free text l0 to three-to-one, three-to-one today, i hanako montgomery in tokyo and this jensen: it s a time of enormous turmoil. shut up in here. the 60s are over dad. durham: here s michael at the foul line, a shot on ehlo. -good! -yeah! ha-ha! turner: we intend to cover all the news all the time. we won t be signing off until the world ends. isn t that special? any tool for human expression will bring out the best and the worst in us, and television has been that. they don t pay me enough to deal with animals like this. people are no longer embarrassed to admit they watch television. we have seen the news and it is us. clark: slowly but surely, the 1970s are disappearing. the 1980s will be upon us. what a decade it is coming up. happy new year! [ cheers and applause ] auletta: as you begin the 80s in the television world, the landscape was, on any given evening, 9 out of 10 people were watching only one of three networks. more than 30 million people are addicted to it.
and the one thing i think we did set out to be were provocateurs. you want an accident report? you fill it out. what the hell s the matter with you man? i ll tell you something. they don t pay me enough to deal with animals like this. the first thing they see is a white face and all they want to do is do him in! you listen to me, renko. it was a white finger that pulled the trigger, not a black one! it was a white one. graham: it set a trend. the idea that the audience can accept its characters being deeply flawed, you know, even though they re wearing this uniform. and i thought that that was important to finally get across. don t do it! no biting! bochco: we wanted to make a show that made you participate, made you pay attention. and i think that worked pretty well. and the winner is. hill street blues. [ cheers and applause ] bochco: we got 21 nominations and we went on to win eight emmys and it put us on the map, literally. and that s when people finally checked us out. tartikoff
um, just let me drop off my friend, and then we ll talk. levine: when we entered the 80s, a lot of one-hour dramas that were light hearted, like magnum, p.i., were very popular. [ gunfire ] [ tires squeal ] bianculli: after m.a.s.h. went off the air, the next season there wasn t a single sitcom in the top 10. first time that had ever happened in tv history. the prevailing feeling was that the sitcom was dead. greenfield: brandon tartikoff, nbc programming chief, says reports of the sitcom s death were greatly exaggerated. time and time again, if you study television history, just when someone is counting a form out, that is exactly the form of programming that leads to the next big hit. graham: so 1984, the cosby show comes on. now, bill cosby s not new to tv. he s had other tv shows. but the cosby show is very different. it stands apart from everything else he s done.
[ bleating ] thomas magnum? marion hammond? the private investigator? oh [ chuckles ] you re probably wondering about the goat. um, just let me drop off my friend, and then we ll talk. thomas magnum? marion hammond. private investigator? oh, you are wondering about the goat. just let me drop off my friend and then we will talk. when we entered the 80s , a lot of one-hour dramas that were lighthearted, like magnum pi were very popular after mash left the air, the next season the was not a single sitcom in the top 10. the first time that had ever happened in tv history. the prevailing feeling was that the sitcom was dead. brandon torticollis, nbc programming chief said reports of the sitcom s death were greatly exaggerated. time and again, if you
well. and the winner is, hill street blues. 21 nominations and we went on to win eight emmys, and it put us on the map, literally. that is when people finally checked us out. the programming chief used to say to me about shows like hill street and st. elsewhere was that what the american people want is a cheeseburger and you re trying to give them a french delicacy. your job is to keep shoving it down their throat until after a while, they will say, that doesn t taste bad and maybe even order it themselves when they go to the restaurant. nice of you to join us. lisa sex the success of hill street blues influence everything that came after it and then of course you saw shows like st. elsewhere. you know what people call this place? not st. allegis, st. elsewhere. a place you wouldn t want to send your mother-in-law. when it first came on, it was