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I don't know about anyone else but I spent many a summer day watching the Richard Bey Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvMGrZeCOzE&t=270s
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Aug 15, 2018 03:56
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Len posted:I had to watch soaps at my grandparents house. I got to watch lucha libre when I was sick at my grandparents house   .
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Aug 15, 2018 04:01
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https://twitter.com/helen/status/1029220185624866817
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Aug 16, 2018 03:06
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"For dummies" books were pretty 90s as gently caress as I recall.
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Aug 17, 2018 11:20
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But not extreme enough, so then the "For Morons" line came along, some of which can still be found on Amazon. I can't find any of the "Absolute Idiots" series, though, even though I clearly remember their ugly orange borders.
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Aug 17, 2018 17:24
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I know my dad bought the For Dummies about the internet when we first got it, BUt i don't think he ever cracked it open.
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Aug 17, 2018 17:39
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I had a copy of cats for dummies when I got a cat
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Aug 17, 2018 17:45
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Complete Idiots and For Dummies are still super popular. I worked in a book store for 5 years and people always came in looking for them. They’ve pretty much pivoted to writing books for specific phones and tablets. Samsung Galaxy Note For Dummies, etc. People buy them for that and finances (taxes, wills, etc).
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Aug 17, 2018 17:58
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Complete Idiot's Guide to Literary Theory saved my rear end in college. The book explained Derrida much clearer in 4 pages than anything else I've ever seen.
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Aug 17, 2018 18:06
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twistedmentat posted:It was weird, because It was very clearly not made for some teen who was more interested in jokey jokes, but there was something fascinating with his interviews. Its kind of like how much I loved Homicide Life On The Street. Probably the most cerebral cop show of the time, but I could recognize a good show. Homicide was like, prestige TV before that was actually a thing. A cop show where stuff wasn't necessarily all wrapped up in 44 minutes? Distinct cinematography and editing? Montages set to popular music? drat. But of course people now only talk about The Wire, which didn't have Frank Pembleton so therefore, is inferior. I wonder if it's possible, let alone financially viable, to do an HD remaster of that series. Even if it would be marketed as STARRING CAPTAIN HOLT AND GUS FRING
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Aug 18, 2018 07:45
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ElwoodCuse posted:Homicide was like, prestige TV before that was actually a thing. A cop show where stuff wasn't necessarily all wrapped up in 44 minutes? Distinct cinematography and editing? Montages set to popular music? drat. Prestige TV was a thing by the time PBS began airing Masterpiece Theatre in 1971 and even before PBS with the importing of The Forsyte Saga. Preceding Homicide in American prestige cop TV was Hill Street Blues, which took cues from British shows that were brought over years earlier on PBS. American television had a hard time shedding its cheap box for idiots label for a long time. The Emmys, for example, ate up the British shows brought over the American shows that seemed to be respected the most during the 1970s were mini-series. CBS tried - and spent a ton of money - to create its own prestige show in 1975, Beacon Hill, but failed miserably.
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Aug 18, 2018 08:39
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Hill Street Blues was incredibly poorly rated in its first season and was on the verge of cancellation, but someone at NBC really, really liked it and let it keep going, then it swept the Emmys that year. There was one year when every single nominee for Best Supporting Actor at the Emmys was from Hill Street Blues.
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Aug 18, 2018 10:23
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The "For Dummies" books generally seemed to be written well enough, but whenever I bought one to learn about something tech-related, it was always out of date to the point of being less useful than just looking stuff up online.
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Aug 18, 2018 13:33
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Len posted:I had to watch soaps at my grandparents house. While it wasn't when I was sick, as my grandmother lived a few hours away, when we went to see her on the weekends, we were forced to watch the Lawrence Welk reruns on PBS Friday and Saturday night. As payback, we'd watch The Three Stooges when it came on early in the morning on TBS as she considered the Stooges the lowest rung of human existence.
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Aug 18, 2018 16:46
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ElwoodCuse posted:Homicide was like, prestige TV before that was actually a thing. A cop show where stuff wasn't necessarily all wrapped up in 44 minutes? Distinct cinematography and editing? Montages set to popular music? drat. What show can we nail down as the real start of "prestige television"? Im betting its probably the Sopranos that really began the trend properly.
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Aug 18, 2018 17:05
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Nutsngum posted:What show can we nail down as the real start of "prestige television"? Im betting its probably the Sopranos that really began the trend properly. Babylon 5.
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Aug 18, 2018 17:15
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uli2000 posted:As payback, we'd watch The Three Stooges when it came on early in the morning on TBS as she considered the Stooges the lowest rung of human existence. I'm not sure I like your grandmother...
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Aug 18, 2018 17:35
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Twitch posted:The "For Dummies" books generally seemed to be written well enough, but whenever I bought one to learn about something tech-related, it was always out of date to the point of being less useful than just looking stuff up online. Then I guess you weren’t a dummy after all 
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Aug 18, 2018 17:39
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Nutsngum posted:What show can we nail down as the real start of "prestige television"? Im betting its probably the Sopranos that really began the trend properly. Probably Hill Street Blues.
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Aug 18, 2018 17:40
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Babylon 5. Wheat Loaf posted:Probably Hill Street Blues. I havent seen Hill Street Blues and yeah Babylon 5 is certainly a precursor buts general production and acting quality wasnt really up to par enough to really start a trend. You could probably throw Twin Peaks in there as well. Im talking more what kickstarted the concept of it being a legitimate form of entertainment worth funding.
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Aug 18, 2018 18:26
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The Wire, maybe?
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Aug 18, 2018 18:42
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The Sopranos on PayCable definitely, maybe Oz too. The Wire had a shitton of good press but I don't remember people being as invested in it as they were with Sopranos. The Shield on Fx had a slow burn but that probably cleared the path for, like, Breaking Bad on basic cable. There's a difference between High Quality TV and prestige, but it's a really nebulous thing. I think a lot of confusion comes from folks tying together a move away from episodic TV into it. X-files really upped the game, for example, but it was just shy of top shelf. Twin Peaks was pretty influential, but I feel like it was still niche.
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Aug 18, 2018 19:03
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It will be interesting to see which "prestige TV" shows are recognised as groundbreaking or very high-quality in 20 years' time but don't have the same sheen because they've become so indelibly linked to the time when they existed. I'd say an example would be something like Miami Vice which (at least early on) had a huge amount of money spent on it and was produced by a film director (Michael Mann) and consequently was able to have outstandingly good production values much of the time, especially compared to a lot of contemporary TV dramas; there's that "In the Air Tonight" scene in the very first episode with all those shots of Crockett's Daytona which looks more cinematic than anything I can think of that was on a network drama in 1985. But even if it was thought of as a "prestige" drama in its day (my dad claims it was but he was a big fan anyway), looking back at it in 2018 the entire show is so 80s that it's hard to take it seriously in those terms.
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Aug 18, 2018 19:23
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I know future generations will think Breaking Bad is boring
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Aug 18, 2018 19:44
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Mu Zeta posted:I know future generations will think Breaking Bad is boring Future?
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Aug 18, 2018 20:31
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Mu Zeta posted:I know future generations will think Breaking Bad is boring "Wait he's going broke? Why didn't he walk into St. Bernie's Socialized Medicine Emporium/Detox Compound for free anti-cancer meditreatments?"
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Aug 18, 2018 20:39
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wesleywillis posted:I'm not sure I like your grandmother... We didn't much either.
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Aug 18, 2018 20:41
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And all the villains being latinos isn't going to age well
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Aug 18, 2018 20:42
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Mu Zeta posted:And all the villains being latinos isn't going to age well In respect to Miami Vice, i think we've found the source of president piss's Bad Hombre obsession. For Breaking Bad, they're not villains, they're obstacles to Walt's supreme shittyness.
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Aug 18, 2018 20:55
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Nutsngum posted:What show can we nail down as the real start of "prestige television"? Im betting its probably the Sopranos that really began the trend properly. Possibly The Forsyte Saga, as I mentioned above, which aired on BBC2 in 1967 and was later imported to America. Prestige TV in the 1970s - British and American - was usually miniseries: Roots, Rich Man Poor Man, I Claudius in the former decade and Thorn Bids, North and South, War and Remembrance, Brideshead Revisited in the latter. For actual full-tilt television series, Norman Lear's socially conscious series could probably fit in that category, too. M*A*S*H, whose ending I think still has the highest TV share in history, became that. Anything attached to England's John Hawkesworth was snapped up immediately in the UK and America following Upstairs, Downstairs (very much prestige in both lands). Beacon Hill on CBS tried to be prestige. Hill Street Blues. The Twin Peaks era had Picket Fences and Northern Exposure, among others. ER just after.
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Aug 19, 2018 03:27
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Picket Fences is so prestigious that it had a crossover episode with X-Files.
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Aug 19, 2018 06:02
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I think there is/was an escalation of prestige until we finally determined that's what it was. I think it's when TV series started to looked and be as well made as movies. There is probably a good combination of high quality visuals (not just effects, but having a look and feel that comes across as cinematic), relatively large budgets, people with Hollywood movie names behind and in front of the cameras, and being watercooler TV you'd gab about with friends at work the next day. As time moved on and TV shows started to look as good as their film counterparts, I think that's when we started calling them prestige. We had enough of them out there where we were no longer considering them these strange prototypes but enough of them to be a subgenre of their own. So going back to Hill Street, Miami Vice, St. Elsewhere or 30 Something or even Twin Peaks is still probably too early and too far apart and to make the trend. Hell, even something like Tales From The Crypt (if it had more pop culture popularity) would have been a contender. I'm going to say maybe it was ER on NBC? It maybe sparks the Prestige TV Era because from there it seems like pretty rapidly and consistently there is a steady stream of such shows for the next several years after it launches and is successful.
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Aug 19, 2018 06:42
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No mention of LOST? I know Sopranos, The Wire, The Shield and other that were mentioned were huge hits, but I feel like network TV at least in recent history can be divided into before and after LOST.
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Aug 19, 2018 11:58
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 was hugely influential but probably not for the better. In any event, I don't think people rate it as "prestige" TV (fairly or not).It was a bit of an odd time in the mid-00s when Lost and 24 both won the Emmy for best drama series and Heroes was nominated. That'd be like, say, Arrow or Blindspot getting nominated today.
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Aug 19, 2018 12:03
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Wheat Loaf posted:I'd say an example would be something like Miami Vice which (at least early on) had a huge amount of money spent on it and was produced by a film director (Michael Mann) and consequently was able to have outstandingly good production values much of the time, especially compared to a lot of contemporary TV dramas; there's that "In the Air Tonight" scene in the very first episode with all those shots of Crockett's Daytona which looks more cinematic than anything I can think of that was on a network drama in 1985. But even if it was thought of as a "prestige" drama in its day (my dad claims it was but he was a big fan anyway), looking back at it in 2018 the entire show is so 80s that it's hard to take it seriously in those terms. Also you don’t put a “prestige” show in the time slot where you put shows you want to kill: Friday at 10pm. That’s where NBC put Miami vice. It’s hard to overstate how influential that show was. For the first two seasons, it was the best show on television, and if it seems cliched now that’s because it invented those cliches. It’s like rereading Neuromancer, if you just read what’s on the page (ninjas and cyborgs and hacking the mainframe) it seems like a stereotype, but it’s not, it’s the archetype that got turned into a stereotype by all the stuff that it influenced. If you look at even big Hollywood action movies, you can tell whether they were made prior to Miami Vice or after it. Plus the episode where Edward James Olmos is taking KGB assassins out with his katana is rad as gently caress. Phanatic has a new favorite as of 15:08 on Aug 19, 2018 |
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Aug 19, 2018 15:06
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LOST was already well into the "lets give TV shows huge budgets" phase once it'd been established. Back in the 90s you saw more prestige shows as like 3-5 episode 'miniseries' because they were afraid of the cost.
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Aug 19, 2018 15:14
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Maybe the prestige thing is easier to nail down with dividing into genres. Comedy, drama, romance, action, sci-fi, crime, etc. I'm sure there's even talk show and sports. For example, I seem to recall maybe in the 90s when Fox got hold of either the NFL or NHL (?) for a few years there was seen as a turning point for modern sports. They increased the number and quality of cameras on the game, they added a ton of then new, now probably normal, effects and gimmicks to watching a game, you got a lot more coverage of what was going on. Prestige (relatively speaking) Pro Wrestling, if there's such a thing? Probably starts maybe a few years after the nWo era of WCW starts. It seems like I have a vague recollection that once the late 90s stable of superstars took off, the whole scene got grander. Maybe some of this comes around as a byproduct of the death of Owen Hart and they start some massive rethinking of safety and production values or something.
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Aug 19, 2018 15:29
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JediTalentAgent posted:for a few years there was seen as a turning point for modern sports. quote:Prestige (relatively speaking) Pro Wrestling, if there's such a thing? Probably starts maybe a few years after the nWo era of WCW starts. It seems like I have a vague recollection that once the late 90s stable of superstars took off, the whole scene got grander. Wwf definitely added more sheen to things (like really custom ring entrances with lights and pyro), but WCW, i feel, was more about the in-league power struggles which WWf adopted? 80s WWf had these big personalities and rivalries, but not a lot of the D-Generation X vs. Corporation McMahon stuff that later made it so popular. They really leaned into the soapy, sports entertainment moniker, whereas the 80s was some semblance of 'ooh they wrasslin here' I think the end of the Attitude era marked WWf's turn to a legitimate entertainment franchise and the associated fear of alienating consumers. That is probably what's made it more tame than Owen Hart's passing.
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Aug 19, 2018 17:48
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I remember either a SNL or MadTV bit making fun of how over the moon the critics were about the Sopranos. Oh ooooh ooooooooooooooooooh the Sopranos! The History Channel in Canada showed North and South at one point and its hilarious because its supposed to be this serious Civil War Drama, but everyone has 80s hair. I'm sure mullets were super common in the 1860s. Retro Ontario posted a few mid/late 90s TV stuff Showcase Drambiue Review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNV9al0ZbJc Ed the Sock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT-AjSBv0fM Space Bar (Space, our sci-fi networks saturday night movie program. yes its from 2000 but is that really not the 90s?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_lehC3MJbU Oh god, McDonald's Flintstones tie in! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYrb6DpLijI Roc Donalds, thats the best you could do? twistedmentat has a new favorite as of 18:06 on Aug 19, 2018 |
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Aug 19, 2018 17:52
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JediTalentAgent posted:For example, I seem to recall maybe in the 90s when Fox got hold of either the NFL or NHL (?) for a few years there was seen as a turning point for modern sports. They increased the number and quality of cameras on the game, they added a ton of then new, now probably normal, effects and gimmicks to watching a game, you got a lot more coverage of what was going on. Basically, yes. Fox got rights to the NFC package of NFL games prior to the 1994 season and it was a big reason why a lot of stations became Fox affiliates. They added extra cameras and were the first network to have on screen graphics like the scoring bug and the game clock, years before anyone else tried it. They also brought over basically everything from CBS (Most notably Pat Summerall and John Madden) so it further legitimized their coverage. It also didn’t hurt that the NFC was the dominate conference during that era, so they’d get all the high profile Dallas-San Francisco-Green Bay games. They also got the NHL a short time later and even split some of the coverage of the Stanley Cup with ESPN for a year or two, but that didn’t last very long and wasn’t nearly as impactful.
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