I think MT! showed us a show like TMS won't survive in TV today.
I thing MT showed us MT wouldn't survive in TV today either.
Let's just leave it as syndication was inordinately kind to The Muppet Show. The networks didn't want it in the 70's either, but it thrived so well in syndication that Jim and company ended the show, rather than network heads. Cable would be the only place for a Muppet show today, and Disney and ABC family are set in their tweenage and late teenage girl focus group ways.
I dunno about you, but I don't think the old format would work outside the comic book today. Other than the fact it would be a retread, no one knows what a vaudeville is anymore. I say, go back to the Muppet Central segments of JHH. That was far better than MT was.
But sadly, in today's tv climate...where sitcoms dont even have a laugh track and seem more like sardonic documentaries; and where Jersey/Kardashians is all the rage...can a classic theater vaudeville setting work? Clearly the fact we have yet to see the American Idol or mockumetary test pilots indicates those didnt work either. You know, maybe it could work...I just think some fresher/modern elements would need to be included. My view is quite flexible and open on this, as I just want to see some sort of new tv broadcast show!
I kind of like sitcoms without laugh tracks because, well... the joke laugh, joke, laugh format kills character development and plot development. I remember Andy Griffen saying that about why his old sitcom was filmed NOT in front of an audience (the laugh track was added in). Though, with How I met Your Mother, I keep forgetting there IS a laugh track (the show DOESN'T need it, thought)... Chuck Lorre seems to be the only one that gets what laugh track sitcoms are all about. Big Bang is always enjoyable. But the Office is special. I can't even in good conscious call it a sitcom. There's the humor aspect, sure... but every so often, you'll be hit with raw human emotion, something almost cinematic.
Reality television is just the sweatshop of entertainment. It's toxic, it's disgusting, it's what all the morality in television people SHOULD be on instead of Family Guy. Why people still watch is beyond me. We got internet videos where people get beaten up if they want low down disgusting entertainment.
That said, I still think the problem isn't the movie (it looks TOO freaking amazing to be anywhere near bad), not even the tone of the trailer... just... there's confusing stuff in there, and that stuff should be slowly introduced when they do trailers that reveal the movie's plot. I remember there was once a movie that was supposedly brilliant that couldn't get a theatrical release because they couldn't make a good, marketable trailer for it. I think it was Mike Judge's Idiocracy or something like that. There was NO way to make a good trailer or convey the movie casually, and they released it directly to DVD after they got enough complaints. So... well, it could be worse... much worse.