OT: History of television

[Kevin M.]

I teach a History of Pop Music elective in my middle school. I’m contemplating a companion elective centered around television. Throwing this concept open to this group. 

Looking at about ten hours of content (one hour a week for one quarter of the academic school year). 

Do I go chronologically from early early years to the present day, or do I focus on a different genre each class (drama, sitcom, talk show)?

Most iconic shows? The ones that need to be preserved in a time capsule? A day devoted to the worst TV shows?

I feel like I need to include the following: 

MASH

Johnny Carson

NYPD Blue

Wheel of Fortune

Monty Python

The Cosby Show 

Star Trek

The Real World

Wide World of Sports

The OJ Simpson trial

Cronkite announcing the death of JFK

People will probably also want me to include:

I Love Lucy

Milton Berle 

Bob Hope 

Ernie Kovacs

SNL

Open to any and all ideas

Kevin M. (RPCV)

[David Bruggeman]

Maybe a show that demonstrates the shift from strictly (or mostly) episodic television storytelling.  The Sopranos is often cited here, but there may be better choices.

David

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKgmY4AXmWNFSG0pZ%3DW6s4bxY3qdJXXpfmJT3Zz1yaTgS1ivXQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Melissa P]

All in the Family

--

[Adam Bowie]

I think something showing the difference between non-serialised dramas  and serialised dramas is important. That's been the big sea change in the last 20+ years. So you could take something like Law & Order or CSI with their general "reset-at-the-end-of-the-episode" structure, and contrast with something else. That could be The Sopranos, or Lost, or 24. These also bring you a little further up to date. I think you need a handful of post 2000 shows in there.

I also think "participation" in television outcomes is interesting. So contrast Wheel of Fortune where unless you apply to take part, you're entirely passive, just playing along at home, with American Idol where you phoned in to save your favourite.. Viewers were completely invested. And with that participation came some massive ratings in their heyday. 

There's probably room for something on the business of television. That could be the old-school "pilot" season, which was the norm until relatively recently, versus today's streamers launching shows at any time of the year, sometimes letting you binge and sometimes making you wait week by week (or do combinations, like Andor). You could get into syndication - why it was important to get to 100 episodes or whatever, with 22 episode seasons, vs today's seasons which only occasionally get beyond 10 episodes.

There's probably something about news too, and the change in how it's consumed on TV. I appreciate you may not want to walk into politics here though considering the audience. 

And there's probably something about technology. The introduction of VCRs, later Tivos, and now on-demand streaming. How that changed how we watched television on our own terms vs the forced appointment to view.

Good luck!

Adam

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CA%2B_fQPwnKU797v9tb93qDHu6Rmy75kg-wjR6WDVWxgtmstSHpQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[PGage]

If you only had room for one example of late night television, for middle schoolers at the quarter mark of the 21st century, I would argue more for David Letterman than Johnny Carson. Letterman is probably the single most influential voice on the sensibility of most comedians on television, broadly defined, these days, and Letterman‘s iconic show after 9/11 may qualify as one of the top 10 moments in the history of American TV.

I just watched the Netflix documentary on Ed Sullivan, And I think if I was looking for a TV show that captured more of that mid-century 60s and 70s TV impact I might go with Sullivan over Carson.

Wheel of Fortune is probably as good an example of a TV game show as you could get, although I’m old enough to resonate most strongly with the idea of that weekday morning game show then the syndicated prime time show. Of course, there are morning versions of wheel, But maybe in that category something like the price Is right is similarly iconic. If I had to pick one TV game shiw from my childhood  it would probably be password, which not only gave us a comfortable introduction to celebrities, but also was the kind of game that I grew up playing at home with my family, And even when I got older, I played it with friends. But that’s probably not a meaningful reference point for today’s kids.

The Cosby show raises interesting pedagogical issues: It was a number one TV show for several years and Is something of a landmark in terms of mainstream penetration of an African-American family into American popular culture. However, to really discuss that in any kind of educational setting, I think you’d have to also discuss the horrific behavior of Bill Cosby before and during the run of that show, The details of which may or may not be appropriate for seventh and eighth graders. Bacterial sugar

I think it is important to include coverage of television news, which for 13-year-olds may not be a reference at all when their current experience. I grew up in a home where that evening news was on TV every single night. Cronkite's announcement of JFK’s death is Iconic and would allow you to also talk about the role of the evening news anchor, and the trust that Walter Cronkite eventually earned for most Americans and maybe  even you could book end it with his influential comments about the Vietnam war around 10 years later. The topic of TV news lends itself to sampling a number of key moments, may be including again, Walter Cronkite on you Apollo 11, maybe the Watergate hearings and the coverage of the Clinton scandals , Certainly, some of the coverage of 9/11, If it were up to me announcing the election of Barack Obama, and also the coverage of the January 6 attacks. 

It’s interesting that you’re focusing on NYPD Blue as one of the main television dramas to focus on; I don’t Disagree out of hand I think - that’s a pretty good combination of broad popularity and critical success. I might select something like Hill Street Blues as kind of the real landmark in establishing prestige drama on broadcast television, Which could lead to a discussion of its progeny, which I think would include NYPD Blue but also HLOTS, And The Wire. If there were room, I might also suggest a second round of TV dramas maybe anchored by the Rockford Files and the X-Files, which then leads nicely into at least a discussion of the golden age prestige cable dramas of the Sopranos and (Mad Men) and Breaking Bad). 

I really like your inclusion of the wild world of sports, As a way of talking about sports on television and also would allow a Discussion of how that connects to the cultural ubiquity of ESPN today. 

Given that you’re talking about middle schoolers, it might help to have a category that relates to children’s television per se, Perhaps send it around Sesame Street, though maybe with some coverage of Sponge Bob, and maybe something like schoolhouse rock. Related to this, but probably deserving its own week would be animated programs aimed more at families and children, May be centered on the Flintstones and the Jetsons, but also, of course, at least The Simpsons.

Sent from Gmail Mobile

--

[Tom Wolper]

If I were doing this assignment I’d think through the lessons and find TV shows to illustrate them. My approach would be to see TV as a mirror of the culture and choose shows that defined a clear before and after. I would put In Living Color, Will and Grace, and NYPD Blue. For young people who have no idea of the world decades ago they will need a lot of explanation of the context.

For MASH I’d explain how it took the counterculture values of sixties youth and pushed them into the mainstream. I would also point out that each episode was a morality play where the good guys fought to keep their values against the military bureaucracy.

For late night/variety, I agree with PG that showing only Carson is too limiting. It would work better as clips from Sullivan, Carson, Cavett, Snyder, Letterman, etc.

For sports I’d go to Olympic coverage, thinking of Munich in 1972, US hockey in 1980, or Kerrigan-Harding in 1994, though the impact of that one is close to the OJ trial, a news story treated as entertainment.

For news I would look at the Democratic convention in 1968, the Iranian hostage crisis, and the collapse of Eastern European communism, as much as assassinations or space exploration.

Two series I would add on general purposes are The Twilight Zone and Barney Miller. I don’t know that they would fit my framework. I’d still figure out how to shoehorn them in.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYJBBghX_8WoDUK2Jmp4H%3DUnSQ2VQn-Gk%2BRfS-FOcOk-xQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Doug Eastick]

somehow, perhaps the creation of music videos, MTV, and Miami Vice ("Its cops plus MTV") is a thread that could lead to current discussion of music videos and youtube.

"back in my day, we had to WAIT for the music video we wanted to watch to show up on the TV.  And were forced through commercials too.    You young bucks don't know what that was like"

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiEa%3Dut7bUzr1X72trc8GGYHExiQRm8uttnsUax1B50UZg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Stan S]

As  far as SNL, I would present it as a step in the evolution  of variety shows in general. From Texaco Star Thester and Gleason and Sid Caesar where there where set pieces and usually a weekly guest with a singer and a big production number.Then later with Dean Martin and eventually Carol Burnett, whose show was the end of the “first wave”  of variety shows. 

Then SNL, which started as the “anti-Carol Burnett” and returned to live programming. There were imitators (Fridays) and an evolution to In Living Color  and MAD TV and SNL having to reinvent itself every five to seven years. The Lonely Island’s digital shorts took YouTube stars and made them mainstream (Lazy Sunday).  The YouTube/TikTok “on demand” trend has continued to even include sketches from the current week’s SNL episode. . 

-Stan

[Kevin M.]

Thanks for the input. I like a lot of the suggestions. 

I’m leaning towards taking students through one genre per class session, showing its evolution through its early years to the modern iterations. Along the way, I want to explain the changes in culture and technology that occurred along the way. Using the western as an example, going from Gunsmoke to Deadwood would be a great example of the evolution of the medium. 

When I taught at the film school, I used Sesame Street as a good example of constantly evolving show that used very specific audience data to determine attention span. Mr. Rogers, a hero of mine, eschewed audience research in favor of what his heart told him children needed, so that’s a lesson in itself. 

What I do with my pop music course is take students through a century or so of history and culture. If I can do similar with a tv course, I’ll be pleased. One thing I try to teach my students is not to automatically reject the old just because it seems dated or unrelatable. Modern audiences tend to dismiss what came before them. I’m not even sure the current younger generations will be capable of nostalgia when they mature… it’s a foreign concept to them. 

Kevin M. (RPCV)

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/45947f4b-4a1d-463f-bbf3-8f4f4238e2a6n%40googlegroups.com.