# Things you've rewatched after years and have held up, things that have not **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, movies\ **Created:** [May 2, 2024, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064 "2024-05-02T12:29:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2024, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/261 "2024-05-18T05:10:02Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Of course, but so is the reverse. Just saying “they could have solved the whole thing if they’d just said that the people were being used as organic CPUs” makes the unjustified assumption that this new explanation would have been accepted by everyone. Sure, but my point is, we should evaluate the dialog/scene in the movie based on its own strength. Bringing in how the audience would or would not react to hypothetical changes adds absolutely nothing to the debate, particularly as it can be used as a response to literally any suggestion about anything in pop culture. “Phantom Menace would have been better without Jar Jar?” “Eh, everyone would find something else to complain about” “Final season of Game of Thrones sucked?” “Eh, everyone would be bitching this much no matter what” > [@](#): > > I’ve heard the same thing in politial debates. People extol untried political ideologies, like Libertarianism, by saying how it will fix all the flaws that we see in our current government. The problem is that they’re comparing an idealized, theoretical government with the complicated, messy, real-world government we have now. I expect, but can’t prove, that if Libertarianism was enacted we’d see the same complications, divisions, and factions that we all dislike right now. There’s a huge difference between: (1) Things currently suck (2) We should try this idealized plan (3) But if we tried that idealized plan, it would go from being a purely idealized plan to something that had to be implemented in practice, and thus its flaws would start to manifest themselves, thus it’s not as good an idea as you think vs (1) Things currently suck (2) We should try this idealized plan (3) But if we tried that idealized plan, it would go from being a purely idealized plan to something that had to be implemented in practice, _and thus people would complain about it_, and thus it’s not as good an idea as you think Those are not the same same thing at all. Almost nothing that ever happens in the real world doesn’t have people complaining about it. That doesn’t mean that all policies/actions are equal, nor does it mean we should never do anything for fear of someone somewhere complaining about it. But… this conversational thread has gotten weirdly divorced from the original topic. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/262 "2024-06-17T02:27:00Z")
So I’ve just started rewatching Mythbusters from the beginning, on Max. It definitely holds up (though definitely would be a YouTube channel nowadays). Though two take aways: - Yeah obviously Jamie and Adam do not get along. - Damn it seems old for a show that is what 5-10 years old 😕 ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/263 "2024-06-17T03:04:15Z")
Try 20 yrs. 2003 it began. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/264 "2024-06-17T03:05:09Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Saw it recently and pretty much hated it. The dialogue felt like something a college freshman philosophy student would write. I remember that criticism when _The Matrix_ was released and I think it’s fair one. But I like to look at it on the bright side and think of how many people were introduced to Plato’s allegory of The Cave without even knowing it. > [@WildaBeast](#): > > **Shrek** is one I’ll say hasn’t held up. When I first saw it when I was in college I enjoyed it. But when I tried to rewatch it I realized just how much of the humor relied on then-current pop culture references. That was a criticism I had with _Shrek_ at the time. I really enjoyed it, but argued the pop culture references were going to date it rather quickly in a way other animated movies like _The Little Mermaid_ or _The Lion King_ aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/265 "2024-06-17T04:01:32Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Try 20 yrs. 2003 it began. Yeah 2003, like 10 years ago 😕 If it was longer than that Jamie and Adam would be the same age when they made the first season as I am now. Which clearly doesn’t make sense ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/266 "2024-06-17T12:26:06Z")
I’ve recently been watching reruns of Frasier, which I am old enough to remember first time around. I thought most of the humour had held up well, especially Frasier’s pomposity and the way Daphne would pin-prick it. And his spats with his father and Niles are still great. What stuck out a mile this time round though was the total absence of any non white characters. Did we just not notice back then?? What I would like to see is an undiscovered episode where Frasier has a black girlfriend, but he’s scared to bring her home because of how he thinks Martin will react. Martin would probably be fine with it, but Frasier’s jitters would be funny to see. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/267 "2024-06-17T12:51:15Z")
Actually, fairly late in the show’s run, Broadway great Brian Stokes Mitchell appeared for a few episodes as Fraser’s neighbor Cam Winston, who Frasier hated. He was, perhaps, the only man in the world more pompous than Frasier. Martin did date Cam’s mother briefly, to the chagrin of both of them. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/268 "2024-06-17T13:02:55Z")
Ah yes, I remember that! I haven’t got that far in my reruns yet. ---
**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:** [June 17, 2024, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/269 "2024-06-17T13:10:25Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@digs](#): > > > > And Marvel who should’ve named _The Avengers_ something else. I mean, come on, there was already a crime-fighting team with that name! > > Yep, that team beat the comic by about two years. Although the British TV series _The Avengers_ broadcast in 1961, it was only in the UK. They didn’t start broadcasting in the US until 1965, when the brought in Diana Rigg. The US comic was over two years old by then. There was no reason for the US comic to avoid the name when it was not being shown in the US. > **[The Avengers (TV series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers_(TV_series))** > > The Avengers is a British espionage television series, created in 1961, that ran for 161 episodes until 1969. It initially focused on David Keel (Ian Hendry), aided by John Steed (Patrick Macnee). Hendry left after the first series; Steed then became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants. His most famous assistants were intelligent, stylish, and assertive women: Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), and Tara King (Linda Thorson). Dresses and suits for the... > **[Avengers (comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avengers_(comics))** > > The Avengers are a team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby. The team made its debut in The Avengers #1 (cover-dated September 1963). Labeled "Earth's Mightiest Heroes", the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him. > The Avengers are an all-star ensemble c... ---
**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:** [June 17, 2024, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/270 "2024-06-17T13:13:19Z")
James Burke’s limited series still hold up. I’ve gotten DVDs of the first I ever saw, **Connections** from back in the 1970s from a local library, and it definitely still works. So does **The Day the Universe Changed** (which I received as a gift). My recollections of the _Connections2_ and _Connections3_ were that they were in the same vein. I haven’t seen the recent streaming series of _Connections_ that he did. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/271 "2024-06-17T14:54:01Z")
Oh yes, I’ve been watching them on YT recently. The latest series is very good, as well. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/272 "2024-06-17T14:58:25Z")
It seems to me a lot of these un-funny movies were trying to be. In that they were like toddlers trying to tell jokes. They sounded like jokes, but they weren’t funny. They knew the words, but not the music. And the movie posters usually featured some dweeb with a popped collar, peering saucily over the rims of his kool sunglasses. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/273 "2024-06-17T16:42:15Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > are there any actual laughs in that film? I liked the scene where Michael ad libs the reveal of his being a man on live TV. How it just went on and on (“Here come the demands!”). There were some other scenes I thought were funny. However, I never thought _Tootsie_ was supposed to be gut bustingly funny, I thought it was more wry, more meta-funny. And, :it tried too hard", and I hated Jessica Lange’s character. Michael should have ended up with Teri Garr. But when it comes to soap opera hijinx movies, I prefer _Soap Dish_. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/274 "2024-06-17T19:08:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Although the British TV series _The Avengers_ broadcast in 1961, it was only in the UK. They didn’t start broadcasting in the US until 1965, when the brought in Diana Rigg. The US comic was over two years old by then. There was no reason for the US comic to avoid the name when it was not being shown in the US. Sure, the Avengers (UK) was not well known in the uSA, I admit. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/275 "2024-06-17T19:55:33Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > _I never thought Tootsie was supposed to be gut bustingly funny, I thought it was more wry, more meta-funny._ It wasn’t even that. After hearing everyone gush about how funny “Tootsie” was, my wife and I went to see it on a Saturday night in a full theater. It got one solid laugh. When Sydney Pollack tells the camera operator to pull much further back to get a better shot of ‘Tootsie,’ and the camera operator says something like “How about Cleveland?” At that line, the audience laughed. After that, a few polite chuckles but that was it. We left shaking our heads. We just didn’t get it. And I think “Some Like It Hot” is a riot, so it’s not like guys in drag can’t be funny. I think you’re right. It “tried too hard.” And Dustin Hoffman simply is not a funny guy. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/276 "2024-06-17T20:12:52Z")
> [@Eclipse\_Chaser](#): > > What stuck out a mile this time round though was the total absence of any non white characters. Did we just not notice back then?? A lot of us didn’t notice or perhaps didn’t care. Ellen Cleghorn criticized _Friends_ for it’s lack of black characters on _Saturday Night Live_ in a Weekend Update segment. “We all know how hard it is to find a black person in Manhattan.” Cleghorn left SNL in 1995 and Friends started in 1994, so I’m guessing this was likely from a 1995 episode. But I do remember people talking about a lack of diversity on American television noting a lack of African American leads and Latinos and Asians in general. A while back I watched the first four hours of MTV’s broadcast on YouTube. One of the things I made note of was the lack of black artists. There were videos featuring black musicians in bands, but no solo artists or majority black bands and it was a little jarring. And to keep up with the spirit of the thread, as much as I enjoyed watching the first four hours of MTV, it doesn’t hold up. While a channel devoted to music videos was novel in 1981, it is a format that simply could not exist today. Had MTV executives insisted on sticking to their original format they would have gone bankrupt. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/277 "2024-06-17T20:18:04Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > And Dustin Hoffman simply is not a funny guy. He was pretty good in _Kung Fu Panda_. (Although I will admit that he was more of a straight man than a comic.) ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/278 "2024-06-17T20:19:06Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > And Dustin Hoffman simply is not a funny guy. I liked Little Big Man when I watched it years ago. I haven’t rewatched it recently, though. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/279 "2024-06-17T20:22:06Z")
Yeah! Hoffman is like a minor-league version of Buster Keaton, desperately trying to keep a straight face while something absolutely absurd happens around him. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064/280 "2024-06-17T22:03:09Z")
Was his cameo as Mumbles in _Dick Tracy_ funny? Or did it just predict what all dialogue would sound like in thirty years? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youve-rewatched-after-years-and-have-held-up-things-that-have-not/1001064.md?page=15)