Condemned by History cleanup thread

So I'm understanding that something still around can't be DTD? That would disqualify most of the businesses. So Kmart/Sears and Radio Shack don't qualify yet because they're still around, right?

What about the Steve & Barry's example then? That business is retroactively thought as an embarrassment, as beyond its corporate greed, it had a reputation for showing absolutely no restraint in store locations, and generally being a space filler in vacant shopping centers. Also, everything they sold was just super-cheap screen printed crap with sports logos on it. It was just a tacky business all around, and no one remembers it fondly.

Likewise with Phar-Mor. It was once so big that Sam Walton once feared it, but it got hit hard when the owners were caught embezzling funds. That gutted the business, stripped it of anything that made it unique, and no one has tried to copy its store format since. Sounds like a DTD business to me if it's remembered more for that than anything else.

Blockbuster Video is mocked for the "no one goes to video stores" anymore angle, but there's still 90's nostalgia for it.

I can see cutting Howard Johnson's and Stuckey's since they're remembered fondly even with their troubles.

I'm voting cut on Hannah Montana just to end it.

I don't think Soap Operas have been significantly more mocked more recently than they've always been. I think they've mostly just lost popularity due to changing times, and with that the mocking has become more prominent due to fewer fans. It's a cut for me.

With American Idol, it's a little bit similar, since it has been mocked from the beginning as well, but there's more of a case for a turning tide there with people who used to like it see the point of that and realise it wasn't really as good as they thought (though this is only from what I've gathered from others' opinions, friends and online stuff), so I'm at a tentative keep. The people who gained popularity because of it appear to have largely retained their popularity with their own talent, maybe even despite their origin in the public conciousness, so I don't think they're much of an argument against including the show. They're more of a case of throwing enough crap at the wall, and something will stick, which doesn't speak well about the alleged purpose of the show.

The main reason I'm on the fence about The Cosby Show is that it's never been a thing where I live, so I don't really have much experience about or against it. There are still convincing arguments in either direction. Didn't know it existed before reading about it here (the site, not this thread).

The Cobsy Show: keep. I think The Dukes of Hazzard also count? Since the 2015 Charleston shooting, I think there had been a backlash from that.

edited 5th Oct '16 6:11:56 AM by alnair20aug93

If we eventually decide to keep The Cosby Show, we should add Jim'll Fix It as well.

The Cosby Show was huge. And the fact it broke out of the Minority Show Ghetto honestly did a lot to make many white people realize that black people can be... people. Not jive stereotypes, not a Token Minority, but people. It's sad that its legacy was so tarnished.

Dukes Of Hazzard should most definitely not count. The General Lee is still iconic, and the outrage over the idea of it losing its iconic Confederate flag is very much there. Even those who are against the Confederate flag in general mention that an Orwellian Retcon can come across as Political Correctness Gone Mad.

Updated votes for DeaderThanDisco.Live Action TV / Sandbox.Deader Than Disco Live Action TV:

• Soap Opera genre:
  • Cut: Xtifr, Another Duck
  • Fence: High Crate, Fox, Phi
  • Keep: Willbyr
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Cut: High Crate
  • Fence: Xtifr
  • Keep: Spino, Larkmarn, Phi, Largo
• The Cosby Show:
  • Cut: High Crate, Willbyr
  • Fence: Another Duck, Xtifr
  • Keep: Tyler, The Fox, Phi, Alnair, From The Wordsof BR
• Talent Scouts:
  • Cut: High Crate
  • Keep: Tyler
• Glee:
  • Cut: High Crate, Laptop, Willbyr
  • Keep: Tyler, Fox, Spino, Larkmarn, Phi, Xtifr
• American Idol:
  • Cut: High Crate, Laptop
  • Fence: Xtifr, Phi
  • Keep: Fox, Spino, Another Duck, From The Wordsof BR

Removing Hannah Montana from the list, since it's all Cut votes at this point.

I've put out a call basically offering to switch my vote on HIMYM and Glee if someone more-knowledgeable than I am on the Keep side would just alter the text to actually fit the definition of DtD, and yet no one has done so, so I remain a Cut vote on those.

edited 6th Oct '16 10:51:28 AM by HighCrate

Can you please incorporate the HIMYM keep votes I mentioned on the last page? Thanks.

Yeah, I voted keep on HIMYM ages ago. Fence on American Idol and Soaps.

edited 5th Oct '16 10:24:19 AM by PhiSat

• ABC - Cut 'em all, but maybe keep Growing Pains.
• BBC - Maybe keep Little Britain, not so sure about the others.
• CBS - On the fence about Murphy Brown, Touched by an Angel and How I Met Your Mother. Cut the rest.
• The CW - Keep Gossip Girl.
• Disney Channel - Cut Hannah Montana.
• Fox - Cut most of them except American Idol.
• HBO - Cut. Does anybody even know about that show?
• ITV - Keep The X Factor, cut The Benny Hill Show.
• MTV - Keep Jersey Shore, Laguna Beach, and on the fence on the rest.
• NBC - Keep Heroes, The Cosby Show and Will & Grace, on the fence about the rest, cut Wings, Mad About You and Caroline in the City. Also, A Different World is seen in a far better light than its main parent TCS
• Nickelodeon - Cut.
• PBS - Keep.
• TBS - Cut.
• VTM - Maybe keep the chef, but it's really obscure TBH.
• The WB - On the fence. Somehow it's still airing reruns on Up TV.

edited 6th Oct '16 10:24:36 AM by FromtheWordsofBR

Added From The Words Of BR's votes to Post 557.

The two he votes keep on that aren't already on the sandbox are Gossip Girl and X Factor.

I'm inclined to stick with "cut" on X Factor; the entry as written describes Seasonal Rot or Jump the Shark, not the sort of retroactive "this was always bad and we were fools for not realizing it" backlash required by DTD.

Gossip Girl is at least a little more promising; it describes how the recession made the wealthy characters less relatable, which is certainly the sort of thing that can lead to an audience retroactively deciding that the characters were never relatable. Unfortunately, the entry stops short of actually saying that that's what happened, so as written it's also Not An Example. It needs to be either rewritten to emphasize a retroactive backlash, or cut.

Edit: Missed Laguna Beach. Leaning "cut" on that as well; it sounds popular enough as basic-cable reality shows go, but I don't recall it being inescapably ubiquitous the way the most popular reality shows of the time were.

Edit Edit: Also missed Heroes and Will & Grace. Heroes is a pretty easy "cut" for me, as the entry describes Seasonal Rot / Sophomore Slump, not DTD. As for Will & Grace, it was always quite B-tier even at the time and faded into obscurity rather than falling victim to backlash. Another easy cut.

edited 6th Oct '16 10:53:22 AM by HighCrate

We should ask a native Belgian about the VTM examples.

Noting for record-keeping purposes that troper Morane has created a DeaderThanDisco.Technology page made up of a bunch of shoehorned examples that we already cut from the DeaderThanDisco.Real Life page. I've deleted the link to that page from the main Deader Than Disco page and submitted it to the cutlist.

A-yup. Every one of those is either still around, not poorly thought of, or never that common to begin with.

Wait a minute, how did Home Improvement get put on the DTD list?

If anything, it reads like a Seinfeld Is Unfunny entry.

Latest votes for DeaderThanDisco.Live Action TV / Sandbox.Deader Than Disco Live Action TV:

• Soap Opera genre:
  • Cut: Xtifr, Another Duck
  • Fence: High Crate, Fox, Phi
  • Keep: Willbyr
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Cut: High Crate
  • Fence: Xtifr
  • Keep: Spino, Larkmarn, Phi, Largo
• The Cosby Show:
  • Cut: High Crate, Willbyr
  • Fence: Another Duck, Xtifr
  • Keep: Tyler, The Fox, Phi, Alnair, From The Wordsof BR
• Talent Scouts:
  • Cut: High Crate
  • Keep: Tyler
• Glee:
  • Cut: High Crate, Laptop, Willbyr
  • Keep: Tyler, Fox, Spino, Larkmarn, Phi, Xtifr
• American Idol:
  • Cut: High Crate, Laptop
  • Fence: Xtifr, Phi
  • Keep: Fox, Spino, Another Duck, From The Wordsof BR
• X Factor:
  • Cut: High Crate
  • Keep: From The Words Of BR
• Gossip Girl:
  • Cut: High Crate
  • Keep: From The Words Of BR
• Laguna Beach:
  • Cut: High Crate
  • Keep: From The Words Of BR

Thread's feeling kind of stalled. Any new opinions on the above, or anything else on the sandbox page? I don't like invoking the "when consensus can't be reached, cut" rule more often than strictly necessary, but it's getting to the point where we should really figure this out and move on.

edited 10th Oct '16 7:00:16 AM by HighCrate

I voted keep on Cosby as well.

Considering that, I'd personally say Cosby has a consensus for keep as far as the expressed opinions in this thread go.

Added a revamped HIMYM example (based on a writeup proposed earlier in the thread) to the sandbox. Corrections & other edits are welcome.

In hindsight, go ahead and cut Heroes and Will & Grace. Also, cut Home Improvement, that show just got added to the Hallmark Channel's schedule so it's on TV again.

edited 10th Oct '16 6:46:46 AM by FromtheWordsofBR

Keep Heroes, Gossip Girl, Laguna Beach; cut Will and Grace, Home Improvement.

And this is why they should have called the show How I Met Your Aunt.

Going to bring this up one more time and if nobody agrees with me, I promise I'll shut up about it and respect the consensus.

The new HIMYM entry is much better than the old one, as it states, "...even former fans refuse to admit they liked the show during its heyday," meaning it describes a retroactive backlash such as DTD requires.

Except... seriously, nothing I have observed in my personal experience supports that statement as accurately describing the show's fanbase. I know many fans of the show, and while there are certainly some who no longer consider themselves fans due to their intense dislike of the ending, I don't know of any who wouldn't admit to being fans of the show during its heyday. Exactly the opposite: they are quite up-front about the fact that it's precisely because they liked the show so much that they found the ending so disappointing.

Would it be better if I removed that part and placed more emphasis on in tanking in syndication?