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tv   The Nineties  CNN  September 21, 2019 7:00pm-8:00pm PDT

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no to prop c. don't touch that dial. we're about to flip it for you. >> in five, four, three, two. >> i think the reason it was so popular among young people is we give credit to our audience for being intelligent. >> my goal was to get canceled in four episodes and just have people go you got screwed. >> i made the decision that i wasn't going to live my life as a lie anymore. >> this is more a celebration of culture and opening the doors and allowing america to come on inside. >> there's always something on television and some of it may be better than we deserve. ♪
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♪ generation x. the 20-somethings, boomerangerses, baby busters, whatever these 46 million young souls are called, are turning out to be kind of a hard sell. >> in the '90s what we realized is advertisers would pay premiums for college educated young adults 18 to 49.
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and we started reinventing nbc and trying to speak to that audience. >> where is someone? i'm starving. >> this is him right here. >> is there a table ready? >> the chinese restaurant was one of the very, very early episodes of "seinfeld." and truly nothing happened in the episode. they were waiting for a table. >> i feel like just walking over there and taking some food off of somebody's plate. >> we said to larry david, hey, like nothing happens. and larry was offended. he was like wildly offended. >> nbc believed in the show, so they said we're committing to four episodes. >> yes, yeah, right. four episodes. >> normally it's 13 or 8 or something. >> yes, at least. so we really didn't think they had too much confidence in the show. >> we didn't think it would work, but we felt that they had to go through their process and
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they would learn. and ultimately they knew better than we did. >> my mother caught me. >> caught you? doing what? >> you know. i was alone. >> the turning point for "seinfeld" from like nice show that all of the cool people kind of know about but that's it to massive hit was an episode called "the contest" where they tried to abstain from self-pleasure for as long as possible. >> yeah. >> 6:30, time for your bath. >> george, i'm hungry. >> hang on, ma. hang on. >> once you do 30 minutes on masturbation, you can pretty much get away with anything. >> i guess you'll be going back to that hospital. >> well, my mother, jerry.
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>> but are you still master of your domain? >> i am king of the county. >> the week after that aired, people were talking about that in the workplace the entire week. >> they still are talking about it. 52 seconds and two of the greatest words in sitcom history. >> i'm out. >> i think the big breakthrough of "seinfeld" was that the characters were not nice people. >> someone help. >> shut up, you old bag. >> they were narcissistic. >> help! >> they would screw each other at the drop of a hat. >> he's just a dentist. >> and you're an anti-dentite. >> and yet be best friends the next week. ♪ when you wish upon a star >> you don't have to love them. we just have to laugh at them. >> i'm really sorry. [ laughter ] >> i was in the pool!
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i was in the pool! >> the idea of a character with darker tendencies -- >> fire! >> -- that was so taboo in television comedy. >> are you about done? >> i'm just getting warmed up. >> we're in the confines of network tv with commercials, with still a lot of things that are very highly structured and yet we're able to find ways of pushing in those boundaries. >> no soup for you. >> the audience was saying we reward smart, intelligent, high-quality programming. and the more we were putting out the better we were doing. >> "friends" is about that time in your life when your friends are your family.
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>> ow! >> when david crane and i lived in new york we were part of a group of six people. we were all attached at the hip. we went everywhere together and celebrated everything together. and there's that period where you're looking to be out there on your own and the people you rely on are the ones who live down the hall. >> here we go. pivot. pivot. pivot! pivot! pivot! pivot! >> shut up! shut up! shut up! >> "friends" permeated the culture in a way that was really special. everybody was obsessed with the show. and it became like which one of these characters are you? if you were a girl, were you phoebe, monica or rachel? >> i got to tell you this really does put me in a better mood. >> the kids who were watching, the young audience, saw a lifestyle that was aspirational.
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i wish i had an apartment in new york city that no one seems to be worried about the rent for. i wish that i looked like matt leblanc. i wish that i had jennifer aniston's hair. one of the things that made "friends" a phenomenon is people beyond the laughs actually bonded with these characters. they emotionally were invested in ross and rachel's relationship. >> i could not have done this without you. >> okay. more clothes in the dryer? >> i was dropping my daughter off for sunday school at our temple, and literally my rabbi stopped me and said, what's going to happen with ross and rachel? >> where's chip? why isn't he here yet? >> he'll be here, okay? take a chill pill. >> the one with the prom video is one of my favorites. >> i can't go to my own prom without a date.
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>> take her. you can wear my tux. >> dad, she won't want to go with me. >> this seemed like a very surprising way to get rachel to know how ross feels. >> rachel, ready or not, here comes your knight in shining -- oh, no. >> bye! >> chip! >> oh, dear. >> ross sees himself and you see that look on his face and how sad he is because he wanted to take her to the prom. >> when she crossed the room, i still kind of get chills from it. when she crossed the room and gave him that kiss -- [ cheers and applause ] -- the audience went insane. it's not "pretty good or nothing."
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okay. let's play show business. >> as a young kid in cleveland i always knew i would one day end up doing a talk show. >> it's arsenioooooo hall! >> in less than two years, arsenio hall has fired his talk show for the mtv generation into a contender for the crown of late night television. >> yes, yes! >> how come i didn't hear all of that woofing going on?
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when i would watch you? >> too many white people. >> johnny was the big dog. but i knew everybody on the planet wasn't watching him. and it dawned on me that i could go many weeks and not see a motown group on "the tonight show." >> arsenio hall has been dubbed the prince of late night. >> there was a whole world of talent that had never and would never have been on any late night show. ♪ sitting at home watching arsenio hall ♪ >> 2livecrew came on and sang "me so horny." it was like the sex pistols. i'd never seen anything like it. it was an explosion in the audience. >> he appealed to a black and white young audience and it was a much broader appeal than the powers that be estimated. >> rap. rap is real big among our teens. that's poetry. >> of course it is.
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>> having maya angelou on, i mean, where would you have seen her otherwise? >> in 1892 he wrote a poem called "a negro love song." it said, "seen my lady home last night. jump back, honey, jump back. held her hand and squeezed it tight. jump back honey, jump back." >> he didn't just have black people on his show. but if you were hip, you wanted to be on arsenio. >> this was something i heard a political analyst talk about recently. he said you kind of were -- i use the word chilling out. he said you were pulling back a little bit. you had been instructed not to say as much or be outspoken. no? >> i don't -- i've heard that, but i never know who says it. i think it's wishful thinking on the part of some people. >> guess who suggested to bill to do the arsenio hall show if you want to get a younger demo?
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hill-dawg. ♪ >> he attracted a lot of people who weren't fans before that night. ♪ >> the '90s was a glorious moment for black television. because you saw these representations that you'd never seen before. ♪ the premise of "the fresh prince" was this kid who comes from philadelphia. ♪ in west philadelphia born and raised on the playground is where i spent most of my days ♪ >> his mom says i'm going to send you to live with your uncle. he shows up at this mansion in bel air, baseball cap on backward. like he doesn't even know how to act in this environment. the black producers and directors and writers were always playing with this kind of subverting expectations of what is blackness.
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>> the incredible work of "the fresh prince" at its most triumphant was when it was showing the ways that being black is always going to be a problem no matter what. >> vehicle registration, please. >> just a second. but the thing, officer, this isn't my car. >> there's the episode i remember where they get pulled over in a car. >> what? >> he's going to tell us to get out of the car. >> you watch too much tv, will. >> get out of the car. >> we have an interaction with the police officer that is horrible and racist in a lot of ways. and carlton has this epiphany about how money won't save him. >> no map is going to save you. and neither is your glee club or your fancy bel air address or who your daddy is. because when you're driving in a nice car in a strange neighborhood, none of that matters. they only see one thing. >> the writers of "the fresh prince of bel air" had a really hard task to approach these
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topics with nuance and were doing it at a clip that was way ahead of their time. >> now don't touch that dial. we're about to flip it for you to one of this year's most talked about tv shows. it is, as they say, on another network. fox. ♪ you can do what you want to do ♪ ♪ in living color >> ladies and gentlemen, keenan ivory wayans. >> "in living color" was the first show created by, written by, directed by, starring an african-american, all of those things in one. >> this is celebration of culture and of change. us opening the doors and allowing america to come inside. >> yo, yo, yo, all you bad bargain hunters out there, welcome to the homeboys shopping network. >> a lot of what they did on "in living color" was trying to take the stereotypes or the misperceptions about what black men are and turn them upside down. >> not only will you get all the cable stations out there, but
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you'll be able to talk directly to the astronauts. >> it brought this smart, very controversial comedy that black folks had never seen before that centered around their life experiences. >> who are you? >> i am the minister louis farrakhan. >> african-americans composed 25% of fox's market. >> i always get trapped in the corner with somebody named bob. hey listen, martin, i just saw "boyz in the hood," all right? i didn't know, martin, i didn't know. >> they knew that they needed to capture this audience to grow. >> i guess you think you smart and cool. but if you think you getting a job here, you're a damn fool. >> so they basically gave the black creators freedom to do whatever you want. just get the audience.
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>> the wb and upn took that concept from fox. >> your shoulders are harder than cheap breast implants. >> going after this underserved audience of urban minority viewers and really ran with it. >> i'm a new millennium woman who will not be defined by traditional female roles. okay? >> a lot of the networks built themselves up partially on african-american viewers. >> shake it to the east, shake it to the west. >> the african-american shows indexed lower in terms of household income. so over the course of the decade, the network started to move away from those shows. >> i don't know about you people, but i'll be damned if it i'm going to let them destroy my neighborhood. >> black creators felt used and abused. you made your money. you built your audience on us and now, you know, you're done. this... watch... tells... time and takes phone calls.
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and communicates with satellites thousands of miles above the earth and tracks your distance underwater and tracks your activity and tells you which direction you're going and has an app that measures the electrical waves traveling through your heart otherwise known as an electrocardiogram. so just to reiterate this... watch... tells... time (among other things). [ song: johnny cash, "th♪sthese are my people ♪ ♪ these are the ones ♪ ♪ who will reach for the stars ♪ ♪ these are my people ♪ by the light of the earth, ♪ ♪ you can tell they are ours ♪ ♪ a new step to take ♪ and a new day will break ♪ yes, these are my people ♪
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♪ in the '90s you suddenly had shows that were aiming at a young audience. one of the things that really made "90210" stand out is it was one of the first dramas to get into the teenage point of view.
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>> 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? >> no, you can't talk to parents on that mature level. tragic but true. >> if the '60s had beatlemania, the '90s had "90210" mania. when tv guide had its "youth-quake" cover, that was a sign that suddenly television was focused on these young people. ♪ "my so-called life" was like the punk rock version of "90210." it was earnest but not at all saccharine. it didn't have easy answers. it showed teen heartbreak in a way that was staggeringly real
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for the time. >> you like this. >> like what? >> like how you are. >> hey jordan, you coming or not? >> how am i? how am i? >> "my so-called life" was your actual life. and the idea that everyone in high school is a misfit, that you have this deep insecurity about who you're supposed to be. >> you know how sometimes the last sentence you said like echoes in your brain? and it keeps just sounding stupider? and you have to say something else just to make it stop. >> oh, i just remembered. i owe you $30. >> "my so-called life" was not necessarily the show the cheerleader or captain of the football team were watching. they were still watching "90210". but it was the people who maybe didn't recognize themselves in "90210" who felt like, a-ha, now i recognize myself in "my so-called life." >> demarco asked me if you were getting a sex change. >> exactly. i don't want to be a girl.
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i just want to hang with girls. >> ricky was out on the show eventually, and that was a storyline that was treated with great sensitivity. >> and i belong nowhere. with no one. and i don't fit. >> it was so deeply felt. it was saying to the viewer, things that you have gone through, they matter. >> man, i hate high school. >> "freaks and geeks" really sympathized with the losers and had great empathy for its characters. >> i'm sorry. did i crush your twinkies? >> the kind of characters they didn't want to show you in high school shows or treated them as the butt of the joke. and these were the people the show put their sympathy behind. >> roll down the window because i've got a big one a-brewing.
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>> the young audience was the audience everyone wanted to get and people could see channels like mtv had that audience's loyalty and had the advertiser dollars to go with it. >> this concept was explained to me as a real-life soap opera. >> in 1991 we got a call from mtv and they were toying with the idea of doing some kind of a scripted show about young people. >> they said it was like a mixture between the big chill and the breakfast club. >> but ultimately decided the idea of a show with writers and actors would just be too expensive for them. >> the real world. yes, that's what this was supposed to be. >> so we essentially applied all the drama rules to documentary to get what we called at that time a do kruchcu soap. >> this is the true story. >> true story. >> of seven strangers. >> kind of a social experiment to watch what happened when you put these things together in a house, when people start being polite and start getting real. >> do you sell drugs?
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why do you have a beeper? >> you hadn't seen anything like that on television, that kind of open, honest discussion of race. >> i can try as much as i can to try to deal with you, but ignorance is ignorance. stupidity is stupidity. and that's it. black white, green, purple, blue, whatever. >> "the real world" becomes this kind of big bang moment for reality tv where the idea is that oh, my god, all we have to do is take cameras and put them on people and we'll get great stuff. you had in the next season in l.a. a young woman who gets an abortion, and the camera literally goes right up to the doctor's door. >> give me a hug. >> by the third season in san francisco you have a young man who is dealing with aids. >> i'm hiv positive. >> when pedro told me he was hiv positive, it was just like -- no, not him. i like this guy and i don't want him to have to suffer. >> it was such a triumph that pedro had the courage at his age to come out as someone with aids. in my small gay community on campus, we all felt like, wow, he was our hero.
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>> he falls in love. and he and his partner, shawn, have a ceremony. you know, and this is long before same-sex marriage was legal. the tv shows weren't doing this. movies weren't doing this. >> i have to believe that all the pain that i'm going through, that all the anger, all the frustration, that there's something bigger than that. >> aids has claimed a young man who made an enormous impact on a generation of young americans. pedro zamora died in miami today at the age of 22. >> i'm really glad i got to know pedro zamora. i'm grateful that his rich and fulfilling work is still remembered today. and i hope you enjoy and learn from pedro's life of compassion and fearlessness. more towers. more coverage! it's a network that gives you ♪freedom from big cities, to small towns,
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come on. >> you big baby. >> all right. her name is marla. i'm seeing a woman. >> in the '90s, gay characters were always secondary or third. there was never a gay character that was the lead of a show.
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>> so you want to go look at apartments tomorrow? >> great idea! >> ellen degeneres the comedian was about to come out as a lesbian. and she does it on "time" magazine. "yep, i'm gay." but they decide that the character ellen plays on tv will also come out. >> it is just reprehensible that abc, now owned by disney of all companies, is going to feature ellen as coming out of the closet. it won't be long before god knows what, you know. bestiality, incest, who knows. >> we were getting bomb threats. disney was really getting a lot of flack for even thinking about having a coming-out episode with ellen. >> i'm 35 years old. i'm so afraid to tell people. i mean, i just -- susan, i'm gay. [ cheers and applause ] >> ellen coming out was a huge moment for me personally because, you know, i was a
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closeted gay guy. gay child at that time. and it was the bravest thing i saw. >> that felt great. that felt so great. >> initial reports suggest abc made a bundle on ellen's highly publicized outing on national tv last night. the broadcast was accompanied by coming-out parties all around the country, including one in birmingham, alabama, where the local abc station refused to broadcast the show. >> she did a great thing. she was brave. >> i made the decision that i wasn't going to live my life as a lie anymore. i was -- i belong with everybody else. and that's what i finally did. >> we used to say ellen opened the door and we knocked it down. ♪ hey listen sister ♪ i love my mister man ♪ tell me lazy tell me so ♪ tell me i'm crazy maybe i know ♪
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♪ can't help loving that man of mine ♪ >> take it jackie! >> and pas de bouree, pas de bouree, suplee, i'm gay! >> "will & grace" was a great show in sort of helping a mainstream straight community connect to the gay community. >> i think i can fix this thing with your landlord but might get a little ugly. >> play hardball, baby. throw low and inside. he's crowding the plate and we've got to -- >> grace, sports, you're losing me. >> i figured 25% of the country wouldn't watch the show just based on the fact that we had two gay men on it. >> give it to me! >> but if we could make believe that will and grace would get together. >> will, i told you, you live with a hetero long enough, you're going to catch it. >> maybe we could get people to watch thinking that would happen, knowing it would never
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happen. >> suffering sappho! >> you know, it's a shame. an image like this is completely wasted on us. >> i remember the network calling every other week saying, can will just fall in love with grace? and the creators were like, well, that's weird, he's gay. that's the -- gay people don't do that. that's why they're gay. >> why wasn't i your girlfriend, queer bait? >> "will and grace" was the first time you saw characters on television that made gay normal. you wanted to be friends with them. >> guess what we are. >> uh, a catholic girl gone bad. and karen, what are you supposed to be? >> it was an opening of the
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floodgates in the '90s of allowing yourself not to be perfect. >> if you're a successful saleswoman you can bang your head against the wall and try to relationship or just say screw it and just go out and have sex like a man. >> "sex and the city" was a huge success right from the start. it was very funny and very clever and very candid. >> are relationships the religion of the '90s? >> these are women who are making a good living, they were independent, they were single, and they were sort of feeling their power. >> i said all of them. bad waiter, bad waiter. >> what do you tip for that? >> i wanted these women to be objectifying men in the way men had always objectified women. >> all righty. my turn. >> oh, sorry, i have to go back to work. >> you didn't used to be able to discuss sex as sex. on network shows there never were people talking about orgasms or organs or sex. >> okay, words are essential. tell me exactly how he worded it. >> we've been seeing each other
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for a couple of weeks, i really like you, and tomorrow night after dinner i want us to have anal sex. >> these are women who shared everything with each other and they're discussing what anal sex means. >> it goes up there, there's going to be a shift in power. either he'll have the upper hand or you will. >> and should she do this or not? >> this is a physical expression that the body -- well, it was designed to experience. and p.s., it's fabulous. >> the show took an interesting turn by really focusing on the relationship between the women and telling the story of them as really soulmates together as well. >> you did the right thing buying that apartment. you love it, right? >> yeah. >> and you won't be alone forever. >> historically women are often set up in narratives in which only one can succeed. and so showing women not competing with each other and as supporting each other was also an important narrative change. >> okay, girls, see you tomorrow.
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>> okay. >> night-night. >> the show had a message of freedom and liberation especially for women that really resonated. i think "sex and the city" helped make hbo a place for people would think i wonder what they're doing next. ♪ for barcelona? we did promise we'd go. [dogs] they get the miles...we get a pet-sitter.
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america said good night to. for 30 years. and on my watch johnny decided that 30 years was a great time to take a bow and say thank you and good night. >> 30 years is enough. it's a good time to get out while you're still on top of your game plan. >> johnny had told no one what he planned to do, and we weren't prepared. and that set off a game of musical chairs for who would get the throne, and there only was one late-night throne. >> hi, you guys! >> jay leno had been pretty much carson's regular substitute host when he went on vacation. >> you know what's amazing, only six months ago people were talking about donald trump as a presidential candidate. right? that's true. since then he's had an affair, he's left his wife, he's run up a debt of several million dollars. so i guess he's going to be running as a democrat, huh?
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>> jay leno wanted to essentially just continue doing a johnny carson-type show. and david letterman was the show immediately following carson. and they had different styles. >> what is your name? >> i'm going to ask you to turn the cameras off, please. >> okay, we just wanted to drop off this basket of fruit -- of. >> part of dave's thing used to always be attacking authority. he liked that. >> cut the cameras, please. >> he needed a corporate bad guy to go up against. i was oftentimes that target. >> i can hear this warren littlefield guy whining all year long about not getting his name on the card last year. >> he's on it. >> look, what about me? i could be on there, couldn't i? >> it was always letterman's dream to be the host of "the tonight show." he idolized johnny carson, rightfully so. >> the big decision that's had the entertainment industry buzzing is due this week. that of course is the fate of nbc's "late night" stars jay leno and david letterman.
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>> most of us thought the person who deserved to get it was david letterman. he didn't get it. jay leno got it. >> thank you. >> when we found out that leno was going to get "the tonight show," we were all obviously depressed. we felt like we were being punished for making fun of them and not cooperating and not being as collaborative as we could have been. and we also felt like we were being disrespected because we did 11 years of great shows. >> just how pissed off are you? [ laughter and applause ] >> by all rights, david letterman should have taken over for johnny carson, but his agent took a very, very aggressive stand. we're going to really control all of late night. it's going to cost you a fortune. and they put our backs to the wall. >> i can only tell you it's been an honor and a privilege to come into your homes all these years
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and entertain you. and i hope when i find something i want to do and i think you will like and come back, that you will be as gracious inviting me into your home as you have been. i bid you a very heartfelt good night. >> "the tonight show" without johnny carson as the regular host made its debut last night. jay leno emerged from behind the curtain, stepping into the big shoes that were filled for 30 years by johnny. >> cbs came to us and made a very attractive offer. >> here we go, number ten. heads cbs, tails cbs. number nine -- >> letterman did place a call to johnny carson asking for his advice and johnny said, if it was me i would leave. and i think that advice was really the linchpin. letterman always took johnny's advice. >> the late-night wars are about to begin in earnest on american television. david letterman is now headed for cbs. >> cbs had lured him over with a salary more than four times that
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of leno and given him what he really wanted, the 11:30 time slot. now as dave and jay prepare to go head to head, one thing is clear -- late-night tv will never be quite the same. >> all of a sudden, there's a talk show war. >> start up your remote controls. the late-night race is about to begin. on monday, david letterman's new show debuts here on cbs. followed a week later by chevy chase on fox and a week after that by conan o'brien on nbc. these combatants join "the tonight show" with jay leno, arsenio, and "nightline." >> it became a crowded space and the competition became that much more difficult. >> some tv writers think arsenio could be the big loser in this free-for-all. >> i'm sad to see you go because america is going to have a big chunk missing out of its existence. >> losing arsenio, yeah, it was bad.
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he was the lone voice, gone. >> david letterman had the suits at nbc pausing for a moment. did we make the right choice? because he came out gangbusters and he was beating jay leno in the ratings. >> there's some people who say you blew it, that by picking leno to replace carson over letterman that that was a big programming mistake. >> it was a shaky start. a really, really shaky first season start. >> it's true confessions time for actor hugh grant who is trying hard to put his recent encounter with a hollywood prostitute behind him. >> when hugh grant was arrested, it was big, live action news and hugh grant was supposed to do "the tonight show" that night. >> what the hell were you thinking? [ drum sting ] [ cheers and applause ] >> it all came together in that moment and everyone saw it and that's it. we were never number two again.
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>> hey, hey! >> for us it was the fun experience. we got our own theater, an unlimited budget, we've got access to every star in the business who wants to do the show. >> somebody bring me the jaws of life! >> so, i think going to cbs was heaven-sent. it really was. >> good night, everybody! i don't keep track of regrets. and i don't add up the years. but what i do count on... is boost® delicious boost® high protein nutritional drink has 20 grams of protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals. boost® high protein. be up for life.
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juul record. they took $12.8 billion from big tobacco. juul marketed mango, mint, and menthol flavors, addicting kids to nicotine. five million kids now using e-cigarettes. the fda said juul ignored the law with
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misleading health claims. now juul is pushing prop c, to overturn san francisco's e-cigarette protections. say no to juul, no to big tobacco, no to prop c. as the decade starts, fantasy aies and sci-fis, those were not big thing on television. we went to the movies for that. it is kind of hard to pin down what exactly the "x-files" is. it is a show of investigating
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pa paranormal activities. >> unidentified the object. tell me i am crazy. >> that dramatic tension of believable of skeptics is one of the tensions of the show and you see it from a point of view. >> they're equal in a way where they switch gender stereotype. the character i play is the intuitive one. >> rationalist, the doctor. >> a lot of folks enjoy the "x-files" who did not watch tv may have been drawn to the show by a lack of a better word, stick it to the man ethos. don't trust big business or anybody but yourself or your friends and family. it is a message dark and cynical but it is a breath of fresh air in the early '90s. >> the '90s was a time of
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conspiracy, the internet was starting to spread beyond like hard core computer users so you can have message board and everybody wanted to talk about the black oil and the bees and boulder easter and what street smoky man was up to. people were so nuts for the show. >> it is pure science-fiction. i think the "x-files" influenced nerds culture and nerds taking over culture. people realized this is not just programming. this is an opportunity to reach a wide audience. and so it did lead to shows like "buffy the vampire slayer." >> "buffy the vampire slayer"
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was a major work of american art. it depicted high school in a similar way to my so-called life rather than feeling it was hell, it was hell. her high school was built on top of hell, all the creatures would come up and you would have to fight. it was a brilliant metaphor for adolescence and all the demons you would have to slay. >> buffy was a teenager and she was still finding out who she was. >> one of the story lines was very popular and much talked about was when she had sex with her boyfriend for the first time and sort of the world of buffy he becomes literally evil. >> there is some part of you inside still remembers who you are. >> dream on schoolgirl. >> in order to save the world, literally she knows she has to
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send him to hell. buffy knows in an instant and angel becomes good again. she had this moment reckoning she had to decide whether to do this or not and she makes the sacrifice to push him back into hell. the show was really working on multiple levels. in buffy we saw a character that's forced to make tough decisions. >> the '90s television was trying to do something different. that included who was held up as a hero? >> television showed us women in their depth and began to show us a range of the african-american community.
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>> i am always here for you. >> we started focusing on teenagers in a realistic way. >> things changed dawson. evolve. >> what are you talking about? >> think outside the box in terms of what people may want to watch. >> you are out of border and he's out of border. this whole trial is sexy. >> by the end of the '90s. it feels like a 300 network world. that means an explosion of opportunity for all sorts of different stories to be told. >> was that the oven timer? >> that's right my friend. it is time for "bay watch!" >> can you believe they got skin cancer. >> you are saying that because you are in love with yasme and bleak. >> hey, hey, they're running! >> this is the brains of the
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show. >> i say always keep them running. all the time running. run. run. run yasmi, run like the wind. it is a time of enormous turmoil. >> '60s. >> here is michael at the foul line. >> we intend to cover all the news all the time. we won't be signing off until the world ends. >> is that special? >> any tool for you will bring out the best of television. >> they don't pay me enough . >> we have seen the news and it is

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