♪ listen to it. oh. they know when it hits the bottom it will be 1990. good-bye to the '80s in -- >> 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. >> you're stupid. >> doh! >> i think the sitcoms of the '80s were such a warm, safe, humor. >> i love you guys. >> you see? 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 you're my hero ♪ >> the stuff they got away with because it's 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. they've dealt with all kinds of issues of racism, of sexism. >> don't ask me. i'm just a girl. >> right on, say it, sister. >> it's 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 that's going on in our lives through the filter of "the simpsons." >> them immigrants. they want all the benefits to living in springfield, but they ain't even bothered to learn themselves the language. >> yeah, those are exactly my sentimonies. >> i think one of the governing things that's happening with "the simpsons" is a distrust of anyone who tells us we should trust them and doesn't earn that 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 the victim. what's her name? >> erin palmer. >> 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. ♪ >> i've 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" has already described by one critic as the series that will change tv. it's 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 i'm 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 that's the main reason for doing it. >> i think that "twin peaks" with the initial attention it got allowed all the other networks to say, let's do something different. >> the day's coming and it anticipate going to be long before you never have to leave your living room. all right? you're going to snuggle up to the fiber optics and bliss out. >> you could sense them trying the see how they could do things different than 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. ♪ >> at the time steven bocco was a successful producer of dramas and wanted to try something new. >> they were in jail and began to sing life in the hood ain't no pizza pie. everybody die when the bullets fly. i said wait a minute. >> i thought, well, this is it. this is going to be great. this is going to be as innovative as anything i've ever done. ♪ he did the crime and now he's got to pay ♪ >> it just -- it circled the drain. ♪ i'm creatively proud of it still. glad we tried it. i don't think i'd want to do it again. ♪ smooth like butter, like a criminal undercover ♪ ♪ gon' pop like trouble ♪ ♪ breaking into your heart like that ♪ ♪ do the boogie, like ♪ ♪ side step, right-left, to my beat ♪ ♪ high like the moon, rock with me, baby ♪ ♪ know that i got that heat ♪ ♪ let me show you 'cause talk is cheap ♪ ♪ side step, right ♪ ♪ get it, let it roll ♪ ♪ my name is austin james. as a musician living with diabetes, fingersticks can be a real challenge. that's why i use the freestyle libre 2 system. with a painless, one-second scan i know my glucose numbers without fingersticks. now i'm managing my diabetes better and i've lowered my a1c from 8.2 to 6.7. take the mystery out of managing your diabetes and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free at freestylelibre.us that was quick. and rewarding. i earn 3% cash back at drugstores with chase freedom unlimited. that means i earn on my bug spray and my sunscreen. you ready to go fishing? i got the bait. i also earn 5% on travel purchased through chase on this rental car. that lake is calling my name! don't you get seasick? we'll find out! come on. and i earn 3% on dining including takeout. so much for catching our dinner. some people are hunters. some are gatherers. i'm a diner. pow! earn big time with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours. (vo) singing, or speaking. reason, or fun. daring, or thoughtful. sensitive, or strong. progress isn't either or progress is everything. do you struggle with occasional nerve aches in your hands or feet? try nervivenerve relief from the world's #1 selling nerve care company. nervive contains alpha lipoic acid to relieve occasional nerve aches, weakness and discomfort. try nervivenerve relief. there was not a lot of original programming for cable but they were airing movies. so we needed to compete and i felt if we didn't we were going to kind of get swept out. >> son of a -- >> and so i came up with a notion of doing a cop show that was r-rated. when abc's broadcast standards read our script they went berserk. ♪ >> i was sitting with a pad and a pencil drawing pictures of breasts to show them what we would and wouldn't show. grown-ups sitting in a room good ling. >> then we started in on the language. >> some reporter called the -- brains of a flea. >> the show premiered with an advertising boycott. >> tft an immediate hit it lasted four weeks. >> light them up. >> i'm an asshole. >> it had this character andy. raging alcohol. >> i know that great that african american american discovered the peanut but can you provide names and addresses of these friends? >> you know, you're 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 wouldn't hurt you. >> there's a famous early 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 you're going to feel a lot better if you just tell the truth. >> you can sort of see on dennis franz's 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 fists. 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 really 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. >> he's 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 & order" the kind of characters people take to heart. >> i'll let you take me to lunch. one-time offer. >> and if you're an actor and you say well, gee, maybe it's not really such a bad medium after all. >> miranda, the supreme court's mimic decision. the whole thing was illegally obtained. they were both represented by counsel. >> you just get hooked in. it's life and death and stuff. >> we know what you did. >> counsel. >> you hear me? >> do you hear me? >> look at me! >> "law & order" was like crack. you'd have to sit and watch me for 50 minutes just like, not moving, barely breathing. there's times i have almost passed out watching "law & order." >> i need your help. >> "e.r." had originally been written as a movie, forced steven spielberg to direct. we had this two-hour piece which was reflection of michael's experiences as a medical student. >> you need a large in case they're bleeding. do you know how to start an i.v.? >> actually, no. >> "e.r." is a hospital show, but it's 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. they're tossing around medical jargon. they don't 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. i don't think his heart could take it. >> we can bypass him. >> that would be the fastest way. what do you think? >> you're 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 you'd 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 didn't want to watch anybody have anything other than a happy outcome. >> it's not flat line, it's defib. another 7 of epi. >> we argued that wasn't 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. clinically shown to cause fewer ulcers than plain aspirin. try new vazalore. aspirin made amazing! staying up half the night searching for savings on your prescriptions? just ask your cvs pharmacist. we search for savings for you. from coupons to lower costs options. plus, earn up to $50 extra bucks rewards each year just for filling at cvs pharmacy. 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[ taking a worry from all your worries ♪ ♪ 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. it's a sad experience for everybody. this was our baby for 11 years and we are 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 that's what we as americans are longing for. >> thank you, guys. >> the final scene of "cheers" was really what was sam's real first love. >> you can never be unfaithful to your one true love. >> i'm the luckiest son of a bitch on earth. >> his real first love was the bar. >> sorry, we're closed. >> how big a loss is this for nbc anyway? >> katie, i'm still here and i'm waiting for the cast members to come back so i think it's a pretty big loss. >> what are we going to do? >> tv is changing dramatically with the 150 channels that might be available in the near future. >> there are more choices than ever before. you have to try to get a sense of what is the audience going to 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 my wife left me which was painful and then she came back to me and that was excruciating. >> i thought frasier was dead with "cheers." but we thought, we got a built-in audience, and great potential for building out the character to another place. ♪ >> "frasier" was kind of like one-act 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, that's it. >> we always assumed the audience was smarter than most other people did. and we played to that. >> just unschooled like liza doolittle. find the right henry higgins, she'll be ready for a ball in no time. >> leave it to you to put the pig back in pygmalion. >> kelsey grammer played pomposity like nobody you've ever seen and got huge laughs. >> don't consider a move until my fingers have completely cleared the piece. >> what's taking so long? >> i am analyzing my options. unlike your wing-it 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 sitcoms. >> and the emmy goes to "frasier." >> "frasier." >> "frasier." >> thursday nights on nbc, 75 million americans watched thursday night. that was at the time one third of the country. >> oh. what is this stuff? >> the sweater? it's angora. well, it's wonderful. >> the machine that was nbc in the '90s for comedy was untouchable. >> you're not from around here, are you? >> it generated so much viewership and money and awards. >> you do not need this. >> it's the top of our wedding cake. >> we're not -- it's not a scrapbook. it's a freezer. >> no! >> they weren't the only network that found the way to success. tgif was on abc on friday and it was their block of family-oriented comedies. >> i can't take it. i need the cake. >> no, michelle. >> it was not sophisticated television. but these were shows that people adored. [ laughing and snorting ] >> 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. >> 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 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? >> that's right. 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 my gosh. >> i can't talk. there's too much fruit in the house! >> oh! what is happening? >> what do you think we are, invalids? we can't go out and get our own fruit? >> i tried to tell him. >> all right. i'm 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, it's dysfunction palooza. udent loan debt? move to sofi and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ ♪ ♪ move your student loan debt to sofi- you could save with low rates and no fees. earn a $1,000 bonus when you refi- and get your money right. ready to turn your dreams into plans and your actions into achievements? explore over 75 programs and four-week classes at national university. your future starts today at nu.edu. a new era of technology is forcing networks to re-examine the way they do business. >> new owners spent billions buying the networks recently. ge buying nbc. capital cities, abc. >> and loews-tisch brothers buying cbs. and all of them want their money's worth. >> we'll now have the strongest network. we'll have a stronger defense piece. this is going to be one dynamite company. >> there's a danger that news will be mixed up with the rest of television and considered just another profit. >> 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 couldn't talk about public service. it was, 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, 18-year-old 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 world of the television news soap opera. >> a story of basic instincts, 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. >> i'm larry carrol 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 we're 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. there's 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 "they're too small," prosecutors were incensed. >> the trial was on television during the hours that had traditionally been the time for soap operas. >> appears to have pulled the gloves. >> 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 it's your turn? >> no question that the best tv show of the '90s was the o.j. simpson trial, and everybody on it was riveting. >> nbc news indepth tonight. the simpson trial finally winding to a close. >> we, the jury in the above-entitled action, find the defendant, orenthal james simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code section 187-a -- >> the verdict of the o.j. simpson trial viewed by 150 million people. it's more people than watch presidential election returns. that's 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? >> yes, it's tabloid. but on the other hand, it's a tabloid era. here's the point. here's where the fear comes into it, i think, larry. it's the fear that says, gosh, if we don't cover it big time, our competition is. when they cover it big time, they'll get a big jump in the ratings. the first thing is to last, to last and survive, we've got to do it. >> what you also see is a whole army of commentators, people who make their business talking about the news. >> what i say is what we should do is we should bomb his capability of producing oil. take out his refineries, his stations, his wells. >> they don't have any capability of producing oil. >> they're certainly selling a lot of oil -- >> no they're not -- >> the networks were doing good journalism, but they became much more preoccupied by profits. it's much cheaper to have someone in your studio pontificating than to have reporters out in the field reporting. >> i don't 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. and as far as the viewer is concerned, be very, very careful of unsubstantiated information presented with great hype. staying up half the night searching for savings on your prescriptions? just ask your cvs pharmacist. we search for savings for you. from coupons to lower costs options. plus, earn up to $50 extra bucks rewards each year just for filling at cvs pharmacy. ♪ smooth like butter, like a criminal undercover ♪ ♪ gon' pop like trouble ♪ ♪ breaking into your heart like that ♪ ♪ do the boogie, like ♪ ♪ side step, right-left, to my beat ♪ ♪ high like the moon, rock with me, baby ♪ ♪ know that i got that heat ♪ ♪ let me show you 'cause talk is cheap ♪ ♪ side step, right ♪ ♪ get it, let it roll ♪ wondering what actually goes into your multi-vitamin? at new chapter its innovation organic ingredients and fermentation. fermentation? yes, formulated to help your body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness well done ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ with chase security features, guidance and convenience, banking feels good. chase. make more of what's yours. got lingering odors? grab febreze small spaces. press firmly to activate... and small spaces continuously eliminates and prevents odors... ...to freshen up any small room... ...for up to 45 days. febreze. ♪la la la♪ in the mid-1990s if you took a look at the list of the 50 most-watched shows on cable, at the top would be nickelodeon. "rug rats," "blues clues." >> don't you know cartoons will ruin your mind? >> "ren and stimpy" had some very surreal, 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 wasn't merely a music channel. they were having great success in terms of creating shows that incorporated music but that also were shows and programs that stood on their own. >> yes! >> huh huh huh! huh huh huh! huh huh huh! that was cool! >> certainly "beavis and butthead" established what mtv could be because the show was about people making fun of music videos, just like people in the audience were doing. >> whoa, check out his neck. >> yeah. >> there's like 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. >> that's right. >> mtv has a detrimental, damaging developmental effect on the sexuality, on the morality, on the spirituality, maybe even the physical development of our young people. ♪ >> 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? >> you heard 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. we went and made this five-minute short. >> i come seeking retribution. >> he's come to kill you because you're jewish, kyle. >> oh [ bleep ]. >> it went around the tv community like wildfire. >> i mean, it -- it was the funniest thing you'd ever seen in your life. >> go, santa! >> 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. >> just call me saddam hussein. >> "south park" really, really detests hypocrites. >> christians and republicans and nazis, oh my! >> well, okay, mrs. cartman, i'll 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? >> it's a miracle. "south park" is a miracle. ♪ >> the early '90s the hbo shows start to kind of come into their own. >> and then have i always had these breasts? >> a lot of people want freedom. they don't want to go back to the networks which are saying, you can come to us where you'll make more money but you'll 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 can't get this anywhere else. >> you're a fantasy maker, the only limit on the kinds of fantasies is people's imagination. >> hbo turned to people who >> hbo turned to people who said i can't do that on television, but you can do it on hbo. >> white people don't trust black people. that's why they won't vote for a black president. like a black brother would [ bleep ] the white house. like the grass won't be cut. cousins running through the white house, cookouts, basketball in the back. >> in the late '80s, hbo was gaping ground for a 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, it's got to be something that couldn't be on network tv. that was shocking, even for us as writers who created. we're like, oh, my god, really? 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he's the aler ego of gary shandling. >> gary wanted to do a show that deconstructed the kind of show that "the tonight show" was. >> just pretend you're talking to me. >> the larry sanders show was ka thr -- cathartic. >> you want me to [ bleep ] with your budget? >> it became this fun house mirror thing where you could use misery from your career as fodder. >> don't take this as a threat, i killed a man like you in korea, hand-to-hand. >> larry sanders, aside from being a brilliant television show -- >> can you say, hey now. >> it was my evidence life. >> last show, big ratings, movie coming out. bill, bam, boom. >> the larry sanders show was very unique in that it was very dead pan. and really ground breaking in its day. >> i think it made people go, that's the level of work you may be able to do on a cable network. >> oz comes on in '97, set in this fictional penitentiary. wow, what a strange show that was. >> in "oz," sometimes the things you can't touch are more real than what you can't. fear, hatred, loneliness are more real to me than a shank. >> it was jaw droppingly violent. it's a men's prison, it probably should be. it announces that hbo is going to get serious about doing scripted dramas. but hbo really, in my mind, comes into its own in 1999 with "the sopranos." ♪ ♪ >> "the sopranos" is just one of those shows that was a benchmark. it changed a lot of things for everybody. >> throw out the handbook. tony sparano, the lead actor in a drama. he killed a man. we watched him. he took his daughter on a college tour. >> pretty, huh? >> it was just a melding of a guy in a world. >> open the [ bleep ] door! >> and the behavior that promoted all of the feelings that you would have for a guy that you love and a guy that you hate, you know? >> "the sopranos" came on tv and it really showed us the future of 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 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 them to have a father. >> they got one. this one, me. tony sparano 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 comedown to come work in television. audiences started to look towards television for what they had only found before. in feature film. >> what did i ever do to you except zdeliver the south? >> you should. have made me beg. >> network dramas became very innovative. they were really making a new model. >> once we started making the kinds of shows that we were making in the '90s, you couldn't shut the door on them. >> get me out! >> some of my favorite shows of all time aired this 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. >> damn it! you know, parents should spend less time worrying about what their kids watch on tv. >> parents rely on it as a babysitter and sole edgeucator r their kids. [ indiscernible ] >> totally, dude. >> good point, man. >> quick, jump through the window! >> ahhh! okay. really? okay. >> she was one of the biggest movie stars of all time. >> she had looks and sexuality. she was iconic. >> she became the goddess of the silver screen. >> people think she was the most beautiful woman in the world. >> when the camera starts until it stops, i want to be perfect. >> marilyn monroe, blonde bombshell.