"Get Real" (1999) TV series 1999-2000

Creator:

Clyde Phillips

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

8 September 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Family | Drama | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Breaking The Fourth Wall | High School Friends | Brother Brother Relationship | Skateboard

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Jon Tenney	...	Mitch Green (22 episodes, 1999-2002)
Debrah Farentino	...	Mary Green (22 episodes, 1999-2002)
Christina Pickles	...	Elizabeth Parker (22 episodes, 1999-2002)
Eric Christian Olsen	...	Cameron Green (22 episodes, 1999-2002)
Natalie Ramsey	...	Jody Garrow / ... (18 episodes, 1999-2002)
Anne Hathaway	...	Meghan Green (13 episodes, 1999-2000)
Kyle Gibson	...	Victor Castillo (9 episodes, 1999-2000)
Taryn Manning	...	Rebecca Peabody (9 episodes, 1999-2000)

Runtime:

60 min (22 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

Anne Hathaway played the oldest of the Green siblings, although Eric Christian Olsen is nearly 6 years older than her.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Family Guy: North by North Quahog (#4.1)" (2005)

Sensory Overload

Are we facing the same frustrations Adrian Leverkuehn did in Thomas Mann's novel Doktor Faustus? Is there no longer such a thing as a NEW IDEA?

If so, we should end television altogether rather than resort to the solution they came up with here: 1) Take four things that spice up a show, making it 'hip' and 'cool,' e.g., a) bumper music, b) the shaky camcorder-feel, c) to-camera/off-camera narration and d) teenage dilemmas. 2) Dump overabundant quantities of these into a mix that contains the most rudimentary plot. 3) Presto! You've baked up the disaster known as 'Get Real'!

Annoying, ceaseless music; nonstop seasick-inducing camera movement; cornball little speeches from the naive, pampered characters; and overblown emotions all add up to a cacophany of the first order. It's not quite loud enough to keep the viewer from noticing the tired, hackneyed plot whose jokes are lifted from other shows, so not even THAT mission is accomplished.

If the fountain of ideas who came up with this show is reading this, please, PLEASE if there's only one thing you learn, let it be that 'bumper music' is called that for a reason...it's BUMPER music! That means you play it when introducing scenes or as a refrain at a scene's end, after a point has been made and/or a lesson learned. This is not a symphony where you keep us on our toes until the final note. It's so exhausting that by show's end I feel like I've just completed a 10K race.

If not this, then kindly realize that a good script is made up of a succession of substantive conversations. It's like lining up pearls on a string. Each one is beautiful in itself, but will also fit perfectly into the necklace. There's not one example of thought-provoking discourse the entire time this show is on. Just a few saucy remarks, a couple of camera whip-arounds, maybe some tears, then fade to black...and, ah yes, a volume hike on the 'bumper music.'

Egadz.

P.S. What's with the kids' blase attitude toward their parents' advertisement of their sex life? It kind of weirds me out that they don't seem to mind knowing about it.