Netflix doing well now, is that good?

Wasn't Netflix always doing well? Most people choose that streaming service over all the other ones for years now I thought.
 
Ya but ... play a youngster some Beatles or ABBA and they may like (unless they're into rap, in which case, they're near hopeless) both.

Another cashier story. A really cute 20-YO at a different supermarket was a Cuban, who grew up in Montreal and thus spoke French natively. We've joked around before, so when going through the line, I said, "Je t'aime". She blushes a little. I add quickly, "It's a famous song" - "By who?" - "Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin" - "When did it come out?" - "1970". She just shook her head.

I can't get my kid to like anything. Lord knows I've tried. Basically anything I love she thinks is dorky and old. I even showed her The Princess Bride. She didn't love it. Not into any music made before the year 2000. The oldest movie she likes is Clueless. The only two things we've both enjoyed together is Stranger Things and the TV show Community. It just is what it is. There are worse things to be disappointed about in your children.

You can’t force them to like something, but you hope that exposing them to these other things will broaden their horizons and they can at least make up their own minds/develop their own tastes based on “more info”, so to speak. I’m quickly approaching my mid-40’s, now, and I’ll be perfectly honest, 90%-95% of Elvis and The Beatles I don’t like. But there are also artists/songs that I like now, that I didn’t when I was younger. I have always had an appreciation for Classical, though. My music library on my iPhone is very eclectic, to say the least.

Generation gaps are scary the first few times you stumble across them and fall in. I remember driving into a shoot one morning, years ago, listening to Sirius 80’s on 8 and they wished Martha Quinn a happy 50th birthday(she’s 61, now). I was like, holly cow, where has the time gone? So when I arrived to the shoot, I said to my producer, who was younger(late 20’s maybe, because I was in my early 30’s), “Can you believe Martha Quinn is 50, now?” and she just looked at me and said, “Who’s Martha Quinn?”.
 
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I had to make some doctor's appointments for mom. Talking to a lady at the office. "Your mom can come in to see Doctor Buzzi" - "As in Ruth Buzzi?" - "Huh, what, who?"

Ya, I know. Too obscure of a reference.
 
You can’t force them to like something, but you hope that exposing them to these other things will broaden their horizons and they can at least make up their own minds/develop their own tastes based on “more info”, so to speak. I’m quickly approaching my mid-40’s, now, and I’ll be perfectly honest, 90%-95% of Elvis and The Beatles I don’t like. But there are also artists/songs that I like now, that I didn’t when I was younger. I have always had an appreciation for Classical, though. My music library on my iPhone is very eclectic, to say the least.

Generation gaps are scary the first few times you stumble across them and fall in. I remember driving into a shoot one morning, years ago, listening to Sirius 80’s on 8 and they wished Martha Quinn a happy 50th birthday(she’s 61, now). I was like, holly cow, where has the time gone? So when I arrived to the shoot, I said to my producer, who was younger(late 20’s maybe, because I was in my early 30’s), “Can you believe Martha Quinn is 50, now?” and she just looked at me and said, “Who’s Martha Quinn?”.

I personally always had an aversion to movies or music that was being pushed too hard on me. Maybe because I didn't like being told what to do. Or maybe because I thought - if this is so great, why does it need such a hard sell?

Maybe the best thing to do is come home with a brown paper bag with classic DVDs inside and tell your wife you're going to watch Buster Keaton after the kids go to bed. If they ask who he is, just say you'll tell them when they're older. They'll be watching it from the other room through the staircase posts lol.

PS - I don't know who Martha Quinn is. Or Ruth Buzz. But there are big gaps in my pop culture knowledge from my own high school era plus growing up we didn't get TV service, so I can never tell when I miss a reference if it was before my time or if I just wasn't cool enough to get it.
 
I personally always had an aversion to movies or music that was being pushed too hard on me. Maybe because I didn't like being told what to do. Or maybe because I thought - if this is so great, why does it need such a hard sell?

Maybe the best thing to do is come home with a brown paper bag with classic DVDs inside and tell your wife you're going to watch Buster Keaton after the kids go to bed. If they ask who he is, just say you'll tell them when they're older. They'll be watching it from the other room through the staircase posts lol.

PS - I don't know who Martha Quinn is. Or Ruth Buzz. But there are big gaps in my pop culture knowledge from my own high school era plus growing up we didn't get TV service, so I can never tell when I miss a reference if it was before my time or if I just wasn't cool enough to get it.

You're way too young to have probably watched the launch days of MTV where Martha Quinn was a VJ. And 100% you never watched Laugh-In, that was on when I was a kid and I'm old. Knowing pop culture is overrated. I am a ninja at Trivial Pursuit, I know a little about a LOT of things and it doens't make you any money. So who cares?
 
I remember Kurt Loder, Beavis and Butt-Head and Singled Out with Jenny McCarthy.

There is probably more that I'd be surprised I forgot about.

TRL with Carson Daly was big too. And Jackass.
 
I saw the American classics in reruns on independent or PBS stations - the Marx Brothers, 3 Stooges, Bogie, Gable, Grant, Tracy, Hepburn, Stewart, I love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Beverly Hillbillies, the Munsters, Andy Griffith, Bob Newhart, MASH, All in the Family, Laugh-In, SNL, Happy Days, MTM, Sanford & Son, Welcome back, Kotter, the Odd Couple, Courtship of Eddie's Father, etc.

Then watched a bunch of other popular shows as their aired - Dallas, Incredible Hulk, Mork and Mindy, Taxi, Three's Company, Charlie's Angels, Cheers, Night Court, Hill St. Blues ... and most soaps that were on - General Hospital, Santa Barbara, One Life to Live, Days of Our Lives, Another World, Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Capitol.

And I practically don't watch any TV anymore.
 
You're way too young to have probably watched the launch days of MTV where Martha Quinn was a VJ. And 100% you never watched Laugh-In, that was on when I was a kid and I'm old. Knowing pop culture is overrated. I am a ninja at Trivial Pursuit, I know a little about a LOT of things and it doens't make you any money. So who cares?

I’ve gotten some free beer and wings out of it...

I watched Laugh-In on Nick at Night when I was a kid at my Grandparents house.

I guess the thing that really got me, was that I figured it was just such an obvious pop-culture reference and we all worked in TV, that my producer would have known who she was. Especially with Sirius having a lot of the original VJ’s as DJ’s, now. Oh well. Now I have to deal with it with my current GF of 11 years who is actually several years older than me. I still have to explain so much to her... Most of the time now, I’ll just look at her for a few seconds, say never mind and walk off.
 
I remember Kurt Loder, Beavis and Butt-Head and Singled Out with Jenny McCarthy.

There is probably more that I'd be surprised I forgot about.

TRL with Carson Daly was big too. And Jackass.

For some reason, I absolutely hated Beavis and Butt-head when it debuted, but came around on it. Didn’t liked Jack-ass, either. And still don’t. Nor TRL. And The Real World is the reason we have so much crap TV, today. MTV really was the devil. Lol. I did really like Remote Control, though.
 
For some reason, I absolutely hated Beavis and Butt-head when it debuted, but came around on it.

I was the same way with south Park. Took me a while to appreciate its genius. I find that every cult classic has a kernel of brilliance, even if I don't personally enjoy it. (Even the Kardashians...)
 
I was the same way with south Park. Took me a while to appreciate its genius. I find that every cult classic has a kernel of brilliance, even if I don't personally enjoy it. (Even the Kardashians...)

I have kind of the opposite experience with stuff. I loved Beavis & Butthead and South Park at the start, but after a couple seasons I quit watching. Doesn't have anything to do with a decline in quality, just with some shows, at a certain point, I've had my fill and don't feel like I'm going to get anything new out of it. Same with the Simpsons.
 
Sure, quite possibly. (I thought Family Guy flamed out extra quick.)

I don't mean that I enjoyed later seasons more than earlier seasons. I mean that I didn't enjoy the first season much at all until viewing it again later. You see?

But with regard to "getting your fill" - I feel like it's just about writing. Which is...complicated. I've been watching Star Trek TNG in sequence, starting with the 3rd season. I watched a bit of the first 2 seasons but sort of skipped them. The writing was rough and the lighting/production value was patchy. The 3rd season was getting good. The 4th season even better. Season 5 I'm on now and I'd say it's genuinely good TV. Not EVERY episode, but a bad season 5 episode is as good as a good season 3 episode. I've read some "best of" lists that say that TNG's best seasons are 4 5 and 6, implying that it peaks in season 5. I imagine it will flame out by season 7 as the writers ran out of creative things to do with the characters. That doesn't mean it was impossible to do new stories and take the show in new directions. Just - they didn't. And if the Simpsons is making the same joke that it made 10 times before, then clearly it has nothing new to offer.
 
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It's often not the repeat of the same joke or the same story type but the replacements in the writing staff. Top writers - and top writers aren't always the executive producers of a given show - get other opportunities, often for a lot more than their old bosses are willing to pay. (it's a bit like the free agency in the NFL this way) It's what happened with pretty much all the best sitcoms of the 1990's - Seinfeld, Simpsons, Married w/Children, Larry Sanders, etc. Very few programs managed to maintain their quality throughout their runs.
 
Right but writing is an idea, a story, not a person. A "good" writer can have a bad idea and vice versa. Larry David is still writing Curb but I thought the most recent season had a steep drop-off in quality. (BTW the episode some seasons back where he gives Lewis his kidney was pure genius start to finish.)

Sometimes writers run out of inspiration or variations on a theme.
 
This is more about the cable TV but ....

According to media research analysts LightShed Partners, WarnerMedia is spending between $4 billion and $5 billion on content this year for HBO Max (at least half of that on originals), while Disney has a $2 billion to $3 billion targeted for Disney Plus, with half of that going to new shows. Comcast is believed to be committing $2 billion to Peacock in its first two years as well. (These are all pre-COVID projections; the pandemic will likely change some of these plans.)

What is happening to movie theater chains is also happening to the cable TV. And for the same reasons too.

Meanwhile, “cord cutting,” once pooh-poohed by the cable industry as a myth, has become a real threat: The number of pay-TV households peaked in 2010 at 105 million; now it’s down to approximately 82.9 million. And a study last year by eMarketer forecast that number to dip to 72.7 million by 2023. Now, it’s cable that’s on the ropes — and struggling for survival.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/r-p-cable-tv-why-130052877.html
 
That is a precipitous decline in cable subscriptions. Driven by millennials like me :). Never had a cable subscription in my life.

Probably the inevitable outcome of selling an extortionate product with limited options and composed of 20% mind control media that interrupt your story with no regard for what was happening.

Still, I shouldn't be too overjoyed. Decline of the media industry is bad for all of us
 
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