# Anti-TV attitudes in the 60s: why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 2, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445 "2012-10-02T01:24:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/41 "2012-10-03T06:34:56Z")
they didn’t have Avatar or Apple then. the Anti People needed to be anti. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/42 "2012-10-03T07:02:14Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Those who do not remember history are condemned to post about it on the Dope. > > Newton Minnow was years before hippies - and I (who lived through that time) don’t remember hippies or the New Left singling out TV very much. > Sure it was a part of straight consumer culture, but nothing special. The OP’s question regards the 60s and 70s and hippy beliefs influenced opinions voiced during that time. The fact that they had a broad range of criticism doesn’t preclude their influence. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/43 "2012-10-03T09:19:47Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > FWIW Both Steptoe & Son and Till Death Do Us Part were remade into American shows, Sanford & Son and All in the Family respectively. Sanford was your standard goofy 70s comedy (I enjoyed it because I was only 7 or 8), All in the Family of course was a fairly groundbreaking early dramedy, but it’s pretty dated if you watch it today. Never having seen the original British shows they’re based on I can’t compare them (though Steptoe sounds \*\*nothing \*\*like Sanford!) Oh god no. Sanford doesn’t even deserve to be called a remake. The only common point is that the two main characters are a poor father and son. Beyond hat there’s really nothing in common. Steptoe and son was a social commentary on the class system and the passing of the pre-war generation. It was presented as a comedy of manners but the social commentary was always right at the forefront. At its best it managed to be be simultaneously sidesplittingly funny and heartwrenchingly pathetic. One thing it never was was “goofy”. Sanford and Son was just kinda lame. All In The Family was a definite remake, but it’s also the poster child for “totally missing the point”. The Alf character in “TDDUP” was a man who’s world had vanished. “His” Empire, Political party, country, family, marriage, home and everything else had somehow changed around him and left him adrift. He was a man out of his time, not through any fault of his own, but simply because the world that he fit into no longer existed. Alf represented an England that ceased to exist when he was 30, but he couldn’t accept it. He was also the archetypal 20 year old in a 70 yo’s body wondering what the hell happened. It was kind of sad, while simultaneously ridiculing the stupidity of his attitudes Archie came across as an entitled arsehole. His behaviour and attitudes would have made him an arsehole when he was 30, He wasn’t an anachronism, he was just a petty bully. He was in conflict with everyone, including his family. The only exception was his wife, who was portrayed as an idiot that she couldn’t be a source of friction, and he belittled her. The fact that both the house and the neighborhood that Archie lived in seemed quite comfortable utterly destroyed any ambiguity between a man who had failed and a man who had been failed by his country. If Archie was living that well then his country clearly hadn’t failed him. AitF is an OK show on its own merits, but it totally missed the point of TDDUP. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/44 "2012-10-03T09:32:21Z")
> [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](#): > > In the UK we had _Steptoe and Son_, and various permutations of _Hancock’s Half-Hour_, which were both praised as comedy and as quasi-drama (_Steptoe_ was frequently compared to the works of Samuel Beckett). And they weren’t underground shows, they were massive hits with audiences in the tens of millions (28 million per episode, apparently, for _Steptoe and Son_). _Til Death us Do Part_ was also aimed at an adult audience, albeit that it’s a lot harder to defend nowadays. Until the 1980s there was a perception that US sitcoms were trivial, sponsor-led, full of well-scrubbed white people and their zany adventures, whereas British TV comedy was grittier and more down-to-earth. > > I have the impression - I wasn’t alive then - that television _in Britain_ was initially viewed as being ignorable simply because it was new, but by the 1960s it was [fashionable to praise it](http://www.historytoday.com/stuart-clayton/television-and-decline-deference), what with _That Was the Week That Was_, _Quatermass_, _The Great War_, _Civilisation_ all being undeniably quality TV. And all those programmes, apart from _Quatermass_, were made by the BBC. The whole point of the BBC was that it defined itself as being above the crass vulgarities of commercial television, whether defined by American television or, after 1955, by ITV, its only UK rival. I dare say the BBC also produced its fair share of crap. (I too wasn’t alive then.) But the reason that British TV was structured in the way that it was, with tight regulations, public funding for its major broadcaster and only one commercial channel, was precisely because anti-TV attitudes were so strong. The BBC always wanted to show that it was better than so many people feared TV would be. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/45 "2012-10-03T15:50:34Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > All In The Family was a definite remake, but it’s also the poster child for “totally missing the point”. The Alf character in “TDDUP” was a man who’s world had vanished. “His” Empire, Political party, country, family, marriage, home and everything else had somehow changed around him and left him adrift. He was a man out of his time, not through any fault of his own, but simply because the world that he fit into no longer existed. Alf represented an England that ceased to exist when he was 30, but he couldn’t accept it. He was also the archetypal 20 year old in a 70 yo’s body wondering what the hell happened. It was kind of sad, while simultaneously ridiculing the stupidity of his attitudes > > Archie came across as an entitled arsehole. His behaviour and attitudes would have made him an arsehole when he was 30, He wasn’t an anachronism, he was just a petty bully. He was in conflict with everyone, including his family. The only exception was his wife, who was portrayed as an idiot that she couldn’t be a source of friction, and he belittled her. The fact that both the house and the neighborhood that Archie lived in seemed quite comfortable utterly destroyed any ambiguity between a man who had failed and a man who had been failed by his country. If Archie was living that well then his country clearly hadn’t failed him. > > AitF is an OK show on its own merits, but it totally missed the point of TDDUP. Well, the two shows reflected their countries at the time. From what I gather (mostly from watching brit-coms) even though America had the energy crisis, Watergate, inflation etc. Britain in the 1970s was much, much worse. Rioting, crime, really high unemployment, the trauma of having been **directly** effected (i.e. bombed!) by WWII still in people’s memories. Your description of TDDUP’s Alf reminds me of a reference to Churchill having lived from 1880 to 1960 and seen Britain fall from unchallenged and sole world superpower to semi-irrelevant welfare-state. As such AITF’s Archie wasn’t so much a bully, as he was a confused & scared blowhard & buffoon. He too grew up in poverty, fought in the war, prospered in the 50s, then saw his country seemingly lose its mind in the 60s. But when push came to shove Archie ultimately had a heart. He talked and thought like a bigot, but he never really wanted to hurt anyone. There was an episode where he joined what he thought was just a group of guys fighting for the working man, but he was genuinely shocked & dismayed & rejecting when he discovered it was little more than a Klan chapter! I saw Carrol O’Conner in the old Bob Costas Later show and he was proud of the character. He felt he was just a blue-collar guy who had to work hard for everything he had and saw the latest generation as a bunch of lazy, long-haired slackers who did nothing but complain about people like him. But AITF was first and foremost a comedy. Again, the problems in America in the 70s were not desperate for most people, so any heavy-handed pathos had to be delivered with a healthy helping of humorous schtick! ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/46 "2012-10-03T17:45:09Z")
And he was kissed by Sammy Davis Jr. That’s good enough for me! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/47 "2012-10-03T19:48:39Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > I’ve endured this long enough. Friends, the dude’s name is [Newton Minow.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_N._Minow) He may be an idiot, but he is not a small fish. Sorry about that. He had a column in the Times yesterday on the debates (or was it today) and seeing it I went uh-oh. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/48 "2012-10-03T19:55:23Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > The OP’s question regards the 60s and 70s and hippy beliefs influenced opinions voiced during that time. The fact that they had a broad range of criticism doesn’t preclude their influence. Except that the criticism predated hippies (and was pretty much a truism by their time) and that I don’t recall hippies being particularly critical of TV. And I’m the right age to know. Anti-technology, yes. Jefferson Airplane trotted out “computer killers” on “Volunteers.” TV was hardly considered technology then, no more than a refrigerator. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/49 "2012-10-03T20:06:58Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > All In The Family was a definite remake, but it’s also the poster child for “totally missing the point”. The Alf character in “TDDUP” was a man who’s world had vanished. “His” Empire, Political party, country, family, marriage, home and everything else had somehow changed around him and left him adrift. He was a man out of his time, not through any fault of his own, but simply because the world that he fit into no longer existed. Alf represented an England that ceased to exist when he was 30, but he couldn’t accept it. He was also the archetypal 20 year old in a 70 yo’s body wondering what the hell happened. It was kind of sad, while simultaneously ridiculing the stupidity of his attitudes > > Archie came across as an entitled arsehole. His behaviour and attitudes would have made him an arsehole when he was 30, He wasn’t an anachronism, he was just a petty bully. He was in conflict with everyone, including his family. The only exception was his wife, who was portrayed as an idiot that she couldn’t be a source of friction, and he belittled her. The fact that both the house and the neighborhood that Archie lived in seemed quite comfortable utterly destroyed any ambiguity between a man who had failed and a man who had been failed by his country. If Archie was living that well then his country clearly hadn’t failed him. > > AitF is an OK show on its own merits, but it totally missed the point of TDDUP. The point of TDDUP, as you give it, would make no sense in the US. Great Britain won the war but lost the Empire. The US won the war and rose to superpower status. A show about this would make no sense in the US. Archie’s issue was that he grew up in a world where he had certain privileges as a white male, even a lower class one. He was reacting to the loss of these privileges, and to the fact that those he considered to be inferior now had more money and more status than he did. At the time there were a lot of people who watched the show and sympathized with him. As time went on they softened him, but he started as a real bigot. BTW, at the time it was perfectly realistic for Archie to have that kind of house in that kind of neighborhood. I come from Queens, and I know. ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/50 "2012-10-03T22:01:25Z")
Is the idea that TV is mostly moronic really that novel? Come on. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/51 "2012-10-04T21:05:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Except that the criticism predated hippies (and was pretty much a truism by their time) and that I don’t recall hippies being particularly critical of TV. And I’m the right age to know. > > Anti-technology, yes. Jefferson Airplane trotted out “computer killers” on “Volunteers.” TV was hardly considered technology then, no more than a refrigerator. But the timeframe of criticism in OP’s question, circa the 60s and 70s, doesn’t predate the hippies. If the OP had asked about criticism in the 50s, I’d guess the beatniks had an influence although that is before my time. My question for the OP would be whether this criticism he’s mentioning regards simply the programming content of TV or whether to have a TV at all? ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/52 "2012-10-04T21:25:39Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > But the timeframe of criticism in OP’s question, circa the 60s and 70s, doesn’t predate the hippies. If the OP had asked about criticism in the 50s, I’d guess the beatniks had an influence although that is before my time. My question for the OP would be whether this criticism he’s mentioning regards simply the programming content of TV or whether to have a TV at all? Most of the criticism of TV as a medium came from those considered to be part of the American[intelligentsia](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intelligentsia)–a broad spectrum of people that would’ve, according to some definitions, included some beatnik writers during the 50s and more literate members of the counter-cultural movement (e.g., hippies) during the 60s. Regarding the OP, I can’t answer for him but I would guess that most criticism was aimed at the programming content which was perceived as a bland, banal, and mind-numbing waste of one’s time. If you thought that was a fitting description of what was on TV, it really didn’t make much sense to own one. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/53 "2012-10-04T23:51:35Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > If you thought that was a fitting description of what was on TV, it really didn’t make much sense to own one. There was a cliche about a person, usually an egghead, who said he hated TV and never watched, but was up on all the programs. This isn’t something I hear today because with so much on there is something not to be ashamed of watching. But not “Jersey Shore,” Governor Romney. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/54 "2012-10-06T09:06:10Z")
I remember Mike Teevee being the one thing in _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ that didn’t make sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/55 "2012-10-06T09:58:01Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > But the timeframe of criticism in OP’s question, circa the 60s and 70s, doesn’t predate the hippies. Just out of interest, how many hippies do you think there were in 1963? ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/56 "2012-10-06T10:14:20Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > As such AITF’s Archie wasn’t so much a bully, as he was a confused & scared blowhard & buffoon. He too grew up in poverty, fought in the war, prospered in the 50s, then saw his country seemingly lose its mind in the 60s. But when push came to shove Archie ultimately had a heart. He talked and thought like a bigot, but he never really wanted to hurt anyone. There was an episode where he joined what he thought was just a group of guys fighting for the working man, but he was genuinely shocked & dismayed & rejecting when he discovered it was little more than a Klan chapter! All In The Family was a lot less effective than Til Death Do Us Part because the character of Archie Bunker was considerably diluted from Alf Garnett. Bunker was the jerk with a heart of gold, while Alf Garnett was a genuinely hateful human being. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/57 "2012-10-06T11:22:24Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Who co-starred in that again? I forget. The Genius That Was Morey Amsterdam. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/58 "2012-10-06T22:56:10Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Check out Neil Postman’s writing from the '80s ([excerpt](http://books.google.com/books?id=zGkhbPEjkRoC&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&source=bl&ots=tHb7q8AOg-&sig=LQGmW_FMIum3bBjuCftPTYf58q4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=B0hqUI7cIYaHywGi14GIAg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)). I reread that book this year with 20+ years of living since the first one and came to two conclusions: 1. Postman would have SEIZURED if he could have lived to see the internet as it is today. 2. What is it about long dead white men that makes every world out of their mouths “from God’s lips to your ear”? ---
**Author:** ![Mixolydian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Mixolydian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mixolydian)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445/59 "2012-10-09T01:02:28Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m a little hard-pressed to think of a sitcom that wasn’t solidly stupid before _The Mary Tyler Moore Show_. Seriously, what’s a pre-1970 sitcom that was written for actual grown-ups? > [@Krokodil](#): > > \*\* > The Dick Van Dyke Show\*\* was a lot better than you seem to remember. Way before my time and I’ve never seen an episode, but a documentary I caught made me think that The Goldbergs was a quality TV sitcom that came over from radio in the early 50s…maybe there were others? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-tv-attitudes-in-the-60s-why/636445.md?page=2)