Posted on 10/19/2005 12:28:50 PM PDT by Mike Bates
Four Fox network programs, led by the comedies "The War at Home," "The Family Guy" and "American Dad," topped a parents group's annual listing of the worst prime-time shows for family viewing.
The Parents Television Council rated two aspirational reality shows, ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and NBC's new "Three Wishes," as the best programs for family viewing.
The group's president, L. Brent Bozell, said he was alarmed that the three Fox Sunday night comedies are being marketed as family friendly.
"Families should not be deceived," he said. "The top three worst shows all contain crude and raunchy dialogue with sex-themed jokes and foul language. Even worse is the fact that Hollywood is peddling its filth to families with cartoons."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Family Circus. Worst. Cartoon. Ever.
Yes, he is on this continent, for the time being...he has already told us that he probably wont be around on Christmas Day, as he will be on some other continent...so we will probably have to do Christmas a week early...he has not yet decided where he is going, is considering going back to see VietNam, Cambodia, and Laos, since he missed them while he was on his around the world trip...but he has not finalized his plans yet...
I suspect he will never stop traveling, always looking for new places to see and visit...I guess, once bitten by the travel bug, its a hard thing to give up...its just the places he choses, and the activities that he enjoys, ,that worry me...but I have come to accept that he is an adult, pays his own way on these trips, and does what he likes...he knows I worry so, so most of the time, he does not tell me of his more dangerous adventures, until they are over...
So, its probably either VietNam, Cambodia, and Laos, or as an alternative to Switzerland to visit friends, and then see more of Europe...in either case, by the end of the year, he will be off on another adventure...
Pray for W and Our Victorious Troops
Really, why should anyone?
susie
Really, why should anyone?
susie
You sound like my parents back in the early 70's when they used to say "How we went from the good entertainment of the 50's and 60's to this age of crap I have no idea." My father wouldn't let us watch MASH because Klinger wore a dress and my mother had a cow over the Happy Days episode when the Fonz taught the guys how to unsnap a bra using one hand. The one thing my parents didn't do, however, was to try to control what other households watched. If my parents didn;t like the show they turned the channel or turned the TV off. They didn't call for goverment censorship because they were too lazy or pigheaded to take control of their own TV set.
Do you have kids?
"How about someone who just wants to watch the news without being morally offended? "
That is a real issue.
The view of what is innapropriate varies from person to person and from community to community but TV reaches across communities and even countries.
There is a freedom speech argument and there is an argument that the airwaves belong to public and are granted to broadcasters by the government and the government shouldn't sanction offensive things.
But there are people who are offended (or at least claim they are) by Christian symbols. There are people who are offended by war, even just wars. There are people who argue that advertising is speech and thus protected by the first amendment.
Norm, I disagree with you about the specific programming we are discussing but I am disgusted by people who trivialize your views or think they are somehow less legitimate than their own.
I wish I had a solution. We can't eliminate everything that offends and we can't do away with all rules.
Thanks for your very articulate points.
As I said in my earlier post all I am asking for are limits.
There are universally accepted decency standards that can and should be applied that don't offend on a religeous level.
This idea that anytime you censor Howard Stern it is somehow Government intrusion is ridiculous.
Family Guy is a GREAT show.
chances are most kids won't get 80% of the jokes on it anyway.
I wonder what Bozell thinks of South Park?
:)
Yeah, actually it is funny you mention the Happy days stuff. As a matter of fact if you go back and watch them after the first season it did away with all the racey stuff probably due to the public outcry it caused. Richie went from rushing toward third base to stuck on first for the rest of the show. But comparing those great shows to the crap of today is a weak argument.
you see, if Bozell ISN'T screaming about something on TV, he doesn't have a niche.....
kinda like Pat Buchanan....
LOL
back when every 12 year old wanted to be with Christina Applegate LOL
Some people even complained about Fonzie's leather jacket! They thought it was too 'hooligan-ish' for TV.
Well, I was 35 and wanted to be with the 18 year old Christina Applegate.
"The Ghost Whisperer" was lauded as good family viewing. Unfortunately, it is dreadfully boring. They liked "Everybody Hates Chris;" I saw the pilot, but as a rule, I don't watch UPN. Any network that cancelled Nowhere Man and Enterprise while giving Voyager seven years is a network I want to avoid.
And then you had my grandmother who was stuck on radio and 1950's TV. She refused to watch the Ed Sullivan Show because of the Elvis pelvic grinds, even though they only showed him from the waist down. She though Bewitched was anti-Christian and therefore immoral. She even had a problem with My Three Son's for reasons I can't recall. My point is that every generation has raised the same concerns that you have raised about TV entertainment and yet we have managed for the most part to survive as a society. That doen't mean we have to watch what we don't like, and indeed, with remote controls, changing the channel is that much easier.
What, are you stuck on stupid? That's exactly what the list is for! Giving parents a heads up about when to "change the channel". You can really tell the ones who don't have small children here (or don't care how course their children become)
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