Creators Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz
peopled their fictional Philadelphia with seven main
characters: Michael Steadman (played by Ken Olin),
the sensitive Jewish advertising executive always try-
ing to make sense of his world and become a better
man; Hope Murdoch Steadman (Mel Harris), his
Protestant wife, struggling with first-time child rear-
ing; Elliot Weston (Timothy Busfield), Michael’s
business partner whose perpetual selfishness nearly
destroys his marriage and forces him to change his
life; Nancy Krieger Weston (Patricia Wettig), Elliot’s
wife, who discovers, through their separation, her
new career as an artist and ultimately her cancer
and her identity separate from her family; Melissa
Steadman (Melanie Mayron), Michael’s photogra-
pher cousin who is continually in and out of therapy,
trying to work out her issues with men; Ellyn Warren
(Polly Draper), Hope’s best friend from high school
who has chosen her career over a family life; and
Gary Shepherd (Peter Horton), Michael’s hippie
college friend, now a college English professor, who
criticizes the bourgeois lives of his friends while re-
fusing to grow up.
The lives and loves of these seven characters
formed the plot of the show for the four seasons it
aired on the American Broadcasting Company
(ABC). The writing on the show, touted by some crit-
ics as some of the best writing ever seen on television
nd criticized by others for being either too sophisti-
cated or too “whiny,” earned the show Emmy nomi-
nations for each year it was on the air, two of which it
won. The show also garnered numerous nomina-
tions and wins in acting, directing, and technical
categories.Thirtysomethingtackled several serious
topical issues not previously featured on network
television, including homosexuality, AIDS, second-
wave feminism, divorce, and a long and detailed
look at cancer. It also treated religion, sex, parent-
ing, and friendship as the most important parts of a
person’s life, things that require profound and con-
stant attention.
Impact Though it aired only for four seasons,
thirtysomethinghad a lasting impact on television and
culture. The show focused on average people deal-
ing with normal life events, a turn in television cul-
ture viewed by some as overindulgent and by others
as the first move into making television a more seri-
ous and profound medium.
Further Reading
Heide, Margaret J.Television Culture and Women’s
Lives: “Thirtysomething” and the Contradictions of
Gender. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1995.
Thompson, Richard.Television’s Second Golden Age.
Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1997.
Lily Neilan CorwinSee also AIDS epidemic;Big Chill, The; Feminism;
Homosexuality and gay rights; Jewish Americans;
Marriage and divorce; Religion and spirituality in
the United States; Television; Yuppies.This Is Spin ̈ al Tap
Identification American comedy film
Director Rob Reiner (1945- )
Date Released March 2, 1984
Reiner’s debut independent film was one of the first “mocku-
mentaries,” a deadpan, right-on-target satire on the excesses
and outright silliness of the heavy metal rock-and-roll scene
of the 1980’s.
In the mock documentaryThis Is Spin ̈al Tap, Rob
Reiner plays director Marty DiBergi, who is making a
documentary concert film on the heavy metal group
Spin ̈ al Tap, distinguished as “one of England’s loud-
est bands.” The band was supposedly formed in 1976
and is making a comeback tour across the United
States in 1982. The film pretends to be a rock docu-
mentary (like Martin Scorsese’s 1978The Last Waltz,
about the last concert of the Band, or Michael
Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970Let It Be, about the impending
breakup of the Beatles) but portrays the stupidity,
hedonism, and blind following of rock bands of this
era, combining the satiric targets of early heavy
metal bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sab-
bath and later 1980’s glam rock and theatrical metal
bands such as Kiss, Megadeth, W.A.S.P., and Mötley
Crüe.
The film’s three lead actors, Christopher Guest,
Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, helped Reiner
script and improvise the scenes, and the three also
helped compose the music they played in the film.
The first half of the film accurately pokes fun at the
musical styles the band goes through, the television
media spots, the difficulty of finding hotel accom-
modations on the road (or top billing at gigs), andThe Eighties in America This Is Spin ̈ al Tap 967