the real world becomes this big bang moment for reality tv. the idea is that, oh my god, all we have to do is take cameras and put them on people and we ll get great stuff. you had in the next season in l.a. a young woman who gets an abortion, and the camera literally goes right up to the doctor s door. give me a hug. by the third season in san francisco, you have a young man who is dealing with aids. i m hiv positive. when he told me he was hiv positive, it was just like no, not him. i like this guy and i don t 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 same-sex marriage was legal. the tv shows weren t doing this. movies weren t doing this.
are now where everybody wants to do tv. sit down, you guys. no! oh, yeah, you can t sit there. why not? that s where sheldon sits. he can t sit somewhere else? oh, no, you see in the winter that seat is close enough to the radiator so that he s warm yet not so close that he sweats. in the summer it s directly in the path of the cross-breeze created by opening windows there and there. it faces the television on the angle that isn t direct so he can still talk to everybody but not so wide that the picture looks distorted. perhaps there is hope for you after all. don t touch that dial. we re about to flip it for you.
comes your knight in shining oh, no. bye! don t wait up! 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 one-third of the country. ooh! what is this stuff? the sweater is angora.
trust. i ll 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, don t trust us either. eat my shorts. all right. i ll 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. it s 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. i m at the twin peaks county morgue. with the body of what was her name?
he took his daughter on a college tour. pretty, huh? yeah. it was just a melding of a guy in a world. open the [ bleep ] door. open the [ bleep ] door. it was a guy and a feeling that promoted behavior for all the things you love in a guy that you hate. you know? it came on tv and really showed us the future, whether we realized that was going to be the future of television or not. this husband of yours, how much we love him. he s the best. he s like a father to me. just make sure nothing happens to him. that character in that show was a great inspiration to many that came after it, including one i worked on. you know what i want, tony? i want those kids to have a father. they got one, me, tony