WTF happened to our shows?? Soul Train, Showtime at the Apollo, Comicview, Def Comedy Jam, etc

[CACarot]

yeah man whatever happen to our genre defining shows like

 

[CrimsonTider]

But the reality is many (not all) of those things back in the day were better no matter how much you want to say newer is always better. You don't have to defend your weak little era every chance you get

What are you basing this on?

 

[MVike28]

Revisionist history

The 2000s are infinitely better than the 90s. It's just nostalgia speaking for you guys. I'm pretty sure when I'm old and flabby I'll be whining about how the 2020s and 2030s sucked and the 00s and 10s were better too.

nice try

 

[BiggWebb79]

Lack of black writers, directors, and producers play a major role in this, Star Power on television is what made those shows. The fact that the person playing the lead roll was already known and that made the other actors give good performances. Back then there wasn't as many channels as we have now, so the major network didn't have a choice but to show black shows. Once reality shows started to boom, and companies didn't have to pay big bucks to trained actors it went down hill from there. Don't worry thou it'll turn around there's some good shows out there and online, it'll pick up when big stars go back to doing the small screen.

 

[AntLive1981]

yeah man whatever happen to our genre defining shows like

David Alan Grier funny to me but a lot of his shyt outside of In Living Color flopped in the 90's and 00's. He had The Preston Episodes in '95. CANCELLED. He had that show Damon with Damon Wayans in '98. CANCELLED. DAG in '00. CANCELLED. Chocolate News in '08. CANCELLED. They wasn't lettin my man eat for shyt on TV!

 

[Danie84]

Although I don't watch (I'm adult now), 106th and Park still in the building

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

*remembers when The WB was damn near a black station *

Them cacs saw us taking their bland culture from them and turned that shyt Off!

they used the FOX formula.

help boost your station by having the premiere set of quality black shows. and then when you get to where you want to be, you drop the black shows like a bad habit.

WB and UPN followed the FOX formula and went even harder with it. then, after they cashed in, they wanted very little or nothing to do with us.

now we got...

House of Payne

house of payne is a dope show actually.

i dont know why it gets such a bad rap on here. its better than some of the shows that get gassed up on here, and it opened up doors for more black sitcoms to get deals again. it deserves its props.

David Alan Grier funny to me but a lot of his shyt outside of In Living Color flopped in the 90's and 00's. He had The Preston Episodes in '95. CANCELLED. He had that show Damon with Damon Wayans in '98. CANCELLED. DAG in '00. CANCELLED. Chocolate News in '08. CANCELLED. They wasn't lettin my man eat for shyt on TV!

those shows got cancelled QUICK. i didnt even get a chance to watch preston episodes before it was off. i knew about chocolate news but i never knew the time & channel that it aired. prolly had bad promotion.

i dont even remember the other 2 shows.

 

[Illuminatos]

Great rebuttal. You defended your point really well.

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

Mona Scott-Young is COINTELPRO to fukk up the minds of black women.

lol.

i didnt recognize the name so i looked her up. so shes the black woman thats been running vh1 for about a decade now.

i didnt know she had an entertainment company, and missy is over there. that explains alot. it explains why missy was inducted into hip-hop honors. MYSTERY SOLVED.

Man his daughter fukked up that show. Nobody cared about her relationships. When she moved to Cali that was a rap for the show because it became more than terrible. Flex and Dwayne might be the best duo next to Marcus and Moe.

i just watched the show for her thick ass best friend.

and then when she went to cali, i watched the show for that filipino jawn.

I'm surprised Mr. Henderson isn't bought up more in the conversation of best tv dads. He was a single parent who raised a boy genius, a teenage daughter who was respectful, wasn't spoiled or a whore, and had another good kid in Marcus

because the show's legacy was never shoved down the public's throat, so its stuck on being underrated cult-classic status. but the mtv2 deal is a real good look. increasing the show's legacy. its starting to get the props that it deserves now.

dont forget, Mo was darn near his 4th kid. lol.

It's dead. Tia Mowry has a new black sitcom called Instant Mom or something. Nobody cares for that shyt.

Even that corny Michael Jai White, Tasha Smith show is still on, who watches that as "not miss tv"?

People are now watching and enjoying tv with fake drama (reality shows) and also shows that depict a lot of human suffering like Scandal, Breaking Bad etc.

you kinda need to speak for yourself.

tia mowry's show may not be buzzin but the show that she left is still king chit and wildly popular.

that mike & tasha show is doing alright considering the channel that its on is meant to be niche. and lets be reality, that show has a bigger black buzz than something like "breaking bad" which i only hear about on this board. i know its a big show and all, but it aint big in the urban market like that.

 

[Droopy]

 

[Illuminatos]

Because nostalgic makes you losers act like everything back in the day was golden

80s babies are emotional as fukk.

 

[The_King_of_Everything]

Word, back in the day a celebrity appearance was something special because they were out of reach most the time. Now you go on youtube and see 1,000 interviews of somebody and their life is broadcast to us all throughout the day through social media. Back when Michael Jackson was arguably the most famous person in the world you only actually saw or heard from him like 5 times a year outside of his music

And I think a large reason why the black sitcom is dead is that white America isn’t interested in the “other side” anymore. They know how black people are, there’s no coolness or edginess in black culture to them anymore. They got their fix from the 70’s-90’s, and now the goal is to just phase black culture out and turn America into the new Europe. And that’s what’s being done with hip-hop & r&b and clothing and entertainment. They’ve gotten black people to sound like Europeans, dress like Europeans. Love homosexuals like Europeans. Phase the hood out, and now Harlem, Brooklyn and DC are starting to look like San Francisco

finally someone gets it.

 

[The_King_of_Everything]

I feel ya, but I got what he was trying to say....and it's true.

Black American identity has slowly but surely been pushed aside towards Americanization. Globalization. Homogenization. Mini-Martification. Suburbanification. Wal-Martification. The culture of America is essentially the culture of money, power, privilege, and influence.

And since this is White America, obviously we are going to be pushed as far back as possible when it comes to what we create and how much control we have over it. Simply because they have the money, power, privelege, influence...and most importantly...numbers. It shouldn't be that way, but it is and that's the reason this conversation surfaced on this board.

It doesn't help when the majority of us are in the hoods and ghettos of America and the majority of them are in the suburbs and affluent nests of America.

The number one thing America knows well is how to push a business model so that any art or creative property can be exploited for more cash until the cow has officially dried up.

That's what happened that he described.

Sure, there were many other factors that attributed to it (the drug wars of the 80s, the crack epidemic, globalization, the internet, the rising costs of living, etc)...but it's painfully obvious now that this was really planned and in the process since probably before I was born.

Why did this all happen at the same time? I mean, I know that time works in mysterious ways, bt there wouldn't be a massive number of these threads if there weren't some truth to this.

And even I agree with your post (especially when you say that black identity collectively shouldn't be seen as a monolith). But I agree with them here from an observational standpoint.

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

Gay nikkas probably dancing. Just a lot of fukkery. I stopped watching it with Shemar Moore when it was getting

For Soul Train to work, it needs good music and right now, the industry is terrible.

soul train was always filled with fakkits.

i think BET and other music video channels and outlets slowly killed off soul train. even when it was poppin in the '90s, it wasnt top dog anymore.

as far as it coming back, yall are right, its not gonna work with all this terrible music. they need to just let it rest.

im good watching re-runs on bounce tv and Aspire. they hit you with episodes from the very beginning to the very end. its the only thing i watch in order to get my music television fix these days.

I blame the fact that some people shyt on the young talented people like Cole and Kendrick as being "boring" and "lame" but the want something like 2 Chainz to keep us immature. Not to help, but you got older dudes chasing bullshyt music to keep up with trends, which is sickening.

Groups don't exist anymore because people too selfish and arrogant to work together. Especially R&B, where people think that slow music is boring and lame and for old people.

lol.

you stay campaigning for kendrick & cole.

So why can't Cole and Kendrick make better music?

i know right?

he just likes them because of their gimmicks and ignores all their musical short-comings.

and truth be told, they really dont have much to say anyway. theyre just running with the conscious tag, and throwing in a few conscious songs here and there like kanye. gimmick.

People just have to accept that things aren't the same anymore. Heavyweight boxing isn't coming back, wrestling will never be the same after all the steroid allegations and suspect deaths, all athletic sports now has an asterix.

Nothing is really the same anymore.

actually, the only league that was riddled with steroid scandal was the WWF. and altho they made the most money, they werent seen as having the best product thru the majority of that time period. in fact, they were seen as commercial sellout chit by many serious fans.

Dude was fukking hilarious on Smart Guy. I don't why The WB did not give Marcus and Moe a spin off after the final season of Smart Guy. shyt would have been GOAT.

THE COLLEGE YEARS!!!!!

COULD YOU IMAGINE!!!???

But if we didnt watch the love & hiphop crap they would be off the air. And for the white man cancelling those shows, Why would they mess up their money? Thats like the white record execs trying to kill rap.

alot of black shows have gotten canned with high-ratings actually.

alot of stations dont want the stigma of being "the black channel". thats why they cash in and kick us to the curve as soon as their channel gets big off of us.

speaking of wrestling, its the same reason why theres barely any wrestling promotions on television, despite the fact that they are proven ratings grabs. nobody wants to be "the wrestling channel"

This is why I always thought Friends was garbage.

From that show's depiction, one would of thought New York City is as vanilla and whitebread as Portland.

That's the image they trying to sell in accordance to gentrification and why shows like Girls, Two Broke Girls, The New Girl, Sex In The City, How I met Your Mother, and all of that other tripe is poison.

speaking of smart guy, yall remember the episode where they shed light on this in one scene? that show was so real on the low-low.

floyd: what you watching, yvette?
yvette: caroline in the city.
floyd: well what city is caroline in?
yvette: new york.
floyd: well why arent there any black people in caroline's city?

The only show i can even think of with a strong black lead that has some good writing to go along with it is House of Lies. (Don Cheadle)

And even then they have my dude Marty Kaan as a hypersexual dude who is fukking everything moving, and his son dresses like a girl

@ the bolded.

 

[Marvel]

I have to disagree with the topic. I can name several shows right now that have significant black casts or major characters that are black. It's a good thing if we don't have those all black shows. Many of those shows were caricature fests with c00ns. Martin was funny, but at the end of the day it was a display of ghetto behavior. My family doesn't act like that. My friends don't, either. I think black depictions have generally grown more progressive in television and not as c00nish. Look at treme. The wire. Walking dead. At the end of the day, we are Americans. We don't need "black shows" to feel proud of who we are. And it's time for us to get away from that mentality.

Breh, I disagree. Black shows collectively were balanced. They give you Martin, but they also gave you family matters and parenthood. Also Martin didn't have a family. I see Martin in myself when i was in my mid 20s and living in an apartment working my first job out of college. I can relate to him. In another stage in my life, i can relate to Mr Winslow. White shows gave you Archie Bunker who was an uneducated bigot and gave you Full House, Friends, Step By Step, etc. Nothing wrong with Martin when you have other shows that balance it out. Nobody wants to watch 10 different versions of the Cosby show.