I’m not even 40 years old, and I knew about Abbott and Costello when I was a kid in the 70s. I didn’t have to try very hard to see one of their movies on a Sunday afternoon or hear acquaintances do versions of the “Who’s on First?” sketch on the playground.
I don’t think they’re any more or less likely to be familiar with Who’s on First than someone from my generation (grew up in the 1980s)…or, if less likely, not significantly so.
Your mileage may vary.
Besides, I’m among a decided minority who didn’t see Tom’s parents as attempted stereotypes. Just because they (a) happen to be Midwesterners, who (b) happen not to be very aware of pop culture, why does that mean that Sorkin is making the statement that Midwesterners aren’t very aware of pop culture? The week before, Harriet told a long story about growing up in Michigan and listening to Judy Holliday. Does that mean Midwesterners listen to Judy Holliday?
Why must we impute characteristics onto a class of people simple because one or two members of that class have those characteristics?
I have to say, I have no idea who Judy Holliday is. I know Abbott and Costello though, as do my parents who stopped paying attention to pop culture by 1972 or so. I really thought Tom’s parents were going to call him out on being a patronizing dick for thinking they never heard of “Who’s on First?” Hell, they’re more likely to know of it than most twenty-seven-year-old guys living in LA.
Can we just stipulate that Tom’s (is his name Tom? Whatever, fey lobster boy) parents are not normal midwesterners, are not meant to be normal midwesterners, may in fact have no sense of humor, may have grown up without TV (it happens), & maybe only started paying attention to TV comedy at all when their son got into the business.
And if they’re 50-60 years old today, they’d have been 10 in 1956-1966, not 1946-1956. Unless S60 is set in 1996, which I would find surprising.
(Actually, if it’s like West Wing, it’s possibly set in the future, or did Simon’s lines in the 1st ep refute that?)
Exactly.
And yeah, the show is set in the present. Although the chances of there ever being any Studio 60 episodes set, y’know, in 2007 are looking sadly slim.
D’oh!
If it’s the case that there’s a particular reason for the parents not to have heard of Abbott and Costello, I think it was sloppy of Sorkin not to put it in. It would be as easy as a throwaway comment to the effect that – my grandparents and parents never watched television and never associated with anyone who watched television.
I’m with you here – characterization is not necessarily stereotyping. It’s done because the people watching don’t grasp the concept.
Yeah, maybe they’re reformed Amish criminals, who went straight from the collective to solitary confinement for 20 years, and got out of the slammer just in time for the wrap party.
That’s about what it would take.
C’mon. I had a friend in high school, back in 1992 or so, who’d never heard of David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, or The Simpsons. People have gaps in their cultural consciousness.
My mother’s family got their first television set when she was in her last couple of years of highschool. Which would have been around 1966 or 67 or so. It doesn’t seem so farfetched to me that someone from a rural area could be pretty out of touch with the pop culture of their youth.
I am between 50 and 60. I’ve never seen an Abbott & Costello movie (except, possibly, for bits & pieces on TV). But I’ve heard Who’s On First countless times, going back as long as I can remember.
But I still like the show.
Studio 60 would have worked if the show was not about a SNL type of show but more of a 60 Minutes type of thing.
He could take on topical subjects and the characters would work better.
They were described as being “from Columbus,” which is a major urban area. I have severe doubts that someone from an isolated rural area in Ohio would say that he’s “from Columbus.” At the very least, it implies that he’s from a Columbus suburb or area adjoining such a suburb.
I agree, although even better, in my opinion, would be a Daily Show-esque show.
For Chrissake. I guarantee I could find people living right here in D.C. that are woefully ignorant of any pop, political, or other cultural thing you might choose to name. Some people lead more sheltered lives in some areas than other people, no matter where they’re from. It boggles my mind that this has attracted so much criticism.
Could it (and the whole storyline) have been handled more artfully? Absolutely. Is it the worthy subject of this much derision? Not in my view.
I think for this show, it does deserve this much discussion. One of the problems people have is that S60 presents non-intuitive situations and does not explain why they are like that. There’s nothing wrong with having uncommon situations, but if the audience can’t relate, the writer needs to offer up an explanation. This isn’t the first and only situation:
-Matthew’s an athiest, yet he dates a fundamentalist Christian for 4 years.
-A writer knows the whole history of the building
-His parents don’t know about Abbott and Costelo
-The writer somehow comes up with a record in the middle of the night
-Bimbos don’t know what a writer or producer are
-Everyone on a comedy show is so serious
-The president of the studio is a young woman without the air of authority
-Somehow her minor alcohol incident years ago is major news
-Vanity Fair says the show is the most important thing on TV, yet the skits are lame
Sorkin can’t just keep throwing this stuff out there without explanation. If the only incident was that the parent’s didn’t know A&C, no big deal. But time after time we have these “Huh?” situations with no backstory. To me, that doesn’t make me think of a well written show. It makes me think he’s pulling stuff out of his ass.
I don’t remember him stating that he’s an atheist. When does he do that?
This was presented as a point-counterpoint – the guy who’s obsessively worshipful of comedy and his career, and the parents who couldn’t care less.
In Hollywood, in a building that (1) used to be a radio station, (2) is now a sketch TV show, with all the attendant archival capabilities (Jay Mohr’s book about SNL talks about how the people there could have any kind of clip you wanted, five minutes after you asked), (3) was where A&C debuted the damn thing! I don’t find that him being able to get his hands on that record overly strains credulity. Hell, you can fanwank that he was bound and determined to get his parents to listen to the routine after giving them the spiel, so he went out and got it beforehand.
There are people in the TWoP episode thread and, I believe, in this one (though I’m too lazy to look), recounting similar – if not quite so humorously exaggerated – stories of staggering ignorance from industry people who should really know better.
I’m…not sure what you mean by this. Sorkin’s writing, overall, could better showcase the comic sensibility of the show-within-a-show cast, I agree. But otherwise, what do you mean?
Jamie Tarses. And interesting (to me personally, anyway) characterization.
In the context it was presented, I find that fully believeable. I don’t think it was “major” news, per se, but I certainly bought it being a blurb on the cable news networks and on local affiliates in LA.
Do you have a quote of Martha O’Dell saying this? I honestly don’t remember it.
By the way – stating, once again, that I think there are a number of areas in which Studio 60 can be improved – what TV shows would you consider well-written?
In my view, it is worthy of derision, because the “inartfulness” of the presentation resulted in characters that were not believably [uninterested in pop culture/disapproving of show business/suffering emotional trauma from their other son’s being in Afghanistan/whatever], but just plug-ignorant. There was no minimal plausible background information offered to explain either their attitude or the tension among them. (My explanation for this is that these characters were not thought through at all and were intended as stereotypes.) The only information that we were given about them was that they were from Columbus, Ohio. So, the inference that the show asks us to draw is [people from Columbus] => [plug-ignorant]. The reason we’re harping on this is that it (1) is the most blatantly offensive element of the stereotype and (2) is adequately symbolic of all the faults in the depiction of these characters and the plotline.
I also have a vague recollection of his saying that he’s an atheist, but I don’t remember the details. If he did say it, it’s probably in the first episode.
Once again, however, I can point to any number of other shows on television that are equally as sloppily or inartfully written, if not more so. Lost, for example, is absolutely laughable in its attempts at characterization, cohesion, and plot advancement. And, unlike you, I did buy that Tom’s parent’s weren’t simply “ignorant stereotypes”—unlike you, I found it plausible that there were other things going on there. As I feel the need to continue to point out, it wasn’t perfect by a long shot, and the scenes between Tom and his folks (as with many of the scenes in S60 and elsewhere) certainly could have been served by several more rewrites (particularly to make them tighter and more dynamic without so many chunks of exposition about the theater). But it doesn’t merit this kind of scorn and calumny. In my opinion.