The network brass deliberately killed off the truly rural sitcoms of the 1960s despite the fact that they were still wildly popular, because they couldn't relate to anything not set in a big city.
Note that Fred Silverman, a New York Jew, was the force behind this at CBS that destroyed rural programming in preference of urban programming at CBS, then he moved onto ABC and NBC and did the same. Those were the biggest 3 networks, so 1 man basically managed to destroy rural shows from television.
Reading the Wikipedia article is like a clusterfuck of retards refusing to reach for low-hanging fruit and instead focusing on the rotten apples laying on the ground.
Propaganda is real, preference cascade is real. I've known this for a while, but it's always good to be reminded.
They were cancelled because everyone who was watching The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres was old.
Advertisers want to cater to the 18-49 age bracket, because that's who they say buys stuff. Apparently people 50+ are far less likely to be swayed by commercial advertising.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. But that's the reasoning they used. I still wonder how The Waltons not only survived it, but ran for an entire decade.
This is also why Freakazoid was cancelled in 1997. It was pitched as being a hit with ages 2-10, but it became a smash among 18-34...and since that wasn't the demographic they wanted, then total viewers didn't matter--it got the axe.
At least we got that incredible final scene out of it.
I think in addition to this, they thought that a more city-centered setting might offer more modern and upbeat plot lines for such an age bracket, especially as it coincided with certain shifts in American society/culture towards modernity. (IE, the gradual birth and rise of the suburban environment, high ways and free ways, large shopping malls, etc etc.)
Plus, in general, American (and possibly European) culture were increasingly putting focus on coming up with "new" ideas and concepts, and dispensing with anything old fashioned. The "quaint" oddities of people's lives in rural life was just seen as outdated.
The target bracket for suburban set-shows though has always been especially tricky. Quite a few tried to aim for a whole family target audience. And it wasn't always easy to try to cover content that appealed to kids without it being too immature for adults. Or coming up with comedy bits for adults that were either too unfamiliar to kids or inappropriate for them in general.
Some shows managed to do this quite successfully, others just dug into their own strange niches, while many just fell flat and failed outright. 3rd Rock from the Sun has to be one of the most curious examples of a hit, simply because it managed to appeal to so many people at various levels without even trying. Obviously the over the top concept was one of it's main selling points which in turn led them to (re)examining a lot of aspects of human nature and behavior that might normally be taken for granted.
Because Seinfeld and Friends became bigger than most any sitcom before them, and now everything is trying to be the next version of that. Add in Big Bang Theory a decade later to add in the "living in LA with a theme" to the possibilities.
I'm sure there are a lot more woke type factors at play, but the foundational level is almost certainly just based on the absurd success of those urban sitcoms.
In the old days, TV writers and journalists were working class, with a wide background, unless one struck it big. Now, TV writers and journalists are trust fund kids and their life experience is Starbucks and city apartments.
I think the simple answer is just that they simply set the shows in the places where they produced them (LA, NY, or generic metropolitan area). Because it's a hell of a lot quicker and cheaper to film scenery at the immediate location than to go outside those boundaries or build sets for everything.
Though nowadays, with how incestuous Hollywood has become, you pretty much need to be born into show business to have any part in it. Which means they're taking people who are already inside the fold, rather than drawing in talent from all over the country. So everything just becomes about entitled assholes living in big cities.
Honestly I don't think it's something malicious, just that 1) all the writers are from LA/NYC, 2) they're all trying to imitate Friends and Seinfeld and 3) it's easier for writers to think up generic city stuff for them to do which means they can spend less time on their work.
I know in the early 70s they did a rural purge which is why shows like Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and Mayberry RFD. Those were good shows too. I’m trying to think of a show in the recent past that isn’t in a major city. Yellowstone is one. Little House and Waltons went into the 80s. Golden Girls we’re in a suburb? Evening shade and Newhart weren’t in big cities. But most do seem to be
I think the last sitcom I really liked was Everybody Loves Raymond, and even that was pretty close to New York City, since the title character is a sportswriter for Newsday, a Long Island newspaper.
Frasier holds up incredibly well despite being based in Seattle, too. And the first two episodes of the revival were surprisingly funny, but as much as I love Kelsey Grammer, I don't expect that to last.
I just see a preening and simpering muppet acting as a baby monitor speaker for the lines he is being fed by developmentally challenged coastal 'elite' writers.
It's a different Fraiser with different tags to his life Cheers he was the outsider bonding with the Blue Collar friends he made and his attempts at building a life after each collapse which finally culminated in Fraiser series and his moving to Seattle to make a fresh start. Now we've got Fraiser post having monumental successful career in Daytime Television for decades and trying to to connect with with a son who's very much the Blue Collar roots of his old friends and trying to connect with his older roots as a psychologist after he's spent two decades as the pinnacle of a Sideshow act Nilles teased him about. I expect Kelsey to carry the show on his back for a while nonetheless.
The trend goes up and down, and I swear it mirrors the state of the economy.
Like I think it first started getting big back in the 70's in particular, and as a general trend in multiple genres it continued until the 90's, when the economy was booming.
Admittedly, it did remain a little trendy in a few sitcoms, but even then the apartment complexes and areas they depicted were actually clean looking.
Not sure if/when it started trickling back up again in recent years, since I've not kept up that much with recent television.
Another thing I'd wonder is if it's just cheaper and more convenient to get a hold of an apartment sized set than a suburban house. Especially given how hit or miss a sitcom's success was, historically. And I guess it would be a little jolting for audiences to upgrade some of the characters to an actual house after the show started becoming a hit. It's probably easier to just add more characters' apartment sets into the mix at that point.
Not that I actually have a clue what the real financial and logistical challenges are with this stuff. Just started wondering about it.
Now, come to think of it I don't know any set in rural areas. I never saw a lot of the older ones, the oldest for me was probably full house which iirc was in SF. Though my all tme favorite Scrubs(minus the final season l)would not work in a rural setting so there's that.
see: THe Rural Purge.
The network brass deliberately killed off the truly rural sitcoms of the 1960s despite the fact that they were still wildly popular, because they couldn't relate to anything not set in a big city.
Note that Fred Silverman, a New York Jew, was the force behind this at CBS that destroyed rural programming in preference of urban programming at CBS, then he moved onto ABC and NBC and did the same. Those were the biggest 3 networks, so 1 man basically managed to destroy rural shows from television.
He looks almost exactly how I would expect. Incredibly soft faced, round head, fake and neurotic smile. The hair...
Oh, yeah. And then Laverne and Shirley moved from Milwaukee and their beer-factory jobs, to California ..
TIL.
Reading the Wikipedia article is like a clusterfuck of retards refusing to reach for low-hanging fruit and instead focusing on the rotten apples laying on the ground.
Propaganda is real, preference cascade is real. I've known this for a while, but it's always good to be reminded.
That's not the whole story.
They were cancelled because everyone who was watching The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres was old.
Advertisers want to cater to the 18-49 age bracket, because that's who they say buys stuff. Apparently people 50+ are far less likely to be swayed by commercial advertising.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. But that's the reasoning they used. I still wonder how The Waltons not only survived it, but ran for an entire decade.
This is also why Freakazoid was cancelled in 1997. It was pitched as being a hit with ages 2-10, but it became a smash among 18-34...and since that wasn't the demographic they wanted, then total viewers didn't matter--it got the axe.
At least we got that incredible final scene out of it.
I think in addition to this, they thought that a more city-centered setting might offer more modern and upbeat plot lines for such an age bracket, especially as it coincided with certain shifts in American society/culture towards modernity. (IE, the gradual birth and rise of the suburban environment, high ways and free ways, large shopping malls, etc etc.)
Plus, in general, American (and possibly European) culture were increasingly putting focus on coming up with "new" ideas and concepts, and dispensing with anything old fashioned. The "quaint" oddities of people's lives in rural life was just seen as outdated.
The target bracket for suburban set-shows though has always been especially tricky. Quite a few tried to aim for a whole family target audience. And it wasn't always easy to try to cover content that appealed to kids without it being too immature for adults. Or coming up with comedy bits for adults that were either too unfamiliar to kids or inappropriate for them in general.
Some shows managed to do this quite successfully, others just dug into their own strange niches, while many just fell flat and failed outright. 3rd Rock from the Sun has to be one of the most curious examples of a hit, simply because it managed to appeal to so many people at various levels without even trying. Obviously the over the top concept was one of it's main selling points which in turn led them to (re)examining a lot of aspects of human nature and behavior that might normally be taken for granted.
'3rd Rock From The Sun'
You went in for the science fiction and instead came away holding a potato. Even 'Alf' had more science fiction elements than that.
3rd Rock From The Sun had no right to be as good as it was.
Until that finale. That stupid, stupid finale.
Aye, that was a pretty weak finale sadly.
Because Seinfeld and Friends became bigger than most any sitcom before them, and now everything is trying to be the next version of that. Add in Big Bang Theory a decade later to add in the "living in LA with a theme" to the possibilities.
I'm sure there are a lot more woke type factors at play, but the foundational level is almost certainly just based on the absurd success of those urban sitcoms.
In the old days, TV writers and journalists were working class, with a wide background, unless one struck it big. Now, TV writers and journalists are trust fund kids and their life experience is Starbucks and city apartments.
I think the simple answer is just that they simply set the shows in the places where they produced them (LA, NY, or generic metropolitan area). Because it's a hell of a lot quicker and cheaper to film scenery at the immediate location than to go outside those boundaries or build sets for everything.
Though nowadays, with how incestuous Hollywood has become, you pretty much need to be born into show business to have any part in it. Which means they're taking people who are already inside the fold, rather than drawing in talent from all over the country. So everything just becomes about entitled assholes living in big cities.
The networks purged most "rural" shows in the 70s. You can read about it on Wikipedia sometime under Rural Purge.
Honestly I don't think it's something malicious, just that 1) all the writers are from LA/NYC, 2) they're all trying to imitate Friends and Seinfeld and 3) it's easier for writers to think up generic city stuff for them to do which means they can spend less time on their work.
I know in the early 70s they did a rural purge which is why shows like Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and Mayberry RFD. Those were good shows too. I’m trying to think of a show in the recent past that isn’t in a major city. Yellowstone is one. Little House and Waltons went into the 80s. Golden Girls we’re in a suburb? Evening shade and Newhart weren’t in big cities. But most do seem to be
Just watch Corner Gas. It's actually pretty decent. It's about a fake down in saskatchewan where not a lot goes on.
I think the last sitcom I really liked was Everybody Loves Raymond, and even that was pretty close to New York City, since the title character is a sportswriter for Newsday, a Long Island newspaper.
Frasier holds up incredibly well despite being based in Seattle, too. And the first two episodes of the revival were surprisingly funny, but as much as I love Kelsey Grammer, I don't expect that to last.
I just see a preening and simpering muppet acting as a baby monitor speaker for the lines he is being fed by developmentally challenged coastal 'elite' writers.
Sitcoms are cheap and gaudy entertainment.
It's a different Fraiser with different tags to his life Cheers he was the outsider bonding with the Blue Collar friends he made and his attempts at building a life after each collapse which finally culminated in Fraiser series and his moving to Seattle to make a fresh start. Now we've got Fraiser post having monumental successful career in Daytime Television for decades and trying to to connect with with a son who's very much the Blue Collar roots of his old friends and trying to connect with his older roots as a psychologist after he's spent two decades as the pinnacle of a Sideshow act Nilles teased him about. I expect Kelsey to carry the show on his back for a while nonetheless.
There have been a few shows. Red Green is the one that pops up in my head.
The trend goes up and down, and I swear it mirrors the state of the economy.
Like I think it first started getting big back in the 70's in particular, and as a general trend in multiple genres it continued until the 90's, when the economy was booming.
Admittedly, it did remain a little trendy in a few sitcoms, but even then the apartment complexes and areas they depicted were actually clean looking.
Not sure if/when it started trickling back up again in recent years, since I've not kept up that much with recent television.
Another thing I'd wonder is if it's just cheaper and more convenient to get a hold of an apartment sized set than a suburban house. Especially given how hit or miss a sitcom's success was, historically. And I guess it would be a little jolting for audiences to upgrade some of the characters to an actual house after the show started becoming a hit. It's probably easier to just add more characters' apartment sets into the mix at that point.
Not that I actually have a clue what the real financial and logistical challenges are with this stuff. Just started wondering about it.
Since 1971, when the """people""" who control the media purged them.
Now, come to think of it I don't know any set in rural areas. I never saw a lot of the older ones, the oldest for me was probably full house which iirc was in SF. Though my all tme favorite Scrubs(minus the final season l)would not work in a rural setting so there's that.