24 Tom Shales Quotes for You to Enjoy

Tom Shales

American Writer

Born: Nov 3, 1948

Age Almost Long Pure Time You

Related authors: Dale Carnegie Denis Waitley Dr. Seuss H. L. Mencken Napoleon Hill Ray Bradbury W. E. B. Du Bois William Arthur Ward

You know you're getting older when - well, first off, when you read almost any story that begins 'You know you're getting older when.' But you also know it when you not only never heard of the musical guest on a given 'Saturday Night Live' but never heard of the host, either. Tom Shales

You Getting Older First Live Older Guest Musical Given Only Host Never Almost Know Also Well Read Heard Off Begins Any Getting Story Either Saturday Saturday Night Saturday Night Live Night

In city after city, newspaper after newspaper has diminished its staff of critics, sometimes to zero. Film and T.V. critics have been dropped and not replaced. Maybe they're deemed unnecessary because nobody cares if anything's good or not. Tom Shales

Your humble critic confesses that he has been wrestling with 'weight issues' since leaving college lo these, uh, several years ago, so it's hard to be receptive to the moralistic scolding and patronizing encouragement offered endlessly by the allegedly well-meaning. Tom Shales

Humble College Encouragement Several Critic Has-Been Moralistic Allegedly Wrestling Weight He Since Well-Meaning Leaving Issues Been Years Years Ago Offered Endlessly Patronizing Your Hard Receptive

A fellow with the inventiveness of Albert Einstein but with the attention span of Daffy Duck. Tom Shales

Attention Span Attention Fellow Duck Einstein Span Albert Albert Einstein

You don't hear TV cops griping because they have to enforce some Draconian law that shouldn't be on the books in the first place, or lamenting vindictive excesses in sentencing. Hollywood, supposedly a frothing cauldron of liberalism, has always been conservative on crime. Tom Shales

You Conservative Law Crime First Liberalism Books TV Some Excess Supposedly First Place Because Always Hear Been Place Hollywood Sentencing Enforce Vindictive Draconian Cops

Larry King's show got to be an increasingly lonely outpost of humane civility in a mephitic menagerie of hotheads, saber rattlers, cretins and crackpots. Tom Shales

King Lonely Humane Increasingly Civility Got Show Larry

'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' occurred in real time and was a benign and bewitching example of pure television. Tom Shales

Time Pure Example Benign Television Occurred Real Real Time

Maybe it's the hair. Maybe it's the teeth. Maybe it's the intellect. No, it's the hair. Tom Shales

Hair Teeth Intellect Maybe

In the best traditions of American comedy, from its beginnings through the crash-bang comedies of the 1990s and 2000s, Leslie Nielsen skewered the otherwise proper, did it with mischievous delight and convulsed audiences mercilessly. Tom Shales

Best Comedy Otherwise Proper Mischievous Delight Through Comedies Audiences Traditions Beginnings American Did Leslie

If the networks can get audiences to tolerate pop-up promos by the dozens, maybe they'll start selling pop-up commercials, too. Tom Shales

Too Networks Audiences Selling Commercials Get Maybe Tolerate Dozens Start

Perhaps unscripted reality shows and written fiction have already blurred together into some new amalgamated mush, just as the line between commercials and programs has been trashed. Tom Shales

Together Reality Programs Has-Been Some Written Between New Perhaps Line Been Commercials Just Fiction Blurred Reality Shows Trashed Shows Mush

The once inviolate frame within which programs or commercials were displayed on television - always separately - has been violated to a pulp. Program content is seen increasingly as a mere backdrop on which ads are posted like billboards on a fence. Tom Shales

Seen Programs Increasingly Frame Once Backdrop Television Has-Been Posted Ads Mere Like Content Within Always Fence Were Been Commercials Which Separately Billboards Displayed Violated Program Pulp

'Dragnet' (the 1951 original, transferred nearly intact from radio) served as a veritable template for all cop shows to come. Tom Shales

Come Intact Transferred Radio Original Shows Served Cop Nearly

Larry David's armor is his dissatisfaction with the world down to the smallest detail, and up to the whole ghastly arrangement. He won't win, but he'll enjoy losing. Tom Shales

World Win Losing Down Enjoy Ghastly Detail David He Smallest Armor Arrangement His Up Whole Larry Dissatisfaction

The original and very basic 'Law & Order' series has always seemed to me to be 100-percent exposition, with no filler, no pesky nuances and almost no background about the series' continuing characters - just the hard nuts and bolts of pure storytelling. Tom Shales

Me Law Pure Background Nuts Characters About Seemed Almost Always Continuing Very Just Order Storytelling Hard Original Exposition Series Filler Bolts Nuances Basic

It might be hard to remember this far back, but once upon a time, some of us hoped that public TV would develop into a smart, sophisticated, civilized alternative to commercial TV - not a cheap imitation of it. Tom Shales

Making music on TV used to be as common as commercials. In the '60s and '70s, prime time was stuffed with variety shows headlined by such major and treasured talents as Carol Burnett, Red Skelton, the Smothers Brothers and Richard Pryor, who had a very brief comedy-variety hour on NBC that was censored literally to death. Tom Shales

Death Music Time Carol Carol Burnett TV Brothers Variety Had Red Prime Stuffed Prime Time Major Hour Talents Making Very Commercials Pryor Common Censored Literally Burnett Richard Richard Pryor Used Who Shows Brief NBC Treasured

Obviously neither 'American Idol' nor 'Dancing With the Stars' is a variety show in the classic sense, but the way they incorporate elements of drama, comedy and suspense is moderately ingenious. Tom Shales

Technically, 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' was a kids' show, but adults watched almost religiously - and we're talking adult adults, celebrated adults - including James Thurber, Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Adlai E. Stevenson and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Tom Shales

Technically Lyricist Kids John Sondheim Adult Almost Stevenson Talking Welles Celebrated James Show Including Orson Welles Watched

'Minute to Win It' is a variation on a game show from the 1950s called 'Beat the Clock,' in which contestants won washing machines and fox stoles by doing such pointless stunts as catching a tennis ball in a paper cup or knocking a hat off one's wife's head with a whipped-cream spritzer. Tom Shales

Game Win Wife Paper Machines Hat Minute Variation Beat Pointless Tennis Head Catching Knocking Stunts Ball Contestants Doing Off Clock Cup Won Which Game Show Show Washing Fox

Jerry Seinfeld is amazing in many ways, not the least of them his ability to find humor, and convincing us to find it, too, in the million-and-two details about modern life that under different circumstances might send us into paroxysms of rage. Tom Shales

Life Amazing Humor Rage Too Ways Circumstances Details Find Ability About Seinfeld Least His Send Modern Different Modern Life Them Might Us Convincing Many Jerry

Why, on my mother's birthday, am I thinking about 'Father Knows Best?' At our house, mother knew best at least as often as father did, but then the title of the old sitcom, a homogenized portrait of American family life, was meant to be slightly sardonic. Tom Shales

Life Best Birthday Family Mother Old Father Thinking Our Slightly About Knew House Knows Am Least Sitcom American Did Family Life Often American Family Title Then Meant Meant To Be Why Portrait Homogenized

Tom Snyder was born to broadcast. He loved television and it loved him back. In that, he was a member of a vanishing breed, especially as narrowcasting displaces broadcasting, 'online' replaces 'on the air,' and any Tom, Dick or Mary can be monarch of a desktop domain, uplinking themselves to satellites in space. Tom Shales

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