When Mad Men first aired, it proved to be more than a nostalgia show. They had been attempts to go back and reclaim that moment in Americana that never really existed on the boob tube. Remember Hi Honey, I'm Home! a terrible pre-cursor to Pleasantville, about a guy who loves a Leave It To Beaver show and finds out the family from the show has been relocated to 1991 suburbia. The idea was bad because it was a one-joke show.
Same with Oliver Beene, this time set in the 1950s with all the jokes you would expect, such as people talking about how Baghdad is a popular tourist attraction.
It seemed it best to leave the past in the past. But Mad Men was different. It seemed to get past the gimmick of being set in the 1960s and having people chain smoking and focus on real stories about real people.
It did the same thing That 70's Show did. Use the nostalgia in passing. That was the real problem with Freaks and Geeks. Unlike The Wonder Years, there was really no reason for it to be set in the past. Also, maybe because That 70's Show and Wonder Years were set in farther distance time frames. By the late 1990s, everyone was trying to forget the 1980s. There was no nostalgia for the era.
But it didn't take long for the Gen Xers raised during the Reaganeighties to realize what could work. The folks that brought you The State, by far one of the best comedy variety shows ever, made Wet Hot American Summer and it bombed. It bombed big time. Even for a movie that cost less than $2 million, the movie only made 10 percent of its budget at the box office. Reviews were equally brutal as they should be. Summer was a drag. Along with State alum Michael Showalter, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Ian Black and in small roles David Wain and Kerri Kenney, the movie also had Amy Poehler, famous at the time for her roles on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Upright Citizens Brigade and Janeane Garofalo, from The Ben Stiller Show, and David Hyde Pierce, from Frasier. It should have been hilarious, but all these actors are underused. The true laughs went to Paul Rudd, who was only known as Alicia Silverstone's stepbrother in Clueless, Christopher Meloni, from Oz, and some unknown actors at the time named Elizabeth Banks and Bradley Cooper. Even Zak Orth pulls some funny scenes. Orth does a hilarious facefirst fall into water during a scene that is one of the movie's highlights of physical comedy.
Years passed and Summer found an audience on video and DVD and cable viewings. Now, they're doing a TV show, well miniseries, for NetFlix. I hope it's better and maybe in the years since, there is better comedy. Part of what makes the movie worked was seeing Banks and Cooper, then unknown, taking small roles and making them huge. Cooper is hilarious as a preppy perfectionist wanting to put on the best talent show ever. Also, don't think many actors starting out would've dare to a sex scene with Michael Ian Black. Thankfully, the movie didn't use the same-sex relationship as a joke.
Banks was also funny as a woman who wasn't afraid to appear in scenes where her beauty was used as a joke, such as a scene in which Rudd's character gets grossed out at Banks devouring barbecue as the sauce is all over her face.
And Rudd was willing to play the antagonist of the movie and it worked well.
There's another show called The Astronaut Wives Club airing on CBS that has all the makings of a summer replacement show. It's supposed to focus on the wives of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts but judging from the commercials, you can tell it's just about nostalgia. There's too much winking at the camera as people use items that people used 50-60 years ago.
Don't expect a second season. Be surprised if this first season isn't canceled. And if you haven't heard of the show, I'm not surprised.
To be entertaining you have to have substance as well as style.
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