Houston Mitchell.
Why do you think classic shows like Andy Griffith and MASH play endlessly in syndication and had strong DVD sales and classic shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show And The Bob Newhart Show struggle to find an audience?
First off, they’re timeless. THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW is set in small town America where the wardrobe is somewhat generic.
MASH is a period piece set in the army so the wardrobe is standard military. (We had a costume director who would get so uptight whenever we asked for something specific and we would think to ourselves: “you have the easiest job in Hollywood. Everyone wears the same thing every episode.”)
THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and THE BOB NEWHART SHOW look dated. You’re not hearing the jokes. You’re saying, “Look at how wide that tie is,” and “Check out those bell bottoms.”
They were smart sophisticated shows of their time and if you’re a student of television you’ll find that the content, for the most part, still holds up beautifully. Unlike MURPHY BROWN which relied on political references of the day, both MARY TYLER MOORE and BOB NEWHART were about relationships with sharp writing and jokes that are still funny today.
I believe the appeal of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW is nostalgia for a time in America that unfortunately is lost. It was a much kinder, gentler America. We cared for each other. We valued decency — all of us.
MASH also celebrates humanity. And each episode is so packed with jokes and stories and texture that you can watch the same episode repeatedly and still find new things each time.
MASH was also unique. It was built on an existential dilemma. Doctors were trying to save lives in an environment where the goal was to kill as many people as possible. You don’t get that with THE BOB NEWHART SHOW (but maybe RHODA).
I also feel MASH’S themes resonate. Anti-war, inclusion, tolerance, and maybe service to the country. No one wanted to be in Korea but they served. Protecting the United States and Democracy was important. Here too is nostalgia. We long for a time when Democracy was cherished.
What’s sad is this: Frank Burns was a buffoon, and the big complaint was that no one would be that clueless. And now we find this country is filled with millions of Frank Burns. Worse than Frank Burns. Even Frank Burns would take the vaccine. Where are the Sherman Potters to put Frank Burns in his place?
Anyway, those are my thoughts. What are yours as to why those two shows remain so popular decade after decade? And please, keep watching. Those $.02 residuals are a great buffer against inflation.
73 comments :
This probably has nothing to do with why normal people prefer Andy to Mary, but speaking only for myself, I think theres a lot to be said for a sitcom being optimistic and happy. It's admittedly challenging to make humor out of happiness, but what helps is having a set of characters that seem well adjusted in a community environment that seems pleasant with lots of (forgive the clinicial expression) social support networks. Mary and Bob felt isolated and friendless, stuck in their workplaces with little to no extended family or community. When Rhoda left, ay yay yay. Mary and Bob were brilliant, hilarious shows but theyre also kind of dismal and gray. (And don't get me started on Taxi...) Shows like Andy, Dick Van Dyke, Everybody Loves Raymond feel more upbeat and lighthearted to me. For whatever that's worth...
The "looks dated" factor is a big deal for me personally, I can tell you that. Anything pre-80s looks to me like it's stone age. Okay, maybe iron age, but still. (That said, I colossoly enjoy watching Laurel, Hardy, Keaton and Chaplin, so...) Which leads me to a different angle of the problem via your mention of Murphy Brown and its then contemporary political references that don't resonate with today's audience - how big a deal is this in terms of any common device or household thing? What if a joke or even an entire plot revolves around a common piece of equipment that is barely known by now, that only worked at the time because it went without saying that the audience knew what it is? Telephones (and lack of smartphones), typewriters, tape recorders, vinyl records, homecomputers? Dare I say, CD players? Radio? Riding a bike? Playing outside unsupervised? In my mind, MASH largely managed to avoid many such problems even though it was set in the 50s (or even made use of the passage of time between the setting and the audience, such as by referring to the "Brooklyn" Dodgers), but just for example, on Home Improvement there are some episodes where the importance of the Indy 500 race, hugely significant for many Americans at the time, is a joke element - most kids these days probably have never even heard of it. How is "falling out of time" an issue in script writing, and to what degree is it consciously avoided?
"THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and THE BOB NEWHART SHOW look dated. You’re not hearing the jokes. You’re saying, 'Look at how wide that tie is,' and 'Check out those bell bottoms.'”
I think this comment indirectly sheds a light on part of the unrecognized brilliance of "Frasier": It's visual design. Aside from the cellphones and laptops (which were a minor part of the series anyway), "Frasier" was so classically designed (wardrobe, sets, graphics, even the music) that it could have taken place in 1963, 1993, or 2023. That's why it gets my vote as the best sitcom ever, but also one of the best American TV series (of any genre) ever. it will never date itself.
Now if only Paramount would release it on Blu-ray and/or HD...
Agree with everything here, Ken. Frank Burns was only funny because he was portrayed by a brilliant comic actor like Larry Linville, but in real life his type was, and unfortunately still is, an authoritarian menace. That was particularly true during the Korean War/McCarthy era.
Oh shit, are we about to have another "McCarthy era"? I don't want to think about that any more than I'm sure you want to, but we must.
Also, yes THE BOB NEWHART SHOW and THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW really do seem dated. Very clever and funny of course, but dated. And it's not just about the clothes. The professional and gender dynamics just don't translate well to people today, which was true even by the 1980s.
I don't think great comedy will ever disappear, but different generations reevaluate it by different standards, which is a good thing.
Wonderful post.
I remember a MASH episode (but don't know which one) in which Hawkeye made some kind of medical mistake. When he's operating to fix it, Frank says, "Well, anybody could have missed that!" Hawkeye says, "Thanks, Frank." Even a character like Frank sometimes showed humanity.
I see the appeal of MASH and Andy Griffith, but I don't understand programmers tipping in huge chunks of shows NOBODY WANTS TO SEE. MeTV has its Sunday morning block of SAVED BY THE BELL, LaffTV shows its "America's Funniest Home Videos" throughout the day and the cost-cutters are having a field day.
On MeTV, there's is an hour of M*A*S*H, followed by an hour of TAGS. As an awful "old man," I grew up watching both of these shows, and have seen each episode countless times, so there is the "comfort" angle (ie: they take me back to MUCH happier times), but they were/are still state of the art sitcoms. MeTV also airs Gomer Pyle, and Hogan's Heroes, two series that I never liked even when they first aired. I pray that my comments here are not seen as me being long-winded, and hoping to piss off anyone.
I look forward to the day when "gender dynamics" become an Olympic sport. Ba-dum-dum !
Maybe it's because I was a teenager when MTM and Bob Newhart were first-run so they seem less dated, but I never stopped watching them and they are two of my all-time favorite shows.I cherish witty dialogue in my sitcoms, and sadly wit is on life-support in North America these days.
I've seen maybe two or three episodes of MASH in my life ( I know, it's heresy to many ) and haven't seen an episode of ANDY GRIFFITH in decades. Just where are all the stations still running ANDY GRIFFITH ? Are they in the southern U.S. ?
Your Rhoda joke killed me. LOL
Golden Girls & Friends are powerhouses of syndication.
Another thing about MASH: Most of us, at some point, will be able to empathize with Hawkeye and friends' situation. Maybe not in ways that are as extreme, but in being confronted with bosses who want the impossible, or bureaucracies that make seemingly simple things impossible, or relationships that are bound tightly to a time and place, etc. I had a work thing a few weeks back where, after exasperatedly recounting it to my wife, I asked if this was what Hawkeye felt like...
Could never see the Andy Griffith Show the same way again after this Drew Friedman comic strip. https://spookycomics.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/drew-and-griffith.jpg
I think the suggestion of dated appearance being to blame is flawed. Various shows on TCM from the 1930's, 40's, and 50's all make me howl with laughter.
By coincidence, last year we dug into "MTM" with happy expectations born of teenage memories. It was like watching a Kentucky Derby run by old plow horses. We endured thru the first season, generously thinking they needed to find their feet. ("Endured" is accurate. A couple of scenes had Ted coming in, saying something inane, then exits. That was funny! THEN, Murray explains to the audience via a few lines to Mary, that Ted had just come in and said an inane thing. Funny deflated hard)
Somewhere thru the third season, we gave up. We knew Sue Ann and Georgette and the legendary Chuckles episode were somewhere in the future, but we couldn't take it any more.
I would blame the 1,398 workplace sitcoms that have aired since "MTM". Each one has built on, mimicked, stolen from, and improved on this foundation material to the point that this esteemed, award-winning ancestor now comes across as tired and cliche.
One interesting thing about both shows is that they both shared two key writers: Jim Fritzell & Everett Greenbaum. These two ended up becoming Andy Griffith and Don Knotts's personal favorite writers on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, and as such, they used them as often as possible - and even when they did that reunion movie in the 80s, as Greenbaum was still living at the time, he was one of the writers they brought in to write the screenplay.
I notice Fritzell & Greenbaum appear to have written a majority of Season 4 of M*A*S*H, and I really don't know how to explain it, but there's a particular "homey" feeling about that specific season . . . I don't know if it's because there's a number of episodes involving characters writing to loved ones back home, or if it's because of the careful approaches that were taken to introduce new characters like B.J. and Colonel Potter or what, but Season 4 of M*A*S*H definitely has kind of a Mayberry-esque feel to it in terms of the storytelling and execution.
But funny thing about the wardobe and everything: even Larry Gelbart said at the 2009 TV Land Awards that he's pretty sure the main reason for M*A*S*H's longterm success and popularity was, "Because the costumes, unfortunately, never go out of style."
As far as dated content is concerned, they say this is one of the main reasons why THE ODD COUPLE doesn't work today like it did back in the 70s - and I don't just mean in terms of a lot of the wardrobe and other styles and such (a very young Albert Brooks appeared in a couple of first season episodes as Felix's boss, and hoo-boy, did he practically embody the late 60s/early 70s flower power hippy that seem like relics of ancient history today), but they say the subject of divorce was still relatively taboo for television back in those days, so to have two divorced men living together was considered somewhat tongue-in-cheek and a little risque for a TV show in the 70s, whereas today, where divorce is not the big deal that it once was, such a concept hardly seems intriguing for a TV show.
The Andy Griffith Show and M*A*S*H also happen to be single-camera, albeit with a laugh track (until later seasons of the latter). Watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Hulu, I am hearing the jokes, not paying attention to fashion outside of the younger men's hair, including that of a fellow C.W. Post/WCWP alumnus Jon Korkes, who appeared in the second episode of season four. Okay, so, there are no PCs in the newsroom; I don't care. Another thing I'm noticing is that I am now around the same age as Ed Asner and Gavin MacLeod when the show started. When I finish MTM, I'll go over to The Bob Newhart Show. I watched both series on Nick at Nite in the mid '90s, but remember little. The later version of Bob's show's theme was my favorite. One night, I put my microcassette recorder up to the TV speaker to record it (unfortunately missing the first few seconds).
Call me crazy, but I was glad when Frank Burns and Diane Chambers were written out of their respective shows. That shows you what great actors Larry Linville was and Shelley Long is. The same goes for pro wrestling heels back when I was a fan; and in pro wrestling parlance, I was a mark. In further parlance, you could say Larry and Shelley got over, meaning they got the appropriate heat (negative reaction) for their portrayals. Meanwhile, Hawkeye, B.J., Klinger, Sam, Cliff, NORM!, they all got over in the opposite way: with pop (positive reaction). Contemporaneously, I initially didn't like Ryan (Jordan Masterson) on Last Man Standing (another Tim Allen sitcom), but that disdain faded over time.
I apologize if I went on too many tangents.
RobW - As maxdebryn noted, Andy Griffith is on every day on MeTV. That's a network, often a secondary station for established stations, all over the country. For instance, WNYT in Albany, NY is 13.2, while the NBC affiliate is 13.1.
Ive been watching The Drew Carey show because I didn't in the 90's.
The child molestation and sexual assault jokes really stand out as not funny anymore. I can deal with politically incorrect humor but wince at the thought of an actual victim seeing this.
Society has evolved for the better in some aspects.
I find the Bob Newhart Show aged better than MTM in that it is about people whereas MTM leans into society like a Murphy Brown lite. Not that I watch any of these regularly so I might be wrong
I never warmed to Andy Griffith back in the 1960s. The setup just seemed too out of date. Despite this, I was fond of Hal Roach's Our Gang / Little Rascals which was even more dated, but almost surreal, more suitable to my 1960s sensibility.
FWIW, I don't recall MTM or Bob Newhart ever being syndication powerhouses. Frasier, too. And now that we're thirty years past it's finale, where can you find Cheers other than on Decades. And there was a long stretch where Dick Van Dyke's show essentially disappeared, as did the Odd Couple. I remember that one popped up along with That Girl in the early days of USA Network, but not much than that.
There's Golden Girls, Friends, Big Band Theory and everyone else. Even Seinfeld isn't as big as it once was.
That said, I've been watching a lot of BNS in the past few months and they are truly funny and Suzanne Pleshette to me is what Natalie Wood is to Ken.
I recommend Clint and Ron Howard's memoir called "The Boys". In it, Ron says that Opie was originally going to be a typical smart-alecky sitcom kid, like Rusty Williams on the Danny Thomas Show. But their dad convinced Griffith to have Opie actually respect his father and mine humor through that relationship. I think this pretty much changed the dynamic of the show, and made it more timeless.
At least with regard to Griffith, don't underestimate the power of black-and-white. Color pulls your focus to the sets, costumes, and so on. That's one reason why "The Dick Van Dyke Show" feels timeless and "Mary Tyler Moore," made a decade later, doesn't. The Hall of Fame example is "Dark Shadows." In B&W, it was gorgeously gothic. The moment it went to color, all we could see was how shoddy the sets were.
I wonder how much of it is that the two seemingly timeless shows were bigger hits in syndication in the first place? Or at least I think that's the case.
Consider The Dick Van Dyke Show. They were careful to avoid too much topical stuff--they wanted the show to be enduring, and it remains brilliant. But fashion plays a role, as does the idea that Laura has to be a housewife. Later, "Laura" became the liberated "Mary," and that, too, was part of a particular time that is more debated than the Korean War; we can debate the war, but it happened, whereas there are things from the 1970s that people are trying to make unhappen.
Which brings me to Larry Linville's great line about Frank Burns: He's dangerous. So he was. So he is.
The Munsters and Gilligan's Island run constantly; both of them being mostly farce and slapstick, they survive. Also, they both have the limited wardrobe thing.
Star Trek, too is constantly on: again with a lmited wardrobe.
Green Acres is run more often than Beverly Hillbillies, which is odd, but it is curious how topical it turns out the humor in BH was.
Tight ensemble shows like Barney Miller, WKRP and Night Court show up frequently. And classics like I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke.
It doesn't always make sense.
"Nostalgia for a time in America that unfortunately is lost" or never existed? Modernity never reached Mayberry. There are more Black people in the baby-mixup episode of DICK VAN DYKE than in the entire run of ANDY GRIFFITH. No drugs, no arguments about war or abortion, no crime. The sheriff has plenty of time to chat with folks and go fishing. We love fantasy.
Andy Griffith was a progressive whose last act was a commercial for Obama's re-election campaign, but he was also shrewd about what people wanted to believe of small-town life in the South. THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW ran from 1960 to 1968, the height of the civil rights era, but you'd never know it. And surprise, a lot of people still want to think it was like that before "they" started all the trouble.
I am always amused when people use the word 'dated'.
I want to ask, do you only read modern literature? Only listen to modern music? When you go to a museum do you only want to view modern art?
If film and TV fall into the category of 'art', being 'dated' is only a problem to people whose artistic vision is stunted.
I saw a movie the other day on Prime from 1976 I had never seen: THE EAGLE HAS LANDED. Nazis posing as Polish resistance in exile were infiltrating a small town in the English countryside in order to kidnap Churchill who was supposed be visiting. Great cast. Donald Sutherland shines. Who really struck me as a kind of Frank Burns character was Larry Hagman's, and wow, was he great in his portrayal. I can see a character like that. Not all were competent.
I must respectfully disagree about Andy Griffith being from a kinder America. People of color were rarely seen. But this is the south in the early to late 60s. My memory may be faulty, but I don't remember a story about, for example, Andy being ordered by townspeople to lock up some troublemaker, who isn't really, but happens to look different. But we know that happened in North Carolina. The nastiness and brutality were in the town's psychological shadow in the show.
Can you think of any dramas from the 60s and 70s that have aged well? I know some of the nostalgia channels show a lot of old westerns, but personally always skip right by them.
Most of The Griffith Show popularity is due to Don Knotts portrayal of Deputy Barney Fife. The show wasn't the same after Knotts left. Back in the late 70's I read an article where Gavin MacLeod said he was happy playing Captain Stubing on The Love Boat because the Captain was a "winner" whereas Murray Slaughter was a "loser". At the time I was shocked by that (how could he prefer The Love Boat to MTM?) but now I wonder if he wasn't on to something. Maybe today people see MTM as a show about people working on a low rated local news show for a low rated TV station.
My confession: I have never seen even one episode of The Andy Griffith Show. I intend for this to still be true when I go to my grave.
I just never cared for all that 1960s bucolic comedy CBS inundated us with. (Also, I can't stand Don Knotts.) I've never seen an episode of Green Acres either. I saw the first two or three episodes of Petticoat Junction because Bea Benadaret still carried my goodwill for her years as "Blanche Morton" on The Burns & Allen Show, until I realized that this was what it was and what it would remain. Never looked at it again.
As for that "time in America that unfortunately is lost. It was a much kinder, gentler America. We cared for each other. We valued decency — all of us": bullshit! That time NEVER HAPPENED!!! That is nostalgia for an IMAGINARY era.
When was that time? The 1950s with segregation, white people marching to keep little black kids out of schools, being gay being illegal, people sent to prison for DECADES for possessing small amounts of marijuana, race riots?
Was it the 1940s,with even worse segregation, even in the army, and mass murder going on world wide, while WE, AMERICANS, the ones you say valued decency, waged NUCLEAR WAR! Our nukes roasted babies alive! "Decency."
Shall I go on? The '30s? The 20s?
Were there any black people in Mayberry, or had they lynched the last one before Andy became sheriff? Remember, Mayberry had had slavery just like the rest of The South. So they pretended on the show that Mayberry just had no chapter of the KKK?
Fake nostalgia for a fake time, a never-was in Neverland.
M*A*S*H was in all ways a great show, and I've seen every episode multiple times. It certainly never was nostalgic for the Korean War. No celebration of a mythical past in it.
If I understand D. McEwan right, the past that we yearn for isn't as idyllic as we think it is at the time. And regarding Gary's comment, we're already in a new McCarthy era. If you say the wrong thing, support the wrong person, or don't take action on an injustice immediately, you'll never work in this town (on this planet) again, leaving you to narrowcast to media that share your viewpoint. Luckily, I quit talking about politics on social media a few years ago and am generally moderate. Then again, even that isn't good enough anymore. (Somehow, I avoided using the c-word by itself or with the word "culture.")
MASH had "no celebration of a mythical past in it." Agree, however the idea that a drunk like Henry Blake would be in charge of a MASH unit or a buffoon like Frank Burns, with questional medical skills, would be in charge of saving American lives is absurd. Poker games, stills in tents, men dressed as women, infidelity, bathrobes and cowboy hats instead of army dress. This was just as much a fantasy life as Andy's show. Col. Flagg was a cartoon character and let's not forget the show got rid of Spear Chucker Jones the first chance they got.
The Hallmark Channel airs "Frasier" and "Cheers" overnight. But Hallmark being Hallmark, the network censors the saltier language.
That was from a first season episode called "Sticky Wicket." It originally aired March 4, 1973.
The ABC affiliate in Lexington, Kentucky purchased "Mary Tyler Moore" syndicated repeats for early evening strip access in the fall of 1977, immediately after the show ended its CBS run, and probably paid a small fortune. By summer, the station had dumped MTM, although it did air the show sporadically for a few years.
The CBS affiliate in Lexington, meanwhile, has aired reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show" off and on for decades. In fact, station took some heat years ago when it expanded its local early evening newscast to ninety minutes, sending Andy and the good folks of Mayberry temporarily out to pasture.
Of the shows mentioned above the only one I watch with any frequency is "The Bob Newhart Show." I haven't watched "The Andy Griffith Show" or "Mary Tyler Moore" in years. I only watch "M*A*S*H" if I happen to catch an episode I like. It's just that no matter how good a sitcom is you burn out on them after a while. I love "I Love Lucy," but haven't watched that lately either.
I remember when one of Ted Turner's justifications for colorizing old black and white movies was because he felt younger audiences couldn't relate and wouldn't watch them. I've noticed the B&W episodes of "Gilligan's Island" have been colorized.
Speaking of "M*A*S*H," of course Frank Burns would take the injection. He was the follow orders, do what the higher-ups tell you to do regardless of how ridiculous those orders were, kind of guy. Hawkeye on the other hand was such a nonconformist, a bucker of authority that he might reject taking the inoculations. Plus, he was the kind of doctor that wouldn't automatically dismiss usuing alternative treatments. As we know the 4077th had plenty of Chloroquine.
Speaking of the jab, your approach is all wrong. If you really want people to get the shot consider this. In the January 21st issue of THE WEEK magazine there was a blurb that said that British doctors found that in some cases the Coronavirus "sometimes damages blood vessels in the penis, (and) causes impotence and a permanent reduction in its size." That's how you motivate men. Although, that works a lot better with guys that are actually getting sex.
M.B.
RE: Agree, however the idea that a drunk like Henry Blake would be in charge of a MASH unit or a buffoon like Frank Burns, with questional medical skills, would be in charge of saving American lives is absurd.
Many MASH episodes were inspired by research. I fear that there were drunk officers and incompetent medical doctors in the Army at the time, and may be still. Would this be a Friday question?
Kathryn, a librarian
M*A*S*H (actual title MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors)gave birth to the film, and the series. The author of said novel,Richard Hooker, the pen-name of Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr., wrote about HIS exploits as a surgeon during the Korean War. So, it wasn't a "fantasy" to him, I expect. For a more realistic (ahem) film regarding the Korean War, you might like BATTLE CIRCUS.
@mike schlesinger The black-and-white lent itself to Mayberry's "frozen in time" motif, which is also one of the reasons why those black-and-white seasons are far more favored and beloved with audiences and fans than the color seasons; the switch to color was actually not very effective, because it made Mayberry seem as though it was suddenly catching up with the times, which was sort of the antithesis of what Mayberry was. Of course, the loss of Barney Fife was a huge blow to the show as well.
Of course, the loss of Barney Fife was a huge blow to the show as well.
This was very true, but it did allow Don Knotts to make a few films that I love to this day, namely THE INCREDIBLE MR.LIMPET, THE GHOST AND MR.CHICKEN, and THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT, all of which I first saw at Saturday matinees. I also really enjoy THE LOVE GOD? Need I point out, I am a boomer !!
"Anonymous Joe said...
MASH had "no celebration of a mythical past in it." Agree, however the idea that a drunk like Henry Blake would be in charge of a MASH unit or a buffoon like Frank Burns, with questional medical skills, would be in charge of saving American lives is absurd.
Oh yeah? My dad served in World War II, loved M*A*S*H, and said over and over that it was actually only slightly exaggerated, and that Henry Blake only differed from real commanders in that he was a well-intentioned, nice man.
When Dad read Catch-22, he didn't think it was funny. He thought it was an on-the-nose, accurate portrayal of what the army, especially the officers, were actually like. He said it only barely qualified as "fiction."
These days Frank Burns would be Trump's personal physician, telling us how Trump is the healthiest man on earth.
I haven't seen ANY shows from those four series in decades - so can't offer a personal reaction.
More theoretically, it seems that the more important issue is not "datedness" but whether the show is good enough that one doesn't care.
Drawing on my own recent favorites - Mad Men, The Crown, Downton Abbey, Masters of Sex, Queen's Gambit, Mrs. Maisel - all are "period pieces" - therefore "dated" - and I could not care less about that.
Better Call Saul - set about 2003-06 - seems "dated" only with "old" cell phones and Saul's ads played back on VCR's. Again - don't care.
Seinfeld - same.
I was a little bummed the other day - with a first try at Golden Girls - which I've only seen here and there. Three slut-jokes within 90 seconds - hit the BACK button. Try again some time.
@D. McEwen - I saw your comment about Don Knotts and immediately remembered a lovely 1998 movie which he played an important part called Pleasantville. The leads are two teenage siblings who actually explore the themes you mentioned in the rest of your post.
Hawkeye's leisure wear is my fashion inspiration...
I would say a lot of nostalgia is for what we WISH we had: adolescence without acne, quickly defused anger, and safe, untraumatic lives. Even when they were first-run, shows like "Leave It to Beaver" were offering a fantasy of small town / suburban America, where everybody was happy and prosperous. As noted by others, everybody was white and, unless plot demanded, protestant. Local poverty was usually confined to one old lady or some orphans who'd get fed in the Christmas episode.
As for dating, we boomers grew up watching depression and WWII stuff on television -- mostly cartoons, but also movies and serials and Three Stooges shorts. We got that they were old, and vaguely grasped that ration books were once necessary to buy food and gas, Nazis were bad, scrap metal used to be precious, etc. I remember grade school history lessons when we finally began to comprehend the meaning of references we'd been conditioned to laugh at for years (air raid wardens yelling "Turn off that light!", etc.), and also beginning to grasp that characters like Mae West and Mahatma Gandhi were real.
To this day, 1950s Bugs Bunny and Popeye cartoons feel like "the new ones", even if they were made before I was born. When I put together historical 30s-40s matinees for personal amusement, there are cartoons that are the right age to fit in but feel out of period because they were such a big part of my 60s TV viewing.
One more, on the subject of medical competence:
My dad was a doctor. He was a big fan of MASH, especially when there was an "inside" medical reference ("What are going to do with that, Doc?" "Guess!").
He loved the movie "House Calls", which pitted doctor Walter Matthau against Art Carney as a senile, incompetent surgeon in charge of a major hospital. In fact, Dad suspected the screenplay was based on a real Southern California institution.
When it became a TV sitcom -- incidentally starring Wayne Rogers in the Matthau part -- the senile, incompetent surgeon was made lovable, and Rogers maneuvered to keep him practicing. That made my father almost angry, and he promptly gave up on the series.
There are so many thoughtful comments here that I can hardly add anything to them, but I have a few of my own.
Regarding MeTV and the Sunday morning "Saved by the Bell" block. Believe it or not, that show is considered "E/I" (Educational/Informational) programming aimed at kids. It's an FCC requirement of every TV broadcast licensee to devote a few hours a week to that end. That's why the point-2s and point-3 digital channels, like MeTV, run it.
While Bob Newhart's Chicago-based show doesn't hold up well, "Newhart" pretty much does. Normal guy lives in a small rural town peppered with loveably eccentric characters. Sound familiar? The first season or two are kinda shaky with weak secondary characters, but Tom Poston was always funny and when Larry and the two Darryls arrive, it really began to hit its stride. I don't know if anyone airs that show, but with all the nostalgia channels, I'm sure someone does.
I worked for a MeTV affiliate, and for a while, they ran "WKRP in Cincinnati" in the 9:30pm slot, but it didn't really play well following Gomer (can't stand that show!) and they plugged "Green Acres" in there, which does quite well. "GA" can be taken at face value, a cornpone comedy, or on a strangely surrealistic and bizarre level. I've always wondered if the writers were taking LSD. And "M*A*S*H" in the 7pm hour once or twice actually beat "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy" airing on a competitor. That show has a holding power the likes of which has rarely been matched.
Someone mentioned TV dramas of old and whether they hold up. Largely no, in my experience. I excitedly watched "Mission: Impossible" on Netflix a few years ago having not seen it in 50 years, and it's rather dull. The notable thing is that the I.M. force used their wits to defeat their opponents. Today they would just pound them into submission or shoot them.
Nostalgia. It ain't what it used to be.
as an old Gen-Xer, MTM and BNS hold up really well for me. The New England Newhart show was great, but at the end let the William Sanderson, Julia Duffy and Peter Scolari characters take up too much oxygen. But I caught a rerun of Murphy Brown a few years ago and it was kind o painful to watch, and I was a fan. I was an even bigger fan of LA Law-- appointment TV for me back in the early 90s, and boy did it not age well. Everything about it looked and felt like an Uncanny Valley Production.
It seems like some people "lie in wait" for someone to say something positive about MASH so they can bring up "Spearchucker" Jones again. They always ignore the fact Hawkeye and other characters treated the Korean civilians as fellow human beings and disparaged Frank Burns and others who did not.
I've heard it said Jones was dropped because the writers believed there had been no African-American surgeons serving in the war, which actually wasn't true. I suspect it had more to do with his name, which was a racial slur (and came from the original novel). They could have dropped the nickname. But there also were a lot of extraneous characters in the first few seasons who were dropped, including Ugly John, the Australian anesthesiologist; Capt Spalding,the singing, guitar-playing officer; and Nurse Dish. Nurse Kellye, who was Chinese-Hawaiian, was on for several seasons, but I guess she's not ethnic enough for some people.
-- In defense of "Murphy Brown", not all of the shows were topical; Murphy's delivery of Avery may be the funniest childbirth episodes in sitcom history. Murphy suffering a contraction while walking in the hospital hallway and Miles diving on the floor under her, cupping his hands to catch the baby, had me on the floor laughing.
-- To be honest, this blog's readership likely represents a minority view in viewership of those classic sitcoms. Today's 40-somethings consider "Saved by the Bell" reruns as fond memories; they grew up with that show in the early '90s. There are some 30-somethings who have never seen "Friends". And a lot of 20-somethings have grown up without cable or satellite TV, and have never seen a network TV show; some may have Netflix or Hulu, but most prefer watching YouTube, Twitch or TikTok videos.
For those younger generations, classic sitcoms don't ring a bell. They know Dick Van Dyke from "Mary Poppins" but don't realize he had his own TV show. Their knowledge of Bob Newhart stems from Professor Proton on "The Big Bang Theory" instead of his two hit sitcoms. (On "Ghosts", when one of them expresses surprise that Rose McIver's 30-year-old character has never seen the great '80s sitcom "Newhart", she says, "I wasn't around in the '80s.") And most jarring, "MASH" isn't one of the best TV shows ever; "mash" is what's served with sausages in British pubs, and increasingly made of cauliflower instead of potatoes.
-- Perhaps we should revive Nick at Nite's "campaign" in the '90s, titled "Dedicated to Preserving Our Television Heritage", and introducing these shows to the younger people to see where today's shows developed from. Dick Van Dyke served as the "chairman" of that Nick at Nite campaign; who could we get for a 2022 revival?
@D. McEwan Oh lord, you had to mention that. I swear, watching Frank Burns since 2016 has become a legitimately frightening experience . . . because here is a character on a TV show from the 1970s that was set in the 1950s, and yet, he pretty much embodied what your typical MAGAt of today is like: Frank hated Koreans and Asians just like MAGAts do, Frank thought liberals were "bleedin' hearts" just like MAGAts do, Frank didn't want America to be a democracy just like MAGAts don't, Frank lived on blind patriotism just like MAGAts do. . . . Need I go on? In short, Frank Burns is a perfect retroactive example of just how regressive and stuck-in-their-ways American conservatives really are, and it's not even funny.
"Douglas Trapasso said...
@D. McEwen - I saw your comment about Don Knotts and immediately remembered a lovely 1998 movie which he played an important part called Pleasantville. The leads are two teenage siblings who actually explore the themes you mentioned in the rest of your post."
I saw Pleasantville when it came out. Oddly, I don't even remember Knotts being in it, but I only saw it once, 24 years ago. I remember liking it, not loving it, but liking it. Maybe I blotted him from my memory.
We had Don Knotts as a guest on a radio talk show I used to produce, nearly 50 years ago. He was a terrible interview guest, giving monosyllabic answers. After half an hour of trying to get something more than "Yes" or "No" from him, the interviewer, Sweet Dick Whittington, announced, "Well, I know you have to leave for another engagement. Wish you could do the full hour. Thanks," and went to commercial. Don was the only talk guest I ever saw Dick dump halfway through the interview (Booking the guests was a large part of my job, and routinely shutting them down and kicking them off would have made my job a lot harder, but he only did this once), preferring playing records to trying to make this stiff interesting. You should have seen Don's face, as Dick's announcement was the first he'd heard of his previous engagement.
I've posted this story on Facebook once or twice, when the subject of Knotts came up. The most-recent time, a few months ago, Don's daughter saw it, and commented to the effect that I'd made her smile and laugh because, yes, her dad HATED doing interviews, and often intentionally sank them with monosyllabic answers.
"Liggie said...
-- In defense of "Murphy Brown", not all of the shows were topical; Murphy's delivery of Avery may be the funniest childbirth episodes in sitcom history. Murphy suffering a contraction while walking in the hospital hallway and Miles diving on the floor under her, cupping his hands to catch the baby, had me on the floor laughing."
Thank you, Liggie. I agree. I rewatched the entire Murphy Browne series, start to finish, all of it, about three years ago, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Sure lots of topical jokes, but also lots of stories that were not dated. I keep one episode on the DVR and return to it, one where the great Tom Poston guest-starred (And whose story was utterly apolitical - it was about Murphy trying to add a room to her house without getting the proper building permits first, and Tom was her nasty neighbor, "Old Man Swenson," whose approval she needed), because I was in the studio audience for that one, and I can hear me laugh on it. I have Tom Poston's script for that episode, with Tom's blocking all written in pencil in Tom's handwriting in it.
When I was introduced to Tom after the filming, I gushed my lifelong love for all the amazing great work I'd seen him do and how much I loved him, till he said gently, "Stooop." He grinned mischievously, eyes twinkling, and added, "You'll turn my pretty head."
I might add, that Tom did a few ad libs, and each and every one had Candice Bergen literally falling over laughing. Each time they stopped, reset, shot gain, and Tom did the ad lib while a prepared Candice kept a straight face. Every one of Tom's ad libbed lines made it into the finished show. (BTW, Candice, and only Candice, was using idiot cards.)
Joseph Scarbrough, yup. I looked at Frank Burns and saw a Trumpanzee in utero.
My only caveat with Larry Linville's Frank Burns is that Robert Duvall's Frank Burns in the movie was also in-your-face religious. Hawkeye describes him as a "Sky Pilot." M*A*S*H was the first movie I ever saw that ridiculed a character and made him a buffoon (Carted off to the looney bin eventually) for being religious, and for excessive and show-offy praying. As a then-just-budding atheist, it was liberating to me to see a movie that treated religious belief with the same contempt I have for it, with us encouraged to laugh at a man for praying. I LOVED that! So I missed that aspect of the character on TV. I knew CBS would not be mocking religious belief in a TV show. When I first heard M*A*S*H was to be made into a TV comedy series, I was appalled, and was sure it would be awful, as I knew that all mockery of religion would be gone, along with the nudity and the sex and the salty language.
So it was a relief to find, when the show arrived, that it was a great show, and worthy of the movie. But I could never warm to TV's Father Mulcahey, as instead of the well-meaning and sweet but delusional and useless priest Rene Auberjenois made of him in the movie, we had the sweet, respectful, never-mocked TV version of him, and for me, that ruined that character. (No criticism of Larry Linville or William Christopher intended.) And while Frank Burns on TV was just as awful as the movie Burns, I missed the religious mockery I knew CBS would never have the balls to include.
Let me return in my day job as a historian to say that no television show perfectly captures its time, and some do it worse than others. I'll add as a Las Vegan that when I was growing up, the mob had a lot of power in the casinos, and today people say, oh, the town was so much better and safer then. If it was safer, why was a member of the police department part of a burglary crew for the mob? And if it was so much better, why were the food choices so horrible compared with today? Too many wish for a past that never was.
My $0.02: Great writing endures.
The color (non-Knotts) seasons of Griffith do not count.
"Love God" is a good movie, esp the courtroom scene in which the judge does not recognize the magazine model is always the pornographer's wife, and also the Darlene Love piece.
As a complement to Newhart, Suzanne Pleshette > Mary Frann all day.
I think a key to the success of MASH was better characters (BJ, Winchester, Potter) replacing those who left.
Another thing that both "Andy Griffith" and "M*A*S*H" have in common that makes them more beloved than other sitcoms is that they are both as much dramas as comedies. People relate more deeply when the humor comes more out of realistic characters than set-up/punchline.
As an example, re: your recent topic on episodes of shows that always get to you emotionally, my wife Laura reminded me of one that I should have mentioned, "Opie the Bird Man." We have a houseful of rescued parrots that were disabled, abused or abandoned, so multiple scenes of that episode always get to us: Opie's shock when he realizes he's carelessly killed the mother bird; Andy making Opie listen to the crying baby birds whose mother will never return; and Opie releasing the babies he's raised, with the classic closing lines. Opie says, "The cage sure looks awful empty, don't it, Pa?" and Andy replies, "Yes, son, it sure does. But don't the trees seem nice and full?"
There's very little that overtly funny in that episode, but it's a great antidote to one of my most hated sitcom tropes: it's not funny to harm a dog or cat, but if someone has a pet bird, it's hilarious to joke about killing it in horrible ways.
If I remember correctly from reading the book long ago, "Spearchucker" was called that because he was a javelin thrower in college.
@D. McEwan I mean I myself am a Left Christian (yes Virginia, we do exist), but even I am extremely put off by such religious zealots like the way Frank Burns was depicted in the movie. In real life, that is; when played for laughs in the world of fiction, yes, it can be quite hilarious . . . case in point: Aunt Esther from SANFORD AND SON; I think she said "Praise the Lord!" and "Hallelujah" almost as much as she would say to Fred "Watch it, sucka!" or call him a "Fish-eyed fool." Not to mention she was always waving that Bible of hers around like a literal Bible-thumper.
But, as I say, with people who are like those characters in real life, I can understand completely how and why more and more people turn away from organized religion (and then, what's even more amusing, is these Bible-thumpers act all stupefied when they see their so-called missionary work does more to turn people away from God or Christ than it does bringing people to Him).
As for CBS not tolerating the mockery of religion, yeah, as I understand it, this is why the episode "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?" omitted the laugh track altogether, on the grounds that to have the sounds of people laughing at a man who claimed to be Christ would have been sacreligious and blasphemous.
The comments about Don Knotts being a bad interview are interesting. A while ago I stumbled onto a Phil Donahue Show on YouTube, and his guests were Don, Andy Griffith, Jim Nabors and George Lindsey, all there to promote the 1986 Mayberry reunion movie. It's a great show as they answer audience questions for an hour. But while the other three are funny and engaging, Don seems totally uncomfortable, and his answers are short and disappointing. Donahue even starts kidding him about it. I can't criticize anyone for being an introvert, and it's amazing that that type of personality could also be a great actor.
Watching Mash now as I type this..the characters and the storylines are timeless...can't get enough of Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, McLean Stevenson and the rest of the cast!
Re: "Hawkeye on the other hand was such a nonconformist, a bucker of authority that he might reject taking the inoculations. Plus, he was the kind of doctor that wouldn't automatically dismiss usuing alternative treatments."
Hawkeye would be first in line to get vaccinated. Much is being made on the show of how excellent, knowledgeable and pragmatically professional most of the doctors are (Hawkeye in particular) - he'd *know* vaccines work and there's no way in hell he'd be reluctant to take one. If I'm not mistake there are vaccine-related plot bits and the docs all take what they need to take. As for Hawk being open to alternative treatments, there's a "placebo plot" episode (the camp runs out of morphine), and it's the experienced Potter who comes up with the idea and who has to convince the rest of the team, Hawk included. As far as practicing medicine goes, throughout the show most everyone is dead serious about logic, reason, and scientific progress.
Re: "My only caveat with Larry Linville's Frank Burns is that Robert Duvall's Frank Burns in the movie was also in-your-face religious."
So were Frank and Hot Lips early in the show, albeit not as hardcore as in the movie. Their biblethumping vis-a-vis their hypocrisy is a central character element early on.
For people saying Don Knotts was a bad interview - he had terrible anxiety and hypochondria. I can understand why he would freeze up during interviews.
Nick at Night BUTCHERED "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Bob Newhart." Ridiculous edits. They cut the funniest lines. The MTM Veal Prince Orloff episode? Bizarre cuts.
"JS said...
For people saying Don Knotts was a bad interview - he had terrible anxiety and hypochondria. I can understand why he would freeze up during interviews."
He didn't "freeze up." As his daughter said, he did it intentionally, but then, what did she know about why her father did things? She was only raised by him.
I was in the room when Don tanked the interview on our show, a very small radio broadcast booth with just the three of us in it, and he was not nervous. He was uncooperative and sullen, but not anxious.
D. McEwan - point taken. But you can't always tell if someone is anxious by their outward demeanor. I have had terrible times with anxiety, but I looked okay on the outside but could be withdrawn. Anyway, I enjoyed the story.
Telly Salvalas, Patrick Stewart and Don Rickles are among the few actors who don't look outdated in their 1980s hair.
@Ken
I remember an episode of MTM where Murray's 15-year-old daughter Bonnie was working in the office. Ted got the bright idea to set her up with a 19-year-old from the University of Minnesota track team. Murray is horrified, but everyone else treats him like he is old-fashioned to object!
@Laurent Vaillancourt
In a similar vein, if you try to watch those early seasons of SNL, they are unwatchable. For every memorable sketch, there are about 5 duds. That's why those compilation tapes are so valuable. Also, back then SNL tended not to use the same premise too many times.
@Roger Owen Green
MeTV is having a tough time making it into the big cities. New York City has most of them, including Antenna TV, which airs as a substation of WPIX11. But the closest MeTV has made it has been Channel 33 out of Middletown, New Jersey, which is an O&O. Of course, if you have cable or satellite it is a moot point, as they are all carried.
On the old, old Steve Allen "Tonight" show, Don Knotts was one of the man-on-the-street interview subjects. Allen would ask a question and he would be too terrified to say a word. (TV was newer and still make people freeze up.) I assume he was tapping into his own shyness. It was hilarious. The there was Louis Nye as the extrovert ("Heigh-ho, Steverino!") and Bill Dana as Jose Jimenez, not yet considered a racist caricature. Nobody under 65 has any idea what I'm talking about.
"JS said...
D. McEwan - point taken. But you can't always tell if someone is anxious by their outward demeanor. I have had terrible times with anxiety, but I looked okay on the outside but could be withdrawn."
Looking anxious and being nervous was Don's entire comedy act. That was his schtick, not who he was.
@Buttermilk Sky
Would you include Steve & Edie, Gene Rayburn, Pat Harrington, and Tom Poston in that list as well?
I've been trying to watch Bob Newhart from the start, never having seen it before. If I disengage because the plot is a little predictable, I'm thinking, 'How could anyone have something that hideous (the coat rack) on their living room wall?
We've been living in a McCarthy era, but the rubes of today think racist big mouths are heroes or patriots. No one reads anymore so the country in certain areas has really dumbed down.
Andy Griffith not carrying a firearm was a smart move for a 30 minute sitcom in a rural town. The tone would be much different if Andy had a .38 revolver strapped to his side throughout the show.
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