(noise) Subject: Married with Children (was: Re: Netscape closes up 1 3/8 today!)

[ab411@detroit.freenet.org (David R. Conrad)]

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Christopher J. Shaulis <cjs@netcom.com> writes:

> Yeah. Thats the way it works sometimes. I remember back when that
> housewife from minnasota launched her media campaign to have "Married
> With Children" taken off the air. All it did was make the show a
> hundred times more popular and extend its life for years after it
> probably would have been canceled on its own.

Terry Rakolta is from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, just a few short miles
from where I sit, typing at my keyboard.  After being offended by the
episode "Her Cups Runneth Over", Rakolta took notes on things she found
offensive in subsequent episodes and then mailed a complaint to Fox.

Fox's reaction?  According to executive producer Michael Moye, "Everybody
did the manly thing which was immediately dive behind desks and point the
finger at us.  You couldn't get your legs under a desk for all the
executives under there.  You have never seen such wussing.  And we're
going, 'One letter?  *One letter?*'"  [emphasis his]

The resulting media incident almost certainly increased the show's
ratings, but it also brought the wrath of the Fox censor down on the
producers.  For an interesting account of this, see Playboy, July 1990,
(the one with Sharon Stone topless on the cover ;), "Hanging out with
the Bundys", Pamela Marin, p.114 et seq.

Something else which has happened here in the Greater Detroit SMSA, just
in the last few days, is the mother of a ten year old boy has demanded
that _The_Stand_ by Stephen King be removed from the school's library
after her son checked it out from said library.  Turns out Stephen
included some graphic descriptions of sex.  The punch line, if you like,
is that in tv news coverage the young lad was shown sitting in front of
the tv, playing a Mario-like video game.

Thank God they got that book away from him just in the nick of time, eh?
He might be reading even as we speak!

        They walked still further and the girl said, "Is it true that
    long ago firemen put fires *out* instead of going to start them?"
        "No."
                                                       -- Ray Bradbury


``Officer, officer, arrest that man!  He's whistling a dirty song.''
                                                       -- Jean Ellison

Crypto relevance?  None.

drc

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--
David R. Conrad, conrad@detroit.freenet.org, http://www.grfn.org/~conrad
Hardware & Software Committee  --  Finger conrad@grfn.org for public key
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No, his mind is not for rent to any god or government.