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TEST OF TIME: Painfully Uneven, Irritating to Watch Today...CONTINUED

posted 13 years ago by LesterFester
4 replies | jump to latest

This is a continuance of another topic but zeroing in on the time element ... I remember watching the first few years and I must have thought it was funny or I wouldn't have bothered . My thoughts now are that the show does not stand up to the test of time. Watching it the other night on PBS was painful. Before people criticize me for appling todays standards to yesteryear : I think The Marx Brothers, Monty Python and Benny Hill would have a greater general appeal to today's audience than Laugh-In. (I was not around during the Marx Brothers era and only remember Benny Hill when it was well into its re-run life)

" Three can keep a secret, if two are dead "

[–] millerdsplaydzign 13 years ago

Not sure what to tell ya. Any time topical humor becomes part of a show's format, it risks losing the "test of time", but it is up to the individual to decide whether the show as a whole still holds any appeal.

I still love the show; still love the performers, their mood and message, and "Laugh-In" still can make me laugh.

Its descendant, "Saturday Night Live", has always relied on topical humor as well, and I have no problem re-watching episodes going back as far as the first season, either. But it's mostly the performers, characters, and personalities which, like those of the Beautiful Downtown Burbank variety, never fail to entertain me in spite of time sensitive jokes, politically specific references, or other material which, by its nature, had a very brief shelf life.

[–] TeOfLeDiKi 12 years ago

@millerdsplaydzign: Agree, for the most part. If we look at certain comedies and compare how well they've stood the "test of time," we find that shows like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners stand up well because the humor was in everyday things. Yes, some of the references are dated, of course, and some of what they did was questionable by today's standards, but ILL has been running more or less continuously on TV for the past 60 years straight. More modern sitcoms like The Golden Girls, Cheers, and Frasier also stand up fairly well because their humor was centered around human relationships. TGG had more topical humor, though, which many audience members now, 25 years later, don't get. The comedy in Seinfeld is much more problematic - although the jokes and gags are still more or less funny, they wrote whole episodes based on contemporary stories - the Harding/Kerrigan scandal comes to mind. If you weren't "there" when that happened, it's very difficult to get the references of Jerry's girlfriend "Gilloolying" someone or why it was funny when her shoelace broke.

neat . . . sweet . . . petite

[–] willjohn 12 years ago

It was a show made for the 1960s. The humour was contemporary (Richard Nixon was in 3 episodes). Nobody expected it to go forever.

[–] hack-stone 9 years ago

I just watched the first two episodes on a Rhino box set. It is the first time that I have watched entire episodes. I was only four or five when it initially aired, and Laugh In was not allowed in our home (I think the Catholuc Church may have spoken out against it). Political comments on contemporary issues may generate a lot of laughs at the time, but they rarely hold up ten, twenty, or thirty years later. I have the same issue with earlier seasons of SNL. Looking at season 1 of SNL, those episodes don't seem as funny as I recall. Political jokes tend to have a short shelf life. Someone above mentioned I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners, but for a show that seemed to hold up after 50 years, look at The Dick Van Dyke Show. Carl Reiner made a concerted effort to keep topical references out of the episodes, and it paid off. As for Laugh In, I can't see myself investing anymore time watching the discs. I'll be returning the box set to my coworker tomorrow.