![]() ![]() No learning.” Just one year earlier, America’s most popular show on TV was “The Cosby Show,” all sugarspun togetherness, strong parenting, and wholesome American values. ![]() “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David famously commanded the show’s writing staff to follow a new mantra: “No hugging. Sentimentality was out, and satire, self-awareness, and sarcasm were in. MORE THAN 130 SHOWS PREMIERED IN 1989, but two stood out from the rest, and went on to make a lasting cultural impact transcending the boundaries of television: “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons.” Together, they upended the long-standing TV tropes of teachable moments, neatly wrapped-up conflicts, loving relationships, and careful political correctness. Even “COPS” was a breakthrough - a “reality show” on the air three years before MTV’s “The Real World” debuted its motley cast of characters. Arsenio Hall became the first African-American to host his own major late-night talk show. “Life Goes On” was the first major series to feature a main character with Down syndrome. Sprinkled among the lighter fare, several innovative and even culture-shifting shows debuted. On network television (then the top source of daily entertainment for most Americans), viewers were introduced to new shows like “Baywatch,” “Saved by The Bell,” and “The California Raisin Show” (itself an example of the rise of product placement and content marketing). Pop culture in 1989 was no different: the Nintendo Game Boy foretold a world of portable gaming on handheld devices Milli Vanilli, with four of the year’s biggest hits (before their careers were derailed by the revelation that they couldn’t sing and were just lip-synching), signaled the bait-and-switch of over-produced, manufactured mainstream music stars the first commercially-available dial-up internet connection was a small crack in the dam that released the flood wave of the Digital Age. You look like you live with your mother.” The next 22 minutes scrutinized all matter of minutiae: cotton balls, different types of handshakes, and over-drying clothes at the laundromat.įor better or worse, popular culture serves as a generational signpost, telling us where society is heading as the future loses its haze and comes into view. Look at it - it’s too high! It’s in no-man’s land. “The second button literally makes or breaks the shirt. “That button’s in the worst possible spot,” says one, gesturing to the other’s outfit. It began with two average-looking men chatting in a well-lit but otherwise nondescript diner. ![]() Longstanding, oppressive institutions were being challenged or overthrown. The world was changing, and amid the swirl of revolution and upheaval, a different type of TV show premiered. A month earlier, the Tiananmen Square protests were crushed by the Chinese government. Networks cut frenetically from stories about the first suicide attack in Israel to pieces on the presidential elections in Iran to coverage of United Airlines Flight 232, which crashed in Iowa and left 112 dead. JULY 1989 WAS A BUSY MONTH in the TV business. ![]()
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