jdw

The Top 5 Big Match thing is kind of funny. I guess it depends on how low we go to define "big matches", and how long of a stretch we use (are we saying 8 years of Tanahashi "big matches" or just the last 2.5 years). But it's not like those AJPW guys were laying many dogs in their big matches, while churning out a lot of good ones. Hell, things like Hansen-Kawada and Hansen-Kobashi in 1993 are probably at a level below the "big match" standard being used for Tanahashi: they weren't even main events. John

You probably should look at the second revenue model as well: 1. Subscriber base 2. Household carriage fee (i.e. Basic) These guys: Have fought to be on basic. The ones that aren't are basically test pattern networks rather than ones that generate serious money. Speed was pulling in $0.23 per household, and on basic (which is why FS1 was launched using the dead husk of Speed). Obviously the WWE isn't going to pull in that. But: $0.07 per household x 12 months x 60,000,000 Basic Households = $50,400,000 carriage fee revenue Which is that $50M "cost", and also doesn't canibalize the non-Mania PPV (i.e. saving the company an estimated $35M in revenue). Nor factor in any advertising revenue which would be gravy off using the carriage fee to cover year-to-year costs. Obviously it isn't a great time to get on TV, nor on basic. Though many of the channels having issues are the ones that are dreaming of ESPN-like carriage fees on Basic: the NFL Network, Fox Sports 1, etc. Accepting a cheap $0.07 simply to get in the door without pissing off the carriers who are looking to dump channels isn't a bad approach. That of course doesn't factor in a potential major element of start up: buying a husk of a channel that's on Basic that gets you in the door. If you go that route. I still think Basic and getting on at a "low" carriage fee simply to get on is still the route to go. Grow the channel, then look for a bump up the next round. Grow it some more, point out your viewership and some other jobber channel that has a higher fee, and look to bump it up again. Look to expand from 60M households to 90: $0.15 per household x 12 months x 90,000,000 Basic Households = $162,000,000 carriage revenue Again before getting to advertising. If you can get to that $0.15/90M in 10 years, that's rather huge. In turn, you have a channel to move SmackDown to if you see the TV Rights not acceptable, especially if SD added to the WWE Network in 5 years will help you move up that carriage fee. My thought on Pay Channels is best summed up with: Even the NFL with the ability to air 13-14 Games on the Network in Primetime (not to mention cook the books to make all 13-14 attractive ratings draws if they felt like it), chose *not* to go the Pay Channel route but instead the Basic route hoping to start from $0.75 a household and over time move that upward. Why? $0.75 per household x 12 months x 90,000,000 Basic Households = $810,000,000 carriage revenue Which isn't too far off of most of their TV packages: ESPN: $1.9B Fox: $1.1B CBS: $1B NBC: $950M Now the NFL isn't getting $0.75 yet, and had years of fights. But that's where they want to be... and then look to push that up to $1 then $1.50, etc. To me that's where the WWE has long made its mistake: failing to get on cheap to get in the door, and also to put the "start up" cost well into their rear view mirror. John

Great thread, Jerome. I'd hate to see this locked. It's a great reference thread, and the type of thing that someone else might be looking at WCW from this era in 2-3 years and have a question. We've seen other old reference threads like this pop up with good questions and then good discussion. It's not like we're going to get invaded by a Russo-Bot who defends the stuff, but instead more likely someone who is wondering about something. Like that Final PPV that he had good things to say about.

37 years old later this month, and just passed his 14th anniversary of his debut. It really wasn't that hard several years back to have changed it to 40/20 without massively impacting people on the ballot, just those who were about to hit it. Even 40/20 is two freaking low anyway... 45/20 should be the lows. Oh well.

I don't doubt there would be some fun Best of Pancrase, as long as it edged away from the insane style of Bas vs Funaki. But by that point there was also UFC, which I found more interesting on an MMA level.

Did Hogan by choice take much time off, or did he go out very briefly with an injury? He worked pretty regularly (weekendish schedule) around the horn with Savage after Mania, drawing a surprising amount of money despite the job by Savage at Mania. Are we thinking about 1990 and the Earthquake thingy where he took time off again? John

No one is saying that Bill wasn't a star after Ghostbusters. What I said was that Bill pissed away his Ghostbusters level of stardom. Then again, if you think that pulling in $44M in the US in 2003 is the "peak star" equiv of pulling in $238M in the US in 1984, then there's not much to argue. Even the international box office doesn't make it close when you factor in 20 years of changes in ticket prices and the international market. Nope... it's just another example of your reading comprehension being awful. Insert Quote

WHAT!? Is that your opinion of Murray's post-Ghostbuster work (which is quite substantial quality wise) or is that based on, like the Hughes/Ringwald/Cusak/Brat Pack flicks being held to higher esteem in the home video market/retrospect? If its Danny-Boy and/or Harold Ramis you are talking about...eh, okay, I can see Aykroyd and Ramis as examples of people who just had their careers go a different trajectory for whatever reasons and feeling comfortable with never reaching the heights again. Here's Bill's box office: http://boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?id=billmurray.htm Razor's Edge would have been in the can by the time Ghostbusters came out, but it bombed. Then he stopped working for close to 4 years. That alone is pissing away the success of Ghostbusters. His big comeback was Scrooged, which did business by got beat by these two other comedies release the following two weeks: $111,938,388 Twins $78,756,177 The Naked Gun $60,328,558 Scrooged Scrooged was the one that got the better release date (Thanksgiving) with the anticipation of hit-hit-hot attached to it. Perhaps not a massive bomb, but it was disappointing. Ghostbusters II did half the business that GB1 did. Quick Change did bomb. What About Bob did decent business, but not epic. Another two years off, with Groundhog Day being a "career rebirth" at the time... and Mad Dog and Glory being a total bomb the following month. Groundhog Day was the last mainstream hit he's anchored, and the "hitish" movies he's anchored since then are small budget / art house flicks. I give credit for Bill transitioning his career, making small movies for the most part and getting a fair amount of acclaim doing it. But as far as being a "star", he pretty much pissed away the Mega Star level with the 3+ years off after Razor's Edge. By choice on some level, it would seem. Even the hit Groundhog Day was a smaller comedy, tossed out in a month where the movies anticipated to be blockbustered aren't release (Feb). It connected and did business. Bill is a variation of the Lowe discussion. When Ghostbusters hit, folks kind of thought Bill would be making big box office comedies for a while to come. Then he went away, then attempts to get back there fell well short (Scrouged & GB2), and over time he adjusted to create a different kind of successful career. Something to admire there.

Yep. I'd add in the West Wing and second Austin Power movie as kind of sealing the deal. He had regular work between Wayne/Tommy and AP2/WW, but it mostly was a lot of crappy TV movies and crappy smaller movies. West Wing gave him some cred finally, while AP2 continued the line of working comedies. Have to give him some credit for rebuilding his career, and being pretty smart about it. West Wing was a smart move, and while it was risky to leave the show... that was probably a smart idea. Sorkin was pushing That Fucking Josh more and more, to the degree that it was eating into Lowe's spot. Kind of smart to walk away rather than sink to being like Riker in ST:TNG as a piece of furniture while Picard/Bartlett became the start and Data/Josh became the #2 star in terms of sucking up air. Brothers & Sisters was a smart move: regular work / payday on a show that had critical chops and the women demo. Parks and Recreation is another critical fav, working comedy as a change to the two prior long runs in more dramatic TV series... and again a good payday. Yeah, for a guy who was dead with the sex tape and the teen hearthrob stuff fading, he ended up with a good career.

According to Mr. Mom's producer, Lauren Shuler Donner, Hughes was fired and they brought in a group of TV writers. I know there were times when Hughes tried to fob off failures like National Lampoon's Class Reunion by saying they'd butchered his original script, which the director Michael Miller steadfastly denied and produced Hughes' script to prove it, but Hughes was pretty upfront about being fired for being a pain in the ass. Actually I've read Hughes himself say he was shitcanned from Mr. Mom. The problem is that it comes in articles where he's getting that three picture $30M deal with Universal because Mr. Mom and Vacation made a shitload of money. So... I tend to take the Hughes Bios with the same amount of salt that I take McMahon Bios. It's Hollywood, and they make silly shit up while Reporters are hit and miss in getting at the truth (or even bothering to chase it). As far as Class Reunion, who cares. It was before Mom and Vacation put him on the "writer" map can got him a deal. Hughes was an asshole? Could swear I mentioned it already.

I don't think this is isolated to 1989. Do the same for 1986 as of Mania: Faces: 1. Hogan 2. Andre 3. Bulldogs 4. Tito 5. Orndorff Heels: 1. Bundy 2. Piper 3. Savage 4. Dream Team 5. Studd In both groups, I'm kind of pulling them out of the air. We could include Steamboat as a "near" Top 5, but I'd say Orndorff was a bit more pushed as he had the long feud against Piper that was just over around then. Steamber was feuding with Muraco, who was lower than Piper. I'm pulling Studd out of the air, but he was paired with Andre still, and Hogan on occassion. Could go with Jake, though he wasn't top of the card... perhaps Muraco, though he was clearly dropping. The Bulldogs were getting a massive push, and mained a lot of non-Hogan cards. I think their push was a bit above Tito's since they had the belts, while Tito-Savage push was a bit more on the Savage side. Anway... what happened to the heels? Bundy was blow through by Hogan. Piper went off to do a movie, then came back a face. Savage jobbed all over the place to Hogan, then "lost" some key parts of the Tito feud despite hanging onto the title, then got in a heavily pushed but pretty silly feud with Animal, got beat up by Bruno when they faced each other, and then lost the feud with Steamboat at the following Mania. Dream Team faded over time, to the point the Beefcake was a face by the following Mania. Studd wasn't relevant by the following Mania. The only heel of the bunch that was relevant as a heel by the following year was Savage... and to a degree because he had that Flair-like ability to stay over despite getting the living shit kicked out of him. Part of that was because there weren't 12 PPV a year (in addition to 52 weeks of non-squash TV matches) to fill up where Savage '86 would be getting his ass kicked a bit too much to stay over, and instead would have to be rebooked to a degree (same with Flair, by the way). On the face side, two of them became heels between Manias: Orndorff for the massive house show feuds, and Andre special for the massive Mania. Orndorff was pretty much done by the end of his run with Hogan. We can blame the injury for some of that, but it wasn't like he was going to drop down to have a massive IC feud with Steamer, or something else what was as top-of-the-card as his 1984-86 run being an opponent for Hogan, siding with Piper then feuding with Piper, then turning on Hogan. The WWF burned through heels. It was a pretty common thing for them. For a lot of years, they were able to (i) bring in new guys like Piper, Valentine, Bossman, Kamala, DiBiase, etc, and (ii) effectively flip folks from one side to the other like Orndorff, Savage, Andre, even Bossman becoming a face though he never was a big of a star as a face as he was as a Hogan Opponent. As the decade wore on, there was less available talent for them to bring in, and some of the flipping around didn't have the impact of say Orndorff turning on Hogan or the Mega Powers breaking up. That's not an unnatural thing 5-6 years into a "show" like the WWF had been since Expansion.

Um... I think we need Dylan to do the equiv of the classic Bret Hart Book Review on this thing.

Some Hogan timeline information for reference: 02/05/88 The Main Event - Hogan jobs / HTM refuses to job to Savage 02/06/88 Superstars: Jesse talking without being able to talk about The Main Event / Tunney will announce something next week 02/13/88 Superstars: Tunney's Announcement / Original Brackets 03/27/88 Wrestlemania 04/21/88 Superstars taping: Hogan-Zhukov - Hogan gone after this It's worth noting that's the first WWF show after Mania, so it's not like Hogan was going around the horn. He did not working the Challenge/SNME taping the next day. Other than that one match/appearance, Hogan doesn't work a WWF card until: 07/13/88 - TV taping - Hogan appears live 07/31/88 - WrestleFest 88 - County Stadium, Milwaukee - Hogan vs Andre 08/07/88 - Greensboro Coliseum - Hogan vs Andre 08/28/88 - Maple Leaf Gardens - Hogan vs Bad News Brown And actually that's pretty much it prior to SummerSlam. Hogan is basically off from 03/27/88 - 08/28/88, mostly for the movie. He works a quartet of one-shots: a TV taping heading out the door, a TV taping to set up SummerSlam, the WWF's other major show of the summer, and the WWF's major attempt to go into Crockett Country (which bombed). The MLG card is simply the night before SummerSlam. Then we've got: 08/29/88 - Summer Slam 09/04/88 - Hogan starts working around the horn mostly with Ted 09/19/88 - first known Hogan-Bossman 10/22/88 Superstars - Hogan-Bossman Angle * * * * * If Ted won the belt, Hogan wasn't getting it back until SummerSlam. On the flip side, it's hard to imagine them holding off beyond that: Survivor was still tag based, Rumble didn't exist as a PPV yet, and Mania was a hell of a long ways off. There clearly was a change from a Hogan-DiBiase Final to a Savage-DiBiase Final reflected in the change in the brackets. Not really buying that anyone other than Hogan had a chance to get out of the top half of the brackets before the change - no one else at that point was at the level to be in the Final. There's no way they were running Hogan-Savage in the Final without a build up of the Mega Powers breaking up similar to what they eventually did. That's wasn't something they were going to simply do on the spot at Mania and then have Hogan go our for 5 months. John

Loss wrote up the WON's that covered the stories in real time. Extractions from Loss' posts and links to them: WON 01/18/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6369 WON 01/25/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6382 WON 02/01/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6463 WON 02/08/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6527 WON 02/15/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6565 WON 02/22/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6614 WON 02/29/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=6921 WON 03/07/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=7101 WON 03/14/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=7117 WON 03/21/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=7331 WON 03/28/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=7344 WON 04/04/88 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=7352

That would be here: The funny thing is that on the earlier attempt, Funaki was right there by the ropes. He tried to counter around, put himself in a worse position, and ended up further away from the ropes. It was DeLucia's first Pancrase match, and it's one that could have felt goofy at the time of the new guy getting put over after Funaki has a long string of wins. Instead, DeLucia promptly lost his next Pancrase match to Fuke in one of those WTF moments that the promotion had. Pancrase certainly was kind of fun at the start: it was something new and different. I think it's been overblown since then, and was even in the late 90s when people were trying to credit it with being a big factor in things like UWFi dying. My interest waned in it and the Bas-Funaki that everyone loved/loves was kind of my Foley HitC moment for Pancrase in just not wanting to watch stupid shit like that anymore. Don't really know how much I watched after that... wasn't a ton.

That I know, as has Brown and a number of other people. Only saying that the vibe I got when mentioning Fabiani last year was (i) yeah obviously should be in + (ii) next year i.e. 2013. I may be misreading what was said in the conversation, but... it was pretty direct.

Nope. He's someone that we started talking about last year I think. I know that's when I mentioned him to Dave, along with the Matsunaga's. Someone jumped Dave with Deglane, who I confess to being less high on than those who back him going in. So Fabiani is likely next year, and one hopes Dave has somone working on a bio info.

He says they weren't worked, but he was basically filling time. Their first show had less than an hour's worth of ring time. That's why I'm trying to come up with a proper term for those type of matches. They aren't really pure, straight shoots where they're both going all out to win. It's not really a "work" in the sense of the two co-opperating on "moves" or "holds", etc. But Fighter A knows he's going to win, and Fighter B knows he's going to lose, even if it's just due to skill level... though I'm not totally sold on that: in other words, someone like Ken isn't going to "carry" someone for five minutes and expose himself to getting injured or beat because the kid takes advantage of Ken being in "carry" mode rather than "straight shoot" mode. Fighter B knows he's going to lose because of the skill level, and knows that he better not fuck around with Ken looking for the upset or being a hero. So as close of a term that I can come up with is that they're "sparring". Ken isn't going for the win early, though like in sparring might put the kid at risk and see if he can get out of trouble. The kid is to show Ken what he has, and Ken will let him feel around on stuff, which in turn Ken will look to get out of trouble or counter. At a certain point Ken's going to take it home, and the kid kind of knows when it kicks up a notch, and shouldn't be stupid in trying to be a hero and injure himself in fighting it since there were enough injuries in Pancrase. It's not a work in the sense that we think of it, but there's a level of "fake" to it. It's not a shoot. I don't at all buy that it's a one-sided carry-job where the kid has no idea, the carry equiv of Taking A Dive where the diver knows what he's up to, but the opponent might not. With these... I really think the opponent knows Ken is going to spar with him, knows the agreed upon "rules" of this type of a match, has had a conversation with Ken or one of the other guys about it, and everyone in there knows what's up. * * * * * Then there's the other type of screwed up Pancrase match: the cross-art matches. Smith wins the Kick Boxing match with Wrestler X, then jobs the Pancrase match with Wrestler X. Or vice versa. It was one of the favorite gimmicks that Pancrase would run, and it's a throw back to the 80s and 90s... 1880s & 1890s where guys like Muldoon and the Original Strangler Lewis would have multi-fall matches where the falls alternate styles (what we'd now call Arts), with the Grecco guy winning the Grecco falls, and the Catch As Catch Can / Freestyle guy winning the Catch/Free falls. Or if they had matches under just one set of rules, the guy whose art/style it was would win... and when we'd stumble upon a rematch under the opposite rules, the other guy would win. It was a way to put over Smith, then have him job to someone under Pancrase rules. These two types of matches (Carry/Spar and Cross Art) are reasons I tend to ignore a lot of those Pancrase results. They were up to all sorts of shit and booking. Some of it we kind of got at the time, but I don't think any hardcores gave enough of a shit about Pancrase to really try to study it at the time. Now perhaps one could make better sense of it, and folks like Jon can interview some of the participants (though like any sport and form of entertainment, they participants are full of shit a lot of times). John

I mentioned Fabiani in the other thread. If he's not in this year (and I doubt he is since I don't think bio work was done on him), than he's in next year. Agree on the new research point, which I talked about in the other thread. On the other 5... I'm pretty surprised there are 5 going in. My guess is that it's spread around the different regions.

I assume he means Ray Fabiani if he didn't put him in this year. I tend to think "last" is hardline. I'm not a huge Orville Brown advocate, nor is anyone jumping out at me at the moment. But there are guys like Ray Fabiani that pop up and you go, "Oh shit... yeah, of course he should have been in for a while." There are always guys who you learn more about and become reasonable candidates. Take for example Lou Daro, who ran Los Angeles wrestling from 1924/25 - early 1941. The Olympic opened in 1925, and was one of the larger buildings in the country running wrestling regularly. Add in the outdoor shows at Wrigley Field. The area tailed off at the tail end, but it was one of the stronger areas in the country. We might end up looking at his run from 1925-37 was really quite strong and worth consideration. I think there's a lot of the 10's, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s that people still haven't fully put together into well organized thoughts / arguments. That I had to point out Fabiani is an example.

Yeah... which is why I referenced Sinatra / Elvis / Beatles / Zep. Elvis was hyper cannonized. His albums were wildly available at record stores when I was a kid. His songs played all the time on certain channels on the radio. His records where in the collections of a lot of parents (especially ones a few years younger than my folks who weren't "before" Elvis). Yet... My generation didn't give a flying fuck about Elvis. He was a fat washed up guy who overdosed on his toilet seat. We knew some of his songs, though I suspect for most kids it was Hound Dog and/or Hearbreak Hotel. We wouldn't know many riffs about him that our teachers would have made. We just didn't give a shit about him. Elvis was hot shit a decade before I was born. His "comeback" was a couple of years after I was born. His death happened while I was alive, and was big news. But for most of my peers, Elvis wasn't a iconic cultural guy we cared about. Godfather was 1972. You're dealing with kids that were born 1992 +/- 2 years. That's like Sinatra to me, who was even further removed from me as a kid than Elvis. Sure, I knew who he was because he would do Carson or some show like that. Folks would parody / impersonate him. But would I get Rat Pack riffs? Did I know any of the movies he'd been in? Many songs? Not really. It's also why I mentioned the Bard. You don't get anymore hyper-canonized than the bard. People still "read" in the 70s and 80s relative to now, where they read tweets online. But not a one of my peers gave a flying fuck about the Bard. Romeo & Juliet they knew, simply because everyone was forced to watch it in Jr. High. But 30-40 years prior to us? 80-100 years prior to us? Everyone with the level of education that we had would have known a decent amount about Shakespeare. This isn't something new. It's been going on since Radio ruined the world... and Movies ruined the world... and TV ruined the world... and 100 channels of Cable ruined the world... and now the interwebs have changed everything. Not. Really. It's just a continuation of what we've seen over the past 90 or so years since radio came along and the movies took off. For fun: try to recall what your friends thought of Mozart and LVB when you were kids. Then think about what people with our level of education would have thought of those two in say 1900, which was still decades past their death. Our generation, relative to the one prior to us, were the same as kids today relative to us. John

As far as how over he was, it depends upon which Vince McMahon-like version of his bio you read. I've seen ones where he got a three-picture, $30M deal with Universal in 1983 off Vacation and Mom making $60M each that summer. Was he kicked off the production of them? Again, depends on the bio. In the end, he is the only person with a writing credit on either of then, which wouldn't be unique for someone getting the the boot for re-writes, but also we've seen plenty of movies where the rewriters are listed as well if it's a major rewrite. He shot TBC after Sixteen Candles. It was part of his Universal deal, as was TBC and Weird Science... which oddly enough lines up with 3 movies before heading off to his Paramount deal. Again, it all depends on the bio one wants to point to, and Hughes' track record in the 80s bouncing back and forth from Universal to Paramount to others was one of being a giant pain in the ass for studios to deal with. When he was successful, they put up with it. When he wasn't, they really didn't want to have a lot to do with him. The "Brat Pack" did. The individuals didn't exactly. Like I said, Sheedy was over from WarGames. Perhaps because Broderick has gone on to such a long career, and we think of Ferris as his iconic movie of the era, we tend to forget how big of a hit WarGames was at the time. It was big enough for Sheedy to get a another film before TBC with another Brat Pack actor: Rob Lowe. Molly was over from Sixteen Candles, not to mention people noticing her even before that in The Tempest. And I'm telling you at the time that Hall got on the map for that movie as well, after people had noticed him in Vacation. Here's Ebert putting over Molly strongly, and adding Hall to the list of "effective" performances: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sixteen-candles-1984 That was at the peak of Siskel & Ebert, shortly after they were so over on freaking PBS that they got a syndication deal before the mass of cable came along and people started watching all sorts of thing. Ebert praising Molly in that role was the rule, not the exception for how critics viewed it. Nelson never was anything, so yeah... TBC put him over on his way to a shitty career. It was Emilio's break through, but not at all dissimilar from the earlier movie of his that I mentioned. I don't think it had a short run at all. BoxOfficeMojo.com shows 10 weeks of box office, at which point it was down to making $1M a week at a time when it had just over $10M left in the tank (it had made $35.2M and would end up at $45.9M). Another 10+ weeks in release for a movie that by it's 10th week was down to #13 in the box office with May and the summer box office around the corner... it's not a short release. First Blood made $47M. Sly had only two movies that ever made $100M. I don't think anyone thought it would make $150M at a time when $150M was a shitload of box office. In turn, Back to the Future was the biggest movie of 1985 in terms of box office, so big that its number wouldn't be match until Batman in 1989. No one thought it was going to be that huge. It was #1 all the way to September, and still had another $50M left in the tank after it fell off the top spot. It was a Phenom. I believe I said it was a hit and a success. My comments about it in response to Loss putting over Molly is that Molly wasn't even close to huge. Within the context of pro wrestling, Hogan is Sly... just bigger. On the bigger picture of US stardom, it's hard to so relative to the Brat Pack. Hogan had longevity as the face of pro wrestling, while the Brat Pack were largely disposed of. Some have had good careers, though no one really has been a superstar other than Demi Moore at her peak (relative to women/actresses). Someone like Rob Lowe has had a good career, with lots of work and landing in a pair of series for decent lengths of time. But he's never really been Bill Cosby / Ted Danson level on TV, and his biggest hits in film was as a supporting character. It's a good career, and there are thousands of actors who would take it. But he's never gotten as huge as one could have projected if things broke right. Of the group, only Demi has hit or exceeded any level one could have projected for her... and good lord there are a ton of bombs strewn across her career. She's clearly famous, some of it tabloid / marriages, but... hard to comp with Hogan. John

I don't fully buy it. I deal with people 15 years younger than my 47 who have no reference point for Ghostbuster or Animal House riffs. Really, by the time people were watching USA, there was a ton of other stuff on much like the internet now. There was far less available when I was a kid in the 70s on though the mid-80s: Cable didn't have the same penetration, we had 3 networks, a few other local channels. Something like the Godfather was a massive movie when it came out in 1972 (one of the biggest box office movies to that point), and then a massive TV event when it finally aired (with Coppala going all Godfather Saga on the two movies). Still... my age range was a little young for it as a hole: 6 when it came out, very early teens when it hit TV. It meant something to me because my folks took me with them to see GF2 (I was 8), and let me watch the Saga when it was on TV. But not all of my peers saw it. And as we moved past it to people born in 1976 rather than 1966, it starts to lessen. The masses always focus on the Now, especially younger folks. Elvis fans didn't listen to Frank. For Beatles fans, Elvis was the prior decade. When I was a kid, Paul was backed by Wings, George was past his prime, John was retired, and Ringo's peak was over and dead. I became a Beatles fan, but if there were 5 Beatles fans at the time in my entire high school class it would shock the shit out of me. I cann't remember getting a single "Cool!" comment when wearing my Beatles shirt, though plenty for wearing a Stones shirt since they were still releasing albums. As youtube and the internet and 800 channels increased the lack of interest people have in things past, or the speed with which stuff becomes "old"? Perhaps. I suspect that folks would say the same thing about Radio and TV, and how they killed reading and going to plays and people enjoying reading the classics. Shakespeare? I was the only person in my class to take all of the classes offered on him at my high school. I know this because the same guy taught the classes, and he made the comment to me that it had been a decade since anyone took more than one of them. In the first class I took with him, I was literally the only person who would laugh at the Bard's jokes when we were reading them outload, which the first few times would cause the teacher to look up, a quizical look on his face trying to figure out whether I was laughing *at* the kid reading the lines, or actually laughing at lines that were intended to be funny by the author. He eventually got it, but I'd still see him take a quick peak up from time to time with a smile on his face that reflected: "Finally, after all these years... a student who gets this and enjoys it." And I'm not pulling that out of my ass: he actually said it to me in the second class I took with him. That was 1983-84. Go backwards to say 1863-64. I suspect you'd still have a lot of 16-18 year old kids who found the Bard boring as all fuck. But I'd also suspect a teacher at a decent school would find more than 1 a *decade* who enjoyed Bill and though someone like Falstaff was a fucking riot. Shit changes over time. Technology has caused a lot of it. But I think the differences between the 70s/80s and Now are far less radical than the 70s/80s and say 1900s/10s. When we get up at arms over someone not knowing our Animal House riffs, it's little more than someone getting up at arms about "kids these days don't get my riffs about Mr. Darcy" "Hey... wait a minute. I saw that BBC/Masterpiece Theater/Kira Knightley film!" Again, this: Seriously... Ghostbusters was 1985, nearly 30 years ago. Who would expect a kid born in 1995 to give a fuck about it. I was born in 1966. Elvis was 1956, and I've never really given a shit about his movie except a song or two. Herb Albert and his Tijuana Brass Band? They had hits in my lifetime, including a #1 in the period after I started listening to music... and I've never cares about him. But there's little doubt that he, and Elvis, means a lot to someone. In turn, some of those folks don't know who Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Bonzo and JPJ are... and to be honest, it doesn't matter to me. No impact on my enjoyment of Zep.

This is known in TV-land as "hammocking". Put a weak show in between two stronger ones. In this case they didn't want to hammock. They wanted shows that could hold their leads. The classic example was the start of NBC's "Must See TV" Thursday's becoming a dominant force: 1984/85 - 1991/92 8-8:30 Cosby Show 8:30-9 Family Ties / A Different World 9-9:30 Cheers 9:30-10 Night Court / Wings 10-11 Hill Street Blues / L.A. Law The whole thing looked like this in terms of annual ratings: 3-1-1-1-1-1-5-18 Cosby 5-2-2-2-3-4-4-17 Family Ties / A Different World 12-5-3-3-4-3-1-4 Cheers 20-11-7-7-11-15-x-19 Night Court / Wings 30-x-x-12-13-16-23-28 Hill Street Blues / L.A. Law Cosby was Hogan. Family Ties / A Different World were tremendous in holding a large chunk of Cosby's lead, and both died without it (Family Ties when moved to a bad day, and Different World the minute Cosby ended his run). I don't think a lot of people viewed Family Ties as a weaker show, in fact MJF was bagging Emmys left and right as MPK in the show. It was seen instead as a natural "family based" sitcom to pair with Cosby. In turn, Different World was a spin off from the Cosby show though younger in the storylines / themes it targeted. Cheers was Macho Man, or Flair: not as strong as Cosby, but ended up with a long run and really good ratings. It's largely remembered now as the best comedy of the era. The 9:30-10 time slot took a hit when they tried to move Night Court to another night to act as an anchor. Night Court was a lesser series than Cheers, but pretty fitting with the zany cast of characters revolving around one general setting (a Bar in Cheers and the Night Court of the title). Also... it bagged quite a few Emmys as well for a certain actor. It survived 4 seasons after the move, two with decent ratings in the Top 20. Makes you think that sitting behind Cheers probably could have given it another 2-3 years in the Top 10. Anyway, they had issues filling that spot: those #11 and #15 spots were for series that didn't hold the killer viewship draw from 8-9:30 well enough into the 9:30-10 slot. Wings eventually took over the spot at the tail end of that run. The 10-11 was a change of pace: NBC's Crown Jewel Drama. Hill Street Blues and LA Law won a combined 8 of 11 Best Drama awards from 1981-91. The spot wasn't expected to hold the viewership, but was expect to do decently well: deliver prestegie to the network, but have enough viewers to justify the 10-11 Must See spot. Jesse's point is how NBC viewed these covert time slots: even shows that were of quality got bounced out of those spots if they couldn't hold the enough of leads of big hit shows like Friends and Seinfeld. Even shows like Seinfeld and Friends started out in those tweener spots as the network was looking for hits. It's frankly mind bending to look at the number of shows they ran through in the 8:30-9 and 9:30-10 slots in Friends/Seinfeld era. Probably should have known at the time that they weren't going to come up with stuff of the lightweight hit level of Friends / Mad About You or the quality hit level of Seinfeld / Fraiser after those shows ran their course.