1960s Movies

The movies we watched in class all represent the 1960s well. The emergence of the buddy movie with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid became extremely popular, and this type of movie is still popular today. People of the 1960s wanted to see a friendship like Butch and Sundance played out on the screen. The humor in The Pink Panther also represents the 1960s. The comedy was mostly slapstick, which seemed to be popular during this decade, but is less popular today. The audiences also seemed to like characters that were a little bad. Butch Cassidy and Sundance rob trains and banks, and Inspector Clouseau is convicted of a crime at the end of The Pink Panther. The audience did not necessarily want to see a happy ending to a movie and also seemed to enjoy bad things happening to the main characters.

1960s TV

The television shows from the 1960s is very different from the television today. The shows accurately represented the decade, I think. The show Gomar Pyle took place on a Marine Corps base. It was expected that the audience would be familiar with the Marines, as many young men were in the military during the 1960s. Much of the humor in Laugh-In was based around political and social events that were happening at the time. This is a lot like what Saturday Night Live does today. I didn't really like the shows we watched. The best was the Twilight Zone, but even that is not as scary or creepy as many of the shows that are on today, such as American Horror Story or other shows that try to thrill the audience. Sitcoms have stayed pretty much the same since the 1960s except for some of the humor. Shows now get away with dirtier jokes and language than the sitcoms we watched from the 60s. Also,  many sitcoms now no longer use a laugh track.

Music of the 60s

I mostly enjoyed the music of the 60s. I liked the variety and the different sounds of Rock. The music sounds very different from the music of today. There was much less technology in the recordings and the recordings sound less put together and more raw. The main instrument seems to be the guitar, especially toward the end of the decade. There were also a lot of brass instruments like trumpets during the beginning of the 60s.

Are the Beatles a Boy Band?

The Beatles were the world's first boy band. They reached a stage of immense popularity that has not existed since. Much like the boy bands of today, their fans were rabid. Many would go to any length to meet or touch a Beatle. The Beatles paved the way for modern day boy bands. Without them, New Kids on the Block, the Backstreet Boys, and One Direction would not exist. The world did not know that there was a market for boy bands until the Beatles came along.