1980's Remake Named 33rd Worst Show

[Artfiore1]

Hi again all,
WARNING! This is my most long-winded reply of all:

First of all, let me say how tremendously impressed I am with the teenaged girls in this discussion. Having the opinions that you do is quite rare in this day and age, and expressing them takes a lot of courage . . . especially when they confront with what is clearly popular opinion for your age group and actually the views of your very own friends. You're really something! There is hope for the future, after all! Way to go, ladies!

I'll be one of the first to say that having grown up in the 1960s was wonderful -- but, mostly from the perspective of looking back on it today. In other words, we didn't know *then* how great it was. It didn't seem particularly ideal at the time. (That could be because we didn't have all the negatives of the future to compare it to.) Sure, women have come a long way since then. But, even then, the person I admired most and tried to be the most like was my older sister. My mom loved her home and her kitchen, but she also had a job and had friends. And sure, we have progessed a lot technologically. Back then, we didn't have cell phones, microwave ovens, VCRs, computers or e-mail. Ordinary people did not have pagers or answering machines. But, you know what -- we didn't miss them. We got along just fine without any of those things. So it took longer for things to cook. When you called someone and they weren't home you just got no answer and had to try again later. If you had to go out somewhere on a night when your favorite show was going to be on, you had two choices -- you could stay home and watch it . . . or you could go out and miss it, hoping to catch it on a rerun, etc., etc. It was as simple as that.

And finally, getting back to that issue of the quality of today's TV shows versus that of the old shows: Earlier this weekend, I read quite an interesting and insightful quote by Yvonne Craig, the former actress who played Batgirl during the final season of the "Batman" TV series. It's a theory so simple and obvious that it left me wondering why I hadn't thought of it before, myself. She said that the writers of the TV shows of the 1950s and 1960s had grown up experiencing life and listening to radio programs. They were trained to have imaginations, or they did so out of necessity. But, the writers of today's shows grew up sitting front of a television. Without even realizing it, they got used to directors, set designers and makeup artists doing their imagining for them. I think this, of course, is reflected in the big change that took place in television comedy in the early-to-mid 1990s. It essentially became less about contrived predicaments and more about little things we all recognize -- quirky friends and family members, meaningless everyday situations and mildly humorous conversations that take place all the time in our homes, schools and workplaces . . . with a certain amount of sex and vulgarity thrown in to liven things up.

Later,
Art