But now as rivals Showtime and AMC and FX ape HBO's commitment to a different type of television, with the likes of Mad Men and Dexter, and as the big networks catch the bug with high-concept shows such as Lost and, dammit, The Office, I think in Britain TV has gone through something of an identity crisis.
About the same time someone in the flight said "Dammit, if we could just fly west we would get home; head west, dammit".
And the energetic bubblegum-punk hits are there from the opening "Dumpweed" to the closing "All the Small Things," with "Dammit" performed in between.
"Dammit, you're in the Army now.
Brad and Janet needed their own song, so Dammit Janet went in.
We are people, dammit, we are in control.
In my teen-age dystopian movie, I explain the situation to my father and, of course, he barely listens to me and says, "Are you high, dammit?" Samantha chimes in.
"I hate coons dammit," he wrote in one; another included a swastika next to the words "HEIL HITLER".
The character has been satirized, notably by Eddie Murphy, who played him as a cigar-chomping vulgarian — "I'm Gumby, dammit!" — on "Saturday Night Live" in the 1980s.
Or even in less likely inheritors: the indie romantics Best Coast recently covered "Dammit," from Blink-182's second album, in concert.
