{"id":73760,"date":"2023-08-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=73760"},"modified":"2023-08-24T09:45:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T14:45:28","slug":"dead-on-arrival-that-80s-show-2002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=73760","title":{"rendered":"Dead on arrival: &#8216;That &#8217;80s Show&#8217; (2002)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By JOHN BILLINGER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last January, Netflix released &#8220;That \u201890s Show,&#8221; a sequel to &#8220;That \u201870s Show.&#8221; The original show lasted from 1998 to 2006, received positive reviews and has remained popular. One might initially wonder why the sequel series decided to jump the timeline all the way to the 1990s. &#8220;What about the 1980s?\u201d one would hypothetically ask. Well, the answer to that question is FOX already did a sort of spin-off set during the 1980s, ingeniously titled &#8220;That \u201880s Show.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though this show does have a similar title to &#8220;That \u201870s Show,&#8221; it is not officially considered a spin-off. Despite this, &#8220;That \u201880s Show&#8221; had much of the same team working on it but none of the same charm as the original. As with the earlier show, they cast a group of mostly unknown actors to play the characters. The main character was played by Glenn Howerton, who would later find success in &#8220;It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.&#8221; The show premiered Jan. 23, 2002, lasted a grand total of 13 episodes and was canceled. And if you saw it when it aired or on YouTube, you can see why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plot for the show is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The setting is 1984 San Diego, and we follow a group of friends in their early 20s living their lives. The main character is Corey Howard (played by Glenn Howerton) who works at a record store and he wants to go out with his punk rock co-worker named Tuesday (played by Chyler Leigh). Another one is Corey&#8217;s best friend Eddie (played by Roger Park) who\u2019s this yuppie-type character. There\u2019s also Sophia, who\u2019s Corey\u2019s ex who has a thing for his sister. And lastly, there\u2019s the sister in question named Katie, who\u2019s just kinda there, not really much else to say. In addition, there are the two main adult characters, Corey\u2019s Dad and Corey\u2019s record store boss. And, well they just live out their lives. Not really much of a plot at the end of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"That 80&#039;s Show Promotion\" width=\"790\" height=\"593\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n61_mEfQyts?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The main problem with the show is the jokes. Most of the jokes have the same exact punchline, \u201cBecause it\u2019s the &#8217;80s.\u201d Whether it\u2019s about how technology has advanced since then or some reference to a popular movie or show, it all comes back to the &#8217;80s in some shape or form. For example, there\u2019s a guy who makes a big deal about having a \u201cportable phone\u201d that\u2019s the size of a brick. Get it? Because phones have advanced since then. Or the character\u2019s drinking while watching &#8220;Dynasty.&#8221; It\u2019s funny because that show is from the 1980s. It\u2019s that for 20 minutes. They\u2019re not clever or satirical; it\u2019s just not funny. It does showcase, though, why &#8220;That \u201870s Show&#8221; worked in the first place. It worked because the setting was not the main identity. It was about the characters first, not the setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of the characters, they\u2019re not much better. Another reason why &#8220;That \u201870s Show&#8221; worked was because the characters were all like people that we all either knew or met in the real world. Here, they\u2019re tied to the &#8217;80s setting. Take for example Eddie, the yuppie character who says stuff like, \u201cGod bless you, Ronald Reagany\u201d or the punk-rock girl, who just one look at and you can tell what she\u2019s supposed to be. It\u2019s just not good writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For these reasons, the show failed to find an audience, got canceled quickly and ended up forgotten. Growing up, I remember my older sisters watching &#8220;That \u201870s Show,&#8221; and I never heard a thing about this show. The only time I remember hearing about it was in a scene in &#8220;Family Guy&#8221; where they were making fun of a bunch of shows FOX canned. I had no idea at the time they were referencing real shows. I thought they had made them all up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Overall, &#8220;That \u201880s Show&#8221; is better off being forgotten. Would it have worked? Maybe, but it needed a more subtle use of its setting, more clever writing and more relatable characters. If you\u2019re looking for a clever period comedy, I\u2019d say look elsewhere. If you\u2019re looking for a poorly written excuse for a show where the primary joke is just to laugh at a decade, then this is for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><em>John Billinger is an FHSU student in the Informatics Department and an avid movie buff.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By JOHN BILLINGER Tiger Media Network Last January, Netflix released &#8220;That \u201890s Show,&#8221; a sequel to &#8220;That \u201870s Show.&#8221; The original show lasted from 1998&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3391,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-movie-reviews","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/That-80s-show.jpg?fit=365%2C273&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73762,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73760\/revisions\/73762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}