And, of course, what made them inlfluential on other shows?
A little housekeeping:
By artistically speaking, I mean to restrict the discussion to shows that had an impact on the creation and development of shows that premiered later. It doesn’t matter for this purpose whether the show had a noticeable affect on the larger society.
By influential, I do not mean good. Not necessarily, anyway… If you think the later seasons of MASH were crap, but also wish to argue that shows of the mid-80s and later often consciously aped those seasons–or, for that matter, were deliberate reactions against those seasons–then MASH qualifies.
Lastly, I do mean television shows. The three years of Star Trek: TOS count; the movies do not. Because they’re not, you know, television.
The first one that comes to mind is “All in the Family.”
It introduced a lot of previously-off-limits topics. Here was bigotry, prejudice, rape, and menopause; in the context of a generation gap and values clash. This was a marked departure from the happy family sitcoms we had seen up to this point. Archie yelled, called his wife and son-in-law nasty names, used derogatory words to describe minorities, and was a general all-round grouch. But he was also one who could learn, who could concede (however grudgingly) that he just might be a little bit wrong about some things. He was no perfect TV dad, that’s for sure; he was no Mike Brady or Ozzie Nelson. But unlike Mike and Ozzie, Archie was indisputably human, the kind of person we all might know.
All in the Family’s influence? In addition to its spinoffs, which were themselves influential (the fact that the Jeffersons were black didn’t prevent them from moving on up to the East Side, and Maude could poke fun at liberals just as AitF poked fun at conservatives), AitF made sure that the way was clear for shows involving minorities and various ethnicities in major roles (examples would include Chico and the Man and Welcome Back Kotter). It sent the message that TV could be a little harder-edged, and could push the envelope. Maybe not substantially, but TV sitcoms no longer need be bland representations of an ideal family life (The Brady Bunch), or simple slapstick comedy (Gilligan’s Island).
Just as importantly, TV sitcom characters could become much more complex and multi-dimensional, thanks to Archie’s complex character that ran deeper than just being a bigot–Hawkeye Pierce could devote himself to his job but hate the Army he worked for, Fonzie could be the bad influence your mother warned you about but he had a sentimental side only his close friends knew about, and Flo could tell everybody to “Kiss my grits!” while letting the audience imagine what that meant.
I don’t know if All in the Family was the most influential TV show, but I’d suggest that it’s up there.
I’ve read *Hill Street Blues *changed cop shows permanently. It showed the police characters as much more complicated people who sometimes aren’t always the “good guy”. I was a bit young to have watched it much, so I can’t confirm.
Hate to say it, but MTV’s The Real World set the stage for all the reality shows that followed.
One might argue that The Dick Van Dyke Show was among the first situation comedies to promote a very literate and sophisticated type of comedy, several cuts above the usual “dumb” or exaggerated style – while also proving that characters in such a comedy could be smart and even attractive, and yet still have their foibles.
And although the Petries had a son, only a relatively small number of episodes focused on the usual family comedy issues that were so prevalent on most sitcoms that preceded TDVDS. For the most part, it was adult comedy.
I’m not coming up with as many shows that were influenced by this as I should. I suppose The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an obvious candidate for more than one reason. Though their settings differed dramatically, you could say that shows such as Barney Miller and Night Court took this more intelligent and adult level of writing to heart too. While both had their share of exaggerated characters, they all retained a certain level of realism and humanity…also a legacy of TDVDS.
COPS. It’s not something I like to watch, mind you, but it did introduce Reality Television to the US, and that’s undeniably influential.
Similarly, The Real World, for the specific branch of Reality Television that I don’t think has a name, but can be grouped by the premise, “stick a bunch of strangers together long term under some gimicky, vaguely gameshow like premise and film what happens.”
Hill Street Blues, for bring overlapping story arcs into primetime drama. The Fugitive is widely credited as the first drama to do story arc, but there was just the one. X-files for bringing the mytharc in, and *Buffy *for doing it well enough for others to follow.
Yes, and is it fair to say that, since the 80s, every cop show, medical show, or lawyer show owes a lot to Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and L.A. Law, respectively?
Saturday Night Live’s gotta be on the list somewhere, for bringing the counterculture to network TV.
You have to include Star Trek.
Another one would be The Beverly Hillbillies. I know it’s not considered as an artistic contribution outside of the country themed genre, but it set up a framework for later ensemble sitcoms. Taxi, Cheers, and News Radio borrowed heavily from the absurdist concept, and used the same type of simple one dimensional characters to turn ordinary situations into comedy.
One could argue that Married… With Children made its mark in the 80s. Not that it was a terribly influential or even good show. But it was kind of Fox’s flagship show that launched a network that launched some of the most innovative (and controversial) shows of the next couple of decades. In just over 20 years it became the most watched network.
If the Donahue Show was influential, then so too was Unsolved Mysteries, the first true-crime show to gain a national audience. There are now entire networks which wouldn’t exist if UM hadn’t blazed a trail.
I’m going to skip the comedies and dramas and suggest one of the most underappreciated shows on network TV. ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
Before then, sports programming had either focused on full-length games or brief highlights. WWoS instead using a magazine format to focus on shorter events, from lesser known sports, bunching several of them into a single program, and sometimes interspersing a profile of an athlete.
WWoS was also the springboard for Roone Arledge, who later went on to head both ABC Sports and News, and is arguably the single most influential TV person of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.
Seven years later, Don Hewitt at CBS took substantially the same idea and developed 60 Minutes, which revolutionized (and some would argue, saved) the television documentary, and paved the way for *Dateline, 20/20 *et al.
That’s easy: the original Battlestar Galactica (from the late 70s) came about as a direct result of the resurgence of sci-fi fandom from Star Wars and the first Star Trek movie (admittedly more the former than the latter, but the drive to get Star Trek back on the air was strong back then). If the original BG hadn’t been created, the new one (which is the one I’m presuming you’re referring to) would not have come about years later.
I was referring to either, but mostly the former. If you can demonstrate that ST is an influence on BSG 1.0, then your case is clearly made for BSG 2.0
