Obsolete Episodes

[hansenkd]

Don't know if this has ever been discussed, but a few years after the show ended...

A carpetbagger named Clay Bennett bought the Seattle SuperSonics from Howard Schultz (founder of Starbucks). Bennett later took the Sonics to Oklahoma City in the dirtiest geographical move in the history of North American sports. The team is now the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Seattle SuperSonics now no longer exist.

This renders the episodes "Head Game" and "Hooping Cranes" quite obsolete to future generations, along with any references to team in places such as the limo scene of "Can't Buy Me Love."

Weird observation.

[Eddie2012]

Well, as a non-US citizen - who has no real interest in any sports in general - I have virtually no idea about US sports and I don't care whether they are called the Seattle SuperSonics or the Seattle StupidBees or whether they are real or fictions, sorry

But even if it were important to me, so what? At time of filming they were the Seattle SuperSonics and that fact hasn't changed. Any show/movie/documentary becomes somewhat obsolete shortly after filming finishes, depending on how quickly the world changes afterwards.

[CatNamedRudy]

Doesn't bother me one bit. Stuff like that happens frequently. If a future generation doesn't know there used to be an NBA team in Seattle they could just think the team was made up. I don't think it makes the episodes obsolete. That would be like saying because phone booths no longer exist all the Superman movies are obsolete!

[Patrick]

Do you realize that Ivanhoe with Roger Moore has been obsolete for centuries?

[Moon-Crane]

Never even thought about that.

Don't think it affects anything. Many movies and shows feature things that no longer exist, and I wouldn't look at it any much different to when Martin receives a videotape box set of WWII - what the hell's a video to most people nowadays?!

[Emil]

I basically agree that a story can never become obsolete, but perhaps it can become hard to understand. I don't think we are quite far enough into the future yet, though. But one day Martin's call to the telephone bank - "Per-so-nal!" - will seem very strange for a younger audience that hasn't had that experience. And if video rental shops disappear, the whole joke about Frasier trying to rent "How green was my valley" will not be obvious.