Almost seven decades of TV shows in just a handful of minutes and we’ve learned what we already knew, which is that TV shows tend to come and go depending on their popularity and how likely it is that they’ll be embraced by the audience. But really it is interesting to see how quickly some of them rose throughout the years and how quickly they disappeared as well. It’s not too surprising that The Big Bang Theory ended up on top by 2019 just like it’s not surprising that I Love Lucy was riding high for so long. There are shows that defy the imagination when it’s realized just how popular they became, but then there are plenty of people that idolize various shows for certain reasons and manage to get a lot of other people in on the act by using word of mouth or, in the past two decade or so, the heavy use of social media. There are a few of them that might elicit a groan and idea of ‘how the hell did that happen’ when trying to figure out just how they became so prominent, but again, people tend to follow trends and are bound to enjoy whatever they feel is worthwhile at the time, which means that as ridiculous as some of the shows have been throughout the years, enough people were convinced that they were worth something and thus kept watching them if only because everyone else was, and they needed something to talk about.
Most of us that watch TV should be able to admit that we were hooked on at least a few of the shows that were presented and felt the need to catch every episode. In fact there have been plenty of shows that people would defend in a rather vehement manner if anyone dared to speak poorly of them, simply because they became so attached to the program in one way or another. Of course it’s more than a little silly to have an issue with anyone over a fictional TV show, but all too often such disputes begin with something simple and then escalate into something that becomes entirely personal and eventually spirals out of control. But it starts over a TV program, which is hard to fathom since fighting over fiction is far too easy, but if a person pulls back and adjusts their perspective just enough they’ll hopefully be able to see that arguing over something that’s meant for entertainment and isn’t real is about a childish as it gets. There’s no doubt that a dispute or an argument made as a matter of opinion can be interesting and even provocative, perhaps even insightful, but taking matters so seriously that it becomes a heated argument is enough to make many people laugh since fiction is supposed to be entertaining, fun, and in some cases inspirational.
Quite a few of the shows that were popular throughout the years opened up a lot of different discussions, though of course some of them have been seen to offer up fodder for the type of discussions that have continued to plant a firm wedge between people that see them as entertainment and others that see them as a sad commentary on how people are so divided in this country. That’s a whole other can of worms to explore but the reality of it is that entertainment is there for people to enjoy and the numbers prove that quite a few people have managed to do just that over the last several decades. Listening to people go on and on about various shows and their mess of issues in this current day is kind of amusing really since many of those doing the griping weren’t alive back in those days and have little to no understanding of what the world was like nor even how people reacted to many of the shows that were so popular. Matt Cunningham of HowStuff?Works has something to say that might shed some light on the subject. Many people that continue to gripe about the content and messages of said shows also fail to realize that the same can be said of many shows that exist now, but strangely such rhetoric is reserved for shows that have come and gone and therefore can’t be changed. Forgetting them might be possible as a lot of people have likely forgotten quite a few of these shows over the years and might even have laughed aloud when seeing the names as the mere mention might have brought back a lot of memories. But whether a show is deemed good, bad, controversial, or otherwise, it’s a part of the learning process that society continues to go through when it comes to finding out what works, what’s acceptable, and what’s bound to get the most attention. Disagreeing over what’s ‘good’ and ‘acceptable’ entertainment is pretty normal, but it’s also very hypocritical.
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