TV Tropes

[minor muppetz]

Today I found a page called "First Installment Wins", regarding movies and shows and such where fans generally like the first one best. It is a "Your mileage may vary" trope, but one first installment I was surprised to see on the page was Back to the Future. It seems to me that most fans consider the second to be the best of the trilogy. In fact the trope page says that the first has a lot of things people remember, while "the only things people remember" from the sequels are hoverboards and the old west. That's kind of unfair.... I'm pretty sure people remember Marty not liking being called "chicken", which didn't happen in the first movie. And I think many fans remember the "Western Union" ending of the second one, and maybe the "you mean you have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!"

I was also surprised to see the first Batman (from 1989) mentioned. I feel like Batman Returns and Batman Forever are a lot better, the first being bland by comparison.

There's a few things that I wonder about adding to that page, like The Bob Newhart Show over Newhart. The shows aren't really related aside from sharing the star (though the last episode makes the shows related), but still, it seems like Bob Newhart's first show gets a lot more attention than Newhart, even though Newhart had more seasons (but then both shows ended when Bob Newhart felt like ending them, as opposed to being cancelled). The Bob Newhart Show seems to be in reruns more and had more seasons on DVD than Newhart, I think it also had more VHS releases, and it seems like all documentaries on Bob Newhart represent the first show more than the second (I think Bob Newhart's autobiography talks about his first sitcom more). Not to mention that whenever either show is represented in a "greatest TV shows" list, The Bob Newhart Show tends to have more entries than Newhart (the "top 100 Greatest TV Show Episodes" compiled by Nick at Nite and TV Guide included two Bob Newhart Show episodes and no Newhart ones), and whenever Newhart is included in such a list it's always the last episode and no others (though there are many episodes I like better).

 

[Drtooth]

Oh yeah, you did mention your dislike for that show before and I had forgotten about it until now. I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been yanked off the air yet, but I guess ABC likes to let shows get a handful of episodes before they move to the TV graveyard.

I wouldn't say that. Lucky Seven should be in One Episode Wonder as well. I think. I can't remember if it aired 2 or 3 episodes before it was yanked. I have no idea what the ratings for Back in the Game are, but if they're good enough for it to last this long, it might be because the time slot between The Middle and Modern Family is giving it a boost. Personally, I'm also really annoyed that Suburgatory was demoted to mid-season replacement as it ended the season on a sharp cliffhanger. At least The Neighbors got moved to a Friday Night slot.

 

[D'Snowth]

I wanted to like SUBURGATORY, I really wanted to like SUBURGATORY, I really wanted to give it a chance, it actually looked promising, and it actually looked different... but then I saw the promos for the pilot, and what was one of the first things we saw? A box of condoms. So then I knew that it was just another one of the kind of garbage shows that continually pollutes the TV landscape.

 

[Drtooth]

That sort of thing never happened in the TV show.

Actually it did and wound up being a major plot point of being a major misunderstanding. Other than that, it's like Mean Girls the TV series.

 

[snichols1973]

Today I found a page called "First Installment Wins", regarding movies and shows and such where fans generally like the first one best.

I have similar feelings regarding the opening theme of Transformers G1 over the years: the theme music of Season 1 [1984] had a cool rock-guitar intro, followed by Season 2's duller, slower-paced version [1985-1986] which featured more frequent voyages to Cybertron and other extraterrestrial worlds (starting with The Key to Vector Sigma), and Season 3 & 4's theme was more ominous as the number of Earth-based episodes decreased while there were more futuristic intergalatic journeys which involved the Quintessons, Wreck-Gar and the Junkions, and other various alien worlds.......

Why they discontinued Season 1's theme of Transfomers G1, which sounded so much better (in contrast to the opening themes of Seasons 2, 3, and 4) is about as pointlessly perplexing as counting the number of licks until you reach the center of a Tootsie Roll pop.....

Original Tootsie Roll Pop commercial (how many licks?) - YouTube

 

[Drtooth]

The first theme song is alright... I don't think they really nailed it until Transformers Animated. If there's one thing that bugs me about the original theme song, it's that dangling "More than Meets the Eye" with the "Robots in Disguise" bit at the end, where TFA pairs the two.

Of course, I think the song is best instrumental at the end.

Now, with G.I. Joe, the theme song is good, but the movie theme is epic. And I have to admit, as goofy as the "Got to get tough! Yo Joe!" theme they used for the DIC cartoon, it is pretty catchy. They did a better job with it on the arcade game, though.

 

[minor muppetz]

Jerry Seinfeld seems to be a big example of this... I even posted about this in the Headscratchers section of SEINFELD on TV Tropes, that in-universe, Jerry seems to have a ridiculous amount of freetime for a grown man, not to mention, I'm trying to wrap my mind around someone being able to live in a sweet rent-controlled NYC apartment like he did on just standup alone, but apparently, standup is actually quite a decent-paying living.

I've been thinking about how the One-Hour Work Week page mentions that even a good stand-up comic puts in a 40-hour work week, stating it takes 40 hours for 30 seconds of good material. But does a stand-up comic need to actually go to an office or workplace to think up material? Do they have to actually clock in and out? When you're in a business to think up jokes or be creative, you can pretty much think up material anywhere, unless maybe you get too distracted easily. A stand-up comic could just spend their time at home thinking up material, or they can go out on the town and think up material based on what they encounter during the week, maybe even be inspired by things their friends and acquaintances do.

 

[D'Snowth]

Apparently, Hot Mom is no longer a trope; it was "being abused".

Somehow, Hot Teacher is still a trope though, so I don't really see what the deal is.

 

[minor muppetz]

There's one thing that often gets mentioned, and I think I recently saw it mentioned somewhere on TV Tropes, but I think this fact might qualify for the "Common Knowledge" page. Not sure if it does or not, but I often see things saying that the success of Aladdin and Robin Williams being the voice of the Genie led to studios being more likely to hire famous actors as opposed to strictly voice actors in cartoons and promote the fact that they had celebrity voices (though promotion for Aladdin didn't mention Robin Williams, per his terms for agreeing to be in the movie).

But then there's a lot of animated movies from before Aladdin that seem to have all-star voice casts. Oliver & Company, My Little Pony: The Movie, Fern Gully (which includes Robin Williams among the cast), The Brave Little Toaster, The Rescuers Down Under, and others. And some of those did have promotion mentioning the celebrity voices. The original 1991 VHS release of The Jungle Book included a promo advertising the history of Disney animation, including a section on Oliver and Company and mentioning some of the celebrity voices (then again, that promo came a few years after the movie's release). And there was a promo for My Little Pony: The Movie which showed Tony Randall in the theater talking about the movie and listing the voice cast.

Yeah, before Aladdin, there were a lot of animated movies which primarily involved the vocal talents of people largely unknown outside of animation fans, but there were also quite a few pre-Aladdin movies heavily involving the voices of celebrities as well. Though it does seem like after Aladdin it's been rare for animated movies to only include voice actors the general public doesn't know by name.

 

[D'Snowth]

I don't know about THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER having an "all-star" voice cast... it was most comprised of obscure comedic actors, with Jon Lovitz and Thurl Ravenscroft probably being the more well-known of the cast (and Lovitz didn't even reprise Radio's voice in the two VHS sequels).