The Golden Age of Television?

I've been watching TV ever since I can remember. From children's shows like Rugrats and movies like Tarzan, Toy Story, and Bug's Life to TV MA shows like South Park and Beavis and Butthead and movies with Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey to sitcoms like The Fresh Prince, Full House, and Roseanne, I watched everything from a young age. This was because my dad is awesome, and let my brother and I watch what ever he was watching, as much as my mom or grandma didn't approve. I think we turned out alright though, so there was nothing to worry about in the end. All it gave my brother and I was a great sense of humor, almost too good at times. We have joked before on how it seems hard to find certain things, that many people find funny, to be funny because we have been blessed with seeing such funnier things.

I was informed in class last week that we are living in the golden age of television programs. My initial reaction was, "No way!", but then I started thinking, "Wait, this could very well be true." In my experience watching old TV shows with my dad, I have learned that shows used to be pretty corny with bad acting. Nowadays, the acting is wonderful, the sets and props look very real and are high quality, and the plots have people obsessed with the shows. This is seen in shows like Breaking Bad, TV drama series that end nearly every episode with cliffhangers that have you counting down the days to the next one. I think that in the TV Drama department, we are definitely living in the golden age.

Another department that I feel we are doing well in TV wise is the spin on "America's funniest home videos" department. With shows like Tosh.0 and Ridiculousness, I feel this is a great time for these types of shows. Not to mention, the help of the internet with the creation of this new take on an old classic.

There is a couple places, however, where I feel we are really lacking compared to the late 1980s to early 2000s in TV. The first is the children's chow category. All of the shows I have seen my younger cousins watching are ridiculous and stupid. They leave out the moral to the story that is supposed to come at the end of every children's show. Instead, they all end with a bunch of odd looking creatures dancing to some dumb song because they got what they wanted. What type of message is that sending? It is isn't even teaching kids to win with some integrity, just dance around like an idiot whenever you get what you wanted. In life you hardly ever get what you want, but that is something I learned from a young age because I was taught by my cartoons (and my parents, of course, I have, after all, spent a lot of my life in a recession). Another place, for the moral reason and because the new ones just aren't funny, is the situation comedy department. There just aren't any good sitcoms on TV, anymore. Where are the Fresh Prince of Bel-Airs, the Full Houses, the Roseannes, and the Home Improvements in today's TV? These were all situated around a family who, at the end of the day, always had a good message to send, and many people could relate to and/or learn from them. All of these shows had good values in them that reinforced or echoed, so to speak, the same things being taught by your parents at home. There isn't anything like these shows today and it really saddens me.

Overall, I think the quality of TV produced by high definition TVs and HD cameras and such, has really catapulted the production of any show to have much greater potential than it did years ago. The plot writing by those in the TV drama department, along with this, has really caused that TV sector to boom, in my opinion. However, the sitcoms I loved are still missing from the modern TV guide. I guess you can't get the best of both at the same time (and that is a lesson you won't learn by watching any modern sitcom or children's show and that is what is wrong with them).