Back in the '70s, we had prime-time TV shows – The Carol Burnett Show, Sonny & Cher, Tony Orlando & Dawn, Donnie & Marie – that consisted of a string of comedy skits and musical acts. Kind of like the last gasp of vaudeville (except for the continuing cast). And by the early '80s (if not earlier – my memory’s a bit hazy) they were all gone.* Why did they stop making them? Will they ever come back?
*Except for Saturday Night Live, which IMO is a different animal despite superficial resemblance in format. More like burlesque than vaudeville.
WAG that they were very expensive to produce and situation comedies gave more ad dollar bang for the buck (at the time).
Maybe when people get tired of the much cheaper to produce “reality” shows
Just mentioned in the thread on the release of Season 1 of The Muppet Show on DVD that I consider it the absolute last gasp of the variety TV show. It’s certainly the last one I can think of that enjoyed any sort of popularity or longevity.
I’m not sure why, though I suspect the proliferation of niche cable networks targeting specific demographics and the maturation of a generation of viewers for whom the whole vaudevillian thing was hopelessly L7 had much to do with it. The key to the success of variety shows in earlier times was precisely that they had such broad appeal – it might not have been everyone’s favorite thing, but it was something that a broad segment of the audience might well prefer over anything that was on the other two or three networks at the same time. Once you have 50 or more channels, however, the odds are good that there’s something out there that more closely aligns with your specific interests, so the less likely you are to watch something that’s out to offer something for everyone.
Jessica Simpson did one as a special a while back. The few seconds I saw were so egregiously awful that my eyebrows still haven’t grown back.
There was a thread on this very topic not too long ago. Does the shitty search engine turn it up for me? Of course not.
That’s it.
There’s not enough talent out there anymore to fill a half-hour show each week. :rolleyes:
I remember enjoying the Smothers Bros Comedy Show in the late 80s. I’m pretty sure it ran for at least two seasons, although of course it had nowhere near the popularity of the Muppet Show.
If you will remove the nostalgia goggles for a moment, you will realize the painful truth–that for every Carol Burnett and Dean Martin, there were 10 “Pink Lady and Jeff”'s or “Starland Vocal Band”'s (how Letterman ever lived that down is nothing short of a miracle). I am also assuming you are listing these shows in terms of relative popularity; otherwise, how could you even mention “Donny and Marie” in the same breath as “Carol Burnett”? :dubious: Late-night talk shows seem to have filled the void you speak of; I say, leave well enough alone!
There’s also “Muppets Tonight” which ran from '96 to '98.
I find it odd how many times I am thinking about starting a thread and then someone else starts the same one or something similar.
I was just thinking of this yesterday. I remember these shows with great fondnes and would love to see them make a comeback. I’m not sure they fit into this generation though. OTOH, Garrison Kieller can still make his radio show work and it isn’t really that different from the variety-comedy shows.
My theory: When variety shows were most popular (60’s and 70’s), most households only had one TV and the entire family would watch TV together. Variety shows had stuff designed to appeal to the whole family. Nowdays, it’s pretty comon for a family to have multiple TV’s and the family scatters to different rooms to watch their own shows. So I don’t think variety shows will ever come back because shows are more narrowly tailored to specific audiences.