Undertaker > Hogan

[JerryvonKramer]

You are such a boring bastard.

 

I don't care what anyone says, it was fucking INCREDIBLE to me that The Undertaker or any wrestler was mentioned in that book.

[jdw]

John, the point is that a lot of old shows were marketed as new for a second run. The Monkees performed at the MTV Video Music Awards and had second wave of popularity in the mid 80s.

Most of the "second wave" was Nostalgia base. If you went to Monkees concert, the number of Adults would be far greater than New Fan Kids.

 

As far as true popularity:

 

1966-68 Peak

 

Singles

#1 - "Last Train to Clarksville"

#1 - "I'm a Believer" (B-Side "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone" went to #20)

#2 - "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You"

#3 - "Pleasant Valley Sunday" (B-Side "Words" went to #11)

#1 - "Daydream Believer"

#3 - "Valleri"

#19 - "D. W. Washburn"

 

Albums

#1 - The Monkees (13 weeks at #1)

#1 - More of the Monkees (18 weeks)

#1 - Headquarters (1 week)

#1 - Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (5 weeks)

#3 - The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees

 

1986-87

Singles:

#20 - That Was Then, This Is Now

#79 - "Daydream Believer - Remix"

#87 - "Heart and Soul"

 

Album

#72 - Pool It!

 

It's not just that the Monkees were wildly more popular at their peak: it's that their "popularity" in the 80s was wildly overplayed. Folks thought "That Was Then, This Is Now" was cute and shit... then they bombed in sales. Flat out bombed. Their concerts did decent business: not great, but decent enough for a washed up oldies band.

 

 

The Brady Bunch is a show that became more popular in syndication.

It really didn't. It's puffiery. If they were more popular, one of the major networks would have bought up the episodes and aired one each Friday at 8:30 because it would have pulled in more than at least one of them was drawing... and would have cost wildly less money that paying the cast and Creative and Directors of Step by Step. I mean... you don't think Duffy & Somers and all those kids were working for less than the residuals for Brady Bunch?

 

Step By Step never got into the Top 30. It's hardly in the sub conscience of America, certainly not like Duffy's more famous role (Bobby Ewing) or Somers (Chrissy in Three's Company). But it ran for 7 years, had more episodes than The Brady Bunch, and made Duffy and Somers more money than the entire cast of TBB was paid. Why?

 

Because it actually was more popular in 1991-97 than The Brady Bunch.

 

Just like TBB was more popular in its run that re-runs of Leave it to Beaver of Dennis The Menace or Make Room For Daddy, which were in syndy.

 

 

I can pull out a "These glasses make me look positively goofy", "His name? George, George Glass" or "Oh my nose!" in just about any setting with just about any age group and get a laugh, because it is probably the most re-aired sitcom of all time.

I doubt I could have in our department lunch yesterday and gotten any. Age range of about 40-60. Of course "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" would have gotten at least a couple.

 

 

By and large, I agree with you that most people are interested in what's current. That's probably true at least 98% of the time. But there are exceptions and I think we're downplaying the impact of things like syndication, re-runs and parents.

Parents have always existed. The equiv of syndication/re-runs has existed since at least the 60s. They still exist.

 

What the running theme of this is that something has magically changed in the last few years and/or decade in younger people being more or less interested in stuff from the past. And that's a massive stretch.

 

John

[jdw]

Original version of the post:

 

You are such a boring bastard.

Which fits with:

 

You sure showed him

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

What has changed is that people aren't watching tv, so the rerun that picked up millions of incidental numbers just by being on is effectively lost. Those people who used to be watching tv are now online doing other shit.

 

Why do you reject this patently true phenomena? TV numbers are in terminal decline. The internet doesn't work like tv, it requires active choice. Most people -- just as the tosser SLL correctly put it -- don't go out of their way for things.

 

They might not change the channel if a rerun comes on, but they aren't going to seek out that show if left to their own devices.

 

This appears obvious and self-evident to me. It's also *shock horror* a change.

 

Save the 10,000 word dissertation on why you think that's wrong because it isn't wrong, it's basically the case. Just say "yes that's true Jerry now you mention it" and then shut the fuck up for once.

[jdw]

What has changed is that people aren't watching tv, so the rerun that picked up millions of incidental numbers just by being on is effectively lost. Those people who used to be watching tv are now online doing other shit.

No shit.

 

"Back when I was a kid, we didn't have TV. We read. Kids today don't read."

-My Dad in the 70s

 

As I pointed out several threads ago but you seem to ignore, The Internet / Online is just the latest chapter in tech evolving and changing the world... with people like Neal Gabler and you pretending that the same exact shit wasn't going on with tech when Young Neal and Young Jerry were kids and that cranky older people like Older Neal and Older Jerry weren't stuff out of the air that doesn't hold up with five seconds of thought.

 

I gave you the example of Neal's hook intro in the article that you loved so much you had to drag it over here. The same exact stuff was going on 30 year ago when Neal was a movie reviewer on National TV. Neal is either too stupid to remember (which I don't buy since he's not a complete dumbfuck) or just too much of a cranky bastard to give five seconds of thought to, "Hmmm... was there anything like the Spidey Reboot back in the 80s of a major epic blockbust from the 70s? Hmmm..."

 

You of course chose to ignore that as well. Which is par for the course.

 

 

Why do you reject this patently true phenomena? TV numbers are in terminal decline.

So are books and newspapers. People in my youth were linking them, and if we go back further I'm sure we'll find Marrow talking about TV killing stuff of.

 

That was my point several threads back: this is the same shit that's been going on for generations. Radio was killing books. TV killed radio, and was going to kill movies. Etc., etc., etc. They are all just step forward in tech, which have always impacted what was before them.

 

 

The internet doesn't work like tv, it requires active choice. Most people -- just as the tosser SLL correctly put it -- don't go out of their way for things.

You're losing me here.

 

* We chose to connect to our internet content by turning on our receiving device.

* We chose to connect to our television content by turning on our receiving device.

 

* We chose to which internet content to watch by selecting it from a variety of options.

* We chose to which television content to watch by selecting it from a variety of options.

 

* if we don't like the internet content, we turn it off or select something else.

* if we don't like the television content, we turn it off or select something else.

 

Same thing for internet music vs owned/stored music vs radio music. We actively turn on the device, select what we want to listen to, switch off/over if we don't like something.

 

Reading this message board is no more active than reading The Nation when I get it in the mailbox: I having to actively get both, and then actively chose what to read from them.

 

The decision making process is the same. The tech that provides the content is different.

 

 

They might not change the channel if a rerun comes on, but they aren't going to seek out that show if left to their own devices.

There are kids of my gen who watched the Brady Bunch. There are kids a but younger than me who watched Saved By The Bell, and talk about it like my gen did TBB. There's a later age bracker that would have a Nick or Disney show that's more recent: I suspect we have some posters who were of the age range that watched Clarissa Explained All. Another later one around Hanna or Wizards of Whatever Place. Hoback's son watches Kickin' It.

 

Kids, left to their own devices, are selecting stuff to watch.

 

 

This appears obvious and self-evident to me. It's also *shock horror* a change.

Again: it's just another brick in the advancement of tech. Which people are bent about the CHANGE~! just like people in prior gens were getting bent about extremely similar change.

 

Okay... let me draw a little analogy for you.

 

Remember those crackpots who didn't want Black People to marry White People? They had all sorts of reasons for it, including Tradition and pointing to The Bible, and that it would Ruin The Country.

 

They happen to be the same arguments as people are making against Same Sex Marriage.

 

Seriously. One doesn't have to change much in the Interracial vs Gay Marriage protestations to find the commonality.

 

That's what this whole thing is. You're arguing against Same Sex Marriage with the same "Holy Shit Change & Hellfire!!!" stuff that people were rolling out against prior changes in the 80s and 70s and 60s and 50s... and probably the 1850s on something else.

 

 

Save the 10,000 word dissertation on why you think that's wrong because it isn't wrong, it's basically the case. Just say "yes that's true Jerry now you mention it" and then shut the fuck up for once.

Why would I say that you are correct when you're wrong as usual. I mean... that piece by Neal that you dragged over here to restart this discussion was utter shite. When point out that it was utter shite, you won't even defend it. Standard stuff.

 

John

[goodhelmet]

As am I.

 

But you went to school. How much of the kids in your school, from elementary through high school, would regularly talk about an old TV show that was repeated the prior day... or something current?

 

--- I don't remember talking about old shows or new shows at school. It was sports and toys.

 

Same with music?

 

--- Once again, this isn't as cut and dry as me being the odd ball. I grew up on military bases so my friends all had different influences in music. I learned about so much old music through friends who really were just listening to their parents music. Of course MTV and VH1 were around playing new songs AND old songs. Was anything bigger than 1984 or Thriller or Purple Rain at the time? Probably not but we weren't oblivious to it the same way I feel like kids today are oblivious to stuff that happened just 5-10 years ago.

 

Same with movies?

 

--- Again, not as cut and dry. We went to the theatre to watch new movies but it was real common to find kids watching old movies on their VCRs back in the 80s.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

Count me in the group who grew up liking old(er) music and movies over the new stuff. Most of the kids I grew up with were the same so there was always chatter about about older stuff. I can still remember talking about Black Sabbath's debut album with my 4th grade teacher. This would have been around 1991.

 

TV was a different story since I lived out in the sticks and didn't get cable until I was 17 or so. A lot of us only got the newer shows that popped up on the networks. But nobody ever really talked about TV shows -- mainly wrestling (WWF) and sports.

 

I wonder if kids today buzz about the verbal battles JDW and JVK wage against each other on PWO?

[ohtani's jacket]

What has changed is that people aren't watching tv, so the rerun that picked up millions of incidental numbers just by being on is effectively lost. Those people who used to be watching tv are now online doing other shit.

A lot of them are watching TV after 11pm it would seem -- http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/2003-1...g-viewers_x.htm

[ohtani's jacket]

It really didn't. It's puffiery. If they were more popular, one of the major networks would have bought up the episodes and aired one each Friday at 8:30 because it would have pulled in more than at least one of them was drawing....

Why would a production company do this?

[JerryvonKramer]

What has changed is that people aren't watching tv, so the rerun that picked up millions of incidental numbers just by being on is effectively lost. Those people who used to be watching tv are now online doing other shit.

A lot of them are watching TV after 11pm it would seem -- http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/2003-1...g-viewers_x.htm

 

This is interesting, although I'd want to know how many "young viewers" even own a TV vs. 10 years ago.

[JerryvonKramer]

What has changed is that people aren't watching tv, so the rerun that picked up millions of incidental numbers just by being on is effectively lost. Those people who used to be watching tv are now online doing other shit.

No shit.

 

"Back when I was a kid, we didn't have TV. We read. Kids today don't read."

-My Dad in the 70s

You're missing the point of what I'm arguing. The pre-TV generations weren't all reading the same books at the same time, they were off doing their own shit / reading different books at different times. Culture was actually more heterogeneous before mass media. Why? Because there were sharper divisions between the various different pockets of culture. TV acted as a kind of democratization of knowledge and culture. It made things accessible. It gave vast swathes of people a set of shared reference points.

 

But above all: TV was an amazing instrument for getting millions of people to watch the same thing at the same time.

 

Let me repeat this phrase so that it might resonate with you:

 

TV was an amazing instrument for getting millions of people to watch the same thing at the same time.

 

millions of people

 

same thing

 

same time

 

Got it?

 

The Internet / Online is just the latest chapter in tech evolving and changing the world...

This statement is really meaningless, especially if you follow the logic of your argument. So you admit the internet is changing the world, but the fact it's merely the latest technology to be changing the world has the net effect of continuity and of not actually changing anything? Work that one out.

 

Here's all I was saying:

 

The internet delivers content in a fundamentally different way (from TV) by offering "on demand" content. This leads, as I've explained already, to a few key changes in the way people consume content and in what people know:

 

1. Super hits spread by word of mouth across social media. See Breaking Bad. In this way, you still get the big show that everyone broadly watches at the same time. These shows are necessarily new. I am not "against" that. I've also never denied that new stuff is naturally going to be the most popular thing at any given time, that's obvious and natural. No one with an ounce of sense would deny that. The only real change here from the hit TV shows of old is that the "word of mouth" happens globally.

 

2. It generally means that people only consume media they think they want to be consuming. This actually manifests in a reduced amount of total time watching TV. The main consequence is that it GREATLY reduces the amount of incidental "by the by" viewing that that any given person would have done 10-20 years ago. This is where old stuff -- re-runs, showings of movies and so on -- start to fall by the wayside. Before, just on your sofa, you might have caught something you didn't think you'd enjoy just by leaving a given channel on. TV habits aren't like this any more. People are more targeted. They'll watch Breaking Bad and Breaking Bad alone and then go on Facebook or watch another show they like "on demand". Surely you can see this? I've labelled the old form "passive osmosis", which I think is greatly declining.

 

3. One possible consequence of this is that if a child grows up picking and choosing whatever they want, they no longer pick up "incidental knowledge" of tv shows and films that they would have consumed more or less passively in the past. It leads to this disconnect with the past that many social commentators and studies have identified.

 

4. It leads to my other key thesis here that shared cultural knowledge of the past is in sharp decline with the current generation.

 

"But Jerry, but Jerry, back in the 1967 kids were like that too! They didn't care about the past either!"

 

Sit down and think about what I'm really saying here. I'm not saying that kids from the 70s-mid-00s particularly CARED about the past, I'm saying they just picked up a hell of a lot of it through passive osmosis. This doesn't happen if the internet is your primary tool of content delivery.

 

What can't the internet do that TV can?

 

Well, while it can encourage millions of people to watch the same hit TV show at the same time, it can't make millions of people watch the same OLD TV show or OLD film at the same time. Compared to TV, it is hopeless at this very specific function.

 

Why? Because there are thousands and thousands of websites out there recommending key tv shows and films. The net effect might be the handful of interested people all go and watch different stuff.

 

Now let's think about the random TV showing of Ghostbusters in 1996 that got 20+ million viewers just because it was on at 9pm on a big network.

 

There is literally no comparison. Now 20 million people know and have seen Ghostbusters. The internet simply CANNOT replicate that. Evidence suggests that young people are not engaged with TV in the same way. Many don't own TVs. Many watch content from online sources. You'll never get millions of them watching the same old thing at the same time.

 

Do you see and acknowledge how that's a real change?

 

with people like Neal Gabler and you pretending that the same exact shit wasn't going on with tech when Young Neal and Young Jerry were kids and that cranky older people like Older Neal and Older Jerry weren't stuff out of the air that doesn't hold up with five seconds of thought.

This is not me being cranky. I mean I do hate the attitude of people simply not caring about things because they are old, but my argument does not derive from that hatred. It derives from an observation of a genuine social change.

 

I don't give a shit about Neal, by the way, I didn't even quote that to kickstart this conservation (as if I'd want to rehash all this with YOU of all fucking people), the context of me posting that was Mookie's thing about the "Millenial" generation. I read the Wiki article and the Neal article and posted it here. Did I say I approve of Neal's article? Where? When? I just said I despise the attitude he describes.

 

The same exact stuff was going on 30 year ago when Neal was a movie reviewer on National TV. Neal is either too stupid to remember (which I don't buy since he's not a complete dumbfuck) or just too much of a cranky bastard to give five seconds of thought to, "Hmmm... was there anything like the Spidey Reboot back in the 80s of a major epic blockbust from the 70s? Hmmm..."

 

You of course chose to ignore that as well. Which is par for the course.

I hope the nuances of my argument above -- once you understand them -- can deal with this basic non-point. This is not about me saying "oh fuck the youth and their love of the new", this is me saying "hmmm, there are reasons why these kids don't know anything, it's because they don't watch old stuff on TV like we used to".

 

You see the distinction?

 

Why do you reject this patently true phenomena? TV numbers are in terminal decline.

So are books and newspapers. People in my youth were linking them, and if we go back further I'm sure we'll find Marrow talking about TV killing stuff of.

TV was its own phenomenon. It created its own paradigm. I am saying that the internet is now killing that paradigm.

 

What you're missing, in your usual Stalin-esque crude way of approaching these things, is that each of those changes also came with consequences. Books were never homogenous mass media like radio and TV were. You might have had hit novels, but you didn't get millions of people reading the same OLD books at the same time. Didn't happen. Radio and TV were homogenous mass media. TV especially, through re-runs and showings, was able -- almost effortlessly -- to get millions of people watching the same OLD shows and OLD films at the same time.

 

Also, note, I'm not saying that the internet is killing TV shows, I'm saying that the internet is killing something very very specific: lots of people watching the same old shows at the same time.

 

I don't think I could be any clearer or more coherent on this.

 

That was my point several threads back: this is the same shit that's been going on for generations. Radio was killing books. TV killed radio, and was going to kill movies. Etc., etc., etc. They are all just step forward in tech, which have always impacted what was before them.

This point therefore is completely irrelevant to what I'm saying. If I was actually making the argument that the internet was killing TV shows in general, you'd have a point. As it is, you're simply putting words in my mouth.

 

 

 

 

You're losing me here.

 

* We chose to connect to our internet content by turning on our receiving device.

* We chose to connect to our television content by turning on our receiving device.

* We chose to which internet content to watch by selecting it from a variety of options.

* We chose to which television content to watch by selecting it from a variety of options.

* if we don't like the internet content, we turn it off or select something else.

* if we don't like the television content, we turn it off or select something else.

If it's not already abundantly clear, I am talking about something really specific.

 

Teenager in 1997:

 

* A show he likes is on at 9pm[show X], it is 8pm

* He sits down and puts on the TV on the channel that will be showing his program.

* It's still 8pm and he watches the show that precedes show X -- he doesn't particularly want to watch it but it'll do for an hour

* It's now 9pm and he watches show X

* It's now 10pm and the network is showing a film made in 1976

* He gives it a go and watches that too.

 

Teenager in 2013:

 

* A show he likes is on Netflix [show Y], it's 8pm

* He watches show Y

* It's now 9pm and he does something else

 

Quibble all you want with the specifics here, that's my broadbrush take on what has changed. Multiply that evening hundreds of times over years and years. How much stuff is the first teenager seeing that the second one would never ever even think of watching? It's hours and hours of stuff.

 

Of course people ALWAYS had a choice, but I'm saying the practical experience of watching TV and watching content online are not the same at all.

 

Shit, one has a schedule the other is completely free form dictated by your own choice alone.

 

The decision making process is the same. The tech that provides the content is different.

The decision process for watching show x is the same, but the way you receive the content may affect what ELSE you do that evening.

 

There are kids of my gen who watched the Brady Bunch. There are kids a but younger than me who watched Saved By The Bell, and talk about it like my gen did TBB. There's a later age bracker that would have a Nick or Disney show that's more recent: I suspect we have some posters who were of the age range that watched Clarissa Explained All. Another later one around Hanna or Wizards of Whatever Place. Hoback's son watches Kickin' It.

 

Kids, left to their own devices, are selecting stuff to watch.

I don't care to discuss specifics like this. It's a derailment and of no actual interest. The proportion of kids who will actively seek out a given old show on the internet as opposed to the number who just happen to catch an old show after their favourite show is much much smaller.

 

EDIT: I've toned down the vitriol a bit. I meant every word of it, but hey, it's Xmas and even jdws have feelings

[S.L.L.]

I am shocked - SHOCKED - by the notion that people of any age group in any generation gravitate towards things that are readily available rather than things that you have to go out of your way to hear about and find. That's unpossible!

Was this some snarky attempt at lampooning my position on this? If so, go fuck yourself. One of the least considered, most ill thought out contributions anyone has made to this thread to date. Dick.

 

Actually, it wasn't, although it certainly looks that way, doesn't it? I initially wrote this as sort of a summation of the points John and Will were making, which in turn seemed more in response to the article you quoted rather than your own take on it. It was only after I posted it that I realized it was right after your post, and that it looked like a response, but it's not. I've stopped trying to argue with you. No good comes of it - you refuse to have your views challenged about anything ever, and that's that. Fine. Unlike you, I will not let something as simple and commonplace as a contrary opinion diminish my enjoyment of a message board.

 

No, that post was not meant to be snarking at you. This post is meant to be snarking at you, but that one was aimed at this Gabler bozo. If you were angered by that post, I'm sorry. I genuinely did not mean it that way, and I realize it totally looks like I did, so I can understand you being upset. If you're angered because you attached your ego to Gabler's article, I'm not sorry. I meant what I said, and if you don't like it, that's your problem, not mine. If you're angered by this post, I'm not sorry, but take comfort in the fact that I generally don't respond to you anymore about anything, because I know I can handle walking on eggshells around your posts and you can't do the same with anyone else's even if you literally use the ignore feature on them twice, so I generally avoid participating in threads you're in unless I'm going to post something I know you'll find inoffensive. Getting into shouting matches that the mods have to come in and break up accomplishes nothing, so I just don't do it anymore, and I don't intend to start again now.

[Slasher]

I think this debate is pretty stupid, honestly. It's pretty clear that every generation tends to be insular, because it seeps deep through to our psyche. Whatever happens in every individual life is what is important to us. We are born alone, we die alone and everything that happens in between belongs to us. Some people like things that happened outside their life, so they are more diligent in seeking those things out, but generally we are pretty content in letting life flash in front of our eyes. For example, I love old movies and I think if I could, I would own a movie theater and sit in watching all the old stuff, but guess what? I'm generally going to be found watching the movies that comes out in the present moment, because that's what we do. Things tend to be interesting when we fill up our schedule with a variety of flavors in life, present stuff included. I don't fault people for not bothering to seek out old stuff and just focusing on what is flashing in front of them. It doesn't speak poorly to those people, because to be fair, there is a negative stigma to the idea that someone could "live in the past" and lose a sense of the connection that they would have in whatever is happening in front of them. To an extent, "Life is what happens when you are busy making plans" can be modified to "Life is what you miss out when you are busy hunting down the yesteryear".

[Sidebottom]

Something I've often thought is that people enjoy content a lot less these days, because it is more accessible and people care less. In 1997 if there was a film I wanted to see, I'd either have to go out and buy it, or if it was on the TV, feel excited that I was getting it and watch/record it. On both occasions I'm getting excited, I'm preparing some snacks for the occasion - life is great.

 

These days people download 3 or 4 films at once, and just casually watch them without the same level of intent or enthusiasm, and are all just too quick to go online and slag something off for a number of reasons.

 

Back in the day if I had two films, two games - whatever. it would be logical to pace them so I could give them both fair attention. These days, I dare say people watch a film at 11pm - 1am with work in the next morning, barely paying attention.

[JerryvonKramer]

I am shocked - SHOCKED - by the notion that people of any age group in any generation gravitate towards things that are readily available rather than things that you have to go out of your way to hear about and find. That's unpossible!

Was this some snarky attempt at lampooning my position on this? If so, go fuck yourself. One of the least considered, most ill thought out contributions anyone has made to this thread to date. Dick.

 

Actually, it wasn't, although it certainly looks that way, doesn't it? I initially wrote this as sort of a summation of the points John and Will were making, which in turn seemed more in response to the article you quoted rather than your own take on it. It was only after I posted it that I realized it was right after your post, and that it looked like a response, but it's not. I've stopped trying to argue with you. No good comes of it - you refuse to have your views challenged about anything ever, and that's that. Fine. Unlike you, I will not let something as simple and commonplace as a contrary opinion diminish my enjoyment of a message board.

 

No, that post was not meant to be snarking at you. This post is meant to be snarking at you, but that one was aimed at this Gabler bozo. If you were angered by that post, I'm sorry. I genuinely did not mean it that way, and I realize it totally looks like I did, so I can understand you being upset. If you're angered because you attached your ego to Gabler's article, I'm not sorry. I meant what I said, and if you don't like it, that's your problem, not mine. If you're angered by this post, I'm not sorry, but take comfort in the fact that I generally don't respond to you anymore about anything, because I know I can handle walking on eggshells around your posts and you can't do the same with anyone else's even if you literally use the ignore feature on them twice, so I generally avoid participating in threads you're in unless I'm going to post something I know you'll find inoffensive. Getting into shouting matches that the mods have to come in and break up accomplishes nothing, so I just don't do it anymore, and I don't intend to start again now.

 

No problem dude, sorry for calling you names

[NintendoLogic]

They just showed a Radio Shack commercial during the Super Bowl featuring various 80s icons like ALF, Dee Snider, and Chucky from Child's Play. Hulk Hogan was one of the characters included. Molly Ringwald was not.

[Kevin Ridge]

Well that settles 19 pages of debate between Hogan and Ringwald.

[tigerpride]

They just showed a Radio Shack commercial during the Super Bowl featuring various 80s icons like ALF, Dee Snider, and Chucky from Child's Play. Hulk Hogan was one of the characters included. Molly Ringwald was not.

Was the Wendy's lady there?

[Loss]

Such an easy response to that but I don't want to get into this debate again.

[goc]

Where's the beef?

[artDDP]

I was pretty sure I saw Sgt. Slaughter, too.

[cheapshot]

Here's the commercial:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUwwZHdx6SU

 

Here's the behind the scenes featuring Sarge and Hogan:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULdGUhnyh0

[Matt D]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DOCegPA8Pw

 

Hogan could totally do a neck wringer on someone at Mania. Forget this hosting crap. It's right there. Neck Wringer.

[C.S.]

A great commercial, but I don't know if it had the intended effect. It reminded me of how much better Radio Shack used to be, and how irrelevant it is now.

[Matt D]

http://thedissolve.com/features/career-view/419-the-broken-down-grace-of-bill-murray/

 

Some people might be interested in this. It's a pretty good read.