Of course, it needs to be said that Miss Sothern herself produced both her sitcoms (while  singlehandedly raising her young daughter Tisha Sterling ). Regardless, she had excellent comic timing and the shows themselves do somewhat hold up all these decades later.

Still, I can't imagine any show  today that would have a male chorus do wolf-whistles after mentioning the female protagonist's name- even if that protagonist was played by the show's producer!

[magicdog]

On 3/8/2023 at 6:45 PM, Blergh said:

I'm not sure that the show's opening credits would still pass the muster.

It had her walk up in ritzy clothes in front of the revolving door in front of the hotel lobby with the announcer doing the usual deal of announcing the show's name and that it starred Ann Sothern but then it had a male chorus sing 'as KAAY-tee [abbreveviated wolf-whistle] Kay-Tee' (the theme song's only three words) before she entered the lobby and wordlessly invited the audience to follow her in via her gesturing index finger.

I went to look at the opening credits (there are a few from the show's run), and quite frankly, I don't have a problem with it.  Sure it was the era, but I don't think it offensive.  I did see a later credit opening in which there is no chorus just an instrumental and no wolf whistle. 

 

On 3/8/2023 at 6:45 PM, Blergh said:

By this point, Miss Sothern was still facially  gorgeous but had had the misfortune of having caught a debilitating case of hepatitis a few years earlier which resulted in a permanent weight gain and she  would pass fifty by the show's close so I wonder how realistic it would have been for this chorus to have wolf-whistled at her.

I guess it depends.  Some women don't mind being whistled at and may be flattered.  Some will be happy for some attention than no attention.  I didn't know about Sothern's hepatitis so I'm sorry she suffered such a horrible disease!  

 

On 3/8/2023 at 6:45 PM, Blergh said:

Barbara Eden would reveal that Miss Sothern had asked if there was any way that the younger performer could be made less attractive during Miss Eden's one-shot performance.

Nothing new here.  Even now, I hear similar stories about "the star" wanting to be glammed up while everyone else is dressed down.  Sothern may have been guilty of insecurity, but considering Hollywood culture (heaven forbid one gains weight or ages past 40) I'm not surprised.

[Mittengirl]

7 minutes ago, magicdog said:

Even now, I hear similar stories about "the star" wanting to be glammed up while everyone else is dressed down

Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance - Ethel had to be “bigger” and dowdier than Lucy.

[DrSpaceman73]

On 2/18/2021 at 3:30 PM, Dr.OO7 said:

I hope not. There's a LOT of TV/movie scenes/storylines of men ignoring a woman telling them "No" and persisting until she gives in that are pretty cringeworthy now. Hell, they were cringeworthy even then.

I always hated Urkel for his behavior towards Laura. And the worst thing is, it's successful after an entire DECADE of him acting like this. When you consider how long real life stalking cases have lasted--my first MeToo story is of being stalked for an entire year by an ex-boyfriend who refused to accept that I'd broken up with him--it's utterly ghastly how this kind of behavior is promoted.

The Goldbergs Geoff Schwartz and Erica.   He pines for her and she doesn't like him eventually they are together. He didn't stalk her that I recall but same idea. 

I hate those stories too. 

[Blergh]

On 3/10/2023 at 2:20 PM, magicdog said:

I went to look at the opening credits (there are a few from the show's run), and quite frankly, I don't have a problem with it.  Sure it was the era, but I don't think it offensive.  I did see a later credit opening in which there is no chorus just an instrumental and no wolf whistle. 

 

I guess it depends.  Some women don't mind being whistled at and may be flattered.  Some will be happy for some attention than no attention.  I didn't know about Sothern's hepatitis so I'm sorry she suffered such a horrible disease!  

 

Nothing new here.  Even now, I hear similar stories about "the star" wanting to be glammed up while everyone else is dressed down.  Sothern may have been guilty of insecurity, but considering Hollywood culture (heaven forbid one gains weight or ages past 40) I'm not surprised.

FWIW, I wasn't condemning Miss Sothern for her appearance (in fact, I think she was appealing her entire life). However, I just didn't think it was realistic that all these men would have been so enthralled with her at that stage of her life.

Still, the hotel employees fawning on her while she flirted back wasn't as bogus as when 80-something Mae West had 20-something male athletes become downright hot and bothered in her presence in Miss West's last movie.

It also needs to be said that Miss Sothern would later admit that after her 1949 divorce from her 2nd husband Robert Sterling, that marriage had 'cured' her from wanting to attempt remarriage even though she said that she'd had many chances thereafter to  have done so (and it seemed enjoyed flirting with men the rest of her life). Regardless, that  paled to her caregiving for her daughter and later granddaughter.

 

On 3/10/2023 at 2:29 PM, Mittengirl said:

Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance - Ethel had to be “bigger” and dowdier than Lucy.

Both Lucy and Viv confirmed that Miss Vance had had a contract stating so from the start of ILL yet after Miss Vance's passing from cancer, Lucy would always burst into tears at any mention of her onetime colleague.

BTW, Miss Eden said that even though she was much younger than the rest of the cast  during her one-shot AND was playing a country-club flirt who was enticing the Ricardo and Mertz husbands to Lucy and Ethel's fury, behind the scenes Lucy took her under Miss Eden under her wing and even went so far as to personally sew extra sequins into the flirt's evening gown. It also seemed that Lucy appreciated Miss Eden being nothing more than civilly cordial to Mr. Arnaz offcamera .

Yes, Miss Sothern had suffered from that bad bout of hepatitis in the late 1940's and in the early 1970's she had a catastrophic back injury when a prop tree  fell directly onto her spine while she was laying on her stomach onstage resulting in having to use a cane and permanent numbness in her feet the rest of her life. She also said she was 'nearly killed' by  the ordeal of her daughter nearly dying from lymphoma and melanoma. Still, she 'learned to make pain [her]friend' and persevered the rest of her life.

[Browncoat]

I happened across "Daniel Boone" recently.  It definitely does not hold up -- from Daniel's "tame Indian" friend Mingo to all the other "savage Indians" to the completely helpless women.  Mingo is a magical Indian, too.  He has all these mad skillz that the white folks don't have, like being able to fire flintlock rifles that are in a rifle stand with a whip.  That was terrifying, though -- every rifle he hit with the whip fired and fell over, or fell over and fired, and people were standing very close to all of them.  Amazing that no one was hurt.

[zamp33]

I just came across this thread and LOVE it! I am a 70's/80's child of television. I just wanted to share something about Bewitched - I teach a class on pop culture and Feminism and showed the students an episode of Bewitched and they all loved it - they thought Endora was the best and put her up as a woman to look up to on our "Wonder Woman" display - they thought she was really funny and loved how she encouraged Samantha to use her power and embrace her authentic self. I remember as a kid thinking that Endora was mean now I think she is fabulous. 

Things that don't hold up - Phyllis - I mean the opening has minstrels in it which I cannot fathom why it is there or necessary.  I love the  Mary Tyler Moore Show, but the high school students did not really take to her or  I Dream of Jeanine - never liked it as a kid and still don't like it now. 

I think One Day at a Time does hold up and I find I appreciate it more now than I did back then - although Schneider is beyond creepy and gross in the early years. Happy Days I find hard to sit and rewatch but I do like Laverne and Shirley. 

Anyway it is interesting to watch some of these shows through the lens of current teens and sorry if I repeated things people already said. 

[Bethany]

26 minutes ago, zamp33 said:

Anyway it is interesting to watch some of these shows through the lens of current teens and sorry if I repeated things people already said. 

I am finding this with younger children as well.  I will put on a movie or a TV show that I remembered loving at their age and sometimes they love it too (Disney's The Three Lives of Thomasina from 1963) and sometimes they give me this glazed look and ask if we can watch something else (The Monkees, The Brady Bunch and any western TV series up to and including Little House on the Prairie).  

[DrSpaceman73]

46 minutes ago, zamp33 said:

I just came across this thread and LOVE it! I am a 70's/80's child of television. I just wanted to share something about Bewitched - I teach a class on pop culture and Feminism and showed the students an episode of Bewitched and they all loved it - they thought Endora was the best and put her up as a woman to look up to on our "Wonder Woman" display - they thought she was really funny and loved how she encouraged Samantha to use her power and embrace her authentic self. I remember as a kid thinking that Endora was mean now I think she is fabulous. 

Things that don't hold up - Phyllis - I mean the opening has minstrels in it which I cannot fathom why it is there or necessary.  I love the  Mary Tyler Moore Show, but the high school students did not really take to her or  I Dream of Jeanine - never liked it as a kid and still don't like it now. 

I think One Day at a Time does hold up and I find I appreciate it more now than I did back then - although Schneider is beyond creepy and gross in the early years. Happy Days I find hard to sit and rewatch but I do like Laverne and Shirley. 

Anyway it is interesting to watch some of these shows through the lens of current teens and sorry if I repeated things people already said. 

What about Alice?  

I watched all those shows as a kid but haven't seem any of them in years. There was a definite shift in general around 1990 of all sitcoms totally different Era and post those years

I dream of genie always seemed blatantly sexist even at the time. 

[Bethany]

9 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I dream of genie always seemed blatantly sexist even at the time. 

I didn't know what sexism was when I watched as a kid but I must have sensed it because I hated the way she called him Master.  It was not a show I went out of my way to see.  Preferred Bewitched (with Darrin #1) and also Nanny and the Professor in terms of sitcoms with a magical component.  

[BlueSkies]

The Man Show.  Enough said.  For the record I'd watch bits and pieces of it...  enough to know what it was about but never a fan.

 

 I understand people change and evolve when they get older but lets say that's why Jimmy Kimmel isn't on my favorite people in the world list 

[zamp33]

6 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

What about Alice?  

I watched all those shows as a kid but haven't seem any of them in years. There was a definite shift in general around 1990 of all sitcoms totally different Era and post those years

I dream of genie always seemed blatantly sexist even at the time. 

 I have not watched Alice in years!  Thank you for the reminder and I will rewatch an episode.  I think on Sunday nights CBS ran Alice and The Jeffersons. (And it is sad I can remember that. )

 

 

 

[Shannon L.]

Years ago, I bought the entire WKRP in Cincinnati series and while there are a couple of moments that make me wince a little, it still, for the most part, holds up and it shouldn't.  I've shown my kids, who are very serious about things like the #MeToo movement, BLM, inclusiveness of the LGBTQ community, etc.,  as well as many of their friends who are of the same mind sets, and they all loved it.  The writing and acting are really good, but I can't quite put my finger on why it's not universally panned for it's characters and story lines. Maybe it simply is because of the way the characters are written and what the actors brought to those parts.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Shannon L.

[magicdog]

On 4/15/2023 at 9:40 AM, Elizabeth Anne said:

I am finding this with younger children as well.  I will put on a movie or a TV show that I remembered loving at their age and sometimes they love it too (Disney's The Three Lives of Thomasina from 1963) and sometimes they give me this glazed look and ask if we can watch something else (The Monkees, The Brady Bunch and any western TV series up to and including Little House on the Prairie).  

The Monkees??  A glazed look?  Heresy!!  Of course the show was aimed at tweens and teens so maybe the kids didn't understand it yet.  When the group was becoming big again for their 20th anniversary, lots of kids 12 and up would see it on MTV and asking their parents about this "new" show!  

Sometimes though a past show, regardless of genre is often remembered more for the chemistry of its cast and/or unique setting than anything else.  Sometimes the writing or format doesn't hold up.  I have found that the early season half hour episodes of Gunsmoke hold up fairly well.  I've been catching them on cable recently and because they don't waste time and are so well written - they're almost mini movies!

Brady Bunch I agree is a bit treacly during the first season (according to sources I've read elsewhere, it was supposed to be a bit more dramatic than it ultimately became which annoyed Robert Reed who wanted out after season 2).  I also think some of the issues the show dealt with were so much lighter compared to today.   Remember in the Brady Bunch films Jan was complaining to her counselor (played by RuPaul!) that she resented being the middle child (echoing an episode from the original show), while the counselor asked her if she had bigger issues like drugs or pregnancy!

[Zella]

16 minutes ago, magicdog said:

I have found that the early season half hour episodes of Gunsmoke hold up fairly well.  I've been catching them on cable recently and because they don't waste time and are so well written - they're almost mini movies!

They're surprisingly dark and gritty too. 

[GreekGeek]

On 3/11/2023 at 6:42 PM, Blergh said:

 

 

Both Lucy and Viv confirmed that Miss Vance had had a contract stating so from the start of ILL yet after Miss Vance's passing from cancer, Lucy would always burst into tears at any mention of her onetime colleague.

 

I thought that the whole "It was in Vivian Vance's contract to be overweight" story was an urban legend. Story on Snopes. 

As for Jeanie, we may cringe today over the "master" business, but Jeanie generally did what she wanted regardless of Tony's "orders."

Regarding Quantum Leap: It's been awhile since I watched, but was it ever implied that Sam had sex while in someone else's body? I've only seen one episode of the reboot, so I don't know if the issue was ever raised there.

On 4/15/2023 at 1:11 PM, Elizabeth Anne said:

I didn't know what sexism was when I watched as a kid but I must have sensed it because I hated the way she called him Master. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by GreekGeek

[juno]

The Loop is one show that even though it is funny on rewatch, has really inappropriate dialogue.

[magicdog]

Quote

Regarding Quantum Leap: It's been awhile since I watched, but was it ever implied that Sam had sex while in someone else's body? I've only seen one episode of the reboot, so I don't know if the issue was ever raised there.

Yes - several times in fact.  He would leap into an actor who was working with his former piano teacher.  He'd always had a crush on her but was obviously too young to pursue it.  Leaping into an adult, he could - and did!

There was also the Trilogy episodes in which he was the father of a troubled child, the fiance of the same child 12 years later (and fathered a child with her) then the attorney for the same woman  12 years after that.

He was also a husband (and a wife!) in several couples so it's possible there were marital relations then as well.

[Egg McMuffin]

It’s fun to read this thread. “The Facts of Life” is an interesting case. The first season is awful and amateurish. The seasons where they were still in boarding school but focused on the four girls hold up in their own way. Yeah, it has VSE syndrome. But it’s a fairly progressive show in terms of social issues. The quartet of girls has very good chemistry and they are solid actresses. And Charlotte Rae was excellent. She had one of those rubber faces and could wring laughs out of lines that weren’t really funny. And she was very effective in the dramatic scenes, too, once they upped Mrs. Garrett’s IQ a few points after season 1. I guess it’s similar to “The Brady Bunch” in which the chemistry and appeal of the actors powers the show through uneven writing.

“Too Close for Comfort” doesn’t hold up well, but the later seasons are worse. Lydia Cornell, who played the blonde daughter, spoke of how Ted Knight did not want the daughters to get the spotlight. She said that the writers around season 2 started giving the daughters more scenes on their own. When they show moved to first-run syndication, Knight put a stop to that and made sure the daughters were mostly supporting his character. The brunette daughter got fed up and left. The blonde was dropped when the show was reformatted and they added Pat Carroll (that must have been great for the show’s demographic).

”Alice” is best from the first season or two (it runs on Antenna TV). Then they brought in Lucille Ball’s old writers, and it seemed every episode revolved around Alice doing some sort of number, or a special guest star showing up playing themselves (“Telly Savalas! What are you doing in Phoenix?”). The ones after Polly Holliday (Flo) left are unwatchable.

[Mabinogia]

11 hours ago, Egg McMuffin said:

“Too Close for Comfort” doesn’t hold up well, but the later seasons are worse. Lydia Cornell, who played the blonde daughter, spoke of how Ted Knight did not want the daughters to get the spotlight.

I'm surprise he wasn't more upset about Munroe (Jim J Bullock) taking over the show. Honestly, I barely remember TCFC other than Munroe, whose character absolutely does not hold up well. 

I agree about Alice. I really liked it at first, but it crashed and burned quickly for me. I turned to It's A Living for my waitress based sitcom. That show was stupid, but in a kind of fun, not taking itself seriously, kind of way. 

[badhaggis]

I loved "It's a Living"! Ann Jillian was so good in that.

[Mabinogia]

9 minutes ago, badhaggis said:

Ann Jillian was so good in that

She was my favorite. Her and the older woman who was like the supervisor. (looks it up) Marion Mercer playing Nancy Beebe! Loved her. 

[badhaggis]

Just now, Mabinogia said:

She was my favorite. Her and the older woman who was like the supervisor. (looks it up) Marion Mercer playing Nancy Beebe! Loved her. 

I totally agree!

[Egg McMuffin]

1 hour ago, Mabinogia said:

I'm surprise he wasn't more upset about Munroe (Jim J Bullock) taking over the show. Honestly, I barely remember TCFC other than Munroe, whose character absolutely does not hold up well. 

I agree about Alice. I really liked it at first, but it crashed and burned quickly for me. I turned to It's A Living for my waitress based sitcom. That show was stupid, but in a kind of fun, not taking itself seriously, kind of way. 

My guess is that Ted Knight was OK with Monroe because Monroe’s purpose was to annoy Knight’s character. So that meant that anytime Monroe was in a scene, Knight almost always was too.

It’s a Living was a good show. It was better when Ann Jillian was there, but it was pretty solid throughout, thanks to its Witt-Thomas pedigree (produced by two thirds of the production team of The Golden Girls). Agreed that Marian Mercer as Nancy was definitely the MVP. She could take any line and make it funny.

[Mabinogia]

43 minutes ago, Egg McMuffin said:

thanks to its Witt-Thomas pedigree (produced by two thirds of the production team of The Golden Girls)

I didn't realize it was the same producers. That explains a lot. I think Golden Girls is a show that has stood the test of time. It is every bit as funny to me now as it was when it first aired and other than some fashion it doesn't really seem dated to me. 

And holy mother forking shirt balls, I just found out that I am currently the age Rue McClanahan was when the show started. I'm a forking Golden Girl!!!!!!! So the only other thing that doesn't quite hold up is what 51 looked like in the 80s vs now. 

[Ohiopirate02]

11 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

And holy mother forking shirt balls, I just found out that I am currently the age Rue McClanahan was when the show started. I'm a forking Golden Girl!!!!!!! So the only other thing that doesn't quite hold up is what 51 looked like in the 80s vs now. 

It's the hair (and lack of SPF) that aged the actresses on The Golden Girls.  There is a TikTok trend of photoshopping Rue, Bea, Estelle, and Betty to have more modern hair and it makes them look younger.  

[Kel Varnsen]

On 4/16/2023 at 11:17 AM, Shannon L. said:

Years ago, I bought the entire WKRP in Cincinnati series and while there are a couple of moments that make me wince a little, it still, for the most part, holds up and it shouldn't.  I've shown my kids, who are very serious about things like the #MeToo movement, BLM, inclusiveness of the LGBTQ community, etc.,  as well as many of their friends who are of the same mind sets, and they all loved it.  The writing and acting are really good, but I can't quite put my finger on why it's not universally panned for it's characters and story lines. Maybe it simply is because of the way the characters are written and what the actors brought to those parts.

I have the series and have been watching it recently. They do a really good job for a show from the 70's. I recently watched the episode where Venus dates Andy's sister and Andy gets upset. Venus calls him out and says it's because he is Black. And there is actually a scene where Andy says that he thought about it and even though he and Venus are friends some of his anger was because his sister went out with a Black guy, and he hates that he felt that. Seems like a fairly complicated look at racism for 1980.

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

It's the hair (and lack of SPF) that aged the actresses on The Golden Girls.  There is a TikTok trend of photoshopping Rue, Bea, Estelle, and Betty to have more modern hair and it makes them look younger.  

I figure that is a huge part of it. Years ago someone posted my kindergarten and grade 1 classes on FB. This would have been the early 1980's And both my teachers look like old grannies. But I imagine they were just middle aged women.

[Blergh]

One thing to keep in mind re women performers/characters past 40 seeming to look older than we'd expect through modern eyes: until recent decades, estrogen supplements were not available. Hence once menopause happened, there was little if anything a woman could do to prevent the body from having a post-menopausal appearance in a short time. It's not for nothing that the saying of  '40's the new 30' has come to be!

In the Golden Girls era, having women of Blanche's age being depicted having an active dating life was more of an exception to how women were perceived to conduct themselves after menopause rather than the expectation. Of course, the sad irony is that those who may have decided via past experiences that they're no longer interested in dating a storm  are often now perceived on shows as somewhat oddballs (even those who've made use of hormone supplements).

[DrSpaceman73]

I don't think estrogen supplements have much to do with it. My wife is almost 50 not on estrogen and looks nothing like the golden girls or old. I'm not aware of estrogen supplements preventing aging in women. They do other things but I don't think they're anti aging. 

[jennifer6973]

I was watching an episode of MASH the other day where almost everyone got a stressing for them letter from home.

 

Radar's was that his mom was dating after a long time.  He was upset because a 50 year old was too old to be dating anybody.   I would have thrown something at the TV, but didn't want to break it.

 

That really offended me for the first time since I just tuned 50.  Plus it shows what people used to think of as old.

[Anduin]

Marisa Tomei is nearly 60. Once she'd only get roles as someone's grandmother or similar, but these days she still looks good. Modern beauty techniques can do wonders. there's an ageing on TV topic, isn't there?

[magicdog]

59 minutes ago, jennifer6973 said:

Radar's was that his mom was dating after a long time.  He was upset because a 50 year old was too old to be dating anybody.   I would have thrown something at the TV, but didn't want to break it.

In Radar's case I think it was more of a situation of his mom dating men - period.  His father was dead for several years and she and his uncle (presumably her brother) ran their Iowa farm.  Then out of the blue, while he's in Korea, she's seeing a man for the first time in a long time.  That is stressful regardless of age.  

Plus most women at 50 circa the early 1950s were often grandparents and often not dating if single.

1 hour ago, Anduin said:

Marisa Tomei is nearly 60. Once she'd only get roles as someone's grandmother or similar, but these days she still looks good.

I thought it was inspired when she was cast as Aunt May in the recent Spiderman films!  Nice to think May didn't have to look old and frail!