# Movies/TV Shows/etc moments that seem really dated now... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 13, 2002, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226 "2002-09-13T04:39:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2002, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/61 "2002-09-28T12:57:34Z")
Well, ok, but can I still hate Lt. Cable for dumping poor Liat? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2002, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/62 "2002-09-29T00:16:03Z")
I don’t remember Lt. Cable “dumping” Liat. Lt. Cable was killed in combat, wasn’t he? ---
**Author:** ![Alfishius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@Alfishius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alfishius)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/63 "2016-03-28T23:45:25Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > I don’t know if St. Eligius Hospital had MRIs, but MRIs were first demonstrated in 1980, and **St. Elsewhere** was on 1982-1988. It was all in that kid’s head, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/64 "2016-03-29T00:06:33Z")
FWIIW this is 14 year old thread and Walloon hasn’t posted since 2010 ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/65 "2016-03-29T00:52:15Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > I don’t know if St. Eligius Hospital had MRIs, but MRIs were first demonstrated in 1980, and **St. Elsewhere** was on 1982-1988. St. Elsewhere installed its MRI in 1987 (Season 6.) It turned out to be improperly shielded, leading to TV sets flickering, beds shaking and other happenings one might associate with a Halloween episode. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/66 "2016-03-29T00:58:31Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > _2010: The Year we Make Contact_ (1984). Okay, you’ve got the big bad Soviets… um… Ain’t it funny how the world turns… ---
**Author:** ![smokey78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@smokey78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smokey78)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/67 "2016-03-29T01:54:55Z")
An Officer and a Gentleman -or maybe not? OH, and how a big deal it was for couples to live together w/o marriage, the whole premise to Three’s a Crowd! ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/68 "2016-03-29T03:26:40Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Fashion is different. In 2011, audiences will rent old DVDs from the turn of the century and laugh their heads off to see guys wearing shorts and cutoff jeans and swim trunks where the legs go nearly down to their knees. No one would be caught dead in anything so old-fashioned in 2011, except maybe Grandpa. And don’t even get me started on those baggy-ass jeans! So, how did your prediction turn out? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/69 "2016-03-29T03:42:55Z")
> [@Ankh\_Too](#): > > St. Elsewhere. The character stories are still engrossing, but the difference between what was considered to be cutting edge medical drama and what we have today is just a little discordant. I caught it on Bravo one afternoon and the doctors were conferencing over one patient… all i could think was “give him and MRI and find out.” Then I realized they didn’t have MRIs. My Dad was a doctor and a fairly senior staff member (basically someone like Dr. Westphall or Dr. Auschlander from “Elsewhere”) and even during the original run of the series, he would be gnashing his teeth, grimacing, and sometimes even groaning and guffawing out loud at the mispronounced medical jargon, the ridiculous “life or death” drama over what were routine medical procedures, and just what he viewed as the contrived and inept portrayal of what actual hospitals are like. > [@](#): > > Originally posted by Zoggie > As for cigarettes- “The Exorcist” is dated iin that same way. A doctor lights up, and for a moment I knew something was wrong but couldn’t put my finger on what…but then I realized. And according to my dad, some of the procedures they do in that movie are things that are needlessly painful now. And there’s smoking in “Eye of the Beholder”- a Twilight Zone episodes, circa the 1950’s. My dad also smoked up to the day he died in 1988. I recall going to the hospital with him and sitting in the doctor’s lounge, and just CLOUDS of cigarette smoke. Recently, I watched a few episodes of “Twin Peaks” for the first time in, well, decades. Even though the show is supposed to be set in a sort of retro 50’s Americana town, all I could see was the gigantic, owl-rimmed glasses that Ben Horne, Madeleine, and the Log Lady all wore. Also, Agent Cooper’s incessant speaking into a tape recorder to tape messages for his secretary “Diane” back in D.C. seems hopelessly dated now. He could just call her on a phone now. ---
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/70 "2016-03-29T16:53:00Z")
I’m feeling dated by saying this, but I was watching a DVD over the weekend of the show CHiPs. Ponch and John were on their bikes and John said “The best things in life are free” and Ponch responds “FREE? We had to pay 25 cents to go over the bridge!” ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/71 "2016-03-29T17:02:37Z")
Another thread reminded me of _Chasing Amy_ recently. And the scene at the train station where Banky and Holden are going to go to a Con. Banky has a bag full of porn mags. Now it would be just a cell phone full of it. Maybe a couple extra microSD cards. Not nearly as good for the visuals. Holden is paged on a beeper by Alyssa. That’s right, paged. He then goes over to a pay phone to call her. Again, it’d be all cell phones now. Most of that scene would be quite different if done today. ---
**Author:** ![Alfishius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@Alfishius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alfishius)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/72 "2016-05-02T23:35:54Z")
St. Elsewhere was all in that kid’s head, and so was every other show because that web site showed that they were all in the same universe. Even the real world is somehow inside that kid’s head. I don’t understand it totally but St. Elsewhere showed that the whole universe is fake. I stopped going to church. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/73 "2016-05-03T00:33:18Z")
> [@edwards\_beard](#): > > I’m feeling dated by saying this, but I was watching a DVD over the weekend of the show CHiPs. > > Ponch and John were on their bikes and John said “The best things in life are free” and Ponch responds “FREE? We had to pay 25 cents to go over the bridge!” I remember a Dragnet episode where, in the intro, Sgt. Friday says something like, “this is L.A., where some of these homes cost upwards of $100,000”. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/74 "2016-05-03T02:38:17Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > I don’t remember Lt. Cable “dumping” Liat. Lt. Cable was killed in combat, wasn’t he? Yes, he was – but after he dumped Liat. He sings, bitterly, about his own impossible-to-overcome racist background and family in “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.” Emile returns safely from the mission and Nellie realizes how foolish her earlier concerns were. The kids sing Dites-Moi. The End. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/75 "2016-05-03T03:02:59Z")
Any show that heavily uses Freudian psychology to explain character’s actions. In the 50s/60s psychoanalysis was treated as holy writ, and now it’s considered in the same light as dowsing. In a more specific note, I can’t imagine that the MASH episodes where they botch medical care for a bloodthirsty general or help out a South Korean trying to avoid army service would be done today. Can you imagine a show, a sitcom no less, where an Iraqi kid who didn’t want to fight ISIS was helped out by Army doctors? You’d be considered somewhere between insensitive to treasonous. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/76 "2016-05-03T10:00:18Z")
the waltons…i know it was the 30s but dads adding up the bills and complaining saying they need to go to bed earlier so they wouldn’t use so much ma says thell try then says “oh by the way how much is the bill?” pa says " **1.75** that’s right a dollar seventy five for a month of electric our average bill is 100-150 … ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/77 "2016-05-03T11:59:19Z")
Zombies are never dated. I re-watched **Project Moonbase** a while ago. It was an effort by Robert Heinlein nto make a hard SF TV show in the 1950s, only the producers took the footage, condensed it down into a single movie, and released it as a one-shot. Technically, it’s pretty good. It’s a low-cost technically accuratye SF movie about the first trip to the moon, done in true von Braun fashion with a Space Station waystop (albeit a non-rotating one, so no artificial gravity.) and atomic rockets (a la _rocket Ship Galileo_, and other Heinlein offerings). There are lots of cute throwaway bits that aren’t explicitly commented on – the telephones with handsets not connected to the deskset with wires (they have antennas, like cordless phones from three decades later); people using different frames of reference on the space station (and there are signs: _No Walking on the Walls_). Even the fact that the President of the United States is a woman. On the other hand, the human drama and interaction is appalling. Captain Breiteis is condescended to, and called “Bright Eyes” \*. It’s pretty neat that the first human into space is female, but she has to put up with this kind of abuse. The female columnist gets it even worse. She’s every prattling female ignoramus from every Heinlein story, only turned up to 11. Anyone who’s ever defended Heinlein’s depiction of women in his works has to watch this at least once and try to avoid cringing. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/78 "2016-05-03T13:09:15Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#): > > FWIIW this is 14 year old thread and Walloon hasn’t posted since 2010 That’s because [Walloon is dead](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=662328). ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/79 "2016-05-03T15:22:52Z")
**V** the original was on [El Rey](http://www.elreynetwork.com/) over the weekend. Damn, but the graphics were bad. I know it was cutting edge back in 1983, but it hasn’t aged well. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226/80 "2016-05-03T15:35:21Z")
I’m always amazed by how primitive the credits were not too long ago, even in big-budget movies. Looking as if they were generated by the internal captioning system on a 1980s consumer video camera. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-tv-shows-etc-moments-that-seem-really-dated-now/128226.md?page=5)