I don’t know what world TV folks live in but there are certain tropes that would never work in real life and everyone knows it. Like for example the idea that a smoker can hide their smoking from non-smokers. Tobacco smoke is so insidious that it is impossible to cover up. Yet we constantly see smokers act like its possible.
The standard example is family life going back to shows from the 1950s-1960s–where there are only minor conflicts–which are all easily resolved by the end of the 30 minute show.
That’s glib, but requires a literal interpretation of events that no one even considers when watching.
Nearly all 30-minute sitcom plots take place in more than 30 minutes. About the only one I can recall was a MASH episode that took place in real time, with a clock on the screen showing how much time had gone by.
The 30 minutes show the highlights of the situation and cut out the boring parts. The actual time frame can be several days – or longer.
Men being able to somehow maintain a perfectly groomed five o’clock shadow of stubble, 24/7. They never shave but it also never grows. If you pay attention, most leading men on TV have this characteristic. I think it’s supposed to be sexy.
Would have been much easier 30 years or more back. You smell of smoke? Blame it on the guy in front of you at McDonald’s etc.
Writers of the show tend to be stuck in that sort of past mentality. Shows set in schools always seem to be set more in a time when those writers were in school, not today’s school.
“Men being able to somehow maintain a perfectly groomed five o’clock shadow of stubble, 24/7”
The Don Johnson Syndrome. No one did it better.
Dennis
Precision long range shots from a revolver.
Photo enhancement of the gods.
The news you need is on the TV right now! Or on the scrap of newspaper sticking up out of the trash.
“But weren’t you convicted of multiple rapes?”
“OBJECTION!”
[steps back, showing two palms] “Withdrawn.”
Always finding a free parking spot in front of the downtown building you need to be in.
Eh? I do this (more because razors give me a rash than sex appeal) by just running over it with one of those electric hair-clippers things every day or two.
Getting beat up to the point that any normal human being would be dead, only to brush it off and get back up again.
Back in college some women asked me how I did this. I don’t know. it wasn’t intentional.
A frying pan to the noggin makes you lose your memory, (big yux), and another one restores it. Who knew?
Or punching someone in the head is like an off switch for their brain.
Also, pillows are super easy to breath through, even when held tightly against the face.
I have never been able to get my back tires to smoke like a chimney when I peel out.
(I’ve heard pouring bleach on them will work; like I would actually do that.)
People always say this, but I’ve closest smoke nearly my entire life. About once a year a few people in my life (even my ex-wife, before she was my ex) would ask me if I still smoked since I never, ever smell like smoke). Saying that ALL smokers smell like smoke no matter how much they try to cover it is just confirmation bias, you’re only saying that about the people you can smell it on and not noticing it for people you can’t smell it on.
But regarding smoking, whenever someone tries smoking for the first time (usually, but not always, a kid) on TV, they never go outside. On Roseanne, Darlene went in the the back laundry room. On Golden Girls, Dorothy ‘hid’ in the hallway where all the bedrooms are, on Friends Chandler (not counting at home where he didn’t care) he’d smoke on his cubicle. These are all cases where going outside probably would have made all the difference, but they did it in an indoor community area. The only rationale is that it caused them to get caught, setting up the premise for the show.
People that smell like smoke either don’t care, want to get caught or don’t know how to cover it up. I promise, you can smoke 10 cigarettes after work, brush your teeth, sleep for 8 hours, shower, put on clean clothes, eat something, brush your teeth again and no one will smell smoke on you. It’s the person who says ‘smoke, what are you talking about’ that you smell it on. Those are the people that had three cigarettes on the drive over to see you with their car windows closed, smoke in the house (so their clothes and jacket smell) and made no attempt to rid themselves of smell.
I agree, just because you aren’t smoking in front of someone doesn’t mean they can’t tell, but taking a few active measure can certainly make it possible.
Well, the two obvious questions are 1)do you have real wheel drive and 2)does your car have enough HP vs weight to even pull it off (like an old muscle car). Having said that, I recall my dad telling me about ‘bleach burnouts’. You’d pour bleach on the rear wheels, have a friend lift the rear bumper up a bit to take some weight off the back and hit the gas and the wheels would spin enough to make a big cloud of smoke. Years and years later, I mentioned this to a ‘car guy’ friend of mine that not only confirmed it but told me that for each car he owned he’d do it AND could do it for long enough that the person that held the rear end up could then go around to the side of the car and take his picture before the car started moving.
A little bit of googling tells me that bleach isn’t any more effective than, say, water as far as getting the wheels spinning, it’s just about producing a ton more smoke.
Hunches. For guys like Steve McGarrett on the original Hawaii Five-O, they never failed. How often do hunches work in real life? In my experience, never!
Well, on TV shows, a ‘hunch’ is usually “I’m pulling this out of my ass, let’s see what becomes of it”. In real life, “I have a hunch” usually means “In my experience…” so there’s that.
Even here, when someone starts a post with WAG:, more often than not (I think) they usually have some idea as to what they’re talking about. Maybe not the specifics due to the nature of the internet, but if you post an HVAC qustion about your furnace fan not turning on and I say “I have a hunch…”, while it may be a hunch by definition, I usually have some idea based in fact, not just made up or.
We may be at a point where “I have a hunch” is starting to become just a turn of phrase. Even sometimes meaning "I know exactly what I’m talking about and I know I’m going to be right, but pretending like I don’t will actually make me seem smarter’, since ‘hey try this’/‘OMG that totally worked, you’re a genius’ is sometimes more rewarding than ‘oh, it’s [this] for sure’/‘thanks, I’ll go do that’.
Exactly what I was referring to.
McGarrett: According to Che, the safe was never opened. [Pause] Check to see who at the bank was ever in the military.
Williams: A hunch, Steve?
McGarrett: A hunch, Danno.
[Williams barges back into McGarrett’s office fifteen minutes later.]
Williams: You were right, Steve! Gil Kamehameha was trained as a safecracker in the Army!
McGarrett: Yeah, Danno. Had to be, had to be!