Word: 80s
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...That '80s Show (Wednesdays, 8 p.m. E.T.) is less a spin-off than a brand extension. Its characters never appeared on '70s, but it promises the same kind of pop-reference-intensive humor, this time with Miami Vice jackets, wine coolers and Rubik's Cubes. "The timing just fell together," says co-creator Linda Wallem. "All the radio stations were doing '80s at Noon. MTV had just celebrated its big [20th] anniversary." She and her '70s colleagues Mark Brazill and Terry Turner decided to build '80s around struggling musician and record-store clerk Corey (Glenn Howerton), just out of college...
Like '70s, '80s' pilot is heavy on the kind of cringe-worthy details (two words: animal prints) that characterize Gen X and Y nostalgia in general. Whereas baby-boomer touchstones like Brooklyn Bridge and The Big Chill recalled the '50s as more innocent and the '60s as more meaningful than the present, their successors tend to subscribe to the bad-yearbook-photo school of history. Instead of seeing the past as a lost Eden, they see history as an eternal march upward from dorkiness. The more memorable moments in the '80s pilot--already beaten to death...
...build a comedy out of shoulder pads alone. '70s also began life as a gimmick looking for a sitcom; what kept it fresh were its characters, especially Topher Grace's naive, deadpan Eric Forman and his tough love, frequently laid-off dad Red (Kurtwood Smith). '80s is full of unlikable stereotypes who were already well-parodied cliches two decades ago. There's Roger, the materialistic go-getter (Eddie Shin); there's Tuesday, a snarly punk with a spiked hairdo (Chyler Leigh) who delivers lines--"So I'm punk. Deal with it"--that an actual punk would sooner safety...
...plus side, the sound track revives some pleasures, including the theme song, Killing Joke's Eighties, which captured the decade better in a few minutes than the pilot does in half an hour. That '80s Show buys into the pop-historical arc, familiar from movies like Boogie Nights and Blow, in which the relatively innocuous, goofy '70s (pot, disco, TM) sour into the cold, aggressive '80s (coke, heavy metal, M.B.A.s). It's hard to cultivate warmth for a decade that you're portraying as soulless and lame, especially if your characters are equally empty. There's easy nostalgia (remember Dynasty...
...year. Heck, we'd chat with a totally with-it babe like Angie Dickinson for free Losers QUEEN ELIZABETH II Her Majesty may sacrifice her royal train to cut costs. She'll give up the train, maybe even the stage coach, but never, ever, the palanquin ADAM ANT '80s rocker sent to the shrinks for waving a gun at a London pub. He used to do that in feathers and makeup and called it a "video" MEL LASTMAN Toronto mayor in trouble after shaking hands with a Hell's Angel. He says he'd been hanging with Nazis...