TV shows with a message.

RCMerchant · July 13, 2006, 09:16:55 PM

A lotta old TV programs used to actually try to put across a message...ya know...like GUNSMOKE, or OUTER LIMITS, on aa weekly basis.What were your favorites-and did they really have an influnce on your thinking?

AndyC · July 13, 2006, 09:34:41 PM

Quincy springs to mind, at least the later ones, after he gave up solving murders and started beating us over the head with socially relevant issues. Can't say it influenced me too much, Quincy climing on his soapbox and whacking me with a two-by-four each week, except maybe to change the channel. Still, the preachiness is part of what makes Quincy cheesy fun today. Who can forget the time he educated us on the dangers of punk rock?

loyal1 · July 13, 2006, 09:49:54 PM

Alferd Hitchcock Presents The intro and epilouge, always funny and witty. I guess it somewhat influenced my dark humor. The Twillight Zone didn't really have that comedic edge that Hitchcock had, but was still very good.

The only other that comes to mind is that stupid Jerry Springer show..the quinticential message at the end of the insanity we just witnessed!

RCMerchant · July 13, 2006, 10:20:37 PM

JERRY SPRINGER! Now there's a commentary on an era in which people nowadays get a clue. Sad, but very true.

odinn7 · July 13, 2006, 10:33:35 PM

Every week the Brady Bunch tried to show us what being good and making the right decisions would do for us. I think I saw that show too much and rebelled as I always wound up making the wrong decisions and not being too good.

DAMN YOU BRADY'S!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ash · July 14, 2006, 12:34:04 AM

How about Full House?

What's his name (Bob Saget's character) was always trying to get a message across to his daughters and the audience in pretty much every episode.

dean · July 14, 2006, 03:57:11 AM

Pretty much every 80s and early 90s cartoon had their own messages. Such as the fantastically stupid Captain Planet and saving the environment, to Thundercats with the 'If we work as a team nothing can stop us!' Conveniantly I have both those theme songs as two different ring tones on my mobile phone, so that works out nicely...

loyal1 · July 14, 2006, 08:33:58 AM

Oh yeah...I use to watch He-man when I was little...what was that ghost things name with a big on on his red s**t...a hat and a scarf? I vaugly remember lol. Boy, I guess I was a tom boy when I was little. You didn't see me watching My Little Ponies. Although I totally digged the smurfs...lol.

Scott · July 14, 2006, 07:33:11 PM

QUARK..............now there was a TV show with a message. Guess I just could think of anything else.

Zapranoth · July 15, 2006, 02:09:44 AM

The Superfriends had a message every time. Like, "Aquaman says, don't swim for an hour after eating, or you could cramp and drown." Or don't play with matches.

Also, the new Battlestar Galactica has a great message, which is, Cylons want to kill us all, and we probably deserve it. =) Can't wait till the new season starts. Twitch. Twitch.

RCMerchant · July 15, 2006, 09:44:07 AM

DRAGNET. Hippies took a beating on that show. " Smack. Horse. The big H. Any way you look at it, its the same old garbage. C'mon Let's get some coffee. These people make me sick."

Scottie · July 15, 2006, 10:28:50 AM

Zapranoth wrote:

"The Superfriends had a message every time. Like, "Aquaman says, don't swim for an hour after eating, or you could cramp and drown." Or don't play with matches."

>
>
>

Did you make up that Aquaman crack or is that real? That has to be the lamest lesson for Aquaman, a man who can breath underwater. If it was real, then nobody liked Aquaman. You never heard anyone say "now Superman, wait 30 minutes after eating before flying or you'll get a cramp and fall from the sky!"

"But I have someone to save someone dangling from the empire state building!"

"No Superman, you'll get a cramp. Your super powers have to wait 30 minutes."

Waiting any amount of time would greatly hamper any super power. Crippled by waiting in a bank line! Powerless against the mighty DMV! Unable to withstand the lines of the gas station! (this was the 70's Superman)

Zapranoth · July 15, 2006, 10:42:54 AM

It was real. Don't you remember? There was this little teaching moment carved out of the middle of the show, and often Zann and Jayna or some of the superfriends would deliver a public safety tip of some kind. Fourth wall violations in my Saturday morning!

Mofo Rising · July 15, 2006, 12:57:36 PM

loyal1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh yeah...I use to watch He-man when I was
> little...what was that ghost things name with a
> big on on his red s**t...a hat and a scarf? I
> vaugly remember lol. Boy, I guess I was a tom boy
> when I was little. You didn't see me watching My
> Little Ponies. Although I totally digged the
> smurfs...lol.

That would be Orko.

How about this? "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle."

Personally, I hate kids shows with a message. I think it reached new heights of obnoxiousness right around the time of CAPTAIN PLANET. Maybe I'm looking through rose colored glasses here, but I remember cartoons as being mindless entertainment.

We need Roald Dahl back. Damn you, Death! Play your chess game elsewhere!

Fearless Freep · July 15, 2006, 05:24:04 PM

Yeah, the lesson *I* learned from cartoon was "Never..ever...mess with Buggs Bunny!"