Classic Butchered

[lowend1]

Never knew that either! If he DID escape in the movie, this is how he would have gone over the wall:

[Chaser001]

More and more, people are viewing American Idol as a popularity contest in which teenage girls and their moms vote for the guys that catch their attention, while females tend to be voted off, especially if they are physically attractive.  I'm glad that more people are beginning to understand that the show is a farce. 

[Dave W]

Are people more aware? Are the ratings down? Hasn't it always been a popularity contest? I've never watched it, but people certainly do talk about it a lot.

Nothing new here. When I was a kid we had Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. I didn't watch them either.

[Chaser001]

Are people more aware? Are the ratings down? Hasn't it always been a popularity contest? I've never watched it, but people certainly do talk about it a lot.

Nothing new here. When I was a kid we had Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. I didn't watch them either.

This is a very short article.  However, I think it accurately sums up the situation at American Idol.   My personal observation is that back in the time of Ted Mack and Arthur Godfrey I'd say more people probably had real lives.  Now so many people are wasting so much time with mindless entertainment such as American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.  Instead of being just a harmless diversion as in times past, it seems entertainment is more meaningless, wasteful, and consuming.  


http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-08/entertainment/pia.eliminated.american.idol_1_idol-voting-favorite-contestants-casey-abrams?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ

Edit:  I've been trying to think of an analogy.  Although comparing current behavior to what the Romans did when they became absorbed with entertainment might make some sense, I think it might make more sense to make another comparison.  It's more like the end of the Hellenistic period when culture was going into decline.  Literature was still written in Greek, but compared to an earlier era of greatness, things were going to crap.  Instead of great drama being created as in ancient Greece, the Hellenistic playwrights were churning out drivel comparable to TV situation comedies.  Culture is obviously in decline now as back then.  American Idol is one of many examples. 

[Dave W]

No doubt there are many more shows like this now. I don't know that it's really any worse than 50-60 years ago. I'm old enough to remember Queen For A Day. It's hard to believe that anything on today could be sorrier than that abomination, yet it ran daily for years.

[Chaser001]

But during the same time period as Queen for a Day, there was also the Twilight Zone, Route 66, and Have Gun--Will Travel.  Now we have Two and a Half Men.  In my opinion, superficiality and passivity have increased. 

[uwe]

I agree with the observation that whereas people used to do that stuff to be famous for a day, throw a round in their workplace on Monday and return to their normal lives on Tuesday, people today seem intent on forging a career and a lifestyle to last forever out of it. That is disturbingly shallow to me.

[Dave W]

But during the same time period as Queen for a Day, there was also the Twilight Zone, Route 66, and Have Gun--Will Travel.  Now we have Two and a Half Men.  In my opinion, superficiality and passivity have increased. 

Apples to oranges. There's a long list of dreadful 50s and 60s sitcoms. Twilight Zone was borderline in the ratings during its whole run, Route 66 was never a big hit. IMO it's easier to find good TV now if you want it.

Look up former FCC Chairman Newton Minow's "vast wasteland" speech of 50 years ago. Things are no worse today.

I agree with the observation that whereas people used to do that stuff to be famous for a day, throw a round in their workplace on Monday and return to their normal lives on Tuesday, people today seem intent on forging a career and a lifestyle to last forever out of it. That is disturbingly shallow to me.

Maybe so, maybe not. People who do this are more public about it today, that's for sure. Maybe because they have more opportunity to be in the public view. OTOH people wanting to be stars and dedicating their lives to it goes back to the beginning of Hollywood.

[Chaser001]

This is just my observation.  It seems that in the past there actually were a greater number of good TV shows.  Now there are fewer.  It's much harder to me to find something I want to watch.  But the shows that are good are, in fact, excellent and as good or superior to anything that has ever been done.  It has reached the point that I tend to assume that a TV show is bad before I even watch it, and sometimes I'm proven to be not just wrong, but very wrong. 

[nofi]

i heard on NPR a couple weeks ago that minow pissed off the networks so much they named the "s. s minnow"
of gilligan's fame island after him. it could happen.

[Rob]

Harriet was the singer in Ozzie's band way back when. By the time we were growing up, they let Ricky do the singing. And Ozzie never seemed to do anything.

That's because he played Sax and was waiting for a song in his key 

[clankenstein]

there are keys?is that like key to the highway?