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Are these TV's most memorable moments?
ABC and the producers of the Emmys are asking you, the viewer, to help shape part of the Emmy telecast by voting on the top moments in TV history, including moments from such touchstones as I Love Lucy, Roots, All in the Family and ... Little House on the Prairie?
Yep, voters have chosen Pa telling Mary she's going blind as one of the 10 most memorable dramatic moments ever shown on TV. Which is, um, weird.
The Emmys are celebrating their 60th anniversary this year, which means lots of broadcast-padding paeans to the history of the medium. And asking viewers to select their favorite moments, and showing clips from their top five picks in comedy and drama, isn't a terrible idea as these things go.
But as with any subjective list of the Greatest Things of All Time, there are problems. The television academy, along with the Emmy show's producers and a group of TV critics, selected the initial list of 40 clips, 20 apiece from comedy (which also includes variety-show moments like the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Tonight Show tomahawk-to-the-crotch incident from 1965) and drama.
It's a fairly representative list, filled with usual suspects like Lucy and Ethel working on the candy line, J.R. getting shot and the death of Chuckles the Clown on Mary Tyler Moore. Aside from the Lucy clip and one from The Honeymooners, TV's alleged Golden Age gets shorted: Nothing else from before 1960 made either list, which means no Studio One or Playhouse 90 or Charles Van Doren cheating on 21.
And for the life of me, I can't figure out how that Little House clip made it onto the initial list over something from, say, Hill Street Blues (a three-time Emmy winner for best drama), The West Wing (four straight), Gunsmoke (longest-running drama series ever) or any number of cable shows from the present era (The Sopranos is the only cable series to make the cut on the drama side).
Then there are the moments themselves. If you're going to include a clip from Roots, why choose "Behold the only thing greater than yourself" over the scene where Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) is being whipped but refuses to say his slave name? And if you're picking a scene from Lost, is it really Desmond turning the key in the hatch in the season two finale over "We have to go back"? Et cetera, et cetera.
I will say this, though: Those of you who voted for the comedy clips did a pretty good job. The top 10 is a pretty eclectic list, ranging from "The Contest" on Seinfeld to Radar announcing Henry Blake's death on M*A*S*H to Sammy Davis Jr. planting a kiss on Archie Bunker. I'd probably have included Chuckles the Clown over Rachel and Ross finally kissing on Friends, but any list that also includes the Newhart finale and the "Trapped in the Closet" episode of South Park is pretty much OK by me.
Peruse at the top 10 lists for drama and comedy, as well as the initial list of 40 clips, and let us know what you think: What's missing, and what's right?
Check out Zap2it's Guide to the 2008 Emmys for more coverage.
Truthfully i think the little house is a great clip. The problem isnt that its there, the problem is all of the choices! none of them are all that great. As for the comedies, if youre talking just clip and not full episode, then it has to be MASH or All in the Family. the other ones, Seinfeld and Cosby show, just arent as good. TV was so much better in the 70s.
ks | Sep 10, 2008 8:16:00 AM | #Walt getting kidnapped on Lost (Season 1 finale) and Jack Bauer's wife getting shot on 24 (Season 1 finale) are the two moments I'll remember most.
Kyle | Sep 10, 2008 8:54:00 AM | #Little House was a fantastic show and this just shows that quality wins out over what's hot at the moment. Little House was on for 10 years and ignored by Emmy voters...finally the public gets to speak. That episode is heartbreaking and fantastic acting by all.
Brian | Sep 10, 2008 9:47:55 AM | #Henry's death from MASH? What was funny about that? Isn't it in the wrong category?
Chris | Sep 10, 2008 11:15:22 AM | #Just seeing the clips doesn't give the full impact-I guess why these are supposed to be the greatest "moments". Who shot JR doesn't work in this instance, you don't get much from just this clip. However, Sammy Davis Jr kissing Archie Bunker is a riot-I laughed out loud.
Loved when David & Maddie finally got together in Moonlighting, great clip. Little House on the Prarie was very moving, this short clip works.
Why was The Waltons included with everyone saying goodnight?????
IMO, there were lots of memorable scenes that were left off the initial list of choices (e.g., Lucy's commercial in comedy, Bobby Simone's death in drama). Having Henry Blake's death in the comedy category really threw me off. Yes, M*A*S*H was considered a comedy, but that was NOT a comedic moment.
There is a lot of good stuff on the list, but I miss stuff I remember from the 50's and 60's. Guess lots of the nominators and voters weren't around then!
out of the drama clips the buffy clip is easily the most dramatic. JR getting shot is more memorable but the buffy clip is more powerful dramatically. Unlike most of the other clips the buffy one was still very powerful, meven out of context. It even made me tear up a little. How many shows are there where the lead charcter kills themself to save another? And while x-files should be on the list why the hell did they choose that clip instead of one dealing with scullys cancer, or the shows great cliffhangers, or mulder letting go of his sister when he sees the ghosts of the little girls? Truly bizarre. And yes i am a buffy fanatic
rob | Sep 10, 2008 12:59:12 PM | #I think the death of Teri Bauer in the finale of Season 1 of 24 should have made the list.
Joshua | Sep 10, 2008 1:06:47 PM | #Drama: There is no way that any scene from "Grey's Anatomy" or "The X-Files" belongs on a list of the top ten moments in t.v. drama history! WTF? I can think of so many other deserving shows, movies, or mini-series that could have taken those top spots. Too many to mention. It is so obvious that since ABC is running the show this year they have included a disproportionate amount of shows from their network. Although I am an enormous fan of the show "Lost" - a total Lostapedia/Doc Jensen, fiending freak for it - I do not think it belongs on any greatest list just yet. It will get there and deserve it most certainly but I think that the show should be completed and over to be able to count. The full seasons of any show are the full, entire emotional arc of it's core. How can we judge any show's best moment when they haven't already happened yet. And there is no way to convince me that these certain scenes are worthy of being on a list denoting the viewer's greatest experience with any show until it is over. Personally, I chose the scene from "Dallas" because it literally changed television overnight. The ratings stunts, the cliffhangers, the season final all became de rigeur during that time. It has fizzled down into everything we watch, drama-wise, today. Most all shows, procedural or serial, have a continuing through-line story that weaves and twists and then climaxes, like any soap opera, daytime or primetime. So my vote went to the show that I felt has had the most influence on television today.
Comedy: No "South Park", no "Friends", they should both not be on this list. "South Park" for the reason that it's still on and a cartoon. "Friends" because while it was cute and all back then, it doesn't quite hold up the way I think they thought it would. Where is a scene from "Cheers" or "Maude" or "The Larry Sanders Show?" These are examples of shows that had many, many examples of hilarious, sidesplitting, brilliant moments.
I know the public voted and these were the remaining ten in each category. Next time, leave it to the industry's leaders and peers to come up with a list and we will see how very different they would be. Then have the viewer vote for the proverbially "Best."
Adam | Sep 10, 2008 2:12:45 PM | #"St. Elsewhere" has provided a few of tv's most memorable moments -- Dr. Bobby Caldwell's discovery that he has AIDS; the stabbing death of Dr. Peter White, who was presumed to be a rapist; the death of Mrs. Huffnagle; Dr. Donald Westphall's "kiss my @ss" farewell; and of course, the finale.
edonline | Sep 10, 2008 4:53:58 PM | #How could anyone possible ignore the final ten minutes of the pilot episode of The Shield. When Vic shot and killed another cop to cover up his crimes.
Val | Sep 10, 2008 7:04:27 PM | #I think Roseanne's episode "A blast from the Past" where Dan, Jackie and Roseanne get high from weed they found 15 years after they had hidden it, is one of the funniest moments in television ever and should have been included.
josue | Sep 10, 2008 10:52:44 PM | #The Little House clip should have been the fire at the blind school. I can still see Mrs. Garvey clutching onto Mary's baby as the fire engulfs them!
The friend's clip should have been the one where Rachel finds out that Ross loves her when they watch the old movie from Rachel and Monica's prom night!
What about Cooper's dream or the discovery of Laura's body on Twin Peaks?
I agree with the other responses...Teri's death on 24 should have been included.
I would also include the Season 1 Survivor finale - Richard Hatch's win and Susan Hawk's venomous rats and snakes speech.
There are so many memorable moments that didn't make the list and so many poorly chosen selections. I'd like to meet the people who created the initial list as I don't think they hit the mark on a number of their picks.
Brian | Sep 11, 2008 12:42:46 AM | #Totally agree with the Roseanne comment...totally funny. As for LHOTP...the blind school burning, the town being blown up and the tv movie when Albert dies and Laura and Albert climb to the top of the mountain is beautiful tv...only someone without a heart couldn't be touched by that show.
Brian | Sep 11, 2008 9:51:33 AM | #They do what the Emmys always do; play it safe. First off if you took off the restriction of drama coming only from scripted shows it would all be news events, JFK, RFK, and MLK being killed, 9/11, the Challenger explosion, Nixon resigning, the 72 Olympics, etc. They also eliminated anything from PBS to include shows from the BBC. No Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Prime Suspect or any mini-series they have done over the years. The fact there is nothing from Rod Serling makes it a joke.
Rick | Sep 11, 2008 12:03:16 PM | #I'm not a big fan of the list, especially not in the drama category. Roots Pt. 1, OK, but I'm sorry, anything less than a decade old is simply too recent to be reasonably considered an historically memorable moment. I agree that to have no Rod Serling scene featured in Drama -- whether from Twilight Zone or Requiem for a Heavyweight -- is nonsense. Also, the finales of MASH and The Prisoner deserved to be there (yes, under drama for MASH; it was never a sitcom). In comedy, there should be a Dick Van Dyke Show episode and a Honeymooners, and PBS ban be damned, the Germans episode from Fawlty Towers!
Alex | Sep 11, 2008 7:35:42 PM | #As far as I'm concerned, TVs best moments were on the Golden Girls....hundreds and hundreds of memorable scenes on that show!
Michael McGeehan | Sep 12, 2008 11:19:35 AM | #I would think that the final goodbye on M*A*S*H would be the most memorable moment from that show. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but if that's the most watched tv episode in history maybe it should have been on the list.
Eric | Sep 13, 2008 5:19:16 AM | #Rosalind Shay falling down the elevator shaft on L.A. Law. Gary's death on thirtysomething. The gay kiss (albeit a cutaway) on Melrose Place. The Renko-Hill ambush on Hill Street Blues. The final scene of The Sopranos. The final scene of The Prisoner.
And in the comedy category: the marijuana brownies on Barney Miller.
Jennifer | Sep 15, 2008 10:47:58 AM | #
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