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That 70's Show VS. Happy Days

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Richmond B. Funkenhouser

Richmond B. Funkenhouser

Lifer
Dec 6, 2019
5,198
23,890
Dixieland
I Have been forced to watch these shows at times, due to a lack of decent programming. I realized something so obvious, and quite interesting...

There are a hundred parallels between these two shows.. too many to list. The two shows are the same concept, the only difference is they are set in different decades. Even the name of That 70's show eludes to the fact, because Happy Days was made in the 70's. All of the characters of Happy Days have corresponding characters in That 70's show...

I realize conspiracy theorys aren't allowed here, but I just couldnt keep the truth to myself..

Sit on it!
 
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mso489

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,647
I think that's typical of commercial TV scripting, and I don't even feel critical about it. Even a single season of these shows costs a lot, and advertisers are finicky about taking chances, and the corporate execs, not exactly sophisticated drama critics, have pretty uncultivated tastes, so if you want your thirty million (or whatever it is) for a season shoot, you'd better come up with a show that has a comfortable ring of familiarity and doesn't show up arty in any perspective. It's like the old stage theater melodramas had the same ingenue, hero and villain in thousand versions. No one messed with the genre. That's what people were paying to see. To go further back in TV history, Father Knows Best had a remarkable follow-through on Life With Father of five years before, etc.
 
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Richmond B. Funkenhouser

Richmond B. Funkenhouser

Lifer
Dec 6, 2019
5,198
23,890
Dixieland
mso489 said:
I think that's typical of commercial TV scripting, and I don't even feel critical about it. Even a single season of these shows costs a lot, and advertisers are finicky about taking chances, and the corporate execs, not exactly sophisticated drama critics, have pretty uncultivated tastes, so if you want your thirty million (or whatever it is) for a season shoot, you'd better come up with a show that has a comfortable ring of familiarity and doesn't show up arty in any perspective. It's like the old stage theater melodramas had the same ingenue, hero and villain in thousand versions. No one messed with the genre. That's what people were paying to see. To go further back in TV history, Father Knows Best had a remarkable follow-through on Life With Father of five years before, etc.
Click to expand...

I have often noticed that, like you say, all sitcoms share plots.. for example, surprise birthday parties.. every sitcom has that episode.

This example with the two shows mentioned is done to such an extent, that it must be known by the producers and done deliberately. Still both great shows, If anything it makes them more interesting to watch.

Also, many have said, "all the good ideas have been done"... a lot of similarities in shows are probably due to this.
 
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anantaandroscoggin

anantaandroscoggin

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 9, 2017
700
1,125
71
Greene, Maine, USA
I did enjoy the storytelling of Happy Days, and liked several of the characters. Marion Ross was wonderful as Mrs. C.

When I tried watching That 70s Show, it didn't take me long to not be bothered to tune it in any more, as I didn't find any likeable characters and it wasn't particularly funny. It may have taken me a little longer to abandon T7S than it did Seinfeld, a show that had characters I found I actively disliked.
 
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Richmond B. Funkenhouser

Richmond B. Funkenhouser

Lifer
Dec 6, 2019
5,198
23,890
Dixieland
anantaandroscoggin said:
I did enjoy the storytelling of Happy Days, and liked several of the characters. Marion Ross was wonderful as Mrs. C.

When I tried watching That 70s Show, it didn't take me long to not be bothered to tune it in any more, as I didn't find any likeable characters and it wasn't particularly funny. It may have taken me a little longer to abandon T7S than it did Seinfeld, a show that had characters I found I actively disliked.
Click to expand...

That's the magic of Seinfeld, the characters are all terrible people. haha
 
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mso489

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,647
I never watched either show (Happy Days or the Seventies Show) on a regular basis, but saw a lot more of Happy Days over the years. I kind of marveled at the assumed innocence of the characters. That's not childhood as I remember it, but I assume it was artistic license, the way most people wanted to remember growing up, somewhat incorrectly. 'Trouble is, it makes everyone feel as if their childhood was in some way especially dark, rather than the drama being considerably spruced up. The Seventies Show, as much as I saw of it, maybe a few episodes, seemed to want to go into the characters a little more deeply, but still wanted to keep it idealized, and it was interesting but didn't quite work, or so I thought. Seinfeld was a sort of anti-hero show; you certainly weren't supposed to like any of the characters, even Jerry -- selfish and snarky as they were -- and yet most could identify with some aspects of them, and their jokey human selfishness and frailty. The last episode was a travesty; they should have just stopped with the previous episode and let it go.
 
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LOREN

LOREN

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 21, 2019
629
1,076
66
Illinois -> Florida
mso489 said:
I never watched either show (Happy Days or the Seventies Show) on a regular basis, but saw a lot more of Happy Days over the years. I kind of marveled at the assumed innocence of the characters. That's not childhood as I remember it, but I assume it was artistic license, the way most people wanted to remember growing up, somewhat incorrectly. 'Trouble is, it makes everyone feel as if their childhood was in some way especially dark, rather than the drama being considerably spruced up. The Seventies Show, as much as I saw of it, maybe a few episodes, seemed to want to go into the characters a little more deeply, but still wanted to keep it idealized, and it was interesting but didn't quite work, or so I thought. Seinfeld was a sort of anti-hero show; you certainly weren't supposed to like any of the characters, even Jerry -- selfish and snarky as they were -- and yet most could identify with some aspects of them, and their jokey human selfishness and frailty. The last episode was a travesty; they should have just stopped with the previous episode and let it go.
Click to expand...
The last episode of Seinfeld was, in my opinion, horrible. I liked the last episode of Breaking Bad however.
I watched very, very little of Happy Days and even less of That 70's Show.
 
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jpmcwjr

jpmcwjr

Lifer
May 12, 2015
26,264
30,360
Carmel Valley, CA
I've sometimes pondered over those formulas/i.

One real constant is a lie that has to be concealed, often by several folks in on it. Hilarity follows. Yeah. What I wonder is how lying— leaving out the old shows like Dallas and similar, where everyone lies at every turn—How seeing how lightly lying is taken, what effect it has on the viewers.
 
anotherbob

anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
16,910
31,711
46
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
There are only so many stories and infinite retellings of those few stories. I mean you could probably take this all the way back to something the ancient Romans or Greeks did too. For an example there is an ancient Roman comedy bit that's shockingly close to the dead parrot skit from Python, well it's a slave not a parrot but same theme......
 
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mso489

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,647
I'm always interested how Shakespare basically reveals the plot in the first scene or two. He wants to let off the pressure of anticipation to allow you to pay attention to all of the inner works of the characters and to some degree the action, and always the language. Those are where all the interest lies (pun) for him. A lot of what makes TV shows work are the actors and their ensemble rapport.
 
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alaskanpiper

alaskanpiper

Enabler in Chief
May 23, 2019
9,445
44,038
Alaska
My pet peeve with sitcoms is the unrealistic housing situations. It's always reversed. People with meager incomes living in what would be extraordinarily expensive houses or flats. Or it's the other way around, a successful doctor who somehow needs a roommate that is a successful corporate lawyer,etc.

That and the unrealistic premises and absurd comical problem solving shenanigans that no human in real life would ever even consider pondering as a reasonable course of action. Then of course you have all the continuity errors. So and so burns their eyebrows off in one episode, and the story line picks up right where it left off in the next episode and suddenly they have eyebrows again.

Yes, I think about stupid things like this way too much.

Oh, and I vote That 70's Show. It is a nostalgic show for me, as it's prime run was during the period of my life at which I was most suited to enjoy it (age 14 or so). I watched Happy Days on Nick at Nite when I was a kid and remember it being alright.
 
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