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Thursday, July 19, 2012

"Sullivan and Son", bicultural Ko-Am sitcom set in Pittsburgh, premiers tonight.


Two Korean flags, a Steeler's football, and a WDVE sticker. Via SullivanandSonTBS on Youtube.

Most television shows are at best just placeholders for advertisements, but given the focus of this site it's probably worth mentioning that "Sullivan and Son" premiers tonight at 10 pm on TBS. It's a sitcom set in Pittsburgh, starring Korean-American and native Pittsburgher Steve Byrne, with the dad from "Wonder Years" and Korean-American actress Jodi Long as his parents. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had a preview over the weekend. I won't pretend to be interested in the details, but the last paragraph caught my eye:
"Sullivan & Son" makes a game effort to get regional details right and mostly succeeds with a WDVE sticker on the jukebox, characters clad in Penguins gear and even an accurate Allegheny County Health Department logo in episode two. But the miscues also stand out, like when a cop refers to "the 79," inspired, no doubt by Southern Californians' tendency to put "the" before any Interstate number ("the 405," "the 10," etc.).
One way to stay engaged in dull shows and movies is to spot the inaccuracies and anachronisms. One common error, for example, is that pieces set decades ago often slip up and use modern money.


In 2008's 님은먼곳에, set in Vietnam in 1971, he's trying to bribe a driver with a five-dollar bill printed in 2001.

And what made the 2007 show "The Kill Point" tough to watch, other than the plot and the actors, was that nobody had a Pittsburgh accent in a show shot and set in downtown Pittsburgh. A quick look around "Sullivan show's YouTube channel doesn't reveal any authentic accents here, either. It doesn't look terribly interesting or funny, either, but at least it's better than "K-town", the web-only Koreatown version of "Jersey Shore".