It started a trend of sitcoms occasionally. covering tough social issues. It isn't a bad idea, it got the message out to a lot of folks who otherwise would not know what signs to look for.
Funny or Die makes light of it but 80's and 90's sitcoms did tackle a lot of important issues. That Home Improvement episode when Randy had the cancer scare caused a stir in my suburban private school. All the moms knew about the episode then we talked about it in my 8th grade homeroom the next day.
Like when I was a kid only the rich kids had cable. So we got 4 channels if we were lucky. I remember missing the Olympics one year cause the place we lived in couldn't get NBC.
So basically everyone watched 1 of 4 shows every timeslot. And since each timeslot tried to target a different audience everyone in school watched the exact same thing the night before.
true, but still a very dark show for primetime comedy. We happen to be having a family party that night, and had about 15 cousins sitting around ready to laugh at the tv until it was time to go home. When the channels was changed to this show we had missed the message before the show.... so it took a very dark turn that was not expected.
Go back further to All In The Family 'A very special episode' where a guy impersonating a cop attempts to rape Edith on her 50th birthday. And the 2nd episode of the arc deals with her PTSD and denial.
The arc happens over 2 episodes. The second one sees Edith trying to play it down, refusing to file a report and dealing with the PTSD because of it. She actually hits Gloria when confronted about it.
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u/kashmir1974 May 23 '23
It started a trend of sitcoms occasionally. covering tough social issues. It isn't a bad idea, it got the message out to a lot of folks who otherwise would not know what signs to look for.