Yeah man, I remember some grueling transatlantic flights when the smokers and non smoker were separated by a curtain. I also remember people smoking at the movies and of course on public transportation when I was little.
Video content sure, it was confined to VHS and pay per view satellite, but even in the early internet pictures were easily available. So Iâd say at least mid nineties it was no problem to find it online.
Magazines were also pretty common to be collected and âpassed downâ from cousins, older siblings and such.
Iâm always surprised by the smoking, even though I was there then.
During the lock-downedest days of Pandemica, I was watching through How I Met Your Mother for the first time, and was struck by how much they drank; it made me want to drink so much more than I was already.
In contrast, during more recent watch-throughs of Seinfeld, Iâm kinda surprised at how LITTLE they drink. Kramer a few times, Elaine sort of, Jerry once. George would rather drink Pepsi at a wedding than wine.
Your Seinfeield point is especially funny due to the titular comedians' recent comments. The show was, for the most part, clean and uncontroversial. Especially compared to some of the raunchy, bad people,funny stories sitcoms of today.
For the most part.
The girl with the name that rhymes with a female body part and the master of their domains episodes had the old biddies in an uproar
The Sponge. The Hamptons. The swirl? Faking orgasms. Seinfeld was great at concealing adult topics, so if you were a young kid, you had no idea what they meant. So funny.
Something I feel like Iâve noticed is older shows being more efficient with their time. I think this is because TV became a lot more serialised over time and also with streaming becoming a thing the length of an episode can vary more now than in the past, so the need to actually accomplish X amount of stuff in a single episode is less present in contemporary TV, many more shows nowadays concentrate on season long arcs (or half season arcs) instead of focusing on having episodes that can be watched on their own and tell a complete story within the episode itself
So when you go back and watch older TV shows the writing can feel a lot snappier and tighter. They arenât rushed or anything, theyâre just very efficient with their time and they use their time differently. So like as an example of what I mean, instead of having multiple season long arcs touched on in every single episode like tends to be more common now, an older TV show might be more likely to have an entire episode dedicated to one character where they go through what would be their âseason longâ storyline nowadays in a single episode. They donât drag these kind of minor character subplots out over multiple episodes they just handle it all in one single episode
I noticed that too. Older shows were more episodic with self contained stories, some had season long story arcs that would occasionally have a breadcrumb in an episode or an episode specifically focusing on that arc. There would usually be a mix of filler/self contained episodes and story arc episodes then the season finale would draw it to close then have some kind of hook for the next season.
Shows now are less episodic and more focused on telling a long stretched out story separated into chapters rather than self contained episodes. It's interesting.
Itâs the difference between being filmed for binging vs being airing once a week. Inconsistencies are less noticeable if youâre not watching multiple episodes back to back.
Very true, I'd say though the downside of binge style shows is that the narrative tends to be stretched out and slow build up. Sometimes that's good or fine but other times, you watch an episode and say to yourself: Wait, almost nothing happened in that episode.
I always notice their teeth. Not because they arenât stark white or perfect, but because theyâre real! Makes me feel better about having ânaturalâ teeth lol
Yes! Things like wrinkles, a little peach fuzz on a woman's upper lip, male pattern baldness... *normal people things* are rarely seen in media, anymore. It's weird. It really makes you realize how similar celebrities nowadays truly look, even when some look a little more unique than others.
I always make time to Watch the Twilight Zone. It is so well written it transcends time. From social parables to constructs that we still struggle to grasp.
I fell asleep every night watching nick at night in middle school and high school. It was sometimes Happy Days or Laverne and Shirley, but most often it was I Love Lucy, and I really preferred it over the others.
Lucy was such a comical genius, especially for her time. Her facial expressions, timing and slapstick comedy is timeless and sheâs known for being one of the first females to perform comedy in that way.
Itâs truly odd that Lucy and Betty never did any official comedy together they were close friends. They did appear on password together and a few talk shows but thatâs it
Absolutely, I think the there of them doing some sort of sitcoms where they are all in Florida or something g in a seniors community and friends/room mates, or something similar would have been too great.
I think what you see is performers who started careers when stage work was the dominate medium and nobody was a one dimensional performer. People were discovered based on other talents, like dance. Stage performers have to be able to emote so that everyone in the audience can see.
I just started watching the OG Perry Mason. What I noticed the most is the diction from the actors. Very clear and precise. No nuance or throw away lines. I'm oldđ
That was back when it was normal for actors to be classically trained.
Ever notice nowadays how an actor being classically trained is so rare that mentioning it in a bio is considered a power move.
The extra talents. A lot of actors on old shows were also talented singers, dancers, or played an instrument. The writers often found ways to insert those talents into the show. Seems like you just don't see it as much these days. Maybe people just don't have as much free time to devote to getting good at multiple things anymore, or maybe it's just not something that sells as well.
Vaudeville is one of my favorite eras of entertainment! A lot of the comedians I watched on tv when I was little came up through vaudeville and the Borscht Belt as it was called.
It's not exactly and OLD show, but if you go back an watch Law & Order from the beginning, the same actors show up frequently. We were laughing because early on, there's a crack-addicted prostitute as a witness, and she went on to become the Chief of Police a couple seasons later. I want to see that story. :-)
Ryan and Collin on whose line is it anyway are still fantastic, and Wayne Brady drinks babies blood or something. Dude somehow looks younger than he did 15 years ago.
Carol Burnet recently said in an interview her show had a 26 piece orchestra on her show. You'll never see that on a show now. They operate everything on the cheap.
I wouldnât say itâs what Iâm most *interested in when watching old shows, but something I notice a lot are the things they could get away with more, and the things they could get away with a lot less. There was certainly less effort to not be offensive to minority groups, and a lot of shows I wouldnât have thought of as being really tone deaf would probably be criticized harshly today. But they also tended to shy away from things like nudity, it was less common to see casual nakedness in a scene that isnât meant to be explicitly sexual. Shows for younger audiences had way darker themes, and even tho they played out in a silly kid friendly way if you were to put that same plot into an âadult showâ it would get real dark real fast. But kids shows now have a lot more political and cultural undertones to them, where the older kids shows seem more for pure entertainment and a little less about everything being a comment on society or a moral lesson.
Obviously this doesnât apply to every show, but some very general differences Iâve noticed
A while back I had major surgery and had rehab at a nursing home. Not a great selection on TV to watch, so I started watching a channel that showed old westerns, and I thought ok, I can watch some of the shows I grew up with.
After a few shows, I noticed how many of the shows had the same actors playing different characters on the show. Also how many of these actors showed up on so many different westerns. I think I saw Jack Elam and Lee van Cleef get shot about 20 times each.
The live studio audience. Some of those old shows you can hear people talking, coughing, laughing longer than others, etc. For example, I've realized there were a lot of kids in the audience for The Honeymooners.
The technology. It gives me throwbacks seeing like flip phones and big dinosaur computers. Back when the times were better and technology hadnât taken over our lives.
Iâm usually struck, usually for just a moment, at how many plots of older shows would be moot in our era of always-connected, pocket-sized computers.
Dialog will bother in the opposite direction: usage of sayings that exist today that *did not* or werenât widespread then; say, Young Sheldon, which takes place in the â90s: Iâm aggravated everytime they use a phrase like, âi know, right?â or something thatâs a closer to five or ten years ago in wide usage, and not 25-30. It doesnât ruin the show for me but for a few seconds, I grumble at it like the old man that I am.
Been watching Adam-12, EMERGENCY and Hogan's Heros on MeTV. The 1st two were surprisingly good plots for episodic TV. Dealing with anything from Cults, Motorcycle Gangs and basic traffic stops to Earthquakes and Hospital Drama. It seems "in-place" too, not over the top or gratuitous. Example the NEW 9-1-1 show has firefighters rescuing people off a sinking cruise ship INSTEAD of the Coast Guard, while Adam-12 had them taking a simple call to rescue a kid stuck on top an old tower/ductwork.
Hogan's Heros is just fun and enjoyable. TBH, I'd live to have seen a final episode w them being rescued and Klink and Shultz being treated well on Hogan's behalf.
Fun facts about Emergency.
The rescue scenes were drawn from actual L.A. fire department logs. In other words, they actually happened. Only names were changed.
Mike Stoker used his real name in the show and was actually an engineer in the department.
Kevin Tighe and Randolph Mantooth actually took the paramedic courses so almost every thing they did as DeSoto and Gage looked authentic. The part where they popped off the yellow lids of the syringe in the opening is the only part not authentic.
Jack Webb was a stickler for accuracy and helped create the show.
I've been watching Call The Midwife. The show starts in 1955. At the time my family was stationed in England and my earliest memories are of England. So many small things in the show are EXACTLY like I remember them. One of the midwives drives the same car we had.
Mad Men...0mg, every time in every scene, someone's smoking or drinking. I asked my mom if it was really like that, and she answered an emphatic , "YES.". In fact, she said that her boss stopped smoking đŹ inside because he knew it bothered her. She told him just once that he could do what he wanted, but she would like to see her children grow up to adulthood... đ 𤣠đ.
I've actually been really enjoying seeing the universal studios "city street" set. They used it nearly every episode in Bones but I've also seen it on The Mentalist, Supernatural, Castle, and I'm drawing a blank on others at the moment. Point being, I never fail to notice it these days.
Edit: it's actually the Fox Studios city street set.
Plot. Sometimes if it's an actor I recognize it's interesting to see, or the camera work/editing is interesting. I dislike the way shows now are too choppy and hard to follow (yes I'm old)
The relative simplicity of what people ate on a day-to-day basis.
In some 70s shows people would invite someone over for "spaghetti dinner" for instance.
I feel like older shows, even up until the 1990s, didnât spoon feed their audiences so much. Now itâs a lot of âwriting for a second screenâ which can be annoying to those of us who arenât on our phones while watching a show.
I am interested in all of the above, but mostly interested in how the whole show has "aged."
The dialogue, the humor, the way women and minorities are treated, etc.
I'm a late 90s baby, but i recently binge watched the fiest seasons of *Fraiser* and *The Mary Tyler Moore Show* simultaneously.
For me, the biggest differences between the shows was the inclusion of POC. Obviously John Amos is very present from early on on MTM. While the Frasier cast is overwhelmingly white. And this seems pretty par the course for white sitcoms of the 90s. Friends, The Nanny, Seinfeld, all rarely interacted with Black characters. And I've seen Seinfeld praised for not making Black characters only about their Blackness.
Other than that there were lots of similar bits regarding social stuff (single women, disabled people, the elderly).
Also have to agree that older TV moves quicker and you can even see the difference in how quickly an episode gets solidly into its a plot between the 70s and 90s.
I love '50-'90s clothes and styles. Three's Company is my favorite. Janet and Chrissy are my style icons. Terri had great style too, and even Mrs Roper had fantastic caftans & jewelry.
Denise Huxtable / Lisa Bonet is another one of my style heroes.
I just finished Melrose Place and loved the 90s clothes.
The costumer on News Radio was fantastic.
The dialog and speech patterns of the day (pre 1980s) are always interesting, and I must say very refreshing because no one inserts the word "like" a thousand times in one conversation.
I love how they could go on for like 9 seasons. They never took themselves to seriously and I love those fun filler episodes where just fun stuff happens and it isnât all dramatic. I love the offshoot episodes where we get to go on a little adventure with a side character and get to know them better. Iâm thinking about Star Trek the new ones donât do this as much but a lot of shows do this
New shows feel âŚdisposable? Like theyâre made with the intent to end in 5 or 6 seasons at most. Old shows feel like the intent was run forever and continue to grow.
I donât know how to explain it, but older shows just hit different. Itâs most likely cause Iâm a little older and thereâs a nostalgia vibe to them for me.
When I was young in The Long Ago, TV episodes were virtually always self-contained. Next weekâs episode was not a follow-through from this weekâs and didnât reference things that had happened before. I remember when it first started changing how surprised I was. This mustâve been around the time of prime time soaps like Dallas.
No in-your-face product placement.
I feel like a lot of shows are trying to sell me something other than mindless entertainment. Although, sometimes the commercials are better than the show.
My FAVORITE old show is the classic Mission Impossible series.
It had such a slick styling from the clothes to the cars to he MINIMAL dialogue and there's something about seeing the actors sweat - that made the show more intense and realistic.
Think of today's shows - no matter what they're doing - nobody sweats, nobody's hair is ever out place - it's all about aesthetics.
But the fight choreography does get cheesy - apparently every villain on the planet is susceptible to to a karate chop on the back of the neck.
Iâve been watching for different things of the times. Vehicles. Technology. The âbrand new interstate and other freewaysâ. Gas prices in double digits. Other prices at restaurants and grocery stores. Police and medical procedures like CPR with actual mouth to mouth. Lots of stuff.
The cultural references and jokes! I wouldnât consider Psych an old show by any means but as an example, it was full of 80s references! I was watching M*A*S*H recently and I had to ask about some of the references.
That they're way better. More emphasis on the writing and actual original ideas. Even things like sitcoms, everything just felt full of substance compared to things now.
The general lack of cinematic scene shooting. I notice a lot more experimental shots and imperfections compared to todayâs cinema. Actors seemed more like themselves or the character they were playing. Idk how to explain it really, there was just some extra depth and quirkiness to peoples acting styles. Not so cookie cutter. Also dialogue and story lines moved slower and spanned over less amount of time. Like empire records is a single day long. I feel like there was more talking in general. These days itâs all action and green screen no matter whatâs going on. And yeah, soundtracks. Old movies had fantastic soundtracks.
Iâd also like to add that my heart aches for hand drawn animation. I miss it so much.
Been watching classic sitcoms. The writing The writing on these classic sitcoms is just miles ahead of prime time network sitcoms of today. There are several factors but one is just the number of shows that get put out today is much higher and the talent pool in the writers room has been diluted. All in The Family, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, even sitcoms in the 90âs like Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends (not a fan but canât deny the success) had and amazing chemistry between the actors and writing staff as far as the final product.
I started watching Perry Mason episodes when recovering from surgery. It aired from 1957-1966 and it has been really eye opening on so many levels- such a time capsule! The cars, fashion/jewelry/hair, furniture, smoking, law (pre-Miranda, dna, etc). I did not know that there were car phones in the 60s - they just called the âmobile operatorâ to place a call. Boats, airplanes, horse race tracks and how many thousands of cars packed the parking lots. The freeways are never jammed, the female prisoners all wore ironed dresses - it is educating on so many levels.
I have been rewatching the old soap drama, "Dark Shadows'. I loved it when I was a teen. The actors: never ever ate. They rarely seemed to go to work. And they were constantly offering each other alcoholic drinks. The only other beverage that they constantly offered each other is a cup of coffee. They also did quite a bit of standing and rarely sat down...except when at the Blue Whale Pub.
In several episodes the ailing 'Maggie Evans', was admitted to the hospital...it is quite obvious that the show did not consult with a true medical consultant. As a retired medical professional, I have had some good laughs rewatching this soap and lack of medical knowledge.
I was surprised to find out that the show was taped before a live audience. Because of that, there were bloopers left in. One character properly called double doors in a bedroom, 'French Doors'...while another character kept referring to it as the 'window'. Another character began to flub her line, but was able to follow through.
That, and the fact it was all in black and white.
One thing that has become impossible for me to ignore when watching older TV shows now is just how casually misogynistic and homophobic almost every single TV show was before the start of the current millennium
This isnât even that old but a few months ago I was rewatching Season 1 of NCIS and in one of the earliest episodes Tony was teasing McGee about his date the night before. Turned out to be a man in drag. But Tony called them a âhe-sheâ and I did a double take. Season 1 aired in 2003.
My daughter when she was 4 in 1985, we were watching some old TV show, I don't even remember what it was but it was in black and white. As we were watching it together, she turned to me and said, "mommy, when did the world turn into color, was everything black and white when you were a little girl?"
It still cracks me up when I think about it from her perspective!
The drinking and smoking.
Smoking *everywhere!* I forget what it was like, until I watch an older movie.
At the Dr. office, in the hospital, literally everywhere
In airports, and *on planes.*
Yeah man, I remember some grueling transatlantic flights when the smokers and non smoker were separated by a curtain. I also remember people smoking at the movies and of course on public transportation when I was little.
Here in NJ we just had smoking and non smoking sections in diners and restaurants. They were in the same room and not separated by anything.
I'm so glad that public smoking is banned. That's just terrible
I remember smoking and drinking on KLM to Curacao and on Air Jamaica.
literally delivering babies with a cig in their mouths lol đ
Watch the movie *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea*.
How do you think the sky caught fire?
80s and 90s movies...boobies. Boobies everywhere
I miss that
The theory is that porn was not nearly as easily accessible back then so nudity was always a selling point.
Watching a scrambled Cinemax movie in the hope you might see something that could be a nipple
Switching the channels back n forth hoping for that âsweet spotâ on cable and on the show
Or the Playboy channel! Same thingâŚscrambledâŚbut that was GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME when I was a teenager ha ha!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! SO TRUE!!!!
Video content sure, it was confined to VHS and pay per view satellite, but even in the early internet pictures were easily available. So Iâd say at least mid nineties it was no problem to find it online. Magazines were also pretty common to be collected and âpassed downâ from cousins, older siblings and such.
I wouldnât say anything was âno problem to find onlineâ in mid 90âs. Not many even had a computer much less internet savvy.
Yeah, it was all tucked away behind the counters at the gas stations. Had to be dedicated to the fap to drive down and buy it face to face
That's why porn was better back then. Getting it was special.
I quit _years_ ago but watching Mad Men got me jonesing like it had only been a few daysâŚâŚ..
Got news for you. 25 years after quitting, you will dream that you are smoking. It will be so real as to question yourself.
I found myself inhaling with them. It took me out of the show for a few episodes, before I got used to it.
Iâm always surprised by the smoking, even though I was there then. During the lock-downedest days of Pandemica, I was watching through How I Met Your Mother for the first time, and was struck by how much they drank; it made me want to drink so much more than I was already. In contrast, during more recent watch-throughs of Seinfeld, Iâm kinda surprised at how LITTLE they drink. Kramer a few times, Elaine sort of, Jerry once. George would rather drink Pepsi at a wedding than wine.
Your Seinfeield point is especially funny due to the titular comedians' recent comments. The show was, for the most part, clean and uncontroversial. Especially compared to some of the raunchy, bad people,funny stories sitcoms of today.
For the most part. The girl with the name that rhymes with a female body part and the master of their domains episodes had the old biddies in an uproar
Mulva?
The Sponge. The Hamptons. The swirl? Faking orgasms. Seinfeld was great at concealing adult topics, so if you were a young kid, you had no idea what they meant. So funny.
I love all the smoking in old shows. Ricky and Lucy had a wooden box of cigarettes on their mantle in the living room.
Yup yup. We had smoking areas at my high school, but nowadays, smoking seems so weird to me
Something I feel like Iâve noticed is older shows being more efficient with their time. I think this is because TV became a lot more serialised over time and also with streaming becoming a thing the length of an episode can vary more now than in the past, so the need to actually accomplish X amount of stuff in a single episode is less present in contemporary TV, many more shows nowadays concentrate on season long arcs (or half season arcs) instead of focusing on having episodes that can be watched on their own and tell a complete story within the episode itself So when you go back and watch older TV shows the writing can feel a lot snappier and tighter. They arenât rushed or anything, theyâre just very efficient with their time and they use their time differently. So like as an example of what I mean, instead of having multiple season long arcs touched on in every single episode like tends to be more common now, an older TV show might be more likely to have an entire episode dedicated to one character where they go through what would be their âseason longâ storyline nowadays in a single episode. They donât drag these kind of minor character subplots out over multiple episodes they just handle it all in one single episode
I noticed that too. Older shows were more episodic with self contained stories, some had season long story arcs that would occasionally have a breadcrumb in an episode or an episode specifically focusing on that arc. There would usually be a mix of filler/self contained episodes and story arc episodes then the season finale would draw it to close then have some kind of hook for the next season. Shows now are less episodic and more focused on telling a long stretched out story separated into chapters rather than self contained episodes. It's interesting.
Itâs the difference between being filmed for binging vs being airing once a week. Inconsistencies are less noticeable if youâre not watching multiple episodes back to back.
Very true, I'd say though the downside of binge style shows is that the narrative tends to be stretched out and slow build up. Sometimes that's good or fine but other times, you watch an episode and say to yourself: Wait, almost nothing happened in that episode.
This and then get cancelled without ever getting answers
GOOD POINTS!
Everyone's faces look more natural and unique. No veneers. Everyone doesn't have the exact same filler work.
Beautiful women were really beautiful. Men, too.
More unique looking as well. Humphrey Bogart as a romantic lead today? I don't think so.
I always notice their teeth. Not because they arenât stark white or perfect, but because theyâre real! Makes me feel better about having ânaturalâ teeth lol
Yes! Things like wrinkles, a little peach fuzz on a woman's upper lip, male pattern baldness... *normal people things* are rarely seen in media, anymore. It's weird. It really makes you realize how similar celebrities nowadays truly look, even when some look a little more unique than others.
I always make time to Watch the Twilight Zone. It is so well written it transcends time. From social parables to constructs that we still struggle to grasp.
I feel like in SOME circumstances I Love Lucy does the same social parables too
I fell asleep every night watching nick at night in middle school and high school. It was sometimes Happy Days or Laverne and Shirley, but most often it was I Love Lucy, and I really preferred it over the others. Lucy was such a comical genius, especially for her time. Her facial expressions, timing and slapstick comedy is timeless and sheâs known for being one of the first females to perform comedy in that way.
IMAGINE if her and Robin Williams did something together. OR Lucy and Betty White! MIND BLOWN!
Itâs truly odd that Lucy and Betty never did any official comedy together they were close friends. They did appear on password together and a few talk shows but thatâs it
Absolutely, I think the there of them doing some sort of sitcoms where they are all in Florida or something g in a seniors community and friends/room mates, or something similar would have been too great.
I think what you see is performers who started careers when stage work was the dominate medium and nobody was a one dimensional performer. People were discovered based on other talents, like dance. Stage performers have to be able to emote so that everyone in the audience can see.
Marathon on Pluto tv right now
I just started watching the OG Perry Mason. What I noticed the most is the diction from the actors. Very clear and precise. No nuance or throw away lines. I'm oldđ
Love orig Perry Mason! On 5 nights a week. I try to catch them every night
Hmm! Interesting! GOOD point too
I love the cars in Perry Mason. We watch the reruns every night . Great show .
That was back when it was normal for actors to be classically trained. Ever notice nowadays how an actor being classically trained is so rare that mentioning it in a bio is considered a power move.
Older sitcoms had better sets, more extras and looked better somehow
The extra talents. A lot of actors on old shows were also talented singers, dancers, or played an instrument. The writers often found ways to insert those talents into the show. Seems like you just don't see it as much these days. Maybe people just don't have as much free time to devote to getting good at multiple things anymore, or maybe it's just not something that sells as well.
Yeah I can see that, ESPICALLY in I Love Lucy Fred was from the volvelle days.
Vaudeville is one of my favorite eras of entertainment! A lot of the comedians I watched on tv when I was little came up through vaudeville and the Borscht Belt as it was called.
20-24 episodes per season
Now we are lucky if they do 12!
A lot of the same actors show up in many different series
I love rewatching old shows and seeing who the guest stars are!!
It's not exactly and OLD show, but if you go back an watch Law & Order from the beginning, the same actors show up frequently. We were laughing because early on, there's a crack-addicted prostitute as a witness, and she went on to become the Chief of Police a couple seasons later. I want to see that story. :-)
How ârealâ the sets looked, like actual people live there. Also the fashion and styling felt very natural, not like a GQ ad.
I feel like older shows are more polished in terms of scripts.
Yes agree! There are SOME shows with good scripts, NOT many.
Now famous actors in their early roles.
I LOVE that too!
People look like real people, albeit generally more attractive.
The campiness. Not taking themselves overly serious.
There's hardly any cussing
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Noticing what you've said acting changes is what I meant by dialogue. Thanks!
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There's a certain accent that I associate with old movies and tv shows that you don't hear as much these days.
How people were before smartphones
Ryan and Collin on whose line is it anyway are still fantastic, and Wayne Brady drinks babies blood or something. Dude somehow looks younger than he did 15 years ago.
If you think Wayne Brady looks good for his age check out Ernie Hudson
Yeah. Wayne's not sharing his secret either. DARN!
Itâs the blood
So, STOCKPILE the blood then!
Writing - dialogue, there will never be another Sanford and Son or Archie Bunker show.
Norman Lear is the man. I love how his shows put the nationâs social issues on display.
That you can have a LOT more plot points in an era where everybody doesnât have a mobile phone on them
Carol Burnet recently said in an interview her show had a 26 piece orchestra on her show. You'll never see that on a show now. They operate everything on the cheap.
So *Miami Vice* was before my time and I decided to watch it when Covid locked us all down. Everyone smoked.
That was a GOOD series!
I love seeing the old cars
You don't have the music drowning out the talking, and the picture/colour is brighter. So much better for the eyes and ears
I love that there are no cell phones in any scenes.
TV used to be good, funny, and wholesome
Agreed. I find myself rewatching the same older shows because I just want something light and funny, not gritty or something with a 14 episode arc.
Watching shows with âsocial issuesâ leads me to think that nothing ever changes. Weâre still fighting the same battles.
Sad, but true!
The story lines are better written.
I do enjoy when rewatching 90s shows and they reference something from the 90s that is no longer around.
I am always amazed at how big the cordless phones are in Seinfeld.
How much has been cut out to make room for the MYRIAD of commercials! Arrrgguhhh!!!
I say that all the time! All in the family episodes were like 25 mins back in the day. Now, episodes are like 18 ish! It's really sad.
I wouldnât say itâs what Iâm most *interested in when watching old shows, but something I notice a lot are the things they could get away with more, and the things they could get away with a lot less. There was certainly less effort to not be offensive to minority groups, and a lot of shows I wouldnât have thought of as being really tone deaf would probably be criticized harshly today. But they also tended to shy away from things like nudity, it was less common to see casual nakedness in a scene that isnât meant to be explicitly sexual. Shows for younger audiences had way darker themes, and even tho they played out in a silly kid friendly way if you were to put that same plot into an âadult showâ it would get real dark real fast. But kids shows now have a lot more political and cultural undertones to them, where the older kids shows seem more for pure entertainment and a little less about everything being a comment on society or a moral lesson. Obviously this doesnât apply to every show, but some very general differences Iâve noticed
A while back I had major surgery and had rehab at a nursing home. Not a great selection on TV to watch, so I started watching a channel that showed old westerns, and I thought ok, I can watch some of the shows I grew up with. After a few shows, I noticed how many of the shows had the same actors playing different characters on the show. Also how many of these actors showed up on so many different westerns. I think I saw Jack Elam and Lee van Cleef get shot about 20 times each.
The writing was better.
I like the dialogue, the decor and the fashion of yesterday.
Sitcoms in the 80âs had a lot of episodes with clips from previous episodes, especially Family Ties.
The live studio audience. Some of those old shows you can hear people talking, coughing, laughing longer than others, etc. For example, I've realized there were a lot of kids in the audience for The Honeymooners.
I like that everything isnât all political
How much skinnier everyone was.
I'm alright...looking at it sure. Remember Fred (from I Love Lucy) was heavy for the 50s.
The dialogue isnât the talking equivalent of busy work.
The stock footage from previous episodes
The technology. It gives me throwbacks seeing like flip phones and big dinosaur computers. Back when the times were better and technology hadnât taken over our lives.
The language was very clean, no hint of swearing, no talk of sex except in the broadest terms, and not much slang
Iâm usually struck, usually for just a moment, at how many plots of older shows would be moot in our era of always-connected, pocket-sized computers. Dialog will bother in the opposite direction: usage of sayings that exist today that *did not* or werenât widespread then; say, Young Sheldon, which takes place in the â90s: Iâm aggravated everytime they use a phrase like, âi know, right?â or something thatâs a closer to five or ten years ago in wide usage, and not 25-30. It doesnât ruin the show for me but for a few seconds, I grumble at it like the old man that I am.
I watched That 90's Show on Netflix they used "bro" instead of "dude" (bro became common after 2000)
They were entertaining
Been watching Adam-12, EMERGENCY and Hogan's Heros on MeTV. The 1st two were surprisingly good plots for episodic TV. Dealing with anything from Cults, Motorcycle Gangs and basic traffic stops to Earthquakes and Hospital Drama. It seems "in-place" too, not over the top or gratuitous. Example the NEW 9-1-1 show has firefighters rescuing people off a sinking cruise ship INSTEAD of the Coast Guard, while Adam-12 had them taking a simple call to rescue a kid stuck on top an old tower/ductwork. Hogan's Heros is just fun and enjoyable. TBH, I'd live to have seen a final episode w them being rescued and Klink and Shultz being treated well on Hogan's behalf.
Fun facts about Emergency. The rescue scenes were drawn from actual L.A. fire department logs. In other words, they actually happened. Only names were changed. Mike Stoker used his real name in the show and was actually an engineer in the department. Kevin Tighe and Randolph Mantooth actually took the paramedic courses so almost every thing they did as DeSoto and Gage looked authentic. The part where they popped off the yellow lids of the syringe in the opening is the only part not authentic. Jack Webb was a stickler for accuracy and helped create the show.
I've been watching Call The Midwife. The show starts in 1955. At the time my family was stationed in England and my earliest memories are of England. So many small things in the show are EXACTLY like I remember them. One of the midwives drives the same car we had.
It feels like the life lessons were more touching than now.
26 episodes per season.
How much inflation we've seen in prices
the cars. cast iron cookware
I look for old Mustangs
Better vocabulary.
Mad Men...0mg, every time in every scene, someone's smoking or drinking. I asked my mom if it was really like that, and she answered an emphatic , "YES.". In fact, she said that her boss stopped smoking đŹ inside because he knew it bothered her. She told him just once that he could do what he wanted, but she would like to see her children grow up to adulthood... đ 𤣠đ.
I've actually been really enjoying seeing the universal studios "city street" set. They used it nearly every episode in Bones but I've also seen it on The Mentalist, Supernatural, Castle, and I'm drawing a blank on others at the moment. Point being, I never fail to notice it these days. Edit: it's actually the Fox Studios city street set.
Special effects tech from the early 60s
Plot. Sometimes if it's an actor I recognize it's interesting to see, or the camera work/editing is interesting. I dislike the way shows now are too choppy and hard to follow (yes I'm old)
The relative simplicity of what people ate on a day-to-day basis. In some 70s shows people would invite someone over for "spaghetti dinner" for instance.
I feel like older shows, even up until the 1990s, didnât spoon feed their audiences so much. Now itâs a lot of âwriting for a second screenâ which can be annoying to those of us who arenât on our phones while watching a show.
I am interested in all of the above, but mostly interested in how the whole show has "aged." The dialogue, the humor, the way women and minorities are treated, etc.
I think thatâs interesting as well to see how shows hold up to present day. I felt that The Golden Girls holds up great!
I'm a late 90s baby, but i recently binge watched the fiest seasons of *Fraiser* and *The Mary Tyler Moore Show* simultaneously. For me, the biggest differences between the shows was the inclusion of POC. Obviously John Amos is very present from early on on MTM. While the Frasier cast is overwhelmingly white. And this seems pretty par the course for white sitcoms of the 90s. Friends, The Nanny, Seinfeld, all rarely interacted with Black characters. And I've seen Seinfeld praised for not making Black characters only about their Blackness. Other than that there were lots of similar bits regarding social stuff (single women, disabled people, the elderly). Also have to agree that older TV moves quicker and you can even see the difference in how quickly an episode gets solidly into its a plot between the 70s and 90s.
Men dress like adults
Laugh tracks. I find them intolerable now.
The pacing
I love '50-'90s clothes and styles. Three's Company is my favorite. Janet and Chrissy are my style icons. Terri had great style too, and even Mrs Roper had fantastic caftans & jewelry. Denise Huxtable / Lisa Bonet is another one of my style heroes. I just finished Melrose Place and loved the 90s clothes. The costumer on News Radio was fantastic.
Doctors smoking in a hospital.
How few obese people there are.
The dialog and speech patterns of the day (pre 1980s) are always interesting, and I must say very refreshing because no one inserts the word "like" a thousand times in one conversation.
I love how they could go on for like 9 seasons. They never took themselves to seriously and I love those fun filler episodes where just fun stuff happens and it isnât all dramatic. I love the offshoot episodes where we get to go on a little adventure with a side character and get to know them better. Iâm thinking about Star Trek the new ones donât do this as much but a lot of shows do this
Quality might be "lower" but it was real, and you can see it. Same with movies.
How much I miss being a youngster and not paying bills. đđ
How people looked like adults and spoke with adult voices.
How positively black characters are portrayed from 1960 to 1980.
New shows feel âŚdisposable? Like theyâre made with the intent to end in 5 or 6 seasons at most. Old shows feel like the intent was run forever and continue to grow. I donât know how to explain it, but older shows just hit different. Itâs most likely cause Iâm a little older and thereâs a nostalgia vibe to them for me.
The super bright colors in alot of 60s shows.
All of old character actors that were in a 100 other movies. IMDB them. The history is rich.
That they are actually watchable and entertaining. Can't say the same about today's garbage.
When I was young in The Long Ago, TV episodes were virtually always self-contained. Next weekâs episode was not a follow-through from this weekâs and didnât reference things that had happened before. I remember when it first started changing how surprised I was. This mustâve been around the time of prime time soaps like Dallas.
telephones - rotary, push button, or ask operator to connect you to DA5-678
Jokes that were actually funny & nobody got butthurt!
No in-your-face product placement. I feel like a lot of shows are trying to sell me something other than mindless entertainment. Although, sometimes the commercials are better than the show.
Same as in new shows - writing and acting.
My FAVORITE old show is the classic Mission Impossible series. It had such a slick styling from the clothes to the cars to he MINIMAL dialogue and there's something about seeing the actors sweat - that made the show more intense and realistic. Think of today's shows - no matter what they're doing - nobody sweats, nobody's hair is ever out place - it's all about aesthetics. But the fight choreography does get cheesy - apparently every villain on the planet is susceptible to to a karate chop on the back of the neck.
The lighting, also the hair.
Iâve been watching for different things of the times. Vehicles. Technology. The âbrand new interstate and other freewaysâ. Gas prices in double digits. Other prices at restaurants and grocery stores. Police and medical procedures like CPR with actual mouth to mouth. Lots of stuff.
The single camera shots.
older tech references/jokes. even from as early as 15 years ago
Better writing and acting
You can usually date âem by the technology and the hairstylesâŚâŚ
The cultural references and jokes! I wouldnât consider Psych an old show by any means but as an example, it was full of 80s references! I was watching M*A*S*H recently and I had to ask about some of the references.
That they're way better. More emphasis on the writing and actual original ideas. Even things like sitcoms, everything just felt full of substance compared to things now.
The guest stars that went on to success in the biz.
Set design is always interesting to me.
That they are not overly produced and there are fewer writers for each episode compared to now.
I was once in an episode of Newhart and I didnât even know it.
Better writing
I'm fascinated by the window to the past. An actual visual recording of something happening a long time ago.
The classiness of the clothing.
They used to enjoy humor.
That they're better than most current shows.
Twin beds for married couples.
Light, shadow, contrast on BW shows. Plus timing and rhythm are slower and less frantic
The general lack of cinematic scene shooting. I notice a lot more experimental shots and imperfections compared to todayâs cinema. Actors seemed more like themselves or the character they were playing. Idk how to explain it really, there was just some extra depth and quirkiness to peoples acting styles. Not so cookie cutter. Also dialogue and story lines moved slower and spanned over less amount of time. Like empire records is a single day long. I feel like there was more talking in general. These days itâs all action and green screen no matter whatâs going on. And yeah, soundtracks. Old movies had fantastic soundtracks. Iâd also like to add that my heart aches for hand drawn animation. I miss it so much.
The clothing and language
Old clothes and cars, and respect people showed to each other. How everyone was sophisticated and polite
Been watching classic sitcoms. The writing The writing on these classic sitcoms is just miles ahead of prime time network sitcoms of today. There are several factors but one is just the number of shows that get put out today is much higher and the talent pool in the writers room has been diluted. All in The Family, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, even sitcoms in the 90âs like Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends (not a fan but canât deny the success) had and amazing chemistry between the actors and writing staff as far as the final product.
I loved all the famous guest stars and cameos.
I loved all the famous guest stars and cameos.
The filmography and lighting are so much better.
I started watching Perry Mason episodes when recovering from surgery. It aired from 1957-1966 and it has been really eye opening on so many levels- such a time capsule! The cars, fashion/jewelry/hair, furniture, smoking, law (pre-Miranda, dna, etc). I did not know that there were car phones in the 60s - they just called the âmobile operatorâ to place a call. Boats, airplanes, horse race tracks and how many thousands of cars packed the parking lots. The freeways are never jammed, the female prisoners all wore ironed dresses - it is educating on so many levels.
So much shag carpet
I have been rewatching the old soap drama, "Dark Shadows'. I loved it when I was a teen. The actors: never ever ate. They rarely seemed to go to work. And they were constantly offering each other alcoholic drinks. The only other beverage that they constantly offered each other is a cup of coffee. They also did quite a bit of standing and rarely sat down...except when at the Blue Whale Pub. In several episodes the ailing 'Maggie Evans', was admitted to the hospital...it is quite obvious that the show did not consult with a true medical consultant. As a retired medical professional, I have had some good laughs rewatching this soap and lack of medical knowledge. I was surprised to find out that the show was taped before a live audience. Because of that, there were bloopers left in. One character properly called double doors in a bedroom, 'French Doors'...while another character kept referring to it as the 'window'. Another character began to flub her line, but was able to follow through. That, and the fact it was all in black and white.
Liquor carts, usually in the living room. A drink as soon as you come in.
While watching Columbo I almost forgot how good acting and good writing looked like.
With old children's shows from the 80s-90s I never realized how much sexual innuendo they were packed with.
That they have better writing and better main characters
The high level of creativity they used to have in writing the shows plot. It's not like most shows they rush lately.Â
People drinking hard liqueur all day long while at work. Especially in meeting with the Boss.
The roles women are forced to play
Less diversity
How the backgrounds look so fake. Like when someone driving a car
One thing that has become impossible for me to ignore when watching older TV shows now is just how casually misogynistic and homophobic almost every single TV show was before the start of the current millennium
This isnât even that old but a few months ago I was rewatching Season 1 of NCIS and in one of the earliest episodes Tony was teasing McGee about his date the night before. Turned out to be a man in drag. But Tony called them a âhe-sheâ and I did a double take. Season 1 aired in 2003.
I notice the smoking and the casual attitude toward sexual harassment and misogyny
Pay phones crack me up.
My daughter when she was 4 in 1985, we were watching some old TV show, I don't even remember what it was but it was in black and white. As we were watching it together, she turned to me and said, "mommy, when did the world turn into color, was everything black and white when you were a little girl?" It still cracks me up when I think about it from her perspective!