rich and creamy

Ewok Humps Al Roker

If you're not familiar with America's The Today Show, it's a mundane, bland and pretty tame morning talk show that is wildly popular. Recently they hired actors to portray ewoks on a Star Wars themed episode. Well, the actors got a bit saucy and tawdry...watch every second.

Glory Days of American Television

The other day a friend of mine posted an old Cosby Show clip on Facebook and it got me a bit nostalgic of 1980s TV shows (American only that is, sorry but that's where I was raised). I realised since I left the US I have now lived in four countries without ever catching on to their own pop culture references and missing out that bit of psyche that is so perverse. 

Since I was adolescent and pre-pubescent surely many of these show are responsible for who I am. How scary is it to think a tall, hairy German who played Knight Rider helped shaped me into who I am today? 

Perhaps the most unrealistic plot of them all - at least to me - is Doogie Howser. He graduated from medical school at age 10 and then worked in an LA hospital at age 14...this was the basis of a show meant to entertain millions of people. Execs green-lighted this as a money-maker. 

So fantastically absurd was Doogie that I can even buy into ALF easier. Gordon Shumway crash landed into Earth and subsequently bunked up with the Tanner family until he could repair his space ship. Gordon later was nicknamed ALF by Willie Tanner. The humour of the show revolved around the lousy puppet trying to eat the family cat, a large appetite, and juvenile pranks. Think of a more lively Garfield.

The '80s had some damn fine entertainment though. I speak very earnestly about the Huxtables, Taxi, Johnny Carson, and the Wonder Years. But what the fuck were we thinking about with Magnum PI? A freelance detective that drove a Ferrari and had a friend in a helicopter whilst living in Hawaii - seriously, who would buy this? What about Quantum Leap? A man with a large nose is doomed to redo history by living key moments in peoples lives - presidential assassinations for instance - and in the course he'd learn about himself and we'd all grow a bit wise while having a few laughs on the way.

Anyway here's the shakedown of the above montage:

Quality - Acting, writing, premise

Taxi - Basically too young to appreciate but enjoyed it more and more as I got older.

Carson - Always entertaining and an underrated sketch comedian.

Wonder Years - Quality all-around. I wonder how many boys Winnie Cooper 

Cosby Show - My all-time number one. Here are things I'd love: to be friends with Cliff, to have had an affair with Claire, to date Denise, to have a daughter date Theo, and to have a daughter like Rudy.

Golden Girls - Who would've thought that this could be legitimately entertaining to anyone less than 40 years old?
 

Guilty pleasures - Entertaining but lacking merit in some substantial way to be taken seriously

MacGyver - So fun but this man must have a cursed life to always end up being in a situation of life and death with nothing on hand. Seriously, didn't he know about Batman's utility belt. There's no excuse for him to EVER forget duct tape.

Starman - Geeky sci-fi.

Any cartoon from the decade - On the whole I think '80s cartoons lacked flair but had solid themes, music, and much better defined good vs evil story lines.

Married With Children - Everyone's favorite at one time or another.

Roseanne - Entertaining but at the same time how depressing. Did we realise that this show of an unhealthy, overweight and indebted family was really a mirror? For me it always seemed like somebody else's family - but now I like at people I know, family or friends, and it seems to be pretty much it. Not as crass, perhaps not as poor, but you have that feeling of people being mired in mediocrity and depressed without realising it. Time to change the flow.

Family Ties - How can you not love Michael J. Fox in his prime?

Who's the Boss - Alyssa Milano before her prime. Probably equivalent to watching LeBron James in middle school basketball.

Saved by the Bell - How come everyone hates going to high school but everyone's favorite shows growing up are usually about people who are happy in high school? There were a few spin-offs but nothing took off as well as the original. I think the franchise should be restored and commit itself into making one TV-movie per year. Seriously, wouldn't you book your DVR if you heard that Jessie relapsed into caffeine pills at Bayside reunion, Slater came out of the closet, Lisa Turtle was working for Jet magazine, Screech became the successful guy who tried to act too cool due to his years of being a nerd, and Zack  became a likable but underachieving and overweight has been. This makes me giddy just thinking about it.

Totally kick ass but requiring an absolute suspension of belief

A-Team - How ridiculous is it that Mr T would ride in a van with three white guys and fight crime. Seriously, a brother with 19 gold chains and a senior citizen decide to hang out and improve society?

Miami Vice - I think my friend Brad visualised this or Chips when he tried out to be a cop a few years back. Speed, machismo, and good times. 

Perfect Strangers - Just watch the clip below.

A Different World - Hey, what's up middle america? Get a load of these black people going to college. Man, what a different world. 

Star Trek - I am a closet trekkie.

Max Headroom - Eh, he had a cool voice and dark sci-fi.
 

Awful, no excuse that we were entertained

Family Matters - even at the time I knew each episode was a waste of my abundance of free time. What a career killer for everyone on that show, too.

Blossom - an annoying, slightly rebellious but overall good girl. This would be a reality show today set in Kansas. Also it would make you hurl your TV out the window.

The '80s were really a fantastic era of music and art and pop culture. A few fantastic successes with an enormous amount of colossally stupid attempts at success. But even these failures point to either great creativity or the most lax standards we've seen in broadcasting. 

In the '90s apartment sitcoms took over, Seinfeld, Friends, and such. Writing and acting began to move towards high production values with ER and all the shows it inspired. The result was a sort of Hollywood product imitating real life.

Now the 2000s have taken this to an even greater degree. Shows like The Wire, Madmen, The Sopranos, and Breaking Bad are closer to being a weekly movie than a TV show. More detail, more development in plot. Now '80s shows seem like a cheap 10-cent peep show in comparison. 

My final thoughts is I love to think of these riduculous shows the '80s offered but in reality I think I wouldn't like to go through it again. Then again, I'd trade for them any  day to get rid of all the reality shows, except Hard Knocks of course.