Why That 70s Show Could Never Be Made Today

So I don't want to make this an overly long post. While there are 8 seasons of this show, it's your pretty typical sitcom with your coming of age teenage main characters and goofy situational comedy. There's not really anything to talk about specifically within each season nor was this really that ground breaking of a show. That being said it is still incredibly funny and has had quite the legacy, especially for people of my generation who grew up with the gang of the show.

I'll talk about the basic premise and structure of the show and what made it great but I also want to talk about the legacy of the show, mainly the fact that this show could never be made today.

That 70s Show takes place in the titular decade and follows the coming of age antics of a group of teenagers. Our main character is Eric Foreman (played by Topher Grace) who hosts these kids in the basement of his parents house. He is constantly under the strict rules of his father Red (played by Kurtwood Smith) and his overbearing mother Kitty (played by Debra Jo Rupp).

His friends include the handsome but absent minded Michael Kelso (played by Ashton Kutcher), the burnout Steven Hyde (played by Danny Masterson), the girl next door Donna Pinciotti (played by Laura Prepon), the bratty cheerleader Jackie Burkhart (played by Mila Kunis) and the foreign exchange student only known as Fez (played by Wilmer Valderrama).

In case you haven't picked up on it already, a lot of these actors are pretty well known today and yes, this was their first acting gig. It is actually really funny seeing Mila Kunis (who was actually 14 when she was cast because she lied about her age) then and compare her to now.

Damn...

The majority of the show takes place in the latter part of the decade and takes these characters through the later years of high school and a couple years after. The show is probably most known for it's use of the 360 cam in a segment of the show called The Circle where the characters are smoking weed.

When when the show first came out I was pretty young and did not understand what the underlying joke of these scenes were. The show rode a pretty fine line because there are rules about drug use in television. They rarely ever flat out say that the kids are smoking weed and while they're acting silly, as a kid I didn't know what they were doing.

My parents were not a fan of this show to say the least.

But these scene really are a lot of fun and from them and other parts of the show, you can tell that the cast is having just as much fun with the script as the audience is. It is pretty obvious throughout the show that these kids were breaking a lot and the great part was that it was worked into the scenes pretty fluidly.

I think that is something very interesting about this show because while it definitely was not the last TV show to have a live studio audience (I mean there are still a couple of them going today) you can definitely feel the audience as apart of the show just as much as the action on screen. It feels a little bit more organic than other shows that use them almost as a crutch... I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory...

Comedies after 9/11 took on a very different format and that's why you got shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation that ditched the live studio audience and I don't think coincidentally, went on to be the top rated comedies. Don't ask me what the Big Bang Theory is doing different, but That 70s Show seemed to be the last of an older low budget sitcom. Everything is mostly on a stage and there are multiple cameras.

The show also feels like a classic sitcom from the 70s or the 80s because of all the stuff that happened behind the scenes. Google That 70s Show behind the scenes and you'll find a bunch of stuff that happened to those actors during and since the show aired.

So why did I decide to review That 70s Show? Well besides the fact that I'm watching The Ranch on Netflix and the show not only has a lot of the cast from That 70s Show in it, but has a similar feel, I was actually doing a good amount of research on the 70s at the time and I wanted to see not only how this show portrayed that time frame, but what it said about the late 1990s and early 2000s in which it aired.

An interesting aspect about the 70s is that it was a changing time. Historically speaking there were a lot of changes that were happening and it seemed to be a transition point from the scary times of the 60s. Rock music changed (as evident by the references used in the show) drug use was up (the circle) and the role of men and women were changing and that is very apparent in the show. The three women who are consistent throughout the series are Kitty, Donna, and Jackie and they all go through their own transitions based on how women were probably transitioning at the time. The show is by no means trying to be historically accurate, but it is interesting how it does tie in with the times more than you think.

But while there are undertones of this show being relevant to the 70s, the dialogue and stories come right out of the 90s. This show as popular at that time because you had people who grew up with these characters the same way people grew up with Harry Potter (maybe not to that extreme but not far off).

There are some pretty dramatic moments throughout the show and I will give credit where it's due, these guys are pretty talented actors because you do feel stuff. There's relationship drama and other things in this show that take it out of joking mode a lot more than I originally remembered.

It's interesting because Ashton Kutcher and Danny Masterson star in The Ranch and it follows a very similar formula as That 70s Show but actually takes those dramatic moments more seriously. At least for a couple beats longer than usual before the tension breaking joke.

And speaking of humor, it's also fascinating watching this show now in 2017 because there are some jokes that this might have been the last time you could get away with them. It rides a weird line of showing the wave of feminism that occurred in the 70s while at the same time telling a lot of jokes that are flat out misogynistic and borderline sexual harassment jokes.

The guys in this show are actually kind of gross at times. They are continuously hitting on Jackie and Donna who are usually in committed relationships. They kind of treat them like objects and they just laugh it off. Nothing seems like it's not just jokes between friends but it doesn't exactly send a great message, especially in these times. The #MeToo movement would probably not approve of That 70s Show today. Now part of that might have a little bit to do with Danny Masterson... but I'm gonna leave that one alone.

And let's not forget that a huge part of his character for a while there was the fact that he was always hiding in Donna's closet presumably being a peeping tom... this is just one example of some of the weird stuff you see on this show that would have been okay back in the 90s, but is not okay now. Our heroes!

I don't want to make that the entire point of this review because there are shows that do the same thing if not worse today. That will actually be the subject of the video at the end. However, it does state why a show like That 70s Show, for better or worse, could not be made today the way it was.

I would say that's a good thing and a bad thing.

While the show definitely had its moments that by todays standards are just not okay, there was a sense of family on the show and togetherness. These kids were basically allowed to play with the script and some of the show was improvised on the spot. It created a fun environment and it had a Cheers vibe to it (another show I'm watching that kind of has the same time capsule effect).

There is a sense that there were no boundaries besides keeping things PG and censored to a point. Now that of course comes with the baggage of objectifying women in a destructive way and I'm not trying to diminish that at all, it's just interesting how a show like this was made, was very popular, and was very successful in a time as early as the late 90s to early 2000s and yet couldn't be made with the same success today without pissing the internet off.

Like a lot of sitcoms, That 70s Show fell into a familiar trap I've seen multiple times before and that is the last season that both served as an attempt to rebrand as well as be a send off season.

After doing the show for 6 years, understandably, Topher Grace wanted to move onto other things in his career. He was written out of the show and replaced with Josh Meyers. Eric Foreman had always served as an anchor to the show and it felt very odd because the show didn't quite know how to move on from there. Ashton Kutcher also left and relationships started to develop that in retrospect just seemed like odd choices. Jackie ends up with Fez at the end... I mean go back to the first season and watch the entire show with the knowledge that Fez ends up with Jackie... it's weird.

This odd last season has happened multiple times. It happened with Scrubs, it happened with Parks and Rec, it's a thing that happens. I would say it's a little bit better than I remember it being, but it's still a little bit of a slog till the end in what had been a really solid series up until that point.

If you're looking to give this show a rewatch, I highly recommend you do your research on the behind the scenes elements of the show because it really does make the viewing experience even funnier at times.

Overall, That 70s Show is a horse of a different color. There are good elements of that and there are bad elements of that. It is a show that definitely could not be made today just due to the jokes and format, but that kind of makes it special when you watch it on Netflix.

I don't think this show had the impact of other sitcoms like Friends, but I think today is just a day of underrated stuff. First it was Sing, now it's That 70s Show. I think it's an underrated show and I really enjoyed watching through all 8 seasons.

But what do you think? Do you remember this show? Have you watched it recently? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me some requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. I don't know if I've shown this guys videos before but he does interesting video essays on the portrayal of masculinity in pop culture. He does an interesting bit on The Big Bang Theory which I think is also relevant to That 70s Show. Enjoy!