I nearly added it to the list, but DAMN! the filler in Jay Ward Cartoons is ridiculous. The intros and outros for each segment are nearly as long as the segments themselves, and then there are the poetry readings and "Watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat". Make it easy to skip past this junk and there are some quality cartoons within.
I bought the first season of Bullwinkle to show my kid, and we got through a few episodes. Never finished.
(George of the Jungle suffers from the same problem.)
I didn't include The Flintstones for the same poor reception at home. There, the problem is that I bought the first season, which is not as kid friendly as the later seasons. Fred starts off as a complete ass. The show was originally a replacement for "The Honeymooners", a show that's even worse than a Norman Lear sitcom, IMO.
What I probably should have added is "Josie and the Pussycats". Though past my cutoff year, the first season was pretty cool. And I'm pretty sure Dr. Weird in "Aqua Team Hunger Force" was inspired by the villains in "Josie and the Pussycats." I would have thrown in the Archie cartoons, but last I checked they were not available.
And if I break my 1970 rule, there are three shows that partially capture the magic of "Get Smart": "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp," "Sledge Hammer", and "The Partners."
Well, to be sure, I didn't watch a lot of TV as most of it I found very dull. I must confess to liking Gall In The Family and loathing Gilligan's Island, five minutes of Happy Gays made me want to vomit and a host of other shows that seemed stupid af. But it is 100% subjective, i.e. The Addams Family is light years better than The Munster's IMO, but you see, this is going off into the weeds, the point is your stocking stuffer suggestions are a great idea. BTW, I'll take those Bullwinkle DVD's off your hands, I'll just FF through the intro. Wishing you and family a wonderful Thanksgiving!
I need to buy the DVD of The Addams Family. The Munsters was rerun more than The Addams Family. What little I have seen of the latter seemed to be more force laughter.
By all means give what you feel is appropriate.
The Beverly Hilllbillies and Get Smart crush either.
My favorite cartoon is still bugs bunny, especially the episode where he annoys the opera singer, the singer breaks his guitar and then ties him by the ears to a tree limb…, but oh does bugs get his revenge!!
I bought the big collection of Warner Brothers cartoons when looking for entertainment for my kid. Some of it was enjoyed, but only a small fraction. WB's curation of their material was terrible. The order of tracks is neither by character or year. It's by their "best of". Very hard to find what you want. Maybe later releases are better.
I had better luck with The Pink Panther cartoon. The DVD releases were better than the Saturday Morning cartoons. You can get all the Inspector cartoons on one disk and you can get the Pink Panther cartoons proper in order and avoid the stupid And and the Aardvark cartoons altogether.
But let's remember the theme here: our goal is to gently inform/remind people of what was once good about the United States (or the West). That's the principle. We do not have to agree on the precise implementation and I welcome alternative suggestions. We don't have to be Borg here!
I agree about Norman Lear. Not only was it more about insults, but it was the beginning of the entertainment industry trying to hit us over the head with social issues instead of just entertain.
Instead of laughs, a message was most important.
Old entertainment was also better because they had to work with the censors. It's a lot harder to be funny when you have to keep it squeaky clean. Try to find something really hilarious today that would be on the networks in the 50's and 60's!
Sesame Street was a turning point for kid's television. People started letting the TV do education, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as the parents keep an eye on it.
One thing that really bothers me about Hollywood today, mostly movies, is the ubiquitous use of using the name of Jesus in vain. This has been getting worse since the 90's, almost as if it's in the script writer's contracts.
Somebody wants people desensitized to this. I would really like to find out what the deal is, because it's obvious once you take notice.
Sesame Street was terrible. Shortened attention spans. Captain Kangaroo was much better. Alas, the Captain is in copyright limbo so DVDs are not available last I checked.
(And Tennessee Tuxedo was more educational than Bill Nye.)
Curious about the idea that committing the same crime multiple times shouldn’t merit increased punishment. Perhaps you could elaborate on why you see this as such an important principle? It seems obvious to me that, eg, committing shoplifting once needn’t incur a severe penalty but that once you’ve become a chronic shoplifter you should be punished very severely
Secondly, laws such as Three Strikes laws put people in a sunk cost situation, where the penalty for littering is the same as armed robbery. This is double plus not good.
The better solution for shoplifting is quicker prosecution and punishments that are proportional to the crime. The punishment for young Thurston doing a fraternity stunt should be the same as for Leroy from The Hood. As we learn in "Animal House", a smart paddling fits this criterion. Victim compensation is also in order.
The Law of Moses states that when someone is found to be a recidivist and a career criminal, not only should he be put to death, the charges should be brought against him *by his own parents.* A 3-strikes law is significantly less harsh than that!
That was more of disrespecting your parents law if you are referring to what I think you are. Somewhere I read (lost the source) that Talmudic commentators doubt that this law was ever enforced. It was more of threat parents could use -- sort of like Santa Claus delivering ashes and switches today.
But the Talmudic commentators could have been wrong.
Honestly, I read it more as a threat to the parents themselves: if you fail to raise your kid right and he turns out to be a mess, you yourself are required to publicly condemn him to death and admit your failure before the whole town.
Wow, I had no idea how much TV censorship in the later 20th century made America's entertainment *less* socially conservative. Thanks for sharing this!
> While anti-racist, [Star Trek] was also anti woke.
That's the thing. It wasn't anti-racist; it was *not* racist.
Ask a physicist what the difference is between matter and anti-matter, and they'll tell you that they're exactly alike in every way, except for a few specific properties, where they're exactly alike in every way except for being oriented in the polar-opposite direction. And when the two meet, a violent explosion occurs.
This paradigm is the best way to understand "anti-racism" and "anti-fascism."
Great TV recommendations. Most of the stuff I grew up on.
Happy Thanksgiving Fabius!
Bullwinkle, Fractured Fairy Tales, Peabody and Sherman? Those are legends! Or was it before your time?
I nearly added it to the list, but DAMN! the filler in Jay Ward Cartoons is ridiculous. The intros and outros for each segment are nearly as long as the segments themselves, and then there are the poetry readings and "Watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat". Make it easy to skip past this junk and there are some quality cartoons within.
I bought the first season of Bullwinkle to show my kid, and we got through a few episodes. Never finished.
(George of the Jungle suffers from the same problem.)
I didn't include The Flintstones for the same poor reception at home. There, the problem is that I bought the first season, which is not as kid friendly as the later seasons. Fred starts off as a complete ass. The show was originally a replacement for "The Honeymooners", a show that's even worse than a Norman Lear sitcom, IMO.
What I probably should have added is "Josie and the Pussycats". Though past my cutoff year, the first season was pretty cool. And I'm pretty sure Dr. Weird in "Aqua Team Hunger Force" was inspired by the villains in "Josie and the Pussycats." I would have thrown in the Archie cartoons, but last I checked they were not available.
And if I break my 1970 rule, there are three shows that partially capture the magic of "Get Smart": "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp," "Sledge Hammer", and "The Partners."
Well, to be sure, I didn't watch a lot of TV as most of it I found very dull. I must confess to liking Gall In The Family and loathing Gilligan's Island, five minutes of Happy Gays made me want to vomit and a host of other shows that seemed stupid af. But it is 100% subjective, i.e. The Addams Family is light years better than The Munster's IMO, but you see, this is going off into the weeds, the point is your stocking stuffer suggestions are a great idea. BTW, I'll take those Bullwinkle DVD's off your hands, I'll just FF through the intro. Wishing you and family a wonderful Thanksgiving!
I need to buy the DVD of The Addams Family. The Munsters was rerun more than The Addams Family. What little I have seen of the latter seemed to be more force laughter.
By all means give what you feel is appropriate.
The Beverly Hilllbillies and Get Smart crush either.
Hillbillies and Get Smart are the best comedies from the 60's, hands down.
I love Lucy for the 50's.
My favorite cartoon is still bugs bunny, especially the episode where he annoys the opera singer, the singer breaks his guitar and then ties him by the ears to a tree limb…, but oh does bugs get his revenge!!
I bought the big collection of Warner Brothers cartoons when looking for entertainment for my kid. Some of it was enjoyed, but only a small fraction. WB's curation of their material was terrible. The order of tracks is neither by character or year. It's by their "best of". Very hard to find what you want. Maybe later releases are better.
I had better luck with The Pink Panther cartoon. The DVD releases were better than the Saturday Morning cartoons. You can get all the Inspector cartoons on one disk and you can get the Pink Panther cartoons proper in order and avoid the stupid And and the Aardvark cartoons altogether.
But let's remember the theme here: our goal is to gently inform/remind people of what was once good about the United States (or the West). That's the principle. We do not have to agree on the precise implementation and I welcome alternative suggestions. We don't have to be Borg here!
Do kids still watch 3 stooges, or are they not PC now? We loved them when we were kids.
Good question. Ditto for the Our Gang shorts.
I agree about Norman Lear. Not only was it more about insults, but it was the beginning of the entertainment industry trying to hit us over the head with social issues instead of just entertain.
Instead of laughs, a message was most important.
Old entertainment was also better because they had to work with the censors. It's a lot harder to be funny when you have to keep it squeaky clean. Try to find something really hilarious today that would be on the networks in the 50's and 60's!
Sesame Street was a turning point for kid's television. People started letting the TV do education, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as the parents keep an eye on it.
One thing that really bothers me about Hollywood today, mostly movies, is the ubiquitous use of using the name of Jesus in vain. This has been getting worse since the 90's, almost as if it's in the script writer's contracts.
Somebody wants people desensitized to this. I would really like to find out what the deal is, because it's obvious once you take notice.
Sesame Street was terrible. Shortened attention spans. Captain Kangaroo was much better. Alas, the Captain is in copyright limbo so DVDs are not available last I checked.
(And Tennessee Tuxedo was more educational than Bill Nye.)
Bill Nye the fake science guy! I can't believe how many adults believe he is a scientist.
Teaching kids to parrot factoids is not teaching science.
Dan Coffey was more educational.
Totally agree, and since Nye isn't a scientist, who was writing the script?
Nye even posed as a scientist on main stream media. Educated elites believed he was a scientist. It's crazy.
Carl Sagan "Cosmos" was actually interesting for young people.
"Billions and billions..."
Curious about the idea that committing the same crime multiple times shouldn’t merit increased punishment. Perhaps you could elaborate on why you see this as such an important principle? It seems obvious to me that, eg, committing shoplifting once needn’t incur a severe penalty but that once you’ve become a chronic shoplifter you should be punished very severely
For one, it is unjust and un Biblical.
Secondly, laws such as Three Strikes laws put people in a sunk cost situation, where the penalty for littering is the same as armed robbery. This is double plus not good.
The better solution for shoplifting is quicker prosecution and punishments that are proportional to the crime. The punishment for young Thurston doing a fraternity stunt should be the same as for Leroy from The Hood. As we learn in "Animal House", a smart paddling fits this criterion. Victim compensation is also in order.
> For one, it is unjust and un Biblical.
Is it?
The Law of Moses states that when someone is found to be a recidivist and a career criminal, not only should he be put to death, the charges should be brought against him *by his own parents.* A 3-strikes law is significantly less harsh than that!
That was more of disrespecting your parents law if you are referring to what I think you are. Somewhere I read (lost the source) that Talmudic commentators doubt that this law was ever enforced. It was more of threat parents could use -- sort of like Santa Claus delivering ashes and switches today.
But the Talmudic commentators could have been wrong.
Honestly, I read it more as a threat to the parents themselves: if you fail to raise your kid right and he turns out to be a mess, you yourself are required to publicly condemn him to death and admit your failure before the whole town.
Wow, I had no idea how much TV censorship in the later 20th century made America's entertainment *less* socially conservative. Thanks for sharing this!
> While anti-racist, [Star Trek] was also anti woke.
That's the thing. It wasn't anti-racist; it was *not* racist.
Ask a physicist what the difference is between matter and anti-matter, and they'll tell you that they're exactly alike in every way, except for a few specific properties, where they're exactly alike in every way except for being oriented in the polar-opposite direction. And when the two meet, a violent explosion occurs.
This paradigm is the best way to understand "anti-racism" and "anti-fascism."