Three's Company "pie" episode

[JSOFFLine]

Originally Posted by Hedonism

I think he spoke Spanish, too, but only south of the border and in South America.

He was learning Swahili right before he died. (sad face emoji)

[Grlzrl]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

You're giving an awful lot of thought to the logic in a 40-year-old sitcom whose premise was based on wacky misunderstandings and slapstick.

I was going to say....

[Milo Wolf]

Originally Posted by Hedonism

Yeah, we're regressing as a society as far as what can be done on TV. A demographic isn't really 'equal' until they can have fun poked at them without whining. Of course, there's a fine line between fun and hate.
Some people need to lighten up.

Sure, there are some things from the past that are now frowned upon. But there are many more things that can be shown today that were absolutely forbidden in the past. Gay characters, cohabitation, drug use, deeply flawed protagonists (such as unrepentent murderers). Even such a minor thing as divorce used to be beyond the pale for networks. Gomer Pyle aired from 1964 to 1969, yet the mere mention of a war (and one was raging at the time) was strictly barred. It was deemed too controversial and upsetting. Television depictions used to either adhere to cultural norms or took pains to label those depictions of characters breaking said norms as bad. The plots of TV shows used to demand respect for authority (government, religion, civic institutions such as the military, the educational system, etc.). Now it is more than willing to portray the flaws in those things. Even light-hearted shows as The Office or 30 Rock teem with content that would have been absolutely unacceptable in the time frame of the show that is the subject of this thread (pre-marital sex portrayed as normal, language, the portrayal of dysfunctional corporate culture, and so forth). And need I mention the double entendres? Now they are orders of magnitude beyond what anything ABC would have allowed forty years ago.

So while there are certain things that have moved into 'beyond the pale' territory - and society is always changing, so there have and always will be some thing going that way - on balance there is much more freedom to depict things on television these days.

For the cinematic version of this change, see the very long list of things specifically proscribed by the odious Hays Code, scrapped by the film industry in the 1960s:
https://www.asu.edu/courses/fms200s/...uctionCode.pdf