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So;
I spent Friday and Saturday being sick and immobile. Luckily KTLA ("Mighty KITLA!") was having a 60 hour "retro marathon" wherein they'd show an hour of an old tv series. Some of 'em I"d never heard of. Like "Highway Patrol" from the 50's. After watching a significant chunk of it, I noticed a few things:
-Tv really hasn't changed in the last 50 years. Most of the sitcoms are EXACTLY like current ones, even though the fine points of dialogue (such as slang) have changed. Even character to character abrasiveness hasn't changed that much. It was kinda creepy to see episodes of "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" that were almost identical to episodes of current shows. Noth that this was a NEW revelation to me.... but it was jarring to see it so blatantly.
-There was a discussion about how kids use more slang these days, but I don't think this is the case. Most of the kids on the 50's and 60's shows spoke with as much local colour as current characters. But I think since the phrasology was so old to me; a member of the modern audience, a lot of it has already ben subsumed. So it doesn't seem inscrutable to me, like modern slang would to someone of my age.
-An odd point: Roswell doesn't seem to have entered into the lexicon until the 90's. I noticed this watching an episode of "Lost in Space" wherein the crew returned to Earth, but in 1947. Had the show been made more recently they most certainly would have landed at Roswell. (As every time traveller in a spaceship seems to.) Funny how stuff like that gets backplayed into consciousness so as to seem like it's ALWAYS been as significant as it is now....
Don C.
I spent Friday and Saturday being sick and immobile. Luckily KTLA ("Mighty KITLA!") was having a 60 hour "retro marathon" wherein they'd show an hour of an old tv series. Some of 'em I"d never heard of. Like "Highway Patrol" from the 50's. After watching a significant chunk of it, I noticed a few things:
-Tv really hasn't changed in the last 50 years. Most of the sitcoms are EXACTLY like current ones, even though the fine points of dialogue (such as slang) have changed. Even character to character abrasiveness hasn't changed that much. It was kinda creepy to see episodes of "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" that were almost identical to episodes of current shows. Noth that this was a NEW revelation to me.... but it was jarring to see it so blatantly.
-There was a discussion about how kids use more slang these days, but I don't think this is the case. Most of the kids on the 50's and 60's shows spoke with as much local colour as current characters. But I think since the phrasology was so old to me; a member of the modern audience, a lot of it has already ben subsumed. So it doesn't seem inscrutable to me, like modern slang would to someone of my age.
-An odd point: Roswell doesn't seem to have entered into the lexicon until the 90's. I noticed this watching an episode of "Lost in Space" wherein the crew returned to Earth, but in 1947. Had the show been made more recently they most certainly would have landed at Roswell. (As every time traveller in a spaceship seems to.) Funny how stuff like that gets backplayed into consciousness so as to seem like it's ALWAYS been as significant as it is now....
Don C.