Kinda odd that 50-70s pop culture's wiped out..

[preslove]

You couldn't write a more cliched "i'm old and out of touch" post without including a "get off my lawn"

 

[slag]

Yes.
I grew up watching this kind of stuff too, but mostly it doesn't hold up well IMO (neither do 80s sitcoms).

Except for Golden Girls.

 

[NesuD]

I just realized this the other day after discovering a great classic sitcom section on kodi - growing up in the 80s and 90s for me involved a lot of classic tv: Gilligan's Island, Get Smart, Bewitched... While tvlands around, it seems like a big chunk of pop culture was removed from our consciousness, from tv to music, and fairly recently. What's up with that? I mean, kids these days don't even understand a "Lucy, I'm home!" reference! The strangest part of it is that the old shows seem much more appropriate for younger kids than modern sitcoms, from the broad humor to lack of who's f*cking who subplots - seems like a misguided shift and a missed cultural opportunity ... maybe that's part of why we're all so now oriented, and why music sucks so much (seriously, hip hop's now sampling music from 2 or 3 years ago instead of 20 years ago like 80s hip hop did).

or is this a sign that i'm getting old? i have far less nostalgia for 80s sitcoms than 60s ones (i'm mid 30s) to be clear

A lot of that stuff has some innuendo in it on sexism and racism that is just not acceptable in todays PC world. I showed some all in the family episodes on you tube to my resident snowflake coworker and I thought he was going to burst a vein. He was getting downright angry. I said dude it's satirical comedy and there were people just like Archie Bunker back in the day in the real world. My grandfather comes to mind. I didn't dare show him any I love Lucy episodes. He is an actual male feminist and is offended by anything that portrays women as anything other than superior in every way.

 

[nakedfrog]

A lot of that stuff has some innuendo in it on sexism and racism that is just not acceptable in todays PC world. I showed some all in the family episodes on you tube to my resident snowflake coworker and I thought he was going to burst a vein. He was getting downright angry. I said dude it's satirical comedy and there were people just like Archie Bunker back in the day in the real world. My grandfather comes to mind. I didn't dare show him any I love Lucy episodes. He is an actual male feminist and is offended by anything that portrays women as anything other than superior in every way.

There were people like Archie Bunker? There still are...

Also, you're thinking radical feminism, not garden-variety. They're different.

 

[bigboxes]

In the late 70's/early 80's, there began the introduction of a lot of independent stations. They were looking for cheap programming. Rerunning old programming solved that problem. So, early on you'd see a lot of early TV that was recorded onto film. The same with old movies. In time, those properties were bought up by bigger entities (think Viacom, Screen Gems, Universal, Turner, etc.) and they started to charge more for their usage. Since the cheap programming was no longer so inexpensive stations and cable networks decided to play newer series and originals. Also, with the advent of HD and widescreen the usage of older standard def 4:3 programming fell out of favor. Good thing for me that I've downloaded a lot of these old shows and can watch them on demand via my file server.

 

[NesuD]

There were people like Archie Bunker? There still are...

Also, you're thinking radical feminism, not garden-variety. They're different.

Ok then there were a lot more in those days. Hows that? Today is clearly nothing like it was then. Worlds changed a lot since those days. I personally don't consider anything but the radical variety as feminism. "garden variety" feminism is just treating people equal. To me it is a given and doesn't require some kind of pigeonholed label. Feminism today is about elevating women above all others not equal treatment. If you want to designate that as the radical variety then ok.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Who said that? Nothing transcends time. The older it gets, the more dated it looks, the less relevant the comedy, the less it appeals to children. When we were kids and I Love Lucy and The Munsters (and F Troop and Leave It to Beaver and ...) were playing on endless repeat at 3:30 PM when we got home from school, it wasn't nostalgia for Mom & Dad, it was to keep the kids occupied.

Ha that's how I know I Love Lucy too. This was mid 90s for me.

 

[gorobei]

In the late 70's/early 80's, there began the introduction of a lot of independent stations. They were looking for cheap programming. Rerunning old programming solved that problem. So, early on you'd see a lot of early TV that was recorded onto film. The same with old movies. In time, those properties were bought up by bigger entities (think Viacom, Screen Gems, Universal, Turner, etc.) and they started to charge more for their usage. Since the cheap programming was no longer so inexpensive stations and cable networks decided to play newer series and originals. Also, with the advent of HD and widescreen the usage of older standard def 4:3 programming fell out of favor. Good thing for me that I've downloaded a lot of these old shows and can watch them on demand via my file server.

Mostly this^
extension of copyrights has taken a ton of older media out of circulation. turner classic hoovered up all the old black and white movies that used to run on OTA. so even public domain stuff is hard to find good copies of. part of the problem is that back in the 70/80s local stations would get a print of a film and chop/splice it up to fit in commercials. after the print made its way around the stations it would be scratched and falling apart. so when the big conglomerates started buying up the master prints and packaging the rights you stopped seeing stuff that was more or less public domain.
the 70 year extension to rights and the whole idea as corporations as people killed off the chances of classic tv hitting public domain any time soon.

 

[shortylickens]

Also I think after That 70's Show people realized it was just not gonna get any better, so they let it go.

 

[slackerinabox]

Except for Golden Girls.

Dude, golden girls is the shit - can't believe how well it holds up. I blame Tom, Joss's Dad, Whedon

 

[slackerinabox]

In the late 70's/early 80's, there began the introduction of a lot of independent stations. They were looking for cheap programming. Rerunning old programming solved that problem. So, early on you'd see a lot of early TV that was recorded onto film. The same with old movies. In time, those properties were bought up by bigger entities (think Viacom, Screen Gems, Universal, Turner, etc.) and they started to charge more for their usage. Since the cheap programming was no longer so inexpensive stations and cable networks decided to play newer series and originals. Also, with the advent of HD and widescreen the usage of older standard def 4:3 programming fell out of favor. Good thing for me that I've downloaded a lot of these old shows and can watch them on demand via my file server.

Very interesting - that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for posting!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Dude, golden girls is the shit - can't believe how well it holds up. I blame Tom, Joss's Dad, Whedon

I watched that show as a kid. Loved it.

I got half the jokes, my parents got the other half.

 

[x26]

I just realized this the other day after discovering a great classic sitcom section on kodi - growing up in the 80s and 90s for me involved a lot of classic tv: Gilligan's Island, Get Smart, Bewitched... While tvlands around, it seems like a big chunk of pop culture was removed from our consciousness, from tv to music, and fairly recently. What's up with that? I mean, kids these days don't even understand a "Lucy, I'm home!" reference! The strangest part of it is that the old shows seem much more appropriate for younger kids than modern sitcoms, from the broad humor to lack of who's f*cking who subplots - seems like a misguided shift and a missed cultural opportunity ... maybe that's part of why we're all so now oriented, and why music sucks so much (seriously, hip hop's now sampling music from 2 or 3 years ago instead of 20 years ago like 80s hip hop did).

or is this a sign that i'm getting old? i have far less nostalgia for 80s sitcoms than 60s ones (i'm mid 30s) to be clear

Everything in the 50's to 70's is the Wrong Color.
It's called Re-Writing History.

 

[angminas]

I hate the new special effects in Star Trek TOS.