Luke is on a content roll lately.
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One of my favorite YouTube shows, The DVD Shelf, has returned after a two-year hiatus. His latest episode talks about the Bill & Ted films. He goes over the production history of both films while providing extensive trivia for the franchise along the way, then caps off with an in-depth look at the Blu-Ray’s bonus features and gives his final recommendation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON7qaHQUeLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpS7Y5D14XI
Youtube actually recommended something good to me!
I am/was a big fan of the series Roseanne when it showed up in german television and I was able to watch it as a kid in the 90s on satellite TV. It famously showed a dysfunctional working class household having to deal with economic pressure, abrassive family relations that were still loving underneath, and kids growing up and all the things that bring with it. This was largely a departure from standard TV sitcoms at the time. I also come from a working class household, led largely by my mother particularly after her divorce in the mid 90s, so I kind of feel a personal connection, even if not with the titular main character personally.
The series itself also had some excellent moments, though also some duds, particularly in the last two seasons. It also helps that the show had two absolutely brilliant actors in it with John Goodman and Laurie Metcalfe. What stuck with me (and was confirmed when a couple of years ago the series was released on DVD here, and I picked it up and re-watched it then) that the series came from a rather left-leaning philosophy, not only facing realities that upward mobility is largely a myth, and not shying away from going introspective and confronting prejudices that characters may hold instead of being performatively against one-off assholes. Today I found a video that goes season by season, exploring those themes within the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRwIosijD3A
Unfortunately, as we all know, Roseanne Bar became kind of a crazy person in the intervening years, enough to torpedo the revival of its show. I never watched season 10, but the same person as the video above released an analysis of that series and how it contrasts and compares to the 9 season from the late 80s and 90s. What struck me here is how the character Roseanne has been altered, partially to reflect the political leanings of Barr herself. This is brought up as a strict negative, as a departure from the original and a failure of the writers and performers. What I see however is also the affects of a changing media landscape, and particularly the influence of right-wing talk radio and Fox News. The show nevertheless does attempt to humanize and sympathize with Roseanne and Dan as characters, portraying them somewhat as relics, trapped in the values of their generation, with the creator of the video essay strongly emphasizing that social changes happen by generational change, rather than generations changing within itself. The video also talks about the spin-off/sequel show “The Connors” with Roseanne being written off the show. I for my part didn’t even know The Connors existed as a show.
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I’ll have to watch that later, but I also grew up a bit with this show. John Goodman is pretty great in general. Also, you call it dysfunctional, but as a kid who grew up in the midwest it was all pretty close to home for everyone I grew up around.
As a child, I distinctly had the impression of the Conners being “lower middle class” and the Bundys being “poor/trash”. The class distinctions were very clear to my young eyes. The Griswolds were “trashy middle class,” the Simpsons were “lower middle class,” most of the more generic sitcoms were “upper middle class,” etc…
This isn’t really directed at you or the video but I fucking hate this cycle that keeps happening. If you don’t adapt, you die. This shit was going down all the way back between the Titans and Olympians and it’s gotten pretty damn toxic this decade between boomers and millennial. I’m really hoping that our generation is able to better understand that the continual improvement of humanity is not done by consolidating power, but by establishing a system that can change and adapt from generation to generation. I want the children of my generation to inherit a world better off than what was given to us.
The boomers ruined the world. To say here what I said to one of my engineers last week, “you can’t make it more broke.” Millennials couldn’t do much worse unless they actually let us slide into open fascism.
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DefunctLand, usually a channel about closed down theme parks and rides, is currently doing an excellent show about the Career of Jim Henson, from beginnings in local access TV to Sesame Street, the Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock.
I’m putting this here, though it’s not exactly what this thread is about. Rather than a critique or analysis this is more a straight up documentary, but it is just too good to just stick it into the TOTD thread. Seriously, watch this, even if it’s just for the nostalgia factor. At least one episode is still forthcoming. Here’s a link to the playlist, and below is the first episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVoGf1JTVeI&list=PLplWWKocAfTYIGzH8eQ0x0kEQgoV9CpYm
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The Conners tended to change with the times, Roseanne in particular. She started as a factory worker in a plastics factory, then she moved to Fast Food, lost a chance at a good job because she didn’t have computer skills, and then at one point Dan tried running his Motorcycle Shop pre-internet in an area when no one could afford to buy motorcycles. Later seasons had random bullshit like her winning the lottery and having a talk show. She basically ran out “pre-stardom” material at that point.
Griswolds we’d consider trashy upper middle class now.
The Bundys and Simpsons were (in the case of the later, literally) cartoons. They have a lifestyle that really isn’t supported by logic, it’s supported by whatever comedy beat they want to hit.
At the time the Simpsons were created, having a meh job in a white suburban down at the local factory/power plant with an evil boss would be enough to own a house, two cars, several children, kids in school, etc. The show wasn’t wrong. It’s the US/World that changed to make it wrong.
every year this episode gets more painfully real and decisive. Glad to see people still argue whether Grimes deserved what he got or not
so update I guess; it occurred to me that I hadn’t watched this episode in years. Upon re-review I would say that “Homer’s Enemy” is on par with the Futurama dog episode. Like all good satire it plays so straight most people don’t even detect the sarcasm. Everything in this episode; the mannerisms, the events, the interactions, play so painfully close to how I’ve seen millennials (myself included) interact with boomers. There’s something way too dark about the ending; a bunch of people laughing at a tortured man’s funeral.
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My thoughts on the new Springsteen.
In the latest episode of The Big Picture, MovieBob takes a look at Godzilla’s obscure chibi anime.
It’s a crime that people so often neglect the follow ups, Cruel Angel’s Thesis Defense, Cruel Angel’s Graduation ceremony, and Cruel Angel’s struggle to find a job relevant to their degree without going into the never-ending loop of academia.
A recent trip down YouTube’s algorithm brought me to TheRealJims, who makes some incredibly in-depth videos on The Simpsons. He talks about what made the characters and writing style so great in their early days, how the writing evolved in each season, and the attributes they sadly lack in the modern age, which led to the series’ downfall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usEFESgxG0E
The DVD Shelf has launched one of many new side series–Vintage Showcase. The first episode focuses on the films of BBS Productions, a short-lived studio from the 1960s-70s that broke and shattered the old conventions of the Studio System, pioneered and revolutionized new filmmaking techniques, and paved the road for future indie films in the decades to come.