I've never even heard of Welcome Back, Kotter. And Best Beloved, who usually knows all this stuff, is failing at the critically important task of getting the TV stuff.
(And, well, I probably am old enough to have seen it in first run - I'm 32 - but when you're thinking TV, you have to remember that I didn't watch any until I found fandom, and I still only watch stuff that a) has a major fandom and b) is available on DVD (or, occasionally, via download). (Or, the rarer option: c) was produced by the BBC and is thus 90% dialog anyway.)
And even now I don't watch nearly as much of it as I should, but I swear I'm honestly trying. I just don't have time, and TV is hard. I don't know how you people can watch more than a couple episodes each week; if I tried that, my brain would blue screen on me. One show and I'm generally totally exhausted, and that's a huge improvement from when I started.)
My point is: I almost never get TV references without footnotes. If it wasn't for Best Beloved, you people would wonder how I managed to operate a browser without federal assistance. (And even with BB's help, I manage to embarrass myself quite often, but that's okay; I'm used to it, and I've realized there's no alternative. In college, I tried to make lists and memorize all the TV stuff that everyone else knew automatically, but my brain is just not big enough. It was impossible; there were always, like, 18 billion more shows.)
But, hey! I learned something tonight! I'll get Horshack references from now on! (And bouncing up and down and begging to be called upon - which I would call a Feynman Maneuver, myself - makes for a much better mental image than a dance called the Whore Shack. So, so much better.)
Re: Horshack
(And, well, I probably am old enough to have seen it in first run - I'm 32 - but when you're thinking TV, you have to remember that I didn't watch any until I found fandom, and I still only watch stuff that a) has a major fandom and b) is available on DVD (or, occasionally, via download). (Or, the rarer option: c) was produced by the BBC and is thus 90% dialog anyway.)
And even now I don't watch nearly as much of it as I should, but I swear I'm honestly trying. I just don't have time, and TV is hard. I don't know how you people can watch more than a couple episodes each week; if I tried that, my brain would blue screen on me. One show and I'm generally totally exhausted, and that's a huge improvement from when I started.)
My point is: I almost never get TV references without footnotes. If it wasn't for Best Beloved, you people would wonder how I managed to operate a browser without federal assistance. (And even with BB's help, I manage to embarrass myself quite often, but that's okay; I'm used to it, and I've realized there's no alternative. In college, I tried to make lists and memorize all the TV stuff that everyone else knew automatically, but my brain is just not big enough. It was impossible; there were always, like, 18 billion more shows.)
But, hey! I learned something tonight! I'll get Horshack references from now on! (And bouncing up and down and begging to be called upon - which I would call a Feynman Maneuver, myself - makes for a much better mental image than a dance called the Whore Shack. So, so much better.)