Robert Thompson
Robert Thompson
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This came out as the center of the universe for the demographic of young people and it managed to bring together people who would have been very disparate in what radio stations they listened to. But they all came together in this one television hangout.
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So when we're watching The Sopranos in reruns ten years from now, on a big-screen, it will still look good.
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Then, all of a sudden, it was big money. It went from small stakes to huge stakes, but at the same time, it was still very challenging.
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The music is secondary. The real pull is watching people grab for the brass ring. They're climbing the ladder. This is the great American story.
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I think the American culture right now is in a state where we have an unlimited appetite for irony. The great thing about a weird pageant is, if you don't win, is that really a bad thing?
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I think we have yet to realize how much we are going to miss that. I don't think it's a total coincidence that it's happening at the same time there's an increasingly divisive nature in the country. What the consensus medium of television used to do, and radio before that, was to provide this enormous center that everybody had to go to now and then. ... Now, there is a lack of cultural consensus that even extends to what we consider the body of facts we used to debate.
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I think that dramatically, he had kind of been used up, ... If they can put some other compelling new characters in there that can hook people with a bunch of new storylines, you in essence have got a new show.
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People are ceasing to believe those things for which we have empirical evidence. That creates a vacuum into which psychics can flow.
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It becomes very clear that the oil industry wants to develop 100 percent of the North Slope - the land and the ocean.
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It becomes just another media in which these celebrities work.
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I think it's now beyond a trend. It's now a form, just like soap operas, doctor shows, or legal shows. I doubt you, me, our children or our grandchildren will know a time without it.
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I think we all learned not only from 9/11, but even from the snowstorms last fall, that being prepared - yourself and your family - with the basic necessities can only help.
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I think to some extent the opportunity to go and take the place of an iconic figure of rock and roll, well, what's the psychology of not wanting to do that? You'll see a kid play air guitar in a garage. It's the same thing. It's easy for these people to get teased, and some behave in ways that they invite it. But I don't think it's intrinsically sick or strange. What is colonial Williamsburg but people in historical drag?
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It is one of the few shows on American television, especially after you get past those first couple of weeks, where really little kids love it, grandma loves it. It's got the kind of wide appeal we used to see all the time on network TV that we very seldom see anymore.