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Posted: |
Apr 22, 2009 - 6:48 PM
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By: |
Bach-Choi
(Member)
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Funny, but if you think about it, GI is not REALLY a sitcom, but rather a series of adventure tales laden with humorous episodes. The show had much going for it: clever set design, beautiful camera work, some inventive scripting, a good cast chemistry and solid underscoring (mainly Williams, Fried, and Stevens). One of my favorite tunes in the show, the "Lord Beasely theme" (a jumpy little bassoon thing), was written neither by Fried or Stevens, but (an uncredited) Don Ray, who was a CBS music supervisor in those days and whose biggest scoring claim to fame were episodes of Hawaii Five-0. Don also wrote the silly, Haydn-like trumpet tune for the "Lord Admiral Gilligan" dream sequence.
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Now, for the most important question of all: Ginger or Mary Ann? Mary Ann all the way!!
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Posted: |
Apr 22, 2009 - 7:37 PM
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By: |
MMM
(Member)
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"GI" is most definitely a sitcom. It is a comedy using recurring characters in the same basic situation. Although sitcoms have altered their types of characters and situations through the decades, just because today's sitcoms are different from those of the past doesn't mean they don't both fall into that same category. The show is definitely not sketch comedy, or a comedy-variety show, or stand-up, or animated, or vaudeville. It's just like radio shows of decades before that used character-driven humor based on the fact that we knew the characters, and the situations they were in, so those of us who found it funny laughed at the same comic situations and running gags every time they came up, from episode to episode. Another characteristic of most sitcoms is that each episode works by itself, and doesn't depend upon earlier or later episodes in order to set up a new premise or resolve itself. And often the resolutions are the same every single episode, as in the castaways not escaping the island, Archie Bunker being bettered by someone he thought he was better than, etc. You usually end up with the same characterizations at the beginning of an episode no matter how many times the character should have learned his or her lesson at the end of the previous episode. If all of the above doesn't define "GI," I don't know what does!
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So what would you call Batman? A sit-com- A very corny sitcom based on a comic book character Telegram deliverer to a group with Batman standing together: "Which one of you guys is "Batman"?
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Well, I don't know about this calling GI a sitcom. In most sitcoms characters are not faced with life and death propositions (from active volcanoes, headhunters, landed WW2 mines, malnutrition through loss of citruis fruits, typhoons, consumption of radioactive vegetables). Isn't that more in the realm of adventure? I would call it a 70/30 com-a (flipside of a dramedy). How can you say that with that incessant, inane laugh track telling you, "This is a comedy! Not to be taken seriously!" LOL!
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I'd say it's in the same category as something like Lost In Space but with a laugh track. Well, son, THAT statement ALONE should answer your question. LIS might have played better with a laugh track.
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Thinking about MASH. A dramedy? A bore. IMHO.
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Funny, but if you think about it, GI is not REALLY a sitcom, but rather a series of adventure tales laden with humorous episodes. The show had much going for it: clever set design, beautiful camera work, some inventive scripting, a good cast chemistry and solid underscoring (mainly Williams, Fried, and Stevens). One of my favorite tunes in the show, the "Lord Beasely theme" (a jumpy little bassoon thing), was written neither by Fried or Stevens, but (an uncredited) Don Ray, who was a CBS music supervisor in those days and whose biggest scoring claim to fame were episodes of Hawaii Five-0. Don also wrote the silly, Haydn-like trumpet tune for the "Lord Admiral Gilligan" dream sequence. The "Lord Admiral Gilligan" theme is one of my favorites. That, and Gerald Fried's entire score for "Pass the Vegetables Please." The music of Gilligan's Island richly deserves a comprehensive release.
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If M*A*S*H was boring to you, what exactly do you find to be good drama or comedy? I was a little harsh saying a bore. It's just that M*A*S*H is like tap water when you turn on a local channel or TVLAND. They play it back to back on these venues. I watched it in it's original run- had a dorm mate in college who thought it was the tit. It's just not my cup of tea.
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