Marathon This TV Show

MovieBob

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Marathon This TV Show

"Every Simpsons Ever" was great, so when are we going to see more TV mega-marathons?

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Super Cyborg

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Going with a less bile way of mocking anime fans, what anime would there really be to have a multiday marathon. Best I could come up with would be Dragon Ball (the whole series), and that's about it. Maybe YuYu Hakusho and Sailor Moon, but those are much more obscure. I think another problem is no channel is going to marathon an anime because of the perceived kiddiness of the whole medium, as well as being niche in the states.

As for the other stuff, never watched the stuff, and while it can be popular, is there much of a reason to do it? I know you mentioned the whole fact that the Simpsons marathon was popular, but will all these old shows have that many people clamoring to a station. It might get people to learn about station, but at most it might be a "that was cool". Probably just don't know since I watch little TV.
 

Sanunes

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I am not a very big fan of marathons in general, for I like variety in what I am watching and having days/weeks of a channel I might be interested in watching going non-stop with a single show seems to be boring to me.
 

hermes

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I could get behind a Star Trek marathon, although plenty of it would not survive closer scrutiny today.

Futurama? 8 seasons seems pretty lengthy to be worth a marathon...

How about Looney Tunes? I mean, if we are counting The Flintstones, it is not like viewing order and overarching stories are required for the concept. Of course, it couldn't be "every single episode made", because they amount to over a thousand, but a selection ordered by chronology would be nice.
 

Sylocat

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One thing that makes anime more suited to mega-marathons than many shows is that many anime are actually self-contained sagas running for a set number of episodes, and as such they actually have beginnings, middles and ends, rather than getting stretched out endlessly past their expiration dates.

A Doctor Who mega-marathon sounds good on paper, but it would bring to light a number of things that most Whovians would like to forget, namely that most of the classic series is terrible. The Fourth Doctor's run is mostly okay, as are parts of the Third, Fifth and Seventh, but the rest of it? Dreadful.

I'd suggest MST3K, but even its producers haven't figured out who actually has the rights to it now.
 

Bedinsis

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Well one marathon arranged by a friend of mine was rather well received in my social circle: The entire Disney's animated canon. Disney is one of those entities everyone has memories of watching as kids which leads to the entire family experiencing something magical in such a marathon.

Though Disney would never do such a thing; their movies have far too great market value and they're financially well off at the moment.

I could also see a marathon of Seinfeld or Friends, but it's kind of a generational thing of who watched those series.
 

Kinitawowi

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I'm pretty sure that if the BBC ever managed to find all 97 of the episodes of Doctor Who that have been lost to time, wiping and cutting room floors [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes], they'd probably start up a Doctor Who channel themselves.
 

P-89 Scorpion

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Talking about a Star Trek marathon do you realise that on 13th May 2015 it will be 10 YEARS! since a new episode of Star Trek has aired on TV.

10 years wow that makes me feel old I remember watching "Encounter at Farpoint" back when it first aired in 1987.

Hmm if they give Trek a break from TV equal to the one between the original series and next gen we have only 8 years to go till more TV Trek yay.
 

KazeAizen

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Super Cyborg said:
Going with a less bile way of mocking anime fans, what anime would there really be to have a multiday marathon. Best I could come up with would be Dragon Ball (the whole series), and that's about it. Maybe YuYu Hakusho and Sailor Moon, but those are much more obscure. I think another problem is no channel is going to marathon an anime because of the perceived kiddiness of the whole medium, as well as being niche in the states.

As for the other stuff, never watched the stuff, and while it can be popular, is there much of a reason to do it? I know you mentioned the whole fact that the Simpsons marathon was popular, but will all these old shows have that many people clamoring to a station. It might get people to learn about station, but at most it might be a "that was cool". Probably just don't know since I watch little TV.
The problem with the anime thing is that very few "good" (as dubbed by fan culture) anime last long enough to pull a stung like this. Most of the "best" ones are 12-26 episode series and even some of those aren't actually "finished" (see attack on titan). The only mature audiences anime I can think of that actually had a very long run of episodes is Monster and that actually was quite good. Apart from that the ones that immediately come to mind for a long multi-day/week thing would be Dragon Ball, all of it, Z, GT, the three DB movies, and all the Z movies, Pokemon (how could anyone forget that? :p), and Yu-Gi-Oh. The not quite as pop culturally known but could still do it anime would be Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist, Sailor Moon, and Yu Yu Hakusho. You see though apart from Monster all the anime I listed are long running shounen and shojo anime which only you and I have heard about or even give a crap about.

I think only Dragonball, Pokemon, and maybe Yu-Gi-Oh have the clout to pull something like that off and be relatively successful. Dragonball was a smash hit and only reason anybody heard of Toonami, and we all know how Pokemon took over the world there for a few years and it still has a strong cultural presence today.
 

optimusjamie

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May I also suggest Babylon 5? It's got a tight enough arc that's easier to follow when watching it back-to-back, 'only' 5 seasons (some of the shows Bob suggested are very long runners), and even the filler episodes have something that makes them worth watching.
 

HBaskerville

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I'll second the notion of Babylon 5. One of the first scifi shows to totally commit to story arcs rather then episodic tv. Also has multiple great female characters - something a lot of shows can't boast of. Well worth a look.

I guess you could add the first couple seasons of the West Wing, but that show fell victim to it's creator's preachiness starting about season 3. Plus Aaron Sorkin is not good with female characters.
 

raikagetaicho

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Only to ilustrate that moviebob doesn't know anything ,no one mecha anime have ever reach 450+ episode count(i thing the longest one only have like 110 episode or something)and for the sluty schoolgirl "genre"(I know he refers to echi) the longest I can think is like 52 episode(zero no tsukaima).

Well anime that can make a marathon of that level: Crayon shin-chan(850+),Detective conan(760+),Pokemon(840+),One piece(678+),Naruto(605+),Dragon Ball(450),bleach(360), kochikame(370).Well they are others that can make(like sasae-zan that have like 2000+ episoders)but i limited to series that are known by the western fan base.

PD: Every gundam serie is their own thing and only two are really conected(0079 and Z), with victory and ZZ only been in the same calender, so I couldn't count as one.
 

CrazyGirl17

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Do they have to go in order of appearance? 'Cause I'd like to see a marathon of the best episodes of either:
The Simpsons
Doctor Who (both Classic and New)
Looney Tunes
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (that they still hold the rights to, damn ownership rules...)
Nicktoon/Cartoon Cartoons (Kinda cheating, but I honestly miss the old shows they used to air all the time...)

Anyone agree?
 

Gxas

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raikagetaicho said:
Only to ilustrate that moviebob doesn't know anything ,no one mecha anime have ever reach 450+ episode count(i thing the longest one only have like 110 episode or something)and for the sluty schoolgirl "genre"(I know he refers to echi) the longest I can think is like 52 episode(zero no tsukaima).

Well anime that can make a marathon of that level: Crayon shin-chan(850+),Detective conan(760+),Pokemon(840+),One piece(678+),Naruto(605+),Dragon Ball(450),bleach(360), kochikame(370).Well they are others that can make(like sasae-zan that have like 2000+ episoders)but i limited to series that are known by the western fan base.

PD: Every gundam serie is their own thing and only two are really conected(0079 and Z), with victory and ZZ only been in the same calender, so I couldn't count as one.
I'm so proud of you for proving his point.

OT: Honestly, why don't they just cut into smaller-scale marathons and do like, the complete Seinfeld for it's length, then follow up with another show of similar length (Raymond, perhaps?)

It doesn't HAVE to be a week-long thing. There aren't many shows that hit that mark ever.
 

ritchards

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I would go for Doctor Who... and I'm working on getting all eps of B5, so I could do that myself. X-Files might be worth it, with talk of a recent revival (and seeing the series would hopefully remind us why we shouldn't do that.)

...but you know they'll marathon Friends first...

raikagetaicho said:
Detective conan(760+)
Oh, I would like to see that entire series, so yes please!
 

Escapefromwhatever

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Super Cyborg said:
Going with a less bile way of mocking anime fans, what anime would there really be to have a multiday marathon. Best I could come up with would be Dragon Ball (the whole series), and that's about it. Maybe YuYu Hakusho and Sailor Moon, but those are much more obscure. I think another problem is no channel is going to marathon an anime because of the perceived kiddiness of the whole medium, as well as being niche in the states.

As for the other stuff, never watched the stuff, and while it can be popular, is there much of a reason to do it? I know you mentioned the whole fact that the Simpsons marathon was popular, but will all these old shows have that many people clamoring to a station. It might get people to learn about station, but at most it might be a "that was cool". Probably just don't know since I watch little TV.
Since when is Sailor Moon obscure?

You know, I'd be up for a Seinfeld marathon. Thing was a cultural behemoth.
 

Darth_Payn

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RaikuFA said:
Was that jab at anime fans at the end nessesary?
Really now, I think the Escapist has enough writers trolling their readers. No need for Bob to stoop that low. Although he has some good ideas for series to marathon start-to-finish. Let's marathon some MST3K, while we're at it, Ownership rights be damned!

captcha: TiVo Roamio
I'll definitely need one of those for marathons like these.
 

vid87

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As far as a "mini-event based on something everyone definitely knows," either Seinfeld or Friends.

I'm not knocking Simpsons necessarily, but it still boggles my mind that it became the icon that it did despite being something Matt Groening penned on a napkin in under a minute.
 

Sniper Team 4

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I've never really cared for marathons of anything. I get burned out. It's nice when one is going on and I can just pop over for an hour or two if it's a show I like, but I can't fathom watching anything for as long as it would take to complete some of those shows. Granted, I know that few people actually watch the entire thing, but still...