I assume it was a licensing thing. They can get permission to use these smaller content creators' clips forever for not a lot of money.

In the past they had the ability to use music videos and MTV/Viacom content for the initial airings, but could never put them on DVDs or run them in later years.

It wasn't a popular show when it first came out, not sure why they thought that would change.

Okay, I get it, you have no critical thinking skills.

No, it's called critical thinking. Every attempt at communism has resulted in deaths and restrictions beyond anything experienced under capitalism. There is nothing wrong with capitalism. There is a problem with some aspects of human nature and the checks and balances in the US are not functioning properly at the moment. Acting like there won't be abuses in other forms of economics is stupid.

Yeah, when they shifted to a mostly capitalist economy.

You're insane if you think pure communism would work beyond the size of a hippie commune. USSR already proved that communism isn't compatible with human psychology. If you don't get rewarded relative to your efforts and talents, people just stop working. The reason a hippie commune works is because it's a limited space and they can kick out the people who stop working. You can't do that if the whole country is under that system, which is why the USSR collapsed.

Capitalism unlocks human potential based on human psychology and democracy tempers the abuses of the other side of human psychology (greed, power hunger, etc.).

Move to a hippie commune if you want communism. I doubt you ever would because you probably already hate the lifestyle.

Ah yes, the old argument that since the entire country wasn't run like a hippie commune, it wasn't real communism. You're a well-read genius.

The issue is always human nature. It doesn't matter if it's capitalism or communism, greedy, sociopathic people will exploit and abuse others if they can. Various forms of democracy help temper that. The combination of capitalism and democracy has lifted billions of people out of poverty and given them the most freedom in the history of humanity. There's more room to improve, but constantly blaming capitalism is ignorant and dangerous.

USSR, China in previous decades. They transitioned when communism failed, but they existed as communist societies and abused people far beyond what has ever occurred under capitalism.

Yeah, no hierarchies of abuse in communist Russia or China.

Toward the end, Letterman was pulling in 2.8 million viewers. Colbert pulls in 1.8 million.

It's also on Pluto TV for free if you don't mind commercials.

Ah, I love modern entertainment 'journalism'. It's just a constant stream of articles from 25 year olds talking about how we've all forgotten about a very famous show that came out 25+ years ago.

I wear headphones and don't have any issues.

What's up with the material for the covers, though? They are almost fuzzy and show every fingerprint.

A show or film that sells a lot of merch will dwarf the ad or box office revenue. Disney discovered this after Pixar had a few hits and they shifted their strategy to put out stuff that would sell merch. The box office from Pixar's biggest hit is like 1/10th or maybe even 1/100th of what they make in consumer products. That's why they only make Pixar, Disney Animation, Marvel, and Star Wars movies these days. Those films sell merch.

No more Brits.

How did I insult you? I said you're either analyzing this without being there and basing it on modern perception, or you have a warped memory and sense of what came before and how Friends was different. You can't just put any show in Thursday night and have it become a hit for a decade. That's idiotic, if you want to be insulted now.

You're either young and weren't around before and after the show started, or you're a revisionist with a bad memory. Everything you said is known to be false by anyone who lived then and who knows anything about TV production and writing. I just can't waste time grabbing examples and news articles, etc.

Your entire comment was tearing down Friends, so you were using derivative as a pejorative, and there was nothing negative about its use of a similar concept. Did Living Single rip off Three's Company? A Different World? Seinfeld? MTV's Real World? Wait, The Golden Girls? Changing genders, ages, setting, or adding characters doesn't make it a completely new thing. It's silly to say there's anything negative about using a concept.

The changes to women's lives that started in earnest in the 1970s had culminated to a new level of independence in the 1990s and that's what Living Single and Friends were reflecting. No one ripped anyone off. It was where society was at that moment.

It was not derivative or middling. Mimicking a general concept doesn't make it derivative. Can you imagine there only being one 'odd couple'-type show in the history of television?

It was a cultural phenomenon because it broke new ground in terms of content and writing. For comparison, as popular as The Big Bang Theory might have been, it was not a cultural phenomenon like Friends. Friends was obviously helped by the media landscape at the time, but you can't fake your way into being culturally influential to that degree.

I don't have proof, just circumstantial evidence, but the reason I believe she left was because she was the only cast member who did any work. She came to rehearsals and took her character's reactions and delivery seriously, while everyone else screwed around. The only person who supported her was Nicholas Colasanto, whom she had a good relationship with. Everyone else called her "difficult."

If you watch the show, watch Shelly Long when she's not talking. Her facial expressions constantly change to react to whoever is talking. In 6 seconds she'll literally go from smiling, to concerned, to angry, as a reaction to something Sam says. It's amazing.

In other scenes, Sam and Norm will be the focus of the scene on the far-right, front part of the bar where Norm sits. Shelly Long will be sitting on the far-left, back of the bar, barely in frame and out of focus on a stool reading a book and still give a goddamn reaction to what they are saying. It's amazing.

Everyone else mostly stands around waiting to deliver their lines.

No one worked as hard. Then they called her difficult. It was hell for her. You'd think they would have learned after she won an Emmy in season one for a show that ranked toward the bottom of the ratings, but I suspect that just made their reactions toward her worse.

It's just a mistake from working fast. They watch the footage and occasionally type what they 'recall' was said and are working so fast that they either don't know they typed the wrong thing or don't take the time to go back to check, because they get paid shit. A lot of it is also d done remote now, so any distraction while at home could cause them to get a few lines wrong.

The person doing quality assurance also thinks it's close enough and not worth the time to edit the file.

Sounds like they do have them, then.

Yeah, it felt really odd to have people there 8-10 years. Melissa needs a supporting role in a TV show or a lead role in a quirky indie comedy film soon.

Julia (1968), starring Diahann Carroll, wasn't the first, but another from that 60s era.

That's not true at all. There was tons of different programming throughout the 90s and early 2000s.