Word: tv
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...watching alongside their kids and struggling to keep up with the cast changes (which one is Phil Hartman?). Still, an anniversary for Saturday Night Live -- which will mark the start of its 15th season with a prime-time special next Sunday -- is more than just a routine occasion for TV nostalgia. The pressing question: Is Saturday Night still alive or merely on life support...
Saturday Night Live was not just another television show; it was the show that changed television. When it made its debut in October 1975, Carol Burnett and Sonny and Cher were still the definition of hip TV comedy. NBC's new late- night series burst onto that scene with a countercultural whoop. It brought to TV, for the first time, the comic sensibility of the '60s generation: anti- Establishment, idol-smashing, media savvy. The show seemed to break new ground almost weekly: pushing the boundaries of permissible language and subject matter, rejuvenating political satire, breaking the "fourth wall" to make...
...sometimes reject comic ideas with the put- down "That's Carol Burnett." It was their code language for material that was too broad, too mainstream. Saturday Night Live may not quite have become the Carol Burnett Show of the '80s, but complacency has crept in. Perhaps it was inevitable. TV anniversaries, after all, serve another important function. They remind us that shows grow...
...well-connected sleazeball who recruits naive high schoolers to North Carolina State with visions of national TV, number-one rankings, superstardom and sports cars, only to sit them on the bench? The racist manipulator who covers up his players' drug problems, illiteracy and criminal tendencies without trying to get them help? The egomaniac who pressures professors and administrators into preserving eligibility for Wolfpack cagers in his single-minded pursuit of NCAA glory and the all-mighty buck...
Much of his idealistic 11-point plan is equally unrealistic. Eliminate weekday games? Split tournament TV revenue equally among all teams? Even Lehigh? Eliminate booster groups? Appoint Dan Quayle "ombudsman for college athletes...