It seems like in recent years there has been a wave of period TV shows set in the 1980s – GLOW, Stranger Things, The Americans, and Halt and Catch Fire are recent ones I can think of. I have always heard this get chalked up to the idea that it takes about 30 years for people to become nostalgic for things. Now that the 1980s are a little over 30 years in the past, people are beginning to become nostalgic for that era.
So I’m now wondering if we can think of other shows or films from other eras set about 30 years in the past at the time they were released – shows from the 2000s set in the '70s, 1990s shows set in the '60s, 1980s shows set in the '50s, etc.
For the 2000s I can think of Life on Mars, the original British version came out in 2006, it was set in 1973.
I know someone will probably mention That '70s Show, but I don’t think that counts since it started in 1998, even though it was still on the air in the 2000s.
I can’t think of any 1990s shows or movies set in the 1960s. Maybe you guys can.
I can’t think of any 1980s TV shows set in the '50s (Happy Days was late 1970s), but for movies most of Back to the Future took place exactly 30 years in the past in 1955.
Straying off the TV and film, I definitely remember there being a lot of nostalgia for the 1950s when I was a kid, with teachers at my elementary school throwing sock hops, and holding '50s theme days, and that sort of thing.
I missed the edit window, but we can count individual individual episodes of TV shows, too, if the majority of the plot takes place in a flashback, time travel scenario, or setting that resembles 30 years ago (I’d count the Black Mirror episode “San Junipero”, for example). And since I mentioned Black Mirror, it probably goes without saying that individual episodes of anthology series count.
I wonder if there’s maybe just a threshold value for that sort of nostalgia instead of some kind of definite window; Happy Days, That 70s Show and Tour of Duty are all set roughly 20 years prior to their actual air dates. And Mad Men is set some 60 years ago, more or less. Same for Astronaut Wives Club and Pan Am.
Derry Girls is set in the 1990s. So is Fresh Off the Boat, if I’m not mistaken.
My guess is that about twenty years have to pass, and then people are somewhat nostalgic, with that only growing over time.
Regarding WWII, the heyday was the 60s* but we have to look to the 70s to qualify. The only big time one was Baa Baa Black Sheep and it started in 1976.
For Korea, while MASH started in 1972, it ran until 83 covering the 30 year margin in its later seasons.
For Vietnam there’s *Tour of Duty *(1987–1990) and China Beach (1988–1991). So both somewhat early for the period the shows covered.
In terms of war TV shows it looks closer to 20 years than 30 years.
And The Wonder Years was set exactly 20 years prior to its actual air date. So maybe you’re onto something. Maybe roughly 20 years is the sort of minimum threshold where people start becoming nostalgic, with it growing stronger between 20 and 30 years.
The British comedy The Grimleys was set in “the mid seventies” (I’d call it early seventies for the first season and maybe 1977 by the third season) and the pilot episode was produced in 1997 with the actual production run starting being broadcast in 1999. So about a 25 year distance. It was a good show.
Apollo 13 (1995) Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) Awakenings (1990) The Bridges of Madison County (1995) A Bronx Tale (1993) Deep in My Heart (1999) The Doors (1991) Girl, Interrupted (1999) Heat Wave (1990) JFK (1991) The Krays (1990) Malcolm X (1992) Mermaids (1990) Sleepers (1996) That Thing You Do! (1996)
There have been numerous British shows set during WW2 including:
Dad’s Army (Comedy) first broadcast 1968 Colditz (Drama) first broadcast 1972 Allo Allo! (Comedy) 1982
**Allo Allo! **is basically a comedic parody of Secret Army (Drama) 1977 Shine On Harvey Moon (Drama set immediately after the war) 1982 Danger UXB (Drama) 1978 Camomile Lawn (Drama set immediately before and during the war) 1992 Tenko (drama) 1981 It Ain’t Half Hot Mum (Comedy) 1974 Brideshead Revisted (Drama set between 1922 and into WW2) 1982
I suspect writers (to this day) use WW2 since, like any war, it obviously gives great dramatic potential. Plus in most of the shows I’ve mentioned the writers (or the authors of the original books for Brideshead Revisted and Camomile Lawn) actually lived through the war.
Edit: to me this was a double - both scratched the “late cold war Berlin” atmospheric nostalgia niche, while in structure being a throwback to 1960-70s spy thrillers that were big in the 80s (le Carre et al.)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was a book set in and published in 1974 (although influenced by actual events in the 1960s) and made into a TV show five years later in 1979. Then in 2011, thirty years after the TV series and nearly forty years after the book, was made into a film.
Hijacking my own thread a bit: Last night I started watching season 3 of GLOW, which was what made me think of this topic. No real spoilers in this post, but I’ll just mention that the first episode takes place on the day of the Challenger disaster. And that made me wonder something else – Mad Men had an episode set the day of the Kennedy assassination. GLOW had the episode I just mentioned involving Challenger. I wonder at what point in the future we will see the 9/11 terror attacks become a plot point in some period drama? I guess you could argue that the play Come From Away already has, but that’s a play literally about the events immediately after the attacks, not a drama that just happens to be set in the early 2000s that weaves the events into the plot.
I don’t think it’s so much that it takes time for nostalgia to develop; you also have to wait for the nostalgic people to become established in careers and have disposable income.
Or have kids - as a littleun I remember Sha na na was one of the weekly TV highlights because my parents had that kind of music on all the time. And part of the attraction my kid claims towards Stranger Things is it leads to me digging out cassette tapes or D&D books or something.