Real People

Although I haven't seen an episode of "Real People" in about 20 years, I do remember the format: 60 minutes of various segments (most of them comedic in some way) focusing on the more offbeat facets of American life.

Some of the stories included the Flat Earth Society, a lady who took words and pronounced them backwards, an alien race that lived in volcanic lava tubes, a guy who built his house in a tree, and a guy who fell in love with the Statue of Liberty.

Between segments, they did some "ask the audience" kind of stuff, and also ran newspaper typos (kind of like Jay Leno's "Headlines" segment).

"Real People" ran on NBC, and was followed shortly by ABC's "That's Incredible!", which was a similar format but focused more on the unexplained.

What I remember most about the show, Real People (1979-1983), was when they were doing interviews of people affected by the 3-Mile Island nuclear accident. They showed people being evacuated, snarled roads, and attempted to talk to whomever they could. Most pointedly, there was an interview of a local farmer. The line that has stuck in my mind is this. They were on the farm, on the porch, and the wife said something like: "What I've noticed is that there are no flies. All the officials are saying that we are far enough away not to be affected by the radiation. But usually there are a good many flies this time of year, from the cattle. But right now, there are no flies."

As soon as I found this on Amazon Prime I knew I had to binge this. I was just a kid in the 80s but this was one of those shows that I enjoyed watching. Never mind the fact that it was a lot of adult humor that I was too young to understand, but it was shows like this that had that fun and innocent comedy that even appealed to kids like me. I remember watching this nightly when it went into syndication with its companion show, "That's Incredible" (another lost gem I would like to rediscover).

Prior to reliving my being an audience member the show, the only personalities I remembered were Sarah Purcell, Byron Allen, and Peter Billingsley. As soon as I started watching, I remembered the rest of the cast such as Skip Stephenson, John Barbour, and Fred Willard whom I completely forgot was on the show. I was like, "Oh yeaaaaah. So-and-so was on this show, too!" It felt as if I have seen these actors (among some of the others not mentioned) in a bunch of other things over the years since, but I was surprised to find that (with the exception of Fred Willard), they didn't do a lot gigs since the show. But I tell you. It all seemed like just yesterday that I was watching these people on TV.

Nowadays, audiences would yawn at the material but for me, it was a wonderful trip down memory lane. The nostalgic value alone was enough to keep me smiling throughout my binge.

Thank you to the cast (and production and crew), both living and departed, for holding a place in my memory and my heart and for being a part of this aging guy's life.

Back in 1979, When I watched Real People. It was a classic and funny lines and funny stories about funny people in their lives. And they do funny things on the road, Story like, Where people wear no clothes in the restaurant. Ladies live in the Indian totem pole in Traverse City, Michigan. There are many, many stories to choose from. and many other stories about the Real People. They been on for 50 times and 50 shows. 10 per season. They always go on the road to Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles. It's like a real good stories about people all the time. I always like Sarah Purcell a lot. Thanks for all the good memories about Real People.

As other posters stated, this was a 60 minute show featuring interesting and odd people around the USA. Nearly all of the members of the cast (the late Skip Stephenson, Byron Allen, Fred Willard, and Mark Russell) were all comedians and disciples of Steve Allen's "found" comedy style. The basis was that real people and real life were more interesting and humorous than most contrived scripts.

What the other posters do not mention is that although many of the stories were, at the base, interesting, the show itself could be quite annoying. It was as if the network people didn't get what the show was about and reality needed to be "accented." Many of the segments were edited more in fashion of America's Funniest Home videos; complete with silly sound effects, Keystone Kops fast forwards, cheesy commentary, etc.

For instance, I remember one segment where a car enthusiast bought two Packards and fused the front ends together to make a "push me-pull me" car. Both ends had engines and the driver could operate the car out of either the front or back ends. Pretty fascinating, but out of the five minute segment, only 30 to 40 seconds was dedicated to the car's owner and how he build the car, while the remaining parts of the segments was filled with wacky music and gaping-jawed reactions of local yokels to the vehicle.

Other segments that went off the beaten path, and were not really comedy but of human interest, were criminally short. I remember one segment hosted by (I believe) John Barbour at reunion of American WWII POWs in the Pacific. They began to tell a compelling story of captivity and how, near starving, they bunched their clothing together and made an American Flag. Several broke down on camera with Barbour consoling them -- a very touching story not seen on TV in 1980. Unfortunately, this groundbreaking piece was only a few minutes, and what would have been a great "real people" story was stuck in between other pap.

The direction of this show was not the fault of the hosts or the writers; there are some great ideas in this show, but I remember it mostly being weighted down by corny gimmicks famous of the networks of that time. Later they brought in Peter Billingsly (L'il Ralphy from "A Christmas Story") as a "cute kid" gimmick).

I do not think today's audience would like the pace or editing of this show. It was made for a time when the "Big 3" networks owned the audiences and comedy, with a few exceptions, was painted with a broad brush