TV's best portrayals of American Family

1. Roseanne
2. All In The Family
3. The Sopranos

#realtalk

I think the Netfilx a la carte generation of TV watching is really driving home a lot of "omg let me post this 30 rock lemon party joke on my tumblr" and "wow the wire really has 9 million characters and bmore street slang THAT I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND" and "ooh wows I wonder where peggy olsen got that authentic lamp"

And in all this meta-textual dialogue, I think we're really missing out on the emotion depth explored by three-camera sitcoms like Roseanne and All In The Family. The Sopranos was basically about family (though obv obfuscated by a layer of mob stuff). Is there any modern TV show that can touch this stuff? Are all the bells and whistles of modern TV replacing real emotion? What other TV shows from the past could come close. I would obv say Wonder Years and Freaks and Geeks on a visceral level, but those were more about "adolescence" than "family" per se

what is "American" "family"

otm post

King of the Hill

Brady Bunch

Early Simpsons.

i feel like the early Simpsons was just a more sentimental two-dimensionality tbh but maybe i'm not thinking it through. i'm quite serious about KotH tho, especially when you think about the extended family beyond Bobby, Hank and Peggy.

Muppet Babies

An American Family

yeah early Simpsons just occurred to me, I didn't watch it "at the time" or whatever but decided it was about time for me to start working through it systematically. Season 2 is all about the real talk with ADD and Lisa's proto-Sally-Draper resentfulness of being neglected and shit. I was pretty surprised by all this.

xps lol muppet babies

MUUUUPEEEEETTT BAAAAAAAAYBIIIIIIES

whiney I understand that your thing is to make up narratives about people's worldviews or whatever but I, personally, don't understand where your first post comes from at all

I think the emotion on early Simpsons was certainly warm and resonant but not especially complex, if that makes sense?

alt post: lol television

according to ck, lucky louie was aiming for exactly what you're talking about, don't know if it was any good, only seen one ep

The Huxtables!

This is them reading this thread

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5p8vyWGrkO0/Rpe1aR1VuXI/AAAAAAAAAxA/T1d6FqNP4bw/s400/cosby-show2.jpg

I didn't want to mention Lucky Louie, because I'm kind of a rare stan for it, but I think it really did a fantastic job of capturing EXACTLY what I love/miss from old TV. And it breaks my heart that people think the (also amazing) Louie is a better show just because it looks like French new wave and has Woody Allen clarinet music

emotion depth explored by three-camera sitcoms

kinda wanna sb you for this tbh

such a horribly stilted/artificial format, praising it for its emotional depths is some serious challops

yeah when I read that line the seinfeld slap bass started looping in my mind for no reason

obv a very small percentage of three camera sitcoms explore this depth. There's been 40,000 shows and I've named exactly THREE, but feel free to boop boop slap bass about Night Cout

formats have nothing to do with emotional depths imo, but still, sitcoms man

like saying a sesitna cannot be emotionally complex

sestina

I wonder what a sitcom made by those oulipo guys would look like

Frasier, maybe

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/30916_121226927917271_112733182099979_114966_4840854_a.jpg

such a horribly stilted/artificial format, praising it for its emotional depths is some serious challops

― I saw Mike Love walk by a computer once (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 12:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Seriously if you think a filmed stage-play ish like All In The Family is more stilted than OMG ITS A CONVERSATION USING ONLY SWEARS of The Wire, then you can gtfo

I haven't watched the Huxtables in 20 years, so I cannot speak to how well it represents family or america, but i've def heard enough rap songs that tell me otherwise

rap music: the voice of the american family

I didn't want to mention Lucky Louie, because I'm kind of a rare stan for it, but I think it really did a fantastic job of capturing EXACTLY what I love/miss from old TV. And it breaks my heart that people think the (also amazing) Louie is a better show just because it looks like French new wave and has Woody Allen clarinet music

I know you're not having a dig here, but I still want to point out that those reasons aren't the only ones.

Best eighties TV family:

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c30555-8.jpg

Seriously if you think a filmed stage-play ish like All In The Family is more stilted than OMG ITS A CONVERSATION USING ONLY SWEARS of The Wire, then you can gtfo

you don't know me very well do you

it looks like the background is on fire!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKjvWcbDfbM

It misses an awful lot, but the current version of Parenthood get some family dynamics dead on when it hits.

I SAY 'EY' MAHN!

rap music: the voice of the american family

― I AM THE CROOT (crüt), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 12:33 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if you don't think rap music speaks for a segment of america that doesn't always have a voice on TV, you can gtfo too

Are all the bells and whistles of modern TV replacing real emotion?

wtf does this even mean? you're all over the place. what constitutes a "real emotion" within the medium of TV?

what constitutes a real emotion in our lives?

alfred otm

lots of the posts in this thread are like zen koans

Friday Night Lights, mostly for Coach and Mrs. Coach.

xp dude whiney don't say shit like that Gutei will come up and cut off your damn finger

and like yeah sure maybe you'll be enlightened but you need that finger to post with

jaime weinman's been ably defending multi-camera sitcoms for a while, and i think i agree w/him: http://splitsider.com/2011/03/in-defense-of-the-multi-camera-sitcom

basically Whiney's post is "what I feel when I watch [insert show] is REAL, but the rest of what you guys feel when you watch [insert show] is FAKE"

v helpful

xp

what constitutes a real emotion in our lives?

to paraphrase the Supreme Court, I know it when I feel it

more like

"what I feel when I watch [insert show] is REAL, but what the internet purports to feel when they watch [insert show] is LMFAOOOOOOOOO"

but Shakey feel free to take offense because u shed real tears when Omar died, no spoiler, mourn u til i join u

Friday Night Lights, mostly for Coach and Mrs. Coach.

one of the better realized married couples too.

Not a single Waltons mention yet?

but Shakey feel free to take offense because u shed real tears when Omar died, no spoiler, mourn u til i join u

like I said, you REALLY don't know me very well do you

the internet is not a person

Mad Men is a great show. so is All in the Family. 99.9% of sitcoms are totally worthless garbage

which is why this thread concerns itself with the 1%.

in that case I think we've pretty much covered the 1% of American sitcoms that dealt well with family then. lock thread

shakey, do you hate threads

nah, I could talk about the Sopranos all day

Cheers

Could have been a great thread if Whiny hadn't started it with his usual tilting-against-Internet-strawmen routine.

I think of this less as portraying the American family and more about media that reaches a deeper truth even without trying for hard realism (Roseanne and Dazed & Confused are my go-tos here).

i remember being kind of struck by Roseanne when i was a kid, it was the only show where the house looked like the house i lived in and everyone i knew lived in

I feel like Friday Night Lights is the only show since Roseanne to really explore a certain sense of what it's like to live while barely making means (white America edition), obviously through the characters but also in its aesthetics. There's a brief shot in season 1 of Matt & Julie sitting on the Saracen porch with the rickety white house and the tiny lawn filled with all sorts of suburban debris, uncoiled hose and footballs etc, and it just feels like a lot of homes I've known.

Also the Taylors just rule.

http://tvseriesfinale.com/assets/alf07a.jpg

http://tvseriesfinale.com/assets/alf07a.jpg

I think of this less as portraying the American family and more about media that reaches a deeper truth even without trying for hard realism (Roseanne and Dazed & Confused are my go-tos here).

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 12:54 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is definitely a less HRO vibe of what this thread is about, go with it!

Alf, Lord Sotosyn

otm about "Friday Nite Lights." To me the show lost its chance at greatness in the second season, during which the producer and writers decided the kids' romantic travails deserved more attention than what the show unearthed about race and class in Texas.

Roseanne was so fucking ahead of its time. I really want to rewatch it

seasons 3/4/5 (esp 4 or 5, race/class-wise) rectify season 2's soapiness for me

I loved in Roseanne how they commented on how shitty their stuff was all the time. Like some random joke about how the coach smells.

Roseanne was so fucking ahead of its time. I really want to rewatch it

― kid ᒓᴥᒔ (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 11:57 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also the bizarro fucked up last episode is even weirder than the last episode of newhart

what a mind fuck

The whole last season was just the absolute worst and the less said about it the better

In one episode of Roseanne, I remember each character wearing that godawful chicken/egg shirt in different scenes, and as a kid I thought it was so mind-blowing and hilarious and kinda sad

n the Fall of 2008, Barr commented on what the Conners would be up to now. "I've always said now that if they were on TV, DJ would have been killed in Iraq and [the Conners] would have lost their house".

dag

Roseanne otm

The best episode of Roseanne Season 9 < The worst Simpsons episode you can think of

roseanne, malcolm on the middle, even the young ones -- they live in mansions. MANSIONS i say.

early to be rise, early to bed
and in between i cooked and cleaned and went out of my head

going through life with blinders on its tough to see
i had to get up, get out from under and look for me

there's a new girl in town and shes looking good
there's a fresh freckled face in the neighborhood

there's a new girl in town with a brand new style
she was just passing thruuuu.... but if things work out shes gonna stay a while

babababauaah

Roseanne was what I thought of as soon as I saw the thread title.

cant believe only one poster mentioned the huxtables

An accurate portrayal of the American family would make rotten television. Therefore naming any truly entertaining program would be misguided.

The whole last season was just the absolute worst and the less said about it the better

― kid ᒓᴥᒔ (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 1:00 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

Was the last season where she won the lottery? I remember things getting pretty weird then.

It's one of those shows I'll always watch if I happen upon it while flicking.

it was!

yeah but i mean the LAST SHOW where the whole m night shamalayn twist was revealed!!!! fucked me up, still to this day

Yeah. I rewatched a lot of it on TV Land a couple years ago but pretty much tuned all those episodes out.

Wait what was the last show?! I may never have seen it!

cant believe only one poster mentioned the huxtables

I am less surprised that that mention was almost immediately followed by "some rappers said their lives weren't like that so they don't count"

signed, a dude who grew up like The Huxtables In The MN Woods

x-post - Oh yeah, I remember it now. That sucked.

signed, a dude who grew up like The Huxtables In The MN Woods

c'mon nobody actually owns that many sweaters

this is where jjj comes swooping in followed quickly by Sara R-C with incriminating high school photos

ENBB:

check in the Season 9 section of the wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_%28TV_series%29

I have a slightly different interpretation of one major detail wrt when the "show as reality" verged into the "show as fiction" though, i think wiki is wrong there

a giant brownstone filled with doctors and lawyers isn't exactly an accurate portrayal of most of america tho

and i know because i grew up in new jersey with a mob boss dad and smoking hot sister

yeah but i mean the LAST SHOW where the whole m night shamalayn twist was revealed!!!! fucked me up, still to this day

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 12:19 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

what happened? i'm probably never going to watch it myself (ah xp i could read the wiki)

i grew up in a (subtly but strongly) v. classist household, i really couldn't stand roseanne

oh damn you Whiney for stealing my rebuttal

x-post - Yeah, i just read it. I do remember it now. What's your interpretation?

oh damn you Whiney for stealing my rebuttal

― the tax avocado (DJP), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 1:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I have a feeling Internet "face" AND modern TV is all about staying one step ahead of your criticism :/

(basically the way i read it was that the ENTIRE show was not roseanne's fictional construct, but that the change to fantasy happened in maybe like season six -- or whichever season the kids fix up the basement as roseanne's "writing room" for a christmas gift to her, around the same time dan dies in real life, and the remaining like 2 or 3 seasons are whatever are pure fantasy written by roseanne in the basement to cope with dan's dying)

TBH my family was a lot more like the Huxtables than the Conners but I think I wishing it was the other way round is part of why I liked Roseanne so much.

also the bizarro fucked up last episode is even weirder than the last episode of newhart

I caught a rerun of the last episode of Roseanne, and it was even more fucked up than I had remembered it.

huh - interesting

Maybe I'll rewatch the whole thing start to finish now.

oops - x-post

I thought M@tt's explanation was the accepted interpretation of the last Roseanne episode?

I don't know if I agree that early Simpsons eps were "not especially complex," but perhaps they were at least as complex as many families are.

Kate & Allie - just for the awkward dad visits alone.

man there's a show i haven't thought of in years

almost makes ne want to suggest Make Room for Daddy

I don't know if I agree that early Simpsons eps were "not especially complex," but perhaps they were at least as complex as many families are.

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 1:32 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think Simpsons did a lot of great eps about the father/daughter relationship and brother/sister relationship that were real touching. But Sopranos/Roseanne/All In The Family show how emotions evolve over time. Like you got to really see what turned Darlene from a petulant goth teen rebelling against her mom, to like an adult comes back from art school and has a totally different dynamic. Bart/Homer have been Bart/Homer for 20 years

but that's built into te concept of the show! freezing character ages with live actors is not an option.

Yes, I think that's one of the Simpsons' real flaws actually. I think it could have been amazing if they aged the characters like Gasoline Alley or whatev!

They have aged the Simpsons's characters several times. Smell ya later.

if you are actually comparing bizarro world haha roger clinton eps with having an actual 20-year-arc of a show, then http://i.imgur.com/7WOj5.gif

I think it could have been amazing if they aged the characters like Gasoline Alley or whatev!

^^That's my big issue w/King of The Hill, because when they started, it looked like they'd age everybody like a live action show and then they didn't, even though they still managed to evolve the characters within that context.

the Simpsons never aging is at least in part a riff on the nature of comic strips/cartoons, and one of the reasons why it can't be thought of as a straight sitcom i think

Bobby Hill ages sort of? emotionally and intellectually at least, couldn't quote exact birthdays.

like i think time is in play in KotH but it passes very slowly or something

KotH definitely aged the characters, just not in real time.

The difference between Bobby Hill & Joseph's aging weirdly matches how Sisko's kid and the Ferengi kid on DS9 started at the same height and at the end of the show, he could dribble him like a basketball.

i would have loved to see Bobby Hill as an adult

Bob Mould imo

...or Frank Black

This thread has thankfully gone from Sondra to Denise levels.

Like IRL, what happens to the "weird, emotionally stunted" Milhouse/Dewey On Malcolm/Bobby Hill/DJ Connor kids?

ORFL THEY START DOG TUMBLRS ROFL

three of those kids are in a different league, smartswise, to Milhouse. Milhouse will become his dad, if he's lucky.

I thought M@tt's explanation was the accepted interpretation of the last Roseanne episode?

― the tax avocado (DJP), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 12:31 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i read this as wiki thinks the whole show is fake

Most surreal of all is the season's final episode, in which Roseanne reveals the show is actually a story written by Roseanne Conner about her life. To cope, Roseanne twisted major elements of her life for the story, which the audience does not find out until the final moments of the series. In reality, Dan's heart attack was fatal. The Conner family did not win the lottery. She also mentions in real life, her sister is a lesbian and her mom is actually straight.[15] Another notable reality difference is David and Becky were a couple and Mark and Darlene were a couple, rather than the opposite.

ok I never knew Roseanne was a forerunner of Atonement

The one that felt most real to me personally is Freaks & Geeks. It really showed the range of suburban family types, how school life relates to neighborhood life, the interaction between older and younger siblings, neighbors.

^^^agree

yeah when I read that line the seinfeld slap bass started looping in my mind for no reason

it's a thread about nothing

'seduced by the real'

another vote for Friday Night Lights

F&G is a good one too, yeah.

for all their shouting, costanza family seems to have a more realistic dynamic than the sopranos, where the members can opt out at any time.

uh one of the mottos of the Sopranos was "there's no getting out"

unless by "opt out" you mean "suicide"

mrs. soprano, for all her hand-wringing, can basically leave any time, and she does! same with trust fund kids, who do basically leave the family to varying degrees throughout the show. George can never leave, and the one time he was able to leave a familial commitment, he had to kill his wife to do it.

i'm not american so what do i know, but friday night lights - yes. Also the relationship between veronica and her dad on Veronica Mars.