Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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There was also the pre-Bell Curve IQ Test episode of Good Times.
Thanks for that Russell (finally got around to watching it). Having never seen anything more than a dy-no-mite from Good Times, it's good to know that - for a while at least - it was a pretty good show.
And who knew that Black Jesus was on TV 30 years before The Boondocks?
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Cheers for 50 Years was the highest rating non-news programme of the year to date. We are doomed.
Okay, I'll finally own up to having watched, and mostly enjoyed, the whole thing.
I quite liked that it carried the history of television in New Zealand - which is what the anniversary is, rather than the history of New Zealand television. Not terribly important fluff from the US, Britain and even Australia was as important to people in the past as it is now.
But it is interesting how different the programme marking 50 years of television was from the programme marking 5 years - viewable through nzonscreen.
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here's an interesting article about business models, news providers and Google
It always struck me that newspapers were in a much more precarious position than TV news:
Newspapers need to make money. But TV News doesn't need to make money, TV networks do. Newspapers would be in a much better position if all that needed to happen was the printers/publishers needed to make a profit, so that newspapers could be support by books and magazines, etc., as TV news is supported by reality TV and comedy.
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With regards to the intellectual activity of engaging in TV; I'd wager most people treat their favourite shows as something they get involved with the analysis of ... a lot of my best and long-term friendships have sprung entirely from discussing why show X has literary qualities and so forth.
I'd take that wager.
Most people's favourite show is Coronation Street, or Fair Go, or reality like The Zoo, Border Patrol or American Idol, or sport.
13.6m Americans watched the final of Lost. The 1990 final of Mr Belvedere attracted more viewers.
Of the 45 most watched things on US TV ever (easy to find), 21 of them are games of American football, there are a couple of Michael Jackson interviews (60 Minutes and Oprah), some of the big finals - MASH, Cheers, the Fugitive, etc. - some one-offs: the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Nancy Kerrigan & Tonya Harding, a Bob Hope Christmas special, the OJ verdict, and the 16th episode of the second season of the Beverly Hillbillies.
The Literary Merit, get-people-talking-about-their-importance etc, were the TV movie The Day After, the first showing of Gone with the Wind, and a couple of mini-series: Roots, and The Thorn Birds.
Most people just watch TV.
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That Calvin cartoon reminds me of a picture researcher on a magazine I used to work for, who asked in all seriousness if a Renaissance painting she was sourcing for us was supposed to be in colour or black-and-white.
And me of some research I read a while about about dreams. It seems some people dream in black and white. During the early days of black and white TV (and maybe film?) the number of people who dreamed in black and white was much higher than subsequently (and although there weren't data, presumably previously as well).
Which is kinda cool. Although Calvin and Hobbes are too :-)
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Exemplifies ignorant contempt for their own cultural form
Yeah ... and they had a Ches & Dale ad on it. Claiming to be from 1969. But in colour. Oh well.
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The gummint will have to reintroduce the broadcasting fee (where do I sign?).
I'm with James. I think that a licensing fee will be coming back in some form or other for FTA TV, and I too am completely willing to pay it.
Speak to ACT.
You may be able to get support for a poll tax to pay for other things too.
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I think you'll find that HBO is not TV. It's HBO =)
Also, Mad Men was on AMC (basic cable).
But I'll add that there's social commentary in a lot of broadcast, network, TV. From just a quick look at Wikipedia's list of episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, we can start with episodes 4, 5 & 6.
A lot of episodes of The Simpsons, of course, from the earlier "Much Apu about Nothing" (illegal immigration), to the more recent "How the test was won" (about school testing), and "Coming to Homerica" (immigration again).
I've always felt the final episode of Malcolm in the Middle had about as powerful a working class message as the second season of The Wire did (albeit told with humour and in the short form).
7th Heaven did an episode on the plight of women in Afghanistan before September 11, and other episodes on racism, homelessness and poverty. Racism in America was an underlying theme of much of 1960s-set American Dreams.
And I'm sure it's in material from other countries as well. "Thatcher sucks" is pretty much a genre of its own in Britain. I haven't seen it, but I'm guessing The Circuit takes a pretty hard look at the circumstances of Aboriginal communities.
Social commentary on network television may be different now, but it's still there, and the good bits are still powerful.
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but they wussed out and went for the whole "back to the island" plot instead and then it all went Gilligan on acid.
I'll have you know that they went back to the Island on Gilligan too =)
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Classic example of what I am talking about is the bad guy (help me out here with his name) ... He was only meant to be in a few episodes but the writers felt that his character was such a good one that they kept him on.
Omar Little?