Then what would it be, then? Sci-Fi seems perfectly reasonable (a subgenre to be exact).
Super-Hero comic is its genre.
I’ll clarify some things
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You can define “great” however you want. Your favorite? The most successful? Whatever “great” means to you.
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I used “Genre” as a shorthand for Fantastical. Otherworldly. But that could include things that have ramped up over the top action like James Bond.
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“Franchise” means you can include whatever media you want, Movies, TV, Books, Games, Toys etc. and ideally the Franchise would have crossed over and had success in multiple media.
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I tried to include the “tent poll” Franchises but if I had thought about it for more than four seconds before posting I probably would have included Marvel (and maybe then DC) as separate options of their own.
Can you clarify what you mean by “what” and “the”?
Yet, I think of “crime drama” or “police action movie” as a genre.
I agree with you. But the OP for some reason defined it by saying:
Because when media creators refer to Fantasy or Sci-Fi novels, movies, art, books, etc, they call it simply “genre” material. It’s been the go-to blanket term for it for a couple of decades.
If you use the normal definition of “genre” rather than “Sci Fi/Fantasy or otherwise otherworldly”, how about the 1000+ episode (and counting) Law & Order franchise?
Yeah I thought it was a common term. Either way cops and robbers stuff would be fine if that is your pick.
Hard to beat Godzilla. But Honorable mention may have to go to the Bowery Boys, who appeared in one incarnation or another from 1937-58:
**The Bowery Boys were fictional New York City characters, portrayed by a company of New York actors, who were the subject of feature films released by Monogram Pictures from 1946 through 1958.
The Bowery Boys were successors of the “East Side Kids,” who had been the subject of films since 1940. The group originated as the “Dead End Kids”, who originally appeared in the 1937 film Dead End. A few of the actors previously appeared together as “The Little Tough Guys.”**
I thought that chain of comedy started with the support characters from the original “Angels with Dirty Faces”?
Angels with Dirty Faces was 1938, so apparently they made their first appearance the year before. They may not have been widely noticed until Angels though.
Fair enough, I grew up with the various incarnations of the Dead End Kids, Bowery Boys, etc. showing on Sunday mornings on one of the local stations. I recall TCM talking about them starting with Angels.
I was under that impression too, but looking up Dead End on Imdb, I do see some of the Bowery Boys among the cast.
Star Trek, followed by Star Wars, followed by Marvel.
Doctor Who
Yes it’s a Hollywood term. There are many “movie genres” (romcom, crime drama, period dramas) but “genre movies” are horror or sci-fi/fantasy. It was a way to look down and those not doing serious movies. “He does genre pictures.” Of course now that’s all everyone wants and it’s not an insult.
This is a timely discussion for me. In fact, I was contemplating starting a thread asking people what the word “genre” meant to them. It was prompted by a discussion I was having with a friend a couple weeks ago, in which he said about a particular book: “It’s not genre. It’s a regular detective story.”
My immediate reaction that was, “Since when is ‘detective story’ not a genre?” But as I thought about it, it does appear that the word “genre” has been shifting in recent years to mean (or at least sometimes mean) science fiction/fantasy/horror/superhero material–geeky stuff, for want of a better term.
I’m not sure that’s a change I can get behind 100 percent. For me, at least, I continue to use “genre” in the broader sense, to include more traditional genres like mysteries, westerns, war stories, romantic comedies, and so forth.
Using that broader definition of “genre” (which I see Quimiby has given his blessing to), my answer to the OP’s question would be Sherlock Holmes.
I have to quibble with the last part of that “Little Tough Guys” weren’t earlier – they first showed up in 1938. Little Tough Guys - Wikipedia
What started it all was Sidney Kingsley’s stage play Dead End, first produced in October 1935. The play first assembled the familiar faces of David and Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, and Billy Halop as the Second Avenue Boys. The point was that these boys were not only literally living at a Dead End, but that their lives were also in a Dead End. Huntz Hall’s character had tuberculosis. They were tough but vulnerable and appealing. The actors reprised their roles in the 1937 William Wyler film that starred Humphrey Bogart.
The kids, though, stole the show, and went on to their many later roles, beginning with 1937’s Crime School (made by competing studio Warner Brothers)
Sidney Kingsley, by the way, also wrote Detective Story (1949), which depicted life in a New York police station, and which showed how a lot of it is off-the-wall, or boring, or routine, and was punctuated by much humor (besides the more serious parts). I always felt it was a big influence on Barney Miller (which actually made reference to the play in one episode). The play was made into a movie in 1951 starring Kirk Douglas.