Whatever Happened to Good Ole Wholesome TV?

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By Ron Signore

Most people who watch Family Guy catch enough references to the 1980’s and 1990’s era. When one is curious as to what Family Guy is about beyond a local drunk’s family with a talking baby and their adventures, it can be simplified to a show about a kid who grew up in the 80’s.

I was born in 1985, so I made a major transition to what I saw on TV from Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood reruns on PBS to this yellow shaded cartoon on Fox with questionable humor. The Simpsons, a foundational mecca of cartoon material for Family Guy creator, Seth MacFarland, was the transition of television as we know it.

At this point, we started to see more questionable content during prime time hours. While prime time was still a spot for other award winning series with content more suitable for adults, the expansion of content of a lessor morality was appearing. The entrance of the classic sitcom Married with Children hit the airwaves. This was the teenager testing the boundaries.

The story of a shoe salesman with fond recollection to his glory days of high school football at a school in Chicago gets through his miserable life under a cloud that is his ungrateful wife and kids. The struggles of Al Bundy and his family are of pure comic bliss for many people. The boundaries this show tested were the boundaries around language and sexuality. Previous sitcoms like Cheers or All in the Family all made sexual innuendos and inferences, but the Bundy family drove down a more descriptive road of sexual smut and detail.

Remembering that between Married With Children, which I actually did catch episodes of growing up, and the arrival of Beavis and Butthead, which I had to sneak to be able to watch, were the two shows I was blatantly told were inappropriate for me to watch. These two shows had numerous complaints from the court of social opinion calling for the cancellation of the shows. While eventually the shows would run their course, they beat the opinionated “Karen’s” of their day.

While there were these controversial shows available to watch, there was still good wholesome family shows we seem to lack today. During my childhood, ABC had a primetime segment of “TGIFriday” that focused on wholesome family content aimed at real life situations that may be encountered as kids and families go through life.

This good wholesome comedy for the family viewers was apparent in shows like Perfect Strangers, Family Matters, Step by Step, Boy Meets World, Hangin with Mr. Cooper, Sister Sister and arguably the most famous show of the lineup in Full House.

While other shows gave us the household names like the annoying neighbor in Steve Urkel portrayed by Jaleel White in Family Matters; or Balki who is an immigrant cousin imposing to live with his cousin in Chicago in Perfect Strangers; or the rough exterior, yet tender hearted teachings of Mr. Feeny in Boy Meets World, the world saw a combination of conservative versus liberal (not political) ways of raising a family in an unorthodox style in Full House.

A widower and single father of 3 girls at different stages of their youth asks his brother in law and his best friend to move in to help raise the kids who have recently lost their mother. Bob Saget portrays Danny Tanner, the neurotic clean freak and father to the three girls, DJ, Stephanie, and Michelle. Danny drives the parenting style of being the kids parent, not their friend in a more conservative fashion. DJ, who is played by Candace Cameron, is constantly going through the first child problems for parenting and kids. The transition of elementary school to middle school, popularity and body self-consciousness through the episodes play a major factor in DJ’s life and Danny struggles to debate the right way to parent through these new situations seeing things from a black and white/ right or wrong action to consequence.

Not that the middle child Stephanie’s (Jodie Sweetin) problems growing up weren’t important, since they did the common scenario stories of peer pressure in smoking and other extracurricular activities with boys, the early episode align more with dealing through middle child syndrome and basic do’s and don’t’s in life. And Michelle, who was a baby played by rotating twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s journey on the show was development through the beginnings of elementary school.

The balance of views in the show was like a checks and balances system for 3 single guys raising 3 single girls. While Danny ultimately holds the power as the homeowner and father, he is wise beyond his years to consider in the views of his best friend Joey, comedian Dave Coulier, and the hip musician in the cool uncle Jessie (John Stamos). All three went through the series making mistakes. While we may think of this show as the perceived show of a perfect family, it can only be perceived that way because everyone learns in this show as they continue in life. The perfection element is perceivable to the common believe to do right over wrong. When you make the wrong choice, a lesson needs to be learned and is graciously examined through the content of each scenario in the show.

Joey bringing the concept of comedy and the difficulty of being negative in any way made for those storylines to show the lack of comfortability to be something you’re not. Bringing the balance of a laid-back parenting style, but undeniably committed to the love and caring of the three girls, we see storylines where the kids take advantage of his kindness.

When you bring in the hip uncle Jessie who is a musician by passion and lives the envied bachelor life, you add a little excitement to some of the parenting. While the liberal way of parenting is similar to that of Joey, Jessie has a bit more natural capability to be the disciplining type of parent. Throughout the show we observe Jessie growing into the maturity of settling down and raising a family. His life really begins when this change becomes apparent. His music career takes off, he becomes more disciplined to his changed priorities in life. Still bringing the gift of music and relative music culture to the show.

When that theme song for Full House came on, Everywhere You Look by Jesse Frederick, it caught everyone’s attention. You knew you were about to see some funny cheesy comedy, but also see life through the eyes of an unorthodox family and the struggles in life all of them must try and overcome. Very few storylines are overly serious, but serious enough to know the realistic possibilities and outcomes as life goes on.

The show has stood the test of time as a theme of nostalgia floods in over America in the past few years. Candace Cameron brought the loving Tanner (Fuller) family back in the modernly created Fuller House on Netflix. The show picks up with DJ being a widow forced to raise her kids alone and asking for help from her sister Stephanie and best friend Kimmy Gibbler. The point here is not to bash the obvious concept that they took many stories and modified them to the current scenario, but rather to praise the reason why. The morality of television has gone undeniably downhill since this pivotal point in family programming era. Everything is based off controversial comedy now. We have taken away the family audience viewership and created more controversial content that calls into questioning what parents may let their kids watch. I am guilty of it. I am not the best censor of what is on when the kids are running around. But Fuller House was brought in to try and mimic the wholesome content that gave the adored original Full House series it’s fame.

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