Transcripts For CNNW The Nineties 20180102

Listen to it. Oh, they know when it hits the bottom, it will be 1990, goodbye to the 80s. Ten, nine, eight eight, eight, eight oh, will this horrible year never end . When the 90s began, we started to see a lot of experimentation. And the simpsons i think in some senses was inspired by not necessarily hatred of television, but a distrust of a lot of the ways in which television was talking to us. Tv respects me. It laughs with me. Not at me. Youre stupid. Doh i think the sitcoms of the 80s were such a warm, safe, humor. I love you guys. The kids, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage. And i think there was a real yearning for another type of humor. We were able to spoof fatherhood what a bad father. Which at the time, and i stress at the time, was bill cosby as the shining example. Did you ever know that youre my hero the stuff they got away with because its a cartoon. The father strangling the child. Why you little we are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American Family to make American Families a lot more like the waltons and a lot less like the simpsons. We go to a completely bizarre period of time in 1992 when a sitting president is raging against a sitcom. They have dealt with politics. They have dealt with popular culture. Theyve dealt with all kinds of issues of racism, of sexism. Dont ask me, im just a girl. Right on, say it, sister. Its not funny, bart. Millions of girls will grow up thinking this is the right way to act. They have found a way to talk about everything thats going on in our lives through the filter of the simpsons. Them immigrants. They want all the benefits to living in springfield, but they aint even bothered to learn themselves the language. Yeah, those are exactly my sentimonies. I think one of the governing things thats happening with the simpsons is a distrust of anyone who tells us we should trust them and doesnt earn that trust. Ill take that statue of justice too. Sold. When they make fun of how fox works you are watching fox. We are watching fox. They are telling you dont trust us either. Eat my shorts. All right. Ill eat eat your shorts . The simpsons is like shakespeare in the sense that we quote the simpsons all the time, very often without knowing it. Excellent i wish i could create something that culturally indelible. Its unlike anything else tv has ever run. Twin peaks showed up out of nowhere at the beginning of the decade. The pilot episode of that was one of the strangest and most exciting things i have ever seen. Im at the twin peaks county morgue. With the body of the victim. Whats her name . Palmer. [ screaming ] it was incredible. Just how slowly in the beginning the news spread around this little town that this young, beautiful girl had died and that haunting music was so dark and so beautiful. Ive got good news. The gum you like is going to come back in style. What on earth is essentially a art film doing in prime Time Television . American Network Television has long been considered the home of the blands, the cautious and the predictable. So it was with some trepidation that it the abc Network Launched a new series that was none of those things. Twin peaks is already described by one critic that will change tv. Its directed by david lynch. David lynch was a filmmaker known for his taste in the eccentric and memorable. The idea that he would do television in the 90s was crazy. Do you watch much of it . I like the idea of television, but im too busy to see very much of it. What do you think of that which you do see . Some of it i really enjoy. Are you being diplomatic . Sort of. [ screaming ] the beautiful thing about television is you have the chance to do a continuing story. And thats the main reason for doing it. I think that twin peaks with the initial attention it got allowed all the other networks to say, lets do something different. What was interesting about northern exposure it was an odd sort of universe that this guy was dropped into. The days coming. It aint going to be long when you aint going to have to leave your living room. No more schools, no more bodegas, no more tabernacles, no more cineplexes, all right . Youre going to snuggle up to your fiberoptics and bliss out. You also had experimentation that set the stage for a lot of what came later. Its kind of hard to pin down what exactly the x files is. I mean, on the surface, its a show about investigating paranormal activities. Unidentified flying objects. I think that fits the description pretty well. Tell me im crazy. Moulder, youre crazy. That dynamic, that dramatic tension of believer versus skeptic is one of the engines of the show. You were always seeing it from a specific point of view. Theyre equals . Yeah, absolutely. They are equals in a way they have kind of switched gender stereotypes because the character i play, mulder is the intuitive one. And scully is the rationalist, the doctor. A lot of folks who enjoyed the x files who otherwise didnt watch tv might have been drawn to the show by its, for lack of a better way to put it, stick it to the man ethos. Dont trust the government or big business or anybody but yourself and your friends and family, i guess. Its a message thats somewhat dark and cynical, but was kind of a breath of fresh air in the early 90s. The 90s was a time of conspiracies. And the internet was starting to spread beyond just like hardcore computer users. So you could have Message Boards and use net news groups. And everybody wanted to talk about the black oil and the bees and mulders sister and what the cigarette smoking man was up to. To alt. Tv xfiles. And people were so nuts for this show. Its just pure science fiction. Thats probably what i like most about it. It changed the way people watched television. You could sense the successful creators trying to see how they could do things different five or ten years ago. Sometimes that led to really challenging Network Television that was cool and fun to watch. And sometimes it seemed to fall off the edge a little bit. Lets be careful out there at the time, Steven Bochco was a very successful producer of hour dramas and wanted to try something brandnew. Were the police we have a warrant for your arrest. So his idea was to combine a gritty cop show with a broadway musical. I saw one in which a bunch of gang bangers were in jail. They began to sing. Life in the hood aint no pizza pie, everybody die when the bullets fly. Life in the hood aint no pizza pie, people die when bullets fly and i said wait a minute. I thought this is it. This is great. This is going to be as innovative as anything i have ever done. He is guilty, he is guilty, judge, you can see it in his eyes he did the crime and now hes got to pay it circled the drain. I will give credit to anybody who goes outside the box and swings really hard for the fences. I worked real hard and i got my education im creatively proud of it. Still. Im very glad we tried it. I dont think id want to do it again. Keep it comin love. Dont stop it now, dont stop it no. Dont stop it now, dont stop it. Keep it comin love. Keep it comin love. Dont stop it now, if you keep on eating, well keep it comin. All you can eat riblets and tenders at applebees. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. But when we brought our daughter home, that was it. Now i have nicoderm cq. The nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release Technology Helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. Its the best thing that ever happened to me. Every great why needs a great how. Coaching means making tough choices. Jim youre in but when you have high Blood Pressure and need Cold Medicine that works fast, the choice is simple. Coricidin hbp is the 1 brand that gives powerful cold symptom relief without raising your Blood Pressure. Coricidin hbp. Generation x, the 20 somethings, boomerangers, whatever the 46 million young souls are called are turning out to be a hard sell. In the 90s, what we realized is advertisers would pay premiums for College Educated young adults 18 to 49. We started reinventing nbc and trying to speak to that audience. Where is someone . Im starving. This is him right here. Is there a table ready . The Chinese Restaurant was one of the very, very early episodes of seinfeld. And truly Nothing Happened in the episode. They were waiting for a table. I feel like just walking over there and taking some food off of somebodys plate. We said to larry david, hey, like nothing happens. And larry was offended. He was like wildly offended. He was like wildly offended. Nbc believed in the show so they said were committing to four episodes. Yes, yeah, right. Four episodes. Normally its 13 or eight or something. Yes, at least. We really didnt think they had too much confidence in the show. We didnt think it would work, but we thought they had to go through their process and they would learn and ultimately they knew better than we did. My mother caught me. Caught you . Doing what . You know. I was alone. The turning point for seinfeld from like nice show that all of the cool people kind of know about but thats it to massive hit was an episode called the contest where they tried to abstain from selfpleasure for as long as possible. 6 30, time for your bath. George, im hungry. Hang on, ma. Hang on. Once you do 30 minutes on masturbation, you can pretty much get away with anything. I guess youll be going back to that hospital. My mother, jerry. But are you still master of your domain . I am king of the county. The week after that aired, people were talking about that in the workplace the entire week. They still are talking about it. 52 seconds and two of the greatest words in sitcom history. Im out. One of the shorthand descriptions of seinfeld is no hugs, no lessons. Lets push it a little further than its ever been pushed before. I think the big breakthrough of seinfeld was that the characters were not nice people. Shut up you old bag. They were narcissistic. Help they would screw each other at the drop of a hat. Hes just a dentist. And youre an antidentite. And yet be best friends the next week. When you wish upon a star you dont have to love them. We just have to laugh at them. Im really sorry. I was in the pool. I was in the pool the idea of a character with darker tendencies, that was so taboo in television comedy. Are you about done . Im just getting warmed up. Were in the confines of network tv with commercials, with still a lot of things that are very highly structured and yet were able to find ways of pushing in the boundaries. No soup for you. It took us to a new level of comedy. And it kind of defined like, yeah, nbc, thursday night, this show, expect the unexpected. Can you sing the theme song from cheers . Making your way in the world today today. Come on, i know. Its cute. Just sing it. Takes everything you got taking a break from all your worries sure can help a lot wouldnt you like to get away sometimes you want to go where Everybody Knows your name we decided to end cheers in the 11th year. Over 93 Million People watched the finale of cheers. Its a sad experience for everybody. This was our baby for 11 years and were not going to be around these people every day. You people are as dear to me as my own family. We had been serving fake suds forever. It was time for everybody to sip. In fact, i was sipping along with them. Time goes by so fast. People move in and out of your life. You must never miss an opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you. We had been through so much together. You spend so much time with the same set of people, it does become your family. I feel pretty lucky to have the friends i do. I think the legacy of cheers is our need to belong. And i think thats what we as americans are longing for. Thank you, guys. The final scene of cheers was really what was sams real first love. You can never be unfaithful to your one true love. Im the luckiest son of a on earth. His real first love was the bar. Sorry, were closed. Nick was born to move. 3 toddlers wont stop him. And neither will lower back pain. Because at a dr. Scholls kiosk he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. Dr. Scholls. Born to move. Okay, lets play show business. As a young kid in cleveland, i knew i would one day end up doing a talk show. Its arsenio hall in less than two years, arsenio hall has fired his talk show for the mtv generation into a contender for the crown of late night television. Yes, yes how come i didnt hear all of that woofing going on . When i would watch you . Too many white people. Johnny was the big dog. But i knew everybody on the planet wasnt watching him. And it dawned on me that i could go many weeks and not see a motown group on the tonight show. Arsenio hall has been dubbed the prince of late night. There was a whole world of talent that had never and would never have been on any late night show. Sitting at home watching arsenio hall 2livecrew came on and sang meso horny, it was like the sex pistols. Id never seen anything like it. It was an explosion in the audience. He appealed to a black and white young audience and it was a much broader appeal than the powers that be estimated. Rap. Rap is real big among our teens. Thats poetry. Of course it is. Having maya angelou on, i mean, where would you have seen her otherwise . In 1892 he wrote a poem that called a negro love song. It says seen my lady home last night, jump back, honey, jump back. Held her hand and squeezed it tight, jump back, honey, jump back. He didnt just have black people on his show. But if you were hip, you wanted to be on arsenio. This was something i heard a political analyst talk about recently. He said you kind of were i use the word chilling out. He said you were pulling back. You had been instructed not to say as much or be outspoken. No . Ive heard that, but i never know who says it. Its Wishful Thinking on the part of some people. Guess who suggested to bill to do the arsenio hall show if you want to get a younger demo . Hilldawg. He attracted a lot of people who werent fans before that night. The 90s was a glorious moment for black television. Because you saw these representations that youd never seen before. The premise of the fresh prince was this kid who comes from philadelphia. In West Philadelphia born and raised on the playground is where i spent most of my days his mom says im going to send you to live with your uncle. He shows up at this mansion in bel air, baseball cap on backward. Like he doesnt even know how to act in this environment. The black producers and directors and writers were always playing with this kind of subverting expectations of what is blackness. The incredible work of the fresh prince at its most triumphant is when it was showing the ways that being black is always going to be a problem no matter what. Vehicle registration, please. Just a second. But the thing, officer, this isnt my car. Theres the episode i remember where they get pulled over in a car. What . He is going to tell us to get out of the car. You watch too much tv. Get out of the car. We have an interaction with the Police Officer that is horrible and racist in a lot of ways. And carlton has this epiphany about how money wont save him. No map is going to save you. And neither is your glee club or your fancy bel air address or who your daddy is. Because when youre driving in a nice car in a strange neighborhood, none of that matters. They only see one thing. The writers of the fresh prince of bel air had a really tough task to approach these topics with nuance, and were doing it at a clip that was way ahead of their time. Now dont touch that dial. Were about to flip it for you to one of the most talked about tv shows. It is, as they say, on another network. Fox. In living color ladies and gentlemen. Keenan ivory wayans. In living color was the first show created by, written by, directed by, starring an African American, all of those things in one. This is celebration of culture and of change. Us opening the doors to allowing america to come inside. Yo, yo, yo, all you bad bargain hunters out there, welcome to the homeboys shopping network. A lot of what they did on in living color was trying to take the stereotypes or the misperceptions about what black men are and turn them upside down. Not only will you get all the cable stations out there, but youll be able to talk directly to the astronauts. It brought this smart, very controversial comedy that black folks had never seen before that centered around their life experiences. Who are you . I am the minister louis farrakhan. Africanamericans composed 25 of foxs market. I always get trapped in the corner with somebody named bob. Hey, listen, martin, i just saw boys in the hood, all right . I didnt know, martin, i didnt know. They knew that they needed to capture this audience to grow. I guess you think you smart and cool. But if you think you get a job here, youre a damn fool. Now get up out of my office. So they basically gave the black creators freedom to do whatever you want. Just get the audience. The wb and upn took that concept from fox. Your shoulders are harder than cheap breast implants. Going after this underserved audience of urban minority viewers and really ran with it. Im a new millennium woman who will not be defined by traditional female roles, okay . A lot of the networks built themselves up partly on African American viewers. Shake it to the east. Shake it to the west. The africanamerican shows indexed lower in terms of household income. So over the course of the decade, the network started to move away from those shows. I dont know about you people, but ill be damned if it im going to let them destroy my neighborhood. Black creators felt used and abused. You made your money. You built your audience on us and now, you know, youre done. The following movie is rated the following movie is rated r. In 1990, 91, there was not a whole lot of original programing for cable, but they were airing movies. So we needed to compete and i felt that if we didnt, we were going to kind of get swept out. So i came up with a notion of doing a cop show that was r rated. When abcs broadcast standards read our script, they went berserk. I was sitting with a pad and a pencil drawing pictures of breasts to try to show them what we would show and what we wouldnt show. Grownups sitting in a room doodling. Then we started on the language. We heard it with the brains of a flea and the balls of a moth. The program premiered with an advertising boycott. Channel 7, shame on you but it was such an immediate hit, that boycott lasted, oh, four weeks. They could use the nudity and the curse words to go deeper into the actual emotional burden of being a cop. Im an asshole. And it had this character, andy sipowicz. He is a raging alcoholic, racist, sexist, violent. He created the tv antihero. I know the great African American George Washington carver discovered the peanut. But can you provide names and addresses of these friends . You know, youre a racist scumbag. Despite his flaws, despite his prejudices, i think people identified with his pain. I wish there was a way to say this that wouldnt hurt you. Theres a famous episode where they are investigating the rape and murder of a young boy. And they find a homeless child molester who murdered the kid and sipowicz to get the confession has to be very sensitive and very good cop. I know this has to be tearing you up inside. But youre going to feel a lot better if you just tell the truth. You can sort of see on dennis franzs face this is killing him to not destroy this guy right now. Finally, he gets the confession he gets the signed statement. He walks out of the room, he goes into another Interrogation Room and he breaks the door in two with his fist. And im choking up talking about it right now, because thats how great a moment of tv that it is. 20 years from now, the best tv dramas, what do they look like . I dont know. Will they be bolder than what we see today . Oh, assuredly, assuredly they will be. The 90s gave us several shows that didnt explode in the ratings, but were influential to other people making television. Homicide is one of them. Shell me with questions all night im living in a danger zone homicide life on the street was innovative in terms of its style. It used music in ways that advanced the narrative and also used feature film directors that brought a look and style to the show that really stood out on television. Tears coming out of your eyes. Aint no tears coming from my eyes. Those eyes are brimming with tears. They had so many African American characters in the cast that on several occasions they were the only people on camera interacting with one another. And that sounds like, so, but as late as the 90s, that wasnt done on television. When a cop shoots somebody, he stands by. He picks up the radio mike and calls it in. He stands by the body. If not, cops are no better than anybody else. In the 90s, television was getting more complicated, stories were starting to become more episodic and characters were starting to develop and change. None of that happened on law and order. This was a show that completely delivered on its formula every time. You get a crime, you got the investigation into the crime. You better be packing more than a dirty mouth. You got an arrest. Whats the charge . Hey, im asking you a question whats the charge . Theres no charge. This ones on us. Then you had a trial. Hes badgering, your honor. Sit down and shut up. Overruled. You will address the court from now on, mr. Mccoy. So every time you watched you got what you came for. Tell me, doctor. All those women you ran through your examination rooms, do you remember their faces or did you not even bother to look up . You had in law and order the kind of characters people take to heart. Ill let you take me to lunch. Onetime offer. And if youre an actor and you say well, gee, maybe its not really such a bad medium after all. Miranda, the supreme courts mimic decision. The whole thing was illegally obtained. They were both represented by counsel. You just get hooked in. Its life and death and stuff. We know what you did. Counsel. You hear me . Do you hear me . Look at me law and order was like crack. Youd have to sit and watch me for 50 minutes just like, not moving, barely breathing. Theres times i have almost passed out watching law and order. I need your help. E. R. Had originally been written as a movie, forced Steven Spielberg to direct. We had this twohour piece which was michaels reflection of experiences as a medical student. You need a large bore in case theyre bleeding and you need to trans fuse them. Do you know how to start an iv . Actually, no. E. R. Is a hospital show, but its really an action movie. Three walking wounded. Red urgent, yellow critical and black a gurney. Got it. A gurney comes in, people are shouting instructions, climbing on the body and doing cpr and racing off to the surgical suite. Get that gurney out of there someone wanders in. Theyre tossing around medical jargon. They dont stop to explain what it is. Prep for a peritoneal lavage. I think i know what that is now, but only because i watched a lot of e. R. Over the years. You try. We can bypass him. That would be the fastest way, what do you think . Youre the attending. There was so much information coming at you that i think it made the experience feel as if you had to watch it in the same way that youd watch a film. You had to stay involved in it the whole time. Come on, ben. You can make it. Hold on, buddy. Hold on. There was a lot of research that said people didnt want to watch anybody have anything other than a happy outcome. Its not a flat line, its dfib. Another seven makes epi. We argued that wasnt really showing what the world was for physicians. I had unbelievable amount of respect for the people who did this because i understood how human they were. For my constipation, my doctor recommended i switch to miralax. Stimulant laxatives forcefully stimulate the nerves in your colon. Miralax is different. It works with the water in your body. Unblocking your system naturally. Save up to 5 on miralax. See sundays paper. But when we brought our daughter home, that was it. Now i have nicoderm cq. The nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release Technology Helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. Its the best thing that ever happened to me. Every great why needs a great how. Turn with one a day mens. A complete multivitamin with key Nutrients Plus b vitamins for heart health. Your one a day is showing. Save up to 8 on one a day. See sundays paper. A new era of technology is forcing networks to reexamine the way they do business. New owners spent billions buying the networks recently. Ge buying nbc. Capital cities, abc. And loewstisch brothers buying cbs. And all of them want their moneys worth. Well now have the strongest network. Well have a stronger defense piece. This is going to be one dynamite company. Theres a danger that news will be mixed up with the rest of television and considered just another profit center. Late 1920s, to early 1930s, to the 1980s, the sense was if some of the broadcasting time took public service, 1990s, journalism in the country changed a great deal. You couldnt talk about public service. What are the ratings going to be . What are the demographics going to be . What is the profit going to be . Well, sensationalism sells. In a plea bargain, 18yearold amy fisher got up to 15 years in prison for shooting the wife of her alleged lover. So intense is the interest in it this case there are three, three made for tv movies now in the works about it. You make money off sex. You make money off death. You make money off crime. The press calls the case the Beverly Hills mansion murders. The story reads like a script that circulates here in hollywood. We enter into the Television News soap opera. A story of basic instinct, anger and fear. I was scared and i just wanted him to leave me alone. And so broadcast journalism loses its purity and becomes much more shoddy and sensationalistic. And then it all comes together with o. J. Simpson. Im Larry Carroll in los angeles. The Los Angeles County District Attorney has just filed murder charges against o. J. Simpson. I have to interrupt this call. I understand were going to go to a live picture in los angeles. Police believe that o. J. Simpson is in that car . The o. J. Simpson story starts with the chase and then goes on to his arrest and then culminates with the trial, which goes on and on and on and is televised day after day after day. This is going to be a long trial. This is going to be a long trial. Theres a lot of evidence to come in. The o. J. Simpson case was such a National Phenomenon that those of us who were covering it just lived this case 24 hours a day because there was so much demand for people talking about it. As simpson struggled to slide the gloves on to his hands and turned to a juror saying theyre too small, prosecutors were incensed. The trial was on television during the hours that had traditionally been the time for soap operas. He appears to have pulled the gloves on, counsel. And o. J. Was very much a soap opera. Impeached by his own witness. I ask you to put a stop to it. Excuse me, mr. Bailey. Will you stand up and speak when its your turn. No question that the best tv show of the 90s was the o. J. Simpson trial and everyone on it was riveting. The Simpson Trial finally winding to a close. We the jury in the above entitled action find Orenthal James simpson not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code 137a. The verdict of the o. J. Simpson trial viewed by 150 Million People. Its more people than watch president ial election returns. Thats crazy. Because there was trial footage every day, cnn saw its audience increase like five times, the success of cnn was not lost on other people. And so, there were competing forces coming into play. How delighted i am we have now reached this moment when we can firmly announce the starting of a fox news channel. Unfortunately, with cable news and the ability or the need to be on the air 24 7, where you try to get as many eyeballs as possible at one time, to gravitate toward those stories that are sensational, it brought us the ability to go too far. Is the Jonbenet Ramsey Murder Investigation turning into a media circus . Its tabloid but on the other hand, its a tabloid era. Heres where the fear comes into it, i think, larry. Its the fear that says, gosh, if we dont cover it big time, our competition is. When they cover it big time, theyll get a big jump in the ratings. The first thing is to last, to survive, weve got to do it. What you also see is a whole army of commentators, people who make their business talking about the news. I say we should bomb his capability of producing oil. Take out his refineries, his stations, his wells. They dont have any capability. Theyre certainly selling a lot of oil the networks were doing Good Journalism but they became much more preoccupied by profits. Its cheaper to have someone in your studio pontificating than to have reporters out in the field reporting. I dont know if any of this is true. But what i heard is that the father went down, opened his basement room, which the fbi had bypassed. Every single sentence on cnn, perhaps, on cnbc, on fox, on msnbc, begins with the words i think but after a while people get confused by what is speculation, by what is innuendo, by what is fact. As far as the viewers are concerned, be very, very careful of unsubstantiated information presented with great hype. Patrick woke up with back pain. But he has work to do. So he took aleve. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. New banquet mega bowls, piled high with creamy mashed potatoes, corn, and shredded cheese under a savory blanket of gravy. But thats not all, because we topped it with crispy hunks of proteinpacked chicken. Now thats mega. We know life can be hectic. Thats why, at xfinity, weve been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. Now, with instant text and email updates, youll always be up to date. You can easily add premium channels, so you dont miss your favorite show. And with just a single word, find all the answers youre looking for because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. Download the xfinity my account app or go online today. Tv is changing dramatically now with 150 channels that might be available in the near future. There are more choices than ever before. Its a tough job. You have to try and get a sense of what is the audience going to really make an attachment to. In the 90s, cable was coming on strong. So, we had to examine who are we going to be . Well, we wanted to be smart, sophisticated comedy. Six months ago i was living in boston. My wife had left me, which was very painful. Then she came back to me. Which was excruciating. I thought frasier was dead with cheers. But we thought, we built an audience, Great Potential to build out the character to another place. Frasier was kind of like oneact plays. Mother and i moved here when i was a small boy after the tragic death of my father. I kept the pain of that loss buried deep within me like a serpent coiled within a damp cave. Okay, thats it. We always assumed the audience was smarter than most other people did. And we played to that. Just unschooled like liza doolittle. If she finds the right henry higgins, shell be ready for a ball in no time. Leave it to you to put the pig back. Kelsey grammar played pomposity like nobody youve ever seen and got huge laughs. Whats taken so long . But i am analyzing my options unlike your wink and approach i like to plan a strategy, like a general leading his troops into battle. Checkmate, schwarzkopf. I think frasier stands as the single most successful spinoff, at least in the history of comedies. And the emmy goes to frasier. Frasier. Frasier. We were lightning hot and it was critical for us to be leading the way not just following. Friends is about that time in your life when your friends are your family. Ow when david crane and i lived in new york we were part of a group of six people. We were all attached at the hip. We went everywhere together and celebrated everything together. Look and theres that period where youre looking to be out there on your own and the people you rely on are the ones who live down the hall. Here we go. Pivot. Pivot. Pivot pivot pivot pivot shut up shut up shut up friends permeated the culture in a way that was really special. Everyone was obsessed with the show. And it became like which one of these characters are you. If you were a girl, were you phoebe, monica or rachel . It really does put me in a better mood. The kids watching the young audience saw a lifestyle that was aspirational. I wish i had an apartment in new york city that no one seems to be worried about the rent for. I wish that i looked like matt leblanc. I wish that i had Jennifer Anistons hair. One of the things that made friends a phenomenon is people beyond the laughs actually bonded with these characters. They were emotionally invested in ross and rachels relationship. Without you. Okay. More clothes in the dryer . I was dropping my daughter off for sunday school at our temple and literally my rabbi stopped me and said, whats going to happen with ross and rachel . You look pretty tonight. Oh, thanks. The one with the prom video is one of my favorites. You guys, we dont have to watch this. Yeah, we do. Come on. Come on. Wheres chip . Why isnt he here yet . Hell be here, okay . Take a chill pill. This seemed like a really surprising way to get rachel to know how ross feels. I cant go to my own prom without a date. Take her. You can wear my tux. Dad, she wont want to go with me. Shes learning something new and he thinks, oh, god, please dont let her see this. Dont let her see this. Rachel, ready or not . Here comes your knight in shining oh, no. Bye chip oh, dear. Ross sees himself and you see that look on his face and how sad he is because he wanted to take her to the prom. When she crossed the room, i still kind of get chills from it. When she crossed the room and gave him that kiss [ cheers and applause ] the audience went insane. At the height of must see tv, thursday nights on nbc, 75 million americans watched thursday night. That was at the time onethird of the country. Oh. What is this stuff . The sweater is angora. Well, its wonderful. The machine that was nbc in the 90s for comedy was untouchable. Youre not from around here, are you . It generated so much viewership and money and awards. You do not need this. Its the top of our wedding cake. Its not a scrapbook. Its a freezer. We were all kind of part of this chapter in television where we realized we were in the right place at the right time. Lets see how you like this, naughty boy. We certainly associate nbc of the 90s of having extremely successful sitcoms but they werent the only network that found their way to having some success. Tgif was on abc on friday and it was their block of familyoriented comedies. I cant take it. I need the cake. It was not sophisticated television. But these were shows that people adored. [ laughing ] cbs. Cbs was in a really bad spot. They had just fallen apart over the early part of the 90s and had gone through a couple Different Network executives. But then suddenly they had this hit with an unknown comic. This was the year of seinfeld, no hugging, no learning and this was a show being made as if it was produced in the era of the Dick Van Dyke show. I love you. There was hugging. There was learning. I love you, son. All right, all right. If you worked for me, your job was so go home, get in a fight with your wife and come back in and tell me about it. Dont sleep on the couch. I just cleaned down there. In fact, the pilot i put in this true thing that happened to me wherein i sent my parents a gift for the holidays of the fruit of the month club. And did you know you sent me a box of pears from a place called fruit of the month. Thats right. Thats right. How are they . And my mother reacted as if i had sent her a box of heads from a murderer. Why did you do this to me . Oh, my gosh. I cant talk. Theres too much fruit in the house. Oh what is happening . What do you think we are, invalids . We cant go out and get our own fruit . I tried to tell him. All right. Im cancelling the fruit club. The real story is where the real connection with your audience is. Thank god, all your families are crazy, too. Looks like you got the whole family together. Yeah, yeah, its dysfunction palooza. And now ladies and can i h . Its me. Jamie. Im not good with names. Celeste i trained you. We share a locker. Moose man yo. He gets two name your price tools. He gets two . I literally coined the phrase, we give you Coverage Options based on your budget. Thats me. Jamie yeah. Youre back from italy. [ both smooch ] ciao bella. [ both smooch ] get ready for centrum microworkouts. The bottle curl. The twist n turn. The stretch n grab. The gummy squish. Centrum micronutrients fuel your body from the inside out. Grab a centrum and join in. Repeat daily. When you have a cold, stuff happens. { sneezing ] shut down cold symptoms fast [ coughing ] with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. And now ladies and gentlemen, heres Johnny Johnny carson wasnt just the host of the tonight show. Johnny carson was the man that america said good night to for 30 years. And on my watch, johnny decided that 30 years was a great time to take a bow and say thank you and good night. 30 years is enough. Good time to get out while youre still on top of your game plan. Johnny carson retiring in the early 90s was the great moment where a huge chunk of the ice shelf breaks off. Something thats been there for centuries, for thousands of years, suddenly is no longer there. A tremendous part of history. And thats lovely to have made your mark on an era like that. Johnny told no one what he planned to do and we werent prepared. And that set off a game of Musical Chairs for who would get the throne and there was only one late night throne. Jay leno had been carsons regular substitute host when he went on vacation. Only six months ago, people were talking about donald trump as a president ial candidate. Thats true. Since then hes had an affair, left his wife, run up debt of several Million Dollars so i guess hes going to be running as a democrat, huh . Jay leno wanted to just continue doing a Johnny Carson type show. David letterman was the show immediately following carson. They had different styles. Im going to ask you to turn off the camera. We wanted to drop off this basket of fruit. David liked attacking authority. He liked that. He needed a corporate bad guy to go up against. I was oftentimes that target. I can hear this Warren Littlefield guy whining all year long about not getting his name on the card last year. What about me . I can be on there, couldnt i . It was always lettermans dream to be the host of the tonight show. He idolized Johnny Carson, rightfully so. The big decision thats had the Entertainment Industry buzzing is due this week. That is the fate of nbc late night stars jay leno and David Letterman. Most of us thought the person who deserved to get it was David Letterman. He didnt get it. Jay leno got it. Leno who rode his motorcycle into a News Conference hosted by nbc entertainment president , Warren Littlefield, still has a bruised ego about the way the network wavered in its support for him. When we found out leno was going to get the tonight show, we were all obviously depressed. We felt like we were being punished for making fun of them and not cooperating and not being as collaborative as we could have been. And we also felt like we were being disrespected because we did 11 years of great shows. Just how pissed off are you . By all rights, David Letterman should have taken over for Johnny Carson, but his agent took a very, very aggressive stand. Were going to really control all of late night. Its going to cost you a fortune and they put our backs to the wall. I can only tell you its been an honor and a privilege to come into your homes all these years and entertain you. I hope when i find something i want to do and i think you will like and come back, that you will be as gracious inviting me into your home as you have been. I bid you a very heartfelt good night. The tonight show without Johnny Carson as the regular host made its debut last night. Jay leno emerged from behind the curtain, stepping into the big shoes that were filled for 30 years by johnny. Cbs came to us and made a very attractive offer. Number ten, head cbs tails. Cbs, number nine. Letterman placed a call to Johnny Carson asking for his advice and johnny said, if it were me, i would leave. And i think that advice was really the linchpin. Letterman always took johnnys advice. The late night wars are about to begin in earnest on american television. David letterman is now headed for cbs. Cbs had lured him over with a salary more than four times that of leno and given him what he really wanted, the 11 30 time slot. Now as dave and jay prepare to go headtohead, one thing is clear. Last night tv will never be quite the same. All of a sudden, theres a talk show war. Start up your remote controls. The late night race is about to begin. On monday, David Lettermans new show debuts here on cbs. Followed a week later by chevy chase on fox and a week after that by conan obrien on nbc. They join jay leno, arsenio and nightline. It became a crowded space and the competition became that much more difficult. The third corner his ratings fading rapidly, arsenio hall. Some tv writers think arsenio could be the big loser in this freeforall. When letterman came in, it essentially diluted arsenios brand because there were so many alternatives. Im sad to see you go because america is going to have a big chunk missing out of its existence. Losing arsenio, yeah, it was bad. He was the lone voice, gone. David letterman had the suits at nbc pausing for a moment. Did we make the right choice . Because he came out gang busters and he was beating jay leno in the ratings. Some say you blew it, by picking leno to replace carson over letterman, that that was a big programming mistake. It was a shaky start. A really, really shaky first season start. Its true confessions time for actor hugh grant who is trying hard to put his recent encounter with a hollywood prostitute behind him. When hugh grant was arrested, it was big, Live Action News and hugh grant was supposed to do the tonight show that night. What the hell were you thinking . It all came together in that moment and everyone saw it and thats it. We were never number two again. For us it was our own experience. We got our own theater, an unlimited budget, access to every star in the business who wanted to do the show. Somebody bring me the jaws of life so, i think going to cbs was heavensent. It really was. Good night, everyone whats the hesitation . Eh, it just feels too complicated, you know . You know, at Td Ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until youre comfortable. I could be up for that. Stepbystep options trading support from Td Ameritrade with expedia, you can book a flight, then add a hotel, and save. Everything you need to go. Expedia so we sent that sample i doff to ancestry. I was from ethnically. My ancestry dna results are that i am 26 nigerian. I am just trying to learn as much as i can about my culture. I put the gele on my head and i looked into the mirror and i was trying not to cry. Because its a hat, but its like the most important hat ive ever owned. Discover the story only your dna can tell. Order your kit now at ancestrydna. Com. One laugh, and hello so i tried always discreet. I didnt think protection this thin could work. But the super absorbent core turns liquid to gel. Snap so its out of sight. And out of mind. Always discreet. For bladder leaks. In the mid1990s if you took a look at the most watched cable shows the top would be nickelodeon, rug rats, blues clues. Dont you know cartoons will ruin your mind. Ren and stimpy had high concept humor to it. This is the beginning of the splintering of the Television Audience and splintering of the family audience, really, because with families having three or four tvs in the house you had a kid watching nickelodeon, the dad watching espn sports, the mom watching lifetime. You know, they were in their own separate universes watching television. By the time of the 90s, mtv wasnt merely a music channel. They were having Great Success in terms of creating shows that incorporated music but that were also shows and programs that stood on their own. Yes that was cool. Beavis and butthead were about making fun of music videos just like people in the audience were doing. They got his neck. Theres all these bones and stitches moving around. Yeah. My manager would call me, like, hey, you got this big bump because you were on beavis and butthead last night. I sit there like a doughnut watching these guys. And i find them endlessly entertaining because i know and you know and the world knows, these guys are always, will be and cannot be anything but idiots. Thats right. Mtv has a detrimental, damaging, developmental effect on the sexuality, on the morality, on the spirituality, even maybe the physical development of our young people. Now we hit the 90s and once you can go for an audience of five million and have a successful show, you can say i dont care if the parents dont like this. Can i tell you something, miss ellen. Of course, wendy. Dont [ bleep ] with me what . You heard me. Stay away from my man, bitch or ill whip you back to last year. Trey parker and matt stone were two of the funniest people i ever met. Their Success Story is proof that if you just stay true to yourself, you dont have to do anything else. People think, oh, you came and did the show and now youre big sellouts. The truth is, we were sellouts to begin with. Perhaps there is no stopping the corporate machine. I mean, we were sleeping at friends houses, had no money and one fox executive had seen a cartoon we had made in college and he said, make me another christmas video i can send out as a christmas card. He gave us like 700 bucks. We went and made this fiveminute short. I come seeking retribution. Hes come to kill you because youre jewish, kyle. Oh [ bleep ]. It went around the tv Community Like wildfire. I mean, it it was the funniest thing youd ever seen in your life. Go get em somebody showed me the short. Go, jesus. I thought it was hysterical. I called and said get them in here right away. Oh, my god they killed kenny. You bastards. South park was able to be topical. South park really, really detests hypocrites. Christians and republicans and nazis, oh, my okay, ill legalize 40th trimester abortions for you. Could you imagine back then that these people would ever get on Network Television or any kind of television . Its a miracle. South park is a miracle. The early 90s the hbo show starts to come into their own. And then have i always had these breasts . A lot of people want freedom. They dont want to go back to the networks, which are saying you can come to us where youll make more money but youll also have content restricted. You could go to cable and have no restrictions. Not make as much money but have freedom of expression, which almost everybody who works in these mediums wants. Some of the content truly was you cant get this anywhere else. Youre a fantasy maker is the only limit on the kind of fantasies is peoples imagination. Hbo turned to people who said, i cant do that on television, but you can do it on hbo. White people dont trust black people. Thats why they wont vote for no black president. Like a black brother will [ bleep ] up the white house. Like the grass wont be cut. Dishes piled up. Cousins running through the white house. Cookouts. Basketball going in the back. In the late 80s hbo was gaining ground for series. By the 90s hbo had started to begin its explosion. When we started doing dream on one of the things hbo said to us was, its got to be something that couldnt be on network tv. Because hbo was driven by subscribers and not by commercials and selling advertising time, they had a different way of looking at success or failure. What they were looking for was critical acclaim. You have watched letterman, youve watched leno, but what about larry . Larry sanders, that is. Hes the tv alter ego of comedian garry shandling. Garry shandling wanted to do a show that deconstructed the kind of show the tonight show was. Pretend like youre talking to me. Were off the air. Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah. The Larry Sanders show was kind of cathartic because in the world of the show there was a network. You want me to [ bleep ] your budget . That what you want me to do . It became this fun house mirror thing where you could use stuff from your misery, your career as fodder. Dont take this as a threat but i killed a man like you in korea, handtohand. My boy doesnt want to do any more commercials. Larry sanders to me was, aside from being a Brilliant Television show. Can you say, hey now. Hey now. It was my everyday life. Im here for three good reasons. Last show. Big ratings. Movie coming out. Bim, bam, boom. The Larry Sanders show was very unique in that it was very deadpan. And really groundbreaking in its day. I think it made people really go, thats the level of work you may be able to do on a cable network. Please, do not flip around. Come right back. Hey now oh, you sound good. In the 90s you suddenly had shows that were aiming at a younger audience. One of the things that really made 90210 stand out is it was the first drama to get into the teenagers point of view. Do you have protection . Of course. Its always been my problem. Lots of protection but nothing to protect. I wanted to do a tv series that was going to be relevant to teenagers. And its not about the parents solving the kids problems. Its about the kids basically solving their own problems. What are we supposed to do, sit him down and have a kidtoparent talk. No you cant talk to parents on that mature level. Tragic but true. If the 60s had beatle mania, the 90s had 90210 mania. When tv guide had youthquake cover, that was a sign television was focused on these young people. My socalled life was the punk rock version of 90210. It was earnest but not saccharin. It didnt have easy answers. It showed teen heartbreak in a way that was staggeringly real for the time. You like this. Like what . Like how you are . You coming or not . How am i . How am i . My socalled life was your actual life. And the idea that everyone in high school is a misfit, that you have this deep insecurity about who youre supposed to be. You know how sometimes last thing you said echos in your brain and i keep sounding stupider . And you have to Say Something else just to make it stop. Oh, i just remembered. I owe you 30. My socalled life was not necessarily the show the cheerleader or captain of the Football Team were watching. They were watching 90210. Maybe it was the ones that didnt recognize themselves in 90210 are now watching my socalled life. I dont want to be a girl. I just want to hang with girls. Ricky was out on the show eventually and that was a story line treated with great sensitivity. And i belong nowhere. With no one. That i dont fit. It was so deeply felt. It was saying to the viewer, things you have gone through, they matter. Buffy the Vampire Slayer depicted high school in a similar way to my socalled life but rather than just feeling like hell, it actually was hell. Her high school was literally built on top of hell. And so all of these creatures would come up that she would have to fight. Three in one night. It was a brilliant metaphor for adolescence and all the demons you have to slay. Buffy was a teenager and she was still finding out who she was. One of the story lines that was popular and talked about is when she had sex with her boyfriend for the first time and in the world of buffy, he becomes literally evil. There must be part of you inside that remembers who you are. Dream on, school girl. In order to save the world, literally, she knows she has to send him to hell. Buffy knows in an instant that angel has become good again. So she has this moment of reckoning she has to decide whether to do this or not and she makes the sacrifice to push him back into hell. The show was working on multiple levels. Buffy in particular, we saw a character that was a reluctant protagonist, forced to make tough decisions. There was a kind of opening of the flood gates in the 90s for women. The idea of being an ideal, i think was kind of smashed through a lot of characters on television. Look, if youre a successful saleswoman in this city, you have two choices. You can bang your head against a wall and try to find a relationship or just say screw it and go out and have sex like a man. Sex in the city was a huge success from the start. It was funny, clever and very candid. Our relationships, the religion of the 90s . These are women who are making a good living, they were independent, single and feeling their power. I said all of them. Bad waiter, bad waiter. What do you tip . I wanted these women to be objectifying men in the way men always objectify women. My turn. Sorry, i have to go back to work. You couldnt discuss sex as sex. Network shows, there were never people talking about orgasms or organs or sex. Words are essential. Tell me exactly how he worded it. Weve been seeing each other for a couple weeks. I really like you. And tomorrow night after dinner, i want us to have anal sex. These are women who shared everything with each other and theyre discussing what anal sex means. It goes up there, theres going to be a shift in power. Either hell have the upper hand or you will. Should she do this or not. This was a physical expression the body was designed to experience. P. S. , its fabulous. What are you talking about . I went to smith. It took an interesting turn by focusing on the relationship between women and focusing on them as soul mates together as well. You did the right thing buying that apartment. You love it, right . Yeah. And you wont be alone forever. Historically women are often set up in narratives in which only one can succeed. So, showing women not competing with each other and as supporting each other was also an important narrative change. Okay, girls, see you tomorrow. Okay. Nightnight. The show had a message of freedom and liberation especially for women that really resonated. I think sex and the city helped hbo a place for people to think, i wonder what theyre doing next. bruce we started talking about the service. I outrank him. chris [laughs] yeah. Meals on wheels reaches so many people. Its impactful beyond anything ive ever done in my life. bruce the meals and his friendship really mean, means a lot to me. vo through the subaru share the love event, weve helped deliver over onepoint seven million meals to those in need. Get zero percent financing for 63 months on select models, plus well donate two hundred and fifty dollars to charity. In 1991 we got a call from mtv and they were toying with the idea of doing some kind of a scripted show about young people. They said it was like a mix between the big chill and the breakfast club. And ultimately decided a show with writers and actors would be too expensive. The real world, thats what this was supposed to be. So we essentially applied all the drama rules to documentary to get our, what we called at that time, a docusoap. This is the true story. Of seven strangers. A social experiment to watch what happens when you put these strangers together in a house. When people stop being polite and start getting real. Do you sell drugs . Why do you have a beeper . You hadnt seen anything like that on television, that kind of open, honest discussion of race. I can try as much as i can to try to deal with you, but ignorance is ignorance. Stupidity is stupidity. Thats it. Black white, green, purple, blue, whatever. The real world becomes this big bang moment for reality tv. All we have to do is put cameras on people and well get great stuff. The next season in l. A. A young woman who gets an abortion and the camera goes right up to the doctors door. Give me a hug. By the third season in San Francisco you have a young man who is dealing with aids. Im hiv positive. He told me he was hiv positive, it was just like, no, not him. I like this guy and i dont want him to have to suffer. It was such a triumph that pedro had the courage at his age to come out as someone with aids. In my small Gay Community on campus, we all felt like, wow, he was our hero. He falls in love. And he and his partner, shawn, have a ceremony. You know, this is long before samesex marriage was legal. The tv shows werent doing this. Movies werent doing this. I have to believe that all the pain im going through, that all the anger, the frustration, that theres something bigger than that. Aids has claimed a young man who made an enormous impact on a young generation of americans. Pedro zamura died in miami at the age of 22. Im really glad i got to know pedro. Im glad his rich and fulfilling work is still remembered today. I hope you enjoyed and learned from pedros life of compassion and fearlessness. You have to credit the real world with helping the acceptance of the lgbt community. Her name is marla. Im seeing a woman. In the 90s, gay characters were always secondary or third. There was never a gay character that was the lead of a show. So, you want to go look at apartments tomorrow. Sure. Ellen degeneres, the comedian, was about to come out. She does it on time magazine, yep, im gay. But she decided the character ellen plays on tv will also come out. Its reprehensible that abc, who is owned by disney of all companies, is going to feature ellen as coming out of the closet. It wont be long before god knows what, you know, who knows. We were getting bomb threats. Disney was really getting a lot of flack for even thinking of having a coming out episode with ellen. Im 35 years old. Im so afraid to tell people. Im just susan, im gay. Ellen coming out was a huge moment for me personally because, you know, i was a closeted gay guy. Gay child at that time. And it was the bravest thing i saw. That felt great. That felt so great. Initial reports suggest abc made a bundle on ellens highly publicized outing on national tv last night. It was accompanied by coming out parties all around the country including one in birmingham, alabama, where the local abc station refused to broadcast the show. She did a great thing. She was brave. I made the decision that i wasnt going to live my life as a lie anymore. I was i belong with everybody else. And thats what i finally did. We used to say ellen opened the door and we knocked it down. I love my mister tell me lazy tell me so tell me im crazy maybe i know cant help loving that man of mine and beret, beret, im gay will grace was a great show in sort of helping a mainstream Straight Community connect to the Gay Community. I think i can fix this thing with your landlord but might get a little ugly. Play hardball, baby. Throw low and inside. Hes crowding the plate and weve got to grace, sports, youre losing me. I figured 25 of the country wouldnt watch the show just based on the fact that we had two gay men on it. Give it to me but if we could makebelieve that will and grace would get together. Will, i told you, you live with a hetero long enough, youre going to catch it. Maybe we could get people to watch thinking that would happen, knowing it would never happen. You know, its a shame. An image like this is completely wasted on us. I remember the network calling every other week saying, can will just fall in love with grace . And the creators were like, will, thats weird. Hes gay. Gay people dont do that. Thats why theyre gay. Why wasnt i your girlfriend, queer bait . It was the first time you saw characters on television that made gay normal. You wanted to be friends with them. Guess what we are. A catholic girl gone bad, and, karen, what are you supposed to be . The best feeling i get is when people come up and say, thank you for all you do for the Gay Community, and thank you for playing a part in that show. And you feel so fortunate to have been a part of something so have been a part of something so great. I was really surprised that i wasnt finding all of these germans in my tree. I decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. The big surprise was were not german at all. 52 of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. So, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. Ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com. End of the nineties was audiences started to look towards television for what they had only found before in feature film. Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Great day of the morning, people. Victory is mine. And actors no longer felt that it was a comedown to come work in television. What did i ever do to you except deliver the south . You shouldnt have made me beg. The segment of the audience that watched west wing they watched the Macneil Lehrer newshour, they watched west wing and documentaries in foreign languages, right . If the name of this nominee is leaked out before i want it to be leaked out, im going to blame you and youre going to find that unpleasant. I have to tell you something, toby, youre hot when youre like this. Its the first wave of what we now have, remarkably specific niche programming. Freaks and geeks really sympathized with the losers and had great empathy for its characters. Go on and laugh at me because you dont see that i got something going right here freaks and geeks breaks my heart every time i think about it. Im sorry. Did i crush your twinkies . It lasted 18 episodes. And theyre perfect 18 episodes but nbc hated it so much. Roll down the windows because i got a big one brewing. They thought it was a show by losers, about losers for losers. They hated it. They wanted no part of it. They killed it. At the end of the nineties, the jig is starting to be up for the networks. Basically quality migrates to cable. Oz comes on in 97. Its set in this penitentiary. Wow, what a strange show that was. In oz sometimes the thing you cant touch are more real than the things you can. For instance, hatred, loneliness are more real to me than a shank and a soul. It was jaw dropingly violent. It was a mens prison. It probably should be. But you know, it kind of announces the idea that hbo is going to get serious about doing scripted dramas. Its finished. Its over. But hbo really in my mind comes to its own in 1999 with the sopranos. Woke up this morning got yourself a gun sopranos was one of the shows that was like a benchmark. It changed a lot of things for everybody. Throw out the handbook. Tony soprano, the lead actor in a drama, he killed a man. We watched him. He took his daughter on a college tour. Pretty, huh . Yeah. It was just a melding of a guy and a world [ bleep ] you doing . And a behavior that promoted all the feelings that you would have for a guy that you love in a guy that you hate. You know . Sopranos came on tv and it really showed us the future whether we realized that was going to be the future of television or not. This husband of yours, carmella, how much we love him. Hes the best. Like a father to me. Just make sure nothing happens to him. That character in that show was a great inspiration to a great many shows that came after it including one that i worked on. You know what i want, tony . I want those kids to have a father. They got one, this one, me. Tony soprano. And all that comes with it. Oh, you prick. Some of my favorite shows of all time aired in that decade and everybody was watching them. There was still that communal sense from the earlier decades of tv but it was being applied to shows that were reaching higher and farther, and they were great. Because there was so many channels and because so much storytelling was going on, you started to get more variety of stories being told. Get the skull film, schedule a c. A. T. Scan and schedule the resident. Objection it showed us women in their depth and began to show us much more of a range of the africanamerican community. Im always here for you. Started focusing on teenagers in a more realistic way. Things change, dawson. Evolve. What are you talking about . And more outside the box in terms of what people might want to watch. Youre out of order, hes out of order. This whole trial is sexy. After ten years of the 90s e we had a whole new Television World that could take us anyplace we wanted and even places we had never imagined. Was that the oven timer . Thats right, my friend. Its time for baywatch can you believe they gave stephanie skin cancer . I still cant believe they promoted her to lieutenant. Youre just saying that because youre in love with Yasmine Bleeth. How could anyone not be in love with Yasmine Bleeth . Hey, hey, theyre running. See . This is the brilliance of the show. I say always keep them running. All the time running, run. Run. Run, yasmine, run like the wind. Its a time of tremendous turmoil. A shot, good. We intend to cover all the news all the time. We wont be signing off until the world ends. Isnt that special . Any tool for human expression will bring out both the best and the worst innous. They dont pay me enough. We have seen the news, and it is us