he walks out of the room, he goes into another interrogation room and he breaks the door in two with his fist. and i m choking up talking about it right now, because that s how great a moment of tv that it is. 20 years from now, the best tv dramas, what do they look like? i don t know. will they be bolder than what we see today? oh, assuredly, assuredly they will be. the 90s gave us several shows that didn t explode in the ratings, but were influential to other people making television. homicide is one of them. shell me with questions all night i m living in a danger zone homicide: life on the street was really 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.
ain t 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 wasn t done on television. when a cop shoots somebody, he stands by. he picks up the radio mic 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 & 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. what s the charge? hey, i m asking you a question. what s the charge? there s no charge. this one s on us. then you had a trial.
thaw 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, carmela, how much we love him, he s the best. oh, come on. 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. because of the quality of those shows that happened in the 90s, actors no longer felt that it was a come down to come work in television. audiences started to look towards television for what they had only found before in feature film. what did i everybody do to you except deliver the south?
was a show being made as if it was produced in the era of the dig van dyke show. i love you! there was hugging. there was learning. i love you, son. if you work for me, your job was to go home, get in a fight with your wife, and come back in and tell me about it. don t sleep on the couch! i just cleaned down there. in fact the pilot, i put in this true thing that happened to me when i sent my parents a gift for the holidays of the fruit of the month club. did you know you sent me a box of pears from a place called fruit of the month? that s 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, mom. what is happening? what do you think we are, invalids? we can t go out and get our own
now we hit the 90s and once you can go for an audience of 5 million and have a successful show, you can say, i don t care if the parents don t like this. can i tell you something, miss ellen? of course, wendy. don t [ bleep ] with me! what? youeard me. stay away from my man, bitch, or i ll whoop your sorry little ass back to last year! trey parker and matt stone were two of the funniest people i ever met. and their success story is proof that if you just stay true to yourself, you don t have to do anything else. people think, oh, you came and did the show and now you re 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 then 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.