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JediTalentAgent posted:So you get something like the message at the end of the episode is literally this: As much as I agree Captain Planet is a product of it's time, Ted Turner was already known for being a little crazy about these issues, like the infamous time he banned saying the word "foreign" from his network to be replaced with "international". Praising China for their family size policies wasn't popular even in the 90s. King of Foolians posted:Yikes. This is only a small point-of-view away from turning into a Ra's al ghul-style "To save the planet we must exterminate most of the population". They made that. It starred Don Cheedle.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:13
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Atmus posted:Adama vomiting all over himself in an alley behind a bar encapsulated it for me. Edward James Olmos going all Method Acting on that ship model was amazing 
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Sep 7, 2017 20:16
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DrBouvenstein posted:The first season even had Jewel Staite, cementing her as the "quirky space girl" for decades. And the season 1 finale makes you think Catalina (the talks to Susie girl) DIED, and it's this intense moment of the cool human character lowering his defenses (which he never did, too cool for that) and just crying, banging on the sealed door to the other ship, but the teacher captain guy is all somber and stoic, like "this is space, the cold dark empty void. We lose.... the ones we love." He gives this military eulogy to the rest of the crew. Could have been an intense cliffhanger, but then they end the episode with Susie's reveal and you know Catalina is ok  Guess it would have been too much for kid's tv.King of Foolians posted:I LOVED Space Cases when it came on, haven't thought about it in forever though. Crazy show. How are you still watching it? I'd love to check it out again. Other than the cheap production value and the stupid annoying android I was actually surprised by how the story held up. It's totally a kids show, but past that here I am, a grown man in his 30s, and this is enough to keep my attention. Same with "Are You Afraid of the Dark?". Also super cheap production value sometimes, and maybe you could say it hasn't aged well in the sense that most people would never show their very young children half the poo poo in that show in 2017 because it would scare the poo poo out of them (like I did to me back in the 90s.) Except one episode which didn't hold up at all and is more a comedy now. The Tale of the Renegade Virus (My understanding of archive.org and copyright is that they have an exemption to host things like this. If it's a problem let me know I'll edit it out no problem.) Viruses going ROGUE to hack your brain through a serial port in virtual reality Where everything is the same except bikes going backwards with no rider! And possibly insensitive portrayal of people with dwarfism. Space Cases doesn't have any official DVD release or anything as far as I know. It's out there, if you catch my drift, but season 2 seems to only exist as very poor quality youtube videos these days A lot of other shows I liked as a kid are just boring or stupid today Sure that would hold up though, Kids TV has always been pretty stupid. All That is mostly a pretty cringy comedy now.Aesop Poprock posted:I liked space cases too but I remember it pissing me off that all the other kids had super powers of some kind and the earthlings power is "he's good at technical stuff". It's the future why couldn't he have been like a cyborg or something Well he's the black Power Ranger. Does that count as a super power?
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Sep 7, 2017 20:34
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someone awful. posted:imo it's mostly the fact that smithers being gay exists primarily as a punchline which is the problematic thing. like, it pretty much only gets brought up to go "haha, the gay man did a gay thing/made a double entendre" I never took it that way but you may have a point. Again though, that's along the same lines of how the boundaries of humor and "what's funny" evolves over time. See my references to stand up acts a few posts up. HIndsight reveals a lot about where a culture was within a given timeframe. 10 years ago, it was acceptable to call other goons "faggots" and even now people repeatedly refer to this place as a "Dead GAY Comedy Forum" Everybody in the whole loving show is a punchline and the butt of jokes though. I can't think of one character who isn't, actually. Anecdotal, but I had a bi room mate in the mid 90's, am bi myself and had more than one gay friend who all thought Smithers was a riot. Often, his being gay was beside the point and totally inconsequential, taking a backseat to his overall characterization as a brown noser employee and a textbook suck up. Maybe it hasn't aged well though, but I can't recall anything patently offensive about his portrayal. He was rather charming as I remember. However, I stopped watching the Simpsons like 10 years ago so I may be talking out of my rear end. poo poo. If a person were so inclined, they could find 5 or 6 double entendres just in my post, and I didn't even mean to do that but noticed it on a proofread.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:34
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yea, smithers isn't like awful or anything. and i think a lot of my distaste with the way he was portrayed is just a result of him falling victim to the same character exaggeration as Homer and Ned Flanders and Lisa and everyone else; like that dude said upthread the Malibu Stacy computer joke for example is hilarious, for example. writing comedy that ages well seems like an intensely difficult thing to do, and i don't envy anyone whose job is to try
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Sep 7, 2017 20:45
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purple death ray posted:The Screensaver thing isn't funny because Smithers wants to have sex with a man, it's funny because a) text to speech programs are inherently funny and b) because of his fixation on this one particular man who is horrible, old, desiccated and treats Smithers like a dog. That's how I took it too and I agree. The joke is also "everyone has been caught in an embarrassing moment when their privacy is accidentally exposed", even if it's just some off center/fetish porn you left in the VCR, a dildo you left out or whatever. For a long time, even buying condoms or lube, renting porn, having an effeminate male or a butchy female friend, owning a vibrator, working a job outside of gender norms or whatever was considered potentially embarrassing and Smithers is largely portrayed as not only closeted but also equally as flawed and as funny as every other character, with his own hang ups, etc. In the late 80's and through the 90's, everybody had that person (or people) that they knew or worked with that everyone suspected of being gay and, back then, concealing it and remaining closeted was the norm. I think the show reflected that. I don't even think Smithers was all that sexually attracted to Burns so much as his money, his power and the whole "Daddy/Sub" sort of thing that still goes on and always has. Just HAVING Smithers at all was progressive as hell back then; less than ten years after Murphy, Kinison and Dice rose to superstardom making fun of fags. I think he's aged well, at least in as much as his portrayal is accurate to the societal norms of the time and, in many ways, ahead of it.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:50
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On a purely personal level, as someone who was watching them back when I only had a fuzzy notion of what being gay even was, none of the early "Smithers is gay" gags affected me as much as Homer screaming in terror at learning he hung out with a gay guy for an hour. And that episode was them trying really hard to be pro-gay.
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Sep 7, 2017 20:54
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BiggerBoat posted:HIndsight reveals a lot about where a culture was within a given timeframe. 10 years ago, it was acceptable to call other goons "faggots" and even now people repeatedly refer to this place as a "Dead GAY Comedy Forum" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMroWnWIqs0 BrainDance posted:All That is mostly a pretty cringy comedy now. edit: wondering if Heathers had aged well led me to the Wikipedia page which led me to this: quote:Daniel Waters wanted his screenplay to go to director Stanley Kubrick,[8] not only out of profound admiration for Kubrick but also from a perception that "Kubrick was the only person that could get away with a three-hour film". DACK FAYDEN has a new favorite as of 21:03 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 20:59
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someone awful. posted:writing comedy that ages well seems like an intensely difficult thing to do, and i don't envy anyone whose job is to try This is a really, really good point and a subject that fascinates me. It's hard to be topical and current, which is usually where humor resides and resonates, without having it rendered stale and tired 10 years later. I love Pryor, Kinison, Murphy...even some of Dice...and SO MUCH of their poo poo wouldn't play today; like AT ALL. Carlin, Red Foxx and Bruce did a lot of gay jokes too (and Lenny was bi I think) but context is everything; which I suppose is the point of the thread. All in the Family, SOAP, Maude and Cheers all tacked homosexuality back in their day, with mixed results, but even DOING IT ALL was brave and way outside the norm in the time they were aired. I remember "Dog Day Afternoon" in 1975 and recently watched a documentary about it where one concern was finding an actor willing to play a gay man since so many actors were scared of doing it, so they got Pacino since he would be "accepted". I remember the jokes about Ned Beatty from "Deliverance", jokes about "The Crying Game", friends of mine who refused to buy Prince's "Lovesexy" album solely becasue of the cover and even catching poo poo from people for going to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in the early 80's. Rednecks would drive by the theater and taunt us. gently caress. I'm writing too much about this subject but I guess it's becasue it hits so close to home for me and struggled for years with my sexuality. SMithers is OK by me.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:04
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I always wonder what happened to Lori Beth Denberg. Sure, most of her characters were based around being "a fat woman who is loud and annoying", but she was genuinely good at that from a child perspective. Probably didn't age well. The Internet says she was on this TV show I never heard that's on a network I never heard of this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm_H8f3RQto And there's this short "reunion" thing with the one guy from Pete and Pete https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0PL2y5cyeY "The early bird gets the worm, fine! I don't want the worm!" got a little laugh out of me, it's a simple timeless joke. But the "Don't wash your socks like this (puts them in a blender)" ehhh, I'm pretty sure I laughed at dumb "random" jokes like that on the show as a kid though. Otherwise it looks like most of her acting work besides some small appearances in things ends around '98
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Sep 7, 2017 21:17
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Does Eddie Murphy - Delirious count? It's not really a movie, either. In any case, you could make an argument that the whole show doesn't hold up.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:17
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Atmus posted:Adama vomiting all over himself in an alley behind a bar encapsulated it for me. That was the funniest scene and made watching the awful series worthwhile.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:25
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BiggerBoat posted:gently caress. I'm writing too much about this subject but I guess it's becasue it hits so close to home for me and struggled for years with my sexuality. SMithers is OK by me. As someone else who struggled with their sexuality and only had TV/movies/books to guide me into thinking about it positively (thanks, ultra-conservative preacher step-dad!), I find this a pretty interesting subject, perhaps worthy of its own thread. But where to put it?
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Sep 7, 2017 21:27
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On the subject of gay characters I always like when chemistry happens between non-gay characters, it's always hilarious. Watching Gotham Series 3 on Netflix and my god, the chemistry between Penguin and Nigma is astounding. They are the one couple on the show that I expect every scene with them together to end in a kiss and it's the one relationship that doesn't. Just moments like The aftermath of Butch's attempt to strangle Nigma are just so powerful, you can tell the actors are probably BFFs back stage.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:33
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JediTalentAgent posted:On the subject of Capt. Planet, I've said before that a lot of that show would be seen as pretty problematic by today's standards no matter how you cut it. Either in how they present non-US characters/settings, how they try to bring up certain things, etc. even with the best of intentions. I didn't even realize how weird some of them were until about 10 years after they aired and I was watching a few early one morning. The greatest Captain Planet stuff is always going to be the Belfast segments of "If It's Doomsday, This Must Be Belfast" but it hasn't aged badly because it was ludicrous when it originally aired.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:58
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JacquelineDempsey posted:As someone else who struggled with their sexuality and only had TV/movies/books to guide me into thinking about it positively (thanks, ultra-conservative preacher step-dad!), I find this a pretty interesting subject, perhaps worthy of its own thread. But where to put it? ASK/TELL? There's probably something on e/n but those thread tend to suck
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Sep 7, 2017 22:04
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You know reading this thread more it's interesting how many of the crude gay and trans joke I never noticed. Like I've watched all the shows mentioned, but the jokes just didn't register with me as offensive. Which is probably because I'm straight and never dealt with jokes or issues on the matter first hand Just gives you a different perspective reading people's personal opinion on it and why it effects them. Changes the way you think about the episodes I'm terrible at explaining something so hopefully you know what I mean. Not trying to be offensive if it comes off that way
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Sep 7, 2017 22:25
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It has to be understood that some people are far more sensitive to gay jokes than others. To me its the same as any sex joke, but I understand that others may see it as more offensive. Its also important for the creators to be mature and not push such jokes too much.
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Sep 7, 2017 22:39
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It hits kind of hard when I'm watching something I like or something only for it to do/say something boneheaded and I've gotta spend a minute in my head grappling with it. Like, I watched Dragnet on Netflix a few years back, I was loving it, but tiny things here and there like Joe Friday sneering at the promotion of homosexuality made it so that whenever I think about this show I like a lot it has this glaring asterisk. I feel as though there are some creators who I'd wanna have a discussion over coffee with, but they'd be offended by my existence, so, you know.  On the other hand, I enjoy it all the more when people you'd think would be offensive are actually very kind and as on the right side of history as possible.
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Sep 7, 2017 22:43
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TwoDogs1Cup posted:You know reading this thread more it's interesting how many of the crude gay and trans joke I never noticed. Like I've watched all the shows mentioned, but the jokes just didn't register with me as offensive. Which is probably because I'm straight and never dealt with jokes or issues on the matter first hand Nah, you made perfect sense. I was the same way for years and long before I realized/admitted I was bi, never stopped to consider how how seemingly offhanded "jokes' and comments me and my friends made might have affected my room mate, who was obviously insecure, closeted and conflicted. We didn't MEAN any malice or ill harm, we just thought were being funny. When he came out to me after knowing him for 7 years, I didn't care at all but he probably THOUGHT I did, probably primarily due to a lot of the jokes I'd made. Live and learn I guess. TV is getting much MUCH better at handling these issues but will ALWAYS be behind the curve so I just give credit to stuff that even tries to tackle this poo poo, even if they miss the mark sometimes. When they do it's usually within the parlance of our times though and largely calculated on the mean level of what society can handle or tolerate. SIx Feet Under featured not only a gay couple, but a biracial gay couple in a very sympathetic, empathetic, well written and even handed way. And that was 16 loving years ago. We're making progress and I think most of what we see is reflected in TV as opposed to them ever leading the way. Conservatives might argue and largely due since they confuse causation with correlations so willingly and blame entertainment for normalizing sin (from rock and roll to film to comics), but realize, for instance, who on this forum is afraid or ashamed of being gay, bi, trans or dating "outside their race"? And who wouldn't dogpile on someone anyone who said any of those things were bad? We're making these things simply unacceptable, gradually educating folks about what's no longer cool or funny and adapting as we learn more about empathy. We're getting there.
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Sep 7, 2017 22:56
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Bamabalacha posted:Edward James Olmos going all Method Acting on that ship model was amazing I think this is the best summation of BSG. Yeah, the plot was wonky and vanished up its arse in theological bullshit (and I liked most of that bullshit!) but oh man did the actors commit. Roslin, Starbuck, Tigh, some of the best character acting in sci-fi (that's a low bar) and I would watch those incompetent idiots bumble their way through disasters any day.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:00
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I think it's interesting how Oz & The Wire tackled "masculine" homosexuality in the dark ages of the late 90s, early 2000s.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:01
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well why not posted:I think it's interesting how Oz & The Wire tackled "masculine" homosexuality in the dark ages of the late 90s, early 2000s. How has "OZ" aged? I never watched it. Loved The Wire and Omar loving owned.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:05
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Oz aged pretty ok I think. Almost all the characters are horrible people intentionally, rather than incidentally from a new context. Lots of character actors and Law & Order transplants.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:15
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I'm going to guess the actor who played Omar is gay or at the very least very familiar with gays since he also plays a non-stereotypically gay man in the show Hap & Leonard. And he was a backup dancer for Madonna.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:19
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TwoDogs1Cup posted:Does Eddie Murphy - Delirious count? It's not really a movie, either. Vulture.com had an article a few years back about Delirious and Raw. (Ironically, this article didn't age well itself. It mentions Murphy being named host of the upcoming 2012 Oscars. That didn't happen.)
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Sep 7, 2017 23:22
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Oh man, Space Cases. I loved that when I was younger. It's cool to hear it holds up. I may have to try re-watching some of it sometime.Wheat Loaf posted:The greatest Captain Planet stuff is always going to be the Belfast segments of "If It's Doomsday, This Must Be Belfast" but it hasn't aged badly because it was ludicrous when it originally aired. The greatest Captain Planet thing is when Hitler proved to be SO EVIL that Captain Planet was weakened just from being in his presence! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i__ztikjTok
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Sep 7, 2017 23:23
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Why does Hitler have a Fu Manchu? Is this a case where they wanted to talk to kids about how evil he was, but they weren't allowed to have him in the show proper, so they had to have Captain Planet fighting Aholf Ditler? EDIT: They did do a pretty good job of making him look evil without making him look like a literal monster.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:29
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Ariong posted:Why does Hitler have a Fu Manchu? Is this a case where they wanted to talk to kids about how evil he was, but they weren't allowed to have him in the show proper, so they had to have Captain Planet fighting Aholf Ditler? I could be wrong, but I don't think they ever refer to him by name. I think the closest they come is calling him The Fuhrer.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:34
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Karate has not aged well. Being a black belt in karate was the most badass thing you could be in the 80s, and if you were a kid back then you probably lied being one at least once. Now every time I see or read Karate mentioned as a shortcut for "he was hardcore," I laugh a little and think about that joke on Archer. Except for Karate Kid. That movie holds up, and it's 100% because it's just a good movie. I wonder if this trend will to swing back around in the future? Like, will our current distaste of karate be seen as missing the point of a positive, friendly sport that provides good benefits?
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Sep 8, 2017 01:20
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In the first Donnie Yen Ip Man the main bad guy is a Japanese soldier who fights using Karate and its shown as super tough.
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Sep 8, 2017 01:31
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SEX BURRITO posted:I've been watching the Golden Girls and it feels like every fifth episode or so is a clip show. I guess before VHS recordings it was the only way to relive the best bits of the show. Besesoth posted:"Community"'s clips were all new footage of adventures the characters had but which were never actually episodes). Several of the Golden Girls' clip shows are this.
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Sep 8, 2017 01:48
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purple death ray posted:Like everything else on that show it started out much better and nuanced then it dropped into poo poo like him going fetal with terror when confronted with sexy ladies and the whole joke became "gay people, lol" I don't think that was so bad. You don't have to be gay to be scared by having butts waved in your face!
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Sep 8, 2017 01:49
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Dexie posted:The greatest Captain Planet thing is when Hitler proved to be SO EVIL that Captain Planet was weakened just from being in his presence! Hitler's depiction in older media is a funny thing in and of itself. Back during his life, the cartoonish buffoon Hitler getting clowned on by Donald Duck and the Three Stooges is shocking, but then so is the stuff from when he was treated as an evil mastermind handcrafted by Satan himself. Now we all know he was in fact a cartoonish buffoon irl while still being directly responsible for the most famous acts of human suffering in history.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:13
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Freaks and Geeks was a great show but the fact that it did an anti-weed episode always felt weirdly square and out of touch with the rest of it. Especially considering how much of its cast and crew went on to be potheads and/or make tons of weed comedies.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:23
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Tiggum posted:I heard Babylon 5 was really good and watched about five episodes before giving up. I guess I'll give it another look at some point if the second season is as big an improvement as that. It is in fact really good, but S1 is super uneven and shaky, but also sets up major series-long arcs. You don't "get" the payoff of Londo unless you watched S1 londo.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:29
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someone awful. posted:yea, smithers isn't like awful or anything. and i think a lot of my distaste with the way he was portrayed is just a result of him falling victim to the same character exaggeration as Homer and Ned Flanders and Lisa and everyone else; like that dude said upthread the Malibu Stacy computer joke for example is hilarious, for example. As a kid, my favorite Simpsons characters were Mr. Burns, Smithers, and Bumblebee Man. Taught me a lot about life.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:34
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TenCentFang posted:Hitler's depiction in older media is a funny thing in and of itself. Back during his life, the cartoonish buffoon Hitler getting clowned on by Donald Duck and the Three Stooges is shocking, but then so is the stuff from when he was treated as an evil mastermind handcrafted by Satan himself. Now we all know he was in fact a cartoonish buffoon irl while still being directly responsible for the most famous acts of human suffering in history. The original The Tomorrow People in the 70s had a episode where Hitler came out of suspended animation, and it turned out Hitler was actually an alien. Fun fact, Hitler was played by Michael Sheard, who played Hitler in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Also shows that haven't age well, what about Hogan's Heroes? A comedy set in a Nazi POW camp? Or the long running BBC variety show, which ran from 58 to 78, called The Black and White Minstrel Show? And yeah, it's exactly what you think it is.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:46
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I believe Groening eventually talked about the black Smithers thing and it was just a coloring error. They had quite a few problems with the studio they originally went with including having to basically redo the entire episode about the babysitter who robs people because everything was completely off model and out of style for the show.
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Sep 8, 2017 02:49
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muscles like this! posted:I believe Groening eventually talked about the black Smithers thing and it was just a coloring error. They had quite a few problems with the studio they originally went with including having to basically redo the entire episode about the babysitter who robs people because everything was completely off model and out of style for the show. Off model is great though. We lost so much when Simpsons characters stopped looking so hilariously derpy.  
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Sep 8, 2017 02:51
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