Digital Journal — I’m watching Fire Marshall Bill twitch his limbs like an epileptic puppet and I wonder: How did I ever like this when it was popular in the ’90s? It’s not that I find Jim Carrey irritating or In Living Color deplorable; it’s only the Season Five DVD that has me scratching my head and sighing in frustration. Why aren’t I laughing at the “Dirty Dozens” sketch, filled with classic “Yo mama” jokes? Should I at least crack a smile at the tepid “Black Andy Rooney” skit?
No, this DVD doesn’t deserve any praise. Although In Living Color delighted audiences in the first two seasons, by the fifth year many main actors left — creator Keenen Ivory Wayans went solo after a contract dispute and brother Damon Wayans left the green pastures of Homie the Clown fame to begin a movie career. Translation: This usually ribald sketch comedy show was running on empty for its final 26 episodes.
And so it goes for many classic TV shows produced on DVD. What was once controversial and impacting is now old news. Some of yesterday’s shows repackaged for today don’t have the replay value DVD owners treasure. MacGyver‘s concept is tiresome by the third episode, Married With Children feels horribly redundant and ER is overshadowed by its more sharply crafted followers. If anything, the worst of these shows serve as a quirky time capsule: “Oh yeah, I remember laughing when Al Bundy flushed a toilet. What was I thinking?”
Of course, many TV gems sparkle brightly on DVD. What makes one show’s renaissance work while another falters? The Simpsons climaxed with the seventh season, since it’s widely considered that beyond that delicious year the humour nosedived. Sketch comedy shows such as The Kids in the Hall kept the writing tight because the core actors remained active until the very end. The old Degrassi Junior High DVDs reminds us how teenage priorities have shifted — or, how they’ve remained eerily similar to the crewcut 1990s.
What the most appealing TV shows contain is an innate ability to shuttle us back to the days when we genuinely laughed or felt an emotional blow at a powerful scene. We buy these DVDs to watch what we enjoyed 10 years ago, even if our sense of humour responds to different stimuli today. The best shows can still hold our attention — I’m thinking Seinfeld and legendary Britcoms like Monty Python’s Flying Circus — while the worst ones expose the plot holes and flat jokes we missed the first time around.
In any case, TV on DVD will continue to market to what I call our “need for nostalgia.” It’s something I feel every day because today’s network shows can be so plastic and formulaic. Old favourites from my younger years make me recall the glory days of original writing. As childish as Looney Tunes may look compared to the CG effects of today’s animation, the narrative — and especially the music — remains unchallenged. A single sketch from the Canadian classic SCTV pulses with more originality than an entire season of the hit-and-mainly-miss MADtv.
This need for nostalgia will fuel my desire to buy DVDs of laser-written memories. Perhaps I’ll be happy to relive the suspenseful drama of The Twilight Zone, or perhaps I’ll be disappointed when Family Ties fails to make me chuckle at Skippy’s silly antics. That’s a risk I’m willing to take for a snapshot of how TV first attracted my attention. Call me bull-headed, but I’d rather watch two minutes of The Wonder Years than any episode of the reality show of the month.
