I kinda feel that way, and then I kinda feel that’s more a consequence of my own age than any objective reality.
There have been revivals of a number of classic game shows. I generally find them off-putting precisely because the tone and pacing are so different.
Yeah, it’s a matter of age and relative perception of time that changes with age. The other day, my best (musical) friend recommended the latest Arctic Monkeys album to me, and I thought “oh, one of those new British bands”, but then it dawned on me that their debut was in 2003 or 2004. It’s still a “new” band to me, but to my oldest nephew who was born in 1999 they must be an ancient band, if he even knows them.
Ok, that’s a musical example, but I bet that for instance Simpsons episodes from around 2000 are old to my nephew. That was around the time I gave up on the Simpsons, though it had been my favorite show in the decade before.
In my opinion, that show really was about the relationships between the panelists and John Daly, and the banter. John said at one point that they set the prize at $50 so that there was no hint of impropriety and folks wouldn’t take it too seriously.
Like many shows, it was the right thing for its time, but perhaps no other time.
In general, pacing is way off between differing decades in film and TV. Some months back my daughter and I sat down to watch “The Manchurian Candidate”, and while it still is a very good film, she noticed that the different pacing draws attention to itself.
Well, of course this is all subjective, but as a counter to the “it’s my age” argument, in my youth in the 80s, a 25 yo sitcom from 1960 would have appeared very old. Early 1960s ->1985 seems like way more of a cultural gulf than 1997->2022, somehow. Like I said, my teenaged daughter enjoyed and “got” Friends the way 15yo me would never have “gotten” or enjoyed circa 1965 Andy Griffith or Beverly Hillbillies or Bewitched.
I mean, for one thing, they were all in B&W. They just looked old, never mind the dated cultural mores like separate beds and the like…
well for starters they syndicate shows while they’re still showing original episodes now instead of years later and to be honest unless it’s an extreme hair or clothing style or outdated techs like old flip phones or the teenager has a “myspace” account you really can’t tell how old something is these days also there haven’t been the sweeping social changes that would date a show other than say an episode with a gay character who couldn’t get married …
It was my childhood in the 1980s, but I still think my arguement holds up. The '90s were my teens, my first time viewing entertainment not aimed at children. I absolutely did, in my childhood, watch Bewitched, Batman, etc. (the colorized episodes of those that had B&W or only some seasons) - didn’t watch Bev Hillbillies, either). Yes, those shows absolutely were “old” to me, but I would watch them when nothing else I wanted to watch was airing opposite. I certainly didn’t care about them way I did the new shows airing at the time.
Probably not coincidental the ones I watched were ones kids could understand instead of shows of another type. Because '90s shows were post childhood, the are “normal” to me, no matter how different they are from current television. And even now, there are some shows from the era that are quite watchable, IMO. Not all, of course, but a few.
And that’s an issue, too - you say Friends or Seinfield is watchable (I never watched either in the first place, so cannot comment). How about going down a list of all the shows debuting in a given year in the 1990s and see how many of them are appealing to kids today.
That’s all I’m saying. So no disagreement there.
My teenager has the Friends DVD box set and a Friends T-shirt. So I’d say she (and her contemporary Friends fan Discord group) cares, at least as much as she cares about, say, Wednesday or The Owl House or whatever other contemporary show she’s watching.
I’ve been comparing Friends to Bewitched or Andy Griffith, not The Pruitts of Southampton or The Tammy Grimes Show - popular show compared to popular shows. Of course the drek is going to be drek in a timeless fashion.
I absolutely think it’s video recordings. I think that TV changed when it became common to watch a recording. To watch at a time if your choice, fast forwarding and rewinding, made it a different medium, with different rules and expectations. I think everything before that is “old”.
And maybe our culture was changing faster in the 60s and 70s than it has in the new millennium? Hard to say.
My grandkids LOVE:
Leave it to Beaver
Emergency
They’re 12 & 11 yo but have been watching both shows since they were 4 & 5 yo.