There were some Reality shows in the '90s. The only '90s Reality show that was a "Game show" was The Real World.

This is why I think '00s Reality is just Game Shows in disguise:

-Survivor is a game show
-All of the "Bachelor" shows are game shows
-American Idol is a game show, and is considered "Reality"

Relatiy Shows are not game shows and they never will be because Game Shows are great and Reality shows are stupid

Reality shows basically and essentially constitute rehashed, trumped up versions of the old contest shows like Star Search, combined with game shows and "hidden camera" shows and multifarious other influences, to create a new form of TV.

I never got the appeal of either game or reality TV shows.

Reality shows basically and essentially constitute rehashed, trumped up versions of the old contest shows like Star Search, combined with game shows and "hidden camera" shows and multifarious other influences, to create a new form of TV.

I never got the appeal of either game or reality TV shows.


They both make me sleepy.

Watching "I Love the 70's", I discovered that there were similar shows...


"Celebrity Bowling", "Battle of the Network Stars"... sound familiar  ::)  :P

They both make me sleepy.


I like some game shows - like I used to watch (and phone in to be a contestant) 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' religiously. Oftentimes I could reach about $64K+ playing at home. I'd often finding myself berating whoever is in the hot seat. I mean, normal people are just so dumb!  ;)

Nah, they are really crap in disguise (reality shows that is).  ;D

BTW, do people think reality TV is declining or just metamorphosing? I know there was actually an article in Time recently about how the jury is in regarding how shows about, say, cooking or fashion designing are killing the old Joe Millionaire shows, but even the fashion for those will probably eventually pass. Reality TV really peaked in 2002 and 2003.

BTW, do people think reality TV is declining or just metamorphosing? I know there was actually an article in Time recently about how the jury is in regarding how shows about, say, cooking or fashion designing are killing the old Joe Millionaire shows, but even the fashion for those will probably eventually pass. Reality TV really peaked in 2002 and 2003.


I think it will die right on 2010. It seems like a 2000-2009 thing.

"Almost Anything Goes"
Watching "I Love the 70's", I discovered that there were similar shows...


"Celebrity Bowling", "Battle of the Network Stars"... sound familiar  ::)  :P

BTW, do people think reality TV is declining or just metamorphosing? I know there was actually an article in Time recently about how the jury is in regarding how shows about, say, cooking or fashion designing are killing the old Joe Millionaire shows, but even the fashion for those will probably eventually pass. Reality TV really peaked in 2002 and 2003.

Yeah, if you count the first Survivor, or Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, you could say the "game/contest show" reality TV era was mid 2000-'03. The "activity oriented" ones will probably be more of a 2004-08 thing. I think we could say Reality TV in general is now where MTV was in 1987 -- still very much "in" and popular, but not the novelty/super cool empire it was in '83.

Yeah, if you count the first Survivor, or Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, you could say the "game/contest show" reality TV era was mid 2000-'03. The "activity oriented" ones will probably be more of a 2004-08 thing. I think we could say Reality TV in general is now where MTV was in 1987 -- still very much "in" and popular, but not the novelty/super cool empire it was in '83.


Yeah, it's in and popular, I'd say still, but it doesn't have the same inarguable market dominance it did around 2002, when all that was on TV was leftover late '90s sitcoms like That '70s Show and contest type reality shows. The "activity oriented" ones that you mentioned seem like a very 2006 thing, with the preoccupation on a more sophisticated/refined mid-'00s that characterizes this year. For example, Project Runway was a sleeper hit, and America's Next Top Model, American Idol, and all the ballroom dancing, homebuilding, and cooking shows are most likely peaking right now. Part of the competition for them is all the forensic dramas and primetime soap shows that started coming in around 2004. I agree about the MTV/reality show comparison. The reality era's death knell was in late 2004 when Desperate Housewives premiered, with the pure reality era being 2001-2003. Sitcoms are about at their lowest ever since the pre-1986 1980s. These seem to me to be the TV eras:

The Norman Lear Era-1970 to 1979
The Primetime Soap/Miami Vice/Corny Teen Sitcom Era-1980 to 1986
The New Sitcom Era (Subdividable into overlapping TGIF/Roseanne and "Frasier" type eras, and then a late one around 1998 and 1999 with the Will and Grace type shows)-1987-early 2000.
The Reality Era-2000-early 2004
The Primetime Soap/Activity Show Era-Late 2004-2008 (?)

I see a massive sitcom rebirth as being the next thing coming, around 2008.

Yeah, it's in and popular, I'd say still, but it doesn't have the same inarguable market dominance it did around 2002, when all that was on TV was leftover late '90s sitcoms like That '70s Show and contest type reality shows. The "activity oriented" ones that you mentioned seem like a very 2006 thing, with the preoccupation on a more sophisticated/refined mid-'00s that characterizes this year. For example, Project Runway was a sleeper hit, and America's Next Top Model, American Idol, and all the ballroom dancing, homebuilding, and cooking shows are most likely peaking right now. Part of the competition for them is all the forensic dramas and primetime soap shows that started coming in around 2004. I agree about the MTV/reality show comparison. The reality era's death knell was in late 2004 when Desperate Housewives premiered, with the pure reality era being 2001-2003. Sitcoms are about at their lowest ever since the pre-1986 1980s. These seem to me to be the TV eras:

The Norman Lear Era-1970 to 1979
The Primetime Soap/Miami Vice/Corny Teen Sitcom Era-1980 to 1986
The New Sitcom Era (Subdividable into overlapping TGIF/Roseanne and "Frasier" type eras, and then a late one around 1998 and 1999 with the Will and Grace type shows)-1987-early 2000.
The Reality Era-2000-early 2004
The Primetime Soap/Activity Show Era-Late 2004-2008 (?)

I see a massive sitcom rebirth as being the next thing coming, around 2008.


Yeah, I agree with all that. We're past the Survivor/Big Brother/Millionaire era. I think Desperate Housewives and Lost sorta created the era we're in now.

1987-2000 was a HUGE sitcom era, I've often said that too. You probably could divide it into '87-92, and '93-early '00, the first part belonging to more family oriented/cheesy Saved By the Bell, Full House-type stuff, and the second part being more office or friend-related shows (Seinfeld, Friends, Just Shoot Me). I also think in the post-1993 era, you could get away with more violence, sex and otherwise "taboo" things (i.e. The Contest from Seinfeld).

In a way, this made stuff like South Park (slightly) more accessible when it came. I think '94 is the first year that could've made it on TV.

Yeah, I agree with all that. We're past the Survivor/Big Brother/Millionaire era. I think Desperate Housewives and Lost sorta created the era we're in now.

1987-2000 was a HUGE sitcom era, I've often said that too. You probably could divide it into '87-92, and '93-early '00, the first part belonging to more family oriented/cheesy Saved By the Bell, Full House-type stuff, and the second part being more office or friend-related shows (Seinfeld, Friends, Just Shoot Me). I also think in the post-1993 era, you could get away with more violence, sex and otherwise "taboo" things (i.e. The Contest from Seinfeld).

In a way, this made stuff like South Park (slightly) more accessible when it came. I think '94 is the first year that could've made it on TV.


Yeah, you could easily subdivide 1987-2000 into a few waves of sitcoms. The first one that you mentioned was really jumpstarted by The Cosby Show premiering in 1985. I see that sort of a throwback to the '50s-early '60s family sitcoms; it probably even seemed a little dated at the time, which seemed to comfort people in the '80s. And of course it was followed by the success of sitcoms that had been bouncing around by the early '80s and stuff like Full House and the rest of TGIF. Roseanne, Married...with Children, The Simpsons were almost a reaction to Cosby, in terms of being more "realistic" and about middle-class to working-class families. The peak of this sort of show was like, 1992. Then there was the peak of the wave premiering from 1990-1994 in the mid-'90s, though those continued through the late '90s, and the sort of "final class" with Everybody Loves Raymond, Will and Grace, etc. The second and third waves were inarguable '70s, Norman Lear-era throwbacks, and the shows that premiered in the mid-'80s seemed more like updated '50s/'60s throwbacks. Part of the reason sitcoms have died so much is overexposure...there were SO many sitcoms on the air in the '90s that bringing back primetime soaps seemed like a good idea, for example, even if the current teen primetime soaps do root from stuff like Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, etc.

I think that those activity type shows and the primetime soaps are peaking around now, but the overexposure and copycat shows is what'll kill them, especially with the advent of cable. The activity type shows that are successful, like America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, etc. immediately have five imitators on some cable channel, and there will always now be cable networks like Bravo, A&E, MTV, and VH1 that are churning out inferior reality product. The primetime soaps are also being copied by the networks, probably...like there are too many forensic dramas at once now, and there were too many cop/legal dramas in the '90s. The death of the sitcom around 1980 (it's first real death, which shows this death isn't permanent) was caused by the end of the interest in the Norman Lear style social commentary/progressive sitcoms, since people in the early '80s were more eager to forget the "progress" of the '70s. That, and overexposure...there were too many sitcoms in the '70s.

Bump...

Reality Shows = Game Shows of the 00's.

the real reality shows are shows like the surreal life and my fair brady and hogan knows best. although, most of them are somewhat rigged and or scripted

Are Reality Shows Game Shows in Disguise?


No way man. Reality based shows aren't a thing like games shows.

Reality based shows and Games shows are mutually exclusive.

Game shows are played inside a studio, with contestants who compete for prizes/money.

Reality shows are also played by contestants, but most of the time they're outdoors, and the contestants have to physically do stupid things, which includes literally getting dirty in most cases.

Bump...what do people think of my previous long post?

Bump...what do people think of my previous long post?


I thought it was long and boring to read.  Nobody wants to read that much text in one post

Bump...what do people think of my previous long post?


For a serious, non-sarcastic answer ( ;) ): I agree with you. The 1980-85/86 period in TV sitcoms did sorta seem like a return (or at least an attempted) return to the Innocence of the "I Love Lucy"esque '50s and '60s sitcoms. Even the "non family" ones like Cheers had a certain innocent/nonrealistic/unthreatening feel to it, then there were teenybopper-ish ones (also unrealistic, but fun and imaginitive) like Charles in Charge.

I would actually call Full House halfway inbetween the "Cosby" era and the "Simpsons era", in that it was serious at times and included real life situations more, but also had that "fluffiness/cheesiness" to it too.

For a serious, non-sarcastic answer ( ;) ): I agree with you. The 1980-85/86 period in TV sitcoms did sorta seem like a return (or at least an attempted) return to the Innocence of the "I Love Lucy"esque '50s and '60s sitcoms. Even the "non family" ones like Cheers had a certain innocent/nonrealistic/unthreatening feel to it, then there were teenybopper-ish ones (also unrealistic, but fun and imaginitive) like Charles in Charge.

I would actually call Full House halfway inbetween the "Cosby" era and the "Simpsons era", in that it was serious at times and included real life situations more, but also had that "fluffiness/cheesiness" to it too.


I think one of the main criticisms of Cosby, particularly from African-Americans, was how unrealistic it was. It was sort of a Reaganesque treatment of the race issue in that its solution was totally ignoring there being a problem, and just having the Cosbys seem white, while being black (that they were black never was mentioned.) I would also include in the teenybopper sitcom category The Facts of Life, Growing Pains, Diff'rent Strokes, etc. in that they mainly had an under 16 appeal.

The sitcoms that debuted after '94 were actually probably less serious than the ones that debuted '87-'94, for the most part. Like something such as Will and Grace...smart and sophisticated, but totally farcical.

I think one of the main criticisms of Cosby, particularly from African-Americans, was how unrealistic it was. It was sort of a Reaganesque treatment of the race issue in that its solution was totally ignoring there being a problem, and just having the Cosbys seem white, while being black (that they were black never was mentioned.) I would also include in the teenybopper sitcom category The Facts of Life, Growing Pains, Diff'rent Strokes, etc. in that they mainly had an under 16 appeal.

The sitcoms that debuted after '94 were actually probably less serious than the ones that debuted '87-'94, for the most part. Like something such as Will and Grace...smart and sophisticated, but totally farcical.


Sitcoms lost their 'social consciousness' aspect somewhere in the cynicism of the 90s - I think part of the reason was that people were sick of shows trying to drill morals into them, and gravitated towards mindless, instantly-gratifying entertainment. Shows like 'Will and Grace' - wonderfully flippant and farcical (not to mention unceremonious), and even more un-PC shows delivered entertainment in an era when people demanded instant entertainment.

Sitcoms lost their 'social consciousness' aspect somewhere in the cynicism of the 90s - I think part of the reason was that people were sick of shows trying to drill morals into them, and gravitated towards mindless, instantly-gratifying entertainment. Shows like 'Will and Grace' - wonderfully flippant and farcical (not to mention unceremonious), and even more un-PC shows delivered entertainment in an era when people demanded instant entertainment.


Yeah...I think around 1994 people got sick of the social consciousness of the sitcoms that debuted around the '80s/'90s cusp, which was a socially conscious period overall...as part of both the recession and the return of the blue collar, since the '80s was all about the fairly affluent to rich (just watch John Hughes movies, Miami Vice, or Cosby.) Seinfeld started the trend of less socially conscious and more "clever" sitcoms.

"Are Reality Shows Game Shows in Disguise?"

Shouldn't the question be :

"Are Reality Shows Television in Disguise?"

;)

Bump...