Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

CONTACT US MTY Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I If I I / % your feet. We know you can dance E-mailusatgamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com T _■ m—»■- to the beat.” 0tBY MEG MOORE THE CAME COCK It was the era of Atari, the age of aerobics with Jane Fonda. Madonna was “Like A Virgin,” and America was chummy With the gang from “Cheers.” From “Schoolhouse Rock” to the New Kids on the Block, as children of the ’80s, we were the products of our pop-culture-permeated universe. Life was simpler then — cell phones had yet to become indis pensable, the World Wide Web re mained but a figment of the Commodore user’s imagination. □Looking back, we maintain a sort of sympathy towards not only our relative lack of technology but also the short-sightedness of our cul tural conscience. We weep for a world that saw spandex clothes as attractive. Even though most of us tend to shake our heads at ’80s trends, the decade during which “Video Killed the Radio Star” has become an indelible part of our recent his tory. Shun the thought of skinny ties all that you want — many ’80s era fads are resurfacing for a sec ond attempt at longevity. Fashion designers have been embracing trends that many would argue were not so chic the first time around — skinny pants and leg warmers, for example. Regardless of whether the Flashdance aesthetic is fun or sim ply unflattering, hints of every thing from the Material Girl mode to punk-rock cool have woven their way into current clothing collections. The styles of their childhood have made a lasting impression on students. Many consider the ’80s to be a somewhat frightening time in their own fashion histo ries. “All the pants I wore seemed to be really stretchy,” said third year history and English student Anna Stonecypher. Melanie Neil, a third-year art student at Columbia College, said she used to have her own signa ture look: “A skirt with thick tights and socks and tennis shoes — I wore that all the time.” From jelly shoes to bangle bracelets, myriad other fashion trends came and went during the decade as well. Both Neil and third-year classics student Priscilla Larkin recalled wearing T-shirt clips. Larkin said, “I nev er wore them, but stirrup pants were (also) big ... and slap bracelets.” Slap bracelets — the ultimate accessory, bridging the gap be tween fun and fashion — endure as a favorite among ’80s survivors. As expected, the re-emergence of retro apparel trends has given rise to a renewed interest in all things ’80s throughout pop cul ture. During October, VH1 has dedicated a special series to the decade of our youth — “I Love the ’80s Strikes Back.” Viewers are immersed in all of the music, mayhem and major events of the era in a neon-colored stroll through the streets of memory. The promotional spots for the se ries even feature the classic robot style voice and sound effects that were popular in period media. The mini-series premiered last week on the music network. Each of the 10 episodes focuses on a dif ferent year, highlighting events from 1980 through 1989. The shows focus on everything from Ghostbusters to Gremlins and Donkey Kong to Devo, celebrating the decade’s favorite fads and fetishes. For many, the television shows and toy closet relics of the age re main as defining as the fashion. “I watched the ‘Ninja Turtles’, ‘Sesame Street’ and Mr. Rogers’... ‘3,2,1 Contact,”’ Larkin remi nisced. Sheena Lazenby, a third-year English student, was a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” fan as well. She also enjoyed the ani mated spots that often aired in be tween programs — ’’The Claymation figures, those were awesome!” she said. Camping out in front of the TV was one way of wasting a week end; playing with some of those . great ’80s toys, from hula-hoops to Rubiks cubes, was another. “I had one of those skipper things (a Skip-It)... but I lost it one day,” Stonecypher said. Children of the ’80s learned early how to construct elaborate battle scenes with their G.I. Joes and send their Barbies for rides in their plastic convertibles. Popples and pogo balls also stand out as some of students’ favorite retro playthings. The decade may have gorged it self on the gaudy and glam, but in retrospect, the ’80s have given us a lot to love. As children of the ’80s, we were transfixed by Transformers and transported into the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” We got.a kick out of “The Karate Kid” and surfed the waves of style in Ocean Pacific clothing. We knew that “knowing is half the battle.” Retro cool has returned — whip on those slap bracelets and in dulge in ’80s-o-rama. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Primetime IV schedule gets shifty d BY DAVID BAUDER THE ASSOCIATE!) PRESS NEW YORK — Literary agent Rick Broadhead worked out, took □a shower, ate dinner and settled into a chair earlier this month to watch a new episode of his fa vorite show, “The West Wing.” Yet it wasn’t on. Less than 24 hours earlier, NBC executives de cided to replace it with a “Law & Order” rerun, reasoning “The West Wing” would be crushed in the ratings by a baseball playoff game. “I was incredibly disappoint ed,” said Broadhead, a Toronto, Canada, resident. “It was a huge letdown. As a viewer, you look for ward to it. You sometimes plan your evenings around certain shows.” Better keep those plans fluid. Television schedules often seem written in disappearing ink, particularly around this time of year, so it’s worth asking: Is the whole idea of stable line ups becoming obsolete in a hy ^w'percompetitive, multichannel world? “I think the world is completely different from when I grew up knowing that ‘Happy Days’ and ‘Laverne and Shirley’ were on ABC on Tuesday nights,” said Jeff Zucker, NBC Entertainment pres ident. “There are still several ap pointment shows on every net work—probably more on NBC than anywhere else—but beyond that, this idea that yoii have to set your 22 hours and that’s the way it is as arcane as running the re peats of those shows in the sum mer,” he said. Already this season, NBC has blown up its struggling Friday night lineup, moved “Third Watch” from Monday to Friday and taken the touted comedy “Coupling” off the air with no inkling of when it will return. Some of NBC’s schedules, par ticularly for Fridays, are set week to week, leaving so much uncer tainty that a Washington Post re porter trying to keep track wryly called it “cubist origami.” Zucker is an aggressive busi nessman, and he’s adopted several strategies designed to wring as many ratings points out of a night as he can. He’s “supersized” pop ular shows, experimented with different time slots and aired pro grams on different nights for ex tra exposure. He’s intent on keeping NBC dominant among the 18-to-49-year old demographic-so far he’s suc ceeded—but the job is becoming more difficult in a season where no network can claim any new hits. r.ike Broadhead, one television historian questions whether the price paid for frequent changes is alienating viewers. “I have a lot of trouble keeping track of shows, and I do this for a living,” said Tim Brooks, a Lifetime executive and co-author of “The Complete Directory to Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows!” Over the past few years, broad casters have been able to charge more for commercials even though fewer people are watching. Ratings are down again this sea son—particularly among young people-creating the prospect that networks will have to give refunds to advertisers. “There’s a certain amount of panic at the networks that they have to do something to stop this or the whole house of cards is go ing to fall apart,” Brooks said. ABC generally has kept its line up of shows intact, while Fox de lays the debuts of many of its shows because of postseason base ball—a highly rated prime-time product this year. CBS believes that maintaining a stable schedule provides a com fort level to viewers, said David Poltrack, the network’s chief re searcher. (CBS isn’t immune to changes; “The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H.” was just canceled). “We think we have gained over the last several years by virtue of the fact that we have the least amount of change in our sched ule,” he said. That’s particularly important at a time when viewers are over whelmed by so many choices, he said. Research shows that a high per centage of viewers return to their favorite shows week after week — the concept of appointment view ing — and that hasn’t changed much over the years, Poltrack said. What’s broken down is the idea that viewers will stick with one network for a night; the re mote control has set them free. To a certain extent, that argues in favor of NBC’s more aggressive approach. Better to grab them if more viewers are beginning their evenings with a look at on-screen guides and making decisions at the spur of the moment. This time of year—right before the important November ratings “sweeps”—is particularly tough for schedulers. They must weigh, with only a few weeks of evidence, whether new shows should be nur tured or pulled from the lineup for strategic reasons. If a show comes back after a hiatus, viewers might not. Zucker said his schedule flip ping this year is exaggerated, probably because of the last minute decision to pull original series on big baseball nights. He’s aware people complained, but considers that “nonsensical” and “silly.” Since more people will watch the episodes on a non-base ball night, he’s serving a greater number of viewers, he said. Even Broadhead, when pressed, had to agree. “If I were an NBC ex ecutive, I might have done the same thing,” he said. But he vehemently objects to the idea that a stable television schedule isn’t important. Contrary to his image as an ex ecutive with an itchy trigger fin ger, Zucker said he’s kept shows such as “Good Morning, Miami” and “Third Watch” on the air longer than some people advised to build an audience. 1 ' >. Gambling channel hopes to win big BY LYNN ELBER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ' LOS ANGELES — Creators of the Casino and Gaming Televi sion network are betting that a national interest in gambling will translate into a desire to watch it on television. The new network is sched uled to launch in 2004 as a digi tal cable and satellite channel with shows such as “Winning Hand,” with poker experts of fering tips on the game, and “Dusk ‘Til Dawn,” a tour of night spots in Las Vegas, Monaco and other gambling destinations. The number of Americans who bet represents a vast poten tial audience, said David Hawk, co-founder and co-chairman. More than 50 million Ameri cans made more than 300 million visits to casinos last year, Hawk said, citing research done for the American Gaming Association. Other “niche” channels, such as the Golf Channel, have sue ceeded with a smaller pool to draw from, Hawk said. About 25 million people visited golf cours es last year, half the number of casino-goers, he said. The new channel, being an nounced Monday, will target the young male crowd, ages 21 to 34, which is valuable to advertisers, said Nickolas J. Rhodes, the net work’s president and chief exec utive officer. Television has been dealing out an increasing number of gambling-themed shows, in cluding Travel Channel’s hit se ries on the World Poker Tour and the upcoming “Celebrity Poker Showdown” on Bravo. Still, it remains to be seen whether gambling shows will be successful. “That’s the ultimate ques tion,” said Bill Carroll, an ana lyst for Katz Television, a media buying firm. “The marketplace will determine if there really is a need for any of these digital chan nels that are specially targeted.”