SAW is now on the YouTube. This is our second video. It didn’t take as long to make as the first (check that out here), but it’s still a process. I’m shooting for one of these a week, but we’ll see. Until then, join us in the Video Wasteland. Check out the vid. Give us a sub and smash the like button or whatever. We’d really appreciate it.
See ya there, Screenagers.
They don’t make ’em like they used to?
I listened to a YouTube video the other day that contrasted network television in 2023 with network television in 1984. It essentially asks the question Why has television content declined?
Anyway, the subject matter of the video is interesting, but it got me thinking about something that was said about ⅔ of the way in: “I am sort of mourning the decline. Even though there was a lot of crap on TV. Knight Rider was not Soprano grade, but we remember it fondly. It still does well in reruns. So the question is How did we get here?”
But the question I found myself wondering is Why do we remember shows like Knight Rider so fondly?
To thicken the stew and to make sure it doesn’t seem like I’m picking on David Hasselhoff, I’ll throw out a few other titles that Paul mentions. The Fall Guy, Street Hawk, Murder She Wrote, Magnum PI, The Dukes of Hazzard, Hardcastle & McCormick, Air Wolf, The Love Boat, The A Team, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Simon & Simon.
There may be qualitative differences between some of these shows, and if you love some of these, that’s fine. So do I. The intention here is not to crap on any of this stuff. The ones I remember most clearly are probably on the cheesier side. The A Team and The Dukes of Hazzard were favorites of mine as a kid. And though Murder She Wrote and The Dukes of Hazzard may be considerably different in style, tone, quality, acting, and even in the audiences they were appealing to, I think there’s a common thread there for us to pull on.
All of these shows take the idea of fiction as representing an extraordinary day and apply that to…everyday. The characters in these shows lead extraordinary lives. Danger and murder and adventure and intrigue follow them wherever they go.
And it’s not very believable when you think about it.
I mean, just how many murders can one civilian get wrapped up in and be expected to solve? How could a paramilitary group run around the streets of America having shootouts with automatic weapons and blowing stuff up without ever being caught, tried, and sent away for…forever? I mean, did adults really buy into the premises of shows like Air Wolf, Knight Rider, and Street Hawk?
Whether they did or didn’t, people watched these shows. I mean, Street Hawk only lasted one season (I was bummed about that), but The A Team was on TV for five seasons. Air Wolf and Knight Rider managed four seasons. The Dukes of Hazzard, possibly the most ridiculous show on this list, went for seven seasons. Murder She Wrote probably had the longest legs of them all–it lasted twelve seasons. Jessica Fletcher solved over 250 murders. It’s a wonder she had any time to write about anything. And all of these shows, with the exception of Street Hawk, which was sadly practically forgotten, had longer lives in syndication.
It’s hard to imagine sitting through seven seasons of television about a couple of bow and arrow-toting, moonshine-running cousins who get up to all sorts of hijinks involving the local authorities for…reasons. So why did we? And why, when we think back on these shows, do we remember them so fondly? Would we watch these shows if they came out on network TV today? Or are we just too sophisticated? Is it because we know more now with the advent of the internet? Do we just all take ourselves too seriously now?
And it’s not just TV that we do this with. Some of our favorite movies from that era are pretty ridiculous.
Commando, the Dirty Harry movies, Alligator, Firefox, Blue Thunder, 48 Hours, First Blood, the entire Death Wish franchise, Iron Eagle, Die Hard, Hard Target, Point Break, Backdraft, the Lethal Weapon franchise, Under Siege–all of these movies, to varying degrees, stretch the limits of our ability to suspend disbelief. And yet, all of these movies are remembered fondly, and I would be surprised if any of these movies were hits if they were to hit theaters today. Mileage will vary from person to person, obviously. In general, though, these movies enjoy a pretty reputation among fans who were old enough to see them when they came out.
It’s hard to imagine any of these movies on the big screen in 2023. Not without some attempt to modernize them or make them more believable in some fashion or other. Were we just more gullible in the 80s? Why did we buy into such silly premises? And not just once, but many times. We came out for Lethal Weapon 1-4. We turned out to see Die Hard in droves. And we kept turning out for them well into the new millennium. We showed up for Magnum PI and The Fall Guy and Knight Rider week after week, year after year. And we’ve kept onto showing up for them nearly 40 years after some of them signed off the air.
Is the old stuff just more fun?
Chato has a possible answer.
“I think if all the shows were on the network now, they would be doing much better. Don’t you think? They don’t sound that out of place, do they? In fact, they sound like fun! A word that isn’t used a lot these days in entertainment.”
Does that explain it? Did we just like to have more fun in the 80s? Are we too uptight nowadays? Maybe we just need to lighten up. I mean, superhero movies are pretty popular, and those are lighthearted. They’re not overly serious or realistic, right? Then again, there’s kind of an expectation when you go into a Marvel movie or a Star Wars movie that normal rules don’t apply. These are fantastical genres about otherworldly characters. You kind of know going in that you have to set aside the expectation of realism. But all of the movies and TV shows cited above are grounded in the real world, even if their premises are unrealistic.
My Thoughts
I agree: most of what was on offer back in ‘84 sounds like fun. A lot of fun, actually. But I think there’s no overlooking the fact that things have simply changed. There are some amazing episodic shows available now–they’re just not on network TV. Last time I checked, cable’s share of the viewership pie is at about 40%. Many people have shifted from cable to streaming. The streaming wars drove the budgets of these shows into the stratosphere, and I don’t think network TV can compete with that, especially not with the relentless schedule of network TV. Which produces a disparity in terms of the production values of a lot of streaming shows compared to network TV shows. The likes of Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and The Mandalorian have taught audiences to expect higher production values.
I also think that in a lot of ways, the audience has become more sophisticated. We expect that a certain amount of effort will be made toward believability, whether that involves research, hiring consultants, or just a certain level of polish in the final product’s effects and action set pieces. I don’t think you could get away with an A Team or Knight Rider today. The concepts themselves seem hokey. Our post-911 society has seen all the documentaries about the CIA and special operations warfare. We know way more than we did when movies like Predator, Rambo II, and Commando came out in the 1980s. Much of which we learned from later movies.
At the end of the day, I think comparing modern television with television from 1984 is comparing apples and oranges. The media landscape and the culture have shifted such that it’s probably not even worth making those comparisons. I’m less sure when it comes to movies, though. I’m still not sure why the mid budget movie went away (which encompasses everything from action movies to rom coms), and I can’t understand why studios aren’t doing everything in their power to shift more of their productions in that direction. But that’s a convo for another time.
What do you think?
So this is where y’all come in. What do you think? Why do we look back so fondly on seemingly silly shows and movies? I look forward to seeing what you come up with.