Media that did not age well: Wow more like Kitty Prejudice

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mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

The gold jokes still hold, but a lot of 90s Simpsons relies on more pop culture references than you remember, especially if you watch the versions unedited for syndication. The Critic even moreso.

I'm watching Deep Space Nine for the first time, and in the later seasons there's a lot of dated looking 90s laser tag tech. Even by star trek standards it looks awful.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 08:56

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 22:55

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

The Community Christmas episode where Abed has a mental break and see everything as claymation, and the plot is about all the other characters trying to help him was novel enough on air but is terminally obnoxious now. Like a lot of meta humor it comes across as really self satisfied and thinking it is very clever.

The Christmas episode with the Glee club in that show holds up better until the third act, because while the general Glee mockery is dated the concept of recruitment-as-bodysnatching is still funny. "I know the stakes are incredibly low but that somehow makes them even scarier" sums them up.

I wonder how the Law and Order parody plays today to people unfamiliar with the franchise. The episode is funny on its own, but must seen really surreal if you've never seen a Dick Wolf or Speed Weed show.

Also everything about Abed is insufferable now. The character was progressive in 2009 but seems really stereotypical now and the show breaks its back to keep the character from being challenged.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 10:02

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

OldTennisCourt posted:

South Park's biggest downfall is that Matt and Trey are absolutely loving terrified of being considered old and no longer these hot edgy dudes so they've basically doubled downed on the shittiest kind of "HEH, YOU'RE OFFENDED BY ME CALLING YOU A FAG?! WOW, BETTER GET IN YOUR SAFE SPACE YOU loving QUEER HEH"
.

I still wish that episode "you're getting old" was the series finale. It would have been a complete surprise and absolutely the best creative end possible.

I know they didn't because even if they personally have enough money to coast the rest of their lives, the cottage industry around the show is hundreds of people's livelihood and that's valid, but it was still creative dishonesty.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 04:05

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

This thread makes me want to write an extreme amount of words about Community and I am actively resisting temptation.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 10:39

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

DACK FAYDEN posted:

I think they ultimately retconned that into being a Doombot and not actual Dr. Doom because they were like "yeah, there's no way the supervillain cries about that". Or something equally second-level dumb.

The 9/11 issue is basically out of continuity anyway so it wouldn't matter to turbonerds. It's just bad writing.

Dr. Doom is a maniacal Eastern European dictator who tortures and murderers dissenters. Magneto has gone into "KILL ALL HUMANS" rampages in an unironic version of Bender from Futurama multiple times. Using those two specifically is like that Shmorky comic only unironic.

So it's really about pedantic :goonsay:

bad writing than anything else.

The Kingpin and Doctor Octopus make sense though, because while they get homicidal they're usually closer to Lawful Evil.

I do have to say I don't know who else they could have used with the same iconic status as Doom, so points there I guess.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 06:29

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

eating only apples posted:

There's an episode of CSI (or maybe CSI New York?) where the main guy has to go into Second Life to track a murderer and it's amazing. I'm pretty sure it was awful when it aired.

e: god this is so much worse than I remembered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZboyfaVLM4&t=358s (5:58 if it doesn't autolink)

The Gamergate episode of Law and Order SVU was 100% dated on arrival and it's impressively terrible even if you don't give the slightest gently caress about Gamergate (like a normal person).

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 06:31

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Catalina posted:

Since you are in this thread, let us know when you get to "Profit and Lace"

Not that I'm implying it was any good when it came out. Just that seeing it today would be like seeing a Casu marzu from 1998.

Oh I saw that one on reruns years before I even watched Star Trek. I thought it was just awful then, but now it's :stare:

in how terrible it is. It was like the show was dared to match the Space Africa and Space Irish episodes of TNG and rose to the challenge.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 06:32

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

Americans want ISIS to be called ISIS because it sounds like an evil organization from an 80's cartoon.

Volcott posted:

Also, the Black President called it ISIL, and he's a nerd, so we can't call it that.

God I hate my loving country sometimes.

Inescapable Duck posted:

They even managed to be impressively terrible about the message, which is basically 'Video games are owned entirely by angry white males hostile to anything female, being a woman game designer will get you assaulted and raped' and showed game conventions as places where women are constantly subject to misogynistic harassment. It's basically telling women to give up and run away.

The two things I remember.

The teaser where the lady is raped in a bathroom by two GAMERS and afterwards another woman asks her what happened, and she said in the most blase attitude possible "they just leveled up" while putting lipstick on in the mirror.

And Ice T taking about Kotaku and Civilization in the most unconvincing manner possible.

im pooping! posted:

actually, having marathoned the entire series recently, ds9 was very progressive tv for its time considering they do have quark making out with a guy in that episode. they also had an episode where dax kisses a woman and an episode where ezri kisses kira

Profit and Lace is really awful, but you are right. There is a decent episode where Dax and a former wife reconnect in Dax's new body, and the show doesn't shy away from the sapphic love because "technically it's an alien man now in the body of a woman." :goonsay:

. Remarkably clever for the time.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 08:04

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Inescapable Duck posted:

With the priceless bit where an obvious Founder, taking the form of O'Brien (because that would be the most hilarious option) walks up to Sisko in a park, knowing Sisko knows the real O'Brien is light years away back at Deep Space Nine, and basically goes 'There's three of us on the whole drat planet not counting the friendly one and you're going this nuts, crazy eh?' Also Sisko's dad, who otherwise seems like he belongs in an entirely different show than Star Trek, figures out how Changelings could easily fool blood tests.

While all of this is 100% true, valid, and awesome I should point out that it's still Star Trek about it (crap framerate clip):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbsCevg1Vuc
Hard to take it too seriously, even when written out it's brilliant.

How did they end that plot thread again? I can't recall seeing any sort-of progression on that story afterwards, even in a subtle way, which is unlike DS9.

-------------

If we're doing "90s Star Trek episodes that the military-industrial complex really needed to see" you have to mention TNG's 2-part Chain of Command.

The first episode is borderline nonsense where the Captain of the Flagship in his fleet is pulled from duty to go on a black ops recon mission, but it's necessary to get the Captain into the enemy's torture chamber while on the ship a new hard-nose Captain is whipping the lazy crew into shape for hostile negotiations.

The meat is that the Captain doesn't have any information the enemy could want, and at first the enemy doesn't believe that and gradually grows to not care. Their dynamic quickly evolves to nothing more than a battle of wills-- how long can the Captain hold out? Can the torturer break him? Meanwhile the Flagship is in tense negotiations. Both sides have done covert ops and they each know about the other, but cannot admit it and there is a lot of overt posturing... before cutting back to this one room where one man tortures another for no real reason aside from both men's egos.

The day is saved because Captain Hardass was 100% right to be a dick and stand firm until the enemy licked his balls, and Captain Picard gets released with one defiant cry against his torturer before leaving. Then during the coda. The Captain sits down with the ship's therapist as part of regular post-trauma treatment. The first thing we hear is that not only did the Captain feel he was going to submit immediately before rescue, but that he truly believed the things the torturer wanted him to as the condition for release.

Flash forward a decade or so-- Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and a whole bunch of national hand-wringing over whether torture is justified.

And all Star Trek was doing was rehashing old military wisdom dating back to Napoleon! gently caress this dumb gay country and humanity!

Here's an awesome trailer narrated by the Colonel from Metal Gear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCkoQL-6cdc

E-- Bonus Vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09TySF0FN6Y

It's a turbonerd doing a recap of the B-Plot involving Captain Hardass and how he's 100% in the right even if the crew and audience are poised to hate him. The first 30 seconds with the guy's face is pretty crappy, but stick with it. It's a fun watch if you've seen it or not.

mind the walrus has a new favorite as of 11:11 on Aug 3, 2017

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 10:58

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

BioEnchanted posted:

I loved Rocko's outburst at Filbert at the end of that episode when finally arriving with his groceries in time for the big sale - only for the sale to end mid-scan because Filbert is a slow idiot.

*starting calmly but getting increasingly tense*"Listen you... Since today began I've been run over, attacked by wild lobsters, nearly starved to death, had an encounter with an incredibly large woman, been threatened, almost lost my dog and still made it in time for your stupid sale! So, if you don't change that price back to $1.50, I'm going to do something NOT NICE!"

I recently rewatched the first season of the show and I think that's one of Rocko's personal strengths - he's a complete milquetoast, life walks all over him and he lets it - insofar as it only affects his stuff or his money, things he really doesn't care about too much. However when his wellbeing or that of his friends is threatened you had better not be the antagtonist because while he has a very long fuse when it does run out his temper is violent and explosive. Hell, he even stands up for himself sometimes when his life isn't at risk, like in the Carnival episode where in his frustration with two of the games, he throws a ball hard enough to nuke the entire stand, although the obviously glued milkbottles are still standing afterwards, and drops a backhoe on the lever to launch a frog onto a lily pad as he isn't strong enough with the mallet.

One last point - he obviously considers Mrs Bighead a good friend even if he never purposely interacts with her as such, as he notices the difficulties she's having with her distant husband, and warns him (after his incredibly mean remark: "You've seen my WIFE, in her BATHROOOOOBE!? Isn't it awful...") that he is very lucky that Mrs Bighead latched onto someone who wouldn't take advantage of her, and that he needs to start paying attention to her or he will lose her.

I had not considered any of this. Well said.

Strudel Man posted:

Couldn't you just cover up the bottom of the screen?

Obligatory props.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 13:16

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

The Ralph Bighead creator-insert is interesting in that he works as a straight narrative and a prescient look at the future of animation. The Wacky Deli episodes were more about the nature of success--Ralph's "slapped together on a weekend" project is what gets him immense fortune even though it slowly kills him to make it, kind-of like Matt Groening and The Simpsons--but also looks remarkably like Adult Swim fare of the next decade (as seen by a bitter aging Gen-Xer ranting about "dem kids").

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 17:31

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Arcsquad12 posted:

Baywatch has not aged well at all, if only for the constant immediately dated product placement. Hope you like 90s A&W cream soda

Because you didn't give the plug, if you're curious to see just how badly (wonderfully) Baywatch has aged, check Allison Pregler's YT series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVcsEYeJV54&t=30s
Every episode is worth a watch.
Baywatch did a Gilligan's Island crossover for gently caress's sake :psyduck:

the series is goddamn surreal

OldTennisCourt posted:

I'll say that Invader Zim has not aged well. It's fanbase utterly demolished the show and it's really hard to go back to it without realizing 'Oh yeah, this started that loving "LOL RANDOM" humor trend'

Invader Zim did not start that trend. It started airing the exact same time as Adult Swim and came after a decade of Liquid Television.

If you can divorce the fanbase from the show, it holds up pretty well. It's still got some tone problems where it's hard to give a poo poo about the gears grinding in-between comedy beats, but some of the humor/animation is still solid.

OldTennisCourt posted:

For me the stories regarding Zim's creation and cancellation are way more interesting than the show. How the gently caress did it get made? Was it really meant to be part of some Adult Swim knockoff Nick was developing?

What about the idea that Nick wanted to make a show out of the dude's other hyper weird comic?

The story goes that Nick was trying to make a new teen block for Saturdays, like SNICK only not-terrible, but I've never seen any sources to back it up. I think you're talking about the Vasquez comic "Squee" or something? I don't know. The only other property I know the guy for was Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and the title alone should tell you why it would never have made it to TV.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 03:16

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

The Moon Monster posted:

Back in the day I would have said Rugrats was the best nicktoon, but it's basically unwatchable now that I'm not 6.

It did give us this:

which is kind-of sad considering this is what resonated beyond childhood in the wider culture, instead of like the Dead Mom episode.

Inescapable Duck posted:

That show's probably aged worst of all, it was already super mean-spirited when it aired.

Yeah my brother and I grew up watching Tom/Jerry, Road Runner/Wile E Coyote, Sylvester/Tweety, Elmer Fudd/Bugs Bunny, and a whole bunch of other stuff, and Catdog was where we finally stood up and said "STOP TORTURING THE STRAIGHT MAN!" Bear in mind we were like 7 and 5 so this had more emotional weight to us.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 03:22

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

I do recall a hell of a lot of scantily-clad women shoved into the show for no real reason, accompanied by the sounds of rabid shelter dogs, but if I'm being totally honest the only difference between that and today's CBS sitcoms is that there's less barking and the tits are sometimes attached to more than one main character.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 05:33

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

RareAcumen posted:

This sounds more like it'd fit Plankton than Zim, but I never really watched Invader Zim when it came on so I can't say that for certain.

Zim is Plankton with half the age and twice the meth. I say that for certain.

quote:

Man, not only did they predict MRAs, they even predicted It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia!

IASIP is basically a "split the difference" between Married with Children's chuckles about working class sensibilities in the post-Reagan world (W.Bush for IASIP) and Seinfeld's "the main cast are the worst human beings now watch them gently caress up everything they touch."

Marmaduke! posted:

My wife watches and rewatches all of the new Doctor Who stuff regularly (why no, she doesn't have a job, how did you know?), I'll have to ask her how the episode where the doctor is on Big Brother, and another character is on The Weakest Link, seems these days.

To me it seems so weird that it makes me think I might've imagined it.

I don't know how it would play if you've never heard of/seen either The Weakest Link or Big Brother, but the fact that these elements are so dated and cartoonishly exaggerated in the episode works in its favor, adding to the surreal "wtf is this place?" nature of everything. Plus you've got Simon Pegg in-between Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz in a throwaway role.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 11:56

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

That reminds me of a great early episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation for this thread: The Outrageous Okona.

It's already a bad episode with some really dated poo poo in the A-Plot, but the B-Plot really shoots it forwards. So, the A-Plot is about some "dashing rogue" named Okona whom we're told is very charming and incorrigible but really seems like Lone Star from Spaceballs wearing the Puffy Pirate shirt from Seinfeld. He's played by the guy who was in the Rocketeer and he seduces Teri Hatcher from under Riker's beard. You should be halfway to late 80s Bingo by now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDDETyWoVMY

Anyway, you know how in Star Trek they love to have the B-cast act as stand-ins for various types of autistic tendencies? Well in early TNG the show loved to put Data in the "hyper-literal and super technical" type of autistic, leading to the B-Plot:

Data doesn't "get" comedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GL25SaeOBg

Now this is bad enough on multiple levels. The jokes all suck. Data is repulsive whenever he's not being well, Data. Whoopi Goldberg is :smug:

as all poo poo about how far above this material she is. Then we get to the climax of carbon-dating. The one bit that puts this episode exactly in 1988. Data goes to the Holodeck to conference with one of the greatest comedians in history.

Joe.

Motherfucking.

Piscopo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJsYY93FSCI

Want to hear the kicker? The bit that really sells this all the way to the bank? Joe Piscopo rewrote his lines for the episode because he thought they were too lame. There's loads I didn't mention about the episode-- Wesley's boy-crush on Okona, Brent Spiner mocking the poo poo out of Piscopo during their scenes together, Whoopi Goldberg's astonishingly bad joke about 'noids, the Okona plot involving a kidnapped princess... it's one of the real stinkers guys. Worth a hate-watch.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 12:10

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Because I'm like that, I have to post the Baywatch/Gilligan's Island crossover that actually happened. It is a thing that exists. Gilligan and Mary Ann met the cast of Baywatch, and made out with two of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRQo1KOeFOI

And if you're not a masochist with over an hour to kill, the recap in Baywatching is great. The "protagonist" character of Baywatch in the first two pre-Pamela Anderson seasons was a guy named Eddie, and Baywatching takes a special delight in mocking him for being an ultra-weenie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW_VgXgUixw

Solice Kirsk posted:

Ecoterrorists could have been a real thing if anyone actually cared about the environment. But no one does, so they don't really exist in any numbers that matter. I blame the cancellation of Captain Planet after only 6 seasons.

If Tim Curry couldn't save the Earth, no one could.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 14:15

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Koyaanisgoatse posted:

Rugrats and Rocket Power were god-awful and I didn't like them even when I was the target age. However, I won't hear a word against the first few seasons of Spongebob

Spongebob is overrated as loving balls hth. It's not bad by any stretch, but it baffles me that it became this cultural touchstone.

Wheat Loaf posted:

Doug is a show I enjoyed when I was younger (both the Nick and Disney versions) then about 12-ish years ago when I started going on Internet message boards, I discovered that people loving hated Doug, and I could never understand why. Even years later, I don't understand why people hate Doug, because there's just so little there to hate.

Yeah Doug is an offensive moth fart of a show. Like yeah it's not particularly good, but it's like getting worked up about minute rice.

Like look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XoKD8Gh-tE

Yes it's just "white suburbia-- the show" but it's the least offensive version of that possible. It's this weird little pocket of nothing that smells like pine needles and dead Baby Boomers

Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:

I always got the feeling Okona was one of those episodes where Roddenberry or someone thought that TNG was just the Original Series with less limitations and tried to make the most of it, only to realize twenty big years of social progression happened and their viewpoints were insanely outdated. Another case was that episode where the Federation was being taken over by bugs and Picard and Riker literally blew up a guy who had the queen incide of him and it was pretty gory for '80s standards.

TNG could have really, really changed into something else if Roddenberry kicked around for a bit longer. And I doubt it would have been as fondly remembered.

Yeah Roddenberry, like Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, is one of those creators where they deserve a lot of poo poo for the stuff they did but also were instrumental in keeping the franchise alive. Roddenberry would have strangled the show by the end of the third season. Some of his edicts were literally dumb poo poo like "in the future we do not mourn our dead" or "no interpersonal conflicts because everyone is so evolved." When you couple it with episodes like Code of Honor (Space Africans kidnap white lady), Up the Long Ladder (19th Century Irish people in space debate the number of clone wives they can have; for loving real), and that one where the paradise planet is depicted as blonde hair Ayran supermodels... yeah Roddenberry was a messed up motherfucker even for his day.

Wheat Loaf posted:

I don't think a lot of the Hanna Barbera cartoons from the 60s and 70s have aged well, especially in comparison to what Disney and Warner Bros were doing at the same time.

The only good thing Hanna Barbera did was give Adult Swim creators in the 00s a ton of fertile soil to poo poo on.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2017 20:39

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

An Arthur/Doug crossover would have been like the Wheat Thins/Triscuit team-up no one ever wanted.

Also Arthur's Matt Damon:

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 12:15

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Hyrax Attack! posted:

Doug's dad wants more money so he opens his own photography store, and offers free photos and nearly goes bankrupt. He goes back to his old job and buys Doug a football for his birthday, and in the final show the park is full of dads throwing footballs to their sons.

Oh wow I remember this one. Doug's Dad was a serious loving idiot.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 15:53

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Wheat Loaf posted:

When I was very young, I liked Thomas the Tank Engine. I think the old stop motion model episodes hold up decently well as far as shows for toddlers go. But I've recently seen some of the newer CGI ones and I have the distinct impression that those probably won't age quite as gracefully.

I loved it growing up--had all the die-cast models n' poo poo--but when I revisted an episode or two as an adult the whole thing has some horrifying authoritarian "keep your head down, do your loving job, and don't question the way things are" themes to it.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 18:24

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

iirc they loving "Cask of Amontillado" a train in the first episode (or book, can't recall) because he was disobedient.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 18:36

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

This is the song I remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pt08Sqoq0c

Like yeah it's not wrong, but there's such a class sentiment behind it you just don't see in the US and it's surreal to think I imbibed it without a second thought.

There's also this more recent one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG4uDXLsdPY

As someone who actually supports rules and regulations on a macro level, this video brought out the inner :911:

"Don't Tread on Me" rear end in a top hat within loving seconds.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 19:33

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Huh, possibly not. I could be 100% wrong then. I honestly don't recall. The only song I've ever remembered from the show was Gone Fishin'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by3PHEIN4Gg

E-- Here's all of the songs, apparently. I'm not sifting through it but it says it took the songs from US, UK, and Malaysian (wtf?) DVDs. I've no idea. I'm spent on researching Thomas the Tank Engine lore for my lifetime. Take everything I've said with a grain of salt y'all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cc4SmnHExc

Also that Helicopter is way more terrifying than I remember it being. gently caress it's like they stretched a baseball over fat Marlon Brando.

mind the walrus has a new favorite as of 19:43 on Aug 6, 2017

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 19:38

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

I wonder how the current streaming era of television production will age. There's so goddamn much of it--it's like every D-list celebrity + in the world got their own 10-episode one-camera streaming series you've never heard of and it's somehow on Season 3. It's getting harder and harder to find common ground where we even can talk about poo poo like Doug, LOST, and such.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 20:27

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

That reminds me of other anthology shows:

Tales from the Darkside has largely not aged well, because most of it was shot on shiteo (or at least the copies I can find around the internet are as such), although the movie is :krad:

for the third segment alone.

The Twilight Zone reboots have all been various shades of terrible. They either remake old episodes badly, have crappy new ones, or in the worst offense do a loving sequel to a classic with the same actors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ycUsUctxQg

Tales from the Crypt has, imo, aged surprisingly well because it never pretended to be anything other than 1000% cheese at all times. The dialogue is crap, the stories generally rote, and the filming is almost always cheap-looking save the 1-3 "money shots" of gore per episode, but because it was adapting/trying to be like pulp 50s horror comics it works. It doesn't hurt that it had HBO to allow blood/sex and a ton of "name" actors in the first five or so seasons who can make the material work. The final season in England sucks though.

I never watched any The Outer Limits save the 1996 episode "Sandkings" just to see it. The original short story by the Game of Thrones author is way better; it's basically "Gremlins in space but the Gremlins are intelligent, killer ants and the owner is a mega-douche" and the episode is well, a TV show, but it's ok if you can tolerate 90s stuff.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 20:50

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

IShallRiseAgain posted:

Tales from the Darkside also had some really racist stuff in it.

Oh no poo poo? Do share. A really racist dude I knew introduced me to it so now I'm being really biased and unfair in my mind and I love it.

quote:

Speaking of horror anthologies, Black Mirror is going to age so badly. Not that I think its good right now, but its pretty popular at the moment.

Oh yeah. I found Black Mirror really novel for the first 6 months after I saw it, but now I can't stand it. There's good stuff in there, but it's honestly on par with Doctor Who in terms of production (and I say that as a genuine Doctor Who fan). The only episode I like start-to-finish is the one with the camera implants behind the ear, and that one is just a classic dinner story psychodrama with a tech twist.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 21:07

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

I saw that ages ago, but I had the revelation that Thomas was hosed up way before that. The show was playing on US PBS and the "Work Song" came on, and it hit me like a shot to the gut. Thomas was my world when I was a toddler, so it was quite a shock.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 22:08

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

WampaLord posted:

The West Wing episode Isaac and Ishmael, which was explicitly done as a post-9/11 response and is out of continuity with the rest of the show.

It's a really bad and hamfisted "Not all Muslims are bad!" PSA of an episode. Obviously that message is important and needed to be communicated, but it does it in such a pandering way that it loops around to levels.

Everyone says that about this episode, but I honestly don't see it. Yes the episode does Cirque de Solei levels of gymnastics to simplify a complex issue with centuries of political history down to "don't stone your neighborhood brown people you provincial shitburger," but at that exact moment in time I recall it being the best one communicated on a mass level. The reductive "Al Qaeda = Muslim KKK" bit was particularly clever in trying to make the message palatable to most of America, and I recall the kids in the classroom discussing the issues sounding a lot like the kids in my actual classes.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 23:36

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

WampaLord posted:

Yea, but that was the problem, the target audience was kids that age and not adults.

That's a valid argument.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 00:02

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Soft counterpoint, mentioned in OP I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkaRX1rzJBU

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 00:42

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

JediTalentAgent posted:

First run syndicated supernatural was somehow was a thing in the late 80s/early 90s.

It was kind-of a glory age for syndication--Star Trek: TNG comes to mind--so it makes sense. Low-budget anthology works really well for cheap shows to pad out dead air on fledgling cable networks. I really want to say The Twilight Zone movie/80s series kicked it off but I'm not researching to find out.

Also yeah, there's a reason that Rick & Morty episode with the "Needful Things" shop--itself a literal Stephen Kings reference they didn't change the name for--practically opens with Rick calling out a bunch of those anthology shows as sources for the plot.

poptart_fairy posted:

That little poo poo had it coming.

We don't know if trains even have a natural lifespan, so this is closer to the "Loki will have venom dripped into his eyes while restrained with his son's intestines until Ragnarok comes" end of the spectrum.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 10:33

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Reminds me how Seinfeld's famous "not that there's anything wrong with that" episode has aged pretty poorly. At the time it was funny because it was leaning into the NYC attitude of "ok we're accepting the gay community but give us a minute here," but now it's very much stuck in that time and feels juvenile.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 13:29

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

RagnarokAngel posted:

Eh I think it still works actually since weirdness around "i may be accepting of the gay community but im terrified someone might think I'm gay" is still quite common.

Reminds me of this bit from Peep Show (around 30 seconds):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mMuczMHpGQ

Best way I've ever seen in media to handle the issue.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 18:55

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Early Scrubs and select episodes of Community have aged well. Buffy and Angel as wholes aged well-- the 5th Season of Angel particularly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0tNqwNpGGQ

Most early Adult Swim shows have aged surprisingly well, albeit the animation looks way stiffer than you remember. Harvey Birdman, Space Ghost, early Venture Bros., and Home Movies are too tied to the period of their airing, but if you grew up with them you don't really mind.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 19:25

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Dr Christmas posted:

The Rick and Morty episode "Raising Gazorpazorp" had half of the plot be about how a civilization of women would HAVE FEELINGS and BE SHOPPING. Real fresh take there.

Yeah I remember watching it back in like 2013 or whenever the hell it was and thinking "jesus how long has this script been kicking around?" The B-Plot had some nice bits--the part where Morty's parents are extremely passive-aggressive about Morty's parenting choices was great.

quote:

On a more fun note, in 2016, Bojack Horseman had an episode that was a flashback to 2007, and they made it feel like a period piece.

Arrow managed to do the same thing in an episode in 2015 where they flashed back to 2010, mostly through wigs. Arrow's constant flashbacks has gave them amazing Wig-Game.

Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:

The best example, Seinfeld, pretty much came out with the whole 'these people are jerks why didn't you get that' right after the finale came out with a loud wet splat and people started bitching.

IIRC the bitching was more because the final episode was a literal cameo parade full of catchphrases. Great concept; flat execution.

Tiggum posted:

Daria.

Daria is still good but early episodes have this weird half-beat thing like they're in a sitcom without a laugh track, especially after Daria says anything. You also really have to watch Daria with all the specific late-90s MTV music choices that got taken out for rerelease--much like The Wonder Years and Northern Exposure--because it really contextualizes things.

I want to know what someone who didn't grow up with late-90s Teen Shows thinks of Clone High. There's a lot of surrealist humor that I think still works, but I remember a big reason the show was popular with me and my friends was that it took brilliant little potshots at Dawson's Creek/Felicity/Party of Five tropes--the kind you'd see later in Lord and Miller's work like 21 Jump Street, The LEGO Movie, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Aesop Poprock posted:

Ah! Real Monsters is totally unwatchable nowadays in a way I don't really understand. Usually I can look back on kids shows from when I was a kid and see why I would have liked them but there's literally no humor in it. I watched like 6 episodes with a roommate years back who also had fond memories of it and we were just baffled by what we could have gotten out of it

A really novel approach to character design (Krumb alone is loving brilliant animation), and an interesting "magical/monstrous school" angle years before Harry Potter or Monsters Inc. Plus Tim Curry as the Grimble:

mind the walrus has a new favorite as of 12:25 on Aug 8, 2017

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 12:22

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Static Shock was a very cheesy show aimed at younger kids and subtle as a brick, but this bit holds up remarkably well in an impressionistic sense:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V7a2pxeNeE

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 13:45

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

EEE was still being made by people who didn't know how those things affected childhood yet.

Also I don't care how much people hate it for being edgy, but I love the EEE theory that the whole show is some weird purgatory and every kid is someone on that cul de sac who died at a different time point during the 20th Century.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 14:15

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

This fan-image gives context to the EEE Purgatory theory and makes a great deal of sense:

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 15:22

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 22:55

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

As much as anything else on that show.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2017 15:28

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Media that did not age well: Wow more like Kitty Prejudice

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