A Live Studio Audience: Sitcom Themes--Punky Power!

[packerbacker180]

[packerbacker180]

Well, I used Kevin Arnold as an answer in The Word Association Game so this seems like the logical progression...



Ah, there are few voices in music as easily identifiable as Joe Cocker's, what a powerhouse of a song.



And talk about shows that I wished were in reruns somewhere, The Wonder Years would easily be near the top of the list. For those that don't know the show centers around Kevin Arnold and his family during the tumultuous late 60's and early 70s. While I wasn't close to being alive in that era, the over-arching themes of coming of age were easy to identify with for anyone, I would imagine. Alongside Kevin (played by Fred Savage) his butthead brother (Jason Hervey), his best friend Paul (Josh Saviano), and his neighbor and love interest, Winnie Cooper. Dan Lauria, Alley Millls, and Olivia d'Abo rounded out the main cast as his parents and older, hippie sister respectively, while one of the Wet Bandits himself, Daniel Stern did the voiceover narration.



Haven't we reached the point where we can get a great introspective show about growing up in the 80's or 90's? And no, That (awful) 80's Show doesn't count. I'm actually a bit surprised Glenn Howerton got work after that debacle.



But I think it's time we get a show about Latchkey Kids with older Yuppy siblings growing up in the dawn of home videogame systems, Cola Wars, and the Iraq War. I don't know, maybe that's The Goldbergs? I've seen parts of it but I can't stand Patton Oswalt, so I won't watch anything with him in it, come to think of it, with him doing the voice over, I guess The Goldbergs is kind of a rip off of The Wonder Years in the 80s. Blah.



Ok, well, the 90s are still open with pinned jeans and baggy Skidz and IOUs giving way to Doc Martens and flannel shirts. Throw in some corduroy just for fun. Jeremy has spoken.



A Rico Sauve cameo would be a must...

[AcidDragon]

Haha, was just talking about Wonder Years. I was watching Outer Limits the other night and Fred Savage was on an episode.

[packerbacker180]

Fred Savage was in a show called Working about a decade ago I never watched until it hit reruns on USA and it was actually pretty good. He also appeared on his little brothers show as a lecherous college professor who tried putting the moves on Topanga.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Good ole'Fred Savage. I was never a fan of his stuff. Once in awhile I'd see his shows were on TV but never got into them. I always thought of Macho Man when I heard or read his name.

Now he was in 2 movies that I liked, both were in 1989.

I really liked this one. I was HUGE into NES then and this movie was right up My alley



This was good and had some fine moments.

[packerbacker180]

I remember ads for The Wizard in Nintendo Power. I begged to see it in the theatre but didn't get to see it until it was out on VHS. It was until years later that I realized that was Howie Mandel in Little Monsters.

[packerbacker180]

How about a quickie today?

Man, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that...well...can I borrow a dollar?



I mentioned Working up top, so again, it felt like a natural progression. Ok, it wasn't quite a decade ago like I claimed, it was more like 25 years ago. Where the hell does the time go while I looked around for my possibilities? Working starred Fred Savage, and aired on NBC from 1997-99, telling the story new graduate Matt Peyser (Savage) and the start of his attempt to climb the corporate ladder. The show preceded The Office by a couple years but just couldn't garner the same audience, not that the shows were similar outside of the business settings, but it does show how cast and story make a difference in success.



Though the rest of the cast have familiar faces, I can't really place any in specific shows. The theme is a bad karoake cover of Working in a Coalmine by Devo, which is kind of odd they would do a cover of the song since Mark Mothersbaugh obviously enjoys, ahem, working, and you can find his name all over TV and movies if you look hard enough. And sometimes in front of the camera, too.



By the time I actually saw Working, the show had already been cancelled and was in reruns on USA along other ok shows like Yes, Dear. While I wouldn't call Working hilarious, it had it's funny moments though The Office and The Drew Carey show were better at the genre.



Savage's The Wonder Years co-star Danica McKellar made a couple appearances as a character Savage meets in a bar and at one point Savage's character says, she reminds me of a girl I grew up with. A lot of boys I knew had a crush on Winnie Cooper.



But we all grow up, and Ben Folds is right about that sometimes, and sometimes the shows we move on to don't find the same success and Working was tossed to the dustpan of history after two seasons. Whoop, I wanna sit down.

[BrandonDaCollector]

I see, been there, done that when I wanted stuff or wanted to got to the show, it was really tuff when your a kid when it came to sort of thing I think i saw them ads too but not in Nintendo Power, I wasn't a subscriber and hard to find in My area. Oh Wizard was it for Me, the power glove, Mario 3, all of it, it was a young gamer's dream seeing a movie like that at the time Yep, Howie also was also Gizmo in Gremlins if ya didn't know already

Let Me rephrase that, when Fred Savage grew up I stopped following about him all together really. Just wasn't interested in his stuff and all that. This stuff you have showed here is kinda knew to Me but its good and it's like a time capsule going thru the years of Fred Savage and all of this...great stuff you did PB

[packerbacker180]

Well, here' another Fred Savage show then...

Just kidding. How about another quick one?



I can't say I really watched Sanford and Son, it always seemed to come on TBS on the weekend when I was waiting for a Braves game to air. I don't know, I usually avoided shows and movies from the 70s, they just looked dated and different even compared to stuff from the 80s. Shows like this, Good Times, All in the Family, Happy Days, etc. just weren't shows that grabbed my interest.



When the Buffalo Bills were good in the early 90s, their defensive end, Bruce Smith, would do the Fred Sanford heart attack pose after a sack, it's really the most I know about the show but here's some funny alleged scenes...



The show starred Redd Foox, whose really name was oddly enough, John Sanford, and Demond Wilson. The theme, Streetbeater, was composed by the great Quincy Jones (that one's for Brandon!). The show was included in Time's Top 100 TV Shows of All-Time. Foxx was also born in St. Louis, and post0humously given a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, which I didn't know existed until today.



I think everyone recognizes the song, as it's been used in other shows to this day. In Scrubs...



And in The Simpsons (if you've never seen the episode Trash of the Titans, then you should stop right now and go watch it--c'mon, animated Steve Martin anyone?)

[AcidDragon]

Ha, Pb, you literally just named every single oldie show that my big sister watched (and I was forced to since she had control of the TV). I wasn't into most of those shows, either. However, I did start watching All in the Family reruns on DejaView and kind of got into it for a while.