The decline of newspapers-nobody i know who is under 30 reads them anymore. i don’t subscribe to any-i read them on-line for free. Shopping: it’s easier for me to buy stuff on line-i hate going to shopping malls. Library use; seems to be holding up-though when cheap on-line books are available, i exoect to see library use drop. I think the Internet will also effect real estate sales-you don’t waste any time, looking at properties.
on the other hand, TV becomes more and more a junk-filled medium, which gets worse and worse, as advertising crowds out programming
I agree – more niche programming. Most people didn’t watch the Sopranos, though? I had the feeling that it wasn’t as huge as, say, MAS*H, in previous years, but that it was a pretty big deal. Then again, most people I know didn’t watch.
Also, watching stuff on your own time (on demand channels, TiVo, DVDs, youtube/other online venues). You don’t have to be wedded to the TV schedule anymore. You can also watch stuff from decades past if you’re in the mood. There’s no more putting on the TV at night and watching because that’s what’s on. I think NBC’s Must See Thursday and such are dying slow but sure deaths.
About Broadway musicals–there are the old standbys, like Mamma Mia or whatever Disney puts out. But there are also quirky, out there things, like Spring Awakening or Avenue Q.
I also think that we should call our decade the “ooh ooh’s.”
Phantom is a holdover of the 1980’s “British invasion,” started by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
“Mamma Mia” marked the beginning of the current Jukebox Musical influx, which by now has included a whole lot of shows.
I know some people feel that a golden age had to have been in the past but I use it in the broader sense. Someone else mentioned that the eighties were a golden age for basketball and I agree that’s true.
The Little Mermaid (1989) was a major animated feature film. But I’d set the real start of the golden age with the release of The Lion King (1994) and Toy Story (1995) - these were the movies that rose up out of the genre. After them it was no longer necessary to say a movie was great … for an animated movie.
Toy Story also marked the start of the de-Disneyfication of animated movies. Prior to the mid-nineties, animated feature filsm were essentially a Disney monopoly. Disney would release (or re-release) about one animated feature a year and that was it for the genre. Pixar and other studios have ended Disney’s monopoly.
By 2001 the genre had grown to the point where there were sufficient animated features, both in quantity and quality, to justify the establishment of a best animated feature Oscar.
I didn’t say they got a good deal!
I didn’t say so because of that - I said so because that’s the general consensus among animation enthusiasts, for obvious reasons. There are simply tons of high-quality theatrical releases of animation from that period that just doesn’t compare to any other period since.
Wow - I’d designate Lion King as the clear end of the Silver Age, theatrical release-wise. Beauty and the Beast was its peak. As good as Pixar is, they’re extremely contemporary (and far too “clever”). Sixty years from now, I can better envision more people enjoying Aladdin than The Incredibles. As always, Disney built timelessness into their movies, which makes them classics.
Ah-ha! I suppose if you have some sort of pointless hang-up against Disney, the end of their reign would herald some sort of positive revolution. But if you’re realistic and realize that Disney basically created animation as we know it, then you’d be quite comfortable their dominant position during the best years of animation during our lifetimes.
My username is a Winsor McCay character - you think I don’t know animation history? Trust me when I say I could go on about the various eras of cartoons all day long.
I have no beef against Disney - they’ve made some great animation. And for a long time they were the only studio putting out animated features and they deserve credit for keeping the genre alive. But basically Disney spent several decades doing one kind of movie. They did it well but it was still only one kind of movie. So while I’m very happy Disney is still making animated features, I’m even happier that they aren’t the only ones making animated features. But I guess if your standard for judging animated features is how much they look like a Disney production, then everyone else is going to come in second to Disney.
I disagree. Both William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens produced all of their work (we still care about) for a popular audience. It was, in other words, pop culture. (Shakespeare especially. The groundlings were expected to be illiterate working-class stiffs who laughed at ribald humor. Shakespeare catered to them unhesitatingly.)
Wow, Shakespeare was writing 150 years ago? I had no idea! 
(IOW, I agree with both of you, and you’re not disagreeing with each other - even Dickens wrote most of his widely acclaimed stuff 165+ years ago.)
I get an actual newspaper very infrequently (only when I need something to read over lunch). It’s so much easier and more informative to look up news on the internet and get one story from several outlets.
I’d also like to add TiVo and DVR to the list of American Culture changes. While we’re currently schlepping with no cable, I love DVR and miss it dearly. I think it’ll eventually lead to a change in the way the advertising companies do commercials. Maybe something like speed commercials while you fast forward.
OK, yeah, I guess I missed that on first reading.
I missed this: One of the big things we’ll look back on is just how absolutely looney-tunes batshit advertisers went when they discovered that people might skip their ads. MY GOD! THEFT! FIRE! FRAUD! APOCALYPSE! BURN, BABY, BURN! BURN THE TIVOS DOWN! The idea that a business model has a sovereign Right To Life is not new, but it certainly is amusing this time around.
The RIAA/MPAA thing is less new: All new media technologies have been founded on theft and piracy, going all the way back to player piano rolls. (And I’m sure some ancient bards were None Too Happy about people writing things down.)