You know how there's all of these random people on the internet who make elaborate videos for youtube or create pointless (yet entertaining) websites? They always seem like incredibly time consuming things and you wonder who these idiots are and how they have the time and energy to devote to making this stuff? I'm talking about things like this. No seriously, LOOK AT THIS. Try and comprehend the fact that someone did that. It's what I spend all day thinking about.
Anyway, I have ideas that I would love to waste time on but never do. One such idea is a website devoted to cataloguing stories from old TV shows and movies that no longer work because of today's technology.
Yes, I can imagine internet users around the world stopping by this website, nodding their heads and smiling, ever so slightly amused for about 2 seconds, then returning to the Huffington Post. It's quite a dream.
Well, that dream is never gonna happen. But I'll just say that I was watching Beverly Hills 90210 and Steve Sanders found out that his Dad was running a sweat shop. He spent all day dealing with the consequences, and thus forgot that he was supposed to take Hillary Swank and her dumb kid to Magic Mountain.
If this were to be made today, you'd have to explain why Hilary Swank didn't just text Steve "where are you?" or "Hey dumbass, we're supposed to be going to Magic Mountain now". You can see the difficulties cell phones cause in crafting stories, especially TV stories. It makes me wonder if the degree of difficulty is truly higher these days in making plots work. Or are we all just so used to it now that it's the same as it ever was.
I didn't think too much of the 90210 thing because you see that type of shit all the time. But then a few hours later an episode of Friends came on. After Rachel complained of not being able to find her Walkman, an Encyclopedia salesman stopped by Joey's apartment and there's an entire runner of him trying to sell Joey an encyclopedia.
Okay, first of all, I don't even believe that Walkmans were normal to have back then. Second, Rachel Green seems more like a discman type.
The fact is these would be great examples for my future website that will never happen. Oh well. Another million dollar idea down the drain. But I'll be on the lookout for more of these because if you haven't noticed, I actually do have a blog that I waste a ton of time on.
6 comments:
One of the best examples from "Seinfeld" is the Chinese restaurant episode where George spends most of the episode trying to use the pay phone to call his girlfriend.
Not to mention in the Friends episode, not only do people not go door to door selling encyclopedias anymore, but print encyclopedias are virtually extinct now.
Hey Irwin, what are your thoughts on this year's black list? I'd love to hear you bash the obviously terrible and see which ones you think may be interesting.
And we thank you...very much!!
i didn't examine the blacklist as intensely as i usually do but nothing egregious stood out. but i'm gonna go through it again and see if anything pisses me off, which is pretty likely.
Don't worry, cell phones just suffer the same problems the transporters/phasers/warp drives do in Star Trek: Anytime it's absolutely necessary that the gadget gewgaw works, FOR SOME REASON, it doesn't...
And I'm not advocating that it's good writing to do this, just that it's being done. Just go back and (try to) watch 24 - they were the "masters" of cell phone drama...
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