It's a miracle!

[Joe Guy]

Air Jordans?

Praise Jesus.

Jesus was more of a Nike guy.

Whatever brand he wore, I'm guessing they were cross trainers....

[Lord Jim]

Whatever brand he wore, I'm guessing they were cross trainers....

Joe just nailed it...

[rubato]

I always thought "the flying nun" show started TV on a downward spiral.....

When was TV ever upward?...

Dick Cavett

All in the family

Flip Wilson

Nature

Jacques Cousteau

The West Wing

Breaking Bad

Saturday Night Live (the good years)

Jimmy Swaggert ( I LOVED his show, pure theater. As good a showman as his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis. )

Cops ( you want to look in the mirror? here it is! )

And oh-so-many more. I'm not much of a TV person since I didn't have one for most of my adult life. So I expect there are a lot more good choices.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

if you liked swaggart you should love the reverend earnest angley.

my friends and I smacked each other on the forehead and yelled "be healed!", for years......

[Joe Guy]

my friends and I smacked each other on the forehead and yelled "be healed!", for years......

[oldr_n_wsr]

I always thought "the flying nun" show started TV on a downward spiral. A bunch of drunk execs come up with one of the stupidest ideas ever for a TV show, and then the sameexecs meet year after year to come up with even stupider ones to show they really had created a masterpiece,

I thought that cycle started with Gilligan's Island...

Don't knock Gilligans Island.

[RayThom]

I always thought "the flying nun" show started TV on a downward spiral. A bunch of drunk execs come up with one of the stupidest ideas ever for a TV show, and then the same execs meet year after year to come up with even stupider ones to show they really had created a masterpiece,

It's very odd how subjective humor can be. At an early age I realized just how lame and sophomoric Lucille Ball's brand of physical comedy was. I never understood the popularity of "I Love Lucy" among so my viewer -- young and old.

For me, the worst "comedies" on TV over the last few years would have to be "Two and a Half Men" and "Two Broke Girls." One show is, mercifully, now gone and the other should be. The mystery is who watches this shit? I'm fairly sure it has to be the least of the common denominators.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Taking a chance (and I agree with Ray), my "best" USA TV comedies:

Cheers for a while
Seinfeld
My name is Earl
The Big Bang Theory
Arrested Development

er, that's it. Maybe. I'd say the Carol Burnett show (which is classic and contains the most bust-your-gut laughs) but really that's more of a variety/sketch show.

[Big RR]

Ray---I can't argue with you that much about Lucille Ball; comedy is a matter of taste, and I'm not a giant fan of that type (although I will say that I Love Lucy was a million times better than her later iterations of the same sort of show), but then I love the Three Stooges while I know many can't stand them.

Meade--there are some good shows there, but to that I would add The Honeymooners. One of the most fortuitous things about it is it lasted only a year (really 2 years by current standards, there are 39 episodes); I think a lot of shows run out of steam after while (Cheers, Seinfeld, and TBBT did, and became only occasionally good; ditto for the Simpsons), but fortuitously the show ended before it became worn out (and if you watch some of the musical Honeymooners productions on the Jackie Gleason show later (albeit with a somewhat different cast) you'll get glimpses of what it could have become. Further, as the show originally started as short sketches on another Jackie Gleason show iteration, it hit its stride by episode 1, something few sitcoms ever do. Even though I know the shows by heart, they can still make me laugh.

[dales]

Television went down hill after this series.

[Sue U]

Plus ca change:

***

Like everybody, I wear more than one hat. I am the chairman of the FCC. But I am also a television viewer and the husband and father of other television viewers. I have seen a great many television programs that seemed to me eminently worthwhile and I am not talking about the much bemoaned good old days of "Playhouse 90" and "Studio One."

I'm talking about this past season. Some were wonderfully entertaining, such as "The Fabulous Fifties," "The Fred Astaire Show," and "The Bing Crosby Special"; some were dramatic and moving, such as Conrad's "Victory" and "Twilight Zone"; some were marvelously informative, such as "The Nation's Future," "CBS Reports," "The Valiant Years." I could list many more -- programs that I am sure everyone here felt enriched his own life and that of his family. When television is good, nothing -- not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers -- nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials -- many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

Is there one person in this room who claims that broadcasting can't do better? Well a glance at next season's proposed programming can give us little heart. Of 73 and 1/2 hours of prime evening time, the networks have tentatively scheduled 59 hours of categories of action-adventure, situation comedy, variety, quiz, and movies. Is there one network president in this room who claims he can't do better? Well, is there at least one network president who believes that the other networks can do better? Gentlemen, your trust accounting with your beneficiaries is long overdue. Never have so few owed so much to so many.

Why is so much of television so bad? I've heard many answers: demands of your advertisers; competition for ever higher ratings; the need always to attract a mass audience; the high cost of television programs; the insatiable appetite for programming material. These are some of the reasons. Unquestionably, these are tough problems not susceptible to easy answers. But I am not convinced that you have tried hard enough to solve them.

I do not accept the idea that the present over-all programming is aimed accurately at the public taste. The ratings tell us only that some people have their television sets turned on and of that number, so many are tuned to one channel and so many to another. They don't tell us what the public might watch if they were offered half-a-dozen additional choices. A rating, at best, is an indication of how many people saw what you gave them. Unfortunately, it does not reveal the depth of the penetration, or the intensity of reaction, and it never reveals what the acceptance would have been if what you gave them had been better -- if all the forces of art and creativity and daring and imagination had been unleashed. I believe in the people's good sense and good taste, and I am not convinced that the people's taste is as low as some of you assume.

***

Let me make clear that what I am talking about is balance. I believe that the public interest is made up of many interests. There are many people in this great country and you must serve all of us. You will get no argument from me if you say that, given a choice between a western and a symphony, more people will watch the western. I like westerns too, but a steady diet for the whole country is obviously not in the public interest. We all know that people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity as a test of what to broadcast. You are not only in show business; you are free to communicate ideas as well as relaxation.

And as Governor Collins said to you yesterday when he encouraged you to editorialize -- as you know the FCC has now encouraged editorializing for years. We want you to do this; we want you to editorialize, take positions. We only ask that you do it in a fair and a responsible manner. Those stations that have editorialized have demonstrated to you that the FCC will always encourage a fair and responsible clash of opinion.

You must provide a wider range of choices, more diversity, more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation's whims; you must also serve the nation's needs. And I would add this: that if some of you persist in a relentless search for the highest rating and the lowest common denominator, you may very well lose your audience. Because, to paraphrase a great American who was recently my law partner, the people are wise, wiser than some of the broadcasters -- and politicians -- think.

***

We need imagination in programming, not sterility; creativity, not imitation; experimentation, not conformity; excellence, not mediocrity. Television is filled with creative, imaginative people. You must strive to set them free.

Television in its young life has had many hours of greatness -- its "Victory at Sea," its Army-McCarthy hearings, its "Peter Pan," its "Kraft Theaters," its "See It Now," its "Project 20," the World Series, its political conventions and campaigns, and the Great Debates. And it's had its endless hours of mediocrity and its moments of public disgrace. There are estimates today that the average viewer spends about 200 minutes daily with television, while the average reader spends 38 minutes with magazines, 40 minutes with newspapers. Television has grown faster than a teenager, and now it is time to grow up.

What you gentlemen broadcast through the people's air affects the people's taste, their knowledge, their opinions, their understanding of themselves and of their world -- and their future.

Just think for a moment of the impact of broadcasting in the past few days. Yesterday was one of the great days of my life. Last week the President asked me to ride over with him when he came to speak here at the NAB. And when I went to the White House he said, "Do you think it would be a good idea to take Commander Shepard?" And, of course, I said it would be magnificent. And I was privileged to ride here yesterday in a car with the President and the Vice President, Commander and Mrs. Shepard. This was an unexpected, unscheduled stop. And Commander Shepard said to me, "Where are we going?" "What is this group?" And I said, "This is the National Association of Broadcasters at its annual convention."

This is the group, this is the industry that made it possible for millions of Americans to share with you that great moment in history; that his gallant flight was witnessed by millions of anxious Americans who saw in it an intimacy which they could achieve through no other medium, in no other way. It was one of your finest hours. The depth of broadcasting's contribution to public understanding of that event cannot be measured. And it thrilled me -- as a representative of the government that deals with this industry -- to say to Commander Shepard the group that he was about to see.

I say to you ladies and gentlemen -- I remind you what the President said in his stirring inaugural. He said: Ask not what America can do for you; ask what you can do for America.¹ I say to you ladies and gentlemen: Ask not what broadcasting can do for you; ask what you can do for broadcasting. And ask what broadcasting can do for America.

--Newton Minnow, May 9, 1961.