MovieChat Forums > Longstreet (1971) Discussion > Similar (?!) TV Shows

Similar (?!) TV Shows

posted 3 years ago by CarolTheDabbler (585)
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The main page for this Longstreet discussion forum begins by briefly describing the show and naming its main cast members. Then there's a list of "Similar TV Shows" (including some movies), but except for Banacek (about an insurance investigator) and Dragnet (a cop show), none of them strike me as particularly similar to Longstreet. Some of the entries are things that Bruce Lee was also in, so I've been assuming that was their main criterion, but when I tested that hypothesis just now, it accounts for only five more of the dozen entries. So what gives?

The "similar" list is currently made up of the following, with * denoting those that IMDb lists Lee in:

*The Big Boss
*Fist of Fury
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In
*The Way of the Dragon
The Rat Patrol
Dragnet 1967
*Game of Death
Banacek
*The Green Hornet
Rawhide
The Ghost & Mrs. Muir
The Man with the Golden Arm

Has anybody got some ideas what the criteria for this "similar" category might actually be?

[–] CarolTheDabbler (585) 3 years ago

I said "currently" above because I thought I remembered a few of the shows in the list having been different -- and I was apparently right. Here's the now-current list (with new entries marked by "&"):

Banacek (1972-74)
The Big Boss (1971)
Fist of Fury (1972)
The Way of the Dragon (1972)
Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967-73)
Game of Death (1978)
The Rat Patrol (1966-68)
Dragnet 1967 (1967-70)
The Green Hornet (1966-67)
& Cannon (1971-76)
& The Lone Ranger (1949-57)
Rawhide (1959-65)

Note that The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and The Man With the Golden Arm have been dropped, Cannon (a private investigator show) and The Lone Ranger have been added, and the remaining entries have been considerably rearranged -- over just the past week and a half.

I'm now reasonably certain that this list is computer-generated, and is quite possibly re-generated each time the page is loaded. The entries change, gradually. So what is the algorithm? About all that the whole list has in common is the general era when they were first aired (1949-1978, but mostly circa 1970); I've noted the years of each show's run this time (Ghost & Mrs. Muir was 1968-70 and Man With the Golden Arm was 1955). A few of the shows also have considerable guest-star overlap with Longstreet: Rat Patrol with 8 actors, Banacek with 21 actors, and Rawhide with an amazing 54 shared actors, including James Franciscus, Peter Mark Richman, and Ann Doran!

One thing that really puzzles me is why The Investigators -- the first series where James Franciscus played an insurance investigator! -- is not included. Perhaps the algorithm includes the popularity of the show on this site? (The Investigators has no posts at all so far.)

[–] CarolTheDabbler (585) 3 years ago

Just had another thought -- maybe "similar" means "the same people have been posting on their discussion pages," or as other sites might put it, "if you like this show, then you might also like these." That would explain the Bruce Lee overlap and the slowly-changing result. It might also explain why The Lone Ranger (1949-57) is in a list with mostly 60s & 70s shows -- the same people watched the Ranger, when they were kids. I don't see how it explains The Man with the Golden Arm, though -- a 1955 noir film about a drug addict is hardly kiddie fare!

[–] CarolTheDabbler (585) 3 years ago

I'm pretty sure that, as I conjectured last time, popularity with the same MovieChat members has something to do with the "similarity" mentioned here.

I just checked to see how often MovieChat considers series starring JF to be "similar" to other series starring JF:

Naked City lists none of JF's other series (and none of them list Naked City), possibly because JF was in only the first season, so it's not one of "his" shows in the same sense as his other five.

The Investigators lists Mr. Novak, Longstreet, Doc Elliot, and Hunter.

Mr. Novak lists The Investigators, Longstreet, Doc Elliot, and Hunter (as well as Youngblood Hawke).

Longstreet lists none of JF's other series (or movies), apparently because the show is so popular among Bruce Lee fans that most of the "similar" shows (seven at last count) are Lee's credits.

Doc Elliot lists Mr. Novak, Longstreet, and Hunter (but not The Investigators).

Hunter lists The Investigators, Mr. Novak, Longstreet, and Doc Elliot (as well as The Valley of Gwangi, Puzzle, and The Great Sex War.)

One problem with my "popular with the same people" theory is that the MovieChat discussions for The Investigators, Mr. Novak, Doc Elliot, and Hunter have no posts! Neither does the discussion for The Great Sex War -- and even more puzzling, it appears that no one has ever seen the movie itself, yet it's rated at 5.8/10 on IMDb!

[–] CarolTheDabbler (585) 3 years ago

A few more thoughts on the above:

MovieChat's "Similar TV Shows" algorithm could be a combination of having the same MovieChat fans and the same cast members. This could explain why the Naked City page doesn't list (and isn't listed by) pages for JF's other series -- MovieChat doesn't list him in the cast. It could also explain why the pages for his other series tend to list each other, despite there being no posts on their MovieChat pages -- JF *is* listed in the cast for each of them. Note: Cast members seem to be copied from each show's IMDb page.

Now I'm trying to figure out how The Jackie Gleason Show is "similar" to Naked City (well, both were produced in New York -- but so were a number of other shows back then). The Gleason Show is a good example of IMDb's rather peculiar system of determining the "top" cast -- it lists the Gleason Show's stars as Jack Lescoulie (the announcer), The June Taylor Dancers, and Ray Bloch (the band leader), whereas a typical viewer would presumably name Jackie Gleason (duh!), Art Carney, and Audrey Meadows. I think IMDb's system is supposed to be based on how popular each cast member has become in the intervening years, but I don't see how that explains its ranking of the Gleason Show's stars.