Could Blazing Saddles or All in the Family come out today?

I like how the instances of shows not being PC are cartoons or on pay cable. Shows like Family Guy and South Park can get away with anything because they are both such cash cows for the channels that they're on that the producers don't have to answer to anyone in the case of South Park or in the case of Family Guy, they barely have to answer to anyone.

It's funny because while network TV has gotten more PC, it's also gotten less family friendly. What shows on network TV can kids under 10 watch? I think of the shows I watched as a kid, and while I'm not claiming any of it is great TV, I'd love a few shows that families can watch together.

 

Define "more PC" please.

And let's not forget that the network TV business model is quite different now than it was in 1972.

 

I think it really depends on your definition of PC. Premarital sex is standard fare. Racism gets scolded when it's broached at all.

 

Network TV has always been "PC". Norman Lear might have had a lot of shows on in the 1970s, but nearly every show that surrounded it was saccharine by today's standards. Watch a crime show from the 70s. While I love some of them, they are laughably arcane. No way you're seeing a CSI-style burned up corpse in The Streets Of San Francisco.

Family Guy and South Park also get away with things because they have cartoons doing the talking. A live action Family Guy or South Park would be a lot more risky because networks would assume that viewers would tie the views of the characters to the live actors themselves.

 

All in the Family today would be done with a single-camera, no studio audience. Archie Bunker would be played by Tim Allen, Edith by Nancy Travis...and instead of talking about race and politics, they'd talk about American cars vs. imports; Classic rock vs. dance music and how Clint Eastwood would kick Harry Potter's ass.

 

I think the Norman Lear stuff (Jeffersons, All in the Family) are clear exceptions to that, but I think most of what you said is right on.

 

Here's an idea of who they would get to play everyone....

Bart.....Wayne Brady
Headly.....Mike Myers
William J. Lepetomane.....Elliott Gould
Jim.......Jim Carey
Lili......Nicole Kidman
Mongo.......Bob Golic

 

Yuuuup.

 

Yep.

Today Norman Lear would be pitching his stuff to cable, where I think it would play just fine.

 

I agree, I could see an HBO or a Showtime drooling over a show like All In The Family today. But I don't know if it's such a stretch to imagine it on today's network TV either. There were objections to All In The Family in its day too, but it's possible what made it all work was that Norman Lear is well known as a liberal.

Archie's words weren't Norman Lear's words, and yet -- as someone else mentioned -- Archie was basically a good guy, and the show had a moral center. So you had this character who was a likeable bigot who was created by a flaming liberal. I think that makes it work in any time period.

 

The Norman Lear shows that lasted beyond the mid 70s also toned down the intensity when the public toned down its appetite for political discourse in its entertainment in the late 70s.

Watch an early episode of either All In The Family, The Jeffersons or Good Times and then watch a later episode. There's no comparison.

In the late years of All In The Famly (or especially Archie Bunker's Place), Archie's bigotry was kind of a wink-nod tossed in there almost as an afterthought to what became increasingly sentimental and maudlin episodes.

The Jeffersons lasted into the mid 80s. Hell, the Jeffersons and Willis's were vacationing to Hawaii by then. George Jefferson probably would've voted for Reagan in 1984.

 

Another thing about Blazing Saddles is that people my age watch it with nearly 40 years of context, so the nigger jokes, etc., have as much of a novelty factor as they do a comedy factor.

I wish I could go back in time and see the movie in its first-run in 1974. When the references were fresh and the marks Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks were trying to hit were much closer to the heart than they are now.