Alex P. Keaton
It never occurred to me but, when I watched some episodes this morning, I was wondering why Alex is only in Leland College? If he's such an over-achiever, shouldn't he be in the Ivy League?
sharethat's the dichotomy, Alex craves to be 'one of them' but because his dad works at the PBS station and his mom is an architect (and presumably equal pay laws really aren't being enforced in the 1980's) he actually has limited money.
Which may be another reason why he craves it.
He realizes he is middle lower class (women make less in the corporate world). Alex COULD potentially apply for scholarships but this requires the skills etc he actually may not have.
Remember also this is when you had to do everything manually (pre internet). You cannot just Google it. You had to instead write away for catalogs and hope you either got a thick packet or a thin packet from the college when you applied. You also had to research the colleges you wanted at the local library and hope their program contact information was current and complete.
I believe the year which I applied to college was just around the time colleges stopped making paper catalogs and decided to do everything online. You can no longer apply etc through paper and some programs even are online only now. They realized it's cost and time efficient for them.
So Alex may not be resourceful enough to properly gather all the needed resources sans the internet. If he cannot do either task, he cannot attend the Ivy League colleges even on scholarship.
Therefore, Alex makes do with the 'best' college immediately located in his area, Leeland College. I can't say if that character is/is not 'smart' I've never had to manage mountains of excess paper (the computer is a great time/space organizer with 'folders' and 'tabs') so I don't know how I myself would survive in a real-world scenario like that.
I feel privileged since the computer age certainly helps more of us achieve so much more. I've never had to retype a whole page after catching one error either--thank goodness. Alex might have different/changed environmental policies with computers now being a necessity in the business world. And computers helping to reduce paper costs and time while increasing productivity and profits for the business.
Also, I don't believe that Alex could live with his family in Ohio and go to an Ivy League college at the same time.
That is why so many smart and ambitious students on TV shows end up going to less prestigious local colleges.
Keeping them around in the family home (or in the same town/city at least) becomes necessary.
Because otherwise, the characters would not be able to stay on as regulars on the show.
But a few TV characters will attend a college somewhere else and only make guest appearances.
Most of the time, that means that the actor/actress wants to go to College themself or take other acting gigs.
They never did that with Alex/Michael J Fox though...
Yes that too. Michael J Fox essentially carried 'Family Ties'. he did not have flexibility to leave the series.
Having him go off to a college in another state would have ended the series. The writers (wisely) understood he had to continue living at home until he did graduate THEN end the series with a curtain call and him leaving for New York. They did it right and strategized.
Lisa Bonnet was not the 'star' of the Cosby Show so she could be effectively spun off into 'A Different World' which was a show about a Historically Black College without the Cosby Show ending. I don't think her leaving the show impacted it.
The Family Ties ending, the Happy Days series ending and when his character left 'Spin City' (which was essentially a series ending--admit it) are the three series endings I remember. Now we're lucky if a series has a formal ending. Sometimes it just gets canned.
Women do not make less in the modern corporate world.
shareI think if they--and more specifically Fox had wanted to--a spin off with Alex P Keaton in NYC attempting to finally make it as a closet hippie would have been interesting.
Alex discovers he privately craves tofu and bean sprouts, bran while other people on wall street eat junk food. or that he loves to fall asleep in his condo listening 60's folk music after a hard day at the office (it's his lullaby music).
Am guessing that immediately at the time, Fox did not want to remain tied down to Goldberg/Family Ties and Alex Keaton forever.
But it probably could have worked--whereas 'The Art of Nick" was barely sellable. They had used that character constantly as a 'punching bag' character (he was ignorant, he was stupid...etc) so most people wound up not liking him. I have several disabilities so yes I did like Nick. But this is not majority opinion and it was the 1980's when learning disabilities were not understood by a majority of the public, invisible disabilities were not 'serious' or 'real' I'm sure with the talk about 'neurodiverse'...etc. today the premise would have fared much better. Nick would have been a heartthrob.
Ironically Fox later did go back to Goldberg to work on Spin City....which was kind of sort of an adult Alex running things. Okay his character is now called Mike and is a Democrat Deputy Mayor but he's a control freak. And Meredith IS his mom!! It's basically Alex in NYC.
Had Fox not left because of medical reasons, I am sure that series would have stayed on much longer.
Nailed on both fronts. First about Fox staying on the show because obviously he *was* the show and he couldn't leave (I'm assuming the OP was just asking an obvious question within the confines of the show's world). And yes a perfect example in the Art of Nick. To me basically Nick was like Joey on Friends, good for a few gags here and there but impossible to allow to carry an entire show because of his lack of sophistication. Which is exactly why Joey didn't last as a spin-off because his character is too dumb to be the center of a show and hold it together.
share