Creating Television: Conversations With the People Behind 50 Years of American TV
A Volume in LEA's Communication Series, © Copyright 2004
Robert Kubey (kubey@scils.rutgers.edu)
Director, Center for Media Studies (www.mediastudies.rutgers.edu)
Professor, Dept of Journalism & Media Studies, Rutgers University
How Has the Audience Changed?
(smarter and more sophisticated than ever, live audiences in the theater behave badly)
Each quote is followed by the page number in Creating Television where the full quote can be found.
Sid Caesar:
You don’t play down to an audience. You play up, because they’re smarter than you think. 31
Simpson’s creator, Matt Groening:
As the show has proven to be more popular we get increasing pressure to tell good messages, to tell people not to drink and drive, to tell people not to litter, to tell people not to drop out of school. We think one of the reasons the show is popular is because it doesn't fall into the trap of preaching to people about the way they should behave.
The Simpsons are bad examples. They do not behave the way people should behave. We give people credit for being able to tell the difference. Cartoons are characterized as a kiddie medium and kids are not trusted to delineate between good behavior and bad behavior. I personally think that kids appreciate the fact that they're not being condescended to. 148
Executive and Producer, Lee Rich:
People are more sophisticated today: they’re pickier, they don’t watch everything, they’ve become more critical,
they’ve become so sophisticated, so knowledgeable about the media. 103
Steve Allen:
The public is certainly no happier or content than it was, say, before 1950. They are often distracted and, as we have agreed, entertained, but that may provide chiefly moments of surcease from the general unease characteristic of the human predicament in the twentieth century and--of course--characteristic of human life in this vale of tears anyway. 57
Musical specials producer, Gary Smith:
I like to give the public credit. And if it means losing a percentage of them who may not catch on or get the real impact of what we're doing, I'm sorry, that's the way I go. 241
I am criticized for being obtuse, obscure with things that I do. My answer is: sometimes, I don't care. As long as I know that we're right. I don't like to play down to people's intelligence. I like to give the audience the benefit of the doubt. I've made some mistakes that way. I've been too subtle. 240-241
After years of working in TV, would you say that the tastes of the public have changed?
I would subscribe a little bit to that theory, but I think it's entirely possible that we have been guilty in playing a part in reducing the taste level or reducing the expectations of what things can really be. Although I will also tell you that I am very proud of what television has done in the television movie field compared to what theatrical films have done. I think that the opposite is true there. I think television movies address themselves to issues and social problems and tackle a lot of things that theatrical films won't. Theatrical films are supposed to be - the real art form. That's bullshit. I think television films can take tremendous credit and the industry deserves a tremendous amount of credit for raising the taste standards and the expectations of what should be dealt with in subject matter for drama in television. 242-243
Jason Alexander:
The audiences have gotten worse. In the live theater now, we have to make announcements: “Turn the cell phones and the beepers off. Don’t take out wrapped candy. Please don’t put your personal items up on stage.” You’ll get half the audience that leaves before the curtain call because they don’t want to be stuck in the crowd. And the other half, no matter what piece of shit they’ve just seen, gives it a standing ovation. The level of crap audiences will accept is a phenomenon. And so what happens is you get writers, directors, and artists of all kinds who think that they’ve achieved something at the middle of their ability. And then the business encourages that. 356
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