MaryMag
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cheesy or wildly popular tv showsMy director for Betty's Summer Vacation told me to start watching bad but horribly popular television to prepare for the show, since the show is a dark parody of television. He suggested Saved By the Bell. You guys got any suggestions?
The play's characters mirror stereotypical characters of tv sitcoms and we're supposed to not aim for realism but melodrama. So I need to know what the archetypes of tv characters are before I can over-dramatize them!
To sum up, what do you think are the most wellknown tv characters that even someone who abhors pop culture will recognize?
Those are the people I'm gonna look at and familiarize myself with. I gotta know em if I'm gonna badly impersonate them, right?
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Lazarus (Adam G)
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Bob...friggin...Saget.
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julycoaron
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Bad TV but wildly popular?
My first thought was "The Brady Bunch," but it's been parodied to death.
Brian
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The Drama Queen
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Saved By the Bell definitely, and also Sabrina the Teenage Witch for the more teen-based ones. As for adult shows, Desperate Housewives has the dumbest plotlines and is so fake that you get addicted into watching it. And of course there's Ugly Betty which is fairly new and very cheesy but I just love it!
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Baker
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| Lazarus (Adam G) wrote: | | Bob...friggin...Saget. |
Hey, now. Don't be hatin'.
Brady Bunch was my first thought too. Maybe check out things like Leave It To Beaver, which aren't altogether bad, but sometimes they do have flat acting and it displays the stereotypical American family of two parents and two children.
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jcstar
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Anything on Women's Television Networks.
Andy.
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Bianca.
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Full house?
Fresh Prince..
Family matters.. urkel..
7th heaven..ish.. maybe not so much.
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MademoiselleMusicals
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| The Drama Queen wrote: | | As for adult shows, Desperate Housewives has the dumbest plotlines and is so fake that you get addicted into watching it. And of course there's Ugly Betty which is fairly new and very cheesy but I just love it! |
1) I disagree about Desperate HW's but agree it's SOOOOO addicitve
2) Ugly Betty is just pure class.
I'm trying to think about bad teen shows...
Drake and Josh
Lizzie Mcguire
So Little Time
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MaryMag
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| Mumsytype wrote: | My niece watched a lot of American sitcoms when she was here last year. I mean, at least an hour and a half of canned laughter-track EVERY FRICKIN MORNING. She watched;
Friends
Will & Grace
The Geena Davis Show
And a couple of other things with people that all looked exactly the same - slim, young, shiny and smart - and had an identical laugh-track. I suppose those are the sort of thing you'd be asked to immerse yourself in?
My commiserations! |
Friends is definitely a show I have to acquaint myself with. At the auditions, the director was describing my character as the Jennifer Aniston character. The (for the most part) sensible one who is just trying to keep up with her wacky friends. (I just used the word wacky... that's such a dumb word...)
Desperate Housewives and Full House I'll have to look at. Will and Grace is great, too. Even though those characters don't exactly translate into Durang's play, it's just good to know these pop culture characters that everyone (but me) seems to know. Can I help it that I spend all my time watching cartoons like Fairly Odd Parents?
Anyway, I said this in my 'practical acting tips' thread in the audition forum, and I'll say it again here:
*It pays to watch lots of tv and movies, because very often directors at auditions describe the character you're auditioning for in terms of one of these pop culture characters. For a play like this one, which is a parody of tv, it's essential. But even at the last Guys and Dolls aud I went to, the director asked the Hot Box girls to act more like Marilyn Monroe, and I know only the most generic details about her. Would've paid to understand her better!*
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ado amber
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| jcstar wrote: | Anything on Women's Television Networks.
Andy. |
haha so true! oh lifetime...
umm...a horribly addicting teen show is degrassi...its very easy to make fun of....
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MsDivaKate
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I don't really consider FRIENDS to be bad but popular. The writing and timing for that show got so much better as it went on. But the first season was pretty off, as the characters weren't really developed.
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MaryMag
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| MsDivaKate wrote: | | I don't really consider FRIENDS to be bad but popular. The writing and timing for that show got so much better as it went on. But the first season was pretty off, as the characters weren't really developed. |
Yeah but I'm kinda dumb and stuck up and tend to dislike pop culture or anything large numbers of people like. So I'll call it bad. Cuz i'm like that.
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