Oh, For Og's Sake! Disco on PBS!

It’s apparently pledge time for the local PBS station, and as I was flipping by the channel, I noticed they were showing a concert, I stopped, and heard, “Get down tonight!” WTF?? This is how you guys attempt to raise money, by whoring yourselves out showing some utterly forgettable groups from the 70s?

Jesus! And I thought being a kid, trapped at the grandparents house and having to endure the nightmare Lawerence Welk was bad enough, but disco? So, I wonder how many poor kids are trapped at their grandparents house, being forced to watch a bunch of sweaty, over the hill farts trying desperately to recapture those coke fueled moments of their youth?

Hey, granny! You gonna tell little Billy about when you first heard that song, smoked some hash, and then proceeded to blow every guy in the men’s room at Disco Stu’s Party Palace? Gramps, you gonna share your story about trying out your first cock ring on some chick while this song played on the eight track in your van with the floor to ceiling shag carpet? And while you’re at it, why don’t you break out the polyester, mood rings, and gold medallions you used to wear?

Disco died for a reason, people! Let it stay dead! If I want to watch a bunch of stiff, pale white people move around as they try to relive their youth, I’ll rent Dawn of the Dead!

Oh come on. Even disco beats out ballroom dancing.

Even if they are competing.

Yeah, but it’s like having to choose between having your testicles crushed by a five pound weight or a ten pound weight. It’s not like either one’s a fun time.

I sure as hell gotta agree with that.

I hate to piss you off Tuckerfan, but misery loves company and all that.
Keep in mind some of your tax money is going to fund this shit. :eek:

PBS has been shoveling shit like Are You Being Served? down America’s collective throat for years and you’re complaining about a disco concert?

If you don’t like disco, here’s a blinding insight for you, find another channel to watch. Or turn off the TV and, I dunno, read a book or something. Fucking culture snob.

Thank you. There are plenty of Britcoms to choose from and still they give us this one.

I watched part of it and I thought it was good. I turned on the surround sound and it was really good. Brought back a lot of memories.

The announcers said the phones were ringing off the hook so other people must have liked it too.

I never thought there was anything wrong with most disco music. (Of course some of it was awful, just like some of today’s music is awful.) The clothes were bad, the hairstyles were bad, but the music itself was and still is popular. To each his own I guess.

I’ve heard they won’t show Ab Fab on our local PBS station because it’s “too risque (sic)” for us. :rolleyes:

At risk of being flamed, I’ll take a stand for disco music.

From what I’ve read and seen, the disco that filled the charts in the late 70’s was not the disco as it originally was in the beginning. IIRC, the disco movement started in gay nightclubs. Most Top 40 disco fans would likely not recognize much, if any, of the “real” disco music.

I think the biggest backlash against disco was the perceived lifestyle - guys in John Travolta white suits w/black shirts and big hair.

Since the last disco music was on the charts over 20 years ago, I was surprised to see how the stars of the day had aged. Was that Leo Sayer or Richard Simmons?

When PBS shows stuff like this, especially during Pledge Week, it’s because they’re trying to extricate money from their biggest demographic, which is Baby Boomers. They know what plays well and they’re going to milk it for all it’s worth.

They’re not stupid, after all.

Robin

Well, that’s what happened to be on at the moment. If Are You Being Served? had been on, I might hve bitched about that.

Oh “culture snob” kind of funny hearing you slap me with that title when you just trashed a Brit com you didn’t like. 'Sa matter? Your panties in a bunch because I hit a sacred cow with you? Are you going to start whining that disco’s really satire on bad music and that I just don’t “get it”?

And, thus, Paul Verhoeven’s next movie is born. :smiley:

I lived through the disco era, and I agree, the music was either kickin, or it sucked…there didnt seem to be any middle ground.

FWIW, I have extremely good memories of a particular summer, and when I get stressed out I use the first disc of Saturday Night Fever to get myself relaxed to sleep. I find particularly ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ by the BeeGees extremely romantic, and wonderful for slowdancing or cuddling to, and ‘Night on Disco Mountain’ [modified from Mussorgsky] for fast dancing almost sum up the best memories I have of the disco era…

BUT…you can also say the same for any other music form, with the way radios overplay music based on some godawful demographic, you can get a lot of really good music that never gets play time, and truely horrible music getting all the playtime. CF ‘All the Gold in California’ a crossover piece by the Gatling Brothers, or ‘Angie’ by the Rolling Stones…how often have you heard after the event reports of Emmy awards and heard people commenting on how some piece of music won that absolutely sucked…but still ended up with major airtime…

The problem is, even if I turn the channel or whatever, the gummint is still using my money to put on this dreck.

At least, when I turn the channel away from The Real Gilligan’s Island, my involvement with it ends.

It was like a fable out of Aesop. In the '70s, a lot of us complained that Disco sucked and wished it would just die. So it died. And what replaced it? Punk, New Wave, and Techno, which have all sucked longer and harder than Disco ever did. Had we but known…

Oh boo hoo, your pennies go to put on a disco concert once. My pennies go to putting on Clifford the Big Red Dog and a hundred other children’s shows and I won’t ever have kids, but I’m not griping about it. Get way the fuck over it.

The government’s contribution to PBS is approximately 34.7%, spread out among state and local governments, the federal government, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The remainder (65.3%) comes from private donors, including individual members, corporate donors, and foundation grants. This is for PBS as a whole; individual stations’ budgets and funding sources may differ greatly.

Keep in mind, too, that pledge week programming tends to differ from normal programming. PBS stations fit a certain demographic. This demographic tends to be older and have above-average income. Thus, PBS stations tend to show programs designed to appeal to this group so they’ll be more likely to donate more money. Believe me, public broadcasters know how to get money from people. (I can’t provide a cite for this; it’s from a lecture given to my class by a salesman from WITF.)

Now, in the case of commercial programming, your involvement absolutely continues even if you choose not to watch it. If you buy the advertisers’ products, you’re helping to fund “The Real Gilligan’s Island”. Think about it.

Robin

They put stuff on like this during pledge weeks to get people to donate, but during the non-pledge weeks, you get the regular stuff. Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.

And if they focused on Clifford the Big Red Dog, children’s shows and other educational programming (you know, like they used to show all the time things like National Geographic), I wouldn’t be bitching. Instead they’ve traded the horror of Lawerence Welk for the horror of disco. Not a step up, IMHO.