MovieChat Forums > Growing Pains (1985) Discussion > What happened to great shows like these?

What happened to great shows like these?

posted 13 years ago by standrkm
11 replies | jump to latest

I mean, the wonder years, full house, family matters, roseanne, the step by step, and so on. Am I missing something, where are those shows now? It's like they started to fade away after Home Improvement ended. I like the shows with broken homes or whatever like arrested development, married with children, and still standing but what about those shows that offered a little guidance? A lot of single mothers or two working parents out there and all kids got to watch are reality shows and family guy. The average American watches something like 4 hours of t.v.! That's a lot of influence, negative or positive.

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[–] ex-reporter 13 years ago

its the year 2011. there is no audience for these shows and no money to be made by these shows.

[–] sparklestar84 13 years ago

I always hear so many people complaining about tv today, all the reality trash and such. I think there is an audience for better quality shows, but it is being ignored.

Anything I could have said I felt somehow that you already knew

[–] shred-com 13 years ago

I find it funny that fantastic shows like Growing Pains, Family Ties, Roseanne etc got FANTASTIC ratings.
Why? Cause they were fantastic.
Shows like Growing Pains, Family Ties and even The Cosby Show were positive, uplifting but also very well written and funny. Most of these shows took on real issues too.

I laugh cause most sitcoms today are trashy and a good portion tank in viewers and networks think that's what we want. Some "trashy" sitcoms are fine but when Married With Children is now tame....well
It's like ugh. I wanna watch something that will make me a bit happier but still great quality :)

[–] cubbyblues 13 years ago

Yeah, they got fantastic ratings in the '80s when there were basically five channels.

No TV shows can pull in the same number of viewers today because there are tons of channels and options, not to mention the Internet. There are so many niche markets. You have your sports channels, your outdoor channels, your women's channels.

Sadly, family-oriented programming on network TV has been on the wane for some time. The shows you do sometimes get are beyond cheesy. There's nothing quite like your Cosby Show or Growing Pains or especially The Wonder Years.

But a little bit of it is rosy retrospection as well. Growing Pains could be beyond cheeseball.

[–] PrincessMagical 11 years ago

its the year 2011. there is no audience for these shows and no money to be made by these shows.

That's BS. Hopefully one day TV will get back to the way it was. The crap on now is not entertainment.

Your chains are still mine, you belong to me! - The Phantom Of The Opera

[–] gamer_12 11 years ago

Last Man Standing and The Goldbergs on ABC are the closest to shows like these. LMS is very similar to Home Improvement and The Goldbergs, while it has some snarky humor, is really a very sweet show about a family that cares about one another.

[–] ItsEddieHaskellBeyotch 13 years ago

Disney and Nickelodeon picked up the slack and the demographic for shows like this, plus most families these days dont sit around and watch sitcoms together anymore like they did back then totally obliterating the need to make shows like this anymore. Sad really.

"You win some, you lose some. But you live, you live to fight another day."

[–] choi127 13 years ago

yeah it is, i wish they could some how make a show like this during this time. i just watched an episode just for the nostalgia factor and have become hooked on it again.

[–] razman1983 12 years ago

I don't even know if these shows were great, or the feeling of watching them were great. 20 years ago when these shows were on my entire family used to watch it and enjoy it. That feeling of being with family made the show even better. Watch the show again now alone and it's like ...what... so my point is ..what made the show great is that we watched this great family on tv with your own family. Nowadays people don't sit together and watch shows. When I have kids I'd feel uncomfortable watching the garbage that is on TV now with my kids. It's quite sad really. Also like someone else mentioned, you only had a few options of shows to watch. Now with dvr, internet, etc, you can watch what you want when you want which leads to no uniformity at home.

-Spoilers are for the weak

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] kb01 12 years ago

Tastes change and for whatever reason, the family sitcom genre pretty much died off by the end of the 1990s.

I think it's probably a combination of two reasons:

1) Demographics are changing (less of a market for parents + kids).
2) More TVs in the house and more channels (parents and kids can watch different things at the same time).