Tuesday

Hence, This-or-That: TV Shows/Movies Edition.

1. “The Munsters” or “The Addams Family”? The Munsters always seemed goofy to me. Nobody you could take seriously. The Addams Family, though — now, they had style. The Munsters were no real threat to the neighborhood. The Addams — well, you can imagnie the occasional salesman or kid being swallowed up by a plant, or hauled off by Grand-Mama to fill out a stew. And the Tish/Gomez romance was legendary.

Proof of the matter comes in the movies. You can’t imagine The Munsters being any more than a series of gags. The Addams Family movies had meat on those gnawed bones.

And as much as I enjoyed Fred Gwynne, John Astin rocks.

2. “The Sopranos” or the “Godfather” movies? We don’t get HBO, so I’ve only seen two eps of Sopranos, while on business trips. I enjoyed both of them. I have, on the other hand, never seen The Godfather (and, yes, I know that I should). So I’ll have to pass on this one.

3. “The Jetsons” or “Lost in Space”? Apples and Orangs. The former was an occasionally witty satire on modern society (a la The Flintstones), the latter an sf adventure show that turned into high camp.

4. “Superman” or “Batman” (either the TV shows or the movies)? I’d better make it the movies, since there have been eleventy-dozen Superman TV shows (not even counting cartoons).

Well, okay, cartoons: I prefer the (recent) Superman animated series (WB) over the Batman ones, though I’ll watch either at the drop of a hat. And I particularly liked the “World’s Finest” cross-over between them.

Movies? I never really did believe a man could fly in the Christopher Reeves Superman flick, though it was a decent enough film (Superman II had better battles, if vomitous romance). And I liked Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor.

Tim Burton’s Batman was a tour-de-force, despite some odd quirks (it’s impossible to imagine a Burton film without odd quirks, to be fair). And, as insane as it sounds, it was more believable.

5. “Sex & The City” or “Friends”? I have not watched either of them enough to form an opinion — nor do I wish to.

6. “The Wizard of Oz” or the “Harry Potter” movies? An odd combo. I’d probably have to go for the WoO classic, over the decently adapted but (I suspect) not-long-term-classic Potter flicks.

7. “The Simpsons” or “King of the Hill”? It’s probably unfair to lump these two together, regardless of how Fox broadcasts them. The Simpsons is a modern comedy-of-the-surreal classic, and one that will be mined by sociologists for decades, if not centuries, to come, for all its references to modern culture and personalities. King of the Hill is just fine comedy — the low-flow toilet episode is one of my faves — that deserves a lot more credit than it gets.

8. “Grease” or “Saturday Night Fever”? Never watched either.

9. Old prime-time soaps: “Dallas” or “Dynasty”? Never watched either, either. Though, as a Denverite, I probably need to vote for Dynasty — it’s interesting seeing the “old” oil-based Denver in it.

10. Not very thought-provoking this week…do you prefer TV shows or movies? A great TV series will beat a great movie, just because of the ability of the story and characters to evolve. A great movie will beat a great TV episode, just because of the craftsmanship that can go into it (along with the longer running time).