MovieChat Forums > The '90s: The Last Great Decade? (2014) Discussion > Why did they dedicate an entire segment ...

Why did they dedicate an entire segment to The West Wing?

posted 11 years ago by mphsss
9 replies | jump to latest

They seemed to talk about NBC shows more than anything else. Just looked up Nat Geo, apparently they're actually owned by Fox. But anyway, I found it odd that they talked about the significance of that show while leaving out the following:

1994 Northridge earthquake

Titanic - all they needed to do was show Leo screaming "I'm the king of the world." in the previews and it would have been fine.

The Matrix

Basic Instinct - pissed off feminists I guess.

Forrest Gump

Disney animated films revival

There was a flash of an SNL clip but I really think they should have done a section about Wayne's World. Possibly Hartman's murder and Farley's death. Even if it was just an excuse to show Rob and Chris "Brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug." or the scene at the gas station. Oh, that just reminded me, they could have shown a blip of the Chippendales skit with Farley and Patrick Swayze.

They didn't seem to talk about Ruby Ridge when talking about Waco and Oklahoma City.

1996 Olympics bombing

North Hollywood shootout that made police departments realize they needed more than pistols and shotguns.

Left Eye burning down Andre Rison's house.

Versace's assassination.

"Cop Killer" controversy. I think Bush and Quayle even spoke out against the song.

Elian Gonzalez

Whitney singing the National Anthem - to contrast Roseanne's.

Pulp Fiction

Letterman/Leno feud - I dunno, maybe they just didn't wanna feel obligated to show Bette sing to Johnny.

I dunno, I just felt like the show had an agenda with some of the stuff they included and it became a little silly after a while. When you dedicate 6 hours to a show and there's so much stuff left out in exchange for some of the stuff they put in there, it comes across a little pathetic!

[–] halomaniac88 11 years ago

Elian Gonzalez was huge I remember my social studies teacher talked about this in class for like a whole month.

There was way more celebrity bs than necessary tbh.

[–] mphsss 11 years ago

They didn't mention JonBenet Ramsey either! I think if Kerrigan/Harding, Roseanne's national anthem, The West Wing, Macarena, and the Bobbitts get a story that Gonzalez should have been discussed too.

Oh and couldn't they have discussed at least one of the following:

Gangsta's Paradise, Amish Paradise which seemed equally popular, Furbys, Snoop's arrest in '93, Barney, Teletubbies (to discuss the Jerry Falwell accusation that because one of them was purple that it was gay), Spice Girls, Mr. Bucket, Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, MMMBop, Showgirls, the Lemmon/Matthau movies, Nixon's funeral, Reagan's Alzheimer's letter, "Baby Got Back", Hammer's parachute pants, Marky Mark, Ninja Turtles, Sega Genesis, In Living Color, MADtv, Mrs. Doubtfire, Pierce Brosnan becoming James Bond (maybe there was a clip and I just don't remember!), Magic Johnson announcing he had HIV, Dream Team, Michael Jordan winning 6 championships, his father's murder, playing baseball, and Space Jam; Beanie Babies, Home Alone, The Sopranos, NYPD Blue, 7th Heaven, Buffy, Animaniacs, One Saturday Morning. There wasn't even a mention of Cheers ending in '93. There's also the plane crash on the White House lawn, Giga Pets, Garth Brooks, RuPaul, Terri Schiavo, stabbings of George Harrison and Monica Seles, the bizarre sudden deaths of Raul Julia and Jim Henson, the shooting at the Capitol in '98, and the insanely successful careers of Jim Carrey and Tom Hanks.

Above everything else I was expecting them to talk about Michael Jackson's first trial or marriage to Lisa Marie.

[–] jeffnova 11 years ago

I guess they figured most of that stuff was already pretty well covered on vh1's I love the '90s.

[–] mphsss 11 years ago

My list wasn't originally going to be that long but ideas just kept coming. I should remove the pop culture stuff and stick to the real life events. Oh and I just thought of this, there was no mention of El Nino! I remember a period in the late 90s where that's all I heard. I think it was probably some time around Hurricane Georges.

I Love the 90s was what I thought about when I saw they were doing this. I remember asking what the point was since VH1 did that probably over 10 years ago.

[–] jeffnova 11 years ago

Yes. Forgot all about El Niño. Then we had La Niña. Lol.

[–] mphsss 11 years ago

For some reason I can't remember La Nina. Maybe I'd tuned out so much by then that I just never heard them say it, or maybe I assumed they just changed the name and made all this crap up as they went along!

I feel guilty for not learning who MJ was until 1995 when he released Scream. That was the very first song I heard, and of course I only knew the chorus. In fact it took me several more years to learn that Janet sang it with him, and by then I was pretty familiar with Thriller, courtesy of Revenge of the Nerds. So I think my becoming aware of him was kinda in reverse order.

[–] jeffnova 11 years ago

Not as newsworthy as the molestation charges, but MJ's marriage to Lisa Marie was certainly one if the most surreal events of the '90s. I find it quite insulting when these mega superstars make outrageous assertions and expect us to buy into it. Some of his fans were so blindly devoted to him though that it I guess it was to be expected. What would Michael be telling us now (had he lived) that his kids have revealed themselves to be Caucasian.

[–] Steppy412 10 years ago

I must have missed that part. I would have preferred to see the segment on The West Wing, I hate documentaries on the "dot com" bubbles.

[–] mphsss 10 years ago

Were the Seattle WTO riots as big of a deal as the show made them out to be? I only heard about them by flipping through channels and finding a movie called Battle in Seattle. I'd never even heard about the conflict until then. I guess part of my issue with the 90s is that I personally feel like 1999 is almost a completely separate era from the early 90s. Life doesn't yet feel as far removed from Y2K as it does from things like Vanilla Ice, the Macarena, Waco, Roseanne, and Arsenio. Columbine still seems recent in a way. Slightly more than Oklahoma City and OJ. Desert Storm and 1993 WTC really can't seem long ago since both had encores.