Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
It’s almost the end of the month and that means it’s time to squeeze another episode of GLoP just before the deadline. This time: Jonah is a rambling man, another deep dive on vintage TV shows, including indelible male and female characters, Rob pitches his I Dream of Jeannie reboot, some dark jokes, and yes, more on Bewitched from America’s foremost Bewitched pundits.
Subscribe to GLoP Culture in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
I expect they got some things wrong about those shows, because that’s something JPod especially does often enough that he can’t be completely trusted/believed, but I’m not going to bother checking. It’s not worth it.
Wasn’t Alex on “Family Ties” rather like Archie Bunker from “All In The Family?” Where Archie was supposed to be the butt of jokes etc, but turned out to be the hero to the audience.
Okay they got there.
I never watched “Parks…” and I have no regrets.
Let’s keep in mind that Samantha kept her secret until after they were married. Darren had no idea she was a witch, and how is it unfair to expect her to remain “the girl he married?”
Also it sounds neat to have Samantha do everything by magic, but aside from other problems, that could lead to serious trouble in the real world if Darren is succeeding without reason.
You know he’s saying these things off the cuff. It’s nearly impossible to have perfect recollection.
The greatest TV break-out side-character…Omar Little in “The Wire”. Seeing him in court with a tie around his bare neck like one of Top Cat’s gang was brilliant.
On the subject of drinking on old TV shows, here in England there was a very popular cop show in the 70s called The Sweeney, based on Scotland Yard’s “Flying Squad” (armed robberies). It was quite daring in its time, though now a common-place, showing the detectives as thrill-seekers in it for the car chases and punch-ups, though not normally themselves corrupt. Now it’s mostly fascinating for its location shooting around pre-gentrification shabby inner London, and the extraordinary amount of drinking and smoking that goes on. If they’re not out in a pub or club chasing down an informer or celebrating a good “nick”, they’re killing time in the Yard with a few scotches, where every filing cabinet has a bottle in it. I was surprised and disappointed when I eventually left college and started working in an office to find that wasn’t typical of the corporate world.
Fred McMurray was not known for playing heavies before My Three Sons. In most of his movies he was the “nice guy.” We remember him now for playing the “bad guy” for the three times that Billy Wilder and Edward Dmytryk had him play against type in Double Indemnity, The Caine Mutiny, and The Apartment. McMurray would say that after The Apartment he vowed never again to portray the “bad guy” when fan had expressed their displeasure to him about those films. We remember those “bad guy” films because they were his best rolls.
Regarding All in the Family, when you include the Archie Bunker spinoff Archie Bunker’s Place, Carroll O’Connor played that part for 13 years. The description of Archie as someone who served in the World War II who was the one who paid for all the food on the table, and was supporting Michael Stivik, who was a deadbeat.
People made allowances for his racial prejudices, which were pretty mild complared to, say, the KKK in the South.
I get the sense that Carol O’Connor’s role in the forgettable television show, The Heat of the Night was a long apology for his role as Archie Bunker.
Jonah has a point that Bewitched has been talked about ad infinitum on the show. Like JPod, however, I had a 9 year old crush on Elizabeth Montgomery and I loved that show. But when I have watched the show in the present, I can’t finish an episode, and am mildly embarrassed that I loved it so much.
It makes sense that all actors playing the male characters were gay. It’s missing any sense of masculinity. And just as it was an end of a certain kind of 1960s-1970s sitcom, it was also a beginning of portraying men as dunces.
I find that the Mary Tyler Moore Show had characters that either were emasculated (Murray Slaughter), or treated those that weren’t as dinosaurs (Lou Grant) or stupid (Ted Grant). My observation is that trend has continued to the present day, though Cheers was is an argument against my assertion, with Sam being somewhat normal, who was surrounded by ladies that were a little off, though so were the other male characters. And the spinoff, Frazier, is similar that way.
The most balanced sitcom I saw that treated the lead man and woman lead characters as roughly equally odd was the lead characters in Green Acres, Oliver Wendall and Lisa Douglas. They also had a chemistry together, and I still find those shows watchable. That is probably the best 1960s sitcom, and surprising too given that it came from the same “universe” that Pettycoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies came from.
Nothing for October. Does that result in a bunch of make-good ads?
Its November and yet another dead podcast on Ricochet.
I don’t think J.Pod has been in a very jovial mood lately due to recent events. I think we should grant them a little grace.
Alright. Fair Enough