I'm rewatching season one. Despite the left-liberal slant, it's still more edgy than anything I've seen in what I suspect is the comedy scene of current year. Not that I've really bothered to check things out. Is there anything really worth checking out?
Since the 'Summer Of Love' of 2020 the streaming services (Big Tech) have pulled many episodes featuring blackface as a gag. Most of them from shows of the same time period.
Apparently, even 'Golden Girls' did it at one point. Imagine that. 'Golden Girls' being more edgy than current year.
Even the '10 Jokes From 30 Rock That Have Already Aged Poorly' article on Screenrant, predictably written by a female blogger, is more a promotional ad than anything else. (Although, those tranny episodes were truly cringe. How could they not be?)
Social media, Big Tech and the Democrats really did a number on society.
Remember when Drew Carey's transvestite brother was put in his place and told he's not a real woman?
That's a series you'll never find on DVD, by the way. They fought hard for a season 1 release, and that's all we ever got. They said it was because of music rights being very costly. Which is probably a factor.
But I also think because of episodes like that. There were plenty of thought provoking episodes all throughout it's run. And you'll never see them because they've been scrubbed from re-runs, and the DVDs/Blu Ray do not exist.
I know, and it's a damn shame, it's a genuinely funny show.
Interesting. I caught episodes of it here and there, didn't know this.
What show are we talking about?
The Drew Carey Show, from the 1990s. It's worth watching, but it's only available on the high seas.
And on some broadcast TV channels that run a lot of older shows.
Never saw it.
https://soap2day.tf/tv/the-drew-carey-show/3/9
Sweet, thanks for the site.
Ooh, that place has all kinds of old stuff, thanks.
Pretty much anything you want to watch. I find.
They gave Alec Baldwin's character plenty of great zingers. Another example of making a 'parody' of a dumb right winger who only ends up seeming cool and based.
Right?
They gave ultra-lib (and now murderous incompetent) Alec Baldwin a character that was a parody, but ended up being loved by tons of conversatives. Ron Swanson being another story in the similar vein. "Let's mock anti-governments libertarians" and then the libertarians are like, 'yup, that's me, this dude rocks!'
Its the problem when you try to deny basic reality.
The traits people often like in those characters are ones that we naturally like in a person, the details don't matter nor do the exaggerated "problems" because we just like them as a person and our brain will resolve the paradox of anything wrong about them.
On the flipside, to be a Leftist you need to be taught to like things that aren't natural. Slutty women, sensitive soy boys, free handouts, etc. So characters need to grow on you, you need to be constantly shown how awesome they are, they cannot show any flaws that aren't carefully crafted to be endearing.
Its why their characters are always such Mary Sues. Because if the token homo was also an asshole, then we would hate them double because we have a natural revulsion to the homo.
I think one big one for both characters is unapologetic confidence in their positions. They show courage in being so outspoken, especially when surrounded by more mainstream liberal characters, while not giving a damn about other peoples' opinions.
I think that's only correct when the character is right, or at least feels right.
For example, Korra from Avatar is unapologetically confident on her position and self to the point of acting like a dictator making choices for the world despite being surrounded by people who are on the opposite side. And its one of the worst parts of her character, if not the show as a whole.
We appreciate the confidence Swanson and Baldwin brought because the joke was how right they were, and their unflinchingness to those wrongies around them trying to drag them down. Something we want to see in ourselves, that strength of character.
Yeah, and they even did their best in making him appear 'not racist'. Apparently, he was also dating Condoleezza Rice.
30 Rock is great. Liz Lemon is obviously very liberal, but her politics are the butt of many, many jokes, especially in earlier seasons. You can see the leftist walls closing in during the final few episodes, complete with an embarrassingly retarded finale (which includes a 40 year old woman ending up with a supermodel boyfriend and two adopted black children - although I’d argue the insanity of that outcome is itself a sort of commentary on careerist women). Still a recommended watch. Alec Baldwin’s character is almost a lesser Rorschach in that the show tried to depict a conservative archetype - in this case, the capitalist - as insane but only succeeded in making him awesome.
only one of her adopted kids was black. The other was a blonde girl. The joke being that even though TGS was ending she was still going to have to manage a Jenna and Tracy. The kids names are even Terry and Janet to drive home the joke.
Jack Donaghy is a capitalist hero. Kind of like Ron Swanson, I think they intended to make him the crazy right winger, but as you said, accidentally made him awesome.
The blackface in Golden Girls were Blanche and Rose doing mud facials at home.
Love 30 Rock. It's amazing to me that it aired only 10 years ago but is too edgy for todays audiences. It could not be made today.
Old school comedy. You know, where everybody was fair game?
My youth was tv shows crossing the line more and more. The Simpsons were edgy as crap, saying "that sucks" was worthy of corporal punishment, and so forth. Now we're going the opposite direction again.
And what a disappointment The Simpsons turned out to be. Bending to the new totalitarian proglodyte paradigm, rather than mocking it.
I never watched 30 Rock during its run, but my girlfriend loved it so I bought the complete BR set a couple years ago.
Despite having the likes of Fey and Baldwin, it's a damned funny show and had some really talented writers. I imagine the people who wrote and starred in it are mortified with their past selves, but that just means I can laugh at their racist and sexist jokes content in the knowledge that it's eating their insides.
Edit: I'd also like to add that Dennis Duffy is one of the funniest characters of any character in sitcom history. Every line is hilarious, and his being a useless degenerate the perfect foil to Lemon's ideal personal life. He named his son Black Dennis. 🤣🤣🤣
Didn't watch the original run either. Was a late convert.
I know gamers and nerds like to buck against it, but The Big Bang Theory seems positively based compared to "current day" shows. They made jokes about trannies, that soy makes men feminine, was anti-Women Studies and more. This even continued after the series tipped into the woke era.
As I understand it, Jim Parsons also shocked everyone at the show when he announced he would no longer continue after season 12, citing a desire to do other things. The decision came out of nowhere and he could easily have piling up the dough for years playing Cooper. (He makes $10m just from reruns, and purportedly over $150m directly from the role.) I'm wondering if he faced pressure to wokify his character (or the show more broadly) and decided to nope-out before the character and series was ruined by it. He went on to become Executive Producer of Young Sheldon, which I haven't seen, but I understand that it also avoided virtually all of the woke carnage that infiltrated elsewhere.
TBBT became all about the women making the boy's lives better. The women were always shown to be smarter, more capable, and domineering than the boys. They even made Penny the higher paid partner with Leonard.
And Young Sheldon is the usual anti-Christian of modern tv.
Leonard IS a beta who still managed to get the hot chick. Sheldon even mocks him for being a soy-drinking beta. That's all part of the ongoing joke. Leonard should never be portrayed as an alpha, dominant male, but you're still expecting him to be. You're completely missing the mark.
And the women DO make the boys' lives better. Trying to find and manage good male/female relationships is part of the arc to the entire series for all characters. Frankly, it's also often done with a good message -- a man is better with a woman and vice versa. Raj and Stewart often serve as foils to that message.
However, the women are not shown to be smarter and more capable. Penny is portrayed as dumb throughout the entire series. She's an incompetent waitress and failed actress until, much later, she's given a long-shot opportunity to become a sales rep. She almost bombs at the interview until she bond's with the boss over their bitchy associate, Bernadine, which is just enough to rationalize her getting the job. Penny succeeds as a rep because she uses her sex appeal, not because she's a talented sales person, something she's fully cognizant about.
While Bernadine is competent and intelligent, she's never portrayed as smarter than Howard or the males. Amy is the only one who rivals their intelligence, and she's even more awkward and socially inept than the boys.
Bernadette is portrayed as smarter than Howard. She even mocks him for not having a PHD like she does. She tells him verbatim she is smarter than him, and he agrees.
While Amy is socially awkward she mellowed over time. They had whole episodes dedicated to how awesome the girls were. And Penny gets a job as a manager and excels at it.
I see your PhD and raise you my NASA credentials
Okay, I'll concede that point, but having no PHD is an element of mockery Howard receives from everyone. Despite this, he's a highly successful engineer and astronaut, which arguably outshines pretty much anything Berny is shown to accomplish.
This is true too, but it's also an acknowledged part of her personal character arc. She attributes Penny to making her "cooler" and more down to earth, but for most of the series, she's a very submissive and awkward character which also makes her vulnerable and entertaining.
There are comparable episodes for the boys, but I'd still point out that this approaches nothing when measured against the current era of girl boss media. It's not even in the same league.
All this is to say, again, that compared to this era of media, TBBT has some positively based moments. The series started by them cracking jokes about the tranny who used to live across the hall. Good luck starting with that today!
Of course it does. Its hard to remember but the "woke" was a pretty slow burn thing until around 2011 (Occupy Wall Street is usually considered the time they kicked it into overdrive). The 2000s were filled with jokes about Lefty shit because all that shit was still a joke to most people and they weren't capable of forcing reality quite yet.
For example, it took something like 30 years to get gays "accepted" enough for marriage, and then it still took a literal President to force the issue. Comparatively, the trannies took barely a few years to get the same level of support.
Calling something from pre-Obama years "based" is a bar that is so low that its on the floor, because basically everything was comparatively to today.
Especially as, none of the problems with BBT has anything to do with its politics. It calling out a tranny sometimes doesn't magically make it funny or literally groan worthy in how little it knows about nerd shit despite being a show about nerd shit.
The activist machinery of the gay lobby shifted gears to accelerate the 'acceptance' of the trannies, except they did it all behind the scenes and sneakily kept all their legislative subversions in the dark. They blindsided the general populace and conducted a political blitzkrieg on them. And they left a trail of 'Unit 731' victims in their wake.
That's why it feels like it came out of nowhere, because it really did. Everything about the transsexual movement is creepy, underhanded and profoundly duplicitous.
Fundamentally can't be trusted.
Bah, I misread the title as 3rd Rock From The Sun.
Same. Made me feel old but then I saw the top comment is about The Drew Carey Show so I'm alright now.
Never funny.
You're absolutely right, which is why I was confused for a bit after misreading the title.
The purpose of being critical of edge is so that criticism can be wielded as a weapon against people they don't like. The left, of course, gives themselves a pass. In both fiction (30 Rock and countless others) and reality (Biden & Indians in 7-11, Blackface Trudeau, etc).
This of course excludes "safe edgy" where it's always acceptable to mock white people, Christianity, straight men...
The Overton window is tightly controlled and maintained by the proglodyte left.