♪ i hope you had the time of your life ♪ [ cheers and applause ] >> that's all. hold on. cool.

listen to it. they know when it hits the bottom it'll be 1990. good-bye to the eighties. >> ten, nine, eight, eight,

eight. >> oh, will this horrible year never end. >> when the '90s began we're starting to see a lot of experimentation. and the simpsons i think in some senses was inspired not necessarily a hatred of television but a distrust in which a lot of the ways tv was talking with us. >> tv respects me. it laughs with me, not at me. >> you see, the kids they listen to the rap music which gives them the brain damage. >> and i think there was a real yearning for another type. >> we were able to spoof fatherhood -- >> what a bad father.

>> -- which at the time, and i stress at the time, was bill cosby as the shining example. ♪ did you ever know that you're my hero ♪ >> the stuff they got away with because it's a cartoon. the father strangling the child. >> why you little -- >> we are going to keep on trying to strengthen the american family to make american families a lot more like the waltons and a lot less like the simpsons. >> we go to a completely bizarre period of time in 1992 when a sitting president is raging against a sitcom. >> they have dealt with politics. they have dealt with popular culture. they've dealt with all kinds of issues of racism, of sexism. >> don't ask me, i'm just a girl. >> right on, say it, sister. >> it's not funny, bart. millions of girls will grow up thinking this is the right way

to act. >> they have found a way to talk about everything that's going on in our lives through the filter of "the simpsons." >> them immigrants. they want all the benefits to living in springfield, but they ain't even bothered to learn themselves the language. >> yeah, those are exactly my sentimonies. >> i think one of the governing things that's happening with "the simpsons" is a distrust of anyone who tells us we should trust them and doesn't earn that trust. >> i'll take that statue of justice too. >> sold. >> when they make fun of how fox works -- >> you are watching fox. >> we are watching fox. >> they are telling you don't trust us either. >> eat my shorts. >> all right. i'll eat -- eat your shorts? >> "the simpsons" is like shakespeare in the sense that we quote the simpsons all the time, very often without knowing it. >> excellent! >> i wish i could create something that culturally indelible.

it's unlike anything else tv has ever run. >> "twin peaks" showed up out of nowhere at the beginning of the decade. the pilot episode of that was one of the strangest and most exciting things i have ever seen. >> i'm at the twin peaks county morgue. with the body of the victim. what's her name? >> it was incredible. just how slowly in the beginning the news spread around this little town that this young, beautiful girl had died and that haunting music was so dark and so beautiful. ♪ >> i've got good news. the gum you like is going to come back in style.

>> what on earth is essentially a art film doing in prime time television? >> american network television has long been considered the home of the blands, the cautious and the predictable. so it was with some trepidation that it the abc network launched a new series that was none of those things. "twin peaks" is already described by one critic that will change tv. it's directed by david lynch. >> david lynch was a filmmaker known for his taste in the eccentric and memorable. the idea that he would do television in the '90s was crazy. >> do you watch much of it? >> i like the idea of television, but i'm too busy to see very much of it. >> what do you think of that which you do see? >> some of it i really enjoy. >> are you being diplomatic? >> sort of. [ screaming ]

>> the beautiful thing about television is you have the chance to do a continuing story. and that's the main reason for doing it. >> i think that "twin peaks" with the initial attention it got allowed all the other networks to say, let's do something different. >> the days coming it ain't going to be long where you ain't got to leave your living room. you're going to snuggle up to your fiber optics, baby, and listen out. >> you could sense these creators trying to do something different than they'd done five or ten years ago. sometimes that led to really challenging network television that was cool and fun to watch and sometimes it seemed to fall off the edge a little bit.

>> at the time he wanted to try something brand new, and so his idea was to combine a gritty cop show with a broadway musical. >> i saw one in which a bunch of gang bangers were in jail. they began to sing. life in the hood ain't no pizza pie, everybody die when the bullets fly. ♪ life in the hood ain't no pizza pie, people die when bullets fly ♪ >> and i said wait a minute. i thought this is it. this is great. this is going to be as innovative as anything i have ever done. ♪ he is guilty, he is guilty, judge, you can see it in his eyes ♪ ♪ he did the crime and now he's got to pay ♪ >> it circled the drain.

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so i came up with a notion of doing a cop show that was r rated. when abc's broadcast standards read our script, they went berserk. >> i was sitting with a pad and a pencil drawing pictures of breasts to try to show them what we would show and what we wouldn't show. grown-ups sitting in a room doodling. >> then we started on the language. >> we heard it with the brains of a flea and the balls of a moth. >> the program premiered with an advertising boycott. >> channel 7, shame on you! >> but it was such an immediate hit, that boycott lasted, oh, four weeks. >> they could use the nudity and the curse words to go deeper into the actual emotional burden of being a cop. >> i'm an -- >> and it had this character,

andy sipowicz. he is a raging alcoholic, racist, sexist, violent. he created the tv anti-hero. >> i know the great african american george washington carver discovered the peanut. but can you provide names and addresses of these friends? >> you know, you're a racist scumbag. >> despite his flaws, despite his prejudices, i think people identified with his pain. >> i wish there was a way to say this that wouldn't hurt you. >> there's a famous episode where they are investigating the rape and murder of a young boy. and they find a homeless child molester who murdered the kid and sipowicz to get the confession has to be very sensitive and very good cop. >> i know this has to be tearing you up inside. but you're going to feel a lot better if you just tell the truth. >> you can sort of see on dennis franz's face this is killing him

to not destroy this guy right now. finally, he gets the confession he gets the signed statement. he walks out of the room, he goes into another interrogation room and he breaks the door in two with his fist. and i'm choking up talking about it right now, because that's how great a moment of tv that it is. >> 20 years from now, the best tv dramas, what do they look like? >> i don't know. >> will they be bolder than what we see today? >> oh, assuredly, assuredly they will be. >> the '90s gave us several shows that didn't explode in the ratings, but were influential to others. "homicide" is one of them. ♪ shell me with questions all night ♪ ♪ i'm living in a danger zone >> "homicide: life on the street" was innovative in terms of its style. it used music in ways that advanced the narrative and also used feature film directors that brought a look and style to the show that really stood out on

television. >> tears coming out of your eyes. >> ain't no tears coming from my eyes. >> those eyes are brimming with tears. >> they had so many african american characters in the cast that on several occasions they were the only people on camera interacting with one another. and that sounds like, so, but as late as the '90s, that wasn't done on television. >> when a cop shoots somebody, he stands by. he picks up the radio mike and calls it in. he stands by the body. if not, cops are no better than anybody else. >> in the '90s, television was getting more complicated, stories were starting to become more episodic and characters were starting to develop and change. none of that happened on "law and order." >> this was a show that completely delivered on its formula every time. you get a crime, you got the investigation into the crime. >> you better be packing more than a dirty mouth. >> you got an arrest. >> what's the charge? hey, i'm asking you a question!

what's the charge? >> there's no charge. this one's on us. >> then you had a trial. >> he's badgering, your honor. >> sit down and shut up. >> overruled. you will address the court from now on, mr. mccoy. >> so every time you watched you got what you came for. >> tell me, doctor. all those women you ran through your examination rooms, do you remember their faces or did you not even bother to look up? >> you had in "law and order" the kind of characters people take to heart. >> i'll let you take me to lunch. one-time offer. >> and if you're an actor and you say well, gee, maybe it's not really such a bad medium after all. >> miranda, the supreme court's mimic decision. the whole thing was illegally obtained. they were both represented by counsel. >> you just get hooked in.

it's life and death and stuff. >> we know what you did. >> counsel. >> you hear me? >> do you hear me? >> look at me! >> "law and order" was like crack. you'd have to sit and watch me for 50 minutes just like, not moving, barely breathing. there's times i have almost passed out watching "law and order." >> i need your help. >> "e.r." had originally been written as a movie, forced steven spielberg to direct. we had this two-hour piece which was michael's reflection of experiences as a medical student. >> you need a large in case they bleed. do you know how to start an iv? >> actually, no. >> "e.r." is a hospital show, but it's really an action movie. >> three walking wounded. red urgent, yellow critical and black a gurney. >> got it. >> a gurney comes in, people are shouting instructions, climbing on the body and doing cpr and racing off to the surgical suite. >> get that gurney out of there! >> someone wanders in. they're tossing around medical

jargon. they don't stop to explain what it is. prep for a peritoneal lavage. i think i know what that is now, but only because i watched a lot of "e.r." over the years. >> you try. >> we can bypass him. >> what do you think? >> you're the attending. >> there was so much information coming at you that i think it made the experience feel as if you had to watch it in the same way that you'd watch a film. you had to stay involved in it the whole time. >> come on, ben. hold on, buddy. hold on. >> there was a lot of research that said people didn't want to watch anybody have anything other than a happy outcome. >> it's not flood flight attendant line. another seven makes epi. >> we argued that wasn't really showing what the world was for physicians.

i had unbelievable amount of respect for the people who did this because i understood how human they were. ♪ ♪ ahhhh! ♪

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can you sing the theme song from "cheers?" >> how does it start? ♪ sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name ♪ >> we decided to end cheers in the 11th and over 93 million people watched the finale of "cheers." but it's a sad experience for everybody. this was our baby for 11 years and we're not going to be around these people every day.

>> you must never miss an opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you. >> we had been through so much together. you spend time with the same set of people it does become your family. >> i feel lucky to have the friends i do. >> i think the legacy of "cheers" is our need to belong. and i think that's what we as americans are longing for. >> night you guys. >> the final scene of "cheers" was really what was sam's real first love? >> you can never be unfaithful to your one true love. >> i'm the luckiest son of a bitch on earth. >> and his real first love was the bar. >> sorry, we're closed. >> how big a loss is this for nbc, anyway? >> well, katey i'm still here and i'm waiting for the cast members to come back, so i'd say

it's a pretty big loss. i was like what are we going to do? >> there are more choices than ever before and it's a tough job. you have to try and get a sense of what is the audience going to really make an attachment to. >> in the '90s cable was coming on strong, so we had to examine who are we going to be. well, we wanted to be smart, sophisticated comedy. >> six months ago i was living in boston. my wife had left me, which was very painful. then she came back to me. which was excruciating. >> i thought "frasier" was dead

with "cheers." but we thought, we built an audience, great potential to build out the character to another place. ♪ >> "frasier" was kind of like one-act plays. ♪ >> mother and i moved here when i was a small boy after the tragic death of my father. i kept the pain of that loss buried deep within me like a serpent coiled within a damp cave. okay, that's it. >> we always assumed the audience was smarter than most other people did. and we played to that. >> just unschooled like liza doolittle. if she finds the right henry higgins, she'll be ready for a ball in no time. >> leave it to you to put the pig back. >> kelsey grammar played pomposity like nobody you've ever seen and got huge laughs. >> what's taken so long? >> but i am analyzing my options

unlike your wink and approach i like to plan a strategy, like a general leading his troops into battle. >> checkmate, schwarzkopf. >> i think "frasier" stands as the single most successful spinoff, at least in the history of sitcoms. >> and the emmy goes to "frasier". >> "frasier." >> "frasier." >> what is this stuff? >> the sweater isgora. >> well, it's wonderful. >> the machine of comedy was untouchable. it generated so much viewership and money and awards. >> you do not need this.

>> it's the top of our wedding cake. >> noiit's not a scrapbook. it's a freezer. >> we certainly associate nbc of the '90s having successful sitcoms. but they weren't the only ones. tgif was on nbc on friday and it was their block of family oriented comedies. >> i can't take it. i need that cake. >> it was not sophisticated television. but these were shows that people adored. [ laughing ] >> cbs. >> cbs was in a really bad spot. they had just fallen apart over the early part of the '90s and had gone through a couple different network executives. >> but then suddenly they had this hit with an unknown comic. this was the year of seinfeld,

no hugging, no learning and this was a show being made as if it was produced in the era of the dick van dyke show. >> i love you. >> there was hugging. there was learning. >> i love you, son. >> all right, all right. >> if you worked for me, your job was so go home, get in a fight with your wife and come back in and tell me about it. >> don't sleep on the couch. i just cleaned down there. >> in fact, the pilot i put in this true thing that happened to me wherein i sent my parents a gift for the holidays of the fruit of the month club. >> and did you know you sent me a box of pears from a place called fruit of the month. >> that's right. that's right. how are they? >> and my mother reacted as if i had sent her a box of heads from a murderer. >> why did you do this to me? >> oh, my gosh. >> i can't talk. there's too much fruit in the house. >> oh! what is happening? >> what do you think we are, invalids? we can't go out and get our own

fruit? >> i tried to tell him. >> all right. i'm cancelling the fruit club. >> the real story is where the real connection with your audience is. thank god, all your families are crazy, too. >> looks like you got the whole family together. >> yeah, yeah, it's dysfunction palooza. g dry, how will they know i worked hard? i've gotta make stuff harder. ♪ there, that's hard. ♪ wow. we did it. we built the fastest network for the latest iphones. and the iphone xr, with a retina display that makes everything look incredible... it's like the perfect couple - you know, the ones who look great in every picture. like the ones who always make me feel like a before photo. zoey and chris. hey guys! hey... zoey and chris! ...how fun is that? at&t has the fastestnetwork for the latest iphones. get the mind blowing iphone xr on us when you buy the latest iphone.

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a new era of technology and competition. ge buying nbc, capital city's abc. and all of them want their money's worth. >> we'll now have the strongest network. we'll have a stronger defense piece. this is going to be one dynamite company. >> there's a danger that news will be mixed up with the rest of television and considered just another profit. >> late 1920s, to early 1930s, to the 1980s, the sense was if some of the broadcasting time took public service, 1990s, journalism in the country changed a great deal. you couldn't talk about public service. what are the ratings going to be? what are the demographics going to be? what is the profit going to be? well, sensationalism sells.

>> in a plea bargain, 18-year-old amy fisher got up to 15 years in prison for shooting the wife of her alleged lover. >> so intense is the interest in it this case there are three, three made for tv movies now in the works about it. >> you make money off sex. you make money off death. you make money off crime. >> the press calls the case the beverly hills mansion murders. the story reads like a script that circulate here in hollywood. >> we enter into the television news soap opera. >> a story of basic instinct, anger and fear. >> i was scared and i just wanted him to leave me alone. >> it loses its purity and becomes much more shoddy and sensationalistic and then it all comes together with o.j. simpson. >> the los angeles district attorney has just filed murder charges against o.j. simpson.

>> i have to interrupt this call. i understand we're going to go to a live picture in los angeles. police believe that o.j. simpson is in that car? >> the o.j. simpson story starts with the chase and then goes on to his arrest and then culminates with the trial, which goes on and on and on and is televised day after day after day. >> this is going to be a long trial. there's a lot of evidence to come in. >> the o.j. simpson case was such a national phenomenon that those of us who were covering it just lived this case 24 hours a day because there was so much demand for people talking about it. >> as simpson struggled to slide the gloves on to his hands and turned to a juror saying "they're too small," prosecutors were incensed. >> the trial was on television during the hours that had traditionally been the time for soap operas. >> he appears to have pulled the gloves on, counsel. >> and o.j. was very much a soap

opera. >> impeached by his own witness. >> i ask you to put a stop to it. >> excuse me, mr. bailey. will you stand up and speak when it's your turn. >> no question that the best tv show of the '90s was the o.j. simpson trial and everyone on it was riveting. >> the simpson trial finally winding to a close. >> we the jury in the above entitled action find orenthal james simpson not guilty of the crime of murder. >> the verdict of the o.j. simpson trial viewed by 150 million people. it's more people than watch presidential election returns. that's crazy. >> because there was trial footage every day, cnn saw its audience increase like five times, the success of cnn was not lost on other people. and so, there were competing

forces coming into play. >> how delighted i am we have now reached this moment when we can firmly announce the starting of a fox news channel. >> unfortunately, with cable news and the ability -- or the need to be on the air 24/7, where you try to get as many eyeballs as possible at one time, to gravitate toward those stories that are sensational, it brought us the ability to go too far. >> is the jonbenet ramsey murder investigation turning into a media circus? >> it's tabloid but on the other hand, it's a tabloid era. here's where the fear comes into it, i think, larry. it's the fear that says, gosh, if we don't cover it big time, our competition is. when they cover it big time, they'll get a big jump in the ratings. the first thing is to last, to survive, we've got to do it. >> what you also see is a whole army of commentators, people who make their business talking

about the news. >> i say we should bomb his capability of producing oil. take out his refineries, his stations, his wells. >> they don't have any capability. >> they're certainly selling a lot of oil -- >> the networks were doing good journalism but they became much more preoccupied by profits. it's cheaper to have someone in your studio pontificating than to have reporters out in the field reporting. >> i don't know if any of this is true. but what i heard is that the father went down, opened his basement room, which the fbi had bypassed. >> every single sentence on cnn, perhaps, on cnbc, on fox, on msnbc, begins with the words "i think" but after a while people get confused by what is speculation, by what is innuendo, by what is fact. as far as the viewers are concerned, be very, very careful

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a look at the list of the 50 most watched shows on cable the top would be nickelodeon. rugrats, blues clues. >> don't you know cartoons will ruin your mind. >> ren and stimpy have real concept to it. this is the splintering of the family audience really. because with families having two, three tvs in the house you had the kids watching nickelodeon, the dad watching sports, the mom watching lifetime. they were in their own separate universes watching television. >> by the time of the '90s mtv wasn't merely a music channel. they were having great success in terms of creating shows that incorporated music but that were

also shows and programs that stood on their own. >> yes! >> that was cool. >> "beavis and butthead" were about making fun of music videos just like people in the audience were doing. >> check out his neck. there's all these bones and stitches moving around. >> yeah. >> my manager would call me, like, hey, you got this big bump because you were on "beavis and butthead" last night. >> i sit there like a doughnut watching these guys. and i find them endlessly entertaining because i know and you know and the world knows, these guys are always, will be and cannot be anything but idiots. >> that's right. >> mtv has a detrimental, damaging, developmental effect on the sexuality, on the morality, on the spirituality, even maybe the physical development of our young people. ♪

>> now we hit the '90s and once you can go for an audience of five million and have a successful show, you can say i don't care if the parents don't like this. >> can i tell you something, miss ellen. >> of course, wendy. >> don't [ bleep ] with me! >> what? >> you heard me. stay away from my man, bitch or i'll whip you back to last year. >> trey parker and matt stone were two of the funniest people i ever met. their success story is proof that if you just stay true to yourself, you don't have to do anything else. >> people think, oh, you came and did the show and now you're big sellouts. the truth is, we were sellouts to begin with. >> perhaps there is no stopping the corporate machine. >> i mean, we were sleeping at friends' houses, had no money and one fox executive had seen a cartoon we had made in college and he said, make me another christmas video i can send out

as a christmas card. he gave us like 700 bucks. we went and made this five-minute short. >> i come seeking retribution. >> he's come to kill you because you're jewish, kyle. >> oh [ bleep ]. >> it went around the tv community like wildfire. >> i mean, it -- it was the funniest thing you'd ever seen in your life. >> go get 'em! >> somebody showed me the short. >> go, jesus. >> i thought it was hysterical. i called and said get them in here right away. >> oh, my god! they killed kenny. you bastards. >> "south park" was able to be topical. >> "south park" really, really detests hypocrites. >> christians and republicans and nazis, oh, my! >> okay, i'll legalize 40th trimester abortions for you. >> could you imagine back then

that these people would ever get on network television or any kind of television? >> it's a miracle. "south park" is a miracle. >> the early '90s the hbo show starts to come into their own. >> and then have i always had these breasts? >> a lot of people want freedom. they don't want to go back to the networks, which are saying you can come to us where you'll make more money but you'll also have content restricted. you could go to cable and have no restrictions. not make as much money but have freedom of expression, which almost everybody who works in these mediums wants. >> some of the content truly was you can't get this anywhere else.

>> you're a fantasy maker the only limit on the kind of fantasies is people's imagination. >> hbo turned to people who said, i can't do that on television, but you can do it on hbo. >> white people don't trust black people. that's why they won't vote for no black president. like a black brother will [ bleep ] up the white house. like the grass won't be cut. dishes piled up. cousins running through the white house. cookouts. basketball going in the back. >> in the late '80s hbo was gaining ground for series. >> by the '90s hbo had started to begin its explosion. >> when we started doing "dream on" one of the things hbo said to us was, it's got to be something that couldn't be on network tv. that was shocking even for us as writers who created it.

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you have watched letterman, you've watched leno, but what

about larry? larry sanders, that is. he's the tv alter ego of comedian garry shandling. >> garry shandling wanted to do a show that deconstructed the kind of show "the tonight show" was. >> pretend like you're talking to me. we're off the air. >> okay. blah, blah, blah, blah. >> the larry sanders show was kind of cathartic because in the world of the show there was a network. >> you want me to [ bleep ] your budget? that what you want me to do? >> it became this fun house mirror thing where you could use stuff from your misery, your career as fodder. >> don't take this as a threat but i killed a man like you in korea, hand-to-hand. my boy doesn't want to do any more commercials. >> larry sanders to me was, aside from being a brilliant television show. >> can you say, hey now. >> hey now. >> it was my everyday life. >> i'm here for three good reasons. last show. big ratings.

movie coming out. bim, bam, boom. >> "the larry sanders show" was very unique in that it was very deadpan. and really groundbreaking in its day. >> i think it made people really go, that's the level of work you may be able to do on a cable network. >> please, do not flip around. come right back. >> hey now! >> oh, you sound good. in the '90s you suddenly had shows that were aiming at a younger audience. one of the things that really made "90210" stand out is it was the first drama to get into the teenager's point of view. >> do you have protection? >> of course. it's always been my problem. lots of protection but nothing to protect.

>> i wanted to do a tv series that was going to be relevant to teenagers. and it's not about the parents solving the kids' problems. it's about the kids basically solving their own problems. >> what are we supposed to do, sit him down and have a kid-to-parent talk. >> but hbo really in my mind comes to its own in 1999 with "the sopranos." ♪ ♪ woke up this morning ♪ got yourself a gun >> "sopranos" was one of the show that was like a benchmark. it changed a lot of things for everybody. >> throw out the handbook. tony soprano, the lead actor in a drama, he killed a man. we watched him. he took his daughter on a college tour. >> pretty, huh? >> yeah. >> it was just a melding of a guy and a world -- >> [ bleep ] you doing? >> and a behavior that promoted all the feelings that you would have for a guy that you love in a guy that you hate.

you know? >> "sopranos" came on tv and it really showed us the future whether we realized that was going to be the future of television or not. >> this husband of yours, carmella, how much we love him. he's the best. >> like a father to me. >> just make sure nothing happens to him. >> that character in that show was a great inspiration to a great many shows that came after it including one that i worked on. >> you know what i want, tony? i want those kids to have a father. >> they got one, this one, me. tony soprano. and all that comes with it. >> oh, you prick. >> because of the quality of those shows that happened in the '90s, actors no longer felt it was a come down to work in television. audiences started to look in television for what they had only found before in feature film. >> what did i ever do to you

except deliver the south? >> you shouldn't have made me pick. >> network dramas became very innovative. they were really making a mark. >> once we started making the kinds of shows that we were making in the '90s you couldn't shut the door on them. >> get me out. >> some of my favorite shows of all-time aired in that decade and everybody was watching thel. there was still that communal sense from the earlier decades of tv but it was being applied to shows that were reaching higher and farther, and they were great. >> dammit, you know, i think parents need to spend less time worrying about their kids are watching on tv and more time --

>> totally, dude. quick, jump through the window. unwelcome. in a scathing editorial the mayor of london says rolling out the red carpet for donald trump is un-british. this just ahead of the president's state visit to the u.k. the push to limit abortion in the u.s. more and more republican states are passing restrictive laws. the strategy, take it all the way to the supreme court. we'll discuss with our panel. liverpool fans ecstatic after the reds clenched european futb f futball glory. expect more celebration