Shane
Thu Feb 15 15:15:52 CST 2007
Harry,
Presumably you've gone your entire life without watching television? Or you
watched one dire program in the early days and judged the entire industry by
it? I could give you a long list of intelligent television shows, but apart
from how ludicrous that would be, when you don't even know about an American
series from the 50's that was so good the BBC still shows it today, what
does it matter? If I convince you, what are you going to do about it? Dig
Phil Silvers up and congratulate him?
Most TV is dross. Most modern TV is dross. Most American TV is dross. You
make a leap of logic and decide it must all be dross? I don't watch dross,
but I've watched many thousands of hours of TV in my lifetime. Granted it's
probably easier in Britain - even when the product you're watching is
American - because until Blair got in, our politicians didn't try to elevate
the snake oil salesman to hero status like yours do.
'The Simpsons' is intelligent. It's only the narrow-minded - or the
humourless, though I expect the two are related at least anyway - who can't
see that. But I don't place it quite on the Bilko plane. That's probably
because there've been so many episodes the desperate ones dilute the impact
of the sublime examples.
Something US TV has always done is keep on making a show until the very last
drop of revenue has been squeezed out of it and a once-great show is so bad
it makes you wince! Even 'Happy Days' was pretty good - not great - but
pretty good, before it got so bad those responsible, if they're still alive,
should get the chair. There's no room for 'always leave them wanting more'
in the US of A, is there? Because it's funded by advertisers, and US
business is at best amoral, not really caring how they get your money. Oh,
we're going that way, to be sure, with our modern shallow politicians in
thrall of America. In the early eoghties a new channel started here -
Channel 4 - and it was almost exclusively quality - it's remit was (and for
all I know still is! Only now, like everywhere else in Blair's Britain, they
double-talk their way around their obligations!) to provide minority
interest programming. Now - while it does still show the majority of the
quality American programming - at just about all other times it's a diet of
unremitting so-called 'Reality TV' pigshit (I may have to resend this
without that!).
But I used to enjoy foreign films on Channel 4 in it's infancy. Some good
Japanese efforts; plenty of ol' Werner Fassbinder (it's been so long since
I've even heard of him I not even sure I've got his name right!); and in
particular I remember a TV movie of Carmen. I forget who was in it - Placido
Domingo? The memory is so bad today. Anyway, it was brilliant. Even now -
more than 20 years later - that particular rendition of the opera goes
through my head - like when I've been at the computer so long my mind flaps
it's wings and flies away! Because it was done flamenco, like it should be
but never truly is.
Anyway. That's that. I don't have time to list and explain all the quality,
cultural television there's been over the years. You know, there're plenty
of Americans who think Benny Hill is/was what we thought was funny over
here - but Benny Hill was what the easily-amused British sheep liked; you
know, most of us can get a fit of the giggles by farting when we meet the
queen, but it isn't high comedy is it? And the only way putting it on the
screen could count as comedy would be in drawing attention to our
immaturity. And what stands out, for me, as the height of intelligent TV
comedy of the late-eighties/early-nineties was 'Cheers'. With Kirstie
Alley - though I liked the Shelley Long seasons at the time, in retrospect
they've dated whereas the Kirstie Alley period hasn't really.
There are people who don't think this stuff is funny, but for the most part
it's because there aren't enough tit and bum jokes, or because they don't
have a sense of humour anyway. Rather they metaphorically look around for
cues to laugh, and since the people who need permission to do anything only
believe 'authority', they only get cues to laugh at unfunny jokes.
Comedy is the height of intelligence. Mostly it is on TV. Although there is
plenty of serious intelligent programming also, just not as much. Over there
HBO has been the most reliable source of intelligent shows - and Showtime? I
tried to read something at their website awhile back and couldn't because I
wasn't in the USA! But it seems to have a good reputation, and what I've
seen of it's stable was quite high quality.
Harry, if your position is that if it's on television it must be lowbrow,
I'll let you get on with feeling that way. There's only one person/household
will lose out because of that, and you already seem to have done so. Many
times in the last couple of decades I've considered throwing the TV out, but
there is so much intelligence available via it, if you search, that I always
decided it would be a seriously mistaken move!
But, there is far less - in the UK anyway - than there used to be. That's
thanks to Mrs Thatcher - Pinochet's friend - and her fans, up to and
including Blair. Now all company's cut corners - which just happen to be the
Customer Care department at most of them - and even the BBC has been
bludgeoned into cheap programming which ipso facto aims at the lowest common
denominator. Even the wonderful documentaries they used to make are mostly
bilge today, because they have to make a profit, which means appealing to
viewers who really only want to see sex and violence. So they almost
entirely 'docu-dramas', which I for one find puerile and can no longer
watch. So instead of providing television for those who want documetaries,
they have to make documentaries for those who want soap operas. Gee, thanks
Maggie! (Not much intelligence in that tart's head!)
Do you know, I know people who won't watch anything in Black and White (I
expect we all do) - which means no 'Bilko', of course. Which means missing
one of the sharpest, wittiest shows ever made. It's like not reading the
classics because they're too big! Except that it's a lot easier to watch a
half hour TV show in monochrome than to read War and Peace (something even I
gave up on!).
Admittedly today there is little intelligence to be found on the gogglebox.
Apart from in repeats on satellite (with advert breaks the [BBC] originals
never had!). But then Car 54 and Bilko and The Munsters are all late
fifties/early sixties.
Shane
webster72n wrote:
> Aren't we getting on thin ice here, Shane, talking about IQ and
> intelligence in connection with TV? The only time that makes sense
> is, if it involves PBS or some specific learning program, or the
> current "Boston Legal", maybe. Convince me if I am wrong.
> Steve Martin is in a category of his own and probably thinks too much
> of himself.
>
> Harry.
>
>
> "Shane" <shanebeatson@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:O$z6Lh9THHA.4796@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> Harry,
>>
>> If you didn't see Bilko ('The Phil Silvers Show'), you missed a major
>> cultural movement. While intelligence is not as easily defined as the
>> majority seem to think, appreciation of that particular show is as
>> good as any IQ test! Like The Dick Van Dyke Show, it had the cast
>> and the writers, although it attained another level. The production
>> team of Car 54 is approximately split into those responsible for The
>> Munsters and those for Bilko/The Phil Silvers Show.
>>
>> Hey, Mow! I used to like Steve Martin until his ego overcame him and
>> he tried to put himself on Phil Silvers' pedestal. They must have
>> given him the soft soap in Hollywood for so long he began to believe
>> he was much, much more than a Wild and Crazy Guy? Kind of like the
>> West Coast Woody Allen. By which I mean 'not as talented as the East
>> Coast one'.
>>
>>
>> Shane
>>
>>
>> webster72n wrote:
>>> Old doesn't mean having spent your life in front of the tube, Mow.
>>> There were more important things to do for me, I suppose.
>>> I may have watched one or two episodes, but never enough to know
>>> details, as the ones discussed here.
>>> Thanks for sharing this "vital" knowledge with me and the rest of
>>> us.
>>>
>>> Harry.
>>>
>>> "MowGreen [MVP]" <mowgreen@nowandzen.com> wrote in message
>>> news:%23tKYouuTHHA.4404@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>>> Muldoon became Herman Munster. I thought you were old, Harry ? <w>
>>>> Fred Gwynne -
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001304/
>>>>
>>>> MG
>>>>
>>>> webster72n wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "N. Miller" <anonymous@msnews.aosake.net> wrote in message
>>>>> news:11njlig9yk2b6$.dlg@msnews.aosake.net...
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:10:53 -0500, webster72n wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Muldoon?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "MowGreen [MVP]" <mowgreen@nowandzen.com> wrote in message
>>>>>>
>>>>>> news:%23U3VUlOTHHA.2256@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> webster72n wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This just in:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Car 54 was found abandoned under the Brooklyn Bridge.
>>>>>>>> No further details available at the moment.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Muldoon
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Officer Francis Muldoon was Officer Gunther Toody's partner in
>>>>>> the ancient TV sitcom, "Car 54, Where Are You?"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks Norman, never watched the show on TV, but now I know and
>>>>> obviously Mow did already.
>>>>> Where is Muldoon now?
>>>>> He wasn't in the *abandoned* car when they found it <vbg>.
>>>>> <H>.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>
http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=car+54+where+are+you&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Norman
>>>>>> ~Shine, bright morning light,
>>>>>> ~now in the air the spring is coming.
>>>>>> ~Sweet, blowing wind,
>>>>>> ~singing down the hills and valleys.