Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009 October 18

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October 18

Television genres

Wich are the differences between a telenovela, a soap opera and a sitcom? How do I know if a given TV program belongs to either genre? MBelgrano (talk) 01:29, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, a simple answer is that a soap opera usually airs during the afternoon, and has ridiculous, melodramatic plots that go on for years and years. A telenovela is the same except it's in Spanish. A sitcom is usually on in the evening, and is supposed to be funny. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

We have articles on all three: Telenovela, Soap opera, Situation comedy. They all have pretty good descriptions of what makes a series to belong in that genre. —Akrabbim^talk 02:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Telenovelas are only superficially the same as soap operas. To begin with, telenovelas appear at night, not in the daytime. Secondly, they appear for a limited period of time, not for years and years like soap operas. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 04:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Soap operas aren't necessarily shown in the afternoon. The two best-known examples in the UK, Coronation Street and EastEnders, are shown at prime time in the evening. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

In North America, being on in the daytime is almost a defining characteristic of a soap. Evening shows, no matter how soap-like, are hardly ever classed as soaps. But then the acting and production values of a British soap are many levels above that reached by a US daytime soap; hard though that may be to believe. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's use some specific questions

• First of all: do telenovelas need to be constructed over a love story to be telenovelas? (This is 2 main characters whose love story gets the most space, and the telenovela ends when they finally get toguether). If the main subplot is something else, other than a love story, is it a telenovela?
• Same question with humour. Do any of the genres need humour, or lack of it, as a defining trait?
• Are soap operas episode-based (wich means, featuring each day a story with a begining and an end, even if with sub-plots going on beyond it), or is the narrative a real flow?
• Do soap operas have a main storyline, in the sense that the ending of the storyline would be the ending of the series itself? (be it or not a love story: Star Trek: Voyager, for example, had such a storyline in the attempt of the spaceship trying to return to earth). MBelgrano (talk) 13:24, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Soap operas almost never have a 'main' storyline like you are describing. That's because the good sorry, popular ones can run for decades, and no creator wants to limit themselves to having to end the story when A finally falls in love with B, or more likely when the actor playing A or B gets fed up and quits.

Similarly soap operas are almost never episodic, because they want to keep people watching the next episode. Soaps are some of the most frequent users of cliffhanger endings, designed to make you "tune in tomorrow" to find out what happens.

By the way, if you really want to know this stuff just pick a soap and watch it for a couple of weeks. You'll get the idea pretty quickly. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:31, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Or listen: the UK's The Archers radio soap opera is a classic of the genre, even though it stems from a different background (in that it's not TV, and that sponsoring advertisements were never a feature) to those series from which the term "soap opera" arose. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

late 1970s song identification

I'm trying to figure out the title of a song I heard on KBLX in San Francisco. It has lines such as "Darling you", "You send me, you send me", "Do do do do do do do", "I hope you feel the same way, too", and and all that. It also has a chord with violins sounding like they were going down and coming back up again. (I know the song isn't done by Sam Cooke). I hope someone knows what I'm talking about.24.90.204.234 (talk) 05:44, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You Send Me has had MANY cover versions, and has been sampled/appeared in medleys several times. Rod Stewart did one on his album Smiler, and Van Morrison did a cover as well, and I think Steve Miller may have too. --Jayron32 13:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you mean the Sam Cooke version? This version? Or here? Oh — I didn't read carefully enough — NOT the Sam Cooke version! Bus stop (talk) 14:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The question is confusing, as it's implying a different song from "You Send Me", yet the description sounds like "You Send Me". →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots← 14:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, "I hope you feel the same way, too," isn't in the Sam Cooke version. Bus stop (talk) 14:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

That's the part that throws a spanner into it. I don't find a match on Google with those two phrases, so it's hard telling what's up with this. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots← 14:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the song could've been done by Van McCoy.24.90.204.234 (talk) 06:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Looking for a One Piece Abridged Series

I was looking for a One Piece Abridged Series, but there are several on youtube and I could not find the one I was looking for. The most memorable part of it was that the abridger skipped the first few episodes to get to as he put it "the awesomeness that is Zoro", and that in the first episode the audio was messed up but it was fixed in the second, and Zoro pointed this out. I am pretty sure the abridger had done another series before this, and he does a really good job of impersonating Zoro's voice. Any names of the abridger would help in case the videos aren't up anymore. 134.126.192.188 (talk) 06:27, 18 October 2009 (UTC)