What happened to taking chances?

During a lazy weekend conversation, my girl asked “Why don’t TV shows take chances anymore?”  Looking at the current status of the small screen, you find a plethora of safe, “tried and true” stories.  They may be entertaining, but they’re far from ground breaking and definitely not sparking any cerebral conversations.  There are a few exceptions, but they are the minority.

I remember back in the 80’s and early 90’s several shows that were pushing the boundaries of what you could do with the medium.  Creative explosions of talent, defiant in their strangeness, refusing to be labeled.  Aside from horror shows, like Tales from the Dark Side, which always deviated from the norm, you could find sketch comedies, cartoons and even kid’s shows that resisted following the cookie cutter formula.

You Can’t Do That On Television

This show single handedly built the irreverent, wacky image that Nickelodeon became known for.  From the ridiculous humor being perpetrated by child actors to the iconic green slime.  The seemingly innocuous phrase “I don’t know” resulting in a deluge of chunky, gooey mess poured all over some unsuspecting sap.  The slime itself became a staple of nearly all the major Nickelodeon shows at the time and still makes an appearance now.

They treated their viewers as much more intelligent than many modern kid’s shows.  Japanese culture was not co-opted, stories weren’t dumbed down to an almost moronic level and they tackled heavier subject matter than expected for that demographic, albeit in a more slapstick manner.

Still one of my childhood favorites, it’s a shame that this program is no longer stimulating young minds to enjoy the world’s absurdity.

Liquid Television

Before MTV became a cesspool of reality television and everything except music videos, they were known for cutting edge programming.  Liquid Television showcased unrestrained, incredibly talented, independent artists/animators telling the stories they could only tell on MTV.  From actual bars of soap acting “soap opera” scenes to stick figures recreating popular movies on note cards.  Anything and everything was free game.  This hotbed of pure creativity spawned several well known series.

This is where Aeon Flux and Beavis & Butt-Head made their debuts.  Even Office Space was conceived here, though in cartoon form.  This was the place to go to for underground cartoons and off the wall live action shorts.  It was the perfect outlet for some truly original storytelling.

Little known fact – Art Spiegelman was a contributor.

The Kids in the Hall

Yet another Canadian entry on the list (YCDTOT being the first), these guys went above and beyond any sketch comedies of the time.  Frequently surreal, they fearlessly satired all topics from religion to big business to family.  The inclusion of many gay themes and humor also made them stand apart from anything else on TV.

Produced by Lorne Michaels, of SNL fame, this show thankfully shared little with its American counterpart.  Instead of relying heavily on pop culture references or celebrity impersonations, they found the humor in many everyday situations.  Their characters were always fully realized, showing a depth beyond the confines of their sketch appearances.  Many of the especially memorable ones (i.e. The Chicken Lady, Headcrusher) became part of the cultural landscape.

I used to watch this late at night on Comedy Central when my insomnia was really bad.  The opening music will always be ingrained in my head.

The State

I saved the best for last.  This was, and still is, one of my favorite sketch comedy shows of all time.  From the moment I heard its jarring intro to the absolutely ludicrous segments, I was hooked.  This little gem slid into the lineup right around the time MTV sold its soul.

With no desire to follow the status quo they continued pushing the envelope with the nature of their comedy.  Where else would you find sketches about “Monkey Torture”, “$240 worth of Pudding” and a full on musical number called “Porcupine Racetrack”?  Words are not sufficient to describe the brilliance of some of these, so I highly recommend you scour the ‘Net for clips of their work.  Thankfully, after years of pleading from their loyal fan base, MTV finally decided to release the entire series on DVD.

All the shows here took risks, either in subject matter or narrative format, which is amazing in a medium created by committee.  The only show I can think of nowadays along these lines is Pushing Daisies and of course, its been cancelled.

If we are continuously fed a diet of baby food then nothing will ever spark our imaginations.  The problem is when shows like this appear, the public tends to appreciate them after the fact, thus dooming them to short runs.  Luckily premium channels, such as HBO and Showtime, have picked up the mantle of boundary breaking television, but even they aren’t doing enough.  Hopefully with the shifting habits of the modern television crowd, we’ll find a call for more thought provoking programming.

Let me know if you think there are any other shows I should have included on this list.

____________________

Some images courtesy of Wikipedia.  Others thanks to Google.

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Tagged as: Absurd, Creativity, Ground Breaking, Kids in the Hall, Liquid Television, Risk Taking, The State, You Can't Do That On Television